001All right, guys. We're going to get started. It's Mike talking. All right. I'm going to call the meeting to order. In compliance with the open public meeting law of New Jersey, notice of this May 13, 2025 meeting of the Bridgewater Raritin Regional Board of Education was posted electronically on the district website and provided on January 8th, 2025 by sending an annual written notice to the Courier News, Star Ledger, Bridgewater Township Clerk, Raritton Burough Clerk, and by posting it on the Bulletin board at the Harman v Wayade Administrative Building. Please stand for the pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Lumpsy, can you please call the role? Mr. Lee, here. Mrs. Sunna here. Mr.
002Jooshi here. Miss Lan here. Miss Lee, Mr. Pepe here, Mr. Walker here, Miss Kistri here, Mr. Singer. Okay, we are going to get started with the super tense report. Thank you, Mrs. Kalistri. So, we're going to start this evening by honoring two of our athletics teams from the winter season. one being the girls swim team and the other being the boy the wrestling team. Both of these teams won state sectional titles, right? Which is a major accomplishment. And look, one one of our initiatives uh that we that we've started this year is really to uh to honor the kids who are who are doing great things in our school. And the board has been kind enough to uh you know to subsidize awards in the uh uh in the form of a picture plaque for
003each student to get um who was a part of these championship teams. So we've got our wrestlers and our swimmers down in the main gym. So I really welcome anyone who's here in the audience uh to please join us in honoring these kids who really accomplished some great things over the winter. um it's the end of the year and and we want to give kudos to them as really uh outstanding stewards uh for our institutions. So, if we can, let's go on down and and we'll kick this off. So, do you want me to say Okay. So, the final part of our celebration um this evening is to honor our board of education reps and uh these three young ladies who who are here uh this evening. You know, just as a superintendent, I want
004to say you did a fantastic job. Um your reports were informative, helpful, etc. And and once more, you are excellent representatives of of the school districts, of your families, and obviously of yourself. And I know as a group, we are always better when you're here. And and I I just want you to know that the value that you did add to the conversations and to our meetings. And it's a part that I know we always look forward to and the public always look forward to. And uh I know everyone's on to to bigger and brighter things. I for the audience, I I busted their chops a little bit today where it's the middle of May and all of a sudden everyone's got this look of relief on their face and the smiles are back. Um
005be because um you know so many kids and and I can speak to this as a father of high schoolers as well. There's a lot of pressure on kids today, right? Especially senior year, where are you going to college? What are your scores? all all these things and and the workload for kids who who really perform at a high level academically is is immense and and it takes quite a bit of talent uh to juggle these responsibilities and and uh I'm very appreciative of the fact that uh two people came every single meeting and I know most nights I mean no offense to anyone here at the table you probably have better things to do that night then then come here and see us. But anyhow, uh thank you and and I I appreciate being
006here. Now it's going I'm gonna turn it over to uh Mrs. Kistri who's got a proclamation for you and then we have some awards to give you and we'll do a little photo op with the entire board of education. All right. So I'm going to read this proclamation. Whereas Gianna Kari, Sunonny Chen, and Isabelle Louu, students of the Bridgewater Raritton High School in Somerset County, have served with dedication as student representatives to the Bridgewater Raritton Regional School District Board of Education from September 2024 through June of 2025. And whereas Gianna, Sunny, and Isabelle have executed their duties as the school board's liaison to the student to the student community with commitment, interest, and enthusiasm and have been excellent representatives of both the Bridgewater Raritan Regional School District Board of Education and the Bridgewater Raritan High
007School. And whereas Gianna, Sunny, and Isabelle participated in schoolboard meetings by making contributions that were articulate, thoughtprovoking, and a benefit to the school board members. And whereas Gianna Sunny and Isabelle schools Isabelle's school careers demonstrated that they accomplish accomplished students of academics and their leadership activities and community service on the local and school level show that others have confidence in Gianna Sunny and Isabelle and the value they contribute. And whereas Gianna Sunny and Isabelle are bright, outgoing young women who fulfilled their responsibilities with eagerness and dedication. Now therefore, be it resolved that the members of the Bridgewater Raritin Regional School Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Robert Beers, extend their sincere appreciation to Giana Kari, Sunonny Chen, and Isabelle Louu for a job well done. And be it further resolved that the
008Bridgewater Raritan Regional School Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools wish to acknowledge Giana Kari, Sunonny Chen, and Isabelle Lou's personal and academic excellence as well as their leadership qualities and that they wi and we wish them a continued success in their future endeavors. Congratulations and thanks ladies. [Applause] Why don't we come up here? Why don't we take a photo with the whole board of education right here? It's a lot of warehouses. All right, ladies. Do you guys want to do your reports now? All right. Okay. So um good evening everyone. Sorry. Okay. Um good evening. Good evening everybody. Um first I just have a report on the happenings in our visual and performing arts department. And so um the visual arts festival of the arts will be occurring next Thursday, May 22nd. The
009orchestra spring concert is next Tuesday, May 20th. Um the our choir spring concert is May 27th. And our band spring concert is May 29th. And the choir um is also taking a trip to Ruckers for an uh NJACDA coral festival next Tuesday. And so we're just looking forward to all of these culminating events to just um wrap up the year on a good note and uh set the stage for arts for next year. Um so now on to just some general like community updates and like um club stuff. So, our school like we had our last blood drive on March 25th and many people showed up to donate which was very exciting and they're planning another one next week. So, yeah, we will see how that goes. And um the world language induction ceremonies are
010held this week. So, that's like Spanish, French, um Chinese, Italian, Latin, and German, I believe, National Honor Society. And the 28th is like the school's general national honor society induction ceremony. And the junior dinner cruise cruise is scheduled for the 30th where about like 200 students will be attending. Um so yeah, and just like a tiny bit about sports, the softball and volleyball senior night was last week and we're probably going to be looking forward to some banquetss coming soon as well. And well, first I want to thank you superintendent Beers for your kind words. It was really much appreciated. And so just some more updates. We are almost about to conclude our AP testing at the high school with some makeups next week. Some updates on the seniors. We recently had two scholar athletes
011nominated and congratulated Nola Demakco and Stacy Yang as a Somerset County Scholar athletes. As well, we have prom this Friday and a lot of the senior awards on June 4th. And then overall, the senior class is preparing for prom and then graduation with the end in sight. And so, um, just to close out on our comments for tonight, I would just like to say like what an honor it was to be here with all of you. And even though like people might think the presentations are a little boring, I did I did um I will say I did enjoy like hearing more about the community and actually like understanding how our school district work behind the scenes like the numbers and the budget presentations and just overall like expanding my knowledge of what's going on
012in our community. And yeah, over to them um to as well. Thank you everyone so much for like honestly like showing us what the board of education does and it was really like eye opening as well as like um it was really an honor to be part of like being able to you know see the course of our education and just like help shape like the future of like Bridgewater Ritton Regional School District and I thought that was really cool and um thank you guys so much for what you do for all of us. Um and thank you again as well. So, I'm just really grateful for this privilege to just um just really understand what goes into our education and all the decisions that need to be made. And I'm just grateful and honored
013that I was able to allow student voices to be heard. And I hope we were able to set a great foundation for future changes and that we led a great example for the student representatives next year. Again, let's give him a round of applause. And look, your your presentations are far more engaging than any of mine. So So uh you're a tough act to follow, but but honestly uh you know, as as a non- voting member of this board, and if anyone else would would like to to uh say anything, please uh go ahead. Uh but it's been an honor and best wishes to all of you. I just want to say thanks for being here. It really is. We learn a lot from you guys because we're not there. So, we learn a ton.
014I also like that you all wore your college gear. So, congratulations. It looks like you all made your decisions. So, congrats. With that, thank you. We'll clap him out of the room, right, guys? Thank you. All right. Bor. I like that. That's what I do. Take them. Yeah. Take them. Oh, yeah. Take them. Byebye. Thank you. That's okay. So now it's um my presentation, right? Okay. So I'll get this up for everybody. Okay. Thank you everyone. And and as always, um I I'm really pleased to have a large turnout tonight. Um and uh I think it just Bunny Chance, can we shut that door? Thank you. So, so we always take the time at at our our last or next to last uh meeting of every year to really look at our district goals and
015share with the community what our progress has been on these goals to share with the board of education in the community at large. And um I I'm going to give this presentation with my colleagues um up here and and afterwards um I can ask the board of education if they have any questions. Um and then certainly when public comment comes later if there any questions pertaining to this we can listen. Okay. So so we'll start off with with our core values as a district. So a lot of times people are asking what is it that that the superintendent and his team administrators and everyone like what is it that we're actually working on? What are we doing? What's uh what what guides us throughout the year? And and first and foremost student achievement is always
016at the top of the list. We're also looking at community wellness and and that's students, faculty, and staff members, equity, access, and inclusion. So, what does that mean? And I always I always uh make sure in in our politically charged uh climates now what what I mean by equity, and I say over and over, it means that in our seven primary schools, whatever address you have, that when you walk in those doors, you have the same opportunities for success. So, we want to make sure that programming a and access to programs are the same no matter where you live in town and that you can have the same level of success and inclusion. We'll see as we go through this. Um it's hey we're a diverse community and we want to make sure that everyone
017who walks in into the Bridgewater Raritin Regional School District has the opportunity um as as they as they need and and that they deserve. So again, we also want to create and sustain robust programming. We've been working on that since I've been here for the last four years. And um with our bond referendum, we're really undergoing a major enhancement of our learning environments, referendum projects, capital projects, and as well as safety and security measures. We continue to focus on the recruitment and retention of talented professionals. And we're developing and maintaining sustainable budget practices. As you know, we we're limited by a 2% cap. And um we have to we have to be conscious of our budget and and our hiring, firing, etc. on a 12 really in a 12-month cycle. And and I'm impressed with
018the job everyone at this table has done. And then finally, one of our core values is to to make sure that the district is in compliance with uh DOE guidance and NJ state law. All right? And that's just a a matter of operations, but it's but it also saves taxpayer dollars, right? because the last thing we want to do is make a mistake um where we get into some legal trouble. And and before I go on on to the district goals and in honor of um teacher appreciation week last week, I I think it's important to know that before we get on our district goals, um look, all of these things don't happen uh because of me, my admin team, or and no offense to to the board of education, it's it's the boots on
019the ground. it's the people in the classrooms who really make these things happen. So, it's through communication um and and uh really set setting the standard. But, but uh without the expertise and the dedication of our teachers and our staff, none of these improvements would be possible. And I just wanted to take a moment. I know there there are a lot of uh educators in the back of the room tonight and I just want to give kudos to them and let them know that their job is appreciated. It's a tough job. Being a teacher is a is a tough job. And uh and it's been a while since I've been in the classroom, but but I do know there there are challenges on a daily basis. and I appreciate what they've done. So, if we
020start off our district goals that we set back in in uh August or September and and these came right these came from from our strategic plan and and the first one was to focus on the student experience and we're looking to provide equitable programs and services across the district to provide interdisciplinary and experiential learning opportunities across the curriculum starting in kindergarten. and we want to recruit and retain highly qualified staff uh that represent the student body and provide professional growth and leadership opportunities to those people. So now I go this um so some of the major programs that we've initiated and that we're continuing to work on are as follows. Uh the taxpayers voted to implement full day kindergarten starting in September 2026 across the district. We are starting the full day kindergarten program at
021our two title one schools next September. Yes, delivering on that promise at least partially a year early. We've expanded Orton Gillingham training which is a multi-ensory uh reading program and uh all of our primary school special education teachers have been or will be trained over the summer in the Orton Gillingham process. We've expanded our gifted and talented program. our cluster grouping expanded from fourth grade to third grade and and with these revisions and if we look back right I I know for the board a lot of times we go through program reviews and it's really a leap of faith because we're hoping it'll work and and the whole idea um you know in coming in compliance with our gifted and talented services was to really increase the number of students who who uh do receive
022these types of services and and I'm happy to report that it did increase from 351 students last year to 407 this year. And and a lot of that is because we have school-based programs. It's not just the AI program. There's more for for kids uh you know who who show who show giftedness in different areas. and and we're happy to report that that our ESL achievement has really taken off where uh multilingual learners have exceeded the state standard growth metrics on the ELA and JSLA and and we've met standard growth metrics on the math NJSLA. This is another program that that had a major revision. Now we have um uh ESL services in every single school across the district. Now I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Moriello who is going to take us
023through the student achievement data. Thank you Mr. Beers. Uh so I'm Jason Morello, the director of 21st century learning and data analysis for the district. Um so we're going to go over some data from really showing that student experience really focusing on student achievement. Um, so we're going to go through some different measures and looking at trends over the last couple years in those measures and then going into some of the uh programs and services that we provide and looking at the student participation in those programs over the last couple of years. Um, so we're starting with NJSLA, that's the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment. We're actually right in the middle of administering it for this year. Um so this is the results from the last three years and then um at some point in
024the fall we'll get the results from the assessment that the students are taking um right around this time. Um but you can see for both ELA and for math um that's Bridgewater Riden combining all grade levels in ELA combining all grade levels in math and just looking at the percentage of students who are meeting or exceeding um on the assessment. Um so you can see an increase really for all three years across both subject areas. Um, in addition, actually can go back one second. In addition to uh exceeding and meeting the standards overall and also outperforming the state, not only outperforming the state, sorry, no one saw that. Not only outperforming the state in uh achievement um but also in growth. Um so we're performing uh we're achieving at higher levels than the state average,
025but we're also growing at a faster rate uh than the rest of the state as well. So, it's nice to see both in achievement and in growth in these areas, um, we're we're performing well. Uh, moving on to the high school, looking at PSAT and SAT results. Um, so the graph on the left is PSAT, the graph on the right is SAT. Um, so we'll start with PSAT. Um, this is the second year that we've offered the PSAT to all students in grades 9 through 11, universally giving it to all students. So, that's why you see two years worth of data. So you see the EB RW evidence-based reading and writing that's the English that's the the first bars and you can see two years ago is the blue sorry last year last fall was
026the blue earlier this fall is the orange and then next to that you'll see the math so you can see um looking at last year's results compared to this year's results um a much higher score across the board for students this fall taking the PSAT compared to students last fall and if you look to the right on that same graph you'll see the same comparison across Ross the state. Um so in English you do see an increase across the state this year compared to where they were last year. In math it's about the same. It's only a one point difference. Um so it's nice to see that across both areas our growth um or our increase from last year to this year um was higher than what we saw across the state. Looking at the
027right for SAT um this is our three-year trend that we're looking at. Um so you can see Bridgewater Raridan are the first couple of bars. So that's the English first. So you can see three years of consecutive increase with the average score um for the SAT um for English. And then right next to that is math. So you can see an increase and then a little bit of of a decrease uh for last year's students who took the SAT. Um but then if you look to the right, that's the trend that you see across the state. Um so you see you've seen three years in a row of a steady decrease of average score for the SAT across the state. Um so it's nice to see that here in Bridgewater Radaran we're seeing either an
028increase or kind of um steadying um compared to that decreasing trend that you're seeing across the state and really across the nation. Moving on to AP. So our advanced placement courses at the high school. Um so once again we're in the middle of AP testing for this year. So um instead of going into the results which once we get these results we'll be able to share out at a later point. We're going to look at the participation in the AP program. Um, so right now in 2024 2025, we have just over half of our students in 11th and 12th grade participating in at least one AP course. Um, the scheduling process has already been underway for next year. So based on uh the scheduling and the expected scheduling that we have for next year, we're
029expecting 57.6% of 11th grade and 12th grade students to be taking at least one AP course, which is an increase of 7.1%. So, it's nice to see that continual increase with that. Part of that increase was due to um we send letters to students who are identified through AP potential. AP potential um is a metric that's uh supplied by students who take the PSAT, which is why it's really great that we've been able to provide the PSAT to all of our students um and universally screen because now we're capturing more students. students who may not have seen themselves as maybe taking an AP class a year or two down the road get a report basically saying based on how you how you performed on the PSAT, you are this percent likely to score well and
030get a passing score on an this AP test if you were to take that class the following year. Um so it's really nice to have that extra piece of information to share that with the students and the families and use that in the decision-making process. And I think that's contributed to um some of our increase in participation in AP courses. You can see uh we have a couple courses there that have significantly increased enrollments expected for next year compared to this year. Um and we're very excited that AP human geography um will be a new AP course offering for next year. So that'll be brand new. So we're excited to see um an additional AP course offering for next year. Thank you. And and Mr. Mariela and I just want to commend the work that
031that you've done and uh Miss Jones is not here this evening but the work that she's done as well as the supervisors administrators as well because al although it's every district's goal to increase AP participation in the percentage of kids who get a three or above you can't just pull a lever and h make it happen you've got to look at course sequencing and and as Mr. Morello had said the the key part and and I'm so grateful for the board of education to get behind this a few years ago is is that we give every student the PSAT now, right? So, we take that every year and that does act as a universal screening tool uh to really see who has the aptitude to take one of these courses because we know not not
032every student is gung-ho and and believes that they're smart and those kids who who have that aptitude but maybe don't quite have that belief in themselves. Now, it's up to the professionals in the hallways, right, the teachers or guidance counselors or other professionals to say, "Hey, why don't you give this a shot?" And so there are a lot of things at play behind the scenes that really uh made this a reality and this is an impressive statistic. So I'm sorry to interrupt. Yes. Question. This year was the first year everyone did the PSAT. Correct. Last year was the first year. Yep. I find it really surprising that the numbers not just how many took it, but that the scores went upreased based on kids who didn't wouldn't have taken the test in the first place.
033I think there must be so many kids who are just shocked at how well they did that our average went up. Yeah, it's amazing. Yep. And seeing that increase in the first two years, right, one year to the next of testing everybody, right? Um it's really great to see that and that's why I think you're seeing these numbers go up as well because as students perform higher on the PSAT, there's more AP potential and you you see that with with the results. So, moving on to our high school graduation rate. So, this is something we're very proud of. We've talked about this at probably most of our board meetings over the last uh couple of months um and a lot of our administrative meetings uh during the school day as well. Um but you can
034see uh Bridgewater RAID's uh graduation rate over the last three years um and also the state of New Jerseys graduation rate. So, you can see an increase of 93% to 94 to 97% whereas the states really held steadier at 91% for the last couple of years. So, it's great to see, you know, so many more of our students kind of getting them to to be successful to meet those graduation requirements to get that diploma um within four years. So, the seal of biiteracy um focusing on students who are proficient in more than one language, there's an assessment that they can take. Um this is the first year that we expanded the opportunity to juniors. Previous to that, it was only seniors who would um have the opportunity to take the seal of bi literacy assessment.
035um and achieve the award. This is our first year doing it with juniors. And you can see the increase in the total number of seals earned, meaning students uh meeting that proficiency on that assessment in the other language has more than doubled by allowing juniors in addition to seniors taking it this year. And also the total number of languages that students earn those in also has more than doubled, going from nine languages to 20 different languages that students earned proficiency in um just this year. dual enrollment. So dual enrollment is a program where we partner with uh colleges and universities and students by taking the regular course here at Bridgewater Raridan. Since we have that partnership um with that course, students can earn college credit um by taking uh that the course here at Bridgewater
036Raridan. Um so you can see the progression over the last couple of years. Um so right now in 20 24 25 um if we look at just our 11th and 12th grade students 8% of our students are currently enrolled in a dual enrollment class meaning they're receiving college credit this year. Um we're expecting that to see to increase a little bit for next year based on our current projections for scheduling. Um but that's much increased over where we were last year at only 2.3%. And if we look at the percentage of stu of the graduating class taking it, now that we're offering more programs, more opportunities year-over-year, by the time students graduate, they have multiple years and opportunities to take um at least one dual enrollment class. So, we are seeing that increase. We went
037from last year just under 5% of our a graduating class participating in a dual enrollment class to doubling it to 10% for this year and going up to almost 15% for next year based on our expectations. continuing with dual enrollment. So what partnerships do we have? What universities are we working with? Um we've increased from four to five different universities. Um so that's RVCC, Satan Hall, Fairley, Dickinson, TCJ, and Ruckers who we're currently working with. Last year we offered four different classes that had a partnership with the four different universities. This year we've expanded that to 17 different classes. Um so a huge increase in just the number of offerings that we're um able to offer to students. And then um because there are more classes, more opportunities for students, we see a lot more
038students participating going from 40 students to 133 students. Um and really our goal is to continue um to develop more partnerships and to increase the number of courses that we um can offer within the partnerships that we have. This was the first year that at the high school we offered uh career concentrations. So career concentrations are really meant for students who are interested in a certain career. Um and it basically puts together a program of studies where here's the courses that would help um give you an idea of what that career um would be involved in. So there's multiple courses that students would take that are related to that career concentration. Uh there's also uh a capstone project, so a culminating project that students would kind of put together based on their interest of their
039choice um in that career. So um they can really kind of put together what they've learned um towards that concentration. And there's also a component where they get to see what it's actually like in the real world, whether it's through guest speakers coming in um who work in the field, whether it's field trips going out and seeing what it looks like in the workforce. So it really um by students completing those career concentrations, they really get a good idea of what it would be like to actually go into the field. Not just to take some classes, but what is it like to actually have that as a career? And you can see the enrollment that we have in our first year of of offering that in our five different areas. Business, computer science, engineering, robotics,
040music, and visual arts. And to go along with that, we also added some new courses. So this could be for students who were decided to do a career concentration or just any student interested in taking that individual course. Um it was open to all students. Um we added uh three new STEM courses. So intro to engineering design, robotics and data science. And you can see our enrollment in the first year of offering these classes. So we're looking forward to continue to add more opportunities and more courses related to this and also um increase the enrollment that we have in these courses. Thanks. I'm going to talk a little bit about uh student equity. And just to kind of repeat something that Mr. Beers said earlier uh you know the way we define equity is that
041no matter what address, neighborhood or primary school a student goes to that they have the same access to the opportunities for success. And so uh that's really important to uh our kind of philosophy in driving the decisions that we make. Um so specific to this slide, there's fewer students that are in need of tiered intervention services out of the classroom in K to6. Uh this means that our teachers in the classroom are doing a good job meeting the needs of all students. And so it's a celebration of our teachers. Uh we always will have some students that need support outside of the classrooms. And we have intervention specialist teachers who do great work in uh targeting academic skills that students might need assistance with. So uh allowing us to focus on those students allows us
042to make progress more quickly and then have those students back in the classroom because it's all happening during the school day. Okay. And so whenever you're doing one thing, you're missing something else. And so we want to make sure that that's happening when it's the best use of the uh of the school staff and the students uh instructional minutes in school. Also, in terms of support programs, two that are highlighted here are the structured learning labs at the high school. Um, for anyone who's not at the high school or who's kind of unfamiliar with what what that would mean is, um, that's a way to have students have a really a caring level of accountability through it not being a study hall where there's just somebody kind of monitoring that that you're that you're there
043and that you're not breaking rules. Uh, but that there's somebody who's kind of talking to you about what you're doing. It's not necessarily tutoring because it's not that the person's teaching you new content or filling in skills, but just somebody who you can talk to and and who who who you know cares uh how you're doing. And so this is a great way to kind of enhance the experience for students that need more support uh during that unstructured time. Uh so the structured learning labs uh there were 81 students who are participating. I think it's a dedicated class period of student support and um a majority almost two-thirds of the students were showing uh a good level of improvement. And then uh we have our Bright program um we call it Brightite all the time
044because it has a longer name but so it's on the slide so you'll know what it means. Uh the Bridgewater Riden BR integrated therapeutic educational program. That's where the name comes from. Um this is a smaller group of students. It's 18 students and really here it's students who are in some way at risk of not being able to graduate from high school. Um really the whole idea is that we determine what the students need and if it's something that can be done at our high school but isn't typically done, we find a way to do it to give the students that support and also establish the pathway to graduation. So the students that are there um are coming to school knowing that there's a pathway where they can graduate from high school. They're not coming
045wondering how how do I if I failed courses my my nth grade year, how do I get to a point where I'm graduating high school? They they know that there is a pathway to graduation. And that's really important to have kind of a a mission centered approach to to your education as a high schooler. Uh now I get to do a slide that's uh perfect for the assistant superintendent for personnel. It's about recruiting and uh maintaining staff or recruiting and retention. Um this is something that uh I I've been a part of Bridgewater School District for a long time. I started as a teacher here in 2001 and I've been in in the district and a number of roles uh since then. Uh Bridgewater is a great district and it's great for people to kind
046of know about the the town and know about the school system. We have a great reputation, but for it to be something that even outside of Somerset County or central New Jersey is known as a great district, a great place to work, a great place to potentially move and raise a family. So, getting the name out there is helpful and also it's helpful to meet candidates who are looking for jobs. So, we do a number of different university college and university job fairs. We probably participated in almost a dozen in the in the last uh three to four years. um the ones that uh we have done this year and some of the ones that are are consistently uh well attended by the students and well put together by the university. TCJ and Kane University
047both have uh great job fairs with a number of students there that are looking for jobs in some some hard to fill areas and areas that we're looking for. Uh this year we also attended Drew and St. Elizabeth uh University for the first time. There's also some professional organizations that cater to not only students who might be coming out of college, but also people who are uh maybe returning to the workforce after uh leaving to try private industry or to raise a family. Uh and also people who are in other districts who might be looking for a change. So NJ Stride is one consortium that we're a member of that hosts a really um well-attended virtual job fair with hundreds of participants. And then also there's a group that is a Somersa County focused uh
048HR group that we're um is a part of and they have a job fair that's uh kind of a lo an inerson but local one to Somerset County area. Uh we also do outreach with uh colleges and universities. So a lot of times they're looking for the school districts to partner with them more than just coming to you know offer the the graduates jobs. They they're looking for you to do more than that. So um some people have reached out to us to do mock interviews with some of their candidates to do presentations about uh developing your resume or interview techniques. So um myself and other administrators from from Bridgewater have done that. This year one of the assistant I wasn't able to make the Drew Mach interviews but one of our assistant principles from
049the high school was happy to volunteer his evening to uh do the mock interviews. uh I've done a number of the presentations and there it's a great way to meet the students and to provide a service but also to deepen our connection and partnership with our college and university partners uh locally and throughout the state. Uh we also have uh robust opportunities for student teaching and internships. Uh this is something that for a number of years really before uh 2020 we we weren't really having a lot of student teachers or or internships. It's a great way to meet prospective job candidates. Uh it's also great to have our kind of learning institution be also a place where people learn the profession, learn to become teachers, counselors, uh child study team members. Um and so we
050offer uh that the board approves people that are doing any type of official internship, observation hours or student teaching. We onboard them. Uh they don't need the payroll information because unfortunately they don't they don't get paid. Um but we we do onboard them and they're they're really become a part of our uh school community and professional team. Um, as far as maintaining, uh, retention of staff, um, for new staff members, we make sure that we do all of the state requirements, as Mr. Beer said before, like we want to make sure that anything that's required by the Department of Ed or state law is something that we're we're doing. Um, but also we want to do it well. And so, u, mentoring is required. So, when when a new teacher has not had a job
051yet, their first year is a provisional year and you have a mentor. Uh we make sure our mentors are well trained, that they understand what the state requirements are, but also how to support a a teacher. I do mentor training each year. So even if someone has mentored before, that we do a mentor training and it's a participatory activity where there's a lot of back and forth about what are the best techniques in in doing this. So we're not just kind of checking a box to meet the mentoring requirement. We're really doing it well. Uh we do a new staff induction program that starts with a new staff orientation. Um, sometimes, uh, I'll refer to the one that I attended back in 2001. The district's been doing it for a long time, which was, uh,
052five full days and, uh, was, uh, they were, I think from 8 to 4. It see, it was very long. Um, we've kind of made it a little bit shorter. So, and also given some release time so our new teachers can have time in their buildings talking with colleagues and talking with their administrators. So, we try to make it a very functional one, but still accomplishing the goal of setting our new staff members up for success by making sure they know all the things someone new to the district should know before that first day for for teachers. Um, and uh other supports, making sure that our administrators and the teams in the schools are thinking through what does someone who's new to the district need and how can we best help them on their on
053their journey to being a really successful teacher. and uh valuable member of Bridgewater RAID's professional staff. Uh we have a lot of job embedded professional development uh that comes throughout the school year. We also have a lot of opportunities for teacher leadership. Uh one of the things that every board meeting has is a personnel addendum and there's a lot of things on it and there's a lot of great things on it. So I usually don't, you know, highlight some specific things but this is an opportunity so the my microphone's on so so I'm going to do that. Um, we are approving a number of teachers for summer curriculum writing. And so there's a couple of things about that. One is that the board of education and the school district values teachers participation in curriculum writing
054is great and that it's not just something that we say, well would be nice, but it's impractical or too expensive, but we actually have, you know, a a sizable amount of of money budgeted for that purpose. And then um it's a credit to our professional staff that there's plenty of teachers who are interested. they want to be involved in the curriculum writing, the curriculum revision. They're willing to give of their time in the summer. Um, our contractual rate for that is $300 per day. And so, generally, the people who are doing it, it's nice that we're able to pay them, that we're not asking them to do it for free, but they're uh they're doing it because they want to do it. They're not doing it because our our rate is, you know, so astronomical
055that they couldn't make more working, you know, in some other capacity. So, it's great that our our teachers and staff want to take those leadership opportunities. Um, I also wanted to mention that another thing that's on the uh the personnel addendum is we have some uh primary um primary special education teachers who are going to be participating in a multi-ensory phonics training uh Mr. Mr. Beers referred to before at Orton Gillingham and um that is going to be in early June and they're being approved on the agenda because although it's during the school day uh it goes a little bit beyond the school day and so the the training is a set number of hours. So we're approving everyone to be able to work up to a half an hour extra per day. The teachers
056who are doing it want to do it. They're excited about learning it. Uh they want to be leaders uh in their schools and uh in the in the field of education and learning this information. And it's great that our school district can offer it and that it's a priority and also that it's supported by the administration. It's not something we're asking teachers to do that we're not saying and here's how to here's how we're going to train you to to do it. And the last one uh but an important one uh competitive salary and benefits. Um I when I do my presentation as part of new staff orientation I always say I know you're so enthusiastic that you would do it for free but I have great news. we're going to pay you for for
057the important work that you're doing. And it is important that our teachers and staff have a salary that is fair and that uh allows them to focus on on the work in front of them and that there's uh benefits that are appropriate and competitive with our uh peer districts. Um, we're doing contract negotiations negotiations right now and that's kind of a shared value between both sides of negotiations which is great that there should be a uh competitive salary and benefits for for teachers and staff. Um, the uh other thing I was going to mention is graduate tuition reimbursement and some of our on-site graduate courses. Uh, Bridgewater Rarden also budgets money to so teachers can further their education. Um they there's tuition reimbursement for graduate courses in the field of education related to your job
058responsibilities. We also have a salary guide that's better than most that I've seen to be frank in terms of the moving across the guide for the different levels between bachelors and masters and between masters and uh doctoral level. And then um we do some on-site graduate courses. So in that multiensory phonics initiative, we also uh have cohorts that are we've partnered with Fairley Dickinson University and they're doing semesterl long studies into multiensory phonics that uh a number of our teachers are doing. We have a cohort that's finishing their second year and another cohort that's finishing their first year. And then I got to do one more slide before I have to shut off my microphone. This one is uh introducing climate and culture. I was just going to uh to to kind of read the
059first sentence and then talk a little bit about the the other two points underneath. Um the climate and culture goal is to develop, support and cultivate the whole child and the diverse nature of our district by further enhancing a cohesive and supportive learning environment. The first one there is celebrate the achievements of students and staff members throughout the district. Uh part of tonight's, you know, uh superintendent's report kind of shows a small fraction of the recognition that we do. Unfortunately, the board of education doesn't get to see every recognition that's done at every school all the time, but it's great to be able to kind of see a sampling of it with the uh different recognition we did tonight that involved staff members in terms of the coaches and also a number of students. Um,
060but that type of recognition is going on in a smaller scale in all of the schools and is something that is really valued by the whole administrative team, by the teaching staff and and the school community. And then uh the idea of continual improvement that we look for ideas that are good ideas that will help us to improve and also we reflect on where there are successes to try to uh build on our strengths and also to replicate things that are are are successes that we're seeing. Thank you Dr. Fonder. So, one of the one of the areas in the in the data that we have right now that we're proud of is uh when we look overall at student wellness specific to harassment, intimidation, and bullying. Now, I'm not going to be polyiana here
061and say everything's great at every school all the time, but this year we had a substantial decrease in in the the number of HIV investigations that that were started. uh those cases that were founded, unfounded, or inconclusive. Now, we're going to continue to look at this data point to say, right, is is this an aberration or or is this a real trend? Hopefully, it's a trend. And and look, part of part of the thinking behind this decline is we we worked on the code of conduct that's uh pretty consistent across all of our schools by level. and we've we've really focused in on character education and and addressing these issues when they crop up. Um, so it's multifaceted. I can't tell the board or the public, hey, it's because of this that this data point
062is there, but but it is it is substantial and we want to continue to monitor monitor that and continue to uh reinforce these programs that we have within our schools and and I will share this with with the whole board as soon as we're done and um and we'll we'll post it on the website for the community. But but uh this this is something that's significant and and we're proud of and uh when we look at student wellness a as a larger issue, we we've worked hard to create self cell phone free classrooms and school environments. Um are we where we want to be? Well, no. We can go a little farther, but but we know and and we've had these discussions as a board and community that um the evidence is clear uh that
063that uh devices, social media, etc. in a learning environment is not conducive to learning and and that kids generally speaking have a positive outcome when when that stimulus is is uh I shouldn't say taken away but not available. So, One of the other things that we've engaged through and engaged in and uh we had large trainings in lifelines which is evidence-based suicide prevention and response program. This happened recently and in year one administrators were trained. We conducted a readiness survey. School crisis teams were trained as well as our nurses counselors and student uh and uh sachs. We've implemented the character education program K through five. Lisa Larulo, our supervisor of guidance, uh took through several options through curriculum committee and and through her people and we settled on everyday speech and that's being implemented um
064this year. We we've trained our school counselors um in in becoming grief specialists. It is a state standard now or or state requirement that uh that uh we do this and we believe we we've done an effective job. We've implemented a ninth grade transition program uh through our counselors and health and fizzed teachers. Wellness week is one and and the board of ed ha has this uh data in their packets. We partnered with the American heart association and kids heart challenge and did a week wellness week and and we're in the planning phases of of lead which is law law enforcement against drugs which is really the reiteration of the old DARE program. I don't know how old anyone at the table is here, but there used to be a DARE program. Um, and that
065the DARE program kind of uh went defunct for a time and now it's been rebranded as LEAD. It's obviously a different program and um it's an excellent program. We're partnering up with uh Bridgewater and Raritton PD to uh to do this in our classes. So, we're going to start that up next year. And now uh we're getting close to the end. I appreciate everyone's patience. Financing facilities. We want to create an optimal learning environment for our students. We're going to develop a culture of pride, ownership, and accountability in our facilities. And this is important and and I I want to commend the board of education um and the community for supporting us in this endeavor because this is one where we are starting to really bear the fruits, so to speak, of the referendum and
066all the work. We know the challenge with the referendum is okay, we approved things really two years ago in in March of 2023, but then once that happened now you start planning, you get detailed architectural details, etc. You bid things out and you're really six months to a year before anything really happens. And now the good part is as we drive around campus, things are happening. And uh as part of this, I want to say I with all the movement that's going to happen in our district next year, um this transportation update is critical and and it's going to be a major undertaking for the 2526 school year and and for transportation. But if we if we look at it from a district wide district wide as far as the puzzle that we have to
067solve here is that we're shifting grades. So, we're going to have different numbers of students going to different buildings. The biggest change being the addition of a sixth grade to the middle school. So, so you're increasing the uh the size of that school, the number of kids who who are going there. And you're also eliminating midday kindergarten routes where you're going to have full day kindergarten. So, there's a morning and an afternoon, not so many things during the day. So, what we are looking at is all right, new routes. What are the efficiencies we can gain? I I know this has been on the back burner for some time and and it's the exploration of school start times where that's one of the parameters that that we've put towards the firm who's going to conduct
068this study for us is to provide the board of education and the community the options that we have to to address school start times. And we also want to regain instructional time that was lost following the 2021 transportation crisis. if we remember. Um I it's in the deep recesses of my brain because it was a little traumatic when I started here. Um we see I can laugh about it now but if we recall right it's things can always be worse I guess is the moral of the story. So, we were ready to open up after COVID and if we recall, um, tropical storm Ida hit the district and it was the next to the last week in in August and our middle school was flooded out. A few of our elementary schools were flooded out,
069unaccessible. But to add insult to injury, one of our major u transportation contractors called us in the last week of August and said, "Oh, by the way, we can't provide those 17 drivers and 36 routes um that we said we were going to cover and oh yeah, school starts in a week." So, um we had to change school times, things like that, triple tier our busing routes. people worked overtime to really figure out a transportation schedule that would work without, you know, with 17 fewer drivers. And two of the people who really spent a lot of time on it was Dr. Fonder and Jason Morello um to make this work. But but in doing this, we did cut some instructional time from some of our schools. So that's one of the parameters that we're looking
070at next year is to say, okay, can we get that time back and go back to the way it was five years ago with the amount of time that's spent at at each uh school district. So there are a lot of uh there are a lot of parameters. There are a lot of things we're going to have to consider and and as far as the timetable for this, we're going to work on on uh with the contractor, you know, Kevin Lomsky and myself work with the contractor, present to the board of education what our, you know, what are the options essentially um for each one of these things and then we'll have to make some real decisions as we head towards 2526. Um, as far as the culture of pride in the referendum, look, Kevin's
071team, um, and and you know, Kevin's put in a ton of work in in getting these projects bid properly, um, awarded properly, and, uh, you know, him in coordination with Bob Leo, who's our project manager, um, have really put a lot of projects on the fast track, uh, for us moving forward. We say we we have a few things that are completed, but all of these other projects are in progress right now and are set for completion within the ne the uh next six months hopefully. Some of them it's a little longer with the middle school edition, but if you drive around campus, you can see that that we are really making progress. And kudos to uh Mr. Lomsky's department and and to uh Mr. Sylvestro and and our architects that we partner with, Solutions
072Architecture, like at this point in the referendum, we're on budget or a little underbudget, which is a good place to be with all the cost escalations that we're worried about um as the years go on, but it continues to be a moving pro uh target. But I I'm really proud to say that we're really we're making real progress on this referendum. Finally, when it comes to budget, um, all you had to do is look at nj.com during budget season, and I won't mention the districts, but it seemed like there were a number of districts who realized they had a budget gap in like February. All right. And and under under Mr. Lomsky's leadership, Mr. Stars before him, uh, Dr. Fonder and the and the whole team. We continue to look at this every month of
073the year because the this fiscal cliff or or the sustainability of our budget, it's not going away. So, we know that we had to close a multi-million dollar gap uh this past year and we got through with a 2.49% uh tax levy increase. Now, the bad news is we get to do it all over again next year. Um because until the state really changes the funding formula and the way things are done, we're always going to feel the squeeze with that 2% cap. And and this is this is a graphic of Bridgewater Ritton at 2.49%. We see some of the other um school districts throughout Somerset County, some of the tax levies were as high as 6%. So we are at the lower end of the spectrum and and another part of school climate and
074and this is one of the first projects that was completed with the referendum to secure learning environments. We we do have um I don't want to call them man traps anymore but secure vestibules throughout the district camera and door swipe upgrades and we are continually focusing on what are what are the facility needs as far as software as far as hard hard barriers etc and and right now we are go we are exploring can't go into a ton of detail now but the cops grant which is a federal grant with Bridgewater PD um to apply for for u uh to apply for a federal grant which can do some things for perimeter security u etc and can help fund some of our initiatives. Now, I'm not going to say we're going to get it. It's
075a competitive grant, but at least we're going to work towards that and go from there. And and look, I know there there was a lot of commotion a few years ago and and I can smile about it now, but we do have 14 security personnel who are all retired law enforcement officers who patrol our our campuses on a on a daily basis. Um they help us with the entire operation from visitor access, pedestrian safety, traffic flow, swipe card management, cameras, communication systems, and they're part of our crisis teams. Uh we're really lucky to have this experienced group of of folks who who help protect our students and and I'm I'm happy to report that we have an excellent excellent working relationship with the SRO's who visit our schools from Bridgewater Township who are part of
076the team as well as Raritin Burrow where although we don't have an SRO in Raritin Burough a as part of the the uh you know their daily routines police officers make frequent visits to JFK school. So, we've really come a long way in that that regard and we we continue to maintain robust communications with Ritton and Bridgewater PD. It's really one of the success stories and we're going to continue to foster this relationship and uh you know, I want to give kudos to to our SRO's and and to Chief Mitsac, you know, for really creating this collaborative environment. Then finally, the last part is communications, community outreach and engagement. So, one of our goals was was to enhance communications with the community and develop partnerships uh and organizations to benefit our students and parents. Uh
077Mr. Morella went through some of some of the uh career pathways that we've developed for our students and and part of this goal is covered in that where we we bring authentic experiences to students within the classrooms. And and look, one of the things uh we've done and and I want to give the man sitting behind the screen back there, uh Bruce Moran, a lot of credit for is really getting the good news of Bridgewater Raritin out there. And we we have a totally well a brand new website platform at this point, which I believe, and I may be biased is looks a lot better. It's a lot more userfriendly and I know on the back end for us it's far far easier for us to make the necessary adjustments and and to change up
078the website. We have a monthly newsletter that goes out to the entire community. Um the digital newspaper which uh goes up it well it's always up on on the uh high school website the Prowler and that's a collaboration between Bruce his student leaders and and uh the principal of the high school Mr. Hamburger. We have a social media uh presence and look we we're able to celebrate the the reopening of Balone Field and I think we had a nice community event as well as several others throughout the year. So um although everything can be become better and more effective, I think we're well on our way and if we look back to where we were a few years ago, we're certainly in a in a far better spot. So, finally, looking ahead, kindergarten in 2026
079for everybody. Um, we're preparing for these grade shifts. We've got a transportation analysis coming up. We're going to continue to expand programs and improve these student outcomes. While at the same time avoiding the fiscal cliff with our budget may be impossible, but we're going to try to to to uh lighten the blow as much as possible. and we're going to continue to strive for excellence. And and that's what what I want the community who's here tonight, the board to know that that we have people who are putting the work in from the teachers and staff in the classrooms, our students, parents, the community, and um you know, what we try to do as an administrative team is to set the tone and demonstrate stability and a level of competence. And I'm really proud of the
080work that the team has done. I thank the board of ed for their their uh their uh support and I thank the teachers and all the people that make it happen in the classrooms on a daily basis. So I know we talked a long time but thank you and I'll open it up for any questions from the board before we go to the next part presentation. I'll go first. Um, so I my first question is um there was like over a hundred students in dual enrollment and I was wondering about how many students were uh going to RBCC and did that include like workforce development or was it strictly academic? That's a Jason Morello question. Welcome back. Thank you. Uh so we've explored the workforce development. We've actually we we had a team go visit.
081We did a tour for RVCC. They have an amazing facility. They're actually expanding their facilities. Um, but part of that is there is a cost to that, like a tuition to send students there. So, that's something that we're looking into to kind of, you know, explore what the options could be and that's something that we're going to be, you know, looking into further. Also, trying to have it fit in with the high school rotating dropbox schedule um provides some challenges as well. Um, so, uh, we're going to be working with RVCC really on those two areas. Um and we'll be able to, you know, hopefully have some more information about, you know, possibly doing things in the future. Yeah. Yeah. And that's certainly an area of interest. Um and and part of it is that
082workplace uh development program started by, you know, uh with a few local districts and RVCC. It's it's filled. So, we've got to wait for that expansion before that opportunity opens up. Um, but certainly, uh, Jason and Karen Jones and the rest of the team have had multiple conversations u with leadership at RVCC and when the opportunity comes, we're we're ready to move forward on that. Awesome. Um, yeah, don't go anywhere, Jason. Um, I just wanted to commend you and the district um, on the Bright program. I, you know, it's not unusual that I find myself uh working with kids who are, you know, at risk, particularly at risk of never graduating. And while, you know, 18 18 kids might seem like a number that's not worth fighting for, I think it is. And I'm really
083proud of this district and this program. And uh again, I just want to commend you on making that happen. I think that it's a job well done. So, thank you. Yep. And that and that's a real testament to our high school administration and and the staff. They put a lot of work and effort into looking into, you know, what the program is, what the criteria should be, and really what supports students really need. So, it's really, you know, joint effort, you know, curriculum, administration, high school. Um, and like you said, 18 students makes a difference, right? To go from a graduation rate 93% 94% 97% every student matters and that that's our goal. And I'm glad you you brought that up uh M. Lockchran and Jason and again to commend the the job that the
084staff and and the teachers and and the administrators are doing on the ground. When we look at graduation rate to go from 92 to 97% on average you're looking at approximately 35 students who are now getting across the line who did not get across the line four years ago. All right. All right. And that and that's significant because we know there are plenty statistics and and they're not pretty for students who do not complete uh or do not attain a high school diploma. Um right their outcomes are, you know, let's just say it's going to be a struggle for them with without that that diploma. So, it's been a a ton of work and I've said it over and over, but it it's the teachers in those classrooms on the ground helping those kids where
085where let's face it, um, high school and your typical academic program may not be everybody's bag, but we try to do things in a way where it can be enough of every student's bag, so to speak, where we could get them across the line and go on with their life with with whatever it may be. And one thing the graduation rate includes all students right special ed special needs regular um you know education. So this involves everyone, right? Correct. And that's four-year graduation rate, right? If you look at like the state performance reports, you know, they give five-year graduation rates there. There's there's a couple different rates. So that's the state four-year graduation, right? So this includes everyone, all students. Um I have a question. I'd like to follow back to a discussion about dual
086enrollment. Um I saw there's a huge increase. Um what's generally been driving this? And I know there's probably more subjects that you've been sort of expanding into. what what are maybe some of the more popular subjects for dual enrollment um and what's been the general I guess like success rate of the program like how many students are really earning college credit from these programs overall. Thank you. Right. So with this year I think really what's driving it is just working with the colleges and universities to see what opportunities where where is our curriculum at where is their curriculum for the courses that we're partnering up with. Um and really we spent a lot of time matching that up right um we found that for the most part we were really close to that. Um, so
087we were able to get those partnerships for them to basically approve our curriculum to make sure what we're providing, the instruction, the curriculum we're providing here is the equivalent of what the students would receive if they were taking that same course, you know, at that university for that course. Um, so, um, really sitting down, having meetings, not only with the heads of like for RVCC, but if we're talking about a calculus course, meeting with the head of the math department at RVCC to all right, let's look at your calculus curriculum, our curriculum, and having those conversations and, you know, going back and forth a little bit. So, um, there there was, you know, it's a testament to, uh, really the teachers, the supervisors for really taking the time to put that together and seeing what
088we could offer. Um and that's why you saw a huge increase of, you know, four courses to 17 courses. Um really by looking at what can we possibly, you know, just partner up with and and make happen. Um in terms of the success rate, um since we have expanded so much, it's really based off their final grade at the end of the year. Um so we don't have that information yet for this year because obviously we're not at the end of June yet. Um but most students who are um in the course are performing well grade-wise in the course. Um so I can say you know with a with with a high rate of certainty that most students um will be successful with um earning that um that college credit and and and Mr. as
089you know there there's some intricacies as far as will they actually earn college credit and and a lot of times it's determined on what four-year institution you're going to go to where I know is you know for the most part I if you're if you're let's say in a dual enrollment course with RVCC and you go to a state college so your four-year choice is Ruckers Ruckers is going to take that RVCC credit. Now, if you go out of state, really all bets are off. If you go to a private school, right, they have different rules and and we know even when you go to an ultra elite university, right? Um those schools don't take AP credit. They don't take a lot of these credits. They say, "This is what got you in the door.
090Now you take our course load." And so there's a lot of moving parts and that's also what's great about partnering with multiple universities. Um so students can decide, you know, and even look in advance before deciding which uh which college they're partnering with. Um we have some courses that were partnered with two three different universities for the same course. So this way students can know, oh, if I'm going to this college, well, I know that this college transfers, but this one doesn't. So I'm going to go with RVCC over one of the other options. or I'm going to go with the other option over RVCC depending upon that. So, it really provides additional opportunities, additional choice for students. Thank you for that clarification. Uh just two followups. Uh I know you may not have the
091success rate currently, but do you have any historical data on what that success rate looks like in general, maybe in previous years for the dual enrollment? Yes. Um I don't have the the data u offhand, but um almost all students who have uh enrolled in that have received the credit from that university. Now transfer credit is different like Mr. Beerus said um but from that um it's a very high I don't know the exact number offhand that's something that I can always come back and get but um it's it's it's a high success rate though. Thank you. I'd like the historical data. Um and sorry one more. I know I I was just wondering I know I mentioned this I asked this before but what are kind of the more popular subjects for dual enrollment
092for students? Thank you. Yeah, a lot of our math courses. So we have calculus, pre-calculus, we uh we have courses with that. Um probably the most popular one is the one that's been uh in existence for the longest here through RVCC. It's the English 4 class. Um we typically have 20 to 30 students just in that course um that receive credit. Um, we've also opened up to an English three course this year that has students. So, um, it really is spread out. We have science courses, we have social studies courses. Um, this year, uh, TCJ, we've added some visual, um, visual art, uh, courses. Um, so it really has expanded. Um, but probably the the largest one would probably be the um, English for class through RVCC. Just a comment. I'm wondering something that concerned
093me when I first joined the board was the number of HIVs that we had last year, but like reading through the reports was just staggering. And I'm always shocked when I double click on the folder and see so little. And I'm wondering what you think is causing that. Is it the code of conduct? Is it the like new vice principles at the high school? Is it control like what is it? Because I feel like that causes grades to go up and it's causing so many other good things down the line. I I'd have to say it's an all all of the above, right? It starts with our teachers, our counselors, um monitors in the hallway, things of that nature, and and just doing what you can to address these issues as early as possible. Um
094but again there's a there's a substantial drop for this year and we hope that's a trend and um know that's the hope. So I I can't say precisely it's because of this because I would just be guessing but we we have instituted a number of programs. So we like to think that this is part of what's working. I would like to uh uh comment that I happy to see the progress in our district in terms of the um development of the career options in addition to the dual enrollment options. I think that that was a great opportunity for our district kids. Thank you. Anyone else? Any more questions? Nope. Do you have another report or you're done? I'm done. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um since we already Oh, yeah. With your water. You have
095to get the top. All right. Since we already completed the uh student representative and the president's report, we're going to move on to the committee reports. Uh first up is the academic committee with Mr. Johi. Okay. The uh committee met on May 5th at 4:30 here at the weight building. In attendance were myself, Miss Asuna, Mr. Pepe, Mr. Singer, uh Dr. Jones, Mr. Beers, and our district attorney, Mr. Sylvester. Uh the only item on the agenda was review of the policy uh Stros SMA policy 5756 as well as the NJSBA policy uh 5145.7. Um the district attorney uh reviewed the straa policy 5756 along with NJSBA policy 5144.7 and board member feedback um with the committee. Um the M which appears on 5756 is being removed is being recommended to be removed and no other
096action is recommended at this time. We adjourned at 5:55 almost 6:00. Um and our next meeting is on June 9th. That ends the report. Any questions? Um, is that something that will come up to the board for approval? The removal of M. Yeah. Yeah, that would be on for today. We um I mean it's not a vote. I don't think we need to vote on it. We just just remove the Yeah. Miss L. So I give the advice since the only uh change is just simply removing the M as a shouldn't have been there in the first place. uh it's more of a correction that it doesn't need formal board approval since it's essentially just removing a notation that doesn't change the actual substance of the policy. So it wasn't the removal of the M
097on the policy I believe although uh Dr. Fonder if you're aware or Mr. LSky if that's already happened because I know we discussed at the committee meeting that that was something that could just be done uh almost almost like a scrier's error. It shouldn't have been marked as M to begin with. Okay. Um, well, I just want to thank the academic committee for reviewing those policies. Uh, it's exactly what I asked for and I said at that time that I would accept the recommendation and that's kind of how board governance works, right? So, thank you. I appreciate it. Let's also appreciate all the feedback we got from from everybody including the members of the committee because it helped drive a lot of the discussion. Um, so thank you to everyone who provided feedback. Miss Lee,
098I al I want to tag along to thank the academic committee to review the policy. Looks like it's a it's a meeting to just review this policy and I appreciate the effort that's put in there. Uh so the removal of the AM designation sounds like it's not going to take action from the board. Will just be a clerical error correction of that? That's correct. Okay. Um I think that um uh I was curious um do we have like any summary of the discussion any reasoning of uh of why this recommendation was made? Uh because I know that uh during previous meetings the NGSBA policy has been spoken about. Do we have a reason why maybe a summary executive report of something why we're not adopting that any uh justification of that? Sure, Mr. Doy, I
099know you're chair. I I can handle that. I think so. So So there was a in addition to just looking at the difference between the existing Stout Sesame based policy that you guys have now and the schoolboard's policy, which a couple members did suggest is something to look at as a possible alternate switch. There was also a number of members who gave more specific comments of changes either to one or the other policy. We looked at all those as well. In terms of the schoolboard policy, um there were some members of the committee that that uh just felt that the stress house was more clear. There were some uh uh people from the board that gave uh kind of opposite feedback. Uh there were some frankly legal concerns that I raised about some of the
100schoolboard's language. Uh so one of the issues that if if um you know anyone from the public or someone who doesn't have a New Jersey schoolboards association account can't uh the if you just Google the New Jersey policy the first hit that comes up actually isn't the current policy in the state. The New Jersey School Boards Association critical policy reference manual. It's an outdated policy that has since been updated. The updated one which as of the time of our meeting was still behind a payw wall. Thankfully we have an account so we were able to pull it. Um has a lot of language. It's an interesting policy. I'm not a huge fan of it from a legal basis for a couple of reasons. First is the original schoolboard's policy uh was based off of New
101York City Department of Education guidance which doesn't fully comport with New Jersey rules. Uh they did school boards association did modify it since then, but they kept a lot of that kind of New York City based language. Um so one of the issues is and there was a comment from a board member uh for us to consider of using language that that policy uses about a student's uh consistently asserting uh um a particular gender identity or expression uh which is not language that the state law against discrimination uses. So I had concerns about using language or adding modifiers onto what state law requires in that respect. Uh there was another concern about I know that a lot of members uh regardless as to their feelings about this policy um one of the largest issues and
102drivers is the transparency about what parent rights are. Um there was language in the school board's policy that is not in your existing Strauss Esme policy that talked about things like um taking on a case-byase basis whether a parent would be entitled to information about their students uh uh gender identity expression which is not the law. Just to be clear, I know I've given advice to the board about this before uh both in committee settings and as a full board. Um that it's not a question of whether parents have access to that information. They do. Um so, for example, there's language in the school board's uh policy of students who do not want their parents guardians to know about the transgender status shall be addressed on a case-by case basis, which implies that there will
103be times that you don't tell the parent. Another line is that the school counselor uh shall balance the rights of the students needing support and the requirement that parents gardens be kept informed about their child. So uh while I think our school counselors do a wonderful job, I don't recommend we put as a board uh the requirement that school counselors make that important decision as though it's even a decision for them to make about kind of balancing two legal rights, right? the legal right in under New Jersey law for a student to express their gender identity expression versus the legal right of the parent to the information. This isn't a balancing act. Those are both true rights that a school counselor doesn't have to nor should be required to balance. So these were the types
104of things that are in the school board's base policy that I took, you know, gave legal caution about. Uh, and I don't want to I'm sure each member of the committee had their own thoughts about, you know, why they liked one or the other, but my concern was if it was just a wholesale switch of from Strauss as a verbatim copy and paste of the state guidelines, you're not going to get in legal trouble if you're following what the state tells you to do, uh, to a I'm not sure who put the schoolboards one together, but it seems a mishmash of a lot of things and some language that is troubling. One other point that, um, I think, uh, President Mr. Singer actually pointed out during the committee meeting, which I agree with, is that
105the school board's policy makes very liberal use of the word generally or as a general rule, which makes it seem as though things that are mandated and are 100% of the time true aren't because why would you say generally uh right before something that someone always has to do. So, um I'm just trying to think of one of the examples of that. Uh, for example, the the the school board's policy says generally students may have access to restroom or locker room that corresponds to the gender identity expression they consistently uh assert at school. So the consistently I would raise but also to start the sentence off with generally again the New Jersey law against discrimination. It makes it abundantly clear state law says this isn't a generally or sometimes or all the time. This isn't
106all the time. We don't have a say in that. Right? The board can't have a policy that that implies or states that that's not fully the case. So that's those were my concerns about the school boards in terms of the there were some members who suggested hey look let's just switch one for the other. Those were my concerns about making that just straight up switch. And then like I said uh and I think as Mr. Joshi noted there were a number of members who provided more specific feedback or general feedback about concerns or things that they were looking for the committee to discuss. We did go through all of those various concerns and and um we both legal options and just kind of board governance options. So we did go through those as well. I
107know that was longwinded Miss Lee. I hope that answered your question. Yes, I think you brought up interesting uh points about to inform parents or not inform parents. Can you clarify uh whether this policy asks the school district to staff to inform or not inform and what's the process for the parents to get informed? Sure. So, I want to be very clear about this because this is one of the things that's been in litigation so far statewide involving other districts thankfully. um that it's the policy doesn't really speak to the the the current stress as policy about informing so much as the rights of the parents. Right? So the rights of parents have putting aside the transgender policy just generally about using that word that I hate. Uh as a blanket rule, uh parents have
108access to their students uh records and record information. This includes information about, you know, if we have a document that says they're going by another name, if they have uh they be called a certain way, if they have like a confidentiality plan, is the is the school board's uh policy talks about it. Um all of these things are accessible by the parent. the the concern that has led to some litigation in the state and I know has been a top of of discussion with this board is the um there is no automatic and there shouldn't be under existing law according to our our courts an automatic if a student goes to a counselor or to a principal and says hey I you know identify as or I'm going through this process or I'm I'm questioning
109or any of this kind of process of you know something different than your birth name or your your your uh gender on your birth certificate and they're having that conversation there is nothing in the policy about, okay, staff, I need you to stop that conversation with the student. Pick up the phone and call the parents. Um, the school districts in this state who have attempted to put that requirement in have all been sued by the attorney general, uh, who has argued so far successfully in court that doing that is a form of discrimination against a protected class, i.e. based on the student's gender identity expression. The argument goes that by setting a requirement that when a student identifies as a protected class that you have to do something that you're not requiring them to do
110for everybody else, you have then discriminated against that. I'm not here to say whether that holds legal merit or not. I am saying that the courts of New Jersey have to date said that that is the case and have stopped districts who have tried to put that informing proactive pick up the phone and call the parents whenever this happens. U they've been stopped from enacting that. So the policy doesn't get into yes you need to inform the parents. What it does say is that parents are entitled to this information by law. So in practice what happens is uh and this is talked about in the policy as well. Currently the the school is supposed to be uh having a conversation with the student when they come to whoever they're coming to whether it be counselor
111administrator and having a conversation about that student. But but hey look you we're going to keep this confidential because we keep all student record information confidential. But that to a point, we're not keeping it confidential from your parents, for example. So when this conversation is happening with someone that they trust in the school, that is one of the things that is supposed to be brought up is do your parents know if they don't know now, how can we assist you to inform them? If the parents reach out to the school, hey, I'm I'm seeing signs of my student, you know, going through some things, is this happening at the school? Uh the the school can't refuse to answer that question. know they might tag in if this call goes into a principal they might bring
112in the counselor and have that conversation in a way or a setting that is safest for the student and most comfortable to lead to you know harmony amongst all but there's not a refusal to provide that information. So the a lot of this comes down to the case by case of how the information is sought by the parents. It should be provided but it is not the policy does not require nor could it an automatic my student or my child identifies as this or has raised these issues or this series of list of topics I pick up the phone and call home right now in New Jersey you're not allowed to do that again long-winded answer but as a lot of these are probably going to be given the nuances going on I think that
113if I can clarify that a little bit u there's a difference between having a conversation with the counselor which uh there is a confidentiality between the counselor and the But there is uh once it go past that once the uh name change, pronounce check and the record change is set in place that would be beyond the student and and counselor confidentiality at that point. Uh how do you get that information to the parents or how not to is it what's the policy interpretation to to get that policy to the parents? Sure. So when the actual records start to be changed, uh again according to current state law and current DOE guidance, um the student doesn't need to get a formal legal name change. They don't need to go down to the social security office and
114get their name changed to go by name change or to have student records changed internally. Until there's a legal name change, and this is in the policy, by the way, until there's a legal name change, the district is supposed to kept basically two files, one with the the birth name, one with the chosen name of the student. But this is part of the conversation. There are students who uh transition or or or question or or go by, you know, non-typical uh uh gender identities inspections that they they want to be called by a gi uh um not their birth name, but they don't care if their report card lists their their birth name or not, for example. Um so the records themselves wouldn't be changed. They're just asking for people to refer to them by
115a certain way. that's allowable and and directed by the DOE and is covered as an example of something that can happen in your existing policy. If the student says not only do I want to be called this, but I want all of my records, my testimony, everything else, that that gets sent home in the normal course, right? So, when parents get the the P school update of, you know, your child's attendance or your your child's records in P school, for example, the student wants all the record information changed, that gets changed. That's not hidden. There's not like a for the parents version versus the the kids version. Those records are updated accordingly. So, Again, it's not that parents aren't getting a special notice like we get all those notice of there was a fire alarm
116in your school today. You're not going to get an email that says your kid changed their name today. Um, but you will just in the normal course of getting your students records or if you're uh asking for them outside or beyond the normal course of what you get, they would be reflected with the given name if that's what the student wanted the records to reflect. Um, like I said, there are cases where a student may want to go just casually by be referred to by a name, but they don't ask for the records to be updated. So, they wouldn't be updated accordingly. If the parents called and and had an inkling that something was going on in the home, I imagine that most kids that are transitioning, if the parents kind of paid attention to
117their kid, they'd be this wouldn't be uh completely different at home than at school, but everybody's different. Uh, but if the parents called the school and and said, "Hey, what's going on?" And that is a conversation that the appropriate staff members should have with the parents at the time. Again, it the policy is does not go into every possible example, but it is broad enough to make clear that the parents rights are still there, that this policy does not alter their rights to their student record information, which pre-existed, this law, this policy, and the state guidance. I suggest the language of adding that how do parents access that record? I suggest the language of saying parents have full access to a minor student's record in school. At any time, parents can send a request for
118information to school and the school is obliged to inform parents of the student's gender identity and trans transition status and any education record pertaining to that student. To send a request, parents can verbally or by email or in written letter address the principal of the school and the letter shall furnish requesting for information within a week in the manner specified by the I'd like to make a motion to table this conversation. Can we finish this? There's no motion to to to make right now. I'm in the middle of asking a motion to table this conversation. Do I have a second? There's no motion to make. We're not in the middle of a a discussion of a motion. There's no motion to table. You can't make motion to table a motion. That's not there. Conversation. You
119can't table conversation. You can't table conversation. You can only table. Yeah. Just to clarify. So if if a member can make a motion as a parliamentary rule of order, Robert's rules. A member can make a motion to uh end end a topic and move on with the agenda. Right. So right now we are still in committee reports. You're still on I believe uh forgive me the the academic thank you policy discussion. So um Mr. Sana if if the the motion is to move on with the agenda or uh again the phrasing I'm not going to be too much of a stickler. I'm not the Congress parliamentarian here but uh you can make a motion to move essentially table the discussion and move on with the agenda. Is that the motion you're trying to make? That
120motion. Yes. Is there a second? Second. We could do this by voice for vote or roll call, whichever is easier for Mr. Lumpsky to determine whether or not there's a majority. When do we comment? Yes. Discussion on the motion to I would like to make a comment since I brought up the motion. Sure. Go ahead. We have discussed this ad nauseium. Everyone had the opportunity to send their comments and we received plenty of comments. We spent an hour and a half, more than an hour and a half in person. The entire academic committee meeting was spent line by line with legal representation to go over three different drafts of this policy. Ours, theirs, and New York's, you know, whatever came from that. We have had comment for three months now from everyone in the community.
121They're tired of coming. They're tired of sending letters. We're tired of hearing about this. If you want to change the policy, change the law. Go down to Trenton and go change the law. Stop trying to change what we do here so that we can follow the law. Let's stop talking about Thank you. I'd like to address the point of order. Okay. Let Does anyone else have a comment on your motion before we vote on it? Yeah, I have a comment. Um, first, we are entitled as a board to change and write policy. However, it's by the bylaws or I'm not using the technical correct terms because I'm exhausted at this point. We sent it to committee. We had an opportunity to comment to the committee committee the committee our comments. They came back with their
122recommendation which we said was what we asked for or at least what I asked for. And at this point we have to move on. I mean you don't have the votes. I don't have the votes. So we need to move on. I was asking for a reason for a certain point that I raised. I do not know why the committee cannot share with me any information. That's all I'm asking. Can I be sure? The committee considered your comments. I would like to know why the reason is that with our legal representation. We have to move on with this motion. Right. So there's a motion on the floor to end this conversation. So we have to vote. I second this motion because this is actually a new business topic. Yeah. And also now I mean you're
123you're trying to change the policy. I understand the questions, but you're there the recommendations haven't changed the policy, which is a new business topic. So, I'm second motion, and if you'd like to continue under new business, I'm more than you. You know, I'd like to raise the point of order. Okay. I think we have to vote on the motion first. No. Okay. Typically, you rule on the point of order first. Okay. So, let's do that then. I think the point of order is that are we following our polymer parmentary process when we're in community committee discussion when we're um talking about things as talked about in a committee discussion I think we're on the topic a a attempt to shut this conversation is in violation of the Robert's rule can you just answer the question
124and tell we considered it and we said no. No, no. And that's what I was going to say. Just answer that question. Is that right? I think I think Mr. Sylvester did. I'm not sure if you want to if you like what he said, but I think he answered your question in two or three different ways. And we But hold on, we did go through as Mr. Sylvester said, Muna said, we went through your comments. We really did. You were there for close to two hours, hour and a half, two hours. Okay. To regurgitate on why I'm telling you, you will still keep asking your questions because you will not understand. I have a finite amount of questions to ask. So, so we did discuss it. Okay. The the other thing I'll tell you is
125that the policy that you emailed twice, right? That is not the valid policy. Okay. I had to call NJSBA and get the policy that's on their books. Okay. So, the policy, the one that you sent again, I think a day ago. So what I'm trying to tell you is that your No, I'm I'm giving her why. So we did discuss it and at this point, you know, it is what it is. We looked at it and the recommendation of the com committee is to keep what we have on the books. We took one of your recommendations of taking the M off and we did. I appreciate that. So that's it. So the motion, I guess we have to take a vote on it. I don't think we need to take the motion, but she made
126a motion. I I but I point of order point of order. There's a motion on the floor and the conversation is only directed toward the motion on the floor. The point of order is to say that this motion is move on. We move on. If members agree to move on, then the motion is redundant. If if the board is agreeing to move on with the agenda, then the motion is redundant. We could simply just move on with the agenda if that's what's being said. Yeah. Okay, we're ready. Okay, moving on with committee reports. Okay, let's move to the community relations committee. Uh, Mrs. Lock. Uh, I have nothing nothing to report and uh the next meeting is to be determined. Thank you. Um, next up is finance, facilities, and transportation with Mr. Walker. Thank you.
127Um, the finance, facilities, and transportation meeting met on May 6th here at the Wade building at 5:30 and attends with Mr. Pepe, Mr. Lee, Mr. Singer, Mr. Lomsky, Mr. Beers, and Mr. Lzo, and myself. The first item on the agenda was the we had a a wonderful update on the on the budget for the referendum. Uh Mr. Leo reviewed the current status of the award of referendum projects compared to the budget amounts versus the actual award. This was shared with the board in um by M the superintendent just recently. Overall, the district is well under budget. However, it was noted that the HVAC upgrades and the window replacements have been over budgets in in some of the projects and are expected to increase due to economic the economic environment. Uh there were no recommendations at
128this time. Are there any questions? I'd like to thank Mr. Lzo and Mr. Lonsky for putting that spreadsheet together which I think the whole board has. Definitely worth taking a look at if for no other reason that it's interesting to see how some of these things play out. So thank you both for that and thank you Mike for going in mystead. Um so some of these things will be over budget but uh have we planned that out in the forecast? Yes, we're anticipating more things to come in. Sorry, over budget, something's under budget. So, we're planning, we're prioritizing things that we want to get done first, just in case in the event, we exhaust the referendum, then we've accomplished all our priorities. Um, it's also worth noting, I'm sorry, please go. Uh, one thing I
129noticed is that the the budgeted amount for the middle school addition came in significantly under that because some changes to the program and maybe to the building and shooting a little bit high. So that gives us I think a decent amount of our underbudget status comes from that which I was interested to learn. So thank you. Um, I was just wondering about just a little piece of analysis. I know this number changes a lot. The under over budget so far we've been under budget by quite a bit. I know there's some concerns uh the middle school just because we've already gone through a reasonable portion of that uh use of allowance. So I was wondering if you have any data on what that historical over under budget uh for the total amount of referendum has
130been over the last couple of uh weeks or sorry uh months and something like that maybe the past year or two if you've got like let's say like a year ago the over the it was under budget by like five million but maybe changed a little bit. Do you have something like that by any chance or We don't have anything like that. The middle school edition project's kind of unique in that it's um building a brand new addition as opposed to HVAC work where um you're not, you know, digging a hole in the ground uncovering things and putting up a brand new structure um which poses many unknowns. So, um HVAC work and window projects have less unknowns than putting up a new addition. So, we don't have that uh analysis. I could look into
131um all the other projects that have gone on just to see what that trend was. Uh just in general, I know we've been a lot under budget, but have you seen that trend kind of our over under budget has been decreasing or have you seen it kind of stay stable just in general? It's really dependent on the work. Um it's been trending under budget but um certain areas like HVAC has been consistently overbudget and um windows as well but other general construction work has been coming in under. So it seems to be like certain certain areas with uh high materials um high cost materials. All right. Thank you. And we've known I think and was said through the project as we developed this project four years ago, voted on it two years ago in that
132time frame that there were going to be escalating costs and changes and and the architect and the planning and the business office planned for those things. I mean I think also I think in committee we you definitely said that we knew the windows were going to be a challenge from the last bid which they're on the agenda tonight which are actually not as challenging as we thought they were going to be. You know that was been very I think I made it clear at the committee and and you're going to have some the way the vendors work. It depends on the scope and I think you've done a good job having Mr. Leo you know working on this thing is definitely being having in our in-house project engineer has been a savings overall as well
133as he's done an excellent job. I think that was well stated in the meeting too. So operationally I think is going well and I think you've been clear on that. I appreciate that the referendum update isn't an automatic. It was a request by made by the committee and much appreciate you guys doing it. It's a great job. Um any more questions? Uh business agenda. Uh the BIS business administrator reviewed the draft business action items for for this evening and the special attention was paid to the p purchase section. My computer's and consensus was given to approval of all action items. Any discussion? um meal prices for 25 25 26 meal prices. The business administrator shared the suggested meal prices for the 25 25 26 school year by the district's food service management company. Overall, there
134will be a 10% increase for breakfast meals and and a 25cent increase for lunch meals. The recommend recommendation, there's none at this time. This is forthcoming in another agenda. Are there any questions? Policy 6820 discussion. A board member suggested the vision to policy 6820 financial reports to include proprietary fund financial statements. The committee voted one to three not to submit it for first reading to the full board. There's no recommendation this time. Is there any discussion? Great. Other matters. Business administrator gave an update on the condition of the stalls and discussed an upcoming bank bank services request for proposal. A board member raised concerns about the condition of the middle school upper fields which which which will be looked at by the district administration. A discussion of the status of the rod grant projects took
135place in which it was noted that the majority of the projects are related to roof replacement and will take place after the rooftop HVAs units work is completed and also there's we have some with the solar solar project on the roof. We're working in that area too based on those too. And finally, the negative meal balances were discussed as well as methods used to notify parents and recoup those funds. Any discussion? See, we um we adjourned at uh five our next we adjourned at 5 7:05 p.m. and our next meeting is June 17th at 5:30. Thank you, Mr. Walker. Up next is myself with the personnel committee report. Um we met yesterday, May 12th, virtually at 5:15 p.m. In attendance was myself, Mr. Mr. Jooshi, Miss Lee, Mr. Singer, Dr. Fonder, and Mr. Beers. We
136started out by discussing the personnel agenda. Uh, the committee discussed the personnel agenda items, and the committee supported the action items. Next, we discussed the draft of the 2025 2026 non-bargaining unit staff reappointment addendum for May 5th 13, 2025. We discussed the non-bargaining staff reappoints and the committee supported the action items. Any questions? Okay. Next up, we review the comprehensive equity plan. Dr. Fer reviewed the comprehensive equity plan process and legal requirements. The committee members discussed the needs assessment and the action plan. The committee supported the action items. Any questions? This is a um state like it's a state law, right? Correct. Thank you. Yeah, we do it every three years. Correct. Right. So the the school district always has to have a comprehensive equity plan. The plan is developed as a three-year plan. Uh
137the thought being that you would need more than one year to kind of focus on a goal and then there's a statement of assurance that has to be done in the second and the third year. So uh the board wouldn't be reapproving the comprehensive equity plan, but each year would there'd be a statement of assurance that would come. A and we haven't done this in a few years because of right the uh the last time this was developed was 2019. So it was supposed to be a 2019 to 2022 comprehensive equity plan because COVID happened and for whatever other reasons. Uh they extended the um statement of assurance years until this year. And so the guidance came out in the uh winter of 2025 that uh this would be the year the districts would create
138their new three-year comprehensive equity plan. Thank you. All right. Next up, we discuss policy 0168, the recording of board uh meetings. So we the committee discussed the proposed revisions of policy 0168. Dr. Funer reviewed the legal guidance from the board attorney regarding those proposed revisions. The committee members um suggested other revisions which will be incorporated into a new draft of the policy and will be sent to our attorney for um further review. Any questions? I just have one. Yes. Uh is there any timeline on when we can get the new policy revisions uh and what the timeline would look like for a first reading on that? Thank you. Yeah, we we put the we made them and then they're just going to go to Mr. Sylvestro. So I don't next meeting. I mean, it's not
139going to take that long unless we meet again to discuss. Oh, yeah. We have to meet. You're going to send them to, right? So, the uh the the steps we decided was because it was just part of a discussion, so I took notes on on it. So, then uh send that to the members of the personnel committee to make sure that they represent the discussion accurately and then send that over to the uh the board attorney to review. So, Doug, this will be a third version. Uh you'll be reviewing. I was gonna say like, did I miss an email? No, no, no, we don't have it yet, but this will this will be a third version of uh policy 0168 for you to take a look at. Okay. Next, we discuss policy 0164.6 remote public
140meetings during a declared emergency and um the committee discussed their proposed revisions that were sent on policy 0164.4 and the committee did not support moving forward with these changes. Any questions? Okay. Next up was other matters. Dr. provided information to the personnel committee regarding the BRPA grievance settlement that will appear on our agenda tonight. We adjourned at 6:17 p.m. and our next meeting that's not the right date. I have August, which is not it. This says August. That's right. That's the That's the next one we have on our schedule, but the there there's another one in there, I think. Oh, right. We we can schedule another. There isn't another one. All right. Perfect. So, then our next one is August 12th, right? Pending there being another one scheduled. Perfect. All right. Uh, next up is
141the liaison and delegate reports. Anyone have anything to report? Uh, one thing from the bureau of Riden, the burrow received a grant of approximately $90,000 to uh rehabilitate and do some work on Basilon Park. It's a burough park, but it's right next to JFK, so uh JFK school, so it gets a lot of student use. and they're going to re fix up those basketball courts. Uh install a walkway around the park and uh they're in the process of putting in a splash park. So that'll be a good resource for uh you know right next to the school. Hopefully a lot of families in that neighborhood and beyond can uh make use of that. And I also heard that they uh the the the burough council and the burough administration was working with or at least
142speaking with uh the staff at JFK, Mr. Russo and they thank them for their support and just help in talking through some of this stuff. So, just wanted to pass that along. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. Um, many of us attended the Somerset County School Association Awards Center the other night. Dinner was great. Uh, but something I noted was the teacher of the year from for our county was also the teacher of the year for the state from Montgomery. And it's I believe it sounded like she is now able to travel among schools and share some of what she brought to Montgomery and other schools and what she did sounds tremendous. So I hope we have the opportunity to take advantage of that. Very nice. Thank you. Anyone else? Miss Lee, I'd like to report
143on the uh May uh delegate report or delegate assembly at the NJSBA. uh this uh delegate this meeting uh of delegate assembly happened on May 10th uh in the morning and at the Mercer uh community college. Um the the delegate first voted on three resolutions. Resolution one is by Woodbury Board of AD from Gchester uh county. uh they would like to advocate for adopting policies to provide varsity letters to uh esport participants um which um I don't think our school our district does um is like recognized an esport as esport so this uh passed uh with a big margin um I also voted yes for this one this is the going to be like the the new position one of the new positions that NJSBA will take uh resolution two which is by Franklin Township
144Board of A from Warren County. They would like to advocate for position of uh reducing or eliminate the requirement uh for school nurse needing to complete a NJOE approved college curriculum for preparing school nurse with a minimum of uh credit hours of credit. They would like to propose to replace that with three classes related to school specific operations within the first 18 months of be beginning employment in the school district. Um I think that this uh changing of the nurse certificate uh in my opinion is not in the best interest of students. So I wouldn't know for it. This resolution passed with a very slim margin of 38 versus 37. So clearly the delegate has been split on their opinion by this one but it passed. Resolution number four um which is the third of
145the day. Um it's from uh Katini borderbat in Sussex County. They pro proposed new language to the NGSBA's um policy manual uh uh manual of positions and policies to advocate for um exempt for students to attend state excused uh to um days for trades and pro for professional unions. So to accept uh this proposal that will be mean that will mean to allow students to take this off to develop uh skills and attending activities uh to further their career technical training um needs. This passed by a wide margin. I also supported this one. The delegate assembly also by uh acclamation uh uh approved the new leadership team. Uh the president the new president this year or this term for next two years would be Tamisha Smith for president. Um vice president for county activities Barry
146Walker from this board. Um, vice president for finance is Tom Connors from Piscatoaway board and uh, vice president for legislation and resolutions is Chant Jackson from Neptune board. That's all I have to report. Thank you very much. Any other reports? No. Okay. I have a question. Sure. Did I miss the email that came out? Were we were we supposed to all decide how we were voting on these resolutions? No. No, it's just Okay. No, in the past I I think Miss Lee mentioned the delegate assembly, the handbook was out there. Um I think feedback was at least when when I did it, I always welcomed feedback, but as the voting member, I would usually be influenced by the discussion that was there, which is usually quite good and making a decision. Also, the NJSBA staff
147gives like a report where they go into the the issue somewhat in-depth and that informs it as well. I don't know if Miss Lee has anything to add to that, but that's just how I handled it when I was in that role. I agree with Mike. Okay. Anything else? Okay. Next, we are moving on to open to the public. Individuals or groups are invited to present their concerns, comments, or requests to the board of education at this time for any matters. In accordance with board policy, members of the public are allotted one opportunity to address the board. As we have many members of the public in attendance tonight, we want to ensure that all have the opportunity to speak. As we did at the last meeting, public comment will be limited to two minutes per
148person per policy 0167. In future board meetings, if there is a large attendance wishing to speak, the total public comment period may be limited to one hour in order for board members to attend to board business in a timely manner. For those who haven't been able who haven't who haven't been to board meetings before, this is an opportunity for the community to community to speak to the board. This is not a back and forth or question and answer period. Board members will respond to board members will not respond to questions raised during public comment. The purpose of public comment is for the public to share their views with the board. The comments and the question raised will be taken under advisement by the board. Naturally, members of the public are welcome to share their concerns
149and insight with the board via email. We understand that people come to comment about issues that are important to them. We ask that you act with civility and e and etiquette that we model for our children. While we all we are all free to disagree, all speakers should be treated with decorum and respect. Finally, please sign in and before you speak, provide your name and municipality of residence for the record. Thank you. You're up. JP1 Bridgewwater. um as an observer here in the during the meeting and regarding what was talked about on the committee I guess it was the the committee report or something like that where Mr. Mr. Josh's what I observed from Miss Lee was that she was just asking for clarification and justification of exactly why you guys were not going in
150a direction that the board might or might not be going in. And then then she asked for clarification from the for the from the board attorney to give his interpretation of I guess like not notification of the parents or and confidentiality and from the board at the board attorney's interpretation that what I'm witnessing that Miss Lee observed or comprehended or interpreted herself She just wanted that to be on the record. I guess maybe to to to amend the the 5756 to reflect what the attorney was interpreting of the policy and maybe Miss Lee was out of order. May maybe not out of order but maybe what she wanted to do because she was given recommendations and so forth. Yeah. Maybe what Mr. what Mr. Walker was saying that should go under new business, but I'm
151in support of Miss Lee of as you know for asking the board attorney for clarification and his interpretation and then you know what making those amendments to that so that way the you know what the parents and the community know exactly what they're in in for exactly there's perfect transparency for everybody. So with that said, you know what, unfortunately it's very late. I can't stay till the end, you know, but I wish the board all the best of luck with the with the outcome. Thank you. Thank you, Paul L Woodbridge. Um, I understand the Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. I understand the need to comply with law. Obviously, you don't want you have to be fiscally responsible. you don't want to be slapped with a lawsuit, but the policy is clearly not mandatory anymore. My question
152for the attorney would be if you have competing rights, one that that as you say predates the right of of uh the transgender child, which is parental rights to govern the the care, the the the the welfare of their own children and to be informed. You got these competing rights. one is is uh dictated to by the state attorney general on the basis of laws against discrimination. Why do you even need 5756? What does it do to to in any way enhance that child's protection uh versus, you know, the the LA that they've already, as you say, seems to be successfully prosecuting. I'll put the the question aside. The Obama administration made a new protected class and that was the uh class of gender identity. It's the only class protected currently that is a one
153in 3600 mental illness for discrimination against employment. I'm a rational person. I teach science. I try to let the facts dictate my opinion, not the other way around. The fact is, why would would you be compelled as an employer to entertain hiring someone who is confused, mentally uh uh challenged, is dealing hopefully therapeutically with their illness. It's like asking air traffic controllers, the Department of Transportation said, "We're going to take DOT uh uh air traffic controllers who are mentally impaired. We're going to open that up to them as a protected class and who have a challenge with their eyesight. To me, that makes no sense at all. Now, why do I'm not trying to conflate the two. What I'm saying is an unjust law is no law at all. The fact that you have a
154mental illness as a protected class doesn't make any sense. Hi, my name is uh Sean Highland. I'm from the New Jersey Family Policy Center. everywhere in war in New Jersey. I did send this board a couple of emails over the past two months to kind of want to reinforce some things tonight and really address what the attorney said. Just so we're all clear, the attorney general in New Jersey, he's engaging on this issue in the division of civil rights over the New Jersey law against discrimination, not policy 5756. His office has already acknowledged and conceded in court that policy 5756 is not mandatory and school districts are allowed to repeal that policy. and the state superior court in handover township and the state superior court in Mammoth County have both ruled that school boards can
155repeal policy 5756. Therefore, you can't say you have to go to Trenton to change the law to repeal the policy. That's incorrect. That's misleading. That's not true. There is no law stating 5756 is mandated. So the question is then, will this board keep a policy on the books for this township that puts a veil of secrecy between the schools and the families? A voluntary policy that you have adopted and that you're deciding whether to keep or not that puts a veil of secrecy between the school and the family. I think that's unethical. I think that's dangerous and a serious violation of parental rights. So again, just to reinforce what the attorney said tonight was a very good conversation that's happening right now. That conversation he he addressed in the Division of Civil Rights. It hasn't
156been ruled on yet, but what it has been ruled on very clearly is 5756 is not mandatory. So therefore, I want to urge you guys to do what parents want you to do, do what the community wants you to do, and don't blame the AG, and don't blame state law saying you can't do it. It's on you. It's your responsibility. You have final and full authority to repeal the policy. So, please do so tonight. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Joyce Lyn. I'm Bridgewater residents. uh in the last couple meetings that we have heard a lot of uh support to repeal the 5756 due to its detrimental impacts on the um children and the family and uh I today I'm going to talk about a couple of the uh current events. Okay, Dr. Alan Josephson, a
157respected psychologist at Northern Children's Hospital or University of Kentucky, was fired for questioning gender transition. It's is related therapy and based on his years of clinical research, he later won a $ 1.5 million lawsuit against the hospital. Okay? And his messages was very clear. Children deserve better than lifealtering procedures that mutilate their bodies and destroy their futures. Okay? And then on April 16 this year, last month, the UK Supreme Court ruled woman means biological female trans woman can now be excluded from women only spaces like locker room, uh, ladies rooms, shelters or any counseloring services and the sports. Okay, many EU countries are following suit. I think the world is paying attention to the issue and our hidden common sense and the conscience is awakening. Okay. Our education secretary Linda Mahon has warn California to
158drop the gender identity or risk losing the federal funding. New Jersey as last week last week I checked 68% of my property tax go to school. Okay. Are you really prepared to face the financial crisis consequences and then make taxpayers shoulder the cost of this agenda? And I have to ask why is the school's robotics team here lobbying for policy 56756? Are there now a transgender transgender advocacy group? Are the teachers or staff using or any outside volunteer using the school program to push their personal agenda? Okay. Teacher and school counselor should not be steering minor through permanent identity decision. The mission of educations is to teach to build character to prepare student for future success not to distract them from identity polics or stealing time. Good evening everyone. My name is Ruby Ling. I'm
159the parent and the Bridgewater resident for 16 years. I have attended recent bro meetings and one thing is clear. We all want to protect our children but we are heading in different direction on how to do that. I would like to clarify a few points. First, some teacher have said that nothing has happened under this powers in the past six years. They are not encouraged student to change their the gender. They are just make sure they have lunch. But I believe that and I truly think most of our bridge water teachers are doing a fantastic job teaching and supporting our children. But the issue isn't what has happened. It is what could happen. It's what could happen. This policy gives schools the authority to keep a life change information from parents without conset without this
160diagnos without even any notice by us. Let's clear state in the policy to me it's like giving someone $1 million budget and say don't worry I only spend one cent but the point is you have the power to spend it all. Secondly why now? We talk about why now but we have learned this policy as we said is not mandatory. On September 29, 2023, Judge Miko confirmed that the school board are not required to adopt the policy 5756 and are free to repeal it. So it's a time to repeal it. It's never the wrong time to do the right thing. Third age and the development concerned. This party take a one-sizefits all approach. It doesn't count for the difference between the elementary school students to the high schoolers. Young children are still going. Many are
161infused by the peers and social media. They need a guidance not isolations. And finally, children are belong to their parents, not to the school, not to the state. Parents are hold accountable legally, emotionally. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause] Hi, my name is Kaid. I live in Bridgewwater and I'm happy to see the progress that was talked about today about some of the great things that are happening in the district. So, I wanted to make sure I said that. Um, but I will also tell you I don't want to be here this late. I know no one wants to be here this late, but the reason that we are here this late is because I want to remind you that you guys, there are people on this board that invited activist groups like a
162ACLU New Jersey and Garden State Equality to be here to talk to stand against our children and the parents. And so because you guys did that, we will continue to come here and stand for our children. We're the these activist groups are eager to poison impression impressionable minds with ideologies that blur biological truth and endanger our kids. And I'm I the fact that I watched bullying happening on this board in this room today after talking about the levels of bullying at school going down. It's not something that we want to to show our children that we're doing. So yes, parents will be here as much as possible. As long as you guys continue to have this policy that is not mandatory while trying to sell it to us as it is, we will continue to
163come and we will continue to expose what you guys are doing and trying to sell to parents across this district. I'm disgusted to watch this. You guys are manipulating young minds with dangerous ideologies and it's grooming. and we saw a story about Lydia Pinto that this is what this leads to. So I will tell you guys to reconsider what it is that you're doing before this crowd continues to grow and these meetings get later. Thanks for listening. [Applause] I know there's no back and forth, but I'm going to say something for the crowd. How dare you call our teachers groomers? How dare you? They are our educators. They are our prized workers in this community. [Music] Okay. Okay. Okay. No, no, no. You addressed that at me. So, I'm sorry, but I was not calling
164teachers. I called the board members that invited these groups. So, don't words in my mouth. All right. Next. Thank you. That means everything. You're up. Okay. May I begin? Yep. Is that okay? You're you're ready. Hi, my name is Kim Lley. I am a former uh school teacher. I'm from Manalapin and I'm a parent. This policy is enabling children to change their identity when the brain isn't fully developed. The men's mental health daily has an article at what age is a brain fully developed which entails the ages and stages of brain development. A child's brain isn't fully developed until the mid20s and as late as 30 years old. This is extremely significant because children who are 18 years or old are making legal decisions considered an adult and the brain isn't fully developed. If you
165have an adult child, you know that they're all their that all their decisions aren't the best. Even though they're considered an adult by age, children still need parental input. Another topic that I wanted to touch upon because there's so many. I know we only have two minutes. A major component of the teacher parent relationship is trust. Trust between teacher parent has linked to favorable learning outcomes for students. Teachers can spend more time in instructing students instead of disciplining behaviors that take away from precious time. One article, the power of teacher parent relationships strengthen communication for student success, breaks down how important this relationship teacher parent relationship impacts student learning. Policy 5756 allows a child to make complex decisions without the parent. A teacher is given an opportunity to inspire students to learn. They instruct how
166to socialize with others and more importantly how to think and solve problems. When students require more emotional support, a teacher is able to call on the school social worker, school psychologist when needed. These colleagues have studies and trained to work with students who have been in need of these services. All students have the HIV policy in place to help them. They're exp experiencing bullying as an example. All children are important. Each child learns different and grows at different various rates. A child changes their mind all the time. And even as they grow into adults, they continue to discover new things about themselves. At your convenience, I ask you to reconsider this policy. A teacher having that responsibility is not in that position. A medical note is not required by the student. Thank you very much.
167Thank you. [Applause] Hi, I'm Kim Bland from Oldbridge, New Jersey parent. Um, I want to thank you to all the teachers, the schoolboard members and administrators who love our children and your students. You are appreciated and I know you really love them. And that's one thing we all have in common. We have we love the children and have the best interest of them at heart. we just see things differently. May I propose honest and open communication between schools, teachers, and parents? Shouldn't parents, most of whom love their children more than anything in the world and would die for their children, be made aware if their child is hurt or suffering? And shouldn't parents who have been blessed with these children to love, guide, nurture, teach, and protect them for a short 18 years or so
168be made aware of very significant issues regarding their child in school like um changes concerning gender or what pronoun to be called? How is it good or acceptable for the school to keep such information from a parent? And how does this build trust between the school and family? And how did these se do these secrets not discourage trust between a child and parent? Please resend policy 5756 and thank you for your consideration. Thank you. My name is Joan Depala and and uh I'm of Bridgewater and I'm here to inform you of a petition that we've circulated. As of now, this petition has received over 1,200 signatures. According to change.org's tracking feature, approximately 65% of the signatures are Bridgewater or Raritan area. This petition seeks to repeal policy 5756 for the following reasons. to ensure that
169parents are informed. Maintain transparency, communication, and collaborative relationship between schools and parents to support student well-being and success. Protection of girls sport opportunities and privacy and safety in their spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms. Reenable teachers and staff to use professional judgment. cease overriding and instead allow other policies already in place to maintain protection for all students, including transgender students. This petition is not about violating or undermining the rights of transgender students. Protections remain in place through a comprehensive list of policies and plans that already exist. This petition is not about taking anything away from one group of students, but about being fair and protecting all students. This is what you need to think about. It is about ensuring that parents are informed about their child's life decisions. Transparency between schools and families is
170key to allowing parents to fulfill their role in supporting their children. Brenal involvement is essential for a child's success and well-being. I'd like to bring this petition to the board's attention to show that our community does not support policy 5756 for our schools. And I respectful respectfully urge the board to repeal this policy and we will continue to come and I will continue with all of my might to make sure every parent knows about this policy in Bridgewater. Thank you. Hello. My name is Christine. I am a parent of Bridgewwater students. Not sure why out of town people are here, but okay. Um, I'm here to support policy 5756. And I think what some of the folks who are kind of demonizing the LGBT community and transgender human beings forget is that they are human
171beings. Less than 2% of youth identify as transgender. My junior in high school, I said, "Hey, do you know any transgender students?" He's like, "I know of two." My middle schooler, I said, "Hey, do you know of any transgender students?" She knows of zero. So two people, this is what all of this is about. But on top of that, okay, LGBT, okay, mental health for all of our youth and our children and our teenagers is catastrophically bad right now. Suicide rates are up for all of our teenagers. But the LGBT community, especially transgender, those rates are even higher. Not because they're inherently naturally inclined to it, but but because they live in non-accepting environments, like at schoolboard meetings where people come up and talk about them. Excuse me. It's just not okay. All right. In
172in states where they have done anti-LGBTQ laws, suicide attempts by transgender and non-binary kids, teenagers have increased up to 70 freaking% because the grown-ups are so worried about those two kids at the freaking high school. I'm sorry. If you're a parent and you don't know that your kid is transitioning, look in the freaking mirror and wonder why your kid is not coming to you. Is it a teacher's job to be like, "Hey, do your parents let you wear makeup? Hey, does your dad know that you like goth music?" Like, no. That's your job as a parent. So, leave this community alone. Stop with petitions. This is human beings. love all children. Thank you. When is my two minutes starting now? Okay. Uh I'm Valerie Sylvester. I'm reading on behalf of uh a person who was
173unable to attend. Um, this is um a a letter um entitled A Family Kept in the Dark. I'm sorry to interrupt. Could you just name the municipality where you live for the record? Oh, Bridgewater. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. 18 years. Um, and this was a good lead in. Thank you for that lead in the the woman who just spoke uh because this is a good lead in. This is a good story. Um, I am going to tell a story and I ask all of you to who are parents, including the board members, to put yourselves in these parents' shoes. This is a true story of a family who um are friends of mine who live just a few miles away from Martinsville. I would I will use fictitious names to protect their privacy. Um, not
174because they do not want to people to know their story. They greatly do, but because they fear retaliation from individuals and groups who become angry and vicious when confronted with the truth. Picture the scenario. The parents uh and their young daughter attended a high school graduation ceremony for their son. Unlike all parents, they were so happy and proud of their son for graduating. The younger sister, who was also happy and proud of her u big brother, was there as well. When it was time for their son to go up to receive his diploma, they heard the name Joanna Smith. The parents and daughter looked at each other. Their son's name is Joseph Smith, not Joanna. The parents were confused. They thought the school must have made a typo. But no, the diploma did indeed say
175Joanna Smith. and their son could uh and their son told them on graduation day that he was to be called Joanna. At the graduation ceremony, the parents found out that their son had uh had hidden from their uh their family and being um socially transitioned the past few years. Thank you very much. The next person will Okay. Um, Teresa Kosaro, 40 years in Bridgewater. Okay. Uh, my daughter went through all the Bridgewater schools and now my granddaughter is there and that's why. So to continue the story um this set in motion three years of pain and suffering for their family. The parents were stunned and appalled. They felt betrayed by all the adults in the school to whom the parents had entrusted their minor son on a daily basis. The feeling of betrayal was deep.
176so deep that the father died of heart failure one year later even though he was only 57 years old. This is true stories. Now the mother is a single mom of two struggling financially, emotionally and with her physical health and the daughter is terrified that her mother will also die and she'll be left without a parent. And you may say to yourself, well this would not happen to me. It would not happen if they were good parents. They should have known what was going on. Let me tell you that these parents are good parents who cared very much for their children and were intimately involved in their lives. They were homeschooled throughout their elementary years. The son was diagnosed with autism and ADHD at a young age, but had a very high IQ. Consequently, he
177exhibited odd atypical behaviors throughout his life. In fact, because his parents are loving parents who would do anything for their child, the son had continual medical and psychological treatment and support since he was a young child. But the minor son in the school diligently and deliberately kept the son's name change and desired to become female secret from everyone. So, my time is up. I'm saying you should repeal this bill. That's unnecessary. Dr. Katherine Maxwell, Bridgewater resident. On May 1st, 2025, HHS released a 409page report titled Treatment of Pediatric Gender Dysphoria Review of Evidence and Best Practices. The report reflects a growing international consensus that the medical treatment of gender distressed youth has outpaced the evidence. It aligns with reforms already underway in much of Europe, which is trending towards psychopy rather than medical interventions. As
178a mental health professional and Bridgewwater resident, I request you to repeal the non-mandatory policy 5756, a school district policy that allows minor children to keep secrets from parents, negatively impacts the mental health of all involved. This policy codifies secrecy. Although there are differences in opinion on how to work with individuals with gender dysphoria, there is no mental health study or literature that recommends an intervention to keep secrets from parents of minor children. Keeping secrets re re leads to ruminations, a repetitive and unproductive cycle of negative thoughts that can worsen emotional distress, depleting mental and emotional resources for academic and intellectual and emotional learning. Overall well-being is significantly impacted leading to feelings of unhappiness and a diminished quality of life. In addition, the literature on abuse, sexual, emotional, or physical, indicates that abuse thrives in secrecy.
179Given the intense disagreement as to how to best help youth with gender dysphoria as well as the harmful role that secrets play in emotional psychological health, it is best that if a school district wishes to accept a student's asserted gender identity and name change, it be done only with parental consent. If the parents believe it is in the best interest to have a gender name or or a gender change, then it is between a parent and a child, not a secret between a school employees and a child. Parental involvement is crucial for a child's mental health for it acts as a protective factor that improves academic success, emotional functioning, and reduces the risk of mental health problems and risky behaviors. Please repeal the non-mandatory policy. Thank you very much. William Maxwell, Bridgewater resident. I'm speaking
180on behalf of the Knights of Columbus Council 5959 from Martinsville. I serve as the Grand Knight of Council. The uh Knights of Columbus 5959 Council first of all wants to commend Jeremy Lee and Lucy Lee who have displayed great courage in bringing this important matter out into the public forum at at significant risk to themselves. We saw that tonight. The Ignites of Columbus Council 5959 objects to policy 5756 based on the following points. It deauthorizes parents in their god-given role as the responsible persons for their children's support and formation. Policy 5756 is a form of parental alienation. Furthermore, in the spirit of inclusivity, which I saw an reoccurring theme over um several of the slides, uh excluding parents from a critical time in their child's life can trigger a lifetime of damaged relationships between the
181child, the parents, the siblings, and the extended family. It is not reflective of the commun community mores and standards. The testimony in April 8th where the vast majority of parents coming out against policy 5756 are very likely a representative sample of the community at large. The board should heed the pleas for openness regarding their children. The public will be justified in interpreting the secretive policy is not working in the best interest of the children be suspicious as it would be a means of hiding wrongful behavior or legal exposure. The community will lose trust in the school district. Now, it's important to clarify that when parents who devote their entire lives to their children turn their children over to the school district for 68 hours a day for just a few short years, it is for
182their child to gain academic or vocational instruction and nothing more. The school district is not to assume that they have co-parenting rights or joint custody rights while the children are attending the school. They have a supervisory and academic vocation rule. As such the parents need to be informed I hear you any issue of import arising with their children sir you have you have to stop sir as a reminder to everyone in the public if you have a statement that you don't have time mry if I may just as a reminder to everyone in the public if you have a statement that you don't have time to finish today the board does accept emails the emails for the board and the contact is on the website you can email your comment as well the board does
183review all the email comments that they receive from the public. Thank you. My name is Vince Dalo. I've been a resident of Bridgewater for a long time. My children have gone through the school. I'm a big believer in the school. I'm a fan of the school. I'm not going to go on with much that I read here. I'm going to read this short part. Yes. uh the transend the transgender students which were developed by the New Jersey Department of Education to guide the school district in supporting transgender and gender non-conforming students. There are key points to this one is this policy is a policy. This is not a law. I'm not going to go over all the great legal arguments and what's been going on and the attorney, I think, laid this out pretty well.
184There is a desire to protect from legal action. I understand that and they're trying to weigh these things out, but that doesn't mean necessarily it's the right answer. Good people can disagree on different processes. I believe there are good people here. I believe there are good people there. I believe the intentions are good. But the road to hell is also paved with good intentions. Many mistakes have been done in the name of good intentions and meeting wealth. I think this is a strong argument. It's not parents against teachers or teachers against parents. Any parent loves their teachers because they watch what they do. And nobody wants to see a teacher liable as part of what the attorney is trying to protect. I believe at the end of the day there are two commandments that come
185to mind. the Old Testament, the Torah, the finger of God wrote those stones according to Moses. He put them in an arc and that was around 2,000 years until Jesus came. The commandment in there, one of them was honor your father and mother, for in them is long life. And the other one that Jesus said 2,000 years later, if you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better to have a millstone around your neck and be thrown into the sea. Both of those items are true and that's a responsibility on you when you make this decision. If you put a separation between me, me, the parent, and my child, even unintentionally, you are responsible. Thank you. My name is Gregory Quinland. I'm president of the Center for Garden State Families, a
186Christian family advocacy group here in New Jersey. I was asked to be here by parents who are afraid to come and talk to you and that is the truth. Paripony 5756 is a license to lie to parents. It's a license to keep secrets from parents. It violates the 14th amendment and the law against discrimination who gives exclusive rights to those who are in the gender identity confusion of LGBTQIA-xyz++. It is a developmental gender identity disorder developed not innate acquired not inborn. And I along with millions of others who've left the homosexual lifestyle, who've left these alternative lifestyles, can tell you that you can change because you were never born that way. There are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological ideology for anything in the alphabet soup agenda. And that's the American Psychiatric Association,
187the MDs. What we need to understand, as it's already been said, that abuse thrives in secrecy. You've had that experience here. You just had a former teacher go to jail. What we saw with the robotics club, like it or not, that was grooming. That was grooming. I'll say it again. That was grooming. [Applause] I watched a hundred of my friends and acquaintances die of AIDS before I quit counting. I have been with people who have tried to commit suicide. And the rates of suicide among those who have totally transitioned is the 73% that was quoted here. And I can give you the reference for that because that's out of the Netherlands because the statistics we heard earlier had no reference at all. They were just numbers thrown out. again. 5756 is wrong and it needs
188to be repealed. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm just going to jump in before you go. I don't I don't interrupt anyone, but uh I've worked in the district for a long time. The teachers and staff of Bridgewater Riden School are not groomers. And so I take offense personally and on behalf of the teachers and staff to the comments. [Applause] I am Mary Robbins. I am from Bridgewater, 26 years. I'm going to read a letter, half of it, and Linda is going to read it, the second half. I'd like to read this letter from a former transgender student of Bridgewwater School District. Letter from, he wants to remain anonymous. Letter from SC. I am a former Bridgewater student identified as transgender during the last two years of my time in public school. I changed my name
189and pronouns and had long hair like a girl. I started it started with me not liking my body as I went through puberty with the information I became aware of. The idea of being transgender set in the thought of being unconditionally accepted was really comforting and gave me something to look forward to, especially while I was struggling with anxiety and social challenges. When I spoke with my school counselor, I was affirmed as transgender immediately, no questions asked. Then a lot changed. I lost some friends with the within the transgender circle. I felt accepted, at least for a while, but soon the bullying started with that within that circle. I wasn't feminine enough. My hair was too greasy. Things went downhill day after day. Eventually, I had no acceptance from people who weren't transgender and no
190acceptance from those who were. Bathrooms were a challenge. I was not allowed to use the boys or the girls bathrooms and the genderneutral options were far away. All of this seriously affected my mental health as well as my daily activities. Continuing on, as time went on, I didn't feel like I was trans. I know you're reading the letter, but we still need your name and and uh municipality for the record. Linda Quo Piscato. Thank you. As time went on, I didn't feel like I was transgender anymore. But being surrounded by the same people, the same protocol, and the same affirmation, I felt like there was no way back. I had made a decision about my gender and that was it. No way out. All of this led me to eventually drop out of school after
191two years. After that, my mental health, behavior, and academics improved. I dransitioned back to my birth gender of being a boy. I just finished my GED two years ahead of schedule. I still face emotional challenges from time to time, but I'm no longer suicidal like I was during the two years I identified as transgender. Stu studies show that about 90% of children who express transgender feelings spontaneously lose those feelings over time. I am one of them. I would I would have loved to hear that dransitioning is normal and it's okay. From my personal experience, I oppose policy 5756. I wish the school had taken a more neutral approach. I wish they had provided real counseling or ask my parents to seek professional support. Instead, it was immediate affirmation. I suffered a lot of mental stress
192and confusion. Now I am no longer suicidal and I've come to realize there is more to life than the question of whether I'm a boy or a girl. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause] Hi Kathy Franco Bridgewater Township. Um it's my first time in front of this humble body. Um so I'm going to skip over some stuff since I'm down to two minutes. I understand I've lived in this town for over 40 years. I am in support of 5756. I have two children who have both um graduated from our school district. Um I personally do not know any transgender individuals, but let me tell you a bit about my history. I do recall in the late 1970s during the height of the AIDS crisis, my brother coming out to me as being gay. I
193was the only person in our family, a family with five children, four sons, and I as the only daughter, numerous aunts and uncles, and over 40 cousins that he felt comfortable sharing this news with. And it was with the understanding that it was complete and total privacy and confidentiality. I was only a third-year social work student at the time, and my brother was in medical school. He was on a full scholarship, so he was not dependent upon my parents. We came from a loving but not necessarily accepting home. We were expected to achieve and to succeed. We were expected to not embarrass our family, to not be outside the norm. We grew up in a very Aussie and Harriet neighborhood. That reference may lose some of you of the later generations. Um, I kept this
194secret for over 10 years and every year I asked my brother if he was ready to come out. Um my brother was finally comfortable with coming out um after my family matured in their acceptance of gays. And it was only after that um that I was able to speak about him with full honesty to my family. Some of my f siblings felt betrayed that I had never shared his secret. My parents had thank goodness involved during those 10 years. So I have heard that we you should speak about the future. The future is now. I look back that was what 40 years ago and where were we in thinking about gays and homosexuals. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Gerald Magalio Dolores Turo Foundation. You all got my very more extensive um uh
195testimony, so I'm going to condense it. But I do want to begin by saying I I'm very impressed with the faculty and the board with the outstanding performance, academic performance of this um of this district and God bless you and keep up the great work. Um anyway, um I I just want to share with you uh and and you'll see this in my email that I sent uh the new administration's statement regarding transgender issues and this is from Washington. quote, "chool schools and universities will lose federal funds, as you have seen in Maine, if you allow men to invade women's sports and women's spaces. This also applies to the whole K12 system. In addition, the Department of Justice is coordinating with state and local enforcement to fight child abuse in our school system. It is
196child abuse to change a child's gender gender particularly uh by not informing parents, which is a gross violation of parental rights. Uh moreover um it talked about fake science. But in summary, what I wanted to say is under the current 5756 policies, school can work with professionals on a confidential basis without the knowledge and consent of parents to transition minors without meeting threshold diagnosis or even appropriate mental health screening. And transitioning children, as you heard, is harmful and uh and experimental. And if one child is subjected to these standard practices without the knowledge or consent of his parents, his or her parents, the district is exposed exposing itself to potential litigation with monumental consequences. Um, I'd like to end with or conclude with sharing my experience in Rome a couple weeks ago where 80,000 teens
197from all over the world attended a Jubilee pilgrimage um to venerate a 15year-old. His name is Carlo Cudis who was scheduled to be canonized these. Okay. Sorry I can't tell you this. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Kry if I may. Yep. And I apologize to speaking next. um looking at policy uh 0131 on public participation in meetings and I know we've had public comment now for a while and there is a provision that and I do want to hear what everyone has to say but given the hour and given the amount of the agenda we have left I am there is a provision that allows assume either by the president or or with the board to have a comment of two minutes or less. I hate to take everyone's time, but we still have a
198lot to get to. So, I'm going to make a motion from just this meeting to make public comment one minute or less. And we've heard a lot of great opinion on both sides or a lot of opinions on both sides. So, I'm going to make a motion to reduce the speaking time for this minute for the remainder of this session to one minute. Yeah. I understand folks, but if we could just focus on on we'll still get to public comment. There's a motion. Is there a second for the motion hearing? None. Motion passes. Let's fails. Thank you. I'll try and talk fast. My name is Jennifer Kitchen and I am a 30-year resident of Bridgewwater. This is my community. I decided to look up on the board website to see what your stated purpose is.
199with a little editing for time. I quote, "The board of education is responsible for developing policy to ensure the proper care, management, and control of district affairs and supporting the mission of educating our students to reach their full potential. In addition, the board of education utilizes a planning calendar to help ensure compliance with state and federal mandates. for state mandates. The New Jersey law against discrimination requires school districts to provide a supportive and non-discriminatory environment for all students, including trans students. And I appreciate the board council clarifying tonight. The only way the seemingly unending discussion of 5756 has had any re uh relevance to the education of our students by showing off the incredible skills in writing, presentation, research, and statistics of robotics team 303, inspired by the memory of a former teammate who happened
200to be trans, someone I personally knew and whose funeral I attended. Kudos to the teachers who have helped provide 303 with the excellent education that enabled this professionally conducted survey. And how dare Emmy Bubby call them groomers. As has been made as has been made abundantly clear, there is no reason to repeal 5756 and every reason to keep it. I encourage the board to stop allowing a few members to waste everyone's time with political grandstanding that I'm sure is destined for future campaign ads and that the board returned to assisting the potential of our students so clearly on display earlier tonight. Make no mistake, will keep coming too. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Hi, my name is Laura Crest. I'm the president of the Bridgewater RAID Education Association. I've worked here 25 years. 1100,300 employees
201are in this place. Over 25 years, there were two really bad seeds. One was a homosexual relationship, one was a heterosexual relationship. I'm telling you right now, it's this has just gotten to me and I'm I'm just sick of people referring to our good teachers, TAs, everybody that works with kids, groomers. It's enough already. We can have different political views, and that's okay. But do not accuse these people that I brought tonight, and there's about 800 more of them if you'd like them to come, too. Right? Do not accuse them based on zero current facts. If you could present some facts of what is happening right now in our district with two students. I thought it was three, but the woman said two before. So, okay. Okay. And um I just want to know what
202are the current facts like what is exactly happening today in our schools that is making this an issue? Like what is h is some like if somebody has some evidence I urge them to come immediately forward so we can resolve anyone that is currently grooming or has the intention to any of our students. Okay. So knock it off please. And remember that we are mandated reporters. So, as it goes, whoever comes to us and is in danger, we have to tell somebody if somebody comes in my classroom and says, "I'm afraid to go home, I do not have a choice but to contact the administrator, the guidance counselor, and then they make a decision." And it doesn't matter if if they're whatever they are, you can't call the parent, you have to call child protective
203services first. Have a nice night. Thank you. [Applause] Hi. Um, I'm Kelly Cocatyo. I'm a second grade teacher in Bridgewater and I'm also the second vice president of the BREA. The comments that we've been hearing about the educators in this district the last few meetings and tonight have been disheartening to say the least. I dare the public here tonight to ask any one of the school employees in this room right now why they continue to show up day after day despite the untrue and disrespectful comments made about their profession. Sorry. I'll tell you why they show up each day. No, they don't want to groom their students as some tonight have reiterated falsely once again. They want to inspire. They want to inspire children to take chances. inspire young adults to never give up and
204to persevere through life's challenges. They want to inspire them to be good humans, to accept everyone regardless of their differences. They inspire young children to stand up for themselves and for others. They teach them about being global citizens who are open-minded, compassionate, and kind. They show them ways to tackle problems, work productively with each other, and show appreciation for one another. We don't groom, we inspire. As an educator for 20 years, I can tell you that I think about all the students that have set foot in my room, and I hope and pray that they left my class feeling loved, feeling supported, and feeling inspired. I hope they knew that I believed in them, and I still to this day believe in them. And I know I'm not alone in these thoughts. I can promise
205you that the people in this room and in this district are the best of the best. They put their all and their heart into teaching your children each and every day. And they should be respected, not ridiculed. They do amazing work year after year for your children. Thank [Applause] you. Good evening. My name is Alyssa Mueller. I live in Bridgewater. Uh I have two students in this district. I am here for the third time to speak in support of policy 5756 and I'm frankly tired of coming here. This is a very big school district. We have a lot of students. We have a lot of teachers. We have a lot of issues. We're in the middle of a referendum. We have a lot of business. This should not continue to be one of them. It
206should not. And we've been hearing a lot about what could happen, what might happen in the future. I would like to call out team 303 right now for their excellent handling of trying to track down data of how the student body actually feels because that's who we're talking about people. We're talking about the students in our district. Now, for all the people who want to go on about par parental rights, maybe we should start reconsidering our parental responsibilities because there should be a lot fewer petitions and just sitting with your kid and please support 5756 so we can stop coming here and doing this over and over and over. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Uh, my name is Eddie Halibell. I am a Bridgewater resident and parent of two children in the district. Um, I
207was here for the whole meeting, but I must have missed the parts about the policy that talked about performing medical procedures without my knowledge or grooming or forcing identities or sexual preferences upon my children. From what I heard, it sounds like the current policy does a great job of respecting parental rights, supporting students, and ensuring that schools stay in their lane. I don't think it's the school's job to get in the middle of what may be a complex or private family matter. What if you had a student who comes from a vegetarian household, buy themselves a cheeseburger at the school cafeteria, or they have a crush on another student, or they saw an R-rated movie. These things might go against their family's values, but it's not the school's respons responsibility and report that to parents.
208The focus of schools should be on making sure students are learning, supported, and achieving to the best of their ability, which was what most of our meeting was about today. Um, let us parents focus on ensuring we're establishing an open and supportive relationship with our children. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, hello, my name is Shamingu. I'm a resident from Bridgewater Redton School District. I also have uh two kids in the school district. Um I I think I don't have an issue with LGBTQ u community but I think the issue here is not um about LGBTQ community. I think it's about whether the school should hide key information from the parents. I think I believe most of people here are parents. Doesn't doesn't matter whether you are LGBTQ or not, right? I also believe many members
209are parents. Think about it. Do you think you want to somebody hide your kids information from you or or you want to know those key information yourself because you are all parents. I have issue with hiding information from from parents. Doesn't matter whe the parents is a gay or is a like a straight guy. That doesn't matter. But I have issue with hiding information from parents. I think that's what this policy is doing. I I have issue with that and and also think about it. What's the what's the assumption of that that policy that policy assume the school will is the one the parents is not the one will do the best for the for the kids. That's the reason why they are hiding information from the parents. They think is in the position to
210do the best for the kids. I think that's totally wrong. That's is not doesn't make any sense. Think about yourself. Do you do you think you are the one to do the trying to do the best of your kids or somebody else? If you think you are the one who is wants the best of your kids, then you should to vote a no to this policy. Thank you. Thank you. I knew the sheet would be empty by the time I got up here. All right. Of course, it went dark. I have served as a school bus teacher in this district for 10 years. I'm sorry. You Lori Badger, sorry. Uh, Rabbitton, not Bridgewwater. Uh, I've served as a school bus driver in this district for 10 years. I also have two daughters that have gone
211through the school system with my younger one in her junior year. I have built strong connections with the students of all ages, K through 12. I'm not an educator, but I see my students twice a day, every day, all year long. It's my job to be on time to these children's stops without fail. I get to know the other adults in the children's lives. I text their parents. I greet them when I'm at the at the supermarkets and the malls. I get to see glimpses of what their lives are as students outside of school. Every student brings excuse me stress and pain and chaos into school. As adults in their lives, we cannot know the whole story. We have to be there for them and do our part to make the whole system go round.
212It is the role of the educators, the board, bus drivers, and every adult to be the leader for our youth and our future. What I have learned is that students will show you who they are when we are kind to them. What happens when you show them that we are not that we are not accepting of their true selves, their pronouns, their gender identities? That's what is that's when trust is lost. and the system crumbles. Why would this board or any member of the school system want to break the trust of students? It would not increase learning objectives. Studies show that culture of the school is connected to the success of students. Why would you want to create a culture where students are afraid to be themselves? The the reason is politics. The reason is
213that people think trans people should not exist. The reason is lack of empathy. We should not let politics get in the way of education of every child that every child deserves. and I'm a proud aunt of a trans niece. Thank [Applause] you. Thank you. Hello, I'm Jennifer Feny. I've lived in Bridgewater for 18 years. Both my kids went through the Bridgewater school system and my daughter will be graduating from high school in five weeks. And unlike everyone else who's spoken tonight, I am the parent of a ch trans transgender child. And I just want you to know a few things. First, she's never used the bathroom at school. Do you know why? Because she's afraid to because she's worried if she goes into the girls' room, she might get abused. If she goes into the
214boys' room, she might get abused. So, she can't even go to the bathroom at school. So, first, there's that. Secondly, the kids don't change in gym anymore. So, the locker room thing is ridiculous. Another thing, her teachers don't talk to her about being trans. I even asked her again tonight, have they ever talked about it? Never. Not in kindergarten, not in fifth grade, not in 12th grade. They've never offered her hormone therapy, and they've never offered her surgery. It's ridiculous. My daughter had to go through six months of therapy. Six months to be approved to see an endocrine specialist. And guess what? They didn't start by immediately scheduling surgery to cut off her private parts. She can't get, no trans kid can get gender affirming healthcare without a parent's permission. Has nothing to do with
215the school. It has nothing to do with the teachers. And you know what else? Parents are should be thrilled to know that their kids have someone in school that they can trust enough with their secrets to make school a little more tolerable. Because to be honest, if a kid will tell their teacher and not their parent, maybe their parents need to think about why that might be. We are not living in a perfect world. Outing trans kids to their intolerant and in unaccepting parents is not going to be good for their mental health. And that's what we're talking about here. The parents who are all anti-LGBTQ are the ones who are demanding the teachers tell them so that they know what their own kids would be too afraid to say to them. They think that
216these kids are doing something that is horrible and against their beliefs. And that's ridiculous. These kids need acceptance. And if they haven't discussed this huge decision with their parents, they realize it's because they're not going to get the acceptance they need and expect to be lectured or punished or disowned or worse. My daughter is loved and accepted as she exactly as she is at home and many kids are not. Keep that in mind. Many kids are not. They will suffer if this information comes out. Thank you. Thank [Applause] you. That's a tough one to follow. I'll let that sit there for I'll give 20 seconds of my time. Let that sit there. Uh thank you. Good evening. My name is Steve Bey Martinsville uh recovering high school teacher. Thank you for the time this evening.
217You've heard so many impassioned uh speakers this evening and it really comes down to the fact of why do you all care so much about these kids, right? It's an issue now. We have people from all these out of other towns coming into here my community to impose on us their will to quote scripture to quote scripture. I don't know. If I thought God says turn the other cheek, love thy neighbor, right? And we are all created in God's image. That would tell me then that all God is also embody of a trans individual as well. If that's the logic. So what are we doing here? How many times are we going to spend this time? It's past my bedtime. I'm getting cranky. I know many of my colleagues and thank you for being part
218of the number one public schools in the country again are educators here in Bridgewater Raritin nonetheless every day showing up giving every full measure so these kids know that they are loved regardless of where they are in their journey every student deserves to live up to the few the true nature of their authentic self and I know it's not the reasons about test scores that makes us number one it's that we are empathetic, we are compassionate, we love, we love all of our students and understand they're going through a lot. We don't attempt to be the solution to all their problems, but they're there for them. Policies like this, we are demonstrating tonight exactly why they are necessary to protect our students. I urge you to end this nonsense and move on. Thank you. Thank
219you. [Applause] My name is Theo Levit. I'm a member of the Bridgewater Robotics team. I was not originally planning on coming to this meeting, but after some of the statements that I have heard, I felt it was necessary. I am frankly disgusted and appalled that you people think that we need to be groomed and threatened to support our fellow students. I come here not because I'm being groomed, but out of genuine love, respect, and care for my fellow students. We put in so much work just to get this argument out of here that should be common sense. Why can't we all just respect the students? Thank you. Thank you. Uh Susan Willlet live in Bridgewater. Um once again I did not want to speak tonight. Once again, I felt I needed to first I want
220to thank all the teachers. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you deal with this. You are miracle workers. Obviously, I'm here to support keeping the policy 5756. I am the mother of a transgender daughter and she has asked me to speak on her behalf. She went through the Bridgewater school system and it just terrifies her of the possibility that other children might not have the opportunity that she did and the loving family that she has. It is none of our business whether William wants to be called Bill or Jill or whether Janet has a crush on Martin or Mary. My daughter when she came out, she came out to a trusted adviser first. Good for her. she found someone who she can work things through and then she told me
221when she felt comfortable with who she was and felt she could see it. That's the way it should be. You've all heard the report from the committee today. You've heard about the fact that state law says this is what we must agree with. You have also heard board members talk about being tired of this. We are all so tired of coming back day after day, time after time. But I will keep coming on behalf of my daughter and any other trans kid who is going to go through this system, through the schools, because I believe everybody has a right to be who they are. And I know you guys do, too. Thank you. I know I'm the last one. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, we're going to close this portion of public comment. We're going to
222move on to the action items. Um, can I get a motion? I want to motion to approve minutes. Second. Mr. Lomsky, can you please call the role? You got discussion. Discussion. Mr. Lee. Yes. Point of order. Uh, can we ask people to just quiet down a little, please? Thank you. Sorry, we're still in a meeting right now. Point of order on the the the noise in the room before we continue with roll call. Excuse me. We're still in our meeting right now. If you could take conversation outside, we'd really appreciate it so that we can get through the rest of our agenda. Thank you very much for patience. Appreciate it. All right, Mr. Lee. Yes. Miss Asuna? Yes. Mr. Jooshi? Yes. Miss Lockan? Yes. Miss Lee? Give me a moment. I need to find out
223where I am. We're on um minutes. Approval of minutes. Minutes. Yes. Mr. Pepe? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Miss Khalry? Yes. Mr. Singer? Yes. All right. The motion passes. We are on to personnel 2523 through personnel 252. So moved. Mr. Lomsky. Oh. Oh, sorry. Is there any questions? Yes. Uh I'd like to ask any questions. Yeah. Uh I saw the comprehensive equity plan. So I just had just a couple of questions if you don't mind. uh you know I know you've discussed attaining minority representation of students within each school just racially ethnically what are you doing to sort of make sure that there is sufficient minority representation what kind of actions are you taking to like make the schools more more diverse it's in the plan isn't it well the uh this is um there there's
224a the needs assessment I think is what you're talking about the is the attain minority representation of students within but that's part of the the set document that the the state sets out that that's the goal, right? So ours says yes in progress to that. Okay. What that means is uh Bridgewater Riden has neighborhood schools and so all the schools are based on a geographic area that's the sending area for the school and so uh within any district structure there's a goal that you're not uh making the schools more segregated than they should be. And so the yes in progress suggests that there's things that were done in Bridgewater Ven in the past that uh even if well-intentioned serve the purpose of making the schools more segregated. The most notable one would be only offering
225ESL instruction in certain schools and sending students across town to those schools. So things like offering programs like uh ESL instruction, gifted programming in all the schools removes something that had the effect of making the schools more segregated. The yes in progress suggests that uh in a district that has neighborhood schools like Bridgewater or Raridan where the community is not necessarily in each of those school areas uh representative of the total community, you're not going to necessarily have exact balance and there isn't a plan to do anything other than to avoid administrative or or you know uh board actions that would get in the way of uh this or would make this worse. And so that's why there's not any action goal attached to that. The uh needs assessment just kind of acknowledges that it's
226in progress in making sure that our actions are in alignment with not segregating schools uh in in a neighborhood school model. Thank you. That's that's helpful. Uh just a little followup on that. just on the basis of racial diversity like do you like track and like make sure there's like an equal proportion of people of different races across different schools or no in Bridgewater Riden it's a neighborhood schools model and so all of the schools are determined by an attendance zone and so where you live within Bridgewater or Radaran determines which primary school you go to. Uh the only time that there's a student who travels outside of their school zone would be if it's for a special program that is not offered in that school. An example would be um well we have special
227education programming in all of the school areas. If you're an autistic student and you need to be in a self-contained autism class, we have expanded the number of schools where we have autism classes, but they don't exist in all of the the schools. And so then you would have to uh go to a school that's not in your attendance zone. Similarly, uh prek, which is not something we offer universally, is something that uh right, we've expanded the without expanding the number of preschool classes, we've expanded the number of schools that have preschool with uh Van Holton having preschool for next year. And again, if there's a preschool student, uh, that they would attend their neighborhood school or if their neighborhood school didn't have preschool, they would attend another school as designated. So, the idea is
228just like having everything focused within these neighborhood schools, making sure that they kind of offer similar services essentially, so that no one has to like go across town, for example. Right. I mean, the the one that was most problematic and has already been addressed and fixed since Mr. Beers and Dr. Jones were were here uh is that there used to only be ESL programming offered in three of the schools. And so then when I was principal of Hamilton, for instance, if there was a student who needed ESL servicing, they would have to go to Miltown School or their parent would reserve refuse ESL services. And so the result was that there were no ESL students at Hamilton School because they either refused service and weren't classified as an ESL student or they went to another
229school. And that's that moved us towards segregation instead of away from it. And so the the state guidance based on state and federal law is that a school district should not do something even if well-intentioned because this was well-intentioned. The idea was that it would be a higher intensity service model at those schools. Um but the the result of it was uh you know discriminatory in some ways and segregatory. Got it. Thank you for that. Any more questions? Okay. Oh, Mrs. Lee, I want to make a comment about this. Uh, as I shared in the committee meeting, uh, I think that u in the um proportion matching in a uh uh student with um special need or discipline action. I don't I don't think that or discipline referral. I'm not on board with the idea
230of matching uh population proportion with referral proportion. Just just so on the same page, can you let us know what page we're referring to or what section from what I remembered? Um it's on the corrective section. That's probably the the one to the last page. It's on the last page. Oh, the the one uh right before the last page, the corrective action part. My computer can't open that. I'm just going off of what I talked about yesterday during committee meeting right here. PDF. Sure. I'm saying that I uh have objection over uh matching the discipline referral rate and the special ad referral rate to the population proportion. So, so am I looking I'm confused. Appendix C like what? Appendix C. Yes. Maybe Dr. founder, you can help tra like that. You asked a question. I
231I don't even know what we're referring to. Yeah, I I I'll help the This is um on the PDF it's labeled page 35, but there were different p places where you could put goals. So, on the PDF, it's page 36 of the of the document. And so um I mean the to be clear what you're objecting to is the statement that the Bridgewater Riden School District would be looking to eliminate any significant disproportionality in referrals classification for special education or disciplinary referrals. Yes. I I disagree as I said my Can I just Can I just just for the record because again it's getting late. Are are we saying that we disagree with the goal of eliminating disproportionality in our district? Is that what I'm hearing? I think that we should uh serve the kids based
232on their individual needs rather than considering their proportion in their, you know, ethnic or race background. I think we should serve the kids based on what this is a civil right what the kids um special need need is or their disc referral need is instead of looking at their race background and And and if I could offer just a little bit of of background on this, um what the spirit of this should be is that a lot of times with disproportionality, you may have members of your underserved community, economically disadvantaged, uh different uh racial and ethnic groups who may be classified or pushed towards classification more than their counterparts. And that's the whole spirit. So I just want to make it just so I know where people are coming from. Again, what you're saying is
233that we should not be working towards ending disproportionality in our district. I think we should race according to race and socioeconomic status. social economic studies is not in that part. I think that has a big role that we should absolutely level the playing field and try to give the kids support that they need. However, however, we're not I don't think we should be working towards matching the rate or the the proportion. We should serve the kids how the kids needs to needs to be served based on individual needs. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions? Okay, Mr. Alsky. Mr. Lee. Yes. Oh, sorry. No. I'm sorry. Long day today. Um, okay. Uh, yes on everything. No on PER 2525. Mr. Sunna? Yes. Mr. Jooshi? Yes. Miss Lman? Yes. Miss Lee? No. to the uh 2525.
234Yes to the rest. Mr. Pepe, yes. Mr. Walker, yes. Miss Kistri, yes. Mr. Singer, yes. All right. Motion passes. We're on to So moved for curriculum 252. I didn't even say it yet, guys. You guys are in a rush. All right. Sorry. Curriculum 25 62. Any questions? Mr. Lki. Mr. Lee. Yes. Mr. Assuna? Yes. Mr. Jooshi? Yes. Miss Lockan? Yes. Miss Lee? Yes. Mr. Pepe? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Miss Khalif? Yes. Mr. Singer? Yes. Motion passes. We are on to business 25150 through business 2516. Second. Questions? Mr. Lumpsky, can you please call the role? Mr. Lee? Yes. Mr. Asuna? Yes. Mr. Jooshi? Yes. Miss Lockan? Yes. Miss Lee? Yes. Mr. Pepe? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Miss Kalistri? Yes. Mr. Singer? Yes. Motion passes. Hold on. I got to get to my page. Also, thank you.
235Yes, I didn't get that. Thank you to the PTO. Yep. I have that written on my list. Thank you. Okay. Thank you to the Adamsville um school of the Somerset Area number 2137 Fraternal Order of Eagles for a $200 donation for school supplies. And thank you to the Daughters of the American Revolution for 400 bookmarks with the US flag and preamble of the Constitution, approximately $50. Thank you for reminding me. I did write that. Good job. Next up is uh Special Services 2525 through special services 2527. So moved. Second. Any questions? Okay. Mr. Lmsky. Mr. Lee. Yes. Mr. Assuna? Yes. Mr. Jooshi? Yes. Miss Lockan? Yes. Miss Lee? Yes. Mr. Pepe? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Miss Kistri? Yes. Mr. Singer? Yes. Motion passes. We are on to other 2532 through other 2534. So moved. Second.
236Any questions? Yeah. only on the calendar because we'd have to go into closed for the other two related to HIV. Any comments or questions on the calendar? Yes, Mrs. Lee. I would like to make a comment. I want to um I want to uh commend the district uh for coming up with this uh calendar. I think it has a lot of thoughtful uh considerations in it and I fully support it. Thank you. Thank you. I just can't believe we're thinking about 2027. Yeah. Ready. Time flies. Anything else? Mr. Lumpski. Mr. Lee. Yes. Mrs. Sunna. Yes. Mr. Jooshi. Uh, yes to 2532. Abstain on 2533 and yes to 2534. Miss Lan. Yes. 2532 abstain on 2533 yes to 2534 Miss Lee yes Mr. Pepe yes Mr. Walker yes Miss Kistister yes Mr. Sanger. Yes. Motion passes.
237All right. We have no policy, so we are on to old business. I have old business. Um, look, I don't take a stand on much, okay? I don't think I'm smart enough on any one topic to take a stand, but I am a thousand% going to take a stand with teachers. They are on the front lines, and I think it was absolutely offensive some of the things that were said. Um further I stand with this board. I have had some disagreements with some of you but at our core I don't think any one person here is a bad person or a hater or whatever other name we've been called throughout this session. Um, where I'm confused, uh, I did not know that academic even discussed this topic until I got 20 emails that said it
238has come to my attention. How did it come to their attention? And last, I haven't seen my family since yesterday. And and this is the fourth time that I can make that statement. And that's all I have to say about this topic. Any other old business? Yes, Mrs. Sun. Um, just in regards, I assume it's old business because I spoke earlier. If I came across as bullying in some way, then I apologize because that certainly was the intention. Um, the intention was to stop the discussion. And in the same spirit as what Jen just mentioned, we've discussed this. It was asked to go to committee. It went to committee. If the committee isn't trusted to discuss what we discussed with the lawyer, with our superintendent, with our committee, um, then that's that's a broken aspect
239of our board. We did what we were asked. We very thoughtfully put things through and came back with what we did. And to be harassed nonstop with emails and with comments, I think is negligence. And I think that our community has been led to not understand the policy, which if you read the policy and compare it to the law and compare everything, it is clear what is supposed to be done. But to twist the words uh is what has created all of this hubbub. It's a clear policy. It's it's very straightforward. Like we literally walked through the whole thing. So, I apologize if I came off as bullying, but I want the harassment to end and I want to go home and I want everyone to go home. This is ridiculous. Thank you, Mr. Lee.
240I just want to say I think we can all calm down a little bit. You know, just try and enjoy ourselves a little bit. I just want to take the opportunity to just thank some of the administration team, Kevin, and everyone and the hard work of the high school facilities team for, you know, working a lot with this board just to improve the state of our facilities. I know I brought up an issue with the high school bathrooms about some of the gaps being a little too big so that kids are like peeking through um and you know, maybe some blocks are broken. And I think, you know, Kevin, you did a great job working with people within the administration uh and within the facilities team to make sure that, you know, obviously our bathrooms
241are great and our high school and kids are not, you know, feeling uncomfortable in those bathrooms. So, I just want to say, you know, what we did together, I think hopefully can continue in the future. Um, I do very much appreciate you, you know, listening, taking in my feedback, and doing all that. So, I just want to say thank you, and I I I hope we can work together that way as a team going forward in the future. Thank you, Mr. Lee. Any other um old business, Mrs. Lee? So, glad to hear that the bathrooms are fixed. All right. Um I think that uh earlier today uh during the committee discussion, I have to say that that is the president's we didn't try to shut the conversation during the committee report. We have had longer
242discussion before uh about a committee report when the committee members are discussing things and those discussions are not you know available to the rest of board members and we're you know having the right to ask questions about that. So what happened earlier today was a precedence that honestly do not understand why we cannot have an open honest and thorough discussion. This is why the board meet. I feel like there's a heightened temperature here for really no good reason. There's the assumption that this is political but it is not. Let's put that beside our consideration. Only when we do that only when we do that we can actually have a good discussion. So I think to shut the conversation is not a good idea. I had questions regarding our committee meeting. I would like to know
243what was discussed in the committee meeting. Uh earlier during committee report I was told that that was not the time is is now a good time to ask some of those questions I wasn't able to ask about committee report. discussed. We discussed both policies as requested. We discussed each member's emails that were sent to us. So, okay. Including yours. The meeting was little over hour and a half. I put in for hour and a half, but it was a little over hour and a half. Do you want us to go through the hour and a half worth of discussion? No. Most of them were legal. Most of them said that I'll just take your suggestions encroached on legalities. What you proposed was changing the law. Why it was not a good idea to do that.
244We had a long 20minut discussion with Mr. Sylvestro on the efficacy of why and why not to do certain things that you requested to do. We looked at Miss Loran's email as well and we discussed her point bypoint emails. We took those under consideration. What came up is that 5756 is the guidance based on law and 5145.7 is the interpretation of that law. Secondly, I spent two weeks researching this. The onus was on you to send me the correct policy. Okay? And repeatedly you sent me the wrong policy. Hold on, let me finish. I'm going to tell you what we discussed. So I'm telling you, so please listen now. Okay? Because I'm not going to repeat this again. I'm sorry. It's four months in the making now. Four months. So I had to call and
245call again NJSBA. I did my due diligence, found the correct policy. Okay. Because the policy that you sent me twice up front that you didn't even know said based on guidance from New York City Department of Education and I even told you that in a phone call conversation and you still sent me the wrong one. Okay. So the correct one we went ahead and compared the correct one with 5756 line by line. And I have the markings right here. Okay, to show you I brought the whole folder with me. Secondly, let me see where it is. We went ahead and looked at what was added in the new NJSBA policy. As you can see here, the red version is what they added which reflect 5756. So they went back and corrected from 2017 and said,
246"Oh, you know, we made a mistake. So, let's go fix it." They fixed it and added language from 5756. And yet, it still follows New York City guidelines. So, do we want to adopt some other states guidelines to suit our needs? No. It's not legal. One of the suggestions that we did take that you made was to take the M So the discussion for more than an hour and a half revolved around this. Secondly, during May and June, we go through a lot of other issues, not this. Okay, we put that on the back burner. Okay, because this was important and we discussed it. issues that are important to the district, special education, what are we going to do for next year, summer programs, program development. So, we discussed all of these things in committee
247if we hadn't spent so much time on this because that was the only thing on the agenda. Now, if you want the legal interpretation of that, Mr. Sylvester is here. and maybe he can shed some light on that why we came to the conclusion that we did and thank you for acknowledging that that what we did was sufficient for you and I appreciate that. We put in a lot of time in that. I put in a lot of time in that. I called and in fact NJSBA, I'll be completely honest with you, were annoyed with me because I didn't get the answer that I was looking for. You can verify that because because they didn't know the answer and in fact from my questions they might do something. Now you should have done that. I
248have I actually Why did you send me the wrong policy the second time? I I first of all, are you done talking though? I'll respond. But hold on, hold on. Okay, please finish. Yes. What's the point? So So hold on. So the interpretation No, no. The point is she wants to know what we discussed. So I'm going to tell her now what we discussed. So again, when does the conversation end? No, no. I I don't think it's going to end yet. We're going to exhaust this thing. So I think we need to air it out. So Mr. Sylvestro, if I missed anything, can you please some shed some light on the legalities of why or why not? Please indulge us. I mean, I believe I discussed during the committee reports the my my legal concerns
249about the school board's policy. I don't think I need to reiterate that. I think the question that was open that Miss Lee posed was she had suggested in her email language about parent access and and and uh making flushing that out in the policy with some suggestions. Uh my only comment on that, Miss Ley, is that the board does have a an existing policy on student records and parent access and a full regulation on two I'm seeing uh at least one that I'm aware of in the 8800 series plus regulations about timelines, how the parent makes a request, how it's responded to. So my only recommendation was to not have conflicting language that from the district's perspective when the staff has to apply these rules that they don't have to look in multiple places and
250figure out which rules apply. So you have a student records and student record information um uh policy and regulation already in your book. Uh that does apply to not just the transgender policy but but all student records as well. So that's why the committee discussed the on on that specific item. So I think I covered most of the other points. Can I make a comment about this? All right. I think this is a perfect answer that I would have loved to have heard when we're talking about committee report. Now I agree with this not conflict not conflict with our existing policies other other ways but because of the nature of the the the the language and the prohibit of uh you know disclosing certain information it would help to add that policy number in transgender
251policy reference it so that people know what to do do what what to do exactly so I think that will add clarity that's nothing that is going to hurt the legal case of 5756 or whatever the transgender policy name is. Something that's not clear to you is clear to me. It may be clear to Rebecca, maybe not clear to Steve. You know, it's based on your interpretation. So, what's clear to me may not be clear to you. So, if I what's even crazier is I still disagree with their findings, but I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to move on past tonight, but let's air things out right now. We already have. We've aired it out for months. But I just a quick No, Lucy, you used the word prohibit. You were you were putting
252language in this policy that does not exist. That was how people would interpret. If you think I'm wrong, clarify in the language of the policy. Clarify guys talk one. Clarified. It says they are not required to make a phone call. It does not say they are prohibited. You say prohibited and then everyone takes it as that's what it is. It's not. You are not reading the policy for verbatim what it is. You are putting your own words. Can we stop talking about how I do it? That's not productive. That's not productive. You're doing it. This whole thing's not productive. So, you know what? We had a great evening tonight. We celebrated students is what we're here for. We came We recognized our student reps. We recognized our student athletes. We are here to represent students
253and we had amazing students and that's why we're here. I am so proud of our students, what they're doing, the accomplishments they have and that's what it's about. And I think the policies about students and that was amazing this evening. I mean, it's just fantastic. All the kids we have are amazing. They're all special and they do the great. And I understand this is about students and we can keep debating this, but I had a wonderful time recognizing students four hours ago, okay? And I think we have amazing students. We've talked about it. I am so proud of the students that came here and spoke the last meetings about this. I'm proud of what they did for the for the survey. I think we need to terminate discussion for the evening. We have additional items
254on the on the agenda which are part of our role as a board member is the evaluation of the superintendent. We need to talk about that in close session. So, I'm just saying I am proud of our students and we've had a great conversation and we're going to keep going around and we're keep suggesting reasons policy. I would say email those suggestions to the committee and they can discuss it again because that's where we do modifications of policies in committees. I'd like to thank the administration for an amazing presentation this evening. We had so many great things going on the student achievement a graduation rate move of how many what 93 to 97 in two years. That's amazing students. It's about our amazing students and I thank you for what everybody does for them, the
255staff, the administration, the community. It takes a village, but we have an amazing students and I'm proud of them. I also like to say I think it's about transparency too because we've heard that the district is bound to follow the guidance by the Department of Education. Like it, hate it, somewhere in the middle. If that's the policy that we have on the books, what the schools is following, anyone who wants to find out what our policy is and what we're actually doing is able to go and look at it. We go and Wordsmith and and like I think both policies are sincere in trying to accomplish similar things, but let's just have the guidance. If people have if people disagree with it, it's right there. They they know what to disagree with. But I don't
256want to misrepresent I don't want to go and amend a policy and change things and misrepresent the protections and that students have and what we're doing in the building. So I just wanted to say say that Mr. Lee can I speak clear now? Oh I was clearly over talked by someone else. May I? Y thank you. I think the language in the policy needs to be clear and uh not causing people to have potential misunderstanding. So adding clarity is a productive thing for our policy. If by referencing a existing policy that tells parents how to get the policy uh the record in the policy that will be a that will be a um a improvement. I don't see why we can't do that. It doesn't change any legality. It just helps people to understand more
257clearly. Um I ask why I asked to add the age limit. Why didn't we add the age limit? That's my last question regarding the committee reports. Sure. So, under current state law and interpretation of that that in New Jersey at least, uh the children have civil rights covered by the law against discrimination that is not tied to an age limit. So, um a student, for example, does not need parental consent if they're a minor to not just express their own gender identity expression, but choose their own religion, for example, is another classic uh protected class. So imposing an age limit or parental consent for minors would go against current interpretation of state civil rights law. So that's that's why that's was not recommended as something to add because I do think that uh if the
258department of the attorney general's office saw that we were putting restrictions on minors for uh availing themselves of their protected right classes as the state currently interprets those. I think that we would lose that lawsuit. Thank you. say one thing as Mr. Lee's been wait Mr. Lee has been waiting. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry. I just I just want to say that I agree that we should be supporting our teachers. Teachers are like parents such an important part of the lives of all of our students. Uh to this day on the very odd occasion that I do meet one of my old teachers. I know that happened when I was doing ReadAcross America. You know I see them during orchestra stuff. They still remember me hopefully for the better but probably for the worse. Uh and
259they they carry with them a serious duty to educate students and ensure that they grow up to be productive and successful adults that they grow up to be the next generation of leaders. And because of my hardworking teachers, you know, I I get to sit here as a board member and give back to a school community that really has done so much for me and drives me to want to make our schools better every single day for our students. Uh I think just as a final note you know there's a really powerful saying that we came up with as a district you know we will teach them one and all young to old and big to small inspire engage and educate improve our world and make it great challenge all to grow succeed exceed so
260that one day they will take the lead and I think this mission statement carried out by our teachers um shows that they do such a great job and because of people like me You know, I think I'm a great example of what happens when we empower great teachers. So, I just want to say that. So, yeah. All right. Any more new business? Oh, new business. Oh, geez. I'm on old still. Can I I'm sorry. Just with old and I'm not going to belver this part of our decision- making process and I know I'm a non- voting member of this board and I've been called a lot of other things. Um, what I try to do is also steer the board in not going into legal liability. I love Doug. He's good guy, but we don't
261want to give him too much business. And if we went with some of And if we went with some of these language changes, we are setting ourselves up. And if we're going to be stewards of taxpayer dollars, which is yes, one of the things that I'm concerned with, we we can't just throw caution to the wind when there's guidance from the state. That's it. Not a debate, just what my motivations are. Mrs. I want I want to um just comment one thing on when AJ was saying wrong policy. There wasn't right or wrong policy. I sent you one version of NSP policy that I believe is better. uh it could have been used just as is and that's actually what I went off of and I think it was uh the version that that I
262would accept that I think that's a version that would work well for our district students. Um I later contact uh Carl Tensley from NJSBA. Um what what I was uh what I got feedback was that they do believe that the um New Jersey versus um New York City they believe that the board would should benefit from looking at the version that they have. So that's feedback that I have I thought that I should share with you. Um there's people concerned about curious about why why I'm worried about this policy because I care about the students. I cared about student safety and well-being. People say that it's just a name change. It's not It's not just a name change. Please address the board and not the audience. Please address the board and not the audience. It's
263not just a name change. It's not calling Andrew Andy. It's more than that because it it's a set of actions that incorporates a change of name, change of pronoun, change of activity, participation, that's gender segregated, change of uh use of facilities, the whole thing. I wonder if our board realize that is social transitioning given the controversy, the uncertainty, the this state of this field of medicine not being set in stone. It's not it's not I make a motion to end this conversation again. We have talked about this enough. Anyone going to second that? Second what? Yeah. Is that a real motion? Call to question. I What's the question? Tell me what the wording is. It's a motion to close debate. Right. Second. We didn't do new business yet. Closed. We could We could just do
264an all in favor if it's clear that there's a majority point of Don't we have to vote on that motion? Yeah. Yeah. There's a motion to end debate and move on with the agenda. We have a second. We could just do a voice vote. I'd like to do a roll call. Sure. Do a roll call. Mr. Lee? No. Mr. Sunna? Yes. Mr. Jooshi? Yes. Miss Lan? Yes. Miss Lee? For clarification, what are we voting on? To end debate and move on with the agenda. And what we'll do business and move on to new business. Move on with the agenda. No. Mr. Pepe? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Miss Kia? Yes. Mr. Singer? Yes. Okay. Motion passes. We're going to move on to new business. Any new business? Yes. M. I would just like to congratulate Barry
265Walker on his recent appointment with the NJSBA because I think it's a tremendous achievement and I'm very glad that we were able to support that. Thanks. Congratulations. Thank you. I just want to thank Miss Kalistri for taking over tonight and uh leading this uh meeting. Appreciate it. Gray hair. Thanks, guys. All right. We are moving on to closed. Motion to go to closed. Wait, I have to don't have to read this blur first. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're rushing me. Whereas discussion by the board is required on matters that are the exception to the requirement that a public body hold its meeting in public. And whereas the topics for discussion are superintendent evaluation and legal update. Whereas it is expected that the details of the discussion may be made public as soon as issues may
266be acted on publicly. Be it resolved that the board enters into close session at this time. Second. We take a roll call vote on that. All in favor? I. Any opposed? I we are now in close session. Thank you.