##VIDEO ID:fE2L3kVImto## thank you um do we have any board corresponden this evening okay great let's move on to superintendent's comments Dr J yes of course I will Reserve most of my comments for our third in our presentation installment this fall in our third and our series since we have our leadership team here with us tonight uh but I do just want to mention we had back to school night last week and it was from what I could see it was really really well attended um lots of enthusiastic parents out of breath as they were trying to get to their uh children's classes I know there were a couple board members in attendance as well um for their children but it was a great night and we had the uh clubs and activities instead of in the cafeteria we actually had it in the atrium so that uh more people would would pass through it uh but it was it was a really nice night we had our peer leaders there helping show parents around so uh very positive beautiful evening that was when you know we even uh made sure we had northern lights going for when people came into the building so it was so it was great but it was it was a really uh well welld designed evening I too will defer my comments until later on the meeting we have an action-packed session tonight uh so Mr sty you have any comments yeah thank you Mr President I'll be quick uh we have an an semiannual School Bus emergency evacuation drill that was held on Friday October 11th at 7:00 a.m. the front driveway in the south building over here we did all of our outout it was it was uh our transport excuse me transportation coordinator Kelly Sheen uh overs saw the drill and it went very very well you great we're honored again to have our student Representatives Sophie and Juliana uh since I won't say it later after you report you're more than welcome to leave more than welcome to stay it's your choice thank you okay so this month student achievement are as followed we are pleased to report that there are 26 commended students in the National Merit Scholarship competition Trisha atanar Edward Deng Tiffany hang Alexander Maloney Benjamin fan Navia vesh Stephanie woo Simon Atilla Jay demon Mia Kang Esme mclocklin carth and ramisi Grace sng okay okay Alpha Zoo Ethan Chan Aaron harat Nora Kuran Ethan Yen Isabella Thomas season we Leo Chen Ariana Hughes Eric Lee Thomas o'conor David vase and Maya wishnia these designations were made based on the scores of students who sat for the 2023 preliminary Scholastic aptitude test the PSAT National Merit Scholarship qualifying test on October 12th and 13th in conjunction with the Greenbrook Historical Society approximately 20 students participated in the Somerset County Journey Through the past as volunteers at Washington Rock and Dr John verle's house in Greenbrook Washington Rock was the site where General George Washington surveyed the movements of the British troops during the important battles and skirmishes in the summer of 1777 a wonderful George Washington impersonator Mr Samuel Davis presented an interesting talk on that period in Washington's Life on Sunday at 1: p.m. it was a great experience for the students now moving on to our school events the belief Club participated in the dunk cancer 3K fun run or walk on Saturday September 28th at 9:00 a.m. thanks to everyone who attended donated and supported the event we raised just over $11,000 all proceeds will go towards the Children's Specialized Hospital we hope you'll join us next year for an even bigger event back to school night was held on Thursday October 10th The Faculty did an excellent job of sharing our instructional program with the parents in the atrium parents were able to obtain information regarding co-curricular offerings and were able to meet the Student Assistance counselors school counselors were accessible in the main office suite PTO representatives were were present to register and inform families of important upcoming meetings and events and Project Graduation representatives were there to reach out to seniors now moving on to our sports update as we continue with the Somerset County tournament for many fall teams um please check the athletic schedule for a complete listing of our home and away events and finally congratulations to our September student athletes of the month mateline CA cheer Caleb abuzo cross country meline DOD cross country Cadence Moy field hockey Braden Kelly football Christina Richardson gymnastics Brady Cipher soccer Alicia Perez soccer Elise henbrandt tennis and Emma jubin volleyball and I think that concludes our student report great thank you very much appreciate that uh Liz would you like to introduce our strategic Plan update it would be my pleasure thank you so we have about a 2hour presentation plan so you said you like long meetings um so it is really nice to see our entire leadership team and attendance um every single person on this team plays a role in the uh in the Fulfillment of our strategic plan along with our entire staff um and everyone here has taken a leadership role and our former director of special services Michelle dreamer was the co-chair for one of our goals and Amita swii uh who does our um overseas our structured learning experience program uh and as well as some of as a special ed teacher for the district uh has taken over that role with Steve sefos for one of our strategic plan goals so you'll see her presenting tonight she is no stranger to presenting for the board because she has come with groups of students before to actually speak about some of our um peer uh uh peer Outreach thank you I knew it wasn't peer leadership I knew it wasn't peer coaching our peer Outreach courses um as well as our structured learning experience and that is fits um it's a key uh Port part of one of our goals so she's going to speak specifically about that and she was uh very eager and enthusiastic to to join the co-chair team for the Strategic plan so we're happy to have her here as well uh so we'll get started with the presentation and you can go forward um two slides the first slide is just uh after this one is just an overview of our goals and I did copy the correct presentation in your folders for you tonight so you can look at that one little so Bill doesn't have to run out to The copier and make copies um so as a reminder I think everyone's pretty pretty familiar with our four strategic plan goals by now uh the first one focused around social emotional growth and wellness the second one around Pathways to educational success for all the third one around Innovation and our fourth around equity and inclusion and you know it's when you when when you hear what we're speaking about tonight um it should be very familiar to all of you because they're all initiatives um and priorities that we've talked about in committee that we've talked about in Prior presentations you'll see some connections made with what we're presenting here and the NJ Sky survey as well as the assessment results so hopefully this will kind of wrap it all up in a nice bow and after our co-chairs present the leaders of each of our departments are also going to share what their areas of focus are this year that are related to the Strategic plan goals so you can go to oh look Lisa for you wo right on the screen um and this all goes align with our cycle of Mr magio learned uh what that stood for tonight so our students are very familiar so this goes along with our cycle of continuous Improvement and people probably get sick of seeing this slide because I include it in just about every presentation we do just to remind us that even though we're nearing the end of the Strategic plan it just means we're starting the cycle again uh because there is always work to be done because we can always work to be better tomorrow than we are today and we hope that our students um really Embrace that that mindset from now through life so without further Ado that should bring us to I believe our first goal our social emotional growth and wellness focused goal and Mr Jason Sabino is here to speak on that thank you superintendent jitt good evening board and good to see everybody again so for uh tonight's presentation I'm going to focus on a couple different things but as Liz mentioned these connect together to a lot of what was discussed at the last meeting in regards to the school climate so that's no exception for this school with the social emotional growth and wellness we've been doing a lot with this school over the last five years but things to highlight for this year uh are all related to things I've discussed before so um the school counselors are continuing to enhance the Professional Services they provide while working to align their practices their delivery with the American School counsel Association National model I've spoken about that in the past uh but this year just to give specifics we the school counselors uh worked on developing curriculum which was approved by the board uh to deliver lesson plans to students in nth and 10th grade we just had a chance to have them deliver it during the PSAT day for the nth graders and that lesson plan was aligned with students getting involved transitioning healthily to high school identifying their strength ranks and areas of interest and tying that to Athletics co-curriculars academics that are offered here at Watchung Hills so they can start off as strong as they can this year and continue into success in their years ahead um we also have developed uh lesson planning and details for 10th grades which is going to is focus on Pathways to success which again ties nicely to the to the other strategic plan goal tonight uh and that will be us focusing on Career exploration and specifically in new and emerging fields um Additionally the plan speaks to the the counselor has worked on annual student outcome goal plans which is uh specific plans for individual students or groups of their students on their on their case loads that they may need to identify each year that may need some additional support in this space uh so each year the school counselors work on identifying a group of their students that they really want to focus in on and and measuring the impact of the support they're providing that year uh additionally we spoke at length last meeting of regards to the specifics of the school climate survey uh we also provided um professional development for the staff over during the opening days uh aligned with the multi-tiered system of support model so educating the staff on how they can utilize that and what exactly we offer here in the school to provide support outside the classroom and then speaking more specifically on strategies they could use in the classroom to provide uh support to their diverse Learners in the classes uh additionally we have provided uh trainings for the staff in areas of crisis team management uh this this these during these opening days and also on the new mandates for Behavioral threat assessments when they when needed and just uh yester yesterday at the uh the the the PD yesterday um Miss Michelle pagot from our Rucker school-based clinicians she presented on the QPR model which is suicide prevention model uh designed for teachers and all staff to be able to identify any concerns for staff uh for for student students or staff and be able to identify and Link them with support uh that's similar to like a model in regards to the CPR or heick it's really to be designed for anybody that that doesn't have any background or formal training in providing uh counseling or services to identify any students or individuals who may be in need of support and really making sure that they can get linked to that professional support that they need so we'll continue to do training on that and I spoke with Miss Carol yesterday about potentially more training we can do in that regard into next year uh but that's also part of this goal as well uh finally We are continuing to provide uh a alignment to considering for this next 25 26 school year about more opportunities for our ninth grade students to have support inter via interdisciplinary teams as they enter nth grade and we'll be speaking a bit about that with the supervisors and the rest of the administrative team and this this year ahead to figure out ways that we could identify ways for uh students to be even more supported as they start 9th grade here at wat young Hill in the years ahead thank you very much next up we have our gold oh yes I'm sorry I tried to take out all the acronyms apologize the fourth bullet BT that's a behavioral threat assessment teams so that's a requirement a new requirement from the state last year um that we work to add to our crisis plans when we have to identify students that may be presenting of needing more support due to potential threats to the school and that's the acronym that the state uses for that no problem any other questions for me all right thank you very much and Steve I'm on up I have to say I will be stronger tomorrow than I am today because I drafted Mr Wiki off the uh off the waiver wire and she's uh as Miss jid said uh she is filling in for departed Michelle darer who's now at Montgomery Township I think the best part about this is that a lot of our goal just coincidentally has to do with a lot of what AM does with our population anyway so it really was a pretty easy selection and am was happy to to join me um the first thing would be our career program is going to be greatly enhanced uh basically these are these are uh uh opportunities for not only uh classified students but for regular ed students as well where they're going to go out into the community and uh we get to monitor their progress and their occupation out in the community so I'll let amida explain a little bit more about how that works absolutely um I just want to thank Dr jitt and the board for this opportunity um so one of the many roles that I do here at watchong Hills as our school's transition coordinator is I get to oversee two of our career programs uh one of them is uh was previously known as uh structured learning experience SLE um it's now referred to wbl work-based learning and um that's an opportunity for our students in the carage program who may need um the additional support to have access to a job coach and to go out into the community um we're local to the community so we um we get to visit our local shoppr here in Sterling Walgreens in Warren in Sterling um we're at Warren health and Racket Club you'll see us um at Warren Township Library um and also in-house so we have a lot of opportunities for our students to really get Hands-On um educational opportunities to work on their skills and to network um you'll see some of our students in fact ShopRite was so great they issued um student IDs or um with the shopright logo so they the community has really embraced us um Warrenville Hardware is also a place that we go for work and um I feel like that program has really flourished and we're always continuing to look for more um job sites um the other the other career uh um program that I oversee is uh career internship career internship is an opportunity for not only our students uh with IEPs or 504s but also are uh narrow uh typical students so students who or in the General Ed classrooms who may say I'm ready to embark on the um the pathway for work um so typically students are they are seniors they have the credits that they need they do take their English uh course and gym and then they get to leave at 10:30 that is their privilege and they get to go to work and uh one of the Privileges I have is to visit them at work so we have a lot of uh job sites out in the community again local to um our sending districts um so you may see some of our students at Panera Bread maybe at B Farms um and a lot of our uh businesses that may not all be just retail but also marav um for our Assisted Living um and um we're looking to in the next year expand uh right now our program is we're able to um support 10 students up to 10 students and that's because I do uh site visits along with um supporting work-based learning but what's really um exciting is that the community is really coming forth and stepping up for our school and for our students and we're um excited to support our students to really pursue whether it's accounting whether it's real estate whether it is um you know anything that they want to get a hands-on experience with so we're really um excited to be working with a fantastic team obviously of our admin here um but also just to see what we can do and thanks to the career day that we had and the um overwhelming success we had with that we look forward to working with um the businesses as well for that um when it comes to the career programs we we have a lot um we're looking forward to and the one other um area that we're excited about is our peer Outreach like Dr jitt was saying we have um the opportunity to work with different grade levels with peer Outreach again this is a neuro diverse group so we have students with um IEPs 504s but we also have students of the general education um uh pathway who are working collaboratively they work together they uh learn about disabilities they learn about social skills um when I had the opportunity to teach we focused on Career skills so every year is going to look a little bit different and um this year our class is being taught by Tara Gman um and Susan Huff they're going to be working together collaboratively for this second semester um in infusing an art component which is really great because our students will be able to work together and be able to enhance their skills um handson so we're really looking forward to that partnership and um the opportunity for our care students to work and collaborate with other um teachers in other academic areas um like for example wood Arts our economics classes and um some of our other um elective coures have been partnering up with our students in the cares program and they're really learning a whole lot students are learning how to work with each other how to be flexible and um you know for students who want to pursue education and special education this is an amazing opportunity so we're really looking forward to expanding and we just really appreciate the opportunity so thank you yeah so we do for work-based learning uh we do have transportation for career internship um most of our students they are able to drive um and that's I'm thankful thank you for bringing that up we are looking into opportunities for students who may not have that opportunity because we really want to support them in every way we can just to repeat the question uh into the microphone it was the question was just about this these are for our viewers at home we know we have a lot of them um just Susan had just asked if we provide transportation for the students going out to work I have a question also sure on the internships how are you getting it out to the people in the communities that you're looking for these internships because I don't think a lot of them know that you know you want to really get this program going sure so how are you GNA do that so last year we had a very successful career day we were able to get in contact with a lot of local businesses through that platform worked out very very well and then what a media does is based upon those U successful uh occupations and the ones that the students are most interested and she'll then go around to the communities and make phone calls and uh you know basically support Cod our program and um you know most of them are are happy to uh be a part of it so we're in the phase of just trying to expand this as Amina mentioned we currently have about 10 gen ed students that are doing this because you do need people that are able to do site visits there's guidelines for the state if you're going to a award credit for this of what you need to be able to do so we do want to expand this for our 12th grade students one of the things that we talk about quite often is how we can make senior year more meaningful for them once they're in college and kind of looking Beyond High School um so we we did have all of our vendors who came for career day last year complete a Google form so we have all their contact information so we reached out to them we actually and then we created a Google form to share with everyone whose contact information we had asking them you know would you be willing to to take a student on um for this many hours a week uh for our second semester and you know ask them a different uh different series of questions we also have been reaching out you know to the communities a little bit but because we're only prepared to kind of start small we we're looking to see from those initial vetted folks so to speak who we get um so that we can start placing people and what we had said for this year because we do need to figure out this will be you know a further conversation with the board as it grows we're going to need more oversight than just AA so we talked administratively about doing site visits you know because it's something that's not it doesn't have to be a specific time of day I said I would love to go and you know I'll take a couple and if I because it's I think once every two weeks maybe um that you have to visit so we were saying we could each take one administratively so that way we could start getting it off the ground um but that being said word of mouth is also helpful so if there is anyone you know that might be interested we we think too we need to get it off the ground and get more people involved to get more people willing to do it because I think um you know people are probably hesitant to say okay do I have enough to figure out what to have somebody to do for you know four hours a day or three hours a day Monday through through Friday um you know I think about when somebody wants to come Shadow me because they have to do hours for their certification and when they pick a day I'm like all right what can I be doing on this day so they not just in meetings all day and it's things that they can can actually participate in so I think you know that might be part of the hesitation but as we start to build the program then you know word of mouth will spread that oh no it's actually really helpful to have a student and they don't need to be occupied every minute of the time they're there because that's actually reality where you know you're you're not necessarily doing something every minute of the work day so this is really we're we're really you know on the precipice of trying to expand it and figure out what kind of model works so but any you know any connections any board members have please don't hesitate to share and reach out because we really want to find things in different fields and we're we're also right now in the process of kind of what comes first the chicken or the egg do we find the placements and then match the students or do we find the students are interested and and then try and find their placements so we're kind of doing a little bit of both to see what will work best um but it's a learning process so this is definitely something that we'll I think roll over hopefully into the next strategic plan as a priority and once we start finding students who are interested I'll be conducting uh career um interest surveys just so we can kind of connect them to the right business so that they really get the most out of their time thank you questions thank you thanks so much thanks it's okay you can hold all Applause till the end next up good evening um we are talking about goal three right now uh Andy you can oh that's right I have that uh it's been a long day our it directors having trouble advancing the slide yes I feel so much better right now about my technical difficulty yeah put a ticket in um we're this is uh coming up on year five of the program studies promotional video so we made some good progress last year on getting uh um some of these videos I shared one at the end of last year on um wood shop or um and that Focus uh will you know extend this year to More arts and science and English type programs so this is going to be included on the website in the program of studies and I think the event Mage and the idea behind this is for certain classes especially like the performance type classes where you you know if you're reading the program of studies you may not get the full experience of what is about so having a video even if it's only for a minute or two discussing and showing images and and obviously video of students performing in these classes could maybe interest the student in pursuing that elective um so we're we're continuing with Arts science uh in English uh even like you may say English how how can you you know visualize that there is still a lot of presentation type work that goes on those classes written work uh that could be demonstrated and shown during these uh brief videos so hopefully we'll pick up some more interest in that this year um I'm going to pass it on to Mr flacker here but any questions on that piece good evening thank you thank you for having us here to talk about about this this is a really exciting uh year and time for um for the rest of this goal uh we're we're anxious to to be able to open the the new Design Lab um hopefully you know mid November maybe late November time frame we've planned to um the courses that we're going to utilize that space for the rest of this school year we plan on moving the robotics classes in into that space along with some the uh Project Lead way uh engineering courses to utilize to space throughout uh this school year we also started planning um the uh how we want to the framework for the curriculum that we're going to use to uh that will utilize that space as we move forward uh we have a really um interesting and Innovative uh design for some new classes that we're going to introduce uh hopefully we can get an introductory design course um ready and time for even approval for for next school year and then we have ideas for uh uh second um second semester courses for uh other engineering and uh design uh type of work uh and ultimately leading to uh throughout the next couple of years having that culminate and and some projects and and uh Capstone uh courses for students who've utilized the Design Lab throughout their their time here um we've also been working hard uh uh with the our design thinking action plans uh we just had a successful uh professional development day yesterday where we offered uh new cohort of teachers um an introduction to design thinking uh it was a a really great activity right over here yesterday uh yesterday afternoon uh we had um like 12 more teachers starting their training on design thinking we're working on a second followup um professional development uh work for those teachers along with the teachers who did the introductory class last year we're going to combine them in a cohort to offer um some training on using uh design thinking and assessment how you assess students when you're running classes that way we're planning that training for um Mid November time frame as well so we're really excited to to get into that space and to start using it it's been uh several years of planning and uh thinking about it and now we're excited to have the equipment installed and we're ready to go so thank you there any questions about those action items thank you thank you good evening uh today Miss Fon and I are talking about our last strategic plan uh for goal four diversity equity and inclusion um overall um this goal is about creating a culture of belonging amongst all our students at Wong Hills and we even kind of break it up into two different kind of overarching themes of first and foremost bringing our ninth graders or our new students into our culture as simp ating them and making their transition process as easy as possible and then the second overarching theme is really once everybody's here is finding out how to continue to Galvanize and unite our whole uh community so that everyone feels as if they belong and are getting an experience that they so richly deserve while they're they're here at our school so we have four bullet points up there as I first spoke about the first bullet point is really the different ways that we're trying to transition in the ninth graders to become assimilated and you know involved in our school Community Mr flacker and his transition program do a great job uh we doing a couple different things this year which is our area Focus uh we're trying to infuse a character education program through our flex days uh We've redesigned our flex days this year to be really using home rooms so also another benefit of those home rooms is that it's another time where students get to assimilate with other students that they might not know and it's a they stay with that Home Room their whole four years and they also have the opportunity to you know get another trusted adult because their home room teacher will be the same teacher for all four years so that's another way that we're trying to transition the ninth graders and to make sure that they have opportunities to cross towns if you will to get to know all of their classmates in a lot of different ways if not just through the classrooms themselves uh the second is creating Partnerships between and among students um this is the way that I kind of think about all our different fairs uh we just had a a really successful uh Club Fair the other day that brings together or showcases all our different Fair um all our different Co co-curricular opportunities for our students and it really is what we get to see is right away we see a great increase in our involvement in club so right it's a tangible like you can really just see how that club Fair really impacts our student body and then the other fairs that you know we've been talking about here in in different times is we're trying to a different um academic Fair which is an extension of our steam Fair which is going to really bring in different opportunities for kids to Showcase what they've been doing and to establish Partnerships in their different curriculums and then also just building on the career fair that we had at the end of last year so a new iteration of that coming up this year which will really have the opportunities for students to interact inside the classroom and and outside the classroom the third bullet point just so you know to continue on what was spoken in goal two is the the senior internship program that we're trying to make uh go get off the ground this year there is some overlap of our our goals here this is kind of a case in point um but this is really trying to really make sure that our students understand that there's so much out there for them to be involved in and you know education for years was just centered in in classroom experiences but we try to we're trying to Branch out and show that there's much more to learn not just in the classroom but through outside experiences through engagement with our community as well and then lastly is that we put on there is just continuing to combine efforts with our student organizations and the PCO to increase school spirit we've had a really a successful uh fall season with that um and just one of those tangible uh information data that I thought was really interesting is Miss Kelly told us that our voting for our homecoming king and queen this year was the largest it's been in some years and with declining enrollment it's something to say that our our numbers are going up so it's talking about the engagement that we have within our school and it's something that we're looking to uh continue to build on throughout this year and that is our areas of focus for strategic plan number four any questions that you may have without further Ado I turn the microphone back over to Mr Jason Sabino thank you principal a Miss Fon so for the school counseling goal um I I don't want to repeat too much of what has already been repeated oh I just went too fast there um but a lot of the goals as we've spoken about throughout continue to to to be echoed in different departments here so um much of what the school counselors are doing this year are continuing to work on not only again expanding those programming that they provided in through lesson plans and working with individual groups of students but they've also run groups um for the last few years and we're going to continue to expand upon that this year so what I mean by that is the student assistant counselors and the Ruckers clinicians have uh run different groups this last couple years uh regarding supporting the unique needs of student athletes students academic academic Stress and Anxiety for students who have experienced some type of grief or loss uh for our multilingual learner students transitioning here to watch Young Hills and also it's been quite successful to have a summer success uh for nth graders transitioning to high school so each each summer we have groups of students who come in uh to start starting off here at Watchung Hills and our records clinicians have groups for healthy ways to transition to high school and kind of start off strong right out the gate and that's been very well attended the last few Summers uh additionally we have the Empower program which uh you know I spoke about a lot in other uh presentations that that program is still continuing to to go strong to support students and um some of the groups that they run in that program for students and some of the topics they cover are toxic stress response and how to manage stress the importance of sleep which I I can use that one myself academic and personal goal setting managing a busy schedule and also positive self-talk so those are some of the things that they actually push into the Empower program through our Student Assistance counselors and our Ruckers clinicians to speak to those students who may be having challenges already demonstrated challenges with accessing their learning and and doing well here at watch Young Hills and really they seem to get a lot out of that I've done some observations of seeing the students engage in those in those classrooms and those settings and it's really been great to see the success of that program um everything else I we've already discussed uh for the most part the only thing I I also wanted to add in regards to uh the work that we're doing for the career internship and tying that to the career fair which we're looking to again run a successful one on the heels of all the work that Miss bi did last year on that is to to also be wise in our communication or purposeful in our communication with our students that there are a range of opportunities postsecondary for them so we're certainly mindful in all of the communication that we put out through the district through the counseling office that there is a range of options again we want to make sure they're educated on all of those options and then they choose a decision for them based on knowing what options they may have College of course is one for a majority of our students but there are also a range of other opportunities especially with the the the way things are changing in the in in the way students learn and with AC with um artificial intelligence and all the different ways that there will be a new and emerging fields we want to make sure students continue to be educated on all those different opportunities there is a certainly a trend uh that that is developing where students don't always off go off to foure schools right away they might go for specific skills or and and do some specific training in certain areas well they'll then be able to go right into the workforce while they continue on with our education so we're certainly mindful of of continuing to offer that and we uh just yesterday as our PD we had actually one of um the New Jersey uh ACAC which is the the American Academy of um of school counselors of um academic counselors come to our school to provide an overview on College Trends and different information for our school counselors to be updated on all those those things as well so that's a bit of what we're covering with the school counseling department this year and I'll turn it over to miss Carol for professional learning did it too everyone keeps going to sorry about that thank you um I wanted to speak with you this evening about the professional learning goals um for the faculty here at wung Hills um our first goal is centered around using AI artificial intelligence to enhance teaching and learning so we've had professional development workshops surrounded around AI prompting using AI for Innovative assessment graphic design with AI and then the work with AI continues within departments as well the second goal is um to me um I think the most important um which is engaging in professional learning activities designed to improve student engagement in learning and this is a goal that teachers are passionate about across all content areas within our district so the way that we've approached this goal is to open up a lot of choice and autonomy for teachers to think about where in their curriculum do they see a need for an increase in student engagement in learning so yesterday we had our fourth professional development day and we created a section where teachers were able to if they opted to uh build their own professional development sessions and we had some really interesting groups um that got together throughout the building which really tied the student engagement goal and talking about instructional activities within the classroom to curriculum and some of those were new curriculum that were being um up that were being presented and tying that to how can we use this as an opportunity to increase student engagement or um utilizing technology to increase student engagement and then the third goal is um increasing knowledge and confidence with regard to methods programs and services that promote social emotional and mental health for faculty staff and students so we're very fortunate here and that we do have a lot of resources um and that those resources we allocate for our students but we also use these resources for professional learning for our teachers so we had our one of our Rucker's light counselors Jason spoke about this before provide a suicide prevention training for our faculty um we've had uh Jason present a multi um tiered systems of support for our faculty this year and then one of the most interesting uh pieces of work that we've done related to the third goal um is a workshop that's kind of ongoing and we did it for the leadership team as well as for our teachers um and it's called do what matters most and it challenges Educators to create a personal and a professional vision for themselves and then it teaches you habits such as pre-week planning that assist you in creating a healthy work life balance and really understanding what your work priorities are for for the week and what your personal priorities are for the week um and then in terms of professional learning these are our three main goals but each of our teachers has an individual professional development plan um that they work with their supervisor on they work throughout the year and then we have our professional learning communities where teachers meet um in groups to address a problem of practice does anyone have any questions on professional learning then I'd like to hand over the microphone to Mr Dan Telly our supervisor of the Arts thank you Nicole uh this year the arts department has two main goals our first goal is to uh showcase all the fabulous work our students uh create during the year um we've worked hard over the past three or four years to create student portfolios so every student who's taken an an art class at watchong Hills now has a their own online digital portfolio with all the major projects that they've done in the class in music and foods and wood shop and in the visual arts uh this year we're focusing on taking that work and getting it out into the community uh so far we're doing that in three ways right off the I can think of three ways right off the top of my head uh in that picture right there that picture was taken today our student Jazelle who painted the diversity mural right outside this wall here is uh making another mural along with a lot of the national Arts Honor Society students uh they make proposals to teachers or to staff members on how to beautify our immediate community of our school and they'll be working on that throughout the year right s okay and then uh number two our chorus is already committed to going to Hershey Park later in the here as you guys know uh to get some professional adjudication uh and see other Coral ensembles as well at Hershey Park and thirdly uh just yesterday our um new band director Mr doas met with all the sending director band band directors and the Wind Ensemble has committed to performing alongside with the honors band uh in their honors concert that's here in the pack which is um something that hasn't happened in recent years our second goal uh as a department is to hold our department meetings in our various uh Studios throughout the building we've had many new uh Renovations as you guys know uh most recently in the photo lab uh in the foods lab in um we have a new laser cutter in the wood shop we have our um what El our new Ceramics lab so we're going to be holding department meetings in that those areas and those teachers are going to Showcase some new tools that we have our new facil in our new facilities to hopefully um Inspire some inter uh departmental uh lesson plan um other than that we have a lot of talented students we're trying to get that work out there our teachers are doing a great job uh elevating their talents and I look forward to seeing what they can produce this year I just want to add um Mr Bertelli the the first goal uh what he's been helping with as well is we're trying to utilize our students more for beautification uh throughout the building so one of the um pieces that actually our wood arts teacher is working with his students on is signage so if you notice outside the South South Auditorium when we did the tour did you see the the signage over the South Auditorium doors you used to walk through that space and have no idea there was a a performance uh venue in there so we painted it and now you we have the nice yellow letters those we ordered from a manufacturer but we realized that looks really nice because you actually walk by that space and know what it is so for some of our more unique spaces in the building that aren't classrooms or typical classrooms we have our culinary arts studio we have um our Music Tech Lab you walk by those spaces and unless you look in the door you have no idea that it's a more of a unique learning space or photography lab so we're actually talking to um Mr shower who's who's his he and his students are coming up with some ideas for some signage for those spaces as well as new uh door signs for actually all the the classrooms because they have the equipment in there the laser cutter to make very nice signage um so that's just one example of when we realize we want to do something in the building we're trying to figure out is there a way to actually have our students do it same thing with our culinary students we actually ask them first to cater different events uh small events so that it gives the students practice they can showcase their talents they can try out some things um so you know we're we're really trying to do more of that now that we have more of the capacity to do that thank you Dr J any questions for the art supervisor without further Ado America famous faite hi everyone for our first area of focus we will develop systematic approaches for engaging students and vocabulary and language study we used last year's grade nine njsla results to help us identify vocabulary study as an area of focus last year 87% of our students were on track in their Mastery of vocabulary standards and that's solid performance but we see room to improve we want to see over 90% of our students demonstrate Mastery with vocabulary related standards so we'll we'll focus on this goal by fostering word Consciousness by teaching word learning strategies teachers are currently reading about and implementing methods for teaching vocabulary more effectively and we we have already engaged in full Department uh work learning sessions focused on vocabulary instruction with Dr Emily Meisner from TCNJ for our second area of focus we'll engage students in literary reading as a process of inquiry and meaning making now we set this goal also in response to our results on the grade n njsla 86% of our students demonstrated that were they were on track with literary reading again this is strong performance but we want 90% or more of our students to be on track with their Mastery of literary reading standards we plan to accomplish this by continuing to implement current best practices in the teaching of close attentive reading this year we will also enhance literary reading and understanding by launching a poetry out loud recitation competition at watch Young Hills and nominating our top performer to represent watch Young Hills at the Poetry out loud region for competition we've wanted to do this for a while I'm really happy to launch this program this year got a terrific team of teachers behind it for our third area of focus we'll enhance writing to learn instruction that moves students Beyond on demand writing to longer term writing projects that require revision writing has been an area of sustained Focus for us and one in which we continue to perform at a high level but we want to maintain strong performance in writing and enrich our practice by motivating students to to work Beyond writing on demand our students have a lot of experience writing timed essays and that's important but our students need to learn more about revising and strengthening their work we expect to advance this goal by continuing to provide ongoing individualized feedback on student writing by maintaining Department guidelines to require a significant amount of writing at an appropriate level of Challenge and finally by launching a Writing Center delighted to announce that that we have a Writing Center that was launched in September that is staffed every Peri perod of the day by faculty writing coaches and will be staffed once we train them by student uh writing coaches trained student writing coaches to date we have logged 177 student visits to the Writing Center for individual writing conference conferences and for a quiet supportive place to write and to think thank you Mr dsio will speak with you next about mathematics and business good evening everyone so the mathematics and business department have two uh separate goals that I would like to go over with you may have heard of some of these um these goals uh from the years past but um I'm going to elaborate a little more about them obviously so the first goal in the mathematics department is we're developing best practices for our dual uh mathematics program and our ninth grade geometry College Prep program so our dual mathematics program was introduced last year where we look at ninth graders who are in Algebra 1 with us and uh find those that uh could take two maths as sophomores um both Algebra 2 and geometry and uh we formalized that program last year and early return so far are good and uh we're looking at that and how the students are doing getting input from their current teachers and looking to see if we can even enhance the program in the future last year I introduced uh a little bit about our new geometry n9th grade geometry College Prep program where students who would usually enter in at Algebra 1 are are now entering at n9th grade geometry it's a bit of a change for our teachers uh so this summer we wrote us curriculum regarding this course and um we has special program called The Lunch Bunch with this where the te the teachers uh have a teacher who provides extra assistance for students in the geometry 9th grade program so we're we're looking at those throughout the year modifying it and seeing how that's going hopefully report out at the end of the year with good results excited to talk about the second uh goal which is working with our partners from Desmos and that sounds like it's outer space or something but uh Desmos technology may have heard about this before is an online calculator um that is very powerful and free for students um Desmos is not just a calculator allows you to create lessons uh develop curriculum and this past August we had a specialist from Desmos come in and work with our teachers on developing lessons uh within the Desmos calculator um just recently the College Board has moved their AP program to more Desmos technology for students uh so this is kind of the future of uh of calculator technology rather than the handheld but to have the calculator on your computer also um so we're looking forward to uh working with uh working with with that in our curriculum our business teachers are have also two goals this year uh and one of the more important goals is our business teachers are going to assist in planning and implementation of the whrhs career day uh that we worked with together with them this past Monday and came up with several ideas um where we can help enhance career today obviously the business teachers uh that would go hand inand with a lot of things they do and preach to their students uh so we'll be looking at that and also we're doing an audit almost of the business uh the business curriculum and looking at engaging in some professional learning there and whether we can change some of the courses around uh to more relevant business curriculum not saying we don't have relevant curriculum but uh we're looking to you know obviously go into what's going on out there in the business world and um and see what we can do with our curriculum in the future so uh two goals for each parts of the for each uh portion of the department this here want to introduce miss heidman the supervisor of science no where's that's it I'm I'm enhancing it one cck okay so the science department has three goals our first goal is to design 3d or three dimensional assessments aligned with the New Jersey science standards um this involves integrating three key components disciplinary core ideas science and engineering practices and crosscutting Concepts this approach enables us to evaluate students not just on their knowledge of scientific content but also on their ability to apply that knowledge in real world context engage in scientific inquiry and make connections across different scientific disciplines the 3D assessments encourage deeper understanding and critical thinking allowing students students to demonstrate their learning in meaningful ways this type of evaluation aligns more closely with the realities of the scientific practice preparing students for future challenges in both education and their careers anybody hear the theme going through tonight um we're also going to be implementing a unit of open SED to focus student learning through lessons that revolve around intriguing phenomenon collaboration and problem solving unlike traditional learning which often emphasizes rote memorization uh and individual competition o or opsed uh encourages active participation in real world scientific challenges allowing students to work in teams access open resources and contribute to ongoing research this approach not only cultivates essential skills such as teamwork and data analysis but it also promotes Innovation through projects and interdisciplinary learning um by building a culture of continued learning collaboration uh teaching this way prepares students for future careers in science and equip equs them with a mindset of curiosity uh and focused on questions so we're constantly trying to get students to not only ask questions but be able to answer them um our third goal and this was kind of touched on a little bit earlier is to collaborativ develop a new course sequence for the steam Design Lab um it's super exciting uh to have this opportunity to integrate science technology engineering arts and Mathematics in innovative ways these courses uh will focus on Hands-On Project based learning that encourages creativity and critical thinking and allowing students to tackle real world real world challenges while collaborating across disciplines um we have Cutting Edge technology that's going to be in that space that allows students and teachers within the building to become trained and learn how to use that equipment and really kind of focus on projects that students can um help the school and the community around us as they develop and solutions to their problems uh this interdisciplinary approach not only enhances student engagement and motivation but It prepares them for the modern Workforce where adaptability and creativity um creative thinking are essential through research and design we aim to create a dynamic learning environment that inspires the next generation of innovators and leaders and those are our goals for the science department any questions and it is my pleasure to introduce Miss Anita Bick for social studies so in the early 1700s there was a newspaper report from Boston that said that the Native Americans were going to attack Nantucket and it was reprinted in Philadelphia and reprinted in New York and it was given to the newspapers by an anonymous source it was fake news never happened and yet it's scared everybody in the colonial uh era um because this was reprinted all over so one of the things that we want to focus on in social studies this year is this concept of media literacy and I'm very thankful for all the teachers in the department for implementing this this early in the year because what we are trying to encourage our students to do is to not read the first Google site that comes up we are encouraging them to fact check when they get information and there's a process called lateral reading where they go and say who's the author of this particular article let me find out what connections what company this person works for and hold on there's going to be some bias in here and it's not that we don't use biased articles because sometimes they can become they are valuable if we're doing a position paper or something of that nature but we want to train our students to really critically think which is our strategic plan goal number three and to not simply take at face value everything they see or that they read um so we've had a number of speakers in our department uh several professors from ruers uh Cooney we've had a woman who actually worked is and is continues to work with the state on developing the media literacy standards which don't quite exist yet even though it's a required um mandate they're working on the standards she spoke to us early on and we had a um person come yesterday to talk to us about it as well so we're starting to train ourselves so that we can implement it in our classrooms and it doesn't have to be full lessons it kind of seamlessly Works itself into like I said when I'm going to teach my class this week about this incident in uh in Boston and and and get their reactions to to how people believe the first thing that they read or the first thing that they see so media literacy digital literacy is our first initiative in social studies this year sort of related to that and actually we've had a number of trainings on Magic School AI uh we did find out yesterday that our in the next couple of decades that AI is going to actually be able to read into our brains according to to the Ruckers Professor that we had yesterday which is a little scary but we are taking it step by step and we have a program called Magic School AI it is specifically devoted to schools so all of the there's several dozen different links you can take through this magic school AI it translates it gives real world connections it gives ideas for lessons it's not something that you would substitute for the human touch and the teacher development but it it's being specifically devoted to education it's kind of another resource that we're using so our second initiative is to learn these programs learn what is good and what maybe we don't want to necessarily give over to the to the artificial intelligence so we're going to be experimenting with some of their programs and then finally we are realizing that there are a lot of opportunities for students and Humanities to get involved in the outside community and this also follows our strategic plan and some of the other things that were said about internships in this case what we're going to do is introduce our students to a variety of different experiences essay contest video contest art contest that all relate to something specifically with a sort of social studies bent to it but they have things from C-SPAN they have um the sons of American Revolution and actually last year we started doing this and several of our students won the top prize were awarded at different ceremonies got a little bit of money in the in the uh opportunity as well uh Veterans of Foreign Wars there's all of these contests that are kind of hidden that we're searching for and are going to introduce to our students so that they get recognition for all of their talents as well so those are our three social studies initiatives and we'll see how that goes this year thank you any questions okay so I'll introduce Miss Sherman for special services hi good evening it is very nice to be here with you all this evening um special services is a wonderful place to be continues to be and it's been a warm welcome coming back I want to thank you especially for that Health office the nurses fall under special services if you didn't realize so that was a very smooth move this year um the health office is the heart of our Wellness here for our students and many of our faculty here at wat young Hills the nurses are settling into the um to the new facilities the students are making great use of it the timing couldn't be better we do have students who entered the high school this year with some complicated medical issues um so the facilities are great to have for those students and they have been working the nurses have been working closely with the Athletics office as there are some new procedures for screening for physicals and it's just been a great team effort um as you heard Amita speak about earlier our cares program that team has been meeting they had a great meeting yesterday afternoon supported by the department content supervisors to um really take a good look at that curriculum and their instr instructional materials in the classroom we had to make a significant shift this year in that program because we did have a large number of freshmen who came into the program so some of the scheduling changed which then in turn um actually impacted some of the curriculum and instruction so they're working hard on that and um we as you've heard from Mr Sabino this evening also have Ruckers the Ruckers light program with us working alongside of the child study team and the health office so we have a really nice cohesive team looking at you know to use a very trait phrase at this point the whole child but that is what they are doing because we do have some medical concerns um academic needs and social emotional and they are just a terrific team so thank you very much and um next is Mr Brad cumerford good evening let's see if we can get the clicker to work okay have three goals this year in World languages the first is Foster an understanding of how multilingual education is a pillar of intergenerational learning research underscores the benefits of capitalizing on our learner native language to Foster Better Learning outcomes self-esteem and critical critical thinking skills in general multilingual education promotes inclusive societies and helps achieve Equitable access to education and lifelong learning opportunities for individuals we achieved goal in World Languages by examining cultural practices comparing those practices with our own and tapping into the resource of our heritage and native speakers here at Wong Hills of other languages to get a firsthand experience with Multicultural education our second goal is to create opportunities to develop smart goals for language learning smart is an acronym that stands for specific measurable attainable relevant and time bound smart goals are an integral part of our health curriculum however setting smart goals to learn languages provide an opportunity to give extra guidance to ensure that we are on the right track to achieving proficiency smart goals keep a student organized they help set up an action plan and allow students to reach their goal more efficiently so for example a smart goal in any one of our world language programs would look like this my goal is to move from the advanced beginner level to low intermediate level in conversational Spanish in six months because I live in an area with Spanish speakers I have a resource textbook two language applications and a language exchange partner that I can rely on to help me reach that goal I plan on completing two chapters in my textbook and have one 10-minute conversation with my exchange partner per week in addition I will work with my language applications for 10 minutes each day to improve my skills this is an ongoing goal in all of our world language classes and finally the third goal is to teach students to respond appropriately and respectfully to cultural differences a good part of our world language curriculum is dedicated to understanding how to engage different cultures first keep an open mind even if you don't understand why people are doing a particular thing be careful not to jump to conclusions learn to cope with failure everyone is going to make make a mistake and that's okay tolerate your failure your failure and turn it into a learning experience be flexible the ability to respond to the ambiguity of new situations is very important to Intercultural success keeping judgment Behavior to a minimum will help anyone adapt to new situations maintain a healthy curiosity curiosity is the desire to know about other people places and ideas this personality trait is important for inter Intercultural travel it helps you adapt to new environments and regard others positively the ability to express warmth empathy respect and positive regard for other persons of other cultures is an important component of effective Intercultural relations all three of our goals in World languages are linked together this year to enhance all of our programs and promote World Language study does anyone have any questions about the goals for World languages okay I also supervise Health n PE or physical education our first goal is going to be using problem solving skills to solve Real World Health and well-being situations we all have problems we just don't seem uh that just don't seem to go away easily if those problems are left unsolved person can become frustrated ated stressed or maybe even depressed and feeling hopeless in our health curriculum we focus on the benefits of problem solving to help our students function better at school enjoy more satisfying relationships with friends family and peers and improve self-esteem we do that by talking about real situations that impact our students help them set their smart goals and identify possible solutions to how they are going to get there our students learn to analyze and brainstorm a situation put a solution into action and check on progress by creating their own problem solving worksheets we also are looking at developing character values such as resilience fairness and respect this is an ongoing goal in our health and physical education programs people with strong core values make the greatest contributions have the best sense of self form secure healthy relationships and build strong communities character strengths are divided into two groups performance and moral strengths performance strengths predicts success at school and work they include things like tenacity and grit moral strengths involve qualities like commitment to Justice fairness and Universal respect for others we do this through gameplay sportsmanship and self assessment of skills in physical education we reinforce positive behaviors and examine our well-being and understanding of how citizenship connects us all in our health curriculum our final goal is to educate students on standards-based PE and how they can benefit from it this year our goal is to educate our students on what the physical education standards are in New Jersey why they have been developed and how those standards are applied in our physical education classes this includes understanding personal growth and development influence all Dimension which influences all Dimensions of Wellness how emotional health is part of physical education curriculum where self-confidence personal traits stress your limitations and strengths impact the development of the individual why movement skills and concepts are integral Concepts that will elevate students confidence and lifelong Fitness which requires making Fitness a part of a person's daily life is about creating Fitness habits that support individuals to plan and stay healthy throughout their lifetime our students will better understand what the standards are by analyzing their play set setting personal goals and Performing self assessment activities to gauge their success those are the goals for health and physical education anyone have any questions I think I'm it so thank you for listening there is a okay thank you again I want to thank everyone uh I only wish uh this type of strategy plan goals and implementation work around about 50 years ago when I started high school cuz I could have been somebody again I want to thank everyone for uh all the effort they put into the Strategic plan goals I know it was a Herculean effort it was certainly appreciated and certainly by the board and all the influence that we may have had with respect to it it's a true collaborative effort um the uh again the board is very appreciative we dedicate a tremendous amount of resources to making sure that these plans are or these goals I should say are implemented and just want to thank everyone cuz again it's a great deal of effort and um I know this strategic plan goal ends I guess the end of the school year June 2025 and obviously there'll be new set of goals and some of them may continue and uh again all the hard work that you know the faculty staff and everyone's put into it it's truly appreciative and I'm sure the students appreciate it and it really makes wung the spe Watchung Hills the special place that it is so I just want to again thank everybody okay now it's time for the first first opportunity for public comment note the first public comment period will be limited to agenda items for this meeting only the SEC I'm thank you all oh everyone yeah thank you you're welcome to go thank you very much no one at any point is obligated to stay for our meetings except for the 10 of us and Dr J again thanks everybody uh the students are great the second public comment period will be open for any toic all any topic I'm sorry all comments are limited to five minutes uh do we have any public comments this evening or first round okay seeing none I'm going to close the first opportunity for public comment do we have any items for board discussion seeing none we'll move on to the next agenda item do we have any discussion with respect to the addendum items no then we will move on again uh Mr President I'd like to move items A1 through A14 okay comments or questions with respect to those okay roll call please Mr maio Mr Gall yes Mr Lee Mar yes Mr Morrison yes M obber yes Mr Potter yes Mr trur yes and Mr Burber yes motions carry uh Mr President I'd like to move items a15 through a17 comments or questions roll call please Mr maio Mr Gall yes M Lee May yes Morrison yes Miss obber M trur yes and Mr Burber yes motions carry Mr President I'd like to move items C1 through C10 second okay any comments I'm sorry seeing none Mr maio Gall yes Lee May Che yes Morrison yes oer poter yes shour yes yes and Mr fber yes and Mr President I'd like to move items D1 through D12 comments Mr sty Mr maio Gall yes Lee Mar yes Morrison yes sober cter yes trur yes and Mr Burber yes car now is the second opportunity for public comment again these comments can be about any matter do we have any comments okay seeing none I will close the second round for public comment does anyone have any other business they'd like to discuss Nots it's not business it's just a comment I noce Gregor Riley's here and I just wanted to thank the wha for hosting uh meet the candidates night last Tuesday night and I I have something to say also I just parents are loving the way the front of the school looks I mean they could every you know there's always you hear complaints so when you hear they're like what did you guys do it just looks so nice now our grounds crew will be very pleased to hear that they have been working very very hard on that um and it it was really actually it was so nice walking into back to school night but then we realized when the majority of people came it was dark so I don't know if they could see everything but it it thank you for sharing that because I'll make sure to to pass that along to them it really does look fabulous and just with respect to that uh years ago I had created a paint the house program and because I feel it's very important that the environment that you're learning in and teaching in you want that to be a nice comfortable and a very you know inviting atmosphere and again with you walk in you feel invited again uh there were some comments with regard to the murals that were being painted and the other painting that's been done and the freshening up of the school it's just it's a great environment to be in I mean again you're here the students are here students and teach are here six seven hours a day you want to be comfortable and I I think it is great there's definitely a noticeable difference so certainly appreciate pumpkins out there too if you haven't sorry have you guys seen the pumpkins they're from I want to say they're from something last year where we just threw them out there the seeds thinking that they and uh yeah we have some nice pumpkins right outside the front of the building it's very yeah if when you walk in if you look to the right there's a couple of nice pumpkins coming up right in front of the building yeah so yeah it's pretty cool okay if there's no other business I will entertain a motion to adjourn if you're going to the conference this just there's information in your folder so take it with you very important go that's it yes thank you okay again what Dr Jude is referring to is uh next week is the uh Schoolboard uh convention down in Atlantic City some of us will be there uh it's a great opport Unity for us to take some additional uh continuing education classes or to uh just learn about other things that are going on and walk the floor and see what opportunities are out there and talk to other you know board members from other districts and whatnot and you know having a nice exchange of ideas so uh again a bunch of us are going to be down there and it's a great opportunity is there any other business now I will entertain the motion all those in favor we are Jour thank you everybody have a great evening