001eyeballs there we go good evening this is the policy committee me meeting for the month month of March we have president at the meeting we have Dr Higgins from the high school we have Dr pep Dr layan Dr Chanley Mrs Fabiano Mrs Ratner and Mr zner so we're going to start today with the uh discussion on honoring people achievement we did have a discussion about this a lengthy discussion in curriculum and a presentation by Dr Higgins from the high school with his recommendations so we're going to review it again here in policy so that we can Mo forward for first reading thank you very much um as you have the packet in front of you um I will go through the presentation up on the board as well uh as we spoke in curriculum committee
002meeting we have started this discussion on honoring pupil achievement as a policy and the regulation we've had this discussion since December uh as as committees um and with the questions and the comments that have come up over the past couple of months I was asked to do uh a deeper dive and bring some recommendations back to our committees for policies and for regulations um the one thing I think uh which really didn't to talk about in curriculum is the more I read these the more ideas I get the more thoughts I get there is a lot in them and every time I read it I read it a little differently and really the discrepancies I guess you could say or the questions come within the regulations I think if you read the policies word for
003word everyone is following the policy to their letter definitely to their Spirit but to the letter as well so if you look at the policy uh 5440 which is honoring the pupil achievement the three real tenants of that policy are listed there and those are things that we follow the board does recognize outstanding achievements the board does maintain membership in the National Honor Society um and the high school does um name a valid victorium and a salutatory if you look at the regulations as I move forward um as you look at the regulation as I move forward the next two slides are what is written as the regulation honor role we talked about a little bit in the commun uh the curriculum committee was that while that stipulates very specific things for grades 5 through
004eight in the high school they are very wordy and there are some liks in there there are some things that I think um get lost in the terminology um there is the other thing that we talked about in the curriculum committee was we kind of injected this idea of weighted grades into to this discussion in the regulation and in the policy where they don't exist uh honoring pupil achievement and honoral and principles lists are based on marking period grades and Market period grades only which are not waited um so you can see there how wordy the honor Ro uh regulation is and if you compare it to the way our grading system works um which is regulation 2624 it really isn't Gru with with how we created the high school now like I've said before
005we can get into discussion after discussion about how we grade and and things like that but that's not really a discussion for this time um if you do look at the pupils uh the principal list on the next slide this is really where the questions started to um to come origin the original presentation that I gave to the committee I think I believe I gave it to both committees um was that the way we have been using the principal's list in the high school um is not 100% what is written in the regulation the the caveat there where a grade of 85 or veteran honors courses will also qualifi for the principal list has not something that there not something that the high school has been practicing and they have not been practicing that since
006it originally changed 17 years ago um that's kind of where the questions came into into to play uh that's where we started to talk about things like weighted grades which technically an 85 would not be a weighted grade for the honors level uh what we did discover since that time was that this was most likely a template uh upgrade to from sh Esme that was just kind of either overlaid or uh uh adopted by the board um and kind of does not go it does definitely does not go with the practice that that we have been doing at the High School uh the recommendations that I have given in the past and that I continue to give are on the next slide uh that would be to update regulation 5440 uh to and again I
007speak for the high school only I do not speak for the middle school or any other level within the district students in grades 9 through 12 must achieve an average of an overall 85 average to be an honor roll one of those grades within that 85 average can fall between 75 and 79 but more than one can um so the overall average has to be an 85 and one grade can fall below 80 uh to to make honorable to make principal's list students in Grade 9 through 12 must achieve an average of an overall 90 all grades must be 90 or higher to make principles um this is again based on marking period grades only which are not waited this is the current practice at the high school and is in step with other school
008districts in the area um I do have that uh link to data that I have from other school districts in the area is pretty rudimentary um and if uh anybody would like to see that I can show them team as well um and that is that is consistent with schools that honor people achievement not all schools do that not all schools schools have P policies on that or do they have honor roles or principales lists or class um very interestingly we had an in-depth conversation at the curriculum committee about the regulation about how we don't necessarily follow that one caveat in that uh in that regulation over the past couple of weeks and months as I've been looking into this deeper um I did look at the policy and the regulation for class rank that
009is the policy and the regulation that indicates weighted grades uh the class rank policy which is 5430 uh we do follow that uh based on the tenants that are in that policy the board authorizes a system of class ranking which we do and we have weighted credit for honors and AP level with a minimum of 70 credits to be uh counted for that can I have a quick question about that slide rank slide or the one one before just there so on this this is the recommendation from n okay so this is different than the revised so I put the so the draft that's in the confidential was or not conf in the executive content was what Dr Higgins and I worked on in the elementaries for the previous meeting High School is not so
010I just uploaded this because we're we bring we're bringing these recommendations now we will adjust because we also have to think a look B at the middle in the elementary now they're open to change but they want to know where the high school's going to land they don't want to commit to the high school and that threshold until they found out what it was so okay you want to continue to be respectful of each area I to I agree I was just I have a question also if this gets approved when are we looking to put it into effect immediately or so it's kind of an interesting Yeah question because the answer would be yes because it's exactly what we do now okay right it's what we've been doing um so we would not change
011anything kind of and and that's really where your head around this we're we're asking you to change the regulation to follow the practice and the policy we follow it the policy is follow right policy very Broad and I can just one more follow I know I know three of five of you on the board already heard the presentation sorry guys I'm Tred again um okay the um I know this is talking about like honors and AP there's no I guess additional I consideration is is and I know you're only speaking here for for high school um with with middle school which I know you said we're going to kind of go back um it mentioned something about like the honors in advanced courses can have a lower grade is that so that's that's what we
012talked about in curriculum in terms of standardizing and being consistent with potentially whatever was the outcome from the high school so if 90 was a threshold 90 would would be the Threshold at middle school and Elementary right so I'm reading right now because I did come prepared and the person princial list in middle school is 90 90 in every course during the regular school day with 85% in the advanc right now the only Advanced courses that we have is mathematics and of course now we have Ela and we're very excited that we are now going to have science um the recommendation would be I think the consensus of the curriculum because I can't speak for this was that it should be the same it should be 90 because we feel if you're if you're a
013child who's who takes a more academic rigorous class it's because you have the capability and therefore your grade should be reflective of your capability and therefore it should be 90 so then recommendation would be because that's the only thing we have to change in the middle school is that 85 would now be removed and would be 90% in every course okay so my other question going to be which math courses because in some places it says algebra one for that but other places it well that would would be all CLE up be moved that's correct that's correct so when getting into class Rank and this is where they talk about weighted and unwe R so I did D um we follow the policy the way the policy is spelled out um the Board of Education
014follows the policy when we get into the regulation I learned something and I kind of talked about this a little bit as we learn policy as we grow we learn policy as we work here years I've been here since 2008 and all of the policies you know they come and they change and you learn and and as you move on um when we look at weighted grades what I learned as the weighted grade policy is you take an honors class you get a weighted grade uh you get weighted you get extra eight points for your GPA rank if you take an AP course you get extra 10 points for your weighted GPA in your classroom that's not necessarily true according to the regulation according to the regulation only the the core classes should be getting
015those honors waved so any honors Business course any honors visual art s any honors performing Parts should not according to the regulation get those honors weighted credits um but they do they we have been doing that I don't know when like this is something I just really learned um in my in my belief all of the honors classes should have gotten it what I what I understood it to be is when this regulation was enacted we did not have honors levels courses in business music and art um and um so my suggestion to the policy committee too would be to change that regulation as well to Simply read on the next slide students in honor levels classes receive eight points for calculations of class rank students in advanced placement courses receive 10 points for calculations
016in classroom and that's where it stipulates that the weighted grades are for classroom ranking class rank only we talk about honor roles and principal list that is your marking period grades which are not Meed um finally I was asked to talk a little bit about National Honor Society uh like I said this before this was not a part of my original presentation so I I kind of just looked at this over the past couple of days um currently in the high school juniors are can apply after their first semester and seniors can apply after their first marking period those who are applying or those who are invited to apply apply uh must attain a weighted average of 90 by the end of that period okay that's the way it is currently all right yeah I'm
017sorry I didn't want to interrupt that's okay you mention that the waiting only is for GPA and class ranking senior year but then this excellent question that is I want to set you up to so so what I'm saying is the the the regulation for class rank is is the regulation that says it should only be used for um GPA right what the National Honor Society which we are affiliated with uh it allows schools to manipulate the requirements for their particular school at some point when creating requirements for the National Honor Society someone said we should use weighted grains so I talked about this a little bit at the curriculum committee meeting if you look at the class rank section it's titled academic incentive programs so a lot of these regulations were enacted when um
018Monroe was a different type of school where we were incentivizing a lot of these academic programs whether it be National Honors Society or honors classes or AP classes where you had maybe 15 20 kids in National Honor Society this year we're going to have 37 kids it's more than half of the senior class um which is a little much um not only is it a little much for the school it's a little much for the advisers too it's a lot of work and is it truly indicative of the elite that should be correct right so um this differs now I did missp speak in I did misspeak in the curriculum committee meeting where I said the National Honor Society standards are a flat 375 um that was not their standards that was an average standard
019for the schools in the area that was my mistake the nonweighted was the standard for the national so we need change it to what the standard is for side so the recommendation for the high school is still the same that is on here um in speaking with advisers uh over the years and speaking with uh the people that have run the club uh their recommendation is instead of that weighted 90 it just be a flat 90 well here has let me just stop you for a second but recommended one of the things that I talk on the middle school why we don't have National okay if it's a National Honor Society and they don't use weighted and we follow their standards we pay their fee we're affiliate with them we should also do what they
020do correct correct except for the fact that they actually have um they have a notation in there about the minimum that is expected but they have the uh the caveat where schools can then require higher minimum but you're not requireing higher you're making it easier no no no their their actual minimum is is very low no that's about the number weighted well correct yeah because when you weit it you're actually lessening the the we we also have to understand the weighted is if we think about this the weighted is a Monro right not all schools wait I on National Honor Society is not going to use the term weight okay because it's not something that schools do so what so is your recommendation different was when you left the last committee which which was good
021because you gave us information so my my recommendation stays the same however at the last committee at the the the curriculum committee after I did missp okay and I said the National Honor Society standard was a flat 3.75 which is about a 92 um the curriculum committee meeting wanted to go with that standard however I must spoke okay so my recommendation is still what's on this list okay would be a nonwe okay okay instead of the nonweighted 92 we just want to make sure we get all this information right is there a reason we're the only ones that weight averages so schools do weight for GPA purposes uh and now if you investigate the way grades happen what I can tell you is that we are really one of the only school districts around that
022do a 100 average everybody else does a 4.0 average and those are called quality points so I think that's we get into a lot of Fusion that because when schools grade they grade on you know AVC and D 100 all that all of those grades are then equivalent to Quality points those quality points are then weighted for AP in honors that's why you can get something above a 4 so they're getting a double weight so they're not because they're not getting weighted on their grades they're getting weighted on their quality points so but we wait on the grades so he has my question we don't have quality point right so we wait only on the grades but when they go to colleges don't they convert that so look at the equality points so out of
023a four they they convert a lot of different things what they usually do from my understanding is they convert it to take the weight out oh okay they will convert to take the way at because they're going to look at in our school right you go you have a graduate that goes to a college the college is looking at their transcript and they have a 97.5 GPA their GPA is 97.5 but their grades are all 85s right because they're 85s or 87 because they waited they automatically know that all of those grades are waiting but what they do look at is AP AP the quality and the Integrity of the class academic rigor that they took they're also looking at if you're taking college prep classes and getting 90s in the college prep classes that's
024they're also taking that into account um so like I said we could have these conversations for days about the the the the need for weighted or the positives of weighted or the detriment of a weight or the 4.0 scale versus the 100 scale and I can see Mr he's shaking he's ready to's ready to argue with me yes now I think he agrees with you yeah I think he agre any patient my my question though then is like now for National Honors and I can understand wanting to make the criteria more challenging I think having overh half is is a lot pretty um but this then would take a lot of those students that are taking those higher rigor courses which I know you're like it wouldn't start until like next Freshman Class um but
025you know I know that a lot of those students tend to be you know I mean I I will use love as an example I was that kid who tried to do a lot of AP and honors classes and I wasn't getting the same level grades as I would have in um you know like a college like a college Prep course if you will but at the same time then like those students that are in that situation where they're like well I'm going to challenge myself and I'll get an you know I'll get a lot of 85s those students would no longer be eligible for National Honor Society with 85 history that's that's the choice they make and I think the comment that you made earlier when you were not being PC which is did
026I didn't mean to say it I'm going to say it because I'm not PC so there you go it's are you your classes and your grades for learning growth which is Big we're big as growth right growth mindset or is it for a grade is it intrinsic or is it extrinsic do I think anybody should take a class that is beyond their ability and get a c if it's be honorability maybe maybe not it really depends on where you're at but I do feel very passionate where I know Dr Higgins does also if you're on this level then you should be in classes on this level if you're on this level then your class this level and if you get a lower grade in this class but you're on the level where you belong there
027so be it it's not any different in the work history when you go to work every day there's different ways the different jobs that you do some people do an easier job a harder job they work harder you say well look what I had to do all day and someone says well I didn't have a hard job well they don't make the same amount of money they don't have the same Prestige they don't have the same degrees that's just that's just the nature of it I can make an argument either way I'm not necess a person that's a conversation for another time the waited to me a great is a great is a great um and I do feel the only thing I do feel which was what kazala brought up which I was very
028when I when I flipped my opinion at the last meeting and now I'm kind of flipping back is I do believe though that you shouldn't be limited to not get principal's list if you get an 85 because then does it pertain to the child who's the top 10 and according to your research that's not the case children that are becoming sum magnor the top 10 or 20 they're getting those 90 95s they're getting above and beyond because they they they can take the academic rid of because they're that right that's why we differentiate why do we differentiate because you have children of all different learning levels in the classroom and they should what do we always say to a child a c is a good grade if that's your very best if you go to
029class and you do the very very best you can legitimately in your study habits and your ability to synthesize information and you have a c it's an average grade it has become a dirty grade it has become a word that we don't say anymore but when I grew up a c was an average grade and if you worked hard and that's what you got you were an average student and then if you were in a class where you could take the academic recer you went into the honors you know I'm so glad now you just can't take whatever class you want because there should be there should be a a a a minimum expectation that someone could handle the class which we talked about which has gone in a very good direction I also yeah
030I don't want to with with with the National Honor Society porion of of the policy my concern though is we've also been trying to achieve you know greater uh iing it's not like those those stuff that handle through AP the AP they're called the group that handles AP um scores that we get College from bronze you know to Silver and I I definitely understand and I think we are all in agreement that students should take the courses that they are on that level for but is this going to take a student where they're you know they're like well I really would like to be in National Honors I think it's important to me and then those students are not challenging themselves to be in those courses because they would be concerned that their grades would
031no longer be weighted for the purposes of a National Honor Society and things like that where they say well I want to make sure I get into National Honor Society though I would rather take an quote easier class so that I'm getting a 90 and above as opposed to an AP course where I might get an 85 I might learn a lot more but then I may be ineligible for this which has been discussed but then that would backfire on the students that have want that academic r they want to take those high level courses because they want to apply to college and be seen as taking AP biology AP History so I think in that scenario I can't imagine any student that had the academic ability to take those high level courses not put
032themselves in the appropriate course that they really belong in academically because of National Honor Society if that's the case I don't think they're making good choices yeah I mean that's just my opinion yeah and again we could have these conversations putting a lot of labels on things yeah I agree right um I think if in your scenario I think that child is forcing themselves to be appropriately placed too so um I I think I think there is very good discussion um I think the way it is I think the way it is right now um and that's I believe regulations should be a living document too these are things that you can change with your population and your the way your school is um I think the way it is right now um it's not
033challenging enough okay okay another question up with the regulation do other districts have these qualifications in their regulations I Tred to look at other suring districts most districts have their regulations online all policies but I guess in terms of it sort of changing with the population is something that's more like handled at the you know a school level and not necessarily as a a regulation where we just say we will at minimum follow sort of what the policy says follow what the National Honor Society says but the criteria would be set by the Admin you know Administration as opposed to being detailed in the regulation so I can I can tell you from my research over the past couple of weeks is that every school district is different most school districts regulations are not as
034detailed as just yeah I wasn't going to give Nether you can clarify just two points for me the first point is so you're recommending a National Honor Society you're saying 90% unwe uh non-weighted okay 90% average non-weighted non-weighted okay and um the current population you have that are in the National Honor Society is really 375 as you is look you have you have kind of a unique population of kids I I believe within the school system in terms demands uh and so my question to you is this in terms have you looked at that population and to see where they fall as a group in terms of maybe the the M the medium um you know the means you know just get an idea statistically so I I have not done that um the one
035thing I can tell you is that we looked at what this population would look like if we made this change be about 100 less students which is appropriate about what 100 less students okay that's appropriate yeah that is that's really appropriate cuz whatever the percentage is when you have 650 kids was right that's appropriate thank you yeah all right thank you so we'll have the dra IBS we we'll do is um and you're G to uh collaborate with the middle school and the element school yeah and I I yeah I mean if if the um my recommendation recommendation is if we're not doing waiting in the high school regarding principal's list and regarding um honor rooll my recommendation is sixth seventh and eighth grade you're not going backwards Elementary I know sometimes is different but
036the purpose of middle school is to get you ready for high school and Mrs GCO says she would have data regarding the fifth grade yeah so I think fifth grade what we'll do is we'll have a conversation with the elementary principles because right now they get 10 points which I think is just drastically way too much they get 10 points yeah and I think the other thing we want to just discuss as a Comm before we go forward with this is the dates remember we talked a little bit about the dates and curriculum so this should be not anybody this year every every Char's already in school right this year would not be fair we want to be fair so do we want to start with the class of 2029 that was the recommendation this
037is for National Honor Society correct the other stuff it's already we're doing it so be September 1st will be the appropriate change that everybody will follow 2025 you got it national we agree does that make sense everybody Dr Chanley I know you want to look discuss the Middle School Honor Society I have information already because I was going to say if we're not if they're doing nonweighted for high school like I have that they are certain courses that are I I need to speak first about the middle school because I think it's very important if you already I one we go now go ahead what are you talking about like sorry so one of the things I need to point out and I hope parents are watching and this is very important is the middle
038school is not a National Honor Society I personally started the Middle School National Honor Society 11 years ago myself and the reason why I did it was because I felt that we had the right population which at the time should only be 10% of your of your of your grade 10 or 20% tops not 50% as what we're seeing and when I started it we were part of the National Honor Society for the Middle School chapter we PID dues we followed all the regulations we started to find out and you're going to laugh we started to find out that the regulations were so tough that when parents were pushing back because we had more stringent requirements at the middle school than the high school so parents were bringing us the information and saying this is
039this is not fair this is ridiculous so we didn't have we changed the Honor Society to mtms Honor Society we follow no guidelines of national no guidelines of the state we follow our own guidelines it is not part of the policy there is no regulation there's no policy on purpose because tomorrow if we went ahead and put out a posting for mtms Honor Society it's a it's the basis of a club and nobody wanted to do it it is not a requirement there is no policy that says You must have an Honor Society like you have in the high school we do not have that it is not a requirement so what we did was we went ahead and said you look perplexed I just I know there definitely more common for high schools to
040have a National Honor Society but no I'm going to let you know I did my homework it's a requirement for every High School to have a National Honor Society and our policy I'm talking about our policy our policy has a requirement to have a National Honor Society that's different the reason why my recommendation would not be to make it a policy is because realistically and I'm looking from my notes I have schools realistically if you don't have an advisor you don't have a program there is no Pro this is not middle school so we went ahead and did it East brunwick does not have one we did the research South brunwick does not have one um and I apologize because I had it stapled and I was notes so East pbook does not have one
041South PRS book does not have one freeh hole does not have one um minalin has one I asked him to send it to me I'm looking I apologize I thought I stay on it I'll P it up on my phone so what I did was I looked to seven schools in our neighboring District to see um and I'll get it for you right now so one of the things that I think is that we if we the middle school there's there pluses and minuses and what we were talking about before was Middle School pedagogy Charles had brought up which I totally agree I'm Middle School all the way I Le middle school for many many many years right in middle school we trying to encourage the kids emotionally socially academically to put forth the best
042effort to get comfortable to be in teams when I brought the na when I brought the National Honor Society it was actually becoming a a negative and that is why we got rid of it and went to the Monro Township Middle School Society I don't think it has to be driven by interest of an adviser you cannot make anyone do it if you make it a policy and we do not have anybody who wants to be the advisor you do not have it would that be true about your school as well though no because we'd have to assign someone and or someone else would have to take it over was ministrat if it's in the policy have to add it I don't know we've never we we never experienced that the national hon Society well
043I'm going to tell you the name of the schools a here it is ay schools manalan has a National Junior maral has none East Brunswick has none South Brun has none freeholds has none to our knowledge and Millstone has an ashen so I just picked surrounding districts the bottom line is I about Middle School level only Middle School this is pure Middle School I don't want to place a burden unless we verify the necessity so when you look at the Honor Society we have other programs in the middle school because Honor Society shouldn't just be about grades it's about leadership it's about service and we have those other organizations we have those other clubs if this board Rec the board said we really feel passionate that we should have it as part of the policy
044I think we need to put in the word may which we're going to talk about the next rather than now because I there is never a guarantee I have personally called people in my office to say yeah I need to do this for me otherwise I'm going to do because we we had we went years with PE with people not wanting to do it and I think we have to make very clear aloud it is not a National Honor Society right no but it isn't a middle school Honor Society it's a mon Township Middle School Honor Society that is correct I guess my question though because you have experiened this is from what I know and as an eth grade parent I like I I just seen the criteria myself so like it's just probably
045because I was surrounded by a lot of community members who learned about it this year my understanding is that the requirements for the Middle School are harder than the high school well I have them in front of me 90% of better as a final grade in all seventh grade classes right but then also 90% are better as a first markeing period grade in all eighth grade classes okay so I guess my question for that would be if you were a student who had has an average of a 96 but you have one classic social studies where you got an 889 your first markting period in eth grade then to me it's just what are yours for the national your average it would be an average so that would that would be that would be fine
046that student would get into the national but not in Middle School in middle school they wouldn't because it says a 90 as a final grade for seventh grade but then it also say 90 or better as markeing period one grade in eighth grade so that would be an average of your grades for every all your class grade I mean that's the way it reads for principal this this doesn't and I think that's probably where they got it from right so our so our that's what we're asking it to read for principles that's what we're asking it to read and and I do National Honor Society would be be average yeah I think what had happened was if I recall this correctly this is this is different than the way we had it Ed years ago
047but we want up getting three and 400 people in it if you're making something a society and you're saying it's standing out you have to have rigorous High Lev criteria I feel very passionate about that agree and I'll be honest with why not just do the average of you want be consistent why is it like if you get you want to change to the high school but I'm telling you all we're doing is changing that on paper because there is no policy so we can go back to the middle school and say in efforts to which I agree with in efforts to have consistency from middle school to high school we're going to be changing the language I do think though however there they and I I don't have yours in front of me I
048think if you get a 70 in any class or 75 you're done I even if you're average because you if you're small enough you could have an average of you could have an average of 90 but if you have a class an Honor Society student should not be getting a 70 or 75 class like in in for one marking parent you me because technically with the seventh grade they could get a 75 in one marking period what I'm saying because it would still be the average of the final right it would be the the final grade what I will do is I will look I will work with um Dr lay and Dr Higgins and the other Dr Higgins and I will work to have it match but I do think then we are getting
049rid of the 85% respectful right because you just said that when it was 90 you to many I know but I'm trying to be respectful of you know what I'm saying like when it was 90 it was to 0 we had an over I don't remember I don't have in front of me I mean I haven't been in that job in four years but I'm just saying from my recollection they went ahead and made it a little bit more stringent because you were having realistically if you to look it up I guess I could ask AI realistically if you have 650 C students in a class you shouldn't have more than 20% of the student population be in these elit I agree my only my only request and whether or not we include it in
050the policy which I can understand what you're saying there is a policy right now let's make sure regarding not having it in the policy is what I was trying to say but I also feel like we as like I think youve had said this several times like we look at us and what Monroe wants but um you know that's obviously a decision we can make it's just the whether or not it's the average of so that it's a 90 and above not if a student is Si the first marking period of eth grade but they've been a phenomenal student that's then held against them if they get an 89 and one class when they've gotten 97 to 98 across the board so so we'll look at the honest Society to read straight 90 average straight
05190 average get to 605 class they can make National hon Society if they have a 90 average Honor Society is not just considering their grades though right oh yes you have to do leadership yes absolutely we have National Junior Honor Society they had to have service they had yes we do that too they have to write an essay they have to do all that right yes no we have it also but the grades is what sets you because if you don't have the grades the other stuff is mov now my next question is then any w 85% of V for those students in advance the LA math would then be removed if waited they have also waited because we're not doing it for the high school agree thing have to take into into consideration is
052how grades are assigned in the middle school as compared to the high school with all due respect I think it's a little easier to get a 90 in middle school so do and that's why that's why I was comfortable making it hotter but I mean I think it even increase the average grade I think it's still the an a aage but I think that's why but I think that's why the Aver 95 that's my my favorite so because if you want to my recommendation my recommendation is I would go for the way reads and remove the waiting completely and I would leave it because I do agree say2 a 90 a 90% in middle school and an academic class is less rigorous than a 90% in a high school yeah so therefore the 90 to
053me is is I I have a problem this is because I know I'm being recorded this is my personal like when you say this is my opinion um I'm not the end all be all that's why we have committees right I'm just giving my opinion in my opinion the Middle School Honor Society just like in elementary the grades are even easier than Middle School than Middle School than high school right the natural progression of the lack of the excuse me of the level of difficulty to me if someone got a 75 in a class in one Le period I don't to me to me I don't think that's the criteria for an Honor Society but that's just my opinion I know a lot of parents would disagree with me from many of them watching them
054I'm getting sher's opinion now when I make my decisions it's not based upon shar's opinion it's based upon what is best for all of our children getting input from all our committee members matching them the high school which I think is important so I'm comfortable with making those concessions that's what you do as a leader but I'm letting you know that I like it that maybe it should read similar so maybe it should mirror the honoral where you can have an average but you can only have one grade of 75 or less where you give that person the out if they were SI type of thing so maybe the language should then mirror what they do for honorable and make Middle School its own in that regard but I want to be respectful of the
055fact that we're trying to also have a progression to the high school because I know I made like the request to look into this the reason for not putting this in the policy is just because then we would be required to have it yes not yeah and we're we're not we're required to have right but we're not required to have a junior or or I our policy says this right now our policy does not say a junior my question is why because we've had this for so many years why wouldn't we add that knowing that we've had it for so many years and it's just because of the advis have be an advisor right yes so I created it for I can actually make the statement it's not a we I actually went to the
056superintendent said I would like to join the National Junior Honor Society because we didn't have one CU at the time we had an elite number of children that I felt needed to be recognized then as we went up in in over the years right let's say three four five years we started getting hundreds so we wanted to change the criteria first the criteria was to strict then the criteria was too because what you say a living document was too simple um if you want to put it in there I would be very careful because you have to remember we do clubs and we do our activities very different than the high school they do things for free for one year there's no payment we pay every Club advisor from from the moment they start a
057club things are not they're not completely there's not it's not completely exactly the same in middle school and high school right and I feel that if we didn't have an advisor and we had it that we had to have it then probably one of the BPS would have to do it I don't know what else we' say right if it's required to to have one like I don't mean anything bad but let's be honest if you didn't have an advisor I'd be looking at you and saying is it Mr CLA I said i' take this like you do it no Sion you don't get paid um but you see what I'm trying to say we have to be careful and the other thing is I really also believe that you know there may be a
058time in a place where maybe it's not appropriate Middle School you know Middle School is about building the whole child's and it's about social emotional um understandings and Norms at the time we had a small Elite group of kids that I thought were appropriate to be recognized and that's why I instituted it and be careful what you Institute because what happened was it it it became it became the same thing that's going on in high school what's my rank what's my grade and that's not what we want to force her in middle school so halfs they even had this conversation with Dr Higgins every year that goes why maybe it's not appropriate you know maybe that's why a lot of middle schools don't do it I don't know it really depends at the time like
059I said when I created it was an elite group that got recognized in that particular area because they were so exceptional and then it became 340 400 and then I don't know I have I have I can go either way with this conversation um my my recommendation would not be to biger apit I let you know that all right that would be my recommendation but I have no problem looking at the criteria and we don't have to worry about bringing it back back I mean we'll bring it back as a discussion we don't have to worry about it being policy as far as first we second read have that it be a discussion yes okay I want to move on yeah go right ahead over yeah can we just wrap this I just um I
060do agree that it should be consistent with the high school our whole theme has been consistency with you know setting forth the student achievement policy and whatnot that if we're looking to maintain Middle School h society and the high school to again keep that consistency going forward just so student students know what to make sure but I do agree with what Dr Higgin said that it's not as difficult correct I I agree but it's but you're still setting the the parameters of PA it's 90 in middle school it's also going to be 90 in high school but is it more difficult to get a 90 in high school certainly but you're still it's still the same parameter okay I have no problem with I wrote myself notes already okay going to move on yes on
061uh so one of the things that were asked to be to BG andc and then we had the conversation I asked and I thought it was appropriate for um for policy is the code of conducts and I believe I'm not mistaken we made revisions in general to the code of conduct so this is not just buzz correct that was going to be my first question how often do you review and revise the codes of um so what you have in front of you are what's in play this year okay the elementary has it some revisions that they'd like to share that is not included here because they didn't want to confuse us with what some of the suggestion revisions are versus what's actually in action okay um again none of this is in the regulation
062or policy these are in the student H books um revised at the building level so kind of pertains to the discussion about the specificity of a regulations and living documents but um can you tell me what page on the elementary I can look at what do you want do you want to look at the whole thing you want to look at the bus no just the bus right yeah so I have that here in front of me as well thank you I think 10 maybe page 11 it's page 11 13 of the elementary yeah um yes I think the elementary is first correct I'm looking yeah I haven't t 10 so is Elementary first okay yes page 10 right on the top school best discipline procedures okay I'm on the wrong thing then because I
063have page 11 you're looking at the you're looking at no I'm not looking at regulation Sor the elementary okay okay oh look at that I had a little okay okay so cons page 10 student violations of the above violence will be reported to the appropriate school administrated by the bus driver o schol school officials witnessing the infraction in school discipline suspension of bus privileges of students suspending the bus CH be the responsibility of the parent that's the only thing we have a school bus disciplinary I will let you know I had a meeting today with the director of transportation and one of the things that I have set up which I think will work very well is that no bus infraction report will go to the school until a designated person in the transportation department
064has confirmed that the information is correct student name driver name bus number and the spefic specific infraction because what we get from bus drivers is whole bus and they turn it in no students at the stops on time and they turn it in so I had a meeting with her today and I said when you're dealing with bus drivers and I even went to a bus driver meeting to have this conversation when we want to hold children accountable to an appropriate safe Behavior you need to write down specifically what the in what the infraction was what it was that they did that was misconduct you need to have the date the time the student's name and the bus DB's name so she agreed so so yeah St so this is not so so I think
065the way I think the way the elementary code of conduct at highlights if you look scroll up to page nine the page above it that's the student guidelines and expectations right yeah and it has different areas there's another one for cafeteria cations and things like that the way the the consequences and the behaviors were addressed at the elementary level um are consistent no matter where it is if you throw something on the in the lunchroom you throw something in the classroom you throw something on the bus you throw it on the playground if you scroll down to where the consequences in the which is down on page 156 they're handled the same way right so the the consequences in the in the chart is the same um page 17 yeah I think they're a little
066bit 16 17 so those are where your infractions are and then there's a caveat of the administrator based on a student's prior conduct again in other areas right if you're having issues with a student in the classroom and you're providing consequences in the classroom we would also consider that take that in consideration that happens on the playground or in the lunchroom or in the gymnasium so um but overall so so basically the bus piece is basically saying these are the student expectations here are some of the things we could do we could address it this way or that way but the spec the specificity of them is consistent with managing behaviors anywhere else looking at it quickly though I don't see any um consequences like I see the the key here at the bottom yep
067um BPS for bus C suspended removal of privilege bus BC contract but I don't see any of those codes in any of the consequences what's great for the elementary right so yeah the only foral I'm just thinking in terms of like if you have if there is if there is a bus in fraction right we don't now I we're looking at I also wanted to make a comment that I don't think like all the codes are not consistent you know like the high school bus code of conduct is not consistent with the middle school and the elementary for example correct right and even other things like something serious like substance use at the middle school and substance use at the high school are different consequences like so that's not consistent no I think [Music] are
068supposed to be different yes so you're looking at think like a younger child that found using drugs would be a very like you know the parents should be called they should be go see it well they are okay but the add of school is different yeah there's definitely different approach there's definitely a different approach at the elementary the middle and high school restored Justice pieces that through um and again this is what's in play now they have some recommendations even in the bus piece um they had again this is coming from they did the work last spring yeah they got it to us uh we what we do is we have the parents sign off on the code of conduct before school year starts so we had already signed off on this year's code of
069conduct so instead of rolling out a new one we presented to you guys this year for implementation SE can I ask one quick question it mentions that there can be a suspension or potentially like a removal of privileges I saw in the old older grades and I know like last year when we had the additional spending question we had a discussion about like we are required by the state to provide transportation for two miles for certain grade levels and two and a half miles for the high school are like is there something in the at the state level that excludes us from that so the way that's an excellent question so the way it works is if you're a special education child you may not have your privileges removed conversation over that is a requirement
070if you are a regular education child you cannot indefinitely remove someone unless you followed um so for example they have different levels level one level two level three so you get a bus contract and then maybe get one she depending upon what it is or you can get after school detention in school suspension removal from the bus um to my knowledge we've um to my knowledge regular education child who has broken the code of conduct can be removed from the bus for for an extensive amount of time that is correct that is that is absolutely correct um and I think you brought up a good point nothing is an isolation so if you misbehave if you're a child unfortunately who makes bad choices you're making bad choices during the day and you're making those bad
071choices in the bus they don't say and we have had some parents trying to say this well that it's the first time they ever got in trouble on bus but they were suspended three other times so what we like to teach the child is the moment you walk out of your front door to the moment you walk in your front door you will follow the code of conduct so that means on the bus stop walking to the bus stop in the building out of the building so the code of conduct which is very important because it really is important for us to be able to have that the bus we make the joke I used to say is another classroom the bus is another classroom MH refering special needs student special need Student I I
072confirm I confirmed with the disability I confirmed with just to get verification because what you're doing is um according to Mr you would be breaking it it is a you would be breaking the state requirements okay so and we have had students that have been removed and 54 because it would fall under that too right right it would depend disabil the between 504 and IP is really IP doesn't have to be medical 504 must be medical so the other way to think of it is so if someone's insubordinate right so you not to the teacher being disrespectful being being disrespectful to a bus driver right you're not staying your seat or whatever that's insubordination perod story so ins suspend in school suspension out of school suspension so if we suspend somebody out of school that's
073also a a bus for coruc by default um in school suspension you can pair that up with your parents need to drop you off your parents need espe the bus fraction but again the administrator when they Institute this this is a baseline for the decision-making and it demonstrates Progressive discipline right through first offense second offense third offense they can again based on the history of the student based on the the specific situation it's their job to adjust this appropriately as well so they can make it stricter or weaker as well so right and I think the other thing that's important that I started to Institute which I think is very important now that we have a new director is we need to have quality records and recordkeeping so when we have a bus driver and
074happens twice right the whole bus we can still get an administrator get on the bus because they wrote the whole bus it's appropriate you know ladies and gentlemen or boys and girls um you you know you're in has brought to attention by your bus TR you many of you not all many of you are not behaving appropriately blah blah blah blah blah we just had all of our principles do expectation assemblies which includes behavior on the bus we literally just did it a couple weeks ago okay I had everybody do that expectations expectations the other thing is we need to hold the children individually accountable and how do you do that by having the person in this case the classroom teacher is the bus driver so I had a meeting with her today and I
075said if you assign this to one of your she has a coordinator a supervisor or a secretary the responsibility is they get the referral the referral comes in they confirm all the information is correct the child's name is there it's being held accountable they send it to the building the building then has discipline whatever that discipline is by the way for parents that are watching and I confirmed this with the attorney discipline does not necessarily mean suspension discipline can mean a conversation with a parent discipline means change we want to change Behavior okay there are kids that we could spend 10 times over it doesn't mean they're going to change the behavior depending upon the severity of whatever they've done and then it gets written up and it gets documented parent always gets notified copy
076goes home parent will be get notified by in person sometimes and then it gets recorded back what we've been getting is and I have to use this example so Dr Higgins got how many would you say 2 20 referrals that all said not get the bus on time and they and did and they have individual names yes okay now can you imagine Dr Higgins giving discipline to a child what that should be is and he was welcome to do it he said I'll be happy to reach out to parents it was more about conversation you know the bus is something that we provide your child your child is part you know nothing in isolation right your child is part of 55 there's 56 Kids On The Bus 55 other children getting on the bus your
077child do not get if this happens more than once they only wait three minutes or whatever the time is um but I think the value of the discipline needs to be coordinated with the value of the writeup the other thing that we started doing is that if a if a bus driver doesn't write up it says I had a problem with 10 kids in the back I'm not really sure which kids they are once they let the principal know or the vice principal because they all do Duty outside everybody's outside they then the vice principal principal will speak directly to the whole bus they go inside they now ride an email directly to D to the director kindly be advised and at such and such a time and such and such a day it was
078reported to me by your bus driver that half of the bus was not behaving this is what I did blah blah blah this is my followup so these are all the things that are happening but unfortunately we do have some parents out there that think just take the kid off the bus it doesn't really work that way for anybody's child can I ask you a question about that there are consequences removal of privileged bus then it says the parent has to transport the child to school or find a way to get them to school what if they can't and then the kids absent absent absent what happens then so what we've done and I I can't the elementary is you want to speak to and the Middle School um High School is different they they
079find way they go with a front because they are older but the middle schools really were it's affected in the elementary what we've done is depending upon if the behavior was so heinous to remove them from a bus would have to be then we probably would stick to it for or maybe lessen the amount of time and then give them a different consequence because we really do want them in school if the behavior was minimal on the bus but enough to remove them from the bus but not throw you know throwing a water bottle off of it some of the things that happen spitting you know the they should be doing then they can give a different consequence so the consequence could be in school suspension and it could be restore of justice so when
080a parent can't get them to school you alternate F we do try it depends now if a child did something heinous and we did have one child in particular that was removed had of us privileges removed in the Middle School from last year um then we say respectfully this is the sixth like we've done this we've done this we've done this we've done this we don't know what to say at this point we need it's almost like they need to be inconvenience because the child is not behaving because I think the other thing that we don't realize when we hear about all these situations and the Facebook comments and the comments of the board is we're not the paray them we don't raise these children we do our very best to hold them accountable to
081have expectations to have um equity and parity expectations but in the end these H the children that are doing these heinous activities are not being raised by myself or Dr Layman or Dr Higgins or Dr Higgins or Elementary principles there has to come a point where we partner with the parents to say this is unacceptable Behavior this is this is consequences that we will do but the parents need to parent their child that's I'm very passionate about that I'm not saying we don't be the responsibility holding children accountable we absolutely do but it has to be a partnership not the bus you're doing nothing you're doing nothing we're doing plenty but you know we don't raise the children so I thought that was an important statement to make there may be I would say extenuating
082circumstances where we would find an alternate Transportation situation whether it's you know if it's a student that has IP and they needed a needed their own bus in a very Str situation like we would do that even a general we've done student where they can't behave on a bus with 56 children because they cannot handle that's exua done it Mass massive commitment of funds and time and things like that but um you know the we have a responsibility to get the students to school especially outside that two mile radius right and uh we would do everything we could and it could be a v you know what I mean not about 54 passenger vanand one student you clearly look at other other buses that are running by that area that pick up a student that's
083another thing we change change for right is it just simply putting him on another 54 him or her on another 54 passenger bus with different students the trigger's now gone right triggers yes so there's there's other ways that we can kind of tweak Transportation if we had to but again that's extreme and you said there were some recom recommendations from El I will bring the I will bring the revisions to uh to curriculum for just to share um because again the the a lot of the revisions and so the revision process involves teachers parents from the building on the committee with the administration okay so over and they did it at the at elementary level all six schools did it independently then the principles got together and brought allod of conduct cons and they have
084the the primary and Upper Elementary lens to it a lot of the changes had to do with like updating some of the code of conduct stuff to be more relevant there were Trends in in style back in the day that not back in the day even like five six years ago that we just need to tweak a little bit so um right update even the cell phone stuff they updated technology for the recommendation for what they're going to look at you question yeah just if I can ask them I know the hour is getting late but yeah it's getting late I I know I won't take a lot of time but if we extend as you indicated every courtesy to these uh young people uh and and I and I I truly believe that each
085level Elementary Middle School and High School you have different circumstances and how kids conduct themselves and also what is proper a type of a behavior that is acceptable and not accept acceptable to that child so I can see where a high school and a middle school and and the elementaries come together and set up guidelines for the kids but at some point especially at high school I don't know if you agree with me there consequen Coury to these kids at the high school and then they have such such issues such k then you know at some point the only answer sometimes just remove them remove them just can't happen then you over way yeah so I think just to end this conversation is I think that it's imperative to understand that this that all these
086violations are guard Lins sometimes you could be stricter and give a higher consequence and sometimes based upon the circumstances you can give a different consequence and you could also give a lesson consequence but it's always important that you have communication with parents when children are misbehaving in convenience them to a certain extent come in um I don't know if we have time cuz I know it's getting very late no I was to change and it's just we just want to change that one word from sh to that's all it was if you're if you're comfortable with that we could have that on for a first reading what we want to say is if you change it discuss know I of over that we're not getting it if we have it we may want to do
087it if we don't have it it's not required bonness check comes back with to show us which one yeah I still have an email that's all it was this was a good meeting though thank you and thank you for including the bus I thought it was appropriate to be I think you know the public needed to hear it and you know find it because they were concerned and I think the other thing that people don't realize is I said this boy being I'll always say this your children do speak the truth I won't say they won't when they come home but just because they tell you Johnny Joey Margaret nothing happened to them nothing you know you're both in education you know there are a lot of things that do occur the children are not
088privileg to know what has occurred and I think that's important to share mention when they leave the house when they house for high school are cars like personal cars is that excuse like a different thing because it's not a school transportation but it is them leaving their house on our way to school right so for examp us right but if they were leaving your house and they pulled over on the side golf a bit with their car to beat up another High School child so I think that's what she I thought that they would do that but I'm that would be that would be handled under a different type of discipline it would not be handled under bus disre so yes they would be uh they would be on their own until they enter the
089school campus for high school and a lot of our students go to work right so they're not actually home to home point to point door have that I I qualifi is this up all right so this concludes our policy meeting for this evening so are you