REGULAR BUSINESS MEETING APRIL 26, 2017 A. Call to Order The Board of Education, Township of Holmdel, met in a Regular Business Meeting on Wednesday, April 26, 2017 in the W.R. Satz School, 24 Crawfords Corner Road, Holmdel, New Jersey. The meeting was called to order at 8:00 p.m., by Mr. Hammer, President of the Board. B. Opening Statement Statement is hereby made that adequate notice of this meeting was given by: ● Posting written notice prominently on the bulletin board in the Office of the Board of Education, 65 McCampbell Road, Holmdel, New Jersey, the District’s website and sent to the four district schools. ● The mailing and/or hand delivery of said notice to the designated newspapers, Asbury Park Press, Independent, the PLG, PSG, PSA, PTSO, SAB presidents and student representatives to the Board. ● Filing with the Clerk of Holmdel Township, Police Headquarters and Public Library. C. Open Public Meetings Act Meetings of the Board are open to the public and all members of the community should feel free to participate: ● There are two opportunities for the public to speak; the first is at the beginning of the meeting for agenda items only and the second is at the end of the meeting for other items. ● Any individual desiring to speak shall give his or her name, address, and the group, if any, that is represented. ● The presentation shall be as brief as possible but no more than three (3) minutes per individual. ● The board vests in its president, or other presiding officer, authority to terminate the remarks of any individual if he/she deems it in the best interest of those present to do so. D. Roll Call/Flag Salute The following Board members were present: Mesdames: Ammirati, Briamonte, Flynn, Kline and Liu. Messrs: Hammer, Reddy, Martinez and Sockol. Also present: Dr. Robert McGarry, Superintendent, Mr. Michael R. Petrizzo, CPA, Business Administrator/Board Secretary, Mr. Gary Goldberg, Interim Assistant Superintendent Curriculum & Instruction and Mr. Paul Green, Board Attorney. Ms. Elana Barlev and Mr. Hamzah Shaikh, student representatives to the Board were present (both left the meeting at 9:30 p.m.). E. Reading of Mission Statement The mission of the Holmdel Township Public Schools is to provide a comprehensive and caring educational environment that will develop the potential of every student into achievement. In partnership with our community, the School District will support all our students’ efforts to meet and exceed the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, and to become responsible and resourceful citizens and life-long learners. F. Presentation(s)/Public Hearing(s) Public Hearing - 2017/2018 Budget Presentation Dr. McGarry and Mr. Petrizzo presented the 2017/2018 budget. Upon completion of the presentation, there was a discussion among the Board and Administration. At the conclusion, Board President Hammer inquired if there were any questions or comments from the public. There were none. 1 REGULAR BUSINESS MEETING APRIL 26, 2017 G. Report of Student Representatives to the Board The student representatives reported out on student matters. Resolved: That the Report of the student representatives is hereby accepted. MOTION: Show of Hands to Accept – All Approved H. Report of the Superintendent Good evening again, everyone! I want to begin my report this month by recognizing a group that contributes so much to our commitment to excellence - our administrative professionals, a critical part of our team who impact student learning and growth each and every day. Happy Administrative Professionals Day to all! Even with spring break, we managed to pack a lot into the last month, starting with the excellent turnout of community members on April 5th for the showing of the documentary, “Screenagers,” about the impact of excessive screen time on learning minds. The district partnered with The New School of Monmouth County and A Child’s Place to make the evening possible. Thanks to our very own Gary Goldberg for moderating a post- screening panel with Dr. Susan Chilvers, Kathy Berkowitz, and Eileen Lenihan Flaherty. Our second graders recently took part in the annual 2nd Grade Breakfast. This wonderful event not only teaches students about good nutrition, but deepens their understanding of “Bucket Filling” as well. For this event Village works with a local food pantry/organization called Lunchbreak. Each class collects specific food items that are the donated to the organization following the event. This continues to be a great way to engage our children in real life learning experiences and truly speaks to our mission of leading our graduates to become “responsible and resourceful citizens.” Our 3rd grade classes have been engaged in “bucket-filling” pursuits as well, well on behalf of Monarch Butterflies anyway. Classes have begun the process of designing and constructing a Monarch Butterfly Waystation. Monarch Waystations are places that provide resources necessary for monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their migration. The students and staff have prepared one of our courtyards, as well as planting milkweed, in order to get ready to welcome the butterflies in the future. By creating and maintaining a Monarch Waystation our students are contributing to monarch conservation, an effort that will help assure the preservation of the species and the continuation of the spectacular monarch migration phenomenon. Thanks to Rutgers University for this partnership and to teachers Karen Bennett and Stacey Campbell for their efforts in leading this work. On April 5th, The Satz 8th grade English teachers and students hosted a fair to parents and community members as the culminating activity for their annual “Making the World a Better Place” action research projects. The project asks students to identify an issue they feel is important and interesting, whether it be local or global, and after careful and thoughtful research, take steps to remedy that problem. Some of the goals of this unit are to promote social awareness and to help the students connect the skills they learn in school to real-world situations, like writing letters to their local and federal politicians or to groups that are attempting to deal with the issue of interest. Great job to the students and teachers for all the hard work they put into these assignments. 2 REGULAR BUSINESS MEETING APRIL 26, 2017 Even our K-WRAP students are helping to make the world a better place and thinking about ways to be helpful in the school community. As they did last year, the Kindergarten wrap-around students put together small, individual snack bags for our 3rd graders to enjoy on one of the days during PARCC testing. Each bag comes with an inspirational note and picture written and drawn by the K-WRAP students. Students will make their deliveries on a prearranged day/time set by the classroom teacher. Kudos to K-Wrap staff and students! Some neat things happening in academics include 5th grade teachers recently completing a training session on Discovery Education’s Social Studies Techbook program which allowed them to revise their Unit Plan on the pre-Civil War period to include this new resource. This pilot would not have been possible without the district’s and community’s commitment to a one-to-one Chromebook initiative. We continued our Village School guided reading training with Rutgers University this month. Teachers are now at the point where they are observing the trainer and/or their colleagues to see best practices in action. This has allowed our teachers to continue to expand their learning, in order to benefit the children on a daily basis. Thanks for Marilyn Bellis for continuing to coordinate with RU to bring this valuable experience to our students and staff. Satz English teachers Melissa Caliendo and Elizabeth Smith have been continuing to foster a reading culture at Satz School with a recent coordination of an assembly program during which students were introduced to a series of young adult titles representing several different reading genres. This assembly has encouraged many students to seek not only seek out new books to read, but has also encouraged many parents to read and have “book talks” with their children. It’s exciting that our “engagement” efforts via our district goal is engaging parents as well as students! Speaking of engaging parents, kudos to Ms. Malizia and Ms. Peters, our English as a Second Language teachers, who, based on a recommendation from the District’s ESL Parent Advisory Panel, devoted an afternoon and an evening to holding parent-teacher conferences this month for the parents of their English language learners. It was so successful and appreciated leaving us to believe that this should become an annual practice. As happens at this time of year in a district committed to excellence like Holmdel, there are many to offer congratulations to, including senior Shravya Jasti, who won a $1,000 award for her project at the Delaware Valley Science Fair! Shravya’s Biochemistry project, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Copper and Silver Ions in Removing Contaminants From Wastewater took first place. Also taking first place at the event were Daniel Gulko and Cyrus Madj, Daniel in Botany and Cyrus in Computer Science while Sneha Sharma took second in Chemistry and Erica Wu took second in Microbiology, Congrats to all who represented Holmdel Excellence at this event! Congrats to the HHS Science League team, which continues to “chug along” - taking 1st place in the following categories: Bio1, Bio2, Chem1, Chem2 and HS Physics . The scores earned over the past few months will now be ranked at the state level. Congratulations to the Jazz Band for placing 2nd place overall at the Jackson Liberty Jazz Festival this past weekend. The band also received an award for "Best Rhythm Section".