001she just joined okay thank you great um i'm going to call our meeting to order in accordance with the state sunshine law adequate notice of this meeting was provided by sending a notice of the time date location instructions for remote access and making public comment and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting on january 8 and jan june 4th 2021 to the home news tribune and the times posted on the district website placed in the board office and each of the district schools and sent to plainsboro and west windsor public libraries and plainsboro and west windsor township clerks so prior to logging into this meeting the board of education logged into another zoom meeting to celebrate our school district retirees our educators of the year and the west windsor plainsboro education foundation grant
002recipients it was an honor for us to recognize these outstanding educational leaders tonight so as we begin our meeting tonight i just wanted along with my board colleagues to extend our graduate congratulations to all the honorees it was an incredibly impressive group of educators and we are grateful for the positive impact you have made on our students and in our school district and with that i will turn it over to our superintendent dr david aderholt for his comments tonight thank you miss cash and good evening everyone um to echo ms cash's comments uh again my uh congratulations to all our retirees the award winners our educators of the year and our education foundation uh grant recipients i also want to just thank the education foundation for all the work that they've done i've had the
003opportunity and i know um miss mcewan has had the opportunity to attend their meetings throughout the year um and to thank them for carrying on this work during the pandemic in service of our community we had the opportunity to meet uh last week to talk about next year's uh grant recipients um and review applications and again as an impressive list of applications were submitted by our educators and credit to them for taking the time to do that in service of their kids during during their students during the pandemic and everything that's been going on at this time in the year um as ms cash said in the in the previous um there's 47 retirees tonight um that represents 129 and a half years of service to our community and ms kamal if i if i
004have it correct that's the most ever we've had in a retiree class and for years of service at any one time and just a tremendous credit uh to all those individuals for the work and service that they've done um i wanted to just touch on a couple topics uh in addition to the congratulations to uh to all those individuals for the cell district celebration i also want to just thank ms kamel and her staff and mr jenkins for the work they did in putting the video together so you can imagine it's not easy to navigate such an event in the virtual world and they they took it up a step with creation of video this year versus the powerpoint of last year and and that takes a lot of extra lead time and work pictures
005were submitted by staff members or we used their their photos so uh it was it was fun to see photos over time for those that didn't chose not to submit a photo from the for themselves um that being said um uh we should also note at the beginning of this so we don't forget later that this is our last virtual meeting uh the june 22nd board meeting will be at grover middle school now many of you know for the last five years so six five years we'll say uh with the pandemic we didn't have any in person so five years we were at the multi-purpose room at the board office because of the social distancing requirements because we wanted to make sure that we could spread out and have a little additional space we have
006selected to go back to grover middle school we have posted that we'll be at grover for the near future so we posted for june 22nd through the january meeting which is our next six month slate of meetings it's our anticipation to be a grover that could change if the health requirements change but for now we want to make sure that we honored uh the health of the individuals on this call the health of the individuals that attend the meetings and just to make sure that we had a little extra space to socially distance there will be some nuanced changes with how we have to set up the the structure um and but but for the most part the meetings will run identically to how they are the only difference of course is with public comment
007for public comment everyone needs to come in person now we will stream the videos live and we have been working to make sure that that is going to be flawless and it's it will work and we're also doing it sort of at this time period to make sure it does does work we'll also videotape it and post the video tape as we always do aftermath of the meeting to make sure that there's a video record of it so we'll stream it live and we'll have a documented evidence on the website of the meeting for those that can't attend the meeting so that will be done again public comment will have to be in person and again just want to make sure everyone knows it's 7 30 start you have to you sign up when you
008get to the podium and you make your public comment uh there's two opportunities for public comment there is public comment that's done first first opportunity and then second opportunity at the end if someone selects there are windows of time available to both public comment windows submitted written comments will not be read like in the virtual world it is read in a normal board meeting it is not however it is entered into record so we would um if anyone wants to still write to us you're welcome to do so and we do keep evidence of the public communication regarding uh communication on on something like that if it's submitted for a board meeting um the mask mandates uh have been a point of confusion and just the other day our governor confused the matter even further
009and then said a clarification uh today you know governing by tweet is not a way to run anything i think we've learned uh over time um so what i will say is with excessive heat not defined there is some flexibility being granted to school administration about inside buildings what i will say about wwp is families have made their selection based on health protocols that we've in place we are 100 air conditioned facilities very different than facilities all over the state which is also part of the reason why people are asking districts are asking for leniency right now we do not have conditions which are we believe are concerning with respect to um breathing with the masks inside because of the air conditioning that's available in our schools so our masks will be enforced as as
010we've had in in the buildings that will continue um for the rest of this year and then we're going to reevaluate based on the guidance that comes forward for the fall with that being said if students in classes teachers are going outside and they are going outside for recess they are going outside for hell other for their pe class um we are allowing with social distancing masks to come off especially when students are exerting um say we do we do uh participate with our our our lighting and we are taking sustainable practice seriously so if i don't move or flail apparently the lights are going to turn off on me so again we do um we do take this seriously with respect to the the aerobic exercise in the movement so if students are outside
011we are allowing again with social distancing the mass to come off during this time period uh you will also see if our our pe teachers are outside we're going to say the same thing to them because if it's 95 or 93 outside and they're out for class as long as we're socially distance and we're maintaining it everyone's going to have a mask in hand if we need to mask back up but we're just trying to be reasonable responsive just know that you will hear things happening across the state on this because some districts today issued a mass optional policy um we are not doing that as a district we are following executive order 175 we are following the public health on guidance of our local state and cdc which still says interior indoor masking um
012want to say a big thanks to the board for the tent over at high school north i will at some point share some pictures but i just want you to know how how well that's been received by our community how well that's been received by our students had the opportunity to end the north prom the south prom the north play some of the uh award ceremonies that have been taking place there i'll be heading to this south play after this meeting just tremendous utilization going on uh amazing experience is kids are extremely happy to reconnect with one another and extremely uh happy to to be able to have some normalcy of activities outside in a safe environment um and i've just been blown away by the mass compliance of our students they don't even question
013it they're just doing it they're just happy to be together the tent really made that happen and made that possible so a real big thank you to all of you i know our building administration and our students are very grateful and and the last thing i just wanted to to mention is tonight we have three recommendations coming into the board of education for uh administrative hires so um if you don't mind i'd like to just uh say a couple words about the three individuals um on this evening i'm pleased to recommend for the new assistant principal at millstone river school and millstone river just for for the scorecard is a vacancy that occurred because of the promotion to principal for dr aaron faulk to the principal of town center upon the retirement of janet bose
014so we went through a process and i'm pleased to recommend jennifer braverman as the next assistant principal from millstone river school jennifer will join millstone uh upon the vacancy created by aaron and she joins us from the hamilton township school district where she's began her career as an elementary teacher and served the last 18 years as a school counselor when i spoke to dr rocco about jennifer's appointment he could not be more glowing in his recommendation and said just hands down one of the finest counselors hamilton has if we had assistant principals at the elementary schools she would be the first one to be hired and he couldn't speak more glowingly about her her appointment and the service to hamilton so we're very excited to get dr braverman uh to join jennifer braverman to join
015us um as you know we have posted an appointment for assistant director of technology um and so the tech is constantly expanding our systems our networks everything is connected and i mean everything from our hvac systems to our hr databases to our security networks to our financials to student databases you name it and i'm really pleased to recommend peter james current assistant principal at community middle school former assistant principal of high school north former supervisor of math and um over in the hopewell valley regional school district uh 13-year administrator uh peter just brings a wealth of knowledge uh one of our go-to people for everything testing and scheduling uh very excited for peter's um recommendation this evening and congratulate him on that appointment and lastly as you know we have the retirement of dennis lepault
016over at high school south had the great opportunity to work with the south staff three different committee meetings surveys ptsa meetings student rep meetings at 50 students on a call one night with mr coburn real thank you to mr coburn we had 14 members of the staff staff involved in the interview process ptsa representation student representation and after much much of the interview process internals and externals i'm pleased to recommend jessica cincotta current high school north assistant principal as the next principal of high school south uh jessica brings with her uh 12 years of experience as a school administrator before being a school administrator she had the opportunity to serve as a choir and band teacher she's taught internationally in paraguay and bolivia in thailand she's multilingual uh she she is just a remarkable member
017of our school community and she is the co-chair of our district equity committee uh and has been part of our equity committee for the past four years and just recently asked to be one of the two co-chairs upon the official appointment of the goal by the board of education in february so jessica and sue tatero co-chair that committee with anthony jones and james earl so um a real congratulations to those those three individuals for um for their uh appointments and recommendations to the board tonight i will say for those keeping score we have six openings now in the administrative team um we do have the assistant superintendent for pupil services vacated by my colleague james on the call going to be the superintendent of trenton we have the director of special services still remaining from
018the retirement upcoming retirement of karen slagle we have the two assistant principals that i just named because we appointed people rose peter and jessica and we have the assistant principal of grover that's open and an assistant director of building and grounds i expect at the next board meeting four candidates coming forward for four of those positions is my anticipation could be three might be four we're on track for four so see if we can pull it off um so uh i believe that's the end of it i know it's a lot of an update but i want to let everyone know what's going on so thank you for your time and i'll turn it back to you mrs cash thank you dr aderhold first opportunity for public comment the board invites thoughts and reactions on
019agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who submitted written comments to the board secretary prior to the submission deadline for this meeting and from those who have signed up on the form to comment via video and or audio which was open and available on the district website up until the start of this first opportunity for public comment any written comments that were submitted prior to the deadline for this meeting will be read aloud by the board attorney for three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six seven members of the public who did not submit written comments and who have signed up will be offered the opportunity to make their comments via video and or audio members of the public will not be permitted to submit both written comments and
020make additional comments via video and or audio each comment should be directed to the presiding officer not individual members of the board and must be made in accordance with the procedures and three-minute time limit set forth in board policy zero one six seven if the comment extends beyond three minutes speakers will be asked to conclude their comments and may be muted by the moderator once an even individual has finished their comment or their three minutes has expired their video and audio will be turned off by the moderator this public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes so this evening there are eight public comments for the first um session three written five um video we'll start with written so i'll share screen and mr chazy will take it from there sorry i apologize this
021is uh difficult to see uh right the uh first comment is from anguirus arya 18 indian run road princeton junction tune it may concern as one of the nearly 1500 signatories of this open letter for asian american and pacific islander studies in new jersey public schools see below for the link i strongly recommend quote the thoughtful and comprehensive inclusion of asian american and pacific islander studies unquote in our curriculum i would also like to express my appreciation for the teachers and students who organize educational activities for pan-asian american history month for high school students and hope that this will be a district-wide event in the future our students deserve the best education we can offer but their education will remain incomplete as long as we ignore the countless asian americans and pacific islanders whose struggles
022and contributions have been an inextricable part of american history as the letter states quote many educators are already embarking on this work we must all learn and recognize that aap history is uh i'm sorry aapi history is american history end quote i stand in solidarity with the letters authors and strongly urge you to include aapi studies in the wwp curriculum sincerely anguirus arya parent of two children in the wwp school district okay uh next comment is oh sorry uh looks like laurie marabella nine park hill terrace west windsor i wanted to follow up with my comment and dr nathan's response from the last boe meeting as the curriculum committee is scheduled to meet next week i hope the members will be asking one if if the kogat test provides such valuable information why is it
023it's used limited to identifying and providing services for students and math only is verbal score not equal as equally as valuable if district policy 2464 which largely restates new jersey strengthening gifted and talented education act requires that quote the parent of any student identified as gifted and talented shall be consulted regarding any program designed to address the student's particular needs end quote are parents actually receiving notification and consultation from the district also from the policy quote the superintendent or designee will develop and document appropriate curricular and instructional modifications used for gifted and talented students indicating content process products and learning environments end quote have modifications been developed and documented if so how are they communicated where can the required complaint process be found on the district website thank you and i'm an appreciative and i'm
024appreciative of the time dr nathan has offered to discuss my concerns about the middle school language arts program we then have latoya edwards 249 robinsville edinburgh road west windsor as the school year comes to a close i just wanted to say thank you to the school board dr aderhold administrators teachers and staff this was not an easy school year we started this school year still in the midst of the pandemic tensions and fears are running high yet you all work tirelessly to ensure a smooth transition to promote and or hybrid learning for our students thank you for keeping parents informed and making the tough decisions as a parent i am so happy this school this this school is coming to a close aapsg will be offering their annual summer math program virtually again starting in
025july students will have the opportunity to take math classes taught by wwp teachers please check the virtual backpack and or the school website for more details thanks again latoya edwards president african americans parent support group thank you jeff thank you for reading those comments mr casey and thank you to the people who submitted those comments and there are as i mentioned there are five members of the public that have asked to speak um and so i will send an invite one at a time obviously to the speakers in the order in which they signed up when you receive the invite please um i'll i will be asked to move to panelist i will promote you to panelists you'll have to accept you'll appear on the screen you'll have three minutes and then um when your
026comments are done i have to move you back to attendee i'll move you back to attendee and then i'll move to the next individual do the same process so forgive me it takes a couple seconds in between each person uh to do this so the first individual that up is uh connie illinois and connie just give me a moment to find you in the attendee list and then i'll send you a link momentarily connie just sent the link so you should have an invite for promote to panelist thank you first of all i want to thank you all for the excellent job you've done during the pandemic and i really appreciate your efforts in diversity equity and inclusion i'm dr kanya langevin i'm a mother a psychiatrist and a member of make us visible new
027jersey a coalition of students parents educators and community members advocating for the inclusion of asian american and pacific islander studies into the k-12 curriculum for new jersey public schools during the pandemic there has been an increase in the already elevated rates of anti-asian discrimination which is impacting the mental health of asian americans and pacific islanders report increased distress anxiety and depression related to racism in new jersey alone reported bias incidents against aapi individuals rose 82 percent from 2019 to and almost 25 percent of all reported bias incidents occurred in k-12 schools that's more than any other type of location and given that bias incidents often go unreported these numbers likely represent only a small fraction of the incidents involving new jersey's young people we believe it's vital to focus on prevention and education by emphasizing
028what an integral part of this country asian americans and pacific islanders have been and continue to be changing our public school curricula as an important place to start that work we must correct the absence of asian american and pacific islanders in our narrated history and schools our exclusion does not reflect the full breadth of american history and therefore leaves all students inadequately prepared for a society of deep-rooted diversity as attorney general graywell says in schools students take note of whose stories and histories are taught and valued in the curriculum and whose are not that's why it's so critical that we educate all our kids about aapi stories and history alongside the stories and history of other communities that have all too often been overlooked marginalized or even worse been subject to mistreatment and injustice during
029their course of their our collective history as a nation when our children grow up seeing themselves represented in their class lessons they are more confident more creative and more curious this inclusion builds awareness to fight racism violence and disparities in our communities in this way teaching asian american and pacific islander studies can be part of a strategy to address the wave of pandemic-related racism and anti-asian violence according to the national education association a diverse and representative education produces stronger learning outcomes improves test scores and better addresses the social and emotional needs of the whole student of every student including aapi studies in our k-12 curriculum builds stronger more creative and more empathic students who are better equipped to meet our country's present and future struggles as educator tanya carmel said our school curricula need to
030be windows into asian american lives and cultures for our students to gain respect and understanding of asian american contributions our curricula also need to be mirrors in which our students can see themselves appropriately reflected there is much work to be done to make our school curricula adequately global and truly multicultural and perspective and content and i also wanted to thank you for doing the pan-asian-american history month that was a really great start and i hope that will happen in every school and i hope it won't only be that one month i think it's important for our kids to know uh kids we don't i didn't know until i i need you to finish your comment because your three minutes has expired so just finish up okay thank you i didn't know until this last month
031that asian americans have been here since 1580 so you know there's a lot of history we don't know and it's important to know thank you thank you for your comment you connie i'm going to move you back to attendee um next speaker is christina jenk christina i'll send you a link in a moment christina the link was just sent hi there uh my name is dr christina jenk um i also represent make us visible new jersey i'm so pleased to hear about the uh diversity and equity inclusion initiatives uh that have been that west windsor plainsboro school district has been embarking on um also pleased to hear about the great response that wwp has given for the pandemic i am a proud alumni of the west windsor plainsboro public schools um it has given me
032an excellent education i am now a development economist and a former college professor of economics and political economy i had the privilege of teaching at an american university in east asia and it is my lived experience as an asian american from west windsor that uh motivates me to speak about the importance of infusing new jersey and westminster plainsborough's public school curricula with the legacy's contributions and histories of asian americans and pacific islanders and it's not just about the rise in hate crimes and bias incidents it's also about the crisis of invisibility among the aapi community that is not only leading to these hate crimes but also to often under detected mental health crises among the aapi student population about 19 of asian american high school students report considering suicide and suicide is the number one
033cause of death among asian americans aged 15 to 19. it is directly related to the invisibility of asian americans in various aspects of american life particularly in public school curricula i asked the board to consider immediately taking the steps particularly professional development for teachers to include and infuse the curricula with legacy stories and contributions of asian americans i understand there's a statewide initiative to improve the social emotional support for students and one direct way to address the crisis of mental health among api students is to tell the stories of the important and valuable contributions of asian americans i also want to emphasize that international experience and multilingual experience is not the same as training and understanding in asian american pacific islander curriculum material i have had an international experience and i also have multilingual experience
034and it is only recently that i have learned about asian american history's contributions in literature they are not the same and it needs to be understood in the diversity equity and inclusion work now i am so pleased to hear about the task forces and the efforts by the west windsor planesboro teachers and administrators to support anti-bias and anti-racist education and i just want to emphasize that infusing asian american pacific islander stories is obviously an integral part of this work the racial conversation is not just about the black white story it is a story of immigration is the story of asian americans and pacific islanders thank you thank you thank you our next individual that's registered to speak is angelica shin so angelica i will send a link i will send a link if i can
035find angelica in the list there she is angelico just sent the link um hi everyone my name is angelica i'm currently a sophomore in college um but i'm a 12 uh i'm a proud 2019 graduate of high school south and i also went to wwe i also went to wwp schools for my entire k-12 career starting at dutch tech when i was in kindergarten like others here today i am also here today as part of make us visible new jersey and personally i just wanted to talk a little bit about my experience with asian american studies in west windsor plainsboro schools um apart from briefly going over the chinese railroad workers in seventh grade as well as like very briefly mentioning you know the chinese exclusion act and japanese internment in ap u.s history we
036learned basically nothing about asian americans in the united states which i think is pretty strange considering our school district's demographics um honestly for a long time i thought that these events basically covered it until you know when i was in college i um took a few asian american studies classes and you know looking back i on my wwp education i think that this lack of education has done me a disservice um even in a school district as diverse as ours with as many asian americans as ours i faced a lot of racist jokes i felt the power of um asian stereotypes about our docility and our perpetual perpetual foreignness every single year but i couldn't even like put these feelings into words much less advocate for myself in any meaningful way until i started learning
037about these things on my own in college because i did not learn about a single asian american activist or several civil rights leader in school i didn't know that asian american um asian americans had you know a rich legacy of anti-racist activism which they do and honestly i didn't know that we could be activists learning these things by myself has empowered me made me more confident and helped me advocate for myself and my community in the face of anti-asian racism our district is i think about 70 percent asian-american right now and i think we do all of these students a disservice um by offering inadequate inadequate aapi education um especially for aapi students who aren't east asian like i am um you know it's a diverse community we learn nothing about south asians we've learned
038very little about southeast asians when i was at wwep we also do many non-asian students of disservice by offering inadequate aapi education because for example the model minority myth has historically been used as like a racist tool against other communities communities of color and also because i think we all must be educated about all communities of color um to be adequately anti-racist um so i hope that you will consider the goals of make us visible new jersey as you continue to craft more anti-racist school curricula and a more anti-racist community here at wwp thank you thank you thank you angelica and next uh speaker is ping shui uh ping i'll send you a link momentarily i think the link was just sent thank you everyone um so my name is ping and i have two
039kids in the west window west windsor plainsboro school district i'm very happily i also have a phd in sociology of education so you can see that i share your passion and commitment to education and also to west windsor plainsville school district um i really appreciate the work you know the team of you have been able to put together for the kids during this such a difficult year um and also um one thing i remember years ago when i started my kids in the school district i wrote to doctor at home and said wow i love the whole child approach you know i know my child my children are going to be safe in your hands so absolutely aligned with you um i am also a long-term volunteer with the parents and children education club um
040some of you you know me martin i know you've supported us along the years um we often host um annual parenting conferences and monthly seminars in the um area and we have you know primarily our purpose is to help first generation immigrant parents understand the importance of social emotional health um for the children and for themselves because um i'm sorry does my background have some music you know not great practice um thank you for your tolerance work but i really want to be able to you know talk and relate to you all and you know and share our um um our thank uh our our thankfulness so um yeah along the years um we've been able to help um immigrant parents and this district you know has many of them to um really support um
041the whole child approach and social emotional learning and last year i started serving as the president of the organization and i invited millstone river school principal dalton you know we all love him and we will like come and talk with us you know and um so today um i i gotta say i'm excited to meet the folks from make us visible you know who spoke before me and um i did get introduced to them by a mutual friend and i am also joining them actually i'm asking you to consider inclusion of aapi curriculum because also i think one of the written comments um anguirus aya so thank you for sharing that with us i noticed definitely in the school district parents are thinking and you know requesting um i also heard that this year you
042invited a teacher to con to do a professional development for teachers you know on racial identity formation about um for students so i see there's a shared um you know um commitment um and the same thing with parents and children education club that i volunteer for this year because of my background i was able to introduce this sociological approach and we did three parent seminars um um why identity formation is important for kids on social emotional health um why so the racial identity formation is a piece of it how students might struggle you know in these aspects and it was well received we had um for every seminar we had around 300 um parents attending and they stayed you know beyond the two-hour seminar some of them stayed for five hours with us actually i
043think there's a very big need among parents to understand this um so i'm happy our organization was able to serve this need um i also am very happy it's my first time i think attending the board of education meeting there might be another one a few years ago when i was new to the district but i could have been more committed i really do want i have young kids you know in the elementary school so it's great to see the diverse board of education and i applaud you again um i'm i'm wondering you know at the i know a lot of the changes happen in the state level i'm wondering in the district level what are the options and possibilities for including you know aapi history for our students to be able to you know
044relate to it as some of the high school students were just talking about so again you know thank you very much for the opportunity i look forward to hearing more from you ping thank you very much and i'm glad you're the practice in the background thank you again again that's the great work you folks do are doing you know we wouldn't have signed them up for music but you started the flute lessons and everything so thank you again thank you just one moment to move ping back one part about going to in person i won't i won't miss having to promote and move people in the chat so forgive me for as i do this uh ping i'm moving you back to attendee um and we have one we have one additional um speaker and
045it um jeremy way and jeremy i'll send you a link momentarily jeremy i just sent the link hello my name is jeremy and i'm also a makers visible in new jersey i am also one of the student coordinators for pan-asian american history month at the high schools and i have worked closely with coordinating the logistics behind our speaker panels and the events after receiving feedback from the students and my peers it has really occurred to me how important it is uh to me to have asian american and pacific islander studies in school because they show us a greater number of perspectives of what makes us americans and by limiting it only to the white view it does not give us the full picture of our society and our history asian american and pacific islander studies
046allow us to correctly position ourselves and others into the lands of orientalism and also allows us to see beyond how one particular group of people conveys their ideas as for my experiences as a student i have noticed issues in how literature has been represented especially during my language arts classes the curriculum has often been limited to the white majority which has caused our discussions to be rather limited my teacher has also noticed these issues as he is teaching and we hope that the curriculum is changed to allow for a greater understanding of how these perspectives are often missed they can be incorporated through including more aapi texts or providing opportunities for students to engage in further discussions but we hope that action can be taken to incorporate aapi studies in the curriculum thank you thank
047you jeremy thank you jeremy i'm just going to move jeremy back and that's it dr aderhold that was the last public comment okay so that will close our first opportunity for public comment and i will ask dr aderhold if he has anything he'd like to say at this time okay just moving jeremy back and okay so um well first of all just um thank you to all of our speakers um for the three that made public comment the five that joined uh the five that joined by public comment three by written comment um and um just want to focus on on the six of the speakers that talked about the inclusion of aapi and just a little bit about the work that the district is doing um with the work of the equity diversity inclusivity
048um role and the work of the uh the goal that was formally approved by the board in in february so for members of the public uh the district has been having a conversation around uh equity diversity inclusivity for about the last seven years but i will say that it's taken a more public conversation in the last two years we did a lot of work for a while about training uh training administrators training teachers having conversations stepping slowly into conversations um and really trying to find our voice around having uh conversations um but what we found about uh three years ago is as we included more students into the process um the students helped us move the work in ways in which teachers administrators truly couldn't it was having student voice at the table that really
049started to shift the dynamic of the conversations um so we've been very pleased to have student represent representatives working with us throughout in fact we had a student representative that came to the curriculum committee just recently to talk about um uh pilot texts that we were working on through um our language arts curriculum and i started with our social studies curriculum whether it was as1 with uh with mr cooper uh the social studies supervisor and what we found is we as a district have to make an intentional effort to think about the inclusion of um diverse viewpoints into our curriculum because what individuals might not know and i know in the make us visible platform it talks about not just www but about new jersey and efforts in new york um about changing the curriculum
050and the standards uh statewide um and that there's a reason for that and without having conversations directly with connie and her team um if we look at the social studies standards written in 2014 and if you just simply do a search you can do a word version and just do a search of the standards the term disabilities is only referenced one time the term asian is only referenced six times once as you're asian so really five times majority of the time is very similar to what angelica referenced only very specific points in history points in time in the standards our curriculum is written to those standards so if the standards themselves do not reflect a diverse education in african-americans 13 times black is referenced one time so there's there's a void in the curriculum standards
051for uh diversity and representation in in our in our curriculum so what ends up happening is curriculum is written to the standards and then ultimately to the to the resources and materials that you utilize uh and that's a traditional model uh that is not how we're currently approaching it um and a real credit to dr nathan our equity leadership team and the support of the board um that we're looking at how we train our curriculum writers the resources and materials that we're looking at we're talking about representation of our community and our students in the curriculum and so there's a dynamic conversation that's been going on for the past two to three years and has really evolved and actually strengthened through the pandemic and we're extremely proud of that one of the things that has
052really helped leverage the conversation is is pointing to a strategic goal so the work of this board to point to goal 4 and goal 4 just because we have three goals already awarded we talked about equity prior as being inclusive across all three goals and then we really felt that was important to specifically point to the work that we're doing around equity leverage a specific statement so the goal says west windsor plainsboro regional school district will cultivate a diverse and inclusive community where members of every race sexual orientation gender gender identity ability religion socioeconomic class ethnicity and national origin are welcome valued respected and celebrated and once the goal was adopted in late february um it came uh in in the month um black history month in the celebrations and work that was happening uh
053with black history month followed by women's history month celebrations aapi uh right now pride month um and then and then hispanic heritage month that will be coming um is in mid-september to mid uh october um but we also recognize that it's great to do the celebrations in the month of uh in recognition but it has to be embedded and cultivated within a larger conversation a larger dynamic in our curriculum uh in conversation that's going to take professional development to to uh christina's point that's going to take a really concerted effort and it's going to take require us to look beyond the traditional resources that we've used because textbooks historically are written for two states and i say that as a former social studies supervisor in that big states drive purchasing so california standards texas standards
054have a tendency to drive the national textbook companies um so we have to look for resources outside of the traditional text and we've really started to take a big lift on that we've had teachers advocating for diversity of resources we've made an effort this past year uh two years to diverse diversify our classroom libraries in our elementary middle school and high school level um kathy reilly has been lifting that work in middle school and high school and again so it's it's going to be a fluid conversation over time as it's going to take time to to do the training and to think systemically and to constantly reinforce and build um but we're looking for partners and we're pleased to have so many community members and alumni and students that have that have come out this
055evening and as with all goals the equity goal is no different we will be looking for community representation within our goals we have four subcommittees one is on curriculum instruction one subcommittee is on programs um one is on policies and structures uh and we talked about policies and structures big picture because um you know it's one thing to have a board policy but there's things in the student handbook that are that are that fall outside of the policy manual i'm sorry that fall outside the palestinian regulations but are still structures that exist that could be barriers so we we talked about policies and structures and professional development so we're looking at and working with all three of our other goal teams goal one is really about curriculum instruction it comes across the other three goals
056goal two is on global citizenship goal three is on the social emotional learning and mental health of our students and faculty and goal four of course is on equity so um we just met today with our co-chairs um we're just launching our revised goal committees because we've had a lot of retirement and shifts as you heard some of that at the beginning of the meeting and we're looking to uh looking forward to continued conversation and partnership with our community and with that i'll just i'll say thank you to the speakers again and i'll leave it at that miscash thank you dr aderholt as the board committees did not meet since our last meeting so we'll just move ahead with the consent agenda which is the portion of our meeting where we vote uh could i
057please get a motion on administration items one through eight tony and martin are there any questions or comments about the administration items thanks chris okay we'll start with mr flares yes okay next is miss ho yes it's crook yes [Music] ms mcewen yes miss maliga yes mr whitfield yes nizovich yes is juliana yes and miss cash yes we did not have any curriculum and instruction items so can i get a motion on finance items one through ten louisa and lloyd are there any questions or comments about the finance items i have a question um on the lunch rates is there are the meals um next year for all students next school year are they still free of charge as part of the um federal program yes yes uh for the 21 22 school year um
058the federal government has come forward to say lunch lunches would be provided to to all students as an opportunity the district does participate in the federal program and will honor that but i will say that the rates are still necessary to set and board approve for the purpose of reimbursement for the cost for the cost of the meals so we still have to have a meal rate uh approved for the reimbursement component even though they will be free in participating in the program and a free lunch will be a base lunch if by chance that the year goes on and we end up with an unlock cart menu if by chance then prices will be set thanks are there any other questions thank you chris okay we'll start with ms ho yes ms cruz yes
059ms mcewen yes miss maliga yes mr whitfield yeah yes mr flares yes ms juliana yes and miss cash yes can i please get a motion on personnel items one and two plus our personnel addendum robin and graylin are there any comments on the personnel items thanks chris hey we'll start with ms krug yes ms mcewan yes miss maliga yes mr whitfield yes yes mr flares yes ms ho yes ms juliana yes ms kish yes i just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge two retirements that we voted on two teachers at community middle school are retiring kathy fenton a math teacher is retiring after 18 years of service to the district and uh sweylan pai who teaches chinese language is retiring after 12 years in the district so i want to congratulate them on their
060retirements wish them all the best and thank them for their service to our students and our schools uh do we have any liaison reports tonight do we have any new business brings us to the second opportunity for public comment the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who submitted written comments to the board secretary prior to the submission deadline for this meeting and from those who have signed up on the form to comment via video and or audio that was open and available on the district website up until the start of this second opportunity for public comment any written comments that were submitted prior to the deadline for this meeting will be read aloud by the board attorney for three minutes in accordance with board
061policy zero one six seven members of the public who did not submit written comments and who have signed up will be offered the opportunity to make their comments via video and or audio members of the public will not be permitted to submit both written comments and make additional comments via video and or audio each comment shall be directed to the presiding officer not individual members of the board and must be made in accordance with the procedures and three time limit set forth in board policy zero one six seven if the comment extends beyond three minutes speakers will be asked to conclude their comments and may be muted by the moderator once an individual has finished their comment or their three minutes has expired their audio and video will be turned off by the moderator this
062public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes we we do have one public comment this evening and that's andrea bean so i'm going to promote andrea to panelists hello good evening i'm andrew bean and i'm the president of the wwpaa um and i'd just like to um make a comment thanking mr earl for all his work and service on behalf of my colleagues um we've really enjoyed working with james he's been great as the assistant superintendent and it's going to be a giant loss for our district um just personally i work with james on mondays at food distribution and james brings such joy to everything he does and positivity and he's behind his mask you could still tell he's smiling all the time and no job is beneath james whether it's like can you
063get us some milk can you pick that up he's there i mean i was carrying a box he's always can i help you can can we do this together um and that's the kind of spirit that he brought to his his role as assistant superintendent i i mean i see it in the small way on mondays but i also saw it in a large way in his role and he will be seriously missed um by my colleagues so on behalf of our entire association i really wanted to thank him for the time that he spent with us thank him for the learning that he's done with us and wish him the best in his future endeavors because we will miss him um in addition on a personal note um last board meeting you uh accepted
064bruce sam australia's resignation for the purpose of retirement and i just want to say that i have worked with bruce we were both hired to start september 1st 1987 and we worked together every single day um he is an ultimate teacher who embodies everything about our district that is great i have seen him teach on the mezzanine at south with hundreds of kids right before north was built it was so crowded and never loses cool i have seen him advocate for his world history curriculum to to be inclusive and this was in the 90s and and just pushing all the time for children and then i saw him advocate for his fellow teachers with dedication and passion but always putting the children first um i know that i will personally miss bruce and i just
065i just wanted to throw that out that that that that's giant loss so um thank you for giving me my three minutes of time thank you for that great celebration of everybody i'm so glad you found a way to do it virtually um and have a good evening thanks andrew thank you andrea that's it dr rather hold for that that will close our second opportunity for public comment uh since tonight is the last time that the board will be meeting before the last day of school next week i just wanted to end our meeting by extending some heartfelt appreciation to the entire wwp community for their patience and perseverance and grace as we navigated this unprecedented and exceptionally challenging school year on behalf of the board we thank all of our students and staff and
066their families for working together to take care of each other and i need to take one minute to acknowledge the tremendous leadership of our superintendent dr david atterfold who never sleeps who brings new definition to thinking outside the box and has managed our school district with the utmost of integrity dave the board and i cannot thank you enough for always working with great care and concern and empathy for our students and staff and families so i just want to remind everybody that this is the last time i think i hope that we are meeting virtually that our next board meeting on june 22nd as dr adelholt mentioned earlier is going to be held on at grover middle school in person and we're looking forward as a board to getting back together with each other and
067hope to see some members of our community um so one last time i'm gonna look around these squares and get a motion to adjourn rachel and graylin all those in favor say aye hi we are adjourned see you soon have a great rest of the stretch of school till next week and happy healthy summer and we'll hopefully see you soon good night good night everyone thank you