eleth Callahan here board member Nubia dval Wilson here board member Regina eert here board member bill gford here board member will Meyer here board member Shaina sacket Gable here board president Coe tford here board member Arun VOD lamani here board member Caitlyn Whit letter here and the student Representatives okay okay please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance all right to get started we're going to have a performance by the Seth boen AE stepping residency program and ALS and after that we'll have a video from the Marshall ele Elementary course so I think we had a representative from Seth boen that could introduce a program or you going to play the video I'm not sure what we'll do first oh hello hello good evening um I'm Shannon glender I'm the principal of Seth boen um I'm extremely proud to be presenting Seth Boon's fourth graders and their phenomenal African-American stepping residency Seth boen received our fourth consecutive stepping Grant this year worth over $144,000 from The Artisan education Residency program in the New Jersey Council on the Arts our beloved three-time resident artist Maxine Lyle returned to teach the fourth graders about the rich history of African-American stepping and to instruct them in both beginner and more advanced movements she even helped them choreograph their own routines Seth Boon's fourth grade teaching team helped coordinate and reinforce those lessons with shella mesidor valard serving as Grant leaon the PTA provided both logistical and financial support including the residency t-shirts the CHS infinite step team and steppers from two alumni chapters of historically black Greek letter organizations from local universities performed as special guests as our at our two culminating events one for students and one for our families at the assembly for students filmmaker and Seth boy and parent Aaron Harper shot and edited The Residency video you're about to see the stepping residency has benefited our students through greater Cultural Literacy improved confidence a stronger sense of community and much more Seth Boyen is becoming well known for its stepping Excellence our steppers have been invited to perform at the Clinton South buen faculty basketball game at a high school stepping competition hosted by the infinite step team and at a juneth celebration organized by another Co sponsor for the grant the count basy Center for the Arts in Red Bank finally without the tremendous support hard work and dedication of our former Seth Boyen parent Dr Allison Poe this program wouldn't have gotten off the ground without her meticulous word smithing and passion for cultural competency in the Arts we would never have been able to be here tonight to celebrate our fourth year of this residency thank you Dr Poe I think you'll be as amazed as I am at the level of proficiency of our fourth graders and what they'll show you in Erin's video so please enjoy and thank you so much for watching e who's ready for step [Applause] show we started out learning all of the same steps in each class halfway through their routine you'll see some steps that are all theirs I had nothing to do with it they took the tools that they learned from me and cre created their own works of Arts [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] Sigma gam has a reputation for beating positive change through Sisterhood leadership and service I hope you enjoy the show w [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] that'sa is one of the only for college sorties for African Aman women 5 6 seven eight H St [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] 5 6 7 8 [Applause] Delta s witha was founded January 13th 1913 it was founded by 22 young determent and educated women on the campus of Howard University [Applause] [Music] w [Applause] bring it back now [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] repeat after [Applause] us me feel me feel me I have power [Applause] and next we have a performance by the Marshall chorus scho This song is called aloha aloha It Is ouro song of the month we an Asian Aman Pacific Islander music with Miss [Music] we say hello hello hello we say hello sayet [Music] you aloh Al say hello aloh we [Music] h h h Hello H H we say hello [Music] okay ready we [Music] are I'm growing up way way up up in the world growing up way [Music] UPS world every Mak Friends Along the [Music] wayar our way in the world [Music] up way way up what I can do make a change in the world growing up up find out what we can do make a change in the world changing every day make friends along the way and andar to our way in the world our CH in the world making our change in the [Music] world world right please take note that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in the following manner that written notice was sent from the office of the secretary of the board at 2:30 on January 5th 2024 that said notice was sent via email to mwood and South Orange Township clerks and the editors of the news record Star Ledger tapaa and the Village Green whereas while the senator Byron M be open public meetings Act njsa 10 4-6 requires all meetings of the South Orange maplehood Board of Education to be held in public njsa 10 4-12 sets forth nine types of matters that may lawfully be discussed in executive session without the public being permitted to attend and whereas the board has determined that one issue is permitted by njsa 10 col 4-12 to be discussed without the public in attendance and shall be discussed during an executive session to be held on Thursday May 30th 2024 at 6:30 p.m. and where is the nine exceptions to to the open public meetings act set forth in njsa 10 10 2-4 are listed below and next to each exception is a box which will be marked when the issue to be privately discussed fall within that exception and after each exception is a space where additional information that will disclose as much information about the discussion as possible without undermining the purpose of the exception shall be written any Matters by which express provisions of federal law state statute or rule of quarter law be rendered confidential or excluded from public session discussion the nature of the matter described as specifically as possible without undermining the need for confidentiality is eternity client privilege hip reporting and litigation status report any matter involved in the employment appointment termination of employment terms of conditions of employment evaluation of the performance promotion or disciplining of any specific prospective public officer or employee or Current public officer or employee employed or appointed by the public body unless all individual employees or appointees whose rights could be adversely affected request in writing that such matters matter or matters be discussed at a public meeting subject to the balancing of the Public's interest and the employees privacy rights under South Jersey public company versus New Jersey Expressway Authority 124 NJ 478 uh the employees in nature of the discussion described as specifically as possible without undermine the needs for confidentiality um or any deliberations of a public body sorry whereas the length of the executive session is estimated to be 60 minutes after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and proceed with business where formal action will be taken now therefore be it resolved that the South orang Maple Board of Education will go into EX Ive session for the above stated reasons only and be a further resolve that the board hereby declares that it discussion of the aformentioned subjects will be made public at a time when the Public's interest in disclosure is greater than any privacy or governmental Interest being protected from disclosure that I'd like to make a motion to go into executive session second thank you board member Callahan all in favor F okay we're going into executive session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right we'll get started um I guess the first motion we'll make is uh make a motion to approve of board minutes in executive session and special meeeting minutes from April 3rd 2024 the executive session and special meeting minutes from April 13th 2024 executive session and special meeting minutes from April 20th 2024 executive session and regular meeting minutes from April 25th 2024 and the ex ex session and reorganizing meeting minutes from May 9th 2024 um do I have a second thank you board member Callahan all in favor all right that's unanimous all right next we'll have the student Boe representative update okay uh to begin we'd like to State the rec recognitions um in their first ever Statewide competition Maplewood Middle School's Double Dutch team the MMS swaga jumpers faced a dozen other teams at the American Double Dutch League New Jersey division championship on April 27th by the time they left the Boys and Girls Club of newark's gymnasium they had won three first place prizes one in the unattached division one in the novice division for seventh and eighth grade singles and one in the Twin division congratulations to team members Sam Herpst jayen seay Jada Hatcher and SB burn many thanks to their coach Kaya Max McCarthy AKA Coach K works of art created by 18 Columbia High School students artists are currently on display at the South Orange Performing Art Center at soc's an annual inspired Minds Young artist exhibition which opened on Thursday May 16th the student artists featured in the exhibition are Reggie dble Jackson grade 12 Iceland Gonzalez great 11 Audrey ha great 11 kenen hendle great 12 cam Jones great 11 Ezra Kaminsky great 11 Molly Keegan great 11 Jordan Kinley great 12 Susanna Canen great 12 NE Mahoney grade 11 Anastasia paatti aino grade 10 Sam Rosenthal grade 11 Sam Samuel tab K grade 12 Maya wtoo grade 11 and REE wolf fer grade 11 and their teacher was Alexandra kuchi also Abigail ainger grade 10 whose teacher was Cindy malort Sam Rosenthal grade 11 SV Ro raki grade 10 Carlos Sanchez grade 12 whose teacher was rich kruna The Inspired Minds exhibition will run through August 18th two Columbia High School scholar athletes were honored by the Essex County athletic directors association with the Karen fuell scholar athlete award CHS football and boys lacrosse player Ethan Parlin was honored as the high school's Top Male scholar athlete Parlin has committed to the University of Wisconsin Madison where he intends to major in finance May Lee of the girls CHS tennis team and fencing team was named the high school's top female scholar athlete Lee has committed to the University of California San Diego where she intends to major in probability and statistics congratulations to the student filmmakers who created the dreaming a short horror movie that won a special jury prize in Montclair films emerging filmmaker competition the dreaming was directed by Callum Mayberry with reys wolfinger as cinematographer and editor and Khloe Carlson as production and editing assistant Malachi liberado Dylan little and Ari werman acted in the film special thanks to film teacher Paul merigliano who teaches these students in his film to class May Dowling the Columbia High School Runner who recently broke the school's record in the 1600 meter set by one of the district's principles has been awarded the New Jersey state inter Scholastic athlete Association scholar athlete of the Year award Dowling ran cross country all four years of high school she she was also on the swim and lacrosse teams in her freshman and sophomore years before deciding to run cross country and track all year ding has committed to the George Washington University in Washington DC where she plans to study Human Services and social justice she is a member of the National Honor Society and the Chinese National Honor Society and has been consistently on honoral throughout high school thank you hello everyone here is the May student report we first want to update everyone on AP testing while there were initial difficulties in accommodating construction AP testing and ended up being held in the d-wing of the school largely sectioned off from the rest of standard from the rest of standard academics overall it seems this classroom environment for testing was pretty successful many students have told us that taking the test in a classroom made them more comfortable and calm because of the familiar and smaller environment the smaller environment also enables Proctors to have a better eye on test takers this being said we hope that next year a quieter Wing can be designated for this test taking and meeting with Mr Pedro he suggested that next year the higher levels of the d-wing or another more secluded area be used to avoid passing period and lunchtime noise there are also two more specific things that could be improved for students one being the placement of tests that have audio or recording portions these tests such as foreign languages and music theory require students to listen to loud recordings and to speak loudly we have heard reports from test takers that were next door during other exams that these loud voices were very noticeable and distracting on the topic of recording we spoke with Mr Pedro and Dr Gilbert about purchasing or allocating more iPads to be used for AP test recording some exams such as foreign language which I actually experience required students to record themselves speaking unfortunately for APS this year a maximum of seven iPads were used for classes of at least 25 students this means exams meant to be three hours and 15 minutes turned into 6 hours and 15 minutes as students waited their turn to use an iPad this this is especially concerning for foreign language classes whose examed are designed specifically so students do the speaking segment last after being immersed in the language for hours and the earlier multiple choice and writing portions of the exam to have students waiting for hours is distracting them from this language immersion which could be detrimental to their score as speaking is worth 25% of your total exam score we also spoke with Mr Pedro about security and how the enforcement is going overall in most cases guards continue to require students to scan in when entering the building but there are instances where this is simply not the case because this policy has been enforced for much longer than prior policies we just want to be sure that Administration is staying on top of this enforcement and does not let be let it begin to slip as the year closes as the year is coming to an end it is only right that students begin to celebrate another success unfortunately however prompts placement in the middle of finals week serves more as a punishment than a reward for everyone's hard work this this year we are not sure why prom was put on the Tuesday of finals but we want to ensure this does not happen again although there is only a period one final on the following Wednesday which most students do not have finals are extremely important and require many days of studying and rest students especially our seniors deserve the ability to socialize and succeed academically this is all for our May report thank you next we'll have the superintendent update good evening to uh Dr tulis for to the rest of the members of the Board of Education to those who are gathered here today and are listening at home I am pres I'm Dr Kevin Gilbert and I will be presenting the superintendent's update first from acknowledgements alexandraa kuchi who is in her third year at Columbia High School art teacher has been named the New Jersey state teen arts festival art educator of the Year James Mano that's good James Mano the district Fine Arts and performance arts supervisor describ Miss C excuse me kuchi as the transformational educator who has doubled the number of students taking high level studio art classes while producing groundbreaking student and exhibitions including this year AP art student showcase at the South Orange Performing Art Center for having won the art educator of the Year award Miss kuchi is scheduled to receive a special Commendation from the exx county commissioner Patricia sabold at the special ceremony in Newark in July Columbia High School Christina luzy held the high school's first ever Tri-State High School psychology workshop at seen Hall University on May 17th the event attracted 50 High School psychology teachers and included presentations by three seeden Hall University professors as well as a talk by representatives from college board on the changes in the AP Psychology curriculum the South Orange and Maplewood School District Department of special services launched its six-part caregiver workshop on May 6th each Workshop de delves into a different pair in topic it is the first time the district has held a series of workshops in supporting of parents and Guardians all caregiver workshops are free and will be held at the central office building 525 Academy Street in Maplewood presenters are from effective School Solutions and firm that the district contracts to provide therapeutic support to students there are two workshops remaining that will take place on June 3rd and June 17th please visit the district website for detail Maplewood Middle School's teacher Cela Graham was selected to receive the ell Watson memorial fund award this award is given to assist one educator who has significantly contributed to the profession through teaching or Administration Miss Graham won for her outstanding work with her students and for mentoring future teachers this prestigious award comes from her Alma ma Montclair State University staff members from s so from five SS the schools will expand and enrich their Knowledge and Skills at the academic program this summer thanks to the generous help of the achie foundation the achieve Foundation has awarded more than 14,000 raiche teaching fellowships to the following recipients Clinton Elementary School special education teach Kate facto who will participate in the National seed new leaders training in Eastern Massachusetts Megan uh hel Haller sorry and bolad reading specialist at Marshall Elementary School please don't charge me messing your names up I apologize who will head to Montana for the big Scot literary sermon Maplewood Middle School speech teacher Diane L who will participate in the lywood Bell visual visualizing and verbalizing seminar South Orange middle school classroom teacher Amy Ro Talia Hampton and Kendall Pierce Tuttle who will attend the summer writing Institute for racial equ equality and literacy in Washington DC and CHS guidance counselor Jennifer McDow who participate in the National Association of student financial aid administrators conference in Milwaukee Wisconsin I want to take this time to say that um the struggle to and the challenges that involved our budgetary process have put a stain and and a harm to relationships that we have built and trust that we have had in this community but I want you to understand that these decisions were not made in a vacuum they were the result of lots of conversation collaborative work with internal and external stakeholders there were arguments there were fights there were broken relationships But ultimately decisions had to be made to deal with the current deficit and the reduction in force the unfortunate reality of this situation is that some very good inspiring outstanding Educators have got caught in the crosshairs and for that I'm truly sorry however it is an unfortunate consequence of the of of the situation I know we can't see it now I know there's a lot of angst in the air but please understand the decisions to make around terms of using the last in first out principle and using other means like right sizing to figure out who had to be moved and where they needed to go we're taken in Concept in we're taken to make sure we kept the most important thing in mind and that is how do we continue to move our district in a manner that supports not only our Educators but also our students and make sure that our students are successful I know there are some who disagree who are angered by some of those and we will hear you but please understand although we cannot see I do believe that we will overcome this storm and that we will make sure that the school district of South Orange and Maplewood will do right by the students and the family that we serve a few weeks ago I promised you that I will come before you and illustrate and talk to you about some of the concerns that were raised on several issues that were due to some of our funding I want to take the time to kind of walk through some of those things with you to fulfill the promise that I made to you again this is not me trying to convince you that what we were done is something for you to accept it is for me to kind of let you know where we are going and what we're going to do to know that we did have a plan in place to deal with some of the issues first the use of our remaining American Rescue plan dollars to help support areas that were cut particularly in areas like supplies and professional development we have approximately $900,000 remaining in our ARP funds that have been have to be spent by September 30th this has to be spent on items and activities that are to be concluded or completed by September 30th we canot use any of these funds to cover any full year positions the dollars will be spent in four buckets technology where we want to work to provide whiteboards document cameras projectors to both our middle school and class and High School classrooms that need them professional development several professional developments for our Educators and our leaders to attend a summer school payroll where a significant portion of those dollars will be spent for our summer school staff and classroom supplies that were cut money has been allocated to every single Department including social studies Ela stem World Language Fine Arts and PE next the unpairing of Marshall and deala balen schools we have new fourth grade classes at Marshall and a new first grade class at Dilla B Elementary there have been concerns raised by some about having brand new teachers who may have never taught a particular grade in full sections of these classrooms this concern was raised not only to me by families but also Raised To Me by concerned staff therefore we had to move forward with a staffing plan for the first grade classes at with at least three teachers who have taught first grade before and then in our fourth grade we were for forun to be able to staff those classes with internal teachers two of which those teachers have taught in Upper grade schools before upper grade elementary students before additionally we would we were told that there was not a lot of support for our first year K teachers or our first year third grade teachers this is unfortunate and we apologize but in conversations with the curriculum and instruction assistant superintendent we will make sure that we will not make that same mistake this time we will be supporting these teachers with our instructional coaches we will make opportunities for these teachers to learn from other colleagues and we will find any available and necessary professional development for them and we will also provide our building Leaders with the supports that are necessary to support these teachers our stem program in the Middle School following our right siiz and activity that was necessary because of the reduction and force and the elimination of 28 positions including some Elementary positions we were actually able to keep both stem teachers in place at their respective schools so the stem programs will remain at MMS and S the Orchestra program at ssms this program has not been eliminated the posting has gone up for our Orchestra position and we have had great interest in the position thus far and we look forward to hiring an exceptional candidate ESS mental health at CHS state law mandated that after three years with one vendor we had to go out for bid the request for proposals went out and in and it's due to be open tomorrow so we will see where the reward goes ESS mental health has always been a bidder for these services in the past and I expect that that has happened again the IEP program at SS the IEP program is not being eliminated at Psalms and it is not being dismantled in any way it will still have both aspects of the program the clinical therapy work as well as the academic teacher the only change is that the person doing the clinical work would not be a psychologist but a social worker who not only has their own private practice but also has all the required clinical certifications that are necessary in addition the two intervention teachers will serve all the academic needs of those students students in the I step program will have full access to the academic intervention teachers in a small room as they do now the room will be used the same room will be used the same intake practices will occur and the same services to families will be provided the Italian position at Columbia High School there's been concerns raised about the loss of the Italian position at the high school and what that means for our world languages the reality is that we have seen a huge drop in student interest in Italian the class sizes have fallen drastically however we are seeing a large increase in the entrance of Mandarin including adding more Mandarin classes in our middle school because of this decline in interest the decision was made to cut this position and we will be monitoring the trend and we may be looking at adding another world language like Mandarin classes in the future to replace the dimin Italian entrance counseling at Columbia High School and the middle school for that matter there have been many concerns raised about the elimination of the two Council positions and the director of counseling and what that would mean for the support of our students not just at the high school but also at the middle schools as a physici job description also call for that person to supervise our middle school counselors and social workers as well according to the American Counseling Association it states the best practice student to counselor ratio is 1 to 250 students our students will still be well within that ratio with our counselors in the current configuration I met with all the remaining counselors at the high school and the middle school who will be returning next year to talk to them about the plan first we will be creating up to four lead counselor positions two at the high school level and at least one at the middle school and possibly two I am in conversations with some may leadership and we will have to negotiate the stiping for those positions secondly the evaluation of counselors will go to the school administration as well as the mastering schedule responsibilities we are fortunate to have Mr Pedro with us who not only has done Master scheduling on the high school level but has trained other administrators and other districts on how to do this he will be training our current administrators on what this on what this looks like while developing the master schedule for next year and we will providing uh scheduled support from central office as needed at administrators are also going are also currently administrators are doing Master scheduling at our middle schools yes the counselors students loads will increase but the support will come from the lead counselors and the principal we are also adding a layer of support to our uh to our counselors from central office as a director of curriculum instruction will'll be working closely with both the principal and the lead counselor as well on the Middle School level the lead counselors will will have the same level of support from central office and School administration at the high school level we will lean on our mental health supports from our social work inters as we have in the past we'll be look we'll be looking at our social work program throughout the district to see how we can best leverage this support even into our middle schools the Middle School social workers were in fact still being being evaluated by uh the central office special service Department uh and that will continue and now the high school social workers will get that support and evaluations for special services as well in terms of programs for our young people our sa counselors remain as and some of our counselor Annex program offered at the high school will move to individual counselors with the support of the leads however this will be discussed once we have our leads and we will begin to organize for next year the principles of each School will be assigned the task of managing and supervising our counselors the other remaining duties of the director of guidance and social work will be dis disseminated between the principal the AP the lead counselors and some counselors our supports for our students will continue to be provided by our counselors our sack counselors and our social workers that concludes my report next we'll have the year three Al's presentation thank you Dr telesford so we have two presentations to do for our triple ey tonight the first one will be the recap of the year three uh implementation of our uh intentional integration initiative we are joined tonight by uh Nancy Mardo and Michael ALS from the Al's group who will kind of help me through this uh Keith I don't know do we have them we have them queued up okay hello Nancy and Michael how are you doing this evening doing well very good okay so we're going to go ahead and start working through the presentation and at at any particular Point feel free to interrupt to add any insight that you want to add and then we'll stand for questions from the board is that okay with you all right very good can we I'm sorry we just going to make a motion to actually um move up um public speaks for students just for students just for students oh okay second all right thank you board member Val all in favor all right so we have one like this so we're we're going to the public speaks for students okay U Michael and Nancy please hold tight we're going to hear from our students first in public speaks and then we'll come back okay that's fine all right thank you all right um Ben GS okay sorry um hi I'm Ben um I'm this salutatorian and I'm reading a letter prepared um signed by 72 other students to the members of the Board of Education and central office we the undersigned would like to forgive you for all of the problems you have brought upon the school we would like to forgive you for choosing to invest in new construction rather than repairing existing problems which do you think is worse ignorance of or refusing to deal with the various leaks broken ceilings first pipes broken faucets missing soap and menstrual products and other issues students and faculty experience daily what have you done with the noise complaints that teachers lodged about the construction especially during testing we also would like to forgive you for making the library impossible to access you may not realize that B books and schools for studying are still necessary we assume that is why there have been numerous IT issues throughout the school year including weak and unstable Wi-Fi and Chromebooks that break without sufficient Replacements or fixes but we're not sure how to understand the failure to tell the AP African-American studies students that their test was online we would like to forgive you for all of the policies that needlessly damage the environment we would like to forgive you for illegally and secretly trying to remove trees from the school property and for trying to turf riter field even though the budget doesn't have room for even one payment much less a recurring turfing fee we would like to but we can't and we shouldn't because that would be letting you off the hook we shouldn't forgive you for firing Irreplaceable teachers it seems difficult to have a school district without faculty we shouldn't forgive you for trying to fire teachers with that with so much contempt for them as people and for the teachers union we can't forgive you for letting a budget as deficit faster while giving administrators raises the hundreds of students in the many organizations and groups that use the stage certainly don't forgive you for letting it remain broken the music groups don't appreciate the bud budget cuts the musical didn't want to go on tour the Shakespeare Festival didn't enjoy the inability to get a straight answer about the stage extension no one respects the Absurd opacity of the administration dealings we all resent the sexism that students and teachers experience from the administration such as not believing them when they describe problems or by staring at their chests rather than their faces institutional racism continues to be a problem even as the district says it is being worked on we understand that some of these items are not specifically your fault but we ask you to recognize that they stem from problems you have created or refused to fix the lack of soap and menstrual products comes from the budget issues for example teachers inability to get a St answer comes from your lack of transparency I personally have seen teachers spend weeks trying to get answers on major issues like testing in the stage only to be dismissed in an instant by the administration we appreciate those of you who have done your jobs most of you have not and you hire the inept administrators who fail to do theirs bear in mind that these are just the Grievances that we the undersigned could agree on there are many many more you must do better take accountability and then improve you show a callous disrespect of and disregard for everyone else here if you don't the students deserve better the teachers deserve better the community deserves better sincerely myself and 72 other [Applause] students thank you and now move on to the presentation you want me to go after that all right very good okay can we get the presentation up [Music] please so while we are waiting for the presentation to come up um there we go you can go to the next slide so tonight we're going going to quickly go through the slid presentation it will be uploaded for the public to be able to view so I won't be going through each and every one of the slides I'll be picking up on some highlights and then we will uh again stand for questions from the board but we want to review the AL group year three report we want to discuss some of the implementation effects of the integration variances from grades K to two for all elementary schools including D your bow and Elementary we want to discuss key results of the algorithm implementation in promoting race neutral uh social economic status integration and avoid racial ethnic isolation in grades 6 through 7 in Maplewood and South Orange middle schools and go through some recommendations for the 2425 school year next slide please we've been working collaboratively with our Consultants the ALS group to ensure that the district uh complies with the board of education's goal of promoting socioeconomic integration while avoiding the racial ethnic isolation in the district elementary and middle schools the distinct features of the district is race residential base and race neutral assignment Al algorithm is that it eliminates the district's individual School attendance boundaries in favor of assigning students to a school that is nearest to the students's home that has an available seat for their particular socioeconomic tier and there are three tiers low medium and high the goal is to keep each School sces composition with a plus or minus 5% variance of the sces composition for the specific grade that is part of the initiative in the district as a whole it is important to note that since the implementation of this within the South Orange and Maplewood School District the intentional integration initiative has resulted in substantial increases in social economic status in in uh integration and decreases in racial isolation within our community this Pro this program was designed to address the long-standing disparities and segregation in the education system by promoting a more equitable distribution of students from diverse backgrounds as we look at the trends next slide no it's the right slide table eight will show and we'll go to that in just a second the degree to which each School's kindergarten SCS composition has varied from The District's average beginning with the 2020 21 school year when students were assigned based on attendance zones and then for each of the three years of the triple I the average sces variance across all schools has not exceeded five percentage points in any year and the great majority of the individual schools have remained within the vi the variance of those targets these are some of the trends uh table table eight and nine will be on the next slide but table nine will show us the degree to which each School's kindergarten racial ethnic composition has varied from The District's average beginning with 20 2021 when students were assigned based on their attendance zones and then for each of the three years under the prior attendance Zone assignment plan black and white students were most disproportionately distributed among schools we focus our discussion on the these two groups following the introduction of the triple I the underrepresentation of white students at Seth bo bo boen was greatly reduced from a variance of - 23 percentage points to one of 9 and -10 percentage points The Average White variance across all schools has fallen eight percentage points to five to four percentage points under triple I the over representation of black students at Seth Boon has also fallen marketly from plus 25 percentage points under the assignment Zone point plan to plus 5 percentage points in the most current year under representation of black students at Clinton and tusin has also Fallen the average black variance across all our schools is fallen from 11 percentage points until the assignment Zone plan to three percentage points and points in the most current triple ey year if you would go to the next slide I'm not going to read these but I spent time going through those particular slides because it's important for the community and us to know that our triple ey initiative is working it is getting to the results that you set out for when we began this initiative and the numbers that I just read off kind of point to that Michael and Nancy I don't know if you want to add anything all right guess not M go you need to unmute yourself oh there we go thank you Nancy I can't see you yeah go ahead hear me now we can hear you now yes sir all right you know real quickly that what these results certainly demonstrate is it certainly validates the commitment of the community to having an integrated School District the approach that you're taking is really Innovative and unique and certainly is is is working here in your school district and that Comm and all the work we've all been doing together collaboratively and also I think this is certainly uh something for the rest of the state to certainly consider but my main point is that this these results are truly excellent in terms of demonstrating the commitment to an integrated school district and I want to commend the community thank you so the next s slides deal with kindergarten and if you would go to the [Music] third I tell you what just just flip through so this P this particular part of the presentation just reminds us that kindergarten enrollment is done through the algorithm uh that there were 11 rounds of kindergarten uh assigned before this report which as of October 15th is when this report was released and these assignments were made in accordance with the capacities that were determined by us as a district next slide uh this particular presentation talks through just the fact that you know we're having our ongoing discussions regarding the weight list but we'll talk about later on that we do have our weight list policy already approved and we have our uh uh we we have our plan on how we're going to implement that already in place uh for that um the next slide talks about our sibling priority assignments you know sibling priority continues to be a key component to our kindergarten assignment algorithm to ensure that newly enrolled students with their older s siblings who will be enrolled in grades 1 through five will be pre-assigned to the same Elementary School uh sibling priority did account for 38% of the 516 students that were assigned go to the next slide this gives you a graphic of the percentage of assignments based on sibling priority and which schools have the highest rates of sibling priority based assignments um you can look at the chart there uh it is it was noted that a large number of incoming Tuscan students was a sibling prior uh priority more than filled all available tusen sces tier 2 seats within the first round of assignments so those are the numbers that show how the impact of sibling preference next slide how does socioeconomic status play table two shows both sces composition and percentages of each student as well as how each school's SCS composition varies from kindergarten en rollment across the district as a whole note that while two schools have sces variances slightly beyond the targeted range this year the addition of just one student of a certain sces level to each of the schools will result in a school being within the plus my five plus or minus 5 SCS target range and this is the graph next slide this is the graph I'm not going to challenge you to even look at that but like I said the presentation will be made available to the public for you to review next slide does the district use race or ethnicity to integrate students the answer to that question is no the intentional integration algorithm does not have specific racial or ethnic integration targets as it is rais race usual however we do monitor Race Across uh our schools and their composition and table three shows you both the composition of each School racial compos ethnic composition of each school as well as how each school's composition varies of the kindergarten enrollment across the district go to the next slide again you can check that out at your leisure when we post the uh presentation next slide closest School assignments the integration algorithm seeks to balance integration and school proximity by placing students in the closest school that have seats available for their SC tier uh if you go down to the last uh dot point and the squares the percentage of low the percentage of low sces students attending their closest school designed declin from 41% to 34% presents of medium SCS students attending their closest school also declined from 59% to 47% and percentage of high SC students attending their Clos to school increased from 52% to 61% this is likely due to new availability of deal your baling offering a closer option in a high sces geographic area next slide is the chart and in the next slide we will talk about distance to schools overall for student assignments by the algorithm the average distance to school declin line from 1.21 to 1.09 miles over 55% of students assigned by the algorithm were assigned to a school less than a mile from their home up from 51% in 2223 and in 2223 there were only five available schools for kindergarten assignments at that time next slide again another graph for you to examine after this presentation uh next slide students traveling more than three miles um among students assigned by the algorithm there were a small number five who assigned to schools more than three miles from their home uh the new availability of dlia bowling did open a relatively nearby possibility and in fact among low sces students living near Seth boen the number assigned to bold and equal that assigned the South Mountain even though Balden had many fewer assignable seats than South Mountain next slide again as we talk about students traveling more than three miles the chart that you see there uh kind of gives you that breakdown an additional factor is that the disproportionality late registration and assignment of low sces and Black Or Hispanic students resulting in those students being assigned after many schools where at full capacity and especially for black students when they're nearest school usually self boyant was at is maximum of Plus or five plus 5% variance Target for low sces schools next slide there's been conversations about the impact of withdrawals on our triple I between the beginning of the 2324 kindergarten assignment process through October 15th 28 students were withdrawn from the district overall the data indicates that 23 or 82% of the 28 withdrawals was assigned each their old sibling School the pre-assigned special education school or to their first or second nearest school when analized by racial ethnic groups the 28 withdrawals included two 7% black students three 11% Hispanic students and 14 and four 14% Asian students two multi-racial students which is 7% and 17 white students which is 61% Nancy or Michael do you want to add some more insight into withdrawals nany I don't think we have anything else to add to that except that there's nothing about this pattern of withdrawals it suggests to us that the integration plan itself is driving people away um either in terms of the way that they're uh accepted into schools through their pre-assignment or they Clos to school or in terms of the racial ethnic distribution so there's nothing here that's really causes a lot of red flags in terms of people withdrawing because of their assignments thank you next slides will deal with uh the intentional integration Initiative for first grade so just a little background this slide deals with background I just want to call your attention that the algorithm was used this year to place new students entering the district in first grade in an integrated way taking into account withdrawals of Prior students the process was challenging given reductions in the number of seats at tusin between last year's kindergarten class and this year's grade one the next slide is uh are some uh tables for you to review and then the next slide just kind of gives you some breakdown uh we saw the largest increase in variance over two years is for white students at tusin Driven primarily by the over representation of white students at tusin due to the additional assignments of these students to tusin due to the sibling priority at Clinton there's a slight over representation of Hispanic students likely due to the elll students there and an underrepresentation of white students and in self-boarding similarly self-boarding continues to be over represented among black students and under represented among white students and in table 11 the next slide is another slide that you can uh review uh when we post the presentation but kind of gives you all of those numbers the next slide is background on grade two 20 23 24 was the first year in which we implemented grade 2 in Tri again self boying there's a small Improvement overall average of SCS variance across schools uh there and in South Mountain there's a somewhat of a over representative representation represented in terms of High sces tier of those students there next slide is table 12 the next slide this just gives you more information on grade two next slide is table 13 that you can check out on your own and now we move to the middle school here are some key results from my middle school in ation efforts the 23 24 school year was the second year in which sixth graders were assigned with the algorithm to either Maplewood Middle or South Orange uh as is done with Elementary grades they are part of the algorithm a part of the algorithm K first and second students were pre-assigned if they had a sibling require specific service for educational support or or multilanguage Learners tables 14 and 15 compare the sces and racial ethnic distributions across both middle schools the next Slide the goal was accomplished this year as the share of students assigned by algorithm and assigned to their closest school increased from 89% last year to 94% this year and the next slide which is table 14 it was highlighted in some of the statements that I made earlier and then there's table 15 this is the School the large majority 88% of the students were assigned to their close to school including 94% of those assigned by the algorithm next slide um is another table and then next slide deals with withraw withdrawals in sixth grade go back to the previous slide on the table this is again shows the distance from schools and you can see the tier the mile tier here the impact on certain ethnic groups and uh what that looks like compared the comparison between this year and 2223 and go to the seventh grade middle school key results there we go 2324 was the first year in which the algorithm was used for seventh graders table 17 and 18 show sces and racial ethnic dist distribution of this year's seventh graders uh of this year seventh graders and Compares it with the same student cohort when they were sixth graders both sces and racial ethnic variances for each School remain very low and well within the plus or minus 5% range next slide of tables 17 and 18 and finally review and recommendations first these recommendations reflect the year three recommendations from the ALS group some recommendations have already been implemented completed kindergarten registration process should ideally begin in February with round one assignments being made in early April it was noted that in 2223 school year the district did provide data earlier than the previous year the district's early registration dates this year for kindergarten are February 20th and March 8th complete the district has made significant process progress in identifying students that are pre-assigned especially those that are eligible for sibling priority which has reduced the number of Corrections needed to be made later completed recommendations that the ALS group and the district work collaborating to assign students to grade three as part of the deala Bolding Marshall unpairing and develop a timeline for 2425 year assignments also completed leaders in the school district District met with the AL group to develop a timeline and work plan for 2425 and also completed uh the AL group Mets with the triple team in January to go over timelines for the Dila bold and Marshall unpairing Rising sixth graders and kindergarten placement next slide we completed uh as recommended by the consultant a self-reported on students family annual income parents highest educational attainment level and household compositions were collected for the 2324 school year for students newly registered and we completed that there was there wasn't any self-reported sces information obtained for students who are currently enrolled in the prek program The District prek class information will be collected for 2425 allowing the ALS group to evaluate the self-reported data in the context of the 2425 assignment algorithm and the next slide talks about some ongoing work that we're doing house group did meet with Dr Fergus on February 27th the AL group met with Transportation on March 11th and we have a follow-up meeting coming up uh and in a previous memo dated October 9th the Consultants made a number of recommendation concerning the policy and implementation including the need for appointed dedicated weight list manager who will report directly to the superintendent and the ability to run and analyze beta test based on the 23 to 24 data is recommended that these be resolved before impling before implementing the weight list and then withdrawal data is recommended that the dis provide real time withdrawal information to the ALS group this procedural recommendation will enable the consultants and the district administrators to identify all available seats and make their integration assignments on a timely basis and facilitate the effective implementation of a future weight list program okay that was uh the triple I review speed speed version um at this time we'll stand for questions and Nancy and Michael are available for questions from the board board member ofy uh you have any preference on how you do this I have a bunch of questions I have each person ask one question so I mean I'll start with a comment first I mean obviously triple I is working which is good you know we see that the the schools sces and racial ratios are converging to those of the Two Towns which is which is great I mean every school is a neighborhood school so let me pick the most important question um we're two years away from inter the II kindergarten going into middle school do we have a plan on which middle school they would attend will we be running the algorithm again when they go from fifth grade to sixth grade are you asking if the the the the current yeah so currently what we do is we run the trip algorithm for kindergarteners right and we also do it for fifth sixth graders right now in 2 years the kindergarteners who started there will naturally graduate from fifth grade to sixth grade right at that point how will the middle school be allocated will you run the algorithm again will there be a natural grouping saying Clinton tuskan and Seth boen go to MMS and whatever you go here because they all integrated so now it doesn't matter which school they go to absolutely so we have not had the conversations in terms of what that plan is going to look like but Nancy and Michael I will you heard what the question is what are your thoughts around with that process and that planning would look like as we prepare for those kindergarten kids those students to be will they be placed back in the algorithm as they move from fifth to sixth grade well again I've been doing this for many many years and typically as you transition up from elementary if you have middle schools that obviously the first option you want to maintain your socioeconomic integration which clearly is having a positive racial imp impact and so what we could we probably end up recommending again is how we approach things looking at one option which would be adjusting the algorithm so that you get assigned perhaps to the Middle School nearest your home for your SCS tier and maybe entertain any other options that the district and the board would like to explore but again the way that we proceed uh with with our planning we certainly would beta test any option but right now it seem to me the strong option would be just to continue along with the algorithm because you have two middle schools and you got to live closest to either one or the other but again there could be other other ways to do this uh but um again we're two years away and so obviously it would be prudent to begin thinking about that and maybe uh put together some options that could be tested thank you so I did write down here that I think the recommendation is that we start thinking about the two-year process on what that looks like going forward and if I heard Mr Al correctly He suggests that we do that now okay board member eer I just want to add to that cuz seems like at least on this side of the Horseshoe Arun picked the the best the most popular question um is that you know given you know given the the age and the timing you know the social uh emotional aspect of it you know obviously be factored into that decision making process um so Arun had taken mine this is more of a comment and it's timely because kindergarten placements went out for next year um you know looking at the review of recommendations that the round one assignments be made in ear April you know we are now at late May um I understand that there has been coordination with ptas and hsas on orientations um and I wonder if there could things could be tightened up a little bit you know I I have to admit for for myself as an individual it was easy for me because I already have a child at a school so I knew to a certain degree that my son was going to go there and I'm able to arrange my schedule to attend the virtual orientation however I believe there may be one or two next week that may be challenging for parents so just as we look into next year and the timing of placements um you know hopefully we can get them out a little bit more in that early or late April timeline thank you for Meer thank you um so I have a question about uh sort of the the fundamental data that we're using to make these placements uh we know from looking at all the past reports that we're using sces data uh that comes from the 2019 American Community survey uh and obviously you know we keep advancing from that date we've seen all the housing Trends uh uh mid and postco we know that that data is probably older and older uh I believe there is maybe a a mid decade update to that coming through what is the expectation for uh how our district determines uh the SES that we're using to uh assign students based on those uh block groups yeah I think I could I think I could address that um just to give a little bit of information normally the Census Bureau uh from which We Gather the data the American Community survey data recommend that change looking at changes over time is only done every five years um for various reasons having having to do how that data is combined the American Community survey is actually collected every year but for data that is down to the census tract or the census block group level which is what we use that data is aggregated over fiveyear time periods so in order to get a large samp large enough sample size to give you valid data so they recommend that you don't use overlapping fiveyear periods which means normally we would not probably be updating our um census sces data for another year or so however if there is an um strong belief that there is changing demographics in the community we certainly could do it this upcoming year that's something that is very very doable um so that's one part of the answer the other part of the answer is as was mentioned this is the first year that we were getting a substantial amount of data that's self-reported from parents actual family data we've only received that data for the first time for a substantial number of the families about three weeks ago um we have it for about I think 87% of the of the kindergarten families that we just received um that was really not enough time for us to think about modifying our entire process for this current assignment round but that is something we're definitely going to be doing over the next couple months to look how how we might integrate self-reported family data into the algorithm so two different things One is updating the block group census data which we certainly could do in the next year and the other is how to integrate the self-reported sces data which we'll be evaluating and beta testing over the next couple months Wilson um thanks for that question board member Meyer I had a similar question and now I have a followup which is for the self-reported data would that be validated so and and like validated by looking at the S sorry I should be talking in the mic not looking at you but yeah would that be validated by looking at the Census Data as well to verify that parents are self-reporting correctly thank you let me speak first what the sensus data uh as you all know is not about individual people it's a statistical analysis of people who lived in the geographic area of a block group but it is very reliable the difference is I began self-reporting data back in Champagne Illinois about 2007 and the Reas reason for that is to give parents the opportunity to identify for their own family um their um income the bracket in terms of their gross income also of course the educational level and other information that we would collect that is correlated with socioeconomic status and so really the two different sets of data but there are ways that we've been of course correlating this what's I find probably the most most important self-reported data uh is really the highest education level of the of the parents or whoever is raising the children uh that today in particular um is is is information that is certainly highly correlated with at least the perception of socioeconomic status that parent that teachers would have of children um I think and of course the income data but again this is um but there are there is again it's two separate pieces of information one is about the individual family which is selfreported the other is simply the area and Nancy can explain that better than I ever can from the geographic area of the block group census however both are valid I think for purposes of at least being able to identify the potential SC tier want to add to that I would just say that we will be using uh the data that we have for some students we have information on economic disadvantage that is based on documents they've submitted around free and reduced lunch eligibility um we'll also look at some spatial patterns at the extent to which children uh families of different sces um uh tier are clustered spatially as well as looking at some of the underlying Census Data although as Michael says census data is really based on on the broader neighborhood not on individual um uh families but of course there are correlations between those two things so we'll be looking at a number of different pieces of data to try to to verify what's been reported quick footnote and champagne it was interesting it was the black African uh Comm African-American community in their attorneys who insisted on the self-reported because if you know Illinois most of the black families in champag came down from Chicago and they never trusted the Census Data from Chicago and so but yeah but that's just some background to it but I have found that the self-reported information is extremely valuable and the way that we collect it we're it's not intruding in the uh you know into people's lives and but again especially it gives you I think a better sense in terms of the especially the highest level of Education from the parents or the Guardians uh and again but we need now to be able to analyze the information we got this year as we begin to incorporate it into next year thank you so board member Whit letter board sa cable and then board c um can you walk us through the work that you've done with our transportation department to increase route efficiencies for next year so that that is a that that's excellent question and again as superintendent mentioned earlier this is simply uh a work in progress we had a very good uh meeting meting with Transportation especially encouraged by their new uh routing software and that is uh we're going to be having followup meetings with them and discussions in terms of how we can better interface uh with transportation and also the new system that you have but right now there's nothing definitive that we have been that we've worked on or finalized yet Nancy I think that's pretty ACC and just to add to that so the next meeting that we have with the ALS group in transportation is a clearly identify the timeline when they will be we're moving to a new software for routing Versa Tran and we have already committed to uh allowing the ALS group to have access to that Versa Tran routing system so they can start beta testing of the routing uh the routing system with the work that they do for implementation and usage for not with this group but next year's kindergarten placement so our plan is to get them that software sometime over this summer so they can begin interfacing it so they can begin beta testing what that would look like for implementation for next year's kindergarten roll out of using uh the Versa trans software so I guess this is more of a district question Dr Gil but um the report noted that many of the late kindergarten registrants um primarily black students and students of low SCS were assigned particularly far from their homes and there could be many reasons for late registrations um and I just wanted to add that I know years ago there was a push to get families especially um not at the district preschools but um the preschools or daycares that are still within our area to to get their get the families to register earlier for kindergarten I'm wondering if that sort of Outreach might be useful again or possible or if it's already happening yeah definitely we we we Tred to uh increase our Outreach in terms of family registrations each year uh those numbers definitely tend to suggest that we should probably do a little bit more in making sure that we get to those families and so we can get them registered uh uh as as quickly as possible one thing I will say that's probably going to help us a little bit in cutting down some of that travel time is that I talked a little bit about like the right sizing we had to do across the district and would also entail moving sections and so we are going to probably have a couple of more kindergarten sections in Seth boen which now will open that up to kind of help alleviate some of those distance travel times uh as as well too and so it is a work in progress and uh something that we're going to continue to work towards we're all on the same wavelength because that was very much my question but I guess the followup I would add um to that would be with that disproportionality in late registration do we have a sense of what those factors are is it is it that there is an Outreach issue is this due to moving um and I guess in terms of the communic ation issue is this something we can also work I guess with our preschool programs um to to help address and and use that and leverage the places where we we know some kids might already be assigned to improve our Outreach to those families I'll commit to working with uh Miss wble who's over our Registration Department as well as they've been working collaboratively with uh Mr Johnson who's over our prek program this year exclusively in terms of making sure we were on the same pages in terms of the kindergarten placements and so yes so part of that work will continue for us to kind of dig into the data and see what what's happening there and see what the ways we can help mitigate that so I have a question about I guess sibling priority I guess we noted that there are significant numbers for students that are placed um due to S um sibling priority and I was interested in knowing do we differentiate between students that are are based on having an older sibling that has not been placed by the triple ey or are there are they just a younger sibling that um their older sibling has been placed by triple I because I would consider those to be two different sets of students um if you have an older sibling that was tra placed by triple I then you were kind of also placed by triple I but then you're going to go to that same school due to Sibling priority so I want to know if that is something that we look at when we look at the data Michael and Nancy you want to take that I would say at this point we don't do any separate analysis between those who um have a sibling priority based on having a sibling who was placed through triple ey versus those that were not placed through triple ey if that's was something of Interest that's something that we could do the information that we provided is just for all all students who get a sibling priority whether or not their sibling was placed through triple I or not some background uh began with Cambridge in 1981 when put together the control Choice plan there and right away sibling priority was a major issue in the community and uh in of course it's a important what we do uh but as Nancy says we don't make a distinction all it is is is the verify fact that they they have an older child in the school then they will be attending the school the rising kindergarten child at the same time but again as Nancy says this if this is the concern is something to explore right now we don't make a distinction as long as the district can validate that the older sibling is is attending the school and will be there when the younger child from kindergarten enters yeah I guess I was just asking more in the sense that it helps contextualize the triple lines show how there are shifts so when we first started we knew that there were lots of students that were placed through sibling priority just because their older sibling was already there so they were not a student that you could say was placed and then we can see I guess the increase in the number of students that are placed through triple I right Bo M Meer thank you so in uh I was looking at uh specifically side 27 which is talking about grade one variances but it's a larger question really we have several groups that we are assigning prior to Triple assignments um you know we mention here of course we have sibling priority uh we mentioned that at Clinton School there's elll students there uh Seth Boyen um well and actually there's several schools where we have special education assignments uh for special classes especially that are happening before triple ey so I guess my question is really a mechanical question about our algorithm are we factoring in the uh resulting sces or racial makeup from those preliminary assignments before we're running the rest of the triple I and the nodding heads I guess the answer is yes to that yes okay well I guess I'll I'll take the rest of my time then for a a followup you know so I've noticed and I think that others the community have noticed you know for the public to understand the intricacies of how our algorithm works right now it's a process of going to our micro site and pulling up a few different uh memos and and uh PowerPoint decks to see how the pieces are working but we don't really have publicly it written down in any one specific Place uh I guess with regard to the way the algorithm is working uh is it is it in a stable place right now where between between yourself and the district it could be articulated in a master document that could live as a regulation or similar so that any member of the public could clearly go and understand this is Step ABCD of how our kids are being placed right now um so we we've had this conversation we can definitely uh work with the AL group to get the wording and put the algorithm processes in a regulation with our policy so that the public can see it and the will we will have it available for you so that is definitely something we can we can try to make sure we have happen okay I just wanted to follow on that previous question sorry I having trouble unmuting um certainly about the placement of students after the pre-assignment so we we pre-assign all the students that we have at that time of of of um enrollment and look at what is the distribution of sces across each school and then we calculate what needs to be the additional number of sces students for each sces tier that we can then assign to uh through the algorithm to maintain relative balance so yes certainly um we take into account the SCS distribution of those students that are pre-assigned first before we assign the other students all right just in the interested time if there any further questions from the board we we'll have you for them to Dr Gilbert um we can have the AL group answer them and then we can make that viewable to the public and then we can just move on to our next presentation did you hear that Michael and Nancy the the board is going to send me their remaining questions and then you all are good at answering those and then we're going to put them on the public website so that the community can see what the board's questions were and they can see the responses okay all right thank you both we really appreciate you you I just want to say working with the South Orange Maplewood district for me anyway is is an honor and I commend the community again for their commitment to equity and integration yeah really I'm very serious about that I've been at this for a long time and uh I'm very proud to work with you thank you very much Nancy I would just say same thing it it really has been wonderful to work with all the administrators and you know we looked at some information about what's happened in the last two years or so we have some bouncing around anytime when you have um year-to-year changes with with our results but the really impressive our results are how you compare what we've done under triple I with what was previously done with under the um attendance zones and it is a d increase in integration uh both in terms of socioeconomics and racially and that is something to be PR proud of all right now move on to the triple I survey presentation good night Nancy and Michael thank you very much all right everybody stay safe good night thank okay as part of this presentation and we're going to try to do this as quickly as can I'm G ask uh Miss Carrie wble to join us at the front so per our policy we are to do a survey of our families on on how they are experiencing our families and our students on how they are experiencing the survey this presentation again will be made available to you all in the public so miss W's not going to go through each and every one of the the graphs and things we're just going to kind of get to the information uh and what the board you've had this so you can ask us any questions we'll be ready to uh talk about it first slide policy 5120 the sign of students gives you the parameters for the experience surveys we have to do it in January and may however and Miss W's going to talk about it we did get permission from the board to move the second part of the survey to the end of June because For the First Time Ever all of our schools are doing the New Jersey climate survey also known as NJ sky and our schools are in the middle of doing that so for the this year you all will be getting NJ Sky data on all of our schools our elementary and our middle and our high school next slide just some highlights for you for for our families over 85% of our families recognize the diversity of their school their child's classroom over 90% of families feel that it is not hard for their child to be accepted at school uh 94% of our families state that their children are able to feel connected to at least one adult at this school next slide for students some highlights are 92% of our students feel that the student body is diverse 87% of our students feel that the staff and school encourages students to learn about people from different races ethnicities and cultures and 84% of our students disagree with it's hard for students to like me to be AC or to be accepted it's hard for students like me to be accepted at this school and so before I turn it over to miss wble to go through this miss eer you will be happy to know that you are going to see that these data is broken down demographically you've been asking and we have we have provided y okay very good Carrie okay am I good oh pull loud okay uh next slide and one more so I just wanted to pick out a few highlights in in this sentence so uh in this paragraph So surveys from families um allow us to really value the input and also inform the decision making process for us and it's really important that we are collaborative and partners together so what we will use this information to do is to create and support the work in the diversity equity and inclusion strategic plan as we are looking at things like curriculum and school climate and so these this information is really helpful as we're in meetings making those decisions with teachers and principls and administrators um and climate teams which include our families um so that's why this information is so important next two slides so our family survey was taken by 219 families uh in grades k126 and 7 of course our kindergarten students all of our families got the survey and new families in 1 12 six and 7 and this is the demographic breakdown of the children of the parents who took the survey uh next slide and Keith we're probably GNA move through these so what you're going to see and I'm just GNA pick on this one for a moment um I love the fact that 70 75 over 75% of all of our families think that um their child's school is diverse but having this demographic data is really important because you're what you'll see is you'll notice that 23.81% of our black families disagreed with that statement right which is a significantly different number than the rest of the demographics so that's where it's really important for us to identify what people are saying and feeling across across the demographics and that will help inform our work and understand who is feeling this diversity why why not what what might we need to add to curriculum what might what Affinity groups might we need to add so all things like that um are really important to look at the Nuance in the data so that's why it's really great that we broke it down demographically the next 20 slides are going to go through uh each one of the questions so this is is my classroom diverse the next one is it's hard for my child to be accepted the next one is are there tensions between students of different backgrounds uh connected to one adult the school staff cares about my children the administration cares about my children the school staff understands my children's culture and background uh the administration understands my child's culture and background the staff at the school encourage students to learn about people from different backgrounds races ethnicities and cultures uh ENC the administration is encouraging students to learn about different races ethnicities and cultures my children see themselves in their lesson they're receiving proper supports to achieve grade level Benchmark I feel engaged with this school I'm treated with respect School staff reach out to families School administration reaches out to families what uh we experienced hardship because of integration I feel proud to belong to the school community so I do believe I'm a big qualitative data person and so we combed through for our family survey um every question had a place where you were able to uh to make a comment and so we did pull out um several several that I think um give an understanding of what people are feeling so um I would like to read these so my child is the only black child in several of his classes notably pre-algebra we've had a lot of warm interactions with teachers and staff there are a handful of teachers that have reached out to me about my child's progress and problems in their class I really appreciate every time they do uh regarding hardships yes but this has been greatly improved with the bus next slide oh I'm going to read that from mine uh the transition support for students from 5ifth to 6th was very helpful very diverse is a strong phrase I think some characteristics are more diverse than others this integration program should include moving all students from across town to different schools not just a portion of the black students to different areas and then I think that the district hasn't done enough to help support families through this transition and have particularly witnessed white families struggling with their own white fragility this shows up as a perceived loss of privilege not being able to walk to Neighborhood school being separated from other children going to their school and lack of openness to engaging with other bipac families in our PTA it's looked like black women in particular feeling excluded from the organization by the leadership holding tight to the way things have always been done this is something I'd like the Boe and the district to Think Through how are we equipping our families in diverse spaces without causing harm specifically to Children of color so we're going to go to the next slide this is our student participation we had 485 students participate um um from the from the middle school and again we're just going to go through um each slide briefly and then we'll have uh some additional at the end our student body is very diverse my classroom is very diverse it is hard for students like me to be accepted there are tensions between students of with different backgrounds and identi ities I feel connected to at least one adult in this school I believe staff at this school cares about me staff at the school understands my culture and background administration at the school understands my culture and background administration at the school encourages students to learn about people from different races ethnicities in cultures I see myself reflected in my lessons I am included in lots of activities at my school I am included oh sorry repeat slide next I am treated with as much respect as other students School staff reaches out to my family School staff reaches out next slide School ad Administration reaches out to my family I feel proud to be part of the school okay so approximately 130 students made comments on the survey I about 1/4 of the student participants um students Express their Ates about the school positive School experiences with teachers uh and statements such as fun cool and making new besties that was my favorite um some student Express frustration over assumptions made about their nationality or ethnicity um they advocate for more cultural education in the curriculum to to promote understanding and awareness um some students are concerned about social divisions along racial or cultural lines as well as instances of bullying or derogatory langu language and some students emphasize the more the importance of inclusivity and kindness and I will say they they really had some uh wonderful sophisticated um thoughts about their school and what they'd like to see and I was really impressed by all of that um it should be noted that there are discrepancies in how students and families from different racial and ethnic backgrounds answered survey questions as we talked about before um therefore although question may have an overall positive number it's important to examine the breakdown um some students do not see themselves reflected in the curriculum this was most apparent with black Hispanic and Asian students some students feel that there are tensions between students of different backgrounds this was evident across race and ethnicity next slide uh some families disagree regarding statements with staff and School administration reach out to my family to make sure to ensure we feel welcomed and valued uh some families felt it was hard for their children to be accepted at school this was evident most evident in our with our black families some students feel the schools not reaching out to families this was evident across race and ethnicity so it's always important when you look at this data to think what are we going to do with it instead of just having it sit in a box so we are looking at next steps um so first would be to engage in professional learning around culturally responsive practices with staff teachers and administrators um so to do this we are re-engaging first in our restorative justice work uh where we had three recent uh meetings for families to come to and we're planning out what that looks like also we're supporting social emotional learning at all School levels so we've done some work in K5 this year we're working with uh 612 also and our coaches are already starting to they've already started to implement culturally responsive teaching in their practice but it's going to be part of the coaching framework moving forward starting this summer um we also want to make sure that we're building a culturally responsive curriculum so as you know we're in the middle of preparing audits um our Ela was the first to be completed and so that information for our culturally responsive audit will be will be provided to our curriculum writers so that our curriculum writers can Infuse more culturally um culturally responsive um teaching into the curriculum itself more diversity more understanding of different um backgrounds and cultures finally our climate teams take a really active role in supporting the school climate in the school so Equity work is key to that success um our Equity teams have started engaging in work a little differently this year so they're supporting um the integration of climate goals and our K5 um our new climate data so we're talking about we're now doing uh NJ sky for our climate that Dr Gilbert was talking about so that data along with the survey data will help guide those CL climate goals this year which is really exciting um next slide um engaging in one of the things we noticed is that we want to continue to engage families with culturally responsive practices so that is one of the areas that's in our strategic plan so culturally responsive family engagement lifts up all voices voices that may not have been lifted up previously um creating more opportunities to engage with our families in learning in true partnership so that's something that we're really working on as we work through our strategic plan um and we've recognized the importance of working with qualitative data um and so there's there has been and there will be continued concerted efforts to lift lift up voices through empathy interviews and focused groups so we have one planned next week with our Middle School all around Affinity groups and clubs that they have or that they'd like to see to further this work um finally this year our principles have have uh created Family engagement goals and next year the family engagement goals will use this survey data in order to support what they're going to make the goal around so we're excit oh excuse me we're excited about that and that's it I'll stand for questions thank you Miss wble thank you for member gford thank you so much for that presentation and we really do appreciate all the work you do um you know the the one number I mean for for the black families it was definitely um you know to see that 20% kind of average for for not feeling like their child is understood is is alarming but the the Hispanic number is was really alarming there was a couple where um the administration at this school un understands my child and it was 100% uh disagree for for a couple of those so you know I I don't think I'm can get an explanation from you right now what we can do in the near term it it does concern me that we had to cut so much from materials so I do wonder how much you can do in the near term but I would think that that that's something that we should focus on kind of like almost like an emergency if families are feeling like that so that that's just one thing that was a little alarming to see that yeah one of the things we're doing in June is we have our curriculum writers in um for professional learning and they put things into the curriculum and so we've noticed a few areas where we definitely want to focus in that being one of them to make sure that our curriculum writers are putting resources in because I don't want teachers to say oh I need this but now I have to go find it right and so we want to put resources in there that can help support so that our families can see themselves in the curriculum uh which is really important so that's one way we can we can address that fairly immediately but I agree thanks I just want to ask a quick follow up to that because I did have a question about that too looking at the disparity between the Hispanic latinx um students and that sense of belonging um do we ever collect any data about I guess what language is spoken at home to see if there is some sort of discrepancy in how families feel integrated into our school system whether they speak Spanish or French at home we we don't collect that on this survey although we can look at that for for our next uh iteration is to do to do language because I can certainly see that uh a student may feel as though you're not engaging my family because you don't really um have materials for us and I know that we have materials in other languages but perhaps that could be one of the reasons why some students don't feel as engaged or as included I I also want to point out that um that was the the the group of the least amount of surveys so if there's for example in one of these questions it was two families that answered that were from a Hispanic background and so if one person says disagree it's 50% um and that not that that's not significant right because that's a voice that may not be heard especially if there's only two but that just to know a little bit more about the data I'm echoing what oh sorry did you B Meer Deval Wilson C sorry thank you um so thank you so much for this data and I know this is the first time I think the the third round of the survey that we've had uh publicly is the breakdown by race and ethnicity which is a huge help and it totally changes the interpretation uh what you can see versus round two uh I think we probably have the data the same data uh for round two with uh rth and necessity I'd be very curious to see the uh tracking responses over time to see what trends there have been I don't know if we can get all the way back to round one but to you know we're running this survey not necessarily expecting that everything is going to show up as perfect we need to know where the problem areas are to have the interventions as you've discussed but being able to see what has gotten better or worse over time would be really helpful uh but the other piece as you mentioned is the response rate uh I'm trying to understand here and I may have missed when you mentioned before it looks like there were 296 responses in round one of the survey 41 responses in round two of the survey uh am I correct on slide eight that it's 213 responses this time or is that not a full accounting it is 200 well 29 family surveys were filled out okay and so and people can click more than one if there's more so you might be from two different races but you didn't choose multi you may have chosen your two different so if there's a discrepancy that might have been why yeah so we've we've had only half the responses this time around as the last survey is that yeah I don't have the last survey data with me I just yeah I S yeah right as far as what I can tell it seems to say that there were 419 filled out versus 296 in round one so I guess my question is it feels like across the board but especially in um you know for our black population our Hispanic population where these response numbers are way below their uh proportionate representation in the district we need to have a lot better Outreach and I guess I wonder what we did in this case what we may not have done that we did last time and how we can boost those numbers so that we are fully understanding where where our you know our Focus are are um feeling yeah yeah I was just going to say I think one of the big differences is a smaller window of opportunity this time I think in the last surveys we did last year we kept the window open a lot longer because we tried to experiment with doing some especially with the second round of it we tried to experiment with doing some different things to generate interest including having computers set up here at the board meetings for people who wanted to come and so we that's that's always the um the the catch on how do we how can we try to make sure we get our families to participate uh and I will say that I am I am concerned because we did Implement a larger range on our NJ Sky survey this time I am concerned about survey fatigue and so one of the things we are going to try to examine just giving you a sneak peek is can we use the NJ sky platform to give us the same kind of information to understand about triple ey so we are going to be that's another reason why I wanted to expand it this time so we can do our own kind of beta test to see if we can gauge experiences from that that way we we we got one survey instrument that gives us multiple perspectives and allows us to use it fully which would mean we would do the NJ Sky twice to fulfill that requirement but uh so that's one of the things we want to look at because survey fatigue is actually a real thing and I just have to say I am thrilled that we are expanding NJ Sky down to the elementary school I think it's really important and I agree that information could you know easily overlap so uh I am hoping the district is doing everything possible I know I spotted it in my email but it doesn't necessarily flash out so to get as many of those responses as possible I want to skip the line um so yes thank you so much for all that for all that you've done and just piggybacking on what some of my other um board colleagues have said about the Hispanic and black families um we have also discussed the fact that this can be a cultural thing as well and that they might that some families just might not feel comfortable doing a survey and I think we need to evaluate what are other ways to reach our families I'm curious if in the comment sections if any of our Black Or Hispanic or Asian families gave any ideas or any more comment that could support um additional support for them and um because my concern is that I'm glad that we have these action items and are going to be building family engagement goals but if we're not engaging those families to really know what they need how do we know that it's going to be adequately supporting them um are there other ways are there other um strategies that we can use either through our PTA through the principal through the teachers to be able to have some more conversations maybe it's I don't know if this is a bad idea but even during parent teacher conferences there there's a portion of getting some type of feedback um because this is our third well actually it's our second year doing the survey and the responses are pretty similar to last time although now we have the racial breakdown to back up what we were assuming which was that our students of color are not feeling like they're fully being served and I love surveys but I don't know if a Sur another survey is going to give us all of the information we need versus face-to-face conversations thank you so just to answer that I I agree with you and I think that's where that qualitative information really comes out is doing family focus groups and asking interview questions face to face or on the phone um and doing that Outreach which is which is significant and important and gives you voices that you wouldn't you know because people are busy and don't have time to answer a survey um but if they if you connect with them and you say look I I I value your opinion can you please answer these three questions um you know that Personal Touch I think is really important and something that we're we're already planning for for September and if I could just also add you'll also find when we give you the draft of the diversity equity and inclusion strategic plan part of that goal is student and family engagement so what that is actually one of the Prime areas that we're going to cover so how do we make this data live and be part of our fabric uh is by making it part of our strategic plan to expand diversity equity to be very intentional about how we reach those families hi thank you so much this was um really compelling data to look at um one of the things uh there was a slide where we talked about tensions in schools between students with different backgrounds and there we saw pretty consistent data across that most about half or more of students across all of different ethnicities did agree with that and kind of Co that there was that tension um and so I think you talked a bit about social emotional learning the work and coaching I know we're using Castle um I know they've made some strides to be more culturally responsive within their framework so just wondering if you could walk us through a little bit of like what does the coaching and development look like for our teachers and then also specifically how does that kind of live out in the classroom so what is currently being implemented what does it look like what is kind of happening on the ground in terms of social emotional learning sure so uh this this year we had uh Miss Dr cray and I had 20 teachers come for a a six Monon um once a month training uh using Japanese lesson study so teachers create lessons and go in each other's classes evaluate those lessons um and we did that all around the indicators of Castle so the five indicators of social emotional learning um and that was really successful they have asked to continue that Network they are going to be the experts in the field that are supporting social emotional learning in all of the elementary schools next year um and what we're hoping to do is capitalize on that morning meeting period um which they have every day but um really kind of capitalize on on that to support social emotional learning direct instruction but also in social emotional learning especially in K5 you need direct instruction it needs to be integrated into the curriculum so so when you're reading about a particular character are you identifying um you know oh that that child really had a hard decision to make and let's look at all the ways that he could have made that decision or they could have made that decision and so in putting it into the curriculum but also putting into your school and classroom practices um and so we've looked and outlined all the ways we can do that um and so that's the work going on um in K5 um and uh at their suggestion Dr Gilbert and I talked about it and agreed we're going to do some morning meeting uh professional learning next year and so that's what that will look like which I think is really exciting uh specific to six uh 6 s and 8 um we'll be using a social emotional learning program in The Advisory period that's different from what they've used in the past um that's uh the wayfinder program and so there's uh direct instruction there as well um and and those are really great and I think it's really important to note that that um there's five competencies in Castle and one of the one of the problems with social emotional learning in equity is that we focus on self-regulation right we don't focus on um social awareness social interaction right and so it's really important that's some of the equity work that we've been doing with the teachers uh specifically in the group is social emotional learning is not just learning how to sit in your seat and and follow directions right and that's the Trap that a lot of schools get into um and so we're making a conscious effort to bring in that Equity work so that our social emotional learning is culturally responsive you're welcome any other questions all right a point a point of personal privilege I just want to thank Miss wble for stepping in and uh doing this work if Community is wondering how we were able to keep our access an equity work moving when I move from being assistant superintendent to Acting Superintendent you're looking at it in the flesh Miss Cary wble has stepped up and has really been a tremendous help to me and to this district and so miss wble I just want to thank you for your work and we aren't done yet we got a lot more work to do going forward also the question was raised before we get out of triple ey what we did we do any Outreach for registration in our prek now answer is yes we did do intentional Outreach in our prek I got to look at my phone quicker thank you thank you Miss W thank you everyone all right all right next will be the business administrators update all right and I guess we'll do the board president's update right good evening everyone tonight we reviewed the year three progress of the intentional integration initiative or triple I this initiative has been instrumental in ensuring that our schools reflect the diversity of our community as this program continues I want to emphasize that it is the board's intention to support the work of the Alves Group which is critical to the successful integration of our schools ultimately our goal is for any classroom in our district to truly reflect our community diversity it is essential that we support this program and ensure that the original intent of this work continues without any barriers this initiative is not only worthwhile but also the most pragmatic approach for advancing equity in our school district we look forward to the continued benefits triple I provides for our schools another topic raised was the idea of conducting a forensic audit of the past three years as mentioned in our last board meeting this discussion was scheduled for our fft meeting prior to that meeting I consulted with both the district administ ation and board counsel for more insight in New Jersey a forensic audit is governed by the school district fiscal accountability act I reviewed njsa 18a col 78-57 which references njsa 18a col 755 detailing eight criteria necessitating a forensic audit our district did not meet any of these criteria our board Council also found no legal basis for a forensic audit and our independent auditor confirmed these finding before fft committee I shared these insights with the entire board aside from some responses indicting they would review the matter no board member requested further action on a forensic audit nevertheless we held our discussion during the committee meeting the District administration also forwarded the proposed resolution to our independent auditor who estimated the cost of a forensic audit at $500,000 some of mentioned the nutly case but their forensic audit was triggered by findings from their independent auditor our independent auditor who has worked with both our current and previous business administrators found no basis for a forensic audit given these costs in the absence of any budget criteria necessitating a forensic audit we recommended not conducting one as a board we are committed to improving processes and I have already begun discussions with District administration to this end I look forward to enhancing our collaboration as we head into the new school year thanks you and now I'll read the board president's statement the school board meeting is a business meeting in public and not a meeting with the public often times it may appear to members of our audience that the Board of Education takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote before matter is placed on an agenda at a public meeting the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent of schools if the superintendent of schools is satisfied with the matter that the matter is ready to be presented to the Board of Education it is then referred to the appropriate board committee the members of the board committee will work with the administration and the superintendent to ensure that the members fully understand the matter after the committee discusses the matter it is then shared with the other board members for consideration only then is it placed on the agenda for board discussion and action at a public meeting so we'll have our hearing of individuals and delegations thank you for coming in person and dialing in by phone this evening the South L map Board of Education certainly respects that you've taken the time out of your busy day to address the board at tonight's meeting we value public involvement in our school district and we are eager to hear what you have to say the board does have timelines by policy and will be enforcing those to enable as many people to speak as possible this evening each individual will be given two minutes to speak please do your best to stay within the time afforded to you the first public comment period is usually limited to 1 hour and the second public comment period may be limited to 30 minutes all input share with the board of education is taken very seriously and will inform future deliberations and work by the Board of Education and his committees so for our first speak speaker we'll have Patrice masong good evening my name is Patrice massung and I'm a professional rights and responsibilities committee chair as well as the negotiations chair for SAA I am here to speak today about safety safety for the students and staff at Marshall Elementary last school year construction began at Marshall many changes have been made since that time including a change to where the students enter and exit the building for recess in the past students entered the building through the back door and the lunch monitors could use their swipe card reader to enter the building since the transition in January of 2023 students enter and exit the building using a side door this door has no access from the outside there is no swipe card reader to allow adults to re-enter the building or children how do children get in and out of the building at that time the door is propped open and a security guard who is usually stationed at the entrance of the building is moved to the side door during recess hours building administrators as well as SE leadership have repeatedly asked for a swipe card reader at that entrance how else can we protect students St from someone entering the building without prior authorization a prop door with a security guard at the entrance I don't know if you noticed as you walked into the building today but new swipe card readers have been installed at various entrances throughout this building along with the reader that was always at the main entrance new readers were added allowing entrance to each floor Marshall is still waiting there is another new one to allow entrance to the superintendent's office Marshall is still waiting and yet another new one to allow entrance to the office of the business administrator Marshall is still waiting while students are supplied with a prop door and a security guard this building has had many new Swip card readers installed and for over a year Marshall is still waiting how long will we have to wait to ensure the safety of our staff and almost 500 5 to 9year Old students at Marshall schools how long would you wait thank you next we have Amy Henry tomor Deborah berer hi um good evening I'm Deborah B I'm a current teacher at D bolon School um I've already written to you about my involuntary transfer but I think it's only right that I'd speak in front of the public on my behalf I went into education to teach and make a difference and I know I have over the years I've received countless letters from parents that touched my heart the ones I got from students especially upon graduation are even more meaningful an example is when a former graduate told me that her essay to Princeton University where she was accepted was based on what I taught her in first fourth grade and it made me cry I guess I will continue to cry as after 23 years at D Bolton school I was informed that I would be teaching second grade at Marshall how this decision was made I don't know and it certainly does not use my talents the last time I saw a second grader was when my daughter who was about to be married next week was in second grade that was the same year that I began teaching a I Balden I want to tell you why I'm the wrong choice to teach second grade first of all I have not taught language arts the core of Elementary education I hope no one in this room has a rising second grader at Marshall you do not want me to be your child's reading teacher now I want to tell you why I am the right choice to teach middle school math as I wrote to you I've developed a weekly math enrichment for my students an entire group that meant once weekly until there was no more paper for me to copy it on I did this all on my own time I also create a rich math environment in my class I weave math into lesson so children can see the importance of all the subjects examples of this were emailed to you today in every subject I've taken hours of my time to create a rich learning environment for the children of the district next week you're all invited to come to Dila Balden and see my 45 students put on a play about the founding of the United States all my hard work I now feel has gone unnoticed by the district but not by the parents I'm I'm there are currently two opens openings at in middle school math one at Psalms and one at MMS positions that are open and do not require reshuffling people around I've requested to transfer to one of these schools because I want the best for the students at SSD and where I can use my expertise and I thank you for your time thank you next is Jan werman it's one hour public speaks and you only have five people online and like 10 people here that that's three minutes according to your rulle there's no back and forth that's fine why are we checking do they have been waiting two or three hour 4 hours to speak what hours but they're breaking their own rules is their right to speak the president decides they waited for 4 hours they're being transferred it is in our policy that public speaks unless we have a huge group of people that it's 2 minutes it is in our policy that it should be 3 minutes and an hour this is not a discussion period right now so missan waserman you will thank you do I have three minutes good evening my name is Jen werman and I'm a proud Clinton School first grade teacher of 13 years I have taught more than 25 years in total I am a hardworking committed creative and to be frank great teacher and doing what I do I am here in response to an HR letter dated May 23rd 2024 regarding a transfer from Clinton Elementary to deala Balden Elementary I understand the district is undergoing reorganization next school year and this move is part of that inti initiative however I was blindsided by your letter as per our contract involuntary transfers and reassignments are to be the result of joint agreement of the teacher and supervisor or principal and in all instances the teacher will be consulted before a final decision is made are there workarounds in contracts I'm sure so but just because you can doesn't mean you should I deserve the convers ation as a tenured employee of the district I am highly respected in Clinton School I consistently devote time and attention to the students families and staff I serve with that being said I am saddened to leave the multilingual program which I have been an integral part of for many years as an educator the work of collaborating with the multilingual teachers and families is greatly important to me Bridging the cultural competency within this community Clinton School is the only Elementary School servicing these families and with me they are successful you are stripping me of one of my greatest joys in teaching helping one of our most vulner vulnerable populations Thrive this District wants to lessen the achievement Gap keep me at Clinton and keep me in my position and let me do my work and teach my students as an aside please recognize that I remain here at this late hour I arrived at 6:30 that is a test to how important the Clinton Community is to me thank you next we have Barry dunfey just lower this can you hear me okay start the clock my name is Barry dumpy I'm a mom of two girls at Clinton Elementary I'm here to fight for Miss werman to stay at Clinton for her 14 year of service I have started a petition it already has 137 signatures to have her stay so this isn't just me speaking up here I want to say as an HR professional and executive I am horrified about how Miss waserman was treated and that protocol was not followed to receive a form letter with no notice and the Friday before the holiday weekend after 13 years of service to tell you to pack up and basically move your desk and ready for you know in August is atrocious I understand the board does not make Personnel decisions so I'm not holding any of you responsible for that but as the board you hold the superintendent accountable for the decisions he makes in this instance he is getting it wrong I urge all of you I'm not going to read the union policy because I'm going to run out of time but she just said it I'm asking for the board to do the following tonight follow the union protocol and postpone the vote on any Personnel changes because protocol is not being followed and number two after a postponement make an informed vote on what you are voting on asking you to reconsider voting 4610 to 4613 gives yourselves time to consider this devastating impact on the teachers and families at Clinton the teaching and learning impacts of these transfers will be devastating to the Clinton Community Miss wman is an intrical part we have had so many changes over the years so many kids visit her on a daily basis my daughter is in her grade right now kids come from all over to come and talk to her Clinton is the only multilingual school as she mentioned Miss werman has had years of experience working with his population an experienced multilingual teacher leaving Clinton right now is not the best for the district find another teacher for first grade this is not going to work and you do not have a big chunk of support from the Clinton you know um parents the only last thing I will say cuz my time is up I really hope you don't move forward with this tonight and think before this moves forward and wait till the new superintendent is here talk about it communicate overc communicate there's too much that's being done behind closed doors and and we don't know about it thank you next we have Lexi fiser my name is Lexie fiser and I'm the parent of a first grader at Clinton Elementary while I'm here in support of Jan waserman I want to be clear that this goes far beyond a single person or a single School your Administration extols listening to each other learning from each other and communicating with each other openly Dr Gilbert went so far as to conduct a listening tour when he began his interm role I really struggle to understand how the way these decisions were made and then communicated align with that Vision our community deserves answers to a lot of questions why was there no open call for teachers interested in a voluntary transfer why was the prospect of transfer not communicated before now why were teachers who were mandated to transfer not given the opportunity for dialogue about that decision and why were they not communicated with in person at any point throughout the process if the answers to these questions are not ones that you feel comfortable sharing publicly then let's acknowledge that maybe this wasn't the right approach I fully understand that difficult decisions need to be made that's unavoidable what is avoidable is treating teachers with an utter lack of dignity respect and professionalism for an educator who has given 13 years of service to a school to be subject to an involuntary transfer without so much as the opportunity to weigh in beforehand is unconscionable and it sets a precedent that contributes to a culture of distrust and instability and that's aside from just being obviously egregious breach in protocol Board of Education members I implore you to table a vote on these transfers until this breach and protocol is adequately addressed and until you have time to fully assess the far-reaching implications of this decision thank you next we have Tony mazaki colleagues I'm really disappointed these teachers did not get three minutes um for the budget one of many budgetary details normally not brought up too much is that of allowances also known as extras for district office Personnel specifically right now travel phone Etc these allowances are not super easy to track actually but when teachers are cut and supplies have been taken away from children I just came from the choir concert next door everybody they didn't even have lights they didn't have lights it is fair in that case uh to compare these expenditures so as far as allowances are concerned from your userfriendly budget you posted on the 10th District office Personnel received approximately 100 Grand in allowances this fiscal year up from 36k last year we've cut this much in student supplies and multiple areas uh Dr Taylor's allowances hovered around 10 to 12K during his time here he's received 21k this year while having been put on leave back in November we've been paying 6K of semester towards tuition for a district office admin they began receiving this T tuition Aid uh after only months in the position I saw via resolution for a total of 18K thus far plus over the past uh year which is equal to the cuts you made for every single child K through five in art and music supplies over the same period of time central office admin are receiving a 3.5% raise this year I approximate that to be close to 80 to 90k and for approval tonight I see 51k in more allowances for Conference travel for admin that you deemed in the resolution fiscally prudent uh I mean Optics alone on that one are really awful maybe these are the ARP funds you mentioned in the beginning Dr Gilbert but you also gave a budget presentation with no numbers and no PowerPoints so I don't know where that 900k is going but I know where that 51k is going so look I'm an administrator I get it but if you really meant to share the pain you should have Frozen your pay not tripled your allowances this year the rhetoric is not matching this reality I'd beg you to reconsider thank you next we have Rosio [Applause] Lopez Rio Lopez uh Maplewood resident Spanish teacher at Columbia High School and president of SOA um I put my name today not not sure if I was going to speak or not I don't have anything prepared per se but you know it's very clear that we're losing the humanity and the way we do things in this District like not talking to people that are going to be transferred beforehand and trying to see if there is any solutions like for example you have a math teacher over here that you want to put her to teach language arts and other subjects when she's an expert in math and when in math like crazy right now um among other people but we have a contract and we have a contract for a reason and I know it's your prerogative to make the decision at the end but at least follow the process have some respect for our contract you know how many hours we to negotiate and language is there for a reason so you can treat people with with respect you have lost the sense of respect about the Educators having my students taking an AP exam after the work that they have done a 3our and 15 AP exam and coming to the point that they only had seven iPads for all of them and they had to do it in turns of half an hour and my kids were there until 2 p.m since 7:30 that they were in the building no food if I didn't bring the snacks and the water they didn't even have anything to eat the point of that exam is you did your reading you did your audios you did your writing and then you're ready for your speaking if you make a loophole of two hours before you do your speaking how do you think they're going to come easy to speak so you just jeopardize maybe a little bit their grades seven iPads and we have money from the funds you just say we can use it in technology so why can't we buy the iPads for the kids for God's sake another thing that I wanted to say actually this is supposed to be three minutes and not two according to your own policies because we only have five people that are going to speak out here like in by media and we were only like six or seven people so you just say it's an hour public speaks so I want to finish saying these things in Columbia High School we don't have a schedule yet and I hope they're not changing the times because we're negotiating right now so I hope the times are follow in the in the um schedule that we're about to have and I please ask you to let us know before we go this summer what we're going to teach thank you because this is create an anxiety to all of us that is not needed we need to be prepared for next year we like to forecast we Educators like to forecast and the last thing is graduation so you know I ask you a favor for all of you please don't do not put a day of a school after graduation for the high school we like to go to graduation and so you know we go for free we don't get paid and you know it's not part of our contract like to go to graduation and then celebrate and you took that away from us because we have a school the next day thank you next we have David ler hi I'm uh Dave ler I'm uh the parent of a high school student and a middle school student student and I'm here to speak on behalf of Dr zarabi uh without his guidance and knowledge and caring um I'm not sure where my high school student would be right now uh before this meeting we were at a meeting at Columbia High School speaking about uh going to Scotland in 2025 and I know that she wouldn't feel comfortable going off on her own to another country with other students that maybe she doesn't know uh she was severely depressed uh had incredible anxiety and because of him and because of IEP but particularly because of him uh we really got our daughter back and I just think it's a shame that he's being moved and his expertise Keys is not going to be utilized uh he just spent so much time with her and speaking with my wife and I whenever we were uncomfortable uh it's just very disappointing that somebody who helped build such an important resource in our schools is being moved and is not going to be uh you know be able to help other students in the same way that he helped us um so I hope that that decision is not final uh I hope that it can be rectified um because he truly saved my daughter and I am so appreciative to him and the work that he's done and hopefully will continue to do thank you next we have Alan Wesson hi my name is Ally Wesson and I am here tonight to talk about the IEP program and you're probably not going to see a lot of people from the IEP program because it is a small program but the people and the kids who are there are there because they really really need it so that's what I wanted to talk about tonight our school Personnel are our greatest resource and that they're sitting on opposite sides and you guys aren't doing any of this together feels like something's really going pretty wrong here one of our single greatest resources in this district is isap and Dr zarabi and Santa Maria schz I'm glad the program is staying but we are doing a severe disservice to our children in removing current leadership the kids who are in the IEP program are there due to Great need and having a professional with such gifts as the head of this program is a credit to our district there are too many kids right now who need additional mental and emotional health support please do not take away the continuity of Care by moving him to another post and I hope you know I'm saying this is somebody whose kid has thank God graduated and survived to be able to go on to CHS but I know that in middle school I mean it's such a tough time and she needed that other kids need that please don't take that away and if we're worried about financials let's get real about it moving away this high standard of care is going to mean more kids going out of District that's a lot of money that we're paying to those schools a lot more money and evaluations potential legal battles with the parents who are going to fight for care and it also means it's going to be harder to retain these amazing individuals who have served our children because who wants to stay in a district where their work isn't valued and their wishes areconsidered our kids deserve care so please do the right thing for our children and keep Dr zarabi and Miss schz where we need them at SS in charge of the ISF program please reconsider tonight and reverse this shortsighted decision thank you next we have Jeffrey Bennett um before I say anything else um asking for things to change I want to point out that this year's triple I presentation comes at a much better moment for the district than last year in terms of the triple itself we now have busing for most distant placed elementary schools and a transfer process thank you to the board members and administrators who work to make this possible um what I was going to talk about was about that tonight was the need for a geographic analysis in the triple but Dr Gilbert actually gave me a geographic analysis that had been done by Michael alvas just wasn't included in the original year three recap report and I want to say thank you to Dr Gilbert for that and I hope you can put that on the web for everyone to read um just looking over it though the reason we needed a neighborhood by neighborhood Geographic analysis isn't Just for information sake it's to actually help I would think for transportation planning like with the data I now have that Dr Gilbert gave me I could see that you know of the 30 possible diads have kids we have between the elementary schools we have kids traveling on 28 of those um some of those kids may not be over the 1.25 mile threshold for busing but you can assume that we probably have like 25 busing diads here um some of them have very few kids like as few as like two kids um three kids so those are isolated placements and that might actually have had something to do with the busing Fiasco we had at the start of the year and the very long bus routs that we still have um I can't say more about that because of the time limits but I also want to ask if you guys to have an analysis of geographic placements for the prek which actually is done by a version of the triple I recently um learned um that's important budgetarily because we're going to be scaling up prek in the next few years there going to be more sites next year we might have a bus going to Village babies which we didn't have this year you know an untiered bus is $130,000 a tiered bus route is $65,000 so as we scale up prek and have more sites it is a budgetary commitment so the pre- busing policy we have should be seen as I think budgetarily unstable um from an overarching perspective I ask you to consider actually you know we have integration to the triple I but also want you to see it not in isolation in terms of like the budget in terms of actually how kids are doing emotionally and eventually academic results once we have some test scores in as to look at multiple Dimensions thank you very much thank you and we are supposed to have minutes according to policy 0167 thank you all right next we have th Joshua this is the normal [Music] thing hey I've never see myself on that screen before th Joshua South Orange New Jersey have two um children in the district uh didn't plan to speak to it this evening but wanted to thank Dr Gilbert uh earlier during his report he mentioned that there will be experienced teachers at Balden for first grade next year as well as Marshall at fourth grade um this is something that as a marshall parent was very important to me and I'm happy um that you know conversations and advocacy with Dr Gilbert has resulted in uh action being taken for the benefit of the Marshall students as well as the Balman family as well that's all I was planning to say but I've heard a lot of things and since I have a minute and 18 seconds left allow me to continue speaking I've heard some members from Sam's leadership advocating for um well let me not say advocating for freezing pay um something that they did not agree to during the covid pandemic I know this because Tony mazaki and I were on the board excuse me you did not speak when any other parent spoke do not speak when I speak thank you very much excuse me I would like my time back secondly I'm also hearing that there are advocacy for freezing pay at the for the administrators with a without any recognition that the administrators uh contracts are tied to ASA and so since their contract is not up until June 30th of 2025 they should be getting the allocated raises that they are um contractually obligated to lastly um I wanted to thank the board I know that this is a tough job for all of you um I advise you to continue to keep your head down and do the work there's a lot of noise in the community there's a lot of noise in the community there's a lot of noise in the community please tune it all out focus on the actual task that you have at hand and focus on the 7,000 students in the South Orange map School District thank you all have a wonderful evening all right we'll move on to our online public speaks um let we have Leslie [Music] Munoz Community member is not online all right can we get Kelly Solas that Committee Member is not online um yes yes yeah yeah she can can read it Jan waserman speaking on behalf of Kelly soless um also at Clinton School I am writing to express my deep concern regarding the proposed termination of the math academic interventionist at Clinton Elementary this decision will have a profound and detrimental impact on our most vulnerable students including our multilanguage Learners who rely heavily on the support and services provided by Mrs solace in that role removing this position will leave our most atrisk students without the support they desperately need along with putting additional stress on classroom teachers who will not have the support they need as well research consistently shows that early and consistent intervention is key to improving outcomes for vulnerable students by eliminating this position we risk exacerbating the difficulties these students face potentially leading to Higher Achievement gaps in mathematics the district's ratio between reading intervention and math intervention is 15 to2 doesn't seem Equitable I urge you to reconsider this decision and explore alternative solutions that do not compromise the well-being and future success of our students in mathematics the impact of this position on our students academic lives cannot be overstated and it is imperative that we prioritize our educational needs thank you for your attention to this urgent matter and as someone that works with Kelly soless I agree 100% wholeheartedly all right next we'll move on to our committee reports so we'll just go down the line all right right thank you everyone thank you for all of our public speaks all of the comments I really appreciate it I'll start with special our special services ad hoc committee uh we met on May 13th we began at 7 p.m. and adjourned at some point after 9: uh it was myself board members Meyer and Whit L Acting Superintendent Dr Gilbert and assistant superintendent of special services Susie budine we began the meeting with a review of policies including continued conversations regarding 3217 and 4217 which are corporal punishment we're currently examining the safeguards that are in place for regular education students and our staff members in these policies with regard to physical intervention with the added goal of aligning them to reduce any potential confusion as they are currently written a bit differently um we are seeking some input from legal statute and appropriateness of feedback and we'll Circle back around on that um next we received an update on the audit um from both Federal monitoring from Miss budine so with the federal monitoring uh they have visited they have reviewed our files she requests uh there was a request for additional items and she clarified that in this visit it's not the final monitoring instead it's intended to assess our current status provide guidance and there is a plan to return next year to continue evaluating that progress and while no results are available yet they will be sent to us in the near future at the time of this committee meeting Auditors had completed their review of our records this is for the one that the board commissioned last year uh program visits a survey completion and Analysis of survey results they have requested additional information regarding Staffing par professionals out of District placements uh secretarial staff vacancies in central office level uh this information is also currently being prepared one specific request was a comprehensive survey of all legal cases um this could not be completed during the school year and as a result a secondary audit is planned for the summer to address that since the time of our committee meeting we have received uh a report of the completed portions of the audit that I just reviewed the document has been made available to the full board for review there will be the primary topic of our discussion in our upcoming special education committee meeting on June 11th where we will also discuss a and for how we socialize that and present the results to the board and to the public in addition Miss budy Dr Gilbert and myself have discussed creating a crosswalk of the various special education audits for clarity and action planning purposes um and are working to finalize office hours with myself and Miss budine to ensure that all members have an opportunity to review and discuss those results we discussed par professionals uh we continued our ongoing analysis and discussion of of that role with an eye towards par professional projections and planning including the development of monitoring and fading document these projections cover one toone par professionals shared code mandated and general education um prek general education par professionals are funded by a grant and do not impact the District budget whereas our special education par professionals at the preu level are included in the budget the district is still finalizing these projections um for the extended school year the committee also reviewed a document that's going to be meant to monitor the support that power professionals are providing over time um which will be reviewed by the team over the summer for potential impl mation in the upcoming school year um we also talked a bit about our the budget implications so the expectation for this budget line was to maintain stability without adding a substantial amount despite the year-over-year increases that we anticipate um we were able to work I did discuss this in last month's readout I believe too so it should be there um but just to reiterate there was some discussion about how to reduce that um there are follow-up conversations being had with ESS not the ESS we're talking about with mental health but our provider for fire professionals um to do a cost saving related to a duty-free lunch and reducing hours so that par professionals par professionals are largely just here when kids are here um making exceptions of course when they're needed to be there for um professional development opportunities um there were some concerns about projections for par professional um and whether or not we would have the sufficient numbers that we need to support our kids um typically guidance and information regarding Personnel are provided but this year we did have an internal audit thanks to Chris Mullen one of our super supervisors that did take a closer look and improved accuracy which was also discussed in last months as well um ongoing monitoring of repair professionals throughout the year has started uh this year for the first time we began collecting that detailed information on requests including the purpose and efficiency of scheduling um last year guidance was provided uh considerations for par professionals and this year efforts were focused on improving our efficiency by enhancing our practices and as I stated earlier we are giving consideration to implementing a data monitoring tool in that will include the levels of support so that fading can happen more effectively um we also noticed an increase in par professional requests due to behavioral needs of students so we are going to look at whether this could be better addressed through our inrs processes at a tier 2 level and are bringing it to cni for a further discussion uh the CPAC resource fair was incredibly successful received a ton of positive feedback I was there it was lovely we had a lot of involved community members and organizations um there and it there are plans to make this annual um Dr Gilbert already talked about our caregiver Workshop series we have two more dates coming up uh at the time of this committee meeting the district was working uh with transportation to Stager start and end times to save busing costs since the time since that time communication has been sent out to our district families who will be engaged in esy um and that about wraps us up um so thank you to Susie and her team and then I'm going to just does anyone have questions on special education before I move to Municipal partners so just one point of clarity I I recognize uh you've mentioned this piece hasn't actually gotten before the uh uh special education committee yet uh it'll be probably discussed in the fft minutes as well but the uh special education audit that was requested and planned in the district goals at the beginning of uh of the last school year uh you mentioned that the audit is done is the entirety of the sections of audit that were requested done at this time yeah that's a good question so to clarify there were there's essentially two components of the audit the first has findings that are similar to what you might find in a state or federal audit around issues surrounding compliance what's happening in classrooms and things of that nature um so there were some surveys they looked at files they addressed compliance issues which is why we talked about potentially doing a crosswalk because in those audits there is a lot of overlap and we already have a correction action corrective action plan to address some of those areas of improvement the portion that is still not complete is around out of District so how are we kind of getting to the point of requiring out of District placements for students and then also what is our legal spend analysis related to special education those are two key components that have not yet been addressed but they are slated to happen over the summer and then a secondary audit I don't know if we can refer to it as an addendum or a secondary audit connected excuse me connected to this one will be made available once it's completed which again should be over the summer um but the first portion is complete we will review um and make public um once we kind of go through committee yeah any other questions great okay move on to Municipal Partners um we held our Municipal partnership meeting on May 1st we began at 12 adjourned at 12:57 it was myself board member Dr telesford um Acting Superintendent Dr Gilbert Village president Shea colum Dr Olivia Lewis Chang from South Orange mayor Nancy Adams and Township committee person Deb angle from Maplewood um we began with talking about crossing guard and school placements so there was some discussion regarding the placement patterns and whether or not those are consistent um or if there had been shifts as well as school start and end times both which impact traffic flow um and need to be communicated at this time um we have a shared goal obviously of ensuring student safety um overall circulation um inclusive of bike lanes and for the 24 25 school year there are no anticipated changes but they occur they would be communicated as soon as possible to our partners uh Dr Gilbert will also discuss the geographical location for elementary and middle school placements utilizing the new routing software that he discussed earlier um and we discussed also coordination between District transportation team and the two Town police departments as needed to coordinate on issues um and an email was sent to connect folks to determine next steps to ensure that um we also discussed a field offit audit that was suggested by Dr telesford uh from the Two Towns so that we can work together the district and the towns to tackle issues concerning field usage and sports the information needed included numbers the type usage weightless size cancellation uh what are the reasons for cancellation maintenance budget cost and schedule um mayor colum shared they uh track some of that um but the maintenance tracking can be challenging um it's not always logged consistently and offered to create a shared drive so that we can house information together um and Dr telesur provided all of those requested data set items to both towns so that we could have parody across Two Towns once the set is complete we will look at it to analyze it and consider what potential improvements or next steps that we can engage in and mayor colum is also following up um as a to as Westfield uh conducted a similar study just to see if there's anything we can learn from that in new business um council person uh Deb angle brought concerns to the board um from the health department around cannabis use fighting in schools available of mental health supports um she shared that Candace had inquired about funding U from the municipal cents to um support some substance abuse speakers um and some are bright stars programming and information was sent to the district about that um there were also conversations about team on screen from tus and Elementary School a program addressing mental health impacts associated with social media such as anxiety depression and cyber bullying um and efforts are being made um around the Maplewood pool to make it more affordable um with continued Outreach from Candace s shares for families and Dr Gilbert is helping to ensure that message gets out across the district um other updates included updates on the greenway uh Greenway project Midnight Madness um and highlighting the sponsors and merchandise associated with that uh finally Sheena suggested that we should start uh generating some ideas for some activity between the township and Board of Ed over the summer so that we can all have some fun uh are there any questions for our Municipal Partners meeting great and if you have any ideas for summer fun please let mayor column know thank you all right the Personnel committee met on Thursday May 23rd board president tford and I were in attendance along with Dr Gilbert and Mr adid Doan board members dval Wilson and V lanii were and Monique Durant were not able to make it due to last minute rescheduling we kicked off the meeting reviewing Personnel resolution 4611 and discussed the following the transfer reassignment process due to the 28 Rift positions while transfers and reassignments are typical during this time of year the list was longer than usual given the circumstances Dr Gilbert and Mr adido reviewed the process at a high level and the role that stakeholders play in the process that they later shared with the full board earlier this evening 2024 25 school year vacancies are now all posted as of Thursday May 23rd Mr adido discussed that the timing is not so far off as other districts but they could not be posted immediately as they had to make all the movements happen related to the 28 Rift positions we tabled reviewing the monthly vacancy report until the June meeting um just with everything else going on obviously this will be very extremely important to keep an eye on over the next few months heading into the next school year we touched briefly upon the district goal and Fergus recommend recommendation updates related to Personnel the board will receive the draft for the Dei and Workforce diversity strategic plan in the upcoming weekly packet I think that's still the plan it will include memos highlighting the completion of District goals and in the upcoming Fergus committee meeting Dr Fergus will share how his recommendations align with the work on the Dei plan during old business we discussed the following uh the reduction in force as an exercise I let a post more and surveyed board members to share their feedback on the over overall process what went well what did not go well what can be improved for a future although we of course hope to never have a riff to this degree and any outstanding questions the main themes were lack of communication and transparency around the process we also discussed that this process really should have started weeks before but unfortunately because the Riff was not properly identified and communicated earlier there wasn't enough time for for really anything more thorough and thoughtful communication discussions with the board Mr Adan uh along with that discussion he discussed right sizing I think Dr Gilbert has touched on it a little bit um how the district has not necessarily been um you know doing it in best practice so and and that they should be done on an annual basis I know that it is his goal to um make it more of a normal activity as we we think about the the Personnel in our schools during new business we discussed uh we briefly discuss the increases in non-union salaries the process that was followed and the possibility of a salary freeze for non-union um Administration to help reallocate money towards teaching and learning whether that be textbooks supplies or anything else that were impacted by the budget cuts and have a direct impact on our students Dr Gilbert highlighted a financial resolution that will is up for vote later uh I guess hopefully soon that included allowances that the board will oh sorry while we can't expect all operations to cease I asked Dr Gilbert to really think about upcoming allowances given the Riff and budget cuts for example upcoming conferences to really think about how many employees we really need to send um you know right now every penny counts and we have to continue to think of ways to really stop the bleeding now since the committee meeting me we have gotten news which Dr Gilbert talked about is how this will be um paid for with ARP funding that was so that was an update since the meeting Mr adid Doan closed out the meeting with more information regarding the June 6th special board meeting staff recognitions and retirement celebration it's an annual um staff recognition meeting where supervisors who can attend will share some words about their staff members and I believe he'll be sharing the RSVP list with us soon meeting adjourned at 7:15 and we are meeting again Monday June 24th at 6:30 p.m. any questions so that was a lot thank you so much and it's been obviously a lot to process and I appreciate everyone that's come tonight um and the emails that we've gotten and it's really hard because it is Personnel so we can't respond um you know I just have to say that I am extremely disappointed by the fact that Administration did give themselves three and a half% raises this year um I think it's when we're taking away resources from students and when we're we're seeing what we're seeing happening now um I don't want to take money away from anybody but if we can't financially afford to do these things then I don't know why we would put ourselves in a position where we would do it and um it's more just a comment but I really wish that there was more thought around potentially considering salary freezes I know it's been done in the district in the past especially when they faced um Financial challenges and you know I just wish that things were done differently but here we are and I I'm just yeah was there a question all right I think I'll just make one comment I stand with every public sector employee this is a cost of living increase and when you ask a secretary making 75k that you should be frozen I stand against that many of our administrators are people that started as teachers they've been in the classroom and they devoted their lives to education and many of them wanted to make a bigger impact on students just outside of the classroom they want to have a bigger impact on all students so when you single out people that is just cruel and I think maybe this was a wonderful thing to you know reach out to certain members of the public that support you but I think for fair minded people that look at that they look at that as just something as unnecessary and cruel because they come here they work early hours and they're here to the late night working every day including people that are yes they're nonunion and you can see them back there working long hours to ensure that we have board meetings that are broadcast to the public so I will always support public sector employees and anyone that says I will I want to prevent you from having a cost living increase I stand against that I just want to say I sounds a little bit like a personal attack when we say cruel I just want to be really careful about how we're being respectful to one another that's board member board member Whit lill's opinion and of course you're free to give your opinion but I don't think we should be saying that other people's opinions are cruel or not cruel I think that's a little inappropriate thank you policy do we do fft yet you're up uh the fft committee meeting was held on 22nd of May uh everyone was present I'm not going to read out everyone else it's almost midnight uh we spoke about construction the long range facilities Plan update so I just want to different differentiate between what we are going through right now which is the bonded part of the long range facilities plan that started in 2019 by we normally have to update it once every 5 years so this is the new longrange facilities plan that looks forward so there'll be an audit done for all the schools and there'll be a list of all the items put forward and we need to se make sure that we separate out difference between identification prioritization and then funding we don't number two and number we don't know what's going to happen number one is going to happen which is identification and we're targeting the fall of 2024 for submission to the the county uh next up was an do performing an ADA District audit uh it's been a while since we did that and it it's kind of prudent to do it so to make ensure that we are compliant with all Ada uh you know rules and regulations the cost is about close to $40,000 and and the committee felt that maybe spending that money right now is not a great idea and maybe we can you know push it down a few months and do it at that point so that was about the Ada audit uh we have a bunch of change orders coming in and so this is the problem with you know kind of trying to work in a a very very old school district uh School building sorry uh so the CHS gy gym ceiling we discovered asvestas and that's going to be about $400,000 worth of of change orders for that uh the next up we spoke about the auditorium the the work is well going to start and what the the target date for getting the CHS Auditorium back online is about December 2024 and we also were looking into the possibility of painting the auditorium while it was closed we briefly touched on the special education audit not did not go into detail but obviously you know we went into detail in the other committee uh we spoke about the forensic audit and as the president in his uh address mentioned we are not going to move forward because the criteria has not been met for a forensic audit uh the cost is about 500k which is you know pretty prohibitive but more number one point is more important than the other one and the district has had the same auditor for the last three business administrators so it is not like they're coming up with any new procedures right now uh we briefly spoke about the baseball boosters and U the need to get athletic director a little bit more involved and look at maybe some title n issues and we discussed a bunch of policies some of them are coming up first reads uh the resolutions coming up today are change orders awarding the Food Service management company custodial bid Awards and uh donations in new business we spoke about uh you know placement for internal integration which kind of went through some more facilities update that's that's pretty much it uh we closed at 9:15 p.m. questions so just a a couple things to highlight I want to mention uh the Ada audit this was stemming out of a discussion we had uh a few months ago at the board uh specifically raised because of the the CHS elevator outages uh and so this is sort of grown from that to making sure that all of our uh accessibility resources in the district both physical and programmatic are being addressed um and I know we have a lot of audits we're doing right now I re maybe uh approaching an audit fatigue maybe but this one I think is uh really important there are a lot of pieces in our district right now that um I think there are accessibility issues my you know I know a a child in my uh my daughters preschool who can't access at this point any of the playground Services except for the one at mantro so looking at these is going to be really important and I'm glad that we are moving forward with that um one other thing we mentioned we looked at during the fft meeting was discussing uh placement in the status of triple I and uh discussing in advance the report shown tonight uh the discussion of the uh status of the Marshall Bolton pairing and uh also how the uh transfer policy uh was working uh so far and the uh issues that the district had found that were qualifying as far as the need to uh provide a transfer uh the one last piece there was a discussion I think we had regarding the question of uh how much the district was spending for Elementary art supplies there was a line in our cost center that was showing Z and uh we discussed that that uh was more of a function of maybe a broken uh algorithm in the way the cost center is developed uh and the business administrator provided us numbers right after that meeting uh that indicated I think for this year $15,700 are being provided uh for grade um uh K through five art supplies I just have a question for you so thank you for that information that's very helpful um is there any way we can get the 15,700 broken down by school I think we we do have that well I think we can have that sent around no I think I think we have it and we can have that sent around to the board okay thank you policy great uh so uh we have uh three policies that are being put forward for first re a second read tonight uh policy uh 1530 on equal employment opportunities uh 1550 Equal Employment and anti-discrimination practices and policy 3211 code of ethics um you know sometimes we are putting things forward that our district is uh taking an initiative on and developing others are just these iterative updates based upon uh updates that we're getting from our uh vendor stra Esme this is the latter these are just updating uh based on uh updates to the law and in this case expanding the definition of uh protected categories of people for each of these uh and so these uh will be voted on tonight uh and it we move forward without uh any additional uh discussion or concerns there are also uh six policies that are being put forward for first read tonight uh policy 1140 educational Equity policies and affirmative action 1523 comprehensive Equity plan 2411 guidance counseling 3324 right of privacy 5755 equity and educational programs and services which is being slated for uh removal tonight as well as policy 5842 equal access of student organizations uh so again these are part of the iterative process of taking recommendations from Strauss Esme changes in the law uh and uh executing on those uh I will note uh and this is the beauty of having the two first read second read is that we have an opportunity once this becomes public to hear public comment and uh I have heard at least a couple public comments regarding 5755 which is a policy that states in very clear terms uh the uh equity and uh equality in our education program spanning across districtwide and these are pieces that we were planning to abolish uh because they are duplicative of requirements that are elsewhere in our policy manual but there's nowhere else where they are contained quite in this way in sort of a unified statement uh so there's been uh some suggestion that we should consider perhaps keeping this and uh whether this is part of a larger movement in the state as far as moving to a a conservative versus liberal bent so I am suggesting tonight that we continue on the first read recommendation to abolish this but that it come back to policy for consideration of these concerns and whether this should in fact be rescinded tabled Etc before second read we also discussed uh at the policy meeting uh among other things uh uh ongoing discussion of our policy 32117 and 4217 articulating uh what constitutes corporal punishment uh and uh restrictions on teachers and staff which is uh in front of legal review to make sure that we are appropriately articulating uh both staff protections and staff prohibitions um we're also uh we discuss policy uh and bylaw 131 uh regarding whether it would be appropriate to Institute to a requirement that once a policy is passed that would require a new regulation that that regulation be put in place within a set number of days uh currently there is no timeline for when a regulation is put in place and we're dealing with a long uh backlog of Regulation so considering putting for example a 120-day requirement in place for adoption of that regulation um there were a few other pieces here that are um available to be read in uh the minutes but nothing else that's being brought forward for Action tonight thank you any questions [Music] great okay cni uh the cni committee met on May 15th at 6:30 p.m. all members were in attendance we started out with a presentation from um Kim Bean the K8 stem supervisor and Katie Castello one of the district's instructional coaches and they gave um an update on the Eureka math program for K5 Miss bean and Miss Costello gave us a really indepth four-year um really in depth in-depth overview of the four-year plan for Eureka which was recently adopted um I did put or Miss Bodner rather put the slides from her presentation in the cni presentation folder so the board can take a deeper look but basically year one um they explained how the program was chosen and year two was where we are now they talked a lot about the PD structure how they're reflecting on this year to plot the course forward um in terms of teacher and student needs year three next year will include model classroom visits as part of the PD structure reviewing data points supporting the Fergus recommendations and usage of the N scores which they'll have to best support students who need um added challenge then year four will build on year three but will include grade level collaboration for consistency across schools and um as an aside to the Eureka update since um Miss Bean was there with us we talked about how the number of math intervention teachers is significantly less than the number of reading intervention teachers the district teams that they'll continue to look at data to see how best to proceed in future years we do have um Dr Bean folks coming to our June meeting so I'm sure we'll um talk about that a bit with her um we moved on to the Fergus recommendations the district provided updates on a few points uh they'll continue working with Dr Fergus they have been continue continuing to work with Dr Fergus um and they are working with Dr telesford to get a Fergus committee meeting on the calendar if there isn't one already um Dr Fergus is on board with how the district is approaching the work based on his recommendations Miss wble is getting ready to update everyone on the accomplishments of this year um and Dr Fergus will be coming back to work with the board soon we talked about um regarding the budget the ARP Grant which has been spoken about a few times times already tonight um but basically Miss Bodner explained how they're able to shift money from this grant into different areas including technology summer and fall professional development supplies for students and summer school uh the bulk of the money will go to summer school costs but the remainder will offset Supply losses in every Department um and Miss Bodner expressed with confidence that every teacher will have the supplies they need um in new business cell phone and Screen Time policies were brought um by board member Callahan we discussed the use of cell phones in secondary schools and how this is also trickling down into the um Upper Elementary grade levels and the concerns around the impact on this uh of this on student Mental Health social emotional development and of course the academic learning environment additional concern were raised about the degree to which we are using Chromebooks in schools particularly in the K2 uh grade band and those were talked about um we discussed how we can give more education on Scream time to elementary students and then um how we can have consistency across secondary levels um we talked about some things that are you know already happening in schools that have been successful and Miss Bodner um expressed the desire to build on what teachers are already doing especially at the secondary level that has been successful regarding um cell phones parent groups are beginning this Outreach as well in The District Board member Callahan in her parent capacity along with Tuscan parents um Dana SOS Carrie McGee Diane Davis Laura Carney Jesse K and tusin PTA president president Amanda cirone and other volunteers formed team unscreen yesterday they hosted two events at tusin featuring Max stel who discussed the impact of social media on children's well-being and the first presentation was for third through fifth graders there was a second event that Drew 150 parents and caregivers so this is one example of how the district and Community can work together um on this effort and we'll continue to look closely at this um and make sure our Tech usage policies um respect with respect to both Chromebooks and the cell phone um cell phones in schools support positive learning environments for our students um board member dval Wilson shared a grant opportunity the State climate and culture Innovation Grant it's unfortunately closed for this year but um the district committed to considering it for next year and finally we discussed the policies that board member Meyer mentioned 2260 which is in review for next month um there are several cnii related policies up for first read tonight and for second read we have policy 5610 on suspension any questions yes I just want to say thank you to sha and I've said this to you privately but as a chair whenever you email her to ask to put something on the agenda she always responds right away and then as soon as the meeting happen she's emailing you here's the answer to your qu I just the transform the transfer of information is very helpful and it allows in between meetings for us to get real time information so I just appreciate that you do that thank you I will try my best to continue all right we'll move on to the action portion of our meeting okay so um we're now at the action portion of the meeting uh board members this evening I have resolutions 4610 through 4621 again 4610 through 4621 can I have a second please second uh it's open for discussion I'm sorry sorry I miss that I'm I'd like to sever 4614 C okay hold on the uh approve attendance and work rated travel and workshop expenses I'm sorry I just repeat the number again 4 4614 c c okay and may I sever 4611 e 4 611 [Applause] okay you got it's the whole transer and the SE is the conference of travel yeah and this is [Applause] I'm open for discussion right okay so this is for all those excluding those those two um I I was looking at the policy for sorry resolution 4614 J now where it's we are accepting donation from a GoFundMe from Henry saton for $1,020 and thanks for any donations coming to our school district just to bounce off of that I know that he did work really hard to rally for people to to donate and so I think it's amazing that there were people in the community that did so every little bit help so thank you Henry I'll just note for the rec record that uh our uh vote tonight on policy uh 46 is 4610 part of this vote yes yes okay just noting that uh in light of uh where we are with Staffing uh my understanding is that there are several items that we have at this point retracted and will be addressing at a subsequent date before the beginning of the new school year just want to make that clear right but there are items that we are that we need to pass that we are not tonight addressing in this resolution I mean just to kind of add to that the positions mainly have to do with the some of the responsibilities held by the current ba and some of the UH responsibilities held by the current assistant superintendent of uh special services I think we'll just do roll call for vote [Music] okay board member Callahan yes board member dval Wilson yes board member eert yes board member gford yes board member Meyer yes board member sacket Gable yes board president tford yes board member VOD lamman yes board member Whit letter yes motion passes okay so um the next one is for resolution 4614 C [Applause] um oh I'm sorry discuss it's up for discussion yeah right so for discussion right okay for um yeah I just I just wanted to make note um you know a couple weeks ago I voted I voted I made a hard decision to vote against the budget not because I didn't agree with specific budget lines but about the process and the lack of information the lack of transparency and communication uh something I've been very vocal about specific to the budget process since I joined the board um regarding this specific resolution we were just given new information last night that these will be funded via the ARP funds but the board does not have the complete picture of how the 900k will be spent um so at this time I'm my vote will reflect that I uh unfortunately can't support it until I have all the information I need to make that decision for Alani I mean I know board member wilson d Wilson said not to use harsh words but I mean this is punitive our district will run regardless of how many Rifts we have for whatever crazy reason if we had a 100 Rifts we still have a district we still have students we still have admins who need professional development we still have teachers who need professional development we still have teachers who need raises we have admins who raise raises this is being silly by saying that oh because we've you know had a whole and we passed a balanced budget now we are not going to allow some people to go and get professional development and all of this directly impacts student outcomes so I don't see how anyone can be against something that's helping teachers and admins go and get better at their work member wh letter um so I think being asked to vote on this tonight we are being asked to vote on something without having complete and full information um if we're using ARP funds you know the we have 1.4 million that has to get spent by September it sounds like we have 900,000 left there's the four buckets that were described to us of how the funds will get spent but no one on this board has seen what the Appropriations are across those four buckets in particular uh within Supply even just across the Departments like what that looks like and so in order for me to feel comfortable with making a decision to um spend $40,000 $40,000 on um professional development I would like to see the full and complete picture that we are serving students first and ARP funds are primarily the prioritization is supposed to be for students and learning so I'd like to see that that that we can fully see how we will accom um achieve that uh prior to making an investment such as this and I'd be happy if folks would support tbling it because I think you know like Dr Gilbert said we should get this information next week but we don't have it today and I don't think I don't feel comfortable making a decision without all the information there there's two things I just want to add I think um you know we president telesford was in the meeting this is not this is absolutely not about supporting professional development if any any board members that have been working with me and especially on Personnel um that's absolutely an incorrect statement um but I just want to say I would actually support tabling it we do have two special meetings or two meetings on the calendar for next week so if we can get that information and really understand I wouldn't be opposed to tabling it I mean the reason why we are here is because we've been elected and by people to do their job as quickly as efficiently and make some tough choices you never ever have full information if you had full perfect information it's easy of course I can make any decision that's not the point the point is this is not the level that the board gets into the whole question here is do we trust the super intendent to allocate money well the problem is you're saying no I mean that's a different problem so I think that waiting and getting more information adds nothing to it we vote right now and we just voted straight W bur Meer uh I would just I I first of all fully support uh obviously the members of our district uh both uh central office and within our schools continuing their professional development uh we heard a little bit about what this uh these opportunities are and I think they are valid uh and important and these are we we do have to keep spending uh money and have ordinary costs even after we've had budget cuts we have a budget now and we spend within that budget um that said I do understand and it's it's great that we can use uh these ARP funds uh so it doesn't have to come out of operating um I am curious to know how we are allocating the 900,000 that are left over of which this is a pretty small piece but I guess my question is just from a practical perspective if we do not take a vote on this it appears that several of these are pretty time sensitive and I imagine some of this involves travel costs and you know booking uh booking flights and whatnot uh I don't know if if Dr Gilbert anyone else can indicate what impact there would be if we table this to a subsequent date after which we have you know the the larger breakdown about ARP allocations I think I think you hit you you said some of the things that are important to note there are um travel costs and things that are figured in that have to be done uh prior to and the closer you get to the date of the travel uh the more expensive things become and part of our process is we had to factor in cost at the time of submission which the cost are are much cheaper now but uh then also I think there's a couple on there that may conferences that may start in June I'm not sure I have to relook at the list that if it was tabled then there then I don't know what to do with those particular conferences that actually happen before the next board meeting I will know how we will handle that [Music] Wilson um I think if we were able to table our next meeting is next Tuesday so a couple actually Tuesdays are supposed to be some of is one of the better days to actually book travel by the way I know that from my travel PR experience but um so I would be open to tabling to understand more I mean after what I heard our student rep said about the iPad situation uh which is heartbreaking I would love to know if we can spend some money on um getting some more iPads for testing uh I also I know we were told that the iel conference um that there were going to be teachers going to that but I only see Dr Bean folks listed as an attendee I also am very supportive of PD I don't want people to think that you know we don't want teachers or staff to get PD but the big ticket item that was a red flag or just uh a wow to me was the Vegas trip and I just wonder if there are other ways that that the things that are being discussed that you would be exposed to at that Innovative School Summit are things that we could do more on a local level to save some money um but just like I said this ARP um Grant allows us to spend money on Tech which uh we we definitely need and after hearing the story from those students is just heartbreaking and I don't know how I could leave this boardroom without advocating for them and trying to get some more money for students needs in the classroom bber Callahan oh but I'll say that we did hear about how that money was allocated and they are going to be spending money on technology and I also don't think it is the place of the board to pick and choose who should go on a on a a conference and who is in the CEO of the school district should be doing that um um Dr Gilbert has provided us with the reason for these conferences and what value they add to the school district and I I don't think it is the the board's place to start picking okay I don't want you spending $385 I I want you to save that and move that over here that is not our job that is outside of our role and that moves into um interfering with operations I I agree with that and and and look at the list I mean yes there are lots of admins out there there is pre-calculus apsi online trading I it sounds very useful for you know kids to have around there's a a lot of things as a music teacher going out to you know a conference I mean there are so many things out here and this is just purative there is no other word for it what letter I was just going to say no one sitting here saying that we wouldn't ultimately end up approving it we're just asking to see the full complete information we have not seen any financial information related to supplies technology yes we've been told that's what it will fund but we don't know how much and so I'm just going to make a motion to table for c14 c um we are meeting on Tuesday so we could take action as early as Tuesday hopefully when we have the numbers do I have a second second e this is to table 4614 c um board member Whit letter yes board member VOD lamman no board president sford no board member sacket Gable no board member Meyer no board member gford yes board member eert yes board member Deval Wilson yes board member Callahan no motion did not pass is there any more discussion so we're going to do vote okay all right so now this is for the vote for 4614 C let me here board member Callahan yes board member dval Wilson no board member eert no board member gford no board member Meyer yes board member sacket Gable yes board president tford yes board member VA lamani yes board member Whit letter no motion passes okay so um now we are motion for 4611 e which is the second sever um open oh I need a second second okay thank you I always forget that and I guess now we're open for discussion Bo member G you know I like um board member eer you know I have been critical of the administration I voted against the budget but you know I do have to say um after hearing the superintendent um and some of his people talk about the process and you know just trying to do the best with the pieces that they have right now I I do believe that they really did try to to get you know the best they they moved some good teachers around and and I know that's painful but they have confidence in those teachers that they're going to be beneficial to that school and I you know hearing your story today I and I know you know you're not happy hearing this but I really do feel the staff tried here and you know I I I wouldn't be voting in good faith if I voted against it so I I do I really do feel the administration tried in this instance so I am sorry but I I am going to support it about the money um I mean not to be super critical about people who plan to vote against it but it's almost one year to the date when something similar was done and we accidentally fired to teachers when we said no to transfers exactly one year back there were two Spanish teachers from middle school who did not have a job there and had to move or I forget from which school they had to be transferred somewhere else and the board voted no and then suddenly we discovered that oh they don't have a job anymore and then we vot to retook the vote and we voted yes so getting involved in these situations is not the board's job let let the administration do what they do best and we've expressed our some people have expressed displeasure that's fine some people have expressed support that's fine just vote Yes and let them do their job don't micromanage well first of all it's not your job to do it and secondly even if you thought it was your job to do it stop micromanaging this is not the level we need to be ater thank you um so in in taking this vote obviously there is um most of the things on here we can't really discuss in detail because they're all Personnel actions I am going to Echo uh the sentiments of uh my colleague board member gford um we did have the opportunity um to hear from the administration and to talk through uh all of the pieces of this really difficult process post riff of having to shift people around so that uh uh we were covering all the position that were open and making sure that people were where uh it made the most sense for them to be I've also had the chance to read all of the emails that we've gotten emails from teachers emails from teachers advocating for their fellow teachers uh emails from uh parents and from students and you know it's maybe no one wants to hear the silver lining of actions like this but it is remarkable every every time we have an email from someone worried about what's happening to a teacher the staff member who they have worked with uh who has touched their kids in such a remarkable way it is Testament to how incredible every one of our teachers are uh and I think you know just absent anything else it is important that you know how many people have reached out and have talked about the incredible ways that uh you have touched uh their kids and their families um and it is my hope and expectation that even though it is not uh the desire of the the individuals who have shown up or the desires of the people who have spoken out in support of them uh that the incredible talents you have are going to continue to serve our students and our community uh and so I will be voting to um allow the administration to continue with these uh reassignment understanding that these are all really difficult conversations that we have as part of this much larger difficult process uh and decisions that we didn't want to have to make but finding the the best path forward Bo member eer um I just I'm in agreement with board member gford and Meer um quite honestly it's past midnight and so I am not just you pretty much captured a lot of what I was going to say um understanding that difficult decisions need to be made given the situation we are in is it's unavoidable and Personnel decisions specifically are are very difficult not one that any of us take lightly we did have the opportunity to discuss this with Administration a bit more and it is unfortunate that we can't make a lot of that public um it's actually one of as committee chair it's actually one of the hardest um one of the hardest things about about the role um that that's all I'm going to say I think that uh you know I don't want anyone to take lightly that we did not have those discussions it unfortunately had to happen behind closed doors and um at this point um you know there are always things that can be improved upon but given the time crunch uh we were in given the again the timing of the budget news and the budget deficit um you know when you talk about Silver Lining sorry I know I said I wasn't going to say anything but uh I also I too read all the emails and I've spoken to personally friends that are impacted by this decision and um I too am trying to see the silver lining in that these amazing teachers that people speak so highly of will actually also get to impact students at other schools um and I know that's not what many people want to hear um it's really difficult for me to say however um you know that is one thing that I I'm thinking of as well [Music] so second Gable thank you yes I agree with my colleagues and um just want to emphasize that you know I know this is difficult decision and unsettling experience and what we can do is to continue to advocate for these types of situations to be handled with sensitivity and compassion for are DED dedicated Educators remember what letter um you know I think the one thing that was missing in this process was definitely the voice of our teachers um obviously we can't I can't go into a lot of detail but I do think there were parts of this process that obviously can be improved upon um and I do think that what we're looking on paper today could change substantially and so once again you know I feel like we're voting on something that um we don't have all the information on so I um I think it's really important that if we're going to change someone's position that we do take time to understand or to meet with them and that we talk to them about what their experiences are and expertise is and that we make sure that they're the right fit in the classroom because this is about the students um and so yeah I just I think the human element out of all of this was missing and I hope it's there's area there's definitely area for improvement going forward I'd like to say that I know this is very hard because being uprooted from anything that you are used to is very difficult however I want to Echo my colleagues in that when we listen to the administration there was a human element to everything they did there was a lot of pain sticking work that they did and there was a process that they did follow and we received all the information there was not information missing it's just that this is a very hard decision and just recognize that it's not a decision that we say oh we're happy about this decision it's a difficult position or decision but at the end of the day all the information was there so I want to make sure that is understood very emphatically here that all board members did receive information about the process that the administration followed valani I normally don't do this but I want to give a quick shout out to miss Bala out here I mean she she was a teacher for both my kids in fourth grade and she is a great math teacher I mean I will not deny that but I will support I mean yes but but things are tough you know yes we know very good teachers sometimes get laid off some very very very good teachers sometimes get reassigned and and I support the superintendent in his decision to do that and we did get all the information so again this whole narrative about silos and partial information is absolutely not correct remember cahan yeah maybe I'm closing it out we'll see um I I want to Echo I I think we're all there's a high level of alignment I think in a lot of the comments that my colleagues have have shared toight and a lot of the sentiments that they shared tonight and I you know I think throughout this I you know I don't you know want to say this every time but I as someone who is in the education sector I've experienced this I've been moved from classrooms and schools and experienced it myself and I know firsthand just how challenging it can be to have to move from preschool to Upper Elementary School and relearn how to do all of the things um that I didn't know how to do at the time um and so I appreciate um the Educators who are speaking on behalf of their colleagues or who are being moved and I'm sensitive to that um I also want to recognize um that we did receive a high level of information um I think across committees which is also important to note um applaud board member eert um and her efforts to do the postmortem to have really um challenging and difficult conversations within committee that to the degree possible were shared across committee so that we had some insight into that postmortem um pieces of it showed up in cni pieces of it have shown up um on the special ad hoc committee as well um and I think we've tried as board member Whit letter pointed out earlier Shaina is a great board member Saka Gable's a great example of how that information does get shared across committee and I think we've all really committed to those sharing notes Having side conversations making sure things get socialized at a high level um and I think the Administration has to the degree possible with the sensitivity of the nature of the discussions that we're having also shared as much process as they can um and I want to commend them for managing what is just a really um brutal situation with I I do believe a lot of care and compassion um and certainly in the areas where growth is possible that is something we've also discussed how to improve this moving forward should we ever face a situation like this again so thank you for your advocacy and coming out tonight um I deeply appreciate it thank you all right roll call or vote okay so this is for uh the severed resolution portion of resolution so it's 4611 e glasses are board member Whit letter no board member VOD lamani yes board president tford yes board member sacket Gable yes board member Meyer yes board member gford yes board member eert yes board member dval Wilson yes board member Callahan yes motion passes all right we'll move on to our second hearing of individuals and delegations yes sorry we have two hand carries yes two more minutes two more two more so we discussed the Grievances in executive session so um there were two grievances um the motion that would be pending before the board then is uh a motion to uh deny the first grievance subject to the modification that was discussed and to deny the second grievance a yes vote is to deny the Grievances one one resolution one resolution one resolution for unless do you want to split okay we'll just use the yep okay so um there needs to be a motion and a second okay so this will be this will be resolution number it'll follow the the last one so it's going to be 4 622 okay thank I need a a motion and then um a second a motion to bring it up for discuss to the board I guess it's to bring it to discussion right to to approve and then a second and then the discussion will ensue after that but it's grievances they EXA only so there's no discussion all right so motion to approve 462 second all right and then we're in discussion now or no motion to approve now discussion here we go or sorry vote [Applause] okay do all favor you don't do that here I I'm not going down that road can I wait can I say one thing quickly not having to do with the substance in session no [Music] I don't know I'm curious I was just going to say I I wanted to acknowledge that in the process of hearing the two level four grievances I wanted to extend uh this is the first time that I had the opportunity to do that and I wanted to commend uh the sua leadership for the advocacy that that you bring on behalf of your leaders this was as I say my first time getting to hear it and you know with regard to the vote the vote is what it is but uh uh I greatly appreciate greatly appreciate what you do in that meeting which determine I think some of what this vote looks like so thank you okay now I'm good okay all right board member Callahan yes yes okay uh board member dval Wilson yes board member eert yes board member gford yes board member Meyer yes board member sacket Gable yes board president tford yes board member V lamani yes board member Whit letter yes motion passes all all right now I have our second now we have our second hearing of individuals and delegations Lopez again um so I heard you right now talking about the transfer of the teachers and I think I didn't make myself clear the other time I know you have the prerogative to do that and I know know that maybe what the administration chose were were well thought uh but again the humanity that I was talking about it wasn't about you guys talking to yourselves I was about you guys talking to my members and you always spoke and none of you say that like I'm sorry we didn't do the process appropriately like I I get the other part but none of you say I'm sorry that the teachers didn't have the opportunity to talk to Administration about that well actually you said it sorry Kaylin um so that's the part that I was talking about again I understand making decisions is not easy I understand that there were positions cut most of them I got to remind you 25 so positions and I want to say something else I have never said that Administration should not get races like central office um because I just got accused of that which as a union labor president I want everybody to make money everyone I want everybody to get paid by their jobs but I also know that SAA is Frozen right now right we're negotiating so the timing I think maybe if you would have passed it two weeks later it would have been better I think that was what killed everybody uh in the community seeing Sun races for one and nothing for others and the cuts everything the timing I think it wasn't well thought among all of you as an advice this I tell you as an advice um some people maybe felt as a slap in the face for me me personally I'm going to tell you the truth I know how things work so I saw it as it happened it happened um and the last thing I want to say I'm tired of certain people bullying Miss whiter I'm tired of seeing that since she bot and she put the boat for Dr Taylor out she's been bullied over and over and over called names if she says we're not being human Humane they change the the the language and I want to say something because I heard something and I couldn't I I am a teacher I cannot take this anymore and I want to I want to read this cruel extremely unkind and unpleasant and causing pain to people or animals intentionally I feel that that was really really really bad we need to learn from each other enough already this woman took Taylor and you all see what Taylor did to the district look at the money look how everything was Dr gilbertt you know how you found everything so please enough enough mistreating the same person perative saying that she's doing things enough already we're Educators for God's sake the people that sits there I'm an educator please please please enough please thank you now move on to new business anybody have any new business all right the Board of Education will meet in public session on Monday oh sorry Tuesday on Tuesday June 4th at 6 p.m. in the district meeting room at 5:25 Academy Street in Maple New Jersey in person and utilizing an online video conference platform to honor retirees I'm sorry to announce a new superintendent action will be taken the board will meet on next day on Thursday June 6 2024 6:30 p.m. in the district meeting room at 525 Academy Street Maple New Jersey in person and utilizing an online video conference platform to honor retirees and celebrate staff accomplishments action will not be taken the board will meet in public session on Thursday June 27th 2024 at 6:30 p.m. in the district meeting room at 5:25 Academy Street in map New Jersey immediately following the opening of public session the board will move to go into a closed session in the superintendent office at 525 Academy Street in M New Jersey as well as using an online video conference platform to discuss Personnel matters within within within the Atty client privilege legal negotiations and other matters that may arise in required discussion to be announced at a later date immediately following the closed session the Board of Education will meet in the public session estimated to be at 7:30 p.m. in the district meeting room at 5:25 Academy Street in Maple New Jersey in person utilizing an online video conference platform which will include hearing of individuals the community can view meeting can view the meeting by following the steps which will be listed on the agenda if there are members of the community who would like to attend attend the meeting in person please note that mask and social distancing are optional in accordance with the guidance received from the local do and CDC action will be taken with that I'd like to make a motion to uh adjourn thank you board Callahan all in favor all right we okay we're J to here at 12378