well after a bumpy three years at the Helm of the State education department acting commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan Allen-McMilla is leaving her post in a statement today from the governor's office the administration said Alan McMillan is retiring at the end of January thanking her for her service during what the governor called an incredibly challenging time for our schools alluding of course to controversies over the sex education curriculum and gender identification policies though she served as Comm commissioner Alan McMillan was never actually confirmed by the Senate to hold the position an Unwritten rule known as senatorial courtesy blocked that confirmation Educators and schools have been hit with an onslaught of issues in recent years our senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan was at the state house today and spoke with Senate education committee chair Vin goal about the most pressing items for the legislature we just want to make sure that mental health is defined uh it's not creating uh additional um challenges with the teacher shortage uh as that comes up so I think there's just a few pieces we need to work out and you know with everyone uh having been focused on the elections I don't think that due diligence has been has happened so we're going to be meeting uh as well as Senator Cody with the school boards association with the with the teachers union uh with everybody to make sure that um we work out all of the the fine print in the bill depression anxiety someone who struggled with depression my whole life uh extremely important that we make sure that that not a barrier to a student succeeding I know that there were some concerns voiced regarding for example leaving a student home alone uh if they're home you know if they're absent because of of feeling depressed or you know possible suicidal ideation you know is that a good thing all of these are legitimate concerns especially if you have uh parents or Guardians who are working and there's no one at home so I think all of that needs to be fleshed out uh and look we continue to face in New Jersey a challenge where we have 600 school districts that have very different mental health programs you could go District by District whereas for example you go to the source in Red Bank they have an incredible program there uh if someone is feeling uh like they are depressed or have anxiety or or whatever you know uh addiction whereas other districts don't have those resources so I think a lot of that needs to be fleshed out would New Jersey set a limit on the number of mental health behavioral health days it's tough to to put a limit because you know it's it's an illness mental health no one is feeling better after two days uh or three days I mean it's everyone's struggle is different so I think there there needs to be a lot more fleshed out and then we need to be realistic about uh how you make up work who's at uh who's at home and what are the next steps they might be out for a mental health day but how are we helping to make that child feel better and all the resources available in that school district and they have to go to the doe or the commissioner for the Department of Education to set standards in conjunction with Department he I I have to look at Senator Cody's I'm not it does too okay so yeah they do and and uh so we want to make sure those guidelines and obviously we know right now that the commissioner of Education there is none right now so there's a couple other things to to just kind of navigate um could you talk about the fact that we are not going to have a commissioner of Education apparently she is resigning as of what January she's retiring yeah I I spoke to her on over the weekend and you know wished her well and we've got a lot of Education challenges coming up so look hopefully the administration is going to pick someone great that uh that can work in a collaborative way with the legislature was this a surprise um you know she she she's been one of the longer serving there I think she's been there almost three years which is pretty long for a commissioner uh and she's towards the end of her career so you know not entirely surprised that she retired do you have anyone that comes to mind that you would want to put up put forward uh I don't uh but I'm looking forward to to working with the administration and and you know this is the end of the school funding formula next year we've got a lot of uh uh challenges as it relates to making sure our our we we employ more teachers in the state we did a lot of bills today as it relates to to the teacher shortage but we want to make sure we have a doe and a commissioner that's going to be uh side side with us I I I Angelica the the commissioner was always friendly always courteous there's things that we agreed on and worked together there's things we disagreed that we worked against each other but she was always very respectful always very civil and I appreciated that