WW-P Board Meeting 11-17-20

001thank you good evening everyone uh prior to us logging in here right now we were uh in another zoom meeting for closed session a couple of the things that we discussed in closed session are not noted on our agenda so i'm going to turn it over to mark toscano to give us the update on what we discussed thank you uh in addition to the items noted on the agenda that was published prior to the meeting the board also discussed uh in item number one staff and student health matters and issues as well as for box number seven the docket number 20 civ thank you mr toscano um as you can see tonight is a school board spirit night my board colleagues and i are very very happy and proud to be wearing our wwp strong

002shirts and sweatshirts to this meeting tonight we are wwp strong and i think that we have that spirit and of resilience because of this incredible community every single day i see and hear about the incredible work that's being done by our students and our teachers and our staff and their families whether it's hybrid or virtual working together to take care of each other so as we begin our meeting tonight i just want to extend some heartfelt thanks to the 10 district ptas the special education ptsa the african-american parent support group and the west windsor plainsboro education association for collaborating to create and sell the spirit weir spirit wear that we have on tonight and for organizing the district-wide spirit day that we had yesterday um we are most definitely stronger together so with that i

003will turn it over to the superintendent for his comments tonight uh thank you michelle and uh good evening everyone so it's day 49 in district um again a tremendous thanks and gratitude and appreciation to our our staff and our staff our support staff our teachers um for all the work that they're doing uh to shepherd us through uh the first quarter uh thanks to our students and families for the dedication and their resilience in and moving to a both virtual and hybrid learning environments um and so i just wanted to just start with a little bit of a framing and where we are as of today um on friday i sent out a health and safety update uh the health and safety update indicated uh some challenges that we've been seeing and some challenges in

004our numbers um we have had several positive cases of recent but since that mem that letter went out on friday late afternoon we have had to quarantine an additional 29 staff members um so there are several um direct impacts to our buildings that have occurred um in terms of outside incidents that were then brought forward impacts to our school community and our ability to operate in some of our buildings uh to date we have not had to shut a school down uh since back in september when community went for three days but we do have a classroom that we had to take offline today at one of our elementary schools due to a multiple close contact exposure based on some factors within the classroom setting but when we look at the totality of where we

005are we have had 437 students quarantined or isolated since september 8th and we've had 182 staff members quarantined or isolated since september 8th so just you know on the aggregate staggering staggering numbers um but we've been able to find ways as a school community um but we are hedging towards a critical moment and so we want to just be really upfront with our school community that we it is getting harder and harder to keep staff um operational or schools operational as we've had more classes in-person classes to cover uh as you can imagine uh there are there's not a large number of substitutes we have had approximately 25 to 30 substitutes potted in certain buildings across across the school district that is a far cry from our normal daily numbers that we would traditionally have

006available in the bank but we have some very kind souls that have committed to working with us but they are being put in place of teachers that are moved to quarantine and even if a teacher is in quarantine or isolation and are attempting to teach virtually why their students are in person especially the elementary uh k5 pre-k5 level you need a teacher in the classroom you need a certified staff member in the classroom with students so we have had principals teach classes we have assistant principals and guidance counselors have had to have had to teach classes we're slowly running out of manpower is guess my larger point um so we are going to do our best to keep the doors open for now but we do want to make it very clear to our school

007community that the potential of a pivot is in front of us um and for how long um is undetermined uh but when we're looking at uh the in the the scores that will come out on thursday from the statewide health department will be telling to start seeing how the state is moving what's called the cali score it's the six regional scores that that the district state the state is assigning from the department of health to to regions we are in two regions as i noted in my last letter both middle uh sorry central west and central east we've worked with the department of health because we're one of the few districts that crosses two different zones if not the only one and in that discussion with the the state we we determined we would be

008always follow the highest level of care so if central east moves to orange but central west stays yellow we would follow orange or yellow or the higher level for both for both communities remember our students cross boundaries uh our and sometimes our staff crosses boundaries not so much we covet but our students still cross from plainsboro to west windsor schools in west windsor to plainsboro schools so we have to be very mindful of cross-contamination within our school community um so again you know my utmost thanks and respect and appreciation to our staff uh and to our administrators for all the work that they've done the amount of schedule changes and accommodations that they've made is unprecedented um but they've done it in support of our families um i would just tell our families the other

009challenge we are having right now is as so many have moved towards virtual we are starting to run out of virtual seats now you say how do you run out of virtual seat we don't theoretically run a virtual c but once you go across 32 and a zoom you flip to the next page where you can't see the students anymore it's very hard to manage a bunch of eight-year-olds on a zoom when you can't fit them all on one screen and even thinking in terms of 28 30 um third graders on at one meeting our number our class ratios are starting to fall out of balance um as we've made so many schedule changes so our teachers again are are doing remarkable work our administrators our counselors what not our child study team but we

010we are cresting towards a breaking point um and we are going to have to just continually to monitor we will continue to stay in touch we sent out an extra health update today because again we had 25 quarantines or in six po including six positives just today of five positives excuse me and all five were students no six it was six it was two in one family so it was six positives and all six were student-based positives based on outside of school transmission based on family-based gatherings based on weekend events based on um you know community gatherings and unfortunately it's again it's impacting the school because from that 12 staff members were then impacted and had to be put into quarantine so again um i just ask everyone to please exercise covert fatigue cannot be

011we have to to fight against covet fatigue we have to make sure that we're keeping one another safe it has direct impact on our our families it has direct impact it could have direct impact on your own family um so we need to make sure that we're taking every effort to make sure that we're protecting our school community but but our the family in which we live with could be impacted by the actions that we take and so i just ask everyone to please as we're stepping into a very challenging time period where most epidemiologists and state public health workers are saying is is going to be one of the most difficult time periods coming up that we take and exercise every caution possible so for that i'll turn it back to our board president

012for our student representatives thank you so uh we are delighted to have our student reps here tonight i'm last time i had high school north go first so today we'll start with high school staff all right thank you uh good evening everyone uh it's great to be here my name is saki subramanian i'm a senior and i'm a i'm the boe representative for high school south and uh let's start out with current events so in current events this is our second week of homecoming itself all of our spirit weeks are uh spirit weekdays our movie theme this year and in continuation of our 40 plus year tradition the seniors are dominating the spirit week competition as far as student council updates we've been having a number of virtual events recently our first trivia night around

013halloween was a rousing success with over 150 students turning up to compete we've also had two virtual town halls where we've interacted with the student bodies and explained things ranging from the differences between class and student council to how clubs and student organizations will function this year to our tentative plans for owner sports washington seminar and prom after discussing with many teachers we're also launching a campaign to encourage students to keep their cameras on is one thing a lot of teachers have told us is that they feel uh find it difficult to teach a screen full of black rectangles stay tuned for our advertising materials and our videos coming up soon with that campaign we also ran a state of the ship address where just like i report on high school south at board meetings

014the four class councils and student council provide reports directly to the student body itself that video is available on the high school south youtube account and requires a district email to you now that the school year is fully underway i thought that i would run some polls on social media about how students feel their learning experiences being impacted by virtual learning and because ultimately i speak for the students and here are the results the first key finding is that most students empathize with the experimentation process that teachers and administrators have gone through this marking period everyone i've spoken with has made it abundantly clear that they understand all the difficulties that teachers face and i want to take this time to thank all my teachers for the changes they've made to their schedules and the

015remarkable work they've done in a radically environment radically different environment than normal with that said one key desire of the student body is more transparency while that experimentation process goes on our generation has grown up in a technological world and we're prepared for it but many students feel that the variability in the mode by which tests are taken and assignments are turned in necessitates more transparency for example as teachers switch between having tests on google forms google classroom assignments and tests on other websites and services students struggle to adapt quickly without prior notice and their work suffers an open dialogue with more teachers needs to be had so that students feel comfortable that their work hasn't been hindered by a lack of familiarity with the testing software beyond that many teachers have so much to

016do digitally now and so many changes in the schedule on their plate that the process of grading itself suffers a key mental health concern that many students have brought to me is that very few grades are being inputted throughout the market period with a flurry of inputs coming after they have the chance to affect their grades at all this makes many students quite anxious towards the end of the market period and has an even worse effect on seniors worried about sending those scores to colleges we all understand the challenges teachers face but an open discussion about when assignments will be graded to mitigate stress should be encouraged this is ultimately a less urgent issue than managing public health concerns with more lockdowns and pivots looming but is something that we have to address if this

017is going to be the new normal which it is i know that we can't wave our hands and fix this general guideline for more transparency from teachers can be issued so that work and mental health of students is not impaired and making up uh people with the power to do something aware of the issues students face is the first step to solving this problem thank you all for your time thank you very much so now we'll hear from our representatives from high school north yes so first of all i want to just say it's great to see you all again um my name is allison wu i'm a representative for north i'm a junior and um i'm really excited to share with you north's homecoming plan so just like south it is our second week

018of the spirit week as well and that means that we've been having our spirit weeks where we have people dress up as well as we're doing a new activity on wednesdays where we have the students change their zoom background to a certain theme that we choose and just as sucked said um we've also noticed some teachers have been having issues with students not participating and not liking to turn on their cameras and so we're hoping that this kind of encourages students to be more active in class because they have to have their cameras on in order to have the same background additionally during our spirit weeks we're having music playing in between classes and we're hoping that kind of helps with the morale of being back at school as well as promoting our new homecoming

019participants so we're having uh more inclusivity as i mentioned last time and so for the first round of voting instead of having the five that we usually have we're having 15 participants uh during the second round of voting we're narrowing that down to just five and those five will be our winners and we're redubbing that uh knights of the round table and during these two processes we're no longer having gender be one of the factors um into consideration when students are voting um yeah so that's something that we're doing as well as the second event that i want to talk about which is something that our theater program put on during this halloween they did a reboot of the orson welles radio broadcast that was originally done in 1938 on halloween eve where basically it

020was really fun they convinced the citizens of plainsboro that there is an alien invasion going on and so something that's very timely because it happened on the anniversary of this broadcast as well as it's really special to our area because you know we're here in plainsboro and it's something that happened to us um and i thought that was really interesting and it was a cool alternative to usually what they have is they have like a fall drama and so kind of of course since that isn't gonna be feasible this year that this is a really interesting and cool alternative to that um and that's what i want to talk about i'm gonna go ahead and head hand it over to eddie he's gonna talk more about current events and what clubs are doing um good

021morning good afternoon good evening everybody my name is edward and um it's so it's so exciting to be here once again so i wanted to um talk about club updates for high school north so our to our tutoring society um has officially begun tutoring um students uh both wwp and high school north um students starting on october 25th um from six to eight pm and three to four pm um several days a week our national honors society is hosting a thanksgiving food drive um the mercer county march of dimes chain um of which many officers and members actually go to high school north um is hosting an art competition where um students can submit a piece of art old or new for five dollars and on be subject to win uh multiple many different um

022grand prizes um our red cross club is currently planning a hurricane relief fundraiser our model congress team actually competed in princeton model congress on this past friday and saturday um in which they participated in over 20 hours of debate covering bills about excise taxes on decriminalization of marijuana and other um and other topics as well um and 16 north members and officers actually awarded at this conference and north actually won an honorable mention for a best delegation which i thought was pretty amazing on medform and hosa so for our north hosa team which consists of around 44 individuals has begun preparing for the southern regional hosa competition um i also wanted to talk about yearbook pictures so um yearbook pictures for virtual students are being taken this week um pictures for hybrid students are have

023been taken last week and um club pictures are currently being sent to the yearbook club for um to be included in the um in the year-end yearbook half-day wednesdays um the first half day wednesday was november 11th um six days ago personally i thought it was a great experience because it really mitigated my eye strain and it allowed for an opportunity to stay away from the screens um teacher developed teacher professional development it started the week of november 8th and regarding standardized tests i just wanted to update you about the psat so high school juniors have finished taking the psats on october 14th i believe um and some s.a.t um recent and upcoming dates include october 3rd november 7th and on december 5th which is coming up shortly and on one final thing i wanted

024to talk about is the college applications so um for early action many high school seniors who are applying have already submitted their applications um there are several colleges who have extended this deadline to november 15th and other dates as well but um for the most part a lot of call a lot of high school seniors are feeling um i guess stress relieved so that's pretty nice so um thank you for your time that's all i wanted to talk about thank you so much for your updates from the high schools we appreciate it so tonight we have a number of presentations uh we're going to start first with a presentation on the 2021 2022 program of studies and so for that i will turn it over to our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction dr pamela

025nathan good evening i wasn't sure if i was going to share my screen okay i have the responsibility and pleasure of sharing our 20 21 21 22 program of study okay so uh our new courses for the upcoming school year uh are student research in social sciences an honors course and social justice race class and gender which will replace our current multicultural studies course so to give you a little bit more detail our student research in the social sciences honors is the student research provides an opportunity for our students to research to truly design and implement research projects under the guidance of a faculty member students will be expected to perform literature searches analyze publish research articles develop relevant and testable questions consult experts in the field of study design and carry out research plans

026and analyze results in addition they may learn and use basic quantitative and qualitative research techniques conduct ethnographic research and form partnerships with experts in industry or academia students will share their progress with one another and their teacher mentor at periodic seminars and will communicate it with other students who are working on similar projects a culminating experience will be to create a formal research project summarizing their findings present their results at a seminar session communicate their results through oral presentations and where appropriate even submit their research in competition this course is offered to 11th and 12th graders and does have some course criteria prerequisites being american studies 1 or american studies 1 honors our second new course uh and again replacing our multicultural studies is social justice race class and gender uh this aligns well with

027the equity work that we've been doing in district this course is designed to introduce students to social justice issues and assist them in discovering their ability to create positive change in their own world students will critically analyze various social movements related to race ethnicity gender sexual orientation and class and finally the last change to the program of studies for the upcoming school year is the removal of conversations in spanish this course has not been offered in a few years and typically was offered to students who had finished spanish level five because of our offerings in our world language classes and the other courses that we offer as options this class has not been utilized so we are removing it from the program of studies i appreciate the opportunity to share our brief update on our

028program of studies for the upcoming school year thank you dr nathan does the board have any questions for dr nathan okay so we'll move on now to the the next presentation we have which is going to be about uh diversity uh equity and inclusivity uh michelle before you i just want to make sure i thought i saw louisa yeah i got to figure out how to wave faster yeah i just had a question um do we offer other student research classes in other subject areas at this point we do have another research class this one would take it a step further where students would really be able to dive into their passion project we know that students last year and actually the year before have been asking for a course that really allows them to

029create these kind of personalized projects and just from a process perspective traditionally we present the program of studies at the november meeting it's then voted upon at the december board meeting which i believe is the 15th this year and then uh it's then made it publicly available on the website and then it's shared with our students so they can do the scheduling process starting in january um and michelle uh you you said the next topic up was the diversity equity inclusivity um program i just need to move uh mr jones to a panelist so i was just going to ask you to do that thank you invite him be a panelist so as you do that i will let everyone know that this presentation will be done by our assistant superintendent for pupil services mr

030james earl our diversity equity and inclusivity coordinator mr anthony jones and our director of human resource human resources charity camilla so i don't know who's going to begin but i'll turn it over to you thank you miss case and thank you everyone tonight we're going to share information about the work that uh anthony has been engaged in since his arrival uh as the diversity equity and inclusivity coordinator uh so i won't steal his thunder he's going to share the information and then charity uh mr uh camilla will share uh what the work we've done in human resources and the hiring process we're excited about the work taking place around the district so uh mr jones can you start us off yes i i just uh want to thank everyone uh welcome uh dr adelholt are

031you sharing your screen or anthony yes i'll share screen now okay sorry i just need to just give me a moment and i'll fix that all right mr jones it should be all set for you thank [Music] let's do you okay all right so welcome and uh good evening my name is anthony jones diversity equity and inclusivity coordinator for west windsor planesboro regional school district it's a pleasure to meet and speak with everyone tonight virtually i want to thank dr adelhold and mr james earl for their support and commitment uh to equity and uh really setting me up for success uh over the last two months so i'd like to uh just touch on the diversity equity inclusivity um as you can see with the slide uh these two frames are really what i've been

032uh keeping at the forefront of the work that i've been uh undertaking uh so as you can see with the first uh quote is the work of diversity equity and inclusion is a long-term commitment that can only be accomplished successfully with the active participation of all stakeholders and the responsibility to welcome and celebrate every child regardless of race ethnicity religion country of origin economic status sexual identity gender and gender identity to fully reach their full potential so i always keep these uh really uh key points in mind as i come to work uh each and every day uh the second piece which i think is also critically uh important to diversity equity and inclusivity is to make sure that we involve the community uh the community uh is part of of the work um it's

033not just the school but it's also uh whether that be west winds or plainsboro uh parent associations that could be uh the police departments that could be parks and recreations right so these are people that are part of the community uh that make up also what diversity equity and inclusivity uh is about so uh the big question is what has uh the new diversity equity and inclusivity coordinator been doing over the last two months okay so uh i titled it listening learning and discovering uh and the reason why uh i decided to title it listening learning and discovering is that coming into the role uh someone that is definitely new to the district uh the key part for me was i had to listen i wanted to listen to parents i wanted to listen to

034students i wanted to listen to board members i wanted to listen to faculty uh and as you can see with the first bullet point uh even though uh covet 19 has been uh one of our uh most severe uh issues of our day i think the pandemic has actually helped me in the role and that i've been able to meet more people through the medium of zoom so as you can see i've had meetings with uh principals uh assistant principals uh teachers department supervisors student advocacy groups parent support groups and community members so uh it's been a great historical lesson i think i've learned so much about west windsor plainsboro regional school district from teachers that have been in the district over 30 years and even teachers that are coming in alumni as well as

035you can also see i visited all 10 district schools elementary middle schools and high schools a key point of actually visiting the 10 district schools which was critical is that each school has their own unique culture and norms right so it's important that if we're going to do the diversity equity and inclusivity work that we know what each school culture is and actually what are some of the things that are happening in the schools i've also developed an equity audit the equity audit delved into a little bit more detail at the district level with the schools elementary middle school and also high school it touched upon some of the things that are happening in the schools that west windsor plainsboro regional school district is doing very well but it also touched on things that we

036need to improve on as well and the purpose and goal of the listening learning and discovering is to continue the ongoing collaboration between schools faculty staff and the community to encourage an equity and inclusivity lens uh i want to mention because it is critical is that the district uh has been doing work in diversity equity and inclusivity so this is not something that is new even though my role is new uh dr adelholt and uh mr james earle and the rest of the team have actually been meeting um with you know the community members as well as um you know other stakeholders to address these issues so a few common themes uh that have come up over the past two months and and i would say that these themes are are common across uh buildings

037but mostly uh this theme was uh was more commonplace at the high school level uh students want to be represented in the materials that they are learning it's important to note that teachers are also excited about the developing their skills to teach more culturally relevant material a few uh highlights is that high school south is doing a pilot program 9th through 11th grade and they are reading stamped by jason reynolds and it's the young adult version uh that ibram candy actually put out a few years ago another aspect of the curriculum that has also uh been revised is that 12th grade students in particular classes are actually reading toni morrison's uh the bluest eye and also as well avid has developed two cohorts for the ninth grade at the elementary middle school level our work

038is being done as well to enhance the library on more diverse reading materials as well as more pictures around the school to represent our students safe and brave spaces for all students and faculty so with the safe and brave spaces for both students and faculty uh one of the key components is that we want to make sure that there's open dialogue between the students as well as the faculty one of the young ladies that's on the call uh alison who i met for the first time yesterday has been part of this conversation so it's good to see a familiar face a few examples include the black student union uh shades at high school north is having dialogue sessions with faculty and staff on i would say a bi-weekly basis uh as well as uh allison

039who's part of i believe the people of color uh advocacy group at high school south they actually held a pd session with faculty yesterday and i'll get into that a little bit more as we continue the presentation equity team meetings and date of review so the equity team meetings uh came in as the diversity equity inclusivity coordinator and one of the things that i was charged with is making sure that we not only meet on a uh i would say a bi-monthly by week i was twice a month uh basis but also coming up with a few goals in mind that we can come to a shared understanding of what equity and inclusivity is also we've uh are thinking about uh developing surveys as well uh to gather uh information from students uh so as

040we head into 2021 one of the things that the equity team will focus on is how do we capture exactly what students are feeling to make sure that what students are actually feeling is a representative of all students we don't want to just capture a few students we want to really capture the whole student body and that could be from 6th grade to 12th grade and it would be a great moment to actually see where some of the gaps are and then lastly is reviewing data and developing action plans to adjust address challenges of equity and inclusion uh so as we know with the data throughout the district there are areas that we can improve on and there are a few disparities um you know in the district whether that be among race amongst gender

041and these are the things that the equity team um is focusing uh their efforts on i will say with the equity team what is uh a key component as well is that all 10 schools are represented on the equity team meetings uh so that could be an assistant principal that could be a principal that could be a department supervisor um dr adehold is also on the equity team meeting as well as mr james earl and then we have community building and cultural action so community building as we know is an important aspect of the equity work which i've mentioned before so i've met with the african-american parents support group i've also met with the special education parent-teacher student association and student advocacy groups i have in the pipeline to meet with more pta groups as

042well as more student groups uh have a meeting i believe on thursday with great uh the gay street alliance uh so these are ongoing meetings to just listen uh to learn and to discover uh another important aspect which uh i didn't think i would necessarily um speak with but i think there's a a level of energy around equity and inclusivity uh is that i've actually had a chance to uh reconnect with west windsor plainsville uh alumni who have actually reached out to myself they've reached out to dr adehold and mr james earl and just speaking to them about their experiences um has been also an important aspect of the work i think when we speak to the alum uh the great thing is to hear their experiences but also to show that the progress that

043we're actually uh making uh we spoke to one student last week that i was just very very excited that the culturally responsive uh curriculum is in play and some of the books that the students are actually uh are going to read at the high school level and then lastly uh diversity equity and inclusivity and west windsor plainsboro schools and just this is just a highlight uh there's been a lot of things that have happened uh in october there's a lot of things that are uh are upcoming but these are just a few of the notable events that have happened within the last few weeks i'll just touch on a few of them so last week wednesday there was the black student union shades they held a panel discussion with students and faculty to discuss how

044teachers and students can be an ally to african-american students uh very powerful uh and very impactful uh dialogue just to hear the students voices and and hear some of their you know challenges uh and the great thing about it was is that we actually as adults listened um and we want to we want to make sure that these dialogues continue to happen throughout the school year so this will be one of many uh and i encourage uh you know whether it be board members or uh you know uh to be able to attend one of these because this this was really really powerful uh another event that happened on monday november 16 um was high school south south held a pd session for faculty focused on equity and another great aspect of it was that

045students led part of the pd session right uh so this is something that is a collaborative approach uh that uh i believe went well i will follow up with high school self uh this week to see uh how it went but i have a feeling that it went really well and then on november 17th the village held a discussion for faculty on anti-racism and equity and these sessions are ongoing for faculty and staff uh weekly announcements that happened at millstone river school to celebrate student cultures as well as experience and student-led discussions which uh i believe allison has been a part of and the english language arts department the english language arts department is actually looking to revise some of the curriculum off um offerings and students are playing a big part in that as

046well so as you can see overall there's a lot of work uh that uh you know i've been doing uh but i look at it as a lot of work that the district has been doing everyone has their hands in it and is playing a huge part in really uh pushing this equity and inclusivity work not something that is just out there but is actually happening that people can touch and feel so with that being said uh thank you very much and i believe i'll turn it over to uh charity uh so i'm on my uh my slide's right next um dave for you controlling thank you so i'd love to i'm charity camilla i'm the director of human resources and i'd love to speak to you about how we have been utilizing greater diversity

047in our hiring for west windsor plainsboro you know i always think of my two favorite words which you know probably why all of us are somehow involved in education or even attending this meeting tonight and that's um aspiration and inspiration you know aspiration comes from our hopes and what we want to do and what we aspire to and inspiration is you know we have to somehow see something or to know somebody to get to that place so for many of us uh we can think back on our favorite teacher and or the person that we interacted with a lot in you know as we were in our in our formative years and many times it's because we could relate to them they reminded us of ourselves some kind of way and we thought and looked

048at them and thought i someday want to be like this person i am very much inspired by my colleagues that are on this call i'm very much inspired by the people i work with and by our teachers i'm inspired by our students and so we really have to keep that in mind when we think about the students that are in our charge as well as the teachers that and the staff members that work in our district and what ideas and ideals they can bring to us so taking a look just at the student staff comparisons in our district you can take a look at our student demographics which are pretty current we have 71 asian students 5 black 5 hispanic and 16 percent white when you look at your staff you'll see a little bit

049of of an inverse 85 percent white followed by seven percent asian and then black and hispanic or three percent each now these are the major there's other of course uh groups that are represented with less than one percent but out of those main four areas it seems to be that there is a bit of a flip going on did you go to the next slide now if you take a look at the national center for education statistics and you look back at the national stats for education it's not that much different back in 1999 if you look at our teaching force eighty-four percent of our teachers were white um followed by eight percent black six percent hispanic and less than one percent asian 18 years later taking a look you'll see a little bit of

050change and our our caucasian staff dropped a bit and when our hispanic rose three percent black slightly lower and asian a tiny tiny bit higher so no matter what and looking at just these stats alone if you were to draw a pie chart out of these these uh sets of data you'd notice that there's one you know there's some parts of the data it's very accused you have a very large percentage of one particular group and then very very small pieces and we know with thanksgiving coming up that too much pie too many too much of a big piece is never a good thing you want to try to have it more equally split apart and charity this is national data correct this is national and it's showing the span over 18 years hasn't really

051changed that much but our student population has changed quite a bit so we have been focusing on trying to bring greater diversity to our district and taking a look at our hiring pools um when we go to select applications and we're looking to see where can we find more of our our diverse staff we are very fortunate in this district that we have many many applicants that would love to work here we can put up a posting for a teaching position and we oftentimes have hundreds and hundreds of applicants many times right from the same colleges just around the corner or from the same places as usual and we can get um quite quite a number of very very skilled teachers and you know we're very very proud of our staff when we're trying to

052look for more diverse staff though we do have to be more active and we have to go and try to recruit specifically in different areas or in different ways we we have been participating in virtual job fairs we have been a part of the cj pride consortium which is um is a it's a consortium of districts that specifically look to look for ways for bringing in more diverse staff and we also analyze and look you know outward for the best candidates that we can get but not only in you know waiting for the people who come to us but to go to where the diverse candidates are and so um we've taken a look at our our new hires just looking at the the new staff that come into the district whether they're teachers or

053support staff or administrators over just the past four years and you can see some of the span of changes that have happened back in 2017 our new hire out of our new hires we had white 10 asian followed by 7 hispanic and 2 black as the years have progressed though you can see that the there's been a shake-up in how how the different groups are spread or spread across and so what um we have been doing as administrators and as hiring agents is to number one look for the the best skill set that we can find but also make sure that our pool is varied that you know when we're looking for elementary teachers that we're looking for male staff as well as female staff because we know that there's usually a very high percentage

054of female staff in the elementary but maybe we want to try to recruit some more men and it's the same for any other underrepresented area in all of our levels of teaching or administration or in support and we try to make sure that when we are bringing in our candidates that we do have a diverse pool of candidates and then we can really go through in the interview process which is very standardized and look at the best but because we have such variety we can bring forward a more diverse crop of the of candidates and we usually end up with greater diversity in our hires has in the end result of that is that we have um so many different voices to the table we have people from so many different perspectives that um can

055add to our are the richness and of education of excellence of education in this district so it's been very wonderful to work strategically and thinking about trying to promote diversity in the districts and i'm very very proud of the work that we've been doing and i'm always trying to find ways that we can bring in um more inspiration for our students so that when they see the educators in this district they can see themselves and they can aspire to be a greater version of who they're meant to be so that's it in a nutshell for where we are in hiring thank you so much that was fantastic uh uh mr jones and this is camilla thank you so much does the board have any questions for either of them i'm looking carefully to see if

056anybody's raising their hand okay i don't see anything so thank you so much mr jones and this is camilla and now we'll move on to our final presentation for the night which is on winter athletics um i'm going to ask dr aderholt to make our athletic director kate dobinson of participant right yep first i just need to move anthony back to attendee thank you he's on the move thank you anthony and and i believe uh mr earl will also be speaking and bringing kate in now thank you so as we um as we bring kate on on to the panel um and before we turn it over to both kate and anthony uh okay excuse me and james um i just want to again uh thank kate and and uh members of the athletic community

057for taking the time to come together and uh provide feedback you know kate's gonna talk about the interactive process um and i'll make some remarks at the conclusion of kate's uh presentation um james were you kicking off or right to kate yeah i was just going to say thank you again for allowing us to uh uh present uh kate's done a phenomenal job of gathering coaches and dr etterhold and i and kate working with families listening to boosters so you're gonna hear a good bit about what's taking place in the area of us uh collaborating with our stakeholders uh around winter sports season and sports in general so i'll turn it over to kate thank you okay would you like me to share screen at this point that would be great thank you so while

058we're um getting this uh screen shared i just want to thank you all for allowing me to present tonight on our winter athletic update um it has been a very um inclusive process as we've been going through and having many discussions with booster club members coaches as well as students um dr otterhol if you could just move to the next slide please so i wanted to start off with the executive order 187 because this spurs a lot of the decision making process that both the nj siaa and other local athletic communities are looking at um and it's important to remember that the njsia governs athletics within high schools and this executive order really focused on youth sports but the njsia did mirror this with their different recommendations um and what this executive order did it

059allowed for youth sports to have indoor sports um it limited the number of individuals at a practice or a competition to 25 25 of the room in which that takes place or 25 people whichever is less and they did make the accommodation that in the event that you needed more individuals than 25 people you had that ability to go up to the 25 of the room as long as they were um essential personnel officials game workers um players coaches training staff of the like um so that's the the rundown of the executive order um and kate if i could just uh add in just just yesterday late last night um executive over 196 was signed and released and that moves it from 25 to 10 but a very similar limit exists with about necessary personnel

060for the event so that same idea that if more than ten are needed for the event to take place you can exceed for the event to occur but it limits essentially no spectators all that kind of stuff so the executive order came out i believe it was october 13 ish and then the next day the njsia came out with their guidelines and this mirrors executive order 187 they did give us a practice state to start on december 3rd wwp is currently looking at december 7th and the reason i'm looking at december 7th is to allow 10 days between thanksgiving day and the start date so it provides a little bit of a buffer to make sure that all of our staff and students are safe when and if we can begin our practices competition would

061start on december 21st um it is a limited schedule very similar to what was done in the fall it's a 15 game schedule with a limit of two games per week and there are two weeks where you were allowed in three games and that's just to allow everyone to get their competition in um it's limited to two teams so typically wrestling will have tries or quads as well as winter tracks will uh track will have um invitational competition and they are limiting it to just two teams um you have one scrimmage and no out of state competition um is allowed and that really mirrors what came out last week with the governor's announcement as well as prohibiting interstate competition um the njsia does have their transfer period on november 1 which has already passed any

062student who transfers after this date would be required to sit even if there is a bona fide address change so anybody who was looking to transfer needed to transfer prior to that november first date um and the transfer sit would be 30 days or half of the maximum of games which with a 15 game season would be seven games move um timeline so this is a big week in athletics we have been waiting patiently um for the njsia to come out and make their recommendations um based off of communication that we received at the end of october um it was indicated to us that the week of november 16th both the medical advisory task force as well as the sport advisory task force will be coming out with those recommendations um on november 19th i

063will have the opportunity to sit in on the leagues and conferences meeting which will have more um an in-depth analysis of those guidelines um and then on november 20th friday we will be having a cvc meeting colonial valley conference meeting to go over any changes that needs to be done within our schedule um it's important to note that we do have schedules competition schedules in place they have not been released yet because i want to make sure that we have everything set and there's no other changes based upon the cvc schools and as well as wwp has made indication that we will not be making a decision until later on in the month if we will be moving forward you go to the next slide we opened up high school registration on october 16th and

064it closed on november 8th our registration was about 78 of what it would be in a traditional year which is very positive high school north had 324 students across nine sports and high school south had uh 362 students registered across nine sports um i have had i have been accepting some late registrations um and working with families on getting physicals in and the nursing department to ensure that when we are given the go ahead students will be ready to participate um we have not opened up middle school registration we are currently looking at what we will need to be doing to have high school sports move forward as i said in the beginning we've had many discussions regarding athletics i've had several coaches meetings starting on october 19th the 20th i met with both high

065schools um and then we did combined meetings with the head coaches on the 29th the 30th and then we had a meeting on november 4th with mr earl dr aderhold mr earl mr leppel dr dauber um and then some of the board of ed representatives were able to attend parent meetings with booster club members on october 22nd october 28th and uh november 2nd those were very positive meetings we were able to look at the different challenges that we might be facing with athletics but also be able to hear how important it was to our families and students on october 27th we met with the district doctor as well as medical personnel the athletic trainers the principals um and dr mcdonald to look at the different medical needs that we would need to look at making

066sure that we have all the requirements met and then lastly on november 2nd and november 3rd i was able to meet with student representatives to discuss concerns with them and how we would need to move forward in a community effort and have everybody on the same page some of the health and safety protocols that would be required temperature screening at the start of practices each team has a touch-free thermometer that we have purchased and we have received daily health screening form this would be similar to the health screening forms that students have to submit in order to attend school even if a student submits a health screening form in the beginning of the day they would still need to complete another one towards the end of the day for practices to make sure that we

067have everybody accounted for and that everyone is safe for practice hand sanitizers we've purchased hand sanitizers as well as refills and each practice location will have one the students will be required to be using them in between drills and water breaks each student will provide their own water practices may be based upon event or gender and this is really thinking about indoor track swimming and fencing where we have a boys and a girls team and looking at how we can pod the students equipment would be wiped down at the start and the end of practices limited locker room use so really looking at um you know where locker room would be essential swimming diving wrestling to ensure hygiene as the students are leaving home or to go home personal hygiene protocols for athletes you know

068making sure that their items are going home every day they're washing their uniforms their pennies every day and making sure that they're taking that extra step and then lastly masks would be worn by all athletic staff um and then students would be asked to wear them during teaching moments so if they they're walking through a play or a drill before they get into that competition or the um the full-on play within the practice periods health and safety for competition um we have an agreement with the colonial valley conference that we will only be playing within our conference and that is to ensure a pod type group to ensure the safety of all the schools within mercer county as well as allentown we will be identifying local competition groups for fencing and diving fencing we are

069in the skylines conference and i just want to verify that you know those individual schools within those conference would be staying with those individual schools and keeping that potting um like we have with basketball wrestling swimming ice hockey and track um trav there is a possibility of travel loss roster limits in accordance with the cvc guidelines this is something that the cvc schools did in the fall um daily screening forms and temperature treks required prior to departure and those forms would have to be shown to the athletic director or athletic trainer at the opposing school and currently there are no spectators permitted however we are exploring the option of streaming the competition so that our family and our students can still participate and see the events and watch their students play we did come across

070some challenges with winter and it's important to note that while there are challenges these do not signal that a return to play is not feasible it's just looking in in different ways and and being creative with our thought process transportation is one of the challenges wwp follows cdc guidelines and currently permits 11 students and a coach on a bus um so we would need to look at adding additional busing or looking at the roster limits and then there's no busing to and from practice practice spaces we have explored utilizing other buildings within the district other than our high schools um spectators currently the njsia are not permitting spectators but we can stream and then there are there's sports specific challenges um when you think about wrestling there's close uh physical contact um and then winter

071track competitions unable to have invitational needs so how do we kind of move past those things um and these are also challenges that not only wwp is facing but other schools within the cvc um you know there are schools in the cbc that are also facing the challenging of pool space um we are very lucky to have a pool at high school north and high school south but how will we adjust with our competition not being able to provide pool space and then lastly there should be one more slide yep um athlete accountability and responsible behavior um so just as we've been talking about um within keeping our schools open it's important that our athletes and our families follow the recommended cdc guidelines limit social interactions with groups of individuals so really kind of keeping

072your pot or your circle small consider travel restrictions and plans for holidays and winter break so really thinking about the need to quarantine after travel and then utilizing the masks wearing them properly good personal hygiene washing hands all of those different cv cdc recommendations that we see on a day-to-day basis so i will now open it up for questions from the board hi um i was at mercer county park one day exercising and while i was there there were teams from two high schools that i presume were there for a meet or competition cross country or something because they each had i don't know maybe eight runners and two coaches and what i noticed that was a little bit disturbing was that the coaches were masked but the students were not and the students were

073not running yet i mean i could understand maybe during the race they're not masked but they were hanging out under a tree putting their shoes on you know just that kind of stuff they did not appear to have masks in their possession and it seemed to me that this was the norm because the coaches were watching it and that appeared to be the way that they were running that so um i guess my question is is there a mechanism that you're imagining for some sort of spot checking and making sure that the coaches and the students are actually adhering to the guidelines that if we do this and i i i know exactly you know we've i'm the cvc um cross-country liaison um so you know i that was brought to my attention and we

074did address that kind of early on and hopefully encouraged all of the coaches to to make sure that they were encouraging and demonstrating in positive behavior but also relaying back to their athletes the need to wear masks um you know the way i vision it is our students are are very hopeful of having athletics happen and i think that they will do what will need to be done in order to a have athletics happen and also sustain athletics to occur um you know it's it's going to come down to the coaches and to the the players to really encourage the wearing of masks um to and from practice that is definitely a huge part of the the athletic plan that i have developed um and making sure that they're encouraging and and really getting that

075message home to our students um and then if it's not occurring the way it should be doing with masks to and from practice and during those down time at practice you know having those conversations with the players and with the coaches to ensure that it does happen um but i know that that was a struggle that um we saw with cross country and we definitely did address at both the athletic the official level as as well as the coaching levels so it's really it comes down to communication any any other questions from members of the board i'll just maybe wrap it up with just saying that i want to say thank you to both uh kate and james uh for their work and leadership uh through this discussion a thank you to the booster clubs

076uh one for their advocacy two for reaching out and and and seeing being willing to sit down at the table and the representatives that came and had the meetings with members of the administration and members of the board um greatly appreciated the feedback and and the concerns and and the opportunities that they shared i know that our coaches have been steadfast advocates for our students uh student athletes throughout and have been working with kate to provide feedback from numerous drafts of sport specific guidelines uh guidance that the district has has put together into our student athletes for their their commitment their willingness their interest and and we know that this is so much more than um about competition it's also not that opportunity for connection um and um what what i do know is no

077matter what happens with the season we'll continue to support that connection between our coaches uh and our athletes uh throughout the winter season much like we attempted to do through the fall season um there is no decision that's going to be announced tonight so i know there's some members of the sports community on tonight we we said tonight was going to be an update service status update of what's going on out there um it's still there we're not announcing any grand pronouncements tonight we are very interested to see what the ngsi does we are expecting uh some guidance to come out this week we're hoping that that actually does happen whether it's later thursday or whether it's on friday uh we know the connecticut interscholastic athletic conference just postponed into mid-january we're not sure if

078the ngsi is going to do a a full go if they're going to do a partial go and maybe move some sports seasons around so everything right now we're looking at is potentially on the table and obviously the health and safety of our school community is is going to govern this decision one of the things that west windsor plainsboro has been able to do that other districts haven't been able to do quite frankly is stay open um and and um you know as we're in day uh tomorrow being day 50 um some of our neighboring communities have yet to open their high schools but they proceed with athletics and i think personally that is absolutely the absolute backwards uh move our our primary responsibilities open our our facilities and and by no means am i

079diminishing the value of athletics but our primary responsibility is the is the academics and so we are going to govern and guard the health and safety of our school community and the academic environment of our school community at the forefront and then we will do everything steadfast to try to make sure and to see if we can do anything with respect to athletics uh within winter but we will not let athletics compromise the academics as it's happened in so many other communities so uh we again we we understand the value we understand the impact um and we are proceeding earnestly and trying to find a pathway and quite frankly the the documentation that they ng said comes out is going to play a large role in us figuring out if we believe those their guidelines

080are um is something that we can implement and and i uh one of the reasons we moved that our decision date to the week of the 30th was we just don't know what they're going to put out and um you know there's that saying 30 seconds is a long time in a basketball game well you know 10 days is a long time in making a decision uh right now in a coveted environment um on friday i had 29 more staff members present than i do today uh based on quarantining in covid so you know we we are going to take every second that we can to make an informed decision to make sure that we're promoting the health and safety of our school community that is our student athletes and their families our coaches and

081their families and our our our teachers and our students that are attending on a daily basis so my thanks to all involved i know how hard this is um you know i and you know we we hope that we are able to find a pathway um but i i will not hesitate to make a difficult decision if i don't believe that pathway is possible i get my thanks to all involved and uh that is the conclusion of three presentations and i believe at this point in this case you believe it's the first opportunity for public comment if i'm not mistaken it is and so i will let everyone know with the rules the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who submitted written comments to

082the 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 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 make additional comments via video and or audio each comment should be directed to the presiding

083officer 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 individual has finished their comment or their three minutes has expired their audio and video will be turned off by the moderator this public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes so we'll begin with the public comments that are going to be made via video or audio first uh in this case there are two members of the community that i see have signed up um what i will do is i will uh send an invite to the first member mr bidwa uh

084to become a panelist he has to accept that invitation he'll appear on the screen he'll have three minutes and then i'll move him back to attendee thank you he might not know that he's muted he uh he has no video on he's been promoting he's actually a panelist right now but he has no video and no audio um so mr big why are you there yes can you see me no no we can hear you but we cannot see you well i don't know how to turn on my video it's on usually well you can just do the audio then that's fine if you want well but i had some picture here and something so i wanted to share a screen is there a way i can do that i don't know if that's possible

085is it mister i'm i'm gonna ask you to start your video with a prompt see if that helps you how do i oh start my video okay there it works can you ask me now we can see you and hear you but how do i share the screen you cannot share your screen oh so you're back to square one okay well i'm going to read what is written here by me uh and obviously the pictures can be shown anyway uh madam president can the wwp superintendent please put money where his mouth is he stated at the outset today that the virtual program is fast approaching an asymptote by giving the wwp but given the wwp stance virtual windows grow exponentially without worries about what it is what is visible in each of them he just

086mentioned a limit to virtual classroom in terms of those zoom pigeon holes those are like peg holes and then i had a picture of pigeonholes and pig holes on an 11.6 inch diagonal chromebooks a better use of money so that no child is left behind is to have bigger better chromebooks with 15.6 inches diagrams in the alternative while everyone differs such a distinction by choice children must be able to use their available at home 15.6 inches various os operating system machines 11.6 inches chromebooks are so ancient that they belong to a museum not as a mainstream education delivery device and then there are a couple of pictures there and then finally uh there was an article in nj.com the state of the hybrid at the wwp a gym class of one an auditorium full of

087students why 1400 students dropped out of hybrid learning and then i'm sure i can email this to the board and then they can probably attach it to the file that's all i had to say thank you thank you all right there is um well another one other uh miss edwards uh excuse me miss miss edwards i'll move her to panels now good evening everyone hello uh i'll make this very quick uh as the president of the african american parent support group i'm happy to see and be a part of the district's push towards diversity equity inclusion and social justice social justice we have a lot of work to do and a lot of uncomfortable conversations to be had but i am hopeful that we are moving in the right direction a special shout out to

088all the pta presidents and sepsa there was a hard-working core group that put these wwp shirts together and we are wwp strong if we stand together and stand united so thank you to all the pta presidents thank you to sepsa thank you to aapsg thank you to the district for purchasing thank you for all um that submitted videos my son and i submitted the video we had a good time so as much as we have in this time that divides us let's work as hard as we can to work together to be united and be wwp strong everyone have a great night and stay safe thank you so much and then there are two written submitted comments so i'll share screen mark if that works in advance thank you all right okay uh the first

089uh written comment that we have is from maya kamath uh 19208 warbler way west windsor the comment is i wanted to take a moment to thank all of the staff from our schools and administration the board members our wwp students and families and local community members for participating in the hashtag wwp strong spirit day and making this unity movement a success it was heartwarming to see everyone share their pictures in solidarity special thanks to the wwpea our school tpas sepsa and aapsg for giving their support to the project stronger together even when apart we are hashtag wwp strong the second comment is from kristen reader and there's an email address to west windsor nothing about this school year is normal except for how students are being assessed maybe it is time for the administration to

090think outside the box and alleviate the effects that the covid19 pandemic is having on students by offering a flexible grading policy not the any student who has actively engaged in class activities responded to teacher feedback and provided evidence of learning will earn an a policy adopted in the spring one that provides for the possibility of taking a non-graduation required class pass fail or credit no credit and not have it appear on an external transcript and madam president those are the two written comments thank you dr adele do you have anything to say at this time i do not thank you thank you so that brings us now to our committee reports we'll begin with administration and facilities and for that i will turn it over to tony flares hey thank you the uh committee met

091uh a week ago and uh we began with the uh update on hybrid and virtual learning uh dr idahold and mr earl provided updates uh the way things are going and i think the dr idaho gave a very good presentation at the start of the meeting so i'm not going to go through it other than just to say that uh i want to give a personal thanks to the teachers and staff that are really doing very well in a difficult situation and they continue to amaze us we discussed policies on your agenda you're going to see for the first reading policies and regulations for domestic violence health and physical education administration of medication supervision of construction the school day and reporting potentially missing or abused children and for a second reading gifted and talented students

092the community reviewed them and supports the passage both for the first and second reading if anyone has comments on the first reading ones uh please get it to the committee we'll be discussing them again at our next meeting mr jones shared with us an example of one of the school crisis manuals and included uh components these manuals all have similar components uh with procedures related to each building and the age of the students all ten buildings have updated crisis manuals uh that include uh covert related procedures and safety guidelines the committee then reviewed the safety and security plan statement of assurance and recommends a approval at tonight's meeting uh then we discussed the living yes proposal which supports student and student climate and culture teams uh the speaker will facilitate a climate and culture summit

093focused on resiliency and connection during covert administrative staff will also be engaged in training and professional development uh the committee recommends again approval of this proposal at tonight's meeting then we discussed the proposed cane nurse partnership and this is designed to support nursing candidates who are completing clinical internships uh the committee again uh recommends approval for tonight at tonight's meeting we looked at two drafts of the 2022-2023 school year uh we provided some feedback and the district will be sharing the calendar with uh other stakeholders for input and again we'll be reviewing them again at our next meeting we discussed the the update on athletics uh miss dobbinson did a great job and i'm not going to repeat what we discussed but uh the winter athletic registrations have closed with about 75 percent of the

094athletes uh who registered last year submitted uh registrations this year uh the special education review consultant is in the process of virtually observing classrooms observations were scheduled to be completed by the end of december then we discussed the referendums i'll go through the updates so louise won't have to the fire alarm project that's completed millstone river and osi was on site last week to address punch list items the hvac upgrades at high school north and millstone river are moving along nicely with the installation of hot water pipes at north and a shutdown of the chiller at millstone river to prepare for pump replacements and piping work toilet renovations are complete and waiting to address punchless items at wyckoff and dutchneck the brickwork is completed grover and the contractor is pulling branch wiring tricon continues installing

095stormwater piping at community around the gym area and has installed the adjacent drywell uh work continues at high school south with concrete footings being poured to prepare for the underground plumbing shop drawing submissions continue and coordination between the contractors is moving along well uh finally we discussed the equity update uh committee uh is on wednesday there was a um the black student union held panel discussion with students and faculty uh yesterday high school south is having well had a professional development station a session for faculty focused on equity and today village was hosting a uh discussions for faculty on anti-racism and equity the equity team's uh meeting every two weeks our next meeting is scheduled for december 8. any questions thank you thank you okay our next report comes from the curriculum committee so for

096that i'll turn it over to dana krug well good evening the curriculum committee also met on november 10th dr nathan and dr mcdonald shared the revisions to the high school program of study for the 21-22 school year a presentation will be given to the full board at the next board meeting which we saw earlier tonight the um curriculum committee also recommends approval of two professional development opportunities virtual fish bird training which is a program of interactive workshops and coaching where partici where participants aligned to a shared purpose and continue to develop the skills and insights to lead this is for district staff members at a cost not to exceed four thousand dollars and another opportunity is the colby index a assessments for all participants at a cost not to exceed fifteen hundred dollars the uh

097curriculum committee also recommends approval of the additional community education spring break 20 20 21 virtual programs for students grades one to eight please take a look at the district website to see all the winter and spring programs being run online through community education our next meeting is uh tuesday december 8th and that will also be virtual thank you are there any questions about the curriculum minutes okay now we'll turn it over for the report coming out of the finance committee and that goes to louisa hall sorry i hit the wrong button there for a second okay the finance committee also met on november 10th we started with an update on health insurance staff shared that administration and brown and brown are working on setting up the structure for banking and information sharing for the self-insurance

098approach for health care that we discussed previously brown and brown is working on pseudorates and reviewing plan documents line by line staff shared that the auditor will share the results of the 2019-20 audit with the finance committee at december meeting and then with the full board at the december regular public meeting next the committee reviewed agenda items for tonight's board meeting the committee reviewed the financial reports for the month there are two change orders on the agenda the change order in the town center expansion project was approved in the field previously and involved replacing stairs the other change order is for a set of changes for the bus parking area at high school north which resulted in a credit to the district also there is a motion on the agenda to authorize the architect to

099assist the district into complying with the requirements of the securing our children's future bond act grant architect will design and make the required submittals to the office of school facilities on the district behalf also on the agenda are the disposal of the few items that are passed their useful life and the cancellation of a bus rep that is no longer needed staff provided an update on construction projects tony wonderfully covered that already i would just add that i think there was one item on wyckoff due to the topography of the wyckoff site with respect to the americans with disabilities act a discussion was led they the staff discussed possibly moving the main entrance to the opposite side of the building which would require new travel patterns around the site next discussion moved to summer project

100staff shared that work continues on the high school north salt storage shed work on the village stock salt storage shed has been held up as we await permit approval from west windsor township staff then provided an update on the energy savings improvement program work at high school south fan coils are being hung in the locker rooms along with network integration of controls in the building at dutch neck the installation of hvac controls continues at community there was a crane lift this week for the rooftop hvac units also hvac controls are being installed on other units in the 700 800 wing at millstone river emergency lighting meetings were held to include more areas of the building on the backup lighting system tied to the generators led lighting retrofit is substantially complete in village town center in

101wyckoff elementary schools and they are beginning to mobilize at dutchneck network integration and commissioning of the hvac systems at village and town center elementary schools is happening this week and next high efficiency transformers have been installed at high school south village high school north grover and millstone and this work is beginning at community middle school this week bipolar ionization unit installation is complete in town center hawk village community dutch neck and high school south except for locker rooms where work is being completed on the hvac system work at north has been halted due to referendum work on unit ventilators but all classrooms have standalone hepa filter systems currently solar array racking is complete at millstone river dutch neck and village and awaiting final steps to start operation of the systems installation of solar panels has

102started at grover next the committee briefly discussed preparation for the 2021 budget staff shared that due to covet 19 there is a concern that the state might propose flat funding for the next year or the subsequent year there is legislation introduced in the senate to allow for a four percent fund balance for school district which is currently set at two percent of the prior year's general fund extended this further indicates the possibility of future aid cuts the budget calendar was provided to the committee and may be slightly different this year due to the pandemic staff provided an update on school operations that has largely been updated by the superintendent today the district has provided has started providing daily in-person instruction to more special education students in grades four to twelve to do this safely accommodated

103approximately 200 additional students on buses and staff the superintendent commended everyone involved in making this happen and that we have been getting positive feedback on this change there was no other new business discussed and the committee will next meet on tuesday december 8th are there any questions about the finance committee's report okay so now we'll move forward with our agenda where part where we vote we begin with um can i please get a motion on administration items one to twelve plus we have two addendum one is the residency matter and the other one is the special services agreement so can i get a motion on items one to twelve plus those two addend them tony and robin are there any questions or comments on the administration items thank you chris okay we'll start with mr

104chang yes okay mr flares yes ms ho yes ms krug yes ms mckeon yes mr whitfield yes mizovich yes ms juliana yes and ms cash yes okay can i please get a motion on the curriculum and instruction items one and two dana and graylin are there any questions or comments on the curriculum items thank you chris okay we'll start mr flares yes miss ho yes ms krug yes ms mccoon yes mr whitfield yes mizovich yes mr chang yes ms juliana yes and miss cash yes can i please get a motion on the finance items one through eight plus two addendum one is the additional bill list and the other one is the school security grant assurances um one to eight plus those two addendum louisa and isaac are there any questions or comments on the

105finance items thanks chris okay we'll start with miss ho miss krug yes ms mckeon yes mr whitfield yes mizovich yes mr chang yes mr flares yes ms juliana yes and miss cash yes okay can i please get a motion on the personnel item one plus the personnel addendum and then the other addendum which is the sidebar agreement with the wwpea um martin and rachel are there any questions on the personnel items chris okay we'll start with miss krug yes ms mccoon yes mr whitfield yes mizovich yes mr chang yes mr flares yes ms ho yes is juliana yes and miss cash yes i'd like to take a moment to acknowledge one retirement that we just believed on rachel cienci a learning disabilities teacher consultant is retiring after 34 and a half years with the district

106i want to thank her for all her hard work and appreciate all she did for the students in wwp and wish her well could i please get um in this case i apologize i just want to also acknowledge in a virtual audience tonight we also have a new assistant principal that was just uh brought in this evening so if we were in the board office we would have just recognized them in the room so uh humor me as i recognize someone in a virtual space that you can't see um but emily creveling uh has been just was appointed as a new assistant principal at high school south emily uh will follow in the footsteps of dr carla royster who will be retiring at the end of december it's all our best to dr reister uh

107emily joins us from uh the uh currently is the instructional coach at the urban assembly in new york city prior to that she was an assistant principal in freehold township uh in new jersey prior to that she was an assistant principal uh i mean in new york city um so she had some family move there uh in between so she's coming back to jersey we're proud to welcome her to uh to high school south uh as assistant principal so welcome emily and on behalf of the board i will welcome ms creveling as well good luck thank you um can i please get a motion to approve the minutes from our meeting uh on october 27th isaac and louisa are there any questions or comments on that minutes all those in favor say aye any abstentions

108are there any liaison reports is there any new business that 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 broad 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 policy zero one six seven members of the public who did not submit written comments and who have signed up

109will 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 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 individual has finished their comment or their three minutes has expired their audio and video will be turned off by the moderator this public comment period shall be limited to weeks we'll begin we don't have any written comments so it's only okay

110and do we have any video or audio comments we have one we have one request for speaking uh miss libby barack but i looked in the attendee list and i do not see her listed uh there's one phone number and i cross-check that against genesis and it does not match that name or that family so it does not appear that she's still present okay so um then i guess we have no public comment at this time so we'll close that and i need a motion to adjourn rachel and robin all those in favor say aye aye aye bye you john stay safe everybody have a great thanksgiving be careful and uh we'll see you soon wwp strong