001hello everyone good evening so we called our meeting to order during our closed executive session so we can begin our meeting and before we do i'll just turn it over to mr toscano to amend the record of our closed session thank you madam president uh just some minor changes noted uh to the pre-printed agenda that was available um the board did not discuss uh for item number eight the superintendent evaluation that will be discussed uh during the second executive session board did not discuss uh item number four negotiations with the wwpsa um and the board did add one additional item which is under number seven uh it is specifically potential litigation regarding to the cms construction project thank you mr toscano okay i will turn it over to our superintendent for some comments [Music] good
002evening everyone not a lot of comments tonight but i just want to just recognize the unfolding situation in texas this evening at rob elementary school where a gunman killed 14 elementary students one teacher and critically injuring numerous other students and staff and just that our our thoughts and uh well wishes are with that that community um and yet another sense senseless act of gun violence in our country um so uh wanted to just pause and recognize the the families impacted uh this evening in the unfolding situation so i'll leave my comments there thank you thank you doctor so next on our agenda we have a presentation tonight the equity strategic goal presentation so i'll turn it over to dr aderholt to introduce our guests well again good evening again everyone so we're pleased this evening
003to present a strategic goal number four our diversity equity inclusive exclusion goal um and today i'm joined by members of that uh that team our co-chairs and members of our administration that helped facilitate that work just from a point of process in the past the district has adopted three strategic goals in 2018 through that work we have enacted and kept a very much alive our strategic plan in the 20 in january excuse me february of 21 the board adopted strategic goal number four which was a specific goal placing explicit focus on diversity equity and inclusion um from that following a very similar pattern of our other goals co-chairs were named in this case i'm pleased to introduce tonight susan tatera our supervisor of k-12 instruction focusing in elementary as well as jessica cincada uh the
004principal of high school south and they've been they were tasked with being the co-chairs of of that particular committee a leadership team was placed around them with respect to barbara gould our director of counseling health and wellness and lee mcdonald our assistant superintendent for curriculum sorry not for curriculum for pupil services and planning sorry lee uh also anthony jones our um coordinator our coordinator for diversity equity inclusion anthony is not with us tonight you might notice but anthony had the birth of a new child so anthony is not here for for great reasons um so we we congratulate him and his family um so so we have um work that was done and then what's happened with all of our other goals very similarly a committee was charged uh and to create a strategic action
005plan for the goal and since the work tonight will be to talk about the process and to give a high level overview of the action plan so with that i welcome sue and jessica and barbara to the podium and thank them for coming for their presentation on thank you for the opportunity to share the work of the strategic planning committee it is an absolute honor to co-chair this committee with ms cincotta and to be supported by ms gould mr anthony jones dr aderhold dr nathan and dr mcdonald our mission statement an introduction to the strategic goals clearly prioritize the intrinsic worth of each stakeholder and the power of embracing diversity they acknowledge the impact all learners can have in creating a more peaceful just inclusive and secure world when we adopted the strategic goals the
006committee noted the goals were dynamic they could shift they could change the district would continue to review current practices and iterate as needed the themes of equity diversity and inclusivity weave their way through the goals the ethos of this district includes a deep and long commitment to creating a culture of belonging that embraces each unique learner before legislation required it we took steps to address representation and resources we created space for student voice and included community members and conversations regarding anti-bias work inclusivity cultural competence and perspective taking eight years ago we began our partnership with the mercer county consortium and dr eddie fergus to understand and address disproportionality our students participate in day of dialogue and our culture and climate teams focus on the social and emotional well-being of students in the spring of 2019
007we held the ed camp for equity and inclusivity at high school staff it included a student forum the message from the students who participated was clear we needed to step back we needed to listen we needed to hear what they were saying and we did we listened to students because of the silence in our schools about disability i've made it my mission to make the world a better place by increasing awareness about disability and shedding light on what it means to live the way i and other people with disabilities live we listen to alumni at that age you don't want to stick out so a coping mechanism a protection or shield is to bob and weave between a group of your black friends and other people or just totally stick together we listen to parents
008the media shows negative portrayals of people's dressing and our children see that and we listen to our community members all children deserve to know they belong all children deserve to feel safe this law will help ensure asian americans are represented in our great american story that's dr connie o'govern founder of make us visible new jersey and a community member what we know is that we've worked incredibly hard through the fall of 2019 and into the spring of 2020 but that it wasn't enough we knew that we needed to continue to reflect on how to make the work of equity diversity and inclusivity visible to be accountable to be transparent during the 2020 2021 school year programming curriculum revisions and professional development focused on creating more equitable and inclusive spaces and outcomes despite the pandemic with
009the support of community groups like our ptas and ptsas interfaith council make us visible we see color the jewish community relations council the african-american parent support group high tops and the west windsor plainsboro people of color advocacy we began to formalize the beginnings of a plan we were and are driven by our core understandings as educators when decision making at all levels reflects a deep commitment to equity diversity and belonging when we open the curriculum so that each student has access to rigorous learning experiences aligned to their strengths when curricular and extracurricular programs support inclusion rather than exclusion reflecting neurodiversity and physical diversity as strengths when each student is visible in terms of resources and opportunities regardless of their race sexual orientation gender gender identity ability religion socioeconomic class ethnicity and national origin we shift
010outcomes for all ultimately while diverse equity diversity and inclusivity were always part of the culture of this district creating an equity goal actualized our commitment to systemic change that lives beyond us our hope is that the strategic plan makes this work visible given the world we live in given the events of today our students deserve to walk into schools that make them feel safe seen and valued thank you sue i'd like to take the next few slides to walk you through the process that we use to go through strategic planning so as dr aderhold spoke about in the beginning and sue spoke about just now this work started long before the formalization of the equity goal with that in the winter and spring of 2021 we began to create structures so that equity isn't something
011that moves with one person throughout the district but instead finds its way into all buildings all and all departments so if you look in the winter and spring of 2021 after the goal was formalized by the board of education sue and i were named as co-chairs and we worked with central office administration to identify committee co-chairs that further created a robust a robust team with this team we collected data we crafted a draft vision of where this goal could go and we began our research excuse me the first step was discussing how to break down equity because for years we believed as we still do that equity is a part of all decisions that we make and all of our previous goals goal one two and three whole child every child global child but we
012also didn't want equity to be lost within those goals and that's why goal four stands alone as well with that we just we talked about the facets of this equity goal and decided upon board policy and practice curriculum and instruction programs and professional development as the buckets shall we say in which we will begin to tackle the enormity of equity with that we named co-chairs for each one of these committees gerard dalton and lamont thomas are our co-chairs for board policy and practice maureen cook and dr melissa pearson are co-chairs for curriculum and instruction professional development is led by barbara gould and jeff santoro and programs by paul hamnet and supreet singh those co-chairs worked with the rest of our administrative committee to draft committee goals so that we could create a vision going into
013the school year so throughout the summer we work together to create these goals for which the rest of our action plan would support if you look at these i'm not going to read these word for word just now because we're going to break them down further a little bit later in the presentation but i would like to note the verbiage that's used in each of these the first part of the statement talks about what we're going to do the second part part of the statement talks about why we want to do it so if we look at curriculum and instruction just for example we're going to critically evaluate take action and make visible and then it talks about all of the pieces and parts that we're going to make that happen like i said we'll
014discuss these a little bit later in the presentation and break them down even even further so ending with summer 2021 we walked away with those goals from each committee we met with district our district administrative team and we formed the other groups who were not directly involved in the equity goal because as an admin as a large administrative team were spread throughout all of our strategic goals we also began the idea of our stakeholder matrix it's one thing for administrators to make goals and create a vision but without the input and feedback the perspective of our students staff community members and alumni we're not going to see the full picture so with that we created our stakeholder team and structure of meetings we decided our district straight stakeholders would encompass all those i just listed
015starting with our students we have student representation from middle schools and high schools our alumni representation parent representation and we understand that parents come with not only their parental lens but also organizations that they might belong to such as we named the african-american parent support group or make us visible new jersey so they're wearing both of those hats when they come to come to our district stakeholder meetings we have two representatives from every one of our 10 buildings uh for faculty representatives as well as our administrative representatives for the purpose of our stakeholder meetings we wanted to give them the goal so that they could dive into what our equity goal is as well as the goals of each of the committees as an overview and a vision of where we're going to go and
016then we can we begin to break down the process and the purpose of strategic planning which is to create a feedback loop where we can see draft ideas of how to implement this vision taking in that feedback making modifications and accommodations and to that document and again sending it through that feedback loop so that we have an iterative iterative process to make sure everyone can see themselves in this plan we structured our meetings that we've had this year with the entire team where at the opening they beg they received an overview of the entire draft plan then they self-selected into whichever committee they felt most passionate about where the next meeting they worked to do a deep dive within that content and all of this was set up around a strategic plan template that's been
017used previously by the district where we look at strategies and act and actions that support each one of those committee goals so now as we're coming to a close of this school year over the past two semesters we've met regularly with central office administration to make sure they're kept in the loop of what all of our in-between meetings are because the stakeholder meetings have met three times well we'll meet three times throughout the year in between those building teams are meeting with their building equity teams in our supervisory team our meeting to to look at curriculum and instruction and we need to make sure that all of that is transparent information we've done a gap analysis on our feedback loop to find out whose voices are we missing to make sure that we then reach
018out to ensure that those voices are heard and from that process we have created our equity strategic plan thank you jessica during the creation of the action plan each committee met a number of times in order to create a comprehensive and dynamic plan the action plan for each committee is organized as jessica mentioned into two parts we have the strategy and we also have activities to support those strategies the first committee i'd like to share with you a little bit more about is the board policy and practices committee so for the purpose of this committee it was under the leadership of gerard dalton principal of millstone river school and lamont thomas the principal of grover middle school they took a look at and really wanted to consider both policies and practices and in thinking about
019policies they define those as the board policies or regulations that are adopted that districts must follow and then thinking about practices as ways in which policies are interpreted and everyday experiences and everyday procedures that are in place for our students so here are the committee members that participated in the process of creating and providing feedback on the action plan as i mentioned the two committee chairs gerard dalton lamont thomas and then we had representation from the administrative team alumni community members parents students and teachers as the committee met they discussed the specific goal that they wanted to implement in the goal reads as such policies and procedures will reflect directly and indirectly equity-based principles and demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity fostering belonging and equitable outcomes for each student as i mentioned the actual action plan
020here is an example of that is organized into both strategies and activities to support those strategies and you'll notice that some strategies have one activity and others might have a number of different activities that support that specific strategy although the action plan hasn't completely been adopted yet the equity diversity and inclusivity work as mentioned before started long ago and has continued through this process and here is one example of how this work might look that has been adopted by high school south so this was an activity from the strategy that high school south students as part of the culture and climate team which is comprised of students and staff members created a student-made handbook to be shared with faculty that gave numerous topics that students wanted teachers to know about and specifically focused on creating
021a positive school community and school culture and ways in which teachers and staff members could do that and so this was one way that is an example of a practice that students had a pardon and a voice in in which they were able to really impact the culture itself another strategy that was included in the policy and practices action plan is to recommend appropriate professional development for administration staff and community and one activity that would support that would be to develop and and add equity conversations in all staff meetings and here's an example of anthony jones the district coordinator of diversity equity and inclusivity leading a professional development experience for teachers where they were examining the equity goal and cons and dissecting it in order to identify its parts their own perspectives that they bring
022into the work and how they are involved in moving the work forward similarly the professional development committee met frequently to revise and to create a goal and an action plan to support that goal the co-chairs of that committee were jeff santoro as mentioned earlier and myself we also had committee members from representation from the board of education parents teachers other administrators in the district students and other staff members after much discussion and feedback the professional development committee adopted the following goal to provide targeted and differentiated and responsive professional development to ensure that each student staff and community member are welcomed valued respected and celebrated the professional development committee organized its activities and strategies similarly to the other committees and but they felt that it was really important to think about the strategies in three buckets
023the first bucket would be providing professional development that was targeted to all staff members these professional development experiences would be consistent across the district for all staff pre-k through 12. and as mentioned earlier you know the work has already started so for example this year we had numerous faculty meetings that were designed by the equity team that were then staff members and were engaged in those throughout all 10 buildings and had consistent and common experiences so that was the first bucket to provide professional development that was targeted to all states to all staff members the second bucket would focus on professional development for groups of staff members so an example of that would be grade level teams this year met and discussed ways in which they could utilize more inclusive texts in all classrooms and
024utilize those to support their curriculum and then the third bucket would focus on differentiated professional development that would really address the needs of individual staff members because as we know you know in doing this work everyone's journey with diversity equity and inclusivity looks differently and providing choice to staff members and really meeting them where they are on their journey helps to support moving the work forward as seen on this slide and mentioned one of the strategies was of the professional development committee that was included in their action plan was to provide targeted pd for specific groups and one activity to support that would be to engage administration in ongoing professional development and here is an example of our administrative team meeting around and thinking about belief work related to the equity goal and working in
025collaboration and partnership to dissect the goal and to think about how it impacts their line of work another strategy that was included in the professional development action plan was to leverage staff and community partnerships in order to promote and deepen belief work around inclusivity and an example of that would be to utilize community input and student voice in designing professional development and here's a great example of how that work has already been realized and has been ongoing this is a partnership between janet hogg she's the executive director of national alliance on mental illness and you can see janet here presenting a webinar with our student assistance counselor from high school south and a high school south uh student and together they're talking about mental health and how it relates to equity and this particular webinar
026was then shared with the entire high school south community of students and staff members and now i'll turn it over to sue to talk a little bit about curriculum and instruction so the curriculum and instruction committee is led by dr melissa pearson who was actually hooded this past weekend at the university of pennsylvania congratulations to her and maureen cook miss maureen cook the assistant principal at wycoff and includes students community members administrators teachers and dr nathan our assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction sits on this team like the professional development committee the curriculum instruction committee also took three buckets to look at this goal their goal is to critically evaluate take action to ensure and make visible curriculum resources pedagogy and practices that create equitable and inclusive learning spaces for each student when we're talking
027about pedagogy we're talking about those choices that a teacher makes both within the planning of instruction the assessment and the actual teaching just one of the many activities that the cni team has worked to implement is the identification of student materials that represent and affirm the diverse identities of our student population while also providing opportunities to explore and represent perspectives beyond their own experiences let me make clear as always with any text that we choose for language arts kindergarten through 12th grade the goal is to teach the skills knowledge and dispositions represented in the new jersey learning standards for example a fifth grade standard notes students will compare contrast and reflect on the treatment of similar themes topics and patterns of events in stories myths and traditional literature from different cultures the text we choose
028to address these standards allows students to see themselves and each other they provide windows and mirrors perspective taking is a critical life skill in combating hate and bias [Music] one example that we wanted to share with you was the proudest blue this is a text that was adopted at the elementary level and it is a beautiful book about a young girl and she is starting to wear her hijab she is so and why my son would be calling me because he knows what i'm doing she is so incredibly proud in this book of wearing her hijab we had a parent contact us to let us know the impact that this text had on her daughter it was the first time she had seen herself represented in that way in a text that is what we
029want to happen we want for all of our students to see themselves represented in the texts that are in front of them their families their social identities all of them in addition the plan specifically includes an iterative review of instructional programming to remove barriers and disrupt inequities using student data we continue to make sure instructional practices support equitable access and outcomes in thinking about the shifts in mathematics programming that dr pearson was a major part of with andrea bean the we are already seeing a correlation to increase access and outcomes in regards to gender this is the type of thing that an equity plan does it allows you to put systems and structures in space in place so that all of our students have access to what it is they need in addition to that
030specific programming for our students is also addressed through the physical spaces as evidenced by the students here it's looking at what it is we can do differently it's growing and changing and learning it is not something that once we adopt this plan we'll be done doing that's something that we know very well but we also know that we are incredibly committed to continuing to learn through this process there's also an emphasis on the aforementioned goal of communicating curriculum updates that address the equity goal including highlighting inclusive practices involved in teaching and learning and these are some of the things that we'll do through our professional development through our staff meetings and so on and the fourth committee is programs our co-chairs for this committee were mr paul hamnet and ms sukrik singh both assistant principals
031at community middle school you can see we had administrators parent and community members and teachers on this committee i would like to take note that there is not a student well there was but that student has self-selected to another committee because of a passion and an interest and so we wanted to honor that and because we were already in the middle of the work it just so happened and i i didn't want you to have a question about why there wasn't a student listed there there'll be plenty of space in the the next steps where we'll have lots of opportunities for student voice so the goal for programs programs including but not limited to curricular and extracurricular activities events initiatives and athletics will reflect the needs and interests of our community in order to create
032equitable and inclusive opportunities for each student what we found when discussing programs is it became very fluid because of that curricular and extracurricular aspect so this goal was written in order to encompass what could be in the future and what has happened over the past couple of years as as we have made a lot of implementations thanks to our technology over the past couple of years so as we dig a little deeper we'll hope to reflect that in our strategies and activities so one strategy i would like to highlight is develop partnerships between schools and community organizations members and alumni with the creation of our coordinator of diversity equity and inclusivity position which mr anthony jones stepped into two years ago now we have found that the connection to our alumni to our alumni and
033any organization then that they are a part of has been incredibly strengthened what we want to make sure of with this activity listed here which is create a process to support community outreach is that that type of connection doesn't come just with the person who's making the connection what we've also seen in the west windsor plainsboro regional school district is we've seen movement from one building to another when an administrative role specifically comes open administrators move from building to building from building administration into a supervisory role or from a supervisory or a building administrative role into central office we want to ensure that relationships with our community aren't based on that person but have a structure to function even when people change positions so that we don't lose connections when people change so we're grateful
034that the coordinator position exists and through that position along with our building equity teams will continue to create a process to support that outreach part of what you'll see here in this picture is an example on the left side that is our avid class which is at both high schools this is just one example from high school south where connections with mr jones and the avid elective teachers brought in alumni to speak to our current students on this page a lot of our strategies talk about athletics clubs and activities and our activities then talk about some reflective practices to get some baseline data especially after returning from a pandemic where the majority of our student population was virtual for a year and a half we really need to set our baseline of what our involvement
035looks like so that then we can set clear goals into how to build our involvement and build our offerings so that we fully unders but first we must fully understand what our students and what our community want and are interested in some examples of this on the top right we have our one of our esports teams esports were created a couple of years ago and sanctioned by njsia and on our lower right we have our unified softball team and i s excuse me united softball team we have three united athletic opportunities for our students between football cheerleading and softball because participation numbers were low in both schools we came together to continue to provide opportunities for our students in those interested areas so once again we'll get that baseline data in order to ensure that
036we're still providing opportunities that you know that we currently have as well as possibly providing new opportunities so that concludes the outlines of our structures and our excuse me our strategies and activities within those four committees now what that's always the next question right what are the next steps so after this evening tomorrow night we'll be meeting with our entire stakeholder team for the final time to celebrate the equity work within the district as well as we'll complete a prioritization matrix with our stakeholder team and then we'll do that with our with our district administrative team as well that will give us an idea of where we need to start within this entire plan we'll launch action committees that will look to like i had referenced earlier about other opportunities to become involved because although
037that large stakeholder team doesn't necessarily come together because now we'll know when and where to start and then we'll ask for help volunteers and feedback within those specific areas and places and of course over this entire next step process we need to plan for prog progress monitoring who will be in charge of that what will that look like how often will that happen so those will be our next steps i'm going to turn it back over to sue to tarot to close us out this evening again i think we've learned as a country that words matter increasingly we find ourselves in a world that negates and diminishes the undeniable right of our students to be seen as the unique and extraordinary individuals they are thank you for supporting us in creating a strategic plan that
038unapologetic acknowledges each individual's intrinsic worth through the goals outlined tonight to celebrate their identities to recognize their gifts and include their stories we truly appreciate the time that you gave us to do this tonight thank you all right thank you all so much for that presentation are there any questions from the word sure i know you've made a lot of changes in curriculum and normally when we change curriculum there's a normal follow-up and review process amongst the faculty who taught the new curriculum i ass can i assume that that's going to happen with all the curriculum changes you made as well absolutely we're following the same processes for curriculum as we always have dr nathan would be able to speak to that even more [Music] i know this is a job that is never done
039okay but if i was to say from like here to here like how far do you guys feel we are because it was a little i mean you had examples of things and examples of strategies but i didn't quite grasp like there's 100 things on the list we've done 72 there's 100 things on the list we've done 12. like like where are we so this is the draft of the strategic plan the thing that's a little bit different i believe and you know my co-people over here can add in is that when we're looking at the work we can't say we did it check we're done so we're it's an iterative process um strategic planning is always dynamic it's never they say do the five-year plan and you're done that's just not how it works
040dr aderhold can speak to that in terms of the the goals that we already had so how far are we in some things we've done some things that that we are extraordinarily proud of but do we have a lot of work to do absolutely and what i think will happen is as we get that work done there'll be more to do so for us the real goal of this plan is to create the systems and the structures that perpetuate the iterative process that continue to ask us to reflect change course if needed celebrate and tackle the next problem first of all i just want to say thank you very much for this presentation and i'm just amazed by the amount of work that's been taken you know undertaken already over the past couple of years
041and it's such important work for everyone in our community um when i think of the de i type of approach i always think about what you said the sense of belonging and making sure that we feel connected and safe and as part of a community my question had to do really with the engagement of the community and i noted that you had mentioned that you're going to be launching some action committees i think it was so how how is that going that process going to unfold and how would people get involved if they wanted to so the next step will really be that prioritization matrix and that'll tell you kind of to a little bit of where do we begin our next steps of course it'll be continuation but when for example barbara used the
042student handbook that was the student-made hand teacher handbook excuse me one of the strategies and activities will be looking at our student handbooks right that come out of policy but then the practices of how we interpret those handbooks that could then have an action plan of getting student input at each of the secondary building levels where there are student handbooks and then coming together to present that to the board so it'll look really closely at what is the prioritization matrix where are we going to begin and then who is most fitting for those action those action committees right to make sure that we have student voice represented um and then then parent and community input as well i can't say that we would use the exact same process for everyone because of the where the
043student voice would be most necessary um that's what we're really going to look for first um but we'll because of that progress monitoring we'll always be asking ourselves whose perspective are we missing are we missing a perspective and how do we circle back for that feedback loop to make sure we're catching that if we if we didn't miss it the first time that we're catching it that's the second time around and of course we're going to ask the people who are on that committee who needs to be here who's not at the table i just want to also add that i noted that you know there's mention of athletics and the different types of ways that you're trying to support children's interest in the different sports when there aren't enough members to feel the team
044and i think that's a great great valuable direction to go through to help you know give an outlet beyond just academics or certain kinds of extracurriculars so i think that's a thank you for including that as well thank you any other questions yes first thank you for that presentation it's clear that uh you've been well organized and um that you i'm glad that you recognized that in order to have a strong strategic planning you like incorporate you're incorporating that feedback loop for that iterative process that that you mentioned um one thing i thought was really creative that you mentioned was that example of the student made teacher handbook at high school south so i just wanted to clarify was that already rolled out and if so do you have any details about how it was
045implemented and any feedback you've already received so that was created several years ago prior to the board adopting the goal and all of that how it has been implemented this year specifically that that i will speak to since this is my first year at high school south we have one of our assistant principals ms emily kreveling she works with our new teachers and we meet with the new teachers to high school south we call it the meeting of the first and we meet with them regularly on the first of everything first day first month things like that to keep a cohort together um through a couple of those meetings she used that handbook to drive the conversation to dig in let them see a little bit more of our student population what our students think
046is important for our staff to know so that's one way we've used that handbook and had it implemented this year with staff new to high school south if i could build on that um i think it's important just i think that's a good example of the to show that the work's been ongoing that predates the equity goal so if we go back to the uh 1516 school year right that 1516 school year is the year in which we had a lot of big public conversations about at the time a e mathematics we were talking about social emotional learning i had written a letter to the community in october of uh 15 uh that generated some conversation um and and and through that there was a lot of work that had happened really quite frankly in
047the 13-14 school year the 14-15 school year forward out of that work we then started um having a dialogue conversations as a county and our culture and climate teams through dr mcdonald as their director of counseling health and safety at the time leading some of that work with our culture and climate teams and so one of the counselors at south working with the cohort of students on those culture and climate teams then through identified specific issues that the students wanted to talk about and the the way in which that they best felt that they could communicate something to the staff was to create a handbook something that the staff could hear from student voice and over a period of two years really two school years they generated that and then ultimately funded to publish work
048to publish the handbook for students so it's not just up online that every staff member actually got a spiral bound student handbook as well so i'm a real powerful way to include student voice and educating our staff around issues that were relevant to our to our students from our students written by our students thank you for the response with that background and history it's clear that you value continuous improvement thanks danis okay um i wanted to also say thank you for all the work that you've done over the last at least two years now helping everyone understand different perspectives and um i think it's really important that we put that we we all learned that this is um a path we're trying to put students families on a path to lifelong learning appreciation of other
049cultures and perspectives and this is um you know this is a really important goal and should be a goal for every you know every district i hope because education is the key develop to breaking down stereotypes and making sure that people um understand each other um and i just just to comment because um i noticed a more self you know sort of focus and you know um um i'm you know my children went to north or still go to north so i just wanted to make sure that there's some you know thinking about things on both sides of you know both high schools and both um programs but again i want to thank you all and um thank anthony in his absence for um although you know his absence tonight um for all of his
050work with um with your committee one of the things and then barb wants to share a little bit about the the handbook at high school north and the work that they're doing there but one of the things that we were very intentional in doing was creating opportunities for the building leads all of the teacher leaders we have 20 of them two for each of the buildings meet with jessica anthony and i and barb when she can be there to talk about what's happening in their buildings because one of the things that we heard part of that feedback loop was that we need to see some consistency in what's happening at the same time we also heard each building has a culture each building reflects the students and the teachers in the community that are there
051so we can't move lockstep together so creating that opportunity for the teacher leads to come together bounce ideas off of each other share with each other and they are they are taking risks walking into some of these conversations we're supporting them this summer with professional development it to around having difficult conversations that's going to help to continue to create some consistency in practice that still reflects the culture of the building and sometimes a school might pilot a particular idea such as the student handbook that was created so south piloted that through the leadership of their student assistance counselor but north is in in the planning stages of creating their own handbook so they also are going through a process and utilizing student voice to do that through their culture and climate team it's taking a
052little bit longer because the students have many things they want to say so they're trying to narrow down some of the topics and really consider the feedback from the students before proceeding to writing the handbook so sometimes it happens at one school and maybe it was highlighted that way here but you know another school might take it on the following year or the year after that okay any other questions board members so i i actually just wanted to say thank you to to all of you for all this work i mean i i've it's been actually a pleasure and a privilege to be part of those stakeholder meetings uh just seeing how much collaboration how many people are involved how much collaboration there is how much thought and work has gone into all those meetings
053and how you came up with all of these different groups and and the different strategies and activities it has been really impressive to see how that all came together i did want to just ask just to ask and follow up on the next steps so as far as what the board can expect to see i know we were talking about the four different uh uh groupings and then you had the strategies and activities and what we saw and on the screen of average just the sampling of how much there is so our we're we can expect to see like the completed work at some point and then at that point we'll we'll get a good picture of everything that's been done and then what at some point will need to be prioritized correct absolutely dr
054aderhold do you want to speak to that i can so um thank you so so it's it's a great question so i mean the the next step is yeah thank you sir we we we know we have to one the we have another stakeholder meeting tomorrow in this room um so there'll be some sharing of of the works that's happened and then there'll be an opportunity for the building-based teams to also showcase some of some of their some of the work that that they want to um then we're going to have to go through the prioritization matrix that jessica and sue and barbara spoke about and and that's um no different than something that we would do if we did a program review right so we do a program review um and then you get
055external feedback internal feedback and then you get all these plans and then you have to do some kind of implementation plan then right and so in some kind of prioritization it's a little bit different in strategic planning work because there's not an external uh consultant so to speak in this but there are four different buckets to look at and inevitably across 10 buildings and a district that don't necessarily all have staffing or funding or professional development training so it's one thing to write about doing training it's another thing to fund it and staff it and then to figure out like who can go to what workshops and actually which buildings are at which level and with every strategic plan goal that we've seen is yeah you have a plan and then you go to implement
056it and those that wrote it aren't necessarily always the implementers and the implementers get to it and start saying wait a second we're not at the same place here at all the three k at the 4k pre-k 2 k k3 k2 schools right we need to look at this and go okay and then three five and four five we have to look at this and say okay now how do we actually do this and then do how do we differentiate training so there's a whole iterative process that we're going to need to go through over the next couple of weeks and weeks and months well through the summer till we get to the implementation what we know is this will be a huge part of our administrative retreat in august it'll be a component of
057our opening faculty meetings it will be a component of our rollout with our new teacher orientations um and and then we'll just keep building one of the things that we do to stay connected is every month we have um our four strategic goal chairs meeting with central office administration and what we call a cross-pollinator team so a couple administrators that are in different roles throughout the district um our director of special education our director of technology elementary representation middle school representation high school representation come together to sort of review and talk through strategic next steps and so we build and plan professional development opportunities there we plan the rollout and the training of that professional development and we plan out um essentially we planned a year process but anyone who knows anything about planning something
058in a school district for a year knows the you can probably get three to four months out and then you have to pause and reevaluate like january had to look different because the omnichrome surge right we had we we were we had to look complete everything had to change and that we had to re-evaluate and pause and then but but you get a sense like so there's certain systemic trainings that will go out and then there's certain things that will be prioritized and individualized so the board will hear this feedback most likely through future presentations but also at the committee level and you'll hire about it in pockets like when we talk about athletics and in opportunity there's at least one other sport that we're looking at for a united program right now so you'll
059hear about that in a board resolution that's going to be separated apart from an equity presentation but we know that we're you know but it speaks to equity and access and opportunity so it will show itself in different ways long answer for an easier question sorry no no thank you thank you for that doctor all right thank you again so much for the presentation really appreciate it thank you yeah well if i could just say i mean uh to to barbara and to anthony who's not here tonight but soon jessica in particular and the and then the leadership team that's behind it all those individuals working on it there's been so many meetings i mean it's just above and beyond um their commitment to their their existing roles and all the work that they're doing
060um if i think about just like the last week we've had our our goal uh lead meetings we've had our two committee presentations we've had a pta ptsa presentation we have all the planning to be prepared for all the meetings and the presentations we had the presentation tonight and a presentation tomorrow no less than seven meetings that i can think of that soon so jessica in particular and barbara were at to be prepared for not only tonight but the last week it's just a tremendous culmination of so much work i can't thank you both enough and barbara for all the work that you've done and then all those that are on the committees or co-chairs an area we didn't speak about tonight but i think is really important just to recognize is but besides all
061this other work there's a whole staffing element and charity's been leading that work with with um cj pride at the state level but for within the county level but also in wwp the last two years we've done presentations in october november time period where charities talked about our staffing ratios and the concerted efforts we're making about our hiring practices and whatnot so the the equity work is very much alive in wwp our strategic goals are very much alive in wwp so something i think we're doing really well but very different in other places through the pandemic we've found a way to accelerate and put a more intentional focus on on our goals and on our work and we haven't just said they're complete they're up on the website they're they're very much um actively part
062of all of our conversations so that's a credit to our leadership and all the thought that's done throughout our our leadership ranks and i thank the team for that thank you doctor at home right so we're now going to move to the first opportunity for public 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 three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six seven all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes are there any public comments come on [Music] um hi uh i'm zanzadi i'm a sophomore at high
063school south and i'm the vice president of high school south's muslim student association [Music] hi my name is sarah romani i'm a senior at high school south and i'm the president of the muslim student association at south hi my name is summer ramani and i'm a sophomore at high school south and i am the secretary of south's muslim student association um so i wanted to start by um talking about eid um i know for a fact that this is a topic that's come up at uh one of these meetings before um so on may 2nd which was our eid um i went to school i had a geometry test first period i took that test i had to leave uh to go say my eat prayers which is a yearly thing and then i had
064to come back to school because i had a chemistry test as well i miss hanos at the attendance office asked me while i was leaving and then coming back and it was because we didn't have off um and so it was an inconvenience to say the least on a day that shouldn't have been so inconvenient it is a day for muslims which is a large and growing community in our district to have a day where they um get to spend time with their family um we did have off however that was on may 3rd uh not my second um so it was the wrong day and um i was speaking with mr jones um at an event that we had at our local mosque um and it turns out that the district hadn't recognized eid
065um at all um which was appalling uh because again of our growing and large muslim community at all schools throughout the district so to get to the point i on behalf of the muslim student association as well as the muslim community at high school south are requesting to have off on a on eid which is albeit a changing holiday it's changing in nature because we follow the lunar calendar however i feel as though those dates are summed up pretty well on a google search um well before and i feel as though some flexibility as well as some recognition for a large muslim community in the district would be greatly appreciated and would match up well with our goal for plan for the district thank you any other public comments my name is edward simon cruz
066address 5 sullivan street plainsboro in april 2020 about a month into the lockdown there was talk about a racist incident that was occurred that occurred on social media may 2020 george floyd gets killed june racial justice protests emerge across the country and our country has the most intense conversations on on systemic racism that it's had in well years if not decades and all of that all of that work has intensified the work that we've already been doing in this district surrounding equity and i wanted to recognize that the work that missing kata and mr terrell mentioned people like mr jones who are who in his in his two years here has been a great inspiration to people like me both at both from my perspective as a student and from my perspective as initially a
067member and now as one of the main chairs of the wwp poc advocacy and looking at the work of the of the equity team and of this of the schools around the district things like the student-made teacher handbook the the equity week itself the revisions to social studies curriculum the inclusion of of texts that better represent the perspectives that that are integral to and but have long been excluded from our teachings of american history all of those have been an inspiration and a reminder that as multiple people here have pointed out tonight both sitting behind me and in front of me that this work is ongoing it's not going to stop it cannot stop and it's not going to stop and looking at looking at all of this from my role as a student i
068have i have faith that what i'm going to say will will come to fruition but the reminder is still worth giving that as we move into these next steps which are somewhat broadly defined at the moment but that i trust will become more concrete over the summer over the next few months as we as the equity team starts drafting up it's prior excuse me it starts drafting up its action committees i i believe that it i believe that the role of students should be prioritized in all of this and i i believe that everyone that here likely already agrees with this i and i'm not saying this to chastise anyone i'm saying this because i know that there's much that we agree on and i know that this that this work again will continue it's
069but it's best if that work continues together because as martin luther king jr said you know the arc the moral arc of the universe will bend toward justice but it will bend toward justice if we work to make sure it does thank you any other comments hi my name is kathleen moriarty i live at aytonton court in west windsor i do represent the special education ptsa as a president but i am speaking on my own beliefs as well as some of the experiences as being president and involved with the ptsa for over a decade um this is wonderful dei should always have been a part of the goals of the district um but let's not forget that equity and inclusion is sometimes required by law and the special education our special needs families are quite
070aware of that and i think the school is as well through the special services regulation and policies that need to be followed we were a little bit confused when we saw the presentation because we uh we saw that some ptsas were involved aapsg other groups uh that were usually involved with um but we were not contacted to even give any feedback we hope we will be included in the future but we think we could have provided some really valuable comments less broad very defined because we're going through this right now we go through it all the time our program review reflects a lot of those issues and needs that we have a lot of it underpinning and related to dei so we're hoping again that we'll be a part of it we are very concerned
071that us not being a part of it may have prevented a or at least had a reconsideration of the proposal that was provided at the end to the board at the end of march we believe that if dei was also infused in that overall discussion that perhaps least restrictive environment which is a law and a rule would be something that would have been considered and we would have had less uh controversy over a proposal that many families were wondering how how was this being proposed because it did appear in conflict with dei so like a program review we hope that the implementation phase may include community members and a ptsa that has been here for a very long time to to be able to provide some very concrete um and very detailed goals um and
072we hope that we hope that the work will continue and will improve thank you thank you any other public comments okay so with that we'll close the first opportunity for public comments uh dr hadhold well just to our four students thank you for being here this evening thank you for your presentation and for making public comment um with respect to eid i appreciate the comments and we became aware of the conflict too late to do anything about it so i appreciate your comments tonight um as gentlemen said um eid um can shift on the lunar calendar and so when we set the board calendar two years in advance at the time the department of education uh date was tuesday uh may 3rd but as you know two years later um so we're going to have
073to look at our process um you know because there was an intentionality to honor eid in the building of the calendar and if i remember correctly that's the first year that eid was represented in on our district calendar but again the calendar the date which can shift and the department it's not the department of ed it's new jersey department it's at the state level mark correct that issues it the new jersey department of education actually publishes a list of uh recognized religious holidays for all religions and couldn't remember which agency okay they set the master calendars uh for lack of a better term and in the master calendar doesn't mean that you have to provide all those dates off but they set the like a a date so that there's um agreement and commonality of
074the dates right and so on the the published list for that year they then issued a revi of revision in like li and sometime in april and it became too late on our board agenda timeline because a school calendar can only be modified by the board of education so um unfortunately the date was incorrect and that's that's there was no there's no mal intent and i hope the students understand that but going forward we're going to have to continually look back at the calendar to look at that made that may date now one of the things we'll also just be mindful of is um the set district testing calendar that doesn't trump eat but we'll have to be mindful of how that runs runs into some of it some of the just logistics of the
075mechanism of the district now remember you can't necessarily set a calendar based on any particular holiday you can based on staffing considerations um and so you know again um the the comment is well as well received and well taken and just something that we're going to have to be mindful of his board of education so thank you thank you okay we're now going to move to uh committee reports we'll have the administration and facilities committee report first dana hello good evening um the admin and facilities committee met on may 16th is this working yes members of the diversity equity and inclusivity team met with the committee to get feedback on a strategic plan draft a follow-up presentation will be made at the today at the may 24th board of education meeting the district is also
076celebrating celebrating asian american and pacific islander heritage and jewish american heritage month throughout the month of may with various activities and events next the committee discussed several policies that we recommend for our first reading at tonight's from tonight's meeting for tonight's meeting they are p1 1 sorry p1122 benefits covering non-affiliated administrative employees um another one called title 1 district district-wide parent and family engagement another title 1 school parent and family engagement student intervention and referral services maintenance and repair facilities maintenance repair scheduling and accounting and use of school facilities we also reviewed several other policies and regulations and recommend them for second reading and approval at tonight's meeting that is one on high school graduation anti-hazing bias crimes and bias related acts bias and then the regulation for bias crimes and bias-related acts the committee
077also recommended a review of the regulation for use of school facilities which was the covet addendum r 7510.01 and we recommend its abolishment at tonight's meeting committee reviewed the contract for the 2022-2023 contract for the advancement via individual determination the avid program which is offered at both high school north and south which is actually referenced on your presentation earlier tonight um the district will be issuing a request for quote an rfq to secure a school physician for the 2022-2023 school year as the current physician is retiring and the committee recognizes and thanks dr jerry raymond for his many years of service to the district dr mcdonald provided a photographic tour of the construction progress at high school south and high school north community middle school and white golf elementary school highlights included the dance studios
078at both high schools a renovated band room and new science classrooms at cms and new kindergarten classrooms and music room at white golf registration for fall high school sports is now open both high school north and south recently honored college-bound student athletes from the class of 2022 with a signing day ceremony the district continues to update outdated language and current job descriptions and the committee reviewed descriptions for for many positions many positions and um i will not repeat all of them because it's a lot and um we recommend that um and we spent a great time looking at them um the committee recommends the revised job descriptions um for tonight's meeting and we will next meet on may on june 7th thank you thank you dana are there any questions from board members okay okay
079we'll have the curricular curriculum committee report next from puja [Music] good evening the curriculum committee met on may 17th to discuss six agenda items the first item we the committee previewed the draft equity strategic goal presentation sutotaro jessica cincotta and barbara gould presented it at the beginning of our meeting and questions and feedback were provided to the team by the committee members the second agenda item the committee recommends approval to authorize the third year of a five-year agreement with educational services commission of new jersey to provide administration of non-public funds for non-public students sorry for non-public school students within the district in accordance with the state board of education guidelines as required the third item on the agenda for the third item on the agenda the committee recommended approval of the recommends approval of the
080text of textbook adoptions for four courses for forensic sciences the book forensic science third edition fundamentals and investigations for physics honors college physics a strategic approach for physics experience physics for geometry reveal geometry the fourth item uh the committee reviewed we recommended approval for the disposal of instructional materials in accordance with r 7300.1 at maurice hawk dutch neck millstone river town center village school wyckoff the fifth item that the committee recommends approval for is a professional development item where we recommend one ap literature teacher to attend an apsi at northwestern university virtually and one high school robotics teacher to attend carnegie mellon robotics academy training in pittsburgh the final item that we discussed and recommend approval for involves technology contracts one technology contract was for the annual service renewal with intrado interactive services corporation to
081provide school messenger web hosting services and other services one contract was to renew an agreement with my vr spot for cable station closed captioning services for the 2022 for the 22-23 school year one contract was to approve a one-year agreement with genesis educational services to provide system maintenance and other services another was to approve a one-year agreement with gaggle safety management for google to provide alert monitoring software another one was to approve a one-year agreement with ems link inc to provide registration gateway premium platform for student registration and one was to for a one year agreement with raptor technologies to provide eyes on the door software and support and the last contract was a renewal of an annual contract with millennium communications for genotech for building door and other services thank you any questions from
082board members okay our last committee report will be from the finance committee okay the finance committee met on tuesday may 17th the committee reviewed the monthly financial reports along with agenda items for today's meeting this included the 2223 professional service rate renewals the transfer of capital project interest income petty cash fund amounts disposal of some old equipment and the use of cooperative pricing for refinishing gym floors and several travel requests the agenda also includes the request for approval to use state contract vendors and participate in joint purchasing agreements cooperative purchasing agreements and shared services agreements for the next school year next staff shared information regarding referendum projects bids are prepared to be advertised for phase one of the media center renovations which includes dutch neck and millstone river for high school north and millstone river
083hvac project the equipment is being commissioned staff trained and we are working on the punch list work on the high school north dance studio is all but complete however the installation of the most important part of the dance studio the floor is delayed due to delay in the rooftop hvac unit delivery the floor cannot be installed until the room's air conditioned is properly for installation the documents the documents for the high school north culinary arts lab and media center are being prepared and scheduled for bid at the end of this school year at south both wings are at substantial completion and work is underway on the punch list the last furniture delivery has been made and final touches on any outstanding work is being completed in the block a edition in block b final code
084inspections are complete security camera installation is coming to completion and there are a few punch list items being addressed at community the band and practice room lights have been installed and fire alarm installation is occurring in addition acoustic wall panels were installed hvac ductwork installations being finalized and vinyl composite tile flooring is being installed in the workshop engineering rooms and the science labs the floors have been saw cut masonry has been removed and the required plumbing and electric have been installed once the area is inspected the concrete will be poured for the flooring at wyckoff masons are erecting the block walls plumbers are installing roof drains and ventilation stacks and electricians are installing conduit for the new electrical service staff updated the committee on the energy savings improvement program at community the gas sub meters
085for the expansion part of the building still need to be installed the sub meters are needed for the energy rebates controllers for the additional hvac approved last month have been ordered the chiller at town center is running with control and balancing work starting the new hvac equipment for the dutch neck office has been installed and is running staff also updated the committee on the food service program for april the program averaged 5 900 lunches per day and 520 breakfasts per day the committee discussed lunch prices which must be increased this year due to inflation and cost increases wwp meal prices are below the other districts in the county it was determined that the lesser increase would be requested for approval the proposed lunch prices for the 22-23 year are included on the board meeting agenda
086for transportation several routes went out to bid some came in at higher than expected amounts and the district is taking price increases into consideration and looking into different pricing options staff provided a health and safety update coveted cases are rising in our community the district has been in consultation with local and county health officials and at this time they are not recommending mandatory masking administration continues to monitor this situation regarding the 2223 budget the committee discussed potential stressors on the approved budget mostly due to inflation and gas price increases there was no other business discussed the count media's next meeting on tuesday june 7. thank you louisa any questions from board members okay all right we're now gonna move to the voting portion of our meeting can i have a motion for administration items one
087through ten dana and liz any questions or comments chris okay we'll start with miss bonso yes mr channier yes mrs toe uh yes but i'm abstaining on number four okay number four miss krug yes miss maliga she not here oh true statement thank you very much next we have miss shetty yes mizovich yes uh mr mckeon uh yes but abstaining from number one number one okay and miss juliana yes okay okay can i have a motion on curriculum items one through four uh pooja and graylin any questions or comments chris okay all right we'll start with we'll start with miss chenier yes miss ho yes mr crew yes miss shetty yes yes ms bonsal yes chris mcewan yes ms juliana yes hey can i have a motion on finance items 1 through 21 plus the
088blue addendum louisa and schweitha any questions or comments chris okay we'll start with miss ho yes ms cru yes mr shetty yes yes mr sponsor yes that's janier yeah mrs mcewan yes ms juliana yes can i have a motion for personnel items one through four plus the green and pink addenda we have uh robin and dana any questions or comments okay chris okay we'll start with ms krug yes miss shetty yes mizovich yes mr sponsor yes christian yes miss ho yes mr kewan yes miss juliana yes and on our personnel event we just voted on a retirement so the retirement of janice elliott she's a special education teacher retiring after 20 years in the district so we want to thank her for all of your years to our district and our students and we wish
089you very well on your retirement so thank you very much okay now move to approval of our minutes can i have a motion to approve the minutes for our april 26 closed session and our may 10th meeting um liz and pooja all in favor say aye aye any abstentions any board liaison reports uh i have one hi good evening everyone the wwp education foundation board met on monday may 16th among the topics of discussion was the star campaign to honor teachers and staff across the district it has so far raised over 12 thousand dollars the star campaign does continue to accept requests through june 10th and certificates will be given to recipients by june 15th the youth committee hosted a successful alumni panel event they received lots of positive feedback including how well organized it
090was and how much guidance was shared the youth committee has also been busy with other fundraisers their most recent restaurant of the month was halal guys they also ran a campaign to benefit ukrainian children which is still open for contributions all proceeds go directly to the save a child charity organization last but not least the ward discussed the upcoming virtual innovation fair and wwp's got talent show on june 4th so far 12 presenters are confirmed and include frank o'brien from nasa the rutgers museum singapore math code ninjas maker ambassadors scouts fll our first lego league princeton acs or american chemical society and girls in coding the cost is only five dollars per family of course the education foundation gladly accepts additional donations if you so desire the next meeting is scheduled for wednesday june 8th
091thank you greenland any other liaison reports it may not necessarily be liaison but um yesterday i had attended the national honor society induction ceremony at high school south and i just wanted to say that it was really a wonderful ceremony and so well organized and it just gave the opportunity for parents who are not so familiar with such ceremonies and the significance and i think it was a very special way to recognize the students for all their hard work so very much thank you to the high school cell thanks liz any other liaison reports okay any new business okay that takes us to the second 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 and address prior to
092making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes are there any public comments okay right seeing none i'm going to close the second opportunity for public comment we will now need to recess back into oh sure just want to make a couple real brief comments one i want to recognize emily creveling on the agenda this evening she was just named the supervisor language arts in replacing kathy riley who's retiring from the district after 10 years of service emily currently is the assistant principal at high school south before coming to us at south she was an instructional coach she was a language arts teacher she was a supervisor
093of english she was an assistant principal of language arts so she comes to us with a great background in language arts and she's very excited to move to this new capacity what that does do though is we did post an anticipated assistant principal for high school south on friday um so jessica will have the opportunity to select a new assistant principal um so we'll have yet another vacancy at the administrative level um i also wanted to just remind everyone that the june 7th on the original published list of board dates it was june 7th that happens to be the same day as the public elections for the primary so we did change the board date to june 14th that's been publicly notified that's been run in the papers that's been on our website but again
094just for the good of the public that might be watching the nine people uh june 14th is the next board meeting uh the committee meetings are on june 7th um again primaries are on june 7th um and then um you know just just because i think we should you know come back to what we're what we're up against tomorrow our educators are going to step into classrooms and be in front of students with filled with their own angst and heartbreak about what's unfolding in texas as that number is now increased from 14 to 21 18 children three adults one fourth grade teacher amongst the named as well as over 50 wounded so you know that that is something that i just ask our community to have some grace with our staff tomorrow as they uh
095step into classrooms and take care of their children thank you doctor okay so we will now need to recess into closed executive session so i will read the 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 adopt a resolution at a public meeting to get to go into private session now therefore be resolved by the west windsor plainsboro regional school district board of education that it is necessary to meet an executive session to discuss certain items involving the superintendent evaluation be it further resolved that any discussion held by the board which you need not remain confidential will be made public as soon as feasible the minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until
096the need for confidentiality no longer exists be it further resolved the board will not return to open session to conduct business at the conclusion of the executive session uh can i then have a motion to adjourn to closed session robin and louisa uh all those in favor say aye aye opposed all right again thank you thank you everyone for coming