001Uh, welcome to the uh, annual bill setting and regular meeting Monday, July 21st, 2025. I'd like to call to order the public meeting. North Hunter and Bor's Regional High School District Board of Education meeting on Monday, July 20 21st, 2025 is now called to order. In accordance with the requirements of the Open Public Meeting Act, NJSA 1046. Adequate notice giving the time, date, location, and to the extent known the agenda, this meeting was published by the Star Ledger on June 16th, 2025. In addition, notice of this meeting has been posted at the North Hunton High School and Boris High School provided to the municipal clerks of Betham Township, Califon Burough, Town of Clinton, Clinton Township, Franklin Township, Glengardner Burrow, Hamptonboro, Hybridgeboro, Lebanon Burough, Lebanon Township, Tukesbury Township, and Union Township, as well as other interested
002parties and posted on the district website. Fire exits are located in the directions indicated. If alerted to fire, please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the nearest smokefree exit. Restrooms are located through the doors behind just behind me and to the right as indicated. At this time, please silence all cell phones. Roll call, please. >> Christina Kagno >> here. >> Ryan Chapman >> here. >> Angela Deini. >> Nicole Gallow >> here. >> Terra Marie Hint >> here. >> Beth Kotchan >> here. >> Rich Lord >> here. Brendan McGis >> here. >> Cynthia Rays >> here. >> Kimberly Celino >> here. >> Daniel Spanner >> here. >> And Jessica Vote >> here. >> You have corn. >> Thank you. Can we rise for the flag? >> Ice to the flag of the United States
003of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with justice for all. [Music] Okay. Can I have a motion and second to approve 4.1 4.2 which would be the minutes of June 19th and June 24th the special meeting and regular meeting. >> So move second. >> Was that >> I guess >> you get the one. You get the next one. Any discussion? [Applause] All in favor? >> I. >> Any nays or extensions? >> I need to abstain from 4.1. [Applause] >> As do I. From 4.1 at that meeting from one and two. >> So Jessica, Tara was both >> and Jessica and Brendan were 4.1. >> Yes. Thank you. [Applause] All set. Great. Um, at this time, um, we'd like to welcome Gwen Thornton from New Jersey School Board. She
004is our intern field rep. We welcome her. She is going to do our presentation for Bore goal setting. >> Welcome. Good evening. It's a pleasure to be back. Felt like I never left. No, because I am delighted to be back. I am delighted to be back. And so, um, I believe that you all have seen and received a copy of the board evaluation. Um, congratulations all of you completed it. I know it was a little bit of a technological struggle for a couple of folks, but we were able to get through that, which is delightful. Um, and so I'm here tonight to talk really about board goals. Um, and and this is my favorite piece around goals, and I'm sure you recognize them. Forgive their slump, but I actually do remember watching him play as
005a child. I was really little, of course. Um, but Yogi Bear. So, if you don't plan, you're going to end up somewhere you may not want to be, right? So, it really is important to have board goals around how you can be more effective as a board of education um in the processes that you use. And there is that overlap because essentially the dis your part of your role is to support the district goals um as a board of education and to ensure that you are supporting your administration in moving those district goals forward. Um but this really does look at how you operate and how you function and how you can be more effective in the kinds of things that you do as a board of education. So I always include your mission statement
006which is your reason to exist. Um, I think it's important to keep that at the heart of everything that you do. Um, and I know that you are and I could tell from reading your self valuation that all of you are truly committed to advancing um, educational opportunities for all students in your school district, which is critically important, especially um, at the rate of change that we live with in our society. um and making sure that you've prepared them for the world ahead as best we can since we don't obviously know what that's always going to look like moving forward. AI, the rate of technology, a whole host of reasons why. So, keeping that at the center of what you do. So, talking about board goals, why do you set them? Um, in thinking about
007that around policy development, as you know, by definition, one of your major responsibilities is to develop policy that provides a roadmap for your students, your staff, your community members, the board of education, and your bylaws. Um, you are by definition a policymaking body. It's one of your most critically important functions. um your oversight and monitoring through the budget um development and approval through looking at how you um maintain the fiscal efficiency of the school district um the superintendent's evaluation in terms of providing a um qualitative way of looking at that process ensuring that you are providing a comprehensive curriculum and instructional program I would also add to that a co-curricular program which for a lot of students is the reason they can focus on the curriculum, right? Um it can be as important communications both
008internally and externally as a board of education among and between yourselves but also with the broader community and of course because you are regional board with 12 or 13 sending districts, it's even more challenging to to make sure you are able to do that effectively because you come from so many different communities at the high school level. So enhancing your governance skills and your performance um making sure that you are effective so that the time you spend in your board meetings um are focused around student achievement that you keep students at the heart of every decision that you make um and lead with that. Um also around thinking about what professional development you may want to add um to the work that you do. I recognize that you're all volunteers and give up your time.
009I was a board member back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Um, and so I do recognize that it you have both personal and professional commitments, but this is also a commitment and it's one that is really worthy of taking the time to do well and then supporting, as we said in the beginning, your administration in achieving those district goals um so that you can continue to move forward for your kids. And I'm amazed at the size of the building since the last time I was here. That is incredible. The the tech school, it's come a long way in a year and a half or so. These are your board goals from last year. Um providing support for board members on the strategic planning process, reviewing and revising your bylaws to reflect current
010practices as necessary. um holding a meeting to develop and implement board norms and again holding yourselves to two virtual professional development opportunities um individually um that may meet your specific needs especially since you operate by committee. You are able to do that around some of the things and we offer of course a myriad of those virtual um opportunities. So, um, when you think about what goals you want to have, oops, next year, um, you know, what are the kinds of goals that will help you to be laser focused on the needs of the boards? Um, they may come from your strategic planning goals, maybe not. I know you've completed that process, which is wonderful. So, you can check that off your boxes completed from your board goals this past year. Um, it may come out
011of your board self-evaluation. You may want to carry over one from the previous year. And I would suggest that it's probably appropriate to carry over the board goal around setting board norms. I would strongly encourage you um to think about doing that in the 25 26 year since you did not have an opportunity to do that this past year. Okay. Um once you have a decided what goals you want to have for next year, action plans should be developed by the board and they should be reviewed quarterly so that you know that you are making progress on those goals. You know a goal without a plan is nothing but a wish, right? We can all say here's my goal. You know we all set them in January and by February 1, who can remember them?
012You don't want to be in that position. You want to make sure that if these are the goals that you wish to achieve that you are getting updates on them. They also help to communicate to your students and to your community that you are working toward a particular goal. Um and I think that's very helpful in building credibility with your communities at large. Okay. So in thinking about next year um I know you may have some thoughts from yourself. Um I looked at it and reviewed it. Um the area that you identified um is having the greatest need was around governance, teams, relationships and accountability. um so I think those were a couple of things that you identified. Norms came up several times which is why I was suggesting carrying that goal forward for 202526.
013Um, also there were several mentions about perhaps um building bridges um learning to have those discussions across difference. Um, and I think that that might be a critically important topic for you all to think about as well, having civil conversations around how do we bridge those differences that may exist among and between board members so that you can be more effective in the time that you're spending at your board meetings. Um, and I may want to suggest that. So, um, also, um, some of you mentioned the com committee system versus committee of the whole. Um, maybe that's something you want to explore. Maybe not. Um, but it was mentioned a couple of times by several board members in their comments around the self-evaluation, but I would certainly look to you for your suggestions as to
014which goals you would like to pursue for 202526. Brendan clarifying question when you were talking about um I guess I'm trying to understand uh setting norms versus building bridges would one not be inclusive of the other or is it sort of a separate kind of training that you're talking >> I think it's a separate kind of training I think it includes exploring communication skills the art of listening um and norms are about here's how we agree to operate um all the time before a meeting, during a meeting, and after a meeting. Here's how we're going to communicate with each other. Here, here are the kinds of things that we should be doing. So, before a meeting, making sure as a norm that you're notifying the board president if you can't be present at a committee
015meeting or whatever those norms are for your board. They look differently in different districts, but really um they're not exactly the same. Hopefully your norms reflect that you were able to dialogue across difference, but I also think perhaps it might be valuable to have that as a separate goal. >> So um one of the things that resonated with me was this idea that we could hone better give better understanding of execution of order. Would that just kind of fall I mean the board norm could be we operate under those principles but then we don't really have know them that well >> right so you could do well you could put that as part of a goal that says >> undertake professional development and then identify what specific professional development would be beneficial and Robert's rules
016of order would be certainly something you know that we could come out and train on. Do we have access to a parliamentarian? Uh, I don't know if we're our attorney. Does anyone know what a parliamentarian is other than me? >> I don't. >> Do you have one at your office? >> I I am one at many board meetings. >> Okay. So, >> I serve as a parliamentarian. >> We've been without one for a long time. And in most districts, the board attorney does, and I can attest that Phil does know how to do that. Um, I've known Phil for years and years. Um, and typically the business administrator and or the board attorney oper in most districts operates as the parliamentarian. So, so if I were to advocate for more than just having someone here,
017more than just one day of one hour of training, it seems like it's going to it's there's a lot to it and and you might need, you know, quarterly or something. Is that getting too much in the weeds for a goal? >> No, I don't I don't believe so. You know, most boards use Robert's rules of order in a pretty simplistic way to be and that allows you to be effective. Now, you can get down in the weeds and talk about um all kinds of um how to resin versus how to like there all kinds of things that you can do, but most boards don't use it at that level. But certainly we can go through them so that you understand them and understand how to use them or misuse them as the case may
018be because some boards who become expert in it sometimes use it to styy progress as opposed to make progress. Um, so you need to be aware of that because that's one of the kinds of downsides to it that exist and I like to be very forthright about that. Um, and I can teach you how to use it and how to misuse it, but I think it's important and you probably even have it in your bylaws already that you operate under Robert's rules of order, I would suspect. So having a working knowledge of that would probably be very helpful. >> Brendan, >> um having recently completed the strategic plan in the communications committee tonight as as the report sort of the first piece of information from that. I I guess as we shift from checking the
019box of doing the plan to moving towards really and hopefully robustly supporting the plan um particularly around the area of the goals that are coming from the plan and how we're sort of measuring and tracking those things. What would potentially be a goal in in that direction that doesn't say like, okay, it's done, moving on, but rather really making that part of our process and work going forward. >> Well, typically you're going to use your strategic plan. You should be able to pull your annual district goals from your strategic plan and your superintendent, excuse me, and the administrative team will develop action plans to implement the particular part of the strategic plan. can't do a strategic plan all in one year, right? So, it's a multi-year plan and so typically boards will in collaboration with
020your administration pull your annual district goals from the strategic plan. Your administration will then develop action plans as to what's going to occur in that particular goal area or that facet of a goal in a given year. Um, and then again, your administration should be providing you with quarterly updates as a board of education around here's where we are, here are the steps we've accomplished so far, here's, you know, here are the things that are mitigating against us finishing it or, you know, for example, during um, COVID, during Hurricane Sandy, people had strategic plans that went for the whole year because they needed to get their kids back into school because you had to go virtual overnight. So sometimes, you know, you don't always get to the end point you wish to, but at least
021having a sense of where you are, what's been accomplished. And so I think the way the board can support the strategic plan is through the work in the committees because I'm certain there's probably facilities implications to your strategic plan. There are curriculum and instructional pieces to your strategic plan. There are probably mental health components. I mean there are my and they may be in different parts that go with the committees that you have. So within your committees you will be working on it should drive the work of your committees the goals that you have as a district across the year. That's what you should be working on. Um and then having those reports and then I think annually um when you do your district goal setting to get an update on okay here's what we've
022accomplished over the course of the year in the strategic plan. It also helps your community to understand they approved um the strategic the boards approved it they've participated in it. You know you can't invite the public in ask them what they think and then ignore them. That is a recipe for disaster. So you want to be able to communicate to your public. You live stream your meetings. They should be able to see what you've done over the course of the year to move the district closer to completing the goals for the year and ultimately the strategic plan and talking about it enough. You should make sure that you are funding um whatever the goals are in terms of your budget to provide support. Again, there are going to be costs. You know, some goals in
023strategic plan may have component pieces that have low cost and high impact. other ones are going to have high cost and may have to be spread out over multiple years in order to achieve them. So, you know, making sure that you are budgeting around those goals and to provide support whether it's personnel, whether it's facilities, whatever it happens to be driven by making sure that you do that on an annual basis is important as well. And I guess what I'm maybe trying to understand is that is or given all the dimensions of that that you just outlined that I I'm just wondering is is there a dimension of a goal there in terms of you know really doing that work with fidelity in the ways that it guides all of those things versus kind of
024slipping into business as usual um and then uh you know a quarterly report or something. >> Well, I think it would be helpful. I mean, I haven't seen it, so I don't know and I don't know what your annual goals are, but I think identifying um within your strategic plan the annual goals you're going to pull from it and then assigning those to a committee to drive the work of your committees would be the most effective way to accomplish that. And I'm not sure that raises to the level of a board goal, but I think from a organizational perspective as a way of looking at the work that makes the most sense in moving it forward. >> One of the thoughts I had around this Brennan was that we could as a board decide that
025every meeting we're going to touch on this somehow, right? Like in public session like was talking about it. The text to me gets at something about the the vision mission piece of the self-evaluation that we were kind of low on >> and the community engagement that we're kind of low on. >> Yeah. >> And maybe it's it's it's goals, annual goals, the district annual goals, but maybe it's the pillars. I was thinking you know the the pillars that we set out we can have a discussion you know on you know pillar one pillar two pillar three pillar four 5 1 2 3 4 5 or you know just make a goal that we're going to talk about the what you know the aspects of the district goal I'm sorry strategic plan in some way or
026fashion >> can we align the plan and Then are the pillars of the plan like you said to committees where that can be one of their touch points in the committee meetings so that we can it can be reported out from the committee meetings perhaps >> instead of a new line item it's just >> yeah just an add not as something new for the meeting but just um an update that the committee chair provides to the pillar of the strategic plan that aligns with that committee. Does that make sense? >> Another I've seen >> I mean we don't know what the strategic plan is yet, >> right? Yeah. >> So that's where we're challenged. >> I I have seen it done a number of different ways. Some districts create a a live dashboard >> um
027that that can be updated as you move forward so that you can see completion using a dashboard which is a great visual. Um, I've also seen in districts and your superintendent's not going to like this. Um, where actually uh and probably your business administrator even less um where they have attached to every motion what goal it supports. >> I know Rich has been doing that in his weekly report. he's been aligning the things that he talks about um and replies and gives us updates on to his personal goals or >> district well you all and the district goal but yeah >> and I think I think it's nice on the agenda because I think it helps you all as you're going through the agenda and voting to see what it is and how and helps
028your public to understand how you are supporting the progress that needs to be made, right? Because you've now tied it to a very specific piece. And I think that that's really important. You know, it's really easy to go through a full agenda and and not even recognize that you're doing that, right? And it's so it's a way of keeping that at the forefront of your work. Um, and that's something that you might want to consider as well. >> Um, just a question on the the live dashboard that you were mentioning. Is that something that where you've seen it, it's live to the public or live just to the board? >> No, live to the public. >> Live to the public on a different website so that you can actually see the progress that's being made.
029And I think that that's a really helpful communications tool. >> I don't have the technological skills to be able to do that, but I know that people have done it and it really has worked. And I think it's very effective, especially in a district as large as this. And by large, I mean that encompasses so many different communities that it's a very visible way of saying here's what we're working on. Here's the progress we're making. And I think that's helpful. >> Do you recall a district that we might be able to look at? If not, I'll do a search. >> You have to do a search. I don't really remember off the top of my head. >> It'll be out there, >> but it is it is out there. More than one district does it.
030>> Fabulous. Thank you. So are we trying to set the board goals today? Because I my my only hesitation is that I think there is a desire to kind of look at what the strategic plan is, right? And then align the goals to the plan at least for what we're doing this this coming year. So how does that work? >> If we look at our board goals, can we look at our board goals from last year again, Gwen? >> Sure. >> And then you also have to consider that we're missing one tonight, too. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. >> Um, >> but that wasn't the plan. So, Rich and I, we have been discussing this >> with the strategic plan roll out information. Rich wants the opportunity to share the district goals and with we have
031board members out. We want to digest this, have the presentation. We just got our our evaluation. It's a lot to encompass and we need time to digest. I think it's a good brainstorming right now coming up with what do we want to see? What are we going to carry over? what are we, you know, what's new and then we can next month finalize them. >> Sounds good. >> Absolutely. >> I do like that idea. >> Um, >> I forgot my question when you >> It'll come back to me at the time, but >> I think the last piece on professional development is still >> No, something >> current and needed. I I I do, but I would encourage you to do it as a board rather than individually. Okay? I think the most effective boards
032are boards that learn together. And while I applaud you for doing it individually and not suggesting you stop doing that, please continue to do that. It's what keeps us busy. Um I I think I'm kidding. Um I think it's equally as important for the board to learn together. How do you see that for all attending something? >> Yes, I do. I do the full board team and I know it's a lot and I know it's a lot to ask, but you can do it for an hour before a regular board meeting just like this. And I know it's a struggle because you probably all didn't get to eat and I'm really sorry uh about that. I'll bring cookies. Um I don't want you being hungry, but I think it's important. I really genuinely do. I
033genuinely do. So, um, those are just a couple of the things that, you know, when I looked at your self-evaluation, those were the couple of areas that stuck out to me that might be most valuable for you to work on. >> Okay. >> But, but if I'm understanding that correctly, Gwen, you're sort of saying that training could be something that we then reach out and coordinate to have as part of our regular meeting schedule anyway when there's consensus around a need or a topic or something. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. happy to do that. That's what we're here for. >> And then uh and Jess, I don't know if this is going to help you remember your question. Um but kind of going back to a little bit of what Brian and Christina were saying um
034and maybe Taran Beth as well, this idea of communication I feel like is something that has come up in a lot of places both in our self-evaluation and through the strategic plan sort of the recognized need for more of it. Um, and I'm feeling as though some of the things that you're suggesting from dashboards to the labeling of motions, uh, to Brian's point about, um, you know, ensuring that our committee is sort of organized around those things. I guess I do see that as a way of sort of keeping the plan focused and in the spotlight, but in a communicative way. And I know as part of the um community relations, we were talking a little bit more around the new district newsletter from this past year and the opportunity for the board to have
035even a place there to sort of communicate and update those things as well. So I see the potential for a very multifaceted approach to that. >> And I I think you can never overcommunicate >> period ever. We just have to continue to continue to work on that. We're never going to be perfect. No one ever is. Even the people have, you know, hundreds of people that work in large corporations around communications, they stumble, too. Um, and and you're all volunteers. It's a much different piece, but it you cannot overcommunicate because it really is it's so easy. Um, you know, the the state average was, and I'd have to go check the numbers again, but in most communities, the average percentage of people that have children in your district, and especially because you're a limited purpose
036regional, it's even probably less, is 20%. So 80% of the populations in your community don't necessarily touch the school in any fashion. So, making sure that you're getting the word out not only to parents, but also to those community members whose support you really do need for your district because we live in a time when, you know, there's all kinds of uncertainty. We're going to have a brand new legislature um come fall, a new governor, the Department of Education is being dismantled apparently. Um, and I'm not commenting one way or the other, you know, but COVID money has dried up. I don't see things as financially getting easier for districts. And so, ensuring that you are communicating with your communities as effectively as you can all the time, is critically important because you're going to
037need their support moving forward. every school district across the state uniform, no matter how big, no matter how small, um that's going to be something that you're all going to have to continue to work with and deal with. So, so thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure always to see all of you. I hope the rest of your summer is peaceful and quiet. I look forward to seeing you at workshop in October, if not before. Um, but I hope to see many of you before that. If you need anything, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm on the website. If you don't know how to get me, I'm there. My phone number, you're always welcome to call or email. I will always get back to you. So, >> thank you
038so much. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Have a good night. >> Thank you. >> So, I Edison, Ramsey, and Willingboro. The dashboards are amazing. You need to look at these. >> Edison Township, Ramsey, and Willingboro has great ones. Edison is the vision 2030. Ramsey says road to 2029 and then they have it and they have the school emblem where yellow means they're here and completing the goal and really user friendly. So we we really should look at this. I know there'll be a cost but >> there might be a program that'll get actually be ran here. We can use our technology. >> But yeah, these are great. So this will once we get in place then the public we can you know and everything that's done can be reported through here to keep
039everyone a breast. We um have some great in-house talent as well. >> Great. >> He's hiding. >> Tara, that was Edison. >> Willingboro down south. >> Might be a project that we can use French as a uh as a in the curriculum in the technology classes too. >> Awesome. >> We can look at that. You know, if we want something to be done quickly though now, maybe the maintenance of that. >> Maybe the maintenance. That's a good point. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. >> Well, thank you to when Thank you for >> Do before we drop before we get off the topic, do we have a meeting scheduled to develop board norms yet? >> No. >> Okay. >> So, there was nothing from that though. And these goals, mind you, were uh last year's goals,
040>> right? And we didn't, as you know, we did not even complete a board self-evaluation. Half the board did it, half the board didn't. And we never had a final comp compilation. So, this is the first time in two years that we've had a board self-evaluation. >> It didn't happen last year or the year before. >> And why is that? >> They just didn't get completed. >> But what was the reason? >> It's actually not required. >> It's not It's not mandated. It's a best practice. But I think we were also dealing with superintendent a lot of things >> changes. There was a lot of things going on but but it it's something that even though it's not mandated we don't have to check a box it's something that we a tool for us a
041skill for us to >> communicate and we learn about the board and this if you went through this uh this uh self >> it was very informative and I think we all all of us spoke similarly. >> Yeah. So that's was the commonality. So >> sure. >> Um at this time uh we would like um Richard Bron to step forward and join us. Um Rich is going to present on the 2025 NJPA results and the access for ELLLS results. Rich, the floor is yours. >> Good evening everybody. So, um, as you heard, I'm here to present two different, uh, results of two different, uh, state tests. First off, the NJ GPA, which is the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment. So, this is the assessment that all juniors take in March of their junior year. Um,
042it does help to determine whether or not students are eligible to graduate. uh there is an ELA component, there is a math component and the um the ELA is based on grade 10 standards and the math is based on algebra 1 and geometry standards. So students uh who take but do not meet the minimum score which is 725 on each component do have additional opportunities um and receive additional supports. So they can retake the ELA andor math component whichever one they didn't pass. Um and that's in the summer and then again in the fall. So actually starting today is the summer administration for this. So we had some students in the building today retaking the NJTPA or in some cases taking it for the first time. There will also be an administration in in October
043for that. Uh they also have the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency through a menu of substitute competency tests such as the PSAT or SAT or finally if needed they can complete a portfolio appeal. Um so and I'll talk about some of those at the end of the presentation. So usually I always preface the conversations by saying that these scores do not include the results from students in the academy and full-time polytech programs. Based on our discussions from a previous presentation, I have included both. There's the one column that's labeled the official results which do not include those students and then there's the unofficial which do include those students. So we can see um the impact that that has on our uh results as well. So these are the official results. Um and it shows first off
044in a lefthand column the percentage of students who are there's only two different proficiency bands for the NJ GPA. there's graduation ready or not yet graduation ready. So on the left hand side we have the graduation ready from 24 and then next to that the graduation ready percentage for 25. So you can see that the official results are that 92.7% of our students were graduation ready in ELA which is an increase from last year of 1.3%. And in mathematics 77.4% 4% of our students were considered graduation ready this year, which is an increase of 5.7%. So at this point, I add in the academy students as well. So it bumps it up for ELA to 93.5% and to 78.7% for math. And I also include at this point the state numbers. So 80.7% of the
045students across the state were considered graduation ready in ELA. and 58% across the state in mathematics. So as you can see we are uh you know much higher than the state averages in in both categories. Uh at this point this is all that we know. We know how we did. We know how the state uh overall did. Uh in a few months we will get the results from all the schools and then we'll be able to take a look at you know the other schools that we typically compare ourselves to. But at this point we just know how we did and how the the overall state numbers were. Now before we go into the individual schools, I want to take you back in time a couple of years. So this class of 2026, if you
046remember when we looked at their NJSLA scores when they were in nth grade, there was Vorhees was abnormally high and North was abnormally low. Um to the point where for ELA, Vorhees was 85% proficient and North Hunan students were 55% proficient. We had never seen a gap that large between the two schools before. Well, I'm happy to report that over the two years since they took that assessment, that gap has shrunk considerably. Still have extremely high scores at Vorhees, but the north schools uh scores are also very high. So, I'll I'll look at the unofficial where we include all of our students. 90.2% of the students at North Hunter were considered graduation ready and 98.6% of students at Vorhees were considered graduation ready. So that 30 point gap in 2023 narrowed down to about eight
047and a half percentage points which is truly remarkable. I mean it's it's amazing that we were able to uh get that close to um to each other after those two years. >> It is a different test. Excuse me. >> It's a different test same student >> similar. >> Yeah platform and similar uh so technically the NJSLA is based on the ELA 9 standards. This is based on the ELA 10 standards. Honestly, the nine and 10 standards are exactly the same. So, I don't know how they differentiate because the standards, it's a band. 9 and 10 is one band and 11 and 12 is the other band. So, they're pulling from the same bank of questions for these assessments. They they're the only difference in ELA is that um and Brendan correct me if I'm wrong
048but on the ELA on the NJSLA it is the narrative uh writing that the students do but on the NJ GPA it is the literary analysis that the students do. So but otherwise the test is essentially the same. Actually, another question too. The common assessments that we that were implemented will the the juniors that will take the NJ GPA will be the freshmen that received have have had well I shouldn't say the students that will have received the common assessments all the way through. Right. >> Yes. So it should we begin should we see hopefully any even greater increase with those scores after the the juniors take these exams >> that would be nice >> right I mean that's what the hope is right I mean that's >> just that these are really high to
049begin with but yes >> but but even like on the it would seem that that was really the purpose was to try to get everybody level set so that that when they're taking this exam we would see an improvement, right? >> It is. Yes. And that common assessment is supposed to guide our instruction, make sure if we see gaps, we're filling those, make sure students are better prepared. >> Okay. Okay. So, it'll be really interesting to see this time next year. >> Absolutely. >> So, as always, >> question. Sorry. So on the the both the unofficial the official and the unofficial at North if I'm reading this right. So the graduation ready 2024 verse the graduation ready 2025 both ticked down slightly. >> Correct. Yes. >> Correct. Whereas 40s went up significantly. >> Yes. And
050is there any >> that's and that's why I gave the comparison in 2023 when the class were freshman that that was the same pattern before that this the class of 2026 throughout you know in 9th grade and then again in 11th grade they've been abnormally low in north and abnormally high at war just that particular cohort of students going through the system. Um, but you know the from where they were in freshman year to where they are junior year, >> we're we're kind of happy with just that slight dip. >> Obviously, you want it to increase. >> I understand what you're saying, right? >> But looking at the historical from where they were, >> right? >> Yes. >> And I guess the same applies to the not yet >> graduation ready. North is showing uptick
051in both official and unofficial whereas for east is went down significantly. >> Yeah. And it's just those two bands. That's that's the only way to do report. >> Yeah. >> So, one of the ways that we look at this information is uh we're we publicly report the information for subgroups that have 10 or more students. And uh we have both the 24 and the 25 results so we can see the the comparisons over the two years. Um the students with disabilities, you know, that was around 60% or so. outside of students with disabilities, every other subgroup that we're reporting had at least 90% proficiency rate um on the ELA portion, which I've never seen before. I mean, it's it's really remarkable um how consistent it was across the board with students. Uh so like we
052did uh with ELA with math looking back to 2023 it was almost double the proficiency rate for algebra 1 when they were in fresh when they were freshman was almost double that of North Hunter where uh the students at North Hunter were at 23% and students at Vorhees were at 44%. Uh the geometry was a little you know closer 72% at North Hunteran of Vorhees 64% proficient at that point. So again these numbers um got much closer as well with uh north 174% of the students graduation ready looking at all of the students and almost 86% of the students at Vorhees being graduation ready for mathematics. So um you know again it was double at Vorhees Vorhees was two times the percentage of students were proficient at Vorhees than in North for algebra one. Um
053so you know closing that gap again and you can see the comparisons where both schools did increase uh from where they were in 2024 with the mathematics section. Again looking at the subgroups um and we can see our students with disabilities struggling um and our Asian students with the highest percentage of of students who were proficient or graduation ready on this assessment. But again we see the comparison from 2024 to 2025. And again, we report the students who had at least 10 or more students in each subgroup. So, as far as the achievements, um, as you saw, the percentage of students who are graduation ready, well above this data average for both ELA and math. And then the overall district-wide percentage of students who are graduation ready increased from 20 uh 2024 for both ELA
054and math. And for students who are struggling throughout the year, we do have uh workshop classes to give students that extra support. We obviously have our resource rooms which are housed uh throughout the day with um teachers in that subject area that if students have a study hall they can go to for extra help. And then obviously we always have from 2:30 to 3:10 where teachers are available for extra help as well. Uh we are continuing to have our online tutoring program for the 2526 school year. And for students who are not meeting the standards in their courses, we have our response to intervention program where a team of people including the students and the parents work together to identify some interventions that can help the students uh be successful. And just to reiterate, for
055students who have not yet demonstrated proficiency based on this assessment, there's the summer administration, uh there's the fall administration, and obviously they're getting support throughout uh not just giving them the test, but also they're in a workshop class to help them learn those skills to be successful on it. They will also have the opportunity to take the PSAT in October. We administer the ACUPPLACER as needed. That's a test that we can give multiple times and get immediate feedback. And then finally, if needed, um they will complete a portfolio assessment that we submit to the state for final approval. >> Do you have I think that's the final slide for this presentation. >> Do the um the workshop classes occur in the summer if they're taking this in July? >> No, they do not. So during
056the for the summer uh remediation, they they're using the online uh tutoring program. >> Yes. Have you seen a difference between the online in relevance to the inerson? >> Uh well yeah it's definitely more effective in person but it's also the online is only if they choose to utilize that platform. So >> so it's not a requirement. Right. >> No. Yes. >> So you mentioned that as the data comes in you take this and compare it to your similar set of schools. Correct. >> Okay. Once you have once you have that is that something that you may come back and share. >> What we've done is to go over that in committee. >> Okay. >> So that's typically what we do when those results come out. >> Any other questions about the NJGPA? Rich, I
057can't remember if in the committee um regarding the students with disabilities given that that can be that can encompass a range of students from students who might be exempt to um alternative assessments to you know in-class support and everything along those lines. Um do you get a better sense of um like identifying those students who your different measures are working for or targeting and for the student would those students be taking all the same common assessments also or does that vary depending on program as well? depending on program. Uh for the most part, they they are if they're in a pullout class, they are taking a modified version of that common assessment as well. Um but that's one of the, you know, as as the changes that we made with our director of special education
058and also um director of uh curriculum for special education. Those are some things that we really want to dig into because we do get the data file to take a look at those too. Just following up on that though. So, you know, I was looking at what the ELA scores were, which again for students with disabilities, which are they're good and there's always room for improvement, but you look at the map and significantly less. So, is it that and I'm not sure how to say this about the are the are the um types of questions and the type of math that's on the NJGPA very different from the math that we're teaching the students with disabilities such that there's just no way they're going to be able to take the mathematics portion and be successful.
059Well, you know, whether or not it's different is um the issue is that there are a lot of students who have a math disability, >> right? Of course. >> You know, so um you modify the instruction as appropriate for those students and you do the best that you can to get them prepared for it, but if they have a math disability, it's something that they're definitely going to struggle with. But they're still >> And so how how does that work if we're trying to get students with disabilities, if it's a math disability, for example, to pass the the NDGPA requirements? How do we do that? >> It's a lot of individualized instruction, >> okay? >> And working with students and and a lot of students who are in that situation, that's why the portfolio uh
060process is so much more effective because what you can do throughout that process is work directly with your teacher and take you through those steps. And you can, you know, there's certain uh points that we have to take the students through to be successful on it, but we can modify those as the practice to go through the instruction and take them through, okay, this is how you solve this problem and you go through these steps and then complete the performance task that demonstrates proficiency. So, it's much more individualized in working with the teacher throughout that process. >> Okay. And is the students with and I'm not sure because you also have students do with 504 plans which is different right are the students with disabilities students with an IEP respect >> um >> okay >>
061got it >> rich I sort of recall um well I have one question and then and then one recollection um the question is um the students with disabilities who have accommodations in both their instructional program and then by extension during the assessment itself. Um, do you have data that reveals the extent to which they are accessing those accommodations? And I feel like this sort of connects to something that might have come up in committee once before, but I think it was about the um the common assessments and your ability to even identify the amount of time spent per item by students. I thought I recalled there being a trend that among some of the students with disabilities, you see very quick progress through the assessment. In other words, potentially not even spending uh ample time
062on items and and just moving through the assessment very quickly. >> Yes. And and and this isn't really addressing the students with disabilities part of it, but we we can see uh I mean we can see individually for each individual student how much time they spend on each unit of the test. Um and typically what we see is uh the higher the level, the more time students spend on the assessment. Yes. So, I guess it sort of opens up a question and this I think gets back to Beth's point a little bit. Um, obviously students have accommodations and um I mean one of the challenges is how do you get students to avail themselves of the accommodations that they're afforded to the extent that it puts them in the best position to be successful with
063the assessment. Um, and I don't know how much of that is, you know, a point of specific knowledge versus more of a habit of perseverance or or or sticking with difficult challenging material. um which may not be rectified just by virtue of common assessments being common but rather sort of um a whole other set of sort of um you know just comfort skills and sort of stamina with those kinds of things which I realize is a potentially a very different challenge from straight mapping structure >> and that's definitely something that Jen and her team work diligently on. Yes, absolutely. >> Yes. Any other questions with the NJGPA? Okay. Well, this second one is the first time I'm presenting this. Uh, this is the access for ELLL's assessment. So, access for ELLLs is an acronym that
064stands for assessing comprehension and communication in English state-to-state for English language learners. um what we used to call English English English language learners, most states now call multilingual learners. So you'll hear me refer to students as MLS throughout this presentation. Uh but New Jersey is part of a consortium with 42 states in the District of Columbia that administer this assessment. It's the access for ELLL's assessment and it's given to students kindergarten through 12th grade. There is an a separate test for kindergarten. um I forget the grade bands for all of them, but then there's a separate test for 9 through 12. So all of our students obviously take the 9 through 12 assessment. Um and our students take it during the testing window, which was February and March. So, the purpose of this assessment is
065to monitor student progress in English language proficiency on a yearly basis and to serve as just one of the many criteria that educators consider as they determine whether English learners have attained an English language proficiency level that will allow them to meaningfully participate in English language classroom instruction without additional language support. So, I know that that's a mouthful, but I wanted to read it that way because it's important to understand that the goal for this assessment is to find out whether or not they still need to remain in the program because obviously the goal is to get students into a general education course and with, you know, with their peers and everything. So, this is one of the criteria to see whether or not they are eligible or able to be successful um without this
066program. It's an online assessment. Um, it obviously measures academic English language proficiency. And the most important, you know, I'm going to give you the district-wide results for this assessment, but the the most useful information is for the individual student. The teachers get this information. You know, as soon as we get back to school, the teachers will get the uh student report for the students that they have so that they can see where students are with their speaking, listening, reading, and and those kinds of things. And obviously, we use these to monitor student progress um throughout the year. So uh it helps us to evaluate the supports we're providing to students in the program and it also helps us to identify in what areas individual students need support. So I mentioned that this is one of
067the criteria that can be used to help students exit the program. Um I I'll go over the different proficiency bands in a minute, but students need to have a 4.5 or higher on this assessment in order to be eligible to exit the program. And then secondly, there's an English language observation form that the teacher is complete that indicates the student is ready to exit. So just because they have a 4.5 or higher on their overall score doesn't necessarily mean that they are definitely uh leaving the program. The teachers obviously uh review that as well. So there's a lot of information that we receive on these individual student reports. There's eight different C eight different categories. The first four are the language domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. And then those four categories are used
068to create four additional categories. There's an oral language category which is a combination of listening and speaking. There's a literacy category which is a combination of reading and writing. There's a comprehension category that's combination of listening and reading. And then there's the overall category that's combin combination of all four language domain scores. So what I'll be reporting here is for each of those eight different C categories um these different uh proficiency levels from the lowest of entering to the highest of reaching which is a six. So the the test is scored one through six and again the 4.5 is required to exit the program. So you know the information that I'm providing here is gives us a snapshot of all the students who took the assessment. It's just important to realize that some students may
069have started learning English the week before this test. Some may have started three years ago, you know. So, the overall scores don't tell us a whole lot. It helps us to identify some areas of improvement for the individual students and collectively it helps us to identify some areas for improvement for our whole program. Um, but you'll see for each of these a wide range. It is interesting to note that for listening the majority well I don't I don't say the majority but most of the students are on that reaching area um and that is because it's you know the the receiving information is easier to than delivering information. So that's why you see the speaking component on the lower end of the proficiency bands there. Uh the reading is kind of spread out throughout all
070of the the proficiency levels. Uh the writing again performing you know providing that output of the writing is one of the most difficult things just like the speaking and the oral language you can see it spread out throughout here. Um literacy also spread out with the majority of the students in that developing area. Uh comprehension is is really spread out throughout and the overall and again students need that 4.5 or higher. So that's that expanding to bridging area. So we do have a couple of students who are eligible to uh exit the program. So as you notice with the NJGPA, the state requires us to give disagregated information and also um comparative analyses where we compare yeartoear. So we did not have enough students take the assessment to give the disagregated student group. Like for
071example, I couldn't break it down by grade because there weren't 10 or more students in any grade. there weren't 10 or more students in any subgroup. So I'm not able to provide any disagregated information and I also can't compare it to last year because this is the first time that we've had enough students take this assessment to provide you know to do the public um presentation. So obviously we still have given this test in the past but not enough students have taken it in order to publicly present the the results. So, as far as intervention stat uh strategies, all of and this is a statewide requirement. All ML students are required to have a class with an ESL certified teacher every day. So, all of our students in this program have that. Um, we are
072also starting an ML English class for the 2526 school year. Um, all of our ML students have the same school counselor and obviously if if a student does exit the program, we're still required to monitor the student for a couple of years just to make sure that it was the right call and they don't need additional supports. So, we continue to monitor the students even after they exit the program. Um, Brendan mentioned before about standardized testing accommodations. That also goes for students who are uh ML students. they are eligible for standardiz standardized testing accommodations such as extended time and they can also use word-to-word translation dictionaries while they're taking the assessments not just this assessment but also the NJGPA NJSLA those kinds of assessments and perhaps the most important intervention strategy is we do have
073regular ML articulation meetings with our sending dis districts and also with local high schools um the population is increasing u we have a lot more ML students in our district and when we look at across all of our sending districts, it is a much larger population and we get together regularly to talk about, you know, the students who are coming into the high school and the strategies to help students be successful. So that is um certainly something that we have an increased focus on. Any questions about this? Yes, >> I just had a question. So I was just taking a look back to see when the testing window was. Is there an exemption for for students that come into the district without without any um uh having taken any EL classes or ML classes before
074entering the district. >> So there is an exemption for the NJSLA or NJ GPA if it's their if it's the student's first year in an in a u is if it's their first year learning English, they do not have to take the ELA portion of the NJSLA or NJGPA. Um, however, there is not an exemption for this access for ELLL's assessment. >> So, I know for example, this year we did have students come in during the testing window and you know I I actually think we had a student who was their first day. >> It's unfortunate. >> Yes. Yes. Well, I'll I'll add to that that I mean, a student who's been in the district their second year and is in their second year of learning English has to take the same NJ GPA our
075are kids who have been speaking English all their lives have to take which is crazy. >> It goes that and special education and students all of that to me just feels like a real disadvantage for those students take. >> Yeah. and we and when possible we are able to test the students towards the end of that window in those circumstances. Um but it's it's not that long. I mean it's it goes over two months but um administratively to get the teachers back in the classroom and everything as well. So and it's not punitive or anything. >> We only offer the test in English. >> That's yeah the it's an English proficiency assessment. >> Not this test but I mean the other one. >> Oh the other one. So uh they math is eligible in Spanish
076only. So there is a Spanish math assessment for the NGSLA and NJGPA but no other languages. So you know we we talk about Spanish as for the primary uh language that students are coming in with but we have students speaking a lot of other languages as well. >> Yes. One of the other things and and maybe you've encountered it already, but as this cohort grows, students who are exiting at that level six access proficiency, the gap between that proficiency and the NJSLA or GPA is massive. And I don't know um I don't know if in the ML classes or the the English ML classes um you know you're already embedding the kinds of products that they would be doing for the portfolio simply because again that gap is so so big. >> It is and
077and one of the challenges is that we'll we will have students in all different grade levels in in the same class. So that's that's one of the challenges. >> I do you think though you check me on this you you may be able to have them take those portfolio assessments theoretically I believe anywhere in their time moving through the program. Admittedly you want to do it when they're the most ready and capable of doing it. But um it is something that you might be able to bank if it's naturally embedded in the curriculum. >> And if they if they um go through reaching when they take that assessment, would they still be given accommodations of extra time even though they're now considered >> if they exit the program, they would not have Yes. >> Use
078of gap is great. They couldn't capitalize on the word to word or translating or extra time, >> right? the English class that was just that started this year for ML students. What happened prior to that? Can you explain also what what that looks like? What is an ML? >> So all students are required all ML students are required to have an ESL class with an ESL certified teacher. So they did have that ESL class and the teacher in that class was helping to support them in all of their classes basically. Um so helping them acquire the English but they were in general education English classes. Um and you know this year we were able to have more of uh individual people going pushing into those classes to to provide some support but even more so
079just providing the professional development for the teachers of how to best support the students. We were able to do quite a bit of professional development this year to help um teachers see how to help students and also to utilize some of the technology that we have to make communication easier. >> Okay. Is is that class happening in both schools? >> No. So the program is at North. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Are Vorhees students going there? >> Um we if we have a student at Vorhees who is in need of those services, they would go to North. >> Okay. One more question about the the um cut score. Do we establish the 4.5 state? >> Yes. >> Uh are we able to keep students in that class longer if we wanted to require the six?
080>> Um we have the ability to it's the first criteria. There's also an observation form that is completed by the teacher. So, um, the bottom line is we want to get students into the least restrictive environment, you know, and if they don't need the support and if they're better off leaving the program, that's what we would do. But that's why the teacher is involved in that process and a student and the team gets together to see what is the best what's best for that individual student. >> Okay. So, we can if the teacher feels that >> that they still need >> they still need it. Okay. >> Yes. >> Rich, what happens if by chance that occurs student um moves out of the program? But there's a need two months later, 3 months. Are we
081able to backtrack and that teacher can recommendation back to the program? >> Yes, that's that's why we're required to monitor the student for two years. So we can absolutely bring it back into the program if we find that that's necessary. >> Any other questions? All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Moving on, uh, chief school administrator administrator's report. Dr. Bja. >> Thank you, Kim. So, first before I start my report, I would like to issue a warm welcome to Phil Stern. Phil is our new general counsel. I'm sure everyone um got to meet Phil quickly at the beginning of the um meeting. I know he was making rounds, but uh we're excited to work with Phil. Uh we've had quite a few meetings already with him, and
082um very excited to see where he can help us in the coming year. So, welcome. >> Thank you. All right. Uh I do want to report on a few things that have been happening since school let out. First, uh the Hunter County Teen Arts Festival um provides a forum to students to showcase their talents through exhibitions of visual art, theatrical presentations, dance, vocal, and instrumental music performances and presentations of original film and creative writing. Students experience the work of their peers and receive constructive feedback from professional artists. This year, the Teen Arts Festival was themed Wizard of Arts. They had over 760 students from 16 schools attend. And I want to send some congratulations to Boris High School Drama Club for receiving gold in musical theater. And Waqen Arce of Borhees High School for receiving
083bronze in vocal solos and also the Boris Drama Club and Waqin were recognized at the Hunington County Commissioners meeting on July 15th. And so >> that's great. >> Great form of recognition for them. I want to let everyone know that we have a blood drive coming up in North Hunter. They are hosting the summer blood drive on this Thursday coming up on July 24th in the main gym from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Um, information was sent out to the parents last week. Uh, but you know, anybody that can make it to the blood drive, um, Mr. Dorenzo will be eternally grateful. He loves having those numbers up and um, and we have a great, um, community that really supports that. So, uh, the extended school year has started at both North Hunter and Borise
084on July 7th. Students come in daily from 8 to 12. And the sole purpose of the ESY is for special education students to maintain their skills and prevent regression. Uh it will be going through August 1st, which I believe is next Friday. And um and students have been doing very well in it. It's been a great program. I try to visit it whenever I can each day. Um and Jen and Bobby have been giving me some great updates. So we're very happy with how that's progressed. Uh and if you've been on campus, you've noticed that it's been a busy place. Most of that that you see on the outside and on the inside as well has been sports camps and a lot of um you know which is great to see because it's nice to
085see our feeder programs participating in these sport camps. These kids that'll be here in 1 2 3 years um that includes you know the arts as well. Uh it's been great to see them participating and be as busy as they are. So hopefully we have some great years coming up. I do want to say uh I'm sure everyone has seen some of the progress on the Polytech site. Um, right now they are saying August 25th they are hoping for a TCO. Um, you know that'll be the first day for students. If that is the case, I think that's that that would be great. Uh, the contractors have been working really hard trying to get that um site cleared. If I was told they're going to have paving equipment on site this week. Um, I didn't
086see any today, but you know, they're they're they're close. And I think once those things start, um, the interior has had a lot of things um, completed. you know, there's still going to be some painting probably over the course of the whole year, but I think, you know, we're we're confident that we're going to get in there, if not on August 25th, you know, very soon after that. So, um, that'd be great. And last, but certainly not least, um, as I welcome Phil to our district, I want to express my gratitude to Doug Pekk. Um, Doug has, you know, been here for Katie, um, for the last five really. Yeah. Um, and, um, this is Doug's last board meeting. I still have another week or so with him. Um and uh but we are fortunate
087for everything you've done for us. We keep our district afloat. You had big shoes to fill and um and you were able to do that. So thank you. >> Well, the district was in really good shape when I got here and I think I'm going to leave in pretty good shape. >> Well, you kept it. >> We do. We really appreciate that. So, >> Thank you, Doug. >> Thank you very much. So, now on to the boring stuff, but um my report on harassment, intimidation, and bullying is easy this year because we have had none since our last meeting because we haven't had school yet. So, that's easy. >> But we do need a >> We do need a motion and second to affirm the determination. So, can I have a motion second on the
088floor? >> Second. >> That was Beth and Dan. >> Okay, >> all in favor? >> Any nays or obsessions? I have to stay. >> And last but not least, the monthly reports are there for your information. If there's any questions, let me know. >> Rich, I have a question. Um, I noticed that there looks like construction materials of some sort in the parking lot. >> Y >> um of the school. Is that going to be there for a while or >> uh No, I hope not. Um that that is it is part of the um Polytech construction project. They they're staging some things there and moving it over as need be. >> Just a recommendation. >> I did see I did see them working on it today, so I was hoping it was going to
089be out of here today, but >> yeah, they really should have it kind of cordoned off a bit with because at night it's not easy to see. >> Okay, that's a good point. I'll make sure. >> Especially given the number of performances and activities that are happening. >> Absolutely. >> Even those cones those Yeah. >> Yeah, exactly. around it. >> Thank you. Yeah, >> Rich, what kind of contingencies do you need to have in the event there are delays in terms of that building housing students? >> Yes, we have a plan B where the students will um we have room set aside at North Hunter where those students will start attending their classes there. Uh a lot of the beginning parts of a vote technical vocational technical program is a lot of you know safety
090um things talking about ocean regulations, you know, really to getting them ready before they actually start hands-on activity. So if we have to do that for the first couple weeks, okay, we'll be good at the at the building. >> Okay. >> When will we know that though? >> Are we going down to the 12th hour? Are we going to >> probably August 24th? Um but yeah, I mean we we I have been in contact with um Todd Bonsel from Polytech and we uh we actually met I met with him and Greg Kotrol um and Mike um and um talked about some of the logistics things that we're planning and and again some of these things came out of that. But um but I think we're going to be in good shape. So >> I will
091say the my experience with that contractor, we got the TCO the the day before the first day of school. >> Yeah. So >> maybe it's part for the same. Well, it's funny. You had mentioned an >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Yeah. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um I before I uh going to note the um meetings and so forth. I too um would like to welcome uh Phil Stern from de Francesco Baitman Kinsman uh Davis Lair and Glam as our new board council and we look forward to dealing uh developing a working relationship with you and your firm and I too sentiment to Doug. Um it's been a pleasure. It's been a road you've been on and you you've carried us through and it's been wonderful working with you and I will miss
092your humor. Yes. >> So inside a joke his he has always has a joke at a committee. So it's it's fun. Um um what I'd like to establish moving forward new year July 1 new fiscal year. Um and hopefully this this will transcend moving on into coming years. Um having a board president report we have that and I'm just want to make a few comments. Um, I would like to take this opportunity during this president's report to highlight a topic the board is familiar with but the public may not be. I would like to explain the committee structure. The monthly board meetings are more of a formality. In fact, most of the discussion and consideration of issues is done through the committee process amongst board members on and off each committee. I believe it is
093important to share this process with our public. Our monthly standing committees are finance, facilities and transportation, curriculum instruction, committee relations and personnel. The agenda for our regular board meetings is created jointly by the super superintendent and board president. We strive to ensure that each item on the monthly agenda has been considered within committee which also provides a process for board members not on the committee to share their comments or concerns on those agenda items prior to the regular meeting. This process supports one of NJSBA's frequently repeated norm, no surprises at the board table. The board should not surprise the administration, nor should the board be surprised by the administration. There are rare occasions when the administration and board president may need to add a lastminute agenda item and it does happen. However, we try to
094avoid that as much as possible. When a parent, staff member, board member, or student highlights an area of concern or requests the board review a particular practice, those items can be directed to the committee for consideration. Each committee has both discussion and action items included. Official board action can only be taken with a quorum. A quorum is a majority of the weighted vote on our board. No committee has a quorum. Therefore, a committee can make recommendations to the full board but cannot act on behalf of the board. The agenda is posted prior to each meeting and available to all board members. All board members can email the committee chair with questions, comments, etc. so that they are fully informed of all board matters. The minutes of these meetings are shared with all board members, providing
095everyone access and ample time to have their voices heard. Notably, when policies are up for either adoption or abolishment, there is a first and second read across two committee and two board meetings, which happens at consecutive months. This gives board members extra time to reach out to their chair with questions or concerns. Committee meeting discussions are confidential and deliberative in nature. Not all discussion items will become an action item, and action items may remain in a committee for another month for further re research and discussion. if applicable. The items being moved this evening are all action items that have been well thought out and thoroughly discussed throughout the committee process. Action items are the only items that can be discussed at the board table. Um thank you. Um moving on. Regular meeting Tuesday, August 19th,
0962025 7 p.m. No, not 6:00. 7:00 p.m. Um, deadline to submit nominating petitions for school board vacancies to the county clerk's office is this coming Monday, July 28th at 400 p.m. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but NJSBA's workshop 2025 is October 20th to the 23rd this year. And I think that also there's a if we get enough board members, we get a discount if everybody >> actually signed up for the group already. >> Perfect. So hopefully we have more and we or saving money. >> So, if if you're interested, please email me and copy Rich so we can um utilize that. >> And and one of the things that Gwen touched upon of us getting together, um this is a great place for us to go because there's so many sessions and workshops
097that we can do together and collaborate on um without worrying about being a core. We're perfectly fine going as a board as a whole. So um >> well any of those president anytime we any um professional development any meeting outside we can go as a board as a whole >> the 12 of us could go as long as we are not conducting board speaking board business. So >> um go with like say in other words how Gwen has been here before Patty Reese was here given us training on anything. Is it ever where they come here to train us or do we have to go to them? >> Well that's what Gwen's saying. If you go on our state, they have uh policy, they have um legal, they have other pres presenters that outside of
098Gwen that will come if you request. That's what she's referring to. >> They'll come and do trainings if you request them and we should it's a service provided by NJSBI. >> And then the other thing is our monthly um county meeting and we have different topics. So we'll do you know budget, we'll do finance, we'll do legal. So those are a great place for us to come together. um it's one one month it's at chalet and the next is down in Flemington. So that's another resource we can have as a board to go to to participate and you know get the same you know session together. >> And there's also uh to that point Tara um all of your online you can attend any county. >> It does not have to be our county. So
099you I I I tell you to go in and check because sometimes they're the same topics, but even if it's the same topic, it might be a different presenter from NJSBA and you get a different perspective. >> So, but they'll start rolling. I don't know if they did next month, they'll put the schedule out and you can start signing up for the whole year. So, just >> and it's great. Um I I attended a lot of the Essex County ones um because I had worked down there and that was my community of my pharmacy. But it's nice to hear from districts that may be similar to ours but also may be completely different to see how they're navigating and dealing with topics that we're dealing with. So it's really great way to collaborate and you
100know get a perspective you know statewide um outside of just you know us and Hunter County. It's really >> and you should touch base on the delegate meeting while why while you're, >> you know, pitching in. That's a great forum too for everybody if you haven't done it. Most people don't attend it, but >> and the nice part now is as we move towards school boards with our policies. Um, that's what the delegate committee um convention is about. If we want to change something, it goes in through the delegates. So any of our policies have gone through the delegate assembly uh spring and fall. So if there's anything that we have and we want to change it, we think it'll be in the interest, we can present our changes, our verbiage to the the committee
101and then it gets voted on and they'll get redlined and and then implement it and that'll change the whole policy. >> And can you get that um when that comes it should come out next month so we have that ahead of time. >> The deadline. Yep. because we always hit the deadline and you know >> the deadlines come so yeah as soon as I get it I'll let you know and if anyone thinks of anything just >> Thank you Tara um at this time we will have um public comment >> just one one question I'm sorry um just kind of following up with Gwen and sort of the intent of um having the the next month or so to sort of settle on um four goals for the next year. what what are you anticipating
102would be our mechanism to sort of bring that together or >> I think that's a discussion I'm going to have with Rich um seeing we have uh Angela not here but I think it'll be a brainstorming and maybe it you know it it'll be each committee or individually or we send them in we >> but I really it you know we do need to have that uh constructive uh conversation and I as doing it next month you know we have time >> we have time >> Kevin I just wanted to make a just A point of clarification, the goals that Gwen showed were our 2425 goals. So, we did have a board selfie vow last year. >> No, >> we did. Gwen created the goals for us. >> We did not have a self. >>
103We did no norms. >> We did not have a self-aval presentation. >> We didn't. >> We have a presentation, but I think we did it. And I think when >> no >> how did we get the goals set? >> It was not run. The self eval was not run last year and it was not done the year before. >> How did we get our goals? >> I think Gwen did a goal setting session for us >> at the end of last year or during the >> and we did have a norm meeting set when Glenn left, >> but we never had it. Remember? Not that I'm aware Well, when you were elected president, it was up for your decision and you postponed it. If I recall, >> there was nothing on the calendar. >> No,
104but we had it was set up by the pre Rich, can you provide me clarification here? Is my memory failing me? Didn't we have a goal norm tentative date set and we post and Kim postponed it till we were ready to have it. Wasn't that the case? >> We talked about scheduling a few times. I'm not sure if it actually >> right, but it never happened. But yeah, >> but I'm sorry. We do have a completed board self-evaluation in 2024. >> That's what I mean. We have that >> compilation. >> We have I thought I'm not insane. We had it and Gwen developed the goals. >> We have the results. >> I know. I remember that. >> We had a board eval last year and Gwen helped us with the goals. >> Gwen came and
105presented it with the goals. >> That's right. Yeah. >> So, we will discuss that. That's something uh Dr. Bjax and I um will discuss. We want to get it on the calendar and get the board bills rolling for for next month and district goals. >> I do think it's important that we we are accurate though >> and I also think we should you know we have the possibility plausibility and suggestion of looking at it also having a handbook for the board. So >> who would develop that? >> Yeah, >> the board. We could do it during board as a retreat. But these are all suggestions. We can we can have >> a hand for the handbook to do what? >> It guides a board with nor it's it's for the norms. >> I think it's
106a different name kind of for the norms. I think it's just >> it's inclusive of your norms. It would be your your handbook. But we can discuss that. >> What kind of handbook? I'm kind of curious. >> It it would be a board handbook with inclusive of your norms, procedures, operational procedures. >> That's a different name. Best practice. I mean, yeah, best practices. >> We could additional handbook >> that would kind of go along with we're talking about um for new members. >> I was just going to say with that >> because coming on I got nothing. >> None of us did learn on years ago. >> Yeah. Welcome to the team, Rich. >> Yep. Okay. Thank you. Um moving on to Oh, Brian. >> Poor public comment. I just want to get um understand
107your your uh your letter. You said action items are the only items that can be discussed at the board table. >> Are you saying that the board has no ability to bring up new items that >> No, that would be under new and old business. What we're saying is that >> we've had many discussions that so far today that were not action item discussions >> and >> are they allowed? >> Yes, they are. We had pres presenters. >> We had a presentation. It was Q&A. We had Gwen presenting from NGSBA Q&A. >> Okay. >> But when it comes to the agenda, >> what is on the agenda? The agenda items are actionable items or what we're speaking to during board business. Okay. >> So, are there discussion items on the agenda on coming out of
108committees? There's discussion topics, but they're still in committee. There's no action being taken on them. That's >> unless we call for a motion >> and then we can action anything we like. So, >> I think I think there's and I think the goal of that you can tell me is is efficiency. So that there's things that we've already discussed in in committee >> and those are coming up and there that's what we're acting on. There are some things that we're >> we might have that are still in committee that we're still discussing that it's the committee hasn't made a recommendation yet. So to further the discussion here would just kind of complicate matters. You know it's not all the information is there. So okay. >> Um >> okay I get it. Um the other question
109I actually have about this is um I I guess the norm it's being or sorry the is loaded now um the uh idea being suggested is that every board member watch every committee meeting >> because the minutes are pretty light. They're not they're you know we discuss topics they don't really talk about it. So that's and that is where suggesting is that everybody >> this is a this is why I think and and Rich Dr. project fantast we we added this because there was concerns by board members we're not part of that committee we're not particip we we we're not in that meeting we'd like to hear more we have we have questions and answers and a lot of those questions and answers you get from watching that committee meeting now I understand it's it's
110it's cumbersome and you know you can't get to all of them but the information is there you have a month >> you have a month >> we only have a week >> there's only a week to view the pol to view the meetings prior to the agenda and prior to the meeting. >> Well, you don't not to the agenda. >> Not to the agenda, but to to read and to understand what the agenda items will be for each committee. We have one week's time to and it's and you know, for the most of us at this table, we have professional lives and don't always have 8 hours or whatever six or whatever long it is to watch every committee meeting. Um, but it would it perhaps be better if we had two weeks. So, we
111have our committee meetings 2 weeks prior to the board meeting. That way, we have two weeks to review all issues. I would leave that to administration. I like that idea. >> No, but there's there's item I mean specifically FFT and I know there are items that are still being developed >> as we're getting to a financial thing. I think it comes down to right to the business office and you know with with >> maybe that one can be a little bit later. I mean I don't want to do that to people that are on that committee to say that be available like three weeks in a row. That's the only thing. >> Well my but but here's the thing. I I did not think that we were doing the recordings to take the place of
112the minutes. >> No one said that. And that's not what I'm saying either. >> But the FFT minutes, for example, don't have anything in them except a list of what we're approving today. So >> most cases that's all that's listed and then we discussed topic X >> honestly. Yeah. >> And honestly that if you go to your to your ag your agenda and you look at finance 12.1 through 12.9 that is really all we spoke about. We went through them and um there was nothing else. You know your you have your self training and your and the bills list. There was there you know. >> So no discussion on anything. I mean, we haven't gotten to that agenda yet and I I feel >> so I'd like to start community member, but we'll discuss it
113there. We'll discuss it. >> What I'd like to do if there if you have a question, send me the question, copy Rich, and we will get back to you. >> But what I'm sorry, but why doesn't the whole board get to hear the questions cuz basically what you're saying is that in my I alone can ask you the question and you respond to me because the entire >> What questions are you referring to? In general, in general, >> in the committee, you're hearing everything that transpires. >> No, no, no. If I have a question, for example, about the FFT committee meeting, >> I can only send it to you. >> No, you send it to the chair. >> But why does it But but then Cynthia won't necessarily hear what my question was. >> Well,
114I will to that point if it's sent to the chair. I know Dan's Dan did it. I've seen it this whole this whole week. There was um board members who sent questions in and the Rich Bowen had in curriculum. There was someone who sent in questions. Dan did. >> So those questions are being asked. >> But but I don't get to hear the answer. >> You're hearing it on the recording. >> You can't be in every committee. It's a it's it's unfortunate with the structure. >> I think that you're you're just missing my point after. So let's say I listen to the FFT meeting minutes. I listen to it. Then I have a question. So, I raise it to Dan and to you, >> but you can't send it to everybody. >> But I can't
115send it to everybody or and you can't I mean, I guess you can send the response to everybody, but the the board is not hearing questions that are being raised. It's all being dealt with outside of the public review. And again, there has to be transparency around that discussion. >> But we can't we can't all >> but we don't operate. That's fine. But I don't >> we can't have you can't we can't it can't be a question to 12 to the other 11 of us and then a response. >> I mean it's it is unfortunate Beth. I hear what you're saying. >> It it is part of that committee structure as as opposed to doing it committee as a whole. And this is where we're talking about with with Gwen. We need to establish learn
116to you know a level of trust with each other. >> It's not a trust. It's honestly it's not trust. It's that you saw the dialogue about the about what we want to establish as our goals. The dialogue in and of itself is helpful to understanding the concerns that one board member may have about something >> so that we can ease their concerns or let the public know. You know what I mean? It's not about, you know, not trusting. It's really not trust. >> Can I can I ask you to have a a conversation? Can we have a conversation? I just have a discussion. We can come up with some ideas possibly. >> I would open. >> If there's an idea, Beth, >> yeah, >> maybe within the folder like I'm looking at the FFT folder.
117There's a bunch of attachments for the things I approve. But if there were maybe we should have like have the board president or the chair just copy the email into a folder attach and then everybody can read it if they want >> if there's a general question and there could be a like a Q&A folder. >> There's a solution here. >> So there is a solution. >> This is not a trust thing. It's really about >> that's sharing of knowledge. So we yeah that's a great idea. We can >> talk after. So we weren't postponing this poor woman. >> Sorry. I'm sorry. >> Welcome. >> Hi. Thank you so much. Um >> you have to read >> I got almost there. >> We got sidebar. >> Sorry. >> During this portion of the meeting, the
118public is invited to address the board of education with comments. You are requested to sign the register provided and to state your name, municipality, residence, group affiliation if applicable, and direct your comments to the school board president. While all comments will be considered by the board of education and a response may be forthcoming if and when appropriate, individual schoolboard members may not respond to the speakers at the time of their appearance. The public comment period will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless there are unusual circumstances. You will be allocated 3 minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard. Please keep your comments respectful and non-defamy and maintain the level
119of decorum appropriate for a public meeting where students may be present and in the audience. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Hi everybody. Good evening. Um my name is Meredith Collie. Um I have a son who is special needs um and he goes to Vorhees and a lot of the kids at Vorhees have autism spectrum disorder. Um and we're really really struggling um with the lack of time that Vorhees is currently providing in their summer ESY program which stands for extended school year as you're probably aware. Um many as I said many of the students in the program there have autism. Um so as you know probably about autistic kiddos they really rely on structure and routine. So, um, with the current ESY program at Vorhees, it's only it only runs for four weeks. Um,
120and it runs only from 8:00 a.m. to 12 uh p.m. And we're really having a hard time regulating um behaviors um with some such a limited summer ESBY program. Um, so we're just asking um us autism parents um if you'd please add some more time to your ESY extended school year program for our autistic kiddos at Vorhees and at North. Um they really need it. Um I just have a brief letter that I put together for you guys so that it's just sort of like a more formal request to add some time for our kiddos. Um, and I'll pass it out to you guys if that's okay, um, when I'm done. But, um, the formal letter letter reads, um, we're requesting to add more time to the Vorhees um, North ESY extended school year program
121for next summer, the 2026 summer. The reason for the request is that special needs students in this program, many with autism spectrum disorder, really need more time in the summer with structure and routine. The lack of time and structure can be very difficult for both the students and their families. Due to the lack of structure and routine sh some show signs of behavioral regression. Although many parents try our very best to make up for the lost time. We are not professionals like the staff at Vorhees and North currently providing the ESY programs. Personally, this this isn't in this letter, but we bought a pool for my son. We even bought a hot tub to try to just, you know, make up for um the lost time to get him some sensory input with the hot
122tub. And um like I said, that's not in here, but it's still like even though we're trying so hard and doing everything we can to make up, it's it's still really a struggle. Um there are three special needs private schools that are not too far from our district that also um serve autistic students. Um they are DLC, the Midland School, and Allegro. Those schools have all all have six weeks ESY programs and each day is a full school day. Our ESY program, as I noted, is four weeks and only 8:00 am to 12. While although other public school public high schools in our area may also have limited summer ESY schedules like ours, it doesn't make it right or good for our kids. As time goes on and the needs of our kids change and
123increase, change instead of stagnation of an old schedule is really necessary in order to best care for and educate this population of students and appropriately meet their needs. The summer program really needs to offer the students more time. Note on staffing. The reason I'm coming to the board and administration a full year ahead of time is to give the school time for the understandable possibility of adding staff and create the best possible environment for the special needs students that attend Vorhees North ESY. And we will definitely not give up on this. We'll keep asking because we know how important this overdue change is for our special needs children. And I we just signed and I don't know Kevin, do you want to say anything? You think I would you like to say anything? It's up
124to you. >> Very good. I'll take those. I'm sorry. You're okay. Thank you for >> Hi everybody. So my name is Kevin Juniani. My daughter Sophia behind me here. She's been, this is her fourth ESY, so she's approaching her senior year. And it's true what Meredith said, it is not enough. As a special needs parent, you can never do enough. Your best day is not good enough for your child, but you try the best you you can, and so should the educators, you know, at Vorhees and I've worked with Jen. I've known her uh for the last three years or so. I give her my input consistently. Uh we try our best, like I said. Uh Sophia came from Somerset Hills Learning Institute. So their structure is this. The school year ends, everybody has a
125two-eek break, staff and students, and they come back and it's a full day for about six, seven weeks and it's until mid August or so and then they enjoy another two weeks off and then it's the school year starts again. So that that's all I just wanted to say. There should be there should be just maybe a longer structure for ESY just to prevent the regression uh for our students. Thank you. >> There's no sign in book. There's no there's no sign in sheet. I can skip it. I don't know if if it's okay >> doing that. >> Thanks. >> Okay. My name is Marina Bartelli. I am a res resident of Franklin Township. Um I did not come here with prepared remarks, so it's kind of on the fly. Um first and foremost I
126would like to add my support to the students who face particular challenges particularly the um students and the parents of children on uh with autism spectrum disorder parents who've gotten up to speak as representatives of that group within our community. So I I lend my support to them and um you know hope that their needs will be met in an appropriate manner um and that their needs are heard. The second thing I want to say is that I remember being a student in school and there's this really great practice in schools and it's been done for decades and decades because it works and that's the idea that when a student in a classroom has a question, they raise their hands. They address the teacher in front of the class. Everyone gets to hear the question.
127and everyone present in that classroom gets to hear the answer. It's a great idea. It's been working for a very long time. So given that this is a school district, um I would think what works works no matter the uh the setting that if an individual has a question and it doesn't matter whether it's in a a work staff meeting at my job or a student's uh question in a classroom or a board member who has a question about something, it would seem that asking that question so that everyone hears it. Anyone who may have had a similar question or been wondering that themselves has an opportunity to hear the answer. And even for folks who didn't have that question themselves, there's an opportunity to learn something more. So, um I appreciate that approach. again,
128you know, it's a school board, school district, so one would think that some of these things, these principles uh transfer in some ways. The what really uh spurred me to get up and speak, and hopefully I'm not burning through three minutes, was the um characterization of these public board of education meetings as a formality. That blows my mind. Um, the board, this board of education, all boards of education serve a school community, especially the students and their families and the community at large. It's a service position. And I know all of you who go to late meetings and, you know, are taking time out of your personal days, you're providing service. And I appreciate that. I appreciate what you do. Um, but this is a part of our democratic process in this country. We have
129public schools and the board of education meetings are public meetings. There's transparency. The board has a responsibility to the public, particularly within their district, to the populace. The populace has a right to be made aware of what's going on in their schools, the policies, concerns, issues, and any plans to to remedy. There's also the opportunity for feedback. And again, it's it's a matter of transparency. It's a matter of integrity, a matter that I didn't come here to speak on, but to hear these meetings characterized as a formality again blew my mind. So, I view these meetings as an opportunity for board of ed members. It's it's an a chance for you to demonstrate your qualifications, your abilities, your abilities to manage your abilities for leadership, for problem solving and an integrity, openness, transparency. Likewise, it
130is an opportunity to fail at those things. It's an opportunity to demonstrate a lack of willingness to be transparent or a lack of a qualification or leadership skills or an ability to manage something adequately. The public has a right to seeing all of those dynamics in this setting. I do understand there is executive session that's part and parcel. There are committee meetings. The public doesn't need to be privy to those. But to characterize these meetings as a formality is an insult to every person who lives in this school district, students, families, and the public. Thank you. Is there any other public comments? >> Any other comments? Okay, thank you. I accept that. I will close public comments. Uh moving on to curriculum, instruction, technology. Uh committee port Brendan, please. >> Um thank you. The committee
131met on uh July 16th. The first agenda item uh included the monthly reports, the outofd district placements, uh service contracts, and the approval of the emergency closure plan. um in both conversation and sort of action or I guess discussion on those items, one of the things that came up in the monthly reports was the recognition that some of the coding um warranted some further exploration. for example, um specifically uh special needs students who might be staying with the district until they age out of the district um were potentially being coded as not graduating. Um so there was some exploration done on that and a correction on that code. uh mostly because we want to make sure that uh students staying for their allowable duration within the district is not something that's hurting the district in
132any reporting that is happening. Um separately uh there was talk about uh just out of district place placements in general and the district's efforts uh being attentive to cost articulation program offering and efforts to keep the students in district whenever possible. Um, also part of that discussion was the recognition that each year in our budget we have contingency funding in the event that a special needs student arrives um and can present considerable cost to the district uh with with no planning or or notice and sort of the the importance of maintaining those funds, but also more recently the district's efforts to strengthen its articulation efforts with the K8 districts to see where there are inroads to make uh those parents and students aware availing that we have um and the opportunity to learn about our
133programming uh where there might otherwise be an inclination to seek an out of district placement. Um and then um uh in terms of some of the service contracts uh specifically um reviewing for the um students uh students deaf students and supporting our blind students I'm sorry with the support of technology that we're providing for them uh as well as some exploration of additional in-house staffing because we were beginning to realize that In some instances, it becomes more affordable to have an in-house um staff member providing a particular service versus having to um rely too much on outsourcing which at some point has a higher cost. So again, these are all dimensions that are constantly being looked at and part of the recommendations um that come out of that work. The second item um uh was
134the NJGPA and access reports which I won't you know repeat anything that Rich shared um in this presentation. He did highlight about the additional programming for the ML students in terms of English classes. Uh they also brought up the note that they those students share uh the same counselor um and uh to sort of streamline some of the communication and support efforts. Uh and separately there was some conversation alluded to here in terms of the technology tools that can support ML students and some of the AI possibilities that are out there as well. Um, we did not get to the we had on our agenda a social studies program interview, but because the first two items took up the majority of the meeting, we did not get to that. Um, there were a few questions
135that Nicole had sent to Rich. Um, some of which were sort of naturally embedded into our presentation tonight. Um, where there was uh the cohorts, uh, the individual cohorts were followed for a series of years. Um, but I did want to ask Nicole, I didn't know if because you had a couple of questions in there if there were um any specific dimensions that you wanted to to just follow up on in terms of um disagregating some of that data. I know the cohort thing was one of them where you're looking at the same group of kids over a couple of years. I think you had some questions about um subgroups also and sort of how they were. >> Yes, but I think you guys discussed that and I sent that to Rich. >> Yeah. I
136didn't realize that was going to be brought out in conversation because I don't see it on the minutes. >> Well, no, I was just really bringing it up more as part of the conversation that sometimes >> I was having a rich groan about understanding some of the subgroups and some of the numbers and how the groups were formed and amount of kids that were brought up and what would constitute a group and how many reported. >> Yes. >> Got it. That is a good >> But thank you for bringing that up. But cuz that was an email between Rich and yourself. >> Not on the minutes. >> No, no, that's a good But that's a good example. >> It's not a good example because it's not on the minutes to be reported. So if if
137Brenda had a question about my question, he should have contacted me. >> But it is a good example. >> It's really not a great example. No, it is because >> because other persons might have had questions on this, but there was other questions that were emailed around too, but I don't haven't heard anybody's else's names brought up, >> but I actually touched upon it. I heard it from Rich, but I've had that question before, but he answered. I didn't know you had that question, so good. But when he was saying the reportable group is 10 or more, and if they don't have 10 or more, so it is a perfect example of if we don't see the emails, but we have that question, it answers it. I wouldn't have had to answer ask it but
138he did it in his presentation. >> It's a good conversation. I think Jess had a good a great point >> and Beth and I think let to talk about that and cuz we can put it in we can put it in a folder like we used to do spreadsheet and update but just do the questions instead of sending the questions. I think we at one point were doing it Google survey. We were sending questions to the you know to the we there's lots of ways we could do it and I think Beth had Jess had some Beth had some. Yeah. >> Yeah. And let me just say I did not mean to reveal anything that was in that email. I I was honestly just trying to address the fact that Rich seemed to incorporate some
139of those elements. I wanted to make sure there wasn't something that was missed. I I hate to say it, but I have a question. So, I mean, this can't be a new problem, right? So, what was going on here last year would would be my question. This is not can't be new, right? So what >> regarding questions? >> Yeah. >> There it we've never had a real process for it and I don't think up until recently um and I would say probably you know since under this leadership there is a question of trust and what goes on in those meetings. It is true. >> I disagree with that. >> Well then I'm sorry did you read our evaluation? There's a level of of distrust amongst the individuals of this board. We do not trust and
140and as you you know you seemed very offended just now. I mean that your question was spoken of. There's not you didn't trust that Brendan was going to ask the question or or there was I could you could hear it in your voice. There's not a level of trust here. And if you have a question that or anybody has a question that's for the good of the order and it's and rather than have Rich Brown have to give 10 answers to that question or the superintendent give 10 answers or the chair give 10 answers if it's for the good of the order then we should have and have a process where we can hear those answers. And I think we're going to we've been redirected. I've said Beth's going to reach out. We're going to
141brainstorm and I'll talk with Dr. Bjax. As far as anything, yeah, it was a question was sent. It was in committee, it was discussed, you know, if it was addressed. So, >> well, we also used to discuss it after. >> So, we we did if somebody had a question, we would discuss it. So, that it was addressed that way as well, >> which is there's pros and cons to that, right? Because I've seen stuff, holy hell. I think some of the questions that we want to have dialogue between each other that we want to talk about, we talk about amongst ourselves. We have questions about specific reports and stuff like that. That's why we usually send it into the chair to have discussions and then I went back and followed up with the meeting and
142I had my answers. >> Yeah. I I >> because it was addressed. >> I mean, here's the bottom line, right? I think we all acknowledge there's something here. We discussed it. We're going to work together to solve the problem, >> right? I mean, I think we're all on the same page with that. >> Yeah. And I think Beth mentioned earlier it wasn't a matter of trust. >> No, it wasn't. about discussion point educating the entire group. >> I our attorney would like to say something >> if if I may. >> You may. >> Um there are hybrids of committee of the whole and a committee structure throughout this state and different boards. Some do a very strict committee. Some do a very strict committee of the whole meaning that all the there there are no
143separate committees. Everything is discussed usually at v at multiple meetings um during the month. Um but there are also hybrids where there is uh an understanding that everybody can't make all the committee meetings and there are some rules that are put in to a board like this one that that functions on a committee structure that permit answers to this and I'm more than happy to provide the the president and the superintendent and some of the examples of exactly how they do that and and go on from there. >> Thank you. >> My pleasure. >> Okay, Brendan, all done. >> Yep. We're good. >> Um can at this time I'd like a motion and a second to approve items uh 10.1 through 10.4. >> So move second. Uh, Tara and Beth. All in favor? >> I.
144>> Any nays or abstensions? Uh, moving on to policy and school security report. Um, Nicole, >> yes. Policy and security met on July 14th. Um, we were um present. Um Brian Chapman was not present, but we um had on the agenda to discuss school resource officers and class 3 officers, which we discussed um [Applause] trying to say this trying we discussed the roles between the two and what the schools needed and we were having a further discussion um and we will continue the conversation. It was a heavy um discussion on security. Um there's no action at this time, but it's a continuing conversation going forward question any questions for >> I don't have a question. I would just say that one thing is the committee was aligned on everything and on path going forward. So
145we're going to wait and see. There was >> was there also a discussion or was that in a different committee on vote for requests or >> that was FFT >> that's FFT is showing up under here >> I just have one quick question on policy when is our official roll up the >> working on that I'm just curious >> I'll have Dr. comment >> officially our our um school board's policy manual has been adopted and is in effect right now. >> Um we are work I am working with representatives from New Jersey school boards to get the board doc site up and running so that we can then publish that publicly on our website. Um so I it's been emails back and forth for about a week. Um I finally got some inroads today and
146I hope that will lead to exactly what we need tomorrow. So >> fabulous. Thank you. >> Okay. Um moving on. uh finance, facilities and transportation committee report and acting in. >> Yes. Uh we met on the 14th 6:30. Um so I'm just going to go through the agenda. Um the first item 12.1 is submission of uh the DOE water infrastructure improvement grant application. This is a um a grant that was uh put out um an opportunity by the state for school districts to upgrade or install new filtered bottle filling stations and filtered faucets to reduce lead contamination uh and drinking water. So, at this point, we've we're making the application. It was a short time frame. So, thank you, Doug, for for getting that in. Um 12.2 Two is submission of the Individuals with Disability
147Education Act. This is our um this is funding, correct? Is that the right and it's it's slightly less than it was last year. >> Correct. >> But it's something we do every year. Uh 12.33 is reservation of wastewater treatment capacity agreement with Clinton Township. Um, feel free to jump in if I say something incorrectly, but this is an agreement that's in place with because we are the owners of the property, we're required to um approve uh any of the costs or agreements that with the sewage authority for the Polytech building, but any of the costs that are indicated, additional costs that are indicated in this are then passed on to Polytech and they pass through to Polytech. >> That is correct. >> Yeah. and that is stipulated in the lease that we um negotiated in
1482021. >> Right. That's that was the other thing we discussed is that that it's already in the lease. So um but that is that's required by by the sewage authority. Um in addition to that 12.4 is uh indemnification hold harmless agreement with and this is um was required because we are currently named. >> Am I allowed to talk about? Yeah. I mean, I would just say that what the indemnification um agreement is is because we were required to sign this agreement instead of Polytech. We wanted to make sure we weren't putting ourselves in any of liability and so poly techch >> and our our attorneys developed this in application. >> Our our lawyers did, right? Not poly techs. >> Yeah. No, they there's there's reviewed it of course and had put in back. >> Okay,
149great. >> Okay. 12.5 and 12.6 are just the service rates for ESC. Um 12.7 is a change order. This is a a credit basically a credit change order. So this is the completion of a project. There's allowances that are in place uh for construction projects. When you get to the end, those are then credited back to the district so that we can apply them on I guess it goes back into the >> capital reserve. >> Um 12.8 made is to award the contract to your way construction for the repairs of the parking lot. Um I will comment something that when we discussed it at at the um uh committee meeting there was a lower um uh there was someone who was lower who had a lower price for this. um it was being reviewed by
150the attorneys and also what we discussed is the fact that it was so much lower it seemed like it was kind of out of the the the realm of it seemed unreasonably low. So, uh I guess they have since pulled their their bid because of they were sitting Yeah. >> which is something we kind of talked about with Rich at the time. it. We It's not something you'd ever want to try and force a contractor to do a job for less than it would cost them because then you're going to get inadequate work or bad construction or um or they just wouldn't do the job. That that would be the case. So, it's better to get to get the contract um because the the second and the third biders were were fairly close in price.
151So, that seemed to be more the the the rate for this project. So, and it's all within the budget that was assigned uh 12.9 of banners. Um this is the the the booster club's uh annual sponsorship. Um and that they're pretty um consistent with what's been done in in past years. Um and then 1210 and 1211 are staff training and bills list standard monthly items. Um there are a few items that were discussed um that were are not action items. They were just discussed at during the meeting. Um and they'll be continued uh in discussion in subsequent meetings. One of them was the New Jersey cash management account established. That was something that um Doug had brought up about um getting better rates. Um I think um what Doug was saying is that's something that
152Katie would pick up once she's back. But it's all established and ready to go so that she can she can allocate money to that if if uh she if it makes sense. Um, end of the year closeout and audit is in process. Um, the uh oh, and then we we had a um just a a list of any OPRA requests were just provided just for for review if needed. Um, that's it. Any questions? >> So, I have a question. So, with them, we had funny because you guys all discussed that and that was your but you had had seen with the pulling back of that bid. >> Yeah. So, are we going to the next bid? >> So, the one on the on the list is the second bidder. >> He So, the first bidder
153didn't we didn't pull back and then offer or we can't >> you can't once once the bids are ended and you can't they they can either pull their bid or >> It was interesting because we were talking about you were talking about that. >> Yeah. Okay. And it's Yeah. And it it makes sense because the numbers were so far off. They they just missed something or >> something was missed. It was a mistake. >> It was a mathematical calculation that they did. >> Yeah. Yeah, they were almost they were about almost almost half 50 years. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Which which made it didn't make sense. Part of me wanted to get keep him to it. But >> no, but it was just ironic that Dan brought that up and said, "No, this is what
154happened. >> You got to trust Andy's in that world." >> Yeah. M >> if if it it might also help everybody just in in our community as well just to understand the operative phrase is not just lowest bidder, it's lowest responsible bidder, >> right? >> And this board is not looking to deprive the community of the lowest bid. What the what the board has done here is made sure that the low bid is not only one that will um say, you know, be as economical and fiscally responsible as possible to the public, but also one that could be done under the terms that the specification showed. And it was very clear to the committee that the lowest bidder uh was not the lowest responsible bidder. And so what the board is is voting on tonight
155is in fact the lowest responsible bidder who was the second lowest bit. >> Right. And I I gave an example in the meeting we because we were just talking about it. We had we were opening bids at another school district >> and all of the bids had the number crossed out with a pen and they were all marked up another $200,000. And so what it was is there was a one of the subcontractors noticed they messed something up and they called all the contractors and said, "Nope, I missed it. Add 200,000." Except for one person who didn't get the phone call. >> And so their bid ended up being lowest because they missed that call, but it was now off by $200,000. It was a significant number. So they had to pull their bid. >>
156I have really one quick question on 12.2. It's part B. Can you just clarify on this IDA? What does that encompass? Like part A we've already done. Part B um what does that funding encompass? >> I believe part A is an entitlement. Part B is something we apply for. But >> we did. Okay. >> Perfect. Okay. Great. Thank you. I have a question on 12.1. What's if we are approved with this grant for the water infrastructure? What's what's the timing? Do you know like when when would that occur the change out and what what do we have right now in terms of water >> use for our students? >> You you are aware that that the district does test water east on a regular basis as well water and then here because it's municipal water
157there's the the municipalities do the testing. So what we do is when when we do the the testing and we discover that there are and and that's really where it's going to impact us more than anywhere else is in the drinking fountains or the bottle filling stations that we we have. That's that's where there may be an occurrence of like maybe a higher level of copper or or or lead that and once that's identified then then we swap them out. When when we first came across the grant we thought that this was going to be um something that would you know help with maybe a new water well or something of that nature. It turns out is it's only for remediating problem areas. And so I don't know it's we're going to get a big
158chunk of money here, but I'd at least like to take a shot at getting because uh one of the guys told me, one of the facilities guys said that a replacement a bottle filling station is about $3,000. So that's significant. And and so we we'll Does that answer your question or did I miss it? >> Well, it's I was asking also the timing. Is this something that would happen within the school year perhaps or we looking >> Well, we The submission date is uh July 31st. It has to be submitted to the Department of Education. Then I imagine they go normally what they do with the grants like this is they go through a period of time where they determine, you know, how they going to dig any money out and who's going to get
159it. And so I'm not sure how long that'll take. You've dealt with SDA grants before and that can be a long duration of months and months before we see anything. Fortunately, this this does have look back provision that goes back to 2016. So, I'm having the guys look to see what kind of repairs have been done since 2016 to our drinking fountains that we might be able to apply. >> Oh, so we can recover something. That's good. >> Okay, nice. >> I didn't know about that. >> I can tell you the education foundation provided those water filling stations. >> They did it north. Yes, >> that they were donation to the school. >> That's right. >> Yes, cuz I was on the education foundation when we donated them. Um, I got one thing. Uh, on
160on 129 the banners. >> Good to see that. Uh, Bright Speed caught the mistake there. >> Yeah, we did. >> We were listed as Hunter County High School on their banner. >> Yeah, I'm a nerd. I I went through all the banners and read them. >> And you didn't catch Hunter County High School. I >> did. >> Oh, okay. >> I did miss that. >> It might have been fixed by the time you saw that. So, a little typo on that one. >> Okay. Any other questions for Dan? >> Um, I need a motion and a second to approve agenda items 12.1 through 12.11. >> Motion second. Second. >> Brian and Cynthia. >> All in favor? Any nays or abstensions? Moving on. Uh, community relations and student affairs. Uh, Tara, >> thank you. >> Um,
161our committee met on July 17th, uh, virtual at 6:00. Um, everyone was present um, except for Jessica and Kim because they were not able to make it. Um, we discussed our our agenda item was the district strategic plan and Dr. Burgess presented the plan um as the draft. Um there were two types of data both the qualitative and the quantitative data. Um the data in the strategic plan is only data from the community members not their staff but um if you want to have access to that Dr. Burgess just reach out to him. But he did mention that there was a synergy between the two and it was good to see that our staff and the community on a lot of the questions were coming from the same place and same observations. Um the data
162was overall very positive. We had lots of threes, fours and fives. Um we had very good community um response. So that was wonderful. And in the plan, all of the points that we went you everyone pretty much attended either the north or bores all of those points that we put up on the wall were added into the plan and that's going to be disseminated in August at some point and we'll be able to utilize that um as we build our goals. Um food service and transportations were scored really well. Um, one of the areas that the questions seemed that it kind of just fell off was on our school budget. So, one of the things that we discussed is that we might want to in the future present a more userfriendly budget or a quick
163view for the community so they have a better understanding um of our budget and the processes that we go through and our stewardship of the taxpayer and stakeholders monies. Um, we did bring up Dr. just mentioned that maybe have a strategic planning advisory committee that may be meeting twice a year um with both board members and community and staff. But after Gwen's presentation and looking at these dashboards, I think instead of meeting and having a separate we put it out there and we can monitor and everybody and we can get input as a ongoing. So each month as each part of the strategic plan is touched upon in committee curriculum finance policy it's real time and it's a full involvement. So that was brought up of maybe making a committee to look at this a
164couple times a year but I'm going to present it as that maybe we look at it as doing a a dashboard. I think that would be um a great way >> and the superintendent reports out quarterly as well. So Rich is doing that. We have a dashboard. Yeah. So, so we're looking forward and I know it's a lot of work and everybody's been involved and the community's been involved. So, um it's been refreshing to see because after co we kind of um so it's exciting to see and like some of them the countdown. So, in five years out 2030 um and we'll be able to monitor and move and then when 2030 comes hopefully we'll get as much input again from the community and our students. our students were involved in in it. So, it
165it was a great process and I can't wait to see the the end and as we implement it going forward. >> Terry, just >> everybody should have access to that strategic plan for >> as you were talking about that in the dashboard, you made it made me wonder if our um the way our current agendas or committee agendas work um it might be interesting to add an element to that. In other words, like what is coming out of that committee that could feed that dashboard in terms of is it a data point, is it an update? So that monthly there's sort of this built-in obligation to sort of feed that information and sort of raise our own just awareness of reporting it out regularly too. So that might be an area to possibly explore. >>
166Yeah, I think that's a great idea. >> I have two questions. So what's the followup now? like what's the next step on the plan? >> So, the next step would be for the board to adopt the plan. Um, I plan on presenting that to the full board in August. Um, but I want to give everybody a opportunity to have some input before we say here's the final plan. So, that's what the next move is basically. >> And then I know the staff information wasn't included, but in general, did the staff response look very different from what the community responses were? >> You know, they were very similar. That's one of the things I I tried to do in committee which was show the similarities between them. There was a couple things, you know, that were
167a little different but not much. So, >> Rich, when you say everyone is can have has access to the plan. That is the doc. >> That is the doc that I the doc that I >> the plan is that dock >> correct. Yes, that is the plan. And then from that plan, we will develop district goals, board goals, and then action plans that will um each year, >> okay, >> accomplish those district goals, which are going to chip away at the strategic plan goals. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> There was one action item there. >> Oh, yeah. Sorry. Is the overnight school trip. So, we didn't discuss it, but um the 18th and 19th, the boys football team is having a team bonding event at Boyisee High School. So, we need
168to vote on that, but they've met all the qualifications for what's considered a a field trip or overnight event. So, >> they're going to be at Boyisee, but because it's an overnight event, it has to be board approved. It's an overnight field trip. So, >> is is North doing the same thing? >> Uh, no, I don't believe so. >> Oh, that's interest. It's a I think it would be a great for in all sports and all the you were talking about bonding events. >> Yeah. Each sport they they have their own activities that they decide are important for their particular sport. >> I think that's great. >> So yes, so that's the one that we have to vote on. >> Sorry, Terry. Yes. >> I need a motion and a second to approve agenda item
16913.1. >> So move arguing We just have to have a second so that I can vote. Thank you. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any knees or abstensions? >> Okay. Uh delegates delegate reports >> not applicable >> in nothing until September. >> Uh personnel committee report. Uh that would be Christina. >> Yes, we met on July 16th at 6:30. Everybody was in attendance for our personnel committee meeting and we discussed the personnel agenda. In addition to the personnel agenda which is confidential, we discussed um and edited a speech and language specialist job description. So we will be voting on that today. Um again we compared it to the NJSBA template job description and there weren't too many changes. as you can see, you know, the the pieces of wording that we decided to change.
170Um, so if anybody has any questions about that, just let me know. And do we want to add anything else about any changes? >> Uh, yeah. I mean, the reason was basically, you know, it's it's um the amount of services we need bringing a speech speech language specialist back on staff um is in the best interest of our students. So, >> so is this a new position, Rich? >> It it it isn't. We're We're >> It was abolished. Yeah, it was abolished about 10 years ago, I believe. So, >> so there are no red lines to it, I think. I didn't see any changes. >> They're actually green lines. If you move in there, >> Well, they actually look purple. >> Is it purple? >> No. Go into the Go into the drive. There's a
171>> Oh, that drive. >> Yeah. one that the one that's on your agenda is a clean copy that you'll be >> that's what I was looking at. >> Okay. My bad. And there's everything that was I'm familiar. >> Okay. >> Just a point of clarification. Is there a reason and I don't it doesn't matter that much to me, but is there a reason why those items can't be outside the executive session when we we rewrite a job description? It's not about a person. >> Yeah. No. Right. They are that's why it's on the advice. We're discussing it. >> Okay. That's what I'm >> That's why she's reporting out on it out public and and the public can see >> they have access to the personal agenda as well here. >> So it's not like a
172hidden type thing. It's just discussion of anything like we're discussing that right now. We can have here but we can discuss the actual items the other items on a personnel agenda. >> Sorry. >> You discuss the job and its description. You can't discuss the >> Yeah. I just thought it could be in public session because it's not a person, it's a >> it's a thing. >> Additionally, we were planning to do the super the assistant superintendent job description, but time did not allow. So, we are moving that to the August meeting. That'll be the first one we'll do >> and >> for August. >> Do we have >> No, that's going to be part of the conversation. Thank you, Christina. Thank you so much. I need a motion and second to adopt resolution 072125-2 for
173an executive session to discuss matters reflected in the attached resolution. The board expects to be in exact session for approximately 1 hour and upon return to public session, action will be taken. All in favor? >> Oh, sorry. I I do that every single time on that one. >> Second. There you go. Tara and Cynthia. All in favor? I. Any or abstensions? Can I do it on that? have a motion and a second to reconvene public session. >> Second terra was >> Oh, Tara and Beth. >> All in favor? I Any nays or abstensions? Um, let's call for a motion and second to approve agenda items 18.1 through 18.4 to include any hand carries provided. So, I need a motion and a second. >> So, move second. >> Got that. Uh, Christina and Beth. >> Yep.
174Okay. Any discussion? Nothing. Uh, roll call vote. Christina Kaggna, >> yes. >> Ryan Chapman, >> yes. >> Nicole Gallow, >> yes. >> Tara Hints, >> yes. >> Beth Kron, >> yes. >> Terry, you need to abstain. >> Yes. >> From exact from the two exact meetings. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I have to abstain on 183 and 184. >> Thank you. >> It's okay. I have to abstain, too. Sorry. I was rich. Uh Brendan McG. >> Uh yes, but I must have stayed from 18.3. >> 18.3. And then uh Cyn >> Yes. >> Uh Kim Sino. >> Yes. >> Daniel Spann. >> Yes. abstain from 183 >> and Jesse. >> Yes. And I abstain from 183. >> Thank you. Motion carries. >> Okay, moving on. Um any old and new business? >> Excellent. Um, I wanted
175to know if we could, um, based on what we heard earlier, is there a way to look at or study, um, expanding ESY specifically for the autism students, you know, kind of examine the cost and >> my plan based on um, public comment tonight was to talk with Jen tomorrow. Okay. find out what the um yeah what what her recommendation is >> and then um >> and then is that something that would go to committee to be discussed? You would bring that to committee to discuss or >> Yeah, it would probably go through curriculum and FFT because there there' be um a cost associated with it as well. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Sort of piggybacking on Dan's comment, I something I was curious about. Aren't I don't know the extent to which title funds are
176paying for that programming this sum summer summer but aren't those title funds currently frozen and not >> so title 2 three and four which would not pay for those programs but yeah >> got two three and four are what we're told at this point. >> Gotcha. >> Anything else? Can I have a motion and a second to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> You got it. >> All in favor? >> Any nays or abstension? >> Please note we are out at 8:45.