e e e e e e this evening this is a combined regular agenda and business meeting of the Board of Education pursuant to the New Jersey statutes and the rules adopted by the Board of Education notice of this meeting was sent to the Star Ledger and cable vision of Elizabeth on April 12th 2024 in addition this notice is posted on a bulletin board in a Lobby of 500 North ra Street and to this act a copy has been filed with the city clerk of Elizabeth we want to welcome everyone present to school 51 and to our television viewers to this April 18th 2024 meeting of the Board of Education we are here to govern provide management oversight and to make policy for the district the superintendent manages the district this is a meeting of the board and public not a meeting of the public this meeting is being recorded and will become part of the Elizabeth Board of Education permanent record in order for that recording to be accurately reflected proceedings please rain from speaking While others are talking we ask that you silence s the sound of your electronic devices since it's legally mandated that these proceedings be accurately recorded we may have to ask for order periodically should noise become to interfere with our recording capabilities there will be a public portion for citizens to address the board participants for the public portion must personally sign in prior to the start of the public comments so that they have the opportunity to speak the sign and Sheet States the name name address and telephone number and reason for the person don't want to comment whether it be an agenda item or an agenda comment I apologize I'm so sorry um we are pleased that you have taken this opportunity to join us here for the Board of Education meeting thank you for your interest in Elizabeth Board of Education at this time Mr Kennedy roll call please Barbosa carvalo Cheves Jacobs pres Marin Orga Pres naron present kavas pastana present Rivera here B dorley uh present thank you before we begin I would like to uh do a moment of silence for uh Valerie e our retired personal assistant from school 19 ala MZ which is the mother of lisis milanas director of plant and property thank you please remain standing at this time I like to do the the presentation of colors from the Admiral William F Hy Junior health and Public Safety Academy Junior RC more work [Music] thank you if you can remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance I'm going to have um board member marinaa do the Pledge of Allegiance please yes I play for un to the FL United States of America and to Republic for which it stand one nation and the God indivisible with libery and just for all thank you at this time please remain standing for the star spangle Banner can see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we held at the twilight's last gleaming who brought stripes and bright stars through the p fight or the ramp parts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh say does that star spangled B our head wave for the land of the free and the home of the brave [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you to our students at William Hing at this time if I can have board member Jerry Jacobs lead us in the pledge of Ethics please public school learning community I will treat people as I wish to be treated to do that I pledge to understand that the school Community is a special place listen effectively when someone else is speaking by pain close ATT and not interrupting speak in voice and use proper language I hope believe for teaching and learning try the best of myself and others by demonstrating act care about other by demonstrating act of kindness the Lear by taking every opportunity to learn from others thank you you may be seated okay again good evening to to our uh board meeting this evening at this time I'm going to have our superintendent of schools introduce our student representative thank you madam president ingred Osorio is one of the very top performing students at Admiral William E Hy Jr health and Public Safety Academy over the past three years since transferring from New York she has remained diligent and worked hard to earn a very impressive 4.3 GPA along with her excellent academic record ingred has been a member of the jrc program for the past 2 years earning many awards with her team she is president of the National Honor Society is on the varsity swim team and earned the coveted Captain role her senior year next year ingred will begin her new Journey at the college level she has been accepted and earned a full tuition scholarship to Kan University ingred plans to study education her ultimate career goal is to become a bilingual teacher we are so proud of ingred for all of her accomplishments thus far and cannot wait to see all that she continues to achieve in the future ingred oio [Applause] please for e Mr Kennedy please add our student representative to the r call please noted thank you thank you at this time microphones are open to the public for those who have signed in prior to the session I shall call individuals to the microphone based on the order of the signing sheet each statement made by the participant shall be limited to 3 minutes in duration each statement made by the participant should be no more than 60 Minutes no individual is able to yield their time to another individual all statement shall be directed to the presiding officer no participants May address or question board members individually each speaker shall comply with all respects with board policy 9322 and there were copies right by the signning sheet the following rules shall appli time limits will be strictly enforced no personal attacks or roll or language a person a person May address the board no more than once during a single meeting comments will not be debated any person in violation of this will be warned as a reminder this is a meeting of the board in public not a meeting of the public at this time I call Miss Maria Loren good evening good evening I came here today because on March 28th this District got the notification of the outcome of a complaint that I filed um and there were some outcomes that were listed there one of the outcomes was that the district was to hold a meeting to discuss compensatory services for my child uh by tomorrow I will tell you that it's been 3 weeks and I just got a call to two days ago to hold a meeting in May that's unacceptable you knew about this complaint you knew you had to comply by holding a meeting by April 8 19th so it seems like a blatant disregard for compliance even when the state tells you that you have to do something so you can only imagine the disrespect and the disregard for parents when it comes to their rights that is unbelievable I just don't understand what type of circus the superintendent and the director of special services is running here I really don't get it furthermore I get told that the district attorney Richard flou would like to be present at my meeting I don't know why I can barely see what contribution he has as part of the compensatory Services discussion what add you what added value he can contribute to this or what constructive opinion he may have he is not part of the CST team as you know per the law only to sit there be adversarial hostile intimidate me because I filed a complaint so I come here to ask and I ask you Mr I'd like to hear from you seriously is it that you don't feel comfortable in your skills as a professional to come to this meeting and have a discussion or do we need to hide behind the pants and the or the skirts of the superintendent and the lawyer I'm Sorry Miss the lawyer definitely takor I know I'm sorry too much of our taxpayer dollars it is the public that has to pay for the man to sit at every single meeting and continue to be there to intimidate parents and to talk down to parents and to be aders I really don't get it so I I would genuinely like a response because from from this day I understand that you ghost write my supervisor and case manager's emails so I'd like to hear from you since you're the one that tells them how to respond back to me because no one here is man or woman enough to come to me and talk to me like a civilized human being I don't bite I promise unless provoked thank you Mr Rens just moving forward please do not direct any questions to anyone except for me as a presiding officer and then I will direct you or whoever to speak to whomever okay thank you and thank you for holding your composure um Dr haa all right at this time I end public comments I see the next person right here okay at this time I'm going to have our superintendent of schools present the community updates thank you madam president we're going to begin with Community updates thank you next slide please the Elizabeth public schools has partnered with Panorama education to enhance the learning opportunities for every child of the Elizabeth public schools Panorama helps schools and districts transform their approach to education so that every student thrives in school every student benefits from an excellent education and every student graduates prepared with the knowledge skills and mindsets that they need to thrive in the modern everchanging world through their work to improve education they help to create a world where every child has Equitable access to opportunities in school and in society we encourage our families to participate in the Panorama survey way to help us provide the highest quality education to ensure that every child achieves Excellence you may access to survey by visiting surveys. Panorama ed.com at Elizabeth family or by scanning the QR code that is currently on the screen this presentation will be uploaded uh to our website to make it easy for our families to be able to access the survey the uh survey had opened on Monday March 4th and it's going to be open through Friday May 3rd I encourage our families please note that the survey is available in multiple languages so we will be sending a letter to all of our families with a reminder about the importance your opinion matters we wish to know um what your thoughts are on the education that we are providing your children next slide please so now we're going to move on on to recognitions next slide thank you the Elizabeth public schools was among 975 districts and 122 schools across 43 states to be honored with the best communities for music education designation from the Nam foundation for its outstanding commitment to music education this designation recognizes and celebrates outstanding efforts by school districts that have made music education part of a well-rounded education districts that have been selected by the N Foundation now in its 25th year are often held up as models for other Educators looking to boost their own music education programs the Elizabeth public schools music Community has now received this distinction for the fifth year in a row and the eighth time overall so congratulations to all of our music teachers uh to our supervisor Tracy Montero to the entire department fantastic work next slide please here's an example of an outstanding success of Elizabeth public schools music education program this past weekend Elizabeth competed in its very first percussion Championship as a marching Ensemble at Le High University Stabler Arena in Bethlehem Pennsylvania the Elizabeth High School indoor percussion Ensemble finished in first place with a score of 93.5 edging out Nutley High School who finished with a score of 93.25% [Music] and Evan seasal fantastic work fantastic congratulations once again to the music department and our next slide please on yesterday April 17th the elizabth public schools H held a college fair at the dun Sports Center hosting over 100 institutions colleges and universities technical schools military branches local government officials and different career Pathways came together to engage educate and encourage approximately 2,000 11th grade students from our eight of our high schools to begin their postsecondary Journey Juniors arrived at the dun Sports Center to visit the various institutions throughout the school day while any other students and families who wanted to attend had the opportunity to visit after school between the hours of 2:30 and 3:30 I have to share it was a fantastic event uh yesterday just speaking to the students and their excitement their enthusiasm listening to the questions that they were asking uh just a a wonderful wonderful experience so uh congratulations to our guidance Department a fantastic job coordinating uh this work and our College and Career coordinator who worked diligently to uh prepare for yesterday Fantastic Mr Kennedy and I had that opportunity to walk through and engage with the uh different colleges and universities fantastic and now we move on to important events uh next slide please so just a reminder uh we have our revised 2324 school calendar um so due to the closure of schools and administrative offices on January 19th and February 13th uh we had to extend the calendar we will now our students will now be required to attend school through Monday June 24th it will be a half a day schools will close at 12:15 for our students and our team members and on Tuesday uh schools will close for our administrators next slide please so a reminder last month I had presented on the uh State assessments uh this is a another opportunity to remind our families with regard to uh the administration of the state exams um next slide please as we know in our district is a requirement uh graduation requirement for all of our seniors to have to take the SAT we have our SAT school day that is scheduled on April 23d uh so looking forward to the administration which is now digital the SAT has been digitized next slide please and this is again gentle reminder with regard to that uh all of our 11th grade students in all high schools will be taking it and then of course those seniors who do not have SAT scores um they will need to sit for the SAT exam down next slide please and now we turn to another reminder regarding the administration of the New Jersey student learning assessments that will be administered between May 1st and 23rd next slide please and as you can see on the chart before you uh with regard to the grade that your child is in uh we are providing the dates for both the English language arts assessment the math assessment as well as the science assessments so these dates we're going to be posting on once again on our web page and may will definitely be a very busy month with the administration of State assessments we want to remind our families to ensure our children have a very good breakfast in the morning that they get plenty of rest before they take their test next slide please and last month we had shared the dates for our high school graduation uh we wanted to be able to share this month our eighth grade promotion ceremony date next slide please and as you can see um we are going to be beginning with the eighth grade promotion ceremonies on June 20th as you can see on the slide before you these are all the schools that will be hosting their eighth grade promotion exercise beginning at 9:00 a.m. and on the next slide please also on June 20th beginning at 1:00 p.m. these elementary schools will be hosting their ceremonies next slide and just as a reminder to our community that on Friday June 21st uh we will be closed for uh the holiday for juneth so therefore 8th grade promotion exercises will begin on Thursday June 20th and then the rest of the exercises will take place on Monday June 24th so as you can see on the slide before you no no go back one please have to wait for next slide please um June 24th at 9:00 a.m. you see the list of schools that will host their promotion ceremonies at 9:00 a.m. and then next slide and then we move into our high school graduations uh that afternoon so let's move into uh that that day excuse me next slide and just as a reminder um last month we only had the dates now we have more specific information with regard to the time of the ceremony and the arrival time for our seniors and once again the date on which the high school graduations will be held so we will be U hosting four High School graduations on June 24th and another four I'm sorry another four on June 25th for a total of eight High School graduations very excited uh have our jbj uh STEM Academy that will have its first senior class uh graduating this year and I see our student representative from jbj STEM Academy has joined us this evening very nice to see you Jeremiah next slide please and now as a reminder to our parents uh we continue to host parent uh workshops uh sharing with our families you can click on the parent development workshops on our web page and you are able to access all the workshops that are being offered in our district uh you can just click on Parent Academy workshops icon in the district homepage and be able to view view the workshop at your leisure next slide please and now some of our celebrations that are taking place in the month of May and we begin with uh the First first day of May with our School principal's day we have uh the week of the 6th through the 10th as our teacher appreciation week we have National Nurses Week national teacher day National School Nurses Day Mother's Day Haitian Flag Day Cuban flag day very proud of my Heritage uh Memorial Day better hearing and speech month asian-pacific Heritage Month Haitian American Heritage Month Portugal Heritage Month Mental Health Awareness Month kindness awareness month and National military appreciation month so those are the dates that we will be celebrating in the month of May and that concludes our community announcements for this evening um I'd like to actually switch back to our board president before we continue with presentations for the April board initiative she get I'm so sorry you are correct so you get to hear a little bit more from me this evening we are going to turn to our second presentation uh we are required by the New Jersey Department of Education to present the 2022 2023 school performance reports that were just released by the state department uh this month and we are required to share with our community next slide please so our school performance reports are put out by the New Jersey Department of Education each year and they report out on the previous year's uh data the performance report uh became available as I stated at the beginning of April and are intended to provide communities with a very broad picture of the schools in the district and this is a requirement for all school districts next slide please for our families if you're interested uh you can find these reports at NJ school.org and after this evening we will also be posting our presentation on our District web page next slide please uh also as you can see a visual as to where you will be able to obtain this report on our District page next slide please what did she have to so what does this report include includes all the data that was previously reported prior to the pandemic as well as some changes based on feedback that the New Jersey Department of Education received since that point in time these reports include hundreds of data points about schools I'm sorry next slide please about schools and districts in New Jersey including demo graphic information student growth academic achievement graduation re rates and school accountability throughout the report you will see a variation of trend data next slide please so as you could see on the slide before you you have single-ear data depending on the specific data set and in some instances you will see comparison to State data as well so as you can see here in the line graph our enrollment has increased from 27,1 74 in 2021 to 2883 in 2223 the table at the bottom of the slide shows a change in our demographics and just wanted to be able to point that specifically that an increase in the population of our English Learners from 23.1% in 2021 to 30% in 2022 2023 so for our student representative that has joined us this evening I am so excited that you're pursuing uh becoming a bilingual teacher because our population of English Learners just continues to increase each and every year currently 32% uh of our students in the district are English Learners next slide please student growth is important because it measures how much students are learning each year each student gets a student growth percentile from 1 to 99 in English language arts and Mathematics that explains their progress compared to students that had similar scores uh the New Jersey every student succeeds act plan outlines the academic progress that will be measured uh the calculation relies on one or two consecutive years of Prior assessment results so what that translates to is that the 2223 school performance reports will include student growth data for the first time since 201819 because the state assessments had been cancelled during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 next slide please so exciting to be able to report that our students um data right the data for our our children um exceeds that of the state in both English language arts and Mathematics next slide please school performance reports contain information about student participation and performance on Statewide assessments and it includes the New Jersey student learning um assessment it includes the dlm access for L's and also our uh New Jersey GPA which is our exam for our 11th grade students next slide okay fantastic so in the first row of the table you can see that we have a high participation rate with nearly all the students scheduled to take a Statewide assessment uh participating as a reminder student students in grades 3-9 are required to participate in state Assessments in both England language arts and Mathematics so you could see our participation rate is outstanding the gap between our performance and that of the state as a whole is closing in both English language arts and math although the Gap is much wider in math in English language arts the state grew by 2.3% however Elizabeth grew by 2.9% and similarly in mathematics the state only grew by 2 2% whereas Elizabeth grew by 4.8% and this is really attributed uh to the curriculum to the hard work and efforts of our instructional Departments of our principles our vice principls and most importantly the teachers in our classrooms and the instruction that they provide our students next slide please so now a brief overview of graduation rate it's the percent of students who completed High School in four years but is also reported for students who completed High School within 5 years one of the requirements of the high school diploma is the ability to pass a graduation assessment or alternative assessment the graduation assessment was waved for the class of 2023 as the state transitioned to a new assessment next slide please beginning in 2021 the department of Ed began calculating and Reporting two versions of the graduation rate the federal version aligns with the every the the federal um every student succeeds act uh requirements and also the guidance from the US Department of Education and it's used for accountability purposes only the state version continues to use that same methodology used prior to 2021 and it uh reflects all of the students who received a state endorsed uh diploma for the federal view version students with disabilities who did not meet State course requirements Andor local attendance requirements because of modifications or exemptions in their IEPs were not included in the graduation count but they remained in the adjusted cohort it's important to note that these required Federal changes only change how graduation rates are calculated for federal reporting and accountabilities but these changes do not affect requirements to earn a diploma um that the state awards for students with disabilities next slide please so here you're able to it trans the um explanation now translates into our numbers as you can see here our four-year graduation rate continues to increase and the Gap is closing between our graduation rate and that of the state as a whole when we look specifically at the cohort of 2023 there is no difference between our state and federal calculation what this tells us is that none of our students with disabilities are excluded from the 4-year calculation Elizabeth grew by 5.9% % however when you look at the state's data it remained relatively flat right another example of the progress being made in this District next slide please so now we're turning to um chronic absenteeism and that the state defines it as being absent for 10% or more of the days enrolled in the school year next slide so now we'll be able to see the data by each uh grade level here you see the rates for students in prek through 12 uh in the district and they're coded as dark blue and the state is coded in light blue we see the largest gap in prek overall our chronic rate is similar to the state as a whole with notable data in grades five 7 8 11 and with regard to our seniors where our rate of chronic absenteeism is lower than that of the state right and that once again is attributed to the hard work taking place in all of our schools next slide please here you're going to see the uh demographics of our students compared to the demographics of our teachers the Gap is wider for our Hispanic population um and in comparison the Gap is narrower for our black population so you're able to see the ratio of teachers uh to students teacher demographics and student demographics next slide please College and Career Readiness reports show information about college entrance exams Advanced coursework such as AP and CTE programs the last indicator in the chart is a number and percent of students that are earning a seal of biliteracy the New Jersey state of biliteracy is an award given by the New Jersey Department of Education and recognition of students who have studied and attained proficiency at least one language in addition to English by high school graduation and we're really proud to report that 12.4% of our seniors earned a seal of byit in 2223 while only 8% of seniors across the state earned this distinguished seal so another area in which we are making significant progress that will serve our students well next slide please now we're turning to our uh Visual and Performing Arts and we're able to see that 97% of our students in grade 6 to8 um have access uh to our art classes to music courses uh to drama courses to visual arts courses correct and then you U likewise you're able to see the percentage of students in high school and the access to courses that they have next slide please so now we're turning to uh School our violence vandalism and HIV reporting and you're able to see um where it is that we are um in compar into the state we uh actually have less number of incidents next slide please another way to look at that same data is by comparing the 2122 to the 2223 for this these categories so when you're comparing against the state the district decrease specifically in vandalism weapons and HIV whereas the state has had an increase in all of the areas so again the attention that we pay to ensuring uh compliance with uh policies ensuring we have support services in place uh and it translates to the district's data next slide please now we are uh turning to our enrollment for uh prek and kindergarten in our district so um although there are still districts believe it or not that have a halfday programs for prek and kindergarten uh that is not the case in at the Elizabeth public schools I'd also like to point out that our enrollment continues to grow um in our programs next slide please the school performance reports also includes uh student and staff ratios as you can see which is very important correct we always strive to have small class sizes and we're often opening classes uh based on the enrollment for that grade level so as you can see our um ratio students to teachers students to administrators and you continue students to nurses students with IEPs uh to child study teams and we strive to keep those ratios low uh Les next slide please and now finally School accountability is reported the New Jersey Essa School accountability system provides a formula to determine a summi of score which is based on various measures of progress they are academic achievement progress towards English language proficiency Student Success as measured by chronic absenteeism which are reported for all schools and then of course you have your academic progress which is for elementary schools only and graduation which obviously pertains to our high schools next slide please and now um under this category what is targeted support and Improvement a school is defined as a need of targeted support for one of two reasons additional targeted support and Improvement for a low performing student group with a summi of score in the bottom 5% of all Title One schools across New Jersey and then the second category is targeted support and Improvement or TSI as an acronym for a consistently underperforming student group as identified by missing annual targets or standards for all of the indicators for two consecutive school years so next slide please now we're what is a comprehensive support School so comprehensive support school is uh determined for one of three uh reasons overall low performance meaning that they had a summi of score in the bottom 5% of all Title One schools low graduation rate meaning their overall graduation rate was 67% or less um or chronic uh chronically low performing student Group which translates to uh schools identified as in need of additional targeted support for three or more consecutive years years so I think this is a moment where um I need to take a pause and and be able to celebrate the fantastic news um as it relates to our comprehensive and targeted support and Improvement schools that exited status this school year on this oh I'm sorry next slide please such such important phrase next slide now you're able to see the exciting news on the slide uh so we had several of our schools that exited status this year as you can see on the slide uh before you so we had Christopher Columbus School Number 15 um that exited status Sonia soay School number 25 Mel G Holmes School number five I Prep Academy school number8 and Johnny dwire Technology Academy all of these schools exited status and as you can see on the slide before you um you're able to see specifically the student group for which the school was in status correct so our our our black population at school 15255 and dwire uh T they were in targeted status because additional supports were needed uh to ensure that they improved their performance um and school eight for their white population uh so as a result of the hard work and effort of our principes our vice principes our teachers our incredible uh um supervisors and directors uh we met on a regular basis analyzing the data working on identifying the appropriate strategies um coming up with activities that would be monitored very carefully and ensuring that our students were receiving the uh support that they needed and it was really a proud moment for all of us as the state department uh congratulated the district for for these schools coming out of status uh and it really it's it's a result of the hard work and effort of everyone uh in the schools um and in our central office that that's really what helps our schools now next slide please because the story does not the good news does not end there um I want to be able to also recognize all right this category it's our comprehensive and targeted schools and Improvement for that have been um identified right for this year but let me pay uh close close attention place close attention to one of the schools that's listed on this slide because it's important to note that the Admiral William F Hy Jr health and Public Safety Academy whose principal is sitting in our audience tonight uh Mr Chris vanfleet Hy came out of comprehensive level two status and they dropped down to targeted they now have a small subgroup that they have to pay attention to to but they worked diligently diligently each and every day to ensure that they were meeting the needs of their students this is a high school that serves over, 1300 students which is a a remarkable achievement remarkable achievement so I'm so happy that Mr van Fleet is here today and so happy that our student representative is representing uh Hall The Academy this evening so congratulations again so out of a for a large Urban District we have only three schools that are in status School number 28 that is in status for its black student group Admiral William F Hy health and Public Safety Academy for its students with disabilities targeted status and our Thomas Edison Career and Technical Academy that is in comprehensive status for low graduation rate which we already know significant progress has been made in that area so very very proud moment um as it relates to uh the status of our schools as a large as the second largest District in the state of New Jersey and uh so the next slide I think is so appropriate what happens next schools identified for support and improvement work in partnership with their education Comm community of parents our families our Educators our community members to assess the needs related to their areas of weakness identify those strategies and resources that can really impact Improvement create the annual school plans to outline specific steps outline a timeline of completion for those steps understand understand those steps that need to uh be taken in order to be removed from status um and then as it relates to the schools that we talked about for this year the schools that are in um comprehensive status are eligible to exit in 2027 the schools that are in targeted status are eligible for exiting uh after only one year in 2025 and we're we feel very ambitious uh about having this same conversation next year at this time um that our schools will successfully exit and that completes the 2022 23 school performance report for this evening thank you very much thank you mam Superintendent at this time I would like to go back to the board initiative so in January during my opening remarks as president I had mentioned that our board members um were going to be sponsoring initiatives each month throughout the year for the presentation portion of this calendar this evening we have created a highlight video highlighting the initiative sponsored by board member Ilana Cheves for Autism Awareness Month which are autism acceptance month and child and teen safety matters through our partnership with Monique Bear Foundation and Goya Foods throughout the month of April elizeth public schools has been promoting lessons and opportunities and activities that support and celebrate our students with autism and their families additionally throughout the year we will be educating and empowering students with information and strategies to prevent recognize and respond appropriately to situation that compromise personal safety at this time I would like to present our highlight video for autism acceptance months and the child and teen safety matters participation the full video will also be on the district's website at the end of the [Music] month hi I am Iana chz and for the past five years he has been my honor to serve the Elizabeth Community as a member of the Elizabeth Board of Education as a board under Madame President Charlene batt St we are excited to launch a number of initiative during 2024 that will enhance learning for all a student of Elizabeth public schools during the month of April I am proud to sponsor initiatives dedicated to all a student reaching their full potential in honor of atison except month I had a wonderful time visiting our students who participate in our atisone program it was a such a rewarding experience interacting with the students and see their amazing quality shine I also enjoy meeting and speaking with parents and guardian of a student with special needs at parents Workshop hosted by the district division of special services our school counselor met on April 11 to start a training and officially launched the partnership between Elizabeth public schools the Monique B foundation and Goya Foods my hope is the lessons our students and family learn will host support and improve the life of all student who attending Elizabeth public schools including our student with special needs and their family have a voice it's mine alone it comforts me it is my own I just want to thank board member Iana shepher for her work this month and towards our initiative and again to the members of the Board of Education who already completed their me their initiative thank you and to those who are going to be completing their membership or excuse me initiative we look forward to seeing what you bring to the district this year as well okay before I go into the agenda are there any M president yes and before you go to the agenda can I make some comments in reference to the school performance report yes thank you yes um I can all let pass this opportunity to congratulate our directors teachers who working really hard as an educator I know how hard it is 20,000 students and and I'm happy every year I'm here I say the same things and I know it's a lot of work and dedication behind the scenes and at at the state level they start recognized as a high performer our scorecard is n 98 points for uh for the fact like we have the most numbered school who improve in a short period that mean I want I canot let pass this opportunity and thank you for your hard work and dedication and we here to support you thank you madam president thank you any other board members who would like to speak before we go into the agenda Madam president yes board member Jacob so I'd like to also Echo commissioner Mara take us congratulations to the teachers administrators and staff especially to the schools that came out of status Mr who is here joining us today uh I do have a quick question um in regards for Madam superintendent in regards to the uh accountability profiles report that was presented back in November which is uh lot of the information is contained in the school performance report um I remember in November when we received that information I think we were told at that point that the final disaggregated data would not be available till January or February and that the Ed management committee would be able to start reviewing those things and the reason why I bring that question up is from our board retreat last night where we spoke focused on you know Equitable outcomes for all of our students throughout all of our schools is that we making sure that we as a board are focusing on making sure there equity in our our schools absolutely absolutely the preliminary data as you just stated that had been made available in the fall did not include the breakdown we now have that data uh we have also reports that we have shared as of the second Market period with regard to Performance and now that we have uh the school performance report uh officially released we have that data that we will be sharing at our next aded management meeting that's coming up thank you madam superintendent thank you madam president you're welcome anyone else thank you seeing none at this time I'm going to go through the agenda are there any questions for tab 1 a or tab 1B the official and private meeting minutes for March 28th or tab 1B the treasurer and secretary's report for February 29th 2024 seeing none Mr Kennedy please add it to the agenda Madame President yes so I just have a question for Mr Kennedy um so the agenda that we have in front of us tonight um is the same as the electronic version that we received on Friday excluding the addition that you sent us today correct except for the change in the um use of facilities thank you thank you Madame President you're welcome tab 2A the Personnel report I'm going to ask our superintendent to ask Mr qua thank you madam president I'd like to ask Mr qua to please provide um his report to the board thank you Ma mad superintendent ladies and gentlemen of the board um for your consideration this evening you have a number of items uh beginning with retirements you have five retirements and I want to take advantage of the opportunity to congratulate uh all the staff members who are dedicated so many years um in this wonderful profession to service our stud students uh we have two resignations we have uh 39 reappointments um and briefly uh those three appointments are individuals who are hired recently and we are reappointing them because they have been recommended and we're doing so at this time so that next month when all employees receive their contracts these individuals who were hired the past few months are also uh uh able to to receive uh the contract they they have earned uh we have five appointments we have 23 transfers and just as a friendly reminder those transfers these transfers usually are a result of requests from individuals recommendations from administrators and in this case um for tonight's meeting a recommendation from uh some of our directors uh you also have 12 changes of salary and the changes of salary are due to individuals obtaining either a master's degree or a six year level uh finally I just want to inform the board that um on May 18th uh Saturday um we will be having a job fair uh at school 26 and I hope that some of you can attend thank you thank you Mr qua thank you Mr quer at this time are there any questions for tab 2A on the agenda Madame President yes Mar um it's actually um Mr Questa how many job openings do we have how many job openings do we have I mean I so we continue to have a a great demand in two departments bilingual education and special services so those are our two primary departments that we're targeting and we're hoping to to get some fine candidates on the on that and that would be from prek to 12 correct thank you any other board members who have questions for tab 2A sing n Mr Kennedy please add tab 2A to the agenda please tab three tuition's report any questions seeing n Mr cedy and tab three tuition's report to the agenda please Tab 4 a 4 B 4 C 4 d superintendent's report at this time I'm going to have our superintendent ask the directors to give their reports out please thank you Madame President uh we're going to begin with um tab 4A considerations and I'm going to turn to uh Mr G denado uh director of student services good evening for your consideration I have one contract to present under Tab 4 a considerations on page one number two is for 10 District employees including the supervisor of guidance the district College and Career coordinator and myself to attend the New Jersey Association for college admissions counseling conference in Atlantic City on May 20th and 21st at the cost of $5,185 and that's being funded through ARP and local accounts thank you thank you Mr gonado uh Dr Bales if you could please um share your recommendation sure good evening tonight I'm presenting one recommendation under tab 4A considerations for your review and approval it is on page one it is a consideration for two teachers from school 5 to attend a professional development session titled summer inclusion leadership conference at cane University held on June 7th this activity is funded through title to professional development thank you Dr [Music] balis um I'd like to turn now to 4C uh field trip considerations and ask our assistant superintendent of schools Mr Cortez to please uh present his report thank you for your consideration this evening we have a total of 43 field trips 10 are scheduled for for the high schools and 33 field trips are scheduled for our K to8 schools as of today we have scheduled a total of 631 field trips to as of this point this year uh I would just like to take a moment to thank groundwork Elizabeth they have offered us 27 field trips to visit their micro Farm here in the city they are free of charge and they are being offered to all of our second graders uh you will see that field trip in field trip number 1 16 17 and 19 thank you Mr Cortez thank you um as it relates to 4D the superintendent report I will be sharing my Hib report at this time uh pursuant to board policy 51311 harassment intimidation and bullying and New Jersey statute 18a col 37 the results of each investigation shall be reported to the Board of Education no later than the date of the next board meeting following completion of the investigation include any Services provided training established discipline imposed or other actions taken or recommended by the chief School administrator since our last Board of Education meeting on March 28th and through April 12th our school counselors school-based social workers and Deputy councel have completed 27 HIV investigations of these investigations 11 cases were founded for Hib as per New Jersey Law there were nine males 24 females 25 regular education students and eight special education students that were the alleged victims there were 22 males 21 females 32 regular education students eight special education students two students from another district and one non-student that were the alleged offenders of the 11 cases founded for HIV two cases were founded based on race national origin one case founded based on religion one case founded based on gender one case founded based on mental physical or sensory disability and nine cases were founded based on and other identifying characteristics of the services provided and actions taken for these investigations there were nine skill development lessons and trainings 26 counseling sessions one referral for outpatient mental health treatment 26 counseling sessions um excuse me and five administrative counseling sessions nine School uh in school detentions 11 parent conferences two referrals to outside agencies for added District suspensions and four cases were continuing to be monitored the Hib statute further requires that at the next regularly scheduled meeting after the board members received the initial report of HIV investigations that the board issue a decision in writing to affirm reject or modify U superintendent's decision pertaining to the 65 cases that were reported to you at the last meeting on March 28th in order for you to do so the investigation summaries from those investigations which were reported to you at the last board meeting have been provided to all board members um for your review prior to voting and this completes this month's uh HIV investigation that we have moved from the end of the evening to the beginning yes thank you you're most welcome all right at this time are there any questions from our board members for Tab 4 to Tab 4 d uh I have a question regarding Tab 4 a um I don't know who puts this together but if you can write out the our acronyms so for request number two from Anthony and dado he has the acronyms of New Jersey College of Admissions counseling written now but for request number four from Rajiv mahra NJB o I don't know what that means so can we just write those out for board members please are there any other questions or any questions from Tab 4 a 4B 4bb 4 C or 4 D from our board members seeing none Mr Kennedy can you please add it to the agenda at this time uh tab five authorizations report I'm going to ask our superintendent to ask the respective directors to give their reports please thank you very much we are going to uh begin actually um if I may um on behalf of Tracy Crosby I'm going to provide the explanation for the first item so as you will note on page one of the authorizations report there is a recommendation to accept funds from the New Jersey Department of Education I'd like to be able to share that the uh purpose of this is to ensure that our private providers and head star um apply directly to the district for a grant that is being made available that can that can be only used to reduce cost sharing for before school after school summer wraparound child care or for the funds to be provided directly to the families uh this grant um funding is being made available as you can see in the amounts before you of total of 34232 uh C catapult which of course provides the wraparound services at at U our approved sites and of course um Egan off Early Childhood Center that has applied uh for this grant so I wanted to provide that explanation on behalf of our director of Early Childhood could not be here this evening as we continue on I would like to be able to actually turn to Dr sedeno for the authorization to attend um [Laughter] I'm not sure I'm going to pronounce it correctly so I'm turning to you Dr sedo J so on page uh one of uh the authorizations report there is an authorization for me to attend the Jing New Jersey stem uh education Forum which is actually happening in weno China uh I will be traveling on behalf of the district with the partnership with Ken University to Wango starting on the 23rd of April and returning on the 29th um the superintendent is very very interested in the information that will be presented which is a collaboration between the Jing Educators there we'll be visiting schools um and looking at Best Practices uh in education in China so that is for your consideration tonight Madam president I know that we teach Mandarin Chinese in our district will we be afforded some of this knowledge I would love to bring some knowledge to our school number 26 children which is an international borate school and they do teach Mandarin to our children I'm really looking forward to hearing about your travels and what we can partner and what we can bring back to our schools this is an amazing opportunity and I'm really happy to see this thank you thank you this is even excellent that we don't have to pay for it lutely true no cause to the board okay all right thank you Dr sedel I'd like to turn now to Dr McMullen uh please if you could share with regard to the author it's a partnership with our lead agency College good evening um on Tab five I have two authorizations for your consideration this evening the first authorization is on the bottom of the first page and is for the Elizabeth public schools in partnership with Union College of Union County to make application and to accept additional funds for the 2024 Consolidated adult basic skills and integrated English literacy Grant from the New Jersey Department of Labor in the amount of $4,000 These funds are for the adult education ESL and GED Preparatory classes and will allow the program to be extended in addition on the I have a second authorization for your consider ation on page two and it's for the Elizabeth High School Marching Band color guard and Winter Guard percussion students to participate in marching School Mar wait to participate in marching band day on Friday Mar May 24th from 10: to 11:30 a.m. at the dun Sports Center the marching band Winter Guard percussion and color guard will perform at this event for current e8th grade band students inter ed in high school ban programs thank you we're going to turn now back to Dr sedel for a report on the donations if you turn to page five on the authorizations report there are four donations for your consideration tonight I'm going to uh offer two highlights from this report so one I would like to thank one of our parents from school number 21 Emanuel Bloomfield Jones for the donation of several items for the Great 8 Project Graduation this includes a cotton candy machine for our students a popcorn machine and several Inflatables a 15ft fun slide a 40ft obstacle course basketball games and a 14x14 Castle I also would like to highlight a donation from the njsiaa of $655 for hosting the group four state championship game on March 1st which we many of us attended uh and this is to pay for our site managers announcers ticket scanners scorebook Keepers and clock or um clock operators so that is for your consideration this evening thank you Dr Sedano we're going to turn now to Mrs Finch Johnson our assistant superintendent of schools for the report on the parent organizations fundraising activities thank you madam superintendent so on page six of the authorization there are 35 fundraisers on the agenda for your approval this evening there are various Autism Awareness events planned as well as spring dances and Zumba nights frozen fruit bars Donuts ice cream pretzels and other snack sales as well as movie paint and game nights on the agenda this evening thank you and this concludes um tab five thank you are there any questions for tab five superintendent yes I have a question for on page two it starts actually on page um one our adult education ESL program is that still in uh in occurring did it finish what's what's the time frame that that we run that here it's still going on it's actually um it would end on April 18th and with the expansion it would go to May 2nd okay and how many adult uh students are going to so they graduate correct from that program or Well they um 40 right so um there are different levels so you have your ESL students and you have your students that are also um doing the GED and there are different levels within both the programs and we can cater up to 40 about that's about 40 that might might need to continue doing some testing that would be able to now be afforded the time to come back and finish that post testing thank you and then actually I have one more for Dr sedeno um call my eye the donation 70 bicycles and helmets had wish for Wheels they just contacted us to for Wheels is an organization that specifically is a nonprofit organization that was very interested in working with school number 26 and they contacted my office along with um Mr how hoe title Bound for a donation of 70 bicycles so again they're a nonprofit and they wanted to sponsor this for our students oh that's wonderful I wish we could give it to more schools that's wonderful I have two questions to bounce off of uh board member Barosa so I'll just start with the bicycles are the the bicycles going to students at school 26 were they already donated to the students it's okay yes okay here we go we just have to keep this microphone on uh so they have not been donated uh as of yet they will be this is for your approval prior and we'll be getting some notice from them okay thank you also don't turn it off yet also when we get donations do we send an official letter A thank you letter to people who do donations or you just thank them here we thank them here yeah we have not um many of them have been in direct communication with us so on the phone obviously we say thank you but we do not send an official communication back because we are in relationship with many of them okay I think that would be nice to do a letter to do that just so that they can have for the records um and this also shows how we appreciate what they've done cuz for the parent who donated all those items for the um Project Graduation I would love for him to have a thank you letter from that's a great suggestion thank you yeah from the board please and then also I want to go back to the question that um the first question she had on page two um ESL the eso graduation uh classes uh when's the next one beginning that would start next year in September in September okay September of this year 2024 yes thank you and how do we apply how do people apply it would be posted online and we would do the it would be on our website also okay thank you are there any questions for tab five from the board members Madam president yes um the ESL I'm sorry yeah it's on um how many people can we accommodate so um we currently have 112 students enrolled in the program so what happens is many of the students may have already by the time the program ends may have um already post tested so by extending the program by receiving this grant and accepting the Grant and extending the program it will be able to afford the opportunity for student for adults students that have not had the opportunity to post test for whatever that reason might be um give them that chance to give have that post testing time and additional seat time so I my question is are the people that we are uh helping coming to us through Union County um College from County College or are they coming to us because of our students and it's their parents who are in need the majority of our our um students our adult students are Elizabeth residents so they're they are um do they not need to be Elizabeth residents no I don't I don't know that answer I can get you that answer um um it's a consort if I may Dr McMullan it's a consorti so this is the lead agency is Union College so it is uh open to all County residents of course the majority of our adult students are from Elizabeth and that's really largely through the recruitment efforts uh and the interest and the need but it is a consortia so we are a partner therefore we would be able to serve adults from surrounding communities amazing program my my only um question in I I guess how can we advertise it better how can we get it out to our parents especially our parents of our U preas kindergartens first grades second grades CU that's where where we meet our problems where we meet our issues where the parents can't communicate with the children they don't know how to help them with their homework so if we can maybe get to those parents and afford them something at that young younger age uh maybe we can help ourselves by helping them I'm just wondering how we are advertising as a district since we're affording ourselves this possibility to be on our agenda if we can get it to the younger parents of our prek students of our kindergarten students earlier so that we can help ourselves in the long run okay I don't know how we're advertising is my question cuz just putting it up on our website means absolutely nothing to me okay well we can I can get you that information thank you can you get it to me too please y definitely awesome I'll just let you know from the Welcome Center perspective um as stud sorry there you are right here there you go just for the advertisement perspective we WE Post um all of that information goes out to our guidance counselors in the school our social workers to make sure it's disseminated at our welcome center it's a big recruitment effort because as new parents come into our district bringing students they see that information they're able to connect with Dr B mullen's office and and we never have a problem filling up the seats we do so every year thank you thank you any other questions for tab five I just wanted to clarify a little bit more it is a Consortium I am involved in that process to an extent I I could speak that if it's an underutilized program and there's a lot of needs especially here in the school district and if we can be more creative and and outreaching into some of our parents I know Mr Mosley is doing a great job I just want to commend them for for doing a great job with this program and at the same time that we want to provide more support when there's more activity usually that can lead to more grant money so just keep that in mind that the higher the metrics go the more opportunity grants are available to really help our parents so they can really get their GED get their ESL and I know there's been a lot of influx of new immigrant students immigrant families and they can definitely use these skill sets Madame President yeah if you can share that with all of us because I just I I hate to keep talking about this but we get a lot of questions about this because we're at school board members but this year alone I had a lot of parents reaching out when the the program start when does it end and how do we apply and I know it's it's virtual correct I think oh no okay see yeah if you could get us information we're really really interested Madame President I had a question related to the program when when um commissioner rera mentioned is a Consortium um can we re other organization can refer participants or had to or the own participant need to complete their registration ation process like for example we had proed on different local organization to work with immigrants they can refer to the program or have the participants walk in and do all the registration process the um the person themselves would have to come in and register okay thank you for that dialogue uh any other questions for tab five seeing none Mr Kennedy can you please add it to the agenda tab six and tab 6A I would like to table number two for a discussion in private unless you want me to have discussion here I I could wait to priv it you may not want to hear it here anyone else questions for tab 6 tab 6A with the exception of number two which is going to be tabled seeing none Mr Kennedy please add it to the agenda please tap seven Award of contract reports I'm going to have our superintendent ask the respective directors give their reports please my pleasure so we would like to begin with Dr balas on the contracts okay this evening I'm presenting two contracts under tab 7even they're both on page one and they're actually both on behalf of one of our non-public schools the JC the first contract is to actually enter to contract with CE Therapy Solutions and this is to provide a 90minut professional development session for the teachers at the JC in their middle school on developing and supporting students executive function skills and interventions to support the process and this is funded through their Title One professional development the non-public allocation and the second one for the jec is to enter contract with the educational research and action company to provide half a halfday professional development session again for their middle school and high school teachers and the topic will be around actionable ass assessment cycle and it includes developing and using a Common Language around deeper learning and rigor and this also is funded through the title 2 professional development non-public allocation thank you Dr balas appreciate it I'm going to move on to Dr marquetti thank you good evening I have two contracts for this evening uh they're both on page five the first one is a recommendation to enter into contract with Gateway Savage Learning Company to provide professional development with a focus on mathematics for all of our k28 administrators the training would be provided during the summer of 2024 and it's at a cost of 6,900 funded through ARP The second contract is also on page five and that one is to enter into contract with hmh publishing to provide professional development focusing on reading and science instruction also for our administrators during the summer of 2024 for in the amount of 15,120 and it would also be funded through ARP thank you Dr maretti I'm going to turn to uh Miss Jamie levit our director of food food and nutrition services hi good evening I have three items on the agenda for your consideration these items are located T 7 page five I have two rejections of bids one for paper supplies due to bid modification and the other one for grocery items due to significant miscalculations and errors and I do have one recommendation to enter into contract with mclusky mechanical contractors to provide servicing and maintenance for refrigerator and freezers this contract will be for the 2024 2025 school year thank you thank you Miss lvit I'm going to turn now to Madam president yes M so I have a question for Miss levit in in the rejection of those two bids yes sir now in the past those supplies that we we got those from different manual factors and then we were extending those contracts year after year uh no this is a brand new bid that we had done last year as well yes and what can you expound upon um the specifications or the errors that caused the miscalculations or was the there seems like it was a breakdown well um the grocery items um in this particular case the vendors made errors mathematical errors on their extensions of prices and quantities um the papers supplies we had to modify uh the quantities because we were getting so many um how how should I say a vendor would um cross out our specifications and put their own in is that clear thank you so much M Le thank you Madame President you're welcome thank you Madame President I'm just going to ask all the board members if you can hold your questions until everyone completes the report please and then we'll get back to all the questions Madam superintendent certainly uh i' like to turn now to Mr G denado director of student services okay on Tab seven Award of contract I have two contracts to present tonight first on page three the first item for your consideration very proud to announce this one as we saw in the uh video uh commissioner trev's video it's with the Monique Burr foundation and the Monique bur Foundation is a child safety and education program designed to teach students critical Universal safety strategies to ensure our students recognize and respond appropriately to the four types of child endangerment this program is going to be offered at no cost to the board and in special thanks to the Goya cares initiative Mr gado I believe you started already launched this initiative the training with counselors and soci we did as you saw in the video um last week we held our first counseling uh counselor training for all of our counselors and social workers to learn about the initiative start the initial process in um learning what the requirements are going to be and then we'll have a followup training with um mbf the Monique bur Foundation two weeks from now um to really start the program rolling out in our schools and that will continue all through next year fantastic and then lastly on page eight uh the fourth item for your consideration is with Stepping Stones group and is for the hiring of one school-based social worker this school social worker will support various schools throughout our district focusing on delivering social emotional learning activity and mental health support at the cost of $ 29,548 [Music] our director of bilingual and ESL World Language good evening everyone um tonight I have one contract which is on page six and this is for inspired instruction and they will provide professional development training sessions to World language teachers on supporting positive behavior and motivation in addition to strategies in increasing academic performance the professional development session will be offered in the month of September during the district professional development days and it will not exceed 6,250 this is funded through ARP accelerated learning coaching funds thank you thank you Dr nunz appreciate it and we are now going to turn excuse me I just lost my place here Dr OA hello yes thank you um so um for your consideration this evening I have on page six of the award of contracts at the bottom uh the uh recommendation for one recision of contract with the Bergen County Special Services organization uh it is for the recision of uh uh uh sign language interpretation services for a student who was disenrolled by their parent and the return of funds for the remainder of the school year because the student is not enrolled thank you Dr OA and I'd like to now turn uh to Dr sedo uh to please provide a summary of our school sponsored activities certainly so in our authorizations uh uh for contracts in seven we have several schools that have many contracts for end of the year activities many of them for assemblies or uh reverse field trips so I'd like to have the opportunity to review four of them with you so the first one is located on page two and this is from our principal of school number 30 for a contract of multiple speakers for a career fair that will be happening on May 2nd at 9 through 1 p.m. so we have a variety of individuals here that will be coming to the school and speaking to our students including journalists a United States Postal worker a retired army veteran a fashion designer an airline Steward a business owner of a sealed notary service to name a few I would like to move us to page number three for a contract uh that has been uh provided by our principal of school number 15 Dr Gina Donahue for a contract with creature Comfort pet therapy so this particular contract will have two presentations that will be made to our students in small groups and we'll have um animals that will be coming in therapy dogs that will be working with our students to provide some self-regulation and an anxiety uh strategy so that will be happening at school number 15 on April 29th and April 30th if you would like to come in addition to that I'd like to move us to page number six and we have a contract here by the principal uh John marwitz of Thomas a Edison a career in Technical Academy and this particular contract is a contract with our police department and they will be coming to our school to work with our students uh with a drug prevention assembly and this is with the Community Affairs Bureau and it will be happening on April 30th between the hours of 9 and 10: I also would like to highlight a contract with the Barn Hill preserve so this is what we call reverse field trips and so we have uh this particular agency that will be working with three of our schools this month so School number 29's cont contract is located on page 4 we have school 8's contract that is located on page seven and we have school 21's contract with barn hill that's located on page number nine and so Barn Hill preserve is a mobile animal education program that provides handson Zoological presentations with live reptiles and small animals like bearded dragons and hedgehogs so our students can all um engage in some contact with these um animals so it's a lot of fun so if you're looking to come and visit uh they will be happening at those respective schools at those respective time so these are just a few highlights of the reports um uh in tab number seven for our schools thank you Dr sedo it appears that the month of May we're going to have a lot of creatures in our schools Madam president thank you so much abolutely at this time are there any questions I know um board member Calo had a question I do yes thank you um the rejection of the bids uh for Food Services does that mean we're going back out to bid starting the process all over yes that was one thank you see that was easy and the contract with stepping stone group one social worker and yes but right now you've noticed over the past couple months we've uh contracted a couple of different times with Stepping Stones group specifically um supported by our a ARP funding and working with our our supervisors of anti-bullying and and guidance we um identify which schools are in need of support just like we did with our rbts last month and the month before um to offer these additional supports because of this unique funding so explain to me is this like a third party agency we bring someone in and is this someone will potentially become a full-time employee so that's a potential as we have openings over the summer they'll be invited to you know apply in the applicant pool okay has this person been selected uh at the Stepping Stones group they've sent us multiple people to interview so after your you know consideration or approval we will inform um the organization that we have selected this person they'll be able to start so I guess my question is is the this person sent from stepping stone vetted by our our HR Oh veted by HR no I apologize they are they are um they are interviewed and screened by us so our HR department does not get involved no oh maybe we should communicate sure I'm I'm just saying if these are people we're bringing into our district and they're going to be working with our children no okay Contra Serv we are not hiring Personnel we are hiring a service the service is being delivered by this licensed social worker for we not hiring the once it's over they leave that is correct yes that's why I'm sorry if I didn't communicate no worries I'm good I'm good thank you that's what I wanted to know thank you m president question yeah can I just take it back off of um commissioner carvalo so the services will be given to what schools in our district do we have them selected yet so right now for this spe specific social worker bus's no we haven't selected the school okay is there like a specific criteria that you're looking for yes we we often look at the number of referrals we have coming in for behavioral needs of students and and things like that and then Place based on that need thank you no problem I'll let you know next month which school is wonderful thank you and just one more Madame President um Dr sedeno Barn Hill preserve is this the first time that they're coming to our district let's not turn off the microphone I do not need to turn it off um so burn Hill actually has had contracts with some other schools um this year from my knowledge this is the first year they're actually coming I believe that they were at School 14 yesterday is that correct uh Miss Matos and a couple other schools in the district so our principles have been um uh reaching out to them and uh having them come in well I think it's fantastic that we're having several schools reach out to them and they're you know doing a big good deed to our school School dist because they're having no cost to us so absolutely Kos to them and principles please keep reaching out absolutely we will continue to encour it called a reverse reverse field trip so instead of going to the zoo right the kind of the zoo comes bring the zoo to school absolutely I like that thank you you're welcome and there's a bearded dragon I also have a question for the the barn hill I had to just like those three schools the I think I need to just keep this microphone keep it on yes so um Madame President these recommendations come from the principles so the principles reach out or the company reaches out and provides a flyer and then they provide the contracts to us that we approve okay thank you are there any questions for Tab S Madame President yes just one page six Dr OA do we have a protocol or policy on um the out of district nonattendance is there is the same number of absentees or is it a different policy than are in District so so they all students are are are technically bound uh by our board policies however because many of our students in special education in out of district schools can have specialized medical needs um our policy does allow for consultation with our child study team uh in the event that a child has a prolonged illness or has another reason for being out um so they are governed by our policy but they are that policy is mediated by the ongoing communication between the family and the child study team just so happens this particular uh recommendation in uh in the award of contracts was for a family who had told us they were moving from Elizabeth thank you any other questions for Tab 7 seeing none Mr Kennedy if you can add that to the agenda please at this time under tab eight I'm going to ask Miss Ingrid our student representative to provide her report to the community [Applause] please good evening Steve members of the Elizabeth Board of Education superintendent Huga Meer and the public my name is angr ooro and I am deeply honored to stand before you today as the student representative of Admiral William F Hy Junior health and Public Safety Academy as we approach the end of another successful Academic Year I am eager to highlight the remarkable accomplishments of students in the school Community it is also inspiring to witness the dedication and spirit of the students across the Elizabeth high schools who continue to prioritize their educational growth while also finding moments for enjoyment and community engagement at Thomas Jefferson Arts Academy a strong sense of community shines through their ongoing St Jude's fundraiser additionally they are gearing up for an exciting upcoming play titled senior one acts in addition Frank J SRO Academy recently held an exciting dance show with a New York theme furthermore the seniors versus Juniors basketball game added a fun and friendly competitive element to the spirit of spring break similarly dwire Technology Academy organized a peg Bally for seniors which included a thrilling seniors versus staff basketball basketball game Thomas a Edison Career and Technical Academy students enjoyed a painting session in the woods and the seniors embarked on a fun-filled bowling trip Alexander Hamilton preparator Academy demonstrated their commitment to community service through their future Educators program in addition to these remarkable achievements dwire Hy Jefferson Hamilton and fjc will be hosting blood drives within their schools it is worth noting that this is one of the largest blood drives in the state of New Jersey organized by high school students the students at Elizabeth high schools continue to thrive academically while embracing opportunities for personal growth Community involvement and fun-filled activities their achievement and commitment to making a positive impact are truly commendable looking back on my high school journey I am compelled to share the incredible changes that have taken place at Hy Academy our school has undergone significant transformation both in terms of community inclusivity by showcasing awareness for Hispanic Heritage Month breast cancer awareness Black History Month women's history month and we had the privilege of participating with the stop program the Administration has made a concertive effort to ensure that all students feel valued and have access to necessary resources notably our lockers and bathrooms were renovated and improvements were made to our school lunch program to celebrate Autism Awareness here at Hy we dedicated and displayed a mural in one of our hallway Wings Hy continues to provide students staff and community members with fresh vegetables hand picked from our garden I am also proud to announce that Hy Academy was removed from State comprehensive status this was a huge effort from the entire Hy Community these changes have received positive feedback from the student body and have greatly enhanced our overall School experience throughout the Academic Year numerous activities have taken place fostering a sense of Engagement and participation among our students concurrently our senior class has diligently focused on their college applications while attending college fairs and open houses to pave the way for a bright future the support and guidance of our counselors have been invaluable during this process particularly for those of us who will be first generation college students their unwavering ability and assisting have played with pivotal role in shaping our Journeys and for that we are deeply grateful on Saturday March 2nd 2024 Hy Academy hosted the onio Housey physical fitness competition the largest High School physical fitness competition in the nation our physical fitness team competed against 16 schools with 36 teams the female team plays first overall and the male team played second overall showcasing their obsessional physical abilities to kick off Spring Break Hy Academy organized a a senior student versus Hy staff basketball game which brought immense joy and excitement to everyone involved during this event the winners of the class of 2024 superlatives were announced further adding to the anticipation and enthusiasm for the upcoming break the game itself was a fun field affair with students and teachers alike rebelling in the spirit of friendly competition at Hy Academy fostering a safe and connected Community has always been of utmost importance we strive to ensure that every student feels supported and secure within the walls of our school I am filled with gratitude for the experiences and opportunities I have had I am confident that the strong foundation of the community we have built will continue to flourish in the years to come finally I want to thank my mom without her unconditional love and support throughout all of my at life and education I would not be where I am today all of of my accomplishments are thanks to her additionally I'd like to thank my principal Mr vanam B my vice principal Miss Vega and my advisor Dr riggin who guided me through this journey I look forward to continuing working with the board and I am truly grateful for this amazing opportunity thank you [Applause] thank you very much I also want to acknowledge our two other student Representatives who are in the audience thank you for attending and supporting our um student representative this evening are there any comments uh from the board members yes madame president yes just I want to um uh say thank you to our student representation from to the rep from Hy for her dedication I'm so proud to she highlight this stop program to is a collaboration to our school district has with uh prevention lens actually on next week on Wednesday um April 24 be the um the closing to the program to the Celebration to basically the student to was working really hard put the pamphlet together to educate the school Community about drug prevention and alcohol and I really highlight this program because we educate the student but then they put um the strategy together because they know they peers and it's a greatest for between the student services department and the safety department to continue working together to prevent a drug in our facilities thank you thank you anyone else seeing on at this time I'm going to ask board member Jarry Jacobs to uh read his finance committee report thank you madam president uh the finance committee met on April 9th 2024 it was attended by Madame President myself commissioner pastana uh our general counsel Mr Kennedy super uh Madame superintendent Mr multra also we were joined by Chris Bano and George mid our insurance Consultants uh Mr brano Bano spoke to uh the committee members about the 2023 24 health benefits health benefits program uh including paid claims the finance committee discussed the renewal of health insurance coverages for the 2024 25 school year which will be finalized in miday 2024 um I'd also like to add that this was the first year that we did a self-funded health insurance program and I'd like to credit this board along under the direction of Mr Kennedy along with Mr multa and the insurance Committee of Mr modid and Mr barzano that we were able to dodge a bullet as far as the health insurance premiums increase that many other districts have experienced this year and as as we've seen in the paper um that we're going through so I'm grateful that we did make that change um and it's a positive effect that we were able to keep the same benefits for all of our employees with the coverage that we had uh the finance committee will be discussing operational efficiencies board agenda digital platforms bidding and procurement procedures at the next finance committee meeting thank you mad president thank you at this time I'm going to have board member or vice president Stan naron read his legal committee report thank you Madame President um for our legal committee um we had our legal committee meeting on April 11th and 12: noon um attending this uh meeting was yourself Madame President um Charlie baess dorley U myself commissioner isaas Rivera um board member um the attorney kogi and general counsel Judge Malone general counsel business administrator Harold Kennedy and our superintendent of schools Miss o hug um during this meeting we discussed um the um status of open litigations and res res residency matters and the knowledge of the board to be able to um do a audit on all the matters that we have outstanding um the legal committee also will be discussing workers compensation matters at our next regular scheduled legal committee meeting again thank thank you to all our attorneys for compiling a list of all litigations and um you know upcoming matters and resy matters we really appreciate it and it really gives uh the board a scope on where we're at and where we're headed and you know that we can um close a lot of these matters in a timely fashion so just want to thank everybody for all their hard work and dedication in this matter thank you vice president ston at this time I'm going to have uh board members Maria cavalo do the properties committee report good evening um thank you madam president uh the properties committee met on April 17th attendance was uh president Charlene baas U myself um also commissioner Jerry Jacobs uh commissioner Ilana Cheves um our attorney general counsel uh Judge Malone and Mr kogi Harold Kennedy our business administrator our superintendent and our director Mr milanas the director of plant and property updated the committee on the projects that were performed over the Spring Break um especially the projects that were done at school 1 and school 9 and all of the paving that was done throughout the district while the school district was closed uh the HVAC projects that um we are in the we are in the midst of um beginning and completing the replacement of baton School Number Four meeting with the school development authorities and an update on the temporary classroom units that are throughout our district the committee will be discussing the availability of water bottle refilling stations to add more to our schools and uh schedule of properties meetings for next month thank you madam president thank you are there any questions regarding the [Applause] reports thank you at this time tab n claims list are there any questions regarding tab nine saying n Mr Kenedy if you can add it to the agenda please Tab 10 are there any questions for Tab 10 to 10r resolutions I want to acknowledge the Tab 10 Asian Pacific American heritage month the better speech and her and hearing Month in May the bilingual Multicultural Education Month from May 13th through June 7th kindness awareness month for the entire month of May and that's it for now are there any questions for Tab 10 from Tab 10 to Tab 10 R Madam president yes Mr J a question for Mr Kennedy at for 10r on the school bus evacuation drills um I know we don't keep the records um for the routes done by the UCC for the educational commission but I assume that they keep the routes and is that information then forwarded to us I can certainly provide the full report to the board so that you able to see each of the uh vendors as well as our district buses thank you madam certainly I'll provide both reports the one for the fall and the current one that was just completed included in the resolution thank you madam superintendent certainly anyone else Mr Kenedy if you can add Tab 10 through 10 R to the agenda please [Applause] all right I would like to have a motion to approve the entire agenda in its entirety Madame President I make a motion to approve the entire agenda I'm sorry there needs to be a second reading I'm I apologize thank you I was thank you for reminding me of that no problem is that the the 1221 yes um I was going to do the first reading on the exhibit 9400 for the board self evaluation yes so this is the first reading of exhibit uh for file code 9400 board self evaluation and the a copy of the evaluation form is available in the office of the school business business administrator and then we did have a second reading I would like the table uh file code 1221 please okay noted thank you and do you have a copy of the first one with the first reading that you're referring to um yes I I emailed that to everybody but I can get that printed out for us yeah I asked for a hard copy for everyone sure thank you madam president are we tbling to bring back for discussion and vote or no I would like to table um the CPAC policy for an entire month I want to to some some additions to it or ads to it and for um Mr Kennedy for the other one for the board thing I'm asking for us to have hard copies is there a way we can print things out today that's time I'm going to try to do it as soon as I get a chance thank you so much okay I know I tabled one thing for private discussion um we could wait till we go to private session to discuss it or we could approve everything and then we could come back and approve that one last one after we have our discussion pleasure I would prefer to we voting on removing the other one from the agenda which one the the cack yes it's remove agenda I make a motion to remove it from the agenda I second that motion thank you it's been moved in probably second to remove uh file code 1221 special education parent advisory committee off the agenda for the second reading a roll call please Barbosa yes carvalo yes Cheves yes Jacobs yes maren Ortega yes naron obain vas bana yes Rivera yes Bas dorley yes thank you madam president point of clarification we're we're tabling the other one and coming back for a vote yes thank you you're welcome so uh what time is it it's 4:4 okay um we could always do the entire agenda at the end so it's fine we'll have the private conversation in private and then we'll come back and do the vote thank you before I go into the private session yeah no the names see um before we end this evening and go into private session I just wanted to thank everyone for attending tonight's board meeting uh I am very ecstatic that our it Department have a highriser for our um cameras so thank you thank you thank you um I appreciate that cuz I was tired of seeing everyone's head in the videos so now it looks much better and looks much professional uh so thank you for uh listening and uh ordering that for us I also wanted to thank all of our directors uh for being here this evening thank you to Dr Kathleen Bales thank you to Anthony Donado thank you to Jamie Leverett thank you to Dr Daphne machet machete thank you to Dr Dorothy McMullen thank you to Mr milanas Dr Sandra Nunes and Dr OA I appreciate you all being here as always you could have been with your family this evening but I appreciate you coming here and spending the first half of your evening with us I want to to thank ogga and her entire um cabinet for assisting and everything that they've done this evening as well um all of our schools who participate in autism awareness month this month as well thank you for all that you've done in your schools thank you for allowing us as board members to come and share the experience with our um schools and students as well I also want to take time to thank our police officers and security guards for always ensuring our safety thank you and that's all I have for this evening at this time the president requests a motion to go into private session to consider matters exempt under open public meetings act specifically for discussions of personal matters specifically sworn tenure charge medical excuse me legal matters litigations specifically settlement of workers compensation matter pH LM AP and AG contractual matters specifically authorizations field trips educational competition enter into partnership the board will enter into the board will reconvene in public and we'll take formal action may have a motion to go into the private please I make a motion to go into private session I second that motion it's been moving probably second to go into private session uh roll call please Barbosa yes carallo yes Cheves yes Jacobs yes Marina Ortega yes naron yes andalas pastana yes Rivera yes B dley yes thank you we are now in private session and if we can have our representative just take a picture in the front before she goes 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 e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e are we on live I can't see our faces thank you uh may I have a motion to return uh the item that was the tab six back onto the agenda please I make a motion to add tab six back onto tonight's agenda second it's mov probably second to uh add tab six back onto to the agenda roll call please Mr Kennedy I'm sorry did you say a roll call yeah yes uh Barbosa thank carvalo yes Cheves yes Jacobs yes Marine Ortega yes naron this is to um approve the agenda no this is to bring back um the things the tab six legal bills from the tab six yes kavas pastana yes Rivera yes Bas Thorley yes thank you at this time Mr keny are there any other items that we need to bring on the agenda yes we have a a resolution for settlement of workers comp pH another resolution for settlement of workers comp LM an authorization to fund a field trip for educational competition and an authorization to enter into partnership for dreams project at no cost to the board thank you may I have a motion to accept the ire agenda in its entirety Madam president I make a motion to accept the entire agenda in its entirety I second that motion thank you it's been moved in propably seconded to accept the entire agenda and with it with its entire or in its entirety with added the added agenda items um any questions or comments seeing none roll call please Barbosa yes carvalo exstension Tab four one through two uh Tab 4 1 through 3 tab 4B page 1- 4 tab 4B page 1 through five page tab five page one resolution 10j and Tab 7 page six and yes to everything else thank you Cheves yes with aention in tab seven page six Jacobs yes Marina Ortega yes [Music] naron um yes with extension to tab 4B Tab 5 Tab 7 resolution 10j gavas pastana yes Rivera yes abstaining from tab five page one and B was dley yes thank you so the entire agenda has passed thank you so much um are there any board members would like to say anything before we adjourn seeing none may have a motion to adjourn please I make a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting second it's been Ming probably second toj tonight's meeting at 9:12 p.m. roll call please 9:12 Barbosa yes good night everyone carvalo yes good night everybody Cheves yes good night everyone Jacobs yes good night Marina Orga yes good night everyone naron yes have a great night of kavas pastana yes Rivera yes Bas dorley yes thank you have a wonderful night and good night and God bless for