##VIDEO ID:uEmPfvrgBDs## all right I call to order this to Park Board of Education hybrid Workshop meeting for Monday September 23rd the New Jersey open public meetings Act was an act Mee in compliance with the open public meetings act the Highland Park Bo of Education noce of this meeting setting forth time date and location to be submitted for publication the home new St Ledger and post On The Board website at 48 hours in advance this meeting M of public to address theard be given the opportunity to do so before the board meeting Dr B here M Dr pman Dr pigley here M Cruz here Dr pman Miss Dan here missman here miss here we going to Res session be it resolved pursuing to Sunshine Act njsa 10 4-2 and3 the H Park Board of Education will now meet in close session to discuss matters related to a hi hearing and hip training for the Board of Education these exemptions are permitted to be discussed in Clos session in accordance with mjsa 4-13 information regarding board's Clos session discussion will be disclosed to the public as soon as the confid world that we recess to Executive session second second coach Mary she celebrity I have Mo session dran here Dr pigley here miss Bruce here Dr schan here Dr here did he answer he ra [Music] the of the United States of America to the for it stands one na indivisible we have a message from eth said it's 1: am in Spain and he just needs to be quiet our next thing on our agenda of our new student Representatives so welcome after I doly affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constition of the city ofy that I will support theit of the United States and the of the state New and I will bear true and aliance to the and to the government established in the United States and the city under authority of the people I the United States of people and I do affirm that I possess the qualifications prescribed by board policy for the office of of a board of education that iess Theif prescrib by theard policy office and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my abil and I willfully per all theice conratulations welcome thank you for joining us happy to have you on the board and know that we hearing your your input from your experiences high school and how so forward we're moving on the agenda on our Communications we had eight nine Communications came record repard four of them were about our St times at bar um three of them were high school scheduling um the high school scheduling issues One schedule um email and one was about the use of AI commun the high school AI to being um we want to approve liutenant we to approve um our August 19th Hy workshop and vo meeting so guess I will that we improve minutes for the hyrid workshop for April 19 AUST 19 sorry Dr batty yes Dr colan yes Dr Pixley yes Cruz [Music] yesman Dr yes yes yes rep yes we do so um bbing has enjoyed welcoming their youngest Learners back to school the school year started with popsicles with Miss MCN and an open house for supply drop off followed by a school family meeting to introduce their full school expectations their monthly breathing technique and to enjoy coming together as a School Irving looks forward to ual Alor Vis from Kelly Starling lines on 9:26 and dragon chatter with missing Aly on 102 on September 3rd B had it back to school night students and their families came to meet their teachers for ble engag in fun activities and have popol with Miss in bone B will also have their first whole school meeting of the year on the 6 where the whole school came together as a community to talk about the exciting things ahead for this year the importance of following far's expectation be expectable responsible time the first tap of the middle school was a great success students were excited the staff was eager to be their classes they first day assemblies with all the classes dur the expectations discuss upcoming activities Middle School had their back to school night on Wednesday September 18 the parents and Guardians came to meet their children's teachers and to hear about this SM Brady and Mr the parents at the St night the ptso the SCP a and hpf also shared information about themselves and their involvement in Middle School parents if you would like to be a part of the Middle School parent advisory committee please email Miss BR directly this group meets monthly to discuss what's going on in middle school and plan for events Middle School student Congress is now s spear until September 30th all the information is the first two weeks of high school were bustling with Activity The High School administration posted class meetings to set expectations for year and also hosted the first activity Club Fair on September 12th the high school hosted their B to school night the high school started with the presentation by Dr Donovan welcoming the partnership between parents and Guardians and the school our National Honor Society students that assisted as parents followed their student schedule and met with their teachers this week the Halls are filled with flers encouraging students to come to various Club activity interest meetings this week there will also be a boys soccer game at home on Thursday at four a vol game and girl soccer game home Friday at 4 and a football game Friday night at 7K you [Music] questions I don't all right good evening so I have two items to discuss first I want to thank everybody for a really great opening of the school year they one of the best is superintendent it was so incredibly positive that one of the things I read ahead in the report given by our student reps um that was really awesome with a lot of culture and climate you know sort of sending you know what are the expectations building that together how they want the year to operate super positive coming off with professional development beginning of the year for the first time ever we had support andal development for our lunch AIDS and usually during unstructured time espcially levels where we put a lot of concerns and not disabl but you know it's been really great start to be here there's um activities for students that reset a lot more structure to it um and so even out my window it's just hustling bustling with fun um and kids don't they they have to do and there's a lot more structure to it our lunch have received a lot of professional development and help in in that category so we're off to a lead great year and I I feel really really positive and like I shared with you all our glows are really excited to welcome back with a little treat and I just highlights the amazing work that our do and they really committ community and all of the fundraisers an activity that parents caregivers and staff and students you know do really goes to a good cause um for for our students to have really great experiences so I'm really excited that it's going to be a great year and coming on the deal with that are is our five years plan and then some updates from some do data so first I want to talk about the s data report so I'll just briefly go through slides was information that we shared in the screen but our student safety data system collects two types of information and incidence of violence VM harassment bullying weapon offenses subst offenses restraints inclusions and other incidents leading to removal it also uh contains hip trainings and programs so what we do is we'll report all of that out um to to the doe um twice a year so I did the reporting of our first round of information if you remember in the winter of last year and so now is the reporting on the second set of that information which will stand the time from January 1 to June 30th uh so just a reminder when you look at the data it's um very general so a single incident something that I remind everybody on in terms of multiple venes or one incident that a single incident can consist of multiple incident types for example a student might make a criminal threat toward another student while holding a knife this would be entered into the SSS as a single incident of criminal threat and weapon use so sometimes we see multiple things there's multiple incidences in one infraction so to speak also there could be multiple offenders for multiple incidences so that you know theoretically could be one incident that had 60 students involved and then our number would be 60 so just when you put it in perspective it sometimes the number is Ed High multiple STS involved in those evidences but the data doesn't parse it out so Nuance like that um so just a reminder of some commonly used definition if you see the word fight that's a mutual engagement in a physical confrontation in which the offenders are under understood that what they're going to do may result in bodily injury sometimes we see students that that um may look like they're going to fight or talk about fighting but don't or a little Shing they more ac they don't really need to inflict injury so it's not really a fight um assault persons to cause or purposely knowingly Orly causing injury to another person a physical restraint is the use of personal restriction that imiz reduces the ability to move um so these we report are all of our staff um in particular situations are hand handled with care train so that there are very specific so we talk about physical train we're just not arbitrarily restraining children but our students that do have restrain child done so with proper training and a threat simple simple threat with by another then make the Vic so that's typic there's not a fight but it's like there's a threat somebody concern that they might be and then lastly other incidents leading to removal would be any other incident not listed in the guy B that face place off schol ground that result the dis remov from at least one half the day that must be so one half day or multiple and so we'll get down to some really specific more like just general I guess examples of of what we see that happen but that would be um a student curses a lot or uses fou language and their to times thought or we put some um restorative working action or way to support the student and then they continue and it's becoming expensive and we give them a half a day rise for respiration and work with the c Center or something like that that would be another incident leading to removal so nothing C once but maybe that it's a continual process that is now you know causing harm or disruption in the Plass environment and we give them let's say a rise a half day of rise that would be instant leading to removal okay so for the data report period like I said from um sorry January 1st June 30th uh there were 13 total incidents in the high school of those in inces six were violence one was vandalism five were substances there were 24 incidences in the Middle School of them 11 were violent three were bed seven were substances one was uh weapons a portal of the one incident it was vience and no incident was across the board at Bing and at the high school there were two confirmed kids and at the middle school two confirmed h no confirmed HS at the second half of the year for I just out the vient instances like I did last year at the high school uh four of them were assaults and two of them were fights and at the middle school five of them for and6 for FS at the high school there were 22 other inces leading to removal at the second half of the year six totals zero restraints for the second half of the year they had zero trainings completed for HS and zero programs for HS again this is the second half of the year at the middle school there are 78 other instances leading to removals four Els zero restraints six H trainings completed in the second half of the year and zero programs at B there were nine instances that were other Le removal one hi nine restraints six hi training and 14 hi programs Place second half year and it zero inces leading to removal zero L six restraints zero TRS and zero so to compare perod one versus period two the first half of the year to the second half of the year what I did was I put the first half of the year in Red so that you can see uh some of the difference in the incidences from the first half of the year to the second um so for high school they had 14 for the first half of the Year versus 13 the second half of the Year Middle School had 33 incidences total in the first half of the Year versus 24 the second half Z and then one and had z z and then again comparing the first half of the year to the second half of the year a high school had 17 other incidences leading to removal the first half year versus 22 that I mentioned Middle School had 32 the first half the year versus 78 and Mar had 57 the first half of the Year versus nine the second half of the year and Irving had eight the first half the year zero the second half of the year so you can see those number then go ahead see to there are opportunities for training HP trainings and H programs that are done a lot of them areed beginning of the year a lot of work at the elementary level on responsive class and conscious discipline at the secondary LEL L of the work on resp for the stre and they do some other programming like a Li CK and other programs with whole school assemblies and small group assemblies okay going to move on um so speaking of that is part of our strategic plan is so foring clate so we always think of ways to um increase bu climate to obviously decrease the number of students that have to be removed in the CL environment um for any of those reasons so i' like the final version of plan what I'm going to present today I'm not going to go through all the bullets again but what I'm going to do is talk about some of the updates or additions that are in bold or underline the draft was presented to the board of the community on July 22nd some public suggestions um were made and I want to sort of address some of those as I go through the points um because some of the comments that were made um didn't necessarily either fall under a strategic plan interview or are um probably not aligned to what the administration Fields would be spoken of the whole Community through that planning process so walk through some of those so just a reminder our four goals that came out of the Strategic plan process are called not so one of one of the suggestions with a graphic so I think that was one was um order or not order priority but create a visual and set so I put together a visual graphic that tried to have it as an in thing and not any particular order so a graphic to lead our charge which cult climate soon achievement facilities and connecting resource and in communication so our goal one is provide a safe inclusive identity earing and supportive educational environment that uses diversity as strength for goal two connecting resources improving communication which is to connect families to schools by strengthening the coordination and accessibility of communications our third goal on student achievement is to increase academic rigor and excite and challenge students to learn in order to reach their individual potential and for facility to create a address safety and accessibility distri facilities that you an Innovative approach and reflex Community needs so some the things like I said I'll go through and just identify the ones that are bold those are some updates of language but a couple of things first there was a question or a comment made about potentially um using other options other than technology for our Benchmark assessment and that did not make it as a go partly that is we do offer hand written or or hard paper assessment assignments when appropriate or well they're able to but some of our PL platforms that we use for benchmarking assessment are only available online like aans um it's only available on map it's only available online so we give it as an online resource part of the beauty of these resources is that they can grade real quickly in in real time but they actually level so what happens is the students will take the assessment and then as they're taking the assessment if they're not doing well it will actually lower the level a little bit to make the assessment more acceptable and then that data comes back to us in real time so that we know that so we know what kind of questions they're answering to what grate level they're answering them and to what degree of proficiency they're answering them and that's really important that's something that t could could necessarily do so that is why it's not included although we we do acknowledge the use so and need to make sure we differentiate our our resources as well um for benchmarking assessments um we want to said that we're using the best tools for our students um created the visual I included something about ma design so I will get to that um and we added some more language I think one of the other questions was preschool expandion as a goal so I'm looking at notes at our July meeting as to what the suggestions were I went through um so the information about math redesign was added about assemblies and conversation so I went there and TW some the language about assemblies for our climate um we did include some language to make sure we were continuing to move forward on the accessibility for AP and honors that's something that is important to everybody preschool expansion is not in a strategic plan because that is they word goal not necessarily at this point administrator goal as much as I would love to say hey I want a building and I need money and we going to have a refer for me to make the final decision unfortunately of myview and and my administrators and my leadership to perview um so at this point it is a board goal and Community goal to how we want to the preschool expansion plus there's some financial responsibilities along with that once the decision is made on how we want to move forward with preschool expansion then we take that on locally and and put it into action so that is why it's not a Str playing Ro but you should hopefully see that as your goal um we did put in some expansion on our Partnerships with brers middle sex more flexible learning Pathways for students at the high school and then um you'll see on the uh a lot of the board agendas we are doing a lot of professional development on our health effect I cor so that is information that's so some additions um I know it's hard to see from the board perspective but U the presentation is in your board notes so under culture and climate the other sorry the other thing that I wanted that I added was to make sure that I highlighted most of the places where we were focusing on Equity because Equity didn't come out of the Strategic plan process as its own unique singular goal like in our last strategic plan it's still that developed and so for 1.3 I just changed slightly go the same are designed with inclusive responsive content Plus for 1.4 I added for our valuation that is is analyzing impact different student demographics including any disparities in Access or outcomes and making data driven recommendations to enhance inclusivity and fairness of displ practices and in one five this goal was develop the data colle process prac use to support discipline and I added this includes the segregating data by rais socioeconomic status other factors identifying disparities in the implementation of practices for 1.10 I adjusted to say Ure that buling prevention in to resolution students are inclusive and culturally responsive addressing the neighbor of needs and experiences of our students and 1.4 ensure that all updates to antias recommendations reflect the commitment and prioritize the identification and removal of systematic systemic barriers that may disproportionately impact under grp under connecting resources on the next side please thank you for 1 1.11 partnership secary institution provide expanded opportunities for students and then thank you achievement 12 continue to collect internal data and use data to the academic games of the students speaking that 6 Plus to measure the efficy of the program 3.13 was added use the a potential reports to identify students in scheduling process who would be successful in class who may not have been identified ways and 3 14 continue collecting and analyzing data on the impact of the change in scho across the district and for facilities uh for 4.2 I adjusted access to access CL needs by conducting a comprehensive analysis of student demographics and capacities uring resources in each beely and then I underl also that um we're going investigate accessibility of facilities to all the needs of the student in the high school media the full plan will be posted on the district website right nowar draft on it once hopefully voted um successfully tonight it will be um I'll actually send it out as far as my message this week in addition it will be on the website it'll go on Facebook um in addition you will be hearing from me shortly for a student superintendent strategic plan Council in which I like to some small groups and just talk about updates along the way on how it's going and then report out report come out in the past those be presentations and of course ongoing presentations andic plan goals as you can see some of them just say Ono some of them are for this year some next year um you know so sometimes it's hard to predict funding or predict where land some of them and some of them should just be Ono in general so they they don't really stop so to put it on the T rather um you know right so so like I keep everybody updated in fact later um in the fall we'll have presentation fora on culture and climate on some of the work that we're doing believe work um we of respect and things like that so you'll see a lot of that information coming soon and for everyone that attended any of the Strategic plan sessions Board of Education thank you again for your partnership thank you um so we're going to open up the board comments kind of did two different sets of a lot of information just kind of organiz one talk about the Strategic plan first that was what we just did and then go back and talk about the SSS or our questions for that that make sense yes said so anybody has questions comments on those I one comment something small probably is covered but in the go number of culture and climate and this is probably be add it elsewhere too but this is where I just like brought it up to me is 1.5 um where it says race gender socieconomic status and other relevant factors might be good to ethnicities as well um specifically speak for the community who has many different races within their home cultures so I don't know I think if that's included in relment factors or you want specify I can certainly specify if it's but it would be in part of itally but I can specify one of my questions um about this to me that other relevant factors for I know is meant to make sure that inclusive of students who could be impacted so of course I was thinking about students disabilities um so the list could go on right I could longer but if you want to add that something to think about but I think I think we're all clear about for the most part which students are going to be tyly impacted okay so then my other question is back to page 11 I believe it was just so one um I was thinking about what Dr talk about and the plan where should Beed um and what me was go number one we typically as V have always sort ofed with mind and it's not necessarily to me dep talk about safe inclusive idir supportive um Equitable to me kind of fall that should that statement but maybe I ref you but me that seem to stand out asily bu there um and then okay so then I was just a little bit this is just a question a couple questions I have about um I do again appreciate you going through ad language um for 1.4 that's on SL 15 so there's a lot of emphasis on the Rise program and talking about and how we approach it but we also know that it's more than just rise so that's kind of where it looks to me like one4 address rise but then the last part of after the and making daten recommendations to enhance inclusivity and fairness and disciplinary practices they we all a little bit because I'm wondering a what do we mean bying reclusivity and disciplinary practices and B we're talking about beond R in that pH so I gu the two-part question um first what do we mean by inclusive inclusivity is um and then again if we're talking about should beess this even value R like this is Rise which we know is suspension but that is not the entirety of kind of how we look at in our district yeah so maybe we part so maybe keeping rise and there's one and then the disciplinary PR or potentially putting that down in 1.5 which is the restored practices for because I feel they you know I look at right yeah I guess I still our practices there right 1.5 then ends with identifying disparities in the implementation of restored practices again I just clarification because think about specifically through broader um data right so where do we see those historic disparities in our just in Rise we move again I guess I question about that out I think we do okay to me it seems like there's compation of kind of rise and analyzing the value in that program and general speaking be clear about of the importance this community whether it can cross in between or not but we know that district has lot work to do of work to do around addressing sties so I just want that yeah think that back suggestion dat disi discipline like Val monitoring discipline and then another one is the value programs like restorative practices and rides that are addressed like if those two were no actually rearranging that okay and then 1.14 [Music] that's 17 okay um so here we're talking about ensuring all the updates to antibodies regulation but okay great um and identification systemic barriers that make this P so are we to interpret this to mean or include the area of academic access talk about okay I think I mean I don't know because it's we with antias regulation I guess that would be infirmed okay I mean another we could change that Lang job to say that our comprehensive e plan which includes all those policies maybe that's that's so comprehensive because the includ all like else um the next move thank you for changes and talk about process um I just saw here the goal number two the connecting resources and improving communication we have 1 point2 uh increase family participation at school events through hosting family engagement nights um maybe this is part maybe it's not but a lot of the times that engagement is slow because they have a child care issue so some things have been parents only and even though technically if they show with their kids uh they're not going to be turned away parents will just not um and it creates inaccessibility to SLE parents or parents who don't want to be there so I don't know how would something like that but well I that to the build administrators you know for district administrators when they do events you know typically they do like when we had planning events I had um child care provided so a lot of times you'll see that that they have child care provided often times we don't just because no one wants to get paid to do it at night so we try our best then or we'll try to get high school students so we do try try that actually most recently a lot of the great work that espe a lot of their family engagement nights and caregiver engagement have been really Successful by giving up three things so that's been like really great they um we've worked with epic and um hardle and through fast for with the njaa to get free resources like books so if it's a literacy engagement night every caregiver is to go home with free books if it's a math engagement or stem like maybe some free dice or cards or something like that just so that they have free stuff to use at home and that's been really successful so I would you know it's a a the idea their their General goal will be you know every group is going to be different every event is going to be different so we we try to so ways that we can increase it you know obviously would include potentially giving up free stuff we're having babysitting we're having free food babysitting is something that child is something that is high priority if it is at all feasible to just create a standard to make for the sake of access so we we definitely do it should be if it's not I contact if you have if you know there that happening and you have no information on child reach out right back to the administrator saying you know are you familiar are you aware of any it's happening for that most of them are really good about it it could just be you know go to communication I don't know I don't know but technically they're really good about it but um like I said if there's any concerns about that directly to whoever the event and they keep that um so before we move to the SS report question on process for the Strategic plan on tonight comfortable on it with Dr these Chang that we talk about or we put get thank you questions on the SSS inant but physically I'm think about the coln restraints and I know the purpos I think it's just important and then also programs completed programs completed are generally going to be whole school right bigger programs school or smaller group small group no so that would either be small group or um or large group that's not like the one1 there right and these programs not necessarily specific for some of them are some of are yeah I saw and then I think got okay thank you yeah sorry this is how they push out the data the so that actually up you know reping they're never a little compated so parsing it out and trying to make sure I had everything correctly so that's why it probably as clean reading perspective on the slide I had a question here um about um ble because that is a massive difference in the first semester versus the second semester on incidents leading to removal um do we have any kind of explanation for such a because it doesn't look like it's violence um you know from the other that's just a really shocking change I mean honestly if I could prob speak through it I think it was honestly having the second administrator in the building that that helped culture climate and to work with the school leadership team on you know tearing interventions and really they an power back on this the the teachers to handle a lot of the issues locally so little the things that Miss BS really well so if there's involed in the office instead of going in and sort of dealing with it what she does is she'll go into the room and allow the teacher to leave the room to have the conversation with the student and that she is the adult class a classroom un attended so what she'll do is she'll step in and the teacher leaves to have a conversation with the student she can manage you know manage a classroom that way it's not shifting the power so that if you if you send a kid to a student that's having a minor infraction to the office all the time or calling the assistant principal all the time to have the person come in that it's like well kind of power do you have as a teacher over my behavior so that was work she did last year was her first year so it was really trying to change a culture and shift a culture there and now I can't confirm that but that is you know my hunch considering we've been looking at the data actually an excellence in terms of the discipline data that's becoming out of ble and it's the number of inces have dramatically declined in general um you know and even more so I know I've been looking at some of the data on cell phone use and I was like wait last year only two two too that's it and then I asked the broke at a recent principal meeting I said well you know other things that the teachers are reporting just not going to your L she's actually no she's like things are going really well at Mar like we're they're in a group they're feeling empowered to handle things locally engagement time because now um if anybody is familiar with with this St leadership he's a very strong instructional leader so now she's getting in doing or pushing in the classrooms and in noral walk throughs and things like that so think that that there's more of this sense of empowerment with the teachers and engagement and differentiated activities and things like that so I think they're finally coming out of Co and back in um into a really good place so my my hunch is that that number is really indicative that that things really settled in and people felt empowered um you know so we didn't have to remove students from their said I guess as much asbe and so I guess similarly like in the Middle School you have the sort of opposite situation going on things you know and just when you see discrepancies like that it's you know especially moving in the other directions absolutely so the Middle School definitely was you know I didn't par it out but we had you know um just anything that could be um you know things like um pushing without intend of injury um you know uh and maybe like having done it like multiple times so there's no like sort of Fear Factor type of thing so like I went through and that was some of them um so they you know at some point after a number of times received you know a half a day of rise and it was a couple of students doing that so you know again that number is don't think of necessarily like 7 eight potentially different separate thing they could potentially be where if you have five students doing something that counts as five so it doesn't count as one so I I don't I don't I didn't verse out you know individually but again maybe some of the the issues that we see in the middle school as we talk about session sometimes schol could just be a really rough year rough couple years for students but you know it's definitely something what we need as assistant principles once a month talking about some of these best practices of what we're seeing and now that we're seeing a lot of great fruits of that labor is how do we scale that up to the middle school now how do we make something similar that students also have that continuity and expectations as they go from building to building so that's what our plan is but I'm [Music] not lines I it's be inter to see how this report looks like in tomor this fall right so another way just to be clear so the total incidents in Middle School perod 24 but then the other incidents 78 right so total number of incidents well the total no theal is refering to Violent vandalism substance weapons so good yeah I I think okay so so think so I think that's also concern see those one of the other things that we just discovered to is that the middle school so we had some rep between the middle of the high school and that is for incidents that happen off site for on the weekends or at night so if they're here you know school at night but whatever kids are hang out something happen now if there a situation of a hi or anything that can impact the students during the day and they have back to school that's something that's on the school radar that we address uh but one of the despairs we found that was it was an incident where two kids got into a point on a Saturday night at Frid apparently the middle school was reporting it and having disciplinary inra for the students the high school was not legally we don't have do what we do address through either situation in all building is making sure that if students are coming back together after maybe having a fight off pus is that we work on the respiration or the harm or whatever it is because we don't want to bringing that into the school so how do we address that so sometimes we are notified that these issues happen on the weekends or at night um and so that that could be another issue too where the Middle School the Middle School Bus taking it on and say okay if it's happening we should also discipline kids and or give you know a logical consequence they seem is not so that might be an issue too because legal I guess technically we don't we we don't have to so that's sort of like a philosophical thing if something happens off site with our students are we responsible for addressing it or not and we do in terms of the resort of piece the C climate thing but you know are we the ones that are disciplining and Reporting it as a disciplinary infraction so that may also be part of it I don't I don't know but came up my today yeah I would hope that we' look into that because we've had problems with improper reporting espcially from the Middle School um and if we're not and so like if we're differentiating and how we're reporting things to the state that's really concerning yes yes so that came lit came on my radar today so we are addressing it and and working through that so make sure that all our buildings are sa that this may a question we're not legally responsible for doing it can we still offer those services but not in this way well we can't offer rise because that's our in school suspend mod we have to in school suspended child for that to offer the particular Rise program but we can offer as long as a student agrees we can offer rested practices or both parties three we can offer kenter support and Queer as long as parent consent so mental health support has to Beal consent restorative practices has to be student consent that wouldn't be an in so if you you and I had a problem outside the school and the principal got word and you know whatever our e was and then we came in the principal could say you know J would you like to you know I think let's talk about this you want to sit have conversation or we pull pull someone and we could we could work it out but if we're removed from our instructural program or something we have to so that's what meing to remove that we're removing a student from their instructional program for something [Music] else so I guess my question would be then is there should to what the what the continu to this afternoon I like that what's and and come up with it so right now the emails are probably flying andate right now but tomorrow we will revisit that conversation and that DET as possible also mentioning opportunities for kind of addressing these tractions that are still over school day without necessarily is that discussion I guess that depends because each the students might be in different advisory um so that I'm not sure I'm not I'm not sure about the very specific implementation of that at the midd high school levels to know if there's um I don't know the L discusss stud for whicho I copied everything exactly as it is so I and see what the was move on questions the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments board policy 0167 establishes the public session of the evening we'll have one more after um board reports and agendas and before we vote so um how many people do we have online 11 okay and any raised hands if you uh want to speak please raise your hand and we'll call on you or Angela will no raised hands okay um then we are going to move on there'll be another opportunity if uh someone does want to uh speak before we vote um so we're going to go to board committee reports uh curriculum and instruction did Allison share that somebody yeah I will be reporting for Allison tonight um but Dan and Jen keep me honest here if I miss anything so can you hear me okay yes hopefully all right so um we had a great meeting September 12th um we first uh started with going through the Benchmark data which um you know there was more a robust discussion on the aadience uh data that now we collected for the first time last year and so we had initial discussions on you know how we might want to break that down and some different trends for example um a conversation around um foundations and that it hadn't been consistently used and some teachers thought that maybe um uh those that were was consistently used that uh they they fared a little better so thinking about that we also um had a discussion around even just tracking things like preschool and down the line we'll be able to see um what kind of uh proficiency what their proficiency data looks like down the line and kind of having that discussion on on how we can use this as a tool to see you know what we're implementing and and how it's working um in general um uh another conversation that we had was um a little a higher level discussion on just all the testing and how difficult um map testing in general I think is a little exhausting for folks there's a dialogue around what can we do um and uh uh you know the discussion was well um you know M Rodriguez had looked into this but in general these kind of tests do tend to be a little bit more exhausting and so you know there was a discussion around ble how they split those assessments to try to make it a little bit easier for them um and you know we'll continue to look into other options but certainly these kind of conversations and being able to have these conversations and tracking um different assessments over time and kind of getting real live feedback on on how it's going we we all kind of saw value in that that uh one of the conversations around specifically with the ELA um uh um how it's being used so for any students that are well below um the average uh or approaching the standard actually use that aadience data and map testing so we have those both of those proficiency um sets of data to kind of do a deeper assessment um in K through uh one of the questions we had was well you know did you see any trends when you think about Ela and and maybe where there's that we might want to do a deeper dive maybe we're not getting to proficiency and we want to kind of consider that um there is a conversation around specifically K through three more um fluency um coming up uh coming up as kind of a discussion point and automaticity um and uh you that that so that was a more robust conversation on how we're going to track that um and then also be able to supp support students in a more targeted way um when when they're kind of identified in those areas um let's see here um writing also came up as a really big Focus um as an area where we're going to have to kind of focus in a little bit more and really try to track that and use these new benchmarks and tools to see how that's going um for math there was a discussion around these standardized assessments and this is the first time we've kind of used our not you know locally grown ones that we're using um and you know overall the data Irving data was was pretty strong um and uh uh what we saw was fourth and fifth will be an area of focus um specifically there was a discussion around I'm trying to see there it is um the seventh and eighth grade math uh there was a robust conversation there and some areas where it looked like we needed to do some you know deeper Dives and and the levels of proficiency we're not kind of hitting what what we might want um there's some uh uh consultation support being offered specifically uh when you're thinking about how to kind of uh intervene or with integrity and adopt um material to kind of suit the the students needs and um so we're Consulting with Janelle Le on that um to kind of take this information and and and and take action upon it that's the Benchmark piece am I missing anything there from yeah pretty okay pretty okay you know to the the nice conversation we had was it was an initial peak of this and then um the idea is kind of where we might want to dive deeper and how we might want to have this conversation out more publicly um for the curriculum revision updates uh very much underway uh the ELA uh uh changes to the state um uh requirements are a little bit more robust so that's a heftier lift um is being done now and I think we'll be prepared to have those conversations uh next time on on um kind of what what all of that is going to look like and how that's going to materialize for our curriculum and then there was a conversation around um the policy IES this was a a lighter conversation um the one around service animals and there was a discussion around um just I believe it was the insurance around that and so uh there we're not there's no longer uh therapy animals allowed um and uh uh emotional support pets and there's there's reasons for that and then there is a policy change around uh student suicide prevention and um this is specifically uh providing more uh robust support for students with disabilities and making sure um that training is provided for for all staff and there was a robust conversation around um the new clinicians that we have access to to support uh uh students in in crisis which seemed like a really positive um uh new uh resource that we have through reter's Behavioral Health so that's the the report from the um session is there anything you'd want to add to that before I go through what's on the agenda no okay this is my first time um doing thank you thank you thank you um okay so uh we have an approval of field trip requests so um a series of approvals for things we've discussed also today the approval of the 2024 um 29 uh strategic plan approval for the 2425 mentoring plan approval for the 2425 professional development plan um we've got agreement with rers University um for the undergraduate psychology internship placement uh a memorandum of understanding with rers University graduate student of Education um we've got approval of three home instruction students um approval of University graduate students for teaching internships Junior practicum observations um there's a list there um of names and then we've got approval of professional development these are all um uh uh no cost to the district so a through C we're more around physical education and then um uh one uh specifically for uh the pilot program for high school students who will collaborate with the team centers to implement um the curriculum to address chronic absenteeism so that is all I have thank you all right questions for curriculum and instruction the board okay uh equity and Excellence we actually have met twice since our last board meeting so I had to go back to that August meeting know to refresh myself yes August 22nd we met um and we haven't had a board meeting since then okay just making sure I'm right well welcome back to the regular school year board meetings so the August meeting um and many of these um topics that we discussed were actually followed up in our September meeting so some of these notes I can sort of um get through quicker because there's followup to come um the first topic uh discussed was the uh 2023 24 school year in review discipline data um demographic data that is that Dr NOOA uh Dr suska presented um not reflective of ISS or Os OSS incidents um but we looked at the breakdown of discipline data other discipline data by subgroup um and one of the highlights there for that we all took away right away was um that the incidents uh involving students uh who were classified as low socioeconomic status were the highest um group impacted group reflected I should say in the data uh followed by students with disabilities um and we talked about the importance of comparing incidents to student populations and breaking down sces socioeconomic status and special education status by racial groups which uh is going to be followed up or was followed up I should say in our September meeting and will be followed up in my notes um and so we talked about this sort of across the board uh for high school and middle school as well um let's see we talked about the importance of it's great that we are looking at this data but also keeping in mind that we are looking at the data for a reason and that is to address disparities and we see them and other issues in the data so we really as a committee just talked about that process of why we're doing this and the importance of keeping that in mind um so that just doesn't become a practice without any sort of um systemic approach to addressing it so in terms of the total number of incidents there were uh 1,250 incidents in 2022 23 oh is that I'm sorry did I misstate the years okay so we so I have a chart here for 2023 2024 um but you presented both 2022 and 2023 Dr suesa for comparison purposes see that was just so long ago um so thank you so 2022 to 2023 1,50 incidents total and then we noticed a significant drop um to 351 incidents that's why it was important to get that historical perspective in 23 2024 so a huge drop um and that breakdown 280 of the 351 incidents were managed in the classroom and 92 by the office um let's see uh of the 92 at that time we were waiting on how that's broken down by subgroups uh the next topic we discussed was uh uh the work around the The Rise program evaluation at that time um the initial stages of the process were being completed uh we are now past that stage and the the evaluation has been completed uh so I will follow up with that when I present uh the next meeting notes uh we also looked at code of conduct change request uh by the administrators in each schools um and we talked about this in the past committee meeting and here uh in one of our reports we just talked about Administration finding um noticing a need to update their code of conduct to reflect kind of um new issues or behaviors they're seeing um since coming out of Co um and also from Irving's perspective making the code of conduct language and format and approach more developmentally sort of appropriate in terms of again language and and and framework there so um that work was uh highly recommended and and led through by the administration um and what I believe at that point came out of that discussion was also the importance of having um a format that would be somewhat um consistent I think across all buildings we discussed the CL the need for clarification on specific behaviors specifically um one of the behaviors that we noticed that were reflected in the old code of conduct was that there were certain categories for behaviors that impacted substitute teachers um and we were just curious as to whether or not or why that that sort of um differentiation was included in the code of conduct um we also talked about just the interpretive nature of some of the you know obviously some of some of the behaviors and we SE the importance of again just being specific in terms of what the student Behavior Uh is or was that would uh initiate a specific uh code of conduct violation so that is that uh let's see then we talked about the comprehensive Equity plan um again just to be mindful of the fact that we are supposed to be reviewing this uh our comprehensive Equity plan every year um the link to the document is in the the notes Here uh we talked about the policies that could be reviewed again since many of them are some 20 years old uh policies of course that would be relevant to our comprehensive Equity plan uh so we talked about again reviewing those policies um it would that it would also be good for us to review each area and access where we assess where we are implementing and where we uh need to make improvements and that is the whole goal of the comprehensive Equity plan um let's see and then we talked about um anti-bully lgbtq plus training or programming um and I think this was just um included in the agenda because there was some concerns raised by multip multiple community members and I know Dr Susa and Administration has been having conversation with um concern community members and will continue to keep us informed as to how um that is being addressed uh special and then we talked about our special education program audit requests from cpeg um at that during that conversation Dr susco pointed out that um the state uh you know has identified that we are overidentifying students around specific disability areas um and as a result they are requiring an action plan to assess um these areas of over identic identification our systems were reviewed by um an auditor Keno maybe Institute I'm not sure about the pronunciation um but they have reviewed our special education programs and we uh have revised our response to intervention systems um and other programs that would be relevant to this topic to address you know this issue uh there is still a disconnect between sort of the referral process and special education classification um and again these are all issues that are going that are being addressed as a part of the audit uh okay um we also talked about the importance of having the demographic breakdown racial gender and sces um by classification which we knew was a lot of big request but we felt it was important to have that data broken down okay so that's it for August close that out and then we met most recently our last meeting was on September 19th were there any questions about that meeting actually maybe I should pause any questions about that okay all right so we met on the 19th and our first topic was following up on our special education demographic data uh questions from the previous meeting um Dr sesa put together of uh the breakdown of the special education demographic data as of July of 2024 um at that time there were 25 students that were in the referral process so not yet included in the special education uh demographic data that was presented uh 323 students were uh were currently receiving special education services as of July um and that's about 21% of our district population the demographic breakdown as per Genesis is as follows 109 female and 214 male 57% of the 323 students are classified as low socioeconomic status 177 students are classified as white and 146 are classified as minority students defined by the doe report card um for students of color which includes American Indian or Alaskan native Asian black or African-American Hispanic Latino native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and two or more races those are the doe uh student group racial student groups uh and then further breaking those numbers down I know these this this is a lot um eight American Indian or Alaska native 17 Asian three Asian white 67 black or African-American 24 black or African American SL Asian white so that's two or more races three black or African-American white SL American Indian or Alaskan native and 11 native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander um so those numbers were the breakdown of the uh 146 I believe I'm just I'm sorry that was probably really hard to follow um but we have it here at report um so what a couple of takeaways let's this is the most important part I think some of them I think some of it is quite glaring probably and that is again identifying um many students from our low who are identified as low socioeconomic status is being um represented over represented um in the numbers um as well as we questioned that there were seemed to be a high number of white students reflected in the data as well um we also had to make the observation that the number of male students um compared to female students was clearly um what double I believe double yeah double the amount of male students to female students which is not atypical with Special Education data um we requested data on hispan that the Hispanic Latino student group be clarified specifically um are there actually no Hispanic Latino students receiving special education services we all had a hard time believing that um so again that was another key discussion point for us from the data um so we figured since it's very unlikely that no Hispanic or Latino students are receiving special education services throughout our entire District it's likely that um there may be that it may be that those students are included in the number of students who are classified as white um by the doe data collection or or should say breakdown um so again we understand that Latino Hispanic is not a race it's an eth ethnicity but the the way the data is reported for the doe are classified uh it's it's a racial category so we are waiting to get um a further breakdown or clarification on that data point okay um let's see we also talked about uh okay code of conduct change requests coming soon um Dr sesa just gave us an update there that IR the Irving code of conduct changes have been made to reflect a more developmentally appropriate practice um they have upcoming parent and S student advisory meetings before our meeting in October um and they will be recruiting from monthly parent advisory meetings and offering morning and evening meetings with zoom options to uh just further engage hopefully more p uh more parents and families uh that represent a diverse range of our population of students and families um and the idea here is to just include more student voice and involvement in the process of talking about our um their code of conduct so uh the student input sessions will occur during school and high school advisory meetings and the ble input sessions will occur through morning meetings Okay um so the Rise program evaluation report uh well the evalu evaluation has been completed the report was presented to the commit committee and is linked here in the um notes at the time of the meeting the committee did not have a chance review so we did not get into a discussion of the evaluation that'll be at our next meeting um but Dr Susa did did brief us that she met with Dr heiney they discussed had an initial discussion anyway of the evaluation report they will prepare a joint presentation um at our 1028 board meeting to present the findings of the evaluation and in the meantime building administrators will be meeting to review the report um and talk about their building level takeaways uh Dr Susa is also scheduled to meet with Dr an Gregory our local uh Ruckers uh professor and expert in the area of restorative practices who has consulted with the district in the past uh around our discipline um uh revisions that we have been making over the years and certainly the inclusion of restorative practices so we are happy to hear as a committee that Ann Gregory will be back and has offered her services to uh support Dr suesa in going through the report findings and considering the recommendations with that lens of experience that Dr gory brings to the table um okay and I think that's it well we did touch on again the special education um program evaluation we're going to call it not really an audit but the Dr sesa is or has been looking around um uh looking around reach she has reached out to her colleagues in the state for evaluator recommendations and you did uh have two groups come to you highly recommended um so we have received a proposal from one group uh The kenno Institute and uh I think at that time we were waiting for one more uh proposal from machada uh Law Group Machado Law Group uh so one of the points that Dr Susa made in talking about this uh search for an evaluation of our special education program and finding an evaluator that would be a good fit for such a sh search um she talked about the importance of determining the background of the evaluator um and to make sure that that background match with the purpose of the evaluation so the district's goal here um is not necessarily to review the ad programs administrative responsib ities that would probably entail um hiring an evaluator who is a retired superintendent our goal more so is to focus on kind of legal issu issues related to the program budgeting access programming more comprehensive um program programmatic evaluation data um so in that case uh Dr suesa is looking more so at a special education attorney or group um that could carry out this evaluation so we are excited to hear that that process is in its initial stages and we will look forward to continued updates uh part of that discussion I should point out is that we talked about um the process will include the proc the evaluation process will definitely include stakeholder input across multiple groups um and that includes focus groups and special interest group input Administration will also be welcoming specific questions that cpeg uh would like to see address in evaluation as well um as an active parent organization that Advocates on behalf of all students with disabilities so so we you know had that conversation as well and then we have our lovely policies that were already discussed uh service animals Suicide Prevention not so lovely um but a good thing we need and volunteer athletic coaches and co-curricular activity advisers assistance no major changes in terms of language in terms of substance so just do our part and pushing those along that is it sorry so long when did any questions can I just a quick one um for process for the uh program evaluation how many um estimate do do you have a number in mind is there two to three or and what's the timeline for that for decisions is it just when we get proposals back I'm just I guess as I get proposals so same thing that I did for the Rise program evaluation I reached out to a couple of people waited for their proposals and then brought them forth uh to review so I would do the the same thing for for this one it's been 3 weeks and I haven't gotten a couple the proposals so I can only put forward what I get as well so I talk to a lot of people and if they present proposals they present proposals if they don't they don't either so I'm I'm I'm trying to give people Grace and know that they have a lot to do um but I also know that some of these people do this often so sometimes things are boiler play that they could just tweak to what we need as well so um I will follow up and make sure that we can get as many as possible anything else for equity and Excellence okay we're going to move on to uh financing facilities and that's me um so we met on August 17th it was Dr CSA and Mr Rosa John Flanigan Colin McIntosh and then an Nikki uh Ethan on uh on uh virtual from from his his Hideway there and myself uh Colin reported um that we had at that point we had 228 students our after CARE program before and after care compared to 191 last year at this time so have a nice increase um we are approved for State Licensing uh at that point it was pending water testing results we've since gotten those background checks have been completed he's been meeting or at least met on SE uh September 16th with a parent focus group I think he's planning on having other such groups um comments were mostly related to snacks and kosher options are going to be added one of the comments from some parent focus group um also he's going to be um parents will be given the opportunity to visit our Aftercare by signing up like twice a month there'll be an opportunity to have a visit uh through our site managers um as a way to let parents see the program uh and that follows both our district policy I actually looked it up it's policy 9150 is on parent visitations to our buildings and also um School we're school age child care um program and and it matches that guidelines with our district policy kind of uh being The Guiding uh guiding policy there um he has a sixth grade program up and running there are eight students enrolled four attending regularly he felt it was going well those students are having more choice on their activities they've been cooking watching uh Highland Park sporting events when when they're available so overall he felt um things were going very well um then we moved on to facilities uh John reported out on the summer projects which you had linked to in in um the agenda uh almost all of the summer facilities projects that particularly those funded by eer money are complete um and thank you to John and Denise for staying on top of those multiple projects getting almost all that money spent it'll be an agenda item uh which we'll get to in a minute uh preschool playground construction should be starting that point I said next week they're fencing off I actually drove by today and I saw they had fenced off Irving picked up picked up over there today um they're fencing off the area so students can still utilize the part that's not being leveled uh while we wait for the equipment to arrive I believe um baseball renovation the renovation of the baseball field has been has begun in that an engineer's been hired soil erosion permits implied for so forth so that project is starting there's going to be a meeting for all stakeholders related to our high school Greenhouse so that project also is in its very beginning stages um but that's that's going on John talked about our HVAC systems a lot of leaking and he's addressing those um those issues which are related also to roof leaks I believe um results of the lead water tests showed two um Faucets in Irving of concern they've been removed and they were not um faucets that were uh used by children to drink I believe but still all they've been removed um ble restroom um they they've met with Architects to begin a complete renovation of one of the boys restrooms um meeting with Architects for designs make sure it'll be fully ADA Compliant um that one the renovation of the one bathroom is in our current budget we also discussed the um the ble uh walkway and the options for funding this uh very un anticip this very large expense obviously unanticipated which you saw in the um in the uh agenda the agenda for our meeting we're looking at replacing in kind replacing it as it was uh would cost 2,900,000 to eliminate that area eliminate the walkway the door and the stairwell would be 1, $944,000 um Denise had moved gone forward and looked did analysis of our capital reserve um and uh my understanding is that if we were to fund on our own just this the this the second of those a lesser cost it would um basically uh eliminate complete eliminate our um Capital reserves and we would not at that point be able to move forward if we were if we've applied for two preschool Construction Grants if we were awarded them we need our share of that money and that we wouldn't have our share at that point so obviously it's a very major concern um and uh we're looking at other options for um with how to how to pay for that those repairs uh more to come on that um and then we reviewed let's see Finance was there anything oh we went to the agenda the agenda items which is under Finance um and actually this is all I'm going to cover that when I go over the agenda items so let me do that right now I think we've I think I covered anything for the minutes that was other than the agenda items so if we move to the agenda items um we have so one is the bill list from August 20th to September 23rd this number two was what I was talking about in terms of the rer funds um so we have the funds that we can pay for by September 30th but we need to have it all done by October 18th so we're voting to um process those additional bills um because it all has to be done um and submitted by October 18th we have approval of the treasurers report through July 31st also theard board secretary report through July 31st that one that indicates that we haven't overextended our our uh any budgetary line item we have the board board of education certifications the I always have trouble with what they are actually and same thing submission funds are available to meet the district's Financial Obligations um through the remainder of the year um budget transfers for number six travel and related expense reimbursements we have some donations actually eight n and 10 are donations eight are the donations that came through um hland Park conservative Temple and congregation an EMT um for school supplies for our for our children the beginning of the school year um also we accepted the donation of um storage containers at for our before and after school program um and money that was given um in memory of U the o'keef memorial gift fund and that that donation went to the uh Middle School Globe program um an additional donation here towards our baseball field $5,200 um we have approval of one additional added District placement that's to the fedcap school we have contractors for after school National inventures Hall um an assembly at the high school about breaking CYO violence nurse transport an agency for nurse transport support we have contractors for lots of professional development um well that actually we have one there I'm sorry the core math training that's number 14 15 is some pass through funds that we're required to do for yiva chareton um girl school and these are all um technology requests technology purchases we have we are approving an add we're voting on added District tuition contract for a student to attend Franklin that's under the uh biken vento um program uh we have an addendum to Janna Lee Consulting as our last that's number 17 under our agenda items and that's equ that's a f Finance facilities so say Equity any questions can I do that I have two small questions go ahead um the sixth grade after school program you said there one of the activities they're doing is is cooking I was just curious about that is that happening in in like a kitchen here like yeah so there is we used to have a home program and so there is a room that is in the corridor that attaches the middle and the high school so they're going in there and they were really excited so they were making English muffin piz English muffin pizzas and things like that so the middle school students were asked what they enjoyed to do and um they told uh Miss GAC and Mr Joe that they really love to cook so Mr Joe and M GAC have been buying supplies and teaching them how to cook and cook some meals and they've also been loving to attend the sporting events volleyball so now we were thinking about getting them the pom poms or some apparel to to root on the students so it's basically what what they want to do and Miss GAC and Mr Joe have been amazing and then one one more question I just had about the baseball field I see work is is starting did the engineers say anything about chances of it happening this year in time for the spring season is that still a possibility I I don't know we we're waiting for the soil erosion permit okay so that's what the donation was for is to cover that part of the so that takes 30 to 45 days to get back okay keep my fingers crossed anything else okay Jen you're up for personnel um Personnel did meet on September 10th it was Dr Susa Marilyn Nikki an and myself um we spoke um at length about a lot of issues that I can't share here um but we also did talk about um one thing about absence like attendance reporting um that sometimes isn't isn't being done on time and parents are getting phone calls that their kids are absent for the full day when they're not they actually were just didn't get recorded in home room um but it can be kind of a concerning call when you get that at 11:00 a.m. that your child didn't show up to school so um we're looking into that and we'll report on some updates next month and um that's really it other than a long agenda bring that up so we have an approval of leave of absences a through D um acceptance of uh resignations a through J approval of two transfers um Miss Cheney will be going from um part-time ESL and part-time Spanish to full-time Spanish at the middle school um and also a kindergarten teacher moving to first grade um approval of various board appointments um a through e approval of extra compensation excuse me Jen we're St oh I'm so sorry I have those notes we are striking for b um coming up at nine and number five approval of extra compensation a through J um six approval of cancellation of an additional instruction instructional assignment um for English 10 icr approval of a sidebar agreement approval of extra duty position rates um looks to be for sporting events scorekeeper security um ticket takers and denouncer um and then number nine approval of after school program staff although we are tabling um sponsor at Irving and ble which is Christina Susa um for next time number 10 approval of after school program staff uh extra hours 11 approval of volunteers at the drama department and football at the high school uh number 12 approval of Correction of rate for staff um for the nth grade orientation 13 approval of staff for family engagement night this is funded by title three um approval of staff for bilingual parent advisory committee puzzle night sounds really fun also funded by title 3 approval of staff for curriculum writing um we have uh first grade and pre-algebra and approval of professional development presenters and presentation hours uh funed funded by title 2A and title 3 a long list of that funding um number 17 approval of additional summer nursing hours approval of change of hours for the summer 24 nursing registration approval of um after school treatment team meetings and that's it for personnel any questions questions for Jen okay and it comes back to me for policy and uh We've a really long everybody met this month a lot of meetings um at least in the last week or two September 11th we met as well as policy and it was Dr Susa Monique Allison and myself um highlight a couple of the uh policies that we talked about in committee and then I'm going to we have a long list of policies that are up for vote for first reading so I want to kind of quickly go over those so um the one that's um op uh 8500 open lunch guidelines that was just being updated to reflect current practice no change in high school open lunch the the uh policy did not reflect that sophomores also have open lunch the policy said Juniors and seniors in fact sophomores also have open lunch and our new high school principal noted the policy didn't match practice so we're going to fix that voting to fix that um we so that is up for first read um we discussed uh policy 0167 about public comment that is we're going to actually take that off the list we're not ready yet to bring that to vote um discuss the pros and cons of accepting emails from the public to be read during public comment periods um and so we uh talked about that we're looking for more feedback from the board on that one um also talked about policy 2363 student use of privately owned technology also not up for a vote yet still in discussion phases um Dr Susa has been Gathering a lot of data over the past three years on the impact of technology on discipline reports um and uh she shared some of that with us at the committee level and um that obviously is going to go to um Central leadership team and probably other committees and this is going to be an ongoing conversation about um how uh students are being impacted by technology classrooms discipline the whole package it's it's not simple but we're definitely it's all up in these discussion stage ages um there's a few policies 3160 4160 and also the regulations all related to physical examinations um that all refers to uh candidates for new positions in our district we had options there that we're trying to uh think about at this currently any um candidate for position here in Highland Park has to go through a physical exam through their own doctor or they could use the uh districts um the policy had options for other type of examinations imputing drugs uh mental health I those are the two main ones we discussed it also checked with um our lawyers and um our conclusion was there is no need for any to require any additional um exams for candidates for positions in the district there has not been a concern in the past the people that have been hired and this would add one more hurdle and make it actually harder to hire and also could get expensive so um the recommendation moving forward for first read is to keep the policy as it is now and and what we require of our candidates um service animals everybody's been talking about that the only change we put is that we may request documentation and um no small horses I'm sorry we remove language relative to small horses I was going a bit too far uh I think suici student suicide prevention are the language just uh matches threat assessment protocols and um and other things that have been added that we already talked about um so specifically on the agenda we are uh asked to vote to remove to abolish um uh the policy for remote public meetings which was during a declared emergency that was our covid policy that's we are voting tonight to abolish that hopefully never ever need it again um and our first read board member number and term just just reinforces what we have now you know it's um and it goes over a bit so it's same nine members three years but it lays out process for filling positions when people have to leave in the middle of their term um curriculum content just related to how we adopt courses uh making sure that it's tied to New Jersey student learning standards we talked about physical exams 511 is eligibility of Resident non-resident that's our admission process or procedures for enrolling students um and what we do if a student is found ineligible to be in our in our schools because of residency or otherwise um an emergency and crisis that was um just plans to make C the um just going down the list here 8420 is um kind of expanding or or um going into more detail on um in students with disabilities and how their needs are being met through our um our plans for security and uh crisis or emergency situations firearms and weapons also that was more about identif ifying uh matching it to code matching it to the memorandum of agreement with law enforcement um lays out what to do if a firearm is brought to school or or found on our premises um open lunch we went over uh volunteer athletic coaches also lays out a process for approving and recruiting volunteers sort of gives it all to the superintendent to do or her designate um requiring screening for TV that they take mandatory trainings and possess a substitute teacher certificate if someone wants to volunteer in our district and those are the policies that we're voting on tonight questions no I just want to comment that it is guide dog awareness month so you know maybe that was kind of in the air these conversations yes so shout out to all the guy dogs and service animals are important clarifications was miniature horses no small sorry sorry you're actually right I want to go to school that has them okay uh we are moving on to our second round of public comments second public comment session and once again we welcome public participation and Reserve this time for your comments so if anybody is still online listening to us and watch the comments they should get an award so anybody raising their hand okay um so Kristen Springer uh if you want to unmute yourself State your uh address hi can you hear me yes can hi 423 Dennison Street um in Highland Park obviously um I am the uh one of the chairs of the special education parents Advisory Group cpeg and I'm delighted to hear that you are um doing a program evaluation um and um I just wanted to kind of make a couple points and ask a clarification that um we you know cpeg really wants an audit or a program evaluation to think about what's working and what's not working or how to work best for to best serve our students and um we are delighted and excited to work with you all but uh we also understand from conversations with the administration that the program evaluation um is due to the state stating the district is over classifying students and that there's a need to cut students and to cut the classification and that's clearly not what cpeg wants you know we're we're not um you know we understand there needs to be a balance of best serving the students and working with the budget but we're really concerned about the kind of the stated goal of cutting the um classifications in half as the goal of a program evaluation that certainly is not what cpeg would be advocating for um and also I've uh talked with you guys about this before but we um cpag has repeatedly offered and we'd very much love to be involved from the beginning of the process um in terms of kind of having the parental involvement um including help review proposals um and providing feedback from the beginning you know for example it would be interesting to discuss why we're uh choosing a law firm versus a special education consulting firm to do their program evaluation I think it would really help uh transparency and buying and kind of the benefit of the program evaluation to have stakeholders intimately involved not just providing questions but intimately involved in the process from the beginning um related to that it would also be really useful to understand why there's no RFP um because the RFP I think also helps with transparency and Trust if we can see what is being asked for from these um law firms um because otherwise you know there's the risk that it's going to seem like we're asking the law firms to just cut special education services in half and the public can't see that so I think it would really help with transparency and Trust um you know to have more of that information available and again CP is not just willing but we're eager to help we understand the financial balances and issues with it and we're eager and uh really happy to help but we you know as stakeholders would love to be involved in the process sooner rather than later so thank you again for doing the evaluation and we're excited to be um available and helpful thank you I'm sorry can I just say because I made a mistake I think in leaving out that I believe a special education attorney group that you discuss as being okay I just want to clarify because that was sort of my mistake in presenting those notes that I did not specify special education attorney group or individual advocacy yeah thank you one more sure was that I'm sorry oh Abby Stern cell if you want to just unmute yourself give us your address hi hi Abby Stern cardal Harper Street I just have kind of a um question about one the wording and one of the policies um that I was just trying to read through uh for the service animal policy um it sounds like you're just cleaning a lot of things up um in number six though or I guess it was under B6 I was just confused um it seemed like previously the way I read it as kind of a lay person is that the student or family would provide information to the district and the way it's written again as a lay person who's just trying to understand it it kind of sounds like any school official at any time could ask so I mean I don't I'm sure this isn't the intention but I kind of worry about could this be taken as you know a a a child a student with a service animal could be asked is it one time and they provide documentation or is it a school official um can kind of at any point ask them to show documentation so I just again not having uh the legal kind of uh background this this one just made me a little bit uncomfortable with the wording of how I was reading it so I just wanted to to mention that um to make sure that the student couldn't at any point you know on the off chance that there were uh somebody who kind of continued to question them that that wouldn't be permitted by the policy once they've provided their you know initial documentation thank you any other public comments commenters Krista do you want to speak again sorry yes just a couple points claric um so Monique I think you did say or at least I certainly understood that it was a special education Law Firm so I don't think that was on you I just uh wanted to point out that there are other special education firms that focus more on kind of the educational component and not the legal component and kind of focus more on what are the best services for children more on the educational piece rather than the anti- litigation piece or how it seems by hiring a law firm versus uh you know someone that actually focuses on the kind of the educational piece of it um and then I would also like to know um I assume it's the case and I can opr it but uh uh it would be useful for us to have the report that talks about the over classification of students um and uh kind of who those students are and what your kind of areas are for trying to uh focus on the kind of reduction of classification um so I would I can reach out to one of you for that information but that would be useful for the public thank you anything else Angela anybody else Angela no okay thank you um we're going to move on to voting on these act to do our board action items um so if you want to move uh curriculum and instruction yes um I okay sorry I'm not sure I'm not sure if this is working okay um all right so I'd like to move items one through nine second second Dr batty uh I'm obained from number six and number eight yes on everything else Dr Coleman yes Dr kley yes Miss Bruce yes Dr schan okay so yes okay we'll take we'll take his raised hand not to wake his family yes missman yes Miss Bor yes and for finance and Facilities I move items one through 17 anyone second oh second let's go guys Dr B yes Dr colan yes Dr Pixley yes Miss Cru yes Dr schan [Laughter] oh God okay Personnel oh sorry yes yes are we are we done okay sorry uh Personnel for personnel I'd like to move items one through 19 remember that we're striking number 4B and tabling number nine for the sponsor for Irving ble second Dr B yes Dr colan yes Dr Pixley yes M Cru yes dran missan yes missman yes Miss yes okay and for policy um I move that I move um number two which is the abolishment and number three a through o with the exception of B we're tabling um policy 167 the others are all for first read second Dr yes Dr pman yes Dr Pixley yes MCE yes Dr Swan yes yes yes okay we move on thank you everybody move on to board Leon reports does I know that um Dr cesa you have one from the library I do so Michelle RZ sent me just a brief statement the Highland Park Public Library's Express location is closing so that staff can prepare for the transition back home on North fifth AV the last day will be open is Tuesday September 24th the reopening date of the newly renovated Library will be in October no exact date is available but just yet but the fact that they're closing up to move back is very promising and we're very excited absolutely other uh reports um nothing else okay then we move to uh president's report um I'm obviously not the president but filling in for Allison um I do want to say thank you to the glow program who who um gave us these lovely welcome welcome back Board of Education and these great mugs with our names on them so thank you who made us all smile when we came in today thank you glow um I also want to um on behalf of the the board thank the administration The Faculty all our staff for all the planning and preparation it took to for such a great opening to the school year wish all of our students a great year full of learning um and um sounds like we're off to a good start so I'm really happy about that and um we as a board we um each year look at um our Board of Education we create goals um and our goals are exactly for that end to what we can do to support the learning of uh the bottom line learning of our students in our community um so um we are actually going to vote on the goals that we talked about last month um we talked about them a bit over over the last month or two um they're um and I believe Allison read the good bit of them last month so I'm not going to do that again but we're doing uh planning and student achievement um a goal in that area um a lot of specifics under that and what progress is going to look like um so I think that we're being held a little more accountable or holding ourselves a little more accountable by passing these goals under planning and student achievement and under Communications and community relations which obviously uh mirrors what the Strategic plan is as well and how we can support that so um I move that the Board of Education accept the recommendation superintendent to approve the 2425 board goals as per the attached and as per what we've seen um so I move that I be a second second second do we do a roll call for that yes Dr batty yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss Bruce yes Dr schan Miss Danel yes Miss bman yes Miss yes okay any old business I did have um I know a a little while ago uh we were talking about different ways that we might um think about engaging the public through town halls and advisory boards and I was just oh and I was just wondering if May I'm not sure if we maybe we can get an update that or on that and maybe personnel and communication if if what we might consider you know I think it should be an active point of discussion and and how we might continue to engage the public so I'm just ref flagging that as an area of Interest okay Jen's on your agenda for that it's a good it's a good point and sorry no if no one could hear me any other old business remind us about that okay new business I just want to compliment our sports teams actually been been following them and um I made it to a soccer game I'm planning on making to a football game on Friday but our teams are really winning and doing really well right is we've won three football am I right last three football games yeah wow yes I went to the soccer game the other night lot lot of winning soccer games as well what was that three in a row it's awesome yeah very great it's really exciting yes record came in with the stats seeing all those posts from the booster yes I was thinking that too that's why it's in my mind booster social media has been phenomenal really good yeah like I know what's going on yes more motivating to he keeps reminding me to get out there it's on my calendar for Friday I hope I make it any other new business well can I just emphasiz oh someone is I think I was gonna do the exact same thing oh yeah like emphasize this just to thank the GL from from the students I have never received as a board member a handmaid's car you know anything from the children so not to knock what so touching and appreciate so again I thank you so much and I'm just gonna hold it up I don't know that get like can we hold up our CS really oh my they all different and unique love it and the mugs thank you and reusable mugs yes thank you so much thank you any other new business if not I move that we adjourn all in favor I we are adjourned thank you everybody you good night everyone night everybody