##VIDEO ID:QMGiItJTwnQ## okay let's get started ctin roll call Dr calino here Mr doy Mrs Foo here Mr growl here Mr Palama here Mr Peto here Mr Rapaport here miss Zuckerman Dr modra here Mr Brock haer here miss Patel here okay pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic it stands one nation under God indivisible justice for all open public meeting notice please the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which the business any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of the act the Montville Township Board of Education provided a public notice of this meeting which included the time date and location that was posted at the Montville Township Municipal Building all Montville Public Schools the Montville Public Library the Montville Township Board of Education administrative office building the district website and advertised in the daily re record and the Moni tap into the board's official newspapers on October 9th 2024 okay thank you uh high school student rep report Ben hello uh how is everyone good great thank um so I'm going to start off with the uh past uh we're going to do another past present future kind of a report just like we did last time so I'm going to start off with the sports first uh the boys soccer team has now improved their record to be 84 and2 uh the boys are in their quarterfinal game uh the Morris County tournament uh girls soccer is now 12-3 and are also making their way through the Morris County tournament uh they're also in the quarterfinals our varsity field hockey team has a record of six and8 uh with a couple games more to uh to go for the season volleyball is now 11- six and they have a chance of making it to the Morris County finals this Friday at fdu and lastly our football team is now 5 and one with their only loss being to West Morris last Tuesday or Thursday so now on to like the more school specific announcements um mville Township High School was given the uh college board AP score AP School honorable Awards uh including the silver award for College culture Gold Award for college credit and Gold Award for college uh optimization uh the classes of 2025 and 26 uh had a joint fundraiser uh with korso Garden Center uh they sold mums for anybody to buy parents and students many clubs are having their first general membership meetings for example Deca had theirs fbl Earth Club International concerns Club yearbook club and make a wish just to name a few um the week of September 23rd uh it was death at deaf Awareness Month uh each day on the announcements there was uh a little new fact about the cause and on schooly each day there was more information put up as well the Chinese Honor Society had a celebration for the mid-autumn festival which included making lanterns and different crafts celebrating the culture they also did like a little competition um and there were winners uh awarded for that as well uh the first week of October was the week of respect across many schools and each day throughout the week there were new short blurbs uh for the announcements as well as colorcoded theme days like mville day for the week um on October 5th mths was uh also a testing site location um it was a Saturday and and just for the future uh the next testing date uh that will be held at mths is March 8th in 2025 School photos for freshmen through Juniors were taken on October 7th and 8th uh also or last Monday and last Tuesday October 9th was the homecoming dance and the 10th was the homecoming football game uh or the pink out as well tickets were tickets for homecoming in advance were $15 and at the door they were $20 uh there were also homecoming royalty winners for each grade uh for the Freshman it was Carly Cafaro uh and Vasilios sackos for the sophomores it was Sophia Billings and Alex Tarik for the juniors it was Karly binsky and cion ganelli and for the seniors it was myself Benjamin brookhouser and Grace H uh and now I'm going to pass it to Gia for the present and the future thank you Ben hello everyone so um the following mths students have been recognized as National Merit commended students in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship program these students are Mishka Arie Sarah Chung Antonio gidus rishab gorai James Halper cypio Han Kate jnes Chris Karen gutter hsh Peri Aiden Park Ved Patel Aviva Rapaport and Claire Williamson so these students will receive a letter of commendation from the school and from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation they are among 34,000 other commended students throughout the nation for the future so tomorrow Wednesday October 16th is mths score night which will be held by the school counselors and it's open to all parents and students this Friday this Thursday and Friday October 17th and 18th there will be senior portrait retake at school um next Monday October 21st mths will be hosting a college fair for juniors and seniors there will be over 40 schools attending and it will be a great opportunity for everyone next Wednesday October 23rd 9th 10th and 11th graders will be taking the PSAT at the end of this month on October 30th the school counseling department will be hosting a financial aid night which will also be open to all students and parents um looking into later on November 11th will Mark the end of the first marking period and then from November 14th to 16th the mths fall play which is Alice in Wonderland it will be performed right here in the auditorium that's it thank you thank you so much and who are we playing on Friday or football I don't know mandm okay good uh Tom great all right we have a special presentation tonight Bonnie do you want to come on up and Bonnie brought a very special friend that's the smallest one I've seen so far and Dr Raj Dr Rog is our best friend please tell us what's going on all right so it's early on in the year for us to uh do a presentation so we don't have many of the clubs up and running a little something different uh as far as our presentation tonight but before we get into it many of you know that we have Cedar Hill has a very strong relationship with the seeing ey in morrisan we have had for a number of years just want to give you a little back story how that came to Cedar Hill prior to my arrival at Cedar Hill I was a principal in another District here in Morris County and I was a puppy Riser and being part of the responsibility of raising a puppies you need to go to class once a week with the dog to get some of the training by this the Seeing Eye trainers and being one of the only two adults in the class the other adult was Bonnie D Cola so we establish a friendship being like again everyone else was teenagers running the club for their service hour awards for high school graduation so we were the only two there we got the talking because we worked in the same school and she was like Wow wouldn't it be great if you were a principal of our school and then uh several years later luck would have it that I roll up as the principal of Cedar Hill school and then we started to bring the dogs into the building so that's a little bit of the background of how we started here at Cedar Hill with the singi dog but Bonnie's relationship with the cingi goes much further earlier on into that and I'm going to turn over to her to uh to talk about that okay all right so I've been doing this since 1997 my own children wanted to do it and it is definitely a family project and it is definitely a school project we started off our year uh unfortunately uh Robbie went back to the cni the first day school went back the kids were very sad and I knew that he was number 21 this is number 2 two for the C and I did one guiding eye so it's actually my 23rd Ser service dog so we had a contest for this um guessing his name and we had two we made $245 for the cni it was a dollar a guess four students uh two students and two staff got it right and his name is Forest so his name is f o r r s t but in the school we're going to say f o r e s t just so that we don't confuse my uh first and second graders so he's correcting me so he is part of our curriculum the children learn positive reinforcement he's raised with he is definitely a school project and the kids learn that they have to ignore him and he has to learn to ignore them so it's definitely a learning and they are so excited to watch him grow and yes it is sad when they go back but we know that we are someone needs him more than us and and makes them feel really good when they find out where they go and what state they're in like um we have Apollo went Canada Wills in Florida you know we have a lot we have the pictures um you know of the dogs and graduation and they watch the progress and we do put some things about how dogs are used for services and he goes walks around the school and he you know in and out of the classrooms and I do have a crate and uh he's doing a great job and they they're doing a great job and I think they learn a lot about children with challenges and disabilities and it's just a Hands-On uh community service it's for the whole uh School in town one of the nice things other than this dog eating my neck with the uh service project see our community as you know is a very generous Community anytime there's a situation the checkbooks get opened up and monetary donations start flowing in whether it's checks clothing donations food and things of that sort but we also wanted to teach the kids that not every act of kindness requires a monetary or a gift of goods other than something like this is a gift of love this you know here we are raising this puppy part of our Pro uh service for this dog is to give him the basic training but also to shower him with love and kindness and compassion being touched and handled and that's important for the kids to see that not everything has to be oh the school's asking for another fundraiser you know this is our fundraiser for the for the year so this is our our project that we uh take very to heart and uh have a great involvement with and enjoy tremendously when the dog gets a little bit older and he's not in the nippy phase he will go to some of the classes and you know he will sit there and be part of the reading program or just you know sitting on the kids laps and things of that sort as a little therapy session so you know the therapy dogs have been very successful through the counseling department and he just goes right along with it so this is all just part of it so thank you very much for allowing us to share what we do at Cedar Hill we love doing the uh program for the seeing ey and we hope to continues for many more years to come thank you thank you for sharing that you know I've had the pleasure of seeing the kids interact with the dogs it's just been a wonderful experience so thank you for bringing that like you said this whole love and this appreciation for other ways of giving so thank you both of you cat just one quick question do you give the kids time to actually play with the dog okay okay everything the cni does is they have to they have to um we have to go by the cni's curriculum and um there's time and place and we also tell the children that like for example a a ball he's going to be going to your you know all these Sports these kids talked about in fact actually in town There's four cnii dogs being raised by mael community and they do go and they really appreciate mael all allowing them to go to the games the wrestling the football the soccer and they do go and see it but the dogs have to learn to ignore ball when he's home when he's not in his vest or his right now he has the scarf on he didn't earn his vest J he's got to be about six months for that so when he's off leash he can play regular so these kids learn time and place and this morning it was really cool because we had our lift students pull in and they were so excited to see the dog so then I just like walked down their hallway with them with the dog held and the dog and they were so excited um I mean it's just amazing how it brings a smile to everybody's face but um yeah so they he doesn't play in school at all he he's very he's kind of like on work mode so Dave I have a question real quick oh thank you um I have a question when um do the kids know the difference between a service animal and um an animal that's not in service because now we're seeing it you know people are faking service animals to go on airports and stuff so this is a great education for them he always talk to the kids about uh looking for the doc you know the visible documentation at this puppy stage here he has his little handkerchief on which is labels him as a seeing eye dog a puppy in training then when he gets his vest he'll have a vest that covers his whole torso talking about that he's with a a appropriate seeing eye patch so we tell the kids that while there are many service dogs out there you always look for the vest or some sort of uh harness on the dog and you know you just cannot approach them as you would your personal pet or your neighbor's dog that you always have to ask for permission before approaching and asking to pet the dog because a true service dog is not to be touched while working and we always say when the dogs have their you know their uniform on they're on duty and that's what we're trying to instill the kids again by Bonnie saying time and place and this is this is the time and place him nimbl on my shirt uh if we weren't here I'm sure Bonnie would have yelled at me and yelled at him for time and place because he does have his uniform on and he's you know doing inappropriate things but again that's the puppy phase so she's going to let me slide for now but we will see what happens tomorrow morning and and he is one of 11 so he and he is the runt um he is the smallest I've ever had six PBS 2 ounces so he is very very tiny and it was really cool to see all the different names and a lot of our names they did get the siblings right but not you know don't like not his real name which is Forest every letter every lit is given a letter of the alphabet so all the siblings are named with a letter F so he came from the F litter so all his siblings are some sort of f litter and there are donors who will donate a certain amount of money for the opportunity and the honor to name a dog we had a dog that was uh sponsored by a dentist dog's name was flossy we have a lot of JJs for Johnson and Johnson who are corporate sponsors of the dogs and things of that sort so we do have a lot of those names coming through excellent I just have one more question I'm curious I'm sorry does Forest have a home that he's going to is it someone for with autism someone that's blind or they decide that later on yeah he'll be what happens is when they go back like Robbie just went back for one month he's medical checkup they has to be first perfectly cleared medically to be a seeing ey dog so then after that they go 3 months with an instructor and then the the instructor team in fact actually we have one parent in our school that's a cni instructor so it's kind of cool that we have the whole Community involved but um then they decide which dog will go with what like we had Apollo he loved the train and I live like in near Denville so I go on the train about once every three weeks so it's like the volunteer job that you you constantly are doing stuff and he um loved the train so he ended up living in in Toronto his wife is blind he's blind and they take the train to go to work every day so they kind of try to match it up um they also match up personalities so if you have a person who has a tendency to walk a little bit slower they're going to get a more gentle dog that is also a slower Pace but and if you have U one of our dogs um Bailey went to a high school a college student in O in Ohio as a young athletic young man he had a faster gate so this way the dog was able to kind of keep Pace with him so they do a great job of trying to match the dog's personality with the the Handler's personality incredible thank you yeah and all our dogs go back with uh knowing children which is and and and I don't even have to go to New York City like a lot of people seni puppy razors have to constantly go into the city to get the distractions that I get every single day you know as as in the school thank you so much for sharing yeah no we really appreciate this you're educating us on a whole another point of view yeah just one comment um one of my children had the Good Fortune of being at Cedar Hill uh during one of the dogs uh tenure there and really has lifelong memories precious experience it's great it's great things so I'm just so happy that we have such a supportive board that allows us to continue this project here for this for the children at Cedar Hill school so thank you very much thank you for your time have a great night everyone thank you very much bye take care good luck oh yeah get in front of the picture Mario okay and we have one at the central office central office so the central office off also has a dog um yeah with one of our secretaries so it's worked out really well she started at Cedar Hill actually she started at Cedar Hill and then she brought that program to us yep so so there's two of them in the district right now yeah so we're uh we're going to move in from puppies to test scores right now so uh you're up so uh so this evening I'm going to do our annual uh report on student performance and accomplishments this is something that we do every single year uh the the bulk of this uh presentation is going to be on the standardized test scores which is a requirement by the New Jersey Department of Education 60 days after the uh individual student reports are released to families uh school districts are required to present that material or this the summation of the scores publicly at a board meeting so uh that's the bulk of this presentation but years ago we decided we want to go beyond that uh you know beyond the test scores and focus about some of the other accomplishments that our students are are engaged in so uh we'll start with the test scores um and the first standardized test scores that we're going to talk about will be the New Jersey uh uh student learning assessment that's the one that's we're most familiar with uh students grades three through 11 um same that uh We've we've done the past few years there's five levels of performance one being students not yet meeting grade level expectations all the way up to level five uh with students exceeding grade level expectations and when I show you the charts you'll see how we sort of combine those uh for a summary of scores um I apologize for a lot of the numbers we're required to put all these numbers uh out there publicly but I always like to uh draw your attention to the uh right side of the screen you'll see the white numbers all the way to the right and then you'll see the uh bold numbers right next to them the Bold numbers represent the district uh percentage of level four and Lev level five meeting expectations or exceeding that's how we group those scores uh and then the comparison number in the white is where the state averages are of of level four and five um so you can see you know each grade level there uh as we have traditionally done uh you know we we exceed the state averages pretty significantly uh the side here in English language arts you know we we tend to look year to year to sort of see where our scores are are we going down we going up we staying the same um and just about every um actually for language arts in in every um area we are we have improved from two to 10 percentage points from last year so that's that's something that that's good to see and we like to go even beyond that um we like to compare ourselves sometimes to our district Factor grouping uh which we District Factor grouping by the state definition the letter I so we we did look at how we compared to school districts like ours across the state and same thing across every grade level um we exceeded the the average of the DFG districts which are our comparable districts so in English language arts in 2024 we really exceeded what our expectations were you know we look for that consistent Improvement every year not only in our own scores but also in comparing to uh comparing to our peer scores and we did very well in language arts same thing in math you can see the comparisons there with the state um and again same thing we we were anywhere from two percentage points higher at various grade levels all the way up to six points uh percentage points from last year we didn't go down in any one of those grade levels from last year we had increases across the board and again same thing with comparing it to the DFG uh comparable districts we outperformed our uh our districts that compare to us you know consistently across each one of those grade levels so that's in math language arts grades three through eight and also into uh the high school levels with math and geometry science we only test in three grade levels uh for the science grade five 8 and 11 uh and again we did improve improve slightly from last year a few percentage points uh in each grade level the only grade level that we declined one percentage point was in grade 11 um and when we looked at the comparison to the state as you can see obviously we we far exceeded the state averages but when we looked at our comparable districts uh we we stayed the same or we're equivalent in grade eight but we did outperform um DFG districts uh in grade five and grade 11 so again those are the sign scores are always scores we're looking to improve and we did but we like to see those percentages a lot higher you know in the future as we move through uh one of the requirements is to break down the test scores into subcategories or subgroups one of those being special education so again I included those scores there and the summary of these scores were pretty consistent uh with the regular aded students we did in most grade levels um exceed our performance from last year uh grade nine we did drop 10 percentage points uh in language arts and in grade five we did drop three percentage points but in the other grades we were improve improved anywhere from 4% to 10% in the other grade levels so again we we like to see that we're remaining consistent or improving and not dropping off and overall we we improved in those uh grade levels same thing in math um grades 3 through 8 and algebra again we had double digit uh increases uh in grades three six 7 and eight um we did not uh decline in any one of those grade levels from last year uh and remain we remain consistent in than the same in grade four so again pretty consistent Improvement across all grade levels uh even in the subgroups uh categories that were required to talk about same thing in science uh special education um we did uh declin seven percentage points in grade five but we did improve in grade 8 and 11 uh by four percentage points in grade eight and two percentage points in grade 11 so some mixed results in science but overall we do lean towards Improvement uh in in the majority of the grade levels additional requirements this is a little bit tougher to see but we are required to report out um the subgroups of race uh so we generally do that in a chart format uh each one of these bar graphs represent a grade level 3 through nine um and the blue bar is the uh Hispanic numbers in the ELA uh at each grade level the Red Bar would be the Asian subgroup and the green bar there is the white subgroup so consistently when I present on these we we tend to see that the Asian subgroups uh you know perform very well um you know on on the njsla standardized test results so that's an njsla uh language arts in subgroup of race and here are the math results uh in subg uh group race and again we see the subgroup of Asian students tend to uh outperform uh the other two that we we need to uh share with the public and then of course there's science again just those three grade levels and again those those subgroup um breakout scores are are pretty consistent across language arts Math and Science across those three uh subgroups of race another area that we also report on are our L's I know uh Dr Gorman has shared publicly that our our students uh are English language Learners the number of those students are increasing in the district uh pretty exponentially over the last few years uh so we've been dedicating more resources to servicing those students and every year those students uh take a test called the access for L's uh and it's an assessment that measures the students reading speaking listening and writing skills and gener we use this test to see if students should exit the program in other words they won't need those Services anymore uh and then we tally those results at the end of the year uh out of the 89 students that we tested uh here are the numbers of the students that exited eight at the elementary school one at the middle school and two at the high school um so you know the students often come to us uh with very little knowledge of English uh and it's a it's a process as they work through the uh the grade levels you know hopefully to exit the program um and not need those services at some point before that graduate those results are pretty consistent with prior years we always like to share the SAT uh results um this was for the class of 2024 uh in reading a language arts we actually improved by 12 points um while the state and Nation declined uh 12 points for the state average and 10 points for the national average so we did pretty well in that area we did decline in mathematics overall 7 percentage points but that's in comparison to the state that declined on average by 18 points and by the nation that declined 16 points so while we did decline seven points it was nearly half of of the decline that the state and Nation uh witnessed in that administration of the test uh I I know that one of our student Representatives shared uh some names of the national mer Merit finalist and semi-finalists and these are the number of students over the last three years who have uh reached that level of recognition and this recognition is driven by students taking uh the PSAT and answering the certain questions that are specific to the National Merit Scholarship program that earns them recognition in these areas so we had four uh over the last three years of National Merit finalists and four semi-finalists and 46 uh commended students we also like to look at uh AP testing uh last year we had 75% of our students score three or higher uh for this year we had 78 so we improved in that area um 194 students received a score of five which is the highest score you can get on an AP exam three to five is considered passing in many colleges um many now are four and five but many will accept a three uh so we always like to see where our students fall within that uh score range we had 279 students uh receiver four and 199 students receive a score of three all three of those areas we saw a large increase in the number of students that scored those for example last year 123 students scored a five on AP exams 194 this year and we had 186 students score four last year uh compared to 279 this year so some significant improvements there in the overall number as well as the percentage of students that scored higher than uh a three we also uh like to recognize AP Scholars with honors with distinction and then simply AP Scholars uh just a quick reminder of what those really mean uh AP scholar With Honor those are students who uh received an average score of at least a 3.25 on all the uh AP exams taken and scores of three or higher on four or more of those exams so that's AP Scholars with honors AP scholar with distinction are that is granted to students who receive an average score of 3.5 on all AP exams taken and score three or higher on five or more of those exams so we had 49 of those and then finally you know the AP scholar uh number that's 57 of our students and that's granted to students who receive three or higher on uh three or more AP exams so those numbers are also up you know pretty significantly from the prior year so we have all this data uh we we have a formula that we tend to follow when looking at this data and it always starts with the first step as is is taking the data breaking it down looking at individual test questions student responses and of course the principles and supervisors uh work together within the grade levels to see if there's any Trends if there's any kind of data points that that jump out and whe whether or not you know there's some immediate steps that we can take to try to address perhaps what some of those gaps that might be recognized and what I like to share every year the njsla is really just one data point uh it's not really one of our main data points but we do use it we include it in the assessment over overall programs but we have so many assessment and data points internal uh assessments that we use to help guide our instruction uh and to close those learning gaps so while this is an important piece of data it's not the only one we use and it's probably not the number one data point that we use um once we collect all of that and and draw conclusions off of this the data from this exam uh then that's when Andrea's you know Department sort of takes over and we start looking at next steps that we can incorporate um activities programs Diagnostics assessments things that can help us improve and close some of those things those gaps that we discovered through the testing process so these are all the things for that came out of the 2024 uh testing whether it be summery uh Universal screenings I ready Diagnostics which is something we've been doing for years and also looking at Mental Health Services to help support our students as they as they move through to grade levels additionally professional development is is an annual activity um and this is the focus uh of our professional development activities this year whether it be science of reading and our new amplify program uh at the elementary school and and a little bit into the middle school and some of these other intervent intervention programs uh programs for you know that support differentiation which is our win period in the elementary schools where students receive various Services during that time frame and of course special services and and our push always to move students into the least restrictive environment and have the most inclusive uh learning environments that we possibly can so that comes out of the test scores and some of the things that we do when we respond and react to those uh moving away from test scores a little bit we always like to hi highlight with a few slides some of the things outside of testing uh our forensic team they always have a spot on our annual report uh and it almost appears to be the same every year they always seem to rank in the top 1% of schools and that was no different this past year uh they placed third overall in the state and a number of students uh that we have annually uh qualify for the national speech and debate tournament um and we had four students who were state champions in their category so that continues to be one of our stronger Club programs and we're always proud to share that information each year uh History Day competition same thing five uh student projects three historical papers and one group exhibit qualified for William Patterson University so that shows a little diversity there in student accomplishments our music program is extremely strong whether it be students qualifying for the Regional Orchestra Regional band or Regional choir uh we always have students that are engaged and involved in those things and we're very proud of those programs and those accomplishments in music uh additional uh the fbaa two students were selected the state office officers when there's only 11 in the state we we provided two of them uh and 10 students competed nationally and one of course was recognized uh in the top 10 nationally in our fbaa our visual arts program uh the moris museum uh and the wo Valley High School we had students again placed in the top three uh in many of those areas through Visual Arts and that's something that we've consistently done over the years uh which gives a nice sort of diversity of of student involvement in these programs uh athletic team a perennial Champions that appears in Bowling co-ed bowling they're 26-0 last year and uh North one group three sectional Champions girls volleyball were sectional Champions girls wrestling firsttime State qualifier and first ever State place winner uh in girls wrestling so we're excited about that conference champion uh champions in golf and girls Golf and boys golf same thing Conference champions and North one group two sectional Champions so Athletics the Arts music uh you know pretty diverse accomplishments for 2024 um the class of 2024 graduates 95 attended college or university and you can see the breakdown there 85% to four-year colleges 10% to two-year colleges and 5% other um and that's been generally consistent over the years of of our students and our graduates and I always like to include the last three years uh College acceptances um it's very tough to see in the slides um but these are all the acceptances or at least the highlighted ones of our students of the class um so you can take a look at that and get a sense of where our kids are getting accepted and that is all I have for you tonight if there are any questions yeah actually can I start off questions sure okay uh two uh first of all have you seen an uptick in the number of students taking AP courses I'll defer to Andrea on that if she knows that off the top of her head I'm not sure if I know I I do know that there was a lot more students because of the addition of the AP pre-calculus okay and then the other one would be on the elll uh you had 78 kids you tested and dozen or 15 got out was that the number of kids who came in this year or sorry or or overall the number of students tested not just a new entrance not just a new entrance uh how long do the kids usually stay in that program before they get out and shouldn't if it's a rolling I mean if you're only testing like maybe one grade at a time I can see it but it's like all the kids so every year if a child is in our ESL program they must test and it usually takes um about two to three years for the children to go through the program you will find more elementary students exiting because um easier to learn it's easier to learn a second language uh you know at a younger age it's really tough for some of uh the new comers who are starting in high school right uh because you know if they come in in 11th grade you know we only have two years to try to help them but yeah that's common two to three years for an ESL program okay okay thank you other questions from anyone no okay in that case um to business go to business continue so we are implementing just a very quick presentation um four times a year in which we just highlight some of the financial events that are occurring throughout the district one of the big times that we talk about finances is in the preparation of the annual budget which incurs in April so last April we put together the budget that is applying right now to this school year 2425 and as we move from the budget appropriation and approval process in April to to this point in time what we have begun to do is take what we anticipated and thought was going to happen and begin to compare it to what actually is happening that includes everything from how many people we hired what are they all doing to the supplies that needed to be purchased to the services that needed to be Pur purchased in order for us to start the school year and now begin to proceed lead forward through it and every one of those different events that are occurring throughout the district to service the students is basically are translated into a dollar figure and that dollar figure is accumulated into the financial reports for the entire District that we present each month and so as that process occurs the things that we are looking at is how close did we guess when we put the budget together to what actually really happened and in many cases in most cases we're pretty accurate in our guesses but there are places where things change and we've had situations where we've received a lot more students than we had anticipated and so as a result some of the needs that those students have were things that we couldn't have guessed and those resulted in additional services that we needed to provide additional support that we needed to provide and that's additional costs that we didn't plan on and we have to figure out a way how to cover that when the pie can't grow in size we just have to cut it a different way and in some cases the board has on the agenda the uh adoption of a new health care provider that's a place where we created savings and that savings is then applied to the places that we ended up with costs that we didn't anticipate and that whole process is a process that we will continue to go through throughout the entire year as we move from what we were thinking was going to happen to what actually happened and each month the board receives Financial reports that break down all that activity into groups the state of New Jersey has indicated that those reports need to be presented in uh for the governmental funds which are your general operating your special Revenue which is your grants your capital projects which is your referendum based projects and your debt service which is the money that we pay back after we have a referendum to pay back off of the the borrowing that we had collected and those reports are presented each month and indicate where we stand in comparison to those estimates that we had originally presented so what we will be doing as we proceed forward from here into the next time I meet and talk about this which will be in January we'll then deep dive a little more into where we stand by comparing that estimate to our actual additionally in January we will begin to start the Congress of budget for the 2526 school year okay is that it that's it okay Tom you have anything else yeah two quick announcements uh hildale received recently received the National Blue Ribbon award which honors America's most successful uccessful schools uh whose students achieve at very high levels hildale is recognized as an exemplary High performing school next month they will be here place is going to be packed all the faculty and staff are coming a number of students are coming and they're going to do a whole presentation for us so they just needed a little more time to uh get ready for that so very excited however the kids were rewarded last week with their outside um Field Day type of fun activities and they were really enjoying and basking in the glow of their achievement so that was great and as Ben mentioned earlier we offered the SAT for the first time two weekends ago and approximately 58% of the students were from Montville so that was really nice to see uh that was a good offering it came from the suggestion from the parents and others that we needed to provide the service so we will be doing again in the spring and we expect maybe hopefully in the future we'll be able to do this for the acts as well but that was a great offering that we haven't done that um in recent history I can't say ever but but in recent history we haven't offered the SATs do we make off that uh you you make a little bit but you it's more that you're paying for all the Proctors but you the little bit of extra you get goes in the coffers to help buy like certain materials or certain things for the administration of the SAT later on it's not a big you know I think the biggest Advantage is the stress level for the kids taking the test they're taking it they don't have to worry about where the exits are how to get in where's my room um they know the school so they're taking it here home field advantage home yeah home field advantage that's it okay that's it then okay let's move on uh section g committee reports Finance Karen so we held our finance committee meeting uh just before the board meeting uh ctin went over what she just talked about the the institution of the quarterly Financial update so look forward to that in January also went over a 3 to 5e plan for potential construction projects uh we discussed a little bit about elementary enrollment um and it was a good meeting thank you uh shut off I think it's you and Mike hey Andrea since Michelle is not here to give us a report on curriculum do is there anything you want to add from curriculum okay then let's move on to policy Joe policy meeting okay Communications my raft report uh yes we met back in September 23rd oh my gosh that yes it was a few weeks ago um and and what we we discussed a lot about the uh different ways of getting the message out there um so as for for General Distribution and and why distribution uh the the team has put together manful moments the manful community connections and the superintendent column there are different ways they have um uh broad distribution lists and and lots of people can sign up for it not just people who are in the school um but there the Town Council uh and others that have been involved at some point in the school system can still be part of the uh um part of the distribution list and they get to see the great things that are happening in our district and uh one of the fun things about these U uh manful moments and Community connections and superintendent columns they do have links to websites and so that allows uh us to track the uh uh the interaction that the people have with the information and how long they spend on the on the websites and things like that and uh through through the uh um tracking software on the website we're able to see that yes we do have a lot of people who are coming to the websites and and spending time and reading the material and clicking on the various links that uh that are presented there um and also what's interesting is the uh the map of where these people are coming from there's people in Hawaii people in China people in Pakistan who are opening up and reading the information about our schools um and so we have a very wide reach and it's not just people in town that are interested in learning about our schools and and appreciating everything that we're we're doing here um also there's um uh I think close to 47 different languages that are spoken at home with uh with our various uh residents in town and communicating with all these people it does uh lend some some difficulty so there are some uh um uh applications that are being used to to when when messages and alerts are sent out by the school system the uh the parents can sign up for these alerts to be sent to them in specific languages um and so that can help them understand what's going on as as Andrew had mentioned with the uh the English language Learners the parents have even more difficulty sometimes learning English so these uh alerts can be sent to them in their home language or native language to help them understand what's going on in the school districts which that's that's great um also with the the languages there's um uh I think it's I think it's called pockets it's sort of like a universal translator type uh device and there's a couple of them per school that we're uh trying to get and again that's when parents come into the school and the administration needs to or teachers need to talk to the parents it helps them communicate back and forth when there could be any language uh uh difficulties obviously having 47 different languages is is difficult to find native speakers in a in the district um also on the Genesis forms uh a lot of work was put in over the last year to reduce the number of forms that are out there and how many times people need to parents need to fill out these forms so uh things like the uh cons consent form for the Chromebook devic has been reduced to one-time cons consent and then is good for the lifetime that the student is in in school and and a lot of other forms were Consolidated uh from like nine forms down to two uh to help the parents out um and I guess the the last thing is uh U through the monil moments um I think there's going to be a special editions uh to include more parent surveys uh as just another way of reaching out to uh the parents in the community it's a different way of of sparking their interest to read about what's happening in the district so there'll be a parent surveys uh and construction project updates through uh through that method uh just make sure I get all the information that's happening in the district and and get it out there um and I think that is that's about it y I would just piggyback on that real quick some parents have said that they are receiving messages at home in a language um it's not necessarily the one that they speak but somehow they signed up when they filled out the forms initially they signed and and check the box that said they speak a certain language and now they get all their notices in this language they can go back online correct and and check that box and and adjust their preferences it's where they sign up for the alerts yeah there there'll be a a space there to select the language yeah so if anyone wants to change it they can go back on and change okay Christine Safety and Security no report okay that was quick Karen New Jersey school boards so um you probably realize that the what's occupying probably 100% of the time of the staff at New Jersey school boards is Workshop it's the uh annual event that Garners thousands and thousands of people and provides hundreds and hundreds of workshops and and and classes uh and that will be held uh next next Monday the 21st through Thursday um as the president I extend an invitation for all of you and especially uh to our officers reception on Wednesday evening uh there'll be a special presentation at some point during that evening so uh I invite you to come and join us are you presenting that I am sworn to secrecy will you be presenting anything down there I am sworn to secrecy okay we will see anything else no okay uh Michelle's not here Joe can we come back to you for Morris County Educational Services yes they had a meeting last week um they had put in a petition to purchase the Morris Regional day school starting uh last year and it was actually just approved of so the commission will be U taking ownership of the school okay so that's the uh the big item and also that the uh we're also getting an assistant superintendent as well for the uh to help Dr valard good good and I I I can give the Mars County report if you like oh but I I don't know if you ever finished with J uh no just one second we'll stay with you drug awareness uh yes so our next meeting is on November 7th and on Monday November 11 11th we're going to do our poster contest awards for the elementary school students who participate in that that's grades K through five they do uh present they pick different topics um like bullying uh anti-drug etc etc so y should be good I remember those y Karen you wanted to say something about Morris County yeah Michelle's not here but um I attended I believe Joe might have been online uh it was held on October 2nd and the meeting program was Mental Health Resources for school districts uh it was an extremely informative program uh they had representatives from uh various programs and and companies including uh Tracy Capelli who is the director of the uh New Jersey Statewide student support services and she spoke to us a little bit about n4s or New Jersey Statewide student Support Services uh there was also a training and curriculum manager for the program grief um also new Bridges was in attendance and spoke about youth Mental Health First Aid uh there were repres there were representatives from the Morris County stigma free communities initiative and I was really felt pleased and proud that uh both Montville Township um uh has been trained in the youth Mental Health First Aid uh and also uh we are a stigma-free community and we were named uh as such uh at that meeting um overall it did give a lot of uh good information one school district has an app for crisis situations um then I'm happy to sh sh anything further that uh I experienced there okay thank you uh can we stay with you for leaon Cedar Hill sure um so uh in March there's going to be a production of The Wizard of Oz uh they have their Tricky Tray on May 14th at the valley Regency uh Cedar Hill does a wonderful Veterans Day program if you have a chance to attend um it starts for us as uh the public at 1:15 and ends around 2:30 it's a very solemn um and respectful uh tribute to the V for veterans and there were veterans from all over the district that attend and the students do a wonderful job uh they talked about family portraits being October 26th and 27th at the community Park and there was some discussion about hot lunch it was a very typical uh Elementary home in school agenda which I enjoy immensely a little different than the school Awards New Jersey School awards but yeah uh Joe Val of VI yes I attended the uh first meeting back on the 18th of September um they have their Harvest Festival this Friday um in Fairfield and the next meeting will be on October 30th at 700 p.m virtual okay John William Mason William Mason's first meeting is tomorrow I plan to attend I know they're excited about some playground Renovations and soil testing that hopefully will be um positive for them not positive for chemicals but um yeah report back next month exciting soil testing okay Mike uh Mike Palama yeah no report no report on wood on okay uh Christine anything on Lazar no okay and Mike Rapaport high school next meeting is the first week of November okay now we'll move on to our first public participation session uh this is for items on the agenda if you have any comments or questions about items on the agenda please come forward to the microphone state your name address and your comments we will be having a second public participation uh session at the end where you can speak on any topic your heart desires Z did you want to speak now you can do it you could do it right now right now yeah you can do it right now okay yeah yeah come on no no problem grab the mic and just introduce yourself and just say your address please it's on the agenda hey everybody my name is Lance zacher uh 23 Eugene in Montville um team and I call you team CU I know that we really all are on the same team right everybody here wants what's best for everybody and I have no doubt when I look around this room that everyone here is really heartfelt invested in the best interests of the students and the community here um unfortunately you know incidents take place at school and you know my family was front and center in the middle of one and it really was very very you know upsetting disappointing you know I don't I don't point fingers and I don't really feel like anyone's to blame or anyone did anything wrong it's not that type of thing uh it's the type of thing where you know when I received the telephone calls and I understood what happened bad things happen to good people it all happens but when I understood that the very next day you know based on this incident that took place the the student who perpetrated did what I would call hate speech against my family was back in school and it made me feel a little bit afraid and a little bit like worried about why why is my family front and center and present with someone who directly spoke about hating them uh and as a people um I don't think it sets a great precedent I don't know and I'm not like regularly here and I don't kind of keep up with what's going on in the schools from a disciplinary action that's not what I'm here to do but when I was explained to me that the code of conduct was followed properly it just drew into question for me what what is the appropriate level of discipline or or and I don't want to use the word punishment or or knowledge or defense of victims in these instances uh the co the code of conduct I think was followed properly by the letter of the law but I I think it needs to be examined and I and I challenge everyone here to think about I I if someone told you or your your child they hate you and everyone like you and then was in school with them less than 24 hours later how would you feel about that you know it it probably wouldn't feel so good you might not really have a lot of confidence in like what what's being done to keep to keep the student safe um I think it also sets a poor example and again no one's at fault that there's no ramifications there's no deterrent other students who witnessed and saw this event and then see the student right back in school right in the face of the victim the very next day like well I could get away with whatever I want you know discipline has a lot of different purposes right some of them are deterrent some of them are to make sure that the person understands the consequences of their action and while I I I don't blame anyone like there's there's no one at fault here and I'm not pointing a finger and I'm not looking to ruin any student or child's life or anything like that I just think that there's an opportunity here to maybe think about what the code of conduct should be in these terrible circumstances when when these types of things are said regardless of race religion Creed sex whatever it is there should be I think a greater step the school should take at least in separating students who who are victims primarily the perpetrator from the victim in these instances so that's what I really wanted to bring to the board's attention um I I I would appreciate if you know there's some sort of followup and thought that was put into this and I could be made aware of it just not that I'm here I'm not here complaining I'm hoping for a better solution uh for the future here if if hopefully this won't occur again but but that's the outcome I'm I'm really hoping to hear thanks well thank you very much for your comment I know you've been talking to the superintendent I would encourage you to continue talking with him and you'll be following up absolutely yeah thanks thank you is there anyone else who wishes to speak on the agenda no okay close it and I just want to say something okay um so we're going to close that portion you want to say something yeah just quickly uh Mr zacher mentioned we do have a code of conduct and we do follow that uh we have board policies we have state codes and then we also have uh school policies and things so we do follow them what you said we do hear uh you you are correct how to examine this you know we are following things to the letter but then how do you go that one step Bey Beyond with being more Humane and trying to figure out what's best for all students we do have an obligation to educate all students and it's trying to find that balance between the victims as well as the perpetrators and how to keep them educated while they're still in the same building and they moving forward for the next couple of years and it is um it is a dance in the sense of like it's difficult how to find that right balance because each situation that we come across requires different nuances and different solutions but your points are well made and we will discuss them we did talk about them as a group and we will continue to discuss this and we'll get back in touch with you and we could figure out a better way to handle this in the future we you know try to find some better solution we'd appreciate it yeah I appreciate that thank you yeah not try to cre no not at all not at all we're always we're always reflective on the on a lot of these situations we do talk as a board and as administrators in our meetings about all different in incidents that happened uh whether it be you know a security drill to something that happened to discipline to even just the exams that Dr shorter showed up there how do we do better next year and this is one example and we we do take them seriously and we do reflect upon them but thank you thank you okay uh motion for items I through n so move okay we got a second there okay any comments or questions on Section I the minutes okay uh section K facilities and finance section L Personnel lot of personnel there yeah have a retirement yeah you have to get uh we have four retirements I have to acknowledge um so um one of them is a uh paraprofessional uh Joyce kakis has dedicated nearly 14 years of serving the students and families at Lazar she's a graduate of Kan college and the K8 teaching certificate she initially began her career at Verizon before transitioning to education pursuing her first Passion of working in a school system Joyce has expressed deep gratitude for her time at Lazar and we wish her well we also have amarie cir who's retiring from the high school after 25 years under her belt she began her career at Woodmont elementary school as an aid moved on to Lazar and has been a Mainstay at the school counseling department of Lazar Middle School for the past 23 and a half years as the sole Administrative Assistant amarie took on multitude of responsibilities the counselors sack students assistant counselor uh staff and administrator she worked with throughout the years could and still can rely on her to assist them with their needs most of all she has been a friendly face of support for people uh parents and Guardians and a trusted adult to students no matter what the question was that came up we are grateful for the commitment of amarie that she's made to Lazar uh last is uh I'm sorry third one is Diane Louisa she was on the agenda last time but she began her career at mville high school as an assistant in the media center in 2001 in 20 uh 2004 she assumed the role of the administrative assistant to the director of School counseling department over the years she has worked with four directors and multiple counselors and sacks Diane was always the go-to person for administrators staff parents and students she never hesitated to go above and beyond to help these students and our families navigate their transition to the high school her commitment to the high school for the past 23 years is noted and very much appreciated we'll miss her very much and the last one is Winnie West she's dedicated 35 years of her service on behalf of monville students and families Winnie's touched countless lives fostering the love for Learning and will leave a lasting impact on students colleagues and the community when he serves as a mentor guide and friend to many she inspires students to reach their full potential both inside and outside the classroom she Champions Innovative programs and creative approaches to instruction her tireless efforts ensure that every student is valued winning will be will leave an indelible mark on our school community and just in general I just wanted to point out when you listen to these years of service it's the longevity people come to monville they stay at monville they're happy here and they make these lasting impacts upon our children so I congratulate all of them and I wish them well in the retirement you know it's amazing you think back on it I'm sure we all have teachers from our early days and they make a lasting impact so the teachers really are quite valuable people and they they mean a lot to everyone absolutely AB uh curriculum any questions on Section M any questions on Section n policy okay roll call vote Dr calino yes Mr doy yes abstain on K1 uh check number 9466 Mrs Fano yes Mr Palama yes Mr Mr Peto yes Mr Rapaport yes Dr modra yes okay uh no close session uh General board comments new business old business any comments from the board yeah um I I happen to attend the New Jersey school counselor association meeting it was kind of a roundabout way of how I wound up attending the meeting but it was very informative and it really kind of fits into what we were you know mental health issues and kids um I attended one seminar a program that was pupils in Peril and it just listed the number of things that where where students can face pressures like peer pressure social media pressure bullying um fatigue family obligation Etc uh and it also presented School actionable Solutions and there was one in particular that I thought was um so pract practical and very helpful and that was some schools are offering virtual services so a student can go into a quiet room log on and speak with a counselor um and so I don't know where that would fit in for us but I just thought it was um a very good practical way the kids are in a safe environment and maybe they're more willing to open up you always come up with good idea ideas and you never have a shortage of give me poits or ideas so I appreciate that well something we could talk about and and look into that a little bit yeah yes I actually I love that idea what Karen said because most psychologists and therapists now do virtual and it's so much easier for the P for the patient and the client to to drive everywhere especially for young people and in their privacy of their bedroom without their parents too well this takes place in school so they're here in a safe environment given a private place to talk so so just so you know we did go with a new company this year to help us with some of our services with mental health and uh we have utilized and they do use T Health types of uh sessions to help us out so that was part of the deal it's not wide you know widespread with everything but on a case-by casee basis and in Special Needs uh um scenarios we've used them already and very successfully but it's we get talk about going bigger and Beyond yeah although it is better to meet in person but virtual is I can't speak as a professional which one's better but I know the access is easier virtually and would you mind giving him that entire list I did already you already did okay good good for you any other comments from the board none okay let's uh end that part and move on to our last public participation session if anyone has a comment on anything related to the schools you do come on up and just yeah give us your name address and let's know what you're thinking hi good evening everyone so my name is CPP Ohan I am a senior at mville Township High School my address is 57 changebridge road so the first thing I wanted to ask was it was more of a question so Dr shorter I really appreciate your depth of presentation on the acad MC statuses of current District the one question I did have I understand that in past years mville has published a document called the school profile listing things like AP distributions SAT scores is there any information on whether this document will be made available because I understand colleges will need to see it and I was just curious if it will be published on the montville's public website in the near future are you looking for it right now Andrea it should be on the but yeah the short answer is uh you could go see uh M uh anybody in the guidance office the counseling office they'll be able to help you with that it should be on the website we'll take a look at that uh it is published that way and we do send it out to all the colleges but absolutely it's all there thank you all right thank you so and the second thing I wanted to talk about was it was more of a commentary on something Mr raport you had addressed earlier about notices being sent to parents and being able to be translated into different languages so you know my parents at home you know they they immigrated here from China they their uh Chinese Mandarin Chinese is their first language although they both also do speak speak English as well they're able to understand it read it speak it you know all the things and they I think by default because their phones are set to manand Chinese as a language I think they do get the notifications in Mandarin on their phones and one thing my me myself being bilingual in both manderin Chinese and English sometimes I think my mom one time showed me a notification she got from her phone and she was very confused because some of the words I think I remember one of the words being it was I think it was about Cedar Hill or some school losing electricity the oh bless you thanks one of the words translated was I believe power and power I mean it has multiple meanings that can mean electrical power it can also mean power as in you know the ability to influence the course of events of another human and I believe that was one of the words that was mistranslated and I think this sort of mistranslation has come up I think multiple times at least you know in the case of a few times my mom showed me you know some of the mated words on the phone and you know I do I do really think this is a you know great thing to have being able to have announcements from the district be translated into all these different languages Reach Out have being able to reach out to all the diverse you know members of our community but I just want to sort of you know I know being I understand technology you know it's something that's you know difficult to work with and that you know there might not be a short-term solution for being able to fix this translation issue but I just wanted to sort of bring this issue to light just you know to let all of you know that this is an issue that may you know I know it comes up for Chinese it may come up with other languages as well so it's something I just wanted to bring up just to you know be bring awareness to the issue and that's a great point we appreciate that we know it's not perfect but uh we appreciate your personal experience and sharing that with us and that's something we'll look at in the future absolutely thank you so much that's all I had to say thank you for all your time and we appreciate you coming out on school night and coming here and uh you know you got a lot of work on you you've got a great reputation so we really appreciate uh everything you've been doing here in the school system thank you thank you so much thank you thank you uh any other comments from the public no okay then a motion to close got journ there we go thank you good night see you all next month all in favor I know thank you you never donees I will