entitled open public meetings act adequate notice of this meeting has been provided as specified in the ACT proper notice of this open public meeting was provided in a notice of November 29th 2023 said notice was posted at the entrance of Board of Education offices mailed to the Nutley Township Clerk sent to tap into Nutley advertised in a Nutley sun on November 29th 2023 and posted on the district website can everyone stand for the flag salute to the flag the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under indivisible liberty and justice for thank you everyone uh roll call Mr depa Mr balamo here Mr baglia Mrs danek Martin here Dr deia here Mr kazinski here Mrs Quirk here Mr Scotty here Mr Ferraro here I got a motion for approval of the minutes second thank you correspondence Mr President I received correspondence today from trustee Riley uh he has tened his resignation to the board effective today I want to bring that to the board's attention and to your attention thank you Mr B uh we just move on to our presentations at this time thank you tonight we have uh three great presentations uh we're going to start um down there I'm going to meet Mr Williams down there for our first presentation check that's loud yeah go right ahead in the spirit of the season um in nley we're very thankful for many things um tonight we'd like to honor um several things but for one we had a tremendous Act of Bravery uh by one of our students the past month that's come to my attention um I think this exemplifies what Nutley students do and who we are um I asked Mr Williams to to come and present what happened as well as the student of the month award publicly at the board meeting thank you for coming thank you Mr B and thank you to D'Or for this opportunity we have a lot of great students here at Nelly high school and uh tonight we're going to talk about a really extra special one um this extra special student has received our Raider recognition student of the month award uh in the past and he's receiving it this month um I'll read uh from uh an email I received from Blake Coupe and Jenny deole who live on 95 New Street in Nutley um this was last month every once in a while while we encounter a person who restores our faith in humanity Anthony deltufo a young Nutley high school student is such a person last evening while returning to our his car Anthony noticed our Mustang appeared to be on fire in our driveway Anthony rang our doorbell feverishly until Jenny who was inside making soup oblivious to anything outside answered and alerted her to the fire growing in our Drive driveway when Jenny ran out to see for herself Anthony called 9111 while waiting for the police and fire trucks Anthony prevented Jenny from going near the burning car repeatedly to save quote unquote things hearing the dining room windows explode Jenny ran back into the house grabbed the fire extinguish from the from the kitchen and began attacking the Flames through the dining room window Anthony by now my wife's full-fledged Guardian Angel intervened again and forced her to evacuate the House the full the firemen full-time Heroes arrived and quickly extinguished the Flames the car and the carport are a total loss and while there is damage to the house as well as our neighbor's house the it could have been much worse one of the firemen on the scene told me later that had the call come in four minutes later the house would have likely been destroyed I arrived home at the last as the last visible Flames were being extinguished to find Anthony doing his best to comfort my distraught wife an Anthony introduced himself and told me about discovering the fire alerting Jenny and calling 911 never mentioning the equally important attempts to prevent Jenny from further endangering herself Anthony offered to leave a little early in the morning to drive Jenny to work before he went to school until her car was replaced Anthony could have left the minute the firemen and policemen or I arrived but he didn't he stayed until they all left until he was sure that we were going to be okay we don't know why the fire started although we have our suspicions having just returned from the Ford dealership but that's not important what is important is that a young man who happened to be walking by our house at 5:15 last evening noticed something out of order and took courageous action to save our house and possibly my wife's life his selfless selfless acts of heroism turned what could have been a colossal tragedy into little more than a nuisance one last note the humility which Anthony acted moved me he didn't know us maybe he walked past our house a hundred times on his way to school but he never met us he has no vested interest in US Beyond being fellow human beings his Acts were completely selfish he was totally engrossed in our well-being and he couldn't leave until there was nothing left to do his humility was such that I suspect he told his family and friends that if he told his family and friends anything it was little more than I saw a fire on New Street tonight never mentioning even mentioning his courageous acts therefore we thought this it was important for you to hear our story thank you Anthony God bless your family um as I had mentioned Anthony won uh this award last year um and as an eagle scout soon to be Eagle Scout will actually be doing a work uh a little bit in with our Greenhouse in in around the courtyard beds so he continues to provide selfless AXS to Nutley high school and Nutley as well Anthony why you come up and get your well deserved [Applause] reward in the middle wow Pap good [Applause] job hey hey Anthony Anthony um we just want the board like to come down take a picture with you um but we thank you for your actions your quick actions you uh you undoubtedly saved um the house you saved you you could have saved lives that uh we don't know what would have happened but thank you for for doing that and for being a hero and we'd like to take a picture with you I also want to thank and congratulate the family um Anthony uh your dad your dad and I went to school together since uh kindergarten um I know the family uh your grand father you great family thank you again's here come come on come this way I want to try to move this over we can St for a second presentation tonight we we would like to continue highlighting uh the students of Nutley who do a tremendous job for us each and every day um we have our Jazz lab here who are going to perform for us shortly but they're just a symbol of the productive work of our music department our music department goes above and beyond in many ways um their accolades Run Deep for the fall I'd like to highlight some of them uh we in our choir we had nine students who were selected New Jersey music educators All State chorus um they performed at the njaa teachers convention uh one of8 choir selected to perform at the New Jersey SMA region one choir Festival our chamber singers one of 10 choirs to be selected to perform at the Monclair State University the Invitational High School Coral Fest selected to choir to perform in the New Jersey music educator Association state conference selected choir to be part of the Montclair State University Eric Whitaker residency and one of two choirs performed at the Monclair State University Coral concert um our NHS band seven SE students selected to new the College of New Jerseys honor Festival 11 students selected to the col University honors band three students selected to the new North Jersey area band and our and our John Walker Middle School choir recipient of the Peter R Marsh Foundation Award every fall Every Spring our students come out uh for the Music Arts and they succeed we're very proud of them with all our groups but I did want to take a moment to highlight for the board some of their fine work our our jazz band I popped in last holiday season of their concert I know their concert's coming up I have some things in my superintendent's report some shoutouts for this week and next week all the performances but they're fascinating they're they're wonderful we appreciate you thank you for coming we hope to hear a great little number right now thank you so much I'd like to introduce Mrs Mrs Hamada uh the conductor is a conductor for a jazz band no what is it they don't need a conductor the educator for the Jazz Band thank you so much come on up first [Music] for [Music] [Music] the [Music] [Music] for [Music] w trans each [Music] one two one 2 [Music] 3 [Music] [Music] n [Music] you [Music] [Music] oh [Music] thank you thank you Miss Sada Mr vicell I know you're in the back Sports Mr scarelli s on the back thank you so much for your continued support you guys are awesome thank you thank you so much thanks for thanks have a good night for all the students uh we're gonna we have one more presentation for the board if you can stay there for the students uh we're going to bring down the screen that takes a little while if you want to go uh I'm sure you have things to do we that's fine thank you so much for coming thank you guys so much for coming great job great job great job appreciate thanks m s appreciate again we're going to transition um and I don't know how another presentation follows that group but we're going to try um but if you'd like to leave students in the crowd at this time thank you so much for coming no one got that but you Tracy just say I heard you laugh yeah I would like to bring up uh Miss Tracy Ean um and Mrs Janine loen solo for our last presentation of the evening good suspense to finish off the night and and for really the year um I we we would like to highlight a goal um of the boards and the districts and our buildings uh that we started on um this Academic Year um it's very important for the this District to look at analyze understand and provide additional supports and structures for our students we coming off a critical time in education uh following uh a change in in pattern routine um and two to three years after we're seeing noticeable changes in data sets coming in um as both students in need um to uh combat that our district has uh proactively provided support structures um and is reviewing the current structures in place throughout the year um I would like to uh bring up Miss Ean Miss Tracy Egan who's doing a wonderful job for us uh she transferred over from uh being a building principal at to central office in her new role of director of student supports and interventions uh one of her tasks is is is understanding uh currently what we do for students uh finding best practices analyzing data and working with our most neediest students um as they come through elementary school and the middle school and high school uh for Success uh this goes not only academic supports but social and emotional supports um as well um so we'd like to start off uh with a I'm sorry we'd like to end the year with sharing with you a presentation about some of the work Tracy is doing and also miss loen solo we're going to bring her up at the end to share with you some of the curricular data sets we're looking at and how we're looking at them a little differently this year um so we thought it was important to inform the public and the board as to all the work we're doing on this side as well you guys have the presentation we're good Tracy for the projector appears to be having an issue maybe we can just speak to what would be on the presentation presentation okay um I'm Tracy Egan uh director of student support and interventions I want to thank you for uh giving me some time to present what we've been working on so far this year um I that those are tough acts to follow I'll try to make this as riveting as I can um New Jersey requires all school districts to have what they call a multi-tiered system of supports they have a triangular diagram that they divide into three different tiers their first tier should um reach about 80% of students and these are U modifications teachers can make in the classroom to the whole class for students who need additional support they move into what they call tier two this should be about 15 to 20% of students and these this would be with um when they're still struggling and teachers would address it in small group instruction tier three would be students who are still not finding some success or still struggling and this should only be about 5% of students and this here would be uh individualized intensive interventions so what does this look like in nutly um I've been working closely with the principles and coordinators um on tier one and tier 2 interventions that are happening within the classroom and the supports we currently have are inrs strategies flex and new this year is the high impact tutoring program inrs is a program um inter prevention and referral services and these are plans made to support students either be their behavioral academic Andor social emotional needs one of the advantages of inrs over an IEP is that it can be implemented in a much faster timeline than the beginning of the I the IEP process an iron team reviews prior interventions from teachers and team members can vary um because uh this is a whole building investment not just a particular team teams gather information and data from report cards standardized tests current and previous teachers they even interview the parent and the student they use report cards standardized testing and then develop actionable plans that are measurable with checkin dates for following up with teachers to see how the plan is working I've been meeting with inrs coordinators and teams to strengthen this process and I'm grateful for their willingness to enhance and the to embrace the improvements that we've made so far another program we have to support students is flex students with either a 504 IEP or an ion arrest plan might be eligible for Flex Flex supports students by developing oh fantastic um Ian can you move forward another slide another one perfect um Flex supports students by developing their executive functioning um teachers meet with students outside of the school day either before school after school or during lunch um and they develop plans with the students in order to make them more successful it could be organizational skills time management or support completing and finishing their schoolwork another program we have is called strategies strategies is a supplemental program to strengthen the skills during small group instruction our approach this school year was to begin with our first and second graders to build a stronger foundation and as those students exit and at this point in the year some of our first graders are already exiting we will then make room for the students in the upper grades in order to qualify for strategies there is an entry criteria we use standards based report cards their are math Baseline assessment M the teachers College reading levels photic pH photic awareness njsla results and teacher observations qualified students who are in the strategies program either participate with bridges for the math lli or foundations for language arts each of those programs have assessments ongoing assessments during the program and then students be exited based on their assessment criteria new this year is the high impact tutoring Grant the grant targets third and fourth grade students what we had to do when we applied for the D for the grant is to show our need and explain what our tutoring sessions would look like part of what we explained for our need is that our current third graders started kindergarten virtually our current fourth graders ended kindergarten virtually and started first grade virtually some of the the data that we had to support that our need was our njsla scores from last year's third grade class we'll keep going again one more there we go on the left hand side you can see um there's a cluster of data here and um this is the state States average performance for third graders and then the next cluster over is the average for Nutley and then each of the elementary schools divided out um although we outperformed the state you can see that the state remained stagnant in 22 and again in 23 whereas in nutly we showed some improvement and then we decreased year after year in math um again the state is on the left hand side you can see that their store scores are stagnant from 22 to 23 and in nut Le our percentages dropped down from in 20 from 22 to 23 so what we'll look at NE next are the eligibility criteria for students for the high impact tutoring we will look at our standards based report card we will look at the trimester is just ending so we're updating our data with the current report card data and we'll compare it to where they ended off in June of last year we'll use Baseline math assessments and then their current math benchmark we'll use reading levels from December September and the previous June we'll use ISL diagnostic results teacher recommendations and njsla results the next thing we had to do was look at what the tutoring sessions would look like one of the reasons we are recipients of the grant is that our teachers are willing to be the tutors I'm so grateful um that of their willingness and their dedication to our students without them we wouldn't be able to do this some districts were not able to proceed the way we are because they had to go outside of the school system in order to find tutors our tutoring sessions will meet three times a week uh the grant requires that it's outside of the school day so some tutoring sessions will happen during lunch and others will happen after school parents of elig of eligible students will be notified in mid to late January and the hope is to extend tutoring through the summer I'm happy to share my time with Mrs Len solo who will talk more specifically about data points we're using in general um I I don't think so yeah if you want yeah oh thank you I appreciate it thank you Miss Egan so our renewed commitment to inrs and providing a tiered system of supports is really part of a larger District initiative that we also wanted to highlight as part of the presentation that surfaces around using student data and assessment more purposefully So to that end the district has invested in performance matters uh it's an assessment platform that brings together multiple data sources in one place so in the past many of our district assessments have sort of lived in other places for example our reading levels are in literably or we have diagnostic Assessments in I Exel or our state njsla data in real time and NJ smart performance matters has allowed us to merge this data into one platform and really look at data side by side in a more purposeful way for things like inrs and providing support for students our administrative team has already begun digging into some of the data reporting within the performance matters platform with staff and with their teachers and teachers will receive professional development specific to Performance man matters in the new year I wanted to show you an example of a couple reports and the functionality within performance matters so here you'll see what they call a baseball card report so for example this allows us to see cohort data that we haven't really been able to see in such a meaningful way in the past um so here you'll see our current fifth graders and what I tried to do here is I blocked out students names and I tried to write the headings a little bit bigger for you but perform performance matters allows within this report to see our current fifth graders with their grade three their grade they're grade three njsla they're grade four njsla alongside what they've done so far with a Baseline and reading assessment so this is a snapshot of all of the ELA data for that cohort of students uh this type of reporting really leads to Rich conversations around Mastery and it provides us means to look more closely at our own assessments and how they align to the njsla and later on the NJ GPA next slide please this is it I'm sorry uh this also allows for a report called the assessment item analysis report and this really provides specific item by item analysis of students performance on assessments so I know it's hard to see here but for example here we have uh the students names covered up and then you can see next to it scores for a complete assessment and to the right of it scores for individual questions that are linked to individual student learning standards this is a really powerful tool because it can bring to light things like specific standards that we're doing well specific standards that students need more help with and it also helps us look really closely at our current curriculum and to see for example if students are all struggling with a specific standard then that gets the coordinators and I asking questions around are we providing enough resources to meet that standard what can we do differently as a whole within our instructional program as well as how can we meet with you know small groups of students who may need support in a specific learning standard or a specific uh item we're really just getting started us utilizing performance matters we're already seeing a lot of the potential that it helps uh to drive instruction districtwide and we're really confident that this type of data reporting combined with what Miss Ean shared with inrs will continue to support our students thank you I'd like to thank Miss Ean and Miss Len solo and uh for their presentation their work in District um it's it's valued and it's very important work you're doing and and we appreciate it our students appreciate it like to open it to the floor to any board members with any questions um any anybody from the public with questions thank you so much okay [Music] okay so you can look at data both ways um so there are some reports which allows you to see dat on specific students needs they can p up data on specific students but then it also allows a teacher to go in see data for their specific class principal can go in and see the whole grade level their building so there's different levels District wide at a grade level yeah I would i' would say very frequently uh the work right now in District being done is to get high quality assessment our own assessments into the system um you know data is what what you put in is what you get out so if you put high quality standards uh uh I'm sorry assessments that are linked to high to our standards as in meaningful way we can extrapolate a lot of information out of that that's the work being done right now putting our common assessments our baselines our important data sets uh I don't know if been still here but a lot of our performance-based areas are starting to use performance-based assessments putting them in that's easy for the teacher and that's I think they're around your questions s but I think um it will be used frequently and regularly it'll be the lens will change from 30,000 feet in a district perspective to um teacher-based uh viewing of data individual and in class it'll help us do things like group and class as well as make recommendations of support and extensions uh for students across the board you want me to answer anyone yeah you can answer any parent can request an inrs plan um you just contact the building principal and the principal will um forward the request to the team and then the team will start Gathering data they'll meet with the parent to discuss what the needs are and then come up with a plan from there the grant is through August State you're welcome great questions uh great questions any other questions I thank you so much and thank you board for all the presentations [Music] toight um thank you so much we'll return to the stage first of the meeting than no no [Music] it's on okay okay Mr Man would uh you take uh the superintendent report please uh thank you thank you Mr President Jess Mabel can you hear me back there yeah thank you uh first and foremost um I'd like to recognize we had an election last November I'd like to congratulate the board Trustees for our Dan Martin and balamo on a successful campaign I know our Administration looks forward to working with you uh continuously over the next couple years um and before I begin with some of the happenings around the district I would like to report on our hibs over the time period from January 23 to June 23 and I would like to thank our anti-bulling Specialists um for their work in District uh first our Joe Capello our district anti-bulling coordinator uh from Lincoln School Nancy thanel from rackliff school Al Faro from Spring guard Miranda danr from Washington Kelly Sika from Yano Marill barbone from John Walker Middle School Lisa Jan and from Nutley High School Avery zaretsky um so we have H investigations we run uh in compliance with our statute and code um and the results can be one of three events uh it could be considered a non-hip event or unfounded the incident did not meet the criteria of Hib or a code of conduct violation it could be U concluded it's a Hib event inant did meet the criteria of a Hib event as defined by the anti-bullying Bill of Rights nle School District Hib policy or could be considered a code of conduct violation and inent did not meet the criteria of a Hib event but identified as a code of conduct violation during the during the second half of last year from January to June District had 71 events reported that were investigated out of the 71 11 were reported at Lincoln School 12 at rag School four at Spring Garden two at Washington seven at yanaka 27 at John Walker Middle School and eight at Nutley high school out of the 71 17 were confirmed at the elementary level while 13 were confirmed hibs at the secondary level at a rate of 42% the district utilizes many Resources with regards to founded hi matters including disciplinary measures counseling reflection assignments mediation parent uh parent conferences as well as districtwide approaches including specific Le lessons on hi preven vention co-curricular initiatives competent kids caring curriculum and ruler curriculum as well as advisory lessons and support from our physical education and health curriculum our extracurricular leadership Summits and clubs also support inclusive environment in District uh this concludes the mandatory reporting uh the biannual reporting the full presentation can be found on the district website under the Hib tab um I would like to speak to an ongoing partnership between the Nutley public schools and seen Hall University hacking to sack medical students uh recently we had physician assistants visit the district's preschool classes to discuss pediatric dental hygiene while a panel of medical students visited the high school to host a panel discussion for potential Medical healthc Care Juniors and seniors I attended both events they they they were run very well uh we have been partnering with hackensac muray uh med school for um number of years and the district benefits from that partnership we'd like to thank them formally uh we also had 15 students from Nutley High School visit Belleville High School to be a part of the first annual East essics leadership conference uh while there students learn about what it meant to be a student leader different ways individuals can lead and understand how they can return to Nutley to inspire leadership in others another event I attended it was very well it was nice to visit Beville high school and we thank them uh for uh their hospitality and beginning something we hope to do something similar here in Nutley uh for students in the area uh we would like to thank our County government uh County Executive D chenzo and the parks department the county parks department the district attended the groundbreaking ceremony for improvements at Yano Park uh in baseball and softball fields that we utilize um it's a great addition to our facilities and we we thank you for that um we'd also like to thank members of the Kingsland Manor staff that worked with not high school students from AP Studio Design and the humanities class regarding historic gowns worn in the 17th century uh congrats to our Coral program I think I mentioned this before we had nine students who made all state selections I'd like to call their names Cameron Anderson Matthew Blanchard Lincoln boy Veronica Daniels um Samuel wanson Alexis Hamlin Jonathan Mont mon Monterosa Haley Papio and Sean Santos I apologize if I mispronounced but congratulations it's a well-deserved honor a special thanks to our Colony arts department students from coling Arts supported by Mr gardo Mrs boyman developed cooked and presented an amazing Thanksgiving Day lunch for annual Chamber of Commerce luncheon it's always a great event thank you Mr vicarello I know you support that as well recognize and thank all the members of the superintendent advisory committee for their Fe feedback thoughts and advice surrounding the elementary Bill schedule uh we started the superintendent's advisory committee um we uh about a month ago and we're looking forward to the next session coming up the district is looking to at the daily operations in an effort to maximize time and provide a schedule that allows students to get what they need without losing critical curricular time uh thank you to the Department of Public Safety and the nley police department they have joined us for our monthly security drills as we Implement new security alert and communication systems in District we call that Raptor um their feedback has been beneficial and we are moving closer to full implementation thank you to all the faculty and staff for growing with this in these very important areas uh recently the Nutley High School counseling department sent out an invitation to students to sign up for an additional class this spring in partnering with Caldwell University students will be able to take General psychology online through a dual enrollment agreement this spring geny is a course that applies to many majors and students are able to earn Caldwell University credits at a very affordable price this is possible due to a memorandum of understanding that the board has created with the university another opportunity called Data Jam pairs Nutley students with a student adviser from col University to explore University of Pittsburgh curriculum and program to use real-time data to solve real-time problems happy to announce that we have six students currently enrolled in this all females by the way and they are ready to go that's a great program I want to thank our qack advisory committee Terry Quirk is on that committee from the board we appreciate your work today as we prepare to submit our annual dprs for qac following this board member meeting um and I would like to announce and I had it here all along um the upcoming concerts by our music program uh tomorrow is our NHS yulai concert it'll have a mix of choir Jazz Band full band um at 7 pm um on Friday not to miss 12:15 St Mary's holiday concert at 7M um and on Tuesday at 6m is a John Walker Middle School holiday concert uh next Tuesday the 19th and finally as we uh call upon family and friends to celebrate the joy of the holiday season and the beginning of the new year we find ourselves reflecting on the past 12 months in these past 12 months the district has grown in ways that will lay the foundation for Student Success and prosperous Community we have found new ways to partner with the Board of Commissioners we have invested our youngest we have invested in our youngest Learners we have Revisited interventions and ways to support our older Learners we have doubled our security and safety efforts and we're making strides with a return of focus to Common Sense attendance Civility and data driven strategies we I are fortunate to be Educators in an environment with hardworking students families faculty and staff that are dedicated administrators that care and lead in a board of education that commits to long and challenging discussions to solve complex challenges in this new year I hope you uh I hope to double my efforts to listen to the community beginning with establishing forums and inviting students and families to The Conversation Over the the break please enjoy time with your families and please get well rested for the new year we have a lot of important work to do in January and we're looking forward to it thank you Mr President thank you Mr B uh Miss leas go thank you Mr President since our last meeting on November 7th we ran a choice professional learning day allowing staff to choose four sessions um most led by their fellow colleagues on topics related to their own professional growth and interests we had more than 30 staff members lead workshops throughout the day and I want to thank them for their willingness to share their expertise with colleagues topics for the day included AI in the classroom integration of Technology School law and effective instructional strategies in various departments uh we also held parent teacher conferences at the elementary schools last month during these half days our secondary teachers participated in professional development uh around assessment creation and I want to thank our coordinators for leading these sessions just just a reminder to k6 Elementary parents that the real time portal with report cards for trimester 1 will open for parents on Wednesday at 4M um I did send a letter home to parents on Friday with a refresher on standards based report card and the grading system and included in that letter is a recorded Parent Academy on the topic for those parents uh needing a refresher or wanting to learn more about the way that uh Elementary is graded in the district lastly I want to wish you all the happiest of holidays with your families we look forward to seeing you all in January for the continuation of the Academic Year together thank you Mr tiza thank you Mr President our auditor has begun reviewing documentation and will be in District the first week of January following our break Finance number 18 I would like to acknowledge uh central office staff for receiving a maintenance funding additional grant for 96,4 we allocated that towards fun30 our media center high school project Finance number 29 I'd like to bring attention to the Adidas agreement not only does uh Adidas um coincide with our school colors but they're giving a 30% discount to our district when perching cloth items uniforms district for two years it's a two-year agreement Mr did a nice job with that um I'd like to acknowledge on Personnel C3 the retirement of Nancy Cunningham our um payroll person and health benefit person I wish her luck in the future she's retiring as of March 1 the Lincoln School auditorium there's still no decision from the uh insurance adjusters on the fit out of what they're covering and what they're not covering hopefully when we come back in January we'll be well informed and on our way to uh preserving that room again and last but not least I wish everybody a happy healthy uh holiday season to everyone thank you so much thank you Mr deiza uh with us tonight is Christopher maybery he's our student representative he's going to give our student report Christopher thank you um I will be starting off um talking about the events that have that have occurred that are currently ongoing and um throughout that happened throughout the the event sorry the month of November um we start with the month of November uh the start of our winter sports programs um such as uh rest wrestling um bowling and a and Rowing a few other sports the theme of the month of November was uh gratitude we start with our clubs Key Club student counil had a Food donation Drive assisting the nle Family Service Bureau and the local food pantry we also had our National Honor Society hosting a Food donation drive for the veterans around toown at the end of at the end of the first marking period November 14th um that that was the end and sorry then on November 29th we had our third Brer meeting and lesson on also on November 29th we had our Hack and Sack medical student panel with over 80 students attending moving into the month of December we started with the SATs on December 2nd and the acts on 9th during this time of the year we had we had to ask for a div diverse majority of our student body to donate for people in need around town as an example we have the CL we have clubs such as the Honor Society with a book donation drive another club host hosted a clothing donation drive we also have the charity donation drive with teachers that make a donation to decorate the doors and students the Halls the month of December was our theme for giving um W with W with wrapping up finally moving to January our student council is preparing for events in the spring and we're preparing for scheduling for the next next year's school year thank you for your time and enjoy the holiday season thank you Christopher um you're more than welcome to stay with us but if uh you have other things to do you have work to do for tomorrow you're you're you're welcome to also leave if you'd like so um okay we're gonna move on to committee reports uh Miss danek Miss Dan Martin can you please uh do academic yes Mr President the academic committee met on November 16th in attendance were myself truste Quirk and trustee deia also um Miss Mabel Miss Egan Mr vicarello and Miss Zulo also attended uh coach Luan Zulo joined the committee virtually to discuss a request for a spring softball team field trip to Florida members from the cusac committee joined the committee to discuss the district approach to the qac process the committee shared the district performance review indicators with the committee Miss Ean shared with the committee progress related to student supports in the district she discussed the tiered approach of supports inrs and and exit criterias to strategies as well as high impact tutoring grant that the district just received Miss loans solo also highlighted the district's use of data warehouse and performance matters Mr B discussed the district's title one allocations as well as rollover allocations Miss Lo cons solo reviewed a teachers request for completing their graduate work Miss Lo cons solo reviewed the surveys for the program review the academic committee discussed items pertaining to Elementary conferences as well fifth grade departmentalization in initiative Miss loans solo and Mr vanu shared field trip and professional development requests with the committee um our next meeting is um to be determined in the new year thank you thank you Mr Martin can you hear us out out in the audience you can okay because the the speaker here doesn't seem that like they're working but um okay Mr buaml administrative committee than thank you Mr President uh the uh Administration committee met November 14th 5 o'clock at the principal's conference room here at the high school uh Mr Williams presented data comparing last year's attendance uh code of conduct and discipline for the first marketing period with uh with this year's Mr Helm presented information on attendance and code of conduct uh reformative and preventative strategies as well as an action plan Mr B and Mrs Lo cons solo took the committee on a tour of facility improvements here at the high school Mr B discussed property AC acquisition Mr B discussed a legal matter and a mandatory reporting incident uh the committee discussed the latest policy alert from sh Esme the next meeting of the administration committee is scheduled for Thursday December 14th thank you thank you Mr bosl Mr Scotty Finance thank you Mr President the finance committee met on November 17th finance committee met on November 17th we disc discussed an update on the 2023 to 2024 budget and um the self-insured health benefit review of the past three years the committee also discussed the update on the Nutley high school media center with expectations of a January 15 2024 completion Mr B also updated the committee on on proposed policy um a proposed policy meeting excuse me and a mandatory reporting incident there is no date scheduled for the uh next meeting thank you thank you Mr Scotty okay um we now come to that portion of our meeting where we allow members of the public to address the board in this section we allow questions or comments on reports resolutions and all School related matters our board regulations number 0167 a lot 20 minutes for these communications each person shall be limited to three minutes and we ask you try to stay within this requirement speakers may speak more than once only after others wishing to speak on a topic have been heard all statements will be directed to me as a chairperson and no one may address board members in ually please be reminded that if your statement is too lengthy abusive obscene irrelevant or redundant your participation may be terminated please remember to state your name and address each and every time you address the board does anyone have any questions Mr Ganon I know you had put your name down it's kind of weird can I turn towards you yes yeah you can move that sorry speaking out to nobody uh happy holidays to y'all um thanks for letting me uh spend a few minutes here so you guys are probably most of you are all familiar with me I've been addressing you coming here uh since covid started um and it wasn't um tried to make that clear when I when I did address it wasn't my message wasn't really directed at you it was directed at some of the policies that were coming down that we had to to implement so and the consistent theme that I always had was there was [Music] no cost benefit or benefit uh analysis you know so if we imp Implement these policies is it going to help is it going to hurt that wasn't done and I tried to keep making that point over and over and over again and I'm I'm under No Illusion I know we couldn't have just stopped the world and we would have had to force these things but what I was looking for and I'm still looking for now and I'll get to that in a second uh because you are my elected representatives for the school board so where else was I going to go if I had some issues with these these policies coming down I would come to you and uh I'm not really sure exactly all the channels that you could you know uh follow to to engage in those but I wanted my voice to be heard on those things um because it is my view and I think it's clear now that without that risk benefit analysis that was just a grand experiment and this was basically carried out throughout the Western World they basically said they panicked they threw out a hundred years of pandemic management and knowledge and said do these things so we're forced to do them so what are the results of this Grand experiment right so um you may have been aware or seen uh in the piece in November 18 2023 New York Times and I'll just read from it said the startling evidence on learning loss is in the evidence is in is now in and it's startling the school closures that took 50 million children out of classrooms at the start of the pandemic may prove to be the most damaging disruption in the history of American Education it also set student progress in math and reading back by two decades and widen the achievement Gap that separates poor and Wealthy children these learning losses will remain unaddressed when the federal money Runs Out in 2024 that's my question about whether it's federal state but not that the state has any money on that either but economists are predicting that this generation with a with such significant educational Gap will experience diminished lifetime earnings and become a significant drag on the economy that's troubling to me I'm sure it's all troubling to you you know um and what's really frustrating for me is that you know this was not known this wasn't me as I came to these meetings I said you know I do my homework I read all the studies and the like I do these things and one of the things that that I presented in the December 2020 meeting to the Board of Education was this quote from Robert jenssen if you don't allow me there's here Tim can you just turn that off I won't I won't be for and trust me at the end I'm really being your Advocate but please let me finish here um but one of the things that one of the quotes I presented in that December 2020 Board of Education meeting was a quote from Robert Jenkins who's the UNICEF chief for Global education he said this on December 7th 2020 so again to reemphasize this wasn't just me you know pulling stuff out of no there there's these are some well credentialed people that are saying these things this is what he said quote what we have learned about schooling during the time of covid is clear the benefits of keeping schools open far outweigh the costs of closing them and Nationwide closures of schools should be avoided at all costs so this was all known you know in terms of many people knew these things and we got railroaded down this path and what I'm trying to do here is engender some support to push back on these things to see that number one that they're never repeated but to to really take some actions to make sure that the people that made those decisions are held to account you know because one other thing that was near and dear to my heart too uh was the mass mandates as you as you all know and in the British medical journal just released the study just on December 2nd and was called child Mass mandates for covid-19 assist review conclusions real world effectiveness of child mask mandates against SARS K2 transmission or infection has not been demonstrated with high quality evidence again I said there was no benef risk benefit analysis it's one of the themes I kept mentioning in when I came to these meetings and I'm sure you guys are all aware of the emails that I sent along as well about these things so the current body of evidence of scientific data does not support masking of children for the protection of covid-19 and this next part is really important at least to me it is because U what's always like well what's the big deal what what's the big deal about wearing a mask they actually went in to say well what are some of the negative benefits of wearing a masks I'll quote The Mask mandates do not take into account the potential adverse consequences of masking especially in young children including but not limited to the impact on speech language learning mental health and physiological factors seeing mouth movements and facial gestures accelerate word recognition and speech comprehension the integration of facial information is important for speech perception and recognition of facial expressions is critical for children's ability to communicate and understand and show emotions mask mearing wearing may also cause breathing difficulties headaches dermatitis genal discomfort and pain so the leaders of this country the CDC and on down Phil Murphy and and Randy weart is probably a big big uh uh culprit and all this they push these things and and this is what I when I say when I really uh want to be your Advocate because I really do mean this saying that you we came to you these people the decision makers that forced this stuff down onto US made a big mess you're dealing with it Miss Egan's work I think you guys I think you guys did a great job in dealing with the challenges that we were faced with my problem is now my concern is now is that the people that caused this mess basically said oh clean up on I 5 you guys go clean it up it's not our problem anymore they're completely unrepentant and it's you know I don't understand why somebody like me is like everybody should be livid about these things they made a giant mess of the education system in this country and they're saying you deal with it it's not our problem so in in closing I like I'm not sure exactly what I want you to do but after engaging with you for the three years about this travesty was what I call it I mean it's a travesty what they've done through education system because you know why we know this because what they want to do is they want to just Buri it away like he it's the pandemic there's nothing you can do about it it's a virus I've made this point plenty of times too Sweden has two million school children they never closed their schools and they never impose The Mask mandate and I challenge anyone here or anywhere to show me any evidence of detri mental harm to any of the Swedish school children it doesn't exist that therefore we can take that and say they made a big mistake the people that made these decisions made a big mistake and we need it's our responsibility we owe it to our children to hold those people accountable as best we can thank you for your time I appreciate it thank you Michael and Michael I just and I'm gonna call you Michael because I know we know each other you sure do so um you know I just I just want you to understand too that this board it was a challenging time for everybody and and so you know we were being told obviously and that recommendations were coming down from the state um the all Health Department U so it was a trying time for everybody but we we do appreciate all your input um and you know we know you care about this this district and this community we want to thank you as well so thank you for that yeah no I appreciate that s and you know like I said at sometimes it might have seemed like I was coming after you but it was frustration built up I read about these things I saw this train wreck coming and it's here and and I guess one last point about it because I study economics a lot what's also lost like we'll throw money even in the New York Times quote says you know the federal money will run out a lot of people they just want to throw money at it and say well this is f a problem but economics teaches us opportunity costs if you're spending time doing something else that means you can't be doing some another thing and that other thing would have been you know so here we are fighting to to catch up to be where we should be imagine if all those resources were applied and we would be up here excelling far beyond anywhere else but no we're stuck spending all these resources just trying to get caught up and that's a travesty and we really need to hold the people that made those decisions accountable I'm not sure how we can do that you as a board uh as a school district can do that but you know I encourage you to do that in any way shape or form that you can because it is a travesty what's transpired thank you Michael thank you thank you has anyone else wish uh out there that wish wishing to speak okay seeing none um Mr gazinski academic resolutions I'm sorry you know I'm sorry Mr kazinski Miss St Martin yes Mr President I'd like to move academic resolutions one through four is written a discussion roll call Mr balamo yes Mrs Dan Che Martin yes Dr deia yes Mr kazinski yes Mrs Quirk yes Mr Scotty Mr F yes Mr Mr kazinski I'm think I'm going to get it right this time oh I did it again why oh he's going to do you guys are you guys are changing that up on me that's not my fault all right Mr basam Administration yeah thank you Mr President I'd like to move Administration resolutions one through four is written discussion roll call Mr B yes Mrs danek Martin yes Dr deia yes Mr kazinski yes Mrs Quirk yes Mr Scotty Mr Ferrara yes okay Mr bagle is not here so Mr Scotty would you handle Finance yes Mr President I'd like to move Finance resolutions 1 through 31 as written discussion yes Mr President Mr President yes Mr Leah uh real quick I just want to highlight some of the um the wonderful things and it just kind of piggybacking off of what Mr deza had pointed out some of the grants the high in back tutoring Grant grant for Capital Improvement and maintenance and and also the shared service agreement that we're actually um actually taking hold of that's item 19 and and utilizing our shared service agreement with the Board of Commissioners and the township One nutly One Vision one movement and I just want to uh bring that to everyone's attention and say what a a wonderful um aggressive moves towards some of these grant funding especially that there's money out there these are taxpayers money it's nice to see them coming back to nothing so just a compliment to the uh the administration yes thank you for that Mr deia any further discussion roll call Mr BOS yes 1 through six abstained 789 yes 10 through 31 Mrs Dan Martin yes Dr deia yes Mr kazinski yes Mrs Quirk yes Mr Scotty yes Mr Ferrar uh yes abstaining to number 25 all right Mr kazinski I'm going to ask that you do personal now and please don't tell me I'm wrong this time discussion roll call Mr balamo yes Mrs Dan Martin yes Dr Delia yes Mr kazinski Mrs Quirk Mr Scotty Mr F yes okay any old business to come before the board we'll do that under new okay um any new business to come before the board um Miss Quirk um and learning about Mr Riley's um resignation I just wanted to thank him for all his years of service he's always been a great Advocate uh to the special ed Community he's worked tirelessly uh for them and um and for many other projects that he was very proud of and I just want to thank him for for that and he will be missed thank you thank you Mr President thank you Mrs Quirk yes um he will be missed um you know he's spent quite a quite a bit of time on this board on and off over the years uh dedicated a lot of his life to this board of education this community um and the children so we we're thankful for that and we thank him for that um one of the things I just want to bring up um does anybody else have anything they'd like to say sure I served with M Bradley when he was the president of the board I worked on many committees with him as we all know it's it's probably one of the most thankless jobs that any of us have had in our Liv except for the what we do for our children that's the rewarding part of it um and Mr Ry has certainly paid his dues with all of us and um we're GNA miss his input for sure thank you Mr kazinski um okay so under new business I just like to uh just bring this up um this board of education uh very similar to the uhou that we worked at with uh Caldwell University we're we're going to be in hopefully in the next few weeks um we're going to be meeting with St Peters University to see if there's a way that we can uh do similar uh work with them um so it's it's it's work that we're can continue to to look at for uh with uh with this board and other universities that we can improve uh the education uh and the classes and the what's offered to our students so uh hopefully we we'll get that going in the next few weeks meet with them um looks like we may be going there and then they they're going to come for a tour here and uh we'll see what what programs we can uh work on together that benefit our our district and our children um any other new business okay uh whereas the Board of Education will be discussing matters exempt from public discussion pursuing to NSAA 10 colum 4-12 now therefore be resolved that the Board of Education recess to closed executive session at this time to discuss property acquisition be further resolved that the results of the discussion will be made public by inclusion on the agenda of the subsequent meeting with the Board of Education or when the reasons for discussing such matters in Clos session no longer exist I get a motion to adjourn to Executive Mo second okay thank you