##VIDEO ID:BQpeaNGuOdk## oh about the convention on I'm fine yeah yes yeah no problem e right oh yeah e e okay we have findun e I know what m good afternoon and welcome uh this meeting is being held in compliance with the open public meetings act and is open to the media and Public Notices were duly posted and the meeting was advertised in The Hunton County Democrat and Courier News action may be taken may we get a v call Mr here M here Mr here M mener here Mr Peach m v here M Ryan here m w Dr C here you stand from the flag flag United States of America rep for stands yes um mat we'll start with Communications good good afternoon everyone um we have three parts of our communication report um excuse me the superintendent report tonight the first part is our communication plan overview and presentation you'll get to see a lot of pictures of some of the summer work uh for our capital projects presentation on how Jason come up and uh present that for us and then Mr Tumalo is here to talk about our HIV self report as well um so as you know last year we embarked for about I would say for the the past six months or so on planning Communications uh to look for ways in which we can enhance our Communications districtwide and the beach within each School building so tonight I want to present to the board of education and members of the public some background on our Communications planning the data we gathered the goals that were developed in concert with the communications consultant that we uh used as well as with the um policy Communications committee and then a timeline for impementation so I'll start with a little bit of background just one slide here uh we investigated ways to enhance our Communications and looked for an individual or individuals that can help us work with this communication enhancement we joined a Communications Consortium that is operated by the Haden Township School District and that Consortium consists of school districts like ours and others that all represent this group that work with Communications individuals P trained especially in PR um that works at the Haden Haden Township School District this individual or these individuals I should say work with us to conduct a review our of our district Communications practices our purpose was to seek evaluate enhance and refine our communication methods and practices in the district we wanted to review additional existing Communications and ways in which we talk with the public and with our parents we gathered feedback that we received through a survey that was shared with parents employees and community members as well as focus groups and then goals were recommended um and discussed and as many of the board members may remember we started this about mid year this past year we investigated in PR Consortium excuse me the communications Consortium we identified an individual that had a PR background that worked within the Consortium um and we contracted with her uh to help us with this um overall the background was we believe that Communications is always a goal of the district and is certainly a board goal that is ongoing in ever three every year and our goal really was to assess our current communication practices we collected some data these data were collected via surveys um in focus groups um both School level data was collected as well as District level data all of the data charts that you're going to see that appeared in the communications report that was shared with the policy and Communications committee uh were data charts that were ranked on a scale of one to five five being the highest so I'll just walk you through this first um uh data piece and then I'll let each chart kind of speak for themselves so this question question is as you can see in the corner data and it's School level data so this question was asked uh on a scale of 1 to five with five being the highest please rate your satisfaction with existing Communications at the school level uh so this is overall satisfaction a one being least satisfied and a five being most satisfied so what we were looking for is data this data to show us areas of fours and fives to see if we had good satisfaction with the existing data and where we saw ones twos and threes we dove into some of that information in our focus groups later on so overall some great satisfaction with school level communication when it comes to accuracy of school level communication again um you know over 50% satisfaction is a five about 28% satisfaction as a four so you know add them together we've got folks that are about you know 8% satisfied with the accuracy of school level information or Communications Clarity of school level communication so you can see on a scale of 1 to five this is about Clarity you can see our fives are around 47% four is around 30% again you put it in 70 80 90% range of satisfaction and then School level data on the quality of communications somewhere in the 40% for a five and 30% for four so you see with the school level charts uh we're leaning a little bit to to the right hand side right there our public our parents are really satisfied uh with school level Communications District level Communications is a little bit different um these are Communications that we identified in the survey that come from both the district level My Level Jason's the curriculum office um as well as the board level how often we communicate board goals board initiatives board briefs those sorts of things things and you can see that those first three bars are a little bit more even now we've got more more folks that we're seeing in the three level range where they're no neither dissatisfied or satisfied just kind of neutral and we want to move that neutrality a little bit more toward um the more satisfied with District level data or District level Communications the accuracy of communications um again you know fours and fives looking around 64% Communications are accurate but we see some of those that that bar for the number three which is kind of neutral being a little bit higher under District level accuracy and communication Clarity of communication again we see a pretty even split between a three and four and five those scores and then overall quality of communications again a pretty even split a third for three a third for four third for five so we wanted to un pack some of this information in uh our focus groups so we had an opportunity uh I did not our communications consultant actually met in April and May with various focus groups they included small groups of Board of Education members um the individual consultant came to a leadership team meeting Where She interviewed and talked with the entire leadership team uh without me there parent focused groups uh staff focus groups certificated staff non certific indicting staff is sometimes different depending on the employee in the district they have different feelings toward uh and thoughts toward Communications um and by and large really the good news here and uh the communications consultant shared with the policy and Communications committee that there are many strengths to our district in the way in which we communicate uh we have numerous methods of communications between our Wednesday blasts newsletters uh phone messaging that goes out for emergency purposes we have a lot of different methods to get to our skers the Bron teachers and administrators care very deeply about creating a warm and welcoming School environment for students and families we want to communicate in other words we want to engage with our families and with our community there's a really strong feeling among the employees in the district that we want to do this and there's that's reciprocated by parents and community members where they feel as if the school wants to be involved in the community and there's a strong interest in all of the school district and board level to involve parents and involve the community in activities and initiatives um over and over again I would say that the communications consultant kept hearing how much we want to be doing Outreach with the community we want to be involved in programming have the community involved in programming and have as much of a home Community School connection as possible so the appetite is there and I think that's the the bottom line of our strengths is we want to engage the community in the schools where are there opportunities and these are opportunities um where we can be more efficient we can be better with our Communications tools uh one of them is how can we better utilize our existing Communications tools uh parents in the district community members may not necessarily know but parents know that we do a weekly Wednesday blast which is a great piece of communication a weekly Wednesday blast when you have a child at Three Bridges and then one at holl BR School in RMS you get three Wednesday blasts all of them have different information is there a way that we can make this a little bit more efficient can we twe our process a little bit it's great communication but parents are getting a lot of communication can we be more efficient um can we also create other types of communication like newsletters like Wednesday blast is more for like announcements and important dates but when we share newsletters which is uh initiatives in our district happenings around the schools good news that we want to spread um can we create protocols for different kinds of communications when we want to communicate via you know news and announcements versus a newsletter versus a newspaper article or a TV production um there are some limited methods for news sharing with the general public so we know that our community is certainly made up of parents but we know that there are communities made up of individuals that may not have children in our Ka schools remember we're only at Ka school so even if they are children in grades 9 through 12 they may not be getting uh our our rington news so can we find other news outlets uh that we can harness can we do mailers um can we join with the township committee and perhaps create a newspaper or magazine or something like that to share the good news here at brington cou so where are there other opportunities because the goal under that opportunity is to not just have parents be involved in what's happening in school but for the general Community to know what are the events and what are the initiatives that are happening in the school as well and then where there's opport unities to streamline any internal Communications and protocols and that's within departments in the school between buildings from among the administrative team how can we keep um our employees in the district updated on some of the current happenings that may be be occurring at board level or at the district level um so all of this came down to developing three goals uh goal one overall we we boiled all of our feedback down to increasing awareness about School District activities initiatives and stakeholder groups with all stakeholder groups and the key there is all stakeholder groups so not just students parents and employees but to include the larger Community with our District activities and initiatives um some of well I'll go through all the goals goal two is to utilize communication methods to ensure clear consistent and accessible Communications across all of these Channel CH so as we increase awareness we want to make sure that when we publish articles about our initiatives and our school activities that those articles and that information is consistent and accessible for everyone across all channels that we can reach our a wide audience and then three to continue to build and maintain positive inclusive and supportive School culture so what this comes down to is um our vision for the school year and some examples are creating PR protocols uh and Communications protocols that the district and the School principles follow um as new programs are rolled out as initiatives come up as we embark on some of the projects that we have upcoming for this school year some of these examples that we've talked about in terms of action steps um are using for example the s'more newset which is an accessible newsletter it's translatable it's got accessibility features um updating our Genesis protocols how can we make that more streamlined creating PR opportunities and where we create those PR opportunities with newspaper and other media Outlets using our communications consultant to connect us with more media Outlets as well even the development of a key communicators group certain business owners religion leaders stakeholders in the community that could come to the school district um once a quarter just to talk about what's going on in the schools so that those key communicators who are leaders in our our town and our our community can go out and spread the good news about the district so those are some of the action steps that we've started to work on when it comes to outlining what we're going to do in terms of these three goals and some have already happen if you have children in the district you probably got the s'mores newsletters yesterday and today we every ible and me um we've moved over to the s'mores newsletter so they're they're coming now um which are more accessible implementation um we're under in the process of creating an implementation table of each action step each objective underneath the goals and our plan we're delegating responsibilities to the superintendent for the administrative team particularly the principles and we're continuing our relationship with the communications consultant through the consor to assist us as we move forward with our goals the three goals and all of the objectives are going to be rolled out anywhere from one to three years so not all of the goals and all of the objectives will be accomplished in one year this year it's really a three-year plan and then each of the objectives and action steps will be completed based off of our capacity and our resources and our changing priorities because we know that you know this year we've engaged in some early talks about referendum planning goals one and two have very specific objectives related to planning a referendum these include creating and establishing operating procedures for communicating specific initiatives developing a PR plan hosting the key communicators meetings and open Forum sessions to get feedback from our community increasing accessibility so that everyone in our community can have access to all of our Communications in multiple languages and then across m multiple modalities and we want to continue collaboration with the communications consort Consortium in order to achieve our goals having that person really work with us and connect us with other strategies and developing our protocols for communications is going to be critically important especially as we embark on referendum planning um and some new initiatives that are going to be happening throughout the district over the course of the Year this year and even Beyond um so that that's an over of everything that was in a pretty detailed plan that we reviewed in our Communications committee but I'll open it up to the board for any questions I have a quick question it was my understanding that Readington Township did um contract with somebody to have a newsletter do you have information on that I have limited information on that I understand the same thing that they may be contracting with somebody to do like a almost like a glossy magazine kind of look I don't know how many pages but that there would be spot for Readington Township news as well as an opportunity for school news photographs and things like that so um I have to find out more about it what it looks like when it's going to be published but it's almost like a little said glossy newspaper that'll be that'll be delivered I believe free of charge to every home in r in Township and I think that's the goal to make sure that we can reach everyone as readily as possible quarterly quarterly yeah okay I'll out more information but I've uh talked a little bit to the township administrator about that and I don't know if there's a date for the first publication ready to go I I don't have that information just yet but I have the same understanding which is great news yeah thank you y other questions more to come on Communications definitely going to be a district goal this year um in meeting of the leadership team uh they're they're developing goals around Communications the district and I will develop goals around Communications we talk a little bit more about this as we set some goals come September I think sure is it there is existing Communications that you knowes any way that other community members can get onto those are they limited to just parents or can we have a you know sign up for other MERS I have to do more investigation on this um so anybody in order to get our Genesis blasts um my understanding is that you have to be connected with a child in the district in order to have an email associated with Genesis um and that's how we generally communicate we'll do our Genesis blast whether it's the Wednesday blast or whether it's just any kind of announcement from my office or a principal's office it goes out me Genesis what we have to investigate is is there a way for a member of our community to sign up to get those news those Genesis blasts just as a member of the community or is there a work around that we can do that same thing with the s'more my s'more newsletter um after this board meeting you'll see in the coming days the board briefs will go out via a s'more as well there's a way to subscribe to those s'mores newsletters but we also would have to when we send it out be able to identify who those email addresses are to create thater there's got to be a way to do it Caroline there has to be just have to figure out the pathway to do it to make it efficient and um efficient and not too burdensome on anybody to be typing in email addresses or anything like that we just have to do with efficiency and purpose purposefully so is that something that's currently being looked at or part of the plan yeah it's part of the plan definitely is a part of the plan is trying to figure out a way to have someone who's not doesn't have a child in the district that could go to a website or go somewhere sign up to receive our newsletters and have that email address associated with some sort of platform that we use to push those Le letters out so it's under investigation you know what the percentages of Township residents who have kids in the district vers SE I have anecdotal information I'm not sure how accurate it is but I think it's like a more like a 40 60 split like 40% have kids in the district and0 Jason do you have any any better information than that yeah I think we talked about that with uh when ring news was around in Township when we were collaborating with them it's about that um you know so there's a large amount of population doesn't have kids in school so the question is how to reach that large population 16% is pretty significant you want to be able to reach those folks it it's about that don't call me on questions anything else I'll invite Jason up to um help me present the projects that we embarked on over this summer um each August we' like to show you where we are when it comes to our um Capital project updates all the work that we've been engaged in this summer um so I'll I'll move out of the way actually I'll have Jason start us off um most of this is just fun pictures for you to see of the work that's happened uh to our facilities we always have this constant goal of making our facilities as healthy clean and safe as possible and these projects aim to do that uh so to give you some background the board as well as the public on how we determine capital projects um every year as part of the budget process we sit down with um Administration who get feedback as well from um staff on things they'd like seen done in the district uh we compile that list um we also have a Safety Committee that uh does things quarterly that recommends things and then those things are vetted through uh the facilities Department superintendent's office ultimately the finance committee as part of the budget uh which then rolls into uh what you see today um because we need a will finance the projects um and we prioritize them based on what administration as well as the um board want to see done um so not all projects make it um but we do put those projects that don't on a list for future consideration as well as at the end of the year if there's sufficient money to do some last minute things uh that might be cost effective and by cost effective I need below $40,000 um so first I'd like to thank um the IT department facilities Department um we stole these photos online uh without consent um so um the facilities Department really makes these projects happen um they come in very early to turn off the fire and burglar alarm when necessary weekends to let people in um our projects would not get done on time without them they also do a lot of projects themselves so the the form ing that you see here they end up doing in most of the classrooms when remove carpet uh they installed uh the sinks and other things that you see here the handles on the cavern tree they do all of that work um When contractors um don't they also painted this entire also Our IT department um shout out to Matt who's here tonight um the IT department does a lot of the backend work um they really respond quickly to things I mean uh put an example remember the big uh software thread the Cyber attack that we had recently uh that delay Delta and getting back their running that impacted us that was solved within 24 hours by Our IT department so they are critical for the backend Network that you guys see every day and most of our student learning goes through software platforms now and the internet so the vast majority is built up by the IT department and monitoring so I just want to make sure that they would recognize them how they work um a brief list of projects I'm not going to go through all these but um we do a lot of work and the big things that are going on this summer are the RMS main office renovation uh which includes the school counselors and Nursey as well as the roof above that and new HVAC uh in those offices we actually used to have um wall units and window units um so we're modernizing that making that more effective from a green sustainability standpoint um we also installed um some of the last places we don't have AC is actually the gymnasium the back gy BS that got installed this summer as well and a lot of other things that people recommend the other one that I'll highlight here two is playground enhancements and uh preschool classroom so those are some big things that we doing the we'll go through the picture so um things that have gotten done almost everything's gotten done um the big things that we knew were not going to get done the main office work so the main office work involved species this removal um we are anticipating that to uh be done by January we're way ahead of schedule there um don't tell ours staff um we're hoping to get uh in there earlier um but that's progressing very nicely um one of the big things for that is security that's going to be worked on throughout the school year when children and staff are present so how are we making sure that's secure uh we went through a plan with the finance committee um on that as well as a police department and in essence they're going to have a sealed area um they're going to exit and enter through an exterior wall which is in a fenced in area that has a lock on it they will be contained to that area and all of the access to the building is sealed so they will not be able to get into the building at all um and they would be contained in one area which will have a fence and a privacy fence uh during the school year but everything else will be maintained which means that student pick a drop off won't be disrupted uh as well as the best fuel uh for security purposes um supply chain issues have delay the White House artwork room um I feel really bad for that art teacher this is the second year I have displaced her um out of an art room um so first year we created an art room and we had to repurpose that into preschool because we got the preschool Grant um so she went onto art on the cart for the entire year and she designed a brand new art room with the principal and she will remain on part in the cart for September uh until that room is completed um so apologies to her and then we do software upgrade upgrades all time and that's uh really back in and we do that during strategic plan for lastly solar expansion we've been working on that for two years um I would say we're ahead of the last time we did it which took four years but uh if we're able to accomplish that um that would be potentially at no cost to the taxpayers and we would be 85% 100% Electric Run by solar panels at all four buildings um which would take us off grid um as well as after year 15 uh we would get free energy once we pay off the DPA so warranties for 25 years so we potentially have 10 years of free energy uh so enough of we talking let's look at some folks uh so first preschool um one thing I wanted to highlight we did security walkthroughs with the Township Police all for preschool providers as well as internally just to make sure that uh same level of security exists everywhere um so um obviously private providers do not have access to the same funding that the township has so we had to do some upgrades there and uh we I'm GL to say that we created VES at all for for security purposes um as well as making sure that our protocols mirror what is at their sites um so we are about 95% done with all security at the private providers um officer gilay in particular has been really helpful with that um we've also have another seven classrooms opening the September so that brings our total to 14 preschool classrooms so if you think about that um we had one integrated General Leed preschool classroom this past September we now have 14 this September so we have 13 uh brand new rooms U for pre school um all have the same Furniture same resources have certified teacher and Power in them uh they get to set how we like um but there's training ongoing right now this week for those um some more pictures preschool playground so we use some of the preschool money which by the way is from the state New Jersey not funded by local taxpayers um we applied for a grant for that got that um so we're enhancing our playgrounds with preschool money so we're using State money uh to fund uh preschool playgrounds now I was hoping to have a nice photo of this uh these are actually in crates in front of the buildings right now if you've been near White House and Three Bridges uh but Three Bridges should be done tomorrow White House should be done by the end of the week so this is the brand new Poli School playground that's being done in a fenc in area behind the school so that way the three and four yearolds are not anywhere near the parking lot um complete safe and enclosed with a separate entrance to the building uh Three Bridges this past year we installed a gate around there to make sure that that secure uh then we also had White House and Three Bridges principles along with some um members of the public uh pick out some additional playround enhancements uh to do um so we picked freestanding equipment because it's the best B for your buck um and we can move those things in the future so here's White House school apparates that are going in by Friday and Three Bridges uh two of these are in as of today ATS of them um so the one on the left is not in that would be then we put in a brand new fence at White House schools so the fence see there another fence at hollberg school but this really shows safety want to make sure that kids are not running into an active Park Lot although we're pretty remote whereon is Smartboard so backend equipment we have smartboards going in about eight classrooms right now so one of them in particular was an intervention room that requested that so we have that going in and those are in uh security again uh new doors and swipe access um we do that periodically when principal requested as long as the police prove where those things will be placed um we do have police check our exterior doors all day every day um and there are uh usually one Poli officer for building um so we have a lot of Poli officerent buildings for security um one thing to highlight that probably board is not aware of most administrator is not aware of um we had a major leak in the H Brook sky and uh we've taken a look at it and it's not reparable um so a brand new Skylight is installed um so that's exciting and that basically makes that room super great and amazing it's an interior room we did the baseball fields and softball fields in the spring um and then this summer we finished up with um batting cages so both batting cages just got redone uh by a local landscaping company um which was great uh that we used local cafeteria equipment we do a lot of stuff with the cafeteria backend we use cafeteria funds for that so that's not by taxpayers that's by money that we generated through cafeteria fund which is completely separate and then preschool so we have four private providers people ask how do we feed the kids off site um we prepare everything in this building and we uh deliver daily uh breakfast and lunch to those locations um so you have um device to keep food warm um and to make sure people delivering don't injure themselves we have dollies and we have two lift gate vehicles um so they don't have to pick up anything they just do right to the lift gate lift gate brings it up they secure inside um these vehicles were also funded by cafeteria M um we bought some new school buses um so we do that periodically don't and we train our own drivers um so the drivers all want new buses um that's every want new things we redid the lighting at RMS this was actually a feedback from the state if everyone remember is based on a qac findinding uh they found the levels in the classrooms at RMS were not ideal for super learning but they need to be brighter um so all the Ling in the classrooms is now led and significantly brighter um looks great and the lockers were painted a couple years ago so um RMS is looking very beautiful now and better for education purposes some other things that people may not think of battery backups lose power a lot there was flooding recently um school is no exception we lose power all the time um so we have battery backups to make sure our systems keep running um so our phones keep running so our internet keep rning um and that allows us to make sure that the kids get home safely if there's an emergency um people can call uh it's it's for security reasons it's also to continue Ming planes that keep the kids active while theying the power out which other things School play headsets so this is actually feedback from Principal but also from HSA um they wanted a whole new system to make sure that the RS had a good school to play they worked in a committee figured out what they wanted um and that got installed this summer so that should be available for this coming School Year's play hopefully it works well uh We R did the roof uh hbac which I talked about uh we also put skylights so with the roof we you know we make sure we get opinions from thees and everyone else that's in those spaces they want more natural light so being sto skylights um which is great because um it really confusing space so what's not done I kind of highlighted already first the art so this is what the artor will look like um furniture back order that should really be in September um we're going to plan around the day that install that they need two days to install um and this is what it should look like the RMS nurse Suite so that actually will be done before schw begins and the nurse Suite will be open um however the furniture um will not be available until later on so um they're going to be using temporary furniture that they had existing with District um until they get the brand new fer but they will be in that space and it'll be fully operational and then the big project which is the RMS main office uh I'll put through some pictures here but um this is basically the design Outlet um you have the the security best on the left and main office where we have seating for police officer as well as secretaries so on and so forth big conference room for meeting with parents as well as teaching staff members um then you have the suedes for mental health as well as school counselors and uh principal's offices um storage secretary offices that's all I to share so I was going to add Jason's picture to the end of the presentation because he didn't put his own picture in there um and I think that when it comes to thank yous Jason we owe you a huge thank you because managing construction projects is a full-time job in himself and we manag them very very well extraordinarily all been very successful under you and D's management so thank you other questions oh sorry thank you this all looks fabulous um my question is what is cafeteria money can you just clarify that so most of our projects are funded by our Capital reserves so the finance committee um makes sure that we have ample Reserves um that we contribute to over the course of time so that is local taxpayer money that we reserve planning cafeteria money is generated through sales in the cafeteria but it's also through Commodities we get free food um through the new report um and by federal money through um signing families up for free and reduced lunch the more families that are signed up for free and reduced lunch uh the more money we get and we get a lot of excess money that the federal government has to us because of the families that sign up for that so a lot of our Surplus is really actually Federal money um about half of our Surplus is from the federal government and then we use that money to do things like this the rest is really like cookies and other stuff the more kids buy cookies snacks Waters the more cafeteria money we have so cookie sales are good any other questions a question I do have a general comment I ask everyone to speak up really like to hear Jason you did a good job I you okay thank you thank you [Music] how you doing good to see you so I'm here to um just present um our Hib self assessment results for for the previous year so we we do this every year at the end of the school year we um as a team School climate and school counselors come together and um we just look at our practices and procedures and then we pick some goals for for the following year um so I'm just going to go through if you have any questions so basically the process for determining and submitting the scores um I just want to run it through real quick for some of you for all of you so it's um the school climate meet Team meets together the school counselors are part of that um and pretty much we go through through the self assessment that is from um the state and um we answer each of the questions and determine our scores from there right um from that the data so the data is shared with myself with me and I present it to you and then um I will submit the um final scores to the state um for um final certification which I'll done post that um state of assurance on the website um that's that's pretty much the process as far as the assessment itself right so there are eight components to it eight elements that we go through pretty lengthy um it talks about the first section is HIV programs and our approaches um training on uh the Boe approved HIV policy um other staff instruction and training programs there's a section on curriculum and instruction um on HIV and related information and skills um HIV Personnel School level inent recording procedures our investigation procedures and then finally reporting those are the main sections there's 26 indicators total um so again we go through um and as a team discuss this discuss each of those those elements um the grading scale is 0 to three zero does not meet requirements one partially meets two meets all requirements and three exceeds requirements the highest possible score is 78 um if if we met all criteria and got level got a two in each each um area the score would be a 52 right um so we typically score high so at Three Bridges um highest score was a 78 um White House scored themselves at 78 Hollenberg scored themselves at 70 and rington middle school as a 76 um now each of these score we usually score with in these numbers um and each year it kind of depends will will fall within between 75 and 78 that's usually where we fluctuate um and you know it's not going to be perfect every time right so we're going to pick some goals and and adjust from there um but I think that and and I think you know you'll see too the team agrees that we have a really solid Pro procedure and policy around our Hib um investigations um and our other areas to grow sure always right so that's our score for this year for each building strengths within you know the the assessment itself our programs and approaches are really strong um reporting procedures we have some really great a really great procedure in that way um invest the investigation procedure is really strong and HIV reporting as well some areas for for growth we can this is usually an area that we always find um that that we you know can can always improve on is training right training for students training for staff um this the the state does say um any you know adult that comes into the school um School volunteers um things like that need training as well bus drivers need training in Hib so it's it's finding ways to make sure that we're reaching out to all of those stakeholders and all those people involved um that they're trained and up to date with with the policy and procedures that we have in place so that's always an area that we look to improve upon particularly for next year we're looking or this coming year we're looking into um how we can train our um anti-bulling Specialists which are school counselors and some of the members of our child study team um as well as training um our school climate team in in this way right in in in this in in this work so um typically we focus a lot on the staff um on teachers um and students which is is also going to be a focus but we're going to look more towards providing maybe some maybe getting some outside people to come in and do some specific training to our teams our climate teams and that was a suggestion that came from the the the report the assessment I should say so one of the things we started doing a couple years ago um I'm not going to click on it here I believe it's included in the memo right Dr um is a history of our and are confirmed in JY cases so we've gone back from um the the current one States the the from 2017 2018 school year till now until now um and you you'll kind of take a look and'll you'll see it has cases of the alleged hivs cases of confirmed hivs total number of cases um that were founded as conflict or unfounded as HIV and then total number of confirmed HIV cases um and then we included um at recent in recent years we have the principal discretion piece as well which is we've been doing for about two years um and then finally just a total number of the district right cases that we've had so if we look at the current year 23 24 I should say um we had um a total number of 11 cases for the year um seven were founded as conflict four were founded as hips I hibs I wanted to point out um a couple of things here so with the four that were finded that were founded three of those cases involveed the same student in agressor right so 75% of our founded hivs were from the same student which we you know which was unprecedent for us and we've we' have addressed that as a committee we've addressed that as team from the administrative team as well um on on ways to improve our practice and how we're helping that student as they student moves forward um out of the seven um cases that were found unfounded um we're finding a trend of this of certain behavior that we're going to focus on for next for this coming year um specifically with our counseling lessons um it's going to be um tied into our uh School climate team goals as well and it's on this roasting behavior um students roasting each other um and I think that was a conversation that we've had um you know we've notice so that's a common Trend and that's something that we're going to focus on for for moving into New Year um so contining so that's pretty much the data from the the previous year timeline for submission so pretty much what I'll do is um starting to tomorrow I will enter um all the self assessment scorts from each building um now that we've presented it I presented at the board to all of you um I can submit that date and we can cert get the certification of state of insurances um which I'll eventually post on the website once the state has generated that it usually takes a while them to do that so um that they're usually year behind so what I usually do is I'll put an un like an unofficial document on the on the website and then once the state sends me the official certification I'll replace it that's pretty much any questions thank you so much I appreciate it thanks thank you thank you Mr Tim um and Dr har Mr bone uh busy summer lot of good projects happening and also I know the communication report we're going to talk a little bit more about communication a couple that our go but thank you lot great stuff happened okay we are now open to the public limited to action items on the agenda can we check the chat please no okay all right U moving on to correspondence we did get one email from related to Three Bridges School of placement next item of board action the approval minutes approval of administrative reports can we get a motion to to adopt 1.01 to 1 that's it 1.01 move second car can we get a roll any questions or any any questions at all can we get a roll call please M depent yes M Fury yes Mr VES yes M mener yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes Dr Cel yes pass okay moving on to approval of the minutes can we get a motion to adopt two .01 to 2.02 so move second Caroline any questions call please M dento yes M Fury yes Mr Lo yes M men yes mski yes M ryanel yes okay moving on to finance and Facilities can we get a motion to adopt 3.01 to 3.05 so move second car uh we do not get have a committee report for finance so do we have any any questions at all about what's on the agenda we get a roll call please MTO yes M fur yes Mr V yes Mrs mener yes this bori yes Mrs Ryan Yes Dr C yes okay moving on to edtech can we get a motion to adopt 4.01 to 4.08 so move back second Char and I know we have a committee report for we do and a lot of curriculum stuff here so I will go through as quickly as I can um so the edtech committee met on August 14th the first thing we discussed um we did the curriculum revisions which are on our agenda for approval tonight um trying to think I'll go through those now so for uh kindergarten and fifth grade the math changes were um updated the New Jersey student learning standards the data literacy uh portion of that um there were also updates the interdisciplinary connections and updates on scope and sequence um that was yeah for grades K through five for grades 6 through 8th the updates were interdisciplinary connections and and to align with the um two 2003 I guess um New Jersey student learning standards for math for Algebra 1 and two update to the standards interdisciplinary connections and that includes uh seventh honors and eth advance for Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 is eth honors uh for science K through five and 6 through eight updated inter interdisciplinary connections uh for health Health K to2 3 to five and six to8 updated interdisciplinary connections and uh in six through eight the scope and sequence was updated uh due to scheduling uh for physical education grades K to2 3 to 5 6 to8 updated interdisciplinary connections there are new oncore classes at RMS uh due to the schedule changes this was very exciting and actually I know sometimes curriculum can be boring but please go through and read some of these they sound like fantastic classes to take uh yoga and mindfulness exploring national parks experimental design and inquiry Kinesiology I'm saying that correctly achieving Fitness and Adventure approach Pal's PE mock trial psychology and no passport needed climate culture and Cuisines of the world um so those are all new and exciting uh for gift and talented uh the updates for the um New Jersey of Education GT requirements and revised the chronology of required documentation and the appeals process and then uh the exit process if someone wanted to um uh be removed from that program and in fifth grade there was a few uh revisions in unit two for World Language all the World Language um uh Spanish K through five and then 6 through eight French 6 through eight Chinese 6 through eight were all updated for interdisciplinary connections um English language arts this was a full rewrite because we had the new standards in 2003 come out in K2 the new reading program is reflected in the new curriculum writing and fonics unit stayed the same um for English language arts seven and eight again complete rewrite uh that the you'll notice on the agenda there's no grade six that will be in the September board meeting that one is still being drafted um for the Arts updates to interdisciplinary connections um that was for music curriculums K to2 3 to five we also do have a dance and theater curriculum um and then Visual Arts uh K to2 3 to 5 6 to8 and there were some changes to the pacing guide uh for General music and chorus um for social studies interdisciplinary connections for Math and Ela were updated and then also for social studies in seven grade addition of Judaism review in comparison of religious beliefs to other world religions and also interdisciplinary connections so there were just sure oh okay here um so after curriculum revisions we next discussed the language instruction education plan Mr Tumo presented the district's L which is a review of The District's multilingual language program uh the previous PL two goals included one to implement and design sheltered English instruction training we call that SEI uh to date 50% of Staff have been trained on SEI the district has also increased es ESL Staffing the ESL period has been revised to mirror a special education resource room um and the second poll previously was culturally responsive practices this included better communication with families by translating newsletters and correspondents and also increasing the use of pocket translators uh the new goals for 24 through 27 is to increase participation at the parent advisory committee by adding additional meetings and the second goal continuation of culturally responsive practices to Pro to provide educational support for parents and caregivers an example of this would be uh help non-english-speaking family members access school and Community Resources uh goal three is to identify preschool multilingual Learners and provide professional development on SEI to the preschool staff next we discussed uh the professional development plan Mrs cryle presented the district's professional development plan which is State mandated to be updated annually uh along with the mentoring plan um Mrs kle also presented that our district differs from others in that we have a great buddy system for new hires and we go above and beyond state requirements to on board new staff members uh she noted the district has 25 new hires five in preschool alone this year uh the new teacher orientation is scheduled actually happening this week um the field trips list is on the agenda it's an all-encompassing list it doesn't necessarily mean that every trip will take place uh some trips may be added later in the year I think after field Tri was the HSA fundraisers if I remember correctly um that again is a full list that the HSA provides but may uh other fundraisers may come up throughout the school year and then I think the only thing where items on the agenda um read it if you you have it yes I have it in front of you there was something to note that was going to be on the agenda I think so agenda items are curriculum revisions field trips HSA fundraisers inquiry consultants and district is in the final year of the Strategic plan this consultant will close out the plan and provide a keynote address in upcoming professional development sessions next meeting October 9th at 8:30 thank you you're welcome thank you very much um any questions about anything I don't have any questions but just a comment it's just such an immense amount of work and I Just Want to Thank The District in curriculum supervisors and all the curriculum writers and it's just it's so much that they had to put together together and do and they did a fantastic job so I just want to shout out to them thank you it is thank you any other questions or comments all right can we get a roll call please M depinto yes M fur yes Mr loses yes M mener yes M buor yes M Ryan yesel Yes moving on to Personnel can we get a motion to adopt 5.01 to 5.21 move back second Carolyn and we have a committee report we do so uh we met on August 13 and uh we discuss Staffing updates for the 24 25 year preschool pluss par professional plan the nurse job description uh enrollment updates other Personnel matters and the agenda items are new hires nurse job description and thank you statements next meeting is scheduled for September 18th thank you any questions or comments regarding personel all right can we get a roll call please M denta yes m f yes Mr loes yes M mener yes M borski yes M Ryan yesel yes okay all right moving on to communication can we get a motion to adopt 6.01 to 6.02 move second Caroline we do have a committee report I know Randy is not here Jennifer's not Ellen do you have would you mind reading them you were there do you have I have a copy here if you need it I just make sure thank you the policy committee met on July 29th virtual meeting at 4:00 the first thing we reviewed was stess SMA alert 233 we began our meeting with proposed revisions to policies and regulations as set forth in the Strauss s May alert 233 bylaw 0141 um it was board member number and term the first revision discussed was bylaw 0141 which addresses the number and term of board members as well as the term of board members filling a board vacancy these revisions are straightforward and merly cleaned up the prior language and merely cleaned up the prior language of bylaw it was noted that a separate bylaw 0143 addresses the process to be used by the board when filling a vacancy and is not affected by the revisions to this bylaw um next we discussed uh revisions policy 2200 which addresses curriculum content these revisions make the language of our curriculum content standards consistent consistent with the New Jersey student language standards the revised policy also deletes references to high school graduation requirements which are not relevant for our k38 district we then discuss regulation 5200 which is attendance the committee um discuss the regulation having to do with student attendance legislation was recently enacted in New Jersey to permit students from grades 6 through 12 uh one additional State excused absence each school year and order to attend a Civic event parents of students seeking an excuse absent po attendance at a Civic event must submit assigned written notice at least five school days prior to the event along with any required documentation specified by the district the commissioner of Education will provide further guidance to districts regarding absences for these Civic events one change which Dr Hart suggested to the proposed regulation which the committee agreed with after discussion was to not make it mandatory for parents to provide a written explanation for students returning from a one-day absence but rather to make this optional at the discretion of Administrators the next the next uh policy and regulation we discussed had to do with firearms and uh weapons policy it was noted that these revisions track recent changes to the code and statute Dr har mentioned that these revisions address the procedures to be followed by firearm or weapon is found on a student or on school grounds one member raised a question concerning the language of polic policy which is so broad that it would theoretically prohibit an off-duty police officer including perhaps one of our school resource officers from possessing from possessing a concealed weapon at a school event pursuant to a concealed carry permit the committee discussed the scenario but reached the consensus that the policy should be interpreted to prohibit only the unlawful possession of firearms in the school and thus would not apply to off-duty officers who hold it concealed carry permit the accompanying regulation provides additional detail on the handling of any Firearms School employes come in contact with until the Firearms can be secured by law enforcement the committee then discussed revisions to policy 9181 having to do with volunteer athletic coaches and co-curricular activity advisers the policy states that such volunteers must work under the supervision of a licensed or certified School employee one change to this policy is that volunteers now have to be screened for tuberculosis in accordance with New Jersey Department of Health requirements the Administration has discussed this supervision with our School nurses and they feel that it is appropriate requirement to implement an optional requirement would be to mandate that such volunteers have a criminal history background check Dr Hart recommended that the board make this a requirement and committee members agreed committee members also believed it was appropriate to require the volunteer to sign a hold harmless waiver of claims against the district including for workers compensation claims if the waiver is permissible Dr part is to review this issue with the board councel it was also noted that there might be an issue of who is a volunteer coach subject to this policy for for example if it would include a parent merely helping out on occasion it was agreed by the committee that administrators would use their discretion in applying the policy um the next thing that was up was abolishing policies from alert 233 which was bylaw uh 01 64.6 remote public board meetings during a declared emergency we agreed that the board can abolish this bylaw which had permitted remote board meetings during Co now that the emergency Co regulations have expired we then discussed a advocacy cusac public comment period Dr Hart advised that there was a public comment period for the state's proposed revisions to cusac he noted that the revisions at issue for this public comment period are themselves not substantial and likely do not mer comment Dr Hart emphasized that the New Jersey superintendent Association has been working on behalf of all districts on other more substantial changes to qac that Dr Hart believes are necessary for a fair qac process the committee next had a follow-up discussion about possibly switching to the New Jersey school boards Association for our policy Consulting instead of using stress smme however based on feedback from another superintendent who's District uses the njsba for its policies Dr Hart does not believe that the using the njsba rather than stress SM for our policies would be the right move for our board it was noted that the pricing is comparable the njsba charges 4,800 for this service and stress SM charges 4900 um it was pointed out that Dr uh that Strauss also provides an annual professional development as well as providing a digest with updates on recent case law and Dr har advised that the commit that the committee can further resource the oh my goodness excuse me can further research the issues but that he does not recommend switching from stra at this time the agenda items are bylaw 0141 policies 2200 8467 9181 and our next meeting is set for September 18th at 4 p.m. thank you m does anyone have any questions or comments regarding those minutes guys cover a lot um okay can we get a roll call please M dependo yes M Dart yes Mr loes yes M Menor yes M bori yes M Ryan Yes Yes moving on to unfinished business um okay Workshop we going talk about the workshop and then the goals yeah I I think we'll just make mention of the New Jersey school boards Association Workshop is um in October um we were just talking about it a couple minutes ago we've reserved a block of rooms for any board member um that wishes to attend you could attend for one day multiple days um so we do have our hotel rooms from Harris Jason at some point I don't know we'll provide a deadline via email to all board members if you wish to go there's a deadline we have have to sign up um and he'll take care of registration everything like that but it's a Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday so you can pick come for all come for some come for a day drive down however you'd like to to do it but just a reminder that it's a worthwhile Workshop to go to if you can make it thank you questions about that okay uh the board retreat followup and preparation for September board goals uh I don't know if you guys want to take a few minutes to talk about our board goals I don't know if anyone thought about it uh The Retreat um I forgot her name she was very nice she's been here before uh Judy Wilson Judy Wilson so I think she did a nice job she certainly knows her stuff you know she made it simple um so I thought it was good but I don't know I don't think we we don't finalize anything tonight of course I think we do need to finalize them by September yeah next next meeting so does anyone have any suggestions I jotted out a couple things that uh does anyone want to suggest anything for a board goal or we kind of brought some up at the meeting um I'm just going to mention a couple of things that I'm thinking about and um and you guys can we think more about it and then I think we should finalize it in September the one thing of course we did talk about was um the referendum so to develop a comprehensive list of projects for the 2025 referendum focusing on District needs and educational enhancements um and then the communication plan that Forum referen earlier so that's that's one goal I think was would be a great board goal second thing is going back to what Dr har talked about with the communication plan just supporting that uh the implementation of that District schoolwide communic districtwide communication plan that's another one and another one could be um doesn't have to be but to develop and review Pro protocols for policy documents that have come up over the course of the year just throwing it out there um we have a continuation of goals as always possibly you know a clear focus on academics or we can move the academic onto a regular goal budget parameters and it's always Safety and Security you know ongoing goal right um I did bring a copy of our current goals which we've accomplished as far as as you know you know the the RTA agreement was settled we talked about the data of monitoring progress and um and providing opportunities for does anyone have any any thoughts any other ideas these are just suggestions all right that's fine we don't have to again move forward with anything tonight uh but I think next month we're going to finalize it so if you guys even is this something that we would email between now and then or we just come to the next meeting with how do we do that so the um we reached out to our New Jersey school boards Association gr it's no longer Gwen some of you have been on the board remember Gwen would come to board meeting meetings and she would have us just talk a little bit about our previous goals and then she would have a discussion with us about um potential upcoming goals for the next school year and we would use some of what we learned at our Retreat as a launching point to talk about goals So the plan for the the draft plan for September because I'll be presenting District goals um after meeting with the leadership team later this week um I'll be talking about District goals the board will be workshopping board goals our thought is to start the meeting a little bit early even to accommodate the presenter schedule start at about 6 under the superintendent report have me report District goals and what our vision is the the leadership team's vision is for the year which we talked about even when we did my evaluation back in June you know Communications planning continuing with academics um the referendum and then wrapping up the Strategic plan I think it's got to be somewhere embedded in our goals um but then have the presenter from school boards work with all of you to draft what board goals would be for this upcoming school year um with that I guess just think about what you heard from Judy Wilson last month and what board goals might be one of my takeaways I remember her talking about you know boards really do the work to set up a legacy for future boards future administrations and think about what we can do in Communications a referendum um even something that we talked about was you know protocol for policies right like we don't you know to review policies maybe we can create like work through the year to create protocols that will lead the next board in even better shape when it comes to reviewing excuse me policies um so just a couple thoughts so tentatively scheduled next board meeting starting at 6 on a little bit on the earlier side so that we can accomplish everything we want to accomplish in the September board meeting and not be here past the bedtime um because the later we go the more tired we get um and I think that so come with ideas I guess we no ideas right now come with thoughts that we can talk with Patty I think it's Patty Reese is our new representative from school boards we could talk with her about will they be finalized then that night so chances are what happen is the process would be September everything is discussed and presented and then under administrative report reports on the October board meeting um would be just adoption of the board goals and then by October if we at least had them in draft form by the October committee meetings for each committee then you and I would work with Jason we would assign like a referendum goal that belongs to finance like Finance would really earn that goal like a Communications goal would fall under policy Communications committee academic scho would be assigned to Ed Tech and we would sign a committee to just periodically check in how we're making progress to the goal so goal discussion in September goal adoption in October everything's going on committee agendas by October for us to start monitoring our progress okay they're both busy meetings September and October are busy meetings because it's goal setting for September and then uh October is all of the assessment data that we present as well so we start that meeting at 600 as well is everyone okay starting at 6 next month yes all right will that go out um will that just be the official Timeout on the on the agenda we say six yeah we'll advertise in two newspapers up websites so on because right now it says seven so we'll officially change it to six and that great thank you all right um does anyone have any questions about that board goals no please think about it like we said and we'll see how September goes so thank you thank you for thinking about it I'll just mention Dr C there's no no harm in anybody in Camille or me to say I have an idea for a gold I'm going to bring up or you know anything you want to you know send to us um so that we can prepare the school board's representative of here are some goals that we're thinking about what however whatever you're thinking of there you can do it re email I think is is my point so okay if anybody wants to email us feel free all right great thank you okay if there are no other questions on that um moving on to new business from the board and there was a green committee meeting so we have minutes for that yeah thank you um so this is a green planning meeting um it was in attendance U Mr Lopes myself Dr Hart and Mr B um this is an annual uh meeting that we have in the summer to set Focus for the coming year our green committee meetings are quarterly so this just kind of sets us up um the Strategic Focus that we decided on for the 2425 school year um um the we are going to focus in three areas they're based on the um three pillars of sustainability pillar one reduce environmental impact and costs our Focus area is going to be the referendum um and I I according to Dr Hart the green committee will be asked to um be one of the focus groups for um how to you know design or different ideas for energy efficient building and recycling of materials reducing waste and then also um the sustain curriculum that the district uses and how to um Infuse the referendum and the curriculum together um so that's the the pillar one focus is referendum and then also the solar expansion um our goal of installing solar and all fource schols which Mr B had said was 're moving forward uh pillar two improve the health and wellness of schools student and staff our focus is on the communication of sustainability projects and goals um the we talked about the s'mores but but there's also going to be um a grant that was received at RMS the econ News Rant and it was like a podcast Eon news uh program that students will be reporting out on different sustainability initiatives um also under the communication um the green committee would like to see inclusion in the newsletters with green events and projects um there is a collaboration with the Township's water watch committee for a fourth grade field trip uh so that's going to be new this year so so we want to make sure we uh communicate that out pillar three is provide Environmental Education the focus is the sustainable Jersey recertification this is a big Grant process on the it's due in Spring of 2025 and as a board uh the district does different initiatives as a board we uh could potentially look at some policies for updating like a wellness policy um the sustainability policy any of that those would be board driven um um also under that sustainability recertification uh piloting electric school buses also looking at the nutrition program which is which offers us breakfast and reducing uh the mowing of green spaces around the district property we just talked about those sorts of things um so there's our strategic Focus next we talked about the solar array expansion Mr B gave us an update um he's currently negotiating with two vendors um and we'll send along proposals to that solar ad hoc committee which he has done in the meantime it's U being kicked over to finance committee so that we review the finance um we discussed electric School Bus Brands the district is piloting one electric School Bus has the opportunity to add two additional buses to the fleet and further discussions are taking place around that and then we set all of our green committee goals with our larger volunteer uh committee uh for the rest of the year so we set those for meetings and that was it thank you thank you very much does anyone have any questions or comments regarding okay all right uh now moving we're open to the public for anything that's on or off the agenda nothing came up in the chat [Music] s ex session is like really um okay unless there's nothing else than um a motion to adjourn our meeting can I get a motion to adjourn move back second we a roll call m v yes m f yes mes yes M mener yes M Bor yes is Ryan yes yes thank you thank you everyone should I got your email that next week okay yeah that's fine I was actually um