second thank you can I have a roll call please here here here miss here M sh here Tuma here M Joyce here Mr Carpenter here uh can everybody stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge Al to Flag America to the stand indivisible andice for all thank you everybody for being here and uh welcome to the February 8th meeting of the Board of Education of Branchburg please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public in media consistent with the open public meetings act that advanced notice required therein has been provided this is a meeting of the Board of Education of Branchburg at which formal action may be taken the public will have an opport opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda and I will hand it over to Dr Chase for the superintendent report thank you Mr carpender I have uh three items tonight in my report first you might have noticed the beautiful artwork that is on display in the panels in the hallway this is thanks to the creativity and our talent of our students so tonight we're going to recognize our students who made that beautiful artwork in our grades K to8 um so I have a beautiful certificate to give to each of you so as I call your name if you can stand and come up here and get your certificate and then just stand up here because we'd like to take a group photo with all of you and I also want to just make sure that I thank uh the art teachers Miss Russo how many of you have Miss Russo as a teacher okay and we have Mr balm how many of you have Mr balm as your art teacher there we go and how about um Miss r okay we got one there too couple couple in the we want to thank them because they were teaching these classes and they taught you how to make this beautiful artwork that's been enriching our school community so the first student I'd like to call up is we have our first kindergarten Here Madison Marky Madison do you want to come up and get your certificate if you're here okay Madison had other plans she just went outside oh okay uh the other Stu are in grade one we have zoee Dewey [Applause] Zoe hi Zoe do you mind staying up here okay just stand here we're gonna call some other students okay in grade two we have Thomas hey he TSH Thomas are you here Tom hi Tom thank you can you stay up here too okay and then we have Thor Majors is Thor here okay we'll give Thor a round of applause was Madison out in the hallway did she Madison Mary all right Madison can you come on up here hi Madison you want to hold my hand all right there we go okay now we have Yosi almagor thank you okay and Ava Garis gear gurges sorry Eva thank you Ava Dr yes oh Ava I think I gave you the wrong one also Thor sorry oh my goodness Thor okay we're back okay Christian Grande come on up Christian thank you and then I have Kai Herman thank you Kai Ava jaswick you're welcome thank you um then I have Olivia asogo okay and Alexis krub fodera thank you Alexis Caleb Crow Annie gamarello LC Peterson you're welcome thank you Quinn cassic thank you shali batala Trisha a and Isabelle petski all right we're going to take a group photo so can I have are the middle school students in the back and then we'll have the Stony BR students in the middle and then our students from whiten in the front shali do you want to trade yours do you want to trade yours Mrs Dolan can give you the right one she's coming let's push back phot what happened good job right like you weren't here for that you were here for that we yeah recess for a second yeah just trying to figure out what to vote on this is the one we just did that you if anybody want to look at the artwork or anything feel free we'll adj when the you can put on the minutes too if you like want to right yeah but I never do yeah like instead of doing one at each board meeting doing a bigger thing it's short at least congratulations speed read now now that's done my kids love to watch me three and seven great job guys she just want great job artist she just wants like the one time when theying she's like my seven-year-old just doesn't care it's on TV just play Roblox I know say I appreciate I'm art teer I apprciate all of your support for the Arts students of course you know all right Randy the rest of the meeting is for you you know how to roomz I'm just gonna look directly at [Laughter] Randy um whenever you're ready guess we can okay my second item I just wanted to speak to the fact that we advertised for the Middle School principal position and in Miss yard did that earlier this week and we already have several candidates who have applied so I'm very excited about the potential we have in that pool so far our plan is to review the applications that are coming in as they're coming in we're going to be turn we're going to be shutting down the um application in early March because we intend to do a screening process beginning March 11th and there will be a small panel that does that with me and then we're going to bring the top candidates to a committee much like we've used in the practices when we hired our supervisors and um we will have some various stakeholders as part of that our plan is to then have the candidate on an April board meeting agenda because if the person is in a sitting administrative role more than likely they're going to be held to 60 days and we want to look at a July 1st start so um this is going to be a rigorous process like the other ones are too but I'm confident that we're going to find our next leader to uh pick take the Reign from Miss stepner and bring us even forward more uh the next item I have is the student safety data report so I'm going to just move my seat a little bit and if you need to rearrange yours to see the presentation feel free to do so okay okay the purpose of the school safety data s report that I'm about to give is to meet the requirement under the statute of New Jersey which is 18a and that requires all public school districts to report on incidents of violence vandalism weapon substance abuse restraints and Hib incidents that occur in the schools uh we're going to be reporting on the period of September 1st to December 31st but uh first I want to just bring a little bit of context around this idea of restraints so we trained all of our a lot of our staff last year in a process called CPI which is a approach to deescalate a situation so when we're talking about having to restrain a child it's done so that we could deescalate a situation and make sure that no one is of harm to themselves or to others uh Miss Anderson was uh had the forethought to train one of our in-house social workers so as the trainer so now we have a train the trainer program set up so we don't have to pay for outof district training so right now we have our administrators trained we have everybody on our child study train stud study child stud team and all of our school counselors trained in uh restraint process so just a reminder about Hib this is from the New Jersey Law and we have a board policy that aligns with the statute and we know from previous conversation that in order to be defined as a Hib you have to meet three characteristics that are up here we refer to them as prongs the policy ensures that we are adhering to the legal requirements and then it provides some clear guidance for identifying and addressing the Hib incidents within our school so here you're going to see the categories that I previously mentioned and it's delineated according to each of our school buildings and the follow column the final column at the bottom of that are the hip cases for remember we're we're talking about a c specific reporting period so we are still seeing that discrepancy between alleged and confirmed hibs but I want to clarify that just if something does not meet this definition of a Hib does not mean that is not addressed according to our code of conduct policy this child may have done an infraction that's reported as a Hib but it doesn't meet all three prongs but that doesn't mean that there aren't consequences given to students who don't meet the expectations for Behavior here so this past year we put Dr Beth Stanton in her role as supervisor of student safety and well-being and she has been targeting efforts to enhance both our educational programs uh and these are some of the things that Dr Stanton has led we've increased and enhanced our training for staff we've had additional lessons for students so that they have a better understanding of the Hib law and making sure that um they understand that the content is relevant and engaging we've had more student programs to promote a safer School environment and we've also implemented a tiered approach to consequences so students St have a complete understanding of what kind of behavior will lead to what type of disciplinary action so just with regard to the kind of hip trainings we've done we in earlier in the year we do training for all of our staff on the policy requirements and procedures we do that at one of the first two inservice days where staff comes back also Dr Stanton created a video presentation on Hib that was shared at every back to school night early in the fall and because we've had the most hibs at our Middle School we we've we've made some more efforts there we had additional staff training by the district by The District's board attorney so that um staff is really una aware of their reporting responsibilities and Dr Stanton actually went into classrooms herself because she serves as a district anti-bullying specialist and she gave student lessons so that our students have a clear understanding of what Hib is so we've had increased trainings in that regard we've also had um school programs all school districts in New Jersey are required to during the first week of October to hold a week of respect so that's something we've been doing for many years and we've um continued in that regard we've also worked with a lot of the materials from the Sandy Hook promise which is a nonprofit organization that came out of the um terrible tragedy that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School about a little maybe about 12 years ago so we've been using their resources to really help our students understand what is appropriate Behavior we've also made sure that we've done cyber safety for our parents we know our children are on cell phones a lot we know that we are constantly trying to keep up with what else is out there and and and directing them to um you know do certain behaviors so we've done parent information sessions there and we've also done sessions for students again we've been targeting more at bcms because that's usually I mean I know the students some of the students at Stonybrook have phones but um we know that all our middle school students do so that was a concentrated effort there we've also tried to engage the community more so there's been a lot more communication sent out to parents and families in Branchburg about the hip policy and fostering a you know a stronger homeschool communic hes School communication and the other thing that we've been doing as required by the New Jersey Department of Education we have a school safety team at each of our school schools that consists of school counselors Administration teachers and parents and that's all in in requirement so our teams have been looking at data that according to student infractions and hibs to really look to see if there are certain trends for example there's a there's a big Tik Tock Trend going on right now where the um they're encouraging students to uh def cause damage to bathrooms we're now aware of that so we want to make sure that we are constantly staying ahead of things that are being students are being exposed to and they look closely at that data doesn't mean we're not doesn't mean we're done uh there's always work to do here so we're going to continue to persist in our efforts to engage families in their understanding of the Hib statute we are also going to be doing more student program so that they have an awareness of what Hib is and how you behave appropriately I know specifically Miss steper at the middle school had grade level meetings with our students to help them understand the consequences that were part of the tiered system over there we have that tiered consequence and the policy committee will be adopting all of that work as part of the code of conduct policy and we are also including education for our parents teachers and school personnel with regard to the hibs cultural diversity and also cyber awareness because that's where a lot of the things we're noticing um Trends are coming from so that's the report um and I'll do another one at the end of the year that encapsulates that next time period so do we have any questions okay that is my report thank you very much okay we will move on to our first public comment um the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and school matters of community interest and support of this position the law establishes a period of public comment at every board meeting individuals wishing to speak must State their name and place of residence comments are limited to three minutes per person for a total of 30 minutes an individual may speak a second time after all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer and participant May address or question board members individually all speakers are requested to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy rights of others whose legal rights may be affected please note while it is not the board's intention to stifle comment on matters of legitimate concern to the school Community the public should be aware that if their statements violate the rights of others under the law governing governing defamation or invasion of privacy they may face personal liability to the injured party if speakers are uncertain of the legal ramifications of their comments the board urges them to seek guidance beforehand from their own legal adviser public comments are welcome at this time on agenda items only towards the end of the meeting we will have a second public comment on any topic I am going to close public comment on agenda items and move on to governance I have no report other than the fact that we will at some point be holding interviews for our open board seat um we're still working on the details and the dates of um when we will do that in order to replace uh Mr Dugan uh more details will come shortly after that is all decided we do have a few voting items we have a approval of minutes B approval of revised 2023 2024 School District calendar C approval of harassment IM intimidation or bullying investigative report and D approval of hi findings report can I have a motion to move these items motion no second second cool thank you um any questions comments can I have a roll call please yes SE on A and D yes to b and c Mr Vader Miss not Stain On A and D yes on B and C M yes yes yes Mr carp here yes thank you next up is policy Mr do you have a report I do um we met February 1st for our first policy committee meeting of the year um and we went over what's on the agenda um the e8th grade graduation policy um so we're looking to abolish this because this policy has been mandated as a high school graduation requirement and is not applicable for middle school and because it conflicts with our current promotional uh practices of policy will be added to the next Board of Ed meeting for ab um abolishment and this is just to confirm that graduation ceremony will not be affected by this thank you very much um so we do have that one um policy item to vote on so it's a policy and regulations to be abolished can I have a motion to move this item motion second any questions comments or concerns can I have a roll call please Mr yes Mr yes Mr Mater Miss Nota yes M sha yes Mr Tuma yes M Joyce yes Mr carer yes Mo thank you very much next up is curriculum and instruction Mr Mater do you have anything I do not okay we have some voting items we have a conferences and travel B approval of service agreement C approval of service Project D approval of additional well-being Camp outside presenters e approval of revision of well-being Camp outside presenters F approval of acceptance of Grant funds G approval of 2023 2024 one:1 instructional assistance and H approval of contracted service can I have a motion to move these items motion second um any questions or comments I have a question about f um um you have any can you explain what that is Oh Yes actually um I so many I put I put this in my weekly memo too and it's actually a really great grant that the bef is willing to support for us so um what M Scher is asking for are some decals and for the floor and the walls so that will enable our students to have some physical movement they're called sensory walkways so they're really great you could start to see them in many different schools um you know I I've seen a couple I actually if you go online and you look they're a lot they're very creative so I want to thank the bef for um providing that money so that we could put that in place and once once that's in place I'll share some pictures with all of you thank you for bringing that up thank you um anybody else can I have a roll call please yes yes yes Mr yes Mr yes M Jo yes rep here yes motion thank you moving on to Personnel Mr Tuma do you have anything no report Personnel committee will meet for the first time next week awesome and just so the Public's aware we haven't not every committee has met yet so um after formation we're still kind of working through all that so we do have some some voting items we have a approval of resignations B approval of leave C approval of personnel D approval of revision of leave e approval of additional well-being Camp inh House presenters F approval of revision of extra duty pay G approval of revision of guided study and H approval of revision of mentoring can I have a motion to move these items motion second thank you any questions or comments on those seeing none can I have a roll call please yes for yes yes yes yes M Joy yes here yes thank you again um next up is finance and Facilities Miss Joyce do you have a report I do uh we met was that just last week um on February 1 um we discussed uh qac which I believe is completed or in process right we are done with the majority of it we have two site visits scheduled for next week at our 2 elementary schools so we're about 80% completed um we also got an update on the long range facilities plan um and we discussed a a grant that we are going to receive so um and our next committee meeting will be on March 7th thank you very much um we have some voting items we have a the bill list B secretary's report C Treasures report D line item transfers e monthly transfer report F approval of donation from the Megan Rose Bradley Foundation G approval of contract for school positions H approval to pay bills and I approval of Transportation jointure with Bound Brook School District can I have a motion to move these items motion second thank you um any questions or comments I would like to just comment on item number F which is the approval of donation from the Megan Rose Bradley Foundation they have been kind enough to make numerous donations to us this year and we're just very appreciative and grateful for their support so thank you thank you very much and I would just like to comment on the USAC portion of the um I just want to thank everybody for all their effort I know it's been a little bit of overhead added to the administration the teachers the union um and I just from the meeting that I attended it went like looked like it went very well so I just wanted to show my appreciation for all the hard work that went into that process and um just thank you for representing our school district in a very very good light so I appreciate it thank you um last Mee are nextal report yes a formal report will come out and I will share all the scores with you publicly anybody else can I have a roll call please yes yes yes yes M Joyce yes Mr car yes thank you okay that brings us to our second public comment anybody who wishes to speak on any topic is welcome at this time okay I'm going to close public comment and move on to board ladies on reports first up is summer Bill uh no report that our last meeting was actually the reorganization at the beginning of January we're meeting again uh this upcoming Tuesday okay um PTO the har Wizards game is coming up soon March 1 March 1 okay Bobby will be playing [Laughter] again I umum actually our our two principales at White and and Stony Brook stepped up to be coach so I've officially transferred to the role of manager the GM yes I'm general manager perfect okay um moving on to Somerset County Ed Services Commission we had a meeting yesterday um nothing groundbreaking in terms of any relation to what we're doing here they went over the audit results and they did hand out a few um Awards to some of their Exemplar teachers that they have over there um but that's it U next up is New Jersey school boards which is also me I have no report and then we will move on to Branchburg Township leaon voice no report no report um bef no report and finally cpeg uh just to let everyone know the cpeg town hall meeting that we got snowed out rained out something out of last time um will be held on Tuesday February 27th at 7 pm um it's a virtual meeting so make sure you check your email and sign up for that um a lot of good information comes out from for everybody that's not just for special ed do we get those emails like if they um that uh should have gone to the whole school Community does it okay I believe so all right I'll will check I have it thank you um okay can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting motion second all in favor I thank you very much