beginning all here apologies for the delay everyone we get started may I call the Board of Education meeting of the parp Troy Hills Board of Education to order on Thursday February 22nd 2024 in compliance with chapter 231 Public Law 1975 entitled open public meetings act adequate notice of this meeting has been provided as specified in the act in the following manner a meeting notice was published in the newspaper and on the district website on January 17th 2024 in addition the notice of the meeting was posted at the missal building in the schools and a copy of the notice filed with the Township Clerk and transmitted to other newspapers on February 16th 2024 including a Daily records Star Ledger parcion Focus tap into parcion patch and the district website this regular public board meeting is being video recorded as per bylaw 0168 the recordings of these meetings will be available on our district website and your video on the Go YouTube channel we ask that you please refrain from using student or staff names in your statement professionalism is expected at all times uh may we have the roll call please Mrs Abraham here Mr baros here Mrs kogan here Mrs mayor here Mr Rea here Mrs chip Dr right here Mrs Golder here she's on the phone oh she's on the phone did we call her yet did we call her I no it's no not we have one board member dealing with a family emergency so she is a phoning into the meeting so just uh pardon us for a moment hello hey Michelle you're here on the board meeting started so you're on all right okay thank you hi Michelle hi there Mrs Chappelle just say yes you're here here I'm here Dr Wright here Mrs Golder here Mr Choppa here uh can you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all all righty we're going to jump right into uh student reports and Emily would you mind okay hello everybody on February 7th we had our heart of Hope pillow making service night Key Club hosted its annual coffee house on Tuesday February 13th at 6:00 donating all proceeds to Erica's Lighthouse the interact and UNICEF clubs sold candy Gams while the while the Spanish Honor Society sold flowers for Valentine's Day we had our counselor scheduling meetings last and this week to get ready for the next year on the 15th we had a schoolwide decorating contest with the theme we choose love and kindness we had shortened classes so 30 minutes could be allotted at the end for decorating the senior class is having a fundraiser 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Panera on Tuesday the 21st oh that already happened sorry um we are hosting a oh um The Italian Club is uh hosting the mozzarella man Chef Pino who is returning for an interactive and delicious demonstration a professional chef is coming to show everyone how to make fresh mozzarella from scratch the PHS Scholars of the month are Cameron Lewis for English pretti for math Michael who seems to not have a last name right now for science Vol Volo sorry Dylan Winkler for history Sarah Hoffman for World Language stavani Gro for PE and Rachel leor for electives in human Child Development the junior class is having their dodgeball tournament on the 29th to raise funds for their junior prom on March 1st the student council is hosted the senior glamy an event where seniors will win category will win in categories like best eyes most likely to succeed and more the student versus faculty basketball game will be on Tuesday March 5th at 6 p.m. everyone's welcome $5 per person which is a fundraiser for project grad class of 2024 and on March 7th the senior class is hosting a blood drive for anyone 16 years old or older to donate that's it thank you Emily and I believe we have a s's report I have you want you want want to do that one too sure perfect um Mrs Smith retired last week after serving as the lead secretary for 25 years Winter Guard placed third in their competition at West Orange High School there will be a food science club meeting Tuesday first half of lunch on Monday the French Club had a club crepe making activity all are welcome our Hill Senior standouts will be on March 21st in the auditorium this is our annual senior superlative show on Monday there was a vaping seminar and parent on on the 21st the AP glove gov class will be attending aoris sussex's Court presentation the girls and boys swimming team won their first State Playoff meets and continue to set individual records the girls wrestling team placed third at the NJ AC conference meet and they are preparing for the individual state tournament the boys wrestling team placed fifth overall in Morris County and qualified for sections nurse Madonna is the staff of the month for February coach Al was named sfc Coach of the Year girls wrestling Places third at NJ AC tournament Kayla Mana first Julia Brutus second Stephanie Suarez second miam candel third Olivia rhods fourth boys wrestling places fifth in Morris County individual Place winners include Logan forg fourth James McGinty second Mario forini second and Anthony caponegro 4th Andrew Bowman 5ifth the phhs winner guard took first place at the Pegasus competition oh there's more SpongeBob musical is on March 14th 15th and 16th the Holocaust and genocide studies class went to Washington DC there they visited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum as well as the Lincoln Memorial and Dr Martin Luther King Jr memorials in addition to visiting these places students were given the opportunity to listen to the granddaughter of a holocaust surv Survivor speak phhs slbms combined choirs concert will occur on February 27th at 7:00 p.m. and shs has a cooking competition today after school club members brought in ingredients for their teams and were scored by a panel of judges and that's all thank you very much we'll have to have Sona do two next board meeting just to um we're going to suspend the uh regular agenda tonight we have presentations from some of our esteemed administrators and staff members and Dr Dr Sutter announce what those presentations will be okay welcome everyone tonight we're going to do the student safety data systems report um and before we begin our SSD report I want to introduce Miss Cory regaza our coordinating supervisor of guidance and Medical Services who is also our anti-bullying coordinator for the district Mr Gaza is here to speak about all things Hib uh but first for those of you who are new to to ssds it stands for the student data student student safety data system by law all New Jersey public school districts including Charter Schools must use the student safety data system to collect two types of information from schools which includes incidences of violence vandalism harassment intimidation and bullying weapons offenses substance offenses and any other incident leading to student removal from school and also HIV trainings and programs why does the New Jersey Department of of Education collect this information they collect this information to fulfill state and federal reporting requirements which includes Elementary and secondary act gunfree School act school performance report cards civil rights data collection anti-bullying Bill of Rights edax and other state reporting requirements so as you can see from report period one in your bulletin the district had a total of 65 incidents es from September 1st through December 30th those incidents are broken down into the following categories violence vandalism substances weapons confirmed allegations and alleged allegations of hivs and um any verbal or physical electronic or gestures written text messages what have you does anybody have any questions on our number of incidents okay without further Ado I'm going to turn it over to miss maaza miss maaza see Dr Sutter has the part where he has to talk about incidents I have the fun part where I get to tell you about the trainings and the programs and the preventative things that we do to prevent some of these incidents so as you can see um it breaks up the trainings and the programs districtwide as well as for each individual School trainings really speaks to any trainings that anyone in the building may have done and part participated in whether that's in District or outside of District through another vendor um with topics anything related to HIV so that's um prevention work anything related to positive School climate and culture building positive morale in the school Community it also encompasses any training that the anti-bullying specialist in each building may have done for the faculty so faculty meetings in September where we're going through HIV prevention investigation Pro um process and things like that the programs is really the fun preventative things that we constantly have going on throughout the schools um to just build a positive School climate and culture conducive to learning so when you see the numbers for programs these are things like um bullying prevention assemblies that were held during the week of October for the week of respect um community service like food drives and clothing drives that are held you know mostly in November and December um classroom Le lessons from the counselors for social emotional learning um any types of groups spirit days any of these fun things that are going on in all of our schools to build a positive climate um so here it just seems like numbers but really it is a lot of great work and time and energy and effort on the part of our staff to create these wonderful opportunities for our our students any questions for me Mrs kogan I just wanted to know if there is some standard or consistency on what they can report as a program because there's quite a discrepancy between some of the elementary schools and have a feeling it's just them counting things different but I just want to make sure yeah I would say there's some of it is definitely probably a difference or variation in reporting or maybe diligence in reporting um I think also there's different things going on in different schools depending on you know from year to year there may be a variation so there may be an emphasis on training one year in Hib and then there may be a different need the following year that we're focusing on so you may see different variations depending on the needs that are presenting at any given time and the needs of the school any other questions from missa seeing none thank you so much appreciate it thank you thank you C appreciate it next up we have our ptsd's information literacy initiative and we'll have Dr Thompson and his crew come up and speak about that thanks for having us tonight um I'm going to quote a speaker um Alan November and I I heard him talk about when when schools are moving one to one um one of the things he said was there's a lot of value in the collaboration in the Google Docs and everything else but the real value of the devices is the information that they contain I think a lot of times we assume that teenagers can navigate it well and that they um you know understand everything they read and everything but one of the things that we found when I first came to the hills in uh 2020 2019 uh Mary CLA deran started with me and um she did um a Trails assessment where we assessed the students ability to search for information to evaluate that information to ask student-driven questions and we we saw a gap and we saw a need um the problem is it's not specifically written into any curriculum and the media Specialists are experts in the area but you have to drive the classes there and you have to collaborate with the teachers to make that happen um we started to uh work on how we introduce those skills and we started to have teachers I think one of the things that you'll see is that uh typically a media specialist will give instruction on databases and and basic resources um but where they don't really get leveraged well is they don't start from the ground up with the teacher and the teachers are the content experts they're the instructional experts but the media Specialists are research experts and if we just ask them to introduce databases and everything else we're not really leveraging all their expertise so one of the things that the supervisors did a tremendous job of doing was getting them to look at their current assignments their current projects and work with the media specialist to start with the Grant from the ground up um so that the media Specialists could be co- teers within those projects and embed those skills to a higher level um within all those projects and uh that that's really what you're going to hear about today um it really started on um various classes it could have been art computer science a lot of science that came down and started to do it but I think one of the things that um Kristen and I started talking about was how do we make sure that every senior by the time they graduate is going to be introduced to these skills and that they're going to be applied and so it uh it started with with social studies and and continued with English English and and we see it growing and growing um so Kristen will speak to that but I think what's really is exciting is that we're really starting to see it systemic across the board um starting with our freshman class and really starting to expand to our sophomore class um this year and then we're starting to see it Branch out into the uh to a lot of the subject areas so I'll turn it over to Kristen hi everyone Kristen brelon I'm the social St supervisor um when Matt kind of approached me about this idea I was ecstatic because it it's just this natural thing that we do in social studies finding sources evaluating them just the media literacy piece fits so nicely with all the skills that we work on so we kind of started you know from the framework of what is it that we want students to be able to do right when they leave us what are the skills we want to give them um so that's kind of summarized on that first slide we want them be able to develop questions and plan inquiries search for information effectively evaluate sources for credibility that's a huge one maybe the most important one um synthesize all that information and then of course we want to make sure we're sting our sources and avoiding plagurism and we're just really excited to share with you the work that's been done by our media Specialists and our teachers and our students um and just kind of celebrate the successes as we're just kind of getting started and uh with this you know initiative that we hope will just continue just have to turn that on I got the click um yeah I just wanted to mentioned that you know this initiative also fits very well with our district goal of deeper learning right these are you know critical thinking skills that are applicable in real life right that students need to know how to find Reliable information um you know no matter what it is that they're sort of looking for maybe they want to know something about you know related to health or who knows what something they hear on the news or you know for being real and Tik Tok right um and it's again that natural kind of you know blending with social studies and all of the skills that we work on um already um in our department so it just seemed like uh you know a great pairing um for us to to start there and then also just want to mention very briefly you know last um not last January but January 2023 um govern Murphy signed legislation um that actually requires information literacy New Jersey is one of the first states to do that um and I just want to say that we're kind of ahead of the game like we're already doing a lot of this work and so now we're just kind of formalizing it and as Matt said we want to make sure that every student is being exposed to these skills and practicing them and developing them so that when they leave here they're really prepared to kind of go out into the quote unquote real world and use those skills uh good evening everybody uh thank you for listening um it's great to be here um my name is Keith Bush I've been in the district in one Capac past year another for almost two decades and the one thing that is consistent throughout that time in education is is the idea of change um our media Specialists are really at the Forefront of change and that is that comes in a lot of varieties um but as parents uh community members as Educators I think we all know that uh the way that our students are obtaining information processing information accessing information is changing and it's changing rapidly the best people the people that are on the Forefront of that change are our media Specialists and so part of this initiative not only from a practical aspect of incorporating those standards into our curriculum but from uh I would say a um sort of boots on the ground perspective of what's really happening in our classrooms with our young people our media Specialists are the ones that are going to be fighting those battles for us so um you can see on this slide here uh this kind of culminates all the different uh aspects of this thing that we're we're trying to pull together with this uh media uh media literacy initiative um obviously we're not focusing on Tik Tok necessarily as a source but we have to address the reality that that's a place where students are getting their information we um you know I think things like chat GPT and open AI are coming across as um opponents of education and in reality they are things that we are going to need to use as tools moving forward because these are the things that our students have access to so um again as another really important component of this uh media literacy initiative is our um media Specialists and their ability to interface with our teachers in a way so that our teachers are more comfortable using some of these uh new technology resources that our students have access to So within this process that we started with the uh social studies department and the media specialist um we had a lot of work sessions where we sat down and we looked at current assignments current projects um we broke down the key skills that we wanted embedded within the curriculum and then we looked at ideal ideal opportunities for those to take place um so even with every teacher the media specialist conference with every single teacher at that grade level um redesign the projects um and then they co- te the um the the lessons so the the research component and the conferencing with the students one of the things that you'll hear about is is AI and plagiarism and things like that and one of the ways to combat that is to really break down the process and the conference with the students along the way so that you know where they are they can't just copy and paste something and I think traditionally when you ask students to research they'll cut even before AI they would copy and paste things and read off a slide like a teleprompter and I think what we see with the products when with the media Specialists embedded is that when they present you can see that they're not really reading off of anything and that they have internalize the information and a lot of times they've designed the questions that they're ultimately researching so I always say they're like BASF they don't create the projects they just make them better um and that's one of the great things and and I think one of the things that you see is that they're heavily instructional so they're either conferencing with with teachers or they are co- teing and moving around and conferencing anytime that you walk through the media um the media center so I think our media Specialists are tremendously instructional um they a lot of them teaching backgrounds and when Michelle Lon came to us she had taught the AP Capstone course already so she took a lot of that curriculum and and embedded that in there um but I think one of the values are the scaffolding um that we have in place and the fact that we we focus on the process throughout um hi my name is Stacy Coen I'm one of the media specialists at parcion high school and this is just an example of what this looked like this year and um Keith mentioned change and when I when I look at this I think of how much has changed in the past three months and how I might even do this lesson differently but it was a human rights project where students had to work in groups and they had to research a country and some of the human rights issues that were happening in that country so it was really like it was really student driven and self-guided um but what we did was to introduce some of the information literacy skills and these are freshmen this is their first project um so we gave them a couple of sources we gave them um some websites of some prominent non-government organizations and we told them what these were and um let them explore them so we let them come up with questions we let them make the decisions on what they wanted to research and then we gave them a little bit more we said okay so we have some subscription databases and then the internet and when we got to the internet part we talked to them about um using filters to filter out news stories using um like Val evaluating this site you know ex examining the site not just from that site itself but to go on and research that site from or research that Creator from a different perspective if necessary um and the thing is this is not something so different than what we've been doing but what is different is that now that it's been formalized we had so much time with this teacher to plan this to come back I mean we were with them for for two weeks and so normally when you're with a class that's you see them once and you leave and you're thinking I hope they understood that I hope that um you know they they got what I was saying if they need help they'll come to me but now we're able to um look at them and say what else do they need what weren't they understanding what how was the setup of the room what would what would be better and I think in this case we found that they they looked at the resources and are like now what do we do do we copy paste do so we had to evaluate that and say well what's what's best for them at this stage let's make a notes taking sheet and require them to be more organized and and sort of have a little bit control over that that process um so that was this project and um the next project the teacher did with this class they were really able to um work more independently so some of the questions they were asking us weren't like you know where's this is this good is this that but they would ask us you know um I'm trying to find this but I don't know the words to get at it and so they were just more in control over over their research so I think you know that was that was the difference really it was the time we have at the teachers the groundup planning so that was one project we did um another one we did was um demystifying the large language models so the chat gpts the co-pilot the Geminis yeah I can talk to that my name is Mary Grace um record I'm the other media specialist at Paran High um another project we did with um one of the first year world history teachers was to look at chat GPT um and the teacher wanted the students to research what was the transformative impact of the Industrial Revolution so we had the students use um AI as a launching point to generate ideas and have it put that question in get generate some topics refine the question get some keywords then we had them take the results from jat GPT and kind of verify it make sure it was actually correct because some of the problems as you know from chat GPT and AI is it doesn't really know the truth it doesn't really know what's false and what's true so we had it the students do some active research on reworking fine-tuning their response and then looking up the information factchecking it um developing their keywords and laterally reading different things which mean you know kind of looking it up in one one area and then looking looking it up in one source and looking it up in another source so those were two of the projects that we started with this is our first year at the high with this um pilot I guess um and I think the hills is on year to so Michelle and I are basically a package deal with no matter what we do so it just naturally happens that way um I'm Mary CLA this is Michelle but one of the things that we stress all the time when we do teach our students is that and we put a quote up there because we say it all the time um that we're not here to tell them exactly what sources they have to use and um what Avenues they have to go in and it's really what our end goal is is we want them to be able to evaluate the sources that they're using and no student okay I'm not going to say no student but very few students are going to go to a database first and honestly they shouldn't go to a database first if they don't have a wealth of knowledge about that topic and so what we want them to do is they're going to go to Google and we teach them that Google is not your Source but it's your diving board and that's really initially where they have to go um and so again like we're not here to tell them what they should use and what they shouldn't use but for them to figure out is this a proper source for me to use is this a good Avenue for me to go down um so that's typically how we start all of our lessons with any grade level that we teach and they kind of took piggyback off of what Stacy and Mary Grace said because a lot of what they said it it's our day every day um and when we do work with a class it is not just for that one day it is for multiple days in a row so our rapport with the students is just growing immensely and now they're able to they see us and say Mrs gan's class for 5 days in a row and then all of a sudden like next week they come in they're like Mrs Lonnie Mrs Jan you know how last week in Mrs galan's class we did this well now in English class we're doing a research paper and I remember you said this can you help me with this thesis statement and we're like okay sure so and so hi I'm Michelle I was the one who taught apep Capstone so um that I think comes into play a lot actually um with what I'm going to talk about first so uh as Mary clar said we do tell the students you know we want you having the skill and the strategy to make these educated decisions to find the right information that you're looking for and understand what it is that you're reading um but knowing uh having taught like that super intense to your program AP research essentially um I know that students can get really overwhelmed from the get-go if you just start throwing terminology at them and if you just start telling them okay you know you have three annotated bibliographies due next week um they need it broken down like anyone would just to help make those pieces a bit more manageable so almost always if not always when we work with a teacher and uh on their project there is some sort of graphic organizer that we create there is some sort of flowchart there is some sort of document for the students to keep track of things as um Mary Grace and Stacy brought up the organization part is a huge piece that I think the students and a lot of people you know regardless of age Overlook and so these graphic organizers help the students to keep everything in one place and then additionally we tell them they're not allowed sometimes they don't even know what the project is yet they just know they have to fill in this table first um so that they can't jump ahead to choose a slide template they can't jump ahead to choose a canva template because they have to do this table first and then as Dr Thompson was bringing up this is also really influential when we're able to have conferences with students we talk to them we're able to say okay show me your graphic organizer what row are you on or um which part of the table are you on how far have you gotten and then we're able to quickly evaluate because as you can see it's smaller boxes so we just want that key information we often tell them we don't want complete sentences we want you putting the key information and keeping track of what you need to keep track of um so there's just a sampling of three graphic organizers that we've used with arrows pointing to like the specific information literacy components um I'll just briefly talk about the first one on the bottom left that's filled in it was a student sample from last year um and in this case the Freshman world history teacher was doing imperialism and colonialism um which I had not thought about since I was a freshman in high school so uh that's also a great perk for me and Mary Clair but um in this uh assignment this project that the students were doing they had to take elements that they learned about from imperialism and colonialism then they had to connect it to a modern media Source in this case the student was using the movie Black Panther um and focusing on territorial expansion that they had learned about from colonialism and imperialism but then they also had to find two outside research sources of modern day examples that were not fictional um and then we have always make sure that they keep track of those sources um the amount of times that we have seen prior to this of students losing track of their sources and getting frustrated or getting upset so the link to the source is almost always there if not always um and then that final column is um helping the Freshman with elements of that lateral reading of verifying that source that they're using so they had to describe the author this was the end of the year so they were using credible sources they were lateral reading and they were also thinking of the perspective of the source of the author of The Source so that final row at the bottom as freshmen they had to identify what the relationship between the perspectives of the two sources was and they had to explain how they knew that that's what it was and so that's why the background of the author is so important that's why keeping track of the sources is so important so that they're able to fill in that last piece of are they oppositional are they concurring um which I think is pretty impressive for a freshman to be able to do um and then the next two tables uh were used in each of these teachers classes hi I'm Jill galonic I'm one of the world history teachers that Michelle and Mary CLA worked with last year and this year and every time I think I know what I'm going to say one of them has said it already but um so when Dr Thompson and uh Kristen Bron introduced this idea to us I was like that's great how is this going to work to her Point she doesn't know colonialism I know colonialism like what how's she going to teach my class but I think sometimes what's so great about that is you get that outside source to look over what you've already been doing and give you a fresh perspective so they sat down and they really infused and broke down step by step the skill I want my students to take away with in addition to the content and to uh Michelle's Point these graphic organizers really broke down bit by bit and I don't I don't know if any of you have children or have worked with high schoolers but sometimes they're not excited to do things so it can get a little bit of a hurdle when they're like all right a Second Source okay so the first or second time it it was a little bit longer of a process but once we started to see the end result and the students realized I realized they realized I'm sure uh Pedro Hernandez will talk to you about it the end result was so much better that by the third or fourth time that we came to the media center they're like yeah this is going to benefit us this is going to be great and I loved it last year with my freshman class and then this year I've actually been using it a little bit with my Holocaust class which is 9th through 12th graders because again just because you're a senior doesn't mean you know these research skills so you know one last shot before we send them out into the real world let's see let's show me what you made a kid and show me the research skills so I don't know what's left there you go I think yeah um a lot of what what I was going to talk about was already said um I was glowing to speak about chat GPT and then guess the high's already done it but I actually did this uh two weeks ago also um where I had my students have a conversation with chat GPT so I told them to insert the prompt and I know that at least half the students that kind of pulled them that who are you or who's using chat and what classes everyone almost scre English because that's who's writing their essays now um and you know my wife's an English teacher in district has told me problems she has faced with CHT so I went through a lesson with the media center um and how to use it effectively they're going to use it we can't stop them you tell them no they're going to do it anyway you know if we have kids they do the opposite of what we say anyway at home so they are we want them to use it correctly and I did a similar thing where they fact check it except I told them to talk to Simone Bolivar or um Jose San Martin Latin American revolutionist uh to S lour fatherhood go out of Mexico so they were to take the information and they got and then using I use uh the the form that I was using was the one that's on the top where they would take a snippet of whatever the person said and then find a verifiable Source online where it would actually prove it and one of the first examples that we brought up would be let's look up a simple thing when was tousant lure born the Haitian um Revolution revolutionist that freed Haiti and I asked him when was he born and they all found 1743 and then eventually um that's what at least chat jpt said and some said he was born on May 20th 1743 others said 1743 and when they actually went to Source they found a history website that said ah he was kind of born between 1739 and 1745 so then they find the small discrepancies there and we found more and more and we were able to use a lot of the information going through the uh other four people that we talked about also so um it's just really important and as Jill just said um going through some of the final projects years ago when we did the with these um with world history at least the projects were very Bland and we just it was they were hard to get through and now that students know the researching they know what questions to ask because the questions they used to ask Dr Thompson went through one of my lessons last year and it was train wreck of the questions very stereotypical um and I teachers have learned now right we did something last year all of my projects this year are slightly different last year because now I know what to expect from 14 and 15 year olds what can we do differently how can we change it and the projects are getting so much better most of the projects are student choice so they're researching something they actually might be interested in I had one student who uh we did a a project on the Enlightenment and he to know what question to ask or what to research and then he found um a case in South Korea where they wanted to ban dog meat um and the farmers were fighting against it because it was their livelihood and he would never have wanted to look up dog meat and then he's literally asking me questions which I don't know much about you know farming dog me that was new to me but like I'm learning from the students and then he's getting invested and then the questions he's asking of why are they doing it who's it going to impact um like well are the farmers going to impact it why is the government so after how's it going to change the economy all these questions are coming from them and we can see how they're building so by the end of the year freshman year the question is going to be great and then I've been able to sit in with some of the sophomore meetings and some of the projects that I hear from them they're great because those are students that we had last year and we can see that there's building and building and I can't imagine of all the other departments that it will take place also so it's a great working with the media center Specialists all right we'll be brief because we know we've been kind of at this for a bit um but we did a just a comparison between what we do in world history which is uh typically students freshman year versus US History which is sophomore year um and so the first thing that we start out with is developing questions um and planning inquiry and what we do is we have them go into broad topics with different lenses so we'll usually start out with a center topic and then in each Corner um we'll be a different lens and so there you the center topic might be on vaping but there's different lenses that are involved in that whether it's it's so social economic political um family and then they've so each um lens they're coming up with questions that are specific to that lens and then what's in the middle and what's great about this lesson is that we can use this for almost every class that we teach whether it's world history US History um Spanish we've done this in in different Spanish classes um all the subjects and a lot of times what happens is we'll be teaching in in the uh Hills Library we have the upstairs and the downstairs and so teachers will be walking through and like a teacher will walk through and they'll hear us teaching something and then you know two hours later they come through on their prep and they're like um so I heard you doing this with that class do you think you could do that with my organic chem and I'm like organic chemistry sure I taught Elementary School at one point okay um so it but the questioning activity is where we start most of our assignments with and then by the time we get to US History then that's where we're incorporating those perspectives um and we're figuring out like whose perspective is um stronger like when you're looking at a source um which perspective is stronger um who's more credible perspective wise why is their perspective the way that it is um and talking about those inherent biases that people have um and then just searching again in world history we start with um searching for information effectively learning how to not I ask kids all the time like if you want to know how long does a cricket live for what are you going to search up and they're like how long does a cricket live for and I'm like no because we're not going to ask a question we're going to take that question and we're going to make it shorter into a simple phrase cuz we're in high school and we want to type the least amount of things that we can and so I'm like so what can we change how long does the cricket live um live for and I'm like the least amount of words guys let's go and they're like Cricket lifespan like yeah you got it um and so we go through short shorting shortening our searches being more concise because the stronger vocabulary that you use too the stronger the source is going to be if you're just saying how long does the CRI I live for you're going to get all different things but if you actually use the word lifespan um you're going to have a more uh specific um piece of information it's going to be a more reliable source so just teaching those simple search tips so that way by the time we get to US History then we're evaluating the source that we actually have and why that author is credible not just that they have a PhD because if they're they have a PhD in biology but they're doing a literary critique that's not really going to be too beneficial just because they have a PhD yes they've worked very hard but they're not a Content specific in that area so that's where that difference between world history and US History comes in and just with the couple other skills um these five skills are the ones that we've been working on um specifically so uh evaluating sources for credibility and seeking diverse perspectives um freshman year we're introducing a lot of the initial skills that they need to do but by sophomore year um that lateral reading table which was on the previous slide it was the purple one um all the sophomore students had to do that this year so last year we mentioned it we told them they should practice it but there's a lot going on with all these new research skills so by sophomore year when they're more used to it now you have to do this lateral reading table to make sure you understand why it's valuable which is the second part of the table um and then in that uh in addition with the perspectives freshman year as you saw on that previous table they had to identify what the relationship was and how they knew sophomore year they need to analyze why that's significant so why is it why does it matter that you have two people with similar backgrounds who disagree on this topic um or any of the other four uh other three relationships between perspectives so they have to analyze why that's important um and then for synthesizing information they're doing it all the time but sophomore year um we made a conscious effort to to as often as possible connect their content to today um so the first thing we did with uh US1 earlier this year and a lot of the classes had to do with the colonies um and they were evaluating the colonies at the time uh but Mary CLA and I often talk about lowercase R research and capital r research and if you're looking up information that you can find pretty quickly we refer to that as lowercase R but when you're looking for something new when you're creating something that you're putting it together yourself and you're synthesizing this information we call it capital art research and so with the colonies we actually needed them to look into what that Colony looks like today um So based on the information they knew at the time what's different now what changes have happened what maybe did they do poorly in the past and how have they adapted um to today so we had that uh extra element which um apparently the the US One teachers some of the students gave really thoughtful responses there um and for citing and avoiding plagiarism um we're always having those graphic organizers and noodle tools and different tools for them to use to make sure that they're keeping track of that um and noodle tools creating Works sited Pages for them which I am incredibly envious of because I did not have that when I was making Works sited pages so I think the the uh media Specialists and and our social studies teachers have done an amazing job I mean we just presented the idea to them and they just ran with it tremendously and I think the social studies department and our media Specialists have done a tremendous job of giving a base of skills to our students but we're starting to see see as uh Mary CLA had said the other teachers starting to bring their classes down and so it becomes not a social studies thing but the way that we think online the way that we research across the board um and it becomes a skill that ultimately they can carry into college but um it helps to have amazing media Specialists amazing teachers that uh take it to the next degree so thank you very much for hearing about it thank you thank you do any board members have questions there's a lot to unpack there so oh my goodness wow um Dr Wright start there sure uh first I just want to say thank you so much this is really fantastic and as someone who every year teaches College freshman I know that many if not most of them are not coming to me with these skills and I was like oh I should steal these graphic organizers um and so I really admire the work that you're doing thank you all so much for it um it shows both an immense amount of work and immense amount of passion so that's very much appreciated um my only question was you know the the it's like oh we're finding out about this across disciplines through walking by are you thinking about systematizing the dissemination of these uh these tools and this knowledge like what's that look like how do we get this amazing work in as many places in the schools as possible so it starts with social studies we see a lot of English classes coming down um we've also implemented in junior Health um this year so it's really just looking at the current work looking at the standards and then they do a great job of just piloting it and so we' piloted Junior health so to your point that is something that we're looking to to continue to build on I would to remind you about the PD Day in June last year when the teachers who are part of the pilot presented to the to the whole um faculty at the hills and know may we could do something similar to kind of just share the work that we're doing and get people interested in in wanting to kind of hop on board that's great thank you so much Mr varios thank you um excellent uh to topic excellent presentation thank you very much um it's awesome work thank you um and it's funny for me it's very topical because I've been uh goofing around with that chat gbt only because uh I hear so much about it i' like I got to figure this out so um I was able to um find a chat GPT cheat sheet and I actually had chat gbt write my life story it was so awesome I didn't know how good I was so I printed it and I sent it to Hollywood to see if I could get someone to buy the rights but I guess in serious the question is is that you know like a lot of the information came out I was like wow this is amazing I mean they found my mother my grandmother and all that other good stuff how and for me it was very easy to look at it and go just not go beyond what I was reading based on what was generated how do you work with or like I know you said you don't tell students necessarily where to go validate this information but like how do you introduce that like validating you know I mean I could see that you know okay so how did you validate it well I use Tik Tok you know I was like it's is like what what how do you teach that or give that skill set it's honestly trial and error so um I did a lesson two weeks ago where I had chat chat GPT create two fake articles that Usher wasn't going to perform at the Super Bowl some students were caring because they remember who Usher is I mean our generation whatever and then the other one that the World Cup was going to move from MetLife to LA because they realized the metal lands not so pretty like Paris and you know Rio de Janeiro and stuff like that and and some of my students were a soccer fan fans were just like outraged like they they have no idea what and they like is this fake is and I actually tested it on my Facebook friends and I got some of them um and I guess they didn't know like where to look at first so I think one of the things about like looking to where to verify the students going to have to have the trial and error and last year Dr Thompson walked in one of my classes and it's one of those moments that I think freaked me out at first where we were looking at immigration patterns especially when industrialism and people moving into the cities and the students were looking up articles and then a student just kind of yells out like like oh crap this is a Neo-Nazi like he's reading an article from there I think in years past I might have you been like all right just get rid of that website but no they have to learn where to look at it and some of the tools that they we learn with Mary CLA and Michelle would be looking at the about page looking up the information there what information can we have on there that will prove these websites are true so don't discredit these people you have to do your due diligence and it's forcing them to do the work and saying all right right this guy who claims to be a Neo-Nazi I mean he's saying he is what information is there what is he is he college educated what background has he come from where's his point of view and we've looked at perspectives also with the media center Specialists so we're giving him all those tools to really look at it and then they have to figure it out especially with the election coming up next year same information where they get to use all this stuff and being able to really figure out them we could tell them all day and they're not going to use it they have to going to be put in those situations to learn that and so far they have been and we've also like I I tell my students Wiki used to be icky like you don't want to use it at least I use it in my classroom I don't know who else does but you know they have we have all the sources on the bottom of the Wikipedia pages so when we don't discourage if you want to get a start and I think m Michelle or Mary CLA would say this you can get a start on wikkipedia but then use the sources as well and then then you can tell all right is Wikipedia good or not so we've given all the tools and it's just about keep practicing using these sources almost all my projects this year have been having them use sources and websites all over the world so I don't care if it's left leaning right leaning middle they're going to determine it and then they get to pull the facts so it's just about like introducing it and just kind of repetitive so they can figure it out themselves with us watching just to just to jump off of that we also really stress that no matter what piece of information you find you have to be able to find it somewhere else you can't just find it in one location you have to be able to find it in another spot and it we also say like you should not find it word for word somewhere else either because if it is word for word they're probably in cahoots with each other because a lot of times we find that like businesses or organizations they'll have off branches so you'll see that you know they'll be promoting something on one site or source and something that sounds completely and utterly different you're like wow this Source also says says the same thing and they have the same philosophy but this is weird they shouldn't um and then when you do look at that about page and you you find out oh the owner of this is actually a chairperson On th on this um organization so we always say that you need to find it in two at least two places but it should not be exactly the same so to to go with that thank you and the ele the elections this year actually you year like it's not 2023 anymore Mrs mayor that was so interesting that was awesome I have two questions the first question is when the project um the social studies teacher designs the project I guess and then to to complete the project or to do it it kind of molds over to the so the media specialist so the social studies teacher is going to be looking at what was done H you know the end result and the media specialist is going to be looking at how it was done correct so you're really or is that incorrect so one thing that we really focused on with this initiative we wanted to do differently was really have them co- plan the lessons and the projects together so that you know the media Specialists are in there in the classroom they're delivering the lessons alongside the teacher they are also looking at the student um you know products and as you know many people said conferencing with students along the way um so they're really kind of involved throughout the entire process and that is one of the things that kind of is different and new about it um as they said you know spending let's say you know five days you know in a row with students in a class so they're really able to be more of the process I don't know if anybody else want to yeah so last year uh the Freshman teachers had at the hills had a goal of try to infuse this at least one time a marking period so I would go to Michelle and Mary Clair and say okay in two weeks I have imperialism coming up all right we've already done like Source credibility like here's what I'm thinking what do you think we could do for the a different skill to infuse it there then we would sit down 5 10 20 30 40 minutes whatever it is and we would kind of figure out what we want the end goal to look like and how to get there with her set of skills and my set of skills then when it was um delivered to the students it was almost like the three of us were up there together and the three of us it kind of became like what Kristen said like a co- teing but instead of you know me with my 18 kids now I have three of us with our 18 kids and we were constantly rotating so ultimately they were involved with me the entire part of the project until the very last element and that could have been a research paper that could have been a presentation that could have just been annotated bibliography it wasn't even always a project but it was a constant collaboration okay thank you um my other question is um you know this is high school you know could it be brought down to the Middle School certainly not as you know intricate as you do it at the high school but if it's brought down and even to the fifth grade you know those are like if you can set that Foundation up early by the time you get them you know it'll still be a big experience but it will not be foreign so no absolutely and you know the legislation I was talking about is K through 12 um so that is the goal ultimately right to even have it in elementary buildings and have and it is happening actually you know I've seen it where teachers are doing you know projects I was just in a classroom the teacher was doing um a biography project with um third grade actually and she was collaborating with the media Specialists um about sources um for those projects so so it is happening um it's something that we'd like to happen more consistently throughout the district again this is kind of just the beginning um and you know we've done in Social departments PD related to you know this media literacy you know learning about you know lateral reading and clicker strein and why is Wikipedia actually okay for kids to use and that is um py that the Middle School teachers also did and so we're using some of that same language you know in the younger grades as well so you know we're hoping over time you know when you say things like lateral reading to you know a nth grader that they know what that is and that's awesome so that is the ultimate goal is to kind of bring it down you know to the younger grades and and it's it's happening it's trickling um but it you know it will take some time well thank you all for your effort and for your really incredible work Stellar work thank you Bravo if I could before you guys leave just a couple couple of questions so I think a theme I heard many of you say and I just want to validate that I'm hearing this correctly is that not everything you read in the internet is true is that that's accurate cuz my wife to verify that my wife this morning you know in the midst of making coffee and feeding the dog said oh I just uh just read that there's going to be a massive cell phone outage today and I said where where did you read that said it was posted in one of the Facebook groups I'm like well who wrote it and what and what's the source and is it credible so we had that discussion and uh and I guess it's true um I I so I'm a a human resources professional and um I deal a lot with training and development and often times when there's an employee who's failing for some some reason and you you really talk to that person understand what's happening it's not that they're incapable um sometimes they actually just have too much work to do and it becomes difficult for them to do it but it's it's often times about organization and the the the um examples that you use today I think are really really helpful especially when you're dealing with lots of data from lots of sources is how do you manage all that data and and where do where do you go and how do you how do you um use it so you can put it into um a meaningful way that you can actually use it so this is great um you know some I'll use some of this back at work because it really does help people to um uh to be more proficient in what they're doing now I'm okay on the internet I'm still getting used to the fact that Ms Internet Explorer is now Microsoft Edge but that's just me um we use chat gbt about a year and a half ago and it was a little bit more of the wild west then than it is currently but we developed it when we were buying a company in India to develop a slogan about how we can use this computerated drafting company who's based in India who most most of their clients are in the US and how how would that look in the US from a marketing perspective and three of us sat in the room for about two hours just running through chat gbt we actually came up with something pretty close for it was generated from there so it's it's a it's a great tool when you know when used properly um so I just want to thank you for that it was a great presentation learned a lot really appreciate it yeah I just want to say thank you too to all of you it's excellent and and you guys are bringing to life you know deeper link deeper learning strategies deeper thinking strategies and I don't even think your students realize the services that you're providing to them and and and what this is going to do for them when they go to college as Dr Wright said it's really something else and I I wish I wish my teachers did this for me back when I was I was in school but thanks again I a SP for Dr Suter yeah yeah I mean I might I might be enrolling in your class yeah I was going to say that might be easier quite [Laughter] frankly thank you again apprciate can I just one more comment real quick I was just thinking you know I think the deeper learning um element in terms of that connecting to their strategic goal is very very clear but I think in terms of the wellness this also there's really an underpinning you know students efficacy and self efficacy and their ability to feel in control of their learning is so powerful and so connected to their development as humans so thanks yeah thank you uh thank you again um so this time we're at the part of the agenda we would talk about correspondence any correspondents coming before the board no there's not actually was um not that I knew so I received an email um about uh two weeks ago that I shared with Dr stutter just after our last board meeting um and it was from Michael Keta who is uh a board of education member uh in Halden and I shared this with Dr Suter and I asked him to share it with the staff member but I'd like just read read um Mr kaleta's email to me uh he said board president chafo my name is Michael Keta I'm a board of education member for the helden public school district and the girls wrestling coach for Mary Help of Christians Academy I wanted to take a moment and commit commend one of your District employees teacher Coach Jay lado coach lado has been essential in the growth of girls wrestling this year in the state of New Jersey girls wrestling is the fastest growing sport in the country through his efforts girls across the state have had the opportunity to compete and grow together parsipany Hills High School has hosted and participated in multiple events across the state his events were extremely well-run and inviting speaking for my team we would have only had half of the events without his guidance and assistance as a brand new coach his help was tremendously appreciated he is a great asset to your District the girls in his team displayed remarkable sportsmanship and were extremely welcoming both both coach lado and the girls and his team should be recognized for their Excellence this season and the contribution uh to Growing girls wrestling as a board member in another District 9 people are often quick to voice their concerns and complaints publicly but not their positive feedback I would like to again thank coach lado for his efforts and wanted to make you and your board aware of the deep appreciation our parents and team uh feel for his efforts just wanted to share that with you that's great that is so awes absolutely uh is there any unfinished business that come before the board Mr baros thank you Mr President uh just wanted to follow up and see if uh the board yourself or the district has heard from the mayor's office or are Aon from the council Mr dlia as relates to the approved pilots and the funding the district is looking for any board members uh no um well and I the only thing I at the last Township meeting they said that they had not started their budget yet they were going to try to have something in April and I know the meeting before that they said they were not going to contact the board until after they had done their own budget so that's so we still haven't heard anything from the coun Council of the mayor's office just checking um unofficially and you know breaking news uh and I'll speak a little bit later but there was an event hosted last night by mayor roberio um and chief pantina the parity police force Tim was there Allison was there and I think that was all I actually see some folks in the audience who were there so uh welcome to tonight and thanks for running it too um at the end of the meeting um I it left when most other people had left the mayor was still there so I you I walked up and I just said you know good night Jamie how are you know how are you doing and he you know he shook my hand he kind of pulled me into a hug which wasn't very nice um and he said uh I'd like to meet with you next week perhaps for dinner so uh I don't know if that's going to I don't know the topic of the conversation will be but um he did at least say that he'd like to get together for a chat but uh other than that uh nothing hard fast or firm from the township okay okay any other unfinished business no okay uh committee reports um and if if I may just for a moment before we go into the specific committees uh so I've been doing this you know board recap between of things that happen between board meetings I just wanted to go over a few things with uh with the board and the public um Dr s and I discussed a few things um so there's a lot of activity with the pilot programs and there's a lot of uh moving Parts um you know to that um there's the the revenue piece and there's the uh space piece there's the additional enrollment Etc so I'd like to uh break down the activities of um things revolving around the pilot projects in the following manner I think it's it's kind of there now but I just want to um form formalize it um so we have an ed how committee that's been dealing with Pilots um for for for this year and actually from from last year also um so I want that ad hoc committee to be predominantly focused on uh the tax revenue and funding piece of the residential projects that are um exempt from uh the ratables base there's still uh lots of discussion I think Mr baros referenced that in his question uh about um how the town uh is going to portion uh the annual service charge it receives from Developers for these uh pilot projects so I think that can be the focus of the ad hot committee um I think all of the building and classroom space considerations uh should be under the building and buildings and grounds committee I think that's appropriate for that uh Communications efforts obviously under Communications and um there was a suggestion that there are uh numerous District policies centered around enrollment class size space Etc that we most likely need to re-evaluate given uh the flux of students we think we'll have over the next few years so I'd like the policy committee to to uh consider all of those District policies um as Mrs kogan mentioned I've indirectly heard that the mayor is waiting to discuss the upcoming Municipal budget with the council president uh before meeting with the uh Board of Education um so that's it on the pilots uh received the request about a week and a half ago from the uh 2026 class president from p H HS uh to discuss antiv vaping and uh with Dr Sutter's um approval U he Dr morone and I are going to meet with um representatives from phhs to talk about their concerns and also their um their experiences with antiv vaping I know it is a concern I think it's a concern in most uh school districts so we're interested to see what um what she has to say and her and the fellow students of phhs um um we are going to have uh Brian satch who is our um video on the go expert uh meet with our Communications uh committee uh Brian has some ideas of how the district can better use video on the go to um get our message out expand cont content Etc uh just a couple of reminders um most board members participated in the Morris County School Board Association meeting on 228 uh there were a number of items discussed um it was an open Forum or or breakout format uh where you can choose to go into different breakout sessions and talk about different topics uh and I think the three and if I'm missing one I apologize let me jump in um the three topics are how does your board handle this governmental relations update and pilot projects and I just curious anybody would like to speak on that meeting or anything that they've participated in or learn there no okay um Schoolboard notes the latest addition came out today so I'd encourage you uh to read that um received an email from Dr Dr Wright this morning um indicating that in the Schoolboard uh notes there was um a section on grant opportunities that the New Jersey does um is funding and there's a number of them uh and she had asked if uh the the board and the district would like to take a look at uh a particular Grant opportunity and it was one that was um to develop policies programming guidance and or equivalencies aimed at reclaiming teacher time through the reduction of administrative per paperwork and other tasks which diverts teacher attention from classroom instruction so I thought the the appropriate committee to put that under was teaching and learning uh with Dr morone and and yourself andbe take a look at that and and I know you're also on that committee so um you know if the state is offering free money and we can use it for a good cause I think we should pursue that well I'll be meeting with the uh teaching learning committee on Monday and I look forward to Bringing um some coated information about that see if we can put some in together right thank you um Joanie had sent out um a Google doc with uh different training topics so if you haven't already completed that with your top three choices please do so and return it you're going you didn't do that yet okay that's okay I'm sure I'm sure you're not alone but uh this way we one of the board's goals uh is um uh board training so if we can have a sense of what topics people find most important we can arrange uh training uh for our board members and last as I alluded to we had um last night an event um hosted by the mayor and facilitated by Chief pantina uh regarding neighborhood watch and um so a community policing uh effort it was pretty well attended and there was some good dialogue there um fundamentally what I took out of it was how you can form a neighborhood watch in your area you know par is a large Town 5,000 people and um you know 90 police officers Deployable police officers it's it's difficult for them to um you know Patrol the whole town so as um a community effort the the neighborhood watch program which has been around for quite some time is is I think a very you know Valiant effort and there's a lot of resources to help civilians who want to form those projects uh do so Allison or Tim any comment on last night's no okay now for committee reports uh we have um Human Resources yes I can she can do it is she on Michelle would you like to do that or would you like to have uh Judy do that report um yeah I can do it okay um so we uh we met on February 20th sorry can you all hear me yes okay thank you so uh the committee met on February 20th uh president were myself uh vice president uh Boulder uh Mrs mayor uh Mr Ricker and Dr stutter there are five topics that we talked about during this session uh first uh in light of of Staffing that we go through every year um there were some staffing documents that have been prepared uh they are being reviewed by the principals and supervisors and they will be used for budgeting and Staffing uh which is expected to start next month second uh we have h four guidance counselors at PHS I'm currently working on waivers uh picking up additional case loads uh for the remainder of this school year third we have uh nine retirements um as of February 20th that we've been made aware of um and we will be posting those as soon as POS possible to make sure that we can get qualified candidates um given the competitive market involved fourth uh we had a some of you are aware at Central Middle School we have a long-term Le for the assistant for one of our assistant principal roles um there were four internal candidates that were interviewed for this as well as One external who was actually a former former Central Middle School assistant principal Joe Flanigan and there's lots of consideration given to all the candidates and ultimately we've uh decided that Mr fenan uh should be recommended to fill the position and you'll see him in the notes for tonight's vote and fifth on the agenda was the interim business administrator so uh we've got one more extension from the Department of Education New Jersey for Robin to continue as the interim business administrator for the 2024 to 2025 school year any questions any questions uh I'm seeing none Michelle thank you so much that report uh Mr baros policy also met thank you Mr President policy policy meant on uh February 20th President myself uh president chafo um Dr Sutter Mr Rea Miss Chappelle um and our uh are we discussed uh the following items uh p bylaw 0152 board officers and bylaw 0171 duties of board President and Vice President they were both in relation to um term limits that kind of went into bylaw 0152 and then also succession which uh really went into 0171 um so the policy committee reviewed it um everybody had input into it uh was also based on um some other policies that we have from other districts and um what had been presented back in uh 22 so um it's up for first read it's on the agenda so if you have not had a chance to take a look at it please do um the other item of Interest was as was mentioned prior Poli committee will commence a thorough review of all potential District policies and regulations regarding student rement this review has been prompted by the recent approval granted by the township for new development within our district the potential influx of new residents resulting from these developments necessitate a comprehensive examination of our existing policies so that process will get started uh it's going to be uh working as an offshoot of the um ad hoc committee and um I have also reached out to school boards to give us a hand maybe they could just help us with an idea of policies that we haven't yet identified that identified that would have something similar in nature so we can at least start looking at them all uh some of them are probably ones that we haven't looked at in a while but you know we're going to start off with uh those those policies it's going to be it's going to be a task but we we need to get uh busy on that so we're going to start that uh right away and that is my report any questions for Mr berio no um Madame attorney um I apologize I don't have a question for it sure I just wanted to mention that the unsung heroes parip has done their deed and we do have a nomination for for the um pin hill student and the High student so their names have been submitted so we're good to go for them thank you Judy I appreciate that thanks to Dr Suter too because when I was uh made aware uh of the N hero in the deadline I I sent that uh email from the uh Morris County SBA to to Dr Sutter and uh he immediately followed up with both High School principles and and got the nominations and were submitted so thanks everyone for that that effort um just uh Madam attorney um brought to my attention some typos on policy 0171 um they are not um I don't I don't I don't think thank you very much I was going to say substantive but material um and I'd like to keep the policy in for first reading tonight we will make those changes to uh that that language for the second reading um but we'll also get the revised uh policy out to ASAP here I was going to ask questions on the policy during the uh bulletin section since they're in there do I do that now I want you do it now okay um my understanding of sending it back to policy was to make these clearer for us which I completely agree with um I don't think giving the majority of the board only one day to read them is necessarily enough because they are quite substantive in their changes as they take us away from the state statutes so um I'm a little concerned with that I do think there's things that may need to be added into both bylaws that I would like you know the board and the policy committee to include um there I think there needs to be something about um if no nominee receives a majority of the votes the previous president or vice president can be nominated again there is a sentence about you know if they don't um if there no candidates if there's no nominations but I think there also may be a a case where somebody is nominated but does not get a majority of the vote then we should be able to go back to whoever was president or vice president um so I think I would like to see if that option could be um put out there are still several references in that bylaw to the election of officers there's also a reference back to the state statute which calls for the election of officers so I think maybe we have to go back and rethink that wording because the whole point was to make it clearer and if election of officers is still mentioned three times in there in the state statute which calls for election of officers I think we're defeating our entire purpose of making it clearer um so I just I would I would like to consider tabling this till the next meeting so that we can all have time to look at it and think these through I can send all my notes to the policy committee so that they can decide if anything should be added um bylaw 0171 uses the language of Trustees yeah nowhere else that's one of the changes that we need to make there y um the policy also states that when the president is out permanently the vice president performs all duties and responsibilities but it does not say anywhere that the vice president assumes the role of President which anybody who's here in the summer knows that that was a big dilemma of assuming the role versus doing over taking over the duties so I don't think that's makes it any clearer at all I think it actually implies that the vice president is then doing both positions the vice president role and the president role which I definitely do not want to see happen I don't think that was the intent but I think somebody reading that could see that as the intent and the whole goal is to make things clear um there's also no referencing back and forth between the policies which we also had a dispute with over the summer like the whole point is you're supposed to look at the next policy so my suggestion is that we table it for another meeting I don't think Mr Chao is expecting to resign anytime soon so I don't think this is a priority let's see after the public session perhaps um so that those are some of my comments so I I Mr bar I defer back to you as a chairman of the posy committee I think there are some relevant points made but um you know I'll leave whether or not we could thank you Mr President well I believe that um in our discussion we addressed the vacancy of the vice president's office in 0152 uh it's a second to the last paragraph in the event the officer of Vice President shall become vacant the board shall within 30 days thereafter fill the vacancy for the unexpired term um if you were suggesting that it needs to be clearer that the vice president uh assumes the role of president in 171 yes uh I do not believe that it's confusing as written but uh I don't necessarily have a problem being clear or that having looked at all of the state regulations and read each and every one of them I do not see any conflict with the state regulations and this change in the bylaw so being the fact that um 15152 uh went through Committee in 2022 um passed out a committee in one in 2022 and only failed at the floor vote with the minor changes I don't see any reason to hold up up for first reading um and I think consequently 10171 uh should also get the first reading so does does anyone have an issue with okay I'm sorry go ahead Michelle sorry I a clarification so if if we do have the first reading tonight and you know there are a number of changes that are suggested from across all the board members and it's significantly changed before our next meeting for the second read and we hit that second read and then somebody is not in agreement or there's a number of people not agreement we do risk that it will fail so would it be prudent to just give it an extra two weeks so that we could ensure that we're carefully considering everybody's feedback so that we may have a more successful vote thank you for that and I'll I'll wait an opinion a second but Mr I mean you know if a board member has questions or concerns I think it should be put a put aside for another two weeks just so that the policy committee can review what those concerns were and address them before we do a first reading do we need a a motion we do right yeah sure do so at least one of these policies and um has been debated for the last couple years and I I feel strongly that the language definitely needs to be tightened up especially in light of um you know what happened from um May of last year through through most of the the rest of that year I think the um ambiguity in the language was such that um it led to a board that was very divided and I don't think that was good for the board and I think it diverted the board's attention from other important matters to to focus solely on this um the resolution of who was the board president Who was appointed to the board was removed from the elected officials of the town to a a third- party um administrator appointed by the state I don't think that was um very good um I I think there's an opportunity uh because he's very you know our bylaws are very important they govern how this board operates and I think it's important that we get this right uh I think there is a very good opportunity that with some input we we have 90 support uh for for these policies um Madame attorney were these revisions uh um referred to you prior to coming to the board they were they were not so again apologies you know there's there's some um you know some holes in in some of um you know our support within the district I know everyone is trying the best they can but I I certainly wouldn't want to go forth without uh legal uh review of these also which I only just found out uh earlier today so I I would like to recommend uh that we do table these two uh I would like to suggest that any board member who has um comments on the policies or additions changes please send them to uh Mr baros um the next time the policy committee meets we will review these again and try to incorporate those um those changes into a revised policy but but I would um you look it's been two years since we've been talking about this I would rather not try and Rush this through uh with a with a you know a 63 vote just just uh for for um expedience I I'd rather take the time make sure we get it right have the full support of the board and do this again so Mr baros I would like to go Ahad p and pull these tonight well thank you Mr President you I'm not necessarily worried about a 90 vote okay that doesn't bother one bit what I want to make sure is that these policies first of all 0152 went through went through policy in 2022 there is no reason why that can't go for it okay um and the changes that were made on that policy were not significant enough where I would say all right that makes sense um 0171 you know I mean considering what language was put in to 171 pardon me um I'm not exactly sure what the what the benefit of looking at every syllable in this these two paragraphs benefit either we want to have a succession plan or we do not want the succession plant you know based on the fact that you had an unelected person determined the president of this board of education which was unacceptable um the determination should be do you want a succession plan or do you not want a suction plan here dispells it out um go ahead I'm sorry Michelle go ahead we you're done just let me make sure I get a moment to talk yes so that's my only concern because I you know we could could beat this thing to death and get nowhere I mean like you mentioned we've been two years into 152 and been nowhere so uh I'll let m Michelle please sure thanks so I I mean I was just going to clarify that I haven't heard anyone say that they're not for doing this right so I I think that the point is we just want to make sure that everything is tied up the right way you know that all the considerations are taken into account so that we can have something that will stand the test of time so I I I mean just to be clear I I haven't heard anyone say that they don't want to do this we just want to get it right right Mr Rea um can I just make a suggestion that we meet the policy committee meet next week so that we could turn it around and give it some adequate reading time to for for the entire board to review and the next policy meeting is March but maybe but you don't have to wait just we could probably do a pretty quick policy meeting maybe next week and then this way there's at least a week to for review for the entire board if I believe that it makes sense that if the board in in a unanimous vote wants to table this then obviously we will table it um to be to be reviewed again and get input um also again keep in mind that our next policy meeting will be and only be about about the districts um and the pilots so we will be reviewing policies relating to class sizes there else like that so you know that will be the focus of the the policy committee assuming there's no Strauss resume stuff coming down the road that we don't know about so that'll be the next one coming up um are we permitted to have an ad hoc policy meeting Tim uh sure yeah we can we can schedule a meeting next week um no no prohibition against that right I mean I'm sorry Michelle go ahead no I'm saying is that I had reached out to uh Miss benos obviously um we haven't gotten anything on the calendar yet but we started talking about it uh when do we meet Wednesday I started talking about thir uh Wednesday if we met on Tuesday you can meet whatever you want yeah Miss abon yeah I'm I'm on board with Jack with Jack suggestion um if can give everybody a week to get their feedback in and then the policy committee convene to to take a review and see what what we want to incorporate or what we think is appropriate um of course Madam attorney also um I'm on board with that thank you Michelle M Abraham okay thank you um basically I was going to say the same thing that our next policy meeting is set for March 26 and the next board meeting is uh March 28th so that would be the same problem that we have right now with not having enough turnaround time to read and accept changes well if if uh there's a motion to table um item 36 not yet there's not yet um but we uh could convene a policy committee meeting next Thursday which I believe is February 29th um have input by board members Say by next Tuesday the fth yeah uh no no next Tuesday is the uh thank you um get those suggestions in have the policy committee meet uh take those cons suggestions into consideration send them to Madame attorney for for legal review and then um provide those in in a a final draft form to the full board prior to the next board meeting which is March 20 yes yeah I I agree I mean nobody is saying that this is not needed it was a I'm not going to use the word that I'm thinking but it was not well done last year I am admitting and I think in order to get it right as you said I would like to see a nine o support for it I'd like this board to be all in agreement and I think taking a little bit more time listening to some feedback and reviewing it is going to ensure that every voice is heard and we can get this whole board together and support it so I think it's a good idea to table it for one more Mrs Aban um just can you just clarify are we talking about tbling both bylaws or just both that would be dependent on the motion that's made I would like to make a motion to table both bylaw 0152 and 017 one just until the next meeting the next adoc meeting no the next board meeting no the next board meeting so you want to table item 36 which is policy 0152 and 0171 until the March board meeting good the March March 26 no the next board meeting is March March 12 Sor okay we need a second on that second that well are are you does the motion have to say for what meaning a pending review pending changes what are we what what are you know what are we tbling it for besides till the next meeting so the motion is to table item 36 which are those two policies uh do we need to incorporate in that uh the timeline of events that occur after that is table into thetion I put a date on it so the table no I know but but why motion to table would be until from the board and pending legal review and input right so the motion to table until March 12th is the motion that's before you that's all you need um there has been D I guess directing direction or discussion here about what is to occur in between tonight and tomorrow uh with respect to the policy I'm sorry tonight and March 12th uh with respect to the policy committee right so what happens on March this is where I'm confused what happens on March 12th it would be a first reading at that so then policy has to meet between now and March 12th right correct on this on the this these two motions right so the timeline is understand it we have a motion by Mrs kogan with second by Dr Wright the discussion has been um ongoing um to to table this motion and please help me with the dates I don't have a calendar in front of me but the policy the board the Board of Education will provide Mr buos with comments on policy 0152 and 0171 by next Tuesday February 27th 27th right right uh the policy committee will convene a meeting on Thursday February 29th to review these two policies the put from the board members once the policy committee uh PR prep prepares a final draft incorporating board member comments the viol will be sent to the attorney for legal review and then back out to the board in advance of the March 12th meeting that sound reasonable yep y okay so we have a motion we have a second we need a roll call vote Mrs Abraham okay yes Mr baras no Mrs kogan yes Mrs mayor yes Mr rehea yes Mrs Chapelle yes Dr Wright yes Mrs golderer um yes but I'm not clear as to uh do we just want one sentence I mean that's to put to table the motion it's all you need yeah that's all we're we're just tabling it till the next meeting okay Mr chappa a yes well thanks everybody for that we have I think one more committee report uh do you want to talk about buildings and grounds this evening or you want to defer I yeah I don't we did meet buildings and grounds I don't really have the minutes there is something that Robin will say that is on our agenda for the the new Chiller I think oh yes um but I did have two other things um the next legisl the New Jersey school board's next legislative meeting is on the 9th and it's virtual so if anybody actually wanted to go to a legislative meeting but did not want to drive down to Trenton this is probably a good one what was the day Alison I'm sorry the 9th it's they're always Saturdays from 9th to 12 um Mrs Chappelle and I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony on February 10th for the three uh PHS graduates that was um very nice to see they were very excited at the February 5th planning board meeting the 1515 project was discussed and building a which has 262 residential units is expected to be open in late summer and just based on visual inspection that one is actually a little further behind the Cherry Hill Road Road ones so I would assume the Cherry Hill Road ones will be open relatively you know around the same time and then one last thing I saw in the paper was that botin is having a referendum to do facility improvements and part of what they're and unfortunately their Township is doing it at the same time so two different referendums um but they are offering meetings and tours of their buildings as part of this so I just wanted us to consider that as part of our you know overall project as we do things that I would rather not wait until two weeks before we actually need the township to vote on anything that we you know let our residents know what's going on ahead of time and if you know any of that is applicable to do something similar you know when the referendum vote is for botin what the date is I think it's this second week it might be the 12th the same day we're meeting the the 12th y okay thanks um Dr Wright uh it's appropriate to report back on a CPAC meeting now right yes I was going to uh ask for liaison uh reports any other committee reports no okay yes sure uh sure uh I attended uh the CPAC meeting on uh February 12th uh it was about the IEP process and specifically focusing on evaluations to classify students uh for an IEP um uh Mr corite and his team uh reviewed the pathway through which a student is evaluated for special services um there was a great amount of informative detail on what constitutes a learning disability for the purposes of classification as well as the kinds of Assessments that are conducted in the evaluation process um an interactive exercise demonstrating to the instruments that are typically used was conducted and um that was very useful in terms of understanding the assessment tools um one example here they uh walked us through uh phonemic awareness skill testing and one of the skills there is the ability to reverse sounds and so for example if the test administrator said kinip a demonstration of phonic awareness would require the student to reverse those word sounds and respond picnic um it was very helpful and uh a number of the parents who attended clearly felt uh that it was a valuable um contribution to their understanding um I'd like to thank U Mr Cory and his team for putting together a valuable and informative session uh thank you very much any questions for Dr R any other liaison reports oh yeah I'm sorry I don't have another report I just wanted to ask the Emily at mentioned The Vaping um assembly that went on at the the hills and I just wanted to was it well attended like is there any feedback from the presentation that happened I didn't hear anything thisan okay thanks any other questions no okay so we'll move on to approval of the minutes for executive session regular minutes from our February 7th meeting up do we have I'm sorry but we were on committees do we have any um anything happen at the at the Town council meeting I mean I attended the meeting the only that is is relevant to the board is that um they have no um the mayor and the uh council president have not yet met to talk about the budget because they're waiting from the numbers from the state so that was it okay I'm sorry one last thing in three weeks uh the uh Lake hawaa streetcape on um North beverick Road I think it's scheduled to start whatever that means whatever that that started is but that was that was it that was the relevant options um did they talk anything about the uh resurfacing of Baldwin which is right by the high school um where they said that the pavement has not been done because they found um some problems underground not that I'm aware of there was a lot of resurfacing conversations going on but it didn't have anything to do with bwin okay thank you uh thanks Susie for asking that question uh now approval of minutes executive session regular minutes of February 7 2024 may I have a motion to approve those minutes motion uh Mrs mayor seconded by Mrs Abraham roll call vote please Abraham yes Mr baros yes Mrs kogan yes Mrs mayor yes m Mr Rea yes Mrs Chappelle yes Dr Wright yes Mrs golderer yes Mr chaa yes okay superintendent spon Dr Suter thank you president Chao uh Dr mol roone Dr Thompson Miss kuchi and I attended our third student advisory council meeting on February 8th students from parsipany high school and parsipany Hills High School discussed numerous ideas to promote our high school programs to students at the elementary and middle school levels the phhs band students joined the lake par Elementary School band and the brook law Middle School 8th grade band to perform at the 11th annual bands of Troy West concert at parsipany Hills High School on February 14th 2024 this time honor tradition was a magnificent experience and a wonderful way to bring our community of PTSD students musicians and parents together across schools and grades finally I want to congratulate is Kathy effner and the parcion high school red Bots for winning the connect award at their tournament on Saturday February 17th at Milburn High School oh W according to miss effner the team that wins The Connect award actively seeks and recruits engineers and explores the opportunities available in the world of engineering science and technology this team has a clear team plan and has identified steps to achieve their goals the red Bots qualified and are going to the States on March 17th 2024 tonight for approval we have superintendent bulletin items 1- 25 with theendum and read him items 26-41 are there any questions Dr Suter no okay secretary's report Mr Tesco hi everyone on tonight's secretary's report we have our regular business motions including the approval of the um the jrw chiller replacement project to be sent down to the state for NJ doe approval so that we can complete the project anybody have any questions what's jrw I I do know what the answer is but just just some people might not R Windish and that's a building that's located where next to parney high school that's right it was a former board offices right back back in the day okay thank you very much that yeah uh any questions for Mr Desco no other than mine uh new business any new business that come before the board no okay uh at this time we are up to hearing of the public um at this if there's anyone who would like to address the board please come up sign your name and address in the book at the elect turn and state your name for the record and please address the chair that's me uh each person will have three minutes to you're you're an attorney you shouldn't be laughing um each person will have three minutes to speak to the board it will be helpful if you would like to address the board please come up now and sign the book so that you're ready when the first speaker is finished um as a reminder this meeting is being video recorded uh if you are a student who wishes to speak we ask that you not provide your home address but rather give only the name of the municipality in which you live if you a parent wishing to discuss a specific matter pertaining to your child during the portion of the meeting you may request the board temporarily suspend the video recording alternatively please consider speaking privately about the matter to the superintendent after the meeting speaker should refrain from using specific student or staff names in their comments and refer to bylaw 0168 for further information regarding the videotaping of our meetings thank you yes sir and just a remind you have three three minutes to speak uh which is better than 90 seconds which is better than 90 seconds yeah U Madame attorney is our timekeeper uh and this is public comment not public dialogue so we may we may answer a question that you ask but we're we're not obligated to do so certainly thank you my name is Richard Suarez I'm president of Pary for decades um back in 2020 um I asked pardon me yes 2020 I asked if uh any plans were being considered for Energy Management Systems within the elementary schools I know you receive calls every year about the air conditioners running around the clock in all of the El elementary schools as far as I know nothing has been done I know there was some uh ES SE money that the township use what the school board used mainly for buying air air filters and replacement of Windows that's what I was told um I really feel that an energy management system could save you a lot of money uh I read that there's another $167,000 coming down down the road these are very rudimentary systems that you'd have to put in in into these schools they'd be Standalone build buildings you put you put a system like this in place and it would pay for itself in a number of of years not decades like it takes to pay off the replacement of Windows we all know that the mayor and the council have been less than Cooperative with the board and I don't see that changing unless there's a change with them I hope um and I'd really like you to consider this you not you but someone uh hired a gentleman by the name of uh Dr Richard Lynch which I worked with uh at my job years ago and he makes recommendations that are pretty easy to follow and he even says that unoccupied buildings should not be cooler than 78 or 79 there's no way anyone is going to tell me that air conditioners window air conditioners run 24 hours a day 7 days a week are going to fall into that 79 degree temperature range it's not possible it's simply not possible I think you could save a lot of money I think looking at an energy management systems for these buildings would be worthwhile uh it would be a cost saving down the line and I hope you would think of about it thank you thank you very much yes please lamia good evening everyone um I'm lamia I'm a parip resident I hope you didn't miss me all I have some family um issues that I couldn't be here for the past few board meetings however I'm here tonight for long overdue thanks to the board of ed for sending representative for the Muslim Heritage Month celebration that was at the library so thank you Mrs Mayers and Mrs kogan for that um I also had another question about the presentation that was giving so if the students um and this doesn't have to be answered tonight if they're they found like U or discover information that was incorrect using chat gbt will the teachers be um you know advising them not to use it because I know it's at their forehand they're using it they have access to it but since they're aware that there are misleading information or incorrect information being out out of these apps so maybe that's a way to kind of say Hey you know maybe you shouldn't use them just use like legi sources so that was my other thing um lastly I do know that um some parents can get involved in the calendar committee I know I had asked that in the past so I just need to find out how can I go about that and how can I get involved with the calendar committee considering that some of the Islamic religious holidays is going to fall more into the school year um not just want it to be another one and last um and it could be for future discussions having like um Halal option food options in the school because a lot of our students are finding very hard and clue their mind um to pick different like you know food there and then my son just eats cereal and we pay for the you know so it's just um those are kind of my concerns but thank you so much have a good night thank you lamia are there any other members of public who wish to speak tonight okay seeing none I will close the the public session thank you Dr s do you care to respond to any of the comments that were made uh M ly we I'll get back to you the information about the committee thanks thank you um at this time we well before I say that um we are going to go into closed session after the vote on the superintendent's bulletin um and I'll have a motion made on that shortly but uh no action is expected to be taken uh after the Clos session um ends um we have in front of us a bulletin number 14 items 1 through 25 with the denim items 26 through 41 with the uh exception of number 36 which has been tabled until the next board meeting can I have a motion on the superintendent Molton Mrs kogan M Mr rea okay roll call vote please Mrs Abraham yes Mr baros yes Mrs kogan yes Mrs mayor yes Mr Rea yes Mrs Chappelle yes Dr Wright yes Mrs Golder um abstain and number three yes to everything else Mr chappa uh yes um at this time I do need a motion to go into executive session for the purposes of uh negotiations legal and Personnel uh no action will be taken the conclusion of the executive session I may I have a motion please Mrs Abraham Mrs mayor roll call vote please Mrs Abraham yes Mr baros yes Mrs kogan yes Mrs mayor yes Mr Rea yes Mrs Chapelle yes Dr Wright yes Mrs golderer yes Mr Chapa yes thank you