Princeton Public Schools Board of Education Meeting 03/29/2022

001guys Matt yeah okay great um welcome to this public meeting of the Princeton Board of Education the board is an elected unpaid group of 10 citizens who set policy and make decisions on educational financial and Personnel matters for the Princeton public schools on behalf of all residents we're always pleased when members of the community attend our meetings the board and the school district operate under applicable New Jersey laws and under under regulations of the New Jersey State Board of Education each meeting includes an opportunity for those attending to comment on items on the published agenda or other matters of interest to them the board reserves a right to limit the time allotted to public participation law limits discussion of individual personnel and confidential matters we hope that our meetings provide useful opportunities for communication between

002the board and the community thank you for attending as required under the open public Community act and JSA 1046 at sequentia adequate notice was given for calling this meeting it was authorized by the Board of Education and forwarded to the Municipal Court Princeton packet and the times on January 6 2022 it was distributed to the schools and others on the standard distribution list the board reserves a right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education board policy 2230 recording devices requires that we inform those attending this virtual Zoom meeting that the proceedings are being recorded this meeting is not being live streamed public members who wish to make comment at the appropriate time as noted in the agenda or added by the presiding officer shall raise their hand virtually at

003the bottom of the zoom screen once called upon the member of the public will be requested to unmute themselves by clicking the mute button at the bottom of the zoom screen the representative of the sending district is authorized to vote on such matters that affect sending District students or affect the governance of the prince of public schools as more specifically designated an njsa 188 38 8.1 an event this statue is amended the law shall take precedence over this bylaw sending District votes pertaining to Personnel actions for the high school Central administrative and district-wide staff only votes otherwise are considered abstentions okay thank you Mr Walden would you call the roll please yes Daphne Kendall here Michelle tuck Ponder president Betsy Bagwell here Beth Baron Debbie bronfeld here Gene Durbin present Mara franceschi Brian McDonald president

004Susan Cantor here Robert Christopher here we have a quorum okay thank you Mr Bolden um item D1 um could we get a motion for the adoptions of minutes for February 22nd 2022 uh Jean first second Debbie that's the Kendall yes Michelle tuck Ponder yes Betsy baglio yes Debbie Bronco yes Dean Durbin yes Ryan McDonald yes who's in Canter yes Robert Christopher yes motion passes okay thank you Mr Bolden uh could I get a motion for adoption of the minutes from March 15th 2022. uh Betsy second Gene okay Mr Bolton staff the candle yes Michelle tuck Ponder yes Betsy daglia yes Debbie bronfield yes Gene Durbin Ryan McDonald yes Susan dancer yes Rob Christopher yeah motion passes okay thank you Mr Bolden we're going to move to item E1 student board members report uh with Ned

005Erickson and Christian please gentlemen take it away thank you good evening everyone uh we often talk about what has been going on at PHS both what we want to celebrate but also what we think can be changed in this meeting though we want to switch it up a little bit and talk about Mr schmiel our principal the first time I met Mr schmiel last May I remember remarking on how he was entering the job with such a refreshing humility he never acts like he's above students he leads by example and is always willing to listen after seeing large turnover in administration at both the high school and District levels and coming out of a multi-year pandemic which turned education on its head Mr Hill provides PHS in its students with the stability and structure we

006need his policies are grounded in reality and reason and whenever there are changes in the school he respects students enough to explain the reasoning Behind these changes of course he makes mistakes but he also always fixes those mistakes and reflects deeply on them to learn from them and not repeat them I think we speak for all students in saying that we greatly appreciate everything that Mr Schmidt has done for us starting with his walking back Tigers event at the start of the school year to helping promote Asian fest last week to also celebrating Black History Month throughout the school he has worked Tire with tirelessly and we don't use that word slightly to Foster warmth and openness within the school I remember the first week of school eating lunch outside and seeing Mr schmiel go

007to every single student out on the front law to introduce himself and ask them for their names when he got to my group one of my friends was absolutely shocked they had never expected such personalized attention from a principal and what's more he remembered every person's name you'll see him walking down the hallway greeting every single student he passes by by name this is something that just goes such a long way knowing that there's somebody who cares about you and someone who's fighting for you in the administration means a lot for the PHS student body and as seniors especially net and I None of the administrators at PHS in her freshman year are here anymore and Mr shamila's constant presidents in the hallway tell talking to students and listening to our voices has felt incredibly

008stabilizing and Incredibly reassuring seeing him balance the interests of the multitude of stakeholders in this community is impressive his job isn't easy but he works successfully to recognize everyone at this school whether it be academic Achievers or the athletic stars or the students who have never before been recognized for their achievements he works to make sure that nobody gets forgotten both within the student body and the faculty Mr schmiel has demonstrated a commitment to equity not just in rhetoric but in real world action his energy is truly unmatched and his passion for the PHS Community is contagious I can't imagine a better principle for this school and I think my classmates will back me up on that so thank you Mr schmiel the student body does appreciate everything you do for us okay thank you

009so much Chris and Ned for that um very eloquent uh Speech we appreciate it um so now we're going to be moving on uh to the president's comments and I just have a few things to share bear with me the first thing uh tonight A little unorthodox but um because of another meeting in town we will be stopping whatever we're doing at 8 15 to have a brief presentation about math that presentation will last from 8 15 to 8 30 and at 8 30 it will conclude and Dr Foster will be speaking uh Miss Tidwell and this is something that we plan on doing going forward at every meeting to talk about math given how important it is in our district um I I wanted to share a couple things that have been going on

010in the district today um Princeton Public Schools uh received a visit from the United States Department of Education um for our Innovative use of American Rescue plan funds to support a wide variety of programs and resources PPS and this initiative was led by Valerie Ulrich who if we could all give a hand she really did a wonderful job the Department of Education has been visiting um five schools throughout the country on this tour Princeton was one of two in New Jersey and one of five in the country so really some of the things we did were outstanding exceptional it's thanks to Valerie's leadership so we're very lucky to have her in that role Princeton Public School schools use the money to bring students back to school to address mental health issues learning needs and to

011plan for the future of student-centered instruction so this morning we were joined by Deputy U.S Department of Education deputy secretary Cindy Martin and her team um they came to see firsthand our programs and to speak to teachers and administrators about how the district used the American Rescue plan funds secretary Martin was joined by Jordan Schiff assistant commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education um they went to Princeton High School um uh and they saw a science class uh taught by James smirk with an emphasis on problem-based learning uh they visited the PHS Studio band discussed the challenges and successes of Arts continuation during a pandemic um they visited the counseling Suite to learn about the partnership we have a Corner House designed to address student mental health concerns and uh they also visited Johnson

012Park to visit two Early Childhood uh classrooms where funds from the American Rescue plan support high quality transitions for young students as well as co-teaching classroom classrooms where funds support professional development in this Innovative pedagogy co-teaching involves preparing gen Ed and special ed teachers to create an inclusive environment for all students and that is one of the top priorities of of our board so I just want to take a moment to highlight that things that are happening in Princeton are being are being noticed and highlighted on a national level so I just wanted um again to congratulate value Mr Bolden who who uh helped with all the funding and everyone else in our Administration who um just makes us very proud to have them as part of part of our district and very proud to

013be leading a district that is so Innovative so thank you everybody I should be really proud um the next item I wanted to mention just really quickly was um winter sports have ended and um I did Mr Bolden was kind enough to ask uh Mr jabinski for um some highlights and he gave me five pages uh single space front and back so I'm just going to go through uh very quickly and I just wanted to um highlight on the boys basketball team um they they had a a tough season but Jackson Patron senior back Jackson Patron and Chris Rinaldi were selected as members of the all CBC team which is great um the girls basketball team earned the 13th seed uh in the Central Jersey group four bracket uh fencing the boys fencing team had

014a phenomenal postseason they qualified for the njsia state tournament made it to the Sweet 16 and won their first round matchup um the girls fencing um uh uh okay the girl okay we had um Shira Kuhn cloth for the state individual Championship championship in girls saber and placed 35th in the state and according to Mr dominsky this has been the best season yet for the PHS girls fencing team and so we're all very proud of you um if uh just briefly the ice hockey team had a very capable season defense remained short-handed um I think uh the boys the hockey team has a successful season they won three of the last five games and they gained the number one seed in the Mercer County tournament the squad outscored their opponents 16-6 in the first two

015games but came up short against Notre Dame High School uh girls ice hockey finish the season with um uh a record of four five and one um The Players enjoyed an amazing season senior night celebration against the Westville High School which resulted in the girls ice hockey team strongest win to date 12-1 uh individual accomplishments include Grace reback being voted to receive the Harry Roland Miller sportsmanship award freshman CeCe Gibb was voted to the all uh Wilma All-Star team with a season high of 20 points Grace to be back Aaron Keith sweater and Tessa sold availability were all selected to make the Wilma all academic team and all maintain gpas over four while also being excellent student athletes so way to go girls and uh wrapping it up our swimming team um had a great

016phenomenal season the girls uh went to the Mercy Academy tournament and the nji state tournament as well um the the girls team qualified fourth and they hope to be back next year um the boys um swim team had a tremendous amount of success and they went undefeated in Mercer County and ultimately fell to Chatham High School in the njsia group b state championship um and the boys team was ranked number one in the Central Jersey group uh B section uh winter um winter track boys and girls the boys and girls attractions had a stellar season highlighted uh by five athletes qualifying for the njsia meet of Champions Kendall Williamson reached the maid of championships in the 55 meter dash and 200 meter dash Zach de la Rocco qualified the 200 meter dash ate in mataxis

017uh Sawyer um qualin and Peyton Reynolds also qualified in the field events Reynolds was also the NJ siaa sectional champion in the girls pole vault uh on the distance side Andrew Kenny and Addison Moto led the way for the boys qualified for both Eastern and Nationals and Junior Robin Roth led the way for the girls competing at Easterns in the two mile finally coach uh finally is wrestling um the pH wrestling team had an exceptional team um the team uh uh this person's in the wrestling team plays second in the Mustang Invitational to find host team Clifton in the fourth in the Mercer County tournament what place did nine wrestlers in the top six Princeton qualified for the Central Jersey group four team State Tournament this season um losing a brick in the first um

018round um and during these past three seasons Princeton High School has had a female wrestler advance to the state tournament and won a State title in each season so how about a big round of applause for our student athletes uh we're very proud of you thank you for representing Princeton um with uh Grace and dignity and with that I will turn it over to Dr Kelly thank you thank you so much for president Kendall good evening everyone how are you um I have several things on the superintendent's report this evening I'd like to highlight first um on tonight's agenda I am asking the board to approve several updates to this school uh year calendar there are three changes to the calendar for this school year that I'm asking for your approval one is I'd like

019to note that we are recommending uh the Princeton High School graduation to take place on June 20th which currently is our last day of school and for graduation to take place at 5 30 pm the second uh change to our calendar is um we had on a few Fridays ago um a water main break um that impacted uh Johnson Park School they were unable to do school and we do need to make up that day for our students and staff so we are recommending June 7th um as a makeup day for Johnson Park only it will still remain a day for um all other schools to be closed so that the staff can have their staff development day and for our Johnson Park staff their staff development day would take place on June 21st June

0207th for Johnson Park would be an early dismissal day of one o'clock and then finally we've been talking a lot as we should about the social emotional needs of our students but there are also social emotional needs for our staff so we would like to recommend that on May 27th that we have an early dismissal day for all of our students in all of our schools so that the afternoon our school leaders and departmental leaders can plan opportunities for staff on their their choice something that would address their social emotional needs so those are the three recommendations for the calendar update also would like to point out some health and safety updates and I've asked Mickey crucifily if she would take the mic as we're planning ahead to spring break thank you Carol I think

021um everybody is in the same boat we're all kind of holding our breath related to covet right now in this new variant so I thought it would kind of do a little um you know look globally and then as as far as where we are right now and what we um need everybody to help us with with spring break so we're watching our numbers very closely where we know we know we're looking at this CDC um status and we know we're in the green we know for the um covet activity level or the Cali level in the state we're still at moderate for we're at the low end of moderate and we're watching that number it has stayed pretty consistent so we're looking at that we're also looking at the coven numbers in the community

022and you know if you look at the Princeton newsletter you know on Monday they published last week there were 27 cases the week before there were 16 so a little uptick there um and then we're watching our cases in in our school district so since the week of February 12th um which is the first week after winter break that we started to see a decline in cases um we've pretty much stayed steady six seven cases a week um right now I think we're at five for this week and it's only Tuesday so we're watching what the rest of the week will bring um we did have a low the week of March 5th of only three cases but then we went back up to that six or seven so we're watching everything closely and we

023I think we're all feeling a little sigh of relief that once we went to mask optional we did not see a big upsurge in cases so as we go into spring break we want to make sure that we continue those cases to be low after spring break we're hoping they stay low and then we can also look at additional mitigation measures that we may need to we may be able to step back from so we do want to make sure all of our staff and our families know we are continuing to be consistent in following the New Jersey Department of Health guidance for travel so if you are vaccinated for covid and you travel outside of the tri-state area so outside of um the New York Pennsylvania and Delaware area um and you're vaccinated so

024it could be International you do not need to quarantine upon return if you are not vaccinated you need to test three to five days upon return and then quarantine for five days so we want our families to think about that if you have children who are unvaccinated students at the school or even our staff you have to plan on that because we we need people to cooperate with the um quarantine so that we can ensure that our school stays safe once we return from spring break and we keep those numbers down um so thank you all for all of your work so far everybody has worked very hard and I think it's paid off we've really been able to keep our schools open thank you Carol thank you Mickey I'm going to turn the mic

025over next to uh performance fact I'm really excited and thank the board and the community for their support the district is moving toward um updating our strategic plan um so we do have um a performance fact with us this evening uh by way of Lauren Lauren are you here I am here okay um so I'm going to turn the floor over to you if you would like to give the board in the community an overview of the process that we are about to undertake that's wonderful good evening um it's lovely to meet you my name is Lauren klafke and I'm a senior associate with performance fact and I'm excited to share with you the process that we're going to be engaging in to work on the update to the Strategic plan and let me go

026Begin by sharing my screen and is that viewable to everybody here let me get into slideshow mode you see it as a slideshow great awesome thank you um I'm pleased to be joining you tonight I send uh Muji effect by who's our president and CEO sends his regards um he had a family um emergency and had to step away um but he's excited as am I to uh be kicking off the planning process in person in a couple of weeks um first just a little bit about us and we see our primary role as a facilitator um is a process we are here to guide and to really help you envision the future that you want for the young people in your community um and so how do we do that we do that by

027focusing in on aligning kind of our perspective uh our external perspective with your internal vision for the students schools and community uh we'd like to share just a brief bit about our stance and who we are up front um and we call it a little bit of our propaganda I'm at performance fact and we see a key premise in our work is that we believe all students will learn at high levels when instruction meets their needs and what a student has not yet learned well is something that he or she has not yet been taught well um and so really student learning and the outcomes that we're getting are in effect whose cause lies in the quality and effectiveness of the educational practices of the adult practices and so when we think about how we

028want improved outcomes for students the starting point is a continuous Improvement of teaching practices leadership practices and organizational practices and because those are the precursor to the foundation of student learning um so why do we plan the primary purpose of planning is to come into alignment um alignment misalignment isn't bad it happens all the time our cars get misaligned our backskip mislined we need to go to the chiropractor um but the the process that we engage in is really critical to be helping all the people programs structures get on the same page moving in the same direction and that is the primary purpose of developing the Strategic plan uh you'll notice that the arrows on the left the arrows on the right um the arrows don't change their shapes or sizes and they have their

029individual perspectives or orientations but by coming together and looking clearly at the goals and the direction we're going we hope to support the community and achieving its ambitious goals for all students um finally our last bit of framing around the work we talk about the importance of having Equitable access that will ensure equal outcomes for all students Equitable access to resources opportunities that guarantee that every child will have fair just and affirming experiences so that they can achieve equal outcomes for every student without exception and so those are the key principles that guide our work and we like to share those upfront and and make sure that everybody's aware I'm how do we get there right what is the process for coming to the Strategic plan um we begin with data and we begin with

030the question of like what data or what information do we have from there we move into it what we call analysis and Discovery and we ask the questions well what does the data say what does this tell us um and why like why does the data look this way and from there we transition into the solution and the solution is really where it's the plan itself it's what are we going to do about it and so we will be kicking off the process starting with students and student data um both thinking um about the more quantitative outcome data access data but also we'll have student survey data and focus groups with students to get their perspectives on the quality and um of the quality of their experiences in education so what what do we do

031with all that from there we set the plan in motion and we always start the plan with student learning at the center um and we talk about this keeping the proper um keeping ends and means in proper sequence the ultimate ends of your plan is going to be about students um the second piece or component and thinking about the plan is the instructional Effectiveness so how are we supporting the um the development of the instructional effectiveness of the system and then finally we talk about what are all what is all the infrastructure that's necessary to support um the attainment of the goals and the effectiveness of instruction and so through the process we will be um beginning of looking at both um principles of equity a portrait of a graduate we're visiting Mission Vision core

032values setting goals with explicit measures um and then through the process also having performance targets and benchmarks all around student learning and student goals from there we move on to instructional Effectiveness and where we identify the practices the strategies and a robust analysis of the core instructional system to make sure that we can bring it into alignment towards the goals that the team establishes and then finally we look at what are the necessary supports and Services resource allocation leadership implementation that will be necessary to bring the plan to fruition um the the method that we use to go through this is by embracing the diverse voices and perspectives of the community and we begin with students and student boys but we want to make sure that them all of the voices um are are represented

033in our process and we believe that having meaningful engagement is what strengthens not only the understanding of the plan appreciation of the plan but also the commitment to the plan um and the execution of the plan at all levels from students to community organizations and everything in between so how do we Embrace diverse voices um we have a series of teams that we employ in this set the center of the Hub the spoke of the wheel is this the core planning team and the core planning team is the team that has representation from all of those diverse stakeholders that we shared on the previous slide um and that's the team that really focuses in on um shepherding the process all the way through I'm engaging in the data the analysis the meeting making and then

034ultimately proposing on the Strategic plan components but we have three other essential components those are the ones in the orange color there's an instructional Focus team which is comprised of teachers and instructional leaders across the system and we we have that team really um mostly dialed in they to the core instructional elements of the plan and the program we believe that folks that are close closed captioning not available of pieces which is that we've already sent out and you've already had your community engaged in both a parent survey and a community survey we have just over 900 respondents thus far from parents and just over 100 respondents from community members who don't currently have children in the system and we're set to have the student survey launch on April 4th I believe yeah so it's

035going to be going that week so we're really excited to get those pieces in motion um and I'm happy to take any questions uh but I'm really looking forward to being there in just a couple of weeks along with my team um to be kicking off the work thank you so much for that Lauren are there any questions from the board before I continue my report I was just going to ask one question uh Lauren thank you very much for that um with regard to the student um uh survey is that going to be administered at a time when we can get the maximum um number of participate maximum participation from students yeah so I might um have uh Dr Kelly or our team talk specifically about the time frame but it will be open

036from the fourth until the 7th so it will be over the course of the week right I'll ask Dr Foster to um speak to that because I know she's been in touch directly with the building principles yes um uh good evening everyone um we are excited to have that um student voice component because we think it's so important to the process um each uh building principle is organizing um time during the instructional day for students to take the survey uh we have posted the survey for parents to review and parents uh can choose to opt out we are keeping a list so we'll make sure you know we communicate that but um you know to maximize student voice uh we're going to be using the instructional day thank you and I think Dr Foster and

037Elizabeth Collier have worked with performance fact to provide the survey in both English and Spanish so that students can choose their preference all right any other questions for Lauren before she bids a do Susan has one question okay wondering um what ages you know are we doing giving this the survey in the middle school and are we collecting data from elementary school students even though obviously their voices might be a little different yes we are um I believe the survey is for students in grades 3 through 12. that's correct yeah and we will also have a elementary school focus group yeah great any other questions thank you so much Lauren thank you so much please give me to you our regards and we look forward to seeing you in April take care take care okay

038so um the final part of my uh superintendent's report for this evening is uh one of the action items I'm sorry I believe it's on the consent agenda is the hiring of Kim too uh so as superintendent and a woman of color I recognize and am very sensitive to the importance of representation for all of our students therefore I remain committed to equity and inclusion and Staffing Princeton public schools in our recent search for an assistant superintendent we had the help of an executive Search firm hya Associates which has a proven track record and does a thorough vetting of candidates the team that ultimately selected our new assistant superintendent was encouraged when ranking candidates to give priority to diversity and candidates with internal knowledge but ultimately they were asked to recommend the best overall candidate

039for our school students and Princeton families tonight I am very proud to recommend Dr Kim 2 as our choice for assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction was chosen following an exhaustive National search conducted independently and included priority support for internal candidates Dr 2 surpassed all other candidates do her two to her vast experience and success as assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at nearby Robbinsville New Jersey for the past seven years during her tenure in Robbinsville Dr two was known for helping to redefine the district's vision and mission for her leadership and curriculum as well as for her achievements relating to diversity equity and inclusion initiatives prior to serving as the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction doctor two served as the K-8 supervisor of curriculum and professional development also in Robbinsville and from 2006

040to 2014 she was a sixth grade social studies teacher in the West Windsor Plainsboro School District Dr Chu has a Bachelor of Arts in history and secondary education from the College of New Jersey she has a masters of arts and educational Administration from Ryder University and she holds a doctorate of education and teacher leadership from Rutgers University I cannot promise that everyone will be pleased with every hire I make as superintendent but I can assure you that every process will be fair and conducted with students and Princeton staff and families in mind I simply ask each of you to welcome any new Princeton team member and afford them the opportunity that all of us deserve a fair chance to earn your trust and respect so this evening I have invited Dr two to come and

041say a few words to the board and also to uh in advance welcome her to the team good evening everyone it's so nice to see all of you and thank you for having me at your board meeting um I just want to say a few words and thank you Dr Kelly and the Princeton team and the board members for this opportunity and warm welcome I'm thrilled to be joining Princeton Public Schools Princeton is a phenomenal District it's student-centered it's Innovative and it's dedicated to promoting Equity inclusion and belonging and I'm also really eager to assist with the upcoming strategic planning and help the district set a course for post-pandemic education in life your educational values so closely align with my own and I can't wait to begin cultivating relationships with our students our staff our

042families and our community members and lastly I'm really familiar with Princeton Community because I live in Pennington and many of my weekends are spent in downtown Princeton with my husband and daughter we do swim lessons at the Y and funnily enough and I share this with the interview committee I met my husband outside of small world coffee so for that alone Princeton will always be near and dear to my heart so once again thank you for having to me tonight and I really look forward to partnering with you all thank you thank you thank you I'll turn it back over to you before President thanks Dr Kelly so we will move right along um to the fall 20 2021 start strong presentation and Dr Foster are you leading that yes and I'm I'm looking at

043the time uh daphna yes yes it's 8 10. so um I don't know um you know we can certainly start the presentation but it will be more than five minutes okay well I appreciate that Kathy because I Dr Foster I completely lost track of time already um do we want to uh can you do the committee reports because we can always just stop um uh okay let's do that for five minutes okay so we're gonna jump around a little bit where are the committee reports uh board committee highlights uh L1 and we will start with uh the equity committee Betsy baglio Debbie bronfeld chairs thank thank you I will jump in I will be very brief this evening the equity committee met last Monday March 21st we received a six-month status report from members of

044the national Equity project who are assisting our district as part of the Bell network uh the the districts participating in a two-year National Equity project program we also heard from Dr Kelly and several staff members about the circle teams that have been focused on building capacity for dealing with complex issues in our district um we look for we we also heard about um pilot surveys going out to our staff and we look forward to another status report in the fall of this really important program our next Equity committee meeting will be on Monday April 18th at 7 pm on zoom and you can look for that agenda that's right after spring break so we will have that up for for all of you by that morning thank you very much thank you Betsy um is

045anyone doing Beth's long-term planning report committee report no okay so we'll move on to operations with chairs Brian McDonald and Susan canner hi I'll be doing the report this evening uh the operations committee met on March 9th at 8 A.M uh in Open session we just we got an update on our referendum on uh efforts that the district will be making and looking at our playgrounds we just we received a report from the tech department on uh looking at their Wi-Fi and also infrastructure needs that they um will be recommending to keep our district uh safe and keep all of our technical levels at the right amount we discussed sustainability as we always do in each meeting we had a very successful World Cafe LED Again by Valerie Orrick um and community members got together

046to discuss and give recommendations to the district um map building of course um was there so he's leading our our team team toward making those changes Matt Doc miss prolding also presented on the new RFP that he issued for the roof referendums and um the bond issuance that also has taken place since we last met we welcome the public to the open portions of our meeting and please note that we're going to have a change in our date our next meeting will be April 21st at 8 A.M which will be reflected in the calendar tomorrow okay well thank you very much Susan and given that it's 8 14 we'll we'll pause those committee reports here and I'll just say I just wanted to thank Mark Freda who's the mayor of Princeton and the Princeton council

047members for their flexibility tonight there were two um very important meetings tonight and um are working together with our colleagues on the council we're able to ensure that everyone is able to attend um portions of the meeting that are of interest to them and so I would just ask that um this conversation is going to be for 15 minutes um and then um Dr Foster if you wanted to start and just comment about how this is something we'll continue to be doing and then speak slowly thank you okay good evening everyone and we will keep it short because we are going to be returning uh and giving updates as we go along because we're just beginning this process um so as Dr two knows one of the most important responsibilities in this seat is to

048review uh realign and assess current curriculum and by current curriculum um just a large definition is the totality of learning experiences of students so that means the written the taught and the lived experience and that's our job to continually look at it it's an ongoing cyclical process uh and so uh with uh some uh internal audit from 2021 uh it is now time to take a look at our middle school math curriculum and uh I am working with Stephanie Tidwell who is also leading the charge with this um we have just begun this process so I want everyone to know um we organized a committee because we thought it was really important to have outside parent voices as well as educational staff members a part of the committee to take a look at our current

049Middle School scope and sequence uh collect some perception data some take a look at our student data that exists and determine how we might maximize student opportunities for all of our students in middle school math so um Stephanie I'm going to ask you if you want to just share your screen and we'll quickly walk through Dr Milo's uh outline and we'll go from there thank you everyone and actually we are going to first screen is not moving excuse me one second here we're going to look at the purpose of tonight and that is just to give you a brief snapshot of where we've come from and where we're going along with describing some of the highlights from the review and then also speaking a little bit about the purpose and goals of the curriculum committee

050so our journey starts really in 2019 when uh there was a district informed decision to change our sixth grade math curriculum from a tracked program to pre-alge accelerated for all at the same time this was also the year that we were launching new textbook Series in grades six through eight uh that was The Envision Series in 2020 we had Dr Milo actually in District working with our K-5 teachers on their implementation of educational technology and at the time we recognized that there had not been a transition or a discussion as to how we would proceed with the math program for students who were in the new uh program algebra accelerated and so our internal review was phase one of our review where he actually reviewed our curriculum which I will discuss on the next slide

051and 2021 in the spring Dr Milo actually presented his report on the review and in the fall of this year he has been working with us to look at our implementation of our Envision series and also our instructional practices around uh his math review so just a reminder that in 2020 of December um there was actually a talk with me and actually Elizabeth Collier interviewed me to talk about the goals of the math program and at that time the goals of the math program were conversations that I had with teachers parents and students regarding the lack of math Pathways for students at the end of their High School career and so at that time there was a decision made that we would do and undertake this review of the curriculum from grades kindergarten through 12th

052grade which we did and the first phase of the math review we were just looking at the sequencing of our courses and how well we are covering the standards in all of our curriculums K through 12. we particularly wanted to focus on since the transition was fifth through sixth grade with accelerated uh pre-algebra for all to see how that was actually working for us and also to see how movement from sixth grade without having done any additional movement of the seventh grade curriculums or 8th grade curriculums how our transition from middle to high school was actually happening the actual process of creating the review of the committee rather is so that we have a goal of looking at our tracking policies in grades six through seven for the upcoming year and deciding on the process

053of how we will function as a committee for eighth grade and the year following in high school math the longer term goal is as I said we're looking at how we can offer multiple Pathways for students so that they will have more opportunities for mathematics not less opportunities for mathematics so we are looking to expand our math program the analysis from Dr Milo and I will give a few key points of his findings he first introduced not just the committee but in his review which he's met with the sac committee several board members and administrators to talk about the different components of curriculum he looked at our ideal or intended curriculum which is our written curriculum in rubricon he also looked at our Implement implementation of the textbook and our curriculum materials and he now

054is in District looking at our instruction and how we implement the curriculum as relates to the instruction we are also set to look at our tested curriculum and then also look at data in terms of how we're actually achieving based upon that what he identified is that we should be looking at the ideal curriculum as the big picture but when he looks at our curriculum we have these pockets of curriculum that I identified curriculums that are not in alignment and so the goal of the committee and the goal of our work in District is to make sure that we can have better alignment between the different parts of curriculum what we identified in 2019 is that we detract sixth grade math we created this heterogeneous program for pre-algebra accelerated however we did no re-evaluation of

055our seventh and 8th grade mathematics program to see what we needed to make changes in going forward so right now we have a coursework that looks at Algebra 1 Algebra 2 acceleration and then several part year algebra one classes between seventh and eighth grade if you uh give me a moment this is actually what our course sequence looks like currently at the middle school so we have a group of students who are entering sixth grade and pre-algebra accelerated a portion of students who go back into a tracking because you're either then into algebra one accelerated or you're put into the part year classes Dr Milo uh did discuss with us our decisions about how we decide who accelerates we did not um excuse me we looked at the fact that the process should be collaborative

056made by not just the department but also our guidance department and understood by members of the community thus that is also part of the reason for the math committee what we found is that even though we have students who are enrolled in some High School courses at the eighth grade at the time there was geometry in algebra 2. there's a lack of cohesiveness between sixth and seventh grade and that we should revisit some of these practices uh Dr Milo stated that many school districts often skip seventh and eighth grade mathematics to rush students to algebra and erase the calculus and that that is misguided and we need to be very conscious of our decisions as we look at adding any new courses to our pathways he also stated that acceleration does not mean that we

057encourage selected students to take the same coursework and it can happen in one or very rare cases two more years ahead but that we need to ensure that there are no critical Concepts that are rushed or skipped he also brought us to the fact of remembering the nation at risk report in 1983 that talked highly about creating equity and highest quality schooling and dismantling tracking but 40 years later he reminded us that we still in Princeton see tracking in our math program some of the consequences that he found through reviewing our curriculum were that because of the way that we have situated math in the middle school we have several three plus tracks of classes at the high school that are leading towards calculus and also that the District offers multiple tracks of algebra geometry

058and Algebra 2 geared towards culminating in calculus currently if you were looked at our high school curriculum from students and I apologize for the picture it's been copied so many times that it's kind of blurred but if you look at students moving from eighth grade based upon what we identified as the classes in eighth grade from the Middle School based upon our sixth grade math program you have basically this part in the road where we have students who are on one particular track and students who are geared towards another particular track through our discussions with Dr Milo the option was that we have and enter another possible destination and the coursework that he suggested was that we look at having numerous tracks in our 11th grade that would lead to other opportunities in the 12th

059grade I'll note that while this slide may show 9th and 10th grade because we would be looking at High School courses this would be uh what we would see in our program of studies it does not mean that we don't have students in our middle schools that may be taking some of these courses prior to entering the high school and so really the discussion that will be happening and the committee is that part in the road can be satisfied by looking at creating additional pathways so that there are students who may not necessarily have a high interest let's say in the higher Sciences but we have Pathways and math programs that meet their needs and also meet their interests and that's the goal of what we are trying to do as relates to looking at

060our actual mathematics program I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak at this time thank you Stephanie um so as you can see the course we're not taking away anything but we are looking to add um more Pathways for students and the way we do that is to start with taking a look at our Middle School curriculum as it stands um we will post I know I guess um it some of the slides may have been a bit blurry we will post um this presentation online for everyone to see and we will continue to come and uh talk through our next steps as our committee uh continues to work together okay I just uh I I wanted to thank um Miss Tidwell and Dr Foster for their ability to pull this together so

061quickly um and just the message that we we're trying to send is we're not looking to take anything away we're looking to add Pathways um so we appreciate the community's engagement in this math issue of math is very important to all of us um we we're very proud of what we offer in our district and um how we address student needs and we just want to make sure we're being comprehensive in addressing student needs um so Ms Tidwell Dr Foster thank you very much and we look forward to additional updates um Dr Foster I'd also like to add that you will also be um I don't know if you wanted to speak briefly about the focus group oh yes yes thank you so um to uh we have a selection of parents and um staff

062members on our current math committee but we all and we did send out a thought exchange to get some feedback from community members but we also recognize that there are lots of people who um you know highly value um and want to contribute um uh to you know to the math process and so um I uh had spoken with a group of people and I will be running some focus groups uh with um some community members uh so uh you know I'm happy to do that and if anyone wants to email you know we will organize uh those so that we um we can um have your voice uh in this process uh as we uh you know work to realign okay thank you um Rob Dr Professor thanks so much just a quick um

063I'll call it an obvious question from where I sit um are you as the the curriculum changes in the Middle School in Princeton clearly that's going to be uh not always aligned with the curriculum um here in Cranberry um so are you kind of hand in hand or are you in communication with with our curriculum heads uh Liz Grimaldi and Shana Weber as we're putting this together we absolutely will be we have not yet because we've just begun we've only started you know we had our first meeting uh on last Monday a week ago uh but yeah absolutely I think that's important we also know that we um you know we have Princeton Charter School and other uh uh uh you know schools that um come enter our high school so we'll make sure that

064we are working uh collaboratively thanks for that Rob absolutely thanks so much okay all right thank you so much uh we have public comment later in uh this meeting and again um um you know it's 8 30 um I promised um the mayor I would ask everyone who was at the other meeting to go back but of course we love having you here so you're welcome to stay um and with that uh we'll go back to our um agenda and that would be the start strong presentation so Dr Foster I'll turn it over to you again thank you um this is um it it's actually wonderful uh to rip because we're really focused on student learning uh throughout and so um this is also great because this uh information feeds directly into uh some of

065our conversations around math uh and Ela and science um so um I'm gonna um uh turn the presentation over to marigla uh those of you that uh know her know uh that marigella um uh wears many hats in the district and so uh she is the K-12 science supervisor uh but in addition to that uh she is also the um district testing coordinator as well as the professional development director as well so um she is going to take the lead on the presentation and I want to thank her she has spent an enormous amount of time uh sifting through uh the data and uh for the presentation tonight and then she's also going to be joined by two of our supervisors Stephanie Tidwell you've heard from she will talk about the math and uh Keisha

066Smith Carrington will be talking a little bit about the English language arts so um marijua thank you Dr Foster Matt are you sharing the screen or should I share mine I think you can you're good to go all right good evening everyone uh I know this is a long overdue but we are finally here to share with you the results of the uh fall 2021 start strong assessments uh the start strong assessments were designed to provide this text with a data point on the level of support a student may need in grade level content and were based on a subset of prioritized prior year academic standards students were assessed in ela grades 4 through 10 math grades four through eight Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 and in Science grades 6 9 and 12. each

067test contain about 10 questions and were administered in 45 to 60 Minutes blocks three performance levels were utilized to report the results uh strong sum and less support may be needed because the test design was so different from the New Jersey student learning assessments or the njsla the districts were strongly advised not to make comparisons or inferences with either the njsla or any state level data this report is divided into two sections the district analysis and the demographic analysis we're going to start with the district analysis first uh this first slide contains the data for the ELA assessments for the district a total of 1908 students sat for the assessments and 74 percent of them were assessed as needing less support while 12 percent were identified as needing strong support the same information can be

068seen in a bar chart over here the green bars they represent less support may be needed the yellow stands for some support may be needed and the red is strong support may be needed we are obviously looking for the longer green bars in all our data the next slide is for our math assessments uh for math we had a total of 1836 students who sat for the assessments and 52 percent of them were assessed as needing less support while 24 percent were identified as needing strong support again we have the bar chart again looking for green as less support while red stands for strong support may be needed my next slide over here is for science a total of 713 students in grades 6 9 and 12 sat for the assessments and 50 of them

069were assessed as needing less support while 16 percent were identified as needing strong support and again we have the bar chart over here moving on to the second section which is the demographic analysis the first slider picks the great band and all grades performance data by subgroup race for ELA and it is easier to look at the bar graph rather than all those numbers on that table so uh this graph this slide represents the ELA by subgroup race um our next slide is for Math and again I'm going to just skip to the bar chart which is easier to see as you can see over here in math our Black and Hispanic student populations they are the the green is not where we would like it to be we see a similar situation for science

070also our Black and Hispanic students uh you know the the students who need strong support is uh the number of students who need strong support is more than the number of students who need who are identified as needing less support the next next we uh analyze the data by supper of gender and the first slide is for ELA uh I am pleased to say that our female students are doing better uh in math it is approximately same and for science again the females are slightly leading moving on to the next slide which is by subgroup program free and reduced lunch special ed ell and gen Ed for ELA the data indicates that students in the free and reduced lunch as well as our English language Learners require more support moving on to math again subgroup

071program for math free and reduce launch Ells and special ed students required more support and we see the same picture for science the key takeaways from our analysis is are that the results of the start strong assessment mirror historical Trends in New Jersey standardized assessment data and the observations from start strong assessment are consistent with national pandemic era observations which which state that unfinished learning may be greater in math than in Reading may be greater for elementary students than for all the students and for historically underserved student populations the gaps continue to persist our District's Focus has always been on providing a physically and socially emotionally culturally safe secure Equitable and responsive environment for all as well as Provide support for students and increase teacher capacity in the area of instruction this Focus has been

072reinforced and reaffirmed due to the circumstances of the past two years and keeping these at the Forefront the district has designed its recovery intervention and acceleration strategies professional development for staff has and is being provided on trauma-informed practices executive functioning skills Equitable teaching and learning practices and student-centered and problem-based learning to name a few summer programs like extended school year and Bridge programs were offered during the summer of 2021 and are being planned for the summer of 2022. the SR funds are being utilized to provide teacher support via PD on multiple key topics expanded learning opportunities mental health supports as well as purchase of Technology like the all cameras I'm going to not invite Miss Smith Carrington to talk about the next steps for English language arts so thank you marigella one of the things

073that we are working to do internally is to really drill down in the data in order to see which specific areas are in need of additional support and so it's important to also know that um the assessments let us know which of the standards from the previous year each of the students had strengthened and that was demonstrated with um teachers being able to see each specific question that was asked and the answers that the students responded with which is not the typical pattern for State assessment so because of resources like that we were able to determine that the professional development that's been started since the summer of 20 would need to continue and grow regarding strengthening teachers abilities to reflect meaningfully on what their students needs are based on getting to know their students and

074also being able to strengthen their pedagogy and this is not just for all students but especially for our students who are from historically and culturally marginalized populations and fourth and fifth grade there's been a lot of support for differential I'm sorry differentiated professional development through ongoing embedded coaching cycles and so our achievement coaches have been partnering with teachers in order to support them in looking at the data and being able to do what is necessary in order to not only teach some new units of study but also be able to increase the amount of differentiation in their classroom instruction in addition to that there's been a focus on small group instruction and I do want to point out even though it says fourth and fifth grade because of course we're talking specifically related to the

075tested grades this has been happening from grades K through five at the elementary levels and a lot of that at um staff development looking at small group instruction is being led by our staff developers from Teachers College reading and writing project in the Middle grades we also have support from Teachers College in addition to that we have been using common lit which is also aligned to the standards and it allows the teachers to be able to see in specific tested standards how students are progressing and so and we in the middle of the year we did a second Benchmark so teachers were able to see how their students are growing which is powerful data that we have not had prior to this year we've also been able to use another assessment called Reading Plus and

076that's a whole program that provides additional support and is also a tool that teachers can use during Paul's time at the middle school so that students who are in need of focused instruction at the middle grade level are able to have that in 9th through 12th grade there has been an expansion of the PHS intervention and credit recovery system and that has now included Saturdays and there's also been summer instruction by the high school ELA teachers in addition there were some changes in the English plus course in order to increase enrollment and make sure that more students are having the skills that need support addressed during the school year and now Stephanie to well we'll go into math thank you Ms Smith Carrington and so as we've looked at the start strong this year we

077looked at using the assessment for the purpose of driving instruction being that the assessments were a look at student performance last year to see Mastery of major standards for the grade level we incorporated not just looking at our curriculum review for cohesiveness but we aligned the prior knowledge standards to our current year units of study in our grades K-5 specifically over the summer we took the time to establish prior knowledge assessments also to establish common assessments and benchmark assessments that will give teachers the ability to identify student performance in prior knowledge standards before teaching current grade level standards we provided PD on actual prior knowledge checks and common unit assessments and grades K-5 and then we implemented the start strong assessments we the data we're looking at right now we also approved our Lincoln pilot

078which gave us the opportunity to establish having a data source in grades K excuse me grades two through Algebra 2 for the this school year and so we will be administering actually another assessment uh District Benchmark so that we can look at student growth during the course of the school year at the actual grade level for instructional supports at the middle school we have the pause program for all of our middle school students in mathematics and then at the high school we continue to offer our Plus classes thank you Miss Tidwell and now I'll put on my science supervisor hat and talk about the science program next steps in science the science department is focused on disaggregating the data not just the start strong but you know multiple data and using it to design individualized

079supports for students we are offering Bridge programs in biology and chemistry and teachers are also being provided with professional development on co-teaching strategies as well as student-centered problem-based learning strategies in fact one of the classrooms with that the deputy secretary of the U.S Department of Education visited today was one where the teacher is undergoing training on problem-based learning and even though we were interrupted with the uh you know the fire alarm going on uh she was surprised to see that the learning continued even outside while we were waiting for the fire marshal to clear the building uh so I I am very proud of the work being done uh in the science department regarding turning our pedagogy from teacher Center to Student Center giving students the voice and the choice that is so necessary and

080teaching them the 21st century skills of problem solving so that they can they are able to uh you know any whenever they are they they can tackle any challenge or problem that they encounter in life not just in the classroom but in life so we are talking about workplace Readiness skills we are also working on redesigning the curriculum to include more authentic and Equitable learning experiences for our students we have also designed and a new pass science pathway uh specifically for our ESL students in order to ensure that we uh you know support them in the science and while they are learning the vocabulary uh which is necessary for for science um I'm putting back my uh assessment supervisor hat again and uh finishing off with the last slide which is uh wrapping up uh

081just summarizing what our key District priorities are uh the priorities are improving student achievement at all grade levels for all students uh we also are prioritizing identifying addressing and decreasing achievement gaps where they exist uh continuing to develop curriculum that develops the whole child you know like I said earlier the developing the whole child ensuring that we are giving them the workplace Readiness skills uh ensuring that they develop those critical thinking skills using evidence-based social emotional practices in all grades aligned to the most current New Jersey student learning standards utilizing qualitative and quantitative data to ensure we know our students and how to meet the diverse needs ensuring equity and access for all and lastly strategically utilizing resources including but not limited to staff time and funding to support District goals foreign Carrington Miss Baja

082for that uh very comprehensive report and and we appreciate your care for all kids um we we know that you know the pandemic affected kids and this just shows you know to what extent um and I just want to know if there's any uh Michelle board questions and we'll start with Michelle actually it it's more of a comment and and I just want to to um acknowledge that I I love the support and investment in instruction I you know a lot of times we approach these these conversations and we talked about this a lot in equity last year about how we come from a deficit mode and looking at the kids as opposed to what it is that that we're we're doing in the classroom and so um I want to commend you all on

083um progressing in this way and I'm really I'm really excited about it so thanks a lot for the really thorough um presentation Betsy and I'll just reiterate what I said in student achievement that we are in still in budget season please be bold if I know Matt cover your ears but if you have requests for uh what we can do from a budget perspective as a board to support the students who need the most support right now um we're really open to that so we have another month but thanks very much for the presentation and all your work thank you okay can I just say one thing definitely I'd like to correct the pronunciation of my name it's Bajaj I apologize thank you okay um and with that we will move on to um item

084I won the annual audit review and before I turn that over to Mr Bolden I just wanted to say um that uh the district has discovered some internal irregularities in our purchasing department although we've addressed the issues to the extent known uh we have appointed an independent auditor who will be reviewing our policies and internal processes and providing guidance on any necessary revisions to prevent a recurrence of the issue and ensure the taxpayer funds are being managed with utmost integrity um at this point we can't share any more information on the Genesis of this issue uh but we will we will do so when it's allowable and appropriate and with that Mr Bolden I shall turn it over to you uh for i1 thank you very much um so I'll touch first on the uh

085Financial results on The Cafe we did have our current auditor with uh in with uh closed session with operations on March uh 9th I believe it was and uh you know has kind of continued from the previous year uh covet has kind of uh left us with uh you know an excess of revenues over expenditures again um and we did uh spend some more of our capital reserve funds as we've gone over uh the HVAC system at the pool was replaced which was close to a million dollars and we did complete some more work uh that was left off of the 2018 referendum with some HVAC we've repaired a uh part of the high school shingle roof on the back side of the Slate which was down to the uh bare plywood uh so we

086did accomplish a lot of things financially um you know we added a little over two million dollars um and then of course as I just talked about spend a little that on capital reserve um as uh board president Kendall just uh referred to um there are so you will see more findings this year um on the agenda it's not as the acceptance of the audit and then when we we do have findings it is required that we put forth uh is required that I put forth a corrective action plan related to those findings there are really two main reports uh each year they've changed the name of the to the annual comprehensive uh financial report it used to be cafr now it's a c f r and there's the auditor's manager report which focuses on

087management findings um so I'll go over them briefly uh we do have a lot of things on the agenda tonight um but they are uh the number of findings which is five which does not make me happy of course uh is directly related to uh what board president Kendall was referring to um we do have uh we were written up for having uh more than a year of outstanding reconciling items when you do Bank reconciliations uh typically the vast majority of those are outstanding checks uh it is best practice to make sure that they don't exceed a year we have had in the past uh this uh but it was written up this year and I think it's important uh to me the biggest uh uh potential problem with this is that if you have

088too many outstanding items you could potentially uh Cloud your financial um the reconciliation of the bank accounts which is of course extremely important as uh that's where uh irregularities could occur uh second finding here was um during the Auditors testing and transactions uh over the corona of relief fund which is really actually this item was related to the the the state everyone's been using the federal funds so some of the non-public funds were actually reclassified to a federal expenditure there was an item um which did not qualify for purchase under that Grant um the third finding was uh the item uh that board president Kendall was referring to um a potential misappropriation of funds relating to expenditures of non-public state aid um so we are um have directly I have directly uh improves controls with

089our staff internally um and make to help ensure that that doesn't happen in the future um and there is an external view that is ongoing uh the fourth finding was related to a school uh I'm speaking too quickly the school for the national school lunch program let's just call it that um we're not allowed to keep uh more than three months on hand I think that most districts in the state have uh had this probably across the country um even pre uh this year uh where there was free lunch for all students [Music] um we have accumulated in excess of funds we were laughing uh last week at the county ba meeting that we have once a month that uh yeah well we have this excess and we can buy equipment that we need to

090replace however we can do a purchase order we're just not going to get it for 18 to 24 weeks so uh we are making uh a concerted effort to improve so National School launch program funds can only be used to improve certain areas uh related to delivering food services we are going to change the uh line at the high school but um we had Consultants come out about two months ago I was over there myself and it was going to be impossible to get the work done this summer so we'll have to wait until the next summer to do that important work in the final finding I'll talk about briefly is uh um also related to the school for Food Service fund uh each year uh you are required as a school district to do

091uh exactly uh three percent uh verification which means that three percent of our population net is on free and reduced watch is essentially uh verified or audited uh we reach out to those uh it was four people in this case uh and the evidence of that being done was not found I do know it was done as I spoke with the person uh who did it we couldn't find the records um the person uh no longer works here of course we will not allow that to happen um the work papers I've reviewed them this year for the current year this was related to the prior year verification um and so that's a summary of the uh five uh items the corrective action plan is on the agenda tonight um and uh we are going out

092for an RFP uh in the very near future uh for an auditor a new order for our fiscal uh 23rd uh fiscal 22 Financial audit thank you okay um thank you Mr Bolden um any questions from the board no okay um we will move on now to um item J public forum public comment on agenda items and non-agenda items um I would just ask that you um just be respectful of everyone's time and try to keep your comments to three minutes or more the board is not allowed to um discuss personal matters of any kind um and just please be civil in your comments so Mr Bolden do we have any um yes uh Ballin uh I have two kids in TPS I would like to welcome Dr two to our community you may get

093a lot of emails from the parents Okay so yesterday an email signed by 46 PPS parents was sent to the Boe asking for transparency on the process of mass reform um it's much appreciated that you heard our voice and you arrange for a special section for providing an update I'd like to take this opportunity to reiterate our request first of all we ask you to release Dr Miles report not just the key points to the public immediately two May public the criteria for selecting the math committee members the names and backgrounds of the current members three expand the math committee to include parents and teachers from all grade levels and not just limiting it to the sixth and sixth grade parents 4. May public order meeting minutes but of course without personal information fifth send

094the surveys to all the parents and teachers in the district and not just limiting it to the fifth and sixth grade parents lastly we ask you to provide an email address that's accessible to all math committee members for them to listen to the parents and teachers and inform the public of the email address immediately when available that's all thank you for listening thank you the Acron hello uh D Acron it might not be able to unmute that we'll move to the next uh question there you go yes good evening good evening did you have a question I'm sorry your hand was raised did you I know I'm sorry I I hit the wrong button but um everything has been informative this evening thus far thank you all right I understand thank you Jin hello can

095you hear me yes yes um thank you Miss uh Foster and the Miss Tidwell for the presentation I first I just have a clarifying question when um Miss titwell says there's nothing gonna be changed to the existing curricular and you are just gonna add a new pathway but then in this slide um it just shows a new pan new possible password where um there's three possible pathways are totally different or existing ones now I want to get a clarification that and are we actually still um keeping existing and tracks are we still going to have um The Accelerated Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 and possibly geometry in the Middle School curricular yeah so that's that's some uh comes there um another comment I have is that um so uh I have a seventh grade daughter

096in the Middle School um I noticed that the mass abilities of all the seventh grade students they have really a wide range and I was told that some students are still struggling with multiple locations which they are supposed to master before the middle school I think this is a really serious problem and our school district should put this as a top priority to improve this situation and this needs to be fixed at the elementary school level it's too late to wait until sixth grade because by that time there are already a big portion of the students knowing the materials very well so it becomes very easy for the disvantage of the students to lose confidence and interest so any efforts at the upper school level would be ineffective so as a summary I think our

097Mass committee committee should really focus on how to get 100 of our students ready for the pre-algebra course before their graduation from the elementary school um that's my major comment here I'll leave the time for the other yeah thank you okay um so this usually isn't a q a but Dr uh Foster Ms Tidwell can you just confirm that come September um the classes at Princeton middle school will be unchanged at that's the plan at this current time foreign Stephanie I'll be happy to answer a few um yes that is the plan at this time okay okay thank you uh Ryan uh Bob hi thank you I'd like to comment on the district's ongoing review of the math curriculum so in February Dr Foster emailed the parents in the Princeton Public School Community soliciting them

098to join the math committee and as she explained in that email the district commission Dr Eric Milo took it up an audit of the district's math program that was completed in May 2021 with a list of recommendations she further explained in that email that the math committee was formed to review Dr Milo's recommendations as you might have been able to gather from his tidwell's presentation Dr Milo evidently has recommended that Princeton Public Schools detract its math curriculum through 10th grade including by removing Algebra 1 from the Middle School curriculum and removing the standard calculus courses from the high school curriculum I have many substantive concerns about those reforms but in my brief time I want to focus on process so first the process lacks transparency Dr Milo's study was was which was completed over 10

099months ago has not been shared with the Princeton community I've been in touch with members of the math committee to inquire about the reforms being considered and I've been informed that the district has asked the committee to keep all information and discussions confidential as well this evening Dr Foster and Ms Tidwell claimed that the math committee is not considering taking away opportunities from anyone you have to acknowledge that first Dr Milo has recommended the tracking and taken away opportunities from students for example calculus in the high school and second the math committee has been formed to consider those very recommendations this lack of transparency and a process to consider such dramatic reforms is deeply troubling second in part due to that lack of transparency the process is also failing to gather broad input from stakeholders

100there are only four parents on the committee what's more those parents have been told to keep the committee's work confidential and not discuss it with other parents third the timing of the process is also problematic Dr Milo's audit of the district's math program was completed back in May 2021 the first math committee meeting was not until just last week 10 months later in her email about the math committee Dr Foster explained that the math committee would meet only twice per month and further that and I quote we anticipate that committee members will be ready to present her recommendations by the end of April so that any changes can be put in place for the 2022-2023 school year this belies Dr Foster's characterization this evening of the process as in its early stages now I would

101invite you Dr Foster to clarify that the process the district is following here is particularly disconcerting given the extreme reforms being considered which would gut advanced math education for Princeton public school students in which to my knowledge have never been adopted by any school district in the state of New Jersey I respectfully asked that the board exercise its oversight responsibility and take charge to reset this process specifically I asked the board direct the district to disclose Dr Milo's study to the Princeton community second the board should explicitly direct the administration to adopt a more deliberate process of policy development that would take place over the course of the next 12 months not the next four weeks and seek input from a much broader set of stakeholders thanks for your consideration thank you Jane manners hi

102uh thanks so much for the opportunity to speak and thank you for for all of the very clear presentations tonight I I really appreciate them and I appreciate all the work that the committee is doing um I I'm also not surprisingly talking about the math curriculum I I wanted to kind of echo some of Zhang's um questions earlier uh first I I was also struck um by the timing of Dr Milo's report because it seems to me that we detract the sixth grade math curriculum and then everything went crazy because of covid and we had remote learning and people were in school for like two hours a week and then Dr Milo was doing his report and then we get the results of Dr Milo's report and it seems to me impossible to you know

103to the extent that Dr Milo was looking at the results of the sixth grade detracting project to disaggregate what was the result of detracting what was the result of covid what was a result of stresses at home what was a result of remote learning so I'm a little curious to hear more about how that what the data is how it's being processed I have heard anecdotally that the sixth grade detracting is working tremendously well that kids are still able to pursue accelerated tracks and they're in the same classroom with kids who are on a kind of uh more standardized track and that they're helping each other all of the things that you know we hope for in terms of Equitable results when we talk about de-tracking differentiation in the classroom combined with kind of equity

104rise you know a rising tide lifting all boats Etc um so so so the question one is just kind of on the on the timing of the study and the data that's going in I also wanted to kind of clarify get some clarity on on the statements today that you know know we're not planning on taking anything away which is great and I applaud that but I'm wondering if this is you know we're not going to take away multivariable calculus at the high school but we are going to change the Middle School curriculum such that if you go to Princeton Middle School it will be kind of hard for you to get to multivariable calculus in high school unless you get extra tutoring or go to school in the summer or all the things that

105lots of privileged parents in Princeton will do if they feel like their kids are going to have opportunities denied to them at the high school and I I worry about this both because the you know I think you can all see where I'm going with this if you start denying opportunities to kids in the middle school there will be kids whose parents ensure they get those opportunities one way or the other but those are not the kids who most need help right these are kids who are have all the advantages anyway because their parents are kind of getting involved with their education Etc et cetera and all that will do is in the end kind of exacerbate inequity right um so I think we need to as we pursue equity and Excellence we need to

106level up not level down and maybe we do that through pouring more resources into instruction helping the teachers kind of differentiate in the classroom even with even more agility giving them more resources like all the things that people have been talking about in their comments that the consultant has been talking about and kind of the whole curricular review and I I want to urge um kind of that as a solution kind of pouring resources into middle schools or elementary schools and improving math education rather than kind of doing something that will result in taking away opportunities which will in the end only affect kind of the the you know least advantaged students so that's thank you thank you Sharon DeVito hi um I'm from Robbinsville and I just want to let you all know that

107how delighted I am that you've chosen doctor two that I can speak for a myriad of parents to say that we are all very very sad to see her go but happy for Kim that she's moving on to greener pastures and from listening this evening it sounds like uh she's uh entered into an excellent School District that's focused on Equity diversity and inclusion and I'd like to congratulate your board and your superintendent um for the steps that you're taking in that direction and Miss Kim I will miss you but all the best to you thank you very much [Music] Jill North hi yes thanks um thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak um I also wanted to speak to uh the audit of the math curriculum and I wanted to express concern about two

108things first I wanted to Echo uh the thoughts of others about um that there's been a call for greater transparency especially for parents I appreciate the presentation today thank you very much but I do think parents would really like to get their hands on Dr Milo's report the second thing I wanted to express concern about is that the change is being considered to the math curriculum I'm concerned that they will exacerbate a different kind of inequity which is the ability of girls to major in stem fields in college and to continue on in science and math careers so assuming the district follows the advice of Dr Milo The Envision changes would eliminate the opportunity for girls coming out of Princeton Middle School to take the calculus classes being offered at the high school if not

109eliminate those classes altogether I realize you've said that you do not plan to take anything away but the slide from Dr milu shows what he calls the calculus pathway culminating in pre-calculus before calculus so not culminating in calculus at the high school level but without those calculus classes in high school it's impossible to major in a stem field in college without a lot of catch-up work and committing to that requires the kind of confidence in one's ability to succeed when starting out so far behind that adolescent girls in particular often lack so from my own experience my own physics major in college would have been horrendous without the strong calculus background I had in high school I would have had to complete an entire year of math courses just to fulfill the prerequisites for the

110physics major I think that Princeton Public Schools should be in the business of supporting not thwarting the efforts of girls to succeed in male-dominated stem Fields thank you hello everyone thanks for the opportunity to let me speak my name is hongway I have a boy attending sixth grade at Princeton Middle School just want to add a few comments on the mass reform I think it was a good step that the mass committee leveraged the sword exchange to collect feedback from some fifth and sixth grade parents however this Mass reform will have a significant impact to most if not all of the current and future student so I know for sure that many many parents in other grades from elementary school to high school also have a strong interest to know what is going on and

111wants to have the opportunity to share their pain points and weigh in on the future Mass strategy if you read the all the thoughts in the survey I can tell that the common concerns are around the differentiation and the transparency so I think the mass committee probably should set up meetings that open to parents and share the audit findings that just like the other parents Data before and share the selection criteria of the mass committee members and share the top related Source collected from sword exchange also share the plans how to address the the issues I believe the public meeting can help provide transparency Foster the inclusive environment and create effective strategy to address different needs which will benefit our children and our school district in the long run thank you Jonathan pillow uh hello

112yes can you hear me yes thank you very much uh for allowing me to speak I just wanted to speak also about the math uh reform issue I'm a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University um and I actually started out as a math major I was a product of the public schools in Arizona my parents were Librarians uh I had no outside tutoring access but I did have access to a good public school that went through AP Calculus in high school and that that really springboarded me to uh to majoring in math and a lifelong love of math which took me to using math to study the brain uh in my research to this day and so I just wanted to say that I I'm not sure what's being proposed exactly since the night they

113said that there would nothing would be taken away I just want to emphasize that I hope there won't be any reduction in Pathways that allow students uh to take calculus in high school so I'm really grateful for the the public education system that I was able to benefit from and I hope those same opportunities will be available for all children in Princeton thank you Eleanor Hubbard hi can you hear me yes we can thank you uh thanks for the um uh the time to speak um I would also like to express my deep concern about the math curriculum proposal that was presented today I found it to be extremely confusing because on the one hand we were reassured that nothing would be taken away and that new Pathways would be added but we were also

114shown slides suggesting that algebra would be moved to the high school and that the most rigorous high school math pathway would terminate in precalculus I don't know which to believe we've just been reassured that classes will remain the same next fall but not that they will remain the same thereafter I'm deeply concerned that if they are put in place these changes will restrict opportunities to take calculus to students whose parents can afford outside instruction and also who have the ability and know-how to get them accelerated in a difficult and opaque process that is designed to be accessible only to those who are quote unquote truly exceptional girls and poor students with interest in math and science could be severely disadvantaged both in terms of you know learning math getting into college and succeeding when they

115get there while it's possible to succeed in math and science at College without taking Advanced courses in high school it is much much more challenging taking calculus in a big college class from a disaffected graduate student is different from learning from a high school teacher who knows your name and cares about you as a person in addition college students who need to spend their early years taking introductory math courses often require more time to graduate at a heavy cost they may need to give up other opportunities and are much more likely to struggle academically if the reform suggested by the slides are put in place they will put our students especially our poorer students and our girls at a disadvantage compared to those in private schools and neighboring districts I would much rather see Princeton

116pursue equity in math by strengthening its weak Elementary School math curriculum so that all students will be prepared for a challenging curriculum in middle school thank you huh hello yes I was I had trouble ending with myself good evening everyone this is ying I think a lot of you probably know me I'm a parent of a seventh grader and uh I'm also at my day job is I'm a faculty member then why you steinhard of cultural education and human development and I study access and Equity issues in the urban education settings so I'm deeply interested in Access and equity um I'm also I want to say uh I want to also say hi to doctor too and welcome to this District I want to introduce myself I'm a lot of you know that I'm an

117advocate of Asian American Pacific Islander students inclusion I I belong to an advocacy group that we just recently pushed the uh a new new law in New Jersey that Monday is the inclusion of aapi curriculum so I I me and representing our organization make us visborn New Jersey and we look forward to working with you on the aapi curriculum inclusion in this District and tonight I want to also speak um a little bit about this uh some of our district decisions and the process from from the Asian American parents perspective uh we know that at Princeton we have 25 of Asian American students plus a good present eight percent of mixed race students and my daughter is mixed race um however when we talk about equity and we often feel that Asian American students and

118families voice are not being included and perhaps just because as Dr Bajaj showed my Asian American student tests high so that their their interests shouldn't be should be considered not should be considered with untreated sensitively uh I want to mention a couple of things just remind everybody about Asian American students situation the intersectionality that we sometimes overlook so one issue is about this model minority Miss uh the in the United States Asian American students Asian Americans are often portrayed as uh and treated as good working bees and this just literally resulting in narrow career Pathways for them and what does that mean if you look at our high school students Asian American students a lot of them choose to major in stem field because that's the only safe way for them to think about to

119make a career advancement as a matter of fact right if we look at tonight in this meeting of all the people who have faces I mean I'm speaking here faceless because I was everybody stood there with with the camera right we have Dr Bajaj who's Asian American and also we have a student representative right and other than that there are no representations of Asian Americans and which said something about the career Pathways that are available to our students when they grow up so here I've just went when we talked about Mass curriculum I feel like we have to treat the subject more sensitively and I myself overheard a lot of parents feeling at work because they feel like they're being discriminated or at least not being treated with respect or sensitivity about their situations because

120if we also talk about when the kids are hiring for college oftentimes the Native American students are not viewed as having adequate leadership so that when they choose to apply Majors that's not in a stand they're being viewed in unfair not non-favorably right another thing I want to also mention about some lessons Community although they test hard but those families are most of them are recent immigrants coming from countries like China India like myself a key to this country was 200 in my pocket to suitcase when I grow up I it was we grew up literally in poverty I mean I I know a lot of my friends growing up in hunger because when there's boys in the family there was not enough to eat so those are families are not privileged family they came

121there's also because it's all but perhaps those are a group of people a little under selected because of the Immigration Act because you can only enter this country on the Visa that's a tech technology on the high on the uh professional Visa so a lot of parents immigrant families in this town are actually in the tax uh careers so as a result you see a lot of kids look they're interested in stems so I I feel like my own Mass curriculum I actually really love the different Pathways I think it's a great way a smart way to do it but I do hope the district will pay more attention and be sensitive when we think about the diversity Equity issues I think about Asian American families reality and in particular our children are children's right

122and you look at what students are interest we need to to be year treat everybody right equally and think about them as you know real life human beings rather than statistics because you test very high so you know there's it's you're not a trouble okay all right thank you very much and we really appreciate um you know your commitment to advocating and um both at this meeting and and the meet our last meeting as well thank you Darius cabal uh goody good evening everyone um we fairly new to the district we just uh uh started school in September I have a kid in middle school and Elementary School so I'd like to uh go back to the uh upcoming spring break and the policy school has and we try to get the answer from uh

123from the um uh principal of elementary school and also I contacted the last couple weeks uh superintendent Dr Carol Kelly I still didn't get any answer to my questions and my question is um how do we decided policies about traveling uh my kid was kicked out of the school three weeks ago because he traveled to Florida and he came to school uh we tested him but because he's not vaccinated he was expelled from school uh first they told him seven days and then tested uh come back to school with negative tests or five days my question is how did we decide on those policies because I took the last week to cdc's I talked to New Jersey Department of Health I talked to Princeton Department of Health and everything is based on recommendations the recommendations

124are when you travel outside abroad of the country also to different states they recommending to stay home for five days this is recommendations so uh when I asked CDC for about recommendation they cannot reinforce the recommendation they only recommending this so sending the perfectly healthy kid to school because he's not vaccinated he was expelled from school for five days vaccinated a kit uh can come back to school knowing no after two years of dealing with covet and knowing we have all the vaccinations the vaccinated people vaccinated kit they can spread and construct the virus So based on what my kid was discriminated and also we have a religious exemption in schools based on what kind of uh rules my kid was expelled from school for five days and refused educations I still never get an

125answer from anybody and I wish I can talk to somebody about this in a future time thank you so much for listening thank you uh hi can can you hear me yes yes my name is jija and my son is 8th grader and actually I have some commands regarding the math curriculum settings actually from the presentation I saw that Dr Milo suggests to sort of split the pathway of calculus from separate from statistics um that's uh from my own experience that's not a quite reasonable setup because to to learn statistics or AP Statistics you got to have some calculus background uh even you know for uh by the way I have a physics background uh Bachelor and I have a PhD in economics um from my experience no matter what you do in college what

126you learn you know yeah what what size even the science major economics or chemistry or biology you will need calculus it's not something like you can sort of you know learn the statistics mistakes without knowing anything about calculus that's not going to happen so um my suggestion is um give the students uh the the right to choose the right course for themselves or the parents okay given their interest not just uh set up a pathway a fixed pathway for them because the pathway that's suggested by Dr Milo may not be the reasonable one that's my opinion um and from my only my own experience uh celebrating statistics from calculus that's not reasonable uh that's all my commands thank you thanks thank you Joshua benowitz hi uh thank you for the opportunity I'm a parent of

127three students in the Princeton public schools and I applaud the board and the teams focus on quality for all the students you know not just having people race forward for the sake of racing forward at the same time I think it's really important that we provide opportunities for intellectual engagement and Scholastic Excellence for all of the students and I was concerned um that there was kind of an assumption that tracking was working against this when I think it really can work for it in certain cases when done right it's not fair to assume that it's a bad thing based on a 40 year old political quote and generally I think we really need to take the politics out of these things um and I got particularly concerned about you know this when there was something

128very confusing in the presentation that shows a pathway that ends in pre-calculus as the most stem intensive pathway at the same time that we're hearing nothing is going to be lost and I don't know how to reconcile those things but it makes me concerned that there is a very fundamentalist alignment and that you know we need to do better we owe our kids uh better than that and and I totally agree with the comments that you know strengthening the elementary curriculum so that all or as many as possible students can excel in the sixth grade pre-algebra is really saying it would be super valuable as a way to help all the students Excel thanks for your listening thank you there's one more comment uh one more kids uh cider cider is right can you hear

129me yes we can great thanks I think the central issues are those that have already been already been raised I think the direction that the auditor or review is heading is very concerning and uh I would hope that the school board would exercise some oversight there but I wanted to raise one other concern which I care about even though I don't think it's quite essential and it's this um sometimes it's suggested that calculus shouldn't be a centerpiece of high school mathematics education because it's not practical in today's world of data science and statistics and uh I mean it was pointed out two comments ago that's completely wrong even on its own terms calculus is at the foundation of both of those fields but my my main point is just this calculus has immense intrinsic intellectual

130importance it's at the center of one of the greatest intellectual achievements in human history Isaac Newton's mechanics and theory of gravitation and it's a thing of beauty so entirely apart from its practical role which is as Central today as it was in the 17th century calculus deserves its place alongside the study of literature history and science in developing fully educated Minds thanks thank you Parker uh yes just following up on all the comments uh the concerns uh about uh the the study in the math program I would just like to you know underscore uh the presentation at the very beginning this evening from performance fact that the the school district I believe has a has a commitment to the equity imperative which uh which ensures which guarantees equal outcomes for every student without exception uh

131and so um somehow we just you know I I just ask that uh in the next steps that uh as as the school district tries to um meet the needs of uh of the concerns that were presented by parents by the community this evening that they do so that you do so um with uh keeping in mind the the commitment to the equity impaired thank you hi hi everybody um I just wanted to make a statement um so I I'm a I'm a proud product of the New York City Public Schools um my father's family came to the US um in the 1970s as War refugees from Vietnam um biographically here I grew up in a low-income household my father was unemployed my mother worked as a cashier but I was extremely fortunate to be

132in a school system that was deeply committed to my success I was a captain of my high school math team I took Multiverse calculus in high school I'm a graduate of Harvard University and and and you know the opportunities I received as a young person or math related were so important for me they opened up so many doors for me so many doors I didn't even understand at the time I just wanted to go on the record of kind of just saying how important that was and how how distressed I am I guess by the sometimes what appears to be a Cavalier attitude towards the importance of math and providing opportunity to children um I also wanted to make a couple more statements one about the importance of calculus and pursuing stem careers I'm an

133actor and a data scientist uh proponents of detracting like Dr milu often say that calculus isn't relevant in today's world and I also want to say on the record here that is objectively false calculus is absolutely critical especially in data science careers more than anything else I would say um I also want to say I don't believe Equity is a matter of everyone taking the exact same courses or obtaining the exact same outcomes I think it means providing the best education possible for every single child in this district and that the district should not define equity in a way that pits parents against each other or against the district I think that's just not correct so that was all that was a lot thank you for the time to speak today thank you [Music] I

134think I clicked on the there was one person who wanted to speak and foreign hello everyone yeah yeah thank you for the opportunity actually yeah I'm representing um yeah for my husband and he's working our dog right now so yeah my husband graduated from um mechanical and Aerospace Department in Princeton and he got the PHD here and he really really grateful because he had a really strong Mass foundation so he would like to communicate with all of you you know we're always being really grateful for the Princeton public school education but for math it's really the foundation um nearly for everything so please um help those children to build up a solid Mass foundation so that will really help them to go far and also you know um we have a sixth grader and eighth

135grader we have two girls so for our eighth grader we heard um you're talking about for this coming September the curriculum won't be changed right so um I think uh and you're also talking about uh alignment in all the curriculum for these years so we totally agree but but the thing is can you just give us more clarification because I just feel like you know in our family we may need to face some sort of alignment you know between my other one and my younger one so yeah please um yeah give us some clarification yeah but yeah that's all thank you so much yeah thanks for all the efforts thank you try super harmonia yes hi this is Jason Romanian can you guys hear me yes okay great um so I just want to Echo

136a lot of what the other parents have said about the math curriculum right I'm a little bit uh shocked by some of the statements that have been made today right I think it's really important that there'll be a lot more transparency in terms of what's Happening as taxpayers in this district is really important for us to understand any changes that are happening to the curriculum especially since a lot of the parents here who are in Princeton they're here because of be strong right the the strong basically schooling District that's here um professionally you know I work in financial services I work in data and I can Echo what others have said that math is foundational right for having a successful career and I think it's important that you guys you know look at this more

137more holistically and make sure that you know what we're doing is to is to ensure that we can provide more options for you know for the students in terms of excelling and not not making it less um so at the end of this what I'd like to hear from the committee is a action plan right in terms of what are the things you guys are going to do to help us to understand that you know this is going to move in the right direction right now it's not clear to me because there seems to be a lot of confusion from this conversation in terms of what I've heard okay thank you thank you Danielle Roman hi um thank you uh I'm I'm a product of the Princeton Public Schools up until my senior year and

138I will say that um uh first just to reiterate the point I think transparency is really important for maintaining um trust between the school the school board and the um and the parents but um what I wanted to say was actually about the the math curriculum so we were never tracked in in middle school and I think what's really important in middle school is that everyone gets the best possible math education that they can um but in high school I do believe that the calculus is extremely important when I went to college looking at classes I was not a science major but I considered taking freshman orgo and first thing the professor did was put calculus up on the board which I couldn't understand how those two things were linked so I didn't take that

139class but I did use calculus when I met my science requirements by taking physics and um when I went to graduate school in public policy and uh and took an economics class it was full of calculus so um I really think you cannot remove calculus from the high school curriculum even for someone like me who was a Russian major and not a scientist thank you thanks [Music] thank you student I have two kids one in middle school one in high school and thank you for the time and explaining what is being planned but as others have echoed so right now I'm really confused on what the physician school district is taking right now and uh I was hoping that the standards of the math education will increase but it seems like taking out calculus Airlines

140lowering these standards and as the new Edge technology and the new Edge career are in AI artificial intelligence data Sciences which require more math than less so I'm hoping that the school district will think in that direction and enable all of our students to get to that level so that they are when they get into the colleges they are ready to take on math and other subjects which are at a less higher level and not going to the college and learn something they should have been talk to them in the uh in the high school level so I'm hoping that the district will consider that thank you thank you okay thank you we have one more question from John Chang one more public comment and then we're going to move on to the agenda and

141we'll have another opportunity for public comment towards the end of the meeting foreign guys hear me hey uh my name is jinxo uh thanks for uh give me the opportunity uh I am a physicist I'm a physics nuclear uh background uh I'll be a faculty for almost 20 years uh so I can tell you from a teaching perspective I'll be teaching so many physics students my students a medical resident physics resident I can tell you mass is a foundation of all the star meters everything especially calculus and uh I think it's great and we should as a major as a great District in New Jersey we should provide kids with opportunities to learn advanced math including calculus maybe even others I think maybe two certain degree we need to add certain type of maps just

142for the kids who is interested it's okay that maybe some other kids is not interested but we should plan provide those opportunities for everybody I don't really like a pathway idea uh kids and high school they are not defined they have the whole world whole different all kinds of different opportunities or Heights we don't probably need to provide my capacity we need to provide opportunities for them to learn and grow grow so this is my only point I mean mass is so important I mean quite a lot of major is involving mismatch is just a two is a foundation so that's the point I need to make from a teaching perspective okay thank you very much and we appreciate everyone who's at the time to comment uh tonight on this important issue we hear you

143and again no decisions have been made no one is looking to take anything away please stay tuned um and trust that uh we will do what's in the best interest of kids all kids um and with that we're going to move on to item K1 harassment intimidation bullying I believe that's part of the consent agenda is that right Mr Boldin correct um item K2 is an action item uh did we want to do that now okay can I have a motion please Brian second Rob Daphne Kendall abstain Michelle tuck Ponder yes Betsy bag Leo yes Debbie bromfeld yes Gene Durbin yes Brian McDonald yes this isn't cancer yes Robert Christopher yes motion passes okay um we're gonna move on now to board committee reports I believe we ended with operation so we will now go

144to personnel with chair Debbie braunfeld great thank you hi the Personnel committee met on Thursday March 17th the committee discussed several job description certification paperwork leave of absence and our tenure review process the committee also heard about the rise Fellowship grant that Princeton Public School received that will pay for a Princeton University student who is also a PHS graduate who who will create over the summer literature and information about restorative practices that will then be shared with the community and District as I was reviewing our agenda for tonight's meeting under retirements there are seven employees listed together these employees have worked in our district for a total of 127.5 years I just wanted to thank them for teaching and caring for all our students our next meeting will be in April but it's closed thank

145you okay thank you Debbie and at this moment I would just like to turn it over to Rebecca gold for a few minutes Rebecca wanted to try highlight something going on in the human resources department so Rebecca please take it away yes thank you um just wanted to go over very very quickly the CJ Pride job fair was this week CJ pride is the organization that has 62 districts in the state of New Jersey it stands for Central to Jersey program for the recruitment of diverse educators Princeton was one of our founding members and one of the founders of the group wanted you to know that we had over 500 candidates were at the job fair it was virtual and with our team our wonderful team of Administrators that interviewed we saw um we ended

146up seeing 19 percent of the people which is 91 candidates which is incredible in a three-hour spread um but it gets even a little bit better right now it's very hard to find teachers and it's harder to even find teachers in very special areas and so I want you to know that we saw two special ed candidates six six school counselors three World Language people one biology and two chemistry and while that may seem like small numbers when you start at zero for the last two years of not being able to find some of these people with the search it was wonderful I just wanted to thank our team for interviewing we we will now be doing follow-up interviews are being done trying to get candidates where we have openings and thank the board and

147the community and most of most of all Dr Kelly and our team a great great job we had over 15 administrators giving three hours of their time at night to interview so thank you thank you thank you Rebecca for your leadership on this it's really great and thank you for taking the time to let the board know about this important work that you're doing so thank you very much we appreciate it thank you okay um so the next committee report will be student achievement with Betsy couldn't find the unmute button okay um the student achievement committee met on March 16th at 11 30 a.m We started we have a few items on the agenda for this evening for approval a math business Ed textbook approval there were actually two textbooks one for introduction to business

148business ethics and a computer science textbook so that's on the agenda for approval this evening another item on the agenda for approval is a new Saturday session for credit recovery for our Princeton High School students that's a new initiative being rolled out this year to help students recover course credits due to class and daily absences so we thank our team at Princeton High School for coming up with this unique way to help our students make up that time there was an update we shared with the committee the middle school math uh which we've talked about that a lot this evening that that committee that's been formed I am the board representative on that committee so I'm keeping the board updated and I welcome questions as well um there we heard an update on the INR

149RS program review that has been completed we also discussed the Princeton School District calendar and the possible inclusion of the Lunar New Year as a holiday in future years and then there are some field trip requests that are on today's agenda we then went into closed session our next meeting is Wednesday April 6th open to the public at 11 30 A.M okay um thank you very much Betsy did I miss any committees just because we went out of order I want to make sure I didn't miss anyone just policy daphna um our next meeting is uh is April 1st 8 A.M and we will be uh tackling a uh plan to um review the new uh proof policy manual from Strauss Esme as we convert our policies all right well thank you Gene it's not

150just policy policy is very important it's one of our policy planning oversight policy is number one okay all right thank you Gene all right and with that we're going to move through um the items on the consent agenda the first one please stop me um I have a TV show watch at 10 I'm just kidding all right um number uh M1 retirements um I just wanted to say um congratulations to everyone retiring and I wanted to point out uh Cindy Clawson who's a bus driver who's been here for 28 years I had the privilege of being driven by Cindy um and she's just a wonderful human being and we've been so fortunate to have someone like her driving our kids um you know from the kids are cared for from the moment they're picked up

151to the moment they're dropped off and also wanted to wish uh Sue Welsh um a good retirement um Sue's um very instrumental in uh helping um you know some of our uh kids who don't know how to swim swim in a very kind and compassionate way so I wish her wealth um I don't know if anyone else had anything to say that no okay and two resignations and three appointments all right well uh I think uh Dr Kelly um mentioned um um Dr Kimberly two will be joining well once the board approves uh has been uh recommended as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and um you know I hope you still want to come here after this meeting um if not we understand um but we'll be voting on that as well um item

152um M4 transfer reassignments M5 Superior compensation M6 leave of absence M7 substitute teachers student placement I just wanted to thank um we have some parents who um have undergone the rigorous process to become substitute teachers uh we know it hasn't been easy it's required background check and fingerprints and a lot of time we're very grateful there's as we all know there's a shortage of substitute teachers thank you thank you thank you um okay uh item M8 Personnel items M9 curriculum and instruction and 10 student services M11 Athletics okay moving on curriculum instruction and one English language learner three-year plan and two NJ doe uh 2223 preschool expansion and three textbook approval and four purchase of textbook related materials and five purchase of textbook and related materials and six student day field trips and seven student

153overnight trips and eight uh Saturday course credit recovery okay moving on to o1 Student Services uh home instruction provider O2 educational placement of students nope you're nothing going on in a business uh P1 Financial reports P2 fire and evacuation drills P3 annual School District audit ending June 30th 2021 um what is that P4 annual School District audit management report uh P5 change order authorization PHS P6 Transportation agreement p7 registration travel agenda p8 emergency emergent purchase above Bill threshold uh what is this P9 uh acceptance of donation Princeton University and I just wanted to say a few words um we are very grateful to Princeton University for their um generous Grant of 225 000 which covers the cost of tens for our six schools this spring starting on April 1st we will have the same 10

154configuration at all schools that we had had last fall which except with the exception of community park which has requested one fewer tent uh as we know the local Health officer and school medical advisors have recommended installing tents to provide flexibility and to have outdoor spaces ready to use for classroom and extracurricular activities the cost of these tents was an unfunded priority uh covid-19 need in our district so again uh we're very grateful to Princeton University for these funds which will make it possible for PPS students to eat and study and play instruments Outdoors um flexibility is particularly helpful should God forbid covid-19 positivity rates rise again and it's been very important for students who are vulnerable and or living with a vulnerable family member uh the generous Grant is on the Jennifer approval and

155thank you to Kristen Applegate and her team uh in the office of community and Regional Affairs who continue to be who continue to be our outstanding Community University Partners so thank you very much uh item P10 professional service appointment of special counsel Linux law and P11 bid authorization okay now we'll move to the second public comment period on any topic Mr Bolden do we have anyone here who would like to speak no no no no okay all right and with that Mr uh Bolden um can I get a motion for approval of the consent agenda Brian second Debbie Mr Baldwin would you call the roll please thank you enough Daphne Kendall yes Michelle tuck Ponder yes Betsy bag wheel yes Debbie ronfeld yes Gene Durbin yes Ryan McDonald yes Susan Cantor yes Rob Christopher yes

156advantage underpasses okay well now I'd like to be the first to officially welcome doctor two to the district um and again there's no board member asked me to tell you no baxies so um so here I guess you're stuck with us now you'll see it's I'm thrilled to join the team thank you so much everyone I'm really looking forward to it okay well thank you uh thank you to everyone in the public who participated thank you again to um the Town Council and the mayor for their flexibility tonight uh so that we were able to um serve the interests of all our constituents in a very unorthodox way and uh I don't know if anyone else has any comments from the board no all right can I get a motion to adjourn Rob second Gene

157all in favor all right good night everyone good night