##VIDEO ID:XXKBsnElFwo## Good evening. Sorry, that was really loud. Welcome. It's nice to see so many seniors who are familiar faces. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Public notice of this meeting pursuant to the open public meetings act has been given by the Board Secretary on October 22, 2024 in the following manner. Posted notice on the school bulletin board at the administration building. transmitted to the courier post Philadelphia Inquirer and the Clerk of Cherry Hill Township. Mrs. Sugars, can you please call the roll? Mrs. Traffane? Here. Mrs. Gallagher? Here. Mr. Greenbaum. Here. Mr. Mayor. Here. Dr. Rood. Mrs. Niaz. Here. Mrs. Tong. Mrs. Winters. Here. Ms. Stern. Here. So welcome. It's very nice to start our meeting with a very exciting recognition. And Dr. Morton, I believe we have national merit a recognition tonight, so I'll turn it over to you. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Ms. Stern. It is my honor, privilege, and pleasure to recognize some truly outstanding young people this evening. The young people being recognized this evening have demonstrated excellence and have distinguished themselves on the as national merit students. National Member students commended students and the National Achievement Scholarship Program is based on a student's excellence as demonstrated on the PSAT exam. The exam itself and the level that they've been able to attain. is representative of a dedication to high achievement. And to studies. It does not happen without intentional work, intentional discipline, and intentional focus so These are truly some of our finest here in Cherry Hill. I'm going to call Ms. Roscoff. up to the microphone along with myself. We are going to read off the names of the certificates that we have. We'll hand out certificates. After you receive your certificate, we're going to ask you to go into the hallway in the front. And we want to get a photo with all of you. I don't think I, there it is. Good evening, everyone. I'm Carol Roskopf. I'm the supervisor of special projects here in the district. students, as I call your name, please come forward. If I mispronounce your name i please correct me. Don't be embarrassed to correct me. Your parents gave you that name for a reason. You should not be embarrassed by that. So either you can correct me or you can just say it correctly right in the microphone. So the first group that we're doing are the semi-finalists in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship competition. So we have eric chen Congratulations. Aaron Fly. Hey, Yon Ling. And Kyle McCann. And you'll nom. You're welcome. The next group of students are the commended students for the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program. Rebecca Russelhoff. Andy Nguyen. Sarah Abrams. Brian, us. Aslam? Salim. Salim, say your last name for me. Okay. Isabel Berger. Matthew Berkery. Angelina. Bandu? Sujata Kudri. Nathaniel convazar. Kate Futner. Kevin Garvin. Kushagra gold. Evan Horowitz. Mario Giacovini. Isha Kalakiri. Sean Ledinsky. Jessica Lazaro Arden Leslie. Chloe Lynn. Brandon Liu. Riley Morris. Aaron Nathan. David Nguyen. Joshua Park. Megan Peterson. Nikhil Raymond. Walter Schmidt. Jeremy Shore. Myra Wang. Zachary, we. Joseph Weigel. Marshall Walper? Riley Wolverton. Connie Wu. And Sydney is a young. So thank you all very much. We'll take some pictures out in the front. Thank you all for coming. certificates for, I'm going to call you all up and we will make sure you get your certificates by Thursday or Friday. All right. My apologies. I thought I had all of the, I thought I had all of the certificates. Okay. My apologies. So that would be Sophia Bass. You can still go out, come up and then go out and get your picture taken, right? Samuel Beltra. Sarah Brahimi. Gabrielle Kantz. Vincent Chin. Lucas Collazzo. Aaron Cortez. Isabella Green. Ian Lamb? Jodzrock lightson. Vivian Lynn. Chloe, Lynn. Alvin Lynn. Ryan Liu. Rihanna Minkitti. David Nguyen. Madison Nieves. Sophie Pintell. Actually, Q. Hannah Richardson. Nicole Showeli. Jonas Sneed. Lily and Tan. And Henry Verona. Okay. That was always fun and enjoyable. All right, we move on to our presentation of the evening. And we are going to be receiving a presentation on our human resources board goals. So… We'll just wait a minute for Dr. Morton to get back, I think. And I think we'll be turning it over to Mrs. Lieber probably. Or Dr. Morton. I don't know. So we'll wait. We'll hold in suspense so So Mrs. Lieber, I think in interest of respecting everybody's time, we'll just keep it going without Dr. Morton here. So Mrs. Lieber, you know, part of our district goal planning was every committee And every administrative liaison with every committee worked together to give input over the summer really starting in June. on developing or updating our district goals. So I'm just pleased to be part of the HR committee where we all really, I thought, gave a lot of input and work together with you and Dr. Morton on updating our district goals. I'm going to now turn it over to you to present that to the rest of the board officially, even we've all obviously been part of that and adopting the goals, and as well as to the community to actually see what's part of that. So I'll turn it over to you. Okay, great. Thank you. I should introduce you as the director of human resources. Yes. Hi, everyone. All right, as our president just said that I've been asked to speak tonight about human resources and how it relates to the board goals. So we're going to take a look at it together. The board is obviously very familiar with all the goals. It does block off a little bit here. But there are eight that include human resources in some manner. So there's a list of the eight of them. The first two of the eight are collaborative goals that work with other areas such as curriculum instruction and the special education departments. So the training of staff in cultural proficiency is something that we've been scheduled or offered through the curriculum instruction office through the Flex Day option or through the New Hire Professional Development Requirements. So human resources actually can't take a lot of credit for the work there, but we're available to assist when we are needed. And then partnerships with contractors is something the district has done for many years. to fill our employment gaps. Our special education department has utilized contractors for services such as speech and OT and individualized nursing. This year, more recently, we've started to explore other areas such as expanding options for our substitute nurses and securing a company for world language teachers. And HR is going to continue to assist the work with this with other departments to review and evaluate these partnerships as needed. The next goal is regarding the establishment of a recruitment strategy. As we and pretty much every district in the country right now knows that we are in a teacher shortage. So it's very important that this area is focused upon and um The question would be what attracts candidates and pretty much any HR professional would know that there's five areas that direct candidates to come to your organization, whether it's a school district or a company. Those areas fall underneath the compensation benefits, work-life balance, career progression, and reputation. I think these are all areas that we are addressing. as compensation, we've definitely kept our eye on this. As you know, this past June, the board reviewed our district starting salary for teachers. That had become less than the surrounding areas and you took action with a salary enhancement, which was great for our district. For benefits, the same thing happened the previous year where the board took action to address The cost for family level benefits for new teachers. Because it was extremely high. So an adjustment was made there. So it is things that we are keeping our eye on. And I can let you know this definitely has positively impacted our hiring the past two summers. So it is good work that's been done. To help us be more successful in our recruitment. work-life balance is definitely a hot topic right now throughout the the business world and our district has made efforts to listen to employees. changes are ongoing and they include the calendar change that we did this year. the commitment to the LMC work. for the district and a strong focus on wellness Which Dr. Morton and I will add a little bit about that in our presentation next month about wellness. career progression. We've actually taken a look at this recently as our district has reinstated the administrative intern positions, which is a pathway for teacher into principalship. We've had many success stories when this program was previously active many years ago. And many of those who did this program actually moved into principles positions within the district and they are still in our district today. So we hope for the same level of success in this. And lastly, reputation. Reputation means many things, but I'm going to focus on the HR aspect of it because I think it directly relates to the recruitment and retention of staff, which really brings us back into our next goal. which is implementing a retention strategy that fosters a supportive, inclusive work environment. Data has shown that organizations with diversity also embrace perspectives and talents of different groups. Employees like to stay where they feel included and valued. And it improves relationships with others. And that's why it's important. What do we mean by diversity? Many may think that just means only one thing, but actually in terms of HR, it means many things, such as varying gender, age, ethnicity, cultural background, years experience, education levels. And that's just naming a few of them. So where do we stand? I'm going to start by showing you a breakdown of the different categories of staff that we have. And this slide, I think is actually important to point out that 58% of our staff And 58% of our teachers and 20% of our educational assistants or their staff. That means over 78% of the employees have direct contact working with students in the classroom. Each person and each position in this district is important to the success of our students. But I feel that we have a really strong presence on our front line. This next slide gives a snapshot of our staff. The day I took the information because it's always changing. The staff number was 1796. I added some of the fun things on it that our longest employee has been here since May of 1984. the longest teacher and educational assistant both started in February of 1988. And our longest facilities person started with us in January of 92. So we have some longevity with our staff. I also took a look at the number of staff that have over 20 years with us. Not in education, but with our district. So I think that speaks volumes. I'm one of them. There is 427 employees that fell in that category. So that's 24% of our staff. That includes 12 principals and supervisors, 17 secretarial staff. 310 teachers. 64 educational assistants, five administrators, and nine SAC employees. So I think that it does look good for us in that respect. Awesome. In regard to our diversity for age, we have staff that are in their 80s and staff that are in their teens. So I think we have a wide variety there. I have in here also broken down our gender and our ethnicity categories for your review. Then I took a data look at our new hires. So between July 1st and September 30th, we hired 101 new employees. That is including 60 teachers during a teacher shortage. I want to give credit to every principal, secretary, any staff member in this district that helped with this process. This does not all happen in human resources. Actually, much of the work is done outside of our office. So I think that's important to notice. On this slide, I broke down the experience and education of the teachers. So you can see we hired 14 novice teachers and 11 veteran teachers that had over 18 years experience. And then we have numbers throughout the whole rest of that chart there. So I think we did a really good job with having hires with all different levels of experience. And then same thing with education that is on there too. So we have breaking down bachelor's degree, master's degrees. So, and the in-betweens. If you wanted to know, there are 22 people that were offered positions that did decline during this hiring season. While all of them did not provide a reason, most did reference salary. All right, so back to our goals. The next goal refers to our job descriptions and the need of inclusive language. The bullet three items I have listed here. have been added to any new or revised job description. And of course, we always have our equal opportunity or affirmative action employer commitment on each of our job descriptions and postings. Our sixth goal refers to partnerships for organizations and colleges. In terms of universities and colleges, and I took the data from 23, 24, because it gave me a full picture of it. We had well over 125 students doing coursework in our district, including student teaching, practicums, clinicals, internships, field observations. So we are having that connection with the universities. In 2023, the district was approved for the pilot Limited CE program. Which in short is basically an alternate route to the alternate route program without going into much detail on that. But we have hired with individuals with this limited CE. So I feel like it's been successful for us to have joined that. We've recently also started to expand to work a little bit with the PTAs. We've sent them some job postings. Because we realize they're a really good source for referrals. And pray. Last year, our department had reached out to our educational assistants to see if any were interested in hearing more about the teacher certification process because they're in the classroom, so they may be a source of teachers. My office met with over 30 ed assistants who responded. So I was very happy with that response. And lastly, we did help principals reach out to retirees. But I have to say that unfortunately that has not been very successful. I think they're enjoying their retirement too much. Okay, this slide does list the many areas that we do recruitment. So, you know, the ones that I'll point out that we more recently added is LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter. So that are more recent ones. We've also done several on-site recruitments, especially when we start the preschool expansion aid that we were looking for additional staff for that. We've done a couple other things like I'm sure you guys have seen the sack lawn signs that we're hiring. And this year I plan to move to a more virtual job fair model, going down last week to the conference, I saw more of those models and saw how successful it is for other districts. So I think we're going to be moving more to that route. It looks like you can interview people through out the country who may be moving to this area. So we're going to move towards that. The next is talking about retention, and I'm sure there's many people in the district that's kind of tired of hearing me say this, but retention is so important. Our district spends a lot of time and money finding the best talent to hire. Our interview process is comprehensive. comprehensive and successful. And salaries and benefits make up more than the majority of the district's budget. So it's really important that We determine where we can do better. I understand that not every job or every district is right for each person, so there will always be some turnover. But if we can make changes to retain staff, I feel like we should try. Data-wise, I took feedback For the past four months for exit interviews. I had 26 employees accept the request for an exit interview. 11 of them were retirees and 15 were resignations. I heard from individuals from all levels and categories. I listed some of the reasons that they said that they were leaving. I've included some of the positives that I heard, like benefits, teamwork, supervision. and the hiring process, which of course I'd like to hear that the most. And our main suggested areas of improvement And they concluded communication, morale. too much new hire PD workload and recognition. All good areas to evaluate. So it's the things that we will take a look at. The next goal refers to mentorship, and we have four ways to support our staff in that. Our new hire orientation. The state mandated mentoring program for novice teachers the district's new hire professional development requirements. And then the district has a buddy flex program, which is for the teachers who are new to the district, but not new to teaching. And then the last goal was regarding three employee resource groups. We started this last year, and I thought the first one was very successful. We listen to the new hire feedback mid-year to find out how they felt things were going. I do plan on a couple changes for this year's meetings, and I actually hope to incorporate a check-in for transfers to maybe get some feedback from them for what they've seen from one school to another. I think that might be valuable to us. I'll wait to see what we hear. And that is the end of the goals. I just wanted to finish up that I would be remiss not to mention the entire HR team and the work that they do. the support from them is invaluable to me. And I think to the employees of this district. And I can't thank them enough for the work that they do. Because each of them are dedicated to the mission statement of this district, just as I am. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mrs. Lieber, for that very comprehensive presentation. It's really helpful to you know, understand where HR for all of us, I think, and the community probably which HR fits into Our district and our goals actually which I think the majority of the goals were new this year, right? The HR goals, new and generated out of the dialogue and committees so It's exciting to see them being implemented. Thank you. So just take any board questions, board member questions or feedback about the presentation or where we're at with HR goals so far? Two months into two months into the school year. Mrs. Gallagher. Yeah, just… A question popped into my head when… You were discussing the locations of where you post jobs. And I was just curious if um when I know like when I've I don't know if I'm asking this question. Like when you interview or when somebody goes to upload their resume on the website. Do you ask like. how you've heard about the job so that you can see what if like certain websites are hitting more or certain avenues are hitting more than others. Okay, other questions or feedback? Mr. Mayor. First, thank you. Good presentation. And no real surprises. But it's good to know that you and the committee are on top of all these different issues. I do have a question about moving Do you say you're going to move more aggressively towards virtual job fairs? How would that work with regard to the importance of still addressing the need to retain a diverse Diverse staff. with regard to new hires, how does the virtual Are there virtual job fairs that are targeted in that way? Or how do you continue to accomplish identifying and attracting a diverse workforce through virtual job fairs. And if that's not a fair question, you need some time to get back to us. Yeah, the virtual job fairs is more of a location. It is a zoom platform. It's not Zoom exactly the way they explain it, it's through the platform of the companies. So you do actually meet face to face with employees, but you're doing it at your desk and you can actually schedule several principals instead of some job fairs, you can only have two people at a table and there's a line of people waiting. The virtual, actually, I could schedule 20 principals doing interviews virtually at the same time, and they can do it from their own location and just chat with people doing the first round or doing some preliminary questions that way. And yes, there's also organizations that do go directly to the diverse workforce. I've actually participated in those types of events virtually, more so during, I guess, kind of the height of COVID. was the time I started seeing them. You know, there's pros and cons, but I think ultimately the accessibility, being able to attract people who might not be able to get to like, you know, we've The board has attended job fairs, right? And we stood there for hours with all the staff and it's a lot of work to put one on in person and you know, it's nice to attract two or three hires from that, but it's, you know, sometimes it's a small yield so I like the idea that you're doing that so Other board members have questions or comments? I just have a comment I was thinking about when you talked about hiring And, you know, hiring talent from within our community you know and i We have some people here at the table who've actually worked in our district. And previously, and we've had that's not the first time the board has had a board member who's previously worked in the district. You know, and I, a couple of weeks ago, remember I saw on our agenda someone that I knew, a long time, you know, PTA involved mom who, you know, who got hired in the district. And I was like, oh, I didn't even know, you know, you were, we ended up catching up afterwards and I learned, you know, there's a lot going, a lot has changed in that person's life. So You know, I always think like it's so nice when like we hire from within, so to speak you know we hire And our parents, sometimes our parents, sometimes like, and I think of the people who volunteer who come into committees or, you know, volunteer for different events or involved with the PTA, sometimes, you know, they're the most dedicated people, right? They're putting all this time into being part of our district and sometimes they're the best hires, I feel like, because you know they're committed. And they know the district well, usually, because they've been involved so I thought that was really interesting, you know, whether they're at assistance or teachers or, you know, SAC or whomever so I always thought that was great. I don't know. I moved away from where I grew up. So, you know, it was like a kind of an interesting thing for me. But anyway, um. So great, great stuff. Last, any last comments or questions before we move on? Zebra, thank you so much. It was great, really informative. And now we move on to might be, I know we're going to try to keep it short, but it won't be hard to be short because we were all at the New Jersey School Board Association conference last year, or most of us were, I should say. Actually, we all were. I take it back. We were all there who were here at the table and we all had several jam-packed days of learning and and connection and information sharing. So I don't know if we have other if people have other correspondence that they also want to share about. I have a few things, but Maybe we start with that and then we go around if people want to just go around for what we want to share. from school boards? Sound good? Okay. All right. So let's start with just community correspondence and any events that we've been part of or activities. I know I'm not the only one, so… Usually Mrs. Winters. Why don't you kick us off? Seems like a long time ago, but we went to the east-west game. There were a bunch of us board members that were there yeah that because that was right after the last board meeting. So a bunch of us were there together. It was a really awesome night under the lights at the new East Stadium. So that was super fun. I was mostly there to see the West and East marching bands, which performed admirably, but there was a football game too, so I'm told. So that was a really awesome night just to see the community come together. And then the other thing I did that was not NJSBA is that I went to one of my favorite things of the year, which is Latinos at West celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. I stopped by when they were at Johnson Elementary School to see their performance, which is always a lot of fun. And I got to dance, which is pretty much my favorite thing to do. So the Johnson students loved it. The kids were all up and dancing. One of my favorite parts of it was that they had members of Latinos at West who came from Johnson Elementary School. come out and say what house they're in, because at Johnson, they each have different houses sort of like in Harry Potter. And the kids were so excited to see the Johnson alumni who are now at West come back and make that connection with them. It's just always nice to see our students interacting in that way across the levels when our high schoolers and our younger students interact and they can see their future as they grow through the district. So that was really cool. Thank you. Other board members have community correspondence that you were part of? You want to report on? Mrs. Tong. I was at the Clara Barton. I believe October 11th um they also have had their hispanic have much more? So I was excited to see the young kids. They are so cool. And I met some of the few teachers that was there on my some teachers that teaches my kid was there as well. They've been there over 20 years. I was very surprised to meet them. They still look young. So that was good. That was all I want to say. Walk down memory lane. Mrs. Nia. I went to Kingston's um Hispanic Heritage Month. And actually Kingston was the last school that I worked at before I became a board member. And it was nice to go back and see all the students. They're like, hi, Mrs. Q. And the teachers are there. Dr. Marble actually was there and he was like, are you here as a substitute? Like, no, Dr. Marble, he was a board member. So, and then he was like, I'm so sorry. And then it was nice. All the kids were very excited. They fit 400 and I don't know how many students in one APR. It was very interesting to see everybody be able to get in together, but it was very nice to see and The West students really put up a really good show. Well, they won't have to fit all those kids in that old APR for much longer. That's the good news. Very excited for that change to come. Other board members have community correspondence, Mr. Greenbaum. So it's been a few weeks, but a few weeks ago I attended the Jewish Community Relations Council, Holocaust Remembrance March. It was a very meaningful event. I'm a descendant of Holocaust survivors, and it's something that was very important to me to attend. And my son is nine. He's getting old enough where I can start having these conversations. And it was a really great experience for him to experience with other members of the community. And there are even some survivors that were still there. But it was nice to commemorate that with the community and see a lot of familiar faces there. Thank you. I think that's, I know we usually have middle school students who participate in that too. I think we have now have Karusi students who participated in attending that. Back in the day was a Rosa students too so It's nice that our kids are involved. Other board members? I have a little list. I'll do mine. So that same week that we had our meeting and East-West game My son said, oh, I need to go see a trip to the moon, which is short plays at East so I can get extra credit. And I said, sure, I'll go with you. So we went to that. It was actually really cool. Nice to see the kids directed the shows. They're all little snippets with Different themes related to, you know, kind of where different people were um when We put a person on the moon. And a lot of short little shows with plays, but it was really cool. Nice to see the kids enjoying themselves so much and the different talent and Those kids are definitely ready for a an auditorium that has better acoustics. So I'm ready for that as an attendee. Try to really listen and make sure I can hear everything. I'm excited for that work to happen in the future. And then Oh, Friday night I got to go to the trunk or Treat. Which was Johnson's Trunk or Treat. Is that right, Dr. Morton? There were several of them. I think it was Johnson. Sponsored by the Johnson staff at at the CHEA. So I saw… some kids I knew, some old teachers of my kids, even who moved around You know, for something that the CHEA pulled together very quickly kind of in a short timeframe, it was really well attended. It took place at East. And the kids really enjoyed it. And of course, they enjoyed the candy and it was, it's so nice. You know, you see on a Friday night. staff who come out and volunteer for these things as part of, you know, their give back to their schools. It was sweet. And then I got to go into the golden age prom. which had a line outside the door at East waiting to get in. It was a packed room in the held in the cafeteria. I'm not sure how many hundreds of people were there. It was amazing. people who from all over our community, some people from outside our community as well. Again, also sponsored by CHEA. Supported by not only staff and administrators from our district, but also our students. There was a couple of high school students and a bunch of Karusi students there. So, um. It was nice. One of them was a student that my son, she's now In a different district, but she came back to volunteer. Kids, it's a girl, my kids knew in middle school. So it's just, it was just, it's just an amazing event. It's older adults getting a chance to have a really nice meal. And dance the night away. And dance did they? Let me tell you. Put me to shame and many of us to shame. And the students were out there dancing and the staff And it's just like A really, really lovely night. and i i I'm going to read, oh, we got an email About it. And I'm just going to read a remark that one of the attendees made. So bear with me. I'm sorry. I meant to have this up earlier. And I didn't have it up, but I'm going to pull it up real quick. This was an email we received after the fact, and it was a note shared by CHEA from an attendee who said. They've been doing the golden age prom for 11 years. This is my 11th year being here for Golden Age Prom. Wonderful music, wonderful dancing, and wonderful food. nicest people come here, work here and teach here. Student helpers are very nice as well. So I just, you know, it's a very much a feel good event. And, you know. Came on from work Friday night and I was like, all right, I'm going to turn around and go back out. And I'm glad I did so Well worth it. So I was happy to have those events that also reach other members of our community who are not always reached, our senior citizens. Okay, those are all mine. Anybody else have community? Okay. All right. Let's move on to New Jersey School Board Association members attendance. Do we want to, I don't know, do we want to just go around the room and just do a quick Many of us were there for two or three days Full days with lots and lots of sessions from all school boards throughout the state and also administrators, staff, exhibitors. Big, big event, thousands of people so Where do we want to start? Do you want to start on this side of the room and we'll go around? Mr. Greenbound. Sure. Thank you. So like the rest of us, I attended Lots of different sessions on ethics, education law, labor negotiations, and various other topics. I wanted to focus on just a couple of them and I'll try to be quick with these. One of the first ones I attended was a panel discussion on whether your district is ready for the fiscal cliff. And it was interesting. It's people from different districts talking about the consequences of chronic underfunding of public schools. Boards frequently have the dilemma of whether to keep raising taxes or make deeper cuts, and those cuts often prioritize students, staff, and programs over facilities and maintenance. Over time, facilities get neglected and districts need to consider taking more drastic measures like a bond referendum. It sounded an awful lot like the story of Cherry Hill, and it absolutely was. But it was surprising to hear that it was also framed as a story of the challenges faced by almost every other district. Other districts are where we were two years ago, and many see that's the direction they're going. So it's a very interesting discussion on how to deal with that and how to advocate with our legislature to help improve the funding formula and how our public schools are funded so we don't have to keep trying to tax our way out of it. Another session I found really interesting was called Demystifying School Rankings and Ratings. Periodically, people in the community will start talking about school ratings, school rankings, where Cherry Hill is compared to other places. And it was really interesting because it was really interesting some of the things they talked about are One, without context, they're not very meaningful. But they also are. I mean, that's how a lot of people figure out where they're going to buy their homes. They look at school ratings, whether they're meaningful or not. And the things we consider important about our district and schools can be very different than what some of these ratings and ranking systems value. I mean, we have things like the NJDOE data and ratings, great schools, US News and World Report, niche.com, schooldigger.com. Some of them focus primarily on just data from NJDOE, things like test scores, student growth, graduation rate, and absenteeism. Others focus on more subjective measures, and it's important to understand that context when we look at these ratings. Things like ratios of different subgroups of students. AP class enrollment and passing rates, even online reviews can impact impact school ratings. The criterion weights are not always transparent or consistent year to year, and the data is not always current. But understanding that context can make it more meaningful and be able to understand what insight they provide. And then lastly, I wanted to mention a conversation I had with Dr. Walter Grayson. He was one of the key stakeholders in developing Cherry Hill's African American Studies curriculum. I just ran into him in the hallway and recognized him from the prior year when we had a similar conversation. We had a discussion about the success of the program here in Cherry Hill and other programs that have been implemented across the country based on our success. And I also shared with them some thoughts that we had discussed the last year. Just that history is complicated and messy. And that's kind of what makes it interesting. And learning a more complete and accurate version of her history is what makes us all better citizens. All right. And I have a few more, but I'll cut it off there and leave some time for others. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Gallagher. Would you like to share anything? I mean, I guess I'll say my dog ate my homework. I didn't write up anything. You know, it's always a fun couple of days. There's like too many to choose from. So I chose some varied ones about like, you know, committee structure, absenteeism. I wasn't able to attend as many days as I was hoping for, but it's always a really meaningful and helpful experience. to get to hear about different topics and meet other board members from various districts and administration and it's always a very valuable couple of days. Thanks. Okay. So I'll just go real quick. So I went to actually three different sessions I want to talk about and um Also get a chance to meet up with in person. I've actually never met with her in person as our New Jersey School Board Association representative. She actually was the person who did my initial school board training when I When I orientation when I joined the school board, but that was virtual. So that was actually pretty neat to talk to her. We had a nice chance to kind of connect and talk about you know. excite you know successes, challenges, all that stuff um So I went to a session on Robert's rules because those of you who know me know I'm not usually super formal and I didn't go to law school. And I didn't work at the legislature, so I'm not quite the expert in Robert's rules. And sometimes I feel like maybe it'd be helpful if I was a little more knowledgeable. So although, you know, I've got two years left, a couple months left on the two years, a couple months left on the board, I thought it was a good time to do that. So that was helpful. And then I went to a session I did governance for, which is required. Every year we have a governance session. So I thought, well, I'll go do it. And Mrs. Tong was and I were both in governance for together. So that was interesting and helpful, mostly really reviewed different legal decisions. It was legal issues and ethics issues. So that was really interesting. And that was led by school boards as well. And then I went to also the changing of the culture of your board, which was really interesting. Obviously, you know. those of us attending were there to see what we could improve. You know, my time on the board, the culture has changed so much and it changes kind of sometimes month to month. So it was really interesting. It was a panel of board presidents and superintendent. And they all had kind of from different areas, different experiences. You know, some of the things that stood out to me were um you know, efforts that boards make to try to bring more cohesion And also, you know, some of the challenges with that. The superintendent talked about And he said, you know, quite frankly, it's really difficult to have, you know, when there is conflict on the board. It's really hard for, you know, to kind of function well as a superintendent. And I thought, you know, that's very accurate and interesting that he kind of brought that up. And so people were talking and asking questions and really looking for some feedback. And then there was someone in the session who was very, very vocal and very passionate. And she talked about challenges on her board, specifically talked about some hate groups who'd been involved. And, you know, how there were, it really kind of created so many challenges for their board and asked for help from school boards about how do we tackle this? How do we tackle this problem when that's coming at us or even if there's, you know, people from, you know. involved in those groups on the board and it was really It was really, it was a very intense time so You know, it's just a challenge. And there were other people in the room who were like, you know, yeah, what do we do? How do we deal with that? So, you know, I think it's just, I think that's an intense time on school boards. And I think that's what I kind of took away from all that. But also just, you know, the efforts to try to always continue to try to work together because that's really what's going to be beneficial to the kids. You know, to try to find ways around challenges, work through challenges You know, how diverse dialogue and diverse thoughts are important on a board. You know, which You know, I think is, you know, something that you know having all of the same thought process does not help people grow right so It was interesting. And I would agree with both of you, you know, specifically more Mrs. Gallagher when you said, you know, it was just, it's a great opportunity to meet so many different people. And, you know, you have time to network as well. You know, during workshop after hours so I think it's, I don't know, I, I, I always find a lot of value in it. All right, I'll pass it on to Mr. Mayor. First takeaway for me from school boards was that I made the correct decision and um Even though I was vice president of our Future Physicians Club in high school. It was a good idea to stop the physician thing right then because I can't read my own notes. So I'm going to keep a very, very high level. No, it was right. I mean, it. continued to confirm that very wise decision. I haven't made that many since then, but at least that one was right. So I tried to pack in as many sessions as I could hit. I went to eight or seven or eight different sessions, a couple of them on AI, one specifically AI, one a combination of AI and multi. tiered system of supports My biggest takeaway from the AI sessions was There's just so much going on, so many programs and dynamics that are becoming available to teachers now and administrators. that can really open up more opportunities for teachers to focus on why they're in the classroom in the first place. Which is to teach and to make connections with their students. And that was great for me to see because I think my expectation going in was I'm going to learn about, and I wanted to, but I thought I would learn only about like, this is what AI is doing in the classroom for students and this is how students are using it. This is how teachers can identify that students are using it and maybe You know, where the problems lie. But really, it was focused more on here are tools that we have for teachers that can free up so much more time make their make their connections with students that much more valuable and that much deeper. So, you know, I was really impressed with what's available. today and what's coming because it's only to only get that much more Impressive, you know, in years to come. I also, I had an opportunity to attend particularly A couple sessions on identity and belonging and one on equity and access. The equity and access session really focused more on socioeconomic diversity and the importance of i of not There was a term that was used in the session specifically educational apartheid and the importance of not tracking students based on their perceived abilities, not looking at a student from where the student comes and from how the student is dressed perhaps And making snap judgments as to what that student may or may not be capable of achieving as a student. And the way that it was presented was impactful. And the presenters were animated. And really passionate about ensuring that every student, regardless of their upbringing, regardless of their surroundings should have every opportunity available to every other student. That includes the most rigorous curriculum and it includes the most rigorous courses and expectations Some may require additional supports in order to have the opportunity to achieve and to succeed, but they should all be given that opportunity. So I really, really like that session. and in um the identity and belonging session was tremendously important for a number of reasons, but mostly Lots of lessons and lots of great information on the importance of making sure that curriculum Making sure that materials in the classroom from posters to books are truly representative of all of the students that are in the classroom and representative of the teachers and the staff as well so that Students see themselves in the material. Students can relate. to the people that they are learning about and that they are learning from. That was really tremendously important for me and then Finally, one of the sessions, one of my favorite sessions was on promoting SEL. And one of the things that I paid a lot of attention to and drilled in on was number of slides and data. that support supported the importance And really the return on investment of practicing SEL and having the teachers understand it from a professional development perspective so that they can be the ones to incorporate that into their curriculum. There was a study done which took approximately 100, looked at 100 different Districts around the country Good cross-section of districts from small to large urban suburban, and they found that those students or those districts that focused on us on SEL in their curriculum showed an 11% increase in academic achievement when looking at standardized test scores. Which confirms what you know we have we have known here, and I know we do here in Cherry Hill is understanding that the more a student feels heard, the more a student feels supported, the more a student feels safe in that environment, in the school environment. the better they are as students, the more comfortable they are, the better they are to receive education, and that will normally result in increased scores and And give them that much more of an opportunity to succeed in the future. So finally, and this was, I think it was in the same session, but frankly, I don't recall which one it was. It took a screen capture of one of the slides that was put up. Because the quote really spoke to me. It was a quote from Frederick Douglass. It was a very short specifically, and it said as follows, it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults. And if there was any one slide in any one session or presentation that I sat through that I know is going to stick with me. That's it. It's because I really believe that's why at least that's why, you know, I wanted to be part of this board. to be part of hoping to build stronger children, resilient children. So that they can achieve. And whatever that achievement is for them and for their families. So that was my big takeaway. Otherwise. Really great session. Probably this is the third session Yeah, this is my third conference. I think the best one for me, I really enjoyed all the sessions, but those are the ones that were, I think, the most impactful Okay. Thank you. This is Shirin. So I will keep this much shorter and sweeter. I was there for all four days. So I was able to attain, attend a lot of the seminars. Everything from Robert's Rules, superintendent evaluation, strategic planning. a seminar on alternative revenue sources. I also attended the fiscal cliff seminar, which was interesting. I attended the seminar. I attempted twice, was able to get in once to the new Oprah Laws seminar. And then my favorite seminar that I attended was one on board retreats, which I communicated some of the stuff that I learned with some of the other board members. I thought it was interesting. We did a mock retreat within that seminar and it was interesting to know that at least the boards that I were sitting with, the attendees from other boards that I was sitting with. do multiple board retreats a year. I learned a lot about the structure of a board retreat and like Ms. Stern was mentioning, one of the biggest focus to this was building, you know, building a strong board and really the focus on making sure there was a solid teamwork within the board to allow functionality throughout the district. So as you both know, I highly suggested that we look into doing this. We agreed that it would probably make sense maybe after the new year once we potentially have a couple new members. But that was probably the most rewarding ones for me. Yeah, that's it. Thank you. Mrs. Winters. It was also my third NJSBA conference, which is sort of wild. I don't feel like I've been here for Third. I do feel like I just started, but I've been here since 2022, believe it or not. So this is my third NJSBA conference. And every year I feel like I get better and better at picking the sessions. So I tried to split my time in between some sessions on board dynamics. I attended a committee's one with Ms. Gallagher. She and I did it together. We were at the table together, which was really neat. to hear about committees and how other boards do it. There was a board there that have been certified as a master board. by NJSBA, so not just board certified, but master board certified. And they talked about how they run their committees and had some suggestions and Ms. Gallagher and I brought back some really good information. So we're continuing to work on a committee's project, looking at committees on the board and how they function and how they can continue to function even better. So that's my preview for coming soon. I also attended an ethics one and there was a lot of different cases, but I was really interested in the stuff on board members and First Amendment and social media. Because that area keeps evolving. So even the advice that I was given two years ago when I started on the board. that advice continues to evolve and change. So I thought that was really neat that that's a developing area for board members. But then I tried to attend sessions that had to do with CNI, which will surprise no one on this board. So the one I want to talk about, my favorite session, it was System-wide changes essential to close the achievement gap. And the presenter was somebody who I had seen last year who I thought was phenomenal and he was presenting again. He was a superintendent of Orange Schools. In North Jersey and he saw implemented changes that saw rapid rises in achievement. So this session gave really concrete ways that you can affect student achievement. So I just want to read these to you guys and see if you can see where I'm going here. See my vision. So here are the examples they said that are shown to be effective. implement high quality pre-K. establish and retain K-5 literacy and math coaches. adopt a three-phase curriculum cycle assessment, program development, and professional learning. Select talented and innovative teachers and principals. Strengthen teaching with observations and timely feedback. And they also said that you need to create an aspirational mindset. And this was especially aimed towards board members. So adopt board goals to raise aspirations, raise achievement, and increase parent engagement. Embrace the belief that all students will perform at the highest levels. Strengthen connections with students and families. with family and student connections from all grades. So that's something that we're currently focusing on in CNI with the upcoming literacy nights that are going to be in all the schools. Just want to plug that one more time. And this one's for Ms. Roscoff. establish partnerships with individuals and organizations focused on closing the achievement gap. with all the partnership work you're doing. So I didn't realize that Mr. Guy was sitting behind me in the room because he came in a little bit late, but we all had to go around and give like a hot take on what we learned. And what came out of my mouth was, we're on the right track. And I was so excited to see that all the things that these presenters were saying were really important when you're talking about closing the achievement gap. Which is something that I've been really focused on the past two years since I became CNI chair. these are the things that we're currently doing in the district. So I can't wait for all of that to continue to bear fruit. I think we're starting to see it happen. So I'm really excited about and also that I'm going to read this verbatim. There's critical importance of Board of Education leadership because you set the tone for the whole district. So it really affirmed my belief that we can have an impact up here. Sometimes it seems that We're working so hard and it's hard to see you know, the forest for the trees, but the research they have shows that board members do make an impact on student achievement. When they set their standards high. So I just kind of wanted to give that to you guys. I also attended one and so I knew I was in the right room because I saw Miss staff in there. on early literacy. Which we've been talking about. It was a DOE presentation and it had to do with the rapid programs that are in the elementary. trainings that are being done by the DOE that are free for teachers to access on early literacy, but also, and I immediately texted Mr. Greenbaum, there is federal money coming for early literacy. It's going to be a pass through from the federal government through the DOE. So I said, hey, how do we get our hands on this money? Because I'm always looking for new funding sources that we can bring to enhance our students education and literacy is something, especially at the elementary level. that CNI is talking about a lot with the implementation of the new curriculum. The governor is focusing on it too, so it seems like good synergy. So if we can grab a swath of that money, I'm hoping that that's something we can look into going forward. Great. Good to know. We're definitely on the right track. This is Tong. Thank you for everybody putting all that nice effort in. I am going to be very short, I think. I went to multiple ones. I'm not going to remember every one of them. I think the list one that the most important one I went was john quillonis. Mr. John, Quiones, I think quite a few people of us was there, right? it really like when he at the stage talking about how important is education to him or his mother was asking him. Well, no, you got to go to school and get educated and then you don't have to work the hard work like we have to do. And you remind me and my parents When I was growing up, it was a tough life. But they've really put me through education and very grateful for that. And here I am today. I'm proud to say I'm the first graduate of my family. In my generation are the last, I don't know, not the last, but more. to go. But the first generation graduate from college. I'm very proud of it. And I'm very proud of that. This is my last term. of on the BOE for now, maybe we're coming back later. I don't know. I don't know yet. But I really want everybody who will be elected? as a POE coming up should go to these workshop. They're very good, especially when you're new Then let you network with other people, other districts, other presenters, everything you have question on, just say something that you have question on. Sometimes, you know, is in your heart and we don't have the time to talk about on that time you can talk and just be free as much as you can enjoy the network. I will say I'm very happy. And I did put some information back for the administration. I don't know what's going to be, but whatever it is. We will help to see that in the future. Thank you. Definitely going to miss you. It's sad to be in the lab. Like I was getting a little… you know, wistful. with you last time last time around. So it was nice to be there again with you, Mrs. Tom. There you go. Right. Right. There you go. Other things will be part of. This is Niaz. I don't know if there's anything you'd like to share about your experience. Yeah, trying to make it quick. So I was there for four days. It was actually my first time in Atlantic City. I've never been in Atlantic City. 19 years down here, never been to Atlantic City. So day one, I went to the special education what every board member needs to know, talked about issues within special education. It talked about funding for special education students. It's talked about the importance of the special education advisory group, CPAG. And then I also went to the power, the power committees talked about the importance of committees working together. for the betterment of children. I also went to the John Quinones Kino, one thing that resonated with me was he talked about how His teachers helped get him where he is today. I really like that. Following that was the unsung Superheroes Awards, and it was an award ceremony for you know. members of the school district that go unnoticed by strivers. lunch ladies, all that. And then another one I went to was it takes a village to Help Students in Needs. It talks about the importance of the board and teachers working together And collaborating um with one another. It's also talked about the importance of how social emotional learning and academic excellence is actually intertwined and it feeds off of each other. And I thought that was really interesting. And then I went to a formal collaboration, student learning growth and teacher retention. Again, talked about collabing between board members and everybody else in the district. On… Day three, I went to um technology one, it talked about the use of apple for younger students, I thought that was interesting. I also went to the keynote for Sonia Manzano. That was also interesting. She talked about how the needs of kids have changed over time and how we were supposed to carry to that. The last one I went to was the localized South Asian history. And it was very interesting to me because I really actually didn't know as a South Asian how much we've contributed to American history. They actually talked about a Indian American Bhagat Singh thing who was an american And he actually was part of World War I. And he was actually a writer and a speaker. His story was interesting as well. So it was a very eventful week. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Great. Well, definitely a busy and exciting and interesting learning opportunity for days so It's hard to keep it short, but thank you guys. All right, we're going to move on to our student representative reports. And I do want to say we are a few days away from early action college deadlines, early decision deadlines. So I just want to openly say to our seniors. You're more than welcome to not stay the entire meeting tonight. I know it's already almost eight o'clock. If you need to go home after your reports, please feel free. So I appreciate all the time you put into this. Especially at a very intense time of year for you guys so Not that you're necessarily in that boat, but if you are. Okay, so we're going to start with High School West. We have Rebecca and Jenna. If you usually split your report and share it, share the mic. So go for it. We're excited. Awesome. So for academics, the National Honor Society has continued its peer tutoring program, offering one-on-one sessions for students needing extra help. There are QR codes posted throughout the school for registration. NHS will also be continuing their Treats for Troops collection now until November 6th. PSIT testing took place last Wednesday. SAT testing will be taking place on November 2nd and the end of marking period is November 11th, and that is really important for students to get in their final grades and any missing assignments that they have. The football team had their breast cancer awareness game with students and family coming out in pink to show their support. Other sports also had um cancer awareness games as well this month. The boys soccer team had a standout win against Eastern High School earlier in the month and will face Highland High School In their upcoming match. They're also looking forward to the Coaches Cup tournament for both boys and girls soccer. senior nights for all athletic teams took place during this past month, congratulating seniors For their four years of dedication as well as wishing them luck in their future endeavors. Playoffs for all sports are upon us. For football, the Cherry Hill West team face Pensachen on October 17th, but unfortunately came up short. With a final score of 35 to 7, despite this loss, the team remains focused on the upcoming games and the postseason prospects. Their next game will be will take place at home against Morristown on Wednesday. October 30th for volleyball cherry hill West girls volleyball team continues to shine this season. They recently played a competitive match against Washington Township and celebrated a strong performance earlier in the month, placing well within the Olympic conference rankings. field hockey, the Westfield hockey team wrapped up October with key victories, including a recent win against Timber Creek. The Boys and girls cross country team are getting ready for the NJSIA A, sectionals on Saturday, November 2nd. Please come out and support. And the winter cheer tryouts will be taking place on November 6th in the Walsh Gym. For the arts, the West Marching Band continues its success participating in the South Jersey competition circuit with outstanding performances this October. Specifically, they came in sixth out of 15 bands at the Tournament of the Bands State Championship in Toms River. A Reiku firing event is going to occur this Saturday for Art Club. West Theater is getting ready for their show Rocky in November. The show dates are November 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. They're also hosting a senior citizen matinee and West Culinary will be making lunch for the senior citizens when they come to perform for them. The South Jersey Choir auditions are also currently taking place with several talented West singers advancing through the selection processes. For extracurriculars, the West DECA chapter is preparing for upcoming business competitions and the yearbook club reminds everybody that the yearbooks are still available for purchase. Go purchase, please. Motto UN also participated in their first competition with victories in numerous categories. Latinos at West continue to share Hispanic culture throughout the schools and celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, their performance Performances have been well received. fostering cultural pride and awareness among students. The African American Culture Club is going to the HBCU College Fair in John F. Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center in Willingboro, New Jersey, which will give students The opportunity to learn about What different HBCUs have to offer, there will be interviewing on site and will even admit on site and give scholarships if students are eligible. The Potterpuff game will take place on November 19th, where students will be competing for the new Purple Heel Trophy. There will also be a district literacy night for parents on November 20th. And there will also be dodgeball games for students on the 20th as well. The principal advisories committee met to discuss the developments over the month of October, ensure that student and to ensure that student voice is heard And clear communication is maintained. This month, for other notes, this month saw the senior parent and financial aid nights providing valuable information for the students and their families to prepare for post-high school plans, meetings with guidance counselors have also taken place to aid the students directly during this process. As a whole district, we're having November 1st off for teacher in service and teacher convention is seventh to eighth. So we'll have off on those days. Noche Latina is taking place on November 6th in the West Cafeteria. Senior Portrait makeups took place yesterday and other senior portraits can be taken directly to the Laura's Photography website. Red Women Week just came to a close. And we are gearing up for Spirit Week. Stay tuned for information about dodgeball, lip sync, theme days, door decoration, lunchtime games, and more. Specifically, our homecoming dance will be on November 21st during that week. Students will have a half day on November 26 as well as 28th and the 29th off for Thanksgiving. Finally, West has maintained its cell phone policy with more positive feedback. Students are encouraged to keep adhering to these guidelines for a productive learning environment, but we are very proud of the progress that we've made. Thank you. Great and very detailed report. Thank you. Jenna, what was the date for the HBCU college fair? Do you… November 18th. Thank you. want to make a note for someone I know who's interested. Thank you. I missed the date. All right. Solom, if you would kindly give the East report by yourself. Errolyn's, let it all be you tonight. Yes, so a lot went on at East this month in regards to academics on Wednesday, October 16th, the East Guidance department held a financial aid night to present information about affording college to parents and seniors. as well as answer questions, NJ Higher Education Student Assistance Authority Representative was also present. to respond to any questions. During October, juniors and seniors have also had the opportunity to meet with admission officers from various colleges and universities during the school day. including the University of Notre Dame and the University of Florida, among many others. As I visited east and these opportunities will continue into November. On Wednesday, October 23rd. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors who need to fulfill their state testing graduation requirements took the PSAT. In addition, on Wednesday, October 23rd. The World Language National Honor Society inductions took place. Many high achieving juniors and seniors who take Spanish, Latin. German, Chinese, or French were able to be inducted into their respective Honor Society's congratulations to all of them. And then on Thursday, October 24th, a ninth grade meet the counselors night took place in which freshman parents were able to meet the guidance counselors of their students. In regards to activities, on October 11, eligible students had the opportunity to register to vote at school during lunch. A successful pep rally was held on Friday, October 18th, in which the fall athletes were recognized. And the East Marching Band, Color Guard, and cheerleaders performed. Our principal, Mr. Finkel was also pied in the face to support The class of 2026, which was pretty cool of him. And the Hokowin dance, the homecoming dance, was held on Saturday, October 19th. From 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. In which students got to enjoy a fun night of dancing and activities. Jessica Zhao and Maggie Pierlot were named our homecoming queens. Thanks to SGA and the Thespian Society for organizing a great night that 950 students attended. The class of 2026 hosted a Halloween movie night open to all students. On Friday, October 25, outside on east turfield Students voted to watch the movie Coraline and helped to raise money for the Class of 2026 junior prom. Editors of the Eastside newspaper attended the Garden State Scholastic Press Association Conference yesterday. You side one, overall excellence in distinguished journalism in the print and online Making Eastside the number one school newspaper in NJ for New Jersey for the 16th year in a row. and number one online school newspaper in New Jersey for the fifth year in a row. The East Fall Preview Concert is tomorrow night, Wednesday, October 30th at 7.30 p.m. in which all East vocal and instrumental groups will be performing. School Picture Makeup Day is also tomorrow. In regards to the theater department, on October 9th, East Theatre performed a trip to the Moon, a series of student-directed plays. Congratulations to the directors, cast and crew for a great performance. In regards to athletics, these sports teams have been doing amazing. The East football team has improved to eight wins and zero losses record after defeating Bridgetown this past Friday and winning in their homecoming game against Stepford. As well as against Cher Hill West on October 11th to take back the boot. The team will play their first playoff game this Friday, November 1 against Southern Regional High School. These students looking to support the team are able to sign up to take a Cougar fan bus to the game. at Southern Regional and be transported back to East for no cost. The East Skirs volleyball team have also been doing a phenomenal job holding a 19 wins to three losses record. And there, the 2024 Olympic Conference American Division Champions. Senior player Aubrey Mon broke Cherry Hill East Service Ace record for girls volleyball. And a win against Lenapee on October 18th. the team will next take on Cherokee tomorrow. The East Varsity and junior varsity boys Cross-country team took second place at the olympic conference championship on October 24. And many of the other East fall teams have been preparing for their playoffs. Overall, students are looking towards the end of the first marking period on November 11th. And the annual blood drive, powder puff game and spirit week all in November. That's all. Thank you. It's also a lot. So thank you very much. Great, great report. Okay, we move on to our first public comment. This is the first public comment period. We have two opportunities for public comment this evening. The first public comment session is for board action items only, items 13 through 16. There will be another public comment section for any school related topic at the end of the meeting. However, if you are a student. You get to talk about any topic that you would like. During the first public comment period. So if you are a student, we do ask that you, if you'd like to speak to please approach the podium first. And also, if you are a student and you are online. to please put an S after your name so that we know you are a student. So we could call on you first. If you would like to speak now as an adult, please identify the agenda item that you are speaking on. Clearly state your name and your municipality. We will alternate between speakers who are here in the room and those who are online. Each speaker will be given a maximum of three minutes to speak and the timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time that you have remaining. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of Cherry Hill Public School District or within the authority of the Cherry Hill School Board. The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. Under established federal law governing reasonable restrictions on speech in public forums. Statements which demean individual community members or groups. or which are irrelevant to the operations of the school district or are repetitious, will not be permitted. Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district are always welcome to communicate directly to the district superintendent board president and all board members via email or other alternative means. So we will start in the room. If you'd like to speak, please state your full name, your municipality. And the action item you are speaking on. And I know in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. 14.8. the educational facilities waiver I do not understand how the district and board continued to increase the number of students participating in pre-K. Without the knowledge that four off-site locations did not even meet the minimum space requirements. And will we have to go through this waiver process in the ensuing years? I don't understand how you're going to meet all the requirements for those particular students. I would like to know what is the resolution to provide a thorough and efficient education to the affected students. that their counterparts will receive at the Malberg facility. I hope we can do better in the future. Thank you. Okay, and now we go to the line. And I see one hand up, and it's the number 788. Please state your full name, your municipality, and the action item you're speaking on. My name is Jeff Potowitz and it's 14.7, 14.8 and 14.9. 14.7, acceptance of preschool expansion granted the amount of $5,720,000 for the fiscal year of 2024. Well, this year is fiscal year 2025, as far as I know. So could you make that modification? Because if this is for this year, which I'm assuming it is, it's not 2024, it's 2025. So if I'm correct, as far as I know I am, please make that modification also, according to what the school said, with its, you know, funding, we were supposed to get around $6.1 million for preschool expenses. However, this is $430,000 less than we were supposed to get or a decrease of approximately 7% decrease. Did this happen to other school districts? This is what they said in March or April we're going to get. What's going on there? Question 14.8, authorizing schedule facilities waiver. The minimum square footage the state requires is 950 square feet. Out of the classrooms, which total about 15, eight classrooms have less than 800 square feet or 150 plus square feet less than the minimum. What is going On with that. Really, I mean, note also that 11 out of 14 do not have a bathroom in the classroom. That is 14.9. Okay. 11 out of 14 don't have bathrooms and are supposed to. So not only space that. So there are a lot of questions. One, are… Are these students that are already in the classrooms now or is this gonna is this a new group of students that are coming in in January? Are they already in these classrooms that don't meet what the state says the requirements. That's number one. Number two is question. If the students will be assigned in January, will there be new students assigned in January? Three, if there are students already in those classrooms, how could you do it without a waiver? Okay, four, will students need a separate paraprofessional bringing the student to the bathroom? Because if you need an aide and a teacher, then Well, you won't have that teacher because someone has to bring these kids to the bathroom. Will there be any other, are the restrooms only for Cherry Hill students in these facilities or not? And there are more questions that need to be answered. Okay, thank you for your call. The time is up. We move back to the room if anyone would like to speak, please approach the microphone. Please state your full name, your municipality, and the action item you're speaking on. Hi, good evening. My name is Bridget Palmer, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I'm here to speak tonight on agenda items 14.7, 14.8, 14.9. I have a little bit of a different perspective than I think some of the other comments that we've heard so far in that I actually hope that I will hear each of you vote in favor of these three resolutions. I am not suggesting that the preschool program as it is is perfect, not suggesting that there's not more work to be done. But I think this is one of the rare instances where we have a lot of data around the value of free preschool for as many kids as possible. And the direct link that that has to academic success for the rest of their educational careers. So again, this is an important foundational piece. A lot of work to do, a lot of improvements that could be made, but I encourage all of you to vote for these three resolutions. So we can continue to grow the program. And make those improvements and benefit all of our students moving forward. Thank you very much. Okay, and we go back to the line and I do not see any hands Online. So we come back to the room. If anyone would like to speak Please approach the podium, not the podium, the microphone See anybody at the microphone? So I go back to the line. I don't see any hands online. I'm going to close first public comment. We will move on to our superintendent comments. No, no, Dr. Morton, if you have any comments to make. Yes, actually, I do. I have a few comments to make. First and foremost, I'd just like to congratulate the students who were recognized this evening once again. It's always wonderful To see the exuberance of the young people that we have in our community. They're outstanding. I want to take a moment as well. omit one name. Ora Pollard, we did not announce her name officially, although her picture was taken. I want to make sure I acknowledge her as well. We appreciate her for coming out also. Just to respond to a few of the questions in regards to the preschool items that are on the agenda. First and foremost, so the preschool facilities waiver is a waiver that we actually are required to have approved annually from Alberg. And we've done that historically over the years. There was some level of uncertainty around if we needed to do the same thing for the private providers as well. We found out within the past few weeks that we needed to to have the same waiver approved for the private providers also. So consequently. that item is on as an item on this agenda. So there is a floor and then there is a a recommended square footage for classrooms the minimum Classroom square footage is 750 square feet However, as part of the expansion application, the expectation generally is that Classrooms are 950 square feet anything lower than that requires a waiver. And that's essentially why we are submitting this resolution for a waiver. In reference to the the acceptance of the grant funds for construction. Just want to mention that the contract or bid went to a contractor already. This was board approved on August 27th at the August 27th. board meeting so that contract is for the addition or construction of eight classrooms at kilmer. innate classrooms at Melbourg. With that being said, the reason that this is on the agenda today is because there was essentially like a clerical type of error that was made on the application form in our system. We don't really understand why it occurred, but we just want to make sure that all things are clear and that the information As it should be. Now, if we do not approve this evening. you know, as has been shared by Ms. Sugars, we'll need to find these funds. We're not going to accept the preschool grant construction funds, we'll need to find these funds from our general budget. As well. So again, contract has been has already been approved and awarded. There's fencing that is up at one of these sites already. So they've begun the process already. Thank you to our board reps for sharing the wonderful information about all the great things happening at the high schools. I can attest to the fact that Across the board at all of our schools, there are fantastic things that are occurring. Schools are bustling. There's much activity and momentum. As I've travel throughout the district and interacted with that with, you know, divergent groups The idea of community is what has resonated with me. Coming from school boards and interacting with colleagues from across the state as well. I'm stuck on this idea that we are Cherry Hill had a meeting with our superintendent student advisory council. Our students, you know, comprised of High School East and High School West students as well. And this is one of the things that students proudly declared, we are Cherry Hill. And to see the passion from the children as they select the projects that they can work on to impact our community. Again, you know, this idea of community is what came to mind. And when you think about community, it's not necessarily just a location. But it's a sense of belonging and engagement, and it's the you know the feeling that you have from people who are active participants and who actively want to see the community benefit, you know, um. Ms. Stern mentioned Friday and our visit over to high school east and i started my visit there and the Golden Age Prom. Again, over 200 and I think approximately 250 our seniors at that event. Ready to dance up a storm and have a great time. But then I juxtapose that to stepping outside and seeing our youngest elementary students participating with enthusiasm, with costumes on. at the trunk of Tree event that was held and, you know, see a different Age range, right, the contrast, but the commonality is that there's this exuberance and excitement to be a part of the community. And as I looked at put those events on, our own community members and staff members were the ones that that provided those events to provide that sense of community and togetherness. I stepped into the high school East DeBart Gym. And there was a girl's Volleyball match taking place. The exuberance was there as well. The following day, I had an opportunity to go to High School West and out to the fields. And there was… Help me with the name. Kicker treat, kick or treat. Yes. It was the kicker treat event where hundreds of kids were at every field And as I stood at a distance, I can just hear the laughter. and the fun and this idea of community like we we are We are Cherry Hill. We're a community so You know, with that in mind, I just encourage everyone to um to stay involved, you know, we have some big big items that are coming forward. We need you. We need you to be a part of the process. Again, I'll go back to our five-year strategic plan process is underway. We are mapping out and shaping out the next five years for this district. And we're doing that together. We're doing that as a community. So please lend your voices to that process. We'll have a community survey. coming out in the next few weeks, that community survey will be open throughout the duration of December. And then in January, we're going to do some focus group meetings where we'll pull community members together to provide additional feedback and input. We have an intensive workshop. scheduled for, well, not scheduled yet, but we will be scheduling that for January, February as well. We had the first workshop already It was awesome. The people who took part in that had an opportunity to produce information as it relates to our core values. I'm going to take that information that was that was generated as part of that. And we're going to the community. Carol Roscoff and I are taking it to the community Because we want you to help us to map out our portrait of a graduate. We've worked with Zone PTA. And with local PTAs, and we've begun the process of scheduling meetings at at individual sites. We're going to start with schools and then we'll go to associations so I'm putting this date out right now. Our first community discussion will be November 13th. Myself, Ms. Roscoff, Mr. Park. Ms. Eliza Babcock, president of uh PTA over at Russell Knight will be hosting this event for us. This will be an active workshop. I'm going to go back to my Mr. Morton days when I was a teacher in the classroom. And we're going to make it, you know, an opportunity for our community to generate some ideas that we can then take back to the larger groups. With that, I'll say thank you. Thank you for all of that and inspiration. Encouragement, inspiration. Okay, we're going to move on to our action agenda. I'm going to ask Mrs. Winters, can you please move the CNI agenda? I'd be happy to. Superintendent recommends and I move the following, 13.1, approval of attendance at conference and workshops for the 2025 school year. 13.2, approval of out-of-district student placement for the 2024-25 school year. 13.3, approval of service contract with NJ Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired for the 2025 school year. 13.4 resolution approving professional service agreements between Cherry Hill Board of Education and southern New Jersey Perinatal SNP. cooperative for the 2025 school year. 13.5. Camden County Educational Services Commission for IDEA Part B funding. 13.6, approval of resolution for educational services. And 13.7, approval of submission, AI Innovation Grant. That one's for Mr. Mayor. Do I have a second? Mr. Mayor. If any board members have any questions with respect to the CNI agenda tonight? This is your moment. Speak now. Ms. Stern. Can you speak a little bit about the AI Innovation Grant, please? I could, but I am actually going to ask I did talk about it with Ms. Staffin. But Ms. Staffin, if you wouldn't mind, I think you could probably give a better summary than I can. So the AI Innovation Grant is from It's got two components. It's about teaching about the ethical use of AI as well as I'm teaching with AI technologies. It's intended to help us to you know capture AI as a collaborative opportunity. It's a potential for up to $75,000 if we're awarded the grant. Amy. Thank you. Any other questions from board members? Ms. Sugars, can you please open the voting? Thank you. Okay, we have a unanimous yes vote. Okay, and we move on to business and facilities. Mr. Greenbaum, can you please move the BNF agenda? Thank you. The superintendent recommends and I move the following. 14.1, approval of minutes, board working session, special action meeting minutes, and executive session minutes dated september 10th, 2024. 14.2 approval of minutes, regular meeting minutes and executive session minutes dated september 24th, 2024. 14.3, financial reports. 14.4, resolution for the award of bids. excuse me, 14.5 resolution for the award of competitive contracts. 14.6, resolution for the award of transportation 14.7, resolution for preschool aid. 14.8, resolution authorizing educational facilities waiver. 14.9, alternate method of compliance, toilet rooms for early intervention and pre-kindergarten classrooms, 14.10, approval of Cherry Hill McKinney-Vento, DC PMP and P students going out of district for the 2024-2025 school year. 14.11, acceptance of donations. And I always like to read through these. And we have a generous donation from the Italian Department of State to be used for Project Italiano Per La Vita at High School West. And do I have a second? Mrs. Winters. Are there any questions? Okay, seeing none, Mrs. Sugars, I'm going to ask for a roll call vote today. Mrs. Surefain? I would like to recuse myself from 14.3 only bill list 10. And it was seen from 14.7 and then yes to everything else. Mrs. Gallagher, I'm a note of 14.7, 14.8, and 14.9. Everything else is a yes. Mr. Greenbaum. Before I cast my vote, can I make a clarifying statement? What's that? Under Robert's rules, clarify state. Okay. Well, I'm going to vote yes. Mr. Mayor? On 14.3, I need to recuse myself from the fifth bill list, invoice to ESS. Otherwise, yes to all other resolutions. Mrs. Niaz. I'm going to recuse myself from 14.3 due to conflict of interest. And I'm also going to abstain from 14.7. Mrs. Tong. I'm saying yes to everything. Thank you. Mrs. Winters? Yes to all. And Ms. Stern. Yes to all. Yes, I'm sorry. Mrs. Sugars, can you please read back the vote? Sure. So we have recusals on 14.3. from Mrs. Trefain. Mr. Mayor and Mrs. Niaz due to conflict of interest. We have a recusal on 14.7. We have a no vote on 14.7. And we have an abstention on 14.7. We have a no vote on 14.8. And we have a no vote on 14.9. Otherwise, all the motions carry. Apologize. I thought you said recusal or an abstention on 14.7. Okay. Okay, thank you. Okay, and we move on to the human resources agenda. I will move the hr agenda. The superintendent recommends, and I move the following, 15.1, termination of employment certificated 15.2, termination of employment non-certificated. 15.3, appointments certificated 15.4 appointments non-certificated. 15.5 leaves of absence certificated. 15.6 leaves of absence non-certificated 15.7, assignment, salary change, certificated 15.8, assignment salary change, non-certificated. 15.9, other compensation certificated 15.10, other motions. Do I have a second? And Mr. Greenman, are there any questions? Or any comments. This is Winters. I just want to thank Ms. Lieber. for all of her hard work, it's evident in the HR agenda. And I want to point out especially that we are hiring a new worlds language teacher. Which I cannot express my enthusiasm for. I'm overjoyed, so thank you. to Ms. Stappan, Ms. Lieber, and everybody else who's working so hard. It's been something that I know has been a big concern for lots of people. Myself included. So thank you for all your hard work. I appreciate it. Okay. Are there any more questions or comments? Okay. Mrs. Sugars, can you please call a vote? Board members, you may cast your votes. Ms. Sugars, I like to recuse myself from 15.8. Ms. Sugars, I'm going to recuse myself from 15.8. Due to conflict of interest. We have two recusals on item 15.8, Mrs. Schreffame and Mrs. Niaz. Otherwise, we have a unanimous yes vote. Thank you. Before we move on, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Morton, who'd like to say a few congratulatory words. Absolutely. So with… approval. Item 15.7. I'm very pleased and excited that the board this evening has approved the appointment of Ms. Megan Langman As a new supervisor of curriculum and instruction. Ms. Langman. It's like we can come up to the microphone. Ms. Langman has most recently served as teacher coach at the secondary level. She has been an expert and outstanding teacher for many years with us in the district. teaching English at High School West. We are excited for this new role that Ms. Langman is going to assume and want to give her an opportunity just to share a few remarks. Thank you. So thank you very much for approving this and for Dr. Morton and the staff and for choosing me for this role. I have been in Cherry Hill my whole professional career since I was 23. And I taught at High School West for 16 years and have been in this role for two and then some. My family lives here in Cherry Hill. My children are at Johnson and Rosa. It is a wonderful place to work. It is a wonderful place to raise our family. And I have been delighted to evolve in these roles, and I'm very much looking forward to this next step and continuing to serve our children in our community. So thank you. Thank you and congratulations. And, you know, just a note, we talk about growing your own. Growing our own in this district and opportunity for advancement and new opportunities. with the depth of skill and knowledge of the district that you have. I think we're all very excited. Thank you. And I do want to mention, Mr. Green, 15.10, the other motion. But I might. Give a word about that. We're very excited that we um tonight ratified a memorandum of agreement with our campus police force. Been a lot of work. with the committee who worked on negotiating that and a small but mighty, very important group of folks who also serve our community and and And work here, some of also whom are community members as well and live here so excited that we've put that one, that chapter to putting that chapter to a close to move on and I'm hoping that the campus police are happy that it's completed so Probably so. Okay. We move on to policy and legislation. Mr. Mayor, can you please move the P&L agenda? Sure, the superintendent recommends that I move the following Item 16.1, approval of harassment, intimidation, and bullying investigation decisions. And item 16.2, approval of Cherry Hill Public Schools HIV self-assessments. and statements of assurances. Do I have a… Second Mrs. Stern. Are there any questions? None, Mrs. Schuberts, would you open the voting, please? Didn't pop up. Oh, yours did? Oh, I like, oh, there's mine. There it is. It's delayed. And I just need to abstain from 16.1 since I was not at that meeting. Other than Mrs. Gallagher's abstention on 16.1, we have a unanimous yes vote. Okay, and now we move on to new business. Do any board members have any new business? I'd like to raise. Mr. Greenbaum. So I have one quick PSA. Election day is next week. Make sure you make your vote count. I'm excited to see we have so many of our board candidates here in person, a few online. There are three open seats for the Cherry Hill Board of Education. There are 10 candidates on the ballot, and you can learn more about them by going to the district's website at chclc.org. And clicking on the link to the Zone PTA candidate bios in the top news item. Most of the candidates submitted bios there. If you're registered to vote by mail, don't forget to complete and return your ballot. Don't just leave it sitting on the counter. It has to be postmarked or deposited in a drop box by election day. And you can find your polling place by going to camdencounty.com. under voting and elections and look up polling places, it'll ask you to put in your address and it'll tell you where to go if you don't know where to go. So one week to go, make your vote count. Thank you, Mr. Greenman. Any other board members have any new business? I see looks. Okay. Any board members have any old business? that they would like to raise. Okay, going once, going twice. Okay. It looks like we do not have any old business as well. And we will move on to our second public comment. This is our second public comment section during which you may comment on any topic related to our district. If you would like to speak now, please clearly state your name and municipality. We will alternate between speakers who are here in the room and those who are online. Each speaker will be given a maximum of three minutes to speak. The timer on the screen will indicate how much time you have remaining. Public comment is an opportunity for the members of our community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of the Cherry Hill Public School District or within the authority of the Cherry Hill Board of Education. The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. Under established federal law governing reasonable restrictions on speech and public forums. Statements which demean individual community members or groups or which are irrelevant to the operations of the school district or are repetitious. will not be permitted. Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district are always welcome to do so. by emailing or the superintendent, district superintendent, board president. And all board members As I said, via email or other alternative means. And with that, we will start at the microphone. You could please state your full name and your municipality. Harvey Vascoach, Terry Hill. Distinguished members of the Board of Education. I am here today to bring to your immediate attention a serious and alarming violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act by this administration. Specifically, I am referring to the unauthorized disclosure of personal information pertaining to my son and at least 82 other students in our district attending Payne, Bret Hart, Stockton, and Russell Knight Elementary. The sensitive information was recklessly released to the New Jersey Public Education Coalition An organization whose chairman has been systematically pursuing data from school districts across the state to advance a specific ideological agenda. This group aggressively promotes the family life curriculum, presenting it in a one-sided manner that does not reflect the diverse perspectives within our community. Moreover, this individual has targeted Board of Education members and candidates who hold different views, often based solely on their conservative beliefs. The advisory council associated with this organization includes an individual who was involved in a project that similarly pushes this agenda Known as the Education Truth Project. It is utterly unacceptable that the names of students who opted out of this curriculum during the 2022-2023 school year were disclosed, not only in this group, but also to the Education Truth Project by association without parental consent. I demand that the board take immediate action to address these egregious violation, specifically I expect the public apology from the administration to the affected families. And a notification to be sent within the next 24 hours to inform them of the breach. The initial disclosure occurred on September 1st, 2023. And the continued silence from the administration is not only disrespectful, but also unacceptable. If these actions are not taken, I will personally contact each affected family to ensure they are aware of this grave infringement on their rights. The potential for a class action lawsuit looms largely If the situation is not rectified promptly. Additionally, I expect disciplinary measures to be enforced against those responsible for this breach. Actions have consequences. And accountability is paramount. I had hoped that this new administration would signify departure from previous practices. But it appears we are witnessing a continuation of the same troubling culture that some members of the board have forced it. I urge our community to mobilize and vote for genuine change. Thank you for your urgent attention to this matter. Okay, we go to the line and the phone number on the line ends with 788. If you could please state your full name and municipality. Potowicz and I live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. That agenda item, it mentions nothing about construction. So if that's a correct clarification, that is find that it's about construction, I'm assuming we are getting the $6.1 million in our grant for preschool expansion, and this has nothing to do with that $6.1 million. Is that correct? This has nothing to do with it. This is about construction and not that grant. It just reads that way to me. The bathrooms, bathrooms are not mentioned. What I believe you're doing as it would certainly is creating a president where it's okay to have smaller classrooms and no bathrooms. 11 out of 14, it's too much. It's the president that I'm concerned about. And what that means for the kids and why wasn't this figured out before that you didn't have to do the president? I mean, you're expanding way too fast. God knows what's going to happen. I don't want this president, because there were groups that want this to have it, want it to be smaller in number bathrooms. There are outside groups outside of our community that are powerful, that want these rooms smaller and want to forget about the bathroom. And I'm afraid you're following their agenda. That concerns me about funding special ed funding is very important and what is happening with school funding is and is that there's a lot of focus on on the census method of funding. That's not it. When that census method of funding goes into the equalization formula, it cuts us down to almost nothing. And moving forward, that's what's going to happen. That's one of the things. That's a fear. And you guys are doing nothing. And you talk to something, get our legislators to do something because you haven't. You have to push that. And it involves special ed tremendously. So if someone wants to, I know about special ed and funding because I was part of a group from chapter that actually tried to do something over 10 years ago. So yeah, we're in trouble. We're in trouble as a school district and we're in trouble when it comes to special education funding that they're going to try to shove everything into the equalization formula. And we're coming out looking like a a rich, wealthy district. That's important. So you want to, I know about it. I've written about it. NJ Spotlight News, Google Lynn Strickland. You'll see my name pop up in some of the comments. She's good at it. She knew what was going on. Read what she said from 2015 and 2017. If you want to know about special ed and state aid, that's what you need to look at. Do it. Just do it on your phone today. Do it when you get home because it was mentioned. Do that. Read those two articles. One about Liz Strickland and one for her. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. We go back to the room. And we go to mr vasquez, I'm sorry, we have one speaker at a time. It's someone else's turn. Anyone is welcome to approach the microphone who hasn't already spoken in second public comment. Please respect, please respect. the decorum of the board and our process. Thank you. If anyone else who has not spoken during second public comment would like to speak, please approach the microphone. We… Please state your full name and your municipality. Cherry Hill. Distinguished members of the Board of Education. I stand before you today as a mom, the matriarch of a family this administration has put through the ringer by violating our disabled son's rights. right that he's lawfully entitled to in accordance with the individuals with the Disabilities Educations Act. Not only have you violated his rights, but you have taken it a step further in violating his twin's brother's rights. Why? Because our family fights against the grain to ensure our special education community is treated fairly. We have been giving this administration ample opportunities to do what is right by our students and families, but you continue to disregard our pleas for help and toe the line of what is wrong with the statue quote in this district. The culture created has been that encourages not adhering to the law because you assume everyone is complacent in our community. Well, guess what? This community, which I love so much, is waking up and talking and taking a stand against the injustices you continue to propagate. And encourage within your administration. This is why it is so important our community speaks up and vote those who are okay with these practices. Madam President, you alone are responsible for this culture of allowing the administration to continue practices that break the law. I hope you take a stand once and for all And take the disciplinary actions against those who were involved in releasing personal identifiable information to a fringe group in our state. Our family does not have an NDA in place. So if I wanted to, I can release a 112 page report of the violations this district has committed against my disabled son publicly. So continue pushing those buttons. This is your chance. Members of the Board of Education to do the right thing. Okay, and we go back to the line and the next hand raised on line is Stephanie Graff. Please state your full name and your municipality when the timer restarts. Stephanie Graff, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I am calling about the upcoming elections and my concerns about two of the candidates that are running. And I just wanted to make sure that everyone's aware. I did just listen to Mr. Vasquez speak And one of the things that he actually said was actions have consequences. My concern is that I was at the Harvest Festival And I watched his car with a handicap… parking sticker, which I'm sure he has for his disabled son sit in the first parking spot for handicapped parking for four to six hours with his bumper covered with the Vasquez sign. a chair out with a skeleton sitting on it with a Vasquez sign, a skeleton outside the sunroof. With the Vasquez sign And basically campaigning for four to six hours, taking up a handicapped spot from people and handicapped families that could use that spot that wanted to go to the Harvest Festival. So I have grave concerns that this is a candidate and a person running for the board of ed on enforcing the rules for our special needs families And then violating those rules himself. For his personal gains of his campaign. So that's the first issue. My second question is concerning Mr. Berkovich. There are signs of his on I mean, every street in this entire district There has been no filing of campaign I'm sorry, Ms. Graff, you're being interrupted. I'm going to ask that we pause the timer and we allow, we ask that the community and the audience not interrupt the Public comment. Okay, thank you. Okay, please continue, Ms. Scrapp. Please restart timer, Mrs. Sugars. So Mr. Berkovich has signs on literally every street, probably every couple houses on every street, and there is no filing when you look it up for a report of his campaign funds. Where are they coming from? It's a requirement to file a report of campaign funds. He's a lawyer. He should know better. I am concerned that These are the candidates that are running For our district and they are not following the rules that they are setting out and saying that they're doing. So they're seeking transparency And they're not following transparency in this election. So I just wanted to say that. Those are some of my concerns with the upcoming election. So thank you. Okay, we go back to the room and anyone would like to speak, please approach the microphone. Please state your full name and municipality when the timer restarts. Good evening, David Berkovich, ballot position number eight. um so I want to comment on what Harvey just said, because what was left out is So I just hearing about this, the Education Truth Project I did know about because they're running paid political ads in our area supporting two candidates. So if I'm connecting the dots here. we have a political organization that was disclosed information about a candidate's son And now they're actively involved in this election. They're a PAC. They're running paid ads on social media for two candidates. And certain members of the administration have endorsed candidates through other means, maybe not specifically stating an endorsement. But there's other ways to endorse candidates. And, you know, and here we are confronted with this situation. but I will leave that to the community to draw any conclusions they want from there. Regarding the recent caller's comments um Every dollar that's gone into this campaign has come from me. Except for maybe 200 and I don't know, $80. campaign financing reports should have been submitted. I will double check that when I leave here. There's really Everything's coming from my pocket, so there's really nothing to hide there. um and You know, I really wish any community member who's vigorously looking into candidates should do that to all candidates running, not just people you may or may not support. We are community, anybody elected is going to be responsible for a lot of things. And everybody should be put through the ringer and everybody should be vetted. Thank you for the opportunity and Please vote number eight, David Berkovich. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line and the name is Colin Coleman Please state your full name, your municipality, and the, I'm sorry, when the time restarts. Hello, my name is Colin Coleman. I live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I'm currently a high school student at Cherry Hill High School West. Today I'll be talking about… there was an HIV report filed upon me I believe it was the one that you guys were looking at earlier and I was unable to hear what the discussion was um that about. So I was just wondering if the board could uh restate on what they said about the HIV report. That's it. Uh. Are you finished? I'm sorry. You're not speaking, but you still have two minutes left. I'm not sure if you're finished with your public comment. No, that was it. Okay, thanks. First of all, I want to apologize to you because you had an asterisk After your name, I didn't realize you were a student. I would have called on you first, so I apologize for making you wait. And normally we don't have specifically a response, but you are a student and I want to let you know that we do not ever discuss any specific HIV information in public. So that hopefully responds to your question. If you have further questions, please feel free to address them to And Dr. Morton, would you like them to come to you or would please feel free to reach out to our superintendent, Dr. Morton, for any further questions with that. Okay, we go back to the room. Anyone would like to speak, please feel free to approach the microphone. Please state your full name, your municipality, and when the timer restarts. Hi, my name is Dean Dreisen. I'm a resident of Cherry Hill. parent of school-aged children and board candidate in ballot position number one. Since this is the last board meeting before the election, I wanted to take a moment to thank my fellow candidates and the Cherry Hill community for everyone's engagement. As I've said this before, we are very lucky, I think, to have so many people interested in volunteering their time and effort to support our schools. As I engage with the community and my fellow candidates over the past several months. I was happy to see two common themes emerge. No matter which candidates are elected, I wanted to highlight these two areas of agreement with the board. First, all nine candidates are advocating for increased communication and transparency from the board. All nine. I hope the board takes time to reflect on that. Certainly, increasing communication and transparency is easier said than done. However, the upcoming five-year strategic plan provides a great opportunity to work on this. I was pleased tonight to hear from Dr. Morton commit to having public involvement in the five-year strategic plan process. This month, though, the process kicked off with a private invite-only meeting of select participants. I hope that the board can and should be advocating for a very different approach that welcomes broad and diverse community input from the start, which is what Dr. Morton is now committed to. Second, there is interest in the community and support among candidates for an increased focus on academics. Despite data showing that academic proficiency in the district has been on a steady decline since 2017, None of the school district's current 2024-2025 goals as outlined on the school district website. focus on academics. Improving academics should be a clear priority in the new five-year strategic plan. By establishing that academic improvement is a district priority. And then by setting specific goals and timelines in collaboration with district leadership. the board can and should provide the necessary accountability to ensure that the school district is focused on this. These past few months have given me a greater appreciation for all the work the board does. I want to thank each board member for all your efforts on behalf of our schools. If I have the opportunity to serve, I am ready to get to work and look forward to collaborating with each of you. To those in the community listening, thank you again for your engagement. I am in ballot position number one and appreciate your support. Okay, we go back to the line and the next hand on line is Jessica Fingerman. Please state your full name and your municipality when the timer restarts. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. Jessica Fingerman, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. So the first thing that I wanted to say was to thank the board and thank the administration and Mr. Guys and Mr. Burgess over at Bret Hart for helping my daughter's class. Although we recently received an email that the teacher that was reassigned to the class is going to be returning to her original assignment I understand that it was an emergency measure. And even though we're a bit disappointed that she is going back, we hope that the new long-term sub will provide the stability that the children in her class need. So far, they've had about eight educators since September 3rd. I think this will be the ninth. And I think having that stability is really crucial. I've seen A really great change, a positive change. In my child since the newest long-term sub arrived. And so that's just been a tremendous relief for our family. And so we really appreciate everybody's efforts on that. The other thing that I had wanted to talk about was with Spanish classes. So I had written back when I first talked about my daughter's situation, about the $450,000 expenditure that was contracted out with private organization to provide world language services. and i I just, I'm concerned about paying on the back end when we could be investing that kind of money in good quality personnel on the front end. I wish that that $450,000 had been put toward retaining and recruiting our current teachers instead of having to have it contracted out with a private company. I don't know how successful these new world language teachers are, how that's going, but I just I wish that that had been that money had been reallocated for something else. Speaking of which, I know that CHEA is having their contract negotiations coming up soon, and I really would like that to be on the forefront of Investing now being sure that the board is on board with providing the funding that the administration needs now. So that way we're not paying these kinds of expenditures later and we're not seeing the effects of our students not having teachers in the classroom. Later, because I don't think this was an anomaly. This is a harbinger of things to come. Thank you again for all of your help. Thank you for your time and we move on to the room. The next person, please feel free to approach the microphone. Please state your full name and your municipality when the timer restarts. Yep. Good evening, Bridget Palmer, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I want to take a minute to just acknowledge and celebrate the fact that the Freedom to Read Act took a big step yesterday. It passed a floor vote in the Senate and is now, I believe, at the governor's desk for signing. For those of you who are not familiar maybe with that law, it provides important protections For our access to information, and this is a paraphrase from one of the Senate sponsors. Senate Zwick or Senator Zwicker. Parents will always have and still have the ability to choose what their children read. But nobody can tell us what we can and can't read. To me, that is fundamentally important. I happen to be in the state house yesterday with uh our trade association for special education schools in New Jersey and ran into the Association of School Librarians while I was there. had a fantastic, but I would say eye-opening And maybe affirming conversation with them. around just the level of fear and trepidation that exists right now in schools in New Jersey, in school libraries in New Jersey. Because we know that there are influences actively working to undermine public education, undermine access to information. And that's what the Freedom to Read Act really gets at. We have active active organizations here, even in Camden County. And what I've heard, I am full disclosure, also running for the Board of Education. What I've heard in my conversations is two things. One, that there is a lot of concern in the community, but two, there are also people who don't understand, right? And they say. who's banning books here? Who's making this an issue here? There are people who would. They're just waiting for an opening, right? They're just waiting for friendly faces on the board to kind of make their move. It's not a problem until it is. And I can't stress that enough. So again, I applaud the fact that that bill took an important step forward. I also, you know, wanted to express my appreciation to the community members that have engaged with me over the last few months. Overall, I think we have some really talented candidates who will do great things for our board. And our district and our students, I think it's a shame that decorum seems to have changed, shifted a little bit in the last few weeks, but I guess that's the nature of Campaigns, campaign season We're almost at the finish line. I wish my fellow candidates the best of luck. I think no matter what, you know, I hope our students are going to be in good hands. I am Bridget Palmer, ballot position three. Thank you all for your time. Okay, we go back to the line and it says the name Rosen. If you could please state your full name and municipality, and when the timer restarts, you may begin. Mindy Rosen, Cherry Hill. I had no intention of speaking but This is very troubling. Number one. A FERPA violation is very serious. It can result In losing federal funding. And the fact that Lynn Sugars apologized In a letter saying that she didn't redact the names, I think it's quite serious. And I really think that needs to be address seriously. Losing federal funding would not be good. for a FERPA violation. The second thing I want to say is in the beginning, Miriam, you said that we're supposed to be respectful and have decorum. Yet you allowed Stephanie Graff to disparage another community member. And I find that really disheartening that you would allow that to happen When we know that you have stopped people from disparaging others uh And yet you allowed her to disparage another community member. And I find that really upsetting. As far as signs go, I live on Crescent Road, and I think that everyone has signs. So to say one person has signs. When every single person has a lot of signs, I think is really, really unfair and unfair I just think it's really funny because Stephanie can say something about two candidates and And people can say who's supporting certain candidates, yet we all know, I'm not going to lower myself to say what we all know, but we all know who's supporting other candidates. So I think you should stop people from saying disparaging things. It's really You can have it both ways. And so that's what I want to say. As far as FERPA goes, that is a really, really serious serious thing that happened. All right. Thanks. We go back to the room if anyone would like to speak, please approach the microphone. When you're here, please state your full name, your municipality, when the timer restarts. Sarah Jocelyn, Cherry Hill. I had the opportunity to speak to one of the students from Cherry Hill West a week or so ago. And of course, as a scientist, I was delighted to hear how climate change has been infused in the curriculum. And I was particularly moved by her story about the physics class, because you don't think about that as being necessarily the first one that has climate change involved. But she gave such a very good example that her teacher had used. And that was the failure of the grid in Texas. And the people that had to go without power. Because they didn't have a backup. And it got cold and batteries were not working. I thought that was a very Good illustration of the importance of being prepared And having an understanding of the science that is behind climate change. So thank you, Cherry Hill. Okay, we go back to the line and we have Jennifer Sharman. When the timer restarts, if you could please state your full name and municipality. Hi, yes, my name is Jennifer Sharman. I'm from Cherry Hill. And I wasn't planning on speaking either but I have to just say that I was just very upset by the fact that you, Ms. Stern, allowed another community member to make comments that were not related to what was going on in the schools at all. It's her personal gripe. Which you said in the beginning of your meeting Well, before public comment, I should say, that if anyone has anything unrelated to the school business that they should be emailing you and any other time, you always stop people and cut them off or mute them or whatever and don't allow them to continue. But I guess if it suits your agenda that you allow it, that's just my opinion on that. I just think that that's just disgraceful. And I just think that you are a disgrace to your position. And I also agree with Ms. Rosen that FERPA is a very big deal. And if it was violated. action better be taken and not possibly taken, but better be taken And additionally, I agree with everything she said in her whole speech. And I fully support the candidates that had the courage to take on this role, for one. It's not easy to be a candidate and to come forth and try to represent the community and the students most importantly. And I hope that Well, they know who I support and then I'm not going to take this opportunity to do that, but I hope that's we have very good candidates to basically hold you more accountable because that needs to be done. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the room if anyone else would like to speak. Please approach the podium. And when you do, please state your full name, your municipality when the timer restarts. Rick Short, Cherry Hill. Tonight has a question of truth or lies or misinformation. I received a letter on October 23rd from this district claiming that i am hurting mental health and the well-being of students. as causing significant differences. I need to defend my name. I have been at a soccer match at Chapel Ave this spring. I called 911. I directed the police. to the suspect that ran out onto the field to disrupt the game. I've received six awards. One is the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Crime Prevention. Another one is from the cops, concerns of police survivors. Try hugging. Try hugging. a mother that had her a wife that had her husband killed. I've worked with the Philadelphia Counterterrorism I've worked within Jersey State Police Task Force. I'm class 18, Philadelphia police. I'm class one, Cherry Hill Police Academy. Citizens Police Academy. I've worked in three different presidential events. I've had three Secret Service background checks. You know what this town needs right now it needs truth and stop the lies. You people are lying. I'll give you an example. Here we go. First one, 81%. That's what… Dr. Morton said, and he called me grossly, grossly, grossly wrong. No, I was right. You were wrong, sir. Ms. Stern just claim that there's hate clubs everywhere. But I was called a white supremacist a late nationalist and a neo-Nazi. And you two backed up the thing. You signed… Look at you you are part of the whole complaint. And then the superintendent Backed it up too. And now it's in arbitrary. Dr. Greeson, why don't you ask Dr. Greeson next time whether he's visited Tom's River? If he got kicked out of Tom's River, true or false? True or false? $3.91 million. was spent in the bond. True or false? Supposed to go here. I don't know. Dr. Morton, true or false? You said that the alternative was alternative school was It's been planned for many years so I don't know. Guess you gotta ask. True or false? True or false? Ms. Giles came up to the mic here in December. 2023 said that every single day restorative justice is being done in every single classroom at Cherry Hill West. True or false? How can anyone believe anything you guys say? True or false? Okay, we go back to the line. I do not see any new hands online. We come back to the room. If anyone else would like to speak at the podium, please approach the podium. Please state your full name and municipality when the timer restarts. Yeah, Jack Moran, Cherry Hill. Just a comment about the freedom to read. It did pass. It passed strictly along Not strictly, but pretty much strictly Party lines. There are more Democrats in the Senate than there are Republicans. And it passed pretty much by those numbers. Our Senator, Jim Beach, though. voted against that bill. So our person who represents us thought that this bill was inappropriate. So you should be aware of that. And I just want to give you a heads up because it's going to be a law. one year from now. that there are books that there are books that have graphic depictions And I'll just leave it as sexual acts. that are permissible under this bill. And they are borderline obscenity. Keep in mind that everybody In the district here, 12th grade on down are minors So there is a potential here that you could be violating The obscenity laws, depending on the books that come in. The books that are in, I think, is Roxborough school district, there are sexual acts there. of characters fondling themselves, other people. I'll leave it at that. They fall within the parameters of this law. So all I want to do is just say Heads up on it. It'll be a law in one year. And just watch it very carefully. Thank you. Okay, I don't see any hands online. If anyone else would like to speak in the room, please approach the podium. When you do, please state your full name and municipality and start when the timer starts. Alana Harris, Cherry Hill. two and a half weeks ago, I sent to school with my elementary and preschool age students invitations, inviting their entire classes to our sukkha, which is a temporary structure we put outside during one of the Jewish holidays in the fall. At Mauberg, my child, I was told that my child could not pass out the invitations. I reached out to the principal to find out why there was communication back and forth. At Kilmer, my children passed out the invitations. The principal at Malburg reached out to the principal of Kilmer. My children had to recollect the invitations that they passed out and bring them home. I've been emailing back and forth with the district and Dr. Morton. And every year I complain about Halloween. I don't mind if there are trunk or treats or other activities outside of school hours, but October 31st is a required school day for my children. We do not celebrate Halloween. And I have to sign them up. for the separate room that is offered on Halloween. And my kids are at home crying half the time because they're separated from their friends. They can't participate in activities that I won't let them participate in. I was told by Dr. Morin that there are opt-out options at all of the schools. However, there is not an opt-out option for Malberg. I emailed. I said there is no opt out option. I have not heard back. And on top of that, there's a parade so that parents can come and see their kids in their Halloween costume. You can call it a fall festival. You can do a parade, which we know is a Halloween parade, even though it's a fall festival parade. But if you're not doing a parade for your winter party, you're not doing a parade for your end of your party, and you're not offering opt-out rooms, then the party should not be celebrated. It should be a different party. It can be a different day. It can be a fall festival. I don't mind that. I mind that it's called a Halloween party at half the schools or a fall festival, but you can come in costume. It's really just not okay to separate some of the students out so that they feel upset. My kids have missed enough school because they're off for all the Jewish holidays that the school district isn't closed for. I don't mind if they learn about Halloween. I don't mind if they learned about Diwali Christmas, Lunar New Year Eid, or the other holidays that we give off for in the school district. What I do mind is that we're celebrating a holiday that not everyone celebrates and kids who don't take off for the Jewish holidays and don't celebrate Halloween take off that day. But my kids can't afford to miss another day of school because the district has decided or the elementary school and preschools have decided that they're going to celebrate and have these parties on October 31st, which if it's on Halloween, it's a Halloween party. Regardless of what you call it. Okay, we go back to the line. I do not see any more hands online. If anyone would like to speak in the room, please approach the podium. Okay, there's no, I keep saying the podium. old times. Please approach my friend. There's nobody at the microphone. There's nobody online. So I'm going to close public comment. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Morton for superintendent comments. Thank you very much, Ms. Stern. I just wanted to go through a few items. In reference to the inappropriate release of information, I heard 2223 school year. I heard September 2023. Please reach out to me with whatever information you have. Myself and the team are unaware of what you're referring to, but it sounds serious enough for us to have an immediate conversation. I like to touch base as soon as possible. In reference to our five-year strategic planning process. So we're working currently with hanover research firm, Hanover research firm is a vetted company. that engages in strategic planning work with school districts across the country. We shared this information. I just want to make sure everybody can see it. We shared this information infographic A few weeks ago, just to give an overview of the process. Truly, the desire is to be transparent. We definitely want to involve as many people as possible. into the process. But this information It's posted you'll see a large posting as well right outside of uh the doors here. We're sending them out as well to all the schools. It'll be posted also. But it just lists the different phases of the process. So the workshop with specific stakeholders was one phase that was recommended as part of our process through the research firm. But I just wanted to point back to this. And just let everyone know the information is here. We are following this process and Again, it is our intention. to hear that community voice so something very important for us. In reference to academic achievement, so We will have our NJSLA presentation On the 4th at the CNI. committee meeting, and then there'll be a follow-up presentation as well. on the 12th at the board meeting, the full board meeting. Academic achievement is not declining actually in the district. We are actually making incremental gains from where we were. Just about in every instance. we see subgroups on a positive trajectory in terms of making growth. As we look at data and we disaggregate it, you look at specific groups, specific schools, there's always opportunity for us. That's unquestionable. And I want to put that out there. And that's what the team is intently focused on. You may have heard conversations around NJTSS or multi-tiered systems of supports That platform, that framework is designed to target students and to help students to make growth. As we go about rollout of that process this year, we're expecting to even increase our incline in terms of progress. I want to make sure I communicate that. I did mention misinformation as related to claims of HIVs and HIV numbers is somewhat arbitrary to compare HIVs from one five years previous to another year, but exclude the year before that where HIV's the alleged amount would double that number and attempt to make some type of rationalization. The misinformation piece comes in where we make the rationalization to say that Violence is up because there are alleged HIV investigations. Alleged means that someone has made an accusation. It needs to be investigated. and either founded or unfounded. alleged does not equate to evidence of something taking place. So it's inaccurate that's that's not proper information or accurate information to say an allegation equates to the actual event actually occurring. So that's what I actually meant there. And with that, I'll I want to remind everyone that we are closed on Friday. Friday is a teacher in-service day. Our teachers will be and district for the most part. But we also are celebrating Diwali on that day. So I like to wish joyous and prosperous Diwali to all those who are celebrating. What's due celebration filled with much happiness. And positivity. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Morton. Dr. Morton, I wanted to ask if you would be able to, I don't know if you can pull it up on the screen. I think there's some confusion about the district goals. If you wouldn't mind just addressing how people can access information on the goals. Absolutely. I did tell you I'd do that. So I missed it. All right, this is a district website here. I know Ms. Winters went through this during our previous board meeting, but just to go through to show everyone. If we go to our schools. We go to Board of Ed, you see district goals here at our schools. Goals are listed here. You just click on that And then we click on district goals, it takes us to a condensed summarized version of the goals. We put this up as to not confuse people and provide an overwhelming amount of information Unless individuals desire to see that additional information. The way that our goals actually read They list the actual actions, action steps that typically administrators would have and would utilize to plan. But if you look at these, you see acts goals. actions, major activities, and then indicators of success. And the presentation we heard tonight is part of one of the actions that's been established as part of the goals. The presentations that we'll hear in successive meetings are part of our process In terms of the goals. But if you scroll down to goal number two. And action number six. This is where you'll find the specific measures as it relates to academic academic achievement. Actually, you can see it over here. My screen is blocked. This. She'll see all schools will exhibit year-over-year growth in NJSLA outcomes for mathematics and literacy. Aiming to meet or surpass state averages, 100% of 12-year students have graduated post-secondary plan. You see general goals listed here. What you're also going to see is when the building goals are posted, you'll see specific specific indicators and goals based upon the data for that building. So, you know, I spoke as a district we generally spoke Making growth as a district, but data for individual buildings when you disaggregate it looks differently. And the buildings have the expectation of creating goals that are targeted for their student population. So we'll see that information. I shared Clara Barton's goals, I think, you know, during the last board meeting, just to demonstrate You know, where we are but um you know, some school districts may just have, you know, some very specific, succinct goals Ours are expansive. This is part of our goal and our desire to be transparent, to put it out there to say that these are the things that we're focused on comprehensively. as a district so that everyone can see it and hold us accountable for it. Thank you, Dr. Morton. I appreciate your sharing that again. You know, that's part of our Our goals is communication, right? And we had our communication audit. And during our communication audit, we learned things like the feedback was there's too much information. So we tried to streamline Right. But at the same time, we need to repeat things early and often. Right? Because people miss you know miss things because people have other things going on besides You know, coming to our board meetings. So I really appreciate that you were, you know. willing to reshare that again. And I look forward to more drill down at the CNI committee member. Yeah, I'm blocking out time that weekend. to review everything and Try to synthesize it. Lots of time, lots of work. Worth it. Worth it. Oh, these guys. Worth it. Worth it for you. And you all lasted so thank you for Lasting. All right. With that, I will make a motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? Oh, Mrs. Traffane is ready to adjourn. All in favor? And I motioned Carrie's meeting as adjourned.