I'd like to call to order the Highland Park Board of Education hybrid voting meeting today Monday May 13 20124 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 the time date location to be submitted for publication to the home News Tribune and Star Ledger and posted on 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 board adjourns for the evening roll call Dr batty here miss calan here Dr Coleman Dr Pixley here miss prce here Dr scholman here miss stano here Miss ban here miss Vorhees here we'll stand for our pledge to the flag of the United States of America rep stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we had um seven Communications last month um two regarding the law enforce enforcement resolution cell phone use or cell phone policy rather and Survey data I'd like to move uh for the following minutes to be approved the hybrid voting budget adoption meeting and executive session for April 29th 2024 I move to adopt those M approve those minutes second Dr batty yes Miss Cal yes Dr Coleman Dr Pixley yes Miss puu yes Dr scholman yes Miss stania yes Miss vardaman yes Miss Vorhees yes we'll move on to our student representative reports okay so we're gonna start with Irving as usual uh Irving had a wonderful week celebrating their teachers and staff for teacher appreciation week they want to say thank you to the participation local businesses for their generosity in Raffles and to the Irving families for stocking The Faculty Lounge it was a great week they also look forward to the art show coming up on Wednesday May 22nd and their whole school picnic on Friday May 31st uh the final coffee with the principal for the school year will be held tomorrow May 14th at 8:15 a.m. in Irving's Media Center if any of the Irving parents would like to join M MCN to talk over a cup of joe now is the time over at ble uh their pajama reading night will be on May 16th at 5:30 p.m in the in the ble Library um they encourage students to Cozy up in their pajamas and have some reading fun uh the fifth grade fifth grade annual trip to Camp Bernie will be on May 20th to May 22nd um and the second grade field trip will be to the Liberty Science Museum on May 23rd lastly their Bartles uh steam night will be on May 29th from 5:00 to 7: p.m. okay Middle School the seventh grade had a great time at their field trip to the Sterling Hill mining Museum on April 24th just a little while ago the middle school also congratulates their students Angela Shia Samia javade nalavade and Alyssa recto who were recognized at the student Spotlight Middle School also had an awesome Spirit Week plus a pep rally to get excited for the njsla they hope for their scores to be out of this World Monday was dressed like an alien day Tuesday was May the 4th be with you Star Wars day uh Wednesday was wear pajama day because it's cold in space and Thursday was dressed like a star which you know favorite celebrity and Wednesday was where your favorite class not favorite class where your class color day for the pepper Alle so not space themed but that's okay as mentioned before uh the English language arts NJ SLA testing was last week this week is all math testing and science is next week oh boy the Middle School asks their parents to be sure their children get a good night's sleep and have a hearty breakfast during testing uh finally diversity day will be held May 30th the students will get to experience a full day of workshops and two keynote speakers which is super cool so over at the high school um we had two assemblies that were held in mid April featuring Holocaust Survivors sharing their stories freshmen and sophomores heard from H and Bernard I'm sorry shanger twin brothers who were hidden in southern France as young children Juniors and seniors heard from Tova fredman New York Times best-selling author of the daughter of owitz and Tik Tok user with over 500,000 followers she was liberated from owitz at age six and is one of the youngest living survivors the speakers came as part of a new multi-year public art component of Ceramics 2 where we will host local voice places and explore important events and library and lessons from history the stories shared in April are serving as the basis for a collab collaborative outdoor clay piece by our two ceramic classes memorizing the Holocaust um the art installation is anticipated to be completed and installed on hphs grounds in mid to late June and community members are encouraged to view the piece and explore the related website that is in development also slated to go live in mid to late June uh the drama club will have their last performance of the year one night one a which is a production of 11 of which is the production of a string of 11 10-minute act show one act shows sorry can't speak today um there are fully student written produced and performed the show will be on May 19th at 3M and tickets can be purchased at HP drama.net so on to some achievements we would like to congratulate a few of our senior class owls on some special achievements um they were three of them were awarded the GMC sportsmanship award that recognizes student athletes who have distinguished themselves through demonstrated acts of sportsmanship and ethical Behavior Uh the seniors were Kira Marsh Nick Marino and and andu we'd also like to congratulate Kai Stevens who is chosen as the Highland Park High School recipient of the middle sex County principal's Association award um he was picked for his outstanding student uh academic and extra cook achievements furthermore enan was honored at the same Lun with a special recognition called the kindness counts award where she was granted $500 to donate in her name to a charity of her choice that assists middlex County Children in need she chose to benefit the Howen Park buddy ball program that teaches Sports to children with special needs from Howen Park and neighboring communities thank you enan your kindness was very inspiring and more info on these Awards can be found on the Highland Park High school's website uh the guance department would like to remind all seniors to fill out their final transcript form and it could be found in the guidance office um and handed to miss Dost and Roy do you want to share that last one oh sure uh the Highland Park High School choir went on their overnight trip to the world strides music festival in Boston Massachusetts and brought home the gold both the symphonic choir and the Chamber choir achieved a gold ranking in their divisions with chamber choir additionally first place congratulations to Mrs Hodge and the entire choir for their accomplishments that concludes our report thank you Roy and Andrew are there any questions or comments for our student Representatives just just to thank you both I mean it's just great to hear all the good things that are going on and the detail that you're giving us really I really appreciate it find a way to get that word out to the community about all that the good stuff that's happening in our schools you yeah I would just Echo that really outstanding repor this entire year and it's just enthusiastic every single time we appreciate it want you know that you are really appreciating the hours you do to this than okay we'll move on to our superintendent report thank you hello I got one but I GNA need that fix for the the presentation okay thank you okay good evening everyone I want to Echo everyone's sentiments and and thank Roy and Andrew for their amazing uh presentation uh tonight and throughout the course of the Year also I wanted to add that um to Echo what uh at least I know Andrew said about the high school website so if you go to each of the school's websites you'll see all these accolades and accomplishments I know for Just For example the high school does a wonderful job Mr Lasser posts all of the pictures and recognitions um to promote all the the great things the students are doing so continue to check school's website uh in the news feed there's a lot of great things happening so speaking of great things happening I'm very excited to highlight to uh more high school programs tonight I had the great opportunity of watching a Deca presentation uh before they left for their amazing trip to Anaheim and if that presentation was a glimpse of of anything remarkable that was going to be happening then then the whole team I know was going to find great success because it was an amazing presentation so for tonight I'd like to start by um inviting Miss chko Christa chko up to the podium with some well-deserving students they're going to talk about uh Deca and a little bit about their more most recent trip to Anaheim so um the adviser of the program uh Miss turko would you um oh like well you can come up to the podium if that works or you can stand with the mic there it doesn't matter okay yep it's a lot of pressure to figure out which way all right come up here too make more sense YouTube told you you were talking we went Fancy with our Blazers today um so we are from Highland Park Deca as M Dr Susa said I am Chris chero I am the advisor I'm Rebecca U I'm Tom Carmen I'm Hannah poock the assistant adviser I'm Andrew Johnson I'm London Atkins so Deca is a business Club at the high school and I'm sure if you ask any of them what DEC Deca actually is they're kind of going to look at you really confused and then just kind of say it's a community um it is a family it is a bunch of students who come together to complete various projects as well as learn fundamental business skills so we have 87 members in the club and we are hoping to gain more within the next year um anyone looking to join it is early registration and you can do that so for Deca they have three main competitive events the first one is a roleplay which is mandatory for all Deca members this is kind of like an interview where they get a different scenario and they have to come up with a answer to the scenario so it could be something like the price of groceries are going up or you have to Market a new product in a different way so students will get the prompt they'll have 10 minutes to kind of come up with an answer before meeting with the judge and they go through the prompt with the judge the judge has some questions for them and then they kind of thank them and hope that they qualify to the next round the next one is virtual business so virtual business is an online simulated business that you in a sense play for two weeks if you have the highest profit in the region after those two weeks then you are able to automatically qualify to the international career and development conference and then our final one which is our most popular one is our manuals so these are some of our bigger projects where we are running our school store we are raising money for the W make AWI Foundation we are working with senior connection and just trying to do things in the community that really benefit others so it goes through the project management process where students have to identify their Human Resources their budget and a bunch of different things in order to complete a successful project then they write 20 pages about it and complete a 15minute presentation in front of the judge at their first competition at States and it is pretty cool what they can accomplish so I'm going to give it over to Becky and she's going to talk more about the competitions okay so throughout uh our school year we have four main competitions the first one is testing which is held in our media center during the school day and it's a rigorous 100 question multiple choice test that centers around the basics of marketing or finance and just like business principles and the score you get ties into uh the role play that Miss Trio mentioned before which is competed at districts so districts is divided into two sections usually half of New Jersey and then the other half goes another day and this is held at uh Kane University this is when the role plays um go and these role plays are challenging because individuals are given 10 minutes to think of a solution of a problem and this requires students to think on their feet before attending a interactive session with the judge and then the third big competition is held at Hara in Atlantic City and it is States and only students who qualify for states can attend so you either have to qualify through role playay at districts or you are in a manual and this is when you present your manual in front of a judge or you uh go through a session of roleplay the fourth main event is I ICDC which was held in California this year and this is an international competition so there are students from all around the world from all different cultures and we competed against 23,000 other Deca members from around the world so and it's a great way to network um meet other people from other countries and other schools and other states and it's really just a great experience so this is some these are some pictures from districts and in the top left there's Deca Jeff and me and Andrew um and it's really just again a great way to network with people from uh New Jersey and it's a great experience because it requires you to um really like think on your feet and put yourself in a situation and yeah and we had um a lot of qualifiers this year so only top 10 qualify for States and these are just yeah so these are all of our qualifiers which qualify to states which Becky explained a little bit about held in Atlantic City uh there as you can see I know Miss Trio was talking a lot about the almost the diversity of events that you can do and make it very individualized to the community the school community and so forth and uh we had a lot of place a lot of placements uh what's really awesome about these placements is the students work really really hard to get there they practice with us they practice with each other they practice individually many many a lunch um we spend they practice you and so um it's really impressive that we had so many qualifiers this year really impressive so we actually brought 50 of the 87 students to states with us and as you could see there's a bunch of different pictures um of them getting Awards being on stage and a lot of the fun things that were happening and here's more that wasn't enough um and the groups that you see at the bottom where you see Matt Tom and Andrew kind of have are the first names of three groups at the bottom those are uh manual groups the same those are 20 Page correct 20 Page manual groups they wrote the 20 Page papers essentially and did these projects all year long which they presented on very very impressive our girl London over here um she is a qualifier for Supermarket careers it's a program that a lot of our glow students uh go into for career and Community studies fantastic um we're proud of you London very hard to do uh we have Joe Angels group there that is a a pen pager so they wrote a 10 page manual and they did project over a 30-day period And I know you're going to hear about the rest I'm Andrew so I don't really want to give it okay so manuals are 20page papers and we present them to a judge for 15 minutes at States and we had around 11 manuals this year and they were in groups of two or three and it's very challenging because you have to write 20 pages on um a business solution or something that you did and you go against 20 or 30 other groups at States so this year we had um a group that developed their an idea for a new app called spot friend we had Emma Delia and Ethan work to raise awareness for a program in town called senior connection that works to kind of be friends with seniors and play different games and such um we had Evelyn Theo and akib work to have a bracelet business with some of the glow students we had zarena Sam and Victoria who were working to find ways to better hire or keep employees for American Towing uh we had two groups work with with Alon in town to kind of bring more awareness and customers to their business we had the sales project group that was marketing the school store and kind of running and operating it and then we also had Tapo Jason and Isaiah write a paper about what they do at cup oflow so the SB is a school-based Enterprise and it's located right across our gym and what it is it sells snacks for $1 and it's completely student run so whenever students have a free period such as study hall they go down to the store and students are uh students can go to the store to purchase snacks with a pass and we have snacks such as chips um goldfish uh granola bars and we also have Arizona which is our most popular item definitely and we also sell apparel if you guys are interested um so there's uh the the hoodies and we also have pants and it's very popular at our school this year we are able to certify our school store at the highest level which is the gold level in both food and Retail all right so my project with my two team members Andrea and Megan was Community giving we raised a total of $10,000 to make Wish Foundation um as you can see here we went to the president's reception um because we raised so much we we met a lot of the makewi kids and we just talked to a lot of people we also got an additional $4,000 at the president's reception um up in the top left you can see our uh Carnival that we did where we raised about $3,000 right we had a carnival we had about 200 Kids come out to the turf it was held during the last tree of the day and we had it go until I think four or five with a lot of community members also came out um we also got uh interviewed by what news12 right so that was great um we then held another fundraiser where we raised um the Macy's belief campaign is a campaign that raises money for the make Wish Foundation and every letter that you write for the the MA's belief campaign is a dollar donated right to the make Foundation however the MA's belief campaign did not happen this year right we were still able to get the money through the president's reception and other great donors we were able to write 5,84 letters right so that was a big contribution to all the money that we raised and then we got some extra uh donations through people and small businesses and friends and family right so it was a great uh year this year we raised a lot of money and we made it we got sixth place at States and we made it to uh Nationals right sadly we didn't win but hopefully we'll get next year okay and then for my Mano group this year uh my members were Becky and um Henry um we had financial literacy so we took on a task of teaching students um different financial literacy topics um so we taught students within the glow program um different topics such as banking savings and investing um in which for I personally taught the banking lesson um in which I taught students um the importance of debit cards um in Banks and we kind of gave them different situations in which they would use these different tools um but also gave them different lessons on how like on why it was important to to save um and also basic topics of investing um so it was definitely a very fun experience not just for the kids but also for us um there was definitely a lot of different skills involved for us we got a little Glimpse at teaching don't know how you guys guys do it um but we also were able to teach the students in the go program different all these different skills um and things like that Tom has volunteered to sing it if you really really I don't think I said that know it what you say so these were all the students that we brought with us to Anaheim California um they had various events to compete in so Becky and Andrew competed their manual on financial literacy Tom was doing his manual on community giving we had representatives for the school-based Enterprise competition and then we had some students who went to an academy to kind of learn how to better our Deca chapter and kind of just improve everything that we were doing so London actually went to the class which class did you go to um inspiring so she went to the Aspire class and what did you learn there I don't know don't know so it in Aspire is a class that kind of gets you prepared for the future so it was a lot of students from different districts and different states who were learning how to write a resume or how to network a little bit better and different guest speakers who can kind of help with um improving all of those skills in addition to some of these business skills um they do learn some travel training we had some students who've never been on an airplane before so it it's kind of cool to see them you know navigate through security and kind of all the like traffic and losing IDs and all the fun stuff that happened um so we also were able to have a mentorship with AT&T this year um so they hosted us for kind of like an awards dinner is kind of thing where we got to meet some of the AT&T mentors who are working in the industry who partner up with the students to kind of help them get started and improve improve their future goals and make it easier for them um we are also really close to Disneyland so we were able to go there and uh Tom really enjoy enjoyed Cars Land and then we are also able to take them to Huntington Beach um and that is some of the pictures that you see there um we're all kind of jumping we're doing some handstands uh do you guys have anything to add about icds um so I definitely want to emphasize the fact that um for some of us this was our first time on airplanes um but also as well as like across the country or in a different state um because as well of all the business and academic skills that come along with Deca um there are a lot of experiential like learning skills that um come along with this as well um for some for a lot of the students on this trip it was um definitely first time like traveling and stuff like that um but it was also fun to be able to like learn how to like navigate theme parks and also like different like City stuff um and kind of like definitely get a glimpse at what it is to be um more independent oh sure um so there an hour before the oh uh opening ceremony there's always a pin trade right every student is given six pins which is um each state right has a a specific pin right so ours was like a little Monopoly man this year um and it's really a prime time to network with so many people right there's people from all around this uh United States and then even people in Spain Guam China right A lot of people from Canada it's really a great time I think that's probably one of my favorite times at um ICDC right just because I like to talk to so many people and meet so many different new faces right so it's it's honestly great we had a great like we had it Outdoors this time um I'm not going to lie I did kind of go overtime um just a little bit just having a little too much fun I was featured in the uh Deca uh real right on Instagram yeah I was like the pinman I had it all on my like Blazer it was great they were like oh what can we trade and I just be like look at my Blazer and they'd be like this one I'd be like what do you have you know it was great I loved it right so I mean I really have a great time there I know we went on a whole chapter run one day that was really fun right we go on chapter dinners we do a lot of things with our chapter and it really you feel like you get like really like close with that group so it's a really fun time it's just it's really amazing there were like a lot of times where like you I mean you were never alone right you'd always have someone and you'd always meet new people so right everybody in our hotel was from New Jersey so like you kind of knew them from States right and it was just it was a great time right all right so that is kind of our little bit about Deca it definitely goes way deeper but we don't want to take up any more time because we have to get back to the Wizards um so thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to share what we do with you all thank you Miss shko Miss poock and students and of course feel free to go back to uh the Wizards game or what other fun activities you are doing I hear it's packed for the Wizards game so that's very exciting uh next I would like to welcome Mr Mike McCrae up oh we're just transitioning between our slides just give us one minute hello so Mr McCrae is going to share with us a little bit of about our National Honor Society and the amazing work that they do it is totally not fair to have to follow that presentation I just want to say are you trading pins are you you know chapter dinners grab some cinnabuns on your way out okay my name is Mike McCrae and I am the NHS supervisor um so National Honor Society is a club we have here at Highland Park High School um I'll take you through what the purpose of NHS is is to create an enthusiasm for scholarship to stimulate a desire to render service to promote worthy leadership and to encourage the development of character in students uh here in Highland Park High School um so we have four different pillars that kind of guide what NHS stands for and all of the NHS students have requirements they have to achieve under each one of those pillars so for example for scholarship one of the pillars uh they need to maintain a GPA of 3.5 and above they also have to provide tutoring Services of which they did a lot of this school year um they need to complete at least 20 hours of service during the school year um students are really given the option to complete that service with any Charities that they want um sometimes I will give them resources that they can reach out to sometimes they network with each other um some of them already have service projects that they do such as buddy ball that they just kind of um integrate into their hours for the club um the next is character uh which is they have to model exemplary educational and personal Integrity um this is basically they're not supposed to get written up for anything they're supposed to be a model student both in and out of the classroom um again it goes back to it's not just about having a high GPA you need to have a high character as well um leadership they have to demonstrate two examples uh during the school year again this takes a variety of forms students have a lot of flexibility as far as how they can achieve this particular pillar uh it could be they're a captain of a team they are um the leader of an after school fundraising program can even be something that they do in their Church um there's really a lot of different examples of leadership that a student can exhibit um so I included a few examples of service um you'll see at the NHS ceremony uh which by the way you're all invited to June 12th 7 p.m. um uh you'll see a longer version of this but basically all the NHS students will have a slide that is playing on the screen during the ceremony that basically just mentions what sort of service that that they that they did throughout the school year you can see this student um volunteered for Karma Cat Rescue Society and also the Highland Park youth theater company um this student volunteers at the Highland Park first aid Squad um and obviously as you can see is a m a lot of hours of service in that regard um this student volunteers of the Greek Orthodox Youth Association so again it could be service opportunities here in Highland Park High School or elsewhere in the community where they can get their service hours so this is a little snippet I know I don't have a video I'm sorry but um so one of the things that we celebrated uh or acknowledged a few weeks ago um that NHS Nationwide acknowledges is student leadership week um it was April 22nd to the 26th uh it's an annual celebration dedicated to recognizing empowering the vital role of Americans young leaders um it's been around for a long time uh as you can see on the slide um what we did here at high bar High School is uh each morning during announcements we acknowledge one particular NHS student um you know how many hours of service they' done what service that they've done um and we did that during that that week um okay so we just had um uh our our new roster of NHS students they had to apply in mid April there was a series of steps that they had to achieve during the application process um they needed to provide information about their previous experiences with leadership and service I don't really put in a specific amount of hours for this it's just you know what sort of service have you done previous to your application to NHS um they have to provide two teacher recommend ations which I think is a great skill for students to start to learn the process of you know networking with teachers and asking for recommendations um they needed to declare that they had the required GPA um they had to also write a personal statement uh short essay essentially uh they had to pick one of the four pillars that we talked about and basically write about what that pillar means to them um and then so I had all these applications and then I go through the process of kind of sifting through them and and counting up that you know making sure they have all their requirements um and then the way it works is we have an NHS faculty Council uh it's a mix of teachers and guidance couns and basically I present the list to them uh and then they vote on the students that they'll accept into NHS uh this is uh for the process of the the National Organization there's a NHS Constitution and I essentially just follow their uh parameters for for acceptance into NHS okay so as I mentioned uh there will be a coming up soon which everyone is invited to um 29 total students were accepted they join the roster well I guess we conclude next year it'll be around 50ish students that are in NHS um as I mentioned they'll be inducted at 7M in the High School auditorium uh accepted members are um encouraged to bring family and friends um at the ceremony there's a few different things that happen we acknowledge the four pillars I have uh different students give a speech about a short speech uh about each pillar and what it means to them uh we also have a number of students who acknowledge teachers um teachers have played a role in uh their educational career uh it's a really nice evening where everyone really feels the pride in NHS and also in Highland Park High School um if you are curious about NHS and want to learn more they have a national website um also the bylaws for our particular chapter of NHS here at Highland Park High School those bylaws are on the district website and it kind of just walks you through a lot of what I just said and some more detailed information about how our our club works and we did not get to go to California I'm sorry thank you thank you Mr McCrae if you've ever been to a National Honor Society induction ceremony it's absolutely fantastic very well done so I encourage everybody to mark on your calendars if you're open to 10 thank you all right and my last presentation for tonight I'm going to invite Miss Rodriguez Miss Michelle Rodriguez up uh to um present on our school performance report so every year data is collected to the state on multiple uh ways through our state reporting so the state tests that the students have to take starting in third grade through 11th grade um attendance data um they collect all sorts of NJ smart data data data data data and then they push it out on these reports um that are used for every school district around New Jersey so Miss Rodriguez you're up thank you I don't have students with me or pictures or videos and definitely no Tri um so I'm gonna try to juggle everything here so um the state published our performance reports in April on the State website I'm assuming the presentation's going to be the clicker no I okay I'm going to try Okay um I'm assuming the presentation's going to be posted right so everybody can access so the link is there if you wanted to go to the New Jersey Department of Ed's website to uh find the documents but we also have them linked onto our district website there you'll find uh the different files are by School in both English and Spanish and then the last two documents are uh the reports uh with the districtwide information as Dr Susa mentioned this is some of the information there are hundreds of data points in these reports lots of D information to dig through this presentation does not show all of it it shows pieces of it um but there are some of the uh uh big categories the districts and School overview demographics student achievement and growth graduation um climate and environment Etc okay some of the updates for the reports so there was no testing no State Testing in 2021 wait yeah 2021 in 2020 2021 so we did not have any accountability process which I will show um later on nor did we have any reporting of student growth so we haven't seen that since the performance reports from from 2019 uh it has come back now in 2023 because we had testing last year uh in 2022 and we had testing in 2023 and we that's what they needed is um at least two years of State Testing consecutive State testing for that the NJ doe um encourages school districts and all stakeholders to use the data in these reports alongside the data that's collected within the school district not just to take this and um make lots of conclusions but also take in uh the information um at the district level it also cautions comparing the data from year to year um in uh relation to the last three years because uh of the uh impact of the pandemic so I'm starting off with student enrollment and demographics this is Irving you'll notice that there is a oh my gosh what did I do help sorry thank you um you will notice that there is an increase in our enrollment um in the last two years we've had an increase of 57 students uh you will notice the chart at the bottom is student groups and the percentage you will notice that economically disadvantage has increased by 17.5% we've had other small increases but that one is the most significant when you um consider the increase in enrollment ble had an increase in 2022 and it went right back to where it was in 2021 so while it had an increased the enrollment pretty much went right back and remember this is all the information from 20202 and 2023 but again economically disadvantaged in the last two years saw um an increase of about almost 10% no 5.7 I'm sorry okay Middle School saw a tiny increase from 21 to 22 and then saw a decline in 23 and and yet though there is uh a decrease in the enrollment there economically disadvantage again saw an increase of about 10% High School even there's just a very small difference of basically in the last two years five students so we don't see much movement there okay student growth overview so this is the first year since 2019 that we have student growth percentiles uh those are the percents um that are assigned to each student based on students in fourth and eth grade for ELA State assessments and four through seven for mathematics and it Compares uh the progress of students who had similar test scores in the past they're academic peers so the Statewide median for student growth percentiles is 50% uh for ble Ela last year was above the state median and for yes for ELA now the state considers any percent between 40 and 59.5% as having met the standard so even though we're a little below the median in math we still met the standard according to the state so gold star for us yes and so at the the two graphs at the bottom show um the SGP by um grade level and we still are within the the percentiles for meeting the standard and so here I just point out some of the student groups where we did meet the target for ELA and math growth we did meet the percentiles for schoolwide white Hispanic English learners for economically disadvantaged we met the target for ELA only Asian native native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander we exceeded expectations in both and then for black or African-American and two or more races there is no data for growth because we do not have over 20 students in either one of those groups so the DAT the state does not um give you a growth number for that when that happens when you have less than 20 students the two graphs at the bottom were to kind of highlight some of the growth that is happening so it compares the cohort so if you look at the graph on the left that is our current fifth graders who took the test last week so in third grade so you'll see in third grade the blue line 29.5% of the students met or exceeded but when they became fourth graders it Rose to 47.5% so that's a big jump and again for math though the jump was not as uh big it still is a little bit of an increase same thing for the current sixth graders that's how they did when they were fourth and fifth graders again you see the same um we do see an increase in those percentages so we're headed in the right directions for middle school again the median is still 50 we did not make it for ELA uh we were very close to the 40 for meeting the standard but we're not there quite yet yet if you look at the graph at the bottom left we did make it for the eighth graders just not exactly there for sixth and seventh and for math we did with the 42% and as you can see for sixth and seventh grade um they were right in between there eighth grade is not there because um they only do it up to seventh grade because at that point you're talking about algebra and geometry and the different tracks that for um for those students so this just highlights um some of the groups that met the target for math schoolwide why Asian native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and students with disability all met the target for math growth and then again black or africanamerican two or more races and English Learners there is no data for gra a growth for them because we don't have more than 20 students um I did the same thing for the charts so if you see our current seventh graders that's how they did in fifth and sixth grade you will notice that it did not increase um for neither Ela or math so we did see a dip for them but we did see an increase for our current 8th and nth graders and there is no math line there again because the state doesn't track because once they get past um the sixth grade test the students can be in different um taking different assessments the next couple of slides are for participation rate in the njsla as well as the proficiency rate this is for ble we're though it's not large we are seeing an increase for the school so for ELA it's 3.4% for math it is 5.8% for Middle School same thing Ela it's 1.3% increase for the whole school and 2.1% in math our participation rate is has been for the last two years pretty steady a % or here and there decrease or increase but it's not a huge jump one way or the other high school we saw 0.5% increase in ela but if you notice in last year's proficiency rate for ELA we were only 2% away from um meeting the Statewide proficiency so we were just like right there and for math uh we saw increase of 2% you you will notice that the Statewide proficiencies are very different between Ela and math I just wanted to mention that okay graduation rates and Pathways uh the gra graduation rate they consider any student who has met all of the requirements to graduate and gets a state earned diploma by August 31st as uh having graduated um in terms of Pathways for the class of 23 the state waved the state requirements uh for assessments passing an assessment a state assessment so there were no Pathways um for the class of 2023 the state did not do that for the class of 2024 sorry so these are our State graduation uh rates we did in the last two years uh have rates for 4year higher than the state and for a fiveyear rate we did have higher than the state as well last year Federal graduation rate is a little different I just wanted to point that out students with disabilities who don't meet all of the graduation requirements because because of a modification or an exemption in their IEP are not included in the federal rate so you won't there's not much of a difference in our four-year rate but there is in comparison to the State graduation rate but there is a little bit of a difference in our fiveyear rate these are our PS PSAT and sat performance rates uh the students for both whether reading and writing or math performed above the state average in all categories so that was awesome AP exams we had a total of 327 exams taken by our students both 11th and 12th grade students um out of 327 exams uh 260 66 of them earned at least a three so that's about 81% of those assessments and um we were above the state average for the percentage of students enrolled in one or more in one or more tests took one I'm sorry enrolled in one or more courses took one or more exams and took one or more exams and scored at least a three for 2023 we also Reed the AP School honor rooll um the silver badge sorry I don't remember all those numbers so that honor is based on the class of 2024 so 50% of the students in that class took at least one AP course 45% earned at least a three or higher on their exam and 14% have taken five AP courses or more in their High School career that's a lot so that was a great honor we haven't received that honor since 2017 so that was great chronic absenteeism um this is a chart that shows all of the grade levels for 2023 they considered chronic absenteeism defined as being absent 10 or more 10% or more of the days enrolled during the school year it does not matter whether it's excused or not so that's at least 18 days if you look if you notice on the bar graph our high school is always under the state average for chronic absenteeism and we know that their attendance is very important to meeting graduation requirements we also noticed that our prek students are under the state average for chonic absenteeism but kindergarten through eight is not so that's a place where we have to do a little work I will say first grade fourth grade and eighth grade seem to be our hot spots where the amount that were at least 10% over the state average okay so as I had mentioned earlier um since we had State Testing last year for the last two years uh New Jersey is now using their they're back to using their accountability system and so they're using their formula to determine a summative score and they use these measures for accountability so academic achievement academic progress graduation progress toward English language proficiency and chronic absenteeism and so they use their formula to come up with the summit of score they use our data to give us a score and then any school that Falls below that score for any student group gets identified um sorry gets identified as comprehensive or as the targeted School of improvement if you are identified as a school that falls under any of those two categories then um you basically work with your stakeholders and you assess your needs look at your data both from the performance report as well as internal data to to identify weaknesses come up with strategies and resources how you're going to support those students create an annual plan create a timeline and understand how to get out of that status we have two schools identified our Middle School is identified as a comprehensive support and Improvement School based on chronically low performing student group um that means that the school was previously identified as needing additional targeted support and Improvement and has been in that category for three or more consecutive years the middle school is identified and the targeted group is black or africanamerican when you are identified as a comprehensive support and Improvement School you it will take three years to be eligible to exit so we won't have an opportunity it doesn't matter if we meet all of the targets you're held into that category for three years so the middle school will only have a possibility of exiting in 2027 the B Bartles Elementary has been identified as a targeted support and Improvement School and their student group that they were identified for was students with disabilities but they're in a I guess for a lack of better word in a lesser category and they have a possibility of eligibility in 2025 so at the end of next school year ble was last year identified as an additional targeted support and Improvement school which is the category between both of those um for the following student groups Hispanic black or African-American economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities however based on having met the targets for those areas they are actually exiting additional targeted support and Improvement status as of June 30th of this year so only students with disabilities remains and so they got brought down um to a lower category they did this the the growth uh targets that were met I mentioned earlier but I also wanted to mention that for Asian native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and two or more races we did meet the target for ELA and math Proficiency in those areas these like I mentioned before the schools are still working to create their action plans but these are some of the steps um that will be included for Bartles so professional development around co- teing models to strengthen instruction and icr classes professional development in best practices and Special Education data collection and progress monitoring monthly meetings between CST members and the administration data wall tracking to identify Trends peer observation and modeling teacher leader support and coaching uh a transition plan for students from Irving to Bartle and then more opportunities for student engagement and like I said they are working on more detailed plans the middle school as I mentioned previously they were identified for black or African-American yet notice that they did meet the target for ELA Proficiency in that student group now they just need the others for Math and growth um Asian native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and two or more races also met the target for ELA proficiency Asian native native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander two or more races and English Learners met the target for math proficiency and the middle school did meet the target for math growth schoolwide for white asian native Hawaiian or Pacific Island oh you want to just come over into next Andre and finish your presentation I'm sorry me you can sit down yes I um oh okay is this good yes oh can I take this off yeah yes yeah just it's not portable don't use these things often oh it's okay thank you um so and students with disability met the target for math growth some of the middle school next steps professional development on small group instruction to address the specific needs of students Based on data collected targeted intervention data collection and progress monitoring family engagement events Brothers mentoring to increase academic success as well as social skills and peer relationships continuation of advisory to increase academic and social skill competencies and recommendations for ship and after school enrichment opportunities so districtwide we are doing um lots of work that we've set some of the groundwork this year and we're continuing next year so the curriculum uh will be revised K12 for both ianl and math since the new 2023 New Jersey state learning standards um go into effect in September of 2024 so we will be providing professional development on the shifts in instructional practices especially in thinking about K to5 reading and writing foundational um skills there will be a continuation in the coaching and support of K to3 teachers that we have been doing um in terms of Reading Readiness femic awareness and foundational reading skills we're going to continue um to use benchmark data to track progress and identify necessary interventions and enrichment opportunities we did a lot of especially in ela we did a lot of this ground work this year um so we hope to improve it and continue to do it um continue to work on using common language on assessments and thinking about um items that reflect the njsla and NJ GPA um continue with professional development on datadriven instructional practices in 12 and then continue to review the multi-tiered support systems to best identify um our different uh varying levels of support for our Learners and here are just some websites both the state and our school website um where if you have any feedback or questions thank you all right thank you Miss Rodriguez so I know that you have uh the Wizards game to go to as well so if you need to go please go and then U what I'll do is I'll open the uh floor to the board for any questions or comments um if there's things that can't be addressed today I'm just going to write them down and follow back as Miss Rodriguez has an event to go to any questions or comments from the entire presentation um I actually have a question about chronic absenteeism uh slide 23 um I know in some of the previous data it was like we're look at the our current seventh graders how they performed um with the chronic absenteeism data are we looking at our current I guess it like was this uh the absente absenteeism rate for our like current first graders now or we're now indergarten yeah no it was 2022 2023 okay yes so those like what you see there was their the next grade is this year yes okay I just wanted to clarify that um and then you know we we talk a lot about benchmarking and intervention um and just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that because I know for example at Irving and we we've just gone over the budget where we've used operating funds in order to preserve these interventionists um can you go over a little bit more about what that means like at ble where there's you know dolphin tutoring but also um high impact tutoring like how how do you get into those yes well those are two different things so yeah so we have so intervention we offer math and Ela intervention of in all four schools but it just looks different depending on the school whether it's a pushin model or pull out model and and the foundation for which we we do that and then what we do is we offer um benchmarking especially in our elementary schools uh for all students so all students get um uh the benchmarking for Math and Ela and if they hit a certain um Benchmark or recommendation from a teacher um they do F further identification in the actual intervention classes themselves to figure out what differentiated support they need to close those gaps and then we do is we monitor that data and this year we were very excited because we've been exiting students out the point of intervention is it's not supposed to be a life sentence they go in they fill the gaps of what they need and then they get out so oftentimes what happens is teachers will give an assessment and they realize oh students aren't quite there yet but are they how far behind grade level are they and then that's when they're recommended for intervention and then the point of intervention is to go back and figure out okay what grade level are they operating on and how do we close those gaps it becomes a little trickier with math I think just because math it's like is it operations in algebraic thinking is it geometry right so those those buckets um and like I said we've been really excited to focus our energy in that area to to exit students that are in need uh there's usually two schools of thought with intervention one is trying to hit the students most in need that are significantly behind grade level another school of thought is those students that are just at the cus slightly behind grade level um we've been trying to take we have a lot of students in need clearly so we've and we don't have enough staff to do that so we've been trying to earmark the in school uh some of the first some of the intervention for our students that are just slightly below sort of get them in get them their strategies and then get them back into class and we've been really successful with that our students that have been needing um more targeted support we've been offering a lot more of that high impact tutoring during the school day so that they can get that a lot of work especially with um with English language arts for like Orton Gillingham and things like that so we've been really trying to Target more um specific support for those students so that's at the K5 oh yes oh okay um and then we have um at the middle school same type of thing our our students and at the high school our students are identified usually by their teachers saying you know there there's some concerns about this data um what what we're seeing with students in the in this classroom and um or from the grade level behind so our fifth grade teachers might say hey we're recommending a couple of kids for intervention the following year then uh after the summer they come into school and then they take assessments through our programs that we offer read 180 Math 180 and then from there the program and the intervention teacher Target them to say if they need support or not and then we put them in it becomes a little bit more challenging especially at the middle school not so much at the high school because the high school offers study hall which students I know love uh but the Middle School becomes a little bit more challenging because um one getting the students into those classes means they usually have to give up and I know we've talked about this world language um and they don't usually want to so students typically at the secondary level OP don't opt in don't want to participate in our intervention class um because Unfortunately they have to give up something um what we struggle with is then saying if they actually exit out then they have to go back into the world language program and that could be halfway through the year and they've already missed half of the year of World Language so we're working through some of those Kinks that's a a secondary scheduling challenge that all school districts face um so that's usually how we earmark for the difference between intervention and our high impact tutoring go ahead yeah Ethan sh hi everybody I don't know if I can turn my video on I think I can't do it myself so I'm happy to just be a voice in the room voice in the sky um okay so first of all I think obviously you know just first impression that these are encouraging numbers in a lot of ways there's a lot of room for improvement but the ship seems to be moving in the right direction which is great and I think the administration and the staff and everyone of the schools um deserves a lot of credit for how hard they're working um I also think these results are kind particularly impressive given that um uh uh the percentage of low-income students in the schools is increasing at every school um I think it's so important that we serve all of our students I know students from low-income families come in perhaps less well prepared uh their families may have fewer resources to help them outside of school um so I think given that you know we're improving or holding steady as far as like as as far as I can tell in pretty much everywhere um is impressive because it suggests that you know we're we're not um in the aggregate losing ground because we have more students who need perhaps more help um so I think that's very good um I have two so two comments questions um one is that obviously was great to see our our AP numbers my compe side likes to say that you let that's you know we're beating them being okay good um and I just wonder sort of um Dr Sesco what you think about that finding from the or that that sort of you know um yeah finding whatever uh in the context of that we had these earlier conversations in the board about we were not meeting targets for enrollment as as I understand it of um students underrepresented social groups in our AP course and so I just wondering so how we kind of Balan this great RP scor look good um but you know um how do we think about that in light of maybe we're not reaching all the students we want to although it does seem like many more of our students are taking AP classes than in other districts which I think is deserves pointing out so although we may be falling short of some of our own goals that we've set for ourselves we're clearly doing a lot better on this measure than other districts in the state least as far as I can see um and my other question has to do with enrollment I just just given your experience I was wondering does the up and down in particular at ble and the Middle School look like sort of normal churn right I mean 30 students up and down seems like a lot but I just don't know uh obviously we don't want that to continue um but I don't know if that if we sort of should not be concerned about it or that's something we should sort of really be thinking more about thank you okay so I might need clarification because I'm not really sure what the specific question you were asking for the first for the first point but the second point for sure is we can definitely look into it a little bit more but typically enrollment does fluctuate a little bit in Highland Park when our numbers are actually quite low it's very common we actually are seeing a spike in a transient population from what I gather from the burough about 70% of the homeowners in Highland Park that own homes don't actually live in their homes they rent them out and we're seeing a a very highly transient population uh particularly um at ble and middle school that's where we see them come in and we're actually taking those that interesting data and mapping it to these data walls to see if our students where we're having issues with um our achievement gaps and with um uh chronic absenteeism and discipline and looking at those students are like what we're calling are they are homegrown students that were having trouble along the way that once they hit Middle School all of a sudden now we're seeing a decrease in their schores you know or upper elementary school or is it um our students that are a transient population um you know might be what we refer to as District impaired that are coming from other districts not necessarily um getting the programming that we're offering because we do offer really robust programming especially in math and Ela um for example you know our um you know the the complex tax task instruction that we offer now as as low as third grade uh Department partial departmentalization and things like that um all of our elementary teachers are a good portion of them are OG trained so we're really uh we focus a lot on that so we're we're starting to work on looking at that data because that's been pretty significant on our radar so it's not alarming in terms of that it happens what we're con what we're curious about is if that um Spike or those changes due to the transient population impacts our data set one thing um Ethan just to comment on that as well and for the group I was going to ask or just point out that um there was a big spike in um Irving likely because of the prek and that is something we should note and that's going to follow us next year and the year after so when we think about Staffing that is a fluctuation that tells us something that I think is actionable okay other questions Monique just a couple of questions uh one is on I don't know if you're thinking about this yet but I know what it's like to work with a population that is not counted you just be close for the microphone I'm thinking specifically about the fact that uh several of our student groups with less than 20 students not in this accountability data grow data um accountability data the grow me and I just think that and I'm wondering if you all are thinking about ways to kind of create alternative um internal measures of assessing what are again I take with the grain of salt um you know a lot of the emphasis placed on standardized testing generally speaking I think that's one measure and we need to really be very clear about the fact that that yes we are pleased and happy to see progress we want to address areas of need that are reflected in our CES well the that is one very narrow measure that really puts all the students into one the same hole right so we want to be really more comprehensive and how we assess where our students are the so I don't know if you're thinking about that not just for these underrepresented groups but just more globally too yeah so I'll talk I know that Miss Rodriguez mentioned the data walls um and I'm not sure if you've seen them before especially in some of the evidence that I submitted from my own evaluation but that's something that I'm most proud of is what we've done in each of the schools is create what we're calling data walls and Google Sheets essentially is tracking all of our students their their math and Ela benchmarks their um their demographic information if they're um student with disabilities um their um their socioeconomic status their discipline data so number of infractions or number of so in ble it's infractions you know middle school high school we get to infractions ISS OSS or rise and and OSS uh so disciplinary and then their attendance and tardiness and we're tracking all of those all of that data and the staff have have access to see that data and then what we do during our plc's and our grade level team meetings and department meetings is look at that data analyze the data and look for those specific Trends so that way it's easy in sheets to kind of pull um you know some some quick reports some quick graphs and charts to look at that data and look at it saying okay let's look at how different subgroups doing how are students that are econ economically disadvantaged doing how are students over doing overall in ela so we're actually looking at even though the state doesn't have us necessarily report because the numbers of students that um that are identified as black in our community are not as um significant to report on the state reporting but we look at every piece of of that data so it's something that is helping us in all schools whether they're targeted or not to really track a lot of that information to look at different Trends too for example if students are chronically absent and they're struggling in class you know that makes a little bit of sense or if other students are coming their attendance is a problem but there's some issues with student discipline you know is that impact instruction and what's going on and do we need referrals is the inrs what what are we doing so we're really looking a lot of that data very very carefully thank you and then my second and last question I'm pretty sure is just just I think a question and a comment on the PSA tsat um and AP exam data I mean clearly we know that these numbers are are impressive I think Highland Park has historically had a pretty high record where this is concerned um but again this speaks to a very um narrow sort of uh demographic group in our community so we know we've been working for a while to try to see more students who are historically underrepresented in more of these classes um of course this is all based on individual desire I want to make sure students want to be there AP is not the end all and be all neither is uh you know being in um all of the honors classes you could possibly rack up right but we really wanted to try to see more diversification in these classes and I know we're that's still an area in need of improvements I think I just want to point out that these numbers are really impressive but it also we have to peel back the layers and just recognize that we cannot have certain students kind of riding the cailes of students who tend to be the ones who are predominantly represented in these classes so it's just still doing that work still remaining committed to it so that all students who want to be in those classes do have equal opportunity to do so thank you and I just want to Echo that by also just you know highlighting back to what Miss Rodriguez said like we're excited about those things but also we are seeing growth so I know that you know our data has been um you know really on our radar since my time here since 2016 but I'm really happy to see that we're we are growing we're do we're we're trending in the right direction and I know we'll continue to do so but not with without forgetting that you know where we stand on making sure that we are continuing the work on providing high level of curriculum and opportunities for all students um I have uh just two things uh and some of this I don't know that you'll be able to answer right now first um uh when it follow on Monique's comment um one of things just methodologically um in the Middle School um I think it was um black and African-Americans were targeted for additional support it's confused by that because we couldn't report on them I'm sure it's because it's only to the growth but I um so I think I know the answer but it confused me so it might be something might be worthy of a clarification there and then the other one um I know in the beginning there was a just a the overview is this is one input it's absolutely one input there's many others and I think to the extent that we can um just what are those other ones how are we using them um how does this all come together so it's great to see this report but also I'd like to know how we're taking that into consideration with other metrics what are they what what matters to us what what are other indicators of success um so just the more we can bring that discussion uh public I think that would be great um oh right have any I know Ethan has another question so I don't I don't know how to navigate all this go ahead I think I'll lower my hand I may have some more things to say but yeah thanks okay all right all right an okay um I just wanted to uh respond to Monique's comment because I take that very seriously um I I think that one of the things that we do need to recognize though is when we're talking about AP classes for example um we're actually doing better than the state average on the percentage of our Hispanic students or this percentage of our black students or the percentage of our economically disadvantaged students who are in AP classes so we might not be living up to our own standards but we are doing much better than the state by pretty drastic numbers yeah that tells us a lot about where our state stands right yeah exactly and and where our standards are which I think they should be high I just really did want to let people I mean like the the difference between here and the state is Stark it's 41% of our economically disadvantaged students are enrolled in one or more AP class and for the state it's 20 1% so I just I just wanted to um kind of clarify something also in regard I was going to make the same comment Sarah about the prek and our percentage of free introduced lunch students and we prioritize those students so it's not surprising that um those seats have been filled so I think what's really what will be very interesting to watch is as we continue to expand that Universe what happens to that percentage and another thing to take in into consideration because the numbers do look alarming is that they also did raise the um and you probably know this term better and um the limit for free and reduced lunch in September and then they are also going to raise it again next SE this coming September so that kind of affects our percentages as well the the state law to qualify as economically disadvantaged uh that means that you qualify for free or reduced lunch uh there was a law passed in 2022 that went into effect in the fall that raised the eligibility level from uh 185% of the federal poverty line to 200% and then there was another law that was passed earlier this year uh that's going to go into effect in the fall that's going to raise the income eligibility to I believe 224 per so we're going to see so next year's report we're going to see the percentage of um economically disadvantaged students Skyrocket which is going to have maybe not Skyrocket but it's going to go up but that is because the parameters will have shifted as well you know that's a factor to take into account and then we'll see it again the next year all right that concludes my report I'm sorry I just let this one one quick question and this is something I know you raised before but uh the discrepancy between math and Ela scores in in a few areas I don't believe every level but I know that Miss Rodriguez mentioned that and I know in the past you've talked about this being um something that supervisors across the state are recognizer superintendent are recognizing so I just wanted you to I don't know if you want to speak to that now but what you're what you all are thinking about as you look at that disparity or discrepancy and he be been able to sort of figure that out a little bit more maybe not at this point but certainly I'll have to get back all right thank you it concludes my report hey we're going to move on to public comment Angela how many are online we have 20 attendees in attendance is there anybody here for public comment all right come on in um students you just state your name you don't know if to tell us where you live oh I gesture I gesture to the wrong at the podium just your so oh the podium I have to read the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and there is reserved this time for your comments um okay wait can I take s I think so um hello Highland Park Board of Education my name is anano and I am a junior at Highland Park High School I'm going to speak on behalf of students of hphs with the concern I person share um this concern regards to the transfer of Miss Karen Abs from the teen center to Urban after reading this in the order in the Border agenda we quickly realized what impact it would have on our students personally I felt really upset and I wanted to know if my friends felt the same way which they did um we also asked around our friends and they also felt the same way the general concept was that we couldn't see the teen center without Miss EPS her generosity and kindness shine through me as and she has really helped me through my very busy and stressful J junior year also her support through personal struggles has been nothing but amazing she is really a great person I really appreciate her we asked the board to strongly consider upstanding on this vote so that the superintendent and the school administration can reevaluate the decision thank you oh um I think she's up next yeah sorry okay hi um my name is narani and I'm a sophomore um Miss EPS she's not only the secretary of the team Center but she's also the administrative assistant so she greets students as they come in she answers phone calls and she connects with kids and counselors she acts as AR ray of sunshine um every day when we enter the school building she always has a big smile on her face if a student seems to be having a bad day she's always the first one to approach them and figure out what's wrong a lot of students in this school consider Miss EPS as a mother figure me personally as well um when I first came to this school well I first came here in 8th grade but coming into high school she made me feel welcome and she made sure I didn't feel alone um Miss F she provided me emotional and moral support and also to other people in this school as well we as students can count on Miss FS to be there when no one else would um yeah um and I'm also speaking on behalf of the rest of my friends and other people in the school as well they also consider Miss EPS as a big part of this school and owls as a whole so I really hope you take our speeches into consideration because removing Miss FS would be like removing a piece of the owls and we don't want that thank you oh hello everyone my name is Marlene Zuniga prum I'm a junior in high school and well when I first like my freshman year Miss Miss ABS was in like the front like the front desk when you walk in she would always greet me with a smile always ask me oh good morning good afternoon and like it's something like when you first walk in you know sometimes you wake up late and you're not in a mood but it's just like she always lightens up lightens the day you know um she always has this happy attitude with anyone like narani said if you look upset or if like you never went to the team center before she would encourage you to go and talk to someone if like you really feel upset or you're going through [Music] something um once again again I want to share an experience like what I have with Miss EPS what like when I first like when I was going to get my driver's license I was so scared I was so nervous and I really like anxious about it but miss EPS would always called me down and tell me it's going to be okay if you don't pass it's okay you get other chances and even though it's something not as big to talk about it's something that I knew that oh she's always there to comfort me about it and she like leading on to the days of Me by to take my test she did always check up on me how do you feel it'll be okay just you know think it'll be fine and I did pass and I was super proud but I always knew that now that I knew she was always there like if I need a chip chat about something little that she always has interest in what I'm about to say and like she cares about what I want to say and it's not like maybe something simple argument with a friend she's always there to give great advice and how to conquer without like uh like an argument you know find better ways and she cares a lot about everybody in school and she's always asking you if you're fine and yeah and I kind of have like social anxiety but I knew coming up and talking to you guys about this situation was like I can get my worries over because I know Miss EPS is something that I really want her to stay and um here we have about like 172 signatures of a students that wish she could stay as well and some letters that's it thank you hello my name is is Rory Gibney crash and and I'm going to read a letter that me and my friend Juliana Cordo Dent wrote about Miss apps um Juliana is not here but we wrote this together um we want to share the profound impact that kenep has had on the student body over the past year we have witnessed firsthand the kindness compassion empathy Miss EPS has constantly provided and shown to the students facing in challenges upon entering the teen center High School is a difficult environment to navigate for all students and the teen center is an incredible program to guide students through it on several occasions where I have entered the teen center in tears or Panic she's always there immediately to offer a hand and guide me to the support that I need within the teen center I know many of my friends have had very similar experiences as well miss EPS is the first person you see when you walk into this teen center and her warm smile immediately causes a warm environment everyone know everyone who knows her feels supported seen and inspired within her presence additionally while many students cut class and have been removed from the teen center Miss EPS makes sure that students who reside in the teen center are there for legitimate reasons and remove students who loiter this subsequently makes it a more spacious and better environment for children that are struggling with mental health Miss FEPS has greatly impacted the students individually and as a whole and we deeply value her presence in the high school and we respectfully ask that you consider our voices as students in support of her we urge the Board of Education to abstain from on this agenda item and we ask that the school administration reevaluates their decision thank you for your time hello uh my name is Eliana buer and I am also talking about Miss apps um I started high school during covid which set the stage for how hard the next four years would be I'm a senior right now I'm not ashamed to say I've had multiple crises during school hours not fun I had a skipping habit during my sophomore year where I would literally leave the school every day because I didn't feel like there was anywhere safe in the school to go there there wasn't anywhere I could turn to and I was told by all my teachers and administrators when I brought this up that the teen center was the place to go and it was only when Miss EPS started working that I actually started feeling like that that it was a safe place to go um Miss EPS is a familiar face to most of the student body most of us saw her in Middle School some of us saw her in ble and we're all seeing her now um she always has something to say usually with a warm smile and a comforting laugh and walking into the teen center in tears is a much more common experience than I think most high schoolers would want you to know um and it's it's a vulnerable experience to walk into somewhere during school hours in tears and hysterics and Miss EPS is a constant reminder that no matter what someone cares about you someone's there for you someone understands what you're going through um and she's talked me and others countless times through moments of really intense emotion that is hard to manage otherwise during school because there are places that you're expected to be in things are expected to do she's a blessing to have at the high school and she forms genuine relationships with the students that not a lot of teachers can do and she has a special position where she's able to do that she's really able to reach out to so many different groups of students and people um I think she's most definitely needed for next year too because it's going to be a transitional phase for the high school with Mr ler leaving new batch of middle schoolers coming in I'm not going to be there but I can tell you that if Miss car Miss EPS is there it will make a huge difference refence that's all I have to say thank you all for your comments is there anybody else in the room I do not know how to follow these young ladies but I'm going to do my very very best my name is Gina Bridges Caron and I am concerned about I'm sorry Gina can you just speak closer to the mic I'm sorry just speak closer to the mic um thank you I want to speak about the half a day for juneth um although I know a lot of people don't believe that this day is very important but it is it took us well took basically two and a half years for the enslaved people in Texas to find out that they were free that's a very very important subject because we're talking about freedom and our freedom is very important and I take nothing nothing for granted and every day I'm fighting for who I am my race every single day it hasn't changed so by giving us a half a day of school it's like you're giving a crumb to the black people of Highland Park and it for me it's unacceptable and I have been hurt and felt disrespected and it has I've been upset for weeks because I can't figure out what I should do and I've been told also that if I decide to take that day off I either have to give a day back to the school system or use a personal day and I don't think I should have to use either one because this is truly a Federal holiday so there should be a better solution than just taking juneth and not maybe thinking about another day to make up this day if you have to for a snow day but I really believe that you we need to understand that today everyone is trying to fight for their rights and I'm just fighting right now for my right to be able to sit down and reflect upon what it is to be black in America that's what I have to say thank you are there anybody else okay we'll go to online public comment if you would like to make a public comment please raise your hand okay we're going to go on to our committee reports I'll start with the curriculum instruction um for the curriculum instruction agenda we have the approval of field trips and we have the approval of home instruction for two students um curriculum and instruction met on May 9th uh we were first joined by Dr ISAT Judi and Dr Pan sinna um who are the founders of edifi which we had uh talked about at the last meeting and tables um and they answered some questions for us they described edifi as an AI assistant when it comes to personalized guidance um it's not designed to replace counselors but to increase efficiency and Effectiveness they just received a grant from the Department of Education and Highland Park particip ation with edifi would be a part of that Grant if we were to approve edifi the pro I'm sorry the pilot for edifi the focus for the fall would be something called discovery which is an um a quiz on an app that reveals factors about the students personality and potential future interests and goals these questions are engaging and relevant to students some questions lightly touch on mental Wellness but it's not a mental health screener um the responses would create a dash board that guidance counselors could access during meetings with their students or perhaps before the idea is to help guidance counselors make meetings more personalized and to build stronger relationships with students the data would be deidentified and would be include quiz responses the mental Wellness questions and would be stored for industry standard um the pilot would be designed collaboratively with Highland Parks guidance counselors Miss asamoa and the um edified designers so there's a lot of potential to control aspects of the roll out and design for example we um can influence the size of the pilot the process to consent whether or not students can uh skip questions Etc so a lot of what we discuss at um with edifi would be um setting the parameters for how this pilot rolls out the next item we discussed was um Alp which is the advanced learning program um Miss Rodriguez provided us an update from the Alp program um Miss tdos is interested in changing the order of some units and topics for next year but what she is really proud of is that the students are sharing their projects with other students um so some of the fle students went to Irving to present to some of the Irving students and then also some students presented to second grade classes so they're sharing their work um from their enrichment program um currently thank you currently the enrichment program is four and fifth grades at ble there are some questions about demographics in the program um kind of speaking to what we were talking about before you know this idea of we want to open access to um you know AP and honors classes but we want to make sure that this program this enrichment is also accessible by many students um we need to determine if the assessments are burdensome in some way and that's perhaps a deterrent from the program um reviewing the assessments and knowing that there are state requirements would be helpful as well as sharing demographics in the program um communicating the programs with the public might also be an issue so parents know the options now miss kajos does present on Alp during um back to school night um but it's during the specials so don't skip it because every year we do get a few questions on what's Alp I don't know what it is and um and Miss tdis gives a presentation every year back to school night so um don't skip the specials at ble um Alp includes not just that pullout program it includes for grades 2 to five enrichment juring specials in four course subjects also called extra special so if your kid ever came home and said I had extra special today that is Alp um grades two and three received push in stem enrichment grade Four's pullout cycle are is different Alp I'm sorry different alp CLE so literacy ambassadors which focus on fiction citizen scientists and art installation therapists and grades 5es focus our um fuse studio for science literacy ambassadors for informational text health and wellness experts and musical historians and then we touched on music schedules um Miss Rodriguez provided some information in response to questions and concerns about morning band rehearsals at the middle school during the school day band Orchestra and choir meet as smaller groups rehearsals before or after school are when the entire groups come together um band rehearsals occur in the morning at 7:15 while choir and Orchestra occur after school band also has more rehearsals throughout the year than the orchestra and choir enrollment in band is strong it's 52 students and it's actually grown since Mr O'Hara took over the program which is great these rehearsals are not mandatory they do have three students that have elected to attend less frequeny less frequently um when scheduling rehearsals the district has to balance shared staff schedules and students after school activities for example the middle school band director teaches at ble and the end times are different between Irving and ble um so in addition changing band rehearsals um could potentially be a an issue for um I think they surveyed the class 41 out of the 52 students who attend the rehearsals before school because they have other after school commitments so the question is are we okay with students attending at 7:15 in the morning given that there are no crossing guards and we have worked towards later start times for adolescence and it's the earliest start time the district has had for any activity Miss Rodriguez will look into po possible solutions and indicated that the number of rehearsals for next year would it be more Equitable between the three groups another fact uh discuss point of discussion was that the high school schedule half days is an a period uh start time so there was question as to why that is um this occurs on conference days and prior to breaks and because you have to work backwards on getting a start time with the schedule um the end time of 12:30 on a half day would give uh would I'm sorry is like the time that's allowed on the contract so 9:02 to start like just regular period one at 90 two would be um too late you would not get that four hours in there so you have to start at the a period time in order to get the credit for having a day of instruction and that concludes my report are there any questions okay equity and Excellence I have nothing to report this evening we are meeting on Thursday um finance and Facilities we are meeting tomorrow so there's not a uh report from the committee on our agenda is approval of travel and related expenses the uh approval of contract contractors for Professional Services one being bringing in a consultant to work with our seniors on the consequences of distractive distracted drinking and driving um seems like an important topic and uh also the uh uh approval of um bringing in a value valuators to review our school data related to discipline and uh looking at our Rise program something that we've wanted to do this would be somebody who would come in and I start that process we also have approval of three students for bedside instruction and then a long list of um approvals for participation in coordinated Transportation uh for the Ed Services Commission and then for lots of other Educational Services and other counties and my understanding is that this is for um trying to find ways to reduce the cost of Transportation combining with other districts to um transport some of our I assume particularly special education students or students who are going to other schools for different reasons if we could find a way to combine uh forces we could maybe save some money on Transportation so that's uh numbers four through uh 12 all related to coordinating transportation and the last item on the agenda for um fin facilities is approval of a structural evaluation um we're looking to have an architect um take a look at two different areas in ble uh the mechanical room and um the area adjacent to that uh to see what is needed to make that area structurally sound and that's the agenda any questions on that I have a quick question um for the presentation on distracted drinking and driving to 12th grade students do you know if that will be a classwide presentation or diff like the individual gym or English classes I don't know we'll have to ask Mr Lasser okay I would advocate for the individual ones as it's more attention y or maybe missas MOA if it's I think it was paid out of the M Municipal Alliance so we may have to ask missas MOA about that one good question just want to write that down so I remember to do that any other questions okay personnel and Communications uh personnel and Communications did meet this week we met on Tuesday night um with uh Dr cesa myself Marilyn Nikki and an we went over the agenda items um including appointing Miss Copa as the new educational stability leison um she's also it's very similar to the homeless leaon which is also Amy currently um and I'll go over the agenda items in a little bit but in the communications area we went over um talking about surveys and how we could help to improve those potentially in the future we also talked about some Community involvement ideas like town halls or advisory um and Dr suska said she'll look into um doing something like that when we get to the point of uh creating action items for strategic planning um and then the committee suggested also creating maybe some orientation events either in person or on Zoom um this is happening already for students moving up to a new school but the thought was maybe we could do a little bit more for parents um so that they have more of an idea of what to expect at the new school um and then Dr Susa reached out to all of the school administrators to find out out about their parent advisory committees um just to see what they're doing to invite people to it in the beginning of the year and throughout the year and um at all of the schools it was pretty similar they do at Irving and Bartle Miss MCN and Miss nap um send out invitations at the beginning of the year for initial signups um but then they send out a reminder to families prior to each meeting either in their newsletter or via email um anyone can come though at any time even if they didn't sign up at the beginning of the year um at the Middle School Miss Brady sends out an email at the beginning of the year and puts it in her weekly um owl newsletter she sends out the meeting dates to all the members and anyone new that expresses interest in attending uh they contact Miss Brady and she adds them to her list um she currently has 10 moms that have been awesome all year um at the high school Mr Lasser also puts out an invitation at the beginning of the year coinciding with back to school night where he speaks about the committee and the ptso um he sends in it's kind of a combined group he sends invitations to anybody who signs up then but it's a continual process um to invite new parents to join the committee uh they meet by monthly and uh it's linked to the ptso um okay and then I'll go over the agenda items we do have a few readings as well uh we have a board appointments uh which is um Miss Copa as the supervisor of educational services to be appointed as the educational stability leis on approval of four resignations um Gabrielle saboni at Irving missa um just for the before and after school program at Irving a change of end date for Miss all I um it was May 17th now it'll be May 31st and a uh Erica opit par professional at the middle school um approval of a new hire with a correction in salary for Tyler gisler um as a teacher of fette at the high school approval of leave of absences one leave of absence uh approval of a non-renewal um um a approval of a non-renewal due to a reduction in force approval of uh list of reappointments approval of Rea appointment for a residency specialist um Mr John Rosler and approval of transfers in the group but I do want to ask at this point if it's possible to can we table one of them that the students brought up tonight is that possible to table or do we have to vote on it and board members will have to make their choice at that time I'm just asking because there's a whole list of them so I'm wondering if it's possible to table one or vote individually I mean my recommendation would be to vote on them because we do have a deadline by the HPA contract to' be able to do all of these things that's why tonight is a voting meeting usually we have a voting and a workshop meeting but we do have a contractual obligation to do all of this ahead of May 15 that doesn't mean that it can't something can't be changed later but we just have to we have to approve all of these by the deadline since those transfers are all one number though can you approve like can somebody say yes to all the transfers except one just wondering what the options are at that point sure okay y but okay um but just remember what we discussed in the Personnel committee about these Personnel concerns for Budget reasons yep good um so the transfers are Ruth by from middle school special ed from Irving special ed to Middle School um Amanda morero from Irving Kindergarten to prek Elizabeth medine from Irving prek to kindergarten Alexis Rapaport from ble special ed grade four to ble General Ed grade four Christina pry from Bartle General General Ed grade 2 to Irving prek John mcle from Bartle links to the Bartle resource room for grade five Tanya gerac from ble special ed to middle school special ed Jennifer rosley from ble General Ed grade four to grade two Rachel lipstein from ble resource room grade five to inclass Resource grade three Megan calibri from ble resource grade two to inclass Resource grade three Lauren shidy ble resource room grade three to grades 23 Miss Leonardo from General Ed grade four to grade three um Joy Cheney from bardle ESL and Spanish to Middle School Spanish um Juliana Alexa from English to special ed Miss Giovanetti from middle school Spanish to high school Spanish um Miss EPS from um the teen center administrative secretary to Irving administrative secretary and Miss Copa from supervisor of educational services 10mth to 12 month and then oh and I'm sorry I did Skip One number seven was a readin uh reappointment uh for a change in salary for Miss sacka and Miss Rodriguez and number 10 approval of staff for family night Miss assess formerly Miss rosley um at ble uh that happened on May 9th May 9th and number 11 a new readen approval of nurse at Camp Bernie for ble um will be Karen Kelly and that's it for personnel and communication any questions I feel like we wouldn't really be doing the students who spoke to US service and I I know we're Limited in what we can say but also so just in recognizing kind of their impassion um statement from Miss EPS um I mean if you if you want you can add a exe recess to Executive session if you'd like to a person no because we didn't we didn't write staff member can question can we discuss the concept without a person um we can't discuss well we can't discuss the person in public either no of course not well I think my question is more of um if one were to abstain what the what the actual what would that mean for us so that would mean that if you abstain then at the next meeting you're going to have to vote on somebody for that position so I'm just maybe this is how I can explain it we have a retiree of Miss Moran leaving as a sec head secretary we have a couple of head secretaries that hold that title and that salary within the district we are very fortunate and I think that we said during the budget presentation that we don't have to do what a lot of districts are doing which is riffing and cutting a whole lot of positions because we got very lucky this year through attrition and I know I said that in public through attrition we were able to fill positions in house with our current staff I will let you know that the team Center is going to be staffed with someone who is fantastic who adors the kids who I believe um without discussing it too much was actually highlighted one time in the student rep report as being a warm and welcoming figure in the schools and loving the kids and encouraging them and knowing by name and stuff like that so it's not that the teen center isn't going to have anybody it's just going to be staffed with a different Personnel because Miss EPS holds a particular title and a salary that warrants that position so if you vote to abstain from that then it's I'm one of maybe two or three others would be then up for that consideration so somebody has to go into that position Miss MCN does need a secretary at orving um so it would have to be somebody so it would be one of one two one of maybe three people so so what you're saying is if we were to obain um you would be replacing it with someone out the the the replacement is not under considerer is not I have to fill the position I have to fill it within house because I don't have the budget to go out and post for it so um we did a very careful consideration of how we were going to to fill that position um and and based on the consideration that was um that's my recommendation so I could talk more about it in in a smaller group setting um you can write the people if you would like to talk in an executive session next time but just know it's going to be one of somebody and I will tell you that if it's a decision for another person my hunch based on my knowledge of my head you're going to have the same thing with some other students coming trust me I because our staff are beloved in these schools and which I love they develop relationships and one one of the things I want to highlight that they said that Miss EP has been in three schools with these students so she knows them those are the relationships that all of our staff form with our students so I think nobody likes change and I know that's very difficult um but if it's if you're going to vote to abstain it's going to be somebody else and at next meeting you'll you'll have it so you have to vote somebody into that position unfortunately because I don't have the budget to sustain hiring another person unfortunately yeah that that's oh okay oh go ahead Ethan uh yeah I think I just wanted to I guess I want so that makes sense to me and it made and and especially having my memory refreshed what we talked about in executive session but maybe you could um Dr sesa just sort of say that again but in uh a way that would make it really clear to the students who are here who didn't have the benefit of the executive session understand what exactly is going on so to everybody to the students and everybody we lost uh $243,000 in state funding there were decisions to to to make within our budget that included um uh a lot of our budget is regulated on legal requirements whether it's through the HPA contract negotiations you could see from from the audit Auditors arousing and wonderful presentation that the majority of our budget is personnel and and benefits um but through the loss of state aid and the fact that we wanted to maintain interventionists and other key personnel um and programming for our students through the attrition process we aren't rehiring some of the positions so like I said through um you know you can see many other districts that are doing uh riffs and budget cuts um and non-renewals of Staff uh for the significant um loss in in and state aid um our our impact our footprint on this is not as significant so as you see from our board agenda we don't have very much and then the ones through the executive session the ones that I said that we unfortunately had to uh figure out we were able to save and move around in other places through attrition so as people retire and left we were able to fill that within house so it doesn't look like we have to go and cut a bunch of things to make our budget balance so I think that's the concern I I hear them loud and clear and let me and let me tell you I just for anybody out there listening I was the one that um moved my steps into that position when I started because I knew she'd be a great fit because she just connects with those students um and it it really actually broke my heart I lost a lot of sleep to have to make the decision but again unfortunately there are a couple of there's very few staff that hold that title and that salary to have that position um and so you know after careful consideration and and looking at at the the impact um that was the decision that I made but I know that she will impact and be a great um a great person at Irving um and the person that will fill that position that F fits within our budget will also do amazing things and connect with those students so to let you know and to let the students know the teen center is not going to be without somebody um that that can connect with I'm very particular um for those who don't know I was the one that even um expanded our teen center to our tween Center I believe in mental health and I advocate it first and foremost um you know Maslow's before blooms students needs before anything else before their educational needs and so I want to make sure that when I'm making that decision to transfer a person to that position that I know it's somebody that can fill that need that will be in the best interest of the students uh so all all of this was carefully thought out um and I know it's hard to hear that from the students because change is difficult but please know that the students that are there will be very happy with my decision I when that one comes out and know that I it was with careful consideration and just to summarize to there I think the the important thing is what I'm hearing from you and just really really tightly is either it's a reduction of force or it's it's approving the transfer right right so either I have to cut a staff member or something somewhere else or correct y that's very important I think to to say clear clearly yes thank you for that explanation um all right policy um okay policy did meet um we talked about we still on hold this is not working okay better okay I gotta talk in I know it's always the worst um we're still holding on the bilingual policy uh for more for more um research done by our staff we had a conversation about the transportation policy um and it's kind of gone through the the uh policy I don't have my I don't have it open uh was it 8660 the transportation the number I have it right here I have it right I have it right here sorry uh 8660 Transportation by private vehicle um conversation been back and forth uh was checked with Administration uh who who agree and feel strongly that teachers staff members should not be driving students in private cars currently we have a policy that allows that with some uh approval from the uh Administration so we're working to find a way to um so administrators feel like there will not be a strong impact if we were to um either abolish this policy or more likely change the wording so that um students cannot be driven uh in private cars uh driven by staff in private cars but we're not ready to bring that forward yet it's uh sending it to lawyers for review um to help us with a wording on that so that's still out there um and the last piece that we discussed was the um resolution for law enforcement uh the law enforcement unit um we've also talked to um Jonathan Bush our attorney to try to figure out um how we could potentially uh modify that resolution he his response was that we follow state law and in all regards in terms of handing over um Student Records or information and that state state law is what uh trumps everything else um so we're uh wanted to take a look also at the memorandum of understanding with the uh police which is on the State website want to see if we had anything different with Highland Park police um believe was amended a couple of years ago so want to see we want to take a look at that also want this resolution to go to equity and Excellence um for conversation so it's still it's still uh in the discussion stages um and then on the agenda we have one policy for abolishment and that's because it's being replaced by another that's the equity of educational programs and services um and then for first read and these have all gone through committee uh one on guidance counseling 2411 5570 on sportsmanship uh Equity Equitable Educational Opportunity one on secret societies which I went back to read because it sounds very strange but it's really about fraternities and sororities and organizations that um are secretive I guess um equal access of but but 5 5842 assures equal access for all student organizations um and the last one is uh notification of juvenile offender case uh disposition and those have all gone through committee so they're up for first read read second read we've discussed in the past um educational Equity policies comprehensive Equity plan equal opportunity equal employment opportunity Equal Employment anti-discrimination Practices equity in school and classroom and the last one is the uh prevention and treatment of um concussions and head injuries oh and the one on vandalism as well those all we've discussed in the past any questions hi we going back to public comment public comment okay um Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation has reserved this right this time for your comments board policy number 0167 establishes and regulates the right of Republic to participate in public meetings how many do we have on Zoom okay if you are on zoom and would like to make public comment please raise your hand okay we're going to move on to our board action items for curriculum and instruction I'd like to move numbers one and two second Dr batty yes Miss cassal dun yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss puce yes Dr scholman yes Miss staniel yes Miss uh yes on one abstain on two Miss Borges yes finance and Facilities I move uh items one through 13 second Dr BTY yes Miss Cal done yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss Bruce yes Dr schoolman yes Miss stano yes Miss vit yes Miss Bor yes personnel and communication I'd like to move items 1 through 11 second Dr batty yes Miss calun yes Dr Coleman uh yes on all but I would like to abstain on the Karen EPS transfer Dr Pixley yes Miss pruce yes Dr scholman yes Miss stano yes Miss baman yes Miss Vorhees yes but I I just want to add that I heard what the students said and I you know only am voting yes on this based on what Dr suska shared and I feel confident that they will be in good hands in the future so thank you for sharing that yes I think Miss forhe spoke for all of us so this is a very very tough decision and it really is a thing of beauty when when kids come out like that so um we really appreciate everything that you all said um and we you know regretfully approved this transfer um policies I move uh one through fourth oh I'm sorry two through four second yeah that's one number one of the policy committee report so yeah numbers two through four second Dr batty yes Miss cassal D yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss pruce yes Dr scholman yes Miss stanel yes Miss bman yes Miss Vorhees yes all right um I don't have a president's report but I would like to remind everyone that if you can attend one of the graduations to please let me know which one that you can be at so that we can start talking about who will be speaking for the board thank you um the second the next thing number 14 is old business any old business I have a quick question um I just kind of want to clarify a question for this secretary um conversation is that you said there was only a few secretaries that could fulfill that position and I didn't see like a new hire for that position in the team Center does that mean someone is absorbing the responsibilities correct okay so they're taking on more like additional to their no there's another batch of Staff uh that don't have approval of their transfers or their positions until next month and that'll be next month okay yeah good question um new business um I'd just like to bring something up as we were looking at the school um achievement and performance data uh we did receive a number of emails uh around new academic research that has been reported on the effect of cell phones in schools and especially at the middle school school where um we are struggling with student growth um and other issues involving uh behavior and conduct it sounds like all of the research is pretty much in alignment uh and do believe that it is a additional intervention that the um board and Central leadership team should look into thank you for bringing that up I had forgotten and feel the same yes this is something that um once we settle down budget season and everything that we can start to put through committee to examine it and um look at the you know impact and I think um Dr suska is also going to be I'm creating a presentation just about the impact of social media and cell phone use on our district because you can measure it in numbers so we are going to look at that Ethan uh yeah that's that that was my my main issue too um you know I think that um there's an argument that I think you know perfectly reasonable to make that you know uh you know students learn to be good digital citizens when they have sort of you know regulated access to cell phones and um and that that sort of makes sense in theory um that if they have break times it's it's a sort of you know it's sort of a reward for um uh you know not using them in class in theory that makes sense but I think that what the research is showing that in practice um the the down sides of having any access to cell phones in school uh far outweighs the possible benefits which are kind of Vanishing and don't actually really appear um and so you know I know that we're a very uh thoughtful board I know Dr sesa takes research and data really seriously um you know so I'm actually you know excited to get to dig into this issue over the course of the summer and um and I know we'll come out we'll come out on a good side and I really appreciate all the community members who took time to write really thoughtful audite with footnotes and reference you know so and I want to say please send us those because I learned things um and I think we all appreciate hearing more from the community on this matter whatever your opinion happens to be I I would just add to that yes I am in complete agreement um with everyone except to just add and I know we are all aware of this that there are certainly uses for students who have disabil and use technology um to access their curriculum in different ways so I just want acknowledge that yes generally yeah and we have students that use them as communication devices communication devices as well so there are actual educational needs and uses of technology that we should never um not acknowledge when we're having this conversation so just the idea of having no benefits of this technology of cell phone access is is not actually accurate we think about our total population it will be a complex issue for sure that's why we have IEPs but still worthy of conversation and you know discussion research okay anybody else for new business okay then I move we adjourn second second all in favor everyone