##VIDEO ID:Hj1KUEbsifI## 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 everybody we have a nice exciting surprise tonight before we actually start the board meeting Dr bar ax is GNA come up and introduce some of our friends in the back here welcome good evening good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board uh welcome faculty students community members my name is Dr Damen bar EXA I'm the K to6 supervisor of Music art technology mathematics and science for the district and it is my privilege to introduce to you this evening the Lawrence High School marching band or a segment of the Lawrence High School marching band they are going to be performing a number for you tonight called fire Swan and they are led by their drum major senior Isaac Park LHS marching band take it away [Applause] [Music] the m [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] yeah thank you great thank you so much that was wonderful um the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to advance notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed and or acted upon as required under law adequate notice of this meeting has been provided bya email and our facta to the times The Ledger the public library and has been filed with the municipal clerk the notice was provided prior to the 48 Hours required by the open public meeting act the board reserves the right to limit public disc discussion of personnel items and other matters as defined in the law have our flag salute States indivisible okay um student representative and peer leaders you're up first uh hi my name is Adriana Marin and I'm a junior uh so we're already a month into the school year um so to welcome our school year we had back to school night which was a successful event uh parents got their um child's a day and bday classes and they were St and like peer leaders were stationed all around the class well not the class but the school um and when needed they were es like parents were escorted to their classes um okay oh by peer leaders to avoid any confusion all peer leaders participated in this event and were huge help to parents and allowed parents to be comfortable in their child's learning environment thank you thank you hi my name is Julia kitech and I'm a senior I wanted to inform you a little bit about the PSATs that will be held next week so the PSAT testing is scheduled for Thursday October 17th from 7:45 to 11:45 a.m. and all sophomores and juniors will be taking the test while the freshmen and seniors are going to be participating in a different series of activities so the seniors will be participating in activities such as building their resume and writing their essays with the help of some of our um business and English teachers and then the Freshman will just be having some fun activities and more like bonding activities during that time thank you um good evening everyone my name is trillian and I'm uh I'm a senior here I'm here to talk to you guys about our upcoming homecoming events um we have our homecoming football game on October 25th and our homecoming formal dance the following night um our football team has been practicing for their big game against Riverside and our cheerleaders have been putting together a dance and a pyramid stunt sequence for everyone to see during the game um Caro crazy which is our student section has been filling our stands the past few games so we're really excited to show some school spirit and cheer on our teams the homecoming theme this um year is mam Mia um in our spirit week we have a bunch of ideas that are linked with the theme so we can't wait for you guys to see it thank you the band kind of tied in with homecoming right there Hi I'm Riley herna and I'm a junior at Lawrence High School and I'm going to be talking about the Club fair that is happening on Friday October 11th the club fair is a great resource and opportunity for freshmen to learn about the different clubs and activities the school has to offer and allows um sophomores and juniors to get involved in a club if they haven't already or look at new clubs some of the clubs that are that the high school offers are the advoc advocates for innocence club which is a new club at the high school and it raises awareness for those wrongly convicted in New Jersey there's also the green action team which involves in helping the environment in our community there's also International Alliance who is hosting a Garba night on October 19 from 6:00 to 10: p.m. there is also a variety of life skill clubs at the high school which include the bacon club named knitting and crocheting club and the The Debate Club and more this will allow students to hone their different types of skills and allow them to interact and engage with their classmates there's also a variety of creative arts clubs like tangents with this is the creative writing and creative writing Club at the high school there's also the art Club the lenan and more and overall the club fair is a great way for students to engage with their classmates and the community as a whole thank you thank you hi everyone I'm Prisha and I'm a junior at the high school and I'll be talking to you about Lis and US participating in Lis shine day tomorrow as peer leaders we have the incredible inredible opportunity to make a difference in our community by participating in the shine day at Lawrence Intermediate School this is more than just an event it's a chance to inspire guide and connect with younger students we'll be leading activities that will help these students learn grow and have fun but more importantly we'll be showing them what it is to work together to encourage one another and to give back as role models we carry the responsibility of setting a positive example fostering an environment where every student feels included and making sure the day is memorable for everyone this isn't just about supervising it's also about leading with kindness creativity and energy by giving back to the Lis Community we're not only helping others but also growing ourselves that's all we have for you today thank you oh thank you so much that's a lot um you're welcome to stay or leave we will not be upset or offended so um thank you so much thank you uh recognition and acknowledgements none okay adoption of the minutes um can I have a motion to adopt the executive session and regular session minutes from the 911 2024 and 9:30 2024 meeting so move second Tom with a motion from Pepper and a second from Joanne Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss Kroger yes Dr King yes M pasculli yes Mr pluta yes Miss Santos abstain dispose yes motion carried thank you uh reports to the board superintendent report okay I'm excited we have quite a bit to cover tonight um at first we're going to invite the office of instruction and office of student services to come up our first presentation this evening is on the 2324 um school year assessment results and please come up and introduce yourselves we have our whole team here tonight good evening my name is Jee muy I'm the director of student achievement equity and opportunity and we have everyone here from the office of instructional Services uh this presentation will cover um last year's assessments and just to start out we as everything we do connects back to our strategic plan um you will see the real focus on student achievement and you'll see a lot of information about Equity diversity and inclusion but as you all know especially talking about mental health and wellness and mattering and belonging when kids know they're doing well and they're supported and incouraged you know that leads to student achievements so Wellness Equity diversity inclusion is all connected um the first great news that I have is that the graduation rate of the class of 24 led by Dr Adam and the team was 94.5% that was 277 students now there were um six students who actually left our district but ended up either leaving the state or the country we did have eight Dropout students with the school status is unknown and then we have two students who actually did not graduate from with this cohort they are they are special education students and they will continue on the graduation path so the great news is when you look at ltps grad rate you know we are really strong Shore I mean we'd love to be back you know up there at that you know 99 or 98 but boy 94 95 is a terrific uh statement about our graduating class uh I'm going to hand it over to Moren Hayes good evening Moren Hayes I am the k6 supervisor of language arts social studies World languages libraries health and fette I got them all so a little bit about I ready we are in year four of using the IR ready assessment and each year I does more and more for us as that that platform continues to grow to support our students first and foremost it's used at the first through sixth grade level as a benchmark in both reading and math so students take a benchmark assessment fall winter spring we get a lot of really good data from that that is broken down by strand so we can really Target instruction based on that information I ready then places students in individual paths and targets lessons that they can do on their laptops um to meet where their weaknesses were identified this is not something that's done during whole class instruction or or the meat of a lesson this is something that's done either as a Dun now in the morning during Center time in the Elementary classrooms that students are provideed time to go on and really work on those targeted skills teachers can also take the data and it will group students according to strand so you can look at the um vocabulary Strand and you'll see which students um are exceeding expectations where you need to intervene with students and it also provides lessons so our teachers have of course their curriculum and all the lessons that we provide to them but I also provides lessons that they can do to Target instruction um you can also at the third through sixth grade level pull up a specific um standard from the state on either the reading or math side and it will tell you based on the assessment where your students fall before you even teach that so I'm going to do math if it's introducing double you know double addition um it will say these students already have the skill secure so there's something you can you can extend their learning these students are ready to go and these are students who may need a little pre-teaching before you start teaching it to the class so there's so much that we get from iting a lot of great reports a lot of great dat data on our students um the other good thing to report is that looking at National and state data on IR ready at all grade levels our students are performing above State levels in both reading and math on I ready um looking at strand data last year we presented to you about um Porton Gillingham through imse that we implemented at the K to2 levels so this is just pulling out last year's um fall to Spring assessment in first grade looking at the phonic strand so you you can see by each building how much our students grew just in phonics and we really do attribute that to that targeted explicit instruction in phonics and pheic awareness and we're looking for that to continue to grow and then this is first through fifth grade fall to Spring data as well from last year this is reading you can see what we want to see is that the green is getting bigger and the red is getting smaller so as we progress from Fall to Spring benchmarks we can really see the growth of our students moving into that onor above grade level and this is our math slide that shows the same thing for grades 1 through five okay now I'm going to turn it over to venessa good evening everyone um Vanessa Barak assistant superintendent for student services we're going to talk about tonight the DM test scores and then we're going to move back into the njsla test scores so here you can see a chart just outlining the dates and the the administration um the grades that uh both njla and the dlm and when they're administered during the prior school year um as you can see with NJ SLA it was during May of 20124 dlm had a window of April through the month of May moving into the dynamic learning Maps um the dynamic learning Maps is a online assessment used to um assess and evaluate our students with special needs who have the most significant cognitive impairments um so this is a way to highlight and illustrate what our students can show in the area of language arts Math and Science this form here is the eligibility criteria form that is done at every child's um IEP meeting with their annual review every year with their case manager their parent and this uh teachers as well there's various criteria that's listed that have to be um agreed upon as team including you know looking at the students disability significantly impacts their overall functioning um and in terms of also I think the the big piece here is if their intellectual disability will impact maybe their post School outcomes the DM looks at the Essential Elements and what the essential essential elements are are grade level expectations for those students and what they're expected to learn and to know in those grade areas so students start evaluated um in grades 3 through 8 and then grade 11 for English language arts and math and for Science grades 5 8 and 11 only it's important to note that grade 11 um is considered the graduation requirement for students taking the dlm the dlm is um evaluated and looked at students are scored in four different areas you're either emerging as number one two approaching Target three you're at the Target or four you're considered Advanced these are the scores from this past school year for our students taking the dlm um it's important to note we actually this year had an equal number of students um both in District and out of District totaling 34 students last year there was a total of 22 students that participated in the dlm so it was an increase a couple of reasons for the increase students moving into the district we had students coming up from second to third grade who now are at testing age and also students who then at 11th grade last year for their graduation requirements so it it's pretty common to see that the flux um just because not all students are taking the dlm every year when looking at the scores you can see that in District our students who are participating in the dlm are at 82% uh meeting that Target or advance of the score of a three or four for math 65% at three or four Target are Advanced and 67% for Target Andor Advanced for science our added District students are scoring at 1% um for either getting the Target or the advanced Target scores again those students that are at a district are our most impaired students that have more medical um or significantly impaired needs I'm going to turn this back over to more you okay just a reminder of the njsla um our students receive a number that gives the level of their performance from and a level one which is not meeting expectations up through a level five which is exceeding expectations of course we want students to all fall into number four number five either meeting or exceeding expectations for their grade level looking at grades 3 through six um the breakdown of levels three and four third grade we are above the state average Aver rates four five and six we are still trending below the state average we did see some improvement over last year um again looking at the strands and breaking it down as I shared with I because I is a reading platform our students are performing at or above state level in Reading we have a large focus at the K to6 level on writing that started with the imsc Orton Gillingham training last year it's continuing with the morphology training at grades three four and five this year that's really targeting spelling coding how words work which will also carry over into writing good evening I'm Dr Mary pancost I'm the supervisor of English History World Language Business Library family and consumer Science Theater and health and physical education at grade 7 through 12 I have one slide and that is to discuss English language arts in grades 7 8 and n as you can see um the district level of Performing is significantly above the state in grades seven8 and N now I'm going to turn it over to Damian who's going to talk about math good evening once again everybody Dr Damen barxa k6 supervisor of mathematics Science music art and Technology looking at our green column on the chart we see that our in third grade our percentage of students at level four or five is above the state average of 53.8% uh trending slightly below the state averages in grades four and five and uh below and below average in grade six below the state average I should say in grade six excuse me and in grade seven once again we are uh significantly above the state average at uh of students who are at levels four and five and moving up into grade seven obviously starts the middle school so for our middle school and where our math branches out into more subject specific tests I'm going to turn it over to miss Foster I believe I'm the last person you'll meet but unfortunately not the last couple of slides so I'll try and make it painless um in grade seven through the algebra 2 test in njsla um what was interesting about the data and the way it's reported from the state as students move into algebra is our middle school students many take Algebra 1 as eth graders many in nth grade also take Algebra 1 is high school when that data is reported out to us they separate it by school so what we did on this slide in that blue row is combine our data for Algebra 1 so that you can see overall we are trending above the state what that does look like through seventh grade is when students move into accelerated Pathways our data is still combined so you have all grade levels within that slide one of the reasons that I added math 8 here is the math 8 and the algebra 1 scores are inclusive all of 8th grade from LMS um until it splits from LHS so in order again to compare that Apples to Apples we did combine the algebra 1 data together and you can see overall in the majority of our grade levels we are trending above the state in our mathematics data in geometry and Algebra 2 um this is not comprehensive of a full grade level so in our geometry scores um it's only partial grade many of these students are taking it out of sequence some of these students are coming with half of a Math course depending on other states and other countries how they structure their math requirements and our Algebra 2 scores are largely our students who are doubling up in Algebra 2 and geometry as freshmen so they're some of our most accelerated students represented in this data it is only a small percentage of our grade through those two courses then we move on to our science test in our science test our students are tested at grades five grades 8 and grade 11 it is a comprehensive test meaning it's aess ing multiple grades of science instruction um and it is inclusive of all of the different science disciplines so for example in eth grade students are tested on Earth life and physical science within that test even if they've learned something in sixth grade so you'll hear soon about some of our programmatic shifts in order to address that so students have that content looped each year what's really exciting about this data is even though our students are assessed on three years worth of content knowledge through this assessment we're still doing very well you'll also notice that the science test is assessed in four levels of achievement whereas the rest of njsla has the five levels of achievement where students are meeting or exceeding here our students are proficient or Advanced proficient we're really looking for that level three or level four versus the level four level five at njsla and Ela and math um what is also really exciting is in grade 11 students are well above the state aage average and most of our students in grade 11 are really taking a lot of different science courses and may not take some of the courses that they're still being assessed in on that 11th grade science test now I'm going to turn it back to G so these next um couple of slides uh separate out the percentages of students by race and subgroups and this first one is our El scores and we are remaining you know steady we're not where we want we see the areas that we really are focusing on our black students Hispanic students are definitely our multilingual Learners and you'll see in math um we are beginning to to get some of that movement um remember I think it was a couple of years ago when the board was presented with um the bridges curriculum we introduced it it is definitely like that long Vision um and the same with Ela as um you know Moren was saying the imsc introduction the fonit the morphology the these this is not going to turn around in one year or two years but we're really beginning to see that and I think it's really going to and the percentages there represent all grades combined so this is not looking at a particular grade set this is exactly from grades three all the way all the way up to grade 11 with the science and there's the science Mary y there go which is yeah grades uh as Sarah and Damen mentioned grades 5 8 and 11 so you can see again that it's been consistent from 2223 to 2324 in terms of most of our percentages and the path forward so our professional development has been focused around classroom instruction n Works which is book it's research based um we're going uh through some cognitive strategies with our teachers at all grade levels from K all the way up to 12 um I'm practicing those in our department and grade level meetings as Moren and Jean mentioned um that we're establishing a stronger foundation in our reading skills with the is imsa Orton Gillingham and K the 2 which was introduced last year we're working this year on morphology in grades 3 to five each of our buildings has a literacy based initiatives um literacy based initiatives support Math and Science as well well as Ela it's just not for The English Department we're continuing our metacognitive models of math instruction in bridges K to 5 and Desmos in grades 6 to 12 at the high school we are continuing a focus on uh Mr Le ly doll Peters did I did I say that ly doll okay uh thinking uh classrooms approach um along with classroom instruction that works we have been integrating those strategies as well here at the high school especially in our mathematics Department um and we're refocusing our academic success instruction of ASI and yeah and we shouldn't have put the initials so um the mtss the multi-tiered system of supports it's really looking at exactly what students need to succeed our young ones and providing that targeted intervention um you know you can say oh this child needs to learn to read well there's a lot of things going on there a lot of strands we can Target exactly where that support is needed we can experience they can experience much more success absolutely and we have to look forward to as our peer leaders mentioned uh we're doing the PSAT next week so October 2024 the PSAT is especially important for our sophomores and for our Juniors as not only does it count for potential merit scholarship but it also is one of the secondary Pathways to the graduation portfolio uh or the graduation uh assessment that we have for 11 graders we have our access for English language Learners which the window opens for that in February uh prior to all of the other testing that our students enrolled in our English as a second language program will take are required to take yes they are um our New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment will happen in March 2025 It's usually the middle of March um the njsla as we mentioned will happen in May and that's English and math for grades 3 to9 and science for grades 5 8 and 11 and right at the same time when we're doing our AP test here at the high school have a lot going on so thank you very much you very much for your attention have a good evening thank you thank you thank you team very impressive and I do want to say I walked um have met with all of our building leaders and a lot of our goals this year absolutely align to the data that you'll see our office of instruction have their professional development plans sort of under the wings of the principal and the building goals to really kind of push the data in the direction we'd like to see we're on a great momentum and I want to thank you guys it was a wonderful job tonight um so I'm going to call up uh Miss Burns and Miss Hopson we have a Hib presentation on our district self assessment but first oh sorry I am not Melanie film but I am presenting Melanie film's harassment intimidation and bullying School self assessments um so uh yeah standing in for Melanie film tonight is um again yearly you know that the HIV report comes to the board New Jersey's anti-bullying Bill of Rights was implemented in 2011 as you guys know it's been revised several times the last time was 2019 um it is considered one of the strictest anti-bullying laws in the United States um New Jersey's law emphasizes a proactive approach to bullying it's focusing on prevention early intervention and creating a culture of safety and respect in schools the law also places significant accountability on schools and districts to ensure that they are actively preventing and addressing all bullying issues so Melanie film skillfully supervis IES the anti-bullying specialists at each of our buildings and they are all you know experienced people Megan umbach Patricia Burns Melissa Wall Kristen Hopson Britney Meers tayor Gant and chrisan D'Angelo um we are required to have an you know an HIV anti-bullying specialist supervising all of these issues um there is the law the definition of HIV and the law really has some very specific points you know it's funny we as an elementary person you know Kristen and Trish and I would say you know you get that phone call from a parent my kid got off the bus and said they're being bullied no they're not you know because there's such a definition you know like somebody who's sitting in my seat is not you know bullying you right or took your lunch so you know it's really really specific so um the definition involves the gesture act or communication is reasonably perceived motivated by any actual or perceived characteristic you get into all the distinguishing characteristics it must substantially disrupt or interfere with the orderly operation of the school or the rights of other students it has created reasonable fear um harm to the student it damages the student's property has the effect of insulting or demeaning a student or a group it creates a hostile educational environment for the student by interfering with that student's education or by severely or pervasively causing him or her physical or emotional harm and because New Jersey takes the law so very serious every single School in New Jersey must do a self assessment at the end of the school year to determine if we are truly in compliance with the anti-bullying bill of Rights um schools have to rate every indicator there's a a really specific rubric we've struggled through it um and it you know even if you're doing the absolute minimum you would score a 52 the total possible score is a 78 um you know we look at our programs we make sure that all of the training has taken place we make sure that every single staff member is aware um there's curriculum that has been taught in the classrooms we have those um incident reporting procedures in place which are very very strict about what takes place so it's very small but I'm happy to say if you look at the school names on the leftand side and the school grade on the right hand side um the scores are quite strong considering 78 is the highest you can get all of our buildings are really doing um a great job keeping um compliant to all of the requirements of the law uh there is a policy you guys approve it all the time we look to see when it's out of date what needs to change because again the world is changing so so fast for our kiddos we need to go back and look at policy and um we've had I think a real big change and you guys can talk was the um you know introduction of hipster which is an online portal uh when we first started the HIV reporting it was all paper and you know we'd have folders you'd be panicked about missing a piece of paper with all the signatures now with this online reporting system it's it's a a perfect way that we can keep everything aligned but if we ever need to go back to it every signature is there every date is there the actions that were followed it's it's really it's it's not a userfriendly site and it's a lot of work for the counselors but it's very very well worth it and last year we updated the letters we updated our process the reporting piece for all people involved in a bullying um incident it needs to be done right and the letters are all updated we meet all the policies and procedures so that is all in good shape um and the consequences you know uh the counselors even if a um incident is unfounded counselors are still going to put some actions in place and they need to be able to make sure they're following up um we've had a lot of incidents that second bullet says responses to a person may not be a student and there's ways of following up with that too and the school officials are responsible for taking the appropriate steps to not only understand but to rectify the problem and really it's about correcting the problem we don't want this to happen we want to prevent another occurrence we want to protect our students we want to provide support we want to take corrective action if it needs to happen and it's funny I saw this an Frank quote and it reminded me you know what is done cannot be undone but one can prevent it from happening again and that leads to the great introduction of Kristen Hobson and uh Burns um as Elementary counselors their job is building the community of care and support and safety and making sure that we prevent these bullying is issues from happening so now I hand it to you guys got the clicker now it's the other presentation great thank you good evening everyone I'm Trisha Burns I'm the counselor at eldrige Park Elementary School and I'm Kristen Hopson I'm the school counselor at slackwood thanks for having us tonight so as school counselors and as the Hib Specialists we really focus on that um proactive and um preventative and intentional um weaving in of the social emotional learning and character education and helping our students know the difference between what is actually bullying and what is peer conflict and then helping them navigate that so what we' thought like to do with you do for you today is just share with you some of the things that we do to um Foster self-awareness to create school and classroom culture and to um connect with the greater School community and a lot of that hit home in your um Dr Clem's Corner this month as we talked as you talked about fostering belongingness and mattering and especially at the elementary level it's so important for our kids to know that they have a voice that they are seen they are heard they matter if you walk into our schools we know every child's name in that school and that means something that helps build the community and it's very important so how do we assist students in developing that self-esteem the self-regulation strategies empathy and interpersonal skills we're looking at self awareness self awareness so um one of the things that we initiatives that we focused on a few years ago and we are continuing is mindfulness practices so teaching students um breathing techniques in our classrooms we um have a Time in the morning sometimes some teachers do it after lunch and again at the end of the day where we have a time for mindfulness um and it's a time of quiet and you don't have to participate in the mindfulness activities but you need to show respect for everyone who wants to and that helps also with um being able to emotionally regulate when issues do occur where they are feeling um angered or triggered in some way and if you look at the chart up there we talked about the zones of Regulation which each color is coordinated with a different set of feelings and so then the kids when we have these things hanging up around the school the kids can then look at how big is my problem does my reaction is it the same size as my problem or am I overreacting what can I do how do I cope um maybe I'm going to take a deep breath maybe I'm going to count down in 10 or walk away so these are things that we're working on one of the programs that we use and at every grade level is second step which focuses on the impulse control problem solving social skills we go back each time to that conflict resolution and the social skills that promote problem solving um we use positive affirmations and selft talk this is going to help as our kids are getting ready to take those tests hey I can do this I'm G to get through this I'm going to take a deep breath and take the njla um so and how what's the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation that is so important for our kids to learn that you do it the but something that makes you feel proud not because you're trying to impress someone else and then back to those restorative practices and reflection we we use think sheets on the right hand side at slack would we have the reflection sheet for a I am not I was not a spark today I was not safe purposeful attitude is positive respectful kind these are the things that we're reflecting on to see how can we go forward and make a positive change and that is something that they do it slackwood and I think at every other school in the district we have a similar type of program where there's expectations in your building and then there are think sheets or reflection sheets in response to not meeting those expectations where we can talk through those things and um Talk what's about what's going to be done differently next time are those self assessments to say whether there are spark or not yes they are self assessments so if for instance if someone came to me for um a behavior and we would sit down and we would talk about it and say tell me about what happened well is that part of our Credo what were you what did you do was that safe was it purposeful no and so they check it off and then it's well what can I do better what can I do next time how can I Rectify this so um we also are lucky enough to partner with so many wonderful organizations outside of the school in our community and campfire New Jersey is one of them and they come into all of our elementary schools um and spend um six lessons in every one of our kindergarten first grade classes and I cannot say enough about this instructor um Kim Schubert she is amazing um and she really focuses on um assertiveness and keeping yourself safe and all of the skills that we are um she just reinforces everything we are teaching every day and a developmental and age appropriate way she's wonderful phenomenal and this is something that actually just took place today I just threw that so um we are celebrating the week of respect because that is one of the things that um we do through the the Hib law actually and today at Eldridge Park we had sense events from Ameri in Lawrence and he came um and did assemblies with each grade level and he focused on what it means to show respect how we treat others the way we want to be treated and how we can be um upstanders for ourselves and others and that was phenomenal as well oh I skipped one sorry so at each of the buildings and you've seen these all on our web pages we usually have a school Credo or a motto um these are the things that make our school these are what we talk about at slack what we talk we talk about the power of three not only are we golden hearted but it's together we can and go back to that spark so pepper to your to your point this is embedded in everything we do we do a chant at school the kids talk back to us so it's it it's a part of who we are and we really try to instill this at each of the schools um to to be a part of our community it becomes our language and it's a way to connect and it's a way for everyone to feel that they belong so and then so we went from ourself to classroom and our school culture and responsive classroom is is the Biggest Part in at all of our uh elementary schools which includes character education those building expectations which fall back into our credos um our all school meetings which bring all of us together character kickoff you're doing this week yes we're building up to that on Friday and family circles are something that um Trish started and and we picked up at slackwood um she started at eldrige Park we do it at slackwood to but to build connections through the different grade levels of the building so now not only are you getting getting together with your classes you might have your um uh we were if you're in the flamingo family if you're in an air family or a bird family you may be with third graders second first kindergartens and meet different teachers so when they're walking down the hall hey they're in my family so it's a really nice connection to again that mattering piece which is which is um very important and then these are some of the um awareness days and theme weeks that we have throughout the year that again um focus on belonging and um you know kindness and all of our character traits um again we're doing week of respect right now um in a couple weeks we'll be doing it's anti-violence awareness week and I think you call it Golden Heart week we call it peace week and we have theme days and literature and activities throughout the week that focus on solving problems peacefully does this transfer over to the middle to the Intermediate School the um the law does and uphold no no I mean the programs that you're doing in the schools so um actually we are working right now on um reapplying as a um National District of character and so we're looking at all of those things and the different programs and how they build upon each other from school to school and yes I would say EXC so sorry I thought I was looking at the same screen so again you know to promote um the unity and diversity in our buildings we we are looking at celebrating what what makes us different which make what makes brings hold brings us together we do a lot of of course the social justice curriculum and how that plays into our school culture our school community so uh the belongingness and it's it's okay to be different it's okay to you be you um that's part of our theme this month and celebrate that and and making sure that the kids are positive and um accepting of of all we go now we're at community and so we've talked about like how we really focus on self-awareness and then we build um classroom and and school community and then this is a little bit about how we go beyond the school building and make Community connections so we have different mentoring programs um actually um students from the high school come over to Eldridge Park and meet with um some of our students to help with academics once a week um and also just build that Bond we also have um school to scho in our school we have adult mentors that work with some of our students we have tons of different types of after school programs um some academic some not um and then of course our family events um um we have uh family engagement nights PTO events and um curriculum nights uh another part of our connection and engagement really is the Outreach which is huge especially uh when we have multilingual families across the district uh in slackwood alone we have over we're sitting at about 250 kids right now more than half of our students speak another language at home we have Over 20 Languages just at slackwood so as they go up through the high school you know that that's broadening um so it's so important to make sure that we are including and not othering when our s'mores are going out when our talking points are going out we're hitting everybody in their the language that they're comfortable in and that has been huge um to make sure that everyone is feeling included and broadening that sense of community so that our families know that we support them at home their voices matter and we want to make sure that their kids are getting that same feedback at school and I would um say that talking points in particular has been a GameChanger in that way um being able to communicate to parents where they get it right away in their language on their phone and they can respond to you and I feel like we're getting so much more involvement because of that um medium okay so these are the practices that we're using at at the El Elementary level but also um transition throughout the grade Lev throughout the grades to hopefully Foster that um sense of community and lessening our instances of HIV throughout the district thank you for your time thank you very much thank you thank you so much thank you we have a tremendous School counseling department ladies did a nice job thank you um I'd like to invite our high school leadership team up um they are giving us a quick rendition of how the cell phone parking has gone over at the high school so Dr Adam Dr Williams missak and Dr Stein you said quick I heard that so we're best 10 minutes good evening everyone Dave Adam principal Lawrence High School we as you heard have our administrative team here before we get started if I could just piggyback on something that g said and our supervisors going back to the growth and development somewere academic programs I want to add on to all that the expansion of our preschool program as a person who has a preschool program in their high school now and seeing all that happen the growth and development of those students as three-year olds and four year olds is going to exponentially help them when they get into kindergarten and first grade down the road as Jean said this is not a quick fix these are some of the things that would take place over the next couple of years that's going to contribute to those successes so I just wanted to say you know we're seeing it in our building and we're excited with our little ones in with us I know it's happening throughout the district so we're excited about that so if I could share a little bit um with what's going on at the high school going our new protocols related to our cell phones something very exciting for us to share with it's only been the first couple of weeks of the school but we have a lot to share with you and we're excited about where it's going so in this brief and quick presentation as you'll hear um we have a couple pieces we're going to talk about we're going to go back a little bit talk about some of the research what it says and why we're doing what we're doing and the direction that we're going um so there's the why how we implemented some of these pieces how it's going now what we're hearing from from our teachers and our plan for phases two down the road what's going to happen next but also last thing how are we're going to dovetail what's happening with our cell phones with what you heard earlier some are instructional practices happening in the classroom and those things go very well nicely together so I'm going to tune over to Dr Williams good evening Dr Williams uh 66 fa Road also res sorry uh so uh Dr Adam began by talking a little bit about our our new cell phone policy what I wanted to talk to you all about is this is a lot of this is coming from research base so uh the book that we is we're using as our anchor text is uh the anxious generation which is authored by uh Fame uh social psychologist Jonathan hay his thesis in the book uh is we are overprotecting our children in the real world but under prototec them in the the Digital World online all right so and also in in the book he he he discusses uh children need a play-based childhood in the real world to thrive hate asserts that there's two main factors preventing this kind of childhood smartphones and fearful parenting right so again if we think about how a lot of us were raised we were raised to go out and play get back in by the time the street lights are on but get out and play but there's a lot that's going on in our society some rightfully so which causes parents to fear and allowing them to play and allowing them to play without boundaries so we put the boundaries on our kids and then keep them sheltered in the house and give them the iPad and then the iPad or the cell phone has negative repercussions so haid uh sees the cell phone based childhood as four fundamental harms so there's four fundamental harms I'm not going to go in depth with those four fundamental harms but we're just going to touch based on them social deprivation right uh sleep depr ation attention fragm right and then addiction so in terms of social deprivation you know our kids aren't talking to each other like they used to right they're not talking they're not having the face to-face interaction they're actually online interacting online but they're Harms in that and not having them um interact socially face to face I think you know I I realized this a couple years ago your cell phone also allows you to lose sleep right if you pick up up your phone in the middle of the night it's harder for you to get back to sleep and again for me as a parent I I recognized that and I took my daughter's phone and she charges her phone in my room so she doesn't have access to it but again unless we educate our parents they don't necessarily know these things and the attention fragm fragmentation that comes from us constantly being interrupted by cell phones constantly like you you you lose focus like that because your phone's going off right the next thing is the addiction right so the cell phone is almost like the way it's designed is as dopamine quick dopamine hits so the kids actually pick up their cell phone just to get a hit of dopamine in terms of like accessing what's online to feel good and again it causes harm so Hayden asserts that there are four fundamental reforms one no smartphones before high school parents should not be having have allow kids access to smartphones before high school no social media before 16 phone free schools and far more unsupervised play childhood and which which asserts allowing them to just go out and play so again that's kind of like the book an anxious generation really summed up in just I tried to do it in about four minutes but again it's a great read and it's a lot of the research we used out of that book to launch what we're doing so I'm going to turn it over to Dr Stein good evening everyone um to go along with Dr Williams we also use data points from the constant companion a week in the life of a Young Person's smartphone use and some of these data points are very alarming um we talk about Tik Tok if you have it downloaded on your phone you know it becomes irresistible it learns what you like it learns your moods and it'll continuously play those videos for you uh in this study for notifications over half of the participants received 237 notifications a day on average for teenagers they pick up their phone over a hundred times a day and during school hours not the entire 24-hour period during school hours the average student looks at their phone for 43 minutes but that ranges from less than a minute to 6 and 1 half hours that means some students are on their phone the entire time they in school how is learning taking place it's not and then you have the social emotional development okay social emotional development with the use of phones they pull themselves away from their friends and family they don't learn how to have those social interactions those face-to-face conversations you see it now sometimes I have two teenage kids they don't want to look you in the face when they're speaking to you my daughter gets in the car with her friends they are all talking to each other but through snapchat there's not a word being spoken they're not learning those essential skills and also with the cell phone usage as Dr Williams led into you're having is you're having health issues with obesity and different health problems from them not getting outside and not being active and then the last thing in that article was discussing cyber bullying and Online safety about 10% of twens and 211% of teens encounter predatory behavior cyber bullying can lead to self harm and Su suicidal ideations um and then when you have students that are being bullied you see them presenting different behaviors whether it be in the outside world or in the school environment from aggression to vandalism substance abuse and suicidal behaviors and I'm going to turn it to miss okay good evening everyone so I'm going to talk about what our plan is at the high school in terms of parking our cell phones so we're in our first phase phase one and that's the introduction talking to kids talking to students talking to parents about the data that we've talked about the research the percentages the statistics regarding cell phones the distractions from it the health issues with it and the social aspect of it um after that we've also started to shift our culture because it is a culture shift at the high school um students had their cell phones um teachers had their own individualized classroom management for it but it is a shift when the whole school is doing it and it's a schoolwide initiative um and then we also talked to parents and teachers and got their input on how we can best attack this issue that we have at the high school and globally honestly um the second phase that we've also that we're going to lead into is our reflections with everything that we do at the high school we want to reflect on our practice reflect on our strategies reflect on the way that we done things and our plans so that we can do better moving forward so in about 45 days we're going to start that reflection that intentional reflection period to look into our practice and then see how we can best move forward to help our students as well and we also want to hear from our students we hear from them individually um but we want to have more targed research with them and kind of figure out you know what are they saying about the new cell phone policy that we have at school and then the third part of our phase two is the parking lots we do have teachers who have parking lots which are kind of the calculator um holders um in the classrooms not all classrooms have it right now they are backordered but we're working on it um so that is something we're looking into for our second phase and what our cell phone policy is for the 2425 school year students are allowed to possess cell phones in the high school they are we have not banned cell phones what we're telling students is that if you have a cell phone earbud airpod Smartwatch whatever ever um smart device in the learning environment it must be parked in the designated area that the teacher assigns during instructional time when there is an instructional time so during passing time during our Lunch Period or non-instructional periods of the day they are permitted to have their earbuds or their cell phones but really we're trying to hold in on that instructional time and making sure that the kids are fully engaged and locked in in the teaching and in the learning in the classroom and in the collaboration with the students as well they need to work with each other instead of working on the cell phones and talking to each other sear um separately um we also during fiz Ed we have our students putting their cell phones and their earbuds in their locker instead of it being put in their backpack so it's a little bit more secure and safe um but the thing is if we know that emergencies come up and if students do need their cell phones for emergencies they can use our smart pass system that we've launched this year to go to a designated um approved location to make that phone call so I just want to reiterate we have not banned them we're finding ways to park the cell phones and honestly when you go into the classrooms and Dr Adam will get into this a little bit later you do see the phones parked and I think that the kids um respect it more because the onus is we're not taking them away and they don't feel like we've taken their baby from them um it's being put away so they don't feel like it's an attack on their personal um on their personal being so you've heard the why what we're doing and how we're doing some of it so here's the practicality of it in the first couple days of school we had grade level assemblies with all of our students Administration met with all of our students and said here's the policy moving forward something we've already shared with our teachers we shared out with our community we shared it with our students and after day one was pretty much put it away while you're in class and let's move forward and get focus on what's most important in the classroom that's the learning so in a recent facult meeting we've asked our high school teachers to give us some feedback on how's it going in the classroom now we've implemented this for a whole month and this is some of the the data that our teachers have shared with us now I will share with you there was multiple options for them to give us feedback on so they could choose more than one that's why those numbers may not all add up to 100 um however I will share with you some of the feedback was given to us is included beyond what some of the questions we've asked so if you take a look some of the highest bars the first one is Fe distractions in the classroom so if you have less cell phones in the classroom there fear distractions that goes along with the why that we've Ted talked about if you go over to the right hand side improved student engagement no distractions we're more engaged there be more involved what's going on in the classroom so again there's a lot of pluses that are happening that we're seeing happen in the classroom so that our students and our staff are more engaged and more focused on what's going on in those 77 minutes so what I'd like to share with you at this point is how are we weaving together this Protocols of cell phones in the classroom with some of the other pieces you've heard that are happening here at the high school we have a new smart smart pass system or students uh use electronic pass system they order to leave the classroom to go to the laboratory water Filling Station nurse whatever may be so that's happening so we're seeing a lot less of our students leaving the classroom and there's more a little bit more control over that if you will we have more engagement because we have a lack of cell phones in the classroom our initiative as you heard is critical thinking in the classroom that's something we've been working on for a number of years we've kind of taken our next step in our thinking Journey this year along with some of our recent metacognitive and reflection activities so when you put all these pieces together they fit very very nicely and I'll show you some of our again anchored text that we're using you've heard some of this before those are the building classroom textbooks we're using for mathematics which was our first uh into the foray of those resources but for all our other classroom settings as well as well as the classroom instruction that works focus on the academics that are happening in the classroom so you you cut down on the distractions using new instructional practices we're keeping keeping our students from leaving the classroom and going to the hallway keeping in the classroom what's going to be the result you go back a slide or two improve the engagement improve classroom interactions imp improve the environment all these things together are very nicely needly woven together so I'd like to do instead of hearing only my words I want to share with you what it looks like so if you go back to what my colleagues have shared with you about what cell phones took away from the classroom this is what it looks like without cell phones in the classroom this is what it looks like we're using somewh new instructional practice practices highly engaging critical thinking activities to kick off the class when they walk in the door vertical learning spaces randomized grouping if you look at the picture in the very middle the bottom of the very middle there's an activity that's happening in one of our uh English classrooms where students are back to back one student describing what they see on the board and other students trying to draw on a on a picture these are the type of engagements we didn't necessarily see when their cell phones were in the classroom with some of our new instructional practices you see grouping students of these vertical learning spaces where they're working together challenged with different activities all these things we've woven together and that's what it looks like in lear's high school right now so this is something we're pretty excited about we're very proud of I will tell you we're not done yet this is just the beginning it's only the first week of October and we're just getting started on this new Journey but I think we're in the right direction I'm really excited to see where this takes us so thank you for your time and we appreciate it thank you thank you very much I really appreciate all the work the high school team has put into that um so I'll just be brief I wanted to just share that uh our new website has a nice facelift so if you log on to ltps.org thanks to Jen baleri our Communications manager our supervisor of Technology Stephen Apprentice um it looks great it's full of great resources um a really a core part of combating bullying and fostering a welcoming environment is making sure that we support the diversity of our community since the 21 22 school year we've continued to make progress in our hiring practices of diverse staff I really wanted the board tonight to reflect on some of these numbers shared by Mr Fry our Personnel director from an ethnicity standpoint 60% of our new hires identify as white 11% Asian 11% black 88% Hispanic 2% Native American 5% multi-racial additionally 16.8 of our new staff members speak two or more languages a vital asset as we work to support our growing multilingual learner population this commitment to diversity and inclusion aligns perfectly with the themes of week of respect as we encourage staff and students to appreciate the unique stories backgrounds and perspectives of everyone in our community thank you thank you so much Dr Clen um I know it's late and we've had so many presentations but I just um have a few things to say first I want to thank the marching band because I love the marching band so that was a wonderful surprise I know they're gone but their their music lives in my head um and I also want to say a thank you to to Dr Adam and the entire staff at Lawrence High School um the cell phone policy and all of the changes that are going on there is something that is so meaningful to me I have been championing for this for many years as a board member as a parent as a mental health professional um and I am so thrilled about about what's going on and I look forward to all the great things that are going to happen in the future as we sort of move away from that big presence of the cell phone in our kids' lives and in our own lives um just so you know within moments of that uh policy being distributed to our schools my son who is in Delaware called me up and said what did you do everyone's talking about it I said Sam it's going to be fine I'm telling you and I have been so pleased with all of the responses from our community from our teachers from the board so I want to just say Bravo and um I really really personally appreciate it and I know um it is going to make a difference for our kids and our teachers um so thank you um I also would like to just take a moment to thank the board um for a decision that they made last year uh to evaluate the central office team organizational structure and Elevate two uh directed positions to each of our assistant superintendents in a short time we have seen uh Jee muy and melie Mel Melanie film have a significant impact on the district's growth tonight's presentations from all of of these um amazing uh individuals in our central office are a testament to the commitment to make thoughtful Staffing changes that align with the district goals um I am excited about the direction we're headed this year it's been amazing to watch the progress that we've made in the short time that we've been back at school and I know that there is still more work to be done thank you everyone for your hard work um I appreciate all the time that people put in to make the presentations I know they're long and sometimes confusing um some of it is mandated by the state but all of the information that is put together um takes a lot of time and energy to do for us and I hope the community understands and appreciates it I know the board does um and thank you to Dr clim and I look forward to a great year and lots of great things for all of us um and that's it for me um we will go on to do our community reports um community relations and legislative affairs great all right community relations uh met on Monday September 16th at 8 A.M in attendance was uh Dr Robin clim Vanessa barari Jen baleri myself Amanda Santos Joan groger and Diana pasculli uh we discussed the revision of board policy as well as an upcoming Community conversation for all of the elementary schools this will be held at slackwood on October 29th uh we also reviewed some future community meeting dates um potentially in the works um we reviewed our referendum timeline and got an update on the smart pass and cell phone policy our next meeting will be October 28th I also wanted to thank the high school marching band for being here and a special note if you would like to support them even further head to the 94.5 PST website and vote for Lawrence in their school spirit competition yes we must do that yes it gives our marching band an opportunity to win ,000 so oh the link is on Facebook okay thank you I like we've got to do that um okay now our Lea on reports and first we have our report from our student uh board member your uh thank you so good evening everyone uh as a student representative my goal is to gather meaningful representative feedback from students across all schools in our district uh rather than duplicating reports already available on school events and initiatives being shared elsewhere I believe the opportunity within my role is to provide uh the board the Board of Education and administration with uh qualitative insights about lived student experiences directly from the student population to achieve this I've developed a standardized data collection process uh each month our student uh rep committee made up of liaison assigned to the elementary and intermediate schools will work closely with their respective schools to collect input from students these responses will go through a form to populate spreadsheets which will allow us to track perceptions and experiences consistently across the district if for any reason a liaison is unable to meet with students in a given month we've established a fallback plan where either the school psychologist or another representative can step in to ensure feedback is still collected but I hope through achieve with this approach is a clear month-to-month view of Trends in student satisfaction areas of success and opportunities for improvement this will give us actionable insights and allow the district to make informed decisions that enhance student experience uh now I'd like to move on to data we've gathered so far from Lawrence High School for the month of September on a scale of 1 to five students rated their perceptions of the overall learning experience at an average of 3.8 this indicates a generally positive atmosphere though there are some areas for growth and Improvement uh firstly so students highlighted some key aspects they believe are working well uh they uh students appreciate collaborative projects and and decision making uh excuse me and decision making uh and they believe that this enhances leadership and responsibility which students find enriching uh secondly interactive and Hands-On activities keep students engaged in Foster more active learning environment students also show appreciation for lessons that are connected to contemporary issues helping them better relate to the material several suggestions also emerged including offering remote learning options for students who are sick to maintain uh learning continuity without falling behind rebalancing the schedule of core classes to prevent the feeling of being overwhelmed on days where all major subjects fall together and open Library access during resource periods to offer a quiet location to get collaborative group work done uh I was also able to gather some continued feedback on the recent school interships the smart pass and the cell phone policy uh and while the smart pass system provides a sustainable and conceptually more efficient alternative to physical passes and I personally like it more uh students have reported that there are some technical issues especially with slow loading times when they're accessing on their phones if their computers aren't available um to adjust the cell phone policy because uh there was a lot of talk about that as well uh some students appreciate its benefits for reducing distractions which was a big thing that was talked about others expressed some disc discomfort about leaving their phones in designated areas away from their person but I believe that that will sort of like you know tone down with time as they adjust uh but overall students acknowledge that despite the initial adjustment the policy has helped them focus better in class which is good to hear students were also asked to provide additional feedback and they uh voice a need for more reliable and consistent after school transportation especially for students involved in extracurricular activities uh they also said that for events like homecoming students suggested that extra guest tickets be reserved and distributed to weight listed students a few days before the event as securing signatures from other schools can take time lastly many students are frustrated uh with the school's web filtering system uh which sometimes blocks access excuse me which sometimes blocks access to necessary educational websites and even School related content like LHS sports videos in addition to this the bookmarks bar on school is Chromebooks was recently blocked from access uh which students stated impacts their ability to work efficiently by hindering access a quick access to import important websites and resources including their feedback students were asked to rate their personal learning experience on a scale of 1 to five separate from their perception of the general student learning experience the return the excuse me the return responses averaged out of 4.0 indicating that despite these uh suggestions and adjustments the student body has a generally positive outlook on school life thank you this concl concludes my report wow thank you so so much Edis that was a very thorough report I like a lot of the things that you said um some of it a little bit of a surprise but not really a lot of surprises just an affirmation of what we we believe um so thank you okay New Jersey school boards all right I'm going to make this as brief as possible do I get 10 minutes too just kidding uh Mercer cany school boards association meeting was held on September 19th at the high school um Dr Robin clim welcomed all the attendees an update was given about Workshop which is coming up quickly if you are going to attend be sure to download the app for up-to-date program changes um and all the sessions are there guest speakers all of that is is going to be there we have our own um famous person who will be presenting at Workshop Tom Eldridge will be presenting twice twice yes he's going to repeat the performance a second time so we'll make sure we get to support him in that endeavor too um the program title for the the meeting we had here at the commons was a uh School Board enhancing School Board Effectiveness strategies for educational leaders was led by our field representative Maryann fredman it was an enlightening enlightening session and hopefully something our board will look into to participating in the near future um board certifications there are two of them to help all board members align and connect our goals we set our own goals that align with the Strategic plan and the district goals our next meeting will be Thursday November 21st being held at Trenton Board of Education building and the topic is social emotional learning support during challenging time times and I'll just quickly I have all the paperwork instead of just reading through things I attended Ocean County their uh New Jersey school board meeting and it was on njsiaa changes um talking about spectator code of conduct I also attended a Project Graduation meeting September 20th and there are several board positions open and volunteers as always are needed keep an eye out for several awesome fundraising events that will go towards the end of the year event uh after graduation it's a great lockin event for our kids so please uh take a look at that next Project Graduation meeting all are welcome November 5th uh legislative committee meeting was held in Trenton headquarters this past Saturday 9:00 am. to noon guest speakers we had legislative people there were several bills again I have them in here that were passed um and and I guess I'll just highlight what they were I won't read them establishes office on learning and equity and academic recovery will be at the board uh doe another one requires the doe to establish working group on student literacy um buses and expanding Aces program eliminating basic skill requirement o Oprah reform special education separate proposals uh and today in the news our governor signed a uh bus driver Bill which will help us to alleviate some of the lack of drivers that we have and the governor also approved the state budget for 2025 um the New Jersey educator evaluation review task force reported out look on New Jersey school boards I won't tell you about that um and New Jersey legislative panel discussion will be held Wednesday 10:30 A.M and I told you about Tom Eldridge and last but not least I attended the governor's task force for lgbtq a plus meeting September 30th um from 10: a.m. to 12: it was held Department of EDB building uh we talked about our mission we divided up into four groups and we're going to meet individually with our four groups and then convene back again December 2nd again in Trenton and that's my report great great thank you so much I just want to um say one thing when we're talking about the community um ltef handbag Bingo is on October 25th um please support it if you can they do so many great things for our schools um you can go to the ltef uh website to get information about hbag Bingo um it's moved from February normally it's in February now they're doing it in October um okay student services student services meeting was held on September 25th in attendance was Vanessa BARC Dr Michelle King and myself arelle Clark the esy and connect program data have been collected and compiled on the attendance of the students from the esy and connect programs this summer 112 attended esy and a total of 146 participated in the connect sessions this information in a more broken down format will be followed up for review with the students services and child study teams position vacancies there remain available District positions that will continue to be posted and revised in the upcoming weeks uh as we heard earlier with testing the PSAT testing is scheduled for students in 10th and 11th grades on October 17th and the NJ GPA fall testing is scheduled for October 7th through 11th with the makeup dates for October 15th through 18th our next meeting will be on October 30th thank you Arendelle um any review of communications no nope and this is our first opportunity for public input um please state your name write your address down and please limit your comments to three minutes thank you hi Lisa Kesler uh 14 Elise Court uh I'm a parent of 8th grader my daughter Chloe um and I'm here a couple years ago when she was at Lis she brought up an issue that uh uh problems that she noticed um that uh some uh she presented to the principal there some suggestions for improvements that could be made to the bathrooms um and it was uh one of the um problems that she noticed among many which I'm sure that she might be interested in talking about later or not uh I'm embarrassing her is uh the lack of access to menstrual products and the lack of any um trash bins in the individual stalls um and so at Lis you know it's starting to be an issue but um anyway she'd made this presentation um and uh told you know you can go get it from the nurse and that there were certainly some things that could be improved to the the bathrooms in many other ways so um fast forward to seventh grade um she noticed that still in the Middle School no access to menstral products um and no you know trash bins along with the same kind of you know improvements that could be made um and I was like okay well uh it's okay because had seen that there was a legislation passed by the governor last year and I was like well they'll make improvements and then uh this year still no improvements and yet um it does say that by this school year that it would be um you know required for schools and I have this if anybody's interested I'm not going to read it but um just the main thing is that um Governor Murphy signed legislation requiring school districts to provide men products free of charge in every public school um uh in one or more of the grades 6 through 12 um and the law um is requiring that um that that be made um available for several reasons one is big one is to create Equitable access um and that this should be um uh you know implemented use um by engaging the whole school Community um and that districts should consider including students faculty staff and other community members um when designing and implementing the program I thought this was really interesting to you know that this should be something that we should be aware of that this is um in this day and age the fact that we have you know toilet paper but no menual products it's really surprising um and so you know by now uh I'm I'm hoping that there and that's actually why I'm here okay is ask 30 updates yes you right I just want to respond for the board and the Public's uh benefit a lot of those products and um dispensaries are now on back order so I think yes the governor did order that into legislation we got ahead of it Miss macarak was on it immediately she supervises the nurses under student services so I do apologize to you know your young lady um daughter sitting in front of us um we do are we are fully stocked in the nurse's office you know in the meantime while we try to get these um you know dispensary yeah free so the the state will reimburse um but fund back order though huh okay absolutely yeah so I do apologize for that okay yes all right um thanks thank you any other public comment okay seeing none uh we don't have any board discussion and work session items today we'll go to board discussion and action items uh Personnel committee report and Personnel action items okay Personnel met October 2nd 8:15 in attendance Dr Robert Clen Sean fry Kevin Van heis Robert bluda Arend Del Clark and Joanne groger we discussed openings including speech therapist at slackwood elementary school we'll be recommending a nurse maintenance and transition coordinator as well we reviewed employee leaves and discussed the current Genesis roll out we'll be part of um a new member on boarding committee for njst New Jersey stride to help new districts that are participating in our recruitment program and our own Sean fry is leading the new District on boarding team our interim assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction contract was approved by the county office and we'll move forward with policy 1881 and hold off on policy 15110 for updating on tonight's agenda you'll find amendments for start dates hours edps account numbers um extension for an unpaid leave appointments for sub assistance sub for secretary sub for bus attendance a leave replacement custodial and and maintenance staff approvals for unpaid leaves volunteers sub teers nurse Equity coaches a resignation for transitional services EDP job description students to work payout for illness days um and a contract or Michael and you're going to have to help me pronounce his last name correctly zader or as our interim superintendent for curriculum and instruction for 20 Zonar say it again Z Zonar so I couldn't figure out how to get way off W oh you'll also see a confirmation of appointments due to background clearances an adjustment for EDP correction for stien amount and a retirement of Cindy diit is that how you say her name diit DS say it DTS DS thank you and I apologize to her I should know her name um she is a transportation specialist for our district and she's been with us for a year and 6 months um and with all of that I'd like to um move P1 through p29 please could I ask for a pull out of p12 please p12 all right so we'll revise that P1 through P1 and then p133 through p29 please and a second second Pepper with a second Tom get it ready ready Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss Kroger yes Dr King yes Miss pasly yes Mr pla yes Mr s Miss Santos yes Miss Bose yes motion carried you and now I'd like to move p12 please second second second by Miss Santos got it thank you thank you Tom ready yes Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes M groger yes Dr King yes M pasculli yes Mr pluta yeah I just want to preface my uh uh I'm voting no but um even if we were to implement the equity coaches their tasks with implementing a certain curriculum a lot of which is good a lot of I things I agree with I met with M muzi but I don't think we should be spending $38,000 to implement it I think uh you could easily weave it into the curric just like we would any other subject um whether or not you know the uh nuances of it can be hashed out in cipd but I don't think we should be spending this money to implement uh the curriculum that's my No vote thank I want to explain myself okay no explanation is needed though okay okay Miss Santos yes Mose yes motion carried okay next uh we have CIA no not CIA CD CI yes CIA APD pepper sorry c um CIA APD met uh October 7th at 800 a in attendance were Dr Clen Michelle Bose Diana pasculli and Jean muy uh along with me the board discussed the curricula that's on the agenda uh we also reviewed travel requests and discussed the educational benefits to our students when our leaders travel abroad I was especially excited to see this because in the past we've had staff leaders go to China we've got a relationship with these schools the kids come from China and we send our administrators there I know Dave Adam has been and th has been it's just been a really important oh Dr milowski I didn't see her and and they when they come back they say they're changed in their they're Outlook has changed uh so I'm excited to see that um the trip will provide our team with the opportunity to exchange best practices gain insights into Innovative educational models and explore opportunities for student and staff exchanges that can enhance Global competency of our students and staff by fostering these Partnerships we aim to build Bridges across cultures and create new Pathways for collaboration which will significantly benefit our District's educational programs I think since China is leading Us in math and science and a few other subjects we have everything to learn everything to gain from this uh the committee also reviewed the district assessment data that you saw earlier and Dr clim shared with us that there will be new leadership at ecv that's our partnership with the edt's Crossing community the students at Ed edt's Crossing community she attended a meet and greet this past Friday with the finalist for the executive director position we're thrilled to continue to reimagine this partnership for the benefit of our students we've had a long-standing contract with the district to provide after school program for the students and details on continuing to enhance this relationship as well as programming will be forthcoming and our promising uh we we had some policies that are ready for the first reading and uh we talked about the district testing schedule I would like to move ois 1 through 7 but I ask for ois 2 to be pulled out for S vote please uh o 1 through 7 without two you going to wrap osss in there also this time or yeah and while we're there we'll throw in OSS one and two are out of District students second Tom with a motion and a second from Miss Santos okay thank you you're welcome what is this one on and we pulled out what was it pleas o ois 2 ois 2 okay I'll get that in just a second okay Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Dr King yes Miss pasculli yes Mr pluta yes Miss Santos yes Miss Bose yes motion carried thank you I'd like to move ois 2 second with a motion and a second from Miss Kroger okay Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes M groger yes M Dr King yes M ply no Mr pluta no I think professional development in China is extravagant I think we just need to show we don't need comment well I want well let me you let other people speak often okay um I just think that especially since we're asking 98 million in a referendum we need to show a little bit of restraint and show that we are good stewards of the taxpayer money I vote no okay Miss Santos yes Miss Bose yes motion carried thank you okay with that we are doing finance committee and school business management action item Okay Kevin is not here I'm giving his report on Tuesday October 8 no that's not it oh October 4th um the finance committee met at our satellite office uh Robin clim Tom Aldridge Joel pasoy Uh Kevin Van Heist and myself were in attendance um we talked about the preschool education review uh comprehensive maintenance plan the end of the American Rescue plan and Esser funds uh final report are being submitted for the conclusion of these funded funding programs uh they were around during covid uh there are few open items on the referendum that we discussed um payroll conversion to a new system is ongoing information tables will be set up in the schools at the end of the month to assist staff and answer questions the district continues to examine pedestrian safety dry run on the proposed new shuttle went well and is ready we've also met with stakeholders to examine suggestions and plans already in place to implement changes and improvements Title One programming is going well with Gan muy doing a fantastic job in program transition budgeting and integration and with that I would like to move spbm 1 through 16 second Tom with a motion in a second from Joanne Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes m groger yes Dr King yes M pasculli yes Mr pluta yes Miss Santos yes Miss BOS yes motion carried thank you now is an opportunity for our second um public input okay seeing none we move on and now we have our new business okay new business you'll see a retirement for Lawrence High granny San Filippo she has served our district as secretary at the high school for 34 years and it will be 10 months we thank her for her service to our students our staff administrative parents she's just been phenomenal so she's not going till June 30th but when she does we'll wish her a very happy and healthy retirement and she can enjoy and let the fun begin then all right you'll also see a transition coordin Ator start date adjustments leave Replacements and substitutes EDP background clearances leave of absence an assistant appointment and a couple of transfers for a program with all of those I'd like to move nb1 through NB 23 please second Tom with a motion and a second from Miss Santos yes Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss Kroger yes Dr King yes Miss pasculli yes Mr pluta yes Miss Santos yes Miss Bose yes motion carried thank you can I have a motion to adjourn so move all in favor I I thank you thank you everybody and have a wonderful evening e e e e e e e e e e