001um foreign call to order this is to advise the general public that in compliance with the open public meetings act of the little lake harbor that the little egg harbor board of education caused to be posted at the office of the board of education located at 307 frog pond road little lake park new jersey in fast on september 10 to 2022 to the asbury park press atlantic legacy press into the office of the municipal clerk of the lake harbor a meeting notice that for the time date and location of this meeting can we have a roll call mr kell mr herbert can we all please stand for the pledge of allegiance [Music] recommend a motion to approve the following minutes august 9 20 22 minutes can i have a motion can i have a second
002are there any questions i just i just want to make a comment that these notes and minutes were so clear and concise much more detailed than your predecessor thank you can we have a little yes smith yes moving on to the word presentation we have um miss dora lupo the math coach uh hi everybody what's up hi everybody uh so my name is miss lubo um i have been teaching the district for quite some time now 10 people to give you a little background on me i wanted to give you a coaching update just with what's been happening thus far this school year and just kind of what the goal is going forward so i'm the instructional coach for math uh it's my 18th year as a teacher here i began my career in first
003grade then i moved to preschool for six years in the district and then i was a third grade teacher for four years here as well and during that time i feel like depending on the grade level it was clear that math from the start is essential so when i saw this position open up i said you know what let me take a chance well let me take the math which position i can get to more students i can get that way through helping them teachers and get into more classrooms so i've spent the last four years there as the district math coach so i just wanted to give you a little background on that and then as a goal as a coach in the district my responsibilities kind of are very flexible to say the
004least so student centered is always the approach that i go for so based on the data based on what's coming in we basically have meetings we talk about the data we see what the students need and then we plan accordingly so it depends on the year how many teachers i meet with it can be a formal cycle anywhere from two weeks to six weeks right now all new teachers are enrolled in a brand new coaching cycle with me the beginning steps for those of you who aren't sure what they are the beginning steps of a cycle is basically you look at your students you have targets you set a pre-assessment you see what those assessments are like and then based on what the data shows you then we move forward we adjust our lesson plans
005we then see do we continue with this lesson or do we now engage to see do we need to further samples or can we move to another topic so that's the whole cycle in essence just to kind of give an idea of what i do modeling lessons creating opportunities for small groups math video labs are my favorite thing that i do every school year to jumpstart i was able to get to over 40 classrooms this year and last week so between mitchell and here i basically was able to reach over 40 classrooms so i'm super excited about that i also have ongoing collaboration with admin between both buildings we meet weekly or bi-weekly just to kind of get a gauge of what do teachers need i try to have open open communication as to what
006may be the direction that the math goals need to go so i'm very happy that has our focus because i'm just happy that we can share those opportunities together so i also do interventions so two years ago i was a bsi teacher along with being that coach last year i did interventions at mitchell for grades k and two this year currently i'm working in grade three but it really depends on where the overly goes between buildings so if there's fourth graders that need extra work i'll jump in there if there's second graders any extra work i'll jump in there so really we're all in this together so that's the goal of all this um also i work to promote university-rich environments when i was a classroom teacher we know that when we're in small groups
007or when we pull our time away from those students and they're giving an independent time we want our classrooms to be rich with numbers and letters really to just promote that independence so my goal we already talked about it in our beginning of the year meetings is to have number lines for everyone in the district so we went around over 64 classrooms are now going to get number lines so they're going to have that consistent grades four five and six will also have extra posters that will talk about place value and having fractions decimals and percentages related because they're kind of in a different category so that's coming and i also available to help support the math platforms with the clever integration as much as i can and also i engage in staff surveys you'll
008see these menus that i handed out to you today those i handed out to the staff before the school year started so that in their mailboxes they already had this ready to go so if there was something that appealed to them they could reach out to me whether it be lesson planning or small groups or demos whatever it is might be something that's helpful for them so that went out also so we know that the math goal in the district for this year is to implement a district-wide plan to increase growth and math based on assessment data of course it is hard to pinpoint exactly why the data may be as low as it is but our goal is to help and improve going forward so i know we can say it's coping we can
009say it's hybrid learning it was a couple days a week and we know for those students that struggle the most they need consistent instruction so i'm very happy that we are in daily we are meeting with our small groups we have extra esi staff now that can help out and whenever they can i will so that's the goal and again why is math the focus we know that as early as age five those math anxieties can get started so we want to attack them as early as we can because we know when they play with those manipulatives they make those connections they have real world scenarios that's when they come to life so that's the goal is to set that foundation we are working to target the gap areas we know that fractions operations they
010are always areas that are the lowest functioning every grade level and i think it's been exacerbated by covid and with the gaps that we had in hybrid learning we just are working to bridge those gaps so going forward those are definitely the areas where we focusing on but of course between k and 2 we want to get that early numeracy that developing number sense because half of it is knowing when answers are not reasonable so if they can prove that answers are reasonable then we're in the right direction so things that we can do follow the math workshop model just like in literacy we know the workshop model can be very helpful that i do we do youtube mentality where we start with us modeling a lesson then the students do some collaborative work and
011then they go into their independent time ideally when a teacher would pull their small group so that they could be focused on differentiation so again build the mass fluency build overall number sense and if we can i love to start our math blocks with a warm-up of some sort you know spark your learning a number talk just to engage them and get them excited especially i always used to have right after lunch i would always get them during them and i felt like that time that they could be interactive and they could do activities that were fun it brought them right back down to get ready for a mini lesson so those first five minutes can be so essential just to bring them back down to like okay i can sit down again like i
012just said earlier we're working to create those numeracy rich classroom environments i literally was in my intervention today and one of my students was reversing one of her numbers and i said what in your classroom can help you and she's like oh there's a number line but i never use it so i said you know guys that this is a decoration right these anchor charts that are in this room these number lines that are set up your teachers do this to help you so the goal is that when we're in a classroom and we're creating those numeracy rich environments that they can utilize them especially when they're teachers in small group so our goal is to plan our purposeful small groups based on what they need based on what the data is telling us and
013then target them accordingly and one thing that i'm trying to stress especially with our staff is accountability so whenever they go into a workstation whenever they go into a small group whenever they have independent time just make sure there's an exit ticket or something they're handing in something that will make them accountable because sometimes when their teacher is working with someone else and they think oh i have 10 minutes to myself i might not work the best that i can but if the teacher says oh i'm going to come right back to you make sure that you have that paper filled out then they know uh-oh i'm going to make sure to make my time important so that's a piece also so again we want to build fluency and fluency is just not about speed
014which can be difficult because it has to do with flexibility efficiency and being able to justify your answer so over time our goal is going to be to build that number sense to get them to understand if i add 56 56 to 56 it's not 11. so those are the kinds of things that we're just trying to show over time build in the reasonableness now this i did share with the staff the first day that we have our district presentations and these are just helpful resources happy numbers e-spark i excel was just purchased it's a great program that they can also do for supplemental homework review all based on fact practice they can integrate through into math they can integrate into other different programs that could relate right to their core instruction so that is
015a great tool i also link grams for lecture videos for anybody who has not seen him he is great at scaffolding year to year so they can see if their third grade teacher what second grade should do before they come what fourth grade is doing when they leave and also i put in there some warm-ups for them that are already ready to go that they can use virtual manipulatives hopefully we won't have things those too many times but our goal is that they're there if we do need them if we can't have the physical and for anybody that knows the cpa approach the concrete pictorial abstract this is where sometimes we fall apart because when they get to third fourth fifth sixth grade sometimes the manipulatives fall away and that's half of the problem because
016if we rush to the abstract and we shove equations on them too quickly and maybe they were lacking in the concrete part or the building of models and drawing them out that's where we need to put our focus back so it's teachers just being able to recognize where their students have needs and be able to react accordingly so i also did link in here i do classrooms for both of the schools so i link all different resources in there for them as well i also have a needs and goals surveyed for whatever they're feeling they can send it to me it's completely anonymous because half of this is as a coach i just want to tell you half of being a coach is knowing that they're coming teachers are coming to you for support and
017when they're coming to you for support they don't always want other people to know they come to you as you know i think i need a little bit in this area and as a teacher sometimes that's hard for you to reach out to another staff member so the confidentiality piece where they are sharing their data with me and they say okay can you please help me with this that is my favorite part about it because i am able to then target and help them to make their kids be the best as they can be so that's the goal of the year so feel free to check these out i did drop menus for all of you so you had them also but i just wanted to end with anybody that's ever heard me do any
018kind of thing i always either have a video or some kind of quote to keep us inspired and ready to go so i ended with keeping coming together as a beginning keeping together this progress working together as success so i just wanted to end on that i appreciate your time and i was just wondering what your favorite assessment is what you think the most effective assessment is um in terms of district or just in general just more effective for the to ascertain how they're doing i well i honestly feel that the more specific the assessment the better we can gauge how well they know the content so um in mr deming school actually in procon we have made specific for each trimester we made specific curved like that curtailed to each objective that we knew
019they were going to hit the number four card to see and it was a quick you know maybe 10 questions that aged just in that specific objective how well they were doing and then our goal is that then to see from the free to the folks how far they've come is that like the angel or it isn't like it okay yeah it's lincoln thank you i'm just going to say one thing if you can find a way for them to keep knowing whether something is reasonable or not as an answer until they get to college it'll make my life a lot easier i'm working for a great day i'll talk about between that and the number line i do bring back a number line when they do oxidation numbers but my question is um how
020much time do we have for math in the district like block time typically it's a test but we do have up to an hour there are some tests that have like 40 45 minutes and up to an hour so is that a lot easier you want more ideally i feel like an hour would be wonderful um from beginning to end if they could do a 10 to 15 minute lesson mini lesson and then go into their block of you know an half hour so 25 minutes the reflection piece to me is often what gets left out and the reflection is my favorite part of the entire workshop because honestly i always love to call up a couple kids and just say what did you learn during this time whether it be a model that they
021need whether it be something that they constructed that they could share that's what i feel like is the most meaningful because that's where you inspire those kids to feel like they can share and be a part of something so that that piece i made that at the end five minutes so that's why i said the more time we can get the better but i know ideally it's 15 45 to an hour and then i know there's been questions i've gone back and forth with dr to math homework like i'm a very big proponent that practice will um do you see you have any studies on that the map i guess i'm more math i definitely i believe that practice makes progress that's always been my thinking um i've always left it up to the teacher's
022discretion based on who she assigned football she or he just had didn't homework too so i feel like you know how there are some kids that they felt like in the class they really mastered it then if they go home they might only have a couple questions or they might go on a reflex for a little while because they'll just get extra back practice i kind of left it up to the teacher's discretion what they felt like would be appropriate for their kids as a whole me personally i always did assign homework that was just what i did um but i always kind of left it up to the teacher to kind of judge what they felt like was appropriate for their kids and if you're in the district as long as i have probably
023has unacceptable i'm sure we must have some skinny bits left over oh my anyone else have any questions i just have a question regarding the homework is there a policy that we have for that or or no did i hear your personality but it's not going to happen it's not saying that you don't get it but it's not saying it's him right so it's kind of like it's up to the teacher to decide do we have any programs that we're like our students are our students don't know like chromebooks or not that they could do it and it's not as i know as a big component grading of homework and addition for teachers well that's what i feel like that's the one area where i feel like to me grading was separate homework is extra
024practice to me i can't monitor who's doing your homework with you at home or if your parents actually want to work for you so i feel like to that degree i would assign it if it comes back i know they're practicing it but in terms of grading it i just feel like it's not an event i don't mean reading it but checking it oh yeah it's gone yeah well that's correct yes anyone else thank you very much okay moving on to the report of the superintendent all right good evening everyone uh first and foremost welcome back to everyone we had a great start to the school year special thank you to the administration the maintenance custodians and all 12 month employees for all of their hard work this summer we were definitely busy with staffing
025and programs and planning and we got it all done so great job i want to mention and i see mrs nino here that mrs nino and miss coveya are doing a wonderful job with their butterfly garden they have these posters that they're going to be sending to home depot and walmart thanking them for their help with this project and they are saying that they greatly appreciate their help in the process of getting the grant honey and they built this wonderful butterfly garden for all the students so really great job on that thank you for doing that it's amazing but some of the demographics that we have to update we have now 16 esl students and according to the trends in central jersey we have more coming so we are planning for that we did post
026for another esl teacher and we're in the process of interviewing for that and hopefully we have one on the october agenda because at this point mrs munn is over her numbers and she's working through her lunch and preps because she has so many students and so many special needs students with that special education numbers we're a little over 19 right now and we have 34 initial evaluations to complete by october 15th we have 17 students that are homeless and our free reduced lunch numbers are around 46 which we're hoping that more families fill the application out because we should be far over 50 so we're going to continue to publicize that and assist families that we think need assistance with that and we're also identifying families by students having a large lunch balance we're going
027to reach out to them and have them make sure that they fill those forms out to get that free and reduced lunch we will be going through cusack review this year by november 15th our dprs are due so we have formed a committee we have a google drive going with a bunch of the administrators and teachers and we're going to start setting up some meetings and see how things go as we go through those indicators enrollment is continuing to grow for this school year from july first to the end of september the ecc had 146 new registrations george mitchell had 51 and frog fine at 38 which that's a total of 235 new registration so the district is definitely growing the schools the actually all three schools did a walkaway trip where they walk away
028from the building in case there was some kind of emergency such as a gas leak or something like that thank you to the local police department for sending extra support and helping us out with that and the staffing students did an amazing job with that october is down syndrome month and the special ed department has organized 21 acts of kindness that they will be doing with everyone we have a mental health workshop schedule this has been blasted out to families and i will continue to send it it is october 4th at six o'clock at frog pond school and it will be an overview of mental health discussion and tips for families in a q a session hosted by mr hand immediately following that the board of education we'll be meeting with the administrative team to
029satisfy one of their goals of getting to know the student population a little bit better we are going to be posting on the website with terry martugi's help some resources for families regarding mental health so we're going to have a part of the website directly allocated for mental health support so we're working on that sit with the soup our first one of the year is taking place october 19th at 1 o'clock it is zoom information has been sent out to families and all are welcome to attend that i attended a workshop this morning with miss frasca from highlands and what they spoke about was very interesting i actually spoke to mrs banano about this already there's a special needs registry in ocean county and what they're encouraging families to do of special needs students or
030register your student with this department in ocean county and what it does is it tells the police department if you may have a student that's autistic or special needs at home that if they're going into that home for any reason they should not have flashing lights on a message will come up as the officer gets near the home so i thought it was really interesting so miss panero is going to be glassing information to families and she's going to put that onto her website as well so i thought that was really very valuable we want to welcome melissa gallagher who's here on our agenda this evening our new curriculum director we are definitely looking forward to her starting and there is definitely a need for her especially with our cue sack review this year the
031community school is growing substantially i just want to say to families because we've had a lot of frustration of families on waiting lists that we are hiring more counselors this evening we have a coordinator on the agenda and we will be fulfilling that waitlist very soon so i know you're waiting i know that you know they really need that service so we're moving as quickly as we can um there was a question on the district q a it was regarding um uh mr jonathan jones who was an employee of pinelands if he worked at little lake harbor and he is not employed by little light barber he is a pinelands employee um mr green if you just want to go over the capacity concern that we have and then i'm going to turn it over
032to the building principles thank you um just recently we submitted an application for something called stabilization eight you'll see it on the agenda part of that stabilization application required us to report the capacity of each building that we have and the enrollment of those buildings and it came to my attention that frogbond elementary school is at 110 capacity uh the capacity there is 705 students the enrollment is 777 students we don't see we're seeing the near future that that's going to go down so when the building is at 110 capacity and unfortunately the future isn't only growing this is something that should probably be addressed sooner than later so anybody has any input what they feel might be a good idea no the enrollment is up significantly and what's the current capacity in george mitchell
033the capacity to george mitchell is at 93 or almost 94 they have 622 students i'm sorry the capacity is 622 and the enrollment is 583. and do we harbor any ecc students in the george national building no that is a separate building with a separate count and we do have um early childhood and robert is fairly new so i don't want to put him on the spot like that but yes the acc the 600 way some of those classrooms are allocated for the early childhood center and they're also special needs classes so just to answer how many classes do you have mistakes everything in um i believe we have 12 classrooms in this in the 600 um five of them disabled questions which are the specialized classes and then we have three additional gen ed
034classes and then um we have i believe rather throughout that email that i sent you we have 14 classes in the ecc building which are all classrooms and we're currently running at approximately 320 preschool students right you know so the numbers that even given credit so if memory serves me correctly and it could be gray or foggy doesn't this program have to run that not as like we have to be able to provide space without necessarily taking space from our students because i thought i remember in the beginning didn't we try to outsource to like kangaroo court and ocean head start i thought some of our classes of our student population to meet the needs without that was prior to building the ecc center the ecc building that we currently have which opened in 2012
035and at that point where we built that building did we still need to use george mitchell absolutely i just have a question on the stabilization the district lost state aid last year but we met certain criteria so we were a lot of stabilization okay cover even with this we've never even missed they never pulled it from and it's never fully them yes okay so that's a great question part of our strategic plan was to form a committee to see the possibility of having the sixth grade house at the junior high because they have enough they have a lot of space so that's something that the committee would just do the research to say how does that work is it feasible does it work with our schedules so that is something that we're going to move
036forward with this year but highlands would have to be on board with that as well and that would be all part of the research would then sixth grade students from other districts as well go to the finals and we would welcome eagleswood and tougher to be part of that study yeah that's a great question now would they still be our teachers if they're at finance or would they become so that would be part of the study remember when we had the seventh grade house here for that one year just because of space they were still there teachers they basically run into space all right um how about let's have the principals that want to give an update on their buildings good evening um so we kicked off the school year this is our second full
037week of school seems like it might be longer um be really focused this year as we kick off the year on getting to know our students so the message to our teachers in september was to take september get to know your students build that sense of belonging and community in our classrooms and in our schools and to start to see where our students needs are just get to know them let's set our routines our procedures and just get a feel for where we're starting from so we've had a great uh start already again in september we're really just focusing on establishing those classroom rules those procedures and those routines some school-wide initiatives that we did this year um we started our ospreys soar program so our soar stands for s safety first o organized and
038ready a accountability and our respect for i'm sorry a act responsibility and our respect always and we really launched this as school-wide expectations and also to develop that common language between our teachers and our staff so this just today we met with some of our different grade levels we went over what to do you know what does that look like in our lunchroom what does that look like in our hallways what does that look like on our playground and we're really just establishing those common expectations a common language and just really focusing on that positive behavior so that really does go along with a pbis program we also are launching our caught soaring cards which is just another way to recognize that positive behavior the kids can earn the little cars through lunch and recess
039and by again displaying all of those qualities that we're looking for another goal of ours is to infuse our character education into our morning meeting time and through what we do all day long throughout our lessons so this month we're focusing on friendship and caring uh miss cummings and i we've been we've had the opportunity to get into many of our classrooms and to do read-alouds or reading about friendship and caring and just having those conversations with the kids each month we'll focus on a different topic and we'll continue to infuse that in what we do being sel is one of our sub goals and we know that kids who feel like they belong they feel heard and valued and seen those are kids that want to come to school their brains are open up
040to learning and we see a rise in attendance they're there on time so yeah we're really focusing on how we're infusing that and what we do every day with our students um we're also going to be launching our check-in checkout program and this is again we've kind of identified kids who are in need of just some extra mentoring and every morning for the first few minutes they meet with their mentor and at the end of the day and we establish again goals that we're working on ways that we can achieve those goals and then at the end of the day we report back on how we do and then that mentor can follow those kids throughout the time that they're at the middle school again just establishing those personal connections and that one person who
041that they can always trust to be there so these are some of the things that we're doing at the mitchell school it's been a great start it's nice to be back with our little k-2 um children um every morning i greet them at the door and they have big smiling faces and they're just happy to be there and every day when they leave there's big smiling faces so i'm fortunate i have an amazing staff built just dedicated caring wonderful wonderful teachers so it is just a wonderful place to be thank you okay so at the ecc we have a wonderful start as well in some ways september 7th was not our official start because we do a very robust orientation program in which all of the families are invited to come in see the building
042meet with the teacher meet the nurse etc and really start that relationship with the families in addition to that some of our parents have been able to have home visits that took place in august so that the family and the child can meet the teacher so as a result we have our students who are really ready to come in and separate from those parents and come in and start their day so as a result we also have less crying on that first day of school which makes myself and certainly my staff breathe a little bit easier we are working on routines routines routines for teens how to unpack their bags how to set their bedding up how to line up and go out to the playground and those rules so we will be working on
043that certainly all year long it's amazing how quickly our three and four-year-olds can adjust to their expectations of preschool so other than a little few glitches with our transportation and getting our kids out uh smoothly already and within the ten days it's we're so much better and everybody's doing a great job um like the whole district is we're focusing on math this year social emotional learning and then also we are going to be focusing on inclusion making sure that our psd students and our general education students have a lot of opportunities to spend time together we're pairing up psc teachers with our gen ed teachers as well so that they can work together so all in all a great start at the preschool good evening everyone we are off to a great start here at
044frog pond 2. um just wanted to say thank you to buildings and grounds when the summer hits they immediately start ripping everything apart and cleaning everything and they put it all back together so quickly and the buildings look amazing it is a large task and they and they do an amazing job with that prior to the start of the school year our school year starts a little earlier with all our orientations and we have our new third graders come in um they get acclimated to the building because it is you know a challenge for some of our younger students as well we get our new students and new staff orientations and then when the official start of the school year happened we quickly had grade level assemblies which same with us it did outline our
045grade level expectations our student behavior expectations we've kind of reinforced some of our positive behavior initiatives here we do monthly rewards programs and similar to george mitchell we have pond passes where students are recognized for their good behavior and ms treslano set up some really important local relationships where we have donations coming through local businesses where they reward our students on a monthly basis which is really uh fantastic to see another partnership that started a couple of years ago by uh miss calvin which he started here um mr ben wurst who works with one of the local wildlife foundations um we started fostering terrapins in the classroom this year we're up to eight classrooms with 50 terapins mr bendworst came in he did a short assembly for all the classes that were adopting the terrapins
046and the kids are just ecstatic about that program last week we had our back-to-school night and we also had separate informational sessions for our basic skills families our step families also our abandoned chorus program uh did an amazing job recruiting this year we have a ton of interest in our abandoned course programs and thank you to the pto the pto is doing an amazing job this year they you know went strong with a new website uh promoting a lot of initiatives this year and there's been really a great collaboration between the pto and both our schools this week we're a little different at the older school we started start strong testing which obviously is state mandated but we already completed ela and math we have sixth grade science that will be completed tomorrow and then
047we also have makeups after that but we are in full swing almost done with that coming into the year our bsi department led by rachel harper also identified any of our students that needed additional service we are already servicing over 180 students with interventions and extra levels of support right at the beginning of the school year so things are going well here we're looking forward to a great school year and thank you very much do you want oh sorry thank you very much uh moving on to residence forum agenda items only the board of education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues the board requests that the public respect the three-minute time limit when commenting on agenda items as cited in policy number zero one six seven general public comment will occur later
048in the meeting would anyone like address yes time at one of these um i actually um came to the august 25th thing with the health and um you know that whole thing and i kind of wrote something down because this um the things that kind of were discussed it kind of i didn't feel like it went too much in depth and it was a little bit concerning the issue that i like to speak about um you know the k through to transgender guidelines stuff have something um um and i don't need to speak um toward any community because i'm still learning um but as a mother of a first grader a fourth grader sixth grade here it just is a little bit alarming to me um so this is what i wrote and again um
049so with regards to puberty it feels a little misleading the one can teach boys and girls the difference about their bodies who essentially makes a boy boy and a girl girl then on the other hand saying if you identify as the opposite sex that's okay gender dysphoria um there was something mentioned by um where she stated that there was no there was it didn't give the parents a chance to opt in it was just like you know the whole building and i felt like that was idea to um the parents are giving them you know the states to kind of support that um some guys just have to excuse me but like i said um i feel like most people do a lot of people do as far as i keep getting in public school
050i want them i always say i feel as though not everybody needs to be exposed to every situation suffering from it um and of course you know you don't want to be discriminated against but i just feel as though some of the things that may be introduced at this at these ages inappropriate and it goes with the heat but yeah sorry it doesn't make any sense i just i feel like it's my role to be you know to teach my kids a way that i feel it's right and i just feel like for my child to possibly come home one day and say oh this is gone to me and i have to go around that and teach them you know the way that i was raised that a lot of other people was raised
051again no disrespect to people in the traditional community but i do have friends that are part of that community and i just feel like um you know with the curriculum it just it it's it's kind of you know you're saying something but then you're not it kind of feels like the whole story's not being told so and you know with respect to the age group it's like kind of late always open to those types of things because their young kids they that's my biggest concern that my children my three as far as yes thank you for your [Music] time you know maybe there could be a little bit more discussion around that and if there aren't beyonce because i'm just now getting into this as far as pto for education thank you thank you did
052anyone else like to speak stick your name in your address please new jersey i'm a retired educator at pinelands regional high school 25 years in the district this is a highly sensitive area we have the governor and the legislature that in my opinion and a lot of people across the lines in terms of terms of what schools should be teaching and what the parental rights are you are members of board of education and your primary job is to make sure the children get a proper education and that they're protected this is highly controversial major limits uh that they're trying to bring the sexualization of children that's where the boils down and i know a lot of parents are busy they work two jobs and parents are out there they don't they don't realize what's going
053on and i think every effort has to be made by the board of education to get the information out that's why there's some there's a lot of validity to making parents in because you're going to force them to participate so regardless of how you're going to vote and hopefully you're going to do it because you feel it's the right thing but you have to make sure the parents are bad it's a critical thing because again from my experience uh the things that have been going on since 2019 it's going to cause more damage i was just wondering maybe if we could do any of the other absolutely i mean elise is going to be leaving soon but we can definitely between myself and the rest of the ministers we can post another one so i'll
054send that out we were just waiting to see if there was interest she did send the recording but like you said you like to be there for the q a yeah um we can do one soon and then i'd like to do another one after january when it gets closer a lot of the controversial stuff is planned for the end of the school year in may so we're going to do another one at the second half of the school year and just leave you as like a refresher yeah and maybe more parents for sure yeah we'll do it in the evening yeah yeah okay absolutely yeah no problem thank you would anyone else like to speak not moving on to board work session um there's first one thing that i would like to read and
055then i have a couple of other things i just wanted to comment on i have received some questions regarding the billboard which is located on route 9 south in manhattan the billboard has a slogan here to help with pinelands and little a harvard school district listed on the billboard um i first saw the billboard on saturday august 27th i was actually driving home from tj maxx and as i was sending my daughters off to college the next day after i arrived home i did text dr mccooley regarding the billboard at that time i was important that it was a billboard was paid for by highlands and that due to the nature she was not required to have board approval as she's had other billboards such as preschool outboard approval during this exchange she assured me
056that finance had paid for the billboard and it would be in fact on their september's build list dr mccooley had also imported me that leh would no longer be included on future billboards without board approval i also questioned the reason for the billboard was located out of district the response was that there weren't any available in our district area i know there's been a lot of questions regarding the billboard as myself i had some of those same questions so i felt this is the best forum to let you know that the board had had no knowledge of the import input regarding this prior to mice again in person as for the cost myself and some other board members have reviewed our september's bills list and failed to see any charges for the billboard a second
057concern that was brought to my attention was a fraudcon elementary field trip what i can state at this time is that the board researched these concerns and the field trip was approved by the superintendent and i hope that everyone knows that if a concern is brought to my attention i will thoroughly research it to the best of my ability and follow proper channels to deliver that information back to the public okay one other thing before an update i just was honored to also say that i know that i attended the teacher's first day back and i'm not sure if anyone is aware but this is suicide prevention awareness month and i know that mental health was a big portion of concern it was also part of the teacher's concern at their back to school when
058dr mcculley had done a survey and uh what's my number so i'm going to say this in case anyone's listening at home and i'm going to try not to cry as i say it because i definitely have lost a childhood friend to suicide who was had ptsd from his time in iraq you can text nami to 741-741 and you're connected automatically to a crisis counselor or the crisis text line so there is someone there all 24 hours a day um so please if anyone is in need and just some statistics i think that um what was it the most alarming was and surprising and i can't pull it up right now um 79 of people who die by suicide are males um and less are i can't find the number here right now but um
059our females and so um just please if there's someone i think i'm really big into music with my kids and stuff and it's gonna sound i like palsy it might sound strange um one of her songs says what is there any weight that you carry and it's something for us really to think about there might be weight that someone carries on their shoulder that we don't know and so please when you look at someone you know and they're having a bad day or something or anything if they look just remember that and treat them with kindness and respect um with that and that i'm going to end and i'm going to turn over to the curriculum committee thank you dr snyder thank you for reminding us all about that um i meant to mention that
060myself and there is a new hotline rutgers clinical psychologist i've been following with the sel material um there's a new i think it's a three-digit number 988 suicide hotline okay thank you so an update on the curriculum committee you've been very involved with the new health ed curriculum and i just i'm going to read our recommendation while dr mccooley and the administration have worked with the curriculum committee for a compromise on the new written standards and the written curriculum for helping pe in grades k-6 the curriculum committee still has some concerns and for that reason and after many hours of reading and research and hearing from parents in this community our curriculum committee recommends that this board vote against the current health and physical phys ed curriculum as it stands and is posted in the
061presentation on the website again we recognize and appreciate the hard work and dedication of the professionals who worked to pare down this material and present it in the most sensitive manner to our young students and the public however some standards that remain in writing are very troublesome and represent an ideology that we believe is in direct contradiction with human anatomy and physiology and scientific fact those standards are 2.15 ssh 0.2 and 2.15 ssh 0.3 also 2.15 pgd 0.4 we also believe this material may cause harm to children emotionally socially and even physically currently in grade two this curriculum proposes to discuss the correct name of genitals with pictures the standards recommend a cater to offering we feel this is sexually explicit for children and inappropriate with that with that said i would like to share
062a quote from the interim commissioner of education dr angelica alan mcmillan uh from april of this year dr mcmillan stated that this memo reiterates the intent and spirit of the new jersey student learning standards in comprehensive health and pe the discretion of local education agencies to select and adopt curricula aligned with these standards without the need for review or approval by the new jersey doe the importance of parental input into their children's education the importance of lea's consultation with educators families and other members of the school community in selecting and adopting curriculum and the ability of parents to opt out of instructional activities along with these standards the school community of parents and families were consulted and entered in at one meeting that i attended as a committee member and i heard a lot of
063concern from our parent community regarding the new material i also heard concerns about opting out and the need to make it is easier for parents through a change in policy this was denied due to our current policy as our policy committee is just coming into fruition we hope to review and revise the opt-out policy and make it an opt-in policy which will serve to ensure all parents are aware of what these very young and impressionable students are being taught finally i have written to the commissioner of education about the transgender guidance document provided by the doe in 2019 which is driving much of this curriculum and have questioned the legality of some of its recommendations such as hiding a child's gender identity for parents and holding two separate files in school one with a child's
064legal name and one with a preferred name written recommendations from the doe clearly pose a threat to the school district's integrity and those who work here our educators have a tough enough time to do to teach besides worrying about child's preferred names and their chosen gender status i'm still awaiting a reply to my letter which was sent certified on august 25th thank you does anyone have anything else okay i received some emails regarding our policy committee volunteers um i will be sending an email out this week with those who have volunteered again and volunteered just reach out to me let me know what committee you'd like to be on um i think some of them we might combine like building and safety and that might come in very appropriate with mr green's discussion also too
065about uh just just two things i wanted to bring up one very important dear to my heart is two people in my office that i want to give a very big compliment to one is cindy anderson she is the branding payroll clerk thank you tom for giving her up okay any others kimberly welfield who it was the outgoing payroll clerk who still works in the office this this first week we had the first payroll of the year which you're not familiar with a business operation the first payroll of the year is an extremely difficult payroll there's a lot of employers coming in there's a lot of changes being made it's a big barrel it's the biggest payroll of the year our bank decided to roll out a new uh software program by which we transmit
066all the checks and all the direct deposits about four or five days before we were ready to transmit our payroll needless to say it caused an amazing amount of havoc in the office i was very nervous and i don't get shaken easily cindy and kim worked very hard very diligently and they got it done okay and you know i just have to send out my kudos to these two employees i'm really happy to be working with them i'm glad that they were on this this uh i don't know what happened if uh well extremely experienced if we didn't have someone so experienced and helping out cindy anderson and cindy anderson as an office came through like a shining star so that was the first thing i wanted to mention the second thing i'd like to
067bring up is um if the board would be open to discussing the uh start time of the october meeting we have some we have some conflicting uh schedules here and uh that'll be the time to bring up a discussion as to the start time of the meeting or possibly even changing the date of the meeting to make it more convenient for all the board members so what d is the october morning october 18th and what time are you right now it's advertised to begin the executive session at 5 30 in the public meeting at six o'clock obviously we can re-advertise for that and change the date or end the time but my request is just to have the board discuss it in case there is anybody i who we were moving forward making it later
068is that the idea the only thing with making them later is the reason we went to 5 30 and six to begin with is when we started inviting the students because they're little and it was just late enough to get home like right now at 7 30 already so we that's why we're having them earlier but at the earlier times you can get a different day to a day in the weeks i'm thinking the parents too that want to come that 5 30 is quite quite early well 5 30 6 00 right with that said to you i was also interested can we move the november 22nd meeting to the week before since that's so close to thanksgiving i think we discussed that instead is challenging because we're coming off a week of school being
069closed and then putting it together with the agenda i mean we have done it after like easter break happening after i mean we do have two members that are not here also so i don't know do you want robert to simple or rewarding yeah just i don't feel it's here them not being here also just like to be respectful all right moving on to finance recommend emotion improve finance items a through k can i have a motion i'm sorry can i have a second second [Music] can you just explain exactly um how that was applied for and i know you said it was because we were shorted grant way last year and then what it will be used for this year okay so just to be clear we weren't short grant month yeah we were
070short at state aid just a bit of district in the state we shouldn't stay aid but this district in particular um just just because of logistics um so what their what the mandate came down from the state was that they lost uh state aid yet you certainly met certain criteria um you would be entitled to new staining or more stability okay so that's what the stabilization need is uh we we uh well it was a pretty lengthy um application and i found out today that we've already received the money so so i don't know whether it was in vain or not regardless we already have the money in the bank account it's been there since august 10th i just sold today okay so we're a good commission good condition in that sense okay the things
071that we applied for specifically in our application were [Music] a mental health counselor uh to have a school social worker to have an ldtc uh an intervention specialist and if we can fit it in possibly an extra teacher to keep the class sizes reduced we're having a little bit of issue with that um and so that's those are the items that we want to spread out in the just under four hundred thousand dollars thank you okay all right can i ask a couple questions sorry do we currently have an intervention specialist or a job description on file an intervention specialist i have to look to see if they have a job description we have like basic skill support but we don't have an interventionist current district on the district like it's that's not it's not
072a job description okay okay we may have a description right now we may have the description we don't have one right now and then i have just two i don't have one i have one comment and then uh one question let's go with my comment i just want to say it was really nice to see all of the um some of the use of ester funds also to go to um curriculum and i guess software is the proper terminology for special services so it's nice to see some of that new stuff going in there and then i just have a question about oh um i remember receiving an email from you about trying to or potentially look at alternatives for health benefits i i don't know if that was a new one i know i
073didn't see that one the attachment 11-0 um so we are that's the latest resolution with the three percent increase per state for health insurance as that was that in reference to bro so oh it is us sending um a blanket letter that went around opposing the increase so schools are trying to band together to fight the increase but on the other question you're asking yes we did request our experience is what it's called our use of the health insurance and then that will allow us to look at other options that may be cheaper okay all right are we locked into the health benefits plan at least until the until june i guess so right now we're in the state plan so if we were going to transition into something else we'd have to see when
074we were able to transition to that would that be january once that's when the congress just related to that is um is the increase going to impact the current plan now or yes it will yeah this is going to go into effect within this fiscal year and how does that apply the district absorbs that or the employees what's the percentage it depends some yes some of the staff pay a percentage of their salary hopefully a certain amount but then the district picks up new percentage also i mean i think the concern is i'm very respectful because my kids are older if we have new teachers in the district young kids going to doctors specialists things like that it's going to quickly add up and you're going to see the impact of it and that's what's
075worrisome so i i do feel for everyone because i'm in the same situation anyone else i have a couple questions um item a can we please have the um piece detailed what is that for 22 000. it's on attachment 11a finance a um i just wondered if it was new or it's been existing is that a monthly bill no yeah it's uh it's something that's recurring this is something we've had in the past is that monthly 2000 no no that's that's a one-time question okay okay thanks okay and on item b um the line item transfers i noticed esser funds were adjusted and i know all districts did that um can you just direct us to the doe website it's it's supposed to be very clear for parents families to see how the money was
076allocated and how it was set by the district that's a like a deal you bulletin out right okay so i can send a link to the board members okay i'm afraid to write the dsr website explains everything and i was going to wait until the auditors came in and provided an audit this year okay and then provide you with the information i want i want to give you audited information regarding how it spends okay okay i i was under the impression that d.o.e website publicized all the districts not no not individuals though okay no okay thank you anyone else okay can you have a roll call though miss herbert i'm sorry i had another question sure the new math and ela excel learning port for 65 000. i know it's esser funding for one year
077that is new and that's an additional curriculum for special education okay thank you okay this is harvard yes this is wrong mr barry yes lisa lazada yes doctor snyder yes ocean terrorists uh technology recommended motion to improve technology sorry moving on to 12 facilities recommend devotion to approve only one coffee today two facility items a and b can i have a motion notion i have a second are there any questions i just want to make one statement i know that the uh pto is having a fundraiser i don't remember the date so if you have an opportunity please support the pto um any other questions okay if not yes okay let's try this again technology recommend a motion to approve technology items a and b and i have a motion motion come on second are
078there any questions i do have a question on a the quote for 61 875 can you just explain what that is the indoor access points i'm putting in more access points so that's more security no that's how to get on the internet so it's actually just better um better yeah so more access because we have the new app too the pick my kid we found that there were a lot of parents at the same time trying to use their cars for pulling up to the school so we got some outdoor and then we got some more indoor to make sure that everybody has adequate wi-fi mitchell because it's so old and the way it was built there's a lot of dead spots so they're they're putting out okay it's covered by s or funds but
079what about when the answer funds go away will that go away well they're already going to be up again okay it's a one time oh okay yeah okay thank you anyone else all right can we have a roll call though he's herbert yes okay moving on to number 14 new business is there any new business at this time okay number 15 the following items are presented for informational purposes the community school financials and correspondence for mr cole the facilities manager with the community school i just have one thing to say i did ask if we could possibly see the correlation between the number of students that are in before care with our enrollment i i know that as a parent when i was there i i think i would have benefited from an earlier start
080time and i don't even know if that's possible or anything but i was just curious to see how many kids are in before care relative to our enrollment like it seemed like based on the numbers it was greater than 50 so i thought i'll recheck my numbers but that's one thing i had you asked before anymore we have a spreadsheet let me just make sure i know what you're asking me i had sent an email to see what the percentage of the number of students in before care versus our total enrollment in ecc so there's 320 kids in the early childhood center okay correct and we have 60 in before care but we also have some on the waitlist too that are just waiting to get in 30. we're already on the wait list but
081it's not just gcc it's all great preschool before care we have 34 and we have in preschool alone looks like 14 on the wait list i think that's right hmm let's see moving on to numbers any other questions on this number 16 personnel recommend a motion to approve personal items a3k can are there any questions see us meeting another director the last thing i think educators need is another level above home so i won't really know that in my mind is uh yes to all except for c1 and mr barry uh yes to all except for c1 i did okay uh yes to all d i'd like to vote yes for the qualitative note yes to all except for d intimidation and healing items presented and discussed in executive session can i have a motion
082can i have a second are there any questions moving on to number 18 policies and procedures recommended motion to approve policies and procedures items a through j can i have a motion can i have a second are there any questions uh i have a question i just went just so i had asked this previously but just somebody knows on the remote plan for the school year um so they pick them up we also have brought numerous meals to their whole specific families that can't get here anyone else okay can we have a roll call though uh yes to all except for a7 and i have to abstain from e because i don't have enough information i couldn't go over that 71 page document i just feel like i should have seen somebody this is wrong
083yes mr barry uh yes to all except for a7 i really like to go back i know that other districts have had it um something like that where parents are very i also would like some more current input with that okay thank you just note that a7 does not pass okay um we also at number 19 the following information items are being presented for informational purposes um does anyone have any questions on any of those no okay all right um moving on to public comment the floor is now listening members of the public the board of education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues the board requested each statement made by a participant is limited to three minutes as cited in policy number zero one six seven there is a sign-in sheet located
084on the podium please sign in before you speak good evening gina costa 63 vincent court did the curriculum director pass wasn't sure if that passed that um i am the aunt of two current students at the little lake harbor school district cecilia and juliana and i just had two things for the board tonight one it is important to recognize when a governing broader body such as the board of education makes a very difficult decision and i would like to commend the members of the board of education that voted to support the recommendation to terminate the paraprofessional that was spoken about in open session in february and august i am pleased to see that you did not succumb to the outside pressures to keep a staff member that not only terrorized her colleagues but also left
085three and four year olds alone so thank you for protecting our students and staff for more potential harm secondly i would like to address a comment from president snyder from the august meeting and i do think that mrs luco did an amazing job of addressing her plan and the whole district plan to meet the math goal but you did state that you wanted to have math as a mandatory homework requirement so i have some questions for you and i will email them to you so you can answer them for me the first one is how exactly do you propose to support the families who will be working with the children on this math homework requirement especially those working multiple jobs and with multiple children how exactly do you propose to support the diverse group of
086students with this mandate including but not limited to english language learners students with disabilities students with economic challenges and students with a lack of support at home how exactly do you propose to support the teachers with this additional mandate as you know they are already inundated by working with their students on state standards implementing multi-tiered systems of support working with students with social emotional needs behavioral challenges students with mental health challenges medical challenges and also students who have difficulty coming to school what will be the consequences for students who do not comply and what research can you cite to support this proposed mandatory math homework mandate for elementary age students i think it's important to have the answers to these questions i believe the district is doing an amazing job addressing the math goal but
087i think that you should leave it to the professionals and hopefully we won't have to address this mandatory math homework that you're proposing so thank you have a great night is if not moving on to board form do you want to see anything i guess i would just like to summarize that as far as the curriculum committee goes and the health curriculum we would be willing to go back to the table and talk to the curriculum supervisors and we just felt this was the best decision at the time to protect children from undue harm and confusion at a very young age um in regards to the math i just feel strongly that i think that math homework is not a bad thing it shouldn't be a bad thing and i think miss lupo said that
088it would be up to teacher's discretion and i think that's probably where it should lie um but i i would hate to see that we don't have any math homework assignments and we realize that some families you know can't help with the homework or can't get it done but i don't think that's a reason to eliminate all her homework and math oh just one more thing i would like to formally request towards the building for the board members i know um some teachers have said that they wanted us to come through and i would just like to familiarize myself with both so if we could just formally invite two at a time during school hours i'd be willing to take a personal day or something to do that that's right i too in regards to
089the curriculum saying that think that there's just some additional work that we can do and i think that we need to be more um open to having another parent meeting to get some more information and feedback from our parents and like dr snyder said and we've talked about coming up with a better more simplified version and an option to opt in or opt out some type of a better way to do that i just would like to see that and then move forward and we do have some time hopefully so yeah i just want to say that i want to make it perfectly clear where i stand ma'am i understand what you're saying i get nervous up here too so it's okay but uh you know in psalm 139 it says that we are all
090fearfully and wonderfully made by god uh that's a heck of a uh a commission for teachers you know that you have these precious things in your classroom and and that's your job okay and it's been given to you by a very high you know authority and so when the state comes down with these uh harebrained uh legislation when it says that it is supplanting the will of parents i will never ever support that okay the parents are where the yes and no and whatever it is that you want to teach your child should be okay and i just want you to know that and if people have a problem with that with me go ahead and get your letter out of uh you know to get me out of here whatever you want to do
091but i will always stand like that um daniel webster the great attorney once said that you know if truth is not taught error will be and so what we do here is very very important these kids come through this doorway once okay they come through here one time and what we do with those precious lives is important this isn't about well it is about jobs and stuff like that but the main purpose of this is for those children and uh you know what we teach them i will never be in favor of uh of gender affirmation if parents and counselors believe something like that professionals believe that that's the case and that's you know that's that's them but i don't believe government should have that role to just affirm that that's what the problem is
092so i want you to know that thank you i'd just like to say howard uh on that uh thank you for bringing up the law because the law states that everyone should be included all kinds of people in our curriculum not um teaching about certain ideologies transgenderism isn't supposed to be taught we're supposed to welcome everybody and all diversity and that's really what we should focus on the law is clear and this goes away above the law thank you i just want to say welcome back to all the teachers thank you for everything i know it was funny i received one email from someone that stated that oh this school year doesn't start and yet and i know that all of your work began august 1st maybe a little earlier getting ready um and i
093know that um you know it's been two weeks since we've already had the first long week but thank you for everything that you're doing and welcoming the kids um everything that we've seen the kids are really happy here so we're really very grateful that and learning and um i was lucky enough to attend your first day back in the district and i did take note of um things that you were concerned um and concerns of those and we welcome hearing more of those so if there's anything that come to these board meetings we will listen to you and we want to hear um what your concerns are that can make your day-to-day better and maybe lift some of the extra weight that you carry i hope you have a wonderful school year and enjoy some
094of the beautiful weather that we're still having okay not can i have a motion to adjourn can i have a second second