001like to welcome everyone to the July Elizabeth and Board of Education meeting. Uh at this time, we'll call it to order and we'll move to a moment of silence and a pledge. And I'll turn that over to Mr. Vanheis. Please stand. Please pause for a moment of silence. Thank you. Attention. Salute. Pledge. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It's time to approve the consent agenda and the regular agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? >> Motion. >> I'll take that and a second. >> Second. >> Okay. Either one. >> All right. Any questions about anything? Anything need to be moved? All right. The items to approve consent agenda
002and regular agenda. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? And there are none. Uh we had no one asked to speak during time for citizens to speak. Uh and unusually we don't have special recognitions. Hard to get young people and uh things like that together in the summer. So we look forward to getting that back going hopefully uh in August. So we'll move on now to the director's update. Mr. Vanus. >> Thank you, Mr. Ples. Again, just we're in the final about a month and a half of construction on the Dave Ryder Center for Athletic Performance. Things continue to move along there. Doing lots of work in inside with uh rough in and items like that. If you've been by down there, you've noticed that just about all the exterior walls
003are up. Uh we should be uh approaching some uh you should be seeing a lot of site work in the next week or two uh in preparation for new paving and things like that. as well as installation of the turf for the gym floor. All those things should be coming very soon. But, uh, our fundraising continues to go well there. The athletic department, we've had, uh, many, many people across the community that stepped up and made donations to try to help, uh, fund the equipment to go uh, in the facility. So, we're very appreciative of them. And again, if you've seen any on social media, you've seen some of those reports and and thank yous. We've had several uh sports teams that their athletic their their parent organizations have have helped on that. That's just
004been great to see how the community's come together and and stepped up on that. So, just want to say thank you to them. Uh as you may have seen in the news last uh week, preliminary testing results have been very favorable for the system. Uh again, that just demonstrates all the hard work and dedication of our uh teaching staff and and just really everyone in the school system as well as the hard work our students have done. You think of the uh issues we had, challenges with the flood last year, and on top of all that, to see our district perform the way they did is just a real testament to to all of them. There's always room to grow. We're not going to sit back on our laurels and and uh you know, just
005think we've arrived. We're going to celebrate the successes, but we're also going to continue to push forward with that continuous improvement mindset. So, we'll have we'll put some things together and uh hopefully have a presentation for you uh in at the August meeting so you can see a little more detail on that. As you can imagine, tons of uh progress and movement toward preparing for the next school year. We're about three weeks away, a little less than three weeks away from opening in service on Monday, August 4th. So again, just a few calendar items I want to draw your attention to. Obviously, uh several of us will be attending the TSBA Summer Law Institute. That begins, of course, Friday. Most of us are going down Thursday night to be ready for that start on Friday
006morning at the back to school bash on Tuesday, July the 29th at EHS. That's from 6 pm to 8:00 pm. again, I would encourage you to to try to come to that. You'll you'll leave very it won't be time wasted. You'll be very impressed with everything that goes on there and the the things that we're able to offer to our students. And then again, as I mentioned before, our opening in service for the 2526 school year will be on Monday, August the 4th. We'll start serving lunch at 11:30 and then once everyone's had a chance to eat lunch, we'll slide into the gym at the high school and we'll do our opening in service presentation. And so I hope that you can come to that enjoy and join us for lunch and then stay. I
007mean obviously understand that you all are busy and have things to do but we would appreciate you being there and and stay as long as you want to. So that's my report. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Van Hus. Again, board member reports. Anyone? I know we're getting ready to leave uh again Thursday night. Uh I think that that's always been a a good conference. I think we can get a lot of good material there. I know Josh, you got to complete your first required uh seven hours of training. I hope that was beneficial. I appreciate you. You came on at an interesting time. Had to rush that in. So, I do appreciate that. I think you'll really be impressed with TSBA here. Um anything? Oh, one other thing. the the fall district meeting uh for
008this year um is August the 25th. It that's a Monday night if I'm not mistaken, I think. And it is, you know, it's this district here, the Northeast District, and it is as far away as it can be. It's in Morstown. So, if you're interested in going to that, we just need to let Miss Walker know so she can do our reservation. They they are good. They're quick. Um but again, just know that it is uh it is going to be in Morstown. So, um need to know hopefully this week, Miss Walker, that be is there a deadline? >> By the middle of next week. So you can let me know or you can let Miss Walker know if you're interested in going to the fall district meeting. >> Yeah. If anyone is, we can
009look at some ways down. Certainly. >> Okay. >> All right. Anything else? All right. Mr. Simmerly, you good? We love good. Thank you. And we do. Thank you. And all serious and to the council. Thank you so much. Um our student liaison should be on board uh in August. So again, we look forward to having uh her with us. It's now time to move into the regular agenda. First item only item is to approve first reading of the following board policies. 1.700 school district goals and 4.62 honor role awards and class rankings. Can I get a motion to approve? >> Motion to approve >> and a second. >> Second. >> Okay, Mr. Mr. Van Hust, any elaboration there? >> Yeah, just very quickly, first of all, um obviously the regular agenda is extremely light and
010as I may note last month, you put in a lot of heavy work there because we had over 20 policies that that you approved last month and again that made this month's agenda much much smaller. But just quickly, the two policies on there, the first one, 1.700 school district goals. There was some language that we needed to clean up there based on some uh some changes in state law that reflected information on educator diversity. So basically we needed to go back and take out that. If you notice on page two on line two, that's item three that will be struck, but everything else in that school district goals um policy is exactly the same. And then as far as the honor ro awards and class ranking, if you noticed on line, if you notice on
011line three there, it talks about the student grades that will be utilized to calculate all of these different honors and and rankings and things like that. A few years ago, maybe two years ago, we looked at trying to find a way to give students who, no fault of their own, may be taking higher weighted courses in that last semester of their senior year. We were trying to find some way to give them credit for that. Again, they they don't make up their schedule. The Skyward, our student management system, generates a schedule for the students. So, it may be that for instance, uh if Mr. P and I are both seniors. He may be he may have honors English first semester, his senior year, and I may have it second semester. That course will have weighted
012points for him. So, his GPA could potentially be larger than mine. The problem is doing it in the middle of a term. So, again, you can notice there it was the the first three quarters of their senior year. So, we would take that first nine weeks into that second semester and then try to calculate it. But, there's a real problem. our software system has a hard time doing that because it's in the middle of a term. Uh you have to almost trick the system into thinking that you're asking for a final grade to get that and it's just become so cumbers cumbersome for the high school uh staff to try to calculate that. So we're going back to the original language which says at the end of that uh that first semester of their senior
013year. And in talking with other districts around the area, they all is in line with what they do. We all understand that. Again, there are some nuances there. There's no way in essence to make it completely and totally equitable to everyone unless you wait till the end of the school year till the end of their senior year. You run grades and then you see where people are, but that would wouldn't allow us to do honors uh uh banquet and and all of those type things. So in essence, it really doesn't matter when you think about class rank and uh the Latin system that we have. We're going to recognize those individuals before the school year is over. So there's an assumption there that the students not going to do anything for that to lower. But
014at the end of the day, once all the grades are finished at the end of the school year and that's calculated, whatever that generates will be, you know, which category they're in. But in order for us again to be able to honor them, you can imagine that would be virtually impossible. the school year is over, you know, kids will be scattered and doing lots of different activities, vacations, and things like that. So, out of necessity, uh, we felt like it was prudent to go back to the original language, which is to the first semester of their senior year. That was pretty long drawn out. I just want you to understand we went the extra mile originally to try to find some way uh to make that more equitable but it's just you know we have
015courses that are through universities that we don't even have the scores yet for. So there's one situation where students not going to get credit for that. So when you look at all that and the fact that we can't make it totally equitable for everyone at the end of that third nine weeks their senior year, it just makes sense to go back to the end of the semester. >> Okay. Comments, questions about that? It is a battle. They I mean they're wanting everything they work for. >> Um we want >> and we do. But most college applications, it won't affect that as much because they've gone in usually before that time. Usually, most time they're done by that time. Okay. All right. Questions, comments? The item is to approve first reading of the following board policies.
0161.700, school district goals, and 4.602, honor role, awards, and class ranking. All those in favor say I. I. And. And any opposed. and there are none. Um the for your information part um you want to >> you'll notice there's an attachment there from our auditors with some information you know nothing bad there just something that we wanted to to share with you. So, okay, >> feel free to take a look at that. If you have questions, you can let me or Miss Wilson either one. >> And before we go, we probably just want to say just a minute, make sure we know kind of how everybody's going, when they're going. Make sure you have your sheet, know what you do when you get there uh for this conference this weekend. So, next regularly scheduled meeting
017be held on Thursday, August 21st, 2025 at 5:30 here. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Have a great evening. Thank you all for being here.