001Good evening everybody. Welcome to our June policy committee meeting. We have a number of policies and regulations to go through. We got a pretty chunky alert from for it was actually their April policy alert. So we're doing several of the updates that they had suggested. So we're taking a little bit of a break from our wellness check because these are things that they've said we need to look at. I know we sort of discussed the cell phone policy and updates on that. They're still waiting for guidance I'm assuming from the state before they finalize that. So conceivably we will have that over the summer. But that is not on the agenda for today because we have not received that from yet. So with that we will get started and let us kind of go down
002the list. This will turn over to you. >> Yep. So the first notice or first policy that we're looking at is 0162 notice of board meetings revised. Basically as we know the notification requirements for board meetings has been changed based on the updated legislation. So the next two so 0162 0162.01 are Basically our policies being adjusted to include that new legislation and any requirements. So there's pretty they're pretty simple changes and then they align they have our policies now aligned with practices of what we're required to do. That's 06 0162 01601. >> Any questions about that? Yeah. So I did see that we have that section on the the home page now that you know we've always had our notices but it's it's more conspicuous inconspicuous >> conspicuous it's [clears throat] more >> There we
003go. >> more up front >> Yeah. Perfect. >> to find. Um and we no longer have to publish it in the newspapers that, you know, unfortunately are some of them going away. So, we can't really do that with certain papers that we used to. Um but, you know, if anybody is ever looking for information, our website's always great place. Um we also have email that gets sent out if you sign up for, you know, the emails. Um you know, parents usually are signed up and then, you know, anybody in the county who wants to sign up is also always able to do that. Um and then it's shared usually on our Facebook page as well and anywhere else where we're legally required to do it. Um Okay. So, we can I guess move on. >>
004Yep. So, the next one is uh 1643. That's the family leave policy. Um that's being revised. Um again, there's some updates uh to the New Jersey Family Leave Act. And I think the two significant changes are uh there's an adjustment in the duration of both uh time employed in months and time employed in hours. Um I there's a a a lower bar to hit in order to qualify for the New Jersey Family Leave Act. So, these are huge policies. Um many many many many pages. Um but the updates are specific to um and here So, previously, an employee had been employed by the employer for 12 months prior to being able to request the leave. The new revised law, employee only has to be employed by the employer for 3 months. >> Okay. >> Um
005that's the first piece. And then the se- uh second significant revision is uh previously, an employee had to work 1,000 base hours during the immediate preceding 12-month period. Now, similar to the month requirement, um 1/4 of that, which is 250 base hours, is the new threshold. So, uh the threshold has been lowered in both uh months and or hours. Uh and it's a function of the kind of employee you are. Are you an hourly employee or a salaried employee? And then those changes and the impact of those have funneled through the multiple pages of uh this 01 uh that one 1643 family leave policy. >> Okay. >> So, those are the significant changes as you'll see when in in one of the attachments. They're just really long policies. Um we're compliant with this. >> Okay.
006>> Something that when things like this happen, we become compliant immediately. Uh you know, and as soon as these laws are enacted and as we see and then oftentimes there's a lag time for some of our paperwork policies to come funneling through Strauss Esmay. >> Okay. Questions? >> I'll just ask at the time. >> I Most of these are pretty straightforward. >> They're all straightforward. That's what I mean. >> All right. Next we have >> So, this is equity in school and classroom practices. Um Basically, this is inclusive of the entire code, the New Jersey code, um for our inclusive practices policy and uh it aligns now with our comprehensive equity plan. So, we actually just revised our CEP last year and uh this is just an adjustment to again align with the provisions of
007the updated code. Um It used to be this code used to be solely housed in one of our regulations, 2411, and they moved it all over into this policy, 2260. >> Okay. >> It's a realignment and uh and our policy guide but also an alignment to the updated codes. >> Yeah. It looks like just um the things that were added. It says um when informing students about possible careers that this board shall not restrict or limit the options presented to students on on base of the protected categories listed in one of the statutes. Um and then also that the board shall not use tests or guidance or counseling materials that are biased or stereotypes on the basis of the same statute. So, just ensuring that students have access to all possibilities um and that they're
008not limited. All right. Questions? >> The next one's pretty clean. 2460-30, additional compensatory special education and related services. This is a lingering policy from the COVID-19 pandemic. Um so, it was something they put into place uh to ensure that students that missed their services during uh either remote or closed time period uh had proper uh compensatory services. That is no longer in place. The codes and requirements are no longer in place that you know, uh I guess facilitated the implementation of this and uh everyone that was ever impacted has already long been caught up uh on our roles and our rosters, but uh this is being abolished because basically the the the things related to this, the regulation guide, and things is uh all being abolished in the in the policy statement step by step.
009>> So, good. We'll move on to the next one. Dan Harris. >> 5561, use of physical restraints and seclusion techniques. Um uh There were a couple on our policy update that are specific to our high schools or things like >> Listen. >> We don't have to engage in those. Um I So, physical restraint piece. So, there is one choice in here. So, we do as a district have the option to not engage in physical restraints or to engage um based on our and this isn't changed. This is consistent with the previous policy. Um we do uh often sometimes get into situations where a student may need to be restrained uh in our special programs classrooms we do any of the staff in there that are engaged in those activities are properly trained. We use a
010Handle With Care program right now. Um we have trainers in each building. We have staff that have been trained. Uh those trainers have been trained by an outside company, uh Handle With Care company, and then our staff on each site will train the other staff members in the building to respond. We have Falcon Care teams that if there's a a crisis situation for a student in one of our special programs classes, um a core group of teachers will respond, and then there are roles that each one of those team members has. Everything from potentially being the person that's engaging and helping the student from harming themselves and things, all the way through to someone who's communicating with whether it's administration that's not in the room, whether it's, you know, on the phone with, you know,
011EMS or whatever it is. So, everybody falls into a role based on when they get to the classroom. But, this policy itself covers us and the guidance surrounding physical restraint. So, again, we are properly trained to do this. It's something that we have, uh you know, as something that we do in the district when we need to. Again, we have a reporting process. There's a there's a weak guidance that if there's something like that happens, there's a notification panel into the parents, mandatory screenings by the nurses. We follow all those protocols. Um So, the change in this is really they're adding this as a reporting data set to the student safety data system. Basically, it sounds like they're consolidating where we report some of our information. We report a lot of other information in the
012SSDS report. So, on the school district piece, the more efficient we can be in terms of reporting information, whether it's, you know, suspension reporting and things like that. The more consolidated it is, we can do it all on one form, then it's one thing to send to the state. If we're logging into different places and reporting here and there, um it gets laborious. It's, you know, it takes up a lot of staff and time. So, this um is an efficiency piece for for districts. Consolidate information into one location with other other areas that we report data. >> I just had one question. What's SSDS? >> That's the student uh safety data system. >> Thank you. >> Yep. So, that's where we report other information. >> Okay. Any other questions? >> Um I actually just had
013one really quick. Um do all of our staff members get trained on proper like handling if I know that, you know, we have some classes that are, you know, our self-inclusion or um you know, but I also know that we try to, you know, merge and like work together and there's times when we have other staff members that might be working with these students if the situation were to arise and perhaps the classroom teacher that was trained isn't present. Um >> So, we look at it in a couple couple of different lenses and it's uh uh building by building who's identified. So, the first factor is there are many staff members that um for their own personal reasons, whether they, you know, they've had a knee replacement or something like that, wouldn't necessarily go through
014the training, right? Because they wouldn't want to compromise their physical health. Um and we take that into consideration, obviously. But, in terms of uh who's trained, we have staff members in the classroom that are trained. We also have the Falcon team, I mentioned that. Uh the Falcon team are staff members in the majority of the buildings that are not assigned to a home room. So, if the Falcon Care or the Falcon team alert goes off, um maybe they're a you know, a related arts or speech teacher that has either a small group or they may, you know, be doing reporting or something like that and they can just get out of the classroom as opposed to leaving an entire class of 25 students. We would never do that, but you know, they don't have to
015find coverage for 25 students and go respond to the situation. It could be you know, if there's multiple phys ed teachers, maybe a phys ed teacher then they can leave and the other phys ed teacher can you know, take over both classes. So, we are strategic in who we identify to allow for a fast response time, but also we keep in mind the physical limitations of any of our staff members. We do have a range of staff members throughout the building to answer your question. The say the classroom teacher who's trained isn't available, there are other people in that class and/or in the building that can support. Again, not if not students aren't always in their classroom either. They could be in phys ed, they could be in the lunchroom, they could be in the
016hallway transitioning. So, we have try and be as proactive as we can. >> I just, you know, and I'll share a little personal anecdote real quick. My my mom is a resource [clears throat] um, she's a resource room teacher and so, you know, there was one time where she had a student who was you know, became violent and essentially, you know, she's one of those people she has had a hip replaced and things like that where Holly wouldn't have been you know, someone selected to do this, but you know, unfortunately because it was a matter of her safety like there were certain circumstances that have to happen. So, you know, I was like I was almost thinking about her and other teachers that maybe wouldn't normally be the one selected for this if they they
017kind of get any training on how to do it or if it's just the the protocols that they would follow. >> So, that's a good point. There are three tiers to the to the training. There's a baseline training that are de-escalation techniques that techniques that could be verbal. So, you're verbally de-escalating a situation. The highest tier, the most intrusive, the one we would we would use the least is the physical restraint. And the physical restraint comes from sometimes in a moment where a student is self-harmed, right? They're sitting on a in the against the the and they're banging their head against the wall. So, there's techniques about, you know, how to make sure that student remains safe by keeping yourself safe, right? Um there's also techniques in terms of blocking. Like if the student uh
018goes to uh make a move uh because of they're reacting to something and Right. then they learn safe blocking techniques for themselves, but also for you know, for the safety of the child as well and the other children in the room. So, it's uh there are years of training. So, everyone uh gets that baseline training. Um we're also involved and we've been working extensively with the transportation department, so they're getting de-escalation uh baseline trainings. Um and we're looking into whether it's appropriate to have some sort of uh you know, higher tier >> Mhm. >> trained staff if they ever need to, you know, engage in something on on the bus, as well. >> Okay. >> That's an ongoing piece. Again, it's student by student, right? Sometimes the bus is the safe place, right? That's where
019the best opportunity for them. Sometimes that transition is the most sensitive time, right? And it can be triggering. So, um it's student by student, class by class, and I say building by building because you have different profiles of classes in each building. And you could label the same MBLB um autism, but the profile of the class with those students um and their triggers and their behaviors are all different and unique. >> Right. Sounds good. Thank you. >> Yep. >> All right, let's move on. >> Yep. So, the next four, 6122, 61511511611502, and 6311, um those are uh basically grant-related, federal grant-related um their internal control recommendations for policy changes, um whether it's contracting goods or services. And these are generated from feedback for districts that have been uh audited by the federal government. So, um
020when the federal government comes in and looks at things, they give the feedback, they make sure things are going uh uh uh you know, the right way and they often tweak and recommend procedural changes. So, these changes um are a result of these audits. Again, they're not significant changes, but they're they're resulting from federal audits of other districts that have then kind of coordinated and collaborated with Strap Asthma to do some updates. Um and it says here after working extensively over several months with the first district that contracted Strap Asthma regarding an audit, they're now releasing revised policy and regulation guides. Um these regulation guides and policy guides have been submitted and approved by OFAC. They're the Office of Fiscal Accountability. Um and they're monitoring. So, Strap Asthma worked with OFAC and uh basically, they're
021minor revisions to help support the monitoring process with the districts. So, again, the kind of money that comes in from federal funds changes over time. They're looking for different things. It's all about just tweaking things and keeping up-to-date. So, this will help other districts in preparation for monitoring um if they ever get monitored. >> Or if they ever get federal funds. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Cuz we're not one that gets federal funds. >> Yeah, we get um some title funds, but small. >> I mean, the rules are the rules, but they're the same. >> Yeah, that's right. >> 10,000 or >> And still like >> Sometimes it's a blessing and it's a bad thing, but when they cut all the federal funding, it doesn't affect us as much. >> It goes down. >> That's
022right. I said, "Oh, sure." >> Yeah. Although, we did have a higher percentage for free and reduced lunch this year, so maybe we'll be be affected more positively and negatively, I guess. >> Um but you never know. >> Exactly. Um so, yeah, just for purposes of, you know, our board when we're looking at this, as you know, Dr. Layman has sort of said, most of these were um just minor revisions, but the regulation um it says this was from the alert sent from Chartwells SFE, it says "Based on the audit from the OPAC, which is the fiscal accountability compliance, the regulation was completely rewritten. >> [clears throat] >> So, that's pretty new. I mean, it's just you know, things again that have had to be done, but the policies are mostly just very small changes.
023And they're all pretty much about that same thing about, you know, reporting grants and how to handle all of that for purposes of monitoring and reports and all of that. >> So, the last one is 8561 procurement procedures for school nutrition programs. Again, this is another action in reaction to the Department of Agriculture conducting audits in districts and basically giving feedback. Um So, they worked with the federal federal regulations, the Department of Agriculture USDA, and the federal school nutrition programs. Um And again, it's minor tweaks, but again, it's all all off of the feedback. Our policy is written off of the 2018, so all of Chartwells SFE is off of 2018 guidance. The updated guidance is 2025. Typically, the 2025 would be rewritten and adopted over the next school year. When they came in to
024do the audits, the the federal government and the NJ uh Department of NJDA Department of Agriculture, they're looking at the 2025 guidance. So, they're holding us to the standard of 2025. So, Chartwells SFE is now early adopting basically this 2025 regulations. Again, not significant changes or anything like that, but um that 2018 guidance being replaced by 2025, so they're basically accelerating the adoption of the 2025. >> I was just curious when I was looking at this um on the I went too far, where is it? Um, it mentions it's letter C um on the policy page three. It has this whole section that looks like it's a new section of small purchase procedures and it just talks about like the um getting different quotes and it says a minimum number of three qualified sources. Um,
025but it says for it doesn't the amount of purchases for items is less than the bulk boards small purchase threshold. So I guess I'm a little bit confused because I know like if it's over a certain threshold that's usually when we're required to have bids, but I'm assuming that that's not a typo. So I just >> No, it's not a typo. Um, and we can have Laura kind of get get you the differences between uh say bid thresholds, right? So they're like one of the topics of conversation was the coach buses for years, right? When we hit a certain number, we then basically find vendors and things like that. So there's sometimes there's a cap number, right? >> Right. >> Um, when it comes to bidding, the there is a minimum, right? So it allows
026districts to efficiently buy things and get things without having to go through, you know, the multi-month uh sometimes bidding process um for some small items. So and I can let Laura I think it's I'm confident it's dependent on type of item, right? >> Okay. >> Um, and I know when we buy like some of our uh HVAC equipment, right? If we use vendors that are state approved, right? On the on the vendor list, we uh we can have a different timeline than if we had to go out and from scratch and and look for bids and things like that. So um I can have her going to give some clarity as to why the minimum which give you the exact number. It changes every year which is why >> Okay. >> I'm not going to
027throw a number out there because I know what it was. Um, and I know it changes um and it's usually a couple hundred dollars a year or sometimes it stable for a few years and then they have it by a Um cuz it feels like sometimes when we're doing things, uh the rules are always changing, right? Um versus many purchase orders and things like that. But in reality, the the the numbers and things that uh minimums and maximums are actually changing. So, you know, we may follow the same rule of this is our minimum and then as we go through the process, we're like, well, it was this last year. Yeah, it was that last year. Right now, it's this. Yeah, we can get some clarification on that and >> Okay. >> uh I'm I'm
028sure the board heads up. Maybe we can ask the finance tomorrow. >> All right, sounds good. Yeah, I mean, it We don't need to get into the nitty-gritty of it. I was just, you know, again, it was a little bit confusing to me, but this is not something that is, you know, >> Yeah, and >> I know a lot about, so I'm sure for people who do this, they're well aware of what >> Yeah, and the majority of our food comes from, you know, our traditional >> Right. >> acquisition processes, but we do have, you know, the New Jersey It's Farm to School programs. You know, we're looking at a fresh produce and our fresh fruit and then we're uh collaborate with local pizzerias and things like that. So, there is there is some level
029of uh outside the traditional engagement with school food. It doesn't all come from the government truck that rolls up, right? And frozen chicken nuggets and things like that. So, we have come a long way in school food nutrition. >> All right, sounds good. That is everything for policy for tonight. Um thank you all. Have a good evening. Uh