Mr Smith on Wednesday January 3rd 2024 notice of this meeting was email to the press and the mainland Journal notice was also delivered that day to the a harbard Township Clerk and posted on bulletin board in township hall roll call please Mrs bonjourno here Mr Del Barker here Mrs Gilbert Floyd here M hman here Mr Ireland here Mr Price here Mr sey here Mrs Sullivan here Mrs SLO here okay flag salute please Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible Li anybody said okay Welcome to our July meeting Mr West is not Mrs or is not Dr guio Dr guio is away on a conference so Mr West is taking over her seat and wait a minute we're going to do our minutes first okay we need a motion to approve items 4.1 to 4.4 motion second Ireland any discussion okay roll call please Mrs bonjourno yes Mr Del Barka yes Mrs Gilbert Floyd yes M hman yes Mr Ireland yes Mr Price yes Mr sey yes Mrs suvan yes Mrs sloy yes all right so good evening everyone I am stepping in for Dr guio uh she's at a conference a Renaissance conference in Orlando and working on climate and culture and um bringing things back to our district so we can continue to prove improve our the way our our students um grow and and our teachers grow and to create an environment that's conducive for learning so we're excited um what they bring back our administrators bring back so we can Implement uh for our students and for our district with that being said I'm going to roll into Dr guo's superintendent report and enjoy the the 2 minutes and 40 [Music] seconds Saturday the park I think it was the fall by Saturday in the Park I think it was the Fourth of July people dancing people laughing a man selling ice cream singing Italian song nothing can you take it I and I've been waiting such a long time a Saturday another day in the park I think it was the F of July another day in the park I think it was the 4th of July people talking smiling a man playing guitar and singing for a song will you help him change the world can you dig it yes I can and I've been waiting such a long time for today slow motion Riders fly the colors of the day a bronze man still can tell stories his own way listen children all in the lost all is not lost oh no no [Music] all right as you can see we've been very busy things don't stop for us um the closing of the school year was uh I was able to go to the moving up celebration at Alder was a beautiful ceremony Miss Cunningham did an excellent job with her staff and it's nice to see our our our students being celebrated and it was outside and the parents were there and it was a it was a nice celebration and then the Pinnacle of graduation I know I mean I'm being biased but it's one of the best ceremonies I'm going to say in the country um Val Quinn did an excellent job as the coordinator of graduation it's just things are on point and a lot of smiles and a lot of people so it's a great time in uh in our school district and a lot of things are being celebrated and then now we're moving into getting prepared uh for next year so so kudos to all involved they continue to do an excellent job for our school district now I'm going to roll into my portion of the agenda which is harassment intimidation and bullying um my job this is I'm going to report on report period two that's January to June of this year um so it's harassment intimidation bullying it has to do with our student safety data system ssds where our vice principls and our anti-bullying Specialists put in in information uh and the data for us to look at to to make um changes for next year and address trends that we see in accordance to the data that is shown so if you look at uh report period two um on the left are all the schools that are involved on the top are the actual incidents um violence vandalism substance abuse weapons confirmed HIV are total incidents and then at the end you have restraint seclusion and then both strain and seclusion uh this information was inputed by our administrative team uh going down violence you see 19 for the High School 17 at Alder 27 at Fernwood seven at Miller zero for Davenport Swift slay ball complex and our uh pre preschool children uh for vandalism um four at the high school three for Alder zero Fernwood two at Miller and then Zer the the rest of the way down substance offenses 34 at the high school one at Alder um four at Fernwood Miller Davenport Swift slay ball and preschool are zero weapons moving down from the high school six Alder 3 four at Fernwood zero at Miller Davenport 2 Hib conver confirmed going down zero at the high school for reporting period two uh one at Alder seven at Fernwood one at Miller one at Davenport there's our total incidence for the for the reporting Period 2 which is 143 and then looking at our restraints for the high schoolers five Burwood four Miller 2 Davenport 34 Swift slay ball complex 10 and the seclusion piece um five at Miller 22 at Davenport and then both rest straighten seclusion you have two at Miller one at Davenport and one at the Swift slay ball complex as far as Hib cases at the high school school there was a total of five they were all non-hib at Alder there was 15 14 were non-hib and one was HIV confirmed burnwood had 19 cases 12 being non-hib and seven confirmed Miller had a total of four three non-hib and one confirmed Davenport had five four non-hib and one confirmed Swift slay ball complex had one it was a nonhip you see our totals uh 49 total for reporting Period 2 39 were non-hib and 10 were confirmed below I like to put the uh previous years so if you see last year we had a total of 40 with 26 uh non-hib and 14 confirmed and then the year before that there was 15 nine were non non-hib and six were confirmed um you can see that we are reporting more over the years which is a good thing and then our abss and our and our building Administration do a do do a good job of going through the investigation and addressing those Behavior as far as our grade level analysis these are for the confirmed hips which were 10 there were 32 students involved in the 10 confirmed hibs as you can see um most of the students were sixth and seventh grade so we see at the middle school that those are things that we need to address when it comes to HIV and uh we will do that through our program initiatives uh to try to minimize the number of hivs and the number of students that are involved you can see the previous years as well well just as a guide and you can see the trends that we're moving in Hib Define i' like to give the law it's very specific um most people don't understand you know the specifics of the law so I like to point it out it's any type of gesture written verbal physical or electronic that takes place on school grounds or a school function or it could even be off of school grounds if it comes into um comes into school the gesture has to be motivated by a perceived actual perceived characteristic such as race color religion ancestry national origin gender sexual orientation gender identity and expression mental physical or sensory disability or any other distinguishing characteristic and appearance could be an example of that it has to substantially disrupt the educational process of the student and the order orderly operation um of others or the rights of others um the ACT has to affect physically or emotionally as far as harming the student or damaging their property has it has to be insulting or demeaning and it has to create a hostile environment so you can see the law is very specific for a situation to be a confirmed HIV as far as our followup and our counselors um and our abss and our teachers and all the um support staff that we have do an excellent job with followup they'll continue to check the academics of a victim of the victim or the aggressor during the course of an investigation they will check attendance they will check any type of remediation sessions held with counselors child study team any Behavior specialist um we will review behaviors to our Infinite Campus uh program and we check to see if students go to the nurse's office or have frequent visits do they check in with their counselor are we providing uh outside support through uh effective School Solutions Yap Atlantic care healthy school specialist teen center perform care or our sex schoolwide we address it we address HIV through uh schoolwide climate programs such as sore um we're going to add self this purpose prep our PBIS mtss and cares so all these things to help support academics and behaviors are in place so these types of behaviors do not continue um if we have to include outside resources uh we will do that as far as activities and trainings uh we do a lot so we have school safety team meetings there's at least four year just looking at basic Trends within each of the buildings to see if there's something we notice inappropriate comments inappropriate touching things of that nature we train all staff um we've actually started the process with our custodians um and we will train all our teachers support staff secretaries um security um our our our lunch staff so all get involved on what they're supposed to do this summer uh with Miss Elco we're going to have joint summer training with our Administration our our anti-bullying specialist um and we'll go over um hivs look for Trends look at the law look you know review any changes um go through our hipster program and and make sure that we're reporting correctly and with Fidelity um we present HIV presentations to students to educate them on proper behavior um during the course of a school year um our ABS is present to students and staff as well we have an inrs mentor ing program where we support kids and and and try to teach them you know empathy and educate them on resiliency and just being kind in general um character education program and that's where Dr gucu is with our um administrative staff um as to J's Renaissance and that's a program that is character Ed and it recognizes student staff achievements and basically the message that we portrayed to our school district is you see something you hear something you say something and you do it immediately so we act upon it um we continue to embrace engage and educate with pursuing Public Health um I know Miss Moss was at Miller School we had the therapy dogs there um with our kids and I think that's a nice piece um to supporting our kids and and put in a smile on their face um we routinely have lessons on kindness empathy and I talked about sore and self so we're you know we're excited what next year brings as we continue to provide envir provide an environment where students feel safe and secure and an environment where people care about each other so we'll continue to work and it's and it's the work never ends so we'll continue to work hard and make sure people are happy when they come into our school district and then our hipster program which we've had for two years um that just takes all the information of all our cases and investigations and it's One-Stop shopping for us so we're able to look at all of our cases um so it gives me when I come up here today it's easy for me to report also what we have to report upon is school self assessments um our abss did this right before they left our school district is graded on eight core elements one on our HIV programs on our training on our other staff instruction and training programs on our curriculum instruction of Hib on our Personnel involving HIV on our reporting procedures on our investigation procedures and then hi reporting in general so we have to do that report every year um and and um we got our grade and those eight elements the highest you can get is a 78 um the principal submitted all their ratings to me I send I certify those ratings to the doe and our final score for this year was 76 out of 78 so those are the prongs that we've hit for this year and this all this information will be on our website by um by the end of the basically January 31st of next year okay with that being said that concludes my um my report and I'm open for any questions Madam president I just have a a comment I guess more than anything um Mr Wes I commend you on your on your job with Hib it's a tough job in any District because it's it's no secret that we have to follow the law and what the state says this is what we follow there's certain criteria that has to be followed you have to meet the criteria the Rings so to speak you have to close them and I've said it before I'll say it again I think the law needs some adjustment and I I know I'm not the only one that says it New Jersey school board's Association they have um various articles on Hib throughout the state and I I think the law um is confusing at times and it can be intimidating at times and and sometimes you need a lawyer just to interpret it and um I again I I think we do an outstanding job here in our district with what we have to work with and that is we follow the law and then of course we have the um code of conduct to follow maybe some of the cracks in between but ultimately um I think some of the um the the ways that the um the laws written uh need to be change to better accommodate um everybody as far as HIV goes so I just wanted to comment about that I just want to say that you are doing a great job with it but hopefully we will see some changes to the law in the future which will make it easier for everybody thank you thank you anybody else no thank you very much Mr West and you are doing a good job great job okay our student reps aren in here tonight we're going to open to the public now for comments on agenda items only is there anyone that wishes to speak okay so we'll move to finance and operations Mr Smith you have any updates uh No not tonight okay M Sullivan you're up good evening um I am the chairman of the finance and operation committee we had our meeting on July the 9th at 4:00 length of the meeting was 1 hour in attendance the board members were Miss Hyman uh Mrs salagi and myself and in administration Dr Gro and M Mr Smith attended also um the updates transportation department Mr Smith noted that the summer runs are going smoothly and the staff is doing a great job the bus lot Paving project has kicked off and will be a be a great Improvement to the department and he discussed the need to move some drivers from 5-hour contracts to 6-hour contracts to accommodate this pre- school expansion Food Service Mr Smith noted that the department is closing out the school year and is preparing a bid to be advertised for elementary kitchen equipment in facilities Mr Smith reviewed the summer project listing and noted there's a lot going on and believe me we went through it and summer is when our custodians our grounds work I really have to commend them they do a wonderful job of getting our our grounds our buildings all ready for the students for September so a really hard time for them they don't get any summer off uh the business office Mr Smith discussed a uh wellness program being offered by Quantum health benefits that the district is exploring Mr Smith also reviewed items on the agenda for approval including our monthly reports uh various tuition and transportation contracts an amended year end sitime payout dual use approvals and the renewal of the preschool provider contract with Children's Academy he also reviewed Grant approval totaling over 5.6 million and the award of several bids and rfps uh the committee discussed a pending invoice uh with the township and um that will be again will be discussed at our next meeting also um that is it for my report um any questions or comments okay okay we need a motion motion to approve Finance items 8.2 and 8.3 Mr Price I'll make that motion and I'll second that a discussion roll call please Mrs bonjourno yes Mr Del Barka yes Mrs Gilbert Floyd yes Miss hman yes Mr Ireland yes Mr Price yes Mr sepy yes Mrs solivan yes Mrs slag yes okay uh need a motion for finance 8.4 to 8.27 motion Del Bara second Gilbert Floyd any discussion okay roll call Mrs bonjourno yes Mr Del bar yes Mrs Gilbert Floyd yes Miss Hyman yes Mr Ireland yes Mr Price yes Mr sey yes Mrs Solin yes and Mrs SL yes okay curriculum Miss moss do you have anything okay so we need a motion for 9.2 so made second any discussion okay roll call Mrs bonjourno yes Mr Del Barker yes Mrs Gil Floyd yes M hman yes Mr Ireland yes Mr Price yes Mr sey yes Mrs Sullivan yes Mrs SL yes okay policy we need a motion for 10.2 and 10.3 motion Ireland second I any discussion roll call please Mrs bonjourno yes Mr delar yes Mrs Gilbert Floyd yes M hman yes Mr Ireland yes Mr Price yes Mr sephy yes Mrs Sullivan yes and Mrs slog yes okay Personnel Dr Charlton have any updates I do not thank you okay so we need a motion for 11.2 and 11 to 11.8 motion B second Sullivan discussion roll call Mrs bonjourno yes Mr Del Barka yes Mrs Gilbert Floyd yes Miss hman yes Mr irand yes Mr Price yes Mr sey yes Mr solivan yes and Mr salagi yes okay Mr West thank you Miss salagi well this gives me great pleasure to introduce our new staff members to our EHT family uh please stand to be recognized when your name is called joining us at bargaintown preschool is teacher Leah dilling also joining bargain toown preschool teacher Megan g at the Swift slay ball complex Lex teacher Jason cook also at the Swift slay ball complex Teacher Michelle mcken at Miller Elementary teacher Jennifer Anderson at Fernwood Middle School teacher Megan rodo and last but not least uh joining us at Alder Middle School teacher Ryan Anderson again congratulations to all um this is a good time to Exit Stage right my left so you can uh celebrate with your family and friends so congratulations to everyone Welcome to our family and have a good [Applause] evening you allowed to stay if you want to okay new business we need a motion for 12.1 to 12.3 motion delara second Ireland any discussion roll call please Mrs bonjourno yes Mr D Bar yes Mrs Gilbert Floyd yes Miss hman yes Mr Ireland yes Mr Price yes Mr sepy yes Mr Sullivan yes Mr slag yes old business to affirm Hib motion we need a second I'll second that okay roll call oh any discussion roll call Mrs vjo yes Mr Del Barka yes Mrs Gilbert Floyd yes Mr hman yes Mr irelan yes Mr Price yes Mr sepy yes Mr yes and Mrs L yes okay you have your updated Board calendar is there any report from mjba no but I would like to tell the board something that was really nice the high school uh Key Club members came to the greater Egg Harbor Township historical society property three times so far this past few months and did a great job of helping us with the uh gardening in the area cleaning up some of the buildings really did superb stuff we we as a member of that particular board I want to thank let you know that we should be appreciative of our Key Club they were very Cooperative uh and wonderful kids to be working with so I thought you should be aware of that very nice thank you madam president yes just have a comment as uh vice president of legislation Atlantic County School boards Association just a few things I wanted to touch Bas on I know it's the summertime um a few things a few notes from uh school boards um first we want to discuss um New Jersey school boards Association Ms Daniel Sinclair he's a former New Jersey School Board Association president I think it was important that we mentioned that I know we had a meeting virtually where some of these things were brought up um the annual School elections candidate petition deadline is fast approaching for those in the county that are interested in running for school board uh leas have option to extend their 2019 2022 comprehensive Equity plan um education matters uh to explore using AI in the classroom I think Ray Penny had an interesting um um webinar on the AI that I managed to hear most of and I thought that was very interesting too AI is the way the way of the future and I think it's something that we need to stay AB breast of more upcoming webinars uh eating funding education law evolving landscape of Labor regulations and legislative update uh and there's quite few other things that I I'm not going to share with you here but I would refer you back to the school boards association website and you can continue reading on some of these things that I touch base on so thank you and have a great summer okay anybody else okay I just wanted to say that um well Mr oh he is I I'm used to you being over here Mr West when he spoke about the um uh the promotion cereem cies for the middle schools I just want to say I had a child who um had the opportunity to participate in the Alder Avenue on um finish in eighth grade and it was a very nice ceremony it was it was to the point it was organized it was nice and it was really really really nice to have the opportunity to celebrate the children finish in middle school and headed on to high school so I just wanted to say I appreciate um I know I remember when that first all came about trying to bring back the um Ceremonies for Fernwood and um older and I'm just glad it it passed and I'm glad it's in place and I think it really makes a difference and the kids really really enjoyed it even with the hot weather it was wonderful so I just want to say thank you to the board for all of us working together to get that um established up and running good okay we now will open to the public on any item does anybody have anything to say okay then we're going to say enjoy the rest of the summer till August I need a motion to adjourn motion Ireland second Mr Price okay very good I I okay did you want to did the young man want to speak