##VIDEO ID:sS9WYf-T6Rk## I didn't take my okay i' like to call this meeting to order Mrs Walker would you lead us in the flag salute Sunshine Law statement all requirements of the open public meetings act have been met for this meeting of the Board of Education of the Bureau of ordell notice that this meeting was filed with a record in town news and all persons requesting such notice Mr Daran would you read the mission statement the ell public school district is dedicated to the ongoing pursuit of educational Excellence through comprehensive Innovative curriculum and instruction the district is committed to providing opportunities for social emotional and academic Discovery to Foster curiosity courage and character our goal is to prepare our students to become lifelong Learners who are self-directed resilient productive responsible citizens thank you roll call on the role Mrs aasta will not be here Mr Del Greco here Mrs Downey here Mrs noran here Mr nutland here Mrs Walker here Mr Walsh here Mr Mr Daran here Mrs Nichols here open to the public for agenda items only not seeing any we'll move forward we're going to move right into the superintendent report to begin my report this evening I'm going to ask Mrs Holly to present the 2324 Hib self assessment presentation good evening I passed out a copy of my slides so they should be at your seat and it is behind you up on the screen so every year we are required by the state to do a harassment intimidation and bullying self assessment and this is part of the anti-bullying Bill Bill of Rights Act it is a self assessment so we use our own data and our own information to go through a rubric that's based on eight core elements and 26 indicators and the time frame that we use is from July 2023 to June 2024 so it's the full school year after tonight's presentation Miss boosius will certify the self assessment and then it will be submitted to the state and the a copy of this presentation will be posted online for the community there is no minimum score provided by the state that states we are passing or failing but a baseline score is a total of 52 points and a perfect score is a total of 78 points it's important to note that this score is not based on the amount of harassment intimidation and bullying investigations we do but how we train our community and how we investigate any HIV cases that are brought to us so the eight core elements that we self assessment self assess on are our programs and initiatives that are Cent around Hib training on our Board of Ed approved policy other staff instruction and training programs that can help support Hib so some of those involve what Mrs Mason our school counselor puts into place with some of her activities like the well-known and well-loved turkey grams um and then also some of the activities that we do in class based around our community building C curriculum instruction pieces that we put together on Hib our Personnel School level incident reporting procedure and you probably remember that we use hibster an online program that helps us stay close to our deadlines and gives us a database to store all of our information our investigation procedure and our reporting so here are our self assessment results so you'll find the 2023 2024 results on that right side column and I have given you the results from the previous three years so you'll notice that our total was a 72 out of 78 which is 1. up from previous school years everything else we maintained at the same level from the 2223 school year and where we grew was in the there it is number five Hib personnel and I'll explain that a little bit more DET de deeply on this slide so when we look at the area in which we show growth it was in that core element number five which is our Hib Personnel so last year the school safety and climate team met three times to actively address and improve various School climate concerns so because we met those three times and we involved parents and students and we used information from those meetings to help us build our climate and culture that's that area that we were able to gain that additional point on we continue to show strong scores in our areas of curriculum instruction incident reporting and investigation and the school safety and climate team enhanced its meeting protocols and that allowed us to better ident identify key key areas for our school Improvement and because of the work that the parents teachers admin and students did on the school safety and climate team we recognized hallway Behavior as a priority and something that we needed to work on we then brought that to the admin team and talked about ways to brainstorm it and that ultimately inspired this year's theme the way of the panther one of the highlights that I always like to share with the board is that we continue this was our second year of conducting Hib parent PTA volunteer training sessions so anyone who comes in to volunteer for the PTA more than one time must come to a volunteer training session so they have information about what HIV is and when they should go to admin if they are in the building and have a concern that they feel may be related to HIV as we move forward our what we're focusing on this year is to use our theme of The Way of the panther to create schoolwide conditions that prevent and address HIV so our first Focus was really to work on how we interact in the hallways so not just moving through the hallways quietly and safely when we're in a line but when we pass anyone in the hallways whether we're a student a teacher adult we acknowledge the other person in the hallway we say hello we give a not we give a smile we ask them how they're doing this is new for our students our students are very good at talking to the adults in the hallway but something that we're encouraging is for them to talk to one another so it could be a sixth grader with a third grader who pass each other in the hallway it could be a first grader um to a kindergartner we're teaching them to say hi to everyone because that is a way we build community and it may seem a very simple way to work on um bullying prevention but it really is helping establish our culture we're also working on moving safely from area to area without running and without being noisy because that's a way that we show respect and the more ways that we can build in respect the stronger our community is we've uh started estab establishing consistent schoolwide Ops Circle routines and expectations so when our students come together for a community meeting there are expectations that we have now outlined based on the information from our school safety and climate team meetings last year and our work that we did with our umal review team to work together on what is expected in every single community meeting at Ops how do we treat each other how do we stay in our same space how we look at each other and give eye contact to the speaker we've allocated dedicated specific time for classroom meetings that all teachers are expected to do and we have offered teachers support and how to connect the ideas that are done within our community meeting time to outside of that community community meeting you could sit down in any of our Circle meetings and our students will be able to tell you what to do when they're in a conflict or who to go to when they need help but as soon as it comes outside on the playground or in the lunchroom or there's a conflict when they're working together on group work it's a little bit more challenging for them so at some of our faculty meetings this year our professional development and our grade level meetings where I'm meeting with the teachers once a month we are talking about ways to connect that ways to sometimes stop what we're doing as a class and say wait a minute we've talked about this when we're in our community meetings how can we apply that here and ways with how we work with our students in lunch and recess with our reflection our recess reflection that we are doing and even within our detention system that we've set up within sixth grade what are ways that we can take steps to continue to be respectful and deep in the respect we're going to continue our volunteer HIV training we have trainings already scheduled for October oober and February and next year we're going to bring in a licensed healthc care professional to conduct uh suicide awareness training this is part of our fiveyear training cycle so next year is the sixth year so every five years we bring in a licensed healthc care professional to do the training that um helps to go a little bit deeper than the vector trainings that staff does each year on suicide prevention something else that I'd like to mention is that when we do go through our Hib process we have trained the new assistant principles and Miss Cummings who is our director of curriculum instruction to be anti-bullying specialists in the building so we've added that third anti-bullying specialist which will help us at times when we know that there are higher instances of having HIV investigations so it won't put as much of a strain on whom whomever has to do the investigation we are also going to work with the district attorney to do some additional training as we go through our first few HIV cases to make sure that we're doing exactly what is needed and we're identifying all of the areas to help us strengthen making sure that when something is brought forward we're doing our investigation to the best of our ability and staying Within the protocol set forth by the law do you have any questions any qu any questions from the board Mrs Walker this person who's the anti-bullying specialist she's going to be trained for this who trains her the anti-bullying Specialists the three anti-bullying Specialists are Mrs bonato Mr Werner and Mrs Miss Cummings they are trained by njpsa and FEA which are njpsa is the New Jersey supervisory and principal Association and they bring in lawyers that we then pay for those lawyers to train us so they're the state Trainers for HIV anti-bullying Specialists so once they're trained then there that's good or do they get trained every year so there is training um every year that we all attend there are uh so the aps have already been trained and they've actually already gone to an updated training so they did their training at the end of the summer the beginning of September and at the at last week last Friday they went to um they call it sometimes like Trends in school law there's there's additional anti-bullying training and HIV training that is done within there those and then I go to additional training each year and as I said we'll be working with Mr Merlino this uh School attorney to um deepen our training as well good thank you Mr Del Greco on the training on Boe approved Boe policy we had an eight out of nine on the self assessment is it from a lack of policy are we missing policy or is it lack of training no is it a vendor the vendor point that no the vendor point is the vendor point is is the um Suicide Prevention that is number three in other staff instruction and training programs the training on the board of ed approved policy is the there's three levels so when you fill it out there's kind of below it's almost like the njsla so like below level like you're not quite doing enough you're meeting and you're exceeding so that additional point is an exceeding point and I thought I brought my paperwork with me and I didn't I can when Miss boosius does her report I can run and get it and then I can come back and address exactly what it is thank you sorry about that no worries any other questions for Miss olly Mrs Walker just one quick comment that I think it's great the way you guys it's a self assessment and that you're very honest you're not giving yourself all these you know um to meet the needs and and come up with a 78 so um I think that it's and you're learning over the years I've notice that where to improve and you're doing that study and that's a great example for the kids in the school so that that bit of honesty and forthrightness that need all over thank you it's important to note that while it is a self assessment we do need to be able to substantiate the self assessment at any time um I do not know that the state would ever come in and ask us but we want to make sure that we always have our te's crosses and our eyes dotted are these scores uh public for the state State you can you can look up other districts that possible be interesting to see who's honest and who's not every District by law is mandated to have it on the front page of their website I have not done that research because I worry more about Oro pop us yes any other questions thank you Miss Holly thank you Miss Boos for the second part of my report today I'd like to share the culture and climate family survey results from last year as we know last year the board set a goal to do a culture and climate survey of all stakeholders you have all received the full set of data for all three sets of stakeholders but we decided we would share the family part publicly this evening so I want to start out by looking at the participation data so we had 326 completed results now we had 813 students last year we had 608 families I'm going to make the assumption that most people did one per family but in some cases we may have had two results from the same family in fact we did not lock the survey so a parent could have done it five times themselves if they wanted to but we wanted to make sure that if you were in a house with two um parents and you both wanted to do the survey you could from the same IP address so we left it open so our participation rate if we consider the 68 families 326 is 54% I then I'm always curious about who does a survey um we know that when you get on your way out of sixth grade and it's the spring you might be less likely to complete a survey however again we have a slightly altered data set because we did not have families complete one for each child so we may have somebody who had a first grader and a sixth grader and they are counting in both of those um data sets there so when I went to look at the data what I always look for is what stands out what stands out positively what stands out as an area to grow and so I started by saying well what am I going to use as that litmus and I typically like 80% because 80% says you're really doing great the reason I lowered it to 66.6% is our scale was a fivepoint scale it was strongly agree agree neither agree nor disagree disagree and strongly disagree we had a lot of people choose neither agree nor disagree throughout the survey that made the data really hard to dig into so when we look at that first one under safety and and building and grounds adults at this school create a safe environment for all 71.5% strongly agreed agree 7.7% strongly disagree or disagree that still leaves us over 20% that said neither agree nor disagree and that makes the data a little hard so that's why I lowered that level to 66.6% because so many people had chosen to neither agree nor disagree the school building is adequately cleaned and maintained 66.9% strongly agree agree 19.6% strongly disagree disagree and you can continue to go down there um as someone who values relationships a lot I was really happy with there as an adult at school my child is comfortable going to if they need help they often say that is one of the most important indicators for frankly violence prevention does every child feel included and that they have a person so we see 76 . 4% um strongly agree agree 4.6% strongly disagree um or disagree again we have a whole 20 percentage points that I almost wish I had said to parents fill this out with your child and ask them that question because I think it's something that they've probably never asked their child before so we you can continue to see down in adult students in relationships the percentage rates parental involvement my child School shares updates information in effective ways 67.5% strongly agree agree 16% um strongly disagree or disagree this is where if you talk to somebody who is in statistics they are going to tell you to use a fivepoint scale but this is when a five-point scale is so frustrating because I feel like you should have an opinion on this one everyone gets information from the school so do you agree do you disagree jumping aside I feel respected by my teacher and staff at the school I respect my teacher and staff at the school homework is an important part of the learning process um 77.6% agree my child has technology at home when they need to complete homework that was a really important one for us because we were learning last year that lessons and less families actually have computers at home and we did have some students who were completing homework on their phones and that's just not conducive to solid learning so we have put some protocols together we started last year all sixth graders take their Chromebooks home and we have said to teachers if there is anyone in this school that does not have a device and you can tell they're doing homework on a phone let us know we will make sure they take one home technology is an important part of the learning process um 76.7% strongly AG agree my child has the skills to use technology safely 70.6% I am satisfied with my child's school that is probably one of our closest up there to 80 is at 78.8 78% with 8.3% so if you put that put that middle group in there we get up to 92% so these are the areas that as a as a school as a district as an administrative team we want to continue to dig more into because these were the ones that had less than 2third or less than 66.6% at strongly agree or or agree adults working at the school treat all students fairly and apply school rules and expectations equally that's a really big reason that we decided to make this year the way of a panther to make sure that we were all in employing the same rules and holding students accountable to the same rules I have enough opportunities to talk with teachers about my child's progress or problems see that at a 62% agree staff communicate with me about my child's progress and effective ways and this actually came right on when what we also talked about at the board retreat and that is why that is one of our district goals this year the school assigns an appropriate amount of homework this was a great question this was one of the few questions parents actually wrote about in the open-ended and half of them say there's too much and half of them say there's not enough and I think that is what happens with topics like homework and topics like technology people have pretty strong opinions and it also does depend on where your child is um grade wise an appropriate amount of technology is used in the classroom that's 6.7% but I do understand on that specific question parents doing neither agree nor disagree to them they're not in the classroom so they may not know how much technology their child is using students treat each other well at the school and and this is where you do start to see a lot of neither agree nor disagree but I think they're not here and they weren't sure how to answer that question my child school provides adequate social and emotional learning opportunities again this was a very split question you had some people saying too much and some people saying not enough not enough mental health professionals too much time in the classroom spent oncl so again we have that you know it's a big school with lots of opinions and lots of thoughts and our job is to continue to find that line and instruction is consistent across classrooms at each grade level this has has been something we have spoken to about as a um as a board and something the administrative team and I continue to look at it's something we're really looking at during our walkthroughs and it's one of the reasons that Mrs Holly is meeting with every grade level every month to make sure that those consistencies are happening there were certain questions that it's too hard to really look at from a strongly agree to a degree so I did take out the tutoring questions so this is specifically about did your family use tutoring in language arts and it's about 75% to 25% 75% no to about 25% yes I then thought for a question like this it might be important to look at grade level is there a specific grade level are we seeing first graders have a lot of language arts tutoring and fifth graders have a lot of math tutoring it actually didn't show that way um it seemed to be grade specific third grade and fifth grade specifically so if you look at those where the green is on Third and Fifth and we go to the next slide and this is specifically about math now percentage is almost exactly the same 25% yes 75% no it didn't matter if it was language arts or mathematics and again third and fifth grade and because the board was very interested in this um I made sure to pull this information out as well um are we recommending tutoring and you will notice that third and fifth had the highest yes percentages there and is your tutor and Ops staff member I also wanted to pull out this question about bullying because it's something we spoke about a lot during some of our Hib investigations last year the definition of bullying um is it clear to families what bullying is and and I'm not sure it is um I'm not sure this this question necessarily says my child's being bullied is it my child has conflict is there a difference does it matter I'm not sure but I wanted to pull these two out as well with regards to what have we done with the data um first of all this presentation will be posted on the website there are two active links on the bottom of it it will give the community full survey data both overall survey data and Survey data by grade level because sometimes you want to drill down a little more maybe you want to look at your specific child's grade level and how parents were responding the Administration has reviewed the data you as a board have seen the data we will be sharing with the staff next week but I did want to do the full um board presentation first parents have and staff have both had opportunities to continue discuss a lot of the topics in the survey as a focus group with coach stroker um coach is going to come in one more time in the fall to give additional set of parents who might not have been able to make the summer meetings um a chance to say more because the survey only says so much and sometimes what comes out at the table is much more powerful and much more helpful for us to inform our next steps and two of our district goals I I do see a very clear connection to the data that was presented here the dist District goal regarding communication about student progress um that was one of the lower areas on the survey and the district goal regarding protocols including building cleaning and maintenance um even though building cleaning was 66.9% and over my threshold it had about 20% no so I think that that goal that we've set and the efforts that we put in this summer to improve in that area also address that our school focus on Behavior routines and expectations gets at a lot of those consistency questions are people being held accountable for the same behaviors and also the bullying conflict question and I do we have spoken as a team we will continue to do analysis of Technology usage homework and consistency across the classrooms because that's not a this year issue it it comes up every couple of years and it's something we want to make sure we don't feel like with homework well we did a homework survey a couple years ago and and we put some things in place and so we're done well we need to go back and do it again I think so do you have any questions for me Mr nlin yes I have I have a few questions um going back to the slide about first where did where did we get the questions from the Public Relations Committee put the survey together based on about three larger surveys that I brought them from samples from other districts okay um going back to the bullying now that's an interesting one because I I feel like that's a loaded situation because the state has a very defined definition of bullying and most parents don't know the parameters of that and also don't understand that you can call me something horrific you know as a distinguishing characteristic and if I demonstrate that it doesn't bother me it's not bullying even though what you said was horrific I'm you know remarkably handsome whatever but If the parents don't understand the definition of bullying as in the eyes of the state that number is off so I I just you know I think the next time we ever do a survey we have to make sure that we kind of remind ourselves like what's the definition of bullying I'd like make a comment on that I agree with you because I don't think what we have talked about in close session whatnot is you can bully someone but it doesn't make it HIV so there's a difference between bullying and HIV so I think this question for the parents actually we weren't asking is your child a victim of hi I think for us we wanted to know coming from PR did was your child a victim of meanness aggression not necessarily Hib so I think this information for us is a better indicator than the state definition you might disagree but I think for us in our purposes this is a better definition of what we want going on in the building and I think part of the reason for that is is we know Mrs Holly does the training and she goes over that legal definition but here's the deal that legal definition you're going to sit in this room and you're going to go yes I understand and as soon as your child comes home upset about something that legal definition just goes out the wall out the door right my I feel like my child has wronged Mrs Downey you agree with that from PR that's kind of what we were looking for the meanness the aggression in kids more more that more than HIV Mr Darion uh yeah one is just a comment uh I want to chime in on some of your comments this is Page Three if you include the title this would be uh areas with greater than 2third of a response I strongly agree so um I'm going to frame this as you know the results are to me it's like tyranny of the majority right most people said favorably the following right safety buildings and grounds adult student relationships these were all things that came across with high initial rankings but when you look at the dissatisfaction side of the coin um a couple of things stand out you know if if people who strongly disagree those numbers are four 6% five or 6% you know that's pretty much in line there's a couple of 8% but there's three statements that stand out in terms of 19 16 and 14% strongly disagree and to me that was an area of concern where um yeah the majority of the people said they were happy but there's a significant amount of people who disagree compared to the other results here and it's just good that uh we've already addressed these items with our goals you had mentioned the cleaning of the building from a building and grounds perspective and then also um with parent involvement there was a 16% strongly disagree regarding School shares updates and information and you said we have a progress goal so we actually do not have a progress goal on that we don't you you specifically set the progress goal on sharing about students progress okay so then I would recommend that we look into this from that perspective that's all and then on the other slide this is the the following slide with um areas with less than two two-thirds of the response strongly agree it's the same thing uh except that like you had mentioned there's a lot of people who agree but then there's a lot of people who disagree and you know for for most of the questions so it's really hard to take action when you have a 5050 split and I completely understand that so um and then the other ones where there is no split and there's no disagreeing well that means it's positive so you know with technology 60% uh strongly agree because it's a positive statement and there's only five who disagree so you know there's really no action revolve involving there so um that this I'm just re referring to the methodology I don't have any you know takeaways from that um and and I just wanted to re-emphasize maybe I guess then um regarding parent involvement and the one where there was 16% strongly disagree we take a look at that maybe a second time and try to figure out if there's something there can you clarify what you just said to Mr Darren about our goal sure our goal um was that was our goal last year my child School shares updates and information in effective ways and I think I have to be honest I blurring out a little bit on what the action steps we accomplished last year for that were I know we made some deliberate efforts with the Google Calendar um and when we were sharing information with parents so especially for working parents making sure if it was the Halloween parade or a writing celebration we were giving information out in enough ways the goal this year was specifically about our teachers communicating students academic progress I think how we addressed it at the board retreat was we spoke of a teacher who does an amazing job telling parents what their children are learning every week globally this is what we're learning in the classroom this week but wasn't necessarily alerting parents when their child started to struggle thank you any other comments Mr Daran no Mr Walsh yeah Catherine before not the same survey not the same questions uh and we got a terrible turnout to turn out maybe 200 out of 800 children this we gave once we gave them the the uh the avenue to not put their name down or not have have an or way of saying that they didn't know uh this is their school for six or seven years and uh we don't do a survey thank God we don't do a survey every year maybe we should but a different way I believe we always do it anonymously correct yes we always do it anonymously well maybe maybe we should because if there's a problem in a school we would probably Overlook it or not pay as much attention to it if it was anonimous one person out of 326 returns uh we're not going to make the school any better if we don't look at the question and the answer and then if it's negative do something about it that's the way I feel about it I mean I probably no I didn't take the uh I was on the board so I didn't take the survey but I can see uh a lot of people once you give them the avenue to make it anonymous and you say maybe two parents both sent in the uh the question there so that would even make it worse that that' be 180 people as with 800 killed children but um I just think if we could find a way to if there's something going on in the school that maybe parent wants to bring attention to then the attention we should have a way of letting letting them bring the attention to it and having the administration do something about it look into it do you want to explain how a parent can bring forth a um area of concern sure we we talked to parents a lot about you know where do you go for each level of concern but we definitely could put something on our website to clarify for families that if the area of concern is in this area it's about your child in the classroom it starts with your child's classroom teacher if it's not dealt with there or if you feel like it's more of a school issue it goes to the assistant principal for the grade level it's part of why with having two new assistant principles this year we spent so much time trying to get them into the community so people know them um at that point I know Mrs Holly was on the phone with the parent today um parents know that they can call Mrs Holly and air their concerns and yes I do get emails as well from parents when there is an area of concern the board has also received emails so there are plenty of avenues to for a parent to make a statement Mr Darion do we have the um the ability of a parent to submit a comment or question or just have a complaint that's Anonymous I have in the past received Anonymous notes in my mailbox yes okay is it convenient or does someone have to know that you have a mailbox that allows it came mailed to the school to the superintendent without a return address we've gotten them in the past depending on the um and depending on the topic depends on how far it goes if it's Anonymous any other comments Mrs Walker um this is just a question I'm looking at the family survey of the tutoring sure surveys on both math and language art are teachers in the school allowed to tutor their own students no they may not tutor their own student and the minute they find out they are going to have a student so if they find out on stepup day they're going to have Johnny they have to stop tutoring Johnny immediately um but and they can't Tut her in the building it has to be off right right I think I from my experience this is low as far as the number of kids that are tutored but if a parent even if the child is doing well and they want to Tut have their child tutored just for the sake of challenge or to look better and do better I I don't see that that should be a problem no and that actually was a question there was an additional question that stated I use a tutor for daily homework because there are um dual working homes that have come to the school and said I just don't have time to sit with my child that after school and I want I want to come home from work and I want homework done and so they use a tutor specifically for that and there was also a question about I use a tutor to um Excel learning I there are lots of families that want to try to get their children into theis in 9th grade and they will start tutoring in in fifth and sixth grade for that Mr Del greo um about the homework do we have a breakdown per grade on the amount of homework what parents deem appropriate or inappropriate yes um what parents de appropriate or what our policy is because you're asking what the parents think is appropriate that's what you're looking for yeah I just I'm I'm just curious to see because again as a parent of a graduating sixth grader right now seeing retrospectively now in grade there might be some different opinions now like well maybe there should have been more homework in sixth grade versus not do you have that um maybe and if you don't have it now it's okay I'm just I was just curious somebody has another question while you're looking for that I just want to piggy back on Mrs Walker's question our policy I'm not sure I know um our staff cannot tutor their students can our staff tutor a sibling of one of their students it I don't think so right it's not clarified in our policy we should look at that I I do have another Mr not question can I just say one thing to that yes um that is actually one of the action steps for protocols right in the district goals next year um this year was setting protocols for homework because I don't think we've ever clearly articulated to parents what to expect there are school districts that say 10 minutes per grade level um then there are school districts that have to side is your independent reading part of that but that tutoring part can go in there as well yeah we should look at that Mr nutland how much time do the teachers have after after the bell rings to offer extra help um it depends if they're going to dismiss their class if they're a sixth grade teacher and sixth grade teachers don't have visual handoff right so they don't really have to walk down they have a schedule of it's my week to walk down and stand at the door they have 25 minutes from 3:00 to 320 from dismissal at 3:00 right the contractual work day for a teacher ends at 3:25 3:25 okay and that's Monday through Friday correct but the what time do the teachers who do not have a handoff I mean because I know handoff could take 10 minutes so so no matter what you're going to have to dismiss it 3:00 right whether you have a visual handoff or not right so there are teachers that have made arrangements so and so dismisses two classes because I'm working with kids this day okay but the bell rings at three and teachers are contractual to 3:25 yeah no no the 325 I I understand I'm just I'm just thinking about how many students are not staying after school because they know that there's a handoff or they know that their teacher is you know going to be 10 15 15 minutes you know delayed because of the handoff and it's only going to be a 10minute you know extra help session when I think the difference between an elementary school and a middle school is it's less student choice you know in elementary yeah teachers are calling home and saying Johnny I poor Johnny today Johnny needs to stay after school on Wednesday for extra math help versus I'm struggling today I'm going to to stay after school there is that option but there's less of that okay thank you anyone else are you looking up the data okay any other questions on the survey right now I have a comment Mr Daran I'd like to thank the subcommittee for all their work I know that it takes a lot to to go through these survey questions and anticipate um you know what are the issues that we should be focusing on how we should POS these questions what type of response multiple choice top 10 all that kind of stuff and um you know it's just hard to do do and to execute and um but it's important so I'm glad we did it so I just want to thank the subcommittee while we're sitting here it took a long time yeah we started it was two Personnel it was two PR committees it was our committee from last year that started with Mr Griffin and then it went into this year took a long time and we also did teachers and students you to remember that's a private survey so so Mr Del grer I'm not sure if this is going to completely get at it for you and here's why um some of the people it doesn't say the school assigns too much homework and the school assigns too little homework so sometimes if it's a disagree it's for completely different reasons but um in the copy that you received the open-ended responses are there and that kind of will show you a little bit as well anyone else okay so feel like I've been here for a while um in other Ops happenings um we had our second Parent Academy of the year last night and have a third one scheduled tomorrow last night fourth grade parents met with Miss Cummings Mr wner and two fourth grade math teachers to learn more about amplify the activities they do in the classroom and the online resources students can use at home fifth grade parents will have the same opportunity tomorrow night later in the month parents in grades K through three will have an opportunity to attend a Dibbles Parent Academy and we also have two Hib parenty in October I think that brings our October um parenty to uh four five um we have also scheduled our steam parent child nights and we'll get that out to parents very soon um they were we're going to try to do them more in the winter before baseball and lacrosse season start this week is also designed as the week of respect in the state of New Jersey and we did luckily coordinate our K5 field day tomorrow to coincide because what better way to reinforce a culture of respect and with some healthy competition and finally while Monday will be closed for students staff will participate in professional development one of the reasons we chose to make this day a professional day instead of conference day was to allow us to do some professional development across districts our child study team and related service providers will meet with their counterparts in River Edge and Riverdale to learn more about a new model of special education monitoring think of it as qac for special ed and we will be evaluated next year AIDS from all three districts will come to Ops to have additional training on strategies and techniques for dealing with difficult behaviors special Area Teachers from Riveredge and orell will come to Ops to explore a variety of topics from integrating media arts into the art curriculum to differentiating for different learning abilities in World Language the entire Ops staff will also intend an hourlong Workshop presented by West Bergen on addressing neurodiversity in the classroom so it is going to be a very full day we also have amplify here again to provide our teachers in grades four through five with professional development as we said we were very committed in terms of launching not just a new curriculum but also a new resource in those grades and that concludes my report I'm sorry I may have missed it you said fourth grade uh math presentation for the parents yesterday yes how many um parents came um we have 96 fourth graders it's actually one of our smaller groups we had 20 people sign up we had 12 people show up and I know tomorrow we have approximately 20 people signed up again for fifth grade for fifth grade okay thanks yes we would like you to answer okay so the exceeding expectation on one of the areas of that Hib uh policy as set forth by the Board of Ed is a um state that says all School Employees contracted service providers and volunteers have signed statements of in of assurance indicating their understanding of the policy and agreement to implement the policy so I did not have parents and PTA volunteers or our contracted service providers which would be our helper that comes to us um from Lab burm cabria to sign State I didn't have them sign statements of assurance and again that's like the exceeding expectation part um we can talk about if that's something that we want to do uh obviously um the teachers and staff they sign in when they're at all of our meetings so we have that and we also have the parent signing in but I didn't actually do like a legal statement of assurance Mr Del greo you want to put that on for policy yes thank you thank you Miss hly for looking that up we appreciate it of course and thank you boio for the presentation because it was very well put together and we appreciate it um moving forward let's see so I don't skip minutes we have minutes oh I skipped Mr Elli sorry just uh update on the exhaust fans and the roof projects uh exhaust fans are set to be balanced and tested on the day of the professional development on the 14th uh we are looking at a f electrical inspection for the exhaust fans on the 16th uh right now there is a developing a punch list for the roof projects there's still some of the metal trim that needs to be installed and the reflective cating to put on it um that concludes my report originally um we were told that the testing and balancing would take two to three days so we were supposed to do it over October 3rd and 4th so now we have one day what happens if they're not not finished he believes that that was the contractor estimating on behalf of his sub he said he spoke with the subcontractor he believes we'll be able because just like we had the electrical work done uh we resolved the issue about the relays that was turned to be on the contractor so that was not a change order that was eliminated the only thing was the cut wire so for instance on those he said there was going to be two to three days and he did that in one day okay so you think we'll be done yeah okay any other questions okay moving forward to minutes we have um review of September 18th and we have the approval of September 4th um I guess before someone makes a motion if I have a change Mrs noran I should make it first so the person who makes a motion does it with my change or you do the motion first okay so do we have a motion for approval of September four uh September 4th second by Mrs Walker any questions or comments okay sorry I just noticed this ahead of time I may have missed it but I think under policy we took a vote and there is no um it doesn't show that a roll call or vote was taken for which meeting um September 4th so when I looked at it I mean I could be wrong because I look at my phone pulles but I think we're missing the vote when I go to policy I see policy Mr Del Greco spoke and we have G1 but I don't see a vote but I do have it on my set and for September 18th well can't we just do it this way can't we just do it here we could let me see something me just make sure what did I do with them oh here they are huh I'm going to I just want to check it for a second yeah oh it does okay all right so do I need a motion then you make the motion I make a motion to change it okay can amend his whatever so I would like to amend the September 4th minutes to show the policy uh motion second and roll call all right so you can make the motion to just say you you just make the motion to amend it okay okay so you're amending it do I have a second I move that we amend it do I have a second by Mrs Walker any questions or comments call a question on the rooll Mr Del greo yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mrs Walker yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Darian obain Mrs Nichols yes moving to committee reports Mr Daran would you make that motion yes yes we have UHD like to make a motion for uh items A1 and A2 if I go back I uh will read them I'll second it okay John thank you um a want approval of submission of the 2324 Hib self assessment score as it relates to the presentation we received tonight and A2 is the approval of District goals we have a second second by Mr Walsh do we have any questions or comments comments I have a question um on goal two we have the creation of an irns flowchart and we have on goal three the creation of an irns flowchart to guide teachers on parent communication is that two different flowcharts or is that the same it's the same flowchart but it meets the both goals okay because one is about um ensuring that parents are notified um during the inrs process and before that process which gets at the um communication with parent goal and the other one is the academic achievement goal so is it one flowchart it's one flowchart Okay the reason I'm questioning is because we have two different anticipated completion dates for it I will change it to whichever one is first because it's actually done okay because one's October one's November October okay and and then I guess I also have a question on the um b& cleaning maintenance schedule I guess we thought it was going to be done before school start then we talked about it in b& is it going to be done by November will B&G get a copy of it by then sure um you think it will be done is it a staff issue I don't think it's a staff issue um we can have if it gets revised after that it gets revised after that but a draft can definitely be completed any other questions call the question on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutlin yes Mrs Walker yeah Mr Walsh yes Mr Darian yes Mrs Nichols yes buildings and grounds M Mr Daran uh yes uh we in terms of committee report um we haven't met so I have nothing to report tonight um on the agenda we have item B1 for a lot of facility use 10 items I'll second all right I'm G to say second by Mrs noran any questions I had a question Mr Darian um it was it was already answered but um item number five the PTA uh I guess there's a pumpkin pie with principles and I didn't know if the pumpkin pie had principles or they're having pumpkin pie with principles but that was clarified so I F with um I I would like to make actually a slight change Mr iell you and I had a um a conversation about the custodial charge and I think we should change uh the junior women's clod to to TBD until we we finalize that right because it seems to be on our old rate um just so they know that they're being charged any other questions call a question on the role Mr Del grea yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mrs Walker yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Darien yes Mrs Nichols yes curriculum Mrs noran uh yes we have not had any meeting um but I would like to present C1 approval of field trips I'll second it second by Mr Walsh any questions since I'm on a roll tonight I have a question do we have two people on do we have two chaperon on every side of the cabin we will we are uh we just sent out an email we need two more chaperon one male one female and it has been explained yes not that part thoroughly to the parents that alcohol is not allowed at sharp I feel like that they yes Mrs Holly there's actually written words of that now it's the rule we can send them home we can we can we can cut out sharp in the middle of the night and send everyone home is that in the has it been yes okay and we will definitely have two chaperons on each side Yes actually we were just talking that this is the first year we are not hounding people to go we literally only need one more dad and one more mom and we're good and that's amazing for this far ahead of time I'll be there Hallelujah I'll be there yeah I when I had to do an extra night there because they yeah we usually begging yeah any other questions call a question on the rooll Mr delgreco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutlin yes Mrs Walker yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Daran yes Mrs Nichols yes Finance technology Mrs aosta is not here who is on F oh yes Mr Daren you're on Friday well let me give it to Mr Del Greco okay you've done enough well thank you I'd like to introduce uh D1 through D5 I'll second it second by Mr Walsh any questions we have the July um financials which Mr iell emailed to us right after the board meeting last time yes call the question on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs M noran yes Mr nutland yes Mrs Walker yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Daran yes Mrs Nichols yes delegate report Mr Walsh I have nothing to report I should there should be a meeting in October but I haven't gotten any notice Mr iell could you look into that yes well the the school Workshop is coming in next week uh so Mrs noran and Mr wall and Mrs Bas are attending those have been registered paid you're set can you just look into check meetings the double check the delegate meetings Mrs Walker Personnel um yes thank you I'd like to present F1 I'll second it second by Mr Walsh do we have any questions um I Walker um on um 5A um what's the training they get the teachers get for going to sh we've had a lot of turnover in our fifth grade team and because we're going to send people out on a hike if you haven't gone um we want you to go on a Saturday and walk the trails understand what students are going to do on this Trail we do try to make this connected to learning so Miss Powers and Miss Melinda are experts at sharp so they take take new people through and talk about and when you get to this tree you're going to remind everybody about what they've learned in science about trees because we want to make sure you've had a consistent experience at sharp whether you have the person that's gone 15 times or whether you have the person that it's their first time leading so it gives them an understanding of what that two day three-day two night experience will be like and it ensures that kids are going to be safe and they're going to have a great experience okay and they're being they're being PA and yes like almost like a workshop and they go up there yes yes they will go to Fishkill for those six hours also I think um last year was the first year we sent uh staff up to be trained because we had such a huge turnover in the past we never sent people to be trained fir because we were able to have continuation of our staff so I question this why are we doing it again so I do think the expectation is though we are not going to be going forward every year and setting up a group for training it we have a core group I'm assuming they can train there I believe that's the expectation Mr Delo to that point could they as they go through this time photograph document write down so hey this tree marked here maybe pin it or something like this is what you're going to be talking about and teaching and kind of reduce the trips in the future absolutely and this we did not anticipate doing this we um uh had parting of the ways with some of our fifth grade teachers and that's why we have new people um you have to remember that for people in our world sometimes they've never been to the woods and to go up there like we're not contained in an area this big like when we play predator and prey we play predator and prey prey in the woods so we just want to make sure everybody feels comfortable um with it I I have a quick question is the number of people that go isn't there always a couple of teachers or experts that are on that trail that could take over for this year so that I'm not begrudging them going but I'm just saying we really have lost staff to retirement I mean you'll notice we're taking a retired teacher and we normally take another retiring retired teacher who unfortunately is unable to go this year so it it's really just building up that Cadre again because yes what we would like to have is five people who are super experienced with each one with each group um we're just not there right now because of some teachers who have have resigned over the past couple years so you'll reexamine it every year just make sure yeah and you'll notice we're sending to admin because if if our admin are consistent parts of our community and having them trained will also help I got a call from the principal my son was at sharp they were lost in the woods they were lost there he said don't worry it's okay but they're they'll all be fine you can't go that far sharp don't worry it's fine it's all good a long time ago any other questions call the question on the RO Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutlin yes Mrs Walker yes Mrs Mr Walsh yes Mr Daren yes M Mrs Nichols yes Mr Del Greco policy um nothing to report in the past but I will be seeking out dates in the future for a policy meeting based off of tonight Mrs Downey Public Relations I don't have anything to report I know we're working on a newsletter right um I guess you'll keep us posted on that and then if we have to meet we'll meet that good okay open to the public I think you there we go um Amry spall 837 LS place um I think you have a lot of good first steps to improve upon the deficits you found in your climate survey I would encourage you to have your school counselor Hib trained if she is not already I would also love um an update about the hiring of the part-time counselor um I would encourage you to have students complete the CL climate survey in grades 3 through six we used to do this in school after we reviewed the questions with the students obviously this would be a different survey and differently worded questions um and lastly if you're goal is to increase communication about academics you can you should consider um an optional conference in the spring many districts in Bergen County have a fall and a spring conference offered I know your calendar is already set but it could be an option in the further years some districts send a form in the spring if the teacher thinks that um a conference is warranted and then the parent decides if he or she wants a conference as well thank can I ask you just to repeat something you said what did you say about third through the student thir through six we used to send we used to do a climate survey for the students as well a separate we did one oh good we did one for what grades um we actually did grades 3 through six I administered it myself because I wanted um consistent implementation I didn't want them to be feel like they were going to hurt their teachers feelings so I filled this room so so with families that those are included students left no these are just families so we did three surveys last year a staff survey a student survey and a family survey and so when are the report when is going to be the report for the student that is private it's student info so that's not coming up and I do want um just I want Miss BOS if you could comment on the guidance counsel we deliberately don't have our counselors trained in HIV because it goes against counseling okay um if you want that person to then be able to intervene and we know that with anytime we have an HIV we of have a remediation step of counseling we want that counselor to be AB our new counselor additionally is starting Monday great so we're very excited about that as a school counselor I think that's a fabulous approach because you don't want the counselor then tied in with the discipline or the potential discipline with the child so I actually I was makes sense a school uh HIV specialist it was a nightmare so I'm glad that that's the the the movement thank you anyone else I'm Jen AB Tabo I have two students if you can write your name and address in the book first and then okay so have two students at Ops first I want to say you guys didn't an amazing job at the family fund day the float was awesome and the Panther and the truck so we we appreciate that um so I just I wanted to discuss an area of concern that some parents have regarding the length of time allocated for school lunch um it seems many students are not able to finish their meals given the time constraints the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Center for Disease and prevention recommend children have at least 20 minutes to eat and that doesn't include walking to the cafeteria washing your hands it's really just the time that they have to sit down um this so actual seated time although not mandated federally many experts in the field agree that inadequate meal time does have negative consequence so benefits of a suitable lunchtime include being able to complete the meal which in turn provides um ample nutrition for our students a Harvard nutrition Professor has demonstrated in her research Julia Chan um clear correlation between adequate lunchtime and healthy eating habits so kids who have more time to eat are more likely to choose healthier foods and complete their Entre resulting in children who learn better and have less disciplinary action intervention um Robert Murray who is a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics States it's really important for these kids to eat their whole meal so kids who are rushed to eat May in turn develop bad lifelong habits surrounding food and meal time um and it's vital for us to build these healthy eating habits particularly in today's cultural climate uh lunchtime is also about learning and sharing experience and socialization is obviously vital at this age there is also quite a bit of research surrounding recess and the negative Downstream effects from scheduling it post lunch so the Journal of Child Nutrition and management indicates that recess before lunch is probably best practice um a study focusing on this matter indicated recess prior to eating improved food consumption decreased food waste and improved Behavior at lunchtime in an afternoon class there was a market decrease as well in recess related injuries particularly you know belly aches and headaches that warranted trips to the nurse's office in addition anecdotal evidence suggested children feel less rushed to eat with recess first because they're not racing to get outside um they've also been given the opportunity to engage with each other during recess so they're more food focused when it's time to sit down for lunch so I I understand obviously you can't extend the day um but if it would be possible to accumulate an extra 7 to 10 minutes somewhere and create a lunch period that's maybe 27 to 30 minutes I think the children could benefit um and lastly I just wanted to touch upon quickly the hand washing at Ops so it seems we're heavily reliant on the use of hand sanitizers rather than just regular soap and water um and while I can appreciate uh an already Limited schedule sanitizer use may seem appealing there are risks with constant exposure at this young age so children's skin is obviously more sensitive putting them at a higher risk of skin IR Iration skin breakdown and ultimately that results in a higher susceptibility for um viral and bacterial infection furthermore the two main ingredients found in sanitizers isopropyl alcohol and ethanol really have no true long-term outcome data for continued daily exposure particularly at this young age um both chemicals can also be dangerous if accidentally ingested although we hope that's not obviously happening and post pandemic a lot of sanitizers increased their chemical percentage to make sure they were killing their Cor a virus um so the CDC continues to recommend handwashing with soap and water is one of the best ways to stay healthy and use of sanitizer rubs really only when soap and water is not available so that being said I think that a number of us would really love to see um washing stations maybe even commercial washing stations in the cafeteria that could potentially accommodate sort of a large number of students at each station um and I know that there are a number of parents who would be willing to sort of you know spearhead of fundraiser or whatever it may be if it's a matter of raising funds to to get these they're sort of like these long carvs that um so just so children have access to handwashing True handwashing prior to eating lunch so thank you for your time and your dedication um to our kids and I appreciate that we're all aligned so thank you can I ask you a question yeah do you know of any schools in the area that have something like that no no I don't so um basically it just seems to be access to the bathroom which would be fine if the lunch period was a little bit longer so if kids are if you have 25 kids in a class and they're all going to use the the one restroom prior to lunch you're going to get down there with six minutes left but I've seen these commercial and I and I've done some research on the the sites you know they have one with foot pedals they have one that you don't even have to put on and they have like six long so you could essentially like go through a number of children 20 second handwashing um it would have to be hooked up but I also just want to make a comment uh board members there have been board members that have mentioned me that there is a concern regarding lunch and I have seen some of the comments so um board members have mentioned it to me so we are going to be discussing it in committee at some point but um you have to realize it's a contractual issue also oh sure yeah so we wouldn't you wouldn't you couldn't extend the day we wouldn't expect teachers to stay for lunch but if you could shave a minute here and there just to okay yeah so there's a lot of issues with it it's contractional there's there's a state law as to how many minutes of instruction you must give sure so people had heard that there was a um there was a concern so I don't know if it goes to curriculum or it goes to personel but we're going to discuss it but there's I'm sure it's tricky but I think you know if if we can just if we can shave somewhere even just gain four or five minutes just allows kids to sit and have the 20 minutes that really is the recommendation right it's not Fally mandated but it's recommended all we appreciate you coming thank you so much one more it'll be 100% participation okay all right any old or new business Mr Del Greco just want to make a comment um just thank you to miss boosius and everybody who I guess decorated the truck attended you know the staff who attended the uh Hesley parade and just shown that overall Pride for the school and the district showed well you know they used this room here for photographs they used the basketball court so a lot of our facilities were used for that day but the Highlight was the truck and the the float and people seemed to like to float a lot for time yes Mrs Walker and to piggy back on that I think um all you said was true but I I do think that Miss boio should have been more in the beginning part of the uh presentation rather than the end and also that beautiful wood burning piece that um who's this made um Mrs yes should have been shown more it was like at the end and that's when Miss boio was called up was kind of rushed through because everyone was tired after almost an hour of County officials so um I think you did a great job there and um it was it was a special day it really was Mr D Mr Daran uh yeah I'd like to uh thank the parent Community who came out tonight um we here on the board are volunteers and we spend countless hours we could be do many other things um here at the school because we like to advocate for the kids uh for the community um and it's just something that we're lyed to and and to see that uh you are now you know also coming out and spend your time to share your thoughts to help improve what we're doing here it's appreciated it's not a uh by any means a uh confrontational situation when parents come up and and they have something to say so um I just know personally when there's no one here I feel like you know we're just doing all this and nobody cares uh so when when people do show up when you show up it's a it makes us feel but it makes me feel good so thanks for coming any other old or new business I'll second that motion any need to go into a closed session no so I move to adjourn I'll second second by Mr nutland second by Mr nutland got one all in favor