be a good thing yeah it is it is [Music] here i' like to call this meeting to order adequate notice has been given this meeting as required by law notice has for publication of District official newspapers post a gaming C Creek and Earth Crest high schools and fored to all the clerks of the municipalities within this school district there are two opportunities to address the members of the board the board values and welcomes comments and opinions for residents as long as remarks are not personal or discourteous the public comment portion the meeting allows the board to listen to community members and to hear their opinions on school policy and operations the first public portion is reserved for persons wishing to speak about agenda items only the second opportunity following the action items is when residents May address the board on any school related issue each speaker has asked to limit their comments to three minutes and you're not permitted to yield your time to another the public comment portion of the meeting during both sessions will not exceed 30 minutes upon being recognized persons wishing to speak should stand and identify themselves by name and town please stand for the flag salute Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for stands one nation can I ask for a moment of [Music] silence Edmond Garrison here Gunther here Hartman here haa kly here sorio here right Hal here cap Nelson here dorsy here yeah okay both um Daryl Edmonds and Dan Wright can't make it tonight but Amy's on her way so she'll just be a few minutes late she's at another meeting need a motion to approve the minutes so moved second okay the minutes from January 17th and 22nd have been moved and seconded any questions comments or Corrections Garrison yes Gunther yes Harman yes St yes Sor yes yes Mo approve okay special presentations uh thank you I'm going to start off by asking Mr Mike McGee principal at oakrest high school to come forward and present his educator and educational support person of the year Mr MC St MERS here [Applause] first univ 18 years our district here at High School uh she's been a head coach for Num Sports from Springs track country uh she's a leader in the classroom uh she's implemented programs over the last years practices our St ofes you know she makes connection acally also um he's married over here to graduate for lovely children and just want to [Applause] thank come on March get up there come on March come on over over pgy here get Mar yeah right two one [Applause] be ucal service profession year name is John his name is train J he's a graduate ofall univers univ athletic training in 2012 working in the district as summer 2013 um interesting with John he not just our train Years also became teacher 2016 he's trained and teach our medical magnet program um won the centenal educator award for Thomas jffs University uh he's now active pre for athletic training students from Thom University here in our district and gr University uh he's married and has two children also to thank train [Applause] [Music] at more she's a natural three two one [Applause] that's can I start the next presentation I don't know don't run away yet anywh um and I know you guys got somewhere to be but I just um if I if I may um having worked at oakrest with both of these individuals it's hard for me to imagine two people that are more deserving um Mr McGee touched on walking by in zero period and it's the same thing in John's classroom where it's the same thing in John's office as it is in Jacqueline's classroom there is never an empty space space and that means that kids are coming to them um and and that is there is nothing more important in trying to build a connection with today's teenager than creating an environment where the kids want to be there and both of you are perfect examples for how you do that and that is that that's just by being yourselves um and you know the only other thing I want to add is a credit to both of you over the years you have taught inclass resource you've taught honors you've taught AP John you're doing two you know you're balancing two completely different aspects here the fact that you are both so comfortable and so natural regardless of who is standing or sitting in front of you speaks to your ability as Educators both of you and thank you guys for everything you do very much [Applause] appreciated and I just want to take a moment to to um and all that but just please realize that uh on the board a lot of times we hear things but it's really nice to put a face in a name and hear a little bit more about what you did and say how much we appreciate everything you do every day so thank [Applause] you get out while it getting's good like gota go gota go gota go thank you guys thank you John did they get cookies yeah they did okay you got it a grab a cookie on the way out guys uh Mr McGee uh at this time is going to uh bring up the star program from oakrest high school uh I know there's a little bit of a digital presentation also a lang will get that fired up Mr MCS students righte um a little bit about the program I our district um we're going to talk thank initi do now districtwide um you know over three and a half years ago big on culture building um one of the things we worked on here called our five pillars which was really academic Excellence communique service we talked about curricular excellence and um really building character but one of the pillars we always talk about was embracing our diversity which is high school one of our biggest but once we embrace it we have to start talking about it and this program and you talk about you know teacher the year things that nature I do want to recognize back here because the work this Ed has done over the last couple decades second and nothing butenal um so with that said I'm going to turn it over to our stud two student leaders one who keeps my place every day in this building who by the way I told her was just uh in the play this past weekend if you look up these guys resume in our building they're involed absolutely everything from society to help our star program everything yet all first things first I just want to say thank you for having me tonight um and yes good evening creating a space to talk about race can open powerful learning so our program will be working to deal with the social injustice issues we are dealing with in our country today and seeing it seeing how we as a school can assist in educating all members of our school and Community the black lives matter movement ignited a des decentralized political and social movement that highlighted racism discrimination and racial in equality experienced by black people and people of color and oted anti-racism its primary concerns are incidents of police brutality and racial motivated violence during the pandemic students in the district started to have conversations and questions and wanted to be in the Forefront to stand up for racial Injustice and understand their own cultural and background this student rank group at oest is to help be at the Forefront and educate our school Community our goal is to have our students in this program program have a platform and responsibility to help teach their parents that they have aite value and dignity that are neither nor limit that are neither defined or limited by the race color cre gender sexual orientation or resources students talking about racism is not a club specific to only black Americans but searches to any minority who has experienced racism and all want to learn our first star meeting which included not only oess but at to gaming and stars origin School Cedar Creek during this discussion there were open conversations between students and Educators about racism and the education system and in our schools a start a start to a pattern filling the relationship between students and Educators so while children may learn the social norms that it's an inappropriate to talk about race it's unlikely that they have sto thinking about it although star began in oest with this board meeting with abs gami and Cedar Creek the conversation about racial awareness and Injustice began in ESS over two years ago when the seniors of class of 2022 held a meeting with Mr mcke about racial to raise racial awareness and Racial equ equality that they saw in the school this meeting here at EDG Carper Township uh began by connecting we began by connecting with the other schools in the district and E Hara Township High School during this meeting each School sent their student leaders to collaborate with superintendent Mr Rea and other faculty to devise main topics and goals for our star group and to accomplish Racial equality and break all cultural barriers during this meeting we devised topics to create a a sort of curriculum for star in a way to help us have goals to follow so here are some of the goals that we came up with during that meeting lack of diversity of advanced courses lack of diversity in staff um ignorance of racial cultural differences some microaggression that people have experienced transparency and responses and better explanation and lack of resources for students of color these are all topics that we have tried to work to tackle during the school another one of the main things that we saw um was mental health in minorities at oakrest high school and also abami Creek so we invited all three schools to the oakrest library to hold to have um Mrs Amber Harris is our director of the Atlantic careen Center at ESS to talk about and break down this uncomfortable topic to have this tough conversation about mental health and wellness and color understanding ment of Health as a person exploring racial diversity in AP enrollment at oess High School inside on research and data and supported study from Mrs brownhill students engag in conversations about the barriers that they personally experience in these courses students other are often faced with the struggle of not wanting to be portrayed as acting white by their peers hence they may decide not to take an AP class as an act of resistance to the Privileges of jessly afforded to White students Educators quoting B biases about black students and other students of color while also serving as a Gatekeepers for AP classes creates additional barriers for these students historically black college fair provided students of color with an instant decision and scholarship Choice through some of the top HBCU in America this trip gives students the opportunity to see people who look like them in high education positions motivated students to attain a higher education and give them needs to do so so these are just some discussion topics amongst the academic goals that we have we also want to have those tough conversations about you know racial Justice in the education system so we've talked about you know racially racial profiling microaggressions in the classroom a lack of a true School Community because of cultural boundaries conversation we had a conversation with the local law enforcement about issues diversity equity and inclusion during black history is American history so why not learn it and we also attended the stock in University and Martin Luther King panel talking about building strong leaders today and to impa a fut Society so what's next for Star you may ask yourself we plan to continue to invite an expert experts and guest speakers to speak with both students but especially Administration and staff to continue to heal the relationship between staff and students we want to create an environment where we can have those difficult conversations so that we can grow the community that all students feel supported valued heard by the staff and faculty here at oakrest high school and throughout the district it is our goal to create a community where we all Thrive and we all SU once again thank you guys for having us and I hope you guys enjoyed the presentation yes thank you very much if I could add you want to go ahead if I could add a couple first off ladies excellent job thank you very much uh you spoke e eloquently thank you for that um couple of things I want to share with the the whole board we've we're coming up on on our full second year with this program across the buildings and the three buildings have as they typically do in some areas kind of created their own identity related to this but I think I've shared this with you before we've kind of asked to make sure that they get together at least three or four times a year across the three buildings come together so they can as was discussed they can look at common topics they can share their perspectives another couple of things I want to really um bear out is number one we've used this group or or this group has provided an opportunity to meet staff and students and small groups and actually talk about some of these matters face to face I know last year um I sat in on one of the meetings here at oakrest and you had six to eight students and probably eight to 10 staff or more sitting around and it was an opportunity for the students to kind of share um obviously without getting into any names or specific incidents that could identify anybody share some things some words some phrases some some things that they hear or see that a a non-colored person might not see a a black or a brown child might have a different perspective on something than a white 40y old and that also bridged the second topic that we have now tried to dig into deeper and that is the realization that this is also in in many issues an age issue as a part of the cultural difference as well um and and that led us down other paths but it all kind of started from that idea of a group of students being willing to sit in front of staff and talk about their feelings and that is a tremendously courageous thing for a kid to do to sit in a room with a group of adults so I you know hats off to all of the students across all three buildings um and and this idea it was referenced up on the screen of minority students in AP representation it it's it's not a greater egg issue it's not a New Jersey issue it's it's an issue across the country and it it's directly connected to to the lack of diversity in the school of education Stockton is now in their single digits with their school of education in terms of minority representation so so you know if we can get more students into into thinking about education differently while they're still in high school hopefully then more students get involved with the school of education at at Rowan at Stockton at Drexel at Delaware and then they're they come back either to here or somewhere else and become teachers um and and as Miss Edmonds can certainly say as a guidance counselor you know we've had those conversations of saying look you got a 91 in this class you got to move up a level let's go you're moving up to honors or you've got a 90 in honors let's go you're taking a and and I do want to absolutely recognize the the feeling that was expressed by the students and the guidance counselors could attest to it they hear well I don't I I'm not going into that class there's nobody else in there that looks like me and and that's a very real thing that we need to deal with across the board um so again I just want to thank the advisers in all three buildings but certainly also thank the students and specifically the students who spoke tonight thank you guys on again Mr Raina took a lot of my good words I'm crossing them out as he goes um I just wanted to then again say you know we really appreciate you coming and I think especially when we have students here whether they're here at every meeting or in the audience and they get a chance to present you're giving us a different perspective and we really appreciate the courage and the um leadership that you show by not being afraid to come up and speak and and let let us know what's going on because we need to hear it and sometimes the only place we can hear it is from students so thank you so much for being here tonight for taking part in the the club and and uh you know we appreciate the the teachers that are working with students at all the buildings but it was really great to hear firsthand tonight so thank you m h can I ask a question Mrs Mrs Edmonds is there um star program other I mentioned in the presentation a har Township are there other star programs star um just okay but now you went to uh acover Township they they have a program at acover township though and I think a lot of questions yeah I was just going to say that I mean like like like U um Mr Randy said this is not just a a greater egg issue or you know subject I mean this needs to be you know beyond you know our community we need to reach out to other other communities and you know see how we can you mean you having students like we have tonight you know we put these folks in front of you know uh Mainland High School you know or or you know something that's not like us you me Ocean City or you know you know and I think that would be just tremendous if we could do something like that so go ahead m r um consistently our program what we're I think the other our program about how our doors are open how we are will I there there's a number of other superintendents that are interested in getting together in the future but I also made the point Point they've they've got to do some work before we all get together in the same room so the kids are kind of at the same place that maybe two and a half hours at EHT last year I mean that was really constructive you know we walked out of there with eight or ten topics if you remember were very clear and and I think in fact I shared it with you guys last spring you know I was taking notes on on on big sticky Pages um we're getting there and our kids are leading that conversation that's great would I be El able to ask a question um I'm so excited to hear about just thrilled um I love that we have student representation here at the board but what I'd love even more is we've seen more of these leadership organizations coming up within the schools for administrations hearing suggestions and and having commun I think the board should too if they have ideas about policy or ideas about language or ideas about initiatives like just as much as it's important for the students to have a voice in reporting I think it's even more important to hear ideas and and how we can better represent all of our students you know not just necessarily our own kids and their friends who know what their concerns are but really hear from the leadership that's being built among because that's not only going to encourage them to not just have a voice in their school but have a voice across the district that feasible as being you know well I me something that our leadership organizations can do more of yeah I mean I think I think there's you know one of the things that the principles talk about with the student Representatives is that's a conduit for them to get together what are you know what are the different perspectives or perceptions going on in the buildings and then the principles can share that and and it is early in the year two is still early in a quote unquote building process you know for example um in at least two of our three buildings the star programs have also gone down and met with our middle schools so they're already presenting this idea of leadership in this area to the middle school students so now that next group of kids comes into the building they kind of already know it's here and let me jump right into it because the the one of the biggest challenges any High School Organization faces is when you've got you've got four or five great amazing student leaders they all graduate there's often times a void left behind them because they kind of took a lot of the oxygen in a room so these relationships are now being built with the middle schools to reduce that um you know but certainly over time we can build more opportunities for students to continue to have input yeah thank you okay um a financial report gry goad Mr gry follow that sure I just like to start off by saying um this uh annual report has to be done each year um I'd like to thank my business office staff um I have a great staff in the Business Office Accounts Payable payroll Student Activities everyone chips in Kim house my assistant does a great job so this is uh another um audit with no exceptions we have no comments this year um which is a great thing for the district um what I gave everyone is a synopsis of the audit small sheet I gave you do a bigger uh section which is the actual financial report and then a smaller section is the management report um obviously I'm available if anyone ever wants to talk about these items over drink some day I'm would happy to uh I just want to go over a couple Pages um to talk about in the thick um financial report if you turn to page 67 at the bottom of page 67 is the recapitulation of our fund balances um you'll see uh a bunch of numbers there so the first number we have set is reserved for excess Surplus $1,742 th000 um these numbers are so small amazing we continue to see them so that is the amount that we have to put into next year's budget um this previous budget um we put a million dollars in so we have another $742,000 reason why that number is so high is during um Co they increased the amount that we could set aside without it having to go the unassigned amount was increased to 4% instead of the historical 2% last year they switched it back down to 2% now we have to put this $1.7 million in our budget next year but we're going to use a portion of that money for one-time items so we're not U needing to come up with $1.7 million in the next year we have been historically budgeting about a million dollars of surplus into our budget each year so that number will be How We Do It for the following year the next number is 1, 920,000 that is our maintenance Reserve that is up from 1,1 195,000 from the year before uh this is the reserve funds we're using to do a couple projects in house we've done a couple dance floors in the past we are going to be working on the Cedar Creek culinary room from these funds in the upcoming school year the next line would be capital reserve $750,000 um it was previously $1,250,000 the 1,250 was part of our referendum so that has been moved into that and from last year's uh budget uh Surplus we put in another $775,000 mean 750 we are going to use these funds for our Rod grant that we recently approved for hbac projects at absam under that is $350,000 tuition Reserve we have already used that funds for our 0304 2324 budget so we no longer will have a balance in that unemployment Reserve we have 318,000 and then um the designated for subsequent years expansion $1 million this these numbers are as of June 3023 so we're already in the 23 24 budget so that million dollar is in our 2324 budget but it's showing up as of June 30 and then reserve for incompasses of 320,000 and finally that unassigned number which is 2,170 last year that number was 3,691 th000 because we're allowed to keep a larger amount and unassigned so that amounts come back down again so there kind of a recapitulation of our fund balances the only other item I want to bring up in case some of you have noticed I know one board member did comment on it in your management report uh if you look at page seven there's a section that says suggestions to management and this talks about an excess Cash Net reserves and Food Service fund um over the past few years with all the additional Co funding and food service we have built a pretty large cash Supply um we have in this year the 23 24 school year we have spent almost $450,000 on equipment for all three ceter so that fund even though it's in the comments in here we've already moved forward with spending this money um a majority has been in oest and Mami but we've also spent some funds in Cedar Creek also um any questions or comments again anybody wants to get together at some point I more happy to talk about little more depth um excuse me thank you for all your hard work thank thank you the board for supporting me it's greatly helpful and I just want to um remind people that haven't been on quite as long it's not always that your reports are this good and that there aren't Corrections be made so um you know thank you for doing such a good job of your team getting it all together and taking care of that for us so good job and quick committee reports the only thing is negoti iations And all I'll say if we're um on negotiations are ongoing right now board member reports I'll start with the students so Aliana hi everyone on February 22nd through the 24th drama presented their production of Mean Girls which was a huge success O Boys is playing in the second round of playoffs as we speak right now they are playing against Middle Township oest has always been one of the main parts of Atlantic County CO Coalition for safe schools and we have recently expanded to include the five southern most counties our endoor track runner had an amazing season um sorry our Endor track runners had an amazing season especially Ryan Marino who was state champion in PA our math Club hosted orami day all of the students enjoyed learning how to make different things out of paper and it was a good experience all around um also star is doing um is going to ABS gaming High School this Thursday how to pronounce that so I'm not going to say it um star Symposium um is our information when we actually have it thank you thank you done all right for abami on February 22nd we hosted a choir Festival in the Performing Art Center which included the five gway Township Elementary and Middle Schools as well as the abami select choir um special congratulations to absam boys basketball player Isaiah oasa for surpassing a thousand career points this month on February 15th abami hosted a pre-prom fashion show this included special performance perces from our AHS Jazz combo as well as the dance team we also thank gamy alumni Patrick Tadros the owner of dress it up in the Hamilton Mall for donating dresses for the event our absam lady Braves wrestling team dominated at the cape Atlantic League Championship abami advances five girls to Regionals as they compete for a chance to qualify for the njs AA girls state tournament congrats to Esther Lamar and jazer for being the cow champions in their weight class as well as Alex placing second and Amelia placing third for boys wrestling districts weren't a disappointment as we had five boys advaned to Regions congrats to Liam bradden Matthew Chris for placing second and Julian Rivera for being the district 32 champ in his weight class uh regions sent two of our boys to States congrats to Braden and Julian for placing they'll be going to uh the state NE uh this weekend in AC and Laya on our lady Braves wrestling also place and is also moving to States our lady Braves basketball team is currently in round two of the njsa playoffs they'll be facing Clearview Regional away tomorrow we wish them the best of luck and gam TV plans to stream the event for those who are interested in watching um and our boys basketball team has achieved a new school record for most wins in a regular season with 18 wins and five losses the team also made it to the quarterfinals of the njsiaa playoffs and that's it thank you thank you and Aaliyah good evening everyone so February 1st Cedar Creek students took a trip to Paper Mill Playhouse to watch the after midnight play theater student Bailey kurts will be in this year's All State Musical and this year's thespian vest on February 15th lemon Club hosted a lemonade stand to raise awareness and funds for international childh cancer awareness day for some sports updates for girls winner track deaj Brown qualified for states in the 55 meters and high jump she placed in both events and will be competing in me meet of Champs on March 3rd our Paul Walters Kier brigan and kayin winell qualified for States as well but unfortunately didn't place but they both overall had good seasons for our wrestlers on February 17th sophomore Amir dun took second place at the section 31st District tournament and qualified for Regions yesterday February 25th our girls wrestlers competed at their first ever girls wrestling regional championship at pensal and high Riley learner placed second and will be competing in States this weekend on Saturday February 24th freshman Caitlyn Sullivan took second in the 16u category at the South Jersey indoor rowing championships for some upcoming events on February 29th star will be taking a trip down to abami for the Symposium March 7th 8th and 9 our theater program will be showing their spring musical which is called Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat thank you thank you any other board members have reports anything to report back Mrs Garrison I just wanted to say that I did attend the Galloway Coral Festival last week and such a huge success it was so crowded and everyone just had a wonderful time people singing along with some of the songs um it was just such a good positive environment to see all these kids so the families brought the young ones and the young ones were so happy to see you know their sibling up there too um it was amazing I sent pictures to James U it so so big it it was so good to see so many students up there involved in choir in the coral Festival so um all the elementary schools like Ben said the Middle School included and our school was there well represented and at the very end they signed two songs together all of them all the schools together it was wonderful so I enjoyed that very much thank you thank you anyone else this time I'll open the meeting up to the public anyone wishing to speak on any agenda item okay seeing none uh there's information items listed on page two I'll go to business agenda action items this is items can be found on pages three through six six items B1 through B25 make a motion for B1 through B25 Pages 3 through six okay Amy was that you a second oh Amy all right B1 through B25 have been moved and seconded any questions or comments on these business items Gunther yes Harman yes hassa yes cly yes notorio yes Garrison yes abstain on B3 yes everything else motion approve Transportation items are T1 through t34 on pages 7 through 14 I move T1 through t34 I'll second that okay T1 through t34 have been moved and seconded any questions or comments on these Transportation items apartman yes H yes fly yes zorio yes Garrison yes Gunther yes Hal yes motions approved okay education items I move E1 through e excuse me n second okay E1 through E9 down on page page 15 have been moved and seconded any questions or comments on these education items Gunther yes I have a few um E2 I um I don't know if it makes a difference but I think I noticed approximately 24 people staff those professional days have passed and we're approving them tonight I don't know if that's a problem to me there must be good reasons for that but that's a lot I think um on E3 I was very impressed with all the hard work that went into this um these spring athletic schedules I was particularly impressed with absam it was very easy to read I could follow um and it just I could just read right through it and of course the athletic director is a former student of mine so of course I was impressed with him as well um E4 I'm assuming ass uming it's a middle school student from Hamilton Township uh yes I believe they were and that's all the comments I have any other questions follow up on e4 is there a reason we bring them up is there like shortage of students that are available or they just sometimes it has to do with the roles um sometimes it it has to do there may be a connection it could be a sibling I don't I honestly don't know the the specific reason in this case I could find it out for you um I know in the past a lot of times it's had to do with a role if there are little kids in the play you know what I mean sometimes we do that okay and the other one was E8 um oceanography Club great idea is that going to be available to the students both that oest cedar and gamy if they wanted to go there to it um I would say yeah I mean if a kid wanted to get involved across the district it again this is one of the those things it was never approved previously it's not a paid position the teacher has an interest they're actually trying to get that elective up and running in the future and the best way to do that is to get a club going so the teachers volunteering their time um I can certainly make sure that all three principles know what's running here and make sure the supervisors kind of spread the word there's interest and I would you know propose that we per either do it at a central location so can get there or provide transportation I'm guess I'm being a little selfish but my daughter is into it again and I know she's got a pretty big class class so I just thought it' be nice if everybody had the option okay absolutely thank you um Miss hos was your hand um I actually was also going to make a comment one about the oceanography Club um and just actually I was going the opposite direction I was going to ask if the environmental resources at Peter Creek would be available to the oceanography Club because being that they're here at oest and you have this the magnet program Creek would be great for them to have access to those resources staff especially if it doesn't cost if they need it absolutely I mean that we would always open it up but I think Bailey's got in her mind exactly what she want do amaz and it's just so nice to continue to see like different trips and activities um now just a quick question the students get involved in actually planning the determinations of like where they want to go and and being able to I would say it depends on the club and early on you know um um admittedly I don't know sometimes a club gets started by five kids go knock on TR the students no that's what I'm building to sometimes five kids go and knock on their favorite teachers door and say would you do this this is what and the kids already know what they want to do sometimes it it grows organically out of a project or a conversation in a class and the teacher says you know I would love to get a group of you together and go here and see who's interested so we actually have a meeting tomorrow with rushed in and the three principles so we'll we'll dig in a little bit into this oceanography thing across the buildings and kind of get an idea where it came from just the band going to Nashville what an amazing so it was really nice to see positive items like this thank you teachers deserve that credit absolutely 100% any other questions or comments H yes fine yes sorio yes Garrison yes dther yes Harman yes Hal yes motion is approved Personnel agenda items I move P1 through p8 second that P1 through p8 have been moved and seconded any questions or comments on these Personnel items cly serve but two of my two of my kids absolutely love your shoes you know educated when it came to their development you know I stays that way even though she's leaving I know they have to be in a good place all there are very few people I've worked with in my tenure in this District who were more student focused than Corey any other comments or questions carock yes sorio yes Garrison yes Gunther yes but I abstain on p15 partman yes H yes C yes motion is approved Mr Rea thank you um you've heard us talk over the last couple of years about about continually trying to expose our students to you know non- colle opportunities or non College choices I want to give a little shout out here to a couple of Staff here at oakrest um missar who's sitting in the front stage right well I guess it would be stage left our right sitting in the front row um she partnered with one of the culinary teachers here Miss T Taris and they had culinary students and business student students in a meeting with uh reps from borata and that type of real life introduction and real life experience you know is a great opportunity for our kids our students to realize the opportunities that are out there for them so I kind of wanted to give a shout out sometimes we do it on a big level at you know at a building we've talked a lot about Atlanta care over the last couple of years but I certainly wanted to recognize two staff members for their work for the students with Borgata um update on some construction Cedar Creek uh they started work on if you remember we're adding a small Basin kind of next to the tennis courts that work started last week um if you remember last month we talked about we finally even though they had told us for a couple of months we were good to go we finally got the piece of paper last month and they are out there now digging um so once they finish doing that small little Basin I think Tom they said what about five only like five to eight days for that one right then they'll shift over they're going to immediately jump into there's irrigation work that has to go next to the track before the track and The Stadium turf are redone that'll be the next project you know we're going to do the turf and the track over the summer bulldozers will be out there same timeline we lived with last year for abami the Monday after graduation there should be bulldozers on that field um and then somewhere in between we'll mix in additional at the Basin um Tom can certainly touch on we've got um you approved this evening uh a number of bids Acceptance in one area and rejections of other it's just a continual moving forward on those projects um I need a policy meeting I finally got the last quarterly update from stra sesme so I'll reach out to the policy Committee in the next week I'll send you an email and we'll try to lock lock down a night to go through that as usual I'll get you my red penned version for you to look at a few days ahead of time and last thing I wanted to share is we started this year um utilizing a program called smart pass and all the credit goes to a select group of teachers and administrators that went visited other schools saw how it worked and it all kind of continued with that idea of knowing you know from a security standpoint where are students and where are they supposed to be but also just also reducing the number of times kids are are leaving class so there are some strict guidelines now and we did draw in allowances and acceptances for students that have physical concerns or have emotional concerns for their ability to get out but this really is a more concrete method to track students and I oakrest started looking at the data and then all all three buildings have looked at the data in terms of what it has done to the number of students in the hall and just by specifying now through a computer who's going to the restroom and when Cedar Creek was the one I printed out today as one example from January 3 through February 15 there were 3,100 fewer students in the hallways so that's 3,100 less times a kid was out of a classroom and in a hallway um and that is literally just a six week period so that gives you some idea if you look at over the span of a year how much we are reducing the time kids are spending in the hallways um the second thing that that leads to is there is now in one place an opportunity for a guidance counselor or a child study team member or an administrator or even a teacher teacher to provide data to a student and a parent and and this has already been utilized I know there was a meeting at at um oakrest High School where the parent was able to see how many times their student is leaving a classroom and the kid can't say well no that's not right I don't go yeah here's the print out here's every time you left the classroom in the month of January so it really does give the school an ability to track but also the kids are smirking it's not always popular with the kids um but it is much it is much easier the kids and the teachers are laughing for completely different reasons um it is much easier to know now where kids are when um so there are Kinks like anything new and anything related to technology but that's just something I wanted to share because I I knew it was making a difference when I saw that number of you know 3,100 fewer students in a six week period in the hallway that in a building with 900 kids do the math that's that's multiple times a day for each kid so that's it thank you um just a couple thing on M uh the next Atlant County school board meeting is the eighth grade dialogue if anybody's interested um if you've never been students from throughout the throughout the region um get a chance to share ideas and and what's going on and that's um next Tuesday March 5th 5:45 to 7:30 at Adler Avenue School that's the Middle School in EHT and uh if you want to sign up you would just let secretary Tom right yeah yep that's and she would sign you know just so they can sign you up ahead of time and uh I know that I had mentioned before that we're we want some training this year from school boards so I reached out to Michelle Kennedy her schedule's pretty PR busy our days have been pretty busy so what we're looking at now is possibly in April there's um one meeting in April so I'm looking either April 8th or April 29th another Monday that month when we don't have a meeting having her come in for training because otherwise a night like tonight that's already a long night it's going to be way too long so it would be um either the 8th or 29th so if you guys can let me know what's best I'll reach out to her we'll pick a date that the most people can come um we're gonna she's going to talk about uh Community communication within the community and building community relations um there's enough time we need to do ethics training to by June 30th so those are the two topics that I talked you about but um if you can just like look at your calendars and let me know either later tonight or you know when you get home let me know by tomorrow I just want to get her because otherwise we'll lose those dates what time um if it's just training uh I would sometimes we start at 6 instead of seven if people can make it you know so if you can let me know if you can comment if you can make it by six or not because I'm looking to you know not make it late nights for everybody okay um that's all I've got under my business so I'll move on to Old business Mr CIO yes thank you Mr H um I know there was a lot of discussion over zero period not only through Administration but at the committee level um having it either in the beginning of the day you know in the morning or possibly at lunchtime um hearing zero period from all three buildings not only do I think it was a perfect choice for us to decide to do that um not only do I see it uh increasing activities but hearing the principal say walking down the hallway and seeing the the amount of students that are you know in classrooms for whatever reason you know do I want it to be educational absolutely but to me it's more about the relationship building the Rapport building among students and teachers um and I think that's to me more important I I think you know every student here but I you know getting the extra help having the opportunity to be in an activity that you may not been able to be in if you're involved in the sport um or you know if you're in drama you you know or or band you just don't have the the opportunity so um but hearing you know hearing that our teachers are filling their classrooms up with students is to me just just tremendous I'm so happy to hear that and I just hope that continues to grow thank you okay any other old business new business I know I have an addendum I need a motion for Mr I'm sorry I mooved new business one and new business two okay do that one first I'm I'm sorry that's okay that's okay I'll second I'll be back to yes I'll second that Mrs Garrison second okay so we have um a motion for new business one and new business two move second any questions or comments on these two addendum items sorio yes Garrison yes Gunther yes Hartman yes haa yes K yeah how yes approve Mrs Garrison new business made sure I looked up the dates of the play I didn't want to give you the wrong dates um abami will be doing a um their spring play in March is a night of one act plays but it's actually two nights it's a Thursday and a Friday March 21st and 22nd and of course at 6:30 it they start it starts Thursday and Friday night thank you you're welcome any other new business okay this time I'll open the meeting up to the public for anyone wishing to speak on any [Music] matter okay seeing none resolution for executive session pursuance to section 78 the open public meeting act the following subjects will be discussed in the session of the Board of Education Clos to the public potential litigation contract negotiations and personal matters this is pay that the items mentioned the resolution can be disclosed to the public when the decisions made upon the same or in the case of personnel issues when the need for confidentiality no longer exists formal action conclusion of Z session may be taken need a motion second all those in favor I those