##VIDEO ID:UPE_cYx9LCw## oh hello and welcome to the last board meeting of the Year Monday December 16 2024 Hillsboro Township Board of Education meeting in accordance with the state's Sunshine Law of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the Hillsboro Township Board of Education was provided on December 12th 2024 to the Hillsboro Beacon and The Courier News Mr eer can we please take rooll Mr Davis here Miss Jackson here M Craig here M laming beer here Mr Lee here miss nurse here miss m stats here Mr here and Mr Marini here we have a quorum I will now take a motion to move into executive session whereas the open public meetings act chapter 231 of laws of 1975 provide that a public body May exclude the public from that portion of the meeting in which the public body discuss discusses certain matters for which confidentiality is required as permitted in section 7B of the ACT resolved by the Board of Education of the township of hillsbor in the county of Somerset in the state of New Jersey as follows the matters to be discussed are a student matter Personnel matters and negotiations with the Hillsboro Education Association the matters discussed in executive session shall be disclosed to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists can I take a motion in a second so move second all in favor I we will be back around 7:30 thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e that's it thank you thank you Mr President for part of my superintendent report I also want to acknowledge that is the last boarding meeting of the year and uh will draw a close to this year I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for the hard work of all board members as well as my Administration and of course all staff members especially for your dedication and your support throughout this year this holiday season specifically I'm going to ask everybody to take time to rest recharge and please spend quality time with your loved ones the holidays are indeed a time for reflection and as I look back on the past year I'm filled with pride for everything we have accomplished together and you're going to hear some of that in a little bit we have faced challenges and celebrated successes and through it all our community has remained strong and resilience this time of the year is filled with celebrations across many cultures and traditions I want to wish everyone observing holidays this month a joyous season happy hanuka merry Christmas happy Quanza happy festiv us for those of you who celebrate and a Happy New Year to all speaking of this new year it brings with some bittersweet news that you've already heard as many of you know our esteemed assistant superintendent Dr feltre will be leaving Hillsboro to become the superintendent in Berkeley Heights while we are incredibly excited for her at least I'll pretend to be and this wonderful opportunity our departure is significant loss for our district Dr felt's work here has been nothing short of incredible and she will be deeply missed um if I can give a sporting analogy as a superintendent I really truly feel feel that my role um I know people might not see it this way I'm the blocking fullback I'm the person I think that needs to come through and and take out um obstacles that are in the way for other people and let those Superstars those those those fantastic players blast through so that everybody can see uh how wonderful they are and Kim if anybody has defined that it's been you I hope in some small way I have prepared you to be a superintendent because I could tell you in a big way you prepared me to be the superintendent here in Hillsboro and I can't um I can't thank you enough for that uh you have certainly been a superstar um you may need to transition to be a blocking fullback uh so so enjoy that but um your legacy here is going to live on for an extended period of time and I want to thank you for that I also filled with hope and anticipation for the new year ahead we have exciting plans and initiatives on the horizon and I'm confident that together we'll continue to provide our students with the best possible education and opportunities again I wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season and I look forward to seeing you in the new year and at this time I want to introduce h two people I will definitely be seeing in the new year um I'm bringing to the board's attention two new members of our administrative team um and I'd like to call each of you one at a time up to the podium say a couple um things to the board and introduce yourself first I'm very excited to introduce Miss Denise ort Le Herbert uh she is going to be our new supervisor of special services for grades 7 through 12 and it's her first foray into Administration and she was the outstanding candidate out of our long and extensive process uh please welcome Denise to the podium Denise if you want to say a couple of words to everyone Hi everyone uh Denise ortley perber it is a pleasure to be here tonight and to meet all of you I'm so grateful for this opportunity uh and I really look forward to working with this incredible team and such a wonderful District so thank you very much thank you Denise and while Dr feltre cannot be replaced obviously I have to so I had to find the best person possible and I am so excited to uh introduce Kathy Regan to the Board of Education here Kathy is an experienced administrator who has already begun you can come to the podium who has already begun her transition process with Kim and um if I could find another Kim I think we have it right here and uh we are continuing our process for Kim's permanent replacement but I anticipate that Kathy is more than likely going to be through us through the end of this school year and uh Kathy if you don't mind just introducing yourself to Hillsboro and to the people here at the board sure thank you so much and I know I have big shoes to fill uh Dr Fel has been so wonderful so helpful uh she's really helping me to hit the ground running on January second I've been spending time here um meeting your supervisors the administration is great um Mr vpy thank you so much for the opportunity uh I will promise you to give Hillsboro my all in my best I'm thrilled to be here you have an amazing district' already been digging into uh different materials your strategic plan and uh your curriculum and it's just amazing I know it's always been amazing I live in Somerset County so I I am aware how strong of a district uh congratulations on all you've done and the reputation that Hillsboro has as a a bright star uh in education and again thank you very much for the opportunity um Dr feltri thank you very much for all the support that you've given me and of course um I can't say enough Mr vuli thank you very much I look forward to being part of your team thank you thank you Dr re so all of that being said um one of the things that Dr felt and I had worked on for a long time that I had asked her to do was to look at a variety of ways to empower teacher leaders um we also partnered with the union and looking at ways that we could find ways to give back teacher time in their schedules and um kind of set you up for your last would you mind introducing Miss hussy and um project sure so we were awarded the competitive Grant teacher climate and culture Innovation Grant and we worked with teachers over the summer to develop a lesson plan repository and Siri hussy is the pro uh project manager for this Grant and she is going to give a little presentation on what we did and um how it's been received hello hi I'm SAR hussy I'm a teacher I'm a special education teacher at the middle school so be working together um and at woodfern and um I had the opportunity to work with Dr phry this summer really and throughout the year and it's been a wonderful opportunity to do this lesson plan repository um so I'm just gonna give a little background you just tell me just give it give you like a q um so we the Hillsboro received the teacher climate and culture and Innovation Grant um they they applied Dr phry along with Henry Goodhue applied together in the spring last year and they received it only 18 districts in New Jersey received it we don't know how many applied but we know the 18 received it and we were granted $199,400 to work on this lesson plan repository and um the purpose of the repository is to work like uh Dr feltre Mr vby said is to reclaim teacher time as well so that teachers can focus more on working with their students creating activities resources differentiating instruction working with our colleagues on different anything they need to work on and just give back that time so you didn't have to put those lesson plans into Genesis and um it was a great process to like learn things through it so um the staff that worked in it is myself I was a project manager I organized and managed every part of the project I kind of just kept things in track we had our Google you know sheets that we could organize all our notes so that I could keep track of who was where people were how many lesson plans they had completed just to make sure everybody was doing staying on track with the timeline um along with that we held meetings with both groups there's a lesson planner group and a core developer group and I held meetings with them a couple times during this process and we also created a resource page for the entire staff in the district to be able to use this lesson plan repository there are we Dr felt was able to hire myself and then 44 lesson planners and those lesson planners created the lessons that are now in Genesis and available for teachers to use and they can tweak them to fit their needs in the classroom so they don't need to just take them and use them but they can make them fit whatever they need and with their students they made sure they included all the components including um standards and the essential questions and procedures and included resources as much as they could to help and guide teachers we also had a group called core developers we had 16 core developers that worked on the project and the core developers they checked over the lesson plans once they once they were created they helped to create the resource page so that this was accessible to all staff and it made them feel comfortable using um the repository because it did get a little dicey we had to work with technology stuff came into play so we had to work through all our issues and it was a great group of people to work with um they are also the point person there's at least one in each building so there's a point person in each school that um teachers can come to for help if they need it if they don't know how to get on it or if they need help finding something they have that person to go to and they were also able to speak the principls allowed them to speak at the first faculty meeting so they could introduce this and show it to the the staff um and then recently we about a month ago we created a survey for the staff to see who's been using it who hasn't been what the issues are and I'll get into that in a little bit um and uh more recently we created one for just new teachers because we found that that was an area we wanted to look at a little bit further uh Mr vulpi if you could click on that Resource page I'm just going to show you what this Resource page looked like um there's a lot of information I'm not going to go through all of it but you can see if you scroll up where you can see the bottom there we were a right there's perfect um we were able to focus on get to all K to 12 um um grades we were able to not we were not able to complete all lessons for every subject area in each grade but as you can see there are some in each grade level um there are still things that we would like to do in the future that are not covered but for the most part we had a really good group of teachers working on these lesson hands to complete as many as possible um so this was just a list we gave out to the staff so that they knew what was available on Genesis in the lesson plant repository you can scroll down to the next page you just keep going down Mr vulpi oh and yeah perfect so these are then the directions there were different ways that the teachers could go get on to uh the lesson plan repository and so this was a guided Direction so I'm not going to explain all of it but um the core developers also came up with the key words that would help the teachers so it really was very specific so that it could help them and it wasn't something that they had to just find on their own so we tried to make it as easy as possible so that and user friendly so that teachers were using this that wanted to use it and come back and make it pretty simple at the end of the document there's a lot of keywords there uh the last two options which really help the most I believe are the less and pal requests we gave access we figured out with our tech department how to make Genesis usable in this way for everybody and we gave all teachers access to the whole lesson plan group however each individual grade level teacher was able to be a what's called a lesson pal you could request a lesson pal and they could be your friend on Genesis and you can share lesson plans so we were able to take all of our lesson plans in let's say grade two for example and share them with all the grade two teachers so made it really accessible for teachers to use and if teachers didn't have access to something they're able to go on the help desk and ask if they could just put in an interest and we we have a whole at the end of the document here it just says what exactly for them to say um when they put on the help desk they could say please let me have access to grade three math plans or whatever they want so we really try to make it super user friendly um so it's I think it's been very helpful and this is what teacher the core developers presented at the first faculty meeting of the year you can go back to the slideshow thank you perfect so after we created the the document and we were able to get it out to teachers about two two and a half months later we wanted some feedback from staff so we put out a survey uh we got about 148 maybe a couple more at this point unless I think we might have closed it by now but um out of those 148 responses uh 61% said they have used the lesson plan repository 84% feel comfortable using it 91% out of that 61 find that they're adaptable which I think is really key here because they were able to take these lesson plans and modify it to meet their needs in their classroom because not not every classroom is the same so we really want teachers to be able to use this as their template to get started and really have a good basis with all the standards Etc uh 71% felt that it reduced time spending on plans which is huge because that's really the purpose of this Grant and I think we really achieved that out of the 148 responses we got 39% said they have not used the lesson plan repository and for reasons such as they don't they like using their own plans some teachers just enjoy that and they don't want to use anybody else's um there's not enough subject areas covered and that's something that we know that we're trying to figure out those next steps of how to cover the areas that we were not able to cover here and then 9% we're not sure how to use it and that 9% I'm I can I have all email addresses from this so I'm actually going to reach out to that 9% and send them the directions that's an easy fix on based on this survey so you can turn yeah so the next two slides and if you just give a minute for each one for people to read the comments there are a lot there are over 75 I believe comments on how wonderful this repository was I took just a couple um just to summarize a lot of people said that they felt it was really helpful when working with other teachers as new teachers especially they really felt that it people were able they were able to work together with their colleagues more and one teacher she was a new teacher and um not on this because it was a later survey but she said that it saved so much time especially as a new teacher helped me learn the curriculum and be on the same page as my grade level teachers and I find that was really powerful because she's a brand new teacher and she felt like all the rest and you know it was a new teacher that's hard to do so something I wish I had as a new teacher so I think it was really a very helpful this has been a really helpful tool especially for new teachers um so and that's kind of the feedback we've been getting that the new teachers are benefiting the most but I think the experienced teachers are seeing how it's in benefit as well and then our next steps um so we talked a lot we met actually with the core developers today Dr phry and I this afternoon and we came up with a lot we talked a little bit about some other things as well our next steps for this process as you can see this is not completely done this project we're probably about halfway done we still have a lot of areas that have not been covered such as special areas um special education is not covered in these they can tweak some things but it's not as developed as I'd like them to be or Dr phry would as well um and some we didn't have some science plans or some social studies even math there were nine high school math plans and that is still not all of them which I did not know I don't work as the high school so um so that is something we would like to try to do in the future uh one way we were thinking of trying to develop this just kind of brainstorming some ideas is when create new curriculum when curriculum is being revised or edited having the that committee work on the lesson plans to revise them so the ones that are in the repository they could revise and edit them to go along with the new plan the new curriculum that's being written um the other thing is we talked today a little about using some you know partial professional development time to give teachers time to put put these plans that are not or work together as a team to put these plans in the lesson plan repository to give them access as a group whether it's a special area group or grade level um and then the other thing we were hoping for is that some teachers will voluntarily submit their plans so that's something we need to look into in the future and how to reach out to staff and see if they'd be interested in doing that and get them all on board so um we have a lot to do still to continue but it has been a great project and I think it's really benefited the staff I think it has given back time I think we've met our goals of giving teachers time back not as many not everybody but we're get we're getting there so I think it's been a really positive and fun project to work on with Dr phry so thank you for allowing me to work on this with you and uh thank you for your support sari I want to I want to thank you for your leadership with this this is something that um I you can stand wherever you want yeah um I believe at convocation I did mention you on day one because I knew this was going to be a benefit to people and um this was something you didn't have to take on uh but you did and it's it's always great when we see teacher leaders so I wanted to recognize you for that for the hard work that you've done and more importantly what I wanted to recognize you for was a couple weeks ago I observed an awesome Wilson lesson in your class right it was it was great so not only are you a great teacher but you're a great teacher leader and thank you again for what you're doing for our staff it's appreciate I have a quick question um was the budget for this fully exhausted or is there still more work to come yes so uh when Dr phry put in the put in the grant she had to put it in for a specific amount so it wasn't just given to us so the amount it was by teacher how much they were going to get paid and that's how she created that amount and this is considered complete at this time this completed at this time we do have some paperwork still to do so Kathy and I will be doing that but other than that yes we're still kind of working on um some things like getting the resource page out to more teachers you know it's beginning of the year it's a lot going on we are in January we're going to send out another email and get people at faculty meetings again just to try to remind people of where it is how to get to it because as I know I do we forget things along the way and especially at the beginning of the year so yeah so we're gonna keep going keep trying for it so yes thank you thank you thank you so much for this excellent presentation it's really quite fascinating my question is what plans does the state have for the 18 districts that were selected so the 18 districts and Dr F jump in if I'm wrong um each one created their own plan of how to it was it was called the same grants and but they each created their own plan and it they were given whatever money they asked so I think two other districts did a lesson plan repository from what the state told us and the rest did something different but it was all connected to the same idea of giving teachers back time was there any um thought from the state to do a conference for the 18 districts to present yes I think he said in the spring yeah in the summertime they're planning a summer um I don't know conference or event where the part of the grant was you had to um share out because the state wants to find a way to scale take it on a mass scale fantastic thank you so any other board members okay thank you very much thanks again Sarah and that concludes my superintendence report all right thank you very much all right back to the fun all right so we will now move on to committee reports um we can start with education so we had um two meetings uh we had the November meeting after the board meeting 2st and uh we reviewed the nursing Services plan new course proposal honors pre-calculus at HHS book adoption review course title changes the 2526 District calendar options we touched on that and we had some discussion on um the outcome of the community engagement night we had um some discussion on the carryover from board ret treat on reach status and carryover on the option physical education and then the December meeting was on December 10th uh we discussed new courses Algebra 1 part one and two at HMS dual enrollment courses with Sean Hall University book adoption review um again the 2526 calender option we ran out of time so that's been postponed uh Visual and Performing Arts related arts course sequence at HHS uh and again we option two for physical education where um we talked about possible pilot and integration with the block scheduling design and then literacy and math CP courses the teacher survey feedback and that's it all right thank you very much uh we will move on sorry I have a question yeah um just question I'm glad to see the pilot for the option to I believe that's this year third and fourth marking period we yeah we are we are going to we're working with Mr Doo right now we are attempting to have something for uh the end of this year okay so then it doesn't necessarily have to be on whether we have block scheduling next year or not no the one of the potential Solutions and Lan you can correct me if if I'm wrong about this was for a Fidelity of implementation on a wider scale is that if we did change the um high school schedule it might be more amenable to being able to implement this more efficiently um it's not precluding us from doing so we just think that as part of if we do ever look at a new schedule for the high school which we've started some discussions around that just very conceptually that this may be able to fit in with that and then the other question I had again about option two was wondering why I believe I read that the recommendation would be only for those that are at The Varsity level I'd have to look into that a little bit more spefic Kim do you remember any specifics about that it has to do with um the level of their um prowess if you will because they have to meet the standards and they have to sign off and they have to do Reflections and um it's prior experience that Mr Dilo has has had um it also had to do with um it's not only Varsity but um uh what their schedules look like to be able to be available um and still get the 150 minutes on average per week of PE I guess maybe I know that there were uh a list of um other districts around and their policies and their implementation strategies maybe in just seeing if they only include ADV Varsity versus not just having kids that were both on JV and varsity and the amount of hours that they practice seemed to be the same so um I would hate to preclude kids that really don't have to be be like if it's open to everyone I'm not I I got to look at a a few districts but I didn't see any that glared at me that they only allowed it for Varsity Sports yeah right now we're we're also just talking about the the pilot too so longterm we could be looking at a variety of things I think if we were going to Pilot something we want to make sure it's on we're talking about a grander scale for the teacher in climate Grant but we want to try something on a small scale okay at first to make sure it actually works um but then we can have those conversations moving forward whatever it is we want to be able to if we do Transition in this direction do it with Fidelity but also make sure we meet all of the standards as well so it'll take some time for that thank you okay I have a question on the education um perhaps for Dr feltre um I just was thinking about the seat Hall the dual enrollment does that mean it's only for students who then enroll in seat in hall or could it be college credit and you go to Ruckers and it would be accepted like similar to tcj yeah my understanding is is similar to ccnj so so does that mean that and so this is a follow on question for TCNJ do you have to attend tcj to have that credit no so it can be used at any University that will accept transer cred it it dep honestly it depends on the University it depends on the University if the universities will accept it okay but it would be likef okay thank you very much okay I'm sorry one more question just um to pack to pick out off of Jean um are we just broading our possibilities like with SE and hall now that's the first time we're pairing does that mean that the courses under seat and Hall are not offered at TCNJ and rvcc okay yeah we're trying to um one major effort that we've tried to do is really expand our dual enrollment and I think over the past year we've I don't want to say we've doubled it we we've offer a lot more a lot more courses sorry I have another question about the um option two course so for Varsity students would that mean that they would then get like a study hall period instead of having gym it's still in in discussion essentially it's a little simplistic but yes um the the the one issue that we're there's several issues we're still working through but just because you're a varsity athlete um you might not meet all the health and PE standards so you'd still have to be taking some health courses and there might still be some written work uh involved with that but it's an oversimplification but yes okay Mr H so I have one other question but maybe we can talk about in education when we go through the agenda but it's about the the um the new pre-calculus honors course and and I don't remember exactly the timeline of it but I remember at some point we H so a couple years ago we had pre-calculus honors and then the board was um it was brought to the board that we would then um re it was recommended to go to AP pre-calculus because um from what I remember the the two courses were quite similar and the benefit of doing AP pre-calculus was that the students could then qualify for AP credit so I'm a little confused about now bringing back AP sorry bringing back pre-calculus honors as like another higher level so so it's at the time it was said that these two courses are so similar so why not let's do AP and now we're saying they're not so similar so perhaps we can talk about it when we talk about education but unless now do you want do you want to speak to now yeah my understanding is um they found the last two years with the AP pre-cal that students are struggling so there are some students that aren't quite ready for AP pre-cal and the pre-calculus honors um would be that bridge for the students who are um able to go more deeply I guess than pre-cal CP but not quite ready to handle AP preal yes just jumping in on firsthand experience I I missed that when I was reading through that so I'm actually very excited for that for the kids that are coming up because going from and and Paul's daughter might also be in the same situation um the my daughter was going to go into AP pre-cal but on her College route she asked some colleges about whether they would take that and not a lot of college take AP preal and we've just heard that it was a real struggle for the kids that have always done well in the higher level maths they were not doing well in a so my child decided to do just a CP preal and now she doesn't have to work at all so there there definitely needs to be I'm glad to see that they're putting that bridge back in a Ab preal is an animal to college okay so then I guess okay so then what I'm confused about is because there was some discussion in the education minutes that I read about this multiple levels of CP for kind of a similar reason if I understood it correctly in math let's just say math right um when I looked at the the survey of the of the staff that most math in the math department they were in favor of having two levels of CP other departments it was a little bit mix um so I don't understand like and so I think that's a great idea to have another level of higher level math but I don't understand on the on the the the CPN that why we wouldn't also offer an additional option and maybe that's what and I see that in algebra one and two part one and part two but what about at um the other um aspects in the high school Dr feler would you like to this one one more time AB so we are in the process of investigating that and I would ask that you give the supervisor an opportunity to actually talk to the teachers because we had the conversation at education committee and presented something to them that does address that but he needs an opportunity to speak with the teachers first as opposed to them hearing about it at a board meeting please oh no I was just asking like in general not for any specifics but it sounds like so I guess I'm we in the process of investigating the survey was to gather the data I presented the data to the education committee there was a um a plan discussed or proposed a proposed future um course sequence but there's a lot of moving parts to it um that it's not going to necessarily be all fleshed out because one of the questions was how to differentiate between the two and there was a lot of well I'm not sure how to do that but here's some suggestions that need to be fleshed out okay the one thing we cannot do is say less than CP because CP is the state standards and we cannot say that students cannot do not have to be able to to meet the state standards so we really have to be intentional about our current CP is the bare minimum if you will and then go beyond but we can't go below because then we're not doing Justice by our students by giving them a less than what is required by the state I know I won't be here but that's my Advocate Miss stats I was going to bring this up later when uh when it was for uh agenda item 11.3 but since it's been brought up um I guess what concerns me is this has been something that has been brought up for many many years on the at least for uh math and uh English Department as well when we have students in CP and there's no no alternative and there is a wide range of CP um uh we can offer a another level actually I've heard various suggestions one is where you can have something that's easier but still CP um and also make it uh have the upper level be harder than what we currently have because when we eliminated the non- col prep previously known standard the standards of the CP level went down because out of compassion for our struggling students um what concerns me in light of this whole picture though is like I said this has been requested for years and has been ignored until very recently however very quickly after I think one full year maybe two full years of of uh AP pre-calculus uh now we're H honoring another level for our upper students to accommodate them one of the reasons was because students coming from Al uh Algebra 2 CP were struggling in it at least they have an alternative they can go to pre-calculus CP also it looks good in the transcript I I worry about that being a reason um and I I appreciate that they're offering the algebra 1 part one and part two in the middle school but again that's to accommodate our stronger students um there is no alternative for our struggling students in CP courses they have to stay in there and fail uh or just barely pass and then they move on to the next year and uh and especially if they take uh the course recovery the credit recovery course um that's troubling the standards of that whether or not and that are often not prepared for the the following course I just worry about and the message I have gotten is that this it won't be happening that there will be two levels of CP um and this is something that teachers have been asking for a while um I'm just referring to some notes that I wrote um also um in creating this honors level uh pre-calculus um to staff that uh it's not necessarily you're going to have one pure section uh that would have otherwise been maybe pre-calculus CP or AP pre-calculus will transfer to that or to I just worry about that then creating higher class sizes in some of the other courses um I just worry about the the the focus on our higher level students um and I uh we really should be addressing the needs of all of our students and I worry about our struggling students that their needs have not been met and but we are accommodating the wants of our uper students I'm so sorry to prolong the conversation but um I just want to give my personal experience I did take pre-calculus honors and it was I've heard a lot of experiences from my classmates and my peers that AP pre-calculus has certain standards that make it impossible to pass the course um and in my experience with pre-calculus I was able to pass that that class with remarkable grades um and I had similar similar academic achievements to people who been failing AP pre-calculus so I do agree with Miss stats in that there should be multiple levels to address students of all needs but I think pre-calculus honors is a very um it's a very adequate course for what it's pertaining to and I think there the staff that's taught it before could be possibly employed to teach it again and also another point I think the way uh uh AP Calculus is taught may be contributing to the problem not the way it's taught but I guess it's standards based um this is just what I've seen on uh Facebook and I guess uh that can be confusing and challenging for people to to learn that way I guess I'd be happy to share my thoughts offline with you this is the longest committee report ever well since Cindy's been talking to much I'll pass it off to operations back operations committee um lots of fun and and interesting things uh conversations about restoring courtesy bus routes uh bids have gone out uh for that to happen and they will be reviewed when they come in uh work at the high school has been completed repairing the fire door so that's kind of cool and uh air conditioning units various uh maintenance tasks and so on uh there was a mishap at the Bloomingdale building with the telephone and internet wire that got snagged by a bus and that's been repaired and re looking into how to remediate that in the future put it under the ground whatever it is uh we did discuss the demographic study a bit uh there are some preliminary Returns on the demographic study lot of interesting questions uh nowhere yet near a final answer uh but some interesting things are being discussed how to change boundary lines and those kinds of things which is exactly what one would expect from a new demographic study and that's about it all right thank you Mr Davis any comments or questions okay Miss nurse education the HR committee sorry HR um on December 11th and we started with a JB description for the supervisor of special services and also the custo custodian's position uh we then discussed a computer tech position moving from the one part-time person to a full-time and the committee unanimous unanimously supported that we had two Personnel matters to discuss uh we spoke on um the recommendation from the high school to reallocate uh clerical staff staff um to meet the needs uh for Effectiveness um within the school and that will be cost neutral so we again unanimous unanimously supported that and finally we had an update um on the interim assistant superintendent and our new supervisor special services which you were able to meet today all right thank you very much and there was no governance committee meeting so that concludes the committee reports all right we'll now open it up to the first public comment session uh public input on the 2025 2026 budget and action agenda we very much welcome input from the public during board meetings there be du 30-minute periods of time time that the meeting will be open for public comment where members of the public guarded by the comment which may do if they're attending in person during the first public comment period members of the public May comment on any items that are listed on tonight's agenda before the board votes during the second public comment period members of the public May comment on any school or School District issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the school district as Prov V 0167 before you state your comment ask to provide your name and address there's a three minute limit on public comment please understand that our public forms are not structured as question answer sessions but rather offered as opportuni to share your thoughts with the board instance where the board believes there is a misunderstanding or in accuracy the board president or superintendent will address the comment there may be times when a member of the public makes a comment or has a question about personel hiring decisions can not the open public meetings act and privacy rights of public employees Encompass there and do not prmit the board to discuss personal issues of public session okay seeing none we will close public comment any additional comments before we move to the action agenda from the board seeing none we'll move to the oh sorry approval of minutes uh 10.1 motion to approve public minutes 112 1424 motion to approve executive session minutes 11 1824 motion to approve public amendes 11:1 1824 can I get a motion a second so moved second any discussion all in favor all right we'll move on to the action agenda thank you Mr President i' ask for the board's uh consideration to approve the following motions in the area of Education travel and related expenses the superintendent's HIV determinations new course proposals dual enrollment with seat and Hall the nursing Services plan book adoptions course title changes staff for Title One family engagement nights staff for Title One summer programs staff for family math and family science programs overnight trips the acceptance of the amended federal fiscal year state in local cyber security grant program for a total amount of $147,900 student whose name is on file and authorizing the submission of the FY 2025 local Recreation Improvement Grant to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs okay I get a motion in second so move second any discussion by the board Miss Jackson so I just wanted to bring attention to the book she kills monsters um so my understanding of this book is for 10th grade uh English 2 CP um this is a required reading book and in actuality it's a play um I just what's um disconcerting a little bit is some of the content that's in there um especially the sexual references um and I think in light of some of the conversations we've recently had I think it would be um I'd be curious to see how these topics are addressed in the classroom by the teacher with the students if they're unfamiliar with the terms um and it and since it is required reading um whether if anyone whether it be a student or a parent objects what the alternative option would be for students I could read off some of the topics if you'd like can read off whatever you'd like sure so um the terms copulate fornicate consensual intimate stimulus and sex offering leather clad dominatrix Dyke there's instances of lesbianism oral sex reference um which has some other references to the movie Scarface and then um with violence love lots and lots of violence so again I'd be curious if a student is not familiar with these terms how the teacher would explain them in the classroom I think we have lots of literature as we discussed at the education committee where that does come up if you start looking at Romeo and Julia act one scene one where they start to talk they start to talk about a lot of things along serious lines right there too and my expectation of my teachers would be that they handle that in a classroom appropriate manner I can't speak for every teacher as how they would handle that but we can look at lots of literature over lots of periods of time and pull out certain things from it and it comes down to the expertise of the teacher and how they're going to handle it and that's why you know we wanted to talk about this through at at education committee I can't give you an answer for what every single teacher is going to do but that's why we had our teachers review it and and bring it for a review and somebody whether it be a student or parent objects to the content what is the alternative it would be it would be the same for any of our texts like if someone says hey I don't want to read about Romeo and Juliet for reasons XY and Z whether it has to do with two teenagers who are doing the things that teenagers do in there whether there's the threats of beheading the maidens or you know teenage suicide if that's the required reading in part of our curriculum that's what the students do we don't offer alternate assignments except for the um areas in health and PE that they're able to option out of Miss nurse can what is the process for for books is it recommended by supervisors is it recommended by teachers of that grade Kim do you want to speak to that typically it's recommended by the teachers during the curriculum writing my understanding for these they were recommended by the teachers during the curriculum writing sometimes the Librarians will put forth um to the supervisor or to the teachers um but the teachers typically bet them and then um put them forth to Sheila Sheila reads them I read them give them to the education committee um to read her vet and then um bring to the board so everybody on the education committee has well they probably haven't read it because we don't always have uh a copy for each person but I think for this one we had a PDF that we attached to the to the agenda we we we did for this book yes so they had an opportunity to down yeah Jane can go first Miss stats thank you have um I I have another question about 11.3 and uh I want to make some points about 11.11 um at the October um education committee meeting there was a proposed uh HS pathway proposal for Math and in that they were going to add the uh honors pre-calculus and eliminate the algebra 3 trig now since then I I just want to confirm Al 3 trig is remaining in the course yes list okay thank you um now as far as um 11-11 the motion approved overnight trips I'm concerned about well the cost always concerns me but um especially for the uh the wrestling trip um and also it's such short notice so I wonder if we had hanging over head well we've already paid for it so you know we don't really have much choice but for $925 per student who's going um the good news is it's only they're only missing one school day and it's Friday which doubt there's going to be a lot of new instruction this Friday um I also have concerns about the yearbook and the newspaper it's only $400 to Orlando which is amazing but they're missing four school days and I would think they could find a a closer location where they wouldn't have to miss so many school days to uh you know accomplish the same kind of uh learning opportunities that they would in going to Orlando um the trip to Boston they're missing two school days it's $400 um but it's definitely educational as well as the yearbook and not and um the newspaper trip but uh I do worry about the four missing the four school days and there's no alternative there are alternatives for the Boston one there is no alternative for that from Mr Davis yeah back to book uh adoptions I had an opportunity to look at she kills monsters um and I wasn't familiar with it I tracked it down a bit actually went back to the Publishers site and uh it's actually it's a play that was uh written uh quite some time ago and this is a uh kind of a dumb down dumb Down's not the right word but it's it's been modified to try to make it more suitable for younger readers but it's actually originally written as an adult play with a lot of sexual content and those those kinds of activities going on and although the explicit sexuality has been expunged from the play the overall context the situations and the interactions of the characters are still very there's a lot of violence um but one of the things that bothered me most about it is that because there it it is presenting the thesis is is kind of moving and interesting uh the main character has lost her family her mother and father and sister in an accident and she's going through her sister's things to sort the m and she finds her diary and in reading through her diary she discovers that her sister had this hidden gay side and she's reading through the diary to find out what's going on and so the play is kind of a fantasy of of one sister meeting the her actual other sister but it it tends to support some canards about the gay community it's almost a cartoon version of what gay people are like you know they're they're all violent they're all sex obsessed they're all this and they're all that and I find that more disturbing myself than the quality of the writing itself which neither is very good to begin with so I will vote no on she kills monsters Miss DS regarding uh chill's monsters my negative Viewpoint of it and it's just slight is that it is a place which me it's meant to be performed not read um but um as far as the the content and um it's it's meant to be written in the vernacular the intent was to written in vernacular of of teenagers and um I don't know if it's necessarily uh um implying that um the gay community is sex obsessed and violence obsessed but uh I think teenagers are interested in in those things and I think that's what it's appealing to um and as Mr vulpi pointed out there's all kinds of classic literature that has all of those elements involved if I may I Miss Jackson if I understood Mr Davis he was going back to the original play right and what you found in the original play isn't necessarily in this version of it but the portrayal the explicit sexuality was exposed yeah and I I think you can call a team vernacular but not every team uses that vernacular I don't think it's relatable to all teams and in some ways I think given the subject matter there's a more mature and and presentable way to address it right rather than with the way it's been here that's what I find is the presentation is not not necessarily respectful toward the student even yeah it's not positive at all Mr Nur It's s just in within the education committee or if there was insight into why this book was chosen was it for theme was there something that stood out for it to be a recom Kim did you want to speak to that um yeah I have to read the adoption form um sorry I have speaks to it in the adoption back on the agenda yeah so we can we can go on I can well I I know Miss stats had a question while you're reading through that Miss what I recall because I think they uh the teacher who picked it pre chose it as far as you know appealing to the a possible vernacular of of students um but and I think it is just AAC there's no one common way that any age group speaks um including teenagers so um and I would think that would be part of the discussion you know is this really representative um is this fair for you know us to assume that um so I think there's it's rich in what it can talk about and I also think it was also chosen for its themes and I think it was part of the themes of a unit um I have to say in my personal experience um having being a senior and having read so many books for summer reading in other classes I have read a lot of books with um the sexuality and violence that was was discussed in this book such as doublin the White City in Cold Blood I've read books about serial killers and criminals and in my experience teachers have explored those topics very carefully and cautiously and they've almost helped us um more closely understand the literary techniques that were used in those specific pieces so I think that that isn't really a problem in the situation I think also um just reading the basic summary that's provided on this PDF this is very very generalizable to the community of my students and peers today so I think this is a very important piece that we should include within the curriculum yeah if you want to call that out in voting you can call out that specific book or that specific liner any other comments or questions on the agenda okay I mean I mean me personally not that you want to hear my opinion but required reading it makes me feel slightly uncomfortable I'm sure my kids are using that language and their sophomores which I think is the year that that's required for at 10th grade so I don't not that I love it but I'll stop talking I guess we'll move to rooll on the action agenda Mr Davis just for clarity we're voting on 111 the entire the entire 11 yes so I'd like to I will vote Yes except for 116 or I'm no are you voting no for all of 116 or just for the one book can I just vote no on she kills yes so yep that's me Miss Jackson I am a yes except for she kills monsters I'm a no M Craig yes M Ling meter yes Mr Lee yes Miss nurse yes Miss stats okay yes for everything except 11.3 that's a no and 11.1 um yes for the uh trip to Boston no for the other two trips Mr H yes and Mr Marin I'm gonna abstain from she kills monsters but yes the rest Mr Marini I didn't hear your vote I'm gonna abstain from she kills monsters I don't want to give a vote on that but I'm gonna say yes to and motion passes yes in the a of Human Resources I'd ask for the board's consideration to approve the following motions suspension of a district employee separation agreement revised job description retirements and resignations resending appointments approving appointments approving the interim assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Dr re approving a change in employment status approving a transfer and change in assignment approving leads of absence approving student teachers mentors and buddies volunteer coaches co-curricular nural advisers six and seven period coverage extra coverage volleyball winter Clinic staff and summer enrichment staff can I get a motion in second some second any discussion by the board seeing none we'll move to roll Mr Davis yes Miss Jackson yes Miss Craig yes Miss Ling beer yes Mr Lee yes Miss nurse yes Miss stats yes Mr H yes and Mr M yes motion passes congratulations Denise and Kathy you're on board now officially in the area of operations i' asked for the boards consideration approve the following motions monthly bills quote for HVAC repair and replacement at Hillsboro High School change order for the Hillsboro High School fire shutter change order for Amco with the Hillsboro Middle School HVAC uh courtesy bus transportation contracts for the 2425 school year awarding professional service providers approving a settlement agreement approving a second settlement agreement accepting donations and approving the disposal and sale of obsolete equipment can I get a motion in second second any discussion seeing none will'll move to roll Mr Davis yes Miss Jackson yes Miss Craig yes m Ling beer yes Mr Lee yes Miss nurse yes M stats yes Mr H yes and Mr M yes motion passes we'll now move on to the second public comment one more oh sorry oh sorry y in the area of policies and regulations I'd ask for the board's consideration of the following motion temporary suspension of policy 5131 which was discussed at the last board meeting can I get a motion at second so moved second any uh any discussion Miss that'ss uh at a previous board meeting I asked if there was any data it was mentioned that there was data that was provided to uh uh that said that there was no that it's not a this the drug testing is not a deterrent um but I've not received any data is there any to be shared now we have some what data specifically would you like to see I was told that there was Data shared at at I guess it was the governance committee meeting shared at the governance committee meeting yeah and I think it's a maybe an attachment to the governance committee meeting as well some of that's there but is there any specific data you would like to see that I can gather well I I looked I didn't see any that was attached um I just I'll get I'll get you all of the attachments from the governance committee and if there is any specific data you'd like we can get that as well just let me know I just I wanted to make a decision based on uh whatever evidence there is that it is has been a deterrent it has not been a deterrent well if you if you can't make that decision based upon the recommendation of the governance committee if you don't have the data you can choose to do whatever you'd like thank you and if there is any specific data you would like let me know what it is and I'll get it for you okay can I okay so that was already Mo second any other comments seeing none we'll move to rooll Mr Davis yes Miss Jackson yes M Craig yes Miss Ling beer yes Mr Lee yes M nurse yes M Doats no Mr yes and Mr M yes motion passes now I'll move I scrolled a little too far last time my apologies move on to the second public comment period uh we very much welcome me of the public during the board meetings there will be two 30 minutes Peri periods of time that the meeting will be open public comment when members of the public May invite the comment which they may do if they're attending in person during the second public comment period members of the public May comment any school or School District issue that a member of the public Fields may be of concern to the residence of the school district as per V 0167 before you say your comment you ask per your name and address or a three minute limit on public comment please understand that our public forms not structured as question answer session but rather offers opportunities to share your thoughts with the board and since where the board believes there's a misunderstanding or inaccuracy board president or superintendent will address the comment there may be time when the member of the public makes a comment or ask a question about personal hiring decisions kind not the uph meetings act and priv privacy rights of public employees and CES there and do not permit the board to discuss personal issues in public session okay seeing none we will close public session uh close public comment and I will open it up to board members if they have any comments they would like to make Miss nurse I would just like to thank the group up here for great conversation again um I feel like when I was first on the board it seemed very quiet um and people were not sure if they could ask that things um we're scared to ask things and I think that we're in a much better place and we um I'm appreciative of that I hope other people are as well and I just think that we need to continue being able to do that so you know there might be surprise questions asked here and I think that that's okay um that not everything we're going to catch as we read through there's so many documents to read through so if people have questions please continue to ask those questions and you know hopefully we'll you know everybody can be respectful um as we wait through it and it's okay to say I don't have that information or I'll get that information so I just like the direction that we've gone in so thank you everybody for contributing to the conversation for what's best for the district thank you thank you Miss Jackson yeah um I had the opportunity to see the Hillsboro dance team showcase and want to congratulate all the dancers on a great show again I enjoyed it right thank you Miss STS Miss J Miss Jackson and I went to the burrow blast is that what it's called at at the high school and uh it was the the robotics team of the middle school which I think there were seven teams at the middle school and it was organized and uh uh uh and and uh run by the uh the high school students and it was really enjoyable they gave me a tour of all the different things that that were all the uh ancillary uh activities that were going on and uh so it's very interesting and it's really amazing to see all that talent in so many different ways that's awesome thank you any other comments Mr H I'm trying to think how I'm going to phrase this so that um so with respect to miss st's comments about the policies about the information that she was asking for I don't actually know what information you were asking for but I think that you didn't have that information in order to make your decision and I feel that not in this particular case because I didn't have that question but sometimes there is and I think we've talked about this there's a minority opinion and I do understand that it is the will of the board but I feel that my opinion and my perspective is not acknowledged as it's just not acknowledged and I do understand that sometimes I am in the minority and I do respect the minor the majority will and at the same time I feel that for those of us who are in the minority opinion it would be I don't know it would feel it would feel like I was seen if at least my fellow board members acknowledged that they heard me even if they disagree with me and so with respect to the conversation about the book earlier today I was thinking as a parent I too would have issues with some of the things you mentioned as a board member given that the Administration has vetted it and I would like to understand more about how that is I am agreeing to the book not because I think it's a great book but because the administrators have reviewed it and they have put it forth so um but as a parent I've seen my daughter bring home books from the library that I was absolutely like this is the school library shocked that it was in the school library but again I'm a parent and I believe the board does not have any say over what's in the school library so it's kind of like um I just feel like sometimes those of us who don't have the same opinion as others are not always heard if I if I can address that for a second to very specifically about the book um one thing he said there Jean was about the book was um approved by Administration so you you were okay with that I want to make it clear that the book also was approved by uh or sorry was brought to the education committee that Administration doesn't just bring things here without it being vetted through the committee so there was a lively discussion at the committee with four committee members um one person made it very clear that they weren't happy with the book and three other people were okay with it being brought to the full board so sometimes when people do have minority opinions I also want to make sure that this board continues to develop trust among each other and your bylaws when it comes to the committee system um you do have a committee system where we do bring information to you I do think I try to bring as much information to you as any superintendent you've probably ever dealt with on a weekly basis usually I give you seven to eight pages worth of information and there has to be a certain amount of trust among board members that if a committee has brought something through unanimously or even in a split decision that not only hasn't been brought forth by Administration but it's been discussed by your fellow board members if the board doesn't feel comfortable with the functioning of a committee system you could look at your bylaws and talk about potentially a committee of the whole so that everybody is involved in every conversation all the time so that no one feels left out but the heart of a committee system is that you have four board members there uh that there's some trust among your board members so that when something is brought here that has been vetted by your your fellow committee members I think I've said to all the board members or all the Committees if I brought something to a committee and the committee looked at me and said all four committee members we're not in favor of that I'm not going to roll the dice and hope that another five board members randomly without too much knowledge are the ones voting for it but if I have four three or four board members who say hey we understand the process we've heard what you've had to say thank you for listening to our opinion bring it on to the full board I don't think that means that anybody is being excluded so if there's anything else that I can do to help facilitate that publishing of the committee minutes the publishing of the agenda my weekly brass tax I'm willing to add on to that um and if board members have specific things that they want to see in brass tax I believe one thing that was brought to my attention uh over the past since the last board retreat was if there was a uh non-unanimous item item that came out of committee please put that in there and I believe that was in there this this past this past week so if there is something you want to see if you do need more information let me know what it is and if the committee system isn't working for us you might want to look at your bylaws and consider what to do moving forward so everybody feels that they're a part of that process Miss nurse I I think and I I tried to say it as neutral as possible but with feelings coming up it felt a little tense at times tonight um because maybe questions were asked and it was surprising that questions were asked and usually you know I hope that I can be seen as somebody who listens to it other people are say there's been times when I asked because somebody has said something oh can we hold off can we push it to the next agenda um but you know Jane's question about the dad and we didn't see the data should be okay for Jane to say it and we should all be respectful that you know Jane wanted that information in order to make a decision and and like I said we're we do the best that we can as board members right there's a lot to read through there's a lot to digest not everything's going to you know I've said said it openly I missed that I you know when I asked Kim about hers oh let me jump on and I'll read it for myself I don't want to hold anything up but I feel like you know I never want us to go back to people being scared to talk up here so we might have different opinions you know somebody might be annoyed because one of us asked a question and the data wasn't right there at our fingertips but those things are going to happen and I think that's okay and we all have to be okay with that that it's going to be okay or like you know after you know to speak Frank when um Kim you had mentioned oh we shouldn't find the staff shouldn't find out anything about at at a board meeting and I would agree with that but now I'm like oh my God like if I read through the minutes do I really know if it's something that should be said or not so that's another thing that we need to talk about I don't remember I think it was based on the two levels of CP um and whether that was supposed to be confidential until a decision had been made or not so we might want to see if within the minutes we could highlight what's confidential right in the future but I don't I I think you know mistakes will be made up here and we're all just human and it's it's okay you know so that's I'm sorry I'm rambling but I just want everybody to feel comfortable talking and questioning and asking up here is that's I've never felt that you know sometime I'm the lone uh opinion of something and um I've I've never felt that it's been dismissed uh by my fellow board members but I I did want to bring up something I meant to bring up earlier regarding any book um uh for parent parents can always know what books their uh child will have in in the curriculum it's it's they're always listed in the curriculum so to become familiar with it they could they don't have to maybe read it but they can Google it see what controversies might have um so they they can then have a a discussion with their child so that there's you know we're pretty transparent with what's in our curriculum and what the books are and um uh so there there are times that I would disagree with something that uh my son uh would be exposed to but I still wanted him to experience it and then we would have a discussion so that at least that's an opportunity for parents who may disagree with something and then they could have that discussion to counter uh what's happening in the classroom Mr Davis uh for what it's worth uh just last week There's a new piece of legislation that was passed I think it's called the freedom to read act and IT addresses in part this issue of objecting to books and materials and the school system it's probably a year away uh before it actually becomes an active policy but the the board will be uh given the responsibility if if we don't already have the responsibility or at least the mechanism will be put in place for the community for parents for people that are not part of the board to voice a concern about particular specific materials and there will need to be impl place a policy on the part of the board for how to address that and how to review those things etc etc so there's I guess enough of a churn uh in the society that we will need to develop mechanisms for looking at these things Miss Jackson yeah I just um going back to miss stats' comments I think what we also talked about is that the book titles aren't necessarily in the syllabus and then the question of whether this book should be required versus Choice also came up and this is not a choice book so every student in this class when it's selected by the teacher will be forced to read it with no alternative so I think that to me you know is I I think that's a an important point to make here is that not every book fits every person misss well and yeah you're not going to have every book fit everyone um but it's still a learning experience and I remember when I uh uh taught a a general math course uh in February I had them do a little project on uh AF African-American mathematicians and scientists and a student told me he would refuse to do it because of I'm not going to quote him but made a racist comment and um an administrator supported him on that um the other teachers disagreed with that and uh I said well you know you don't have to agree with that you can still make it do a report but he refused and uh I refus I did not want to give an alternate alternate uh assignment um so he it that was what was the accepted uh practice I guess my point is it can be a slippery slope if we start accommodating every what everybody wants um it can get a little crazy not to mention you can run into situations like what I encounter which was beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned okay seeing no other comments I will just again thank Dr phry for the 1300th time we will miss you I hopefully we'll see you around Hillsboro you you're not moving right still we know where to find you good all right all right so with that I will take a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor see you next next year