001[Music] all right I'll call the meeting to order at 7:30 all right perfect we do the United States of America for it stands one nation God indivisible andice for all Mrs re here Mrs Helm here M Allen here Mrs R here Mr Golden here M julo here Mr Jones Mr or here okay I please have a motion and a second to approve the Action meeting minutes from the meeting from September 26 2024 motion second all those in favor I oppos or abstain abstain Perfect all right Mr ahe all right welcome everyone thank you so much everyone for coming out we are going to do our monthly student awards and this school year we're doing something a little bit different so we are having one student highlighted from each grade level that we are inviting to
002the board meetings uh every month and as an added bonus this year we had um one of your teachers actually write a little something about you that I'm going to read so students when I call you up you're going to come up here stand next to me real awkward you're going to be super nervous and I'm going to read what the teacher um wrote about you and then you're going to stay up here with your certificate and then we'll take a picture together okay sound like a plan okay awesome so our first recipient of an award from our prek class we have Mr Jude Warrington come on up dud congratulations sir hold that there all right Jude is super kind to his classmates and teachers he is always willing to help someone who needs it
003in addition Jude does a great job of using his manners and is always including other children during play way to go Jude job okay our um student from kindergarten is Rita adalay I'm gonna read it anyway Rita acclimated to the classroom nicely she instantly became a leader to all of her peers so congratulations Rita our first grade recipient is Willow hail congratulations you go um teacher this teacher said I'm selecting Willow hail for the student of the month because Willow is respectful responsible and always has a positive attitude she's a great role model Willow was very caring and is always willing to help a fellow classmate I am so very proud of congratulations for second grade we have Ella Nelson Ella's teacher said Ella is very respectful student to adults and her peers she helps
004anyone that asks and always makes good choices she is also very brave and can share her feelings appropriately when she needs help herself all right for third grade we have ariela Ione congratulations ariela is a dedicated student who shows compassion for others and is willing to help when needed she is thoughtful hardworking and kind she took the time to help a new student without being asked congratulations and our L student from JFK here we have Hava relli Hava is a model student for respect and responsibility she appreciates help from her teachers and is always mannerly she works cooperatively with other students she is positive patient and wants the best for others she works well with all students she gets her best and wants to do the right thing for herself and others all the time
005congratulations all right let's go get a picture together hold your certificates FR your face Jude put yours down a little bit there you [Laughter] okay now our awards for Eisenhower our fifth grade award goes to this month Cameron Cole congratulations just coming from football or going to football coming from football Cameron Cole is an outstanding student he is extremely focused in class asks clarifying questions finishes assignments early and willingly helps other students he is hardworking and advocates for himself when needed Cameron is consistently respectful to his teachers and his classmates congratulations our sixth grade student of the month is Mark rippen congratulations s Mark is a hardworking and dedicated student he is focused and attentive in class Mark works well with others and is respectful in class Mark participates turns in his work in a
006timely manner and is knowledgeable on the concepts presented congratulations Mar our seventh grade student of the month is dieri Nunes Nova [Applause] did I say your first name right yeah okay good I thought that's what it was Neri has been a pleasure to work with to begin the school year she brings a cheerful attitude to class each day and puts effort into each lesson she participates in class discussions and demonstrates intellectual curiosity well that's a good one she makes sure to ask for help when she needs it and to help other students succeed as well great work and last but not least our eighth grade student of the month Rex Bannon in the short time Rex has been in eth grade he has been a positive role model for all students at DDE he is
007kind to all students and offers a helping hand to all who ask for one congratulations now it's time for your picture I'm Sor that's nice good job congratulations good work keep it up all right everybody thank you so much for for coming um you certainly can stay for the rest of the meeting but you don't have to so this is your chance to kind of get up and get out of here so you right thank you for coming thank you for raising amazing children have a great night [Music] by ready yeah Miss Botley is now going to our supervisor of curricular curriculum and instruction is going to be presenting our 2024 um testing our assessment results great um thank you so much for having me and I'm so happy to have an audience this year
008right I will be presenting our 2024 State assessment results as you know this is the um the requirement as part of our um accountability for this dat so we will go over each test that the students took in the spring of 2024 which includes the NJ in ela and math for our third through 8ighth grade students um an njsla in science for our fifth and eth grade students our special education children took the dynamic learning maths which will reference as the dlm and our multilingual Learners which is previously what we used to call our e our Ells took the we to access 2.0 so we will go through each of those and our results stop me if you have any questions along the way so to start we'll go over our access say for Ells
009this is the test that's given to the children that are in ESL class those are students that are learning English for the first time this test has four sections it assesses listening speaking reading and writing and there are six levels of development while there's no passing score because children learning English can take as long as they need to to learn it they they suggest that if a child scores a 4.5 or better that you release them from the ESL program and just start to monitor so we're looking for that 4.5 cut off um you'll notice that I put the children into grade bands in some grades so as to protect their privacy um thanks that's better um something that is important to note in this slide is um unlike previous years these bars are pretty
010high right we had a lot of elll students this past year we started the year with 23 students in our ESL program and we ended the year with 39 of those newcome of those 12 were newcomers to the United States so 12 children joined our school speaking no English so that's why you see a lot of light blue in some of those bars um now they're progressing wonderfully but if you are new to America you would expect to see an entering score so that's why those there's so much light blue there we are are starting this school year with 29 much more manageable number as far as our Dynamic learning Maps this is the assessment that's given to children who are primarily taught in different standards than their peers they have a significant cognitive disability
011that prohibits them from being able to work through the njsla um so instead they work on a ability appropriate curriculum we had eight children participate in this assessment and you can see their scores there just like njsla if they were in fifth or eighth grade they also took science all eight of those students were in District this year okay um the major assessment that we took was called the New Jersey student learning assessment at Ela and math that has five performance levels a level four meet expectations or a level five exceeds expectations is consider considered passing so we are looking for a level four or a level five this is the breakdown of our schools of our scores from 2024 in language arts we had 42% of our students pass that is on the left
012and in math we had 27% that's on the right so we are looking at the light green and the dark green portions of that pie this is the trends for our district from pre-o and postco so you'll notice in 2019 before the pandemic we were at about 48% and 44% for ELA and math respectively since covid we we after Co we were at 35 and 22 and we're slowly progressing upward we are just not yet where we were before the pandemic so the most recent test is that one on the right where you see 41 and about 27 this is the proficiency for that same njsla this time broken down by grade level so third grade is to the left e8th grade is to the right language arts is to the left math is to
013the right a higher bar means there are more children in that class and what we are looking for is as much green as possible dark green or light green is passing now the science test that's only given in fifth and eighth grade while it has the same name it has a different scoring rubric so there are only four performance levels for science again the top two are passing so a three or a four is considered passing we had about a 20% passage rate for science um that was 25 out of our 123 students okay so if you take the graphs from those last two slides and turn them into percentages this is what that would look like so by grade level your Ela score is in blue your math score is in Orange and then
014your science score is in purple you'll notice that in all cases with the exception of third grade we did better in ela than we did in math so the next logical question when I saw that was is that how the rest of the state did right did everybody do better in ela than in math so um this is also by grade level and by subject Berlin Township students are those in purple and children in the state of New Jersey are those in Gray so you can compare how our students did to those in the rest of the state so we are looking for a purple bar that's higher than a gray bar we had that in ela 4 Ela 7 math 7 algebra and Science five right okay so what I wanted to do then
015is essentially I rearranged those bars and now this time it's by grade level to see if there was a group of children that might be either really succeeding or really struggling and I found that in seventh grade we were above the state average in both language arts and math however in third fifth sixth and eighth we were below in both so while I was looking for Trends to to find like a cohort of kids or some where to focus my energy it felt to me like it was a little spread out with the outlier being that one that that grade that did exceptional so if we take those scores and think about the group of children to see how they did compared to themselves right to look at our growth scores this is what it
016would look like the farthest past 2022 the one just after covid is the light orange progressingly it's hard to see on here but getting darker toward 2024 what you would hope to see in these graphs is upward movement again I'm looking for a trend and I don't really see one in some grades it goes up and some it goes down and some it goes up and then down or down and then up nothing here stood out however if you were on the board last year or you heard this presentation last year you remember we talked about what was the fifth grade and how much lower they were than their peers that class is now the current sixth grade and you can see they they're still pretty low compared to their peers we talked a lot
017about last year how that's that is a class that was highly impacted by virtual learning right those children were in first grade when we went remote missed second grade Miss they were remote in second grade the years where you're learning to read and then came back in third grade and were expected to read to learn yet never had the last two years face to face with their teach so we're keeping a particular eye on the class of um in ela they were hovering right around where they were last year which is still solid right because that's still one year's growth in one year's time um in in math they went up so we are happy with that but we are still unfortunately below the state average so if we dig a little further so now
018we've looked at grade levels and let's look within those grade levels to see if there's a trend that we can find amongst the subgroups of children so the categories across the top are the categories that the state lays out for us gender ethnicity economics and disability um economics is either disadvantaged economically disadvantaged or not economically disadvantaged so in your mind that's that might be a little backwards right non-disadvantaged are the children you would expect to to do better the words might be confusing um where you see the blanks so the boxes that don't have any information in them that can mean one of two things that either means there were under 10 children in that group so for the privacy of the children I eliminated the data or there was no difference there was no
019ST statistically um significant information to share in that box what do the different colors mean nothing just to draw your eye to the yeah so it's a great question that is sorry I should have put a key that's okay um my my eye goes to again it's hard to see but right there and that upper left in language arts by gender female outperform the males in five of the sixth grade levels and again if you heard this presentation last year it was the same so this is the second year in a row where we're having females outperform males in language arts so you know it's my job to then dig in like why is that happening and what can we do so the first thought I had was um is it possible that you know
020you do research like why this might happen um that we are reading books that aren't centered around boys that the characters are mainly girls so I took a survey of our books and we it's the opposite actually we have 70% of the novels that are read whole class to the students have a male protagonist I was like all right so that's not it um are the boys checking out books from the library do they have the the materials ible to them and our male students are checking out 52% of our library books again not what I expected to see so while I stand in front of you and tell you I can see there's something happening there I I don't know the roof cause of it or really have many ideas on what to do
021about it those library books being checked out they're staying in a book bag I have one of those yeah the voice aren't really they're fing they're not reading it I mean it's very possible and you know like well what do girls want to read about they want to read about boys like I don't know the the protagonists are males they have the books um it is important to note that our entire language arts department are female teachers so that could be something um but we have other departments that are mixed differently so I'm going to keep an eye on that but if any of you come across anything you think I should look into as far as as why that might be I would be happy to hear it well I noticed when my kids
022were there that the AR was done differently when my older kids were there opposed to where where it is today and I know as they got older they stopped doing the AR goals and they stopped doing all of that and I think that enticed the kids to want to read more by doing that that's my opinion but I I just know my older two read more than my younger three did because there there was no great that they were in the mix of Co during their middle school years but where my older two were out of high school already but that definitely makes a big difference I think giving that it's like when we were kids they gave you the little Pizza Hut certificates when you read your book so if you're not sure what
023Mrs Reed is talking about we have a program called AR and the kids take a test at the begin three times a year and it assigns them a goal or how many points they need to read and each child then gets a level that they can read that is their independent reading level and when they go to the Library all of the books have the number the level written on it and they pick a book within their range after they read the book they go on this program and they take a quiz it's either five or 10 questions for their comprehension and based on how many they get right they earn points toward their goal and children who meet their goal get prizes at the end of the markeing period so we throw pizza parties
024we have free time on a Friday and then children who don't meet their goal usually have to go work on reading the things that they didn't read to to earn the goal and each child's goal is differentiated to their own reading level and their own growth based on how they do on that first assessment so that's what Mrs Reed is is referencing like encouraging those pizza parties also have like charts that the kids would sign as soon as they met their goal they still do do they still do that okay I know as they got older they stopped doing those hanging in the hallway outside of every language arts class is a chart and it says AR Achievers and when they meet goal no matter what point in the marketing period it is they can
025go out and sign their name and then there's extra prizes if they surpass their goal right so if your goal is to earn 20 points and you earn 40 and you've met 200% of your goal you get to go to the pizza party and you get a cupcake or what you know whatever the price may be um thank you for that Mrs re I was certain I would think AR math would be kind of similar although that one was a little that one was a little that's not a product that the company offered anym oh really okay well that was a little crazy we' replaced it with um Study Island yeah great yeah um so getting back to this the other column that caught my eye is the one on the far right students with
026um I with no IEP outperform children with an IEP in most areas while that makes sense to me because there's a reason that child has an IEP and needs a particular individual learning plan I do feel like as a district we can't just leave the column like that and not look at why that might be or what is happening within that so you hear like oh the child has an IEP they might not be able to pass the test and that's true but are they growing from the year before so that was the question I asked myself and um I've pulled up a lot of reports and done a lot of number crunching but the state has a report that they call the performance report now keep in mind that the performance report comes out
027a year behind so this information is from the 2023 state test but it will give us an idea of generally where we are until we get the new one so this is about growth they give each district and each subgroup of children a a growth score an what they call an msgp that they want the children to average and they break it down and you can see that the only area where we did not meet our growth score was students with disabilities in math so in all other areas including students with disabilities in Reading we did meet our growth score again this is a year behind so I look forward to seeing this similar chart coming out soon with our most recent scores when I pulled up that report I decided to pull you this
028one as well this is the overview the first two columns are proficiency that means did we pass the bar right like are we over the hurdle and we know we're not we just saw that in all those slides right the the third and fourth column are are we growing at a significant rate and in most cases there we are which is positive again a year behind so I look forward to seeing this for the upcoming year I bring this to your attention um because we're in a qack here right and it will be not many months before I'm up in front of you again we're talking about curriculum and programming and this is what they're going to be looking at so I anticipate some red in our proficiency columns and some green in our growth
029columns and I want you to just be ready for it also um the strategic planning committee has talked about things like do we need a program do we need to change the math Series so I've been calling some companies and we have some trials out with some teachers so that they can you know start looking to see if it's a material issue I have reports for Megan for Budget season so we have feelers out there when we get these reports and I will certainly follow back up when qack comes around but I just wanted you to see that so that you're not shocked by it in in a couple of months and then the final thing I wanted to talk about was um overall if I'm saying we're growing and we're growing steady but we're
030growing slow is the state doing the same thing so the blue bar and the gray bar are Berlin Township students in ela and math and then the orange bar and the yellow bar are the state of New Jersey students so you can see everybody is growing slowly and in fact the state is starting to Plateau so while we're behind them we are still moving in the same direction of of them and that's positive and again on the left on the two 2019 column you'll see where we were preco overall I would just like you to know that we are trending upward but slowly we haven't yet passed where we had hoped to be where we started um I'm going to continue to analyze the males in ela thing until I find something to grasp on
031to um we have some extra supports in place for the class impacted by virtual learning that's the sixth grade they are our priority class for RTI and they've been offered extended RTI after school By Invitation Only and then keep in mind our influx of ESL students and that they will then be wrapped into these numbers we have trained all of our teachers in sheltered English instruction so that regardless of which teacher gets the ESL students everyone is adequately prepared to have them does anyone have any yes when you go over curriculum coming up will you be also you com and to make sure our curriculum is very similar so when they do go off the high school they're going in the high school or even playing field basically um in all hesty I don't usually
032do that because I write it based on the standards so if the state is telling me in eth grade they need to know this that's what I want in our curriculum now Pine Hill and and Berlin Township have similar um curriculum because our children are going to go there so I need to know that when they leave eth grade they're on the path to be successful in ninth grade and particularly in math we're finding that's the case um lemington does very very differently and our our children aren't going there so I don't feel the need to kind of align with them um but that doesn't mean I don't talk to them no I understand yeah I just want to make sure like especially when we're changing over curriculum that it's going to coincide with each
033other because I want our kids to be just as good just as able to be valid dictorian as the clementin kids I understand you know that kind of thing yes so we you all actually approved it in I believe it was May the new curriculum with the 2023 Ela and math standards so that started we started implementing in September so we are well on our way as far as that and that will be one of the QC monitoring points is is our curriculum up to standard well one of the things that I noticed just being on both boards is that we've had foundations forever yes we have um since my daughter's 27 since she was here and Pine Hill didn't get it until I got on the board I've only been on board for nine
034years so like just the different curriculums like the way it's done not saying ours was better or theirs was better could be equal but just being the same I think it's kind of like when different states teach history differently learn it differently if you remember last year JFK had the ASP plan with the state and we were given some extra money to use on curriculum as long as it was databased and one of the purchases that we made was the hegerty product so if you've been hearing about the science of reading and changing the way we teach reading um we did purchase that entire kit we trained our K through second grade staff on it now because the standards were Midway being changed when we purchased it we didn't throw out the old one right
035so we still have fundations and we still have guided reading we had that complete hit but now we have heery in addition so this year we allow the teachers to make the choice that's best for their group and we told them to do it based on the students in a small group so your whole class doesn't need to do hegerty but if these children need it they can have hegerty while these get guided reading and so on So like um what is itan we're doing that as an inter tier two and tier three intervention in RTI and what about like Wilson Orton Gillingham is very similar okay yeah so we currently don't have any children in Wilson okay good questions does anyone else have other questions for me what math program do we currently have
036we have go math till the end of this year um go math 1.0 the version that we have is being phased out so we I have samples coming in of either go math 2.0 or into math okay and what uh Ela programs are you looking into as well for the curriculum um wonders and into reading okay do you know what Pine Hill uses I don't no okay I'm just I I don't either because it's the lower gr yeah and it doesn't as so my district is also a sending District where I teach and we use into and the district we sent to uses wonders so it doesn't like you were saying doesn't necessarily have to line up more about the standards I I get like a little bit morally torn because if you when you
037watching this data like what's the what's the Highlight at seventh grade right every year I stand up here and I'm like how come seventh grade is like killing it and knowing what I know about the seventh grade team of teachers they don't use the materials they make their own slides they make their own handouts they use their expertise of their subject to make what they think the children needs and it's working for them but at the same time I can't tell a District of people that I'm taking away their materials and that they have to go create it right so I I Teeter on this fine line between um respecting their professional decisions and knowing that sometimes that's the best thing we can have and purchasing something because that we have something then to fall
038back on so you know I'm I'm in that I'm in that now we're having lots of discussions but does seventh grade use novels mainly yes yeah which would make sense like I mean even if you bought an into or a wonders you could still do a k to six or a k to five like it wouldn't NE what you do in early Elementary is different than Middle School yes and when I did the analysis of the novels I was looking for gender in the novels but I happen to find out that um they read a lot more books in seventh grade than they do in the other grade level so because I asked all the language arts teachers to give me the titles of the short stories and and books that they're reading and that
039teacher list was significantly longer than some of the other teachers so um that might correlate also so I might have stumbled upon some information I didn't necessarily go looking for [Music] but is there anything else I can answer for you okay thank you you're welcome wake up have to go home stay here so next on the um on the agenda you'll see the the district mission statement um which is is very lengthy and actually in the Strategic plan I think it was night one um you know they we we brought that up that that probably needs to be revised into something shorter and easier to understand so we will be working on that underneath of that you're also going to see our two approved District goals from our last meeting uh that first goal really
040being about improving communication between the school district and the community um specifically facilitating the strategic planning process which we are are underway we have one more meeting for that and then we we'll begin to build out that strategic plan and then District ho number two um a lot of what you just heard um Mr spotle talk about which is Monitor and review our district curriculum and instruction make sure that we're using the current best practices her and I have had a number of conversations about what we've done in the past what we're doing now and sort of where we see the future going there so um both but working diligently on both of those District goals and then the board goals we reapproved um last month as well they're listed there for everyone's review and
041then like we said after strategic planning is done we always reserve the right to update all those goals at this point then we will open the meeting to the public to for the discussion of agenda items only can I have a motion and a second please motion second none right now um for the discussion of agenda items we're going to motion a second then to please close the meeting to the public motion second all those in favor report all right that that may have been the longest weight I've had to get to the superintendent report since I started was aw was great was very very good yeah just I got I gotta get I gotta get back into gear here um all right so first on the list here you'll see items A and B
042are our Safety and Security drills um both fire and safety drills that we uh performed with schools uh in September um our item C is monthly reports uploaded to the portal for review uh the board members if you if you do go into look at any of those reports you'll notice I made a change so that many of the reports are the same format now and include the same information and it's based upon the um the the principal leadership uh standards um so it's it's very uniform and it should it should help to sort things out item D um we had two um reports of Hib at the Middle School uh this month and both of them were confirmed not to be Hib item a is just confirmation of the head results from last month's
043meeting item f um I emailed everyone on the board about this we had 10 policies as I'm catching up on things that needed to be uh reviewed and updated those are updates that are pushed out by school boards Association so I went through you'll see them in the portal as well um and anything that was changed is just highlighted a lot of it is is legal uh mumbo jumbo things that needed to be know things things that needed to be things that needed to be updated um a n on policy um we're also looking to make some updates to our uh prek policy I know the board discussed that a couple months ago I have a couple recommendations of things that I've been looking at so I'll send them all to your to you for
044your review for potentially the next meeting or the one after that um item number two uh is play more Sport and Social Club to use the DD gym that's something new we've had that before uh item number three is a ton of mes here that will be approved as advanced uh volunteers um for parents volunteering in the in the classroom item G we have a number of field trips that have come in already which is something that was very important to me coming into the school year I wanted to make sure that we don't get stuck at the end of the year um so we have we are trying to approve all of these field trips as soon as we can uh item H is Personnel um we have a um new care support staff
045new full-time custodian and hot off the presses this afternoon I hired a uh first grade teacher uh item number two is a um resignation item number three are two leaves of absence item number four are our sing positions for uh basketball and security for those games uh item number one under curriculum and instruction is an Animal Welfare Association that is a guest speaker they come in and do like a stem activities with our students uh down at JFK that's always a fan favor and that is it for my piece of the all right can I please have a motion and a second to approve superintendent items XA through XI motion second my motion St thank you very much um any questions um Mrs Allen yes Mr Jones yes Mrs row yes Mrs Reed yes Mrs
046Helm yes Mrs Juliano yes Mrs orente yes and Mr Golden yes okay thank you all right can I have a motion of second for business Finance items X I A through x l and then I'll go through all of them motion second thank you all right items a through D are the financial report for the period ending August 2024 no line item has been overexpanded there are sufficient funds available to meet the financial obligations the treasurer's report and the secretary's report were in agreement for the month of August there are no changes in anticipated Revenue amounts or sources e is just of the bills which I believe everybody had a hand in kind of reviewing them and approving um everybody got done them right all signatures BS um f is to approve the September 2024
047listing for source for teachers the rates are listed there the pay rate as well as the bill rate G is to approve the cafeteria dispersements for the month of September 2024 in the amount of $27,988 51 H is to approve the care dispersements for the month of September 2024 in the amount of $2,492 48 I is to approve tuition contracts for the 2425 school year these have all been budgeted for um the one is Katen back for a grade 12 special education student another one for glester County Special Services School District that's for a grade eight student and a preschool student and then we have um Eastern students attending Eastern they are mckin vento students at grade nine and grade well um moving forward we also have the Camy County Technical Schools um tuition agreement
048to approve again also budgeted um J is to approve professional development and travel for some of our staff members K is to approve a nursing contract for the 2425 school year with Bata and L is to approve the budget calendar for the 2526 school year which was uploaded to the portal most of those dates are just kind of like General time frames because obviously we don't have the release from the state yet with you know when is our public hearing and when do we submit to the county and when's the budget address and when all that stuff so um they're just kind of General timelines for everybody to review again qac wants to see that we are reviewing that approving it um you know things that nature so that's why that is in there does
049anyone have any questions all right Mrs Allen yes Mr Jones yes Mrs R yes Mrs re yes Mrs Helma yes M Juliano yes Mrs orente yes Mr Golden yes perfect all right old business I don't think we have any old business uh new business committee updates negotiations nothing on negotiations at this time um all of those are settled right now um finance committee we did meet our finance committee met before the meeting um budget report looks good no deficiencies there right now revenue report we've gotten for September we started getting our state aid um and our tax levies are coming in just fine and and on time which is great to keep us operating um for student out of District placements nothing has change but we do have one student awaiting uh potential placement so
050I'll keep you up to date on that all of our final expenditure reports for the grants for Esa Ida and and the American Rescue plan were due October 18th 2024 and were all submitted um Assa accounts were collected from both schools on the due date of October 15th I believe that's due the first week of December and then our um annual Transportation report is due 11:15 I'm just doing some comparisons now but I anticipate that'll probably be submitted before um the Jud dat so that was it for finance committee um School New Jersey school boards well obviously they just wrapped up their convention Mr Lee was down there for a couple days um wheel and Deon I said budget friendly AKA um so I don't know you didn't give me a full I saw him
051at the roulette table a lot of money I he was going there it was it was it was it was a great convention um you know and and we we spoke before the meeting if there's ever a uh you know if I can if I can get some of our upward to join me in future years I think it'd be really beneficial for us to to get together down there and go to some of those sessions together um because I did learn a lot going down there this year have have Services Michelle um the last meeting they did they actually went to the experience Center in Norristown it's cor uh corbette um it's has to do with Furniture in different places and they're starting to create special furniture for schools I did not attend if
052I had something else going on but um the next meeting they're going to discuss some of the things they saw just furniture for where students um that struggled to just kind of stay in a desk they'll have basically different versions of flexible seing um so that they wanted to check it out to possibly incorporate into Camy County um Mrs re I know Hi H we had our meeting a few weeks ago um we interviewed a new board member we didn't make a decision on the person we're keeping it open for another month we're g to keep it open see if anyone else applies if not we'll make a decision the next board meeting or and if somebody app decide on that as well um we were introduced some to some more new staff that weren't
053there in September um we went over the Hib self assessments and the ssds um I'm sorry the Hib and the ssds self assessment we went over the 2024 testing assessments just like we just did here for Berlin um the new ba started the new assistant superintendent started and the site council meeting with Mr Kula is coming up next Wednesday the 30th from 6:00 to 7:00 in the media center it's an inperson one the meeting after that is January 22nd it will be virtual they do request that parents get involved this is a way for parents to get involved in the community to get involved um if you get his uh principal report every Friday I believe is when he sends it um it's at the bottom of that to like register for site Council um
0543:26 is the next inperson site council meeting in the in the media center and then 528 they're going to do another virtual one so four this year um and we are starting the teacher and staff member of the Year nominations so I I believe that's also on Mr Cora's principal I think I read that the other day and you can nominate as a parent or you can have your kids nominate as well um Cy County School Board Association there is a hybrid meeting on Tu Tuesday December 3rd at 6 p.m. so it's either going to be virtual or in person um how to manage your school budget with inflation prices if anybody's interested in going just let me know and I'll register you um that's December 3rd wanted to get it out in enough time
055uh public comments uh motion a second to open the meeting to the public for the discussion of non agenda items motion second all those in favor poster Four's four is yours thank you so hello everybody hello um I've met all of you I know a few of you very well um but for those of you that don't really know me um my name's Ed gry I'm a captain with the police department here um I've been inside now and liaison with the schools for the last couple years I worked a little bit with eth when she was here um and then since Adam's been here we've been a lot talk a lot yeah there's a lot that goes on so um just just to give you kind of a real quick bio of me so you
056kind of understand where I'm coming from with what I came here for um so I was I was in the Army out of high school uh out of there I came in I went to Police Academy I was at the ver County Sheriff's Department I went to chis for a while I've been in law enforcement for 24 years while here I was on the SWAT team Firearms instructor you know all these real big manly Macho things right um but those of you that really know me I'm I'm really a sucker for the kids right like I'm in deep I develop the Youth Academy I still work with them all the time kids with in the Youth Academy that were here for day one are still coming back and they're driving cars and have jobs and
057stuff now so um you know I get invited birthday parties you know they come and knock on the police door or hey are you working can I come talk to you so I'm very close with these kids right um so that being said I genuinely care about their welfare right um and what I'm here basically for is just to gather some information for you so I I've kind of taken over from where um I know you guys have talked to Chief Gordy and the mayor before about the The Shield thing with um with Edith I just want to make sure I'm on the same page I got some questions to ask about it um a little bit of put um so I I basically just get little bits and pieces you know this person said
058this this person said that I I just want to make sure I have the same story and that we're all on the same page about my position um so I Ed Edith initially had had an agreement and please if I'm wrong in any this let me know um so my what I've been told was that Edith uh and the mayor and the chief had an agreement to each I guess the school was supposed to buy a shield we were supposed to buy a shield so that we had one of these and by Shield if you don't know what I'm talking about you probably do by now it's a it's a rolling Shield that's probably a little bit bigger than this um to be used in that worst case kind of scenario you V all right
059that kind of thing so that being said uh from what I understand well I know we bought the shield and I know Edith had a verbal agreement to buy it then she retired and I have to say I actually work with Edith I think actually lik me I don't know I I I worked through over her pretty good I think I she smiled a couple times um but um so my understanding was there was this verbal agreement um we got ours Edith retired Adam came in um I spoke with Adam about it uh on several occasions and listen I understand and I told this to Adam when we spoke about the shield I said listen I I you know I understand that there are priorities and him just coming in the shield might have went
060from here with Edith down the year I get it so what I'm here to do is just basically understand what that priority is on your end and maybe talk to you about any misconceptions about why we need that Shield right so what I will tell you is we have a shield now so we we spent almost $144,000 on the shield it's just collecting dust right so my position is okay we have it I understand that you have a lot of things and I agree with some the things you need are probably higher on the priority list than the shield do not disagree with that um what I what my problem is is I have this piece of equipment that is hard to move right so I can't just leave it at the station and if
061this happens here I can't just go get it right if it were in one of the schools I might be able to send someone it does break apart in two pieces very heavy pieces someone like myself probably can't lift anymore but maybe a couple of the younger guys can get it where I needed to be um at least if I had it closer or in one of the schools it would be ready God forbid something happened like this in one of the schools if it wasn't I might be able to if I have that free minute go to the other school get it where I need it and still utilize it so any misconceptions with that as far as the shield goes um it would only be that one and listen I understand we can't
062put a dome over the school right metal detectors at the school like we don't want that right I get that um I genuinely care about these kids and if I was faced anybody here ever been on a line with a a long gun while it's being fired I have it's very different it's it's it's humble right these handguns are like they're nothing right when you're on when you're out there and you're and that it's I can't even really explain it right so if we're faced with that oh what do I do excuse my language I need to get down this hallway and if I had if I'm being fired on by one of these we have portable Shields probably not that much of an issue I might get shot in the leg or something those
063long guns I'm not going to make it I'm not going to make it my partner's not going to make it those Shields won't stop those so in order for me to get to your kids if they need me I need that Shield so it's cumbersome it's big it's ugly they do sell things that go over it maybe you can put it in a corner I don't know but if that oh crap moment happened and we and anybody found out that we have this equipment and we even though maybe the school didn't have enough money to buy another one we didn't do anything with it they're going to come me right or or the chief and they're going to say did you have the equipment and I'd love to be able to say and cover for
064the school or and say no but I'm I would have to say I do have it I couldn't get it there and then you know what's going to happen they're going to dig well why wasn't it there well listen I I don't know what to tell you maybe you need to go and talk to XY SE I don't know so what I've been told is that there might be some misconceptions as to why we need it or its Effectiveness and it from what I was told it was the board that had these questions so if that's the case lay it out and I'll I'll try my best to answer them now like I said I've been on the SWAT team I've used these shields and right now you can't even buy them because all these
065schools are trying to get I have other PDS calling me to ask me if they can buy our Shield because they can't get them so a lot of schools are getting them they're very expensive and you know what now that they're in such high demand those prices are going up and up and up so do you have any questions other schools are have them I know bores is getting them I've gotten calls Waterford once ours um and listen I don't make the calls I just go by with my CH Township gler Township so they are they are going and and like I said I understand like I go to so listen just as like you know I go to these meetings right I go to the uh I've been there the last two meetings we've
066had about our planning and I feel useless because I don't have a lot to add to it but I'm there because I care right that's the only reason I go because I do care I don't have a lot the two to offer the two teachers I work with are on my on my team are probably sick of me going because I really don't have anything to contribute to I think they appreciate it yeah they might appreciate it but you know I do yeah but uh but anyway so I listen I'm here to just say I understand I want to work if I can work with you or come to some kind of conclusion with this because in the end I I just I'm stuck with this equipment that I can't use I don't think we're
067opposed to having it if we could find the room but I know someone had said like transferring it from place to place like if it has to go over a lip of a building or or a doorway or something that it it's not necessarily seamless or doesn't really work so it's very heavy and it is on Wheels so what I will tell you is um if I had to if it was in a school to take it to another school I have to break it down into those two pieces so it would that would be so there's the one where I'm receiving fire down the hallway and I need to get down there right away hopefully that Shield is in that school because I need it now but if it's more of a hostage thing
068with someone down that hallway with a long gun and I can get to this school and get it over there I might have a couple minutes to get it there but once there through your hallways even if it's over little lip it it's it's bulky it's supposed to be bulky but whoever's pushing that so you have a person that mans The Shield his job is just to move that Shield so I'm older but I can still I can still get it up over a lip so anywhere through your hallways I'm going to be able to move that my job is just to move the shield to cover everybody else um but like I said the big problem is like I even looked into getting a car and have it it in a car but it's
069just it's not feasible just doesn't work but to answer your question lips are a problem it'll slow anything down because they the whole object is so we don't get shot in the legs right so it's it's like this far off the ground so I think that the 30,000 foot view starting point was uh the last the board spoke of it not enough any opinions have changed uh was that we wanted to ensure we got first a meeting with the office of school preparedness uh to review our security posture to see where what our priorities should should be uh because as you mentioned this isn't an inexpensive piece of equipment and budgets only go so far right so we want to make sure that the most important things are focused on uh and that's what they
070do that is their entire job so we want to have that audit so we can see where it fits in that priorities uh the second piece is making sure we know how does that fit into the overall response plan because just simply having it isn't enough as you said you need to know how it's going to be used where it's going to be used how it's going to be used so that way it's not just sitting in a room somewhere what do you mean by that you mean to see it on paper or to actually be informed because I can tell you a shield is it's like a pencil I know I don't need someone to tell me how to use it I know how to use it so it's easy to make that kind
071of assessment but the question would be things like where is it going to be stored if it's going to be locked up or not if it's locked up now that's an extra impediment to you gaining access to it the key and and if it right who has a key if it's not locked up then there's the potential that well what if the person you're coming after gets access to it and now it's a very different scenario so there's a number of things that could go wrong with it and we'd want to ensure that none of those are going to happen in our pursuit of making sure that we have everything we need uh and then the last piece to it in my mind is that uh this is sort of The Last Resort type of
072equipment I would rather Focus efforts on the prevention side of it because not only does it make this not happen it's also just generally better in the school environment because students that get those supports do better and so we get better performing students and avoid these sort of scenarios okay so what I'll tell you is um I I my first one of my first words were I agree you probably have other things that are higher on priority list don't disagree I just have the equipment that we don't we don't need to spend money on right now it can just go somewhere right so I can't tell you where to put it I can I I can I can tell you like maybe where in the school where it should be and that that is even
073kind of Common Sense needs to buy out front door somewhere um and as far as locking it up and stuff that would be something you guys would have to do um but I want to put this in a little bit more perspective for you right because all that stuff you just said that you need to do to get to that point it's probably not I you're probably not going to do it I'll be honest with you I love all of you that's probably not going to get done we're getting the inspection done next month with the but this Shield we've had for a year I understand but it it came to us we got the je bordon contacted um Anthony P pet our interim superintendent between Edith and Adam right and we've been waiting for
074this inspection for quite some time it's supposed to happen next November is what it's schedu for so the only what I want to point out is um I mean does everybody live in Berlin Township everybody here all right so um I can tell you that um you know and listen I I I'm I'm a little naive too like I I grew up and I live listen I live I grew up in glosser City no jokes leave it alone um so I I you know I grew up in these neighborhoods it's it's it was tricky I since then I moved to Newfield I live in Williams town I'm it's kind of like all right you get that sense of security and but I will tell you and I know Adam can confirm some of this uh
075because he's been made aware there are guns on our streets there are guns on our streets in kids hands who actively go to this school or to the or to uh the other school or to surrounding schools we've caught them with these guns they fired these guns they've been with other kids in these schools while they shoot these guns in our town happens so that oh it it will never happen here I'm telling you it it happens here outside of the school right now um and it shocked me the last few years it's just getting worse and worse and worse but it it's happening and it's here we're just able to prevent it we're able to keep on top of it our communication my communication with Edith was not a tenth of my communication with
076Adam literally three three or four times a week we're talking about what ifs what's this person doing can you help me with this we're always working on it so I just want you to know like it it's out there and it does happen without putting names or anything um and it's in our it's in our town um so if it's not that far-fetched that that oh moment where we might need that Shield could it could be here right and I would hope like my kids my kids are in college now but you know had I had I been Maybe not as complacent I might have looked into a little bit more and whether my kids were safe whether that PD had whatever um you know equipment they needed and just to put that in perspective
077like everybody knows cops carry tasers now right well guess what that's probably going away because I just got a quote for tasers it's like $130,000 we've had four phasings in the last four years we needed it all four of those times but you got to put a price tag on it right so I understand what you're saying I just I and understand things take a little bit at a time I just I my end of this just started right and I just I've been I've been watching this tripping over Shield kicking it with my foot and I just I just wonder like if it happens like and I see it there I don't know that I'll be able to live with myself knowing I didn't at least come here and explain things to you and
078say listen whatever we can do or whatever I can do to help um kind of you know get that going a little bit wait can I ask a question and I'm sorry if um I should know this and I don't but so you have have it and it's ready to come to us it's been ready for a year okay so the pl the problem is is just that we need somewhere put it you need some and I understand is space you always need space right everything is space space space you're waiting to give it to us and us to fulfill that verbal agreement to get another one so we can have one of those schools I'm here just to make sure that what we have now we can get in there and we can revisit
079okay I understand it was a verbal agreement with Edith in the past I know it's expensive and I I'll be honest with you I I've told ad him I said listen your camera system if I'm you that's higher on the priority list for me so I just don't understand like what's the problem like just get it here we'll find a place how big can it be we can put it behind that thing you know I don't understand like because it's already bought it's already for us trying to figure out which school do you put it in right and that's where we kind of ended last that's where we ended last time we only have one where do you put it so and you have to have a lot because even regardless of whether it never
080happens or not it's here have it we just need to get it here and then I worry about it imping the respon the response time if something were to happen if it's in another school I mean we all saw what happened in rol I hate to say it that's the exact case that we would need that but we all saw what happened there where the police officers waited 77 minutes to go in I hope that Gody none of ours would do that well that's why I those of you that have been but if we have to wait for them to get this Shield that could impede the response time because they mean oh we're waiting for the shield to get there no I want you to go in there if you're here my kids not
081just yeah hold on to that because if I have to go down a hallway on I'm sorry were you in the military yeah all right so if that person down the hallway has a hand gun I'm going to go down there with my shield that that little Shield that we carry I'm going down 100 miles hour I'm not going to do a yaldi and I can tell you most of we have a lot of young guys that are now but most of the old guys are going to we're going to risk our life for your kids which is exactly what I would expect it's suicide when you're going up against a one of these rifles that they carry because it all they got to do is come out and two seconds later I'm I'm cutting
082half and now now so you are saying that they will wait for the shield to go into those classrooms no what I'm telling you is if these people if the person were to have one of those long buts that's what concerns me I would never say that okay if so I would treat your kid like that was my daughter in that classroom okay I'm going to probably commit suicide getting down there but guess what now instead of you having those initial listen we're a small town you're probably going to have two or three cops show up immediately if I run down there do that now you're down to two cops probably down to one cop now you got no cops now there's no communication to anybody that's coming there and you're just going to keep
083losing cops because we don't have any way to get down there but if if the communication is is such that we have an active shooter and we get a little bit of information where you have a long gun I'm not saying that I'm not going to go down there but if I walk by a door I just need to open and get this Shield I want to get down there make it down there and then be able to save your kids okay but what if there's so many scenarios that don't if it because you're have it it's not that's not no I understand but if it impedes the response time that's where I have a problem with the Shields and of school preparedness get their expertise uh to determine uh where should this go and
084and how should we proceed from there right and I don't want to make any other judgments because ultimately they know more than anybody else in this room on how to handle that they are specific School preparedness that is expertise when I so I I teach everything at my PD if you name it I'm teaching it domestic violence Pursuit policy use I teach it all right I um what I will tell you I always tell everybody I teach don't what if a scenario CU you're going to drive don't ask me hey what if this happens cuz as a police officer what if a scenario cuz you're going to drive don't ask me hey what if this happens because as a police officer you get the craziest things happen you just can't what if it but that
085one scenario I'm going to run down the hallway but flip it what if I have time because it's not an active shooter but I know he has a long gun now I got a minute to grab the shield and then if things go co no you got no go back to what I said in the beginning go back to what I said in the beginning because now I can send two cops to the other school if it's not an active shooter to bring it over however so before weend however you could have just bought if she would have bought the other Shield if we each have one in there then we I just want to finish my sentence all right let me finish I'm let you finish I think that I think we all understand
086that I think the part of it is number one it could be it could be housed in a different part of the school what if the shooter is on the right side of the school but it's in the left side of the school doorway I just don't want to do I appreciate what you guys are doing we all have the same goal in mind we all want the schools to be safe for that reason we want to ensure we get that audit from the office of school preparedness to find where would be the best location for this device once that's been determined in coordination with the local police department then we can all stay on the same page on what a response to one of those scenarios would look like and hopefully it never happens
087corre 100% couldn't agree more thank you like I said I'm just just spel my whole objective was to I'm not here to attack Kim because I love Kim and I love her family but uh but like like I said I just any misconceptions that you have I am not going to I'm going down that hallway either way but if if I'm able to grab that on my way I'm gonna grab it because I want to right thanks thank you thank you thank you I'm here for the same reason just maybe a little bit different what he said I'm here to ask you to get another Shield the okay because I feel we should have another Shield we were the school to watch we I don't you probably remember when we were the school to watch
088we had the news media down here and everything there's nothing more I know nothing about CH just recently I found out with a long was I never knew the difference between a long gun when my Police Department says they need something they're the experts we're not the experts you guys are not the experts on you might have been in the National National Guard yes okay these guys work with us every day okay when we came here it was me uh Chief 40 and Mrs El Dr and when they were talking about it the chief volunteered for us to give the other Shield which I was a little shocked because I would think it would be the school's responsibility to get the shields but anyway I thought what's more important remember our budget is half of
089your budget we do the entire town do you have you have 500 kids in the school about 64 600 kids we service the whole town Police Department everybody we I had no problem because when they said it was very important to have something like this for security I said okay we'll pay for one it's really important not where we're going to to put it but we need another Shield because I don't want to be the one responsible to say oh I chose the Kennedy School or I chose the Eisen School nothing's more important than security I don't think these guys would make this suggestion it wasn't something that they thought was very very important how are you guys going to feel if someone comes in there and we don't want to get the shield I
090don't think it's about one let's not put out there so is it about what's it about it's about it wasn't Us in those seats so now they want do their homework to get all the information to make an educated decision but do we want to be our ultimate goal is also keep oura then it's on up right exactly and I said that from the beginning because at first Dr ashma said they wouldn't give me the money she said just pick a school I says I'm not picking the school because I don't want to be the one that says I picked this one school and then it gives God forbid something would happen to the other school but it's personally I'm not here to find out what school it should be in I'm here to ask
091you please consider buying one of these can you buy them from multiple places it's I don't know can you buy them from multiple places I've never looked into purchasing them I just know that the longer we wait just keep in mind too the better schools are getting on well I think too that it just it's taken so long to do what we said we were going to do because the superintendent search was so long we did not expect that to take that long right so it's also there was a change in the state law about uh how the schools prepare for these sorts of things so the office of school preparedness was also delayed who by the way does the the study when they come down here within like two hours andever the school just
092so you know so it's not that they come and they do this you know crazy you know what I mean but but again who are you going to trust more the state because we all know some of how they do certain things or your local police department that's going to be the ones that's going to be here God forbid if something happens and you if God forbids something happen and kids get shot are you going to sit down and say no what we didn't want to get it to this school that I mean I I don't again I know nothing about this but I'm listening to what our Police Department saids this is what we need like I said we were PS we bought one we bought one for the school and then I heard
093someone said here that and again you hear all kinds of things well it doesn't protect the kids at protects the police if they're not alive neither are our kids uh completely understand and agree on that point but that's what I'm here I'm not here to say where we're going to put it I want you guys as our representes of the school to get us one of these for our kids because I don't think the parents would be too happy knowing that the township bought one and the school sitting there thinking about it's been two years now almost if you want to buy one or not it's crazy again I would know nothing about this but if your Police Department who are the experts on security and safety telling you this is what they think they
094need and like I it's the better schools again I want to be the better school again I want to be the school to watch again thank you thank you comments motion a second then to close the meeting to the public it was my second thank you 846 all in favor I oppos orain um I don't think we have an executive session we're waiting for the audit and everything else like that unless anybody else feels the need for one I do we want to discuss what's going on Orit if anybody feels that we should have one I'm more than happy to uh also I'm fine with waiting until we've had our security audit and have that discussion in November when's the audit again oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to look it up what technology for
095we should talk about it tonight a little bit I think okay so you want to have an executive session to go in and discuss school security on what's what's and the reason for this discussion is whether not to buy another Shield or I don't H don't think that's an executive session uh so I think it might be more about where we would put that shield and then we get into the school's security posture security posture right because knowing which school has it or not could impact a potential if somebody had ideas of doing something in that regard yeah that would certainly impact security if it's a public knowledge that's the which school has and which one doesn't right so from what I understand at the moment there is one and it's not in one of
096these schools and that was its intention so uh if I'm it's not in any school for right uh and that was what the Township's intention was for to be in a school uh and it is not at the moment and that was one of the points brought up is if we have one why is it not somewhere here and I think that's something we can discuss and become actionable now uh the purchase of a second one uh would be a later thing down the line after our security audit to find out where that sits in our priority I don't think any of that is executive session not even where to discuss to I refuse to discuss which school it would be that that part of it is definitely executive session and that's what we wanted
097to settle potentially tonight okay we'll leave so you guys can talk it doesn't matter it's on video anyway thank you thank you does everyone want to go into have the discussion about where the shield will be placed the current one that they currently yes we tell Jacob we need to um it down once he tells us we are um not streaming we'll go ahead and go into executive s screen chain I'll wait for his confirmation I like I don't like to assume anything we leave nothing to chance no I want it in writing November 14th by the way security and that's before our next meeting yeah right yeah because Thanksgiving is late this year so our meeting is probably something like the 22nd 23rd yeah the1 you're like I'm G be real clear that that's
098e e e guys are we good thanks Jacob all right so then at this point um so just a comment from the board that we have discussed the placement of the shield and have determine where we would like to see it placed uh the district will reach out to the township uh in the near future to work out the details uh of Transportation Etc Perfect all right so then at this point we don't have any other business can I have a motion of a second to adjourn the meeting motion second right all those in favor I opposed or obain all right have a great night have a happy Halloween happy Halloween Mr Gold don't leave