okay thank you everybody we're back in public session um board correspondence do we have any board correspondents this evening no no okay great all right reports and presentations Dr J superintendent's comments I'm going to reserve my comments for when I get to honor our special guests we have here tonight okay I will also defer my comments uh Tim you have any comments this evening no I actually I'll defer my comments so nobody wants to talk tonight we're all leaving it up to Sophie she's got the the only way to be done by 8:15 with the 10 minute intermission for cake is not to talk too much uh Sophie you are here is your partner here this evening or you gonna be taking care of everything it'll just be me tonight that's great oh you're on then thank you this meeting student achieve achievements are as follow congratulations to coach flannelly and the math team currently the math team is second in the county and 10th in the state senior Anton leonian qualified and took the American Invitational mathematics examination results are pending congratulations to senior Annie dong for being selected as a candidate for the US Presidential scholarship program Annie also conducted research during the summer of 2023 on grounding large language models in the physical world her work was published in Jan anuary 2024 Maya Omar 9th grade and adth bua 10th grade are winners of the Somerset County inspirational woman essay contest Maya honored the founder of the American Association of the Red Cross CLA Barton and advaith honored women's rights activist Alice Paul Brer Saha 10th grade whose essay beyond the quill Mercy Otis Warren's impact on revolutionary thought has been selected as the winner of The George S and Stella M KN essay award for the New Jersey Society sons of the American Revolution the New Jersey Society will be submitting procress essay to the National Society for consideration for the national award senior Chelsea Fernandez was named best witness during the first round of the Somerset County Mock Trial Competition senior Leah Anthony's remarkable piece pair of sixes has been accepted into the prestigious Morris Museum's 35th Anniversary fresh perspective show this is a significant accomplishment considering the high level of competition and we're proud to share that Leah's peace is the sole represent sole representative from washing Hills Regional High School the exhibit will be open to the public both online and in person from Friday March 15th through Sunday May 26th congratulations to Leah on this remarkable achievement we look forward to seeing her artwork showcased at The Morris Museum each of the following students has a piece from last semester's foundations of painting class that'll be displayed at this year's Somerset County Youth art month exhibit The Works will be up in on view from February 25th through March 2nd at the Manville Public Library the closing reception will be Saturday March 2nd from 12:00 to 2: p.m. this is the first time in a long time that the Somerset County Youth Art Exhibit has been on view in person this is a great accomplishment Khloe Chen 9th grade Charlotte cubby 9th grade Julia Goldberg 10th grade Ellen Chen 9th grade Natalie Kingman 10th grade Alexa Zamora Marin 10th grade sports updates as the winter athletic season comes to a close here are some exciting highlights this past Saturday wung Hills hosted the district 16 wrestling tournament involving 10 schools we came in third place and had eight wrestlers Advanced to Regions Gabby Gia con made school history by being the first wrestler on the girls team to clinch the number one spot in the 107 weight class of the conference tournament last week our number two seated boys basketball team team will host Columbia High School in the first round of state tournament on Wednesday 221 at 5:30 come out and support our Warriors the girls fencing team will take on the Academy of the Holy Angels on Wednesday 221 in the second round of States this is the first time in many years the team Advanced to the state tournament swimmer Anna MOS broke the National Public School record for the 50 m freestyle with a time of 2545 seconds spring athlet please be sure to have your sports physicals handed in and or online submissions completed by Friday 223 please don't forget to register for your sport in your student portal and complete all online consents parents need to complete online consents as well and health history update if a complete sports physical isn't required at this time thank you thank you Sophie for your double duty this evening we appreciate that and it's always great to hear about all the extracurricular activities that are happening around and throughout the school uh before Dr jid uh recognizes the educators of the year I just want to uh say how great an evening this is and uh it's always a highlight and certainly this is as much fun if not more fun than going through the agenda items and voting on our various business items so certainly a uh hearty congratulations I'm sure Dr J has some more detailed with detailed highlights with respect to Moren Kelly Ken Carnes and Teresa miles and uh this is the uh magazine cover where Moren Kelly was awarded the uh njaa ESP educator of the year and I think there's a couple copies out on the uh table and I'm sure they're online but with that Dr Jude if you could present our honors thank you so much Mr Burber so this is really nice and this is one of my favorite things to do and I feel very privileged to get to honor some of our exemplary staff and it's really nice uh that you brought some family members and fans with you as well so thank you I I really appreciate you I I always I I enjoy being able to invite you to the board meeting to honor you but I also feel guilty taking time away more time away from you to ask you to come at night but hopefully the cake is a little extra enticement especially for some of the young fans who come uh so I'm going to ask you if you don't mind as I I what I want to do is I'm going to read I don't think I could say it better than the submissions that were made on each of your behalf St s so I just pulled some excerpts from the submissions that were made when our staff members were nominated uh for their different Awards so I'm going to start with Miss Teresa miles and you may come up by yourself or you can bring up your family as well since I know uh the media is going to want to take pictures okay all right so like I said I'm just going to read a little piece from uh what was submitted on Teresa mil's behalf and she is our 2324 Educational Services professional of the year for watchong Hills um Teresa miles supported Mrs miles met with all grades 9 through 12 students on her case load for academic advisement postsecondary and College Planning uh also I want to mention I know this is not the first time that you have seen uh Teresa here in front of the the board she came last year with some students that she had done tremendous work with who presented uh at the end of the year so and I would say all of these faces you are familiar faces because you're very involved in multiple aspects of the school for the 45 grade 11 students on her case load Mrs miles scheduled inperson meetings with these students and their parents and caregivers Mrs miles worked closely with each of her grade 12 students on developing individualized post-secondary plans including college and careers continuing to utilize the district's well-developed multi-tiered system of supports Mrs miles communicates regularly with ESL teachers student assistants counselors and Ruckers clinicians to discuss students on their shared case loads and identify students that could benefit from additional support including crisis assessments collab collaborating with the teachers that instruct for the Empower program Mrs miles Works to provide the needed additional support for these students to get back on track academically Mrs miles Works to identify additional students that can utilize the Empower summer school program and over the summer meets with incoming students and parents and caregivers with a prior established Section 504 accommodation plan she was an active and engaged member of a PLC group on development and expansion of elll services which is part of our strategic plan and developing and recommending enhancements to our ESL program she participated in a number of professional development opportunities this year related to ESL in and out-of-class support including District professional development programming attending other District ESL programs to learn from colleagues about their practices and attended the teaching English to speakers of other languages conference recently Mrs miles attended a board meeting to discuss the ESL support and programming provided and tied to the district's strategic plan goal number four uh progress and initiatives as I mentioned Mrs miles worked with students that presented presed at this board meeting to share their invaluable feedback directly with the board members and Community Mrs miles supported and attended a number of School counseling department evening events including class of 23 and 24 presentations her professionalism and support was appreciated and much needed to Proctor and oversee the various testing administrations this Academic Year for AP exams and njsla and J GPA her work ethic dedication and the impact she has had on the wung hill students are some of the many reasons that we proudly honor her as the whrhs educational services professional and endorse her as the County Educational Services professional of the Year miss [Applause] Haram we have a beautiful certificate that you may display thank you thank you so I don't know if you want to say anything you're welcome to um thank you very much I have to say I was very surprised um when I learned that I was receiving this award I thought that everyone that I work with should receive this award I truly cannot do my job without my Village um they are always there for me when I ask of anything uh they support me through all things even when I might not be in in the best of spirits but I truly am humbled by this so I appreciate it thank you so much thank [Applause] you next we have Mr Ken Carnes you can bring up your special guests all good all right I'll start while you're walking starting out as a music Major and an amazing piano player singer dancer and actor Mr Carnes soon transformed his love of History into becoming a teacher Watchung Hills is grateful for the for this change of career choice as Mr Carnes is truly deserving of the title teacher of the year do you guys agree yeah in the classroom you will not find a more dedicated teacher and role model imagine loving coming to your job every day that is Ken Carnes happy upbeat enthusiastic one can hear Mr cares teaching the Progressive Era 1920s or Renaissance throughout the entire 300s wing and can watch him walk or skip down the hallway all the while talking to students he both knows and even those he does not know he briens everyone's day as he greets all his students all of whom he knows something personal about making them each feel like they are just as important as the next one let us walk into his classroom there you will see a teacher motivating his students and increasing their learning every single day his goal for the last several years has been to help students find their voice whether through a seminar discussion or in small group analysis of documents students do not memorize facts they make meaning from information and find ways to transfer their knowledge to their own experiences each day he is establishes a serious learning environment while also being able to use his quick wit to entertain his class and surprise them constantly a few years ago for instance he put out a red carpet the day of the school play for a few student actors he had in class his gong and megaphone certainly keep students awake and he and his demonstrations of events makes history come alive from all levels of students helping achieve High AP scores to working with our multilanguage Learners Mr Carnes truly values each for their individuality and sees potential in all it is with immense Pride that we honor Mr Carnes as the whrhs teacher of the year and recommend him as the county teacher of the [Music] [Applause] year again thank thank you so much and like Tara said it is truly humbling um you know I I really appreciate the community that I become a part of and it's something that's become really important to me to my children you know this is not their first board meeting uh we like being a part of this community and just uh immersing ourselves so that we can you know remind ourselves what's important community and uh that's that's what I've been about and I appreciate everything Liz said thank you so much and uh thank you all all right thank [Applause] you oh I almost forgot your certificate do one of you guys want to come back and grab it okay and lastly we have Moren Kelly so Moren Kelly was our educator of the year for wung Hills last year and this year she was nominated by the NJEA for the education support professional of the year for the state of New Jersey for 2024 you can come on up so she has a nice uh photo spread which I know some of you wanted to bring back for her to sign so she might have time to autograph it uh while we're having some cake um so I'm just going to read a short excerpt from uh from her entry when she was from her nomination uh last year when she was nominated for watch Young Hills and the article is actually in moren's own words which is really nice so I I highly recommend you all um read it I have to tell you that they actually got to share the news I was waiting till you were going to come to this meeting but a couple of the board members were alerted to it by somebody their kids some because they got it in the mail um and they were very very excited so this is very very you are so deserving of this um and I'm really happy that we get to acknowledge you tonight Miss Kelly establishes a culture for learning in the classroom by working diligently with all teachers for the academic success of her students she manages each student Google Classroom account in order to assist with the students management emailing every students's teacher is a genuine and professional task which she does almost daily to ensure the students achievement Miss Kelly puts so much passion and effort into improving the school community and has inspired many students to do the same she makes herself available as much as possible for her students during lunch after school Andor during her prep periods I have to say that I don't think I ever see Miss Kelly without a student several inches away from her um whether hopefully she gets to go to the bathroom by herself but other than that I'm not entirely sure the dedication and sacrifice that she has made to support the students in the extracurricular activities that she oversees shows just how much she cares about the watchong hills Community often you will find Miss Kelly on the field hockey field until 7:00 p.m. where she has been a coach for 12 years returning all items to the locker room and quickly ending her night with the planning of another event for the entire School Community she serves as a positive role model and leads by example this is evident through her interactions with the student body everyone knows Mo Smiles are contagious when she walks in the Halls grade level councils all school council community service fundraisers dinners homecoming proms Sports all these clubs and and activities are envisioned and promoted with creativity by Moren Kelly we have seen firsthand how much joy helping others and connecting to the community brings Miss Kelly fits the criteria of bettering the community around her and inspiring others outside of the classroom knowing Miss Kelly's personal character and all of her countless Deeds for the school we can safely say that she is more than deserving to be considered for such an honor here is your certificate so it was around like 18 years ago my father-in-law Dr Thomas Dey who's principal here invited me into his house and he loved this place beyond words um and I just hope I've done a good job with respect to him but it's really the people that I work with I started with Tyra miles and through peer leadership I just we always did great things together and then I got to meet other people through the other activities and this is all because of everyone who is so supportive our colleagues are just amazing in every Department I like when we say it takes a village it really does and I just think everyone I work with is so collaborative and so supportive and they want what's best for the students and I think that's so great to highlight um but I just this one's for Dr Dany thank [Applause] you okay we're going to take a 10 minute break so everyone can enjoy some cake and uh just leave a couple sorry lemon bars over for Bob but sorry yes we'll do that as well okay great we are back again thank you uh all the recipients of the awards the Educators very exciting okay this is the first public comment period which will be limited to the agenda items for this meeting only the second public comment period will be open to any topic all comments are limited to five minutes do we have any public comments want comment on the cake excellent okay seeing none uh Clos the first opportunity for public comments uh board discussion is next uh if everyone will indulge me uh we're going to talk briefly about board goal progress and when we sorry uh at The Retreat we spoke about this briefly and I tasked Liz Dr J with uh going over uh we have three board goals reviewing them seeing where we were with respect to them what we've accomplished and what we still needed to do so I look at it as yeah work in progress uh whether something's been completed and things to do uh I'm going to skip to communication first and then we can either discuss these items briefly or in depth but we always talk about communication and and uh you know it seems like every year we talk about it uh we made great strides and some people look for specific items that they can do better and we try to provide that type of guidance and the question is whether or not something like communication or any of the other items do they if they need to continue to be on the board goal you know or whether we made significant progress and we're looking and obviously any goal that we have we always want to continue to go whether it's education we want to obviously have the best education the best whatever uh best experience and all that that's always a goal even if we take an item off a specific board goal that doesn't mean the goal does not continue to exist uh however this when when I certainly when I look at the specific goals it's something that you know we're focused on or we're going to put renew energy on jump start start that so again so I we talked about it and I asked Liz to look at the uh uh the goals and again so the first one just to remind everyone is regionalization and I think at the last meeting uh we were very close to getting that approved by the state Bob or has that officially been approved or we're very very close Okay then uh item two again that's the communication again there's about 10 items and things we've done and moving forward with regard to the website and providing all sorts of information to uh the teachers the students the parents um number three uh the yeah yeah absolutely I'm sorry sorry it's just about um an acronym so under goal two second bullet utilize DLT is that District level oh I don't know thank you for asking I you know what I sometimes I remember to write them out and sometimes I forget so that's District leadership team and I will try to remember I was just trying to create notes for this for us to speak so please ask if there's any acronyms on here I know an education we kill you with enough acronyms that me adding my own makes it worse no problem and again item three had to do with the the mental health and uh the Great strides we've made in those in that area I should say with the programs that we provide and the support and the services that we provide so the question is and again we spoke about it briefly is whether or not we want to again we don't have to set the goals tonight but perhaps this is the jump start to the discussion of whether we want to add more goals take some goals away or if there's specific items that we haven't done there's a concrete example say hey let's do this or the website looks great but we should have another page with this I've seen this before and this might be helpful to whatever our constituent base might be in that area so again this first time you're seeing this sheet um so unless anyone has any specific comment tonight we can certainly talk about it uh at the next meeting or a follow-up meeting yeah Bob yeah and that's what I was going to suggest is given the fact that we just received this this evening right next meeting is a work session why don't we make it a topic of conversation to follow up at that point that way everyone has a chance to reflect on it have write down their ideas and I'll add this to the um drive this I just we printed out hard copy so everyone can take a look but I'll add it so everyone can um access it and I'll send a link yeah absolutely again the purpose tonight was really just to introduce it because we had talked about it at the retreat yes Lisa it's just more acronyms in uh three um the second bullet third year of administration analysis of results of njs oh that's that's the our our um climate uh survey but I will write that out NJ Sky it's New Jersey school climate initiative that's through Ruckers I will make a note to actually write out um the acronyms at least once on here when I speak to them so thank you for that oh you got qac DPR it's not Al so I liked when um it's like being in the Army it's called me Dr qack at the I think that was at the retreat I think that um yes I will I will write those out the first time I use them to explain them yes I actually started writing it down like wait what was that one all right let's move on thank you yeah this I will take care of that we'll add that to the communication goal if you want yeah yeah again I just wanted to introduce it tonight because again Liz just uh i' had spoken to her and we just kind of reviewed it on Thursday or Friday and uh that's where on that okay great now we move on to some of our is there any discussion of addenda addendum items do we do we have any addendum tonight I mean there's a few yes there are a few is there any discussion with regard to those items okay see you now we have action items Mr President I'd like to move items A1 through A3 I have a second okay uh any comments discussion I see none roll call vote Mr maio M Lee uh yep you are not would you have to retreat oh okay right uh Mr May yes Mr Morrison yes Mr obber okay Miss Potter yes rasa yes G yes and Mr bber yes motions carry Mr President I'd like to move item A4 we have a second any comments discussion seeing none loc call Mr Mario Lee manek Yes Morrison yes ubera chour yes G yes Mr yes Mr President I'd like to move items C1 through C4 14 second any comments or discussion with regard to C1 through c14 seeing none roll call please bless bless you Mr maio yes Miss Lee Yes Mar yes Morrison yes cber Potter Yesa chur yes Gall yes and Mr Burber yes Mo carries Mr President I'd like to move items D1 through d10 second I'm sorry comment on it we're GNA pull the you can comment on it once we once we have a motion in a second okay no problem okay second uh I second good all right uh I'm going to comment on D5 quickly and then if anyone else has any comments on any other items actually d56 are they're all related yep I'm sorry got it um so again as uh Mr St has gone through the budget process he highlighted to us what the education tuition rate would be for uh students that were not uh a member of uh communities Wong Long Hill and Warren in effect the Greenbrook sending District as well as we do have some students who are to based uh we don't fall into that program which are primarily uh students of teachers um with regard to uh that tuition rate there is a Formula based uh that you just plug in the numbers with and then the formula spits out what that number would be what the cost would be when you plug in that number when you plug in those numbers I should say uh you come up with a number that's a little over 20 $33,000 however Mr sty has advised that that number although it is a true number uh there are times that we don't actually uh hit our full budget and that um we don't spend all the money in the budget I guess and that the true number is approximately 21,400 which is the D5 uh number that's in the uh up for vote the U and so in instead of overcharging then having to refund you know it's in his experience that this is a more accurate number uh so that is the number that we are approving for tuition that is the number that is going to be used in our uh budget to complete the budget process are there any other comments or questions with respect to that or any of the other D through and D1 through d10 items okay uh roll call vote Mr maio yes M Lee yes Mr me yes Mr Morrison yes sober Potter yes pra shampur yes Gall yes and Mr bernberg yes motions carry thank you okay uh second opportunity for public comment seeing none we close the second opportunity for public comment is there any other business this evening yes Mr Morrison uh just a couple um legislative updates that I think are important that I wanted to bring uh to the board's attention um first of all uh Senate um Senator uh Teresa Ruiz introduced a series of four uh education bills last week um and they're all kind of related to you know reading Improvement um but I think there are some things here that um both as a district and I think other education leaders across the state are certainly concerned about uh the first bill is 2644 is establishing a reading Intervention Program for students in grades kindergarten through third grade um with a reading deficiency scoring below grade level or at risk of scoring below below grade level on a screening assessment it would include instruction and uh phonological awareness phonics fluency vocabulary and comprehension comprehension uh a lot of this is based on the science of reading uh methodology that I think has been U getting a lot of play in The Press recently uh the second bill will require school districts to screen students for reading deficiencies uh and would stipulate that every student in um kindergarten through third grade would be screened three times a year um they would also be screened if they're new to the district uh if there was a reading deficiency there would be 15 days to report uh the information both to the parents and to the state um the third Bill requires school districts to provide annual training for K12 teachers who handle interventions for students training must include information on the science of reading reading intervention techniques distinguishing between students eligible for special education service with reading deficiencies then the fourth bill would create the office of learning loss zar who would be appointed by the co governor and the office would be tasked with finding ways to identify and reverse learning loss especially for students of color lowincome students and students with disabilities the problem as number of the associations see with this are first of all there's no money attached to these bills so they are in essence another unfunded mandate coming down from the state second is we're adding lots and lots of testing more testing for our students uh the third thing is that it is in essence attempting to create a specific curriculum for reading and in the state of New Jersey the state has not dictated that districts have a specific curriculum for anything the districts get to decide what the curriculum is the state gets to determine what the learning standards are and what happens here here is all of a sudden the state is beginning to venture into the area of actually picking curriculum and then requiring districts to adhere to that curriculum which means if it's a curriculum that you're not using in your District then you are retraining your entire District on using a new curriculum regardless of whether or not you are performing at or above state level as it relates to reading proficiency so the fact that they're using this one siiz fits-all kind of approach uh is certainly problem itic the last thing that I will comment on and I preface this by saying that it's a personal opinion the fact that we have a Department of Education this idea of having a learning loss Zar we have a Department of Education that has over 200 vacancies if you want to know why certain things are not happening it's because we don't have a fully staffed or functional New Jersey Department of Education if we need a learning lar that's called the commissioner of education and we haven't had a duly appointed and confirmed Commissioner of Education in five years so instead of having a a learning law SAR we should actually appoint and approve a competent Commissioner of Education who can hire the staff necessary at the Department of Education that can address this issue this these bills and and I while I understand and I clear CLE ly support the need to ensure that our students and particularly our young students you know by the time if if they're not reading a grade level by by grade three they're lost for the rest of their education period so the fact that they're focusing on that I think makes a lot of sense and kudos to the senator for bringing that forward but the the approach that she's advocating for uh is certainly in my opinion um c not supported with funding uh an unfunded mandate uh and is really uh ignoring what the real problems are in the state and that is we have a dysfunctional Department of Education so I would start there uh the the last bill that I want to share with you uh that was introduced and it's created some misinformation that's going around and particularly as it relates uh some commentary with even within our own communities here uh Senator uh zwicker introduced uh Senate Bill 2434 uh providing tax levy cap adjustments for certain school districts experiencing reductions in state school aid some people have taken that to mean that the state is all of a sudden going to lift the 2% cap on uh School budgets and therefore there's going to be uh you're going to see a lot of increases in property taxes as a result of the lifting of that cap the reality is this is all this is targeted for a select set of school districts it's not for all school districts it's for a select set of school districts and only those school districts that are losing state aid so if you're in a school district and you are losing state aid like Tom's River that's losing Millions like South Brunswick some of those communities where they're losing millions of dollars in state aid the state's basically saying we will allow you to go above the 2% cap in order to try to recoup some of those funds locally the reason why some of those districts are losing their state is because they've been overpaid in state aid for several years so the state is in the process of adjusting everyone just like we have been underpaid in state aid for several years and most recent last four or five years we've actually seen our state aid increase so for the community it's important that you be aware that the the districts that are targeted for impact by this bill are not in our community so there's they're not raising the they're not lifting the 2 % cap on all districts across the state they're lifting it for targeted districts in the State uh and there are no targeted districts in our community so the comments going out there about our taxes going up because of this are completely inaccurate um in the meantime we'll be working with the Garden State Coalition of schools the New Jersey school boards Association and others to try to have an impact on the shape of this legislation as it moves forward um so I just felt that with the importance of both the new set of reading bills that have come through and some of the misinformation that's out there regarding tax po the tax implication of this wicker um bill I wanted to make sure that that as a board we understood what what all those bills were up for absolutely oh that was great thank you really appreciate that summation of what happens down in Trenton which not always good news for us or certainly are sending districts for the the grammar schools anyone else I'll take a motion of adjournment all those in favor we are adjourned thank you thank you