001the meeting to order and welcome everyone this meeting is being held in accordance with the schedule of meetings adopted at the organizational meeting held on January 4th 2023 adequate notice of this regular Board of regular meeting of the kennworth board of education has been provided to the home News Tribune The Star Ledger and local Source on January 12th 2023 a copy has been filed with the korth bur clerk posted in the board office the korth bur Hall brly and Hardy schools as is provided by the open public meetings act thank you Mr Galo can you please join us and rise to salute the flagi to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands Nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all Mr Galo can we please have roll
002call yes berer here David here Drogan here Ferrara here hather here Madi here Pichi here tear here Zimmerman here we have quum thank you at this time we'll now have the receiving of the minutes from October 10th may I please have a motion to accept the receiving of the minutes from October 10th 2023 okay second okay motion May by Mr hather seconded by Mr Ferrera all those in favor of accepting the uh minutes from October 10th please say I I oppose eyes have it motions carried Mr ganal do we have any public correspondents this evening yes we have a couple of uh items have a letter from Brockwell Carrington contractors to myself uh and the korth Board of Education regarding their bid withdrawal for the additions and alterations project we have a letter uh from
003Kathleen MSA from the Kenworth uh to the Board of Education regarding the C Board of educational Capital Improvements the planning board uh we have an email sent uh to myself and to all board members uh regarding the election results from the November election uh regarding the school board uh candidates that completes uh correspondence for the month thank you Mr Gala can I please have a motion to accept the monthly correspondence okay second motion made by Mr ather seconded by Mrs Drogan all those in favor of accepting the monthly correspondence please say I I oppose eyes have it motion carry at this time we'll have the superintendent report and presentations Mr Arlington thank you good evening everybody uh it's great to have so much energy and animation in the room tonight I'm pleased to introduce you
004to Mr Bowski who's going to start us off by introducing this month's student spotlights good evening everyone what a crowd we have here tonight tonight and it is my honor to Spotlight Harding School newspaper and I have one word to describe it impressive now Harding School is not new to newspapers but it is new in the most recent years in my tenure at Harding School we haven't had a newspaper um and last year I had a few fourth graders come to my office and say Mr Bowski can we have a newspaper and I said absolutely why not right and the Harding School newspaper was reborn so without further Ado I don't want to steal her Spotlight because she does deserve a lot of the credit so I'd like to call up our Harding School newspaper
005advisor Mrs diara thank you good evening everyone I'd like to start by thanking you all for selecting the newspaper Club as this month's Board of Education Spotlight this club as well as its members is something I am so proud of and I'm glad that this program has made its way back to Harding's doors our club consists of fifth and sixth grade students that were ready to get the news out to Harding and the rest of the kennworth community with their own sense of style and creativity the writers hit the ground running and turned over their very first issue to the community in less than a month they are very hardworking and dedicated and should be very proud of themselves for producing an outstanding first issue our members meet with me two to three times a
006month to plan organize and execute their writing my goal as their facilitator is to challenge them with different writing assignments throughout the year that Encompass unique writing styles as well as guide them through learning new ways to communicate with others such as the interview model these students are excited to spread the news to our community each month in their own Harding Hawk way at this time I'd like to highlight our first isue to you all and congratulate these amazing fifth and sixth grade writers so I believe you have a copy of it I will get it to the board okay uh so I don't have a copy to present tonight but um to Encompass some of the things that were sent out to the community we had the hawk of the month students were highlighted
007so some of our writers interviewed some of the hawk of the month um winners and wrote about them we also highlighted some uh current events events going on so there was a spotless giraffe that was highlighted um in in our world news uh we also had an interview with Mr bubnowski and Miss Carrera so talking about the things going on in our school at the back in our back to school issue there it is that's okay so uh it's called let's Hawk about it so um we we do a a bimonthly um issue so this one was the September October issue and it was our back to school one um there is a tips and tricks for students section as well as some creative art that uh some of our artists chose to write uh
008chose to illustrate um it just shows just so much creativity I'm so proud of the issue that we gave out uh the tips and tricks column I loved the little uh Apple for a teacher trick for a little back to school edition uh telling us how to select our perfect apples for the teachers there's the current events there uh two were selected for this one um our next issue also has a part two of the current event that was issued in this one so we are trying to keep it consistent throughout as well but the students get to select what they want to write out each time um and I try to have them change it up uh so if somebody's doing the jokes Corner this time I hope that they will write a current
009event at some point throughout the year as well but we have 24 writers this year so to start that off bringing it back to Harding and having 24 from the start I can only imagine what this is going to be like in years to come so thank you so much and at this time if they could all stand up so that we could recognize them that would be great our writers come up fr probably fit front of the backdrop they football game on Sunday and they T the house and then they won the football game so they have another game this Sunday he's very exitting this one's for the look over there first and then Mom and Dad and everybody can get you par still taking your pictures so as a teacher at very organized
010way so when you're getting your pictures and last Applause I'm G to have you stop and see Mr J for a treat and then Mrs will give you your certificates out the Hall's let's stud so don't forget your treats yeah I don't know why please mrow could we get a copy of that at the next meeting absolutely it's hard it's hard copy right it's it's not but we we actually have hard copies for all get it great thank you Shar it and then you get it right because Mike's in kindergart the of the month love the for the email you get it in the Thursday you were talking when they came in I see you later bye bye I was actually the Futures editor clean room go from 20 to nothing quick I'm in the
011wrong field working down and then there's a little black one teachers next time we have to read the names good night so not the black you guys made it interesting on Sunday yeah isn't that yours oh I won't tell you I won't tell you the score all right um I'd like to spend a few minutes previewing District goals that feels loud um for the school year each year we reevaluate our goals for our school Community these goals bring us closer to achievements and Define what we stand for as a district we share our goals to provide context for the moves we make such as technology we bring into the classrooms the assessments we use and the instructional strategies and pedagogies we enact to name a few our district goals mostly remain the same as last
012year this consistency allows us to continue to deepen our work work with greater breath rather than add new goals and Rapid succession year after year our Cadre of goals which I hope you'll join me in thinking of as aspirations we strive to achieve rather than boxes we check are foregrounded in this presentation after a quick overview I'll share some highlights and intentions for our district goals for the year and close out with some commitments via next steps and a preview of our upcoming strategic planning process so these are our district's main priorities and they nest inside these five goals they Center on a commitment to inclusion Innovation referendum followup student engagement and using data as a way to advance achievement I'm going to do a little unpacking of each to zoom in on action steps
013so this year around diversity equity and inclusion will continue to partner with consultative Services uh for the last year the district leadership team has been working with support to ensure we have the capacity and skill sets to lead high quality inclusion work I will continue to upgrade technology in the area of supporting Innovative teaching and learning and create opportunities to make classes and programs more Innovative uh we'll continue to look at how we add technology not merely for technology sake uh but in value additive ways as we strengthen our professional learning work focuses on how teachers new or refined learning supports kids through Innovative practices as it relates to PD we recognize there's always a need for more differentiated learning experiences for teachers and so my team is currently working on ideas to support that
014effort I recently sent out a community update about the referendum uh where we stand with projects and timelines so we'll continue to update the community about those uh projects and those timelines we also realize that next year will be the last year for next year's current fifth and sixth graders at Harding so there'll need to be some like parallel celebratory experiences as those students will go to to brly as sixth and seventh graders uh together so we're working on firming up some academic plans and grade level transitions the scope of goal or the action steps around goal four focus on studying and applying best practices for student engagement particularly in a post-pandemic environment or post-pandemic moment where the Rules of Engagement have changed I've uh already shared our engagement toolkit with the curriculum committee which
015is an instructional tool a planning tool for teachers we're looking to make that more integral part of teachers planning we're also focused on engagement in the evaluation process of teachers and education Specialists too uh finally we'll continue using multiple data sources to meet students academic behavioral and social emotional needs as part of our focus on this goal will support professional learning communities focused on data along with building data teams we've also made it a point to focus on teachers use of data and pre-observation conversations and explore ideas and push forward thinking to build a richer data culture as we've habited for the past few years we'll continue to widely communicate our progress through our midye check-in and other periodic updates that we send to the community uh we'll also engage as I've mentioned to the
016board before in strategic planning with the help of New Jersey school boards the process will be Community focused with input from lots of different groups teachers board members and parents and Guardians I know the district has done this before um but it's it's time to do it again I imagine at that time the time of the planning process we'll have a set of goals that may look different than the ones I share here tonight and action steps that will guide us for the next four or five years that process again will likely shape our district goals so it made sense to really try to deepen and achieve the goals uh this year that we built on and started last year particularly knowing that strategic planning was coming and we may do some uh some pivoting
017there I Al as part of that process I also anticipate there'll be recommendation for the board to adopt goals um we'll be sharing more details about that process in the winter and the spring uh ahead of that though I'm happy to take any questions from the board now anyone have any questions from Mr Arlington about the goals okay okay thanks everybody thank you I think NAD is Up N for his presentation yes hi come on up good evening everyone good evening I would like to start off today by congratulating the boys varsity soccer team who made it to the group championship game this past weekend after earning the title of sectional Champs we unfortunately lost one Z to Shore Regional but it was a fantastic season for our soccer program under the coaching of Mr
018B and winter sports will begin very soon the winter season for Esports starts this thing Thanksgiving and as for the robotics team we are currently working on a competition robot and we want to have it ready by January rewinding a little bit to our October school spirit events the homecoming dance was a success Mr Rosetti put a lot of hard work into those decorations with the help of the decoration committee and it was a great success our spirit week gave way to some interesting costumes but there was a lot of participation throughout and the same goes for the Hispanic heritage night which was as Lively as ever the marking period 1 ended last Wednesday and today was the first day of Mark Period 2 with that college application deadlines are approaching once again the November
0191st early action deadline has already passed but the November 15th one is here and the December 1st is coming up soon the financial aid night with Mr Zamora was November 2nd and the FAFSA Workshop will take place in January the universal Technical Institute is coming to brly on Wednesday to meet with students who are interested in technical schooling and next week reps from Kane and UCC are coming for instant decision days in upcoming events we have the flag football tournament this Thursday at 6 p.m. and interclass games which is Wednesday November 22nd right after Thanksgiving break that's all for today thank you for your time and have a good night thanks thank you yeah I just have a few more updates I want to address a topic that came up at the last board board
020meeting which was an issue around Harding's assembly a recent assembly so during the October board meeting two parents spoke about their concerns over a Harding school assembly that involved an anti-bullying message and dance performance although the parents questioned whether all the dance moves were entirely appropriate the main concern centered on one of the dancers social media posts uh we invited that group to perform at the school based on the group's program overview and dozens of recommendations including many from New Jersey Educators the social media posts in question are linked to the same performer operating under a different name and did not appear through a search for the group that was hired the first complaints that were brought to my attention were from the parents at last month's meeting and that was more than enough for
021us to investigate my team spoke one-on-one with several teachers and I personally reviewed uh video clips that teachers took on their phones the clips I saw did not raise any red flags and a teacher compare that dancing to what students would do in a hip-hop class one staff member who attended the October board meeting expressed was concerned that the assembly was a little inappropriate for younger children and that the performers were dancing lower to the floor all staff members who were interviewed said performers did not share their social media information or suggest that students follow them we also heard from teachers and parents who had no issue with the assembly um and a teacher said uh the message that her students took was staying true to yourself and being confident resonated with her class all
022of this feedback that we investigated and collected has been helpful uh despite any positive reviews we can safely say that group by any name will not be asked back however our investigation of this matter only reinforced the Need For Education around self-esteem and anti-bullying uh we're taking other steps as a district to address this such as posting videos on our YouTube channel to explain policies around harassment intimidation and bullying uh we continue to seek engaging ways to share important messages with our students the learning opportunity and here for us was to review and firm up to improve our assembly selection process which has been done um including how to screen out companies that have had issues while operating under other names so in this matter and in all matters personally I appreciate the input and
023Partnership of our parents and Guardians and at this time while I'm happy to take questions from the board I also consider this a closed matter any board members have any questions regarding the concerns brought up last meeting or what was discuss we're satisfied with the results thank you yes uh the tab committee I have a list of interested participants from the Kaa thank you Miss Ryan um in a list shared with that she shared with me on 112 my office is currently finding a date for the uh board's the committee's members um and that will be scheduled this week not for this week it will be scheduled for this um last thing I have are the Hib and the disciplinary um if you look at the chart I have for you there are no reported
024cases of HIV for Harding in October and there was one case in early that was founded um something that may seem a skew but isn't if I could Point your attention to number eight eight measures taken um there were two founded offenders of HIV both as part of intervention both are required to meet with their counselors one for a longer swap of time given that um he has been founded to have engaged in Acts of HIV previously um and there like the details of that case if you will are on the chart on the next page questions okay later in the meeting resolution 20 you'll be voting on The hi report for from September which I shared at October's public meeting I'm happy to take questions about those too everyone need an extra minute or
025so to to review disrespectful to student supension and possession of a knif or blade one is there a specific reason why um well I have to get details of that for you sometimes it depends on the context and the circumstances right we've talked a lot about Progressive discipline too um so I'd have to know more about the students discipline history to answer that that's something I could um research though if you're interested that's my only question but um I see it was now fourth grader all right thank you anyone else any questions another minute or okay thank you Mr Arlington at this uh at this time we will now have report of committees review of resolutions and board discussion up first finance and Facilities Mr Le okay so um my report first so our snow
026removal equipment is in good shape and we have everything prepared for the winter hopefully we don't have a lot of snow like last year um as far as a referendum project U Mr ganella sent you guys all an updated um updates on the referendum project on November 3rd um I have some information on it if you haven't reviewed it but hopefully you guys all took a took a look at the update um plans for some of the non- referendum projects are moving along which include outside storage area and Harding boiler and Chiller pumps um prices for others projects um are being gathered for the inclusion in the um 25 budget as previously discussed you know the the finance committee goes over every project basically everything that's spent in this so we will go over any
027suggested projects um before we put that into those into the budget um as for Resolutions 1 two three and four are the normal ones every month they were occurring every month Mr AR just presented his report I reviewed all the billing and all the finances and they all seem to be in order there were no line item transfers over the 5,000 cap um five are the workshops six are are um trips um and seven are payment to the contracts I review those they look the payments of the contract appear in order all the remaining TR um resolutions or for transportation contracts um and that's all I have on resolutions um any questions on resolutions any of the resolutions okay um there is a policy I have to read um policy revision to um adoption it's
028p8500 Food Services um it's called the working class families anti anti- hungry act hunger act um it's basically a comprehensive Food Service policy guide that addresses per um pertinent provisions of the workingclass family anti-hunger act um policy 8500 is mandated it must be adopted by the um board if the district participates in the National lunch program it abolishes p854 and p55 um 5500 so um and those two things that are being abolished are included in 8500 so I you know we're all kind of working class families right um so I looked up the definition it's um it's it's a family of four making $55,000 or less because you know everybody was work we're all working right we all have families it's all working so I decided to look up the definition and that's the definition
029of a working class family so um would you like me to the only other thing I have is negotiations would you like me to jump right into that or does anyone have any questions on that on on that policy go ahead um yeah this it kind of goes back to the first part of your report so I guess this is to Mr ganella related to the HVAC system so recently I was watching a segment on 60 Minutes about I don't know if any you know if you cot it or not but it was basically about HVAC systems in you know public buildings and um companies and so on and about the level of filtering that are in the new system so I guess my question is I'm I'm assuming that our new HVAC systems will
030be of like highest caliber in terms of filtration and things of that other there's it's called hea filters there various levels of HEPA filters uh we're not going up to the heppo that you find in the space Shel we're not even going with the ones that are up to the up to the standards that in a hospital setting we're going with the standard um all standard that is is in accordance with with School classrooms so each every classroom has its own individual univent which is similar to what you see right over there and they have filters the key to filtering is you change the filters we change our filters four times a year some schools don't even change them once so um you know so it's important to change those filters um in addition to
031that we uh applied for and we're granted a a uh a grant that provided us with actual haa filters um and actually have uh uh ozone uh in each one of the classrooms and those are actually they're like little um teachers will know I call them like little R2D2 units in there and those are really high quality type of filters that could easily do a a very large space let on a classroom so we're we're pretty we're pretty good on on that thanks thank you anyone else any other questions before Mr Le moves on to negotiations okay okay so for negotiations um as I said last month I was trying to get the committee together um just as anticipation of negot of the upcoming negot negotiations and I know the makeup the committee may change
032in January if the bo if whoever president of the board is at the time wants to change their mind on who's on the committee but I thought we would just get a head start on it I asked labor Council to come in and it basically it was just a meet and greet um to go over what negotiations are like for the new me new members of the committee so that's all we sort of did tonight so it's just kind of like a step one and that's all I have thank you Mr M anyone have questions no anything uh overall for his presentation before we move on to Personnel okay thank you Mr L appreciate it um next up we'll have personnel and management Mr hather thank you uh seven resolutions tonight very quickly uh resolution
03311 is a change to 8 hours resolution 12 is approval of a maternity leave absence resolution 13 is a leave replacement request uh resolution 14 is approval for Middle School Academy testing dates and resolution 15 is the approval of athletic stype in positions for the 23 24 School Year resolution 16 is the approval of volunteer coaching and resolution 17 is the approval of substitute staff and that is it for personnel anyone have questions for Mr the only question I have I noticed that between 16 and 17 the IND idual named on the one resolution it says pending the substitute certification being taken care of and then on the next resolution that's not mentioned so I don't know whether that means it's been done and the person is now got the certification or if it was
034just an oversight and wording so that would be need to be corrected that for the minute I'm assuming she got it after volunteer I I would think because we wouldn't be do 17 I would hope not so so 16 is actually okay because it is pending so if she got it she got it then we're good yeah okay we wouldn't be hiring her if she didn't have it so like I said I would hope not but because the wording wasn't there yeah thank anyone else questions comments okay up next curriculum instruction Mrs te uh there's three resolutions tonight uh resolution 18 is the 2023 2024 District goal vision and mission statements and uh resolution 19 is the approval of proposed clubs with their advisors and resolution 20 is the acceptance of the Hib report from
035September of 2023 that was all questions comments no okay thank you very much uh we'll now move on to Old business business okay we just would continue to remind everyone that the Friday folder is available with opportunities and supports and to continue to please follow our Facebook social media Instagram and website and anything you may need should be available on our school website for your you know review if you need it um at this time we'll go to new business does anyone have any new business okay sha mentioned um we wanted to congratulate our boy soccer team and also all of our fall athletes and coaches we're going to be um honoring them at a future meeting um and we also would like to just take a brief uh moment to thank the Harding and
036David Bry Min school pto's for all the Halloween and fall celebrations that have been happening throughout the schools and also to congrat all congratulate all the marking period one Scholars and the students of a month everyone's been working really hard so far so anyone else anything they want to contribute to oh and congratulations to our board members winners anyone else uh any new business no okay at this point we will now open up the meet skipped old business I thought I said I said all business sorry probably too fast do you want to go back to no no I didn't have any I just I didn't hear you say it so I'm sorry yep old Biz and then new bis thanks though n okay uh at this point we'll open up the meeting to the
037public for comment is there a motion to open up the meeting to the public second okay motion made by Mr David seconded by Mrs Drogan all those in favor of opening the meeting to the public please say I I opposed okay eyes have it motion carry Mr Gala the public uh comment will now be accepted the Board of Education sets the limit for public to speak at board meetings to five minutes per person unless prior permission has been granted by the board of education for extended time pursuant to Boe policy 0167 uh when you approach the podium please indicate your name and address prior to making your comments okay this time do we have any uh public who would like to make a comment Ste 32 of court I took off for it to be
038here so I figured I'd get my money's worth uh firstly I just want to say thank you for the uh newspaper support I was really excited by that um just a short story from our house we are in a kind of a constant battle with screens um so my son knowes the Yankees and he wake up every morning go on my phone and check my phone for the Yankee scores so we actually got a subscription to a newspaper and he reads it in the newspaper instead um so I would like to encourage hopefully we can at some point um support a print version of the the hawk about it because I think there's something to be said about having the paper in your hand and holding it especially since Co we have a lot of
039screen time uh so specifically thank you to miss arpa Mr Bowski and the board for supporting that uh Second last year um I attended coffee with the superintendent Mr Arlington and I brought up bike racks and I noticed this year there are I think at least three new bike racks on the premises three um yeah yeah so thank you very much I think there if there's more even more will use it um so I appreciate that and then finally I wanted to say thank you to the athletic director Scott Miller um so as you might have guests I'm a big I like basketball um and we have a Rec Department here in town that does basketball within the town but we didn't have anything that allowed our student athletes to to play other towns so
040last year Samantha and I started Kenworth travel basketball we started with one team and this year we wanted to expand it um so we're up to five teams we have five teams and 57 uh athletes um the problem that we're running into is gym time availability and Mr Miller has been helpful with trying to overcome that um I anticipate at some point in the future I'll be coming to ask for more gym time but we're trying to get the foot in the door we're uh we're going to be at Saturdays of Harding from 9: to 12 I think um hopefully next year maybe we can have all day Saturday maybe Sunday um but um Mr Miller has given us some uh some available gym time now in uh Bry which is very helpful and um
041you know anything else we can take will take uh but just a bunch of thank yous so I appreciate every you for I know I know it's very amazing anyone else at this uh point would like to make the comment no okay to close the public portion okay can I have a second okay motion made by Mr David seconded by Mrs tears all those in favor of Cl closing the meeting to the public please say I I opposed okay eyes have it motions carried the meeting is now closed to the public um Mr ganella at this point can we do our roll call of resolutions yes we can thank you so there are 22 resolutions on the agenda this evening um do any of those resolutions need to be voted on separately no okay so
042this is resolutions 1 through 22 on the agenda biner yes David yes Drogan yes Ferrara yes hather yes L yes tears yes Zimmerman yes panichi yes motions carry unanimously okay perfect thank you is there a need to go into close executive session this evening there is not okay um thank you very much if that's the case um at this point make a motion to adjourn okay second second okay motion made by Mr David seconded by Mr hather all those in favor of adjourning okay opposed okay eyes habit motions carried the meeting is now adjourned thank you thank you so much Happy Thanksgiving