##VIDEO ID:HIpswGDlJSM## I call to order the Highland Park Board of Education hybrid Workshop voting meeting uh today Monday January 27th 20125 the New Jersey open public meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in compliance with the open public meetings act the Highland Park Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting setting forth time date and the location to be submitted for publication to the new to the home News Tribune and Courier News and posted to the board's website at least 48 hours in advance of this meeting members of the public who wish to address the board will be given the opportunity to do so before the meeting adjourns for the evening may I have rope call please Dr batty here miss calun here Dr Coleman Dr Pixley here miss Bruce here Dr scholman Miss stany here miss vman here miss Vorhees we will now recess to Executive session be it resolved pursuant to the sunshine Act njsa 10 col 4-12 and 13 the Highland Park Board of Education will now meet in closed session to discuss matters related to Hib and Personnel these exemptions are permitted to be discussed in closed session in accordance with njsa 104-113 information regarding starting the board's closed session discussion will be disclosed to the public as soon as the need for confidentiality no longer exists I move that we recess to Executive session second all in favor I I we are now going to reconvene to regular session may I have roll call please oh hold on we turn the heat up a little bit we don't mean to freeze anybody out yeah is that okay no actually we have to wait two minutes sorry sorry guys we have to wait two minutes till s e oh no that's a student o' all right ready all right we're going to now reconvene to regular session may I have roll call please Dr B here M here Dr Coleman here Dr Pixley here miss pce here Dr schan here miss Daniel here miss vman here Miss V here let's stand for the pledge over there back there I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which is stand one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all for communications we had three come in uh one regarding an incident on the way to school one uh regarding the school calendar and one regarding of the alumni reunion um our next on our agenda number n is the approval of minutes um first for the hybrid special public meeting for board retreat minutes for December 5th 2024 next for the public meeting and executive session for December 16th 2024 and then for the hybrid voting reorganization public meeting for January 2nd 2025 I move that we approve these minutes second Dr Dr batty yes Miss Calon yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss cruce yes Dr scholman yes Miss Danel yes Miss bman yes Miss vores yes thank you um we're going to move on to our student representative report report got a long one tonight um Irving has rang in the New Year celebrating our differences and thinking about dreams um they offer them to K to kick off our January celebration of Doc of Dr Mar Luther King Jr um mus Muslim heritage month and the Lunar New Year the end of the month we'll close with the greatness challenge can you talk a little bit more the mic uh the end of the month will close with the great kindness challenge as a school and remembering how a simple act of kindness can make a tremendous impact on the school and each other for this week our students will receive the active kindness checklist to go home and our school family meeting will focus on the school expectations of kindness and safety thank you to all the families participating in the I Have a Dream activity with your child they're hanging in the front uh and we are grateful that we truly have special students with us each day over the next month for Irving the year the yearly School service project to welcome the 100th day of school um Irving will be collecting cans of cats and dog food and discussing the importance of kindness towards animals and all students are welcome to send in a picture their pth uh the family for the family evenings in February we'll focus on a Lunar New Year celebration and having a family yoga night more information will be sent home regarding both uh Irving will have a global Play Day on February 5th where our students will Embrace a day of play focusing on highlighting the importance of unstructured play for students mental and physical health um we will celebrate School counseling week and are so great thankful to have Mr maruka uh World kindness week happens in the middle of the month and we will welcome the we are gardeners program that spreads seeds of emotional resilience and positive change in ourselves our communities and our and that uh that spreads seeds of emotional resilience and positive changes in ourselves our communities and our world the 100th day of school is on February 13th and Irving is excited to celebrate that and Friendship Day uh throughout the month February will focus on black history with classroom readings and the staff having soul food Friday and morning announcements to highlight the achievements his history and contribution of African-Americans all of our Specialists will also focus on this for readings music musics and projects for the month of February uh so that's it for Irving at ble uh they've been kicking off the new year with focus on kindness and compassion as January comes to a close we're thrilled to participate in the great kindness challenge a weeklong program dedicated to fostering a culture of kindness this this initiative aligns perfectly with our school expectations to be kind be responsible and be respectful students will receive a kind's act activity challenge to inspire meaning meaningful ways they show kindness to others the environment and themselves while we encourage completing as many kind acts as possible at school we we hope this challenge inspires those students to carry kindness into their homes and communities to make it even more fun we'll have dress up day dress up spirit days to celebrate the joy of being kind and remind everyone that kindness matters the kindness theme will carry into February which a huge with a huge focus on building a positive culture at Bartle thank you really appreciate that it's a long one tonight uh February 3rd to the 9th will'll celebrate National School counseling week and give a big shout out to miss Terry young for all she does to support the ble community in the HP School District uh February 6 um the always amazing lead you will visit for an assembly designed to teach students about peer friendships social skills and discovering leader within themselves Feb February 7th during our whole school meeting the American Heart Association will introduce the kids heart challenge this program promotes physical and social emotional heal and teaches hands only CPR through Finn's Mission students who complete the training will proudly participate in hero parade around the building on February 28th on the week of the 10th to the 14th uh Irving will or ble will celebrate World kindness week with special activities and events giving students even more opportunities to spread kindness and lift one another up and on the 13th the students will be celebrating being 100 days brighter on our 100th day of school B's looking forward to a great month um as they work together to make our school and Community brighter Kinder and stronger so next for the Middle School uh the Middle School celebrated Muslim heritage month for the week of the 13th um each day at the start of each class Miss Mar showed a top 10 Countdown video of a famous Muslim and discussed their influence on the world today uh Miss Bon's students watched a brief video and read a description of the astrol and how it was used for religious and sec purposes daily announcements were read by our students providing insight to our school about Muslim Heritage and Miss n read one of the morning announcements in erdo one of the lunches in the cafeteria provides students with a taste of some traditional foods uh so for the middle school they also announced that the uh hpms pure meditation program is officially underway um uh there was two mediation sessions and um it was both and it was observed that both prep professionalism and dedication were shown by students um thank you to Miss Lua Miss B berlu Miss Young and our incredible peer Med peer Med mediators for launching this program so successfully this initiative empowers students to take an active role in resolving conflicts fostering more supportive and respectful School environment so it was also National teen Dating Violence awareness and prevention month so the Middle School um held a virtual discussion or is holding a virtual discussion to explore what it help relationship looks like and the warning signs of an unhealthy one there was a flyer sent out earlier this week um but uh this virtual event wanted to be res shared so for spear aware if you want to support the middle school cheer leaders and the boys basketball teams uh click the following links to order some spear aware um and the wellness Hub uh nurse Kelly provided a flyer about the noro virus and what you need to know if you or someone in the house gets to it um great work by the hpms wrestling team last week and this week weekend um last week the owls won against Elizabeth and cter and this past Saturday the owls wrestled in the small school GMC tournament the owls won 24 matches at the tournament with 12 people placing William krinski placed third Keem Nava placed uh third Logan Campbell play Third Demetrius Papu sakis play Third Zack Palmer play second Julian Walter play second will KY matang play second Dean rosao play second Jason diamondstein place first and Tobias guard and place first as well as Rashad Walters placing the owls won the first place team Trophy and this is the first time this has ever happened in Highland Park history uh so now lastly for the high school um the 2025 to 2026 program of studies has been published you can view it on our website under Family Resources the program of studies highlights all of the information uh related to High School academic programming from course offerings to advancement procedures uh to important dates and deadlines we encourage parents and Guardians to review the program of studies with their students as it holds a wealth of information scheduling for next year will start on the week of the January 27th a course request uh verification will go out towards the end of the year and this will be the final time students have to adjust their requests for next school year we have some cultural event celebrations we would like to highlight from January 13th to the 16th the high school honored uh mus heritage month with daily announcements featured dishes in the cafeteria and and an informative poster boards uh display outside room 106 highlighting the many contributions of Muslim Americans on the 23rd the students hosted a Lunar New Year celebration from 5: to 800m and today uh com commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day with a guest speaker from the Holocaust and human rights Educational Center looking ahead the high school has exciting plans for Black History Month in February and eah Hall in March the winter sports have had a strong beginning girls basketball is off to an 8 and4 start with big wins over group four schools Edison and sville boys basketball seven and seven with nice wins over dellan and wlaw and the wrestling team beat group four West Windsor South along with some other big wins also a major congrats to Noah Berlin Langston who plays first at GMC's the best heavyweight wrestler in the county um which has not happened for Highland Park in the past 10 years uh so tonight going on right now our Highland Park marck trial team begins their competitions against other middle sex County teams so we wish them luck um in Highland Park Deca kicked off their competitive season on the 10th with their trip to Keen University for districts at this competition all Deca members must compete a role play of this of their chosen top topic de had over a 100 members competing in various categories and it was very successful as they now about 70 students qualified for the state competition between role plays em manuals and that is all I have today wow Seth thank you for that incredible report as always does anybody have any questions for Seth so much to celebrate this week thank you all right I'm going to turn it over to Dr cisa good evening everyone so I have the pleasure to introduce uh Mr Kevin depay who's our acting principal for the middle school I'd like to invite him up to the podium to say some words tonight we are spotlighting a very special Middle School student Mr depan making sure this is on I let go this yes all right so I just want to thank everyone for coming tonight if you may not know me already it's I've been here about a year and maybe six months I am Uh Kevin depay the acting principal at the middle school but um current assistant principal When Miss Brady comes back so I have the honor tonight to um honor one of our students in the middle school and I did write something but I just like to add lib a couple things first um I'm sure we all have the time uh Logan's parents are here and his sister so I could probably go on forever and they would enjoy every moment of it so um you know I went into this profession real quick just to you know be a change in someone's life and I started out as a teacher and I knew I wanted to do more and I got to went back to school and became an administrator and I feel like uh my experience and expertise in what I've done prior to this job has you know guided me to what I should um what I want people and students and parents and caregivers to you know Embrace in a school system and I've been in a couple districts and I've feel the closeness and the smallness of this District really makes it very unique and I'm able able to get to know people at a very intimate level more so than I thought I would be able to do so with that being said since this night is for the student not myself um I will take questions later if anybody wants to know about my back my background but um I have something read and I just I like I said I can talk off the cusp but I just want to focus on the reason why we're here so I will read this and I will provide this for Logan and his family to have so star student Spotlight goes to uh Logan Campbell and I wrote role model Captain creative deserving curious motivated positive Focus exceptional these are just a few words that describe Highland Park Middle School's star student Logan Campbell although I'm relatively new to Highland Park it didn't take long for me to connect with students and truly understand who they are beyond their peers I first met Logan last year as a seventh grader and cybar statistically shown seventh grade is the hardest year for students to get through and if you can make it through that you know in a positive manner there's only going forward and up after that so I met him as a seventh grader and we quickly formed a relationship at times Logan would find himself in the main office where we engaged in honest conversations him presenting his version of events and then me sharing my perspective based on the facts at hand Logan was persistent and while he sometimes struggled to see how his actions or words affected others it was evident that he had the potential for growth throughout these moments Logan's mom and father remained a steadfast source of support and advoc advocacy always just a phone call away what Logan may not have realized then was that I too was an was advocating for him just as I do for all 350 students at hpms as the year progressed and through count conversations with his parents teachers coaches and myself Logan began to recognize areas for growth my message to him remained consistent change happens when you're ready and our job is to support you through both the highs and lows so when I stepped into this role of acting principal and was given the responsibility of selecting our star student although I did have other options Logan cble was the first name that came to mind this year I've witnessed a remarkable transformation Logan from the way he carries himself in the hallways to his respectful interactions with adults to the positive relationships he Fosters with his peers his growth in emotional intelligence and soft skills stands out far more than his past need to justify his way of out his way out of challenging situations I have a lot of pages but don't worry it's almost over I can't speak I can't speak for Logan but I believe that through self-reflection and unwavering support of those around him he has embraced the person he aspires to be the person we now proudly recognize as our star student so congratulations Logan your growth in leadership inspires us all congratulations again Logan and it's wonderful to see uh Mr depay here to support you and your family as well I could tell by some of the non-verbal um some non-verbal action that they are immensely proud of you uh and and happy for your growth uh as I know Mr depay and everyone at the middle school so stand stand tall and congratulations again so to the Campbell family and Mr depay you are more than welcome to stay for a lovely meeting um that is filled with lots of uh exciting information however I do understand that you probably have uh other things to do family to attend to dinner and and whatnot so so please feel free to leave um when when ready thank you okay so I am going to switch everyone's attention to my presentation tonight which is on student Support Services Program evaluations um so some of this work no no n none of this work am I doing this oh oh okay all right I just oh oh too much back screen you wait am I clicking it or you clicking it okay okay I'm not go to can you just click forward thank you I don't okay thank you okay so uh recently we've had a number of in program evaluations a lot of times what we do is we look at our programming we are constantly reviewing and evaluating it and we go through our protocol and Implement changes as needed um so one of the things I wanted to discuss tonight was uh two excuse me two prior program evaluations and sort of one current that we just received and sort of couple them all because when I look through all three of them the theme really for all of them is about Student Success and supporting students so look we're looking at ways to strengthen our commitment to our Student Success so tonight I'm going to to provide you with an overview of the three programs that were evaluated some of the key strengths and achievements that came out of these independent program evaluations uh highlight some areas in which the program evaluation gave as recommendations for improvement um the areas for improvement the recommendations these program evaluators gave us and then our district action plan oftentimes program evaluations come from people that may not be knowing our budget or in um in that specific K12 space of budgeting and administration um so it's important to kind of highlight that sometimes they just don't know the nuances like it's very easy to recommend that we hire a whole bunch of people however our budget might not warrant that so I'll highlight but there are some good things that came out of it so the three programs that I'd like to uh discuss tonight is Rise which is our um alternative in school suspension model so rise is a restorative justice and social emotional growth initiative that replaced a more punitive in school suspension model so according to the state definition it's still in school suspension however we moved it away from being a punitive model to more of a supportive model this program evaluation was done over the summer uh this past summer 2024 the mtss which is the multi-tiered systems of support which is a comprehensive and academic behavioral support uh plan that exists um throughout the entire District that one was done in the spring of 2023 and our school counseling program which was done in the fall of 2024 uh which provides academic emotional and career guidance framework so those are our school counselors maybe formerly known as guidance counselors are rebranded to school counselors so first our Rise program uh so some of the highlights that came from a an evaluation of the program some of the strengths were that we do have a restored Justice framework fostering accountability and growth and so that was looked at from grades two well really grade three through uh 12 so that's um what we call rise Junior at ble and then rise at middle and high school so it does have a framework fostering accountability and growth that we do integrate uh social emotional learning and tailored supports for students we provide reflective activities and logical consequences and we have seen some positive impacts in the restorative work particularly uh more so at Bartle some of the challenges that came out of the Rise program evaluation um were inconsistent resources across School levels um some things like lack of dedicated space were reported it's just kind of a moving Target on every year where we can put the in school suspension or The Rise program depending depending on our needs um limited counselor support so you know having three counselors at the high school one at the middle school and one at ble has kind of limit the support sometimes that we can give depending on the number of students that need Rise um and the amount of days that they would uh they would need it and other issues that are coming up in which the counselor you know needs needs to be there some of the challenges that were also presented include training gaps for staff implementing restorative practices in Rise so in some uh like Bartle had consistent staff that were overseeing Rise um Middle School was trying to be a little bit more consistent but it was um based on teacher schedule and we tried to do it based on teachers that have had restorative practice training and then the middle school was dedicated staff that had the training so um Middle School in particular when it's teachers that rotate in we try to get the ones that have the training but there's different levels of training tring that all people that um help us with rise have so there are some gaps there and there Staffing consistency was a challenge like I just mentioned and trauma support remain challenges as well what we're finding in our data is that some of our students that need tier three therapeutic support um are are sort of constantly going in and into into Rise um we're not necessarily seeing that but that's a lot of our students that are coming with more severe trauma at a tier three support um so trying to get them um that level support seems to be a challenge and then we've uh one of our challenges also has been the limited data collection on efficacy so to really report on on that is very hard because we tried to go back in time to find data um you know early on at its implementation and just for reference this this wasn't um an evaluation of restorative practices in general across the district so they weren't looking at how often teachers do circles in their classroom that kind of restorative work it was very particular for in school suspension um but we didn't necessarily have a way to in the past when it was implemented early on um before my tenure to really track the data uh we're starting to do that now and put it together um in a way so that administrators and school leadership teams can really review that data and make sense of it um to help our students for our multi-tiered systems of support uh student support mtss some of the strengths that they found include effective intervention tools that we have a a lot of them there were so many uh but some of them include foundations so implementing foundations for phonic instruction uh re 180 the teen and tween Center support um Orton Gillingham certified teachers so we train all of our elementary teachers in OG um and much more so mtss is really a a tier one tier 2 support so that's really for at the what I mean by tier one tier two is at the teaching level so teachers in the classroom if a student is slightly struggling they go through what intervention and referral services and then from there through intervention and referral services we can provide support for students to say maybe try this strategy this technique if it's behavioral do we need a behavioral plan what are some things that a teacher could do in the classroom you know to provide that uh to provide support sometimes it gets to a tier two where we have read 180 uh Math 180 so that would be like depending on the the each grade level each school does things differently whether it's a push out model or pull in push in or pull out model for tier 2 interventions there's a strong emphasis on seal and life skills um we have a very collaborative Elementary level process for staff implementation and the strengths or that we have strong benchmarks ass benchmark assessments and structure uh some of the challenges for the mtss were that we have inst we had one of the challenges reported at the time was inconsistent criteria for entering and exit tiers of support that we had inconsistent data tracking systems and over Reliance on interventionist for non MTS non mtss tasks for example the report found that we were pulling um our intervention teachers to be substitutes when the substitute count was low and we were having hard times so it was like oh we need a long-term sub or somebody's out because they don't really have a class they're pulling students to do intervention it was just kind of easier at that point to to put the put those teachers in um students scheduling at the secondary level seems to be quite a bit of a challenge I know I've spoken of this before but one of the interventions um for Math and Ela at the middle school requires that it's a class period and instead of the way the middle school schedule works to be able to get everything in they would have to potentially give up World Language and so that parents have to agree to the intervention and if a child really likes Spanish and they don't want the intervention then they go into Spanish and they don't necessarily get that intervention so student scheduling at the secondary level um is a challenge and um another challenge was uh we didn't have a comprehensive list of list of resources and interventions uh for the school counseling program evaluation some of the strengths reported that our school counselors excel in Rapport building and Community connections that there is a strong referral system particularly with the teen center there's a development of a comprehensive counseling framework in progress so that was a a strength that we had and that our social emotional learning programming is highly present at the younger grades I'm not sure oh it's our new ice machine okay I was wondering I'm like what am I saying that is like weirding people out right now I looking at non-verbal feedback and I'm like okay it's the ice machine it's yeah this is the it's not me it's you it's you it's not me it's the ice machine so I apologize our new ice machine we'll have to report back that it is loud it's making ice if anybody needs some ice thank you Angela next uh some of the challenges reported from the school counseling program evaluation that there some role ambiguity and misalignment with Asa standards so ASA is the um Association governing school counselors um and so when you look at what their the standards are there was some sort of misalignment on what our school counselors do versus what the standards are that a school counselor should do um for example involvement in in like Highland Park like you know investigation such as hibs and things like that um that they are test coordinating so there are things that they're involved with here Highland Park that don't exactly fall under the standard of what a school counselor should do but it it's just what came out of the report that they have a high workload due to clerical duties the principles have a limited understanding of the role of the school counselor and that there is some social emotional learn learning programming at the middle and high school level so those were some areas of challenge so some of the so the analysis of the challenge so actually what you can see through all three program evaluations in terms of student support is that there's a common theme in terms of shared challenges that I want to highlight in particular is resource limitations so it seems regardless of whether it's mtss School counseling or our in school suspension program some of the resources are are very limited including Staffing dedicated spaces and things like that there's inconsistent data collection and progress tracking and training and professional development gaps um in addition uh some that are analysis of the challenges by their particular unique to the program for Rise space the Staffing inconsistency and disjointed implementation for mtss a lack of universal benchmarks for progress and for counseling excessive duties outside of the role of the school counselor so those in general are unique for each program so some of the recommendations that came out of the report for our in school suspension program rise some of the recommendations they suggest include secure funding for additional counselors and dedicated program spaces expand professional development on restorative justice practices excuse me and enhanced transition processes between school levels for mtss the recommendations include standardized the assessment tools and criteria across the schools increase support for interventionists to focus on core duties and Implement consistent data tracking systems and for School counseling the recommendations include reassigning administrative tasks like Hib investigations and State Testing develop district-wide comprehensive counseling framework and increased programming at the secondary level so what I did was I broke up our action plan um into steps that we've already completed because some of these they've all been done some of them last year and the summer and then even in the fall there are things that we've been immediately doing uh so I want to highlight the steps that are already completed and then I will talk about um sort of maybe future goals that we have for the challenges that we face so steps that have already been completed since the program evaluation completed for Rise is that we've created um restorative activities and lessons on common behaviors one of the things we discussed recently at my monthly meetings with the assistant principles was to actually put in a shared space uh so that's one of the things we discovered through this work is that for example there's something really great that Brooke might be doing at ble that can be scalable and so if they're only meeting once a month to talk about them they're not sort of being able to access them in real time so we talked about sort of cating them into a shared Google Drive so and organize them by topic so that uh the high school the middle school and Bartle have access to that shared resources and they can be scalable uh collecting and reviewing discipline data monthly so we've been doing that already um to see if rise is having a positive impact on students so like I said one of the areas that we struggled with before was figuring out if if looking at collecting the data and then using it in a way that makes sense so uh the school leadership teams and administration um collects and reviews that discipline data monthly and so does the board to to look at that um using referral data to provide targeted interventions for tier one support to be proactive some of the steps already completed for the multi-tiered uh student supports including um we introduced a UniFi tracking system for our data collection so we're using Frontline as our tool it made sense we use Frontline for IEP direct so it's a and our absent management and it just made sense as a tool that our Stu our staff are familiar with it is a little clunky we're finding that it's a little hard to implement but we're we're navigating and making our way through that with some uh support from Frontline uh created we have created a tiered list of mtss interventions and support and we did it in three buckets academic social emotional and behavioral uh so what we found was that early on in the program evaluation one of the things was that um some staff didn't realize that they could refer through the inrs process students with behavioral challenges they thought it was just academic um so we've uh shifted the way we we communicate um the inrs plan and MTS that we have supports for all three buckets uh immediately what we stopped doing once I heard that we were pulling interventionist to be Subs I immediately put a stop to that so we do not pull intervention as substitutes and I think the data that's been reported out through the curriculum instruction committee um at least over the past year has been positive in terms of seeing um students going in and coming out and that we're really um through that also defined clear entrance and exit criteria it's all being used effectively and we've already completed uh conducting regular trainings with the inrs teams and staff so we did one in September so we do yearly ones and then midye ones not only on the software but on the criteria updating um our resources and making sure that um everything is communicated effectively and then steps Elizabeth asima and her team have taken for the school counseling program evaluation that we've already completed we provided clerical support for paperwork and meeting coordination for inrs so one of the things that they found actually through both the mtss program evaluation and the school counseling was that the school counselors were like leading the intervention and referral services meetings but one of the recommendations we got back from the program evaluation was dividing up the tasks so administratively it's not on the school counselors to call the parents to collect the data to run the meetings to write the minutes to send the emails to send the letters to collect the data to or organize the data it's a lot of work and that was just the school counselor so you can imagine for someone at ble when we have one school counselor or at Irving when we get a lot of intervention and referral service students that it can be a very daunting task so we put structures in place and we use the model that the state recommends for inrs to be able to divide those tasks and that's part of our training yearly too with the inrs committee is you know the procedures and our responsibilities and making sure we divide up that work so it's not just on one person and we've already um put together that school counselors have bonly meetings uh with their supervisor as well as four department meetings a year so I thank Elizabeth uh once we promoted her to that position she's really taken taken hold of the department uh prior to Elizabeth's um position it's been a while since we apparently we used to have a director of counts guidance way back in the day prior to way way yeah Laura saying way way back in the day um so it was really on the principles to manage the staff member or these staff members and like you could see from the program evaluation they didn't necessarily know what they their job was supposed to be um so I mean to not not pointing any fingers it was just that there was something that kind of just went um you know kind of the Wayside over the years when you you know cut things and and and shift things around so um we're happy to have Elizabeth in that position and she's really uh learned a lot we have the uh um we expanded the role of the lead counselor to be districtwide as well which has been really helpful um to support Elizabeth in that role so now I'd like to talk about our future goals some of the work the administrative team is doing for our future goals for um our in school suspension program so we are making a plan to provide ongoing professional development and coaching um we're discussing ways to increase vertical articulation between the school um we're looking at ways to continue implementing tier one and tier 2 behavioral interventions so the hope is that if we can strengthen the work and I know we've seen that out of Bartle for example so Bartle is a really really good example of where we strengthen the work of tier one and tier two at the school at the teacher level so if students are getting the support they need at the teacher level there's less referrals going out to the office level that might warrant that need for an in school suspension so we're continuing to look at ways to support the teachers um lo you know locally in their classrooms um to help mitigate any behavioral issues that might come uh up to an office level referral um in addition we're also looking to um ways to share positive results and success um which I know came out of the work that we discussed at one of the equity and Excellence committee meetings um with an Gregory she found that the data suggested that if you um share just continue to highlight positive results and success it strengthens culture and climate and hopefully that can help us change a culture as well maybe particularly at the the middle and high school um in addition uh January 2025 we're going to be which is now hopefully youve all taken an opportunity to complete the nji culture and climate survey uh but we're beginning the implementation of that survey um which I know I've spoken about or Elizabeth may have spoken about a couple of presentations ago about how robust it is to be able to link the data of that climate survey back to actionable items which will hopefully help the tier one and tier two behavioral interventions our hope is for in school and out of school suspension what people have to understand is we have to report that this state because we are removing a student from their instructional environment and that is not what we want to do um they do get academic support in Rise so part of being an in school suspension is an academic component but they're still being removed from that that situation we don't want to do that um so our hope is that we don't have to do it and so if we strengthen tier one and tier two behaviors um The Hope is that they they don't have they don't have to need it some future goals for mtss and inrs we'll continue monitoring inrs and data collection processes um we'll continue to update our tiered list of interventions so we do that every year and continue providing training and support to staff and I know that part of our goal with our program evaluation for uh special education was to include inrs um and looking at how that all works so we'll have you know sort of a glance of I know there's areas in which our future goals uh so look at a snapshot from the last time they came in Monitor and give us the report to now what's working and where are areas that we can strengthen that as well and some future goals for School counseling uh Administration will try and consider other options for tasks such as anti-bullying Specialists and testing coordinators I can't make any promises as you know we're we're Limited in the staff that have the uh ability for example um anti-bullying Specialists the state gives you very specific requirements on who can be your anti-bullying specialist in the building and given that we have sometimes very small limited staff sometimes it ends up on that person um sometimes hip investigations can take 10 plus hours so we have to be mindful on kind of who we're pulling pulling for that as well so um so we'll consider options and try some different things and see how it goes some future goals for School counseling also include that building Administration will Implement and monitor inrs protocols with Fidelity so that was an issue that we found the school counseling program evaluation said that some of our school counselors were still doing a lot of that work even though we had put in systems and processes so uh since building Administration really runs their inrs committees um we're really looking to them to to try to implement and monitor those protocols with Fidelity so that it doesn't fall on our school counselors to finalize a district-wide comprehensive counseling program uh which is creating a school so Elizabeth is creating a counseling advisory committee comprising of caregiver students and staff to provide feedback about counseling services so I know that's on her radar so look out for that soon and then she'll use that to create a with her team a comprehensive counseling program so it'll have stakeholder input she will also be looking to implement moreal at the secondary level so we're looking that our school counselors at middle and high school to do more social emotional learning lessons with the students and if budget allows consider funding an additional counselor particularly a ble because they have about 500 students about the same as the high school and only one school counselor um if it allows or maybe it be like a you know shared ble Middle School type of situation we're we're not really sure but uh again it's a consideration I'm not sure if the budget will allow but definitely on our radar um in addition one of the things that came from all of this work was really looking at our healing centered practices and I know uh equity and Excellence report will will share about this but one of the things that we found was this overall lack of um of a maybe not framework but found Foundation that's probably the best way I could put it some of the things that we've put in place such as restorative practices or trauma informed instruction have some good things happening in Pockets but not Universal across the district so we love that good things are happening but how do we expand that how do we celebrate that how do we uh make sure everyone feels supported in this everyone knows what we stand for and how we operate um so we're looking at potentially doing healing centered practices which is inclusive of restorative practices but includes much more and that is it includes trauma informed foundations so one of the things that we're finding a lot with our students now is a lot of trauma a lot of trauma so restorative practices are great a lot of the work that we do is great but I think our staff need more support in understanding students that come with significant trauma um the restorative accountability um equity and inclusion and relationship building so right now I was hoping to have a finalized draft for everybody tonight unfortunately I don't part of it is actually predicated on the budget so I have some ideas in mind but it really is going to depend on state funding and where we are with the budget on what we want to support so I don't want to make any promises that the budget can't sustain but I will say the draft of the plan will include a it will come but to what extent the plan will be it will be in a way that is has the foundation has job descriptions has um accountability measures measures uh ways to track data it will have um ways that we evaluate whether it's the staff involved or things like that just so that it everyone knows roles and responsibilities with this plan um and our hope is to provide the students more of the tier one tier two supports that they need um just in general looking at all three of of those buckets for student support so hopefully that'll come probably in the spring now just because again we're looking at uh where we are with budget and so I'll just you know conclude that together we're building a stronger Foundation to ensure every student receives the support they need to thrive academic socially and emotionally and so I think combined looking at some of the areas that we have challenges we're already facing them head-on and we're continuing to to work through those and you know as um the budget unfolds uh that that plan to really put more of this in action will be forthcoming so I'll open it up for questions and feedback from the board thank you well I start thank you so much for that very comprehensive presentation um you know I want to establish that this is very complex all of these things buildt upon each other um you know they all they all contribute School counseling and Rise all are embedded within the mtss model um and even the mtss model as it's being built takes a few years to actually get up and running to the extent at which it's functioning really efficiently um so I appreciate all of the work that's been done so far because it does take a lot of time um and so to have an evaluation done already and to kind of have some grows and glows from that I think is um is uh you know very useful for us um one of the things that I did want to um suggest is that um one of the goals that you have is to work with um the counseling department or actually no but just within the mtss especially with inrs teams um and really kind of honing in on training not just them in um interventions but also in teaming practices because um like we often time get a lot of people together to discuss students um and we have many many different ways of discussing students um but we don't have a lot of ways of discussing systemic intervention um and so one of the ways that we can really monopolize on our teaming conversations is by discussing like the the impact the intervention is having on group data um because we can make simple decisions about intervention very quickly and easily by looking at whether the intervention is having impact on the group rather than on the individual trial because if you wind up finding students are not responding um as a group or if you have a statistically significant group of students that aren't responding then it's not necessarily A Child issue or student issue it's an intervention issue um so really kind of training these um the our staff to to Really um dive into those teaming practices where you're not just having um student-based conversations but also effective and efficient um systems based conversations now we can probably um draw from the labor collaborative about the from that um maybe even soon in February with the labor collaborative with uh problem solving our problem solving training so um that's just one way that um we can look at it but there are other models of um uh constructing teaming conversations and and training around those as well that we can look into too um I have just one clarifying question um because you know there were a lot of uh acronyms used in this can you just clarify what inrs is uh for anyone who's listening at home in in case they don't know sure it's intervention and referral services so that would be for example if a kid is falling behind like what what are yeah so if I'm a classroom teacher and I find that a student um isn't responding to either um you know behaviorally like there I try every tool in my toolbox as a teacher and the student isn't you know behaving or having some problematic issues um I would refer that student to intervention and referral services because there's a team of people that have more Tools in their toolbox that can be able get to maybe give me that so what I would do is make a recommendation and say here is all the data that suggests that I have some concerns about this student and what what else can I do and then that team so it's all Based on data so I as a teacher I can't just say h this kid is just acting out and I have no data I just don't want this kid in my class like that's not what it is it has to come to say I've tried x amount of intervention this is the problematic Behavior this is how it's impacting the classroom or this is how it's impacting academics and things like that and then I submit that uh through a process to inrs and then the intervention and referral services team takes that information a letter sent to parents saying your child's been recommended for intervention and referral services they review the information there and then they provide the teacher or teachers very specific strategies to help the student with a a collection tool in mind so the idea is they would come back and say okay maybe you need to try a uh insert behavioral strategy here try this strategy and this is how you're going to collect data you should collect data once a day once a week once a month whatever the data is and this is the kind of data you're going to collect and then input the data into the system and then they do their check-in meeting and at their checking meeting they review that data to see if the intervention is working for that student if it's not not they'll try another intervention so the idea is they try to exhaust all the tools in their toolbox through our laundry list of intervention services so for a behavioral student it might be be something locally at a tier one level of the teacher it's like okay I tried the data suggests that the needle is not moving so the inrs committee may say okay well why don't we try a tier 2 support which is our tween Center or our teen center me you know and then reach out to the parents would you be okay with them seeing you know one of our um you know psychologists social workers Mental Health Counselors to try to help this behavior and then they get then you know it's they're going to go three times a week once a week it's like Physical Therapy I'm going to go you know a half hour three times a week or something like that we're going to collect the data that way and see if that is working um and if we see the needle move we continue it sometimes we see the needle move and we have to increase intensity or something like that so every situation is different um if we exhaust all the tools in our toolbox and the data is just showing that the needle is not moving at all for these students then they can make a referral they recommend a referral for um uh to child study team so what we do is we just try to look at that data first and if that dat if we are moving the needle we just continue it or we intensify it or something like that so that's what we're we do to to try to help um with students in need of support one thing um I was going to say to what I think is really important in this is we're constantly looking at the data so you know in equity and Excellence it's been an ongoing conversation and one of the things that I thought was you know really useful is you know when you see exactly what you're were talking about which maybe was I think important to highlight is you know we are we are making changes at doing things within ble for example and really seeing kind of what uh places where some of the strategies are effective so you know I think that's a continual kind of um point of feedback and and I know in our conversations and highlighting some of the things that we've done over the past year and seeing you know things like incidences and and academics and all that kind of improving you know it's kind of a model of you know what can we take from that that we're going to kind of expand to the other to the other schools and you know I think that's a lot of what we've been focusing on too where it's worked what can we do in cases where the the parents don't agree to the intervention what what's The Next Step Beyond that like you were saying in in middle school if they would prefer to to take languages instead um I mean so what we offer is try to offer um so the middle school has I don't know the extent of it so I'd have to probably Reach Out specifically to their inrs committee and look back at the document because it gets updated it's a living document but they have lunch and learn um they have a program after school wise connection um so like they offer depending if it's academic oral um so lunch and learn for academic support So essentially like tutoring or homework help and things like that we recommend students that might reach out to um and we connect them with an NHS tutor a student at the high school NHS tutors are great we love them um so we try to to figure out other options to get them the support they need but if they're in intervention for math or Ela it's because they're significantly behind grade level if students are again depending on the content but if they're like a grade behind level or something like that the expectation is we can differentiate instruction in the classroom so if I'm a sixth grade student you know and I'm some of the standards I'm still operating at a fifth grade level I could probably close that Gap by differentiating my instruction in the classroom but if I'm a sixth grade student I'm offering I'm I'm I'm accessing the the math at a second or third grade level that's pretty significant um and so what we find is the students aren't successful so having them in a class the intervention class is not a a a class in which they're getting tutoring for the current it's about saying okay how can we give you some strategies to try to close the gap so that you can be successful in your math class and so we really try to have meetings and encourage our our families to participate the other struggle at the middle school is that oftentimes we do have students that do qualify for both English and math and I we just can't fit both of them in the schedule um so that's been a little bit hard too so we're we're trying to look at some other options um but it then would be like maybe less phed time because they're over the minutes that they're required to have for fed but everyone loves fed who you know and our kids need to get out and run and and exercise and stuff like that so it it be it becomes a little bit of a challenge Our Hope honestly is that if we can if the board would and the budget would like to we'd like to sustain the interventionists especially at ble and Irving because we're finding great success and that data is forthcoming at the end of this month that hopefully over time we don't hopefully need as much of that at the at the middle level that's what we hope I mean we obviously St have um students that come in from other districts that may still need it but our hope is that maybe our you know students that start with us early on in elementary and go through uh the Highland Park system that we can close those gaps early enough and that's what we're seeing we're seeing the exit uh the entrance criteria is clearly defined and the exit criteria and we're actually exiting students out of Intervention which means we're getting them in we're closing the Gap and getting them back into their classroom so we are finding success with that and then the hopes is that then over time at the middle school won't be as hopefully as needed next question so I'm really interested in this um I guess got this right healing healing trans practices um maybe I moved off Equity Equity actions now so I I don't think I've heard about it before but it sounds really interesting and you know one of the one of the issues we were seeing with the Rise program was that there was a you know you know a small cohort of of kids who seem to be sort of cycling repeat cycling through it they weren't really being reached and you know frequent flyers the term was but it wasn't working for them and so I'm just wondering if if you have diagnos and I'm just trying to connect the dots here if you sort of diagnosed part of the problem as that the reason the Rise program didn't seem to be working there and the the rise valuation put forth a bunch of reasons for that you know resources staff you know not quite buying in various things space inconsistency but it seems like you may have identified an additional reason which is that the rise wasn't directly addressing the trauma they were experiencing and that was and that this trauma was sort of inhibiting them from being able to benefit from the rise processes um that's interest I think that's compelling I just wondering if you could say a bit more about sort of your your Discovery process there and I guess um I mean I I I I think it's really interesting I I do I mean some of the issues identified challenges theorized program they identified by the valuation you know staff buying resources I mean you know healing complex trauma doesn't get any easier um and so I'm wondering how you plan to have it succeed when it may run into some of the same Staffing Resources based challenges that the Rise program does some great question so the discovery process really Enlightenment actually came one of the things that I did early on was um when we looking at the discipline data um we started parsing it out by student so before it was just this is how many students were special ed that were disciplined this is how many you know students like black students white students Etc and then it was every month what where is the bar on the bar graph but what I wanted to do was look at it by students and say okay the students every month what is happening with these students so that was the data we were looking at student ID during the month of December what happened the month of you know September October November and are we seeing that it's consistent are we seeing very specific times because often times students that come what we're seeing with trauma it's like when they're transitioning back to school during holidays there are very key points in which trauma triggers students so we started looking really closely at that and then what I saw was some of our students were like one time here or one time there and I mean quite frankly I don't know if you've hung out with a middle school kid recently but you know they are silly Sons of Guns and you know do some some Behavior right that's Middle School asks so like that kind of stuff you're like all right so they get in you know and maybe the second time they were in later that year was a different sort of reason so you know we kind of consider that a win if they're in and they're not back in it again what what we were finding was some of these students we actually started putting a tag on our students that um at the time we were calling um uh we call them our owl students now um but before they were our um link students so students that were receiving the tier three therapeutic support so our students in the therapeutic Support Program uh classified emotional regulation impairment which could mean that may or may not every student is different but sometimes that these um their behaviors are a manifestation of their disability or if it's just there's other issues going on so these tier three support students and what I was looking at with the data these some of these kids are homeless um suffering you know and and being exposed to domestic violence and and substance abuse and things like that and that's what we were finding with some of these like really repeat offenders and so we were thinking about it like the restored practices are good but when they're facing fight ORF flight mode and in and severe trauma they're going to need more than just a couple of times in in our Rise program so that really parsing out that data and looking at it one who's who's sort of our who are these students that are not being sort of restored back to the community and restoring and repairing the harm that they've caused but the other piece too is um when is when are those things happening and maybe we can rev up our support if it's like back to school is a hard time December is a hard time if there's key months in which historically like our students are coming you know with some issues what can we beef up in terms of our support so we've really been trying to unpack that data a lot um and so we're hoping that uh the work that we can do with healing centered engagement really can focus on on that so it's um for that to succeed the foundation has to include what I love about the work that we're going to hopefully be engaging in includes at least a multi-year level of professional development and coaching so it's one thing to give everyone says more professional development more professional development but oftentimes one-time workshops are the data does actually suggest that it's not effective it a coaching model getting that feedback to our teachers and our staff often has to be timely it has to be ongoing and so that's the work that we're looking at is to provide to look for that sustained pce we've tried to bring in some of these people that specifically we've used in the past for restorative practices but they come in and do a ones shop Workshop or we hire them for coaching and then they don't show up and you know they're we're paying them and they're not coming so we've been finding a little bit of laps in trying to to get that work done through some models that are proposed either at the state level and locally uh through njpsa they provide coaching it's very clear how many times they come a year um how many years we can do this and what this model looks like so that's the piece that's really important that you're going to see when I produce um the the document is that it's not just hey I'm doing it in the next couple months and let's hope for the best it's a year one model a year two model and a year three model so it has to be able to sustain the test of time that it's we're really committed to this work because buying is GNA take some time but it can't just be like I'm gonna put this in and then and then that's it there really needs to be a push for this that involves um year one or really this year is training Administration and and Board of Ed because Community there's Community engagement piece which we didn't have um in the past so it really comes with a community engagement piece a staff piece a caregiver piece a student piece Community Resources and support so it actually your team for this requires that you have community members involved in your group at each building level so it really is a whole Community effort for for buyin um so training leadership and Board of Ed then we're training staff then we're training students um and and caregivers so there's going to be a lot you'll see layers of that as you go through and I think that's areas in the in the past that maybe we fell a little short as a dist to really have a comprehensive framework so that anybody can pick it up and say Here's where we are in the evaluation Pro you know here here's where we are in the Implement implementation process and here's where we're going I really like that holistic approach because I I think like it makes it a lot more sustainable um and it really does help the the culture and climate here I did have a question in regards to because you did mention inrs which for the longest time I thought it was inrs until I saw it on paper um you said mentioned that uh teachers can actually call for behavior issues even though it's not necessarily academic in instances where the there are behavior issues for whatever reason or because behavior issues are caused because they're not below grade level but above grade level do we have any kind of differentiation or interventions for those children yes so that's a a thank you that's a really good example as well if a student if that is what is founding it's like academic it's it's impeding it because they're not actually hitting their potential so they might be at grade level but the behaviors are happening it's impeding them to go and have access beyond that absolutely that that can be we have um um our legal program for our gifted and talented program which exists um early on in our early Elementary School is uh Advanced learning plan that it's access through our fourth and fifth grade her grades K through two it's stem enrichment for all students and then um we offer it for math enr math advancement starting in seventh grade and then access at the high school so um so that would be if there if they needed very like tier two or tier three support but tier one they can provide those supports for teachers to say hey how about you differentiate your instruction in this category so if you ask at the building level if you want to know who um your intervention and referral services team are it includes teachers the interventionist child study team um for consultation uh building principal school counselor school psychologist teen center so it is a real good strong strong group of people that come together that and that bring all of that to the table so some of the gened teachers that sit on that committee can say oh try this intervention for um for the student at that needed that needs to go maybe deeper into the standard or something like that or above the standard and is it something that we could actually do at the lower levels as well like the primary yeah I mean it should be happening if it's not then that's again some feedback that um I can bring when we look at you know definitely something I can bring to um The kenno Institute when they're when they're looking at this to say hey you know what we might be missing the mark on giving access for students that might be gifted and talented um can you look into that when they do their program evaluation and I can definitely have um John and his team look at that and then provide us some feedback and recommendations absolutely and how do we test for how do we we don't we don't we don't provide um we don't really test for gifted and talented so much it's that if students are um you know doing well and sort of finishing things and doing well and they have strong comprehension and you know um we try to give them you know if they have multiple ways for strategies like if it's math do multiple strategies multiple ways and things like that um it's at that point it's the teachers to say okay I've kind of exhausted all the tools in my toolbox to be able to differentiate now I need support because this I need them to go deeper and I don't know how to do it and as a result they're becoming a little problematic maybe behaviors in my class and then the you know oftentimes it could be maybe some problem based learning project based learning things like that I mean I don't know I have to look back at the list but that would be examples hi Christine just uh I wanted to go back to actually this fills off of inrs in that process because you had mentioned when you were kind of explaining the process just a hypothetical example of a six I think a sixth grade student who may be functioning at a second grade or third grade level in the classroom that that would sort of be a student that would be receiving that tier 2 level of support and I know you kind of just threw that out there but it struck me because in my mind I'm thinking a student who is functioning more than two or so grade levels below grade level I'm wondering why the trigger hasn't been already implemented for a referral to um CST so I just I want to be clear because you know I don't know if anyone else sort of caught that as a I just made that recommendation because that happened when I was a stem supervisor here that happened because a student moved into the school in sixth grade moved into us in sixth grade and we're like well what's you know we're trying to unpack like what is the student struggling and then um what we do is we uh through the programming that we use for our intervention there's a specific diagnostic that then so our the the benchmark assessments we use are grade level benchmark assessments the assessments we use for intervention then di go deeper to then for standards like where where are they operating like what actually like what grade level and so that was just an example of something yeah of a student but they would at that point they had would already be FL yeah I think that's important to be clear I think the program evaluation will show we'll hopefully look at sort of I think across the board right abolutely how far are students sort of falling behind for that process because I know that you know parents would not want to see their child get more than you know two grades level behind because then you need more than just strategies and absolutely yep abely thank you I just want to reiterate the the kind of three phase plan a threeyear plan I think it's a really nice idea I also think we know from research around professional development that three years is a pretty good sweet spot sometimes you can get it within two but even you know we talking about on stop things not having effect even a year of professional development has very limited effect you will get some impact but not a change in culture so I think you know the more we can think about whatever the professional element is like having a kind of three-year kind of plan for it and how that's kind of going to be built out I I would just encourage that as much as we can yeah thank you quickly I really do think this is really potentially an important development and um two quick things I know your process is very thorough and this characteristically so just two humble suggestions um one is to um you know there's an opportunity here to include education about trauma in the broader school um I think you know if kids who have struggle with these issues have a sense of their peers understand where those struggles are coming from that can you potentially be important um so how whatever form that takes and um second comment is it really was a good meeting with with Dr Ang Gregory when she was there and one of the things that struck out to me was the need you know for to identify champions in each school and so you know to find the right people to be the charismatic leaders um andc you know broad-based pressional development is is great but you need people who are in who are this is their horse they're going to ride so find those people that concludes my presentation oh okay and I all right so so next up I'll I'll let Denise do it if she wants to introduce our the auditor yes aor presentation Jonathan Weiss is here from um auditing company to uh review our 2324 act for our annual comprehensive financial report um for the board and for the public so Jonathan welcome thank you for coming want to go to the podium say would Podium or wireless mic John do you have a preference okay Angelo real quick can you invite good evening everyone as always it's our pleasure to come and talk about the results of the audit for this past year and the results of fiscal opportunity for the fiscal year ending June 30th 2024 my name's John Weiss and I I lead the team um I lead the team here we come two weeks once early in the summer once later in the summer and we brought everybody their financial reports tonight and my goal tonight is to try and boil this book down into a couple of financial highlights and fact charts and one of the first places I like to start is with revenues and that's going to be our first that's going to be our first part of our discussion now now from District to District to District where I've gone this summer a couple of things have uh Gone on in Highland Park is no different interest on bank accounts is up for everybody in Highland Park's no different New Jersey preschool expansion Aid is also increased for most individuals and Highland Park also received the bump there in addition to that the some districts have have started their um cap Capital grants in the district has elected to take a capital grant for roof projects at the Irving School in the high school also we're seeing the federal uh the federal ARP and Esser money begin the sunset the smaller grants expired in Jun in September of 2023 while the larger five ARP eser grants expired in 2024 and we'll sh we'll see an example of that when we look at the bar graphs in our in our next slide from 10,000 fet up the big outliers between revenue this year and last year are primarily the real estate tax levy that was up about 4% and the state aid for the general fund that's up about 1.5 million the uh increase in state aid was due to an increase in Equalization Aid that the district received sure ahead no sorry go ahead you're done you're good we're just looking at this yep we're we're on we're on a you got it no we have that so so the district did receive a bump in the um in Equalization Aid now we also saw a bit of a decrease in general fund federal aid and what happened in the 2223 fiscal year was the district received about $125 to $150,000 in FEMA Aid and when you're getting FEMA aid for something that normally means you incurred a significant expense in a prior year for which the district did moving on to our our charts which is in page two of our uh presentation what I wanted to do was do a pie chart showcasing the revenue uh and where the revenue sources are for the district if we look at our large green pie wedge most of the money is coming in from the the uh local tax for your current expense and Debt Service the state kicks in about 8.5 million Federal sources are 2.5 million and that's going to be going down after um after fiscal year 2024 and our miscellaneous Revenue represents the smallest piece of our pie wedge that's our tuition our tuition income our interest on bank accounts and things of that nature I also wanted to have a look at the at the tax levy particularly as it relates to Highland Park in the municipality in the county and the um and the thing that jumped out at me right away was the revaluation that was done in the municipality back in 2023 bringing all those lines down pretty sharply if we look at our bar graphs right below we can see that the TA the tax levy is steadily risen over the last few years the state sources as we talked about earlier had a pretty significant jump between 23 and 24 that's most that's the result of the equalization in the preschool education expansion Aid that was uh talked about earlier we talked about the Esser funds and the Esser funds that are sunsetting and we can see in our federal sources the last three bar the last three bars of our graph are all pretty high and that represents the spend of those federal funds when we look at this bar chart a year from now we're going to see a pretty big dip because those fun those funds have sunsetted and the yellow bars represent our tuition in interest and other and tuition is going to be uh contingent on bodies in the building and folks that we're bringing in from other districts I believe we also brought in someone who was State responsibility this past year which kicked him to that as well as uh the interest on bank accounts that uh all school districts that I've visited this summer have been enjoying any questions comments concerns on Revenue before we take a moment on expenses okay moving on to our financial facts on expenditures the thing that jumped out at me while I was get while I was getting ready for tonight was um the there was a a bump in instruction expenses a bump in student and instruction related Services expenses and plan operations maintenance expenses and employee benefits for operating expenses the stuff we can expect to pay year in and year out and what this is is a lot of the um a lot of the bumps and things like state aid making their way into the appropriation lines in particular in the student and instruction related Services line we had uh we brought in another counselor there were additional what what are called extraordinary Services one-on-one AIDS one-on-one nurses one-on-one um assistance with people Transportation things of that nature that can get kind of pricey the bump and plan operations and maintenance is the result of our modular classrooms and setting them up this past year in the bump and employee benefits that's primarily going to be your health benefits bump and we we do see that from District to District the capital outlay expenses below represents things that um that can be significant in nature but are not things that are going to happen year in and year out and the big Capital outlay expenses this past year were going to be a a chiller project a roof project and there was also some whiteboard Replacements during the past fiscal year making up the 93300 in a capital outlay what I wanted to do on the next page of our handout is look at a couple of pie charts and when I go to a district I expect to see the pie chart on top mostly filled that with green blue and purple wedges to the tune of about 75% of our pie and I'm not disappointed in coming to Highland Park if we look at our green wedges that represents our regular and special education instruction our tuition represents the darker blue wedge that's about 3.5 million for the students sent out of District student and instruction related Services we we hit on that a bit earlier as far as the bump in uh bump in there that's going to be our guidance counselors our nurses our child study team our Librarians our administrative is our superintendent and principal's office plan operations and maintenance and Pupil Transportation are self-explanatory and employee benefits are purple wedge so now that we know the Departments where the expenses are being uh spent I want to have a look at right below that at okay what are we actually buying and from District to District the purple wedge and the dark blue wedge are pretty consistent to the tune of about 2third to three4 of our pie and that's going to be salaries and benefits the teachers and staff the engine that makes the car home a bit a bit on utilities Intuition or cleaning repairs and maintenance as needed is a bit supplies about 2% purchase services that represents the folks that we bring in like your Auditors your attorneys your Professionals for child study team your occupational and physical therapists and a bit for transportation costs what I also wanted to do on the next page of our handout was look at how things stack up over 10 years our regular and special education lines our green lines are relatively consistent a bit a bit of a bump in a regular instruction and special ed our T our tuition relatively stable we had a we were high around 2020 went down and went up again in 2024 student and instruction related Services that's trending up but we've explained that one our administrative services are ticking up a bit plan operations and maintenance the spike in 2024 those are that represents our modular classrooms that were set up Pupil Transportation is going to be contingent on bodies on the buses the district has a coordinated Ser Transportation arrangement with the regional cooperative and depending on how many kids are on the bus going to the specific place where the children are going that's going to be th those percentage of costs are going to be what's allocated to the district our employee benefits that we hit on earlier that's mostly going to be health benefits and that's picked up as well over the last year any questions comments concerns on expenses before we take a few minutes and talk about fund balance moving on to fund balance the last page of our financial facts we can see that fund balance went down about $41,000 between this year and last year increases in reserves were offset by decreases in things like encumbrances if we look at our encumbrances we went from 433 600 to 107 1552 that represents open purchase orders at the end of the year where we ordered the goods but they didn't arrive honor before June 30th 20 2023 and when that happens that goes into a separate bucket into our fund balance or Surplus so that when it's brought in the next fiscal year we don't use current year money for something that we really wanted to buy in the prior year the other big dip was in the designated for subsequent years expenditures and what that does is earmark a portion of surplus as a budget Revenue to offset increases in Appropriations and is done and is done during the budget cycle the bigger increase in our restricted reserves are going to be in the capital reserve that went up about 600,000 our budgeted maintenance and emergency Reserve went down to about to tune of about $200,000 for the Emergency reserve and about 120,000 in the maintenance reserve for those eligible projects that we can use to fund from those reserves moving on to our pie chart on the next page as the M as the pie goes from green to blue the money gets less restricted if we look at our large green wedge 3.6 million that's for C that's in your capital reserve account those are for dis those are for projects that are specifically designated in your long range facility plan so the if we want to use those funds for a particular plan plan it's got to be in the long range facility plan and this will enable you to possibly self fund a small construction project or at the very least have to go to the taxpayers for a for a bit less should you should you have to go to referendum for it restricted emergency funds are just that they're for emergency purposes also for um health benefit costs that that exceed budgeted estimates our maintenance Reserve 338 925 that represents the amount in our comprehensive maintenance plan for eligible projects think capital reserve but on a much smaller scale and mostly for repairs the district is self self-insured for unemployment should those claims come in our committed fund balance represents our open incumbrances at the end of the year our assigned fund balance as we spoke of earlier that's fund balance that's earmarked for for the budget to offset primarily big tax increases and our unassigned free balance is the last thing and that's one that's the 1.3 million that's our quote unquote free Surplus because in the state of New Jersey you can't have too much money and we're limited to what we can have in our unassigned Surplus to 2% of operating 2% of expenditures and state aid that's not budgeted looking down at our bar graphs below our encumbrances as our cences as we talked about earlier we're down a bit from last year at 2023 we had a lot of the stuff for the modular classrooms ready to go as far as um ordered so that we can get them so that the district could get them up and running in time for the school year our assigned fund balance represents the amount commit committed to the subsequent Year's budget our unrestricted Surplus if we can see 21 and 22 we had bigger years in our bars that represents the state allowing us to go from 2% to 4% of operating expenditures in those years once we went got to fiscal year 2023 went back down to 2% and These Bars show that what we also wanted to do was look at our cap maintenance and emergency reserves in our the last page of our handout and look and see how that's going the district's done a great job in banking capital reserve money for their Capital needs over the last few years maintenance maintenance Reserve has also has also ticked up we used a bit of it up in this past fiscal year an emergency Reserve is ticking down as we can see if by the charts to our right actual versus maximum we we're still um we're still we're still well under uh what the what the state says because this is another instance where you can't have too much money and you're limited to what you can have in these reserves in the districts in uh in a healthy spot as far as that goes any questions comments concerns on Surplus yes um he said sort of you know stand looks like we have about a third the maximum available on their Capital uh maybe quite a bit less as a proportion for maintenance reserve and emergency Reserve is that pretty normal pretty normal depends on it depends on from District to District what the needs are but are there districts that are like have they max out is that unusual I guess put it that way I'm sorry can you are the districts that sort of max out or is that pretty unusual to have it's unusual to have a district max out just want I just wanted to know any other questions comments concerns on Surplus okay another word or two about the audit as I mentioned earlier we come and visit the VI come and visit the district twice a year and we look at everything from financial statements to vouchers to payroll books to cafeteria records to even St student enrollment and transportation reports results of the audit this year um we had one Rec recommendation just to monitor a point of sale balances in your cafeteria account other than that um the district cleaned up on cleaned up very well on the other recommendations from the prior year and with that I'll happy be happy to take any more questions comments concerns from the board thank you I just want to say that's a positive ending we cleaned up very well District con I just want to Echo Monique Sean thank you John and and uh thank you for all your hard work uh in collaboration I know over the years we've had some ups and downs but I appreciate your close working with Denise and and her group but and congratulations Denise because that was a huge accomplishment I just want to celebrate Denise and her staff thank you thank you I just want to thank John and his staff for coming and being very patient with all of us and also I wanted to give a huge shout out to the business office staff um Lori Jalisa Susan shaunessy and Adriana there's been uh a huge shift in in the business office and I appreciate everyone's patience and kindness um but we're driving the bus forward and everybody's on the bus so that's a good thing thank you so much so um my contact information is available for anybody should there be any of their questions comments concerns after the meeting feel free to reach out to me anytime and with that I have a great night everyone thank you okay we're going to move on to public comments the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments board public board policy number 0167 establishes and regulates the right of the public to participate in public meetings Angelo how many people do we have online Okay um if you are online and you'd like to make a public we have a have person oh did is anybody here in person that wants to make public comment yes okay please come to the podium that's right for those of you who know me my name is John Turner and I work at the after school program at Bartle school and one of the reasons that I've come here tonight is because I have a very very serious concern that is currently affecting our country as you all know the incoming effects of this new Administration has been nothing short of abhorent not only have they begun targeting people for deportation they've also removed protection statuses from schools and is somebody who works with these kids including many who are immigrants I absolutely oppose this and I want to make sure that all of us do everything that we can to protect all these kids as a longtime resident of Highland Park and as somebody who's made friends with immigrants the last thing that I ever want to see is anybody taken away from this Hometown especially people who I'm friends with and especially kids who I'm working with I already swore to myself that I will do my best to protect them I'm only hoping that you guys are ready to do your part too because we really really need to stand up to this monster he must be stopped I refrain from mentioning him by name of course because I don't wish to offend anybody but if anybody is seriously concerned about their student fear not I want to make sure that everybody here knows that they're not going to take you away from here I hope you guys are ready to do the same thing too that's that's all I have to say thank you we will be talking more about what we're going to be doing later on okay um all right any nobody else is in person nobody's sorry I had missed you Mr turny you were sitting behind Dan so I didn't see you my apologies no problem all right if anybody online um has a public comment please raise your hand me give it 10 more seconds don't want to miss anyone okay and with no hands raised we're going to close public comment and move on to our committee reports we will start with curriculum and instruction all right um so we have a lot to report out from curriculum instruction we met on January 16th um first off uh we reviewed a number of revisions to the health curriculum um these are advised to include integration of lbtq uh related content and expansion of the personal and mental health topics um they also included uh resources on lgbtq plus topics such as Garden State equity and uh glisten um so those are actually up for um vote tonight um we also reviewed a lot of policies um and um got some emails too so I'm going to try to clar ify a couple things as I move through this um we um have a policy around El eligibility of residents uh resident nonresident students um we wanted to make sure as some policy recommendations are coming down um that staff uh had the same access as they already do um to bring their children uh into the district um so we were very careful about um reviewing that policy with that in mind um we're Examining The High School uh graduation policy because there is um a new requirement um to complete uh for students to complete the FAFSA um however our previous policy had been revised significantly from what was recommended prior so we are looking at the recommendations that are coming um down and compar comparing them to what we had in the policy already and and have to really look between those two before um anything kind of moves forward um we also looked at our Hib policy number policies need to be updated due to the new state um MOA and that was true for a lot of the policies we looked at um there's a new Mo MOA with law enforcement um and so this impacts Hib smoking and electronic surveillance some of these changes are really minor in language um U but they've also raised some other issues that I'll talk about in in just a moment um uh but that new MOA impacts a number of policies but at times it's with a change as simple as uh including other drugs like that simple um uh we looked at the student smoking um policy which was impacted by the mo MOA we're clarifying um who are the contacts in the policy and an issue around fines that wasn't clear if that was actually from from courts or if that was actually District fines uh we had some concerns about the district fining and and um but it wasn't really clear so we're checking some language around that um we are reviewing the um recommendations for changes to the academic uh Integrity policy I think uh before the policy was really focused on plagiarism um this one is a little more Broad and some cases I think uh we thought were help and others it might be too broad in in how it was um uh capturing academic Integrity so we're still examining that um I'll also note that we are um looking at AI policy um and so these two uh will likely overlap um and so we're going to I think really consider those um side by side as we move forward around it um there were some recommended changes around uh student grievance policy uh and uh we think these actually really clarify the process and the timeline um for Grievances and hopefully that uh clarifies things for for um for parents and what that process looks like and um and so I think we we see mostly those um as um improvements um we looked at electronic surveillance again that was one impacted bya with very minor changes um we also are at it uh we are required to have a spectator code of conduct um for inter Scholastic events policy um I do not believe we've had them before and so we are looking at this but also trying to communicate with other districts to see um how they are conceptualizing this um I think uh in particular some of the consequences uh are not clear and um and so we we are looking at that but um um I haven't made any um decisions on it um the I believe the last policy we actually talked about um was around cooperation with law enforcement agencies and we this is a mandated policy um and we did um uh hear from some community members about this um the the recommended change is very minor I think the concern is given the current Administration um that uh it includes warrant as well as other um reasons uh really kind of General um and given you know threats of deportation uh threats to immigrants um warrant can be interpreted as administrative warrant it can be interpreted as core ordered um and other reasons is very open to be interpreted and so we just want um we are tabling this um but we want to make really uh we want to be very careful in that language to make sure that um our our both I think for the staff and U in the district um but also to outside uh law enforcement agencies um what the district policy is around that and what we will recognize as a warrant which I believe we want to recognize Court uh um you know uh ordered warrants um not uh office warrants um and so forth and so we are um in contact with some experts in reviewing that language and also reviewing um how much we can actually shift some that language um before we put anything forward um see I missed something um there was also a clarification on one of the policies I believe it might have been eligibility of Resident non-resident students is that right um around um there was edit from parent and guardian to to parent um so we actually um uh looked at our bylaws and parent actually is defined in our bylaws uh as natural parents adoptive parents legal Guardians foster parents or uh parent surrogate of a student um and so where it actually says where parents are separated or divorced parent means the person or agency who has legal custody of the student as well as the N natural or adoptive parents of the student provided such parental rights have not been terminated by a court or appropriate jurisdiction so this is actually the definition in our bylaws that applies to all of our policies um and so even though it says parent in there um in that policy is inclusive of much broader definition um and so I think that's an important important clarification in that policy even as some of the language is um shifted it actually is referencing the the bylaw definition um that is much broader and I think there's one more thing we also looked at a number of field trips there were nine new field trips um including a robotics uh tournament a trip to explore Asian culture in New York and the e8th grade celebration um so uh those were also up for uh consideration and we had we still had more policies we were not able to review but we'll be looking at those moving forward so for voting um oh I just it away um so we are voting on approval of field trips that I just mentioned uh approval of Hib reports approval of special education corrective action plan um number four is approval of new revised schedule B positions uh particularly for tech crew and uh the ble Green Team uh approval of University graduate students for internships um these are all in the lab at ble um approval of mssw intern for the community team Center approval of the school district calendar approval of home instruction uh for uh two students approval of the Holocaust Remembrance Day assembly for high school um and there's some changes to that uh approval of edifi pilot program um we have been participating in this already and is approval to extend that we're very I think uh Happy uh with that program and and feel like we benefit from it and this is really um I think an ition of that um which we are looking forward to um and number 11 is the approval of the revised Health curriculum that I mentioned earlier and that is my report any questions this a comment because I actually read it um the special ed corrective action plan was really a very small a small piece but I think what what um had heard from Dr Cisco that that overall when they came in it was it was everything was very positive and so effective action plan sounds like a concern but actually it was very specific to speech and how progress is being noted or something but he a um pretty a pretty small piece given the size of their review so that's good to see yeah thanks for that Mar anybody else all right equity and Excellence hey well uh equity and Excellence met on the 16th of January and we started off just discussing pretty much all the same policies that we just reviewed so as you were going through I said let me go to my notes and see what I can add to what you said that we may have discussed um in a little bit more detail or from a different more Equity focused lens um so thinking about the eligibility of Resident non-resident students policy 511 I would just add to that that our committee uh one of the suggestions and came out of that discussion we will of course allow students to enroll in the district during the school year if they haven't yet moved into the district as long as they can show proof of residency um a known curriculum instruction there was a suggestion for an 8-week window of time we discussed the possibility of considering adding language to allow Case byas caseby Case extension in circumstances where pending res residency proof is still valid but maybe there was a a difference a change in the move date whether it the house closing or what have you we know things can happen so we talked about just possibly adding that kind of language to allow that flexibility there um for unanticipated delays um let's see under the gradu high school graduation policy uh the update to include a requirement to complete the FAFSA um Dr we just had a concern about just the the the additional burden or responsibility that's going to place on students and families who um may not have um as enough resources or support to really get through that process in the timely matter um as so Dr sesa talked about discussing with Elizabeth asima um discussing this concern and determining how guidance counselors can enhance their support uh in assisting uh families with meeting this new requirement let's see then the Seal of Biol literacy we talked about well no policy change there just some minor language tweaks um and then let's move on down here you already talked about that um student smoking this is interesting student smoking policy 5533 uh we did just I just want to add that we talked about um because now we know that students who um we have to report instances where um there is a seizure of an electronic smoking device and it has to be reported to law enforcement um if there's reason to believe that it contains cannabis or a controlled substance um and Dr Tusa just we all discussed kind of reiterating the district's approach to in House response to that for the students is going to be therapeutic um and of course we have to follow the law in terms of reporting it to law enforcement um as a followup Dr suesa is going to look into a question that came up up about instances when this hppd may involve Municipal Court we don't want to do that involve Municipal Court in instances where um this particular um situation can happen where cannabis or controlled substances is is found in electronic smoking device but again when it's out of our hands I think the question just came up well what is the um likelihood let's say of hppd um involving Municipal Corp in those cases so I know that's something Dr Susa is following up on then in terms of the student grievance policy one thing we did um I just want to highlight that cni suggested curriculum instructions it suggest allowing 10 days to file a grievance rather than the 5ay current 5ay so that was the specific timeline there um okay all right so I think that's it for policies because you pretty much said everything we said um and we discussed I love that I just love when when the Committees work together so well okay so now moving into discipline um which really is the last item I think that we have to talk about here from me and Excellence um we looked at the discipline data for December at ble um some of the highlights uh overall a low total number of incidents at five um there were increase in number of students involved in these incidents but again um that tends to be the nature of some of incidents um and so 10 students involved total of five incidents um one of those incidents resulted in an in school suspension um we in the Middle School the total incidents re remains higher or remained higher than the other schools at 81 um the total number of students involved these in these incidents also 40 so again seeing some of that sort of repeat of a a group of students may be involved in multiple incidents or multiple students involved in one incident sorry about that um so the result in terms of in school and out of school suspensions were four in school and four out of school which we could look at positively given the total number of incidents that at least we were not suspending and removing kids from their learning environment at a high uh rate um but again we recognize the need for more continued support um and we definitely had discussion about ways that district is going to really be providing more comprehensive support uh at the high school total incidents uh were 66 total number of students involved were 40 um one ISS in school suspension and two out of school suspensions um and then we really just got into a lengthy discussion fairly ly discussion on Dr susa's uh plan for this comprehensive three-year trauma informed care program and how that would be really an umbrella program that would incorporate um a focus on restorative practices and really um ensuring that we are doing those practices in a way that's comprehensive as we all talked about previously in Prior discussions when we talked about the um review of The Rise program and Dr Ann Gregory's suggestions so it's just nice to see everything sort of coming together um we talked about um defining kind of the role of a person who would be doing supportive practice work what would that look like if depending again on what sort of resources we have to put towards that um the tiered response approach of course Community engagement um coaching requirements Etc as Dr cesco went into so there's not a whole lot I need to add there as well I mean at this point um and again just happy to hear also that there's grant funding for this I know that this is something that we will have to keep our fingers crossed that we get what we need to really implement this threeyear plan but we're looking forward to to hearing your full um plan when that is developed um and then uh let's see that's not the last topic I'm sorry I was prettyat sure there we we talked about the uh gifts and grants and donations um policy that's under review um and the discussion there I know C and I also talked about that but just thinking about um decisions around how to handle donations um and Dr suska really just emphasizes some of those discussions can happen at the local level right the building administrators is really determining whether this is whether a particular donation is either large enough or involving perhaps um applications that uh one or two classroom teachers may want to use just thinking about the implications of these donations and whether or not um the decisions around how to um share and handle those donations should be um kind of bumped up to Christina's Dr sesa's level so we had that discussion and I think that's something that Dr sesca emphasized that she has a pretty good handle on um we also talked about working with the principles just to collect data on some of the different apps that um are being used to communicate with families and streamlining those tools a bit so we're seeing that there's a Dr CES at least is seeing there's a need for more streamlining of those tools um and I think that's it let me just check yes and then just I want to emphasize on the uh electronic communication devices policy the language around limited use of cell phones and personal electronic devices during the school day of course this is an ongoing um conversation and we are going to be getting data from the community um some feedback on how their feelings on that but we did talk about just emphasizing that there will be of course in any policy changes there will always be an exemption for students who um in their IEP or 504 plan uh have that kind of accommodation um we also talked about the uh that there will be no recording of student or staff without parent Guardians uh staff look at that I did it parent parent U member or staff members approval okay so that's really all I have to add to that um and that is all for equ excellence any questions I'm just curious we had a lot of you know vigorous discussions when I was in equity exellence about the rise rise program and wondering you know uh um people are still on but but what you in particular I know you care a lot about that program um what do you think about this new focus on trauma informed care and the hypothesis that maybe it explains some of the reasons we're seeing those repeat people coming through well first I will say I I think it's an amazing um it sounds like an amazing opportunity for us to pull together strands of work that has already been happening in the district so I don't want to suggest here that we have never looked at trauma informed care here so I think that's one point I want to make that we have been had many conversations in the past about the trauma that our students are experiencing we've been having those conversations and really have tried to focus on when we're talking about culture and climate we're talking about seal we're talking about understanding our adverse trauma that student adverse childhood experiences and Trauma that many of our students are experiencing but what Dr suesa has really brought forth is okay this large umbrella that's our umbrella right TR trauma informed and what are all the pieces that we need to include all there and all those pieces we really had already in place place but just not in that centralized really cohesive manner so I'm excited about you know what we can do now that we have that and with that three-year model so you know and I do think listening to what Dr Dr Susa has presented I also was thinking about just really being clear about that Rise program being very narrow kind of in its focus right it was really an a alternative to ins school suspension so this idea that it was going to address all of the needs of the students who find them M themselves there um was just not based in sort of reality around what a program like that could do so I think that's something that is hopefully coming out of these conversations that we're having and certainly with the feedback that we got from Dr and Gregory um and then lastly I would say and I know I'm probably answering more than what you ask but you know I have the microphone so um that Dr Gregory I just want to emphasize that she talked about when our arise program and how she really questioned yes we have a framework there and we have the pieces of the therapeutical supports but looking at restorative practices and how comprehensive restorative practices practice program should be in order to have the kind of impact that we want that's what we're going to be doing now like adding that comprehensive piece that we didn't have and I really want to highlight that because to me that was kind of the biggest sort of flashlight that an gr and Gregory gave us like wait a minute I don't even know if we can say this is a restorative practices program when you do not have all of these comprehensive component so that in nutshell I hope it answers your question and gives you a little bit more about what's on my mind about it no seriously I hope that answers your question no no no no it I mean it's a long conversation but I was curious what your thoughts were thanks yeah thank all right we're gonna move on to finance and Facilities stuff we also have we also met notna okay this working you can pull it now you can pull it more now we lose all right our committee met also on the 14th uh and and Jen were there along with myself and Dr Susa and Mr Rosa and Colin McIntosh and John Flanigan um I'll summarize some of the things that we talked about um the before and after CARE program is always on our agenda um and we have on our it's always on the agenda of our committee meetings but it's also on our agenda tonight um to approve uh Colin and Denise as authorized user for a subsidy payment application so they are well into the process of um having uh families sign up for subsidies um and uh there is a um a they need access to a website um to where the funds uh let me have it's the Epic portal that they need access to um so we needed our resolution just aligns with um our past practice of you know whenever there's access to funds that it gets approved through the board so that's that's one of the items here um our audit is on the agenda and we discussed it as well um and they were with the corrective action plan on there which again is very small and it's it's related to the the issue of collect cting uh monies for lunch that is an ongoing challenge of all districts and we don't have a lot of options to do that but we do have to keep our eye on it and uh Denise does that very well no every time how much money is owed out and doing lots of um Robo now we doing Robo calls to try to remind parents that they owe money um so we're trying every which way to collect money while continuing to provide our children um their lunches um resolution and some other things they'll go over on the they'll do that on the agenda so I don't have to do it twice um we have just we had just one policy much easier than the rest of you and it was a food service policy uh pretty lengthy very um subscribed by the uh federal government defining um all the other all different aspects of um a breakfast and a lunch program in a school district so we can't literally change anything in here nor would we want to um I think we even had the same conversation Jen might remember about caregiver wanting to change the wording on it and we were the Denise did some research we can't change the wording on this policy it is coming from the federal government and um obviously our AS stand set our bylaws cover everybody anyway and we have to leave it as it is um but other than that it's it's pretty much what they gave us we need to approve um what else that we talked about oh I don't know how I had oh I know because I separated by action items the other going back to before and after care we did have a conversation about how we handle families who um do not qualify for subsidy under the terms of the um the county program however they are on free and reduced lunch um so we had a conversation about you know how we kind of bridge that Gap in the short term and and in the long term um and our re suggestion was not to impact famili significantly particularly at this time mid year um to uh kind of keep some of our policies in place so that those families can continue to receive subsidies continue to receive a a lower rate um because there's just different the county looks at different issues than um necessarily just income and that's what Colin's trying to resolve and we did encourage him to uh begin to create a a policy or a protocol to look at this we're looking he's looking at it Case by case but we need something to refer to what we what's the consideration and how we're doing this so obviously this is all new to to um to us and they're working on it John GIS an update on projects um ble walkway Still Still they're working on actually the whole scope of the project that's still not been defined but definitely people are coming in and working on it um ble bathroom work is scheduled from um to start end of April through August they're working on the different kinds of tiles op siding tiles and fixtures um and uh the area has to be tested for asbestos which may have already been done but hadn't at that point um the baseball field Renovations was a was a conversation um scheduled to start in the spring um but of course if some people would prefer some people would like us to use the field for the spring and then do it later so he's getting some um you know strong encouraging on that end the problem is this already two years in the making and the original estimates are now two years old the longer we delay the project the less we're going to get done with the money or prices are obviously you're going up so John's trying to figure that out um we want to get as much as we can for the money that we had this is all coming from the Ida Kushner um fund and the same thing with the greenhouse he's still working on getting bids for the greenhouse and a concrete slab and the electrical and plumbing work so it's all coming along um he's just GA gathering information at this point no decisions are made the uh policy that we had a conversation about um and I think it's going to come back to rest of you guys on the Committees is um a policy for public and executive sessions of our board um because we have remote participation the question is um we don't have a policy that allows board members actually to participate remotely it's not actually on our books um so uh Denise had gone out to school boards Association or we have we have a draft from them um which I believe was attached to our minutes um I think it might go back through committees to talk about the working the wording of a policy so that we have something in writing for how we operate and we ended our meeting with a riveting presentation by J to review all the aspects of our of our budget seriously it was very very helpful um uh how the budget is created the meaning of all the codes which is always very interesting hard to remember but important and revenue and exp and expenditures so um help for the finance committee to get a good review of that and our agenda items so uh number one is interesting it SK to ask for clarification um change six Nickelodeon actually was a grant that um Miss balone applied for for indoor recess activity equipment for ble so we got I think it's $500 um so that's that's very nice uh number two is organizations that are staff might have access to in terms of investing and insurance three we're adding two more tax sheltered um V vendors again for our staff and I believe was at their request um we have our uh audit report on here the correction of action plan that we talked about treasurers reports and the treasur reports go back there's some corrections for July through September and I think that's to line up with our audits so there's a number there's if you look downline there are lots of pages for those try reports but it was going back I think just to clean things up from um from now to match the audit exactly um supplemental Bill lists and then our actual bill list Bill list through January 27th um Treasures reports board secretary reports budget transfers travel expenses we've got a lengthy list of professional development contract well the contract there's a list a short list for contractors coming in to work with our our staff um and uh other other contractors uh Professional Services and related services for this year some of them for our musical summer programs yoga for eighth grade um teaching language Services we have one student um uh who is going out a district that is on our agenda three students for bedside instruction one non-resident student so coming to us paying tuition to be in Highland Park so we're voting to accept that tuition we have some pass through funds for children's House monu on technology and um for Yeshiva on a security guard also those are pass through funds that we're required to vote on um the donation for our wrestling team of th I guess another the long-term substitutes that's another company that we can get substitutes from is that what that is global LLC yeah okay um to help out of the before and after care um there uh oh this is the number 24 is that epic State subsidy payment system that we need to have access that Denise and K need to have access to um some substitutes for before and after care and the last one number 26 is legal settlement um that is on our agenda and that's it for finance facilities any questions any questions for finance and Facilities I have a question okay Denise um have there been any updates on the baseball field every month so that's always my question yeah John and I uh did speak to the district architect who submitted the plans the doe uh we have the permit from um uh the soil conservation and also have the construction permit so we are able to start unfortunately the ground is Frozen um so John and I did reach out to the athletic boosters who donated the fund to to us just to discuss um if they would like to postpone um renovating the fields or if they would like to move forward um so that we can make contingency PL plans for the season if need be so um I'm waiting to hear back from them so we're we're status quo right now okay so we don't know if it will be more expensive or it will be more expensive to push it back to right so John and I would like to have that discussion with the athletic boosters it's really their funds um the district does not have any funds to contribute towards the project so um it's really um it comes down to the to the money and and to when the vendor can um provide the services um you know I think the vendor alluded to John that he may have to charge more but I'm not sure that that the case Okay than you I will say just kind of to add on to the baseball thing I do have some personal interests as I am a member of the team but I've also had spoken with players um and I know the major concern is if it's not gonna be ready by the season pushing it back because I know typically the contingency plan is Donaldson and we did have to play um a part of the 2022 season there and it does the field is a significant downgrade and there is a lot of res is lost and a competitive disadvantage air so I know that the sentiment of a lot of the players in the entire team is moving it back so we don't lose this home field I can convey that to the boosters and and we can work together to find a solution I have a question uh oh no small one um uh these two items 20 and 21 uh just the boom box radio from children's heal and then uh you know $21,000 for a security guard for the aiva under what s the program is I mean is this because they're not Public Schools I don't think or these are non-public allocations from the state so the state distributes allocations for security textbooks nursing technology um through the public school districts to be distributed to the non-public schools in the community okay um and they there's a set of um circumstances that they have to meet uh it's done through the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey so the non-public will work with um B&J to procure the items that are authorized uh by the state to procure one of them happens to be um security guard security guard okay good thank you Christina I did just have one more question about it came up a few times with the policies would we be able to put a link on there to the definition of parent that Dan had described before just so if if um if parents were looking at the policy or staff member students if anyone was looking we'd have an easy way to get to what that covers I can certainly inquire with my secretary and find out so it because it goes on and goes up through Strauss so Strauss if you've gone onto our policies because I know everyone loves to look there if you go to Highland Park and under board board policies I actually do so okay thank you you can see that it's a subset of Strauss so I'm not sure if when we uploaded if Strauss allows embedded links or not so I would have to look there but our bylaws does contain it and the bylaws are up there so when we've done the link has that been on our like regulations then we've added links before to you know I I don't I don't know if we have I don't I haven't I don't think we have we've done links to like other when it referen policy and yes so we'll so we could put the whole so what you do is you put the whole URL in there so it's not a hyperlink so it's a whole URL you URL so we could put the whole URL to our bylaws yeah okay but that would have to be on every policy that we do so that it's just a it's just quite a I mean you could do it for every new policy that comes up but we have I mean you have zero to 9,000 policy like in terms of the codes right you have your th000 policy or 2,000 policy 3,000 so it's I mean it's a lot to do for every single one so my recommendation is just um to leave it as is spread the word it's in our bylaws go to the bylaws and uh it's and I think if you notice that too some of the language that that STW has put out too I think there was one recently about um um including I think it was about um uh maybe Title Nine and or or harassment or something it's like who cover with like a protected classes if you remember that policy where it was like protected classes it's like anything under the code instead of updating every time there's a new protected class it's like like everything out of the code and there and then you can go to if you Google a code the code will give you everything so I think that's really the Avenue that they're moving on it's like here it is there's a spot for it somewhere in the universe so that every time you don't have to update update everything that it comes out so that would be another example I think the direction that they're moving in for that that makesense so spread the word thank you we'll do all right um for personnel Personnel met earlier we now meet an executive um so we have approval number one two leaves of absences um number two is approval for of resignations Miss Bonia is stepping down at the academic enrichment for Middle School Miss drasher we will miss you um she is resigning uh from ldtc uh Miss simmer um congratulations on your retirement yes um the the reading for m straser is that she is actually resigning as of February 14th 2025 not February 20th um Miss celest ctio from the ESL Middle School position and Miss Lewis also for reasons of retirement um we have approval of some appointments so Mr leano for academic enrichment for Middle School there's a lot here so I'm not gonna read all of them highlights um we highlights we are getting another teen C counselor yay who's going to be help helping out at Irving thank thank you so much um we have a teacher of social studies Mr Kaiser will be joining the Middle School welcome um thank you to miss Landis for chaperoning the high school swim competition um Miss noelli for prek after school site manager some teachers who are volunteering as high school mentors we have uh Miss Hodge volunteering for pit musician uh Mr baringer Mr Roa for babysitting thank you and um Miss n for translating for B for our um strategic planning meetings or what is it the focus group focus groups we have some transfers um as listed Miss Lara Miss dling Miss Claremont and miss boli and then we have a lot of Staff being approved for S uh professional development um you can see all of the wonderful professional development sessions that they are preparing for as listed under number five I mean there's just so much math Ela seal art I mean just AI this list goes on and on and then we also have on number six approval of professional development presenters for the PD Academy that's the uh PDS that teachers um and staff can go to after school so thank you so much to teachers who are preparing in PDS for PD Academy um and then we have approval of a date change for staff for the bilingual parent advisory committee puzzle night fed through title three and then we have approval of three staff members who are going to be supporting students through independent study and that is it for personnel any questions just a comment can't hear me just a comment about to thank all these teachers for doing all this professional development for us it's it's an amazing list so it's very impressive and all right and then for policy on the agenda we have policies for first read as listed um and we are tabling um policy 9320 so you'll see G is and then I and then I the regulation 9320 those we are not uh moving forward with this evening we have two policies and regulations for second reading 0131 and 0155 all right and that concludes our committee reports and now we will move to our second public comments Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has Reserve this time for your comments is there anybody in person that would like to public comment all right um Angel how many do we have online is there anybody online who would like to public comment please raise your hand now with no hands raised we're going to close public comment we're now going to move to board action items curriculum instruction take it away like move um items one through 11 second Dr baty yes Miss calun yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss pruce yes Dr scholman I'm going to recuse on two and say yes for the rest abstain I I meant abstain Sorry Miss stano yes Miss vman yes Miss Vorhees yes finance and Facilities move items one to 26 second Dr batty yes Miss Cassel D yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss puce yes Dr scholman yes Miss stanel yes Miss vman yes Miss forhe yes hey for personnel I'd like to move numbers one through eight with the exception of wait a minute oh wait nope that's wrong numbers one through eight Dr batty I'm gonna abstain from number five and yes to everything else Miss Cassel D yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley nope yes sorry I couldn't unmute Miss Bruce yes Dr scholman yes and I will miss May Lewis Miss stel yes Miss bman yes Miss Vorhees yes and for policies and regulations um I'd like to move numbers one and two uh number one we are not moving uh one g or one I I'm sorry yeah one g or one I second Dr batty yes Miss Calon yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss puce yes Dr scholman yes Miss Danel yes Miss bman yes Miss bores yes okay we're GNA move on to board liaison reports does anyone have a report for this evening I have a quick uh report for the commission for universal access um in the past they have given um some money to Glow the glow program um and they will be doing that again I think they're increasing it so it'll be 750 for glow Jr and 750 for uh the glow senior I don't know just glow um um and uh so I'm sure this will come up in future um uh uh finances and um voting but um it will really be I think beark to support students in accessing um programs that they wouldn't normally uh be able to afford or access and so I just wanted to highlight that as as something that will be coming from that commission anybody else all right um but president's report I just want to extend a thank you to all of the board members and community members who have been sending resources to help us create a plan um to support our uh students as we navigate this um you know uh new regulations regarding um immigration status and uh everything that's going on currently so I'm going to go ahead and move to Old business because in new new business we are going to discuss kind of how we want to move forward so is there any old business great is there any new business there is new business um yes so we would like to discuss next steps um so Ann and I had started um and and Dr Susa obviously had started talking about just the impending changes prior to the inauguration thinking about how we were going to support our students in the climate that you know we were expecting however we did not expect this climate because we did not expect the schools to be stripped of their um sensitive area uh um designation so we you know obviously have been um working with Dr cisa sharing resources community members have been sharing resources um and other board members also have been sharing resources and Dr cisa has been working on a plan um to um address our needs um and to make sure that we are following protocols that keep our students safe um that we communicate to the community that our students will be safe in our schools um and so I'm going to hand over oh the mic to Dr susco so she can speak a little bit to that um and then as a board we can kind of discuss um our next steps yeah thank you so one of the things I immediately did was um well a bunch of things but first and foremost I immediately sent um Allison and an a proposed a resolution that will go on to equity and excellence in their committee agenda we just hav't in between the time we we don't meet until next month um but it's on the agenda I'm actually going to link the calendar invite as soon as possible in there um even though the agenda isn't built that resolution is in there um if you haven't seen it you know um we can share it around at some point um essentially it's um our doubling down our commitment to make schools a safe place for our students and families and uh really it's um pretty much tasking me with making sure that we we do that in terms of training support Communications and what we can do so that's something that's really important to us there's a a lot of things that are going on and I want to clarify some things and I will continue to do that with the plan but first and foremost our schools and students and staff safety is is my number one priority it's administration's number one priority always um what what we've done to maintain the safety of our students and staff on uh prior to January 19th is the exact same as after January 19th and we are going to double down on on that so for example um a lot came out recently about you know organizations like ice being able to come in and and take our students and things like that uh we will not allow that we didn't allow it before and we won't allow it now or ever one of the thank you one of one of the things or or anybody really for that matter I nobody can come in and take a child that's that's how it goes no one can come in and take a child unless you are registered to take that child so I know sometimes asking for your IDs becomes a hassle like you know who I am I'm Christina I pick up my kid every day don't you know me I know that it's frustrating but it's for our safety we've been doing that for a little while now we want to double down on that please make sure you have your ID please make sure that the list of people who can pick up your child is updated because if someone comes to say they can and they're not on the list we are not letting them go with that adult that is really important the other thing is access to student information we do not give out any student information ever nor will we unless there is a legal requirement through a court ordered subpoena so the police the middle sex County Prosecutors you all you want to come in and you want to access Student Records that's a no-o no fly zone we don't allow it if we get a court-ordered subpoena signed by a judge that says we need this particular information we comply with just that particular information I will give you a very good example there was an incident involving some students at at one of the schools um parents of a a victim of the student wanted to press charges so they went to the police and press charges the police got a court-ordered subpoena asking for Student Records just for that disciplinary infraction that's it so it wasn't like we handed over an entire list of Student Records to somebody it was very specific we gave them exactly what we needed because there was a court ordered signed by a judge so in terms of administrative warrants we don't do that somebody can't just come and say well because I am a federal agent I have access we don't comply with that we might adjust our language to clarify that in the policy which I think would be important to do um but those are areas that we will communicate uh strongly to our staff um some areas that we're we're looking at tightening up which we've been talking about in our Safety Committee so for those who who don't know in my tenure superintendent uh St the safety of our students and staff we've increased that a lot in our Safety Committee work and I'm really proud of that work and some of the things that have been on our re radar recently prior to January 19th was after school safety of our students during after school and evening events um so we are working on plans to do so that will never be disclosed or released because that's confidential information as I've said in the past with our safety plan and a location of our students I'm going to reiterate this again do not tell people where they are if we have a reunification do not put out on social media where our students are if we have a safety plan and you know what it is do not share it right those are our internal security documents so we are going to do our part as a district to make sure people are safe our students are safe our staff are safe but it takes a village I know that when situations happen we're we're scared for our our our friends our scared for our students scared for our our our children children but please know that they are in really good hands but also we need to encourage people to come to school for safety purposes one of the things that's really important here is that some of our families are really scared they have reached out already saying I'm not going to send my child to school because I'm scared what do I do and we are having conversations with them yes they can homeschool that is an option we can give you the options however if you decide to not communicate that and keep your child home and we don't know why at some point it triggers a legal obligation that we have to report that as child abuse and neglect because legally you have a responsibility to send your child to some form of schooling if that happens unfortunately I have a legal responsibility as a district to contact state agency of the Division of Child and Family Services and now I have to tell them that you're not coming to school and now they're going to invest investigate I don't want that I didn't want it before I certainly don't want it now for some of our families so it's actually important that we encourage people to come to school but to reach out to know how we're how we're doing the Safety and Security so I feel confident that either through the resolution as it's entailed or additional items or tweaks that need to be made um that we will pass this resolution which is demanding that I give you certain uh you know plans for 30 60 90 days and Beyond to make sure that our students are safe and and I'm very committed to doing that work the leadership team is meeting tomorrow to go through uh some of the recommendations even the recommendations that came out of the County office um we took we might not take because we don't agree with all of them so we will go through um you know and make sure that we go to with the fine toothcomb to be able to communicate that back as needed I know unfortunately Community wise our meetings are only once a month but there will be more communication now from my office as we develop that plan um and we adopt Pol you know some resolutions to make sure that um we're all committed to uh the safety of our students and our families so I can't stress that enough um I'm feel like I'm sure I'm missing some things I will also say I'm in contact with Community leaders I know Allison mentioned that um and as well so I'm working with Seth caperal now to coordinate for training for our staff and support for our staff uh through Seth and the work that he has done um in addition I have been in touch with uh Rick Abrams with the chief of the police because I want to make sure we're all in in compliance and he actually wanted me to share some information as well publicly um that um they don't they cannot assist with ice that is not their role and responsibility uh so I don't know what public forums they ever had for communicating this so I wanted to speak he said I could speak that they have uh they cannot assist with ice um they have their own protocols to report if they if um ice attempts to contact them and use them use their fac fa ities or try to to get knowledge but they have the same requirements that we do they can't give out information of community members students parents anybody in the community um with an administrative warrant it has to be judicial as well uh so he wanted me to reiterate that um so they do have state guidelines to notify if um ice does contact them but they are not allowed to give support they are not allowed to give access um and then if there is contact they have to report it immediately he mentioned some form and I'm sorry I didn't write it down but I'm sure it can go through the mayor's office on what that form is actually called but they actually do have to report they have a legal requirement to report out when they are contacted so he did want to uh reiterate that that he is in lock step and our same feelings about making sure our our students um our staff um our our caregivers our community members and and everyone in Highland Park uh feels feels safe so I wanted to uh pass pass uh pass that along and that we'll work in step to make sure that um that we are lock step along the way and I think that's all for now more to come that's a quick question just on that last one of the thank you so much for that thorough um uh analysis of and discussion of what you're already doing and plan to continue doing um but the Highland Park I know you said uh Chief Abram said that if they are contacted I'm assuming he meant by if the department is contacted by Ice then they have to report that they were contacted even though they don't have to correct even though they don't have to comply with the request they do have to report if they're contacted and that report is goes to the state the C A County I mean who are they yeah I I I didn't ask too many questions I'm so sorry I can follow up with him I didn't ask too many questions other than I wrote If contacted an immediate report and then I didn't yeah I'm just thinking it's good to know like you know if our Police Department is being contacted and you know what yeah just thinking about that is important and knowing that so thank for sharing that ab and and I think that's important too because then you know and this is something that they've always it's always been in place so so that which I was like oh I had no idea that that was a thing that they had to do so it's actually good to know and maybe something that you know at the safety committee meetings or just in general when my our monthly meetings with the mayor something that we could ask for feedback because it may be you know um just information to have to know to what what extent is our community being targeted by that I mean if the numbers are low you know that's reassuring right if our numbers are high that's concerning so you know maybe something that we could talk to the mayor about um in terms of of access to that information thank you yep we'll look forward to discussing the resolution yeah um and I did just want to say that you know I I think we are all here very very grateful um that we do have the resources in this town to that support immigrants the way um that they do and the people who have reached out with their own resources to try to help us as were um you know everyone we didn't get guidance from the state until like late on Wednesday or maybe it was even Thursday on how to interpret the executive order so you know the fact that everyone has really been trying to come together in order to protect our kids and our families is really um in in a difficult time you so just to reiterate like even though we are still working on the resolution and Monique is going to work on a committee the training starts immediately for staff um because one of the one of the key ways that um Dr suska is is targeting this is by empowering staff with information so that everybody is on the same page right um and then a lot of this other you know other ways that we can help is really going to be H have to be teamwork between us and the community because there are going to be things that we can do as a district and there are going to be things that we can't do as a district um so you know working together to find ways that we can assist in disseminating information um that we can assist in power um you know empowering people with information um and finding ways that we can like link families with resources and um especially for the students that are impacted finding ways to provide those services in school as well um will be like you know definitely part of what the district does and then just making sure that we're you know staying up to date with everything that's um being updated and all the guidance that's being released and reased and and all that and changed and updated and yeah and I think the best thing that one of the best things that we can do is try to limit the spread of misinformation um which is there's just so much going around um in terms of like rumors about what's happening in other schools and like nothing's very clear so as best as we can is to just try to like you know share what we know is fact and um try not to get too worked up about things that we're not certain about yeah I'm glad you emphasized that immediate re um education for teachers and awareness because I'm just thinking about how staff must be feeling this past week um and I know obviously Administration is doing everything you can with the information you have to to support them and make everyone feel like okay we're in this together but I I just I know emotionally it's a lot it's been a lot I'm sure for the teachers I was gonna say I do want to add part of our training and doubling down our efforts I know I was really hping on Safety and Security which is obviously always my number one priority uh but including that is psychological safety which is the work that that you know obviously our teen and tween Center our school counselors and our staff provide um so we are including our plan to making sure we're doubling down on targeting um our students that might need some more trauma-informed care because this this is you know very traumatic to even think about whether you are um you know a a student that is an immigrant student undocumented student come from you know an immigrant family or a staff member or a peer and and and your friends are going through it you know or your peers are going through it it's not easy to process all this information especially in an age where you you scroll and scroll and scroll and you could go down a rabbit hole and and it can get it can be a lot um so I just encourage the same is you know fact checked as much as you can honestly try to stay off social media as much as possible um I think that you know for people's mental health and and and social emotional well-being might be helpful too um and just reach out if you need support our teen center and tween Center are available for counseling our school counselors are available and our administrative staff are are available and and of course all of our trusting adults are available as well to anybody that that might need that support or if you know somebody that needs the support please have them Reach Out um and we'll make sure to to uh you know our crisis response team is is pretty much on full activation mode and will continue to be so thank you for all you're doing yeah there any other new business uh I just just want to remind anyone listening that we do have our strategic planning focus group uh tomorrow here at 7 pm um this one is focused on academic rigor uh there will be babysitting uh so please come uh if you would like your voice heard and Spanish translation and Spanish translation all right and with that I move to ajour Second all in favor I have a good week everyone so we didn't end at 8:30 that was a little