001is [Music] and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all open publicly exact statement new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the act the board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having a date time and place thereof posted at the augusta branchville and sussex post offices notice sent to the new jersey herald the advertiser norton south and the clerk of the boroughs of branston sussex and the township townships of frankfurt lafayette and wanted our mission statement i coined regional high school
002in partnership with staff family and community is dedicated to the quest for individual excellence by fostering high standards of achievement we prepare students to become responsible and productive members of a diverse society is it anderson here is nugent here is is it human here surprising here smith here is sedona here mr finally i expect to come in a little bit mr arnold here sudan here we have a forum also president by directly here myself we have a special presentation since valerie dolan from the is vaccio will present uh a review of the june 30th 2021 comprehensive annual financial report to the board of education please um just once again it was a pleasure to finish with the school district um the finance office and is in great shape they're very well prepared for us when
003we come in they're able to give us everything that we need and get us to get through an audit very um hopefully hopefully without too much interruption on the business office but we can complete a lot of our information um one of the key things we always say what companies do an audit is really based on the number of journal entries that we do if we make an awful lot of journal entries that means we're positive changing the numbers our journal entries that makes the district are very limited which means the financial statements that you have preliminarily all year long are sound financial reports which you can get a lot of your decisions based on um just to give you a little bit of a refresher if you all have your books in front of
004you you have your large big blue book which is your chapter it's presented in four sections there's a small little introductory section which just kind of gives you some information about the district itself some advisors your organizational part of that nature with our interception recorded your financial information which includes our opinion and management discussion and analysis and all of the notices of financial statements the third section is the statistical section which is name of the days and that's actually a very informative section that's ten years comparative so it gives you ten years information on finances and there's information on enrollment full-time equivalence if the information about all those are sending districts there's your commission's assessments it's a very useful section and then lastly there's a single section which goes through all your fines with all
005the federal's grant funding that you receive secondary there's a small grain book that firework to the board all the things that i've tested while i'm done and report back that being said very large books returning to ten pages that were probably this whole book there were 10 important pages it just um follow along it starts about page 82 and runs it shows you all of your revenue and where they pay your projections all of your expenses by line items and walks you through all the charges and what's unspent which individual finances that you budget went through that whole process you start with where you started your beginning of the year and you end with here which can be mostly referred to as fund-based school district and so you ended your fun balance picture of it
006a little over 3.9 million dollar that being said that fund balance is then categorized into various components about 850 000 of that is encumbrances for which goods and services haven't been finished before the end of time june 30th and will prepare you to provide your pain currently the additional ten thousand dollars of your home surplus that you participated in a budget that you're currently in for 21.22 then you can set aside some reserves you have money in a capital reserve and maintenance reserve capital reserve can be used for any capital on expenditures of other districts and or for any offsetting of global share for um you were able to put an additional five hundred thousand dollars based on a resolution you did in june bringing your capital reserve to a little over one point two
007million dollars we also were able to put about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars into that maintenance room that made resort was almost completely deleted before this year and as it almost just got that a little over 350. that is used to supplement your maintenance budget in any maintenance process that being said that leaves us with about 960 000 which is your available fund balance that you're statutorily allowed to hold by the state of new jersey for the next two years that's actually a higher number than it ever has been before previous to this year that amount was only allowed to get two percent of your budget the state changed the rules for two years and may allow districts to hold four percent and the reason they're giving you that extra feedback is so that
008anything with the pandemic additional costs additional closures as we go down to falcon road again coming into the holiday season that monday left with districts sort of these are kids deeply and as all that number has taken a path benefits me with what i refer to that excess as is just a little bit over half of your level that's your seed money that will start your building of your 22 budget that you're working on that money will go into that budget our advice has always been when you're using that money to use it for one-time expenditures because it's not a reoccurring number it's a number that gives you a little bit of flexibility for something resistant but if the likelihood of referring isn't something you don't like um a little bit of other information districts
009received about 500 000 worth of federal and state and global grants um and it's continuing to receive even more just as the funds have totally funded um your transportation enterprise fund saw an increase of about twenty one thousand dollars this year and your lunch program on the other hand saw a decrease of about seventeen thousand that's consistent we're seeing as we're providing meals to all of these students your expenses are barely breaking even at this point you're actually down it's the second year in a row it's actually had a decline in the surplus lunch programs and you landed your end of the deal with only 90 000. which means if you continue on that path it's possible that the general fund might have to help have a great lunch program unless we could get lunches
010back to operational sales coming through the door as i said my report we came in and things were in great shape and it's clean on i have no formal recommendations and no corrective action needs to be taken so kudos to your business office for coming out with a clean report um as we've always done in previous years one of the things we'd like to do is give you suggestions to manage things that we feel are coming down with fights that could be future um one of them is an english accounting standard we've got 87 gasmet 7 is nieces we're gonna have to take a deep dive to every lease that the district has and in terms of leases we're not just referring to copiers and buses we're talking about the mail machines we're talking about
011any monthly reoccurring expenses i have to review them to make sure that they are being accounted for problem um as i said earlier there's a lot of federal funding coming into program a lot of money in cash for funds um and securing their apps there's a lot of funding and when it comes with a lot of funding becomes a lot of tools so what we're suggesting is down every i cross every t for every every dollar that you spend so that if one of the outside agencies other than myself come in and review those grants they won't have any problems another advice that we're giving districts is if you rely on any type of guidance to make your decision because we're finding that that guidance is changing on the fly they're making rules they're changing
012the rules and i wouldn't want anyone to get caught in a situation where you rely on guidance early on and spend your money one way and then the rules change at least documents and then lastly the other area is the compensated absences it wasn't that surprising for vacation liabilities for on unspent time it's not such a big deal in the school districts but the local municipalities all were reviewed by the comptroller there were some big issues with some of them not being in performance but this state goals so what we're advising just take a step back have your labor attorney look at your contracts so that if they were to come in and look at the schools once again know that those contracts have value to your frosting you don't have a problem i'd love
013to answer any questions if anyone hasn't but all in all it's a great audit and they're in good shape thank you and i i get to accept the accolades that brand on their experience and their diligence and what they do really have supported the school and i hope that i helped but the majority of this really is their their accomplishments thank you thank you valerie are you finding other schools other uh in the same situation where they're ending up with surpluses because of the overt situation yeah situations we're seeing surpluses we're actually seeing all you know some districts used to be in an area where we'd be consistently seeing everybody hitting their marks um in sussex county we're seeing between the cuts that everyone's been facing we're seeing there's such a rollback but then expenses
014sort of with the pandemic everyone's sort of stopped always about what they needed we've seen a little bit of regeneration on those some of those scripts but i don't know if it will reoccur once once difference the back in full swing this pandemic sort of ends and we get back to spending as usual or do we see where the cuts are going to go if you're a new blossom state having some money since that is a good thing for men hopefully i mean it's still going to be difficult and you're still slated to lose a lot more money as most of the companies may be very tough to build budgets so every little bit does help that's why i appreciate the advice that the uh the xs only be applied to one time things because
015this is a one-time event but we hope so you won't see that you haven't seen access surpluses in fact if you were to look at that statistical section that i had said it was a decline and it was a strip club you have been on a long steady decline and the pandemic sort of has helped you write a little bit but i don't know if we're still like to put our exciting level in this week's podcast and it's hard to judge to see where you're at and where you're at this year and every day is i think we've given it four times in the last two years on one district what's we're very pleased we're able to put what we can into the capital um right that's and remember my numbers are less so if
016anything has occurred in those reserves during this current year that is out my numbers are higher [Music] happy have a great holiday [Music] yes [Laughter] okay um we now will have a motion made to uh the high point regional high school order enter executive session to provide an update on negotiations legal and personnel items which are exempt from public participation pursuant to new jersey public law 1975 chapter 231 of the public meetings any discussions held by the board which may not remain confidential will be made public when appropriate events of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists the board will reconvene in public sessions virtually and in person at the conclusion of the executive session does not anticipate that the action will be taken as we expect
017that meeting to be about 7pm um [Music] [Laughter] uh proceeding with the agenda uh next up is unfinished business we have none and that is approval of minutes um for both parts of that meeting we have homework in attendance um our standard business um including the minutes for october which were approved we did have an amendment to the regular minutes we had um the report from the principal mr solomon director of president production mr campbell hca council speaker of the house is kara uh we had our monthly financial reports transportation action um there were several personnel items we had reviewed policy 2425 um and that meeting that's about all that was uh needed on that meeting the executive session of the same day uh the items that were discussed in the executive session are not
018yet available towards the school here um okay so i have a motion to accept uh and approve the minutes from the regular session and the executive session 15.21 motion [Music] yes this is anderson yes this is yes mrs schuman yes mr piranha yes mr arnold yes yes motions carry next we have our first published comments section of the evening uh this is on agenda items only so in accordance with the open public meetings act we will open the public comments or agenda items only at this time each speaker should state his or her name and address you will have three minutes to address the board which will be timed by myself we will limit this section to no longer than 45 minutes please be respectful and mindful that your comments are being recorded so if
019anybody in attendance here would like to make comments you may step to the podium we also have the option of making comments via our virtual platform and we'll monitor that after any comment in person here hey uh we happen to have anybody online if you're online you want to make a comment i believe you got to raise your hand virtual hand none another opportunity for public comments not limited to agenda items later on in the evening so okay oh very good uh so next we're going to proceed uh with our presentations for the evening uh first presentations dr ripley is going to present service plaques to the high point regional high school board members will be leaving the board in january are actually effective december 31st i believe thank you to miss deborah anderson representing
020ranchville and miss patricia nugent representing lafayette your commitments to the high point regional school district i'll let you take a look now we have a uh thanking you for all of your service and it has been fabulous having you here we hope that it is in some capacity than a blessing to you because you have blessed your community and the district and and us here at by your having participated in such an asset for us thank you thank you i don't want everyone to know when they look at this and say that one's bigger mrs anderson has been a part of high point history before the walls went up and uh as a little girl ran through the the unfinished hallways and that was in some time and uh someone who has been a part
021of high point history i refer to it as the mother high point the uh the lady of high point and uh you know a a student i i who marrying an alumnus whose uh in law were employed here and she came graduated and came back as a teacher for a long time and then she served as the hpea president for several years and then came back as a board member now for nine years and that is one heck of a commitment to one institution that's a lifetime commitment hence the uh the slightly margin um it's it's merely if i'm sorry i'm spending away merely a plaque but it does not for either of you but ms anderson your dedication your commitment and your impact on high point cannot be mitigated and it is profound long-lasting
022and i personally have benefited from that relationship and i could not tell you that say that i could not hold you in higher esteem you have been a blessing to this institution it would not be what it is it was not for deborah lutz anderson thank you so much for nine years for the support the battles the victories losses and dignity thank you i promise i'm not going to talk too long a few years ago but i want to say to the public you guys all know i i blabber all the time to the public that being on the board of education has been like a great experience a learning experience it's an amazing service that you provide because of the teamwork that happens here a labor of love a pleasure at times horrible at
023times um the battles to to do good for our students and we it is about making sure that the students in this school get the best get the best that we can possibly offer it's not making sure that your next door neighbor is happy with you it's making sure that you guys get what you need from being in this institution and as scott ripley has pointed out i've been running around this place since 1966 so i i know how great it is i know how great it can continue to be i know the iterations how it's changed and and what's come along what's left and we are so dedicated this group of board members is amazing they work very hard together they do good things together we are going in good places we constantly work
024for that and i want this community to know that yours your students are in good hands so thanks for letting me be a part of this and i never said amazing once did i i may get a chance to elaborate on this a little bit later but i just want to uh recognize both of you for the amount of effort that you put in in committee meetings and beyond the public facing portion of what you do i know personally how much time you both put in this past year so it may have been your last year but you worked as hard as ever debbie and patty's the same um i i can't count the hours that you put in on negotiations committee on all of the other committees but particularly the negotiations was exceptionally busy
025this year and it's your hard work that's helped the board and i believe we have been a productive and cohesive board more so than in my memory um uh okay so yes we'll try to continue through our presentations uh we have um eagle scouts luke malone a senior he's going to present uh his eagle scout project proposal oh we even have awesome so [Music] actual argument okay equipment such as props drum interceptions the tractor the battery and their number cards as well as whatever items they might have i don't know if you've seen the main department but it's all very cluttered and in the corner this is the location that i spoke about with the clearance committee last week and they actually approved the location as it is located between the softball field seeing across
026the line that will perish area is nice and flat no really any dips solid and it's also here where the marching band practices in the softball field benefits i've stated before that you will free up the space in the bay department but also reduce the need to pull all the equipment down from the main building to the softball field or in terms of games to the football field because i i've been there personally myself have been the marching band for a year some of the stuff is just so heavy and they just gotta lug it all down but the equipment will be easily accessible from that area that will eventually softball through it because when you just need to go down for practice you just head on down open it up go on to the
027field and build another way of the games a little bit farther but once they open it they only have to bring it across the parking lot which is not too much of a hassle like maybe that whole curve also a secure space of the equipment because i know there was an incident a few years back where the trailer was stolen for a long time nobody's getting in there even if they wanted to thank you man my time frame for this project is hopefully getting fundraising by the end of december now i hope you all know shenzhen cheap but um just getting that phone ranging as soon as possible hopefully a good amount of time be able to use that sure as much as when everything starts falling out brown's not crunchy and i hope to
028anticipate your completion by april on a good day [Music] i'd be happy to answer any questions any questions on the board when luke presented this to us in committee it was we did have a lot of questions then we're talking about when what type of fundraising possibly um a couple other things and he he said he's working on it with the band um booster club i guess that's the best way to put it and yeah me too and we're very happy to talk to them right rich it was it was pleasant to have him on our zoom meeting and it's pleasant to have you here and we think it's a great project and the fact that you're gonna make more money than you need and donate that to the man that's awesome too so applaud
029all of it i wonder how come somebody hasn't thought of this sooner there's a there's a couple of points here number one is the evil scam project and another point that he brought up and kind of just rushed over was he was in marching band no longer in it but he's giving also rich you were very impressed with his timeline compared to things that have been done with buildings and grounds that's easy underground tanks as well [Laughter] [Applause] on our agenda to an action item um for um benefit we're going to move the buildings and ground install action item if i can turn that over to the understanding stores on page 11. it is recommended by the superintendent that the board approves an eagle scout project building and erecting a chef for the necessary purpose
030of storing banned equipment and other equipment proposed by liz alone there is no cost to the district i'm moving that i need a second any more conversation or discussion good luck good luck thank you thank you okay roll call mr klein yes mr donna yes ms smith yes mr peraza yes this is human yes it's nugent yes mr anderson yes mr arnold yes mr dunn yes congratulations [Applause] [Music] so don't feel obligated to stay for the rest of the meetings [Music] you got them okay we're gonna return to our presentations for the evening uh next up is our student council uh presentation ariana which is far as speakers of the house will update board on activities of the student council again i apologize personally if i say it faster it will promise me no one
031gets it hello hi um okay uh the whole way of decorating was a success and senior class came out as the victors this year the december spirit week is currently in progress and we're looking forward to pajama day and had and on monday it was ugly spider day um the student council is currently in the progress of planning our character initiative for january february and march which respectfully will be generally represented february will be compassion and march will be positivity items [Music] uh it's been interesting for all of us students staff admin constantly being able to turn on a dime teaching what masks on and dealing with students that are remote as well as in person didn't think we had to go back that way um very interesting um i think the hpa concerns and
032as and some of the students have been coming up to the hpa personnel saying you know what's going to happen after christmas you know when we come back so we would as hpa members we have concerns for some of us have elder care i could have a voice and if there aren't any plans out there if we should have to go remote otherwise we are working all together as a team trying to communicate and uh as you know in the regular public and in with us it's it's stressful very stressful but we're working together and hoping things get better and are fully aware that supposedly january is going to be the peak this this way but who knows nobody knows i don't know i would like to thank mrs anderson and miss nugent for their
033service and um we do have a recording tips which were not bought by the hpa so we don't have to use three bids [Music] but we do appreciate all of your service this is a thankless job that folks do and you have your own lives and they come and support all of us and we appreciate it thank you very much thank you a very nice okay uh next report is the principal's report and athletic support you're john calamax hey everybody this weekend and i don't want the board to be left out we did have another newsletter also known as nice jacket today um across this this last week um as well as well thank you mrs anderson solution for your service um for all the many years combined um and difficult advanced and very appreciative
034of that as administration working with you on regular basis as well so thank you and we wish you best in retirement um and to go to the next chapter and move forward i want to thank luke who's sitting behind me and his fans for being here um there's a lot of proud moments as a principal um there's a lot of blessings that we get to be part of um in education there's very few that are more proud than you've seen scout um working on their presentation as defines as before the dedication to the high point community the marxism program and luke cecilia said from his heart i want to give back um you know so that aspect of it if you ever get a chance to see an eagle scout on our golden award ceremony
035it's something that second to none um it's pretty amazing we have had several of eagle scouts and gold award recipients through high points history i'm just going to say very proudly moving on to a couple other things uh we have had a lot of activity by chambersing as a matter of fact right now they're at focal manor finishing their tour um we called the community tour the chairman singers are back on the road uh we haven't had that opportunity for a couple years things that are going on just recording mrs martin lead that charge they're phenomenal i've had uh a chance to be one of those uh what do they call it who's that following the band that's department i've seen many opportunities they've been at um the new brewery the restaurant rotary the walkway
036of our rotary the branch presbyterian church the sussex presbyterian church cocaine manor wine street lady i think that's all of them um in the past week and a half so talking about being out in the community every time i go and get a chance to be there with the students we had last week was uh the guy rotary um and they say the same thing every time it's amazing to be part of this amazing security who's saying they sing for 20 30 minutes with those groups um and our students are very proud and the community members are very proud to see them so kudos to them for doing that we also have um this issue with a different wsus also does a um promotion for marching band and also for our jazz band our work
037and our chamber singers just a little virtual because of all the things that are going on um but there was again on the radio um weeks ago from the wsus so kudos to mrs recording mrs martin for me that's really really important um great for our kids to be out in the community again after a long 22 months uh h3 open house attendant update for that we're looking at is january 18th um evans law as we said they exchanged on a dime things change every day that's the goal that we're looking at i'm having that set um eighth grade tours which review in eighth graders come into the building um will be on half days that we have that's the 25th and 26th again attentive ready to move we have to um and do whatever
038we have to do along the lines we come back to second march 34th all that happened fast back after the holiday break um we're excited to to work towards that aspect of it hard to believe that we're even talking about second market pretty good and mid-year i'm asking for it some staff acknowledgements student analysis if i could just real quick um aaron myers congratulations to some of our students who may have saw this before or maybe familiar with the grateful shed which is in uh ranchville from your stomping ground i've seen that before uh brianna dunn hester schweinberg and kylie uh donafrio created the sign for the grateful shed i'm abandoning the mural that before that so our students were selected for the after that again giving back to the community in fact their talents
039in the community uh to grad this to mrs meyers and those students for that aspect of it i'm also uh kelly sheenis one of our our finite teachers and also photography teachers our student catherine weiss was recently chosen for the drexel high school photography award on the competition which is a pretty prestigious award i saw the captain actually yesterday she's excited because hopefully they're going to have a nice ceremony and down in january um down in drexel where they invite the students um for different capacities and they have a ceremony for them we had that a couple years ago for one of our students um it was really a great event for them because they they need a lot of professionals i want to give a chance to network and then be recognized for what
040they do so i'm congratulations to both of them and the students as well we had our governor and his teacher of the year uh recipients acknowledged that was mr carl hassell one of our health abuse teachers uh it was a pretty cool experience to go be able to see a surprise in his room which was the last gym um during his healthcare class she came one of her brothers were there as well and we surprised them with the students there which is one of the most important things you'd like to do last year it wasn't that way of course virtually surprising with the house that was pretty a pretty emotional pretty full reserve for an individual for a long period of time also we as part of that has also selected a um education support
041professional of the year um and that was joyce couch um same thing with actually doing a presentation in the classroom um about uh college commissions and uh total and so on we surprised sir which is not always easy to do um we actually she was speechless for a few minutes a few seconds maybe um so congratulations to uh mrs cox and also mr hansel for that aspect of it a couple things that happened a lot during the holidays i want to make sure they don't get missed um this is so one of our child study team members always leads to charge with our thanksgiving donations to the community historically we've done thanksgiving baskets and we've all donated to those baskets for families that are in need are this year a little bit different again with
042things that are going on um thanksgiving donations that all the staff members and community members um donated to so she was able to distribute those donations to families that were needed and also do directly to the food pantries themselves um because they said this is the need that we have again things that happen all the time behind the scenes and don't always get shout out from rooftops it's important aspect but also mrs shaffer um every year she helps our families in need and our community and our school community and our broader community um and she organizes that and recognizes it which i think was five six or seven different families um that she coordinates with conventionally with and they they give any presents with her um and then she'll give us a list of his
043dad we surveyed that around the staff which buys um gifts for them anonymously and and donates them as well so there's a lot of things that happen again out of the goodwill she also coordinates the voice for talks which is another issue um five-point food pantries utilized every day regularly again sometimes you can always hear about it um but it is consistent um it is something that's there for our students every single day so we're very um happy to have her leading that we have students that are appointed as well i actually was able to do a virtual meeting with a couple of her students and to mr fya about a month ago with other students from across the country that were focusing on the same thing um focusing on the need of food on
044the basic needs of food for for students a good experience with them as well um and definitely not last but not least the school climate of mrs arnold and many members of the team and students that community work to develop better climate overall working with collaborating with us overall we're excited about some of the things that they have and they're planning for it in general to come back um as well apparently last night at least we had some delicious treats that were delivered to um the school not convinced yelp that we you look a lot of miss anderson versus fusion uh i'm giving some cookies to everybody so thank you to the board um for that they definitely never go unnoticed and how we uh and that in the past when things get back to
045normal we'll be able to celebrate together um that was really nice if i heard it one time i heard 10 times man it could be really good that was a good thing that was really good as well any questions on that before i should throw it to athletics okay okay so mr jackson report here um i'm going to go through this quite quickly i'll have to cover but athletic only successfully 35 student athletes 35 students that were selected for the equality success athletic academically we had 27 students that were selected for that as well so we're very excited about that our passion along scholar athlete nominee is hannah doyle um hannah is a all-star in many capacities and several different aspects of that um or not just what she does on the hard work for
046basketball volleyball other events but also which is in the classroom so we're excited about that have we had some recent signs you may have seen if you follow along on social media and you see that the recent signs um friday for rutgers and sarah has for siena we actually did that together on out front with the next day we were able to go up front which was nice over the mask and do those things and that was in this picture as well a winter sports update um we have have many participants going through where either says we're working through the challenges that happen to every school um and we're not immune to that obviously we're working through that aspect of the happiness of the week or december 4th through 8th alabama brazilian and for swimming
047that is the athletic report any questions for thomas thanks thank you okay um extra core uh presentation is uh curriculum instruction thank you i went with the navy tonight and um this is the last night that i will stand before you and uh and present so thank you for to um dedication and your friendship and your service so i congratulations to luke i'm very proud of you and glad that you're here okay tomorrow is the last day we're saying goodbye to board members but tomorrow we bid farewell to someone who has had a tremendous impact on our school in recent weeks when they announced that mr walden was going to be up next to the dunk tank there were about 375 students in the cafeteria uh no one got hurt but they sprinted like a
048man stampede to get out and dunk him because truly they love him he is forceful and bold and held them accountable he built tremendous relationships with our students they really took to him and i also i have to embarrass him a little bit uh he began his career down the road at walk hill and met the truly the basketball coach and the cheerleading coach went out on a date and they've been together ever since and they will of course be leaving together in wildcats so thank you to mr walton um and it's just a real pleasure good kind of him as um taliman mentioned we honor two esteemed uh long-term educators i think mr hansel is a little bit choked up there as uh as he should be and mrs kosh hang out for the
049programming studies i want to thank our teachers and our supervisors we have an incredible program of studies if you go and you look at our program and study you'll notice that it is in a format that's user friendly it's a lot of graphics it's very impressive the way we lay out our world-class curriculum i get to stand here tonight but the work of our curriculum is primarily that are academic supervisors so the a-team is not just a great show from the 80s uh it's the four people that uh that i work with who put together our standout curriculum next year we will not have significant changes to our graduation requirements we require 135 credits to graduate the state requires 120. now i want to thank our guidance counselors and our case managers for being so
050adept at identifying at-risk students particularly during the pandemic and allowing some of our students to graduate with less than 135 of more than it has not been done often but i believe that they have used appropriate flexibility and compassion to triage difficult situations and allow students to graduate on occasion below 135 which still meets the state environment one change next year is our science classes will be five credits rather than six so the requirement for science will be 15 credits rather than 18. next year will be the third year that we are having our science labs occur within the standard amount of instructional time which for us is now 57 minutes we believe that 57 minutes is an appropriate amount of time to um engage in a meaningful manner in science labs i want to
051thank our science teachers for the adjustment they've made in keeping those labs meaningful and and effective and we're looking forward to continuing with this practice for next year the most significant change in the course catalog is that we are going to have a condensing of levels for our incoming freshmen and core academic courses this current year we narrow the level of courses in math next year we will do so in science social studies and english so college prep b will not be an option next year for english 9 world history and biology the reasons to sum them up briefly a fresh start a new school one of the great things about high quality students come to us from primarily four setting districts and it's newer to them than ninth grade is in some districts and
052we believe this will foster a sense of a fresh start and a chance to perhaps meet potential that have not been met in middle school tracking works against a student's self-efficacy there are times where levels are needed we believe that lessening them will help students to embrace their potential there's a troubling correlation historically nationally between academic levels and socioeconomic status and we're looking forward to a ninth grade team of teachers that work together particularly in these three subjects to support these students and speaking of supports modest class size professional development common planning time tutoring support instruction classes um and some scrutiny into how we move kids into the honors level that's a a big move and we have a lot of plans underway to support those teachers and to be fully prepared for that change
053we have some new math classes mathematical ideas to support the math behind computer science we need an algebra course that can give the students that are determined to go to a four-year college but are just not strong enough for algebra two a math class you need for most four-year colleges technical math is my favorite subject up there we are going to teach a math class in the tech labs in say construction and manufacturing and the whole focus of the class will be applying math skills um to building a shed and what type of match principles a basic project that people in the trades or or in construction or manufacturing would do so teaching math in the shop is going to be have a lot of relevance and we're excited about that cyber security has been
054around is moving back to math and there'll be a strong math component to it three of our ap courses we want to narrow the focus and allow students to not have to take two tests per ap course but just take one and i'll show you this here calculus a b and b c we truly believe that um students should take calculus a b prior to b c when you take calculus b c it essentially covers everything in a b plus bc and that's really essentially two of the highest level math classes taught in one year the mass the vast majority of our students are better served if they want to get to calc bc if they have a full year of ap it also allows that bc year to focus on a full year of
055bc so we're breaking some content up and trying to allow a better opportunity for engagement likewise physics ap physics c the students used to have to prepare all year in a very challenging science course for two ap tests and we believe they'll be better served if in ap physics c they simply prepare for the mechanics not the electricity and magnetism and last macro and microeconomics to take two very difficult courses in one year overwhelms our students and takes what is an extremely relevant uh subject of course for many of our students and what they want to major in college we're pleased to be uh offering them every other year so next year we walk for ap macroeconomics the following year micro etc and students can study that course for 10 months rather than 5. i
056want to thank mr diodino and the english teachers we have embraced the idea of student choice when it comes to reading the pretty common uh basic concept students will become lifelong readers or they're more likely to if they're able to read things they're interested in and they're given some choice and some ownership of what they read so our 12th grade english classes are genre-based and students have the option to choose what type of literature they wish to study internships mrs anderson i know this is a passionate uh topic for you i want to thank ms kristen jackie dean who came up with the idea of taking sort of the teacher's assistant that we've had for many years and just ramping up the expectations and allowing um an intern for a teacher or program this year
057there are 15 students at high point that are doing internal internships with a course or the teacher in an academic area where they might be research projects that helps with the course of studying we have a student who's working with mr meyer with mr yardley and these are meaningful relevant experiences next year mr dexter is going to offer a sports and information information management internship we hope the two or three students will take them up on that and we're using the talent in-house to give our students exposure to you know real world experiences last we're very pleased that um tri county behavioral supports is here it's our site there's an office in the guidance counselor right now they're counseling our students on thursdays they'll soon be moving to a second day and we hope eventually
058a third and a fourth day so to have licensed professional psychotherapy available here separate from life coming but being delivered to our students on site is something that um they're quite pleased about so any questions on that i love that internship thing that's brilliant yeah okay thanks folks mr campbell uh the question on the ap class is dividing them up yeah if you have that exceptional student and can they still take absolutely no doubt um some they can so the there are some students who will be able to skip count right to be seen because they're uh exceptional we're talking about three or four students a year at most um ap macro and micro yes because we offer essentially any course through our online educator provider so an ambitious student could take ap macro in
059seat for the full year and then simultaneously do ap micro through our online provider which which some students do we're also increasingly working with sccc to provide an access to afternoon classes on their campus that's good i do have some concerns about the science classes going from six credits to five credits and you know i know that some of the science teachers were training with the experiential aspects of it this summer so i just um would hope that they that you look at that and maybe get some feedback from the science teachers over the coming year and uh see how that's actually gone because again it seems like it's for logistical reasons and i just would like to make sure the kids are getting experiential i would say that last year is a bit of
060a um anomaly and then this year will be more opportunity to pursue it i think this time next year we'll be in a position to decide whether or not this is something that is part of our long-term vision um or whether we want to return to an extended period and we thank the science teachers for their patients as we try and give it um a fair look okay map with great construction manufacturing is a really important everyday use thing that is going to be very helpful i think they'll feel a sense of relevancy when they're in the shop and they're working on a wood or biotechnology and they're applying math to growing tomatoes or you know building a fence one one comment on the will help uh our decision to bring somebody um in-house uh
061i think that it was a day or maybe two later that the u.s department of education secretary cardone came out with a statement um sort of unprecedented statement about the staff this the status of um behavioral health in use and how it has been in stark decline because of the obvious situation um so i think it's just the timing of us doing that was incredible and hopefully students aren't afraid to take advantage of them and yeah exactly we hope it grows built it uh next time we meet with the two days and then four days etcetera also next time we meet i'm very excited that um miss courtney our director of health personnel services will be here to talk about the incredible things that she's doing with our special education transition program um a member
062for today um she's an incredible asset and her vision for transition services and what she'll be doing this year and and it's her first year she already has plans to implement things and she'll be here next month uh we put a lot of thought into where to host it and the decision was to use one of the available offices and guidance the sense was that many students go to guidance for a variety of reasons so that it offers a sense of uh anonymity that someone going to guidance isn't necessarily going there for any one reason and so far it seems to be working sure thank you students or parents um contact tri county directly so our guidance department can give students and give parents um that information and then they reach out directly we're trying
063to keep that separate um so that we come into contact with the student who's in need we reach out to the parent parent we just got and therefore it's really initiated to the parent we're also looking to possibly and hopefully expand it to uh availability of the staff in the future as well thank you that's it for presentations this evening uh we have no other business we're going to proceed directly to action items all right so um the first three right yeah are just a logistical the faculty attendance rate for november with 94.2 percent in attendance so it's 92.4 and um and closed copy of this attention report so then we'll move items four through seven i've recommended that the board approves the harassment intimidation delay report for the period of november 16th to the
06421st december 21st number five is the recommendation that we the curricular field trips and co-curricular field trips listed as listed uh number six that it's recommended that we approve the professional development activities as listed and number seven that we approved the uh 2022-2023 program of study uh on the attachment a7th and mr hamilton's live room speaking of okay any discussion this is anderson yes this nugent yes it's human yes mr karana yes [Music] i'd like to move items one through four together one is that an extended six fmla mean of absence one two one and two are number three is accepted regress retirement notification michelle starza showed your and number four is an another extended uh afternoon making a motion seeking a second exactly discussion i just want to recognize our retiring treasurer's money uh
065he has been with us i don't even know if i can put a number on here it's certainly longer than i've been on the board um i wish her the best retirement oklahoma mr fine yeah mr governor yes mr corazon human yes it's news in it yes anderson yes mr arnold yes mr dan yes oh my gosh i like to move items um five and six number five is the board approves mr michael schiller as interim assistant principal the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year um item six is approve mrs heather gonzalez to return to her ten year position a full-time future of english for this school year uh making emotions second discussion let's see mrs gonzalez mr donna yes this is anderson yes it's human yes mr climb yes yes it's new jim yes
066mr arnold yes sit down yes okay and i'd like to move items seven through ten with that on the addendum seven to eleven and the seventh is teachers listed for uh period assignments eight approve a position of a part-time nurse's aide for nana district placement finally nine nine to approve the resignation of employee number 1164 effective monday december 20th 10 is to approve the following six period assignments listed below and eleven is to approve the position of temporary full-time secretary for uh uh missing young lead is that good to to [Music] um it is in multiple positions it's one position it's administrative assistants secretary but there will be multiple areas where they will be uh okay so making a motion seeking a sex second discussion this is anderson yes is this human yes it's super
067yes it's the donor yes it's declined yes mr arnold yes mr dunn yes next uh action item is the mexican [Music] you're right uh let's do two through nine so there's two on me and then the all the way at the back uh number two recommended the board approve aaron baker as head ski coach number three recommended that the board approve henry cardinal as volunteer speakers number four recommended to the board approves kate finnegan as volunteer girls lacrosse coach for 21-22 school year number five it is recommended that the board approves the creation of the diversity equity and inclusion club with the sherry weissa serving as volunteer advice number six it is recommended that the board approves the wildcat best buddies club which will be affiliated with the international organization best buddies says to broaden
068our network and receive greater resources for this important work the wildcat best buddies club will be an opportunity for high point students with and without disabilities to engage in social activities and build an inclusive school culture the best buddies club will meet weekly during unit lunch in room 120 under the advisement and assistance of mrs delaney wildcat best buddies will be affiliated with best buddies as an opportunity to receive greater resources and broaden our network since important work the registration for you is 350. number seven is recommended the board approved rivalry sports medicine highland lakes as a provider of substitute athletic trainers for the 21-22 school year substitute athletic trainers should they be needed will be paid fifty dollars per hour with a three-hour minimum if the coverage is requested with less than 24 hours
069notice the cost will increase to 55 and all of them have the appropriate certification concerns for the addendum and number eight is recommended that the super it is recommended that the board approves lorelei castellani as a volunteer girls basketball coach for the 21 22 school year and number nine is recommended to the board approves ben kapler as a volunteer wrestling coach it was probably one 22 making a motion on all of those to get a second second any discussion okay i think it's it's worth noting how many volunteer coaches people that have stepped forward that want to see programs continue so much so that they're able to give they're willing to give their free time um to have their programs continuing and i think it's you know worth recognizing that at least a couple of
070them were recent graduates um and then if i correct miss castellani was a star basketball player here a few years back recently [Music] oh i see but regardless if you're a volunteer and you're helping continue um a program here at high point kudos to you um also number six um it's distracting for me i'm sorry but um is another program being brought in by miss delaney for our students which is uh exceptional i did not have the opportunity to speak with that committee sorry if i didn't [Music] yes this is nugent yes this is anderson yes mr arnold yes mr ben yes we have no policy items on the agenda this evening nor do we have any negotiation items and i believe we've already covered grounds that brings us to finance there's one thing on
071the building movement if everyone knows that the tank is installed and working the old tank is supposed to be removed under 27. so it would break and there's no frost on the ground right now so weather looks like it's going to hold so hopefully this happens that would be good [Music] [Laughter] uh let me move items uh one through five together one is a recommendation except the reporters were secretary of business administrator for the month of november 2021 accepted report of the treasurer for the month of november 2021. three is a recommendation to approve the report of transfers in the minimum expense transfer account for the month november 2021 or is the recommendation approved for payment the attached scheduled audited bills dated december 22nd 2021.5 is a recommendation to accept the adult education agency account
072athletic account cafeteria account principles petty cash accounts scholarship accounts school store account and student activities accounts come up this is anderson yes yes mr arnold yes mr dunn yes and i will move the final items six and seven together item six is a recommendation to prove the uncompromised execution of the following tuition contract between high point regional high school as ascending and the following districts related information as listed item seven is a recommendation to approve two three-day workshops on student wellness empathy respect and self-awareness conducted by brian thomas for grades nine and ten for the one day follow-up assembly for each grade so that's eight days in total uh for a total of 5700 um mutually agreed upon as not yet determined dates in january or february 2022. these workshops will be funded by federal
073grant monies formally accepted formerly accepted by the voe for the purpose of enhancing and supporting student social and emotional learning like the motion on 67th and secondary second discussion is it anderson yes it's nature yes this is julian yes mr ferraza yes it's tada yes mr klein yeah mr arnold yes mr guy yes and transportation school activities as listed item two that the board approve and authorize contract addendum for additional mileage for this school year as listed item three is that the board approved an authorized quoted contract for transportation for this year is listed and before board approve and authorize the joint transportation agreement for the current school year is listed item advise that the board of proven horizon joint transportation agreement for this current school year is listed as of six the board approve
074and authorize the joint transportation agreement for the current school bureau is listed item seven that the board proven authorized another joint transportation agreement for the current school year is listed number eight recruitment authorized the quoted contract for school related activity trips for the current school year is listed number nine that the board approve and authorize another joint transportation agreement for school-related activities is listed 10 board approved and authorized and joint transportation agreement for the current school year is listed number 11 that the board improvement authorized voted contracts for trips for the current school era is listed my discussion is that he should make sure that he's the chair yeah other than miss anderson's flattering are there any other comments yes this is anderson yes this is human yes it's nugent yes mr bonan yes yes
075mr arnold yes mr gun yes all emotions [Music] that is our actions for the evening i don't believe we have any correspondence uh under miscellaneous are standing items about school board mandated training this applies to you you know about it if there's any problems with accessing any training please let me know and we will get assistance from the all famous abilities and the jersey school board thank you uh so we will now open up for the second public comments section of the evening the same uh rules apply as the first session um please uh if you're in person here and come to the podium uh you'll have three minutes to address the board which will be timed by myself limited sections are no longer than 45 minutes please be respectful mindfully your comments are being
076reported um again we have an opportunity to present to speak to the board either in person or virtually a absolutely because i have a few things in here that i just want to go over with you not all of it sure it's plenty for you to read for your holiday season yes [Music] yes okay sorry we're excited we you are literally our first commenter in three months so uh the fact that i can be here you know a lot of people are doing the zoom stuff you know and it's nice to be able to be in attendance thank you um okay um as you can see i've given plenty of coverage here in the beginning for the dossier david martin uh 22 years of studying has put all of this information together so if we
077could skip to page 25 and um you can see uh we have the title for section 21 um i don't know how to read that five zero four two four it'll illegal clinical trial unlawful to conduct unlawful to conduct medical research in the case of an emergency without a series of steps taken to establish the research with dually authorized and independent institutional report review secure informed consent of all participants including a statement of risk and benefits and engage in consultation with a community in which studies be conducted and we all know that we're under this emergency in the study and if you scroll down you can read about the face mask should not be allowed by healthy individuals we all know what it's doing to the students it's hard for me as a person that
078can't hear very well i'm normally used to reading lips so you can skip on down and see the social distancing and then you read basically you go to the next page and it is unlocked under the ftc act title 15 u.s code 41 to advertise that a product or service can prevent treat or cure the disease so let's get to the next page and you can see um it should say the high point regional do you see that next page after 20 years okay um this is another uh two codes that have been violated um and again i don't think that any of you really want um any kind of possible felonies that you've got us code title or title 18 us code 241 and 242 conspiracy against rights and deprivation of rights under colorblock
079okay read through that and you can see after that a couple pages or you'll see a bears report it has to do with actual this has to do with the teenagers the children because of the myocarditis and things that are happening in the boys the there's a lot of nervous central um debilitations there's just been a whole lot of stuff reproductive issues with girls and boys if you pass back there you'll see there's a letter written to the president that this has been three years that has been unanswered there's 11 questions that have been pending and it's never been answered and it was rewritten again and we're still waiting and somebody else can send it as far as what's behind there there's also another letter by thomas friends it's an attorney that has put this
080letter together to whom it may concern that you can send to your congress your attorney generals and anybody that's in the um that's the government that could do some good maybe for us here and you would sign your name to that and behind that is from david martin that you see the dossier from he wrote a short five-page piece that you can send to your attorney general as well send a certified and you can see the felony charges and you can see all the defendants names and that being said i'm the reason why i'm doing this i don't want to be a bummer i know holiday i'm concerned about our kids i know all of us would like for this to be over in donald but there's um a lot of things happening that honestly
081shouldn't be happening and you know i don't think anybody here wants to be involved in some of these felonies that if you're going along with it you're involved in which is the same and it's a felony and i don't think any of you want you can even you know get out of it even just say no and repent so that being said uh i appreciate it again i i just really i have a hard time with trying to see our children and all the emotional stress that they're going through the masks are really making a huge issue on our children they can't see expression they can't hear very well they can't understand well the emotions as you can see i watched my grandson go through this and he's 14 and i've seen the biggest change
082in him in this past year that i don't even know this child hardly anymore he is so step back so anyway happy holidays merry christmas happy new year thank you thank you [Music] that would like to make a comment if uh if you are listening virtually please raise your virtual hand recognize you look there's anybody else in the person here i have a motion to close the second comment section so move on all right any opposed um i now have our non-committee board of member reports or comments anyone well i know leanne was gonna um say something that she had to go in emergency on her and that will not be as eloquent as her but um you know um we as a board um you know really want the children to be in school
083and we want uh to express that we believe that the best protection for the children to be in school the best way for them to be in school is to be vaccinated in order that they will not have to quarantine and so that they can also have less risk of having serious illnesses and further consequences and i for one as a teacher have experienced also that the mass helped protect the children i've seen students get sick and then quarantined and the close contacts that are from the classroom are not the ones getting sick because they're wearing their masks properly it's the close contacts that they have outside not in school as much available possible but also to protect them yes i i agree i concur we've been talking about that that we want to encourage
084our students to be vaccinated as a board we want to encourage that to be the case because that is how we keep these kids in the building moving forward emotionally intellectually that's that's how they're going to get through this horrific time we're in and the kids are having a bad time of it i i agree with you being in the building helps them and being in the building is mostly possible when they don't have the quarantine and that's what we're looking for so that's what this board has been discussing and wanting to say publicly yeah we are committed to keeping the school open for our students in any way we can provided that we're not prohibited from doing so and i believe i really feel the same that as a couple board members have already
085said we want the students here we do not want to go virtual learning environment again and a number of us feel that it's worth mentioning that one of the best ways to get there is to increase the level of vaccinations in our community comments doesn't have to be on this topic i would just uh to change i guess support what's being said regarding what we've done here in response to the guidelines that we've received from the state we're we've reduced the number of days for um for quarantining for those who are not vaccinated based upon the guidelines that we have received recently they've been updated because we believe that children are better served by being in school we believe that the harm done for students is greater for them to be removed from the school
086setting than that which they might suffer should they become a positive case we're also seriously considering and moving in the direction of what's referred to as test to stay that means uh anyone who is not vaccinated and who is determined to be a close contact can uh take take a uh onsite test on day one three and five it could be one three four and five this one and they're all negative tests they do not have to quarantine this is a movement in new jersey where several uh districts throughout the state at the uh suggestion and uh of the cdc who has stated that that's an appropriate measure and the uh the state has also discussed it so we're likely moving in that direction so as to ensure that we have more kids on site
087our goal our purpose is for kids to be in school it has been a disastrous 20 months and we the administration the staff the teachers community have paid a high price and our students have suffered immeasurably and that is grievous heartbreaking and i do not want what does the board want what does anyone want children to suffer law any further loss of their childhood that we all took for granted good bad or otherwise and so we want our kids here we want them here engaging in their own learning with their teachers in front of them with their classmates and friends and colleagues and peers we want them engaging in extracurricular activities that they enjoy we want them engaging in athletics we want them here now having said that that's going to be a challenge it
088does not mean that students will not need to go um [Music] to quarantine if they do become positive however our focus this year is social emotional learning it is not to measure student growth as if it were 19 or 2019 i'm not mitigating our responsibility to provide academic instruction and to enable students to to learn but we must recognize that our primary focus is social and emotional learning and that happens when kids are here around their peers in front of their teachers and that happens in the building and so um unless there are dire circumstances or we are mandated it is highly unlikely for us to uh take the step to want to close because we believe in the efficacy of children being on site they've lost too much that does not mean i'm uh
089i'm denying the issues that are that we've contended with but it does acknowledge that our responsibility is those 14 to 21 now 22 year olds who need us to ensure that they are not harmed further and uh that is our purpose and we will do everything we can to ensure that we remain open also we will do everything we can to ensure that our athletic events endured for the winter remain open to spectators one of the great joys of my life that's been watching my children participate in extracurricular activities and athletics it it is very emotional when that's denied of a kid or a parent we're going to keep our gym open for parents and for spectators it doesn't mean we're going to be cavalier we're still going to maintain certain rules but to deny
090further those opportunities that we enjoy as kids to deny that any further we believe i believe will do more harm to kids than keeping them out to keep them safe from whether it's omicron or pie which i hear is the next one uh that's coming and i'm not pleased i'm not in any way mitigating i'm completely a political what i'm saying is our responsibility is 14 to 22 year olds and we're going to serve their needs thank you i may just take a minute or two to recap um given that this is the last meeting of the calendar year our board competition is going to be changing uh going into our january reward i just want to recognize the uh some of the accomplishments that this board has managed over the past 12 difficult months
091we have a negotiations committee has managed to uh reach um agreement in some cases full contract uh agreements with the superintendent and the hpea the hpea is yet to be ratified by uh by the association and will eventually be up on the board agenda here also but we had we have reached a verbal tentative agreement that those two alone are no small tasks while it was the negotiations committee that was heavily involved in that it didn't require involvement by the entire board certainly um there were a number of um curricular um movements this year it's been a moving situation with instruction during the world of topic and um through us to the curriculum committee for managing those changes working with the administration through all of those personnel and policy we've had some retirements we've had
092other uh what what is typical in the corporate world world is is turnover um it is probably highlighted in the time of coping um but it it's one of the things that personnel policy committee like to uh recognize for their support of the administration through all of those changes um buildings and grounds committee has been heavily involved in one particular project that i am glad to hear reported is nearing its completion and that is no small task i know we're fortunate to have some individuals here that are very capable and overseeing that project too but it's been one i know it's been on the building grounds radar for quite some time transportation listen those action items are not fun to go through and but beyond that i want to recognize the transportation committee for working
093so well with our transportation coordinator who i think surprised we've recognized her as a number of uh instances throughout the year and how fortunate we are to have um the coordination that is necessary to provide transportation in an area of the state where we stretch so far and our transportation costs i would warrant are um uh was related to the comprehensive report i think again a final kudos to uh our board secretary business administrator and our staff in the office for keeping the eyes dotted and the t's crossed and coming up with a report it's the first one in my recent memory where we've had no recommendations usually we're quite good compared to some of our peers and i've looked at some of the peer reports this one is outstanding to know that there was
094no recommendations um thank you for that um and a thank you to dr ripley for what uh you and your fellow administrators have had to go through this again another difficult year we are we're hoping that the difficult years very soon come to an end and we can go back to education more as we remember it or as it's envisioned to be um but you know it's a it's a great way for us to wrap up this year 21. i for one am looking forward to moving in the next year and moving forward with some other things and i certainly wish our two departing board members that's departing right i want to just say that wayne you you took the reigns in march was it no way yeah oh january so it was march 34th
095since your you have done a marvelous job buying us leading us working with everybody making the connections with everybody you have done a great job and where we used to just be complaining that we were getting state cuts that we don't even talk about that anymore because there's so many other things that we're working through and you have done a wonderful job leading us from whenever the heck you being became president that was good thank you for waiting for your work on the negotiation raise spreadsheets on those lovely club cards [Music] just uh for the purpose of public disclosure we include um a record of our open public records act requests uh we see one that uh responded to over the past month and that was all purchase orders from may 21st through november so
096i mean may 2021 through november 22nd 2021 um from smart procurement and as listed so with that i will entertain a motion to adjourn our last meeting of the appointment uh calendar year i think you should be the leaders second second on the record i believe that there it is thank you