001all right welcome everyone the North hund and Vorhees Regional High School District Board of Education meeting for Tuesday October 17th 2023 is now called to order in accordance with the requirements of the open public meeting act njsa 1046 adequate notice of the meeting has been provided by submission of notice of the time date and location to The Star Ledger on January 11th 2023 and the Hun County Democrat on January 12th 2023 notice and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting have been posted at North hunon High School and Vorhees high school and provided to the municipal Clerks of Bethlehem Township Califon burrow the town of Clinton Clinton Township Franklin Township Glen Gardner burrow Hampton bur hybridge bur Lebanon bur Lebanon Township tubry Township and Union Township as well as other interested parties and
002posted on the district website fire exits are located in the direction indicated if alerted to fire please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the nearest smokefree exit at this time please silence all cell phones can I have a roll call please bomi pres Mr Chapman here M cogo pres Mr fanish here miss Gallow Miss h president miss Co here Mr M here miss selino here Mr Spanton here Miss V here and Mr herb here if you could please rise for the light I Al to the flag the United States of America repblic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with li justice for all all right can I get a motion and a second to approve agenda item 4.1 which are the minutes of the September 26th 2023 school board meeting motion
003please Kim second second by Shelly any discussion all in favor opposed extensions Beth is abstaining motion carries all right we are now up to the student Representatives report and we'll start with anesh from North hunteran welcome okay hello so uh first of all in uh activities in North H I want to talk about friendship de here um these three people over here s and they actually H it organize as a team we organized Friendship Day and um so Friendship Day was a part of interact club and it was a day that focused on community building with North it incorporates students of all grades and with special needs into different teams where they participate in team building activities and they focus on getting everyone involved and it's overall like a lot of fun in the day
004um you get food music and games moving forward um homecoming was in between my period from the last meeting to this meeting and it was a very successful Mass grade ball was our theme everybody had lots of fun and U organizing the event from years in the past I know that this year everyone was very happy with the the DJ that we had so we're keeping the DJ this year also two prom and Junior Prom um moving on to sports we have uh some success in our sports teams especially our soccer teams at northon the boys soccer right now has a record of 101 and two they're doing very well and the girls team is also playing Central tomorrow the third round war in Sussex and they're currently 1041 and lastly girls field hockey is
005also doing well with the record of 10 and three they went bad I'm not sure about the game so so um this week in sports we have the milk can game coming up big gra between north and bores and I know we have a spirit week this week with different themed days like every Monday Tuesday everything uh looking to build up some anticipation for the game and um but we're definitely looking for a good game on at BO East Friday and uh so we we've kept the can for a decade so try to not a day long I know right moving on to the uh to the marching band actually congratulations to the combined bores and North marching bands for going to New York City for the Columbus Day parade parade they uh actually play
006second among over 30 other bands it's a good job um in more Club news the north news video titled the roar report is in the works and we are hoping for an inaugural release this coming Monday after getting approved for the [Music] club hopefully it will lead to more wide spre access to extracurricular News sports clubs everything and will Aid in student involvement so lastly um after actually Jude surveyed a lot of students about the uh AP testing conversation last week students were very adamant about being taught um concept first not teaching to the test but still having exposure to the test to know what they're going to get but students feel like the test itself is very difficult to understand so it confuses them more when uh teachers teach directly to the test that's
007thank you thanks all right all right Adeline you're up next for those of you who don't remember me I'm Adine Cooper and I have the privilege of recapping the last month of fun we've had at VHS so at the beginning of the school year the senior class started the year off with a strong with a senior sunrise this was a fun way to start our last year together as well as getting amazing pictures of the sunrise um we plan to end the year with senior Sunset later in June on September 30th we had our homecoming news the theme was Carnival and it was an extremely fun event around 70% of the student body was there in attendance and according to Mr Peterson was one of the largest homecomings VHS has seen Key Club also had
008its fall rally on October 8th and had a blast at Six Flags last Thursday we had our National Honor Society induction ceremony and welcome 40 indues to the society today Mr Peterson and the admin met with the student advisory committee we plan to meet once a month or once Mar sorry today was also the second day of our spirit best week so there's been a lot of school spirit and participation in planning out class skits dressing up for spirit days and donating to our food drive tomorrow each grade will be transforming a corner of our school into a Blockbuster Movie um Board of Ed members you are all welcome to see our Creations especially the senior moall in all of its glory on Thursday morning on November 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th the drama club
009will be performing something rotten and on November 18th unified has its annual Polar Plunge and everyone is very excited to go to the shore and see Mr Peterson's yet to be announced costume all right well thank you thank you both for those excellent reports anybody have any questions or discussion for our student Representatives toight all right thank you very much all right we will now move on to the presentation and public hearing which is a review of the New Jersey Department of Education School self assessment for north hunon and Vorhees for determining grades under the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act for July 1st 2022 through June 30th 2023 that will be presented by Rich um next and we're not even going to make him go to the podium he um so just a reminder as
010a matter of process every year the school safety team has to meet um at the beginning of the school year to assess how they um met the requirements of the anti-bullying Bill of Rights um act for the previous year so these scores are for last year they met both teams uh North scored 76 out of 78 um items points and V scored 77 out of 78 and to give you an idea a three is exceeding expectations and a two is meeting so there was two categories at North that they said they were meeting expectations they're going do a little more work so they can exceed and there was one category at bhe where that was the case as well so basically this these scores will then be submitted to the state the state will then
011review them determine whether or not the scores are um accurate appropriate and then they tell us that they have approve these scores and then I bring it back to you in the spring to tell you that they approved it and we approve it then as well so that's what tonight is you approving needs to be submitted to the state do you know that what are the two areas that North rated themselves as meeting expectations and with the one that VES did I do so um the attachments are there too if you wanted to review it afterwards but uh the one that North the one that north um the two that North picked was uh under the core element number three item D it is the members of the school safety School climate team were provided
012with professional development and effective practices of successful School climate programs and approaches and it sounds like they would like a little more professional B okay so that was one area the second area was number one it's yeah was uh one Court element one which uh item e which was a school safety School climate team identified patterns of hi and reviewed School climate and school policies for the prevention of hi so they're going to look at their patterns a little bit more closely look at data a little bit more and then at bores I believe it was core element three again that they um it was the same one that North had where it was yes so that was core element three um and it was it D again which was the professional devot okay thank
013you wel any other other questions all right thank you thank you Rich all right now we'll move on to the presentation of the 2023 njsla results by Rich Bron director of Curriculum by Rich hello hello here okay uh good evening I'm here tonight to share with you the results of the 2023 njsla Administration students completed the njsla which stand with new J student learning assessment in May of 2023 uh there's a large amount of information on these slides I'll go over some of it quickly spend more time on some of the other slides uh the the entire presentation is linked in the agenda and at the end I'll be happy to go over any questions that you have so first off uh students St grade n took the ELA 9 Algebra 1 geometry or Algebra
0142 assessments students completing Algebra 1 for the first time also took the algebra assessment students in grade 11 took the Science assessment uh I always point out that the results that I'm sharing with you tonight do not include uh results from students in any of the academy programs because they are technically part of scho [Music] District so after I give an overview of the test I'll go through everything for ELA then I'll move on to math go through all the math then I'll go through all the science science uh for each subject I'll give the District results then I'll give the school results and then I'll look at the results by subgroups in the end I'll go over some of the intervention strategies we're using to help students who are struggling and I'll go over
015our action plans to improve so for ELA and math they're um reported in five different proficiency levels with one being the lowest not yet meeting expectations and level five being the highest exceeding expectations so at times I'll refer to proficient when I mentioned the word proficient I'm talking about the students who are at levels four and five that they're meeting or exceeding expectations so we'll start with with Ela so in slide six uh this slide shows the district district results for ELA 9 PR proficiency level it also Compares those percentages to 2022 the percentage of students on levels 1 and two which again are not yet meaning or partially meaning expectations went down 1% for the district and the percentage of students on levels four and five meeting or exceeding expectations increased by 9% for
016the district from 2022 so overall the percent percentage of students performing at levels 1 and two across the state slightly increased from 22 to 23 while our percentage decreased which it should uh the percentage of students performing at levels four and five increased across the state by 3.2% from 22 to 23 but our percentage uh the percentage of our district increased by more and increased 9% so again this is all Ela with oops I think I skipped one yep with slide eight this shows the breakdown of proficiency levels at by school the percentage of students who are proficient at North hunon High School was 55% and the percentage of students who are proficient at Vorhees high school was 85% so yes that's a very big difference the percentage of students who were proficient at North
017hunon was essentially the same as it was in 2022 it went down less than 1 percentage point but the percentage at Vorhees went up dramatically from 57% to over 85% % both schools were above the state average but the results for Vorhees were just outstanding why does it keep on skipping here here we go for the subgroups you can see that the percentage of students who were proficient for the district increased for every subgroup from 2022 which is in blue to 2023 which is in Red so as we move into slide 10 we'll move into mathematics uh only students in grades 9 and 10 who took the math assessments are included in the data that's especially I mean that's especially important for the um State data here uh students in grades 11 and 12 were
018not included so with slide 12 uh there were not if you see down at the bottom for Algebra 2 there were not enough students who took the algebra 2 assessment so those results are suppressed to Pro protect student privacy there wasn't much change in the math scores from 2022 the percentage of students performing at levels four and five in Algebra 1 was exactly the same as in 20122 the percentage of students performing at levels four and five for geometry decreased 9% from 2022 from 78% in 2022 to 69% in 2023 remember that many of the students who come to our district take Algebra 1 in middle school so those results are not included obviously in our data however the Statewide data that does include students in seventh or or eth grade so the change into
019percentage of students performing at levels four and five in Algebra 1 in our district was the same as it was across the state uh but the percentage at the state level increased for geometry by 6.4% while the percentage in our district decreased by 9% from last year the percentage of our students meeting or exceeding expectations for geometry was still well above the state average as 50% were proficient across the state but around 70% of our students were proficient so just to remind you that the like the geometry scores that I'm talking about here that's just the students in grade nine obviously we have sophomores who also take geometry but only the Freshman students take the assessment uh so now that we look at by school with algebra 1 22% of the students at North hunon
020were proficient while 43% were proficient at Vorhees the north hund percentage decreased by 7% from 2022 while the Vorhees percentage increased by nearly 133% slide 20 uh slide 15 sorry helps us to understand the algebra 1 scores more fully here um with the percentage of students proficient increasing for females and Hispanic or Latino students from 2022 but the percentage of students de but the percentage of students who are proficient decreased for male and Asian students so moving into geometry here with slide 16 uh the geometry results by school show that 73% of the students were proficient at North hunon while 64% of the students at Vorhees were proficient both of those are well above the state average of 50% so there weren't enough students to show many subgroups for geometry again because it was just
021the Freshman students who took it but the percentage of students who were proficient decreased for each of them from 2022 to 2023 it just jumped ahead and as I mentioned earlier we did not have enough students take the algebra 2 assessment to report their results so for science uh the results from the Science assessment are reported in four different proficiency levels remember Ela 9 or Ela and math were in five Sciences in four proficiency levels with a three being proficient and four being Advanced proficient so 47% of our students were proficient in 2023 which is a 5% increase from 20122 the percentage of students in levels 1 and two decreased more than the state average from 2022 and the percentage of students in levels three and four increased more than the state average from 2022
022both of those are positive changes from 2022 so when we're looking at by School uh res the percentage of students were proficient in 2023 across the state was 29.8% a much higher percentage of our students were proficient 46% at Vorhees and 47.7% at North hundon the percentage of Vorhees students who are proficient decreased around 4% from 2022 uh while the percentage of North students who were proficient in increased around 10% from 2022 the percentage of students who are proficient in 2023 increased for some of our subgroup populations including females Asians black or African-American students and white students and a percentage of students who are proficient in 2023 decreased for our male Hispanic or Latino students and our students with disabilities so with slide 24 there's a lot to celebrate with the 2023 NJ njsla results
023uh first off the district percentage of students who are proficient is well above the state average for ELA 9 for geometry and for science 11 the percentage of students who are proficient at Vorhees and Ela 9 Ela 9 increased by 28% from 2022 and a percentage of students who are proficient at Vorhees from Algebra 1 increased by nearly 15% from 2022 so there are several steps that we're taking to improve improve our njsla results uh first off we've Consolidated our staffing for tested courses just to improve consistency in those courses uh we're also administering the common assessments for grade n Ela math science and social studies classes that we developed over the summer so just so that you understand those common assessments those are tests that we developed collectively between the two schools so each
024student in ela 9 will get the same uh six assessments throughout the first three markeing periods the you know regardless of school that they're at same thing for Algebra 1 biology and early American history these assessments will better allow us to see the standards the students need support with during the school year we'll be using professional development days to examine results from the common assessments and use those results to inform our instruction we will be developing the common assessments for grade 10 classes this summer we are also working on integrating more njsla aligned questions into our curriculum so that student students are familiar with the questions and have practiced answering them we also revised our Ela 9 curriculum over the summer we expanded the articulation meetings this year to include all teachers in grade 6
025to 12 of a subject rather than only eth and nth grade teachers uh We examined the njsla results in a number of ways includ including by course level and sending district and we're also emphasizing writing in all of our subject areas so for the students we have a lot of supports for students who are struggling academically we have extra help 3 days a week from 2:30 to 10 uh 3:10 sorry 2:30 to 3:10 we have resource rooms every period of the day in all subject areas we also have Workshop classes in ela 9 and math for our seniors who have not yet demonstrated proficiency for graduation we also provide our students with two free options for tutoring outside of the regular school day our teacher tutoring is available virtually from 3:10 to 9:00 p.m. by
026appointment for immediate tutoring help we offer tutor.com and with that our students can instantly connect with the tutor in all subjects for students who are not meeting the standards in their classes we have a response to intervention program and that is everything do you have any questions about these results do you have any three examination do you have any idea why there's such a disparity and I mean the the results ofes were great you know everything increased tremendously which is great but North did not what is there anything that is it an anomaly or is it just I would love to have a great answer for you okay you know I really would because we spent a lot of time looking into looking into these and talking with our staff members and trying to find
027the answers to it the best that I can come up with is what some of the nth grade teachers at Vorhees were saying is that it was a great group of students the current sophomores um I wish that I had a better there's probably a lot of little factors that contributed to this we've had a lot of meetings and obviously the conversations at North were different than the conversations at Vorhees you know at North it's what can we do better if Wares it's what did we do to have this increase so we can continue it um but it when we look back on this 5 years from now it could have just been that one group of students um at this point I think our common assessments will help better understand that but we we
028were one of the things that the state gives us is a breakdown by standard and one of the things that we most noticed the difference especially for ELA was that the writing scores were much higher at Vorhees so we're really trying to emphasize the writing at North Hunter this year while continuing to emphasize it warhe yes how many years have we been getting the njsla njsla not long but um it's essentially the same as Park which started in 2015 so since 2015 with two years not happening because of Co okay so was njsla in place before Co I think it was yeah I think 20 maybe it was three years of Park so right around 2018 I think is when it I'd be interested in seeing like a longer term Trend like not just not
029just 22 and 23 but if if JLA is comp comparable enough to park so that it's like that you can build that out for five seven eight years like it would be interesting to see what those Trends look like yeah and we did go over that in the curriculum committee meeting as well um to look at those larger trends for because for example in 2016 there was a group of students at North hunon where it was very anomalous to the rest of the data and that might be what just happened with Vorhees as well we're a very large group of students were proficient in 2016 at North and then that followed that you know they followed that Trend throughout their career um so yeah we we did look at the long-term data as well longer
030term data yes you said the conversation at morgis was what did we do well last year and the conversation at North was what can we do better is there conversation best correlating right cross conversation going on yeah um especially when we get to the common assessments so now that they're administering some of these common assessments we will be spending some of our inservice days for both departments to get together you know with the math and English and science as well um to discuss those results so yeah we we've had those individual discussions by building but now we are getting the two buildings together as well yes any other questions all right well thank you so much for your time thank you thank you all right we will now move on to the chief School administrator's
031report rich thank you Rob so the first item we have on here is our uh recognition of student achievements so I'm going to ask the principes to come up and present their awards for this month I guess we'll start with Dr kro since he's getting up come on up well anes stole a lot of my thunder as talking about all the awesome things that friendship day does uh but friendship day is so awesome and amazing because of our student body and these four seniors in front of you are some of our outstanding seniors I like to tell our seniors at the beginning of the year that seniors set the tone for the school they establish expectations they lead by example and these four seniors certainly do that so our our friendship day is a day
032where everyone comes together of all different ability levels to build friendships establish lead leadership skills and it takes our student body coming together to make that happen which it takes these guys organizing that to make that come the fruition so they are outstanding leaders so I want to introduce them and we give them some recognition for all their hard work and by the way also um Friendship Day is run by our interact Club interact Club is a community service organization that donates time and money to the Clinton Community Day The Haunted Mill kisses for Kyle and Relay for Life so they're going to be involved in a lot more things throughout the year so introducing the four senors in front of you today are key Hoffman is committed to Kent State to play lacrosse where
033uh she hopes to major in exercise science with a concentration in physical and occupational therapy she is also a member of the internet Club she's a captain of the varsity field hockey team and is a student ambassador and a key Club member so how about a round of applause for stie lingfield hopes to attend the a university in the South she hasn't figed out South she knows that much majoring in marketing U she is an executive member of the interact Club she is a head of the Relay for Life fundraising committee a National Honor Society treasur and a volunteer for our Special Olympics and unified teams so sad we also have Nate ronal Nate plans to go to college in the fall and to study business marketing and sports communication he hasn't figured out where
034yet but he's going somewhere for business marketing uh he is also the vice president of Our National Honor Society he is the president of pure leaders he's a varsity basketball team captain so his big season's coming up here shortly and he is a senior leader for our team pep so Nate and you know anesh but I'm going to tell you a little bit more about him so anesa he is a senior board representative as you know he plans to attend he's got a couple different lists here he's either going to FSU Georgia Tech or the UN University of Texas in Austin so who you also wants to go somewhere South uh he will double major in engineering and business he is a member of our National Honor Society our history Honor Society he is also
035a leader of our interact Club the Jungle the Special Olympics and the US Alliance he is a president of our class so he's our senior class president he's been the class president for four years and he's also the newest president of our soon to be established at the next board meeting they're going proove the new Roar Club the Northern News Club and that's what they rep yes so round of applause for we're gon get a phot here just a second yeah yeah are you sure all right here we go two three and congratulations and Mr Peterson will come up to present his student recognition hello everybody and it's been 11 years counting this has been a while uh the pressure and um that students and Staff feel today is probably nothing compared to what it's
036been in years past and Nina here did something so small that made such a big impact and a lot of people happy at B he High School do you want to show them show oh I need to bring my ducks up okay Ducks just these little ducks that she hid around the school in her classes and in the hallways and everything else teachers found these ducks in their classes and in the hall and they got so excited students were excited about these little ducks that were hidden Everywhere by the way there are five Ducks hidden in here right now you look around you might find a duck some are pretty out in the open some are pretty well hit um but yeah just going around and the difference that it made in the culture of
037the school just on hiding these little things was uh something spectacular so um with that to go along with the certificate I told you not to buying Ducks because there's your next match tock dark rocks oh the best ones so um the other difference that it made it's also you know um it got it helped us kind of get out when we're kind of dragging and with the the everyday business in the main office to say hey let's get up let's take a walk let's see what's going in the classes and also go for duck hun so um I found 20 ducks so far thank you he L that B on his so um thank you for bringing such joy and found it one you found one thank you D I will find another found
038Deb beat me to it I found it first all right thank you everybody congratulations again to our students and thank you for all you're doing that's always the best part of his meetings is hearing what the kids are doing so yeah uh so I have a few more things to report on that are all great things um anesh it seems like you were stealing a lot of thunder tonight CU my first item is about the marching dance but I do want to add one thing so on October 9 UM the marching BS from both of our high schools did perform uh at the Columbus State parade in New York City uh North hunon has been performing at this for quite some time now uh but this was the first year both band directors got together
039and had both marching bands combin and and marching a parade together so uh they created a great Banner that was a district Banner represented both schools and again they won second place um out of all the bands that were marching in the parade so that was a great accomplishment for them and congratulations to all of those band members I those uh also on October 9th that same day uh the district held its first joint inservice day with staff from all of our 11 sending districts in attendance there were over 800 certified staff attending bias awareness training and grade level or subject area articulation meetings you know while we have superintendent and subject area articulation meetings throughout the year this is the first time all districts were able to work collaboratively together and I thank our
040sing districts for aligning their calendars to make this St possible it was truly a historic event it was the first time we had that many C certificated staff members at an in service all Under One Roof and uh it turned out great and I'd like to give a shout out to Rich Bron as well because he was the coordinator here and um he did a great job with Mak sure and then just as a reminder we want to remind parents that our Curriculum maps which basically tells you everything that's being taught in the course is available to view in the parent mode of Asing so when you log into Aspen as a parent you can see all the curriculum apps uh parents can learn more about the curriculum taught in any of their child's classes
041at any time instructions on how to navigate that were sent out in the beginning of the year and a reminder was sent out to parents last week but if anybody has any um problems accessing it you know contact your um either teacher in the class or an assistant principal at school and they will be able to help you get on so so that is all I have to report that's fun stuff and then we have our normal business items uh we have our report on harassment intimidation and bullying for this month and we had eight reported um cases that's one of them was founded and seven were unfounded um three of them were unfounded because there was no victim put into a Anonymous form U but we do the invest we try to do whatever
042we can as an investigation with the behavior anyway um so that was one founded seven unfounded and then Rob do you want to call motion yep so we need a motion and a second and to affirm the determinations on the HIV incidents reported at the September 26th 2023 board meeting can I have a motion please motion by Tara second second by Jess any discussion seeing none all in favor I opposed extensions abstain Beth is abstaining because she wasn't here okay all right so B is done we we also have a call for a motion in a second I guess if you want to do that one as well for an educational research project all right can I get a motion and before you do that I had a question about it the so do you
043want to have it during discussion just just really quickly on it so um so I think it's wonderful um the only thing that just wasn't 100% clear is that if these are students under the age of 18 that the parental consent will be obtained for their kids to participate I know they say they're not going to collect any personally identifiable information um but I think given what's being discussed the parents should at least give approval as well sure I I believe that is the case it was in The Proposal but I will verify that um by the board approving us tonight that still means we still have control over it that we okay good perf yeah and so I think it says that they're going to not that the parents will be notified but it
044doesn't say that that permission will be re so that's good okay so that is the um research project can I have a motion and a second to approve that research project second Beth and second by Deb any further discussion all in favor I I opposed extensions motion carries and then I guess you need one more all right looks that way yes all right so um and what does just explain what this is yeah can you explain what that is this is for the um oh I'm sorry uh this is for the uniform memorandum of agreement between law enforcement and our school district so what we can what information we are obligated to share with law enforcement what information they're obligated to share with us um it is a Statewide document every school adopts it's the
045same for every District um I think the reason documents are available to a board office is because it's a little over 100 some pages long not so um so but this is something we approve every year uh and it is a typical um I don't think we really have much of a choice but to approve it so okay can I get a motion in a second to approve the annual renewal of the New Jersey uniform State memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement officials for the 2023 2024 school year can I have a motion please so moved yes second by Shelly any discussion can can I ask you to repeat that so it's unnegotiable it's uh the same for every single District yes there's nothing unique about it other than our name correct it
046comes from the attorney general down through the prosecutor's office and then comes to two school districts in each County all right any further discussion all right all in favor I opposed extensions motion carries last but not least the monthly reports are there for your information if there any questions let me know all right thank you Rich all right now for the school board president report uh the next meeting is November 28th at 7 p.m. right here in The District administration office and the big week of for the NJ SBA is next week October 23rd to 26 the NJ SBA Workshop in Atlantic City which I know we have several members uh going to and then um I also did want to mention uh in the spirit of uh continued um collaboration between the school between
047the sending districts and the high school district we are hosting on October 30th the next installment of the uh School Board officers Round Table where uh We Gather with all of the um sending District um board leadership to talk about opportunities for further collaboration amongst the district so I think the the report on the um inservice day with over 800 Educators from all the districts is absolutely fantastic and I think it's an examp just an example of like a sort of a fruition a culmination of a lot of work over the years that the Administration has done to kind of build that cohesiveness among the districts and I think the more of that we can do the better I think it's in in everybody's best interest so looking forward to that meeting on the 30th
048and that's all I got so now we move to the opportunity for public comment during this portion of the meeting the public is invited to address the school board with questions or comments the public is requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to State their name Municipality of residents group affiliation if applicable and direct their comments to the school board president while all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and what appropriate School members will not 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 those appearing will be allocated 3 minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak twice until those that have yet had an opp
049not yet had an opportunity to speak have had a turn so I welcome anybody to the podium who would like to make a public comment good evening I'm Amy Barrett from Highbridge I'm the person who spoke at the August meeting about strengthening policy 9130 uh to discourage additional book Banning requests I see that the proposed revisions to 9130 the public complaints and grievances policy are on tonight's agenda but I'm puzzled about why you were considering these particular revisions as a former English teacher I'm sensitive to word choice and the difference between shall and may can be a Miss I know that most of you oppose book Banning so I don't understand why you were proposing to change the policy from the superintendent shall appoint committee to review challenged books or materials to the superintended May
050appoint a committee neither policy 9130 nor regulation 9 9130 describes the process clearly if the superintendent does not appoint a committee let me repeat that the policy and regulation are clear that the board has the final say if a committee is appointed but it's not clear whether the board or the superintendent has the final say if a committee is not appointed I think that leaves too much discretion to a superintendent who personally decided to remove fun home from the library Shel at North only 4 and 1/2 years ago please reconsider your proposed weakening of policy 9130 and again please consider strengthening this policy and Consulting those who will be affected by this policy such as your Librarians before you make changes thank you for listening good evening my name is Carol botus I live in
051Clinton um I come before you tonight I reached out um to Upper Administration a few times already um and I haven't really gotten any response so I was hoping that you guys can maybe shed some light on the busing situation for athletics um I have three freshmen and all three of my kids are playing sports and we're expected to transport them to away games there's only two of us my husband and I and we work an hour away respectively um there's no way for my children to get to their athletic games that are not here at north um I understand that there's a bus shortage driver shortage and I also understand that our first priority is to be getting a kids home safe and then Athletics is secondary completely understand that but this driver shortage
052has been going on for almost a year if not more and there has been no communication to parents other than the coach is communicating to us the day before G I don't think that that's an acceptable time frame for parents to have to leave work essentially a half a day because the kids have to be picked up at 1:30 or 2:00 my kids have nine away days so that means my husband and I have to leave work nine days to get one child to an away athletic event I don't think that any other employer or or people here would be able to leave work nine times to take their child to a game so I just I I'm asking what resolutions have been have been discussed what other options have been discussed because nothing is
053being communicated to us I mean I don't know if any of you are aware of this that this is going on but you know I get crickets I've emailed three times now and nothing thank you and as a firsttime parent here at North with the three kids as a freshman that's not something that I expected and just so you know tomorrow the girls are in the semi-finals and they don't have a bus all right seeing no further public comment we will move to our committee reports thank you and if you hang around I think you will be hearing about busing during the finance committee meeting all right um first up is curriculum instruction and Technology we'll start with the committee report and then we'll have a vote on the agenda items related to that committee
054okay uh so the curriculum instruction and Technology committee met on October 11th virtually um all members were present with the exception of Miss selino and Mr csbo Excuse me were both not a member but the president wasn't there but he's not a member technically so there were five agenda items that were discussed the first was um the October 9th professional development day I won't go into the detail of what we discussed since uh Dr Burg just went over it um but just to highlight that there were over um nearly 850 Educators from these 12 sending districts as well as ours which is an amazing amazing accomplishment and a great look forward um the administration is looking to continue and expand this um by finding ways for all the districts to work together um and in
055the committee we discussed uh how the sending districts are going to start in early 2024 for some of them will start their strategic planning sessions so incorporating that in some of these articulation conversations going forward the second agenda item was the board agenda items that Mr cburg just mentioned that we will be voting on 11.1 and 11.2 we discuss the home instruction and out of District placements on the board agenda the uh students going to suet votch which are um in in one of the attachments they are in programs that are not currently available at um hunterton County polych such as dance um the service agreement or the list of students is so that we can build the home school for any cost that we have uh the committee discussed ways that we could make
056the documents on the board agenda clear um such as by writing out the full hunterton County Central Regional High School English language learner instead of using the abbreviations of HCR hs- um at this point though we do have to be very careful obviously not to include any personally identifiable information um so at this point the administration is discussing and we'll get back to the committee uh the committee supports the items under the uh on the agenda for this this month the third item discussed was the district mentoring plan uh we the Administration revised the district mentoring plan based on updated regulations from uh the state there are um several components of the actual plan which is non-tenure teachers in their first year of employment are to be provided individualized support and activities based on the
057non-tenured teachers individual needs weekly inperson contact time for a minimum of 30 weeks for the new hires increased meeting frequency to twice per week for novice uh profession provisional teachers and the changes will require that the mentor teach a novice profession provisional teacher to meet according to the following schedule so now they need to meet twice per week for the first four weeks for a novice provisional teacher holding a Certificate of Eligibility with Advanced standing and twice per week for the first 8 weeks for a novice provisional teacher holding a Certificate of Eligibility so there's that distinction now um the administration provides a mentor for all certified staff in their first year in the district so the uh District mentoring plan overall is very comprehensive and supports the new faculty members the fourth agenda item
058that we discussed as a committee was AI um we're furthering our discussion with um artificial intelligence and a with AI within the school we uh the administration shared with the committee the 71 page report from uh the state which was a joy to read um there was a lot of repetition but overall at the end of the report there were seven um strong recommendations that the report uh is recommending for schools um and that is the most useful part of of that for any of you who haven't read the report yet uh in the committee we talked about how the Administration has already provided two 2hour professional development sessions on AI to the staff members at the start of this school year um and there are ways that as a as a district that they
059might be able to start using AI to be more efficient but also um having to make sure that um everyone is understanding at this point especially in this in the sense that AI can make mistakes and there needs to be very secure guard rails along uh for the data that's being entered into this um overall the administration is educating the staff members on on how students can use it from a positive perspective to expand um the information and data that's available but also from a a standpoint of copying and getting answers to things that they should be doing um so that's definitely something that they're looking at overall the conclusions are that AI is obviously an important topic and as a district we need to continue learning more about it and how it will impact
060our students and our district the administration is is exploring ways to add information about this to our digital citizenship curriculum which we discussed last month and continue providing uh professional development on AI to our faculty members and then the last item that we discussed in the committee was we reviewed uh the uh two 20 2023 njsla results for ELA math and science that Mr Brun went over um we discussed it in detail and yes we did look at year-over-year Trends uh for both schools and as a district um so that's obviously something that the administration is going to keep looking at the key call outs for that is just that um as a district they have already implemented some the core assessments and unifying um the assessments amongst both uh both schools and that was
061the committee all right thanks de anyone questions questions for Deb or the committee I guess General right again with staff AI is just making sure they have good guidance on being used right I think probably more in the aspect of schools it's it's being careful on on student data right going into these systems right and not going effec not be put into those systems right or unless it's being used in very specific types but that's probably the just they are educated on specific what goes what does not certain systems that's any other discussion comments on the CC I'm curious what policy would cover that like do we need to look at that policy and expand AI into parameters of it I mean I don't I I don't know know there's overlap on others policies wa
062see so I know the state from this report um there was a lot of guidance and initially the the encouragement is not using it with student data but it's more about um subject matter that you know would take a a Google search 20 Google searches whereas this could be one type of question that's put in and it it comes out um but there will be certainly paramet from the federal government which was included in this as well as the state and on that sorry on that note there's um probably I I would imagine it's going to be generative AI That's built within the school so that they have strong control over those guard rails so that what what goes in doesn't go out as opposed to necessarily using like the free ones like that there's
063no way that could happen the only thing I was going to add was that from a policy standpoint and you'll forgive me because I I haven't looked at it but if there's any kind of policy regarding privacy of students or information we could you could look at whether there should just be an insertion something relating to the use of that information artificial intelligence system so we certainly look at it okay okay any further discussion all right can I get a motion and a second to approve agenda items 11.1 and 11.2 second Jess and Beth any further discussions on 11.1 and 11.2 seeing none all in favor I opposed extensions motion carries now we're on to policy and school security so policy met last Monday everyone was in attendance policy 16421 on S second reading we
064no further discussion approval on first readings we have bylaw uh 0152 right so that's the one that deals with Board elections in party and so discussed last time the Amendments that you'll see there now have no term limits um there is no nominating committee both president and vice president must now have one year service most we had actually a fair amount of discussion clarifying the actual election process and the clarification round that there'll be two rounds first nomination that election for President the nomination and election for the vice president that during each round um you each board member has one vote as to each n can I ask a question about um the the board officer policy so um Was the removal of the term limit because of the the standard changes that we're making
065to these policies or is there a reason for removing term limits so as in policy discussion we decided to remove term limits for both it was administration's recommendation to match it with there was no policy limiting the term for vice president and to make them match and you know the reasons that were articulated by administration were the benefits of the consistency of um board leadership and not having um [Music] unnecessary um turnover I guess so I mean I can I can appreciate that as being a good rationale for it but I could also see the downside of not having a term as well um um if we have a situation where you have specific individuals in those positions and you can't you don't have the ability to rotate people out of that position right and
066I think the the the argument to that the counter argument was and I'm I'm sort of paraphrasing Jeff because is that um the board has the opportunity to vote every year for the president so the opportunity comes up every year to um put a new president in in the chair okay and is it common I just asking for what is this a common thing across different Boards of Education or is this yes none of the C districts have to okay but amongst other High School boards yeah I think the answer is yes but I don't know okay speak of no other high schools have in in his County in the county okay so it's unanimous from the committee members then for for not only that change but also eliminating the uh nominating committee component yeah
067are we going to talk about any of the other policies or uh so um policy 227 origin our agenda delt with religion and schools while we really had no discussion we weren't quite clear on why the changes were made and so we table that for the discussion so that's not on ton agenda um there's a policy 3161 and 4161 deals with examination call for staff members and teaching staff we had very little discussion other than if's a hearing on a particular member whether that's public or not public and it is not public St requested to be uh policy 30 recommend approval of that one both of those excuse me policy 3212 and 4212 for attendance um we had no discussion and recomend approval of those 3324 4324 ofy privacy staff and support members and again
068we had no discussion approval so policy 9130 this is we had last discussion at last meeting last year regulation 9130 was amended from the made to sha language and inadvertently policy 9130 was not amended so it's now consistent with the regulation again one reason sh to May was to partially deal with there's repetitive challenges to vot um as we discussed last time if the superintendent doesn't recommend the committee be formed there can be an appeal to the board and the board can U Can in fact then put a committee in place pleas discuss that is that unanimous those committee MERS yes again policy 9130 is not consistent with regulation 9130 and go ahead so if so the if the um superintendent does not put a committee in place you're you're just to be clear for
069me the board can vote to do that if an appeal is made to the board can do that if an appeal is me okay and so and just to reiterate I think what Glenn said right the idea is that by changing it from sh to May it doesn't require the superintendent to form a committee for repeat or frivolous or um other like challenges that don't meet the threshold of you know the challenge process that's laid out in the form corre the form is incomplete was so we so we talked that and so when we we did this policy two two years ago right we we had a lot of discussion about how how to prevent repeat challenges right and so there was discussion at that time of and including um you know input from our
070attorney and other was about you know do you set a time limit or do you right and so the decision that was made at that time was that we would that the policy wording would be changed from sh which requires you know anytime a challenge is made it requires the formation of that committee to May because so that puts up um some discretion and Jeff was clear when we were talking about this that if a challenge is made that he doesn't recommend a committee be formed he's still going to tell us at the board Bo that that challenge was made and what and that it's a committee is not being formed and we'll have the chance to discuss it then so that's not clear in the language so maybe you know a something to think
071about between you know first reading and second reading is to put some sort of statement in there that clarifies what happens when the superintendent doesn't form a committee and for what reasons and and explains that to the board so we have an opportunity to hear that can I ask um just probably because I don't remember from two years ago wouldn't it be um just more open to the public and even to the person who's requesting the the book b banned instead of saying like shall May and having like all these steps clear guidelines on like well if a book had been challenge within x amount of years unless the Challen unless the challenge is a different reason M um I don't remember that being like right so so that is what was discussed was like
072is it you know is there a certain time period or you know what is the criteria for rechallenges and this is where we landed got based on that you know so it certainly doesn't prevent anybody from proposing that we revisit it but the the reason the reason that the time is because and I don't remember if Andrew remember was involved in those discussions either but there was it might have been yeah there was um there were some reasons why um like making it like a specific time period like 5 years or 3 years or 10 years or whatever before you can rechallenge a book that's already been adjudicated on wasn't wasn't recommended so okay thank you with those kind of specifics go into regulation company regulation instead of the policy kind of like isn't the
073regulation how you so how you enact policy right yes yes if if we if we had gone down the path of um setting like explicit boundaries on when a book when a material could be rechallenged rather than um being less explicit about that so I don't think that I mean that doesn't prevent us anybody from wanting to like red discuss that but that's that's how we got to where we are now and this change is to correct the fact that when we did all of that talking about this two years ago we the policy and regulation don't match right now so that's what we're changing uh last topic of conversation was around policy uh 1045 and uh it dealt with repeat happenes not only at board meetings but also in committee meetings we didn't have
074honestly a lot of time left to discuss this topic and it wasn't any clear consensus so we're just tabling that to to our next me all right any further questions comments discussions on the committee report seeing none can I get a motion and a second to approve agenda items 12.1 and 12.2 second did someone move yes Dan Dan and any further discussion on 121 or 12 to seeing none all in favor I opposed 122 I I believe 121 I oppos 122 same I approved 121 but not 122 any abstentions okay motion carries motion carries thank you um before moving on to the next committee I did notice that there I don't know if it was accidentally left off but there's no new business prior to going into a consecutive session and I had a question
075about security do you want to bring that up in new business open new business after it's all the way at the end so nobody stays for the end and I think it's an important topic because it's his commit okay I'll to you if you want to add it in before the executive session we can but no I guess while we're we haven't moved on from policy and school security so I guess I guess it's related to school security school security so there you go um so I just wanted to um understand what the administration is going to be doing um as additional protection given um the circumstances of what is happening between should discussing this in public session I'm sorry should not be discussing security Arrangements in public session okay we can't just say that
076it's being addressed or anything like that other than saying it's being addressed but it's any details as to security safety should not be discussed in public sessions okay that's fine thank you thank you thank you thank all right now moving on to agenda item 13 Finance facilities and transportation John thank you rob um our committee met virtually on October 9th everybody was in attendance along with Katie and Rich uh let's see the first item was Transportation which was brought up in uh public comment um so as we know this has been an ongoing problem with the busing uh we contract with 100 ESC to provide management um for our buses and they bid out our routes handle our busing needs uh it has been a problem for you know preo and it's only gotten worse
077uh post uh coid um and particularly the athletic routes which were mentioned earlier are are the toughest routes to fill they are filled on a as as as needed basis and they becoming very challenging um so one of the attempts to some of the routes were were bit out specific where where in the past they had been just filled as needed by area vendors these were these specific routes for athletic games were bid out and we had zero zero bids received for those routes so it's a problem so um as you'll see on the agenda um our agenda for this tonight um it is agenda item res 13 uh four four um it's an agreement with Somerset County ESC to provide a efficiency analysis of what we do um with our busing you know so
078they they'll they do the same thing as hun County ESC they're in the same business so we're going to get a second set of eyeballs on this um to review what we're doing and make recommendations uh going forward so um you know it's something that our committee kind of basically talks about um either at length or briefly every single uh meeting so that's on the agenda also another old one uh came up there's no action items on the agenda but we were talking about The Farmhouse at Vorhees it continues to be a um a problem um it's uh the condition of it it's an attractive nuisance uh and I know in the past we had uh some interest which uh in the end never materialized when it came time to actually move on uh subdividing
079um our architect did a preliminary evaluation of what it would cost to demolish the building it's an excessive number they came up with between two and 300,000 most likely because of the the location you probably have to build a a road just to get to it in order to bring in the equipment to to demolish it even if that is what we wanted um you know that there's also still the potential of subdividing the property giving it to the state um but they would need need access across our property in order to get to it so I don't know what good it would be for them so there while there's no action on the agenda the the consensus of the committee was for the administration to take additional steps to um um you know put
080some more fencing keep it keep the trespassers away from the building and keep it safe uh also we had an agenda review pretty boiler plate uh accepting some grants uh modifying the uh the Honeywell um or Honeywell um Grant and uh annual District comprehensive uh maintenance plan for the for the State uh additionally um we did talk briefly about uh the Exxon project um across the street here from north hunon um while there's nothing is you know on you know formal for us to review or be our our you know primary concern is the safety of that intersection so we'll be monitoring the progress of that um and then also Katie updated us on the lighting analysis that's being done at uh the high school um the improvements to the uh football field right out
081here will be made after the season um but at this point the analysis isn't complete so uh we'll be getting to that in future uh future meetings so that's all I have um be happy to entertain questions hopefully I can answer maybe The Farmhouse did we ever look at historically being historically sated right yeah and there was no there's no we can't re anything Grant anything from that either it is not a historical landmark right now that Lebanon Township historical society was who first brought this to our attention they wanted to know if we would fix it up so that they could I know it's been a we've been talking about it fruit but it was across to the district that was not but it's just as dangerous I I mean I know it's the
082lesser of Two Eagles but putting the fence around it but it's it's just as dangerous sitting there with the fence I mean is there any way communication with with the communities with surrounding there there there's nothing the I don't know how familiar you are with that location but it's extremely remote the the grading is very challenging because it's at the back end of that property and and it basically drops right off from there down to the gorge so the only way to access it is across our Athletic Field um so you know even if we were to subdivide it you know back when we talked about a subdivision you would need to include an easement across the high school property just to get to the thing if you know to a potential new owner um
083so I mean there are some trails that connect that vicinity to the trail Network that go down to the Columbia Trail but they are very uh very very very steep I mean you can't bike them you have to hik them so you're not going to bring equipment up from that direction either it's it's no man's land down there and um but yet it continues it's an attractive nuisance because it's sits right below the one the practice football field and the uh where the track team competes so and the other issue too is it it even if it were subdivided and turned over to another group to where it started they still have to get funding even though it's going to be their responsibility it's still a nuisance until they can you know get funding and
084grant funding for ass preservation it's very diff and then after you outfit it who's going to use it so and you know so we're staring at the cost of $2 to $300,000 to remove it we're like oh boy you know that's that's always been our dilemma is do we throw good education dollars that you know that we fight over here uh for all of our needs to put into um such a such a structure that's why we haven't haven't made any progress and I guess the idea is that for a fraction of that cost if you could make it marginally improveed from a safety standpoint at least you know where a we're reducing the risk by some amount and I think showing good faith that we're attempting to reduce the risk rather than just ignoring
085it is I guess the thought process thank you Exon matter and I'm not advocating Bo or the administration steps into that but is there you say we should monitor I guess I don't know what monitor means right because is a board member can't attend those meetings in monitary because I don't have the right to do that but obviously you know and I don't even know if I understand it what I don't understand there's obviously a lot of traffic out there in the morning because I have I am part of that traffic dropping students off there's students on our fields that I don't know if trucks are idle at health risk there's a noise risk there's a safety risk and I'm not saying that's necessarily our battle to fight however u i mean my district sent
086a lot of money into this school I send my district send kids into this school so the safety of my kids Town's kids is important to me and so I don't understand if the township is is looking at the school in the consideration of have all of these studies been done yeah and I'm happy to say I'm happy to you to look at this but I don't know if I have the right to do that as a board member yeah we we struggle with that applicability of our committee to yeah I'm not yeah of been with doing that right we can't speak for the school or the board as individuals so and and Rob I mean I hope you don't mind I mean he shared with us as you know U as resident of Clinton
087Township Rob Robert kirberger he attended a hearing and that you know that's that's terrific I mean you know keep keep an eye on it from that perspective I guess um you know some of the discussions surrounded you know should the should the uh High School have somebody there making comment and um you know that it's that's a gray dicey area to be I mean we don't have any uh he would need or whoever would go with need guidance from us on that and I don't think we're prepared yeah I'm not advocated we we speak I guess I'm more I'm more wanting to make sure that in the process the concerns of the school are are being taken into consideration right and what comes to my mind immediately is traffic safety noise and pollution right what
088comes my mind so so I think where this where this was a year ago was that Exxon was coming forth with a proposal that then didn't make it even into Township committee because the highlands commission and our town and our and the Clinton Township um zoning laws don't allow for what they were considering proposing I think what's happened in the last month is that there there are P there was a public discussion on exxon's continued interest in coming up with other uses or coming up with uses for that property so I don't think that there's been a propos there's not a proposal that's under consideration by the Clinton Township so I think that it's something that's good for us to be aware of because of our the proximity but I guess I don't know Andrew
089if you would agree but um you know there's nothing for us there's nothing yet for us to weigh in on because I don't think there's a I don't think there's a proposal that's been made but I thought that they were reviewing policies again in the last meeting and potentially revising policies Ian my thought was going to be why can't we as a board have our board attorney attend meetings to act on our behalf and ask questions and get information so that as a board we can decide whether it's something that needs to be evaluated further well I don't think our attorney should be attending I think we can take the information from those meetings and if we need to act we then deliberate it but I mean he shouldn't be on the floor of the
090meeting you know coming up with questions I just that's a land use issue not an education use and we don't even have a proposal on the table yet so until we have a proposal that we can intelligently talk about okay you know then you know then that'll trigger your environmental impact study your traffic impact study all your studies But first you have to have get through the land use of Clinton Township and and have a firm proposal on that so maybe what if we invited the mayor of Clinton Township to come my question can someone give us I think for my for my sake it's not to Advocate anything as much as know what's going on right and people you know my channel like what's going on I don't know why don't you care like
091why you care I don't going on that's a good idea that's a great idea yeah I think I see furrowed brows is there concern with that just my general look of con conation that's a good look for an attorney to have that's good all right so may so I don't know if that's uh if that's what we do that from the board or you you help me with that Katie from yeah let me look into it and I can get back to okay okay I have a question on it's uh thought six 136 maybe I'm just the guy asks about all the stuff we're thrown away too last time yep I do too was that discussed the the the list of pages and Pages no I thought we handled that last month we you know
092had a discussion about the process of uh you know it's a it's a routine thing how it is recommended for certain items to be um you know disposed of so it's not something that you know we deliberate okay at the committee level maybe I can just ask then it it is a lot is this I don't remember this and maybe it's just me but is this an annual thing or is this kind of like multiple years of laptops this looks like one year of laptops is the laptops are good Chromebooks are good for you know one C cohort of students to go through four years and then we decommission them you know wipe them out and then they go on the disposal list and they are completely not usable that it's high so this that
093why because it's high school students as you could imagine and there are other network devices and things of that nature that g does put on this list this is an annual list because there printers ch right yeah so maybe my only other question was do do you have any the idea and this is would have been put in front of me in some other under some other mechanism but how much do we spend on new computers each year is I can get you that information but I guess the bottom line is this is this is completely normal I've seen it three more times or twice before I just don't remember okay just a matter of when we get it from certain departments when they're ready to submit a list like this to us we have
094it the future times a year but each department will do this once a year so you may just see it in different agendas just to add to that while because I ask the same thing with books every time is if there's an ability for us to donate them in the case of technology equipment what we typically do is put it on gov deals which is an auction website and see if we can Garner some sort of revenue from it we can't and it's complete garbage then we go through the next route of disposing donation or dispos yeah being able toate or you know getting rid of technology equipment is more a recycling matter than it is a donating matter okay because I mean there are other places in the country where students don't have any
095computers so getting a four-year-old Chromebook might be better than nothing that's all just something to think about um one more thing on the transportation John I I I think we talked about this in committee or at least somewhere that the administration is working with the staff and soliciting if there are um teachers or other staff who are interested in getting their CDL so that they can also be included as bus drivers for athletic runs so that's another Avenue I think the um I think the point is that there are lots of irons in the fire trying to address the um busing shortage that's impacting not just us but um schools across the state so in the meantime how are the kids getting there parents last time we about it parent car pools and they're driving
096themselves I guess if the Juniors and seniors they're driving themselves some drive themselves and if they're 18 then they can have a couple other kids in the car too oh no you can't no I yeah so actually let's not ulate I I'd like to not just speculate as to what the policy is about students driving themselves to athletic games whether they have a license or not I'd like to hear it from Administration well do we since the buses are all the districts tiered all the sending districts their buses tiered or how does everybody sending County County ESC does tear all the busing that's what makes the athletic rep so challenging is the fact that the K to eights are all doing their normal runs at that time so when we need those athletic buses they're
097already stacking the next route after our buses are finished you know with our normal routes home um to reach out I know it's crazy but if we're moving forward and we continue to have this this um situation is there any way that it's a lot to ask but we consider the sending districts talking to them moving their their K to eight times I mean I know our Township moved they moved their their time for other reasons but I it may come to that point that asking wouldn't hurt I I know it's a lot of sending districts round sounds like a round but it's a round T topic to you know we're all talking about how start times for high school should be later you know and those times maybe this is you know resonating this
098is a discussion to be had it's it doesn't seem like it's going away it's been started it's through coid and it's just getting progressively worse and you know parents do work and it's difficult we all know that we all feel that pain I I feel this poor wom like one kid I how do you do three kids so it's challenging everyone's dealing with it so maybe that's a yeah I think that's what we're trying to do is every Avenue we can is just knock down every door see if there's anything we can do to improve our routes typically which is the coming to and from routes in the afternoon if there's anything that we can do as far as eff efficiency and free up the drivers that could give us the potential opportunity of having
099them athletic drivers so we're willing to try anything at this point yeah the um the study that we're going to have with that we when we vote on it were um sumerset you said they don't seem to be having as an issue like we are here we this made phone calls to other high school districts and they've been able to fill the athletic BRS lately you know they still have a one off where they may not get a bus but ourc seems to be the systemic issue and I think the challenge is that we are built with h County ESC that also manages all the k8s so when we try to have more um we try to advertise in Market or athletic runs separately they almost don't have a willingness to take away the other
100drivers from other districts so what we're trying to do is Garner other areas Somerset County how can we attract other contracts like craft is in Flemington but there's Barker USS out in Somerset can can anyone else in a surrounding area start servicing us so we need to expand our footprint a little bit so I think that's a thought process that we're going to go down John didn't didn't your committee talk about and report to us something about small like the smaller charter buses with and then having the coaches did that well I mean that's something other states do and universities do that where you have coaches driving these buses and the requirements for a CDL for these smaller buses is less than what they have to go through for these full-size school buses you know
101that's the that's one of the major hurdles is um I know and Jeff had explained to us you have to almost be like a diesel mechanic to take to pass that test and so it's a very challenging test you know for a part-time uh employment and so you don't see as many people coming into into and minimal money right minimal money we should be paying that more they should be making more it's tough so but to get um whether it's coaches or other faculty driving you know it's a contractual issue um you know you know so limits us at at this point right now but um you know I'm sure the next round of contract negotiations that you know might be might be in there to uh you know to facilitate something like that okay
102and there's probably Katie there's I'm assuming then the sending districts have after school activities so they have sport athletic events the same thing I mean they use their buses and they're so they're pulling from the same H yeah anecdotally I see Middle School events starting very very late because it's not to all they get done running around then finally that bus comes and the game starts at like 4:30 or something but because you're all fighting for those same buses okay any more discussion on finance facilities and transportation seeing none can I have a motion and a second to approve agenda items 13.1 to 13.3 so moov motion Kim second Tara any more discussion on 13.1 to 13313 seeing none all in favor I opposed extensions in favor 1 through 10 standing 11 12 13 all
103right 11 12 motion carries thank you next community relations and student affairs we didn't meet this month but we do have to vote on tonight for the winter the um ones that are going to be doing for the 24 uh winter season so they're five different overnight field trips um there's the north Hunter model un the north Hunter cheer team North hun wrestling both boys and girls the boys high school ski club and the north hun and Key Club uh trips that have been set up so we have to vote on that you all right thank you Tara any discussion on agenda item 14.1 I just have a question the students are excused right on are they excused from their classes because it's a it's a field trip ex absence if they miss they typically
104have to make up the work but excuse any other discussion on 14.1 seeing none can I get a motion and a second to approve 14.1 motion motion shell second Deb any discussion seeing none all in favor I opposed extensions motion carries uh delegate reports Kim I know you sound something yes I do have a few things I sent out I don't know if everybody checked your your box uh on September 28th we had our County meeting Jesse young our legislative Advocate um gave us some uh legislative updates which that is what I sent to you uh Ray Penney um discussed how our uh boards managing challenging issues such as teacher and staff shortage communication uh ways to be more effective um and across the board Financial strategies and it in a nutshell it was same
105things we're hearing um so uh continued discussion um the next um County meeting is hybrid it's December 6 at jpk Middle School okay thank you anyone else Tara there's nothing until next week it's next month yeah but we haven't got anything yet no nothing yet so all right but I'll send an email Personnel the Personnel committee met um and we discussed the Personnel agenda M all right well done thanks all right I got a motion and a second to adopt resolution 10 resolution 10723 D2 for executive session to discuss matters following under categories seven and 8 as reflected in the attached resolution the board expects to be an executive session for approximately 1 hour and upon return to public session action will be taken can I have a motion please so moved motion just second
106Dan all in favor I opposed extensions all right thank you we're in executive session [Music] almost have a motion and a second to reconvene public session so moved second J Beth all in favor I opposed extensions all right we are back in public session Ken what's up next all right can I get a motion and a second to approve agenda items 19.1 to 19.3 including hand carries if provided second motion by Deb second by Jess any discussion seeing none we have a roll call vote please this yes Mr Chapman yes M chry logo yes Mr carban yes AB Miss hint yes M poan yes Mr mik yes Miss Selena yes Mr Spanton yes SP yes Mr yes thank you carries is there any old or new business to be discussed Kim um I'm just uh
107inquiring is Will Gwen be coming to do the um B goals or we did we we opened a discussion and everybody did the self eval half of us did the self- evaluation and then I know that they went back in and there's everybody finished so utilizing it yeah so everyone just finished the everyone just finished this this week so Glen so I I got to talk to Glenn Glenn I gotta talk I got to talk to Glenn talk I I need to I need to talk to Glenn about if she can come and go use yeah so it I didn't get the summary report yet because it was just um finished thank you the only other thing is kind of old business but um we are expecting the quarterly update from the principles of both
108high schools at the next Board of Education meeting on their Dei efforts so we can just a reminder yeah do they know that discuss it was so I see two people writing it down tally we uh we we said that as the recommendations that we wanted quarterly updates from the principles on the activities then November was going to be the first R good reminder do they present it or will it be like uh Jeff presents what they or they we just read it I think um we didn't say um so I think I mean we can have them send it to us and then I can I can read you know read something into the at the meeting so I mean if you'd like me to reach out to them I'm happy to do that
109we we'll work with them and we'll make sure we get the information okay I mean I think it's important for purposes of the public to see the progress and I know there has been so it's a positive thing I'd like them to read it out let's do that superintendent but get them up yeah the principal should report out that would be my vote I mean if we were voting that's my op I agree I agree so so who's going to reach out to them Rich okay I have something I'd like to ask the board opinion so um each each month meeting we have um a lot of items on the agenda that we vote on some of the items are rep repeated you know there's a regular standing item we talk about it every month
110some things it's once a year we talk about it some things are are oneops because they're just oneops um presumably all the things we're voting on are discussed in committees but we're a board of committees and not everybody is on every committee and certainly the public is not in on all those conversations in the Committees um so when a report out happens during the meeting some of those items are discussed and summarized others are not um and so i' I've become increasingly uncomfortable I may be on an island here that I'm the only one who feels like there are items that are on the agenda that I don't really understand but I'm voting on them anyways I just don't have the and and the respon can be well why don't you reach out to all
111these different individuals but that that means every board member who's not on the committee needs to be reaching out to understand what those items are about and the public certainly doesn't have that opportunity so I'm asking whether the board agrees that or feels like I do that that there's more information that could be provided about you know summary of what it is the details of of that we're voting on these it what are you referencing in particular as far as that we're not getting enough the agenda the agenda is provided to us in advance for all committee meetings and the board agenda um for a very specific purpose to to make sure that we have time to review it we have time to ask questions before the meeting and we have time to get clarification
112on certain items that we might feel we might might need what in particular about the agenda or the items on the agenda are you referencing when you say you don't understand or you're or why or if you're not understanding what's preventing you from reaching out for more information prior to a meeting um it's uh a the the the list of things that I don't understand are are long there's acronyms that are used um there's part of it is is the administration when they put things together they live this every day and it it doesn't seem they they present things in a way that makes that's obvious to them and that's that's what you do in your job I mean if you tried to you know if you gave me a document from your business I
113understand less than 10% of it probably because it's jargon it's acronyms it's things you understand that I don't so yes I could try to peel away information every single time that these things these agenda items are brought up that again the the public does not have that opportunity but we're not here for the public we're here as a board and we allow the public to attend we're not here presenting a board meeting to the public if I can jump in am I correct there Andre I mean it's we're we're here as a board and the public is allowed to attend well like differentiation terminology or is entitled to attend entitled to attend but our board meeting is for us board board meetings so actually New Jersey school boards uh has an FAQ that actually discusses
114this and it says oh it seems like the board meetings go very quickly there's very little discussion that goes on at the board meeting the answer to that is because often times these issues have been discussed in committee and so the work has been done already and really what's going on is the board taking action that's the purpose of the meeting really is to for the board to take action because otherwise the board can only take action at a public meeting that's the only way the bills get paid that's the only way that you can approve field trips um Brian if I could jump in so as you all heard this was part of the curriculum committee um that we discussed this and to the note about the acronyms I definitely reported out that the
115Administration has heard us and they are definitely like that is something that they can easily do um further descriptions on things that you had requested in the committee they have to be very careful and they have to make sure that they discuss with legal because we can't put any wording that could potentially make it clear who that report is about but there's already action being done from our committee meeting for the one committee that I sit on no no no the acronyms like that's going to be for all all the attachments this isn't just the curriculum committee attachments I guess I just wonder like the cost benefit like so there's whatever 30 I 30 numbered items that we voted on tonight that you know there were 15 of them in finance so are are you
116suggesting that the administration take the time to write little summary blurs for each one every time like I'm just not sure that yes yeah yeah I don't but isn't there a point to the whole thing we our structure is is by committee and and the point of the committee is to V the items on the agenda I just was clarify I'm just clarifying what like what the the ask is I guess and that's why I brought it up was that this is how I feel and and others I guess feel either they understand everything that's being you know put through there and you know could answer questions about them if they were if they were asked and so know exactly what they're voting on um or they're comfortable not understanding those things and voting anyways
117um and so if that's the way the rest of the board thinks then then we're done so I'd like to add a little to my prior answer so there are two avenues that are available so in your committee reports board president SS are there any questions for the committee chair the Second Avenue is actually builds into your procedural your your parliamentary procedure which is the process is a motion a second and then any discussion which can include questions as as we saw tonight I have a question about item 12.3 what exactly is this and and that is built into your parliamentary procedure yeah and my my my interest is in not slowing down the meetings with that type of questioning it's couldn't a summary be in the tech in the written document that's that's that's
118what I but I think that's what we get to within the committee was if you guys agreed that this was an issue and I don't hear that there is any agreement that this an issue but if you would agree how is an issue how do you how do you what what remedies are there possible I don't think it's an issue at all I think that's why we go to committee that's why we have committee chairs and that's why we have committees that report out um and not everything that's discussed in committee makes it to the agenda because we're either re-evaluating it especially in policy we talk about policies that never make it on to the agenda because we haven't determined you know the right course of action yet so let me just ask you how
119you approach one thing then because you're strongly op so treasurer's report I glance at it and I trust that our Administration and our um our uh uh board secretary and Katie and our ad administrator are doing their job and it's up to Administration who Katie reports to to um evaluate the report and make sure that it's accurate when it gets to us I'm not here or I don't feel I'm here to line item a treasurers report when we pay and have a business administrator who's certified to do that I'm not a CPA I'm not an accountant and I'm not here to scrutinize the bills that we're paying but I trust that we have the right people in place that are making those decisions and that I trust the results that are provided to us so
120so I do two I just don't know why I'm asked why why am I voting on something that I could not tell you is doesn't a a yacht in Bahamas because of something that's going at any given time the agenda is you get it ahead of time you can go in and sit with Katie and she'll walk you now as a new and something as it when you come on new to the board and N njsba will will say this to you too connect with your ba and they'll walk you through it this is you know it's it's Chinese it's it's Asian it's purple it's orange it's yellow it looks different to all of us right all different colors I it's not my every day that I do it but if Katie were to sit
121down down she could apples and oranges this is what you need to and she could walk you through everything if you had any questions for it and if you have any questions on the bills list I've sent Katie stuff and she gets back to you and says oh this is what it is and then it doesn't come to the floor at the board meeting and and plus Brian njsba to add to that has an enormous amount of trainings that have been recorded I can tell you my first year I was I was taking njsba trainings at least once a week because I was freaked out that I was voting on something that I didn't understand and Katie did offer um but also like those njsba trainings I highly recommend them and they're at they're up
122right now if you go on I just went in this afternoon and when into all the way till May you can register for they have a bunch of them and there's a I believe a financial always and they record one on and they you attend them they'll send you the Powerpoint so I so just one more thought on this and I don't want this to see like this seems like you know attack Brian's idea um minute which I don't think it is but but but I think that we have to vote on like so like there's some of these items that we haven't as a board we have to approve for bills to get like Andrew mentioned it's like bills to get paid so like the the reason that the treasurer report is on there
123every month Katie keep me honest but it's not there for like us to like really actually be like oh is it 70.4 million this month compared to 7.37 last month it's because there's a fiduciary responsibility that we have as a board to to approve I would argue we are not at all doing a fiduciary check on this what our auditor does that's what our AIT tens of thousands of dollars to an auditor but we do approve the audit and we approve the audit but the audit is that's why we have the audit budget season comes and then has standard if there's a problem with that audit that and all sorts of bells and whistles go off when they come in I mean um well let's ask the question though Katie or Andrew does 13.12 the
124treasurer report for the month ending September 23rd is that on the agenda because it has to be or because you every 60 days the board secretary report and treasurers report has to be board approved if it's not you'll get dinged on qac which we're going through this year so there are regulations and there's a number of different reporting requirements that the ba the board secretary have to report to the board including a certification every month that every board me that hey you guys have enough money this month to pay your bills that's and and again yes you are trusting I mean there there is a is it to the point where it trust is like did everybody open that and look at it yeah every I open every y i Tales out of I go
125through the bills list Page by Page by page right and and you can make heads or tails and I read it's com common sense and if anything's questionable I email or talk to Katie and I've brought it up at the meeting a couple times I have a question it was you know March 17th it was you know 50678 and Katie will either say oh I know what that is or I'll get back to you it's yeah I open every attachment everything I look at yeah I open them too and look at them and think I have IDE looking that's when you ask or attend the training all right can I ask question I I email Katie a lot one question I do have I mean I I have a right for the John also right
126hey joh I have a question on your on your nothing proced wrong with that right no that's the process yeah yeah process I think help to me is I I read this in conjunction with the meeting minutes and I don't and very often the meeting minutes explain to me what's on here and if I don't for example I just John I don't understand this and if I don't can't give him a good answer then it's Katie or Jeff or whoever meeting but I can't say like even though I open all of these I can't say I understand every line in the board secretary report in all 70 pages of it but like I don't feel I I personally don't feel like I need to understand every line I feel like I need to have a
127general understanding of it and then I trust Katie and the administration that these numbers that we really did have 427,000 of total undistributed educational media service expense in the budget but like I don't I don't feel the need to like actually understand why it's that number exactly and I think I mean so where would it be caught in the audit there's something off and I'm sorry I don't believe that there is so we could go use a different example no we no we could it's all Katie it's all her find it was my own uh the our own you know uh out of District placements and and home instructions you know sometimes those are we're paying money out sometimes we're paying money in it's just a dollar figure we can't disclose the student I have
128no I have no interest whatsoever knowing the student's name but the fact that sometimes that dollar figure means we're getting money and sometimes that dollar figure means we're sending money and it's the same table why could it not be identified that way why would you want to make it kind of mysterious now like that because we can't say where I mean that sometimes we know where we're sending the student sometimes we don't and it's and those identifying features could identify a student right I mean aren't they if it's a plus sign or a minus sign well if a plus sign then we're bringing a student but there's never it's never a difference it's not sometimes it's a plus sign and sometimes it's a minus sign it's in the discussion it's oh this is money going
129out oh this is money coming in why would that not be like something you want to just so it's can you pull up that fine I I I I I don't know what you're referencing actually on is it there's variables too not every situation is the same dollar amount right the numbers change all the time yeah but but it says where we're sending the money on the report I'm telling you in the past if you pull up a series of them you'll get another table it looks exactly like that table except for now the money's coming in but isn't that why we have a discussion and you can ask the question we're not giving this stuff cold I mean the other thing Brian is I I don't even think there's five districts in the entire
130state that when they record their board meeting they keep it on YouTube like we do anymore now that CO's over so from a concern when you mentioned earlier public like for us it's the same reports over and over so that's why it's easier to like understand what they are because we've seen them we've discussed them every month so we it it becomes good for us and if there's anyone that isn't familiar with the process they can go and they can either come to the meeting they could watch it live or they could go or they could just call the school I mean we I have definitely heard of where parents or community members have reached out to the school because they had a question and we haven't changed software correct you're using it's been consistent
131I you yes very good Bri I just want to I have ethical standards for my CPA license my school business administrator license and my qpa license so I just want to make sure that's very clear and there's that balances yeah yeah understand we have a but she goes through state regulatory which she's about to do now there's Federal and then there's um are hot Auditors that go through this every year and then gives us the report right um and we trust and if there's no if there's controls that need to be addressed they're addressed and then Kate the business office has to address those controls just as we had a few years ago and they were addressed Katie came in we hired Katie and we have to can't micro as everyone remind ourselves micromanaging and
132Katie's doing a a great job yeah so this this this is not what I wanted to imply my I was I'm saying I don't it's it's such amount of information that I don't have the ability to uptake it and therefore I feel weird I'm just voting yes sure I don't understand it but that's why you should reach out maybe question I'll help chairs th those and I can't say it enough those trainings are really strong because they are people who were board members forever or they were superintendent so now they're part of njsba so they have a wealth of knowledge and they always leave time for question and answers I I really do I we all still take them you know even senior senior or tenured members and I'm not not necessarily the monthly meetings
133which are fantastic too but like it's the actual training they have sessions I do the legal every quarter um I do the finance that was down in viewing um in the springtime from different districts come in and they go over all this so it's really worth you know I I know it's taking a day off from work for most of us but it's well worth it because they have great sessions especially legal legal is fabulous because they go Rec quarterly what's going on so it's very good yeah okay and any more discuss anyone else have any other new business that they'd like to discuss who the me I'm try I'm trying get out of the meeting all right seeing no further new business can I have a motion and a second to adjourn so moov
134motion just second Tara all in favor opposed exensions we are adjourned thank you