##VIDEO ID:mTO_HSZfr_g## yeah okay just making sure um we did ask that question but yeah all right uh the next meeting dates are September 16th October 14th and November 4th and we adjourned at 6:52 p.m. thanks thank you Mr singer U personal Comm me Miss Freelander our next meeting is September 17th virtually at 5:00 pm thank you uh any delegate or Lea on ports real quick um there has been a second notice for the semiannual delegate assembly for the New Jersey School Board Association um any uh resolutions must be received by uh approved by the a board and then received by the uh school board's office by uh Thursday October 3rd uh so if anyone has any thing that they would like to try to change an njsba policy that they can go on to advocate for we could do that as a board let me know or you can um uh contact school boards what was the date I'm sorry uh Thursday October 3D there was one topic I had in mind I was going to mention in New in in new business just to throw out there um for this one or or go going forward if there's any interest thanks Mike any other delegate or lays on reports seeing none um open to the public individuals and or groups are invited to present their concerns comments and requests regarding the following actions to the board of education at this time in accordance with the board of board policy members of the public are allotted want opportunity to address the board for a maximum of five minutes during this period of the meeting please be advised that a video recording of this meeting will be posted on District's website seeing none I'm G to close that approval of minutes from July 23rd 2024 and August 13 2024 do I have a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion see Mr Stars can you call the role please miss Freelander yes Mr josi abstain on July 23rd yes to August 13th Mr pepy yes Miss kri yes to July 23rd on August 13th M lockran abstain on both Mr Walker yes on both Mr SAR oh Mr singer upst stand on July 23rd yes on August 13th he was absent messed you up the motion carries uh I believe so because I believe it's the uh pres yeah okay motion carries just a little bit of Robert's Rules there is um many areas and items need a certain amount of vote depends whether majority of the board members present or majority of the full board and passing minutes the majority of the board members present so that's what I was conving with Mr Stars about so just so you understand update you're welcome it's kind of gets a little complicated occasionally uh Personnel Personnel 252 to 2504 do I have a motion so moved second any discussion see none Mr Stars can you call the role please miss Freelander yes Mr Joshi yes Mr singer yes Mr Pepe yes Miss kry yes m yes Mr Walker yes motion carries curriculum 254 through curriculum 2512 do I have a motion is there a second second any discussion see none Mr Stars can you call the role please miss Freelander yes Mr josi yes Mr singer yes Mr Pepe yes Miss kri yes Miss lockran yes Mr Walker yes motion carries business 2514 through business 2526 do I have a motion is there any discussion I'd like to take a moment to um thank the CR primary school PTO Edison Ferguson echol lanscaping Kingwood Township Board of Education and the Eisenhower school PTO for the donations I I find it interesting we got a donation from a board of education that's that's a new one that's the first I've seen so thank thank you very much is there any other discussion seea Mr Stars can you call the role please M relander yes Mr josi yes Mr singer yes Mr Pepe yes Miss kri yes Miss lochran yes Mr Walker yes motion carries special service is 254 through 2507 is there a motion so moved second any discussion seeing none Mr Stars can you call the RO please miss Freelander yes Mr josi yes Mr singer yes Mr Pepe yes Miss kri yes Miss lockran yes Mr Walker yes motion carries other 253 through other 2506 do I have a motion so move any discussion yes um let's take wa take so anybody just let me know yes go ahead I know yes um I was just looking for clarification on something with other 25-4 the district code of conduct this really only applies to high school students um in the past um students have been marked tardy if they have a first time block study hall um they usually come in second period often times and they're automatic being marked as tardy I'm trying to understand why they would be marked tardy and why that would be a code of conduct so it does say under tardy to school um failure to sign in late to school will result in a cut of any class not attended but um what's happened in the past is that if your study hall happens to fall in the first block and you sign in second it's automatically populated to give you a lunch detention um for being tardy and I'm wondering if there's if if this is going going to affect the code of conduct or if there is a way to stop that from happening that would be a building issue I mean I I hear what you're saying and um I can't comment right now but it seems like a small issue that could be taken care of yeah I I would say one of these assistant principles of the principal I I can I could ask that question but but certainly if there's a parent who's worried about it um because I know I know for a fact we're not giving out detentions for no you usually appeal it and it and it's fixed but if there's some way to stop that process because it does make sense you know like you are technically signing in leite but it's not an academic class that you're missing at the study hall yep makes sense I have a question um I'm I'm sorry I didn't ask it sooner I forgot um it was about the code of conduct um you mentioned that there's a zero tolerance for discriminatory language um and you took the approach through the code of conduct to address it um was there a major change this year or is this a carryover from the changes that you made last year I think it's a carryover but it's more clear clearly delineated um you know both for for for kids who have the infraction or for for uh parents whose child may have been a victim of the infraction right because it is true that you're not allowed to share the discipline the discipline that was given out to another student for a particular event but what you are allowed to say is I see this violation as this and then parents are free to to take a look and say well this is the range of consequences that that were given out so then we wouldn't be in that circumstance where parents would say and the school did nothing we'd say well well it's clear what we do in these types of situations I can't give you specifics on what happened to this young person but but you could get a general guideline of where we are when when a student um you know has this type of violation you thank you any other questions see Mr seen Mr Stars can you call the RO please miss Freelander yes Mr josi yes Mr singer yes Mr Pepe yes Miss kist yes Miss lockran yes Mr Walker yes motion carries great uh policy 25 one is there a motion so moved any discussion see none Mr Stars can you call the RO please miss Freelander yes Mr Joshi yes Mr singer yes Miss Mr pppy yes Miss kry yes Miss lockran yes Mr Walker yes motion carries this is our opportunity for the open second open for public comment individuals and our groups are invited to present their concerns comments and requests to the Board of Education this time for any matters in accordance with the board of policy members of the public are allowed one opportunity to address the board for a maximum of five minutes during this period of the meeting please be advised that a video recording of this meeting will be posted on District's website seeing none I want to close public comment um item 12 old business do we have any old business I'll wait for my business okay okay seeing no old businesses is there any old business there's any new business I just have uh two things real quick um I meant to do this during the academic uh committee meeting report but I didn't get to I just want to applaud the uh the administration both districtwide and at the high school for the expansion of the dual enrollment offerings at the at the high school um it's it's much larger than last year's and uh so many opportunities for uh Juniors and seniors and I guess uh kids of all ages at the high school to actually get college credit while they're in high school that they can transfer to schools in New Jersey uh and I think that that's a wonderful thing that we're doing and I look forward to the continued expansion of it uh so that's one uh two the njsba has a candidate briefing um on Tuesday September 24th at the Somerset County votch so for any candidates that are running that are listening tonight or that might be be here uh the candidate briefing includes the overview of the role of board members and it's highly informative and I suggest that everyone go we have a board meeting so we cannot go that's it thanks okay any other new business Mike did you want to well one one idea I was tossing around for a possible resolution uh last year at the delegate assembly among the 14 resolutions was one for uh mandating full day kindergarten um it was approved But ultimately it was amended to just to take out the full day part and leave in the half day since this district is we I thought we might be in an interesting position if people wanted to discuss it because we don't have full day K kindergarten yet but there have been some real efforts and some real advocacy for why that's beneficial to the community and and the kids um if that's some if if anyone's interested I'm not that that was a Tom's River res resolution last year I'm not sure if they're coming back for another try so I'm just tossing that out there as one possible thing that we might be uniquely situated to at least think about at this or future assembly because there's such a small number of districts as we heard that have half day kindergarten in New Jersey and we're we're still among them so I just wanted to toss that out there and if see if there's any interest at all for just maybe discussing that I know we don't have a legislative committee um at the moment so I just wanted to put put that out there that's a very good question um there are I think eight school districts out of the 584 that don't have full day kindergarten right now seven seven so it's a it's a it's a it's a dwindling amount slowly but surely um and if the you know something to think about there then if the state mandated you know how do you pay for it so that's what we right I think that was the I think that was the hangup as a district we 30 40 years have talked about it you know it takes a lot of effort to really to make make it happen so as Bob said we recognized a problem or something we felt that was needed for student achievement we recognized that it took more than just the board's decision to do it we engaged the community it was a community decision so all the stakeholders are involved and I thank the community for doing that for sure successful in it I I agree it should be it's it's an equity issue I think it's a student achievement issue it's a it's a comp it's it's something I think kids most likely need now in their educational environment so I would be supportive of it I think it's a great idea you know and I think you know it might be muted in a few years hopefully you know but then again it's about it's about it's about the community having the ability to to afford it and make it happen so it's like there's a there's the preschool for all out there for many districts which we don't qualify for which the state is funding in majority of the pl majority of the places so we don't qualify from that standpoint but it'd be great to have that too so that's not mandated so it's a it's a conversation I'm open to it yeah I think um some of the points you raised are are concerns that I have um the funding of I mean you know there are only seven districts that don't have it and I don't know why they don't have it right and you know it took us to have a referendum to get there yeah we we talked about it probably we've talked about it for 20 years we probably talked about it for 20 years before that but it took us to a referendum to get there where there are townships that don't have full funding uh from the state right now and I don't know that this is the time for them to do it I also wouldn't want to tell other schools what they have to do necessarily in that regard um but I do think it's an interesting question appreciate you bringing it up um I just wanted to comment as well as somebody who's been um an advocate um for over 10 years for full day kindergarten um and have had the privilege of meeting with state legislators to discuss this um one of the biggest issues is that even in the state legislature they have tried to um push that forward multiple attempts and the biggest hangup is the funding um so it's always up for discussion and I think there's enough Advocates you know both at a state level and District levels across the state who agree about the equity issue who agree about the importance of it and why it is needed but I'm not sure that having a resolution with the School Board Association is really going to make an impact it's something that the state has tried themselves so I feel like we're kind of at an impass but and like Steve said I don't want to be the one to tell other towns how they should should spend their money or how they can spend their money but I'm always an advocate for it and I'm happy to discuss it I just don't know how much it how far it will go I hear that I think there is language in their policy manual and their statement of beliefs that already indicates that they the school boards believes that full day kindergarten is a good thing more learning obviously is a good thing so I definitely hear those um it's more of an adoc moment it's not a telling other districts what to do we're advocating for the greater wellbeing as a state for students so it's our area like we work locally here in our district we work with the Somerset County at the school Association meetings and at the state level delic assembly allows us you you you step back and look from a a bigger picture instead of 10,000 feet 20 you're 50,000 feet looking at it so it's kind of a nice thing we're advocating for all kids in the state of New Jersey so something we have the opportunity to do as board members I just wanted to real briefly acknowledge the sad passing of a raran resident John P Hudak who passed away um in August at the age of 98 um he was a a lifelong resident of the town and a uh veteran of the second world war um who was a real Staple in the community and had a number of family and friends so condolences to his family thank you m so I wanted to um as we looked at our board goal to get and we talked about it in February in March in March about getting board certified um we need three more credits this year to do that and I think I've talked with Patty ree our new field service representative to find a path forward there and two item two ideas we had two two ways to do it is um and I talked to Mr beers about this is that having a alternate meeting for doing one of the c one of the meeting nights and we had talked about having team building environment and they have developed a team build building evening that we could do so something like that I think is you know we look to having desired last January had changed around so there is an opportunity to do that so that would get us two and there's one more I'm getting the next step there the second step is the board self- evaluation which then could be done after Workshop before the meeting in November and then go over the board s self evaluation in the November meeting and that would accomplish our goal becom a certified board so in those frames so if that's something you're interested in let's have the conversation is would there be any better to doing the boards to switching the order to doing the self- evaluation and then using the team building to perhaps address or like you know have a to to give that a little bit more Focus or or doesn't the order matter it's a it's a timing thing um because if Workshop in October and only one meeting in November right so in those time frames um so looking in that schedule is what we try to keep to I talk to her about this today so that's some of the areas I could think about switching it but October board meeting is we have the what's the day o Peter what's the DAT of the October board meeting by chance I just don't have in front of me 8th and the 29th so I was thinking that start the team building October 1st continue it with some Workshop work and then conversation and then kind of go to the board self- evaluation at that end the November send out the board of self evaluation in the week of the 29th and the first week of November and review it at the meeting on the 12th I was thinking about October 1 we don't have a meeting so that's why miss Mr Stars he was counting his number of meetings left that we might be adding one so I was ruining his retirement time frame how many board members need to be present I they need to be seven board members and the superintendent for that it's not a long is it about an hour hour and a half somewhere we we need about three credits which about three hours so in that time frame um obviously I'm highly supportive of it uh but I just wanted to remind the board that we will drop four credits at the end of the year making the distance to be able to accomplish this seven hours rather than three so that's something to consider that's that's we we talked about we T we talked about that last time when you mentioned I was going to consider this so yeah so actually we lose four credits December 9th December 10th so I thought about doing the self evaluation at this December 10th meeting but they drop away December 9th so I need one day and I didn't get any Lee away there so I'm good we finish these three will be certified board we need three credits what you have it for a while but you you don't lose the creditation you move to the next level another board certification level so we have that and I I don't know how I don't actually don't know how far it goes away but I can take a look at that I don't think you actually lose that so so a is the Bob you're available that day yes okay um I didn't ask him about this so just a surprise Bob I apologize okay so perhaps an email to the board of you know are you available on October 1st and you could take a straw poll that way take a straw pole right now who's available October first since we're here I might not be okay that's why I'm saying all right that's why I asked about how many all right it's a Tuesday it's a Tuesday so we'll figure it out we can schedule time frame around people's schedule available time frame it's also I have to schedule the availabil time frame of M um Patty so her her time is booked up I looked to some other dat since she's already booked so yes has to be live it used to be virtual in the in the virtual era where meetings were just virtual now that should be live now now so anyways and then um so and um Mr Stars what is the time frame for letting you know about Workshop since you're okay next September you won't be here okay all right all right so if you know your your scheduled for Workshop give up the RO great quick question about that it sets up Monday opens or sets up Tuesday I don't remember sets up Monday opens Tuesday the floor op floor Tuesday and Wednesday Tuesday oh did they say okay yes it just came oh they have an app updated too they it last I I deleted it I got it off my phone so I guess it won't be updating so so if you know when you're going to be available for Workshop let Mr Stars know but he will send us out a reminder I will send an email tomorrow about the dates for those things I thank Mr beers for accommodating the surprise I apologize for that and I I think it's a good thing we're accomplishing one of our goals we talked about last year and moving forward and the administrators are more than welcome can too also if you'd like to so you know you want yes just do I don't want to leave you out I knew that but I don't want to leave anyone out so any other U new business okay seeing none I'll entertain a motion motion to adjourn all those in favor I wish everyone a a great start to the new this new school year please be safe Mike you start tomorrow pet kids fantastic the staff thank you so much and have a great five days left till start and a wonderful Labor Day weekend you --------- ##VIDEO ID:tww0pp7a5Jk## e e evening everyone and welcome to the the Bridgewater RAR and Regional Board of Education meeting August 27th at the Wade building at 7:30 in compliance with the open public meeting law of New Jersey notice of this August 27th meeting of the bridgew Ron Regional Board of Education was posted electronically on the district website and provided on January 3rd 2024 by sending an annual notice written notice to the cier news Star Ledger Bridgewater town clerk Ron B Clerk and by posting on the bullet board in the Harmon v Wade administration building if you're able please join me for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation God indivisible andice for all great Mr Stars can you call the role please miss Freelander here miss Asuna Mr Joi here Mr singer Miss Lee Mr Pepe here miss kri here miss lockran Mr Walker present seeing able to qu that's great we have six people on tenant up next on the agenda is the superintendent report Mr beers okay thank you Mr Walker let me just load my uh slideshow up here and uh the whole team is going to give a a brief presentation here this evening okay so now that we are officially one week before uh let's see one week until kids are getting ready to go to school this time next week uh we figured we we we'd say welcome back because school is only one week away sorry to put the damper on everyone I know Mike you've started um my kids have been in for two weeks so but um our first day for for faculty is the day after Labor Day that is Tuesday September 3rd the first day for students is Wednesday September 4th so although the the room is empty here Mr Walker was just joking about this in um you know in one short week we're going to be welcoming approximately 10,000 students staff parents volunteers Etc into our buildings on a daily basis it's quite an undertaking so there's a lot going on uh behind the scenes and I want to take a few moments here with my colleagues Dr fonder and Miss Jones to uh to really go through what we've been working on and what are the things that we can look forward to for the upcoming school year I'm sorry okay there we go so so first we already have events going on as we speak there were a few open houses today uh at the middle school and at Hillside High School in Eisenhower um later this week and all the primary schools have their their orientation events for new students um right at on that day after Labor Day so there's quite a buzz some activity kids in the hallways right so we're we're already um getting back to normal so to speak and shaking off the uh summer dold drums so so for the 2024 25 school year um we're happy to report and we will throughout the year on the progress that that we're making as a district we know here in Bridgewater riton and and this is what we discussed with the administrative team it's important sometimes to begin by taking a a Global look on on the things that are going right right we have a t tendency to always say what are the problems and obviously we want to address the the areas that are in in need of improvement Etc but it's always important at this time of year to take a look at what is going well and and there's quite a lot going on to be happy of within the happy for within the district and and when I spoke to the administrative team at at our retreat we know that that the whole district is really based on people and programs all right we can have all of these construction projects but if we don't have excellent teachers who have the right professional development who have the right support network who have the right materials uh the the the right curriculum if all these things don't come into place that person's not not going to be as effective as possible but but we know it does start with the person in inside that classroom and we want to do what we can to support them and to recruit the best and brightest and and keep them here in our district now the programs we've had quite a few uh upgrades over over the past few years and there's a lot to be proud of as well and then how facilities fall in is that right we we have our professionals we have these programs now we've got to make sure we have the facilities that can support the work that we want done within this space and and all of this as we know uh leads to to enhance learning outcomes and and one of the things that we're really driving home now is co is in the rearview mirror now we're a few years out of it there there are no more excuses we have to have high expectations we I hate the term go back to normal because who knows what normal actually is but we we've got to make sure that we maintain those high expectations right when when kids come into our classrooms we hold them for ourselves but we hold them also academically and behaviorally and it and it's very important that we share that we have those shared values of what we anticipate and what we expect at you know in the classroom and in the building setting we went through our our district goals and also professional expectations so as a group we we're really honing in on the concept of right it's it's easy to compl laain and that's why we're trying to drive home it's very easy to complain it's very easy to be a critic but what's going to drive us forward are are people who are problem solvers people who can take care of an issue people who don't make it larger than it is and we address it and we move on and those are part of the professional expectations and and uh to have that support structure where if people are struggling with something there's someone there to offer advice Etc and and we can really help this person person along and and one of the core tenants with our leadership team here at the Wade building and throughout the district is is we're really emphasizing the Wei versus me concept and and that does percolate and trickle down to our teachers and to our our students again we versus me so when we look at things what's the solution who can help um is this problem my problem or or is it something systemic so we're looking to again we're we're just looking to continually improve by looking looking through it with that lens so finally it not finally I'm sorry District accolades there is quite a bit to be proud of and as we enter the the start of the school year there's a lot that that taxpayers students teachers everyone should be proud of we've got one of the finest music programs in the state of nework New Jersey 7even years in a row we've been been honored um as as having one of the best communities in music education and and we know the awards and the quality of performances this is really a program that you know one of several programs that shine throughout the district we earned the silver the silver silver award for the APO role we're very close to that gold level where it takes 40% of your student body to score a three or above on an AP test to get the Gold Award we're right there so that's one that's again something to look forward to something to be proud of but also to realize that there's growth there and we can get a little better we know our Athletics and activities our baseball team won the state championship last year for group four and that's one of many teams that had an excellent season and and uh we have a whole host of um co-curricular and extracurricular activities where I firmly believe that no matter what no matter what your your interest there's a place for you at Bridge border riton especially at the middle school and high school level where we have all these learning opportunities so now I'm going to turn it over to my colleague miss Karen Jones to really fill us in on on what's new and and it may not be new for this year but what was new last year and we're carrying over into this year because we've seen success with these programs right so some of it's new and you've heard about some of it before and it will be carrying over into this coming year because we're always trying to expand the programs that we Implement um so new programs we have a renewed focus on student achievement and also as you know we've been working very hard to make progress towards Equitable learning environments for all students so you've heard me discuss this before you've heard Mr Morello present on this at the last meeting but we now have ESL services in all our schools and just to highlight that a couple of the exciting pieces would be that we definitely have now that it's in all schools we have fewer families who are refusing Services which means more kids are receiving the services they need um and we also had within that a higher number of students as well as a higher percentage of students who scored high enough on the test to exit the program so that was successful and overall as Mr morelo had kind of mentioned last time the scores are promising it shows progress in that area um the other thing that we've been working on for quite some time is expanding our gifted and talented services in all our schools and we're expanding that in multiple ways at the primary schools you know that we um added cluster group to math and we have small group investigations and this is in addition to the AI program that we previously had but even at the high school we have on-ramps because we now give the PSAT to all students and that's one more way that we can identify kids for honors and AP classes um and we actually have increased the number of students by quite a bit who are receiving gifted and talented Services we're expanding cluster grouping from fourth grade into third grade so this is an example of kind of multi-year goals and how they continue um character education we worked last year to find a new resource so we're implementing for the first time a consistent character education program across K5 in 68 we created additional lessons but as you'll probably recall we're going to work this year to look for a resource that will adopt so that there's a consistent resource at that level and then we created well the high school really created a ninth grade program for students who um are moving from eighth grade where they're on teams into ninth grade which is you know a huge campus to navigate and so they have a freshman transition program um so it's character education that's actually being added into their health class um additionally we have had PD in sheltered instruction strategies which is used to support learning for uh multilingual learners but actually the strategies are great for everyone culturally responsive instruction and to go back to Mr Beer's point about we versus me um what we're really doing is we've put some time and effort into training our whole administrative team starting with supervisors in June and just over the admin Retreat we trained supervisors and all principles assistant principles because we want everyone to be able to support teachers who are supporting students so it never becomes like well this is you know one of their students nope all students belong to all of us so we're making sure everybody's prepared to support we're continuing our professional development and foundational literacy skills which is great because they just changed the English language arts standards we realigned curriculum and we were already headed down that path so we're in a good place we had our first cohort of Orton Gillingham training which is multisensory reading and now this year we're heading into our second cohort we on the second one sorry all right um you're ahead of me sorry all right so the unified program is continuing we're expanding in the high school to include soccer and Theater which will be in addition to basketball and track I already mentioned PSAT for everyone in ninth 10th and 11th grade which will use it with the AP potential reports we have new programs this is not all of our new programs but it's a sample so cyber security we're creating career concentrations so you know we realigned Performing Arts to offer more courses and to update them we have Robotics and Engineering for the first time in September super excited about that we re- um envisioned our Middle School cycle program so it aligns better with the high school business offerings so that you know there's better vertical articulation we expanded the music program specifically at the middle school because we added in that tutorial period which allowed for students to take some music classes without being you know pulled from their other classes we implemented in Vision math across K5 and then at the high school we created supports for students who are struggling in multiple ways whether it's just in one class and during one unit or you're struggling with attendance or there could be behavioral issues or you know executive functioning whatever it is we created four different sets of support one being the pr Pro the bright program to support kids which we hope is going to actually improve our graduation rates as well thank you Mr Jones and and and just that final part about the alternative program as well as the out-of-class supports for students the these areas when when we get the finalized data from from the state on graduation rates I I really believe that the Board of Education and the community are going to be pleasantly surprised with the results and it really demonstrates where if you acknowledge there's a problem and and you do something may not be 100% correct but you do something and you move move on it and you target targeting kids s sounds but you target help for those kids and and have them respond in a productive way like I I just applaud the curriculum Department the the building leaders for taking these programs I mean sometimes it's like you're you truly are building the airplane while you're in the air and and it's not going to be perfect but but year two is going to be better than year one and we had some really nice results from some of these programs just in year one that we shared at the end of last year and then we'll get the the official graduation rate from the state probably in October and and then we can share that number out but we're going to see we're going to see a nice gain in that area now for the fun part referendum 2023 this is great but at the same time it's a challenge um we we toured some of the facilities today I can tell you that nothing is 100% done right nothing is so the only one would be let's say build uh you know the the main building of of the high school because they didn't have any work done so so when you're doing a construction project you know you're going to have bumps in the road and you know that that with school opening there's a mad rush to get things done to make sure everything's operational and ready to go for the start of school we're confident that that's going to happen and um we've seen some of the progress here the top photo I mean the these are some of the boring things that have to have to happen before the exciting things go on and that's in front of Hamilton school they are uh completing a power upgrade which will power the HVAC systems that will be installed throughout the year and be hooked up for air conditioning the bottom photo is is the most important thing that we saw firsthand and if there was something that kept me up at night it was whether or not the senior parking lot was going to be finished in time um because I could just imagine well I don't want to describe what it would be but it it would not be it would not be positive right it would not be a positive thing um we might have a few more people in the seats if the parking lot were not done on September 10th but but nonetheless they they really got to work on this last Thursday and they've paved the entire lot and lined it today the only thing left to do is number the spots so we are ready to go so now challenges as a group The referendum as we said that's a challenge it's going it's going to disrupt certain some of our practice we want to make sure that we keep momentum going for student progress we want to we want to take a hard look and continue to look at student wellness and and what I mean by structures is we continue to look look at processes procedures I know the Board of Ed is looking at policies and and there's no other way to say it except let's look through the operation and try to find right what causes unnecessary friction what causes that friction and and and we can't get our jobs done as effectively as possible because of certain practices or procedures let's look at them let's figure out how we can change them to better to uh better help our organization function in in a highly effective way and then as I had said before expectations to continue to to uh drive that home and and make sure that we we have those high expectations for for kids so one of the one of the things that that's a that was a main focus last year and will continue to be a focus this year is maintaining our our cell phone free learning environments all of our elementary schools are are cell phone free the middle school is cell phone free and in the high school cell phones are not allowed in the instructional environment it it's too hard to police unit lunch things like that um and we're really working on making it consistent from class to class we discussed that one of one of the difficulties is that when you have a large building such as the high school we have to make sure that everybody on board and and it's the it's the job of every supervisor every administrator everybody in who's in a leadership position to make sure that we uphold that standard right and and uh and with that support with that help we can get another step closer because we we've talked about this in committees and and I know at uh at meetings the research is clear it's clear the these instruments are disastrous in the learning environment