##VIDEO ID:pBTHzH0X_qE## right right good evening everybody this is a regular session of the Board of Education we've met earlier in executive session and we've already saluted the flag uh so now I'm going to just read quickly the statement of public notice this is a regular meeting of the Board of Education of Bernard ship notice of the time and place of this meeting was provided and copies of that resolution were forwarded to the official newspapers as designated by the Board of Education and to the Township Clerk and a copy of the notice was posted on the bulton board of board Education offices for those members of the public who cannot attend our meeting in person a live stream link to the meeting is posted on the district website www bernardo.inn is earlier in the meeting before the bo board votes when you may speak about any item that's listed on tonight's agenda towards the end of the meeting there's another public forum to address any matter of public concern related to the schools when you approach the microphone please state your name and address each statement made by a participant shall be limited to three minutes duration no participant may speak more than once during a given public Comon session the first public Comon session will be limited to 30 minutes and the second will be Unlimited in order to run efficient meetings and to allow maximum opportunity for members of the public to speak board reserves the right to set a different time limit for individual comments and the overall time limit for the public comments portion of the agenda all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer no participant May address or question board members individually no public comments will be accepted before 7 PM or after item 20 public comment on the agenda ends please understand that the public comment portions of our agendas are not structured as question and answer sessions but are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board Administration will respond to public comments to the extent possible any board responses to public comments will generally be addressed during board Forum or committee reports however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when speaking comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students and employees please also understand that the board will not be responsible for the content of comments made by members of the public members of the public are cautioned that they are speaking at their own risk and any personally directed statements they make make it subject to them to Legal liability to the affected individual if it's necessary for the board to go into exec session at the end the meeting we will provide an estimated length of time for the session and whether any action is anticipated to be taken upon return to public session and with that we are up to student representative Joseph what do you have for us good evening and thank you Mrs White so I hope you're all doing well as we're about to begin our second semester at school as always our Administration and students have been very busy and I have a few updates to share with you so since our last meeting former Ridge Athletic Director Mr shello was honored with the distinguished service award in my opinion definitely a fitting recognition of his lasting impact on our entire Athletic program and in addition junior soccer player Nicole gber was celebrated for earning All State h ERS at the NJ girls soccer coaches association luncheon Switching gears to the pool both our Ridge swim teams made waves during senior night with pretty dominant victories both over Bernards the boys secured a 130 to 40 win while the girls won 119 to 49 our basketball teams continue to do well with the girls winning four of their last six games after a bit of a rocky start um they are turning their season around while our boys are sitting at 13 and three with only one loss in the Skyland conference so highly recommend if you can get out to a game the boys are putting together a really great season continuing our Ridge success is our boys winner track team we captured our sixth consecutive Somerset County championship in Staten Island a few weeks back on January 12th and our team so far has set numerous school records and qualified for New Balance Nationals uh in March and we'll continue we'll look to continue that in the coming weeks as we have our conference champion ship uh on Sunday and then the state section shortly thereafter so across the board our winter sports teams are winning big as is the norm as of late Ridge hockey boasts a positive 97-2 record with a solid 3- one Conference standing and our girls fencing team remains undefeated at 8-0 while the boys fencing team holds a similarly impressive seven- one record and finally our wrestling team are battling their way to a strong 12-4 season with a two in1 record in conference play Ridge has not only been excelling in terms of sports but just this weekend our Ridge forensics the speech and debate team hosted their annual Ridge Invitational Tournament and the event was a huge success with over 1,000 competitors from all across the state additionally on January 23rd Mara Crouch the teen librarian at the Bernards Public Library visited our school to engage with students and share resources that she provided looking ahead we have our Wellness day number three this Wednesday the full schedule and room assignments will be shared tomorrow with all the students and sessions will include the in my opinion very important course Fair uh preparation for building student schedules for the underclassman next year uh senior start tea time and a career panel that my father actually served on last year so I'm interested to see who serves this year along with a conversation with administrators regarding cell phones so on that last point I should have a lot to share with you next time we meet for those interested in music the band winter showcases is happening here in the pack tomorrow at 700 p.m. and the evening is going to feature performances from the districtwide fifth grade band wham's eighth grade band and the ridge jazz concert band and Wind Ensemble so additionally communication regarding the ongoing phone free pilot will be sent out next week um and as you can see we have some information in our packet here so students staff and families will have the opportunity to provide more feedback through separate forms coming in the near future as we continue on with the process so I personally strongly encourage everyone to kind of share their thoughts and get the word out uh about suggestions or um other things throughout this process and one last point I'd like to thank Mr marcarian for beginning to send out SOS Express to all the students so that's really kept us in the loop so a big thank you for that um so that's all I have for you tonight and thank you as always thanks Joseph um we welcome you to stay but we know you have a lot of work so if you need to feel free does anybody have any any questions or comments for Joseph okay uh then we are up to um the board presentation and we are all going to go down to the audience for that portion for for for that's exactly how I planned it okay well good evening everyone thanks for joining us this evening at our Board of Education meeting um I just wanted to start by talking a little bit about strategic planning in general um obviously the the concept here is to try to um lay out a road forward if you will on some long-term goals for the Improvement of the district we last did this 2006 years ago 2019 um we made a five-year strategic plan and as part of our strategic plan survey uh the first section was to get some feedback on some of our major initiatives just from uh folks perspective on how well we did with those different objectives uh obviously no no goal is ever 100% complete uh but I think we had some nice results and made a lot of progress so we'll talk about uh the results that we had on that front relative to the Strategic plan that we already have on the books uh and also following that we took advantage of the opportunity to kind of gather some information that we could use going forward for the next strategic plan which takes on a couple forms um one is some open-ended questions um some rating questions of priorities that people have and then uh as a second aspect of trying to look forward we ask people about current programs to get some feedback on how things are going in general looking at different aspects of service uh in the school district so let's see if we can't get through this um this just represents uh who participated in the Strategic plan survey uh as you can see it was largely parents and Guardians uh a good number of Staff uh some students and also community members um which would represent folks who don't have students in the district um if we break it down by school we can see some great participation from all of our schools breaking down the uh number of respondents and then we can get into our different strategic plan initiatives this is not a comprehensive look look at every aspect of the existing strategic plan but it does have um the overarching themes represented and one of those was to provide learning opportunities that meet the needs of all students uh so you can see here that we just took a pulse from folks on a scale that was strongly disagree up to strongly agree we had a goal about uh increasing opportunities for students to explore Career College and Vocational opportunities uh we had a large number of folks fall into the category of not really having an opinion on this one um we had 42% of of respondents either agreeing or strongly agreeing so for us I think this points to an area where we had some growth but we want to continue to work on it seal was a big uh initiative and you can see that we had a lot of agreement that we grew in this area we had uh what is that 57% of respond agreeing or strongly agreeing that we strengthened uh student social emotional learning competencies through our building programming connecting uh staff and students another initiative that we had listed in our strategic plan uh safety was uh also something that we spent a lot of time on in this strategic plan um as you know we have done a lot over the years with respect to safety uh in particular with um kind of uh hardening the target if you will at our main entrances where we have created man traps uh at all of the schools um we designated a full-time staff person um as a district representative to be our district Safety and Security Officer he's actually hanging out tonight continuing the work thank you Mr Warner uh we also have uh SOS at all of the schools and an SRO uh here at William uh here at Ridge High School standardized communication this was an interesting one we had a lot of feedback that was positive about the fact that our communication was standardized one of the things that we did see um in some of our feedback on this was that we have a ton of it uh and there was some interest in trying to get that uh information to be more streamlined or perhaps um delivered through a mobile app we had a couple of questions that were specific just to staff members so again this is only the staff members responded to this item um we wanted to teach them social emotional competencies how can we expect them to model that for their students if they don't know it themselves so I was pretty pleased um that this number just hit 80% in feeling like um they had developed a better understanding of what seal competencies are also for staff members we asked for some feedback about the staff college and the professional offerings that we're trying to offer through it to help uh get a sense of how valuable do they think the programs are um this was a little disappointing candidly that uh we didn't get more U strength in agreement but that's okay it gives us a good opportunity for improvement the district has strengthened student social tional learning competencies through building based programming I think I covered that one and the next question that was asked in the survey was um looking forward to the next round of strategic plan what are your priorities so um folks were asked to drag and drop you might remember doing the survey where you would drag your top priority up to number one uh your lower priority to number nine so um scores could be as high as one right if everyone felt that one thing should be the top priority it would have been developing student competencies getting a score of one the average score was 2.28 so if you imagine a lot of people giving it a one two or three it probably averaged out to that 2.28 and then at the bottom things that were were pushed down to uh nine 6789 uh might have averaged around 2.58 so promoting cross content learning was the lowest scored or the lowest priority item so not surprisingly right we see academics right developing student competencies and Safety and Security as the top two I was really thrilled to see that because I would have picked those as the top two if you hadn't surveyed anyone this is sort of a word representation of some of the open-ended responses obviously viously the larger the word uh the more it came up in the open-ended response question of can you tell us more about the topics that are most important to you you might remember that followed right after organizing uh your priorities uh from 1 to n and we also asked what are your hopes for the future of Bernard's Township School District students what steps can we take to achieve this vision so in addition to thinking about um the survey results from this past fall um we we also wanted to get a sense of our programs themselves right so getting people's reflection on the old strategic plan but also asking them to just think as a snapshot right now how do you feel about the programs that we're currently running okay one of the responses in each of these items was na I'll give you the first example to kind of make that clear for you we asked a question about our general education programs and we just asked folks to respond on a one to five scale and give a rating we also provided an opportunity where people didn't have an opinion or the experience to rate that particular item they could choose na so in calculating these averages what I was trying to describe here was was I took out the Nas and calculated the average since the na didn't have a value right so using 5 1es 122s 181 fours and 89 fivs what was the average rating okay so it doesn't really line up with the percentages when you think of it that way because the percentages actually include the 6% that didn't rate everything uh didn't provide a rating from one to five so I just want to make that clear in terms of the math of how the average rating was done for all of these items we took a look at general education core programs special education core programs uh in the mainstream or IC settings um we looked at accelerated instruction in areas like Quest honors classes and AP classes we asked people to give a response about special education core programs in the resource room setting and also in the the world language setting including sign language we ask folks to give us feelings about multilingual Learners in this case you'll see 240 folks didn't respond to that item they don't have experience with the program we don't really want them rating it right that was the reason to put the na there special education self-contained programs this would be things like our lld program our Visual Arts programs Performing Arts programs often right here on this stage uh Career and Technical education programs health and PE wellness and character Ed programs School counseling co-curricular clubs athletic programs school bus transportation service to from home and school child our child study team Services irrs programs and 54 Services again and that's a specialized area a lot of folks didn't have experience with that General School administration and operations School nursing and everyone loves a good school lunch this was the lowest rated area gray matter okay uh maintenance and cleanliness of school facilities and grounds and I wanted to throw in there the new school start and dismissal times okay so all of that kind of wrapped up into one question at the end of the survey you might remember responding to a 0 to 10 scale with zero being uh very low rating and 10 a very high rating in terms of How likely would you be to recommend the district uh to a friend or family member so 800 people answered that question 76% of folks gave it a 8 n or 10 21% were kind of in the in the middle and 4% rated less than a five Z one two three or four okay so we had two pieces there that we collected in the fall right we ran that survey we left it open October November December so it was it was open for three months for people to weigh in it gave us some perspective about um the current strategic P plan that we've had for the last several years it gave us some perspective about areas where people would like to see uh Improvement and it gave us some satisfaction ratings to kind of add to the mix in our thinking about areas where uh we can focus some extra work in addition to that we had um done an exchange okay so if you if you remember the difference between a regular old survey and the thought exchange survey was in the thought exchange people interacted with the software they posted an idea a thought right and then other folks engaged in the conversation they would give that thought a rating or not they could skip it look at other thoughts give them a rating or they could add their own thought and other people could put ratings around that thought so that's the difference between kind of a straightup survey which is what we did in the fall October November December but last spring we did a thought exchange so in that thought exchange we had 750 people engage in one way shape or form they might have posted a thought they might have just done some ratings they might not have put any thoughts in and only done ratings um there were 384 thoughts that were posted [Music] 13,558 ratings per participant uh or about 34 ratings per thought each thought getting an average of 34 ratings so what were they all responding to right nice broad open-ended question looking at the 20123 24 school year remember this was in the spring so looking back on the 23 24 school year uh and looking to the Future what are we doing well and where are our opportunities to improve so in the fall we kind of asked some straight up every single program give a rating in the spring we had asked them more broadly what are the things that you're interested in so looking at a little bit of a summary of that because it's a lot um the software helps us kind of develop the top themes so when we use this product from the exchange it it kind of uses AI helps us get to some of the bigger themes uh distilling the data down came down to communication academics teacher uh retention and wellness student wellness and Facilities came up a lot General ideas about how to improve facilities and kind of I threw in there an operational issue of food service which you know I'm not surprised that one came up since it got the 3.0 rating on the uh approval system there so um communication I mentioned this earlier we have a ton of it right you can't complain that you don't have enough information but I could understand how you could be overwhelmed by it and you might say could you make it more streamlined but then you're going to want more when I streamline it but that being said we we do want to um make it as easy to digest as possible so we've actually already started working on something that um has a mobile app Feature um that hopefully will be ready for the fall uh academics um a lot of folks spoke to the importance of the rigor of academics wanting kids to be challenged academically and have great outcomes with that rigor uh and other people kind of spoke about the fact that it can be really stressful studying doing the homework trying to keep up with the expectations of that rigor can be stressful so was a little bit of um you know balancing that that people raised as a challenge um teachers a lot of that was focused on retaining teachers training teachers having Wellness for teachers just as much as you have Wellness for staff or for students rather you know keeping in mind um we want to have good Wellness for for everyone um student wellness of course kind of goes back to that balance with academics how do you balance all the academics and navigate the stress um have activities right get involved in things be connected to your school um and learning to cope right developing executive functioning skills those kinds of things uh and as I mentioned um facilities and Food Service were also brought up as uh common comments okay this is an interesting um aspect of the software sometimes uh folks like to look at things from where where are their differences and where is their commonality um there was a a large theme uh related to communication we talked about that and another uh another uh side of the coin that was really focused on homework and academic pressure but those same groups of people had a common ground area uh in terms of student well-being right everybody wants to have well-being for the kids so not surprising um but certainly uh affirming okay so we have all this information we've collected a lot of data we've looked at um a couple different ways for people to provide uh input on Old strategic plan goals ideas for new strategic plan goals priorities going forward uh satisfaction ratings to add to the mix so we have a lot of information to work with um and you know we we need to kind of get some Focus going forward now what are we going to do with all of this so if we look at a lot of the data um we really have four areas that I think we can capture a lot of people's interests in these four areas not that different from what we've been working on over the years and also affirming what's most important for schools right great outcomes for kids academically great out great outcomes for kids in areas of Wellness all the activities that they're involved in and everything that makes them happy and healthy besides just getting an A on something or learning and growing in the classroom right other ways to be well and successful so I I'm happy to see those themes coming through um and along with that we want to take care of the staff give them great professional development and make them feel safe and welcome as much as the students facilities ongoing operational issues Transportation Food Service those are operations so I I I think we can cover people's interests uh in these four areas so what I would suggest going forward is to run a thought exchange for each of those four areas right let people dive in a little bit more give more feedback on those specific issues okay to the extent they want to if this is an area of interest for you you might engage in all four of them get in there make comments Prov ratings on comments that um lets the cream rise to the top in terms of what uh the community the staff even the students feel like our priorities right people put their ideas in and other people give them ratings like yeah that one is really important and those things that don't get the high ratings they tend to fall down in the priority scheme right so um as we look at each of these areas that we know already people have expressed as PR priority areas within those where do we want to put our energy in focus and give everyone a chance to get specific about that so having one exchange letting people post specifically and rate ideas I think will uh give us a lot to chew on take those four separate thought exchanges and run some focus groups distilling the information that comes out of those that's number two and then use all of that conversation and the thought exchanges to start drafting our goals our actions our timelines and our and our U measures for Success okay once we get the draft done reconvene go over the draft get input on that uh in order to get to a final plan so thanks for listening any questions did I Blitz too fast no okay well more work to do going forward that's the bottom line thanks for your attention for okay all right thank you for that presentation I'm looking forward to being able to attend a bunch of zooms and hear what everybody has to say um we are up to superintendent report so I'm sorry Mr marking you're gonna have to speak yet again because there are five items okay so um the first item actually comes through our uh curriculum committee minutes is the class size report I will link that one to the minutes so the public has it in detail as well uh the HIV report for January 27th uh we have a few new clubs uh and forensics uh their upcoming schedule of overnight trips is on the agenda for approval and the board committee assignments uh now that the board has done reorganization at this meeting uh the official board committees are set for uh the balance of the Year thank you um as I said there are five items May I have a motion Janice second Robin okay any comments discussion questions seeing none I'll do the roll call um Miss White yes Dr mck yes Mr Molinari yes Mr am yes Miss chickp yes Miss car yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talet yes Mr am amalo alanic we tried to practice it we tried next time yes thank you all right motion passes great thank you um I just want to go back to one of the things that we just voted on had to do with uh the commit committee and the Lees on assignments for the year so I want to thank both Robin and Nick for helping get that all together um I just want to point out a couple of things um so everybody's on the same page in terms of the regulations and the policies the first thing at your first meeting just touch base with everybody on the committee and if somebody can't make your first meeting to touch base with that person beforehand and find out if the time works or if there's a better time to hold that meeting um the second is we all have in front of us the um policy and the regulation 0155 that talks about um the the responsibility of board members on committees and the practices and policies in terms of um unless it's specified uh by the administrator running the meeting the expectation is that we're in person unless it's been agreed upon by that committee to um meet via Google meet or you have reached out to your chair um to find out if you can attend virtually um the other thing is if you are going to be absent for some reason and it it it happens to everybody you have work you get sick something comes up um please reach out to your chair um as far as Advance as possible because it's ideal to have four people at each meeting um and that way then the chair will find out um if there's somebody else who can fill in for you and then as a courtesy please let your um uh the administrator know so if it's curriculum you would let Miss Fox know if it was Personnel you would let Mr SC know and Nick know if you're not going to be at a meeting because it's it's just nice that they know who's actually going to be walking into the door when when we have a committee meeting um also um for any of you who are new to keeping minutes we do use the Google Docs if anybody needs a brush up or a demo or some help with how to use them um please reach out because we can arrange for that and then just make sure following um the the meeting that you um share your minutes first with the members of your committee and the admin who is associated with that um and it I think we have it set in the uh regulation how many days you have to get your minutes out and then once you all have had put your input then it will be shared out with the full board once we as a full board get the the minutes if you have a question about something in it reach out to that chair um and try to do that before the next board meeting because sometimes you might have a question that they have to go back to a supervisor and get the answer from and that allows them to get that information for you doesn't mean you can't still ask it at a public meeting because other people might have you know benefit from you asking that question but it shouldn't be you get up here and kind of Blindside anybody and then they don't don't have the chance to be able to present what the answer is that you're seeking um I think that that uh is everything that I just wanted to go over um in terms of uh the the Committees um anybody else did I leave anything out I was just going to add one thing too when we sent out like I always remind the um Board of or the U administrator that's working with the chair of the committee when they're sending out the invites to make sure that everyone that is supposed to be at that committee meeting is getting the actual Google calendar invite and those are super helpful if you could remember to respond to those because then that um chair and that administrator can see who's available to come it kind of helps so we can look to make sure that everybody that's invited we can look ahead and see oh everyone responded Yes that's great everyone's coming so it's just a little a helpful thing for us and then um Miss White was talking about the the minutes and how they're shared first with the the members of the committee just for some input um and then once we get those minutes finalized um the other thing that we started to do was uh agree to make the U finalized minutes of PDF so it kind of jumps out as like oh these are the finalized minutes they're are PDF there's no more editing going on so just a couple things that help the Committees thank you okay we are now up to public comment on on agenda items if you have something you would like to share please come forward there's a CLI board down below you may sign in in and then come to the mic and state your name and address okay with that we'll close public comment and uh next item we are up to approval of minutes Dave Keith thank you any questions comments or discussions all right seeing none I'm G to ask for a mo uh for real call to approve the regular and executive session minutes the regular minutes of January 6 and the January 22nd um BT connect meeting minutes Miss White yes Dr mck yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes Miss chisp yes Miss Cado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talet yes Mr amalan yes motions pass and next we're up to finance um there's 17 items I know that uh Finance just met so I know there's no report but is there anything on the items that you want to go over yeah no report but just a couple items that are worthwhile to mention so number seven and eight on there can we have it first in a second and then we can open it up comment and discussion bre first second all right and so now we'll open it back up to comments and questions okay so number seven was a very generous donation from the Johnson family they they donated three sailboats very very nice for the sailing team the yating team uh number eight also we got a donation from the ridge Diamond Club for 62 sets of under ared jerseys for the baseball team really really generous as well um number nine is the annual audit approving of that and the corrective action plan which was very minimal um next one um number 12 um I believe this is new but Nick if you want to comment on this one but uh um we're seeking to participate in the sustainable jerseys for school um and then the last one I want you to mention was number 13 um Panorama um just to pay for that for the rest of the school year is about $112,000 any other comment question or discussion all right take the rad call Miss White yes Dr mcken yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes Miss Chipen yes m Cado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr tpet yes Mr amalan yes okay motion's passed okay next is Personnel committee uh there are were 20 items but there's an addendum if everybody saw that so that makes 23 uh items can I get a motion first Dave second Janice any comments questions or discuss none um to move items 1 through 23 U Miss White yes Dr mcken yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes Miss chip yes Miss Cado yes Mr sha yes Mr talbet yes Mr amalan yes motions pass [Music] Miss MC you a report oh doctor sorry sorry that's okay um short report because there's only a few things I can report out on publicly um one is um a request for several um more days for the nurses to work in the summer um the nursing coordinator Vita zaraba um explained that there are a lot of complicated medical um situations with students and they have to get ready um and and prepare for those students when they're coming in so she is asking if they could work for two extra days in the summer um they would be paid at their PDM rate for those two extra days um so the committee supports that recommendation the other request was that for um students for for PE and health sections um the third marking period has the least number of students in option two so there are many more students in PE class um and many PE teachers are not available since health and 10 and health 11 are running simultaneously this year so um they're requesting that three PE teachers each take an extra section just for that marking period and the committee supports that recommendation and hopefully that will just be a one-time deal and those are the only two items that I can report out on thank you we are now up to policy uh there are two items did you take that did we do the person yes we did person um for policy if I can have a person to move the motion Keith and Dave second any comment discussion questions seeing none I move on to the roll call uh Miss White yes Dr mck yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes Miss chipan yes Miss Cado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talet yes yes Mr amalan yes all right motion's passed we're up to curriculum and there is one item can I have a first hey Jen there there are minutes from oh I'm sorry I'm sorry did you do them or yeah okay so for policy um there's no first or second readings I don't think but there were some discussions so the first one is about student transportation um if a staff member transports a student they are required to have insurance on their vehicle Mr markar suggested clarifying the amount of insurance that the staff member should have the committee asked for additional detail to understand why this is needed and what is the appropriate amount of insurance uh the second item relates to acceptable use of computer networks um and resources uh so policy relates to accept the acceptable use of cell phones um there's no change at this time but we're going to have a discussion at board Forum so I'll leave it for that um that also includes the next item uh regulation 5600 related to student discipline which will'll be changing as related to the cell phone usage um the next item is U regulation 23402 related to overnight trips Mr Mark Caren suggested giving staff more guidance and what is needed to make a request for overnight trips and what are the rules that are being asked for but by the staff the S suggested changes to the regulation will make it clear for the parents what is allowed on the trip when they are signing the consent a pre-trip meeting will also be required this is still in the discussion stage um then there was also a policy alert um the policy alert changes to multiple policies and regulations this alert is related to the to State changes to the memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement officials the changes are very minor uh a few examples in policy 5512 related to HIV investigations if the police have to get involved for any reason the school has to stand down until they finish their investigation next policy 5533 related to student vaping if the school thinks The Vaping is related to drugs then the school has to report it to thece also policy 7441 related to electronic surveillance at the at the request of the school law enforcement can have remote access during an emergency if necessary and then finally policy 9320 related to community cooperation with law enforcement the police May issue a Handle With Care directive to the school administrators if something in the community happens without giving specifics um and then there was just some um we almost ran out of time after that but some general discussion on AI um there Mr Mark Haren has started the draft of this but there's a lot of work to be done and we just had a very good BT connect on this the other day um and then the last one we got to was related to high school graduation um which is policy 5460 the committee discussed um a requirement that students need to complete a fast foot or opt out in order to graduate going forward and that's it for now thank you now we're up to curriculum and there is one item there is a report as well sure and it's me too uh so um the first item is is the change of course title academic support for multilingual Learners um Miss stotler shared that that current course academic support for for Ells will now be called that um the New Jersey Department of Education no longer employs the term English language Learners and instead uses multilingual Learners and the change simply reflects that uh then we had some discussion items the class size report which is um in the agenda uh we discuss the current class sizes of the 2425 school year and in the um report is the linked full of full uh report numbers don't always match up in some of the slides because some such special education enrollment is not included for example students who receive their core contact instruction in self-contained classroom are included in the special education class size as opposed to the general education class size at wham's IC and icr are included in the total because they are inclass section with the second teacher some small classes are small by Design such as Visual and Performing Arts classes and there are no icr sections in English or mathematics at whams um if you do have any questions you can always reach out to miss Fox uh next we spoke about AI um as a result of its use a policy goal is to to address changes that may need to be made a subcommittee is looking into this topic and will be attending professional development piloting tools and will share recommendations also being explored is pulling a team of stakeholders for full day of professional development who will then be able to make recommendations to the board and staff Miss Fox is coordinating with wung hills about what we're doing in our district and during discussions came across AI for Education who offer guidelines support and professional development for school leaders there is Great Value to have full-time dedicated experts talking to all stakeholders and Miss Fox is exploring partnering with watch on Hills Regional High School which would include splitting the cost and include board members teachers staff and parents to potentially be attendees it's an interesting idea to partner with another District as we're all learning how to navigate AI with our students and to see the workshops offered by AI for Education you can visit www AI for education. and March is the targeted time frame for this work to begin and the next uh meeting will be on February SE 7th oh we switched it that's right February 12th at 9 okay so moving the resolution number one under curriculum um can I have a first Robin and a second Dave okay any comments questions or discussions yes yeah just a a comment um been skeptical about consultants in the past but I think this is a I think this is uh great looking at it's Innovative looking at partnering with another school district Wong Hills it's um it's a subject where nobody in the district is subject is a subject matter expert I this is new for all of us so I think uh bringing outside experts and navigating navigating this you know together with another District you know I think it's fantastic I don't think uh all Consulting money is money well spent as probably anybody who listens to me knows but I think uh I think this is so 100% behind it any other comments or questions seeing none I'll move on to the roll call Miss White yes Dr mcken yes yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes Miss chip yes Miss curado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talbet yes Mr amalan yes all right motion passes we are now up to Wellness and there is a report correct yes uh these are the minutes from the December 19th meeting we had an update on the Thrive program Dr Gan okono miss Karen Udo and Thrive Personnel from or and whams updated the committee on their work to date Thrive replaced the district's previous Consultants essential School solutions to provide a more individualized program to better meet student needs at William Anan and ridge high schools Thrive differs from ESS in several important ways in contrast to the therapeutic guidelines governing ESS Thrive has no exclusionary criteria any student experiencing School refusal May participate in Thrive counseling interventions provided by Thrive counselors are solution focused the emphasis is on Mental Health not mental illness because Thrive counselors are familiar with the school's routines procedures and schedules all School staff provide students with consistent clear expectations teachers can easily follow up with counselors to provide necessary support throughout the students day data collection and Analysis is an important component in ensuring that the program meets the needs of our Bernard's Township students Thrive staff at both Ridge and William Adon will collect student data including attendance this will be by class at Ridge and by day at William Anon grades and the number of home visits by staff the Thrive program particularly at William Anon the framework of the middle school is for small group counseling rather than individual groups meet every other week during learning lab as middle school students do not have study hall periods in their schedule the goal is to build a bridge to Ridge by a supporting students to create healthy behaviors B focusing with families on attendance C teaching self- advocacy skills D healthy communication and Boundary setting e minimizing avoidance of uncomfortable emotions the Thrive program at Ridge individual counseling is provided during study hall periods students learn the importance of attending all classes and completing tests and assignments in order to receive the necessary credits for graduation each Thrive counselor shared a case study of an unidentified student board members and administrators remarked on how compelling these individual stories are and how vital Thrive is to ensuring educational success for these students parents and teachers also weighed in on the first few months experiencing Thrive and they were extremely positive in their comments Miss hudu uh provided us an update on wham's fun activities and events administrators are looking into reinstating the field trip to the Intrepid for sixth graders Funplex will replace the seventh grade field trip to Medieval Times and the administrative team is planning an environmental science day for eighth graders on an upcoming abbreviated school day in addition whams is working with community in Christ to provide an after school program Open to Wham students the club will give middle school students the opportunity to connect with their peers while participating in community service projects related to cic's Mission additional information will be shared with wham's families in the coming weeks Miss Smith also provided us with an academic planning preview the counseling department has revamped their Communications regarding academic planning for the 2526 school year information was sent to families via email and is available on the academic planning website as of January 22nd that website is linked in the minutes academic planning night for all 8th grade families will be held on January 29th details are available on the counseling website Ridge will once again hold the academic course Fair for all 9th to 11th grade students the morning of January 29th we also had a Pathways program recap 32 students have attended career rep visits during their lunch period to learn more about careers from visiting parents the following Fields were represented apparel and Footwear design project management financial services financial planning psychiatric research Human Resources cyber security and the FBI these visits will continue with a variety of other career Representatives throughout the second semester the January 29th career panel will feature the following Representatives an oncologist and breast cancer researcher a criminal defense attorney and prosecutor a marine recruiter an electrician an associate dean of academic Affairs and research at a local University and an engineer a Ridge High School educator and a current Ridge Pathways student the committee also reviewed the second semester Pathways marketing plan in addition to participating in the career panel pathway students will speak at a variety of school and community events the next Wellness committee meeting was held on January 22nd and minutes of that meeting will be shared at the February 10th Boe meeting thank you does anybody have any questions or comments from Mr okay we are now up to the facilities and operations uh report I believe there is one Mr Amin yep so the committee met January 16th we a standing agenda item is work order review uh both HVAC and maintenance both in very very good uh condition and progress and significant progress has been made um in 2024 we started with over 800 in 2023 and 24 we're down to less than 200 and based on that progress the committee decided that going forward the focus uh would only be on work orders older than 90 days Uh current snap shots of spaces that do not have heat or air conditioning depending on the season and any critical issues or failures during that month even if uh they were addressed already so although we'll continue to look at the data of all open HVAC maintenance orders and the number closed and opened weekly the committee would focus only on uh those areas where there's issues now because of all the great progress done by the administration and the new new personnel there so thank you the second item uh we looked at were the phone upgrades uh or the phone system upgrade the committee reviewed current status of the District phone system in each building certain legal requirements that we have to uh comply with different vendor options Sean beavers director of it sought proposals from nine different vendors seven of them provided pricing the best Arrangements were to buy the phones and then pay for monthly services and support analyzing all the options over a five Peri fiveyear period show cost ranging from about 300,000 to over 800,000 the committee recommended the platform that was the the least expensive but did not sacrifice any of the features the committee was supportive but all new options requires and incremental District expense that we do not currently incur because of our phone system uh Jim will include that in his 2526 budget uh the committee reviewed the demographer report uh the committee discussed with Dr grip his prior demographers uh report actual enrollment and possible impact on the district such as possible space challenges in the future committee agreed that no action was needed in the near term but would monitor enrollment data next year and identify possible options if if enrollment increases materially the committee briefly looked at the aark RFP um no notable action was was required and the committee reviewed various projects such as the whams paving recap the uh Ridge Varsity update which we're still waiting to hear back uh from the state the administration will follow up since it's been about a month and talked about other various projects like the Mount Prospect roof and and the direct install program the next meeting will be February 6th Jim will include data regarding buses and and the how the service has been and Nick will look into getting updates on bathrooms in schools thank you does anybody have any questions or comments yeah just uh maybe a little color on the on the phone update because we did discuss it a little bit at the more recent finance committee that hasn't been reported out yet uh Mr beavers and Mr ra did an excellent job on researching vendors and it looks like we're going to come in more toward the low ends of those estimates as opposed to uh the upper ends because I know those are big numbers so uh that was a great job there um and just you know every committee that I've sat in we've all sat in this is uh not a want this is a need um when the district's going out literally on eBay to find replacement phone parts it's time to uh it's time to upgrade and we also have to get in compliance with certain laws and safety regulations too as far as the phone system so this is something we have to do and uh Jim and uh Mr beavers worked hard on it are coming in with some good proposals think they maybe going to look what one or two more vendors but it sounds like it's going to be on the low end of that estimate so it's it's it's it's good anyone else okay next item is Le on committees does anybody have a report um just for anybody who uh is Le um we will make sure that we give the names now that we've approved them so that um if your Township committee or Municipal Alliance will'll share your name so that you can be in touch and know when the meetings are that you're supposed to be going to we're now up to public comment on non-agenda items if there's something you would like to come up and say please come down sign in on the clipboard state your name and your address now we almost never have no public comment for other other one but I will close public comment um we up to board Forum um the first item on board Forum has to do with our board goals so I will open up the discussion um by saying I put together um with the help of Dr mcken um goals that Mr Mar Caren included in the weekly notes and I hope you all had a chance to look at them they were based on suggestions that were emailed to us so it's a work in progress our plan is that at our next board meeting that we can vote on board goals and then really have the full year to work on them so we try to keep in mind the different things that we have been talking about um so what we put together and certainly this is up for um feedback and other suggestions and if you have something else but we felt like three board goals is um attainable and a good um idea so the first was to work with the administration to to facilitate an updated strategic plan which we can all see that has already been launched by the presentation tonight the next is to engage in professional development on the subject of board governments the chain of command Communications the role of the board and board policies and procedures um and the next one was to collaborate with the administration to approve multi-year Financial plans addressing enrollment Trends facilities and staffing needs so with that I will turn it to you for feedback comments suggestions who'd like to go first I'll go uh I I I I generally like them I especially like number three because I think there's a lot of stuff coming down the pike that's going to be effective but uh that this going to affect um we need a multi-year financial plan we've seen what our enrollment Trends are we've seen what our budget continues to grow every year so we need to uh manage that from a Personnel need we also have to look forward at the same time because we have uh affordable housing obligations coming in we're going to have more new units put in so we have to uh we have to anticipate but I hope we do keep in mind uh as we're doing that that it's always easier to hire more staff than it is to pair down if that's the way the direction the district goes so you know I think that's something that we absolutely should have as a board goal thank you m gr I really like these goals I think very specific um I think you know I it's amazing to me that of the nine of us board members um seven of us are in our first term so I think the more uh development professional development communication um time together talking about um what's important for our particular board is important and I also um I really like the third goal as well well that you know we're taking a very Broad View but we're also getting very specific now because we have the data um over the last year that can help us make you know make decisions in a much more um effective and efficient way anyone else speak now okay so we will pass you on to to Mr marar and we can vote next yep okay the next one is I can't think that anybody actually is not aware but just in case we are going to be going phone free um so Dr lck has put a document together that you all have in front of you some of us um had the opportunity to see it um at a at the committee level uh where he has tried to anticipate every conceivable question that students might have parents might have staff might have every problem that will need to be um fixed every glitch that might come up and with that we know there still will be some um he says it's a pilot because each time we do one of these days in the month of February Dr lavic is asking for feedback um he will be using that feedback to go from the one day to the next day and make changes um but he recognizes that you know this it it will be a struggle right everybody is attached to their phones we are as well so every it's a learning curve for everybody um I know you didn't necessarily all have a chance to look in detail at all of this but um this is an opportunity we have't talk as a full board about this uh so I'm opening it up to anybody who would like to make a comment ask a question Mr sha so I'll start this off I know I was one of the ones pushing to have this discussion especially with some new board members here to make sure everyone gets their say on this and I am 100% for going with a pilot to make sure we work out all the Kinks with this and I knew going into this I wanted to see how this would work and that we had a full Plan before we went forward with having a pilot because there there are so many little things that you're not going to think of and everything is isn't going to happen before we go with the pilot but I want to make sure at least the big things were're were in here so safety communication how it affect curriculum I want to make sure all those things were in here and it looks like they've addressed all those so um getting this out to the public so they understand what do I do if I need to get in touch with my student while they're in school you know what does the student do if if you know they have an extra uh after school activity how how do I get in touch with my parent now if I don't have a phone so all those things I thought it was very important to get out there so I'm excited to see how all the parents can see this and I'm sure going forward probably at the next meeting we're going to have a lot of people coming up to talk about this but definitely excited that they took the things that I was asking for and they're in here so thank you anybody else yeah uh so I know this was discussed at the policy meeting also um I had voiced a fair amount of concern and I do agree that we should minimize or we should decrease the amount of phone use in school but I wasn't um I wasn't sure we should eliminate phone use so I'm I'm okay with the pilot like Dave said but my concern is after the pilot quickly March 1st the the intention is to roll it out every day starting March 1st and from my understanding right now especially at the high school level the phones in classrooms are supposed to be in a fotel so there should be zero disruption during class unless the teacher is allowing phones out of the fotel and I'm okay with the teacher working with the administration to determine when that that is appropriate so then the only two other areas where concerns are raised is in the Halls during uh class time change and at lunch and I would be very okay with minimizing it as much as possible but still allowing some time 10 15 minutes a day for for kids to check texts emails whatever it is on their phone in a way that's not disruptive and still allows a drastically reduced use of cell phone so I am okay with the pilot I was not okay with assuming the pilot which is generally what's going to happen um that this will be effect in March 1st and to have zero phone use rather than a much smaller amount where kids can actually check texts um um is is is something I don't think is is needed nor are there are the reactions to the drawbacks um necessarily addressed anyone else I think when I first started thinking about this I was kind of thinking about like what you said well you know if they didn't have them in class and they just used them a little bit you know in the middle of the day to like check you know their messages or communicate or whatever but when you think about all the stuff that's going on during lunch I mean they have labs and music lessons and they're trying to work on projects it's not like there's this like a one little block of time where everyone's doing nothing for 10 minutes what really makes sense to say oh everyone get on your phone right now so it just doesn't seem very practical to try to like um to somehow make some little block of time in the middle of the day for for people to check and I feel like um it might distract the kids from other stuff they're supposed to be doing during that whatever Lunch Period or what whenever the time would be so I I think you know I totally support this initiative I think um interestingly I shouldn't talk about my kid up here because I'll get mad at me but um he's gone to school a number of times without a phone this um year because I decided he shouldn't have it and he survived really really well without it so I do feel like it's going to be a big adjustment you know for everybody but I do think that the benefits definitely are worth it I also support the pilot um I think it's apparent when you look at the document how much um input that Dr lavic and and his team have um solicited and they've really tried to be sensitive to some of the the bigger issues and I like the fact that students will be able to have their phones in their backpacks that will be accessible if you know an emergency AR um and I also was was really um pleased to hear that throughout the pilot week by week um there will be an open Google doc available um so that uh people students parents teachers can give input and feedback so that you know at the end of the pilot there's actionable information that um can make you know make a policy going forward even better so I fully support this Keith yeah um I I I thought about this a lot and uh you know as board members you're not supposed to like say oh well this is for my kid or this is for just think about your kid but you do look at through the lens of a parent and seeing my own kids who came you know of age kind of during the cuss with this cell phone ubiquitousness every everywhere I can see my son's in college now I and I can see and he'll he would say the same thing he said it to me I'm this a good thing you're doing because I I can't focus as much I it's it's been hard to when he was younger he used to sit down and read books and now they get their information little Snippets from the internet when we were younger we used to look each other in the eye and we used to shake hands and it was it was just different and now there too many these kids are caught up in this virtual world I read the anxious generation I attended the book talk talk with Dr lassic which was excellent and he was mentioning that um a situation where where there was the kids were not allowed to have cell phones at lunch it might be another school he was he was referencing but when there were no cell phones out of lunch you know what the kids were doing they were breaking out the board games and they were interacting with each other and I I I just think it's such a healthier way to develop you know as a society we unleash this unvetted experiment on all our kids with algorithms and social media media and uh you know the power of the universe right in your hand here that you just can't put down so is it going to be easy no are there going to be um honor code violations with this among students are going to have to be disciplined yes if it's going to work but I think this is uh you know I'm 100% behind this and um again I I'll say like I referred to before if you've heard me talk about some Wellness initiative you know I'm inherently skeptic about a lot of them this isn't one of them I think this is I think this is one of the biggest moves we can make for for our students well-being for their academic Focus for their Social Development for how they get along in society as a whole you know I'm 100% for it I hope uh hope the pilot is successful Mike I support the pilot I think it's actually going to be really positive thing but I do expect uh you know it not to go over completely smoothly in the beginning uh I can tell you just from my personal experiences I've made my students during Home Room just put their phones away and they get they really are almost addicted to it and you know they get often very upset but then they wind up talking to each other and they just don't stare at their phones the whole entire time so I think that you know kids are going to really take some adjustment to get to it but I really think it's going to be beneficial and again I read the anxious generation and you know I think it's actually by having unlimited cell phones uh you know well it's never unlimited but just the open policy especially in the hallways and so on I think it does more damage so you know I think it's I like that we're piloting it and then we're going to see where it goes do we need to make Kinks at some point and say you know we have to make this minor adjustment maybe we're going to let them only do it during The Home Room which not crazy about either but I think you know we have to see it but I think it's actually going to be a very good thing in the long term even though I think people are going to be very upset at first anyone else I share some of your concerns um and I think my mind has put a little bit more ease by um hearing the responses from Dr Lasik last week at our meeting um and I I do think when he said it's a pilot he was very clear that even in March March to the end of the year he does consider to be a pilot and and said he is open like maybe we're going to get to June and it's not going to have made any difference whatsoever right or maybe he'll have discovered X Y or Z and then going into September there'll be changes like he's not saying that what we're doing in March is 100% what the way it's going to be in September he's saying we've got to find out what works and what doesn't work um I said there's a way like we're going to have to tell our kids it doesn't mean that they can't communicate with us at all anymore they're just going to have to do it in a different way they all have their own emails so they all have their District Chromebooks they will be able to if there's something that they need to tell us they can go on their Chromebook during a study hall and send an email to us it's just a different way of communicating we're so used to that immediate gratification of I send a text and I get a response immediately but the truth is we shouldn't be texting them when they're in the middle of class anyway so this kind of does slow down that process a bit um it also kind of eased my mind when when Dr laswick said they're all going to have their phones on them because I know one of the concerns from parents is what if there is an emergency but if there's an emergency he said you know a teacher would direct them take your phones out you know and do X Y or Z and if there was something that required them to also be given directions like in some other you know God forbid real emergency they actually don't want the kids to be on their telephone because it takes their attention away from being able to live listen to the instructions that are being given so that did make me feel better to know like there will be exceptions um in if need be um there also is so much that with universal lunch now there are so many things that are offered and I know this from talking to my own child which is when I'll say say oh did you go outside today well no not today because he was doing something whether was playing a game on his phone with a friend I think that forces them to be to think like oh um there are these different clubs that take place during lunch now I'll go check one of those out as opposed to just being on my phone it is it is a different they're not going to be comfortable with it even I'm not comfortable with it I like knowing that you know if I need to tell my child that there's a change in pickup that I can you know I know when he's study hall I know when he has lunch those are the times I know I can communicate so it will be a different way of doing it but I'm willing to see how it goes um I probably will be one that's filling in the Google form and giving feedback every single one of those days before we get to to March um but this is the opportunity to see does it make a difference and I really implore parents to take the time to fill in the Google forms and give feedback talk to your child when they come home say to them how did it go they might say it was the worst day of their life but they might also say to us surprisingly like you know what it's not so bad I'm getting used to it but I think we have to give it a we have to give it a chance and see how it goes and you know again when you have access to the information look it over so many times we see you know parents will write in or something is posted on Facebook I didn't know this I didn't know that this has been sent home to us I want to say we started talking about this last June I think you brought it up last June we've been talking about it through book discussions I mean it there's been so many emails about it and newsletter so please read the information and I think you'll feel better when you see that Dr Lazer really has tried to think of every conceivable concern and question that we might have or our kids might have it doesn't mean that he got them all so if there's something that's not there fill in the Google form but I think we have to just see how it goes anybody else Dave yeah just one more thing and I have a lot of the same reservations you do and Nish does too so I'm very excited to see how the pilot goes and make sure this is working because I'm still thinking maybe we give them 10 minutes a day to get on their phones but I want to see how the pilot goes what what happens if they don't have it at all so let's see how it goes first and the other thing I was reluctant to is yes March 1st is when the pilot really takes in you know it's it's almost not a pilot anymore because it's full for the rest of the year so I understand you can cut it off at any time but I also understand that if you don't do it for a long enough period you don't get enough data out of it so that's why I I'm okay with the pilot going that long and let's see how it goes and if if it's not working maybe we cut it off sooner than that and ke just one more thought um it's a real addiction so when you said that you're going to have people writing in feedback saying this is the worst day of my life well yeah for probably for a lot of people you know Quint cigarettes is the worst day of your life too but if we have let the pilot run long enough for three months you know worst day gets a little better gets a little better gets a little better and then it's a new Norm so I I I hope it runs its course does anybody have anything else for board [Music] Forum just on this last Point um I think just to clarify this mostly affects the high school right because wham's in elementary school it's it's already zero so everything we talked about only changes what's going on in the high schools which should give Comfort to most people I still think some brief period instead of going from 100 to to zero something something small would be okay but want to clarify This only affects High School bone use okay there's no other items motion to adjourn Chilla okay all in favor for