Board of Education Meeting - Public Session - 9/25/25

001Mr. Moody, can you please take roll call? >> Sure, Madam President. Uh, I'll start with board member Jeff Bennett. >> Board member Dearra Brown >> here. >> Board member Elizabeth Callahan >> here. >> Board President Nubia Dval Wilson >> here. >> Board member Regina Eert >> here. >> Board member Bill Gford >> here. >> Board member Bibl Kapadian. >> Board member Will Meyer. Board member Shaina Sak Gable >> here. >> Okay, we have a quorum. >> Okay, great. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Okay. Um, please take notice that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in the following manner. That written notice was sent from the office of the secretary of the board at 2:30 p.m. on January 3rd, 2025. That said notice was sent via email to Maplewood and South Orange

002Township clerks and the editors of the news record, Star Ledger, Tap into the Village Green. I'd like to make a motion to enter into executive session at 6:32 p.m. to discuss attorney client matters, personnel, and hip reporting. The length of the executive session is estimated to be 75 minutes after which the public meeting of the board shall convene reconvene. May I have a second? Thank you. Uh board member Sack Gable. All in favor? Motion passes. Okay, good evening everyone. We are now back in regular session and um before we get started, are there any students here tonight who would like to speak? Oh, okay. I see one here in the front. Okay, you can come on up. We will allow students to speak before we get into the rest of the meeting. Just remember to

003please say your name, where you're from when you come up to the Yeah. Thanks. >> And then uh Mr. Bonds, you'll have the timer set up for us. >> Hi, my name is Sar Marley. Uh I go to Columbia High School. I'm in 12th grade. Um I play on the girls vers. Sorry. Thank you. I play on the girls varsity basketball team. I am the varsity captain and I just want to share my opinions on the Kyrie Irving donation. I feel that this board of education does isn't always student centered. Too often we don't feel seen in the decisions that directly affect us. The choice to decline Kyrie Irving's donation is unbeneficial unbeneficial to the program. This donation matters. It would ease financial stress on families by providing uniforms and sneakers at no cost. boost

004team boost the team pride and unity with matching gear, you know, like just it's good to be together as a team and gives us inspiration and shows us opportunity by showing us that professional athletes also believe in us. It's a good point that like Kyrie Irving didn't even go to Colombia or anything, but he still wants to give back. Free resources for growth so funds can go to training and development. To us, it's not just about the apparel, it's about recognition. It tells us that our program, our future are worth in investing in rejecting it sends the opposite. Rejecting it sends opp rejecting it sends the opposite message. >> Don't worry about the time. >> Sorry. >> To us, it's not just the apparel. It's the recognition. It tells us our program and our future

005and are worth investing in. Rejecting us sends the opposite message and it shows us that like you guys don't care. I urge you to reconsider this decision, showing us that our voice matters. Show us that we are valued. That is all I have today. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, so next we will approve the board minutes. Um, actually, uh, yeah, we'll approve the board minutes. And so, let's see. I'd like to make a motion to approve the board meeting minutes from August 19 retreat and August 28th executive session and regular board meeting. Do I have a second? Thank you. Board member Eert. All in favor? Great. The meeting minutes have been approved. And um just quickly, you might notice that many of us are wearing some school pride gear this uh this evening. And um

006it's a thank you. See people in the audience as well. And it's a tradition um every every year September to start the school year off. Board members and our our SLT team as well. Thank you. It's his cape for tonight. Um, so, so that's why we're we're wearing our school spirit gear tonight. Um, and so the next thing we will do is have our student representative update. Hey, Pen. >> Hi. Thank you. Unfortunately, our other student rep, Scarlet, was unable to make it tonight and I will be speaking on behalf of both of us. I would like to begin with our district recognitions. First, we would like to thank Mr. Matt Glass for his incredible efforts in bringing the Columbia High School clock tower back to life. Through his dedication and community fundraising across both

007Maplewood and South Orange, he was able to raise the support needed to restore this cherished landmark. And because of his commitment, the CHS Clock Tower is once again keeping time for our students, staff, alumni, and neighbors. We are grateful for his service to the district. Next, I would like to congratulate the 27 students who have been recognized in the uh 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program for their performance on the PSAT or the NMSQT. Out of more than 1.3 million students nationwide, they placed among the top uh 50,000. 25 of them earned commendations and Angelo Lynch and Julian Shapiro were named semi- finalists giving them the chance to compete for nearly $26 million in scholarships this spring. We congratulate our peers on this achievement and thank the families, teachers, and staff who supported them and made

008it possible. Next, we are happy to congratulate South Orange Middle School as being announced as the proud winner of this year's new 5K school challenge. At the 22nd annual race, participants were allowed to donate in honor of their favorite SOSD school and the community rallied behind SAMS securing the most support. On September 26th, Achieve delivered the brand new traveling trophy to the school where teachers and runners Miss McGlotten and Miss Depro celebrated the victory. The new 5K held this past weekend not only raised critical funds for achieve but also gave SS bragging rights for the rest of the year. And as someone who went to PS that matters. Um, next we'll congratulate Maplewood Middle School on the completion of their brand new gym floor. A great addition for students and staff alike. The student council

009will hold a brief meeting in room 166 on Monday, September 29th, right after school. And any students interested in elections should attend to hear speeches and receive updates. If you want to learn how student leadership works, this is a great opportunity and a great first step. It could even lead to one day being on the ACS student council. Finally, we would like to thank our district summer interns. This summer, the district partnered with Satan Hall, Kain, and Ruckers University to provide students with hands-on experience in school district communications. Our interns supported the administration by updating and organizing content on our district and school websites, creating graphics and promotional materials, and helping us highlight the achievements of our students and staff. Personally, we thank Benjamin, Nina, Joshua, Abby, Jasmine, Joelle, Lily, Maya, Brandy, and Miss Jean

010Paul for their creativity, professionalism, and dedication. Their work has made a lasting impact on our district's communications, and we wish them continued success. That concludes our recognitions for tonight. Before we hand the remainder of the meeting over to the board and the public, I would like to use this time to discuss the work Scarlet and I have been doing with the CHS student council throughout the last month. We've been working together to create an easy and accessible way for students to share feedback and suggest ways to improve our school and strengthen its community. And while we are still finalizing the system, we would like to bring forward an issue the student body has raised so far. We would like to address the ongoing challenge of students wearing school IDs around their necks daily. Throughout my

011two years at CHS, this rule has consistently created conflict between students and administration. And as school safety continues to be an increasingly important concern, I do strongly believe that a seamless method of student identification is necessary for maintaining security on campus. Such a method, however, should not breed friction between students and staff, but rather foster cooperation from both students and staff. We would like to propose an alternative ID project centered on developing a new quick and convenient method of student identification. We recognize that such an initiative would require both resources and logistical planning, and we do not overlook these challenges in our proposal. To support this effort, I would like to offer the assistance of the CHS student council in polling the student body and identifying methods of alternative identification that will receive widespread support

012throughout the CHS population. I would again like to specify that this is a suggestion to the board and CHS administration and we have not begun this project without official approval. That being said, we are eager to move forward and help make Colombia a safer place. If the board has any questions, I'm free to answer. Otherwise, that's everything from me and you know, let's try to get everyone home before we all turn into pumpkins. So, >> we definitely have a long way to go still. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say you go on it and then I'll go after you. >> Thank you so much. I think it's always nice to hear what's happening at CHS and certainly what ideas student have. Um, so with that, I guess have you in discussion, I

013guess, as a what was the genesis of this idea? Are there ideas floating around between yourself and other students you've been talking to that you would mind maybe previewing in terms of what those alternatives look like or are you just really brainstorming and want to kind of put it out there? >> As a larger thing, we do have work to go and the suggestions and ideas I have are not representative of the whole student body so far. Like I said, we're still working to use social media as a way to include all of the CHS community in um suggesting ways to improve the community. So, my ideas are just from uh mostly my grade and do not represent the entire community. But what I've heard is some the wearing of larger IDs around your neck

014is not followed. It is disobey or is disobeyed not out of principle out of the principle of wearing an ID. It's more that it is frankly annoying for students and cumbersome. So an alternative could be smaller silicon rubber bracelets that contain students name, ID number, and a scannable barcode. It's something small. Students could wear it on their wrist during the day. When you have hall monitors at CHS watching our halls and security guards, it's very easy to look and see who's wearing bracelets and who's not. That doesn't mean we should completely throw away photo IDs. I think they're valuable. I think students should bring them to school every day. I just think that a smaller alternative like a bracelet would be a better passive way to accomplish. >> Thank you. So yeah, I think um

015it would be nice to hear the results of the survey and then perhaps maybe um you can come to a future policy and governance um committee meeting. >> Yes. >> And um and then also you could give an update to the full board and community at an upcoming meeting. But I think it could be good to go to a PNG meeting to discuss your findings. Um I remember I had to wear those cumbersome IDs in high school and they never matched my outfits and I was very upset about that. So, I get it. Um, but as you said, having student IDs are really important for security and so I'm open to hearing what what students what your feedback is. >> Thank you. Yes, absolutely. >> Um, okay. So, if there are no other comments or

016questions, we'll go on to the superintendent update. >> Kevin first or >> No, you go first. >> Pen, I thought you were going to be a little more 22nd century. I thought you were going to throw out some microchipping. ID retinal and I thought I was eye scans. I was sitting in my seat waiting for it. Well done. Thank you. Uh quick uh almost happy birthday to Jeffrey over there. [Laughter] >> Stole my thunder. >> Sorry. Sorry. Uh I also do want to shout out the South Orange Community Day. Um it, you know, I thought they did a wonderful job this year. Thank you for everybody that came to our table. We had some great conversations. Also, the achieve 5K newstead run. I mean, it was jammed this year. Uh, it was packed. Um, I

017spoke some and I can't reiterate more than what I did say, which this organization has just been absolutely wonderful since I've started here. I I've never seen a foundation work in the method that this foundation works. Uh and how they keep students at the forefront and teachers at the forefront. Um it's been a pleasure to work with. I really look forward to many many more years of just doing great things with them because they they've been amazing. So big thanks to Achieve Foundation. Uh quick update. Um so as we continue to navigate the start of the new school year, I want to extend a sincere thank you for your patience and partnership. Uh our focus during the past few months uh have been a few uh and I shared this with the board and I

018shared this with my team. Um you know when I first came we had some items that we walked into that needed some fixing. Uh those included uh CHS scheduling as you know we had issues last year. This year we we in my humble opinion dramatically improved that process. There weren't lines around the corner. Uh I want to thank Frank and his team and and Zila and and and uh an for their work around that. We also wanted to administer a higher quality ESY program which I think we did and also facilitate better ESY transportation which we did it did as well. Uh and the one hanging on right now is uh to enable a more effective start of the year transportation process which we have not done. uh we still have roots that just are

019not making it on time. Uh and it's not only disappointing and it's frustrating for this board, myself and most importantly our students and families. I could promise you that we are working 24/7 to fix those issues. Um we would not be aware of some of the issues if not for the emails and phone calls. So as I have said previously, please keep them coming. The more information we get, the better. We are riding roots. We are tracking routes with our cars. M business administer uh Mr. Moody tracked a few roots with his car. I have sat on roots. I will be continuing to sit on roots and until this is solved. Um because right now it's for about four routes, it's unacceptable. And this is putting aside the the construction and the detours that are

020going on around the town. Uh we need to do a better job uh with certain routes. Uh I also do want to thank uh the township of Maplewood. Um they developed a new drop off and pickup plan at the high school that has gone really smoothly. Um have I have received very little feedback from parents. We it's been a lot safer. So I do want to give a big thanks uh to their municipality for all the work they put into that new system. Uh and again um as we move forward, we just had our first conversation with Stonefield, which is our hazardous roots uh worker. uh they will be uh going out and looking at hazardous routes again and updating our report. We had both police departments on the call and also both uh town

021BAS on the call as well today. As we move forward with busing, uh I do want to promise that we will be reducing our reliance on thirdparty vendors, especially in regards to routing. We're going to be bringing that in-house. We hired a new director of transportation who has an expertise in in routing and we will be bringing that in-house. We'll also explore the purchase of buses to assist with such things as athletics, field trips, and interchool trips. Uh we're going to examine school start and stop times. Uh we're going to analyze our pre-k busing, review the pros and cons of stopfinder, and also review our current tiering system uh to start uh the September 26 27 school year. So on tonight's agenda, you're going to see my recommendation. I want to stress this. I've been

022receiving emails, calls. Um, everything on a board agenda you you will see starts off with the superintendent recommendation. Uh, this is my recommendation. Uh, I've done due diligence around it and I am recommending this to the board. So, I really want to emphasize that uh to accept the donation from professional basketball player star uh Kyrie Irving who is providing a new new uniforms and footwear for our girls and boys basketball teams. We want to acknowledge that Mr. Irving has made statements in the past that were hurtful and harmful. As a restorative community, we believe that people cannot be defined by their worst day. Instead, we recognize that each of us has the capacity to learn, to grow, and to make amends for harm that has been done. Our district takes seriously the responsibility to teach

023tolerance, empathy, and respect. In alignment with the New Jersey student learning standards, we provide students with Holocaust and genocide education that emphasizes the importance of understanding history, confronting prejudice, and rejecting anti-semitism and hate in all forms. These lessons help our students see the dangers of misinformation and the importance of standing up for what is right. As I was reminded by some of our students while I was thinking about this decision, uh this donation provides us the opportunity to model the values of a restorative community and to educate our communities as well. It's a true teachable moment. Restorative practices call us to provide space for reflection and repair. And I think with this recommendation, we are on the pathway of doing that. Um, by accepting this donation, we affirm our belief that people deserve opportunities to

024contribute positively after making mistakes. Uh, in other news, uh, I want to announce that Columbia High School has been chosen as a recipient of the American Water Charitable Foundation's Hydration Station grant program. This partnership with the American Water Charitable Foundation and New Jersey American Water will fund the installation of a water bottle refill station at CHS, helping to reduce single-use plastic waste and foster trust in the tap water. This is a fantastic step forward for our sustainable efforts. Uh we will also be applying for a grant from the NJP in regards to water fountains. Uh that grant cycle closes October 31st. We will be putting in a grant within the next few weeks. Uh, finally, before I present a synopsis of the 2526 district and board goals, I'd like to talk about the district school

025budget. Uh, we are entering a very tight and difficult budget year, and I want to be upfront and transparent about the fiscal challenges that lie ahead. We are fully committed to being responsible stewards of taxpayer money, and that means keeping a close eye on every expenditure and making some very difficult decisions. As we work through this process, our top priority remains our students, their academic growth, well-being, and future success. We will speak to make uh we will seek to make reductions as far away from the classroom as possible, protecting the core mission of teaching and learning. The months ahead will require difficult choices and open communication as we develop the 2627 school district budget. But I'm confident that by working together and staying focused on our shared values, we can navigate this storm and emerge

026with a financially stable school system that continues to put our students first. We made uh some very important steps uh last year when we uh were developing the 2526 budget. Uh we had a comprehensive budget special services and personnel audit done for the first time in about a decade. Uh we made strategic personnel transfers saving the district over $5 million. We implemented a zerobased budgeting system. Uh we also did a review and re renegotiation of thirdparty contracts. And we also developed a community budget advisory committee and enacted a 2425 budget free saving over $8 million. I do want to emphasize that as a community we have a lot to celebrate. Um obviously and we discussed this during our last 2526 budget development there will be some challenges I think collectively uh as a group and

027with the positive energy that I know Mr. Money and myself have seen as part of this uh budget advisory council that we had last year. Um we're going to make some really good headway in regards to moving this district into the 21st century. Um I think the energy around uh the budget and a lot of our initiatives are are are just a testament to the hard work of our students, our teachers, our staff, and the unwavering support of our families. So I did want to emphasize that. Um I'm going to do a quick presentation uh around our 25 26 district goals as well as our board goals. These will be posted as of Monday uh on our website. So please look for that. Um I do want to comment that this was truly a collaborative

028process. Um we worked with the board. We worked uh with the with the senior leadership team. We worked uh with teachers. We worked with administrators. We worked with students to really focus down on goals that were important uh to the community uh and to our learners. I do want to note that part of this work and I I think board president uh Dval noticed made a point of this last time that a lot of the work is behind closed doors >> during committees uh you know around 95% of the work and that's as per New Jersey school boards that's the way it should be but it's a lot of hours it's a lot of commitment from these individuals uh that sit at this day um that are doing this for and that are just doing

029this because they want to do what's right for our students. So, this has been a really collaborative process and I've mentioned this before. I think this particular board has a very strong committee process and protocol and a lot of the work was done through that. So, I I I don't want to forget sending kudos out to that work. Keith, if you can go to district goal one. We've been talking about this for some time. Um, by June 2026, the district will develop and adopt a strategic plan that reflects community aspirations uh for our students uh our teachers, our staff and community. Uh this work will be done in partnership with New Jersey school boards. Uh it will involve community meetings uh where we gather input uh and then develop a strategic plan that we hope

030uh to be available I'm trying to recollect the timeline sometime in the new year to share that with the public. So we're excited uh about this strategic plan. We've been talking about it for quite some time. I think it'll be the first strategic plan the district has done in over a decade. >> Go ahead Keith. District goal two. Excuse me. Factfinder here. >> District two, student achievement. One of the things we all came to a consensus about was the idea of really focusing on student achievement this year. So by June 2026, the district will increase student achievement by implementing a multi-tered system of support, a K through9 smartphone ban policy, a new Columbia high school freshman academy, a new K to8 math series adoption, uh as evidenced by administration of a universal mass screener by

031October 2025, identifying tier 2 and three students by November 2025, and conducting bi-weekly progress monitoring using our Linkit platform, which is our data platform. uh development of school-based MTSS teams and uh a lot of our key progress indicators will be around uh our parent and and uh teacher surveys around MTSS, our final progress monitoring data report with student growth goals and attendance rates of freshmen. Keith district goal three focused around special services. As you all know, we had two special services audits last year. We spent a lot of time uh not only in board meetings but also uh through town halls discussing those audits. So by 2026 the district will strengthen academic culture and climate through collaborative learning equitable access and partnering with CNI department as evidenced by co-creation of in-class resource support instructional rubric

032scheduling bi-weekly shared planning sessions between curriculum and instruction and special services and conducting uh conducting uh in-class resource support classroom walkthroughs. uh and also the formalization of evidence-based reading scope and sequence by November 2025. Some of the key progress indicators, report on two adopted instructional strategies and usage, evidence-based resource teacher summitive survey, end of year universal screamer and assessment data report and Orton Gillingham training needs assessment. District four, please Keith operational culture uh and climate. Uh I do want to stress and as I noted in my update um we have a lot of work to do around the budget and you will note that at every meeting we will take some of the time to talk about the budget not only our current status but our development of the 2627 budget as well. So this

033goal and you'll see when it's posted really focus on developing a multi-year plan uh to really get our funds back to where they should be. Um, and we'll go more into depth on that uh over the next few board meetings, but I can guarantee and I can speak for the board on this uh that budget will be a key part of all these meetings moving forward and throughout the year. Uh, and many of our town halls that we will be holding uh will be around the budget as well. So by June uh 2026, DISC will enhance operational efficiency and collaboration through the development of a multi-year financial plan. We'll also strengthen leadership capacity. Uh we also implement strategies that reduce staff turnover and increase engagement and satisfaction as evidenced by a formation of a steering

034committee baseline audit November 2025. Implementation of at least two fiscal strategies integrated into a community communication plan by January 2026. In regards to personnel, develop a state interview protocol and disseminate to staff less than four years by November 2025. Monitor number of staff less than four years participating in new retention programs by March 2026. Our key progress indicators, multi-year plan adopted by the board for financial stability, a reduction instructional deficit, an increase in capital reserve, a facilitation of leadership academy, and a new retention program and participation data. The board also worked on their goals during two retreats as I recall during the summer. Uh so we'd like to go over board goal one, district budget by June 2026 in coordination with the superintendent. Formulate a transparent and structured budget process that sets clear expectations and

035strengthens regular communication among the board, district, and community as evidenced by budget timeline by November 2025. Identify and approve policies and regulations relating to budget by January 2026. Develop special committee to identify new revenue streams by December 2025 and track legal spending. Our key progress indicators, revenue stream plan, approved policies related to budget and quarter reports on legal spending. We we will be using a dashboard method this year uh to make sure this uh work is as transparent as possible. Um you're going to hear this quite often. We want you to go to our new website. We are pushing you to our new website. Um you will see more information on there than than has been in the past as we really keep uh people in the loop and try to be transparent especially around

036our budget work moving forward. Board goal number two, governance by June 2026. In coordination with superintendent, review and align board meeting calendar and committee meeting with district goals as evidenced by develop and approve district goals October 2025. Maintain focus on student achievement through academic reports, presentations by October 2025. Monitoring of annual committee agendas and question tracker by December and key progress indicators. Committee agendas align with goals. finalized annual board meeting presentation calendar and monthly completed question tracker. >> Board goal number three, board operations uh by June 2026 in coordination with superintendent forify board governance norms and oversight functions that evidenced by reviewing and updating board standard operating procedures manual October 2025 and again March 2026. Collaborate around best practices for committee meetings October 2025, January 2026, and July 2026. Pursue ongoing professional development by May

0372026. And key progress indicators, quarterly retreat agendas, maintain New Jersey School Board Association certification, active participation in NJSBA conferences and workshops. That's all I have. records implementation. >> So, uh, we need to first ask questions, Mr. B. So, um, board member record. >> Thank you, Mr. Bing. I have a question around the budget. What a shocker. Um, you've just talked a lot about just in your update and going through the goals. Um last year actually earlier this year I believe there was a budget freeze. Is that something that you are looking to do considering our situation? >> We currently are. >> Yes. So uh at our next FFT we'll discuss that in more depth but we are that's one of the uh strategies that are currently being looked at. Yeah. And as uh we talked

038about a lot last year, our main goal as a board is not only transparency, it's also the idea of building up our reserves, which in in our personal lives is our savings. We need to rebuild our maintenance and our capital reserves uh to levels that that we are comfortable with moving forward. that that will take a few years and a strategy that uh Regina just mentioned which was freezing the budget last year and it reaped about 8 to9 million to carry over and put in reserves uh tremendously helped us. Um so we're going to look at a variety of strategies moving forward uh to ensure that we start building up those reserves over the next few years. Okay. >> Okay. Seeing that there are no questions, we'll go to um Dr. Gilbert for his records

039and then we'll do your BA update. Mr. Moody. Yeah. And he's virtual tonight. >> Good evening. Can you all hear me? Okay, >> we can hear you, Dr. Gilbert. >> Thank you. All right. So, uh, to the, uh, board of education, to Mr. Bean, to all of you out there, uh, I'm going to present to you very briefly an update on what we have been doing in terms of implementing our Ruckers, uh, equity audit recommendations. Um so um here we go. I always begin this uh presentation with uh just this first slide which kind of talks through you know what our um audit is the guided philosophy and basically uh we're looking at lots of data but we're centering that data around the families and the students who are mostly impacted our students of color

040our free and reduced lunch our uh our our low SCES families that nature we want people to really understand that, you know, uh put putting this audit into uh implementation does not mean that we're taking things away. We're trying to enhance and make our district better. And the way we do that is making sure that we keep up with um all of our students who are impacted and move in ways that are going to help them be successful. As a reminder, these are the seven uh curriculum and instruction uh recommendations. Uh number one is around, you know, prioritizing materials and verbal messaging around a growth mindset. Uh number two was around fostering uh heterogeneous student collaboration and math instruction. Uh, number three deals with how we are ensuring that our low track students receive highquality

041instructions that they need to be better math students. And I'll pause right here to say you see a lot of emphasis in math. When this audit was done, again, math is the one area where we uh not only in our middle schools had different levels of math, but it's the one area that academically uh we have to really focus in on and improving across the board. But the things that we try in math are definitely things we can broaden out to our other subjects. Uh clear and uh create a clear plan and timeline to identify high achieving students for underrepresented backgrounds uh for higher track math. Create enrichment and acceleration opportunities. Increase accessible and equitable parent involvement. And revisit our choice policy for math course selection. Um go back our um intervention recommendations dealt with

042how do we build basically develop of a district-wide tier system of supports that include academic and behavioral tiers available and processes for utilization. extensive review of our INRS implementation process guide in order to address ites inconsistencies and redundancies. Uh to develop a list of tier interventions uh for academic behavioral supports and develop tools and protocols for the operation of intervention team meetings. Then they have the recommendations that dealt with developing a pedagogical capacity with an equity lens. Um, number one deals with developing a professional development series that helps to focus on some of those things that are important uh to help our educators um uh combat some things that we see that happen, you know, either where it's bias-based beliefs such as color blindness or racial discomfort. Uh number two deals with continuous assessment of

043the knowledge on intervention support systems especially around curriculum and instruction improvements. Number three, uh create development, professional development that build teacher empathy. It was focused around something that we were doing called challenge day, but we're actually looking at how do we help build that humanistic bond between teachers and students uh for conduct a curriculum audit on the courses in humanities, English language arts, uh history, um and a responsible protocol and determine where more inclusive materials and pedagogies are needed. hire more black teachers, teachers of color, and create affinity space to support those teachers to increase the retention. Um, diversifying our workforce, so to say. Uh, build on the successes of affinity spaces for students of color and then provide affinity spaces uh for our students of color. And then finally, there were five recommendations around

044our intentional integration. The first one dealt with modeling modeling of integration to look at how we can change the weights uh to look at factors over time. Um you know that this example in the recommendations talked about for example using race but again when we talk about intentional integration I often want to make sure I emphasize that our intentional integration does not use race as a basis or is not a factor that's even weighted in how we do our intentional integration. uh looking at the pattern of household and parent educational levels uh to examine over time in order to start understand if the triple eye plan can be sustained. Uh stage integration that prioritizes self board and south mountain over the next several years. Review precoid quarantine uh quarantine school years to see the withdrawal

045patterns and understand those. And number five deals with how we can implement our triple eye plan throughout our schools. So it's not just the movement of students, but how we are integrating throughout all of our school communities uh through teachers, through instruction, through uh culture and climate and those kind of things. So uh in page eight of the equity audit uh this is just a reminder that the work that we were going to undertake we put together a plan um that would look at a three to five year scale. We are now moving that work now. I think this is the year three of this uh this plan and it's by the end of this year that we hopefully will see uh these these recommendations implemented and begin moving what we're calling the sustainability phase

046to see making sure that the implementations that we put in place can help to actually move the needle uh and close those opportunity gaps that we're looking to close. So where are we? Uh you can see each of the recommendations here listed. Uh the color code kind of tells you where we are. Um have a report that we are in the progress of implementing all of these recommendations and we have moved to completion of few a few of our recommendations across the board. For example, in our curriculum and recommendation pro uh progress uh we have we revisited our choice policy for math course selection. Uh as you know we did the district provided recommendations this year using multi- multiple measures. Uh but again it was just a recommendation. We still have our parental choice options

047and our parents our families were able to look at that recommendation and weigh it upon what they felt like uh was the best they felt like their students could uh be successful in. Some families took our recommendations, some did not. But at the same time in the effort we have uh completed that particular recommendation and are now looking at the data to see how is impacted tweaks that we need to make but we feel very confident that we uh have completed that these other recommendations the team and I are going to look at and and come up with a definite determination on when these others will be implemented. But like I said at the outset, our goal is hopefully to have all of these recommendations implemented by the end of this school year. The intervention

048uh recommendation process, we uh have successfully completed all of those implementations. Uh we have revitalized our INRS guide. We have moved to uh multi-ter systems of support. We have uh the New Jersey tier system of support. We've put together a whole new system and now we are working with going into our NJTSS meetings monitoring how that work looks. Uh we uh we put together as you know we had a professional development committee and one of the things that they put in place is how can we do PD on tier one interventions. uh you saw in our district goals. One of the things we want to look at is identify to our second and third tier students so we can make sure we put the proper intervention supports in place. But we are very happy to

049say that we have a multi-ter system of support now in place that we believe we can better help our students be successful and have the data to kind of see how we we we drive that. I I when I get to this point, I really have to lift up the work uh the combined work that the office u the assistant superintendent did with the office of curriculum instruction and the office of student services. So, I do want to do a huge shout out at this point to Dr. Zora Carrera who really took this on as one of her uh uh uh things to really lead and she kind of helped us develop a a whole scale plan diagrams and everything. And I think we're on our way. Uh, you know, when I first arrived here

050in uh May of 2022, part the entire multi-ter system of support was non-existent. And now to see what we have now in place, I think our students are going to benefit from it. I think that um our families are going to benefit from it. And we're going to see our district kind of move in the direction that I believe that the board has demanded, but our community has demanded. And it is all because of the work I think we put together in achieving these recommendations. Uh you can see on this particular those particular re recommendations around the pedagogical capacity with an equity lens. Uh we're still monitoring we're still in progress in many of these. I can say on this list um primarily around the u the equity audits and things of that particular nature.

051uh we are are moving to a conclusion on those but in terms of these recommendations we feel pretty confident that um in many of these we should be moving towards completion. Couple of these may be a little bit challenging to get us to complete by the end of this year but we're going to uh really go in like I say as a team as a SLT and look at it and come with some clear goals and ideas on when some of these can be completed. In our last meeting with uh Judge Wallace and BPDW, one of the things they asked us to do, which is definitely something that we are going to lean into was one come up with def definite times of when we believe these these recommendations can be implemented and number two

052create like a heat map to kind of see in the event that some of these cannot be completed by the end of year three, what are some of the trouble areas? These are something that we definitely want to meet. These are some of the things that we're going to do. Uh and while I'm talking about those meetings with uh Judge Wallace uh BPW and our district, we believe that they have been going great. Uh we've been having some real robust conversation. Uh the BPW has offered some meaningful suggestions that we are trying to incorporate. But I think when doing this work and the genesis for what led to this work, having good open dialogue between the parties has been essential uh for us to keep moving forward. So I know you see a lot of

053yellow but please understand that we are working uh diligently to uh complete our goals. And finally on the uh triple I recommendation progress two of these we can say are completed. Uh we did uh look at the first one where we were modeling uh uh looking at the greatest skew skewed patterns awaited uh more intensely over other factors. Uh what we discovered is that the ALS group who we do this work with had already tried and there's only two FA factors that are weighted in our algorithm. Um those factors deal with again household income and parent education level. They played with numbers and determined that there was no significant improvement in moving any of those numbers. And so we looked at it. there was nothing determined that we needed to change differently and so based

054on that recommendation we we marked it as completed. Um we are still working through a process even though we have created a process and a procedure in place to actually look at average household income and parent parental educational level. Uh we are still working through that. Um and uh you know we actually on a yearly basis actually look at all of these things and so we are in ongoing discussions with uh Judge Wallace with BPW and even with Dr. Fergus on making sure we uh delineate the difference between implementation versus sustainability and when are some of these we can check off the boxes and you know this is one of those that uh we are in discussion with to make sure that we have completed it. Um this that third one that talks about conducting

055the stage integration that prioritizes South Bordon and South Mountain for the next several years. We get yearly reports from the ALS group and each year it shows us what those integration patterns look across our schools. We mark this one as completed because every year we can see what the integration looks like specifically at all the schools and primarily Seth Bordon and South Mountain. The reason why those two schools are highlighted at the onset of triple eye, those were the two schools that showed us the greatest diversity amongst our students and our and our SCES tiered students. And then the other two recommendations to review the pre-COVID quarantine numbers. We're still working through developing a process that looks at those withdrawal numbers and how we can make see what the impact of triple I has meant

056for families staying within our district or has that meant lots people leaving our district. And then the final recommendation deals with how we're fully integrating integration throughout all of our schools. We cannot probably mark that one as completed until we mark the other implementation processes completed in the other areas and the other recommendations. And so we mark that one as in progress. These next few slides are just going to go through some of our major activities. This pro presentation will be posted for you. So I'm not going to read all of these, but there's a list of 50 uh so things that we've done. The list is not exhausted but some of the major activities we've done um this particular side just throw out our growth mindset piece where we're trying to incorporate growth mindset

057in all of our professional developments. Now, we started with our K5 teacher, our K8 teachers, excuse me, uh, uh, K5 teachers and, um, what I can say is we know, especially in math, that each time those K5 teachers went through PD, there was some type of aspect of growth mindset placed in there. We do now know that that has gone across the spectrum in math and we want are really working to institute that across the board in all of our areas. Uh, also on this list, uh, that stands out for you, uh, is our continued partnership with EOS that continues to help us look at, uh, moving, uh, uh, students who don't normally take, uh, advanced placement courses. One of the things that led to the, uh, lossy was the number of students of color

058who were going into uh, advanced placement courses. EOS has helped us uh start really looking at that number and looking at data and helping us to uh ascertain you know where we need to go. We do surveys, we do uh things where we get trusted adults and a lot of that information is valuable as we move the needle. And then also listed on this page of course is all the work we did with our INRS uh manual and our and building up our multi-ter systems support on this particular page. Couple of highlights here show that our professional development work is ongoing. There was work done uh with our principles uh with Dr. Fergus. Uh there's also our seed work that is highlighted on this particular page of the building out of not only our social

059emotional learning pieces but our reframing of our restorative justice work. Our continue work around the first two weeks of school. You know, lots of people ask us, you know, you know, we don't want our kids to get behind the first two weeks by just focusing on uh community building and things, but please understand that you can't you got to take care of what we say Maslo before you can take care of Bloom's taxonomy. So, we got to make sure that uh our teachers start building that rapport and building that relationship with those young people. And when you do that, that's a springboard for success. And I'll even say this even further, you know, spending that first two weeks uh of building that uh the academic piece will catch up as the teachers start building that

060rapport with those students. Those students can then begin to become even more and more successful. Also on this page is the work that we've been doing with our curriculum writers around cultural responsiveness within our curriculum and then the work that we did not with Dr. referred in the al group on some of those recommendations uh on the equity audit. On this particular slide, some of the things that highlight here, um you'll see the work that we did with uh the information sessions around math choice and making them virtual and having an option for having various languages was was virtually import vitally important to us to start meeting some of the needs of these recommendations. Our school leaders for example now they create equity context theory of actions and look fors uh to in their goal

061development which incorporates a lot of the work that we're doing um here going forward and kind of helps ground our leaders who are the leaders are trying to help make sure this work is sustained uh throughout uh Dr. Ferguson provide our leaders with great tools that they can use to disagregate data which is very important as they move this work. Um uh train some teachers and leaders in restorative justice so that now they can start building some of this culture and climate. Remember when we talk about restorative justice we are moving restorative justice in our district as a culture and climate measure. Uh, you know, people often hear about restorative justice in terms of an alternative punitive discipline and that doesn't yield the best results, but when you build a restorative culture, one that values

062uh equitable learning environments, one that values uh healthy relationships, one that values uh uh uh redefining what conflict looks like, you're actually sustaining a culture and climate where everyone feels like they belong. And now we got teachers and leaders who are trained in that. And this year we're going to be training some of those leaders to become trainers and trainers so that we have a continuous capacity building going forward in our district. And the final page here kind of deals with a lot of the work we did with uh our triple recommendations and the work that we're continuing to do u to build a diversified workforce. Um, our HR department has attended various state and out of state recruitment events at predominately white institutions, minority servant institutions, uh, black the historic black colleges and universities,

063uh, just areas to really try to uh, get um, as many uh, diverse district uh, people in our district as possible. And also you heard a lot about using the data around recruitment, hiring and retention. Our HR department uh under day Adoya has really worked uh hard to make sure that data is starting to be more useful and more accurate. And so we can take that data and uh uh uh lead us uh in the pathway of building a strong, diverse, culturally competent uh workforce here in the school district of South Orange. and Maplewood. And with that, I will now stand for questions if I can figure out how to stop this presentation. There we go. And that concludes uh the presentation. I don't know, Madame President, did I make it within the 20ome minutes?

064>> I actually failed to put my timer on this time, but I think you did well. Thank you. >> Look at you. Um so now I will allow uh questions questions from the board or comments and thank you so much for the presentation. Dr. Gilbert. Yes dear. >> You're welcome. >> Yes. Thank you. And this isn't a a question more of a comment just for I think everyone because we've discussed this as a board and I know we've discussed this Dr. Gilbert in the red curse committee. I think um you know this district has made great progress in implementing these recommendations and I think I can speak for all of us on the board in the district that this is really just the beginning. These recommendations need to be sustained and I believe we are

065all committed to carrying them forward. So I just want to make just make that I guess public statement because that is that is the hard next step is carrying this forward. Thank you. Yes, we all agree with that. Anyone else? Yes. >> Hi. Um, thank you very much for the presentation. My question was about the references to prioritizing Seth Bden and South Mountain in the integration plan. Um, could you talk about things we're doing other than like letting like the triple eye like formula be run which you know like has a ceiling for certain uh demographic groups at each school like um how does what does prioritization mean for BDON and South Mountain? >> Absolutely. So, um, thank you for that question. I think it's important to know that, uh, when these recommendations first came

066out and one of the things that came up a lot that I learned when I first came into the district is that the schools that had the greatest disparity in terms of student demographics was at Seth Bdon and South Mountain. And so I believe once the Rucker team was coming in, a lot of this recommendation when it came to that was based on what those numbers look like. So to answer your question, um we look at the data, we look and see, you know, what the num what what the number of students in each of our schools look like and percentages based on SCES tier. And although uh race is not a factor in the algorithm, we do monitor the racial makeup of our particular schools. And so when he talked about staging, one of

067the things I think the recommendation was telling us is to look over time over the the three years or so that we're doing this and see what the demographics of those two schools are looking like. Is integration helping narrow the gaps in some of those numbers or is it is it not being as effective as possible? So where do we get the examination from? As you know, we look at a 5% variance in between uh each group, each subgroup. And if those schools are within their variance, then we consider uh integration uh in in and of itself meeting the needs of the movement of our students. I can say to you that and one of the things that I pointed out to not only uh Dr. Fergus, but also in the meetings with Judge Wallace

068and with uh BPW is we're actually seeing different patterns now of students. And so, you know, although it was mentioned that Seth Bordon and South Mountain should be our staged area, what the data is actually showing us is there's other schools that uh we're starting to really look at. For example, Tuskin, for example, we're seeing um a large in in the in terms of the racial makeup of Tuskin. we're starting to see gaps in terms of uh between the variance numbers. Uh we look at Dillia Balden uh when we look at the SCES tier status and the unparent and what that has done to that particular school. And so what this does now is we have to take that data, we have to look at it and see what those particular makeups of those schools

069are looking like. And then now we have to kind of decide okay what do we need to do to either make them more balanced or uh continue to um allow them or or what what do we need to do to change def definitely uh so that uh we we're making sure the integration works and know so I hope that answered your question >> and I just really quickly touch on that and as the board knows Clinton is now our highest freedom being reduced lunch school. So, as Dr. Gilbert noted, you're seeing progressively changes that are happening. So, that's why we have to treat this project as a living project and realizing that things are going to change as we move forward. Um, Jeff, just a real quick note, we also uh placed a uh multi-

070language class over in South Mountain this school year as well. Um, so those are some of the strategies we are using. And when Dr. Gilbert talks about diversifying populations. Um, they now house one of our multi- language classes. >> Thank you for pointing those out. >> I'll just add I think conversely also DE Balden is now has the most the highest high SCES population. >> Hi Dr. Gilbert and thank you. you had mentioned Tuskcin and I think this had come up in previous um presentations um and it seems like a Tuscan um representing tonight um one of the issues is around student uh that we have a lot of sibling preference. Have you developed or had discussions around that particular like that's not really one where I imagine there's a whole lot of flexibility in

071how we treat it. Um but are there any strategies or um things that you guys are considering in terms of how do we address some of that? um at that specific school given that that's a problem or an issue that we can't really solve necessarily for um but just presented it and articulated itself that way. >> Yeah, thank thank you for calling that to attention and that is exactly one of the reasons why we're starting to see a lot of disproportionality issues at at a school like Tuskin is because of sibling priority and you know that is you know that's just one of those things that um you know we can't do a whole lot about because that is part of this process. We give sibling priority to families to try not to break up

072siblings so that you know families can you know have their students go to the same school. But then there's other factors too. So, not to take Tuskin out of the out of the mix, but you know, not all of our schools have, for example, uh all the same type of special education program. And there's some students that have to be moved and shifted uh to other schools based on whatever type of of program that they need in terms of special education. And so, that has an impact as well, I think, uh to to to kind of put a bow on what the linkage that Mr. being was put into the last answer to um Mr. Bennett's question uh is that this is what this work is designed to do. So when you talk about the

073examination of these numbers and you talk about how when we're implementing the strategies that were recommended by the Ruckers team, it's it is our job as administration to take those data points and try to try to guess on what impact certain things happen and try to see how we can best insulate that that that work. And so um there are multiple factors that lead to something. And to kind of to close to this, you know, um I don't know what the answer to the whole sibling priority thing is other than, you know, you know, that's just one of those that's an outlier issue that is going to have an impact and we just got to kind of monitor and see how much significant that impact is. for example, do you offset the impact at Tuskin

074of the high number of sibling priorities by monitoring, you know, the the number of SCES tier students who we need to put into that particular school with the limited amount of spaces that we have, right? And so, um, those are the kind of decisions you have to kind of talk about and think about now the impact of what that means. You know, Mr. Being talked earlier about the the transportation thing. That's another thing that we're we're kind of having to work through and figure out in in terms of the impact of triple I and it's in terms of the whole transportation piece. And so these are the factors that we have to wrestle with. Uh because the ultimate goal too is you want to have as diverse a school uh as possible because that lifts

075up the type of learning experiences that those students have. Remember, this isn't just about moving bodies, you know, we're also talking about integrating uh throughout the school uh curriculum, teachers, and other things to make sure that experience as well. And so, we we we we take all of those factors into place uh to to to try to make the best effort that we can, but there are those outlier situations like sibling preference that uh do make it challenging. It's me again. Um I just had a quick followup to that. I guess when you're and that all makes sense. Um and and I appreciate that. And so I guess when we're thinking about um the plan as as it is, right? And you named 5% as the variance. I think worth noting that five of our

076six elementary schools are currently meeting the variance metric that we have set forth, which is great. Um, I guess like to your point, this is about so much more than just that metric, which we are doing quite well on though. And so when you have a school where maybe you're identifying some of those outlier situations like a tuskin or just as demographics shift to support the ruckers work are there specific things that you're looking at in terms of identifying is there a school where we are seeing a greater need to have teacher training around um you know content areas um bias related things. How do you kind of track some of that on a school-by-school basis and then kind of moderate or differentiate the training that you might provide to a campus whether it be

077through administrators or teachers so that to your point the real work of equity beyond just where we're placing students is is being responsibly um disseminated. >> Absolutely. And so uh part of tell answer this in two ways. So there's a global piece that we're trying to do by putting in for the for for example one of the recommendations is to put it in a sustainable professional development plan that looks at some of the uh cultural responsiveness pieces and try to implement that across the board. And so we make sure that during our professional developments all of our teachers touch some type of equity standpoint. there's some kind of equity piece that they go through because we want to make sure all of our educators. But then there's other things that we have to look at.

078For example, we look at perhaps some of the complaints that may come in. We get a large number of complaints from a particular area where certain families are feeling like their students are being uh uh isolated or not uh being uh experiencing the school in the welcome and belonging manner that we want them to. then that kind of gives us indication that we need to go in and do some work. You know, one of the things on those list of activities we are is support that myself and our director of of data planning, research and evaluations, Dr. Wable, you know, we try to support the schools as much as possible, especially with some of these highintensity issues that may that that that may arise. Um, the other thing the other factors that we we kind

079of look at too is Mr. being talked about Clinton for example that is now our top title one school in terms of population but that's something that we we started seeing across the board so each year we talked about across the board we kept we kept talking about how they're getting a large number of multilingual learners uh we can see the numbers increasing and what that's going to do and so a school like that that we see is shifting in terms of uh uh what their demographics look like is definitely a school that we want to identify as we want to maybe infuse use a little more training because things are going to look differently in this school. The leader has to be prepared to uh uh lead a school that's going to be different

080from what they are. He talked about not putting a ML uh ML class in uh South Mountain. That's a school we have to look at because now they're getting a different population that they haven't had before. And so we want to make sure that they're equipped to do that. And so we want to try to be as proactive as possible. But there are those situations that come up with the data where the data kind of shows and shifts us. But we may have to make some interventions in the meantime because we can see the data is leaning towards um shifting what that environment looks like. >> Okay. Thank you. I think we will now move on to our BA update. Yep. Thank you, Dr. Gilbert. >> Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Gilbert. Thank you, Madam

081President. Keith, if you wouldn't mind throwing up the uh richer timeline. First of all, I just want to start by thanking you, Madam President, for the swag that you got me. I appreciate that. Although it does not fit. I have to lose weight, and that's good. It's good motivation, and I I appreciate that. Um, and beyond that, you know, I definitely want to thank uh, Superintendent Bing and all the rest of the board members for just continuing the theme around concentration around this budget, you know, and our continuing efforts to build and shape a budget that can serve us all. I mean, you know, old African proverb proverb, if you want to go somewhere fast, you go alone. If you want to go somewhere far, you go together. we're going together in this process and

082I want to thank you Mr. Bing really for fostering a a cordial and collegial conversation around this topic as we face these challenges. Um we all have to collectively understand that we're going to be facing some challenges moving forward and we have to really examine each account line so that we can avert uh movement towards fiscal cliff. That was the central theme of the budget process throughout uh the 2425 budget season as we prepare for this year 2526. And uh you know the way we were able to make it through to where we are today was because we collectively uh addressed the challenges and we faced them. Uh I want to thank you know board member Regina Eert for championing something from our uh no seriously for from our the theme of our our budget

083process that we have to carry forth into this budget year and that is looking at the financial sustainability of this district and looking at the uh the fund balance that we need to reconstitute. There was a precipitous decline in fund balance prior to our arrival here from 33 million down to a projected 14 million. So we need to focus on that and each of the times that we have a conversation moving forward through our budget advisory councils and and and the like throughout the fall and as we plan for this next budget season, we will be facing the challenges in all of those account lines. Okay? Right. So, I just wanted to thank uh you all for continuing that theme and and uh and we just have to, you know, move forward together and and

084face these challenges and we will. Um so, that said, um I want to move into our project timeline for our Ritzerfield revitalization project. Um and as as we know, this is something we've been evaluating throughout the summer. uh we were able to successfully move forward on September 12th with the long range facilities plan. We're called upon as a district to submit a five-year plan of all of our long range facilities projects that we're giving consideration to. And of course, it's more like a wish list of all the potential projects and all of the projects we see that uh the district will need moving forward. um and it's required of each district, but in order for us to consider any individual specific projects, we have to be certain that our long-range facility plan is updated. We

085did that um and submitted that on September 12th. Um and then tonight we will be giving consideration to uh the Department of Education project submission for the individual projects associated with the Ritzerfield as well as the auditoriums that we're considering doing structural work to. So uh as we move towards that DOE project submission, we we will tee it up for consideration in the resolutions today. Um and it's contingent upon approval of the long-range facilities plan that we uh recently submitted. Um then I move into this uh Gant chart, this project timeline and this is a uh intended to give a highlevel report to the public and community around the stages of the process that we're looking at for uh the the revitalization of Richardfield and the associated auditorium projects. So, um, and I'm gonna have

086to shift from my glasses to no glasses in order to read both sides. But, um, having done the LRFP sub LRFP submission and today considering our, uh, Department of Education project submission, um, the next phase is site in investigation. That site investigation will take place through uh, October and no, November of 2025. Um, and then there's the design and development phase from no November 2025 through January 2026. And you can see on that second line there, but in this permitting phase, there's a couple of intercontingent uh and parallel paths that I'll speak to, but essentially we're looking at the permitting phase to be from January 2026 through March 2026. However, there are some steps that pre preage that. There will be a um u a planning board, municipal planning board submission process, and we're shooting

087for a date of December 2025 is our early target. Uh or January 2026 as our as a a target if we are unable to meet that December date. Um and then the department of education approval takes place after the municipal planning board review and we're anticipating that for February 2026. Uh and then a board resolution to the board of school evidence board of school estimates the Boosezie uh will follow after that DOE approval. Then we have the board of school estimates approval process which will begin from March and march forward from there. Um and I just wanted to mention that the site investigation and design development phases um must be significantly completed in order to authorize to proceed uh in September. And these phases would need to take place from October through January. And then

088after this construction documents process in March that begins in March, uh there will be the open public bidding to uh retain the the the actual contractors that will do the process. And then we have the award and contracting in May 2026. And then we have construction slated to begin June as early as June 2026 uh with a 7 to9 month time horizon around construction. And you know for all the reasons cited in all all of our deliberations around Ritzerfield and auditorium u you know re revitalization we believe this this timeline to be a a really solid structure. Again there's a lot of interdependent parts a lot of stakeholders uh a lot of people involved and you know we'll be giving uh presentations throughout the process as updates as to where we are uh and and

089be fully transparent. So, um, that's what I have for the LFP submission and the Ritzerfield revitalization project. I'm going to go on to one other topic here, which is, uh, construction review, unless there are questions around that timeline first. Okay, how about that? >> Thank you. Um, I think it would be important for the community to understand because quite frankly, it took myself a little bit to process. What is the difference in the resolution that is being approved today? Why is like in the sequence of events? Where does that fit in and why is it being done separately than what was approved in August? >> Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, happy to provide some clarity there. Um, essentially the uh August resolution was and a resolution that we needed to do in due course. Again, it's a

0905-year cycle. we need to uh submit our long range facilities plan for review at the state level. Uh and we were on course to do that. I believe the the date to have that completed was earlier in the summer. So it was important for us to do that process. And so that what that that's what that resolution sought to to authorize and pass was the long-range facilities plan. Now having done that um the fact of the matter is that any project that you consider doing uh must be within the long-range facilities plan larger scope. So uh that was the necessary first step submit the long-range facilities plan for review and approval and then we have that's that the required first step for any project right so we have to have a a good uh current

091long-range facilities plan in order to give consideration to future projects then today's resolution is a resolution to submit for approval an application for approval at the uh department of education level at the state level to increase the scope of what we had prior planned at the Richer Field. As you may recall, um it was given consideration in prior years to doing work at Richerfield. So, we took it through a process, but this process involved an increased scope. Uh we know it also in involved increased construction at uh of auditoriums, the fixing of auditoriums around the district. So, given that, we needed to actually submit uh a new application for approval at the DOE. Uh and and that's you know what the the next resolution does submits an application to the DOE in order to actually

092get them to approve the debt service aid that would be associated with the enhanced scope. So that um hence the need for the the second resolution has a different purpose because it's direct it's directed to the DOE application process. >> Thank you. Um, so I think just to kind of provide even just a little bit more clarity for everybody. Um, you know, and I know this was actually prior to your time, but last year in 2024, we had been discussing how the LRFP was going to expire. This is you came in November, so you didn't even know this was happening. December, sorry, December. Um, >> and you know, I know a lot of work was going into that. And then, of course, Mr. Bing stepped in in July, so there was a lot of transition

093going on. Um I I do have a little bit of concerns about kind of like the timelines and all the the time and resources that were were spent on it. You know, just from a obviously a BA transition, Mr. Bing, you had done that survey in the fall, which I think was really important to get the community engagement in it. But there was definitely a time in which I think from district architect FFT and ultimately the board you know um kind of failed to keep this on proper timeline and I know that it's a little bit unique right because as you mentioned prior Ritzer approval the scope has expanded tremendously and and and as it should but that then requires a lot of extra steps so I I say this just to say I can't

094speak for the whole board but you know I I do think I want to recognize and and acknowledge that we as a board did not keep it really on track as as needed. Um especially in our oversight role and at the end of the day at this point I feel like our students and athletes are the ones that are that are losing out once again. And I think going forward as it relates to FFT and I know we've talked about this, but like really keeping that as a standing item and then having the clear the true clear timelines and processes just to ensure that this doesn't happen again because you know we're approaching I don't even know year eight at this point come next year. So >> just want to hold us all accountable to

095making sure that this work actually gets done. >> Okay. So by this doesn't happen again meaning a lapse in the LRFP submission or because that's that's >> kind of just the whole process and ensuring that every step >> sorry um just ensuring that every step of the way and I'm looking at you but I'm actually look I'm speaking to everybody here um is that we are all involved you know and by the way three of us are not going to be sitting here in just two months so that I'm saying this to my existing board colleagues and then the new ones that are going to step on that you know we do owe it to our students and our athletes to ensure that whatever we can do to keep track on breaking ground. >> Yeah.

096>> In June or July 2026 happens. >> Oh, absolutely. I think um everyone shares that that sentiment and I think you know um in my discovery process for this richer field conversation it kind of it got de re rep prioritized I think and dep prioritized uh and then um you know over the course of the summer there's there was a lot more energy to uh to take it on and I think that's when we really started teeing it up and and and engaging with the community and and getting feedback and and so I think uh we're at a place where we have a solid path forward and we've got a timeline and we've got the right people uh engaged and and working to get this stuff done. So, we're going to stay on it even

097uh you know past the the 10 years of our esteemed board member colleagues. Um so, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. >> Okay, so let's moving right along. Thank you everyone. Thank you Mr. Moody for that update. >> Um, I'm going to read the board president update, which I always caveat that you might hear some messages that you heard earlier, but I like repetition because it's how people remember, um, what we're saying and what we're doing. So, um, we know the start of the school year has not been as smooth for many students because of transportation challenges. I'm going to move this. Everything seems so far away for me right now. uh late buses, long bus rides and delayed arrivals are not and delayed arrivals are not acceptable. Thank you to the families who have reached out

098and are staying in con in constant contact with the board and district on these issues. I see some of those parents in the audience tonight. Um I also want to thank our superintendent for keeping the board up to date on progress via our phone calls, emails, committee meetings, and update reports. Our superintendent, assistant superintendent, business administrator, and the transportation department have been striving to be very responsive with parents and even riding buses, holding meetings with families, and meeting with our bus service consistently to rectify these issues. Outsourcing our buses is not something we can easily reverse. However, I am encouraged that our superintendent has already taken concrete steps to improve service by adding additional buses to lengthy routes, splitting up routes, adjusting pickup times. We acknowledge that 7 a.m. bus pickup times for some of

099our youngest learners is not an ideal solution and we have asked for that to be reviewed. I recognize there's still work to do as does our superintendent. In the future, I hope the district will move forward with bringing bus routing in house for more thoughtful and controlled planning, ensuring our transportation department gets alerts on bus delays in real time and can solely purchase a few buses back annually. The district is currently investigating leveraging the electric bus grant from the state to do so. I'm now going to just recap some of our board work and highlights on what we're voting on tonight. So, our board certification, we received the results of our wellness check on our policy, our board policy manual administered by the NJSBA, which was the last step in maintaining our board certification. The

100results were reviewed in our policy and governance committee this month, and there were minimal tasks to tackle in addition to ensuring all of our regulations are up to date, which we have been already working on since last school year. or multi-year strategic plan. We have signed a contract to engage NJSBA's 3D strategic planning process service to facilitate the district's 5-year strategic plan. That cost is $4,500, and we look forward to kicking off the process this year, which will involve community engagement. More to come soon on that. Board goals. In addition to our district goals, we're voting on our board goals tonight for the 2526 school year. I'm particularly proud of our goals this year as we tied KPIs or metrics to them to hold ourselves accountable. They focus on three main areas. Strengthening financial stewardship

101and transparency to support long-term fiscal stability during a critical time in our district's financial state. Improving oversight of district goals and communication so the community is consistently informed and engaged with student achievement metrics. and enhancing board governance and professional development to support effective operations and continuous improvement. Auditoriums in Ritzerfield. Thank you again uh for our business administrators update. We're making progress on potentially gaining debt service aid on the middle school auditoriums in Ritzerfield. I'm sensitive to the delays that this endeavor has created as I know many community members and students are anxious to have this important these important and long overdue projects come to fruition. Tonight's vote on resolution 4853L is to approve the submission to the New Jersey Department of Education for debt service aid, which would decrease the tax burden on our residents.

102Once a project is included and submitted in the LRFP amendment, which took place September 12th, the state requires a separate board resolution authorizing submission of that specific project for state review and approval. The NJ DOE submission would take place after tonight's vote. I'm watching you. Okay. I also want to note that we have asked the district to have an internal SOP guides. Um, bouncing off of what board member Eardert has shared earlier, um, an internal SOP guide for all of these critical LRFP and board of school estimate steps to ensure the district and the board keep track of all necessary action steps so that nothing is missed in the future. Lastly, we are voting on resolution 4853N to accept the Kyrie Irving donation of boys and girls basketball team uniforms through Ant USA. This opportunity

103was vetted by our superintendent which included talks directly with our school community and Irving's team. The value tot 3600 approximately 12,000 in apparel each year from 2025 to 28. We recognize that the comments he made back in 2022 were hurtful and unacceptable which should never be ignored or excused. But he has since apologized and is now giving back to the very communities that helped raise him. As a community committed to restorative justice, we believe in the power of growth, accountability, and second chances. enabling those to make amends after doing something harmful. Accepting this donation reflects our values of teaching empathy and repair while also modeling for our students that people can learn from their mistakes and contribute back to their community positively thereafter. And lastly, once again, happy birthday Jeff. U we had some nice

104goodies in exec session for him tonight. So, uh board president statement, the school board meeting is a business meeting in public and not a meeting with the public. Oftentimes, it may appear to members of our audience that the board of education takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote. Before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting, it has thoroughly been reviewed by the administration, the superintendent of schools, and the board of education after which it is placed on the agenda for board discussion and action at a public meeting. Now, we will um begin our public speaks. Thank you for coming in person and joining us online this evening. The South Orange Maplewood Board of Education values public involvement and respects that you've taken time to address

105the board at tonight's meeting. As this is the board's business meeting, a friendly reminder, thank you to please be respectful as we take into consideration your valuable input, which will inform future deliberations and work by the board of education and its committees. The board does have time limits by policy and it will be enforcing those to enable as many people to speak as possible this evening. Yeah, we're good. Um each individual each individual will be given three minutes to speak. The first public comment period is usually limited to one hour with priority often given to items related to the meeting agenda and the second public comment period may be limited to 30 minutes. Please remember to say your full name and town where you reside. So first person I call up is Chi Bradner. Thank

106you. Oh, thanks. Good evening, board members, superintendent, and the Soma community. Thank you for these sessions and to Superintendent Bing for your hands-on leadership. I'm Chi Browner, parent of the six-year-old with a 504 for food allergies, assigned to Clinton under the triple eye, and a member of the budget advisory committee. We live two doors down from Delia Balden but didn't request a transfer because we support the triple eye and love the Clinton community. Our ask are simple. One, buses running correctly and efficiently on day one. And two, proactive communication so we work ahead of problems. Over the past four weeks, we saw a systemwide breakdown. One, communication was siloed. Stopfinder, power school, and bus rosters still don't match up, and last year's lessons weren't applied. Number two, routes changing on the fly. Drivers were handed

107new routes daily. Number three, safety and schedules were misaligned. There were no crossing guard coverages on early runs. Arrivals set way before 7:58 a.m. And even on time buses hold students for 10 minutes before unloading, making them late anyway. Departure set before 2:28 p.m., forcing kids to miss class just to catch the bus. How is this equitable? On day one, our son's ride took 90 minutes to reach a stop only 5 minutes away. With no real-time visibility, parents mapped routes, used Air Tags, and escalated to the village green. That's not okay. First pickup times have improved, but quality control on posted times remains unacceptable. This is bigger than busing. It's operational discipline. When basic processes aren't clear and repeatable, we burn time and money firefighting. And kids miss breakfast, lose instructional time, and face safety

108risks and stress, the very inequities we're trying to fix. Tightening basics preserves choices around transportation, special services, arts, turf fields, and lets leader leadership focus on the curriculum and the looming fiscal cliff. So, three suggestions. plan earlier. We appreciate the eight buses now serving Clinton. At max capacity, they could move the entire school. Yet, routes still overlap stops a block apart, which is inefficient and strains the budget. Appoint one accountable transportation lead to coordinate bus companies, schools, families, crossing guards, and power school and stopfinder. Involve parent liaison during summer routing and set simple guard rails. No arrivals before staff can receive kids and no departures before the bell. Number two, test and verify. Run dry runs before day one. Do ride alongs on day one and give drivers and families clear lead time on any

109changes. Number three, communicate with one source of truth. Keep power school rosters and driver messaging in sync. Provide real-time GPS and send delay alerts as soon as the first pickup slips, not 20 minutes later. And share weekly bus metrics so families can see progress. We're all here to set our kids up for success. Families shouldn't have to come to the BOE for basic quality control. My ask is simple. Stop working in silos. We want the triple eye to work and it takes a village. This is about equity. Lost learning time and sleep hit our youngest and most vulnerable first. And lastly, please keep supporting Superintendent Bing. Few leaders weighed into the weeds like he has. And let's extend that rollup sleeve mindset districtwide. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Just I want to

110shout out to Chi because she's been just a wonderful partner through all this. So, thank you very much, Gene. I truly appreciate it. >> Great. Thanks. Next is um Samantha Thompson. >> Good evening. My name is Samantha Thompson and I live in Maplewood. I'm here tonight as a parent who's deeply frustrated with how the district has handled both transportation and the preschool program. Let me begin with transportation. My son was assigned a bus this year. In the first three weeks of school, that bus came to get him three times and never on time. A four-year-old cannot understand why a bus that's supposed to take him to school simply does not show up. He does he does understand that his routine is broken and this creates confusion, disappointment, and anxiety. As parents, we do everything we

111can to give our children consistency, but in this case, the district failed to provide it. I want to be clear. I know the transportation department staff worked very hard, but they were not set up for success. The routes they were given were literally impossible, and families were left to manage the fallout from problems that should have never reached our children. In the middle of this, families received an email from the preschool program stressing the importance of being on time every day. At the a time when the district itself was failing to provide reliable transportation, that message felt out of touch. Instead of support, it shifted blame onto families and erodess trust. I also want there to be transparency around the preschool program itself. How many pre preK seats are currently open in the district? What

112percentage of families declined placement this year because they had to commit without knowing what their school assignment was and whether or not afterare and before care were available? And how does this compare to 2024 when school assignments were shared upfront? As a parent with another child who will be entering the lottery this coming year, I need to know that changes will be made. Given um this dissatisfaction from families this year, what is the district doing to make the process better? Parents want to partner with the district. But partnership requires more than words. It requires trust, consistency, and commitment to solving problems before they reach our children. Right now, families do not feel that commitment. I urge you to take these concerns seriously and to come back to this community with answers and a clear plan.

113To be clear, I love my child's school and the care that they receive. Um, but these administrative missteps have already made me lose trust in the district and my child is only in preschool. I have 13 years still ahead of me. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Samantha. Next, we have Richard Pichic. Good evening. Uh my name is Richard Pichchek. I live in Maplewood. I'm here to join the transportation bandwagon. Uh first, thank you for the opportunity to speak, but also thank you to Chi Browner who has really spear, you know, helped organize the parents and and kind of spearheaded the communication with the the district over this issue. uh she covered a lot uh so very comprehensive so I feel like it's best if I just talk a little bit about our personal

114experience. Uh my daughter is a third grader at Clinton. Uh my son is in the prek3 program not not taking the bus. Uh we moved here last summer from Jersey City. Um and we moved here largely because of the great reputation of the schools and we've had nothing but an amazing experience at Clinton. um mainly due to the awesome teachers that we've had and uh parents who just go above and beyond to support the school. Um, but this bus thing has been a mess and super disappointing for a new family to the area who chose this place to plant roots um because because of the schools and uh just so I mean I could give you the whole story the all the anecdotes but I didn't expect to be coming here still not knowing what's

115happening tomorrow. So after you know multiple updates uh many many messages over the weekend saying there's updates coming nothing has changed in powers school for me. Um P school says that the bus is coming at 7:16. Uh now all along the most reliable source of information has been the bus driver. So when power school said 7:39 and the bus driver said they're coming at 7:30 the bus came at 7:30 or thereabouts. when Power School changed to 7:16 and the bus driver said 7:24, the bus has been mostly coming around 7:24. Now, after this big, you know, buildup to uh updates over the weekend, nothing changed in Power School for us, still says 7:16. My daughter got off the bus today with a handwritten note from the bus driver saying the bus will pick her up

116at 7:10. Um, now I under we're I believe we're one of the first stops on the route. We're uh at uh Schaefer and Vaness. Now, that's another thing. Uh our school says in the morning that our stop is Mensel and Schaefer. In the afternoon, Schaefer and Van Ness, but the bus just comes to Schaefer and Vaness in the morning and the So, not only is the time not there, the location is wrong. There was one day when everybody had to run down the street to where the bus actually was. Another day when my wife had to chase the bus down the street. My wife and I are out for work before this happens most of the time. In any case, to wrap things up, I just want to say super disappointed. Love the school. Can

117anybody tell me what time the bus is coming tomorrow? Thank you. >> Thank you. And hopefully someone can follow up with you on your question. Um, we have your name so email. So, thank you. Um, Betsy Bigglin. Thank you. My name is Betsy Bigglin. I live in South Orange. I have a first grader at Clinton Elementary School and I live uh four houses up from Marshall Elementary School. I come before you as a parent and actually as an employee. I'm I'm an employee of the New York City Department of Education. So, I've been inside a system. I've worked in a large organization that deals with multiple issues. So, I'm coming from a dual perspective of uh both a parent uh and someone who's worked in the education system. What should be a simple act getting

118our children to school has become a daily burden marked by ineptitude and an inefficiency. Families like mine have been forced into the role of problem solvers for a system that's failing us. We spend countless hours coordinating through WhatsApp chats, pooling rides, shifting our work schedules, all while expected to shoulder our parental labor labor with grace and understanding of the failure of what has occurred this year. Meanwhile, South Orange Maplewood treats transportation as though we're an accessory rather than a central part of the mission of the integration system that we've created here. The promise of integration is being undermined, not by philosophy, but by logistics. When a bus pass requires that neighborhood children be present at their stop, which in this case happens to be the front lawn of the elementary school four doors down from

119me, nearly an hour before their 758 start time of their assigned school in another neighborhood. The burden is undeniable. What was supposed to be a step towards equity has beun become a source of needless hardship. I stand here representing multiple families who have asked me to speak on their behalf who are in this situation. Not to me, not to mention numerous others in other schools that have spoken to me about this. A bus crashed near Marshall School right where we live because they've been the bus driver has been trying to do a 40 in 40 minutes a 60-minute route. Uh this is not sustainable. A bus driver is speeding because the route times do not work. Our route time has changed uh over 40 minutes, a 40-minute swing over the course of four weeks. We

120started at 7:50 a.m. We are now down to 7:08 a.m. We have gone through multiple times. Uh we can't do this. This is not what true integration actually looks like. A genuine equitable plan would recognize that children cannot learn if they arrive already tired, stressed, or left behind altogether. It would recognize that families cannot participate fully in this vision of equity if the foundation safe, reliable, reasonable transportation is missing. The system we are left with is fragmented and inequitable. It creates barriers rather than opportunities and it leaves families with a sinking feeling that our children's well-being is not being prioritized. It should not be like this and it should not be September 25th and we are still miles from working solutions that are actually getting our kids to school on time and safely. While I

121appreciate the words, they do seem to be repetitive from what I've understood since moving here year after year with justifications as to how this transportation system works. If we are truly committed to equity, then transportation must be treated as part of the educational mission itself, not as an afterthought. And until then, we remain caught in a cycle of broken routes, broken trust, and broken promises. I do say this with all thanks to Superintendent Bing, who has been waiting in, and I stood at a bus stop with him. Thank you for the time. >> Thank you. Next, we have um Joseph Turnquist. Uh good evening. My name is Joseph Tornquist. Uh born and raised here in Maplewood. Um I'm with the South Orange Symphony. Um I would actually like to defer my time uh to my

122colleague uh Susan H who's a conductor of South Orange Symphony. So if she can actually speak first. >> Uh she you mean you don't want each person gets three minutes so we can't do combined times. So, >> may she come and join me? >> Yeah, of course she come sit with you. You just slide your chair over. >> So, you can >> Hi, Susan. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Joe. And and good evening. My name is Susan Hag and I'm a a resident of South Orange. Good evening to all of you. Um, I've had the honor of conducting the South Orange Symphony since 2014. And this is a really remarkable group of 50 musicians, mostly amateurs, some professional right here. Um, almost half of them live in South Orange and Maplewood. And we perform three

123free concerts a year at the South Orange Middle School. All ages are welcome. The concerts are lively and casual. The repertoire is varied. Kids can dance in the back of the hall if they need to. People can come and go because this is their orchestra. So, it's a pleasure to introduce several others here. I'll just I'll just point out um in addition to Joe, who's the concert master, um Brian Herrick, second trombone, he's a Maplewood resident and a >> oh South, sorry, and a Seth Bdon >> parent. Is that correct? And uh Janet Poland is the president of the board. She's head of personnel, library, and a violist. She kind of does everything. We're always amazed. And also doing everything is Marty Gilund. And he is general manager and violist. So um this group is

124is uh they make it all happen. And last season was our 75th anniversary. Mayor Sheena Colum uh and village counselors issued a proclamation from the stage. And the mayor was so thrilled by this experience of sitting in the front row that she came back in January as typewriter soloist in Loy Anderson's The Typewriter. So if you don't know this piece, you've got to know that there's a little ding about 50 times. She did beautifully. Um we have enjoyed collaborating with many area music uh educators. Our musicians played side by side with the South Orange Middle School student musicians for seven years straight. Um Jake Ezo's choirs performed at the orchestra. Mr. Nick Dios of Columbia High School Festival Chorus sang last year. It's just fantastic. Um two theater students from CHS um joined with our

125second bassoonist to narrate for coffee of Peter and the Wolf. So there's just a great um teamwork and we are so so grateful for the ability to be in residence at South Orange Middle School. As I said, uh, this was the 75th anniversary. So, we want to thank the board for their support over many years. We really look forward to the first concert of the season. It's Beethoven's fifth symphony. You want to sing the theme? >> No. Everybody knows it. You all know. Yeah. Right. Thank you. So, this will be um Sunday afternoon at South Orange Middle School. Sterling Hall is a wonderful place to rehearse. Uh we really look forward to serving the community there to seeing you all at many concerts. We greatly appreciate this time and consideration and uh we'd be glad

126to answer any questions, but we just are are thrilled and honored to um be in residence of the school and if anybody wants to say anything else. Time's up. Okay, >> Susan, the more information you can give us, we could post it on the website so so people know when the concerts are. Yes, we will. Absolutely. >> Photos, too. Thanks. >> Thanks so much. >> Um, next. Oh, so Janet, you Yeah. Okay. No worries. I love all the support that um that Susan brought tonight from the symphony. Um, okay. So, that was Brian as well. Are you No. Okay. Okay. No worries. Um, James Davis Thank you, Madame President, and thank you to the board and to Dr. Gilbert. I'm not sure if he's still on or not. Um, but I'm here for once to

127get some compliments and not critique. I don't speak at the board meetings often and when I do, I'm usually critiquing or some other admonition. But tonight, I wanted to thank Mr. being face tof face in public and Dr. Gilbert who's not present um for their work on the black parents workshop settlement. Uh I will make one correction with Dr. Gilbert. It's actually year five and not year three based upon the extension from a couple years ago. Um but I want to say this uh leadership matters and although we got off to a slow start with the settlement, we are now I think in full gear if I could characterize it that way. Mr. Being, uh, we have been meeting quarterly to discuss every recommendation and as Dr. Gilbert and Mr. Being will tell you, I

128think I asked some pretty exacting questions and comprehensive questions during our conversations. And so based upon their responses, which I will characterize as comprehensive, thorough, direct, uh, with corroborating evidence. On top of that, uh, I wanted to say publicly that BPW is satisfied with the progress so far. I wanted to make sure that during this election season that the settlement does not get put in the crossfire of the candidates because there have been some statements online about the immigration plan going forward or other things like that and that is far from the actual reality of where we are. Uh, thank you to Dr. Gilbert again for the heat map and I wanted to encourage uh a few groups that are not at our meetings to uh just get involved in what this plan actually entails.

129Uh Dr. Fergus has created the blueprint. Mr. Bing, Dr. Gilbert are creating the infrastructure. the teachers, the staff members of the district will implement that blueprint, implement that infrastructure, and the parents and the students will hopefully be the beneficiaries of all of it. But I'm hoping to one day be gone from all of this. So, the parents will have to kind of take the lead during the sustainability and the maintenance phase. And so I wanted to encourage all to actually read about how we got here um and to hold the district accountable when necessary so that your plan can be implemented for your student and your student no matter what color they are can benefit from the plan because that's what it's all about. So again, this is to publicly state where we stand um

130as a group and to just again thank Mr. Bing for his leadership and I'm sure even with the current transportation issues you will solve that problem too. Uh but thank you to the board and and Mr. Bing and Dr. Gilbert. That's it. >> Thank you very much. >> So I'll just echo James sentiment. Um the meetings that we've had have been very collaborative and what I my what I truly appreciate it is they're student centered. So uh we talk about it frequently. Uh, I think we're making some good progress and I I think we'll continue to do so. But big thanks to James and his colleagues for working with us uh and making this a process that to be very honest, we we look forward to the meetings because we just we get a lot

131done. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And next we have uh the final inerson and then we have two online. Thanks. Yeah, Beth Coantino. Thank you. Hi, I'm Beth Cosantino. I live in Maplewood. I have two children in the district. I'm not here on behalf of CPACOM. Um, I spoke at the board of ed meeting last month. Um, and there's a lot of talk tonight about the beginning of the school year. Um but I haven't heard anything about the pair professionals. Um students with disabilities who rely on educated professionals including pair of professionals. There's not been one word and it is my understanding that as of today the leadership and the board of ed haven't reached out to ESS. I had requested that you ask some questions some hard questions but nothing has happened. Um, so

132the questions were to wonder like why they demoted all of the level two pairs to level one, why that happened. Um, and that meant that now they all were going to be making $24.79. So the district only was going to have to pay $30.99 an hour as opposed to last year when we paid more for level two Paris. So obviously the district is in advantage um financially with this change at least in the short term. If students need to leave the district due to lack of appropriate support by a well-trained and educated paraprofessional then this advantage will end. The level of uninvolvement by the senior leadership team and the b in this matter is remarkable to put it kindly. The response is that this is like we don't get involved because we don't get involved

133with negotiations between Sumea or except for SMA and ASCA doesn't take into consideration the level of expertise of the level two paras who have been demoted to level one and that there are students with disabilities who have it in their IEPs as a requirement that school personnel be trained appropriately for the students disability. There has also been the response that the parents the parents signed their contract so they were okay with it. But the fact that so many turned up to the meeting last month obviously meant that they weren't okay with it. I heard from someone today who's a pair professional and she wrote, "No, we haven't gotten any information from anyone. All we know is that the school is short staffed with PARS because everyone is leaving and going to other districts." The difference

134between a level one and level two parah is delineated by the college credits and the education a person has. It is no different than a teacher in our district who has a master's degree being paid more than a teacher who has a bachelor's degree. I ask you, would anyone here expect that they would receive a contract letter from their employer that said that they were being demoted and getting less pay with no explanation? At the last board of ed meeting, nobody here acknowledged the people sitting in the room and said and said to them, "We understand, we feel for you. We we are sorry that this is happening." My time's up. I could go on. Anyway, it's shameful and I think that somebody should be doing something about it. >> Thank you, Beth. online. We

135have Michael Goldberg. >> That community member is not online. >> Uh oh, and this person I think was in in person. Uh Betsy. Yes. No, it's okay. Sometimes I I don't always notice, but I caught it this time. Um okay. So then that completes our um public speaks and we will now go to committee reports. Um can we can we start with you Shaina? Are you good to go? Okay. Thank you. >> All right. The uh curriculum and instruction committee met just a couple of weeks ago on September 8th at 6:30 p.m. with all members present. Um after an update on transportation, we discussed the progress towards creation of district goals related to CNI and we now have the finalized version that Mr. Bing presented tonight. Then we had many other updates. Here are some

136of the highlights. Uh within CHS, we heard about Freshman Academy and that um it launched successfully with positive feedback from those involved. Scheduling also ran more smoothly than last year with far fewer errors, which the district and we saw as a win. Uh the district is also planning long-term planning long-term for student pathways um to support career and technical education including fields like business, media arts, computer science, environmental science. Um and we heard about the potential partnerships for college credits and certifications in the middle schools. We heard uh Dr. Gilbert shared the updates on math course recommendations and selections which he mentioned in his presentation and we discussed lessons to build on going forward. Then on the other end of things, we heard about uh prek and the ongoing community outreach efforts um and to

137yeah to support the prek population and then we moved on to professional development and the district held its first full day staff PD before the students arrived offering 30 sessions led mostly by in-house presenters and based on the feedback forms the day was well received and data on the participation will be shared. Um the PD will continue throughout the year and will focus on uh several main areas AI equity tier one instruction in JTSS and social emotional learning. We discussed the CNI policies that are up for review tonight. And then we had budget updates. Um, and Miss Bodner provided an update that federal grants are written and will be submitted by the October 4th due date. In addition, there are several fine arts courses that were revised over the summer and those curricula are up

138for approval tonight. Our next meeting will be on October 13th. There are lots more details to be found on the district website. Any questions? Do you want me to achieve? >> Yeah. Do you want to just a high level real quick? >> Yeah. Um, as a a chief liaison, I attended their September meeting and uh heard that there has been about a little over $5,700 raised in honor of Dr. Jane Bean Folks for a literacy grant and um which is phenomenal. Um, and then they there are some other pieces that are relevant to their partnership with school district such as the newstead 5K that they just did. Um, and tutoring programs will launch early October under a new program manager who was recently hired. Um, and homework help will be added at the Maplewood Library.

139and Achieve it continues to engage with SOSD through staff orientation, back- toschool night events, and support for programs like CHS robotics and fine arts. Um, planning is also underway in partnership with the PTAs and HSAs for the annual Thanksgiving card drive. And I think that's about it. >> Sorry, I just want to go back to CNI really quickly. Um, just to put it out there, and I know we discussed offline, I a during a lot of the elementary back to school night conversations around math books not arriving. Um, I don't know if you've gotten an update on that, but I do know that all the students are doing their math work. It's all via photocopy. So, while the mo not the most ideal, you know, trying to figure out when an expected delivery date, I

140know a lot of community members have been asking about that. And I can see if there's been an update. >> I just got I got an update from Azora today. I had a great >> one of our wonderful teachers asked me. She's just one of the most amazing people. Uh middle school workbooks are in. They came in today and the pallet for the elementary went out today. So uh Dr. uh Zola should be able to uh track those over the next week. Well, I should have mentioned high school. Oh, cuz you're not part of the new math. [Music] >> Okay. Um, special services. >> All right. Special services met on September 10th uh from about 6:30 to 8:15 with uh all board members in attendance along with Superintendent Bing and Miss Jess Maria. Uh this

141past month, due to the proximity of recent discussions with administration, CPAC did not join but the discussions that they had largely centered around transportation, ESS and Paris staffing and school-based academic interventions. Uh Miss Jesse Maria will be attending the October seatback meeting to provide an overview of programs, classes, and services. Um she will also be presenting here um at the October board meeting um around our first family experience survey. This survey was a goal that was designed by this committee and we are really thrilled that the district partnered um with us to implement and complete it. The results will highlight some of the overall themes that they found um and demonstrate how they will use caregiver feedback from our special education families to inform next steps and continue prioritizing their perspectives in the upcoming school

142year. At the time that this committee met, we were also discussing district goals and the key themes that had been identified, which you heard about earlier, including continued and increased collaboration between our CNI department and special services. Um, much of that is uh to support inclusive practices within our schools, strengthen partnerships and practice with administrators um and teachers and supervisors. Work was underway to refine those goals as you saw tonight. Um we then reviewed personnel starting with vacancies. The district currently has five special education vacancies. One BCBA staff position remains open and four instructional positions are also vacant, including three leave replacements, which have proven a bit more challenging to fill, but the district is working on. Um, we do have a paraprofessional contract update. So, as I did share last month, um I deeply

143understand the impact that these staff have and I'm very sensitive to the work that they do and the impact that they have on students and families um and appreciate the advocacy and concerns that have been expressed by parents um by the folks that showed up last month and by our community. Um we know that ESS and local 68 are addressing two grievances that are related to compensating par professionals who qualify as par 2 but are currently being paid at a par one rate. Arbitration hearing was scheduled for September 30th. ESS also resumed bargaining for the new term of their collective bargaining agreement on September 16th. The union has confirmed that members have accepted their employment and will not strike, though ESS indicated that they would secure substitutes if needed. The district also plans to request

144that all of our ABA program PAR professionals receive the PAR to rate. Additionally, we had uh continued exploratory conversations that continued about how we might bring PAR professionals in house. So, thus far that planning has discussed what we previewed last month in terms of potentially bringing our ABA par professionals in house, which would be about 34 PAR professionals and then expanding to LLD positions if that was successful. Um, as this is explored and considered, it's important to note that it would require brain negotiations within the SOMA contract. Next, we discussed professional development. And this year, there was a very focused and collaborative effort between CNI and special services via the new district professional development committee. Um, this committee was made up of teachers and administrators and worked for months developing and engaging uh professional development

145day. The feedback was very positive particularly on the inclusion model and co-eing PD as well as the IEP meeting refresher sessions uh which were especially well received by our general education team. Um, some of the key initiatives including creating more robust team discussions ahead of meetings, disseminating student support plans to school-based teams, and emphasizing universal and targeted supports like proactive planning um connected to the raw screen training that we discussed last year and that will continue um and moving away some from some outdated scheduling practices. Training also covered the linket module to track our MTSS supports and interventions. And discussion was had about ways that we can communicate some of this information better to families through town halls and website improvements to ensure that there is clarity around student support such as MTSS, our academic

146intervention, and those Ross Green strategies. Next, we talked about our 2025 XA reimbursement. Um, X8 helps districts get reimbursed for certain costs that are associated with students who require more intensive special education services. Um, so even though we had less eligible students this year and the state lowered the reimbursement rate from 62 to 52%, the district still received $2.2 million in this type of funding. This helps cover expenses like specialized programs and therapies, instructional materials, and even transportation needs for students with higher needs. And in compared to 2024, this remains strong return, which demonstrates that the program continues to provide significant financial support rather um despite some of the lower rates and slightly smaller student count that we have. Um continuing with an eye toward a financial oversight and strategic planning. Um in 2023 24,

147a district goal was set for a third-party special education audit that was reviewed earlier tonight. Um and in addition, there was a review of legal spend. So, while the general audit was completed and used to inform some of our goals and long-term planning, the legal review was not due to contract structure and the way the goal is drafted and leadership turnover and all of the things. Um, but the committee continues to see value in completing that targeted audit of special education lawsuits and out of district placements to identify what bottlenecks or areas for improvement might be. Um, so we are currently exploring options to have council prepare a cost estimate as an alternative to hiring someone outside rather doing it in-house. Um, continuing with that 2627 budget discussion, we also talked about potential um, establishment

148of additional emotional regulation impairment rooms at our middle school level um, and additional central office support to increase support available and training available for our 11 district buildings and 10 preschool provider sites. Um, we reviewed policies 611 and regulation 611 on special education Medicaids or SEM program. And that wraps that up. Our next meeting is October 9th and you can get a full recap of this meeting on the district website and I am now available uh to take questions on the very robust meeting that we had from anyone who has any. >> Thank you as always. You do a great job. Um Peml, did you have any for Yeah. Okay. >> All right. Uh municipal partners meeting was on Monday uh 12 pm to 12:45. Normal attendees included uh board president Nval Nubia Dval Wilson,

149board member me uh superintendent Mr. Bang, Mayor Sheena Colum, Bill of Trustee Dr. Olivia Lewis Chang, Mayor Nancy Adams, and Petraary Patrick business administrator uh administrator. The theme like most of what we heard tonight was transportation and safety. A lot of it was Mr. are being given the right updates um to the township uh with the goal of having the transportation issues uh and routes stabilized and outlining some initial plans of the thinking in terms of how to improve it bringing routing in house clips the buses tearing start finish times uh prek busing and all in the process of information gathering so early stages as to getting ready for next year. Uh, one of the other things too is getting some data pulling from the 110 new kids riding buses this year, bringing a total

150of 1,618 kids, not including the out of district. Um, so a lot of that is how many of them are new entrance, what schools they're going to, and stuff like that. Um the township uh is also urging communication and collaboration with the district uh to encourage kids to be walking to school uh working in groups, reminding the community of the the partnerships that they have around those with as board member um Miss Kalen mentioned about bike buses. That's a great program that they're doing. Uh also reminding students to please wear their helmets uh as they're under 17. That is a law, believe it or not. um and not riding on the sidewalks uh unless you're really young. And let's see. So, uh around that stuff too, we also went jumped over to talking about safety.

151So, lots of things happening on the safety side. Uh three security cameras are being recommended for being placement on the Parker Parker student lots and we're working with the township for the installation. A lot of the repairing, charging, replacing of the LED stop signs for brightness and function across Seth Bowden and all the other stops. Uh cameras are out at Underh Hill because of a severed fiber optic line and we're using extra patrols in the meantime to get to get that reinstalled. Um there's been uh also some reports of missing crossing guards and and security at at certain spots. So we're using police officer rotation where possible and also a followup from Miss Kalanas to find out when and the how and the where of how we're doing that. Uh the community is also encouraged

152if they see some outages to call the non-emergency lines. Uh Maplewood is 9737621234. Great number. Uh South Orange 9737633000. Uh also as a followup, Mr. Bing will be sending a memo uh around the uh the safety, the transportation updates uh and also the encouragement of the walking and the bike into school. as he mentioned earlier before the new hazardous route studies being started uh with Stonefield and we also covered um a lot of the construction that's been happening in town both at the county level and at the municipal level. Lots of people have seen the repaving and progress on Bdon and Springfield. Uh and also upcoming here is New Jersey American Water is starting some night work on Valley Parker Kendon and North Terrace. Uh they're doing their best to work on holidays off hours

153and providing any detours to the township. So, working pretty closely with them to get as much updates as possible. Uh, one of the other things that has come up was the um was the implementation and some guidance on accessible playgrounds both at our school level. Um, we've got some guidance from the township as to grants that we might be that might be applicable to us such as the green acres program or the open space trust fund. uh both of which are impacting the Mapler Crest Park and design that's in the design phase and the accessible park uh playground at U Waterlands. Next meeting is set up for October 20th and u updates there. Any questions? >> All right. >> Great. Thank you so much. U personnel and then all three of you are next. The

154personnel committee met on Monday, September 22nd at 6:30 p.m. In attendance were board members Sacket Gable, Capadia, and Brown filling in for board member Gford and myself along with Mr. Bing, Dr. Gilbert, and Mr. Edoyan. Uh, a couple things that I wanted to highlight that aren't confidential. Um, the district provided a general update on vacancies with a discussion around some of the personnel recommendations on the resolution this evening. So, as of September 9th, uh there were 11 total vacancies, three of which are leaves of absence. Uh again, I know I've talked about this probably the past two months, but we are still trending in a better direction than we have year-over-year. Um so, just wanted to highlight that work. We discussed the potential switch to a new health insurance provider and the impact on all

155staff. Um currently, three options are being considered. one one of which is to keep the state plan. Um Eagle Rock has already come in and presented information provided to union leadership. Believe there's still some outstanding questions. Um but it's approximately 94% provider match to the state plan. Uh we have another I think somebody else coming in end of next week, Homestead coming in at the end of next week. And then of course the third option state plan is to remain on that. Um the committee expressed the importance of communication presenting comparison uh to union leadership to share with staff um things like office hours where a company will go into the building staff can ask questions during teacher prep lunch etc. Um you know we know that potential change um obviously can be very challenging.

156So I think ways that the district uh all the stakeholders involved can open up those doors and and uh streams of communication. Uh and then we also had a good discussion around a potential retention goal and as Mr. Bing showed earlier tonight um sorry district goal there will be a focus on developing stay interviews to help develop retention strategies and you know that's something that both myself and Mr. Adido actually kind of started around the same time. Something that we've been talking about for a while. I know Liz, one of the first things that you had mentioned also when you had come on board was talking about stay interviews. So, personally, uh, you know, sometimes things take a while to happen and they're happening or they're going to happen. So, very excited about that. Um,

157everything else was pretty much confidential or anything that can be um, further discussed can be found on the district website. The next committee meeting will be Monday, October 27th at 6:30 p.m. Any questions, comments? Thank you. All right. I am uh reading this for board member Meyer, who could not be here tonight. The policy and governance committee met on September 3rd. Those in attendance were President Deval Wilson, uh myself, and uh board member Bennett, as well as Mr. Bing, uh and Dr. Gilbert. On the agenda tonight, we have one policy for second read, policy 5710, student grievance. This policy, which updates language in accordance with the recommendations of our policy vendor, Straw Essme, was modified locally to double the amount of time provided to students to bring appeals to each step in the process. And

158there are also eight policies up for first read this month. Policy 2431, athletic competition, was approved for first read last month, addressing athletic competition by middle schoolers and extending access to homeschooled and non-district students. The policy was approved for first read last month, but the committee decided to respond to community feedback and add in a clause permitting a waiver of fees for students with financial hardship. And so now it is back for free first read. Policy 6220, budget preparation, adopts new recommended statutory language and also anticipate anticipates the development of a regulation that will provide concrete guidance and procedures for the development of an annual budget. The regulation is currently in development. Pol policy 6472 tuition assistance has been upgra updated to provide for notification to the board of education when an employment agreement for

159a non-collective bargaining employee includes an award of tuition for over $10,000. Policy 8500, food services, has been updated to reflect new statutory language, but maintains our local provisions guaranteeing that a meal would not be denied to a student regardless of their ability to pay. policies 5460 high school graduation, 5516 use of electronic communication and recording devices, 611 special education Medicaid initiative program and 7441 electronic surveillance on school buildings and on school grounds are also being updated in line with recommendations from our consultant stress Esme. We have numerous policies that are in prog process of being reviewed by committees and by the administration and we reviewed each the status of each of those in the policy committee meeting. We also discussed recently completed NJSBA policy audit which uh president deval Wilson mentioned in her um update

160which found us substantially in compliance but also identified areas for growth and recommendations. So that is something that the committee will be working on as we move forward into the new year. Uh we also reviewed our annual board goals which are on the agenda to be adopted tonight. And finally, we discussed the need for a clear and comprehensive regulation that explains exactly how policy 5120 is implemented through our intentional integration initiative. The administration is currently drafting the regulation and we expect it will be reviewed by all committees upon completion. Our next meeting is scheduled for October 1. Uh further information as always is available on our detailed minutes and on the website. Any questions? Um I'm here to speak for Bill Gford um who couldn't be here about the September 17th uh FFT meeting. Uh

161the meeting consisted of Mal Kapadia as a special guest, myself, Liz Callahan, and Will Meyer. Uh we discussed the ANT/Kyrie Irving marketing arrangement/donation. The conversation in FFT was about future conversation on the subject that Mr. Bing was going to have in the near future with various stakeholders which the public has been told about. These conversations have now already occurred and informed the superintendent's advice to the board of ed to accept the relationship. There was a question of the size of the logos would be displayed and we were told that they would be small. We were later shown drawings of the uniform demonstrating such. Uh, next the committee touched on the LRFP submission which you've also heard about from our business administrator. Um, an updated LRFP major amendment was submitted to the DOE under quote the

162old system referring to how it was filed. The DOE is expecting to expected to approve the plan within one or two months. As the LRFP has been submitted for approval on September 12th, the board will vote on tonight the submission which is resolution 4853L of applications for Ritzer improvements and three auditorium projects for the NJ DOE for debt service review. Uh various dis we had various discussions of specific projects um happening in the district um acceleration contracts, change orders, portaotties. We also discussed why our construction costs are so high and prevailing wage laws were cited as a major reason for our extremely high labor costs. Uh we discussed our powers and how the next meeting between the Paris union and effective school solutions will be September 30th. Uh there was a discussion of many problems

163and failures with busing including late buses, very long bus rides, inconsistency with stopfinder availability, contradictory information and packing issues. We discussed assigning staff members as quote roosters to watch students at 758 starttime schools who must be dropped off before 758 to accommodate their bus's second tier. We know how exasperated parents and students are and discuss solutions to our rearing problems and to get proper bus service including hiring additional bus routes so that the longest routes can be shortened and we can have punctuality. Uh we discussed briefly our policy 8600 which governs transportation in regards to courtesy busing for prek in 2026 27 and if a change is advisable. Um we didn't decide anything. Um this by the way has been an FFT topic for several months. uh with there is a extensive discussion of our

16430% increase in health care costs which board member Eert already covered um from the state plan and the financial benefits of self-insuring with Eagle Rock Management which would require only an 11% increase. We discussed the unsustainability of the state and health insurance plan. We discussed how many other districts are going with the alternative to the state plan. There was no final decision made, but there was a conversation about the need to have conversations with teachers and other staff. Um, for more complete FFT minutes, uh, please go to the district website. Uh, the next on the committee page. The next FFT meeting is Wednesday, October 15th. Okay, since there are no questions, thank you everyone for the great readouts, we'll go to the action portion. I don't want to forget that we have a hand carry.

165We'll do that after we do what's not a hand carry. Um, are there any severs before we uh continue? Yes. I would like to sever resolution 4853N. >> Yep. Sounds good. So, Mr. Moody, can you please read all the other resolutions into record except for 4853N? >> Sure. Absolutely. We'll be uh taking action on uh resolutions numbers 4850 through 4863 excluding 4853N. >> Also, uh one quick thing, um Keith, uh can you please um Bill text me that he's logging on virtually, so can you check to see if he's on, please? >> Since I'm not logged in to WebEx. Okay, great. Okay. All right. Sorry, Mr. Moody. Please continue. >> Oh, no. I I actually covered it. I think it's resolutions 4850 through 486. >> I didn't even notice. >> Okay. Only only one sever

166the 485. >> Okay. Open to discussion. Um for all the non-severed one. >> Any Oh, wait. I was going to say something. What was I going to say? Oh, I just wanted to note that um one of the things we're voting on tonight is uh resolution 4853i approving tuition with uh agreement with Essex County Vocational School. So, I was just happy to see that because it is an option for students to um to go to Essex County Vocational School and uh I'm glad that there are students potentially taking advantage of that and also it's in one of our policies to remind families annually that this option is open to them. So, I'm not saying that this is the annual reminder. I hope that the district Okay, good. Good. Mr. Bes has already went out. Um,

167and also I just wanted to note um as we're voting on our board goals that I'm very encouraged and this was something that um board member Meyer isn't here but I appreciate that he had brought up when we were looking at our board goals that there's a policy 0174 called legal services where um it talks about some of the things that we need to do mandated by the state um when it comes to monitoring our legal costs and especially if they exceed 130% of the statewide average per student amount. And so, um, that policy, um, has like a roadmap for us when we are, um, carrying out, um, our board goals over the next year. And so, I want to keep that on everyone's radar. And I'm just happy that that was something that was

168pointed out because I didn't myself know that that existed. Um, so yeah, if no one else has comments, then yes, let's vote. >> No, I think that's it. Now, typically a board member Meyer will um highlight certain items, certain items for the resolutions, but um and if you'd like me to do that, I'm happy to do so. I mean, essentially, they're all uh in the action items here. 4850 uh through 4863. Yeah. >> Um so, we're ready for a vote unless there's more discussion. >> I think we're good. >> All right. So, why don't we proceed with vote on those items excluding 4853N? And I'll start with a roll call vote of the board members. Board member Bennett. >> Board member Brown, >> yes. >> Board member Callahan, >> yes. >> Board President Duval Wilson,

169>> yes. >> Board member Eert, >> yes. >> Board member Gford, Board Member Kapadia, >> yes. >> Board member Meyer. >> Board member Saka Gable. >> Yes. >> Okay, those motions carry. >> Mr. Moody, before uh you bring up the severed resolution, uh Mr. Bonds, could you uh pull up the uh PowerPoint for us, please? So, we just wanted to give a quick synopsis of what resolution 4853N covers um in regards to the donation that we uh have been talking about earlier. So for the boys basketball team, uh you will see it covers 30 basketball shoes yearly, uh 15 lifestyle shoes yearly, 15 slides yearly, 30 uniforms, home and away tops and bottoms. Uh any alternate uniforms can be purchased. Uh it's a one-time donation. 15 warm-ups yearly 15 practice uniforms, tops and bottoms. 15

170practice gear tops and bottoms yearly 100 pairs of socks yearly. 15 backpacks, one-time donation. 15 travel suits, tops and bottoms, uh, yearly. You go to next slide, Mr. Bones. Girls basketball team. Uh, ditto, except for the socks that I find very peculiar. >> I'm I'm gonna ask that question. >> But it's 50 instead of 100. >> Yes. I think >> we take better care. We take better care of ourselves. I think maybe maybe that's what it is. I noticed that earlier today. Uh so uh same as the boys. Um again, the onetime donations for the girls and boys are the uniforms uh one time over three-year period. Uh and also the backpacks. Uh go ahead, Mr. Bones. Coaches, uh five sneakers pairs yearly, five polo shirts and five sweatuits, no socks. Contract terms September 1st

1712025 through August 31st 2028. Exclusive wear Kyrie donated products during all basketball related activities including photo shoots, practices, clinics, exhibitions, games, and game related travel as appropriate. District may terminate uh without costs. You have the photos. Uh Miss Bon. >> No, not of board member Gford. These are an example of what the uniforms may look like. >> Thank you, Miss Buns. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, any comments before we we vote? Thank you, Liz. >> So, I want to start by just expressing my appreciation to Superintendent Bing and Rad Winstead for the due diligence that they did undertake um to ensure that both FFT and the full board and the community understood this proposed donation, including this slideshow that I didn't even know we were getting. Um I'm also really grateful um that we sought

172feedback from a variety of stakeholders including faith leaders and students um and to all of the parents and students and community members who've come forward to share their perspectives tonight um in previous meetings and via email. Um I am deeply compelled by the notion of resto restoration um and by our commitment to modeling that practice for students um and as an educator that is definitely a practice that I hold dear. That said, I still um and those on FFT know that this was a concern that I brought the very first time that this donation was brought up have significant pause about accepting it. Um I am a former student athlete u many moons ago um and the parent now of young children who play sports. So I do understand the tremendous value that athletics brings

173to students lives. Um it's a large part of how I arrived at my decision and my vote to install chair at Ritzerfield. And I also understand the importance of being properly outfitted in uniforms as a source of pride. And as a student mentioned earlier, ensuring that that's not a barrier for anyone is critical, too. Um, I'm also acutely aware of the financial pressure facing our district and the need to think creatively to meet those challenges, ensuring that all of our students have all of the things they need in and out of the classroom. Um, and I'm really encouraged that our district is prioritizing out of the box thinking to solve those financial issues. Um, which was reviewed tonight during our goals. Um, and as a board of ed member, I have a fiduciary responsibility to

174our schools and community. And that responsibility also includes making sure partnerships uphold the values of our district. And so, while Mr. Irving is undoubtedly a highly talented athlete who's made really meaningful contributions on the court, he's also been involved in significant controversies, including the promotion of anti-semitic content and the amplification of anti-science views and conspiracy theories. Um, and this is a very real concern and at a time when anti-semitism is rising, we must be vigilant in protecting students from exposure to those messages that could be normalized. Um, and I'm deeply grateful to my Jewish friends, family members, and community members who have reached out and shared their diverse perspectives on this donation with me and with the board. Um, we are a district that is committed to fostering inclusion and respect and evidence-based learning. And

175any collaboration with a public figure should be evaluated not just for the opportunities it may provide, but for the risk of undermining those values that we work hard every day to achieve. Um, and as a public school district, we do have an obligation to provide a thorough and efficient education. And that well-rounded education includes athletics and an environment where all students feel safe and seen and supported. And as someone who values social emotional learning and restorative practice, I welcome opportunities like this to interrogate situations and to see genuine repair and certainly appreciate the efforts that Mr. Irving has made to that end. However, I can't personally divorce my commitment to science and standing firmly against anti-semitism from this decision. So although I know that many students, parents, and community members want this donation at this

176time, um I appreciate the spirit of restoration that has been applied to this recommendation. But if even one student, caregiver, or community member feels unsafe as a result of this sponsorship, I can't in good conscience vote for it. And for all of those reasons, I will be voting no tonight. But do appreciate all of the work that went into this. >> Thank you very much. Anyone else before we vote? >> I have a question about the district's ability to cancel the contract, quote, without cause. Does that mean that if Mr. Irving were to say something insulting or that was flatout misinformation that we could cancel or if we found out more about Ant's labor practices which might be very inhumane. Um could we cancel? >> Can can you say that in the mic please Mr.

177Kerry? Thank you. >> That's what without cause essentially means it's at our discretion. Antto's labor practices have received scrutiny. Um, the supply chain is not pure. U, it's not how people should be treated, but it seems to be like worse than like Nike and Adidas and other sneaker manufacturers. >> Anything else before we vote? Oh, sorry. Yes. >> Yeah. I also appreciate um Superintendent Bing's um discussions with community members and everything around uh this donation and um just thinking along the lines of support for athletic funding. I was glad to join my board colleague Beiml Kapadia in a meeting with Mr. Bing and uh school leaders to discuss athletics um and fundraising and ensuring that all sports and teams have equitable access to basic needs and even some wants um during their season. So, you

178know, beyond bringing in revenue, we know athletics are an extension of the school day and play a huge part in students confidence and their sense of belonging and connection. So, um I believe these conversations are critical as we move forward and I'm glad to be a part of that. So, >> thank you board member um Gable. Anything else before we vote? Okay. Mr. Moody, can you please do roll call? >> Sure. Thank you. Uh for consideration uh board resolution 4853N. I will take a vote of the full board. Board member Saki Gable. >> Yes. Board member Meyer. Board member Kabadia. >> Yes. >> Board member Gford. >> Yes. >> Board member Eert. >> Yes. >> Board President Duval Wilson. >> Yes. >> Board member Callahan. >> No. >> Board member Brown. >> Yes. >> Board

179member Bennett. >> Abstain. Okay, >> thank you everyone. >> Motion carries. >> The um now it's uh hearing of delegations. Um I didn't see anyone. Okay. Um she will double check that. Oh yes, thank you. I see that's why I said it before. I was like I'm going to forget. Um so yes, we need to do the hand carry resolution 4864A. Let's wait for eer to return before and and there can be no discussion on this. Thank you. >> Okay, Mr. Moody, can you please uh >> Sure. Thank you. Um for motion 4864A is giving consideration in executive session. I'll conduct a full uh board member vote. Board member Bennett. Board. >> Board member Bennett. That was a yes. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Board member Brown. >> Yes. >> Board member Brown. >> Yes. >>

180Board member Callahan. >> Yes. >> Board President Duval Wilson. >> Yes. >> Board member Eert. >> Yes. >> Board member Gford. >> Yes. Or member Katia. >> Yes. >> Member Meyer. Or member Saka Gable. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. Thank you. >> Okay. Great. Okay. Now I can officially say that there are no new public speaks. Um and we can move on to new business. As you know, it would be something that we'd have to vote on immediately other than closing out this meeting. So, um, does anyone have any new business? No. Okay. So, I will announce our future meetings. The board of education will meet again in public session for a regular board meeting on Thursday, October 30th, 2025. Action will be taken. Now, Mr. Moody, I would like to make a motion to

181adjourn this meeting on Thursday, September 25 at 10:41 p.m. May I have a second? Thank you, board member Callahan. All in favor? Meeting is adjourned. Thank you. I like how the audience raises their hand too, you know. It's >> not very big. 100,000