>> Ryan Schoppy: translation now those problems  Okay, he called the meeting to order please. Hi, can you call Miss benacki seven, Dr. Brown here this dress here as you're asking. Where here Ms. Helen. Yeah, Mr. Knuckles Eric Masonic. Vice president hooker. Yeah and president. who's there? Thank you.  excited stupid problems on History system  the public notice of this meeting pursuant to the open public meetings act has been given by the superintendent of schools and the following matter will generate 10th 2024 notice of this meeting was  posted on the interior of the School administration offices 95 Grove Street, Haddonfield written notice was submitted and file with the Haddonfield Barrel Clerk and notices were emailed to The Courier Post and the retrospect music. Okay. We are very fortunate tonight to be.  To have two presentations one from the high school chamber group and one from the high school orchestra. So we are very excited to start the meeting. Good evening. Very brief the kids steal the show we do have with  >> Ryan Schoppy: This was all student-led student rehearsed. I did nothing to rehearse that. This is 100% that I told the music I picked was not good.  Thanks guys. Thanks. You want your chairs out. here? so  thank you. Otherwise two weeks will be like why don't you pictures of cookies?  All right. So this is the HMHS High School orchestra. We have miles Eric Mary and Marie.  We're gonna play a team called Spring from Vivaldi schools Four Seasons. promoting  right  you are  You know.  thank you very much. Thank you. >> Ryan Schoppy: with this High School All right. Next testimony. We are going to do student commendations.  So first the MJ SBA eighth grade dialogue program and njhs outstanding Achievement Award. What?  Yes recordings, okay. Are good evening everyone. My name is Shane Rubin on the assistant principal at HMS company by the Sam Sanchez and  Susan schoppy's also have limited, correct this Shannon Danford from the Camden County School Board Association to recognize one of our students. I let her take over from here. Okay. a few a few weeks ago. We had the great pleasure of having one of your students of take part in our eighth grade dialogue program. This is a program. where a Christian students attend and they share their observations about school and their concerns and and kind of share what other students feel and Italian was one of the students and and she did a  wonderful job of representing and middle school and her fellow students. So we want to thank her for participating in the program and we want to congratulate her on our very  great future and and presenter with this certificate. So, thank you very much.  Okay.  And we're not done. She's also getting ready guys the second time and I'll let the Sanchez and she knows that. Well, everyone.  I serve as a visor for the National Junior honesty Italian right here is a chapter president. He applied for the outstanding Achievement Award and there's a word is given to middle school students who exemplify and they really show their commitment to or five pillars for njhs which are scholarship service leadership citizenship and character and Tyler was one of 500 women. We see kids of this award across the country. We had many of our chapter members also apply for it, but it shows truly  right here hurt commitment for school community. And we're so proud of her. She receives a $500 like savings plan towards her College occasion. So I I don't really have words to say how Pride we are on Talia and I know that everyone in this room feels the same way because she right here is the future.  Alright. Congratulations Sally once again. Tonight to have a second student being recognized from HMS and have is Jack Parker. He was accepted into a West Point leadership program in stem Focus. We're super proud. I know it's a competitive program and he was accepted and will be headed up there this summer. Yeah. Or something like that. So several thousand kids across the  country apply anything about a hundred. The road so congratulations got well done. Very proud of me anything the school couple days to the most recites. That's great. So come from look at what you  Mean, thank you.  Next we are going to have the state of the Arts by Mr. We're going to put Regal Center School. Sorry. the other such so, you know, we just celebrated some some wonderful art and as achievement from our students and one of the things that we the audience start doing better, it's really  acknowledging our staff and our teachers. I mean, we we love them and we knew it silently sometimes and we used to be almost Idols they take for granted which is assume they know how much we appreciate them. So we're gonna do a better job at showing us and so what I wanted to do today, this is a perfect start. um Central School this this spring it's  had some pretty amazing stuff happening. so if you come up, we're going to start talking about some of the things we've seen. in Central School this year, so  I show the upgrade is not much. Um, so there's a real successes and here's our mission statement. Inspire academic Excellence also lifelong learning and power sees become contributing members of our  Global Community what I'm going to talk about in the next 10 minutes or so is exactly this I'll Central School is kind of racist and become really a shown how much they align with our mission statement the first thing that happened we got an email Midway and some time of the winter, but the promising practice project which is put together by the state of New Jersey Department of Education Rutgers University lab of for Joseph Cornwall Center for  Mitchell balance studies, and they all the post and free and post academic. and the isolates results in ela and math and they put him into some computer somewhere. I always think the back computer my head. It's called spits out the other side and they found schools that did exceptionally well in that time. and then the key to this the basic is they say they're gonna knock on they knocked on our door and said, can you tell us what you did because what you  did work better than almost anyone else. We want to sit down and talk to you and they have focused groups who come  down you've already met with him correctness. They've come down and done interviews and they're collecting what Central Schools did and say this is kind of a  model for maybe. what you doing in difficult times or anytime and so that's pretty special. So you guys identified like that and that is a great thing and then you around at about six weeks later the student  performance revision school performance reports come out  the New Jersey school report card. And what are the new indicators are really looking at is the Essa accountability um, you get a score out of 1 to 100 actually zero to 100 their schools. Got close to that unfortunately. so Central School was in 96.5 thread which is really impressive. But then that rating but the rating is is where they rating as all the rest of the schools. It's your you know when you get your  scores you see how you are. Um, they were 99.82 nearly a hundred percent. Over 2,000 schools were given scores such a school was number six. out of 2,000 schools in the state of New Jersey Let's take a moment.  Think about that right with that looks like how that happens. And I'm also going to put a caveat on there three of them above them were Charter Schools magnet schools who aren't drawing for the general  population was selecting students already doing well.  So it's really incredible  accomplishment on it speaks to the dedication to work and it connects to our mission statement and you look down here. This is the formula that it's used They take the their scores. Ela growth math and math and to the growth and math and Ela proficially Matthew getting chronic advocacyism.  And I want to point out. The biggest weight there's growth. Which is important? Growth when you're a high chief of school is much different in growth  when you're an average CD School the margin to get better is much more challenging because you're already pretty close to where to the top. So to show that they were doing so well and through growth on top of  that. Once again, you just can't say enough about the work being done there for those folks. And so I just want to take a full I'm gonna put all their names. I wish I could slide for every individual person, but there's like 70. Maybe you're really a long time. So this is like a core group you can see our principles  counselors secretary contractor staff who help learning support and everyone everyone who works in that building's in there.  That's even even the maintenance custodians all those guys.  they're in there because they're all part of the culture that school who succeeds and I wanted to have the last slide. slide. These are teachers. um, and we're so proud of the work they do we're so grateful for the work they do and so what I'm going to do now is we're going to invite all the Central School family who made it here tonight to come up to the front and get on this side so you can get on TV and ever been watching from home. So come on everyone both stay in the back now,  So we get right about here.  You'll be seen on there. Come on, you guys come up to you? I don't want to put anyone a spot is a representative was to say something on behalf of central school or a couple people.  You're more than welcome. Yeah, this is heaviest here. Well, thank you for having us here today. I'm so glad some of the Central School teachers could come and be celebrated tonight. I think you know when you look at success, it's not one person. It's not one solution. It's not one thing that gets you to to that successful point, but the collaborative effort of everybody and tonight. I think, you know, we're here to celebrate teachers and the hard work and dedication that they put into making sure that students feel connected to school included at school loved at school and then kind of learning comes after that. So I think you know the environment that teachers create school is the starting place for Learning and when kids feel connected and loved at school they can they can learn and they can grow and I agree with Chuck,  you know, it's the growth right the growth of students. So when you look at kids growing  that's the important part where they farting and where they they getting to so I'm really proud of our teachers and our staff members Chuck mentioned this and I was talking to him today that it's Collective effort parents. a teachers staff members in the building and our students our students come to school every day.  Joyful excited to learn and really put in some hard work and effort. So, thank you all for being here today and thank you for everything that you've done to to make a great environment for students to grow and learn and find a joy and learning.  Thank you very much. Really?  Yeah.  I want to get changed. Okay, and now now we're going to hear this things of the Arts from Mr. Robot.  All right, so it's okay. So thank you so much shots the board for having us here tonight, Mr. Klaus Dr. Priola Mr. Catalano. Um, this is a rare thing, you know, not a lot of times the district will do something specifically on the  state of the Arts and the Arts in the school. So this is exciting opportunity to do  something like this. My name is Mr. Fox, you know some other capacities for now I'm seeing you in a visual perform. Arts supervisor capacity I do have  with me the life is very Mr. Hecker if you want to come on up. So Mr. Hackers here. he's obviously going to be you know talking about maybe historical some things that have happened. Why not obviously bringing the district. So, I don't know everything that's happened up until to this moment just to start with a quote from Albert Einstein logical get you from point A to point B, and Imagination will take take you everywhere. Mission statement we've heard a few times tonight, so I'm not going to  read it again. I just want to say, you know, obviously you guys as a board of education feel that Arts are very  important for helping contribute, you know, creating contributing members of the global Society. That's why I'm here tonight doing this presentation. So quick overview of the presentation first, we're going to review the  offerings of each grade level. What are our visual Performing Arts offerings then we're going to do a little data analysis of the Performing Arts.  Specifically I in grades K through 12 and some key takeaways and some next steps that we're going to be doing  the Fine Arts does have a vision statement and so on all our  Curriculum maps has the field our Educators vision is to out for students diverse curriculum, that will give students opportunities to  develop our artistic potential and social emotional well-being as well as their interest in art through flexibility and encouragement as well as a careful attention to criteria  and the classical approach to our education. We offer our students opportunities to find their creative power and that's for the Fine Arts. we do not have one for the Performing  Arts at the moment as we start to go through an audit cycle. Hopefully we'll be developing one for that. Hopefully we will be developing. So all fine performing arts classes in Haddonfield School District align with the New Jersey student learning standards for visual Performing Arts also known as EPA and then you have the artistic process throughout there's anchor standards and they center around creating performing responding and ing Elementary our classes. Maybe we have two amazing Elementary art teachers Miss Kimmel and  mrkowski kindergarten. They receive our every 30 for 30  minutes on a Six-Day cycle all first through fifth grade receive our for 45 minutes on a Six-Day cycle. These are our provided by certified art teachers, which is something I think we kind of take for granting in the same, New Jersey all our teachers digital performing arts are all highly qualified. You know, this is what they do. This is what they want the school for this what they're passion Mountain they have their certificate.  Elementary art classes specifically and this is what I got directly from those teachers. They focus a lot on Two And three-dimensional art and then working clay and plaster crafts these pictures. You see here are from our recent our shows took place a Tatum Central Elizabethan. I had an opportunity to attend each of them. And I mean anything you guys had a chance to attend these it is just amazing where our home insurance do that sunflower pot right? There is actually made my  kindergarteners the butterflies that are just to the left of that. week with second grade and then the pottery that you see over here in this bottom picture. I know it's hard. That was somebody who was fourth  grade what they do. For our Elementary Music Class, that's done by our music teachers,  Miss Mary and then we have two new music teachers in the elementary school this year, Mr. Meyer and Miss Norton and they follow the same cycle is the art they get 30 minutes of element kindergarten instruction every six days and then for race one through five, it's 45 minutes on a Six-Day cycle in addition that I'm getting General music on a Six-Day cycle students, and I'm sure many of your children here.  Hopefully participate in these students starting in grade three have an opportunity to be part of strings the string program and that's three and then fourth and fifth grade. they have an opportunity part of the band program and the course program. Elementary Music Class some of the concepts of a focus on identify and understanding music picture notation and identifying understanding Rhythm and Tempo some of those core  moving on to middle school art Miss helicop. I believe that right? Okay, so all students in grade six and seven they cycle through ART. So that's part of their their cycle that they go through and grade eight. They can choose it as an effective  and then here's some pictures of some different things that they work on this year. Once you're getting the Middle School for Art, they do start to be more  specific and what they cover and sixth grade Focus. They focus on the foundations of art  including the elements and principles design expiration of various mediums Once they hit seventh grade they emphasize on observational drawings for the focus on shading and value clay work using slab building  techniques printmaking and the focus of black printing once I hit 8th grade then they start to focus on perspective drawing and transforming  two-dimensional objectives into three dimensions. Middle school performing arts and my answer. magazines some of we're going to talk about this. Alright the middle school we have myself Mr. Hacker. I do band Orchestra jazz band at the middle school. We also have MS Thomas. She's new. She's our choir director at the middle school. She's doing an awesome job, really  given the vocal technique and the vocal pedagogy for our students. We also have Mr. Ganny. He is our percussion specialist, which is an awesome thing. We started this year.  He comes down he works with all our precaution students at the middle school. So having questions, and the other 25 30. Yeah, something like that.  Yeah.  so when you're trying to get Gino's, yeah. So we have him coming down working in the afternoon with the students they do lessons just like the other band students and the orchestra students as well as he sits on band or her soul. He does warm-ups. He wants the band rehearsals as well. He helps out with jazz band, but he also teaches the kids drum set and  in the elementary school setting they pretty much use the xylophone and snare drum as a percussion instruments. He starts diving into timpaning clock and Spiel bass drum Chimes all the different trap instruments triangle. I can go on a whole list thing going on even longer lesson. Um, all those different instruments are intricate to that little Middle School setting to set them up for the high school because that's really what we are where that bridge to the high school. So when Mr. Johnny gets the students in concert band they have the knowledge and the foundation to really hit the ground running in 9th grade.  We also have this is how she's our theater teacher and she does blocking and Stage Direction all those fun theater games and activities and  shelter teaches the acting kind of Goji in the scene and Scenic Design and stuff like that in her classes. So students in seventh grade rotate through music students when they get the eighth grade, they choose music and theater as an elective. band and worker students receive small group lessons instruction on a  rotating schedule. There's lessons are 30 minutes some  students, you know if they're need extra help in math, or if they have a test one day we have the option in the flexibility. We're like, okay you can go at this time and you can go at this time. We keep a core skeleton structure so we can have consistency, but we have to adapt with the normal schedule just like we have testing coming up. So that's another adaptation that we're working around it. You never concert next Thursday. So that's the way we go about our business with that course band and Orchestra meet during tutorial for a full Ensemble rehearsals, and this is crucial for the Performing Arts and  setting up our students for the concerts that they had everybody all together in one  Ensemble rehearsing together and then they perform how we practice that's the idea students can also participate in jazz band and drama club after school. They just did an excellent job and matild. Of jazz band will be performing at our concert next Thursday.  awesome, so that's a big overview of what's going on and then specifically when it comes to General music at the Middle School seventh graders continue to identify and understand  using notation continues to identify understanding Rhythm and Tempo and that's some through a various means we have we've been able to purchase  bucket. Drums this year. We have ukuleles some keyboards Ms. Taylor is really done a great job a kind of building that program out Once the students go to eighth grade then they start in a modern band and  bandlab what you're using those instruments that I just mentioned, but then they're also going the bandwag and that kind of sets them up for sound recording engineering those types of the high school right here in eighth grade so high school final Performing Arts three great teachers and it's  academic Miss westerside as you can see. We have a plethora of Fine Arts that are offered at the high school. That's where they really can focus, you know, some of the picture the one picture there at the bottom is from the more time a few weeks ago. I had the opportunity to attend the  National Art Honor Society and Senior showcase, and I was just a great way to celebrate the students and the seniors. It was my first time ever attending something like that, and it was just amazing to see the quality of a senior, you know the seniors this thing get ready to head off in the college one.  cool statistic. I want to point out to you guys vpa Mitchell Performing Arts are required to take it from one year over 55% of HMHS students our enrolled in a fine arts class. So that's that's really impressive right? So that's more than just one year and these students are For multiple years, you know, they they found their passion and they're using that as an opportunity using these questions an opportunity to further, you know. High school performing arts Mr. Channing Mr. Mills Mr. Hecker Mr. Rossi is our dance teacher and then  Mr. Laska is our theater teacher once again, you can see we have a clever Performing Arts to the students and take and Orchestra chamber Fire concert fire dance, too. They're kind of our full year Focus, you know four classes, but then we do have a whole bunch of semester classes the center around that too from show fire music production music recording and Engineering you can see the lists up there.  So, you know, we have a wide array of visual Performing Arts that are High School All right. Now it's this on performing. Art, so I when I was going through this interview process last year and I was meeting with you know, Mr. Hecker the other interview committee members Mr. Klaus Dr. Prioloa, you know, it was really stress that you know, what can you help do to bring  this, you know develop this high school program and even one of my prompts at the end, you know for the final presentation was you know, the numbers are lacking in high school. What can you do? Help enhance those numbers. I did a whole presentation on it, Obviously once I got to you know was  given the position and have had this great opportunity to be here. I started to diving on a bit further had meetings and Mr. Heckler over the summertime meetings with other  administrators started to click numbers data. I'm a backwards guys. So I'm like, all right. Here's our problem. But does that where our problem starts as a start prior staff, right? So looking at all the data we started together information. The blue is 22 23. The red is 23 24. These are our number specifically the elementary school. I'm just gonna focus on this year's numbers for 23 24. We have 160 choir students amongst our three elementary  schools. We have 15 band students across the three elementary schools and we're  gonna show we have 140 students when you put that all together and you look at the eligible students are they could take and work short course and third through eighth grade 69% of our students are involved in band  course Orchestra, which is  outstanding that thing which is National. to music educators they have a ballpark, you know, 20% would be a good starting point and then once you head up, you know a robust program you want to kind of be north of 50% So we're obviously doing  very well at the elementary level. When we go to Middle School same thing for this year. We have 53 course members 71 band members and 27 worker members. Obviously a huge increase in band this year.  We're going to talk about that and auto increase in Orchestra. Um, the band could be the Mr. Hecker effect obviously coming from elementary up to Middle School, right? So we'll see if we started to put In but that's an awesome number to have 24% of our six through eight  graders are involved and Performing and band chorus and Orchestra Remember we had 69. Yeah Elementary. So what a bit of a drop off, um, then we go to the high school 9 through 12 Chorus for this year 80 students band 22 students and Orchestra five students. Now, I do want to Mr. Harper wants to talk briefly about the 175 and both ways into that possibly. Yes, so the history of it gone from 75 before we had Orchestra as a before school class. So now that it is during the schedule day a lot of kids they had labs they had other classes and they couldn't fit into their schedule and that is why we have five students now on Watership, but it's gonna build so we got to start somewhere as you can see. It's thriving we are actually down one member. She was at the track meet. So, you know, that's just something we go through with music teachers our kids do everything which is awesome because you know, we're talking about that all around all around the student. You know, it's So that's kind of where we got that droplet. Alright, and this is the district why this year and last year? So if you focus on the right again the elementary school, we had 415 total students and then it drops way down to the Middle School of 151 and then high school at one of seven. This was the data that really stood out to me right because obviously our  elementary school. We are very robust big program and then we go to middle school and you can see it drops by over here, right? So that right there is like, okay. Well our problem probably isn't necessarily the high school. Maybe we've got to look at the middle school and these are conversations that were already starting we had  before I got here with Mr. Toront, Mr. Ruben who's back there Mr. Hecker Mr. Klaus Dr. Prioloa and start to see like what can we do to help improve this Middle School? Program so I'm gonna have Mr. Hacker come up and talk about this is a  breakdown for this year's  specifically of sixth grade.  seventh grade and eighth grade. You can see sixth grade and blue. We do have a dramatic increase in the numbers at sixth grade compared to seventh grade and eighth grade. So Mr. Eckrich is going to talk a  little bit about some of the things you've done the shirts at we hopefully help contribute to this. Yeah, so as much as I would love to say that it is what Mr. Fox Says Mr. Hecker effect. I think it's other things as well. I think the fact that the structure of the program this year, which is  completely different than last year helped us. The lesson structure is the same as elementary school. So these sixth graders coming up these fifth graders moving in the  sixth grade. There's no real.  They're getting a half hour lesson. It's on a rotating schedule. They have that full ban Ensemble. There are probably a little happy that it's not 7:40 in the morning  like they had in elementary school. So we have it at the end of the day right now. So that's kind of where I think the increase as well as we were. in the summer the cards were starting to fall and music teachers. We hired two music teachers, so we didn't really have Recruitment and I see that number as great for us because we got to still recruit this number of students. We got them with the Phillies game at the beginning of this year. We went to Philadelphia workers show  and we're already we've had several meetings. We have a big game plan for recruitment for this year moving on to next year. So sky's the limit and feeling pretty good. Yeah and just tagging on a little bit, you know working our project the numbers for next year. So the top of each one course and in  Orchestra is our current numbers and then looking to next year the bottom one for band work insurance is our project numbers. This is looking at the numbers that we have and forth our fifth grade right now  transferring the sixth grade our average over the past few years has been a 35% drop. So  accounting for that and knowing what we have in the pipeline our hope is that we will have a 29% increase moving into next year and I  have I'm hopeful that there's going to even bigger than that and I'll be here next you're giving this presentation to you and with all the steps we've taken I can say we had a 40% increase, you know, so um, and then this is what it would be  district-wide seen that our number you know, Rise by about 4% if we won't get the average of what we usually get Elementary School what we get  high school, and then we're  accounting for the projection in The middle. So what are some key takeaways doing all this are fine arts programs across break levels K through 12  having very strong participation rate that was evident. Obviously the high school 5 The steps we have taken the Implement  rehearsals during tutorial and pull out instrumental lessons back in the middle school schedule are working to  strengthen our programs at the middle school. We see that having in sixth grade and  hopefully moving forward in the seventh grade and eighth grade next year all the steps we've taken this year has allowed us to be selected is one of the best meetings for me to get education for this school year the 24 23 24 school year this  award is a direct reflection of what we've done this year. So back the end of January about 7 age application talking about, you know, our facilities what we do for recruitment what we're doing numbers why let's talk to Mike and get some funding numbers and whatnot. So all of that play into this to allow us to get this award today. So I think this is a testament to our music educators and what they've done so far this year and moving forward to hopefully help us be able to continue and get Word and continue to bring arts and Thrive and Haddonfield. So what are some of our next steps? We're going to focus on expand  opportunities for vertical alarm alignment across District.  We've already started, you know throughout this year taking PD days and bringing the Departments together. um, you know, being an art teacher a music teacher in the district is a little bit different than being a great level teacher  right you get to work with those teachers every day, you know music teachers or want for building our teachers want for building so that time they have when they're together is very valuable and that's a great  opportunity for them to  continue to focus on our Arts  enhancement across the district within our core content areas Leisure we teamed up with njpsa and art said, New Jersey Chuck and some other faculty members had a chance to go up to Princeton and participate in a three-day seminar on bringing arts and into New Journey into our core content areas. We're gonna be doing that again this year and our our teachers are kind of the foundation of that, right? Right? So the coaches are helping support that Ms. Kim on my master she's going  again this year. It's acting from high school went last year. Miss helffeld is going this year again. She's going this year for the first time. So it's exciting to have them be part of that. We're going to further evaluate the show further evaluates ways to  showcase our Fine Arts such as possibility of establishing industry. White art show. This is something that we've talked about with our teachers.  They're very excited. The challenge comes in this where's the facility where we can house so right that's Mean we're starting to walk into explore. We're going to evaluate the thickness of the middle school schedule continue to look at that and see is that working as we're hoping it is or is there some different work of the Performing Arts performance identify opportunities to  Showcase students throughout the community obviously tonight with the Testament to that they were able to come and perform before the board and then enhance recruitment opportunities to the performing arts for the Performing Arts across the district. Here are some of our upcoming performances and then as Mr. Hecker alluded to we're doing an instrument heading Zoom everybody on branding so  much. So on the 13 of June, so and it's gonna be an instrument petting zoo or our third graders. It's time to be a hands on opportunity for the students to come for the parents to come students  actually. hold an instrument. We're gonna have to ask high school students here that we modeling instruments our two rental companies that we use Kohl's using an Arts. They're going to be there and I  actually be able to talk to  representatives from those companies. talk about how you ran instruments All the music teachers will be there. I'll be there just to kind of answer  questions and health hopefully help establish those personal connections with those with the teachers and parents and we're all gonna be doing a middle school recruiting night on top of that. So for the middle school, you know students transition from bit. This is great and calm and Mr. Hacker, Mr. Janney Miss Thomas and have an opportunity to talk to them about what middle school band or for sure. And of course looks like so that is the state of the One Direction You Mr. Fox. Thank you. just one question. Okay. And have we asked the students about the big draft. Like what's happening for them between fifth and sixth grade. Are they starting? The instrument and not picking it and and dropping it or they just not picking it back up and getting lost so that's yeah, right. It's a really big gap. Yeah. No, it's a huge. Yeah. I think we want to take some of these initiatives that we've done first with, you know, looking at the schedule and stuff like that and then  obviously that would be a next step right? So once we see the schedule and what lessons and whatnot once we've established that you know, this is this is what it is and then if we're  still seeing that drop then yeah, obviously my steps are  I'm sure covid. Didn't well and yeah, and that's what I mentioned earlier, right,  especially in the higher grades covid definitely impacted that I mean if you look at programs across this there's a lot of  programs that have folded and never come back, you know. Um, so yes a 2021 was a horrible I was teaching remotely like, how do you teach and right but it's impossible. So yeah covid definitely plays an impact on this upper numbers. Um, but yes, so that's definitely we'll look at down the road. You know really kind of focus in the isolate on this. I haven't done this record because I think that you take this elementary  school kids and every single one of them will tell you they're an artist every single one of them feels like they can play an instrument and then as the kids get older then they  self-select and think of good ones can do that and I love how you talked about bringing it into the course because the way that I look at the Arts. It's not like The Artsy kids do this it is you practice creativity in a piece of part of your brain. that is not used for Math and Science and when you you practice and you start to think creatively that then feeds the other side of your brain and vice versa, so I mean that I  think that's what you're alluding to and I such a huge proponent that's been wondering I had is is it clear to the middle and high school students that they could try and new  instrument or you know, can you be a beginner when you're older and how the program could welcome that it's like I would be intimidated and doing either of the group. Tonight but like I bet there's you know what I need to other people who maybe like making anything. Yeah, and that's definitely something  that we make very clear, you know, and it's something to our recruiting. I think chorus lends its way to that. Are you see a lot of students who maybe didn't do it in elementary  school. Maybe tried it middle school, but then in high school, I took off or whatever fan and Orchestra certainly as you said, that's a little bit different but that is something you know, but I think that  comes back like Mr. Hecker, you know, Mr. Jenny them building those relationships. with those students the students feel  comfortable to be like, hey, I'm gonna be with the teacher and I want to try to imagine the discussion. Well, that's what I want to give a shout out to me are amazing band teachers of my son was in sixth grade and a percussionist and just the things. I'm like wait y'all are having doing this you're doing this too and he's like he's like, oh, yeah. I'm playing bass drummer. I'm doing this. So I just want to give major kudos to Mr. Hecker Mr. Danny for that kind of individualized instruction and also the ability to do makeup lessons with the students that it was  like, you know that they know the schedule and they've internalized it and it really I think is growing and also shout out to that Phillies game  situation. So fantastic to see them learn that number in 45 minutes and then perform with these like, what was it high  school and college marching?  Yeah, you can was there I'm just there. Yes. So this time last year, roughly we were talking about this much different town. Yes was thinking program we have to do something ASAP. Hey, right, especially in the middle school and Rob to the point that out and part of the special we had is We bring guitar classes into the high school we can start or maybe the focuses. No, we need to look at the middle  school. Yeah. So Mr. Jamie who? Come now works. He's the heart the high schools are now goes down the middle school. We have a lot of focus there and one of the one of the Yes, make decisions because we have some of Staffing the before school  select on the song well went away because Mr. Johnny Williams all those decisions are made with the focus is  here's how we fix this problem. And then once that's done now we support it once we have it go. So maybe once we have everything going we bring another staff member one, then we have the the buy 10 guitars. You start taking guitars this but I think our Focus I know our Focus was we know we have this weakness the schedule was really was redone this time last year. Is it or something else now? We've done we fix that. So we really listen to what we need to be done. I work with this Johnny Mr. Fox on these things. And actually I asked him to do it  your support your support. And so so I think we I think the  was made. and now once those once those numbers if they would come back it's time to  Mr. Fox. who's over 29. It's 40 then our conversations how to make it. How do we make it so that now they can continue into the high school because we don't want to build them there and then say, oh you're by the way, it's fun for the next thing. So that's that's kind of this Friday. That's the strategy we talk and I think is right one. Is great, but thank you Father.  from online  together. All right for our committee reports. Do we have anything for curriculum Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's me.  That's me. Um, so we yes, I unless you guys talked about it. Yeah, I'm like looking at your stuff right here things covers and we're good. I was going to say there were at  least two gallons together presented. on yeah, we're good, right that makes it Finance  policy and policy has met twice and so what I can do it, but it was like causing us in March February and we couldn't cover ourselves from this list. So we power through by meeting two times. So thank you to all the balls. He committing members for tolerating that  we met on April 30th Rob came and chatted with us about Trends on give confirmed in alleged hip cases and how the documentation for that is  changing in our district. So  when is one instant incident a single line in our report or when should be multiple lines like those kind of things are now that we have I don't know thought this through and had some more experience. that's gonna get clearer. And so that'll likely lead to when he does the summary ports. It'll look like an increase, but that increase may actually he'll be able to talk to us about it.  It may just be how we're changing how we're recording our data and not really like we have a problem in our district. So just to kind of keep that new one be aware of that Nuance as we go forward. Teachers are trained to report it and we were talking about. how to keep keep the public inform our  communities informed and kind of what we can. can be doing to Basically focus on climate and culture right in all of our school buildings. That's really what that's all about.  And you we reviewed the gifted and talented job description, which I think is on the agenda and to just give some feedback. It's an awareness about the job description. We could kind of chime in but doesn't need official board approval. I don't think for that, but it was just getting up to date. So that was a newer position.  we've been acted at the job description did not that person is actually doing so it was just kind of cycling back through right to kind of tighten that and then basically all the policies and regulations you're seeing we look for and talk about. phrasing the nuances making sure they're clear. But again, we work with stress us  mine who gives us the updates that again often driven by state legislature, right? And so a lot of it really is me or other people saying like, what does this phrasing and legal speak? Is this what? I think it means like and the big I think message to hear from that is the policies align with the laws. and we try to make them clear but we have Council so that if we had to enact a policy we know the policy of  stated to align with the law and if we needed Clarity, we have people who can give us Clarity because so much of it is like imagine this scenario. Imagine. That's I mean even concussions like, you know, it's like well my kid got pulled from practice. Did you get back to the ball? Like what would that trigger? Did you know like just And it's impossible right to imagine all of those things.  And so we kind of how to discussion around. Those kinds of issues but really you'll just see small changes that  reflect legal changes and then in the minutes, I just highlighted. like we talked about things like what's the difference between an owl  versus MLL in the English language learner, like multi learner multiple learner might multi-lingual learner, like what? I mean, it's really kind of those nuanced kind of things. That's what we Spend our time talking about but  that's just trying to do our due diligence right because it's a big part of our work is for so I apologize for the check into list, but I'm proud of us for getting through it. It was okay. So I was going to ask this question once we got into the actual policies. we shot that phrasing and yeah, um in  one of but it doesn't matter because it's not specific to the policy. I noticed that it used to say the parents were legal guardians, but then legal Guardians was crossed out and my thoughts myself but something that we use and I thought right there was like so if you remember the zeros, yeah, like if you look at our zero policies, we kind of have a like here's all the vocab for you here. So yeah some of our cleaning up it's not only the line with loss but to also  streamline our policies. So we're consistent for example when we met Underneath just two days ago just yes yesterday. What so our second meeting was yesterday. We really empowered through this but we had a discussion about do we when should do we say board? And when do we say Board of Education? I mean, these are the things that I can make sure it's consistent so that  confusing that somebody looks right, But if you look at those zero policies, those are kind of the ones that are like, here's our here are the terms we use here and then we just are slowly trying to clean up  We're gonna be the introduction here. It's actually almost an induction. Okay, and that's right. So the change from parents of art, you know, you probably education parents or boys you just Parents because parents equals policy, right? zero two yeah. Things like Prana. Yep, just like them neutral, you everybody and so it's right. My suppressed question wasn't about  individual, right? So that's consistency. Okay. Thank you. the veneer questions one of those little point that I wanted to know is that one thing that I think it was the two meetings ago that we were I remember we were talking about just kind of speaking to why the language is the way it is right? Remember we were talking words like because it aligns with the law and the statute and sometimes just kind of explaining that and kind of giving a little bit more education around that as well because it's like why would you word it this way and it's like because in order to be in  compliance with the statute as they change they need to be saying that way. Lrc. I was not at last but I know there wasn't a You know we did was talk about the finalization of the scope and the potential cost in that submission was  coming which happens this week. Okay submission to viewing. so we are some upcoming meeting and that will be a large meeting and then we'll work back to everyone which earlier and I just pop like process so we are using funds that can only  be used for kind of feel like  Improvement things. We would never get money from the state to help with. And then we submitted to the state and they can give us feedback and make adjustments based on I'm not  sure what and then we take that and we'll go up explicit go out to bed Adobe way more explicit with the public what it is right now is Right a field but like where it's located that's definitely have to wait for the state to say. Yay before. Yeah, right like I just Scope of the referendum. Yeah. Yes. We need we need that that's out and we need to approval but we're going together to talk about what's in that and what we need to kind of organize Get back to you.  Get back up to the community.  This is what's in it. It's not approved. But this is what's in it and then there will be more communication to feel completely separate for that.  We still needs to good like you know, that's why I was thinking about somebody. Why are you asking about yes, did you guys say the question again? So yeah, so this is our locally  funded that we budget for Life first. This is it's very similar process minus the restaurant referendum  aspect you but that's okay.  highlight again that that is not money. that could be spent on teachers or books or anything related to instruction. It was many specifically has to be  used for Capital Improvements. So I've seen some chatter hurts and feedback about well, why are we building these fields if we lost funding and I think just again reminding people that there are different buckets and we're restricted from which bucket we can do that. We are moving forward with what we could and we've never get State funding four days. So there was no sense keeping it into the referendum and it was an opportunity to get something. Yeah because of money fixing rooms you stayed on it. If we pick screws and recommendous amount of money here, so I producing the call. And hopefully get it done sooner in the community can begin using and enjoying it soon. Yes.  We have access to the land.  I mean, yeah, I just wanted to make sure that that was clear exciting that there's a lot of confusion you're doing everything we possibly and move this forward. All right. The communications committee is still on here. and we're only one first we we we have we're right enough point where we're working with the HCA with  memorandum agreement. It's our guys move. We're just have to finally, you know, finalize everything for us all the guys that I'll teach all those things were actually the way around not yeah, we don't want you. So we're go back and forth for that just Finalizing salary guy, so we're very very close. And then the HBO GO ratify will approve and then we can do all the signatures and we go after the summer to be. Yeah, but the best it put the best and we happy. Yep. Okay, PTA updates anyone.  Okay, so knowing that this is not an action meeting. We'll just be a genome.  Sorry you just a quick announcement that we we are really gearing up for our NJ SLA Administration. We finished primary testing at the high school last week middle school and Elementary School testing begins next week middle school begins on Monday Elementary  begins on Tuesday, and we'll go through the rest of the week Incredible.  Thanks to the principles in the room. It is a tremendous amount of work preparing for this assessment to make sure things go smoothly and the teachers and the principles have really been outstanding and I'm very confident. We're gonna have a smooth and successful rollout next week as we have in the high school and Dan an admitting there in the next one thanks to all the hard work. Everyone's been into that. I think to the your it crew like it's such a different landscape like when  we took tests we bubbled in with paper and pencil bags electricity. IT Crowd was like making sure every Chromebooks working at the internet is working that everybody can log in and like I can't imagine this dress of that group too. So and we keep hopefully people kind of push our it team to continuously improve. Okay, I give you a very quick example. There are many students who have a variety of accommodations test. So not only do you have to make sure that everything is configured on the back end properly. So when that student logs into their computer, they're unique accommodation is available to them. There are some students who have a a speech to text accommodation.  And how are you still commented that in the past was you had to have a second individual scribe for that? what we're able to do this year is embed that speech to text technology within the testnet system, which really makes them more independent.  Yeah, so that's been a great piece. So for many of our students who have that accommodation, they know no  longer need an adult sitting next to them. you're able to take that assessment independently. And again that takes a lot of work on the back end a lot of trial testing and John and Chris he And his team have been outstanding. Yeah, that's right. kids to yeah. Yeah, that's great. All right, this class. Oh, there's a few quick things. I know you guys already have your calendars more but I'll put this out  there while I promote the so the 23rd. Ready report of ela on it some pretty exciting stuff there, and I'm also going to talk a little bit about  boundaries for elementary school, so just as a follow-up current as of today grade 1  Tatum is sending six students to Elizabeth Hadden and Central sending seven. So there's 13 students being displaced right now in grade one across the district and as we all know.  There's two big developments going up that are in Central Schools. catchment Zone so we have to have a series  discussion and I understand the timeline for the place. It hadn't feel this time next year. year. We'll have more students from that. That are completed sometime in January and the families move in. that means what that place is falling out early. So we have to start so taking advantage really open discussion and make sure the community knows about that.  and then to the 20th, we're gonna have special ed update and also about the referendum and I wouldn't carried everything to get out to the concert. So you heard about those from Mr. Fox as many as you can. if you're interested next Saturday is the more for athletic Hall Fame  induction, which is always an interesting night. I was I like that I'd see some more students and athletes so that's good.  That's about it. And Jamie is not here. I don't have anything for the word president report. So we will move to public comment. members of Community are invited to speak up to three minutes at this time if you'd like to make an  additional comment, you must wait until each person has had a chance to make their initial statement. All comments must be directed toward the board not members of the public according to our Bible as common session session can last no longer than one hour. This is an opportunity for the board to listen, but not debate issues for enter into a question and answer period Please be aware that not all issues brought up for board will be resolved that evening. We ask you to identify Yourself by stating your name and the name of the street before making your comments to the board while public education can be an emotional issue. We strive to maintain a certain level of decorum at the meeting public meetings or streamed and available for replay on YouTube and students often participate in the meetings as such citizens are expected to  maintain a tone of courtesy and civility. If anyone that would like to make a public comment. Hey. so moving on items for  Board of Education approval under governance lots and lots of policies. Thank you.  any and I'm gonna give a minute for everybody just to refresh yourself.  any questions just I once the other policy committee. Thank you so much for this working  Geno specifically too organizes all this and keeps it all straight and I think if it was anyone else, but you know, I don't know we've gotten  throughout that is attention to detail there as an incredible and it's just I can tell you. Conversation every two of them there right now. I'm wondering about our monthly suspend suspension report the color coding. So we have a color for suspension and color for hip is the color for hip a potential hip or should it be switched like when I was reading through this month's report. Some of what looks like to be hips right? We're not found it.  Does that make sense or shoulders that always doesn't mean that they're happy. It doesn't Define. What's the substantial HIV just that it was associated with an HIV allegation. Okay. Anything in green is a suspension that nothing to do with it. Just go to contact us. Okay, but some of the some of the heads could turn into code of conduct and got it. Okay, it just felt different so something you guys move and it's unfounded. Yes on the list. Yeah. It means it was an unfract unfounded HIV but suspension according to our God. Okay and the distinction the way that I look at it is because there are laws that that surround yeah one color and that's what yeah, I do in  my yeah, right we have to documented. Yeah, depending you got Well, thank you. Any other questions? Okay, curriculum and special ed.  the questions personnel  like I don't feel I'm making over we're gonna make a correction to item three be just here. Something wasn't right in the pay rate for some reason. So we'll adjust that for the next. and you can also look the With a new higher recommendations, I think there's two names on there. I think by the time we get to the 23rd there might be 10. Well everything. Oh whatever black tigers. So that's great. God we've got about six offers out right now. which we have two different three hundreds of final interviews with super 10 next two days. So  but around. Unteer right.  I'll talk about that next week number 23rd year. I was wondering what that was called other than her being insane.  Okay, business and finance recommendations.  Sort of all the same lines. I gotta do better job pretty  placeholders here, even though it's not determined but another service that will be on this agenda to refer but isn't  listen here is Food Service  management because we're opening proposals next week for that and we'll have an evaluation committee following week. You can have that recommendation on this agenda. a and then for E just will have some some conversations before that.  Yeah.  Any other questions? Any questions about the minutes?  Okay, do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting? any items feature considerations any any I was going to propose sorry.  and maybe this is already in palsy subcommittee, but our cell phone policy. It's seen a lot of community chatter about cell phone policy and the  desire of parents particularly of younger students to have phones out of the classroom.  So in addition to encouraging anyway, who has those feelings about any of this stuff to bring it to the attention to the board, but I wonder if we should revisit those policies. I know we looked at it in part when we did the recording. but just to make sure that we're in alignment with the wishes of the community and the teachers. So we don't really have an explosion. We don't have a policy yet. Okay, that's cool. So query whether we should have a policy. Maybe that's an opportunity for a committee of the hold some leader point in time. But that's really not policy. right that that's the buildings for me. I mean, I don't think can can direct the board to do something that is not in our purview. I think having a cell phone policy  would be within our purview as a policy making body. I don't think so. I mean so this is what I what I was thinking about because I was talking to someone about this the other day too is we don't cross into  pedagogical decisions or eight like technological Aid like so that's all that's okay. We don't want to go down that  slippery slope, but I we do have the opportunity sometimes and policy to review the code of conduct for building and give kind of Our advice questions feedback, but that's not done by us. Yeah to know like that. I get some feedback, but we're we actually aren't responsible for that makes sense. That's awesome. But I think it's but what I hear especially because I think that the concern is motivated by pedagogical  concerns not sometimes these things aren't enforcement  because we'll see more that is anything else. Yeah, so we have regulations and guidelines what we do with our phones in school. when had the teachers don't follow those as money you start having challenges, right? So there's there's many layers that way talk about those things. I just wanted to put it. Out now. I think it's on the back we can consider it. But yeah, well, I do say to like whatever tools the teacher needs so that dogs can be charging or whatever, you know, like we would like to support that financially to make sure there's enough extension  courts or like up in the front or whatever it is. I feel like we would support that but it's just figuring out what the needs are. Maybe there aren't any except just reminding people.  Yeah, that's it's a  complicated site. Yeah, but yeah good. Yeah, I am.  Especially when it's wearable. Like a cell phone is essentially where somebody's watching, you know watch but it's hard and labels and and Chuck just tangentially related. Did you say that the code of conduct? I know there's a lot of work.  That's a big summer left that we really have one thing like or line by line over handbooks and stuff like all summer and that that's we a few you do a lot of big projects in someone those things. those things are harder than others for you. I can't so that's a summary. So as we go through almost almost every case. We come across discussion. We have one with notes on say this we visit that. Yes. And you know looking at what when and why we suspended houses bad is one of the biggest thing we've been doing all years. So that's not something we change. Yeah, right, but it certainly  something to revisit and summer and then when you come back into September, so here's a change. It's just right and kind of Orient students and teachers about hey, there's what and the families right?  There's what you need to know about what's new and and that it is, you know, that's sort of like the the agreement right?  We're here to study and learn we're here to support students families are too and these are kind of what we what our expectations are. That's one of our biggest similar that's over the years right? Sorry. Don't delete Us by more. Yeah, and I just a reminder for everyone to get the CSA valuation done.  All right now. motion to another actually everyone that's short move. Okay. All right. Good work everyone. And today's I am going to be reaching out. To you because you so commonly offered to help with the retreat. Yeah, I'm glad because I had intended to reach out to you. Okay? I know I love playing like oh sites  and figuring out. Yeah you can use time. So I wasn't an organization. I'll try I'm trying to kind of structure the discussion and body that you can if I can move. Yep. Maybe we should have a zoo once you have a shell and then we can work through it together.  Yeah, that's it. I love it.  Thank you.