Board of Education

11-May-2016

    On Tuesday -10-May the Bogota Board of Education held the first of their bi-monthly meeting. There was a special meeting before the regular board meeting when Al Annunziata from the New Jersey School  Board Association came in to summary the results of the Strategist Planning meetings which occurred earlier in the school year. He list the top goals set by the members of the public, the School Board, Teachers and other school officials on what they would like to see the Bogota schools try to achieve. Some of the highlights in the four areas were to focus on Student success.  The Main goal is to find ways to keep the school age children in Bogota within the public school system. Part of that goal is to keep class size small, expand extracurricular activities, have a reward system for student, and provide a confidential “ box”  for the Students to express their thoughts and ideas to improve their school life.
    The second area was  a way to make the building themselves. This ranged from upgrading the the infrastructure, improve safety and start to make the building more sustainable. The third goal was to develop after school programs, more community outreach & partnership and assist Parents on how to improve Student learning at home. The final area was to promote technology learning for all Student. Another  idea in that area was to be able to become part of a global learning system for the entire district. The Board will now take these ideas and  try to develop a plan on how to achieve as many as possible.
   The next part of the special meeting was to give the Board a progress report on themselves and the district in general. In this part of the meeting Mr. Annuziata had the Board set a number of  yearly goals for the district and themselves. These were similar to the planning goal, but more specific. For the district the goals are to improve Academic achievement based on a number of different criteria. This would be a mix of Student Growth Objectives, and SAT testing in High School and Teachers College Reading & Writing workshops.  Other district goal would be improve technology training for teachers and staff. Along with additional classes and extracurricular activities to support STEAM curriculum. The Board of Education gave themselves the goals of Improving communication by the Board, Teaches, and Administration.
   At the start of the regular meeting Frank Messineo of Solution Architecture presented plans to redo the Science lab. This plan will provide work-space and a separate class room space  large enough for 24 Students. The lab space would expanded  by 300 sq ft.  This will include a separate Instructor Demonstration area, new storage, and new flooring and wall covering, and a safety shower.  Another plan was to redo the front of the High School from Paradises Ave. to the front door. A second entrance to the High School  parking lot, south of the current entrance would be added. This would loop around the current parking  and have an 8’-0”walkway along the southern property line to provide additional Student access. With this, a secondary access the door on the south wall would be open for Student to enter the building for classes. The current Henry Luthin Pl would be maintained with parking between the two roadways. To replace  the loss of parking a new pad would be place in the the current loop to the front door. A new loop would be created and placed near the front door and it would wider to allow easier access to drop-off and pick up Students. There will be a replacement of the retaining wall near the Board of Education office which will allow a wider roadway  to allow delivery trucks better access to the school loading dock.  This widen area and upper parking pad would increase the number of available spaces by six to the current number.  The Board approve two resolutions to move these project along in order for the work to be open for bidding.
    The Board also the talked about the ongoing situation of the water problems in other district. Dr. Pantoliano said that will addition water testing on Wednesday 11-May.  All agenda items were discussed and will be voted on at the next Board of Education Meeting scheduled for Tuesday -17-May. The meeting will begin at 7:30p  and be held in the High School cafeteria on the second floor of 2 Henry Luthin pl. Bogota, NJ.

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