e e e e good evening welcome to a regular meeting of the East Windsor Regional School Board of Education written advance notice of this meeting was provided at least 48 hours ago such notice provided the time date and location of this meeting and included the agenda to the extent it was known at the time notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with law minutes of this meeting are being kept by the board secretary and will be made available promptly to any member of the public requesting them from the board secretary at 25A Leen Lane heightstown New Jersey minutes will be provided at cost and in accordance with board policy are there any board members present who believe this meeting to be in violation of the open public meetings Act there being none we may proceed in compliance with the fire code of the state of New Jersey I call your attention to the emergency exit for this room which are located on in the back and the sides please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance item C having read the materials received I move the agenda be approved as submitted second any questions P the board please miss Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes m b is not here yet Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss Kia yes Miss larusa yes item D be it resolved that the East Windsor Regional School District May hold two closed sessions at this meeting these closed sessions concern Personnel administrator introduction of Michelle lawon supervisor of student services orisa update HIV report and superintend of evaluation minutes of these closed meetings will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists second any questions pull the board please distri yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss K yes Miss larusa yes and we will now move on to into the retiree recognition Okay so good evening everyone uh I'm going to just do some brief words of introduction uh annually this is obviously a joyous occasion where we have the opportunity to celebrate uh the retirement of some of our most valued employees as uh they kind of ride off into the sunset to to chart start that new chapter of their lives so um uh you know we we actually had two rooms set up so I'll say this right now Public Service Announcement the room in Jason to where we're currently uh occupied we do have Refreshments so post um recognition um our retirees and and their family and friends please feel free to to utilize that room just to mingle eat drink a little water and tea or coffee and enjoy yourselves at the conclusion of the presentation tonight we will ask the retirees just for a brief uh picture uh before they leave but with that said I'm going to turn things over to Dr Erin sevillo assistant superintendent for human resources I feel like I have nothing else to say said all the public service announcements okay so today as I say every year the retirement uh uh party that we have is my favorite time of the whole year it's kind of like the high school graduation for HR right so we all get together and we think about we celebrate we are so proud of all of our staff that are going to retire and this is our way to honor all of you right so we have I'm not going to do all the honoring by myself I have three assistants who are going to help me I have Ellen ogens and cathine caral who from Ewa who come with gifts and Kevin mcel who will be joining us as we right so those are all of us who are really going to celebrate um today of course I did write something to say and then I just you know continue to talk and talk so um so what we're going to do is we're going to bring up we have several staff who are leaving us and we're going to bring the four who are here there are more than that who are leaving us at the end of the school year but only four of were able to make it today so what we're going to do is we are going to celebrate we are going to Bid Farewell to all of our staff all of the staff who are retiring this year have really had such an impact on all of our school Community they have come in every day they are dedicated they are um are tireless in their commitment to our students each and every one of them whether they are bus drivers or teachers or child study team or buildings and grounds classroom assistants uh they have all impacted our students and that's really the most joyful thing about working in the school district is we get to see the fruits of our work every single day get older and older and older and older and better and better and better and better until they graduate and that's the same thing that happened with all of our staff so we're going to start today with our buildings and grounds we have Nelson asona come on up Nelson and Edgar Hernandez is going to speak for you so good evening uh we are gathered here tonight to celebrate and honor Nelson's he retires uh after 20 21 years dedicated uh service Nelson your hard work commitment and posit positive attitude have been inspir an inspiration to all of us you have made it and last an impact on our team and our organization and we are incredibly grateful for having having you have and you have have done as Embark of this new chapter of your life we wish you all the best may may your retirement beill you with joy Rel Rel relaxation and new new adventures thank you Nelson for for your incredible contribution you will be great miss will be greatly miss it and I wish you all thank you very much thank youson I have to say it Nelson comes into my office every morning to say good morning I don't know what we're going to do after he leaves because he really comes in every di it's free all right if we can bring up the WCB staff uh we're going to start with Kathleen Fallon good evening everyone I'm Heather glowski I'm the principal at the Walter SE black school and I am going to honor Kathleen Fallon becoming a teacher was a calling for Kathleen Fallon leaving her career on Wall Street Mrs Fallon began working in a preschool in 1997 in 2001 she started as a sub teacher for our district where she worked in all K5 schools and the Middle School in January 2003 she began her teaching career as a leave replacement in grade 2 at the gr and Rogers school and was immediately hired as a full-time teacher in September at Rogers she has taught grade two basic skills academic support and was certified as an ESL teacher in 2018 during her time in East Windsor she was dedicated to our schools she was a yearbook adviser and an active participant in the pride FAST program Mrs Fallon started the little Free Library program at G&R with the help from ewea additionally Mrs found was the foundations in District trainer for levels k12 and three and is a certified Wilson reading teacher she has received Awards and honors including the governor's teacher recognition award in G&R in 2007 and in 2010 she was selected for the Delta cap gam International Society for women Educators Mrs Fallon has lived in the district for 30 years and all three of her children attended WCB mhk and heightstown high school she was an active member of the parent Community too as a PTO member room parent after prom chairperson music booster and a proud Partners in Performing Arts parent Kathleen is truly part of the fabric that makes East Windsor the special place that it is congratulations on your retirement can't believe it oh wait this is for you l Vero come on down how ly inverso started her teaching career in 1990 in Hamilton Township she taught at Crockett Middle School and steinard High School where she coached the girls freshman basketball team Mrs inverso made the move to East Windor in 2002 and how fortunate this district has been to have her all these years she worked at Grayson Rogers school as a PE teacher and then moved to Walter SE black school when the schools reconfigured in 2018 ly Lyn is an exceptional educator in 2018 she was selected Governor educator of the Year seeing Lynn's lessons in action is very impressive she is very creative in her approach and you can see the great deal of thought that goes into the many details ly is a Visionary when it comes to seeing areas that may need Improvement she's able to quickly identify the need and come up with improvements or solutions to problems for schoolwide events she enthusiastically gets involved many laughs are had when Lynn and the fineart team are involved and much of this team's collegiality can be attributed to Lynn's ability to bring people together Mrs erso is also involved in the Special Olympics where she coaches both basketball and track and field this year she helped carry in the Special Olympics flag at the opening ceremonies of the game representing all of the coaches she has truly made a difference in the lives of so many over the years including my own congratulations wishing you all of the best in retirement if you can have ni folks come up oh and Sh and sh sh Sharon I forgot I'm not retiring I'm like Oh Nicole I'm not retiring good evening everyone um I'm Nicole folks I'm the principal at Ethel mcnight I'm here to honor Sharon fredoli I didn't even have to say anything it is with great pleasure that I stand for you to honor the retirement of one of em K's educational assistants Sharon fredoli who has dedicated 21 years of exceptional service to the East Windsor Regional School District during her time as an EA Sharon has had a positive influence over countless students as an EA for special education students she has shown tremendous patience care and willingness to do whatever was needed to ensure Student Success the many teachers she has worked with have commended her for being an outstanding team player who you could always count on Sharon on behalf of the entire School Community I want to express our deepest gratitude for your dedication hard work and the positive impact you've had in the two decades you have worked with the students of ewsd as you embark on this new Journey called retirement may it be filled with joy fulfillment and the satisfaction of knowing you have made a difference in the lives of many congratulations Sharon on a well-deserved retirement so these are not the only people who are retiring from the district this year we have several more people who are retiring we'd like to really honor them as well so I'm going to go through so you get to listen to me to do that because they're not here hopefully they're tuning in so they could see what we're talking about so our first retiree who's not here is Eric Butler Eric comes from WCB he was a teacher in the district he's been here since for 12 years since September of 2011 and Eric can always be known for welcoming students to his computer lab while he's playing the guitar and singing songs Dorne Cardell was from G&R she was a classroom assistant who joined joined our district in 1998 and Don's dedication has not only helped students achieve their academic goals but has also instilled in them a sense of confidence and self-worth that will stay with them for a lifetime Karen cook is a teacher who is here for 20 I was going to say 23 years oh yeah 23 years she started in 2000 so I did a quick thing of math in my head and I'm like it's 2024 but she left in December uh she's been in mhk for 20 for since 2000 Karen approached each day at mhk with an enthusiasm for having her students understand grade level material and be successful in mathematics Robert Diaz our building principal at plld joined the district in 2000 as well Robert's dedication to his professionalism and integrity has set a high standard for all his levelheaded and pragmatic demeanor has been a source of stability and inspiration creating a nurturing and supportive learning environment where both students and staff will Thrive Patricia doni was our bookkeeper she's currently she was currently at the high school been here for 25 years came to our district in 1998 Patricia has been the backbone of our school's financial operation skillfully managing all of our budget needs with precision and care I can attest to that because she's been calling me she called me about POS a lot uh Maggie Rober rerto has been at mhk for four years she joined our district in 2019 Maggie approached her job with a smile and she knew parents all the parents and students by name Romanowski ski yes all of you guys know him through he was at the high school he's been here for 17 years he joined our district in 2007 throughout his career Mr zolkowski has created a stunning array of artwork that has adorned our schools hallways and classrooms his vibrant paintings capture the essence of our community and the beauty of the world around us his sculptures with their integrate details and unique forms have sparked conversations and curiosity among students and staff alike Barbara Tran is a teacher from WCB she joined our district in 2002 and has been here for 22 years bar has a unique ability to engage students in the learning process fostering a positive and inclusive classroom environment and finally Eileen tillum ederton was a teacher at emk she joined our district as well in 2000 she's been here for 24 years alen's classroom has always been a vibrant and welcoming space where Young Learners felt safe supported and encouraged to explore their full potential her Innovative teaching methods and her ability to connect with each child on a person level has fostered a love of learning that will stay with them for a lifetime all told our retirees have dedicated years of experience to our district when they leave they take with them 261 years of experience so we'd like to um as they embark on this new chapter of their life we are to express our deepest gratitude for all of the work that they've done with and their contributions to education and the lasting Legacy they leave behind we're going to celebrate not only the end of their distinguished careers but the beginning of a well-deserved journey of relaxation exploration and fulfillment congratulations to our retirees so before we Retreat to the festivities next door we will have a picture of everybody so if we can have a picture did you want to have any ending comments before the picture or after the picture before the picture please um so before we we engage in the picture and the refreshments I would like to just Echo the sentiments of Dr seilo obviously congratulations to this year's retirees thank you thank you thank you for your years of service to the students teachers and families of our school district um look we appreciate your tiess efforts your steadfast commitment to education and your leadership in each of your roles you've served in a leadership capacity in terms of having impact and contributing to the school district um as Erin said I will say that the Legacy that you've left is has been an indelible Mark to our district and will continue to inspire us and guide us as we move forward uh I wish you a retirement filled with happiness Venture and the satisfaction of a career well spent so once again I always say this the most valuable uh commodity the most valuable resource in any organization is the human resource and I just want to thank you again uh for for all that you've done for our school district and uh wishing you all the best moving forward thank you okay um okay so we're going to take a picture right here right here right here in the middle we could do it yeah all right we'll take a picture follow follow us in here I was gonna say Nicole you're gon to come with us for the picture they're going to go in e so anybody who is interested in continuing the celebration in the Next Room may go and enjoy the uh food which was brought to us by Chartwell so we should thank Chartwells they did a beautiful job e e e e e e e e e we're just going to take a five minute break um and then we'll start back up in five minutes what time is it all right we'll just give everyone five minutes e e e e e okay we're going to get back we're going to get started um we're now going to move on to item three the St student representative report thank you there are a number of award ceremonies Tak place to honor our seniors over the last week and this week last Tuesday many seniors were honored during the annual senior awards ceremony Awards ranged from scholarships for essay based contests athletic recognition and academic Awards many students walked away with scholarships that will help them succeed and support their further education or career path during tomorrow's school day students who receive the Seal of by literacy will be honored and officially recognized for their incredible achievement of proficiency in multiple languages District building Administration will also be present and light Refreshments will be will be provided as well on June 12th students who made honoral or high honor Ral all but one marking period during their time in high school will be celebrated during the Senior Honor Roll luncheon students and parents will be meeting during the school day in cafeteria R making it a special moment of academic Excellence for our senior class unfortunately we had to cancel our much anticipated event of Bamboozled this year due to impending storms the day it was for however we were still able to conduct the P teacher fundraiser thanks to the cooperation of teachers and administrators involved today and tomorrow we are bringing the teachers to the selected students classroom to be pied and videotaping each one so that a compilation can be aired in the ram report later this week we thought this would be a fun way to still have the fundraiser even with rambozo being cancelled this past weekend the HHS South Asian club or soth held their annual cultural performances completing two shows for the first time ever and had an amazing turnout during the weekend they showcased many traditional South Asian dances singing acting and even showcased and involved the East Asian Pacific Islander club with their own cultural dance as well graduating seniors in the club were honored on Sunday with roses and speeches the shows turned out beautifully and we are looking forward to their success next year as a fundraiser for Deca the club is running an event for students to purchase a bag of Hershey Kisses for their favorite seniors the bags will delivered to the recipient classroom throughout this week we thought this is a wonderful way to give the senior something sweet as it finish off their last few days in school as you know graduation is next week on June 18th we have already had so many fun events recently such as decision day and prom We would like to extend our heart heartfelt thanks to the parents Association for all their hard work in setting up and running after prom at the school on Friday night everyone had so much fun and is a memory we are sure to remember we also had our car parade earlier today we'll be receiving our caps and gowns on Thursday and we'll be having a senior breakfast on Friday before graduation practice the entire senior class is Reminiscing on our past four years here but also excited to start the next chapter as the year comes to a close the rest of the school is preparing for next year by transitioning leadership to new students clubs are in the process of holding their elections and class council elections will take place tomorrow candidates are currently campaigning within their grades student council interviews took place a few weeks ago and the official board has been announced for the subse subsequent school year as such we are now able to introduce you to next year's student board representatives sahana pkumar and Sanji kakara they are both in attendance tonight so we would like to ask them to stand out we are so proud of them and excited to to see what they do next year this concludes our final report of our term here and we would like to thank all the board members Mr Daniels Mr Vincent and District administration for allowing us to represent the student body we have both had the opportunity to learn so much over the past year and will continue to use this experience in our future thank you for your time so uh just in conclusion can't believe the end of the school year is here I just wanted to say on behalf of the board as well that um we've really appreciated having your presence here at the board meetings this year uh I think it served as a great bridge it served a great sense of connection in terms of high school student voice um and I think it really provides some great Insight I know it takes some some time to prepare and uh a sense of you know showing up uh twice a month so I don't take that lightly so definitely appreciate your professionalism um I believe that you know one of you will be going to Temple I think the other one going to USC next year so wishing you all all the best as you move forward and I think you've served as great role models for any students that will follow you uh taking on on this particular um I think responsibility but I'm hoping you enjoyed it you don't like you enjoyed it right now you're look very serious but I hope you enjoyed it and I'm sure you're probably looking forward to kind of graduation and then summer and then transitioning to college right so uh thank you again small token of appreciation before you go just want to share with you uh or provide to you I ask your family to come tonight so I'm glad they could be here but if I could ask you both to come on up and if Nicole you want to come up in the hand soap with you so uh just a a small token of appreciation for your service to the Board of Education this year we're just going to provide you with some plaques that uh hopefully you will prominently display in your dorm rooms uh so the first one will be for anua gupa uh presented go ahead so it just says that presented an appreciation for your dedication and integrity while honorably serving as a student representative to the East Winds Regional School District Board of Education for the 2023 2024 school year Lua thank you suda yours is a little different I'm only kidding so for sud deep to Murthy uh same thing presented in appreciation for your dedication and integrity while honorably serving as a student representative to the East Wind Regional School District Board of Education for the 2023 2024 school year thank you e before we transition to um our Equity audit recommendation update um I know the uh student representativ has just mentioned it but I do want to welcome again our uh student representatives for the 20242 school year Sahan Kamar and Sanji carala met with them today looking forward to uh working with them and continuing the the service to the Board of Education next year so thank you and uh sahana and Sanji if you don't want to stay that's fine if you do that's also okay but uh definitely uh congratulations and looking forward to your service next year so with that I think we'll transition to uh our presentation portion of of the evening for I may help I'm Erin sillo assistant superintendent again it's going to be the all Aon show today so this evening we're going to be updating you a little bit about the focus goal on our Equity update I'm going to call up a few of the administrative team who is also here we have Nicole folks Britney s uh Lori Emerson is here Sam felicetta and Dave Row I think that's all of the members of the equity committee who are here so we're starting with the focus goal the focus goal as you remember was to really talk about the recommendations from an outside Equity audit so we made um an agreement with an outside agency and they gave us did an outside Equity audit for us and that's what our Focus goal was so before we talk about what has happened I think it's really important to understand that the equity committee um although the focus goal was relatively new the equity Committee in itself is not new right we've been really working on this as a team since at least since I arrived which was in 2016 so these are just a couple of the things that we have been working on so far um as a committee we really started the committee mainly as an administrative committee and this year uh we changed that a little bit and I'll talk about that in a little bit so one of the things these are some of the things that we have done we established in 2016 we've done trainings for faculty in 2020 2021 and 2022 we did eight administrative training sessions during the 2122 school year and we T looked at a lot of data and we had a lot of help doing that our administrative teams really looked at their building data and then gave the committee that data and we did some some collaborative work on that um I'll show you an example we I've talked aot a lot about some of the data that we've done over the years uh you've he heard me talk about disproportionate representation in different classes disproportionate representation in um uh gifted and talented programming and so this example that I have this is just um an example oh and I didn't do it did Paul did I I was supposed to share this with Paul because I forgot it wasn't my computer so which I don't have sorry it's not my computer I'm a little out of the loop so the D the data that I was going to share with you was just a glimpse at some of the things that we had done we talked about the discipline data and we broke that down um by series of different demographics we looked at race we looked at gender we looked at different classes um so I was just going to show a little glimpse of that but the point is that what we started to do is we had all of these meetings with our administrative staff and that really called attention to some of the data that was in our district right so when we started to have those conversations we were able to examine the data look at what the best choices were for our children and make some changes right so over the years from uh 1718 until 2021 we were able to from 2122 we were able to change our discipline data so that it was not leaning towards a disproportionate representation of students of color being disciplined differently from students who were not in color so that was one I was just going to show you it was a little um success story that we've done but I will make sure that the link is appropriate and open when you get the presentation right so you'll have that data that data with you and we also drafted our district definition of equity this was all happening before we did the audit right so this was all work that we've done before the audit this is the definition that the East Windsor has drafted for our Equity I won read it to you you can read it yourself so then after we started to do all of that work and we were examining our own data trying to make suggestions for some changes we again thought that we should have an outside lens looking at the things that we were looking at right so we had an outside lens that can give us a different perspective we can get another um set of eyes on our data and make suggestions for that and that's when we drafted the equity audit so we did the audit uh it took half a school year we already completed the audit we completed the report we shared the report with you when it first came in and one of the things that um they did for us that we really enjoyed was to identify five pillars of equity and so everything that we're going to do moving forward is going to be based on those five pillars of equity we were also able to share all of the results and recommendations with the faculty as a whole we did that at central office meetings for four of our schools and we did that at faculty meetings for two of our schools so everyone was able to get access to the recommendations through the uh Equity audit that we did these are the pillars the Five Pillars that Insight provided to us it's a little hard to see on the screen so I actually will read this to you so we have five pillars structures systems and resources culture and Community equity in the educator Workforce professional learning and professional and personal growth and then curriculum instruction learning so in each of these pillars we were able to identify some strengths that the district had some challenges that the district had and then Insight made recommendations for that so these are the recommendations uh we're going to go over the recommendations for each of the Five Pillars so we'll have the five areas of recommendations so the first one is structured in systems and it's it was really two recommendations one was to create a district Equity committee and one was to create a school-based equity committees so we already had an equity committee as I explained we were already doing all this work we were years in elbow deep in data but it was just the administrative team so instead of just have the administrative team we the rec commendations were to include the school community so we put out a survey for people who wanted to join we got some recommendations from people um they filled out a little application about why they wanted to become uh part of the equity committee and we started our first meetings this year we also were recommended to make a to make school-based Equity committees at each school so we're still in the throws of of starting to plan that um I've drafted um procedures and criteria and roles and responsibilities for the school-based members we haven't shared that out yet we're still kind of flushing that out a little bit and then for September we will have our we should have a school-based equity committee at each of our six schools these are the members of our team so you'll see there's we have vared demographics in position of the people who were at our Equity team we had our first meeting this year it was really a a quite enjoyable meeting the staff who signed up and volunteered to do this are very passionate about this work they're very enthusiastic about having these discussions and they're really skilled at looking at data and being able to communicate things within their District within their home school so I think that they will be very helpful in helping us move forward so we have administrators on the team we also have teachers on the team we have child study team we have secretaries on the team one of our school security members is on the team so it's really a nice and varied group um and we're certainly open to more members as we move forward and then each of these people will serve as liaison for their individual school and we'll set up what what they're going to do as the time goes on so for the next recommendation for pillar two I'm going to ask Nicole folks to come up when we had our first meeting uh of the whole group what we did was we broke out into teams by pillars so I gave everybody a pillar they all had their own table and at the pillars they looked at the recommendations that Insight provided to us so they went through all the recommendations and then as a group their task was to identify three that they considered priorities if they had to distill the list down to three priorities what would that be and that's what we're going to show you what those three priorities were for the first pillar there were only the two recommendations and we're already in the middle of doing that uh so but for the other pillar there might have been more than three recommendations but we're tring to distill that down um not to say that all of the recommendations will not be taken into account but we're going to develop a multi-year plan so we need to keep our pieces manageable and doable so that we have some success and we don't want to rush and make too many changes too too quickly so we asked them to to distill it down to three so that's what we're going to talk about so Nicole was the administrator in pillar two in that pillar two group so she's going to talk about culture and Community thanks so as Erin said I was the administrator that sat with culture and community and um our task was to narrow those recommendations down to three so my group felt that uh creating a community and parent input group was one of the things that was of importance um the district had been aligned with a community group headed by Mr Abalos that focused on Hispanic families however after his passing this collaboration slowed and we're in the process of reestablishing that in addition to that we'd like to establish a community input group that includes parents or family representatives from all of the schools and the goal of that group would be to provide families with consistent and accurate information to assist them to understand what's happening in the schools as well as to give those families the opportunity to share their thoughts on relevant issues the second one was to develop parent education programs um our conversations focused on programs that would include Basic School Logistics so for example how to log onto the portal how to access your child's report card how to sign up for um conferences or even how to put money on your child's lunch account as well as academic programs where for example I'm in the K2 world so we may have a literacy night or a math night where we're sharing strategies that parents can work on at home with their students and the last is to create a districtwide program and that is to develop or Implement anal program that would span all the grade levels where all stakeholders would have a collaborative Vision foral as well as a common language that kind of goes from K to 12 pillar three was the educator Workforce so I took that pillar so uh we really looked at the recommendations um and came up with some things pleasingly that we were already working on in in my office so that was really I was glad to see that you know you don't want to spin your wheels and think that you're starting a program and then you get recommendations from this Professional Organization and it's totally in an opposite direction of what you thought you were going so that we were all on the same page was really helpful to me um so we chose the three recommendations uh that you see here create an internal pipeline uh build up retention and build up recruitment to take my glasses off to see what I wrote uh so what I've done so far um is we've already looked at all of our job descriptions and we're reviewing those with an equity lens so sometimes when you make a job description you might weed out certain number of people just by the requirements that you're putting down right and and when you look at like HR literature and you look at research studies about job descriptions and you know are what level of Education are you requiring what level of commitment are you requiring what are the hours how can we really get more people to apply to some of our programs so we've really been starting to look at that um our job descriptions were pretty good in my opinion so I didn't really have to make too many changes but that's something that we've already done um so when we're looking at creating internal pipelines we've we've again started to do that um we've done a couple of things in that way already one was we we partnered with Rowan University and Rowan has an ESL certification program one of our retirees attended that program um and got her certification from Rowan uh in ESL so that's not unusual right our staff make graduate decisions all the time they go and they get different degrees they go and they get different certifications That's Not Unusual the unusual thing we did with Rowan is we took the burden of paying for the tuition up front away from the staff so we made it a little easier for them to do that and I do billing the they bill us directly instead of like flowing through the staff members so that made it a little easier for some of our staff to actually start taking the classes right because graduate school is expensive so that was one thing that we did already we've also uh looked at a new program this year that uh our local universities are using Ryder and the College of New Jersey both have programs that are looking at taking our classroom assistants that are already working with our children and already have an interest in our children and already have an interest in education and moving them to teach to become teachers so we're working on that as well and there are several different ways that we're that we're trying to support them through that process so that's kind of how we're looking at our internal pipeline for our retention the recommendation that stood out to the team was to do coaching mentoring and making connections with staff of color so Mentor programs are not new right we have Mentor programs we've been having Mentor programs for years and what we're going to do we usually ask our season staff would you volunteer to be a mentor and we our staff are really great at that they all want to help they want to bring on new staff they want to bring on new uh the students teachers and try to help them become better teachers so they're really good at that and what this one is really talking about is focusing on making personal connections with staff of color and try to create some things that would speak to them directly and support them in their first years of working with us so that's something that we're starting to explore um and then the last thing is recruitment using colleges that are more diverse and we've again started to do that already um we are you know we're very lucky to be in Mercer County and have universities that are very close to us and give us a lot of uh students graduates and that's fabulous but we're trying to Branch out because we want to again diversify our staff so we're looking at colleges that may not be so close to us but may provide a more diverse staff we've partnered with rers um we've gone to William Patterson to job fairs at William Patterson uh Kane University and we're starting to get more uh graduates from those colleges that are more diverse than the people that we've been getting in the past so we just were able to through our reaching out to Kane University and going to there to do job fairs and bringing them here we were able to develop a student teacher relationship with them so last year and this year we started getting student teachers from cane that we hadn't had before so we're starting to do that so that's the educator Workforce those are the things that we're currently looking at um these are all we're all in the very beginning stages of this so that's what we're really going to help uh plan and figure out moving forward how we can bolster all of those programs uh pillar four professional learning we're going to have Britney sanui she was uh she's going to present on I know Britney you're doing for yeah hi good evening um so for the three recommendations that the uh sorry that that the committee decided were like the most important ones that we're going to focus on tonight that I want to share with you is elevating the leadership of the district Equity committee so like Dr cillo said we had the um administrators we were part of this Equity committee and now we expanded it to the the staff as well um and the the goal this summer is to have we're going to call it a summer Summit for all of the equity team members so that'll be an opportunity for all of us to get together and really expand our knowledge and then again we can be ambassadors and TurnKey this to our other staff um the next one was collaborating with outside vendors to provide professional learning so um we're really thinking that along with within the grade level bands so we want to align plan PD to this to our Equity plan so it really flows so um when we're doing you know also the strategic planning that we that many of you are at as well we want to make this kind of all be aligned and tied to our our Equity um plan so it's really just going to blend much more nicely and then lastly is creating a sense of District workshops that convey a sense of cohesiveness for professional development so we want to better connect all the district professional development opportunities that we have for examp example that maybe we we have these central office meetings throughout the year if there was we want to have more of a theme so that it will include building professional development that continues throughout this thematic work throughout the year um I know for K through second grade we're looking at um a leadership program for our students so it will really blend nicely with with our Equity goals and the vision and the mission of that program is aligned similarly to here thank you video um all right and the last pillar was curriculum instruction and learning so the three that we were uh that the committee really looked at wanting to identify is to accelerate access to Advanced courses and enrichment opportunities for underrepresented students and again this is not new from what we started looking at and we're really looking at the word accelerate access and how to really move more children into advanced courses um communicate a clear District theory of action regarding course instruction and tiered interventions and this is really to make sure that our students are really getting the best instruction that they can get and really targeting students at the different tiers of uh functioning so that we can support the kids that need it and move forward our kids who are ready to move forward and then the last one was identify a tool to conduct a curriculum review where gaps in inclusion and Equity exist and this is we're still looking at this this is one of the things that we're going to look at um a curriculum review of how we can because they make tools to do this right they have electronic things and programs that will really help us identify if there are any gaps in our curriculum and if we're really uh lacking University and some of our curriculum so we're going to look for something that will help facilitate that so these are our next steps this is the last thing that we're going to talk about so these are the next steps we've identified about five of these uh things that we're going to talk about over the next year to two years we're really looking at creating a multi-year plan and one of the most important things that we're doing is is to align this plan with the other plans that the district has right we don't need this to be all right this is the equity bubble this is the Strategic plan bubble this is the professional development bubble right everything needs to be interjoint so that every time we make an effort it it's increased in effect so these are the five things that we're looking at um again I'm not going to read them out loud to you but one of the most important ones is really to just make sure that we're aligned in what we're doing so the whole district has a voice moving forward that's all I have anybody have any questions I'll give you a second to a look I do so the goal for the year was to leverage the results of the equity audit and all I see that we've accomplished is picking out what items we're going to work on is that correct that is correct that's right so we haven't implemented any of the um suggestions except of course you know create the equity committee already have the equity committee established some of the things were a little redundant we did take some time this year to let them uh go through the data present our our results and then we didn't want to start making changes until we rolled that out to staff so we had to do that to staff first so now these are the things that we're going to take from the uh Rec recommendations and move that forward and do we have a we don't have a plan yet either to move it forward right so that's what we're doing this year this summer in the equity Summit is we're going to develop the plan right of how we're going to be implementing everything any other questions hi thank you so much for the presentation it was very thorough my question is for pillar five I just wanted to make sure I understood when we're talking about equity and the underrepresented are we talking about making sure that the um that the classes are being um like different classes are being offered to the underrepresented or are we making sure that everyone's being graded the same um yeah that's an interesting distinction so we're really looking at because when we're looking at things through the lens of equity we're really trying to open up opportunities to people right so when we first started looking at this information and our district data at the high school um and even at the elementary schools we noticed that all of the classes that were say honors classes dual enrollment classes did not have this same demographic breakdown as the school body as a whole right so so what we want to do is really increase opportunities for students who didn't traditionally consider themselves honors kids right dual enrollment kids how can I do that how can I you know no one ever said I could do an honors class no one ever suggested that to me so we're trying to find ways to get more of our students into classes that will advance their academic career as they move forward okay so then I have another question so um those classes right are those being offered to to the students that are currently in the the district like what about students that come new to the district are those then do we have a plan to have those classes offered to them while they're new to the district or is it just the ones that are already in the district no it'll be everybody we W really looking for opportunities once they get here then they're going to be ours right so once they get here then they're ours so we're going to really we can look for ways to help facilitate some people come to us with educational Journeys that are vastly different from the students that grew up in East Windsor um so part of the thing that we have to do which was again one of the recommendations was really look at tiered interventions of how we can support students where they are and help them grow as they continue so if they come to us and they have an educational Journey that might have been different we how can we help them do that and then get into classes that are appropriate for them okay thank you you're welcome Erin can you um tell us more about how the district Equity the building level distri District Equity team members were chosen or did they volunteer they volunteered so we put I put out a little application and people applied to do that and then we you know they answered why they wanted to be on the committee are they are they comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations right because when we start to talk about race and gender and those kinds of things it it can get a little missy we're talking about bias we're talking about Prejudice we're talking about how to move kids into different areas and sometimes that's a hard conversation to have so that was one of the questions are they are they able do they see themselves as able to have that kind of conversation uh so we sent an application I sent it out to the whole district and then people applied and um our first thought was to go through all of the applicants and kind of choose a little bit like one from here one from here one from here and then we said why not just let everybody who wants to be a part of it be a part of it so everybody who's on the team was everybody who applied have you done any Outreach because I know you said it's very diverse but it might be diverse in terms of what position they hold or what school they're from but as far as the names on the list not to be stereotypical but it doesn't seem very diverse if that's not a an appropriate thing to say but it seems like have we gone out to have we done an Outreach to people who we think might be helpful and have a lot of information to share but may be too apprehensive to volunteer on their own right do we go and like tap people on the shoulder and say please join the committee a little more diverse right not yet right we just um started with opening up the doors to that um I'm I'm hoping that this committee will have such a positive experience themselves that when they go back to their buildings and they start to be their Liaisons that they will Garner some excitement in their buildings and more people will want to join us in planning yeah all right can you keep us up to date on that oh absolutely yeah I mean it's a lot it's it's great work um the team really I'm telling you the team is very passionate about really looking at our district and how we can move it forward right we don't want to like compare ourselves to other people we don't want to be like oh they're doing this in this Township and let's do that here um we really want to look at what we can best support our own students right so and the the team is really very enthusiastic about that all all of the members are very enthusiastic they've the administrators have been here for a while we're all all kind of really talking um and it's it's going to be uh an exciting opportunity for a lot of our staff any other questions hi I have just one more question I'm so sorry that's okay um so for next steps number three when we're talking about the district three-year plan are we currently in the second like in the first years that we have two more years no so the district is going is developing their strategic plan right so we want to make sure when the district develops its strategic plan right we just had all those meetings the strategic planning meetings we want to make sure that the goals that are set up with the Strategic plan include the equity lens and that our goals are aligned with that right so we so again it increases the impact when everybody's moving in the same direction all right thank you you're welcome Aon oh sorry I have a question I'm interested in the professional development yes and so I'm wondering do you have any um anything um have you identified any particular topics or um at this point yeah not yet so part of the work that we're going to do in this Summit the summer Summit um we're going to take uh probably two days as with the team as a whole and kind of get some information about what what they need right and and we do uh staff surveys and we do PD surveys with them and right so staff can identify kind of what they feel they need and then we're going to set priorities and pick our themes for the next year right so that everything builds upon each other right and the whole point of that particular um pillar and the suggestions and and the what the St found as important was to continue the theme throughout the year right I think part of the complaint that we've heard that I've received um is that some of the staff feel that our professional development opportunities might seem disjointed right we do this on in March we do this in April we do this in February right so this way if we develop a nice comprehensive plan on a theme based we between the meetings the buildings can focus on supporting those goals as we go through right so that's going to be the work that we do in the summer at the Summit is GNA really kind of identify those themes so we're sort of looking to have professional development that is that that like you said Builds on each other and then you know so when we're and as a district when we're looking at curriculum or when we're looking at really any part of what we're doing we're sort of consistently looking at it through a lens of equity right it's one of the lenses that we're looking at things for and that's just part of what we do and right and the more that we do that the more that we do that right so the more that you do it the more that you do it then the more that you do it and then so with the training that we're doing and the training that we did with the administrators really helped them develop that voice and that Comfort level in talking about bias and race and their own journey and you know um and it's really helped them kind of get a hold of that and how to convey that to staff so the more that we do it the better that we get at it professional development you were talking about would pretty much hit everybody in the district yes it should okay yeah thank you that's it thank you thank you Erin and um and everyone who worked on that um next we move on to item five superintendent report okay good evening again uh I would like to thank Dr cillo members of our district Equity team when we talk about Equity we're really it's really a student achievement initiative where we want to make sure that we are um trying to provide opportunities for all students to meet a level of academic growth and success through a sense of belonging uh we recognize sometimes those it could be some challenges associated with that um but but I think the emphasis is always on if we have a mission that talks about students exiting on program with a certain level of proficiency and Readiness uh to be uh engaged in some level of post-secondary experiences we want to make sure that um regardless of of their profile as a student or demographic they get level of preparation couple of updates tonight uh I just in terms of the thank yous uh extended to uh our student Representatives I also want to make sure that we acknowledge tonight our student videographer and that is another uh senior member of our senior class so would like to take a moment to acknowledge uh the commitment of high school senior Jesse Ruchi uh for the past couple of years Jesse has served as the primary uh person behind the camera here at board meeting so thank you J uh good luck moving forward definitely appreciate your service uh tonight on tonight's agenda we have an administrator appointment that person will be meeting with the board shortly um we have Michelle laon Michelle Lon is being recommended for the supervisor student services position so Michelle comes to us uh from the most recently from the Manchester Township School District uh with experience as a lead BCB supervisor uh and a wealth of experience a board certified Behavior Analysis so uh we're definitely excited about Michelle joining us just to Echo some of the sentiments uh as it's the season uh our student Representatives talked about uh prom and some end of year activity so um as most of us know senior prom took place this Friday evening the event was successful um well attended I do need to take a moment to uh express some gratitude to Ed the heightstown high school parents Association taking the time to transform the high school into Winter Wonderland uh for the after prom event uh this is a long standing tradition in the school community so um obviously we want to engage our students in something that's fun um it's late into the night but but most importantly it's a safe post prom event so thank you to our high toown high school parents Association uh Mr hman based on I think your comments at the um the senior Awards and just in some terms of some informal discussions uh you're leading us to believe that this might be your last I I believe it when I see it but I definitely want to thank thank you and the parents for for making a wonderful night for our high school seniors let's getday um as um just as a quick update we talked about this earlier in the school year we had about 70 students this year at the high school level that um were eligible for the Seal of by literacy those are students that showed or displayed Proficiency in two languages actually some of our students show Proficiency in more than that but we are recognizing them this week actually tomorrow here at the high school auditorium just want to commend those students uh for their level of diligence in terms of displaying a sense of uh language acquisition uh quite comfortably in two areas as we approach the conclusion of the school year just some reminders regarding some graduation and and and moving up ceremonial events so we have our fifth grade promotion events this week on Friday uh June 14th uh G&R uh will have their events at 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. they just kind of take the grade level and split it into two that will take place in the G&R Auditorium our perial Drew uh fifth grade promotion will take place also on Friday they have sessions at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. uh their ceremonies will take place in the plld gymnasium transitioning to Monday uh June 17th here at the high school outside of the stadium we'll have our eighth grade promotion uh eighth grade recognition uh that will begin at 5:00 P PM uh on Monday and then uh we'll conclude our ceremonial events with our he toown High School graduation event on Tuesday June 18th at cure arena in Trenton that will begin at 3 pm uh so since this will serve as our final Board of Education meeting before the end of the school year uh on June 20th I'd like to wish everyone a very fa safe and and satisfying uh summer break thank you does anyone have any questions hi so I had a chance to um check out after prom actually before the kids came and it was magical the the way that the the parent Association and Ed Herman and everybody transformed uh this space and the hallway it I was blown away I thought it was in a whole another place so it was amazing and then Ed said that it was been going on I think he said 38 years so it was really nice to see and I'm glad that the high school students have enjoyed thank if there's no other questions for Mark we'll move on to my agenda that all messed up comments item six comments first opportunity for board member comments are there any board members who have anything to share I do um Karen and I will be making a joint comment tonight as a reminder to the board and the public under the New Jersey open public meetings act executive sessions are confined to discussing only nine specific matters such as legal issues student privacy safety measures and Personnel matters executive meanings are not a venue for resolving board disputes or controversies in the public interest before continuing we want to note that Jenna was not present for the events we are going to discuss so any reference to board event members during the event does not include her during the executive session on April 29th Mark initiated a discussion that violated the open public meetings act as we will explain Karen and I were CAU complet completely off guard and put on the defensive we did not realize then that this attack should not be during executive session discussion for whatever reason Mark The Other Board of head members and the lawyer present did not stop the inappropriate discussion Karen and I regret not realizing it at the time and after Consulting with an ngba lawyer we are now correcting the violation by making the discussion public because the business of the public needs to be done in public the discussion during the executive session on April 29th was a planned personal attack on Karen and me Mark asked for his administrative team to leave the executive session and then said he wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with the board and began with the question is this the new Norm he went on to only name Karen and me he called Karen harsh and nasty he accused me of being distrustful and suspicious and he said his staff felt undermined and disrespected once the gate was open to attack us he sat back while the other board members joined in like Nicole criticizing the writing style of our emails too long too much or Michael saying we came off as too hot rather than waiting a year to observe like he did or Tina complaining that we want to read and understand everything we approve and didn't know as new board members to just read the summary and finally by jti Khan and Jean who just remained silence apparent aggressive an apparent passive agreement to what was being lobbied against us this Ambush completely blindsided Karen and may while we knew our questions and actions were frustrating some we have always been told no surprises during our separate board orientations with Mark Nicole and Paul Mark said he would never surprise us and asked that we not surprise him Karen and I have never surprised Mark and Nicole except for tonight our questions and concerns were always sent to them before the board meetings that same respect was not shown towards us on April 29th before the April 29th meeting no one ever reached out to discuss any concerns with our actions or Communications ironically Karen and I had proactively reached out when we felt the administrative team team may be having difficulties with our questions I had a direct conversation with Tina and told her that I felt my questions were putting people on the defensive and asked if I should change anything and was told no Karen sent multiple emails to Nicole and Tina addressing her concerns about Mark's negative reaction to her emails and received no replies in my entire professional career I have never experienced anything as unprofessional as what happened during the executive session on April 29th Karen and I felt it was an attempt to intimidate us into voting a certain way that night on the budget and financial audit it did not work we did not change our votes they were exactly what we told Mark Nicole and Tina they would be ahead of time we did not vote Yes for the budget because we were not confident in what we were presented with the environment and ewrsd has the appearance of being toxic one of intimidation and year it is exactly what our teachers spoke about last year at this very meeting but let us be clear Mark and the Board of Ed members have no power over Karen and me we suggest that Mark and The Other Board of Ed members review the organizational chart the board approved the board does not report to Mark Mark reports to the board Karen and I welcome collaboration discussion debate and constructive feedback in support of the East Regional School District Community but we will never be intimidated what happened on April 29th was neither collaborative nor constructive Karen and I never have and never will hide behind emails or closed door executive sessions if Mark or the Board of Ed members have any issues with us they should say them now in public session for the community to hear not one board member or Mark reached out to us after the meeting to discuss what transpired maybe this is the normal hazing of new ewrsd board members to get them to fall in line ly to become bobbleheads who do not read or question or to just rubber stamp yes to everything put forth by the superintendent it did not work on us Karen and I have been solely focused on representing the concerns of our community monitoring the educational needs of our students and creating policies to ensure that our district is well-run this is the def of the role and responsibility of a school board member from the njsba so in answer to Mark's question from April 29th is this the new Norm we respond that this should already be the norm it should already be the norm that board of ed members ask questions lots of questions it should already be the norm that board of ed members hold the superintendent and his staff accountable for running the schools effectively it should already be the norm that the Board of Ed members ensure the curriculum is aligned with standards it should already be the norm that the Board of Ed demands policies to be effective current and followed and it should already be the norm that the Board of Ed knows exactly what is in the budget the public may be wondering what Paula and I did that required a reprimand from Mark and the other board members while we can tell you that it was not political or overc controversial Hot Topics that make headlines every day it was fighting for the core Foundation of all school districts curriculum policies fiscal responsibility and assuring student achievement for all populations here are some of the events that Mark and the board apparently have issues with we did not wait a year or longer to start doing our role in no other job are you permitted to observe and listen a year before actually starting to work we argue that the school board committees need to meet more than four hours per year it's no surprise nothing gets done or accomplished after networking we learned all other districts have committees that meet once a month we said we will not discuss public business in email only we argued that we need to read everything that requires our approval completely we insisted that we follow District policy and disagree when Mark says best practice does not need to align with policy we questioned when there was a sudden change to graduation requirements that did not follow the district policies we pointed out that the agenda was released too late for a complete review and does not follow District policy we questioned why we have policies that haven't been reviewed or edited in 20 years two were brought up for Revision in the fall it's now June and they're still not up for first readings of these policies an entire school year has gone by we track down our own information because when we ask for more details we don't get it it is a constant Chase for information and we have every right to give a directive and expect the information to be given to us in a timely manner we ask for updates on how the district is doing in regards to meeting its goals for the year because there were no updates ever we asked for an anonymous teacher and staff engagement survey and we're told there's already enough feedback we asked for more details on our declining student achievement we asked for more information on the education of our special education students and questioned what the district is going is doing to address the increase in our multilingual population particularly our older students who face an insurmountable challenge to graduate we focused on the basic building block of our students education the curriculum not what is being taught in the curriculum but that we have a curriculum that is aligned to standards we questioned why not all courses have a curriculum and we're told elective courses do not need a curriculum that's absolutely not true we questioned why the board was being asked to approve curriculum in March for courses already in progress we spent hours detailing courses that are missing curriculum or have incomplete curriculum we questioned why several curricula were marked as Board of V approved when they were not and insisted for months it be removed and they're still in the Google drive as approved this is a complete disregard of board of authority by Central Administration we voted no on curriculum that didn't follow our district policies we strongly disagreed when the assistant superintendent said that not all curricula need to have New Jersey standards we made the administrative team uncomfortable by asking questions we were not quiet when the board was dis respected and then we informed Mark and Nicole we would abstain from voting on the budget because we had not received the answers to our questions we are frustrated we asked for support from the board president when we knew the relationship with Mark was becoming contentious and were met with silence and we are frustrated with Mark and his administrative team who do not respect us he agreed in writing in March that several curricular were missing and incomplete and that a change in graduation requirements is a a practice that was never board approved but nothing was ever done to correct this despite our persistence curriculum that was not approved by the board at one meeting was put up for approval in the exact same format no changes in a subsequent meeting our questions remain unanswered our requests are ignored Paula and I will not apologize for being intelligent and strong women who do their research and ask questions even if those questions are uncomfortable we will always express our opinions and will never shrink away in front of controversies we take our roles as elected officials seriously as board members Paula and I represent the community in ensuring our students receive the best education the community supports us we have several received several Anonymous handwritten letters to our mailboxes Thanking us for the work we're doing community members have reached out to us via Facebook to commend us for Having the courage to ask questions a current board member told Paula and I that we're a breath of fresh air as the Board needs people not afraid to ask questions like we do and always express the concern that they are just rubber stamps and another board member ask that we keep asking the questions that the rest of them can as you can see the audience has an increased presence tonight much more than you usual because community members showed up to support us in this room and online and we thank you so much for that however even with this support we are contemplating a difficult decision serving on this board Demands a collective environment that respects and upholds these principles the recent incident has revealed a troubling resistance to constructive change and due diligence our district is at a Tipping Point and requires a board that is willing to make Chang changes changes uncomfortable and hard but nothing changes if nothing changes the first thing we learned at our njsba training was do things with deliberate actions not the way they always have been done we came into these positions with nothing to gain and all to give we had no political agenda just a passion for public education with the best intentions we hoped We Could Be an Effective change that our students and staff desperately need but we were met with uncooperative resistance and temper tantrums rather than holding himself or his staff accountable for their lack of action on the numerous issues we previously mentioned Mark chose to deflect onto us in a very disturbing personal attack on April 29th and our colleagues joined in and sat in silence we have a strong sense of Integrity that we will not compromise therefore we will be considering submitting our resignation from the East Windsor Regional School District Board of Education should we resign we will remain Catalyst for change as community members there any other board members who wish to make a comment no one um Paul could you please add the equity audit to the old business so in case there are any more questions we can address them at our next meeting I wanted to say congratulations to our retirees thank you for all your service and I wish you all the best thank you to Jesse we're going to miss you and we hope we find a suitable replacement to broadcast um these very important meetings that I wish the public would watch more of uh thank you to Anusha Anda who have already gone congratulations and I wish you all the best on your upcoming adventures and I look forward to sahana and s s joining us um and the other and working with the other board members um thank you to Ed hman and all of the after prom committees I'm sorry that I was unable to help this year as I had family obligations but I do look forward to helping out in the future um to Karen and Paula I hope you do not resign um because your voices are needed um I would like to state that I did in fact offer you advice I didn't say no I am not going to go into all the details that we spoke about here because contrary to belief that should be between you and I you asked for my advice and I gave you a solid advice which I thought um questions should be asked they should be followed up upon and if questions are said in advance they should happen at this they should be reiterated at this table later I don't think anyone told you not to do that and as far as that goes um I don't have much more to say to that I did follow up afterwards I texted both of you I wrote you both emails I was looking forward to seeing you at a conference that we were all signed up for at a workshop I was hoping maybe we could have lunch and chat and perhaps maybe I should have been more diligent diligent about following up but I did reach out so are there any other board members wish to make a comment I would also like to congratulate and thank the 12 retirees for their service um to the district we will miss you and we miss and we thank you very much and we wish you a happy retirement I'd also like to Echo Tina on thanking our student Representatives they did a great job this year and welcome Sanji oh my gosh I'm I'm so sorry and Sana who will um be joining us next year we look for the next school year we look forward to that as well um and thank you to Ed hman and the parents Association for prom I've heard nothing but good things about it and I've also heard um that we talked about in other towns who don't have an after prom so thank you for that my only comment to Karen and Paula would be that respect goes both ways um taking Snippets of what was said is is different than actually being there and I will say that I also reached out to you after the session and Paula you walked away from me mid sentence and Karen you just pointed your finger at me and told me what I should do next but I'm not going to get into it if there's any other I mean um board member comments then we'll move on um first opportunity for public comment please state your name and address for the record excuse me could you please sign in at the thank you hi my name is Emily fish I'm at two Beach croft drive in East Windsor um six years ago I didn't know this was a pattern and I wasn't vocal enough I'm here to inform you of the persistent harassment in intimidation and bullying Hib in the German classes at Heist down high school as a part of the Hostile classroom environment the German teacher fral Kagan has violated every requirement of her professional obligation including District policy fura and compliance with 504 and IEPs while many students have been subject to her unprofessional decorum and HIV Behavior I will focus on my son's experiences which led to filing a formal HIV complaint my son Owen fish has a 504 plan for his disabilities ADHD anxiety and depression his grades while initially strong slipped and when he asked fral Kagan for help Owen was told just do the work fral Kagan did not show any compassion or offer any academic assistance then on February 1st 20 24 Owen found out he received a zero on a test while trying to control his emotions he was called on to read in front of his classmates per his 504 plan Owen is allowed to say I need a break when he needs some time to regulate himself and and can't do what's asked at the moment Owen utilized his 504 accommodations and told frog Kagan that he needed a break when frog Kagan again told Owen to read aloud he said No at this point fral Kagan told Owen that she would make up an assignment just for him and give him a zero Not only was this inappropriate and intimidating but it was done in a humiliating manner Owen's Genesis Grade Portal was projected onto the screen in front of the whole class violating fura family educational rights and Privacy Act and disclosing personal identifiable ident information from his records to the entire class while this was the first time this happened to my child this wasn't the first time FR Kagan has done this to a student and violated furpa one of my son's classmates took a picture of the board as proof of this violation because she recognized this pattern from the previous year with different students my son immediately reported this HIV Behavior to his guidance counselor and told me when he came home from school at that time he hadn't made it clear to to me that his personal Grade Portal was projected on the screen in front of the whole class room when this was made clear to me I sent him back to his counselor to clarify this privacy for violation on February 14th I spoke on the phone to his counselor who suggested and make a parent teacher conference appointment for the following week with fral Kagan and follow up with the World Language supervisor his counselor had reported that fral Kagan hadn't followed the 504 from the initial time that he she met with Owen on February 1st when meeting with fral Haan she ignored Our concern and focused on the fact that Owen had said no to reading fr front of the class when we discussed displ his grade portal in front of the class she said it's in the past let's move on clearly she was trying to hide her behavior and fbal violations after this incident Owen continued to experience harassment and bullying behaviors from fral haen we hired a tutor who was a former HHS student when she met and a um a German major at ruers when she met with fral Kagan to ask what Owen could be working on she he needed help with most she was told by FR Ken he's just lazy after riew an Owen's test passed in assignments the tutor felt he had made minor mistakes due to the misunderstanding and could have received some partial credit instead of no credit please not sign please hi my name is Christine um I'm going to be finishing a statement for Emily could you please State your last name and address sure Christine seminario 985 Old York Road East wion um she was told by fra Kagan he is just lazy after reviewing Owen's past test and assignments the tutor felt he had made um some minor mistakes due to his misunderstanding and could have received several credit um instead of no credit please note we were denied copies of his tests and assignments by the teacher and only briefly viewed them at the parent teacher conference Owen began working with the tutor for several hours each weekend when he understands the instructions he does well however Owen often comes home reporting that fra Kagan berates him in front of the class for not doing well and he receives negative HIV treatment leading him to continue to feel intimidated by the teacher which results in triggering his anxiety and depression on March 20th we received the photographic evidence of Owen's Grade Portal projected in front of the classroom after considering our options we decided to file an HIV report on March 27th throughout these several weeks Owen's mental health continued to decline he continued to meet with his therapist and Doctor according to the east witer Regal School District policy and New Jersey laws governing HIV our HIV report should have been investigated and completed within 10 days we received no communication from the principal or East Windsor Regional School District until three weeks later on April 19th my husband and I met with Mr Vincent and the Hib coordinator Miss O'Brien about the report the actual Hib investigation didn't begin until Friday April 26th Owen was interviewed on Monday the 29th not only is this a violation of district and state policy it prolongs my son's hostile classroom envir environment note Owen's verbal HIV report to his guidance counselor in February should have officially began an investigation on April 29th principal Vincent director of student service Mr row and I agreed to an emergency solution to protect Owen from the HIV behaviors from fra Kagan Owen was removed from the classroom and provided with Alternative Learning and tutoring while his while this solution eliminates the HIV treatment it violates his right to fake free appropriate public education and learning in the in his environment Owen should not have to be removed from his environment The Bullying should be removed the bully should be removed not the child when there is a bully on the school bus the bully isn't permitted to continue riding the bus while the victims are forced to find their own transportation as a result of the investigation and discussions from other students and parents who dealt with the teacher it became clear that this is a long-term pattern of HIV in fura violation and non-compliance with njic not only should my child not go through this but past students who were harassed by the same teacher had to do this as well time is up she needs to be removed and away from children thank you before we proceed the board president has asked me to just comment on the Public's right to speak about matters involving staff just so everybody's understanding where I stand on this issue this is a topic I've litigated about written about spoken about and think I'm pretty knowledgeable about um once we open up this limited public forum for however many minutes we give the public they're pretty much free to say whatever they want but at their peril uh we're not going to cut people off uh people want to speak about staff members wave their children's privacy wave their own privacy just as they could do with the Facebook feed out in the parking lot um they are free to do it the lecturn within the several minutes that they're allotted here and we cannot shut people down because of the particular viewpoints they're expressing I would simply alert the folks that when you do come to the lecturn and speak about staff members or other other folks whose privacy may be at stake you do so at your peril uh and if you're uncertain about the legal ramifications of your REM marks you may want to get some advice from somebody before you speak because we cannot protect you so just want to make that clear um in terms of where I stand on the the right of the public to speak when they come to Lector about matters that they choose to speak about hi board members um hello board members and superintendent Daniels uh my name is Gloria penor I am one of the co-chairs of Hy pag which is the heist toown East Windor special education advisory parent group um with me tonight is ANZ Sanchez our co-chair and our board secretary Christine seminario um we're here to formally introduce ourselves and also request a time to meet with you all before September to do a presentation on how a healthy cpeg should function within our school district um as you know cegs are legally required to exist in all 600 school districts in New Jersey a big part of what we do is is educate and encourage those who are part of the special education Community we host a variety of workshops throughout the school year many focusing on special education rights and what students with an IEP or 504 are legally entitled to we schedule parent meetings where concerns are brought to light um families share their experiences and we in return use the resources that we have to help answer their questions but another big part of what we do is build on an open relationship ship with leaders within our district um we hope in the future to collaborate and share the data that we collect over time um we want to ensure that the programs and policies within our school district that directly affect special education students um are given honest feedback and that we can all put goals in place together that meet all of our expectations lastly we encourage all members within our community and the school district to continue working on creating more inclusive opportunities for all of our students um all children deserve to feel included in any special events or after school activities that take place throughout the school year we've been working with the PTO presidents and principles as well um to make sure that any student who may need certain accommodations still feel welcome to participate among their peers we hope you grant our request to make a presentation before the beginning of the new school year it's important for us and for all members of the special education Community to feel like they have a seat at the table and be a part of um conversations that directly affect kids like ours so we look forward to meeting you all soon and we thank you for your time hello everyone my name is Stacy odonnell my address is 49 Lake Drive Roosevelt I am the current outgoing head booster for the our HHS varsity co-ed competition cheer program and I come before you today as the mother of a four-year varsity cheerleader sorry a 13-year youth competitive cheering coach and a lifelong advocate for the sport of competitive cheer it has come to our attention that an administrative decision has been made to require HHS varsity cheer to take time away from their competitive season to sideline cheer for basketball although we understand the desire to create the heist down Rams Center for basketball they should not come at the expense of another competitive team would the administration ever ask the basketball team to cut 25 plus hours out of their practice schedule to support the lacrosse team I highly doubt it we believe there is a misunderstanding related to competitive cheerleading and sideline cheer as they are vastly different in ability and skill sideline cheerleading cheers exclusively for another team competitive cheerleading requ requires cheerleaders to cheer for themselves while performing stunts tumbling jumps cheer and dance competitive cheerleading is a sport that requires intense practice focused on perfecting these skills and it is the 275 plus hours of focused mat time that has made our team so successful this past season the team went undefeated in New Jersey including CBC Grand Champions Regional Champions local competition Champions and two state championship titles in addition to local sucess this team has been making history has made history by making it to the finals at the U UCA Nationals competition for two separate routines and place in the top seven for both this success has provided the cheerleaders with college opportunities as seven out of nine of SE of our seniors will be continuing to compete at the college level recruiters are not looking for sideline cheerleaders at college cheerleading combines yes they have those they are looking for cheerleaders with competitive cheerleading skills our ask is that the HHS competitive cheerleading team be treated equally as any other competitive sport at HHS and be allowed to focus on the sport of comp competitive cheerleading without the distraction of sideline cheer for basketball we understand the desire to create a heightstown ram Center experience for the basketball teams and applaud your effort the only solution to having a performance aspect to enhance the experience would be to hire another coach and form a separate team specific to sideline cheer dance stomp or step or a Pep Squad and I have some cheerleaders here who would like to speak as well thank you hi my name is Caitlyn belli and my address is 13 am dve okay hello board and everyone here tonight my name is Caitlyn belli and today I'm here to address the circulating concerns of our competitive cheer team cheering at basketball games I stand before you not just as a cheerleader as a voice for my fellow teammates we've come to a dispute where we must address an issue that affects us drastically the expectation for cheerleaders to be present at 8 to 10 basketball games while we are preparing for a winter competition season with this requirement held over our heads it it's adding more to our lives that already consist of late night practices and countless hours of preparing while still trying to succeed academically we value our practice time deeply as this is the only time we get to master our difficult skills many of us already struggle to balance our commitments and having an additional worry added to our already busy lives is opening a door to the burnout and exhaustion of our team heightstown is known to have a very strong and competitive cheer team although we compete at a few local competitions our cheer team has been competing at the national level for many years we are expected to perfect our cheer routine during the time we are expected to cheer at games and adding sideline cheer will not only disrupt our practice schedule but won't prepare us to be their best when we compete nationally the idea that you want the cheer team to spread its positivity around the school and showcase who we are is appreciated but the winter season differs significantly from The Fall season and adding this requirement for the team will only harm our cheer program we urge you to reconsider this proposition and having the idea of hiring a new coach to run a cheer basketball program thank you for listening and I hope you take this into consideration good evening board my name is Leah pachelli and I'm a winter competitive cheerleader to start off I would like to emphasize that I only do competitive cheer in the winter not fall Sidelines Che since I compete on the varsity tennis team I wanted to to address the concern over how the new requirement of cheering at basketball games will impact cheerleaders physically and mentally since there will be more to do for cheer than last year and we have the responsibility of maintaining our academics while cheering at basketball games helps lift our school spirit our competitive cheer team has done wonders for our school for winning state titles winning CBC Grand champions and other significant titles with this change it will impact our performances for competions we won't have enough practice times to be the best team that we can be our cheer team has lots of talent that can be showcased through competitive cheer but having sideline cheer be added it takes time away from practicing our routines that can possibly win our school another County State and even National Title I strongly urge our athletic director and all involved to reconsider this decision and consider the idea of high Hing a GV coach for basketball games thank you for your time good evening staff and Board of Ed I'm Penny Borg and I proudly cheered for the heightstown varsity cheer team since my freshman year now as ass soon to be senior I felt the intense pressure of juggling academics work and practices consistently maintaining an honor student status throughout High School throughout the high school year has not been easy especially during the demanding winter season balancing homework studying and cheer has been a challenge I've managed but I prioritize my role as a student Above All Else adding basketball to the mix threatens to overwhelm my schedule leaving me with insufficient time to excel academically this has me concerned about the potential impact on my grades another point I'd like to make is on top of being a student I have a job outside of school many students work and help work to support themselves and help their family cheer is an expensive Sport and people rely on their jobs to pay for the season some athletes also help support their families by helping to pay the bills shortening our work hours due to this change could affect my peers along with their families I've so much love for this Sport and seeing it change my senior year is a disappointment I urge you to consider the broader implication and empathize with the challenges faced by student athletes like myself your thoughtful consideration of these concerns is greatly appreciated in closing please consider hiring another coach to to coach a separate basketball sideline cheerleading team thank you hello my name is Morgan odonnell and I here today to speak about the recent decision to have the heightstown competition cheer team cheer at basketball games next season I have been on the varsity team for all four years of high school and cheered my whole life before them I've watched the team transform over these four years and go from a somewhat competitive team to a team that is well known not only in the state but in the coed UCA world the heightstown tier team has become one of if not the most decreed team in the school with many County Regional and now state titles and even placing in the top at Nationals I'm afraid this recent decision may impact the success of the team competition cheer and sideline cheer are two completely different sports and asking the team to play two sports in one season is simply not fair you wouldn't ask your basketball team to play baseball at the same time so why would you ask the cheerleaders there is a reason we only do sideline for football in the fall I'm also speaking from the perspective of a student who is not only involved in cheer but many other things in the school all in the same season my cheer coach pop War cheer manage the wrestling team perform for advanced choir and work I can confidently say that this decision will run the team thin and prevent them from doing anything outside of sheer which would affect their success outside of the team some of the people some of the people on the team work to afford some of the expenses of this Sport and will not have the opportunity to do so with this decision with the well-being of our team in mind I urge Mr Belford and all involved to reconsider this decision thank you hello board my name is Taylor staes and I'm a senior here at heightstown and I'm here on behalf of the varsity competition cheerleading team I'd like to to talk about the recent decision that was made to have the competition team present at basketball games during the height of their competition season and the perspective of a graduating athlete of the program and while I feel this is an unrealistic and unproductive Choice it was told to families that the games will quote not be adding to the existing practice schedule and that they quote assume the games will be substituted for practice times I'm now going to explain some of these specific aspects of the games compared to practice and how is not a comparable substitution the first issue comes with where the team will be cheering it is stated that there will be quote VIP seating so my first question is will athletes be seated for the quarters that they're asked to cheer if so I don't see how this is benefiting the team's skill set as they would not be practicing their stunts but instead watching a game from the stands my next question is if the team were to be stunting during the quarters would it only be during timeouts if so during a basketball game there's only allowed to be a maximum of four timeouts per team in total throughout the game only lasting between 30 seconds to 1 minute each the main concern with this time frame would be having enough time to properly roll out the cheer mats which is what the cheer leaders must be sting on for safety precautions by the time the team were to be rolling out their mats setting up their stunts perform performing their stunts and rolling the mats back up the 30 second to minute time period would be well over the cheerers would then be in the way of the game that they were there supporting and taking away from the athletes events instead of supporting it since rolling out the mats would take out majority of the time theoretically the two leaders could perform stunting skills on the hardwood however nearly all the skills that were competed last year and will likely be included in a routine in upcoming years would not be allowed to be performed on hardwood per UCA safety rules therefore not helping the team practice any of the stump they will be competing at upcoming competitions to get even more specific and give you a little more background on how a routine normally works there is different stunting sections throughout the routine there is two to three group stunt sections one to two pyramid sections and one basket or dance section theoretically if the team were to have eight timeouts throughout the basketball game and have adequate time to stunt including halftime they would only get to perform each section of the routine once this compared to a practice where athletes could have an upwards of 20 to 30 turns it's blatant that being present at a game would be nowhere as productive as practice now this is just a fraction of the questions that are coming with this new in initiative those who know the sport of cheer know the time dedication and work that goes into having a team that can truly perform this decision seems as though it was made by those who have not yet taken the time to understand all that cheer is 30 seconds please no other sports would be expected to combine two different teams within one Seasons these games will not be quote dress rehearsals our team does not participate in scrimmages we are a team full of individuals that deserve to have a winter season where they are highlighted as the main athletes they are are and so deserve to be I urge all individuals involved to consider having a separate winter JB team with their own coach to be present at these basketball games this way the competition team can have the best opportunity to compare prepare for their season and the school can still have the wanted school spirit present at games thank you and I appreciate all of your time Ed hman high and high school parents Association excuse me Ed one second yeah I just need to know um if there's going to be other members of the the public are going to speak because then we're going to have to extend um public session can I have a motion to extend public session motion to extend public session are we doing 15 minute intervals we'll do 15 minute as the board you know I think we did 20 minutes last time 20 minutes is fine and we can address it if we need more later is there a second second I'll just take a general voice all in favor yes I any opposed thank you Mr hman go ahead first I'd like to uh applaud these students coming forward 30 some years ago I was in a similar position uh coming before the board when uh the district wanted to change from an 8 to nine period day and a number of the student body came before you to combat that um so I applaud you all for coming up here and Having the courage to find for what you believe in um perhaps everyone should listen to the stakeholders and it said the stakeholders in this situation and maybe explain and and have let them have some say and and understand what is going on here um I've seen these students perform compete excuse me showcase uh I didn't see them compete I saw them saw their showcase here at the school um and I had no idea what I was walking into um and I don't think anyone would understand what they do any more than you would understand what goes into a marching band show unless you were in marching band um the amount of physicality and um just everything that it takes it to is just as difficult as Jesse here knowing how how difficult it is to strap a tenter drum to his chest and March and play at the same time and be coordinated with 60 other kids and do it for three miles it's not easy um and it takes a lot of practice and a lot of time and a lot of effort so maybe let these kids be a part of the conversation at the very least but that's what I've got to say about that um as Mark mentioned and I I'm happy I was able to make it here tonight um I just want to take an opportunity there's a few people in the room that I'd like to thank Ellen oens ewea I thank you for your support for the last few years um Ewa has backed the parents Association I'm sorry East Windsor Education Association the teachers union um has backed uh the parents association with numerous donations uh the music boosters with numerous donations um they have helped us financially uh throughout the the last three years uh and we are great for that um to everyone to everyone that's come out and helped us uh put on the last three after proms um as Mark mentioned I I received emails from students for the first time Thanking us for the event um to all the parents that are here I I know there's a bunch of you that were out there Friday night Saturday morning uh Karen M uh it took a village and we got it all together and we pulled it all off and I was a little nervous going right into Friday afternoon but we got it done and thank you all because without you we couldn't have done it I am leaving I am done and I wish you all the best you are both groups are in very good hands I am passing things off and good night keep could you please hit the mic it should light up red there you go hello I'm Ellen oens president of the East Windsor Education Association I live in Monroe Township I teach at mcnight I'm here to share our accomplishments this year in the pride and FAST program something that Ed was mentioning pride is a public education campaign that shares the success of new Jersey's Public Schools while building community support and involvement the goal of the FAST program is to involve parents and families in their children's education through programs and events to help improve student achievement and ensure that families feel welcome and connected to our schools all of that fits beautifully with the district's Equity plan and we are committed to it as well the funding for our programs come from our members due as well as other funds from the New Jersey Education Association our chairperson and she's given me permission to say her name because I was always under the impression that you cannot say a person's name when you're up here this person's name is Angela Cena she is our chairperson I deal with the money she deals with the events and this year we R we we secured $ 42,8 in GRS for you our community Cathleen is going to give you a presentation she prepared so you could see all the things we've done Mr Daniels attended a couple of our functions which we appreciated and board members you're always welcome to come to any of our functions thank you for your time good evening everybody um this is my first board meeting addressing Board of Education as a parent but I've done a dozens of times as a public educator over the past 23 years and I can say this is one of the most interesting board meetings I've ever been to excuse me sir could you please state your name and James avalone 15 Edward Drive um I'm here because I'm advocating for my kid I'm not going to name his name um and all the kids uh in these Windsor um there's something I have a child who is in kindergarten some very about as a public educator and as a parent um is the role that technolog is playing in our school um and I just wanted to advocate for uh the idea of maybe minimizing it for our younger population I think that uh not just this District I think schools in general are moving to a too soon and too much uh technology uh integration uh with the amount of apps and programs that kids and the amount of time that kids are spending on devices I'm asking that the board consider options for parents options for kids especially those um that had been designated to have an IEP uh screen time uh and probably if you're not reading about these things I hope that you you maybe spend this summer reading about some of the issues uh that screen time is having on our uh population especially those that are developing um and you know if you spend some time looking at some of the literature and and reviewing some of it you'll find that you know maybe we can do some old school things that are are cheap with paper and pencil uh and maybe uh the limit the amount of screen time that that kids are are finding in in the classrooms um you know to find out uh that you know going into first grade Next Year my son would have you know 30 minutes of screen time for math and language arts I'm sure they're worthwhile programs I'm sure they've been vetted um I'm sure that there's a value to them you know but as someone who's very conscious of screen time at home um you know knowing how much screen time my child has in the classro is important to me and my wife um I'm sure members of the community probably feel the same right as uh there's times in which you know the screens there's too many of them and there can be you know kind of invasive and breakdowns in communication uh some face tof face communication that a lot of kids really need as they're developing especially those that are on a spectrum um I think that's all I have to say thank you very much for your time I appreciate it are there any other members of the public wish to speak will not be the board will not be leaving for executive session um should be approximately 40 or so minutes and then then we have um to come back to items to vote on thanks e e spe e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e bo back in session um moving on to item eight old business um I believe there was a policy meeting last week yes do you want me to do that now um do we have to can we do it now or do we have to do it in oh well we could just do it the that um item nine second opportunity for board member comments call so last Monday the policy committee met um there were three um well two main things that we did um the first was review six policy updates um these six policies were the homework policy the student owned technology dress and grooming student Vehicles recording Dev devices in the classroom and um board committees uh so Jenna uh and I with Mr Daniels went over these policies line by line and um decided um what might need to be changed um what looked good uh Mr Daniels took those recommendations um and he's working on um finalizing those six policy updates and the goal is to put them on the agenda of our July meeting as a first reading um so you'll be able to see those um and vote on them um for homework and dressing grooming in particular um they're broader um it will be up to the handbooks afterwards to go into more depth about um what those will be uh rules wise um the other thing that we discussed was the policy audit summary um so that came back to us remember we gave all of our policies to stra Esme they reviewed them all so about 60 came back um as policies that need to be updated um some of them we recently updated at past meetings um or some were already addressed um like the dress and grooming from the meeting so that's one of those 60 we're already in the process of of doing that um so 60 minus you know a few because they've already been addressed um the remaining of those that um need to be tackled we're going to meet as a committee at a separate time to go through that list and figure out how we will go work through them thank you that was a good summary um Tina did you want to talk about board Retreat dates um sure um first I just I had a comment during old business bringing awareness that we did this at the last meeting too but the June 17th finance committee is on a non regularly scheduled board meeting date which is fine but it's during is it because it's crep since graduation okay so I'm glad I brought it up again why need to be changed because of motion with Administration and me and you oh okay you're on that committee okay so mean there's other figure out what time would the meeting be I mean if we can have it so what time is promotion five um I mean if we could have it during the day but I mean just change the next week like I understand promotion I know it's not graduation but it's still promotion some people go out to dinner and do things like that so right so if it's if it's going to be at 5 o' I can't I mean I'm going to be there for my son but um I know the who's on the we could reschedule I mean or if if I'm the only one who's going to be there from the committee if the committee wants to meet without me that's fine so maybe the committee members can email Paul some dates in June so you're not going too far out pushing it too far out some other dates in June that maybe you can all meet or if we wanted to do it earlier in the day on the 17th fall I don't know what your schedule like okay so then the secondary I had mentioned at the last meeting too um we try and have a board retreat every year so we're just trying to get some dates in the summertime when people are available to do a board retreat and some ideas for topics that you might want to see covered or suggestions on what we should be doing in said board retreat because there's we can pretty much do anything we want to tackle so what would help us improve as a board um any particular topics we need to learn more about we could bring njsba in or some other organization um so just trying to be inclusive and seeing what everybody thinks we would want to get out of a board retreat and when you are available so if you could email that to Nicole and I so we can start planning that we could also utilize the August 6 we could do it after a board meeting I or before or before is a little early we have time constraints and I don't want to keep people too late after a board meeting but it's we have done it before when it's been a simple like let's go through this little bit of information and okay call it a day but I suspect we might have a longer okay time frame if everybody can get their dates to us within the next week I think I know vacations and um things coming up yeah hello a question um since uh Colin you mentioned that we had some I guess 50 some or 40 some policy that has to be reviewed plus minus whatever uh next policy meting there indicated is August 26th are you planning to have it sooner because it looks like there's a lot of work couple of meetings at least yes so I think it's at the next meetings when we'll decide as a group how we want to approach it um I know at these meetings it's been thrown out like we'll each take 10 each or whatever the number um but we need every like we need the people there to discuss what the next step would be on how to do it just to be fair to everyone that will happen soon um you said August 22nd 26 is what the policy mean that's August right um I don't know oh we also didn't mention about leader of the committee oh that's one of our that's one of the policies that's why I'm look I'm looking here I'm like I'm not the leader of this why am I answering the questions but in in the six policy board committees that's one of the things that we talked about was is there going to be a leader of these po of of these committees so it's not policy yet so I'm not the leader right now but we did talk about possibly having you know meeing obviously meting to meet more ofer to take care of these um take care of uh the revisions of the policies and determin so um we wouldn't necessarily be um we haven't picked another date besides the August one but we could meet sooner and and I'll just add that some of the policy that policy audit um I need to do a little close reading on some of it like some of the you know all of those policies don't have the same level of I shouldn't say importance but you know in terms of relevance I'll use that and some some of the recommendations on there indicate that the policy is okay but it was enacted in 2004 which I I think still you know warrants a a review of sorts it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a drastic change so so when we say 60 you know I think when we kind of dig into that it could be less it could be more um but I think we should potentially I'd recommend that we take a look at the policies that we think that may fall in that zone and then determine um kind of where we see priority in terms of those and begin to kind of work through potential revisions so I could War we could have another meeting prior to that if the board's available the committee's available to do that um you know the committee members have that document right now so if folks want to begin to peruse that and get a sense of what's there but um you know folks going to meet prior to August we can definitely do that Colleen I'm sorry if I missed it were the six the number that came back from Straus May were they all non I'm assuming they were all non-mandated or some of them were mandated but those are the ones that we've just recently approved combination it's combination I'll share I'll share the audit with the board okay hasn't I will say the six that we reviewed those were like handpicked two were a couple were mentioned earlier today uh in this meeting um about ones that like we've already looked at so say like the of course all policy is important but those six in particular that are already like high gear kicked into to ready to go um those are like most pressing for the district right now there any other board members or have comments I had a question what would be the next steps now in regards to the concern with the cheerleaders who does that go to next you okay I was just wondering if it was at all a possibility um it seems like they now came to the compromise of just coach um would there be money in the budget for that right right now I'm not prepared to to to even commit to that I just need to assess the situation to determine a solution um so that will require some additional discussion with obviously the high school administration along with thetic director to determine um kind of what we're proposing and what the concerns are and and and look to see if there can be some level of resolution so that I'm not prepared to say let's go with an additional coach um because I need to do some further investigating as it relates to cheerleading programs within the CDC um of compare that to where we are there are a number of other championships your leading teams who also participate in basketball games but I do want to be you know listening to the concerns tonight I think it's an opportunity to kind of process that and then determine what what we think we can do moving forward okay one other question it this is up for um approval later the Middle School football proposal I'm assuming it's tackle football because creps already has intra um the intramural flag football in The Proposal there's no mention of anticipated cost um the buses the uniform worms the padding the helmets was that budgeted for that's just a a concern of mine we have a tenative budget for what that will be I can I can share that with the board regardless of um what comes out of the TR leading discussion what decisions are made I I just want to congratulate really the the students for taking the time out of their day to come here I know the board something important to us is civic duty and they did that I they were so well spoken and prepared so kudos to the teachers for teaching them how to public speak and and write that way um they did a great job and also there were so many parents here to support them I love seeing parental support um so again regardless it was a great showing um from the cheerleaders a completely agree excellent job by tonight I did have one question though as far as cheerleading so the district has one competitive right which was the the students that spoke and then they help out with football cheerleading is that what they do so then do we have so does that mean that no other sport has cheerleaders currently the only sport that has cheerleading participation during during the game is football so they cheer it at the home games and I think some away games but but definitely the home games but do they have a set of Che like this cheerleading squad or are they are they the same students I believe it's the same Core group of students I know today they said that there's like a difference between fall cheerleading because one of the people was a tennis player The Varsity tennis so there there's probably a lot of overlap but I think fall is different from Winter that's what sounds okay thank you well yeah some students May participate in a fall sport because the winter season they don't they haven't had a sport that they they were attached to so it becomes more of a preparation window for competition one another question same topic um what drove the decision to add them to the basketball season as sideline cheer what drove it was that um it was an element of um Team school spirit also an opportunity to to Showcase um some of what the cheer leading team offers and a have time performance what have you so was the coach uh part of the discussion when this changed she was she was okay and the other the other piece is that not to compare to other school distri but we're the only CBC school that doesn't have any any cheerleading representation at a basketball game and the proposal is not expecting every game that that wasn't what the proposal reflected so um and it wasn't deemed to be something that was in addition to it was kind of viewed as being a part of the the winter winter season expectation regarding CH so the coaches have been a part of the discussion uh we have not had it in this since I've been here uh and I'm not sure why actually tonight was kind of Illuminating in terms of why but it hasn't been um a topic that you discussed in great detail although it has surfaced you know previously but then Co happened and you know a number of different things so it has come up as a as a a discussion point but not anything that was significant could there possibly be an option to recruit the fall cheerleaders who are sideline cheerleaders to do winter if they're not doing competitive cheerleading and is there something that we're missing because I heard it said that like competitive cheer can get scholarships and all of that but if there's something that we're not focusing on or there's some way we could support our sideline I would expect that our sideline cheer leaders could also get scholarships and that they are also as good as athletes so they are separate entities but how can we populate sideline they're not separate entities right now no the the the the the members of the team who uh participate in at football games are part of the competitive cheer team so they're not separate entities and the students unfortunately we have a very successful program and um you know the students who earn scholarships for cheer will will participate in sideline cheer at College you know that's I just don't I just want to make sure I don't want to be misleading in terms of they being this kind of Tail of Two Cities I mean the cheer the competitive cheer does coexist with sideline cheer I don't want the board to to to misunderstand that so um I take nothing away from our program I think it's a stellar program and one can make the argument that the fact that they don't participate in basketball games may be a contributing factor to why they're so successful but but I also don't want to um misrepresent the fact that there are other competitive um Championship cheerleading programs in the county who also participate at basketball gam same same team thanks for the but but I'm going to I'm going to follow up to make sure that what I'm sharing is fully vetted but that is that is my experience and I'm not a cheerleading expert I'm not but but I'm going to but follow for that and I know nothing about cheer but um I also don't think we would ask the basketball players to give up some of their practice time to move the Maths for the cheer leaders um it's how they presented it tonight is it's a sport a competitive sport um and I do Comm them they did an excellent job presenting your point um regarding the football who who would the middle school teams compete against right now we have a tentative schedule of some s lower middle six County teams uh South Brunswick North Brunswick uh East Brunswick um I think Franklin potentially so they're not part of the the district like not the district Mercer County no other school around us has no we don't but we lost you saw in the proposal in in this Township the middle school age football program has been dissolved so right now if you're a middle school age student in this community you have to leave the township to participate in football we used to have it and that was kind of where we held off on it but when that went away um and we were discussing the possibility of this you know being a being an option when that went away we had a felt need uh to to explore the possibility of developing something for our seventh and eighth grade students I'm just curious who um what like who's I guess initial idea is this how how do this come to be does the district say there's no other middle school program so we want to do it or is it like a staff member who Spurs it well we surveyed the students so we've got another sport we're exploring for the Middle School from an inter Scholastic standpoint as well as lacrosse so we we've GED some interest in terms of students there's no lacrosse program in the community either um so we may be also looking to propose that for at a later date but this was based on student interest that's kind of what drove it and uh we don't have a specific staff member identified to be the coach um that all kind of comes about after the fact I just wanted to say these are this is a great discussion um just wanted to send a little reminder when we have items on the agenda to save the questions related to those during that time frame on the agenda it makes it easier for our board secretary to keep track of them and note them but the only the only problem with that is is that then the discussion doesn't get on the minutes that's why I I started to notice that whenever we talked about the motion to approve items there that's that discussion is never in the minutes that's why I started bringing it up in Board of Ed comments because I want it noted what we're discussing it should be am I mistaken Paul I mean there was a time that we actually took verbatim minute notes Ian if that's if that's the board if that's the board's wish I mean we could have someone come and actually do that or do you prefer open discussion during board member comments or in the spot on the agenda I guess I'm confused so if we have so if we discuss during item 11 or item so if we were to discuss where it is it's not going to be minutes aren't recorded So that discussion isn't recorded so like I said once upon a time we used to take for B verb data minutes so I take a generalized discussion everything of everything but we don't do that anymore but we can definitely revisit that that's what the board wants to do I think we should revisit it I guess okay speaking of the minutes then do we ever app the executive session minute we have not should we revisit that we can yes David can you speak really quick how that's done in a confidential manner how do we appr just line items they're approved like how do we read them in approve well you approve them by approving them you don't discuss them in public but you if there's discussions about whether they're correct or not that discussion can be in closed session for the very reason that the minutes are recording a closed session discussion but um the law does require that um private session minutes get kept it should be approved by the the vote in public but we approve a lot of things in public that are discussed in Friday so there's no real nothing's really any different about that but they they should be they should be formally approved by the board are there any other board comments if not we'll move on second opportunity for public comments is there anyone from the public wishes to speak there's not we'll move on to item 10 policies to be abolished a policy 54602 Bridge your pilot program B policy 6361 relations with vendors C policy 8540 School nutrition programs D policy 8550 unpaid meal charges outstanding food service charges second any questions I I do have a question for um D when it's abolished first reading does that mean that it was was revised and now the policy committee is going to work on that policy under a different number because if it's first reading does that mean that it wasn't like a final policy good question um when when there's a there's a there's a change to the state regulations regarding a mandated policy uh and I think the bylaws the board's bylaws um allow for first abolish of an of a policy so uh sometimes just because the policy doesn't have any relevance for example like the bridg pilot program that's kind of connected to something that no longer has any meaning the uh the unpaid meal charges is being replaced by the food services policy which you'll see in the first read component so so these are Under the mandated umbella that right thank you any other questions pull the board please M Drake yes Miss L yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss Kia yes Miss Lusa yes item 11 mandated policies for first reading a policy 3212 attendance B policy 4 4212 attendance C policy 5111 eligibility of Resident nonresident students and D policy 8500 Food Services second any questions um just a quick question the two policies regarding attendance they're about staff attendance is there like a a difference between the two or is it just teaching staff and then okay one's for teaching staff one's for support staff okay thank you any other questions hold the board Please Mr yes Miss Lance yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Su yes Miss Kia yes Miss Luso yes item 12 mandated regulations for first reading a regulation 5111 eligibility of Resident non-resident students second any questions pull the board please miss Drake yes Miss L yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr reekes yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss CIA yes Miss Lusa yes item 13 recommended policies for first reading a policy 3161 Examination for cause B policy 3324 right of privacy C policy 4 361 Examination for cause D policy 4324 right of privacy e policy 5116 education of homeless children and youths second any [Music] questions hold the board please miss Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr reeks yes M Patel yes Miss Suter yes Miss Kia yes Mr Russo yes item 14 motion to approve routine items by exception having read the materials received I move that the board approve the routine agenda items as submitted a staffing for June 10th 2024 B HIV report from May 20th 2024 C approved travel and related expenses virtual and in person d uh Middle School football proposal e sidebar for Middle School football F ARP safe return plan with a June review uh G approve Amendment and the American Rescue plan Act of 2021 for elementary and secondary schools emergency release fund ARB Esser fund submission age approve heightstown high school overnight trip to Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana for drama club June of 2024 I approve Walter C black Surplus library books for disposal and donation Jay approve the 20 2024 to 20 2027 language instruction educational program leap three-year plan K technology recycling batch number 48 L out of District placement M Professional Services for students n catapult learning LLC o Professional Service Heights toown Heights toown security vestibule P facility project approval Q deposit to certain reserves our resolution authorizing the use of State contract and Cooperative purchasing programs for fiscal year 2024 2025 continuation s board minutes for May 20th 2024 T report of the board secretary and financial report for April of 2024 you expense and transfer report of school monies report for April of 2024 andv Bill list of June 10th 2024 second any questions um have a question on item number facility of project approval I'm glad it got approved the vegetable security for the he High School uh when it will be started in during summer I'm assuming and what's the time frame for the start and completion of the project so this is a routine resolution anytime we do to uh we do a project this is just to send the documents down the tratment for their approval and because it's it's more perfunctory um because because there isn't state grants attached to it so we just send it down they not it they stamp it and they send it back and how long will that take because the summer is coming and I was hoping so you it's a time crunch right now we only have July and August so do you think the state will have enough get it to us in timely manner right we're moving forward with this the vestibule is actually a smaller project that's not going out to bid so we've been talking with our architect about actually using Co-op vendors to to make this happen so we don't necessarily tie the the bidding process to to that approval process like I said it's more of like a a rubber stamp if you will okay so it's it's more to make sure that the projects get updated in the long range facility plan which each district is required to do awesome I'm looking forward to seeing it in September thank you so my question is also related to that I guess at o and I know Mark I sent you an email not probably not in enough time so can you speak to either the decision- making behind it or why it's heightstown high school will be the only school that doesn't have the two door locks so like we have the security office but there's that I concerned about the potential of those extra doors that still lead into the school and if someone lets them in there's no second stop like as say they hop in behind someone leaving or coming going I know this is like a little late in the game to be bringing it up but looking at the plans again it pops into my head like where that dividing line is on the plan like that could be another set of doors giving us a secondary barrier when we remember the Architects we looked at that um that was our original um thought one of our original thoughts a few issues surfaced related to that one um we wanted to try to contain visitors in terms of not not having like a parallel length of door to go down once you're in that track so and then we also wanted to create a situation where you actually don't gain access to the physical building because we're going to have a window built in there I should explain that so there'll be a like a drive-through window necessarily you walk in and you're just conducting business which is drop off pickup what have you you don't even have to come beyond that that area there's also um a plan for and what we're doing is we're utilizing that wall with the heightstown High School sign is if you think about the high school entrance the main entrance leading up into the building which is adjacent to the current assistant principal's office which used to be the principal's office and we're converting a portion of that and there's also going to be a waiting area in there so like there for an appointment right so what we don't want is to have parents waiting in the hallway that's currently what we have uh and we're trying to limit people accessing the hallway so in terms of the the recommendation from The Architects were to limit the width of what that double door would be because the reality is if someone wants to let someone in they going let someone in um so so the other part would be the fact that we're Shifting the security booth or repurposing the security booth and we're creating a security booth that's actually going to be kind of nestled inside that office space adjacent to the to the security vesu we believe the division and component will be um and proximity will be such that it will limit opportunities for students to let anyone in if the security folks are literally right there in front of them and and in a high school or any large school I mean there are so many doors in this building someone could theoretically let someone in that door throughout so it's just a matter of you know looking to contain traffic as best we can yes there'll be a change in behavior in terms of what we're used to right now we talked about before um I am uncomfortable with the fact someone the buzzer and they enter the the foyer as it were um so so our emphasis was was really looking to limit foot traffic within the building contain it so we have a locked door within the vesu but also if you come into the I just call it the waiting area there's also another lock door in that zone as well um so as I said the feedback was to try to limit and funnel versus create this width component so and also there was some egress V issues I going to be right there is there but are they going to be able to see the do of someone's letting people in oh definitely okay hopefully it doesn't happen but I'm just saying it's something different now where will teachers enter and exit will they enter through that same office or will they still have a swipey where they can come in that side door have a swipe okay there's multiple there swipes all over the building so that could be one of their access points okay um you know the beginning of the day where we're monitoring the entrance that'll be a free flowing component and when school starts doors are locked and we proceed accordingly maybe something to keep in do we need that many doors are we obligated to have that many doors out front we have to have erress based on the number okay I figured that was the answer but okay doors are locked we're secure are there any other questions if not pull the board please M Drake yes Miss L yes um no to oh I know it'll still pass but just I have to listen to my guut no to O yes to the rest yes to the rest M Murphy yes from a Mr boli yes Mr weeds yes Miss Patel yes Miss alter yes to all but abstain to S because I wasn't here for that meeting this call you staying from s because I wasn't present yes to M Luso yes um item 15 is second executive session um everyone will be going to EXA to discuss the superintendent evaluation except for those that inflicted for