001Public notice of this meeting was advertised in the Asbury Park Press on January 14th, 2025 and notice was provided to central jersey.com on January 9th, 2025. Notice has been posted in accordance with the public open public meetings act of 1975, chapter 231, effective January 16, 1976 in the board office, 370 Broad Street. Copy of this notice is also on file in the b office of the burough clerk. Members of the public wishing to address the board of education on both agenda and non-aggenda items must state their name, address, and are requested to limit their comments to five minutes when it appears the public comment portion of the meeting may exceed 30 minutes in duration. The public participation portion of the meeting is open to citizens for the purpose of addressing agenda and non-aggenda items. Issues
002raised by members of the public might require review and investigation and may or may not be responded to by the board or superintendent during the meeting. All comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate. The board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of the individuals when speaking. Specifically, comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board. Students and staff 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 any member of the public. This meeting is being tape recorded for the purpose of board review and future reference and to assist in the preparation of minutes. QR
003codes are available at each board meeting to access the agenda. Mr. Rapo, roll call, please. >> Mrs. Abrahamson, >> here. >> Miss Cunningham, >> here. >> Mr. Patopoulos, >> here. >> Mrs. Grabowski, >> here. >> Miss Cahane >> here. Mr. Stall >> here. >> Mr. Staley >> here. Mrs. Teas >> here. >> Mrs. Van Hound and we have a >> Thank you. Uh so this evening we would like to welcome our student representative Jose Ortiz for this year. So welcome and it's your turn. >> Good evening. Uh my name is Jose Ortiz and I'm here tonight representing Dina Muhammad, the student board of education representative for Kepard High School and I'm thrilled to be with all of you tonight. As I enter my senior year, I look forward to talking about all of the amazing
004events that Kepler High School has to offer. As we go into the school year, Kepler High School is working hard to ensure a productive year for all of the students. This year, KHS will continue to follow the eighth period rotating bell schedule that was implemented last year after seeing how successful it was for both students and staff. We look forward to a year full of fun, amazing grades, and school spirit. In the news of sports, the girls volleyball team is thriving as so many new freshmen decide to join the team. After the varsity team participated in the St. John Vienni summer league games, the season ahead looks promising and we wish the girls the best of luck. And yesterday on Tuesday, the boys soccer team has won their first scrimmage of the official season with
005a score of 4-2 against South Boy. Keep up with the great work and we look forward to a successful season. And the football team has been training hard all summer. They had their first game against Manville on Saturday and despite not winning, they played extremely hard and played as a team. And the girls soccer team has had two scrimmages as of now. They won their first scrimmage an impressive score of 5-0. And just now they won with a score of 5-1 against South Damboy. The team is looking strong and dedicated and we wish the girls a great season. And now for class updates. For the class of 2026, they are preparing for their cruise to the Bahamas for their senior class trip. The next payment is due tomorrow, September 4th. Please see Mr. Keelin in
006room 212 with your money. And the class of 2027 held a car wash on fundraiser on August 16th. That was a huge success. They raised over $1,000 for their grade, and it was a huge grade turnout. I'd like to thank you all for having me here tonight. As always, Keyboard High School is always looking hard to ensure an amazing school year for everyone. I'm excited to see what this year has to bring and can't wait to be able to share all the wonderful events with all of you. Thank you to the board of education members for your dedication and making our schools a safe, supportive, and inspiring place for all of our students. Go Red Raiders. >> Thank you, and great job. If Um, if you would like to stay, you can or you can
007go home and get ready for school tomorrow. It is up to you. Uh, you're welcome. We are going to have two presentations this evening. The first one will be the remainder of our activity from the board retreat, Dr. Seavoya and Mrs. White. You want to help the administration accomplish their AI grant goals. We are launching a district-wide AI for a community shank competition for high school students. The goal is for students to develop and pitch an AI generated solution to a specific local problem. We need a complete event concept and a description of a promotional poster to get students and the community excited. Task: Generate the event materials following this twopart structure. Part one, the event concept. Develop a full concept for the competition, including event name, a fun, catchy name for the competition. A
008tagline, a short inspiring tagline. Sample student project. Describe three specific project ideas relevant to Keyport, New Jersey. Each project should clearly state the local problem and the proposed AI solution. The sharks the judges propose a list of four ideal judge archetypes. Um it has all the things example professor from a local university a local tech hub. Okay. So now you know what to do. Go ahead. >> Well I can I'll just try to jump here. And I think if if you thought about this in its context, if this was maybe 10 years ago, this would take hours upon hours to do. And really what our hope here is for you to see how quickly AI can make these types of tasks efficient for you. Um, one of the things that I like to do, and
009the team laughs at me a little bit, is um, I talk to it like it's human. So, I might start by saying um I am a board of education member in Keyport, New Jersey and I have been tasked with creating an event that supports our administrative team and it it will talk it will talk back and forth with you. Um this it's a large language model. We talked a little bit um in the last session regarding that. And so what we could do is you follow the script of what Dr. Seavoya said. The first task for this event, this pseudo event would be creating a fun and catchy name for the competition. So, first you prompt it. I am a board of education member and keyboard. I am supporting our local district with a project.
010The first thing that I want to do is create a fun catchy name for a competition. And Dr. Seo said you can copy the context in and that would also give it more information to prompt it. So, once you maybe do that first event name, we could share out a few things. Shout out your title. >> We'll do one. We'll We'll only do one today. Event name. A fun catchy name for the competition. Yes. No. Would they pro? Yes. >> Yes. >> Large language. And what happens with these large language models is um the more that you interact with it, the more it gets to know you. as crazy as that sounds. So, it is able to understand sort of your behaviors and the way that you write. Um, and it will start to answer
011you based on the information that you've fed it previously. One of the uh people today during uh the PD session said, "Well, h how do we, you know, vet this the resources it gives?" Well, you might have to do some Googling. You might have to put into some scholarly research to, you know, because it is AI. I mean again if you're utilizing it for a paper something like that you'll have to properly source uh quote it APA that kind of stuff but in here I do it similarly to Mrs. white and I'll just start with one of the things and then I'll start going through all of it >> and one of the other things that we're doing here keyboard again some of you have sat on this committee that we started before the grant
012was even written um on the legal end of things we are only allowing our teachers to use vetted resources that are protected for PICOPA um the one that you're using right now is one of those and we you know took the teachers into some professional development with a few others, school AI and Magic School who are also protected as well. Protects our students and when our students leverage and our teachers leverage those tools, they only access uh academic information which are coming up with it. Did anybody come up with anything yet? What do you have Becky? Put your microphone thing on. Sorry. >> It's AIM high or aim high. >> Oh, I like it. like it. Anybody else come up with one yet? Miss >> Tas, I >> have one that's called the keyboard competition
013and competition at a K. >> Rally for the Red Raiders. >> Tas, >> I have the fight. [Music] >> Okay. So, what if you were to say, now give me a tagline and it's just an ongoing what are these called? Bots again? Am I saying that correctly? Or not prompts. Yeah. And they'll it'll save on the right left hand side your prompts that you have in there. That's why it'll start to learn you better how you would react to things. And Mr. and Pablo has taught us, Mr. Gavar has taught us that Gemini really is the most secure. JBT is not. If you already have the title of something, you could say, I now want a tagline for this. You're just continuing this conversation for lack of a better phrase. >> So, was I supposed
014to put the Shark Tank part? >> You could put it in. >> I put that in because I thought you were supposed to. So, mine were all generating like >> the keyport Shark Tank. Make sure you're using the microphone. Things like that. >> So, I made it too. >> Sorry. So, you're seeing how everyone is getting different kinds of things, creative things, the capital A, I, and then the M, the little M, A. um the more you play with it, the more you're going to like learn how to adapt to the tool. Um and again, I I just what I've learned through my usage and it's just as much, you know, as you about year and a half or so, right, of exposure. Um Chat GPT came around November of 22, I think. Um it
015it's it's evolving. We're learning. We were sitting back here. I was talking about David Letterman today and how back in 2020 I'm sorry 1994 I was graduating from high school the internet didn't even exist. So the tools are coming out. They're coming fast. They're adapting. Um it's it's pretty wild. And these kinds of things when I sit and use it I'm like I would have never thought of that title, right? How creative. How catchy. And it did it in seconds. Seconds. That's >> again, you know, it's using it as a resource just like a a Chromebook. That's not you know the instructor. It's a resource. Um there are times where you put it down. There's and what what she we discussed with you at the retreat was the stop signs. We handed out the posters
016today, red, green, yellow, and the teach the kids will start to learn that language of what they can use it for, what they can't. Um, in addition, like one of the things I recently did, and I'm going to hit Pablo up with this one, is I took the schedule for the Mammoth County Round Table. I uploaded into Gemini. I said, "Please create Google calendar events for me." And it did it, but I couldn't invite anybody. And Mr. Kiker said it might be because I have other people sharing my calendar. Like I wanted to invite Mrs. Way to that. So again, completely ADHD from where this is, but it it it you just start asking it things and and seeing what it comes up with. Did anybody get any taglines? They like taglines for number the
017second bullet tag. Mr. Lati Bdder, >> make it sound more catchy. Make it have keyboard. Yes. >> Yeah. [Laughter] Yeah, I got >> Okay, so now take it a step further. Put in sample student projects and put that sentence in there and see what they come up with as far as the projects. Yeah, the third bullet on the up there. Sample student. Okay, and it's on here too. Just forget. Sure. We will be shifting from that. Yeah. There are five resources that we're that we've added that the students will use. Like she spoke to T AI, Magic School, and I want to call it magic school bus, but it's magic school. And then what we're going to do is end up turning off chat GPT so that we can keep kids more secure with Gemini
018because that's one of his >> it definitively Mr. Gvar could speak to the fact that it is more secure for schools um and and we can police that for lack of a better phrase with students and keep things more secure for them and safe. But as far as the resources are concerned, Stephanie, Miss Boy worked with that group and they did some research on them. They met with the people. They went over there. It's very robust. Today, I'm not going to lie. When I did the one on uh Magic School, the the plethora of things that it could do in there was a little anxiety evoking because you could really go to town in there for hours and hours. So you need to you know think about a specific task I believe of what you're
019looking to do and kind of learn and build your confidence in that capacity or academic year importance there is um the furpa and copa they're vetted as protected resources um for students to use rather than opening up the floodgates and again there's so many out there and I I was saying today to the faculty I mean many of us fell in love with the first one that we knew which was chat GPT. So it's going to be like breaking a bad habit you know because I was so familiar with that and I need to when I'm working at work make sure I'm using the yes the Gemini. Um but I've really started we have notebook LM too. Um I recently took the New Jersey Department of Education broadcasts about the recent changes to the test.
020I downloaded them into Notebook LM and it spat out a 5 08 minute video podcast for our teachers that literally took the information from the DOE and populated it out to them in a way that is very user friendly and engaging as opposed to saying hey faculty here's the text of the New Jersey broadcast that you know they're all a little unsettled about anyway. Um, so now they have a quick video that'll, you know, and then we can enhance on that ourselves. And that's where we we say we don't want to steal the learning, but I can still put that learning out there. Um, pass the tool, >> any sample student projects? >> Yeah. >> What' you get, Dennis? >> There's have five. >> Okay. Pick your favorite. >> Well, no. I'll just go through.
021There's the beayhore water quality sentinel port traffic flow optimizer >> beayhore historical AI. >> Yeah. >> And I I really like this one >> needs bot. >> Yeah. >> And for climate risk. I got I got similar ones because and what the one I thought you'd like is historic keyport preservation and a tutoring and resource recommener community event planner and volunteer matcher one square mile traffic optim optimizer rarit and bay water quality monitor. This could be like your new I don't know if anybody you know at night like sometimes I'll scroll through you know my obligatory scroll through Facebook or something like that. You could sit there for an hour at one time an hour went by and I was still dingyping in different inquiries. Yes, absolutely. If you actually read the sorry if you
022read the descriptions of them too there's like it's crazy because I had put in two high I put put in my square high school by the water red raider and it I mean this could have come straight from I did mine a little I think I wasn't very >> ask question and it broke mine up for on and then like >> see now you're differentiating in truck for the different >> so it did break it up. >> Yeah. Yeah, you are. You are. >> Yeah, that's really good. >> Yeah, I was going to say mine broke it up between community focused um educational focused um health and wellness. Yeah. So, uh, the the more that you use the tool, you'll learn like how to feed it, the information, and play with it and say, "I
023don't like that idea. Give me something that's like that, but I want more of this in it." Um, and again, the more that you utilize the tool and get to familiarize yourself with it, more comfortable that you feel. I'm thinking about this as a project. Let's say without AI, you give this project a team of students. Okay. You say get >> and this is your group project and they're working on it together and they're sharing ideas. I mean, we've all been in that situation, right? It's exciting, it's fun, bouncing ideas, oh, we got to come, right? It's it's fun, but I could see this is so much easier and quicker. This will isolate. So, how would you that that encourage student. >> I still think that's instructional and it's orientation. If the teacher is a
024solid tier one instructor, if they're going to do all of those things, whether whatever the tool is there, yes, that's a little bit more qu, you know, actually a lot more quick. So, I was saying differently, but if I had a group lesson and Dennis was the record keeper, you were the timekeeper, you know, you were the notetaker, I still would say you would oversee that in that capacity. Going to take some transition. And as a teacher, I feel the support that I saw today and M. She handled it both sessions with them, it I think if they feel supported and feel trust trustworthy, meaning like they can come and ask any questions, they're going to feed off of that. They're going to come to us. They're going to ask >> uh I ago as
025um as after our after our retreat I think that I think that the I understand I need to understand isn't going away >> it's going to be AI is going to be And it's gonna change, you know, it's >> it changed the dynamic of educ >> just like the internet did, right? So now what you know, right? Encyclopedias went away. I used to love browsing, you know, but once forget about it. It just it it, >> you know, contributed to my ADD. I I just want to finish up real quick. My my thought is that um is or my question how is how is how is this going to make the students harder or inquisitive and uh uh deepen their knowledge rather than simplify it have AI do all the work after it? That's the
026that's the challenge in >> I think it is a challenge and I I'm just going to to extend on what Dr. Seavoya said um and and use a phrase that we've heard in our own training with Kiker is as educators we have to ensure that this tool is not stealing the learning right so when we are standing in front of a group of kids or creating the activity we have to be very cognizant of how are we utilizing the tool effectively maybe to help them with their efficiency but not take away the learning um because and I I mentioned this to the to the faculty today in our first training um when November 20 and I think it was November of 2022 and we found Chachi PT they found it with us and they were
027doing exactly what we were doing trying to find efficient ways to use it and for them that was writing an essay instead of having to spend 50 minutes to do it. So now what we've learned in these years and what we're even learning through the grant is um we have to have that literacy. We as educators have to stand in front of the students and teach them how to use that tool. Um, so it's going to take some time and some creativity. Um, and I'm looking forward to utilizing our staff. We have young staff too that are really excited just like Dennis shared. I went home after the retreat and I started to look into this more and I started to learn more about it. We have faculty members doing the same thing and we
028love when they turn key and we plan on doing that, you know, as we continue forward. >> That is >> well and the last thing I'll say on there too is I think about this from my days in teaching special education. If I can teach that reading skill, that comprehension skill, those kids can read and comprehend, I'm exposing them to things they may not have been exposed to and letting their minds steer them a little bit as well. But going back to like Grant Wiggins and understanding by design, you you as a teacher that climate shifts. You need to be very comfortable with not being a sage on a stage and being a facilitator because they're going to find something that you didn't know and that's just the way that's going to be. But it's
029what are you going to do with that? and grow that in in a in a responsible way. >> I also just want to me >> Oh, I was just gonna mention too the students use it as a tool too. Even with my one daughter who has learning disabilities, she's able to put in because we did this last year like >> what are the important events of this time period and it gave it in an outline so it pulled out the important things and she learned it because she wasn't sifting through everything. It was pulling out those points. >> So yeah, I think it's it's going to grow with us. Must as though you were waiting for a while. >> I My >> hurt our children emotionally, mentally >> and is this going to >> less
030interaction and with >> I think some of that is soietal and I'm telling it I don't like the >> I think I think just like the internet just like cell phones just like all those things that's where parenting I think is going to become challenging as well because They need to support their learners as well. I think at school we're going to have you know we have Mr. Gvar to put a block on this a block on that and we're we're teaching the teachers or we're learning with the teachers. Let me rephrase that of how to do that. I is anything I don't want to sound corny, but is and too much of anything good, you know, like I think you just need to pick what activity you're doing. And like I said, I'm really
031thinking of it from a special education perspective. And I'm obviously we're both different in our our skill sets, which is great, but I'm thinking those kids who would get frustrated and I taught emoti self-contained teenagers who couldn't read. Well, I'm not going to call them out and they're going to have more of a an access to something. But yes, could any could it be bad? It could be. But I think that's our jobs to make sure that we're navigating that with them. >> Not gonna take away have to work. >> Okay. >> We're still keeping that in >> I think it's going to strengthen because then you know what the teacher is becoming that facilitator. You're you know you're saying Dennis you're the notetaker. you were the timekeeper and you're the, you know, um, writer
032on the whatever, you're you're still doing those roles but from a different capacity using a different resource. >> I think just to kind of piggyback on what you said earlier, Dennis, as you've read, um, whether we like it or not, um, this is the future. Um, if you leave, you know, today's session and you go home and you start to read a little bit more about it, it's it's coming. um AI education and what we it is and and you will see it in your doctor's offices and you know your lawyer offices and just even writing an email and they're starting to write it for it itself. We were talking about the adaptive tests back there Tim and I I mean whether we like it or not it's going and and I think the the
033the takeaway I would want you to have from this evening is we have a responsibility to teach AI literacy. So, in my role, in in Dr. Seavoya's role, we have to make sure that our teachers are trained and literate in AI. And that's what we're doing right now. And that's what we've been doing with the grant funds. They then have a job, right, to make sure that our students are AI literate as they move forward. And I think, you know, you're going to see over the time period that it's we're starting at a certain grade level. We started in in high school and that's going to get lower and lower those grade levels. Um and we do have a roll out for that. We started in high school. We've just went down to middle school
034recently and we're going to be training K to 5 in um October. >> Think that the other mantra garbage out. And so AI isn't going to discover a cancer if we're not providing data >> that sets it on the path to do that. I think that's what might be well >> my thinking is that that is what's important in students. Sure AI eventually might find a cure for cancer. That is an >> uh but It's not going to be able to do it without human without very very artic I I want I I I my hope is and it sounds to me like it's going to that the value of what ask you're you're inputting into AI is just as important as what's produced. >> Exactly. So, this was just one example we went through
035tonight. Oh, go ahead, please. >> The whole thing, right? >> Uh down to how you do >> how to go about it with through five different segments. Anyway, >> it was probably you could if someone was designing something very rational. >> Uh but my question obvious are what is the price of >> so you're talking like just I was writing a paper I'm going to APA how I'm going to site the sources >> that's a really good example because >> if it doesn't get sort >> asking it source it >> it will obey your command and come up with fake >> right but I'm just to do something right as something to project that down to project actually >> right it gave you the sourcees at at the end of each bid right >> but
036that's my question so it pul it got it from >> where did it get it from answer that >> well it's funny if I chat GPT actually you wear >> where? >> So, believe it or not, it comes from large language models. You might even want to jump into it, but I the more information that's fed into the internet, it pulls from that. So, the answers that you're getting is just the tool is reading the information that's coming from down from the from the internet. >> Describe what that means. So there's several different chatt is one. Um Gemini is another um these are just specific tools or right um and again I can't I can't get too specific because I don't know right in terms of in terms of you know um you know Google
037controls some of them and so on and so forth. Um but there are several different types of large language models that are out there. I said my preference the first tool I knew it's like breaking a habit but I'll still use it at home my chat GPT because it's the model that I've used but that has that is pulling information from the internet in one way Gemini is pulling it from the internet in another way >> sorry I question >> um how do we know it's not pulling from like misinformation sites >> well that's why vetting these resources and you don't in the end you don't that's why we're coming as close to Gemini I knowing that that's keeping the kids safe. School AI um magic school and AI school school AI you know what
038those are vetted by people who are bigger than me or bigger than us right and would come into as professionals being able to and I think this is what Dr. voice said, "When we started being able to know what our kids have in their hands, checking for bias, checking for validity of resourcing, um these tools that we're using are not perfect." And it's kind of like when we go back to the internet and we say, "You can't trust everything that you read on the internet. You can't, you know, we could go home and search up anything, right? But we can't necessarily, it's up to us, you know, where are we going to take the information that we acquire from that?" Um, and it's going to be the same for this tool. um for our students.
039We're getting information and we're getting it quick, right? Um >> as opposed to the assignments, the red, green, yellow, because they're the teachers are going to say, "Okay, great." You know, I'm thinking my dissertation. That's the I would have loved this for that. Um but with that, you needed to have scholarly research. You had to have uh sources that were not just, you know, from the internet, if you will. So, my point being with that is if they're writing a paper, they're still going to go and do those those assignments. That may be a red assignment for this one because they're still learning how to quote sources and then with no time if there it isn't already uh APA and ML MLA MLA oh my gosh all those papers I wrote are going to have
040how you quote something from AI it's going to be one of the ways you know whether you're paraphrasing or direct quoting or direct citing something to that capacity I like to still have to work to learn. >> Yeah. Right. >> But it technique help you actual learn. And in closing for this one, a real life thing that I did, I went to California and I said, "Okay, what are the top five things I need to see in those days?" Then I said, "Okay, crud. I need to know how much money they are." Oh, great crud. Which is the best time of day to go? Which and it really it was really helpful. Again, nothing foolproof, but it was a lot better than going through the hours and hours of research. So, for us as administrators,
041we're really, you know, very thankful for it as well because it's showing us some things. Mr. Gar is working with us, too. He's learning every day. Um it's it's just there's so much there to go with secretaries and I I want to call them admin assistants, but when we do PD in October, we're going over that stuff with them. How can they make somebody's schedule better? How can they make a newsletter? How can they make a flyer? Just ways that they can work more efficiently. So we know as adults, to me, it helps with my efficiency. I'm not going to take spend. I'm going to take that plan. I'm going like, okay, great. Maybe I can buy Rosetta Stone for 12 bucks. But I learned from that that I could do that versus having to,
042you know, it does make life simpler. It does. >> Um, even if you go to Google nowadays, there's an AI summary at the top. >> Yes. >> So, I I saw somewhere that clicks to uh news websites are down like 70% since they did that. >> Good. >> Right. >> But it's going to change a lot of business models for a lot of lot of a lot of businesses out there. >> So, for sake of time, we'll do the another one. We'll save this one. We'll do it another one and we'll do another day. We'll come up with another a source. We'll let Tim take over. >> Would you like I I would like to do it. I love doing that. Okay. So, that's great. Tim will work with you so they can get time
043for it and we'll make him facilitate it and >> Oh, have you do some homework? I like that. >> Yeah, I like that. Okay, great. Okay, Mrs. White's going to go home because she's getting ready for school to start and we're going to let Tim take over. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. Uh so our second presentation this evening is going to be communication and community relations um from Dr. Tim Tehan, the NJSBA representative. >> Yes, AI is is very interesting and the one of the things that you guys brought up that we have to teach our students is not to just accept whatever comes out of it. that there are going to be cited alleged sources. They actually then need to go and look at those sources and read through those sources. So,
044it's not just accepting whatever comes out. And your example about like, you know, is AI going to find the cure for cancer? It's not. However, because it's it's still going we're still going to need scientists that are going to go out there and do the actual research. Then they're going to publish whatever data they have. and AI will be that tool that will be able to go out and look at all these different data sources from around the world from all the people that are doing that research to help narrow in maybe in on what could be a potential uh cure. So, you know, we are definitely in the infant stages of this. Everyone is, you know, and uh you know, you heard before about how, you know, we're learning as we go. We truly
045are. And um our kids are learning as well and they're going to learn probably faster than we do as adults. And you know, that's where we have to kind of keep up because they will find the workarounds to anything that we put up. So to say, "Oh, we're not going to let them use it or they're going to use it." Whether they're using the ones that the school has or they're going to do it on their own at home using a different tool, they're still going to use it. They're going to figure out. So we just need to teach them how to do it responsibly just like we would with any other tool. Um, I I did an afterchool program that was woodworking for kids and I created it as a summer program and as
046part of that we had kids as young as first grade doing this and I had a second grader and his his grandmother was on the board and he said to her, "Is Dr. Tian crazy? He's going to give tools, saws, hammers to first graders? Is he crazy? this is a dumb idea. She told me that and I said okay well we'll see what happens. They did it. That same child came forward and said this was the best idea ever and the kids were taught these are the tools and this is how you use it responsibly and therefore you know they had to follow directions and all of that and they were able to build all sorts of things. And so um you know it's interesting that you can do this and you can give them
047tools that they've never used before. You just got to teach them how to use it. And that's really how you have to look at all of this. It's just another tool and we just have to teach them how to use it. We have to teach our teachers how to use it as well. And as administrators, you got to learn how to use it as well. I mean, everyone is kind of learning as you go. And I I do like the idea of you guys continuing this with different uh projects and stuff because even the project that was there, you guys did like I I I thought of how you guys could have done this as a large group. You all put in basically your own prompts and from that you could have then shared and
048then had a discussion about what did you come up with, what did you come up with, which one do we like better because we can only pick one. And so then when you were saying are we going to lose that interaction? You're not. You're just bringing it to a different level. And so you know like I said there there's so much potential there. You just have to rethink how you're going to do instruction. You got to rethink about how you're going to approach projects because kids love projects. that's how they're going to learn and it's more real world like that same project that you had there that was a lot of information gathering but you could bring that then to the next level and you could say okay now create a PR campaign which is
049going to kind of go into this a PR campaign for one of those projects that you're doing create a prototype an actual working model of whatever it is that you're going to highlight and so once again you're bringing in other avenues and you're bringing it to another level and so you know and I got to say with PR you You know, I've had a couple two other districts now that have asked me to do something on AI and I've actually talked about you guys with your AI because you guys did get the grant and I was actually sharing with them about your your different colored um map of you know whether it's no AI or all AI and you know variations in between. So you know you guys are going to end up being that
050district that other districts are going to look at to say well what did they do? where did they miss that because you will miss that and you know they're going to be looking to you. So you know feel free to learn and stumble along the way and then share out those pitfalls that you encounter as well as your successes and that really does lead it into public relations because you guys are going to want to put this information out there. You're going to want to talk to all the other districts that are out there about how you guys have this AI grant and the wonderful things that you're doing with it because there's I don't remember how many you said Dr. that had it that received it this past year. Was it like seven districts
051received 10 out of all the districts in the state of New Jersey? 10. So you got to know that other districts are going to be looking at what you're doing. Okay. So just know you're under that microscope, good or bad or otherwise. So um why does PR matter? That's where you always got to I always say you got to start with the why. Like why are we doing what we're doing? Why do why do we even care what anyone in the community or other districts or other schools or parents why do we care that they know what's going on here? There's a lot of reasons and so you got to look at that first and the first one is why we're all here. Once again, you know, you had a student represent representative tonight which
052is awesome and I think that's one of the things that the state the mandate that they said like anyone that has a high school has to have a student rep at their board meetings. I think it's a great thing and you know that it shows that you are also student centered. you are focusing on the students and you're listening to the students. You're allowing them to express themselves, bring in information, share information with you and the community. So, highlighting your students is one of the main things that you should be doing as a board. That is a major PR campaign because that's why we're here. You're creating opportunities for your students and so you want to be able to highlight those. You can highlight student achievement, good, bad, or otherwise. You still want to highlight
053it. extracurricular programs, activities, and clubs. It's not all about sports, okay? It's all about the other things as well. Um, innovative efforts. Once again, AI, you guys are doing some innovative things here. That's you're going to want to be highlighting those. And then shows that the board prioritizes student successes. So when you guys as a board and you guys as a district are looking and focusing on your students and the success that they're having and the wonderful learning experiences that they're basically engaging in, then you are really prioritizing those successes. It also builds community trust and transparency. You know, that seems to be one of the key words now you're hearing. Oh, you're not being transparent. Okay, you know, maybe that's true for some districts, but for a lot of districts it's not. But you
054have a major and you and not to bring up sore subjects, but you guys have taxpayers that I know came out at the end of last year and that's you're not unique in that way. Other districts had the same thing. So as a school district, even though our primary focus are our students, always have to take into consideration our taxpayers. So we need to answer these questions, which is how is the money being spent? Because I don't think anyone, whether you have kids in school or don't, really mind money being spent on the education of students. Because the reality is we're all going to get old and we're going to need to re rely on those students to actually have good occupations so they can support us in our old age financially. Okay? Uh we
055don't want social security to dry up. We're going to need that money. Um so, you know, they're going to want to know how is that money being spent. So they're not worried necessarily about paying it out though we all know that you know financially ourselves that can become a drain and a concern. But if they know that the innovative things that you're doing they know that the success rate that you're having with your students that makes them say well this might be a really good investment because as we all know ultimately one of our biggest um investments is really our homes. And so if we're a really good school district then people are going to want to move here. And if people are going to want to move here, what's going to happen? The value
056of our homes are going to go up. Yes, our taxes go up with it, but our value of our homes will go up. So that at whatever point in time we decide we want to sell, we're going to retire to wherever. No longer Florida. Everyone's moving somewhere else now. Um but wherever that may be that you decide to go, maybe it's Alaska. Um wherever you go to, you can take then that money that you know you you now have that you didn't have before. and it's because of the school districts and that's one of the things you have to promote to your taxpayers is, you know, it's basically going to benefit them in the long run. Um, how decisions are being made. So, they want to know that you guys as a district have actually
057thought about what you're doing and why you're doing it and and able to really share that publicly with your community so they're aware of it. Um, proactive communication is the best, not reactive. Too often we do operate from a reactive standpoint where something happens and all of a sudden, you know, we're trying to get information out. Like I said, I live in Middletown. That was probably the most reactive experience that we've had in recent times where they talked about all of a sudden closing three schools or closing two and moving everyone to one school was very reactive at that point because there wasn't a lot of front-loading of information to the community. And so people then overreact instead of getting that. So you got to think about, you know, information that's out there. You want
058to make sure you're the one that's giving information because we all know there's a lot of m misinformation out there. Social media is the bane of I think everyone's existence because things are touted as being fact. Just like we just said with AI, it spits something out and you say, "Well, is it really factual or is it made up? Are they made up sources?" Well, it's no different than these social media sites where information is put out there by somebody and it may or may not be based in true facts. A lot of times there's some snippets of true information, but a lot of it is just speculation. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. I I just I just browsed >> and I'm not speaking for the rest of the but I know this. I know I what
059you're what you're presenting is stuff that I already know. >> Okay. >> Um and we can continue. That's fine. But what I don't see is how are we going to do this? This this is citing what what the issues are and what we need to these are the wise. And keep going. There's the house in there. >> So I can jump ahead. So if you look no I I will though because you can kind of see here's the hows. these are the effective approaches that are being used in school districts across the nation >> and um so I don't know if that's what you're looking for or you're looking for something different than that. >> No, go ahead >> because I might be able to speak to whatever it is too. >> So so I
060think what we do have is digital presence. >> Yep. >> Right. And um we do on occasion highlight student we try to have two-way communication um storytelling something that maybe we don't do. Um but so so are we relying on our current staff do this kind of thing? What I'm is where I'm going >> in some ways. Yes. So I'll use I'll jump ahead to storytelling because that that's actually um to me that's an important one because you have to tell your own story for the district and one of the best ways that you can tell your own story is have your students tell it. So it's not your staff, it's actually your students. So I'll give you an example. We tried this where um we were hearing from students that came new to the
061district that had never been there before and they didn't know what to expect. So we know as adults we can sit there and we can b those kids aren't picking any of that up. So what we did was we actually had our kids talk and record themselves and give them like a tour of the district and of programs and talk about what their their the experience will be for them at all the different age levels. So those new kids that were coming in were able to see that before they ever stepped through the door and that as you know could imagine for a child eas that that concern and that tension that they may have coming to school. So that's like one example of it. Another example would be um in your high school you
062have a program of studies right where you list all the courses that the kids can take and it gives you a little blurb of what that that that course is right before I left the district. One of the things we tried to do, and I don't know how far they got after I left, but we were taking each one of those courses and we were having our staff in conjunction with our students, look at those courses and then highlight in a video format of those courses. And so they would have snippets of different activities that the kids experienced during the year. So, I'll give you and this came up because one of the students had brought up um how if they had known that this engineering course that we offered was what it was, they
063absolutely would have signed up for it. They didn't know. And the only reason they found out was when they got to the end of the year and those kids were highlighting or showcasing what they had created as projects and the kids were absolutely amazed. So were the showcases part of uh um instructional the the the syllabus? >> So so the kids a program of studies when kids are signing up for courses and they're looking at what course they're going to take especially the electives they actually it was a hyperlink they would click on it's PDF so they would click on it and it would actually then bring up the video. >> No no no. So, was the video was was creating the video part of a graded project or anything like that? >> It was
064not. >> Um, in the case of the high school, that was not, but we did have other projects that we had kids do that were part of and and so for example, in our middle school, those kids did create projects that were going to be used within the schools, whether it be elementary, middle, or high school, depending on what the identified need was. and it was part of their project and it was something that they were graded on. >> Wonderful. So, >> so can we just continue with the presentation because we do have to do certain things to get credit for this for our certification. >> This is all fine. This is >> so that's why these are being presented by him. >> Um and then when we get to those parts then people can
065ask questions. Thank you. >> Once again it's totally fine and you can stop me at any time and and I I can try to bring up examples. Um, I'm going to be the first one to say to you, I am not an expert. And I don't think anyone out there, even your PR firms are not experts. They will make mistakes. And when they make those mistakes, they will try to fix them. Um, what you don't want to be is that school district that does a PR or puts information out there and then you become posted or or highlighted on the news. Um, and there's a lot of districts that have done that and so you don't want to be that. I just totally went through the other way. >> Yeah, go right ahead. >> I
066don't if we're going to answer this in another um section, let me know. When you say uh let the taxpayers know how the money is being spent, >> do you mean like um more than going over >> Yep. So, and not to put the BA on on notice here, but when you're doing your budget presentation, um, in a lot of districts, it tends to be way up here, like the community doesn't understand all the different things that you're doing. So, for my BA and myself, we sat down and we actually created a presentation that was very um, community-minded and was in language that the community would understand. And so when we were saying we're allocating money for these items, we then connected it to the goals of our strategic plan or the district goals that
067were going on in the district and we were able to then talk about or elaborate a little bit on why we were doing it. So they weren't just hearing, okay, you know, we're going to spend, you know, x amount of millions of dollars on on this. They were to hear why. And so for example, like turf fields, we had five turf fields. a lot of money for if you know turf fields they cost a lot of money. We had five of them and so it's basically a 10-year refresh cycle. So when we were looking at our budget and we were sharing with the community that we were putting aside hundreds of thousands of dollars each year out of our budget for the turf fields, they're like, "Yeah, but you're not doing the turf fields every
068year." No, we're not. But what we don't want is 10 years from now to get hit with a huge bill. And we were able to explain that not just for ourselves, but we were in a send receive relationship with a K to8 district. So they had to pay us tuition based upon, you know, the expenses at the high school level. So, it was a way for us to not only explain to our taxpayers, but to theirs, too, how we look at our funding, our budgeting in a way that takes them into consideration so they don't see these these spikes and these drops in their bills from us and so that their taxes stay pretty pretty level in terms of, you know, the impact. So, that that would be an example of how you address it
069with taxpayers. And you're going to be looking at all these and you're going to have to say, okay, that this is more general. So specifically for us in our district and the issues that we have in our district, what would be our approach? Maybe your taxpayers don't care, but I think in every single district, they do care. >> And you would highlight the things we were oozing, too. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you know what? Every district for years, we've been talking about the financial cliff. We've been talking about how every district is heading to the financial cliff. You just did not want to be the first one over because everyone else was going to be saying, "Look at them. They fell over the cliff. Look at Jackson right now. Everybody's talking about Jackson School District.
070They were the first ones to start to sell buildings. Middletown is another one. But they're not the only ones. You're going to be see a lot more districts are going to be heading into that same financial cliff. So it's important that you're sharing that those constraints, those financial constraints that you're under. The same thing is it's important to talk about how some of the funding, which is a big part of everything that you do within a school is linked to many unknowns. We don't necessarily know where we're going to be with federal funding. We don't know where we're going to be with state funding. Is all that because we still want to maintain all of our programs. Is it all going to shift to local? And if it does, what's going to be the financial
071impact? So setting that ahead for your community that these are the potentials, it shifts the blame from you when you all of a sudden you say, "Hey, we're coming up at a 25% tax increase to really where it deserves to be, which is not necessarily with you." Correct. Right. But if you're explaining that ahead of time and you're being proactive and you're and you're explaining the positives and negatives of the different things, the same things as when districts were rece they were underfunded so they were receiving extra money. Explaining how you were spending that extra money. Um what some districts were doing when the COVID money came in. That's another perfect example. Explaining how you were spending your COVID money. Some districts are spending it on recurring expenses. The problem with that is that COVID
072money was a one-time revenue stream. So therefore, it districts that used it for one-time expenses were in a good place when there was no more COVID money. Or for example, and we did this, we did hire um staff members that were going to provide intervention for students. We said this would be a two-year position. We said it right from the start that this is we have one-time funds coming in that's going to be there for two years and this is how we're spending the money. So once again this is a way of of highlighting what you're doing with the money, why you're doing what you're doing with the money and when there whether there's going to be an end to it or not. And if there is an end then when those positions are eliminated
073people aren't like well they're still going to be but they're not going to be like what we didn't know that those positions were eliminated. No. When we told you we were creating them, we told you also we were eliminating them. So there's there's no um no surprises. People won't always listen to it, though. So like I said, you can say it and you can put it out there, but they don't always listen. >> That was going to be my point was that you could put out all the information you want, but if you don't have an audience for it, then >> they don't pay attention until it's too correct. You know, >> correct. He's going to be your resource for the entire community. Sure. Mhm. Correct. Correct. And that's where you're so that's where once
074again you're going to look at being proactive. And so now and you kind of are going to learn from the hurdles that you encountered through that. That's a perfect example of everything that happened with that. Where you felt the struggles are are where you're going to try to develop a plan that you're going to utilize moving forward. And not just for when a crisis hits, but all the time. So for example with that um if you guys as a board have a unified message that you want to get out there you can create that as a team using AI if you want but whatever it might be you're going to create that message and then you have to figure out where are we placing that message how are we getting that message out there because
075as much as we give it to him he might not get that message out correctly because we know that the old game of phone where you had the two can tin cans and or if I whisper in your ear, you whisper down the line, however way way you want to do it, the message gets changed along the way. And not that we don't trust you, but you know, we're going to give you the message and we know it's not going to come out exactly the same way. So, you have to make sure that whatever pathways that you're using that you have a preconstructed message that you're putting there and then you're reiterating that over and over and over. And I use that, like I said, I'm jumping around, which is totally fine, but I use
076that even in crisis situations. As a superintendent, you deal with crisis situations all the time. You don't, as a board know of all the crisis situations that she deals with. Some are minor crisis, some are major crisis. One of the things we learned was that when you're in the middle of a crisis, you don't want to be trying to create the messaging at that point. So, we actually created a whole um database, archive, whatever you want to call it, of pre-made messages that we highlighted certain words that we knew we were going to change based upon the situation. We set up a system where those messages were immediately sent to our secretaries in each one of the buildings. Why? Who gets all the phone calls? The secretaries. So, they are on the firing line. So
077you want to give them the message that they would repeat over and over and over and that's all they would say. They would stick to the message. So you're they're being we're being proactive by creating it where when the situation arrives for we have a system in place that we can quickly send out that messaging so everyone is armed with it and we had those protocols and individuals that were assigned to those duties in place way ahead of time. So when the crisis hit, we were able to handle it. Once again, didn't mean that the community still didn't think we were being transparent. They did. They were still complaining we weren't being transparent enough. But as I share within this, one of the things that you as a board may not even be aware of
078is that when their police are involved or when the prosecutor's office is involved, your hands as a school district are really tight. Really tight. I had a teacher that got arrested at school. They did not inform me that they were coming. They did not even inform the police department. They told the police department, "Meet us at the school." This is the prosecutor's office. The police went there. They were like, "What's going on?" They went in and they took the teacher out. When they went into the building, they said to the principal, "Do not call your superintendent." And he's like, "I have to call my superintendent." They're like, "No, you don't. You're not calling the superintendent." So, he said, "Well, I don't want you guys to go down to this teacher's classroom. can I go down
079and get him? And they were like, "Yes, we'll allow you to do that, but don't say anything to him." And he said, "Okay." So, as he's going down, he sends me a quick message and he says, "Prosecutor's office is here. Police are here. Just letting you know. They told me I can't tell you." And so, he got the the the staff member out. And of course, then you could imagine kids saw police cars. You know what happens then? Everyone hears about it. And then it had parents calling the school saying, "What's going on? I was not allowed to put out a statement. The prosecutor's office said, "You are not permitted to make any kind of statement." Why? Why can't I say something? Because I have parents that are knocking on my door. Because you could
080impede our investigation. You may share something we don't want you to share. So, they actually write up what you're going to communicate and they tell you when you're going to communicate it. They will communicate it first and then they call you and say, "Okay, we just sent it out. Now you can." So you as a board are going to be asking the superintendent for information. She's not even going to be able to share it with you. The community is definitely going to be asking for information. She can't share that with them. So within the communication, that's when she can share what they said and she could put in there, this comes directly from the prosecutor's office. This is all I'm permitted to share with you. But similar to to you Tim with the principal when
081I >> would be in that position I immediately text the board president vice president so that if anybody's out there I don't have time for 10 people and they and this group is very good with that they know that if something they hear they can call those two because I'll immediately send something to them. So just like that principal would I do the same. We had a scenario in the district about eight years ago, I think nine years ago, where there was a robbery at the gas station up at the corner. They put us on lockdown. They thought that that person could be here. I I want to say, Perry, you were you with me then? Did I even have you? I don't recall. Long story. Yeah, I was going to say, Perry, you were
082here. I remember saying, you know, as they're going through each building, cleaning each people were all I'm horrible their kids. Then as soon as it was over, I typed up something because the scenario was not one prescribed. Perry read it within minutes. >> Y >> we pushed it out and then you know the comments came down. In the end, >> my job is to keep those kids safe and that's what I'm doing. >> Um so I agree with everything you just said. >> It's not easy. crisis situations are the hardest and that's where it actually is the most important that you're as prepared with what your PR is going to be beforehand and you know how to get the information out there like for your student information system parents I don't know yours particularly but
083parents sometimes with these student information systems can elect how they want to receive messages whether they want email text you know phone call whatever it might be in the case of an emergency what is the preferred method so normal stuff versus emergency Um, so you know, knowing that, you know, that you're putting the information out there in the the communication streams that parents want to receive it in. So you have to look at this then from a broader one. When you're talking not just about crisis situations, but the everyday PR, the everyday PR means you have to find out where your community is getting their information. We know they're getting it from some social media sites, some of them. It may be specific groups. It may be, you know, just in general what's posted out
084there. Um, you I don't know and every community is going to be different. You also have to look at your populations. Where are your students getting information versus where are your parents of your students getting information? Where are your community members who do not have any kids in the school getting their information? Because those are your three chunk groups. And you have to make sure that you understand where they get their information. So you get information out to them through those avenues that they're going to. And so that's that's a whole not on you as a board. That's more the superintendent and her team where they will look and figure out how they're getting that information. You as a board do have a role in that and your role is to keep your ears open
085because you will hear in the community somebody say, "You know what? I heard on Facebook in the mom's tomoms group because those mom to moms groups are always the worst in moms to mom's group of keyboard you know they said I don't know if you guys actually have one that's called that but I'm sure you do something like that but they said blah blah blah blah blah blah right there you know that that's a source that people are going to and you got to figure out how to get information on that then yep >> that leads to the next problem that they put out false information and even when you try to give them the right information they don't want the right information. They want to harp on the wrong information. So, how do you
086get them to do that? >> So, you're people that want to be angry, you're not going to change their mind. You're really not. And the only thing you can do though is be proactive as much as as proactive as you can be and getting the information out first. Secondly, you can only put the correct information out there and keep putting it out there over and over and over. If that same thing is there, um, you're not going to change their minds and you're not going to be able to make them see your point of view. You can only share. And sometimes you have to say we have to agree to disagree because you're not always going to be on the same page. And, you know, it's a hard one to take, but that's just the
087reality of how things are. Because if you think about even the larger society, we're very divided and people aren't they'll hear something that you think is very rational and they'll still respond in in what you would consider an irrational manner. You're not going to that. So, you can only do your due diligence by being as transparent as you can, by getting the information out there as quickly and clearly as possible in a language that they understand based upon facts, not fiction that people are making up. um and just keep repeating it out through those revenue those communication streams which maybe would be revenue streams too. I don't know. Um so I'll just kind of zip through I already said that. Um these are all the positive things it does create when you have you're constantly
088giving information about your district out there. When you want to start something new, people will stand behind it because and I'll use your AI as an example. When you're talking about spending money on even though you got a grant, when you're talking about spending money on possibly rewriting curriculum that might not be covered within the grant, it's okay to share with your community that this is not covered by the grant, but it will further support our efforts within this area. And this is why we think it's so important because as we all said tonight, it's not going away. It's going to happen. So, we need to prepare our kids for it. And so, this is what we're doing as a district as proactively as we can. So when you create those initiatives, then people understand
089why you're doing those initiatives. The staff understands why you're doing those initiatives and everyone can stand behind it as best as you can get. Um I already said about crisis, the biggest thing is clear communications that are at a level that everyone can understand, timely, as timely as you can get them out there. Um be honest, pros and cons. Yep. >> In a crisis situation is Dr. Seavoya or the superintendent allowed to say or not allowed to put out a comment. Now >> she can depending on what the situation is. Absolutely. >> People don't think they're being ignored. >> Right. You can you can say something along the lines of yes, there was an incident at the high school u with social media and alleged threat on social media. The police are involved and we
090are fully investigating it. We have nothing more to report at this time, but all students are safe. That's it. that you don't have anything more to go because you're still doing that. I had a situation which was exactly that. It was a social media threat that the school was going to be blown up. And we talked to probably no less than 130 kids and I had seven police officers there from the detective unit that were going through student after student. We were doing it. We went through all these students and they would all say, "I didn't actually see it, but I heard it from so- and so." Then you have to go to so- and so. So you can understand how many hours this took. When we finally got down to the let's say the
091number one suspect, you know, the one kid who was the one that all the fingers are pointing to, he said, "Well, I did see it, but um it wasn't necessarily for here." It ended up being the same name of the school district in a totally different state. It had nothing to do with us. And when we even tried to find the post, it was when the police investigated, it was actually a post that was made by somebody overseas. It wasn't even in the United States. So, you know, we communicated what we could, but it was a long multiple hours uh process of trying to figure out what the heck really was going on and whether there was an issue. And then after we figured all this out, we then had to communicate what actually transpired.
092and as much as we could because you can't name students. Um, but that the police were involved, a thorough investigation was done, that no one was ever in danger. It ended up not being a credible threat to our school district. Um, and where it was a threat, even not credible anyway, we did notify the other school district in the other state. Parents still said, "We don't believe you." I can't tell you what else. I mean, there's nothing more I can give you than that. And um we had that day parents coming to school pulling their kids out. We saw half of those kids come back the next day and then everyone was back the day after. So it took about three two three days for it to finally blow over. So once again, you can
093communicate it. It just doesn't necessarily mean they're going to buy it. Um and and you can understand like people are emotional, especially in this environment with school shootings. I get it and I respect it. So you have to think about the verbiage that you're using within within your communications. Is it going to be wellreceived or are they still going to feel that the verbiage that you used wasn't clear? So that's where that preformatting what you're going to say ahead of time and kind of coming up with a bunch of scenarios and then having that archive ready to go. You know it's already vetted. you know, you already looked at it and you know, you have it ready to go and you can just change, you know, the actual message into something a little little um
094specific to that situation. Um, so as I said, you know, for recruitment and retention, we kind of gloss over this sometimes, but you know, once again, we think that people only come to a school district for the money. And and part of that's true. You know, people will come to work for you for the money. they'll stay because they're being well compensated. However, people do come somewhere where they feel like they're they matter and where what they're going to do really is going to have an impact. So, how do they know that you're the right district for them? You get your story out there. You tell all the wonderful things that you're doing. If you have somebody that's interested in AI, you guys promoting that you're doing that, you're going to encounter somebody that might
095want to come to work for your district to fill a position that you may have open. It will also help them to stay here because they're going to be proud to be part of the things that you're doing and it's a continual message. It's a message that's going out over and over and over. So, how do you do it? Digital presence as you brought up before that as we know everyone kind of gets I won't say everyone many people are getting their information from some kind of digital resource and you know once again it varies there's so many different things but you also have to think about your community. If you have a diverse community that speaks multiple languages, you have to make sure that your information is getting out there in those multiple languages.
096But on top of that, you may actually have to teach your community members that speak another language how to use the tools that are available to them so they can translate your website or other social media sites, whatever, into language that they understand or they can read. You also have to understand that some of your community members are not able to read. They're illiterate even in another language. So you have to think about how are we going to capture those individuals with our messaging campaign getting information out there in a verbal way so that they can get that as well. You have to know your community. Every community is different. Some communities they all speak English. Okay? In other communities they have 25 different languages. So, you know, how you're going to approach that is
097going to be up to to you as a district after you know your district. Um, highlighting students once again, you had a student representative tonight that actually highlighted the different things that are going on with the district, but and you can highlight the fact you have the student representative. He actually spoke really well tonight. He talked about how proud he was to be in that position. Um, but you want to highlight all the things that the students are doing. Um, as I said, we we tend to focus a little more on sports in schools, but we we need to highlight some of those other things. And the ways you do that is simply by bringing kids in that like you guys have well really only one community member that's here. One's forced to be here.
098Um, the other one is not forced to be here. But if you bring kids to your meeting to put on a play, a piece of a play that they're going to or sing a couple of songs of something that they're going to do or um let's say you have a robotics team and they're going to do a demonstration of their their robot and what they did, you will get people to come out for that. And as I said, one of you have a captured audience. Then one of the things you can do is in your board meeting, you can highlight the things you want to get out there before those kids go so that they can't escape. They're already here. And so you're kind of forcing them instead of one person having to give all
099the information out, you now have 50 people in here that are going to get that information out. So you you kind of switch around what you're doing within your uh board agenda and you do your highlights first and then you go into th those performances. Um, so these are just some other ideas. Alumni is a big one. If you have any notable alumni, and it doesn't have to be somebody that's famous, it can be somebody that's in a unique career. Highlight them because they came from your district. So, it not only teaches your kids other opportunities, career pathways that are out there, but it also highlights your district and what you're turnurning out into the professions that are out there. Two-way communication. Once again, you know, the superintendent is the um spokesperson for the district.
100Your board president is spokesperson for the board, unless you have something different within your um within your policy. However, you guys can formulate a way to get messaging out there. And public comment is definitely one of them, but you don't get anyone here. That's the problem. So, you have to think about how you're going to get information out there. You also have to think about the two-way part is how are you going to hear the information? And maybe some of you are um on those social media websites where people are putting true or not so true information. You can be somebody that goes there. That might be your job as the board member to go there and collect that information that you're seeing and then sharing with the board what's out there because then at
101a board meeting or whatever ev other um PR or communication stream you have you then can put out the correct information. You could say, "Hey, on social media at the Mothers tomother's, you know, Facebook page, the following things were said and although these are true, just so you know, these are not and here's the correct information." When you get into um trying to respond on social media like in a back, you get into a back and forth and a lot of times it doesn't go anywhere. So you guys taking that concerted effort as a team to decide what will the messaging be and then putting it out there and and however you decide to do that. Um forums or town halls or listening events that's a way to do it. Um you as a board
102can decide you know with the superintendent's going to be there um and maybe some board members will be there and you will plan out how you're going to handle those who's going to answer things you know but you got to be careful about board members misspeaking. So you have to think about what's going to be asked and prep have prepared answers. I would say let the superintendent spearhead it and then she can turn and say well you know would you like to offer anything else to add to this that I might have missed because that does happen. Okay. Um, storytelling. I already said partnerships. School districts do a lot of partnering. You use shared services for a lot of different things, but I guarantee you your community does not know all the shared services that
103you have. When you invite community businesses into your school for maybe a career day or you're doing a multicultural day and they're bringing in food from their local businesses, that's a great opportunity to highlight them. And so I I put a picture at the bottom there that was a puzzle that we created and it looks small on that that screen. It was actually probably as big as this screen that's up there. Just turned it on its side. And what we did was every partner that we had within the district and in the community, we had them come in and sign a puzzle piece and we put it in together into this puzzle and our our tag hashtag was allin for the bill. Okay. All in the number four the summerville. Um, and so these were
104all the people that and and partnerships that we had that were all in for our students, all in for doing the things that we wanted to do. And they stood behind us in so many different ways. And so we actually had these signing events. We took pictures. We then highlighted them when we would get donations. We would highlight them when, you know, um they would do something like we had um one restaurant that would actually have our second graders come and they would go on a date, okay, where they had to learn, okay, this is what you do when you go into a restaurant, you know, you hold the door for somebody else. Um teaching them like manners, you go, you sit down, this is what, you know, being in a restaurant is, this is
105how you act, this is how you order things. This is how you pay. We went through the whole thing and that was in collaboration with that restaurant who took the afternoon and they did this for our second grade students and the kids got dressed up as dressed up as they could be. Um it was not only freaking cute but they actually learned something that they had never done because some of these kids have never gone out to a restaurant because their families are not wealthy so they don't go out to restaurants. So it was great opportunity for them to experience that, but it was a nice connection between themselves and this restaurant and the restaurant and them. And then when we had stuff that happened within our district, we actually invited the restaurant to come
106for our staff and they did the same thing with our staff. So that was a partner, one partner that we had that was a local community restaurant and it's a partnership that has been year after year after year. I'm sure you have all of these. So, you have to think about how you're going to not only leverage your partners because you as a school district can't do it all on your own. You need those partners, but you have to think about how you're going to leverage them, but also how are you going to highlight them? How are you going to tell their story? How are you going to say how the district is helping them and how they're helping the district? We had an academy that was um a medical sciences academy and we were
107partnership with Robert Wood Johnson um Somerset. they changed their name. So, God only knows what it is now, like Barnabas Health, whatever it was. Um, so we had a partnership with them where our students were going to their hospital every week, two days a week, and they would not only have classes there, but they were getting experiences and going through departments and having departments come to them where they could kind of shadow and learn not just about the medical part, but also the business part. And so, that's was a huge partnership. It was one of ourmies that we created that we then promoted and I had other districts that would come to our district and say, "Wait, how did you do that?" And so you're sharing that as well. So when you're sharing the success
108stories, you're going to have those with AI. When you're sharing those with other districts, you should then be touting that and say, "Hey, we had X, Y, and Z districts come to us. We told them what we did and look, this is what they're doing." Follow up. Find out what they're doing. So you can highlight and say they learned from us and this is where they are. Um regionalization Henry Hudson, we all know Henry Hudson, Atlantic Collins Highlands, they all recently regionalized. They were the first district in 13 years to do that. I have many districts that are doing regionalization studies. The first place I point them to is Henry Hudson. Why? because they're the only one that's done it and they are very honest and they're open to sharing that information with those districts
109and they're telling them what were the the benefits of it and what were the pitfalls, what were the things that they struggled with. That was a huge PR campaign for them to undertake to get that out there. When you talk about referendums, that's a PR campaign in itself because now you're talking about how are you're you're asking basically your taxpayers to pay more because of whatever efforts that you want to do. So you have to You have to leverage that PR campaign with all of your constituents so that you get them behind it. So, how do you do all this? You really have to look at your communication pathways. You have to say, "Where are our people going to get their information?" And it's not going to be one source. You can't just say, "We're
110putting it on the website and everyone's going there because they're not." you have the means within a district to see how many hits that you have on for certain like your website or you guys have a YouTube channel I think he told me before where he puts like your your uh board meetings you can actually track how many people actually come so you have one person here but what if you found out that you had 3,000 that logged in and viewed this board meeting you wish right but what if you did and you'd say wow you know what even though we don't have anyone here people are actually paying attention which may then make you say, "What kind of information do we want to get out at these meetings?" Because we actually do have an
111audience. And so once again, you you won't know that until you look at some of those analytics to find out what is the data telling us, where are they going? How often are they going there? Is it useful? Are they only going there for crisis? Are they only going there for everyday information? What is it? You also then can promote where you're putting the information. So, you not only have to find out where they're going, but if you're putting information in certain spots, like let's say your website, let's say you you revamped your website and you really want people to start going there for years and years and years, they may not have went there because there was nothing there. Now, all of a sudden, that's a spearhead for you. You want to share that
112with your community and say, "Go here. This is how you navigate. This is where the information will be." So, you're educating them about what that is. So, that's going to be a big part of it. You have to think about where people are getting it. Um, like I said, forums, town halls, surveys. Surveys are a big thing. Board do not do surveys. The superintendent does a survey. She can share the results with you, but that's her job to do. And once again, taking those surveys and doing it from from different groups. Get your students input. Your students are very insightful. They will tell you what works, what doesn't work, what they like, what they don't like. They are the consumers of everything that you're creating within the districts. So, why wouldn't you listen to your
113consumers? The parents is another source you want to get it. All your parents and guardians, you want to get their information. But I guarantee you what they say and what the students say are not going to be in alignment. The same thing as what teachers say is not going to be in alignment with parents say. And I'll give you one example. If you throw the question out there about homework, is it valuable? You will get very distinct different answers based upon each one of those groups. And each one will have rationale why it is or is not beneficial. How are you going to know what that is? Unless you do those surveys, unless you group the people and create a survey in a way that you can pull the data out in a way that
114you can analyze it and break it down by what group is looking at it in a certain way and then you can tailor your plan of how you're going to move forward based upon that. So, it's like I said, focus groups website um partnerships with local media. Um, we had a a local um, cable channel that people would always use, especially the older population. Um, and then people stopped using it for obvious reasons. And so we stopped using it as a result. We weren't spending all the time setting up the equipment, having the person come out, and then recording it. And he actually used to record it to DVDs, and then we had to take the DVD and convert it into an actual MP3 and then upload it to our website. and he had to
115do whatever he did on his end to upload it to the cable channel. It was more work than it was worth because people were not going into it. I'm sure you appreciated that, right? >> We won't make you do that, Pablo. >> So, but you know, you might have a local newspaper that everyone goes to. Um, you may you may not. You may have your weekly publications or monthly, you know, newsletters from your principles, whatever it might be. You got to figure out what are those avenues and then make sure you're sending that information out that way. Um, conduct pulse checks. That's a really good one. You have captured audiences during back to school night. Uh, parent teacher conferences. It's okay for your teachers to start off and say, "Hey, um, can you tell me
116where do you get your information from?" Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. start start their conferences off that way and then they can submit that information to their principal who then can compile it and then send it to the superintendent who then can share it with you and then you can hear where people are getting it from. So once again there's so many different ways to do it. It's just really a matter of what works for you as as a team. But now your questions. I don't know what I hit or didn't hit, but go ahead. >> Thank you. He doesn't he? >> So, we're not going to finalize our board goals tonight. So, I don't think I don't want to make you stay here for no reason. Um, next week might where we possibly
117finalize the board goals if not at the first October meeting. So I would say next week this Yeah, two weeks from now. The 17th. Yeah, the 17th I would say would probably be the better option to stay. Not tonight. >> Yeah. And I we can always send you an email also. >> And then that way you can. >> Yes. the QAC, student data, all of the fun stuff. But would I be out of line to ask Mr. Graham if he has any ideas of how we could keep the communication better to the public? Absolutely. Elmer J Gra This mic testing one two testing one two Elmer J Graham Jr. 22 St. Peter's place. When I'm at the burough council meetings, I say that. But anyway, um, excellent presentation by the gentleman there. Frankly, I am
118uh disappointed at the turnout tonight, public turnout, because especially when school starts tomorrow and uh I'm the only guy that's only member of the public that's here. I feel like I'm on C-SPAN with the House with the special orders in the House of Representatives, you know, with this. But anyway, um I have maybe better more ideas on how to get your message out for these public meetings. Not everyone in Keyboard, our beautiful bureau of keyboard, has an internet. And uh of course internet's important don't get me wrong but uh there's also thing called the post office get mail you know find out the addresses of the addresses of everyone in Kepboard and uh mail you know get the mailings out to every citizen in the bureau of Kepboard so they know about these schoolboard meetings
119these board of you know these workshop meetings and everything like that and that way you and try to get some more attendance. Like like I said, I'm disappointed in the turnout tonight. I'm the only member of the public here, especially when school starts tomorrow for the kids and everything. And uh thank you. >> I wonder backing off of what he said if there's a way how um council sends out information. Could we somehow include our board meetings on this? I think I I already I spoke to this a while ago, but um I just spoke I'm lying to you. I'm sorry. Uh when we spoke with the articulation with Mayor Radio, she told us they're going to send out something quarterly that I could put something in the corner of that. >> Fantastic. >> So,
120that's how we'll solve that. >> It is going to depend on timing, but I could always, you know, easily say something like, you know, board meeting dates, you know, they they can visit a website. I I I know he just said that people don't have the >> weather send everything from that's from then forward so that the dates always so if it doesn't coordinate you're ahead of it >> and something to highlight the schools what's going on in the schools is good too. >> Can I >> Yeah. >> So you're talking about the water bill. >> No, Mayor Arano said at our articulation that they're going to be sending out some kind of a newsletter and they would allow us a small space in the corner of that. Okay. >> That they're mailing out. >>
121If they don't do that, there's always the water bill. And that is how we did the climate thing with with Miss Manganelli. Remember that? So that would be a great venue. >> The water bill can uh I at the very least uh with regards to what Mr. Graham said, you know, what quarter are we in going into third? >> So maybe the second quarter order bill uh or the third and just outline all of the board meetings. Absolutely. >> At the very least, but >> you're not going to be able to do it every quarter because they're doing other thing. They're stuffing that envelope with other stuff and we do have to get the buy in of the council. So I think articulation meeting is best place that when in fact you do have an
122artic >> um you have one scheduled right for September. I wasn't at the last one. There is one just from a I'd also just mentioned because Mr. Graham and others have Madam President uh the cost to mail every house is that not prohibitive? I have not researched in a couple years, but it was extreme. Yes. And then we when we printed at one point we were printing the newsletters as well that would go out. So I want to say it was in the upwards of like $2 or $3,000 by the time you you got the list and the list changed. Again, I would have to research that again. I I have no issue doing that. I don't know if it's necessary because I mean we've already established that you know with us cutting certain program
123having being forced to certain program he just can't afford agree >> I I think your idea Mr. topless about uh >> the water bill and the and us if they have that newsletter lo their the council's idea about the newsletter with you that's a good >> I think if we can share that service >> I think it's a good starting point and then it can evolve hopefully from there but it's >> surf it's base level right it's somewhere to start >> the other the other the other point too is that um the way that we asked for emails online. Uh perhaps we can find a way to engage people that don't have the like Mr. Graham point maybe I would say that's these days that might not even be a hundred people. I don't know.
124I would say to you on that community survey that we did and which was a positive out of the tax incentive uh situation was that I wanted to say there were 35 at the end of the school year, every one of them had an email address. Even if they went to the library or something to check their email, they did have an email address. So that was something that we could do for those people who still wanted to hear something >> in fair. I mean even if even if they even if we put the somehow makes I mean Mr. Mr. Graham makes a valid point, Madam President, that that there are people that may be interested in what's going on with the schools, but just don't have the resource to look it up online or
125the knowledge. And, you know, we can we can probably it probably wouldn't be in the thousands do a one page or quarter and and people access. I'm not saying that's a priority, but certainly maybe they can be encouraged to come here or something, but it's just, you know, it's just not cost effective or prudent to mail it out to >> I'm going to be meeting with the uh KBBC again as well um because we do have some student led initiatives that we foster with them. And one of the things I was just thinking is with Mr. Rap gives us the um draft for like if you guys take action on that board uh meeting schedule for next year, I could do what I do with some other events. I could make copies of such and
126have them at the library, have them posted down at the burrow and seeenior. >> Yes. Yes. So, I'm thinking that maybe I can do something like that. As he's thinking today, more and more things are coming. So, if you have ideas like that, don't hesitate to send them my way. >> I think the senior center is a great idea. I think that's a great idea >> because you know >> one of the things we just talked about doing with the seniors is u Mr. Aragonus and Mr. Sheets and again this is very raw and it's orientation this week but we talked about a way how we always want to reach the public even when it's just not a board meeting and I'm not saying that's not important but just what our kids are doing. Um,
127they asked if at the next articulation I could bring up some kind of a small musical performance down at the waterfront. And what that stemmed to me was maybe a spring concert or so. Again, not committing anything, but it'll be a comment on the articulation because it'll be a way of us not having to transport kids to somewhere. It'll still build those relationships. I could get Mr. Crowley to use the bus to pick the seniors up at the center. So we have a lot of good ideas to to go forward with and I'll help you to get them out. >> Madam President, I think that this was the present. I will admit that that this is probably my fourth DAR presentation very similar to the one that I saw. There were quite a few presentations
128at the um NJSBA headquarter at YouTube. Um and the material was very familiar. Not going to say that you used it back then, but but yeah, but so I'm gonna try to make this for one last time, but I still really believe that we need to engage a PR professional to at least build a road mapap for us as to how we accomplish some of the things that that uh the good doctor presented to us tonight but sands that without that not maybe we can't do um we definitely need to take some of the items if not all of the ideas that presented to and find out who can help us that within the district. I don't think we need to put the burden on the kids. That's been that's been discussed. Our our our
129students have a lot of work on their own, right? But I think engaging them is a good idea. But I think also um finding out ways to, you know, engage some of the faculty without violating collective bargaining agree um help us with that is probably either uh we're approaching we're approaching you know a crossroads where need be able to tell not just our own community but potential partners in cooperation consolidation and regation, show them how wonderful our district as well. Uh, you know, that's that's a huge task at hand. I think that that, you know, now that I've said it once again publicly, uh, I've been ringing that bell for the past year and a half, uh, I'm going to take a break and let's just I It sounds funny. I I admit I'm a
130little frustrated, but I'm going to take a break now and let's just take a look at how we proceed and and see where we go with it. Thank you. Without jumping ahead to what our discussion is going to be later, if we have a goal surrounding this, maybe we can have a committee for this purpose and figure out ways to and and go from there. >> You may not want me on that committee, but I would love to. >> Dr. Cen, did you want to say something? Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Thank you, Madam President. >> Anyone else? Um, so that is the end of our present evening. So, thank you, Dr. Tiham. Um, president's remarks. So, we are excited that the 2526 school year is starting. We have welcomed back our teachers and
131staff. Tomorrow, we are very excited to welcome back our students as it's their first day. Um, we can't wait to what this year has in store. Um, we are accepting applications until Friday for our board vacancy. There is still time if anyone is interested. Interviews will be at our 9:17 meeting. Uh the county meeting dates have been released. The next meeting that is either virtual or in person is on Tuesday, October 7th and we started our professional development this evening to keep our master board certification. We'll be having training at the next two meetings as well and then we will have our last two hours in the new year once we have our members on with us. Um Dr. Seavoya communication my deepest apologies. We did have uh two resignations that we need to take
132action on to a part-time aid and a full-time aid 5.1 and 5.2. Thank you. Public participation on agenda items. >> Dr. Seavoya, superintendent report. >> Okay. I'm going to highlight just a couple of items. I did combo this report as we did not have the quarummit in August. But I do want to make sure that uh I do speak to the work that the staff has done in the past two days preparing to open up the buildings and get ready for the district. The PE professional development they participated in um was exorbitant. Uh I have to say that you know everybody was extremely engaged, appreciative. Um we introduced the new staff. It was really um a great two days. So we're looking forward to our openings tomorrow. We had several orientations. PreK,K, sixth grade was
133today. We had the freshman orientation. Um, one one of the many exciting things is that I announced uh that district in totality has achieved the bronze level certification from the prestigious sustainable Jersey schools program. This is something that we've maintained. It took a lot of work. Thank you to Miss Manganelli and uh Miss Craigstein uh people at both buildings, but they were tremendous in making this happen. It's a big milestone and I'm going to imagine that we'll be celebrated at the convention this year and I will make sure that that those staff members are invited to attend. Uh I did uh look at the bullet number three on the first page of the of the uh superintendent report. It speaks to the four instructional grants that were written this month. I think it's important um
134when we talk about you know time management AI things to that capacity the state released within the month of August they released these four grants that were competitive and that listed the districts that could apply but it was still competitive we'll find out by September 30th there was a two-eek timeline for these grants um and there uh hyperl right there for you the actual application that we utilized was in there but I think it's imperative to discuss the fact that the literacy there was a grant for literacy coach that was that particular grant. There was the impact grant for professional development. There was reading intervention for secondary uh rise that allowed us to provide re uh support to at the high school level um middle school to high school level. And with that we included
135a lot of uh literacy resources to piggyback off of our CK CKLA implementation K to 5. And then we had the lift for the families and that was targeting our zero to three year olds. How we could get out into the community and attract that. I want to say that in the past two days I'd be remiss if it wasn't at least 15 to 17 people that registered just in the past two days um for some reason. They do wait. Um I don't necessarily always know why, but I will be able to tell you better when Mr. Rapola reports out on the October 15th the ASSA count because you know we have we had been 20 kids down the year before. I want to see where we stand because it feels like that office never
136stopped which is a good thing. And I would say that prek 3 and four was at 88 or 90. So we're we're filling up as we thought we would. Um anyway, I digress a little bit. Uh there were some things as I previously stated that were included from last month as well that I don't need to be redundant and um repeating. Uh the hyperlink all the handbooks for the district board, it's all there for you to look. You can look at any occasion. all of the um curriculum uh personnel. We are fully staffed as of Saturday. We had an aid pass the test during the football game um because as you well know, we have uh aids need to have either 60 college credits or pass a basic level of proficiency on the practice. So,
137we um are excited to say that one of our parents is going to come join us as a full-time aid as well. So, that's really exciting. Um throughout the personnel component of the agenda, I will highlight the items that were uh purchased or if you will or allocated via the tax incentive um application. I know that in the past when we talked about being transparent as a board when we submitted that application, even since the time that we submitted that application and that application was allocated, um it could have been a fifth grade teacher versus a sixth grade teacher. I'm being hypothetical, but just to let everybody know when I go through those agenda items, I'll let you know what we funded through such um and Mr. Rulla will speak to your process and and
138mad board president as to uh replacement of Mr. Houseman on the 17th agenda. Um I did hyperlink the first two days of the professional development, the new teacher orientation schedule and welcome back to the staff presentation. There's also um something highlighting all of the new staff members. So, I'm going to send that out to you in specificity if that's not linked in here. I don't believe it is. So, this way you can see the new staff members faces. It's always good to do before you get a yearbook. Um, as far as the comm the community is concerned, the Ed Foundation is hosting a murder mystery night on October 11th. I'd really love to see everybody uh participate in such. Guanis also donated $1,000 to the music department. Mr. Sheets and Mr. Argonas also worked with
139me this week, Mr. top was to fill out an application for an organization that you um pointed them in the right direction of. So that'll come out. Um as far as the policies are concerned, we're going to take action um as we can on a first reading um during that uh policy committee meeting. I was asked to investigate um our requirement for coaches and club adviserss to have 60 college credits. I will be researching that because there are some people of the community who want to uh volunteer and do not meet that obligation. So I will take a look at that and we will talk about it at our next policy meeting. Um as well as I don't know if madam president based on and um Mr. Stall on 0143 if you guys want to
140provide some flexibility in the board meeting agenda so that you can move things around in case you wanted to present just based on what Tim said. I think that was something the committee spoke about too. So, we're going to have some more policies coming your way, but for this evening, it's all of the ones that um are listed as such and hyperl um and will be a first reading and we'll take action on that. Thank you. I think what Dr. Seavoya is referring to is when we had talked about moving president's remarks and superintendent report prior to presentation so that way the community members that are here are at least getting some information from us, not just coming here, seeing the presentations and leaving. Um, so that is something we talked about and might want
141to discuss further to rearrange our board agenda meeting again in the policy. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr. Seavoya. Mr. Rapola, board secretary report, building and grounds and finance. >> Yes. Uh, just regarding the Dr. Seavoya alluded to the uh the board opening. Uh, we currently have uh three applications uh that that Dr. Zavoya shared uh in her report um we accepting applications through this Friday. Uh candidates will get uh asked to interview and open session on the meeting on the 17th. Um we'll provide you with a the list of generic questions. Uh you know I personally think it's probably a good idea to ask everyone the same questions. Uh but you know, I guess that's not my my decision. Um but I think that would be uh the fairest and asking everyone the same questions
142and and listening to a lot of items on the agenda. We haven't had a you know a normal a regular board meeting since June. I just like to go over some of the items uh briefly on it. I like to start off at 103 and 104 are just uh federal grants. So this is money that we receive uh from federal funding. Uh so 103 is our ESA grant which these are the amounts that we are applying for and 104 is our idea grant which we've been approved for. Uh 10 five is they've ra the the state has raised the limits. Uh it's for the first time in like seven years on a QPA. A QPA is a a qualifying purchasing agent uh which I do hold that uh certificate. Uh and basically it there it
143gives you like maximums that you can make purchases at without having to go out out to bid. So it had been at 44,000. They just upped it to 53,000. Um, so anything under $53,000 I can make a purchase for the district without going out to bit. Um, but of course we have to approve that motion in order to to be able to do that. Uh 106 is we're just renewing our joint insurance fund with uh school alliance insurance and 10 9 through 1012 are just services for students uh needs or and one's an added district placement. 1013 through 16 are the grants that Dr. Seavoya uh mentioned in her report that we're applying for. Correct. Those those are just uh those are just getting we're applying for at this point. 10:17 and we have a
144joint transportation agreement with with Union Beach. That's something has to get approved at our level and then at the county level as well, excuse me. Um 1021 is the shared service agreement with the burrow for things like snow plowing and different work that gets done uh on the fields. And 1022 is the shared services agreement as it pertains to our class uh three officers that are in the buildings. Um and we also had a donation from from Kuanas. So, uh, Miss Cunningham, I'd be looking for 81. >> Uh, so we need a motion for 8.1 to 10.23. >> Make it. >> Second, >> Mr. Roll call. >> Mrs. Abrahamson. >> Yes. >> Miss Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mr. Vopoulos? >> Yes. >> Miss Grabowski? >> Yes. >> Miss Kahane? >> Yes. >> Mr. Stall? >>
145Yes. >> Mr. Staley? Yes, Mr. >> Ste. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. >> Thank you. Uh, Dr. Seavoya, curriculum, personnel, and policy. >> If you don't mind, I will highlight the bolded items. I could get to them. My apologies. Oh, there's nothing bold in curriculum, but under Are you doing all three? Uh, policy, curriculum, personnel, and policy. Okay. Underneath personnel, I did say I would speak to some of the people that were hired under tax incentive utilizing tax incentive funds. Um, and that was um our aid on 12.2, 2 under 12.5 under 12.7 under 12.9. And in one of the situations with our aids, we had two part-time positions open. this particular year, we were able to um make that one full-time position, which is definitely more attractive to people because it does include medical
146benefits, but we were able to use that those funds to ensure that position was filled today. And on 12 point, I'm sorry, 12.27, 27 we spoke to that extent at that other extra period that was out of tax incentive funds as well because that's going to be intervention provided by Miss Dy. Um then we have Miss Marietta who's going to be our alliance club adviser that's going to be fully supported by the municipal alliance again as it was last year and we have a a conduct uh 17 hours of full-time student teaching and then uh the aid is 12.31 and then as I said previously in the superintendent report all the policies can be approved as per policy 0131 on a first reading. So we need a motion for 11.1 to 13.2. >> Make it
147>> second. >> Uh Mr. Pull a roll call >> question. >> Oh question. Sorry. >> Thanks. Don't keep me in line. >> Uh the thank you for pointing out that uh affected uh from the the tax incentive. Uh, is there an interventionist or on this list? >> Yes, on that list if you saw Miss Dy was on there. And what that allowed us to do um for intervention was it allowed us to utilize uh our ESA funds that we Mr. Rupola just spoke to that we're going to accept. We're going to um use two of our interventionist fund two of them out of that. >> Those are the interventionists. I'm sorry. not on this particular agenda, but when we do the E when we do the grant ESA, we will fund two of those salaries
148through that grant as well. >> And so the interventionists are portante really important. Right. Right. So, um, and it was our intent to hire even more if we got >> we were going to try to hire somebody more full-time, but we're looking at what we have in place right now with the adjustment of the needs for two special ed situations in which we needed to replace Miss McCully. Yes. Um, and we had a situation in which, if the board recalls from last year, we got a waiver. Um, we got two new students, two or three new students that pushed us over on the capacity in a resource room. So, we um use those funds for two special ed teachers and we will try uh depending on where we end up within the next uh month
149or so of the budget. If I can fund another one in there, we will we will do so. >> Understood. And if we were if we were able to somehow get more funds uh either by way of the tax incentive or state aid, >> it would almost invariably go towards bringing in more interventionists because we don't have enough. >> Absolutely. As well as the one grant, Mr. Ftopus on the first page of the superintendent report is a um secondary interventionist which we would love to have at that level. So hopefully we get that grant. you'll be hearing it, you know, by the end of the month. >> I just want folks to understand that um, you know, yes, we we truly appreciate well, we appreciate the willingness of the public to accept a 7 and
150a half% tax increase. Uh, it's certainly not as wasn't as impactful on my tax bill as I thought it would be. Um, but I also want to point out that that if if we were able to increase that even just a little bit more uh student outcomes would have been much better with the interventionists that we could have employed. >> Thank you, Madam President. >> Any other discussion? >> Yeah, just uh Dr. Uh could you on the positions you identified um some of it's obvious where they're deployed central school or high school. Could you just uh describe like we have um special we have a couple special ed teachers well the obviously the elementary and an aid. So I guess um where are the tax incentive sponsored special ed teachers being deployed? >> There should
151be one at central if I'm reading it correctly and one at the high school. >> Thank you. >> Any other discussion for poll roll call? >> Mrs. Abrahamson. >> Yes. >> Miss Cunningham. Yes, >> Mr. Vopoulos. >> Yes, >> Scrabowski. >> Yes, >> Miss Cahain. >> Yes, >> Mr. Stall. >> Yes, >> Mr. Staley. >> Yes, >> Mr. Teas. >> This pass. >> Thank you. Um, old business. Uh, so under new business, we have um discussion for our 2526 board goals. Uh we started this conversation at our um board retreat in August. Um and we are going to continue this conversation. Um we would like to have some conversation around it tonight. Um we are not going to finalize our goals this evening. We would like to finalize them either next week or at the
152first meeting in October. Um so that way they can be implemented. Um I do think that we need to in PD um both personally and as a board. Um I know Joe sent me an email earlier this morning and I do agree with some of the things. Um one of the things I would like you to maybe bring up to everybody is the shortterm and long-term planning. Um because I do think that the concept and idea you have behind this is going to be something that will be very prevalent in our future. Thanks. Um, yeah. Um, I think the preamble for me is and I thought about our experience this past year, particularly regarding the superintendent's contract, the tax incident situation where we as a board were the deciding for those who were making which
153for me as a board member over time. used to working under the recommendations of the superintendent as appropriate. But in these two situations, that was not case. We really were in a position where we had to make the decision. In the tax incentive situation, we were getting a lot of information, but as far as a decision about how much and why, um, those were our And so I was thinking about well where when we look down the road and just my little conversation with Caitlyn before the meeting is that well there's going to be more there's going to be more of these things ones that are unknown to us now but ones that will emerge and I think we I would like to see a board goal for specifically Right. Why? Superintendent contract, litigation, regionalization,
154the very future of the district are things that um finance, right? Uh are going to be on our plate. This would be separate from that's this is that's a separate that's that's a separate item. We're talking about things that really fall into where I would say the voice of the void is either it's totally our voice and decision or we're strong influencer on those decisions. So I think we might want to have a goal about this. In a way, it's a kind of an expanded revision of the current finance committee, but with a different more of a focus on the long-term fist district and the issues that are come up, including and I just made a little note almost like we we we need to be um looking at what is going on in the
155state, what is happening education in New Jersey. We know uh there's chaos. It's almost like chaos is all around us, right? And we've it's it's around us and it's going to impact us. And I think we need we could have a group of us that are looking be educated and aware on behalf of the I'm yeah I I I would ask maybe not tonight obviously but that that specific goal is articulated way talked a lot about you just mentioned a lot of uh things. How do we how do we bring that into a book? >> So that's the problem. When we were talking, he said, "I feel like my idea is like it's not really formed. Like there's not a whole lot to it's halfbaked. It's like so it's really like the ground floor. It's
156the concrete of the idea. >> I understand >> the building block of it is going to come from the group as a whole of what it really needs to look like because we are the ones going to be making those decisions and helping to form those things. So there is not a real goal right now. It's really just thought bubbles. >> And and just as a reminder, when are we when are we up for a new strategic plan? Next year. >> This is 2526. In 2627, we will build the new plan to be implemented in uh >> and that's when we'll get members of the community back together. What a what a wonderful exercise that was. So, um, yeah, I think I I and I I'd just like to not but expand upon your comment,
157your your reference to regionalization because we need to, in my mind, we need to keep it a little broader based on our resolution that we voted on. year and a half ago. Regionalization, consolidation, cooperation tenets that we're pursuing because reality is we may not be able to ization but at the very least want to we would want to explore the other two. So I think the order of preference for me is regionalization validation that's >> and I don't know if it's about achieving right right now like I think it's about making sure that those conversations are happening we're getting all of the information to be well informed that we it's like a process right like one two three like what are the first things that we need to do then what's like the next level
158of it and layer and then like what's our final implementation and how do we get there like Joe was talking about having not necessarily one-year goals, but making them kind of like two or three year goals because things that we're thinking now because we are more knowledgeable and more informed, we might not achieve in a year because our goals are much bigger than what they were three years ago. >> I agree. But I I I I thank you for that explanation. I and and I think that's agree with I definitely but I still want to emphasize that there's three things that we baked into that res. I think until we decide or until we find out what that's going to look like, keep it at the three till we it's find out it's one of
159the you understand what I'm saying. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. >> I think that like having that goal too, like does that kind of help us keep looking for a partner, right? Does it keep that conversation going? We have our own people on different boards that we talk to. So, is it having a one-on-one conversation with them? Like, hey, what have you has your board discussed this? Like, what are your thoughts? Like, it just gives it a way to keep it alive because when we're talking about something and it's on the hot block or it's really important, it's top of mind and everyone's discussing it, but then three months later something else happens and now that kind of gets pushed back a little bit. So, having these different groups that are focusing on specific things always
160keeps it top of mind, at least for that group, if not everybody. >> I agree. And I think that it's important too that at this point since we have been publicly speaking about this for the last year and a half that you know also the public needs to understand that that that's the direction we're heading. Um so I I I think I think that should be part of that particular goal. like I I'm I'm an I'm looking forward to see how this evolves. I really am because I think it's a I think it's fantastic and I think that you know and it's not just the regionalization. I don't want I'm focusing on that because of what I was talking about but you know as a whole I think you know your idea is well timed
161and well suited. I'm waiting for Joe to talk about the PR one. I want to go on the record saying yay. >> Yeah, I I definitely that's where my focus is. I think that's where my focus is is trying to get the community. also say that's a focus and I think part of it is being knowledgeable about what's going on our school and also what Joe said about in education because just what we've seen with our experience back is all the misinformation not only about our school and our community but also about laws and Ed like just so much misin. We are knowledge that helps with um so I think this was a great starting point for our conversation. Um we will definitely be talking we have to talk about it a lot more. So
162is next week are do we have a deadline to establish these goals? >> So it's I'm sorry I'm just repeating what you said earlier when Tim spoke at the PD committee group. He said there was no timeline. You know obviously you don't want to start them in January. You know you want to try to get started before then. I think that's why Caitlyn spoke to talking about them on a 17th. Tim will be here to help you guys refine them as a board because again these are things you want to learn and how you're going to learn them. So he said he would work with you on that and then on the eth you would adopt them. Correct. >> Um he also did mention that we might want to wait. We have new members coming
163in. >> New members and we also have we also have the we also have school boards approaching as well where some of the more recent and topical and timely information might help us to inform a goal or some of them. Well that might be you know we may want to experience at first and then but that's >> Ruth. My apologies on that one. I miss Gerk. I thought that he said for ethics we would wait till January. Sorry I misunderstood. >> It was it was ethics and then the board the nine roles of the board member like we were going to wait until January but we only need two more hours after the next and the October meeting. So we would those so that the new member who gets elected in November as well as
164whomever we at our next meeting would both be able to get all of that content. It would be very important. I think you were but for the actual board goals they do have to be set like like we can't >> I have I have a comment question. Um, do we want to have we had the discussion if we want to extend any of our existing goals or are they all going away and and is three the magic number or we can have as many as we want? >> So, you can have as many as you want. Um, so I had a >> 50. I >> I made Dr. Savoya and I were having a conversation and I made a snarky comment to her because I said like, "Well, if we need that then we're going
165to just do And she was like, "Well, four or five goals is a lot of goals." And I said, "It is, but if it's something like if one of the goals, like let's see, we have our PD goal still, right? Policy. We're not going to actively be engaging that as much because we set the content up for a pretty long time, right? We need PD to make sure that everyone's doing their personal. We need PD to make sure that we're setting up the board retreat. There's specific things. So, it's not a goal that we're going to work on all the time, right? So in my mind when I said to her like four or five isn't bad if it's not four or five active goals all the time that we're meeting about. So I think
166that is something that every we can all really discuss and talk about as well and are all your goals and she did get snarky but I was just trying to uh focus the the intentions because sometimes the best laid uh experiences you know deliverable versus grandio so that was my statement. I was not you can have 50 Mr. Fopoulos if you'd like. Ruth Ruth asked >> I think 50. Yeah, >> Ruth asked AI so she wants to share what AI asked Gemini if there was a deadline to set board goals for NJSBA and it says um according to guidance and planning calendars. Sorry, I jumped ahead. While there does not be while it doesn't appear to be a single strict legal deadline for setting board goals, uh NJSPA strongly recommends that boards adopt their goals
167early in the school year. >> I would just add I think the the way think about when we when we have our um our district goal those are tracked on per year. I think I have been thinking about our board goals like year to year. I think we should be thinking about particularly to maybe the the one I described and maybe community engagement. Those are kind of to me we set it up looking and then after one year we we look at it we refresh it but I think we should be looking at those two those things or looking at them as I don't know what you just said. I'm so sorry. But I'm processing it as you're saying it. I'm thinking to myself, you want to connect them with the board with a strategic
168plan. You could do them for a year and a half, but whatever you guys decide, two years, three years, one year. You know, my thought process was, you know, might hear from the community. >> Part of No, and I think I'm glad you brought it up because I think the theme is for us, at least the theme maybe theme is for me, um, is we're talking about things that the board is responsible And it really with your engagement but stuff that we right you know we're we're you're part of it but we're in a way >> these are your goals. Yes. >> Almost like we're taking the lead on it. >> No. No. They're your goals. We own these ownership of it. Absolutely. >> Right. So I think Yeah. I think there would be par
169they would be paralleling issues. So anyway, any other comments? >> Wait, Mr. Staley, you did say something about presenting at school boards with all this. So I didn't forget that. I didn't forget that. >> Yes. Mr. said, "Well, if you let us do some of these things, maybe we can present at school boards again next year or in so that's how we're going to keep our little >> No, no, not this year. The deadline already passed. We won't make the cut. They've already been picked the presenters. >> Yeah. So, her spidey ears went up. >> Okay. So if if no more um new business uh then we are going to have public participation agenda and non-aggenda items. >> Yep. >> Oh, she's okay. Thank you again. Omar J. Graham Jr. 22 St. Peter's Place. Uh
170I want to talk about something totally different. Uh I've mentioned this at the burough council meetings. I guess I will mention it to you folks too. Uh it's place I go to twice a week called We Care Adult Daycare and they are located on Highway 35 in Ripbank, New Jersey, Union Square Shopping Center. And the staff there is second to none. They're outstanding. Um, we care adult daycare has folks that have dementia, some Alzheimer's, you know, and their caregivers leave them there during the day, you know, for them to be taken care of by their outstanding staff. And um I I teach them and they teach me every time I go there. Believe me, the people there, they're terrific. Um, okay. Um, I highly recommend them to a caregiver of our of a loved one
171in our beautiful burrow of Keyboard. You know, anyone who wants to send them there, this is the place. Again, they're on Highway 35 and Middletown, New Jersey, Union Square Shopping Center. And they have a Facebook they have a fa page on Facebook if any of you are interested in looking at that page you know and you can tell you can tell your students about weaker care adult daycare because they are always looking for every now and then volunteers among young people to go there to help out and stuff. And um that's it. And at the end of this month, the 26th of this month, they have a bowling tournament to the funds to go to Alzheimer's New Jersey. And as you all know, we need to find a cure for this terrible disease. Believe me,
172I see it there at WeCare. And um it's at 7 o'clock, September 26th, Jaw Lanes in Neptune, New Jersey. And uh Dr. Savoya, if you want to, you can you can give a call to we care about this tournament and stuff. Again, their their phone number is 732 and you can mention my name because I talk to you all about it and stuff like that. Again, it's tournaments on September 26. It's the Roger Dolan tournament. It's named named after a gentleman who recently passed away was greatly involved in this. It's at 7:00 Friday night at the Shore Lanes in Neptune, New Jersey. And uh you all they're looking for sponsors, participants, and everything like that. So, and you you'll definitely have a great time. And like I said, the staff at We Care is second
173to none. They're outstanding. I highly recommend them to a caregiver of a loved one. They're all they're all good people. Like I said, then you are interested. The page is on Facebook and you can tell your students about it too. Thank you. >> Thank you. I wonder if not this year our bowl. >> Yeah, maybe our bowling team. Okay. Um so resolved by the keyboard board of education as per chapter 20 231 PL197517.1.1 that hereby determine that is necessary to meet in executive session on September 3rd 2025 to discuss personnel and legal advice matters discussed will be made public if and when action um confidentiality is no longer required in action pursuit to said discussion shall take place only at a public meeting. Length of the meeting thought to be approximately 1 hour. Need a
174motion to go to session. >> Motion. >> Second. All in favor? Thank you. Yes. Thanks, Elmer.