FEBRUARY 2025 - ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING

001I will allow the board president to get a started good evening welcome to the cam City School District Board of Education February 25th Advisory board meeting it is 5:34 p.m. the meeting is now called to order please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] if you all would mind remain standing for Lift Every voice and sing um performed by Harmony Brunson lift every voice and sing till Earth in heaven ring ring with the haries of Li y let our rejoicing rise high as the lening skies let it ReSound loud as the rolling Sea Sing Us song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us facing the Rising Sun of our new day beun let us march on till

002victory is one thank [Applause] [Music] you the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or act upon in accordance with the provisions of the act the canas city School District board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published on January 10th 2025 and posted on a district website at www. Camden cityschools.org publishing the board's designated online media Outlet newspapers The Courier Post and the Philadelphia inquire f with the Camas City Clerk and mailed to all persons if any who have requested said notice please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and may be broadcast on local TV and the district's website at

003a future date roll call please board secretary Tor board vice president Alvarez board member kamacho here board member gashaw here board member Garcia here board member Hudson board member Jackson pres board member Merck board member Perez president and board president nandi Nelson president you have quorum at this time we will have our student representative share out so if you could introduce yourself and share your report for today hello my name is Damian nari I'm a senior at Dr Charles Eber Medical Arts High School um so I don't have any like the students hasn't presented to me any issues they have been having with the school um I would say they have requested some things in the area of like the lunch so for um Miss Brown and like the nutrition team they have um asked

004if um they could have the Alfredo brought back his kind of have been gone for like a month and a half so so um yeah and also there was one day where the nutrition team decided to do like a little special thing of having like brunch so they brought like the breakfast that they sered on Saturdays and they gave it to the students during lunch um the students did enjoy that so they would like to see it you know brought back for a second time um and yeah that's all good evening my name is Elijah Vargas I attend at high school and I'm a junior so I have a couple of things to share um when are the trailers are going to be done and repairs need to be done in the school bathroom from

005what I heard from students um weit room if y'all could see if anything we need a weit room in a school for uh students and athletes in the community and also rooms don't have heat or air and any day thank you hi my name is harmony Bronson I am a senior at creative arts high school and I also don't really have much to talk about I think the school is fine um all of our programs are going well um when of the dream is moving forward I haven't really noticed I could be wrong um but I haven't really notic many issues within the students um maybe they just haven't come to me about them but yeah as far as I'm concerned I think things are going well thank you thank you so much to our

006student board reps and thank you for serving um you serve and you listen and you take the uh insight and concerns and the positives of your student um body and you bring them to us so we thank you for for doing just that before I turn it over to um our board president to see if the board has any questions or concerns for the um reps I just want to um quickly from a very high level address some of the areas so Damien from brim thank you so much for sharing your feedback we'll make sure and I believe senior our senior director of nutrition is present Miss Arley AR Leia Brown so we'll make sure that they know Alfredo needs to be brought back and also they like br crunch um so we want to

007make sure our young people are eating and that they're eating healthy foods uh and so we want to definitely uh share that information Elijah thank you so much for sharing the concerns from Eastside High School you are um a student who loves your school as well and we thank you for being honest uh and open with us and so we will take a look into the questions you've provided I can share with you that the the um modular units is what which is what we're calling those trailers you refer to um they are on site and the county superintendent was present today uh conducting a walkthr of those spaces along with um some of our district uh level staff members and so once all of the inspections are complete and once everything is in place

008they will be open but they are wonderful they look great but we just have to make sure certain inspections are completed before students can enter in um I'll look into this the repairs with regard to school bathroom I'll have make sure our team looks into that um you said that there were students who had concerns about some of the bathrooms needing to be repaired that hadn't been elevated to me yet but we will definitely take a look at it to see um what needs to be taken care of um a wait room I will have to be very creative with that so I'm not even going to answer that question now but it's something we can think about but it is under consideration um Dr Walker just shared with me so a wait room for

009student use for the student body use is under consider ation so um it's coming but I can't give you a definitive date right now um and then rooms with no heat and air every day we'll have to look into that because again that was something that was not elevated and I know that air conditioning units and Heating units were installed into the Kramer location so we will definitely take a look and work it out um but we thank you so much and then um Harmony thank you um for just being you thank you for share oh you have a something came to mind as I was talking jump in um so it was is actually when you mentioned the bathrooms um I don't know of course how it is in the guys bathroom but in

010the girls bathroom on the creative arts Wing by the main office we don't like the soap in the um so they put a dispenser in the bathroom for us to get soap from but the actual soap on the sink it's what's the word it's like miscolored and it smells bad and then also were you guys a part of the people who put up the um like the free pads and tampons in the bathroom we don't have any in there like the box is there but it has yet to be filled so that was also the other concern thank you so much we'll look into both of those areas definitely replenishing the feminine products um because we do have those uh in District through our nursing department to do so and then the mcolor of the

011soap and the smell we'll have our um custodian take a look at that just to see what's going on there but thank you so much all right I'll give it turn it over to the board oh one more all right sorry I am so sorry I usually don't do this but um so there is one concern amongst just the senior class I totally forgot is um so our guidance counselor is retiring I think this week and the seniors just want to know what's the transition are we going to get a quick new placement is there going to be someone temporarily in her spot so they know who to go to regarding when College um decisions come out or when the midyear reports are coming out or even at the end of the year reports So

012yeah thank you Damen great question I'll answer Damen then I'll kick it right to you Elijah um thank you Damian for that question I'm going to turn it over to our Deputy superintendent Dr Walker who can kind of fill in um that's under her area and there was already a plan in placee good evening everyone thank you for that question we do have a transition plan underway we will have a part-time counselor who is actually a retired counselor from the district who has agreed to come back through the end of the school year to support the students thank you for that thank you Dr Walker Elijah and I also forgot to mention uh students complain about the uh the food in the cafeteria they want more different food options and I was just wondering if

013we could or maybe depends on how y'all accept it uh if we could bring bring back vending machines for students that really don't eat the school lunch cuz it's like a lot of students in our school really don't eat the school lunch cuz they want different food options or the food is too like they don't like it or they don't want to eat tacos every day cuz mostly every day we see kids eat tacos every day and they complain about that they say they hate eating tacos every day they want something new something different something that will make them eat the school lunch thank you Elijah we again we're taking that into consideration we'll talk with our senior director of school nutrition about that the vending machines um I can't guarantee because we would have

014to make sure that there are healthy food options but I would want to make sure that it doesn't interrupt or interfere with what we're providing but I can say we probably need a survey um from the students so that we can kind of hear what some of the types of uh the varieties of foods that you would like to see so that um we could you know try to be responsive so thank you for voicing that all right I'll turn it over to our board president thank you Superintendent at this time I like to open it up to any board members have any responses to our student reps board member Jackson good evening everyone um as usual I just want to say thank you for you guys coming out and being consistent month to month

015um it's not an easy thing to be here but it is a great thing to be able to speak on behalf of your peers um so just thank you for coming out being consistent and um being you know courageous and Sharing The Good the Bad and the Ugly but we appreciate you guys for being our eyes our ears and being that bridge that connects us to the student body and to ourselves so just thank you guys thank you board member Jackson any other board [Music] members so I just Echo board member Jackson please continue to speak up thank you for sharing um thank you for being a voice for uh your classmates um and we will continue to work with the superintendent and her Administration to uh address the concerns and also you know happy

016to hear that there's a lot of positive or not a whole lot of you know complaints it goes to show um that you know someone's listening and and some things are being worked on so we appreciate appreciate that I'll turn it back over to the superintendent thank you thank you board president and board members at this time we're going to shift a little bit because we have so many wonderful families in the audience so we're going to move to the superintendent report now so I will ask the board if you will transition down to the audience please take the um booklet that's in front of you with you that will be a part of the presentation as well thank you for all right good evening everyone again we are so so very grateful um that

017we have so many parents and students and staff members um in the audience today and we are delighted to provide to you the superintendent report I am superintendent Katrina momes the state district superintendent um and we look forward to honoring a lot of you this evening for the great great work that you have done uh and so if you take a look at the slide that is uh on the screen welcome again thank you for being here uh for our February regular Advisory board meeting this month we celebrate Black History Month and as you can see depicted on this slide are just a few Pioneers in history who have paved the way in many key areas we celebrate the Brilliance the perseverance and the resilience of countless individuals some of whom as I shared before

018are on the slide like web deys Nelson Mandela Dr Martin Luther King Jr Dr Maya Angelou Malcolm X Rosa Parks and Barack Obama but we know that is just a small list of so many individuals who have contributed to the rich history of the black of Black History Month in um our world and in our nation and so again we celebrate that month and before we move any further in keeping with the theme of celebrating those who have come before us we will take a moment to have a brief moment of silence for the three individuals who you see on the screen they are Mr Leon Freeman Miss Renee Duchess y and Mr Leonard Higgins Miss Renee y was a par professional and served as a clerk in our district she was employed from 1993

019until actually October 1st 1993 through November 20th 2015 Mr Leon Freeman also passed away recently he was a former School business administrator and board secretary for the Camden City school district and was employed from September 1st 1972 to December 31st 2008 and finally last but not least we also recently lost Mr Leonard Higgins who was an educational program specialist and former cea president from 1991 to 1997 and former Treasurer he was employed by the Camden City school district from September 1st 1957 through June 30th 2005 and he was also my eighth grade pre-algebra teacher when I attended hatch middle school so these individuals uh contributed so much so let's just take a brief moment to honor their legacy through a moment of silence thank you and so with all of our board meetings tonight we

020are going to focus on a few key topics to highlight during the February meeting and you can see them on the outline of topics right on the slide before you today's board meeting should leave everyone feeling happy because today is a day of celebration for many of accomplishments throughout the month of of February and so we're going to jump right into our rewards and recognitions so at this time we are going to prepare for the perfect attendance award raise your hand if you are here because you had perfect attendance how about stand up if you are here and you had perfect attendance you may take your seats and we're going to do our formal recognition of you at this time attend today achieve tomorrow is our Banner it is so very critical that our young

021people are in school every day and thank you family members for making sure that that happens today we celebrate a key ingredient of our success consistent attendance I am proud to recognize those students who have achieved perfect attendance and those who have shown remarkable Improvement your commitment to being in school every day not only supports your own learning but also enriches our entire School Community we know that this achievement could not be possible without the support of you our fam families our parents our Guardians our loved ones who support our young people every day so please join me as we call the these outstanding students to the stage to receive their well-deserved certificates I'm going to ask our deputy chief for equity and engagement Miss shereé Perry to come forward she will be acknowledging the

022names this is a team that uh this work falls under her team and I'm also going to ask our Deputy superintendent Dr Walker to come forward as well to support me as we administer these wonderful um Awards oh thank you good evening good evening um thank you for being here tonight congratulations could the parents just please stand parents please stand up cuz without you there will be no children thank you we appreciate you sending your students to school every day and on time thank you thank you thank you pet yourselves on the back this is the day we're honoring you as well so congratulations and so if I can have the board members come up so that when I call the students they can just come up and take their pictures I'm going call by

023schools all right and so we already you you guys can go downstairs yep down the steps I'm sorry yep and then the attendance team you guys got the folders to pass out so Dr Walker they'll pass you the folder yeah yeah so you going to do cream first y cream first yep so the first scho School we're going to acknowledge is cream school so if you hear your name and cream um the staff that's here if you see your students please excript them to the front Pelle EK I might be messing up some of them names Amir fairart Muhammad fairart Tyreek please hold your applause to the very very end per superintendent m zon Pernell and Kelly vau go down the [Applause] steps okay and these are lovely students from cream Family School super I

024mean principal Medina D where are you you up there okay great I want you to get in a picture give it to um principal madah that's her student Kelly V give it to Medina Tracy get in the picture get in the picture thank you crean school good job our next school that we want to acknowledge HB Wilson HB Wilson Wardell Bullard woo well hold your applause Delani canra Taylor Chapman jalesa Fernandez Janelle iseria janii Liggins Ariel Little deari Morris Avery pulam Caesar Roberts Mariah truid HB Wilson I think I saw Dr bre love come on down with your [Applause] school Jess come on down Jess it's little congratulations HB Wilson yes you can give it to them give it to Dr bro vess thank you HB roson our next school Davis Family [Applause] School Alan

025aladia Lopez Jesus aladia Lopez urina Angel Ami and I'm sorry if I'm messing up your name my apologies Joshua Manuel igga Aras Frank Eliza Garcia or or Ortiz I'm sorry Randall VI Guzman Randy Randy jayen E Johnson principal montue she would know diaria Maria lla sabriel Olivia Joseph Mato Perez Garcia Warner yandi Ramirez Garcia Adriel Salo aan Emanuel solando Ronaldo Sanchez chicon jonell Santos and Noel Angelo Sarat [Applause] Sarat congratulations Davis I know principal monteu and Davis staff is here thank you very [Music] much yeah they were in order [Music] we going to blame it that on you [Laughter] n what's his name it begins with a Y what's his name what's his name what's his name what is it cuz it it might be house [Music] give the um give them to principal give

026them to principal [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] M thank you principal MTI our next school will be the Martha Wilson Early Childhood Development [Applause] [Music] Center Julia Julia julito I'm sorry it's so small julito Ian I'm not saying the last name Aon go ahead go ahead you signed enough of them I'm not even G to try the last name is the next name Kane Kane Suter Musa green Christian [Music] Butler samage madz and Gina Giani Patrick GI Patrick thank you it's so tiny I can't see I couldn't see I I I just I couldn't [Music] see no the rest of them a big that one was just too tiny this is the Martha will St early childhood development center no that that one just printed out small the rest of them are big and this

027is where it all starts in prek so good job parents great job great [Music] [Applause] job 5 six 78 cheese [Applause] our next [Music] school our next school is going to be Dudley Family School Dudley get ready Dudley so if you're here from Dudley listen out for your name Betsy Rolo aella martines Morales William Victor Castellanos hulio K Tut vilman Cassel chub merma manquin Alana Torres lamino martinz yes Lillian Nan Amia quisada Ian or Ian CA Melanie Santana Jesus vquez Amanda Carlos Garcia Danny lamb or lamb gentan Jasmine kok ji Lopez catlyn Nan or Caitlyn Nan Isabella Rosaria Perez Amelia Campbell Larry cordoro Russell Rosario Daniel Hernandez Vasquez Kelly Guzman Kendrick palano and Angel Vasquez Dudley Family School congratulations is principal Ruiz here here or medalia the FOC medalia yes [Music] congratulations ready our next

028School Morgan Village Morgan [Applause] Village yes M principal Robinson Natalia lacruz De La Cruz Christian andway Rah shamur calina Enriquez Jacob Garcia or Ortiz and Ryan shambre Congratulations Morgan Village in the house congratulations [Applause] [Music] good job our soup is excited look at this attendance attend today achieve tomorrow yes congratulations [Music] [Applause] EST our next school York ship family school yorkship we have es de la Cruz and Rodriguez herreras what's that last name Warz horz hores that's York ship I did good no representatives from York ship okay York ship okay okay next we going to move it right along oh we got York ship congratulations where's he [Applause] at oh she left them home huh it was two kids it was eston and it was um Rodriguez Rodrigo Rodrigo and eston they were our two

029students from Yorkshire our next school we're our next school is um brim Medical Arts dur Medical Arts principal ch ququ we have jovon Watts ion yo and William man Jon [Music] Watts congratulations okay our next scho First Hill First Hill I saw principal stting somewhere all right joanel castillia hriz Rapunzel dond ACO Mina [Music] green Leila Hernandez Hunter Rosado and casir Wilson come on down you're the next contestants of perfect attendance [Music] [Applause] what school does he go to he goes to far still what school does that kid go to right there this is name Joe angel I did call Joe Angel okay and we'll get it to him Jo Angel Jo angel from it might be in another folder it might be in another folder it's on that paper it's the first name congratulations

030our next scho you're up Cooper's point kooper point we have representatives from Cooper Point Roberto ACO Rya bit ahmmad Julius Mars Bruce roselita Rodriguez Jaslin Sosa Janette Thompson and Elijah Thompson Cooper Point Family School come on down come on down congratulations tell the ladies your name [Music] it is I don't see Miss um principal cassella congratulations Cooper's [Music] Point next up we we have veterans family school do we have vets in the house vets all right Oscar oaro Angie Batista Kristen figeroa Joi Hado London mlan Sarah Mao Caba Alex qucha Emil Rodriguez Perez and Joseline [Music] moral veterans family school come on down don't be shy we want you to be happy we want to see you we want to acknowledge you this is a good thing I call him back up oh tell him

031to come back up I'mma call him back up where there give me your stuff [Applause] our next school I'm sorry our next school is C Family School Catt family school and I know we have some people that speak Vietnamese and I do apologize if you didn't hear your name when I called you for Dudley and I think I'm going to do the same thing for Catt so the students that we did miss out on Dudley you guys are going to come up and you're going to get a picture as well cuz we want to acknowledge you and again I do apologize for not pronouncing your names correctly and you're not hearing it so I'm going try it with K and then we'll do Dudley K I have dung high or high dung I have Mong

032and I want to say vend dong dong okay Joanne Fernandez Katherine Garcia Christopher Santiago Juliana Grace Charn delania Garcia Brian Evan Diaz Herz Perez Castillo Alan yahir Tores Alvarez and Empress Wilkerson these are the names that I have for cattle family school so if I have representatives from C please come back up please come back up Empress got your name right Dr Thompson where's the force [Music] wait wait they take a na yeah [Applause] and then we have the par we have the parents of the students from Dudley family school for the students that I missed I'm not even going to try to botch their names up again they are for her students yes but she left from home today [Music] congratulations what school we at creative arts let's do a small school real quick

033let's do es side real quick our next school is going to be Esau High School jusia [Music] Medina I want to say Caitlyn Ramirez Martinez Andrew Wyatt and Jessica Medina and Andrew Wyatt I only know this cuz I check attend this all the time he's been with us since prek he has never missed a day ever ever he has never been late to school and he has never missed a day of school and I only know because we check attendance every day come on [Music] [Applause] [Music] Mom we got big picture I want to do some easy ones right cuz it's only one yeah congratulations uh big picture family school we have one student here Eric bringham Bingham so I don't know if he's here today but I do know that's the one student Eric

034B Bingham is there any student I mean any staff from big picture here congratulations our next school we're going to do rise we have Jaz Marie dogado and Riley Lightfoot Reed I don't know if they're here and then we have Canden High School Nadia I'm sorry Rosa n NAD nadas Emily Romero and shoren Matthews [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] promise said don't forget to announce displaced okay but is it nison nison oh that's my boy Ola that's my body [Applause] congratulations that isent congratulations there you go and he is here every day I do see him every [Laughter] day and then while we're waiting it was um a student he went to the bathroom he's a little one he was a prek kid um from ecdc Martha Wilson ecdc he didn't come up because he was

035in the restroom Musa Memphis green MOA where you at Musa where's he at Musa there he is come on Musa he go superintendent and this is where it starts Musa [Music] [Applause] Tracy and Tracy Trac go ask Jess what was that kid name that have bir attendance Jess here from um HB Wilson that's right parents [Applause] congratulations and we have we have one more school moving right along creative arts Family School if you hear your name creative arts and if you're here please come on down orell Perez raani finess Jacob Roman Jacob mé Benson Corey Wicks oh lamia that's my cheerleader she's upstairs practicing lamia lamia bird maai Robinson oh the band members they over there Josiah Carpenter Ariana Harris Amina Harris Aaliyah Wright Lumpkin they're upstairs practicing all of these students are here in

036the building right now they're somewhere practicing in their um arah Kelly Janiah English AEL Ramirez yamari Gonzalez Deborah or deor right nalene Rodriguez niia Rodan and udesa Ramirez congratulations creative arts he not here okay good who and parents um if you're staying we do have presentations in the hallway for the students who created um things at I want to say Davis Family School the amastan from family Davis [Applause] School there it is and again thank you parents congratulations students and I do apologize if I messed up your name charge it to my head and not my heart congratulations congratulations we are proud of you attend today achieve tomorrow and thank you to my wonderful attendance team and Dr Tracy Thompson for assisting [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yeah he's in the band I know I saw

037them I saw all of those kids I'm sorry and [Applause] [Music] no all right and so we want to thank everyone again as was announced if before you leave parents please take a look at the displays that are in the hallway um they were provided Again by our Davis School students um in honor of the Amistad um Black History Month contest thank you so while our student you can stay right there so while uh our perfect attendance families are exiting out we are just so grateful that they came today and we're looking forward to this space not being able to hold all of the young people that have excellent attendance at this time we're going to move into our next um round of awards and it's also great news um I am going to ask

038and she's writing in place our senior director of school nutrition Miss Aria Brown to join me on stage as we recognize our newest Serve Safe students please exit quietly as quietly as you can okay thank you so much you okay oh thank you good evening Camden I'm going to ask today I like for our Serve Safe students to come on or come up to the stage today we're proud to recognize and congratulate our school nutrition student ambassadors student workers and cak caming youth advisory committee students Yandel Pacho zahira dreaden niana guttin donon Townsen Shamir how sincere how Tory Morris Legend Port Janiah streer Justice streer and vage Wilkerson for successfully earning their surf safe certification this is a huge achievement as we demonstrate their dedication to food safety responsibility and professionalism key skills in the

039food industry and Beyond earning this certification is more than just passing a test it represents a commitment to learning life skills that will serve them for years to come food skills in the workplace in life preparing them for future success in any career path they choose as high school students balancing education skill development and employment is a powerful way to build a strong foundation for the future gaining Real World Experience not only helps with financial Independence but also teaches discipline accountability and Leadership qualities that will set them apart in any field let's celebrate their hard work and dedication and may their success Inspire others to take advantage of opportunities to grow learn and Thrive congratulations [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay thank you thank you so much thank you this is amazing thank you one more

040thank you so much to miss AR Leia Brown our amazing director of school nutrition she is a nationally acclaimed leader for school nutrition so let's give her another round of applause it is because of her efforts and her innovation that our students were able to gain and earn those certifications that is a huge deal and now our last set of presentations for today the New Jersey Amistad project at Henry H Davis on Thursday Davis Family School hosted the first ever Amistad commission's africanamerican history contest making the Camden City school district now listen to this the only School District in South Jersey to apply for the competition the only School District in our region so at this time I'd like to invite principal monu and her team up to the front in order to help congratulate

041our students and again their presentation boards just some of the many Rich presentations are in the hallway but there were dozens more that we had the opportunity to view uh and individuals came down from the Amistad commission the Department of Education Governor team to really um take a look at what our students uh put together and they were the judges and they selected the winners so I need principal monague to come yep if you can come on I'll come down there that way you don't have to I'll come down I'll come down and I'm going to ask principal monague if she would not mind announcing the winners from her beautiful team let's give her a [Music] [Applause] hand Brandon I no it's okay I I know who it is I just am trying to remember

042their placement okay so Brandon Sereno Dylan pet Dylan come on down you here let's go we're our fifth grade first place my fourth grade first place winners they took home the project their project is out there Carlos Rodriguez Lila Taylor come on down they were our first runner UPS fourth [Applause] grade Lea no Aurora Ruiz and Victoria vasqu come on down second place fourth grade right I got it [Music] right yep here you go congratulations Victoria our fifth grade Emma Emma Torres second runner up congratulations Emma first runner up Ronaldo Sanchez Wellington [Music] [Applause] Ruiz Jerel I apologize I have a hard time with jerel's last name but she know I love her and our winners for fifth grade David Lopez Navaro stevenh fawn and Andrew [Applause] Santana go let's give it up again for

043our wonderful David School family congratulations once again can I congratulations great job you all did a wonderful job excellent all right thank you thank [Applause] you thank you so much board members it's okay they're they're not sure if they can take their seats you can take your seats now but I think that was well worth every moment in order to encourage our young people and their families um in those wonderful ways so we are going to transition just to a few slides and then we then we're going to move um very quickly so in keeping with Davis Family School um again that's right they have school pride and that makes so much of a difference Davis Family School last month was honored with the Camden County Middle School of Excellence award that's it the Camden

044County Middle School of Excellence award I wanted to ensure that we recognize Davis publicly today surrounded by your peers students and families this recognition reflects the hard work of our dedicated teachers the commitment of our students and the support of our families once again congratulations to Davis congratulations [Applause] and at this time I would like to invite Michelle paila to help us recognize our second marking period community service students and while Michelle is coming we are so grateful for the partnership that we have with wholesome riches they are continuously improving efforts and coming up with creative ways to ensure that our young people um know how valuable they are and that they are serving their communities as well as receiving so thank you let's give miss paa a round of applause as she acknowledges our

045second marking period participants thank you superintendent congratulations to all the wonderful things that are happening here we're so excited to be just a small part of that and we want to recognize any students and any staff that have been part of the second marking period community service at the following schools Dudley Family School cat school Veterans Memorial School Cooper points School HB Wilson The Rise Academy Creative Arts High School and brim medical if you can come on down if you're here we just want to thank you the FC's and so many others that make this possible uh this marking period 144 students came out for community service they packaged and gave out food to their own neighborhood at their school so thank you so much give it up for them they work hard in the

046cold all different types of and we thank you so much FC's for all of your support we couldn't do it without you come on up here oh thank you it's okay Michael she's going to read that okay all right so we know I think Michelle you said 144 students participated of course board members if you don't mind coming up again of course 144 students participated um and they're not here tonight but the two individuals who are here are representative of all of those young people who have been a part of this wonderful project so again thank you so much and we're going to get a picture get another picture [Applause] take picture [Applause] [Music] so thank you again um and at this time we have invited a few special guests who I see are in

047the room uh with us our partners from Scholastic so at this time I would like to invite um Mr our vice president Dwayne Mard and ter Butler who are going to come forward to share some exciting news with regard to one of our initiatives we know that reading and developing a lifelong uh loveer reading is so very important and so we wanted to highlight this partnership and some of the work that has been done for our board members so you can feel free to come up um Tera and Dwayne feel free to come up okay take your time so just if you want to use you good evening everyone good evening everyone good evening that was a beautiful celebration I just had to call it out you guys did an amazing job it was so

048beautiful so beautiful I'm just happy I was able to actually see it um you'll see that what we're going to talk about is very connected to what you guys just celebrated with the parents if you look right now on the screen you can see that we're going to talk about partnering to continue the movement we want to celebrate the superintendent and staff for allowing us to be a part of this partnership because we deeply care to make sure that our students our children have an opportunity to become themselves but I'm don't have much time to talk so I'm going to try to be very quickly so if you go to the next slide and you look at the district goals you can see that our focus is on how can we partner to cultivate staff

049how can we work together to build home libraries when you think about impact one of the biggest impacts when you think about indicators in how successful children can be you can look at how important libraries are at home and it is equal to how powerful they are in relation to education background to see the success rate of what our children can be think about that and think about engaging families and think about how we can use this to strengthen Independent Learning and that Curiosity that we want our children to have so if we go to the next slide I just want to give you a quick overview of how do we partner with Canden schools as Canden schools takes this and makes it a part of their strategic plan I'm going to go to four

050areas one area is we have a mentorship program that is about experiencing developing relationships through the power Story by bringing the community and the business organizations in the school to actually partner with the teachers and be partners with the students and develop relationships we Pro provide books going home on a quarterly basis so we can actually have a Cadence of habit development of starting these powerful conversations at home because reading those books is really a part of Storytelling and when you read to your child or un curious in relation to that education that's happening in the classroom which supports the teachers when you think about leveraging books to make sure that we can have the right communication so our teachers have resource to have back and forth conversations with the parents so it's not just

051about end of the year or grades it's about let's talk about these books that are coming into school the themes that could be connected to self-awareness understanding the world understanding stem and all the opportunities that that they'll have when they grow up and so we want to make sure that we're partnering in these ways with school districts and Camden's been without a doubt um Stellar in this partnership with us and so I actually want to skip because I want to give terica some time Dr Butler to share a case study that we've done in partnership with Camden and if you look at the logic models in front of you this is looking at a research lens to figure out how can we measure outcomes how can we celebrate successes and how can we look at

052areas to Pivot and become even better so we want to share some of the data results with you and I'm going to pass it to Dr Butler thank you so much do thank you all for allowing us to be a part of this journey and this celebration with you tonight so so I want to start with just grounding us on why we started this case study in Camden and then I'll share some highlights from the study and you also have it um in front of you so the case study um the the the goal was to look at engagement and how to re-engage families as well as um your community members and we took a multipronged approach and so Dwayne described that approach so thinking across all layers in the school community and then Gathering

053that data through surveys so giving surveys to your families at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year as well as your Educators and your mentors who were a part of the real program and then interviewing um Family operations coordinators teachers and hearing from them what they experienced or what they observed from uh the mentors coming into the classroom and children being engaged around reading and we have some recommendations and Dwayne will share some recommendations with you so if we go to the next slide we can hear or we can see rather the caregiver perceptions and so as you can see at the beginning of the year we wanted to know from Families how often did you participate in reading reading events and you can see initially it was 35% and

054by the end of the year it almost doubled and so that speaks to the intentionality in Camden that speaks to the communication that uh focs teachers leaders District leaders everyone came together around this culture of literacy and if you go to the next slide you can also see that the family saw an increase of enjoyment in the home as it relates to literacy and so starting at the beginning of the year 53% of fames said that their children read for pleasure and you saw a 20% increase by the end of the year next slide takes us to the communication process so reaching out to families um calling families meeting with families face to face all around reading and literacy you saw that also increased by the end of the year so kudos to the Camden

055team for being strategic for being intentional around literacy in uh the Camden Community and I want to share this last um quote from a middle school teacher and this just speaks to how middle schoolers um they really enjoyed having mentors coming into the classroom and and building those relationships and one thing in Camden that you all do really well you match your mentors in the classrooms and they come back consistent stly and so it's not a one-time shot these mentors come in the community members are coming in on a regular basis and having uh those Rich experiences with students so now I want to look at educator perspective so let's go to the next slide and we ask Educators so when the mentors come into the classroom and when we think about attention and focus

056what do you see with your students and 78% of them said that because of the real program because of mentors coming in in building relationships connecting with students we saw 78% of children having an increased focus and attention around reading if we go to the next slide we can see the engagement level so it's all about engagement when students come to school being engaged is so um um um important for for our children and so when you look at the mentors being in the classroom and the students being engaged as the mentors read ow to them you can see that 70% of the Educators said that students were either um well students were actually engaged and then 12% so 82% said that students were either extremely engaged or engaged as a result of the mentors

057being in the classroom and sharing that love of literacy if we go to the next slide when we think about enthusiasm so we know when students have that opportunity to see themselves in books books and they also experience a mentor coming in and sharing that joy and that love of reading that enthusiasm that motivation increases and so 83% of Educators I'm sorry 82% of Educators said that the motivation the enthusiasm for reading strongly increased because of mentors coming into the school and then the next slide focuses on the qualitative data so I told you we had interviews and so from the Educators these are some of the quotes that we were able to glean and the firefighters were highlighted the firefighters came into all schools across the Camden Community um also they uh they spoke

058to the connection so that connection that they are making because again they're coming back time and time again and we also saw that even mentors who came into the school for the read alloud they would come back for other opportunities to connect with students so that connection was being the the mentors uh solidified that connection throughout the school year and then students got to see themselves in books that's about representation that's powerful and I want to end on the volunteer perceptions so you saw you had an audience full of parents tonight so when you look at the breakdown of those who participated in real you had quite a few families so you had 24% of your families coming into the classrooms to read and you also had um corporate Partners Community organizations and if we

059go to the next slide we can capture the volunteer perception so this is what the mentors said 100% of them said yes we know we made an impact and we want to come back and we see this um as we prepare for the uh kickoff of real in okay I thought they were giving my time limit uh as we prepar for the kickoff um of real on Friday um we train and we work with mentors virtually and many of the mentors came to the session and I would say about 60% of them were returning mentors they're back and they want to continue to give and pour into the Camden students and they're recruiting people from the community and from their organizations to come as well and then finally we have some volunteer perceptions so in

060this slide again that connection peace is emphasized the smiles the hugs the joy and that's what happens when our community pours into us and when we can Bond and connect around a great book so I will pass it back to Dwayne and oh wait a minute there's one more quote I'll leave you with from a mentor who spoke Spanish and she um gave an example of how when she uh came into the classroom and spoke both languages how that brought a sense of confidence for her multilingual for for multilingual students okay right pass it to and so I just want to close by sharing with you a picture if you can make sure you move to the slide of this beautiful picture which is a quick Montage of some of the visuals uh that the

061community this is basically reflecting the power of Camden and look at the kids the kids the high school students remember they were basically putting on a play of one of the first uh set of books that was going home for the younger kids so basically what we're talking about is a sense of belonging and the best way you can feel like you belong as a child when you start seeing high school students come and show you how important literacy is and you start seeing families come into the schools to show how important literacy is and that sense of belonging is how we move the needle and how we make sure that we multiply that all the pressure isn't just on the school district leaders teachers and FC's it is all of our role to be

062leaders in literacy so I'll leave you with one last call of action or call to action if you know anyone in the community that you think would be interested and being one of these mentors with literacy what we see is a lot of our men are coming out to be a part of this experience and the power of young boys seeing men come into the classroom and read and show how important this is to them changes trajectories so I just want to applaud Camden for everything that you're doing to bring this to fruition and making sure that we're a part of a literacy Journey with you thank you again superintendent thank you both for your investment in our city thank you thank you again let's give um vice president L as well as Dr Butler

063a round of applause thank you for coming to support us and sharing uh and on the next slide you'll see what Dr Butler referenced volunteers are needed um we thank all of our volunteers who've come from um so many sectors of the city to support our young people in being reading me mentors and we know how important it is for our students to Foster that love for reading and so while we're on the topic we want to remind everyone that it's that time again we are still looking for volunteers to join our real mentoring program so if you are interested you can just scan the QR code the information will be provided to our team and I do also want to shout out Miss ebony Henson who I believe might still be here if you're

064here ebony stand and wave I don't have my glasses on if you are here she's in the back okay so she is here she's but she's been an let's give her a round of applause she's also been an integral part of um bringing all of these pieces together and so we are looking forward why do we do this why is it so important um why did we want Scholastic to come and present to the board directly because we know that um unless our young people have a love for reading that we can talk about test scores all day long but if they are not excited and joyful about reading then it won't matter so we want to make sure that our young people have mentors role models who are in love with literacy so that

065they can um instill that same love in them all right we just have a couple of slides um we're going to move to the next slide and this slide just is going to give everyone an update of where we are with regard to um the budget preparation for school year 2526 just the outline of of what is happening so we are a district that is driving to be financially responsible and fiscally sustainable um so again we are working um with on our budget submission under the leadership of our school business administrator um Miss sesa Taylor in the in less than two weeks we will submit the budget for the upcoming year our budget is to be submitted by March 7th which is a statutory deadline and so we know that the budget the governor today

066U presented his um address and he and the numbers actually for each district will be released the state a numbers will be released Thursday and so when we have that information then we'll be able to see um our budget and and we'll be able to move forward and communicate to you and everyone else um what that will be at our budget hearing so we want to let you know we will share more details when appropriate as always when submitting a balanced budget our decisions are always anchored in putting students first and solidifying the district's return to sustainable local control now we'll go to the next few slides just a few highlights um The Rise Academy February graduates Against All Odds they persevered through challenges our students Rose and on February 6th Rise Academy celebrated the

067incredible resilience and determination during their February 2025 graduation their journey is proof that hard work dedication and belief in oneself leads to success and so we are so very proud of our Rise Academy graduates on the next slide brim excels at engineering uh we at the engineering week competition so brim Medical Arts High School took second place at Camden County colleges engineering design competition let's give brim a round of applause I don't think their principal is still here oh yes she is principal tqu is still here congratulations to you and your dedicated staff members for supporting our young people to take second place in this Camden County uh College engineering design competition brims a team led by sophomores Camille Thomas and Ariana Matthews secured second place at Camden County colleges 25th engineering design competition they

068were Guided by Dr Williams and Mr Sharia the team designed a device to keep a marble Al Loft as long as possible for man Tanya Campos and Jess Alex Blandon also played a key role in their success congratulations to our talented students amazing and so for our upcoming events save the date it's important this date is important to remember our Black History Month celebration will be held at HB Wilson school on this Thursday February 27th from 11: a.m. until 1 p.m. we are looking forward to another amazing event as we celebrate the diversity of our Learners and our community and our world next slide save the date last the district will observe the Eid holiday on Monday March 31st this will be a staffon professional development day and there is no school for students at

069this time will'll transition back to the stage thank you for your patience and flexibility and our board president or his design will acknowledge our retirees [Applause] this at this time board member Garcia will acknowledge the retirees thank you board president at this time we want say congratulations on your retirement Nilda Montes par professional a prek 17 years virgin Ortiz custodian C 21 years Kathleen reyolds teacher sped icr 33 years and 6 months happy retirement congratulations to [Applause] all at this time we'll go into our committee reports um I'll turn it over to board president to guide us through that portion [Applause] so thank you superintendent uh we'll start off with our first committee policy and govern [Music] governance no report okay at this time we don't have a report for this month for policy and

070government governance next we'll go to financing operations [Music] we'll give uh board member Perez a second um we met on the 18th and um our goal for this meeting was to go over all the vacant properties that we had and Miss T provided us with a slide of all the properties um and a lot of those proper properties um some of them are in really bad shape a few of them um were um um buildings that had fires and then some of them are lots we kind of focused on one um particular building that was that had a homelessness um problem and um we um decided that we were going to try to seek um um and find um some kind of help for the person that was living there um the one the concerns

071were that um we have to pay taxes that um the cost of upkeep um the demolition we had to uh prioritize the buildings that have fires the um those have to be prioritized for Demolition and um we also have to we also have a problem with the the the ones that are empty that are just locked because they welcome dumping and loitering so those are all those are all a lot of things that we um have to address um there's a lot of properties that we decided we were going to revisit we were going to offer maybe some of the buildings that are empty for to be used by the community um others um we came up with some really great um ideas for like maybe a garden or co-ops um um uh there is

072something that I that we needed to address and that is that um the budget had to be addressed this year and we requested $26 million is what we needed well what we got in return was that 50 million is to be shared by 31 prop 31 different districts so um there's no money so that'll be something that we'll have to um continue to address and come up with some creative ideas um because we still have those problems and we still have to address them thank you board member Perez for that report at this time uh I would like to go to our teaching and learning committee and I believe that's board member gashaw yes um we met today uh in our meeting we focus on ways to um to tackle Student Success so we looked

073at a platform called Panorama education which is a Student Success platform that is designed to help Educators act on data to improve student outcomes so the uh platform form houses multiple areas like student attendance Behavior reports academic reports so you can like easily identify what students are below the or under the Benchmark and those that are um over the platform also houses um results of student and staff surveys a few items that's on the surveys could be like uh student sense of belongings school safety School climate rigor expectations with the data administratives and staff can use results to help understand students needs and once needs are identified we can Implement activities programs and give assistance on the data from each school thank you for that report board member galaw uh do we have a report

074for our Communications committee board member Garcia thank you board president the communication the communications committee met which consists of Dr Walker VP Janette Alvarez board member Cameron Hudson and Sheena yro Communications we met on Friday the 21st to discuss the implementation of a monthly staff recognition program starting in March CCSD employees will be able to nominate their peers to be recognized at our monthly board meetings our first staff shout out will be at the March board meeting thank you thank you board member Garcia and thank you to all that have participated in our uh committees um to make sure that we're ensuring um information and updates uh for our community um and just being involved I'll turn it back over to our Superintendent at this time thank you board president I'll turn it over to

075our account interim general counsel to lead us through the public comments portion all right thank you good evening the Camden City school district welcomes the attendance and comments from all members of the public at its meetings this public comment period is your time to present your comments to the board and the state district superintendent each person who signed up will have 3 minutes to speak you will be notified when your 3 minutes are up and you cannot yield your time to another person when it is your turn to speak please state your name and address for the record and please address your comments to either myself or the state district superintendent please be courteous to your fellow community members and keep your comments within the time allotted so that everyone has the opportunity to speak

076at the end of the 3 minutes the microphone will be silenced and your comments will have concluded please conduct yourself in a respectful manner the first amendment is not absolute and the board can prohibit language that is inappropriate in accordance with board policy 1121 we may interrupt warn or terminate your statement question or inquiry when it is too lengthy if a member of the public speaks about a staff member Interruption may be necessary to caution the speaker of the danger of slander for anyone whose comments or actions harass intimidate or threaten the safety of any person we will provide you with a warning and immediately end your comment time you may request any person we may request any person to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum we may also request

077the assistance of law enforcement officers in the removal of a disorderly person when that person prevents or disrupts a meeting with an act that obstructs or interferes with a meeting we may call for a recess or an adjournment to another time when the lack of public decorum interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting and finally we may wave any of the rules when necessary for the protection of privacy or to maintain an orderly operation of the board meeting after the public comment period is closed the state district superintendent or her designate will address your questions to the extent provided by the law so tonight we have six speakers and first up is Mr Jose Delgado and after him will be gabile uh [Music] [Applause] Gonzalez hello okay uh good evening um I'm going to

078start with a subject that I wasn't planning on speaking uh last year or some year before I came to an event where children were being recognized and at that meeting their names were being butchered the Latino students names you couldn't understand what they were I spoke to somebody I can't remember who it was CU I didn't want to make a big deal about it I didn't want to embarrass anybody so I privately told somebody please have someone to speak Spanish announce their names don't take their names away that's what you were doing I'm not saying this is people were doing it on purpose I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings but please show a little bit of sensitivity and have someone at the podium reading names that can read both English and Spanish names and

079perhaps even Vietnamese names uh second of all um I wanted to report I got the uh the Oprah request response related to the dis disposition of property from East Side High School school I can tell you based on the the response that I got the uh nonprofit and charitable organizations were not informed there was something in there about that the minutes were the information but the event occurred before the the announcement uh so the organizations uh did not receive anything schools were not informed they were not formally informed of anything so the only people that got equipment out of that building was the police uh the fire department and the um uh the fire department and oh and the Dominican Republic um I'm still very concerned about what's happening at East Side High School at

080Kramer Hill those children are needs are not being met emotionally psychologically educationally I know that everybody agrees with that the Department of Education the superintendent have already stated that those children should not be in that school so what I would like to do for the remaining moments that I have is have a moment of silence for the kids at East Side High School who are in elementary school a school that is wholly inadequate to to implement a secondary school education thank you thank you is gabile Gonzalez here and then after her will be miss Karen Luke um good evening my name is gav Gonzales I'm the community outreach organizer with parents invincible and I'm here to talk about today about the undocumented and uh immigrant and mixed status families um I'm here just to kind

081of talk about certain um projects that parents invinci and myself are kind of working in hopes that you guys can also um join us to to uh further um support those families as we realized a lot of the students are not attending schools um and that is a concern that we have as we um we will probably lose um funding and we obviously don't want that to happen and with that being said I came up with a survey that I would like to share with you guys to see um if parents are interested in Virtual learning if that's an option um so that we can continue to also support them but also you know remain uh keep their safety wherever they feel safe whether if it's at home and things like that um as we

082realize like that you know we are currently uh facing a really challenging time um I'm happy to kind of share it with whoever I need to share it with and um strategize I also um am working with the Jersey Fellowship uh the Jersey can and I'm happy to kind of work together and H that we can continue not only um advocating for the undocumented but also everyone and educating everyone in the community on how we can work together um to further support them all right thank you Miss Luke ask her if she can connect with shea year sure with the good evening Karen R Luke uh Camden Education Association so number one um we uh were told at EAD we were going to be at the Croc center through the end of April to our

083surprise the first week of the second semester actually was on the bus with the students and we were went to the Croc center only to be locked out and we're told by the director that there was a proposal made to the board and it was shot down so we had to to get back on the bus and go to the North Camden um Rec Center which communication would have been fine um for the students and the staff that we didn't have to be put through that situation but then we were told in August from the superintendant that the state was partnering with us to help fund The Croc center all the way to the end of June which then was changed to April but now obviously it's not um um so where is that money

084where's that opportunity um communication would have been um a plus in that situation um so now the gym floor is being done at the rec center and we have to go to cat um again there was last minute communication and again if you can bring the people that are most impacted like the fizzed teachers we're great at communicating with each other and understanding the wants and needs and everything like that we weren't brought to the table from both cat and from um Eide where things could have been easily um worked out um lastly last um oh not lastly the Marquee from East Side $24,000 to move it to York ship why why didn't you just move it to Kramer it's eids I don't get that um we had a um a what is that called

085um emergency situation you know the alarm drill like they couldn't hear it on the third floor today that's not good um and so lastly the hiring practices we are not hiring as fast as we can even enticing with $10,000 and we're losing candidates left and write and firsthand information um and I think it's by Design because we have the um long-term Subs that have access to Genesis and Grading our students and you know it's less money to keep them on than hiring these positions the we you rather have these people in those positions at a cheaper price than to have um you know hiring people so again it's you bu all right thank you next up is Alicia figuro and then K Walters and finally hem Pratt that's Alicia Figaroa um hi everyone nice to

086see you all tonight um so I kind of want to touch on the immigration issues as well as we've been partnering um from parents invisible as well as we've been partnering with partner organizations and city council um and I just had a couple question questions so how is the district handling treny amongst undocumented and mixed status students because criminal they can be implicated criminally but how however I don't feel that we should be forcing families to leave their home 41% of the um what's that called of the families that have been sent back to their native's homes um 41% of them were not criminals so I know a lot of people under the impression that they're targeting criminals but that is not true they're just targeting anyone who is of mixed or immigration status so

087I just want to ensure that the agreement between the schools and the superintendent um in regarding to reporting our undocumented families to truen see that that's being thought of my other question is if the district has implemented any social and emotional um Mental Health Resources and workshops for the undocumented students and families because obviously these are trying times we did hear about the story about the child in Texas who took her life in regards to being bullied for IM her immigration stat status or her family's immigration status so I just want to make sure that we're being proactive and we're not being reactive in a situation like that um and and just to piggy back off what gabile Le was saying about virtual learning options I know that there's some obstacles there but I believe

088that if we did do it for the whole school system for covid we could do it for a smaller population of people to you know make them feel safer in their own community and also not lower attendance for our district schools because we don't want to lose the funds and we want to make sure that the top the top issue is making sure that kids are getting their education and parents are not criminally implicated for fear of going outside of their homes so that's all thank [Applause] you thank you is K Walters here good evening everyone um with the new Administration in Washington planning to gut the Department of Education what plans do the does the district have to navigate through the efforts to charize public education in Camden because they've already partially done that

089currently um the phase the phrase students putting students first is the district's montra on recognizing that students are important and I'm I'm saying that to say that I wanted to you know kind of discuss the EMT option for students because we have that option however exposure is necessary for students to really be successful in it and when the student isn't successful then you want them to take a test when they really haven't been exposed enough so would the future agenda add an EMT curriculum to the east side uh student body uh one of our students is interested and is taking chemistry honors statistics and probability so this student is very capable but the exposure on a regular basis is not there for them um so that the district need to add the EMT curriculum to

090the selection I'm not sure what that would mean this is sort of a consequential effort I believe on your part to live out the slogan if it's more than a slogan of putting students first I would hope that that would be more than just a slogan um lastly um I I spoke about the doors to um for a counseling ability for us to be able to counsel privately they are I don't know if they're delayed I know that I was you know said that they were um a kind of a door that would sort of diminish the ability for vocal um or auditory uh hearing so that those doors May specially have to be fitted in a different way so that may be part of the delay but I would hope that that delay um

091is past that part and the doors are on their way because I had a situation last week where I needed to speak with a student however the other one room that we do use we're managing but we don't want to we don't want managing to be normalized and I wasn't really able to speak to that student in the other space available so I had to basically talk to the student in hallway as students were passing as the student to kind of settle down wait till them wait till they pass and then continue your conversation so it's like I said we don't want to normalize that situation with the doors not being available I could have gone into the other room that was available with the door were there and would have been able to provide

092the counseling uh support that that student needed on that day was fortunately I was able to navigate through the issue and we were able to move on so I hope that that would the doors could be you know s you know all right thank you uh hem Pratt [Applause] how y'all doing how yall doing my name hem PR last we last time I was here y'all speaking about a topic that I'm aiming into and that's the uh the problem Youth and the problem that they getting into in school and everything and also on the streets I did 17 years in prison just came home in August in prison we had a mentor program as a mentor and with before Co within four years yall can do the research nor to stay pris one person came

093to jail and another person he had a viation because he was out of state through the mentorship program giving people advice life skills and people coming in giving them life skills and career skills and device that we had our our knowledge that we had to give to these people to help these people to live better this what I want to bring to the community to the youth so they can now go through the steps that went through in jail I was in this school back in the day I had to my name H so I had the biggest ride in the school in 2004 I don't want kids to go through that I don't want kids to go through what they going through right now at home everything start at home y'all giving y'all giving

094them the education in here but at home now they need F the guidance all the kids ain't got no Mom or Dad or or the parents can't guide them so that's what my program want to do we want to guide these kids want get want to give the kids education mity life skills social skills career skills that's my program is aiming to do I got a a whole program I submitted RFP with the um with the uh with the city hall for some for some grants so they can help me to reach out to the kids to get everything established to the kids and I got the whole program lined up I can email it to everybody whoever want it the uh the the the program the module of it how how got everything set

095out and everything I can M it to y'all or however yall want it so we could and I I need y'all to help me to reach the kids to come here start speaking to the kids in the school so they could get whiff of it and also the the teachers the moms as well cuz this I got a team we ready to give our knowledge and our life skills to these kids so they could so they can do right with their life and not go through these violence in school all this bully and everything that they going through and my H PR and thank you [Applause] all all right that concludes our speakers I'll turn it back over to you superintendent thank you very much and um again thank you everyone for coming for staying

096taking the time um to provide your comments uh so what I will do now is to the best of my ability acknowledge some of the topics that did come up those that I can at this time and those that I can't at this time I not acknowledge them um at a further at a a later date and a later time and so Mr Delgado you are our first speaker thank you so much Mr dalgado um for your comments I um would like to uh share um just a thank you for what you what you talked about with regard to sensitivity toward the names um that are called um also we had some Vietnamese names names and other names so we can do a better job um as a district in just making sure that we're

097able to have those names pronounced correctly I know and I heard you loud and clear when you said it wasn't an indictment on anyone you weren't trying to you know throw anyone under the bus um and we all had best intentions but we can do a better job and so we'll make sure um we figure that out um we have our lead educator from Davis School Miss Cynthia Martinez um who had the translation machine and was present pronouncing the names of the students um in Spanish um to all parents who needed the translation but I hear exactly what you're saying for the respect of the name and for everyone hearing um we will make sure that we work on that so that is not a problem um we can figure that out um and if

098you have any um additional suggestions for us please as I shared with you before please let us know um with regard to the over response that you received today thank you for sharing your the information that you did um as I I shared with you um briefly when I only had a chance to speak to you a moment on the phone um we thank you for bringing up um your knowledge of some of the of the policies and as we are implementing some of these policies for the first time um we are learning from that experience as well so with the Eastside High um uh Dominican Republic donation um even though we did everything and and the way that we needed to the the order of operations may not have been um the best that

099it could have been and so um we didn't do anything horrible or terrible or break any laws but we want to make sure that we are following our Pro our policy to the tea and so that was our trial run we never done that before um and we have learned from that and we thank you again for sharing um your for your feedback with us uh and we will um use that in the future as we move forward um when it comes to um the needs of students at Eastside High being met emotionally we do have a school-based you Services team we have a crisis counsel we have Mr Waters who's present um as well as other team members guidance counselors deans of climate and culture um who their main focus and priority is to

100make sure that students are getting what they need but we know um that we can always go back to ensure that we're doing everything possible to double down on those efforts to make sure our young people have what they need so um thank you for flagging um we know there many um opportunities I believe there is um a special I I won't I won't share it now we'll share it at the next board meeting but I know there's a special event that is also happening but on the dayto day we want to make sure that those students are getting what they need um and we will continue to work with the school administration to ensure they're monitoring that Pro that progress um Miss Gonzalez Gabby are you still here yes there you are okay so

101I have to take these on and off my apologies I see you now um thank you for sharing the information that you have it's been very very um it's been great to work with M schools and all of our parents Invincible all of our um individuals in the city city council Etc who are interested in making sure that as we go through this crisis and it is a huge crisis that we're learning and we can provide the best support possible to help lower the anxiety of our um our families and our students who are afraid um right now because of uh the the just because of everything that is happening with the executive orders around um immigration and ice and so um students not attending schools we would like to I would love to have

102the survey that you talked about if you could connect with um sheaa who's our Communications officer um to make sure that we get that information because we would also like to you know collaborate on ways that we can ensure our young people and families have what they need um when it comes to Virtual learning um I think you alluded to this you may have alluded it alluded to it or Alicia may have alluded to it but um we have to get a request a waiver from the New Jersey Department of Education in order to have um virtual learning in any situation but that is something definitely that if there is enough survey result information we can you know in Mass um try to have a different kind of a conversation um with the county or

103the state level so we're looking forward to um working collaboratively and I'll go um to Alicia since we're on that same topic then I'll go back to miss belli Luke um the question you said was asked was how is the district handling treny um among undocumented students we're treating um all of our students and those students as well with the utmost sensitivity um at this time it is not our desire to um have anyone um undergo any l ation with truancy court and all of that um if there if it is not necessary so we have other measures that we um exhaust before going that route um and we are very sensitive to it so by connecting with the school leaders our engagement team just working with your attendance officers we're trying to keep a

104pulse on if that is a concern and finding other ways to help support our Learners in that situation um but partnering on that survey would be very help um and then has the district implemented anyal resources specifically for our students so we try to make sure we support our students in whatever their needs are um and so in this instance with regard to our students who are facing this Challenge and their families right now we we tailor our supports to the students and the needs that they have um but happy to talk more about ways that we can enhance those Outreach efforts Miss barelli Luke ah yes Miss relli Luke um there were a few areas and I just want to make sure um that I have the correct information so we do have our

105twice a month bi-weekly I'm sorry our bi-weekly which is also twice a month um committee meeting with Eastside High staff including the administrators for ongoing communication and collaboration that's one touch point that was put in place and it's actually very helpful I believe we also added a health and PE um the department chair to that committee as well to make sure that the needs and the concerns from the health depart the um health and PE Department are addressed in that committee which was something we did in response to a recommendation um that you made at um one of our previous board meetings during this time of transition we are very pleased to have the opportunity to remain at the North Camden Community Center and the short-term term change to cat this week will ensure continuity

106of instruction um so the cat that was um that was temporary it was just two three days Dr Walker two three days um that we and we did not get um advanced notice but the city wanted to make sure that they um enhanced or repaired uh the floors at the North camon Community Center so we didn't get much of a heads up in order to give the team a heads up but we did make arrangements and there was no um breaking instruction when it comes to health and PE and with the warm weather coming it's my understanding that some of our our PE classes may even take place outside on the field so we will continue to be creative um and think and be Solutions oriented to make sure our students get the time that

107they need in health and PE we'll also reach out to leadership uh regarding the alarms and determine if the sound is audible throughout the entire building so you flagged something today that that was the first time I heard it so we are working um already with the teams to make sure that um we can take care of that um situation just want to make sure and when it comes to hiring practices I know our division of talent and labor relation is um doing um a stellar job in recruiting and trying to make sure that they're advertising our district website if you take a look at it we're we're trying we're making we're trying to make sure we can capture the interest of anyone who's interested in coming to our district we are still in a

108national teacher shortage so we do unfortunately still have to rely on long-term substitutes whenever we cannot get teachers but please know that it is my um it is our desire to make sure there's a permanent teacher in front of our young people um long-term sub substitutes we have to do that because that's the only option we have um when we cannot secure a dedicated teacher and so please know that it is not um that we are working diligently and if you do have some ideas that you'd like to share with us or maybe other outlets we can utilize we're definitely um willing to to hear those as well and I think they were just uh I'm so sorry Mr Waters thank you you asked a question the first question I can't give you a response

109to um you always throw a curveball at me for the first question when you ask it but um when it comes to navigating the changes that come through the legislation um in Washington and just you know just the difficulty with many of the orders that have come through and I think you tied that to the growth of charters in the city um again as a district all we can do is continue to focus on our Camden City school district schools making sure that they are the very best schools um and that we are providing quality instruction and doing everything we can to boost enrollment um so that is why we're trying to make sure we're engaging our families um underscoring the importance of attendance being in school every day making sure that we have after

110school programs Rich athletic opportunities um but we're just going to have we have to do that day by day um in order to make sure that our families continue to keep Camden City school district their first choice and their first option and last but certainly not least Mr Hakeem Pratt you're still here yes Mr Pratt hello um thank you for um sharing about the mentorship program and thank you also for being vulnerable and sharing your own experience with us if you don't mind sharing your information if you have any information on the program with the board um so that um they can uh have an opportunity to see that program as well um we would like to just get some more information there but we thank you so much for your care and for your

111concern and for wanting to make sure that the experiences that you've been through that you can support others um prevent them from going in that direction what can oh if you can send an email if you oh there's someone a staff member is coming right behind you Dr Tracy Thompson and she'll take that information and then make sure that um the district and the board receives it thank you so much um again I at this not again at this time I will turn it over to our board president for comments questions from our board members thank you superintendent um at this time are there any board members that have any questions or comments board member Perez yes I would like to say I know that they're not here now but I'm sure that you can

112relay this message what an incredible and exciting evening this was and when you think about all the obstacles that we as a world are facing now cuz it's not just a certain amount of people it's all of us it's incredible to see how many children received perfect attendance so please um relate it to the the teachers the principals and especially to the parents that it was an amazing evening thank you thank you board member Perez are there any other board members that have any comments [Music] questions so seeing none um one I want to thank the board members um who put time and effort forth just to um start off start off our acknowledgement of our staff by going around to acknowledge our our principles and um our superintendent and her lead Administration you know

113thank you for the time um and it was our pleasure um and I think we had an opportunity to um just Bond um while enjoying our staff and uh as mentioned um you know starting next month um there's an opportunity to acknowledge staff and we just think it's important and it's of our staff there's no one position that's more important than the next um so thank you um to everybody that will participate in that process and thank you superintendent um for the uh teamwork and cooperation um and getting this together and and Sheena for taking a lead on your end thank you also I just want to um just reiterate um I know board member Perez uh spoke about uh the $27 million that was put out there that um you know the respon resp

114there were no funds you know again you know I stress or I I bring that up again you know for us to focus and and improve our buildings you know it's a difficult thing without funding um so I there there a conversation that the superintendent and I have had briefly I know as a continued conversation you know how does that work like how do we make our traditional schools our buildings um what they're supposed to what they are supposed to be um without having a proper resource es um so you know again I think that's a real important thing um as we can't just come up with money out of nowhere um but $27 million and that's not to rebuild anything um that's just to fix um some of the Necessities in some of our

115buildings um so you know I want us to keep that on the Forefront you know as we look at the district um to uh make things happen you know some things is out of the district's control even though it's um a work in progress um and something that the superintendent and her Administration continues to advocate for um so we're always open to resources and suggestions and support um but in order to um make the necessary changes we also have to have the necessary uh resources um so that's all I have thank you all that came out and I do Echo uh board member Perez it was beautiful seeing everyone come out um and be celebrated for perfect attendance so thank you to the students and our parents and all the stff staff members at this

116time I turn it back over to you superintendent thank you so much board president and I'm going to turn it over to our um board secretary and our school business administrator who can actually respond to your question uh and then um she can present the agenda items for approval thank you thank you to the finance and operations committee we are having a pretty comprehensive uh committee meeting discussing not only our board properties but each of the senior directors Transportation John morela technology um all of the Ops managers senior directors are in place at that meeting and are are are sharing their feedback whether it's regarding buildings and grounds security Etc so one thing that I will follow up on you will note on the agenda item 10.06 it's on page and the page numbers are

117on the bottom right corner it's on page six item 10.06 I am recommending that we Embark upon an esip and esip is an energy savings Improvement plan Energy savings Improvement plans are ways to renovate buildings at a net zero cost how is that done the energy conservation measures or building Renovations will actually reduce our electricity or our utility costs and so the Net Zero payment actually we're paying we'll be paying for those energy conservation measures or building Renovations through the savings on the psng and the and the utility bills and so you'll see that and be excited about that item 10.06 it's it's it's a process that will take some time of course it starts with an investment an investment grade audit which is essentially a review a walk through with our senior director uh

118of facilities of all of our properties to identify which energy conservation measures can be included in such a project so that again the cost is covered with the Savings in the electricity bill so I am excited about that and is one way that we can begin to address some of our facility needs so again that's item 10.06 on the board agenda [Applause] yes as it relates to the board agenda you may notice that we've uh tweaked sort of our board agenda so hopefully it is more U becoming a little more user friendly for you to read with numbers and categorizations of items if you take a look at page three you'll see our financials 10.01 line item transfers 10.02 and the bills list 10.03 as you all can access the attachments which we encourage through

119board docs you can take a look at the bills list which are a list of all of our payments whether it's food service through the general fund and grants and then feel free to take a look at our financials that includes two reports our board secretary report which is the balance sheet so assets and liabilities as well as our Treasures report and so that's a Reconciliation of cash wanted to just highlight those board items and they're typically on each board agenda any questions about board agenda items for [Music] tonight any questions board members no questions [Music] perfect superintendent thank you it's okay it's all right thank you so much um board secretary and board president so hearing no um questions or concerns in accordance with the powers vested in the state district superintendent according to

120njsa 18a 7-35 I hereby approve all February 25th 2025 board agenda items if nothing more board secretary Taylor please call for a motion to adjourn the meeting meeting actually I won't be we won't be adjourning anything we'll be I will call for a motion I'll turn it over to board secretary to lead us through going into executive session my apologies therefore be it resolved that the Camden City Advisory Board of Education enter into a closed session to consider an HIV monthly report the board will now go into close session for approximately 10 minutes superintendent yes approximately 10 minutes so we will return at approximately 800 p.m. to adjourn the meeting is there a motion motion from Mr Hudson is there a second second thank you Garcia all in favor any abstentions any oppositions motion carries

121we are now going to convene executive session sorry not quite forgot [Music] about close session to the public session of tonight's regular board meeting is there motion to reconvene motion motion thank you president Nelson and I think Jackson all in favor perfect is there a motion to adjourn Garcia and Perez all in favor wonderful have a wonderful evening you too have a good night every thank you