##VIDEO ID:gPe2bE1pQD4## out e e I said Jim stood up minut give the par come on where yes roll call M K here M Caro here Dr EPS Hayden here M gunderman here miss clay here M Morano here Mr Walsh is absent you have a quorum please join me in the flag salute iedge Al to the flag of the United States of America to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all this is a public meeting of the Board of Education of the Bureau of New Providence adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with pl1 1975 chapter 231 in that a notice was made in conformance with Section 13 of the ACT whenever the business of the board requires it to convene to close session the session will begin no later than 9:30 p.m. at the conclusion of the need for closed session the board will reconvene to the public portion of the meeting at that time the board will complete any other business that may be before it and the public will then be given the opportunity to be heard before the meeting is adjourned good evening welcome it's hard to believe we're already in the fourth week of school and I'm hoping everybody's kind of settled in and in knowing their schedule and where they're supposed to be we have a pretty full agenda tonight so I just want to mention a few things before we get started first I want to um welcome our new student representative Vince Graziano Vince thank you for uh joining us here uh Vince is the senior class president and he'll be updating us on all things of high school students for the next 12 months so welcome um just really quick the New Providence uh School District newsletter was emailed home to parents and Guardians today this email is is uh sent home every Thursday and it is generally chalk full of all sorts of information regarding the district and the community um in particular uh in today's newsletter is the safety and security letter that was sent home by Dr zery last week if you haven't had the opportunity to read through it I encourage you to uh click open and take a look at it because there's a lot of important information in there um also Dr zerle will be hosting coffee with Dr zerle in person at the district offices on Tuesday October 8th from 9: to 10: this is an opportunity for anyone to drop in and speak about any topic with our new superintendent there will also be an additional opportunity in December to join her virtually um and lastly the contractors continue to be on site as part of our HVAC upgrade project which will continue throughout the school year the larger projects will be happening during breaks when students are not in the buildings and we're still waiting on a few things we're waiting for approvals from jcpnl for the electrical upgrades um but we have received all the UV units for the high school middle school and Roberts and we're waiting for eight out of the 35 units for saltbrook so we're still targeting the spring of 2025 for completion at Roberts while both saltbrook and the high school middle school will finish over the summer that's all I have Dr Zury thank you Miss kakaro I would like to turn it over to Vince and also welcome him I did have the opportunity to have lunch with him and Mr Henry um during this week and I know that he's very excited uh to spend time with us throughout the end of the year and to give us updates on a monthly basis about the high school so I'll turn it over to you now Vince [Music] thank you Dr zerle uh hello everyone I'd like to thank uh Dr zerle Mr Henry and the board of education for allowing me the opportunity to be the new Province High School Board of Education student representative uh I greatly appreciate this opportunity and look forward to sharing the high school reports each month with you um since this is my first report I thought I'd quickly introduce myself to start uh my name is Vince Graziano uh I'm a senior at mphs I'm uh 17 years old for another five hours thank you I appreciate that uh I have three brothers two in high school with me and one who graduated last year and uh with that let's jump right into it um August 29th was our first day back from summer break as well as the first football game of the season uh everyone was excited to see one another and there's a certain excitement that was shared uh heading into the school year um the football game was definitely a great start to the year as many of our students came out to support our football team on their way to beat South Playfield um 23 to7 um back to school night was just this past week and we had a great turnout from our parents um always a great time for the parents to learn about the student schedules and uh meet their new teachers um on the agenda for this week the club fair is uh tomorrow uh it will take place the last block of all fresh uh for in the last block for for all of our freshman students and new students um all of our students lead the club fair and showcase all of our co-curricular and non-sponsored uh Club offerings and also fall play auditions recently wrapped up and they are currently rehearsing uh so clear your calendars for November 15th and 16th um I know we all can't wait to see our students perform on the topic of Performing the marching band is currently rehearsing for their fall preview this Saturday at uh 4:30 to 6 um they have been putting in countless hours and we can't wait to see them this Saturday um next week sophomores and juniors will be taking the PSAT on Wednesday October 2nd um and following that the week of respect will be the following week um October 7th through 11th and the character education theme for the school year will also be released then as well um moving on to Club updates uh the stem Club obviously here the stem Club brought 20 students to the national competition in Orlando over the summer um they had a record number of semi-finalists three top 10 finalists and a few national award winners furthermore the stem Club is currently selling merch merchandise to support the pumpkin sling competition on October 25th probably my favorite stem event all year the videos are great they always do a great job with that and um some ex exciting news from near nation is that the school will be hosting the first ever annual homecoming dance it will be uh Wednesday October 30th and it leads up to the first um round of State sectional football playoffs there will also be a spirit week that week as well and there's no official Danes currently but they will be announced in the coming weeks uh in athletics gr soccer is now six and three after their win today against Rosel Park um boy soccer is 5-2 as they have a plus 20 score differential through their first seven games um both boys and girls cross country teams are ramping up for future meets highlighted by the senior girls winning the Thompson Park two mile um football is three and one and currently undefeated at home they're coming off of of a big shutout win last week against uh matachin the final was 22 nothing and they travel to Rosel tomorrow for a big conference matchup um additionally our girls tennis team is competing among the best in the state and their next match is October 1st at shatam so they've definitely had a lot of success in the past and definitely would be a good M matchup to go to and um as this concludes my first report I'd like to thank the board for affording me this opportunity and I look forward to sharing uh the great things going on mphs throughout the school [Music] year thank you so much Vince um okay I'm going to turn it over Mr yugul lauro for our enrollment thank you Dr zerle at Alan W Roberts we currently have 636 students at saltbrook we currently have 584 students at New Providence Middle School we currently have 393 students and New Providence High School we currently have 652 students this is a total of 2,265 students we also currently have 31 students in outof District placements for a grand total of 2,296 students thank you very much um this evening we do have a lot of presentations on our agenda and it is so nice to see so many students and families uh in our audience so I will try to keep my comments brief but there are several things that I would just like to review with the board uh the first thing that I'd like to give you an update on is where the administration stands on the use of cell phones and electronic recording devices as you will see that this evening policy 5516 use of electronic communication and recording devices is on our agenda for a revision the revision is minor and Mr U will review that later on um in our agenda as many of you may be aware around the country there have been several states that have banned or restricted the use of cell phones in schools uh which has prompted many conversations around the nation um talking about where cell phones have a place in school buildings as such the state of New Jersey has released guideline guidelines for consideration for the development of policies to address the use of cell phones in schools the administrative team did meet we did review this guidance that the state did put out and we have decided that we will continue to follow our board policy as it's written and we will continue to collect data into the midpoint of October towards the endend of October to see how our cell phones are being used in our buildings today we do feel that the policy that we have in place at each of our four school buildings is working and from what I understand at our High School Middle School Mr Henry along with his team in the beginning of the year really had a very um long talk with the students about the use of cell phones that they needed to make sure that at the high school level they were turned off they could be kept on their person but turned off and out of sight and at the middle school they were turned off and put in their lockers and to date I feel that the report that I have gotten is that the students are following that um in our current policy the elementary students are asked when they do bring cell phones to school to please turn them off put them in their backpacks or if they're in the fifth or sixth grade level to put them in their lockers I would like to point out that we do recognize that many parents do send their elementary students to school with smart watches such as Apple watches and we recognize that they do this to track them because we are a walking District um I myself do that with my own son we are not looking to take away the right from our elementary parents to continue to do that however the smart watches have become a distraction for our elementary students while they are sitting in class because they are binging and going off and at times yes there are parents that are messaging them so we are going to follow our policy and we are going to ask that our elementary students upon entering their buildings to take their SmartWatches off place them in their backpacks or place them in their lockers once they dismiss school they will put them back on and so parents will be able to track them once again of course if parents have to get in touch with any of their students and that goes for kindergarten through the 12th grade they can always call the main office they can speak to the secretary and if the secretary deems it's appropriate she will speak to the principal and we will get your student at a class so that you can relay a message to them on the agenda this evening um is also the approval of our qack scores I'm very happy to announce that we scored very well and we have been designated as a high performing District I would like to thank everyone that was involved in this process last spring it is a tremendous undertak as there is a lot of information that needs to be compiled for our County to come on site um I have also received information from our County Superintendent that the state is no longer going to do waivers for high performing districts as they have done in the past therefore we are anticipating that in three years CAC will come back to monitor us once again um also I'd just like to talk about our Ur programs um our funds have wrapped up as all of the monies that were granted through the federal Esser funds needed to be expended by September 30th 2024 in total from March 2020 through March 21st when the federal government did um Grant this money to school districts we were granted over $1.3 million we did use that money for ventilation and iPads early on in the pandemic and then we continu to use that money for learning loss and acceleration mental health and summer learning and enrichment next week dur I mean next week next month during our assessment report Mr Keeny will provide more information for the board on how these funds have helped to address and accelerate our students during this time period I would like to thank Mr Keeny our administrators our department heads our teachers who all helped over the past three to four years in creating programs that truly were beneficial for our students learning and their mental health needs um I just like to follow up also on our commitment to our belonging and Community initiative as the board knows I did share out with you the professional development video that we did compile from August of all of our teachers participating in the professional development as we are getting close to our first early dismissal professional development day on October 11th we are working on the PD for that day we will bring our teachers back in cohorts but we will intentionally cohort them um in the back end of August we decided to put them in random cohorts um to build a sense of community but at this point as we move forward into the school year we're going to be very intentional about those cohorts put them with grade levels put them with department so that they could really start now digging into the work um and we are going to have a much more focused refined um topics on the work that we're looking to do for the rest of the school year we also have uh surveyed our students about two weeks ago um we did have survey questions that were aligned to our us squared survey questions so that throughout the year we could continue to use those questions so that we could have some type of statistical analysis on the back end of the year to hopefully see that our students are feeling more a sense of belonging community and connection um the last thing um that I would like to bring to the board's attention and I'd like to thank him Mr carangelo as well as our entire community on raising funds to begin our relocation improvements for our softball and baseball fields so at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mr carangelo so he can talk to the board about next steps thank you Dr zerle um so yes so just to remind everyone um we received $63,000 through a local Recreation Improvement Grant through the Department of Community Affairs um last year that we could use within the next two school years okay and in order to complete that project we needed an additional $50,000 um to have the funds necessary to complete the relocation of the softball field to high school and then changing what is currently the softball field to a uh 6090 baseball field um and we I am very very excited to say we received that money much faster than we really ever could have anticipated um on the agenda we have all $50,000 um already being approved today um which is fantastic um so we couldn't have done that without the support and buyin from our New Providence baseball and softball players parents families and the entire surrounding Community um as well as receiving incredible donations from the athletic booster club the New Providence soccer club and the New Providence Police Police Athletic League um so it's it's incredibly exciting um right now we're currently working on finalizing all the quote Gathering process um we're beginning to process requisitions and we're starting to issue purchase orders with the hope that by next week we uh we actually start working on the project with vendors so um we're really we're really moving do you just want to comment on how the project will not have any interference with the other field yes so the contractors that we've we've been speaking to have assured us that there will be no issue with JV soccer who play on millerfield um in the fall so they have assured that you know that will not be an issue um should something change we have you know received guarantees that they'll let us know as soon as possible if we had to adjust something as far as a location or a time but really that should not be an issue they've assured us that they will not impact them and they will put up a safety fence and everything will go smoothly so it's it's great there is there any other questions congrats first off that's that's wonderful um do we anticipate any delay and shipping I I have to ask no no we don't awesome thank you short and sweet well again thank you Mr carangelo and um a very very special thank you uh to the community for coming together and raising these funds uh for our student athletes it is absolutely uh greatly appreciated so thank you and that's all I do have at this time I'd like to uh bring up Miss Miss Amanda Morano to present the certificates of Excellence hi everyone uh so tonight this is an exciting moment for everyone in our district and we are delighted to honor the TSA national award recipients with the prestigious stem certificate of excellence which is a symbol of our profound respect for their outstanding achievements during the 2023 24 Academic Year the technology Student Association aksa offers over 30 competitions for middle and high school students to apply their Knowledge and Skills in science technology engineering and math and TSA competitions help students explore topics and interest them and develop leadership skills and there are currently over 300,000 students enrolled in the TSA worldwide so tonight what I'm going to do is announce everyone's names so you can come on up and make sure to smile for the camera for your parents and everyone else so um the first award winners for the TSA gold Achievement Award are Mato agastra Shan Krueger Rohan karney Brandon manili and Cleo Rossman [Applause] here go don't be sorry okay and the next one is for um Elizabeth bigam Eden Kim and Cleo Rossman who placed fourth in the audio podcasting students were challenged here to make a podcast focused on personal development motivation or coaching and they chose to do their podcast about Mr n and their incredible experience in the nphs marching band [Applause] and then once again Sebastian Marcado placed fourth in software development with his app incorporating artificial intelligence and gamification to teach students coding [Applause] and once again I knew there were two Sebastian Marcado and Trevor fornoff placed ninth in the virtual reality visualization with their virtual reality game to teach student youths how to perform Health exercises [Applause] so New Providence School District is immensely proud of these students achievements and encourages them to continue exploring their passions and stem and a heartfelt thank you to the dedicated stem teachers throughout the entire district from elementary to High School uh who've guided and supported all of our students throughout their Journeys during these competitions and especially to the advisers for this as well so thank you you pce coaching [Applause] no movement at at this time I would like to uh call up uh Mrs florencio Mr Santoro and Mr Henry uh to give us a presentation on the international and out of state trips thank you Mrs kakero and Dr zerle um and a special thank you to the Board of Education as well uh we're really excited to be here this evening uh to present to you um and I wanted to start out uh by thanking the individuals you see up here as well Mr santour and Miss florencio first I want to thank them for two things uh one they've been very interest instumental in getting our International trips back up and running which is something that we're really excited about and we're going to share with you this evening uh but two unfortunately both of them have been under the weather this week you may not know it by their smiling faces but the energy that they bring uh through their success in the international trips uh they're certainly excited to be here I'm also very excited to have two of our students uh here Isabella and Danielle uh who are going to share a little bit about their experience and I know we have a number of presentations so I'll make this very quick I have quick personal story Danielle shared that she's going to be talking a little bit about her experience at the Vatican this evening so I went to Rome once many years ago uh with a lot less gray hairs and um when I was in Rome we waited in line for three hours we got right towards the front of the Vatican and they close it down for the day that evening I got food poisoning so I never got to experience the Vatican so I'm really looking forward to those slides tonight so Danielle I will live vicariously at the Vatican through you so thank you go back yes know it's it's something I'm looking I'm looking forward to um so tonight uh we're going to share a little bit about just our International trips um the success of the the two International trips to Italy uh over the past two years and then a little bit about a schedule um for our parents and really planning out and thinking through you know this is an experience that we've looked forward to we're excited to be back up and running with it um and so we're going to talk through some of those things as well okay so if you remember two years ago Miss foreno and I presented uh to the board and to the community and we opened up with this slide because this is really the impetus and motivation behind why we're going overseas and why we're going out of state um we talk a lot about the goals that we have set in mind and the experiences and opportunities that we're able to offer our students um and so portrait of a graduate is the work that we're doing K to 12 and trying to instill the skills values um and knowledge that we want our students to leave by the time they leave us um and they go off into college to in the workforce and so three of the items as you can see with your overall goal global citizenship uh social skills and a growth mindset are really targeted behind the experiences through this trip um and you see up here some of the essential questions and and really trying to create immersive experiences for our students um trying to allow them to broaden their Horizons tap into their creativity and be lifelong Learners um and also leave as Leaders um and role models and as you could see when we've talked we spent some time talking about this last time just the different skills under each of these subcategories within the portrait of graduate and it hits on so many through these International trips okay as I mentioned before one of the things we wanted to do uh we've received feedback uh through the years and we've been talking as a team about the different trips that we've had what we're trying to start back up with and really allowing our parents our parent community and our students the opportunity to plan ahead uh we recognize um sometimes there's a hefty price tag to be able to experience some of these opportunities and when we also realize that in order for our students and parents to really plan out and think about okay the courses that they're taking and what opportunities that they may have we wanted you to be able to see it in a glance many years in advance and our goal is always going to be to allow as you could see up here our students within their four year four years at New Providence High School the opportunity to go um take what they're learning in the classroom go into a a uh whether it's Italy we'll talk about here or Spain or France um and working towards uh heading overseas to Japan as well and they even included uh Disney because that's a trip that we do every four years and as you could see with the chart that I have up here we want to make sure that the students have these different opportunities and so as they're planning out for example the music trip that heads to Disney that's once every four years doing that on OD years while we do on even years matching up the international trips and those trips would go out in Spring Break um by going out in spring break there's a few benefits to that one uh the costs are generally cheaper two the weather is generally much nicer and less hot which they'll talk about in a little bit um and also if you think about it from this standpoint our students they're immersed in their classes they're learning about the content they're learning about the culture and then to have the opportunity to go on on a spring break to go overseas to experience that to put into okay here's what we're learning about now to see it and then to be able to come back into the classroom and still have that opportunity to connect with their peers and their teacher um that's something we're certainly really excited about so we share this with you because it's really our goals and what we would like to accomplish here moving forward and we feel as though by planning it out this way matching up and looking at the different opportunities the years that we're offering we will allow our students uh these amazing opportunities okay so uh the next part I'm going to turn it over to Mr Santoro and miss francio so we can hear about the the last two years and our trips to Italy thank you Mr Henry I have a clicker so I'm handing the remote over um so we get to share a little bit with you about the fun part of all this which has been the actual going to Italy um as Mr Henry stated we've done this twice to very successful trips with students um in various grades and disciplines Italian art Latin in grades 10 to 12 so uh you know part of my goal is everyone who experiences an evening with me must learn I'm Italian so um bear with me we are ready we were on time we were early and we are ready to go everybody is very energized ready to get on the plane okay um I don't know if you heard but the airlines have been slightly delayed lately but we did make it on the same day from Rome to sento a little late but you know United Airlines um and we got to Rome from nework and then we drove down if anybody knows the geography we drove down from Rome down through the cliffs through uh the region of Lazio and CA beautiful scenic drive into Sorento on the Amalfi Coast um there's no there's no highways it's it's a fun drive it very um so after we did that after a very very restful first evening on our first full day we woke up and we took the ferry uh from the port of sarento out to the island of Capri beautiful island if you ever have the chance please go um and we went up what's called fic the funicular if you've heard the famous opera song that is where it comes from fic ficula yes he is singing about a funicular I don't know why um but we went up the finicula to the top of the is of Capri and you could see the the beautiful view there and we went to see uh we took a leisurely and we use that word with some humor uh a leisurely hike up the mountain in Capri to villis which was Emperor tiber's Palace when we say leisurely um Mr Henry was not joking when he said that the weather is much nicer in the spring it was hot and it was long but we did it it was it was well worth the the hike because when we got to the top we got got to see um the ruins of the ancient um of The Emperor's Palace um and you know as we were walking and huffing and puffing we were thinking imagine doing this thousands of years ago you know we have our water bottles and our yetis and our backpacks and our snacks you imagine going up here with nothing right really immerses you in uh in the times not only did we get up did they have to get up there they built this beautiful pal right without any of that technology so it really gives perspective to to what ancient R was like all those years ago and then uh you know we had to cool off a little bit here uh and Mrs DeLuca was on the trip and provided the photo of it was it was hot so you know we had we had to we had to cool off in the Mao the tyranian uh sea a little bit uh because it it was hot so little experiencing what that is like in Italy as well being on the coast and for the next part of our trip in Pompei Mrs florencio will talk to you about that hello everyone good evening so we spent our third day we went from sarento we drove um down to well up to Naples to Pompei which was quite an experience it was very hot it was 102 that day um but I think it was exciting for everyone um we had an amazing guide named Flor who took us through the streets of Pompei we got to experience an ancient Roman house that has been fully restored from 79 ad we got to see some of the remaining um uh Olive jugs and a restored carriage and walk the streets of pompe we got to this city center and we actually went up to a Viewpoint and we could see down as you can see um down to all the ruins and later that evening because you are in Italy you have to do something related to food um once we got back to sento um we discovered that there was a farm nearby called LA sente and we learned how to make fresh mozzarella not the kind you buy at the store this woman over here Nona Maria has been making the fresh the fresh fanjo the fresh cheese for years her family has done it for Generations so the students got to experience how that was made met some animals along the way um and then got to experience some of the food together on their Farm Really experiencing what it's like to work in that industry as well as taste the results you know several minutes later um and it you know is something that not everyone gets to see in Italy a lot of people go to the cities but we also felt to provide a diverse experience you need to see all the different parts that make up the beautiful country of Italy and then the next day after that we return to nap to Naples and we toured the national archaeological Museum which was an amazing amazing dream of mine we got to see all of the restored Mosaic floors and walls that they had removed from their excavation and put into the museum as well as some of the remains that they have recovered and um statues they actually found in their archaeological dig um a Buddhist sculpture that was in Pompei which I thought was extremely fascinating and I'm going to introduce Isabella Dua who's going to talk about our underground Naples tour okay so I was very um a little nervous about this one um I don't like museums much and that's um but this one was very cool we got to go underground um and see these like haul itout tunnels um that like ancient people used to store water um they carved it out of the soft rock which I thought was pretty cool and then um we walked through a very tight tunnel and we learned that um they us used it as a bomb shelter for Air Raids during World War II which connected back to what I learned in my AP Italian class and I actually really enjoyed learning about some history for once and next is Danielle for maella who's going to talk about the Vatican in St Peter's Basilica so this day we went to the Vatican um it was really interesting and just a great experience to be able to see all the artwork that we learn learned about in class seeing the inside of the ctin chapel the ceiling which you're not allowed to take pictures of was very sad my favorite piece of artwork is on it but it was so beautiful and really just it was just amazing I just don't have words but yeah thank you and of course I'm up there crying in front of School of Athens by Raphael which is my of alltime Fame favorite pieces of artwork so every year when we go I visit and I Cry and the kids take pictures of it and there we are wrapping up our day in the Basilica with Bianca who is our tour our tour guide she was amazing and um it wasn't so crowded that day which was uh a blessing and then the Coliseum the Coliseum I you know one of the interesting things about taking students to the Coliseum is everyone has seen dozens and perhaps even hundreds of pictures of it seen it in movies maybe they've seen old Gladiator movies and they expect this to happen or that to happen but going inside of it is very different um because you really don't know what it's going to look like today and until you're experiencing it and one of the things that our local guides focuses on is you go to different viewpoints in the Coliseum and they talk to you about if you were part of this group of people in Rome you sat from here and this is how you experienced the show whereas if you were an emperor or some other type of magistrate you were sitting up in the pulus and you were experiencing it completely differently completely different Vantage Point um but the important thing to remember is that these were designed for your average everyday Roman citizen right to go and enjoy something I know we look at the Coliseum as something for average citizen when it still standing today so it's always exciting to take students there and just to look down and imagine what it was like thousands of years ago and to learn you know we talked a lot about Italians but the Romans were there first and their culture was completely different and they all inhabited this same place called Italy for a time period and we wrapped up our visit in Rome with a pizza making lesson and this was the second time we got to visit this particular restaurant and it's quite lovely they give us a great great demonstration we all get to make our own pizza and actually put it in the wood burning oven and at the you eat outside and at the bottom of this particular restaurant is an active archaeological dig as well as a traditional Italian Garden with all different types of fig trees and pomegranate trees which is special to my heart and a water feature so it was it was an enjoyable way to wrap up our trip the kids got to eat Pizza one last time and um look around the gardens and then we got to say goodbye one of the um our travel partner the American Council of inter uh of international travel acis uh we we met our tour manager joavan two years ago and we really enjoyed working with him and using him again so uh we were able to do another trip with him we were hoping to do our third and then you know um we told them they had to smile in the picture but they're really sad because we're returning back home to the US and with that I would just like to thank the board and uh the administration for continuing to support international travel and we look forward to its future thank you thank you so much uh Mr Santoro Miss florencio as well as Miss DeLuca who I know is on the trip as well and our students here today I mean this is is just amazing I'm so happy that our students have the opportunity to travel like this and see the world outside of the United States and connect it to what they're learning in the classroom does the board have any questions for students or for our advisors thank you so much I'm starving right now as well looking at that so um so can you remind me what are the qualifiers to go on these trips so for the art portion for the art portion um students have to be in um AP1 or AP Studio 2 ap3d or an incoming Junior which will they will be taking AP the following year for World Language um because we're doing these trips every other year you have to be anticipating to you have to anticipate being enrolled in um in in the case of Italy Italian three or above um in the case of the other languages the same thing uh level three or above level three is the entry point to Intermediate Language usage so we want the students to have at least two years of novice foundational work um so that they have some communication repertoire uh when getting to Italy would you consider opening it up just with in light of the the three attributes of a portrait of a grad uate and talking about how you know you're looking at the the aqueducts that we're also used as a bomb shelter and would you consider opening it up to other students down the road maybe in like AP History or certain history classes we actually um when we had these two trips each year we sat down it was two years ago Dr melli myself Mr santor Miss FR we talked a little bit about what we had as our opening what we call prerequisites right in order travel and there were some adjustments that were made into your too um I think this is evolving I think the fact that really if you look at it Italy and art combining we're talking about the the big bush was Humanities um and having that opportunity then we're now going and returning for the first time in a very long time to Spain and France for this upcoming spring break and looking to start uh Japanese and that trip as well um so we're looking at all the different prerequisites we're looking at the requirements because we do feel like there's a lot of value for our students and then being able to go into the classroom with that experience as well so I feel like it is evolving and we're going to continue to have those discussions and collaborate on that yeah thank you it looks amazing so okay at this time we're going to move along in the agenda and I would like to introduce our director of School counseling Mrs Jillian shadis good evening and welcome to Press Your Luck with admissions mostly kidding not totally though I do hope my summer visits will continue to demystify the process at least for some of the colle that our students apply to and aside from it being one of my favorite uh game shows from back in the day I'll explain a little later why pressure Luck came to mind when I was putting together this presentation so this summer I had the privilege of visiting 11 colleges and universities 12 if you count Hobart and William Smith separately I did a stretch in New York state that included Binghamton Cornell Hobart and William Smith itha and Syracuse I visited the University of Delaware while I and while I was on vacation the University of Miami and in August I embarked on a road trip to Virginia in the remnants of a hurricane to JMU University of Richmond the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech uh my notes pictures full slide presentation etc for all of those colleges are coming around in the binder but tonight I'll highlight just a few for the sake of time before briefly discussing the new FAFSA graduation requirement and the overall admissions landscape one of the first schools I visited this summer was itha College a small College of about 5,000 students where it was evident that they cater to and care for the whole person they want students to explore they leave a quarter of their openings for students coming in open-minded not undecided there and those who do declare a major or know what they're looking for can still get involved in any campus department or activity no exclusions that means for example if you're a business major who loves the stage you don't need to be a theater major or minor to get involved in their Productions in the Admissions Office there's as much transparency transparency as possible they actively try to remove barriers to applying and admitting and will work with individual applicants to coach them through the process if and when they need it they look at every piece of information sent to them every recommendation or Sports video or YouTube performance and they want to see that students are indeed keeping up the rigor and grades in senior year much to the senior's dismay the admissions rep giving giving the presentation used the term rigor but supported to describe their environment and I truly did get that vibe from the students I met both on the tour and on the and in the panel many of them share that Ithaca both the college and the town was a place where you could be yourself and as they said do your thing and if you make a mistake or you failed at something you'd have a team to pick you up and help you find the right track again I was overall very impressed with that school not that I wasn't impressed with the University of Delaware but it was a much different experience definitely not a bad way but as you might imagine in a larger school there's a bit less catering to the individual support though was still a theme Here I get the impression however that it is what you make of it at the University of Delaware with more emphasis on student self- advocacy they tout that they are not a one-size fits-all campus and that opportunities abound and I 100% absolutely believe that but I just got the impression that the students need to be self-starters on this campus again not a bad thing just a very different vibe than the one at itha academically they had some of the most unique majors in concentrations including those various tracks of game studies a major called three languages though it was not defined which three and insect ecology and conservation they really do offer something for everyone especially those who might have Niche interests and they give you a chance to figure out who you are and to discover those nich interests you may never know you had or that you never knew you could do something with while at Delaware I did have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with the New Providence admissions rep and he gave me some great application tips a few examples if you're applying as a psych econ accounting or entrepreneurship major you really need to apply early action as those will definitely fill up in that round also Delaware's test optional and he noted that sended no sending no scores will not hurt you but sending a low score will I always try to meet our rep or if that's not possible any rep uh oneon-one When I visit a campus because these are the types of things that they may not share in the general group presentation some colleges are more accommodating than others to that request so a quick shout out to Luke Chalmers from the University of Delaware for his time on that day when deciding what colleges to actually present on this evening I lean toward those that might present some contrast and talk about the difference between Delaware and Richmond not that Udell isn't a pretty campus but Richmond was ranked Most Beautiful by Princeton Review in 2024 and it was really like stepping onto a movie set as I sat and waited for the info session I noticed that in contrast to all of the other schools that I visited most of the students here for the prospective student tour were dressed in polos blouses skirts and khakis there were a handful in your usual t-shirts shorts flip-flop sort of thing as it was a hot summer day and I learned when we split into the smaller groups for the tours afterwards that all those kids and flipflops and shorts happen to be from New Jersey so a quick tip if you are visiting Richmond you might want to Spruce it up a little bit uh in terms of your outfit that you're packing there so at the University of Richmond you're actually not allowed to declare a major until the first day of your sophomore year at the earliest which means that you apply to the school as a whole not to a particular program they evaluate application packages in two categories academic fit they do want to see four years of the five course subject areas Advanced coursework Etc and then personal which is how all aspects of your application come together to show who you are and how you will contribute this is your extracurriculars this is your letters of wreck and how you respond to their supplemental question the most interesting piece of information in my opinion is that most students attending the University of Richmond are the only ones from their high school and that's intentional on their part it basically to me means that if you have a small high school like ours you may only see one or two acceptances over the course of four years especially if someone actually chooses to attend there regardless of the students qualifications so I'll touch more on it later but that's just one example of the types of factors that high schools and students can't do much about in the application process and that's control who applied before them as for the campus itself I wanted to highlight their well-being Center which caters to physical and mental health needs they actually opened it just before covid before it became more of a priority and it was absolutely amazing um they have your usual your gym your pool your sauna but they also have ass salt therapy room they have light therapy massage chairs meditation Gardens pet therapy all included for a very low price which you'll see in a few slides that facility actually did though seriously become a model for other campuses facilities when the the trend really started going started going that way and if Richmond would just change their mascot to something less creepy C crawling they may not need that type of mental health care but that is just my personal opinion as I pull up the Virginia Tech slide you might notice the rain splattered pictures um these are some of the best ones I got because that happened to be the day that Virginia got hit with the remnants of hurricane Debbie so the long drive there took even longer and they ended up cancelling the tour just as we were ready to go out so all of the pictures that you'll see in the binder are exterior shop lots of buildings from the um self-guided driving tour they sent us on through rainy windows and a cracked windshield which was another bonus for us on that road trip the uh good news though they did do an info session still and there was a student panel afterward which was good so it wasn't a wasted trip and it also did happen to be the New Providence rep that gave that presentation on that day so I did get to connect with him personally Virginia Tech's application is a dream for counselors because they literally want nothing from the school they don't want our profile they don't want transcript they don't want letters of recommendation that means however more work for the students of course they want to know about the student through the student and through the student only which means every piece of information submitted is crucial especially the four the four short answer essays about service resilience and self-reflection Leadership and long-term goals those topics tell you a lot about what they value as a school and those statements need to be carefully crafted Ed a key piece of information and advice about the application process at Virginia tuck is that their University studies or that's what they call their Undeclared program is actually the most competitive for admissions so unlike itha and Richmond for example who promote and support the exploration of Interest early on our rep flat out said that they are typically looking to admit students who know what they want to do already now this doesn't mean that students can or don't change Majors there but they're looking for students to demonstrate passion in an area of Interest he recommended that if students are leaning toward a general area to apply Undeclared within that school so for instance Undeclared business or Undeclared engineering as opposed to applying fully Undeclared because of the limited number of spots in that latter program so here comes the fun part or the not so fun part depending on your perspective during every um visit this summer listening to the amazing presentations and being continually astounded by the opportunities that students have today on college campus is there would be a point where an admissions rep would share or um the total cost of attendance or I'd see it on a publication or something and that's when the whammy noise automatically played in my head so in case you're not familiar with it let's see if this works I don't know if you could hear it but like I said that was one of my favorite game shows and anytime I I saw that that's why this ended up being pressure luck theme because every time I heard those costs University of Miami at uh 938 um a little whammy ran through my head stealing the money out of my account or maybe your accounts not so much mine speaking of college costs many of you may be aware that Governor Murphy signed a law requiring at least the classes of 25 and 26 to complete the FAFSA in order to earn a diploma his goals in his words are for students and families to quote see that are many state and federal resources available to graduating high school students to make college education more affordable and for students to understand their options to make a college degree more attainable end quote I have access to a state portal uh where I can see which students complete the FAFSA and I can tell you that last year when it wasn't a requirement 80% give or take of the class of 2024 did so anyway uh many of you rem likely remember the disaster or the I should perhaps say the delay in the opening of the FASA form last year where it wasn't widely available until January well it was promised uh to be out by the usual October 1st opening this year and then we found out in August that it actually wouldn't be widely available until December of this year so ultimately as a department we usually do recommend that families fill out the FAFSA anyway and now we're required to make that recommendation however if parents or Guardians choose not to complete it for whatever reason no no actual reason needed they can sign a waiver which will also meet the graduation requirement so in late January once that form has been out for a decent amount of time the counselors and I will start reaching out to families who haven't completed it by that point to see what their intentions are if they intend on filling it out or if they're seeking a waiver for that I'll be the one coordinating and tracking all of this should anyone have any questions along the way um but we've already notified all seniors and their families of the new requirement and we're basically in a holding pattern right now until the FAA actually does open shifting gears just a bit in the college admissions world I know the question out there in our community is why are we not getting kids into top schools and Dr zly asked me to pull together some data regarding just that topic the first thing I had to do though was figure out what exactly defined a top school which is trickier than it sounds there's so many ranking systems out there as I'm sure you're aware uh Barons US News and world report Forbes etc etc and of course none of them use the same criteria so there's no single definition or definitive list of what a top school is so I already knew that score which is our College and Career program that we're using now for the second year I knew that they already ranked colleges by these categories that you see up here so I did a little digging on there and I found that they pulled their data from the integrated postsecondary Education data system or ipeds which is from the national Center for Education statistics SS so that seemed to be perhaps the most objective reading uh or ranking scale out there so that's what I chose to use for the purposes of this um data collection using score to pull data from the past five graduating classes in New Providence you can see um the number of colleges that fall into each of the selectivity uh categories that score ranks there and I started with of course the most selective might be easier to see on your hard copy or the presentation when it does um get posted to the site but I have graphed the number of students who appli to each of the most selective colleges as well as the number who are accepted in the chart to the right of that you'll see the national acceptance rates in purple and for any public schools I did use the out of state rate compared to the acceptance rate for the same group of New Providence students in the green column which actually paints a little bit more of a telling picture you'll see in the purple column just how low those overall admissions rate are mostly single digits but in the green column our kids are being accepted to many of those schools at a much higher rate only 7% of students get into Northeastern nationally but over the past five years we have had a 34% admissions rate we have a 10% admissions rate of John's Hopkins compared to 7% nationally and for some smaller schools like Bowden and sore where we don't have a ton of student Supply 20% of our applicants have been admitted when reviewing the statistics I I think it's important to overall consider those percentages in context the overall National picture and not just the number from a small High School such as ours um again I know it's a little bit tiny but those National acceptance rates are mostly in the single digits there some as low as 3% I did the same analysis for the the next tier down the 60 highly selective colleges I split it up over on two slides so it's a little bit easier to see and um the admissions rates again are are more favorable for our students um as we would expect in a slightly less competitive category um they've met or excite exceeded the national rates in many cases like in all of the UC schools that are listed there Villanova and the University of Miami just for for a few examples so naturally the million-dollar question that follows is how the heck does anyone actually get into any schools these days with the astoundingly low admissions rates as they are I'll start by saying that if I had the answer to this question I am positive I would not be standing here tonight I'd be counting my Millions from my college you know advising firm somewhere under a palm tree but with that said I'll start by stating the obvious um you know what the counselors and I have gathered from experience in research is is nebulous at best we know that the top scores and the top grades and the most rigorous courses at your high school are enough to perhaps get you a read these days they're no longer by any means of any stretch of the imagination a guarantee so what do we know we know that a top tier applicant these days needs to have significant High School accomplishments we're talking maybe state or national recognition like some of the stem students we heard from earlier um or perhaps maybe they've had their work published as a couple examples they have to demonstrate intellectual curiosity outside the class room in some way and they have to be passionate about something anything really it doesn't matter you could be passionate about grilled cheese maybe you started a grilled cheese club and you're looking into the nutritional value again it doesn't matter what but you need to show that you're really invested in something uh along the way colleges want to know not just who the applicant is as a person but what they're going to bring to that campus going right along with our Department's philosophy about college hunt schools want students who understand what a good fit is for them in a college setting and what makes that particular college that good fit for them applying early action or early decisions still makes a difference in the admissions process and finally my favorite um you need to be a left-handed trombone player so that last quote actually comes from the dean of college admissions at the University of of Chicago during a presentation I attended at this point several years back but that story stuck with me it generally shows that students and counselors are never going to know what a college is looking looking for in a given year because it might be so obscure but he told what he said was a a true story that the head of the orchestra at the University of Chicago came to them that year and made that request and lo and behold they happened to have a an applicant who was below their normal admission standards but that person got in because that's what the school happened to need that particular year so what I hope that you and any parents and students watching will take from this is that while not being admitted to a top tier school maybe hard breaking for some or even many it's not a reflection of the student it's not a reflection of their accomplishments or their hard work and everything that they've put in over time it's not that they weren't good enough year after year top schools deny so many students who could have and would have found success on their campuses and those colleges will still tell you that flat out that that is the case so my advice is and always has been to be open to working with your counselor to find a variety of schools that would be a good fit for you because there's always more than one so with all of that said I would like to thank the board and the administration for their continued support of the college visitation program and I'm happy to answer any questions from the board about any part of this presentation I just I had one as a right-handed trombone player oh um so I'm doomed from the start um in the category of the the most selective colleges I guess mine's like two parts with the two big outlin buers of NYU and Northeastern is there anything that makes the margin there so much bigger because if we kind of take those out then our overall like acceptance rate of all the rest of the schools I think drops pretty significantly so is it a different application is there uh no different application I I'd like to think that those Representatives know our students they're slightly more local I mean there are a lot of other local schools on there as well but they tend to those I do know our long-standing reps who have kind of been in that same position working the same territory for a little while I do think that helps and makes a difference I also think that once we do start to get students somewhere if they find success there and they make great contributions it certainly pequs the interests of the admissions officers to potentially accept a few more but I don't have a definitive answer okay thank you so so much Miss shadis I know that this is most certainly a presentation that I look forward to every single year um thank you so much for the hard work that you do do over the summertime and really visiting these colleges and coming back to report to us so thank you we appreciate it and without further Ado I will pass it over to Mr Keeny for our final presentation of the evening which will be on um how we are currently using generative AI with our teachers and how we plan to introduce that to for our students thank you Dr zley thank you to the Board of Education tonight I would like to talk to you as Dr zley just said about how we are using generative AI to enhance the learning taking place in our schools and I really want to focus on those two words at the end enhance the learning we talk about this all the time but everything we do in New Providence everything we introduce every new tool is about enhancing student achievement and enhancing the learning so that's the emphasis of what we're going to be talking about tonight so I'd like to talk to you about why I'm standing here in front of you what have we done so far what are we doing presently and what do we hope to do in the future as we always do in New Providence everything we do we plan and we collect data and we analyze and we discuss and we pilot and this is no different we started approximately this time last year when a couple of teachers bless you a couple of teachers who had done some work with AI over the summer wanted to present a local techn ology conference we had some other teachers who looked at AI over the summer were concerned with academic integrity and we started to put these people together to have conversations those conversations morphed into a an academic Integrity committee to start with but then other people start to get involved and it morphed into an AI committee originally 9 through 12 but then we introduced the middle school and then the elementary school and we started to Pilot different uh small little different pilots and tools to see how it was working for the teachers how it was working in the classroom at the same time we're starting to develop some guidelines what were the teachers talking about what were their concerns what guidelines did we have to have in place if we were going to use this how would we best use this with teachers compared to students and then how should we put a policy together myself and Dr zley started to talk about that we went to a variety of conferences the admin team went down to texo which was all about AI last year we attended a couple more local conferences and we started to really get a feel for for how we should progress and move this forward we put the policy together we introduced it to the admin team to the board of ed education committee and then we started to have the we had the first reading and the second reading of the I AI policy and here we are now having done some PD with the teachers in August and looking forward to doing some PD with the um with the teachers on how to use it with the students in a couple of weeks time so it's the New Providence way isn't it we're very thorough we're very systematic we collect a lot of information and we don't have a kneejerk reaction so as you know AI is all around us Netflix knows what I want to watch on TV Amazon seems to know when I'm going to run out of shampoo and when the printer's going to run out of ink because I get those alerts all the time ways knows the best way to get me from A to B Snapchat I don't know and Spotify knows what type of music I need to listen to on a Monday morning when I'm coming into school which does happen to be organic house music presently but what we start out is machine learning and and and uh predictive AI but we have noticed in the last n six to nine months how a lot of AI tools are being introduced into the tools that we already use in the district Adobe has Adobe Firefly for creating images uh news Ella has an AI component Google Now if you Google anything the first thing that comes up is an AI component uh I ready and canva they all have ai components you know so with that coming into play we end up with something like this 30 AI tools to use in the classroom how do we manage that you know what concerns do we have about that if we had a a system in place where kids could use 30 AI tools there would be issues with privacy issues with data security issues with being able to control this use so that was one of the big concerns that we had moving forward so we did a lot of research and we ended up um coming to the consensus that we were going to use a program called Magic School there's a big diagram of a bubble there and that's intentional because really what magic school is is a whole series of AI Tools in which everything takes place within a self self-contained domain within a bubble so everything happens within that particular domain within that particular bubble not outside in the inter world out there not floating around without don't not knowing what's happening to our data what what privacy issues there are this is all very self-contained very secure so we don't have to worry about student data don't have to worry about any privacy issues bit like the Google classrooms that we use everything is contained within the New Providence bubble and that's so very very important with AI today being able to control that so that's what we've been using forward moving forward and it's a whole series of different tools that can be used by teachers if you look up the top here we've got magic school that's used by teachers to help with their efficiency and that's the first place we started is how can we use artificial intelligence to help teachers become more efficient and more effective in their practice okay and that's what we started to introduce the teachers in August when we did some professional development with them and introduce them to a whole series of tools and that's been very very well received by the teachers who found a tremendous amount of efficiencies with regards to this self-contained bubble but it is important that we do make sure we have educational purpose to this so I looked at the policy that we have and all of this is from our policy what is the educational purpose behind the use of AI and again we're coming back to those words this word enhance enhance pedagogy enhance problem solving and critic iCal thinking that's a that's been a long-term goal of ours in New Providence extend student creativity promote independent judgment something that we're always trying to do at the same time as practical and ethical use okay so that's our educational purpose behind what we're trying to do enhance the learning enhance the learning enhance the learning along with that is the necessity to understand what best practices we should be using so we're really emphasizing to our teachers and we'll be doing the same thing to our students how we need to use AI as a think partner it's not a substitute for anything it's something that helps students get to a place it helps them think it's a think partner but they've also got to be able aware of privacy issues and any data security they've got to be able to know how to check for bias how to check for accuracy how to check for hallucinations in which AI is making up uh information and how to be independent thinkers and not overuse AI so those are basic principles and guidelines best practices for AI use so one of the teachers been using it for so far well our reports back from the teachers have they've been using it to differentiate reading levels and reading passages they've helped create images modify rubrics design lessons tier content for students and modify content to address specific student needs a lot of that they can do a lot easier than they used to be a lot more effective no effectively and efficiently than they used to be able to do so they've it's been received very very well by the teachers what would we like that students be able to do with this again I took this from the policy we're really looking for AI again to be a think partner a supplemental Aid to help with learning and help students with tutoring to give them clarification so they can use it as a tutor to help them clarify information and to extend their perspectives on what they're doing okay at the same time as referencing and citing the work okay and providing that citation so we have some rty goals for students to use uh this all under this idea of being a think partner within a self-contained bubble that we don't have to worry about the security uh or the privacy issues with that in mind it's also important that we give our students very defined guidelines so we came up with this uh system of a red yellow and green light okay all of our classrooms at the moment are a red light there is no use of AI okay unless students are in a classroom with a small group of teachers who are piloting AI but they're not on a green light if they're piloting AI they're on a red light most of the time and it's only when they have the permission from the teacher they can use the AI in the classroom and we have defined guidelines expectations for the students to follow which we educate them on so that was something that we came up with and we thought was very very important using Magic School for students then is a different set of um tools and you can see up here this is the magic student so that's again within a self-contain bubble a whole variety of different tools that students can use one of the per my personal favorites is this chatbot Builder uh in which students can load resources up into the chatbot builder for instance if you're AP biology student you load into that chatbot all of your AP biology resources and then you have a conversation with it just using those AP biology resources that the teacher's given you it's like your own personal tutor for AP biology okay it's not going out there to the world it's very focused on the resources that you've put into it and there's also an opportunity to have conversations with historical figures you know the great Churchill Margaret Thatcher you know all those great historical figures and you actually have a a two-way conversation with these historical figures as a way to learn and to get gain perspective on what was going on in those uh times so we're really excited about how we're going to use this for students the the real advantage of this program however is that we set up classrooms very similar to we do with Google Classroom you can actually set up your individual classrooms for your group of students you can then dictate what tools they can use you can turn on and off tools so in this situation you only provide students with a opportunity to use just a couple of different tools determined by the teacher and then you can track what they've been doing with the AI tool okay so you can actually as a teacher you actually know what they've been doing it actually provides alerts for some maybe inappropriate behavior and as you can see down here you can pause and you can lock it as well so the teacher is in full control of what tools what a tools the student can use and for how long you could just ask your your class to use a tool for 20 minutes in class then you turn it off okay we can't control what goes on outside the school but we have a lot of control of what goes on inside the school even more so we can do even further analysis and you can see this is just for an individual uh it's not Mr Tracy this is an individual student called Tracy not one of ours and you can see what the what Tracy's been doing within this tool and you can see the input and you can see the output you know so you can control everything this student does and you can see every use they've had of AI okay so we do have a pilot group of teachers who are working with this at the moment experimenting doing little activities within the classroom so far I actually was in a stem classroom last week and I saw students creating images and using AI to create skits uh on the effects of climate change I was talking to one of our journalism teachers who's using it to help edit and um excuse me and provide feedback on articles before they are submitted for publication so we got a whole variety of different things we had a fifth grade teacher just a couple of days ago Mrs Fresh Off The Press who was using this to study as a study bot with her students and she collected a little bit of feedback from them they thought it was very helpful Good Start okay and a whole variety of other things here including confusing which is good feedback as well because we want to make sure that we're collecting feedback which enables us to progress forward and to be able to address student issues so this was the feedback from one of her classrooms this is vocabulary from the other classroom so students seem to be for this short period of time they seem to find it very useful in helping them study for a particular assignment and the teacher again was able to turn this study bot on for a short period of time give the students an opportunity to work with it track everything the students were doing and then turn it off okay uh goed I think is that greatest of all time Ed because we're in education obviously Rebecca um I saw that myself and wondered what it was but I can only imagine it's greatest of all time Ed okay so one of the things we've always always done very well in new Province I think is collect fee back both from the teachers and from the students so this is one of those things we'll be doing we continue collect feedback modify and adjust as we go along so that we make sure that we're making the most effective use of this product okay with that in mind thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have thank you so much for this um I really appreciate it I just I wanted to just um touch um touch a little bit about the control in building and like the difference between like magic school only operates in our domain when they're inside the building yes no no they can access it at home okay they can within still within a controlled environment okay if the teacher turns it on has turned it on okay okay at the moment we're not turning on right okay yeah we've turned on we've turned off every other AI tool so the only AI tool they can use is Magic School in the very confined and controlled way okay I just wanted to get clarification good question thank you Mr Keeny I just want to thank you for providing our students with a road map for for getting on the AI Highway if you will because it is it is something that our students when they enter the real world um it's a tool that they will be using because I think we're all using it in some aspect of our work life um to so to totally shut it off on them and not teach them how to use it appropriately would be really um unfortunate so thank you and that's an important point it's not going away now part of our job now is responsibility to teach them how to use it ethically and safely thank you thank you okay feel like I need to take a breath um before we move on I just want to thank all of our presenters tonight I think you all left us with a lot to think about and to process um a lot of information over the last 45 minutes to an hour um that it was a bit overwhelming at times for me so thank you all um right now we're going to have a public hearing uh for the safety student safety data system for incidents that occurred during reporting period two which is January 1 2024 through June 30th 2024 Mr U thank you Miss kakaro so the school district is required to publicly report all incidents of violence vandalism harassment intimidation and bullying twice a year reporting Period 2 as you just heard is for all incidents from January 1st 2024 through June 30th 2024 during this time this reporting period we had three affirmed incidents of harassment intimidation and bullying zero incidents of weapon possession three incidents of violence which were simple threat and elect ronic two incidents of vandalism which consisted of theft less than $10 and four incidents of substance abuse I'm now going to share harassment intimidation and bullying investigation statistics by school for this reporting period there were three HIV investigations conducted at New Providence High School one of which was affirmed there were seven Hib investigations conducted at New Providence Middle School one of which was affirmed there were two Hib investigations conducted at saltbrook elementary school one of which was affirmed and there were three Hib investigations conducted at Allen W Roberts Elementary School none of which were affirmed all of our Hib investigations were completed within 10 school days as required by law and the nature of these Hib allegations were rooted in race color gender gender identity gender expression and mental physical or sensory disability the names of our anti-bullying specialist during this reporting period who led investigations are Mrs kakowski at New Providence High School Mr chrisell at New Providence Middle School Mr fetto at saltbrook elementary school and Mrs Feliciano Allen at Allen W Roberts Elementary School the nature of the school's response to these incidents was disciplinary including in and out of school suspensions and detention as well as educational and restorative including student and parent conferences and individual student counseling the trainings conducted and programs implemented with the intention of reducing incidents of HIV and promoting a positive School culture included education of staff and students on District harassment intimidation and bullying policy mandatory training on hi law and policy for each of our anti-bullying Specialists trainings on social media and cyber bullying instructional activities in our health curriculum that focus on bullying peer relations and conflict resolution our character education program which includes listen lift and Lead social emotional learning activities and the week of respect and Red Ribbon Week activities which occur in October thank you thank you I declare the public hearing on the S student safety data system for report reporting Period 2 January 1 2024 through June 30th 2024 closed at this time there is an opportunity for the public to be heard on any specific agenda item agenda items only seeing none I declare the public portion of the meeting closed I need approval of the minutes for the business and Clos meeting on August 26 2024 Amanda roll call Miss hi m c Caro hi Dr Hayden hi M gunderman Miss Kay and Miss Morana uh Finance action items Miss Morano I'd like to uh move to approve items 1 through five list below Stacy and I just want to highlight um as Mr carangelo uh expressed earlier that we are accepting uh the donation of 50,4 for6 cents uh for the baseball softball field uh relocation and Improvement project and I just want to call out the following uh big donors that were able to contribute the New Providence palal Mr and Mrs kup New Providence Soccer Club New Providence athletic booster club and the community donations through school funer roll call Miss kigo hi Miss Garo hi Dr Epson Hayden hi M gunderman hi Miss Kay hi M Morano I facilities Mrs Morano I'd like to move to approve items one through two listed below okay and this is just uh getting rid of outdated and no longer used uh technology ol roll call M kigo Miss Karo hi Dr Hayden hi M gunderman hi M Kay hi M Morana hi Mrs gunderman education yes um I'd like to approve to um items one through eight as listed second um one of the things to point out is item two which is our school district professional development plan everyone received copies of that um in their in their packets this week it's all in inment with both our um you know board goals as well as the committee goals um you'll see uh things in there from the PD days that happen at the very beginning of the year in August as well as the plans for throughout the year including our new early dismissal days for PD thank you roll call M kigo hi m g hi Dr Hayden hi M gunderman hi Miss gay Miss Mor hi M kigo personnel I'd like to move items one through nine is listed below yeah any comments Rebecca um just that uh we all received a very nice email from Miss spurl I thought was very nice and uh we'll she'll be missed and we wish her all the best of luck unless you want to say anything else roll call M kiga hi M Kara hi Dr hson Hayden hi Mrs gunderman hi Miss gay Mrs Morano board policy Mrs kigo uh I want to approve items one through two is listed below and um I'm G to let Mr U do his thing thank you very much Miss Coniglio um The Following policies and regulations are on tonight's agenda for first read um we have policy and administrative regulation 2423 on bilingual education and policy 5516 on the use of electronic commuion communication and recording devices um the first was a revision and it's mandated the uh 5516 is a revision that I'll speak about in a moment and on tonight's agenda for second read are the following policies and regulations um 1140 as ational Equity policies and affirmative action 1523 the comprehensive comprehensive Equity plan policy 6620 petty cash and policy and regulation 1530 equal employment opportunities I do want to take a moment to talk about policy 5516 which is the use of electronic communication and recording devices this is a revision um the revisions to this existing policy accurately align the district policy with the current practices in our schools specifically the revisions uh communicate the existing expectations at the elementary middle and high school level for student uh possession storage and use of electronic communication and recording devices in addition it reflects that now all of our students in K through 12 are issued District owned devices uh not simply the high school um I want to state that more broadly the revisions we've begun here uh is the beginning as Dr zery referenced early Dr zery referenced earlier of a broader discussion not just in our district but across New Jersey and the country regarding the impact of cell phones on student academic performance and mental health um and I do want to note that the policy defines electronic communication and recording devices as any device with the cap capability to audio or video record or is capable of receiving or transmitting any type of communication between persons and at the elementary level as Dr zery referenced we are going to begin or the principles Mrs drexinger and Mr RoR will soon be including smart watches as a type of electronic communication and recording device which will be require which students will be required to store in their backpack or in their locker so that we're eliminating that distraction um for students and for teachers during uh the school day thank you thank you uh roll call M kiga hi m g Caro hi Dr AB Hayden hi M gunderman hi M clay hi Ms Brana hi committee reports curriculum instruction and Technology yes thank you um so we did meet recently obviously we went over the professional development plan um but as a committee we also reviewed the data from the in school SAT and ACT that we've been offering over these last few years um and it has been utilized by our high school students so we do want to keep offering it for the next few years especially since um more schools are leaning towards making testing requirements as part of the emissions process um so we want to see that it continues to be utilized however if the data shows that it's not being utilized or not providing the benefits uh we want to keep reviewing that and looking at it because we want to understand and we don't want to interrupt instructional time if it's not benefiting our students you know to continue to offer those so for now we'll keep it going but we're going to keep an eye on it and keep collecting the data and using the data to drive those decisions moving forward thank you finance nothing at this time Personnel uh old business anyone going once no new business anyone no uh opportunity for the public to be heard on any any item any topic being none I need a motion to recess for close session for student person student per harassment intimidation and bullying thank you