good evening everyone I would like to call to order the June 26 2024 hon Township Board of Education meeting this meeting is being held in compliance with the Sunshine Law having been advertised in the prent L City and notice is posted at the Township Post Office me Landing post office mville post office L County Library as well as the schools of the district this meeting is being uh recorded roll call please yes Mrs bar hereen here Mrs Jackson Dr La here Mr Miller Mr BR here Mr Rogers here Dr Nelson here I get a motion to recess into executive session move second all in favor don't resol pursu section 7 and8 public meeting ACT public shall be excluded from the portion of the meeting involving discussion of legal matters attorney C is Personnel Transportation hip and CSA evaluation being further result that the discussion of the such M subject matter in an executive session to be disclosed to the public when formal action is taken on such subject matters or at any other appro time further resolve the board you take action on items discussed in executive session now therefore being resolve the board will be in executive session for approximately 30 minutes I have a motion to the executive session recen public session second fa I right this meeting is being the held of compliance law having been advertised in the Press Atlantic City notices posted Township clerk's office ma Landing post office Misa post office Atlantic County Library as well as the schools of the district this meeting is being recorded there are two opportunities to address the members of the board the board values of welcom comments and op and opinions from residents as long as they remarks are not personal and discourteous public comment of this portion of the meeting allows the board to listen to community members and hear opinions on school policy and operations the first portion public portion is reserve for person's 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 is asked to limit their comments to 3 minutes you're not permitted to yield your time to another the public comments portion of this meeting during both sessions will not exceed 30 minutes upon being recognized person wishing to speak should stand and identify by name and address at this time can we all standle flag United States America at this time will take a moment of silence for private reflection at this time motion to approve am minutes of regular and executive sessions meetings May 1st 2024 and the special meeting of May 29th 2024 get a second second second by Nancy questions comments hearing none roll call Mrs Anor yes Mrs bar yes Dr Serena yes Mrs Jackson yes Dr L yes Mrs BR yes Mr Rogers yes and Dr Nelson yes at this time turn Dr Z for presentations thank you Dr Nelson our first presentation uh please can I call up Mr Kowski to the microphone and he is going to present the student with the Associated Press award thank you Mr good evening board members uh everybody I am thrilled to introduce you to or talk to you about two students one of which couldn't be here that singleand ly connected all three schools uh Henry Frank could not be here um but I do have Giovani archundia our chief news anchor um that started in the beginning of the year um in January I wrote to the Associated Press reporters about that for those who don't know the Associated Press is a globally recognized um news organization throughout the world um this is what I wrote about goo and I do apologize I'm going to try to get through this without you know tear up Gio exemplifies outstanding journalistic integrity and is among the kindest students I've ever had the privilege to teach he consistently extends his help to those in need and his Integrity has garnered him profound respect and Trust from his peers establishing him as a key member of our school Community I'm immensely proud of him and he truly deserves all of the recognition in the world on the last day of school I presented to him this award um and under uh the AP Style Guidelines both Gio and Hank now have uh Universal press credentials um and they're now recognized as reporters so I'm just so proud of them thank you so much congratulations to you thank you Mr K great job board memb my quick please can I direct your attention to the screen behind you uh where we will now be looking at the dav's music department recap for school year [Music] [Music] on our [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] hallelujah hallelujah [Music] Hallelujah hallelu [Music] to [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] a wonderful job they doing amazing performances here in the Hamilton Township School District thank you to the music department um at this time I would like to invite Michelle can it be up to the uh microphone who is going to be presenting on our district strategic plan good even good evening work members thank you for having me I'm going to take you through an overview of your final strategic plan um in about 48 hours you'll receive a e version you know I usually come in here with papers so this is um this is new for me as well but in about 48 hours you'll receive an e verion which will be all inclusive of attendees names um the outcomes from each of the three meetings but tonight I'm just going to do an overview for you um as of what the final plan looks like again this is your mission statement which all of you are familiar with um when we started the strategic planning process the mission statement was in the Forefront so this is what the plan was the VIS around the mission statement so this was kept in mind every time we met and as the discussions took place um to come out with the final version of the plan again the purpose of that strategic plan was to you know create a districtwide road map okay so this is your road mapap for the next 5 years and this road map is outlining the goals the priorities and it's basically setting the framework for your student achievement the meeting dates um seem like it was just yesterday but actually our meeting one was September 28th meeting two of 23 our meeting two was October 24th and then November 30th on average you had about 25 participants um that came out and that included board members Administration staff members parents students and some communi members so you had a nice mixture of um collaboration doing all during all three of these meetings so on the right side this is just the process of your strategic plan we focused on the present the future and the journey so for meeting one um that's where your superintendent provided a state of the district uh as well as the administrative team they talked about you know some good things that are going on in the district maybe some challenges and then also there was an exercise that took place that identified the strengths and challenges within your district meeting two was about the future where do we want to be in 3 to 5 years so this was more of a brainstorming session where the participants had an opportunity to look at a short video and then talk about what the district should or could look like in 5 years years from now and then they also had the opportunity to just pretend for one moment that the Hamilton Township School District won a prestigious award from the Department of Education and they had that opportunity to do a podcast to talk about what were the great things that they did to achieve this prestigious award so that was kind of a fun um Visionary exercise and then meeting three was the journey how did we get there so this is where they took the outcomes from meetings 1 and two and they came up with Goal areas okay and then they had to come up with objectives to support those goal areas and out of those meetings these were the three goal areas that came out of your strategic plan you had your culture climate Wellness Community engagement and then you had financing facilities and student learning experiences now these next slides these are focusing on the three goal areas so as you can see on these slides for the culture climate wellness and Community engagement goal that's your goal statement okay that was created from your strategic plan and then the objectives is what came out of that particular goal area okay so you all have the link to the full goal sheet which you can see a little bit more more in detail um about the timeline the action the responsibilities this same slide on culture climate just your objectives three and four this is your finance and Facilities it's the goal statement again your objectives and then there those are just some examples of the action steps which again you'll see in your full whole sheet additional objectives for the finance of facilities and this was your student learning experience and I do want to say that you had four students that participated in your um strategic plan so they were able to give some input which I thought was really cool um so actually those are the four students that popped in um I think they were coming from a game or something so they just uh participated uh into the planning session which was really cool and here at some more objectives for the student learning experiences again and I you know I I wanted to throw that picture in there because that just shows dedication right he's committed to making sure that all the technology needs or whatever is going to come out of your plan um come to fruition and that's your plan overview um just want to thank you for allowing you know New Jersey school board words myself um to take you through this process and if you were at the the meeting that's that same quote um that's a favorite quote of mine because it's it's truly indeed that you you have a small group of people um that come together but without a doubt they always um make things happen so you have a really solid plan you should commend your superintendent and the administrative team for um putting this together all right any questions no question okay so at a later date um you should approve your plan so it could be on your official board records so again thank you thanks Mr K I appreciate it we thank you for partnering with us as well thank you for school boards and Mrs keny I'm not going to say this but luckily you didn't have to present after Mr Williams wait till you see what goes on there so Mr Williams you know how this work so Mr Williams uh I'm not going to tell it you have two Pres ation I'm not going to call you up twice your first presentation will be on the um student stfy data and then the next one will be on Renaissance fundamentals our P test so we'll start with that that comes up good evening Board of Education everyone came out tonight thank you so much and to all the new hires out there congratulations uh I have the distinct honor of presenting to you our ssds which is our school safety data syst system that is a bunch of fancy stuff for saying we are obligated by the state to report our numbers on um hibs um any incidents leading to removal and so on and so forth that you're about to see right now so cck away so we have to report to the board this is done through the state of New Jersey and it has to be uh board certified there's programs that are conducted and trainings that happen throughout each of our schools in our district and I think the principal Administration team for making sure that takes place and that happens so thank you very much so when I first got here in 2021 2022 this was what I came into so one of the glaring numbers that sticks out at that time was our incidence leading to removal which is 639 I remember looking at this board going I don't know uh one of the goals at that time was to say how can we improve those numbers and get them down and then it led to the following year you can see those numbers did decrease throughout so we made great improvements and then we have uh the next year which is the school year just passed C to the next all right so those numbers have begun to drop down nearly by half um our HIV numbers still are consistent where they need to be of course we always want to see those numbers at zero um something new that we do have to report on from the state is restraints um a restraint is for the safety of the student and or the staff members to make sure there's no harm done to the students so that means uh the only people that can restrain a student and those who are CPI certified or have the correct to do so the state requires that we do report that number out um these are the numbers that we have right now Shaner school is our baby school our prek and kindergarten kids so we want that number to continue to stay as low as possible um then there's our head school which is our 1 through fifth grade and then our Williams Davy school which is our 6th through eth GR gr notes some of the things that come out of this and looking at this report is that we do have to again report online uh there are many activities that take place throughout the school year to make sure that these numbers stay as low as possible I'm going to give a big shout out to the high school because recently especially the last year they put together a mentoring program for our students that has been phenomenal that has had much success driving different things also a huge shout out to um the middle school as well bringing in guest speakers we had armor NFL players come in so did H and so did Sha but it was nice to see the kids interact also here at the middle school we had a social emotional learning day called challenge day this year it was a three-day event um where we nearly got to touch almost 300 kids lives within our building so that was really awesome to have where students can open up uh and express to trusted adults what's going um throughout our school year as well it's okay throughout our school year as well we have different training um for our staff every year our staff is trained on hivs um suicide awareness different things that involve the safety guards students now you can click to me yeah there's a good looking guy there so there's I'm going to give myself love so there's the first one no way all right so that's the ssds Sy MERS of the next one that I'm going to be reporting on uh it's formerly known as the past survey people's attitud to self in school but it's recently changed to Renaissance fundamentals um what this is it is a survey I you can speak for the next one we'll read it off there it's a survey that is taken by the students engaged climate and culture one of the one of our goals as you SE just presented here thank you for that is that we want to make sure that we have a positive common culture for our students and staff but this particularly focus our student demographics um what's cool about this is that it breaks everything down you can click to the next slide please why we do this is because it identifies areas of successful Improvement for us it evaluates our social emotional learning programs it helps the administration team decide what they're going to bring in for different activities different times of week with respect um it could be broken down by school gender ethnicity special education elll so these components are important to understand how our students are feeling about school and one of our school goals is making sure they are connect to a trusted adult whether that's a supervisor administrator a teacher or a custodian uh something new that took place with this survey is that this year we did it for 1 through 8th grade previously it was only for third through e8th but the component was given where uh first grade can and second grade can do this it is set in different languages for our students who speak different languages and the test can be read to them which is awesome and the results are instanly as given to me so that's schol and throughout the nation because our favorite year was Co there's a new Baseline for Co and how that affected students as well what you're going to see and these are just some of the things that has happened since we started using pass again has created a mentoring program through the administration team the BSI guidance and a bunch of teachers who like we want to see good happen so shout out to that um over at the Shaner school I know they're working hard on making sure the parents are connected and being involved in the school that's always important then here at the middle school we're working on different programs with our Council our school counselors and our administrative team meets with the students as well all right the numbers so this is just for um first and second grade of how I kind of broke it down so the number one thing I want to focus on is overall how students feel about themselves and about school so that's that first category that you see and overall we have a 92.5 effective percent here for first and second grade which is amazing to see so I not troubled by the number all I like what I see there and turn to the next slide this is how we rank kind of nationally um numbers can look a little bit different depending on what students identify with what culture so if there's a small percentage that's why you might see a difference in that yellow but the green is in the good that's how we compare to all the means of the schools who take this nationally and we are ranked pretty high as it comes to first second grade um so again looks good there that's um this is for 3rd through fifth grade uh so the numbers start to Trend right as kids get older school starts change their feel start change about school however it's still at a pretty high percentage we always want to see those numbers go up but overall in our main average was still very high the components and factors extend more the older you get so third through sixth grade you see there's other factors on there such as attitudes towards teachers and how they feel they're connecting to our teachers and then of course how they feel about school this is what our percentage is look like like overall overall we're right where we need to be we still want to be in that you know 30 percentile range where we want to get a little bit higher but for the most part these numbers are pretty on point to uh how we're how the students are feeling about school and how we're meeting with them and a lot of the times the students again are put into a mentoring program if we're catching those students who are in the rep these are just some of their results and this is the middle school I believe this is their percent how you feel Middle School's a tough age you can imagine so the feelings about school and how they feel tend to differentiate in the very beginning of this I don't have the results from when we first took it those numbers are really high but then as school kind of goes on you know things change I also will tell you that the results might be a little different because this was taken right after njsla not so much fun so it's like here's a test and now how do you feel about school how do you think I feel about School Mr rans but overall it's not as bad as where it needs to be we are identifying the students that we need to identify those students that are in red particularly our eighth grade students um we did do a lot of focus groups of eighth grade students and preparing them for the next level so we don't have a high school here we go off to the greater egg district and that a caret distri that is where students get a little bit more be about school and their feelings and again this is now taking place in the spring a lot of students did admit to me Mr Williams I didn't really care for it because I'm about to leave this place great thank you for that so there is honesty and transparency when it comes to that but um here at the eth here at the middle school they did do a lot of eighth grade high school preparation for our students which is awesome to see uh We've really connected with our high school um there's a lot of school spirit going around every Thursday they were purple here for whatever reason there's a kindness club that was brought here we just saw Mr K present to two awesome students meet them and the media for sure uh there's a proposed mental program that um we'll be working with o cres with eventually I'm excited about that um school counselors got into the classrooms and for the first time there was a sixth grade ladies tea that celebrated our sixth graders and the ladies who may have had some different struggles within transition from 5th to 6 future goals we want to continue to identify students in needs students who need that attention need that extra love and Foster those relationships we want to continue to bring in ex MPD then also Foster Community involvement and for the last couple weeks I've been out of school because I've been spending time with my baby so I just want to give some love to my little Rosie day she's my second child and it has been awesome she brightens up my day so after you got all the boring stuff there's something good yeah any questions awesome thank you for your time thank you thanks Mr Williams superintend report all right I'm going to go with the superintendent report as we wrap up the school year and look forward to summer break I want to thank our dedicated staff summer who are right here with us let's give them a round of applause and family for the unwavering supporting commitment this past year has been filled with Incredible achievements and Milestones our students have shown remarkable resilience and adaptability and our staff has worked tirelessly to provide a nurturing and stimulating learning environment I'm proud to be part of the progress we've made together as we move into the summer I encourage everyone to rest rejuvenate spend quality time with loved ones while it's important tojoy the break it's also consider the value of continuous learning summer reading programs and enrichment activities are a wonderful opportunity to engage our minds while we are already planning for an exciting and productive new school year our team is working on several initiatives to enhance our educational programs and ensure that we continue to meet the needs of all of our students thank you once again for your continued support have a safe enjoyable and enriching summer for your review please see the registration transfer statistics for the month the enrollment for the month the discipline reports and the HIV reports and the following our dates to remember Thursday July 4th school's closed for the holiday Monday July 22nd uh is the virtual PTA meeting uh there is a link on the agenda for the if you want to send virtually Tuesday August 6 is National Night Out at Gaskill Park 6:00 to 9:00 Wednesday August 14th is uh prechool PTA preschool new student Q&A at the D's IC at 5:15 Wednesday August 28th it will be our next board meeting at 5:15 right here and the D's cafeteria for executive session 545 for the regular session this concludes my superintendance report thank you thank you Dr Z at this time we receive comments from the public and tonight's agenda items in accordance with the board policy and participation of the board meeting each speaker is limited to Comm as 3 minutes and you are not permitted to yield your time to another no comments at this time uh board members May comment on any item pertaining to Hamilton Township School District Dr tro so I I just want to thank the teachers for the amazing job that they do throughout the year I've had opportunities to attend different things um and at the end of the year I can I can only imagine what the kids are like because it's like I want to get out I want to get out it's the end of the school year and I had an opportunity to actually go to um he did a a trip to Anna Le's ice cream shop and they kind of walked up I went with um with the Sher who was it Ma yeah this is maab boy's class thanks bear um and and it was amazing to see how well behaved they were how much they enjoyed it and it gave them an opportunity to get out of the school I I just want to thank the teachers because I think they work hard during the year and it's it's a lot of hard work and not everyone sees it so um thank you and the second thing I want to say is um amazing job on the 8ighth grade graduation I I was there and although I was like drawing a sweat on the stage um I just want to say it was so well put together um you know Dr Holstrom you know had a few tears and it was it was real touching to see everyone um graduate so well done and uh it was it was a real honor to be there so thank you June was full of lots of great so congratulations to our graduates of course um graduation was wonderful although very hot there were also some other amazing events leading up to that week um there were fifth grade awards at hes which were incredible and JHS here at Davies and then the first year that they did um Dragon Awards where teachers found needed students I think it's has happened before but the first year it's back and just thank you to the staff and whole team that put that together because there was not a dry eye in this room and it was full of just teachers and students who just love each other and it could be felt throughout the whole building it was really um an incredible incredible evening and then of course summer camp kicked off this week lots of great I'm hearing lots of great things about that so thank you to the whole team that's organizing all that so many great opportunities for our kids and then of course thank you to the staff I know some of you are back this week but um just cuz you want to be I'm sure so thank you for a great year we' I know there's a lot always going on every day but um we definitely appreciate you and it's so nice to see so many faces here we always love when stff comes out to me so thanks for coming out thank you um my turn I want to say thank you very much to teacher staff and custodians uh for doing a great job on um everything that came up to the end of the year uh I know I'm repeating what nany said but and Cheryl said about a lot of the behind the scenes things that are being done aren't uh aren't recognized but um I'll let you know that the board does recognize you guys and we do appreciate everything you guys do and it is nice to see you guys here uh after seeing the announcement of the the dragon that worked the TDN I went online and looked at one of them and then I found myself Bening all I think it was eight episodes I think it was eight I was hunting around for episode number one cuz it wasn't quite labeled the same way but I found it and um and if you guys don't have a chance to look at those they are put together very well awesome Graphics um transitions a lot of will be roll stuff definitely professional um I've even suggested to some of the committee members that maybe come out to you guys and see if you guys can do commercials for them as we're turning into the uh the political campaign nothing better than getting our own students involved with it um and now they'll potentially have some professional ACC rates um I you guys need him you already have the credentials now so and I want to I don't know where the young guy went but uh I did get a kick out of him and very great personality and it shows through on the uh on the on the anchor desk um so thank you Mr P was great great work um I also want to congratulate the district on doing the hard work it took us a year but we only got um our own school buses um we were able to debut them on um the graduation in at The Cove um and we have our own actually coming those were releases um but all the hard work's out of the way and it is a step towards the direction of where we can um write our own destiny when it comes down to uh taking care of our kids and uh getting to school on time and safely uh graduation again was awesome so thank you very much and um I did enjoy the dragon Awards it was first time I've seen it so um it was very very neat to see the teachers and uh you're right every teacher was crying so that uh was very very neat to see not the teacher crying but the the the students and the teachers so I want to say thank you for all you guys do that's all I have um Personnel committee so the personal policy committee we met on June 19th at 5 PM virtually uh we went through a bunch of topics some recommendation forms we talked about substitute rates um lead resource attendance officer the athletic coordinator s in uh vice principal here at the baby school and then our teachers for our extended school year and our summer camp we also um got some other updates as far as the staff going into the summer and preparing for next year so our next meeting will be on Tuesday August 20th I would like to move 9.2 through 9:30 5 9.35 asist motion is there a second second by Dr questions comments roll call please Mr Z yes Mrs bar yes Dr Sereno yes Mrs Jackson yes Dr abstain from 9.29 and 9.30 and yes to the rest Mrs brto obain from 9.29 and 9.30 gu to the rest Mr Rogers yes and Dr Nel yes at this time so all my newbies that are here I I think we have a an announcer that would come up was it Dr homest and Mr diorio this time thank you for announcing them sure so um I get the pleasure and honor of introducing all our new staff welcome to Hon Township we have Elena jine mesali ER Erica [Music] Jacobson ethen McCarthy and her family bavia Shannon Mo and I have the honor and privilege of introducing to you new F activist to Middle [Applause] School hello everybody um so I was trying to think of something to show my passion and my commitment to this area so I thought I would start from birth and make that nice and short for everybody so students Shaner School H School D School oakrest High School Stockton University substitute par professional lifeguard for family night or aquaerobics which was probably my favorite job I've ever had and lap night substitute parir professional substitute teacher maternity leave for fifth grade second grade paternity leave for fifth grade first grade teacher eighth grade ELA teacher volleyball coach soccer coach e great advisor summer maintenance worker and many many many more so I hope that shows my preparation and dedication to this fabulous Community this is where I've always been my entire life and it's where I wanted to be so I thank you conratulations good job all right Dr Hol from if you and Mrs Brian w m could you please take the new teachers out so we can get pictures for the newsletter I want to thank all the families that came out to support the new staff I hope you can see by the Board of Education we love meeting our new staff we love having the involvement thank you so much for being involved and coming to the board meeting we appreciate you can we give that a nice round of applause from now thank you congratulations to all the new hirs uh finance and operations Dr Leon um at this time I'd like to ask for a motion for 10226 motion questions comments hear none roll call please Mrs yes Mrs bar yes M Sero yes Mr Jackson yes Dr L abstained from 10.8 yes Mrs pain from 10.8 yes to the rest Mr R yes and Dr yes thank Dr curriulum Miss far all right the curriculum committee met again on June 18th at 4M virtually we talked um about our new Ela curriculum and the status of that Miss Bryant went through our map growth scores from the fall compared to the spring and then we looked at a job description for coach for babies that was budgeted um we have the description for that with that being said I would like to motion 11 .2 through 11.8 as listed okay sorry I didn't hear I have a motion in a second questions comments you're none roll call please Mrs AG yes Mrs B yes Dr Serena yes Mr Jackson yes Dr yes mrso yes Mr Rogers yes and Dr yes thank you m any old business you're none new business public comments receive comments from the public in accordance with board policy and participation at a board meeting please state your name at address and a record all comments me to be respectful respectfully presented seen comments will not be tolerated public comment is limited to 3 minutes per person board hello board my name is Raina shumski I live at 540 sunpine drive and Maze Landing I'm here here tonight because I came and reference to the change for the Shaner School Board I'm sorry the Sher school was being changed I was corrected today until it's a 50-minute change I asked about when this was voted on I was told that a parent survey was sent out I asked how many parents were surveyed I wasn't given a clear number um I made a Facebook post today I never usually make a Facebook post I made that post because I wanted other parents to be able to come here tonight to speak about concerns for the kids having to go 50 minutes earlier next year meaning right now school was starting at 9:05 so back that up for them to be there 50 minutes earlier meaning they would need to get on the bus that much earlier meaning they're going to need to wake up that much earlier and for Shaner that's kids ranging from Age 3 to 5 five um after I did my post Dr zto gave my husband a phone call um then he gave me a phone call um and told me that this was voted on last board meeting I thought it was supposed to be voted on tonight when I had put it on my calendar um was upset to hear it was approved um I wanted to come here tonight and voice my concerns about this and I think if it was supposed to be on the agenda for tonight but voted on last month how does that happen so it was on the agenda for last month um when we did the routes we had to move with 5 minutes so this is just the approval to move it the five minutes difference move it's going to be 5 minutes later than it was in May because the bus drops are completed I see okay so it was only on the agenda for last month yeah okay so then that wouldn't cool that's a good thing because I 5 minute changes after tonight 5 minute changes for tonight won't do much okay cuz I was worried that it was going to be the Sunshine Law like how did they have a change happening when it's supposed to be on the agenda for tonight but if it was on theend for last month and I'm sad say I was here for Miss wolf retiring didn't stay for the whole meeting thank you hi I'm a man of forun this is W I'm trying to tell I just wanted to thank you I'm the Lead Teacher with Ian Brown for the summer program and I just want to tell you what a great first few days we've had and I thank you guys for all of your support and help making us you know so successful we have some trips planned and some exciting things and we're just really having a great time and we hope to see you all come over to hes and check it out but it's really been awesome so far so we thank you for all your support thanks Mrs Fortune you're doing a great job fper is here she wanted me to say she's doing an excellent job and Miss supports I'm hoping that the board can get invited for awards day of course thank you thank you other comments okay no executive session additional executive session can I get a motion to adjourn second second second all in favor thank you I what