I'd like to call to order the Highland Park Board of Education hybrid Workshop voting meeting uh today Monday February 26th 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 parties at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in compliance with the open public meetings act the Highland Park Board of Education has called notice of this meeting setting forth the time date and location to be submitted for publication to the home News Tribune and Star Ledger and posted on the board's website at least 48 hours in advance of this meeting members of the public who wish to address the board will be given an opportunity to do so before the board ad returns for the evening may I have roll call Dr baby miss calan here Dr Dr Coleman Dr Pixley here miss Bruce here Dr scholman here miss Danel here miss gardan here miss Wares here we will now recess to Executive session be it resolved pursuant to the sunshine Act njsa 10 4-12 and 13 the Highland Park Board of Education will now meet in close session to discuss matters related to hi and student discipline these exemptions are permitted to be discussed in closed session in accordance with njsa 10 col 4-13 information regarding the board's closed session discussions 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 I move that we reconvened to regular session second I Stand For The Pledge I pledge alance 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 several Communications last month regarding uh June 19th some emails regarding the uh school safety after school wages head reporting prek expansion uh start time how department heads um are organized some Community concerns starttime surveys and the Irving School sign number eight is the approval of minutes I move to approve hybrid regular public meeting and executive session minutes from January 22nd 2024 second Dr yes yes Dr colan yes Dr pickley yes M truce yes Dr schoolman yes Miss Danel yes Miss gardman yes m g yes we're going to move on to our student representative for courts okay hi guys so we're going to start off with earning like usual it's been a busy month of exciting activities and opportunities for the kids the students enjoy Global Play Day taking part in the Day of unstructured Play which sounds like so much fun uh they also had R act of kindness week celebrated the spirit week and activities to promote inclusivity and friendship students enjoyed the dance fit booster thong sponsored by Irving PTO and raised just under $77,000 they would like to yeah woman they would like to thank everyone for participating they also just celebrated their 100th day of school with counting themed activity activities all day long they also collected 147 cans of dog food and Cat and a bunch of treats brought in for their school service activity and that will all be donated to Sam's home Irving also wants to share their appreciation for all the families that came out for the parent evenings with play therapist Christian bis on the deadline front preschool registration will be open through March 22nd which is the last date they will accept any registration again that's March 22nd the last day for preschool registration and kindergarten kindergarten registration will begin on March 28th so we don't know that yet and all additional information have website over at B on January 31st they hosted at B St night which included ma science and math activities um and on February 7th are also celebrating Global School play day and then on February 9th they participated as well as in the dance fit booster booster Fone raising almost $9,000 others U and on February 29th Peaks and valleys and brothers will host a black history month readin and afternoon of coing song dance and stamping students are very excited okay back over to the middle school students in action will be running the penny wars fundraiser to help support the local animal shelter the grade to raise the most money will earn extended recess and an ice cream party here's how it works in case you don't know you put pennies or dollar bills in your grade bucket to count as positive points and sabotage other grades by placing silver coins n 's rep quarters in their budet to count as negative points middle school will be collecting the pennies during lunch until the 1st of March parents check for Lu chain help support grade calls eighth graders were voted in for this year's eighth grad Parliament and will be featured in the yearbook with their photos which is super cute the Board of Education us invited middle school students to participate in a strategic planning initiative to create a shared vision for the future of P par School District this was an awesome opportunity for students to have a voice in the direction they want the district to go so news to our sixth grade families the sixth graders are going to Adventure aquarum theion slips are due Friday March 1st if you need an extra coffee visit the middle school's office for our sporty friends consider attending the track interest meeting on February 27th with coach tacus and Coach farmer after school at 3 p.m. in the Middle School gym the middle school has been celebrating Black History Month every day by reading a biography of a famous black person and posting their picture in the best they also had a Black History Month assembly on uh February 23rd where midle School acquired students perform songs and others read poetry they also had a dance mle from uh Anthony Harris perform of his dance group okay to the high school now we have a lot of news both past and future the High Park High School drama club was able to get great experience working with Broadway actor F Jasperson best known for his role in Hamilton on February 5th who helped the cast of foot loose to choreograph their final week schoal number the students were able to talk with Mr Jasperson and get feedback on him as well he's visited the club for the past three shows and every year the students improve their dancing skills with help also comes in foot loops on March 15th 16th and 17th if you want it be really nice sorry uh during the week of February 12 the team Center counselors facilitated a daily lunch and learn group with respect is love as the main them from Monday to Thursday they LED stud discussions on respect for S respect for staff respect for family and respect for PE they had between 8 and 12 students attend each day and the students requested to continue meeting about respect PE since that topic encompassed to consent and setting boundaries the team Cent up is currently working to create a more permanent group as a result on February 20th the high school orchestra had an educational and musically enriching field trip the orchestra visited the van Pelt library and music archives on the University of P campus after dinner the students saw a yoro mod perform and John Williams conduct at gizon Hall they want to say thank you to the board for approving the trip and the High Park Education Foundation for providing the grant for transportation which helped keep the trip afford affordable isup day affordable for all students the high school orchestra spring concert will be held on May 21st at 700 p.m. in the High School auditorium so mark your calendars now the National Honor society's Jeopardy event will be held tomorrow February 27th at 6 p.m. in high school on tour come out to see the students compete against High School teachers in some surprise guests in the classic TV Tri game tickets are $5 at the door and all the proceeds will go to the High Park volunteer fire department um the music department will be holding their annual uh chili cookoff competition on March 2nd from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the high school cafeteria cook eat and vote for your favorite chili across multiple categor these categories are vegetarian and vegan chili meat chili spicy chili and best all proceeds will benefit the par music department and you can email Mr pry at K pry HB school.net for information about tickets entering a chili or any additional questions how Park DEA is sending 50 students to their state competition at Harris in Atlantic City from March 3rd to March 6 and some other achievements from the club include getting our school Deca store at the Gold level certified at the Gold level for food and Retail uh we had 16 students reach top three for business rule play interviewing events and we also had 20 students um that are being mentored by AT&T Executives and things like time management and Leadership Deca is very proud of their students accomplishments and finally the Red Cross spring employ Drive will be held on March 22nd in high school jymm from 8:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. they're requesting volunteers and those who are interested can sign up at the link that will be posted in the board buleon thank you thank you okay um we I'm just going to briefly go over the structure for this evening so we're going to have two presentations during the superintendent's report um actually I'm sorry three um starting with our earing students um then we will go through all of our committee reports and agenda item recommendations we'll have public comment the board action items and then um our president's report and then any new business and old business and public comments and close so we'll start with our superintendent report good evening everyone thank you so first I'm going to start let see if I can hold on one second so miss MCN is a remote with us so I'm going to try to put her up on the screen to share out Miss MCN are um your two students in person with us or are they remote do you know uh one should be there and I believe one is remote okay okay just give me one second see if we can get up here I can do this okay all right so we're good all right thank you Miss MCN go ahead I'm going to turn the mic over to miss MCN our principal Irving well good evening everybody um it's so good to see you online um you know I'm always pleased to be here for students Val I always say it every time it's one of my favorites because I get to talk about all the good going on in Irving School um with all you know so many of our are [Music] I move that we reconvened regular session second that stand for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the fly of the United unit States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all we had several Communications last month regarding uh June 19th some emails regarding the uh school safety after school wages P reporting preamp expansion uh start times how department heads um are organized some Community concerns starttime surveys and the Irving School sign number eight is the approval of minutes I move to approve hybrid regular public meeting and executive session minutes from January 22nd 2024 second Dr yes yes Dr colan yes Dr pickley yes M truce yes Dr schan yes Miss Daniel yes Miss Gman yes Missy yes we're going to move on to our student representative for reports okay hi guys so we're going to start off with Irving like usual it's been a busy month of exciting activities and opportunities for the kids the students enjoy Global Play Day taking part in the Day of unstructed Play which sounds like so much fun uh they also had randomax of kindness week celebrated the spirit week and activities toity and friendship students enjoyed Dancefit booster thong sponsored by Irving's PTO and raised just under $7,000 they would like to yeah woman they would like to thank everyone for participated they also just celebrated their 100th day of school with County themed activity activities all day long they also collected 147 cans of dog food and fat food and a whole bunch of treats brought in for their school service activity and that will all be donated to sami's Hope Irving also wants to share their appreciation for all the families that came out for the parent evenings with play therapist Christian release on the deadline front preschool registration will be open through March 22nd which is the last date they will accept any registration again that's March 22nd the last day for preschool registration and kindergarten kindergarten registration will begin on March 28th so you we don't know that yet and all additional information have website over at on January 31st they hosted at B St night which included M science and activities um on February 7th are also celebrating Global School play day and then on February 9th they participated as well as in the dance fit booster booster phone raising almost $9,000 U and on February 29th paks and Val and brothers will host a black history month readin and afternoon of poetry song dance and stepping students are very excited okay back over to the middle school students in action will be running a penny wars fundraiser to help support the local animal shelter the grades to raise the most money will earn extended recess and an ice cream party here's how it works you don't know you put pennies or dollar bills in your grades bucket to count as positive points and sabotage other grades by placing silver coins ni Stein's reporters in their buckets count negative points middle school will be collecting the pennies during lunch until 1st of March parents check for loose chain help support gr calls eighth graders were voted in for this year's eighth grade par and will be featured in the yearbook with their photos which is super cute the Board of Education us invited middle school students to participate in a strategic planning initiative to create a shared Vision to the future of P fire School District this was an awesome opportunity for students to have a voice in the direction they want the district to go so news for our sixth grade families the sixth graders are going to Adventure Aquarium Mion slips are due Friday March 1st if you need an extra coffee visit the Middle School's plan office for our sporty friends consider attending the track interest meeting on February 27th with coach tacas and Coach farmer after school at 3 p.m. in the Middle School gym at the middle school has been celebrating Black History Month every day by reading a biography of a famous black person and posting their picture in the best they also had a Black History Month assembly on uh February 23rd where Middle School acquired students perform songs and others read poetry they also had a dance mle from Anthony Harris perform of his dance group okay to the high school now we have a lot of news both past and future the High Park High School drama club was able to get great experience working with Broadway actor F Jasperson best known for his role in Hamilton on February 5th who helped the cast of foot loose to choreograph their final musical number the students were able to talk with Mr Jasperson and get feedback on him as well he's visited the club for the past three shows and every year the students improve their dens SKS with help also comes in foot loose on March 15th 16th and 17th if you want it be really nice sry uh during the week of February 12th the team Center counselors facilitated a daily lunch and learn group with respect is love as the main Fe from Monday to Thursday they LED St discussions on respect yourself respect for staff respect for family and respect for peers they had between 8 and 12 students attend each day and the students requested to continue reading about respect for peers since that topic Encompass to consent setting boundaries the team Center is currently working to create a more permanent group as a result on February 20th the high school orchestra had an educational and musically enriching field trip the orchestra visited the van Pelt library and music archives on the University of Pennsylvania campus after dinner the students saw yel m perform and John Williams conduct at giz from homeall they want to say thank you to the board for approving the trip and the H Park Education Foundation Who provided the grant for transportation which helped keep the trip afford affordable is interrupting affordable for all students the high school orchestra spring concert will be held on May 21st at 7M in the High School auditorium so mark your calendars now the National Honor society's Jeopardy event will be held tomorrow February 27th at 6 p.m in high school on tour come out to see the students compete against High School teachers and some surprise guests in the classic TV Tri game tickets are $5 at the door and all the proceeds will go to the H park volunteer fire department uh the music department will be holding their annual uh chili cookoff competition on March 2nd from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. in the high school cafeteria cook eat and vote for your favorite chili across multiple categories these categories are vegetarian and vegan chili mean chili spicy chili and best M all proceeds will benefit the H Park music department and you can email Mr pry at K pry H School internet for information about tickets entering your chili or any additional questions how DEA is sending 50 students to their state competition at Harris in attic City from March 3rd to March 6th and some other achievements from the club include getting our school decco store at the Gold level certified at the Gold level for food and Retail uh we had 16 students reached top three for business rule playay interviewing events and we also had 20 students um that are being mentored by AT&T Executives and things like time management and Leadership DEA is very proud of their students accomplishments and finally the Red Cross spring boy Drive will be held on March 22nd in high school jym from 8:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. they're requesting volunteers and those who are interested can sign up at the link that will be posted in the board bulletin thank you thank you okay um we I'm just going to briefly go over the structure for this evening so we're going to have two presentations during the superintendent report um actually I'm sorry three um starting with our herbing students um then we will go through all of our committee reports and agenda item recommendations we'll have public comment the board action items and then um our president's report and then any new business and old business and public comments and close so we'll start with our superintendent report okay good evening everyone thank you so first I'm going to start let see if I can hold on one second so miss MCN is uh remote with us so I'm going to try to put her up on the screen to share off Miss MCN are um your two students in person with us or are they remote do you know uh one should be there and I believe one is remote okay okay just give me one second let see if we can get up here I can do this okay all right so we're good all right thank you Miss MCN go ahead I'm Turnal over to miss MCN our principal Irving well good evening everybody um it's so good to see you online um you know I'm always pleased to be here for students Bight I always say it every time it's one of my favorites because I get to talk about all the good going on in Irving School um with all you know so many of our and the two that were spotlighting this evening um we have one kindergartener I'm going to start with Catalina Flores I believe you are there in person seeing Dr susa's face I think she's adorable her um also I want to thank Mrs cou she is also joining us um online this evening her teacher so Mrs cou is also with us as well so Catalina is a kindergartener in Mrs cow's class and I want to say a couple of awesome words as to why she is receiving this awesome student Spotlight for this evening so Catalina is a perfect example of a kindergartener who is kind respectful and empathetic toward her friends she puts others needs above her own and she goes out of her way to be a good friend to every everybody he you you lost your audio no Frozen is she my whole screen is frozen mine is so be she's still talking she doesn't know here so it might be my zoom my connection is unstable so I'm gonna hide my video that is M you still there can you hear me I hear you okay sorry I had my zoom was unstable so I just put the video off to so that you can continue and then hopefully when it restabilize this I will hope I be back on sorry please continue all right I'm wondering where I left off like what was last curve by all of you she's a good friend yeah she's a she's a good friend to all oh she's a to all okay awesome so Mrs K also shared that she is always especially kind to new students who have joined their class mid year which is super important because we always like to welcome our new students and she works hard to complete her work and she doesn't give up if something is challenging her which is a super important trade to have so um join me and congratulating calina this evening and I know her teacher m is here with us as well the work Cina tomorrow myself you have a photo okay and I know you have one more Mr yes I do I have one more and I did see his little face Carter I see you I see you online so I'm going to send you away virtually so Carter guil is our second student Spotlight for the month um he is in first grade in Mrs Aller class and Carter I want to let you know she apologized she can't be here with you tonight um but she's going to give you a big fist bom tomorrow all right so am I so a couple of words about what Mrs alsager mentioned and what I know about you Carter so first she Mrs olager says you're just a kindhearted and funny child and I would totally agree with that and you're also a twin is Mia there with you too yeah all right um he is so well liked by his peers and what Mrs aler said which really sticks out to me me is that when you entered first grade Carter that you had difficulty adjusting to sitting at your desk and sometimes you needed some wiggle toys and a special special seat to sit in and once you adjusted to the routines and expectations you just begin to flourish in first grade Mrs aler said that you make a great effort and your dedication to learning is so evident and 5 months later you have shown marked growth and the definition of stamina is being able to do something that is difficult or sometimes takes a long time to do without giving up Mrs alsager said that you have stamina Carter lots of it and you will continue to move forward because of it and for this reason she wanted to nominate you because you're doing such an awesome job in class so congratulations so congratulations to Carter gil on a job well done hi Miss oh am batteries Maybe okay thank you Mr I'm going to send the certificate back over to you you can give that carer for me thank you congratulations everybody have a good night congratulations and miss m uh Miss couch and our students you're more than welcome to stay on for the duration of our meeting or feel free to log off um if if you don't although I have some great presentations tonight for the rest of the night but so thank you Miss MCD thanks Miss C thank you to the parents Irving yeah thank you all very much have a good night okay we're gonna into this little bit okay so here for presentation just give me one second anywhere okay so I'm going to begin first with my presentation then uh we'll have my pre my formal presentation I'll open it up to some questions for the board only and then I will turn the mic over to Mr McIntosh to give his presentation and then you'll be able to ask questions of Mr mcintosh's presentation okay see if I can minimize that okay so we should be good all right so tonight I'm presenting on midyear updates in particular our current strategic plan goals and some information that is reported uh mid year and last year for our ssdf data okay so just to reorient ourselves to our current strategic plan goals that will'll be retiring at the end of the year um either hopefully Meeting those goals or potentially looking to add them as continuing goals into our new strategic plan so uh the two that fall under our first goal of whole child were updating our preschool curriculum and implementing conscious discipline with which responsive classroom to support the whole child our second goal to ensure inclusion and the support of students for all abilities raises cultures religions belief systems sexual orientations gender gender identities and so socioeconomic backgrounds and some of the actionable items there we're monitoring the implementation of our math 6 Plus Class collecting and reviewing the data on accessibility for honors and AP courses at the high school our work work with monitoring the tier interventions and proactive strategies for student discipline developing a fiveyear plan to implement full day preschool for all three and foury olds providing professional development and coaching on a variety of co- teing models and practices to promote inclusion and a sense of community and our third strategic thing goal which is the district will ensure the implementation of more consistent and effective approaches to differentiated instruction and under those the three actual items that we've been working on are providing profal development on implementation of assessment opportunities that emphasize the transfer of skills aligned to lesson objectives continuing research and developing sore at the high school which is a class that provides flexible and personalized learning Pathways for students and providing professional development to to teachers interested in researching the impact of language-based phrism in particular in our English language arts classes so some of our mayor updates on our strategic goals the first one for goal one is our preschool curriculum I know that in U midall Miss MCN came and did an amazing presentation of tools of the mind so I'm really happy with the districts move toward tools of the Mind curriculum so we've been one of the things we've been doing is providing ongoing professional development and coaching to implement the curriculum in addition we've been still conducting site visits because what we're looking at is we had our initial implementation and professional development and then how are we continuing that what does that look like for districts that are a little bit more advanced in the curriculum and one of the things that we can sort of foreshadow as areas of support as we continue to implement tools of the mind um I know some of the board members joined me on a site visit to see our preschool in action and to see the students in the classro find a lot of success in language acquisition is really remarkable with tools in the mind so you can see I tried to capture some pictures of their play planning which was really awesome so they come up at with ideas to to play plan and with that you can see on the one picture that she or or he or they are are writing uh lines drawing lines and that so that they understand how many words would be in their sentence when they decide what they want to play and that's early acquisition of language for our students and there's a lot of fun play and the students have been doing an excellent job of working through that the teachers have been really impressed with what they've seen so far in the classroom so we're making great Headway towards implementing our new curriculum in addition K5 we've been working on providing ongoing and professional development including resources for combining class uh responsive classroom and conscious discipline what we found Co remember our conversations last year when Miss MCN presented on conscious discipline was that our students um responsive classroom wasn't enough to meet the issues we were seeing with students coming back back from Co with conflict resolution strategies so conscious discipline was an additional add-on of a tier one intervention in the classroom as a way to help students really work through conflict resolution strategies so we've been providing ongoing professional development and resources for them in uh which includes strategies which are being implemented in the classroom and with school counselors in addition they've been still continuing their work with whole school meetings that they call family meetings again trying to to work with that language and conscious discipline um in keeping with the spirit of the work that we do with responsive classroom and there's daily mornings and meetings uh daily morning meetings and greetings as well in terms of our second goal I'm just see if I can move us so here so yall can see this um if they're if you're with us in person so our second goal included a monitoring of our math 6 Plus so before we even before Co we were working on redesigning our middle school math program to provide more heterogeneous classes so we started at sixth grade so that's our math 6 Plus so really what happened was we tried to start it before co co hit and then coming back from Co was a little problematic so the way we look at it in terms of full implementation was 2223 so really last year was what we consider our first full year of full implementation just because everything was disjointed because of so sort of re although we've been having the discussions and working on it for some time the data that we're collecting really that'll be meaningful to us is starting from last year and what we're looking for in terms of success who for those who don't remember from a couple of years ago when we presented on this was closing the achievement Gap so DET tracking and redesigning our middle school math program the research suggest that when done with Fidelity it will help close the achievement capap and so what we'll see hopefully over time in our data is that the Gap closes so our students are more successful in math 7 or pre-algebra in addition we hope to see an increase in enrollment in pre-algebra because our students might be gaining more mathematical fluency and automaticity toward being more successful um at the with at the pre-algebra level data will be reported after the New Jersey student learning uh assessment test results are made publicly available so I don't have those uh yet but as they come out we will report back and follow that Trend through our data Miss Saka our stem supervisor works with teachers to track the data by standard so she has this amazing spreadsheet that she keeps with the teachers and tracks each student by the standards in particular looking at our seventh and the exposure to seventh and even eighth grade standards at the mass 6 level and including the mass 6 standard so we're really sort of uh working on a standard based approach to monitoring our students to make sure they're finding success and I know she's been providing explicit communication and exposure to seventh grade standards and working with the teachers to do that so the students and the parents should know when they're working on a lesson a learning opportunity where specifically there is exposure to the sth grade standards where there opportunities to tackle the seventh grade standards and so on so it's not just an add-on and sort of to see what happens when students do it it's a real hyperfocus with explicit communication and I know that they're continuing to work on implementing complex tasks and differentiating structure the district P purchase Ed JBS uh which is a middle school math program which does a really great job of providing differentiated assessments and learning opportunities for students as well so we've been working in both of those areas so movement on our goal two for which is AP of and honors accessibility so if you can recall we've been working to break down all of the bar barers to have open access to all of our higher level classes at the at the high school level and the hope with this is to allow students that might come from um disadvantaged subgroups some of our social economically um disadvantaged students students of color um and our special ed students an opportunity to to take those courses uh we did found a disproportionality of those students enrolled in courses in the past and we're trying to break down barriers to increase enrollment um so I know that we've already removed barriers such as teacher recommendations prerequisites and things like that we have stuff that is suggested for students to find success but there's not any requirements so there's no overriding students can just decide to take an AP or an honors course as they see fit we've been offering study skills support so one of the areas that we wanted to make sure was we had a cohort of students over the summer to try to do a Summer Academy we didn't find much success with that but we're still continuing to work on it but we do offer study skills support and tutoring after school for students that are in need we have oh I'm getting hold on I'm going to stop oh shoot I'm going to stop my video I'm getting uh instability on my um Zoom uh so we've been offering uh paper tutoring to offer as a resource as well unfortunately at this point we're not seeing the positive impact we thought we would be having our firsttime students are really struggling in these classes so I Miss Saka and Miss Young are working with the school counselors to constantly review and analyze the data so what we're doing is we're working to collect a more accurate representation of the existing students we're looking at historical data for Trends and what we'd like to do is Implement more interventions and support at the lower grades so by the time the students get to the high school hopefully they'll find more support in those classes number one and number two that they have more of a growth mindset to to be able to tackle some of the challenges they might face um with a more rigorous honors or AP classes so I know that Miss Young will be attending our next equity and Excellence committee meeting to share more specifically about the work they're doing for this goal in addition we were looking at monitoring tiered interventions for discipline so these School leadership teams so each school has their own School leadership team and they are reviewing the data very frequently they're working to develop and and provide more support for tier one interventions in the classroom and then this includes that responsive classroom conscious discipline and restorative practices in addition we are piloting a character education program called responsive advisory at the middle and high school so I know that um before the holiday the winter break uh some of the Middle School teachers and Mr ler came on to an equity exence committee to meeting to share some information about uh responsive advisory so we're implementing that as well as implementing more positive behavioral supports so more of a pbsis approach to looking at positive uh supports for students in addition in goal two we're looking at our preschool expansion plan so we are currently um in year one of our preschool expansion to offer full day school expansion for three and four year olds under the governor's initiative next year will be our year two and we already have a plan to expand our program by two additional classrooms so as part of the fiveyear plan what the state wants to see is that we're making good faith effort to continue to expand our plan so we have our year two to expand by two additional classrooms we're still exploring options to leas spaces to expand in the coming year so that is the plan moving into the spring and then probably the work that myself Mr Rosa and Miss vicnal will do over the summer is to really focus our efforts on trying to find a place um that we could lease to house maybe another classroom or two as we expand in the year three so as that information comes up we will present that um and and what our options are for leasing space in the coming years and then we're looking to approve a new architect firm which will be tonight so you saw on the agenda so we will hire we'll have two architect firms of record our current one DMR U because they are still currently working on projects within the district and a new architectural firm and that will allow us an opportunity to look at our current buildings to offer more creative ideas for the construction of preschool class space additionally for goal two we are doing professional development on code teaching models for inclusion so we want to provide a more inclusive learning opportunity learning environment for our special education students so part of that comes with professional development on co- teing models so we've hired a consultant who presented for the leadership team on her plan on inclusion on co- teing her background in Co teaching and the work that she's going to be doing with our child study team and teachers so she presented book leadership team she also presented for the child study team and conducted classroom visits as well to get a of land and to collect more data she is working with the child study team um I'm sorry we're working with the child study team and the board of ed for budgeting to provide more inclusive classrooms at the middle school is a good place to start so one of the areas that myself um and the finance and Facilities committee Mr R and the child study team is looking at doing is to really provide more inclusion classes versus the self-contained classes at the middle school level in order to do that successfully the teachers have to be prepared to make sure that they're meeting the needs of special education students and we're looking a a roll out of targeted professional development on co- teing models um and least restricted learning environments that will start this summer in preparing our teachers for the upcoming school year for our third goal on differentiated instruction we're continuing to provide professional development for assessments during our professional Learning Community meetings and department meetings teachers are working to unpack the New Jersey student learning standard test questions in particular our teachers are working with their content area supervisors to focus on vocabulary use and skills needed for Success when taking the state assessment questions so we're not really focusing on this idea of test prep per se but looking at our assessments that we're implementing both formative and summative assessments and how we can embed more of that Focus language that the state assessment might use in our assessment practices and what those skills are needed for Success so for example the test is an online test so we want to make sure that unless a child has an IP that says they get a paper test it's an online test so we want to expose our students to how they can successfully take a test online so that they can be successful at taking the New Jersey student learning assessment online um you know using an online calculator things like that so just little areas that we can support our um our students in addition we're working to integrate higher level questions on local assessments as part of um as part of the lessons we do both formatively and summatively in our assessments without it feeling like test prep in addition we're researching sore which is a flexible learning Pathways that we're doing at the high school I last year we talked about the uh getting some students drone certifications in which they were able to meet the requirement for either their a two and a half credit physics class or a career in tech ed class so we're still continuing to explore some of those flexible learning Pathways so that our students feel connected to the school that there are classes that they want to take and also some of our students if they get a drone certification or something like that they could then use that as a career path or for for or you know college pathway so it can really meet the needs of needs of all of our students right now we're so we're continuing to explore those learning Pathways and right now we're in addition in the process of working with middle sex College to acquire dual en enrollment programming in particular for our computer science classes we've been trying to explore dual en enrollment for some time however middle sex college has very specific requirements on what the teachers need to meet in order to qualify to be middle sex College professors essentially Educators to be able to implement the middle sex College version of the course in our courses so in the past we've had teachers for example Math teachers that were interested but if they didn't have a M's in the subject area or they didn't meet certain requirements middle sex wouldn't wouldn't take them so I've been working with Dr McCormack at middle sex College to really work on the flexibility of those requirements because we have some great amazing Master teachers at the high school level and it would be really great great if we could see some of their skill sets maybe length of time they've been teaching a subject area or something like that to replace some of the other requirements that they have and I'm excited to share that the middle sex college has um has looked at our computer science uh teacher our new computer science teacher what her credentials are and are providing that flexibility so she's interested in doing that so we're going to hopefully start that work in the spring into the summer so that next year potentially we can provide dual enrollment options for our computer science classes and lastly we're continuing to provide professional development on language based racism in particular for English language arts recently we had Philly children's movement in in our February professional development session and they facilitated a session on our inservice day for Irving and ble staff the topic was Radical morning meetings building Community while building skills for oh sorry that's a type of both Joy and justice and develop shared understanding of anti-racist and cultural sustaining pedagogies so we've been providing professional development um on for herbing and FAL staff in that area as well so we're continuing to move that goal forward so moving on the last part of my presentation tonight is on our student safety data system report so it's what we our acronym ssds and what we have to do is every twice a year we report data to the state through U the ssds report and it captures two types of information the first is incidences of violence vandalism harassment intimidation or bullying weapon offenses substance offenses restraint seclusion and any other incident leading to removal from school and also our hip trainings and programs so that's a a lot of data we report to the state but this particular report um highlight these particular areas so the due date for those uh reports so this is the current set of information for this is happens to be for public schools so what we do is incidents that are reported from September to December our deadline for submitting that date to the state is the end of January and then is reported to the board and governing Authority anywhere between January 1 and June 30th so we just have a responsibility report to the to the board before the end of the year um and then incidences trainings and programs um then and then there another set from July 1 to December 30th so there's two chunks of time in which we report our data so a couple things to remember that I know I've spoken about in my previous superintendent report but just to highlight a couple things about the ssds reports the first is multiple offenses one incident so a single incident can consist of sort of multiple types so there are for example um if there are 10 students involved in a fight that's 10 incidences of fights it could be one fight but reported as 10 incidences so it's important to note how the data is communicated to ssds and then how that information looks on the slides so what the information that we present doesn't drill down that deeply but those are the nuances of the data so um another example a student might make a criminal threat toward another student while holding a knife this would be entered into the ssds as a single incident of a criminal threat and weapon use so just another example of a single incident that can consist of multiple incident types as well and then I fed multiple offenders in multiple incidences um I just wanted to give a brief um overview of commonly used definitions by the ssds so this is information that our school administrators are trained on in terms of understanding a fight so if you see a fight on our SSS report it's a mutual engagement in a physical confrontation in which the offender is understood that confrontation may result in bodily injury to either party it does not include a verbal confr confrontation or a minor confrontation such as a shoving bch each participant must be classified as an offender so in order for it to be classified as a fight it must meet this criteria an assault is a person attempts a cause or purposely knowingly or recklessly causes bodily injury to another person a physical restraint is the use of personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a student to move all or a portion of their body and just for reference our staff are trained and Handle With Care that is the the program that we use it's a deescalation techniques first and then physical restraints second so anytime you see a physical restraint on a report it's by trained staff that are trained in order to do that a thle a simple threat is attempting by physical Menace a verbal threat to put another in fear poly injury the offender knew that the threat could make the victim feel fearful and I know I reported on that at on my last uh superintendent report and then some other commonly used definitions or other incidents leading to removal which might be new to a lot of people's understanding is any other incident not listed in the guide book that takes place on or off school grounds that result in a disciplinary removal for at least one half of the day must be reported there are many other definitions in there but I gave a couple of the key ones that I think are on our radar others for substance abuse weapons possession I felt that those were a little bit more self-explanatory but if you Google the ssds report for the New Jersey Department of Education you can see all of the definitions and all this information so our report so what I wanted to do first was go back a year so I know it came to light because there was an article that was written about the number of incidences that we had and what uncovered was that those incidences were inaccurately reported and what we did was we Tred to go back to the state however the state does not let you change what you already put in so what we did do though this year was our current data we went back to clean up to make sure we're reporting accurate information so what I will report on of our mid year is reported accurately I can't go back and change the 20 the 22 timeline but what I can show is that from last year the information that was reported and then the staff did go as for my request to update it so that you can see what was accurate what should have been reported but wasn't reported accurately so this is from September to December of last year so you can see the high school had total of seven incidences um they had two violence five substances and to make their total of seven the Middle School reported uh 44 um they originally had 31 as violence but the real number is actually six so our total number of incidences is not accurate so the violence was six vandalism was two and substances was 10 and weapons was one ble had one total incident and Irving had none and then you can see the confirmed hips so of the violent incidences below you can see so remember last my last presentation I shared that violence is broken down into subcategories as well so for the violent incidences at the high school one was sexual contact and one was an assault and at the middle school of the sixth two were fights and four were assaults um okay and then in terms of other incidences leading to removal the middle the high school had 27 and Middle School reported zero but it was actually 22 so what they were reported as violence was actually not violence they reported that information inaccurately and what they were was under the category of other incidences leading to removal uh ble had two and Irving had zero in restraints last year high school had one Middle School had one ble had 23 and Irving had four and terms of hip trainings completed the high school had one hip training Middle School had four ble had 26 Irving had eight in terms of trainings and then programs completed the high school had uh conducted three hip programs or related programs for culture and climate Middle School had three ble 21 and Irving 19 so January of 2023 to June of 2023 so again the second half of last year um High School had eight total incidences two violence and five substance one confirmed him the Middle School originally reported 60 total incidences they originally reported that 43 were violence three were vandalism eight were substances and then you had six confirmed HPS when they went back to the data and looked at it they had zero violence and then the three vandalism eight substances Middle School had eight total incidences four VI to vandalism to weapons and Irving had none of the violent incidences at the high school two of them were fights so which means that they misrepresented the issue of removing the students from the school and it was actually under other in other incidences leading to removal so they had 45 high school had 18 ble had 11 and Irving had none of the restraints for the second half of last year high school had none Middle School had two ble had 10 and Irving had 10 in terms of trainings complete for the second half of the year for hip trainings High School had none Middle School had none ble had 15 and Irving had one in terms of Hib programs completed High School had none for the second half of the year only Middle School had none ble had 19 and Irving had none so again that was last year's data just to be transparent that there was some misrepresentation of that data again I can't go back last year to the state and change that but but now it's at least accurately represented um in on our local reports but we were able to make sure that our current data is accurate um ensuring that the staff members that enter or staff member that enters that data correctly understands how they're entering it correctly so for this year for our report period one from September 1 to December 31st the high school has had 14 total incidences one incident of violence seven incidences of substances and one incident of weapons and they had six confirmed hips the middle school has had 33 total incidences 21 of them violence two vandalism eight substances one weapons and one confirmed him Arnold has had no total incidences and Irving has no toal in incidences in these categories of the violent incidences at the high school the one was a fight for the Middle School five of them were assaults 10 of them were fights again please remember that in some cases that a fight could have multiple people which means it's reported as multiple instances so theoretically this could have just been one fight with 10 kids right so just to keep that in mind that it's not 10 fights collectively each person has to be reported as a fight um 10 fights two sexual conduct and four simple threats for the first half of the year the high school reported 17 incidences leading to removal no restraints so far for the first half of the year they had one HP Trea one hip training completed and two Hip programs completed of the middle school they had 32 incidences that led to removal zero restraints six trainings of hi completed by staff and seven programs completed ble had 57 incidences leading to removal 15 restraints 25 hip trainings completed and 30 Hib programs completed Irving had eight students uh eight incidences leading to removal they had 12 restraints eight hip trainings completed and 15 programs completed so that's a lot of data and a lot of information this presentation will be made to the public as part of the board notes so that it will be fully accessible to have to you know go back and and look at that data more collectively and again into the summer we'll report on the second half of the year so in summary I feel that the district is making progress towards strategic plan goals we look forward to setting new goals for the next 5 years and knowing that areas that uh we're still working on we still continue to work on regardless of those end up being our goals or not we're still committed to them we still continue to monitor data on student achievement attendance discipline mental health and things like that so my midyear updates didn't include our progress in our expansion of our mental health um in our teen and tween Center and things like that our social emotional learning uh expansion of ourl lab to the middle school so there's a lot of things that we do on a daily basis um that it would be hard and i' be all night reporting on all of that but we do continue to monitor a lot of different data points collectively as a team to make sure we're making decisions in the best interest of students and to make sure we're supporting them obviously based on the inaccurate report of our discipline data through sscs We are continuing to tighten up systems and processes for data collection and Reporting we're continuing to communicate updates throughout the year and we will continue to provide uh support for students so I know I shared at my last superintendent presentation areas in which we are supporting students and I just wanted to reiterate that especially looking at our ssds report and that data for example at the middle school I know we've seen it in uptick we've put into place already a middle school new safety specialist and I know the students have been sharing positive comments about for relationships with our U safety specialist we've been piloting advisory and so far at the middle school has actually been a lot more successful at the high school I think it's been hit or miss uh for its implementation but I know at the middle school it's U we're seeing already some some great feedback from the students and the staff and we'll continue to monitor that data through surveys we have some some PR data pre-vis data and we'll look at some post advisory data as well we always continue to provide more training on restored practices in fact that our February and service Tyler Brewster was here presenting to our staff on ways that we can provide more restorative practices and circles for our students and in addition I know last year we started the process we hired a Student Assistance counselor uh but Miss Lane is an amazing resource so she spent last year really getting to know the L of the land and working with our students and she's been expanding her services for substance abuse and working on restorative practices with our students in addition additional additionally peer leadership groups to really connect our students with each other to provide mentorship and Leadership opportunities for our students in um in the world of the teen center so I know that we're continuing to monitor that I know some of our data on substance abuse has has an uptick as well uh in terms of marijuana use and vaping we've been uh we started installing and piloting the VAP detectors at the middle and high school to provide same places for students to go to the bathroom so we're working on some some of these key areas to provide support for students so we constantly are monitoring the data and we're constantly looking at ways that we can support the students some of our decisions for implementation of programs or resources take a little bit more time and a little bit more money but we make sure that we we do those and that's it so I will um gu I'll keep sharing just in case for maybe I'll stop sharing and we can get the next presentation I've been running and I'll open up the floor to questions from the board questions now so we're going to do questions for my presentation first and then after that I'll toss Mike over to Mr McIntosh and he can do his presentation on the Flor and afare program then you'll have an opportunity to ask questions okay have question uh do we have any feedback from the teachers or students middle school and high school oh sorry do we have any feedback from students in Middle uh teachers at the middle school and high school about the functionality of The Vape detectors so I know we just started them I think they were working on uh figuring out how to like stick it with their phone and they were working with the staff and um the facilities and leadership in terms of like who's getting learned how we're using it how does it work the sensitivity of of them so right now we're at the sort of pilot stage of implementing them because it comes with a lot of uh nuances and a lot of like sort of technical work that needs to be done but we can certainly ask the next dat meeting I had a question about um monitoring the ma six program um I know that the the main balls are trying to close the gap between math 7 and prealgebra with a hope for inre in roll in prealgebra are we also looking at is there any decrease in Ren in algebra from the prior math 6A Class A lot of those kids that was pretty much they went to prealgebra or algebra so just wondering that right now we have right now we have level flat flat data right now that's the hope and the goal that's where we'll see what we're doing is working so that is on the radar so miss Saka has a has a lot of that information and that data and so right now we're at sort of a leveled Al's part of yeah algebra's part of that yeah but I mean over time we're hoping we're hoping to see more of that achievement Gap closed so that more students are successful in math 7 and successful in prealgebra and hopefully over time our students are and we're working the K8 the K5 level that students would be wildly successful in math 6 and over time really only smaller sections of math 7 as well but that's probably a long longer term plan but for now that we're seeing that our student achievement is increasing um you know over over those particular groups thank you I also a question that honors did sure so I I had a question about the ad Hors and I don't know if it's the same question but um one of the I was just wondering if there's any data or um any benchmarks on how the opening it up and make it more accessible to everyone is affecting if it is affecting or how it is affecting if it is the quality of education for those classes specifically um so we haven't seen any decrease in the quality of the education of our AP honors classes where we're seeing the issue is that our students aren't as successful our firsttime students that we're tracking aren't as successful as we want them to be so we're really looking at trying to figure out supports not only at that level but also middle school and downward so if we're working to close the achievement Gap hopefully our students will find more success at that level if they have more of the executive functioning skills potentially to function there so I know that they're working on trying to figure out what it what it is that a concern of our students not finding success and really focusing and try to figure out how we support the students not only at the high school level but but going to you know middle school and even elementary school so it hasn't impacted the nature of it's not that um students at an APR hter classes are getting a less than program what we're finding is those students that are first timers taking those are not as successful as their peers and so that's really our Focus so instruction stays the way instruction is curriculum does not change um you have approved all the curriculum so that stays the same it's just trying to figure out ways to meet the students where they're at and provide them more success at those at those higher level classes just as a followup to that I know we removed the barrier of teacher recommendations prerequisites but are we still sharing that information with the students and with their families upon upon their request and the school counselors do it so what the school counselors do are so most they meet with each individual student and talk about what their goals are in particular what their strengths are so if a student really likes to write and has a strength for that maybe that's an area that they pursue for a higher level class versus an area that they might struggle with a little bit more or might not be intrinsically motivated to do because often times especially at the when you get to those higher level AP classes AP is a college of class so if you think about an AP Class A College of class that runs September or August through May you know it's a real much a shorter time frame than the what we have in September to to June so to speak that you know by the time they're preing for that test it's about April so they actually really have to cover almost like a whole year of college stuff from September to really April is by the time they start to prepare for that exam and things like that so it's really finding where a student might be more intrinsically motivated to be successful as well especially at an AP level so the work is being done with the school counselor so I miss Sako is and Miss Young Miss Young is going to come to the next equity and Excellence committee meeting to actually talk about the work that she's doing with the school counselors as our lead counselor in the district under missaoa leadership to actually look at where students were we can hopefully find success what the data is showing us and specifically tracking students in terms of what their requests are and how we can support them so a lot of it is individual conversations with students to say oh you know you're intrinsically motivated here do you want to try it what can we do to support you what does that look like um how much time can you put toward a particular class how long do things take you so a lot of it is just those um ongoing conversations that our school counselors have with students not what their families though so just they certainly C absolutely they certainly C they can upon request so where this is coming from is that I think there are some parents that didn't really know that this was removed so parids are taking the class and they just assumed oh they were nominated for this class and they weren't really prepared and it would have been great if they could have had a conversation with their student about it yeah so we I mean I could talk to missimo and remind the remind her to talk to the school counselors that when they're having these conversations with students our students select their own courses at the high school level to encourage them to talk with their their parents if they don't feel comfortable of course the school counselors can reach out but our school counselors don't call every single parent to share the you know the um their potential course offerings that they want to take it's more about the students being able to share that at the high school level with with their parents or guardians or caregivers okay thank you can I ask a couple questions so it doesn't seem all that surprising just removing the barrier AP and students opting in uh if the pedagogy isn't changing right a requires um you know its own content and so it's a little less flexible I think it's very different than the the change of the sixth grade where py was changing was still challenging but providing more entry points for students um so it seems to me that if more students are moving in AP then probably about providing additional support um most likely structural um because some kids might have access to tutoring I don't know if the kids were pushing in they have access to that um or some some some additional um uh you know program that that could help bridge the AP curriculum because the PED isn't going to change and there isn't necessarily a bridge and there isn't necessarily differentiating instruction it might be depending on the AP class too I'm not sure what there availability for something like apy versus B bio or something like that um but actually a good point we can I'll look into it with the paper tutoring because I know paper tuting is a great resource and provides that help I know our National Honor Society provides tutoring um and then we had two teachers that are sort of our AP honors co-ord coaches that provide that level of support as well so maybe looking specifically at what areas that are maybe there's certain honors classes for our students are not finding as much Su success and seeing if the supports we have in place Target that I'm just got to come for it that we can't I can't be heard and Dan okay so make sure you speak you have to speak literally to the B PR okay okay um I have a question oh I'm time out I think Ethan has a question okay you want to get him on first and then we'll go back to the okay thanks everybody I'm sorry to being at home today uh just various sicknesses in the family can everyone hear you okay yes okay um yeah so first of all I want to say very quick turnaround time on the sdss ssds data I have some questions about interpretation but I just want to applaud Dr zes you and your staff who probably burned with that oil more than a few times to get this together so I think there a lot of work and I want to acknowledge that um I am interested in this AP uh you know issue and um when I was in high school no one took APK with Mr uh uh um his name without taking Jen cam Jen cam was a tough course and you took it and no matter how smart you were you didn't take APK without taking gen Ken you didn't take AP Physics without taking physics you didn't take AP Calculus without taking the toughest level of math because I can't believe people are surprised that students who aren't prepared to take a college level course which is what this is are are doing poorly I mean I respect immensely the goal of opening uh AP courses to more people who don't think of themselves maybe a as a level of students we should uh open these courses people who are ready for them but opening them students who aren't ready for them is just setting block for failure and and I I'm been very hard to believe that the that the the quality of the education for students who are ready for it is not being diminished because if there are students who are really struggling with basic principles how can the teacher you know focus on the really advanced stuff they're trying to make sure kids who are pretty far behind don't get even further behind so that is is a clear case where like the goal is notable but it's just it's just wrong it's just wrong and it's going to diminish the quality of education and it's not helping the kids who maybe encourage these classes and aren't ready for them so as a strategic goal I would certainly think this needs to be revised like the whole thing needs to be re thought it's not good policy I'm looking at the AP the College Board website right here and here's what it says anyone take AP question answer some high schools let any student enroll in an AP course as long as the student has taken the recommended college prere courses other high schools have additional rules dot dot dot it is not even contemplated that a high school would let student take courses without free requisites for Teacher saying this kid is brilliant and doesn't need the free reite so I hope we rethink this particular policy and maybe there's more commentary on this topic I have some more questions about the interation of the SS so the so we definitely can talk about this further equity and Excellence commit meeting I will say anecdotally we actually have had some freshmen that went into AP Bio freshman year and were wildly successful paint a blanket statement for all of our students although I'm saying that we're not there yet with the goal I will say that some of of our first year students are taking taking honors and AP classes and are successful what I'm saying is that we're not tell there I can't say that 100% of our firsttime students taking an AP or honors class are successful we're not at 100% I'm not sure if we'll letter will be at 100% but um I will say you know the idea is is to break down those barriers and we're monitoring closely so I don't want to make a blanket statement that our students aren't successful at all because we are fting success but we're we're still a work in progress and I think there's still more supports that need to be done and more communication with our students can I say a couple things I think there's some assumptions in what Ethan's sharing that they need to be challenged I think this about sport structur it's not just about moving kids in um and there are often kind of assumptions that things are going to be dumb down as you move kids into courses and that often isn't the case if you look at a lot of data about moving kids in it's not that the there's a lot of concern about the kids who are high in class like lowering their achievement and that rarely ever happens um so yeah I I just think um I don't think we know these things uh I think it's about investigating them and seeing what's happening with a if there are some supports that can be provided and kids can be successful why wouldn't we do that um so I I don't I don't yeah I I don't I don't think um I I personally don't don't necess can I just really quick I know very quick guys um we talked about uh how they're doing in the course but we didn't speak to we met the goal of are we actually reaching more folks from diverse backgrounds I'm just curious about that because that's one of the goals as well yeah so that data will be shared with that would be an Excellence so we can move forward with I I don't have it available yet miss is working on that with Miss Saka but yes we are seeing that more students are attempting those higher level classes which is great some of the students are finding success and others are not and we have to want to you know celebrate the success of the students that are achieving and you know supporting the students that are not there yet grow mindset okay can I ask question this is on a different I know we're going to talk about this in more detail and Excellence out but back to math 6 plus I have any question oh sorry back to math 6 plus uh my question there was just about the process or the tools I should say you're using to evaluate the success of the program I know that you pointed to the standardized test data point are there any other indicators that to have a more comprehensive assessment of these success yes so our students take local assessments where they do quarterly assessments and we're tracking that data as well so we have uh local Assessments in addition we through Ed gems they have assessments that we're looking at that are leveled and are differentiated as well as edulastic as a tool for actually math instruction K12 as a way to monitor that data okay good I didn't see that reference that and then um I'm sorry Al is there something you wanted to say back on the topic no no it was a different topic okay so let me just ask a couple more questions um the tier okay I'm sorry these are my notes just go through uh so excited to hear about the uh co- teing professional development um so happy to hear that we' been talking about that in the district for a long time how can we yes we promote our programming for children with disabilities students and welcome students to come back into District but also seeing those students included in our um classes more Broad um is something that I think we have a lot of work to do in that area and I think my question is um we have the uh support coming in for the PD what what is the plan sort of for ongoing support this can be certainly a conversation for equity and excellence in the future I'm sure we will have discussions but I don't know if there was anything who wanted or could share about that now the plan for support as we start kind of numbers are like what's the scope that we're talking about this first year at the middle school I believe you said just the number of classes yeah so it's going to be all so we're to work on a full inclusion model takes some time because a lot of it is working with parents of students with disabilities to talk about that in an IP setting so in order to change a child's placement from um maybe a self-contained class to an inclusion model that has to be a conversation as part of the IEP conversations and that all happens in the spring so a number of classes and and how we would have for icr I'm not really sure yet we have some projections the the um professional development will start over the summer what that looks like and the dates are to be determined right now we have to wait for passing of the budget before we start our process for what we do over the summer so once we approve the budget we can then go ahead and move forward with our planning and preparation once that's done I'll definitely have Miss kopa share that but it's on her radiar and I know she's been working with Dr Edwards um for a while and then you know maybe at some point we'll have Dr Edwards come in and share some with Miss um some information on our cing that's great I was thinking more so what we could what we think we could accommodate I know you really won't I don't know that will be the spring all more information about we think what we can accommodate um and then the M County do Roman excited to hear about that um and I would just hope that we could put that on an equity and exellence discussion in terms of the consultant coming in and um oh I'm sorry my got J sorry that that that is uh here okay language based racism in elementary school that was the common question I had um i' would love to hear more about the new consultant that you brought in and again it's not a discussion for tonight but for eting excellence I know this was a it can be I think a challenging um approach to reducing um the kind of early onet disparities in Reading um and how that starts in the elementary school level we really to time as talk about cling opportunity G so I'm happy to hear we moving that forward and looking at it from an racist perspective but I know that just processing that and developing the um professional skills to recognize that combat is going to be an autoing process so we'd love to hear more about ite and then I'm sorry the incident data entry um I I'm just unsure about and clear on how we had such a huge number of my reported like how were so many incidents misperceived as violent I I don't know if I'm the only one that that kind of question came to mind but I'm glad we figured it out I guess but I'm assuming that we figured out sort of where that this reporting occurs it doesn't happen again without doing this delicately and legally because I can't speak uh on Personnel matters however there are particular members of our staff that are trained in doing this a member of our staff misplaced notes and didn't exactly remember the training and as they were entering the data they entered the data inaccurately it was identified we corrected the issue provided training and support moving forward so that is something that'll be you know on the radar when the when the data comes in to make sure we're looking at it very uh very carefully thank you you wel I don't think there's anything we can do but I just you know it seems only your your mik house this works for people at home and there's quite a lot people locked down so I just feel B they can't hear the rest check yeah we had eth check before we started so again the louder you can speak at Mike the better I know I understand I understand but sometimes too when you move away you move your head sometimes that changes like you have to like your lips touch the mic I think that'll help too I need a spit screen we're trying our best that's again they checked the game the audio we tested everything before the meeting anything was able to hear us at home so we're hoping for the best here okay last my question thank you um so I am like Monique uh surprised at the number of incidents that were re uh classified as other incidents of removal but it's such a broad turn and there are so many incidents of removal it's concerning because whenever you have an incident of removal that child is losing instructions okay um so my question is are teams at schools looking at Trends in these other incidents of removal just as you would look at Trends in data violence because it's still really really important to tackle these incidents even though they're not violent it's still really important that we maintain like you know a safe environment um for our kids but also keep them in class as much as possible yeah so that's a good question so what I'll do is I'll go back to the school leadership teams because I know they review their data uh routinely so when the school leadership team meets there's a subgroup of each School leadership team that is a disciplinary action group and what I can do is recommend and see if they're looking at that data again to have meetings with the aps actually this week I mean with that monthly so we can review to see if if they're looking at that data as well and if not we can certainly recommend that I thought I'm sorry I thought we had the discussion that they are looking at all of the disciplined data the individual teams and in the individual schools so they so they do they look at it by by students so the particular so they're looking they just look at they're looking at it differently so they're not looking at the overall uh list of here's our ssds report and looking at that they're looking at students in particular so every student that has a disciplinary infraction that leads to removal whether it's in school suspension or out of school suspension they're looking at that data and subgroup information so they're looking at the whole child but what would be interesting I think what Alice is saying is looking at it generally and saying of the X amount of students that are you know being removed for the data so more globally at that particular data point parsing that out what are the categories of that and what are the issues happening within there so they look at each student individually but just looking at maybe collectively what is removing them from learning environment yeah sorry I just want to get to Mr back presentation I know he's been waiting patiently to present as well really really quick so um I did notice that so we corrected the violence um to six from the previous year then this year we're at 21 um and so I'm just curious when you said something multiple incidents one incident that you put in multiple times we're only happen for the year so that just seems that we might want to go back and at those members absolutely okay so I'm going to welcome Mr M talk for those who have not met him Mr K M is our new director of our before and after CARE program so I am just just give you one second here to share screen on zoom and then I'll toss the mic over to you so Mr McIntosh all I need you to do is tell me when you want me to CLI to another slide so welcome hi everybody thank you for having me I'm just going to give you a little brief rundown of where we are halfway is through the school year and let's look forward through the so when I started in July the program was very was very basic so it was myself and my site managers so as the school year evolved one of my goals was to get the program into a position where if we wanted to f flip the switch and get State funding for our lower income families we can go that route and we also need to be in compliance with State guidelines so the program has to follow all the Board of Education policies and procedures that you pass year to year but we're also bound to follow New Jersey Child Care guidelines even though we're before an after school program we are considered right now a licensed except program so that is just the formality of you can run an acare program through the state of New Jersey have to go through um the hurdles that the state sends over CH programs so um this chart is our organizational chart that we have right now so um there's me on top our program supervisor who just joined us in July has really been a godance to me um she fulfilled a requirement of 181 to I believe 320 students you have to have two program supervisors in your program because my office is in in one of the elementary schools that checks off program super requirement so we don't need to add another one um excitingly our preschool program started in October so our preschool site manager started I'm really proud of the work they've done they've done a amazing job of my preschool students under her you have our s assistants and then a new position to this school year was an administ is assistant for our site managers I have each School location two at hering and one at ble um I don't know if you've seen our site managers in action during the course of afare they are very very busy they all do a phenomenal job but they definitely need some assistance and getting some of that administrative work done whether it be inst reports checking on students so that's the role that was hired there and we recently just started which I'll jump into Tom a little bit our enrichment Specialists so one of the challenges taking over the program in August was programming I heard from parents that really really wanted the program to come up in aftercare but also make sure that we're fiscally responsible to sustain a program for years to come um luckily we are financially in really good shape right now so the programming has and is going to significantly increase as we transition into the second half of the school year and next school year but I'll jump into that a little bit more in some later slides so our B school is our largest school um we have approximately 117 students per day which is a lot of kid it's a lot of kids in comparison to some attendance sheets I was able to go through um today I went through about three months of attendance sheets there was about 107 students on average last year which is about a 9.34% increase so I'm always looking to add more students but 120 students is a really healthy number um that is majority of Aftercare students there's only roughly 16 students registered foric care over Irving is our obviously our second one it's a little more unique where our I find that Irving School the student attendance really fluctuates by day where ble majority of our families are 5 days per week our Urban school students theirs are really ranging from two three to five days per week last year there was an average of 81 students based on those attendance sheets um this year is 116 I know it looks large it's a 36.5% increase but we have to keep in mind that there was a significant number of preschool students that started this year which is about 20 to 22 per day on average so one of the systems that we put into place when I started was a child care software called easy child track so we are bound by state ratios through the state of New Jersey our before and after school programs for K through 5 have to be at about 15 to1 I think 10 to1 12 to1 is a little bit more healthier number our preschool program has to be within around 10 to one so don't be alarmed with that 74 that you're seeing up there it's just because our online system unlocks at 2 p.m. there are not 74 students there um it hering really starts around to 45ish so they are really healthy with their Staffing ratio it's about 12 to1 for the start and then seven As you move on um that's a good number seven's good but our little ones are very very active so one or two more employees there definitely wouldn't help um hiring is a challenge this year um one of the things that I was hoping would help and has helped a little bit was partner with the Ruckers hand shap program so the job postings are going right to Ruckers education students and middle sex County also has partnered with us to post right to their students that are are interested in taking education child care so we've seen the applications come in and definitely higher quality applications so I'm really proud of the work that or program supervisor put that as well our ble St ratio is within um compliance it it is High um honestly when you interview people they really want to work with the little ones and the preschool ones the elementary AG is a little more difficult to get people to work for but they are within ratio um our ble boing program is very small we only have about 12 students registered on a given day three or four of them show up so it's quite small our after CARE program is quite large and uh we are looking to expand the Staffing which is on the agenda tonight so I'm happy word that's going um ble is one of the areas where enrichment is needed um our younger ones their problems are small because they're younger but as they grow the problems come a little better and if the soon as are Bor that's where is going to happen so um there's been an arts and crafts pilot program that we started there in the month of March which was wildly successful um it was only open to 10 students because I just wanted to give a gauge on how it was it again it was really successful so we were able to add the staff so it's not going to be a pilot program it's not going to be a draft for parents anymore it's going to be available to All Families at ble School in addition to a yoga program that's also going to be starting in March as well so this is kind of a little bit some of this a little repetitive but what's new since we started in September um there's a lot and I have to give from Dr susa's office down to the site managers a huge shout out uh it takes vilage to get the school year started it going and they have been phenomenal so thank you all for your hard work our preschool site manager again is new and um that's going to be quite the challenge for I have a lot of work this summer with the addition of a preschool program um I'm anticipating we may have to add to that because of how tight the ratios are for our preschool students so that's some work we'll definitely get done in the summer our Administrative Assistant to help our site managers out with the hard work they do each day and our enrichment Specialists a one of the areas that definitely needed Improvement when I started was the interviewing process um there quite honestly really wasn't one so how we've developed that was a two-prong approach so the site managers and the program supervisor meet with the successful applicate once um Miss lus is done filtering through them once they complete the interview with them will'll come to M and then to the board for approval compliance is definitely one of the things that we need to continue to FOC focus on um the easy track system does a lot of that leg work so the state does ask me what the ratios are the attended sheets so parent comes they're touching the iPad that's a digital signature so all of the ratios are recorded in our online system should State come and ask us it's really you want to click the button I out and send to them uh staff trainings which is a little difficult so childcare employees are required to have X amount of professional developed trainings throughout the school year um obviously me that our staff are mostly parent professionals coming directly from the school day to after care that's a little bit of a challenge so unfortunately have to come at 6:00 afterwards we try to keep it pretty quick but those are starting um the monthly meeting with the program leadership team um they do an amazing job and then we sit there a couple times a month that night to go over now I want them to be able to come to me to come with any issues they have and then while we continue to develop the program there monthly trains count toward the professional development that they have Additionally the addition of program supervisor noticed a significant uptake of the programming in the last month since she started and and you'll see the future SL there's a lot of programming to be scheduled for our students which is really exciting then instant Behavior reporting systems so one area of after care that's very unique is we are a district run program but we're AR inance we kind of preach to or a separate entity kind of thing um one of the things that everybody doesn't have to be on board with is if someone's a student is struggling at after care I want to make sure that they're getting the support that they need during the school day because most of the times it comes hand in hand um both school guidance counselors psychologists have been amazing and if there's any issue uh the instant reports go to the site manager first then they go to me and if there needs any followup with the school psychologist or the school guidance counselors they will go to them within 24 hours and we'll meet with whoever they need to meet with to make sure they get the assistance that they need and then the last one on here is Staff evaluation so um it's I guess s valuations were never done previously so we started that process um it's going the process it can be quite difficult sometimes especially if you've never per received one to kind of get the constructive criticism but it's something that has to be done as a state requirement and really it should be a requirement for the program as [Music] well so what you see here is a little tiny sample of the additional program in coming so the easy track system can be utilize significantly more one of those is a parent being able to just log on and see what their students doing for the day which I think is really important for parents to see so this is just a a very small cimps of what's going to come up what's going to be occurring in after care so this type of calendar will be uploaded to the parents easy child track account so should they want to log in they they see something cool going in on on a Tuesday maybe they don't attend on a Tuesday they can call me email me send their student home that day and then we'll get them registered it's only a $10 drug in my my goal is to have this calendar go out to all families and then eventually they they was the coolest place on Earth and they want to send their kids on that particular earlier day so that's the goal of programming again it's a little it's it was a little difficult for the first five months of the year I wanted to make sure the program was in a place where we don't have to worry financially going into next school year but I can confidently say that we've reached that place so we can start upping the program programming pretty significantly um what to look forward to for the end of the year for you so um similar to the budget you all have to do we also have to do our annual budget so that is coming up uh towards the end of the year so how this success of Aftercare will kind of be Benchmark I had sent a program survey out to families in October of what did you like from previous years what are you liking not liking from this school year um I went over that those results with my leadership team and we drafted goals for the rest of the school year how we want to see the points raised so come June when the next parent survey comes out the benchmarks will be measured on that and I will be back in June to present those results over to you as well thank you Mr [Music] [Applause] mtos reorient myself here all right and I will open up to the board if there's any particular questions from Mr McIntosh I ask can you hear me hopefully people on online can um so for the before care for AR there are three students I'm just wondering because that is the one that has a little more administrative ome do all five folks need to be there for the three students um for the forare so there's two staff members there only is a requirement for one but it I used to just because if there's one something will happen and the staff will have to leave the room and then you have the other kids and someone has to be quick question about the easy easy CH track is that a website or do they have an app to parents uh it's a website you can use the app their app really isn't like the most user friendly app but it is an online website okay thank you and that's where um I should said this as well that's everything is centralized in there so parent billing parent payment student information are important there for forever as long as we want it all in one system um how are behavioral issues in the after school program like recorded and tracked sure so they right now they go through an instant Report Form to the site manager um she'll TR to develop her plan um based on how security it is if it gets to my office by by that time it's mostly the conversation with a school psychologist or a followup I don't typically involve the building principles unless the situation is pretty severe so right now it's a two prompt approach the site manager will handle it on 90% of the time and then invest esally all step in um one of the things that is a little different from the school day that if it's a repeated offense that the conversation is with the parent myself and the site manager of whether it means a little bit of a break from the program the program is not the best fit so it's kind of unique on each sit sitation and are you seeing a lot of Behavioral issues especially at BTO yes yes we are is there coordination with the school administration there is I have a u meeting with the school psychologist her office is about three steps from mine and then miss is very active with the program as well um so to work in the school program do they get sub license what are the requirements they do not so varies on the position so um the PA professionals do not need a substitute license the program supervisor needs a at least a sub teaching certificate or x amount of years working on the Child Care Program because I was think um to use handshake it might come to a Teach an elementary program so if you want elementary you know training uh teachers who are getting trained um I'm happy to S out today they might get it through handshake but probably be different from from faculty member that great the other thing we can do is we can send it out to those in Ed minor program who might be thinking about education um and I don't think handshake would go to them yeah that' be great so I'd be happy to send things out if like great I coordinate that for you Mr M thank you thank you okay well thank you very much Mr McIntosh and you're of course more than welcome to stay for the rest of the present but I'm sure you have plenty to do so thank you thank you again Mr M's presentation will also be available in the board notes that will come out hopefully tomorrow if not by Wednesday depending on when we get everything uploaded to YouTube and and coordinate our efforts for the the board notes and that concludes my presentation tonight thank you thank you very much Dr so we're going to move right into committee reports I'll begin with curriculum and instruction um on the agenda tonight we have approval of two field trips one for B students to go to science there at high school and then a second for the seniors to go on their boat meal Bo dinner or Bo lunch something like that um we now have our hi reports on um our agendas also listing whether they were confirmed or not confirmed um there was some feedback that maybe like you know we know that there are hits but how many are confirmed how many aren't so we are able to list that without reaching confidential um we also have the approval of the 2024 to 2025 District school calendar um it is a very complex and difficult process to create a district calendar uh requires a lot of different uh spoons in a pot so to speak so we're really uh grateful Dr cisa and um to uh Keith pry and everybody else who helped work on this calendar and entertained our many comments and uh feedback we also have approval of the revised 2024 board meetings calendar take note that one of the meetings in March had to be moved um I don't a scheduling conflict it was for the for the budget so we have a requirement of when we have to submit our budget stuff to the county for the state approval so we had to move it up so we could be compliance right okay um we also have the approval of some job descriptions for the after school program and also for um special education and structural coaches uh we have approval of University graduates um interns practicum students um for music yay at B the school uh we have approval for the Raptor student safe early intervention program this is going to be for training for teachers to assist them in identifying um mental health in like I guess indicators of poor mental health so that they can assist in connecting students and families with Services we also have the approval of the hav Park Middle School music Clinic series the approval of participation in the teen arts program in New Jersey that's over at middle sex so we have eight students from the middle school and one student at the high school participated we have approval of home instruction for two students um I'm now going to go over what we discussed in our committee meeting um we met on February 8th it was myself Miss Rodriguez Dan um Jen and Sarah we first discussed bullying prevention programming um we asked Miss Rodriguez to provide information on curriculum and programs that are used to address bullying in schools the principal sent over lists of and interventions to Michelle um this list did not include like actual curricula so we did ask Michelle to Circle back and obtain some information on curriculum that is used as opposed to different things and um different events and strategies um so we do have that at Irving they do um respect and random acts of kind this week they also have assemblies from lead you um and then they also have counselors pushing in to do lessons on um building prevention we have at ble Mr Ray assemblies in addition to lead you um assemblies they have whole school language and logistical consequences around bullying and conflict Peaks and valleys um and so Peaks and vales is a mentoring Club they also have brothers mentoring which is monthly um oh I'm sorry that's not monthly they also have monthly school meetings um in which they talk about uh different social emotional competency skills and traits and things around L prevention um and they also have um ethic events our seal labs and um oural lessons that push into the classroom Middle School and High School have advisory periods now um the mentioned a few times tonight and also in previous board meetings um they are structured lessons two times a month and they focus on seal skills and team building and then like I said Miss Rus will follow up with schools um to find out what specific programs of curricula they are using that have structured lessons or scope and sequence which is a plan of how lessons unfold all right for student support we uh started to talk about Benchmark data but we don't have a lot yet so they were finishing up um collecting all of the Benchmark data at that meeting so we are hoping to report more on Benchmark data at the next meeting um we discussed prelimin uh like well from math um Edge elastic which is something that I've also mentioned in previous meetings that is a program that interventionists at ble Middle School and High School are using to write um basic skills assessments quarterly assessments and cumulative assessments good feedback came from the teachers um there is still though a learning curve so missaka is working with edulastic to provide basic and for advanced PD when teachers are ready agelastic syncs with Genesis to run data reports which makes it very easy for teachers to pull data reports and actually analyze how students are doing with their assessments what skills might need more Focus or differenti ation with open-ended question on agelastic assessment there still needs to be um a bit of learning and practice um teachers need more training on how to write Aline and assess open-ended questions in the program students are working on stamina with r rigorous assessments and also learning how more complex questions are structured and graded so they're able to kind of see the patterns within those questions and um you know practice good skills for ELA they are using the map and Acadian assessments um Irving interventionists reviewed data and were able to exit some students out of intervention based on results about three out of the nine kindergarteners were exited out of intervention and about two 12 out of 33 first graders exited intervention interventions have also added kindergarteners and first graders based on the Benchmark data so the district is really trying to implement this cycling process where if a student is identified as needing intervention they're not in intervention for the rest of the year they are graduated out of intervention if they need a goal and then students are entered into intervention if they're falling um below standard a consultant came into model foundations and worked with Michelle and the interventionist to spend time looking at data and identify students to be pulled for intervention or to receive intervention in class Middle School also has sets of students exiting intervention um and like the other schools some were added but we don't didn't have those specific numbers students are who are in intervention for the full year will be recommended for summer intervention um we discussed B uh barriers to the summer program attendance includings when it's scheduled kind of later um in the spring you know after parents have signed their kids up for cam so hopefully trying to address some of those issues through more active communication earlier communication about students that may need to enter into an Intervention Program in the summer I lost my place I'm sorry yeah sorry all right um we also discussed some other barriers when you know the program conflict clicks with camps uh when there are half days you know they are scheduled half day so then there's like we'll do my kid up do I take them to another Camp um it's also difficult to hire Summer Staff so Miss Rodriguez is working with summer program supervisors to brainstorm summer program improvements but maybe Limited with the structure based on how the program needs fit specific interventions under the grant with which it's funded um for example Michelle was thinking about structuring which by the way Michelle's in I know I keep switching between the two um she was thinking about structuring summer program differently to be more interest based camps um that would have some kind of Interest based Focus like dance and then the academics would be woven in during the day so the student would get excited about going to dance camp um and wouldn't kind of be put off by having to attend reading or math Camp because some students do love this um this may encourage more students to attend but this is a very early concept and she has to examine whether it would be the um criteria for the grant that comes the summer program we also have an Orton Gillingham training C for this summer this is f also funded with grant money there are going to be 30 slots available um prioritizing special education teachers Irving and ble teachers and then general education and Middle School teachers the intention behind the OG tutoring is to bolster tier 2 intervention during the day and after school the training will likely be 30 hours in full 4 days staff in the building our OG supervisor ERS and they can coach others through the process so with this program coming in there we do have systems in place for Stu the um participants to get continued coaching after they finish the summer training and they have a cadians is used as our Universal screener for dyslexia uh basically a student is referred for further intervention or a conversation is had with a family based on how many indicators a child hits on the cavian assessment um each level of indicators would equal a level of support um and they are working to improve practice on identification and tearing support for students um that are showing indicators of Dyslexia that's all I have for my report are there any questions thank you oh and a suggestion if your mic is wonky maybe do the report from the podium because I think they can hear it or you can come switch M I don't have any hisory boards so just CLE we have not since our last meeting will be meeting okay finance and Facilities I hope you can hear me can you hear yes okay thank you all right um I've got the finan and Facilities report and the agenda I'll do the reverse to do my minutes first um and then do the agenda uh we financing facilities have been very busy we had three three meetings um just on budget this past month and then one regular committee meeting the three budget meetings January 30th we we met with um administrators from Irving from the high school and from central office all our funding programs Humanities Wellness um and grant funding they presented their budgets their real request their budgets and they have already been discussed with um Christina and Denise and they reviewed by um Finance facilities of members we did the same thing on February 5th and that was technology ed services and Athletics and we get uh administrators from each of those areas presented their budgets and then on the 15th um we heard from middle school ble and Facilities um all looking at their budgets for board members actually right minutes but the budgets have all been I think we going to Shar them with the board notes they're all there to review so if you have questions you certainly should bring them forward but we will be doing obviously more budget work going forward um then on February 13th we actually had the regular clients facili commit meetings we've been spending a lot of quality time together um and at that we did a colum did his um daycare update I'm not going to um add anything more to that we've heard him tonight there were some things in my notes related to um salary and Personnel that get that to take a look at um the uh the bulk of our meeting on the 13th we had presentation from Brown and Brown um on there um Thomas before you is here tonight uh it was an update on the marketing results for health insurance with the district uh he they was reviewed the process the results were reviewed with Finance facilities um that presentation also shared with the board board notes the recommendation ultimately is to um was to accept Horizons proposal um so what happens is that our our district is marketed to different insurance providers like what I'm saying this right um feel free to correct me right um and they come back with are they interested in um uh Ur our District employees if they if they are interested they present a proposal uh they have to provide and guarantee that benefits are equal or better than the current ones and have the exact same network of providers um Horizon's proposal was financially the best and they could guarantee all those things it could potentially save the district a million dollars over 14 months um the rate it will be guaranteed through July of 2025 the rate that we would be going into um that has since gone to um Association for their input and that is on our agenda tonight um that that proposal to accept um to accept the recommendation for Horizon we've also um met uh we did actually was another meeting through finding and Facilities was we had interviews for architectural services um that was just on February 21st and um we heard proposals from four sure right four architectural firms one of them being um DMR that is our current architect and three others um there is a recommendation on the genda tonight to um to keep DMR to continue the projects they're working on now but to add another architect and we are recommending the recommendation from that group was that we that we um we approve spel the firm speel whole name but it's on the agenda um to be an arit um the those of us that interviewed and were four of us there were had consensus of that firm um presentation was the strongest and most likely to meet our needs I personally like that they had an emphasis on creating a master plan and then interlocking that with a long range facilities plan that's what was a was I think that's what we need and ironically strategic planning is exactly what came out some facilities group um the other thing I like about them is they've had they stayed 91 % success rate on referendums if they work on other District so if that's in our future then I feel like they have good experience in that as well um then the other uh item on our agenda there was the agreement for share Revenue that was the pilot program agreement 31 rer Road that's also attached to um the board notes or minutes um and that would give us um 60% of the uh the pilot money the payment R taxes that that Bor was receiving similar to what we had general property tax um and that would be for the the long term of that um 30 year 30e agreement the last thing that we discussed which has been ongoing conversation was about the negative student lunch balance it again had it continues to increase um uh as of uh that February date there was a $46,000 NE in balance in our um student lunch ballot and that's even after additional three reduced lunch applications I think 10 more were we picked up on but still that number keeps growing um it was one of the recommendation for next year that all student All Families have to complete the free and reduced lunch form through Genesis maybe that'll help us with a few more families beyond that we don't have other suggestions as to what to deal how to deal with this St of unpaid lunch balance the the lunch program does make a profit which is interesting but that profit can't be used for this V lunch balance it is used instead for updating Tempur facilities and other issues that can't be used for Lun balance so that was that's my report on minutes for our meet our many meetings the agenda also lengthy sorry guys um we have because of our our uh business administrator is doing so much work she to approve and we're very up to date which is wonderful um there's a a bill list that takes us right through February 26 um there is a um preliminary report of the treasur of school monies as of December 31st um we have a preliminary report mix up if I don't read them that that there's no budgetary line I overextended um and also that this is all as of December 31st and that no major fund or account has been over expended and that sufficient funds are available toet the district's Financial Obligations for year so are different certifications that are on our agenda there's budget transfers on here approval of travel and related expense reimbursements contractors for Professional Services the list is attached to the agenda they predominantly there in special well many special ucation speech and language um Behavior analysts and technicians I think these are firms that as we need them these are places that have been boarded foods and so um we can go and the uh Consultants or S of therapist organizations speech therapy as well and then um there uh uh some musicians for foot loose to add to our um to add to our students who are working on that and um and a consultant to provide um presentation on alternative alternative education and program serving students um other professional development contracts um John Morel for performances related to mental health and prevention of substance abuse putting our shows at middle high school and one Community uh Lou and hunger Middle School student reading and um Imagine Learning providing small bo instruction grades three and four in LGE through day we have approval of one add a district placement two students requiring bedside instruction one at a district at a District student who needs an additional related service there approval of a settlement agreement so a 12 on our agenda and that's related to a home instruction um need that's in that uh legal agreement two out of District contracts from the candy Mento students and those are students who are have been displaced um we have some donations thank you to James polus part of our safety committee meeting that I can report on later James pus um donated eight safety megaphones to be used during safety drills um so thank you to him tried them out they great at the safety committee meeting um and um LJ Smith has donated $6,700 worth of um sports equipment for our teams and uh yeah and um Len Curtis who's an employee par professional is donating $3,000 to our blo program at the high school so we definitely thank everybody for those donations welcome um so there's lot of there's good news on this on my list here also um additional funding for our school Bank Youth Services it's our program for providing Mental Health Services for our students which wasn't the trapping blockis and others work very hard to bring it back and keep it and now they increase our fund so no figure but that's great we need it um oh there was a need for a public address system up Replacements upgrades in Irving and so that's on here that was really critical security need um so that's number 18 and 19 to approve that work um and then some salaries have been moved um nothing changes here other than the line item so that it can be paid for by that it can be paid for by um uh federal grants so there's a list of salaries that are adusted based on who paying the bill there and then there is the um the approval of uh architectural services number 21 and that is as I said DMR and spal Architects that's on here as well also on here is the approval of health benefits group um carrier selection to terminate School employees health benefits program to take on Horizon Blue Shield pepper R STA and that's it okay keep moving personel do you want [Music] um hello everyone so for personnel and communication we met on February 6 um we went over mostly with personel agenda items and then I'll add some info after I the agenda on the high school principal search um so on the agenda we have approv approval of leaves three leaves approval of leave extension acceptance of two retirements Miss Glo and Miss strus um thank you both so much for your service um acceptance of three resignations par professional at Irving family school aison and advisor of the Key Club at the high school approval of four new hires of family schoolies on at the middle school special ed teacher at Irving accounts payable purchasing at the business office and a part-time couns Bal approval of extra compensation for par professional at Irving approval of scheduled positions for Middle School softball um to new coaches from our community um approval of par Professionals for extra duties um at after school band Orchestra and chorist approval of before and after school staff at ble um two enrichment Specialists and two to student AIDS um approval of swim competition shakon uh retro the Shoon changed for the GMC uh swimming event approval of professional development um radical classroom creating a safe space for LG uh tbq I A Plus students um using teach town in the classroom two of those incorporating theme strategies into curriculum and two sessions for creating with Cana approval of evening preschool registration assistance um at Irving for three employees four five employees approval of title one after school scl yoga and art coordinator approval of staff for family night at Irving and ble approval of independent study program teachers um for virtual sports and entertainment management approval of MTH science after school program proor Proctors there are two of those and Carl approval of changes for the staff for prep hours for an in service day a responsive classroom in special areas um two people there approval of pit musician for the musical foot boost um approval of counselors for Title One family engagement night um college application F the completion parent family Workshop night and incoming freshman parent program um times three and that is it for the agenda so then the update on the high school principal search um from our committee meeting we received 61 applicants oh no sorry 61 responses to the survey um that we sent out 49% of those were parent Guardians 28% staff and 23% were high school students um that covered all grades uh following with a talk responses to the question please select five characteristics from below that you believe are important for the new principal to possess the top five were they are fair consistent and respectful of all people regardless of the situation strong interpersonal skills I.E also people skills and communication skills uh both written and verbal CL classroom teaching experience preferably on the high school level the ability to maintain an effective learning climate in the school and experience as a principal and the top three responses to the question when considering leadership characteristics and qualities that you believe are important for the new principle to assess please select three from the list below um we're passionate about education outcomes and student well-being effective communicator and promotes accountability at all levels there were a total of 29 applicants and nine of them were selected for the first round interviews uh based on their certifications and the survey results and yeah just wanted to add one more thing about Miss L she is responsible for helping plan almost every outside activity at the middle school so we are very sorry to see her go and hopefully you know somebody else will will be there for us includ like ice cream socials movie Nights everything she's been working so thank you so much she's awesome that concludes my report any questions okay thank you okay um m is short we actually did meet um on one on one policy only and it is up to your PR first read is in schools policy 2270 discussed it briefly last month um knowing that it was coming we you know had we had wanted to revise the policy a bit but we went to the lawyers to ask and in fact it is based on Law and it's based on us dle guidance so our lawyers encouraged us not to make changes to it um so it is um we made one small change we linked the the US doe guidance to the policy so you can click on it open it and read it um and we added one sentence which came in fromont of the guid put into policy um which um would say that um SAR to read it was related to the context related to prayer so maybe SS the following activities as outlined in the osdl guideline will be committed upon applying the Govern governing constitutional principles in particular Public School context related to prayer to the same degree that they may engage in nonreligious private expression during such time and it included again list original policy prayer exercise for non instructional time organized prayer groups and activities moment silence a combination of prayer and exercise for instructional time student assemblies and offer for events and prayer graduation Andor ceremonies so that is up for first read um anybody have any questions or comments on it um that's back poliy thank you we're going to proceed for public comment um I apologize this was not one of those meetings where you can move public comment up in the meeting because we have to present all of the workshop items before we voted so thank you for your patience um the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments board policies number 0164 and number 0167 establish and regulate the right of the public to participate in public meetings each speak will have a 3 minute limit and we will be conducting hopefully for 30 minutes hiel Harker Street um I have a few things to say as usual make sure you're really talking into the mic short um as usual kind of scattered scattered about space on some of the things that were report um I'll start by saying please change the ble start times I'm not going to get into it because I think there's other people who will speak about it but I wanted to um start by saying that you've all heard from me many times about this and um we need to make action on this um couple of other comments um with regard to public participation I wanted to just note that from what I've heard there's 50 to 60 people online um I don't know all of them but I can imagine that there's a lot of things that are you know coming up at Star trecks are a big part of that there's many people in person as well um I know you said you can't move up the public comment but if there in other meetings if you can people are leaving people you know people cannot say this is bedtime this is really not conducive to public engagement I understand that was not intentional but got to take that into consideration um um I also would just like to say comment that I think you need to invest in better microphones I know you're all trying really hard but at this point it's kind of ridiculous we've been over this so many times I don't know where you know the money comes from that but the microphone situation fixed we've all mentioned it a bunch of times um one thing I want to talk about um is the after school program um there was a presentation tonight I've spoken with Colin multiple times um and Colin stated tonight that this is a program that has to adhere to um State Child Care regulation um uh requirements that have student ratios which col has made great progress on and there's a lot of great progress there but that also has to do with programming um I understand from what I've heard anally and even here that Carl has some issues but Irving I believe needs more attention um the prek kids I'm really concerned um and again this is not something I haven't said to college I hope you understands but I need you all to hear this as well the prepa kids are the easy guys you know they're not fighting they're not hopefully they kicked out having issues but they cannot be sitting in front of scams the whole time they cannot have screens even in the background the whole time while they're eating snack while they're you know even read along all of these things are being done with screens um I've spoken with Colin and he said that parents want this I like to see Dad show that first of all every parent I've spoken to is absolutely appalled um regardless of what parents want there are guidelines that say that scype has to be limited it cannot be passive I looked this up right here when colen said that we have to follow New Jersey Child Care guidelines it is right there we cannot be relying on screens these kids are there for hours they're there until 6:00 p.m. from 2:40 that is ridiculous to have have WRA it up thank you I I I'm feeling heated so I I'll leave it at that but I these kids are being forgotten because we have bigger issues but they matter too these prek kids are are really little and they still tell us what's going on but they also need active engagement from the adults in the room not scream being on all the time thank you thank you do we have another public commenter from the room um I'm Andrew Alexander 116 North thir Avenue and um I'm here tonight to ask the board one more time I do for this a lot please change the St time at arle I'm hoping that you can do it in time to help the children for next year um you know I was really disappointed to see the letter that went out in the superintendent's report saying that the dark times change because ever since this came up last year we were told it'll be recess we'll review and then all of a sudden that aution was taken off the table um you know we were told we'll see how it goes well I can least tell you how it goes to our house which is most mornings my son who's in second grade wakes up crying and he doesn't want to go to school because he's really tired I was at the Strategic plan meeting last week week and I was sitting with one of the district administrators and she said we need to make learning fun again we need to get our kids excited about going to school and one thing that's really harming my kids and even them less excited about going to school is the fact that it starts so early um so I'm really hoping that we can address this and um I know it's a it's clearly a problem that everybody recognizes because there signs all over town now saying be present be proud get tomor you know ATT 10 B is a B on time so if we're acknowledging there's an issue it seems like the most obvious solution is to fix the start time I know it's a challenge I know you know there's a lot of moving pieces but I'm just hoping that we can be creative and find a solution we're letting our high school kids this year defly they need to succeed and that is wonderful and I'm hoping that we can do the same for the kids tomorrow thank you thank you I'm sorry I I have to come back and say no AB I'm sorry this is we will have a second public comment period after we go over our action EMS understand I understand but somebody just turned their camera on associated with someone sitting up here and gave me a thumbs down this is not an appropriate it's inappropriate for somebody to give me a thumbs down associated with someone sitting up here and send me the via email please thank you hello that I'm I'm Rob Scott I live at 25 South Second Avenue I'm a longtime resident of p park uh two of my children are graduates of Highland Park I've got another one who's a junior and so the reason I'm here today is a little while ago I got a text uh from my son uh that I needed to do a survey so you can see his repor so I got on what is this survey this important survey so i l on to take the survey and it was a survey about the start times and there's been a long running problem with the start times schools in particular um to the start times for the high school students were moved a little bit later but that was done at the expense of moving the start time to 7:45 for B school now even though my youngest is now in 11th grader I remember the ble days and I remember the urban days right and us really early and it would have been a disaster for me so I took the survey it was a three question survey question one ask me basically if the survey that kinded my family or not and that kind of wrote me the wrong way right because I live in a community park is a great Community um we have people here on the board who volunteer their time the school has treated my family well right but part of that is we care about our neighbors too so it doesn't just matter to me whether the change benefited my family right and so I thought okay question two this is a free response where I can say what I think right it was character limited I really couldn't say anything at all right and that was really frustrating and then I started talking to some people and I found out that this was the long promised survey to collect the data that we needed to know to consider any changes tweaks amendments to do some kind of problem solving and what I see as a survey that was HED in that was maybe not like malicious but kind of incompetent like the reports on violence didn't get through right it's really frustrating so what I'm here today to do is to ask the members of the board specifically because they're the people we've elected right the residents of Highland Park the taxpayers to tell the superintendent to tell Dr sus to bring options right what can we do to make it so that every single school starts at a reasonable time so that every single child in our community can get enough week right so that we live in a more just Equitable Fair Community which is what this community can be right that's what I'm asking and I know it's hard right but I've seen hard things before and it can be fixed other districts do it and if you put everything on the table I think there can be a solution so that's what I would ask the board to do um and do that for better community and if anyone wants a sticker more stickers and thank you to the student U uh thank you for the sticker up here I appreciate it okay um is there another speaker in the room I just anybody no students hello my name is LC Scott I'm an 11th grader at H Park High School I'm here today with my friends to stand in solidarity with the ble school students uh their target this is up 30% more today me and my friends stood at the school and handed out 225 stickers and 260 Flyers uh and we hand them out throughout the school day we ask that the board comes up with a plan so that everybody at home park can start time that is after 8 thank you next in the room sorry I have a long name my name is mar 315 Street 41 the first thing that I want to ask but it's not really about asking is why in the world did that change with the B time even happen me if there was a logic behind I I guess I would want to know what that is but as a single mom I've been forced because of needing to work a lot to bring my son to be care and I'm going to tell you it's not fun and it's really a lot from the kids and for parents that don't have to do that and the kids don't have to suffer that it's it's not fair and I for me it wasn't great this works for my job perfect but then it's like 2:15 p.m. is such a ridiculous time to be like cutting out your day I can't work enough because of that time and which goes into the after school thing that's probably why we had a lot of after school um kids in bar home for me my son is has been complaining a lot about bullying in after school which I've addressed with Mr Colin as well so now I'm stuck I can't bring myself son do here cuz he's crying but he's crying because he want he can't go in the morning I've like tried really hard to bring my son on time and I'm still shocked that he has so many times that he's late even though I'm like I'm certain I I've gotten in there on time it that needs to change and then the other thing that I wanted to address with so I know that's probably broken the record for everyone but I mean even if it's just like 8:00 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. which is still pretty early still gets parents back to their work at 9:00 a.m. but it's just a little bit better for the kids toep sleep in and have that just a little bit more that has to be like arranged because of all the schools and parents um traveling their kids from one school to another I get that but then then my other concern was generally with what's going on with I would like to see something and maybe there is because I've been really busy but something on the website regarding like the Hib and how we can have access for example not just to after care but like how things are being add when there are issues and how like a more transparent way to understand what's happening with with um those interventions I was glad to hear the list of things that are going on with restorative justice I think that was more in high school but just having a more transparent way to understand how um issues of bullying um are being handled so that we can kind of be able to gauge where the progress is with that a lot of times I'll get like kind of anecdotal um results or like that like an email oh that was handled but I'm not really feeling like I feel like my son now feel safe to go to school so those are the M suggestions that I wanted to say and also that I would love to offer for the after care a spring Dance Program one time so another speaker from the room [Music] hi um I probably already know I'm here to talk about the ble start time um I know name and address oh uh Rebecca HS 331 Felton avue um I you already know that hundreds of community members have spoken now for over a year about this subject B kids are already at a big disadvantage due to the co years they deserve the best learning environment we can give them and that includes living and sleep enough um these kids are not little babies they're not you know they're not four or 5 years old you can't just make them go to bed at 7:00 nighttime lives they have extracurriculars that go late um there is taries are way up this year um the extra taries not only affect the late kids but also the entire classroom that gets disrupted when late kids come into the classroom even for kids who are on time they are tired they have trouble focusing it's not it's not a good learning environment for these kids that are already disadvantaged a lot of these kids are in the building from 7:30 in the morning till 6:00 at night which is a punishingly long day um we already know these things because people have been saying it over and over for over a year um but I want to talk a little bit about the process that the district is used to get to this point um it's not a process that we should be proud of as a district and we should not seek to duplicate this process when it comes to any big decisions in this District it's been marked by deflections misleading statements moving the goalpost an inadequate and at times non-existent stakeholder engagement um when the district began in the spring of 2022 engaging the public on making the starts changing the St times the only discussion was the high school and middle school and trying to make them later which is a lot of a goal we all support that um but nobody ever talked about meing marle go earlier the Highland Department Board of Health was asked to advise on St times and endorse the district proposal which the Board of Health did but they were not asked they were not given complete information they were not asked about ble starting earlier and their support which Mr represented because their endorsement did not include support of earlier start times of barle um in May of 2022 survey was sent out to District families only sent to the middle and high school students Bal and Irving families were never surveyed or even informed the survey results results remain public only after an open request for the survey's public release the district later stated that it was going to ignore the survey results which did not universally support later start times anyway um after the setting that their own survey was poorly designed in the fall of 2022 the district created a task force to the discussed our times the task force was not public it in private no parents were informed or invited to participate there was no mention in public of bardal and Irving starting earlier in any of the public discussions in January 2023 this major policy change was announced new email from the it's been three minutes okay I'll just finish the sentence on Thursday the Thursday email said that the new start hunts would be voted on in the upcoming Monday board meeting that was the first time anybody heard of this we solom 331 Fon Avenue we anticipated that we R over so Pi up left where she left off um so soon after as soon as the um notice was first given 3 days before the vote that the bar School times were going to be raised Community opposition immediately started to solidify by the time people started to make their opinions known uh they were told it was already too late to last decision now I want to point out the reason you do public process is not just a j box it's to V big changes you talk to the community you get feedback like for example oh by the way the kids in barn they have evening events if you count the number of hours in the day aren't enough for them to do all their evening events do their homework have dinner forget about socializing with the rest of their family or they have to go to bed and get up in morning now if there had been public process that actually talked about raising the bar start time you would have gotten this kind of feedback but that wasn't talked about until 3 days before the vote um by the people mobilize there's already to impact the decision as soon as people realized what was going on um uh and started to raise opposition the Boe the administration made a number of contradictory unsupported claims and repeatedly moved the gold post and shifted the reasons for why the start time couldn't be changed the district publicly said they had to work backwards from 3 p.m. and that couldn't be changed no explanation for why that was the case was ever given even if it was too difficult to adjust the schedules for September 2 23 we were assured that you'd look to adjust the start times for September 2024 then we were told that You' exam tardy data in the fall to determine how the policy was doing and if it showed that the earlier start time increased tardies they adjust the times accordingly for 2024 well that's not happening other contradictory reasons were cited to defend the policy in a number of one-on-one meetings with concerned community members Representatives suggested that cesy busing could be eliminated which is one of the holdups if walkway improvements were made in Johnson Park to for better walk to school and in other one-on-one conversation with community members the administration said the opposite in the fall of 2023 hundreds of community members signed on to a letter asking the district to change the start times for September 24 parents called for T data from the district was it initially forthcoming they persisted the increase in tarties this year became very clear and parents compiled data into a spreadsheet to share with the district and again wrote letters protesting the marble start time giv the new data in response to this new data and increased Community protest the board Administration changed the goal post and said that they're no longer interested in basing decisions on tardy data and then families were instead told that nothing would be decided until a new parent survey was released by the central leadership team in the spring and were told that only after that survey was conducted with the B consider a change in start times we're calling the previous I'll be done in just a second we're call a previous failed survey design community members asked to see the survey questions and have input they were denied um do anyone else want to volunteer to pick up the letter anyone we do have some speakers online that have been waiting patiently to also address the point okay well I'm just going to sum up and say there's been no real discussion of this um before the decision was made a major decision and then since it's been public all the feedback has been negative into change it so I urge you to actually change it and I say giving us an answer that it's too late again to change it because of the survey because you didn't move quick enough is not a sufficient answer thank you so anybody else in person okay we're going to extend public comment for 10 minutes in order to address the people that are waiting online uh Laura sorry Laura W 148 D I'm speaking in support of the effort to reconsider the start times for ble students I ask that the board members and superintendent please listen to our concerns and find a solution that works for the community we live on D du close lane which is 1.1 miles from ble which is a 25 minute walk for an adult a 40 minute walk for my six-year-old we do not own a car and we are not eligible for busing this means that we will have to leave our house by 7:05 in the morning in order to arrive at barle by 7:45 the triangle section of town does not have sidewalks on most streets and I am not comfortable with my son walking to school in the dark before the sun rises with no sidewalks um sleep has been shown in numerous and additionally sleep has been shown in numerous scientific studies to be the most important factor in a child's healthy development here are three examples I found on Pub Med um demonstrating this article one give children and Adolescence the gift of a good night's sleep a call to action uh sleep is the primary activity of the brain during early development short sleep and poor quality s sleep impact every aspect of children's and Adolescent well-being and daytime functioning ranging from decreased cognitive functioning to poor academic performance decreased emotional regulation and increased behavioral problems and psychopathology article two sleep in children physiology and an update of a literature review sleep is an active and cyclic physiological process that has a critical impact on health its functions are numerous growth development learning memory regulation of behavior emotion and immune strengthening and uh article number three a good night sleep for a healthier population uh quote from this article a growing body of evidence shows that sleep loss is associated with mental distress depression anxiety obesity hypertension diabetes high cholesterol levels premature death and adverse Health behaviors such as cigarette smoking physical activity sorry physical inactivity and heavy drinking thus sleep loss is an underrecognized public health problem that has cumulative effects on physical and mental health I ask the board again and the superintendent to please listen to this community whom you are here and you are supposed to be representing please please help our sleeping kids no school in Highland Park should start before 8:10 in the morning thank you thank you um yes uh Dr Stern C now if you could please put your I'm sorry if you could please put your name in the zoom oh yeah it's sorry no your on I should say generally because I don't know who to call on like next yeah it's uh yes Dan I'll change it after I speak it's Dan Stern Cardell 221 Harper Street um I was going to speak on something else but Dr Susa I just have a few quick questions for you and I know I only have uh a few minutes here so I appreciate yes or no if at all possible sorry with public comments is for public comment Miss Drisco will reply to your questions as a followup yeah okay well my I guess my first question is are you aware that your boyfriend attends these Zoom meetings and gestures to people when he disagrees with Mr Stern Cardel I am going to have to stop you from commenting this will be a Personnel matter that will be handled please email us at the board and use appropriate chain of commands in order to deal with this issue is you will limit our ability to deal with this issue if you continue did you want to comment on something else I would like to comment on uh something District business that is related but it's it's it's about emails to the district uh specifically emails to the board of head and the administration may I ask that question yes uh so if I was to email the Board of Education and the administration would that email be shared with anybody not on Boe or Administration in order to email the Board of Education you have to put all of the board ucation board of education individual email addresses right what I'm asking is would that email be shared with anybody not affiliated with the district professionally no I'm going to move to our next public commentary M I do have an additional question and I don't believe we have I believe we have hit our three minutes Mr Cardel I am sorry there will be a second public comment period coming up after our n I'll be back I did hit a timer it's at 1:50 right now miss ano thank you um yeah just I just wanted to um share my concerns uh for the early start time partal um I know a lot of planning goes into the decision of of the timing for each school day but the increase in tardiness um in each month of the year after which this was adopted of increase of um at least 30% over the year before I just I think speaks for itself and um I just urge the board to consider um the fact that it it's seeming it it it's seemingly not possible for kids even at this younger AE these younger ages to be getting enough sleep and getting to school in time and time for a 745 start um so I just urg the board and and the district to uh reconsider this issue to have a more robust public process where there's opportunity for Meaningful input from parents and residents um and to ensure that no school is is starting before 8:10 in the morning thank you m Greenberg uh hi um I'm Buffy um full name of Elizabeth wenberg I live at 60 North 7th Avenue in Highland Park um I just wanted to add to what everyone else has said um about the Bal start times I should say this will not affect any change um for the better will not affect my child but it's really important to me to speak out this is this last year in ble um we have been late uh probably every day this year um and it's not for lack of trying not for lack of concern about being on time um but but I would just ask that the district really correct this mistake um and make it so no school in the district I mean definitely doesn't start before 8:10 personally ad station start before 8:30 but 7:45 is just way way too early for um the ble school kids again um this doesn't even affect my this won't even affect my child but I don't want the kids who are still at ble or are going to ble um have to to have to deal with such an early start time that causes so much stress for their for them and their families um the second pie and I had emailed the board and the administration about this um is to I'm asking the board to please look at the issue of PA professional pay in the district my understanding is that it's at minimum wage or just above minimum wage for Paras who work um in the district during the school day and or at the after school program um and on that also to restore the pay um for Miss Carla and Miss Jackie their pay was cut um this board no not this exact makeup of the board but the board voted to approve a pay cut for them um I believe in I believe in September I might have it wrong since then they there's actually been someone has been hired who has no supervisory experience at a much higher pay rate than they are at which is um pretty insulting and and I don't really think in line with our values um as a district so this is something that the board can really make right we should no one who works in our district should be you know living in poverty um and we really show deserve Miss carlet and Miss Jackie um practically raised many of our kids and we really should be showing them a lot more respect um and a pay cut is is so disrespectful to both of them and totally undeserved so I'd ask that the board really try to make um really try to make that right and that's it thank you Miss Patterson and then miss Wy and then we are going to be um stopping public comment go over our action items I have a president's report and we'll continue to get back to public comment yes Hi Megan Patterson 634 drive I have a second grader at ble and I'm also a working parent so he is also in um the after school care um was there earlier today I needed to get home to be with my kids but uh from what I understand from the report there's 117 after school kids um at ble so ble has been the most um after school kids I think my concern is with the earlier time yeah so with the earlier start time uh that also means the earlier um dismissal time so if someone is picking up their kid at 6:00 that's around 10 hours uh in the school itself and 3 and 1 half hours in after care and uh you know my son gets home uh completely exhausted uh also just from socializing for that amount of time and so I also support a later time start at least 810 I I again also would um agree with 8:30 is more thank you thank you and Shan hi everyone um I won't I won't stick my three minutes I know everyone's eager to to go home at this point um but I will mimic the start time my daughter is in kindergarten um I don't need to Hash that out again but I absolutely mic it as well we wake up at 7:15 so um and that's acoss the family so um my other piece is um just the after school program at Irving um I emailed to Colin a couple of times to get an understanding of what exactly programs are occurring for the children um to understand what they're doing um I have not had a response back um unfortunately I've taken my daughter out in 5 days of after care because she does not enjoy it um said there's nothing going on there's nothing to do um so I'm just a little bit frustrated with the program I know he did have a sample up of the ble after school program uh calendar but there was no sample of what's happening at Irving and um you know we're at March and we still don't have to Happ we're basically at the end of the school in school year in a few months so um just really want to revamp up this we're paying extra money for the after school program this year and I really just love to get this Beed up of it thanks very much thanks all right we are going to move into right uh move right into board action items I'll start with curriculum instruction for curriculum instruction I'd like to move items numbers one through 10 Dr baby yes Mr yesman yes Dr yes M Cruz yes Dr schan yes Miss Dan yes Miss yes yes fin facilities um I move that we approve items one through to those 1 through 22 Dr B yes M yes dran yes Dr Pixley yes M Bruce yes Dr schan Miss St yes Miss bman yes Miss yes for personnel and communication I'd like to move items 1 through 19 second Dr B yes M yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss Cru yes Dr scholman yes Miss Dan yes Miss Gman yes Miss yes poliy oh policy I move it number one second Dr B yes M Cal yes Dr colan yes Dr Pixley yes Miss yes Dr schoolman yes Miss Dan yes Miss yes mes yes okay um we move on to board Le aison reports does anyone have something to report from their committees or commissions real quick we haven't actually met yet I'm I'm the new le on to the HP athletic boosters I just want to mention that they have uh their bingo night coming up and if anybody hasn't gotten tickets yet I'm not sure if it's sold out and they also have a raffle for a MacBook Air so check it out it's posted all over email and Facebook great thank you um also the H PF is meting tomorrow we look over Grand proposals all right so we should have some news about our grants next month all right for our pris room report last Wednesday we held our final strategic planning workshop uh this was a really great process uh at our first two meetings we had over 60 participants and then at our final meeting we had I think over 30 possibly close to 40 participants um thank you to all of the community members parents students staff and the board who attended our um our workshops with Patty gree and and uh thank you to Patty for her assistance in facilitating the process participants met in groups to construct rules around areas of need and Facilities student achievement connecting resources and improving communication and culture and climate I'm going to read the four goals that they came up with number one for facilities is to create a long-term plan that addresses the safety and accessibility of District facilities that utilizes an Innovative approach and reflects Community needs for connecting resources and improving communication is to connect families to schools by strengthening the coordination and accessibility of communications for culture and climate it's to be a leader in providing a safe inclusive and identity affirming and supportive environment and an inclusive educ UC ation that uses diversity as its strength and for student achievement to increase academic rigor excite and challenge students to learn in order to reach their individual potential Dr sisa and her team will work to create an action plan to achieve these goals and we will work to continue having Community feedback be a part of that process on another note I know that many of you are here tonight because you are concerned about ble start time since September several board members have been working with Dr cisa and Central leadership team to examine the impact of the change in Star times board members have also continue to relay feedback and pose questions regarding other Solutions such as shared contracts with bus routes or creating safer walking paths to schools to allow for restructuring of busing whatever the solution is it will be best found in collaboration with Dr cisa District leadership and staff this is an ongoing process and we have remained and will continue to remain committed to honoring what we said last year that we would examine the impact closely look for opportunities to support families with this change and examine more long-term solutions that work for the district as a whole Dr Susa is working to move up the date of our next BLT meeting so we are able to more quickly review the final round of survey data and related concerns and questions presented this evening and to determine next steps um one more thing uh we have noticed an increase in unprofessional behavior in the zoom option we will be switching to a webinar format moving forward so at our next meeting the uh this will look much different it's going to look like the meetings if you've ever gone to the council meetings on Zoom where you see the day you don't see everybody who's in the me meeting tiled around this option will also prevent people from interacting with other people during the meeting online it will also take more accurate um collection of names as people enter because people will have to put in a valid email address in order to attend the meeting uh we're going to try it out please bear with us we're hoping it solves a lot of our audio problems and also um eliminates the distractions online thank you old business I couple things to add some other things I've I know it's really late um favor to speak but I did attend um safety committee meeting on February 7 which um is not directly tied to any of our our board committees it is a schoolwide committee a districtwide um but an important one couple topics that were covered was uh the expanding the use of 911 in form um currently it's been used as a pilot in order to expand it we would need we would need to have teachers all staff have on their phones it could be used during emergency events such as the um evacuation that was required uh last month um so we're we that add our board policy and um and how we can roll out an extension of the 911 for looks like a really good system to up our communication between staff or emergency um other updates walkie talkies um have been programmed that are in use um B was looking for um at ordered stop signs there's issue in front of ble with cars driving by during dismissal time um signs that came in were not so great they're too heavy whatever but we're um they're going to be used and we're ordering smaller ones John's working on better system for the front of guard with um stop signs but obviously we need a public to be careful there there's a lot of students and staff and parents Crossing in a very small area in front of AR um there are t panic but buttons have been tested in all the schools I think high schools had the last one to do on that um there was a conversation about um BIR training for our threat assessment teams and that plan um planned for that uh we got those megaphones from Jim polus um we thank him and other conversations about the reun how we do a better job of the reunification job how would plan reification after evacuation and they um and some different items were shared might work well for that going forward um other topics the uh V visitor management system was discussed and seems to be mostly effective there was some conversation about needing better security during after school programs after school hours especially at High School so that was the Safety Committee um more thing I want to add I just want to I want to ech what um what Alison said what Alison said related to um strategic planning I thought it went really really well I I appreciate that I think it was a good process the board approved last year it was three meetings to get to the result was pretty impressive um there was a good turnout we would have led to have had been more diverse and even larger but we had 60 community members at those meetings and I think the Strategic goals at the end are something that our Administration really um can work with and really um come up with good action plans it's so much what we talked about tonight what we talked about all along um is in that um and the same thing is true in the collaborative ESS for the calendar our calendar all the work we put into it really reflects a consensus of people wants and needs for next year so I think that was great just add to that the Strategic plan um and I'll Adit I didn't I didn't attend the last meeting I do think the lack of full representation or Fuller representation of our community is not a minor um concern in that process so I'm just thinking I think as a board is dist to think about ways to kind of compensate that Bo just yes we have this plan in place and clearly people who did come their their perspectives and I think the collaborative approach to the meetings are very effective I think we did to really decisions and ideas but I I don't know if this can be even SBA sort of um support mechanism as part of this process but how to now make sure that we are as we carry these we plan out makeing sure during the process we are putting more people into the process so that it's not just this one time period e sure thank you um I want to do uh turn to the um ssds presentation of a few clarification questions uh one suggestion if this data is to be part of the record reporting as I think it probably should be um if you Dr s if you're going to post the data from previous quarters that were sort of backing up to and correcting it it was a little confusing to me the first time I read it until you explained it um that the total incidents for the different schools especially the Middle School were not revised down even though the violence had been incidents have been revised to zero so I think the total should be revised um because uh I'm assuming that the case I think that other incidents aren't or that category of um uh other instance leading to removable are not included in the total incidents right so you have the total of violence vandalism substance weapons HIV those are included in the total and then there's other you know pocket with the different rows or columns rather and that's that's not included in the total so anyway I could follow up about this but I just think it's great we have this data that everyone who looks at the table can easily understand um I also wanted to Second something that um that that Miss Pixley said which was that um you know data give the data taketh away right I it's great that it seems like we can revise some of the earlier uh violent I counts of violent incidents down to zero close to it but that makes the spikes in uh the most recent quarter reporting especially Middle School all the more concerning that now we supposed we have these systems in place we know this is what's going on and it seems much higher than it was at any time in the past year and a half um so I think I would Echo you know Miss pixle and say we should make sure that the proper recording is being done here maybe the same mistake is being made unintentionally we should make sure it's not being made um and if it isn't I mean we really have to think about what's going on in the past quarter it's driving these huge spikes including in ble 57 you know other incidents um I can't imagine what's going on but I'm glad we know something might be so we should keep thinking about that um and I also you know just want to um say you know I take really seriously uh you know Mr bat's comment that we should take a data D and look at um what the best way is to expand access to AP in advanced inter courses um I me I sit on curriculum meetings all the time in my job and you know one of the biggest debates have we have is what should the pr repr be I mean no one would think of offering uh a Cil of course about making sure students are ready to take um so I hope that we can have that conversation here at uh in Highland Park and and Mr B appreciate your comments for thank you any other old business old business I think um I wanted to just follow up with what Ethan was talking about with the data we did mention a couple boardings ago that possibly Dr Susa you would reach out to the press to kind of correct course and make sure even if it was just an opinion piece that went in to say this actually isn't it wasn't reported accurately I know they can't officially change it but that might go a long way um and then I also just wanted to um support what Allison was saying that we we are on the board I at least speak for myself in support of looking into making changes um we're going to keep following up on it I'm very interested in looking into alternates to to busing safe frots to school in addition to the end time at schools so you know we will keep we will keep asking questions this is happening behind the scenes I think we need to be a little bit more public about the things we're asking behind the scenes um but just know that we do support looking into this another old business okay new business okay we will start our second public comment period the time is not limited during this um Lo is 5 to 10 so just keep that in mind um the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments board policies number 0164 and number 0167 establish and regulate the right of the public to participate in public meeting Sol 331 so um by the way I just want to say I appreciate your thank job the reason I've got on the school board is because I don't think I can handle the heat um I appreciate we do um but so on the issue of the the start times and the process I'm worried that we're going to get the answer after this goes that it's too late to change it for the coming school year because um the process has taken too long and I want to contrast the the dat Gathering that went in before making a very large decision and the standard that you created and the standard that you're potentially creating now the there was no discussion of changing the marel of school time at all publicly until three days before the vote you didn't have the people who were impacted by it had no opportunity to tell you what it mean to their wise which is sort of why you do a public process because it's hard to think through these big issues and so you hear from the people and they raise things that you might not have considered um so that didn't happen and by the time you work from people they were already told it's too late you know decision's been made VES in 3 days sorry we look at it for next year now I feel like we're on the verge of being told again sorry it's too late and we need this data and we need that data and we need lots of study but that study didn't go into making the decision in the first place so I feel like the burden of proof should be on like let's at least get it back to where it was um and that's it so I really hope really really hope that the answer is not um it's too late again because reasons um and then and I agree you should be more transparent if there are reasons um but we should be talking about them a year ago we should be acting like lightning right now to not have to go through this again and although we're hearing so much evidence so we just heard that there's behavior problems from the ble students in after school is there a correlation between being tired and behavior over all parents we know that there is I me it's just makes so much sense so I urge you to please act be bold be impatient let's let's do it thank you thank you um speaker hi my name is p and I live in 1702 Gabriel Lane um that's past the tunnel once again ble start times they should be later because even if you're able to get up and get to school on time everyone has sleep inertia that's normal you need half an hour to actually feel awake and I get to do that now because I'm in high school the start canc later I get to feel awake when I get to school and enjoy school because of that and bar kids deserve that too also people brought up a really good point about being able to get to school like walkways because I live past the tunnel by Johnson Park and even my parents are concerned with me walking home alone and I'm in high school I'm in 12th grade so if ble kids or even young kids have to go through that well that's tough on the parents and tough on the kids as well also they aren't lit very well if you have to go around the tunnel there's not much lighting once it gets start and also um you guys were talking about AP courses and prerequisits and yeah that's important also teacher recommendations they were always optional and they were always helpful because when I was a freshman I had just transferred from another school I didn't know that a courses were a thing because I didn't talk to my counselor much and from teacher recommendations I knew that was a thing and I took APK the next year and it was amazing and with the same course APK the next year they made um our teacher remove a summer test to show that you knew enough K to take the course and people did so much more poorly because it's a hard course so all of these things only help students know that they're ready for course and they can take the course that helps them because if you're struggling in a course you can't learn much and if a teacher has to slow down for everyone else well it's not fair to the students who are struggling because they're struggling and it's not fair to the students who are being made to wait so all of these recommendations and tests they can be modified but I don't think eliminating them entirely especially when they're optional and only there to help students figure out where they should be is going to thank you thank you Mr thir car now oh sorry I miss actually I can cut in front of my yeah um hi Al turn card now Harper street I'll start by saying I'm sorry to you Allison um that was rude um but I was feeling heated because I and at this point it's been multiple times speaking at this meeting and I've gotten a reaction and I won't go on to that but that was one the other thing I wanted to say um sorry the other thing I wanted to say was about um start times again I didn't talk too much about it earlier but I did want to say um I appreciate what you said Jen and other people that this will be a sport I appreciate what Randy said about like we have to do this now um I I've spoken with with Dr Susa um I've spoken with with many people why this happened what caused it the issue with um two two timeses for the high school high schoolers and now they're they're getting picked up so they're not waiting around I get it I'm sure there's things I don't get but I do get this um probably more than most people in the public I'm sure there's things I don't know um but I get why this happened I get the process of what happened but the one thing that was said from the very beginning is that we started with a 300 p.m. end time and we worked backwards and I understand that's what the teachers this you know all the teachers said they wanted but my question is what which teachers um was there a formal poll what about the par professionals what about the lunch staff what about the office staff I mean there's there's so many people and you know we all look for data that confirms our biases right that's a natural phenomenon so um of course I'm I'm looking for more people who might you know might um feel differently but I do think that they're valid I do think we have to consider everybody um yes the the teachers are critical they are you know I'm obsessed with my kids teachers they're wonderful um but we really have to look at the whole community and I do think that teachers would understand if this is presented to them as like our community has spoken we have a problem here we need a group effort we all need to pitch in um we're and I don't know if that will solve it because that hasn't ever been looked at to my understanding we've talked about a lot of things that have been looked at but I don't know um if we've said if one school changes to 310 320 I'm not talking about 4:00 but if one school goes a little later does that Ma magically kind of bust puzzle fit into place it might I don't know um it is a complicated puzzle I you know don't have the full um full busing routs but you know that's what that's what you're here for we we need you to help us fix this and we need the board to express that this is a priority uh whether it affects you personally or not and I know some people it does some people it doesn't but we need you to listen to us as a community and hear us saying that this is a real problem that some of our kids are incredibly disregulated with lack of sleep and the data do show that there is an issue here um you know yes you can find other data anyway we all I already made that comment but please please look for the solution I really think this 3 P.M end time while I understand why it started there's clearly other factors and we need to be investigating that further I think that is an Avenue for a solution and I I just would that solve the puzzle and that needs to be explored thank you thank you is there anybody else from the okay um Mr sternard now hi uh Dan Stern carel 221 Harper Street uh first I just want to say that I agree with uh everybody else who's spoken on the St time issue um two kids anding it's really hard to get there on time um the other thing I want to talk about is how there's been an ongoing conversation with the after school program since October particularly about the new prek program uh a number of parents myself included we've been trying to get the prek to be more active and specifically to limit screen time just part of that after school period uh rather than kind of a bunch of it or most of it or whatever the action might be um we were given the schedule for that program that they use kind of their daily schedule of two months ago and we're just recently told that the schedule that schedule is still in effect and it specifies like during this time as when they have screen time but at pickup when we go and actually pick the kids up across a wide range of times we see that the prek kids are just passively watching TV like literally without exception that's what they're doing every time we go and pick them up um even though we told this wasn't the case that spring time was limited to specific parts of that program um I pointed out this discrepancy between what the schedule says and what's actually happening in the prek after school program via email just yesterday um and then today one day later I didn't get a response which is totally fine I don't expect people to be able to respond immediately stuff is going on people are busy it's all good but we did just this evening get a change to the after school program pickup procedure that makes it so that parents can't actually see what's going on in the after school program rooms anymore um I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt but the timing seems not coincidental and it makes me concerned uh in terms of the degree to which the after school program might be willing to change their their kind of programming uh in response to feedback from parents thank you thank you Dr Scott yeah so I I'm I came home I'm back here on Zoom for the second round of public comment uh and I wanted to specifically address I think some issues of process but it every single thing the school does and these are longstanding issues of process I've been to many many board meetings I I've screened beyond the board and these are long time recurring issues some of it is to use a sports analogy it's like basic blocking and tackling like send out a survey but makes sense but is informative like do that like that's the kind of stuff that needs to happen right um if the if the district sends out a survey that's a problem that's not informative that is frustrating to parents um that's a problem right that's that's basic uh the mics need to work in the room that's basic right um I know it was said oh well we couldn't have an earlier public comic time I know that's not true because I've been to many board meetings and very busy board meetings they've done exactly that I've been in board meetings where uh the chair of the board as most students is add in next to public comment time earlier on especially on days when there are you know 50 plus people on zoom and a bunch of people uh uh in the room and you uh and High School students you know have staged a protest at the school where they' handed out 225 stickers those are times to make sure the public gets to speak and that we are not you know when we hobble in um on on a night like this um waiting two hours to have a chance to say something these are like really really important things doing those kind of things make the public be heard and then you can also benefit from all of the knowledge expertise and everything that exists in Highland Park and finally I just wanted to address an issue of sort of um I think there needs to be a kind of fundamental respect for the public right I think there needs to be an understanding from the administration from Dr Susa and from the board that the members of the public are the members of the public we can be emotional it's our kids we can be upset right it's hard get up and speak I know for high school students who came and speak it's hard to do this and so there needs to be real respect and I think there's a real problem right when it starts to become generally known that there is a person who has a very very close connection with the superintendent Dr Scott I have to ask you to stop addressing this issue if you need to you can email me okay well no I mean this is Free Speech I can say it it's a well-known thing it needs to be addressed okay and I I hope you're not just trying to suppress me so it can all be swept on and I hope it gets addressed I really really hope it gets addressed that is respect for the public thank you okay any other public comment I move reur all in favor