##VIDEO ID:gc0p8kgztyo## here Dr Liston here uh Dr Resnik here Mr slotman Miss Tracy here Miss Williams gallano here Dr Wilson we have a quorum the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the act the hopal re Valley Regional Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof communicated to the Hope wal Valley News and the times on January 4th 2024 this meeting notice was also sent to Comcast table and Verizon FiOS the board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education the meeting is being recorded for the purposes of Board review future reference preparation of the minutes and viewing on YouTube Bulldog TV and the school district website www.hvs.org would you please join me in the flag salute I Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep stand One Nation God indivisible wonderful can I have a first and a second to approve the minutes of the August 19th regular meeting all in favor any opposed abstaining minutes pass and oh oh not here okay gotcha we do have a new student reporter reporting with us this year so hopefully we she'll be able to join us um then we are going to go ahead you until she gets here um just a few notes from um my viewpoint certainly it has been an amazing start of school year sports are happening all sorts of things are happening um and just want to a welcome all of our new families and all of our returning families and absolutely thank so profoundly the building administrators staff and um all the folks that got us ready for the school year it is uh we couldn't do it without them I also want to of course mention tomorrow is a very important date for the referendum we encourage everyone to regardless of their choice to go out and vote um we will be at one location at the um Pennington fire department and they're ready to receive us so um certainly bring your friends and family make sure they uh weigh in on the decision um that's all I have for now I'll have some comments later as we move through the meeting I'll turn over um the report for Dr Tre people can see so I'm going to be going uh through a few things uh this evening uh just a beginning of the year highlights um as president uh Williams gallano shared uh we are excited to have everything up and running and I can share a few of the high points of the beginning of the school year I'm going to be talking about ways that parents can get involved an update on District goals and the referendum and then finally it is suicide Awareness Month the month of September so I want to say a few few words uh about that as well so we're getting off to a great start uh we had convocation uh which was a wonderful ceremony um we had a DJ who happened to be a fourth grade teacher in another District that got the party started we had wonderful guest speaker we had a former um a commissioner of Education that came in and spoke to our teachers about forming relationships with students and the importance of doing that in order to get to that deeper learning um and I also invited one of my son Ronnie favorite teacher Don who taught um he taught Robotics and and other things that Ronnie was involved in Ronnie was the head of the robotics club and uh he was like a legend he still Subs in Council Rock and he's such a legend that after he spoke and he had the teachers he got a standard Ovation from the teachers several of the teachers stood up and came to see him and hug him and take selfies with him because their children had him and they're adults now and they said you never guess it's here it's D that's not his real name but that's what the kids call him so just an amazing person he was able to share his experience and just really pump the teachers up that this is important the work that we do is important um we have had uh parents come through for walkthroughs uh to get ready for the start of the school year orientations and then now we've we're in week three of school already have started our back to school nights um and setting classroom norms and expectations for our students um we have been working very closely with the digital Wellness committee we have some members here tonight um who are working on really resetting the district's policy of off and Away um we're working through that right now um kids might not need a little help to remember off and way um but for for now uh the we're starting to work towards coming up with setting those new Norms with students are resetting norms and really working on keeping the electronic distractions out of the classroom um as you will see and some of our goals that's that's one of our goals is to do less of this and more of the face tof face uh stuff um fall Sports and clubs are all in full swing um we have school picnics uhu I already talked about the back to school night nights PTO meetings are already happening tonight as a matter of fact Stony Brook is having their PTO meeting and we also had our referendum Town Hall so I encourage parents uh caregivers to get involved if you can um I know that we all have very busy schedules um but our pto's the school base um strive which is our special education districtwide PTO we have a single parent PTO we have our Eco PTO for parents who want to be involved with that um our Hopewell Valley Education Foundation is an outside organization that raises uh tens of thousands of dollars they probably raise hundreds of thousand in the Years they've been working on this uh for our schools and they and they give teachers grants to to propose um when they propose new ideas and new programming for the school district uh we have our principal's councils where parents can can weigh in on the things that are happening in their schools we have District level committees that are ad hoc that come up as the district needs them um we have school-based green teams where you can get involved uh the music the and theater parent Association also is one that you can become involved with and then there are various clubs I mean um volunteer opportunities in our extracurricular clubs and sports um that parents can get involved so if your child is a student athlete or on they're on the robotics team we're always looking for unteers to help um with those things so District goals we did go over these in the spring and I will be giving you a quarterly report on how we're doing on these goals just to reset us to what we decided as a community um these were the the four goals that we decided that were very important after we got together worked through for three days with over um 200 people almost 300 people attended that um we received feedback and we also had a larger um uh survey where we were able to get what people really thought were important student autonomy and uh learning and autonomy that lifelong learning and that intrinsic motivation to do things is on on the top of the list we had finan and Facilities uh uh as one of them health and wellness and communication for student learning I'm not going to read this to you but these were the goals I can say that we are already off to a good start on many of these things um the experiential learning and the primary grades we have our stem facilitators back um doing electives uh k12 and those will be experiential based programs that will be teaching climate change sustainability food waste all of the things that we found important as well as responsible use of technology and Technology skills um we are already um working on developing that Eco literacy programming and Outdoor Learning spaces not just with our um Sim facilitators but across curricula there's some planning already in place um and also we are working towards having kids take ownership of their of their own experiences the picture that happened on that slide where I said things are you know off to a good start is a back to school night at Bear Tavern where um Mr uh J Billy the principal there decided to let the kids run their own back to school night so instead of sitting in those very uncomfortable chairs and making our teachers who don't like talking and front of parents very uncomfortable and doing that little slide deck the kids came in and and guided their parents through this is my class this is the music room this is our art room and they took them on a scavenger hunt and they really got to see parents share they got to see parts of the school they never got to experience on back to school night because they were running from this classroom to classroom experience so after this pilot I think we're going to try more of that next year um principal Riley has done something similar to this right U that she's going to be expanding upon with student L parent conf conferences where students talk about their own learning um so we are already well on our way to meeting uh to to tapping into that goal we'll never meet it but we're working on that goal now facilities uh and finance um these were the things that folks asked us to do uh prioritizing um an effort to expand how we can maintain our spaces in the most cost-efficient way um get increasing Outdoor Learning finding out what the three cost drivers and invest getting savings alternative all of the things that that are on this list we're working towards but most importantly trying to find a fiscally responsible way to budget for the district and we'll be we'll be talking about that again as I go through the five takeaways for the referendum so these were the items that we were talking about we are already making uh connections uh through the Eco PTO through our green teams on how we can bring back those spaces finding other monies to support those spaces and as if uh this referendum passed is finding the most green ways to to make some of these things happen health and wellness um developing proactive health health and wellness programming for our students there was a big priority with digital Wellness getting physical getting outside um having a better relationship a healthier relationship with technology and really involving the community in in that uh work uh so we will be doing a book read um Miss um dardo our head of director of Services is going to be leading a book read on the anxious generation that will guide some of this work uh we are exploring guest speakers we would like the author of that although I don't think we can afford him um but you know we're looking at all these options uh to really encourage parents to to become informed about the real toll that social media and technology is having on our children and the way they use it um Financial Health and literacy is also a piece of that um for our students um that is mandated by the state of New Jersey that we teach financial literacy to our students and um celebrating the Arts and and the partnership with the Arts and the community is part of those goals are part of those goals and finally communication finding ways to consolidate the way we communicate to you um I've already talked about ways that we getting out of those traditional um formats for for example back to school night but really looking at how we um you get a lot of communication from us um I send a newsletter each School sends a newsletter you're getting bombarded with with um the information and sometimes things get lost because you're getting so much and we have to figure out how do we consolidate that and make it more user friendly um for all of our community even those who don't have students here in school anymore how do we reach those individuals as well so those are the goals and I'll be um giving you updates on those as we move along through the course of the year um so that we can see how we're doing on that the referendum I wanted to give you a quick reminder that tomorrow Tuesday is the day to vote for the referendum um the all the voting will take place in the um Pennington firhouse as um president gallano Williams gallano shared but what we're asking the community we're proposing a uh 87.2 million investment to restore and expand where we need to and protect the students that are in our school the state aid that's available if this is approved is $20 million that's $20 million that you will get relief as a tax payer from if we were to just pay for these projects ourselves you would not have access to that this money can only be um gained if you go out to referendum and this is money that taxpayers already pay taxes into and that other school districts Avail themselves of when they go to referendum many of the districts in this area will be going to referendum between November the spring and next September they already have themselves in the pipeline to do this um so you should the Community should also consider how do we tap in those funds because other districts are doing that um to because they're facing the same things that we're facing uh with the 2% cap and not being able to keep up with the inflation that we're all facing this is the tax impact to the community Hotwell burrow that's yours Hotwell Township and then Pennington burrow that's the impact per household per year Perl per per median household per median household thank you so here are some of the five takeaways I know that I've already put this out to the community but I just want to reiterate it because again sometimes folks miss things um that go out through social media or in the newspapers the turf and athletic field at aft complex and it's not just for Timber Lane these are high school and middle school students who will use this it's not just for football soccer lacrosse field hockey baseball players even the the the uh marching band will be able to use the turf field over in this space um they would bring students back to campus where we can control for weather conditions for something that goes wrong um we have things that go wrong in sports all the time not just football and we have to have you know we don't have trainers there we don't have a principal there a vice principal a nurse when we drop them off somewhere there's not even cover I know students go other places like for golf or for for um I'm seeing some of the things that are that are floating around on on social media or to swim but they're inside a building or there's a building right there there is no building where we're sending them to another turf field so I I know that we want to um be green and there are teams sports teams that have natural Fields they also have uh multi-million dollar programs and people who maintain those fields with chemicals things we can't use they rest them they don't play on them until game day we use our Fields constantly and they don't get that opportunity to rest we don't have the wherewithal to build that kind of turf nor do we have the irrigation system and the water that it requires which is a huge waste also um so this is really about bringing our kids back to our campuses um the turf field is uh $5.8 million that is the price that is the itemized that's a full cost of what this this the type of field that we would bid for that is greener than what we had originally um it's 70% of the total projects so what does that mean 7% I'm sorry woo 7% right and what does that mean I'm going to go back could you take me back to that slide with a tax impact po there we go oh there so $32 was it Max was it yeah 30 $32 is of that of that largest amount $515 $32 of that is the turfield that's what we're talking about so I just want people to have in perspective what I mean when I say it's such a small portion of that and it's really I'm just asking you is that too much for our children children's safety to have them on our camp campuses when we see what's going on in the world it's just not a safe thing Bob and I our job is to be um manage a risk and it's a risk as it is to have our kids running all over the place it's really a risk when they're across town and we've dropped them so this is why we're asking for this it's to me it's not a nice to have it's if we feel like that's the surface they need to play on because their field is washing away and we're busting them somewhere else why wouldn't we support keeping them here and building a field for them here um so that and our I I just think that that's something I wanted to make sure we got the facts out there about why we're asking um for that the second is enrollment I think we're all agreeing that enrollment is coming going up um in personel tonight you're going to hear a lot of shifts in the par positions from here to there because we had more students than usual come in at the beginning of the year and even after school started who have IEPs that needed special things like a a parah and we are very careful about who we assign our to our students we want to make sure that the parah skill and personality matches the need of the student so we have to resend and move around stiens to make sure that we're meeting those students needs we didn't have this number when we started last year of students that had this need because they're moving in we had 14 students move in within a week um several of them had um the need for special education services so they're in smaller class-size spaces which required us to hire another teacher it required us to split the um the section of kindergarten at togate because of the moves in because we expect a certain class size here in this District all of that is affecting the way our classrooms look it also affects the way our schools look and if we have finite space like tolgate has like Bear Tavern has that means our class size is going to go up so when people ask what is Plan B if this does not pass it means your class size will go up we do not use the space the same way we have full day candy Garten we offer preschool sections in every school we didn't used to offer we offer Sim classes that we didn't used to offer we have special ed programs that have to be capped at eight students or they have to go to another section in another classroom all of those things cause us to use our space differently I know that some of our neighbors who have children that are my age Maybe Who experienced or maybe even are my age and we had classes of seven I mean um we had classes of 30 32 in a class right we grew up like that that is not how we educate students anymore we know that the research uh Gates Foundation just did a research uh just put out a study that class size does matter especially for our little ones if I don't have any space then class size goes up so that's one of the risks so when we're talking about the enrollment levels that's the meaning that's what we mean also the trailers that are out there where we have our most needy students have been there for 30 years they were never meant to be here this long I went to a PTO meeting and one of the parents said I was in that trailer that's not the best for our students and these are our special needs students and our preschool students outside if something goes wrong weatherwise we know we've had flash floods and all these things happen tornadoes come through here if something happens heaven forbid with a safety issue they're outside of the building so that's that's reason enough for us to say it's time to get them out of the buildings from the outside and back in gives us more room for our students in uh of the primary grades kindergarten and preschool we can fit those rooms for that expansion as well um so when we ask for this this is why we're asking for that one okay and per pupil cost I know folks have um been saying okay the school district's been $26,000 per student and I say that when what a district budgets for is what we care about we do spend a lot per pupil and what does that look like what that looks like is all of the offerings of electives that we have at the high school in the middle school and the elementary school it looks like two music teachers with lessons that are free to the community for every Elementary child that doesn't happen in other schools districts they have a music teacher that rotates around the district and you get stram at this grade level you get singing at every other level and you may get banned right we have a nurse in every building we have child study teams in almost every building we have a paid clinician from ruers Behavioral Health we contract with Comprehensive Mental Health we have stem facilitators in every Elementary School we are teamed at the middle school which is expensive but it creates a school within a school environment and it breaks down a big school into smaller little schools and it really is the best way to do school for age group it is the optimal way to educate a middle school child all of those things cost a lot of money and that's what breaks down into the per pupil cost and if you go to this New Jersey Department of Ed website it warns people it cautions people to not try to make a direct comparison to per pupil costs and test scores you can't draw a direct line to that because there's a lot of factors that go into test scores peral cost might be very high at Newark High at Newark but they have a lot of mitigating factors that affect the way kids show up for testing there's other things that come involved in that demographics other things so you it's hard to say well if you spend this this is what the test scor should look like but I would argue that we're in the top 30 out of almost 660 school districts in the state of New Jersey and we're number 27 we're number one in a lot of areas Miss Riley principal Riley will be back with how many conferred uh Scholars Merit Scholars right so we're we do pretty well however just trying to say okay this should be this um that's that's we caution you against that and even the New Jersey Department of Ed cautions against it against that as far as our um administrative salaries and our teacher salaries we're to the middle low end of that and we are not administratively heavy according to the data of the state of New Jersey and NJ dooe um we're right about where we should be Capital reserves there was a question about um the money that's sitting in the capital reserve that was 15 million when um we originally started talking about this and it is now at what um Mr colavita the capital reserve has always been eight the the we were questioned about the other Surplus Surplus that was reported in our audit we had eight at the um end of last year we're down to seven right and that will be down more when we get other projects done that are already on the list uh that money is an emergency fund for when things go wrong when something goes wrong in a school it is not like something going wrong in your house it's very expensive a boiler cost much more um we can't go to get the best cost and go to Home Depot we have to buy through certain vendors because it's a specialty specialty item for a school it costs a lot more we had to put a water meter in the high school how much was that water meter Bob 70,000 70,000 for a water meter so that's the pricing that's we're facing the timelines to get something takes forever so when something fails and we have to wait for it to come it can take months and if it's something that's critical to the infrastructure and the running of the school that means school is is not in session which is what happened at the high school when they went to a half day on the first day of school we were just fortunate enough to have an in-house plumber that was able to fix it for now and and things were fingers are crossed until that part come um but those things are things that we need to have money in the bank just in case they go wrong and that all we can spend that on are those emergency projects that are in the facility so that was a question I wanted to make sure that I covered um that people were um had questions about and then finally the roofing um I know that the rofes were on the last referendum roofs on top of a school building are extensive and they are never replaced all at once they're replaced in sections and if you start replacing them in sections that means sections age out different at different times and the warranties expire at different times we do our very best because poor Tom Quinn his budget has been flat since I got here I've been here 13 years to stay ahead of those things to repair them to stretch the life on those things as best we can but at some point you're going to have to replace those sections part of those sections were replaced during the laugh referendum these were the ones that were not um so this is not this is not something that we were trying to get over on the community we're we asking for the same thing and doing a bait and switch we cannot legally do that Mr Cavita and I love our freedom and that is against the law we have to get all of our projects approved by the New Jersey Department of Ed they all have to go out through our our accounts that is monitored by the department of Ed we are audited extend L and if we spend the money on something that we didn't ask to do we can go to jail not just lose our license go to jail um one of the emails I got a very nice email from um the ba that works in the executive superintendent's office today um who loves Mr CVA because one he follows the rules he's gotten awards for being the most transparent ba in the area I think you were up for New Jersey uh award he he's he blushing now second second he got second place he's salty about it second place about being that transparent um he says that he trusts that Mr Cavo will manage those accounts properly if this is awarded because he will he takes this seriously as do I um so the maps are here um we're going to share off I think this I already put the slide deck on the um agenda it's available to you you can click and see what was done during the last referendum and see what roofs are now ready to be um repaired if you all approve so so the voter information um if you received your um ballot in the mail there was a deadline for the application um they need to receive them now at this point if you still have your ballot I'm going to go here if you still have your ballot and you haven't turned it in you can still do that you can still fill it out and hand deliver it to these locations depending on where you live voting will take place at the Pennington Firehouse here's the address that time is from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. um the folks that are running the election have done this before they they've done it specifically in this location they know that there's enough parking and they can handle all of the community who show up and so we're very excited to see as many people whether you're for this or you're not um we want you to get out and exercise your right to vote because that's what our democracy is about and then finally I want to end with this because I know this has been very contentious and this is um I want to thank the board for supporting us when we pitched this to you in finance and facility that we needed to go to referendum um if we were really going to get ahead of these projects and start planning responsibly fiscally and and otherwise uh to make sure that we fixed our schools and provide our and to continue to provide our parents the education that they deserve and they've come to expect and you all did what you were supposed to do and you red us over the coals and you asked lots of questions and you wanted to see all the reports and and all the things and you interviewed our architect taex to us and had financial advisor the the financial adviser work with Bob and talk about all of the the ins and outs and the projections of what this impact would be on the taxpayer you also said that you did not want us doing what some districts do and every two three years go to referendum again so you said we're going to ask them and that's it so what are the things that we need what are the things that we need to keep our children safe and that will cause a catastrophic um failure at some point what are those things and we gave you those lists and this this is how we came up with this number Mr cavid and I do not enjoy coming to you for this we had to because we were up against it with be Tavern and we needed that addition and if we were going to ask you for the $20 million for this there's no way we were going to do that and you say okay yes perhaps and then things start failing the day after and then you're like well why did you just and then you didn't fix these other things we didn't want to do that after after that's what happened the last time we cut it in half we did 30 million and then now we're here H hat and hand asking for that and then some for the same projects we took off the list the last time I have always told you the truth since I've been here since I've been your vice principal principal and superintendent even when it's something we don't want to hear even when it's hard it would be much easier believe me for us to just keep kicking the can and fixing things and putting a Band-Aid and saying oh I'm sorry oh class size is up I'm sorry that's not what I signed up for I promised you when I took this job that I would maintain what you value as parents and that's what I'm I'm committed to do and this is the best answer for you all right now if this fails I'm going to come back to you in a year perhaps we pull one of the prickly Harry Beast off which seems to be the turfield and it's going to cost you more for Less there'll probably be more project on here and it will still cost you more and you'll be getting less because everyone knows that when you ignore something in your house it doesn't get better it causes more problems outside of that one thing that breaks and nothing has gotten cheaper since I've been alive as time passes so I really don't want us in this position and I really don't want us going out to referendum the same time every another school district is in September because they're trying to get ahead of it this is if we're going to do it I'm saying the time is really now um I I can't beg you enough to really go to the website watch the videos come to us for the information because we are going to give you the real information because we have to because we're living it I know people mean well and they're very passionate about this but we are closer to this than they are and we really are giving you the information in the facts and you're living it as parents you see what's happening to your schools as things break um so I just wanted to say that and make sure that I put this last pitch in I hope you show up uh tomorrow and um we hope for the best okay so I waiting for you to click and I have to clicker one one more thing suicide Awareness Month try to end on a on a on a good note kind of good note but sad um I share this every September since I lost my son Ronnie uh to Suicide um in 2017 and here's a picture of him and the crew and I decided what picture will I put up this year and this is a is a big one because his friends are still checking on us and and they've gotten married and they're starting to have their own families um some of them have gotten uh sucked into the dark side and our Educators um um but I had to reach out to them when I was looking for uh don their teacher and I still had them on speed dial and they're like oh yeah Don we have his number and they they tracked him down for me and he showed up with a day's notice to our convocation that sort of Rel relationship and friendship is huge when Don showed up at at convocation he had something for me and he he goes up and he um he goes to give a speech and it really threw me off the rest of the uh the presentations I had to do he had a note a handwritten note for my son that Ronnie had written him and he would come back and visit him when he was away uh in in college when he went into the military and he'd come back to visit he'd always go by the high school and visit his favorite teachers which we know kids do right and um Dome wasn't in his room so Ronnie scribbled a note and stuck it on his board for him on a sticky note and said hey Don I just came by to see you I'll see you again the next time I come by keep changing the world keep changing lives and so he still has that and all those little notes from his kids that mean something to him um I know there's a lot that happens around mental health and we don't have the answers for that for our adolescence I'm an educator I knew all the things I was supposed to do when Ronnie started struggling I took him to all the right doctors I did all the right things and we still lost him and there are parents right now in this District who are facing this I was I was strong enough not to fall prey to the stigma of mental health I was very uh good about not blaming myself as being a bad parent about it but there's some parents that feel like they're a bad parent they feel like it's embarrassing they don't know what to do when we say that we're here for you and we want to help your child please take the help and I know that it's a lot to Traverse and and and to deal with uh the mental health world for adolescents we are here for you if we say that we we need you to get help for your CH child believe us know that if you don't have the money or your insurance doesn't cover it part of that per pupil cost is we pay for that we will get you that support if you need the support we will get you that support um so don't be afraid to ask for help for your child don't be afraid to ask for help for yourself because what we don't want is to lose another child or parent because we've lost both we've lost both recently and I would like to not have to give this speech anymore I I really would so here in this slide deck I have counseling service they're there for you there's lots of information and resources for parents um reach out listen and seek help that's what we're asking you to do listen to your child even if you think oh well you know what they might be being you know they're just being a teenager right they the teenagers are Moody I was moody right listen to them I'd rather be wrong and be overreacting than underreact right and then finally for all of us right no matter what happens or how bad it seems today life will always go on and it will always get better know that in this right now moment it may suck but it is going to get better it will get better so thank you that's all I had was a lot thank you Dr Tes one of the things I'm most proud of this is this is where everyday seal Works um it's just the tip of the iceberg and everything underneath it is critical for our families and our kids so I'm always proud of us here at poell and we're always going to try to dig deeper and do more support but I always also want to thank you for telling your story because I know that is not easy um and it's for the for the cause that they say Okay um shift y little little switch up can we can can you introduce for us that'd be awesome welcome thank you all so much for having me this evening um to Echo Dr Teresa's words um one of the focuses at the high school this year is is every single student because we value every single one of the children that are entrusted to my care um and tonight I have the privilege of introducing one of the very best of the every single one um I have Aon Lee who is your new student representative to the Board of Education Aaron is incredibly talented in a number of ways to start off she's brilliant um you'll spend 30 seconds speaking with her and you'll realize how incredibly naturally intelligent she is but also how hard she works this year alone she's taking three AP classes and two honors classes um and so I know that you're going to see that represented in her monthly report but what is even more important to me about um Ain and what she's doing and actually the most interesting part of her schedule this year is the fact that she's chosen to be a student assistant um um and so she's taking her natural talents and and using that to give back to to others she is a talented musician she plays the clarinet um and she's planning to major in music education this Summer She studied in Korea um with music professors there and she's using some of that information that expertise to to work with students through her role as a teacher's assistant um with with the band program she continues her love of Education in working with the care programs at different elementary schools in the district which means she also must have a lot of patience um and in her spare time which I'm not sure how she has any with with all of that but she also loves tennis hanging out with friends baking and cooking so I am incredibly excited to introduce all of you to Aaron she's going to do a fantastic job this year and uh I think she's ready for her report thank you welcome eron make can you help her with the mic there red light H hello my name is Aaron and I'm a senior at H Valley Central High School in August before the start of the school year we organized transition activities for incoming freshmen and new students these included a scheduled walkthrough and freshman student celebration both supported by our leadership core members student ambassadors and students in the service learning pathway the school year began positively with the class of 2025 seniors celebrating their senior sunrise on the first day of school on the first few days of school we held class meetings where we set expectations and guidelines followed by a schoolwide Dogpound etiquette and school spirit presentation led by the student council many students are participating in Fall extracurriculars such as football girls field hockey girls tennis Cross Country Soccer marching black and gold and girls volleyball our hopo Valley Football team is off to a fantastic start with an undefeated record of 3-0 including a recent Victory against Notre Dame this past Friday over the next few days we'll have an activity fair that will include over a 100 clubs at hobo Valley to encourage all students to participate we'll also have an induction ceremony for athletic Hall of Fame and finally today we started spirit week and the student council is preparing for the fall pep rally this Friday and the homecoming dance on Saturday September 21st thank you thank you so much does anyone have any questions or comments from the board I do so can we sign you up for a contract now for music teacher just right now before you go she she's not joking I'm not joking anyone else okay well thank you so much Aaron it's wonderful to meet you and we look forward to being with you throughout the year this is going to be something that you're going to continue to hear me say you are welcome to stay but we understand if you need to go okay thank you all right moving on we're going to have our first um we are in the already kicking off the new budget cycle and so each meeting between now and the end of the year we'll have like uh into time we will be going through each of the different departments throughout uh the administration and the first one up is going to curriculum so lovely drit hi everybody thank you um okay so the office of curriculum and instruction is involved in professional development of Faculty developing instructional programs based on the standards put forth by the NJ doe as well as monitoring student learning both in terms of standardized and districtwide assessment the the curriculum instruction office also known as cni is comprised of five content expert supervisors uh these content expert supervisors are all K12 which allows for a smoother transition between Elementary to middle school and then middle to high school and additionally all supervisors oversee multiple departments so essentially there are four key areas that curriculum and instruction focus on yearly uh this includes developing and implementing curriculum which is based on the New Jersey state standards we also serve as a liaison between TC andj Ryder and Princeton to support pre-service teachers as well as coordinate the fifth to six the five to six professional development days that are contractual to our faculty in the district finally um cni also oversees um all title grants the titles one through four specifically okay so each year I'm asked to develop a vision for cni that will be followed through by the supervisors along with infused in the professional development days so many of you may not be aware but my background expertise is in molecular genetics and Science Education when I was going for my Master's and doctorate my research studies were Guided by the inclusion of data to make decisions and I have used the same process When developing the vision and goals of this of the department from year to year so if you could just bear with me I'm going to walk you through my process of how I've developed these these three goals um so as part of my role in The District I've created and led various committees comprised of teachers and administrators so last year we relaunched the elementary curriculum Council and in the conversations with that committee the participants mentioned repeatedly that they needed support with promoting a classroom environment with clear expectations and guidelines this need was also brought up during this District school Improvement panel which I also lead as well as administrative goal settings this came the Inception of our first goal responsive practices towards that end we have been providing trainings with faculty on best responsive practices along with focusing on setting up classroom expectations during the first four days of school in the Elementary classes we plan on continuing to offer training and support to our faculty throughout the rest of the year as many of you are aware I give the annual achievement report on students performance in various standardized Assessments in reviewing the data from these assessments we've noted no that there are shifts in student performance I've worked with Administration on developing a data protocol for teachers to use when reviewing standardized data along with District assessments this protocol is an objective way to view the data to identify Trends So based on these Trends the expectation is that teachers will adjust their instructional approaches to meet the needs of their Learners so finally goal three effective tier one instruction is somewhat in effect of goal number two so essentially if teachers utilize to drive instructional changes they can provide further differentiation or personalized learning in their classes the idea is that we if we have a solid effective tier one plan using the necessary data then this will help support students in their learning and ideally we should see a drop in referrals to PR services and better student outcomes throughout the year the supervisors and myself will be supporting faculty in these three goals by providing related professional developing and hosting data chats during DCS the committee will also continue to throughout the year which is another checkpoint that we will use to assess where we are as a district and meeting these goals so I know that was a bit longwinded but I just wanted to give you the background that and the thoughtfulness that go behind these goals from year to year um okay so now I'd like to just talk a little bit about um what we are doing to reach these goals in this current school year um so to align with go number one of responsive practices we continue to lean a lot on on our four elementary teacher leaders to provide support and training to our faculty on responsive best practices we also continue to utilize the adopted character education program character strong to enhance these practices goal number two about three years ago the district purchased linkit which is a data warehousing platform essentially we can put various assessments both standardized and District assessments into this platform to ascertain where students are in their learning process so it's very cool because you can see it from a a bigger P perspective like where the classes are the grade bands and then drill it down to the individual students um so we can identify strengths and gaps we're also hosting another Blended and personalized learning cohort which is facilitated by a group of four teachers to highlight the use of various data sources and how they can adjust teaching um practices based on the data and finally we continue to use the data protocol when r viting data this has been extensively used at the elementary level during the data chats that take place about three times a year so for um goal three there are some overlap with other goals from the last goal We are continuing to provide support to our faculty by bringing experts in the field we've recently adopted a new writing tool at the elementary level to ensure that there is a methodological sequence and consistency that is being presented in all our Elementary classes and lastly we are are beefing up our EA or gifted and talented offerings at the elementary level by revising the proving and shifting to one gift EA teacher um per four buildings so these are some additional Explorations this year that weren't really in alignment with what with one of the goals but are part of the district's needs as well as to meet all state requirements okay so for looking forward uh we plan to continue to provide social emotional support to our students through our or collaboration with the Ruckers as well as um in including the appropriate programmatic changes that are put forth by the NJ doe um some of those changes include um a shift in new standards we recently um adopted the new math standards and next year we are expected to roll out the new Ela standards um we are also in continuing to support um teachers in the the climate change mandate that the the DOA put out a few years ago okay um so we're prop proposing some programmatic shifts for next year specifically in the adoption of the new Elementary Ela program and Elementary science program in science we'll be looking at um an opened which is the model curriculum that the state has um endorsed one of the benefits of the program is that it isn't costly uh we have a a teacher leader who's actually trained in the curriculum and it is um a line to the Next Generation science standards so that that won't be a big um driver for the for the budget um however uh one of the big drivers will be adopting a new Elementary Ela program which I'm going to talk about in more depth in the next slide um finally as Dr T has mentioned we have a new steam exploratory course in all four buildings at the elementary level so just this is the first year we will be rolling it out so we'll be looking at just reflecting and revising as necess Neary although I don't think that will be a huge um budget driver um so this is where we get to the the budget impacts for next year um so as I mentioned my our first goal is responsive practices so we'd like to continue with training on responsive practices and perhaps create a cohort of teachers who are trained and then can turn key the training to others I estimate this training to be about 14,000 however I'm I'm planning on using title funds to support that so again that that should not be a a budget impact or should not have a budget impact um the second is where the second block on this slide is where we we need to discuss because that will be a main driver for the budget for next year um so we are going to be looking at adopting a new Ela program at the elementary level um the reason for this is because of the new Ela standards and recently um Governor Murphy signed um legislation that related to how um literacy was um implemented at the elementary level um most of the shifts that he has called for have um we have already been implementing like there's a certain amount of required benchmarking that is in place but we've already been doing that for for years um it was it's really going to be aligning to the new to the new standards that is going to cause the major shift for the ELA program um so while the cost is program specific and we don't know which program we are going to be selecting because we are currently reviewing program s um the ranges are usually about 150 to 250,000 a year um so to minimize the cost we're looking at doing a two or threee roll out so we would either do three years over two year I'm sorry three grades over two years or two grades in three years um while we don't know the exact cost currently this is something that we will have to keep in mind for budgeting so I just wanted to put this on everybody's radar um because that is going to be an a cost thank you thank you and um questions so one of Ela it's on should be on is this close enough yes okay so uh Dr V is one of the things you mentioned in the atcom meeting which I think is worth for folks to hear is some of the unique aspects that we're looking for in the LA program in terms of the way we uh are going to approach teaching reading right so I just wanted to ask you to comment on that for everybody's benefit I that my area expertise is language arts so we've we've all we've already added the phonics component we've already added that um so that cost is not in in this oh okay um we've already added the writing component so that's not here we're we already started with the writing so this is really um changing uh the the textbooks and the other materials and the and the leveled readers and all of that that go with that work um so moving away from Reading Writing workshop and back to more traditional way of teaching all right so the phonics is already already okay more traditional I'm I I I know a big part of what's happening in in ela and related areas is AI is is this getting close to anything doing you know I mean I know there's need is this sort of addressing some of those needs um I don't I don't think for the ELA program at the elementary level I know we we were looking at Ai and developing policies and um at the secondary level and it's going to trickle down to Elementary but I think at this point um we're just looking for for Best Practices so I guess I just thought of a followup now that we've moved back to hey we used to te Ela this way and it worked for a long time we should have stuck with that when are we going to do the same thing with math one thing at a time sir you see how expensive this is because okay he just nope I'm good Bob thanks and and I just was um just for the audience what is traditional the good thing about reading and writing workshop and I loved it I used it in my classroom as well is it teaches children to love to read and they're picking their books and they're they're excited about reading um the program was always supposed to be paired with a phonics program right it was always supposed to be uh leveling students and finding out where they're reading finding their just right book whether it's a reach or not all of that should have been happening but wasn't built into the readers writer program by itself um so we've learned a lot that the old way is the best way and the new way is good too so the new programs blend that love for read reading and getting kids excited about reading more than one book at a time reading volumes of books at a time and we have to teach you how to read right we have to teach the mechanics and Basics some kids learn like that but there's about 30% that don't I learned like that I learned how to read by myself watching Sesame Street a kid with a learning disability is not going to pick it up that way um and those are the kids that were missing we were missing with with the old way we were teaching I mean the Reading Writing Workshop by itself way of teaching reading and yeah to to be clear it's not like we're really going back to the old traditional we've learned a lot through research on how children learn to read best and there were some programs that children were learning to read despite the program and so what we're doing now which Dr Tre said is we're capturing that that 30% and what we know when we capture that 30% of struggling readers all readers learn to read better and so that's the great thing when you talk Universal Design when you talk when you basically make sure our most struggling Learners are successful all of our Learners are successful so it is a lot of money we understand that but it's really important and we know what the research is saying so we got to get there and can oh can I just say one thing so we are not taking this lightly um as I alluded to in a couple slides we are um working with Ed reports I don't know if you are familiar with it it is a nonprofit um organization that reviews curriculum materials um so we are going through we are going through their process of creating a vision and then vetting the sources appropriate the the different programs appropriately so this will be a month long process to find what's right for the district awesome well and this was one of our spots we are aiming to approve for sure so and we're also taking into account we bought beautiful libraries that that have met our our need for diversity and making sure that kids have those windows and sliding doors to see in the multiple um individuals lives so that they see themselves on the shelves those are not going anywhere so when she has a range we're hoping we can negotiate with some of these companies that I'm not going to buy your books if I have you know libraries um where can we find cost savings for the community because I know that many of you have donated books um the hbf have bought in and funded libraries we have parents that work for publishing companies that have donated books um so this is uh we're trying to find something that's going to marry to what we already have wonderful so one one final thing and this is why I mean we did a this was a little bit of a change Vicki kind of mixed it up a little bit this year from what we've done in the past is we wanted to kind and this is kind of an extension of what the board was asking us to do at the end of last year this is um a hurdle for us so this is we're going to need to find a way to get this in the budget maintain the stuff that we've got in the budget for Less because the problems haven't gone away our budget is still we're still teetering on that but this is something we wanted to get on the radar early is something we need to do to move ahead um but we need to get creative in other area so and one of the other things I'll share just in terms of preparing folks for presenting to the board I think it's really important that what the board has the opportunity in committee to get to know all the skills and the talents of our staff and of course our Administration so I'm you know was teasing um Dr pitus that no nobody knows how incredibly brilliant she is in the stem space before she even comes to us and often times we you know we just see them as people who teach our kids or they do our stuff and um we're lucky to have them but truly we have gifted people in our district and I really encourage them all to shine um when they present things like the budget because it's hard to it's hard to convey the numbers but when you look at the the the skill and the talent of our staff and our resources um we are more than fortunate um to to have them and so they bring that insight and knowledge when they're scouring their budget and determining where where where do they where they pull from what's the priority and I want you all to know that there's more than just coming up with a bunch of numbers there's they're bringing their their their wisdom and their uh Talent to the decision making process so thank you all right um we are going to move on to our next presentation which is the access achievement data you ready over there Lois all right okay good evening thank you um just listening to everyone talk about um meeting the needs of all of our our students it couldn't be more appropriate than to talk about our multilingual Learners who are an amazing population um in our district so thank you for inviting me this evening to share information about access um I provide a link there I hope everyone got a chance to look at it um it provides an explanation of what access is nationally and locally um this is a snapshot of our current multilingual learner population oh and I want to say multi lingual Learners is a term that was recently adopted by the New Jersey Department of Education previously we referred to these Learners as English language Learners so I just want everyone to be clear that um we haven't it's the same group of people so um so this snapshot just I provided a link to see um all of our um different languages that are spoken at K5 we have um 31 students we just added three more um we have 11 languages spoken at uh Elementary in our multilingual learner population in grades 6 through 12 we have 16 students in seven different languages spoken um and that top link will show you the breakdown of that um and I'll talk a little bit about this next piece in a few minutes so the access test results um are important because they explain how we use these results to Monitor and support student learning and we can look at year-to-year reports to see where students are and what progress they are making this is a sample test report and we share these reports with content teachers to inform instruction and if you are a teacher with a student as you go through this report you can see where their strengths are in re um Reading Writing speaking and listening and at the bottom of this report as you read through it it it has what we call the can do statements which just describe based on this level of proficiency in English these are things that we can expect our multilingual Learners to be able to do in the classroom again this requires a great deal of differentiation which I thank Dr pitus for um providing the support we need um with the teachers that we need and the Board of Education thank you for that as well and also providing us with a multilingual um consultant who has was here today meeting with teachers and really providing some great supports for them and actually visiting their classes and giving them direct feedback on their instruction so um thank you all for that it's really making a difference and um when a student oh sorry back here so when a student scores a 4.5 on this um test that means that they can exit our program but we don't just exit them by numbers we never do that um we talk to the teachers and find out what is the best exit strategy however by the state requirement they have to score a 4. 5 and until they do so we can't consider them for exiting the program on average our students will exit English language services or meet Proficiency in one to two years at the elementary school and two to three years um at the 6 to 12 level um with Elementary they learn quickly they are immersed um so they learn very quickly and they exit some this year we had three that exited after one year of English language instruction it's pretty miraculous our 6 through 12 um that tends be two to three years um just because they're coming to us at a later date with um higher expectations for content and graduation requirements um the exception to this trajectory um are Refugee students and our s students s students are students with limited or interrupted formal education and these students are you how we describe them are they're new to the US school system and have had interrupted or limited schooling opportunities in their native country so they may come to us with a third maybe reaching third grade in their native country and entering by state requirement at their age level into nth grade so we're providing we have to provide the fill in that Gap and also most of them don't speak English they have limited backgrounds in reading and writing in their native languages and with Refugee students often they're not literate in their native language and so we're developing literacy um in both languages um they tend to be below grade level and most academic skills so they have a very steep learning curve and again all of the supports that you provide um to this program really help us move these students forward and for them to have successful future so thank you for that support um Dr pitz alluded to um linkit we just started using linkit for Access um they upload our scores um we have a very small population so um some of those um grade levels are for one student but it starts to give us um just a picture of um what our students are doing so um there is like I blue is that they meet proficiency meaning that they are ready to exit and they exit the program there's also um there that students have met growth expectations that means they're still in the program and meeting benchmarks and moving forward and there is another category of students not meeting growth expectations and again these um if you go back and look at our reports that they they are Refugee students and our um s students we don't have any of our what we call um literate multilingual Learners um falling into that category and then Baseline is just students that came into the district and we don't have any comparative data this is their first year going through and taking the access um test so and that's for K5 and this is for 612 and as I become more and more familiar with with this data I'll reporting out about that are there any questions that I can answer can can I just mention that um I know that you people on Ed program committee are familiar with Lois but um I know some of the other board members might not know um this is Lois Baldwin we should have introduced you at the beginning um she oversees World Language um MLS business and practical Arts thank you any no questions oh thank you any questions yep the mic this presentation I'm on the phone excuse you um but I am following Along on your report and I I really appreciate it I just had a question about the data so when we're reviewing the last three slides with the report out of whether students met growth expectations or didn't meet them or met their proficiency is there a way for us to see the number of students in each of these groups because I think we were given the number for sort of the I think it was K through five and then six through 12 but I can't tell so for this 100% not metet growth expectation is that like one student in grade eight or is that a number of students so where where where would we be able to get that data yeah so I did look at that that's actually we go back into the test reports themselves and so I went back and looked at that and that's student um came to us in sixth grade that was a s student that is one student there um and um he's been with us for three years and um the reading and writing are still of concern to us so there's always is this a language issue or a learning issue and so um this year we are um screening him for perhaps um some learning issues that might be complicating his progress with language development so yeah and that's I was working with link it to see how we could display this more clearly and again this is our first year using it so um moving forward but if you want specific data I'm happy to um get that for you thank you sure any other questions sure yeah I I didn't have a question I just wanted to highlight a point that we talked about during that program um which was just the incredible diversity that we have in Hopewell which is you know obviously a real challenge but also given our success just something that we should be cognizant about of how many languages um we are you know working with students that that I think that's just something that I wanted to thank and to that point we have like 45 multilingual learners but in our district alone we have 20 an excess of 235 families who speak another language at home so we are a very linguistically diverse population thank you for reminding me of that der I didn't that thank awesome thank you so much Lo very much thank you all okay with that we're going to go ahead and move into our first uh public comment and I'll just remind folks members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of three minutes during this portion of the meeting you're asked to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Education May respond or direct the superintendent to to do so the board the board may also opt to take the matter up at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by The District administration with that said my timekeeper will provide Direction yes hi um when you have 30 seconds left I will flash yellow so that you know and then red at three thank you public comments is now open hi uh my name is Sylvia costus I'm from hennington and one of the primary responsibilities of a school board is to create and update policies when necessary my comments and requests tonight focus on policy 5756 and I asked the board to revise and update this policy during this school year because information and realities have changed since 2016 the three minute rule will not give me time to present all the information and reasons for this request so I do have a packet that I will give you of resources that more fully uh explained please read them and utilize them in your discussions most of my comments will be coming from this book it's called on sex and gender and it was written in 2024 and it's really a really really good book policies have to use words and terms to Define ideas and to facilitate clear communication these terms and words need to be factual accurate and free from ideological bias the revisions I'm requesting are on page one and I passed around page one so you can see the first revision would be the addition of the vocabulary term sex the other two revisions are changes in the wording of the policy first the term sex should be added to the list of definitions since the term sex is used in the purpose statement sex segregated classes and in the definitions of gender expression gender non-conforming and in the term sexual orientation it's important to define the term sex in this this section the National Institute of Health defines sex as a multi-dimensional biological construct based on Anatomy physiology genetics and hormones evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins Define sex as a true binary with males having a y chromosome and a body that masculinizes with lifelong effects because of that b or a female who has ex chromosomes and a body that feminizes with lifelong effects because of that different base sex is a word that signifies these reproductive systems please add the term sex to the defined terms in this policy although the terms sex and gender are sometimes conflated the ideas they signify are vastly different the two terms are distinguishable in relevant circumstances our students need to learn this and our curriculum needs to emphasize this good evening Kate ham I'm so glad that the remark was made about getting accurate information out to the community this evening I'm sure that you've seen or heard about the complaints from community members regarding transparency information and access to it in relation to the referendum you should also know that I have made very clear that throughout numerous meetings the information has been available would I have liked to have seen the town hall earlier than last week for the community to have a forum dedicated solely to the referendum yes but as I stated publicly on Monday I wholeheartedly support maintaining the Safety and Security of our students grouping projects infrastructure Wells hbac additions accessibility I support it all the topic which has been a hot one is the turf field and I just want to insert here when addressing turf fields throughout the county Mr K shared that Hamilton has three turf fields yes they do because they have three high schools most if not all have turf fields even a large District like Hamilton but few if any middle schools I look at this from a few different perspectives there's been a slide repeatedly shared in the district's budget year after year it's no secret that costs continue to rise and balancing a budget is challenging that list which looks for areas to cut back to make the budget includes the reinstatement of athletic fees or the potential elimination of Middle School sports if those items are still up for discussion year after year there may be a decrease in the number of athletes thus a decrease in the field space needed when looking at Safety and Security I understand stand wanting student athletes back on campus yes this means that not all will come back to campus though they'll have a building to protect them from the weather changes they won't have access to an administrator a trainer or a nurse there are ways to bring our athletes back without installing turf fields utilize the funds spent to transport the students to address the drainage issues and maintain the field explore installing sod or other safer options or if you feel that Turf is the only answer why not go out to the organizations wishing to rent our facility once built and gather their funds to support the install if the outcome tomorrow is not one you're hoping for I was told on Monday that there is no plan B that you'll keep putting Band-Aids on the needs as they arise as was also shared on Monday there are a few times which a district can go out for referendum if need be can the district remove the hot ticket item from the proposed referendum which would only remove the state aid Associated to that project and place it on the November ballot that way you're only looking to Band-Aid the field issue instead of all items included to conclude I thank you for addressing the support for mental health you know my commitment to this cause while the world has yet to equate the importance of physical health and mental health I hope that we here in hbsd can equate the two without positive mental health there is no physical health any other comment okay see none Miss kosis um in regard to policy Miss kosis in regards to policy 5756 gender and uh non-conforming students um we have members of the policy committee here I will um talk to our chair who's on the phone about adding that policy for review it I'm looking at it now and it hasn't been looked at since 2016 so we we are offering to to review it and put it on our agenda within the next couple of months to take a look at it and thank you for your feedback and any resources you'd like to provide the board to take a look um for uh Miss ham um we had two forums for the referendum the first one was um May 16th of last year and then we staggered and had this one closer to the voting date because we knew that if we had it in the summer um people are away and we wanted people to be back and we wanted to be fully transparent I don't want to have something in the summer when I know people are traveling um so we wanted to have it one here but we did have a forum which I had virtual in the recording should still be online um May 16th uh if this is not successful as I shared we can go out again next year it wouldn't be November uh that wouldn't be something that we could we would do this year uh with the way our budget is uh with the way we've invested resources in this one we would have to wait until next year to do it again we would not be able to pull it off to go in no remember and once you have turned this into the New Jersey Department of Ed they've accepted it and they put the question out we cannot pull it off that all that discussion would have had to happen before um we put in the application and asked to to run the special question um in terms of sod we had talked about yes we can do that it's very expensive watering in that without an irrigation system which is also very expensive would be a problem right so yes you can invest in natural Turf that is not cheap either um and it wouldn't be successful unless we could do it the way that we need to which we can't um travel teams have expressed an interest in using the turf field they will pay rentals on that and they are saying if it passes they will also are interested in helping us to light it because we currently rent lights um for that space uh so they are expressing a desire to help us to fund uh the M you know the to maintain the field through their their um their rentals and also to light the field for us permanently so anything else did I missed on that one Mr Cavita so I mean we you we we could go out just as far as Logistics go you could go out again um you couldn't do it in November because the statutory that we don't have the time to pass another resolution to get it on ballot you need to do a new ballot that's if it's if it goes out the way it is anything you change needs 90 days so if you were to change um the project at timberling You' need 90 days to go out to do that um but you know if we were going to redo it we'd have to really go back to the to the drawing board and again we took a lot of heat uh for having a referendum outside of the a vote so you know at this point I wouldn't do that again right now you know again if if it were to go down we're they're looking at probably waiting till next November and we wouldn't probably begin construction of any kind until the summer of 2027 and you hit the nail on the head with the grass it's very hard um to we we' we've put sod in before um without adequate water The Sod doesn't grow um and the kids tear it up and so you'd be probably having to resad at least twice a year without water just quick corre right last school year and um just was that November of 2025 which means 2026 would right as we've been saying throughout the you know the the spring and fall um if we were to go out for a referendum in of November of 2025 the likelihood of having anything prepped for the summer of 2026 is unlikely um unlikely so it push project 2 right and you can't build onto Bear Tavern and all of that with students in the building so that pushes that and your class size is continually grow going up in the meantime well we could we could do I mean the the beauty of the way we're doing planning on doing Bear Tavern and togate is that we would the trailers would maintain at Bear Tavern so we could um do some construction around Bear Tavern while and togate for that matter while school's in session yeah yeah at least right okay just wanted to clarify because that seemed a little farfetch but when you look out this calendar from the board for responses okay seeing none I will close our uh public comment requesting any old business items okay seeing none um I'd like to get a first and a second to approve the consent agenda items all in favor any opposed or abstaining consent agenda items passed all right so uh on finance and Facilities committee I don't think we have you think that we will need the vote on and I want to apologize to the board I realized walking into building today I never sent an email with my notes so um and then I'll send it out later it's in my um but uh we had as let P this here as usual um big part of our meeting is uh I'm quin's list of bad news um or as an official title it is an official tile term is the monly facilities um so um one of the key issues that we discussed in this facility report is we um are short a grounds person and and um I know we point out not every board meeting but probably every other board meeting that we are able to run rather efficiently um in on the facilities budget uh one of the reasons that we do a lot in house um as opposed to taking all of that out well those staff people are getting harder and harder higher because of the Delta organization that case and what and the wages would gner I um so yeah we're short of grounds person and the Corp the um H concern and at least three yes um am is concerned because the applications that he's receiving of people that have no experience and you would like to see some experience will are here um there's a knock on effect in that the people that we do have on staff are having they got burned out PR to burn out um any projects that can be pushed out to later so Break um power push out later so there is a knock on impact here may need to start going through Outsourcing just to fill in those gaps we are not no one from the Administration has come to the committee yet and saying hey we just want to go to out source for any reason other than to fill in gaps what we made start Outsourcing some of those um so that was um kind of a big item with potentially longterm impact to um folks to be aware of and then comes the list of things the water meter that Pennington Bor required us to install was finally installed um I I actually remember the number of 50k but po cored me before I even said it it's even more than that it's it's it's 7K we also mentioned the high school cafeteria is operational so we only missed a half a day of school uh because of that issue but the fix in there is temporary and we are a waiting part to for um there are some other issues which have not affected our ability to run the school yet but um there's an issue in one of the Walken Vis um it it it where the food is stored for the cafeteria and the air conditioning in the community we again for all of those we're waiting on parts we have the budget to fix it we have people to fix it the parts are just not there um TMS we need the super pumps to complete or to get closer to the completion of the big big project so for those of you who were in the town hall you saw the pictures of DMS hallway dug up the hallway is back closed so the kids can use it the bathrooms that were infected by that are not operational because we don't have the uh uh the the St pumps and those are back order for 6 to8 so again it's not as far as I understand the only impact is teachers are aware that kids might late glasses if their glasses are on the S where the are not have um there is a dead AC compressor AC is uh so there portable uh air conditioning units were being used uh in be Tavern the particular AC compressor the parts not available but also we're looking at at 10 to 15 completely unit uh likewise in stonburg uh there's no agback in the art room in in in two classroom we waiting on parts uh the big boiler project in poal elementary still not fully Complete because the shut up vows not best section so we're waiting on the company was installing it pass that um the other item that we talked about for a while this building is the only building that does not have a generator the problem is that um the central hop for all the transportation Communications is back there and and so if the electric goes out when our buses are out can't communicate with the buses there's a proposal to get a generator here at the very Le that part out and we discussed some ways of potentially limiting because of that um the good news is the Stony broke fire alarms are ready for in that project is complete and that was a project we had about a year ago we had the list of things to be in the referendum we pulled it out because it just needed to be done and we used the money in the capital reserve um we I think that this miss anything we had a short discussion on on on the on on the town H hold that happened and there is a bit of data from the that from the depart with where we on on the on the start that's about it question I just wanted to follow up on um the gratitude that we are feeling towards our maintenance department right now um over the I mean it's been ongoing for several years now the the dedication of those guys um but over the labor weekend many of them were here on Friday Saturday Sunday and Monday um to get the the building critical systems up and running for the start of school and even though we did have a um a half day at the high school there was a lot of work that had to be done there to get that place ready to go so those you know again you mentioned the savings but those guys really go above and beyond above and beyond to make sure our critical systems are working yeah when um and the other thing that we mentioned connect to that because of all that work that they had to do over the Labor Day there's a project okay thank you um Mr Resnik and we go um to personnel and [Laughter] hello I'll I'll be doing my best Mark Peter's impression this evening he's not with us but we did have a brief Personnel committee meeting directly before this meeting and talked about a as you'll see in your agenda a number of personnel appointments of lunker substitutes some transfers some different district assignments approval of substitutes Etc as well as a number of extracurricular activities including mentors Club advisors some TMS and richment all you'll see that all there in your in your agenda as well as uh we uh we discussed how the governor's educator of the Year educator of the Year nomination notification went out last week a little earlier than usual but that information went out on Friday to families and staff and nominations are due on November 15th and we expect announcements to be made in early December and with a plan to recognize those uh those the winners of the educator of the year uh to be recognized at the January meeting that's the expectation for this year and the only other thing that uh I wanted to mention is you'll see the Danielson rubric evaluation processes are up for your approval as a matter of course and other than that it was a very smoothly run meeting from thank you awesome yay Mr slotman he's we always get a nudge him up there awesome um so in in a in approving um the rubric that Mr slotman mentioned just need a first and a second and then we'll do a roll call vote the whole person the whole Personnel all the items on First and a second please roll call Mr kapadia Dr lison Dr Resnik yes Mr slotman Miss Tracy yes Dr Wilson Dr jovy yes and Miss Williams gallano yes motion carries wonderful moving on to edcom sorry I was reviewing that personel um okay so we met on September 4th and uh Miss Lois Baldwin this the supervisor of World Language MLL business and practical Arts presented the um access achievement data to us as the committee um some of the things that she mentioned that she may not have mentioned in the presentation was that the waa assess is administered to the ml students focuses on the four areas which she I know she mentioned tonight um and but the information that we gather from the weeda assessment in those areas is then shared with the teachers to inform instruction um we also discuss the diff um the different reports that um parents receive as well as the profiles that comprise um our ml population um we we stress that um although we don't have a huge ml population it has but it has grown in the last few years we are linguistically diverse um and we also discuss the amount of students in the ml program as those compared to surrounding districts and and we we by far have less than the surrounding districs but again we we have more languages um Miss Carolyn McGrath and Dr Scott Bell discussed the climate action plan as it related to education in this report there were eight action items and the district is currently making progress in all eight action items um some of these items related to professional development for teachers climate science for students green week and Outdoor Learning spaces um in the future Miss McGrath and Dr Bell hope to develop a more concise action plan as it relates to all the components and this document will will help to streamline the communication as well as uh prog progress towards these goals um there um I reviewed the uh budget that I presented this evening and um I won't won't rehash it but just that we we just talked about the the ELA Elementary program and how that is going to be a a budget driver and then finally um there was a professional development um that we discussed that laurren school district in conjunction with the njde um is offering to administrators to go to China as part of a cultural exchange all fees except the airfare are covered by the organization and the district is considering sending to administrators anything else any question on on that last item I think it's also worth noting that the cost of the airfare if we choose to go ahead is covered out of the fonts that are already available for professional development to those administrators it's not being pulled out of somewhere thank you thank you Dr pitus any other comments or questions before we move on to our item yes that's I just to make sure we didn't have any other question okay moving on then to approving the um pekk 12 curriculum for 2024 25 first and second please R call yep Dr Liston Dr Resnik Mr slotman Miss Tracy yes Dr Wilson Dr jovy yes Mr kadia Miss Williams gallano yes car okay moving on to community relations any [Laughter] update wasn't your Dr Wilson was being very kind I messed up my calendar so we calling anybody out I'll call myself out I'm outing myself I over scheduled myself kind of kind of okay so um so we also received a um presentation about the uh climate um plan uh with uh Miss McGrath and Dr pel um but around in the district um and I would just like to sort of reiterate um we really have an extensive impressive plan around climate change education um really touching all the different parts of the district um we learned about the different ways that um Mental Health Resources are being um integrated into the different parts of the plan um that we're ensuring that we're keeping communication with Dr theres so that when her um newsletters go out the community is also being informed about the different things that we're doing with the climate change um Counseling Services there'll be a website um that's up so that if people have some feelings around climate change that parents can go for resources and students can go for resources um there's lots of training on what age appropriate education around climate change is and really being trauma informed for both uh students and teachers um so I was just very impressed uh with the overall um thoughtfulness of the plan um they also mention an Educators an Educator's guide to climate emotions that um teachers have available to them um so really some great uh resources we then also talked about I'm reading my notes here um how um some of the things our students are doing around that autonomy um around autonomy and climate change so um I think it was Dr TR in the meeting um brought up a great example and I just want to highlight it for everyone here around um students noticing that birds were hitting the windows at school um and so they were like you know we really should try to do something about this and so they came together and sort of went through that engineering design process um and thought about ways that they could mitigate this problem of birds hitting their school and came up with some great ways um and I think they came up with um sort of little hanging um reflection yeah mobile things um and it worked and so it's just a great way of how the curriculum can shift and really meet students where they are so you know it was one of those things where they came we've got this Challenge and the teachers really seamlessly put it into the curriculum so that's uh really great uh we also talked about uh the parent universities that are going to be happening throughout the year um our first one should be on November 19th and it's uh habits for building Healthy Families there's going to be another one on March 27th and these will be available through Zoom at 7 o'clock um habits for building healthy minds and that one on March 27th will tie into the book talk that we're going to have as a district um the ancient the anxious Generation Um so and that was the end of our agenda yeah awesome yeah I I think want to underscore the item about um incorporating you know the autonomy exercise of the students identifying a problem and helping them I think from AAL perspective the conversation we um pointed to was that obviously kids of all ages are feeling a lot of stress and just around climate specifically around climate and the ability to impact it um and there is a breakdown in trust between the problem so big that even the people we trust as parents and adults in our lives can't really solve this problem so part of a trust building exercise if you will or a way to ensure that there's trust being built within the classroom is that the teachers are responding to those moments of autonomy autonomous learning opportunities um and hearing the concern and and putting something in the curriculum so I thought that was really that was a great example but obviously it's happening in in many more um parts of the building and and things like that really responding to the stressors that kids have when they can't solve something and then we're are maybe not being heard or listened to so that um really affirms rebuild and reinforces the relationship between teacher adults and the the kids any other comments or questions on that note before we move on okay moving on to policy um Dr lilon are you prepared to walk us through the Govern folks hear me okay yep okay great so so the policy committee met on Friday September 6th and we were joined by curan rut who is the district's new supervisor of counseling as well as Trish Riley who you all know is the principal of um hopal Valley Central High School so we did review several policies that'll be on De for first read next month so you won't see them in your current board agenda but please do anticipate them for the October meeting and I'll just give kind of a brief overview of what we talked about so the first policy that we reviewed was 5350 which is our student suicide prevention policy um I think you know given the importance of this policy the committee is really currently reviewing it to ensure that there's alignment with what we know to be the current evidence around youth Suicide Prevention so in particular we've been using the American foundation for suicide prevention's model school policy on suicide prevention as an example and have been updating the language in our District's policy to better align with what's currently thought to be best practice in this area in addition to reviewing the district's practice in this area um we'll also be recommending the appointment of a District's level Suicide Prevention coordinator who will likely be misr or supervisor of counseling so the committee is intending to bring this policy and the accompanying Reg ulation forward together for first read next month so you will see this on the October agenda uh the second document that we reviewed is regulation 5600 which is the student code of conduct so the committee actually first reviewed proposed revisions to this regulation during the August policy committee meeting and during this meeting we actually learned from our Administration that the number of repeat infractions among students has actually decreased last year which they attributed primarily to the district's increased use of restorative justice practices so the r visions that we're considering primarily focus on increasing the use of restorative justice practices for additional infractions um after receiving the draft markup last month we did have some additional questions related to just consistency of qu consequences across FR fractions as well as use of exclusionary discipline practices like suspension for nonviolent first offenses so we kind of went back had a more in-depth discussion and we've now resolved these and principal Riley is just doing a crosswalk uh between these revisions and the student handbook to ensure that we have consistency across these documents um the the third that we looked at um is bylaw 143 two which is the high school student representative to the Board of Education um so this F law authorizes the appointment of a student representative to the board um a subset of the committee has been revising really the specific role expectations associated with this bylaw in order to more meaningfully integrate this position into the Board of Education really as a means to elevate student voice in our decision making so um we do intend to bring revisions this bylaw for first reading at some point this fall uh with the intention of making the revised B law effective at the beginning of the 2025 school year so I'll pause there before we go to to Second reading and see if my policy committee colleagues have anything to add no and then are there any questions okay so we will move on to Second reading so can I have a motion in a second to bring policy 8420 emergency and crisis situations up for second rating please okay thank you so as a reminder this policy ensures that our district has comprehensive written plans and procedures in place to provide for the protection of the health Safety and Security of the school population as well as the prevention of and respond resp to emergency and crisis situations um it also requires that school staff are trained on Emergency Response protocols and that drills take place to prepare students and staff in case of an emergency so a little context here is that a new state law was passed in January 2024 that amended the previous Law related to emergency planning in public schools and essentially the amendment ensures that the unique needs of students with disabilities in particular are considered in all emergency planning processes and that these students are able to fully participate in emergency drills so the revisions that you see here to this policy are really focused on integrating the provisions laid out in that Amendment so at the last meeting we did receive one comment on the policy from Dr Wilson so thank you Dr Wilson for that um and it was really about making sure that we Pro itively prepare students who might be triggered by these school security drills so the policy committee did re-review the policy this week in light of these suggestions and discussed them with Miss rut as well as Miss Riley um and I think our feeling was that this is a really important issue and we felt that the concerns about really proactively addressing any trauma or distress that might result from these drills are currently adequately addressed in the policy is written um additionally I will say that Miss Riley and Miss rut shared the many measures that the schools are taking both universally and for specific students to really ensure that they are prepared for these drills and to reduce any potential distress resulting from them um so are there any questions about this policy okay so Bob I think we can move it to a roll call okay uh Dr Resnik Mr slotman Miss Tracy yes Dr Wilson Dr jovy yes Mr kapadia Dr Liston and Miss Williams gallano yes motion carries all right can I get a first and second for uh to move September and October calendars okay you should just remember that we're earlier in October we're at the 14th is our meeting so we we can knock Personnel off October 14th 6:00 um I was looking at the seventh for finance facilities I know Mark isn't here standard 5 o' on that Monday 7th okay seven yeah Vick yeah I mean turn on the nth would be better for me and I I do have on the calendar for October 10th at 8 a. okay okay at what three then policies EX no back to hating family calendar is senior night for the varsity volleyball girls team uh so I won't be work does the E work fine yeah couldn't make the seven and I and I do invite anyone here that wants to come and watch usds again I could I could do four if that work October 8 at four okay thank you everybody yep okay with all that said all all in favor I any opposed or abstaining oh thank you okay guys have it moving on to new business U very quickly uh coming up here shortly between now and the next meeting we're going to do board self AOW um and we're going to look at the agenda to have a kind of a board retreat to go through some of what we discover in the board of B so you guys should all be receiving an email from njsba to complete your part um and then I'll consult every everything for our next meeting try to give you as much time as I can yeah just the sooner you the sooner you get it when you get it from Anita sooner you complete it the easier it is for her to get it compiled and all that and and if you have any questions on a technical basis there is a phone number on there um because it can be a little quirky sometimes so they are help be to help and um if it's a question on process obviously you can reach out to me okay that's all I have for new business any other items for board okay sounds good all right moving into our second public comment uh just a reminder members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of 3 minutes during this portion of the meeting you're asked to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Ed May respond or direct the superintendent to do so the board may also opt to take the matter up at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by The District administration public comments is now open COA 7 White Drive Pennington New Jersey thank you for already confirming that you will relook at policy 5756 but I I do want to highlight a couple other possible revisions uh please revise the words used to define gender identity the policy states all people have a gender identity which you define as a person's internal deeply held sense of their own gender an analogy would be the concept of the Catholic or Protestant idea of a soul gender identity is like the soul it is personally subjective unidentifiable invisible untestable and therefore unfalsifiable to this date there is no scientific data to support the theory of an innate gender identity the author of the book I mentioned would say I don't have a gender identity just like some Buddhist might say I don't have a soul uh you cannot really assume that every student believes they have a gender identity please change the policy to read some people believe they have a gender identity finally since sex is an objective biological reality using the terms in the policy like sex assigned at Birth assigned sex at Birth is very misleading it suggests that a person's sex is just guesswork and that there's no scientific Truth for the terms male or female sex is not any um sense the result of some linguistic ceremony in the delivery room okay Richard Dawkins writes a baby's name is assigned at Birth but its sex is determined at conception and then observed and recorded recorded or confirmed at Birth first by the examination of external genitalia and then in cases of Doubt which is about 05% by chromosomal analysis please revise the wording of the policy to read sex observed and confirmed at Birth now none of the changes I'm asking you to make would affect the commitment of the district to provide a safe supportive and inclusive learning environment for students who identify as trans or non-binary we don't need to abolish the term biological sex from our vocabulary we don't need to insist all people have a gender identity and we don't need to pretend that sex is merely a sign to protect student rights don't redefine students or me or anyone else who holds to the scientific definitions of these terms if different traits Define you that's fine we can all have respect and reciprocity thank you um this is the information hi uh Julie cesary of 26 Washington Crossing Pennington Road um I am here on behalf of EOP PTO we are seeking guidance around creating a more formal organizational structure to review uh we would like to organize as two parents and one teacher per school to start along with the three founders co-founders um for a total of 21 um we're seeking guidance or a permission or blessing I'm not exactly sure what to call it um but before we formally involve teachers um we want to be sensitive to the fact that there may be policies that exist that we are unaware about um and so we think that this is a very critical step that we need to take for our organization to grow so that we can get to a size where we can effectively support the district um the teachers and the students to use the Outdoor Learning spaces um especially with the steam exploratory special that's uh been reinstated and uh allowing for um nature connectedness and nurturing a resilient educational community any other comment okay seeing none again miss postes I want to thank you for um your interest in the policy and also for sharing the resources the committee has these now so we can review them at our next session um I um also for in terms of the Ecco PTO I have to research uh this a little bit and get back to you I'm thinking that education program committee is probably where we should start um but um I promise to get back to you I think that we need to get together in front of the um in front of education programs that validates all of our programming and connections to to the community um and also find out what kind of what our process has been in the past of starting some of the uh PTO like for examp example strive came about at some point single parents um but also I know that we you're kind of looking to Define yourself and I think educ program would be a great place to start so that we can work together to decide you know what kind of projects can you support us in um and then connect you to those teachers that can work with you I'm thinking the connection through the green team will probably be the best way because teachers sit on that as well um so let's get together put our heads together and figure that out I'll ril I was going to ask for clation far as I right don't PR activities that these organiz do they involve facilities resources Etc right but they're always activi always under the impression that all formally operate they do but there has been some because I remember when the single parent PTO um came into existence I believe that they did come to meet with edcom at one point um like to start like this is an idea we're having okay um I'm just trying to think um as they're trying to shape their purpose and and what they want to look like that we can give them some guidance through what programs that we're offering they can just start up individually but I think she really wants to work kind of approval yes you don't need our approval to start one but you want to make sure you're working we're both working in partnership in the same direction any additional comments or questions from the board all right seeing none we'll close out our second public comment and I need a first and second to move into executive session all in favor I oh sorry I need to read unofficial oh man I made a motion you didn't know what it was um so uh we're going into uh executive session any any pending or ipated litigation or contract negotiation in which the public body is or may become a party to and any matter falling within the attorney client privilege the extent that that confidentiality is required to preserve the attorney client relationship that is why we go into executive session we will be discussing a Hib matter and a Personnel matter and a that's all and um action may be taken in this executive session oh after so yes after executive session coming out of executive session so we had a first second got that all in favor I any opposed or abstaining okay thank you folks have a good evening