e thank you [Music] than all let's see welcome to this public meeting of the Princeton Board of Education the board is an elected unpaid group of 10 citizens who set policy and make decisions on behalf of all residents we always uh are pleased when members of the public attend our meetings the board and the district operate under the rules of the New Jersey um Department of New Jersey Department of Education uh law limits the discussion of personnel and other matters we reserve the right uh to go into Clos session at any time um thank you for attending we hope our meetings uh are useful um ways to you find to communicate with us I there we go and that was a test ladies okay did I me what did I miss noce given adequate notice was given for this meeting no that that's my part that's his part all right as required of the open public meeting act meetings Act njsa 10 46 at sequentia adequate notice was given for calling this meeting it was authorized by the Board of Education and forwarded to the municipal clerk Princeton packet and the Trenton Times on January 6 2024 it was distributed to the schools and others on the standard distribution list the board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education board policy 168 recording devices requires that we inform those attending this in-person meeting that the proceedings are being recorded this meeting is also being live streamed the representative of the sending district is authorized to vote on such matters that affect sending District students or affect the governance of the Princeton Public Schools as more specifically designated in njsa 18a 38.1 sending District votes pertaining to Personnel actions refer to high school Central admin and districtwide staff only votes otherwise are considered abstentions in the event that the statute is amended the wall shall take presidence over this bylaw thank you Mr Balden would you please call the role yes dff M Kendall here bety bag here Beth Baron here Adam Beerman here Mar franceski here Elanor hubard here Susan caner here Brian McDonald here Rob Christopher here we have a quorum thank you Mr Balden um can I get a motion please for the adoption of the minutes for April 30th 20124 Brian second Rob St Kendall yes Betsy Bagel yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Martin franceski yes Elanor hubard yes Susan caner yes Brian McDonald yes Rob Christopher yes motion passes thank you Mr Balden can I get an adoption uh a motion for the adoption of the minutes for May 7th 2024 Rob second Brian is anyone else here tonight okay D Kendall yes Betsy Bago yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Martin franceski yes harbard yes Susan caner yes Brian McDonald yes Rob Christopher yes motion passes thank you Mr Balden all right welcome everyone uh we open this uh meeting with uh 17 days left of school starting from tomorrow uh our Transportation uh director told me they're all they all count even if they're half days um so we have a very uh full meeting tonight so we'll get started um uh the first item on the agenda is um the appointment of um Christopher Sheridan as um principal at Johnson Park um Dr Foster did you have anything you wanted to say first um we had a very robust process of interviewing uh for JP and again I am GNA say um we all love Angela and Angela is absolutely hard to replace but we are really excited uh to have Chris uh join our uh leadership team uh his passion and student centered uh Vision I think will um Carry uh the legacy of Angela and continue in the future so um we're really thrilled um to have you uh join uh Princeton Public Schools so welcome thank you okay thank can I get a can I get a motion please Beth second Mara D Kendall yes Betsy bag wheel yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Mar franceski yes Eman Hubbert yes Susan caner yes Brian McDonald yes Rob Christopher yes motion passes okay thank you um Mr Sheridan uh welcome to the district please hello boy um I hope I I'm trying not to remember all the words I'm just trying to be as natural as I can but I'm I'm I may pale in comparison to miss Kendall's uh memory of of the of the board opening uh but good evening so uh as I introduced myself here as the new principal of Johnson Park School please allow me to express my gratitude to the Board of Education uh and for this opportunity to serve the students the staff the families and the community of JPS uh thank you to the bo members of the board uh Dr Foster Mrs gold Dr 2 uh Dr Sino stance for your trust in my leadership capabilities uh to continue the path of leadership uh Dr Sino Sten has forged will be both exciting and rewarding and I look forward to being a steward of this robust learning community of which she has gracefully led by working collaboratively with the staff families community and of course the students of JPS I I promise to the board to the students the families and staff members of JPS to serve you proudly by putting the betterment of students at the Forefront of my leadership by focusing on their academic their social and emotional growth and since I'm me mentioning a promise I thought it might be a good time to ask for some audience participation maybe from the JPS students that are here uh because I know there's a a pledge taken every day so if you can help me with it and then you know maybe I can work to get a little bit better at as well so I promise to be responsible respectful safe kind and successful so sounds good thank you thank you once again for allowing me to serve for princi public schools thank you thank you Mr sharan Good Luck thank you okay uh moving on now uh we have the appointment of Erica Mara as assistant principal at Princeton High School uh can I get a motion please Susan second Eleanor um Dr Foster did you have something you wanted to say uh of course um so uh currently um Miss marada is serving as the computer science teacher at the high school uh so uh we will be searching for that but are thrilled to have her join uh the administrative team at Princeton High School she's already serving in many leadership capacities including I believe she's the adviser for the junior class uh this year and and served on the master scheduling committee as well uh so I know that uh we're excited to have her join that team and of course will be posting for a computer science teacher at the high school okay Mr Balden davan Kendall yes Betsy bagle yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Mar franceski yes Elanor hubard yes Susan canther yes Brian McDonald yes Rob Christopher yes motion passes uh thank you Mr Wen and um Dr um Dr Foster and uh Miss Burge I believe is here I just want to thank you you um the board always appreciates when we promote from within so we appreciate that uh and um we wish Miss Mara the best of luck on her new position all right now moving on uh to the funnest part of the evening um so back in the fall um Dr two uh so I'll back up portrait of graduate as part of our strategic plan um Dr two um had a contest that she came up with and so I'll let you explain it um so as part of our strategic plan we have six portrait of a graduate skills that we want all of our Learners to embody when they leave PHS and some of our students are only with us for a few years and some of us are with some of them are with us from prek through 12 but at all stages we should be focusing on health and wellness collaboration communication critical thinking Innovation and the like um and so we really wanted this to live um with our students and so it didn't just have to stay with the adults we wanted kids to have a vision ual representation of these skills um throughout their experience here at PPS and so we had this idea we have a princet and portrait of a graduate committee to have these posters um in every instructional space including offices across the district and so we thought wow six schools six skills let's have a contest right um and our our arts program um is renowned um and we thought we wanted our students to be representative so first of all I want to thank our students for participating um if you're here here in person tonight you'll see in the hallway um some of the runners up the committee had a really it probably one of the most fun meetings I've ever been to looking at Student Art and just kind of saying look at these great representations um and so that committee picked our our winners tonight I want to thank our staff for providing time for students to uh think about what does a logo mean and what does it represent um because we had a lot of wonderful submissions but they weren't necessarily a logo right and so we wanted branding uh for each one of these skills and I want to thank families for parti ipating and you know having this an assignment at home some students submitted six submissions one for each skill and I want to thank our PTO who graciously each donated $25 gift cards uh to their building or School winner so that was a lovely partnership with the PTO so with that our winners are here tonight hold on one second though hold on don't go don't I won't say the winners yet okay um let's why don't we do the picture as we call the person so we could start with health Wellness you could we don't plan this ahead of time [Laughter] I know yeah we're we're no all I mean it's not like we don't talk we just don't practice all right um but I wanted to say that these will be made over the summer um and so the student winners will also receive a copy once they are produced and we are in talks to also do um circular laptop stickers and branding in that way so that we're in talks to figure out what that design actually looks like but this is the image and the poster that will be hanging in all of our spaces with the student artwork so I now leave it to miss Kendall all right so we're GNA call up the student and then if the PTO uh representative is here uh they'll join in but otherwise please come up and get your gift from uh Dr 2 so I'm just going to go into order of the pictures so for um Heth and wellness Advocate um representing Prince of Middle School uh Maya rogart uh you want to get a picture of everyone just hang up there uh next up is a critical thinker and that's from Community Park uh fifth grader Chile Roser uh the next one is collaborative communicator and that's Jessica Lou a second grader from Littlebrook uh next one is informed and involved Global Citizen and that's from um Princeton High School and that's Jay Lee uh Raina verel uh she's a ninth grader uh the next one creative innovator and that's from Johnson Park uh Myro Myra I'm sorry aello a fourth grader Mira I'm so sorry MEA and then finally we have the Curious learner and that is um Rosemary lindye did I say that right no I did not say it right how do you say your last name yes I don't want to do any more and you are you are you are in fifth grade can we get around of Applause for them you don't mind and and then I know there's some families in the room if you want you can come up and you want to take a picture a little bit closer I'm just gonna take one more one two congratulations everyone and I did just want to say um you you uh students are all very very talented um and it's really interesting to see uh how you put pictures to our words so thank you very much I can't wait to see the stickers I hope the negotiations go well oh okay all right well and thank you for joining us tonight and thank you to the tto for um their uh gift card donations we really appreciate it um moving on now uh to Dr Foster good evening everyone um of course we are a teaching and learning organization but tonight I want to highlight two pieces of good news on the business side of our organization and even though it is the business side it truly impacts our our learning uh organization so this past week um Matt Balton organized a group stakeholders to come together to review proposals uh for a new food uh service pre uh vendor for the district for um the upcoming year so I was just going to ask Matt to share uh the good news and it does impact student and learning because of the nutrition uh that it'll provide to fuel uh the um the learning that takes place thanks Dr Foster it's been uh you know a couple years now we spent a lot of time um in committee so one of the things we're um obligated to to do is to go out to each school and we've uh gone out to each School numerous times over the last two years to have youth advisory committees where we focus on students first and foremost um we have parents teachers and nurse administrators at the schools our food service provider and we talk about you know things we'd like to see uh things they like things they want to see improved etc etc so we really focused on those um on that feedback from our stakeholders over the last couple years um we are you know thankful for um 10 years of service from our current and outgoing provider but we have chosen a new provider um pomptonian um they do um have a large uh you know uh they're a a family old company they have a large stake in New Jersey a lot of districts that are like us they are focused on Improvement and are going to work and partner with us to continue on making progress um on providing the best the highest quality most nutritious breakfast and lunches that we can really excited um our cranberry uh uses pompon as well as Hopewell so two neighbors real close by and a lot of other um very high achieving districts so we're really excited it's a long process and I'm thankful to the committee that um took time to review um some of them were like 37 Pages Mission um you know we we don't actually do it tasting because um you know it's it's a little bit of a dog and pony show where they don't exactly provide the you know the meals that they would for the school so it becomes you know not really representative but it was a lot of time and effort by a lot of people put in um and so we're hopeful that we continue to improve the quality of our um food that we serve in District thank you and just one more uh item uh to pay attention to on the agenda as we continue to look for efficiencies in the budget we're happy to approve the continuation of shared service agreement with Montgomery Township for bus maintenance um these uh shared services allow us to reduce costs in transportation and maybe apply those costs um directly to our students so thank you you're welcome thank you Mr thank you Dr Foster anything else okay and now we're moving on to our student board members report uh did you hear 17 more days of school did you know that yeah you did we're happy to report that the our peers seem to know that as well if you're wondering the school Community is feeling okay well I'll turn it over to you hi everyone um we're really excited to be here indeed as always the first part of our report is concerned with current goings on at PHS so this last month nothing has loomed larger at the school than AP exams PHS administered 1,660 of them which is higher than average when compared to the last five years generally Alex and I tend to agree to think that more people taking AP exams is a good thing but several statistics also indicate that some demographics are underrepresented when it comes to taking these courses or signing up for AP exams and so anything the school district can do to encourage more kids to challenge themselves in that way is a good and beneficial thing yeah and the same thing is true of course for other Advanced course offerings at PHS whether that be new Partnerships with tcj or princeon university that provide courses which enable students to push both their academic Horizons and to gain college credit so again the more students that are able to access these resources and the more students that are encouraged to access these resources the better other notable occurrences at pH s this month include the 2024 Congressional Art competition which took place in Trenton and featured six PHS students and the PHS spectal theaters production of you're a good man Charlie Brown yeah uh so with that being said let's move on to some feedback we've heard from our fellow students as the year approaches its end because a summer break seems so near many students uh are facing small seasonal lapses in their executive function uh one thing many of my peers have mentioned is that some students rather than giving their school work the attention it deserves are turning to external Aid such as chat TPT and this is something that's not necessarily constrained to just you know this several week period right now because these Technologies are so new many students are confused about what the district's guidelines on them might be teachers often have time detecting when one of the programs are being used and some classes embrace the technology While others es ske it or ban it entirely yeah so we think it might be uh helpful to spend more time discussing clear schoolwide policies for the use of AI in the classroom with students not just with teachers and in the process to encourage teachers to consider options other than an allout ban although it's hard to imagine chat GPT belonging in an AP English Language classroom where you know the test is about writing your own essays on paper there are plenty of interdisciplinary uses for the technology uh that can get PHS students excited about their school workor for example the PHS research team used AI as part of their project to protect indigenous languages for which they ended up winning this year's Samsung for Tom competition so we imagine other scenarios like these could pop up around the school on a slightly different note Alex and I want to take a second to talk about climate initiatives at PHS many classes allow their students to embark on Independent projects during the post AP weeks and we've noticed that many of those students choose to work on furthering environmentally friendly initiatives yeah and the reason we've noticed this is that so many uh students have asked us what the district's policies surrounding climate change mitigation are uh and inpond Oliver and I have done our best to paraphrase some of the things we've heard at these meetings but we'd love you know a clear answer maybe from you all now that we can share with our fellow students definitely um it seems as though there's strong support for more extensive climate Solutions at PHS going forward for example one common refrain is stopping the use of disposable plastic utensils in our cafeteria or trying to cut down on the paper use in classrooms yeah uh and we'd also like to point out that students are especially interested in green initiatives as they intersect with the plan Construction around the district for the next couple of years uh most students would probably support taking extra measures to ensure that the construction is setting up the district for an environmentally sustainable future whether that involves solar panels or updated energy grids you know something along those lines but of course Oliver and I understand that students are not the ones paying taxes so those extra expenses are a little a little complicated that'll conclude our board report for this month thank you guys so much for your time thank you so much um so we are committed to the environment and uh as you know because you read the board agendas in with great uh attention uh we have apply we do apply uh for Grants as they come up and so we have a few grants outstanding for buses we won a grant for the bus so not for the bus um but we I Dr BJ and Valerie ol and Amy nashco did An Early Childhood climate sustainability Grant um through the state and we're awarded $31,000 and the state loved it so much they gave us an extra 48,000 I think she said this is in our board update this week because what they're going to do is they're going to do container gardens throughout the community and at the uh at where all the Early Childhood is at the private providers and at our schools and our research team at the high school our students are going to Mentor our younger students in the initiative so I think that's why the state liked it so much because it's such a great idea so um it's over I think $76,000 total something like that so the board will get a little update and we're going to do a press release so you heard it here first um but yes there are wonderful initiatives happen and then since you're already talking um AI do two is two steps ahead so we are having an AI Summit um this summer um with staff and board because it's about policy and what is the district policy on AI as as you guys have shared as well as professional development planning for staff um talking with um Mr leowski H he's really passionate about Ai and AI learning um also having some student Representatives so if you guys know of any names please feel free to send them to me as well because I think it is important to have a few um High School voices because I was just talking with our supervisor of humanities today and we don't want to completely ban it because that's not reality we know that jobs and colleges are going to be leveraging these tools and there's a lot of things like sta you know teachers could say you can use it for brainstorming but you can't use it for your first draft or you could use it all the way up until this part of the writing process um because it is something that is just going to be part of our uh world and we want to make sure that we talking about portra of a graduate that we're preparing you for life after PPS so please if you have any names of students let me know and in the meantime we'll see you on uh June 11th but enjoy uh your waiting days as students at PHS and I hope you get a chance to have a good time at prom and whatever else you do responsibly we'll see you on June 11th all right all right thank you um and now we're moving to our first public comment um we have a we had a signup sheet I have three names and then we'll go um and hear from anyone who wants to speak um please uh the first one up is uh Claire Brown please just State the street you live on um your name the street you live on and if you could just please keep your comments to three minutes we'd appreciate it thank you uh thank you for can you hear me thank you for having me Claire Brown 23 Cedar Lane Princeton and um unlike Mr Sharon I'm G to read because I'm nervous um so um as some of you some of you know me quite well because I have been a thorn in your side over the past year or so Dr Chu it's nice to set eyes on each other um since last spring because I've been very concerned about the lens through which Jewish people are taught about in this school district it was upsetting enough to learn last year from my then eth grader that we are now viewed as oppressors and I guess I was living under a rock because I didn't know that and was apparently the last to find it out um you know but so it was bad enough what was going on but imagine how we felt after 107 and the subsequent spike in anti-Semitism and our children have been the subjects of anti-Semitic slurs both online through classmates in this school district and in the school as well and yet it feels like nothing is done to protect them like I keep getting told file an HIV but honestly my kids don't want to file an HIV because and I'm going off script here because they don't feel like anyone's going to take them seriously they're white they're boys they're not lgbtq they're not people of color or of any religion that is other than Jewish and so they don't feel like they'll be taken seriously so why bother why die on that Hill because it takes a lot of effort and also I would spend a lot of my time helping them file them because we hear a lot of stuff um so you know it seems pointless because we're somehow no longer a protect minority and there's you know we really feel that there is a double standard now of us being the only minority that is not protected and obviously everyone has seen the news I'm not going to get into that here but what goes on in the school seems to us to be somewhat similar bad thing get gets said I hear about it I'm like guys do you want me to write to someone they're like no don't bother nobody cares um so we don't and then you know the last thing that I want to talk about is the walk out that happened whatever it was a week and a half ago where the student I know that there are rules about having your phone in school and taking pictures and videos I get that but when you have a student who vide tapes kids going down the hall banging on drums yelling for the annihilation of our people that feels really bad our children were very upset as community members we're devastated by this we are so disappointed that the school has not certainly at the high school level hasn't protected our kids enough I get it you have to discipline the student who took the video videos for those reasons but I really hope that there are consequences for the other students as well we don't need to know them we don't need to know their names we don't need to know the consequences but we do very much want to feel that something has been done it's just it feels really bad to all of us and I'm like again like I'm done with what I wrote but I really would like it if someone could listen and it's not just you know our kids in this District I work with students from our district who are struggling with this students the university who have been destroyed by what has been happening on their campus and the campuses across the country and I feel like this school if we are committed in this District to inclusivity like please include the Jews we're still here and we need to be protected now more than ever so thank you for listening thank you Claire and we are listening um Curtis Curtis uh Deutch hello School Board uh my name is Curtis Deutsch I live on uh College Road um West uh a call for freedom is not a call for annihilation in any way shape or form schools play a vital role of course in teaching facts but also exploring humanistic values civil rights and Civic duties like the one that we just saw violated among those are core to this Society are the right to free speech and assembly including protest indeed our country was founded as the history teachers in the room will know on protest against colonization and subjugation the Princeton School District passed a major test last week in teaching those values by allowing a walk out without impedance that walk out was was organized to express another core humanistic value of peace and human rights which I suspect is core to many here there are many violations around the world of those core values but one that stands out for the past seven months is the one in Gaza it's widely regarded among legal experts and Scholars including the highest court of the United Nations as constituting a genocide what makes it particularly relevant to your students is that it is being fully supported financially and politically by the United States government the students in the Princeton High School have joined a his tradition in the United States of protesting against Injustice wherever they see it and that includes in the Middle East they're also joining a mass movement across this country of young people who have seen the daily streaming of Acts of war crimes and genocide on their phones now you will undoubtedly hear and you probably already have many people say that what animates these protests demanding freedom for people around the world in particular in Palestine is instead a different value of anti-Semitism in fact the insistence on peace and Justice Long denied to the Palestinian people are the best antidote to hatred and to violence as a faculty member at Princeton who saw the Princeton High School students arrive with their signs and their chance I can attest to the fact that what they are calling for is not at all Annihilation it is for the freedom of the Palestinian people to live throughout Palestine without checkpoints without being treated as a sec as second class citizens and without experiencing the fear and Terror of United States bombs falling on their heads day after day after day thank you very much thank you um next up is Kim marks could I ask for just 60 seconds to just yeah I just want I just want to say uh we ask that audience members refrain from referring to audience members or or react or speaking to them and we'll give you a few more seconds Kim do you want me to see if someone else wants to speak and then you can go is there anyone else for public comment um Mr Alberts why don't you come up tell us your the street you live on and then Kim I'm very did you not see oh you missed the beginning of the meeting but I basically cited the first two paragraphs by memory so it's one of my few gifts well thank you good evening uh I have questions not a comment first question will the board do anything to ensure that a walk out like that on May 9th will happen again or won't happen again that's my first question i' and I'd like to know and I'd like to know as soon as possible please I mean you know the response I got from someone on this board was vague the other question does the board plan on Contracting high tops again in the coming year does it any easy questions no those are it that's it okay um so both of those questions will be answered um we do this is not the first walk out uh that occurred um and so I don't see the board uh stopping walkouts um I think the board could consider some parameters um you know this was during AP testing but um it's something the board the policy committee would have to consider uh the second question will be answered uh at the next board meeting are walkouts allowed yes they are okay thank you uh Kim are you ready or do you need another minute Julia will go if you want okay the first I wanted to thank I forget your name and oh I'm sorry Julia rotenberg and I leave on Princeton Kingston Road um I want to thank everybody for all the work that you do um Dr forer D Dr to DNA the board members uh Miss bur we have met multip multiple times you do listen and you do care that's not that's not that's not questionable here um what I I I wanted to bring uh a slightly different perspective for for from what's been talked about so far um I wanted to make it sound funny but it's not so I'll just uh read it um as far as Jews are concerned we'll be fine we've been going through this couple of times a century for the past 5,000 years so we've survived before Will Survive again um the uh you know throughout the history uh somebody's trying to exterminate us and erase Israel and we only we all always persevere and we uh come out stronger um I am worried about students who participated in the walk out and I want to make it clear that um uh free speech is sacred to me and I do support peaceful workouts um but what happened was not a peaceful workout it was um it was hate speech and when the kids attended the encampment they were radicalized they were indoctrinated and what essentially happened you guys basically let uh toddlers run with a knife instead of educating them so what we are asking you to counter the propaganda the hate that they're hearing um things that happened at the camp I've shared privately with some of you and I just don't want to freak everybody out um but we need counter education so kids can think critically they can think for themselves they can learn history they can um think critically and um go based on facts not what not the one-sided indoctrination that they hear from hateful sources thank you thank you um so when you come up and speak you can this is just to the audience thank you Julia when you come up and speak you can say whatever you want for three minutes um we you know this is we're a public entity and you know we do uh celebrate free speech I just want to remind everyone that this is a board of education our responsibility is to educate children uh that attend our schools um so to the extent um you you know I can't tell you how what how to what to comment on but um we're responsible the board is responsible for educating about 4,000 children we have a budget of over $100 million and we take that responsibility very seriously um and we have you know no ability to influence anything really uh outside of uh Princeton and even then we don't do so well um great you ready Kim thank you I appreciate the indul so Kim marks uh on halish do need more than that that um so good evening um so H it has only ever really been for me about hate um we moved to this District my kids started in January of 2017 I have been engaged in conversations with various members of the community and the district since fall of 2017 about anti-semitic hate in our district I have spoken to you as a parent as a parent of a student who was the vict the victim excuse me of anti-Semitic bullying as a member of the PTO as a member of the PTO as a member of the Jewish community relations Council of the of you know the surrounding counties I I um I've been at your Committee Member committee meetings your individual conversations when you were running for the board we talked about this okay so that this has always been to me about hate and about combating hate understanding the risks that the hate of anti-Semitism allowing that in our schools in our conversations and in our communities what that poses now we can pretend for a minute if we want that in 1967 when an Egyptian put on a cafa the Egyptian Grand nephew of the Man known as Hitler's Muti decided to invent a people that that's what this is about and that they are living under some imagined depression in a place where Jews literally dug up the bones of the people in 2005 until the day they were dragged into Gaza on October 7th there have not been Jews oppressed in anyone in Gaza in 1967 Israel came under control of Gaza because Egypt invaded up until then Gaza had been under control of Gaza we hear nothing about that in the peace process the Sinai was returned to Egypt Israel tried to give Gaza back to Egypt and they refused to accept it the reason that there are checkpoints across parts of the country that border the areas where people want to come in and kill us those exist since the inata what is the inata you ask the inata is the call for the death of Jews globalize means around the world so globalize the inata means kill Jews around the world from The River To The Sea might rhyme and sound cute in English in Arabic it is from The River To The Sea it will be Arabic free of Jews so for me this is only ever been about hate I do not do not want to see hate in our hallways and I remind you again of your responsibility as daphna you just called it out to keep that hatred away from our children thank you thank you okay um let's remember we we we have children at the table no offense and children are watching so and and they're watching and we can disagree but let's do it civil and have respect for each other who would like to speak next go ahead uh go ahead just say your name the street you live on and please keep a Mr 3 minutes my name is Sher Alin I live on oaklane I'm a professor of religion and Middle East studies uh resident of Princeton the main point I want to make is that the criticism and the condemnation of a modern nation state to conflct that with some kind of hatred towards a religious tradition is intellectually historically conceptually indefensible the criticisms and condemnations that we've been seeing of the modern nation state of Israel uh as long as that does not participate in anti-semitic tropes cannot be categorized as anti-semitic just as and not to equate all the different contexts just as the criticism of the violence of the modern nation state of Saudi Arabia would not be is hop phobic and so forth Point number one I think it goes against the very mission of history and educational advancement uh to make this kind of conflation and no serious historian or scholar of the Middle East that you can see a whole listing of in the Middle East studies Association Mesa would would find this kind of conflation absolutely ridiculous um what I've been hearing in terms of the kind of representations of the encampment I went to that encampment each of its 21 days I never saw empirically or otherwise any kind of hatred towards the religious community and let us also remember that the faculty and the students leading the encampment among its leaders were Jewish faculty and students so when we equate the condemnation of the modern nation state of Israel with anti-Semitism we in fact are part participating in anti-Semitism against those Jewish faculty and students who do criticize the modern nation state of Israel in comes from the Arabic verb na which means an uprising Uprising against Injustice it does not mean killing any people from The River To The Sea means freedom for Palestinian people now some people may have said this phrase with some anti-semitic intonations hence to be good Ed Educators to speak with evidence to speak with some kind of historical anchoring we need to be very specific about what kinds of speech we are condemning and why because when we don't do that that goes against the mission of intellectual nuance and historical understanding so what I've been hearing is absolutely horrific the kind of representations of these morally courageous students I think they need to be celebrated they should be uh congratulated for advancing the cause of speak back to Power and that in some ways is the mission of Education speaking against Injustice thank you thank you all right how many people want because um when did we start this public comment I should have uh we'll go for another uh we'll go another 15 minutes so we'll go to uh 8:40 and then we're going to continue on with our agenda and there'll be another um you could just line up at the podium um and there'll be another public comment uh session towards the end okay Lisa Jack now for and Ro I think the intimidation by people here videoing people that are talking is really inappropriate and it would be nice if the board would ask people to stop doing that I don't think this is the right way for people to be able to speak the board we this is a public space we don't have the ability to limit it's an intimidation tactic and it's very obvious okay I'm going to bring things back to to the kids because that's what I have always spoken to about and I agree that is what we should be here for outside in the bigger world if people want to have their interpretations of things they can in our schools I have repeatedly heard this District this board talk about how a group feels about something and how that matters and in this instance of May 9th that has to matter civil rights of so many students were trumped on May 9th for the Free Speech rights of others we can't choose one's rights over another's rights there's a way to speak out and say I want this war to end I don't like Hamas I don't like Netanyahu but when you're speaking about tropes as was recently just mentioned the tropes of using words like genocide apartheid an oppressor against Jewish people have feelings for those Jewish people many of whom were your students in the high school on May 9th my son ran up to me and said Mom I walked into school and I don't know who here is for me and who is against me please take me home no student should ever feel that way when they walk through the halls of their high school but the Halls were covered in Flyers that screamed hate about Israel not about a government about a people and those people are students in your high school that is how the Jewish students feel it if people want to say that's not how it's intended intentions have consequences and that is how the Jewish students feel it my son was one of many students who had to leave school on May 9th my son is one of many students who does not feel protected in Princeton High School and we have to do better there were a lot of failures that day you can allow for free speech while protecting your hallways and protecting the students within your high school and protecting what kinds of free speech are allowed in terms of trumping on someone else's civil rights that is not a free speech that has to be allowed in our schools and somebody asked earlier are there going to be more walkouts I understand from the district that walkouts are allowed you can't stop them but a high school in Vorhees did not have this kind of walkout because they had a definition of anti-semitism that prohibited it and our school promised to not allow anti-Semitism and it was allowed on May 9th we need to do better thank you hi um hello to all of you uh I my name is uh Muhammad I am uh a recently graduated uh graduate student of Princeton University I uh have been a lifelong uh Community member of uh Princeton and uh I have also been one of the leaders of the encampment I come here with nothing but love and empathy for everyone and I sincerely hope that we can leave this meeting with a greater appreciation for one another I came to just uh speak upon my interactions with people at the encampment with the high school students as well our life at the encampment for those who were not there was one of peace and communication we had daily lectures organized we had shared food we shared conversations and we shared living life together that's all we organized our protests in order to show solidarity with a movement that calls for the freedom of a people not for the hatred of anyone one of my colleagues and lifelong friends is a uh Holocaust Survivor and I am deeply sensitive to the elements of anti-Semitism that are very real and I do understand that there is a lot of fear in this world especially given the current events but the Palestinian people are not able to even have a place to sleep at night or even a meal and so our movement was just one to show solidarity and to show support for such people now with respect to the high school students we were approached and we organi helped organize this walkout nowhere or at no point in time was there any element of hatred that was mentioned for anyone we just believe in the community and the good faith of all people and we hope that you understand that we were not any form of radicalization as some people in the audience may have claimed those high school students were merely interacting with Princeton professors that's all so we I hope sincerely that coming out of this meeting uh you know I have empathy for everyone here and I hope that we can also come out with an increased empathy for people who cannot share the luxuries of any form of life that resembles ours so thank you for your time yep thank you Muhammad what was your last name Bari B ah r i thank you hi hi can hear me okay uh my name is David Khan um Princeton High School class in 1990 and what street you live on 23 Cedar Lane you didn't to give me the number the you know where to find me I'm also at princ University class of 1994 um and I watched the encampment grow I tried to interact with some of the students saying I'm an old codger now 30 years out got white hair and I really want to understand why you were so impassioned about the messages you're delivering and sir I think I saw you the other day with is your son the high school and I think you're part of the University as just said right well I will so Mr please just com to the board please okay well I I I just want to call the attention that um I wish that the protests were just that and peaceful and I appreciate Muhammad's coming up here um I just going to say that I believe the Palestinians need a state uh the killing is abhorent it's abominable all sides but what that encampment and what these kids were led into was a Bastion of anti-Semitism because as other people have said does anybody recall what hamas's Charter says from the river to the sea that is their Mantra there is no interpreting in any other way when a declared terrorist organization has that in their Charter and it is spilled into Princeton high school that is our concern or at least one of them I will also tell you that the hezb flag another declared terrorist organization was flown and held I don't know that was flown but it was at that encampment so I ask you when you have students who are instructed not to engage I really want to talk to them I didn't want to argue with them I want to understand I will tell you two things Princeton taught me how much I didn't know and law school taught me that there are always two or three sides and I want to understand that's why I appreciate I appreciated what you said Mohammad I appreciated what you said obviously we disagree but the dialectic here the words are so important they're so so important I know that the board will consider this I take it that you will look at the definitions but again I remind you when from The River To The Sea it said in a terrorist Charter and the rejectionism of the Israeli state is rampant as it is in that camp you have to look at what's being said I ask you to do so thank you all thank you hi Liz how are you hi Liz winsa dods Lane um I wasn't planning on speaking tonight so I may be a little wobbly sorry um what I wanted to do was actually not talk about so much the geopolitics but about the mediate student safety concern so I thought Muhammad was a very talented speaker he made his case well but what he also did was provide a great confirmation that this was not an organic walkout by Princeton High School students that it was organized by an outside party i' I'd also like I'd also like to point out that one of the parents who did this organizing currently has a substack online titled Israel's willing executioners where he talks about how Israelis in Peta tikva and Ramat Gan are nothing but dishwashers and garbage collectors but they can be Gods executing people in Palestine this is not a message of Tolerance this is not a message of unity this is not a message of two states there was another agenda here and it did not involve free thought on the part of PHS students I can very much get behind students having ideas I don't like you know that's part of growing up what I have a very hard time getting behind is a bunch of adults which all the students were at the encampment coming down and encouraging other people's minor children to leave school during AP exams to advance their own political agenda it's not acceptable and I really hope something can be done in the future thank you thank you good evening good evening my name is uh hon bajetto I'm a parent uh and a professor also uh at Princeton Theological Seminary and uh many of my students were uh in the encampment and I I had the opportunity to be there uh spend a lot of time there uh personally I didn't see any uh anti-Semitism and that doesn't mean and listening I appreciate very much what the conversation tonight because listening to how people feel matters and I I think we should be listening to One Another but uh but I don't see I didn't see hatred uh I saw uh concern for peace I saw as a as someone uh who teachs uh also the history of religions I saw concerns with Interfaith relations I saw uh Muslims Christians and Jews having opportunity to worship uh separately but also together talk to one another I saw people of no faith supporting and protecting people who are uh spending time worshipping so this is not about religion and this is not not about uh uh uh ethnicity this about kids seeing what's going on uh and uh today we have access and they have access uh to uh news in ways that in the past many people didn't it's impossible to ignore when we have 14,000 kids killed when we have 35,000 people killed uh it's impossible to ignore that so what I saw and I was there the encampment when the high schoolers came in I saw uh human sensibility I saw I saw compassion I saw concern and I think what we can do even if uh there was something that shouldn't have happened if I take what I I hear here as concerns I think the The Way Forward is dialogue it's conversation like this civil conversations uh opportunity to have people uh talking from different points of view without aggression without intimidation uh without uh dehumanizing one another without uh ridiculing those who are uh speaking uh and expound on their on their points of view so I believe that so I have I have been princial for a long time I was a student here I came back and I have been here for 10 years as a professor I appreciate very much the environment that Princeton uh creates as a as a place of curiosity learning and dialogue so I appreciate the board uh for allowing conversations and Free Speech to take place and if uh there are there is a need for further education on these and other topics dialogue is the future not punishment thank you very much even take 35,000 and anymore hi um my name is Brooke Cole um and I live on stanworth Drive hi Brooke I'm begin resume and then comments andry um I'm a parent of a second grader at JP um I just wanted to express our thanks um to Dr s for her dedication and support for our families at Johnson Park um through distance learning um the co years and the sometimes difficult rebuilding years that have followed um she's championed social emotional learning across the curriculum every student matters at JP and they know it um we see her greeting students each morning with a smile and the same when they leave each day she worries about them during our breaks and shares in their successes both in and out of the classroom Johnson Park is losing an amazing principal but we are so happy that she'll be just down the road here at Valley Road um we're also very excited to welcome Mr Sheridan to our school our students are super excited and they are so ready to meet you um they've been begging me in the hallway when are we going to meet our new principal um and they are just really excited to show you just how amazing of a family we have at JP um I wanted to thank Dr Foster the board and Miss gold for an amazing search to find us a really good fit for principal and we are really thankful for that thank you thank you all right uh moving on now um item I harassment intimidation and bullying and then we're going to the board committee reports and we were going to start uh with uh long-term planning Beth said she'll um share her a report then operations with Susan doing oper this is operation side of the table um we met May um a it's it's a good report don't take we met May 8th um at 8 AM um we reviewed um as is our way uh we opened by reviewing um finalizing the TW 2022 referendum projects and then we review viewed the 2023 referendum projects many of which will be happening this summer and some which um parts are on the approval in the agenda later tonight including uh furniture for the PHS cafeteria renovation various cameras through the district throughout the district and various um technology upgrades um that are being um put put into effect this summer we also um had a heard a discussion um as the district was considering whether to go head with iPads or Chromebooks in the Middle School um so we participated in that discussion and to uh your point one of the projects this summer is rofes which once we finish hopefully this summer we can begin the task of solar in our school so that is something we've been working toward for several years um we then started the sustainability part of our meeting and that included discussions of Grants and one which uh Dr CH uh told us about building initiatives that our students uh put in and um future ideas like uh waste Audits and energy competitions which are taking place within our schools to help save energy um our next meeting is July 2nd at 8 AM uh we always begin by being open to the public and hope you can join us thank you um if I could just ask uh the members of the audience um the board sat quietly and listen to you speak and now we're doing our board business and I would ask if you have any conversation to please take them out in the hallway um but please respect the work that is being done here uh next up is personnel with Mara franceski hi the Personnel committee met 8:30 a on Thursday May 9th um from time to time the Personnel committee hears residency hearings on their hearings where it's been brought to the district's attention that certain students may not actually be residing in Princeton we take that very seriously um the families are given an opportunity to prove their residency and appeal to remain in the district um other things that we did at our meeting we discussed the new Communications role and our new PHS assistant principal and JP principal searches both of whom we were excited to introduce and announce tonight and um we look forward to honoring our retirees on June 6 at 3 o'clock right here in this room it's a lovely um I actually can't be here but it is a lovely lovely celebration um I will be out of town but I encourage you to come and our next meeting will be closed on Thursday um June 6 at 8:30 a.m. I guess I'm taking that from away right thank you and and again I have to ask the audience please be respectful of the work that's being done here we listen to you quietly please don't interrupt us thank you uh next up is policy is anyone doing that uh that will also circulate will get back to us and then uh but last and not least but the most important reason why we're all all here is uh student achievement well it is earlier in the order tonight so that's that's good um thank you very much we met just this past Friday at 11:00 a.m. on Zoom we had three topics for the public agenda Sarah Mor came to the meeting um our supervisor of Elementary education to talk about updated Elementary Ela assessment practices at the elementary level that will be put in place in 2425 we also heard about um the new Bridges program which is a pilot at the middle school for the 2425 school year to better meet the needs of our students and John McMichael who's the supervisor of counseling attended our meeting to talk about a new program for financial literacy for any of you out there whose students have taken financial literacy online over the summer from educ here we're now using Apex and information will be going out to All Families the week of May 28th that's next week so be on the lookout for that if you're student is interested in that summer programming we then adjourn to close session our next meeting is June 7th and it's open to the public 11 a.m. thanks all right thanks Betsy all right so we're moving on now um to more board work so we have uh and again interrupt me if you need anything uh K1 policies for first reading K2 policies for a second reading moving on to Personnel we have L1 resignations L2 appointments L3 Personnel items L4 curriculum and instruction L5 student services L6 student uh substitute student placements L7 job descriptions L8 reappointments revisions L9 leave of absence L10 evaluation forms L1 transfer reassignment l12 press a certifications type in and then l13 comprehensive Equity plan we're moving on to um curriculum and instruction um I just lost my place oh M1 student day field trip and then moving on to Student Services special education and one professional consulting services and two resolution uh for residency appeal moving on to the business 01 Financial reports 02 fire evacuation D drills 03 acceptance and award uh the contract for Food Services uh to uh what is it PP pomptonian is that it correct uh and I just want to thank Mr Balden Eleanor and Betsy for and Kathy and Kim for their work on that and uh I I would have liked to taste test but I will I will go check it out uh um 04 security cameras that Mrs ker mentioned 05 security cameras like access cabling infrastructure very interesting 06 PHS cafeteria furniture that Mr caner mentioned 07 shared services agreement with Montgomery Township Board of Education the do for bus maintenance the Dr Foster mentioned and again if we had electric buses Oliver and Alex we wouldn't have to worry about that uh so put in a plug for us um we have uh I just did I miss something no uh eight oh8 is amendment of project submission to the NJ doe and then 09 is an action item uh njsig safety Grant for application acceptance can I get a motion please Mara second Betsy D Kendall abstain Betsy bag wheel yes Adam Beerman yes Debbie braunfeld oops she hasn't been here all meeting oh I know what I did wrong my bad um Mara franceski yes Elanor hubard yes Susan canther yes Brian McDonald yes Rob Christopher yes motion passes thank you Mr Baldin 010 Tech Consulting contract extension1 Cooperative uh purchasing membership 02 rejection of bid 013 Professional Services attorney appointment 04 registration uh travel agenda moving on now to our second public comment again anyone can come speak for three minutes please just state your name and the street live on thank you my name's Dan W I live on Moore Street um thanks for letting me talk um I think one of the things I hope you take away from tonight is that we've had a few speakers who have the university affiliation they may have their kids in our schools as well but there's a lot of us who live here who aren't affiliated with the University or um the uh you know the other private institutions this is public school right you serve everyone from preschool to the time they graduate um it's not an agenda based education it's Reading Writing arithmetic and developing the characters the you know the characteristics that you had on the board and that you celebrated earlier and I think that one thing I learned I hope you learned is that there's people from the University with an agenda to bring the Cris es and the conflict and sometimes the hate and the anti-jewish behavior to bring it from the universities into the high school and you can develop ways to stop that and you must so thank you hello hi my name is Kennedy I am a student at Princeton University and I have a few words uh for the board and the community today we are now Crossing 200 days of the most recent wave of genocidal violence enacted by Israel in Gaza and yet another Mass grave of at least 400 Palestinians on Earth outside of Naser hospital and communis as a Princeton student I have great joy and pride at this community after seeing students walk out and join the encampment not only did they join the encampment but they also joined the global movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people they recognize the Injustice of the genocide in Palestine students recognize this Injustice like their ancestors did fighting apartheid in South Africa they recognize that they are part of a long tradition a global tradition of solidarity with the Palestinian people here I quote the words of the writer James Baldwin the children are always ours every single one of them all over the globe and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality or as I am saying in other words that we the elders are the only models children have what we see in the children is what they have seen in us or more accurately perhaps what they see in US end quote this board and as members of this community we should support these students who recognize the Injustice of apartheid who recognize the Injustice of occupation and to recognize the Injustice of genocide against the Palestinian people I implore this board to recognize the great moral urgency with which these students were acting upon and seize any punishment towards them as a community we must recognize the suffering of the Palestinian people and heed their calls for freedom and solidarity as these students did thank you anyone else for public comment hi my name is Amy Hughes I don't have a planned speech but I do live at College Road West okay and I just wanted to speak because I am I'm not affiliated with Princeton University I'm not ail I'm just a a Community member and I really wanted to thank you very much for um allowing the students at your high school to practice their first amendments speech um rights and to reiterate um what everyone else has been saying that um on one side that that it is a great learning opportunity and experience to learn to be an Engaged and active member of the public and to speak out against Injustice and genocide when you see it so I wanted to thank you all very much as a community member not from Princeton University with their agenda as they're being told that they do that and just to say that um we really thank you and that they were speaking out for justice and equality and peace in the Middle East thank you very much thank you anyone else rep public [Music] comment I'm sorry you want to speak again just keep it brief please all right as an educator what I found quite troubling here has been sorry Shar Alin oan Sher Alin t a ren t for turkey okay thank you um is the kind of patronizing tone that we've seen in relation to the students who walked out that these are some very gullible uneducated ignorant people who are being used by some kind of a propaganda uh that was happening at this encampment and so on you know these kinds of conceptualization of the modern nation state of Israel ATC Colonial aparte are very wellestablished positions in the scholarly literature at this point these are not some Fringe opinions these are not some radical opinions and to call them radical and to use the conflation of the critique of a modern nation state with hatred against a religious community in fact stifles intellectual discussions conversations so as an educator one you know suggestion that I might have is why not have a speaker series an Israel Palestine speaker series invite Scholars from different viewpoints different universities let's have a debate let's have a conversation about these categories we would love to if University sponsor that that would be great and and and the final thing I would say is that to think of these as some kind of Fringe opinions can only come about if one is primarily occupied with or primarily nourished by a diet of CNN New York Times that's not the the you know place to get knowledge and the last thing I would say is one of the most profound moments that I saw at the encampment perhaps The Most Beautiful Moments was that one day Friday evening it was raining and pouring and Muslim Students were standing with their umbrellas as the Jewish students were conducting the Shabbat and then when the Muslim Students in the afternoon were conducting their Friday prayers you had Jewish and other students in faculty uh making a wall to give privacy to the women who were praying those are the kinds of moments that we saw yes there was a moment at which a hisbah sign was there was immediately removed by the organizers Arab Arabia is not Arabic by the way Arabic is the language Arab are the people so we need some kind of basic knowledge about this issue and not to stifle intellectual discourse and debate by conflating the critique of a b nation state with religious hatred that is morally and intellectually indefensible and according to the current scholarly literature thank you thank you and with that um is there anyone else who wants to speak at public comment anyone all right we're closing public comment uh can I get a motion q1 approve the consent agenda anyone Adam second Betsy I know my face it's okay d m Kendall yes Betsy bag wheel yes Adam Beerman yes Mar franceski yes elen harbard yes Susan caner yes Brian McDonald yes Rob Christopher yes consent agenda passes thank you Mr bden uh can I get a motion to adjourn Rob second Mara all in favor thank you