001[Music] the regular notice requirement of the New Jersey open public meetings act has been complied with and that adequate advanced notice of this meeting was given at least 48 hours in advance on October 15th 2015 notice was mailed to The Courier Post notice was also posted on a bulletin board located by the reception desk at the central office in all School building bu and Boards within the district roll call Miss Teresa Atwood pres Mr Jose buo buo pres Miss darthy Burley here miss Taisha manir presid Minister Wasim Muhammad pres Mrs Felicia R Morton here Mrs Martha Wilson present Miss Katherine blackshare we have a quum thank you would you please rise for the pledge of Alle I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it
002stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all 6 I will now turn the board meeting over to the board business administrator the board will now go into close session to discuss matters of personnel safety security and attorney client privileges we will be gone for about 30 minutes and we'll return at 6:05 motion motion motion to go into close session second second we are now going into close session made by Miss Teresa Atwood yes Mr Jose buo Bueno yes Miss darthy Burley yes Miss Taisha minir Yes Minister Wasim Muhammed yes Mrs Felicia Ray Morton yes Mrs Martha Wilson yes Miss Katherine blackshare all in favor to go into close say yes yes yes all opposed say no we are now in Clos session at this time I call for a motion to
003come out of close motion to come out of close do I have a second second motion to come out of close was made by Minister Wasim Muhammad and Mr Jose Britto bueno I'm going to do roll call Miss Teresa Atwood yes Mr Jose buo Bueno Miss darthy Burley yes Miss Taisha manir Yes Minister was Muhammed yes Mrs Felicia Ray Morton yes Mrs Martha Wilson yes Miss Katherine blackshare all in favor coming out of close say yes yes all oppos say no we are now out of Clos session at this time we will turn the meeting over to Mr paymon raner great thank you so we are going the the board members on stage and our staff are going to move down to the front row and we're going to pull down um for the presentation
004all right is everyone situated great so good evening everyone we are going to begin tonight's board meeting by swearing in our newest student board members uh which is always an exciting development for us so uh with no further Ado I'm going to invite up our general counsel Bryant horley who will lead the swearing in process for uh our exalted board student board members to my right and you can see their names here from each of our represented schools so Bryant all right so one by one I want you to State your full name loud and clear starting with with you okay all at the same time please repeat after me and raise your right hand I affirm that I affirm that I will support the Constitution I will support the Constitution of the United States
005of the United States in the Constitution the constitution of the state of New Jersey of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and that I will bear true fa and Allegiance and alance to the same to the same and to the governments and to govern established in the United States in this state in this state Under The Authority Under the authority of the people of the people I affirm that I affirm that I possess the qualifications I possess the qualifications prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office of for the office of member of a student Board of Education a student board ofeducation and that I will Faithfully and partially and justly partially andly perform all the duties perform all the duties of that office of that office according
006to the best of my ability [Applause] congratulations so I think this is now my third year working working with tair on the student board um second year with Dania and for the others I've recently met and had an opportunity to spend a considerable amount of time with them and some other student leaders uh which we'll actually get to in the presentation tonight but just want to say how impressed I've been in our first meeting with the uh the thoughtfulness and the questions they've asked and their advocacy on behalf of their students and so we're thrilled to have you all uh leading our uh students here and so thank thank you again for your commitment and service and congratulations all right so a few District updates and then we'll close it out with some highlights and
007then we have a uh one of our board members will uh make a presentation kind of a special guest presentation that we have for this evening so I'm looking at my team because I think we're going to kick things off with a video and a lot of you all know that we recently uh released our new strategic Plan called all schools rise similar to uh the first strategic plan both of which are under the umbrella of the Camden commitment and this is phase two all schools rise uh the uh effort began with many many rounds of community dialogue uh open Town Hall meetings over 500 completed surveys which have now informed uh the current plan so uh with no further Ado we're going to show you all a brief video for those of you that
008didn't see this we uh showed this video during the uh press conference where we first announced the plan Camden kids they have amazing abilities and extraordinary potential they become doctors and actors and leaders in their community so how can the Excellence of our schools match the Excellence of our kids that's what the camon commitment is set out to do superintendent ranar released the Strategic plan in January of 2014 after a 100 day listening tour based on community feedback the Canon commitment focus on five areas safety buildings and Technology teaching and learning parent engagement and central office Effectiveness for a year and a half the Canon commitment drove progress across the city the graduation rate went up more kids enrolled in preschool than ever before and student staff and parents all reported feeling safer so we
009can build from here a summer of community engagement led to an updated Plan called all schools rise we kept the same promises but we came up with new steps we'll take to get there for safety that means reducing out of school suspensions and creating more positive School environment for buildings and technology that means quicker Technology support to schools and seeing through two new neighborhood school buildings as well as a handful of Renovations when it comes to promise three the focus is on excellent schools there's more coaching for teachers and school leaders and more venance schools are an option to increase the number of great neighborhood schools will'll make the way for parents to enroll their children in public schools fairer and easier and we explore new vocational programs and new curriculum in science and social
010studies promise 4 makes life easier for parents by introducing text messaging as a way to learn more information and promise 5 says the central office will be helpful resource moving more funding to schools giving preference to local businesses whenever possible and answering all questions that come in there's a lot of work ahead of us but ultimately we believe that these steps with your support and the hard work of our students and staff will help lead our goal of every student getting an excellent education may all schools rise [Applause] huge thanks to our Communications team and everyone else who helped put that video together so I won't get into too many of the details because you heard it in that video but just uh what I'll do is for each of the promises I'll I'll I'll
011pick a couple highlights and then we'll um we'll move on so with promise one with safe students safe schools as uh the moderator in the video mentioned there is a focus uh on reducing out of school suspension we've discussed it at board meetings in the past we are certainly moving forward with that plan beginning with school leader training and teacher training and so we've talked about the the importance of restorative justice that's not to say there won't be consequences we had a great conversation with our student board members about this it doesn't mean that students can act out and break rules uh suspensions will still be um a consequence as as part of school discipline however we cannot reflexively suspend students for minor infractions which have happened in the past year such as a student
012showing up uh without their uniform on uh that student should not be sent home that student should not be suspended for that type of violation and so we need consistency and we need to you know as the as the term the sort of Justice would apply we need to work to show love and care uh for our students even those that may at times find themselves uh in trouble uh in school and out of school and so that is the thinking and we are actively continuing that dialogue here uh within our schools on 21st century buildings the main focus here is on moving forward with the plans that we've announced and having a sense of urgency to develop new plans to improve our uh facilities so we've announced Camden high school we've announced Renaissance School
013Renovations uh kib Cooper Norcross is now open however with the plans that we've announced and and the shovel still hasn't hit the dirt there is a lot of work that needs to happen we have to be incredibly Vigilant we have to stay on top of the school Development Authority particularly on Camden high school to ensure that that plan comes to fruition in because we all know that uh certain promises were made in the past that weren't always delivered upon and so that is the hard work that we are continuing to move forward uh and a number of our team members are in constant dialogue with the state on that front third on excellent school so as you'll see here under promise 3 is where you see the most number of goals which certainly makes sense
014because uh curriculum instruction teaching and learning that is the core function of the school district so uh it would certainly make sense for there to be so many goals there what I'll quickly note here is that we are rolling out a new curriculum uh math and literacy grades K to 12 uh we're working out Kinks there's a feedback loop where we're getting feedback from teachers there was actually a round table teacher Round Table earlier today uh where we're making sure that uh all of their questions are being answered and that school leaders are really equipped to be able uh to respond to questions and issues that are coming up uh but it's very exciting to have developed this new curric it takes a lot of time to develop new curriculum as uh those who are
015close to this work um Can can testify fourth with parent engagement the big initiative to note here is and I uh we had a conversation with our student board members most recently but I've also spent a lot of time with families we're trying to make the enrollment process easier for families in camped uh so one of the very first concerns I heard during my uh first 100 days in the district was that the district District special transfer process was way too complicated uh there's a parent who I can remember told me that she had to go to her school building seven different times to effectively finalize the special transfer for student so the special transfer process for you that don't know it it's if you're transferring your child from one District school to another District
016school and so for that parent she shouldn't have to go to the school building seven different times and for other families that are making similar School choices on behalf of their young people they should have to jump through so many Hoops so right now if you're looking at five different schools and say one of them is a charter one of them is a Renaissance and one of them is a traditional Public School each school has a different application different timeline different criteria and that just makes life too complicated particularly for our Working Families who don't have that spare time during the day uh and so uh what we're moving forward with is one application for all schools to make life easier uh and to create more Equitable access to our schools fifth with central office
017Effectiveness the same theme as we've discussed in the past which is really the central office needs to continue to do more with less and I say that knowing that a number of our staff are in our building that is falling apart uh with internet doesn't that doesn't always work my office internet goes in and out uh so it's not to say that we are rich with resources in the central office however we need to uh streamline resources to make sure that uh we are investing first at the school level and we are making certain sacrifices contining to make certain sacrifices within the uh District central office okay so a few uh updates to provide you all here so first uh the state for those of you that uh didn't catch this earlier today uh released
018uh the Park results Statewide we do not yet have District results uh so the only results that we um that we all collectively have access to is uh are the Statewide results so I thought it would be just a good opportunity to kind of remind us of how Park fits in to graduation requirements and so a actually a number a couple of students asked asked me about this uh recently at Brent uh what where we last left things off in our conversation here at board meetings was that uh the current ninth grade class would be the first class where the park assessment um would be the graduation requirement so right now there are a number of different Pathways a student can take they can take the SAT the ACT acup Placer and so on uh
019and so it's really the current ninth grade class once they are uh in their Junior and senior years is when the park assessment would be a graduation but that's now changed so that's where we left things off and so now it's the eighth grade class the state bumped it back by one more year so current eighth graders will be the first class where Park will be a gradu graduation requirement and so it's also worth mentioning and this is an important point that both currently and as far as we have been told moving forward there will also be an appeals process so a number of our students do graduate through the appeals pathway and we're going to continue to monitor this with our um stately aison but uh we anticipate the appeals process will continue to
020be in effect and so I just wanted to make that clear because I know a number of questions come up on that front in my um in my passing dialogue with it with some of you all right so just a few items I wanted to um to highlight so recent events it was uh recently respect week and this is an initiative that came out of the 2011 anti-bullying act and so Statewide uh earlier this month all schools were to hold events to uh promote the importance of positive behavior and anti-bullying within our schools and so these are just a few pictures uh of students and uh at a handful of schools this is a wdro Wilson actually uh which is a pledge against violence during um the week of respect back to school nights so
021those happened fairly recently I know a number of you all were in attendance uh the top left is at York ship which is actually where I attended with my son and the camet sophisticated sisters performed there huge huge turnout uh as I was told really great turnout across all of our schools which is really encouraging uh so uh big kudos to the principals uh the community school coordinators and all the other staff uh that helped uh get the families out and of course the families themselves who took the time out of their busy schedules um to engage with their schools so the other pictures here are at veterans sharp HP Wilson Dudley and Kat this is just a quick uh um overview of an event we had uh at veterans so uh this is a
022veteran School participating in a fire safety demonstration during National Fire Safety Week that their school passed along and just wanted to share out with everyone here we recently had a parent programming session at York ship uh and so these families were able to learn more about uh their kids health and wellness and how to best uh nourish them and so it was just programming uh with that focus in mind uh to best support our families in supporting their young people so I mentioned a little bit earlier that we've had a number of uh student Roundtable conversations I had one meeting with uh our student board members and also have just gone to each of the high schools and sat down with a large number of their students and and I just want to reinforce again
023just how blown away I I was in those conversations by uh the insightfulness of the questions uh the leadership in the room I mean these are a group of students that care deeply about their schools about their school district and asked some really tough questions and we really covered a lot of ground from Healthcare in Camden to should girls be disallowed to wear headbands at brim medical which is a Hot Topic conversation uh at brim medical so uh so really thoughtful discussion and we're going to continue to have uh future conversations with our students to make sure that they uh know that their voice uh is incredibly important and uh for all of the adult conversation that we all have and we certainly value and respect that uh our students are living this uh day
024in and day out and uh and their voice is so so critical in informing our broader thinking and our broader plans custodial appreciation day was U on October the 2nd and so at our central office we honored our staff uh and I wanted to just get out and and and and get to know and and spend some time with some of our custodial staff inside of our school so uh this is uh Miss Jackie Thomas for those of you that don't know her she's phenomenal um she's the head custodian at at Kramer school I see some uh Smiles in the audience I imagine those who know Jackie if you walk in Kramer uh the first thing you notice is it is just Immaculate uh especially on the first floor but second floor as well and
025it's really a testament to Jackie and she drives the teachers in that building nuts in all the right ways uh because she stays on top of them to make sure that they're working with their students to clean up their classrooms and keep the hallways clean and it really takes a team effort but Jackie is uh is really the leader of that effort uh so it was neat to spend a little bit of time with her um as she was um working hard at Kramer this is a recent parent meeting we had uh in North Camden uh so a number of parents in North Camden had asked to meet with me uh to talk about uh a handful of top of- mind issues that um uh that they felt was necessary to communicate directly to me
026and our staff so we we covered a lot of ground there from uh the importance import of Early Childhood to North Camden uh feeling as though their students traveling all the way to woodro Wilson wasn't the right fit for a lot of their kids and they would prefer to have a more local U High School option there so just you know traveling safety prek covered a lot of ground and I appreciate the time uh that they took out of their busy schedules to sit down with our staff cane mobile so there was uh uh someone in the audience on of Cano Bill who spoke at our last board meeting so just wanted to follow up and uh and show that students from Bonville Cooper Point and brim all participated in the recent canoe mobile trip
027uh so they learned about water safety skills paddling techniques uh and a little bit just about the Aquatic ecosystems here uh in Camden um so this is I think a trip we've now done two or three years in a row maybe even longer uh so it's great great for those kids to have those opportunities and Nearing the end here there was a great article in the career post about our partnership with um classroom Champions so Steve Mesler is is the head of this organization uh he's an Olympic gold medalist himself uh and he and and as the CEO he's taken a particular interest in Camden I mean it's they're in a lot of different districts Nationwide um and so here this is a picture of him visi visiting uh is it the wigin school yeah
028it's the wigin school and so this year our classroom teachers are um as part of classroom um Champions are Miss Kelly Warton Davis who was last year South Jersey Teacher of the Year Award winner Miss Cindy Martinez Miss Sharon Bogle Miss Nicole almanzor Miss Christine neth and Miss otney Khan uh and uh Miss April Holmes was also involved in this effort who I know a lot of you all know and respect so before we go on to the stage and recognize our retirees I want to welcome up uh our board member Minister Wasim Muhammad those of you that were in attendance at the last board meeting we shared that Minister Muhammad um with his congregation traveled to Washington DC uh for the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March and I wanted to give him
029uh the opportunity to talk about the experience they had as a number of Camden students and parents and stakeholders joined joined him on that trip so we're going to get that presentation and video set up here as Minister Wasim comes to the stage thank you as we take a moment to um uh greetings um before I go on as we take a minute to get the uh the technology together I want to first thank um our superintendent here Mr payman raner for the opportunity to present um to you the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March Justice or else convened by Minister leis faran of the Nation of Islam um just real quick and I also there's a few other people and I would like to thank as they getting this together is uh of
030course our Advisory board members um under the direction of president miss cathine blackshare and vice president miss Martha Wilson and all the board members that sit with me I thank you for the opportunity and also I would like to thank our mayor mayor Dana R of the city of Camden and her partnership with temple number 20 and her staff particularly Miss nll Starks Henson and her staff for the opportunity to partner with um the efforts of the mobilization of this 20th anniversary of the millionare March so as they're getting it together I'm just trying to uh go on I don't have an issue in in uh keep babling as a minister we can go on I'm must confess that uh that dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare
031this is a little short clip we're going to show you to you from the Reverend do the late and great Reverend Dr Martin Luther King um must confess and after it's over with we that dream and as they getting it together I guess I can take some time to get this together what this uh 20th anniversary of the Million Man March Justice or else was about it was a once again as I said convened by the national representative of the Nation of Islam Minister Lewis Farhan whom in conjunction with Dr Martin Luther King's son Martin Luther King III he the spirit of this Million Man March anniversary was set us so about the the night before Dr King was assassinated Dr King was writing notes of what his next next speech was going to be
032about and in his room there in Memphis Tennessee he had wrote A Few notes and Minister faran along with the son of the late and great Dr Martin Luther King sat down and talked about what they could do now with this particular March that was on Washington which really is not necessarily A March it is exactly more of a movement to get people organized and mobilized in their Community again 20 years ago on the mall in Washington DC um October 16th 2000 I mean 1995 uh the country and this the this country witnessed one of the largest rally with the largest rally ever in American history which there this particular rally um where there was no fighting no um violence no arrest you know as we say in our no smoking no drinking all of
033these type of things it was sober-minded men who went to Washington DC 20 years ago to atone for um and reconcile our differences of in our community and to reconcile our inability to be active in our communities that what the that was the theme 20 years ago and rally up to now the theme changed just a little bit based on recent public events that's been going on around the country so with that we would like to show this short clip thank you correct if we can well we do apologize and um but I'll go up after and then we can watch the video hopefully it comes on so for the sake of time and we do apologize and and value your time here 20 years ago on the mall Washington DC The milon Man March
034was convened by Minister leis farakhan the national representative of the Nation of Islam with the purpose of gathering men black men together to atone and reconcile to their families for uh uh for their IND discretes and their inability to move in their communities and some of the mistakes that we made in our communities along the way the called yield over two million men on the mall in Washington DC for a peaceful highly spirited Gathering um on the mall in Washington DC there the men pledge to return back to their communities and get involved in their communities they pledge for uh uh to join organizations the NAACP the Urban League the local organizations get involved with the School Board elections get involved with the schools and all of these things they did as men to uh
035atone for these now 20 years later as a result of different movements going on in America with uh Occupy Wall Street um the traumatic uh events of Trayvon Martin Mike Brown Tamir rice and others and the Inception of black lives matter uh the it sparked the 20th year anniversary of the Million Man March which is Justice or else now the or else has sometimes got some people a little um uh upset or shring in or or or just bring interest to the word what else a lot of people were surprised that the word else was coming from a lecture or the writings that I described ear earlier from Dr Martin Luther King as he was writing his next notes for his next speech in that room there in Memphis Tennessee at the um Lorraine hotel
036which is the national what you call so we're going to show this video so you can get it from there nightmare now the other thing that we've got to come to see now that many of us didn't see too well during the last 10 years that is that racism not guilty is still alive in American society and much more widespread his neck after Baltimore Police a handful of protest a handful of criminals and Thugs who many in moments of anger many in moments of deep bitterness engage in riots and as long as America pops Justice we stand in the position of having these occurrences of violence and riots over and over again social justice and progress are the absolute guaran of Riot prevention Mr gra death was a homicide the Negro was freed from the
037bondage of physical slav the athletes marched onto a stage but at the same time the nation refused to give him land to make that freedom meaningful freedom without land to culate was freedom and famine at the same time and create jobs for our people create jobs negro is to be free he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pin an ink of self-cured manhood his own Emancipation Proclamation but I want to get the language right tonight I want to get the language so right that everybody here will cry out yes I'm black I'm proud of it I'm black and [Applause] [Music] beautiful individually we are poor when you compare us with white Society in America we are poor collectively we are richer than all the nation in
038the world with the exception of nine that's power right there if we know how to prove we begin the process of building a greater economic base and at the same time we are putting pressure where it really hurts we don't have to argue with anybody we just need to go around to these stores and to these massive Industries in our say God sent us by here to say to you that you're not treating his children right and we come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda bad treatment where God's children are concerned now if you're not prepared to do that we do have an agenda that we must come and our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you we mean business now and we are determined to gain
039our rightful place in God's [Applause] world thank you with that as we get to PowerPoint together I just wanted to tell somebody especially some of the young people who are here that as we always go back and look at our history here in America our history has always not been so great here in America we opened up doors for many um talking about black people in America we opened up doors for uh a lot of U disenfranchised people but nevertheless the doors we open up the civil rights movement and the black power movement served as examples for people all throughout the world and of of their civil protests against governments civil protests against large groups of bodies so as we don't allow others to give uh a a historical documentations on some of our leaders
040that we have to go back and take another look at the life of Dr Martin Luther King in his Evolution from the 1963 I Have a Dream speech this what we just played for you was from U most of those clips were from 1968 and Dr King a lot of people don't know was a rogue minister at the time his life he was jeopardized he was considered to be a rogue Minister because of his stance that he took towards as so many others like Muhammad Ali and so many other great Americans that he took a stand against the Vietnam War about the America's war on the on PO on the poor that they felt as though they were giving more money towards to fight a war in Vietnam in which they promised to fight the
041war on the poor and because of that Dr King he was not allow to even enter into some Churches so as he reclaimed his power base he was going around as you can see he was trying to say he was wed to Galvanize uh people about withdrawing the power base that we have in our community that we so uh uh Faithfully give away and then sit back and complain of what we don't have so what we're the spirit of the 20th anniversary that Justice or else the or else is about withdrawing our economic base withdrawing certain bases that we have as you can see from the clip that there was uh you know we spend $1.3 trillion talking about black people in America but yet we seems to be high on the rate of unemployed
042high on um poverty and that's because if we don't bargain or or put together our Collective dollars because so many of our dollars leave our community and this is why we are so grateful to partner with uh not only the Camden Board of Education uh me personally as a board member but to partner even with the other side of the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March the Justice talking about the Rogue killings between some police officer but here in Camden City I must truly say with the Camden County Metro Police Department we have gotten in front of the fight that other communities like Ferguson and other communities around the country as getting in so much trouble about we have gotten in front of the pro in front of the problem I believe of course
043there's a lot of work that need to be done but if you look at it some of the things that we're asking for is we're asking that people like myself a local Minister Muslim uh Muslim Minister who at times it seems that the Muslims have been on the outside of the community that that you'll have Muslims involved in not only policing and education because we've always opened up our doors for all religions the foundation of what America was built on which is the foundation in the spirit of the 20th anniversary of the mil Man mark that was not just a Muslim March that was a march convened by the local organizing committees all around the country and I would like to take this time to thank the Camden loc local organizing committee which was uh
044directed by uh brother swadi Abdul Malik and I also would like to thank the local Muslim uh M here in the city of Cam the minister Omar Kareem and I also would like to thank uh Reverend Kevin Washington of bethl Deliverance Baptist Church and I also uh would like to thank uh our former um councilman Ali Salon L and the United neighbors of Whitman Park and their members and last but certainly not least I would like to thank the members of Muhammad's Temple of Islam number 20 which I reside as the minister for all their efforts of organizing and mobilizing people for this great day and they say that uh the March was so nice that the minister had to do it twice and uh you know we had over two million men show up
045on the mall 20 years ago this mall numbers are going from 800,000 to almost uh uh I have the clicker to go to picture I ain't gonna know how to work this thing and talk at the same time I'm just not that good at it with uh um as our superintendent in here but if we right okay we got it here we go as we can look at some of these pictures before as I wind down uh this was the holy day of atonement which was 20 years ago um conven at the mall in Washington had the opportunity to be on the stage then and to see sea of men um um Sober Sober minded and as we always say this March was not just a Muslim March it was all types of black men
046all types of Latino men all types of Native American men and even white men were present at that particular March who was in um in um consolidating with our efforts there in the city of Washington DC there we also have um peaceful another look at the events 20 years ago 20 years later after Occupy Wall Street and Trayvon Martin it was once it was also awesome to get to see Trayvon Martin's mother speak at this March as a result as she's still fighting for justice for Trayvon and Tamir rice in Cleveland and um just the whole black lives matter movement as I stated earlier the Camden local or organizing committee which made up of the Camden loc and the local Moss here in the city of Camp under Minister Omar Kareem and the efforts of
047Reverend Kevin Washington of Beth Deliverance Church and myself and members of Temple number 20 we organized and to get uh buses I believe it was uh 10 buses that Camden took down to Washington DC amidst the many people who took the train down and just drove down for whatever crazy reason they did that for and driving down with all those millions of people uh they have there and there's some of the um this March was uh part of men women and children it was not a Million Man March it was a march with men women children uh and others from out from various communities throughout America the there's some more of the pictures that I took with uh actually my cell phone uh once again I had the opportunity to be on stage at this
048March and it was a wonderful opportunity uh uh to drive with the um um on the bus they had it well organized we drove I mean we we drove to uh RFK Stadium there at R RFK Stadium they dropped all the buses off and we walked um like a ceremonial walk and made it a march to the mall on Washington DC we caught the Metro train to uh uh the Capitol building and there that's some of the ceremonial walk there it was a wonderful experience to experience that many people in peace love and solidarity it it was wonderful to take some of the students from uh the University of Islam our private school that we have here in Camden and also some of the students from the public school systems that was there as well
049too and the Renaissance schools as well as some of the chared schools of those children were there too there's a picture of myself and some of the students of the University of Islam taken there at the March there a few of them are my children uh the capital building some of the people protesting there and they had the opportunity to help do a pre-rally march with Minister the minister and uh Chicago there where we met and um had a wonderful private conversation with him and just to note that as we have that here minister faran was very supportive of what's going on here in Cam and as we witness here when the Governor came here uh I believe it was a year ago and the governor talked about to this very building he talked about
050the collaborative effort that Camden have of moving things forward with the collaboration with many community members churches MOS synagogues people in the community community organizations the opportunity to work together to move our city forward because as you know in our communities our communities are way have way too many problems for us to be disconnected and disunited as we're fighting for the same thing which is freedom justice and equality for our people he was on our radio program and he gave kudos to the mayor the school superintendent and for the governor and everybody working in Camden working collaborative collaborative together in this particular March there we also had a wonderful opportunity the day before the march to meet with our Congressman Congressman Donald Norcross who was well in support he was very active in support of
051this 20th year anniversary Justice or else uh we had uh lunch with him and discussed some wonderful things and some things that we can do continue to do here in the city of Cam we thought that was very admirable and honorable of our local Congressman here in um the in our area uh there as you can see had opportunity to sit on the stage within uh um just to say to my children you know who was there present they said oh Dad you were there you got to see I don't know some of these young rappers Cole or I don't know some of these name I'm still in the Public Enemy days but these young people know who I'm talking about but some of the rappers and the entertainers uh uh Russell Simmons were there
052but I was letting some of the uh my children know that for once um and our lifetime I got the opportunity to see it twice it was great to see those stars and entertainment stars come to recognize uh the work and efforts that we've been doing here in America for 85 years that they came to honor The Works of uh the Nation of Islam that is doing to Galvanize our people and to make this March inclusive among all okay there we go remembrance as you can see our Native American Brothers spoke there and spoke well of their community and uh another picture there from the March I almost got threw out of the March there because I went on the steps to take a picture and the uh Capital police there almost threw me out
053of there and I think and last I want to say that a lot of times we uh don't get a lot of uh um effort to The Works some of the brothers called the foi do this is the second time that at the end of this March of a million people galvanizing on the capital there in Washington DC that we helped to save the federal government money because it was the brothers from the Nation of Islam who once again for the second time stayed there until the mall was was spotless as the way it was before we took over to rent um the area that we had because marches are not free the March cost the estimate over $3 million that was raised independently and this is sometimes when you raise money independently then you
054can have the freedom to move and say some things that sometimes not always uh sometimes we think need to be said but when you have corporate rations that pay for what you need to say sometimes you cannot say it so I think that's another Mark that of what our show of unity and economic support of what we can do in our community there it is and um the excerpt of the March was uh like I said the the conversation that those speakers had came from a um the notes of Dr Martin Luther King the night before he was assassinated of what he wanted to Galvanize for and an economic boycott um for about the power and the spending power of black people in America once again I thank you for your opportunity for to say
055these few words and superintendent thank you very much appreciate it thank you Minister Rim so we're gonna now move back up to the stage at this time I would like to read off the names of the retirements if I mispronounce your name I apologize in advance Mella an teacher of special Special Education location would be RT cream family school she served 14 years and 11 months Gale blit nurse at Whittier Elementary School 17 years 4 months Moren flusher teacher of special education York ship Elementary School 17 years and 10 months Joan Ingram teacher of English L at Hatch Family School 3 years and 9 months and Diana F Rosa teacher of bi bilingual Kramer college preparatory lab school for 25 years on behalf of the campman City Board of Education we would like to thank
056you each and every one of you for your years of service thank you Miss Wilson at this point I want to turn the meeting over to Regina Robinson our business administrator to present the business office agenda items thank you superintendent superintendent ran for the business office presents the following business office agenda items for approval the bill list the financial report and 17 um board agenda items for approval any questions comments okay all right so in accordance with the powers vested in the state district superintendent under title 18a I hereby approve today's superintendent agenda items and business office agenda items and then I want to turn it over to our student board representatives and uh I know that we got a quick introduction of each of you just uh earlier but I think it'd be great
057before you have any comments or questions that you like to share just to quickly reintroduce yourself name Grade School uh and excited to have you all join here for the first meeting of the school year so happy to start at any which end here start with Medical Arts here good evening everybody I'm CA Carter from creative arts I'm a senior and I'm a dance major and I just want to thank everybody for letting me have this opportunity one more time and I am very excited to be among you guys because I look up to you guys um I my issue right now with creative arts is that due to the layoffs we had to move our physics teacher to cim the high so now we don't have a physics class for the seniors and and
058I know some of us wanted to take that class so we just want to know if we can get that back and I'm very excited that we are partnering with the settlement music school so now after school we have programs for the outside so they can come in and work with us and work with the music school as well so that's a good opportunity for the middle schoolers it's not much for the high schoolers but it's still good cuz we get to watch and see them um coming up the dancers are going to Denver to a black dance dance conference and the jazz band is looking forward to many things thank you thank you good evening good evening my name is Antoine Marson I'm a senior at Camden high school um my major is Computer
059Engineering and I'm very good at it for the trade I'm looking into a couple colleges for that trade um but my main concern for my school was probably to be to add a study hall or fund more the career shops for our students um that's all I have to share good evening my name is Alexis Hawkins I am a junior at brm Medical Arts and I just want to say thank you guys so much um I'm very honored to be sitting here before you guys as a school board representative for my schoolb Medical Arts and um the only concern I have right now is that we need a new librarian and I feel as though we should have one because students should be able to take books in and out and just um research have
060a little bit more research um as well as a school lunch is not too good and I know um Mr rahan for us that he was working on that so I can't wait thank you thank you expectation too high there [Music] maybe good evening everyone my name is daia krisen and it's nice to see you all and some of you again I will be a excellent student representative because I am very outspoken and because of my outgoing personality it makes it easy for students teachers and staff to speak to me I am very passionate about addressing the concerns of my school I'm excited to be a board rep because I'll be able to talk to all of you face to face personal and lastly this year I am hoping to address to the board that
061Mees is more than just a small school and it deserves all the attention and the needs to be met like all the other schools and exam for example the lunch program and our facility thank you thank you good evening everyone I'm Tom Branch I'm back here for my third year um uh I would like to thank every every everyone for giving me this opportunity again you can trust me I will be a great board representative again this year um just make sure that you support Med's high school with our projects because it starts with the community we put our hard work and like our community they do not always support us as a school and that's kind of like unfair because every time Ken the high or school has something there someone always there to
062support so don't forget about the big pitcher learning schools like we're doing big things too so we have an upcoming ha house event that we love that we want everybody to come out to tell your friends your kids your grand kids tell everybody um that's around Halloween time thank you the med haunted house is October 30th and October 31st between 5:30 and 8 thank you team effort but um but look out for M because we are doing big things this year like the senior class we're having several fundraisers one of our f r that we plan to have is a movie night so we're planning to turn our school into a movie theater and we would like for the entire Community to come out support the tickets are going to be dirt cheap but we're
063going to show you good movies so just support us this year thank you thank you my name is B sko I am a student representative of will Jo Bon high school I want to thank everyone for coming um I'm here to represent my school and I would like everyone to see the picture and hear the truth and not what other people say about my school thank you [Applause] great thank you all very much and as a couple do we have one more oh hi close um my name was Calla Evans I'm in Canon high with Antoine um thank you for giving me this chance this opportunity to work with the superintendent and the board of Representatives so I have a better outlook on how the schools are working and what will change for our schools
064um my main concern which I think is m ual for all of our schools are our lunches and I believe that students should have the opportunity to leave the building of course we're to use our IDs to get in and out but I believe that students should be able to be trusted and given these different chances even if it's just for like a year for us to try it out to see if it'll work but um that's one of our concerns and as Antoine mentioned funding our different career programs because that's that's what we're going to do in the future so we should focus more on that rather than no I'm not going to say that but I I just believe that they should better um fund our career programs thank you great thank you
065all so much and as a couple students mentioned we are actively working through some of the uh questions and issues that they've raised so for example on the Staffing front uh Alex has raised uh access to science particularly physics at the 12th grade Antoine you raised programming concerns so you know these are issues our team is looking into and we're going follow up with you all directly and you can then uh TurnKey that information to the rest of your schools and as the medis representative just did uh whenever there's an event that uh you believe that we should be aware of and obviously you want to drive a big turnout please do share the specifics and we can also not only help you get turnout but we'll take pictures of the event put it on
066social media celebrated here um at at board meeting so um please do um keep us up to date there so thank you all again so I think we're now going to transition to public commentary rules for public comment the C 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 be heard on the agenda items in this meeting each person who signed up to comment will have three minutes you will be notified when your three minutes are up you cannot yield your time to another person when it is your turn to speak please remain at the podium and address all of your comments to the board president or the superintendent please conduct yourself in a respectful and courteous manner for
067anyone whose comments or actions either harass intimidate or threaten the safety of any person we will provide you with a warning or immediately end your comment time also if you curse use vulgar language or make personal attacks we will provide you with a warning or end your comment time we will not interrupt you during your 3 minutes of comments members of the audience should also not interrupt the speaker at the podium if you have any questions please ask your questions during your 3-minute comment period after the public comment period is closed the superintendent or is design will address your questions to the extent provided by law first Speaker Keith Benson so before Mr Benson comes up I wanted to just quickly respond I I forgot to mention the food issue so just to summarize where
068the what the students have been conveying to us there are two key challenges one is kind of the breadth of choices at certain schools and the second being portion size and and it is a serious matter particularly with student athletes burning a lot of calories need more food five chicken nuggets isn't going to do the job so it is something that we are actively discussing with uh with aam Mark to um to hopefully alleviate sooner than later so I just wanted to quickly point that out Mr Benson go ahead um the first thing i' would like to say is um welcome to the student reps it is um important that you guys understand you have a very important job to do it's very easy easy to be sort of get lost in the idea that
069you're representing your school make sure you're in your best behavior and all these sorts of things but the reality is you have you're speaking for hundreds of people who don't have the avenue to do it themselves so take that responsibility pretty seriously and because you guys are leaders um I usually come here and talk about my concerns with the Board of Education not voicing things or call ca calling attention that issues that are very serious but you know they just sort of just happen and um they rarely ever get addressed but it's not the topic I want to discuss today um I was seeing on like a lot of social media that that the hash all schools rise and it was um you know it was something I always thought was pretty curious and it
070was pretty interesting that today of all days is a day that a brief sort of uh presentation was done on it um but some of my thoughts were like how can all schools rise when every year when the state is taken over our public schools start off with numerous classroom vacancies the most basic function of a school is the delivery of Knowledge from instructor to student yet because because of lack of planning and due diligence from Human Resources our Public Schools routinely start the year off without subject teachers how can all schools arise when since the state takeover the district has shown a focused commitment to close neighborhood schools that have been the Staples of their communities for Generations how can all schools rise when the existence of Renaissance schools hinges on the demise of
071our Public Schools how can all schools rise if for one type of school to win the other schools must lose if indeed all schools rise was truthful then there would never be any disparity in the treatment and resources we saw exhibited between the children at bonsel school and uncommon in the same building our children in a public school bonso were forced to sweat like dogs while The Uncommon floor enjoyed central air conditioning is that what all school really looks like I mean all School rise looks like because to me that looks like separate and unequal how can all schools rise when there has been a consistent whitening of Staff in both schools in downtown whoever is in charge of hiring clearly does not understand that in education race does matter research shows that minority students
072from low SCS backgrounds do better academically when they have a teacher who looks like them leading instruction further whoever is in charge of hiring should know that 50% of black teachers come from black colleges and that esparanza College in Pennsylvania as well as a host of Hispanic fraternities and sororities nearby will be a a great place to start to recruit the next generation of Educators but instead our district recruits from ly white resources I mean sources like tntp and Teach for America and we all know they're much more disconnected from the community and much more temporary if all School rise was a genuine sentiment and not a platitude this District would be aware of how white dominated managerial positions in this District have become the district would realize that overlooking experience and invested and educated
073minorities is an affront to progress not an expansion of a colorblind meritocracy I know what discrimination is and how it functions I know many black people who have applied for managerial positions who despite having more education and experience were never even granted an interview meanwhile our district last month hired a white guy with a bachelor's degree who graduated in 2012 to a job paying of $90,000 that's not an environment where all schools rise that says to me that this is an environment where only certain kinds of people rise and I'm I'm almost finished your time is up I'm almost done the case in point recently I came to High School a new young white thank you Mr Benson your time is up I'm going to call up the next speaker number two Sarah [Applause] Joselyn
074I wanted to speak about Park tonight thank you for bringing it to people's attention that the overall State numbers have come out I wanted to speak tonight because the park is a very important thing to be fully prepared to have the resources available and I know how hard this District worked to make that happen last year make sure that it's working for all of our students for the students that are um speaking other languages that are having different abilities we need to test all of our students and make sure resources are available one of the questions that was asked was about the availability of a librarian do we have libraries in our school do we make those resources available to our children who need need to prepare for these tests I I compliment the uh
075the school on on having the new revised curriculum that is consistent with the core standards and I look forward to seeing the curriculum that will be for um uh the bilingual Department coming forward I also look forward to the curriculum on science and social studies if we're going to have children that are educated to be Global Citizens to deal with issues such as GL climate change they need to be able to understand those issues we need to have physics we need to have chemistry and we need to make it available to to students to learn so I I encourage you to uh consider the resources available make them available to all the students so that we can have Student Success in the in this district for all students I ask also when will we have
076a a another person on the school board thank you number three T Gibson number four Robert farmer good after uh good evening I'd like also to welcome the students on there up up there on the board um this is the beginning uh for you taking control of your City you know stick with it learn as much as you can up there because we need we need you you guys as Future Leaders in this uh City so congratulations to each and every one of you um I'd like to bring attention to um uh some con really it's contractual um terms in our uh agreement with the board um we having problems with the preschool over at ecdc with me members um uh um par is not getting preps um they're serving uh breakfast without pay Mr
077superintendent I think that we need to look into that before that situation gets out of control um principles are still assigning uh uh meetings on our uh members unassigned prep time and some has even signed um meetings on the unassigned time time that's normally given before or at the end of the day we need to check that out uh the sgos we had a lot of going back and forth with what is the percentage that uh that's uh this district is going to follow they said it was 85% the principales are saying that but uh we had a meeting today uh and it's 75 across the board and I think that a commun needs to go out to the administrators the building principles you know so that process can move forward um I've had a
078lot of parents calling uh my office concerning about children not coming home with books uh or or um technology to access books online um I think that's going to be a problem in this District especially when the parents start calling the union so I think that has to be looked into as well um I sent a letter letter to uh to you Mr uh superintendent concerning the observation of um of holidays basically religious holidays in the city um I just hope that you know the protocol which was used for that particular group of of our members is basically used across the board for all members that needs to observe their own personal religious um holidays also um I got a call from uh Miss Loretta Gooden uh from the uh uh parent uh commission she's
079the president um she would uh like to she's here today matter of fact she would like to meet with the board afterwards to uh discuss some of the items inside of the uh your report um and basically um that's it and once again young people you got it going on number five Elizabeth Ortiz good evening last month I asked parents to be an advocate for their child's education there is nothing more precious than an education we can be segregated ridiculed belittled cast aside but one thing that cannot be taken from us is our education once we have learned something it cannot be taken away from us much like the truth many of you may not be aware that your child might might not have textbooks or workbooks for Math and literacy which are two major
080testic subjects please find out if your child does not have these vital materials we are two months into the school year and these materials should have been here on the first day of school it is unacceptable that they are not these books should be copyrighted for the years 2011 to 2015 and made available to our children immediately situations like this are why our children do not test well you have all this money teachers have no resources for major subjects so they do their best with what they can students can get can't get help at home because parents have nothing to work with therefore our children are constantly at a disadvantage against their peers in neighboring districts then they flun flun test and are not College ready I also want to touch on a phone call
081I had made to central office I called to inquire about why my child who is a special education student has no textbooks or workbooks I started to explain my situation to miss ban and someone named Ashley just started talking without introducing herself no one told me I was on speaker which is very unprofessional and a hippo violation maybe I didn't want the entire office to hear my personal call then when I informed her how rude it was to jump in like that without introducing herself she made another rude comment saying that I had not been talking if I had not been talking so much I would have heard her introduce herself I responded that that was because people taught manners do not talk when someone else is talking then to have this individual tried to
082talk to me like I'm not educated and be sarcastic the behavior is unacceptable and it needs to be addressed immediately phone etiquette is a is a must when dealing with with us people we're not animals my questions to the board number one what are you do what are you going to do about providing proper resources to schools so that they are prepared on the first day of school what happened to the 100 book challenge surrounding districts have one of have onetoone technology with all the funding that our district receives when will you be providing onetoone techn ology for our children we are in the digital age what are you going to do to supply working and updated computers to all of our schools so that all of our children can be College ready research has
083shown that shown us that early childhood development is important to our children's education what are you doing in these early years to promote a love for learning for our children your ship has no librarian reading is very important and needed to learn every other subject including math what are you doing to promote reading what what are you doing to make reading fun what are you doing to provide fresh new books to capture and Captivate our children's interest the air conditioners in our classrooms are meant for bedrooms and were supposed to be a temporary solution what are you doing to prepare for our schools to be properly air conditioned through the extreme heat weather coming in the year in 2016 year thank you Mr teas your time is what are you doing to prepare a first
084time thank you Mr teas your time is up number six Shirley Nunes number six Shirley Nunes number seven Kevin Waters good evening everyone congratulations young people for on your selection as school board representative it is a great honor and uh one that I'm sure you're going to fulfill without any difficulty all right um my main concern at this moment is not having a librarian in our building that's already been echoed twofold uh we deserve the same treatment as suburban schools I read for you at the last meeting how Cherry Hill has all of those things in their schools they don't have a large District they don't have as large a district as we have but they have a functional library with a librarian all we ask for is fairness we also lost our vocational Department
085it appears a vocational component was not seen as a viable educational tool which our students could have as a resource it is disheartened to see those Charter experiments get the material to give their students a chance at their concept of Education Librarians have always been a staple in public schools all we ask for is equal not separate treatment remember Brown vers Board of Education said education is not separate but equal I have made this statement to the board on another occasion some of our students will not and choose not to attend college what are their vocation options if a vocational component is not available a student who wants to be a mechanic can attend C County College but they are better prepared if their formative education is received in a high school vocational classroom again
086it appears the district decided that a vocational education was no longer necessary for at least wood Wilson students pensum receives all of the redirected funds to educate The Vocational component their tional students this has to change will you Advocate Mr superintendent returning the wood shop autoshop and culinary classes back into our building at wood Wilson it would be as I've already heard mentioned it would be evidence of all schools Rising I want to end with letting you know this is on a nice note I want to end with letting you know of our first ever say not to violence rockathon at wood Wilson this Friday 800 p.m. through Saturday 88: a.m. at wood Wilson students against violence everywhere are asking for a donation of $1 for each hour they Rock our goal is to raise
087$300 we will share this monetary this money with the National Organization of save you can drop off an donation at our school between the hours of 800 p.m. Friday and 8:00 a.m. Saturday there will be movies games and fun if any Advisory Board member would like to donate a few minutes of rocking as as well that would be great I'm just want to thank you in advance I have some flyers here for our rockathon and I just want to say that this rockathon in bu Wilson High School is the first ever normally these things are held in Suburban schools but what I want to say to our students is it's because we in the hood don't doesn't mean that we can't have the same thing that those kids in the suburbs do as well so
088I hope that if I don't know if I got to give this security he can pass this up to you all that I would at least see one of you I know Mr raner is not going to going to be able to make it um but I'm sure that he's going to be encouraging our students we need um the media to come I think I was spoken with um mukup who was aware of this to get some sort of publicity for this event because is the first ever at our evet have the school um news reporters um the uh television station come out film it uh we're going to be rocking all night at w Wilson we just going with the with the thing it says do the rock away do the Rock Away lean
089back that's what it says here so at woodam Wilson High School we are striving to be better we are doing better and this just another indication of our great students that we have at Woodard Wilson High School and we just know that you all as Schoolboard members and anybody here in the audience as well can come by you can drive by come up the ramp in the gym we're going to be in the gym area come by drop off a don if you got a sweet treat if you make good things uh something sweet for our kids to have as they Rock um you know just to kind of so I just hope that you guys will will think about it but again I'm give this security and I guess he'll uh put it up
090there so we're going to rock on this Friday and we hope that you will rock with us thank you number eight yita Martin hi my name is yita Martin I live here in Camden with my two sons I've spoken here a multiple times now so some of you may have already know my story but I'm originally from Georgia and since moving to New Jersey 7 years ago we've lived in many places including the suburbs before moving back to Camden two years ago which is my husband's Hometown my youngest son is Dante he's in the second grade at Mastery in North campden I'm sorry he's in his second year at Mastery in North campden he's in the third grade and he loves it my oldest son daquis who is a seventh grader attended Molina when we
091first moved to New Jersey then a school in lynen wall then Blackwood one in Gloucester City and then a charter here in Camden before and that was last year before Mastery expanded and got Molina and then now he's at Molina and he loves that school and that school just ended up being a good fit for the family overall I would like to thank the board for supporting the Renaissance School and I'm hoping that you all are open to a high school option for them because this is why I'm here tonight I'm asking you all to do just a little bit more to support whatever Mastery needs to start a high school parents met with the superintendent last week to discuss why they believe that there should be a high school in North Camden particularly at
092Pine Point when Mastery um Elementary evacuates in 2017 parents spoke and students spoke and I had no intention of speaking at that meeting but I was so moved by the students that made a plea for having high school in North Camden that I got up and spoke my opinion to on a grand scale there's definitely a need for a high school in North Camden but on a more personal level it took us 5 years after moving here to find a school that fits our family and that was right for daqua I would hate for him to get a quality education at Mastery and then have to go to another school in two years when eth grade is over because so far that's as far as Mastery goes so um I would just like him to
093have a school up to the 12th grade and I particularly wish it was a Mastery high school thank you um number nine Nicole Goodman good evening congratulations students and I spoke on the librarian issue last year and just so everyone's clear that the district didn't find Librarians to be of importance because they abolish their positions so whether you know how to research or use an encyclopedia or um which websites research um bases are appropriate and not appropriate I guess it wasn't important to them at the time but being a school uh student board that's something you can advocate for for your peers um I want to address some monies that was um on the board minutes on page 107 I'm going back to September um we're paying temp services 11,000 we're paying for a dream
094box 96,000 that's not currently being used and teachers were not trained there's some confusion with High andella bed we've paid them 184,000 for construction repairs Smartboard installation nox bar coding and painting of bonso more like painting of uncommon and addition we also paid them on this board minutes 100 over $172,000 for camera maintenance what I find confusing is that there are no schools under hella Board of Education so who are we paying um on the initial board minutes that was distributed in September page 64 we're paying $35,000 to Camden County Sheriff officers in metro to provide outside employment for security at football and basketball games why not just give our sec offices more over time we're paying Landscaping $120,000 and so it's just monies on the board minutes that just doesn't seem ethically correct now
095let's address some issues as far as student base Forest till school currently there are classes self-contained classes being self-contained all day even lunchtime that is inhumane we have um and it's a sad um analogy I'm may use but at the time this is how people are feeling we have inmates who also have lunch with general population these are students they are in a self-contained program for learning disabilities maybe Behavior disabilities if we do not allow them to engage and socialize with the quote unquote normal general education population then how are they to learn what appropriate social behaviors look like um I have a major concern with our special needs population we're not servicing them we're cutting services from them and we're not replacing them with anything are we hiring reading Specialists to work with these
096students that's not being classified because the director feel we have too many kids classified in addition I noticed in the board minutes that um even though they're on a separate budget the preschool allowed to order supplies and like I said I know they on a special budget however contractually our bilingual and special education department also should have that right to order the supplies needed to teach their population and that's not being done cling your time is up in number 10 Claudia cream good evening I'm glad my schedule allowed me to be here this evening I know I have not been here for a while but let me just say this uh Mr superintendent surveys are Anonymous individuals that come to present are presenting concerns that affect the school districts the community these are real surveys
097because you can put faces to concerns so individuals should not be discounted or cut off when they're trying to express what was needed to better the community and the district these are real surveys my first point and I'm going to give several points and hopefully they'll be addressed at some point in time but I'm addressing my points to those who are concerned have invested interest in this District have a vested interest in the children in the community the first concern is on page 72 I notice that the chief family engagement officer is leaving well resigned this is an opportunity where someone from the community from the city can be a part of this position because all the positions I've noted have been individuals outside of the city so this is an opportunity to have someone
098who is tith to to the community in this position we have a number of qualified individuals here whose talent and services are being negated if you need some suggestions those are concerned know how to get in touch with me the second issue as I look around and part of the information that's been coming to me from parents and different ones is that the charter schools some of their practices the IDE ideology is having a school of prison pipeline for our children this needs to be looked into because the practices if you do not have our Urban orientation you don't know you do not know what's best for our children so those are concerned if you need particulars contact me I heard the young people talk about the lunch program that is concerned too what is
099the policy at the charter schools for lunch I was very disheartened when I saw a charter school giving our children bag lunches at lunchtime another area I've been hearing concerns about the Hostile environments that are existing not only in the district but in our schools you need particulars call me another area to look into although I have not been here I've been perusing the board minutes there have been a number of job changes versus titles and positions some individuals have had three to four title changes with salaries that go along with it that's a concern when last year this time we had such a large deficit so I think that needs to be looked into those who are concerned because if we don't have money for books how are all these titles and salaries being
100changed thank you m another issue my last one line know you're GNA cut me off uh number 11 Mo'Nique ragdale good evening congratulations on the um students I know you guys would do a good job um I actually just wanted to make a few statements um to you superintendent um when I told you about advertising for the schools the Renaissance and Charters this is a classic example you know as um I do I get a lot of calls and inquiries from the parents and they call about complaints when they call about complaints they call about schools that are not our traditional Public Schools um I think it's important that we clarify to the parents that we are this camon school district who governs our Public Schools the traditional Public Schools they have their own board
101we do not govern them and we're not accountable for what happens to them and I think that should be clear and precise so that people can understand parents are very confused out there with the messages that are being had and given out and with even the literature and stuff when you do something great our students are on the rise and you have Kip under there that's not a traditional public school we don't govern we're not accountable for them that's not what you are brought here to do um payment renaer and that's just something that I just want to bring attention because I get a lot of calls too so um because we do so much advocacy for Education parents feel comfortable and they confide in us and um I can also you know piggy back
102off of with Nicole Goodman said about special needs we had um huge concern about all of a sudden these kids who had IEPs that were getting trans transportation to schools this year all of a sudden they don't get it I looked up every legislation I looked on the state I looked under our um rules and regul there's nothing that says that so I wonder I don't understand and I don't want to pry into their you know their personal business but why did the transportation just stopped when they've been getting bust to school from since K kindergarten so that was one of my other concerns and um I also was um reading about um Tia Morrison leaving and I did want to um make a recommendation and it's just a recommendation but um you do have
103um an employee who who is qualified who um comes to our meeting I always he it at the community engagement things that we do for um students and that's um sh I think it's Sher Sherry Perry Thompson I guess her name confused but she's at our meeting she advocates for us I see her at the games I see her all the time and um I believe that she would be you know someone that you guys can recommend I know that you guys always put out big things and I I agree with Miss K we need to start um looking at people who are already in our district and for long term stability we need somebody and who is familiarized with the community all right and um that's basically all I had um that's it oh
104and um this Thursday we're having a skating party for cam high so everybody's welcome to come out and bring their children thank you number the time is 6:00 p.m. to 9: at Millennium number 12 Nancy Ruiz Nancy Ruiz 13 Helen fante good evening tonight I would like to discuss some important topics first the sgos we as teachers are able to create our own assessments by law I brought this up at a meeting in the summer and I brought it up this last board meeting which you did not respond to my questions in October the teachers were told that they could create our own assessments for our sgos but that all the data was due by October 15th the special area science and social studies teachers were allotted time until October 22nd when these teachers submitted
105their assessments most assessments needed to be done over for various reasons one reason was the need for open-ended and leveled questions there were a certain number of questions that needed to be created for map testing there are not only there are not any open ended questions and there are not too many questions in my opinion there is no correlation between the two types of Assessments some questions posed are not correct for the specific grade level such as kindergarten punctuation marks they do not reflect the state allotted curriculum or follow with the gold program this was apparently recommended and told to you but nothing was done considering kindergarteners are still required to take the map test back to the sgos the teachers were not given enough time to be able to create their own assessments and
106to have their data collected and sgos created by the deadline I had suggested the use of our own Assessments in the summer so you were well aware of the law and were not in compliance back to a different question covering the map test why are the teachers not given any type of sample questions and terminology to use within our classroom to Aid our students we are given sample questions for every other standardized test such as the science asked for for fourth grade and even the park test second the technology department the ticket system does not work in a Time fashion there are smartboards that have various problems with each of them and are still not functioning at their best level some of the smartboards sound does not work some are not able to interact some
107will not interact but are not able to run an educational video and some need a new cord or light bulb some classrooms do not even have a Smartboard yet you want our students to compete with the other schools but do not give the basic technological support needed to get us there and you paid hella a boatload of money for to install new smartboards third the weather climate in different schools some schools are cold While others are hot can we please get those schools regulated to a normal range temperature it can become a health issue for certain medically fragile children this will lead into a safety concern and should be addressed as soon as possible on a final note please address your staff the parents and the community on why it was stated at a workshop
108that you spoke at on September 22nd 2015 one of the slides presented that it states and I quote within a few years Renaissance and Charter Schools may have the capacity to enroll every student or almost every student in the city why was the previous mention where do you predict the cam in public schools to be in two years five years 10 years in the future this may sound familiar because I asked these questions at the last board meeting and they were not answered thank you for your time number 14 quinzel Betha good evening okay so um just real briefly um good evening young lady and young men uh that's this this right here these are our leaders um and our association IH hug this is what we work with working with uh young people to
109get them into a position of leadership no not in the future but now currently today uh so one of the main things that um that's kind of presented to me right now and you know I stated them before and I would like to have like some off the record conversation with you guys is that um our our I don't have a budget for our program um and the schools that are wanting of our program um they're not given a budget on any after school program or any after school monies um and none of it has been allotted I've looked at the budget I've seen it um work hand inand with these um with the secretaries and different things like that and one thing that I do know is that when we want money for something
110we can find it um and the things that you know other things get pushed to the back burner so um just to talk briefly about what we do and I guess my journey today alone uh so I wake up I go from meeting to meeting and then um I go make it my obligation to work with the young people at dley school uh so I work with the population between second grade through 8ighth grade soon as I walk in the door the principal finds herself to meet me um with a bunch of other teachers with a host of concerns uh one in the class specifically um is a third grade class that um several children they don't have um you know they have very low literacy levels um so we work with those um those
111children with very low literacy levels um and we work with In Like A manto Man program right now but anyway this this particular class has four different teachers in the class it's it's a one class with four different teachers and when I walked into the class today the classes in disarray um and this one of the concerns that I brought to last um last month's board meeting is the is the culture and the climate control um and what are we doing to infuse the climate um or protect the climate of our schools um like I said you walk in the classroom it doesn't look like a learning environment um I responded to a teacher to get one of the young men's uh work that was sent home from school because he was running up and
112down the hallway and the teacher said what and immediately corrected herself and said um excuse me Mr Q you know how how may I help you um but you know I don't blame her it is is really the support of I don't know um how much professional development they're getting um or you know what's the budget of their professional development um we've done professional development with them um and you know like just like any other contractor um my services can only extend but so far uh without being paid or compensated um but neither here or there um one of the main things that I would like to see get done is putting our young people in a position of leadership um so that it would be nice for them to um start coming around to
113the schools um you know and begin so that they can see okay this is what leadership looks like um it's a concept with sociologist call informal social control so if we present these leadership models like Student Government associations some debate teams different things like that students will say okay well like I want to be like them uh we did a pet rally last last week and um you know the the dynamic of the school is beginning to change and a few other different things so like that's that's one thing I would like to see Incorporated um is just the climate control and what are we doing are we do we have a climate control team or or do we have um any type of team that is working with the development that and to get
114our children in some type of program some type of debates or anything like that thank you Mr your time is up that ends public comment all right so I'm going to respond to some of the questions in issues I've raised as always I'm going to ask our Deputy superintendent M momes to jump in here and there is Mr Benson still here so he was our first speaker and I'm going to go ahead and respond to the points he made even though he left because it's no secret that we haven't always seen I die on a lot of different issues but can't condone false allegations so the first is that we have rampant vacancies and that we are deliberately trying to uh injure the demise of our Public Schools I forget the exact words that he
115used so let me be clear about this we started the school year where 96% of our classrooms had a full-time teachers so 4% there were vacancies and for those 4% uh nearly all of them had a long-term sub meaning a certified teacher in front of the classroom so 98 99% of our classrooms had a certified teacher and the vacancies are driven by long by uh High need Staffing areas which is a national challenge it is not unique to Camden in areas of mathematics science special education there are not enough certified teachers Nationwide and I tell a lot of our young people that uh if you're interested in going into education and you have a passion for special education math or science move in that direction because you will have job security once you get out
116of college and so I'm not sure where he's getting his facts from but I wanted to immediately address that because it is far from reality to the general point that the work we are doing is leading to the demise of public schools it's absolutely nonsense if you look at outcomes if you look at instructional outcomes you look at what's happening in all of our school buildings we see real signs of progress graduation rate is up prek enrollment is up students are feeling safer and for those that that believe Renaissance schools aren't doing the city any good go talk to the 2,000 families that are enrolled in Molina in McGraw in East camon Middle and ask them what they think about the education they're receiving as our traditional district schools are also improving so anybody who
117cares to make that claim I will always respect where you're coming from but let's play with the same fact let's stick to the facts Miss Joselyn uh a number of you all raised comments about Librarians uh and so I believe um Miss Goodman you also raised that point and as you noted you've been stating this for the past two years maybe even longer so let me first say yes it is true we do not have full-time Librarians in all of our schools and yes perhaps in other schools in Cherry Hill haddenfield I can't corroborate but I assume it's true they do have Librarians what is also true is that we have more staff for the number of students than Cherry Hill than haddenfield we have more adults working inside of our schools and for anyone
118that's shaking their heads come prove it otherwise don't shake your head and tell me that I'm lying to you show me the data because I have the data we are more richly staffed in Camden because we spend more we spend $24,000 per pupil whereas Cherry Hill spends closer to 13 14,000 so literally we we have more resources and so it comes to a trade-off conversation where inside of our schools we have decided to have smaller classroom sizes which again that's look at the ratios we have smaller classroom sizes here in camon than almost anywhere else in the state and Country and that's what our school leaders have told us is the priority over a full-time librarian now thanks to the leadership of our principles our vice principles lead Educators and our teachers we find Solutions
119we're still able to take a large number of students into our libraries we have volunteers it's not to say that if we had more money we wouldn't staff a librarian if we had infinite resources of course we would have a librarian but resources are finite and again relative to everywhere else in the state we are very generously funded so it's a trade-off conversation and if certain schools believe that a librarian trumps an additional classroom teacher let's have that conversation with the school leader for next year we can make the class size go up slightly in a certain school and staff a full-time librarian happy to have that conversation Mr farmer you raised questions grievances sgos the 85% of certain schools uh we'll make sure Emily reaches out to you uh let's put it on our
120check-in agenda uh it's an involved conversation and as with all grievances like let's let's just continue to have those conversations with our team Miss Ortiz you rais some questions about various reading strategies and what we're doing to engage students is she still here so she left we'll follow up with her separately uh Mr Waters you raised the librarian issue as well which I just responded to with vocational education I think your words you something has to change I certainly agree with you that some something has to change as we've announced we are creating a vocational school at Camden high school happy to have a conversation about the programming availability at woodro Wilson High School uh but the plan to move forward with a vocational school at Camden high Miss Goodman you raised um a com
121you made a comment about DreamBox and uh and how it's potentially not being used and or maybe you're just raising the question of how it's being used I wanted Miss mccom to quickly comment on that sure absolutely and Miss Goodman thank you for your concerns anything that I may not address here we can definitely talk offline oneon-one but dream box is um I think uh what I heard you saying is that it wasn't available across the board for all of our teachers to utilize in our classrooms and it is available um we had a teacher Round Table in this building um about an that ended about an hour before this board meeting began and we were able to talk to teachers about their implementation of dream box um in areas where it could be refined
122but also areas where they were seeing promise um dream boox is a formative assessment and it's computerized and it's used specifically for math so it is a very focused assessment but it is available however there if there's a techn technology issue in a classroom I definitely would like to know the specific so we can track it down um but that that was the first that I was hearing that it was not available to our schools and we can definitely talk about it you also ra a question about qac we ask the state for where things stand on qac we're just waiting to hear back from them as soon as the results are available we'll of course share them out you raised an issue about lunch at Forest Hill first I had heard that specific concern
123let's take that one offline in the same conversation with Mr farmer to better understand what's going on there uh Miss Ragsdale and by the way before I forget with Miss Ortiz I know she had to cut out because she had some family responsibilities if someone has a phone number for her can you please pass it along to us and we'll just give her a call to more directly address her questions um Mr ragdale I appreciate where you're coming from in that the district has direct governance over traditional Public Schools uh and not over Charter School schools and not over Renaissance schools what I would respectfully submit is that one we do have contracts with Renaissance schools so there is some degree of oversight there stipulating what the needs are ensuring that they're serving all students
124we're working to build an enrollment system which affects all schools um so there there is some overlap we have shared service agreements so there is a lot of overlap in that sense so that's the technical response that I would again respectfully submit but I would also say that I do and we can agree disagree on this I do feel a responsibility to all students in Camden because if it's not this body if it's not me and the board members that we have Sitting before you no one is thinking about the greater good of the city and so what you have is kind of wasted not wasted efforts but you have inefficiencies with one school just tending to itself another school tending to itself the district tending to itself and there's no broader dialogue and that's
125not what we want where you have kind of separate enclaves with walls up and people just kind of fighting amongst each other instead we're trying to willingly collaborate uh and communicate with our partners I I I and I really do appreciate where you're coming from it hasn't taken away from fiercely advocating on behalf of our kids when we do our district highlights You Don't See Much of any Renaissance School students we don't have Renaissance School students sitting on our student board uh so we will continue to fiercely advocate for our students that is our primary charge but I do think that if it's not this body thinking about all schools nobody's thinking about all schools and I think that leads to certain inefficiencies and certain complications well so I'm glad you raised that because that
126this has come up a lot where a parent of a Renaissance School student comes to us and and this is again kind of kind of the collective responsibility and us being connective tissue to other schools we will we will connect them to the right people at the Renaissance School so I wouldn't say that she should have to go to her board she can absolutely come to us and it's a a simple phone call to connect that individual to the right person at at Kip cver North Cross or master or whatnot so okay family community engagement team and gotcha all right well I mean this is helpful and so moving forward feel free to connect them to our division of family community engagement uh Miss cream raised um uh the suggestion as did uh Miss Ragsdale
127about looking internally uh in the search process for a family community engagement leader and we will we will certainly look internally as well as look externally we're going to as as as we always do uh think about local talent and um and thank you for your suggestions there uh in in respect to miss cream's comment about Charters and the word she used schoer prison pipeline I just want to quickly mention that at Mastery schools there is a restorative justice approach I haven't spoken to other charter schools and Renaissance schools about it specifically but I have mentioned that we are taking a restorative justice approach and the Mastery schools have that same approach they have something called a restorative Circle which they do once a week with their students and so they are actively trying to
128reduce suspensions of their schools as well uh and again I'm not sure what some of the other schools are doing but I did want to point that out so miss fron you raised a number of concerns about sgos and I wanted our Deputy superintendent to respond to that so miss verante thank you very much for um your questions and I I try to get everything down and as I always say if I miss anything we can definitely link up afterwards but I wanted to speak specifically to um your concerns about teachers who were able to create their own assessments which by law teachers are able to do that um it's outlined in do doe guidelines and um the policies that are in place so the office of evaluation did make allowances for this as you
129um alluded to and provided suggested assessments and targets to all teachers teachers that did not want to use the suggested assessments did have the opportunity to complete the assessment development process and as long as their assessments met um a minimum bar of rigor because we want to make sure that the assessments are not just Assessments in isolation but they're connected directly to student outcomes which is the original intent for sgos as long as those assessments met that bar um that is fine those assessments that were returned to teachers did not quite meet the bar however the office of evaluation is committed to still working with those teachers so that they can make the necessary adjustments and Corrections so that those SOS are ready for a February submission so I'm not sure if maybe um there's
130some misinformation out there be happy to clarify it but there is still time for teachers to continue with the U making those submissions of the alternate assessments that they have that they are recommending that they're able to make um you also mentioned sample questions was it for map Sample questions for map so we can discuss that um what we want to do is make sure that while we're offering professional development and while we're talking about assessment we look at it from a high level and we really understand this assessment the purpose of it is to drive instruction and to make sure that we also are able to see how well our students have advanced so that's why we have formative and summative assessments and map is an assessment That's Unique because it help helps us
131to really be able to see how much our students are growing as they're given the different um assessments so we did not provide samples and any professional developments around sample questions for mat but definitely um we can talk more because I'm I'm not sure if I understand completely what it is that you would like to see because if if I'm not understanding we can connect and then it may be possible that I can talk to the senior lead Educators and we can adapt the training around some of your your uh questions so I just want to make sure that I'm very clear about what it is you're asking because I don't think it's just for sample questions for map I think it goes a little bit deeper but I'd be happy to connect with you
132afterwards and thank you for your questions and Miss fron you also raised building conditions and I believe a couple other people did as well and to that I say yeah AB absolutely uh half our buildings constructed before 1928 you all heard me say that at nauseum at this point and whenever the building issues come up we just address them as quickly as we can but sometimes it's playing whack-a-mole because when you have buildings that are this old there's only so much you can do now we're always going to move with a sense of urgency whenever those issues come up so cream school there was a heating issue we got on it right away in our central office building the heat and AC goes in and out I mean we're we're suffering through it as well
133which is why that's the second promise of the cam commitment which is why we're aggressively moving to partner with renissance schools to allow for the renovations of of those facilities uh which is why the Camden high facility renovation is so important so uh again it's something that we are keenly aware of and uh you know thank you for raising the concern um Mr Bea you mentioned that we should take the conversation offline so we'll find someone to continue that conversation thank you for all you're doing for the students at Dudley and Miss Gooden uh we're going to make sure that miss you and Miss Robinson will connect here after the meeting if there's anything else you want to discuss with us I certainly happy to to take that that offline thank you all very much
134have a great evening uh excuse me we're going to do the close out yes U Felicia you want to add something yeah I just had a comment just for the public whoever's needs any information or help regarding any and all schools any issues and you don't know necessarily to contact I know all of us board members are on Facebook contact us our emails are on the district website um send us a email um we're constantly all day every day addressing issues about schools garbage alleys I mean so just Reach Out to us if you feel like you're having a hard time reaching the right person any other comments before wej okay at this time I call for a motion to adjourn the meeting motion to adjourn second second motion to adjourn the meeting was made
135by Miss Atwood and Minister Muhammad all in favor of adjourning the meeting say yes yes yes all opposed say no the meeting is now ajour [Music]