education today Monday April 29 2024 [Music] to the home news and atast 4 [Music] hours Dr batty here miss Cal dun here Dr Coleman Dr Pixley here miss pruce here Dr schoolman miss stano here Miss ban here Miss B we will now recess to Executive session be it resolved pursuant to Sun to the sunshine Act njsa 10 colon 4-12 and 13 the Highland Park Board of Education will now meet in Clos session to conduct one parent Hib hearing and to discuss matters related to Personnel Hib and student discipline these exemptions are permitted to be discussed in Clos session in accordance with the njsa 10 col 4-13 information regarding the board's closed session discussion will be disclosed to the public as soon as the need for confidentiality no longer exists I move that we recess to Executive session second all in favor I e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we have five yeah we have five I move that we reconvene to regular session second roll call Dr B here here dran Dr Pixley Miss Bruce here Dr [Music] Swan Miss Danel here miss bman here miss mores or stand for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we had a few Communications this month um a few on the ble School survey and start times report cards surveys performance reports and after school um we're going to be moving the approval of minutes for the hybrid Workshop meeting and executive session on March 11th the hybrid preliminary budget Workshop I'm sorry budget presentation and voting meeting and executive session on March 18th and the hybrid Workshop meeting and ex session April 8th I move to approve those minutes second yes yes dran yes Dr Bley yes Miss pce yes Dr Swan yes Miss Danel yes Miss Maran yes M you don't have students Becca okay we do not have our super uh our student Representatives today because they are in Anaheim with Deca so good luck to them um we're going to move on to our superintendent report he good evening everyone we have I have a packed uh report tonight so first I want to start by introducing or welcoming to the podium Miss Caitlyn Brady the Middle School principal who is going to be spotlighting for very well-deserving students Miss Brady good evening uh my name is Caitlyn Brady and I'm the Middle School principal um we have the the honor of doing this twice a year um and every time I'm asked for a student name I reach out to all the teachers and I reach out to my school counselor and I ask for feedback and this time I thought I don't need to reach out to anybody I know exactly who I want to nominate for this um but I didn't know if I was out and the reason is is because I had four spectacular students that I was so excited to bring here um so I emailed and I said am I allowed to bring more than one person yeah I don't know if that's that's allowed and they said of course it's allowed so I am very honored tonight uh to be speaking about these four students um I'll I'll speak L on behalf of my myself um so I'll share what their teachers have shared about them um but the reason that I brought them here was because they are my student announ answers every day so I'll speak about that in a second so Angela I want to read a little bit about what your teacher said and I will share this with all of you because you deserve to see this so miss Bonia Angela is in eighth grade and Miss ponia said Angela is friendly and focused in the classroom she thoroughly retains new vocabulary and incorporates writing enhancements excuse me into her Ela assignments she leaves my first period class every morning to make the announcements and still keeps up with the rhythm of the class Miss gianetti said Angela is is a curious engaged and responsible learner she is respect uh respectful to all and is a dedicated swimmer outside of school she participates in many school activities as well Mr O'Hara says Angela is a pleasure to have in class she always shows up on time and prepared and sets a great example for her peers both inside and outside of the classroom she shows respect toward her classmates and is always willing to help those in need Miss fringo said Angela is a kind and conscien conscientious student excuse me she has a strong work ethic and she's always willing to help her peers Angela does a great job balancing her academic responsibilities with her extracurriculars as she is involved in students in action student Congress and is a competitive swimmer Miss Anan says Angela is a motivated and hardworking young lady she works well with her peers and is always respectful toward the students as well as her teachers she participates in many school activities including science ball and Mr is self-driven and ambitious she also works well as a problem solver when collaborating with other students she represents her school in several extracurricular activities and is also an avid swimmer who strives to do her best always so I want to First say congratulations to Angela Chow as our first uh student spotlight okay second we have Miss Alysa recto so Alyssa Miss Stern said this is uh Mr uh Mr is Alyssa's Mandarin teacher she said Alyssa is an ideal student she has a strong desire to learn and grow Alyssa takes on herself to advance her Chinese learning by using online resources to study additional material she consistently shows respect for both her peers and teachers with positive and kind attitude Alyssa is a pleasure to have in my class she is an inspiration to her classmates mix bre said Alyssa always leads by example she is a wonderful musician who does not brag or boast about her talents she consistently helps her peers when they have questions and is Dependable as her director I am excited to see her grow as a musician and I look forward to her learning and mastering more instruments Miss Mar said Alysa fulfills the three qualities I always work for kind respectful and hardworking I enjoy her cheeky sense of humor as well and Mr Carter said Alyssa tends to be quiet in class but she sets a positive example for her peers with her actions she's always actively engaged in learning and works well with her peers she is polite respectful and motivated to do well so a second congratulations to Alysa recto and I have the pleasure of having uh siblings uh saama and nahal and I'll speak about them independently but I uh get a big kick out of you guys every day because it's like this this uh you know sibling rivalry banter that that goes on and it's like is everything okay no I don't know yeah we're going to circle back it all works out and I I find it to be wonderfully um just like it it brightens my day so congratulations to you both so Nal Mr Carter said Nal is responsible hardworking student he leaves class each morning to do announcements and always smoothly transitions into whatever we are doing when he returns he is a positive contributor in discussions every day and he always gives his best effort Miss janetti said Nal is friendly thoughtful and very hardworking he treats everyone with the utmost respect and always strives to do his best he asks insightful questions and puts anything he learns to immediate use he is a great role model for his peers and Miss Mar said noal f fulfills again the three qualities I always work for kind respectful and hardworking he's the best all of his peers and teachers love him so congratulations to you Nal come on and the last student tonight is samama Miss Bonia said s Samia is a consci conscientious student excuse me with understated confidence she contributes to classroom discussions and works diligently to ensure her writing responses are comprehensive she leaves my first period class every morning to make the announcements but is still able to return to class and participate at a high level Miss janetti said Samia is a remarkably kind and engaged learner who is eager to Excel and happy to help everyone in our school Community she is remarkably mature and handles all of her responsibilities with Grace and a positive attitude Miss bringo said Samia is a valuable member of the hpms community she is an excellent student and a dedicated member of students in action student Congress and the Asian cultural Club Miss Anan said Sami is responsible respectful and a friendly young lady who is highly engaged in class she is ready to learn and apply herself in every situation she participates in other activities as well and Mr mccab said Saia is truly one of the most School spirited students I agree without students like her volunteering their time and energy fellow students would not be able to enjoy many of the additional activities that we have offered her involvement in everything from Snack Shack to pep rallies allows her and the rest of the students to have a truly Rich experience she is also an exemplary student in class who is friendly helpful and a terrific worker when she was part of a group so congratulations Samia so I just want to say a couple things um about these students um I I say this often and I apologize if you've heard this before but um in Co when when we I mean there weren't many of us in here but students would come in and we would stand by the door and greet them and it was very clear that um not everybody said hi back and after Co I started to realize that more and more like you know kids are coming in they were listening to their music they're doing their thing but some kids go out of their way to say hi and what you guys don't realize is the impact that your actions have on me I know I'm supposed to be in charge but I count on you I counted on those kids to say hi to me so that I could make it through those difficult days what do I say to you guys every single day I well I just say good morning all right that's a but they come in they come in we have a whole routine I say the Pledge I turn it over to the guys they do their their thing we practice we read it off um and then we we end because every day it's an A through G days we have uh like it's a we're glor goers today or were're you know uh I can't even think you know amazingly uh autonomous whatever we are um and at the end when the mic is off and it's just us I always turn to these guys I'm like I love you guys I said and you make my day every single day this is the best part of my day every day you guys don't know what happens when you guys sne sometimes sometimes it's fine excuse me but sometimes like you really and truly are the the Shining Moment of my day and so I cannot thank you enough for being consistent for showing up every day even when I've had to be AB absent you guys are like yeah we got this you don't even need me frankly you know and I rely on you as much as maybe you relying me right we have this Mutual symbiotic relationship and I just hope that you know what impact you have on not only you know your peers but on the adults in this building I value you tremendously I am so hon HED to speak about you tonight and like I say every day I love you guys so and I'll see you tomorrow he how about another round of applause for a well-deserving middle school student and I personally want to thank them I had a birthday shout out from for a song that I put in the little Friday song bucket so I was very excited that I got a special shout out and a call for my my birthday so thank you for that um you're all more than welcome to stay for the duration of our of my report in the meeting but I understand if that if you have to get up and leave feel free I'd like to now turn over the microphone to miss Kesha stefen and the robotics team from the high school and I'm and I'm so excited because I brought a robot and I said and I'm so excited because you brought a robot all right here you go that's for you hi guys so we are the Highland Park High School robotics competitive team and here's Jeremiah he has our portfolio he'll share with you what we do when we go to competition so when we go to competition we have to present our portfolio to the judges so that they could um have an idea of who we are so our team number is 12417 and we are our club is not just a competitive team so we meet every other Tuesday in the high school we have over 20 plus members in our our team on our in our club but for our team we only have 15 members on our team and not all 15 members are here tonight we also have our parent volunteer with us um Miss Musa and I cannot go to competition without a second adult so thank you thank you thank you the parents rotate through to go to competition with us our team has been effect since 2016 16 but our club has been in for over a decade and this year is really special and I'll have the team explain to you why first we have our president here with us tonight miss taji um venant we also have our head of code with us tonight Sophia step Stephen and we have our Treasurer Jeremiah who's here with us tonight what do we do hi I'm Arian um our robotics team competes in First Tech challenges we build design and 3D print robots as well as doing outreaches to Irving and ble where we go and teach children how to build and code we also uh hold host of fundraisers and try to like get sponsors to raise money for building robots as well as teaching coding and Engineering to other students students in our club next printed some owls here for like school spirit than so generally we participate in a competition called FTC where they change the game every year and this is we have to change and evolve our robot to go along with this game every year so as an example this year the main goal was to pick up a pixel and place it on a backdrop so different orientations of pixels that we sense through cameras and coding gain more points as well as shooting a drone and hanging as suspending the robot in the air next slide so this is our robot py Ag and there's a picture of it up yeah and you can see it here too uh next slide please um so our uh team is mostly structured in build and code and we mostly divide our team that way for build we design and build a robot each year this year we caded and designed this robot for four iterations and this is our fourth iteration which was in time for States and for code we programed the robot for both autonomous and Driver controlled periods and this year we gained a lot of new knowledge with sensors and cameras and learned a lot of new things with code next slide please so this year we won the second place motivate award at regionals and we got selected to be part of the winning Alliance and we were able to advance the states next slide please um so we host um so we do outreaches in Irving and B where we teach kids um stem principles with using um fun activities and we also partner with FTC to host scrimmages with other teams next side so this year we spent $2,000 just including registration for FTC different parts we need to build the robot and registration for meets that we participate in next slide so the competition's over but robotics isn't because we do a bunch of spring projects and it's a bunch of ideas that people in the club come up with um the one in red is we call it moving music but we're basically trying to build a thein which is an instrument that you play without actually touching and that'll help us learn more more about C++ uh programming language and sensors and then in blue there's the clever keeper which is going to be an autonomous goalkeeper right now we just have the goal but but that's the goal we'll make we'll make a full goalkeeper soon and it's going to be super fun next slide so thank you and we'd like to thank Miss Stefan for everything she does you like there's just a lot that she does um from putting in her time um to getting stuff done for us and all the parents like um Miss Musa here um and also Mr Lasser for letting us host these events at our school so yeah thanks oh and we have um a ble steam night coming up and we're going to be helping out there you should all come and if you have kids in ble well then they should come too because it's going to be fun thank you oh Paparazzi guys with [Music] pagas are are you able to see him all right thank you Miss Stefan to the robotics team if you've ever been to any of the competitions they're very intense long days but very very intense and and super fun to watch all right like I said Thank you you're more than welcome to stay for the duration of uh we have two more presentations uh year in review for the school start and end times and then the budget presentation for our budget hearing so when Mr odato is ready okay all right onward okay I can a mobile now I'm so excited okay so tonight of my presentations I'm going to start with uh the school start times year in review so like any initiative we have we do a lot of monitoring so part of our monitoring obviously is data collection both quantitative and qualitative data we look across that data um and then from there sort of look at you know what findings do we have and how do we use it to inform um implementation some strength some challenges um and areas for improvement so for this particular there we go there we go let's go back all right so for this particular initiative we look to provide insightful overview of adjusting the start and end times um our our metrics that we used were a community feedback form we looked at attendant and tardy data and then really specifically for some qualitative data the supports that were providing for students and families and then we looked again to identify the strengths the challenges and any areas that we can have for improvement so for Community feedback we initiated a questionnaire via Genesis and we did that as part of the distribution of report cards to try to ensure as much participation as possible typically our questionnaires and forms get very low response rate so um we withheld report cards until family caregivers went in there to uh complete the survey and so we tried to capture as many of the 1593 students as possible so that was our total count when we looked across there were several times where we pulled the ones that were not completed and we made personal phone calls and emails home to those families in their native language to try to encourage particip ation so we did a lot of Outreach to try to get more and even in meetings as we had this conversation you could see the surveys were were being completed we also gave it a little bit of an extension ble report cards weren't administered until the day before spring break so we gave a little bit of extra time and some extra uh push for our ble parents and caregivers to complete the uh questionnaire as well an additional Google form was used to capture qualitative comments uh that was distributed twice in my weekly emails um since the initial Google uh the just Genesis questionnaire was limited of the responses um there were 1387 student responses which is an 87% response rate so I'm very very pleased although I was striving for 100% I think 87% is a remarkable turnout for a response rate so the data that you're going to see is all for 1387 students so we left all the raw data in there so that could account for if um a caregiver has students multiple students across multiple schools we wanted to make sure we captured all of that data um so of that 206 students did not have a caregiver log into Genesis uh which we had discussed and said that was an issue we'd like to address that means we have some concerns about some caregivers not going in and checking report card so we wanted to make sure that um we addressed that data so you can see of the um total uh completed responses of the 206 I did want to note I did parse it out a little bit so of the 206 students that we did not capture you can see that uh a little over 120 of them a little over rather a hundred of them came from Bartle the next group was the um middle school and then the high school I believe uh high school then Middle School uh then Irving and then one out of District parents so we do I'm going to save question question to the end and comments to the end so uh from the district questionnaire so what I did was we looked at the data collectively across the district and then pars It Out by um by each school so across the district I just have to get closer because my eyes are shot here um so across the district when we looked at the data districtwide the majority of the responses came in that there's been no impact on the change and start times to my children or family the next uh group that hit the highest level responses the change benefited my child children and family um and then sort of um hitting below just about the 200 or survey um but didn't answer the prompt so we did see that some of the data was that the students some parents or caregivers didn't respond to some questions so that's what you see in the uh group right here is that they completed the survey but didn't answer that particular prompt uh because there was other there were two other questions it was a open-ended question and then a question about calendar um and religious holidays and then my children and family are still working on acclimating about the same as the change did uh has not benefited uh my child or family so that was overall by the district then by school for Irving so Irving predominantly the majority of responses from caregivers came in there has been no impact on my child or family so you can see that pretty significantly uh next is the child benef the the change benefit in my child uh children or family and then my child and and family are still acclimating the next uh is the CH the change has not has not benefited my child or family and then lastly a small group that didn't answer the question The Prompt at all for Bartle responses the majority of responses coming from Bartle was that there was no impact on my child and family the next um response rate for Bartle was that they completed the survey but did not answer that question then the change has not benefited my family and then we have my child and family are still acclimating about the same as it benefited at the middle school predominantly you can see that the change has no impact on their family uh the next significant response rate for Middle School is the change benefited my child or family then we have um much lower response rate for completed the survey but did not answer that particular prompt then my child or family were still acclimating and then lastly the smallest group the child um the change has not benefited um my child or family at the high school the high school M majority of the responses there we go uh says the change benefited my child or family so you can see predominantly at the high school we got the major uh good chunk that says the change benefited um and then next obviously is there's been no impact and then we have uh just below 50 responses the change um they're still acclimating or the change has not benefited pretty much about the same as they completed the uh survey but not that prompt next uh we looked at some of the attendance and tardy data so what we looked at was uh just a reminder in terms of the information a student is considered chronically absent if he she or they are not present for 10% or more of the days enrolled during a school year so when you look at the data on chronic absenteeism it's important to note that we go by the state's definition of what chronic absenteeism is and that means that you are not present for 10% or more of the school um for this the days that you are in session what they call cumulative days in membership and then also I wanted it's important to note when we look at the Irving data to parse it out particular ularly because Irving includes preschool and first grade however first grade is the only required grade level kindergarten and preschool are not required grade levels so we're not required to report chronic absenteeism for those grades so in terms of so but all the data here is Irving alog together so for Irving you can see that we have um from this time from September to March between last year and this year we went from 119 students to that were were chronically absent to 95 so we went from a 39% to 30% in terms of the tar data for Irving you can see collectively um you know some months so you have um some months uh where we have uh to the current year is on the top last year is on the bottom so you can see some months where we have an uptick in the number of tardies and in some months where we have a slight decrease in tardies for ble for chronic absenteeism from September uh to March of last year we had 90 students that were chronically absent at 21% and this year we have 90 students uh that are chronically absent so about sitting at the same for Bartles chronic absenteeism and for tardy data to comparison again same thing at ble you can see some months uh we have um a slight uptick um some months a little bit more than others for our tardy data from last year to this year for Middle School chronic absenteeism from last year we had 86 students chronically absent at 21.5% to this year we have 78 students at 22.2% for chronic absenteeism for Middle School data again for tardies you can see that um again similar where some months we have a slight decrease um and some months a slight increase I think Middle School overall they're down they're actually doing better with tardies and I actually want to highlight for example March last year just because it's pretty significant last year for March for Middle School we had 1,098 tardies at 13.7% and this year in March 406 taries so something like that is a pretty significant uh differential so we're happy to see those those kinds of data for chronic for the high school chronic absenteeism last year we had 102 students that were chronically absent at 20.8% and this year we're at 81 students at 15.8% and then for our tardy data for our high school students because you're never tardy right right we're not tardy we're not tardy um you can see again some uh some variation we have some months where we have uh like September we were pretty good with our tardy October as well November doing well so we have I don't know what happened in January we had a little tick from last year um but overall I think in March two a little bit of an uptick so again maybe some weather issues that come around during those months I don't know if we're a little sleepier not as much pep in our step uh when we're getting to getting to school I see some some non varable feedback coming from our middle school students here uh high school students so um that that varies as well as what we're seeing in the tardy data at the high school in terms of some of the qualitative what we did was we looked across what the assistant principles and principles are doing at the building level to really parse out the supports that we're providing because that's really important to us so each of our assistant principal keeps accurate records of con when they contact caregivers to look at some of the reasons for the tardiness in particular and chronic absenteeism but in particular tardy data uh because it looks like in general our chronic absenteeism is getting better which is awesome and just for reference for our middle school and Bartle those are two targeted areas by the state so we want to make sure we're we're doing some targeted work to help with with those data points um specifically in terms of tardy we looked at uh some of the supports that surround communication and collaboration so when I looked across a lot of the reports that I was getting from all the buildings what I saw was an increase in communication and an approach to different strategies for families that are unaware of the change in school time so what I looked was for a lot of patterns so we do have some students that have medical needs um and some other specific maybe mental health challenges with school anxiety and things like that and trouble getting to school on time but overall what I saw a lot collectively was some issues with communication that maybe families weren't aware of the change in times um so that sort of communication was really important so one of the things we did was Provide support um from our ESL teachers and other school resources for communication making sure that our not only are we continuing to set our Communications out in multiple languages but contacting those families to let them know how they can look at our information in their home language as well or their native language so they can do that with Genesis on our website so everything is accessible and we wanted to make sure that we were hitting uh our caregivers with with a lot of that information to let them know on how to access the resources um like I said Communication in different languages and a lot of one-on-one support um to really personalize conversation so what I saw in the the reference sheets was a lot of phone calls home whether it was from an administrator an ESL teacher one of our translators a lot of one-on-one communication to encourage students to come to school and what I saw a lot was that you know oh I didn't know start times changed or thank you for letting us know here's why here's how we're struggling and then that led to uh a more collaborative approach for person personalized support So for collaboration we looked I looked across for what the staff was doing and they're working with families to get resources to overcome barriers to punctuality such as Transportation issues or complex family schedules is what I saw a lot in the data um so for example um there were reports of our families which is unfortunate struggling to get winter coats shoes rain gear when the weather is um not conducive to walking to school because they're not in a hazardous route so we don't provide courtesy Transportation getting to school so I am incredibly proud of of my administrative team and they went above and beyond and dropped off bags and bags of clothes of um rain gear boots umbrellas jackets winter coats to our families in need to try to encourage them if if you aren't able to get here for this reason we'd like to help and support you and here's what we can do so those are just some examples of how we really tried to listen to the needs of our families and try to get them the resources that they need to be able to come um come to school um we've been providing positive reinforcements we also have our uh School psychologists on staff that have been providing support for a lot more complex issues so I'm not going to get into the Weeds on that um especially when we're talking about student data and confidential student data but there definitely are some a lot of complex issues with our student students especially with school anxiety so I want to thank the board for supporting the work that we're doing especially with um our teen center and tween Center to get uh the students the support that they need so overall my findings from all of that data uh in work in conjunction with the central leadership team um overall across the district the majority of caregivers reported that the change in school times has no impact and a positive impact as anticipated opinions regarding the impact on the change in school times varies amongst individuals seeing improvements in Chron we are seeing improvements in chronic absenteeism and punctuality at Irving Middle and High School and um again what I'm said before to reiterate is school administrators are providing very personalized uh support So in terms of my decision the decision is to keep the school start times the way they are we'll continue to evaluate re-evaluate our initiatives just like we do every other initiative that we that we run uh here at the school so we're going to continue with our current School times for next year uh what we'd like to do obviously besides continuing mon monit monitoring our data and information is to dive deeper into bartel's tardy data so that's one of the things that we're going to look at with the administrators at Bartle is to really dive deep in that data and look at it and say what can we do now we're excited because we're closing that Gap with our absenteeism so what we're finding is more students are coming to school we're just finding that they're a little bit tardy so we're excited that they're coming to school so step in the right direction uh for our families for ble students and across the district now what we want to do is now that you know they're coming to school finding out why they're coming late and again digging deeper into that data to analyze it more specifically um and go from there um so that is the end of my presentation but I did want to add a piece that I understand that looking at the data specifically we're trying to show obviously to me the the kicker is the feedback data right that feedback data coming from Genesis has been really important and looking across because again it's working for some families we understand it it might not be working yet for other families we are still continuing to work to provide supports so sometimes when decisions are made they not everybody is happy with the decision but overall it looks like we're in relatively good shape and we can provide more continuing support we did look at tardy and chronic absentee data it's important to look at that but I would caution using that for causation right so to kind of reframe everybody for those that that aren't familiar there's a difference between correlation and causation right we can look to say these things are correlated but to the extent in which they're causing there's there's causal impact our students is the star time the direct cause of the tardiness that I don't have an answer for if that is something that would like to explore further I would recommend to the board that they reconsider some of the options in the budget for next year maybe pull something out of the budget and potentially put in the hiring of a statistician someone that can really look for statistical significance in that data to really get at why that tardy data is happening is the tardy data increasing because of start times directly is there statistical significance or are there other factors and I know the research does also indicate that if we by providing uh if you don't provide courtesy transportation that students that are absent and or tarity does increase among school districts so there are a lot of other reasons why that could happen so I just want to caution everybody to looking at the data for um look for causation not necessarily uh correlation so what I'll do is I'll open up to the board for questions or comments and then we will have the budget presentation and then my understanding is we are going to have we have to have a budget a public hearing for uh public comment for the public for the budget and then we'll have we'll move up our last public comment to after if anybody wants a comment and then we have to go through board committee reports did I get it all okay that was L all right all right so I'll open up the floor for the board thank you um thank you very much uh Dr s for the presentation I was a part of the uh most recent meeting with the central leadership team and I would just like to extend my thank you to the um time and uh investment that all of the team members uh members made in gathering this data and discussing it is there any um are there any board questions or comments of about reason lat make so there's that so when you think about tting really analy I believe should segment that in some way you want to make sure look at that data so this it but are there certain families that may feel disor affected by this right now don'ts Ethan um please talk micone Sor yes thanks Dr ssar for that presentation um few comments uh one there's an early slide when you talk about the sample size uh one of the bullet points up top you said number of students responding 13 87 I think I I think what what was meant was the number of caregivers responding for students it was this okay just making sure um yeah two two comments on the on on the uh one is that um you know there was a separate a separate response for not acclimating and then a response for not benefiting I think that's essentially the same person it's it's someone saying because you know not acclimating not acclimating yet is a nice way of saying it's not working for me um so you put those two bars together it's it's more substantial if you break them apart it seems like there's too low things I I think visually it's not representing that there is a substantial minority but a substantial minority of people who for whom which really is is n working and it's especially you know important to understand if that includes uh that's if that is disproportionately concentrated among certain populations so I think we have some more work to do there um the other comment I wanted to make is absolutely right correlation is in calization yeah and that applies to the to the to the decreases in chronic absenteeism and tardies at the middle school and high school right so we did see some nice drops that's great but we can't be sure that's happening because the start time is late um so I those are the two comments I wanted to make and um so I just have a question on how this is reported as state data um because I believe it's what three tardies counts as an absence so when we're looking at these large number of absences are those being count sorry large number of tardies are those being counted as absences when we're report to the state as chronic absenteeism even though they may be in school but they're tardy yes so I I really do feel that's something we need to consider so that would mean to try to understand the students who are late consistently are then also increasing our absence rate so so I guess we looking at we're looking at which student like how much of this is the same students struggling that are also claing even though they're in school but they're clausing absente that's that's an interesting another way to look at the data yeah and I had a question about um if we have any data um to compare the students that are struggling academically or socially with the students who are either chronically late or um or chronically late Co they struggling to get to school on time or absent because they just you know have those amount of latenesses sorry um so I don't know if we have any data to compare that to see if the chronic lesses or absences especially at ble are uh affecting them academically or otherwise Dan I just wanted to say one one thing I know that we're going to keep Gathering data on this I think one of the other things is to incorporate the community feedback about the questionnaire and how it's done and the kinds of questions and responses so I think you know I think that's also a goal for next year is to kind of improve on some of that data collection so we feel even more comfortable with with the feedback we're getting about probably answer but something to look into is um some of that data this year um but wanted to our last year students who were in last year has there been any changes within individuals that were students were they ones that were last year affecting them in addition to kind of De segmentation analysis to show and I just wanted to say I don't have a question but just think because so many questions that were asked I think answer some of my questions but I did appreciate the emphasis on the onetoone communication I think that was really obviously beneficial and it does help to kind of address some of the questions that we're having like who may if there are some groups that are more impacted and you can kind of get a sense of well what is actually happening on a Case by case basis so I'm really appreciative of the fact that time was taken to do that okay all right okay we're going to move on to the final budget presentation okay yes yes yes thank you I thought the robot was going to give our presentation I kind of got I well I kind of want to see the Rob autonomous goalkeeper autonomous presentation of our budget you're gonna go thank you good night okay moving on our final budget here we go so um we're excited to present uh the bud budget just for reference for those who listened to the preliminary budget nothing has changed um unfortunately so we're going to reiterate what we um presented before and if there's some further questions we can certainly answer them so in terms of our budget process just to reorient everybody we align our budget and the budget process with District goals and objectives the elementary and secondary Education Act the every student succeeds Act and the new J student learning objectives in addition we hold meetings throughout the course of the year so you can see that our budget process actually begins really in October for the building admin so in October we send them uh Mr Rosa sends a packet on budget uh so it's everything they need to know about the budget process how to do the budget process how to prioritize their goals and deadlines so they start with that process as early as as the fall so believe it or not in a couple months we're going to going to start the process over again and then in December January each of our administrators meets one-on-one with us to go through their budget looking at priority items new initiatives where they're spending their money where we're able to save some money in those meetings we have in every building especially we have our director of Technology director of facilities our title funding supervisor so that we can kind of look at where we what our needs are and where we can spend the money and how we can do it f in a fiscally responsible way in addition our administrators meet uh to present their budgets to the board finance and Facilities committee so they talk about their budget that gives an opportunity for more specific questions and then there's an overview of the entire budget to the finance and Facilities uh committee and then we have our board discussion that occurred March 18th for our preliminary budget and then tonight for our final budget so when we have our budgeting needs what we do is we group them into three levels our level one needs are our legal requirements um mostly special education is usually a good legal uh a legal requirement anything that hits the New Jersey student learning standards for example offering World Language if we have to offer um High School courses for graduation a certain amount of time for Math and Ela at elementary school things like that all of those are legal requ requirements um English as a second language or ESL students or MLL students any of those requirements would be legal requirements a level two is required by board policy so if there's specific things that the board sets as board policy we take those into consideration when we're building the budget so for example if we require more or less graduation high school requirements if we require more things for graduation we want them to take more Visual and Performing Arts classes if we have a dra track m program and we want smaller class sizes things that are board policy or board initiatives we put as a level two requirement for budgeting and then if and when there's money left over in the budget we look at a level three which is not required but a high investment from our community so that would be for example our mental health program it's not a legal requirement it's not board policy but it's definitely something that I believe we can all agree is something that's really important that we want to sustain so how do we provide Mental Health Resources in our budget to our students or uh maybe more robust music program or art program so anything that would be something that our Community Values um would be in a level three so in terms of our fiscal responsibility for this budget it uh we have to balance the continued increase in students with disability costs so for example coming in with special needing special education services is increasing uh demands on that um so we have a lot of um increased costs associated with students with disabilities even including Transportation if they get transportation and transportation goes up that is part of a legal requirement as well we have a fiscal responsibility to maintain our facilities any kind of federal and state mandates um the HPA contract which expires June 30th so those would be obligations uh that we'd have to consider for the budgeting process and then of course we always look for ways to save money so like I said in the preliminary budget I'm very proud of the work that Mr Rosa did with uh in collabor in collaboration with the HPA in hpaa and the board to transition out of the state benefit healthc care plan which saved some some money for the district to make us more fiscally responsible to provide equal to or better than medical coverage for our staff um we look into possible Transportation joint joint so for example if we have a special ed kid going to an out of District placement school for example and piscatway might also be sending a child to the same school we could potentially contact them and say hey you're close would you mind picking up our child then we'll pay you versus paying um a transportation company or sometimes offering parents vouchers and payment in lie of the transportation so we look for all of those and then of course we're looking at our student enrollment and needs so we take a fine tooth comb with our building admins and the special ed Department to really look at what our students needs are and if there's areas that we um can save uh according accordingly so for this year's budget the dis the budget will enable the district to maintain schools fully staffed with qualified Personnel we'll maintain certified staff and current class sizes so we're very excited to be able to maintain that um we'll be able to maintain great robust instructional resources that are updated and aligned to standards so in particular this year's budget you'll see that we're adopting um some changes to uh Ela and I believe math this year for changes uh for the New Jersey student learning standards our instructional programs except for Mandarin for incoming sixth graders will be sustained so I did speak about this last time that unfortunately uh due to Staffing that we um are and Staffing and student interest were not able to maintain our Mandarin program at the middle scho school the high school Mandarin teacher next year will be working with the current students so would be the current sixth and seventh next year seventh and eighth grade students that still want to take Mandarin um and we'll be able to fit that into her schedule and then our six incoming sixth grade students will get Spanish um we're excited in the budget to be able to do some uh really great facility maintenance projects and we're able to still provide courtesy transportation for students on hazardous routes in addition the budget will really uh prioritize some of the facility improvements such as the ble boy bathroom uh some masonry repair um there needs to be some foundation repair in the Irving Tower especially down where the art room is and the flooring at the middle and high school and some other uh specific projects for uh facilities which is great we'll be expanding our preschool program full full day preschool by two classrooms next year so we're very excited about that uh we'll be also expanding some special ed classrooms so because of enrollment we have an extra Middle School glow program which is our self-contained uh classroom so we're very excited for another glow junior class and we're very excited to be able to maintain our interventionist so that's a really big deal so when we look across the budget and we're looking at student needs obviously it's been on on our radar something that we've been looking at as Administration and I know something that's been keeping me up at night is our achieve Gap and so we've been paying our inter the extra interventionist out of our ARP eser funds which is the co relief money so we have that money until September and then that money is gone so how do we maintain these interventionists which by the way has been phenomenal the great work that they've been doing we've actually been able to exit students from Intervention get them in close the gaps and get them back so we've been doing that through some title one so next year we're going to continue that through Title One money however Title One money can only support it so much so through the operating budget the district is going to fund some of the interventionists as well so again looking across our priorities that's something that I think and I believe we can all agree is a high priority need uh but we have to weigh that out with with how we want to spend our money so I'll pass the mic over to Mr Rosa to talk about our finances okay thank you so much um so our budget includes revenue and it includes a 2.78% general tax levy increase um this is above the 2% uh because we have additional enrollment adjustment uh we have additional 29 students that was reported on our state a application as you can see our state aid decreased 4.24% uh and we're projecting extraordinary Aid of a million dollar uh currently we received 1.1 million um but we will not know the number for next year until about July of 2024 but given our current expenses have increased due to the amount of need in our student population we're confident that we'll obtain that number um we're projecting $565,500 for other local sources and interest this includes interest income uh tuition uh Revenue that we receive from other local education agencies that send our students here they're students to us uh we receive pilot money from our buau Thank you very very much um Enterprise activities like renting our facilities and refunds of Prior year expenses we also include revenue for federal aid of 56,57 it's also called semi it's a Medicaid reimbursement application and that amount is determined by the state in the budget we're also including a withdrawal of capital reserve money to fund those projects that Christina spoke about uh 426,000 29 uh that's the boy ble bathroom uh one of them some masonary repairs uh the foundation repair at Irving six door Replacements at the middle school and some flooring Replacements at the high school and at Irving we're also going to utilize uh withdra all of $250,000 of Maintenance reserve and that's to substantiate some maintenance needs that are facilities so desperately need um and we're withdrawing about 60,000 of emergency Reserve emergency Reserve can be utilized for increased health benefit costs or security um so we are going to withdraw it for security purposes um for projects to integrate ble and Irving's software security software so that the burrow Police Department Can U actively see um those cameras if there was ever a need to we're also going to replace an entrance gate at Irving uh with a steel structure that can withhold the usage that it receives on to our expenditures um you'll see that our regular programs and instruction we're projecting uh a 4.3% increase uh this includes salaries and benefits along with supply supplies um uh special education is down 3.88% um but that could be shifted if you look further down uh to related services and out of District tuition so sometimes it shifts depending on if the students are projected to be in in District or out of District you'll see that our bilingual education increased 8.76% and that's salary supplies and protocols um our Athletics co-curricular after school and summer programs are increasing 5.7% it's due to some additional aeds needed for athletics and some recondition ing of equipment that's needed our supplemental atrisk in instruction is increasing 1.27% um that has to do with as Christina mentioned um the intervention is being funded out of local money uh portion of that is is supplemented by the local budget our tuition that's our out of District tuition cost is increasing 2.7% it's also um net of our Ida or Federal grant funds that we use for outof district tuition contracts attendance health related services and other support services and guidance is increasing 19.55% it really has to do with the special education related Services we have several students that need Ono one nurses uh along with OT PT and speech it also includes salaries and supplies for those areas as well uh there's a decrease in special education student Support Services of 3.94% um that has to do with a reclass of one social worker up into the attendance health related Services other support line Improvement of instructions draft training and Media Services is increasing 3.62% that has to do with the PD that's necessary to implement the new curriculum for Math and Science um there's an increase of School District Central and it uh for of 6.14% uh we're uh going to be adding a position in the tech department uh to handle our student and District data uh maintenance uh operation of Maintenance and pl plant including Securities increasing 5.19% and that's just due to the age of our buildings and the the need of uh repairing them our student transportation services is increas is decreasing 74% um this this is due to a non-public school moving into Highland Park effective in September um so the district will not have Aid in L for those students traveling outside of Highland Park it also includes an anticipated savings for transportation joints for outof district tuition students as you can see our employee benefits are decreasing 11.84% it's directly related to The District moving away from this health State Health Benefit Plan and to the private Horizon plan and our capital outlay is just decreasing because the number of capital projects that we're doing this year last year we included Three Rod grants um this year we we're doing those those projects that were mentioned earlier we also have to fund students that attend Charter Schools it's a 30.7% increase uh we currently have projecting 15 students I believe there's 13 currently line the bottom line what does this mean for your taxpayers um based on a 2.78 tax levy in increase uh for the average assessed home value of $480,000 493 the increase for over the calendar year looking from January to December the annual change for an for an average home would be $230 63 for the year here so our budget information is on our website you can go to HPS schools.net and there will be a button there tomorrow for 2425 but uh and you'll see our userfriendly budget there as well any questions no questions just a big big big big big thank you we know that this is an art um and with uh i' I've been in several districts recently with my new position and the um the despair that is going on around the state overfunding cuts and having to cut intervention and having to cut music and having to cut upwards of 30 positions I know that when um we saw a cut of 200,000 we were nervous um but I think that you both worked so well to really create a budget that prioritizes student academics and wellness and I'm incredibly grateful thank you um I really just want to Echo what Allison said you know I've only been a small part of this um however I do think that your prioritization of keeping the interventionist especially in the younger grades is so extraordinarily important for what we're going to see in future student outcomes and as we work to improve academic import you know that a budget shows you know what your morals are and what we prioritize and that I think that's extraordinarily important and so just thank you and I know how hard you worked thank you oh go ahead can I say yeah would Echo what an said my and and asked my late father-in-law used to say don't don't tell me what you value show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value I think it's I hope it's clear what we value here I also want to say it's a new board member and this might be helpful to you know to community members for whom this process can be sort of opaque in these enormous numbers and just a few columns and suddenly what um I just want to say that not only did Dr cesa and um and staff and Denise work uh you know really hard on doing you know on the calculations and deciding you know but but keeping the board members um informed and also you know Consulting I mean the facilities and finance committee had the opportunity to sit for I think was it three or four three-hour meetings where the different staff members and principles um responsible for different parts of of the budget up with their budgets you know walked us through line by line where the money was going I feel like I I know the innards of this budget I know where the money is going um and it's and it's going I think it's about as good as we could have hoped for so I I want to thank you for that work and also for including the board and and letting us uh be helpful in that process as well thank you okay so we move on to our public comment and this is for only the budget um so our public comment on the 24 25 budget the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments on the 2024 2025 budget board policy number 0167 establishes and regulates the right of the public to participate in public meetings anybody in person for public comment okay um how many do we have online 15 um if you would like to publicly comment about the budget please raise your hand and Angelo will unmute okay in that case um I move that the Board of Education accept the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the following resolution for the 2025 2025 I'm sorry 2024 20255 budget um as described in the agenda may I have a second second Dr B yes Miss Cal D yes Dr colan yes Dr Pixley yes Miss Bruce yes Dr scholman yes Miss stano yes Miss vman yes thank you all right now we are going to move on to public comment we um usually have a public comment towards the very very end of our agenda but we moved that up this evening to um now so the public comment period this can be on um anything the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this right for your comments um anybody in person for public comment okay if you are on the webinar and would like to comment please raise your hand okay we're going to move to committee reports and recommendations I'll start with curriculum and instruction so uh curriculum and instruction did not meet this month we were supposed to and there was a conflict and the facade at bortle fell down and it was a big mess so we were like all right well we'll we'll you know meet in May um so we meet next week so at our next board meeting we will have a report for you um so we have the approval of field trip for oh wait some of these I read last week so I'm only going to read what's new um the approval of job descriptions there is a before and after school program supervisor position description up for approval um that is doesn't necessarily mean again that we are hiring for that position it is to um approve the position itself that it exists um we also have the approval of Hib reports um BS 23248 Ms 23249 a 9B and 9 C and HS 232404 a a b and c and HS 23245 A and B we have up for approval a law enforcement resolution um this does not change anything that we currently do um I can have uh either Miss PR or Dr Susa explain a little bit more detail but there is a new memorandum of understanding um that was um Miss bone went to a training on and in order for our school um administrators to provide um hppd or another law enforcement agency with um information in an emergency we need to have this law enforcement resolution that identifies these individuals as the people who can release information um do you want to share any more information about that no again just so that if for example if there was an issue concerning um again safety or something like that in in an emergency they need access to student information video camera footage things like that this allows the people listed in that resolution to be able to provide the police that information without needing a subpoena if we don't have this then the only way that they could access any of that information is through a subpoena and might delay whatever it is that that they may be doing for an investigation so our practice now is this but in order to continue that practice the memorandum of understanding that recently just came out why they put it out in the middle of the year I'm I'm not really sure toward the end of the year but they released it um includes that we have to have this resolution so it is our current practice to do that now we just have to formalize it as part of the memorandum of understanding and it was discussed in the safety committee meeting okay um number seven is the approval of of edify pilot program for high school students um this is to Pilot an AI and neuroscience-based counseling chat box for Highland Park School students um any cost associated with the pilot program will be the responsibility of edify which has MIT roots and whose Founders are Dr ISAT jardi and Professor Pan sidna um edifi has applied for small business innovation research Grant from the Department of Education and if approved will allocate a portion of this grant to compensate school counselors for any out of school time estimated to be no more than $7,000 um and then the uh number eight is the approval of participation interview for Bartle elementary school so this is for 20 of our fourth grade students to participate in CNN Anderson Cooper's 360 project where they will come and interview students in May with parent permission about the upcoming presidential election um okay that's all I have for curriculum any questions I have a question as far as number seven the approval of the edify pilot program is this for students to speak to AI if they have issues or how does that work and if it is like that how are we protecting the students from any kind of out breach of information or just G being given incorrect information information or advice so it's not for the students it's for the school counselors so I don't know if you remember back in the day you used to fill out a form to find out what you're like destined to be mine was Radiology turns out it was wrong um but you know it was like sort of that career aptitude type of pen and paper so it's a very similar thing what they're trying to use is AI to help target support for school counselors to give personalized support for students so the students go on and essentially create a survey and this AI chatbot is to essentially help the counselors do their work better from my understanding so the there's no sort of interaction other than the students are would take a normal online survey like they do now in uh they use um nav thank you thank you N I Had a Brain F navian so they go in and do that now in navian so this is just a essentially an AI chapot that would go and help the school counselors sift through all of that data to help make sense of it to provide targeted cck career and post-secondary planning for students and then my next question is in regards to that um what are the protections or are there any protections or any data that is collected through Ai and how that is used outside of that I'm not sure so I'd have to contact the uh group associated with this so I would have to I'll contact Miss asima and and as specific question Alon can I see um so I'm in I'm intrigued um but uh I'd like to know more um I I'm interested in um I'm just interested in how this is working I'm I'm also curious as to what uh these inventors you know you know intend the sort of ultimate role and purpose of this chatbot to be I mean sometimes you have uh you know this kind of old old joke about asking Factory workers to train their Replacements when they you know help machines invent machines to do things better right so um sure right now the program is working with counselors but before you know it it may be seeking to replace things counselors do I'm not saying that's the plan now but you know things happen right um so you know again I mean I think sure these uh you know inventors are like really smart have some great ideas I would like to hear more from them about um what those ideas exactly are similar kind of question the is um you know how this actually helps counselor so once they use it you who they feel like haveu time like good better targeted guidance so I think just would be really interesting to know the term to what thees for DayDay and work as well so understanding back research but also okay are there any other questions that people would like more information on because then I would move that we table that if that's the case yes okay so we're going to table number seven I have a couple um issues with number six too um I'm sorry I should have sent questions ahead but um you talk more to your mic sure um I was focused on some other issues um so I'm a little surprised that this was current practice um and this is really Broad and I'm wondering if it might be better to provide um like I don't know where this resolution came from if it came from like law enforcement uh and I'm wondering if it would be better to provide like guidance on when information will be provided um yeah I I just have concerns about how open the language is and and I think there might be ways to to shape this yeah I also have a question actually just to clarify I was surprised to hear do Dr Sesco you say that our current practice is to allow law enforcement to have access to video footage of students that is actually protected under fura so my understanding is that the current recommendations that we establish this law enforcement unit or team comprised of building administrators what teachers perhaps just administrators I believe in law enforcement and so doing would allow those files to be moved out of that Ferber protective status correct yes yeah a really good example for example was the um the middle the High School bomb threat was a really good example so it came in as a Google form and we had to make a decision to be able to share that Google form because it was a student it was a District student generated document to law enforcement in that moment to be able to do some quick Recon to determine the level of threat to the building so that was an example of you know myself maybe the director of Technology Denise you know people that would be critical sort of keepers of student records and information to say we're going to hand this over for an emergency situation we don't just they don't just come and say hey we just want to see where so and so lives it's about saying okay we're in this moment we have this Google form we're going to pass it over to you in instead if that wasn't the case then now with the new memorandum of understanding for furpa is they would have to get a subpoena to get that information for us to hand it over so in that real time that was a really good example of our current they needed a student document we handed it over to them so that they could do what they needed to do in in that real time if we decide not to pass this resolution or a version of it it's that they then would have to subpoena the district to get that record and then do work with it so um that's that those are for for examples of when those emergency situations come when they would might need access to um Student Records um student documents or or video footage all right okay so yeah I think I understood um that the possible scenarios especially an extreme case such as that actually experience here um but I do think I'm concerned to about just the way the resolution is written very um broadly and not without any sort of specifics in terms of parameters around this and this application of the law and I do appreciate you clarifying the fact that under the new mou the we would be in violation of fit if we were to continue this practice but currently we're not in violation although well now we would be well we will right the just came out and was agreed on so now moving forward until we pass any kind of resolution right now they moving forward they have to subpoena anything so from now moving forward that's the the new policy the new part of the new mou so until we create something we wouldn't be able to provide them instant access to um any of that that type of information yeah and I guess my question is how long does the process usually take and I have no idea you know a subpoena yeah I I have no idea I have no idea I can certainly contact the middlex County prosecutor's office and and ask them I have no idea I just don't know have no idea I mean I personally think that especially because we haven't had a chance to discuss this or even look at the resolution and think about ways to really make sure that I know for me I'm concerned about the way that it's very blanketed and Broad in its statement without much um specifications of parameters I would like to you know have a more of a discussion around this before we vote on it tonight okay because I don't believe it was discussed in curriculum committee at all was it or we didn't curriculum yeah yeah it was discussed at the safety meeting saf so so a question I'd have then is um if we if we were concerned that sorry if we were concerned that in the short term an emergency happens next tomorrow God forbid or whatever we would not be able to get police help could we pass the resolution well you can get you can get help you just wouldn't be able to give them the documents share they need to keep our kids safe that's correct and I don't know what that situation will be but unfortunately it happens correct could the resolution be passed and then then brought to to to um to committees and maybe changed in the future to give more parameters for example right so I was going to recommend either you we could table it and then we just aren't providing the information and they just have to get the subpoenas or pass it and then we'll go back and see if we can find some alternate language or ways to do this so that at least we're covered in the meantime until we can perfect it a little bit more um because I just worry that if we get in if we go into the weeds of what it can cover and what it can't cover to try to anticipate every scenario I just concerned that it might delay delay it but it's certainly worth exploring but you have both of those options all right equity and oh pull up those notes yes and we did we meet we met last th this past Thursday April 25th um and our first item on our agenda was updates on discipline and attendance data from ble my understanding is that this data was only presented for ble at this meeting but we will be getting information for from other schools in subsequent meetings um the goal at ble has been to reduce absenteeism across uh Hispanic Latino black uh special education students uh by 10% from 2122 school year to date ble is meeting its goal for this population still uh with the exclusion of or exception I should say of special education students um there it's better it's improved but has not quite reached that goal of the 10% Mark uh discipline incidents Rose from 843 in 2021-22 to uh 1,250 in the 2022 23 school year the goal here was to reduce this number by 20% and as of March 13 2024 there there have only been 305 incidents so the numbers are way down clearly the committee um through this conversation discussed um what sort of discipline data uh could or how the discipline data could be better broken down so that we could look more demographically by race um socioeconomic status and special education status as well so we'll look forward to getting that breakdown on a subsequent meeting uh we talked about um you know how Administration is sort of processing this data or analyzing and understanding these results um and what was shared with us is that responsive classroom and addressing behaviors within the code of conduct has been a focus um to help improving these um areas particularly focusing on classroom intervention strategies to address behaviors and to find whether the issue is a students just being bored or distracted or there are other factors involved um and then also talking about instru adjusting in instruction to meet the students needs so there seems to be from what we understood a very comprehensive sort of safety net being put into place there have been a lot of things in terms of whole school assemblies and changes to morning meetings as well that have been uh helping to address these issues and shifting those classroom environments and monitoring the behavior at the school level is also something that I think the administrators have been working collaboratively to do so we were overall you know pleased to hear that uh data and we look forward to hearing from the other schools as well um our second item on the agenda was uh our Rise program evaluation update uh as we've discussed in previous meetings we uh requested that uh we receive an independent evaluation of our Rise program and that is our alternative to in school suspensions our therapeutic restorative uh alternative to in school suspension um and Dr sesa has been taking the time to uh identify potential evaluators and so she shared with us two candidates that she looked at with a budget of $5,000 both of these candidates fit within our budget uh one of them Peter verella uh who is a South brunsw administrator uh and does evaluations uh and has done evaluations for school programs in the past um was considered um I think uh Dr zesa decided that he may not be the best fit for what we're looking for at this time uh she spoke with um I'm not sure how to pronounce this hiney research and evaluation um cost to be determined for this this one but uh we hope that it would be within our our budget um but the proposal here uh from this particular evaluator is to build a logic model to determine what we think the impact um is of our current program and the challenges to our current program uh so the idea is to really start to look at um also what our goal is for this program uh what we what the initial goal is and what sort of um adjustments we want to make or revisions we want to make to our vision for the program um specifically or for example I should say is it to reduce ISS and address recidivism um how should this evaluator uh you know evaluate the program is going to be based on the goals of the program so we just had a really robust conversation about how important it is to make sure that we're all kind of on the same page where that's concerned um and I'm forgetting the evaluator's name I can you yes last name it's Hy Haney Kathy Haney I just want to make sure I also this is a person um not a group this is an individual um we also discussed the importance of the need to track down initial ideas of why the program was developed as I had mentioned um and to analyze uh we talked about having an analysis of the program in terms of disrupting student uh disrupting discipline incidents for historically marginalized students uh we would hope to see with the viig students as this was one of the initial goals of the program is to reduce those disparities and dis pushing the students who are already marginalized out of our schools through um repeated in in school and out of school suspension incidents program was to help to ensure that students could be in the academic setting even if they had to be removed in in school suspension they would still this would reduce um also the um use of harsh historically marginalized students so the idea is that we would look at that those goals and evaluate hopefully evaluate or be able to determine the extent to which we are reaching those goals and what we need to do to improve the program um we also talked about the importance of having the evaluation start by looking at our current data we do have a lot of data to look at to see where the program is working and not it's not like we don't have anything to pull from um so we discussed the importance of doing that looking at who it's working for and who it's not working for and then to home in on more specifically um identifying why the program may or may not be meeting aspects of the goals that we established um and this may include interviews and qualitative um data as well other qualitative data um so let's see this is just kind of more of what I've said uh we also talked about the evaluation helping us to think about what data to collect moving forward which I know Dr ssco is really um you know homing in on that the importance of knowing what we need to do to really um systemically be able to continue to evaluate this program efficiently um and making sure that we are also addressing looking at safety as a whole and how students feel in the school uh so we may or may not have the data but it would be good to understand the student we may or may not have the data now I believe was part of what we were saying we do have robust data but we need to have the evaluator come in and analyze that and then going forward thinking about okay what data we know we need to have and then how do we need to analyze that data so we're looking forward to hopefully getting um a a proposal with the figure that works for our budget um and moving forward with that process so we thank you for always you know presenting that to equity and exist and including us in that process um we also talked about the code of conduct revisions that are currently um being undertaken across the schools except for the high school so the high school uh Administration uh felt that when approached uh by Dr sesa that they don't really need to make any changes to their code of conduct so at this point um we're looking at uh Irving Bartle and Middle School making some adjustments to the their code of conduct and particularly because they are um staff is just noticing that especially postco they're noticing different behaviors and different incidents or behavioral issues that are arising that are postco incident so we need to incorporate these um new sorts of Behavioral issues into their codes um uh we talked about Irving has added um um beliefs about students and options of tier levels of support so there are multiple level of levels of supports that students are receiving um um the board will be looking over the changes in each of the we will try to just provide you know any feedback or thoughts that we may have um I think one of the biggest questions was um the extent to which these revisions are going to provide flexibility in addressing the different behaviors that staff is seeing um and just making sure that the codes do allow that room to do uh that kind of flexible assessment um we also talked about clarifying who is responsible for what um in the sort of change of command when when we're talking about these discipline codes and then we also talked about including students most impacted in reviewing the revised codes if possible so I know that's some I think that's it of course and final revisions will be made before the end before the beginning of the new school year any questions when we ini at's framework it may be a bigger tax I should go it has a lot of implications and so we knowed at time we really really need to look at this and may need to new back to the RO and so just to note that it's it's probably not just correct so yeah process yeah and then the other thing about the analyses and the evaluator really know it's balance between we have a right and so we've got to really think about what are the things we want to provide and the analyses are going to be as good as the data we provide and we all were in agreement needs to be pretty holistic right not just about uh behaviors and Reps how are they doing um youve had some perception data about how are they feeling right there's these things that we would like to put together and and provide um to the evaluator and but again it compx tet that an we're all thinking about thank you I'm thinking also maybe um we could add Hib to some of those question questions maybe having them analyze the hi process okay um who's next Finance finance and Facilities want to avoid me but I'm here um Finance facilities oh sorry Finance facilities did meet so I do have some uh minutes from our meeting uh it was Nikki and myself and along with uh Dr cesa and Mr Rosa and John Flanigan and Colin who's here tonight Megan Megan all were in attendance um we uh had a daycare up after school program update um Colin shared his new proposed budget for next year adding the role of a part-time coordinator to to man the phones during the day to help parents with communication also included pay increases for site for a number of the positions um included a traveling nurse and a rental fee reimbursement to the district of 30 ,000 that's the preliminary budget that he was sharing with us discussion about the consideration of raising rates 5% next year but that was tabled for next month the budget presented did not include an increase in rates so it was a conversation um also under uh that area we discussed the status of our program in relation to State Licensing um we are in full compliance of all state regulations for school age child care programs uh including um ratios uh I hope I'm saying this right but according to chapter 52 we are licens exempt if we were to follow the process for licensing it would help us would help families help us to get F help us to be eligible for funding for low-income families but flip side is as we've kind of said in the past it would make Staffing very challenging because state requirements for professional development and certification uh would would make it hard to fill positions um and col shared also the process cless for parents to apply for State funding at this point is a complex one so it's not an automatic so he keep he's keeping an eye on the regulations and there'll be further discussions um under facilities uh John Flanigan that was reporting on this we had a collapse of a I guess a sopit that area is called outside of ble um and um so we've had insurance adjusters engineer has seen the area he said first priori is a plan to stabilize a key beam um by placing columns there um so the stabilization work has to go out for bid we haven't gotten back from at that point anyway insur whether we had Insurance whether insurance is going to cover this or not um so there's a lot of work going in so just stabilizing the area and then figuring out where we go from there um and for right now we to mooved some offices and students are and and rearrange how students moved in ble to avoid that area um I an reported to the committee on the process of the work that's going on with the legislator and the with the legislature and the mayor's office to get us additional funding for infrastructure needs and there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes and we're anxious to keep eye eye on that process with the hope that it'll really be helpful to the district and the burrow um uh and Megan MCN Miss MCN um shared we're in the process of trying to get a a new sign in front of Irving um this really was brought up through uh the process of the burrow has a grant for that part of town um and has promised us $5,000 towards the sign PTA is going to contribute a thousand we have one estimate and we needed one more one quote we needed one more quote um and this hopefully will all come together it will be a sign more like Bartle sign not fancy not uh um hard to maintain and or expensive to maintain with electricity and digital so but that's still a work in progress um and then um then we actually did Finance the finance uh portion of our meeting Denise reviewed the uh RF the process for the RSP RFP for the Food Service management company so a committee met on uh April 15th and it was representative from each dist each of our schools and administrator from each of our schools and Dr sesa and Mr Rosa to review um two proposals that came in from that RFP one came from pomptonian and one from another company um SF um based on the scoring pomptonian scored the highest um and so but Denise shared that the speciic the specifications in the RFP included higher food standards so hopefully we'll see an improvement of the quality of the food with an award to Pompton and she's working with them um to review expectations um the other item that we talked about is that the uh district has is receiving funds from the cusher um funds ID Ider funds um and those are still the process for getting everything approved has not yet completed so um the district will be getting $254,000 for The Pavilion at Irving and a greenhouse at the high school but there's um still a process for clarifying when the funds come to us and and um and so forth so that's still in the works as long as well as the baseball renovations to the baseball field also uh work in progress not work has not started in those projects yet and the 2425 budget um was was uh as presented before and voted on tonight so that was our minutes and then there was this agenda here it's rather lengthy remember last month last week I was very excited we had a short agenda I knew this wasn't going to last um so I'll also go over the highlighted pieces that are added so number three is approval of another um look these pass through funds that we are required to do this is for techn ology purchases for the Reas Bas Yakov High School um so that is there there's addition to under number five approval for professional development um Orton Gillingham training for 30 hours for 30 teachers um which I think is awesome Center for responsive School responsive classroom training is added and um inspired instruction for our special education teachers has been added to that list we also have um the the bill list from March 19th to April 2 now at April 29th in the amount of 2, 860,000 plus dollarss um we we have on the agenda the approval of supplemental Bill lists for January and February um totaling 19366 um uh the approved of the preliminary report of the treasurer of school monies as of February 29th um preliminary report these these things always trip me up even though I've read them um certifying that um there's no budgetary line item that has been overextended that's as of February 29th we have board certifications also for that February up through February 29th about all of our um uh that was' not overextended and we have sufficient funds available to meet the district's Financial Obligations for the remainder of the Year some budget transfers is number 11 um also through the month of February and then we have additional Professional Services many of these are speech and language Services um our district is in need of additional um help with speech and language I believe we have somebody who's out on leave and of speech and language therapists are very hard to find to fill in so we've got lots of uh agencies here hopefully they will help us they'll be able to help us with um some of the speech and language um needs that the district has uh they're on this list necessarily we're going to be using them all but we have availability we have the option to use them if they have a person that we need um also on this professional development is lots of yoga uh for our health and wellness month that wish I could join you guys it SS like fun um yeah for health and wellness month a number of people to be approved do Y Yoga and our PE classes and during uh diversity day as well and then we go on to bedside instruction and we have an additional student um needed that bedside instruction for our approval we have two additional students who need to go out of District um who's been determined that would be their best program and so that's on here um we have a student who is a district who need some additional counseling that's on the flip side we have two students coming into Highland Park that's number 16 um one coming in and so they are paying us tuition uh one into the autism program it says grade three but it's actually grade one so it must not be ble right it must be IR Irving grade one yes um and then the other student is coming into a resource room in grade eight and then we have uh um a nonresident a a student who has been our schools is not a resident but we would like to um allow them to stay here through the end of the year and they would be paying us tuition so we would that's the tuition amount for the remainder of this year um a safety grant that we received for $1,844 I think that might be added to cameras what was that walkie talkies walkie talkies no I didn't write there walkie talkies okay and then the uh food Serv uh Management Service contract that I talked about approving um ptoni in to continue for to continue to be our food service provider and the last ones is approval of a uh replacement of a heat pump at Irving and pipe insulation at the middle school and that is all any questions sure dollar amounts for approval the actual program do that from operating there something from my assumption is that that comes from a separate budget right yes yeah what was that yeah they're self sustaining on right that's separate business right question I don't know which one that is though okay yeah any other questions okay all right um personnel and communication okay so personal Communications did not meet um but we do have some additions so I'm going to read off for for um voting um we have um acceptance of resignations um which would be Kim Kimberly NC uh resending an offer for lar Laria Brooks excuse me if I'm not pronouncing that correctly um shalaya gains Alejandro cisos uh Victoria powers Julia michka and derko and Megan Harter and then we have approval of leave of absence for employee 525 5242 and um employee 512a I 8 sorry um we have approval of new hires for Dana kessle for supervisor of funded programs uh Tyler G Gessler a teacher of physical education uh Susan shaunessy for human resources health benefits and payroll specialist uh and then we have um approval of Summer band camp um pending contract negotiation if we needed to add that in and oh we have more um and then we have approval of professional development for the PD Academy for Katherine vender for building fact fluency in the Elementary classroom uh Jack fernet for a building fact fluency and Elementary classroom Megan Hawthorne for a responsive classroom for secondary Specialists then we have approval of the AP exam coverage in high school um approval of reduction in force approval of sidebar agreement between Highland Park Board of Education and the Highland Park administrators Association um approval of change of end date for the title one after school enrichment program uh approve approval of Title One tutoring program for Reus Bas Yakov approval of translator for Irving Primary School approval of after school program staff approval of extra compensation for power professional approval of lesson plan writing for the middle school and appointment of 2024 2025 um so is that social work intern for the community teen center and I'd like to piggy back on the report um and uh as I do always when we're uh approving new uh District administrators I'd like to uh introduce and invite uh Dana kessle to come up and introduce herself and um share a little bit about her thank you oh and if you just go to the podium for the microphone sorry yeah thank you hi hi my name is Dana kessle um and it's a pleasure to be here um I grew up in Middle sex County um and spent many a day in Highland Park um when I was growing up um so it's like coming home a little bit for me um I have been an educator um in the public school uh system for over I shouldn't say that maybe for well over 25 years um and it's a pleasure to come back I I have been uh a teacher um a special education teacher I have been an assistant principal a high school principal um I have been a director of curriculum um in and all of these in both large and small school districts um and um most recently I've worked for ESS um which is a substitute teacher company so the last year doing that um but I've missed working with students and with teachers um so I'm very excited about this opportunity thank you okay uh we move on to policy oh that's me I want to say welcome that's to Dana nice to have you that's focus on you any get back on here happy to have you um policy did also meet this month uh since our last um since our last board meeting uh and Allison and myself met with Dr cesa on April 10th um and so we went back on some policies that we had had tabled the month before um so policy 2411 for guidance counseling um Elizabeth asoa had reviewed it made some suggestions added CL we added clarification that it was an irrs system that we were that is the referral system and it is now ready for first read um we again discussed uh 24 policy 2423 bilingual and ESL education and Amy Capa from the district has been has reviewed it made suggestions she's still the the language involved in bilingual ESL MLL all the sort of language for this area um she's going to do a little more checking so we're holding on that that one is not up yet um for your vote um we're going to do a look at it one more time next month also uh so we didn't make too much progress we put a lot of things on hold um policy 4322 was about we wanting to kind of look staff member use of personal cell phones related to emergencies and and how they might be using their phones through uh to use for inform 911 but that's still also something that further research is needed on so that's been put aside until we get more information about how it's work how that's working for other teachers um in other districts and we discussed the policy 8 8660 uh Transportation by private Vehicles that's referring to teach mostly teachers or staff Drive driving students um it's something we have concerns about Dr cesa and others have concerns about but abolishing the abolishing the uh policy seemed like it might have more of an impact than we realized so uh we decided to um first send it to the lawyers to get their input on how we could potentially protect people or maybe we shouldn't do this at all which is sort of our feeling and then also um Dr cesco will talk to the leadership team to see what the impact would be on changes to this policy so we will come back to that um and the last thing we discussed that go was going forward right now policies go to each committee that's relevant to them and then from there it goes right to first read but when we looked at the when I looked at the process actually Darcy's process from way back um policies would go to committees and then still come back to policy committee for one final review so that's what we're going to be doing going forward um for for policies so on the agenda for policy there are quite a few um but we talked about them I talked about them last time the only new one is that apparently wasn't on the list there is is a van the vandalism policy which is very similar to the regulation that's on here for second read and basically talks about um what our policy is if a student vandalizes school property um and so that's what the what is that uh 7610 who's up here for first read and otherwise the others are second read I will say that uh in looking through this today um R 5440 it says honoring student achievement um we did add some things to that because it had gone to uh my Glasser to make sure High School Achievements in there and there were something so Susan went back on it but now I think all the uh blanks have been filled in so when we're voting on second read for that it we filled in a few of the blanks basically listing what awards did it what awards or recognition is currently being done at the high school for student achievement so that was added and that's it board policy any questions comments good okay okay um there was an error in the agenda we are swapping number 16 and 17 so we're going to do public comment first and then we will do our board action items um so the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation as reserved this time for your comments is there anybody in person that would like to comment how many individuals do we have nine if you have if you are online and you would like to comment please raise your hand okay please state your name and residence hi this oh I hear you okay I thought I heard myself uh this this is Abby Stern Cardell I live on Harper Street um I had a couple of comments and one of them actually does pertain to the budget that you passed so um I apologize if I'm late on this but I just wanted to make a comment um with regard to the security camera it looks like about $60,000 were allocated for security camera um for Irving and ble security camera upgrades um I'm a little confused about whether there's already cameras and these are just an upgrade or if these are new cameras um I also was a little concerned that it was mentioned uh similar to what um Mo'Nique and Dan had said about law enforcement I think I heard that they would be given direct access to law enforcement and that was a little concerning um I don't know kind of what again the parameters for that would be again it was similar I had some similar concerns about the law enforcement resolution and it kind of applies as well to this um camera so I know even though you put it in the budget there'll probably still be further discussion and um you know further approval so I just ask that you carefully look at this and what the specific reason for including this is what was the problem that it's being solved or are they already there and why the police need direct access if that is if I did hear that correctly um I also um wanted to bring up a prek for future years I'm really happy to hear um that it's still being expanded for next year I know two new classrooms are being added I have you know several friends whose kids are going and are very very excited um my question is just I haven't heard any updates recently about um future years and I know these things take a long time to figure out so I was listening to some of the um the um reports from the various committees and I just hadn't heard anything so I'm curious if there have been uh if there's been any movement in kind of getting that figured out um of course I know it's a long process so not expecting it to all be solved but um I hope that there has been some movement here um lastly um a couple of comments um I did hear a job description getting approved um where the person I think it was the after care um program supervisor and I believe um Marilyn had said that that doesn't mean that they're hiring someone or I could be remembering wrong who said it or what was said um but I believe there's already someone who's been in that position for several months so I just was a little confused about how job descriptions are approved after people have already been hired and what the process is there you know I'm not questioning the person or this specific situation as much as just is this standard to approve a job description after someone is already hired what position what's the description how what kind of descriptions are we using and then how you know doing that after so that was a general question um I don't know how much time I have left but I just had one more thing to say which is you know I I definitely have concerns about raising the after care um cost by 5% um you know I would like to see you know what the justification for that is and I I know that there's a public budget presentation but because it's a separate pot I guess the Aftercare budget is included I I would like to just you know get the public um I think the public should get to look at that as well um again I'm not saying that there's an issue with it I just think that we you know typically do get to see things like that um so I would really appreciate if that was also before anything was approved that was a uh public kind of presentation or document thank you thank you Abby there any other people online who would like to public comment comment publicly okay we're going to move to action items I'll start with curriculum um so for curriculum we are definitely tabling what number was it oh no number number edifi s number seven number seven um this is how I'm going to propose number six uh either way I we need to come back to the resolution to address concerns if you feel that you want the resolution in place until we refine it I would say that's a yes vote if we don't want the resolution in place while we refine the resolution then I we would not approve it okay all right um I would like to move curriculum and instruction numbers one through five six and eight second Dr batty yes Miss Cal D yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss Bruce yes Dr scholman yes Miss Dano yes Miss B [Music] yes okay uh Finance yeah facilities uh Finance facilities I move um items one to 21 am I right yes one to 21 second yes C done yes um oh wa yes um I have to abstain from anything inspired instruction thank you over five whoops Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss puce yes Dr schoolman yes Miss Danel yes Miss gardman yes okay Personnel okay I'd like to move numbers one through 21 second Dr batty yes Miss Cal yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss pruce yes Dr schan yes Miss Dano yes Miss vaman yes congratulations Miss Castle welcome to um and policy last but not least um I move uh policies one a a through G and two a through G second Dr batty yes Miss Calon yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss pruce yes Dr scholman yes Miss Danio yes Miss bman yes okay um we will move on to board liaison reports does anybody have anything to report Miss cruce okay I can do a Highland Park Education uh Foundation um I was on one or two of their zooms and I'm on their email list so they are working very hard they had a community meeting on I think was about April 10th um looking to get more uh volunteers interested in helping with all aspects of running the Highland Park the hpf I think they got some names and some information uh some people who are willing I'm not I don't have to me details on that but they will be at the street fair and um they're they're really working hard on a fundraiser that will take place on June the 1st it will be a barbecue fundraiser um they're going to be using Center School and cooking inside cooking outside eating inside um sounds quite elaborate six um different uh chefs that are barbecuing there's going to be um vegetarian and kosher options uh beer beer company is going to be serving um a cornhole tournament sounds really quite lovely so June 1 uh keep an eye on that yeah sign up sounds like good good good food and good drink and a very good C they really do they do a lot for our district and they're trying to step it up on that um so we thank them that's it for me any other um Community uh I would simply be remiss if I didn't remind everybody that it is the uh Highland Park Spring Fling Street Fair uh on Sunday May 5th it's an awesome event with a 5k that starts at 9:30 if you sign up for the 5K uh before Sunday it's cheaper and everybody should go do it it's a really fun time thank you okay um I do not have a president's report this evening so we'll move on to Old business okay new business okay I move to adjourn second second faor all in favor job that was