um I call to order the Helen Park Board of Education hrid special voting Workshop meeting for December 4th the New Jersey open public meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affected their interest is discussed or acted upon in compliance with the open public meetings act the hland Park Board of Education has caused notice to this meeting setting forth the time date and location to be submitted for publication of the home News Tribune and star ler and posted on the board's website will Le 48 hours and Advance this meeting members of public who wish to address the board will be given the opportunity to do so before the board adurs for the evening can we V please Mr B here miss Calon here Dr Coleman Miss Gowan here Miss mcf D Nia Miss Bruce here Mr Ros levich here miss bar miss here okay Allegiance 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 we had two Communications this mon both from from Abby uh one related to the uh tracking lats at each of the schools and audio at board meeting we've done a lot of work tonight thank you to uh our Administration and our Tech staff so that AUD should be good tonight keeping our fingers crossed that that's true but a lot of efforts we put in to get this right tonight um we are starting off a little bit differently there are while this is a workshop meeting there are a couple items that we need to vote on so that the school can move forward the district can move forward in these items um and we're going to do public comment on those items specifically and then go forward with the regular Workshop meeting so the items that we need to vote on tonight um is under curriculum and instruction the approval of job prescriptions for an mtss um instructional support coach and a supervisor of accounting and uh under Finance we are going to be voting on The awarding of a uh an insurance broker for our district so so first I'm going to turn to the board to ask if the board has any questions on any of these these specific items um then we'll discuss from there then we'll make the motion and open it well then we'll do public comment we'll make motions so any questions on these um special go and meeting items so we all good um okay then uh we're going to open it the public comment how Park Board education welcomes public participation it has reserved this time for your comments board policies 0164 and 0167 establish and regul right of the public to participate in public meetings um so if anybody in the public wants to comment on either of these voting meeting items again there's two job descriptions and the awarding of the insurance broker proposal someone has a question or a comment um please raise your hand virtual handbody in the room want to speak on topics and seeing no comments um then we're going to make our motions to move it curricul instruction yes under curriculum instruction I mve at the Board of Education accept the recommendation of the superintendent to accept the job descriptions of JD to 770 mtss instructional support coach and JD 2775 supervisor of accounting Mr read yes Miss Calon yes Dr colan yes Miss Gowan yes M Cruz yes Mr roich yes Miss Gman yes Miss Bor yes okay and then the second one under the voting items is uh the awarding of the insurance broker proposal I moove to the Board of Education accept the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the recording and award the following Insurance Broken proposal pursuant to njsa 18a colon 18 a-5a parentheses 10 sh below that e um and this is for approving the um the servic that the health insurance broker Brown and Brown um per that their proposal they submitted have a second second Mr yes Mr yes Dr pman yes Miss go yes Miss Bruce yes Mr roage yes Miss bman yes Miss wary yes okay now we go back to our um Regular Workshop agenda and we'll go to our student representative Andre over at Irving um they will be collecting operation snowflight donations on December 19th um they're very thankful for the community and their ongoing support um and they would also like to give a huge congratulations to Nicole PM um the teacher of the year and Michael masses the Educational Service profession of the year over at B they would like to shout out Miss burnat the teacher of the year and Dr n the Educational Service professional of the year as well um on December 12th will the they will have their fast Family Fitness night at 5:00 pm and on December 13th is their parent and guardian literacy also 5:30 p.m. uh B will be sending out some information on operations soon for this week um and they encourage ble families to consider donating lastly B's Winter concert will be on December 19th at 7 p.m. over at the middle school their teacher of the year is Miss Rebecca tacis um and their service profession all the year is Miss jie and their students uh in the student Congress will be running A5 on Thursday December 21st um and they would like to see still look out for more details on December 20th they will also be having a decorating contest um and the theme will be winter winter wonderland the Middle School invites students to join their first student speakout meeting on December 5th from 3: to 3:30 in the cafeteria right here and they um encourage students to come as it's an opportunity for students to talk about any issues or concerns they have at the Middle School uh and the student advisory will bring concerns back to the administration to solutions to these problems over at the high school on Thursday November 30th Dr T B and Mr Bret had a guest speaker judge Alberto rias the criminal justice class and Francis class had to hear from a sitting judge about his background and the courts and some interesting stories from his career the class is looking forward to having more guests later in the year uh the high school would also like to congratulate Mr brait for his teacher of the year and Miss Lori St George for the educational study professional HP de glow are still holding their um apparel Cale until December 5th um and it is to Pro promote both groups and they can be purchased um at the approval form has been sent out uh the H Park choir is holding a gingerbread um decorating contest on December 5th in the cafeteria from 6 to8 and you can purchase one kit for $20 or for 35 gory was going to say there was some prize incentive but I'm not too sure about that um the Red Cross Club is holding its annual FL drive on December 8th in the high school gym uh students teachers or parents can sign up with the link that will be in the the boardon makeup senior portraits are going to be held on December 12th 13th and 14th in the cafeteria in uh room C2 and the class of 2025 is holding holiday popup shop on December 17th in the high school gym and I invite everyone to come out and get your last minute holiday shopping and if you're interested in having a table you can contact Miss hous word at Jen Housh schools.net um as our discussion with paper tutoring has been prominent in the board meetings and um inperson paper tutoring will be held every Tuesday and Thursday starting December 12th from 3:10 to 4:10 in the cafeteria um if you have any questions contact us in dero or Mr McCrae and lastly the boys basketball team will have their first home game on December 15th and their second game right after on December 16th um and the girls team will have their first game on December 18th in the high school Jour thank you very much questions for Andrew comment I want to congratulate you on the play this weekend we thank any questions or comments from the board Andrea we'd really like to hear um how the students felt about the open sessions with Administration if you could follow up on that um in future meetings it's really great that they're getting the opportunities for um to kind of meet in that way so I'm excited to hear about how it goes awesome I will definitely follow okay thank you very much we are going to move on to curricul instruction committee report and agenda items so curriculum and instruction has not met since our previous meeting we are meeting tomorrow um the items that will be on the agenda for voting at our next meeting are field trips that's uh attached um and the resolution to approve the following University graduate students for teaching internship Junior practicum observation um for Dina f for Dina I'm sorry I can't pronounce your name um and that is going to be for a Rucker student under the subject of SE and health curriculum so very excited to discuss that tomorrow okay questions for curriculum pretty sure finan for tonight equity and Excellence Monique we have not met since our last meeting think that's the case probably for our committees because finan and Facilities is the same we're meeting this week um um and it is without a doubt shortest agenda for finance facilities um we have a resolution to we will have a resolution to approve travel and related expense reimbursements for what's attached um resolution to approve an additional contractor for physical therapy evaluations uh it's the Princeton Center for educational valuate assessments and uh one additional out of District placement that will be is on the agenda for um for approval at our next meeting questions right along personnel and I think you're the only one with actually report today okay here we go yes we met on November 29th um of the non-confidential items i s around my very Minal minutes because Dr Dr s is it susaa Susa Dr Susa uh presented fairly detailed board notes for us this week um but of the publicly discussible personel items um we are uh being asked to approve an after school program supervisor this is a position that's required in order for the program to be licensed as a New Jersey childcare agency and the many benefits of that include that we would be eligible to apply for State subsidies on behalf of our parents and these are subsidies which the district applies not the parents which is a change from what we discussed in connection with Catholic Charities so the parents will not have the burden of going filling up 18,000 pages of paperwork we will which is much easier for us um let's see we talk a little bit about uh m is it sherko Shero the computer science teacher Who coming on board oh I'm sorry I apologize I yes I read the agenda I'm sorry what do we know the name of the uh so we for our new computer science teach that is starting um so this is so whose name is I just forgot I'm so sorry I heard her name once she hasn't started teaching with the students she teaching at the beginning of the semester yese sorry I apologize Mr CH of course is not the new computer science teacher but our new Compu science teacher is uh then started at work we hired her a little bit before the start of the year the the new before the start of the winter semester um she is developing new classes and Dr Susa expects to have new curriculum items on the agenda at some point soon including things like video game design which would be very exciting um we talked about uh let me see if I have the name correct here Nicole Hodge uh is being recommended to teach two additional courses for a staff member on Parental leave is it is it okay for us to talk about the name of the staff member I just don't no okay um never mind I wanted to share some good information about the program but out of respect for comity I will not share that at this time um about the program this teacher teaches let's see and we talked a good amount about Communications um I know parents have had some frustrations around Communications um including uh receipt of multiple identical emails from different schools about the same topic this is of course very difficult to coordinate um you know we don't have Communications Department who can sort of look at every school's email before they go out but uh Dr Susa is working with building Administration to try to streamline Communications as well as possible um including uh an ongoing project of trying to reduce the number of emails that have important or time sensitive information in an attached PDF we don't want people to get an email that says you know for exam times see attach PDF and I think the district has been really improving in that regard um but of course it's difficult because there are a million people sending out emails um and Dr Susa reminded us of the backpack that is available on the website uh for Community announcements and other sort of non-critical announcements that's something parents can check and we talked about how would be AO of the administration to really advertise that proactively because even some board members um only recently found out about the backpack so uh as much as it may be in people's signature lines that may have been announced at some point we parents are are sometimes a little oblivious so hopefully that will happen and that will reduce the number of community announcements uh that that go out on individual basis and that is all I have to report can I just add something of course um so I wanted to uh just follow up number two on the Personnel is the approval of the retirement so Michael Lasser our beloved high school principle I just wanted to share that Mr ler well we acknowledge all of our retirees at the end of the year however uh for the toward uh reference Mr ler has been a member of the H Park Community for 29 years serving as an eighth grade uh social studies teacher assistant principal and principal we're gonna miss him yes um and I I apologize I think actually be the agenda item that was little too no that was just a big one that was a big one that was a okay so personal communication um not going to go through all of these just the ones that are non- self-explanatory most most uh s of significant is Mr lasser's retirement of course let's see anything that is not asley number five Ashley L us that's our program supervisor that Dr Su is recommending we appoint to make us eligible for licensing Let's see we have some number sevens in these sections um uh Nicole Hodge will be teaching intro to music therapy and intro to AC acoustic guitar as a leave replacement and we did talk a little bit about person Personnel about how our music program seems to be going really strongly we have more participants and we asked the administration if at some point they could compile uh data into the question whether the later start time of the high school has helped with this I don't know that we could do that this year might take a couple years to I think we also have some good classes this year which may you know comp complicate the analysis but anyway it's great to see that more people are get involved in music let's see and there's one other one I wanted to highight the accounting assistant the accounting assistant on here we did discuss as as agenda item as in our meeting oh I that's why I was looking for it on the so it's under it was in the beginning of the meeting yes that was what we just is it yes yes I was paying attention at the time all right uh looking good all right my bad perhaps I should have spoken about it time because yes we did just so the public is aware that um you know we're not gonna put this space out here we did have a committee which we discussed this and I was perhaps just a little brain de on here I believe that that concludes mine I forgot else and I we really going to comme [Applause] report so organized thank you questions from the board on any those items okay uh and then policies and regulations there everything here is on for seconde um so we will be voting next time that onity policy the school threat assessment rular activities Examination for cause attendance policy right of privacy um eligibility of Resident non-resident students education of homeless and um a food service those are all policies that we have approved for first reading encourage everybody to read them before the next uh meeting we're actually going to vote have questions CL as I just comment yes about policies I mean my understanding of these policies um uh again is they're not new changes in school practice procedure for the most part in fact possibly for all part they're to bring us into compliance with the New Jersey statutes and New Jersey regulations or guidance and occasionally don't speak clerical changes where they T try to tighten up the language sometimes successfully so nobody should think that we are suddenly implementing a new policy for the eligibility of Resident res eligibility of Resident non resident students I had realized the title sounds ridiculous yes E1 J so people who are not officially resident but they're the district because they're Goa uh and that's true right like we need to write these policies right they come to us and done them in the past just updated based on recommendations from and we typically um at least in the past we've typically approve them um as long as they're in general line with our district principles because it makes it very difficult if uh comes up with another change you know in six months time it's hard to compare the two documents of ours is very different um from the St original if that makes sense um certainly if there if this if the policies involve substantive changes to our practice and policy if they're not required then of course on occasion we have changed them okay I think we're going to go to public comment and then um fin so public comment Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments board policies 0164 and 0167 establish and regulate the right of the public partipate in public meetings um so if you would like to comment on anything on the agenda or otherwise um feel free to raise anybody okay and we are going to move on to uh president's report um which just a couple of updates first I want to congratulate all of our um teachers and um service special service Professionals of the year um we all our teachers are a wonderful course course and we thank them all for their all the amazing things they do for our students particularly these this year the staff that we are recognizing um and in the way of updates uh HPA negotiations team met with the board's team last week was very friendly cortal meeting we set our ground rules for future meetings and dates in January we'll exchange proposals and and meeting we set meeting dates um and we all look forward to a smooth efficient negotiations process um and the other uh piece that I have was just not too much of a report other than to say we continue to work the district continues to work on preschool expansion options um and all options are still on the table there have been conversations happening with the property owner of 1102 so P3 option is still on the table there's a lot more work than we need to be down at the burrow to make that happen um and more conversations will be taken place the near future and we'll share them with the public in the board as soon as we we have that um and then we move to Old business old business great oh um can we just provide a quick update to the board on the Move in oh oh for our modular we're up and running the students have moved in and we are rocking and rolling so everyone's got a home face which is good I Believe Miss MCD offered um open houses for the families with care MERS of the students that are in the modular to come and check that out um which is great and then she and I are coordinating a date for board members who are interested to come and actually do a dual site visit to see the modular classrooms up close of personal uh as well as some preschool classes they're going really really well uh it's really fun but we're trying to coordinate because um preschool is a you know interesting time we don't want to catch them during their rest time and and snack time or not you know exactly you know the the time to pop into a preschool classroom so we're coordinating our schedules and then I'll send out an email through Marilyn for those who are interested it will be during the day obviously that's what school is in session so I hope that uh some board members will be able to join us and student le aison as well are invited if you need to get away write little pass or a little note um to to join us as well thank you I'm so glad miss m was able to do a tour for the parents that was really reassure people people because the modular that at Le the photos we saw were really really nice they were not the trailers of the 197s that I I'll say that my son is in one of the modular he thinks it's awesome K stand though you know it's like a cool mod we'll take that okay any other new old business new business okay wow we do public comment okay do one more public comment everybody's going chatting today but one more High Park got a hand have the park for Education again welcome to public participation and how you reserve time for your comments and Abby what do you have to say tonight hi sorry I don't mean to be a repeat customer all the time I just wanted to say um this is Abby St C on har Street I want to say thank you the audio is much much better than I appreciate the extra time you guys to that so I wanted to you know say that um the other thing that I just wanted to note um I heard you say that there will be some Union negotiations coming up um and I believe the contract is ending and um I just wanted to mention that when the start times were Revisited for um for high school and middle school the as as you all know um I'm assuming the new board members know it as well but um the uh Irving and ble start times removed uh quite a bit earlier um and even 15 minutes is is a big deal in you know in a little kid morning and when discussing it part of the reason that was given was um regarding the end time and the contract for the teachers which completely makes sense and I just wanted to make sure that when you're discussing that if that is something that you're willing to reconsider or just have that be part of the conversation uh that end time was one of the biggest limiting factors along with the busing but uh whenever a busing solution was presented the end time was the thing that it seemed to bump up against and vice versa so um even you know if that's something that could be discussed ahead of time you know 3:10 versus 3:00 I don't know how that would affect it but maybe looking back at um some of those limiting factors again that what was happening with the start times for the younger kids and see if uh 10 minutes 15 minutes for ending time uh would be feasible um and I'll just add that looking back at a little bit of the information about it today um I was looking back at some of the minutes and I noticed that um it was noted that the the bardell teachers and Irving teachers um there was a lot of thanking them for being willing to go so much earlier um and I'm sure they're all you you know getting used to it but um it's possible they would be happy to have you know a little bit later 15 minutes back if that's a way to to work that in as you're looking at it again so thank you I just wanted to mention that as as part of potential negotiations thank you any other commenters okay um then we're I'm going to move weour before we do that just a reminder we have one more meeting in December on the 18th that we are voting meeting it'll also be the last meeting for Rob and an so um we uh look forward to you coming one more time so we can say goodby don't forget to come and I think we also might try to uh have something for um the board members who left earlier in the year so keep keep an eye on you now for that one and I move that we the night second all favor thank you very much everybody night everyone