It was really loud, sorry. Public notice of this meeting pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act has been given by the Board Secretary on May, 7, th 2,024 and May 8th in the following manner. I'm sorry, May 8, 2,024 in the following manner. Posted notice on the school bulletin board at the administration building transmitted to the courier post Philadelphia Enquirer and the clerk of Terry Hill Township. Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. Bye. Republic for which it stands, our nation, under God, indivisible. And justice for all. Mrs. Sugars, can you please call the roll? This is Sophane here. Mrs. Gallagher here. Mr. Greenbound. Mr. Mayor, here. Dr. Rood. Mrs. Niaz? Here. This is Tong. Mrs. Winters here. So tonight we wanna welcome, Mary Ann Friedman from the, from New Jersey School Board Association to provide us with our board training on roles and responsibilities. We thank you so much for making the track. We had allotted 45 min. I'm not sure we're going to have a full 45, but we will get started and see where we can get to. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. We're excited to have you. Okay. Not sure this is going to stay without. I'm sorry. This is the part that's That's good. Okay. Thank you for having me. It's nice to be here. The microphone has a life of its own. It's nice to be here tonight. I wanted to point out to you before we even get started that you had I looked at your transcript credits and you have 10 credits since 2,021 February of 2,021 so tonight you'll have another credit. And then you'll only need 5 more credits by February of 2025 to be certified as board. So you get a credit for every hour that I'm here that somebody from NJSBA is here, so whoever that might be in the future. Probably be me for a little bit longer because we haven't found a replacement for Jesse yet. But you would just need 5 more credits before, before February of 2,025. Okay, 5 more credits. So I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about tonight tonight about roles and responsibilities and we are going to go. Where in a second? Okay. We are going to talk about board member roles and responsibilities and superintendent responsibilities as well. So some of this I'm gonna go through pretty quickly. This is really about your students. It's really all about your students. It's all about relationships and collaboration. Being able to come together as a team and work together, even though you're coming from very different places in your lives. Some of you may be taking care of small children. Some of you may be taking care of elderly relatives or other relatives that you may be caring for. You may have one or 2 jobs. We know that this is a fraction of what you do in your lives. So you're literally coming to this from different areas and it's asking you to come together and meet. And join together and listen to each other respectfully, take each other's viewpoints into consideration because that's really what makes your community your community is having those different opinions and those different values and then collaborating together. So building that relationship as a board team. And also collaborating and building that relationship with your superintendent as well. So building trust is something that's not easy. As human beings, we're not instinctively trustful, I don't think. And so really communication is key to that developing a communication protocol and I do have in the left hand side of your packet it's a few pages back a stapled packet that's board superintendent communications and that's really designed for a retreat. And so hopefully maybe you'll have a retreat over the summer and that's 1 of those things that you can talk about and then everybody knows exactly what those communication protocols are, who to speak to when they have a question about something, because being a board member and being an effective board member really means that you come to this table. Prepared. You've reviewed it's only Tuesday. Not good. You've reviewed your board agenda. You've reviewed your board agenda. You've gotten any questions that you've had that you've reviewed your board agenda. You've gotten any questions that you've had that you have asked already to either the superintendent to a chairperson to the board president to a mentor to a fellow board member, to the business administrator, whatever your protocols call for, you've gotten those questions asked. It doesn't mean that necessarily you get the question answered before the board meeting. It may mean you get that question answered at the board meeting. And I may have shared with you when I came in and talked to you about ethics. That several of the superintendents that I worked with down in the southern part of the state back in 2,016 what they started to do was they had everybody ask the superintendent questions, email them questions about the agenda because they got their agenda on Thursday or Friday for like a Monday or Tuesday meeting. I forget what it was. And then the superintendent would come to the board meeting with the answers to those questions. And as those items were called for a motion and a second and a discussion. The superintendent would relay the questions and what the answers were. So everybody did get to hear those answers at the same time. Now, obviously, everybody on the board always can't get the same information at the same time. Because if you have committees, then your committees are going to get information and then it would come to the board. Board president and vice president likely get information baby earlier than the rest of you do because of their relationship with the superintendent and having that conversation as to, you know, sometimes the superintendent just wants to run something by the board president and the vice president that may not come to you immediately but it comes to you when it's time for it to come to you. And so really communication is the key here and doing what you can and following those protocols and then being fair and consistent. With your and you know and reliable if you say something do you know follow through and do that as board members you are the community's liaison to the district and you are the liaison to the community. But that doesn't mean that we want you as board members to be posting things on social media and explaining what's going on at the board table. Your board president is the spokesperson for the board. Your superintendent is the spokesperson for the district. So if somebody comes to you and says I have a district question or a district issue, you need to relay that, relay that person back to the chain of command, which I know we talked about in ethics. Going back to the lowest level in the chain because that's the most expedient way that person can get that issue. And then notifying the superintendent and copying the board president on that so that they know you heard information from so-and-so, you've referred them back to the chain of command, but you just want to give them a heads up. So that way if it gets to the to the superintendent and it comes to the board table, you've done your due diligence in getting it into the right direction and into the right hand, but you've not tried to resolve the issue, which would mean you would be out of it when it comes when and if it comes to the board table. Okay. And then really being able to show empathy and understanding that's huge in building relationships with anybody and hopefully you can come together as I said from all the different walks of life that you're coming from and try and be fair, consistent, communicating, listening to other people with the intent to understand, not necessarily with the intent to answer the question or to speak again. Okay, so we know that effective board leadership teams have shared vision and mission for their districts and they refer to them constantly for guidance. We know that they work to maintain a climate of trust and openness. The leadership team members understand and respect one another's roles. Huge because if you don't respect one another's roles, you're not going to be able to work effectively together. Communication is honest, equal, and timely. Diversity of thought is seen as an asset, not as a liability. And then all members are focused on what's on the best interest on doing what's in the best interest of all of their students. So really your role is from the balcony viewpoint. Okay, you're looking down from the balcony over the room full of dancers and the room full of of educators. And your role is to look at the bigger picture, the superintendent's responsibility is to see the day-to-day operations. So that's where really the primary difference lies. The board's role also is in determining what, what it is you want to see happen in the district and then communicating that to the superintendent. Hopefully with the superintendent coming up with that what and then the superintendent develops the how, how he's going to get you to that point with the administrative team through action plans and things like that through district goals. So you determine what the district goals are in collaboration with the superintendent and then he will determine with his administrative team how he's going to get you there. So the how belongs to the superintendent, the what belongs to the board. Okay. You have 4 functions, your policy making body, everything that you do should be guided by policy. If you have a policy committee, hopefully you have liaison from administration to the policy committee who guides you on what the legal aspects of the policy are, what you can and can't do in terms of policy when you're looking at revisions. And that's very important. I was with a board just a couple of months ago and they said, what do you mean having an administrative liaison? And I said somebody needs to have been appointed by the superintendent to be that person for you in your policy meeting. And they said, we have policy meetings all the time and we don't have anybody there. And I said, how do you know what you can and can't the legal aspects of the policy? And they were like. We just we just do it and then we put it together and we run it past the superintendent and if it's okay it's a recommendation. So that cuts a lot of the. The drama out of it when you have that administrative liaison, but your policy should be being reviewed on a fairly regular basis, going through all the different policies, what needs to be seen and reviewed and revised. And then you should be guided by that policy when you're making your decisions. You're planning aspect is providing a quality a program of quality education for your students to support and increase student achievement. And then your appraisal aspect as you provide for the evaluation of the superintendent. The superintendent is your one employee. The only employee that the board has is the superintendent. And so you evaluate him or her, in this case him, on his actions, his leadership standards and on his achievement or progress towards the achievement of the district goals. So remember those. Between the board and the superintendent to determine what it is you want to see happen in the district and then he determines how with the administrative team and you evaluate him. What's the date? July first.st Everybody say July. First, st thank you. And that needs to be done. Soup to nuts. Okay. So from the superintendent going in and completing their part, if you use our evaluation process. That's fine. And then if you don't, that's okay too. You just need to make sure that you're always evaluating on progress towards the district goals because that's in statute and code and then also leadership standards. And then your communication aspect is you're really here to make sure that communication is provided to your community and your staff, but you're not necessarily responsible for providing that communication to them. You're going to ensure that this superintendent knows what you want to have communicated. Okay. And then you're going to get communication from parents and community members. And from staff, just remember that chain of command because that's really important. You're not here to solve problems anymore. People who come to you with a problem, you want to refer them back to the chain of command so it gets satisfied as resolved. But then let the superintendent and the board president know. Okay, so as you know, the New Jersey Constitution gives power to the legislature. The legislature gives power to the State Board of Education. The state board staff or the Department of Education carries out the mandates of the higher bodies and then with laws and regulations local boards actually can develop their own policies covering issues that relate to that are relevant to their local school district. Everything that the board does needs to demonstrate that you were focused on student achievement primarily and that's your highest focus. Okay, and then you are state officials and you're empowered by state law to govern local public schools when you're seated at a legally advertised meeting with a quorum of the board. Okay, so simply put the board's responsibilities are to develop vision mission goals and policy. The superintendent then develops objectives and procedures, action plans, and regulations for those policies and those goals. So you are the what people you determine what why and how much you want something to happen the superintendent determines how, when, where, and by whom, okay? The superintendent, everything that comes to you as a recommendation on your agenda should come at the recommendation of the superintendent. So comes a recommendation from the superintendent, you vote on it. Superintendent implements it and then you evaluate the superintendent on that. Okay. I'm just going to go through a couple of more. I am cognizant of the time, so I'm not going to go past 7 15, I promise. And you do have a lot of information in your packet. So if you have any questions, please feel free to give me a call. I'm aware I was on the website today and I see that Terry Lewis name is assigned to your your district in terms of if you go into find your FSR. And for right now, I'm the person who's going to kind of walk you through to getting your new field service representative. Whoever and whenever that might be. Gwen Thornton is actually our director and she was supposed to have all of Burlington, so she should have been the person that we would be directed to if you did the find your FSR piece. But you all have my business card now from this meeting and from the last meeting. Who knows you may have enough to wallpaper a small bathroom when by the end of this, but whatever you choose to do with it, but please feel free to give me a call. So again, your policy makers the policies are provide the superintendent and your staff and your administrative team with the data-to-day operations of the district and you use those policies then that you have helped to develop and that you have helped to revise to guide the board with all of your decision making. Your bylaws also explain your governance structure. Okay, how you govern. And then your visionaries and your goal setters. You set standards for the quality of instruction. You do that by approving curriculum. And you also hold administration accountable for the achievement of goals and for student achievement. And then your communicators, again, you provide that two-way communication. You're making sure that the district knows what communication you want to go out to your public and that when you get information from the public, you refer that back to you referred them to the chain of command, but then you refer that and let the superintendent and the board president now. Your superintendent really is your chief advisor to the board. He's going to provide the background and any kind of alternatives and recommendations and information that you need to be able to make recommendations. So if you see something on the agenda and you don't understand what that is, your responsibility really is to contact somebody, whether it be the chair, the board president, the superintendent or the business administrator, again, you know what your protocols are and I don't necessarily know what they are fine-tuned, but you want to get those questions answered. You don't want to come to the board meeting and have to say, I don't really understand what this means. You want to try and get that information beforehand so that you can come to the board table ready to act on those recommendations of the superintendent. Okay. He is the liaison to the staff. And to your community as well. And he provides any briefings that you might need on district operations or anything that might be emergent coming up with within the district. And then he evaluates and assesses policy, policy implementation. He also administers those policies and you actually evaluate him on his ability to administer the policies. He runs the district on a day-to-day basis. That's not something that you have been assigned to do in within your authority as a board member. The superintendent has the, the educational background, the experience, and also the certifications to be able to run the district. I'm sure you understand how large this district is. 19 schools over 10,000 students is a very large district to operate. So literally the superintendent with the help of his administrative team are responsible for doing that. And then again, you evaluate the superintendent on his ability to run the district on a day-to-day basis. He's also accountable and directs district staff. And members of through personal action and through policy and any action of delegates. He's also your educational leader. So you want to make sure that he's able to get professional development when he needs it, your business administrator as well. That he is familiar with current trends and he's familiar and a part of associations, ASA, the Association of School Administrators. Things like that. And then he brings those ideas to the table for you as a board that he feels might be a good idea for Cherry Hill to entertain, okay, for approval. I mean, 3 min. Okay. So the biggest recipe for success in this and I have a great example that happen to me quite a number of years ago. There was I had done a superintendent search for a board and they had 2 people on the board that were adamantly against. The recommended what the majority of the board who the majority of the board wanted. And the so the new superintendent was seated in July, the 1st and I think most of you know we have an annual workshop in Atlantic City in October and I had been the board member had been calling me and telling me how awful things were and she came running up to me in Atlantic City and she said, I finally get it. And I said, finally get what? Because I had no idea what she was talking about. And she said, I finally get it in order for the superintendent to be effective in educating and making sure that we have a great educational program for our students. The board as individual board members and as a board, we have to have a good relationship with our superintendent to be able to support that person and encourage them and make sure that they have the things that the resources that they need to be able to do that. And that's pretty much what this recipe for success is really all about. The board trusting the superintendent, respecting the professional training and expertise that the superintendent has had and having confidence in their ability. This is somebody that you have selected to be the leader of your school district. To your chief educational officer. And so hopefully you can have confidence in that ability and trust that ability. And then if and it's kind of a it may be a blind trust and initially, but until you see that something is not right. Try and trust that individual. Then the superintendent provides loyalty and provides advice and recommendations to the board. Really make sure that the board has caught that he has competent management of the schools. That's his responsibility and also that the policies are implemented. So I'm gonna stop with this quick little quiz. So. This is an item it's going to pop up on the screen and you can decide if it's the board's responsibility or the superintendent's responsibility. Okay, so quick quiz. Who approves the strategic plan? The board, right. Okay, who oversees instructional programs? Superintendent, right? So far so good. Approves, curriculum materials. The board. Excellent. Recommends and implements policy. The superintendent. Bat in a thousand over district overseas district leadership. So superintendent. Administers the contracts. Superintendent. Establishing and adopts policy. A board. Excellent. Last one, evaluates the superintendent. The board. Yeah, by July first.st See you've got it. Excellent. Okay, there's a lot of other information I promised I wouldn't go past 7 15. Miss Dearne, if you would let me know if anybody is conflicted in the suit, are you going to use our online process or are you using a different process? We are and I it might have gotten missed in my email but we are initiating that and that I wanted to connect with you on that so okay if you could give me a call and just let or send me shoot me an email once the superintendent goes in and completes their portion in 48 h every board member whether they're conflicted or not will get the notification okay but it also says if you have a conflict of interest in evaluating the superintendent please you know disregard this email but it also allows me to it's just for the year so it doesn't carry over to the next year if somebody is conflicted sometimes board members forget and they go try and go in and it would stop them from being able to go in and complete the evaluation and it would tell them to call me. Okay, we'll do. Thank you so much. If you have any questions on anything else that's in there, anything that's on the left hand side, please feel free to give me a call, shoot me an email. I thank you so much for taking us exactly on time. I did do that so we have a few minutes for questions. So I just want to offer just anybody has any questions or? You know, it's a lot of information. Thank you too. Sorry you were rushed through this. I just wanted to ask one clarifying question because I think, if you can't hear me, I think a lot of this is very good to know. Should know for the whole board. So if the superintendent may want to run some things by the board president and the vice president oftentimes the board president asked the vice president to be a part of that. That kind of meeting whether it's virtual or otherwise. And then once that's, you know, they've discussed that and come up with a plan for that. Then the board would be, you know, would be informed of that. But it's it's very difficult sometimes. So You want any emails that come to you to be one way emails, one way information only. Okay, you know never never to reply to all. That's all in your next couple of slides in terms of that. And social media. It's hard when you know it's easy to say Ideally, everybody should get the same information at the well together at the same time. But when you have committees, committees get the information the board president and vice president may get the information before the committee not always but the committee would necessarily get information sometimes before the board would and then that information would come to the board in committee meeting minutes and also when they bring recommendations to the full board. For example, I can't I can't really stipulate what should be if there's something emergent the board president and the vice president may need to know right away the board may get the information later in that day or you know in the next couple of days if you have something going on at one of the schools, usually somebody from the superintendents, don't expect. The board members should not expect to hear from the superintendent when there's a crisis at the school. Okay, his responsibility is to take care of the students, the staff, and any visitors that are in the building and make sure that the safety and security of that is kept. Okay, he may ask one of his administrative assistants or an assistant superintendent or somebody else to contact the board president and or the vice president and let them know what's going on so that because all of our kids have cell phones now and so it's so nice that they always get in touch with their families and sometimes don't know they don't always know what's going on so exaggerating it can be easy because they don't always know they're just reacting. But to let them know and then they can usually start some kind of a phone tree to let you all know that there is an issue going on at one of the schools and that the superintendent is making sure that everybody is safe and secure, that all the students, the staff and any visitors in the building are being taken care of and seen to in terms of their safety and security. And we will get the full information out to you as soon as possible. So that you should hear something about from somebody. From the staff or from the board president and the vice president as quickly as possible because otherwise you will be getting phone calls and text messages from people. Saying we heard that something's going on at the school. And you need to remember to be patient also because that is his main responsibility. And remember, you have protocols in place. You have emergency programs. You have, you know, Office of EOM, all of those things that are taking care of policies and procedures to react to those things. All of those things are being followed. And then afterwards, you know, once everything is calm and has been settled, you can go back and assess it and see did everything work the way it was supposed to or should there be anything that is there anything that we would have wanted to see done differently? Okay, it's a little hard to answer that question though just on the no I feel like you probably answered it more than I was expecting but I guess I wasn't so much questioning when to receive the information as it was. That we do receive the. Gotcha. As soon as possible, board members should receive information when when it's known to the board president and assistant and vice president. Other board members have questions. I have a quick one because it's 1 that you and I discussed a little bit when we were talking about you coming in and can you just talk a little bit about the superintendent's recommendation and asking the board to approve their appointments. I think you gave an example which I shared. I said that's really interesting. I've never heard that example before about if even having a superintendent who might be serving. I've never heard that example before about if even having a superintendent who might be serving as a board member, if even having a superintendent who might be serving as a board member and their role in determining who might be serving as a board member and their role in determining an appropriate appointment who might be serving as a board member and their role in determining an appropriate appointment. So if you could talk a little bit about that. Sure. So oftentimes there are superintendents of other school districts that are on a board of education in which in the community in which they live. They don't bring to the table their superintendent's role because they don't have that role here in the district. They're now a board member. Sometimes that can be difficult for somebody to take off that hat to sit at this table. But you have to remember that the person you've hired this one person to make sure that they have, already know they have the educational background, the certifications and the experience to manage the certifications and the experience to manage the districts and to operate the districts and to make those recommendations. So what you want to know in terms of personnel is what's our personnel process? How many people are paper? You know, what do we, how do we do paper screening? Who gets to refer, how many get to a 1st interview, a second interview, how many people get to the superintendent. There are tons of people that are applying for jobs. You will probably get hundreds of applications for each ad that you each vacancy that you have out. But the superintendent's responsibility when they get to, no? They may not hundreds, but we do, we get a good, you probably get a good. It would be a good day. Yeah. So it's the superintendents and responsibility to go through those few people that come to his. Interview process and to see who he feels is going to best match. The criteria that hopefully maybe you all have had a conversation about. What are the soft skills we're looking for? What's the job description? Have we revised the job description? Because you all are responsible for job descriptions. So you would definitely want to look at job descriptions to see if there's anything new that maybe the job description hasn't been revised in a while. Steam, you know, all of those different particular things come into play. So you want to make sure that it really does reflect what you want this position today. And then the superintendent's role is to make sure that person is going to be a good fit in that school. The selection that he makes and also be a good fit for that grade level or through that department. And he's the person who's going to know that because he knows your staff. And has staff who knows your staff. So if he doesn't know everybody specifically, he has staff who knows the staff and who can help make that recommendation. But it is ultimately his recommendation to make. And if the recommend if the person it is not approved. What can happen and what can happen a lot is if there are. Many no votes. To recommendations from the superintendent. The superintendent can feel that this might not be the best fit for him then. Or for her, in this case him. And so, you know, that's something that you want to be careful about. So what I always suggest is when you have a vacancy for a particular teacher or a particular vice principal, principal, assistant principal, any kind of directors or anything else. Maybe you have that conversation. What is it that we're principal, principal, assistant principal, any kind of directors or anything else. Maybe you have that conversation. What is it that we're looking for? What kind of qualifications are we looking for? And then what are those soft skills? Because you all live here. And so you may know some some issues that have gone on in the district over the years that you may like to see some soft skills appear in this next person. And then you can say to the superintendent having had that conversation, knowing what that job description looks like, that it's been revised. Does this person that you're recommending check off all the boxes that we talked about? And hopefully they're going to say yes or they won't bring that person to the table because all of these positions are selection processes. You don't want any, you don't want the superintendent to be settling for anybody. Want them to make sure that they're selecting the right person for the job, the right fit. Just as you wanted to make sure that you selected the right person for the superintendent's role, the right fit for your district. So if it's a no vote, that doesn't look good to your community. Doesn't look good that you've all been communicating and you know exactly what this person is supposed to be bringing to the table. Oftentimes that person is in the audience, which can be terribly embarrassing for them because if there's and I've seen that happen with boards I saw it happen not too long ago a person was supposed to be it was the motion was to appoint that person as an acting superintendent because their superintendent was leaving and it was a 5 4 vote no. The staff member had their family, their kids, their parents there. Who's mortifying for them. So you want to make sure that you're on the same page as much as possible. Doesn't mean that you have to, I'm not suggesting that you vote yes on everything. But you need to make sure that your reasons for voting now are not arbitrary and capricious. Okay, because then that can get you into legal trouble also. Okay, does that help? It does. Thank you. The example you gave with the superintendent was kind of blew my mind. So I mean, I guess it makes a lot of sense. But thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, other questions or? Thank you so much for rushing it so please go through the rest of the packet because there really is important information there especially on the slides and on the left-hand side that board superintendent communication piece it would really be good for you guys to do at a board retreat if you have one over the summer. Okay? I hope to hear from you guys soon. Please send me a list of who's or give me a call as to who's conflicted and we'll take care of that and get started. I will. Thank you so much and hopefully we can do the board that's great with the communication. That'd be great. The roles. Okay, great. Communication. All right. Thank you so much. Have a great night. Take care. Okay. Looks like we probably have a lot of people coming in for public meetings. So, We'll give everybody. Everybody minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Did you hear this? Thank you for this old. Okay, good evening. Thank you so much for, your patience tonight. We got a little behind on our schedule. We're just a few minutes off of our original. Our regular board work session. So we start the rest of our meeting with our recognition. Employee recognition. So I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Morton. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Miss Stern. I'm very, very excited that tonight we will be recognized in Cherry Hill Public School employees who reach the milestone of 20. 2530 and 35 years of service in the district. These milestones were reached between July 1, st 2023 and December 1, st 2,024. Great number for you. So when we add up the years of service of the 130 employees being recognized tonight. We're looking at an amazing total. We have collectively 3,150 years of service represented by these these folks here tonight. So amount of applause. I'm gonna ask Miss Wilson to come up to the microphone and join me as we recognize. Is individuals. Alright, good evening. I'm going to start with the 20 years of service folks and we as you can see large stack we have a lot of people to honor. We, as you can see, large stack. We have a lot of people to honor tonight. So if you'll just hold your applause until the end of the 20 years, then we'll move on to 25 and 35. And when we're all finished with this, I'm going to ask that the people who are being recognized just hold. I'm going to take pictures out front so we have something for the website and social media. So I will start with 20 years. I apologize to anybody whose name I mispronounced. We start with Meredith. Callahan, 20 years. If we can hold our applause and so we're finished with this group. Okay, we'll move a little faster. Thank you. Okay. I will try to speak a little louder. Okay. Next for 20 years, Sarah Guy. Judith and Albuquerque. Rilana Alvarez. Amanda Baker. Stephanie Coolahan. Molly Crincoli. Hillary Daniels. Richard Friedman. Ashley Gowen. Jennifer Greenwald. Jamie Grenier. Ruth Hall. David Helgison. Faith Home. Andrianna Katsikis. Jamie Kleiner. Patricia Kovacs. Michael Mansonlli. Paul McNally. Cheryl Moscow. Christina Murphy. Kimberly Penic. Doreen Peterson? Natalie Petrovsky. Danielle New Bill. Kristen Phillips. Donna Piston. Mark Plavinsky. James Reardon. Mary Savarino. William Seamus. Maureen Smith. Stephanie Stall. Gene Sooty. Dana Tete. Colleen Thompson. Sarah Valley. Stephanie Weiss. Constance Wilson. Wendy Wong. Jennifer Wilson. And that is all of our 20 year. Thank you. Alright, now we have 25 years of service and a barriers. Various I believe. Excuse me. At least Lin Croce. Karen Cutler. I just say one thing. Absolutely. I'm going to give her the mic. This is my dad. He taught in Cherry Hill from 1,963 to 2,063 to 2,063 to 2,000 Fred Butter and when he retired he was really sick. So he wasn't able to come and get a board of edible his award. So I wanted him to come up with me. And I know we're not supposed to applaud, but if we could apply. Thank you. Alright, Marianne Daley. Christopher Del Rossi. So Cecilia, Iola. Laurie Ferranto. Trudy Figerera. Amy Graves. Carmela Griffo. Jennifer Heller. Lisa Jackson. Bruce Crone. Barbara Kzen. Lisa Lebenstein- Melissa McNab. Regina Melchior. Right Donna Morocco. John Mertha. Sandra O'donnell. Gina O. Kathleen Richeza. Harriet Rickens rude. Catherine Santoro. Andrea Savage. Michelle Smith. Jin-stagleiano. Amanda Stephen. See as well. Debbie Tackett. James Thompson. Kelly Toscano. Jill Turley? Jennifer Urban. Debbie Athenius. Sarah Boone. John Cafonia. Cheryl Calabrese. Bernadette, count on Vote. Barbara Caruso. Janet Cohen. Deborah Connolly. Richard Delessandro. Jeffrey Davis. Susan Dollerton Kimberly, Gatling. Gina Marie Haney. Christina Hughes. Debbie Carden Duff. Jeffrey Killian. Denise Clifton. Paul Coaster. Janet Lushikian. Megan Mans. I Susan Mark, Deborah Mcclure. I. Karen Morgan. Dorothy Nicoleto. Cynthia Neeves. Nicole Over Bay. Okay. Teresa Paparo. Anita Plum. Antoinette Princiata. Daniel Rogers. Danielle Scabelia. William Segres. Joanna Stabil. Elizabeth. Nope. That's it for 25. That's it for 25 years. Alright now we are up to our 30 years of service employees. Start with Elizabeth Alcamo. Patricia Roberto Christopher Bova. Christina Boyle. Let's go! Mary Delessandro. That's nice. Maureen Devitro. Derek Field. Caroline Graci. Marilyn Hyman. Allison Little. Christina Robertson. Dawn Slayton. Carol Solano. And that is our 30 years of service list. Alright, last but certainly not least, small group of 35 year employees. Betty Brown. Linda Patterson. Mary Bellino. Sunita, oha. Hmm. And Donna Steelman. Alright, that's it for 35. Thank you. We'll go take pictures now. Okay. We thank you all for your dedication to our kids and our district. Okay. Are grateful for all that you guys do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Let me see. Few folks if there's still little space if we would just invite everybody to. Kinda join in in the other direction. Thank you. I appreciate that. Give it a second. There's anybody outside who wants to come in. There's a little bit of room on the side. Well, tight in here tonight. So. All right, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Morton who would like to share an update and administrative reports. Thank you. Again, Miss. Stern. I definitely appreciate that. So this, evening, probably about an hour and a half or so ago, we had an opportunity to share some great news. Today, our governor approved a bill that restored some of the lost funding that our district had sustained. I'm sure you probably have heard and have seen much of the advocacy efforts that have been done on behalf of the district by students. Community members, board members, administration, teachers. As well. We took a contingent. Of folks up to advocate. With our legislators including Matt and Colin, our 2 board reps here. And that contingency really went far away and made a great, great impression at the state level and allowed the Cherry Hill voices to be heard. It's difficult, any time that there are budget deficits and funds to make up, there are internal discussions that take place about how we might move forward and allowing that to happen. And the recent week I've received many emails as the board has as well about 2 of our athletic programs. Bowling and golf as well. I know there were concerns about the status of those programs and if the programs would be a eliminated or not eliminated. Again, we are overjoyed with thrilled by the fact that, you know, the funding funding has been returned to the district. To share and announce that those programs will not be a. Golf and funding, golf and bowling will remain. We are extremely proud of the growth. Particularly in our golf program. Very, very proud as well of our student participation in our bowling program also. For us, it's important that our kids have opportunities. To participate in activities. You know, and when we think about the elimination of an opportunity to participate, it's challenging. Definitely challenging for us. I wanted to share that at the outset. Of this meeting, there were, again, many, many emails received. I appreciate everyone's vocalizations and everyone's advocacy. I put the protection of this program. So definitely want to share that message. Thank you for that opportunity, Mr. Thanks, Dr. Morton. I appreciate that. And I, you know, I want to also just acknowledge the number of emails we've gotten. And we get emails from students, we get emails from parents and other community members, and we appreciate there was a lot of effort to kind of. Problem solve and figure out how do we do this. You know, and I think Okay. It's just great news. We did not get all our funding back. We're getting restored, 45% of what we lost. So, but that's goes a long way and we'll have some more discussions later about that, about, you know, what does that mean for our budget? So, but, yeah, but I appreciate that and I appreciate. You know, something that I, we've said in our emails and we say to people the time, you know, and that is that you, you know, you've been very clear that the last place that you want to eliminate an entire type of program or opportunity for a student would be. You know, the opportunity that directly affects students. And I know that. You know, really those are the 2. Main places that were directly being eliminated completely not they were not just changes they made it was eliminated so that's no longer the case and I think given some of the budget cuts we're seeing in districts all around us with huge budget cuts and huge staffing cuts and program cuts. I'm relieved. That that you know that's that's your priority you know is to make sure that we can restore those. Keep those programs retain them. Yeah, absolutely. And kudos, kudos again to share this last time, but to Miss Sugars and the administrative team as well. For ensuring that, even though there are challenges, we're not in the same. Predicament as other districts at all. So. You know, the positions that. Were eliminated were those that were eliminated through attrition, if there were any shifts, we are able to. Still retain employment for our people. So, you know, people may have been reassigned, but you know, no one is actually physically just lost the job. So. That's great. Thank you. Okay, now we move on to board member correspondence to any board members have any events or activities around the district that you've attended that you want to share about. Mr. Grimmel. Thank you. I'll keep this brief because I wasn't able to stay for the whole meeting, unfortunately, but I was able to join the CPS committee. To join them for discussion of feedback from students about belonging equity and inclusion from last month. And helping to develop actions to address these themes. Some of the topics discussed for that students may have challenges acclimating to the district. Janet students needing more support. And how impactful it can be when teachers send personal notes back to parents communicating challenges or sending positive encouragement. And just seeing the collaboration for the, the action plans and how to address some of those issues and address some of those concerns raised by students. It's always So it's impactful and a joy to join that committee. And I always thank them for. For the hard work. So thank you. Thank you. Other board members. Mrs. I had the opportunity of attending our community salutes ceremony. Last week, I believe it was time flies, which was really an incredible opportunity. Unfortunately, I was a little bit late because of our B enough committee meeting, but I was able to make it in enough time to hear everybody's names announced at that ceremony and It was really the bravery in that room, surpasses pretty much my entire life. Seeing a huge amount of high school seniors that are graduating and that have committed to our armed services. It was amazing. We have a student from both of our high schools that honored there and have to say my husband found enjoyment out of it. He was singing his his song along with the rest of the students. So it was really incredible. Anything. This is Winters. I have the opportunity to go to the zone PTA breakfast at West because as I told Colin any time the West students are serving food I am likely to attend. It was a great morning. It was nice to connect with members of PTAs from all across the district as well as administrators. At all levels. So that was a really nice morning over at West. And of course, eat the quiche that was lovingly made for us. And then last night, I accompanied Miss Stern over to Sharp's PCA meeting. Which was cool because I got to check it off my bucket list of schools I've been to. I'm going for all 19. And it was a really nice meeting over at Sharp just to both get information. On what their PTA is accomplishing over there. They're doing some really amazing things, a lot of community service fundraising around literacy and books and international life that was apparently a blast. We'll have to try to get there next year. As well as the sharing out of information from Dr. Moore and Mr. And myself about what's going on. With the board and with the administration we answered a lot of questions the PTAs had so I'm going to put out yet one more plug that if any PTAs out there would like to invite us. We're always happy to come hang out at PCA meetings. It gives us a chance to have more of a dialogue than we get to have at these board meetings. I know as a board member I find it frustrating sometimes that we really don't have an opportunity for that back and forth discussion that I really enjoy. PTA meetings are a smaller format and it's easier to do that. So thank you to the PTA meetings are a smaller format and it's easier to do that. So thank you to the Sharp PTA meetings are a smaller format and it's easier to do that. So thank you to the sharp PTA for inviting us. I really enjoyed being in that building and seeing what you're doing and I hope to get to more buildings going forward. I should make a checklist to see how many I've been to. Thank you. This is Nia's. I had the opportunity to attend the Asian Heritage Month event with Mr. And there were a lot of good performances by the children. It was a rainy day. We typically have the outside, but it was very nice to, have it inside. I would say, they also had a lot of tables in the gym. And stuff is very good, very successful event. It was very nice. Seeing a lot of those. Students showcasing their different cultures. I ended up missing mine, which is It was the Indian performance, but I had to leave right when I'm back to studying but same culture. And so I missed a little bit of that. I was upset about that, but it was a very good role. Thank you. It's great day. Other board members, Mr. Mayor. Last week I attended the district wide labor management collective meeting. Less about 90 min. Another great example of collaboration. Between staff members at all of the schools and just to show an example of the way. What I think anyway is a best practice of decision-making. You know a number of topics where were addressed, one in particular being the delivery of professional development and how to best use time that's allocated for that for the staff and in years past that may not have this process of truly engaging the staff, the teachers at each school and recognizing that. That what works at one school may not work at another. It's important. And so the discussions were outstanding. Ideas were wonderful, creative. And again, just another example of the way. That decisions really should be, should be made in the district, especially one that affect primarily. The staff when you know it's more important that we back up the talk. With regard to staff wellness. And that's just, you know, it's showed that it's really working. And I know that. Those that attended that were probably you know 40 or 50 staff members from all 19 schools. All engaged. All interested, all coming to the table with ideas, all of which were listened to and welcomed openly. Discussions continue. And can't stay enough about the platform of LMC and you know, the hope that the board continued to support that work because, the results have been outstanding so far. And I'm sure they're only going to get better. Thank you. Other board members. I'll just share, I want to share one comment that we heard last night at the PTA meeting because I think the board, you know, we don't always hear these kinds of things, but it was really, it was really lovely. There was a community member there who was with her second grade son who shared that she had moved from another district and to Terry Hill and she just said thank you. I've never been to a PTA meeting that was like this where there was so much information, so much. You know, disclosure and transparency. She didn't use that word, but that she was indicating, you know, the amount of honest conversations we had with all, we answered 2 or 3 pages worth of questions. She just, you know, just the It's why people move here, right? People move here for our schools, right? A lot of the time. And that was really. It was just it was nice to hear that. And there were student ambassadors, second and 3rd graders. With prepared. Speeches and they talked about what was going on in their school. I don't understand how they have so much courage, but these little kids were amazing. So that was another highlight for me. And another event I went to on last Thursday was the Kurusi vocal concert. So, you know, it's been a minute since I had kids in middle school who were part of actually my one son wanted to be part of the vocal. Group and then COVID hit so he unfortunately never got to do that in middle school so it was kind of it's really neat to be part of it so It was phenomenal. There were so many kids who participated, which was really nice to see because we have been struggling with music since COVID. We really have in this district the numbers of students who've been. We really have in this district the numbers of students who've been participating have been dramatically lower and we've been participating have been dramatically lower and we've been kind of participating have been dramatically lower and we've been kind of waiting and waiting for them to go up. That that is you know, maybe we're seeing a little bit of shifting because it's such an important part of what we have in our district. It's such an important you know, part of the education for our students, the experience for our students. I, all my kids have benefited and been part of music programs as an aside and they've been really powerful for them. Specifically back to Carusi. So not only was there a huge number of students participating and talent like you can't believe. I don't know what's going to happen when these kids continue to grow and we see them because or east wherever they decide to go because They're amazing. So under Mr. Kane who's Does it fantastic? Just great synergy with these students and great synergy with the teacher and a really high level of participation of students. Who are from some of our other special education programs. Just a really beautifully inclusive and participatory night with great music. So I can't say enough. You know, sometimes musical concerts when kids are little can be a little bit, you know, you never kind of know how it's gonna go when they're really little. These kids weren't little and they were really talented and I just, it was amazing. It really made my United actually really made my week, so. So that's that. Any other correspondence? Mrs. Sherpane, I didn't think I brought this with me, but I did. And I wanted to make sure that I gave a shout out to the 2 students that were there on the evening of the our community salutes ceremony. So special Congratulations. Thank you for your future service and thank you for your bravery to Logan Armstrong from Terry Hill High School East who has committed to the United States Air Force and Isabella, I'm so sorry if I say that's wrong. Zubzinski from Cherry Hill West to his committed to the United States Marine reserves. So thank you to both of those students. I hope you hear this. Okay, now we're going to move on to our 1st public comment. I think there may be a few people who are here for this. So we normally have for those of you who have never been to one of our meetings before, we normally have 2 public comment sections. For students who are here, you can speak. On any topic at this public comment session and we ask the students if you would like to speak we invite you to come first.st We know you have a lot of things to do. We want to make sure you get to bed on time. So we, invite students to come 1st and then after that we Well, we will alternate between students who are here in the room and students who are online. And after we get through all the students. We'll then go to the adult community comment, 1st public comment. However, the adults have a restriction and that is that they may comment at this moment only on our action items that are on our agenda, which are items 24 through 27 tonight, so they're limited. And if adults want to speak on any other topic, they can come back at our second public comment, which happens at the end of our meeting. So that's for them too. By the way, students can can comment on at either time but again you have the extra privilege of speaking first.st And speaking during this one at any topic. So, if you'd like to speak now, we're going to ask you to identify just to speak your name and your say your municipality for most of you that might be Terry Hill. If you are an adult who is speaking, we ask you to also identify the agenda item you are speaking on. We will alternate between speakers who are here in the room and those who are online, each speaker will be given a maximum of 3 min to speak and the timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time you have remaining. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the Terry Hill School District operations and or within the authority of the Charterhill 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 our repetitives 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, again, if you would like to speak, we're going to start with students. There are quite a few in the room. I remember many of you from going to Trenton. And I've seen you on stage as well. So, you know, we offer you to come to the microphone first.st If you are a student who was online, I would ask that you please put an S after your name so that we know that you're a student and I can make sure to call on you before we call on the adults online. And with that, we will start. So any brave souls want to step up first? st So if you could please. We could you will have 3 min the timer behind me will show that and it will start to. Mr. Sugar, I'm sorry, can you just pause for one second? I just want to explain. And if you will see your name and municipality. And then at the end of 3 min, we will, we'll, we will ask you to stop or unfortunately we'll, stop. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Ben Hass. I live in Cherry Hill. And I'm here to speak on behalf of the seniors involved in the choir department at Cherry High School West. This recently come to the attention of the community that plants have been laid to transfer one of Cheryl High School West to choir teachers. To the position of elementary school music teacher. As a current student, Chihil West, I feel it is my responsibility to caution against taking any action that may have consequence not yet accounted for. I understand the fact of budgetary and other concerns that have led to this decision. At the same time, some crucial factors may have been left out of consideration. Jerryo West's choir department has, for many years, been a large part of the Facebook school. Is performed at diverse events throughout the community and elsewhere. It is one honor for the district and competitions and like all precious painstakingly built things, it's fragile. The Romans inquire more than other programs. Or classes is based on both its public and internal perception due to being mixed grade and evaluated on performance. Any disruption to this will have a long term consequences. Although enrollment in the choir program may have been decreasing before the pandemic, there's no real indication this trend is going to continue. Take a look at the massive size of, for example, the Kreasy Middle School orchestra. Right now, to know that the patterns in place before the pandemic have been shaken up. It is imperative to keep in mind the effects of policy decisions on outcomes to decrease very visibly the quantity of instruction that will increase the perception of West as the unsurious school. Poorly staffed school in the undesirable school. And lead to a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. And that brings me to another yet more troubling fact. Well-known fact that the demographic balances of the 2 high schools are not the same. It is West with a high proportion of disadvantaged demographics and of course West, subject to cuts. The current situation is yet another instance of policies which are punitively non-biased but are having a disparate impact on certain groups. Time and time again, East turns out many times more students sent to prestigious schools than West even when taking into account its higher population. Slashing the choir program this way would remove one of the last avenues of West students to distinguish themselves in extracurriculars and fairly further drive this deep in equity. If such considerations, when combined with those already known to you, do not have sufficient way to sway your decision, I advice for a middle path. Namely, for the choir teacher that you are moving, to be given priority for rehiring. Should enrollment numbers increase. This step would mitigate the harm caused by the proposed reallocation. The crux of the matter is, if we are able to prioritize qualitative measures over quantitative ones, we can preserve continuity for the music program and for the Charihil community. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line. I don't see any names with the an S after them indicating that they are a student. So again, I'll say if you're online and you're a student and you'd like to speak now and any topic, please make sure to put an S after your name. Okay, got. The lights are going on and off. I don't know what that means, but. I don't see any students online. We're going to stay in the room and make sure that all the students speak first.st So if any other student would like to speak, please approach the podium and you can feel free to line up if you want to kind of line up in order so that we kind of Don't keep you guys here super late tonight. So. You can, I'm sorry, just wait till we start the timer and that's OK. And everyone, you'll just say your name and municipality, which I'm assuming is Terry Hill. Go for it. Good evening. My name is Julian Dapalone. I'm Terry Hill. I'm a junior at Terry Hill High School West and also an avid member of the music program. I'm involved in many vocal and instrumental groups. I want to speak today about the news that one of our 2 vocal directors, Mr. Dalio, is planned to be moved to an elementary teaching position. As someone who cares deeply about the music department at West and everyone in it, I must voice my opposition to this measure to the greatest extent I am able. As you can see, the many members of this program have all united over the past few weeks. Every school district desires a strong community in all schools and among all students. The sense of community in the West Music Department is stronger than anything I have ever witnessed. The department is beyond welcoming and has an atmosphere unlike anything I've ever experienced. The love for the art we make together continues to unite students and to this day decades of tradition are maintained. Love and care is spread and it provides a safe, happy place for every student no matter their situation. Tearing apart the department in the way proposed will have terribly damaging effects. We've spoken out as much as possible in order to save what we love so dearly. Myself and many others have participated in meetings with administration. We've been told that final decisions have been made and this is irreversible. We are well aware that this is not the case. We've been discouraged from continuing in our advocacy. We've been given false numbers and statistics about our program enrollment, stating that in the past few years, after the pandemic, enrollment has decreased when in fact the exact opposite has occurred since Mr. Dalio arrived. We have been misled about the decision making process. We were told that our directors and thus the students were warned back in September that this was on the line. This, however, did not actually occur. Our teachers allocated their resources towards increasing the quality of instruction. This year more relative to enrollment. As they were unaware it would be held against them in this way. Current enrollment numbers are consequently not representative of the maximum predicted enrollment your policy is predicated upon. In light of this news, our recruitment efforts have been given something of a jumpstart. And we already have a significant and growing number of students who are interested in quiet this upcoming school year. When presented with this information, our school told us that it is too late and if classes fill we will have to deny students the opportunity to participate in choir. This was, to say the least. Quite troubling. While the budget issues that have arisen this year are concerning, I find it hard to believe that the best way to respond to them is to cut a program at once among the most built up. And most easily broken in response to disruption. I hope you hear our message. I hope you hear what I've told you and find the fundamental ideals of this district. Those of educators, administrators, and students alike are being undermined by this decision. I urge you to hear the student voices that you have encouraged to speak out. Thank you. You see the timer go up. You can say your name and municipality. Good evening. My name is Melana Olaf and I am a sophomore at TIRE. I'm proud to be part of Fermata, one of the 3 acapella groups at West. I'm also a part of Shansons, which is one of our 3 choirs. Aside from music related, I'm a part of Woman and Sports Model UN, Community Service Club, no place for hate, and student government. I would like to take the time that is available for me to speak about the fact that one of our choir teachers, Mr. Dalio is being removed from West. Mr. Dalio directs both of the music groups I'm currently in along with the vocal workshop that I took freshman year. I spoke to my principal regarding his removal from West and desperately tried to search for compromise and was presented with a plan for him to arrive at West after school to work with the small groups. This, however, is unworkable. Every student involved in a small group is mandatorily included in the home room dedicated to practicing and rehearsing music during school hours. And then possibility in the scenario. Only one rehearsal could run at a time as we would only have one teacher station and conflicts would become more severe. Additionally, as I'm sure you are all aware, high school ends at 2 30 while elementary school ends around 3 15, making him unavailable for after school lessons. When it comes to competition season, rehearsals double. And through this, Mr. Dalio has been our guide. Both men of know and from Otto were a part of quarter finals and for moderate and formata advanced to the semi-finals to represent Trio West. Mr. Dalio also arranges music for our capella groups, including our 3rd group. Chamber Singers. How could one teacher manage 4 choirs, 3 small groups, and AP music theory, all at once? I understand that our district does not have the luxury of having 2 teachers because of insufficient participation. However, involvement has been slowly increasing with the 2 dedicated choir teachers we have present. I was one of the students who visited the state capital in Trenton to address the huge budget cut we received and I was informed that the budget cut was less than anticipated. With this in mind, if any positions are to be removed, this must not occur in the choir program. Thank you all for taking the time out of your days to listen to what I have to say. I hope some of the things I said today will make you reconsider your decision. You see the timer start you can get started Good evening. I'm Saundman M Wally, Sherry Hill. I'm a sophomore at West. I'm a part of the acapella group chamber singers and the choral class chance ons outside of school. I've participated in all state travel chorus and South Jersey choir. I'm speaking on concern about the transfer of our core teacher from the West Music Program. Many categories in performing arts relies on our 2 choral teachers to assist their program. I'm a part of West Theater, which relies on vocal direction for 2 musicals a year. Although if the theater program has the budget for hiring outside of school. This will limit their in-school rehearsal opportunities. 45 students performed in our spring show and relied on the vocal direction of Miss Chambers. Running the vocals for theater and choir at the same time is difficult work for one teacher to maintain in 2 separate departments. Both of our teachers assure both programs needs are prioritized. For acquired, for our choir program, the last several years experienced inconsistency of the DO teachers running together as previous teachers have left. Every teacher has different goals and skills they bring into the program. Rebuilding the program takes years to accomplish before it can grow in numbers. This was Miss Chambers and Mr. Dallio's 1st year working together. They spent to adjusting to the environment and focusing on educating students. They kept the traditions of the West Choir continuing, as well as adding more to the program. Without 2 teachers, the program will be forced to shrink as the amount we have is too much for one teacher to maintain. Student enrollment can increase with time as rebuilding and fixing the issues of the program are 1st priorities. Any decreases in numbers were seen before our current teachers were here. Looking into next year, we've reached the requirement needed to bring back a 4th class concert choir, which hasn't been able to run for several years. Even with the inconstancy of teachers, the recent 3 years have shown enrollment increase. For our Spring Coral concert last year, our numbers showed 77 enrolled choir students, which has risen to 86 this year. The expectancy is over 96 for next year. Our choral teachers teach vocal workshop and West singers together. In past years, this was not common as each teacher had separate classes they focused on. Having 2 teachers creates an environment that allows 2 educators to work their strengths together and vastly increase the quality of education. That advantages of 2 teachers becomes useful to get music completed 2 times as fast and the ability to group off into sectionals for different voice parts. The abundance of performances requires music to be learned at a quick pace. Removing one of our teachers decreases the quality of music education by more than just 50%. Not only are you eliminating the work done by Mr. Dalio, you're removing the possibility for ambitions that require 2 teachers. In just my 2 years at Cherry Hill West, I've witnessed the developments in our program and look forward for the future it holds. Within the consistency of the same 2 teachers directing the program, the opportunities for students will remain at high level instruction. I hope you have a nice day and thank you for your time. Thank you. Save your name and municipality. Please. Hello, my name is Tafika Pradi. I'm a freshman at Chargill High School West and I'm a member of Vocal Workshop Choir. Today I'm speaking on behalf of the freshman class on the reassignment of one of our choir teachers, Mr. Blaise Dalio. As a freshman, I haven't had as much experience with Mr. Dalio as others may have had or what the choir department was like before him. But I do know the vision that he and his chambers have for the department's future together. If you allow Mr. Dalia to stay at West, together they can bring up our numbers, strengthen our small groups, and provide students with more choir opportunities. Including also choir and acting as an assistant music director of positions for shows both at West and outside of school. It would also be able to continue for MoD and met of note, small groups, choirs that have been at West for decades. 3 build acquire program, it takes about 5 years. Previously by a car teacher, Miss Chambers, as she's built a program before. The main focus of our two-part teachers this year was to increase the quality of our program and drawing more students as a secondary mission. So they started building the musical foundation. While doing so, the work on quality started to increase our numbers. This year there were about 86 students signed up. Next year, around 100 kids will be enrolled. It's no secret that our numbers are lower than our sister school East, but by taking away a quiet teacher, you'll be significantly decreasing the quality of our program and severely reducing its rate of growth. Sending cracks through its foundation. If you put yourself in an enrolling 8th grade or shoes trying to figure out whether you want to go to east or west, you'd want to get the best education you could possibly get. Now let's say you're looking into the music department next year after Mr. Dalio's reassignment. You'd be looking at one on one hand a school with a choir program that goes on trips, performs an event, and has a huge following, namely east, and on the other hand one freshly wounded. The choice is easy. This will only increase any enrollment issues that currently exist. In previous choirs I've participated in. I've only had one director. When I came to West, I knew by having 2 teachers, the program was going to be uniquely well run. We have a base and trouble voice, which is very important part of our education, as it ensures that we have an adult who knows exactly what we are going through vocally and can give us the best advice. One of them is absent, we immediately feel the difference. You can see how much hard it is for them to work to try to keep up with not only their workload, but also the other teacher's workload. The department was not built to be run by one teacher as with 7 different choirs. It's nearly impossible for one person to run that by themselves. And to reduce this number would be unattainable for reasons outlined previously. As a current West freshman, the feature is my concern. As I know, I'm direct outcome of your decision. I hope you make the choice that wisely keeps a long-term future of our district in mind rather than focusing upon the present moment alone. Thank you for taking the time to listen. Thank you. The timer goes up if you could set your full name in municipality. My name is Grandmare and I live in Cherry Hill. I just wanted to come up here today. I know this is shifting gear from the music conversation but as you can probably tell I'm here on behalf of the golf team for West. I just wanted to come up here and thank the board of Ed for keeping us in your hearts. I know the budget cuts for being very pressuring. I just want to say thank you. I appreciate it. And it really means a lot to me and my teammates for keeping our interests at your heart when you make these tough decisions. Thank you. Thank you. Did hear about what happened when You found out in your household. We did have a little inside information. Sorry to All right, we'll continue on with our student public comment. And oh, I think you know what to do, Colin. So. Colin Duckett, Sherry Hill. I just wanted to come up here. Being the West representative, it's truly a moment of pride both at the previous meeting and at this meeting to see a group of students. So, invested in their West community and, really invested in their future. And I would ask that the Board of Education in making any decision with regards to the music department and regards to staffing that you Think about your policy, know how and keep that in mind, but also really reflect with yourselves the concerns and the requests of the students that you've her speak so eloquently today. Thank you. So if there are any more students who would like to speak. I invite you to approach the podium if there are any students who are online, just a reminder, please feel free to put an S after your name so that we know that you are a student. We can make sure to call on you. If there are no other students who like to speak at public comment, now we will move on to the adults. And just a reminder to the adults who may want to speak at public comment. This is a 1st public comment on board action items only. So when you speak, we ask that you state your name, your municipality, and specifically the action item that you're speaking on items 24 through 27. So again, if there are any more students, please feel free to approach the podium. And if not, can we go on to the adults? So adults I invite you to the podium if you'd like to speak now. So please state your name, municipality, and the item you're speaking on on our agenda. Good evening. My name is Nancy Douglas and I live in Cherry Hill. I'm also speaking about the choir program at West. I'm sorry, Miss Douglas. This not on our agenda tonight. So this is just for our action items on our agenda. We would ask that you come back during second public comment to speak at that time. That's the opportunity to speak on any topic. To speak on any topic so that they have courtesy of the time. You can give it to Mrs. It was a very early morning for me. Sorry. Sorry, Mrs. Wilson. Thank you. And you're also welcome to log in and call in online if you would like if you don't want to be, if you're not going to be here in the room. We take public comment there as well. Okay, I'm going to go to the line and the phone number ends with 7 8 8 if you could state your full name your municipality in the item you're speaking on Good. Is Jeff Pottowitz? I leave in Cherry Hill and it's 25.4. Please look it up. There's a PDF. 25.4. Collaborative federal desk monitoring report. 2023 to 2,024. Resolution to accept corrective action plan plan. So it's a federal government and they didn't like certain things so this is their action plan. Findings one, the LEA procured goods and did not get multiple quotes. For purchases over the federal acquisition regular. Over the federal for our purchases over the federal acquisition regulation as required under the code. Federal regulations for procurement. That's multiple times the fact that they want to see multiple bids and why because they feel they feel that the LEA that's our school district needs to establish and provide evidence of a stronger system of internal controls to ensure the federal procurement regulations are followed. I would also say that not only the federal government is concerned about this, but maybe we should all be concerned about this. For everything our district does. For everything the district does. So board, you should be concerned. But not just for the federal government where they could step in and look at things. But for everything, maybe we need to do exactly for everything what the federal government demands and they demanded that a number of times there was also IDA Part B findings at the time of this review there was no charges or reimbursement requests associated with this grant. Why? Our IDA especially didn't need any extra money. There was a grant Question, why? Did we not? Use those funds. Esser 3 accelerated learning coaching and educator support grant a programmatic review of the of this LE's use of the grant yields no findings What do you mean no findings they didn't use the money at all? For coaching and and educator support grant. What about that? There are a lot of questions that I have about this. I hope school board members have. Questions about this and maybe you should change your policy to what the what the federal government wants. They want multiple quotes. And demand it. Thank you very much. Maybe that's a policy that needs to be changed. Just read that PDF, see what they says. Is a public. Go to 25.4. Read the PDFs. There are 2 there on this topic. Thank you very much for listening. Spot. We go back to the room again. There are still students here, so just again giving the opportunity to students if anybody, it's OK Mr. Short. You don't have to leave. I just wanted to make sure we don't miss any students. Alright. Laura's yours, Mr. Short. Pleased that your name, municipality, the item you're speaking on. Rick Short Cherry Hill. 25.2. It's the, $830,000, bond project. I'm encouraging the board to vote no. And this is for the following reasons. One. We have money allocated for emergency alert system. District wide. And I don't know why that hasn't been implemented yet. Reason 2, this money takes away from Windows. That need to be replaced and I don't understand why they're not being replaced at Cherry Hill West. Reason 3. We've already have doors. Price out in the bond. I'm not going to give you the exact number, but with somewhere around 3,400 doors district wide interior and exterior doors. That are being replaced. So in the bid. Of $830,000. There's you're replacing doors. So how can we be replacing doors? And we already paid for doors. And I also question how many doors were replacing a cherry at least. Cause I've counted them. I've done a rough count. At $10,000 in next year your door. And at $4,000 a door for an interior door. And for a project at $830,000 Could be, 150,000. $200,000 of the project. So why are you going to prove this tonight? When you have maybe 200,000. Or a hundred 1,000 in question. Of the 800,000 that you technically didn't have rights. To do because you didn't put it in the bond. You just kind of added it after the bond. And you could have added it because. Of the new. The new alternative high school. So. Please. Well, no. Paying for double doors. It's money. To be a hundred, $200,000. Thank you. Okay, move on to the next speaker. Anyone else would like to speak? Please approach the podium for public comment. I don't see any but the podium and I don't see any hands on line so I'm going to close public comment. Now, Dr. Morton, I don't know if there are any comments that you have before we move on to our work session. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Kudos and thank you to all of the students who came out from high school West and spoke on behalf. Of the vocal music program. I can attest to the greatness of that program and the legacy that's been established with that program and just how amazing and outstanding it has been for decades. So I definitely appreciate it. There was a comment that was made. Profound comment, and I do want to just talk about it a bit of. Using qualitative measures over quantitative measures. And it's difficult to do so, to be quite frank and quite honest with you. Reason that's difficult. Because there are limited resources that we have available. And with limited resources that are available, we need to make decisions based upon what students indicate to us that they're interested in participating in. We need to make decisions about where to direct. The resources, the, the limited resources. So just in terms of quantitative numbers, I try to use what the data is saying. And even though within my heart and the emotion says, yes, yes, yes, I know that I know what this legacy is. The numbers tell a story and For me, I have to make a sound recommendation to the Board of Education. What, what we've seen is that COVID has had tremendous impacts on the vocal music enrollment numbers at High School West and at High School East. High School East has more students, so they are more students that continue to be enrolled. But if we look at what's happened over the last several years, we've had. Enough sections to really constitute one teacher. And what we've attempted to do is to provide enough time. For the teachers to have an opportunity to go out and to try to recruit and to bring numbers up. And 2222 school year 2223 there were 5 sections of vocal music that was split between 2 teachers. So what we actually did was allow the teachers to double up. Sections whereas we didn't really do that 10 years ago. Teachers had enough sections to to teach their own independent class, but allow them to double up to try to improve the qualitative measures qualitative. Components of the program while also having an opportunity to visit middle schools to reach out to other students within the school. To spur enrollment. This year the the number of sections. Decreased to 4 sections. Between the 2 teachers. So really that's Music teachers teach 4 sections because of all the music lessons that they provide to students throughout the day. They're provided with stipends for the small groups, but music lessons are time consuming. So they have 4 sections and then music lessons as well. 4 sections represents really one teacher as we look at projections for next year, there's 4 sections again. So based upon the numbers and based upon that the recommendation that I have to make is that There are only enough sections to constitute one teacher. I acknowledge the concerns that were cited. We, you know, at high school West there have been teachers that have been that work at other levels. Come to the building to provide support. In the Voca Music Program. But there are challenges. They're logistical challenges with time. Dismissal times, you know, things along those lines. I can tell you, you know, stand before you and tell you now, if the numbers weren't a return of a teacher to the building or warrant that we that we direct resources. To a particular program or to a particular school, that will always be my recommendation. You know, so just want to acknowledge I definitely appreciate you all coming out. I just wanted to provide some substance and some understanding about why the recommendation itself was made. Thank you. May not be the answer ultimately that. Some of our students who, you know, have a lot of experience and feelings and positive experiences are looking for. I think the It is important to give information like that and to be that transparent about where this decision comes from. And and I think the sectioning process finished at the end of March. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. So that's end of March is when for next year all classes were. Sections were determined is that correct? Absolutely. So students schedule for the courses that they are seeking to take in the, you know, the coming school year with their guidance counselors and, you know, we use those numbers to indicate where to direct our resources. Thank you. And I just really want to thank the students. It's really important that we hear from you. We are here for you. That's our whole role is to be on behalf of the students. And these are very, you know, very weady thoughts and processes and decisions. So, you know, our role is to support the superintendent in running the district. And to be able to hear you know why things are happening the way they are and understand them and understand specifically the impact. And my great hope is that that the direction things are moving in the kids that I I saw at Corusi will continue on and that will shift things more than we. Have seen shifting. We hope there's a greater shift in in that and that could that can change things. In the future. So, so anyway, thank you all. And we move on to our work session. So, we, move on to our organization agenda. And I'm going to ask Mrs. Sugars if you could please review our organization agenda. Certainly. So we talked about this a bit at our B and F committee meeting last week. This time of year in May, we typically will have what we call kind of a mini reorganization meeting. This is sort of a throwback to when. Districts had April elections. New board members would be elected in April. We'd have a swearing in ceremony and then we would sort of make all of our appointments for the upcoming school year. Now our elections are in November and we swear in our new board members in January but that's sort of in the middle of our school year so we still need to have a little bit of a reorganization. In May setting us up and getting us ready for the coming up. School year. So we're not voting on these items tonight. These are just on our agenda. Our board work session agenda to be voted on at our next meeting. The 1st section that you'll see is approval of appointments. That is not only appointments within the district, but also appointments of our professionals. And some of those kinds of things So you'll see there that we are appointing not only our right to know officer, but also our architect of record. And we have about we have 31 appointments under that section. And then we also have the reaffirmation of our policies. That section 14 under section 15 we have an approval of our educational services this is some of the agreements that we have with our county partners. Under item 16 we have approval of our bank accounts and our bank signatories. And then under number 17 we have our tax receipt schedule for the 2425 school year which we talked to the Township about and develop our schedule each year. So just wanted to give you some history as to why we're doing this right now, kind of what the what has happened in the past. Just setting is up for the new school year. And we will vote on these items. At the next board meeting. Great, thank you, Mrs. Sugars. Appreciate that. Very helpful. And now we move on to our special action agenda. Still in our boardwork session agenda. I'm sorry. We're gonna do committee room. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. We're still in our, work session. I apologize. It was obviously trying to move the clock ahead. We are in starting with our curriculum instruction. Can you give the CNI report, please? I would love to. So. The CNI committee met on May 6.th It was a very lengthy meeting. So there's a lot to report out. And before I do that, I just wanted to give a little bit of an overview of how this works because there seem to be some confusion. Out there about how how the committee works and when the information is reported out to the public. As you know, board members cannot comment on social media. We just heard that again in our training earlier tonight. But sometimes people do screenshot things and send them to me and that's how I know what's going on. So I just wanted to let everybody out there know that if you're interested in what the committees do, the agendas for the committees are released, usually the Friday night before around 5 o'clock. Their post is the Board of Education website. If you click on CHCLC and you go to Board of Education. There's a tab though that says committee agendas and that's where you can find the agendas for all the committees and it includes what the committees are going to be talking about at their meetings. Week. So committee meetings happen once a month. They happen on Monday and Tuesday evenings, the exception being HR, which meets Tuesday's during the day, but that is not a public meeting because it's HR items. So when the committees meet in public, the committees are made up of groups of 3 or 4 board members, which means we're not at a quorum. Even though we're not having a quorum, we still choose to have our committee meetings in public, which is different than a lot of other words of education, but that's something that we do so that people can come and see the work happening in real time. And in my opinion, and this is just my personal opinion now, not the board's opinion, my personal opinion, the real work of the board happens in committees a lot. Because that's where we get to really get down with the details of what's going on in discuss it among board members who are developing expertise in those particular areas. So my role as CNI Chair is develop expertise and lead the CNI committee along with those committee members. So I know a whole lot more about what goes on in CNI than I do in BNF, which Mr. Green Bomb leads, but. After the committees are done discussing on that Monday or Tuesday at the following full board meeting, which is tonight, we do our committee reports. So if you're ever wondering why we talk so much, it's because, and tonight I have a lot to talk about. So I'm just sort of giving a big explanation. It's because you'll see in the board agenda there's a committee note there which has a summary of what happens at CNI but usually a lot more happens than what can be contained. In that note in the agenda. So when I'm reporting out from CNI, I'm reporting to the public yes, but I'm also reporting to all the members of the board who don't sit on that committee. That way they know what the committee discussed and it's their opportunity to ask questions of me as the chair. And of other committee members and for cross committee collaboration because there's a lot of things that sit sort of in between the jurisdiction of multiple committees. On top of that, the committee chairs also meet. Once a month so that we can make sure that we're all informed of what's going on and where we can help each other out. So I hope that wasn't too tedious, but I did see some comments about how are we supposed to know what's going on in committees. How do we know what's on the committee agenda? How do other board members find out what happens in committees? How does the public find out what happens in committees? So that's sort of a short form answer. To those questions. So CNI had a very weighty agenda. The 1st 2 items I'm going to go through fairly quickly, we had the nursing standing orders which happens every single year. For our approval, those were reviewed actually by all board members. And I want to thank the board members for reviewing that pretty lengthy document. I think myself and Mr. Fein actually Found a few things in there that we were able to be useful on in our review and comment. But that's something that's approved by the board every year. All board members had a copy of that and it was reviewed by us. Going into this meeting as well as we had a brief discussion on cell phone usage but I'm going to actually penn that because I'm also giving the PNL report. So I'm gonna talk about cell phones when we get to panel. So everybody hold on. It's gonna come. It's happening. But the main issue I want to talk about, the major business of the meeting, which is a major shift for us, is the overview of the New Jersey student learning standards for ELA and math, which was an update given to us by the curriculum supervisors. Just so everybody knows the presentation the committee received. Is on the website. So if you go again to CHCLC and Board of Education, there's a tab there that says BOE Meeting Presentations. All presentations that we receive in CNI and sometimes they're fairly long presentations. I always ask that those are posted directly following the committee meeting so the public can see them. So if you're really excited about this stuff, the way that I am, you can always go there and click through it. And even longer version of the presentation was given to all board members for their midnight reading. Over the weekend leading into the committee meeting and any questions they have. So what I'm going to do right now, because it is fairly long, is try to give as brief of a summary as I can while still being informative with the knowledge that if anybody has further questions the full information is on the website under presentations for everybody to like I said review when you can't sleep in the middle of the night. Or if this is just something that really excites you like it does me. So state. Revise the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, which are the state standards for what we're supposed to be teaching. For both ELA and math. The curriculum supervisors came and gave the committee a presentation on the changes to those standards because our curriculum going forward implementing this coming fall so that September is going to reflect the new standards. It's a really tight timeline for implementation. Anybody's been listening to us talk about the state will not be surprised. That they tend to give us a lot of work to do in very tight timelines. So . So changes were adopted by the State Board of Education on October 4, th 2,023, but they must be implemented by September 2024. So that's less than a year. The newly adopted ELA standards. So we're going to start with ELA. They really underscore the critical importance of developing foundational reading skills and raised Kesu size. What excites me about this is that that directly aligns with Brussels. We talked about kids reading early and by 4th grade being solid readers because that really for success going forward. So the new state standards really support that early literacy piece. So that's something that's really exciting. The other thing I wanted to talk about is the foundational writing skills in grades K through 5. So new in the 2,023 standards. This is brand new. This was not in the previous which were the 2,016 standards are the following. Emphasizing sound letter basics. Advancing letter formation skills and stamina building developing encoding and spelling skills using elements of grammar, syntax, and punctuation in sentence composition. And facilitating development of writing skills and habits. If you did not get all that, great news, it's in the presentation. So you can look up that information. But for all of us who have been talking about the new science behind the teaching of reading, which has been hot if you, again, for fun read educational articles like I do or the importance of handwriting and learning, this is really good news because this is something we're going to be focusing on in K 5. Going forward and something I'm really excited about having a first-grader who's going to get to see all these changes. So. The second part of the information that was presented is going to be presented to us actually in the June CNI meetings. So the main meeting was, here are the new state standards. This is what they say. In the June meeting, it's going to focus more on the implementation of those standards here in Cherry Hill. So again, if you're somebody who's interested in these kinds of issues, please come to the June CNI meeting. If you can't make it, if you have something to do or it's good weather that night and you'd like to hang out outside. I again will report out on these major changes at the following board meeting so that you can know about them. So like I said, the major changes for ELA are really coming in K 5. The 600, and 12 standards were also revised. Those revisions are going into Rubicon Atlas and you'll see those but that's not going to be as big of a shift as the K 5 information. So stay tuned on that. Now I'm going to shift gears a little bit and talk about math. And this to me was also very interesting because the new 2,023 standards decoupled the 2,016 measurement and data domains into 2 separate domains. So now there's measurement, but there's also data literacy. So wait for it. The new data literacy domain, which is an elementary. We you into middle school statistics and probability and for high school statistics and data science courses. For everybody who plays along at home, you'll know that we just revised our math pathways for high school, to data science course that's going to be implemented in September as well as Statistics Pathway. Leading from that course. So now the cool part is that the elementary foundational skills in data science and statistics are going to then lead into these high school courses. So you start to see really that. We're doing a really good job, we meaning the district. Of course, the curriculum supervisors the curriculum office in really tying all these things together so that you have a seamless transition from kindergartners all the way up to 12th grade, which is really neat. The new elementary standards focus on money, which I thought was interesting. Grades 3 to 5 are gonna have visual fraction models. And this one was big for me personally. It replaces an old emphasis on fluency with math facts. With accuracy and efficiency over speed. So any of us who had elementary schoolers a while ago The emphasis is really on how fast you could get through those, the math facts. I had a kid who really, really struggled with that no matter how hard we worked on it. She's just not. And I would say to her, I don't really care how fast you are as long as you. Accurate. So if it takes you longer than 3 seconds. To know that 3 times 4 is. 12, that's okay to me as long as you get to the right answer. So these standards actually align with. What I kind of always thought was the bigger emphasis on accuracy, rather than speed. In elementary school, as you all know, we're doing the transition from the Eureka Math program to Eureka Max squared in the fall. So this year, both Barton and Man piloted the Eureka Math Squared program for a full year. So we had a full year pilot program. And that gives us a smooth articulation with our middle grades right all the way up through algebra one who are already using Eureka Maths squared. So right now. The middle grades up to algebra one are the eureka squared program. So starting next year. In all the elementary schools. We'll have Eureka maths squared from kindergarten all the way up to the middle level to algebra one, a consistent program aligned with the state standards. So I think that's gonna make a big difference too, and that's happening in September. For secondary math, again, secondary level, there were no major major changes, just updates that you'll see in Rubicon Atlas. For those courses. So again, the next steps for all of this are going to be at the June CNI meeting. That's when we're gonna get detailed implementation plans for September 24 the rollout the instructional resources professional development all of these things. So before I just finished up with I know it was a really long report, so thank you for hanging in there, but it was just a lot of information. I want to thank all the members of the committees who worked on this and I just want to name some of the categories of people. Large group of people who are instrumental in these big changes. It represented multiple schools and grades and board members. If you look in the longer presentation, you can see the names and the. The subjects and the professional places that all these people came from. It was a huge list, Special education teachers, teacher coaches. Title One teachers, basic skills instructors, ESL teachers, and media specialists. So I really feel like there was a breath of It's a general expertise that was brought. To this major revision for our kids and I want to thank all the professionals who dedicated their time. And their expertise to these major changes for our kids. And I'm really hopeful that these are gonna make huge changes when we talk about. Academic achievement in our district and we continue to move forward. I really am very positive on what I saw from the state standards and I'm really looking forward to seeing how we actualized that in Cherry Hill. I know that was a mouthful. So if any board members have questions, please ask them now. Any board members? I've bored you to silence. A little bit. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Save me here. Guilted into a question. That's no, that's great. And, It is particularly exciting to know that the new standards aligned so well with what we have already begun in the high schools, especially with regards to the new math pathways statistics on data science. Question though, will there be an opportunity maybe next month is the time to do it? For high school any of the high school teachers to weigh in on that to ensure as seamless and integration between You know, we're talking K 5. What will eventually be expected of the students when they reach high school. So my understanding and please our experts if you'd like to chime in and add or correct me was that one of the neat things about the meeting was the curriculum we're working so well together in teams and I especially saw that in math. Where the 2 separate maps, because remember, we separated last year on the budget, we added another curriculum supervisor for math. So now we have one for K 12 and one for 6 12. But the great thing is that they work together. They integrate so they're working together and collaborating to make it a seamless transition. There were curriculum teams at the high school level as well who worked on the high school curriculum revisions, but like I said, those were just not. Not to downplay them, but they didn't seem to me and receiving information to be as extensive as what's going on at the elementary level. But there does seem to be when I I was really happy to see all the members of the CNI office come to give the board this really detailed level information. They put together a ton of information and if you click through the presentation there's links you can really go deep into mapping out what the 2016 standard said. What the 2,023 standard said and you can compare them to each other. So it really was a wealth of information, but just seeing the synergy between the team and the CNI office. I'm confident that that vertical articulation from kindergarten all the way up to 12 is happening. Mister. I, something we discussed in the meeting and that maybe it'd be helpful just to share to the full board is how are the teachers going to be ready for all these changes, especially given that it's May. And these changes are expected to be implemented by September. So, you know, how, how are they going to be ready? To teach our kids. A great question. And again, I'm gonna just blame the state one more time. I can blame them now that they're they've signed the bill and they're giving us the extra budget. Funding. I can be a little hard on them for their ridiculously tight timelines that they give us to do everything that we're going to do. Meeting Dr. Mayhan and Dr. Morton talked about the professional development that's planned and you, Mr. And I remember talked about. How professional development was done for the previous implementation of the original Eureka program and how we've learned from that. And part of that was the pilot program. That happened this year for your Rika Square and just Barton and Man, which will expand to all the schools next year. So while I know that I did hear frustration from some people that Eureka squared was not in all 12 elementary schools this year, I think having a pilot program allowed us to work out some of the kinks and make sure that we were ready. To make the change so that it's a smooth transition to all schools. One thing that I raised in the meeting was I asked about parents because ultimately the parents are the ones who are going to have to sit there and deal with 1st graders doing homework. And sometimes if you're like me and you learned the old math and now it's the new map, you're not quite sure what's going on. So I really talked about parent engagement. Because one frustrating thing I found in when the 1st Eureka program was implemented was I wasn't speaking the same math language as my kid. So when my kid came home and told me we need to do a tape diagram of something, I had no idea what he was talking about. Or a number bond. I didn't know what that was because that's not the way that I learned math. And it's really frustrating for the child when they're trying to communicate to you what they need help with and you aren't speaking the same language. So one thing that I said in the committee was that I hope that as this happens both on the ELA side and the math side. There are going to be some shifts in how we teach things. That we make sure that parents are on board with understanding what their kids are learning. So we can be helpers at home. With homework. Because that to me was tough. Was it was a challenge with my oldest child switching to the new program. Dr. Martin. Yeah, I just wanna, add as well. You're absolutely correct about the synergy and about the collaboration that's that's been happening within the CNI office on CNI supervisors have been working incredibly closely together, have a keen understanding of what the expectations are and what they are articulation is up in both ELA and the. Momentx. I also I don't know if you plan to. To share the June C and I. Okay, so Jun C and I have meeting so there will be a map presentation on how Eureka is actually working within the schools to talk about the transition to Eureka Squared and how that's going to scale out across the board and then how that scales forward to the math pathways that we've. Embarked on at the high school level. For ELA, we'll provide like a preview and a process of, you know, how this is going to work as well as conversation about programs that will be chosen to be used. Yeah, thank you. That's excellent information. I know that we talked about parent university as one option, but I also just threw out there as a suggestion. I don't know if it's helpful or not that it in within my memory, my child's elementary school had math nights and literacy nights for parents to come in and sometimes I think things happening at your own kids school feel more accessible. Then district wide events. So I don't know how practical that is. I know teachers already doing so much, but I also know that one of the benefits of the large group that collaborated on these curricula is that we have experts in every school now. Board members, if you look at the list of people who worked on these, it's every school, it's ELA teachers, it's basic skills, it's special education. All these people, English language learners, all these people collaborated. So I'm confident that we have people in every school who now have gained expertise on what this looks like. And can bring that back to their schools and their communities and their family so parents have a greater understanding of how it's going to look going forward. The stern. I'm glad you touched on special education because that came up as well. You know, the Real full integration of the special education staff. And how we talked even about how does this get implemented in terms of IEPs that are how they're written, you know, so there was really, I mean, it's just really nice to see. It was nice to hear the CNI team talk about. How how synergistic it was and how much kind of all encompassing the work was together. There wasn't any part of the work that was, just one level or you know you know general education only. I mean it was really just a complete, it was really a collaborative effort. And Parent University happens in the spring. I venture to say that's probably a little too late. For, you know, I think you, we wanna kinda. Make sure parents hopefully start the year with access this information. So if those If that's something, I mean, I went to some literacy nights this year at some of the elementary schools. I think if that is an option, Dr. Barton, to make sure that we have like both math nights and literacy or other ways that in which that, you know, especially because there's so much change at the elementary level and that's probably the age when I would venture to say parents are most involved in supporting their kids at home in on the work and understanding. So I think that'd be great at, you know, potentially looking how do we do that at each local school. Yeah, Math Nights Literacy, they were Staple. For us, Dr. Mayheon myself. We were elementary principals every single year. That was just institutionalizing to part of our practices. So. Absolutely. I actually love them. I think it's so neat to be able to go into your kids elementary school and just get a preview of what they're going to be learning and how. So that you can support. Cause especially like I said, having a 6 year old, especially in those early grades, I think it's. It's really important because I mean those of us who have littles we know that when it's 8 30 at night and everybody's crying over the math page, nothing is good. So it's good when we have information that we can support them. The other question that I raised in the committee was about our geometry class because So we've got Eureka Squared starting in kindergarten going up to algebra one. And then after geometry, you have the math pathway. So geometry is actually the last comment class that everybody takes. And we talked about. The supervisors actually helped me understand how different geometry is from all the other math, but also how they're going to make sure that the geometry building blocks are there starting at elementary and middle so that kids are ready. When they get to that geometry course, whether it's in 8, th 9 30. 10th grade going forward because that'll the geometry course is the last common course that everybody will take before they split out into the pathways. So that was sort of a question I had, especially reflecting back on the NJSLA data that we heard about in November. I did a little bit of work trying to match. That looking at our scores versus what the new standards are and just trying to puzzle that out even though I am by no means an expert, but just trying to do my due diligence to understand. How we're moving forward and I'm really confident in the work that's being done. By our experts on that. And the thing is, one frustrating thing, I think, for the community is that a lot of times we change things. And you're not going to see an immediate result. So it's not like we're going to implement. This in September of 2024 and by October 2024 we're gonna see immediate. Change will see some change, but I would expect it's going to take some time to see these curriculum changes in place and see what work so it doesn't work and how we constantly revise and get better and improve. There's that cycle of you're implementing, then you're evaluating what worked, what didn't work, you're making changes and you're improving. So I'm gonna just throw out there that changes hard. Big change is harder. I do think we're going in the right direction. But, and I'm excited to see. How this impacts our kids, especially some of like I said these pieces around early literacy and handwriting I think are just so foundational and key for our kids in the early grades to really get them reading and writing well. In elementary schools, they're ready to access that upper level curriculum. But also that I don't think we're going to snap our fingers and see instant results here. I think we're going to have to hang with it a little bit. And evaluate our processes and how things look and maybe tweak going forward. But I do think that this is this is going to be a big change especially at the elementary level and I'm excited to see where we go. I know that's a lot this month. Do any other board members have questions? And community members if you have questions like I said just to repeat I cannot see what you post on Facebook unless somebody screenshots and send it to me and usually only send me the really wild things. So if you have a question. For the board. The best way to contact the board is by email. That is how we receive your questions and then the board president or the superintendent responds on behalf of us. I cannot. Actually respond to those emails. So when you get the little blurb for me saying thanks for emailing, it's not that I don't want to talk to you because everybody knows I obviously love to talk. And I will talk with anybody and also possibly a tree. Too much about all of these things, but I actually cannot respond to you. So if you want to communicate with the CNI committee, the best way to do that is by email or you're always welcome to come and hang out at a CNI meeting. Oftentimes that committee is really packed with information and sometimes we don't have time for public comment, but we do love to see you there and participate with us in this because this is the work. That to me as much as I love all the things we do on the board, this is my favorite work to do on the board. This this stuff. And I'm thrilled to talk about it with anybody who wants to listen. And collaborate. So that's the CNI report. Thank you, Mrs. Winters. Mr. Greenbaum, I don't know if you can match that, but could you please lead us through the business and facilities report? Certainly, and it's not a contest, but I do have 4 pages of material to go through, so I will do my best to abbreviate where I can. So I'm gonna start with, the BNF committee report out. We had a couple agenda items, one of which was review of federal monitoring, review and corrective action plan. Just a little explanation of this because this was something on our agenda tonight. The district went through a federal monitoring process. Yeah, definitely. It's like an audit. On how we're spending federal and state money. They reviewed spending of federal funds, title funds, idea, Esser, etc. And there were a few findings in the districts required to develop a corrective action plan, which we'll be voting on later tonight. These findings mostly had to do with differences between state and federal requirements where the stricter typically applies and includes things like the bid and quote process for professional development, thresholds for other contracts like mental health care. Some of these just simply came down to on the federal side not having a process single source things that don't have more than one option. So the district's developing new procedures, which will include developing a competitive contracting process. And seeking additional purchasing consortium opportunities to ensure that the district is satisfying federal procurement requirements as well as the state. And if you want to read through that report, there's a number of findings. They're they're kind of repetitive, but they're they're all along those lines. That's included in the agenda tonight. We did a review of bond referendum financial status. This was a fairly lengthy summary school by school of current and completed bond projects looking at estimated costs versus purchase orders that have been issued to gain a perspective on where we are with bond project spending versus progress for making. Obviously it's very important. We want to keep track of how much we're spending, how far along we are, and are we on track? Are we under budget? Are we over budget? So far, we're under budget on most projects and within included allowances on the few that went over. For example, we went over a little bit with the East Stadium. I'll talk about that a little bit in the bond construction status update. But within the allowances that we have and sometimes that's because we do additional site work or additional remediation and there are opportunities to make that up elsewhere where that work doesn't need to be repeated. We also discuss different, different ways of presenting this information in a more concise way, which I expect will revisit in the upcoming months in our The NF committee meetings, but overall. We're in pretty good shape. Like I said, we're under budget or within our allowances on and all of a project so far and we'll continue to monitor that. And thank you very much, Mr. Sugars for. Putting that together in an ever evolving way that we keep asking for. We talked about the May organization agenda. These are annual organization agenda items to reaffirm various roles and responsibilities that we went through earlier in our meeting tonight. And then under old business. Slash new business, kind of both. Mr. Sugars provide an update on the food service RFP. If you recall a few months ago before we got into budget season, there was a request from the board to revisit our food service. Contract and see. If we could find some better options with the same provider with a new provider but the main goal was to get out from under our fixed price model contract, which is very restrictive. And hopefully we could see some improvements in available options 1st students as well. There's a placeholder for this on our agenda tonight. Options, especially non-chocolate or frosted items for breakfast. As my kid keeps buying. Okay, that's it for being F report out. I will pause here for a moment before moving on to the next thing, see if there are any questions or comments from other committee members. This is Tafane. I know that what we discussed in B enough was kind of the foundation to this, but we didn't. Because we had good discussion that evening and we didn't get to complete our discussion. So I wanted to make sure that it didn't fall off. The radar that we began to discuss the dashboard for this so that the community would be able to see where we are. And I know there was some concerns that it would be, information overload. It was a tremendous amount of figures. Terms for building items that even I had no idea what they were. But I think that there's definitely a way to represent the data so that all learning levels can be, you know, appreciated in that. So I do want to thank all of the work that went into that that report out. It was very good. I just wanted to make sure that we're continuing the conversation of the dashboard to make sure everybody feels informed about all of that. Absolutely, thank you. And I will share those one of our topics of discussion was at what level of data should this be communicated to the committee, to the full board, and to the public. My perspective and this was shared by Mrs. Chafane. We want all of the data all the time. I think for the most part the general public isn't going to know what to do with that and realistically it doesn't really provide that much benefit. Folks can come to the BNF meetings if they want to ask about those specific things. But the front page of the report that Mr. Schugars put together is kind of a dashboard of where we are for each of our projects. At each of our schools and that was something that we we had asked to continue working on to have kind of a 1 page dashboard that the board and the and the community can see where we are with it. Same thing that we saw in our. The Levo's 20 page. Packet, 19 schools and and a cover page, but. Again, just this just to show here's what we've done. Here's our progress. Here's how much we spent and then the reverse of that. Here's how much we have left to do and how much money we have left just to stay abreast of where we are and ensure that we're on track. Yes, Mrs. Winters. So I'm not sure if this is a. N. F question or strategic planning question But I just, we're talking about communication. I would love to see more pictures become a visual person. Of our bond projects both before, during and after I think in some ways for me because I don't have the math brain that you do. Greenbaum, that would be a really good way for me to understand. What is being worked on in the district and to see the progress in a visual way? So I don't know. I don't know if that's really a bond question, bomb project question or a communications question. But I don't wherever that sits since I'm not on either of those committees, I just wanted to throw that out there going forward. I'm at the schools that my kids are at and I've. 3 kids at 3 different schools I can visually see. When I walk up to my kids elementary school, the APR. Being built and I think it's I know that there's 1 being built at Kingston as well and it looks really neat. So I think it would be cool to share that out with people as much as we can so that they can see the progress we're making and the investment that they made in our community and how hard we're working on it. Thanks. Absolutely. It's a great comment. And I will say, garrison architects have been great every time we meet monthly they provide a full report of. Just pictures of everything going on. Lately the focus has been on the APRs. The reason we didn't share anything this month is last month I got a little eager and wanted to show the pictures they wanted to save for this month. And I'll talk about that shortly, but we have a lot of progress on APRs. Last month, you could see 1 1 of the 6 of them looked like an APR. Now we have 2 soon to be 3. And they've been providing pictures. They used to just be pictures of a dirt pad and then a concrete pad and then a couple of pipes and conduits and it's it's starting to look more like more like APRs. As they provide those, that's something we've been working with Mr. Sugars and Mrs. Wilson to add to Cherry Hill tomorrow website, which is a subset of the district's website. I have not checked recently, but hopefully last months are there and we'll continue to add those. All right, I'm not going to put, I'm not going to put her on the spot. They will. I have not received them yet, but when I do, they will be posted. Thank you very much. I'll make sure those get sent over as we get this. Any other questions on committee report out before I get to bond construction? Okay, I will move to the bunk construction status. I'm gonna do my best to abbreviate these, but if any board members have questions after I'm happy to elaborate if I can. So starting at high school, E stadium improvements, we've, we've seen the, the results there. Very exciting to see that they're able to play games under the lights there now. New bleachers, everything is accessible. New sound system cameras, etc. All work has been completed. They're just working off few punchless items and close out documents that those are expected by the end of the month. And as a as I mentioned in the committee report out, it was slightly over budget, but also included some additional site work that won't have to be done later. It's within allowance and there's no concerns of the budget on that at this time. Some site work at Thomas Paine. There's some asphalt to repair and concrete to be installed and that work should be completed the 3rd week in June when school is out. That'll complete site work there and we're expecting a credit of about $17,000 as a return of unused allowance. So it's always nice to see us get some credit back that we don't use up or full allowances and as I mentioned in the committee report out. This has this has been the case with most of our projects so far. So very happy with how well they've been budgeted and that we haven't used up our allowances. Apis. So this is gonna be where there's the most visible work. As I said, there's significant progress across all 6 schools. Starting to actually look like APRs at 2, soon to be 3. I'll go through these quickly. I have a detailed status on each, but If you see it going up, that means the steel structure is started. If not, it's going to start soon. At Barton, they completed abatement of exterior soffit at the exit doors, the Easter break, the building pads complete and the road to be extended to the site. Was not originally included in the contract but needs to be done to facilitate construction vehicles that's going to eat into the allowance a little bit. Johnson, main work has been pouring slab. The slab on grade and structural steel erections to begin, I believe, next week. So that'll be the next one that starts to. Start you start to see some real visible progress. At Kingston, that's where we saw the most, the most progress. The structural steel has been completed now. It's painted, structural walls are going up. They're about halfway done with the block walls. At night, structural steel is erected. That's the next one. Actually looks like a, looks like a building now. Painting is beginning this week into next week. And that is from last week so painting again last week and continued this week atman, the slab has been poured, which means structural structural steel is next. At Sharpe. A contractor is able to finish building the pad prep. There's no soil or mediation required, which was originally expected. They're awaiting a change order request to extend the road. Waiting to confirm the approach at Barton works to extend the construction road to facilitate heavy vehicles. If it works there, they're going to do the same thing at at sharp and to date we have a $400,000 allowance built into the full APR contract for all 6 schools the only change order in April was that 11,000 to amend the road of Barton. We're still well within the budget and the biggest unknowns were really had to do with soil conditions and so over mediation. So it's not to say there won't be additional change orders in the future that, that might eat into that allowance, but the biggest unknowns have been surpassed. Leslie with the APRs playground equipment for many of the schools has been ordered, received, and stored for installation upon completion of the APRs when the site work is finished. And one thing somebody asked last month when I did this, I'm trying to be careful to ask these every month is when are these going to be available? This is an unofficial. The architect said this is not an official date, but they're on schedule for tentative completion in May of 25 or sooner. Work is beginning in earnest at Kurusi. We're gonna be going full steam ahead this summer. So the TCU specifications, temporary classroom units or trailers, they went out to several vendors. We're looking at good competition and are expecting to come in under budget. They're looking at various ideas with that once you go over a certain square footage or a certain size trailer There are different rules and regulations that apply. They're trying to work out how to avoid hitting certain thresholds that require additional services, additional utilities, upgrades and things like that and really looking out for the bottom line. Bid opening for renovations went well, it came in on budget. And there are lots of moving parts with this. Basically the entire school is getting gutted, remediated for hazardous materials and rebuilt. It's going to be a brand new school when it's done. And expecting to achieve substantial completion over the next 4 years. It's 1 of our biggest projects that we're doing. Starting June 19th will start of the move to begin to prepare for abatement and will be a lot of hazardous material abatement going on over the summer. And work is going to be starting in the main office and gym area. We'll move on to some non bond. Related construction projects because we're doing a lot of stuff here. Early childhood plans, these are our preschool expansion at Melburg and Kilmer. Moving forward at both sites, currently working on site grating, connections, interior grading. Actual construction is expected to start in the fall of 2024 and expected completion about 18 months after that. So if you do some quick math, it's tentative availability for students in fall of 2,026 and possibly fall of 2,025 just for access to the new bathrooms at Melburg. For critical Knight and Barton are in progress. These are expected to be completed by the end of the summer and this includes replacement of critical Hfax systems across 11 schools. So a lot of work going on there. And most of the equipment has already been ordered and stored. And lastly, I think this might be the 1st time we're talking about the construction work at Alternative High School in the high school East B Wing. New swing doors in the corridor to divide. School within a school from the rest of high school east. Have been selected the lead time is not too bad on those they're gonna be implementing door access controls still working on clock and intercom systems. It's all in the details. They're not critical to open the school, but some of those may have longer lead times. They're trying to figure out how to not do it twice and integrate those with new systems that are going to be installed throughout the rest of High School East. There will be a gender neutral bathroom for the alternative high school students that will be fully accessible, a fully accessible stall. As a result of that, we've asked our architect to identify options for a gender neutral bathroom for Gened students in High School East to ensure this accommodation is still available to all of our students, both Jen Ed and in the alternative high school. So that's something they've been asked to do and hopefully we'll come back with by the next time we meet. And the work is expected to be completed this summer in time for the new school year. And I think that wraps it up. I will open the floor to any questions or comments from. Other board members? Is it your phone? You mentioned I had 2 questions. So you mentioned that after all of the site work at Pain will be done. We'll actually be getting a $17,000 credit. I think it was 17 that you said. Yes, I think it's like 16 9. Do you know if that is already included in the 96 that we were give like the figure that we were given that we went over or is that going to reduce the figure that we were given that we went over or is that going to the figure that we were given that we went over or is that going to reduce that amount? I'm not sure if you know that Yeah, I don't have the 20 page summary in front of me, but. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, okay, great. That's great news. And then the other question, and I'm sure that this was asked at some point in the past, and I'm sorry if I asked it, but I don't remember. It sounds like most of the projects that we have going on are either on or under budget, which is amazing. In the event that we get all the things done and we are at some level under budget, what happens to that money? Goes back towards the payment of the debt. Awesome. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And that is the problem I absolutely hope to have. I'm not. Not gonna say anything about it. I hope that's a problem we have. Yeah. Any other questions from board members? Alright, seeing none, I will move on to. The less part which is 19.9 donations as i say every time we're always grateful for donations that help out our students and I certainly want to acknowledge them publicly in our meeting. If a donation from the Harris, Cadet and Family Trust, and this is to be used for art supplies and scholarship at the alternative high school. Donation from Allen Miller to be used for assisting families with senior trip payments at high school West and from Beck PTA to assist towards trip transportation. Thank you very much. And I think that'll do it. Thank you. Thank you. It was great to hear the update and hopefully. This is Wilson will assist us. On the website. Now I'm putting around the spot, but yeah, definitely because I have to see the pictures. So I was gonna take the hit for that one, Mrs. Stern. I didn't share them with Mrs. Wilson. Thank you, Mrs. Sugars. I mean, Mr. Sugars, I. Look, here's the thing, your job responsibilities have more than doubled with the bond passing, which we're happy it passed, but you have a tremendous amount of responsibilities. And then you agreed to take on. The food service RFP early. So I think you get a little bit of a pass there for all the extra duties you've been dealing with, but thank you and, no, no pressure on Mrs. To see what's going on. So thank you for the community especially. Okay, we now move on to human resources, which I chair and we discussed the fact that there really was a lot of personnel matters that are confidential and therefore I wouldn't have a specific report to give. Tonight because so much is confidential. However, Dr. Morton, I have asked you to talk a little bit about, I'm sorry, and I know you're always having to do other work. Of the district of over here, but if you could just talk a little bit about. You know, we have 2 job descriptions that are on our agenda tonight. And it is part of some shifts that have been going on in our district in terms of personnel. And I ask if you could please talk a little bit about. The rationale, what your vision is, and also how is that going to. Work at a time when we know our funding's been cut and you know we have to be really budget conscious. Yes, absolutely. So There are 2 job descriptions that are posted today on the agenda, supervisor of special projects. Job description as well as the director of curriculum. A job description as well. So each of those positions are ultimately revenue neutral. What you know what have done with those 2 positions. In addition to the directors of elementary and secondary education. It's just shifted existing positions that we currently have within our organizational structure shifted them to provide greater opportunities for efficiency, focus, productivity, for efficiency, focus, productivity, and ultimately streamlining things in a way so that we can have Okay. Across the board from our pre-K program all the way to our grade 12 program. When we think about positions today, the director of curriculum is in a very important position for us. About presentation that was done around the standards for ELA and mathematics. So the standards. Impact and influence the curriculum that's developed for us to curriculum provides the frame of what you know needs to be taught. We, we focus a lot on the, you know, the curriculum. How the curriculum is taught is equally as important. So we said curriculum and instruction. So instructions, the pedagogy, the strategies that are utilized by. So instructions, the pedagogy, the strategies that are utilized by teachers that allow for learning to be accelerated. Research points to the fact that effective teachers can make up. Make a year and a half gains for students when there is effective instruction that's taken place. So we want to lean into what the research says we want to lean into any opportunities that exist for us. To infuse our system with these most effective strategies. Coupled with high quality, viable curriculum. With high quality research-based instruction. And having an individual to coordinate that and to really spearhead that and focus that across the district. While articulated and interacting with our directors of elementary. And secondary education, you know, I just. That has been important. So when we talk about efficiency, productivity, focus, vision, that position will allow us to do that, we'll be able to bring that position in again in a way that shifts. The existing position control roster, but in a way that I don't I'm not coming to the board to ask for additional funding to make that happen. Using our resources in a strategic way. So we, have a retirement and, one of our assistant superintendents, Ms. Weatherington. Miss Weatherton handled many different functions for us, you know, historically, one of those. Functions that she handled has to do with like special projects in addition to, you know, the hosting the gamut of other things as well. The supervisor of special projects position provides us with a unique opportunity right now to allow, so we're not going to replace the coefficient as an assistant superintendent position. But will will shift and absorb the responsibilities. But the supervisor of pupil services allows us to have an individual who can spearhead some of those special projects for us. In addition to that, you know, tonight we had an incredible announcement around the restoration of funds, and I attribute that to the unifying effort that you know, this, this community. Was able to put forward and vocalizing our position and our concerns to our legislators. Thank you, Miss. This is Dr. Jaris. Oh, who's here tonight heading up our fair funding committee. But you know, we understand that when we collaborate together, when we unify and we work together, you know, we can accomplish some amazing things. So this supervisor special projects person will be. I'm charged with the responsibility of community relations as well. Hearing the voices of our community, capturing those voices of our community. Not necessarily voices that, you know, are all in agreement, but the, the version viewpoints that, you know, that we can bring together to support our students. You know, we want to connect with local businesses and resources to provide experiential learning opportunities for our kids as we talk about experiential learning opportunities for our kids as we talk about experiential learning opportunities for our kids as we talk about college and career pathways, that position will be central and allowing local businesses and resources to provide experiential learning opportunities for our kids as we talk about college and career pathways, you know, that position will be will be central and allowing us to do that. So, you know, I see this vision I see, you know, what this can become and what it will become ultimately. These positions are integral and allowing that to happen and making that happen. And that's all. Are going to be boasted by a phenomenal start that our kids will have at the earliest levels. And that's with our preschool program. You know, having Dr. Mayhan to be able to intensely focus on our preschool program and building. An outstanding program for us, you know, one of our. Major milestones that are children will enter kindergarten equipped. And ready for kindergarten with those skills. Strong preschool program will allow us to do that. And again, you talk about research, the research. Bothes well, you know, when kids into kindergarten without gaps. Most of the gaps that exist. The gaps that we see when kids are in high school. Actually can be traced back and pointed back to their entry into school. At the kindergarten level. When you talk about, exposure to books. Vocabulary, language acquisition, things along those lines. So, you know, we'll be able to provide tremendous services for our kids. Pre K through 12 program that that is highly effective that is excellent and that's that's focused. So. Thank you for going through that. You know, I think we talked. We've talked about over time as we've had retirements and even on the board changing of board members, you know, when we have you know, institutional knowledge and institutional history. I mean, you've been here quite a long time. You know, I think it helps to put that this all in perspective. You know in my time being engaged. I've seen additional assistant superintendent positions added. Now they're scaled back. I saw a director of curriculum position that was eliminated. Now it's bad. I think that there's shifts that go on ultimately. You know, this is pretty comprehensive. You know, you talked with us quite a bit about a very comprehensive approach, even the alternative funding committee that It was in 2019 I think it was. The Mrs. Sugars led from an administrative side and had board members and community members on. You know, this was this. Position the community engagement. Type of position and and for going after Grant we used to have you know 2020 plus years ago we had grant writers we don't have that anymore if you want to speak a little bit more about these types of positions. Absolutely, yeah. So I didn't mention the grant aspect of it as well, but you know what, there's a great opportunity as we talk about funding and, you know, the absence of funding and then overreliance perhaps on state funding, you know, for us to take the bull by the horns and to, you know, seek to, you know, acquire grants, research grants, The person chosen for that role, special projects will. He was component of their responsibilities would be grant acquisition grant writing as well. So, we'll be looking to. You know, to make that a reality for us also. And then I guess another thing I'll say as well is that, Organizational structures shift at times, you know, based upon the leader and based upon the needs that are present. Societal needs district needs you know are impacted by you know what's happening as well in the course and ebbs and flows of society. So just think where we are right now. Bigger picture you know at you know these moves allow us to be. As I said, effective and prime for great success. Thank you. I appreciate your going into so much detail with us and in the public meeting about you know, what the rationale is, what the thinking is, the larger approach and how that directly links back to student achievement and student success. Which is really our primary role, right, to be your ours as a board. So. Thank you so much for getting into that and the big piece too about which is a critically important piece about it being. You know, neutral in the budget. That's critically important. So thank you. And, and I think although that's probably as far as we can go in terms of confidentiality, you know, of personnel matters and and such. I do want to Ask if there are any board members who have it with the limited amount that's been in share. We're members of questions. Mrs. Winters. Just wanted to say that I have thought since before my time on the board that we underutilize our community resources in support of our public schools. I feel like Cherry Hill is a large and dynamic community and there's a lot of support out there for our kids and I don't think we've leveraged it. At all both with experiences for our students when we talk about career exploration and career readiness and as well as financial support for our kids. I think there are a lot of community groups and businesses out there who If we ask them and if we leverage them, they can really be a huge help as we go into this next era of. What we're looking at for the district and I'm really excited about the supervisor of special projects that piece of community relations. And grant writing because I think that's going to be dynamic piece to help us move forward. I think sometimes we forget those of us who are parents in the district that we we receive a lot of communication but there's a bigger community out there who may not know. About what's going on in our schools and what the needs are but if they knew they'd find ways to help us we saw that a little bit last meeting with the AFGROTC program when there were people here. Who wanted to support that from the larger community. And I really think that it's it's been a missed opportunity for years. Going into the bond projects, going into all these things. So I'm excited to see what comes out of that as we talked about a little bit. This isn't confidential, but there we did have, we tried to have a contracted person do grant writing for us. Previously, it did not work out. It was not as productive as we hoped. So I'm hoping that having somebody. Work on it who also has those community connections and I know how to leverage that. Might be a better opportunity for us going forward. So I'm excited to see what comes out of that partnership. Mrs. Suffane. I was just wondering if you could give us kind of like a high level overview of the differentiation of roles between the director of secondary and elementary education and the director of curriculum. Absolutely. So director of secondary education will focus on secondary schools that will be responsibility for the principals, including the evaluation process and, you know, staff members and everything that that encompasses. Similar to that director of elementary education will focus on supervision of the elementary schools. There are a few additional responsibilities that are included in each one of those. From the top of my head I I can recall secondary education. Will also help to facilitate our labor management collaborative. Will work on character education. Climate and culture fear the New Jersey. School improvement, climate improvement. Platform. Our director of elementary education again. 12 principals, elementary schools. Interface and interacting with parents. That individual, is the guy will also. Take over and spearhead our sea piece efforts. For the district. You'll be involved in character education. As well as. I'm trying to blank but with the other areas as well. Director of curriculum instruction, you know, focuses specifically on that, that individual will supervise our CNI supervisors and we'll work through standards and instruction and help. With the professional learning. Needs of our teachers to help to equip them. With, you know, some of those strategies that I started to mention so that, you know, irrespective of whatever school we go to. Our teachers will have within their toolkit. You know, similar array of strategies that highly affected teachers use. So. Thank you. This actually came up a little bit in our CNI meeting just to add a little bit to that, Mrs. Sripane. So the topic of sometimes the implementation of the curriculum, there can be variation. So the director's role will be to. Oversee more consistency. With that, which which coincidentally the week that we had our CNI meeting, we received an email from students. About that specific topic. I happen to hear about that topic a lot from my own kids. As I've shared, I have twins and they're in, you know, they're in the same grade, but they have different teachers and sometimes they have very different experiences in their classrooms, even though the material and the standards are the same. The implementation can be different. So I think having a person who's has both that role and the authority to ensure a lot more consistency. Is a small, maybe a small piece, but it's something like Is huge. Okay, maybe it's a bigger piece. I mean as a parent it's it's You know, it's very, that's a very real part of my lived experience as a parent is like. How challenging that is to see. And we hear from community members a lot school to school. Why is it? And there's a lovely part about each school having its own. Identity and their its own traditions. The educational piece needs to be, you know, we want to see a high level of consistency. It's just so hard in district this big. So I think having like to me that role made so much sense for that reason. So I just wanted to share a little bit about that. Would you say that that consistency not only throughout this the individual schools and the teachers but also throughout the district and between schools that's the goal is to. To like from east to west and elementary school to elementary school. Yes, absolutely. Very well said. Great question. Thank you. Other Questions from board member? Okay. All right. Then if there are none of more questions, if there are no more questions, we move on to Mr. Mayer for the policy and legislation report. Move, move on only temporarily because during during the time of the PNL meeting I was tossed back into parent mode, and attend. Mandatory graduating senior meeting at Cherry Hill West. And as a good and engaged parent when, I get emails. From administrators that say mandatory attendance by all parents. I mean, to totally attend. No, actually, I enjoyed being in there and way. So I was not able to. Chair Punell this week, thank you to Mrs. Winters for stepping in and handling that. So I will. Pass the microphone baton over to her for the committee report out. I'm just happy there weren't 87 pages of policy this time like the last time you asked me to step in and chair for you. That was a little bit rough. This time there were not 87 pages of policy. But we did have a few things to go through. We started with calendar revisions, which I feel like keep coming back to haunt us, but we took a stab at the 2627 calendar which proved to be an extremely challenging calendar because that's another year when Easter and Passover do not align. So we had to look at a separate spring break and for us looking at it as a committee. Is and this Gallagher were there with me. My concern as we began to piece that. Challenging calendar with a lot of days off. Together was that I feel like having done this a few times now we're I would like to see consistency among the calendars. I feel like it's easier for families when they know, let's say that that week of elementary half days when there's conferences, now that Friday is gonna be a half day, but I want to go back and look at. The calendars preceding 2627. To make sure that we're doing things in a consistent way so families have a better idea of what to expect because I think it's hard for people. With kids with work challenges to figure figure that out if we're just if each calendar feels too unique and disassociated from the other ones. So I actually depended that for you, Joel. You're welcome. So in June when, PNL returns, one thing that will have an old business is a review of The 2425 2526 and 2627 calendars in tandem so that we can make sure that there's a good flow. So I just threw that right back in your bucket. Sorry about that. But the other thing that we talked about and I had started talking about it a little bit because C and I also worked on it is the cell phone policy. So this is a major piece. Before I get into this, I just want to talk about what the cell phone policy is not. Because I think This is something that I'm hearing from a lot of people. Yeah, you're dealing with cell phones, but really you should also be dealing with security of the Chromebooks. And you should also be dealing with what websites kids can access on their Chromebooks. And you should also be dealing with a technology curriculum and whether kids know how to type correctly. All these things are true. But in leading this as chair of CNI and also as a member of PNL, my opinion on it is that I feel like the cell phone piece emerged as a point of consensus and a point of urgency for our teachers. And so I didn't want to muck the process up with other issues that are surround cell phones and technology, but maybe more challenging and need more time to deal with. So the way I'm thinking about it is to chunk the cell phone piece out first.st To try to get a cell phone policy together for the board to pass hopefully in June. That way everybody knows what the expectations are heading into September. Not that we're not going to deal with these other equally important. Chunks, but I didn't want it to be. I didn't want to muck up the process here with other issues that then became too big and unwieldy to find consensus on. And I thought really at this point we needed clarity. So that was my my thinking on it because C and I was asked 1st to develop. Some criteria around a cell phone policy. How it impacts instructional time to then, So the other thing that I sort of decided to do with the committee's consent with the chunking was that really the consensus around cell phones seemed to be around use of cell phones at instructional time. That seemed to be the biggest point that everybody could agree on. So Colin and Matt, take out your pencils. We are not talking about the buses or lunch. My own high schooler has very loudly at 5 30 a. M. Had really big feelings about it And so I understand this may be a concern. So I just want to articulate that clearly back to our high schools. Yes, there's a cell phone policy coming. It will be focused on instructional time. That is not to say that something else may not be done in the future. But it's not being done right now. Yes, I'm seeing nods. Okay. So to my kid at home who's assuredly not listening, I did articulate that. But I mean the reason for that is the same reason bless you it's that I think that you know I like to move forward quickly where there's consensus and clarity. So that we don't get stuck. And get not get something done in a timely manner because I think it's really important that everybody know. Through the summer and going into the fall, what this looks like. For the kids going forward. You guys will be off in college using your cell phones however you want. I have no jurisdiction over that. But for the people coming forward, I think it's important. So the CNI committee came out with a list of criteria and I want to thank the members of that committee members who subbed into that committee. The only person who is not on PNL or CNI and did not sub into one of these meetings was Mr. Greenbaum, who very graciously granted me some of his time. So that I made sure that I had all board members at some point have a touch point. Input into this policy because I know it's important. So I summarize the issues and now CNI is going to happily kick this over to Mr. Mayer. On PNL to actually do the directing of the policy. So this is what we came up with. The policy should address cell phones and earbuds during instructional time. Lunch and time on the bus is not being included at this time. Again. Lunch is fine, you'll all be good. So we talked about smart watches, but they were not really deemed to be problematic at the middle and high school levels. So that we are not going to specifically address, although I did hear feedback from some elementary. People in the elementary school community that the recording feature on watches can be problematic. So that's a piece of it Mr. Mayor that when we're looking at the policy. We also want to make sure that that piece about recording people that is already in our current policy stays consistent because I think that would I think that would cover that. One thing that we came to consensus on that I was kind of surprised about because I was leaning in the other direction@firstst Was that the policy should be clear and consistent among all levels, elementary, middle, and high school. So we're not going to differentiate. Cell phone used during instructional time at the middle level versus the high school level at all levels, cell phones will not be permitted to be used during instructional time. That's when you're sitting in your classroom with your teacher. So that's gonna be consistent among all levels. The policy should include a medical exemption process for students to need access to their phones for medical purposes. And one example given in the committee was kids who are diabetic. Who need access to their phones to track. Things there are other students who may also need medical exemptions so that should be a piece. In the policy. So in talking with Miss Webbington who I was so pleased she was back at the meeting because we missed her hard at PNL when she was out. She she really she helped us identify 2 policies that will definitely need to be flagged are 55 16 and 2363. Those will either need to be amended or we could abolish them and write brand new policies whichever way Mr. Mayor and Mr. Green think. Is the best way to draft this to approach drafting it. And then after that, oh, and this was another question that came up. So infractions will be handled through code of conduct. Because somebody asked the question in the meeting, well, what happens if. You're sitting in class listening to your favorite teams in your buds while blatantly texting. Do we need to put some kind of a piece in there about that? But the answer from Miss Washington was no, because we already have that. It's in code of conduct. So you kind of have to look at those pieces in tandem with each other. So that's gonna stay there. And then the administration and we actually just learned about this in our board training. The administration promulgates the regulations and does the implementation of the policy. So the board does the. What and the administration does the house. So once we do the high level expectations. For cell phone use during instructional time. Right the policy, we will all discuss the policy. We'll hopefully pass the policy in June. After much discussion. Then it will be the administration that will then do regs that go underneath that policy. To tease out the final points and then and then work on the implementation how that actually looks in the in the school buildings. So the goal is to review the policy to the actual written language at June PNL before bringing it to the full board, which I like I said, I understand is ambitious, but. I have a lot of faith in the PNL committee. So, I, I think we can do it. And I think, I mean, Ms. Gallagher, Miss Niaz. I feel like there's. Agreement among board members that this is important and this is something that we all agree on and we're attacking together. So I'm gonna also put that back in Mr. Mayor's bucket for next month with the actual drafting. CNI, we felt like our work was done here. We Those were the points that we. Brought out and now it's P and L's turn to actually take. The concept and write the language. I don't know if there are other policies. That will also need to be. Adjusted to keep them consistent with this new policy, but I'm sure if there are Mr. Green will find them for us. And then hopefully at June, piano so everybody out there if you like cell phones come to June, we will be discussing cell phone policy with then the hope and expectation of a vote before the end of June. Any committee members have anything to add? I am so thorough tonight. Mr. Mayor, so 1st thanks for sending those back. On your desk. No, I mean, I think it's also important to note that while you know, I'm thankful that you were able to have that discussion. And come to consensus that that This is also derived in great. You know, in great part from the work that was done by. Cha in and surveying staff right these weren't just things that that board members on, you know, we didn't come up these on our You know, some of it, some of the the concerns and the requests that that we saw in the survey from staff were certainly not surprises. But, you know, we wanted, as I understood it, to be able to, to ensure that as we thought through the types of policy that the types of things we needed to address in policy. That we were we were listening. Really intently to the staff, to the teachers. What do they need? What, what issues do they see? In the classroom. What challenges, can we help them address? In this policy. So, you know, look forward to, to working through it. The timeline is aggressive. But there's no reason why we can't, while we can't, accomplish that. Quickly, and, carefully at the same time. And, and hit all the points. You mean, these are all exactly the sorts of things we saw in the survey. And I think that. That it's great that we know that we have direction, originally from the staff. And students have also asked for the same sorts of things. And I wanted to just say as well that we surveyed the parents and families. I mean, that is a piece that I want to bring out that Dr. Morton put out a survey that I got to take the survey as a parent that parents and families and there really was the consensus point in the agreement was around instructional time. And I understand Dr. Moore also went and had conversations with the students directly. At the middle and high school level. I'm seeing smiles. These conversations definitely happened in East. So I. I think, you know, I think there is this consensus point around the fact that cell phones and earbuds are currently having a detrimental impact on student. Learning during instructional time. And I think that's the 1st place, this is the low hanging fruit for me because this is where the consensus is or we can start to talk about this. So I want to thank the the parents and the families and the students who also had input. Some of the pieces were clearly brought to us by those groups participating like the medical exemption. Piece. That is something that was brought to us by families and students. That's an important piece. So. I think that I'm hopeful that we can put something together. I'm sure not everybody is going to love it. But I think if we, I think if we all work together as a board and we really listen to the feedback we got, we can put something together that's ultimately going to be beneficial. For the kids. Any other P and L members want to? Add or any other board members have thoughts on cell phone policy. Mr. Fain. Just a few things that came to mind when you were discussing some of the topics about the other policies that are kind of related to this, something that I would just my 2 cents would caution that when we have many policies related to technology. It can be difficult to hold people accountable or enforce certain policies to something to consider when we're looking at the few policies that you had mentioned and potentially any other ones that maybe We work towards reducing the number of policies that address the same thing. Cause then it becomes more difficult for us to enforce. We're this the teachers and administrators to enforce. Another thing is I appreciate that there was feedback that the smart watches were not an issue, but I would caution that if we're reducing the cell phone usage that Smart washes may become an issue. So something just to consider when we're drafting that new policy. And also another one last consideration is the support of the teachers. That use personal cell phones and technology in their instruction and something and I know this is part of a conversation that was in even the meeting that I was a part of but I just want to make sure that that is part of the conversation as well and if we are going to eliminate that entirely just to keep in mind to either provide more resources or. Instructional instructional differentiation for those teachers so that they have the resources that they need to continue to do what they do. Thank you. That was really good. And I do think it's interesting because the smartwatch issue was something that was different between the middle and high school levels and I was shocked to hear that it there are some impacts at the elementary level. So again, this is our 1st crack at this going forward. There's consensus. That's not to say that there won't be. Other things going forward. And the other thing I wanted to point out because it was not obvious maybe is that the the committee ultimately decided not to recommend using the pouches that we were piloting at the board meetings. I mean, I actually like being phone free so much that mine is sadly sitting upside down over there. I actually got used to it after a few meetings and I like it, but we at this time decided that we're not gonna pursue. The locking pouches at this point. I think my, you know, my concern I know Mr. And has this concern as well is that the policy be strong enough that teachers feel supported because the last thing that I want to do is have the teachers come to us and say, help us with a cell phone policy and we go back to them and say, yeah, go ahead, take away their cell phones. Good luck with that. That is not what they asked us for. They asked us for support in implementing this. So whatever we do, it just has to be strong enough that the teachers really feel that the board. Heard them and supported them. But at this point we felt like the pouches are expensive. Some board members felt that the kids would be smarter than we are and could crack them pretty easily. They'd be destroyed very quickly. So I, at this point, we're not moving forward with the pouches, but I mean, I will say this, this is sort of our first, st and again, if. If we, just like everything else, just like I talked about with the curriculum cycle, if we implement a policy and it ends up being ineffective, then we circle back and revise the policy going forward. I mean, I think this is important enough that the board will do that. So that's sort of where we landed on the the actual cell phone patches, couches rather, the stern. So just kind of following up on other things that have been said already by their board members. I also share that concern about. You know, putting teachers in a position of having to, you know, enforce something. I mean, Classroom management is obviously a part of the educational experience of teachers. I will say I think most adults these days. Are not. Many of us are taken by surprise about the impact of technology with our own children and I think teachers are. Many of our teachers maybe haven't had the level of resources, support, training, etc. Of how that piece is different for classroom management. And for many of them, maybe, you know, that was never part of their training. So. I think, you know, it's something I've heard from teachers over time is just the level of intrusion and frustration and challenge it is just the level of intrusion and frustration and challenge it is to deal with that in their classroom and frustration and challenge it is to kind of deal with that in their classrooms. And I, we talked about, you know, how having something external. And although it may. Seem basic and and maybe you know, something for younger grades having the pouches, you know, where there are high school teachers who use those pouches that the kind of, park the cell phone patches. So I guess I just want to keep an eye on that pouches that kind of park the cell phone patches. So I guess I just want to keep an eye on that. I guess I just want to keep an eye on that. I'm 1 request would be that we have. So I guess I just want to keep an eye on that. I'm 1 request would be that we have we put it on the PNL and CNI calendars like at intervals throughout next year to revisit. To get updates on how the implementation is going. Obviously, you know, we are not the how, we are the what. This is seeps into the how, but I think it's important to get that feedback in terms of the policy. I think I would. Again, maybe some divergent voice from my part this time that I'm concerned and I've published with Mr. Mayor Moore because you're the PNL chair but I I am concerned about having a policy that gives 1st and second graders and elementary kids access to their phones during lunch during recess. And doesn't cover that topic because we want to be consistent across the board. I know this is our a 1st step and perhaps a multi-step process. To me that seems pretty standard and I think this is for me that seems pretty standard and I think Mrs. Trfain's point about the watch is, and I think, Mr. Fain's point about the watch is your point about the watches, especially at the elementary level I think that could be really disruptive as well. So I just, I guess I'm, so this is putting my 2 cents in. So I just, I guess I'm, so this is putting my 2 cents in. And that's a fair point. So this is putting my 2 cents in. And that's a fair point. So this is the way, this is sort of the way I' We're not requiring. Elementary and middle schools to permit cell phones during lunch. In fact, we see variation among. Our middle schools right now with how cell phone. How cell phones are being used. Now, the the feedback CNI got from the middle level is they actually see the cell phones is not being as big of a problem at that level as we're hearing is at the high school right now. So if the policy is silence on that, it doesn't mean that. It's a free for all. I think, you know, and I understand your, I understand what you're saying, Miss Stern. I do, but I also feel like There's a danger in seeking trouble where there isn't trouble and solving problems that are not. Currently problems. If the feedback becomes that phones during lunch. Are highly problematic at whatever level, then I think. We do that, but I would not be in favor of preemptively. Putting things in the policy that we're not receiving feedback or problems right now. That's sort of where I stand on it. And it's And again, like to Monsieur Fanes point about the watches, I feel a little bit ambivalent on it, but I do think that there was a piece from families. Where at the middle and high school level. There's the, hey, I have band practice after school today. Can you pick me up at 4 o'clock? You know, there is there is that peace and I think that people felt like there are some families who really like that ability. To have that brief check in. About picking people up after school. And so that may be a way to square the circle. I'm not totally in love with it or sold on it. As you know, I tend to be a ludic when it comes to technology. I'm very, those of you who know me and my kids know that I'm very. Locked down on it in my own house. And what I permit for my own kids, but that's my family and I don't presume. To place that on other people's families. My only goal right now is instructional time because that seems to be where the clear the clear need is. But I do understand what you're saying and I think that's going to be part of that constant policy revision cycle going forward. Because the the technology is going to continue to evolve. That's a reality. Big Weady topics tonight, board. I feel like all of them ended up being mine. Except for Adam and the the amazing Bond projects but yeah there was a lot that happened this month. Well, if we're done, we can move on to strategic planning because we still have one more committee to talk at 10 o'clock at night. So Dr. Rood, take us through strategic planning report out, please. This one will be pretty short. So strategic planning is not like the other committees in that it doesn't have really a specific role to cover any one topic. It's kind of a catch-all. And so for the quick report out, we don't really have much new on. The sustainability committee we're waiting for the They didn't meet in May. There were conflicts. Scheduling so they'll be meeting in June. We, we already heard from the Dr. Grip and heard that report. So that's off of our agenda. For the moment. The only update is on the communications audit the auditing company has asked for a little bit more time As you can imagine with a district with over 10,000 kids and. Tons of employees and tons of opinions and and feed all kinds of feedback from all kinds of constituent groups. It's a lot to process. So there, I think we're looking more at. Sometime in June. For a report out on the communications audit. So that's basically the report out. We did talk a little bit in kind of like older new business or wherever you wanna. Couch it, like what should be coming, you know, down the road. And one of one of the things that was. That we discussed. The most was What is the what does the grip study mean? What is what does the demographic study mean? It's great, we had a presentation, we saw numbers and graphs and and maps and all kinds of stuff. But there's a greater purpose to the to that study and it's in that greater purpose is planning. And so, one of the next things that I think strategic planning would like to, think about and take up. Which you know probably will not be until near the end of the summer or maybe starting in like September. Because our administrators need time to go through the data, but we kind of want to start the conversation of. Where do we go from here? What does that data mean for the district? What kinds of decisions. Policy or otherwise need to be made. In response to in response to the data. So that's, kind of the the very beginnings. Lot of things off of our list or turf them to other committees to get the because the other committees have the more of the responsibility and power to bring things through to policy. Like cell phones that conversation started in strategic planning briefly and then you know, based on faculty interest in, in coming up with solutions. You know, so that's so that's what strategic planning has has been about is you know, taking those kind of topics that don't have a home. Thinking about them, thinking about where, you know, what kind of, how we kind of want to approach them and where they should go next. And so that's kind of a call to the community, to the administration in my mind. What are what are the What are the big things that you're, you know, what are your big fields? What do you need? What do you feel the the is? You know, needs attention in the district, you know. Not and and it's not helpful to say, you know, oh, well, we need better success with our student. We know that. But if you have like if there are concrete ideas like, you know, well, you know, I think this is a bit of a challenge and maybe we could discuss this. Those are things that could be brought into strategic planning. So. From the community, email the board, reach out to the board and. Give us your ideas like what what are the what's the next thing that you know, you might be concerned about. And the same thing can be said for our administration, you know, run, run your, ideas up the food, up the chain. And get so that you know so that we're coming through our you know our superintendent and our board president so that we're all you know putting these things on the agenda to start discussions if we can. If we can find real like. Tangible things to discuss and see what we can impact. That's that in my mind is the job of strategic planning. I know that maybe that's a little interesting. Send us all your thoughts, but that's what that committee is for. And, and maybe, you know, maybe we can, you know, work out, you know, talk about an idea, discuss freely, because it is of committee where we can, we don't have a long agenda, usually we have time to really kind of just discuss and, you know, almost philosophically like about the, you know, what these different things mean to us and then we can give them a new home in CNI or PNL or B and F. So that's where we are. Are with strategic planning. We've crossed most of the stuff off the list. We do want to talk about the demographic study going in the future, but recognize that we just got the data and you guys need time. Tell us when you're ready to start that conversation. So Dr. Barton. And and other than that like you know, any ideas, you know, send some emails and let's start brainstorming, you know, what can, what do we still need to fix? That's it. So if any other committee members want to add to that. No, it's late. Any questions? No, it's late. Good. Okay Does it? Okay. No, it's like we move on. Thank you very much. That was great. Okay, we're going to go into our special action agenda. All right, Mrs. Winters. Can you please move the CNI agenda? Of course, the superintendent recommends and I move the CNI agenda. Can you please move the CNI agenda? Of course, the superintendent recommends and I move the following. 24.1. Of course, the superintendent recommends and I move the following. 24.1 approval of attendance at conferencing workshops for the 2324 school year and 24.2 resolution approving the acceptance of the advanced placement and international baccalaureate course expansion grant. Do I have a second? Mr. Fain, are there any questions? Ms. Gallagher. This isn't really a question about CNI, but I just want to confirm since Mrs. Tong left the meeting, do we need to do anything to reflect? With voting. Hi, I reflected her departure in the minutes, so, okay, fine. Thank you, though. I, you raised the question. I just want to share. So for transparency, she did let us know, let me know earlier she was not feeling well. And we had discussed the possibility of her leaving early. So she left early for the reason yet. So right, if anyone had any. Concern or question. That's what was going on. Does anybody have any questions about the 2? We only have 2 items on CNI tonight. All right, seeing on Miss Sugars, please call the vote. Board members you may cast your votes. The motion carries with a unanimous yes vote. Thank you. Okay, we move on to business and facilities. Mr. Greenbaum, can you please move the BNF agenda? Thank you. Superintendent recommends and I move the following. 25.1 approval of bill lists. 25.2 resolution for the award of bids 25.3 a resolution approving services agreement. Between the board and amazing transformations to provide behavioral services and consultation services. And I will interject here and say thank you for letting the families know the spending change ahead of time. It seemed to be received well and folks seem to appreciate that. And 25.4 resolution to accept corrective action plan from the collaborative federal desk monitoring report. Do I have a second? Dr. Rood. Any questions? Okay, seeing none, Miss Sugars, please open the voting. Board members you may cast your votes Mrs. Sugars, I'll be recusing myself from 25. Point one due to conflict of interest. Other than the exception noted, we have a unanimous yes vote. Thank you. Okay, we move on to human resources and the superintendent recommends and I move the following. 26.1 termination of employment certified. 26.2 termination of employment non-certificated. 26.3 appointment certificated 26.4 appointments non-certificated 26.5 assignment salary change non-sertificated. 26.6 contract renewals certificate 26.7 contract renewals certificated offer of employment. 26.7 contract renewals non-certificated. 26.8. I'm sorry. 26.8 contract renewals. I apologize. Let me just make sure I'm thorough and I got everything. I think I already read 26.8 countries, renewals. Not distributed, 26.9. Other compensation certificated. 36.10. Other compensation non-certificated. Do I have a second? This is Winters, are there any questions? Every time I read this certificate, I think of Mrs. Elmore Stratton every time she was wanting to make sure she said it right. Yes, thank you. Alright, seeing none, Mrs. Sugars, can you call the vote? Board members you may cast your votes. This is sugars I'll be recusing myself from 26.2 and 26.10 due to conflict of interest. Than the exceptions noted, we have a unanimous yes vote. Okay, Mr. Mayor, can you please move the panel agenda? Indeed I can. Superintendent recommends. And I move the following item, 27.1 approval of harassment intimidation and bullying investigation. Decisions. Do I have a second? Mrs. Sheriffin, are there any? Any questions? Seeing none, Mr. Sugar should open the voting. Good members, you may cast your votes. Maybe a unanimous yes vote. Okay, looks like we have Nothing to move on the agenda for strategic planning so we go to new business. Is there any new business tonight? Okay, seeing none, we go to any old business. Is there any old business tonight? Okay, seeing none, we go to Second public comment. It is, I think there's a lot of excitement about second public comments and then it seems like we have a number of hands online, we have people at the podium already. Very exciting. So. Without further ado, I'll quickly read. About the second public comment this is the second public comment section during which you may comment on any school related topic If you would like to speak now, please 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 have a be given a maximum of 3 min to speak. The timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time you have remaining. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of Terryhole 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 log 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 repetitive, will not be permitted. Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district or always welcomed to communicate directly to the district superintendent, board president, and all board members via email or other alternative means. So. I will say again in case, it wasn't, it's not. Still clear. If you are a student and you would like to speak. A current student in our district and you'd like to speak, you absolutely. Have the privilege of going first.st So if there are any students in the room or online who would like to speak, I encourage you to come to the podium first.st And if you are a student and you are online, kindly put an S after your name so that we know that you're a student. And I don't currently see any students at the podium nor online. So we'll start in the room with the adults. So if you could please state your full name and your municipality. Alana Yaris, Cherry Hill, I'm speaking as the Fair Funding Committee Chair on behalf of the Zone PTA. Today I send an email to the list of email addresses that I have for the Fair Funding Committee thanking them for their advocacy. With their help, we were able to get the legislators and governor to pass and sign bills we've been advocating for for several weeks. Thank you. The work is not done. There is a meeting this Thursday on Zoom. It's our last meeting of the school year. The work continues over the next few weeks with thank you to legislators and the governor and making sure this doesn't happen again in future years. We will be planning for what we will be doing. Next school year and in future school years. And then I forwarded the email that came out from the superintendent today. So if anyone would like to join us at our Zoom Meeting on Thursday, it will be posted on our social media on Thursday. It will be posted on our social media on Facebook. It will be posted on our social media on Facebook. There's a Facebook on our social media, on Facebook. There's a Facebook profile, there's a Facebook page, there's an Instagram page where you can email fair funding CHPS at gmail. Com and I'll be happy to give you that information and include you on the list. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Jaris. And typically we don't respond or comment. I really do, however, want to publicly thank you. For your tireless leadership. Leading the fair funding committee. It's a significant lift. You helped organize for all of us to go to Trump, many of us to go to Trenton and to, you know, continue to, advocate and these are the fruits of our, efforts, with you at the home. So thank you. We go to the line and the next speaker is Laura Einhorn. If you could please state your full name and your municipality. It's in line horn, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. So I'm just going to reference 20.4. Description of the directive curriculum. Instruction and the supervisor of special products projects. Can you tell me when the description of these 2 positions will be on your district website? And I have quite confused as to how they're still budget neutral. And as the. We're organizational chart changes. You still have to assistant superintendent positions that are open. Also, I'd like to know when these top descriptions will be posted for employment. The other thing I have a question about is the Kingston School. Love seeing the new building being constructed, but on the district website for Terry Hill tomorrow. There is still no applicable spot where the playground will grow. Go and I'd like to know when that will be revised to reflect where the playground will be. Thank you. Hmm. Okay, we go back to the room if you could please state your full name and your municipalities soon as the timer restarts Leo, I'm here on to speak on behalf of the Cherry Hill High School bowling teams. Terry, middle school, bowlers and families. Wanted to take this time to thank Dr. Morton. Fair funding. And the Board of Education for helping keep us kids on the lanes for the 2,02425 season. Without your hard work, understanding, and dedication. And taking the time to hear our voices. This could not have happened. Thank you for stepping on to the approach and both rolling your stripe for the Terryo Public Schools bowling team. Thank you. Thank you. And we go back to the line. Sorry, are you a current student in our? Okay, sorry. I don't want to be presumptuous. Recent grad, okay. Okay, sorry about that. I'll go back to the line and the phone number ends in 7 8 8. If you could please state your full name and municipality. My name is Jeff Powitz. I live in Sherry Hill and I'm gonna repeat something that was just said about 20.4. Being resolved that you have 2 new job descriptions, you kind of equated it with the, with 2 new directors. They were principals. What's gonna, so really you create really you created 2 new directive positions in those cases. So I'm because once the present once the principal positions are filled Okay, so these were literally 2 new positions. And I really have a feeling that someday those 2 do directors will move into the assistant superintended position because you want an assistant superintendent. Dealing with preschool alone. And, it seems like if that's the case, they're actually more likely going to be made assistant superintendents. Fairly quickly these 2 new positions again were they moving from they're not revenue neutral just like the other 2 positions are not revenue neutral you should still have to they appear to be now but you're still gonna have to fill the principal positions wherever they're coming from if it's called revenue neutral, the director of curriculum instruction and supervisor of special projects it appears because we don't know much about these positions it appears they're going to be the people will be moving up from another position who 1 million who may very well be saved so we will be need to be filled so actually the revenue neutrality No, free school expansion. Yeah, it's construction. What's the story with what Vories had and I asked that last time I gave you some numbers with the architect at Vories who did work for them compared to really a lot more expensive a lot more money we're paying for power new construction what's going to happen with the movement of our 3rd high school the overcrowding in Chariot least and what's going to be made at that school is that going to be renovated for preschool expansion? A lot of questions and how much is that going to cost? Plus the fact the edit course the preschool expansion which may be draining money from our district already which no one wants to talk about but the idea that 12 or $13,000 is pupil cove is per pupil for for preschool is way off it's at least Oh, 15 to $20,000 more than that. So, think about all those things and people think where your money is going. Alright, and by the way, the state really likes that. The state wants the preschool expansion because after preschool expansion, you get free childcare. And free infant care also. That's their plan at the expense course shifted onto the people of our community. With all the learning loss, it would have been better just to wait. But anyway, talked about 20.4 and thank you very much. Bye. Okay, we go back to the room and I it is your turn. Do you please state your full name and municipality? Name is Owen Dodd from Sherry Hill and I'm speaking on behalf of the plan removal of Mr. Dalio from Terry Hill High School West. I'm a freshman music education student at Rome University. 1st met Mr. Daly at AP Music Theory. At the time during my junior year, there were about 7 kids in the class. Mr. Dalio's classroom was a welcoming environment that made us excited to learn and us expressing that excitement led the class numbers to double for the next year. Mr. Dalio puts everything in his work at Cherry Hill West. The results speak for themselves with the projected numbers and the choir increasing year by year. With Fremata and men of note competing in the ICHS and for model also making the semi-finals this year while winning awards such as best choreography and best arrangement. But Mr. Dalio has done so much more than just teach us in classes. When I was getting ready to apply for majoring in music education, he went to lengths to help me in the application process. Explaining the audition process and helping me build my confidence up as a performer, whether I was a vocalist or a saxophonist. He was there every step of the way to keep me motivated and inspired. Without him, I would certainly not be a music education major today. At the beginning of my junior year, I was on the fence on how to continue my education. Mr. Dalio showed me what a brilliant music educator is and made me want to achieve that within myself. Without a teacher like Mr. Dalio at Cherry Hill High School West aspiring vocalist actors and composers will not get the education they need to realize their potential. Inquire program and our growing music program post COVID cannot flourish without the enthusiastic leader who made the choir program what it is today. Moving Mr. Dalio will limit the potential of students in the arts programs at West and that's not a legacy that the board wants to leave behind. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line and the name is M. Newworth. And if you could please state your full name and your municipality. Good evening. Michael Neworth. I'm in and I'm in Cherry Hill. I have a son who attends Cherry Hill East as a sophomore and is in the bowling program, which is really why I joined, but I'd like to actually piggyback on what they've been saying about the music program in back. I came from a really big district in Long Island, New York. And move down here. Went to high school in in Long Island, New York. Choral program to say the least was very robust. Very similar to, to what we have here, in our high schools. And I will tell you that Even, you know, as I'm 55 years old, so that's, you know, 30 something plus years later. I can tell you stories and I can tell you. Anecdotes about The my curl teacher, Mr. Elliot Bean. And tell you his name and tell you his kids names and all those things because that's the type of impact. That music, music educators have. On students. It's lifelong. And the The impact that that that hat that that has is much more than. The person who taught you math. I couldn't tell you who taught me math and high school. But I can tell you about Mr. Bean and what he meant to all of us and still means to all of us and how over 2,000 students showed up to his funeral a few years ago. So that's the impact that. That, you know, former students and going back to the to the seventies. That, that music can have. Now, the reason that I called, again, I want to reiterate, I, like I said, I'm a bowling parent. I want to reiterate what my friend Leon said before and thanking the fair funding folks and thanking everyone. For the work that you've done here. But let's be clear. That the transparency to the parents and the children that were going to be impacted by this cut had the fair funding not come through. Was not there. There was no transparency in this effort. Let's take lesson from that because as was stated in the beginning of this meeting, Someone mentioned that You were inundated with emails with solutions and things like that. The community is here to help you with those solutions. But we can only do that if we know about something. So let's use that as a lesson. Please. To make sure that we as a community are aware of decisions affecting our children and they're not done behind the scenes. I appreciate the work you've done and I thank everyone for their time this evening. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We go back to the room. You could please state your full name in your municipality when the timer goes up. I'm here to talk about the removal of Mr. Dalio from the Cherry Hill West. I, I don't understand why you replaced the other teacher with Mr. Dalio if you were just going to get rid of him 3 years later. Also, I don't understand why Terry Hill West is the ugly stepchild in Cherry Hill East. Gets the little gold tiara and the sash every year. Cherry Hill East has 3 instrumental music teachers, Sherry O. West has one. Cherry least has 2 vocal teachers, Chry Hill West has 2 and now you're going to take one away. Why not take one from East? You are constantly giving things to East. And West is getting nothing. Also, You say that the numbers are down for the music program? Well, the numbers were down for our ROTC pretty severely, but we smudged to see that program. You are ready to get rid of golf and bowling and don't get me wrong. I love sports. I really do. But sports are always saved before the arts are saved. Well, when COVID hit, what did everybody rely on? The friggin arts. That is what keeps people living, not working, not functioning, but living, the arts. And you constantly crap. On the arts and it's really exhausting when not only do you crap on the arts but to crap on the students. Who are involved in the arts at Cherry Hill West. When you are constantly telling them that they should be proud of their school and what their school represents and what it does for them. Well, what message are you telling them? Especially, Mr. Morton, when they come up here, and by the way, they decided to vote for one kid from each year to speak. So that they wouldn't waste your time with too much talking. They did that as a courtesy. For you instead of having 400 kids come up here and make a speech to defend their thing and then you Basically say to them, well bummer, you're not going to get it. That was the message that you sent them tonight. Hey, thanks for coming, but you're not going to get it. Congratulations to the golfers. And the bowlers. Thank God Cherry Hill East now has lights at their football stadium because that means what? They can play at night now instead of during the day. But once again, the art students. Get cracked on and it's really exhausting. Also, side note, if you try to take away a child's cell phone, my daughter almost had a panic attack when her teacher told her that because her cousins. Thank you for your public comment. I appreciate you terrified of not having. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. And we move on to the line and it is Jessica. Fingerman. If you could please state your full name and your municipality. Jessica Fingerman, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Very pleased to hear about the passage of a 4 1 6 1 to restore some of the funding to Cherry Hill. I also want to thank Alan Yaris for her hard work and advocacy as the leader of the Fair Funding Committee. I echo Mrs. Jaris to join the fair funding committee because our voices matter. They make a difference. Changing gears, I would like to address the events of the April, the 9th board of Ed meeting and I wish I didn't have to say these comments that I'm going to be saying. On that evening, we had a board member accuse the Board of Education president of unethical behavior publicly. This board member made statements that the board president should quote, be careful. End quote with her emails and the board president needed to pause the meeting and take a recess. All of this is just not productive. We have a large district with a variety of needs that require professionalism and mutual respect. When you're sworn in and you take on this great responsibility that you have. You need to put the anger, the starkiness, if you will, aside. For better or worse, you aren't a regular citizen anymore. You don't publicly blind side fellow board members when the intent isn't to gain information, it's only to embarrass someone. And there are a few things more destructive that a board member, a few things more destructive than a board member publicly chastising board colleagues. The subtleties will be lost on the public who will only see a board in chaos. Work as a member of a team. Those are not my words. Those are the words from the school. From the school board association that came tonight to train you and was there giving ethics training back in March and I implore. The Board of Education members that I'm referencing to please pay attention to those, to those lessons because We're watching our students are watching and you need to be setting a good example. You have to work together productively with the needs of our students at the forefront of your mind. Constructive conversations are important. Disagreements are important. But accusations are not. I appreciate all of your efforts. I know that it's late in the evening and that many of you have little ones at home and that you are giving your time and your dedication for free. To all of us and I I truly appreciate that even if I don't always agree with you. And so it just want to say thank you again and I hope moving forward, things will be better. Have a great night. Okay, can we get back to the room? If you could please state your full name and your municipality when this timer restarts. Arlene Puglisi, township of Cherry Health. I am also commenting on the removal of Mr. Dalio. I'm reiterating on top of what everybody else said, I firmly believe everybody else's thoughts that were conveyed. But I did also take notes. While the other children were speaking. And. The only comments that were made from the board were on quality. Over quantity and Unfortunately, you were given corrected numbers by multiple students showing that enrollment is actually up not down. The the corrected numbers must be taken into consideration when reloading valuable staff that has better the music programs. A 1,000 different ways I could go on for hours on how. The team of Mr. Dallio and Miss Chambers have better the music program. As a side note, the team of chambers in Dallio helped my daughter and countless other students in Dallio helped my daughter and countless other students earn in Dallio helped my daughter and countless other students earn invitations from several music programs earn invitations from several music programs in college and they earn invitations from several music programs in college and they went out of their way to provide many things I can't begin to explain. But it was the team. They worked together as a team and better together. And it was mentioned that we only have 4 sections. There were actually supposed to be 5 sections, not 4. The students were told that the 5th class was not registered when it was supposed to be at the beginning of the year. So the numbers have not been conveyed accurately and therefore you do have an obligation to reconsider with the corrected information and all of the information from the students. Now, I'm also going to read something else outside of my notes that was. Prepared for me. So kind of prepared for me. My daughter, her name is Isabel. She is vice president of the Triumph Honor Society of Music, Student Director of Chamber Singers. Member of Fermata. She's a member of the honors choir West singers. She's a member of all state honors mixed choir as well as the treble choir. Vocal music director of the Spring musical Sound of Music. And she's got 2 years of experiences as a teacher's aide in the beginning choir class vocal workshop. She's a senior at West and had a very successful music career there. She's taught guided and friended these students of all different grades. She spent her senior year encouraging students telling them that they would have the same. Kind of successful experience at this school that she had. And it's distressing to know that you're completely set in your decision even after the knowledge of getting the 45% of funds that were lost. Reality they will not have the opportunity to have the same successful music experience at West that Isabel had. They will have 50%. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Piglez. If you have other comments, you're more than welcome to email them to us. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line. And the name on the line is Candy Cummings. If you can please state your full name and your municipality. Miss Cummings, I, if you're there, we can't hear you. I'm going to maybe ask that you perhaps leave and or try to call back again or try to leave and come back in. We'll go back to the room and If you would like to speak, you know, please feel come back in and raise your hand. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the room if you could please state your full name and your municipality when the timer starts. Yeah, my name is Jack Brandon Cherry Hill. 2 things, one for C and I. On the performance reports east and mathematics came in at 33.6 that's below new jersey state minimum. It's the second year in a row. West is at 12.5. Which is now many years. Claire Barton is at 35 that's below. New Jersey minimum standard. I think it's the second year as well. So I'd like the board. I never hear this. Topic come up and on the agenda. And I think it's not just a CNI issue, but it's a board issue. Of why this is happening. And what the plan is, you know, to correct this. So I'd like this. Taken up at some point. The other thing is. On April 29th I wrote an email to the board. Little over 2 weeks. I read the email to the board at the last board meeting. I haven't heard a peep. From anyone from the board. So I'm here to tell you, don't bother to respond. There's no need. I spoke out against a policy here in this district. 57 56. I will be sending another email asking you to take this up. To have it repealed. But when I speak out against this. I don't expect to have words reaction. Of being called a white nationalist. Racist, etc. Now I've been in Cherry Hill for over 40 years and I want to remind you. In fact, to come up to the podium, you have to give your name. And if the reaction is. You're a dangerous individual. You're racist. You're a white ring. Wing nationalist. And that's associated with my name. I gotta tell you, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm feeling. A little bit slandered by this by this board. I don't want an apology. I want a resignation from Dr. Rood. Mr. Mayor, you agreed with him. Mrs. Stern, you agreed with him as well. I want 3 resignations from the 3 of you. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line and the name is Cherry Hill Zone PTA. So if that if you could please state your personal full name and your municipality. It's like you. Yes. We can. Hi, Candy Cummings. Can you hear me this time? Great. Thank you so much. So good evening. Candy Cummings Cherry Hill and I would like to thank the Fair Funding Committee for their efforts. The Fair Funding Comm Committee under Alana Jaris leadership kept Cherry Hill at the forefront of our legislators minds as they advocated on behalf. Of us to pass Bill A. 41 61. The fair funding committee isn't done yet though, and I encourage you all to join Alana and the committee. As they continue to fight to restore our districts funding. Thank you so much. Thank you. We go back to the room and if you could please state your full name and municipality when the timer starts. Rick Short, Cherry Hill. I start out 1st with the question tonight. Everybody's all pumped up with this, New, money, this 4.5 million, and I don't understand why the music program, after all the numbers I've heard from different people, I don't know. Who to believe or what to believe but I think if we have I believe around 4.5 million or 4 million dollars, why aren't we, bringing back this music teacher to, Help our arts. Second point is the last time I was here I was asking about Dr. Batina Love and her association with the Cherry Hill West. I did not get an answer. We also need to start asking questions about our consultants like. Dr. And our association with our district. And then we have Dr. Dr. Who wants to be a, anti, capitalist. And, I continue on, but to jump back to what The statements made at the board meeting. On, 4 9. You know, back, 3 years ago, I made a misspeak I said staff of color and properly And I was then, it was alerted to the community that a racist statement was made. Because I called I accidentally called I actually apologize sent an email to the entire African American community the Chaya. I said an apology letter. I said an apology to learn the board. But then you sent an email out to 6,000 parents saying that there was racist statements made. But then in 2024 a school board member can come up and call half the community. A white nationalist, right wing extremist. And modern day Nazis and there's no repercussions for that either. Quite, quite amazing. And then to top it off. Our vice president endorsed is what. The board member said and then our president endorsed what was stated that Some of us in the community, maybe half the community or. White nationalists, right wing extremists. And modern day Nazis. So I just don't get it. I just don't get it. So if I stay staff of color wrong. An email goes out to 6,000 parents. That the were racist statements made. But you come up here and scream all this other stuff and put other people in danger. And that's okay. So yes, I call for the resignation. Of the 3 of you. The president, the vice president, and Dr. Got to go. Okay, we go back to the line and there are no hands raised online, so welcome back to the room. You could please state your full name, your municipality as soon as the timer Hi, Constance Lee Collingswood with my family in Cherry Hill. I'm back. I'm back to follow up on my request to review the transgender policy, 57 56. As mentioned, some 25 school districts in Jersey have changed it. I want to be very emphatic. This is not about abandoning those protections afforded students in the New Jersey protected class at all. And I don't want to debate gender ideology. Was mentioned last time that study after study justifies genderology, but you can also find many studies that rely on the medical DSM manual. For psychologists and psychiatrists that refer to gender dysphoria. So this makes my point it is highly, highly controversial and presents some dilemmas. Parents should have the right to guide their children what they believe on this hotly debated topic of gender identity. The teaching of gender identity makes several de facto assumptions that are highly controversial. I'm the person who wants balanced content. Add to this dilemma, the conflicting policies on parental rights. This 57 56 permits the school to have a separate file withheld from parents. Which is appalling. If a student says don't tell my parents, they'll kill me. I ask everyone in this room if you haven't said that at some point, growing up. I have an extended family member in another state who is transitioning and the parents are absolutely horrified that New Jersey, their child could initiate the most life-altering and important decision without their care and love. It's a polling. They're shocked in this other state. And they find out then when the process is very much underway, parents feel undermined and bypassed. I hope being appreciate that as parents how you would feel being undermined and bypassed. Locking out parents parents rarely bodes well. In fact, there is an NIH study with middle schoolers that points to, oh, now my phone won't show up. Points to parental involvement actually reduces the risk of suicide in middle schoolers. And I'd be happy to share that reference. In the UK, according to the BBC, the routine prescription of puberty blockers was banned in March of this year because they were found to be neither safe or effective. So I respectfully request to review a 57 56 as that pertains to parental rights. And I'll put more in an email because I can't manage it in 3 min. I want to tell you I moved to Collingswood in 2,022 because of the diversity I had grown accustomed to living in New York City. I voluntarily left my job to return to South Jersey where I raised my children. To be with family and their education. And I chose Collingswood for this reason. I do endorse the statements of Mr. Brandon and Mr. Short. I do think it's sad for our students in Cherry Hill to listen to a board member set an example of be rating parents who do not think like him and to model name-calling. But he's not the only board member and I'm asking those others. For this request I've put out to review. 57 56. I don't assume you all think the same. So I do ask for your fairy view. Again, I want to reiterate this is not about time. Your timer is finished. There's a lot of inaccuracies that have been stated and I also want to say very, very clearly that as the Board of Education we are here to protect and support our students. And that is exactly what our comments and our work is all about. And anything to the contrary is completely inaccurate representation of what happens at this board table. We go on to the next comment and there's are no hands raised online so I go back to the room and I There's 1 hand, I apologize. I've iPhone. IPhone. Your hand is raised. If you could please state your full name and Sorry, I wasn't seeing that one. And. Oh yeah, Dr. Peninsula, just wanna, follow up as far as policy. 5 7 5 6. It's discriminatory against. 50% of the student population in Shirley, with girls being subjected. Discriminatory, predatory policies as far as not having privacy. In locker rooms and bathrooms, as well as to spin and try against parents. Of keeping secrets away from parents so I would second I would second. The previous. Comment as far as looking for the board of education to review policy 5 7 5 6 and give the public true information about the ramification consequences of that policy to children that are impacted in the consequences of that policy. Secondly, we referencing to Dr. Rood, Stern and Mayor, Pivis comments, regarding public comments, as of indicating in the last board that meeting, there's a violation. Board, public common policy that the board of education members have violated. And the meaning of public, the public and I'd like the attorney, Mr. Green and his law firm to provide the public legal opinion. If the Board of Education policy was violated by Mr. Vood, Mr. Stern and Mr. Mayor, I would like that both these 3 members to submit their immediate resignation as well as for the school, as well as for the school superintendent to issue an apology to the taxpayers superintendent to issue an apology to the taxpayers and the public and to issue an apology to the taxpayers and the public and parents and students in Cherry. And the public and parents and students, in Cherry Hill, that have been maligned, to the taxpayers and the public and parents and students, in Cherry Hill, that have been maligned, defamed and lied by Mr. Rood, Mr. Stern and Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Mr. Redfern? Oh, thank you for calling to my attention. I apologize. Matt, you are a student in our school. I apologize. Matt, you are a student in our school. It is your turn. I'm at Vancouver's Terry Hill. Just like to push back against the end some of the transphobic comments once again didn't think we'd be on this once again but yes so so so to continue continue to interrupt our student. I'm gonna ask you to please leave the room. Okay, could you please leave the room because you are interrupting our students and it is time. Cool. It is time to ask you to please leave. Thank you. Matt, we're going to restart your timer, so please be patient with us. Thank you. Alright, so to restart, is someone interrupted me during my comment even though I was sitting through all the comments respectfully I was like everyone say their piece. I'm just like put that out there. When it comes to transphobic, like I said, transphobic comments, and that is the definition transphobia is a fear of transphobic individual or transgender individuals or a hatred against those individuals. That is some of the information that's being put out. One individual who spoke specifically used the word predator to refer to our transgender student's predator to refer to students in our schools, even though if you look at the evidence, transgender individuals are 4 times more likely to be victims of violent assault, sexual assault. And even a higher number for suicide and other mental illnesses. So these are, these are the people who are, we need to protect. These are not the people who went to protect others from and it is just horrifying to see people come up and push this narrative that transgender individuals are predators, people who are just trying to go into girls locker rooms again, just very outlandish claims. They've just never been proven. Another individual talked about a specific policy that allowed students to hide their gender identity from their preferred gender identity from their parents. And I'd like to speak to the kind of necessity of such programs and such policies. The specific community member spoke about how every parent says, oh, I'm gonna kill you, you know, in sort of context like, oh, if you have another missing assignment, I'm gonna kill you. But this is not what we're talking about here. There are so many documented instances of non-gender conforming individuals being sent to conversion therapy camps. It's not even therapy. It's been proven over and over again by studies that these type of camps and these types of systems don't work to actually. Reverse or change any any feelings of whether it relates to sexual orientation or gender orientation. And these these camps have a high correlation with suicide and other mental illnesses, a very high correlation with these things. You're saying like Oh, my parents are gonna kill me. This is genuinely like an issue. This is generally a direct correlation that might happen if an individual is not ready to prefer their parents about their gender identity. You should trust the kid. Like, I would not want to take that risk if I trust the kid more than I trust. Just a blind rush into going forward and potentially harming that that student's life. By having that student sent into a very, very uncomfortable situation and a frankly dangerous situation. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. And we. I don't wanna skip a name again, so. And unintentionally, but it happened. Go back to the line for Daniel Herman. You could please say your full name and your municipality. Yeah. My name is Daniel Herman. I'm, I'm in Sherry Hill, New Jersey. Yes, please continue. I guess that does that answer the question? Hmm. Okay, yeah, so, yeah, I'm just, I wanted to address the board and, you know, everyone at the meeting to just say that I'm concerned about very concerned about considering dropping one of the music teachers at cherry hill west you know as a former employee of Ferryhill West, you know I taught there for about 30 years. I saw I've had the opportunity over the years to see how tremendous the music programs are. And. And it's basically Cherry OS is known and has been known for its music and drama programs. And. You know, it's a kind of a program that really needs. That really needs to be staffed properly in order to pull it off. It's basically, it's 1 of these things where Yeah, you take a look at what's working in the school and what works really well and you say, Hey, this is a fantastic, a phenomenal program. You know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. You know what I mean? And you know, you're gonna end up dropping, you know, may end up dropping one of the teachers. And mewhile they do so much right and so much is expected of them and I'm sure they love their work but they're running multiple, multiple coral groups. They're helping out with plays. They're going to all kinds of competitions. And I just Don't think that one person will be able to pull that you know be able to do the same kind of thing And I want you to just really, you know, I'm sure you have considered it, but I want you to just, you know, stop for a second and readthink it, right? If it's You know how it's going to affect the students how it's going to affect the school and if it's a strength you want to hold on to that strength and build on that strength instead of saying, hey, we can we can get away with one less. Teacher. The other thing I would say is you think about Yeah, think about where those, where the teacher is going to do the most good, they're always going to do the most good where they want to be and and with with whom they want to work with. And that's when you're gonna have your strongest teacher. And I think that's really important to keep into consideration. Thanks very much for listening. I appreciate your attention. And have a good evening. Thank you. Mr. Redfern, your turn. Steve Redford Cherry Hill. Just so you know, Dr. Yours will take you past the 11 o'clock hour, not me. I will finish up before 11. So 1st I want to thank fair funding. Making it easy for my membership. To tweet out and make phone calls with your succinct messaging. And second, you know, I have a lot of colleagues across. Camden County in Burlington County that sit in my position. And it's not been easy for them over the past week. So it'd be remiss if I didn't stand up here and say, whatever magic wand you had. I thank you for that because I know in talking to people who have my same position in other districts. It's been very difficult. There's been news coverage of board meetings with massive cuts across. Know the budget and teachers without jobs. Power professionals, administrators, etc. So I thank you for your work. Kinda look at you with, like the 10 person off the bench on the basketball team. Nobody kinda. Sees you there and you're doing your work and I appreciate it. It relieved a lot of angst for our membership. So thank you. Yes, the invitation is yours, Mr. Jaris, to take us past the 11 o'clock hour. So, Dr. Yaras, I'm sorry. I want to mislabel your. It's. I'm Dr. Yaris. Sherry Hill. This is one of my favorite meetings where we celebrate are amazing staff teachers in administration, especially during our time when so many are fleeing the education field. I wanted to share a few, annotates about some of my former teachers and some of my children's former teachers. To be easy, I would just say refer to my colleagues from last meeting about Carl and Gossi and John Cafonia, I'm not going to repeat myself, but they remain amazing. Those of you may not have met Jim Thompson who is a math teacher over Rosa during his 1st year at Rose, he completed the Power Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and he all blogged his entire experience for the students at Rose that they got to experience along with them. He also openly shared about how he became a paraplegic so that we could learn from the mistakes that he made as a use. And that we are not indestructible. Jack Mertha and Melissa McNap are probably 2 of the most incredible visual and performing arts educators I've ever met. I really recommend go to Rosa when they're working especially with the ISD classes. What they pull off with those classes are incredible. And I especially want to come if you can handle chaos. Fun Friday is with them. It is a beautiful experience when they all come together. To support the students and it's just a room full of love. They also make to ensure students that they always come out loving art or music. Regardless, they have any emotional talent with it. They create a space where you can be successful. Christy Robertson, who we're losing to retirement at the end of the year, is just a giant when it comes to helping support any children that come into her office. She goes above and beyond every single time. She helped my children immensely during the pandemic is just a heart of gold. Barbara Carusa, who is the Administrative Society Secretary to the principal and other roles she's had across district another person who goes above and beyond. Especially working with students who would be labeled as a troll maker. She figures out a way to get through them and she does this as someone sitting in an office, not someone who was licensed at the teacher, someone who was just a caring individual. We are so lucky to have her in our district. If you were not a math person, spend 5 min with Jeff Killian at least. He knows how to teach math in a way that can make math people like myself who don't like math. Love it. I still remember it all these years later. Kristal Rossi is a giant teddy bear of Rosa and it's been that way since he 1st got there 25 years ago. Bruce Corona is very similar in science as well. There are still students talk about him leaving East when he was the building sub that come to Rose as a classroom teacher asking him why he didn't stay at East and he stayed at Rosa all these years. In fact, this classroom is still hanging up the article from East Side of when they did a story about why he was leaving East. Janet Cohen, we're losing her very soon. I don't think this district would run without her. Those are giant shoes to fill. And she is just one of those amazing people and finally, but NASA and at least John Greenwald introduced students to, the alternative route. Back when it really wasn't that famous. She used to be a practicing attorney. I was one of our 1st students for all of 6 weeks before my class schedule got changed, but she really made her classroom a place where you were accepted no matter what and I am now out of time. Thank you. Thank you for watching the clock. Alright, there truly are no hands up online. There's nobody left in the room who hasn't made a comment. Except someone who works in the media. So usually they don't come in. I think we're going to close public comment. And we will go to act. To Dr. Morton superintendent's comments. Excellent. All right, very, very late night. But I do have a few comments. I like to echo everything that Dr. Yarra said, you know, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to recognize our staff who have committed themselves and in essence committed their lives to serving the children in this community. Them greatly and appreciate all of our staff for that matter for creating a climate that our children deserve. Just to clarify. ROTC versus music versus golf versus bowling versus vocal music. When we think about programs and think about opportunities for kids, we don't want to limit opportunities for programs. Things and that opportunity for the kids. Elimination of golf and bowling would have been the extinction of that opportunity for children. What we've done with vocal music is that we've sectioned them. Based upon what they need. There's the numbers. The numbers are what they are. If you think there's approximately 100 students per vocal teacher. High School East has over 200 students enrolled in their vocal music courses, High School West for next year, the number declined by 10 students. This year compared to next year. They're slightly below 100 students at 99 right now. That constitutes one teacher schedule. That's just that's just the reality of where we are and reference to things being revenue neutral and not being revenue neutral again, it's simple mathematics, salaries. Add them up, add up the projected salaries and there's there's a comparison that's run. The information at a provide is factual and you know, there's no reason to. For me to lie to anyone and you're going to hear straight true for me each and every time. Thank you everyone. Thank everyone for coming out tonight. Thank you for all the information. There's a lot happening. It's a lot of positive progress that's being made. Have a great night. Thank you, Dr. Martin. Responding to those. Questions and concerns, comments made. Okay. I make a motion to adjourn. This is your fain immediately had her hand up all in favor. Aye