001good evening everyone I would like to call this meeting to order can you hear me yeah okay roll call please Mr Puma present apologize present okay Mrs K present here thank you okay meeting notice statement adequate notice of this meeting of the Berkeley Hearts Board of Education was given as required by the open public meetings act as follows on January 6 2023 notice of the Board of Education meeting scheduled was sent to the Star Ledger and the Cur news and was also provided to all schools PTO presidents the bhea president and post at the administration building a copy was also provided to the public library and filed with the municipal clerk whereas the Berkle Hearts Board of Education seeks to adjourn to Executive session in full compliance with open public meetings Act njsa 10 colon
0024-6 ET SEC and whereas the open public meetings act provides that a public body May exclude the public from that portion of the meeting at which it discusses matters related to those identified below matters rendered confidential by federal law state law or Court rule individual privacy collective bargaining agreements purchase of lease of real property if public interest could be adversely affected investment of the public funds if public interest could be adversely affected tactics or techniques utilized in protecting Public Safety and property pending or anticipated litigation attorney client privilege Personnel employment matters affecting specific perspective or current employees B resolved the Berkeley Board of Education adjourns to Executive session to discuss matters related to Personnel matters student matters and legal matters and be it further resolved the minutes of the discussion of any of these items
003will be disclosed to the public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is no longer applicable can I have a motion to adour to Executive session please SEC second all in favor I we'll be back approximately 7:30 thank you second uh all in favor thank you okay um so we're going to uh stand for the flag salute but I would just ask that everybody please remain standing after the flag salute for a minute because um we would just like to have a mo a minute of silence for all the victims and families that have been affected by the horrific terrorist attacks in the Middle East so if everybody can remain standing off the flag salute please flag United States of America to the stand one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all thank
004you everyone okay we will move right on to the report of the student Representatives hello everyone it has been an exciting fall Sports season thus far featuring multiple teams improving from last season the football team is currently 5 and two as they look to clinch a playoff spot this weekend as they travel to South River the football athlete of the month is senior running back Owen Chade who has a team High 519 r rushing yards and 48 tackles on defense 12 and a half of which are four loss the boys soccer team is 83 and one with a huge Victory against Elizabeth who are ranked 17th in the state it was also the team's first win against Elizabeth in 14 years the boy soccer athlete of the month was a hard choice for head coach
005Kevin Fontana as the entire team has performed Beyond expectations his choice is senior Blake Ortiz who has six goals and two assists this season coach Fontana said Blake's team first attitude and his willingness to do whatever the team needs has been extraordinary Blake is our first lineup defense and often sacrifices so much for the betterment of the team the girls soccer team is three and s but are currently winning two to one on senior night tonight the girls soccer athlete of the month is senior Sarah castrovinci coach rof notes she's been the anchor of our defense and has helped lead our team through the ups and downs that most teams experienced during the course of a season I'm extremely proud having Sarah represent our club in so many ways both athletically and emotionally the volleyball
006team is 10 and five as they look to surpass a very successful 18 and8 record last season the volleyball athlete of the month is sophomore Abby Kim coach H said there are some teams that are dominated by one player but we are truly playing the team game and everyone is making a big contribution however Abby Kim is having terrific season she leads the team in offense she leads the team in kills in Aces and she's second in digs so she's the most potent player in our offense and a key part of our back row defense as well the girls tennis team finished this season with a 10 and three record the girls tennis athlete of the month is sophomore Julia kravchenko coach panchenko said she went undefeated in division play and made the quarterfinals at
007the county tournament she also Advanced to the second round of the state tournament the girls field hockey team is 8 and3 earning their first ever division title in school history on October the 4th against Cranford the girls field hockey athlete of the month is Junior Captain Riley house coach well said Riley's ability to control the ball field hockey IQ and her Wicked reverse shot have contributed to our successful record this season Riley is a key component offense and defensive Corners making strong shots on the offensive end and blocking up cross Circle path on the defensive end this season house has three goals and six assists the cheer team have cheered at all varsity football games this season the cheer athlete of the month is senior Captain Sophia fineberg coach ganelli notes Sophia is an incredible
008leader who keep who always displays determination courage and a passion for our sport all while doing her best to keep the Vibes High the boys and girls cross country team had their conference championships this week week throughout the meet Governor Livingston recorded seven personal records and three season bests out of their 18 5K finishers the three freshman boys also ran season bests the girls cross country athlete of the month is senior Ava clink who ran one minute and 55 seconds faster earning a medal and the boys cross country athlete of the month is senior Jack canany who ran one minute and 14 seconds faster thank you good evening the second month of school at GL has started off with plenty of excitement on October 2nd Governor Livingston held its annual College and Career Fair which
009featured over 100 different colleges from across the country many ninth graders have also been involved in school activities including freshman student council elections which concluded last Friday October 6 additionally yesterday October 11th GL students in grades 9 through 11 took the PSAT throughout the months of September and October GL has been celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with activities to learn about the cultures of different Spanish speaking Nations including dancing playing Latin music and decorating sombreros the Spanish club has run many of these activities and they have been featured in Governor Livingston's weekly feel-good Fridays looking ahead this Sunday October 15th the Highlander marching band will be hosting its 52nd annual pageant after its recent successes at competitions in Madison and West Orange the pageant begins at 12:30 p.m. on the turf field on November 3rd the
010French department is sponsoring a family movie night showing The Little Prince to celebrate national French week we are excited to announce that the fall play Puffs will be held from November 16th through the 18th with evening performances every day and a matina performance on Saturday the 18th thank you do any of the board do any of the board members have any questions for our student Representatives did you guys get to go to either Saturday uh night lights or Friday Night Lights yeah what' you think I was it entertaining not from the GL side of things Friday Night Lights yes but Saturday night lights I or Saturday Daylights I don't know what was it Friday night it's Saturday night lights for the field hockey yeah for the field hockey I thought that that was a great
011Saturday day and the Friday Night Lights like I just want to give an so much um an Clifton just so much credit because we had so many people come out and it it just you think right we're a school of 900 kids in high school and half of them are performing whether it's from band or cheerleading or on the football field so I was just so impressed with everybody that came out to support our kids and I really really want to thank you for all she does and gets people involved can I ask two um thoughts on the the homecoming dance and I know this was the first time we had it back I don't if you guys were there if not no pressure but just curious feedback from classmates and such it was definitely
012good um it was our first one in a while so I think that was definitely very nice for the whole school to get to experience so I have a quick question so we're about six weeks into the school how is how is are you all finding sort of being back at school and how's it all going I mean I don't know if senior writers has hit yet but it seems so um college applications are almost done so yeah for me it's going well so far yeah I agree at least not with the senioritis part but it's definitely going well for the Juniors too that's super great thank you um okay before we uh move on to the report of the superintendent um just apologize my my voice is huskier than usual I have allergies so
013I apologize if you can't hear me properly um so last night I thank you Mark I've already got one last night I attended the good scout award and that's an award that the uh Patriots path put on Scouts put on annually and what it is is it takes members of the community who volunteer a lot and do a lot of good things for the community and they put on an award ceremony and they they give them an award and uh it as usual It's a Wonderful celebration and it was wonderful to be in a room with so many people who care about this community and who really want to make a difference in this community and it's wonderful to be part of it and some somebody so eloquently said it's good to be with people
014who actually walk the walk so it was it was really a great event um I also just want to mention uh this came across my desk uh the second annual little Lord Farmstead for festival is Saturday October the 21st at HHO Road in Berkeley Heights uh from 12: to 4: p.m and they have a rain date of Sunday October 22nd and the activities include Artisans and craft games pumpkin painting face painting tours of tours of The Farmstead Raffles Beer Garden Food Truck uh beer gardens not for the students and then they have local artists for governor Livingston high school students who will display their Woodworking and art so if you have an opportunity to go ahead please go ahead and support them uh and with that said we are now moving to the report of
015the superintendent okay so I'm going to call up Mr morriso and Miss neus to talk about our HIV violence and vandalism report that we do twice a year good evening no can't hear you it's not working good evening everyone I'm John morriso I'm the principal Mountain Park and I cooperatively oversee the HIV process uh for Berkeley Heights for students and staff members kindergarten through fifth grade hello um I believe this is the the first time I'm seeing all of you together so nice to see you um I'm Casey nebus and I'm the Student Assistance coordinator at the high school and the middle school um and I will be overseeing six through 12 with John this this slide gives us a overview of what we're about to speak about it's an update or encapsulation of our
016HIV activities cases interventions from the second half of last year we'll talk a little bit about the the Hib law how it impacts what we do here and what we we do to make sure that we're compliant and serving our children and our community as appropriately as we can covered the uh amendments last year but I think it's important to understand that these are things that are new to the their state is continually updating Hib law to again better serve the students that are affected by it both the victims and the the uh the aggressors or the offenders and I just want to we're going to cover a little bit of that again HIV data this is the cases the number of Investigations we've done the number of positive findings we've had and will'll also
017show violence and vandalism and and situations of of drug abuse within the school every year the school safety teams get together that's a group grp of Staff members at each building that includes an administrator usually to principal or the principal's design guidance counselor I'm sorry school counselor and then two staff members a a parent also sits on that committee um parent probably comes to one or two meetings a year and the rest of the committee gets together four or five times a year talk some about the the programs and trainings um what's important to understand is the programs are assemblies they are activities within classrooms within grade grade levels sometimes specifically targeted sometimes much more General sometimes put on by people within our community sometimes put on by law enforcement agencies and also put on
018by um professionals that have been brought in by PTO or Foundation groups and trainings are are activities that are specifically geared towards helping staff members recognize HIV um report HIV and and make sure that we are supporting students who are involved in HIV um every year the the the school counselors get together and work on precepts that are districtwide and they are also touched upon and modified for the different grade levels and different levels of buildings also talk a little bit about the areas of focus for for this year um some are are consistent from year to year and then as we see Trends and and hotpots and specific issues we make an effort to to be reactive and responsive to those situations okay um HIV can take many many forms um it's not the
019the old um idea that it's a a schoolyard bully who you know walks in with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in their sleeve and you know swing in a chain it can could be take any many very many forms and I think what's most important is we need understand the role that um just seemingly benign hand gesture verbal gesture or something a little bit more specific and and targeted and obvious electron electronic communication and and everything in between and what's also important to realize it's it doesn't have to be a pattern it can be one-time situation where where something is said that is that's is identified as targeting a protected category which which I'm clicking through right now um it has an effect on a child preventing them from living their life in a
020in a in a positive way for preventing them from accessing their uh school facilities or following their schedule you going to their locker using the the restroom going to PE whatever they would do in their normal day if if the event negatively impacts their ability to do that that's something that that lets us feel like we're we're heading towards an HIV investigation and possibly a positive find HIV can happen anywhere um used to feel like oh didn't happen on school property um therefore it's not our concern it's not HIV we have HIV that are reported from buses class trips games um walking to school walking from school block parties where children are with their families and their friends people they've grown up with and if that interaction has a negative impact on the child when
021they come to school that's something that we we may well investigate and may well find as as being positive I'll go back I flipped a little too quickly I apologize um when we are investigating HIV situations our our counselors do a great job they talk to Witnesses they talk to the the perceived victim they obviously talk to the person who's being accused they they take into account um age of of the child they they take into account the the environment that the event takes place in they take into account whether the child falls into a protected category and they also take into account as I expanded on earlier the impact that that the event has or the comment or the Snapchat or the text or the instant message has on on a specific child as
022they access their academic environment this is something that um districts have available to them principles and anti-bullying Specialists can consult and and decide whether they are going to take a reported case and push it through the HIV process and and I just it's over simplify it um we talk about at least at the K5 level we talk about um you know behavioral issues we talk about things that that are are guidance situation and then we talk about things that are potentially HIV and and we try to provide the support very similar support regardless of what we identify them as but we don't want to overburden and and overuse the HIV process if it's something that we see as behavioral in nature or something that can be responded to and and remedied in the guidance approach
023we don't shy away from HIV but that that's something we do not want to overutilize um and and run the risk of of I don't want to say rendering it useless but diminishing its Effectiveness in affecting and positively contributing to our environment last last summer it was put into law that um children who are involved in a positive HIV as the offender a evidence of that HIV goes in their folder and stays with them what what we use what we generally use as the final letter from the board and a just a a very specific comment typed up on a plain sheet of paper this child was found positive in an HIV during fifth grade 2022 2023 and then there's the letter from the board and if a child is is found to be a
024positive participant in an Hib three times over the course of their their career in school the the district is responsible for or instituting what is the equivalent in my mind of a corrective action plan it would be this the same as if you were an employer and you legally had to show that you were trying to improve the conduct and productivity of an employer of an employee prior to terminating their employment obviously we're not terminating the education of a child but we need to show that we are working with that child we have a a program in place that's generally guidance-based in nature um creative scheduling uh creative use of the building creative may not be the best use of the word um be the best term but appropriate scheduling appropriate use of the building
025to help that child become successful and we have not gotten to that point yet but what we try to do is if we see repeat offenders we still we see children that as as part of their their common practice they're getting themselves involved in negative situations we I feel like we make very good use of our guidance department and our our student assistant counselor who has the ability to interact with children at the the 612 level on a regular basis but also consult with the school counselors and the administrators at the K5 level all things that the board has supported and invested in to improve the the uh safety of our students this is slightly different from last year we have some people who have changed buildings we have some people who are new and
026we also have some people who aren't here because they're not in District this year for for one reason or the other um but everybody on this list is accurately placed and what's also important to realize is you know the middle school and the high school they have access to numerous uh anti-bullying Specialists so they're able to assign investigations in order to preserve uh the student counselor relationship and if there's a we have members of the child study team at the middle school and high school who are part of the anti anti-bullying Specialist Team and and I know that um Mr Nixon and Mr Kisa work hard to ensure that a a child study team member who could potentially be in a case management situation with a child we want to prevent an investigation that involves
027that child because we want to want to maintain a pure relationship in that regard and that's where we have the ability to use someone in in uh Miss nibba's position to cover a lot of ground and there'll be situations at the elementary schools where we will swap counselors cover cover each other just to make sure that the investigation is is as pure as possible and as efficient as possible it's a pretty comprehensive list of options that we have to help support um potential victims potential aggressors whether it's found to be a positive case or it's unfounded and it's what's important to understand is regardless of the finding obviously the child is involved in a negative situation and we want to do whatever we can to help them uh whether whether it's through counseling restorative practices
028um at times um good oldfashioned um detention is is appropriate and effective and and we will we will use that as well okay now we're down to some more specific numbers and I referenced this earlier this this slide is should be very familiar to you all it's just updated every year same Cate ories down the left side and then the numbers over the course of the second half of the previous year again the second half of of last school year investigations and confirmed cases year over-year so this represents not the reporting period of the previous School of the that school year but the whole school year those of you who have been around for a while remember the 2122 school year was was rough I I think what's important for parents and Educators and board
029members to understand is that children who are are struggling with their environment used to be able to go home and shut it off know social media denies them that opportunity and if you know definitely the old guy in the building at work this this is the I talk to parents quite frequently about the longer you can keep social media out of your child's life is is a positive it's not easy I'm not I have my own house where it's been over the years something that we've contended with it has positive role but in my mind the negative far outweighs the positive that's just me and also you know bathrooms hallways locker rooms buses um cafeterias areas where um children aren't in um aren't in Cooperative learning situations and aren't um I don't want to say
030supervised but aren't monitored that's where we find most of our HIV or negative interaction taking place and I I I I see it at all three levels elementary middle and high school teachers really working hard to um Implement Cooperative learning opportunities and I feel like you know students who have the opportunity to be in extra activities play on team sports being in the band being the course being the orchestra being the musical they're interacting with children from all facets of the community all parts of the community and I think you're less likely to treat someone negatively if you're have to potentially sing a duet together or or present a slide project together or um do something Cooperative so that's I think it's great that that you know academically we do a lot with inclusion and
031working together and I think our our extracurricular and our co-curricular activities really provide us the opportunity to help children understand each other work together and and again if the next day your teacher May assign you to the same team or put you in the same pod I think you're less likely to to treat someone poorly that that's just obious I alluded to earlier the school safety team School climate team gets together in the spring they um go through a a battery of of questions and standards together and agree on the score that they give themselves we report it out here and then next week we'll go into the State website NJ njom room.com and put that information in that's the same website where our um violence and vandalism our our um drug abuse and our
032hi and our Hib findings get get logged for each half of the year these are the the the core elements the eight categories that school tast school safety teams evaluate out evaluate themselves and I I really we we really Tred to be as honest and as accurate as we we possibly can obviously the the district average column is not really tidy but I didn't really want to round I wanted to give as authentic and accurate a a read on on how we scored ourselves and I think it's you know it's important to to acknowledge at least that the the teams are being self-critical they're being honest with themselves about things that they they can potentially um do better the first two bullets or the first first bullet and then the the sub bullets and then
033the second bullet are very similar to what we've had in the past and and the uh the bottom one I think is is important to to realize I feel like we have a great relationship with bhpd um the board and the community have supported having um police officers in the building um I'm not I I'm not sure of whether they work for the board of veter or they work for the police department but there are gentlemen in uniform who are in the building on a regular basis plus people that I know are are Berkeley Heights police officers just you know a a positive presence providing support um and and I and I feel like it works really well for us I don't know that it's um I think it's a function of two things it's
034a function of the system that's in place but it's a function of the individuals that are in those uniforms I feel like we have we have a great force we have um very they're very empathetic they're very supportive um and they get called on to do a lot of a lot of different things and I I find that you know I've interacted with with bhpd for many years under many many circumstances and find them very helpful and very appropriate so I feel like the relationship that the board the community and the department have have forged is is serving the students and the the staff members in the buildings really well this is very similar to what we've had in the past um I think what's important to highlight is is again through the support of
035the board we we work really closely with our our district lawyers um they're very they're available to us when we need them for specific situations but they also make themselves available for for um meetings and trainings to help people understand the the changing law and and also when we occasionally have a an appeal process where someone who's a family of someone who's been involved in Hib wants to escalate and and find more information or obtain more support I I find our our legal council has been very helpful so I think that's a credit to not only the the the lawyers but also to the board again I talked about the programs and and Miss nibus will talk specifically in the next couple of slides about things that are going on within each building and across
036the district but these are some just broad examples of of some of the things that take place within the buildings these things are communicated through our Friday folders they're communicated through morning announcements Flyers um you know we try not to overwhelm backpack and homes and kitchen counters with paper who try to communicate things through um through Power School and also um organically within the buildings to uh create interest but also create opportunities so as the Student Assistance counselor I get to work with a large majority of the counselors in the district and they've really been hard at work and they came up with all these different precepts for each month um for the entire year so I won't read all of these to you but I will let you know what has been going on
037currently so in September the theme was community and then in October it has been connection so just a couple slogans that are going on that are age appropriate to all of our schools is we're better together that's for the little ones um for Mountain Park it's alone we can do so little together we can do so much be here be you belong is for the middle schoolers and then here at the high school it's stop competing and start connecting um and then upcoming in the next few months are self-care and confidence which I would say is definitely important selfcare nowadays so just a look at what has been going on I guess the most recent thing that we've been focusing on is week of respect that just passed so you guys are going to get
038a little look at what's been going on in all the different schools so in the early childhood schools um everyone has been encouraged to say hello to each other just be friendly start out the day on a positive note and then that includes classroom lessons and projects that are just encouraging everyone to work together and if you take a look there's a little image of I guess the book that's been read throughout the schools which looks very cute and appropriate at our elementary schools um the slogan is stand up for what is right even if you are standing alone um during the week of respect they were doing daily challenges and little incentives for the kids to get excited about the theme so they would get kindness Awards if they were doing something nice or
039they helped a friend out so it was a nice little encouragement that they were being seen by their teachers and here we have Monday manners so just encouraging again the kids to be nice and respectful to each other and just keep that in their language and start making it a habit and then we also had classroom lessons so that calendar a little bit of a calendar chart it shows what each theme was for each day so if you want to take a quick glance for example on Tuesday they were working together as a team so it was better together and then on friendship Friday it was about good friendships and leading with respect and then over at the middle school they had a lot going on um their slogan was be bold bre be brave
040be strong and each day they had a theme for the day and then they also so had an EP classroom lesson so starting off the week it was CMS gear so just school spirit day and then they had start a conversation with a new person that maybe you haven't talked to before get to know each other and then oh I will say the group fitness class was amazing the theme was 80s they all came and dressed up the teachers participated and they had it was so cute and it really did land so well they really took to it so that was amazing and then on Friday we had our diversity day and unfortunately the weather kind of put a little damper on things but we still were able to go outside and we saw all
041the flags the cultural flags and um everyone shared food from their different cultures and we all had nice conversations about oh where are you from and have you ever tried this food so it really did work out nicely diversity and then here at the high school so we really leaned into the idea that it was Hispanic Heritage Month as our student reps kind of already explained but um in the morning during the morning announcements they were playing different Latin Songs which was honestly a really nice and fun way to start the day um and then on Friday we had a school spirit wear day plus it was also Friday night light so it worked out and then on Friday we also did a Spanish club collaboration with Feelgood Friday so um one of the activities
042that we did this month was making Sombrero so everyone got to decorate it their own way and another cultural inclusive activity that we did was to make a list of all the Latin countries and then everyone made different flags and then Spanish club put it all together on a large flag and just made a nice collage of what all the students came in and made during the day so that was really nice to see everyone coming in and out and just passing through listening to the music and these are just some of our focuses that we want to emphasize for the next year obviously SE very important we're going to be continuing that throughout the year inclusion we really value what the students have to say and I personally hear a lot from students what
043they feel needs to be done within the school to make it a safer more inclusive environment and we really do take the feedback from the diversity Club um they hold some great events but they also have some great feedback and they have their own experiences within the school it's student l so it really is great and we really do intend on continuing to listen to them and work with them um and then using as John mentioned earlier Trends to lead into what our classroom lessons are going to be we want to listen to what's in need and address those things um and then Mental Health First a training Dating Violence awareness and reporting procedures it can be a tricky line sometimes but if we provide the proper training then we will be equipped and we
044will be confident when those things arise and then educating our community uh my goal this year is to bring in as much programming as I can not only for the students but hopefully a couple trainings for parents to come in get educated on topics that maybe they want more information on so just kind of pulling what the parents want and doing my best to bring in that info for them and that is it any questions I just I just actually have more of a comment about um thank you for all the robust like activities that's it's not all one thing for different people that like different things there's just variety to draw in all different types of personalities and thank you for that I did have one question I know um I think we talked
045about it last year but I don't recall the letter for the Hib that goes into the students file I think there was a question and it's just does that go beyond like that stays just within the district and doesn't go beyond their High School care if if a college were to ask for it it would be there but I don't anticipate that being a thing where a college is going to specifically say has has your child part and if they did we would have to get together and decide how we're going to and but you know the state law is that it has has to go in there and and I think that's the purpose of that is to put the responsib put the weight on the district to make sure that they're doing what
046they're supposed to be doing and if if it's like if I know I'm gonna have to work with someone Cooperative the next day I'm not going to bul less likely to bully them if I know that there's a record in a file that's going to travel with a child from the time they're with me till the time to graduate there's pressure on me as the building level administrator counselor to make sure that're we're doing our job to support each other can I play a little Devil's Advocate so oftentimes I I get parents who are confused about HIV um and one of the things that I think parents often think is well my kids are good kids so why do we have to file the Hib because you know they didn't mean to like do something
047right but according to the law we still have to file this like we don't get to choose which kids we file it against and who we don't and it's a function of how it impacts the the perceived Target the the victim it's not what the aggressor meant or thought they were saying or misunderstood it's how it impacts the perceived yeah and and and like I alluded to earlier we really try to be aware of the the age group that we're dealing with the environment it's within and also the the involved parties and so like I think sometimes too because it's so official and you get the letter um but this isn't like a Scarlet Letter right this is an opportunity for us to kind of find like hey you know we're teaching you that this
048is not appropriate so especially for our high schoolers I always think as they get to like the workforce right like these are things that would be unacceptable in the workforce like this is our opportunity to teach you that that is not going to be acceptable later on and and parents are provided you know many opportunities to understand this um but when their if their child is caught up in it you know they're going to get a phone call from the administrator or the administrators designate they're at that point they're going to get explained the process that there'll be an email to follow up in four to five days with the initial finding and then there'll be a formal letter from the building formally stating what was in the email and then there'll be a letter
049from the board indicating that the investigation is over they're supporting the finding and here's your opportunity to go to further steps to to get more information or to seek a appeal of the F right so I just also want to say you know it's covered in in every in in every Home Room at back to school night it's covered in every um meeting you the fact school night there's a big meeting a lot of parents are hanging out in the hallway chatting which is fine so it's covered then last year um myself and Miss ni's predecessor predecessor did a we were in the auditorium with three parents yeah so and it was broadcast everyone so I will stand by that people get the have the opportunity to understand yeah and so right daily conflict can
050actually be more right of an issue isue than actually an Hib could but it's just that Hib is a legal thing that we have to go through right hits the categories that we need right but but again that's not going to change whether it's guidance whether it's discipline whether it's HIV we're still interacting with the children providing our counselors communicating with families and following up to make sure that we're helping children so I just sorry I just wanted to clarify with that even though an investigation may not be founded there are still steps that are taken for the students right to ensure you know their code of conduct so to speak for the most part they're the same and I and you know code of conduct I you know question whether you know good old
051F fashion punishment works that's why I try to avoid it at all cost because once you do that it's hard to the next time with that child take a guidance approach so we really try to use the guidance approach as as long as we can know when kids get when children get older middle school high school it's a little bit different but I'm speaking for the El once you cross over into pure discipline you can't it's hard to go back just because they're their attitude attitude towards you Chang sure one more quick one John so I just back to the the big data on this um sorry I should address both of you on this sure so I mean it's interesting to me that the confirmed cases from from 2122 to 2223 Across The District
05250 to 29 that's that's seems like a strong movement in the right direction more interesting that the investigations number dramatically dropped even like more than 50% from 121 two school years ago to 57 if I've got there right on that was that was first year back yeah is that just a blip from first year back we're below 201920 numbers in terms of Investigations myself I would stop blaming things on on coid at the beginning of last summer I I felt like we need to move on you know from an educational standpoint but so we had we left school April 13th March 13 of 20 then we had half half day year y kids went who were best friends March 12 didn't see each other because of the cohorts y the way we split classes up
053and then we came back and that then we had mask and divider year and then we were back so children you know if you were a third grader we we want you in third grade you learn a lot about how to interact with your friends seven I think the odd years the most important years especially you know fifth grade yes but not as much as third and seventh so if you were half day year or behind mass and shields in seventh grade you you know we expect we assume when you go to eighth grade you're G act like an eighth grader that wasn't the case then that's why we had so much negative interaction with show and it wasn't their fault they weren't prepared but we still had to do our due diligence did I
054so I know CMS did take a pretty big stand on cell phone yeah that has been a huge change at CMS um but also even just this year they changed the the schedule so that way they could have more teachers monitoring the hallways um during transition um time so they are working really hard to try to make sure that all of our students are able to control themselves in structured non-structured areas and I think to that point I think um there there at least for the sixth graders my understanding is they've created an environment that's a little bit more like fifth grade than it has been in the past you we don't want to just you're not going to Junior High anymore this is Middle School you know you're just three or four months removed
055from a very supportive environment in fifth grade we're not GNA expect you as a sixth grader to all of a sudden you know behave completely different so I think that's that's a good a good process thank you thanks guys appreciate it wake up first taking a break break thank you jar okay so um the board received the goals in June of 2023 but we're just now with everything that we've had going on presenting them to you officially as well as to the public so um it's myself Dr diano and Dr seminario here doing this presentation on the goal go so our first goal communication and I will tell you I was in a superintendent focus group with superintendant from all over the United States and every one of them says that they get complaints about
056communication so um it's not just us um so we decided to work on engaging the community in more robust forms of communication including website enhancements which has happened um social media platforms and district and school school-based Communications focused on transparency and relationship building so we have enhanced and updated our website we're still working on it we've got a few more things we're going to put on there but it is so much better now than it used to be highlight our Friday folders I will say if you're looking for something that's happening in your school building it is in your Friday folder and create more committees for Parental involvement this past summer we had a great deal parental involvement in all of our interview processes that we went through and then work with the pto's and
057the bhef to focus on Parental engagement so our measurements of success parental feedback both qualitative and quantitative number of community members engaged in committees and forums and responses to a communication survey so at the end of this year we will send out a survey that talks about whether now I will say what is interesting is some parents will email me that they don't receive enough communication and other parents will email me that they receive too much communication so we're going to send questions how do you feel the communication was from the building level from the classroom level from the district level Etc and um report back on that feedback that we receive um goal number two I will say we have a great group of students at the middle and the High School who are
058really focused on us becoming more green so I'm not going to read this huge goal to you this is a multi-year goal do not expect in January we're going to have electric cars charging stations outside here at GL but we have to got to get started we have um been a little bit behind the eightball on our green initiative so you'll see this year our main focus is to establish a Green Team and I will say Mr Duna has already gotten that started they've had one meeting they're going to focus this year on skipping the straw increasing um increasing so our Solar Usage which we had a meeting about that at the end of last year and um so you see the action items that Mr dunas and the Green Team have come up with
059for this year and then they want to implement climate change curriculum which is required by the state of New Jersey so we will be working on that and document documentation of environmental successes and collaborative events they want a tree replacement plan so those are the items we're focusing on this year and then this goal will continue for a few more years because we have a lot to do if you were in the solar panel meeting that we had last year um we know we have to replace our solar panels however we also have to make sure our roofs are strong enough because they're old to hold the solar panel so we have a great deal of work to do here in our green initiative but our green team is on top of it so goal
060number three we don't have a lot of information for this one yet the building principles have until October 30th to get their targets but last year the students took surveys and ident and so the building principles are to look at the data they received and then set specific targets and timelines for their met and so these are due by October 30th so we will do an update on the Dei goal you can expect that coming soon as soon as we get that information from the principles and behavioral threat assessment teams I'm not sure if you've been following what has happened in the state legislature but they were have required every single School District to have in every single building a behavioral threat assessment team and this is if a if a student um indicates self
061harm multiple times and we do go out for several risk assessments probably on a daily basis for self harm or if it's harm of others or if we have a student who is presenting in a way of um violent Behavior against other students as well as it's consistently in bullet HIV the HIV realm or in the code of conduct realm so this team team has a counselor a teaching staff member principal or a senior School administrator school resource officer and school safety specialist I don't know if you remember but we appointed two school safety Specialists because there is no way that one school safety specialist can handle six buildings and six Behavior threat assessment teams so our action items the team members will attend a full day training on the BHT and we will get
062a board policy Strauss smma is working on it they're waiting on guidance from the doe so that will be coming soon and um Vector Solutions will also be providing some some um threat assessment training and then in Implement a consistent record keeping program using ASAP software by hibster not sure if you remember this but in August we approved the use of ASAP software for the behavioral threat assessment teams measurement of success it's all team members attend professional development training we have targeted student plans created with an emphasis on management so just so you know we are not looking to Target these students we're looking to help them fix their behavior or make sure they're getting the help they need and also make sure all the other students in the building are safe as well as
063our teachers and other staff members and then the completed board policy we're waiting on that to come and then successful implement ation of the ASAP software and I'll turn it over to um Dr seminario good evening I'll speak to you about the two goals related to student achievement at the elementary level so our first goal is related to K5 math and the goal would be that at least 80% of all of our students in kindergarten through fifth grade will meet or exceed grade level standards by June of 2024 this will be based on our I ready math benchmark data which breaks our student performance down into multiple areas or multiple domains numbers and operations algebraic thinking geometry and measurement and data so all of those four domains come together to yield a final score um
064so the goal being that 80% or more of our students will place within the meeting or exceeding expectations some of the action items in support of this we're really looking to um increase our teacher capacity to use the data that we're collecting through the IR platform so all of our teachers will be supported and provided with targeted training this actually is happening next week we're very excited we have a staff developer coming in from IR that'll spend a day at each of our buildings to work with our teachers on analyzing the first results of the diagnostic assessment to help them plant small group assess small group work with our students so we're really excited about that our teachers and administrators will continue to engage in ongoing data review so I was able to sit in
065on our first round of data meetings at the element a lot of the elementary schools um and was really impressed with the conversations and the work being done to really identify where our students are struggling and where they could be grouped and supported better and then based on the data review we have already planned out our first cycle of win instruction which will be with the math interventionists our general education teachers and our help teachers and that's really a time that we're using to Target those areas of need need that have been identified through those data team meetings um and then through I ready our teachers are able to IDE to assign individualized learning platforms to all of our students based on their assessment results so those are the action items and support of the
066goal and the goal will be measured uh a measured success measurement of the goal will be that final I ready administration at the end of the year with the goal that 80% or more of our students will score at or above grade level um in addition to that through all of this training another measurement of our success will be the increase in our teacher capacity to take the skills they have learned from the training and Carry It Forward into the into their coming years um and we'll have our targeted student learning plans and those K to5 win Cycles continuing throughout the year our second goal is within the area of ela and this is targeting our students at the K to2 level this year all of our teachers are implementing a program called hegerty which
067um targets our students phonemic awareness skills so if you're not familiar with phonemic awareness it's an individual's ability to hear sounds and phones and words and manipulate them and Proficiency in these skills is really an indicator of success later on in reading and writing skills for our students so all of our students have begun administering the hegerty assessments with the due date being at the end of October and that data will be used and collected to identify success in this area so again our teachers have been provided with targeted training in the use of the hegerty curriculum they've already started implementing it it's really engaging and fun to watch if you walk into any of our Elementary classrooms at the K to2 level we worked with our teachers to review the assessment interest instrument go
068over the scoring procedures and refine the data collection because it is about seven pages so in alignment with our green initiative we cut that down to a a more refined scoring sheet all of our students beginning in prek4 going through second grade are currently being assessed using form a so there's form a b and c of the assessment and then based on the data review this is another way that our students will be grouped for the win Cycles so we've had students who have been placed into a segmenting group if they demonstrated difficulty or the need for support in that area and then all students will be accessed again using form C by the end of the year to ensure that they're able to demonstrate proficiency Within These skills so our measurements of success would
069be 80% or more of our students scoring proficient with within this area on the form C administration of the hegerty assessment again an increase in our teacher capacity because whenever we're looking at a goal for student achievement we want the skills that we're giving to our teachers forward so an increase in our teacher capacity to continue continue to use the hegerty phonemic awareness curriculum um using that data again to drive our whole group and individualized instruction targeted learning plans for our students and then taking all of this data that we're collecting to ensure successful implementation of our kive win Cycles thank you uh so moving forward with the secondary uh student achievement excuse me um and this is at CMS uh in 2023 78% of students met or exceeded expectations in fifth grade the goal
070is um n Ela the goal uh up from 70% in two in 2022 the goal this year is to increase uh students meeting or SE standards by 80% or greater uh likewise and that would be our current sixth graders now CMS um and then in 20123 the sixth graders who are now seventh graders in the laa um were 74% they want them meeting or exceeding expectations 77% or better and in 2023 the current eighth graders um met 87% in seventh grade in ela and they want to uh expect U meet or exceed 88% or greater in our in our state testing which is lofty goals um the action items um oh oh boy oh boy there we go the action items uh most of the teachers if not all of them are participating in a
071PDP goal that involves improving questioning techniques to help the uh better help the students deeper in writing with deeper analysis beyond the school day is going to begin mid November early to mid November we offer struggling students as we had it last year an additional opportunity to receive assistance excuse me October uh language arts teachers will begin rewriting the rubrics um to improve vertical alignment and progression and in CMS is reorganizing how it delivers the instructional review opportunities with very small group instruction two to four students and push in assistance and um that is a great uh what Mr gitka is doing is is phenomenal from that standpoint with doing that and the measurements of success are in the gold statement so we'll know in our state testing if they've achieve those goals this time
072next year when we present that data at the high school level um designated cohort the graduating class of 2025 which is the current junior class will demonstrate a 5% growth and proficiency rates in English language arts and math um between the NJ SLA Benchmark taken from their freshman year and the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment that students take during the junior year that's as determined by the state so the actions with that are using a variety of data points PSAT in nth grade PSAT and 10th grade njsa njsla in ninth grade uh students below proficiency or borderline proficient were identified uh Ela and math and they're uh give him targeted assistance so um it's English math strategies application program uh for students to go IND during lunch outside the traditional eth period they have block
073scheduling here at Governor Livingston um so they will uh be provided with extra opportunity for help groups meet a half hour one lunch block similar to science lab per rotation and students are provided targeted support with Reading Writing subscores in ela and modeling application reasoning it's based upon um what they prior did the prior skill set and the kids students are grouped in that in that skill set and again the measurements of success are based upon the goal statement so we will be able to see that next year and report that out like like we did in September this year so September next year we'll we'll be able to judge where we're at with those things Dr barley um I would just like to actually make a comment um just uh with regards to your
074uh I think number two goal your green initiative yes the finance committee actually discussed um the uh New Jersey green Grant uh in our finance committee and I know is it Mr Marks who's actually applying for the grant is it Mr Marks was it mras sorry um poor Jeremy the look on his face sorry sorry Mr dunas um so it is actually on the agenda tonight uh uh under business under item s that the actual New New Jersey green Grant's actually been applied for and it's regarding cycling initiative and awareness so it's actually on the agenda tonight so and I want to thank you for putting that on the goals these kids they're so passionate about improving the environment and Improv proving it here at GL and at CMS and even in the the young
075building so thank you for putting that on there and it's going to be difficult to do it's gonna be very difficult to do I don't know like Pam and I went for a tour with some of the our green students of all the trees in G it was a very long tour that we took so um they're very appropriate they they are very passionate about their trees um back here in at GL yeah they they're definitely passionate um but I'm glad that we're we're going to continue to do this um but I have a question about um our high schoolers so they're going to have this eighth period situation with Ela and math is this something that the parents sign off on and they must attend otherwise they're absent or is this up to them
076it's it's it's part of the rotating drop block schedule so the way it rotates with the schedule here because we have a and you have that time during lunch so they have a huge unit lunch time so it's going to rotate into their schedule that way so they'll go for the lunch half the time they'll go for the sexal help half the time but like they'll be expected to go otherwise they'll be expected to go yes I'm sorry yes I just know my like oh I don't need it the expectation is the students the students need to be there and we we expect them to be there for sure what we they and I'll you know give Rob and his team credit they found that students wouldn't go to the help classes because they didn't
077like the way it looked so now it's just already in their schedule they really have no choice to go and get this extra help no I I appreciate that because like that you know it's hard for kids to say oh I'm going to miss my second lunch to go do something important so um and then I just wanted to say in the K through too um my son is in second grade so I get to see all this coming through and it's kind of fun so there's the flow words and the diagram words and I'm like Benjamin what is this and he's like oh Mom you know so it really is great to kind of see that coming through with these kids and um just how much more prepared they're going to be for these
078language skills is really great yeah and it's a lot of fun you can find um YouTube videos of all of the different hand movements that go with the program so it's really fun and engaging to watch if anybody's interested no and I did have my parent teacher conference and they were talking about it and I was like do they know I'm a board member so I was like maybe they're just playing this up to me but they were they were really excited about teachers are also very excited about it which is great to see y can I go thank you for sharing this this is um this is really great I have a followup I think it's goal 5c could we go one page up so it's it's great to see the goals for the
079ELA but do we have something equivalent for Math and Science as well yeah or are these meant to be so he's Mr unfortunately Mr kitka contacted me he had a family emergency so he wasn't able to load up those goals for that as soon as he gets them to me I was contact with him today I will load this back in and reshare it with the board and everything absolutely thank you I'm gon keep you up keep you up there Anthony just one on one on so on the on the high school question on 5D yeah um and if you don't know this no problem I'm just curious the the maybe a like the rationale behind selecting the 2025 uh cohort is that because they're taking the NJ GPA and then I guess this could
080be dumb but why are we using uh what I'm guessing sounds like their ninth grade njsla scores compar to the the GPA that they'll take this year versus like the njsla again is that is that Apple's apples or is it right it is Apple apples because we're using would you want to use multiple data points so they've already taking these tests they taking the PSAT we're identifying through those data points prior to giving the extra help and now we're identifying those students to say okay these are the ones are going to need that extra help coming forward as we get into the junior year njla and the graduation requirements and all and all those so that's that's the reason why okay so we're we're basically we're we're tracking or we want to see a 5%
081bump from their scores from freshman year to what they'll take spring of junior year spring of the junior year yes sir okay got it does that make sense makes sense okay fully unrelated I was just gonna ask on the comm's uh goal any can you I feel like I've asked this before so broken record um examples of committees uh there there's a bullet with parents and community members on committees can you offer a couple of examples of what those committees could be or are we not that far we're not quite I will say having parents involved in the interviews this summer if if I know a lot of you were involved in these interviews and I mean that has really helped that helped with um pushing our our mission forward but we're still talking about
082you know we had the homecoming committee and we had th trying to get parents more involved and engaged I do believe and I know we talked about we weren't going to blame coid but I believe those two years of everything being at home we're having a hard time getting people back into our buildings and back into our committee so we're still brainstorming how all that can look but every single time something comes up we we talk about we should get a committee together and involve stakeholders so people can have a say and help us you know we as as we talked about earlier tonight we have great people in our community that can help us with all the things that our person on the agenda for the director's team who can help us move ourselves
083forward move us push us forward anything else bu anybody else no okay all right thank you thank you Dr okay okay moving on to the committee and liaz and reports do we have any this evening yes I have uh my liaison reports sure I am the liaison for the Town Council the Berkeley Heights Town Council met recently and they are going to be looking into reorganizing and renaming some of their committees there was a well-attended candalite vigil at Town Hall last Tuesday October 10th in support of Israel in recognition of Hispanic heritage months there's a celebration on Sunday October 15 2023 at the Berkeley Heights YMCA you can register for that there will be a trunk or treat for the children sponsored by the police benevolent Association in the Town Hall Parking Lot on Saturday
084October 28th from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. the recreation committee liaison report the Berkeley Heights Town recreation committee met on Thursday September 21st on Zoom Union County has taken over the field maintenance and Sport and event scheduling of our Berkeley Heights County Parks the discussion continues on the Lower Columbia field and then they ask you to check out the seasonal programs for Youth and adults on the website the Union County Educational Services Commission uh the meeting was held last Wednesday on October 4th there was an update provided on school assessments and HIV incidences by the superintendent and policy similar to what we do at our board meetings the Halloween themed treats on front of our board members and our students are created by and made and sold by the students at west lake school's vocational skills
085workshop and they are involved in baking creating hygiene and kitchen and then they take care of the money and they work on that um PTO uh C curriculum leison met this morning um there was a community misinformation and misconceptions concerning the math program at GL were addressed and corrected by Mr Nixon Mr dunas and the district team the administrative team gave updates on the K5 word study programs hegerty at the K2 level and 95% core phonics program for the K5 level Dr G orano stressed the importance of the chain of command within the schools for parents seeking information and for obtaining help for their students and more information will be given at the school level PTO meetings there was no updates on the district evaluation advisory committee um the Union County Schoolboard Association had a
086presentation last night policy committee members uh Dr forger and myself attended an informative presentation on the new sickle policy and we're sharing that policy with the other board members our chair Mr Chuli has uh flyers for us and that concludes my liaison report thank you g anybody else a commit to your leaz on report I can do athletics if you want yes please okay um bear with me be we uh we don't meet frequently when we do we've we've got we've got lots that we covered I'll start by factchecking Jake the girls soccer team one so they're four and seven so you can update that back in the mix for states there you go okay so the um athletic committee met with uh with an Dr vley um Mr Nixon this is October 3rd uh
087among the things we covered uh and talked about that we're going to reup uh we're going to pursue the reupping of the co-op agreement with New Providence um this is for our uh our ice hockey Co-op agreement um we talked about um air conditioning in the Red Gym which is not a new issue far as I know uh these are my notes not editorializing but we're going to basically put that on the what I'll call a wish list for a uh referendum down the road um the um we talked about athletic what's that the list is getting longer yeah it's getting longer I know intentionally but uh it's a wish list the um we talked about athletic trainer coverage again not a new uh topic but something that um definitely remains important and Urgent uh
088the board we've you guys will remember we've approved prior additional vendors uh to to back us up like Jag um even with with that it's it's still not enough uh to support all of the events that happen Friday Night Lights Etc and and to have one trainer be in all places at one time or at multiple times is basically impossible so and stress that that's something that we're going to try to uh address in the upcoming budget uh for next year um similarly uh there are currently two full-time uh ice hockey coaches uh and and stress the need that with the size of that program uh the need to have three would be important so again um that will that will come we talked about locker room space um mostly for for girl Sports uh
089and trying to expand that in a few different creative ways um which I thought was interesting and really trying to engage the community uh to come up with some of those Solutions there's some some some good thoughts that were shared uh trailers for example um out here behind the school uh by the softball field uh so really trying to to get something solved by Spring uh there was a discussion on that talked about um the need for lights uh night games so lower lower comumbia field obviously which is an ongoing conversation with the township and the Rec Rec Department uh obviously we're losing Snyder control over the snav uh field um which is where we've we've been able to play a lot of night games so um that was high on an Ann's agenda um
090what else baseball um there's a penny request for a donation of funds uh for upgrades to the home Dugout uh also request um from boys and girls basketball teams and the BHP to donate funds for the purchase of a shooting machine that's basketball shooting not the bad kind um the uh let's see uh bhpl usage of GL gyms during winter months we covered uh the head wrestling coach interviews and update updated us there and that we do have names on tonight's agenda uh it's a long process and I'll give an credit yet again and others uh for seeing that through uh and being I'd say very inclusive uh in that in bringing in stakeholders and parents to to be part of that conversation uh I'm getting there we also covered uh option two and updated
091us on option two of the high school graduation requirements uh and and and where where the conversation uh currently resides uh and then a couple others we talked about the JQ like this one ongoing uh light conversations for GL as well uh slash a Press Box upgrade at some point I'm going to add that back to the wish list for a future referendum but I think the good thing is from what I understand you guys can back me up on this scale and dipy sounds like that at least we're wired so that um if and when we can get the funding for the lights themselves um the the hard work might be done yeah exactly so that certainly seems like it could be part of the solution whatever may happen at at Lower Columbia um
092also just noting that in terms of total athletic participation numbers uh and shared that um total student athletes this is a GL for last last school year 2223 79 U that's 324 female student athletes and 385 male um and that's so that's 76% of our high school population is playing at least one one sport which is which is great yeah it's a good number um interestingly too uh we also there's been some request about possibly at some point starting a boys volleyball team this would be for the spring season there's some work required to get there I don't think I caught all of the details to get there but the blue gym would need to be retrofitted to pull that off there need to be some fundraising uh and seems to think it's possible to
093maybe start with a JV program uh 2024 25 uh and and would need Community Support palal Etc to build um and she also did note that um there were four 419 kids who attended that homecoming dance uh and she's she's looking to add some athletic components to the to what homecoming was this year for next year so she's excited about building onto that bringing back some past championship teams and uh and trying to maybe extend some some class reunions so uh that concludes the athletic committee report you want to oh yes um so yeah a great idea which which G re and and I think is probably overdue is is to do a tour for board members who would be interested of all athletic facilities and keep me honest we landed on doing this before
094our next board meeting in November so anyone any board members interested uh who would want to see the current state of facilities from Press Box on down up uh with we're going to do it before the meeting I think we agreed on six o'clock something like that right yeah so that's November 16th I think it's I know it's that week uh so anyone interested an Ann will be here to to lead that tour thanks thank you thank you Goen great report very informative anybody else I double checked I have nothing it's surprising that is surprising goes anybody anybody else no we're good all right thank you very much um do we have any board communication Madame President you have one piece of Correspondence received uh from a member of the public requesting that the Board
095of Education um remove or relocate the Palestinian flag located outside of Columbia Middle School that's the only correspondence received thank you and um we have a report uh for for the business administrator yes I'm sorry I have the floor again just just uh real quickly I don't I mean again a lot of this has been done uh through the committee but uh the the pothole situation real quickly which wasn't going to be part of my report but thanks to Kelly uh the DPW was saying that as they do some work tomorrow around town they may be near some of the schools where they can go in and do some of the work in the meantime uh we've ordered a product that our own maintenance staff can begin to fill those potholes that's due sometime next
096week shipped in and then the third piece of that is we've contacted a vendor through the Cooperative the educational Sur who um might come in to be able to help us but again they're so busy that that would be down the road but um at least it looks like there's going to be some work on in potholes second thing real quickly is um when we first got on board Mr Smith and I there was a talk about rfps going out for an architect that was done uh on the 10th of October nine responders uh we will go through the process of making sure that each submitt meets all the requirements and then probably move it forward to a committee uh in November and also uh there's an RFP out for uh legal counsel that's not
097due until the 24th of October and finally on tonight's agenda uh is uh a recommendation from the superintendent and the interim ba a uh to appoint a transportation consultant yes to look at um the overall picture of Transportation I know personally um on that August 14th meeting which I watched the next day because I was appointed on that night I know that it's a topic of Interest so um if the board approves that item tonight um um the Consulting Group plans to get started before the end of the month and probably in 45 to 60 days have a report thank you madam president thank you that's wonderful thank you great okay um we're now moving on to the comment section for the public on agenda items only um during this portion of the meeting District
098residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on agenda action items only the board requests that individuals State their name and town of residence or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board president and depending on the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after the public portion of the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board asked the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discussed and discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students
099and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speaker statement will be limited to three minutes thank you can you please come up and address the board uh on agenda items only yes uh good evening much better Podium this is good um a couple things there were actually two emails that have been on board correspondence that sorry name please yes oh I'm so sorry John MZ Berkeley Heights my apologies uh I know I sent two emails on board
100correspondence that should have been reported on so I'd like those included if you don't mind if there are requests um much better I think on the uh board goals uh with regard to the academics it was good to see a bit more being things being a little bit more aggressive um couple of questions on that with parental engagement I don't think it's so much about communication but I think access and influence and I think those are the two keys that I think uh can be added to that I also feel like um I have a great respect for uh the PTO but I also think there should be opportunities and access to committees outside the PTO I don't think and I'm not suggesting that that was the intent but I don't think that they should
101be The Gatekeepers uh to committees I think there should be sort of a weighin that everybody sort of gets into um I noticed that there's a shared services agreement agenda item and you know guys I I really wish you had just responded to the email like two days ago you know when I when I sent it um they were simple questions uh on the shared services and I and I think this is a good sort of example of how communicating back to somebody and answering questions versus I got a staff person sending me in reply not anybody from the board or the superintendent and it could have just been a simple email just answering what I thought were pretty straightforward questions about the shared services agreements um and the roles of the finance committee Etc
102so that that's just something again if you answer questions if you're forthright in your communication uh it could have gone a little bit differently um uh as far as the board member election and appointment a lot of confusion on this one as well so everybody thinks it's silly to be worried about this because hey this is state law so if that's true and the board of education is not going to quote unquote un overturn an election I think you could just clearly state that that you change it to election laws and that it's determined by a court and that solves it you know that solves a lot of the concern or fears that people have that this policy is going to be turned into something um that it shouldn't be if the board of education
103is in fact looking to have a hand in sort of reversing an election I think you should outline a due process you should outline What specifically qualifies as a improper campaign practice um so those are the clarifying questions there conduct of BOE meeting that's a bad policy change I mean I think basically two two 48 hours before a meeting you know in terms of proficiencies uh could I have an extra two minutes please okay uh so I think with that policy I think what what ends up happening is I don't know who the gatekeeper to the agenda is or the board agenda but it it whoever that is it leaves a lot of control and I think it removes spontaneity and it removes uh sort of a you know there's creative elements to that discussion
104that sometimes could be helpful so I I I don't love that I mean I could I don't love that 48 hour rule I also think it limits um speech in a way you know okay that's it thank you thank you for your comments thank you anybody else like to come up and address the board please on agenda items Natasha Jolly Berkeley Heights um so with respect to policies um do all policies go through the same process of first reading second reading and then vote are there any special circumstances when this Pro where this process is not followed for some policies um professional development um Mr Hopkins is on the list for 3800 for the aasa National Conference for professional development days the bhaa contract allows for 1,800 so why is that on there for 3,800
105um the Dei portion of the Strategic goals I believe um a number of people have asked for this before the results of the Dei climate survey so can we get a presentation of what those results are and so we can better understand how those results are being used to drive the plans that the principles will enact you know if they're using this data to drive their plans um with respect to high school math proficiency um I keen on the statement regarding that this uh you know it would 5% increase based on the state approved cut score now if we're comparing this to the NJ SLA results from 2021 or from 2019 whenever the kids were freshmen as we saw with the NG NJ GPA the cut score will automatically ensure that we see a 5%
106growth rate so I'm kind of curious as to how we're going to you know um account for that in you know in determining whether we meet the goals or not and then with respect to what was mentioned you know how parents are engaged in interviews again how are the parents selected because you know as one who comes to every board meeting I've not never been asked never had the opportunity to participate in any of the interviews thank you anybody elsei um my first question is on District goals um the communication uh I believe the go goal and the metric was we are improving it via forums and committees and social use of social media platforms my question is how are we improving our communication when we have shut down commenting by parents and stakeholders on
107social media platforms last year without a board vote um how are parents chosen for the Committees and is there a list available for the increase or uptick in Comm committees that's mentioned by Dr warley and and can we see can the community see what are the list of Parental committees that have increased since last year and in regards to the revision of policy 0164 um can you add language stating that all superintendence presentations committee layers on reports Etc the the two hour long presentations that we pretty much have like an hour to two hours every board meeting will be added 48 hours in advance so if you're requesting that new business if anything specific language that they need to be presented in writing 48 hours in advance I think it's fair to ask the superintendent
108and the committee leers on reports to be presented 48 hours in advance I've compared this policy with um districts like Milburn and they do not have this specific language where they're trying to limit the free speech of uh elected board members and asking and requiring that they give you a 48 hour Advance also their order of how they condu the meetings has a public comment after the new business so I think that would be beneficial if you can consider that but the most important thing that I would want is the superintendence presentations and the committee lays on reports should be presented you know maybe you should amend this policy um I have a long list of missing reports in the attachments I don't know I see a bluec colored agenda this is I think the
109fourth time I'm requesting that if there is a revised agenda Like Our Town Council I think the public should be I think we should be deserving a res revised agenda when we come in here or on the district website we don't get that um also in the attachments um a lot of contracts and reports are missing number one is the esa final expend report that you're submitting to doe we don't see that in the attachments submission of idea and the ARP idea final expenditure report to De doe is missing um again ARP and the Esser expenditure reports for 22 23 to doe are missing so these are Grant monies that are coming from federal and state government and this is taxpayer dollars and if you're submitting reports on how you spend them I think public
110has every right to see them and if you have seen them and are approving them why not put them on the district website or in the attachments also missing is the 76692 worth agreement with the natural Green Lawn Care I think it's part of a contract um coordinated transportation services contract is missing um refuse and recycle removal with Waste Management the agreement is not there in the attachments we do not have a transportation consultant LLC I think it was mentioned by the board um administrator so there is there is nothing in this resolution it says that they're going to evaluate Berkeley Heights Township what are they evaluating are they evaluating the lights are they evaluating the community what are they evaluating and what are you voting on the contract is missing so thank you Mrs
111Mr let me finish my no no you had more than three minutes because we we missed the timer and we started again again with all due respect Mrs there is no policy in the district that says that we can only speak for three minutes there is nobody behind me thank you it's very evident how much you appreciate this sec please take a seat thank you for your comments anybody else like to address the board on agenda items only no all right so that will conclude the comment section on agenda items um so if if we have some answers to some of those questions what I would like to just um clarify the for Mr Hopkins that was a mistake right that was a mistake so I mean it does say 3,800 on there but by
112contract they're only allowed any member of the bhaa is only allowed $1,800 so we would have to go by what the contract States okay and Robert do you want to comment on the process of the policies do they all go through the same process yes they all go through the same process in terms of what we do publicly the voting process the discussion process it's two readings you know and so I'm I'm a little bit confused as to why anything is thought to be different we don't control the process I think it's pretty much every District does the same thing okay thank you Dr B Dr Jon do you have any answers for any other questions um I can talk about the Dei results um we're giving the principal time to dig through those results
113right now before we're releasing the information but we will release it um and did you have anything on the math nothing okay all right that's it thank you thank you okay so we will move on to the agenda items now um so uh we're going on to the minutes uh I'd like a motion to approve the minutes uh that would be for executive session minutes for September 14 and for the regular session minutes for from September 14 do I have a motion to approve mov do I have a second thank you second uh do we have any discussion do you no I was just oh it was Gail Gail was one I was two okay thank you thank you I apologize all right in so back to any discussion no can we have a roll
114call please Mr Bradford yes Mr uh Puli yes uh Dr forer yes uh Mr Hyman yes uh Mrs Khan yes Mrs Stanley yes Mrs Young okay and Mrs pen yes thank you all right moving to Administration uh I'd like a motion to approve resolutions a through G all board members do I have a motion no move second second thank you Jordan do we have any discussion yes uh policy 164 conduct of board meeting I just like to understand the source of the change that's being proposed is that coming from Strauss smme is that where is that coming from and what would be the reason for it I I felt it's is not to answer your question it's not from stme it was something that I thought would be a good idea in the vein of
115transparency for the board um and it was primarily drafted by our attorneys from I'm sorry our Law Firm our attorneys so did we ask our Law Firm to draft that like did the policy committee make a decision to ask the law firm to draft that or was there a recommendation from the law fir that we should have this changed in our policy the policy committee reviewed it afterward I made the request to Mrs Penna since I don't have access direct access to the law firm unless I have special permission given so I went to Mrs Penna and got her to approach the law firm so I have not dealt with them directly and is there a reason why that requirement in the policy right now is applied only to new business new business and old
116business I'm I'm trying to figure um the 48 hour requirement so prepare basically to prepare prepare for what the discussion discussion so if I have an idea this morning am not allowed to come and ask the question or share the idea or what's the process that you envision I I think I would in that case I would say you probably wouldn't raise it completely for board discussion immediately if you just come up with an idea I would probably in that case if it were me I would probably reach out to the appropriate committee and liaz it first and then bring it up at the next board meeting if you didn't make the 48 hours now I do want to point out that there is an exception there and sort of an out clause for anything
117any emergent circumstances so if some we recognize it sometimes things come up that are just emerging that are exigent important and so there's always that opening for something that's necessary but if it's just an idea that came to you one morning if it were me I would just I would just develop it a little bit first members read the two sentences that are added so that way like everyone understands what we're talking about does anybody have those two sentences available it you want to Robert yeah do you have do you have it it's yeah but there's a second paragraph for old business so it's really two paragraphs not two sentences yeah um as an aside we we did the first paragraph discussed it and then as an aside we said oh you know what makes
118sense we unanimously thought um I believe Dr forer suggested this why don't we call it old business and new business rather than other business thinking that was very tangential well because it had already gone through legal and we at the time before the policy committee meeting and then we came up with this new change at the policy committee meeting to add it break down other business into Old business and new business that required it going back again to legal which is how we got the second paragraph um I guess only people who have read that will understand that but that's okay um absent Bonafide emergent circumstances no item may be placed on the agenda and or raised at a public meeting under new business unless the board member has provided at least 48 Hours Advance
119written notice of the items he or she desires to raise during new business to all board members and the superintendent If an item is raised during new business with less than the requir required 48 hour notice to all board members and the superintendent the items will not be considered or voted upon at that board meeting old business shall consist of any matters that were pending at the previous board meeting on which discussion was either not reached or concluded before the adjournment of the previous meeting any board member wishing to identify a matter previously scheduled for discussion but either not reached or duly postponed for discussion as old business shall provide 48 Hours Advance written notice of the unfinished business for requested inclusion in the agenda under old business a matter presented less than 48 hours
120before a meeting that does not constitute unfinished or doly postponed business from a previous board meeting will not be included in the agenda under old business and will not be considered vote upon by the board at that meeting uh that second paragraph I think Mark may have drafted so he if he didn't I'm sure he could opine if if anyone needs Clarity on that I'm not I don't claim uh authorship for that um but the first the primary paragraph really again I do have to stress I do view it as uh promoting transparency and communication within the board and I think that's a good thing Robert can you just you mentioned before uh emergency waiver Etc what where is that here that if absent of bonafide emergent circumstances that covers everything ah okay Angela go
121ahead Tom I remember uh one of the things that happened in I think it was in the spring maybe in March um there was a group that came and wanted to discuss a certain book in a book discussion I think it was a donation and they wanted to discuss it but it wasn't on the agenda and Mrs Stanley added that under uh new business uh so do you think that sort of thing would be allowed under this amendment we didn't have we didn't have any requirement for notice but now let's say that a similar thing a donation we'll take a donation but there could be other things comes up and we want to accept it right at the meeting even though it wasn't on the agenda in my opinion it would depend on whether or
122not that vote was a b ified emerging circumstances in that case it was the fact that I think they needed the the club needed the approval uh for women's uh History Month I believe that's right yeah but I I I believe it was because they were having a meeting sort of within the next week right or two and they couldn't wait till the following board meeting so that was the urgency of approving that at that meeting if they pushed it out they would have missed History Month it would could have got postponed but they had a timing issue the answer to the question turns on if that was emergent circumstances otherwise that was also discussed in committee that b was yes it was and it it would have gone to the following board meeting had
123that not been yeah I did a kind of a survey because I had on and this part of the policy review I did a survey of quite a few districts I cannot find any other District that has this kind of restriction none they all use pretty much use 0164 just as Strauss Esme gives it to us new Province had their own policy number but they don't have that restriction either uh most of them have not changed their policy in many years on this one and we changed ours as recently as August 2022 uh to me this looks like really a limit on board members free speech and I I consider that a violation of the First Amendment uh there are exceptions of course to the First Amendment as pointed out by the Supreme Court uh
124there are seven incitement defamation fraud obscenity child pornography fighting words and threats but uh nothing like this uh and you It just strikes me as there's nothing in the statutory Authority that we cite in the policy we cite 10 colon 4-10 and we cite 18a col 16-6 do1 nothing nothing in those statutes allows this sort of thing um and rightfully so because this really is a limitation on a free speech rights of the board member we all took an oath to uphold the Constitution and that includes the First Amendment so I just don't see that this policy should be adopted with the that change mark would you like to address this want to use mine it's up top I just that um the um law allows boards to develop bylaws for how they conduct their
125meetings I wasn't at previous meetings I understand that you'd have to ask the the uh committee and the board members who requested uh and who are proposing the change to the bylaw but there's a process There's an opportunity for consideration of anything that's emergent um and I would submit that the firm's opinion is that it's not a violation of the First Amendment to provide procedures for the orderly operation of your business at your meetings and that there was a concern by some that the meetings were being disorderly and it was not being conducted in a conducive manner for example the language with regard regard to Old business uh your District bylaws provide that the district will unless the bylaws provide to the contrary comply with Robert's Rules of orders Robert Rules of Order provides that
126the uh term really shouldn't be old business it should be unfinished business because for the orderly operation of business of a meeting it's not to rehash business over and over that's been properly and fully deliberated upon and concluded just because someone disagrees or is not happy or wants to make a point uh because you want to get out before 11 o'clock at night with your meetings and you want to control your meetings um so that's the purpose for the language with regard to um old business um then uh with regard to new business I would just submit that I don't believe it's a violation of the First Amendment to say advise what you would plan to raise and if uh if there's an emergent circumstance that arises like you've mentioned there's certainly an opportunity to
127to raise that at that time so robt and there's certainly an opportunity as Mr Chuli uh advised it's not to say that it would never be considered or that it would be told you can't bring it up it's just that as Robert indicated you might go to committee or it might be added for old business to a following meeting um that to be discussed that it wouldn't be discussed that evening but it'll be discussed at a following meeting yeah what it actually the items shall not be considered or voted upon at the board meeting it's essentially no action taken no it actually says you can't bring it up it's not unless you have the prior notice well the yeah the Endor raised you cannot bring it up my my my question to that Robert I
128guess would be twofold number one placed on the agenda so even if someone woke up with an idea and wanted it motioned and voted on we wouldn't technically place it on the agenda that night we would it would be a you know you know right now you could motion and we'd vote so I'm wondering if that's unnecessary that's one question and I guess two to determine whether it would fit emergent circumstances there ought to at minimum at least be the language that allows for the ability to have that conversation to make that determination before you would say we're going to put this on exec next meeting or or a future agenda or it does pass emergent circumstances and therefore so do do we do we allow for that now do we need a tweak to
129the language to allow for at least that I'm not poll but um I guess how would you know if if it if it passes muster unless there's some ability to say hey the pipe broke I want to talk about the pipe that broke to see if we can vote on funding to fix the pipe because it's an emergency or whatever it might be so like Robert right like we we don't follow Robert's Rules very closely as you can tell because he used Robert's Rules tonight right he said Madame President right he addressed you and right those that's how Robert's Rules work right so right now me talking I would say Madam president may I have the floor right and that we we've gotten away from that because we want to have more of a communication
130right we want to be able to talk and discuss things um but I think this right helps us make sure that we're not doing surprises right one of the first things you get when you become a board member is like the role of being a board member and the first thing in there it says no surprises right so when I come to a board meeting I shouldn't expect to vote on something that I have no information on right so when someone makes a motion in new business and you have no prior information on this it's putting me in a very awkward position because I literally don't have any background to make a good vote on that right so this kind of tries to help that as far as an idea that morning most likely it
131will not need to be voted on at that meeting and then you can like that Robert said you can reach out to the committee and we can move it further and hopefully we could get it on the next agenda right um but I think think that this doesn't mean we can't have discussion it means that we cannot re ask people to vote on something that they don't have information on is that how everyone else sees it or I think when it's it can't be raised then it can't really be discussed yeah so I think that part is correct um in the way that others are framing it not necessarily um you at the moment but I think at the end of the day it's that's that's the the thing if you want to have an
132informed discussion you got got to be transparent and everyone's got to have the same information and this has in fact you know been a challenge for us particularly during new business we have a lot of information and resources with respect to anything that's already on the agenda yeah in new business we don't it's out there some people have it and some don't and we've seen that more than once so we've got to be on the same page just to clarify the intention of this is to be transparent the intention is so that we don't have those surprises the intention is so that there can be proper discussions if somebody is interested in raising something then proper discussions can have like Robert said it can either go to committee and then be put on the agenda
133or information resources can be looked at to determine the correct information so the intention is to be transparent and the intention is to not have so if you want to call it gotcha moments that's the but the way this is worded you can't even bring up an item okay we the purpose of the new business is to bring up an item so that it's either going to be tabled or it's going to be referred to committee we've been told that okay so that's but what you're saying here is if I don't bring that up 48 hours in advance I can't even bring it up at a meeting I can't get the committee a committee to look at it why can't you speak to a committee I can't get the committee to look at it unless
134unless I bring it up at the board meeting and I have what you're saying is I can't bring it up and I just don't feel that's right that's not true you can't bring it to a committee if it hasn't been to a board meeting first I'm sorry maybe I misunderstood okay my understanding of how this place works is you bring your stuff to the board meeting and you try to get the board memb to agree with you and maybe you can get it into a committee I did not know that you can just have a committee consider something without a board referral of course we don't have do we have do we have any commit rules that say that I don't think we do I don't know if it's a rule I don't know if
135it's a statute but I hope everyone feels the same way that I do is that he or she can go to any committee member uh whether it's the chair or otherwise and ask to run just run something by and say on your next commit committee meeting I want this on the agenda and here's what I'm thinking and you can send it in writing which will probably help the committee frankly way before new business and I I do that now I hope everyone feels comfortable doing that so I'm I'm disappointed if you feel that you're you can't do that unless it's already been spoken about at a board meeting okay can I just add to what Tom said it's sorry sorry I think the the point here is not that you don't feel like you can
136go to a committee what we are putting here is language that would mandate a certain behavior and my belief is as a board we should not be in the business of restricting people from speak speaking up in a board meeting the the emerging circumstances there is no definition and one person's emergent might not be emergent for the next person like the example of the book somebody could have said okay you missed it you know come to the next meeting and it doesn't go with the whatever women's month or whatever we were celebrating do it in the next month so it's it's I mean it's open to interpretation and what is emergent there is no good definition and no two people no two people will necessarily agree so we are just it seems like deliberate putting
137words that um that are subject to a wide interpretation it will cause more confusion than um being transparent and I think it's an admirable idea that you're asking people to give me the you know agenda item 48 hours in advance that's great but putting limitations I think is not going about it the right way so if you follow Robert's Rules of Order that is very strict on what can happen and when and so putting this this just this piece in there is again just trying to make sure that everyone is aware of what's going on so they can make an informed decision but if you actually follow Robert's Rules of Order we would not be having this discussion right now because Robert's Rules would not allow for this to go around and around maybe we
138should agree as a board are we following Robert's Rules of Order 100% or not like we seem to be picking and choosing the way or what we like and it just I'm not sure if it works we're not restricting board members to have the discussion we're asking for them to give 48 hour notice that they would like to have that discussion the the words here Angela to be clear here the words are not exactly saying what you mean I understand the spirit but when you put this language in policy it changes the meaning it changes your intention let me just say that okay okay can we move on please we need to move on so is there any more discussion on anything else before we take a vote it is the first reading yes being
139that this is the first meeting uh reading gosh meeting there's I think opportunity to take a look at language and and and to your like maybe I know I know it's been through committee and all that stuff but maybe there's tweaks so that and you can bring it back yeah ask okay so if there's no more discussion on uh any of the other items under Administration a through G can we please have a roll call Mr Bradford yes Mr Chuli yes Dr forer we're talking about a or are we doing all of administration O A through G okay so on a uh first reading of 164 uh no and on B second reading uh no on 148 and no on 143 that has the term improper campaign practices which is undefined and yes the others
140under the um Administration okay got you get Mr did you get that right yes did no on the on 0164 no on 0143 no on 0148 yes on all the others got M Mr Heyman yeah I'm I'm going to go no on 0164 sorry Robert I I just I think we should just go back just just to uh just in my take and I know we'll do this whether it's yes or no but I I think we a I think that the placing on the agenda is redundant it doesn't make sense and I do think we need the ability to raise the conversation I do think the spirit of not voting on it when it's raised uh immediately I I I support that so I think we're 95% of the way here but let's get
141it right and put it back on first reading so I'm going to vote no yes to everything else so no to 0164 yes to the rest Mrs con um no to 0164 no to 0143 yes to everything else thank you Mrs Stanley yes Tom Mrs Young Mrs Penn yes so so the motion actually carries even though there's no votes on some of those because it would be um one two three four yes four four four three okay no four I apologize hold on one two five three one two yeah no carries so you have five five five Ved yes yes but but just a point of reference I mean I know I'm I'm temporary here but again just as general statement Council can correct me if I'm wrong but you're doing a first reading in
142my years of experience this is an opportunity for those who maybe voted no to go back and say let's review the policy and then when it comes for second reading you have no policy until it's adopted after second reading I would assume that's your bylaws yes second reading so correct the point of reference I really know it's none of my business but uh just trying to be coopertive thank you yes that's fine thank you okay thank Youk all right moving on to education uh I'd like a motion to approve resolution a through e all board members so moved second is it e or is it e right or F is it an F sorry a through f for all board members do I have a motion I'm sorry the joy said yes do I have
143a second okay okay do we have any discussion no discussion I do have a question on item D the fiveyear curriculum cycle U so at what point for the curriculum that are being revised or written for this year 2023 2024 at what point will the curriculum be available to the board uh and even to the community would they get a chance to see it the curriculum committee will see the uh curriculum first our all of our curriculum is posted on the website so it'll be available to anyone who wants to see it it's it's public right I I know that it's on the website but the fact that something has been changed or something has been revised people aren't really checking it every day right so at some point will there be like an announcement
144maybe through the curricul committee to say you know we've gone it'll be on the board agenda yes yeah okay you have to approve it as a board got any more discussion can we have a roll call please Mr Bradford yes Mr Ken Chuli yes Dr for yes Mr hman yes Mrs um Kanan yes I've get it right yet I think Mrs Stanley Mrs Young yeah Mrs pan yes thank you okay moving on to Personnel so we have a walk-in resolution uh so I wanted to the resolutions at the moment are a through M for board members and then resolution n through W which is Berkeley Heights only so I want to add uh an item X which will be through resolution a through M and X for all board members and I just want to
145read the resolution so it says upon the recommendation of the superintendent the board accepts and approves the resignation of employee number 4592 effective December 11 2023 so with that saying can I have a motion to approve resolutions a through M and X or board members and resolution n through W Berkeley Heights only do I have a motion second second do we have any discussion I just have a quick question um I think this is item p in in general it seems like we are increasing the uh support for the ESL students uh in the district uh does that sort of cover you know areas like math and like just not the language AG or do you anticipate having you know another approach to covering all subjects not just the language so generally the elll teacher
146meets with students individually to try to work through them with them learning the English language they don't just push into content area classes but it does help the students learns in the other classes but it's mostly you know for our like we have some students who now have who have entered Berkeley Heights who speak no English so right now it's trying to get them acclimated to school and acclimated to hearing the English language but we do not offer like specific supports for any subject it's learning mostly learning the language and being able to adapt uh quick one for me B if we approve the new director of steam um do we know if she can start sooner than that is that a TBD or is that a hard date it it's I think right now
147it's a hard date I did speak to her in the hallway after she met with the board and she said that she's turning in her letter tomorrow so she will know more then so I'm happy to change that date on the November agenda if I can any more discussion no if there's no more discussion can we have some roll roll call please Mr pal yes Mr Kuli yes Dr Forger yes Mr Hyman yes on items a through M and X Mrs kaana yes Mrs Stanley Mrs Young yes Mrs pen yes thank you okay moving on to B business the next yes moving on to business uh I need a motion to approve resolution a through S all board members and resolution T through U Berkeley Heights only do I have a motion second second thank
148you uh any discussion from the board yes thank you Tom on this web hosting I got kind of curious that seemed like a lot of money $21,000 roughly for web hosting so I thought I started looking around what what is it really cost you can find now first of all let me back up I don't consider myself in any way an expert on this I don't know what the requirements are all right but you know you can see places that are offer like $10 a month for a host web hosting so it I'd just like to encourage you to look around a little bit to see uh you know can we do a little little better that's 21,000 and might be way too much but on the inter I don't know what the requirements are
149so I'll leave it at that and on the transportation consultant uh I'd like I'd really like to see some 21 specification of what this person is going to do sir um I gather you talked about this in um Finance talking about the busing the uh Transportation consultant they're going to do some sort of evaluation of Berkeley Heights and I GA sorry uh I'm not quite sure what that means but if it has to do with curacy busing or hazardous busing is that right so do you want Mr MMA do you want to hazardous Roots respond to that I certainly can Madam president so um the what's on the agenda tonight um the Consultants are recommending that they would look at uh all the road conditions you know whether they're possibly hazardous or not again uh
150courtesy busing will be looked at current bus routing Software System District subscription busing and other areas as requested uh in in um in committee I mean this was gone over but I I think actually they'd be willing to look at any area regarding transportation that the board would seem appropriate but the proposal uh identifies that is they scop wait go go this is the first I've heard this there's a proposal did we get that I didn't I haven't seen this proposal there isn't a proposal yet this is an act yeah there this I have I actually have a copy with me um you can look at it it's public sure go there sorry I should have had more copies available uh the my comment is that uh I think I mentioned this earlier not to
151Bel laor this but I know when when we were first appointed as intrams based on that August 14th meeting it was very important that something be done regarding Transportation uh Mr Smith and I looked at some of the folks that are in the transportation industry retired that are consultants and we came found these company there were a couple of others that provided us proposals these folks gave us not only the best price but seem to be able to do it in a more timely manner so we're presenting it to the the board for approval because it looked to us like it was a priority that it' be completed long before you got into the budget process um so this was this was a discussion as a board we would then need to formulate a policy
152on Transportation on hazardous routes right my understanding once we need a policy once they've right so come back with something okay if I can so I I think what happens real quickly I hate to belabor this I think the approach is you hire these folks who are experts in this area they come back with a report and certain recommendations and options you as a board will determine whether you consider those you tell them forget it you want to develop a policy at the end of the day it will you as a body that will make that determination they'll give you their expertise based on their evaluation and you'll determined to accept it reject it um but I I think it's sound like was very important to have the process done that's what I understood so
153this this came about because we have certain area that has been brought to our attention and we're aware of um that are receiving courtesy busing that people feel shouldn't be so we wanted to look at the whole area and do a proper study and through throughout the town and determine you know go back and look at why certain areas may have it that shouldn't have it so that's the whole point of doing this traffic study or report so that we can get a a report from from Transportation study yes Transportation yeah so the point is so that we can get an independent person come back and determine what they think maybe we should be doing differently moving forward so that we can make it more everybody you know those people that require courtesy busing should
154get it and those that aren't mandated to get it shouldn't so that's the whole intention of to do it proper as I understand the the situation the courtesy busing is anything to an elementary school under two miles any anything to a high school Under two and a half miles that's courtesy busing okay and that's not courtesy busing that's courtesy busing that's that's yeah that's courtesy no yeah mandated is over the either two or two and a half anything under the mandated number limit is courtesy and in some cases uh people are receiving courtesy busing by subscription right so people are right receiving busing through subscription but I believe there's also an area in this community that are receiving courtesy busing that shouldn't be well I don't I mean they are receiving it whether whether they
155just by definition it's courtesy if it's under these limits if it's over the limit it's mandated and some people are El are being offered I guess the courtesy busing and pay paying for it and some people are not being offered it but get it anyway so that's what we need to straighten out who pays if any I think actually think everybodyy bus should that's part of it yeah that's what we're doing right but a consultant can't tell you who should pay and who should not pay so right no that's us so the courtesy busing they were the reason why they were given it is because they said that their Road was hazardous conditions but then when we were doing um switching and busing because we were having trouble with bus drivers we looked to see
156which RADS are hazardous in Berkeley Heights and we found that there were none and so Union County has to declare the road as hazardous for us to actually declare the road is hazardous so that's where this all came about but I have a question so this but this is going to look at improving busing over abely absolutely so we're not just looking at if there's a hazardous Road we're looking at all of it right routes everything excellent we're going to look at the whole because we definitely need to improve our busing so people can use it when we're spending so much money on it absolutely that's that's that's the intention okay Tom Tom Tom was your was your made a mistake but I'll let it go sorry was the Crux of your question that the
157consultant might do what they would do there will be you know a report coming out of it but once that is done we as a board need to craft a policy that clearly explains what is you know mandated is very clear clear but anything under the limits that you just said we just need to be very prescriptive of what is the policy who gets busing or you know how they get it I I think that's is if that's what your question is I think the answer is yes we need to do that and that was discussed in committee that that was the intention once we get that then that will be the next step as to determine that so yes and the policy committee put that in policy a few months ago when we brought
158it up in the budget that the busing will need to be voted on right so so yeah okay but that was back after the budget that was a while ago the policy itself is supposed to State what are the Hazardous Roots right and those will be determined by the consult police say there aren't any but we're going to this person as I understand it if you're going to formulate this policy that state law is they should work with the municipal officials to determine what's hazardous they don't do it on their own they work with I suppose the police but I don't I don't they just say Municipal officials are to be consulted when they work this out okay okay all right angel can I ask two other quick ones sorry P PN P&R what wall
159is that out front at GL I don't know I don't know if that's for you Mr Poo and then also the r is the uh the security assessment can you elaborated all on that I just I don't know if that's something we do annually we've done it that was the wallet GL the two questions so one is about what wall is it is it is it out front here by the flag pole or what so yeah or is it is it attached to the building and the second question unrelated is about the security assessment and what that is how long it'll take and what we get a chance to is it all buildings just any other details around it SEC yeah got it so so they'll come in it's all buildings um it's going to
160if the board approves it tonight I'm going to reach out to him he's they're booked up until like November so he'll throw some dat it's two to 3 to four days depending on what it is they look at every aspect of every building from camera position entr way entrance ways different you know people signing in and out uh it's it's really nuts and bolts top to bottom uh to see what needs to be done and they'll compile a massive report or I'm not hoping that massive but big enough report that we can start budgeting for that and have you know try to get grants and try to get things that we can pay for this stuff as well as budgeting or things that can add to the list of referendum list wish list or needed
161list so um this came from when I first started here a lot of the building principles on were talking about their their camera systems were Antiquated they're finding just through every day that they need different cameras or different cameras angled and so we're just one foul shot we're just do all one shot Mr do you want to talk about the wall of CH so so the two so the retaining wall if that's what you're referring to that's at I think one of the elementary schools Mary K Mary K you're not you're talking about it refen yes yes yes so what has been determined through the building and ground supervisor is that there seems to be moisture coming in from that side of the building which may have resulted in what happened to your gym floor
162so we went out and checked with some folks and we found somebody they're going to come in and they're going to try to seal that section of the building and maybe that sit because I guess when we first got here they were trying to repair the floor they weren't sure where the water came but now it's been determined that there may be some seat page through the wall okay thank you all right um well that would be a biger I would okay I would just like to thank the Woodruff PTO uh for Their donation of uh how much is the donation 10,940 th000 so thank you very much to the order of PTO uh for this generous donation um everything that they donate uh goes to good use in the schools and we appreciate your
163your efforts and your collaboration so thank you very much uh anybody else have any more discussion before we have a I I do have a quick question on item M I think that was added um the timing so this is the shared services agreement with the township for vehicle maintenance I think it says it goes from 2020 September 20 22 to August 31st 2025 so is that like a three-year term but we approve it every year is that what it is that's exactly okay that's my understanding yep okay so discuss uh roll call please okay M Bradford yes Mr Chuli yes Dr for yes uh Mr hman yes on items a through S as in Sam a through S okay um and uh Mrs um Conor yes Mrs Stanley who's holding my microphone Mrs y
164this is Young and Mrs pen I'm gonna you folks for my time not you paying me okay moving through to finance uh I need a to approve resolution a through D all board members do I have a motion so moved second second any discussion the bill TI Ty you do the B okay uh no discussion okay roll call please yes yes Dr for yes Mr hman yes Mrs Conor yes Mrs Stanley Mrs Young Mrs pan yes so we've now come to the comments section on any topic so anybody would like to address the board please if you can come up to the mic state your name and your address and you have three minutes thank you Aki um these are the two emails that I sent the entire board and I think they didn't make
165the board communication cut this is I think the third time that it's happening we email the entire board and we expect that it will be included in the communication it's not so I'm going to read an expert from a settlement agreement it says that as a result I recommended the three remaining candidates including my child to the board for temporary employment without reviewing the board's nepotism policy and confirming the policy included an exclusion for student employees as had existed with my previous employer and was permissive pursuant to NJ njac 6A col 23A hyphen 62b following questioning by a member of the public regarding my recommendation I contacted board Council and immediately removed my child from the position I acknowledge that my conduct set forth above in paragraph 4 technically violated njsa 18a colon 1224b I
166agreed to accept a penality of reprimand for my conduct as set forth in paragraph 4 so my question is and this is a question from February 2nd 2023 which I haven't got an answer to yet um how much did Berkeley Heights Public Schools spend on Dr Worley's legal defense of her nepotism ethics case c36 21 oal docket number 2022 now that Dr warley has admitted to violating the board policy and state law in her settlement offer will the district seek reimbursement of these CA from her how can Dr warley certify that's something totally different from what she stated at a board meeting publicly on June 24th 2021 why did the board attorney choose to defend Dr warley if she was going to accept to violating the district policy 1421 on nepotism I think the defense
167was for almost 18 months or longer and it ended with a settlement offer with Dr warley accepting to violating the board policy on nepotism and the state law whose interest is the board in board attorney serving the district or the superintendent how will the Board of Education proceed in investigating this attorney on what appears to be a clear conflict of interest and the basic question that I have is what are the reperations for the superintendent for accepting to violating the district policy because we keep amending these key policies and we keep saying that we I think I just heard the board attorney say that the Board of Ed has the power to come up with their own code of conduct and what are the repercussions there are no repercussions since 2021 and since the settlement
168offer came about there is no acceptance until the district a parent somebody operate this information what are the repercussions of somebody violating policy 0164 thank you Mrs I would really appreciate an answer because this is October and these questions were from February 2nd thank Youk Mrs K anybody else like to address the board on any topics Natasha Jolly Berkeley Heights so I find it very concerning that uh given how our legal fees are ever increasing that we choose to spend money on unnecessary not mandatory policy changes so I'm just curious how much did this particular um policy update cost and while you argue that it's in the spirit of transparen y I guess from where we sit from the community it's really not in my opinion this is a reaction to Dr farer asking during
169new business for the superintendent to present on the declining rankings and proficiencies and to present on a plan to remediate them it was taken to committee and then we heard nothing the committee chair Miss Stanley said that no presentation was ever done or that did this presentation at the committee meeting never existed however I had to Oprah the minutes in order to see anything so when we say that this is in the spirit of transparency that it can go back to committee from the from this side of the fence we don't see anything unless we Oprah committee minutes so I guess I would say that um you know time should be better spent on other things so I know we discuss courtesy busing and that there is going to be a consultant that's going to
170look at everything however to remediate the issue of inequity that currently exists should be pretty straightforward kids are on the bus you know which kids are paying you know which kids are not so you can absolutely address that piece of it right now if you choose to do so it's been six and a half months since this first came up um so then some other Luc ends um where's the data regard that was requested during the NG GPA presentation um the results with the the last like with the different cut score from last year's cut score building thinking classrooms I think these this was the misconceptions about the math program that was mentioned earlier as you're probably aware there were a number of parents who expressed concerns at back to school night um since Mr
171zober left or you know was kind of pushed out presumably because of BTC it's surprising that this teaching approach has continued what support is being provided to the teachers from what I understand between the two math honors and math analysis honors classes um being taught four kids already left um I see that Mr Dunes did some professional development on October 9th with respect to BTC but you know is this enough and what experience does Miss Curtis have with respect to BTC and supporting this uh teaching methodology board goals I know last time misspend you mentioned board goals are difficult because it's new but it literally has been a year year it cannot be that difficult to come up with a set of board goals whether it's new or not I mean it's just not getting
172done um and then Zoom meetings right we keep talking about it I'll just mention it again that's I think going on about two years and then finally what you approved for um uh for personnel I mentioned that you know it was a $3,800 number against Mr um Hopkins professional development not sure how you can approve that without seeing amended item so I don't know if that's going to get caught up or you know checked when it comes to pay the bills but I would suggest that the materials be amended thank you anybody else I really hope you keep it are you gonna keep this Podium from now on like this is a good Podium so I I do want to talk about the name please oh yeah John again John MZ Berkeley Heights I want
173to talk about the Miss I don't know misinformation math I will discuss with anybody at any time publicly about the real issues that are going on with building thinking classroom and math the declines are real it's not a myth and I would suggest that you got so I don't like throwing author names out I think everybody's gonna have a different opinion on this but one guy that you might want to read is Ashman who is an Australian educator he has a PHD did does an extensive amount of work on building thinking classroom its impact in Australia and what happened to their math scores I don't think building thinking classroom as a component of education is a bad idea I think an element of that is fine but to go around and casting out like misinformation
174without specifying exactly what it is is cheap if you feel like people are bringing up misinformation State exactly what it is so we can clearly understand where you're coming from um um one question is that 48 hour rule that that can't prevent agenda items from coming on right they the person can bring in make the statement but you uh somebody can't say you can't bring that up right I just want to clarify uh that piece of it um man you know you guys have had a little bit of a rough night um I'm just going to let it go I was going to bring up uh the The Saga that we went through in terms of getting the bud it was a nightmare you know we we got we had to get a redacted budget
175then we had to go to the state so and then miraculously after we got the final adopted budget from the state the Oprah custodian for the district finally understood what we were talking about or what people were talking about um it shouldn't take two weeks to get a budget unredacted I don't get like what the big secret is so that's a good place to start with transparency not limiting what people speak but maybe actually giving people the budget that might be a good start have a good night thank thank you for your comments anybody else like to address the board no so before I ask anybody here if they have any answers to the question I just want to first of all say uh Miss Jolie there is a process I believe to setting board
176goals and the process is because this board is never done it before we need to be guided by the New Jersey school boards Association representative so it has we've been collaborating with her to make sure she is available we did have an intention to do them at one point and the agenda items on them were so long that she didn't feel that we had enough time to do it so we do actually have a boards go meeting scheduled I have collaborated with her and it will be a special board meeting specifically for the board goals because my understanding is it can take up to two hours to for the process to set board goals and because we've never never done it before we do need the guidance possibly next year it will be an easier
177process we as a board will know how to do it but for the first time we need guidance so we will be having a special meeting on November the 2nd purely just for the board goals which will approximately could be up to two hours secondly with regards to to your Zoom we have a technology meeting coming up we heard your requests at the last board meeting and I have requested a technology meeting which is coming up I think sometime next week and that will be on the agenda for discussion anybody else have any answers to any of the question just wanted to say that the um there was um a comment made about the curriculum committee and that we did not um share the presentation but it was actually given at a board meeting um
178so that is not accurate um it does take time right we're Public School it goes through a process it goes through a committee it gets approved and then we we share it um um and then also there was a comment about how long it took for the public to get the budget oad but I know that there was an email that went out that said that that information is not correct um just so everyone's clarifying any other do you want to talk about the the building thinking classrooms yes I'll touch Bas real uh real brief on that so we had a a really great meeting with the PTO curriculum committee meeting um and Mr dunis and and Mr Nixon spoke uh upon building thing classrooms this District or our district has not adopted building th
179classrooms as a initiative across the entire District if a district our district or any district is going to adopt a new way adoption it's going to go through a whole process and and nine times out of 10 and 10 times out of 10 best practices we're going to start in the elementary schools what happened at the high school is and and and I wasn't here and Mr Nixon uh went into much better detail had much more background on it was it's an idea there's about 15 Concepts in building in classrooms one teacher at the high school is implementing about four or five of those and they she that teacher went all in and they they really backed her up and supporter in it um and so teachers have the option no one has dictated they
180have to use it it's just another tool for their toolbox and so that's what's going on and and that's what we emphasize to the parents of the PTO about the misinformation that we teachers are being told they have to do building thing classrooms or test scores are declined because of building things classrooms and and all the other things that are flying around my two months here what I've come to find out is not to find out but i' I've understood the issue is parents have an issue and it ties into the chain of command parents have an issue with a child's teacher right that that's that's the true issue and so instead of going and and and claiming it around building things classrooms or what they perceive is teachers are are all in with building
181thing classroom and that's what the only way to teach that's the only thing they're doing in their classroom um is false they have an issue with their teacher so they should start with their teacher and understand and have that meaning with their teacher and and and Mr Nixon and Mr have been reaching out to those parents have been setting up meetings saying please meet with the teacher first if you're not happy then meet with Mr dunis and then meet with Mr Nixon and go up to Chan of command and and a lot of those concerns and issues my understanding have been slowly dissipating not to say they're ever going to go away because I'm sure people are gonna video hear this video and and say I don't know what I'm talking about which is fine
182um and counter it but but as I understand for two months being here that's the main issue and has nothing to do with building thinking classrooms we are we are not a building thinking classroom District I want to make that clear it is something for the teachers to use for the toolbox just an aspect there's aspects they can pull from it use from it the idea of building thing classroom the the simplest form is you want kids to think we want them to problem solve we're not teaching math or any subject for that matter the way I was taught or all of you were taught it's not Progressive you have to do this step first to this step we want you to make a mistake you want you to find out why you you you
183got the problem wrong and think and go back and problem solve for yourself case in point we have that adoption not building things classrooms in elementary school but it's Big Ideas it's the same concept that we're implementing with the elementary schools so I just want to put that out there everyone um we're not a building classroom CL uh District we never have been can I just one followup and one minor thing my impression for the issues with building thinking classrooms is yes the roll out but from what I've heard it's ALS Al the consistency or lack of consistency from classroom to classroom and so I think the idea out there is it wasn't rolled out consistently and I hadn't thought about that in a while until you just mentioned well they people perhaps have problems
184with certain teachers so I think it gets to the same issue is building thinking classrooms uh the same in every class in terms of the implementation in terms of where it is today not just the initial implementation no we've never so I'll repeat again we've never implementing buing things classrooms as a as a school district we never we never did it okay I didn't mean Implement on on a district on a district level no teachers have been dictated to do it they they they were talked this is a concept that you can use you want to try it some teachers jumped on there's about 15 concepts of building things classrooms one teacher is using about four or five of them some teachers aren't using any of it some teachers are taking one aspect and Implement
185in their math classroom I I don't I don't know why building things classroom became that we adopted this whole program we are not a buil think classroom dist District how did it get to the teachers I suppose I'm asking about the supervisor or former superviser down to the teachers that's what I'm talking about when I mean implementation I don't mean district one so my first year here they did a pilot of building thinking classrooms because it is I mean it's a great way to get children to think you get them up you get them moving you get them talking and it gets them working in groups and so then it was the teachers were given a book from what I understand and told that they were going to roll forward with it the next year
186now we all know well Educators know that's not the way you do an implementation we have as we all know we went to if you went to that meeting last year we've dialed back and we've told teachers we will support them in using building thinking classrooms as a tool we will give them more or professional development if they want to use it but teachers are experts at their craft Any teacher who's teaching a child using building thinking classrooms or using a worksheet If the child isn't getting it they have to find another way and so building thing in classrooms is another way for them to teach children but it's not the only way right want to make that clear and we differentiate right so in education we differentiate so you know it's just just the
187concept of what building thing classrooms have some of those Concepts teachers can take and Implement into the classroom some of them may use it some of them may not some may use I'm just labeling concept one and another one say you know for my classroom this year concept four is working better with the kids so it's really up to just again give the teachers another option to say hey we'll PD on this we're not mandating it but you know it's something you can use to get to your students when you need to have you so choose to see that your students need that and the idea is to get kids to think we want them to think and problem solve we don't to give them the answer and that turned into a larger discussion at
188the PTO of everyone in society not just berley Heights being great obsessed and so that's how it all kind of we're delving and we're working our way through all this but but we are not a building thinking classroom School District we are not in full implementation we are not K it's great concept just my second my goad minor second point this is not important but it's certainly long lasting on our webs it when people want to write to the board I believe it's very clear and conspicuous for many years uh when writing to the board please copy the board secretary or business administrator and the reason things are repeatedly not getting on to the uh correspondence report is because I notice when I see the email oh they left off the board secretary again my
189whole life you ask Angela Angela did you send this yet to Julie and and I'm Julie for your records copy Samantha Julie for your report copy Samantha that's been going on for years but since Donna I think so yeah all I can say is that's probably the reason it's probably very basic if if everyone who writes to the board please copy the board secretary I think the correspondence report will be perfect right so yeah Robert and I have been forwarding what we see if we notice to the business administrator but Robert's point if we don't notice it it doesn't doesn't get to to him or her so yeah that's that's a good point Robert U anybody else yeah just just a quick followup to the building thinking classroom and because it was you know to
190be honest I did not even realize that my son was in one of you know those instruction methods till um it it was sort of evident last year that the high school children some of them were having challenges so I'm curious is there some sort of messaging that the PTO is going to go back to parents and sort of inform them people who might not be listening to this meeting for them to kind of reinforce the point that you just made Dr Jano is it's not the primary method of instruction but I will say based on feedback that I have heard myself I think one of the heartburn that parents have had with that method was they felt that their children weren't um learning their some kids were being put in the spot to go
191teach their fellow students and I think that sounded a little unfair because it was like my child is going to school to learn so I get the idea that they should share but you know they shouldn't be the primary teacher of somebody else in the classroom right that that doesn't sound right so I'm just curious do you think that we it you know everybody would be better serve if we get the right message through the PTO or some other channel to reinforce what you said and you know if they are still experiencing a challenge with the method you know contact the teacher or the principal and so on so we I'm sorry just quickly so to answer your question regarding the PTO so the discussion today um was that all of the Liaisons who were
192attending the individual schools need to go back to their individual schools at their meetings and reiterate this so that information does need to get relayed to the community so that was definitely something that was reiterated in fact the Berkeley Hearts PTO District president was there and she relayed to all the school PTO members the liaison and I believe some of the presidents and vice presidents were there uh of the schools to make sure that that information is relayed back at their indiv ual PT meetings and and to follow with that too we're trying to really emphasize because really um it's not I'm trying to word this properly it's it's I understand you as board members may hear a lot more than than other people and I don't know what that number is and what that
193is and I can only I understand what you all go through but but the high school staff has not heard as many parents as you have and the ones they have we're trying to push back and I would hope help it would be helpful with the Board of Ed members to to Really emphasize the community members that come talk to you either refer them to Dr vley because that's per per our ethics as board members or tell them to follow the chain command reach out to the teacher first and so at the at the secondary level and we'll have this on the website uh Jeremy and I are working on that it's at the secondary level it's the teacher the supervisor the building principal myself Dr vley then the Board of Education if things aren't
194resolved right and at the secondary level it's the teacher it's the building principal Dr seero my self then Dr vley and then the board of education so if we could all we're trying to get everyone on the same page with that but I I understand yes and I've been talking to Mr dunis and and I and Miss Curtis does have experience to answer another question in and building class the same way not a full implementation but using concepts of it that teachers can use if they if they want and just getting kids to think and really that's the concept we want kids to think of problem solve on their own say I'm the last time time to belabor this point we have looked at the data and I when I say we um I say
195they looked at the data and they gave me a summary of the data and the kids aren't the students are that are struggling went generally went from a regular class to an honors level class so they're expected to struggle it's harder it's supposed to be harder that's a good point okay so I actually did reach out to the board so we're going to new business I actually did reach out to the board and gave them a heads up uh that I wanted to discuss with them extending our executive session from 45 minutes to 60 minutes so that would be from 6:30 to 7:30 uh so I just wanted to have that discussion with the board and see if anybody's opposed to it or if everybody's in agreement um then we can go ahead and get
196that changed on the exact agenda I'll just say I've always been in support of an hour we do it in Mountainside if we if we end early go to the restroom and and I I Feel Like We Never End early because there's always something to talk about it's time well spent uh and and we can stay within the boundaries what we're supposed to be talking about in there and still use the time wisely so rather have it than not have it that's that's my take yes anybody else in support I I I guess it's fine I just I always thought though the the session was defined by how many topics you needed to consider if you had no topics then you didn't need an hour if you had a lot of topics you needed an
197hour and if you had something in between maybe half hour so I didn't I don't know how you are you're saying we always need an hour I'm saying we need to put aide an hour whether we use the full hour or not I would rather have the hour yeah and use it and and not use it then what we've constantly been doing is we come out here and we're late I would prefer not to be late all right so for notice purposes you just want to advertise it and yes and what would that mean if you don't need it if we don't use it we just come out we just end early get a drink drink or whatever but in my experience uh over the last couple of years we've needed it we're always looking
198at the clock because we're always going over and sometimes we have to cut things a little short when we could have a little bit more discussion I just feel like that hour will will give us the opportunity to have that discussion and I think it'll be rare that we don't use that hour I really do yes there's a saying work expands to fill the amount of time available right we seem to have a very a board that likes to have conversation which is great so I'm sure we'll use the time anybody opposed to it no okay great so uh with that said I would like to then make a motion to adjourn to second second okay all in favor okay meeting adjourned thank you everybody Jordan does that mean we have to move up our
199Athletics