001[Music] hello good evening everybody it's great to see everybody here and and thanks for those who are also watching uh live streaming we called our meeting to order earlier in our closed executive session so we're ready to begin the public portion of our meeting but first could I get a motion to um go out of order on the agenda so we can um do a couple of things first uh Louisa and sha um okay so then I can proceed I guess right um so we are going to go out of order and that we should yeah we should say all in favor all in favor say I I I all right and we're official yes okay we're official we're gonna um we are going to do the presentation later okay um we are going to
002skip down to um first we're going to I'm G to ask for the student representatives to give their report first um from uh High School North we have Johnson Lynn and Ana Sul um and High School South we have Rachel Joseph here tonight so I'm gonna give the floor over to you thank you uh good evening everyone uh so I want to start off our report talking about sports so as winter sports come to an end we are super proud of all our winter sports teams for for their continued efforts and sportsmanship throughout the season but we'd like to especially highlight a couple teams in particular so first our winter track team had a great showing at their last couple meets and they now look to send both Sprint relay teams and individuals from both
003the girls and boys track teams to compete at the New Balance national championships and the Adidas championships our Pirates fencing had a great match at their districts a week ago and the South wrestling team competed at the Mercer County tournament districts and regionals all over the past couple weekends with some impressive performances but most notably a member of our girls team Grace Kang uh played second at the Mercer County tournament and our last shout out would be to our wwp united hockey team which made the state tournament and as we transition into our into spring our spring Sports registration has been open and is closing soon and we hope to see the same success from all those teams as well our clubs have been particularly busy during the month of Fe February uh our Chinese
004Club held China night in coordination with the north Chinese Club um a few weekends ago to South the Juniors Carla Julian and Harel their paintings were chosen to be displayed at the Philips Mill exhibition in Pennsylvania and during president's week are public speaking clubs including model un and debate participated in competitions so our model un team went to Washington DC to participate in georgetown's Nyon conference and our debate team went to the Harvard speech and debate competition and both teams saw great success with multiple de delegates receiving Awards uh for Performing Arts last weekend our theater program performed Four showings of their musical back to the 80s between Thursday and Saturday the show was fantastic I went to see it myself and it was definitely a nice nostalgic throwback for all the Baby Boomers in
005the audience regarding our music department we had musicians from all ensembles including choir orchestra and band participate in all state conferences this past weekend we're proud to say South was well represented at these Chambers and many of our talented musicians were recognized for their hard work additionally to encourage the transition from middle school to high school orchestra and band from both High School South and Grover hosted a wonderful and very impressive joint concert uh this year our interact Club had the opportunity to collaborate with the PTSA and coordinators from High School North to help host the prom shop where dresses suits and different attires are donated for others to use and rewar and while we're on the topic of donations students from our job skills class which is one of the many electives offered at
006South they ran a toilet sh Drive during the month of February for the Rescue Mission of TR organization and we were glad to see a lot of donations from the student body and staff additionally South student council has been very active over the past few weeks and some officers and representatives from South student council were fortunate enough to take a quick trip down to Allentown High School where we had the opportunity to meet other student council members from schools around the CVC we shared ideas collaborated on projects and problem solved uh personally I attended and I can say it was very interesting and insightful to hear about the experiences from other student council members around the area moving forward in honor of Black History Month our black student union has been running various programs to
007recognize African-American Heritage during school in the mornings over the PA system students from the club have shared eye-opening facts regarding African-American history accomplishments and culture throughout the past week BSU has also been hosting readin throughout the day where students are encouraged to perform and share impactful pieces written by black writers to highlight their Rich history and storytelling rbsu will also be hosting a family night later this week where families are invited to come and see the projects and research done by the members lastly I'll end with upcoming events this Friday our women in sports club will be hosting a student faculty basketball game all are invited to come and watch the funfield night there will be Raffles prizes and obviously a very entertaining game March will unfortunately be very busy with State Testing and that
008oh so dreaded course scheduling however I know our juniors are looking forward to their Washington seminar trip in which they'll head down to DC at the start of next week I heard they're even going to get a look inside the Pentagon which is super exciting similarly our seniors are heading to Disney at the end of next week where they'll get to spend four days on the happiest place on Earth so I guess it balances out all the testing and scheduling but that will be all for High School South and I'm going to hand it over to our reps from high school north thank you good good evening everyone to Star of strong High School North student council hosted its Haren Wizards event for the first time since covid and the event was a huge success
009with over 500 tickets sold to families across the district and student council was able to raise over $10,000 and a portion of which will be donated to our state charity and earlier in January North student council also attended their usual njasc winter conference where one of our very own students kushy ran for State office and won the njasc 2025 state Secretary so congrats to her and finally student council also planned their Blitz event for its upcoming Tonight Show which is for our seniors and we went to over a dozen businesses across the area to seek sponsorship and also help promote their businesses during our show and we raised raised over $800 moving on on to upcoming events North J prom which will be held on April 25th is in the works with junior class Council
010having collected all pinions last Friday and they're looking to have a theme of great gasby which is very interesting for our La teachers and moving on to clubs North model un's team attended two conferences over the past month one was at the ivy league Conference held at upen where they won best delegation and North American Invitational at Georgetown at both conferences delates won a lot of individual Awards so congrats to all of our delegates and their performances North and South China Club also came together as Rachel mentioned to host their annual China night event on the Lunar New Year weekend the event featured Chinese Cultural dances games food and Hip Hop for a night that everyone enjoyed North hosta attended the Central Regional Conference where they prepared for upcoming New Jersey state leadership conference and
011at at the conference many individuals won awards and explore many new events that are new to our chapter this year and High School North is also hosting their musical this weekend at 6 PM shows where it will Feature A Little Shop of Horror and we will wish all of our performers good luck North fbaa attended the central region conference this earlier this month where they were able to sit in many different workshops in preparation for their National leadership conference which is in which is where 40 members of North go to attend moving on to sports winter sports have finally begun wrapping up for the year with spring Sports registration finally being open high school norts basketball team ended their season with the historical 20 wins after their 11 game win streak at the start of
012the season they find themselves playing the state playoffs this Thursday sorry Tuesday no sorry Thursday we are wishing them the best of luck congrats to basketball senior Malachi Jeffers Vieira who is n's all-time career leader in point scored with over 1,52 points the cheerleading team wrapped up a very successful PI teacher competition in order to raise funds to go to Nationals reigning champ history teacher Mr Romero defended his half decade long win streak winning once again this year marking Period 2 ended two weeks ago and marking period 3 has finally begun with semester 1 officially over many students are now scheduling their next year classes with celor High School North seniors competed in one of the very famous competitions of the Year seniors had the chance to compete in swing dancing two weeks ago while
013the rest of the school could spectate much like the senior swing dancing competition the sophomores had their square dancing competition earlier today which was also a fun watch that is all from north thank you wow thank you guys just when I thought you couldn't be any busier here you are with this report thank you for the update um um so busy in athletics academics um Performing Arts cultural events um and charitable works as well so it is amazing and uh but I do want to respectfully make one correction I believe the Nostalgia is not from the Baby Boomers but from the Gen xers in the audience so just want to educate you a little bit on that but anyway thank you so much and have a good rest of your evening um next I'm going
014to turn the floor over to Dr Lee McDonald for our winter sports acknowledgement thank you continuing along the lines of great things happening at both High School North and South tonight we want to recognize uh our student athletes and our coaches uh from the fall with their many outstanding performances and Milestones uh it goes without saying being a student athlete is something that uh not only do you have to balance the academics but you have to have the discipline the teamwork the sacrifice all the above the the soft skills that we see our students developing are so critical to their long-term success so tonight we want to recognize uh those student athletes and their their coaches uh who have flourished in both athletic departments under the leadership of Miss Kate dobinson at High School South
015and Mr Jeff Riley at High School North who I'll turn it over to thank you good evening it is an honor and a privilege to recognize two members of my coaching staff tonight on being recognized by the Trenton Times as coach of the year Alisa mastriani led the pirate girl soccer team to their first winning record since 2010 Additionally the pirate girl soccer team made it to the semi-finals of the colonial Valley conference championships this year um an extremely proud moment for me as an athletic director but also the parents caregivers student athletes and other pirate fans that came on to cheer our pirate at Hopewell Valley this year coach mastriani has done an incredible job building a solid teamwork on her team um developing not only the skill level of our girl soccer players
016but also focusing on developing skills that will take them further past once they graduate from high school South so it's an honor to recognize her tonight [Music] [Applause] additionally I would like to recognize Katie Riley who was recognized as coach of the years from the Trenton Times for boys cross country in her um interview with the Trenton Times Katie focused on a team of we before me um and that is something that I saw day in and day out with her as I watched her coach as I attended different meets and just saw her interactions with her team over the course of the seasons uh the team took third place at the central group four sectional meets as well as eighth place at group four championships um Katie not only coaches our um boys cross
017country team she works very closely with our girls cross country team and Stephanie pages and Heather peoples and the three of them together are a solid unit that really support our students in every way possible congratulations Katie [Music] [Applause] lastly I would like to recognize shvan Pradip 12th grade cross country Runner the list of accomplishments the shravan has um made over the course of the year is outstanding he took first place at the Thompson Park to Myer and made a course record second place at the Six Flag Safari um first from New Jersey to finish across the Finish Line first place at the colonial division race for the cbcs first place at the the CBC Championship meet finished second um at sectional uh Central Jersey for sectionals finished eighth at group championships placed in the
018top 15 at the meet of Champions for the njsiaa he came in 12th Place honorable mention All-American uh third Team all state Runner of the year for the Trenton Times Runner of the year for CBC um just a a list of accomplishments and this goes back to also the coaching that he received from Katie and the support from parents caregivers and all of you for our Athletic program here at South so thank you so much Trant Tran I'd [Music] [Applause] like you want to be sure so we're just going to take a moment for some [Music] pictures I'd like to pass it off to Jeff Riley athletic director at High School North well good evening and thank you for having us here tonight from high school north where it's always a great day to be
019a night and this fall was a uh great fall to be a part of North Athletics and the night Nation so we have a few honores tonight to highlight our Athletics from the fall the first people I want to call up is Allison Lee and her coaches Di albad and Brian Gould come on up so Allison is a CrossCountry runner for us she's an 11th grader she was the Mercer County individual Champion she was a central Jersey group three individual Champion she took second place in the njsa group three championships she is also the made school history as a first ever HSN athlete to qualify for and compete in the prestigious Foot Locker Cross Country national championship Alison Place 29th with a time of 1850 earning the title of All American um and the best
020part about it earlier tonight I was talking to Kate doson out in the hallway and she said where's she going next year I said High School North so it's a great thing so we look forward to she did a wonderful job of going on to about what she did in the winter but hopefully she'll be back at a later board meeting to speak about that but uh she she will continue to do so and we look forward to seeing what she does in the fure future as well so Ellison congratulations you do the picture now so right charity said I have to [Applause] and we have a very successful team from this fall that I want to call up coaches Rich Arnold and Eric Stewart team members of the girls tennis team High School North
021Eva Fe Megan Chung Mahi padmi Bella abriu uh cavia Singh yashika tanuka Sarah Henderson Andre verray viika Kamal r Ki Selma binder adishi bwe and deblina chadna come on up [Applause] please so week in and week out we have a lot of exciting Athletics going on whether it's on the soccer field the field hockey field and most importantly the tennis courts this fall uh we saw a lot of great matches a lot of great competitions this tennis team was 18 and3 during the regular season match record and they're 7 and0 in conference they were the Mercer County Team Champions they're also the Mercer County Colonial division Champions they were the north Jersey Section 2 group three Champions and they were this close to being the overall State group three Champions and their finalists for that
022uh there's not much else you have to do to excel in tennis and be honored awarded they did everything possible as a team they're also a lot of fun to be around and they're a great group of student athletes so let's give them a round of applause please [Applause] [Music] congratulations again thank you very much I know it means a lot to Kate and I both to have this honor of doing this and uh we'd like to do it again in the future so thank you very much we appreciate it thank [Applause] you thank you so much congratulations to our athletes and coaches and now I'm going to turn the floor over to Dr aderhold for comments thank you to all our our parents uh caregivers student athletes coaches uh our athletic directors for being
023here you're all welcome to stay but as we um as we go forward we'll be doing some just business of the board we have an evening presentation tonight by Jessica Smedley our director of counseling uh on our semiannual um Hib data so she'll be doing that um but again I want to thank you all and congratulate you all for your incredible accomplishments both as athletes and as as students for your car commitment to one another as team members um it's truly inspiring and we're thankful to have you here this evening so again congratulations uh and thank you uh I just have one other comment and I just want to um this is with respect to the message I sent to the community over the weekend um regarding the the loss of one of our students
024um you know as uh was messaged in in the community we we lost one of our eighth graders over a Grover Middle School haly fanto um after a um short but vient battle with cancer um she was diagnosed in early January and has gone far too soon had the opportunity to correspond with her father Michael multiple times um and he wanted to make sure that we shared with the community about the arrangements because there's been such an outpouring of love and support uh they were just finalized for Friday from 2: to 8: up in South River the Mal maleski Funeral Home up in South River and then there will be services on Saturday um we will make sure to put that up on the website and we'll send direct correspondence to the GMS uh Community
025um but that'll be on Saturday at 10:30 in the morning um Michael um sat bedside for seven straight weeks never left the hospital um his care and love of his daughter is palpable um single father who who gave everything for his daughter um he's been an inspiration to speak with and it's been a privilege to to talk to him during these these very difficult times um it's a privilege of the job to be able to work with families in crisis um so to Michael and to haly our our love and wishes are are with them um during this very difficult time and I'll conclude my comments at that point so thank you again to everyone for being here thank you Dr aderhold um um so now I would like to turn it over um and
026um introduce uh Jessica Smedley to give uh the special public hearing and presentation on harassment intimidation and bullying I'll turn the floor over to you thank you okay tonight um I'll be talking about our semiannual report on harassment intimidation and bullying um this covers periods uh the period of July 2024 to December 2024 so we do this report twice a year um and in tonight's presentation I'll be reviewing briefly reviewing the definition of harassment intimidation or bullying or what we call Hib at school um going over a basic data analysis of patterns um and themes that we've saw in these uh last six months of the year including the first four months of the school year um and then just reviewing some trainings and programs that we've had at our schools during the fall I'll
027just give it a second we're just gonna give a minute for for everyone to clear out Cas yeah some background noise probably on the recording okay so to start with the definition of Hib or harassment in intimidation and bullying um represents any gesture any written verbal or physical act or any electronic communication whether it be a single incident or series of incident it must be reasonably perceived to be motivated by either an actual or perceived distinguishing characteristic um that this event or events take place on school property at any school sponsored function or on a school bus or off school grounds and then finally to meet the criteria for um an incident of Hib must substantially disrupt or interfere with the orderly operation of the school or the rights of other students so one thing
028that we are I'm actually on the second year of presenting on um was a change for the 2324 school year uh that happened the um there were some updates to the Hib law that uh allowed school districts to decide whether they wanted to have an option in the law for administrators and anti-bullying specials to Specialists to make a preliminary determination of whether a report that was a suspected incident of harassment intimidation bullying should be that kind of Investigation or if it was an incident that should be dealt with in another way so wwp policy is up here I won't read the whole policy um but really the important part here is that it is done um to make a preliminary determination of whether the investigation will be um conducted as a matter of Hib or
029really just through code of conduct or another restorative process so it's not it's not a situation or a process to negate any report that any student uh teacher Community member family member is making it's more so to sort of um direct how that investigation and then results of the investigation will take place um and we'll see we do have a few our numbers are basically um stable from last year as well so we last year was our first year with it um we're seeing basically some of the same Trends as we continue on with that so for this first period um which is representative of six months because the year is split into two but obviously we know we don't have school during um July and August but actually we have had an increase in
030summer programs we have our extended school year program we have programs through our Community Education Department so if we go back to what our um definition is and what constitutes that it is any school sponsored event or any Comm anything that can happen even outside of of the school hours and school day so um just want to draw attention to that so our preliminary determinations in total for um this reporting period are 12 10 of those are represented at our Middle School level two at the high school level uh there were zero in our K to 5 buildings um I what I will say here um is of the 10 uh six of those were um repetitive submissions so when there's a suspected incident of of Hib um there's a form we call it the
031338 form it's available on our district website it's also available in paper copy in our school offices um and and to anyone out there um sometimes there's an incident it could happen where there's maybe a crowd or more than one person and so something might be seen I'll use an example of maybe a bus stop and there's multiple parents um who are dropping kids off at a bus stop they may see something overhear something and we receive one or more reports for that exact same incident so um really what we're looking at is there's we only eight times here that we had total that we actually were making a determination with the principal the anti-bullying specialist and the assistant principles of taking the opportunity to say yes we believe this is an incident we need
032to investigate but it does not need to go through the Hib process um the other those other ones did go through the Hib process but we they have every time a form comes in it counts as a report so that is represented here um but so our numbers are actually decreased in preliminary determination when you control over last year when you control for um for those repetitive submissions okay so our total investigations in this reporting period were 42 um we had 18 that were considered to be unfounded or not um did not meet the criteria of a hi and 24 that were founded and again just because it was unfound founded for Hib that means it did not meet all four of those criteria for um that I explained on the first slide and everything
033is referred to for restorative purposes um in nearly every case we have students meet meet with counselors with other uh trusted adults in the school certainly there's restorative conversations that take place with our administrators and sometimes even with our classroom teachers around these issues it's so it's really um there is sort of a narrow definition that that requires us to count and Report out on these incidents um but to 42 total incidents for this first part of the school year our investigations by grade band we had 17 total incidents in the prek to five uh age band we had uh 14 in grades 6 through eight and 11 incidents in grades 9 through 12 we like to take a look and kind of analyze and figure out well where are these things happening and we
034do find that um generally the ones that are founded or that and the reports that happen are in times where there is an unstructured space or an unstructured activity um and it could even be an a structured activity so we'll see what's interesting here is 40.5% of our incidents for this time period happened in the classroom when I get to a slide a little later on and you see what months those occurred in that's going to um become a little bit more indicative of kind of what was happening because this is a little bit of a change from our prior year at this time but also our prior reporting period or the second half of the Year where we tend to see playground school bus um there is a little increase in phone but that
035we expect too because remember we had July and August without students um having their cell phones put away primarily during the school day the internet so we do see these um these things so um what we when I look into what's who's actually reporting or how's that happening again like in a classroom um it's when the teachers reporting it so more of our staff are tend to be the reporters so that kind of links itself to the classroom now our staff might see something or hear something um in an unstructured space like the cafeteria or before or after school or in an activity but um this tells us that our teachers are reporting when there is a suspected incident um so we consider that to be healthy healthy data okay for our founded incidents of
036Hib um just want to review the distinguishing characteristics so for the audience I'm just to read through this we have ancestry at 2.4% gender and gender identity are grouped together at 4.8% of our incidents sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation 9.5% % religion 2.4% disability or perceived disability 99.5% um other 4.8% and no identifiable characteristic 7.1 so occasionally sometimes there are um multiple categories so that is also um here up here and indicative of that um when we look at Trends um or what our highest are they continue to be um race and ethnicity and appearance that stayed static over time um with race and ethnicity being the highest um and representing just about a third of all of our cases during this time period appearance was our second most common distinguishing feature um accused
037of with allegations and this can represent physical appearance it can also cross over sometimes there are multiple factors so um when there's a slur used or a name calling um um that the name or the slur could also be indicative of a perceived disability um or you look XYZ um we put that in like that that so it really depends kind of where the person making the report puts the accusation and where the anti-bullying specialist and our administrator decides to sort of categorize that so we do take a look um as a anti-bullying team over time and in our culture and climate teams which I'll talk a little bit more in a few minutes of digging into what is actually being said and what are the details of that um were there precipitating factors are
038there repetitive incidents those kinds of things okay so for our year by-ear comparison our numbers are down this fall summer and fall over last year so um in reporting period 1 in 20123 um and just want to keep in mind and I know I keep repeating it but I think when you see the numbers we had total investigations 83 in this time period for the last school year and 42 this school year however um we did not start using preliminary determination until the start of the school year last year so we had two months about two and a half months really until we retrained our scho hits came back to school last September so nearly all of September and we got going with preliminary determination the board pass that right at the end of um
039the summer in 2023 so two of those six months last year we did not have preliminary determination um so I think that's it's indicative of some of the shift that some of our summer incidents we did not have the option to say okay this can be dealt with this way um I will also say that in summer incidents there's a tendency to have a higher number because things tend to be in groups so when we get a Hib um complaint if that's a group text message there could be a a much higher number of of reports one so again if we go back to like we had the repetitive reports and I accounted for that in the preliminary determinations for this year in that prior year if we got five reports we were still doing
040those five investigations separately because we didn't have a mechanism to do that so that is part of what you see as the the change or the the um decrease in the number so total investigations are down um a little bit are founded and unfounded relatively stable again like comparative year-to-year in percentages um so you can see here again 83 last year um 50 founded 33 unfounded um with 10 preliminary determinations so we actually had more preliminary determinations in four months last year than we did in six months this year um this year we had 42 total 24 founded 18 unfounded with the 12 preliminary determinations um this I think is another interesting piece of data again we're always looking at what can we in planning for what can we do to prevent um bullying in
041our schools prevent harassment um but also what kinds of programs restorative programs but also preventative programs climate and culture programs we take a look at um one of the pieces of data is when when do things happen and um so we see a spike in in the summer months that we have not typically seen however we had um we've started offering more summer classes so we have more of our students engaged in learning in our schools during the summer than we have in the past um pretty significantly by a few hundred I believe so um these things they happen we get the reports and we do the investigations uh we tend to see this smaller number in September um because it's back to school everyone you know sort of little a little bit of a
042honeymoon period um some we've had an opportunity to make some social adjustments of um if we needed to make some separations or some changes kids are transitioning between grade levels they're maturing a little bit so um it we do tend to see fewest in September um October has always been and I've been I've been in this role in two other school districts since the law was um passed originally passed and I will tell you by and large October and it's coming next week but um and March are the two highest months of Celebration bra yourself um and I give myself that advice too but October um so a few things happen in October one we we have um violence awareness week we have um Red Ribbon Week we have um we are talking to kids
043about anti-bullying it's our theme of many of our schools our character education in in the schools our social emotional learning lessons are centered around knowing how to be an upstander how to recognize when someone um is perhaps being bullied or if someone if if students are suspecting it we also in late September and early October are retraining our students um our faculty in what this looks like and what our reporting procedures are so that's the natural normal bump of October um and then in November and December typically uh again you see a small increase in uh December usually as we approach um longer breaks from school it's another time um when it's getting to be and that's the explanation for March but I'll talk more about that in July is that as we approach longer
044chunks of time with no break away from each other we all know we could use a week off from each other sometimes and so um that tends to escalate things a little bit as well so nothing too surprising or different in in the month by month comparison then we have patterns and Trends um so I already talked about our summer incidents did increase this year um that we have the race and ethnicity and physical appearance still as our highest and um we did have that minor change in leading categories I think um that that's something that we'll continue to explore also um you know our data for anyone having any issues mirrors what's happening our communities in our world um and so we had some major world events and we had some major national events
045that happened in this six-month period we continue to see that obviously things happen every day um and so we sort of mirror what's happening um in the world and um another interesting thing that I think um that we have had an I I would like to say we haven't done a a deep data analysis of this in terms of um measuring the effectiveness of our increase in lessons but another change programmatically that we've made this year that I spoke little bit about as a Coming Attraction um during the July report is we implemented the Second Step curriculum so our our school counselors and our Student Assistance counselors are implementing monthly lessons on um topics such as empathy social skill building peer relations peer U mediation and so these are all considered to be preventative um
046and early intervention activities and so um I'll be back with more data analysis on that in the in the next report important as we when we do the annual report on our our grades and our trainings and programs but we have seen that increase in lessons um so trainings programs initiatives we continue to have our strategic goals in the district which are well aware of our social justice standards um we have oural strategic goals specifically um I talked about our school counseling the monthly lessons we continue to have targeted professional development and training for staff so again in the fall is when late summer and early fall is when we um we always bring in our board attorney to do training and review with all of our administrators all of our uh school counselors who
047are anti-bullying Specialists we review our paperwork our processes um we make sure that we're all on the same page just sort of um getting ready for the new school year so that happens this fall um I me I'm sure this will be a whole other presentation at some point um and we'll talk more about as we move through and attach the Strategic goals is we did the we've done School climate and culture surveys and so we're starting to do the data analysis on that and I think once that's coming attration on that mirror some of the same things we're seeing here of um what works in terms of prevention and early intervention um initiatives we continue to have a really robust mental health and counseling staff so we have our uh three clinicians here with
048us through ubhc we have an IND District Clinic and we have 36 school counselors and Student Assistance counselors along with our school social workers school school psychologists and obviously our teachers all of our instructional assistance support staff um it takes everyone to really work on this and be focused on it we also do um we have our school-based culture and climate teams they meet TW uh twice a year at minimum most of them meet monthly and they take a look at their data as well to decide what would they like to um bring bring in specifically for the school how might that inform um incentive programs uh for positive behavior um and even look taking a look at and our mtss teams are starting to take a look at sort of the behavior and and
049Hib data relative to what do students need in those tiered intervention services and how can we take some of what we're doing on this side of the house and combine it with that um in the mtss teams and then finally we do our Hib student training um at our middle and high schools some of our our student leaders assist with that which is great because we think that kids learn best from their peers um they're more likely to listen to their peers especially when they're talking about um being kind to one another so we're proud of that as well and this I sort of already covered kind of got ahead of myself but we do um so we really take we take this data seriously and we do um go beyond just me talking here
050about um about the data is really utilize it to drive programming for our students our faculty um so we deci take a look at these Trends try to figure out what do we need um we welcome input on those culture and climate teams at all of our schools so if anyone is listening tonight and wants to get involved or know more they could C you could certainly contact me um in the spring we'll have our school climate and safety Summit uh with all of our district teams which includes stakeholders from all groups and we'll take a look at the full year of data and also start to do our planning for what we're looking for in the 25 26 school year which will definitely include talking about the school climate survey which um has been
051really exciting to have and um Sue totero is leading the the um that initiative along with our our central office staff so um we've also brought in as a as a part of our What's called the dreams project or dreams Grant in New Jersey which actually paid for us to give the New Jersey sky or the climate survey this fall um we've had the opportunity to have two of our staff members trained as trainers in the nurtured heart approach and so um the nurtured heart approach is a great way to for parents Educators and students to take a look at how to sort of approach each other taking a positive approach um and also learning to take care of ourselves really taking a posit positive look at um at kids and even it's a different
052way to look at behaviors and the function of behaviors because that's one of the things when you get beyond the basics of what happened in a Hib investigation you know we know that when when hurt when people are hurt feel hurt they have a higher likelihood of hurting others and so it's important to take a look at what's the emotional side of that and the nurtured heart approach really is helping us to do that so we're expanding very quickly in our schools the nurtured heart approach our trainers were trained in December they've already conducted several trainings so it's spreading with our social emotional learning goal teams um our goal leads and we just had um Sue and I both were on meetings today we just had our check-in this morning with our different teams for
053that initiative and it's exciting to he we were going through with our Mentor um from the middle sex County CMO just kind of where we are with things and considering we only started this really our first meeting with her was September 30th so I can't we can't even count that we had we we kind of lost the whole first month of school so even in the short amount of time we've had um there's already a lot of good things happening with nurtured Hearts so we're really excited about that and I'm sure we'll be back when we talk about school climate um to talk more about that we also again I mentioned mtss but we have the tier one behavior supports that's part of what we do in there and then even for the other tiers
054for our um students who need some kind of intervention what does that look like and it's always done in a team approach so when we're in mtss there stakeholders from various areas instructional non-instructional support staff um to making those decisions of giving kids what they need to feel healthier be happier and be supported and safe at school I'll just end with our district mission statement because we always end with that and and um we're really excited about what we're doing we're proud of what we're doing and I look forward to coming back in the summer and talking more about our the end of year and our full year awesome thank you Miss medley um do we have any questions or comments from the board for Miss medley go ahead Liz hi Jessica thank you so
055much for this presentation it was uh very robust you know a lot of great information and initiatives and continued work I just had a question um on the slide about the month-by-month analysis you know that talks about July that reflects July data so is that at the high school level because those classes that are offered at this during the summer I believe are primarily the you know high school students they are high school but it's indicative of any sum like any summer report so I believe the the increase is probably because we have more students on campus so when they're tied to school anyone could make a report at at any time kind of through any means written um written on the form um but our less students are on Chromebooks over the summer and
056so I think it's an increase but it's not necessarily I didn't pick out it's not all high school okay it's not all okay thank you just to add to that we we've been adding summer program summer courses um that run out of South so we've had the discret math we've had the science elective um now we've had this year we're increasing additional we've also had through our title grants our e summer camp as well as uh some literacy camps as well as um our esy for for special students with special needs so we have upwards of a thousand students on campus in July plus we also have all the community ad programming that's all great yeah it also does I mean it's mostly August but some of the remember we have teams who are practicing
057doing weit room running the the kids are in an it doesn't even actually if you walk around between the cleaning and the kids being here um I think probably our custodial staff would even say like it we're never actually closed it's pretty busy here all of the time thanks um I believe ly has a question thank you Jessica for the presentation I agree with everything that Les had said um just about the preliminary determination because I remember the first time that it was brought to the to the board um when there's a determination between whether it is uh a Hib versus something like something that can be resolved restorative um something with restorative practice or um a conduct issue I was surprised because it for the preliminary determination it says high school students in middle
058school that um I was thinking maybe it would affect more the K5 because that they're you know younger and you think that that in terms of um the uh the principal or whoever is in charge making a determination about whether it Go Hib versus um restorative practice um is there a reason because I was just thinking because you know say a kindergarten says something or does something it can be sort of you know they might not know what exactly they're saying or or you know it's a learning moment for them um so I was just kind of surprised to see that the the numbers um were mostly just for high school and middle school if you could talk a little bit about that or why do you think that might be the case yeah and
059last year we we definitely especially in the spring we did see most of them work K to five because again it's their first few years of being in school um the word bully you know this is New Jersey's definition of this law and this procedure we follow but we've all known right and and all of our students have families who have gone through school and so the word bully has been around for a long time um and had many a much wider definition and so we do tend to see that and we did last year I think part of it is the incre there are more upper level kids here in the summer so again like and then when you see the total incidents the total K5 numbers are down probably more so and when
060you look at September like as they're starting school it's not really until you see that spike in in October and so um yes yes and and I would like to say like we there's it's some it happened and we maybe don't know the students or the report was written in a way sometimes if it's straight conduct and you start to do it it's a lot easier to see if you have some context the the family or whoever wrote the report has context and so when they don't we're never going to say like we're going to use the determination it's better to do the thorough investigation even if that comes out to be unfounded any other questions on this sidea thank you Jessica looks like there's a lot of pro active um things going on in
061District I just had a question about the school climate survey could you share who takes the survey is its staff and students and our parents involved as well do you want do you want to take that so I can answer that grades three through 12 um students who were given consent by their parents took the survey so it is in all students families consent at the beginning of the year uh staff also takes the survey and we're looking at ways we can also involve parents and families in the survey in the future we did not do that this year so it it took place in October and November and we have been looking at the data and each of our 10 buildings with our building administrators and going through it to set goals and celebrations
062that Miss medly referred to that we'll be using to compare to our Hib data and then make plans for the following year the data overall is phenomenal I'm really proud of the work that our teachers and our building administrators and our students are doing and it really is a credit to the social emotional learning work that we've been doing for years in the district thank you any other questions um I I did thank you I did have one um quick question um how do you differentiate um whether a Hib is related to ancestry versus ethnicity I know that was one of the data points really so the determining person is the anti-bullying specialist so what I would say is in reading the report and taking a look at the interviews um and um those interviews
063and kind of the entire investigation helps give us the data and they make a determination of that so it's individual for each one I think it's what's presented okay thank you um any other questions okay thank you so much for all this data sharing um next um we'll open this up for a special opportunity for a public comment on harassment intimidation and bullying the board invites thoughts and reactions on the harassment intimidation and bullying report from members of our community who are President uh please not we we still will have two other public comment periods um each par is asked to give his or her name an address prior to making a statement which will be limited to 3 minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer
064this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes do we have any public comments for Hib NOP seeing none I will close this public uh this uh special opportunity for public comment and um oh um can I get a motion uh to accept the July 1st 2024 to December 31st 2024 District semiannual report of harassment intimidation and bullying as required by the New Jersey State Department of Education under the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act um Liz and ly um and okay we we'll we'll start with Miss Miss chenera yes Miss ho yes Miss grro yes Miss maliga yes Miss Shaw yes Miss Shetty yes Miss bonsel yes Miss McAn yes so that adjourns um our special public hearing on harassment intimidation and bullying and so now we can turn to the first opportunity for
065public comments the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to 3 minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes do we have any general public comments is that a hand I'm seeing come on come on up um don't forget name address and you have uh three minutes hello my name is HLA emmo I am from High School North I live at 27 Saratoga Drive in West Windsor I'm the current senior class president there um one of the biggest issues well not biggest issues but
066one of the issues we've been facing at High School North is in the front there's been the installation of new speed bumps over the winter break these speed bumps aren't like the original ones there they're not part of the pavement they've been bolted onto the ground they run a little higher up and they're smaller widthwise so they're quite dangerous for low riding cars that some students may bring to school I've heard for example noi student who has to commute by car due to the area of their current residence and their car is quite low riding and has seen damages going over the low riding speed bumps which proved to be an issue they also harm the suspension of cars and it's very difficult to break on the speed bump if someone was to cross quickly
067in front of you while you're driving raising safety concerns so we would be potentially looking to get those speed bumps replaced by others or just removed entirely in favor of the speed bumps that were originally there uh furthermore I would like to talk to you about the state of our language classes and some of the funding they receive I um at High School North take the highest Spanish language or District offers which is AP Spanish Literature and composition or um the College Board requires that in Split we read 33 works of literature in the year reaching from four sentence long poems of theater that are 50 page 50 um we useo perspectivas um for split it has since gone out of but there's still many copies at the current moment our classroom has around 20
068copies of the textbook which works because there's two periods of split there run each with about 15 students but the textbooks are in disrepair the moment to the point where falling off covers are falling off we are losing parts of stories that are being taken away um falling out of booklets and have writing on them um and it's also very difficult to obtain online versions of many of these Works due to copyright laws so one of the biggest issues from my man whats your has been telling me is that the district doesn't allow her funding to buy new textbooks which has been an issue do as it's getting to the point where it will become difficult for us to complete all of the works in class due to the state of it but thank you
069those are all my comments thank you so much um do we have any other public comments for this period seeing none uh will close this public comment period and we'll move on to our oh actually yes at hold I'll just do a quick response to that thank you for bringing those two comments forward um Dr Russo and I will follow up with the high the building and grounds Department with respect to the speed bumps and I will make sure that Dr G who's our chief academic officer uh and M Dr Warren Our World Language supervisor are um I touch base with them about the comment regarding the the books just for the good of the group or the good of the presentation all of our books are on a replacement cycle um and so when
070they hit uh being out of print um there's a textbook review process and they're supposed to be purchasing home new resources to make sure that we always have resources available for students so we'll we'll try to understand what's happening in this particular but we'll look into both uh matters tomorrow so thank you for raising those all right thank you Dr ad hold um next we'll move on to the Board of Education committee reports and I'd like to ask Dana for administration and Facilities good evening everyone um good evening everyone to put the mic on um the and move it closer to me okay the administration and Facilities committee met on February 12th the committee reviewed um two policies which are recommended for first reading at tonight's meeting um that's policy 5460 which is high school
071graduation and policy 8500 which is Food Services the committee reviewed several other policies and regulations and recommends a second reading um and approval um at tonight's meeting so that's um policy 9320 and its regulation cooperation with law enforcement agencies policy 7441 which is electronic surveillance in school buildings and on school grounds and it's accompanying regulation and the policy and regulation 5533 which is student smoking um after stakeholder review of the 2026 2027 academic calendar the committee recommends um the uh the attached but it's in the it's in the file it's on the papers out there um uh AC academic calendar the um recommends that calendar for 2026 for approval at tonight's meeting the committee reviewed um preschool and extended day EDP rates for the 2025 2026 school year and recommends approval at tonight's board meeting
072the committee revie reviewed a description for athletic trainer and recommends the revised job descriptions for approval at tonight's Board of Ed meeting and we will next meet on March 11th thank you thanks Dana um any questions or comments okay moving on to LY for curriculum and instruction thank you grayan the curriculum committee met on February 18th um we began with a couple of research project presentations the first was by uh Gabrielle Marquez is the teacher at High School South uh and his project is titled self-reflection journaling the impact of metacogn problem solving and achievement in high school mathematics uh Mr marquez's study will focus on using self-reflection practices in the uh mathematics classroom as a way to increase students uh metacogn metacognitive skills uh the second presentation was by uh SEMA Kumar a language arts
073teacher in the district uh her research is titled toward a critical pluralism implementation of New Jersey aapi curriculum legislation uh Miss Kumar's study will be a case study which focuses on teachers app perceptions of the implementation of the aapi legislation legislation on instructional practices and resources within aapi elective course um next we discussed mtss Focus intervention Dr G reviewed with the curriculum committee the progress that was made in the last two years in regards to intervention services for students in K through 8 um grades with a focus on mathematics and reading as part of the multi-tiered systems of support uh in addition Dr G shared the process for how students are identified for tiered supports and how tiered supports are provided for students in K in grades uh K to 12 so next on the
074agenda are items that we'll be voting on tonight first uh travel approval the committee recommends approval for one District science teacher to present at the National Science conference in Philadelphia um on March 29th the cost of this trip is not to exceed $350 uh next field trips the the the committee recommends approval of the following overnight field trips so for North there are three field trips first model Congress to New Brunswick from April 3rd uh through April 6 the cost of the trip is approximately $400 per student the second for North is uh future Business Leaders of America to Chicago from April 24th through the 28th of April um the cost of that trip is about uh 1,500 per student and the third field trip is high school health occupations student of assoc students of
075America to Nashville from uh Nashville Tennessee from June 17th through June 22nd the cost of that trip is approximately $1,500 per student and then moving on to Community Middle School field trips for um Science Olympiad uh group to go to the University of Nebraska and uh Lincoln in Nebraska from May 22nd through May 25th the cost of the trip is about $1,300 per student uh the committee will next meet on March 11th thanks L any questions from the board okay next I'd like to invite AA to give us a report on the finance committee good evening so the finance committee met on February 18th uh review reviewed agenda items the committee reviewed monthly Financial reports the administration affirmed that no uh major accounts are overexpanded and that sufficient funds are available to complete the school
076year the committee reviewed the following motions on the agenda for approval approve of a professional service agreement for auditing Services approve Transportation quotes to and from school approve staff professional development and travel expenses uh the committee also discussed the 2025 26 budget process and the updated budget calendar work on the budget is ongoing the appropriation of numbers and required narratives are currently being entered into the budget software and the revenue section of the software will be available on February 27th 2 days after the governor's uh budget address we also discussed esep 2 uh we've received a signed contract agreement from our energy serving company es Schneider Electric the final power purchase agreement is still pending but is expected soon and the first construction meetings have been scheduled additionally we discussed uh the cafeteria and Food
077Services the number of lunches remains lower than last year while the number of breakfast served has increased uh year-over-year the daily averages of lunches served to students approved for the free and reduced income eligible programs has risen by 30 uh 38% increase however the overall daily average uh lunches served has decreased by about 7% the breakfast in the classroom of elementary schools has seen a daily increase of uh has seen a daily increase of 37 students and all breakfast served 82% are provided to students approved the free and reduced income eligible programs the uh Southwest Food Services Excellence continues to face um some staffing challenges uh with currently having six vacant positions um additionally we discussed Transportation which was discussed during section one the custodial RFP update the completed RFP has been submitted to the
078Office of the State Control uh controller for review the osc has indicated its intentions to review the document in a timely manner um we also discussed the interlocal shared services agreement we've negotiated the terms of a new shared services agreement with the West wior Township for educational and government programming for streaming services the district will provide staff members to video Township events when scheduled the agreement will have a three-year term with a 2% annual increase and lastly other business the committee discussed the following topics the Cornerstone Fellowship Church has reached out for to discuss the rental fees for the district's use of their P portion of the parking lot next to woff elementary school and we're currently reviewing our 403b providers and requesting information on uh low fee or no fee Financial products the the
079committee will meet next on Tuesday March 11th thanks aant any questions from the board okay so next we'll move on to the just one point of clarification for um this evening the uh blue addendum is the actual power purchase agreement ment that was referenced that was not finalized at the time of the finance committee but has now since been finalized with attorney approval so the PPA the power purchase agreement green Skies is in front of the board tonight perfect thank you uh now we'll move on to the voting portion of our meeting so can I get a motion for administration items numbers 1 through six with a correction on number one where it says report dated February 6 2024 it should be 2025 um and as well as the purple addendum uh so Dana and
080Liz um any questions or comments okay we'll start with Miss KRW yes Miss jera yes Miss malga yes Miss Shetty yes Miss ho yes Miss sha yes Miss bonsel yes Miss M yes um can I get a motion for curriculum and instruction item number one uh ly and Pua any questions or comments okay we'll we'll start with Miss Malika yes Miss Shetty yes Miss chenera yes Miss ho yes Miss Krug yes Miss sha yes Miss bonsel yes Miss McAn yes can I get a motion for finance items number one through numbers one through n and the blue addendum uh Louisa and aant questions comments okay what we'll start with Miss ho yes Miss sha yes Miss shenir yes Miss Krug yes Miss migga yes Miss Shetty yes Miss bonsel yes Miss MCU yes um can
081I get a motion for personal items numbers 1 through three plus the green addendum uh scha and Liz um any questions or comments okay we'll start with Miss Shetty yes yes Miss chenera yes Miss ho yes Miss Krug yes Miss migga yes Miss sha yes Miss bonsel yes Miss MCU yes and before we move on um I do want to acknowledge a few retirements that we just voted to approve um Janna copini Jane Franco Moren mhall Valerie perx and Steven perr um Janna is a special education teacher from High School North who's been with the district for 23 years Jane Frankle is a school social worker working out of hawk in town center who has served the district for 35 years uh Moren mhal is our teacher resource specialist for instruction and intervention who has
082been at Hawk for 20 years uh in the district Valerie perx is our language arts teach teacher from Grover who is retiring after 38 years in District uh stepen purr is our science teacher at Grover who is retiring after 10 and 1 half years in the district and I believe he was in Industry before that um so congratulations and thank you so much for your many many many years of service to our district and we wish you well during your retirement um next um can I get a motion to approve the Board of Education minutes from February 11th um uh ly and aanta uh all in favor say I i i i any abstentions I abstain okay any board lays on reports tonight no okay any new business NOP okay that brings us to our
083second opportunity for public comments the board invites comments from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name an address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer and this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes um do you have any public comments for this second opportunity seeing none I will close this opportunity for public comments um and I will actually move on to uh adjourn to recess and to close executive session so I'm going to read this statement whereas the open public meetings act authorizes Boards of Education to meet an executive session under certain circumstances whereas the open public meetings act requires the board to
084adopt a resolution at a public meeting to go into private session now therefore be it resolved by the Wester Plainsboro Regional School District Board of Education that it is necessary to meet an executive session to discuss certain items involving matters of attorney client privilege um can I get a uh a motion to adjourn to close session um Puja and Dana uh all those in favor say I I I um thank you for everyone who came out this evening have a good night just I'm sorry just probably want to say the amount of time that we plan on being an executive and inform the public we're not coming back at to take any action that's correct yes okay so um the amount of approximately now okay so uh we plan to meet and close session for
085approximately an hour and um we will not be returning to uh open public what what what I have we're not we're not taking any there's no action being taken no action is being taken is that is that good okay thank you [Music]