Are you ready for roll call?
Major done.
Present. Eric Scherzer. Allison Silverstein. Here.
Carrie McMahon. Jada Roman. Here. Melanie Dyser. Here. Sean Long. Yes. Holly Shaw.
Iván Bukenite. Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
And I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to be able to
have one for word to stand, one nation, under God, to be able to vote, liberty and justice
from.
It is Wednesday, March 11, 2026 at 7.40 p.m.
The purpose of this meeting is for the Board of Education to take action on the resolutions
as indicated on the agenda.
But the minutes reflect that adequate notice of this meeting has been approved in the following
manner.
On Wednesday, November 5, 2025, notice of this meeting was sent to the Harold News and
Bergen record, was posted on the Montclair Board of Education's public website and filed
with the township clerk.
The date, time date, and location were accurately set forth therein.
Please be advised that this meeting is considered a public meeting under the law and may be taped,
broadcast used or reproduced in ways and in mediums beyond the control of the Board of
Education. Individual statements and opinions expressed are solely those of the speakers
and do not necessarily represent the Montclair Board of Education. Please keep in mind that
if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data regarding
yourself or others during this public meeting, this information may be collected and used
by others. Accordingly, the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful
of the rights of other individuals when speaking. Specifically, comments regarding students
and employees of the board are discouraged. Students and employees have specific legal
rights afforded to them by the laws of New Jersey. The board bears no responsibility and
will not be liable for any comments made by members of the public.
Speakers should therefore carefully evaluate their statements for individual consequences
under the law and should obtain any appropriate professional advice prior to speaking.
For those who wish to speak during public comment, please be sure to sign up to sheet on the
side podium. Next item is President's report. Good evening everyone and welcome. We thank you
for joining us whether you're virtually or in person this evening. As a board, we appreciate the
the attention that our governor, Sherrell, has brought to the realities facing public schools across our state.
Our recent remarks highlight several truths that districts like ours confront every day.
As a board, we share the governor's focus on outcomes, accountability, and student support.
Our goal remains clear to ensure that every dollar invested in public education,
strength and literacy, support student well-being, and prepares our children for success.
We look forward to working with state leaders to ensure funding policies and initiatives
truly meet the needs of our students, educators, and our community.
Yesterday the residents of Montclair participated in an important special election, and though
we are still waiting for the results to be finalized, we respect the voices of our community.
Whether residents voted yes or no, what is clear is that our community cares deeply
about our public schools and the future of our students.
As a board, our focus remains steady and unchanged.
Our priority is student achievement, ensuring every student receives a high quality education,
support and opportunities that they all deserve.
We also remain committed to meaningful community engagement.
The conversations surrounding this vote have demonstrated how invested our residents are,
and that engagement will continue to be an essential part of our decisions ahead.
This moment also calls for us to continue reimagining Montclair's path forward.
Together with our educators, families, students, and community partners, we will keep working to strengthen our schools, address the challenges before us, and build a sustainable future for the district.
Tonight, I pose the thought from one of my sheer roles.
As we move forward, the question is not whether we can afford to invest in every child.
It is whether we can afford not to.
As a board and our work continues and we remain committed to moving forward, thoughtfully,
collaboratively and always with the best interest of our students at the center of every decision.
If you are intending to make a public comment tonight, remember to sign up on the blue podium near the door.
The list will be collected after item G3, which is our facility workshop report.
Thank you.
Oh, God, I can't miss it.
Excuse me, Mrs. Turner, before you begin, can you send us the PowerPoint, because we can't really see it on this side.
should have been sent to you. Is Lorna here? Miss Agnew? Is that she here? Is Lorna here?
Isaiah, can you send it to the Isaiah will send it, Lorna?
I apologize was supposed to be in your
email half an hour ago. Good evening members of the board, staff and members of the Montclier community.
Oh, I can't read that. Oh, I'll figure it out.
Excuse me.
Before discussing the proposal before us
tonight, I want to begin by acknowledging something that is very real for many families.
Renaissance has been an important part of Montclair's educational landscape for many years.
For many students, it's been a place where they felt seen, supported, and
able to thrive in a small, learning environment.
I want to recognize that history and the community that has grown around it.
The proposal being presented tonight is not about diminishing that legacy.
rather it is about responding responsibly to the realities our district is
facing and ensuring that we can continue to provide strong instructional
opportunities for all students across Montclair. Over the past decade our middle
school enrollment has declined significantly. At the same time the district
continues to face structural financial pressures and rise in operational cost.
These realities require for us to look carefully at how we use our facilities and
and how we align our resources with the number of students we serve.
Tonight, proposal outlines a strategic reinvestment that would consolidate our middle school structure into two schools while expanding access to early childhood education by repurposing the Renaissance Building as the Montclair Early Learning Academy.
This approach allows us to address
three critical priorities simultaneously.
Aligning our facilities with enrollment, district finance, relief, expanding access to
high quality early childhood education.
I want to be very clear that if this proposal moves forward, the districts will work closely
with families and staff to ensure that every Renaissance student receives supports through
the transition.
Our goal is to ensure that every child continues to feel connected, supported, and successful
in their new school community.
It is not an easy conversation, but one that is an important one, and it reflects our
responsibility to steward the district's resources in a way that serves both our current
students and future generation of Montclair families.
Tonight, I will walk through the data, the rationale for the proposal, the steps that will support
students and families if the board chooses to move forward with the proposal.
Okay, I'm having like, can't see over there, but I can see here very well, so I'll do my best.
By now, if you haven't figured, I center a lot of my thoughts and I work around quotes,
and I wanted to share, um, follow up, I'm going to need your help for a minute, please.
A quote, may your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.
Why is it two screens like that?
I can't affect.
So do you?
So this is so you can see the screen up here.
Do you want to see it?
That's not helpful.
Yeah.
We're many.
They're going to come.
I didn't do them, so the next one will have it.
Okay, I don't know if this is going to work, but we're going to try.
Okay, next slide.
The run, as I said earlier, the Renaissance community has fostered a unique and important
learning environment within Montclair.
We know, and I've had an opportunity to spend time with families last night, I've received
numerous emails, I've visited the school, I've talked with the outstanding principal there
that is the vibrant part of Montclair's educational landscapes.
Students have built confidence, foster strong relationships and
gain meaningful learning opportunities.
And there's a close community that has foster deep connections within
its walls,
so we want to acknowledge that.
Also, at the same time simultaneously, Montclair, like many districts, is facing
significant financial pressures.
We are experiencing a structural gap between revenue and
expenditures while operational costs continues to rise.
At the same time, our student population has decreased, which will impact and has impacted our state funding.
Because of these factors, we must examine how our facilities aligns with enrollment so
that we can stabilize finances and protect core instruction.
Next slide.
This slide shows you our current middle school enrollment for three of our middle schools.
So we are at 1,365 and the combined current schedule capacity if we combine buzz and Glenfield is 1,528.
So you can see where from the number of middle schoolers and our capacity that we have a room to consolidate our middle school.
Next slide.
And although these are difficult decisions and difficult conversations, I want to talk
about what happens if no action is taken.
Without this reinvestment, the district will continue to face structural challenges.
We still are unknown the outcome of the vote.
We still have not heard whether our state aid will increase, whether it will remain flat,
or whether it will be a decrease.
We're hoping to find that out by tomorrow.
These challenges will continue to grow.
There will be a continued budget pressure ongoing imbalance between our revenue and our expenditures requiring the districts to identify additional cost reductions in future budgets.
Also, operating three middle schools in terms of use of facilities has been inefficient for us.
As I said, we have 1,358 students between two buildings we could house over 1,500 students.
And also, without a strategic action, the district continues to face increasing pressure
to adjust staffing, programming, and services across our district.
The decision before us is not simply a choice between keeping Renaissance open or closing.
It is a choice between maintaining an ineffective, efficient, three school model, or strategically
re-inversing, re-investing resources to strengthen programs district-wide.
Next.
Looking at student movement from one year to the next year helps confirm that this transition can occur.
Each year, our eighth grade students graduate and move to the high school while new six graders enter middle schools.
Current Renaissance six and seventh graders will participate in the district's re-ranking process to select their preferred school placement between buzz and Glenfield.
Next slide.
And here you will see a graph showing our middle school enrollment starting at 2014
and on to 2032.
This chart shows our district-wide middle school enrollment trend over time.
Over the past decade, enrollment has steadily decreased.
Dropping from about 1,600 students in 2425 to roughly 1365 today.
that decline is reflected across our schools.
As you can see, we know that Glenfield experienced
the largest reduction reducing from 679 students
to 511 over this period.
At Renaissance, the loss of about 56 students
from its peak represents nearly one grade level,
which makes it increasingly difficult
to sustain a third standalone middle school.
Looking ahead, if you're wondering,
well, how did you get the figures for all the way to 30
And
From 2031 to 2032. Looking ahead, enrollment projections through 2032 are based on the district's current.
Are we okay with the sound?
Okay. Current elementary cohorts in grade K-5, providing a data-driven forecast of future middle school enrollments. Overall, the data shows that middle school enrollment has declined and is expected to remain relatively stable moving forward, supporting a sustainable two-school middle school model.
Next slide.
The data clearly shows a sustained decline in middle school enrollment.
As I said, today we serve 1,365 students across three buildings and
projection shows that enrollment remaining between 1310 to 1360 students for the foreseeable future.
Buzz and Glenfield together have sufficient capacity to serve these students.
This will make a consolidation, a data driven response to long-term enrollment trends.
Next slide.
Our enrollment and facility analysis confirms that this transition could be supported
by the existing capacity at our Glenfield and Buzz Middle School.
Under New Jersey Administrative Code Districts must demonstrate sufficient building capacity
for at least five years when proposing a school closure or reinvestment.
Some key assurance, they will be no increase in temporary classroom uses.
Classroom sizes will remain within the established district policy limits.
Based on the current count at Buzz and Glenfield, a minimum class average of 25 students will continue.
In short, the data confirms that these two school models is both operationally doable and
compliant with state requirements.
Next slide.
Renaissance family will participate in the district, standard, re-ranking process to select their preferred middle school.
Families will have the opportunity to review programs, attend tours and wreck their preference.
Sibling priority and other established criteria will continue to apply.
Most importantly, every Renaissance student will have a seat at either buzz or Glenfield middle school.
Next slide.
Student transition timeline, we are committed to making the transition as
It's supportive as possible for students and families.
Families will have the opportunity to tour both schools and submit their placement preference.
That opened yesterday and we have extended it till April 17th to provide an opportunity for families to tour the school.
If you've already completed your application, you can go in at any time up until September 17 and
make changes as much as you need.
April, thank you.
April 17th, as many times as you need to.
So, placements notification will be provided in early made for current 6th and 7th grade Renaissance students.
Counseling and transitional supports will be available to help students make the adjustments socially and academically.
Next slide.
I want to take a minute to speak directly to what this transition means for the students currently attending Renaissance.
Current 8th graders will complete their final year at Renaissance as planned.
Their graduation and end of the year milestones will be honored in full.
We will rise in sixth and seventh grade students will transition to either buzz or
Glenfield, and we will work closely with families to support that process.
School counselors will be actively involved through the transition, helping students and
families navigate the change and support students socially and emotionally.
And finally, we recognize that Renaissance has a strong sense of community based on feedback from families and
what we have been able to see.
We will work to carry forward that culture, relationship and spirit of
in the receiving schools, as we work with current principal, Maria and our two middle school leaders.
Transitioning renaissance to a standalone early learning academy has projected an annual savings of $2.3 million based on staffing and operational analysis.
Actual savings may vary as transition planning is finalized.
These savings come from operational efficiencies, attrition, and staffing adjustment associated with operating two middle schools instead of three.
Staffing changes will follow established contractual and HR processes with opportunities for reassignment where possible.
Our reinvestment vision is the Montclair Early Learning Academy, our standalone pre-K program.
Next slide, expanding industry preschool also creates new opportunities for state funding
through the preschool expansion aid.
The district will pursue grants to offset playground development costs.
This reinvestment allows us to strengthen early learning while keeping the Renaissance building
and educational use.
Also due to a standalone pre-K, it will eliminate the need for multiple after-care shuttles and
and simplify routes and reduce transportation costs.
Next slide.
Additional revenue stream support the long term sustainability of this model.
This includes state preschool expansion aid funding, expanded classroom capacity at Renaissance site,
and the long term lease arrangements that offset operational costs.
Beginning with the 2627 budget, the district will also implement a per-people withholding from community preschool providers,
which is allowable under the preschool expansion guideline.
Currently, the district covers a number of supports used by all mini-mountsy classrooms,
including staffing, programming supports, and professional development.
Moving forward, a portion of those shared costs will be distributed across all the classrooms
through a modest, per pupil withholding, creating a more balanced and
equitable funding structure between district operated and community provider classrooms.
Together, these elements strengthen the district's financial outlook and support the long-term
sustainability of the Mini-Mounty Program, Mini-Mounties, Mini-Mounties.
Next slide.
The Renaissance building, as I said, will be used for early childhood education.
Many classrooms already have in-room bathrooms and the facility requires minimum renovations.
The building also has an outdoor space that can support an age-appropriate playground development.
Go
one slide, I think you're one slide ahead of me.
Demand for preschool of Montclair strong with more than 180 students currently on the wait list.
This site would allow us to add additional classrooms and expand access to early learning.
The expansion also supports the state goal of providing preschool access to a larger portion of eligible students.
Next slide.
This proposal presents a strategic reinvestment in Montclair students and families.
Following today's, following tonight's discussion, the board will consider action on the proposal and submit required, and that we will submit required documentation by the county office.
If approved, we will begin transition planning and family communication immediately.
Our goal is a smooth launch in 2627 with two middle schools and the Montclair Early Learning Academy.
Next slide.
And before I conclude tonight, I want to acknowledge something that has been present throughout this conversation.
For many families, Renaissance is more than a building.
It is a community.
It is a place where students have built friendships,
developed confidence and experience learning in a way
that felt meaningful to them, that history matters
and the deserves to be recognized with respect.
At the same time, our responsibility as a district
is to look not only at where we have been
but in what our students need moving forward.
The enrollment realities, financial pressures
and opportunities before us require thoughtful,
long-term decisions about how we organize our schools and invest our resources.
The proposal presented tonight reflects an effort to meet that responsibly.
It aligns our middle school structure with the number of students we serve today,
while allowing us to expand access to early, high quality early childhood education for our youngest learners.
If the board chooses to move forward with this proposal, our focus will immediately turn to supporting families and students through the transition.
We will work closely with our school leaders, counselors, and staff to ensure that every
Renaissance student is welcomed, supported, and connected in their next school community.
The goal of this work is not simply operational efficiencies.
The goal is to ensure that monthly public schools remain strong, sustainable, and able to
provide a meaningful opportunity for students today and for the generation of children who will
come through our schools in the years ahead of us.
These are not easy decisions, they are not decisions made with care, with data and deep commitment to the students and families we serve, thank you.
Are there any questions while Mrs. Turner is making her way back?
Eric Scherzer and then anyone else on?
I know that you said that there are 16 classrooms there.
How many do you expect we'll have early, we can't students next year and how many will
be for the future?
Have a sense of that so far.
Yeah, I believe in the presentation I said currently we'll have 11 classes with part of our
Our requirement for the grant is that we expand every year, so we'll be at about 68% and then that will also allow us to grow out in the years to come with our preschool expansion grant.
And so we're at capacity.
There are no further questions.
We'll move to the committee as a whole, starting with curriculum.
Good
evening.
Is it on?
Good evening.
Board President Booth Knight, Vice President Shaw, Superintendent Turner and members of the board.
My name is Erica Pearson.
I'm the District Testing Director.
Today, I'll be reviewing the new Jersey Adaptive Statewide Assessments, what changes are happening,
and what staff and family should know as we move into the spring 2026 testing cycle.
Next slide.
So what's changing, one of the biggest changes this year is that New Jersey has launched
adaptive versions of the statewide assessments in English language arts and mathematics.
These adaptive tests will replace the previously fixed form tests aligned to the New Jersey
student learning standards.
What makes the test adaptive is that the questions adjust in real time based on how students respond.
So if a student answers correctly, the next question may become more challenging.
If they struggle, the test may provide a slightly easier question.
This allows the assessment to give more accurate and personalized measure of what each student actually knows and can do.
Next slide.
So the adaptive model aims to and was designed with several goals in mind.
First, it aims to reduce testing anxiety by presenting students with questions at better
match their ability level.
Second, it helps better pinpoint student understanding, allowing educators to identify
strengths and areas where additional support may be needed.
Third, the adaptive format provides more efficient testing, meaning the system can gather accurate
information with fewer unnecessary questions.
And finally, it improves the accuracy of test results giving educators and districts more
precise data about student learning.
Next slide, please.
So before fully implementing the adaptive test statewide, New Jersey conducted a fall field
test in 2025 from October 27th through November 14th.
The field test allowed the states to calibrate and finalize test questions.
These results were not reported to schools or students because the purpose was purely
developmental.
So, when I went around to all the schools during field testing, I would tell the students
that you're testing the test, the test is not testing you.
Looking ahead to spring 2026, the NJGPA adaptive will be administered March 16th through March
20th for 11th grade students, and this assessment is a graduation assessment.
and the NJSLA adaptive will be administered April 27th through May 22nd for students in grades 3 through 9 in English, language arts and math.
Next slide please.
Okay, so what parents need to know?
Similar to the prior format, although the test format is changing, many aspects remain the same.
The assessment is still aligned with the New Jersey Student Learning Standards and will continue to be administered online.
student performance will still be reported using performance levels one through five.
However, certain sections will now be adaptive. For example, ELA reading and
mathematics sections will adjust to student performance, science, and writing will not.
Other parts of the test will remain non-adaptive, including the writing section, as I just said,
And the end.
NJSLA Science Assessment. Additionally, all 11th grade students will take the NJGPA adaptive to meet the state graduation assessment requirement, unless they qualify for an approved alternative assessment. Next slide.
Students who receive accommodations will continue to receive the supports they're entitled to. These include accommodations such as extended time, text to speech or speech to text tools, braille or tactile supports, highlighting tools and screen contrast options.
and these accessibility supports remain consistent with prior statewide assessments
and will still be available on the new testing platform.
Next slide.
As we prepare for spring testing, students are encouraged to begin familiarizing themselves.
Excuse me, staff and students are encouraged to begin familiarizing themselves
and students with several important components.
First, is the TIDE platform, which replaces the previous Pearson Access Next platform.
Students will also practice with sample questions which include built-in testing tools such
as rulers, calculators, and highlighting features.
In addition, schools will ensure students understand how to use their test user names and passwords.
At the district level, we will also continue preparing by communicating with families, confirming
technology readiness and coordinating testing schedules within the testing window.
Next slide.
So a common question that I've received is, how will the state compare results from the
previous test to this new adaptive test?
Even though the format of the test has changed, the standards and expectations remain the same.
The state has statistically aligned the new adaptive assessments with previous versions
to ensure performance levels present the same academic expectations.
Performance levels will still range from level one, which indicates expectations were not met.
To level five, which indicates expectations were exceeded.
This allows the state and districts to continue analyzing subgroup trends,
growth patterns within grades, cohort comparisons over time,
and the percentage of students meeting graduation standards.
Next slide.
So that concludes today's overview of the NJ Adaptive Statewide Assessments.
Thank you for your time and attention.
And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
Does anyone have any questions?
This is, so I appreciate, I don't think this is working.
So I appreciate that the test is going to reduce kids anxiety.
and I think that's awesome that's adjustment as you go.
But I'm wondering like how is it possible because I find like when we're looking
to find gaps in student knowledge, especially when there's cohorts that show
like systemic deficits, we know that's where we have to target like
up in our instructional game and you know helping the students in those areas.
How will the test find those areas if like as you get to a question
and it's too hard to do, you're not doing it, so it doesn't test keeping track, I guess
it is, of what questions are absent, and if they're absent for a large group of children.
So, these are questions that I also have. And so, I think what we're going to have to do this
here is just kind of live through it, because I want to see to your point, since it is adaptive,
Let's say you have a student who is progressing quickly, it will give you like they give us
blueprints, right?
So let's say hypothetically for the reading section, you have a maximum of 36 questions.
Now you could have a kid that flies all the way through and gets to the max of 36,
or a student who does not fly through and gets to the max of 15.
And since it's adaptive, I'm interested to see for myself how those scores are measured.
So I have a lot, I'll say, I'll end by saying I have a lot of questions too.
So I'm interested to see what the data looks like when we get it back in the summer.
And along those lines, not just about comparing years, but I think people often look at comparing
amongst districts like that's very unclear to me if this test no longer seems to be standardized
because you're adapting as you go, how can it be possible?
That's a good question.
Yeah.
Thank you.
That's a good question.
Ms. Ramon.
I had to say, that was where I was going with it, too.
And also, if a student is, as you say, they get to a question, and they can't master that
question.
So now it's adapting to go down whatever, right, and give you a different question.
Does it then go back up?
does it try to, after the student's attempted be the lesser of the problem, you know, let's
say it's a math, right?
And again, to a problem, and that problem is too difficult for the student to answer.
So it adapts, and it gives the student a lesser level question, then what?
Right.
Does it stay at that level?
Does it then switch over to something?
These are, you know, again, to Melania, to Ms. Tysha's point.
What then?
Because what are we really measuring, then, is, right?
If their classmate is flying through, like, so that was where I was going with that as well, so.
No, and.
Erica, can you, because I want you to be a bit more clear as to why you may not have answers.
I know you've been with your colleagues at trainings and things of that sort.
So I just want you to provide for the public as to why they may be some lack of clarity, because we've not received very many answers.
in terms of this of this new test.
So this is my second year being the district testing coordinator,
but I was the school testing coordinator for years before that,
as the assistant principal at Glenfield.
And this is the first time that we have received something
that was so new and the state is literally changing things
like by the week, so we're getting updates.
So I'll give you an example, when I went to the in-person state training last week, the information and the updates that they gave were different from the updates, sorry, then the training slides that we got two weeks prior.
So it's literally changing as we're going week to week.
So we're learning about this testing.
So I'm sitting in a room with probably 250 other administrators
across the state, and we're all asking similar questions,
like what is scoring going to look like?
To the point, like with the blueprint,
like how do you compare if a kid got to 35 and another kid got to 15?
And then the other thing that came up last week
that I thought was really interesting was students are not permitted to skip questions because
if they skip the question, the next question won't load, so that's the first thing.
The second thing is let's say you get to question number five and you look back at question
number three and you're like, I didn't answer that right, let me change that.
Remember that question number three determined the questions that you got for four and five,
But since you answered four and five already, the questions that you get from six on are now going to be dependent on that answer that you changed at three.
So to answer all, so you see what I'm saying, there are so many questions that we can't answer yet because this test is so new.
And I don't know what the scoring is going to look like.
So as a parent, my first question was, okay, if you're changing the platforms,
how are you going to be able to compare the data between the two years?
And again, if they're using the same proficiency scores of one through five to measure growth,
to measure proficiency, then that's kind of what we're going to be using for this year.
But again, I don't know what score reports are going to look like,
and things are changing by the week.
So that's one of the reasons why I'm not super clear,
but nobody in the state really is.
I just have one question.
The TIE.
What does it stand for?
I'm sure it's an item.
Oh, my.
TIE could, yeah, I don't think you have that.
The acronym stands for, but it's a totally different platform
than piercing.
And so the staff, myself included,
We're learning how to use this platform and in some ways it is more user friendly and other ways it's not.
We're still learning.
Test information distribution engine engine.
So that's the other thing too.
So when we're training the staff, the good thing is that we had the field test in the fall.
So nobody will be looking at this platform for the first time.
but it's still very different from the Pearson platform that we had been using for the last eight to ten years.
So, then I want to follow up. So that means that the students will not have had much practice on this platform as well.
Staff and students. Right.
It's done.
Okay. I don't want to be labor at any points because I know that there's not clarity on this.
When we're talking about the proficiency for the students and it sounds like the test,
maybe AI somehow is able to feed the students right and based on how they're performing on a question
and when we're looking at the proficiency, do you know yet if it's going to
Do D must student proficient or not, does not meet standards based on the line of questioning.
They're doing or based on, you know, if the standards for grade, you know, nine look
like this or great, you know, whatever student is taking the test, is it considering that
and or is it considering where the students are?
Do we know that don't, if you don't know it, it's okay if we don't know that yet.
I just wanted to...
I'm not sure yet.
Okay, thank you.
But it's a very good question and I'm making notes of all of these questions, not just as a
district testing coordinator, but as a parent of middle school kids that are also going to be
taking this adaptive test. So I will get back to you. Thank you so much. Absolutely.
Ms. McBee. Thank you. I know for next year, thank you. We are considering reducing some of the
The Chromebooks for the elementary school students, and this is an online test.
There's not a way to print this out since it's adaptive, right, is so would students
get like additional practice time, the third through fifth graders before they go into
it?
So we are encouraging, and this is what we've done in previous years, regardless of adaptive
or not.
We've always encouraged the staff to start using, like exposing the kids to like practice
this test so that they're familiar with the format,
they're familiar with the type of questioning,
they're familiar with the platform.
So that should be happening between now
and when the testing window opens at the end of April.
This is long.
Great.
When, with all the changes,
when should we expect another update?
So a letter is gonna be coming to parents
from the district after spring break,
the first week in April,
letting you all know that this test is coming.
It's gonna be a summary of the information
that I just gave.
and it gives you like three weeks notice that the test is coming.
And yes, I'm not gonna add that.
Are there any other questions?
Michelle has a question.
I just have a quick question.
What was the reasoning behind kind of making an adaptive test?
Is there like a reasoning behind?
Yes.
What student does that benefit?
I have an answer for that.
Give me one second.
I actually wrote it out.
So, Michelle, I'm psychic. I knew this question was coming. And so, the state actually gave
an answer, and it's why is the state implementing a new assessment. New Jersey has implemented
new adaptive assessments to provide a more personalized testing experience for students,
more timely data, and to align the assessments more closely with the 2023 New Jersey student
learning standards for English language arts and mathematics. You're welcome.
Any other questions?
Thank you, Ms. Piers. You're welcome. Thank you. We'll now move to finance and facilities.
I'm sorry, policy.
So I believe this Perez is going to present. We talked about this a little bit.
But we're going to flip it just a little bit, I guess, so she can go first.
You're presuming you're presenting on 5312, 565312, and toileting and diapering.
Okay.
Good evening, President Booknight, Vice President Sean, and the mother members of the Board
of Education.
My name is Carla Perez.
I'm the Director of Early Childhood Education and Grants.
Tonight I'm presenting two updates, one to an existing policy and regulation, and one new
policy to ensure that all of our policies fully reflect our preschool program and align
with New Jersey Statue and Early Childhood Best Practices.
As we know, our preschool program has continued to expand based on preschool expansion aid and
it's become more important that our district policy explicitly includes our preschool students.
These updates are going to ensure legal compliance.
Science, operational clarity and developments, the appropriate practices across all preschool classrooms and in our district. Next slide.
So the in 5600, so instead there's not crossed out or anything. So this is explicitly being added as under a special population for preschool students under. Special of populations on page one. So these are just going to ensure that we are under New Jersey public law.
2016, chapter 45, that preschool students and roles in a district may not be suspended
or expelled, except under the Zero Challenge for Guns Act. This amendment ensures our policy
reflects the state requirement, and it also clarifies that early dismissal or class removal
due to behavior, which sometimes is referred to as a partial suspension, is not an appropriate
response for preschool age students. Next slide.
And
it goes, it's continued on to that page, um, next slide.
So why this matters, um, it ensures compliance with statute, it aligns with what's required
under a preschool expansion aid, um, it also aligns with eckers, which is the early child
and environmental rating scale, and are grown New Jersey kids quality standards, it establishes
developmentally appropriate discipline practices, and it doesn't alter what's already in place
for K to 12 discipline policies. Next slide.
So for preschool students, it's important that
we know that we can't suspend, we can't expel, and that we have other processes in place
to support our students. So behaviors are addressed through intervention. That's why we have a
preschool intervention and referral team. That team is comprised of a preschool intervention
and referral specialists who focus on behaviors primarily in the classroom using different assessments.
We have preschool instructional coaches that not only support our classroom teachers, but
also our students.
We have a preschool social worker who works with students and families.
And we have a parent, community parent involvement specialist, lots of acronyms in Pre-K.
As well as what's unique to our district.
we also have a special ed consultation
teacher at the preschool level.
In addition to that, it's the restorative
and strength-based practices that support
all of those pieces in the classroom,
and we make sure that we're not
using exclusionary discipline.
Next slide.
So in this part, on page nine,
we are adding language that, again,
addresses preschool only,
so that we're not changing any language
to K to 12. Next slide.
And this is where we're in the regulation now. So all of this is directly
in the regulation. I'm not going to read all of this to you. So next slide.
And then on page 10
in the regulation, under students with IEPs, we did red line one section. And now the screen is gone.
I have a copy in front of me, that speaks directly to the special ed portion and it says
before a suspension is considered for a student eligible for suspension under applicable
statute.
So just explicitly saying that it's only K-12 that can be suspended, so we're not including
pre-K in that next slide.
And then throughout the regulation, there's different tiers and associate responses, so just making it clear throughout the regulation, that preschool is not subject to those items that are listed in each of those sections.
Next slide.
Same thing there, under short term and long term, that it's only for K to 12 students.
Next slide.
So regulation 5600 really talks to those behavioral responses that were their
their their developer appropriate that there's tier behavioral supports that we're looking
for remediation rather than exclusion and everything we do. This year with the implementation
of the pertin we have a request for assistance process we built our MTSS system for our little
ones so that it is mirroring what is happening in the K-12 realm.
So that is something that is up and running, and we've been working really hard with our
many-mounties teachers to make sure that that process in place.
So it's always about prevention first.
We're looking at proactive classroom strategies and positive behavior supports.
That is why each of our picks and purrs have a certain number of classrooms so that they
are in those classrooms every week, making sure that the teachers and students have what
they need.
On-going family communication, we just sent out a survey to families and we're doing a monthly newsletter and we're starting workshops for families around what they're seeing at home as it lines with our classrooms behavioral coaching and school based other school based interventions.
Next slide.
And this regulation is consistent with the amendment for the policy. It's compliant with statute for preschool and all of the other pieces that we need to have in place under preschool expansion aid.
Next slide.
All right. Before we move into toilining and differing, are there any questions on either of those? No, perfect. Okay. Yes.
Yes,
I appreciate that we're coming into compliance with the state law and preschool.
It's called to, every time you said this, it's called to my attention that I guess we can,
we have suspensions of kindergarten to second, fifth grade students.
Is there any thought of,
because it's not explicitly addressed?
And I recall last year that we talked about a policy, if I'm incorrect people around
the board last year, that suspensions would require, or would go to the superintendent before
we initiate its suspensions, am I remembering that correctly?
But, but that's not in the policy and I wonder if as we're addressing this policy, whether we should also address that aspect.
Right. So there's no suspension of kindergarten. And I believe it was kindergarten through second grade. That's statewide. So I'll go back to that statute.
And yes, we can include it in policy. It was not policy. We did not put in policy that suspensions.
that we would not be doing suspensions.
The procedure was we would, any suspensions would go before the superintendent or
designee before the suspension occurred for looking at alternatives to out of school suspension.
But we did not put it in policy.
You can have that discussion if you'd like to have it in policy.
You can also take the policy and build on our regulations, which is more appropriate, I think.
I think you are correct, Mrs. Turner.
Say that again.
That's it.
Either way, we should be addressing it and it seemed that we were missing the opportunity
here when we're bringing this policy and regulation in compliance for preschool children.
If it's clear that there's no suspension statewide for the youngest students, I think that should
I'm actually just looking at the law right now and it says for K through two that they
have one additional, so for pre-K it's the zero tolerance for guns act, but for K through
two there's additional exceptions for conducts that's violent or sexual in nature or that
it endangers others.
So those would be additions I guess.
Does the policy reflect that, that's when I'm asking?
It's in the statute.
So why don't we do this because I haven't read every piece of the policy and remember
off the top of my head.
It feels like we have to put these in regarding the preschool.
We can add if the will of the board, you know, the majority of the board is to specify, but
there may already be a statutory citation there that covers it as Ms. Mann pointed out.
I want to get these policies on, though, for first read just because we need to add the
preschool. Would it be satisfactory to the board to now that it's been read to move
forward with first read of the policy with the suggestions, or do you want to hold off
until we can take the time in between meetings to look at this particular piece?
Well, I think what we have established is our procedure is that if it's going to have
anything other than a grammatical change between first and second, we weren't going
to do it.
We were going to instead put it on for discussion again.
So, and that was, you know, we had talked about the norming in how we were going to conduct
as a committee of the whole.
So, I just want to get the feed on, they feel on what the will of the board is.
I feel that this is bad, Mark.
I feel that this in effect is a discussion.
I mean, I think it seems like everyone's in agreement, so.
So if we're in agreement, then in between before it comes up for first read, we'll add unless
it, if it's already there with the statutory citation, would that be satisfactory to the
board that this covers inclusion?
So we'll go through the policy, you know, I'll speak to Miss, I'm sorry, my colleague's
Dr. Harris in Crawford, and we'll go through it one week
because we meet before the meeting.
If, in fact, it's already in there,
then there's, you know, we will just add the changes
that Ms. Perez has gone over today.
If it is not in there, we will add something to the effect
that there will be no K-12 suspensions,
other than the statutory authority and the exceptions.
And then what was the other thing that was,
I thought someone mentioned something else.
the suspensions, all suspensions going through the superintendent that probably needs or
or designate but but not being kept at the building level. I think that's what we agreed on.
If that's the case, then that probably should go into the policy and whether it goes in before
the first read or after the first read is irrelevant to me as long as it before it's finalized.
I just agreed with myself. I thought we agreed that it would go into the regulation.
Yes.
I think it's more appropriate, situated there.
Okay, so we would add the all suspensions going through the superintendent piece of the regulation,
the part about located two suspensions, would that be in the policy as well or just the rag?
Okay, so we'll take those two suggestions, since the will of the board will just craft the
particularity of the language, any language changes or things that can be changed between
first and second-rate. So with that being said, any other questions for Ms. Perez on 5600?
Did you go to go further again?
No, no. Next is Toiletting and Differing.
Great. So we will allow Ms. Perez to do her presentation. Thank you.
Thank you.
All right. So the new policy, 51312, Toiletting and Differing. So because our program serves
three and four-year-old children, this policy provides clear guidance for staff and family
is while ensuring safe and consistent practices
across district and community classroom providers.
About toilet learning,
hyper and procedures, health and safety,
staff training and family communication.
Next slide.
So why are we creating this policy?
Our philosophy is that toiling
is an important developmental milestone
in early childhood.
Our policy recognizes that children develop
these skills at different rates
and treats toilet learning as a normal part
of a child's daily routine.
Teachers provide gentle guidance and encouragement
by working in partnership with families.
Children are never pressured,
shamed or who are storing the toil and process,
and accidents are treated as a natural part of development.
Next slide.
So by having this policy, it ensures
that we're being respectful, we're not shaming,
we have a universal policy,
and standards that everyone's following.
hand-washing and sanitation procedures aligned with our ECHR's early child's
environmental rating scale that we're making sure that our safeguards are in
place and that our staff is aware that it's happening. This policy also establishes
clear-difering procedures that follow universal health and sanitation standards.
These procedures include hand-washing requirements, use of gloves, sanitizing
surfaces, after-difering or toileting, and frequent checks to ensure children's
comfort and hygiene, and it's also viewed as a part of that process, a positive interaction
and nurturing caring between staff, which is a very prevalent throughout eckers.
Next slide.
So, we're doing this because we continue to expand and we need to make sure
that we have something in place for all of our mini-mounties classrooms. It protects our funding,
It reduces supervision and liability risk and ensures compliance with our regulations
and it provides operational priority.
Next slide.
So, and sorry, the next piece of with that is that we're not, this is not an isolation,
obviously, that we work with our families, communicating regularly with them about the
toiliness readiness for our students and their progress and making sure that we're aware
of any cultural preferences or what's happening at home so we're having that home
just school connection.
We continually train our staff throughout the school year as we see children are developing
and chair best practices with them as children get older and that they become more independent
and encouraging that independent. And recognizing that it's a developmental milestone
and none of this is obviously a disciplinary issue. If we have an accident, we have an accident
and we go about our day, and that's it.
So any questions about toileting and diapering?
Never, never, did I think I would be standing at a podium
speaking about toileting and diapering?
But here I am.
I am living the dream.
I know one question did come up about who pays for the supplies? All of that, if a child
is still toileting and differing, the parents are required to provide the pampers or the
pull-ups, as well as the whites. The only thing we provide is the gloves for our staff.
I actually had a question because it references the Mini-Mounties program, but presumably this
covers any child who may be in encourage, who is still toileting as well.
Any other questions?
Okay. Sorry, just one question. So thank you for the clarification. Is that
aspect worth putting into the policy? That it would be the responsibility of the
parent or family?
Okay.
Okay. Thank you.
All right. So the other policy with presentation
was going to be statutory curricular requirements policy 2422, which was before us previously.
There were some questions and concerns from the Board, and Ms. Pierce will present again.
And then if you have questions, we can ask answer.
So, good evening again.
This will be relatively brief.
So, for policy 2422, we received advice from Strauss S. May advising us not to remove
any articles that were placed in the policy for uniformity.
We agree that adding the boards for recommendations for a Holocaust education, media and information literacy, climate change, and the Amistad curriculum could be added, it would just require legal advisement and more conversation.
And just to provide additional clarity, because we were not sure what the understanding was when we presented this.
This is allowing families to opt out.
So I just want to be very clear.
I know you guys said, add these things.
But that means that this would then allow families to opt out.
I do have some personal, very, and professional strong feelings around opting out of historical facts.
So I just want to kind of pose that concern.
our sentiment in discussing this as a senior team is that if you get to opt out of one
curriculum, you're opt out of all of them. So I just want to make sure that there was an
understanding as we were having this discussion what and it's okay what the board was asking.
So as we said we're still awaiting to get some concrete legal feedback and then we'll circle back
again but I just want us to think about that. I appreciate the explanation but then the
question, like kind of flips on itself. And I do think Amistad's already listed out separately,
but then why do we list out AAPI and Amistad? Why are we giving people, you know,
celebrating the achievements of our disabled community? Like why are we giving people the opportunity to
why not, it falls under the one that the bucket won about everything being covered?
Right. And again, you know, we live in interesting times. I'll leave it as that. Things have changed in terms of our government and fairness and equity over some time.
So we get sometimes these mandates that says that folks, you know, should be able to opt out. Of course, we will align with anything that is legally that we're obligated to.
So that's why I said we needed to do a little bit more checks in terms of the legal stature and what legal counsel would say about that before presenting or doing something, you know, that unknowingly might not be appropriate.
I guess my question then would be if you're looking into this stuff.
Can we eliminate AAPI?
can we eliminate, um, the study can we eliminate LGBTQ?
So we're checking about in terms, what, you know, I mean,
because we don't want any kind of liability, so concerns there.
One of the conversations, I actually asked that question
when Dr. Harrison Crawford and I have this conversation,
because I said exactly what you said, Melanie, which is,
well, then flip it around.
Are we allowing us to opt out?
AAPI was specifically added based upon the policy alert
from Strauss Esme, indicate they're the ones
to added the AAPI in it based upon NJSA, 18A, colon 35-4.4, which discusses the curricular
requirement. But then I went in and I read the opt out provision in 24-22, and that
talks about a particular statutory provision, 18A, colon 35-4.7. Any student whose parent
presents to a principal assigned statement that any part of the instruction in health, family
life education or sex education is in conflict with his slash her conscience or sincerely
held moral or religious beliefs shall be excused from that portion.
So you know, based upon misturner's representation, and speaking with legal counsel, that may
be a way for us to keep the AAPI in there and students may not be able to opt out with it
because that's not about health, family life education.
Correct.
And again, even though I'm not giving legal advice, I would rather our real attorneys do
that for us.
But that may be the explanation to why we can have it in there, and then it becomes the question, does the board want to, then okay, if you can't opt out of it, add all of these other things.
And I had also done a search, some of the other things that we've talked about, the Amistad and the Holocaust education, those are in a different policy that was 2260 about equity, and that also talks about the New Jersey learning standards.
And there also is a catch-all provision in the proposed, not the, I mean, it's in 24-22
as it exists now, it just is a little bit of a wording change, covers anything that's
a part of the New Jersey learning standards, which again includes the climate change, the
meat truth and media or whatever that particular wording is, all four of the things that, you
know, Ms. Pierce had mentioned are a part of that.
So there are the options there, but my understanding then is we're not going to move forward with
first read still on this, that we're still waiting for legal discussion, so for moving things
along, then at this point, unless the board has a strong feeling, we'll wait for that legal
discussion, and then I don't know what the board's will is in terms of, do we, if the lawyer says,
if you add these, people can opt out of them, do we want to specifically spell these out, or are we
just okay with the catch-all provision.
Alison, where is the opt-out language in this thing?
Can you point it out to us in the regulation, in the policy?
The last
case that the way the team is is nothing.
So
we don't have to bring this back again for discussion.
Do we want to, what is there a feeling either way?
I added, don't add it, we're okay with the catch-all.
Correct, I just, you know, that's fine,
because I'm just worried that if we have to wait
for the return, then we have to bring it back
for discussion again before it's, you know.
No, we just don't give you that.
Yeah.
Well, if you are taking feedback, can I give some on this?
Okay.
For the, I don't like the catch-all,
if there's a way that we could separate it out,
that would be great.
If that is, do we do this in Genesis at the beginning of the year
where people have to opt in, so it would just be separate line items that would make mandatory
to start.
Okay, yeah.
I don't know.
I do believe there's a form.
I don't know if it specifies, again, just the health, physical education, family life.
I think it's actually called family life or something like that before.
So we got one opinion that if it doesn't allow the opting out that we want to include these
four provisions, specifically spelled out like the AAPI is spelled out in all the other
one.
My
question is, would that present a problem with scheduling?
No.
These are already legal requirements, by the way.
I know.
There's nothing that this policy is going to change in terms of what happens in practice presumably in our district because we are already legally required to do all of these things.
I know that what I'm saying is that they opt out each one separately.
Will that present a problem with scheduling?
Again, I'm pretty sure it's just the family life and in the health, it usually just has
to do with health education.
It is.
And the catch-all tactic is already in there, so that's why I don't think it will impact
any.
Also as I read it, it says any student who's parent that signs it that any part of instruction,
Not even the entire course, but this particular part, they can, you know, be exempted.
I apologize. There's an area that literally says list the topics.
So, yeah, so if you put it in there, you just get a contact, but there is a space for that.
Any other, anything from Pierce? Was there anything else?
No, not at the start.
Any questions?
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
So the other particular policies listed in there were a couple of things I wanted to just mention when we're done,
but there were two other policies that are really just for board discussion.
that was policy zero, excuse me, these are bylaws actually 0164, which is conduct of board meeting
and 0167, which is public participation in board meetings.
These were requested by Board President Vooknite to be brought forth before the board for discussion.
Really, if there's nothing that anybody has objection with to change, there's no action we need to take.
They just remain as they are.
but if there was something that anyone wanted to bring up,
discuss, change, address, this is the form.
I wanted to look at the way that we want to get to,
I'm opening up the policy.
We have in policy 0164, we have it, you know,
the way that the order of business shall follow,
resolution for executive session.
I want to take that part out to just allow us to go straight to executive session and then come out to the public at 730 or the board meeting. You have to open in public.
You have to open the meeting in public and then go into exactly. We would so that there was no statue.
Yeah, we were told that there's no statue and there is actually there is go. You have to open the meeting in public.
Okay. You could open the meeting in that room in public. Okay. But you do have to open the meeting with the door open and open to the public and then do a resolution to go into executive session.
Okay.
All right.
I thought, because we did ask that question and they told us that there was no statute legally, but okay, this is admin, you know, I will double check, but I'm pretty sure.
So there is a statute, New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act, NJSA 1046-10421, or Sunshine Law, requires all meetings of public bodies to be open to the public with limited exceptions.
So we know the meeting has to be or saying in terms of we were told that we can go straight
to executive session because that's not a public meeting.
So we're wondering just for the sake of saving time, if that's the case to change the order
of.
I will double check tomorrow, but it's been my belief for a long time that you have to open
in public and then go into executive session.
Okay.
We can always come back.
We'll come back to them.
Speaking of the order of business, I know we're recently putting on the President's report.
Is that worth including in this as well?
Yes, it is.
So add the President's report.
It says Board of Education report, so should that change to, I think that is the, well it says,
What is this?
That look at the order, it says resolution for executive session, executive session, return to open session statements. And that would be, that would be your statement. So we do need to put it in. President's report. So at that point, if the statements, right? I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Sorry. Are we talking about on the policy, you're adding president's statement.
And we have to, because on our agenda, it says that statements, it says needing notice
and president's report on the statements.
Yeah, but I think to Carrie's point, which is worth noting that if that is how we are
going to do the order, we should put it in here so that it outlives everybody.
But my question about that is there's a segment here down here that says Board of Education
Reports.
I think we should eliminate that and then add the president's report.
So looking down from chronological the way it's listed, some of this is kind of out of order as well.
So we have resolution for executive session, executive session, return to open session.
Then we usually do the pledge of allegiance.
Next, then we have the statements, then the president's report after statements,
Then roll call should actually go right after return to open session, right?
Okay.
And then.
This is still.
Well, I guess we're going to have to.
So Miss Sullivan was correct.
It says before going into a closed session.
A public body must first adopt a resolution at a meeting, which is open to the public stating.
the general nature going into closed session and the time when the information
discussed in private wouldn't will come back out so that is correct. That's
an incorrect interpretation. That's what I do miss. I'm just reading.
I'm just reading. The statute. I'm sorry, I'm on the ACLU New Jersey page. It's part of the open public meeting.
It's just under the sunshine law. So we'll agree that we have to open here
or in public in some form of fashion, there has to be a resolution on the record to go into the executive session.
That's why you have to open publicly to, I guess, technically to the resolution.
So we're down to, we did the president's report.
The next, we usually do minutes after superintendents report, because we usually just adopt those.
We vote on them. So next would be superintendents report as eight.
What would come after that on our current, well today is a workshop.
The next would be the Board of Education Reports doesn't really apply to our current structure.
So we'll eliminate that.
Comments from the public on a workshop we're doing after we do our committee.
So why don't we put for nine committee as a whole if applicable because we don't do that
on every meeting we do that on workshops only.
if applicable. I'm trying to take notes, Dr. Harrison Crawford. And ten.
So ten would be
committee of a whole. We don't have a pupil service. Well, that comes when we get into our
business portion. So then minutes would be next, because we usually vote on those before we get
into the other business items. So that would be ten minutes,
or we do, actually comments on the public
next. Eric. This this level of detail I don't know that we have to do in this meeting. So
exactly. Julie noted excellent and and and in fact to talk about the committee of the whole to
if it fits I don't know if it does but in any event it doesn't seem like a good use of our time.
Yes.
Being said, and he was like, that's right.
Oh, but seeing, would you like me to why you're doing whatever you're doing?
Because Mr. Surgeon has a.
Yeah.
Go ahead and.
Another comment.
Here it says the board secretary in the superintendent shall prepare an agenda.
Doesn't the president and the vice president have a role in that?
So I think.
So that then that should be changed and then, you know, maybe the agenda should be approved by the by a vote of the board or it can be adapted by a vote of the board.
Okay. I don't know if this is in this one or the next one, are you separating the two
Alice and I'll hold off on public participation to laugh to you, Don, what does? Are you
taking both of them together?
Any other things I should take notes down or major changes?
So I will add language about the agenda in consultation with the Board President in terms of the agenda
and then fix this order, and then we'll send it around.
And that's the only thing for 0164.
Okay, let's move on to 0167, anything anyone wants to discuss?
A couple of things.
Small thing is that it says here in the policy,
the board, each, first page, 0.1,
Each agenda shall allow key charted organizations with form of relationships to have designated
time upon request.
I think we need to be more specific about that.
I've said this before.
They need to request to the president in advance so we don't waste time wondering if someone
has something to say.
So I'd like to, that is a small thing to be clarified.
In general, this is a policy on public participation and I didn't really look at it in this light because I wasn't sure what we were doing with it as it was on the agenda.
It's listed as discussion, but some other things are listed as discussion.
I think we need to clarify the agenda to be clear which items we're voting on.
So in fact, you know, later on on the agenda today, there's approval of calendar, which
I know we're going to be voting on, but there's also a question under business that says school
funding formula. I think we're voting on that too. And, you know, some of the board members
wondered if we were voting on some of these policies. So I would suggest that we just be very clear
on our agenda for ourselves and for the public, which items that we're voting on.
And then, finally, I think we need to change the tone of this article on public participation.
It's mostly about how we're going to limit it and how we're going to interrupt or warn,
and no way shape, but we say, in the beginning, we want to encourage it.
But especially in light of the vote yesterday and the divisiveness of all of this, you know, we ought to be giving some thought to how we can improve public participation and taking suggestions from board members and the public about how we do that.
I'm not saying that this is the time to do that, but I would like the tone of this policy to
be more of that ilk than what we're not going to do. So we have these board norms. So is that
more so what you're talking about board meeting norms that we have implemented? I was going to say
that needs to kind of probably be implemented into this policy. That's fine, but I'm thinking more
in the range of how we build and encourage public participation and fruitful dialogue.
I don't have a lot of suggestions about that, but I'm sure that there are some out there
and I'd love to hear them.
Well, I think we've established, as President Book Knight stated, these norms about it not
being a dialogue specifically, it was one of the norms, and that I definitely agree we
should incorporate those in, so I don't know exactly what more you're asking for, because
some of that would be contrary to all of these norms that we had just agreed upon.
And I just want to add that we're having a meeting in public, not with the public.
So we're not going back and forth with the public on certain issues.
So I'm not sure if that is something that we should be putting into a policy to our bylaws.
If I may, I think there are certainly opportunities that could be created for that outside of this format, and I know we've talked about those like a community engagement with the board, where the board provides opportunity to hear from the public in the way that it is not, you know, in this meeting where we just have the three minutes or there's limitation of engagement.
So I think that certainly could be something that the Board can do and consider doing, right?
So that community engagement and community voice is deeply heard, and there's, as we said,
a back and forth dialogue when it's appropriate.
I think that's a good suggestion, and maybe the title of this is what gives me problems because
this is very specific to public participation in board meetings, and we had talked in our
governance document, for example, of we call them town halls or community forms or something
like that.
I've said before, we haven't laid specific plans for when we're going to do that.
There's no policy that really addresses that, and I'd just like to encourage that sort
of opportunity for public participation.
I don't know where it fits, and I'm open to some, it's fitting in some other place.
And I hear you, but just like this 0167 says public participation in board meetings.
So it could be public participation and a whole nother by law in town halls or however
community engagement with the board or something, change the title and add another by law.
I think and I don't know for sure if this was like a by law that was from Strassezme just
talking about this particular forum and so that's a whole different ball game. We're just talking
about this particular forum of our public meetings and I do want to note there's some things in
here that I'm looking at it. We might want to change like it talks about the ability to speak twice
and I know yeah so we'll remove about the second comment. I think that came from an attention
long ago to try and streamline agenda versus non-agenda that really didn't work out in practice the way
we had hoped. So we need to take that back. And then there's something here about like
limiting during the second public comment portion by that all public comments are limited to
the three minutes that we had agreed upon. So what I'll do is integrate because I don't want to go
through this and take the time tonight. Everything that's up there on the board norms into this and
make changes and I could red line and send it around to the board. And then we can talk about it for
the one quick little and it's just a small thing. The cuddle of time. Let's just mention when the
cutoff time this, right? So people win. Yeah, so it's in there for sign up. Yep. Just so that it's clear. So no one can say, oh, why didn't know?
Well, it would be twice because we have public comment and before business on workshop meetings and public comment. Yes.
You know, in the beginning. So that might need to be the link which one is which. Yep.
Anything else that we want to talk about because otherwise it sounds like we're going to have to bring this back.
So there will be some significant changes with inclusion in the board norms.
So we can close out the conversation for today.
So those were the listed policies.
I just wanted to go over some stuff real quick.
So we're kind of prepared for what we're doing moving forward.
So we have alert 2236 coming up.
I spoke with Dr. Harrison Crawford.
These are still currently going around into the correct department with senior staff.
There's or due to, I believe, to superintendent Turner by March 24th with any recommended changes.
I'm not sure if we've sent around the alert for 236 but there's a list of all the policies
that we need to address who's taken care of them.
Those are due by then.
It will be to the board by, hopefully, March 31st.
So, well, thank you.
By March 31st, the board will get the policy with the suggested changes.
and then by April 15th, the hope is that those will be on for discussion and or, you know, I believe just discussion, not first read because we have the right to talk about it publicly.
So that's part one. The next thing, there were some policies that, you know, we had had on our radar, the cell phone policies still going through internal review and waiting for the final guidance from the state before we certain determined if we have to change what we had come up with.
I believe it was in the spring. Did you have something to say?
I don't know if Dr. Harrison Crawford had a chance to tell you, we're also looking
to update our technology policy.
So maybe in the April, what month are we in, I don't even know what month we're in.
Yeah.
It will end for the April meeting.
And does that include the AI?
Because I know Dr. Harrison Crawford had sent me some stuff about AI because that's obviously
the emerging technology, we need to make sure we're addressing in policy, so that's still
going through some review.
There's some preliminary stuff that I was sent, I'll try and I think it was sent to be
Electronically.
I can send it to the full board. I just,
the cell phone, I don't, I don't know because I think that is there's still waiting for Department of Education and all of the regulatory, you know, specifics to come through before we know exactly what we have to do. I mean, we spent a significant amount of time on that, but the AI I think is a separate thing and there's like a guidance booklet and everything. Mr. Long. Yeah, I was just be interested to see the AI policy kind of where we are. I got it last week. I just hadn't had a chance, but I'll send it around to everybody.
Anybody with Dr. Harsson Crawford said Eric?
Mr. Scherzer?
Yeah.
There, Alison is just a ton of things that we've just talked about.
Can we synthesize that into a summary of where we are with, you know, just one page on
different policies, send it around to the board so we have some understanding of the timing
and the schedule?
I don't want to speak for Alison because it will be Alison with Dr. Harsson Crawford, but
I want it to say and I don't believe that's what you're saying.
I mean, I think this is good for the public to know what's upcoming, because oftentimes
we will get feedback in our emails to say, have you considered this?
And we are working with our community who's really invested in this to help to make sure
that we include those consideration and voices in these very, very important policies.
We just be helpful to have this all down on one sheet that gives us some idea of what
the schedule is.
Well, after I finish my paying job that I'm incredibly stressed out from as I talked about
my stress dreams the other day, I will try to, but as Ms. Turner points out, you can always
go back and look at the recording and take your own notes.
But I will try my best.
Well, so we'll see, are you finished with giving us a list of things that are upcoming?
Okay.
Can I just, I just want to clarify something, lighten your load.
It is not for you, as chairpersons per se do.
It is for you to work with our with our team and we will help so I just want to be that very clear the expectation is not for you to necessarily as long as it's clear between you and Dr. Harrison Crawford.
What is the upcoming review for those policies?
We will then make sure that the board has that schedule and so I don't want you to be overloaded because that's not giving the update now.
So, thank you.
So, the next thing, this is a larger thing that I believe we're going
to need some participation. Every year we are required to kind of adopt again all our
mandatory policies. It used to be that the policy committee would divvy them up, review
them, see if there was anything that needed to be changed, edited, concerning, because
we are saying when we, you know, pass this resolution that we have reviewed all of them.
So do we want to have eyes on every policy that we actually have to review?
So Dr. Harrison Crawford will run an audit, which will list out all of our mandatory policies,
which are the ones where you see the M. I thought that was from Montclair for a while, but that's
actually for mandatory. What those are, and if it's the will of the board, we can then divvy them
up amongst the nine of us because there is no way. Now I'm going to be able to do it, and it shouldn't
And because it's about the full board looking at everything together.
So I just wanted to get kind of a sense of, is everybody desirous of doing it that way
where we can say, you know, Jada had policies X through Y and Melanie, Y through Z.
I think that is fake only fair.
Since we are no longer meeting as a committee of four.
And that's what we did.
so I think we'll take the weight off of you and out the haves and corporate as well as if we
chip in on this together. So she will run the audit and then we'll work together to divvy it up
and then we'll send it around and say that these are yours and we'll try and do it with enough
advanced time where everybody has because we do all have busy lives and things to do.
The other policy that we had brought up previously that still on radar was the attendance policy.
that's just, you know, on radar, we're quite busy, so it's not something at the current
moment.
And then, Dr. Harrison Crawford, you have to help me with this note, because I said,
I'm going to meet with you on 9-10, which I don't think is the intention to wait till
September 10th.
So I'll be in touch about when that, okay, that's where I thought it may have been.
Okay.
Great.
And that, I believe, is everything for the policy committee.
Thank you, everybody, for your patience and time.
We will now move to finance and facility with Mr. Scherzer and the a Sullivan.
First, we're going to have a presentation on the Sullivan.
Well, there's actually no presentations just to brief update.
So we still do not have state aid information.
We do expect to get that sometime tomorrow.
As a reminder, I know you all know next Wednesday night you have to adopt a tentative budget that we will submit to the county for their review and approval.
And then April 29th, I believe, is the public hearing on the budget.
If any changes need to be made, they'll be made after the public hearing and before the May 6th, I believe is the adoption.
So, that's kind of where we stand right now with the budget.
As for us, do you want me to move to the next item or any questions on that?
So, since the vote is not back and the preliminary budget is to the end of this month, do you
anticipate moving forward with a no-no, I will have the budget for a no-no because I can't
increase, I can't assume an increase in the tax level based on unofficial results.
So at this point, I will have to assume a no-no for budgeting purposes.
If something changes, then we will change that after the public hearing.
Other questions?
Next item is the corrective action plan.
So the auditors were here at the February 25 meeting.
They went through the corrective action plan.
And this every item that they gave you in that draft is in this plan, it's in a different
order.
I'm not exactly sure why it's in a different order, but it is.
And the only addition to here is method of implementation, person responsible and the date.
You'll see in a lot of cases, I put June 2026, that doesn't mean, in a lot of cases, it doesn't
mean that we're not already working on it, or that it's not already starting to be in place,
but it may not be fully in place.
There are a few items that are financial, meaning the fixed assets inventory is something
that we need to pay someone to do.
So we're going to try and see if we can contract to get that done in maybe over the summer depending
on whether or not we can fund it.
We're getting a proposal now to see how much it costs.
But that's the only thing that I think that has a financial implication to actually getting
that accomplished.
I did highlight in late blue the ones that I thought were more material than others.
Also number two, I didn't highlight, but that's probably also more material.
And again, these are all things that none of this was new information for me, of course.
And most of these things have all been addressed, started to be addressed, starting back in July.
So first of all, just to clarify, if anyone is trying to follow along between these numberings,
and the last report, they don't correspond, and that is just the way it is.
But the actual comments are the same, yeah. They're just in different orders.
Okay. They're in order to match the large document, the annual comprehensive financial report,
so they didn't have that finished when they did the draft, which is why it was in the different
order, I guess. So my understanding is that the audit is now finalized, is that correct?
And up on our website, right? Yes. And this is just in the last couple of days. Correct. We just got
the document, I don't know if it was Friday or Monday, but it's a full annual comprehensive
financial report, which is the huge document and then the orders management report, which is
the smaller documents are both on our website. And do we need to have a vote to approve that,
do we need to have a vote to approve the corrective action plan, what and when is that going to have them?
On the 18th, you will accept the audit, you don't have to approve the audit because
is you don't, you accept it and you approve the corrective action plan which then we will
submit to the state.
Okay.
So the votes for both of those things will be on the 18th.
Yep.
Okay.
Great.
Can
you comment just briefly on the $2 million in the past state grants that the auditor says
we should?
Sure.
So back in, I believe it was 2012.
We qualified for a number of what the state returns as rod grants, the rod being regular
operating districts.
With those rod grants, they were all for capital projects that were done 2013, 2014.
I believe it went into like 2015, 2016.
The paperwork was never submitted to get reimbursed for those grants.
So although the projects, of course, are finished and paid for, we didn't get reimbursements
from the state yet.
So we have $2 million of accounts receivable sitting on our books from the state of New
Jersey for those grants.
The grants, even if you do it timely, the paperwork is very voluminous and a real pain in the
neck to do.
It requires all kinds of information that we have to get from contractors, which is difficult on a good day.
But of course these projects are now over 10 years old or 10 years old in some cases.
So we are, you know, we just don't have the staff or the time to do it right now at some point.
Someone will have to focus on that, but we've had bigger fish to fry right now getting the other books in order.
But I do believe the state, the same person that works down at the state that works with
the districts has been working with the district for years.
He's very helpful.
He will work with us, I think.
So I feel confident that eventually we'll get that money.
We just need the body to actually find the papers.
And that money will become a part of our cash to pay down.
Correct.
That'll help our cash flow.
Yes.
other questions?
Thanks for outlining all this. It looks like there are a couple of instances
where the recommendation comes back with implementing or documenting new procedures,
but it sounds like that's not a requirement. So as long as you're actually doing the work,
which is what seems to be explained in the method of implementation that it's being done,
the work is being done, but you already talked about how you don't have enough bodies right now
to be doing extra writing new processes. So by doing the work, we're still meeting the
requirements. And so the recommendation of also establishing processes is just that would be like
an additional nice to have, which we're not in the position to do right now.
Well, we are establishing processes as well as we go along.
It's just, it takes time in a district this size to get everybody
heading in the right direction and doing following the right procedures.
It's not going to change overnight, but we are certainly working on doing that as we're going along.
I just want to bring that up.
You mentioned last time that there was a manual that you were working on where all of these things were being highlighted.
right? Right. So staff, right? We actually have two. One was a purchasing manual, which is done. That's done. Well, we haven't had time to do is train a lot of people on that because that takes time and, you know, but that that part is done. There's also a standard operating procedure manual, which has also been done. I did it. But there's it needs to go to different departments and it has been sent out to departments, but people need to look at that and make sure that what we have in there is really what's happening. And that's a time consuming time.
task. But it is the framework of that is is done. I think both of those things will in the summer
probably would be a time where we can really then start to get on track for September to get
everybody heading in the right direction. But as far as purchasing goes, I mean, that's a daily
thing that I'm interacting with people as I'm approving purchase orders and I see some kind of an
issue. I send the purchase order back to that person and say, oh, by the way, you did this wrong,
you have to do this so it's not like we're not addressing it at all it's just not you know we haven't
been able to do a full-fledged training for people.
Is the item 15 the is this a manual you're
talking about the district will develop a manual for maintaining school activity accounts or is
that separate? No that's a separate manual which I we haven't done yet. I do have a one from a
previous life. I have one from probably Montclair that I could update. But that's something
also that will require training school personnel because the school activity accounts are
handled at each individual school. That is in every district always more challenging because
you typically they're not staff that are used to working with numbers and not people that are
of financial. So that requires a little more training.
Again, probably something we can attempt to do in the summer. When I bring it up, this is a recurring item that's been flagged by other orders. It's not nearly as important as some of the other things but- It's been recurring since I've been here. And the reason for that is because it is not in the control of the business office that's in the control of each individual school. And that- It sounds like it should be under the control of the superintendent. It can't be. She can't keep track of-
No, I think if you insist that the principles do this, yeah.
But that's just so you understand, and I'm not minimizing student activity accounts
because that's also where you're most at risk, to be honest.
It's easier to have fraud there than it is in my office.
But every district has usually has the same issues because, again, the people that are usually
usually school secretaries who are not accountants or financial people.
But that would, we definitely before my time is done here, we will have a student activity
manual that we could use to train staff and I think people want to hopefully understand
the importance and call us if they need help.
One other item of some amount of size here, the duplicate purchase order for half a million
approximately half a million dollars of over its statement of expenditures and liabilities.
Yeah, that was one of, you know, as we were trying to close the June financials with
kind of the craziness that was going on. And this is one of the areas where edgimet is a problem.
It's not very easy to look at. It's hard to explain, but when you're looking at the outstanding
purchase orders that rolled over from one year to the other.
Their reporting is very convoluted, so I believe that was one of the utilities.
So we didn't see that the purchase order was there, and we issued another purchase
order to make sure the money was encumbered in 2425, and then it actually had been already
put up.
So it didn't get paid or anything, but it was, that's actually one of the problems with
That's those reports are convoluted in that respect on the carryovers.
Any other questions?
I have one more if nobody else says.
There's a lot here in the Corrective Action Report and the Corrective Action Plan.
Is it appropriate for the Board to get an update on progress in meeting all the goals that
are laid out here in six months or something like that. What should the board do to make
sure that the things that we say we're going to do we do?
Yeah, I think that's absolutely within the boards right and authority. I think we just
have to develop working with you as part of finance and facility to develop a timeline
that is going to be meaningful in terms of, you know, the audit and what we have to do.
But absolutely, I think that's accountability, and we, not only do we need to,
we will get better with these systems and structures.
It's just, to Dana's point, it's really overwhelming the amount of things that need fixing and
immediate.
But absolutely, and I think that would be setting that up as you chair the committee in terms
of timeline, and of course with Dana's lens in it, depending on what has happened, what
needs to happen, we certainly can do that.
Okay. Anything else, anybody? No? On two facilities. I know we have two presentations
which I hope will be succinct to the point.
I
will or you were Connor Connor still here oh yeah there he is which one's up person so my
presentation is going to lead directly into Connors and it's a it's a joint presentation we will
be short and sweet so thank you for having us this evening it's good to see you it's nice to meet
a few of you as well I am Will Ross from Peret Sonner Architects your architect of record and just to
We give you a brief background of who we are as a firm.
We've have 38 years in business, 32 of those years have been serving K through 12 clients.
We have 108 diverse team members and 23 of those are licensed, either architects, engineers,
interior designers, professional planners, and building inspectors.
Over those 32 years, we currently represent 80 K through 12 entities.
We've completed over 10,000 projects and over a billion dollars in construction.
Jumping into the referendum, I thought it would be a good time to do a brief recap and hit on some milestones of how we got here going back to the pre referendum.
So if we go all the way back to 2020 in March, about six years ago, that was when COVID happened and the buildings went unoccupied.
A few months after that, we did a district-wide HVAC analysis in hopes of getting the buildings
reoccupied as quickly as possible.
Then we went to the Board of School estimates a few times back then and requested funding
to do HAC improvements to get these buildings occupied.
That was in August and September of 2021, and then ultimately proceeding through capital
funds doing an emergency HAC project outside of the board of school estimates to get 66
spaces occupiable quickly to get schools open. That same month the district transitioned
from a type 1 to a type 2 district and then we moved into the pre-referendum planning
itself where in February of 22 we did a district-wide due diligence capital improvement plan to determine
and what would be included in the referendum.
We're closely with the Finance and Fille Facilities Committee
almost weekly and narrowed down a binder
that was probably five inches thick
to the referendum that we have in motion now.
In April of 22 applications were submitted to the DOE
in November of 22, the referendum passed
in February of 2023.
three legacy construction management joined the team and has been helpful ever since.
In May of 23, we had our referendum kickoff and groundbreaking ceremony.
And since then, we have awarded 26 construction projects.
About 14 of those are in either closed completely or in closeout.
and we have 11 projects in construction currently.
So just to brief highlight on some of the things
that were done over the last four years.
Lentil middle school, we did the X-tier curtain wall
and water infiltration improvements.
We replaced a bunch of windows.
Next,
the baseball field was relocated
and converted to turf.
Next, the football field was replaced, the visiting grandstands were replaced and not pictured here, the home side, grandstands and press box was replaced.
Next,
hillside schools, soccer field was renovated, drainage improvements and natural side.
Next, we did the hillside elementary school gym renovation.
We
did a district-wide playground replacements at six facilities.
Next.
We did a series of roofs.
This one here is hillside.
Replace this roof in his entirety.
Next is the slate roof at the Northeast School.
And is there anything else on mine?
That'd be it.
And now likes to take us through everything.
That's kind of in motion currently.
Thank you.
We'll deal with any questions, both of you together at the end.
So my name is Connor Bryan with Legacy Construction Management, the project executive
been here since February of 2023, as we'll mention.
So I just have an update here.
A lot of this stuff information, I'm going to breeze through as far as the slides, refers
to the website, the slides are the presentations there, and you can refer to a lot of the information
there.
So, a lot of the stuff is the boilerplate stuff I keep in there at all times.
This is the descriptions of the consultants involved, you can go to the next slide.
This is, again, the schedule I keep on a 12-month relative basis of where we're at and where
we're going to be in about 12 months, so you can go through the next couple of slides.
Again, please refer to the presentation that's posted,
keep going.
Project status overview, as we'll mention, we have several projects that have been completed
So there's a whole list of the projects enclosed out that again that means that the project has beneficial use for the school and we're just working through the closeout paperwork warranties and final payments.
So we do have several that are this month that have been closed out and we'll get that over to the district with the final paperwork under construction high school HVC, auditoriums at hillside as well as the high school district wide boiler replacements, buzz boiler replacement.
in district wide auditorium upgrades right here.
Finally, into this space with the curtain wall
and the glazing here.
Actually, I think it's an improvement
from what we usually see,
but we'll hopefully next time have actually completed glass
so you can see through it.
Pre-K and the admin roof.
So there's just some of the projects
that again we have under construction.
There's another slide with some
that we just started as well.
So you can go to the next one.
Hillside Auditorium. We're working through with the floors. Check the slides here.
Throughout the bottom here, I have the links for all the newsletter updates.
They'll have some pictures for everyone to see a little bit more. We have clouds installed.
Painting been completed. They're prepping for the new floor and then the seats will follow shortly.
Next slide. District-wide Auditorium upgrades. That's for some lighting and some rigging.
Those are through several schools throughout the district.
We're working through that with the time.
A lot of the schools use that space whether it's during the day or after school programs.
So we coordinate with the principals and the staff, and
we're working second shift with the contractors.
So next slide.
Pre-K, Roof Replacement.
Previously for the board members that were here, we talked about during the summer.
We came across an abatement that needed to be done.
that push the summer completion into the school year.
It's a pre-K as well as the admin building.
So we've been working one weekend with weather allows.
We had obviously a rough winter.
So with the improvement of weather,
we're going to finish over the next couple weekends.
Next slide.
Buzz Boiler replacement.
That started in just about as winter was starting.
We had an issue with some of the boilers.
So we had to bring in temporary boilers.
They've been there.
They will continue to be there.
and so we can efficiently change over to the new boilers.
So if you're a went by, you'll see a trailer in the parking lot.
That's a temporary boiler.
Next line, disrequired boiler replacement,
different contractor.
These projects have gone a lot smoother.
And we're near completion with those
or socially wrapping up in the next couple of weeks.
So you'll have brand new boilers at six different schools
next slide. The Georgianist's current wall and stored front replacement, this is this
project here and we did store placements over at the high school and that is high school
portion is complete. So hopefully in a couple weeks, this will be completed and we'll be out of the
way here. Next slide. High school HVAC upgrade. This is a very long project. We will not be finished
this until the summer of 2027. We are about to start the phasing into the classrooms.
We have coordinated with principal Freeman and his staff. Next week or two, we'll actually start
the full classroom. Couple classrooms will take over in the spaces. So hopefully, the next
update will have some exciting updates regarding that in this rain. Next slide.
Initiating interior renovations. Similar to the renovations that we're doing at the high schools,
Those are some of smaller scale.
We have been progressing through the classrooms in some of the phasing that will be completed
this upcoming summer.
We had a large amount of environmental work to be done there last summer.
And we continue to monitor that as well as coordinate that accordingly to have no issues
with the teachings in learning every day.
Next slide.
You can go to the next slide.
So, as I mentioned, the couple projects that we have actively going on right now, we have
the newsletters.
Please refer to those that give you general updates and try to keep some pictures there
so a little bit more user-friendly.
As I mentioned, we awarded some projects.
We have BuzzHVAC that was awarded with the kickoff meeting and we have had several job meetings.
So we're procuring the material and everything now to have this summer, the HVAC equipment
and changed over, as I mentioned before, we have the boilers that were being the process,
we have a temp boiler. A lot of those units are well beyond their life, so we do not want
to go through another winter, so we're pushing for this summer to have the units replaced
in the classrooms. We also awarded the Glenfield HVC interior innovations that also is, we did
pick off actually today. That's a third.
33-month project. So it's very long. There's a lot of coordination into the use of the space in an active school. We'll have updates, but it's going to be a long process. And then we also awarded Bradford Elementary Schools interior renovations in HVAC as well. That kickoff meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday, and then we'll start that process. But that is mostly a summer project over the next two summers, just for the swing space that we have there, and it's not a very involved project.
Next line,
and this is just an update on the financials so far for the project.
This is, again, the awarded contract budget.
That's what was budgeted for the other projects and what the actual contract amount came
to.
So, as you can see, right now, we are under budget.
We still have a long way to go.
We still have a lot of open projects.
So, as I mentioned previously, this number will fluctuate even with the current projects
as they are as we close them out.
We could actually get credits back and as we finish, hopefully we keep it within the budget and we don't go over the budget amount so I'll update this accordingly when I do presentations.
So that's the end of the presentation.
Questions?
Really random question.
What is the Montclair High School industrial and practical arts renovations?
That was the title given to a series of interior year classroom renovations.
It includes the culinary arts program, the wood shop program, the auto body, and a STEM lab.
So it's a that type of curriculum.
You're welcome.
Anybody else?
I notice, Connor, that the, it seems like the completion deadline for the high school auditorium has slowly extended.
that, and now, if I look at the chart correctly,
it's mostly to be finished construction at June.
Is it, can it be finished?
If in case we need it for high school graduation this year?
And it looks like there's two months after that,
that there's closeout.
So, will it, could it be usable if we need, hopefully we won't?
But if we do, we'll let big.
So those are ongoing conversations.
I am actively having with Principal Freeman.
I just met with him again this past Friday.
Not only is there graduation,
but there's also a non-national honors society
that he needs to do.
So I'm actively communicating with him
to try to accommodate his best I can
with what the conditions we are coming across in that space.
So graduation is definitely a priority
as well as national honors society.
So he's been very accommodating for moving some stuff around that typically gets done in that space based on the original timeline so
Communicate with him every week. So we're for questioning for it the space as of right now
I keep them not close enough to say that we will 100% be able to use it for that national our side of your graduation
Because I don't have lights finished and we don't have the seats being installed
so
So, that's the plan is to be able to get it to the point where we can put people into
the seats and have lights so we can safely use the space.
We'll be able to be used for productions by the graduation that we're still working
out.
Could you share a little bit what caused the delay?
There is a culmination of items that caused it.
Obviously, these are old spaces.
I'm sure people have seen the pictures of the original auditorium before we took it over.
So we come across unforeseen, there are, you know, unfortunately, contractor self-driven delays that they, you know, inflict, and then there's also been some design changes that we have to work through.
So when you combine all that, it creates a tough situation that we have to deal with.
We are pushing the contractor to recover.
They have a different opinion about the responsibilities of that, but that's part of the unfortunate public sector of construction in New Jersey.
So we see that you're under budget 11.6.
We don't often get to say that 11.6 million dollars under budget.
That's great.
Woo.
It's not, but presently we'll take it, right?
come on celebrate the winds when we can, but just curious about the timeline has the
end date moved out of the overall project or are you staying true to the originally planned
end date? We're holding true I think my last October update at the town hall I believe I said
was September 29 if I can recall my memory all the back to October I believe that's what I had said.
We have a 33-month project that I glenfield before we even opened up a wall or started so
So, you know, it's a very tough schedule to maintain.
We're confident that we can maintain it.
I don't get, we do not get to pick who gets the job.
We don't get to pick some conditions that are out of our control.
All we can do is manage them and push through them as best as we can.
When we have budgets that are beneficial to us, it also allows us to have other tools that
are, you know, to be able to use and make sure we push through those projects.
So it's beneficial also to see that number well below the budget.
Hunter, is there any ongoing hope that we can resolve the issues at the netting of the high school baseball field as baseball season starts?
We can't discuss that.
No.
No other questions?
Okay.
Thank you.
Have a good night.
everybody. Good night.
Okay, we have new business next. I'm going to, first of all, I do want to thank Mr. Long,
Mr. McMahon and Ms. Shaw for all the work that they have done along with the full board on
edits and comments in regards to the letter that we are writing that has been written to the state.
and we will vote on that tonight, Ms. Shaw, I'm going to turn it over to you to just give us a little bit more background on that for the public. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Book Knight.
I just want to give a huge shout out to Sean and Carrie here who worked extra hours, unpaid hours on this.
But, you know, as a board, we essentially realize that there's a structural deficit here
in New Jersey, and although we can't magically change it, we want to stand as a board and ask
for changes with our governor and legislators to, you know, affect to change on that.
And if we can move that needle with other districts, it's definitely desire, you know, for
us as board.
But essentially, we took, we kind of talked to everybody about what really we see as the
problem of school funding, the school funding formula, which, you know, kind of is a myriad
of things and deficits and rising costs and tax levies.
And we put together a letter that we have the board to approve.
I think we edited a million times.
But, you know, we're really happy with the letter and just the request.
And, you know, I hope it's just a step as a board, we really do care.
and we're trying to help here in the district.
So any little steps that we can do,
did you have anything to add?
Just like the rest of the house.
Oh, yes, and we put together a resolution as well,
which I believe is in here.
Yeah.
Do you have anything to add, Sean?
Are there any comments or questions for them
who we vote?
is there a word missing on point three?
Reduce success of year-over-year volatility in local
fair share calculations when districts are raising who the statutory levy cap, is there
a word missing there or not? Raising taxes, raising...
It's so now there for now it's under the now therefore be a result. Maybe it's maybe it's not I'm not sure
I'm sorry in the resolution
It reads
Reduce excessive year over year volunteer voluntary in local bear share calculation
When districts are raising
to the, yeah, to the stature, they're, when, this just are raising to the stature Tory levy cap.
They're tax levy.
Yeah, I probably would need a comment.
It's not a big deal.
We can let it pass, but I don't know why are you thinking?
I don't know.
Are raising the budget?
No, it's not the budget.
It's a tax levy.
It's just that it didn't put the tax word in there, but I think everybody understood it.
It kind of gives a lot of the design.
Okay.
I will say, Carrie, this is like her wheelhouse.
I have to give her so many props.
But really, we tried to use stay true to the wording.
A, that other districts use and that New Jersey uses in statutes and whatever.
So we did go back through and kind of streamline, you know, certain words.
that we wouldn't have normally used.
It was a team effort, come on.
Do we have a motion to approve?
So moved.
Second.
Ready for vote.
Major Dunn.
Yes.
Eric Scherzer.
Yes.
Alison Silverstein.
Yes.
Carrie McMahon.
Yes.
Data Ramon.
Yes.
Melanie Dyser.
Yes.
Sean Long.
Yes.
Holly Shaw.
Yes.
Yvonne Boothnite.
Yes.
We will move to public comment.
And before we begin, I would just
like to read the norms for board meeting.
Before you speak, you have written your name, address, and all of you have done that.
On the sign-in sheet, before it's collected to speak, the sign-in sheet is collected
as it is indicated on the agenda.
When you speak, each speaker must state their name for the record before speaking.
Each speaker is limited to a maximum of three minutes.
The time for each speaker will begin immediately as the speaker steps to the podium.
Speakers will be called in advance and are asked to make their way to the front chairs,
reserved for on-deck speakers and groups of threes.
All comments must be respectful and civil, no threats, profanity, or personal attacks will
be allowed. When you speak, please address issues and concerns, not individual people by name.
Please follow the direction of the Board, President or the presiding officer at all times.
Comments should be directed to the Board as a whole, not to an individual member or staff person.
The Board will not engage in back-and-forth dialogue during public comment but reserves the
right to comment at the end of the meeting or at a following meeting if appropriate.
Personal student or staff information should not be shared during public comment.
The board reserves the right to end a speaker's time if norms are not allowed.
Can I have Danny McKetta, Anthony Debal, and Jasmine?
I'm sorry.
However, and before you speak, I'm going to ask why it forced you to come forward.
And please, as an audience, no shouting, no interruption, why it forced her, please
come forward.
No shouting, interruptions or disruptive behavior, bullying, applause, and audible disruptive
behavior will not be permitted.
And while our student representative is coming forward, Mrs. Turner and the full board
and all of our staff members are just so proud of this young man.
He received a 1,600 perfect score on the essay.
And I just want to say that in my haste to get here on time,
I forgot we have a little card and a gift for you,
but we will next Wednesday, or maybe I'll stop by the high school, get it to you.
All right. Good evening, Superintendent Turner, Miss Sullivan, members of the board and the Montclar
Public Schools community. I know this is not exactly where we were hoping to find ourselves on March 11.
But, you know, Montclar is strong. Our schools are strong and regardless of how things shake out over
the next few days, we will weather the storm together. But I do want to recognize and thank all of the
student volunteers who canvass tabled and woke up at five in the morning to get to the train station
to stand up for their district and I want to extend pretty confidently on behalf of a healthy
per portion.
As well as the people representing other perspectives who dedicated their time, money and energy to fight for our education, as well as the administrators, educators and support staff for working so hard to keep our schools together right now. Even if we're looking at the potential failure of one or both of the questions, it is my hope that this election and the broader community-wide struggle will leave some lasting positive impact on our township.
But Montclair has needed a cultural shift towards civic engagement.
At times, it is tempting to get angry and show up when controversy strikes without having
the full picture first.
That's something that I've certainly been guilty of too.
During the 2023 budget mayhem, I, like much of our districts, didn't educate myself properly,
joining the walkout that in part helped pressure the very financial decisions that have caused
our present debt.
But if getting angry is easy, it is even easier to fade away when the heat subsides.
During peacetime, these meetings get empty sometimes.
The next step is consistent accountability, interaction, and awareness from the broader
public.
And seeing the uptick and interest around board politics, since the dawn of the election
and watching groups like impact grow, strengthens my faith that we can keep some of this passionate
life.
On a more somber note, this week has been challenging on many separate levels, Tuesday being particularly
really troubling in light of Monday when schools were locked down, and culminating with this Wednesday as we process a challenging loss.
We're really thinking of the Renaissance community.
I can't imagine what that has to be like.
Monkler students continue to look to all of you as our leaders right now, so please keep that at the heart of what you do.
Thank you for your time.
Mr. Marqueda, file a vote and miss the dabble and her therein.
Good evening.
Yesterday, the residents of Monkler sent a message in the special election.
While the results have not yet been officially certified, the outcome already tells us something
important about how this community is feeling.
Let's be clear about what this vote was not.
It was not a rejection of our schools.
It was not a rejection of our educators.
And it was certainly not a rejection of the students who rely on this district every single
day.
What the community rejected was the leadership that brought this district into a catastrophic
crisis.
For years, the warning signs were there.
For more than two years, the Monkler Education Association raised concerns publicly and privately.
We asked questions, we requested transparency, we pointed to financial red flags that demanded
attention.
Those warnings were ignored.
Last October, I stood at this podium and warned that this district was heading towards a financial
crisis created by a failure of financial oversight.
Unfortunately, that warning proved correct.
And now the consequences are unfolding.
The easiest thing for an institution to do in a crisis is exactly what we are seeing now.
Cut programs, eliminates staff, disrupt schools, reduce opportunities for students.
In other words, shift the burden of failure onto the very people the district is supposed to support.
Educators hold students accountable every day in their classrooms.
Administrators hold teachers accountable for the work they do.
But the question the community is now asking is a simple one who was holding the long standing board members of this board accountable for the decisions that led us here.
Because right now the people paying the price are not the decision makers.
It is the students, it is the families, and it is the educators and staff who dedicated their careers to this district.
15 years ago, the Renaissance middle school community was forced to relocate student staff and families rebuilt that school from the ground up.
They created something unique and meaningful for the young people who chose that program.
Now that community may disappear entirely, students will be scattered, staff will be displaced.
A school community that families deliberately chose may simply be absorbed into the buildings.
For the people who built Renaissance, this is not just a logistical decision.
It is a dismantling of a school community and a painful truth that the educators and staff of this district did not create this crisis.
But once again, day, along with the students and families of Montclair are the ones being
forced to live with the consequences.
This community has now delivered a clear warning.
Trust has been broken, and until accountability exists at every level, the damage to this
district will continue to grow.
Thank you.
Mr. Dalbo, and Noah, would you get ready as well?
Good evening.
My name is Anthony Dalbo, and I'm a teacher at the High School.
I'd like to first thank our security personnel, our staff, our administration, and of course our police department and other law enforcement agencies for their collective response to Monday's threat.
We responded efficiently and trusted our training.
Security patrolled the halls and announcements were made calmly.
While we are relieved the threat was unfounded, it's important to remember that our security personnel, staff and administration are the front lines.
Our collective training and preparation that was on display Monday gives me comfort in knowing we are ready to respond
when needed to protect our students and everyone within our halls.
Regarding the election, Mrs. Turner, your effort in engagement with the community at large is commendable.
Your position is not a sensible one yet you decided early to confront this head on and I respect that.
The result of the election is not one many of us involved in the schools had hoped for but it is not your fault.
The results last night did make one thing clear.
The community was willing to bail out the board's past budgetary decisions but does not trust the board to handle a more robust budget.
When community members ask how we got here, please take a look at the February board meeting.
After a 90 minute detailed presentation focused primarily on the budget and our fiscal
responses to different vote outcomes, there were 32 minutes of board question and discussion.
The first 25 minutes of that dialogue was about the school calendar, while only 7 minutes was spent
on the budget cuts. I mean, where are our priorities? Where is the awareness? I still cannot
not fathom how not one board member who held a seat during the previous administration
could simply utter the words, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for not listening to the concerns of the MEA.
I'm sorry for not questioning our business administrators' resistance to transparency.
I'm sorry for not demanding a more detailed budget report.
I'm sorry for not having the ability to say no.
The community is demanding accountability, and they were only provided with excuses.
Even still you are voting tonight to blame the state funding formula.
Yes, the state formula needs to be addressed.
Yes, it is causing many school districts to be in deficit,
but $20 million is not a result of the state formula.
It is a result of a superintendent MBA
who are unwilling to say no to spending more than we had.
A business office with questionable hiring practices.
It was a result of a board who unnecessarily voted
to extend the superintendent's contract
a full year prior to its expiration.
In late of the baseball season beginning next week,
or this week, I'd request that the board reverse
their hasty decision in naming the varsity baseball field after our previous superintendent.
As his legacy is marred by this budgetary deficit we currently face.
We cannot look toward the future without acknowledging the past and how we got here.
As Thomas Payne said, a body holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted
by anybody.
Thank you.
Ms. Jasmine Hadari?
No, again, and then Corby.
Here's the.
Hi, Jasmine Hadari.
I am the mom of a ninth grade ninth grader at the high school who went through Renaissance all three years in middle school. Also, I have a current sixth grader at Renaissance and also a fifth grader at Hellside who was hoping to go to Renaissance, but she's not going to make it that that's okay.
I usually prepare something when I come up here, but I was up late just with Ms. Turner last night, and I'm tired, and I'm going to wing it.
I watch these meetings all the time, usually from my car in a parking lot while I'm screaming at my kids to get in and out, so I'm not here a lot.
But I appreciate all the time and effort that everybody puts into planning and the work
that you do.
I just want to talk about leadership really quickly.
I'm an Army veteran and one of my favorite leaders in the Army, Colonel Petrilo, taught
me one of my favorite things about leadership.
And that is, he said, you know, leadership's hard.
Effective leadership is hard and it's lonely.
But if you try to please everyone and if you try to make everyone happy, you'll either never get anything done or you'll never get anything done well.
And when the first town hall happened back in July, I remember a gentleman standing up and asking this churner, we're telling her, you know, you've got to make friends with your principles, you've got to get to know your administrators.
You know, they're the people that are going to show you how things are done here.
And, you know, show you the ropes and make sure that, you know, you're friendly with
them, so they'll work for you.
And I think this is my, this is the moment when I had so much hope for a district, as when
you said, I don't need any more friends, you know, with all degree respect, I don't need
any more friends.
And when I think about what has happened since, it's not that you're not friendly.
This is important.
And this is the leadership that we need right now.
You've done the hard things.
You've made hard decisions with the cuts.
And I sat last night and you sat with all of us parents
for almost three hours and let us grieve.
I'm sorry, you're right.
You're right, you're right.
You let us grieve.
You let us be angry.
You let us ask all the questions.
You did not have to do that.
I love Renaissance.
that knows me, knows that it probably saved my son.
I love the community, Mr. and Cisco is the best principle that has ever existed.
And the teachers are amazing, but I appreciate you making the hard decision and not falling to parental pressure in this moment
because it's what we need to get our school back on track and our kids learning again and improving and the achievement that we have here.
So thank you. I admire the tenacity that you have. And I hope the board takes a lot of lessons from your leadership. Thank you, Ms. Jasmine.
Noah Gale.
Ben Corey Pearson and Charlie, I believe you left. And Linda Cal.
Good evening. My name is Noah Gale. I grew up in Montclair class of 2018.
I was a student here, graduated from 2018, and I'll always be proud of Montclair, the town I grew up in.
This town gave me everything, and I love, and I still support this district, even as an alum all these years later, a million years later, so much.
I would like to thank the people of Montclair for voting yesterday to save our schools, our future is that state.
We have to make sure that future generations feel safe in an environment which includes our schools, our Montclair schools.
So, I know if it's yes-no, does that mean there are 10.6 million cuts or 4.6 million cuts because I saw something that said there could be 10.6 million cuts.
That is not OK.
Students need to survive.
Teachers need to survive. They do not want to lose their jobs or get laid off.
And this district, we are one big family, thank you.
Also, Renaissance, although I never went to Renaissance
as a kid, and I do not teach there, I got to say,
Renaissance is a great school, and I have a cousin
who is currently an eighth grade student there.
Do not reorganize Renaissance.
It's one good, small school, it's a good environment, and I know some of the Board of
M members have kids who are former students that run a song for a lump of run a song.
And I wanted to say you should keep it as it is, do not change anything.
Because do you know what?
Oh wait, I'll be quick, I know I only have 45 seconds left, but I wanted to say that I hope
we can improve our schools. We do not want to go backwards. In the words of my mother,
we do not go backwards in life. Clock ticks forwards. We go forwards in life. So please,
we want our schools to be healthy and survive. Thank you. Thank you.
Great person.
Good evening everyone and thanks again for the opportunity to speak.
I want to start by echoing a couple things that Jasmine just said in that
I think we're starting to have the hard conversations, make the hard decisions, the hard part
kind of starts now.
However, the vote ends up shaken out over the next few days.
What's happening at Renaissance right now is the beginning of what will be more similar
conversations.
And the conversations are hard because there are groups of people in the town for every one
of those decisions who will be deeply upset and deeply hurt.
And that's the reality we face.
and that will continue to be the case.
There might be another school on the horizon.
And if not another school, there will be programs
and there will be teachers and we will all be hurt.
But I would love for all of us to learn not only
from the way that we are handling these conversations
so far, which is a wonderful presentation
of data, a recognition of empathy
that was demonstrated by leadership last night,
but also from the folks in town.
I can't tell you how amazed I am, talking to parents from Renaissance who are saying things that Jasmine just said to say, this hurts, this hurts, but I know that someone in this district is going to hurt because there's no way to get through these cuts right now without that kind of hurt.
And so while I might...
Let me be upset. I'm not up here storming and yelling at the board for these decisions and the superintendent for the decisions they made, but I'm recognizing that these decisions have to be made. And so I just want to plead to the community to follow the lead of Jasmine, just now, and to continue to have these conversations in a respectful way. My last plea for the community right now, we had a 50-50 vote on two questions, plus minus.
Yes, the community, we can all realize that there wasn't necessarily a moral high ground
with those that were very, very worried about taxes increasing, and those that were very,
very worried about the cuts that were going to affect the kids in the district.
Both of these things really, really sucked.
And in some ways, it's weird because we kind of got all of it, right?
We got the highest tax increase part, and we also got a whole lot of cuts.
And it's a crazy way that democracy works sometimes if that's the way this vote turns out.
But, you know, now as we go forward, you know, if you have a 50-50 vote and we recognize that there isn't really a right and wrong group in town, it might help us to start working together.
Right, the vote's done, the politics is done, the persuasion is done, so now we can all kind of come together and get through this thing together.
And for me part of that is, you know what, if people are upset with leadership and people are upset with the board, there is a course for accountability.
It's called voting, we have it now, and it comes up every year, and so let's turn a page and stop with that and just work together and solve our problems looking forward.
Thank you.
Ms. Cal.
Good evening, Superintendent Turner, Board of Education members.
be a Sullivan and the Montclair community tonight I stand before you, not as a representative
of the organization you usually hear me speak about, but as an individual community member.
I want to first thank Superintendent Turner for leading her presentation with that powerful quote
to remind us to keep our eyes making may your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears to keep
focus on the future and making positive choices. I appreciate that the focus on moving forward
with intention, with an emphasis on optimism in this statement. I'm glad to see that the district
finally adopted a policy to integrate AVI history and contributions into the social studies curriculum.
My daughter and I worked with numerous organizations and individuals around the state to advocate for
the passage of the legislation that was signed in early 2022 by then Governor Murphy.
And my hope was that at least one of my children would benefit from having not only this mirror
for himself, but this window for his non-API peers.
I'm grateful to the superintendent and the board for their express desire to honor the purpose
of this and similar curricular legislation.
What would be the point if families could opt out of learning or shared history?
How would that ensure we could have a common understanding of our collective history?
We know that education is the best anecdote for misunderstanding and hate to which Montclair
is not immune.
I hope that our schools would be the best in this work.
Tonight, I would also like to share about two other community organizations I've worked
with who do important work to support diverse members of our community.
One is Sumbling Diplomacy and the Others in Monty.
With a shared understanding and concern for students, these two groups have joined efforts
for the upcoming Patricio fundraiser which will take place this Saturday at the mark, Saturday
the 14th.
And I have flyers of the QR code for those of you interested in supporting this effort.
Dumbling diplomacy is a social enterprise dedicated to bringing communities together
across divides.
We use our profits to create innovative programming and support organizations that share our vision.
Cuts and long-standing sources of funding are jeopardizing Amani's educational initiatives
to narrow the achievement gap in our schools.
with this fundraiser or a founder and Nancy Liu, a parent of a recent
Mountigrad, is pleased to donate 100% of the proceeds to Amani.
Amani's interim executive director, Evelyn Gay, has said that the partnership
and donation has come at a critical time.
Thank you, Miss Cowell.
Maryanna Horta, and that would be the last person in public.
It's a long-being thing, so be sure to thank you.
We stand up for our leadership.
I really don't need to say anything else afterwards.
Jasmine said, just want to recognize that you had a really hard week, as we all had,
but you had worse, and I appreciate you so much and all of you.
Thank you.
Is there anyone online?
Thank you.
Our
first online commenter is Marcella S. Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah.
Praise the Lord.
I didn't get to start this meeting.
From the beginning, I got on the finance report and a construction.
Presentations.
So.
I miss the policy meetings, but I can't find any policy presentations online or appendix is.
So I mean,
I mean, if I'm wrong, please correct me, but if I'm not wrong, I mean, I've been asking
for those since like October, at least December, I've been asking for those.
You can't hold discussions on policy changes without letting the public have a copy of
the changes.
So if it's not on the website, I mean, let me know if it is if I'm wrong.
It is it's it's on the website. Well, underboard agenda.
Under the date. All right, I'm going to look again, but.
Okay, but it's not easy to find because I went to agenda, but anyway, also, um,
that whole field, like I saw that one of those policies is public participation.
President booknight, I don't think I've ever heard anybody come with all that authority
trying to try to censor people like I'm really
um disgusted with that whole introduction like what do
you people scared of? How does this administration and boards expect any of
us to trust you all? Like there's hardly any investigations. You're
talking about rod grants that do get submitted but you're being all
elusive about the information. Why don't you want us to know who messed
up? Why are people who messed up still here and
and nobody ever says nothing about it.
Like, who are you scared about, President Book Knight?
Who are you all scared of?
Like, that means you all are really up to some dirt.
I'm watching you now.
I'm telling you, I'm gonna abide by your little stuff
just so I can really come for you, President Book Knight
because I can't believe that you're trying to really
that
ends public comment.
I want to thank everyone for engaging in our meeting and we will now go to approval operations and school support services approval of the calendar for the 2627 school year.
But we did, we did, we did that already.
Do we have a motion to approve calendar?
So moved.
Any comments or questions?
Major done?
Yes.
Eric Scherzer?
Yes.
Allison Silverstein?
No.
Carrie McMahon?
Yes.
Jada Roman?
Yes.
Melanie Dyser?
No.
Sean Long?
Yes.
Polly Shaw?
Yes.
Ivonne Boothnick.
Next public board meeting in the Montclair Board of Education will be held on Wednesday, March
18th, 2026 at 6.30 p.m. in the Georgia, Unisonics, Atrium, 141 Park Street.
The meeting may go into close session until approximately 7.30 when it will reopen to the
public.
Do I have a motion to adjourn?
Second.
Fager done.
Yes.
Eric Scherzer?
Yes.
Alison Silverstein.
Yes.
Carrie McMahon.
Yes.
Jada Roman.
Yes.
Melanie Doyser.
Yes.
Sean Long.
Yes.
Ali Shaw.
Yvonne Book Knight.
Yes.
Meetings adjourned.