001in the Trenton Times on Friday, January 10th, 2025 and also posted on the district website. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic. Mr. >> Mrs. Norley >> here. >> Mrs. Barashi >> here. >> Mrs. Pops >> here. >> Dr. Isacson >> here. >> Mr. Solid. >> Mr. Miller >> here. >> Mrs. Lry >> here. Mr. >> Here agenda. >> Are there any questions? All those favor just to highlight a few things. Under superintendence report, we do not have students for uh student recognition. just to highlight a few things um in between now and we were last meeting seems like long time ago. Um so just a few things um the administrators have been uh working through the last year's action plan um meeting
002you know throughout the summer that will continue um a full data review at the August work session. Um some highlights um I shared with the board. I recently attended the RTM national superintendence conference where I was able to facilitate the discussion on AI in education topics including differentiated instruction, streamlining of daily operations and ethical concerns. Um the AI boot camp that the board uh that the district is part of um we are out actually being sponsored now through all for education and uh so that's now free and will start in September. That's exciting news for us. The algebra 1 boot camp um completed uh with 13 students participating. Um that is wrapped up. The riverfront remedial summer program had eight students completing their necessary work to move on to the next grade level. And ESY
003is wrapping up this week with students uh making meaningful progress through their IEP goals, participating in several different activities. Um for life skills, uh they have a lemonade stand. If anyone wants to come in Tuesday or Wednesday, you can stop all them up at Riverfront. Um, and also our preschool students will be celebrating with popsicles on Wednesday. We have some facility updates um that will be in the facilities report. Um, we are looking to reopen buildings August 18th for classroom setup, but more will be shared. Our administrators, as shared previously, are finalizing the action plans, curriculum updates, placing orders, and preparing for roll out of new courses. Our new director of curriculum will officially begin with us tomorrow and we'll be finalizing um our items for August. The administrative team has done an outstanding job
004recruiting and interviewing throughout the summer. At this point, all teaching positions have been filled except for the high school Spanish teacher. Um we are working with our service provider to secure a long-term sub for the fifth grade uh absence as well that begins in September. Um we met with our substitute provider as well as our instructional assistant coverage um provider today. Um we will be starting the year with two building subs in each building. As we know substitute coverage is difficult so we are being more proactive by establishing two in every building. Um so we will finalize that and new staff orientation is scheduled for August 19th and 20th. So we'll be welcoming in all of our new staff at that time. The administrative retreat will be taking place on August 12th and 13th with
005our focus on inclusive practices, culture building, and using data to finalize our action steps. In regards to our enrollments, our PEA program classrooms are currently have 104 students enrolled. Um, we are accepting five additional students from the weight list, which brings us to full capacity and we have an additional 31 preschoolers on the wait list. Preschool disabled classrooms are also finishing their registration and are at 15. Um, looking ahead at our kindergarten, we anticipate our class sizes at about 16 students. So, registrations and transfers are being actively processed for all the buildings to have finalized class list scheduled and prepare for a smooth transition. Um, I know community relations did not meet, but just a few highlights as we are preparing. Uh, national night out is August 5th. The district will have a table there.
006We're doing school supply giveaway. We have pop house popsicles with the principles on August 13th and that's in partnership with the Florence Township Fire Department. We have our school open houses um with high school orientation August 21st, kindergarten orientation signing day which is August 26th. Our prek open houses on the 27th and Riverfront hello day on August 28th. So, a lot of different highlights and events that are taking place and they are updated on the Google calendar on district website. question. I want to say a little bit earlier, but I will send that update. Um, >> yes, I hope it doesn't. >> Yeah, all events are listed on the calendar. >> Second, please session. session for students. Spring. I need a motion in a second. Close session, please. All >> fitting form one. Members of
007the public are comments only public comment of the meeting. General comments not necessarily the agenda portion of this meeting. Pursuant to the open public meetings act, the board will not publicly discuss personnel matters. This portion of the meeting is not question. However, the board will give all appropriate consideration and all super favor. See no one to close me for a moment. All >> favors [Music] relations. July 9th. >> I know it's been so long. I'm down five minutes here. >> Report card. rolling and no just rolling. >> Just rolling. Just rolling. Um talking about getting action plans started and started school year and resources and materials. Uh we were process sorry. So we were going back and looking at um our notes from our May 30th inservice where some of the staff provided some additional
008insight into what materials they wanted ordered um what materials they did not want ordered. Um so the administrators and um director of curriculum are meeting with the staff now to make sure we order the right materials that they're requesting and realigning curriculum updates to match that as well as new courses that were added. We met last week as far as going on parking lot. August ovens. science. Also on high school standing ovation. We used our facility here last year again. facility checklist to make sure that all fires things like lights quick because I noticed it in the approval for contracts as well for the track repair. Um, I just wanted to comment that our really beautiful compared to most of the other schools that our track athletes compete at. Um so I really hope um
009as we approve this expense to keep it beautiful that we can host at least one if not a couple of home tracks moving forward. Was very disappointing to the track athletes that they didn't even have one meeting this past year. Okay. The repairs are just little repairs, little rips inside the track. So that's just to close that up. Water gets into it and it spreads a bigger problem. We did when they walked out, we did have I did ask for a quote just resurface it was $325,000. >> Oh, and oh yeah, sorry. Couple more things. There was also a grant or additional funding that Mr. mentioned to me last week or yeah last week I had met with the I guess it's the National Tennis Association UTGA I believe it is. Um so they have
010funding available. Um however they only cover up to $200,000 and then $20,000 per court. Um 50% max. Um when we have when we received quotes for that a couple years ago it was 525,000 and we would have to come up with the difference which would be so when I ran the rough numbers they would cover up to 160 we'd have to come up with 316,000 that's finance uh met also on July 9th and um there are new bid thresholds for contracts. So uh the new bid threshold overall is 53,000 for transportation is 24,200. Um I think it would have been 22,400 before I like oh it um and uh so um we also will be putting out um for transportation bids for two groups for 2526. Uh the bid opening is scheduled for this week
011July 30th and uh we should be appointing uh those in the August board meeting. Um the transportation department um has also been um approved to perform on-site mandatory training for new bus drivers which is great so we don't have to send them out to another district. Um we did receive our IDA funding for the fiscal year 26 of $554,288. And uh Bruce also gave us an update on the nonpublic funing for f 26. So what this is is um our school acts as an intermediary um with I believe you're right. Um so when the state funds non-public schools uh they use public schools as the intermediary to uh manage those funds. So Louis has to take the money and do everything to get that over to the life center, right? Yeah, we should we take
012care of business for the state for free. >> That was it. Any questions? I don't really have much else to report because covered the one matter already. Um, and actually in your report also covered the status staffing. So pretty much what we've been discussing as we've met as a committee but if there's any questions we did meet I did update the committee. I did go to the straps estimate conference back in June. Um so I just updated everyone on some things that I did learn in regards to um the website um things that are on there that we potentially can access. Estress is willing to review all of our policies just to make sure that we're in line which is some cost to us. So that's something I did tell Donna about and um there's
013policy alerts that we can get from the website. on their home page. Um just things like that that I kind of just updated the committee on. Um the preliminary SSDs, the student data uh of course was on top of it and the data should have been done for the entire for the school year when we met it was due that week. So >> yes, so the preliminary data is submitted from the administration. It's reviewed. It's submitted to the department of ed by August 18th. It'll be reviewed and action >> at um the annual review of policies. We kind of went over that there was nothing that has came out from the state in regards to any policy changes as of yet. So not we don't have anything coming down and the cell phone policy Donna
014had um instructed us that according to the governor that every district had to have a cell phone policy a no cell phone policy in place by September. Um nothing has came out from department of ed guidelines but Donna and the admin here have been on top of it. They met with the union and came out with a policy that we reviewed um in our committee and we just felt like um there's a lot of discussion. So we will be um bringing it to the community and to the students for some feedback soon. Um, Tracy had some good things, some good feedback that she had some concerns about the policy that was submitted by the admin of the So, we just thought to be fair, we should put it out to the community to get feedback.
015>> So, if anyone read calls from the governor's address, he had said no cell phones at the high school um or no no cell phones in school, excuse me. Um, so part of what we wanted to do was what would that look like here? The the Department of Ed has not provided any further guidance. There is no bill that has passed that puts that in place for September. Um, and we do have some classrooms that use cell phones, but we also know that there are some concerns with the use of cell phones um, and students abusing them. So, the administration um, met with the association, reviewed some highlights, some things that they would like to see happen, but as historically indicated, we would like to get additional buy in and additional understanding of what the
016policy ramifications had. If we were more restrictive, what would that look like? How secure them um ownership of that responsibilities of teachers as we go through um and you know concrete data so our policies being made uh put before the full board we'll have qualitative and quantitative data regarding any changes so we're going to take them starting in August through probably November I should talk about to have some focus groups and further discussion on what that would look like if we're going to change it at all or maybe by then there will be further guidance or there's another hot topic that So that was going to be my question like was that a mandate? Was a law or he just said it. Why do we take such fast action on something he just said? Quite
017honestly, having had children at all levels in the school, the phones have been more helpful than not in my opinion, particularly as we've gone to a technology based learning environment and having students who have um different kinds of learning challenges, they've been very positive for their use as well. And so if we go down this route, I prefer that we look at ways to to uh allow continued use where they're beneficial um and not jerk to uh you know an outgoing governor who you know he's going to be gone in January no matter what right so um that's just I did appreciate that Donna Cherry Hill Woodberry who already has the no so policies and I mean she got some good from them in regards to the decline in their discipline. Um, and it was
018data to show that it was beneficial for having the no cell phone policy, but you know, like you said, we don't want to just do this major reaction and do this without having, you know, some feedback. >> I'd like to know what somebody looks at where the harm is. So, >> there's some research. I mean there's research that shows in regards to too much screen time or how it's escalated to other events and um to fight and other things but you know what would be beneficial for our students here and I think that's why we said before we we're making a um something submitting through the board that we take a pause to see all right let's talk about our students our culture our understanding how we can use it in the classroom setting that's
019beneficial and when it put away and then if you're not putting it away during that time now you're insordinate not following directions and so forth that's a different issue than using so how do you find that balance >> and just so everyone agreed to have their cell phone it's not like they came up with policies it's not like we're just you know listening to what the governor you know said we are but and the districts um so reached out to the two districts that um you know were mentioned in the governor's address as well as when I was at my conference I brought that up as a discussion point at the national level um and superintendent from New York and Virginia also shared in their data and how things during that time, more social interactions,
020more social um communication that were being served because age appropriate um and then um offer to be able to reach out to them as a reference point as well. Um but again, how it applies here is different. So I think that's why the key point is let's get more teacher input. Let's see what it looks like in the classroom. Let's be able to have quantitative data point that support or say it's really not an issue if you put these certain parameters we're going to pause a little bit and like I said there was only I think one reading of the bill um no further action was taken. So until then at first it was that was going to be rolled out in September. So that's why back in I think March we started the discussion
021because we didn't want to wait till August to have to scramble but we've been waiting waiting waiting and no guidance did not provide any further guidance because the school board sent to the board member just an overview of what it would be but everyone's still waiting and discussing a compromise, right? The original was kind of culture turning and discussing because I think we're going to talk student students are actually going to be very discuss So I appreciate very much that we're trying to be proactive yet not overly thoughtful and consideration standpoint around these types of topics. So looking forward to those That's it for me. Thank you. >> So for new business >> um the board retreat is scheduled for the work session. Um I believe we were reaching out to Justin at the boards
022to help facilitate that discussion. We're also going to be discussing uh where we are with some data points um where we are with the strategic plan. Um this is the last year of the strategic plan. So highlight some of the areas that we accomplish, some breakout areas that we want to continue this year and then discuss what we're going to do for next year norms of the board. Um I know we talked about community relations back in um kind of Oh, the review of self evaluation will take place at that time and then setting what is the work session. It's the season. >> The notes um from the last retreat are on the board. retreat. I share that out to make sure everyone has access to it. And they're also included in dorms. And then
023um if you recall new board members, we created a new member kind of like manual. Um that is also accessible to all board members on the share drive. I make sure that I bring hard copies on reports. Motion second to receipt of the questions. All those in favor >> motion and a second please for the following M01 to approve the special meeting board of education special meeting on June 2nd and special meeting on June 9th M02 work session meetings June 16th for the work session and close session and M03 for the regular meetings of June 23rd and close session 23rd. >> Yes, M012 What's that? I have to abstain from just Yeah. >> I need a motion. Motion motion. >> All right. Motion a second minutes of the meetings of June 2 and June. That's
024fine. That's fine. We can >> we for each of the meetings. Yes. >> I have to from 69. >> Yes. I have to explain. Motion please session and second. >> Yes. Motion second regular meeting. Yes, >> administration. I would like a motion and a second, please. the following. A01 to confirm the duration boarding decisions and A02 for the NP NJ SIA membership. A03 for school district.6 school year A4 the approval of the chapter 27 emergency program.6 school year. A5 to amend 2025 2026 budget 806 for facilities use motion >> so three and a half please handbook community service. Um, I want to ask about there's a little line about emergency. >> Sure. So um you know when we shut down during co time um you know things were transitioned during the 2122 school year the
025emergency plans were were written um so what that language means is if a hard copy is used in the classroom setting then online we have supplementals that go along with our subscriptions. So we would migrate over to our online version um in the classroom setting if we're using the online textbook. So for example, say you know um science program in middle school like an online program but we have a hard copy text available for students that are required for 504 or an IEP or that's learning model then that text >> Yep. So to our copy textbooks if it's provided by the um publisher then we have a class set or a grade level text available for that >> are most >> I know I picked hard >> right >> so they are but some of
026the publishers do not have the hard copies of gossip they have interactual as well the hard copy and stat and before during co and you know during that transition time those would be classroom and then we' also have c that we're going back and forth. So during that time, so this is if the state emergency. Um so you know again we kind of what we already did, what worked, what didn't work. Um, we've had that. Have you had copies of any older books? We had to change some of the percentages for the preschool provider. Um we wanted to make sure that we had money set aside. So what happens with the preschool provider is the county provides us with a rate per pupil. Um then we have to submit a private provider budget worksheet. So
027another worksheet on top of what we've already submitted which gives us the per people gives the private provider their per amount based on the number of classrooms and their expenses. We have to put in our in that budget um the full amount for the for the so I think for us like 16,000 something like that we have to have that money set aside. They wanted that money they wanted to see that money set aside because In case the fire goes above what their budget, that money set aside there for them to recoup any additional cost in >> favor motion Please follow E01 for the warrants. E02 for the financial reports. E03 for contract approval. E04 for the state aid. E05 for school breakfast lunch and prices for the 256 school year. P6 for the extended
028daycare program for the 256 school year. P 07 for the nonpublic school children nursing services. P8 for nonpublic services. P 09 for the IPA grant. P10 for the IPA grant submission submission. B1 for the increase in the bid threshold. B12 for the amended purchasing manual. B13 for the disposal equipment. for the fiscal year 26 192. >> So, we're working. >> We're looking into it to see if we can get back into it. There's certain requirements that we have to have. Um, so we're trying to those requirements. If we do, then we can apply for it and start accepting right now. You have to apply by the 31st of July and go after you already. So for any applicant, you can't apply after July 31st. There's no as I was asking to make sure parents are
029aware of that phone calls asking >> check website comes up a warning comes up to say July 31st no longer cannot apply for childare So it's unfortunate but you may want to check that people are asking I don't think they have to hurry up and apply if you are going to move forward it was for storage unit I was [Music] Okay, [Music] >> I was trying to keep straight. Item G. the professional service agreement with associates has been amended for an additional amount of $75,000. I was wondering about the cost of that. >> Uh we were we usually contract with transformation and bread. As of right now, we are not contracting transformation. So we're moving those funds over to them right now. >> So they they provide the RBT services for students um and they
030oversight for those specific individuals. Um so last year we were using amazing transformation and then also learn um so transformation is not returning so that I have I don't think Uh we usually take that. So when we had the um ovens replaced, they asked the vendor who was install the oven to see if they would take it. He gave a little bit of credit. They didn't want it because it doesn't work. Um so we usually take this stuff to take down. You can take it to the scrapard, but unless it's Any additional questions? All >> in favor to approve the change in the works work session. Um just to clarify I apologize this was not added at the June meeting that was my fault. Um we had discussed at the May work session removing that
031date because New Jersey school boards um so we have the work session that's being allowing us all attend school boards and it's a Tuesday because I believe so I apologize that my >> Yes. Sorry. Okay, moving on. question please >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Dr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Miller. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Norley. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. Yeah, >> the approval of comprehensive technology. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Miller. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Northley. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Yes. >> Awesome. >> Any questions? >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Dr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Miller. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Northley. >> Yes. >> Mrs. P. >> Yes. Yeah, >> salary 2026 school year >> Dr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Miller. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mrs. >> Yes,
032>> second is for P5ur 2026 school year >> Mrs. Second P6. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Miller. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Second P7 district. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Miller. >> Yes. >> Mrs. >> Yes. >> Mr. for Memorial High School. >> Any questions? >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Yes. Mrs. North. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mr. P9 personal job description questions. >> Mr. Dr. Yes. >> Yeah. >> This is >> for PE appointment. >> Yes. Dr. Yes. >> Yes. >> Second, please replace students. >> Mr. Dr. Yes, >> Mr. Miller. >> Yes, >> Mrs. [Music] Mrs. P12 approval of summer teacher service coverage >> Dr. Yes, Mr. >> Miller. >> Yes, >> Mrs. >> Mr. P3. >> Yes. >> Dr. Mr. Yes. >>
033Community form two. During the public comment section of the meeting will seek public comment on any item. Members of the public are reminded that if they wish to speak they can do so. Participants should see their first and last name and address for address clearly. In accordance to staff board of education by law 0164-6 comments will be eliminated to maximum perceive 30 minutes in >> favor I see no further in favor. >> All those in favor. >> Thank you. Hope