Princeton Public Schools Board of Education Meeting 9/29/2021

001um um lord you so bless you what's your question foreign i think we're all here i think peter's going to join us in a little bit matt are we ready to start yes okay welcome 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 are always pleased when members of the community attend our meetings the board and the school district operate under applicable new jersey laws and 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

002the right to limit time allotted to public participation law limits discussion of individual personnel and confidential matters we desire that our meetings provide useful opportunities for communication between the board and the community so thank you for attending as required under the open public meeting act njsa 1046 at sequentia adequate notice was given for calling this meeting it was authorized by the board of education and forwarded to the municipal clerk princeton packet and the times on january 6 2021 and distributed to the schools and others on the standard distribution list the board reserves the 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

003public 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 the 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 representatives of this representative of the sending district is authorized to vote on such matters that affect sending district students or affect the governance of the princeton public schools as more specifically designated in njsa 18a 38.1 in the event the statute is amended the law shall take precedence again over this by law sending district votes pertaining to personnel actions refer to high school central administrative and district-wide staff only votes otherwise are considered abstentions would you like

004me to take a roll call you please take the role thank you you're welcome beth barron here eddie brownfield here dan dart here that's you bagwill here ryan mcdonald president michelle tuck ponder president peter katz daphne kendall here susan cantor yeah gene durbin president we have a quorum thank you the first order of business is item d1 on the agenda the adoption of the minutes for august 24th 2021. could i have a motion please brian ii gene any discussion ask a question of our um board secretary matt i was present for public but not foreclosed um in august so are these open minutes how do i vote is my question you're good so uh you want to call the roll for a vote those minutes please uh best parent yes debbie ronsfeld yes dan dart

005yes it's in bagley yes ryan mcdonald yes shell talk ponder yes half the candle the candle yes excuse me i'm sorry that's okay susan cantor yes gene durbin yes motion glasses thank you um that brings us to our student board members report our stu two student board members we welcome them for their first report of the year it's ned erickson and chris chen so uh we'd like to glad to hear from you welcome thank you uh we have some words prepared so good evening everyone it's really great to be here and we'd like to thank the board for having us again uh we wanted to take tonight to both give an update on life at phs as well as address some larger topics so first and foremost these first few weeks of school have been

006going really well it's just great to be back in person for school and also interacting with their peers and our teachers that's something that i personally missed a lot last year from the conversations that we've had with our peers most students have adjusted back to in-person learning fairly smoothly and our teachers have just been absolutely phenomenal in facilitating this transition so we really thank them for that the welcome back event at the high school which was created by mr schmiel was also a major success it happened earlier this month in september i was there as a peer group leader and over my last three years here at phs this is probably like one of the first times that i've ever seen so many kids excited to come to school on a friday night and just

007have fun we're really excited to build off of this momentum and have a great year and there are also two larger topics that ned and i wanted to address tonight so first of which is coveted protocols so students are really excited to come back but something both of us have noticed over the course of the last few weeks is that beyond mask wearing there isn't much enforcement of protocols here at the high school things like social distancing don't really happen very often during times like when kids are passing between classes in packed halls or eating lunch and in addition we've been talking to students and a lot of students are worried about transparency when it comes to close contact notifications some students have told us that they didn't even know that students in their classes

008or who sat close to them had covered until others mentioned it to them and because they didn't because they didn't know first of all they were scared because from their perspective they found out just through word of mouth and not from the district or the school which has created a lot of uncertainty and also because they didn't know they weren't able to quarantine or know to get tested in addition students don't receive those close contact emails their parents do so again they weren't really sure what was going on unless their parent checked a work email or personal email after in the evening so this has led to a lot of concern amongst the student body and we strongly urge that the district re-examine these policies and how they can better communicate with the student body

009one of our other big focuses this year is going to be student stress this is something i'm sure the board is very familiar with but after going through online school student stress isn't the same as it's always been um over the past one and a half years we've tried a lot of different teaching models some of which help students a lot others of which we're not so helpful and we think that having this experience um makes it the perfect time to re-examine the issue phs is known for its academic excellence and for producing passionate and mature students but this excellence can often affect students negatively and we've found that a lot of students are afraid to share their stress for fears that it may make them feel weak um or inadequate and we don't have

010any answers for you at this board meeting but chris and i this year plan on surveying the student body um as well as um examining or sorry as well as creating a group of students who can help us examine the issue and conducting interviews with both students and teachers our goal for this year is to create a list of specific and actionable items for the board to discuss and we hope to get back to you on that as soon as possible and i just wanted to echo what chris said and give a special shout out to our teachers and administrators at phs for working so hard to give us the best possible back to school experience thank you ned and chris for your first report we really appreciate hearing from you does anyone have any

011questions for them if not we will continue on that brings us to my comments the president's comments i really want to welcome everyone here tonight and i want to acknowledge that we are in the beginning of a year that's that's complex in a way that no one no one actually anticipated we're still in the middle of a pandemic and i really want to give a shout out to the people who've been beyond behind the scenes making this pop making it possible for our bringing our kids back into the building and having the type of experiences that ned and chris just talked about getting everyone back in into a semblance of normalcy and that includes our bus drivers our food service workers our custodial staff there's administrators who have left valley road to go actually into

012the kitchens and help prep food and help transport the transport team there's our crossing guards um and i would note that we are like everywhere else in the country having a real labor shortage so if you have any interest in helping with being a crossing guard for example that's run by the police department at thirty dollars an hour we are sorely in need of that and that is again run by the municipality but obviously it benefits our children and our schools we need crossing guards we need volunteers in the schools on a regular basis to help with lunches and recess and other things and if you're interested in these things you can contact the human resources department and they can work with you to get fingerprinted and background checked which is necessary if you're going

013to be around our children but it's very well much needed so i'm i'm you know just want to put that out there to the community again we also need substitute teachers we have a virtual back to school nights coming this week tomorrow is pms and thursday is phs and there's a meet and greet with dr kelly next week tuesday at valley road from six to seven and i also want to just acknowledge all of to all of us this is our first meeting since school started or or in you know and we want to say that you know we're glad that everyone's back we're so grateful we still have the children in the buildings we all know every day we're watching for covet and hoping we can keep them there it hasn't been it's been

014smooth in many cases in some cases it hasn't been smooth and where the start of the year hasn't been smooth we just i know that our board feels very strongly that we trust and support our leaders and we we ask for a bit of grace from our parents and from from those who are experiencing some difficulties because we're all in this together and we're trying to support the children and so um i just wanted to to say that we acknowledge that there hasn't been you know some people have had confusion or frustration or things haven't gone in the way that they wanted or they needed more information but we're all doing our best and we're all in this together and we do support our administrators and our in our teachers and our staff and our

015superintendent and we're grateful we have them uh working with us at this time where they're all working literally 24 7 and we know they're exhausted and we appreciate that they are giving it their all and their passion for our children so i really wanted to say that just to start this meeting that way um now i would like to oh one other thing to tell you about is that our next meeting is october 12th and there is a phs homecoming on october 15th which is really exciting because we haven't done anything like this in so long and the studio band will play be playing we can celebrate our athletes and watch the game and i'm sure our cheer team will be there so that's something for us all to get excited about um and with

016that i'd like to move on to our gratitude uh and miss cantor susan cantor would you like to lead that please i would um i am truly honored to be able to talk about gratitude today um dr ginsburg um will be had submitted an item for us to consider on the agenda later and that is his impending um retirement so i would like i'm honored to be the first to express our profound gratitude to dr ginsberg for over his five decades of service to education and over 30 years of that service to the princeton public schools as a principal of both the little brook school and johnson park school he strived continuously to improve the experiences of our students he created a sense of family and showed always tried to show respect to both the

017students and the parents his dedication to his job is legendary his letters that would show up to kids kids and families long after they had left his schools acknowledging their accomplishments both big and small made everyone feel that he was always cheering for them the board and the community would finally like to thank dr ginsberg for stepping up stepping back into central administration to help us through the pandemic with his unwavering energy and focus dr g was the first person i met in this district 18 years ago and i am glad he is giving our district three months to express our gratitude as we will need every minute thank you susan dr ginsburg this is the first in a long lineup i'm sure will be many many gratitude and departure uh celebrations for you ah

018daphna so as is princeton tradition uh when someone announces our retirement is when um you know we give them accolades and then they get this cold shoulder for the rest of the time so here we go bob um it's bittersweet to learn of your retirement i've gotten to know you over the past several years and the one thing that's very clear is that you are loved across the district by staff parents and most importantly students you have provided advice and counsel to countless staff and you've been a resource for many families and your generosity many know has extended well beyond your time has extended well beyond only time bob and short is a mensch his contributions to the district relating to equity and achievement will be long-lasting bob we wish you all the best and

019a long and healthy retirement thank you dan i want to personally thank bob uh ginsburg we had two daughters go through johnson park with a warm nurturing and inspiring experience and so we are forever grateful our family lived within the two mile limits so we were driving our children to school and bob was such a visible presence a drop-off and particularly a pickup and i knew that if there was any issue that i had about any of our children or anything going on in that area bob would be readily available and welcoming without an appointment so he's contributed greatly and i've been delighted to work with him very closely as the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and he's contributed so much to the success of princeton public schools thank you bob betsy and i'll just

020jump in and say bob uh we we very much appreciate all you've done for students in this district and i'm going to share a quick anecdote i think i've said before which is um bob attends middle school shows back before covid right when shows were in person and he attends middle school shows to cheer for his students that he had at johnson park as susan said he they stay with him and dan said the same thing well my son who went to community park received a letter in the mail from dr ginsburg just because he knew me and he said what a great job he did and how proud his parents are and i just want to say bob those extra the extra mile that you go to for students in this entire district no

021makes them know that they're loved and that adults are there cheering for them quite literally in the audience of all parts of their life so thank you very much for all that you've done debbie bob we will miss you what amazes me about you is your memory you remember every person's name every child's name you remember back to all the things the district has done and to make sure we don't do it again the wrong way and i appreciate all that history that you bring and i know the students at jp because i mean i've been going to the pto meetings there and i know how much they all love you and the families and you will truly be missed but you have left an unbelievable legacy of students you know to carry on what

022you have given to them so thank you thank you debbie big round for bob thank you bob just get ready we're going to give this to you all the time now when you turn around and people will be saying nice things to you unless it's daphne and she says we're done right cold shoulder all right so the next thing up is the referendum update mr bolden uh superintendent's comments are first well i am sorry excuse me dr kelly i'm sorry that's okay i put uh from the flow of it and i do have comments um i shared my presentation with uh mr baldwin thank you matt it's in two parts but uh you can go like in between so good evening everyone uh i can't believe that we are already at the end of september

023so i'd like to share uh my superintendent's reports or my comments and as on everyone's mind if you could go to the next slide please is an update on uh what the district is doing around uh covet 19 planning so first i'm going to start with crisis go princeton public schools transition to crisis go which is a mobile app or an online tool that allows school administrators teachers and school staff to verify completion of our daily symptoms screening as you know this year our goal is to keep our schools open full day five days a week from now until june that's our goal jeff grosser princeton health department representative has asked myself and the team to stress the importance to the public to please complete the daily screening every day that along with wearing our

024mask being vaccinated if you're eligible are some of the top strategies that will help all of our schools and the community attain the goal of keeping our students and our staff safe we've been tweaking uh if you can go back to the slide please thank you we've been tweaking the times for completion for your screener based on feedback from our families via pto council as of last week the deadline is now 7 50 a.m to complete your daily screener prior to entering any school school or district offices this will enable our schools to print out the names of students who haven't yet completed their screening so that the administrator or those in the front office can give a quick reminder follow-up call allowing those students to enter the classrooms and begin their school day all

025right you can go to the next slide in terms of the covet 19 decision protocol we shared recently with pto council the protocol or a decision tree which in consultation with the princeton health department helps our schools determine who is a close contact those close contacts would require if students are identified of being a close contact they will be required to quarantine depending upon their vaccination status to learn what the transmission level for the community i would like to encourage all of those who are watching to please sign up for the email alerts directly from the princeton health department however with those transmission levels please know that the number of days for students to quarantine is depending upon whether or not the community's transmission rates is in the high level right now we're still in

026a moderate or moderate to high and our number of days for students who are considered close conduct contact rather would be seven days to be in quarantine and for those students that we are requiring to quarantine they are going to be eligible to participate in remote learning within two days of being identified as a close contact close contact i can't talk this evening and again close contacts right now according to the princeton health department would be any student who has a cumulative been within six feet um of 15 minutes uh are considered a close contact previously at the start of the school year it was three feet but now based on the transmission levels we are considering students who have not been vaccinated a close contact and they would be required to quarantine next slide

027in terms of lockers and lunch we are using these as mitigation strategies again our number one goal is the health and safety of our students and staff we also want to keep our schools open five days a week full days for all of our students so with that in mind we have placed several restrictions on the use of areas in our school buildings including the lockers at our middle school again the reason for this is to reduce the likelihood of transmission of covid but also to reduce the need to quarantine large groups of students remembering again that not all of our students at the middle school are eligible for the vaccine as of yet we do understand that this is an inconvenience for our students and families because they will be required to carry all

028of their materials throughout the day however the physical layouts of the lockers in the middle schools along with students the way that we define close contact makes it necessary for us to keep this restriction in place also prior to the beginning of the school year our plan was to encourage our classes to eat outdoors especially at the elementary level while the weather was still warm we've made several tweaks in our processes and finally had to pull the trigger with our provider nutraserve to move our lunches to serve only with lunch selections now being more of a grab and go with limited options these selections will be further limited to items that are easy to eat for students so that they can carry it from the lunchroom to the outdoor eating areas next slide i also

029want to talk about this evening uh upcoming student and staff screening for covet 19. as a preventative measure we have been we are planning to partner with medicat to provide twice a week pcr screening testing to any staff member who is unvaccinated beginning the week of october 5th currently all of our staff have been updating documentation of their vaccination status via a secure portal that documentation is being vetted so that we can establish the testing schedules for eligible staff registration for unvaccinated staff began last week in terms of our students we're partnering with the department of health to opt into the state's school screening testing program for students who are unvaccinated the department of health has provided the district with written receipt of our opt-in request and additional details are forthcoming and i'm going to

030go to the next slide and i'm going to turn the floor back over to matt take a break and matt if you wouldn't mind providing just a quick update on hepa filters sure um so we're researching uh internally and uh external through external resources as well um we've pretty much fully made a decision along with central administration to get large hepa machines and all the cafetoriums around the district and some other areas that are not as well ventilated but we think that especially as we head into the fall and winter um that those areas are really going to benefit from some hepa machines we've been in contact with the university and their facility staff asking them a lot of questions finding out what they've used in their equipment so we should be placing those orders

031very very shortly before we go on to the update on the referendum are there any questions daphna hi thank you dr kelly matt for that presentation appreciate it um i've been um asked once we capped once by october 18th we captured the information um about what teachers are vaccinated is that uh will that become public no uh that is uh it's uploaded i actually uploaded my documentation it's uploaded um to a private uh portal okay thank you all right saying no other questions uh i'll turn the floor back over tomorrow carol there's there's a question in the um chat someone asking why we moved from three feet to six feet too much oh that's a really great question uh so the um the definition of close contact uh we moved from three feet to six

032feet under consultation with the princeton health department based upon their transmission rates currently in the princeton community my understanding is that once those rates uh go down we will move back to three feet but the number of days for students that need to quarantine is still at seven days you're welcome and again the hepa filters um are in the uh cafeterium areas um i'm just reading i don't know are we supposed to answer questions in the chat or just from board members i think if we see questions that can be easily answered i didn't know harm in doing that obviously we can't answer always everything that's sent to us but all right so the help help the filters again right now we're looking in the the cafeteria areas and i also believe in the um

033[Music] the the small areas where students might need to take off their mask and there was one other area that we were looking we were looking uh we were yeah just mentioning with areas uh where children were getting individual therapies uh maybe just speech or otpt and then we're also studying the high school uh classroom yeah high school classrooms without the air dells all right okay referendum update great so i'm going to give a short uh update on the 2018 referendum as we're hopefully winding down um start off with the uh financial update which you guys have seen on and off over the time period uh sometimes zoom can get a little funky here hold on just move that up so everyone can see it uh currently uh or going backwards i should say um

034to refresh people's memories there was a lot of price pricing pressure on hvac and as we've learned since then that we are not alone in that there has been incredible um inflationary pressure as well as a shortage of uh supply uh in the economy um a lot of it uh focused on on hvac um so currently uh as we would stand right now um the referendum would be uh just over 884 thousand dollars um over what was originally budgeted but as you remember back in the fiscal 21 budget we did appropriate uh capital reserve as is legally allowed to help us to meet uh those shortfalls that were that came from the hvac pieces um i wanted to focus on some more positive things as you've heard me say over and over again i am

035a natural-born optimist that doesn't mean i'm not practical or logical or assertive but so we'll look at some of the areas um actually uh that is uh the guidance area as you walk in to the guidance area um so [Music] that looks great hallway down the main guidance area this is the new uh small little um copy area and kitchen in the cafeteria with the nice flooring down here a new all all new this is so this is a movable partition that i'm pointing to here with my cursor um it's also um so we have two separate um meeting rooms and we can make one large one or two separate i understand they've been used a lot in the beginning the school year um this is the new bathroom outside of guidance uh came in

036just yesterday they just finished so it's been a little slow um this floor that i'm pointing to down here is a really uh really high uh quality epoxy floor uh it took a little time to cure there's apparently and only a few vendors in the state it's real sharp looking facility so this is the retention basin that is behind the pack center going towards the middle school so this was uh developed in order to help assist with flooding um already got tested right off the bat on september 1st with that those incredible storms that came through dumping about nine inches of rain in our area so the first test went really well accumulated water here before it goes over through here and here over to the other uh retention basin that is on the other

037side of the pack if you're going away from the middle school or towards downtown um that is planted with some trees it's almost like an arboretum um that it helped to defray the water the water goes into that a retention basin and then it goes out takes a left over underneath uh walnut through uh underneath westminster college and out to a creek and i think it drains out to carnegie lake so the first test went really well um there was some grading done here um we oh jeez i forgot what happened the picture i had another picture here and somehow got deleted but um behind here going towards behind here going towards the middle school there's uh there was some unevenness in the fields and the contractor took some of the excess dirt and leveled

038that out making um our athletic athletic director brian zuminski very happy so we need to uh seed this which has to be done quickly because once you hit about mid-november that grass is not going to grow uh this is the almost completed uh grab-and-go um i can't remember if we're calling it grab-and-go remote dynamic because everyone goes back and forth but i like grab-and-go so that's what i'm going to call it right now so it's almost done nice flooring we're going to have pizza warmers and coffee makers some other equipment that's going to go here back here on the back wall the kids will flow through there's actually two pictures but you'll see this is kind of this part to the right they'll flow through here and then walk out so i have good circulation

039of students really excited about this i know the high school staff is really excited um this is another piece of the referendum at the little brook library um final equipment was just delivered as you can see uh outside of the referendum these two airedales uh were installed here so the nicely conditioned library the widowbrook library and the cp library were added as a summer capital reserve project this year um so things are looking up um i just wanted to shout out for the little brook librarian who has been extremely uh helpful and understanding during this process um just a real positive attitude throughout the whole thing we should be uh and she's working very hard to get this library back in working order with with a lot of help um but she's been great um

040this is some of the lighting not the greatest picture but real sharp real sharp lighting um and then this is as you walk in the librarians desk um so so we're real excited about this uh just one more picture that's the up close of the new bookcases some of the new bookcases we were able to reuse some of the outer bookcases moving on to the restroom facility um clearly not done yet but this is the plumbing infrastructure in place um the walls are up um this is looking out through uh the concession window where um during events we will uh hopefully be uh what am i trying to say not the not the pto's the uh boosters and the setter will be able to serve some healthy uh this is another corner of the wall

041not too exciting um this is and i tried to get a nice shot it it looks sharper actually in real up close this is the out exterior of the split face they call it split face uh block um that's going to make the exterior really it looks pretty sharp um this picture doesn't do it full justice i have to say um most of it's going to be this with face block there'll be some what they're calling hearty blank hearty plank um in certain accents uh over near the bathroom and i think around some of the uh concessionary which is uh a very sturdy uh like siding material and then uh we're looking at the what's to be the second floor going up from back here which is covered um which is if you go through

042there is going to be a second floor we're gonna have so we're gonna have some um free-form classrooms flexible learning spaces i should say probably a better term um some more athletic space um so we're building out a second floor up here as you can see uh there's still quite a bit of work left to do um this goes into the fitness center which is almost ready the floor is being installed and we hope to have the fitness center online within the next two weeks so uh as i was just talking about this is the biggest and most challenging part of the high school renovation the estimated substantial completion date is late february we have a new construction manager and the general manager has a new project manager on site um steel installation as you

043can see these posts have been up as people know for quite a while that have been following the project on the additional steel uh is starting to be installed today so we are making progress and i don't know if carol if you did you have more of your prisoner was that your presentation um but we can take time yeah the next topic is there are the goal of the action plan um oh okay but is there any questions uh right now about the uh anything to do with the referendum nope not seeing any okay so you want me to pull back up yours right [Music] so i am going to apologize in advance uh while he's pulling that up because i'd like to present to the board the district level action planning so and that

044is not to be confused with the superintendent's 100-day report which is coming later this fall but this evening i'd like to present the district level action plan for the achievement of the district goals which should be presented to the board each september along with requesting that the board approve the district goals if you can go back a slide i guess matt make sure i didn't miss anything okay maybe not um so this this evening i'm going to be asking the board to acknowledge um the approval of the district goals which were originally approved with your strategic plan um and then second i'm planning to present the action plan we've drafted to continue to build on the best of the district while acknowledging that there is work um before us but before i share the plan

045to achieve the district goals i'd like to share first the process used to develop the recommended actions therefore i apologize in advance that this will be a little i try to like shorten it but um i felt it was really important that you know like what the process was so the development of the action um plan that i'm presenting to the board this evening um truly began with listening so uh one of my favorite authors and educator shane safire discusses the principle of constructivist listening as a powerful tool to transform our classrooms and our schools where all students thrive in excel hopefully you recall last spring i sent out a survey to gain your feedback i've also when i arrived in july conducted interviews with board members with administrative team members with student focus groups

046in early august several of our students attended national equity projects youth symposium and i also uh met with uh those leaders in late august to listen to their demands for our districts these stories and the stories of other stakeholders were an essential part of creating the action plan that are is coming before you this evening so here are some themes that i heard from those voices next slide from the staff um i heard several themes but the top things were around communication and engagement uh definitely a feeling for more effective open honest communication uh second top issue with cult was culture race and dei uh really calling for the school climate of having mutual respect understanding and support also heard from the staff like a call for a greater diversity across the district staff and

047then a third consistent theme that emerged from the staff survey was around the areas of technology safety and facilities wanting to see the district strengthen the levels of excellence in those areas from our families the next slide from the family some of the consistent themes for sure uh without a doubt were around the concerns with returning back to school the overarching theme of safety but other desires expressed by families through those surveys were just ensuring again that we would continue to provide high quality instruction expressing the desire for their children to have access to rigorous courses greater technology offerings with less emphasis on those experiences just being for certain students and wanting to see those experiences for all so definitely a call for more inclusive more equitable learning experiences there was expressed interest by our

048families around seeing the diversity of our teaching staff as well as the the district providing diversity and equity training for staff overall and families express reassurance that the schools would have and use covet 19 mitigation protocols to keep children safe upon their return to school along with that was just a general feeling of wanting to see facilities and excellent conditions and then finally they're seeking authentic engagement asking for greater uh two-way communication opportunities um more so in partnership between the teachers principals and administrative staff next slide uh with the one-on-one interviews that i conducted uh when i entered in july i call these empathy interviews i focus those conversations on the topic of safe healthy and inclusive schools but i also gave room for the respondents to share anything else that they felt compelled to

049tell me or that i should know about the district of those i interviewed the majority felt that the most relevant question to address during the interview was is the district inclusive of all students fostering positive development and interpersonal relationships and that data tied to what we learned from our scholars who attended the youth symposium this summer next slide from the youth uh symposium um first of all uh there's an organization called national equity project nap held a youth symposium in early august and we had the opportunity to send several of our students and in late august i would say a group of administrators and myself had the opportunity to hear directly from the students who attended and we also got to hear their demands of our school district and as you can look at the

050themes from their list of demands we see that many of the items that our students are calling for are the items that i also heard from our staff and also from our families via the surveys and items that i heard during my empathy interviews that i con conducted our students want to be seen and valued they're asking the district for representation in terms of the diversity of our staff and also in terms of the curricular materials and the curriculum that we are teaching our students would like to feel safe not just from a physical standpoint but also an emotional standpoint they want to be able to be who they are not having to lose themselves in order to fit into a certain category our students want their voices to be heard for real they want

051their voices to be heard they would like us to not just hear what they're saying but how we're using their feedback and input to make changes and then finally our students are very interested in restorative practices giving students space to make mistakes learn and grow next slide the district is has also been accepted to a network called bell bell stands for is an acronym that stands for building equitable learning environments so i used the bells networks framework to help me organize the feedback that i gathered and also it helped me to prioritize the commitments we would address in our sy 22 school year 21 22 action plan the bell network will be working with princeton public schools but along with other districts policy makers grant makers and school support organizations to innovate and implement equitable

052learning environments that are grounded in research and the science of learning and development the network believes that every district can create an equitable education system where everyone thrives and belongs next slide so this is the bell framework and the bell framework provides a shared understanding of what we're all working towards in our respective areas for creating inclusive equitable learning environments next one so the four commitments that i'm planning to present to the board tonight in our action plan for the school year were presented to the administrative team in august and the admin team during our retreat provided input and they drafted version 1.0 of our sy22 action plan and i then finalize uh the draft uh using their input next slide that final draft or that action plan and the four commitments was then shared

053with the full staff around september 16th in what is called a thought exchange and a thought exchange is an online tool where individuals can share thoughts perspectives or questions next slide we had a total of 106 of our staff members who participated in the thought exchange and it was only open for four days they exchanged 108 thoughts and they they provided over a thousand ratings on those thoughts next slide so the oh that's interesting um so that should be uh so that you can't see it but you can see like who um on the staff participated next slide okay so here are the top ranked thoughts um and hopefully you could see it but these top-ranked thoughts were incorporated into the draft presented to um that will be presented this evening uh to the board

054so one of the top rate ranked thoughts was better communication between valley road which is the administrative building our supervisors building administrators and the teachers another top-ranked thought that was exchanged was me the new superintendent um being out in the trenches so that i could see really what's going on and the third top ranked thought that was exchanged was an appreciation for seeing well-being as a key component in these action plans so next slide so finally i'm sorry to take so long but i just wanted to give you a little bit of background as to how i came up with um uh what we are presenting to you this evening so what is the district's um action plan for the upcoming school year and again it's around four commitments so commitment number one next slide

055commitment area number one and our action plan is supporting the district and working towards working towards seeing professional learning as less of a thing that we do and more of a culture of who we are that every day every educator has job embedded opportunities to innovate and refine their practices so that's what we're working towards so for this year uh next slide um this is just some of the data that helped us get there next slide i think there's an x out in that one too oh really when you want oh that's what it is you're okay got it yeah if you see that x out you could skip it yeah thank you no problem um professional learning opportunities in the district definitely are in place but delivering those opportunities and sustain job embedded team-based

056formats is really important um to our stakeholders and we also saw that in the special ed review um as well as the equity audit that the district performed um several years ago so when pd isn't delivered in that manner the research does show that it's not quite as effective as job embedded everyday learning opportunities for our staff that's student-centered uh thus we might see less evidence of staff putting their learning into practice and since one of the district's goals is to inspire innovation and experimentation in both teaching and learning this commitment establishing professional processes and structures to foster a culture of individual and collective learning we feel is essential so this year our actions are going to be focused on helping each leader both our school and our departmental leaders develop action plans for their

057schools and their departments and also supporting every educator with aligning their individual goals with the goals of their schools or their departments next slide this action is intended to support our school and our department leaders as well as the individual educators with creating action plans and goals that align with the district's commitment and action plan helping us therefore to align every school and every department and every educator in a unified process and again we know that we we're you know attempting keep you can go on on that we know that we're attempting to get to the job embedded every day for every educator but for this year we're really going to be focusing on supporting our leaders with development of their school or department goals so this is an example of the big picture to

058help our school leaders as an example develop their goals you could see the student targets that they will be asked to develop for their school their school plans and you could also see the four district level commitments that they will be selecting one or maybe more uh to focus on as well as some of the potential align strategies okay next slide so those uh department and school goals going along with our evaluation process are due mr bolby help me by the end of october i think october 31st yes all right so our second priority commitment is related to providing high quality educational experiences for all students which was definitely a value expressed in both the family surveys last spring and i also heard it several times in the empathy interviews conducted upon my entry next

059slide uh specifically i heard this call again for students access to deeper learning experiences but for all students not just some one person said and i'm quoting if we're going to go after the biggest impact i choose cultivating and i'm highlighting this word inclusive classrooms if we achieve this some of the other things will fall into place next slide so again if the district goal is to promote equity and access then for the 21 22 school year we feel that our action plan at the district level must include focusing on curriculum revision work expanding how we assess students and developing both on the academic as well as the behavioral side of multi-tier systems of support specifically for the development of a multi-tiered systems of support i've seen that being developed in the last two districts

060that i've been a superintendent it's not something that could be done overnight so this year especially considering that we are still in a pandemic we're going to be focusing more so on the development of i guess in the business world you might call it standard operating of procedures as an educator i just call it bringing together a team where we're looking at uh what criteria we want to put in place that we are developing a menu of resources for each of the tiers and we're also developing a communication and an implementation plan as to how we can make mtss more so consistently a reality across the district next slide the third commitment in the action plan at the district level is establishing opportunities to foster positive relationships and environments where all of our learners students

061and adults feel a sense of belonging next slide many of those that i spoke with commented on this need including establishing structures and programs to foster and build strong relationships for both our students and the adults working in the district next slide so district commitment number three aligns with the district goal promote culture of care connectedness and communication and uses the support of our school leaders to promote collaboration and professional growth in the areas of restorative and community building practices in their schools via modeling community building strategies to their staff providing support and feedback to their staff to encourage their use of practices in their classrooms and additionally more so based on the staff input from the thought exchange i've also added a few items and they are to create additional touch points for myself

062with the staff such as an establishment of a superintendent's advisory panel superintendent's routine visits to our schools and we're looking at ways that we can provide an educator newsletter from a superintendent's office or valley road all of those additional actions were included in this version of our action plan to improve upon the communication between valley road our building administrators and our teachers next slide and finally commitment number four is related to the district's use of data so that we can make continual improvements to the services that we deliver to students and to our staff next slide this priority area is intended to help improve delivery of services for students and the schools that we serve you could see a few of i just took a few of the quotes from the interviews that i [Music]

063collected during my empathy interviews next slide so district commitment number four aligns to the district goal every child known promoting relationships and instruction that recognizes i did tweak this a little bit i'm sorry that recognizes the potential the passions and the readiness level and learning styles of every student by strengthening the capacity of schools and district leaders to establish data systems we can help our leaders and our staff inform their support of the students that we serve and additionally as pointed out in the thought exchange from concerns raised by the staff we also want to support our leaders with the use of data systems to improve our service delivery in the areas of our facilities and technology services next slide all right so um i would like to conclude the presentation of the district's school

064year 21 22 action plan for the achievement of the district's goals i would like to make one final note though before opening the floor to questions from the board in our action plan the commitments are based on a framework for building equitable learning environments where all students can be successful and thrive by expanding our ideals of measuring student success we intend to center our actions based upon listening to our students and observing our students measuring the learning experiences of our students will help us meaningfully improve their learning outcomes the measurements or vital signs of success will be finalized by the end of october and uh those measurements will be based upon feedback from the schools and our departmental action plans i think one other thought that i just want to say because i believe this

065was one of the questions i saw from the board uh the focus of these goals around student learning um is based on the i guess the theory of action that the the student learning is really at the core of this action plan um and that what we are attempting to do is through um our organizational structure really help to improve the adult practices the educator practices from the superintendent on down so that we can support our students there are other goals and strategies and things of that nature in terms of the running of our business that we call the school district but we do not typically have that in the district action plan um by which um a lot of the educators are evaluated for performance so that's the reason why you may not see

066other activities outlined in this district action plan so matt you can take down the presentation i am so sorry for such a long-winded um uh report but i wanted you to get a sense of how um what process was used to develop those four commitments um i also just want to point out that um we i uh the administrators in the retreat probably gave for each commitment two to three pages of actions that we could do and i really narrowed it down um and uh the reason for that is i am recognizing that our school leaders um and a lot of us at valley road are supporting our school leaders um in um during a pandemic and i want to make sure that the the actions that are outlined are our commitments that we're making

067to the community and to the board so that the community and the board can hold all of us uh accountable but they really do tie into uh where we want to see movement [Music] toward those aspirational goals so i will open the floor up to questions from the board betsy think it's susan actually but i'm going to handle susan okay i always know that bessie sorry i'm not usually the first question person um so my question is like many of these goals obviously are longer term goals but how do you report back to us you know in the short term to how progress is going and how does that look to both the board and the community right so the the goals um are uh i because of um where we are with us i

068know that the strategic plan is up for renewal um but i did go back to the strategic plan and the the goals really are from the the strat plan there probably was one goal that was really connected to every student known but i just really went with four out of the five uh the process that i typically use is probably at least twice a year if not three times a year is providing the board and the forum like this an update on where we are with the district level commitments but we we have been um having conversations around like how every department and how every school can share out what their goals will be and like their cadence of providing updates to their uh community that might be through pto meetings that might be through

069the principal's newsletters and i also think and elizabeth collier and i have been talking about um some form of district newsletter where we could use that as a vehicle to share um quick updates around what our progress is um and uh really uh commending um the support that we're giving across the district and moving in the same directions along those for those four commitments betsy thank you mine's just a comment dr kelly we knew when we hired you that you'd be student centered and equity focused and data driven and then your very first presentation of goals i feel like we got all three so thank you so much i also appreciate uh the focus on consistent staff support as well um so i just i'm eager to see you know progress along these goals throughout

070the year thank you yeah thank you uh peter hi peter hi um thanks i you know uh betsy stole some of my thunder i think i was going to make similar comments i thank you very much for the all of those pieces particularly the data focused and evidence-based uh decision making you know i think it's really important that we have um take data on these things and see how are we succeeding and so i appreciate that my question to you is when you come back before us as you said we'll do this i don't know quarterly whatever it may be let's say in the may or june meeting um what do you expect kind of broad strokes what do you expect to be different about the schools like what will if you had these focus

071groups again what will hopefully um students administrators teachers parents be saying changed [Music] i certainly hope one of the things that would change uh is around communications that people feel that there is a cadence of sharing information between and that that is a comment honestly that you hear frequently regardless of what district but i i definitely hope that that would be a change i hope that um for our students in particular that they will feel that their voices have been heard and that they have seen um some changes based upon the input that they provided i hope that our staff feels that their feedback is uh incorporated um into uh the work so i i think from the standpoint of you know again i go back to like one of my favorite um authors uh

072what shane sofia talks about is that listening is um an equity lever um so i i hope that people will feel as if we have um that we have listened um certainly there will be some um you know um metrics that are really important for us to look at i know uh chronic absenteeism uh would be one of those uh so i i certainly hope that as we are really listening to students voices and centering um the work that we're doing uh with the lens of wanting all students to thrive and belong that we will see uh changes um with the percentage of our students that are considered chronically absent uh from school so i i think i will be better prepared to answer your question after i you know um come combine all of

073the the metrics um in terms of some other things that i would want to see in june great thank you so much dan thank you dr kelly it was very good a lot of substance there my question is is there an opportunity to accelerate some of the areas like the multi-tiered intervention system and my concern is when kids fall behind they have difficulty catching up and to the extent we have those supports in place sooner rather than later it would really help a lot of our kids that is a really great question so uh one of the reasons i've been and i know it probably sounds really corny and i'm not trying to brown those with the community or the district that i've been using a theme building on the best is that uh i

074i believe that some of the um that there there are um interventions that are being provided in some ways uh uh so i don't you know by saying that one of our actions is to develop the multi-tiered system of support i don't want in any way for um to discount the work that's already happening in the district so we do have um and bob help me ais staff members we do have uh staff members who are looking at how students are performing and providing them with the additional supports what the multi-tiered system of support would do for a district is provide a specific criteria for um what what are the things that we will want to see in all classrooms again to make all classrooms universally designed for [Music] helping all learners with the content

075uh and a multi-tier system of support would further define you know for some learners what additional supports at you know uh they would need and then for a tiny percentage of learners what is like the top tier of support we want to provide that for students that need additional supports but your mtss should also really address students that might need acceleration enrichment support so it's it looks more like a diamond these days but you are providing that for not just the academics but also the the behavior and and i do think that um that foundational like going slow and it might feel like you are not really accomplishing much you really are helping and supporting the district to go fast later on thank you yes uh dr kelly thank you really informative and and i

076love that you're listening you know to so many different groups and i'm always really big with the student voice and i hope that we take from today from ned and chris that we're able to tell them because chris is right the students really should also be hearing who has voted and yeah and so i love that this hopefully will be our first time of saying right students we hear you so i do i appreciate you listening to all the different groups because our community is made up of so many so thank you for that thank you daphna thank you uh dr kelly i just want to say thank you please don't ever apologize for talking about how we're going to make our district more inclusive and help more kids to succeed um you could go

077on all night it's been a long time since we've had conversations and like conversations like this so thank you i really appreciate it oh thank you that's it i don't have any questions i know sorry i didn't mean to sound shocked but okay that's okay that's your hand up up back yeah i'm raising my hand i can never remember how to put my hand up because i'm usually moderating so i can never find it but i just wanted to also thank you um i really appreciate that you went back to our strategic plan of five years which were at the end of and and kind of brought back those very basic goals that we've had as a district for the last five years talking about every child known and and then bringing it to a

078new level where you say here's what we've got and how are we going to improve that and what are our people saying what do people really need and i and it's also all aligned in one direction and i'll thank my colleague michelle tuck ponder for her emphasis on alignment i think that made a big impression on me when i was first on the board about we need to align this district at every level so so exactly people aren't thinking that things are just coming from valley road down high and nobody nobody explains it or nobody listens and and that's so important so i thank you for that um and i just wanted to ask a practical question um where can people find those slides and can you know we spend some more time because there's

079so much good stuff there that i would like to really think about oh yeah absolutely i can provide the slides to um elizabeth elizabeth is my go-to person for everyone elizabeth collier who's the district's public information officer in all things like when carol doesn't know the answer to something um so i can work with elizabeth for us to get it on uh to get it somewhere um she's saying yes uh and um uh i am doing a town hall i think it's um tentatively being planned for the middle of october um i think it's octo tentatively october 19th um from six to seven and uh the thought was to uh share ahead of time uh maybe even this video from the presentation um and for um individuals to be able to to uh share with

080us their questions um about the action plan um but about anything um and that i would be available to answer those questions so we will have that opportunity as well thank you michelle is her hand up oh i'm sorry michelle oh no problem um dr kelly i just want to um thank you for your building and infrastructure because one of the things that that i'm really big on is you can't build a house if you don't have a solid foundation and you don't have a solid framework and so what what i've seen here tonight is you know we we all very much passionately want to do something for the kids but the most important thing is to build a a structure that can support all of our kids across the board for the long haul

081and i think that you what you put together is a great great beginning so thank you for that thank you and again a lot of input um so a lot of input from our admin team um i appreciate the staff you know on their own time like reading through the materials and exchanging the thoughts um so i i really and i appreciate the board support um with just allowing us to um participate in the bell uh uh framework the network rather uh so it's um it definitely is is a journey great can i ask one just quick follow-up to and to think about um the board and the board goals and how we support you through board goals and maybe that ties into the running of the business and the idea of um you know

082preparing for enrollment increases in our facilities and also our financial stewardship so how do you see that working in terms of goals and and our kind of checking in with each other and having you know things to hold each other accountable for yeah uh so i uh yes i think thinking in terms of some of the more that the business goals but i also think for um each of the uh commitments um there are certain things that we would need the board's uh support so as an example the job embedded every day you know professional learning uh the utopia for that would look like opportunities for uh staff members who teach the same content or a grade level to be able to have um professional uh learning time together so you know that requires um

083a certain master schedule you know for the the principal which requires perhaps um a certain level of staffing to be able to if i were if i were an elementary principal to be able to to to do that um as we're talking about like the whole um inclusive classrooms deeper learning the universal like design for learning um if i have uh partner teachers like being able to have enough teachers where they can be partner teachers where they can come together and plan so i i think you know the policy resources um looking through that lens as you are like looking at the not just the plan for this year but thinking about um the the uh the commitments um that are probably more of a priority based on what we're hearing from the community so

084we would have a conversation about that um i know this is our first year doing it so i just wanted to talk about how we think about that is that a conversation that we would then have maybe next month at one of our meetings with you when when you've got your um more clarity after your priority on your um vital signs or when when so uh you know i i'm just going to be perfectly honest with you my last superintendency for six years we never really they never really um got to goal setting um so uh it has been when i was in branch burke more of like a board retreat uh special meeting um so it could be during um a board meeting i know that there um were one regular meeting a month

085but you could use like maybe one of the meetings as like that would be the only uh topic perhaps i don't know that would be my suggestion we can talk more about that that we'll we're going to learn this as we go and we want to make sure we're supporting you as you build up these structures um and the idea of the business side too we can talk separately about how we do that because we're accustomed to kind of for the community saying you know we we have certain goals with respect to financial stewardship or in this community we have to apply for growth and that's something that's kind of extraordinary in in the next couple years so that is extraordinary because most suburban communities are not growing so that's a great problem to have

086it is it is thank you very if there's no further questions um that takes us to our purse first public forum um and i would just say that the public is invited to talk to us on any topic um we ask that this we intend to keep this to 15 minutes if possible otherwise we may have a motion to extend if we need extra time um we ask people keep the three minutes and that you state your name and your address and we mentioned that under new jersey law we can't discuss personnel matters and we can't respond to comments made by members of the public that's a legal requirement and we also note that our employees retain all rights regarding defamation and slander according to laws of new jersey and we can't entertain those kind

087of comments and we are not liable for comments that are made by the public um and we ask that people choose their comments to to consider being respectful and non-displamatory and maintain a level of decorum appropriate for a meeting of a public body so we just wanted to to put that out there we're trying to get more organized and how we interact and and clear about the guidelines and so we thank you all if you're going to make comments for your consideration of everyone else that is here in the meeting tonight so thank you sorry if i didn't get that right [Music] you're muted [Music] funny i'm sorry if i accidentally raised my hand i don't have a comment [Music] i'm sorry about sorry i didn't mean to meet you while you were talking i

088just to the music have a good night emily barrett hi can you hear me we can hi emily barrett 213 stuart road east so i'm sharing my comments as the mother of three children in the school district as well as an associate professor of epidemiology that's rutgers school of public health my expertise is on environmental exposures and stressors in relation to children's health and during the pandemic i've also pivoted to work on covet 19. so i want to first share my personal experience as a mother which is that like many other families during remote schooling we experienced major mental health issues in our household and when we sought professional help for our child's acute mental health crisis we found that mental health issues were so pervasive among children in our district that it took us

089months to find a psychologist who could add a new client but i also want to share my perspective as a scientist interested in children's well-being so over the last year my research group has been studying over two thousand eight-year-olds around the country these are children we have been following since before they were born and they're generally happy and healthy and in interviews we conducted with them during the pandemic depending on their location in the us 30 to 55 percent had symptoms of clinical anxiety 10 to 33 percent showed signs of depression and most stunning was the unprecedented number of children reporting suicidal ideations at age 8. it was roughly 25 of respondents and that's a sobering statistic that i think should worry us all children were suffering during isolation all across the u.s and in

090princeton and for these reasons i'm really thrilled that the district is so committed to having our children back at school in person none of us want to see our kids go back to remote learning and social isolation so why i want to speak today why i feel compelled to is to reinforce the gravity of the choices that we're making regarding copa19 precautions what we choose to do today as a district in terms of simple things like standardizing policies around outdoor meals or routine coven 19 surveillance which is standard practice in many places has major ramifications for our ability to keep our students at school in person as we see isolated cases crop up which is already happening we need to ensure that they don't have the chance to spread it's not just about fear of

091the severe infection and death which are rare but real concerns but we're also trying to prevent scenarios in which an isolated case turns into dozens of students who shared a class or lunchroom together and now have to quarantine and we're already seeing shutdowns in surrounding districts pop up princeton is no different if we aren't vigilant i want our children to be able to continue to see friends at school to participate safely in clubs and sports that social interaction is so vital to their well-being and so although we're all bristling at continued restrictions posed by this pandemic we're not yet out of the woods and larger quarantines are on the horizon if we let down our guard so i want to thank the board for listening i know that everyone on this call has the same

092ultimate end goal which is to keep our kids happy and healthy through this stressful period and i wanted to let you know that we appreciate your partnership in these efforts to keep our kids safe thank you aviva geiger schwartz hello can you hear me we can hi aviva geiger schwartz 74 allison road i am the mother to two students at johnson park i have a master's in public health have served as a public health epidemiologist at the new york city department of health in the past and currently a research data analyst at the boston university school of public health also here to talk about covet based on data submitted to the fda just today by pfizer bio and tech we can expect emergency use authorization of a coven 19 vaccine for children 5 to 11

093years old in the coming weeks this should fill a major remaining gap in vaccine eligibility for the majority of school children in our district my hope as a mother to two kids in this age range is that i'll be able to have my own children vaccinated fully before the winter break i call on the district to begin planning now right now not weeks from now for how they will communicate with parents and work in partnership with health authorities in order to ensure swift and equitable uptake of this critical vaccine in the meantime we have to get through one more fall outbreaks in neighboring districts are already resulting in school closures this is happening in communities just like ours we need to continue making adjustments to ensure widespread quarantine school closures and more unnecessary learning loss

094doesn't happen for our children again outdoor snacks and lunches for all children every day must be implemented and with greater urgency this measure has been called for by our town health officer jeff grosser and has received support from superintendent kelly and the various school principals for which i thank them across the schools however we're seeing inconsistent implementation and infrequent communication with parents around the issue of outdoor lunches i call on our incredible community of teachers parents students and administrators to work together put on our problem solver hats and make it happen let's continue to make creative science informed decisions and get our children safely through these critical next few months thank you dylan robbins hello um uh good evening i just wanted to give a shout out first and foremost to chris shin and to

095ned erickson for your comments thoughtful very well put together and they also echo many concerns of your parents and other parents in the district as we've dialogued with the with the board and also administrations in order to try to increase safety measures to assure that kids like you kids like our own as well can stay in school in person where they need to be where they're happier and will they will do better both academically socially and emotionally that is what we're here for and that's what we're here to talk about according to dr michael osterholm of the university of minnesota center for infectious disease research and policy the most impactful mitigation measures in decreasing order begin with vaccination followed by ventilation then testing and finally masking and i would like to speak a little bit

096about ventilation ventilation is optimal outdoors which is why we're pushing for consistent lunches and snacks outdoors not just for elementary school kids and middle school kids but also for high school kids there needs to be a push to have them outdoors as much as possible a case in point um the friends school last year had all meals outdoors all year long every day and didn't have a single case i think pps can do the same thing yeah um and in terms of ventilation in the school there's still some missing information particularly about the quality of air replacement in the cafeterias the band halls the auditoriums the black box theater for example at riverside uh the art room and other rooms that are used for indoor unmasked activities and lunches that information should ideally be provided

097publicly to parents so we have a clearer sense of the safety of those rooms as well testing should be provided uh monitoring these spaces to see if the equipment is actually performing at the level that is being reported yeah um and that is a really important feature there so thank you that's the uh into my comments thanks thank you thank you i see no other questions at this time if there are no further questions and we will continue um next item is the harassment intimidation and bullying report period i think that's just an information item [Music] and then we have our board committee highlights uh first would be equity committee hey i will present that tonight on behalf of my co-chair as well debbie braunfeld um the equity committee met monday september 13th at 7

098pm in a public committee meeting on zoom lisa vahe and david peak from the shaker heights ohio school district attended at the invitation of dr kelly the shaker heights schools had recently developed an equities task force and lisa and david shared the process their outcomes and what they learned along the way their goal was not just to put policies in place but to create a set of skills and beliefs that are important to everyone so their equity task force was charged with exploring assets and challenges of embracing equity in their district and in order to do so they examined it top to bottom this work was importantly it's important to note it was done as part of the district's strategic planning so i'll share with you their four top takeaways equity does not mean equal

099as far as defining equity based on needs the importance of targeted universalism if you raise one group you raise them all equity benefits all of us and it also changes how off sometimes how money is spent as well as other resources in the district so that shaker heights um said now that they have a strong policy they're still looking to develop an educational equity tool so we're grateful for the time they took with us to share a successful example of a collaborative process that included board members staff members students and community members we look forward as a committee to discussing next steps for our committee with dr kelly and mrs tidwell the next meeting of the equity committee is open to the public it'll be monday october 11th at 7 pm the agenda will be

100posted on the district website calendar and we welcome and encourage you all to attend thank you thank you betsy are there any questions seeing none then we're on to operations um i could start and then i'll let brian fill in when i left out but we met on september 22nd at 8 a.m and just so the public knows our next meeting will be october 20th also at 8 00 am we were presented uh by matt a summary of the referendum projects in much more detail than he presented here um then we discussed other projects going on in the district like uh concerning sustainability like the building controls the led light uh additional eight facts that are being done and additional projects that are being done to update our district like the natatorium at the princeton

101middle school we also discussed the possibility of looking at the detention basins that he showed us to discuss if there should be an analysis to have some plantings there as we've gotten conflicting reports on that issue we then discuss covet issues some of the points that were just made by the public and we discussed um hepa filters and um their possibility of being deployed more fully in the schools um the lunch issues were also brought up and it was clearly noted that even after the pandemic providing ways for students and teachers to eat outside even going forward is something that might be a desirable goal for our district and then i'll turn over to brian if you'd like to add anything thanks susan i think you covered uh everything but i i will add uh

102two two last things that we talked about um were the challenges posed by the intersection at rosedale road in johnson park in the ongoing effort to work with the town and the county it's a county road to work with both the town and the county to make that a safer crossing for school children and pedestrians and bicyclists and we also talked about um beginning the process of as hard as it may be to to believe talking about the 2022-2023 budget and as we move a little deeper into the fall those conversations will begin so we'll have a few months before we get to the public presentation in february you are there any customs for the operations committee if there's none then that takes us to personnel michelle tuck ponder thank you um our most recent

103personnel committee meeting was held on september 2nd 2021 um we talked about uh a number of items which most are confidential um our labor negotiations um and also some sidebars with prea which will be are going to be considered by the board this evening on this evening's agenda um we talked about our hiring processes um across well specifically for um a position but also just across the board what our hiring processes are um we had some updates on ongoing searches that are occurring right now we also addressed vaccinations and the governor's executive order and how we would implement on that executive order around vaccination and unvaccinated staff we talked about symptom screening for covid among staff and um also other topics that i'm not at liberty to share with you at this time our next

104meeting will be on thursday october 7th and again it is closed to the public are there any questions thank you there are none thank you michelle um that takes us to policy gene durbin thanks policy met on september 17th at 7 30 in the morning we had a presentation from strauss esme who will be our new policy provider they expect to have a draft new policy manual for us by the end of october to the administration and we will review it together um and the next meeting is uh october 15 2021 7 30 a.m open to the public beth did i miss anything i think that's good thank you um and we will be sharing with the board some uh we asked some more specific questions about the process and i think we'll just share

105those with the board we got answers from strauss that's me that were quite quite helpful on our policies and regulations going forward um student achievement daphne kendall thank you um the student achievement committee met last friday september 24th uh marijua baja advised the committee of new graduation requirements that were issued by the state of new jersey uh students with the class of uh in the classes of 2023 2024 and 2025 will take the new jersey graduation proficiency assessment in grade 11. the assessment will be aligned to new jersey learning standards for grade 10 ela and for algebra 1 and geometry if after completing the graduation proficiency assessment a student does not demonstrate proficiency they have other options as they do now including taking the test again or doing a portfolio assignment appeal the remainder of

106the meeting was spent discussing an item that's on the agenda for the board approval tonight which is called link link it linked link it will be used by the district to track the progress of students it will provide secure permissions based access to academic data which will help inform lesson planning differentiation and grouping it will provide support for teachers grading department level collaboration and it will enable teachers to plan track and monitor interventions and efforts in relation to equity the next meeting will be held on friday october 15th at 9 30 virtually the public is welcome and encouraged to attend thank you any questions if not then that is uh i think we have nothing for negotiations correct so we'll just move on that's correct thank you um and we will now go through um

107the items on the agenda that are going to be covered by the consent vote that we will do at the end so i will just read the titles and then if people have comments or questions they can stop me we are on m1 appointments m2 transfers reassignments m3 resignations m4 retirements and we see you there dr ginsberg yeah daphne i just wanted to um you know note that the guidance assistant is uh retiring and i just wanted to wish her all the best mrs conway thank you item uh m5 coveted sidebars m6 six-period coverages m7 leaves of absence m8 other personnel items m9 athletics m10 substitutes m11 non-athletic epes yeah i just want to um ask about that or comment um i know that the middle school ones were looked at and i just want

108to make sure that just because stuff is listed i want to make sure that they are happening um that we're you know we're working with the kids and the staff is all there and i just want to make sure that everything listed is the ones that are happening because we get stuck if we approve this we pay it but i just want to make sure they're all because i was confused um i think mike you said only the middle school was looked at during and i can i can clarify that if it was unclear my apologies for that uh by the pra contract um there's authority built in there that we can look at uh what is being done and if it is being appropriately compensated there's a scale in there if somebody's working 10

109hours versus if they're working 50 hours so what i did with union leadership who have been great partners with me the entire summer i can't give them enough credit is we look at the work specifically this time for the middle school and was budget neutral and we said hey if this person is working more and this person is working less we're going to allocate the funds over here so we align the middle school uh perfectly uh with the administration as well as union leadership we were only able to do the real location for the middle school and we will look to do the high school and elementary school uh in future years perhaps even later as we go on to this year so when i say it was looked at it was just the middle

110school was looked at for the re-out location of funds as far as the work being done at the elementary and the high school anything that a principal put on there yes there is the expectation that absolutely 100 work is being done for that statement okay all right thank you thank you for the question debbie um then we are item 12 is the canvas instructional technology mentors 13 is aid stipends 14 is curriculum instruction 15 student services work and one educational consulting and two purchase advance assessment and then 0 educational placement of students o2 educational placement three professional consulting four consulting five is the idea funds six is tuition of children and students of staff and then we are on to for p1 financial reports p2 joint transportation agreement p3 construction management service new roads p4

111fire evacuation drills p5 acceptance of donation hamilton athletic club i will note there that we have been donated a new starting blocks for the heist for the pool um we think thank you very much hamilton athletic aquatic club that's a a nice improvement for our natatorium can i just add that was on the list for the 2018 um referendum and like many sports items it was uh removed so it's a needed um improvement so again i echo your thanks thank you um p6 purchase of equipment teacher laptops and this is part of a continuation of the one-to-one initiative from last summer if i'm correct mr bolden i'm not necessarily related to the one-to-one but part of the overall technology budget that we analyzed in depth to uh just the feasibility of one to one so

112thank you um p7 change order jp hvac p8 sustainability consulting services daniel princeton it's an action item yeah oh that's an accident i'm good can we explain that one a little bit just quickly mr bolton that's like that's kind of an exciting um collaboration that we're doing with the community group a preliminary venture with a local organization that's done great work on sustainability uh so we are um you know like i said the inaugural you know trial year um they're going to help us with all sorts of areas surrounding sustainability we've started to make some progress on the you know energy related areas but there are willing to help us and move us forward um so with uh you know with that um it's an action item uh because one of our board members is

113a board member of that organization thank you very excited to have that kind of capacity building collaboration with a community partner it's the kind of thing that i know that many in the community have asked us to try to do and i think it's a great step and it will help us look at the solar readiness of our roofs and a number of other really important things that only so many we have only so many people in the administration and to have expanded capacity is really wonderful um could i have a motion for this one uh peter katz in a second gene durbin um so could we have a vote to approve the sustainable consulting services with sustainable princeton west baron yes emmy bronfeld yes dan dart yes betsy baglio yes uh brian mcdonald abstain

114michelle you're on mute i'm gonna abstain you know cats yes dafty kendall yes susan cantor yes gene durbin yes motion passes thank you um then we will resume with the consent items we're on to travel and registration and then we're down to the vote on consent could i have a motion for the consent vote please um daphna kendall ii betsy baglio any discussion if none could we have a vote on the consent please f baron yes debbie bronfeld yes dan dart yes at c baglio yes ryan mcdonald yes michelle tuck ponder yes peter katz yes african kendall yes susan cantor yes gene durbin yes consent to gender passes thank you very much that takes us to public our second public comment on any topic and again i i don't need to repeat myself i basically

115three minutes we try to keep it to 15 please state your name and address please remember the level of decorum and the issues about defense defamation and the other legal things we need to say and we welcome hearing from the public i don't see any comments out there okay um that brings us to then the closing comments and i will just uh i guess echo my fellow board members thanks to dr kelly for a very informative presentation tonight um it's really a pleasure to be embarking on this new um way of organizing our our actions and trying to be aligned and collaborative towards our goals it's very satisfying to even after two months or with you to see this very detailed thoughtful uh approach and i really look forward to seeing where this this takes

116us um does anyone else want to have anything to say we appreciate the update on the referendum and all the other information presented tonight and we appreciate hearing from the public and we thank everyone who came out and we remind you that our next meeting again is october 12th and you're also welcome to come to the committees that are open and they are posted on the district calendar and if for some reason you can't find a zoom you can always email our communications people or one of us and we generally can help secure that we're all doing our best in a time where there's a lot of things going on and so we thank everyone for attending tonight could i have a motion to dismiss or to adjourn ms cantor and 2nd betsy baglio all

117those in favor emotion past thank you very much everyone good night good night