001thank you right now [Music] call the order um this is to advise the general public that compliance will be doing Publix mediac it's a little like Harvard board of education has to be posted at the office of the Board of Education located at 307 Frog Pond Road Little Egg Harbor New Jersey in fact it's on January 4th 2020 eventually Asbury Park Press Atlantic City press and the office of the municipal clerk of the lake harbor a meeting notice setting for the time date and location of this meeting [Music] Mr filicello here Ms settler here Ms Arbor here miss Martin here Mrs lesla here Mr Beverly here Dr Snyder here we all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance all right [Music] are there any questions [Music] all in favor any opposed yes any extensions oh
002she carries [Music] moving on to the approval of minutes recommend a motion to approve the following minutes metal motion [Music] we have a second all in favor any special any questions all in favor can you pose any extensions okay motion carries moving on to board presentations first we have George K Mitchell building highlights the snacks thank you good evening so I would like to welcome up two of our amazing readers from Miss Lorenzo's class can I have Carly Robinson and Anthony cervino to share with you the George J Mitchell School highlights [Music] foreign [Music] we are students in Minnesota's second grade class we are excited to share some highlights from the Mitchell school on Wednesday February 15th we celebrate the completion of 100 days of school with a kindergarten parade students dressed up like they
003were a hundred years old or were a not under a day sure classes also participated in 100 Day activities five minutes on February 1st we also kicked off the kids heart challenge with an awesome assembly students have also been raising money to support heart health we have been jumped broke during our gym and health classes [Music] February 1st was also World read a loud day it was great to have different guests visit our classes and read books to us speaking of books the Mitchell School also had the the Scholastic Book Fair we earned about five thousand eights left 500 inch plastic bags that can be used to purchase books for our school [Music] the character trait for February is courage We Begin the month by dressing like superheroes we are learning that courage is about
004standing up for what is right even when it is hard to do and helping those in need students are being recognized for doing what is right now [Music] The Capes of Courage bulletin board on Friday February 10th the PTO held a Super Bowl dance many students and parents attended it was a great time all right thank you before having us tonight all day long they practice so hard and thank you both for Having the courage to stand up here and deliver that report to our board members and the audience excellent job on cloud of both of you awesome so now on to our student of the month so our character trait for the month of January was responsibility so the students selected their teachers felt that they represented that character trait so for our first
005student of the month from kindergarten Savannah fairhurst you're here come on Savannah so miss Moscato wrote Savannah is a sweet and caring girl in a friend in class she is willing to help others throughout the day and consistently displace responsibility each day I am so proud of her and the progress she continues to make our second student is in kindergarten from Mrs Chamberlain's class hi Roberts he's not here but uh Miss Chamberlain wrote Kai is a very polite kind and caring little boy he helps his friends every day get set up on their Chromebooks in first grade Avaya Rasmussen Avea sorry can always be counted on to spread kindness amongst her peers friends class and school as a whole she comes to first grade each day with a ready to learn attitude keep up the
006fabulous Earth [Applause] our next student is in first grade Mrs B in class Magdalena Coombs foreign [Music] [Applause] our second grade student of the month for Mrs Lorenzo's class Gavin King there he is Gavin has made great strides on his personal goals he tried his best to complete tasks and stay focused more I am so proud of Gabby's progress and love watching him grow each day and making good choices congratulations give us a fantastic work I'm so proud of you [Applause] [Music] you ready this time all right everybody look this way she's on three [Music] ready one two three cheese [Applause] okay next moving on to Frog Pond Fulton Highway today everyone I want to introduce our teacher leader for our student government program Mr Alex Henderson introduce one of his students [Music] good afternoon
007my name is Alex Henderson This is Nico Macho Pasqua who's going to be reading the building highlights as well as some highlights for the students so we wanted to start off by thanking everyone for supporting our Scholastic Book Fair we honored our principles as academic achievements and purpose attendance students when we return from winter break to start off February our sixth grade studies got a chance to participate in Star warm our annual bringing to someone special could be in it is lots of fun we had about 150 family drugs we celebrated our 100th day of school on February 15th we look forward to seeing you know we talk about the next 80 Days From our country I was hoping it's ever popular candy bar Bingo this Friday at six at Brooklyn please look for a
008monthly newsletter for broadcom updates and photos of our Scholastic or school activities here are a few updates from the student government regarding the community Outreach we got in contact with Mayors together regarding volunteering opportunities April 22nd is Earth Day and the environmental commission is hosting with community cleanup event and he said he will share a book a flyer with us when the date time and location are confirmed Erica Napa you know reached out to us from the LDH environmental commission would like to partner with Broadband to explore the possibility of a service learning project that students can participate in we request the phone conference to discuss this further my goal is to get the kids directly interacting with community members I think it would be a great experience for them Student Government will also be
009attending the Memorial Day Parade the fundraising wise we are beginning to plan a family trivia night fundraiser at the school more information to come out at bed soon [Applause] thank you Nico sharp dresser too is Nico also I want to thank Mr Henderson who has done a great job getting our studio government students not only involved in our school but really our district and our community as well so thank you Mr Anderson thank you for being here uh the reading glasses all right the Frog Pond the students of the month if you are here please come join me we're going to start in third grade from Mrs Parker and Mrs Henderson where's my name again Nicholas Rudy wearing necklace the teachers say the necklace has a heart of gold and he goes out of this
010way to make sure that everyone feels like they are part of the group if you see someone upset he immediately goes to them to see if he can make them feel better in our class we talked about kindness every day during Monday morning or during morning meeting and Nicholas is the definition of kindness we are lucky to have him at our class and we want him to know how proud and how proud of him we are great job Nicholas foreign from Mrs Hansen's class Caleb Lister are here Caleb is kind compassionate and patient this year we had the student come to us from the Ukraine I asked Caleb if he would mind helping out the first few days of school Caleb took this giant responsibility and stride not only did he help the student around
011the school he made him feel welcome and comfortable that's awesome overall Caleb has so much patience for his classmates and is so considerate of everyone else's needs students like Caleb are true gems and I appreciate him every day congratulations foreign [Music] 's class Peyton camancho is taken here we are still going to read some amazing words about Dayton Peyton consistently completes all class work and homework she is a very conscientious about her schoolwork her inquisitive and reflective nature allows her to be successful she is focused and a true pleasure to work with congratulations thank you a fifth grader from Mr radish's class Phillip Joyce [Music] Phillip it is a great pleasure that Mr rattas nominates Phil Joyce for student of the month he has worked so hard in school and his hard work is paying
012off Phil has had great success academically especially in math we like to hear that here this year each day Phil comes into class ready to work and he's enthusiastic about learning in all our subjects Mr Ratta says that he is extremely proud of Phillip and from grade six it's from Mrs krauss's home room but I'll remind you that our entire purple team in grade six selects students of the month so all the teachers selected Logan Lawler for Mrs krause's class what's up Mr Nazareth reason and no one comes the teachers on grade six purple team have chosen Logan Lawler he stays on task and completes his assignments to the best of his abilities these hard-working diligent Cooperative funny and a pleasure to have in all of our classes we are proud of the progress Logan
013is making in grade six so congratulations to Logan [Applause] foreign [Music] volunteer of the month and that is and she's to my right Allison Van Eden this month [Applause] Elementary School would like to recognize Ms Allison Bennett and the volunteer of the month Miss Manhattan volunteer her time to educate our students about Brown Literacy for brow literacy Awareness Month Miss Manhattan prepared each Student's name in Braille prior to her arrival so team prepared modeled how to read and write in Braille and took the time to answer staff and student questions thank you to miss Van Etten for bringing such an important topic to the Frog Pond Elementary School and enriching this educational experience for our students congratulations thank you and I have to say every class and every teacher that was able to attend a
014program came right to the office and wanted to come back as soon as possible so it was a great experience for our entire School community so thank you again to her if anyone know what the children would like to leave this time and take your grab a cookie and milk the juice thank you so much congratulations [Music] foreign [Music] Public School District in that capacity I'm also our District's anti-million coordinator so I'm actually um happy to be speaking to you tonight in regards to Little Lake Harvard school districts him process and procedures and it was suggested that we do this at this time in light of what has happened at Central Regional High School which is something that has really impacted myself being that my son attends Central Regional he's a sophomore there and we've
015had that experiences with bullying so this is something that is near and dear to my heart and it is something that is important for all of us here at Board of Education members you are an avid participant in that process and any of the parents who are missing connect or staff members this is something that affects everyone and so I'm happy to present to you tonight yeah [Music] so the actual anti-believal race act has been around in New Jersey for quite some time it has been updated throughout the years and the most recent update has been just this past January of 2022. where um you may have heard of it as Mallory's law has become has been put into place that did revise our District's policy it also outlines some additional parental rights responsibilities and
016also consequences for hip behaviors it did change our district and school procedure slightly it defines a range of potential responses to acts of hives we already had many of them in our policy prior to Mallory's law it also created a new state level position and I'll mention that in a little bit and the Cyber harassment component of this law were put into place immediately after that January 10th the other Provisions were put into place July 1st 2022 and the njdme gave districts guidance on August 29th 2022. [Music] in regards to cyber harassment some of the changes is that it is now can be a municipal court matter if a student is found to be delinquent in that area parents with their child can be mandated to attend a class training to reduce these types of
017behaviors if the parent does not attend that training or follow the Court's decision they can be fined and parents can also now be held accountable in civil courts as well in regards to cyber correctly [Music] some other updates um the superintendent uh has to provide report out to the Board of Education the number of times the preliminary determination was made and what that means is we have in our board policy that the principal in consultation with the anti-bullying specialist can make a preliminary determination not to investigate a hip um when that circumstance is used it is used when it is obviously not going to be a hit there's no distinguishing characteristic um we've had Parents submit possible hymns that had to do with the adults fighting in the neighborhoods and they want us to intervene
018to help solve their problems so that's not something we're going to do an investigation for so that that is called as a preliminary determination not to investigate it has to be some criteria to do that the change with this now law is we have to report out to you when we do that twice a year I did that during the ssbs presentation and board approval already this year and I will do it again in June and July also this new part of the law is a little bit more um definitive in regards to consequences and remedial actions for the first and second acts of hibbed if a student is found to be guilty of a hip a copy of those results will go into their cumulative file and they will be given some type of
019remedial action whether it be counseling behavioral intervention services and or disciplines however the new part of this is the third act it's the same as a book a copy of that goes into their file they are given discipline counseling or behavioral interventions but this time the principal has to work in consultation with staff members to create and individualize student intervention plan um that plan does need to be approved by the superintendent or her designee and it can require the student and the parent or Guardian to complete a class or training uh to reduce hip behaviors another new component is the state is now using what they call a Hib 338 form all possible access when they're recorded have to be submitted on this form in Little Egg Harbor School District we use an online program
020called hipster to take all of our submissions and document all of our actions within a hit investigation it's an online program it's actually great because it keeps track of all of our dates it makes us accountable to make sure that we are following the law what's nice about hipster is that as soon as a parent or staff member submits a possible Hint it automatically generates that 338 form for us so um if the principal decides not to investigate something because it's clearly not going to be a hit the new part of the law requires the principal to notify the superintendent and that's automatically done through hipster and the superintendent can overrule the principal's decision if she wants to and recommend that we conduct an investigation and the parent also has the right to appeal that
021decision if necessary additional information that's new with Mallory's law is the state has created a school climate State coordinator that person contact information has to be on our district website however I don't think that njdoe has hired anyone for that position yet so we had just had an email address on our website for that the state is also requiring us to post guidance for parents on anti-bullying Bill racer it's a 2012 document we're hoping that that new school climate State coordinator will update that document once they're hired um the njdoe did provide school districts with a model policy Strauss s may we actually actually the Little Egg Harbor school district and Strauss this may we we updated our policy in May because we knew these changes were coming and the board did go ahead and
022update our policy in May and then the doe in August provided that model policy so we then revised it this past December to make sure that we are you know doing everything by law I thought the name is in regards to the hip history what in the head in New Jersey I know especially in the news right now you're hearing a lot about bullying behaviors um a lot of what you're hearing is not actually bullying according to New Jersey laws I wanted to share with you the actual definition that we need to use when we do determine whether something is an act of going or not so in New Jersey what is bullying is harassment intimidation or bullying means any gesture any written verbal or physical act or any electronic communication whether it be a
023single incident or a series of incidents that and then it has to meet all three of these criteria and the first one is probably the most important one because this is often where something would be determined not to be a hit the first thing it has to mean is that it has to be reasonably perceived as being motivated by either any actual or perceived characteristic such as race our religion ancestry national origin gender sexual orientation gender identity and expression were a mental physical or sensory disability or by any other distinguishing characteristic so the ACT has to be motivated by one of those distinguishing characteristics sometimes there's just regular student conflict where two students don't get along with each other it's not motivated by any of this so if that's the case then it's not going
024to be determined to be bullied the behavior may be awful the behavior May certainly violate our code of conduct and so we would handle that as a discipline matter it also has to take place on school property at any school sponsored function on a school bus or off school grounds and that also is a gray area typically when we talk about off-school grounds we're talking about in the elementary level cyber harassment acts that are being committed on students cell phones on different social media platforms they may be texting each other or FaceTiming each other or posting pictures or derogatory things about someone else which happens quite often especially on weekends and Mondays we're cleaning that up so um as long as it impacts their education than we have an obligation to look into that matter
025it also has a substantially disrupt or interfere with the orderly operation of the school or the rights of other students and I emphasize substantially disrupts if an act happens to a student and they brush it off and they tell us you know it's really not a big deal I didn't I wasn't offended but yet the parent is highly offended we have to go by what this how the student reacts to that act so those are the type of things that are anti-bullying specialists in all three schools will investigate and determine it also has to meet one of these three criteria a reasonable person should know under the circumstances that the acts will have the effect of physically or emotionally harming a student or damaging the student's property or placing a student in reasonable fear of
026physical or emotional harm and to his or her person were damaged to his her property or it has to have the effect of insulting or demeaning any student or group of student or it has to create a hostile educational environment for the student by interfering with the student's education or by severely or pervasively causing physical or emotional harm to the student you see this definition is pretty large there's a lot of things that we have to look into when we are investigating these matters and that is also why our school anti-bullying Specialists have to be trained they're mandated to be trained every single year because it's not an easy process and they have to know the law inside and out they have to also um you know interview the alleged victim the offender and any
027Witnesses in order to report a possible hid in our school district any staff member can report one student parent Board of Education number anyone can report a possible hit on our district website as well as all of our school websites you will see that stock bullying safe school zone stop sign type logo that you see on your page if you click on that that brings you directly to our hipster link where anyone can go ahead and submit a possible hit at any hour it can also do it anonymously our district has utilize hipster for several years now um it actually uh has been a great tool for us and the new part of the law requires that districts provide parents a way to make these submissions online and to also be able to do it
028anonymously look like Harvard has been doing that for I would say at least five years now um a possible hid like I said can be submitted at any time on the blue part of this page this is a screenshot of what's actually on our district and school website these are required most of that is required you have to have the district anti-bullying coordinators mean address and contact information on the school sites you also have to have the anti-bullying specialist name address and contact information you also have to have your harassment intimidation and bullying policy and the email address for the school climate State coordinator that is and the guidance for parents on the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act we also have linked there our head flow chart to provide information for parents on what that
029process is and I have that in the upcoming slides as well we also have our district code of conduct and our his self-assessment scores on there thank you so the hip flowchart is simply just trying to take this long and put it into a manageable easy way for parents to follow so that they can understand the process that it starts with a staff member if a staff member reports it may have to by law verbally tell the principal the same workday that they are made aware of a possible hymn we do they are required to put that in writing through hipster within two school days however we have them do that immediately so that all information is fresh and we're able to submit all detailed information and not forget about anything once um the principle
030determines and consultation of the anti-bullying special that we are going to investigate the the principal then notifies the pairs and Guardians via phone and documents that notification in hipster the date and time of that phone Bond who they spoke to but first of all at that time can go ahead and start implementing some discipline or some remedial measures to make sure that our students are kept safe while that investigation is going on and then the principal notifies the school anti-bullying specialist within one school day to go ahead and start that investigation our anti-fulling specialist has 10 ways to complete that investigation when he or she is done with that investigation will get in touch with the principal and discuss the findings again all of this is documented in hipster so if any kind of like
031witness notes and any of the notes that the anti-billing specialist takes during that is all electronically saved for reference within two school days the principal then contacts and forwards it to the superintendent she reviews it as well she can also administer additional discipline or remedial measures if need be and at the very next board meeting that's when you all review that report and um by within five days of the board meeting the parents are given or mailed out a letter by the superintendent's office with the findings of that investigation the parents do have the right to request an appeal at we're hearing before the Board of Education and if they do that has to be done within 10 days of their request what we really want to emphasize here is that even if an incident
032is determined to be an unfounded head because of New Jersey's law the behavior may still violate or code a conduct and consequences and Remediation still be given so even though it might be an unfounded him it doesn't mean that nothing has been done it could have been handled that's a disciplined matter um our ultimate goal whenever we are doing any investigation is one to follow the law and two two to eliminate the behaviors that we are seeing here whether it's a hymn or not our goal is to eliminate those behaviors how do we do that some of the different consequences and remedial measures are up here I'm not going to read over everything but it can be as simple as having a conference with a parent and a student or making a bus change a
033seat change an actual bus change we have done a lot of different things for consequences and remedial measures for students who have been founded to commit an active hip in some cases we will do an outside over and out of school suspension if necessary if it's a bias intimidation act we will contact our SRO our Police Department or we might just refer to them for counseling there's a wide variety of things that we can give as consequences or remedial measures because it really depends upon the student there is not a one-size-fits-all here we have to look at the age of the child we have to look at the circumstances of what happened was this a repeated Behavior or a one-time Behavior did the student have a disability and did not know that these behaviors could
034be um an active bullying so there's a lot that goes into those decisions but we do have a variety of consequences and remedial measures the proactive things though that we are doing here in the district we do I do meet with the anti-bullying Specialists and administration at least three times a year and I say at least three times a year because I meet with our abs's probably once every couple weeks so we're always in in in contact with each other each of our schools has school safety and climate committee that meets at least two times a year there are parents on that committee as well as staff members and administrators we obviously have our annual staff training which also includes substitute teachers and Durham bus drivers we ensure that they are being trained as well
035in all three schools we do have our positive behavior interventions and supports program this year with Miss Monero we brought in positive action curriculum which you've heard about at previous board meetings so we have professional development we're focusing on morning meetings in SEO competency skill we have our curriculum standards that cover a lot of positive behaviors we have Behavior expectations we have assemblies in regards to those expectations whether it be in the classroom individually or with entire grade levels we also have different type of character Ed assemblies our PTO has sponsored them each year we have our students participating in service learning projects we're focusing on character education and we are just really keeping this at the Forefront of our students Minds throughout the entire year I do document all of these trainings and programs
036in the ssds report twice a year which the board members do review and approve so these are just a sampling of what we do [Music] recently we are trying to develop a partnership with YMCA so that they come to Southern Ocean County and provide services such as clinical counseling and other programs for our students and our parents because we know that for our parents to go for services up to Toms River is not always easy or convenient but we're trying to develop a partnership with the YMCA so that they can have a satellite office down here or even possibly host some programs right here in our school who are a parent and our student we do have a meeting on Thursday with the consultant for no place for eight which we're going to explore that
037program a bit it is there's no cost for that program and see if that's something that we want to bring into the district so I can assure you that every year we want nothing more than for our students to be doing the right thing to be treating each other kindly so we are always talking about and coming up with different ideas to support our students and to really develop really kind citizens moving on to middle school and high school so I could probably talk about this for even longer I'm sorry um but it is an important topic um and if you ever have any questions please reach out to us these are our school anti-bullying Specialists and like I said they're they are a fantastic group of professionals they are counselors in our district that
038are trained to be anti-bullying Specialists and they really take their jobs seriously and do everything they can to help put a stop to bullying in our district okay [Music] any questions thank you very much for your presentation when you said the three things three requirements in the first one this is race color religion ancestry is age one of them as far as like older kids working on younger kids is that one of those it can be and I always say Academy because that's part of the investigation they would have to look to see if that is the distinguishing characteristics is that what's motivating that act so it can be it could be even someone who is a vegetarian being made fun of in the lunchroom that can be a distinguishing characteristic as well and is
039the categories tracked so like five colored cases or religion is more prevalented we do track that um and actually it is um appearance that is our number one um active bullying meaning we have students that will make fun of other students for the way that they look their weight that is the number one thing is weight and um I can't tell you how many times administratively we are talking to our students because when you talk to them they're like why is only jumping I'm only kidding around and we are constantly giving them that message that when you are attacking somebody for the way that they appear it is never okay it's never a joke it's never funny um but they see this a lot they see this outside in in their home lives and in
040their community on social media we see that all the time people attacking each other for the way they look with their hair color and their weight their height and unfortunately kids are carrying those behaviors into the school so um that is actually our number one reason why we conduct investigations and then you use that information to Target Training and yeah um if I started seeing a spike in certain things we we do these programs I mean I don't mean all on the program 9 20 announcements that's what we call it nothing fancy because that's what everyone in the broadcom school is in their classroom none of them are in a special area or in the hallway and if we start seeing Trends we address it right away we'll get on the morning PA we'll announce
041it we'll have the classroom teachers follow up with that during their morning meeting or SEL time because we don't when we start seeing things starting to spike we want to take care of it right and this is actually the time of year where we do see Behavior Spike so we are in the thick of it right now until spring break my last question when a parent or someone fills out the hip report online where does that go where does that go directly it automatically goes to the building principle the once they indicate what school it goes to the building principle no when you give it to accept it or reject it though you know like I said they may seize right off of that that is not going to be a hip investigation and if
042they're going to do that they contact the parent and tell them how they're going to still address those behaviors but it goes right directly to the building principle it's electronically it's 24 hours a day welcome to that report so I just wanted to know how the PBIS the positive behavior intervention supports and maybe the SEL how is that working with prevention it looks different in all three schools because of the different ages like for instance in the Frog con school with positive behavior we have set determined Behavior expectation that everyone in the school follows it all revolves around being safe responsible and respectful students and what that looks like in the different areas of our school whether it be in the hallway the bathroom the school bus lunchroom reset we teach those expectations to the
043students the very first week of school so we obviously follow up on that throughout the school year that is having set Behavior expectations so that we're all following them it also is recognizing students for positive behaviors which you know a lot of times we can lose sight of that you know we spend so much time on negative behaviors that we lose sight of that 95 of our students are doing the right thing every single day so we want to acknowledge those students we're doing the right thing and we try to do that by simple things of student of the month and the board recognizing them us those bins up there at Frog Pond are for students who put their Pond passive in they earn them from the bus drivers Durham works wonderfully with us I
044give them tickets I send them a video and telling them about our program and they will give us tickets to the students when they see them doing the right thing on the bus they put those tickets in there we do a drawing at least once a month for a pizza party that Seacrest has partnered with us and made fun but we'll also go ahead and do additional drawings too we try to get businesses to support us on that to give gift cards because that's what the kids like um as a non-tangible thing like doing the morning announcements things of that nature so uh we are certainly trying with the Positive behaviors to emphasize the positive hoping that other students will rise to that as well just one more question do you use the tiered system
045for interventions for those who are having maybe Legion we follow the same type of tier system like we do for academic needs so that's why when you see those consequences it really depends on the situation on the student because if we do see repetitive behaviors you know we're going to start implementing different tier type of supports for them it could be even as severe you know not as severe but as intensive as referring them to the inrs committee or to our RBT they really have done a lot of individualized and small group work with specific students on specific skills and have really helped us in that area so yeah it is you know using a tiered layer of supports for them I love the positive reinforcement I do too it's so important my kids come
046home with Stacks from the bus of yeah so keep up with that because I think that's just different with him and yeah because it is important yeah um I have a question around can students report a hip and they can do that anonymously right because that's like a Chromebook on the main like where do they find that link they go right to our the school website at Lake District website and they just click on that stop sign and they can submit it they can also they don't have to submit it that way but if they want to do it anonymously then you'll certainly can but more often than not with the students they tell a trusted adult here at school or their parent and their parent will call us but they do have the ability
047to do it anonymously okay good to know thanks and just one last question is there any like time constraint on these reportings that they should report it by like within a month no like if a student and you'll even see in your board report we don't have a specific date because a person couldn't give us a specific date um so no there is no statute or limitations on that however I can tell you if they're going to report something that happened last year it's very difficult to investigate something like that but it is still something that we don't ignore and we'll go ahead and look into that matter [Music] right a staff member though they're made aware of it didn't have to tell us about they had to verbally tell the principal that day but
048if a student wanted to report something they're never going to be told when that happened too long ago you can forget about an important point so are all the teachers in the building required to report if they're made aware of a possible Act of bullying they need to verbally tell the principal that day are the students aware that that's going to happen or they're they don't know do they know do I know I think they do they realize that they're telling someone who's mandatory reporting or just yeah I think they do and quite honestly the teachers have those conversations with the kids like they are our students know I can tell you most of our students will not use hipster or the online component they will walk right down to us or they will tell
049their the staff member because we want them to tell us we don't want it to Fester we don't want it to get to a point where someone is you know emotionally um and mentally getting to the point of um you know just not being able to handle the situation so we are constantly telling them to let us know we um don't shy away from investigations and believe me I do that as a coordinator I will look at my local school district and see what their board Reports look like and how many they're reporting and I can tell you we don't shy away from investigations I can tell you that you know this year we've already have done 13 investigations last year at this point in time we've done 17 investigations we track all of this
050we discuss it at our school climate safety and committee meeting so we are busy investigating a lot of matters you said this time of year you're kind of in the thick of it what you see is the trend that happened in this time of year in schools that causes the upticks I don't know why it causes an uptick but for some reason in our data because we we do look at it the the period right before spring break I don't know if it's the weather I don't know if that they just need a break I don't know what it is but we typically do see an uptick in negative behaviors whether it be bullying or not um I personally think it kind of started a little earlier than I wanted it to start this year
051um so we try to be proactive during those time but right now last week was really not sometime this week we really tried to pre you know emphasize that and we're going to probably actually continue doing it because I was out a few days last week um so we we try to really hone in on those type of things this time of year I wish I knew the answer now crazy maybe the weather has a lot it could be yeah warm yeah thank you God I appreciate you bringing this to us but I think I probably already know the answer to this question but I want to ask the three requirements that you're bound by in order for it to be categorized as if uh are we getting it lost to the poll that uh
052it doesn't matter if it's him or not all egregious acts of where we dealt with X doesn't have to be a hit and there's a lot of parents think about unless it's labeled this is just my interpretation you know I you know unless some parents think that it's not the label the hip then we're not doing anything it's done so that's what I'm asking I know you know you're getting that message out there that we will love it and we've done we've done those type of talks and meetings with parents do I do I think all of them have gotten that message no I know whenever I speak to parents you know as the anti-bullying coordinator my message to them all the time and was like listen like I told you we're going to follow
053the law in investigating this and it can be frustrating with this definition because there are times there are behaviors that are going on that are not acceptable that in the back of my mind I'm like you know this really does sound like bullying but according to the law is not and we have to file that so we're going to follow the law but we're not ignoring the behavior so whenever we're speaking to parents we're always telling them that and that's why a lot of times even when we're doing the investigations you all are not getting very many appeals from parents because we do share that message with them because they do know that despite even though it was unfounded we still address that behavior and that's ultimately what everybody wants yeah I I just uh
054particularly you know some of the ones we hear about um of course we don't get names and I don't want names but you know our rather appalling and the guilty party uh you know speaking as a coach now who's a former coach you know I want to make kids better so you know I'm making you run all those instruments on making you work hard because what you're doing is not is not adequate it's not good and I believe in you I want you to be another person so I'm not going to put up with this because you're better than that that's that's what I just want us and that's especially that's especially what we do here in the elementary school too yeah it's Elementary School they are learning they are going to make mistakes they
055are going to say and do things sometimes and I don't care whose child it is I know my child is as good as he is is not a perfect little boy either um so that's our job as in an elementary school is to identify whatever behaviors you're seeing and attack it right away so that they are not continuing those behaviors as they get into the middle school thank you thank you thank you another question for me I know we train staff safe schools online staff is trained what do we do to reach out to the parents in terms of widespread education versus just the incidents usually once a year I'll go ahead and do a presentation like this for our parents um we also I will notice especially at the beginning of the school year
056trying to get parents involved in the school safety and climate committee we don't get a big turnout for that but we do get some parents that are interested and we take all parents that are interested on them um so yeah that's how we do it we at least once a year provide that and we have all that up-to-date information online as well thank you everybody [Music] okay moving on to the report of the superintendent okay so uh first I want to thank Mrs Martin for sending us some of the job fairs we did make a chart and myself and some of the administrators kind of spread ourselves out we're going to be attending all of these hopefully to get some candidates and positions that are hard to fulfill of the August board meeting date I'm
057having a conflict with now I sent you an email if you can just get back to me and let me know if the week before or the week after would work for you or if you prefer maybe not to have a meeting that month the only difficulty is not having a meeting that month is we do a lot of hiring in the summer so people just get back to me on that individually just send me an email I had a meeting this afternoon with the committee that has been formed about looking at our overcrowdedness of the schools it was an initial mean just to go over some data some brainstorming and then I asked the committee to get back to me with any ideas that they have maybe in other school districts or some creative
058ways so that's just one of many meetings that we're going to host I'm hosting sit with the soup March 8th at one o'clock it is in person it is going to be held at Pinelands at the high school anyone is welcome to attend parents community members if you know of someone that has questions about the district or just want to sit and have give some feedback all are welcome to attend that meeting I did send an email out and a calendar survey about this current year school calendar and the dates in question would be the April and March snow days that we have built into the calendar which are staggered throughout the week and I asked in the survey would you prefer to keep the counter as is or move those new days around Memorial
059Day I had 488 people respond and 67 would like to move the days around before then so just something to consider it is an agenda item this evening um Mrs Modis is doing a great job with our community school she's been very accommodating with any of the requests you'll see on the agenda tonight she did add in the summer a half day on Fridays we did talk about adding a full day her biggest concern about the full day on Fridays is a lack of staff and not having a school nurse here so a school nurse is here the other days because of the other programs that we're running so she was more comfortable hosting at half day on Fridays until noon since we did add that we could always add a full day if she
060thinks the need is so great on the afternoon and Friday and she has the staff she's also amicable to doing a survey to see if parents are interested in doing one of those days around Memorial Day so it's Thursday or Tuesday if there is a need of parents wanting to do a full day of child care she will send a survey up to her current family to see if they'd be willing to combat day lastly just a reminder for families and the board to check out the PTO website it cleans right to our district site they're doing some amazing things it's really just a great group this year so check it out to see all the upcoming events and how you could volunteer and that's all I have ready questions or comments moving on to
061Residence forum the Board of Education now welcomes the public to comment on the items which are on our agenda tonight community members should first drive resolve their concerns by speaking directly to school administrators before bringing those concerns to the board it may not always be possible or appropriate for the board to directly answer questions during the public comment period each speaker is allotted a maximum of three minutes to make their statement No one may speak more than once on the same topic required to give your name and address before speaking please keep your comments respectful and non-defamatory and maintain the level of deform appropriate for public speaking or admirers may be in the audience would anyone like to see [Music] all right [Music] good evening um my name is sake I live at 44 greenside
062Drive in wheel Lake Harbor um I just want to say uh thank you for for allowing us to come in and do this and Jackie I really loved your presentation and I really loved the phrase there's no place for hate but there certainly is place for disagreement in an academic set and tonight I just wanted to highlight some concerns that I have with the standards in particularly in particular the standards that will be directly impacting the policies when it comes to transgender students what are the concerns that I have when I first came this first came to me I heard some chatter around town so I went to the Department of New Jersey Board of Education their standards were online so I looked at and I looked at the definitions and I saw some problems
063with the definitions of certain words I won't go into all of them right now but I'll just simply say maybe very confusing to just bring up one example if you look up the word lesbian the word lesbian means a person who identifies as a woman or girl and he's emotionally spiritually and we're sexually attracted primarily to members of the same gender this excludes the person's biology from their gender necessarily so that would mean two biological boys if they identify as female can be considered lesbians it also means that a biological boy who's attracted to a biological female can also be considered a lesbian it also means you have two biological boys if they identified as female can be considered high speed this is very confusing to me I'm 51 years old I can't imagine how
064difficult it would be for students but it's going to also directly impact conflict resolution when it comes to formation of the policy because what are we going to do when a student does not separate gender and biology if a student is now forced to accept that definition [Music] what happens when they disagree how will that conflict be resolved I don't see how that doesn't infringe on that student's First Amendment right to produce speech because there will be I believe it will be compelled speech where they will be forced to about a point because that they do not think is true or accurately representing reality so this is my concern and I understand that this is a very sensitive topic and there are certainly nuances that are need to be taken into consideration especially when it
065comes to bullying because I'm not suggesting that this can't be a tactic for bullies to use or I am suggesting that there might be situations where children sincerely disagree with some of these terms and are faced with a very difficult situation thank you very much I appreciate it would anyone else likes me of jet items [Music] thank you my name is Scott k ay yes okay [Music] that's the end of Bryson's Forum moving on to board work session um we had our first work session on Friday and I was just interested like the feedback would like to schedule one for next month's work meeting everyone yes to a Friday afternoon than once [Music] okay [Music] I liked it I mean I think it was um a good place to ask questions prior to the board
066meeting um of course I think we need the agenda sooner so I'm just so we're prepared and not going over it last minute um Friday afternoon I think it's a little difficult for some people so maybe if we tried a different day next month um I just think it was productive because we're not really sure if we're going to go with committees or affordable as a whole yet so I mean I'm good with doing that again next month if the war feels it was productive yeah I agree uh and that was addressed I think that the um the public online on Wednesday but we didn't get a good morning um they only got the agenda for Friday's work session they didn't get the actual agenda but that's going to be ironed out next time so
067I'm not worried about that um other than that I think that was the only Hiccup and having it on Friday and then there were some conflicts but going through everything is Affordable hole gives us an opportunity to hear each other and just prior to voting and it gives us a couple days to think about it I mean I think the only issue with having it before Friday is the administration putting together the agenda we'll just have to have it done earlier and then it's fine I mean this month I could do that Thursday or Friday I believe it was like wow I don't have class that Thursday night but otherwise impactful for me to have to be on a Friday until we're going to do some Tuesday before really unique before it's usually a week
068before okay it's your time to make adjustments I thought that was a lot for you guys no it's just I was facing it based on money right so basically when that agenda is done that we're not going to be adding to it so if there's hires and things like that I'll just have to wait till the following time okay so what date is that would be seven okay I'm eating is March 14th March 14th yes so that's March 7th yeah we're gonna do that the agenda 48 hours before the Friday before so [Music] but that means that this agenda is only going to have a week it's not a lot of stuff [Music] if that happened every time or just for this first one to catch up [Music] here the original February meeting was the
06914th so he's 14. so then what is our [Music] March 14th and then what's our April one I guess is the question and a philosophy is the budget right here you want to move the March meeting to the 21st if you move the march in the 18th to the 21st then you can have the work session on the 14th are we doing the work sessions still at before tomorrow population [Music] there you go outside and I won't be able to be here foreign well okay so I was just saying that um since your work session technically you're not taking any action at the worst session you don't necessarily have the quark s but at the same time you want to make sure that you have enough people at the work session no because you know
070so a few people at the work session that you're just going to have to worry about it um thank you the age would have to be later because I have Labs until after five but I think it could be award as long as it um that's the play also if my parents um but I could do that 9 through 10. would have to be later at 6 30. yourself can we decide through email communication well what's what's the deadline to you can post it 48 hours right so I have Robertson here today sure okay I love service okay um anything else anyone like to discuss um I know the policy committee was working on a policy that was anything finalized with any of those filed for it yet nope all right and okay that's all
071I have so moving on to Five Guys sorry sorry we're gonna fix the regulation due for that that'll be brought back the next meeting right right because it was fixed and ended up some questions so we could anyone else I was just a reminder that next Wednesday we have our next Wednesday right or Robert's Rules training at system yes in person [Music] it's a webinar but she would prefer for all of us we'll set it up [Music] all right okay that's all I had all right moving on to finance items recommend a motion to approve Finance items a through end can I have a motion if you have a second are there any questions I have a question on I am um can you just explain what that [Music] attachment I'm not understanding if it's
072just education or is it some kind of programs [Music] hi so on April 29th The Early Childhood advisory council is um going to be hosting a community resources and we have all sorts of resources available that will be setting up and the snap and [Music] um Community Bank are going to be presenting or having a table there and in order for them to do that they wanted us to have a contract so you're hosting it a community resource fair at the will Lake Harbor community center on April 29th and is that to benefit the students outside well the Early Childhood Early Childhood advisory Council advises the ECC program is made up of our community community parent housing Specialists some staff members obviously myself and then we also have some community members that are also part
073of that that board and one of the things that we like to do is to support the members of our community it's not just for preschool but typically we get most of preschool families who will attend so at this resource Fair we're going to have for example Boy Scouts Girl Scouts snack Wick um the PTO will have a table just all sorts of things that are happening in low light Harbor so that we can have our young families become more aware of all the resources that are available to them okay thank you I just had one thing with letter L and I had it before but we had um what I thought the agreement was the reverse way with Mr Singh I would just like to see that um shared service agreement revised in the
074future that any event that he does come to the school day there's a compensation listed on the paper and as of right now right because he's never attended the other schools no but they'll meet on like feeding days or whatever but really he's only there is a good consultation that they need to call him for something we've never had compensation for that but it seems unusual to me and as I mention we have so many counselves right right right I'm just saying moving forward we're just in the event because there's a potential that you could be going to we got our schools right and I think we that added tasks yeah I mean they've never done that in the past but if you came to that but like I said we're getting so much anyways
075all right that we're all called up this is Philly child yes Ms Martin yes Mr Barry yes Mrs Lesnar all right yes um except I need to abstain from paying please his armor yes Miss samler Dr Steiner I mean yes for everything but I was also abstained for me the motion challenge okay moving on to facilities recommend a motion to approve facility item today can I have a motion can I have a second are there any questions not have a roll call up you feel a job yes who's more yes Mr Barry yes Mrs Lesnar yes yes about this night yes motion cameras um there are no big technology items at this time is there any new business at this time well if not moving on [Music] um the following items are being presented for
076informational purposes Community School financials correspondence for Mr Poland facilities manager and this I'm Miss Martinez technology department moving on to Personnel recommend a motion to approve personal items a through G can I have a motion question can I have a second second are there any questions um I have a question about the um a lot of the power and para transfers and apparent hires especially for special n or I just want to know are we having trouble being in compliance for our groups for special ed or our IEP mandates no we're not in trouble of being compliant and you'll see people moved around for that reason if we need like a one-on-one we'll transfer someone and then Kelly will post or refill the other position where we could kind of just cover that for the
077time being but that's her reason for transfers it's to be IEP compliant and you said that you were going to go to uh job fairs to try to find more pharaohs so I don't think the job fair is going to have parents necessarily but we're trying typically these job fairs will have um student teachers or students coming right out of college that are looking for jobs but we're trying to see more specialized things like the otpc we're having trouble with speech positions the parents um I think just hopefully with the new contract coming in the future and you know attracting them more to the position it um I just have a question on the transfers G1 if you have any updated information on that if not I'd like to make a motion to take a
078lot until next I'm not sure what kind of information you're looking for go ahead and email you and you were right the uh it's the labor attorney but regardless if a person is transferred or not their responsibilities are going to stay the same so if the transfer is denied they'd go back to their original spot but they're still going to have the same job responsibilities thank you but I guess my question is how is from what you explained in the last meeting how is this different that is almost like a shared service position because they're now being shared between two different departments a shared service would be with another school districts I know but this is this is not this is just a roles and responsibilities which you know in their job description it states
079all other duties assigned by the superintendent so they're still secretarial responsibilities whether they're housed in the district's office or housed at a particular School the responsibility will be the city it's just where induce it to be in that building because that's where a lot of the calls are coming in from parents or when they register their child that person's right there now to arrange the transportation so we didn't have a any other questions foreign [Music] yes yes Miss Moore yes Mr Barry yes Mrs Eliza yes this is Arbor yes Ms Statler yes Dr Snyder um Yes except for G1 nope you're voting up yeah thank you motion passes we got the hip recommended motion to improve harassment intimidation and bullying items presents then discussed an executive session if you have a motion we have a
080second are there any questions yes Ms Moore yes Mr Perry yes Ms lesnop yes Miss Carver yes Mr Sandler yeah without the Snyder yes motion Towers he wants policy and procedures recommend a motion to improve policies and procedures items agent okay can have a motion can I have a second are there any questions on the safety patrol is that new to the district no it's just it's a revised method it's not new we had this before and how often do we use therapy animals I'm curious um Mr broken into Museum's Professor he has them so he'll bring it not every day but but she's here a lot for all we're expanding the program but we have one also at Mitchell that is there full time Molly so yes we do uh and we're trying to
081expand the program more than one I want to say Nola used to be the dog my daughter wrote a book he has wrote a book about NOLA it's great yeah so um I just have a question with regard letter H did we get any feedback from the other districts as to what their calendar looks like compared to ours for next year yes I got Eagles but I'm sorry I forgot took forward that I did not hear back from Tuckerton so eagleswood is similar to ours in terms of Memorial Day they do have three days surrounding that if they add their other two days at the end of this later if they're smoothies [Music] that question that you said you had 488 responses yes I think it was just because it was one question because I
082think that's the most I think everybody I mean I will say this past Monday my kids were in um I had a camp and they were at capacity and people were calling that day for child care so it is definitely a concern I think moving forward is something that we do need to consider in making these calendars but any other questions okay if not can I roll call vote yes Mr Barry uh yes except for a hello [Music] Ms Elizabeth yes Ms Arbor Yes except for 1980 miss summer yes Dr Snyder yes motion cameras [Music] no okay we got to informational background police is distracting me um the following items are being presented for informational purposes enrollment attendance report smart emergency drill reports and health office reports the answer public comment general public comment the
083board now welcomes public comment on any educational issue or School matter of community interests once again each speaker is a lot of a maximum of three minutes to make their statement No one may speak more than once on the same topic required to give your name and address before seeking Everyone likes to them okay not public comment is closed moving on to a word forum might be the last time I thought that um would I will like to say anything first uh since the regular public meeting I would like to again congratulate our board member and I'll leave Mr Barry for this Reagan of public yeah for his 37 years teaching and dedication to the Mindless Regional School District I'd also like to thank Mr Berry for continuing to work we volunteer on the trophy
084cabinets project for Pineland students and I hope he gets the recognition and I collect that he well deserves from the administration and the finance board event and if not you're very much appreciated here as I once again congratulations on your retirement and a job well done secondly I must respond to the mistake I think this board made tonight I'm voting to officially adopt the standard 2.1.5 ssh2 which allows for teaching fifth graders about sexual preferences and ambiguous gender identity identities that have no reason for Factor science I hope that parents of Little Egg Harbor watch carefully when their children are being taught and very possibly forced to believe a gentleman referred to it in public tonight there would be learning belief systems or an ideology that may be clicked with what they have been taught
085at home or ideas that go against their deeply held religious beliefs not only in health but through the other curriculum foreign curriculum committee tried to prevent this from happening but our superintendent and some staff caught tooth and nail for this new curriculum parents did not want this I don't believe this is the school's route of Duty or responsibility to Define what some children may be going through in their personal lives and ask others to believe it as truth this is or should be a family decision as I believe most parents know what is best for their child and want the same as long as I sit on this board I will never vote for Education that is not objective and factual and will never promote a persuasive curriculum or one that asks others to believe
086in ideology or lifestyle and false information from special interest groups it's a tragedy for children what happened tonight and I'm deeply saddened that children will be confused and ultimately harmless we could be violating students First Amendment rights and those of the Educators as well people are forced to use new and bizarre pronouns that they do not agree with I again explore parents to pay close attention and talk to your children about what they're learning not only with health and PE but every subject because there is a movement Among Us from the Department of Ed to change what children believe that's not the small stuff hopefully now that this decision has been made we can focus on why our math and Ela programs need improvements and how the administration plans to get this done for the
087students in the lake harbor schools [Music] anyone else yeah yeah [Music] let's do uh reiterate a lot of what the server said uh Mr K I appreciate you're saying I don't know how we I guess we can easily bring up our math scores now because all his child has to do is identify that four plus four equals about whatever they wanted one of the reasons I wanted to be on the school board was because I believe public education I really do and it always bothered me uh when I went to school and then when I was a teacher that so many people go to private schools were sending children to private schools I believe that you can get the best education in a public schools I've always believed about it but more and more parents
088are sending their kids to private schools and my goal one of my goals to be sitting up here on this board is to try and bring people back into the public school system I think we have great teachers but no matter how you sit left or right of the aisle there's going to be an agreement sooner or later where tax dollars are going to be taken that allowed or allow you to be taken and sent and used in private schools I believe that's going to happen whether it will or not you know I've been wrong about a whole lot of things in my life but if that happens I I just don't want to see that I believe in public education I believe in public school teachers I believe they work I've been with them
089or almost four decades I know they've worked so hard things like this make education just it's what you ever want it to be and I'm just afraid it's another nail in the problem in the public Institution I just wanted to thank everyone for working on the work session the meeting Friday I think it was very productive it was something that we've never had a chance to do was to have everyone's questions in here everyone's questions and then ask individually email ask questions on something and it kind of brought something else into light that any of you hadn't thought of and smart conversation that evening and a lot of us to think about it and make and ask some good questions as well so thank everyone for taking that extra time and also I'd like to
090thank everyone that was involved in the health and PE curriculum I know it was a very difficult uh I think for many people involved in but um once everyone worked together and listen to everyone's and everyone's concerns I think we were able to come to a compromise that um most of us feel comfortable with and um I'm happy that on courses involved and so I just want to say thank you to everyone doing those additional meetings and reached out and kept persevering and thinking about episode until I know [Music] else it was very I just want to congratulate you on your retirement when I was a student who were there I appreciate you so thank you very much in fact I wish you the most success and enjoyment and nice piece of your life um
091so just to speak to the health and PE I think Abby and I came on the fight here on the board later in the game I know there was a lot of work done ahead of us coming on board and and you know for me I think you know we push really hard to have as much parents consent as possible because it is so controversial and sensitive that we wanted to make sure that the parents were notified in every single possible way whether it was encores a note home if your child did not return the paper you're going to get a phone call home multiple public meetings about it so I'm comfortable in the fact that we pushed as far as we could because it's actually coming from a higher government Authority be in the
092state of New Jersey now that being said if someone is uncomfortable with the standard such as I am I would just recommend that you look when the next governor's race is and to get active politically because that's where it comes from the governor of New Jersey appoints school board members to oversee the state and so with the new governor they can appoint new members which can really determine what comes down to the local districts so if you're interested in this topic and want to change we just highly suggest getting active any candidate that follows your beliefs and just just get involved I just want to say I apologize I missed the Friday work session I had some things going on but I think you know we have done a lot of work and at the
093end of the day we have given the responsibility back to Mom and Dad in the Guardians to make the decision in regards to this health and PE curriculum I think Abby has said it in the work session at this point now we just have to trust our teachers to do the right thing and we've had conversations with them and we feel very comfortable with that and again at the end of the day Mom and Dad would have to make that decision and take that responsibility on and I feel you know very good about that um so and I look forward to our much work sessions thank you and congratulations right um I just want to say that I'm happy we were able to be in the middle and collaborate on the actual lesson plan which
094is why I think we have a lot of control over um and do some of the things that our local school districts around us have done with these standards the last thing I want to say about it is we've proposed a potential protest Proclamation resolution type of document that we would like to present to the board and clear it up for a vote to see if the board would like to come writing just our concern with this particular standard a lot of districts in the area have done this it's a way for us to band together to send it to our congressman and to the governor and hopefully things get changed next year but I did send a couple examples over to Dr Snyder who I think hopefully will be able to send them to
095our lawyer um and maybe we can draft something up as a board [Music] laughs [Music] all right if no one has anything else can I have a motion to adjourn okay all in favor any opposed any attention let's not have good evening [Music]