NHV BOE Meeting - 6/15/2021

001to the annual goal setting meeting and regular meeting today is tuesday june 15th 2021 it is 6 p.m and this meeting will be held virtually um i would like to call to order and um that the north hundred and voorhees regional high school board uh district board of ed meeting for tuesday june 15th is now called to order in accordance with the requirements of the open public meeting act njsa 10 4-6 adequate notice of the meeting has been provided by submission of notice of the time date location or instructions for remote access to the hunter and county democrat and the star ledger on january 21st 2021 notice and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting have been posted at north hunterdon high school and voorhees high school and provided to the municipal clerks

002of bethlehem township borough town of clinton clinton township franklin township glenn gardner borough hampton borough highbridge borough lebanon borough lebanon township dukesbury township and union township as well as other interested parties and posted on the district website um fire exits are located um within your home if alerted to fire please move in a common orderly fashion to the nearest smoke free exit and at this time i ask that if you're not speaking that you mute your lines and uh please silence all cell phones um katie can we have a roll call miss bonomi president mr chapman here miss crystal logo present miss dietrich here miss hints mr kirchberger here miss mclaughlin here mr melech here miss celino here mr street here ms fioto here we have a quorum we do all righty i at this

003time i would like us all to stand for the flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all um i would like to call for a motion and a second to approve agenda item uh 4.1 which is the minutes from um may 18th of 2021 school board meeting roger second chef lisa does anyone have any questions about the meetings all in favor aye aye any opposed or abstentions katie motion passes yes um and now uh i would like to introduce gwen thornton from the new jersey school boards association she's our field representative and she will be facilitating our our board goal setting uh for the 2021-2022 school year welcome gwen thank

004you jessica um it is nice to see all of you again um and i'm going to share my screen um and let's see if that works and it did yeah i'm assuming you can all see that um we've entitled goal setting this year leaping forward together 2021 2022 um you can either see that as the children jumping for joy that they're going back to school full-time in september or the parents or the community or every board of education member i know and every administrator and teacher um but really we really think it's important to to talk about the pieces that go with all of this and looking at what we learned from this past year it was a pandemic obviously we've been living with it for close to 19 months um but really begin by

005evaluating what we've accomplished um an analysis of what we need to continue perhaps that we put into place what needs to be reimagined moving forward and preparing for september of 2021 whatever that looks like and we of course are all optimistic that all students will be back in school full-time with a full um curricular curriculum in place as well as a co-curricular program for all of the students but there were things that we did learn from this past pandemic and i think it's valuable to just spend a couple of moments although not a great deal of time reflecting on some of the things that board members have said that administrators have said about what they've learned this past year and one of those is the resiliency of our student body of our staff of our

006administration flexibility and being able to pivot quickly um in march of 20 um when we suddenly had to shut down and go all remote um really the tenacity and the endurance that it has taken everyone um to get through this this time period also around equity um which became very difficult to hide whether you were talking about food instability or housing instability or the lack of internet access or the lack of devices to be able to get on it became very apparent very quickly where there were conditions that were inequitable and so those are things that we're going to have to continue to address moving forward certainly the professionalism and the commitment of your staff and administration teaching remotely teaching in hybrid is a completely different model of education than most of your staff was

007educated around and so making that transition and making it quickly and while engaging the students and continuing to have them learn um was critically important i think we've seen um the parental commitment to the education of their children i'm not sure in north hunterton voorhees but many of my districts have seen a huge rise in the number of folks attending board of education meetings to to gain information to know what was going on to ensure that their children were having um the best experience that was available to them i think in large part that's been very helpful helpful to boards of education because the the community members and parents who've been on have learned a great deal about what you do how you operate um what your role is what your role isn't and i

008think that that's been very helpful for boards in the long run um the limitations as well as the possibilities that technology provides for learning we've learned a great deal in that regard certainly there are some things that probably bear continuing in terms of that technology usage um certainly it does not play it is not a replacement for a teacher in a classroom and again that critical role that relationships play in the educational process between students and teachers um among in between teachers for collaboration with administration for collaboration with the board being able to work together and collaborate it certainly is easier in person in many ways than it is remotely but there are a lot of opportunities that that technology provides long term in thinking about expanding curriculum curricular opportunities for students offering students enrichment

009perhaps a way of using it for learning recovery um for some of the gaps that may have occurred and and that's certainly the last one and the and probably the most important one are those opportunity gaps that that our students experienced in terms of learning um and exposure to the curriculum for some students they they were able to thrive and actually may have even done better than they would have in the classroom um because of the distractions but on the other hand there were some children who struggled mightily so really identifying who those students are and what you're going to do to help um accelerate and ameliorate those gaps is going to be critically important in 21 22. so well-defined goals really enable you to to develop equitable policies um certainly it moves the district

010closer to the achievement of your vision and your mission it communicates effectively to your community to your parents the wider community what your identified priorities are for the year it certainly assists in the implementation of programming both curricular as well as professional development for your staff it provides you as a board periodic evaluation times where you get updates around those goals to see if you need to recalibrate and adjust if necessary and certainly it provides for effective communication and collaboration among all board members your administration your staff your students and it becomes the objective basis against which to evaluate your chief school administrator so having those goals are critically important um and my one of my favorite people of all times of course i'm sure you recognize him um and because if you don't know

011where you're going you might end up someplace else according to yogi bear who routinely used to put his foot in his mouth but occasionally said something that had great merit and wisdom and this is one of them so really planning for where you want to go ensures that you're going to end up in the place where you want to be and that's important for your kids and we know that those boards that are most effective are the ones that define clear goals for student achievement and classroom instruction is the largest single determinant of student achievement based on research and a board that has a vision of high expectations and shared beliefs and values about what's possible for all students are our words that succeed in moving their children forward we know that effective boards use

012monitor and monitor data both qualitative and quantitative and that the data is used as a flashlight as a tool not as a hammer to to punish but as a flashlight to help inform and improve and drive your decision making both for teachers for for board members for administrators to help identify specific student learning needs through using that data at the classroom level and really discussing data regularly as a board to see where you are that's a little more challenging in this year we haven't given given standardized assessments over the course of the last two school years but certainly the district has used proprietary or district developed assessments to provide information and feedback on student learning and of course there were fewer at act and sats administered this past year as well at the high school

013levels because colleges and universities were waiving that requirement for fall of 2021 and so you have less quantitative data but we probably have more um [Music] that will be coming shortly so goal setting is really part of a process um it occurs once a year you have just completed your superintendent's evaluation typically upon completion of that the board does the self-evaluation that holds yourselves accountable for your performance and then you set goals for both yourselves and for the district moving forward it gives your administration the summer months to develop action plans to move the district forward and then you as the board are responsible for monitoring that progress typically quarterly which would be november january and march and then begin the cycle begins all over again and for those of you who've been on the

014board for a while are familiar with that cycle but we like to just review it so that newer board members get a sense that it's not a one one and done that it's a continuous cycle of continuous improvement that moves forward the district goals are around your curricular program instruction staffing professional development your facilities your finances your budget they are owned by everyone but they're the administrative responsibility to to move the district forward with board goals are set around how you operate how you as a board can be more effective in your governance processes and procedures to better and more effectively support the administration as they move the district goals forward um many chief school administrators have personal goals that are developed that come out of the evaluation they they're non-evaluative in nature but just

015around their own professional development and interest and some superintendents have merit goals um that are that are contained in their contract but not all soups have those so as you plan for the reopening of schools and perhaps to continue in some way with virtual learning if it's permitted although currently the governor has said no i think that may change moving forward certainly it has a role for example in homebound for homebound instruction to be able to use remote learning to allow students who are homebound for whatever set of reasons to participate fully in the educational process but certainly you know you can set goals in all of the areas around student learning equity health and wellness many districts are preparing for really having students return to to full-time instruction having some issues around mental health

016perhaps it will be a sea change for them around your facilities whether it's expansion whether it's upgrading updating air conditioning which we were just you all were just discussing in terms of graduation um finance certainly um this year we were fortunate with the federal money to receive some funds in the state that would help to phrase some of the covet costs for ppe and other kinds of ventilation and other issues that you may have needed to address certainly safety and security for your students and staff is an ongoing concern for all school districts just nationally the number of shootings and the violence that we have seen in the last several weeks the last months are particularly scary so certainly safety and security continues to be a concern communication um always an ongoing challenge with not

017just your parents but the community at large and really how do you engage and involve with your community because as a regional high school you are made up of so many different local communities sometimes that presents a challenge but in terms of essential questions i think the most important one is how do you um and what can you do to most dramatically accelerate student learning and address those opportunity gaps or if you prefer to say um how do you engage students in learning recovery who may have lost pieces of the curriculum that had to be compacted due to attending school remotely and how do you address those gaps in the educational program so that when they leave they leave well prepared um to go out into the world and how are you going to address

018those emerging mental health issues that may be impacting students and staff who may have you know really had some trauma connected to the pandemic um some did not some just smooth right sailing will sail smoothly through um but there may be others who do not and so how do you provide those supports that they need looking at the data you do have from your own district assessments what identifies needs there and what inputs suggest needed improvement and overall student success in terms of their well-being um looking at your financial resources and ensuring that your budget aligns to your priorities is going to be critically important as well and then thinking about 21st century skills um we know it's not enough to prepare them just academically but we want to ensure that they are critical thinkers

019um collaborative problem solvers these are the kinds of skills that are being looked at by employers as they go off um into the work world they want to make sure that they have folks who are able to analyze effectively and who can work collaboratively with teams and groups of other people making sure that they're digitally literate i think we've come a long way in that domain in this past year and a half making sure they're civically responsible and give back to their communities and participate fully as citizens of their community and hopefully that they're culturally responsive with the love of learning that they want to continually learn new things and then of course ensuring that they're moral ethical and empathetic and compassionate human beings those are all things that um schools are not necessarily individually

020responsible for but there is an expectation um that these students spend time with you and you have an obligation um to ensure that you are educating them in all of those domains these were your goals from 2020-21 i know you're familiar with them you've just reviewed them planning for reopening addressing inherent bias focusing on equity and inclusion and to make give them students the ability and the knowledge to make reflective decisions focusing on social emotional learning for students and staff and continuing to address your long-range facility plans because i'm sure you haven't placed a long-range facility plan that has more projects in it than you have dollars in the budget or in the capital reserves certainly that is an expensive proposition for every school district so in thinking about that i asked jeff um for

021some suggestions around what he believed um would be good goals to continue um or to focus on for 21 22 um and and you can see them here continuing the anti-bias anti-racism initiatives including student activities and staff professional development the board had a goal in that area as well addressing mental health of students and staff and again you know that's something that i think is going to be an ongoing issue maybe even beyond the 21 22 school year and then addressing learning loss due to the pandemic so but i would ask for board input around um the goals but this is what your superintendent has suggested as the priorities for 2021-22 members thoughts oh i like them i don't know how everybody else feels but i i mean i would like to see an additional

022goal as to reducing costs and raising revenue for the district i know that we spent a lot of time this year talking about the budget and we talked talked a lot about how we're going to be going into some years that are going to be very difficult financially for us so unless we start making that a priority we're going to have a difficult time meeting future goals so i'm not sure how everybody else feels but either we add one or take one of the ones away and roger i actually had looked at some other districts and how they created their goals and one goal well i think we are fiscally responsible at this point i think we need to continue to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of our resources so i i actually like the

023goals roger but i would concur with you and add a fourth goal so something along the lines of implementing additional fiscal efficiencies and seeking alternate sources of revenue yeah gwen i i i'd go with that um you may also want to add and maybe it's not realistic and i would depend upon your administration to weigh in on this um as well but it may be to expand if you can additional shared services with other districts or governmental entities well i i sort of see that as a but that's an objective i think or an action under the goal yeah i was going to say i think that that would be a a strategy to achieve the goal yes i would agree um with that concept of having a financially focused goal i i think it's

024hard to like are you editing this live gwen no i'm just writing it down and so then i can send it back to the district to the board into your administration and you can wordsmith it but to get the idea so i i'd like to offer maybe a a contrary somewhat contrary view now raising additional revenue is is fine that's i mean that's always going to be a good idea but to me coming out of this once in a generation uh pandemic this is this is a year to me this is a year not to to tighten your belt super this is a year to um go all out to make school um you know it's like over the top important and and and useful and working for the students um you know i'm thinking

025you know i'm exaggerating a little bit but you know every every single student initiative should hit get hearing and and be encouraged um you want to get all the students engaged and back in together and and excited about learning and excited about being at the high school um it to me that's this is not the year to say um sorry we're we're out of funds and i don't know how all the finances work because i'm too new to the process but that's just my thought is when i was writing down it's it's that this is gonna this is a different year so if uh if i could jump in brian i i agree with you um i i since i've been on the board there has never been a month that katie our ba or

026um jeff hasn't brought to the board a significant savings that they have made for the district and i i mentioned that because there's no red flags there's no indications that this district is not financially sound so of course roger i would agree that we should continue to be financially sound but i also agree with brian that let's continue but this is the year not to go crazy and spend extra but this is the year to make sure that the money we have we're using to encourage the students to feel good about coming back and to feel safe you know not only safe for coveted but just safe mentally and and physically so i'd like to jump in i totally agree with uh brian that's a great idea um but i also would like to add

027to it it falls under like the mental health and well-being of the students uh to foster a positive social and emotional and behavioral environment where the students could have academic success as well as personal success right so so shelley that i suggestion i think is what something i was thinking of like i almost like the wording of that middle bullet better in last year's goal and i i think it's a similar concept but like focus on social and emotional learning like i think encompasses that same idea so that that was my thought as i was reading it on the screen did this go under the second um initiative which is addressing the mental health of students and staff yeah i mean it would be just an elaboration of that goal not as not a fifth

028goal correct i was thinking of it as a way to where that's that second goal yeah i do like your wording right the wording i think it's it's a good show thank you michelle please i'm sorry and you repeat what you said okay so i said to foster thank god i wrote it down to foster a positive social emotion social and emotional behavioral environment where students um are encouraged to have academic success success as well as personal success can i chime in i i love that i love that shelly can we could we and i guess expand upon that and add uh for all students staff and families it would encompass everyone because we're doing the same we want to worry about social development social emotional learning and the mental health of our staff as

029well and our families so i agree with you kim that sounds like a great idea okay thank you so i've been thinking about how to how we can combine brian's thought and rogers like some idea of acknowledging the idea of maintain like continuing our um long-term goal of fiscal responsibility while um while fostering a renewed um renewed enthusiasm for you know getting back to normal like whatever some like better word wording around that so like the idea isn't we do we just abandon the idea of being financially responsible but we keep that as like an underpinning while our goal is to um reignite the um the passions of our students in in the in the building you know i don't i don't know i'm trying to get a word it but combine the two thoughts

030right right sounds good how about just putting to continue to be fiscally sound while doing this yeah i mean that can't fiscally sound fiscally responsible like like yeah i i think we're already doing it but we're continuing it yes we're not for we're not like just abandoning that idea i think that's a great idea kevin rob yeah i think it's it's good so in some respects it's within that context which we're not abandoning it's it's encouraging the administration to be creative you know some of the in a way that recognizes the uniqueness of this year that's coming up i mean i think you know as we heard there's there's there's there's going to be sophomores that have never been in the building i mean it's just um it's a unique year just like this last

031year in a different way but this is going to be the year to um you know i don't know what so there's there's constraints left and right but you know where you can shift funds to you know to postpone doing something that you thought you might be doing in order to more focus more on student engagement you know maybe it's technology additional technology and classrooms to get get kids engaged maybe it's it's it's more around um collaborative projects that you know that are facilitated to try to get kids interacting again you know socially directly interacting on things and i would agree with you i think those are strategies under a broader goal yep i agree gwen and i love brian's ideas like i'm already starting to think of actions that we could do to achieve

032this um and i i strongly encourage that we um include something i i do like the mental health and the and the suggestion that shelley had um i say and as with brian i think we need to be very careful about how we move forward in 2021 um i think this one should be our like i think that this one that we're talking about should be like at the top of the page like okay like that like that should be our first goal that should be our like number one goal that's my just my opinion and just to add add to that um you know i think they addressing the mental health and and and the learning laws they go hand in hand and i think just the fact that we're identifying them as goals

033um goes a long way for us identifying you know where where our priority is as a board and for the administration to focus in so if they can come up with uh techniques or strategies you know we would be all ears but uh the same token we don't need to spend money to spend money we want to address these as priorities and and look for creative ways to achieve them still while maintaining a you know fiscal responsibility throughout other areas of our budget i just want to add that great value but um in terms of i think it should be broader than mental health i think it should be really wellness because really mental health we're talking about um intellectual physical and psych physiological health or psychological health i mean i think you can broaden

034it to a wellness goal and can i add um i think if we can we also added that not only are we being reactive and responsive we're being proactive and this comes in with physical responsibility this may not be the only pandemic we're faced with or any other uh emergency preparedness so that maybe we can add the goal that we're going to take the the lessons we learned as we've navigated this new terrain in education um so that if this ever happens again we're ahead of the step so financially it won't be a hit or it won't be a a a a setback for our students or our staff um that we're going to proactively take the lessons learned going forward it's a good idea i like that john brought up um it's on the

035page but this learning loss aspect to me that's that's the it has to be on there it's clear that that's happened to different extents of course but i mean at best you had two-thirds of a year um because of the time that was spent in classrooms it was not the full time um so there's no to me it's something like identify what the key gaps are and and develop a plan to close them um because as gwen said it's not we don't even have maybe the data that we need uh so it's gonna have to be some new new approaches to identifying what the gaps are right so that can be as simple as just identify and address learning loss due to the pandemic right and then i know we're sort of jumping all over

036the place here with a lot of great ideas but i think i don't want to lose rachel's point um because i agree about the idea of overall wellness and having a lot of um facets to it i'm not sure that i agree to i don't know that we should bury mental health in an overall wellness like i think mental health and overall wellness or um something like i i still like the idea of calling out mental health as a as a an area of focus so if if you can tie it in together right right so address like so for example addressing mental health and overall wellness of students faculty staff and families or something like broaden that sentence but leave the call out of mental health can i chime in folks and and i

037don't know if i'm sure that we have sel initiatives that are in place and there are you know certain i don't know if if we have per se sel curriculum but it might be helpful to hear what the target is when it comes to social emotional learning articulated by administration that may target this summarize this in a way that addresses all these things and i certainly second the concern that mental health uh is is an issue it's been an issue it's more of an issue now than it's been uh but i think it might be helpful to hear what's ongoing uh and and in what context or target context if you will this could be placed this during this current school year the biggest uh initiative that we did to address student mental health was

038the panorama survey to identify students who were at risk and we administered that several times throughout the year we're planning on continuing that next year we actually anticipate this is going to be start part of a state mandate moving forward as a mental health screener for all students so i think we're a little bit ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying uh students at risk we've already uh contracted with uh ess to provide science to provide support for our students and the training that we've been providing for the teachers and the guidance counselors and the administration nurses i think that we're in a pretty good spot moving into next year jeff if i may mental health was also part of our strategic plan which we're still under so we're definitely going to continue

039those um because we have another two years of our strategic plan left and jeff didn't you reach out to the sending districts and you have them on board with it you got them to to agree they are uh now implementing our lifelines curriculum right so yeah we implement the nine through 12 and they're actually uh working on the middle school programs uh for the coming year which is perfect because you're it's the feeding in students yeah which is great and that's the sel program jeff part of it okay all right gwen just a process question like who's who's who's owning like capturing the sort of rough conclusions that we're coming to like not the final wordsmithing but is that you or is that one of us that needs to be doing i'm doing that okay

040thank you i'm doing that um and and so i i will send it all back to you but um it it occurs to me you know the only thing we you really haven't addressed is that first goal um and the continuation of that as a board i mean you've talked a lot about mental health addressing learning loss um but you haven't really addressed this first goal i i agree with it did it not that it's number one i don't mean that yeah i don't have any i don't i i think it's definitely something we have to continue to address i think it came to light um uh in in 2020 and has continued um only to be as important if not more important um today than it was even a year ago um because i

041don't think we need to i don't think we can drop the ball on this um this is uh it's not just a hunterdon county issue this is a nationwide issue and and it needs to be addressed um i don't think it'll ever come off our goals at this point i think it'll always be some form of this and i would say the lack of discussion about it is that i think we're we're we're in midstream you know we're underway we we got a lot of of those wheels in motion and i think it's acknowledgment by the board that you know that that's a given you know that yeah i just wanted to make sure you wanted to continue it that was actually absolutely yeah that's when i have a question for you yes um with

042your expertise what is your advice on adding um overall wellness and families and i ask from a perspective of of course i would love that um is that realistic to put that on the administration do they have the ability to do to impact it yeah i think that's not realistic i think it may be with younger children but you know with high school students it's much more difficult and you really are working with the students i mean obviously you're engaging the parents but um i it's a shared responsibility i don't know that you can put that in a goal and hold your superintendent accountable for that i agree i would love it but i agree i was struggling with how to how would we measure the impact on family right you can measure impact on

043students you can faculty um how we would measure impact on families okay so so just in terms of my sort of summarizing my notes and and so that i can get this back to you in a way that makes some level of sense i have recognized the uniqueness of this coming year focus on focus focus on fostering student engagement addressing learning loss and the mental health and wellness of all students it's sort of just trying to capture the overall thoughts i do i do like the and staff at a minimum i mean i i kind of agree around the difficulties i would agree that addressing the mental health issues it's just i i wrote that one just in terms of that engagement and love of learning along with learning loss and and obviously that's not

044an issue for staff um but their social emotional well-being and their mental health obviously is of concern and it needs to be incorporated somewhere within this um and then something along the lines of continue continuing your commitment to fiscal efficiencies um while fostering first and foremost while um focusing first and foremost on our students you know you can use language like that if you wanted to make sure that you didn't lose that piece if that was important to the board but i'm not clear that it is it's not glenn i have another thing to add to that i think it's important that um we return to normal as quickly as possible because without that we're just gonna do this the suffering that's out there in our communities the kids aren't going to you know the

045longer they're wearing masks they're in school partial days you know not doing all the things that um did prior to uh last march we're going to continue this and then that you know is going to continue to you know more learning loss so i think we need to do whatever we can to in september or late august and you know make every effort to make that identical to what what it had been and um on a separate note talking about the anti-bias and anti-racism initiatives um you know i don't think that in any comparison of what we're dealing with here with the mental health crisis and and the loss of learning that's going on in our schools um we've taken as a district some initiatives in that in that case but i haven't heard any

046outpouring um at our meetings of of of problems that make that you know need to continue to be um you know a top four priority i mean maybe it's just because it's been a coveted year we've been in zoom but um you know i'd like to hear what what are the problems out there that make this uh need to be a priority for our district i know it's a hot button issue nationally on the statewide level um but uh you know with within our communities i i you know i i think it's uh i'm i'm questioning is relevancy on the top four of our list um just to to to address your first point first john um your school has to prepare and has a return to school full-time plan to the state on which

047it was required to take public comment and feedback so every school district is required by the governor as well as the state board of ed to plan and return to school in september full-time all day lunch co-curriculars the whole nine yards um and absent anything that impedes that which i'm optimistic will not happen that will indeed happen and yours and your administration has already planned for that um and that you can um jeff you can correct me if i'm wrong but have you not put that together it's on the agenda tonight on the agenda tonight okay this is part of tonight's meeting it's been prepared gwen i don't want to cut you off but your initial remarks you you kind of made it sound like you you're kind of you're skeptical that that was going

048to happen and so that i'm trying to no no what i was skeptical about was the governor has said there's will be no remote learning and what i was saying is there are potentials for remote learning that may exist that may be beneficial to students such as if you don't have enough students to offer french five or you want to offer american sign language you could have kids do that remotely you could have kids who are on home instruction where you could use the remote technology so you could optimize their learning for in certain very specific circumstances so throwing out the baby with the bath water was my skepticism right not that it would replace there is nothing that replaces in-class instruction full-time for students those relationships with teachers none of that is replaceable by

049technology but throwing out all of the technology and you can't do any of it where it might benefit your students through curriculum expansion through enrichment um through perhaps for even for some students for doing some remediation or acceleration from learning loss in some ways with teacher support um instead of going to a study hall you know a a study hall with a teacher who's there to assist them in using that technology in some way to to close some of those gaps i was really suggesting um but i will say john honestly the one thing we have learned this past year is we don't control the virus right it it controls us and that is the one the one uncertainty that we can't control um i i hope that doesn't happen obviously i'm looking forward to

050getting back to real life too just like the kids um everybody's suffered in their own way um and certainly that's not a good thing so maybe i wasn't clear enough for that i apologize my skepticism was just saying no technology at all like you can't use it at all when in fact you might be able to use it in very targeted ways that would help kids um with learning recovery or accelerating learning or enrichment um and we don't want to lose you know the teachers spend a great deal of time of professional development of learning how to really maximize learning through the use of technology so i i'm not suggesting it's a replacement any shape or form but it could be used as an extension and and to not be able to do that seems

051short-sighted to me and he may indeed have to backtrack on that and there may be some districts for whatever set of reasons john are in a different place than nor the north hunterton vortis is and and may have difficulty coming back five days i don't know i can't speak to that but that was it and i will let jeff speak to the other piece i i think that it's important to continue our efforts to address bias and racism we definitely made some progress this year we learned a lot i think that moving forward the committees that are formed into high schools that are made up of students parents staff administration i i'm looking forward to the work that they're going to be developing over the next year i think it's worth continuing by no means

052did i say it wasn't worth continuing i just didn't think it reached the top four priority you know initiatives um there's lots of other things that that have done within you know we have you know groups of kids set up for all sorts of academic athletic pursuits but they don't make our list of goals for two years straight so we'll get it all done to me this this first goal falls in the bucket of and i have support keeping it but it falls in the bucket of you know students have to feel physically and emotionally and and safe when they go to school i don't think you can compromise safety right that's that's uncompromisable and that's not just so that's what uh you know people can disagree on to the extent that that the directives

053were to keep you know how hard they went to keep people safe but um it's demonstrable that they did keep people physically safe um but these this falls under the bucket of emotional safety you know people gotta feel welcomed and comfortable to learn in in the school and if they're not because of things that this is trying to address and that's a real problem even if it's not very many of them and that's why we've had that for so many years i'm just saying i'm not seeing an overpouring of reports on a monthly basis that are dealing with uh these type of infractions um john i i i remember a few um as well as some letters even from students requesting this and also requesting that we look at our curriculum and and so for

054me i personally think that it absolutely should stay on here i also think it's incumbent upon us as we're we're educating and helping the students build their path forward into the world right it's not just about the high school it's about them being really built for what the the society what society is so for and this isn't a to me a one and done kind of thing this is a one in build and maybe two and build and who knows where that's going to be in the future to me it there's i don't think there's any way it doesn't make the top i uh i agree with john in respect of i don't think that our high school particularly has a huge issue with this but i do agree that our students need to be

055exposed to be problem solvers and good decision makers as they move forward so i'm wondering to john's magno's point about social emotional learning which is a statewide initiative as well where that might tie into this goal we might just add you the district's antibiotics anti-racism and social emotional learning initiatives hmm isn't social and emotional sel isn't that the second one already it was part of the second one yes yeah yeah we did that but i but i think um rachel was suggesting putting it into the first i was i was saying it could be be combined there i have seen it written that way in other districts i don't disagree with you rachel and uh i think it's a good suggestion i don't see this uh you know as a such a big problem in

056our district that it requires his own goal um you know leading off here kind of i thought you had decided or sort of come to consensus that you wanted the first goal around um the focus around fostering student engagement encouraging um addressing learning loss and the mental health and wellness of all students that this just happens to be the order in which i type them it doesn't mean that the order of importance it was more just how i threw them up on john um and i thought i think i think leaving it as a standalone gold um demonstrates our commitment to this to anti-bias initiatives and i think that that's a leadership position that we should be taking regardless of whether or not it's uh like the the immensity of the problem within our district

057so i i'm in support of leaving it as a standalone and i would tell you that the state in terms of the new jersey student learning standards is including diversity um equity and inclusion in the new jersey student learning standards they would like to leave it as oriented and leave in the circle they were to have been implemented in 2021 but the state postponed the state board of ed postponed all of the um curriculum revisions to for 2021 to september of 2022 but they are it is clearly in the standards now as part of a statewide requirement just informationally so gwen yes just a thought um in leaving this uh as a goal and it is it is a continuation a good goal maybe we could elaborate the language um something to the effect um

058a district-wide culture accepting of promoting uh promote that promotes equitable opportunities and reduces biases bias and focuses on equity and inclusion maybe we could wordsmith it so it is inclusive of both similar to what rachel's saying to john's point just a suggestion yeah you can the board can determine what it wants i mean this is a restatement of the goal from last year so um and i think that it does in fact focus on equity and inclusion right i mean that's the purpose of the entity exactly that's the purpose of the goal so right it would be of harm to state such let's be transparent but just a suggestion the other board members thoughts on that goal foster an environment of equity and inclusion through the continuation of the district's anti-bias and anti-racism initiatives kim

059is that kind of what you were saying i'm sorry rob sorry um can you repeat that i was no i can't it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment of clarity um i think what you said was foster an environment of equity and inclusion continuing the district's anti-bias yes initiatives which include student activities and professional development yes all right thanks for capturing that gwen i was gonna have trouble recreating it thank you gwen no problem that's a good one i agree i think that's great gwen can you just summarize what we have we have the we've addressed all three of the goals here and then did we and then we're adding only the only one the only one you really haven't addressed or i don't know where it i should say um is your your mental health for

060your staff because you wanted to i thought incorporate you know recognizing the uniqueness of this coming school year focus on fostering student engagement addressing learning loss and the mental health and wellness of all students and why don't we see i i feel like i i feel like that is trying to pull too many things together and together okay like i i thought and i i was i was on board with where brian was going um which is just to um and brian maybe you can try restating where you were going because i might not do it justice but this idea of um in light of the uniqueness you know of this year to re to focus on reigniting students [Music] um um engagement and involvement in the in the built in back in person learning

061i don't know brian maybe you can recap but i didn't think i didn't i don't know if i support the idea of of pulling all the uh the other things like mental health and social emotional learning and learning loss wrapping those into one big sort of generic statement okay i'm just not sure how you really effectively measure reigniting not that it's not important then you shouldn't do it um reigniting student engagement and involvement in in-person learning i mean i think that's exactly what you want to do but again i'm not um not sure how you would measure that effectively maybe through climate surveys or i don't know through a survey but i mean addressing student learning loss is a is a huge piece i think it's different i i mean i i think it's i

062think one has to do with culture and the other has to do with a responsibility to address to identify and address the educational impact of the pandemic but i think if you fail to do the first you're not going to accomplish the second right i mean you have to reignite their interest and their passion for for being back in the classroom for being back in school in order to be able to address the learning loss so i i mean that's why i sort of put them together but the the learning loss might the learning loss might be um might might be okay rob in in that kind of a piece right it's uh what i'm thinking is that there is a goal there is a goal that's that's um well that's unique to the situation

063so addressing mental health as students and staff that could have been that could have been written last year in fact it was written last year and it will be written again in some way or another um but the the the the social is so certainly the challenges of around socialization engagement and learning loss all driven by the fact that kids sat home for a big chunk of the year or even or you know we're only half there or whatever um is is a is is what i'm getting at is that there should be kind of a goal that way quinn that that hopefully won't ever need to be written again exactly okay i i can get on board with that brian i think i think that's well stated that the learning loss is part of

064is one of the elements of the uniqueness of this coming year so addressing that learning loss and i think the need that additional need for because you already have the social emotional learning component in place and moving forward i think it's whatever mental health supports that students may need again is a reflection of the uniqueness of this year um yes there have been mental health issues in the past i understand that but whatever additional supports and what i was hearing from all of you is that you want to make sure that you provide all of those things for the kids so that they are as successful as they can be as soon as they can be yeah to me it's it's it's signaling or in some respect to the administration that that this is something

065the board wants to see happen recognizing you know the the what happened over the last nearly two years now coming on two years it will be on two coming on two years um and so when they come the administration says you know later in the year this is what we're doing and it's because the board told us this is important um and that's what i'm kind of fostering uh hoping to foster an environment where the where the administration thinks specifically about this issue not not that they're blind to it by any stretch but just that they have board support okay i mean because i also have written foster a positive social emotional learning environment where students are supported to have both academic and social success but i think that is almost a restatement of the

066first one right i i personally think it's hard to like it's hard to do this like blind like without seeing so like i almost think we've got the concepts out there and now we're like talk we're refining and we'll send you the concepts and let you work to refine them um if that works for all of you i'm for that anyone else any other thoughts yeah i was agreeing i was going with i agree anyone anyone i agree me too me too okay all right i think we've got the meat and potatoes gwen all right we can definitely put it together all right i will send this off to you um i didn't know if you wanted to address board goals or if you wanted to do that at a separate time but we haven't

067completed our eval yet right okay no so so wait maybe we should do that at a meeting after we complete the eval okay that's perfect and don i just want to note i'm six minutes over an hour seven minutes over an hour according to mike and it's like five hours of work got done see there you go thank you gwen as always and before you squad healthy discussions thank you all gwen i just said would you be coming back um joining us i can certainly do that if invited of course if it's just a brief step in we would certainly wouldn't want to keep you for an hour but um would that my pleasure always so enjoy graduation tomorrow evening um thank you for all that you've done this past year for your kids for

068the district i wish you all a very healthy happy restful peaceful summer return to school um thank you friend you're welcome take care and have a good evening thank you all right good night all right um moving on to the uh chief administers administrators report uh jeff can you um provide us a the report on harassment intimidation and bullying yes i i want to first start with a couple of comments uh as the 2021 school year comes to a close with graduation tomorrow i want to again thank all of our teachers support staff administrators students and parents for all of their hard work flexibility and understanding during this unprecedented school year i'm very proud of the fact that we stuck to our reopening plan and we're able to offer in-person instruction every day the entire

069school year i appreciate everyone's efforts to make that possible for the 2020 for the 2021-22 school year we look forward to returning to a traditional school year when we reopen on august 28th with full spur august 26th with full school days and returning to the rolling drop block schedule we will keep everyone updated if we receive any new guidance from the new jersey department of education department of health over the summer i also want to congratulate the voorhees varsity baseball team and head coach corey kent as they won the central jersey group 2 championship and the group 2 semi-final game this past week they now advance to the group 2 championship game that will take place on june 19th that is their first sectional title in 23 years and only the second time in the

070program's history to win the sectional championship good luck to the team and coach kent in the group 2 final finally i want to congratulate the class of 2021 who we will celebrate tomorrow at graduation at 10 a.m we have 402 graduates from north hunterdon high school and 246 from voorhees we wish them luck in all of their future endeavors for the report on harassment intimidation and bullying there are no incidents to report this month can i have a or jeff can you call for a motion or do i i can't call for a motion i will call for a motion and a second to affirm the determinations of the uh uh hib incident report uh as of may 18 2021 um is all in favor motion you need a motion from oh sorry my bad

071motion with rob roger you second second terra seconded um all in favor any opposed abstentions motion carries katie um was it uh jeff did you have anything to note about the monthly reports nope they're attached for uh your information thank you thank you jeff and thank you um everybody for an amazing year and congratulations to all of our graduates in my school board president's report this evening we are we will be discussing and interviewing our candidate for the um highbridge lebanon uh position that was opened by uh tom roll retiring from the board um katie can i ask you to introduce um our candidate and uh rich to let her in from the waiting room i'm letting her into the meeting right now we had one candidate that submitted an application and that was megan

072ryan hoffman she's joining the meeting the resume and cover letter that she submitted was in the board agenda folder however i did send you an email just in the past half an hour so that you have it at the top of your inbox if you'd like to take a look at that while we're having it are you are you with us and can you hear us i'm here everybody hi hi thank you for joining us yeah you got it hi megan hi um just so everyone knows i actually go by ryan it's my middle name so it's ryan like lion hi hi ryan thank you for joining us tonight this is just a brief a brief way for everyone to get to know you and if you'd like to take a minute maybe just introduce

073yourself and who you are sure um i'm ryan hoffman um and i i'm a i'm a parent i'm a i live in high bridge uh but my interest in the board stems from i have about 14 years in special education experience i'm a special education teacher and a board certified behavior analyst and i've worked in maryland california and now new jersey on special education issues and um yeah i just i wanted to i saw that there was a vacancy and i wanted to contribute what i can to the community and and education is my jam so i thought i could learn a little bit about how the board works and do what i can guys there would be a little bit of a learning curve for me i've never been on a board of ed

074before obviously but um i do have my career has been about caring for students and teachers i've been a teacher trainer too so i really believe in good solid systems work is the best way to support our learners and the people that are teaching them and i'm pretty committed to that so that's why i'm here does anyone have any questions for ryan uh based off of her resume or the letter that she wrote to us um with her interests for the board ryan hi i'm rob kirchberger hi how long have you lived in the community i've been here for five years um my wife and i moved here with our son uh from san francisco in 2015. so a little bit over we moved to clinton first and then found hybridge and have it just

075stuck great thank you welcome thanks hi ryan it's rachel welcome i i know that pandemic would probably be your answer right now but um what do you think one of the other challenges facing our district might be from your perspective um right i i do think it's i do think it's pandemic but i think it's broader than that and i think you guys have you know i was listening and watching the youtube uh feed during your discussion just now and i think that it's not just the pandemic and the learning loss but it's the broader um social social emotional shifts and um for everyone for parents for teachers and for students and how all of that plays together i i'm a behavior analyst um so that's a i study the way that that our behavior

076develops based on our context and with with that shared context that we all have all of our behavior affects one another's right so if our if our teachers are stressed out or dealing with their own issues that's gonna affect our students vice versa and family so i i really um was so excited and really appreciated your very thorough and heartfelt discussion on addressing those exact things for our learners when they return to school i just think that's going to be essential in helping everybody readjust so thank you sure hi ryan this is deb bonomi from tewksbury nice to meet you hi jem so i i have a question um when i was in your your seat uh being interviewed like this on the board someone had asked me and i i remember still to this

077day thinking how what a great question it was um what would you like to get from being on the board oh that is such a good question yeah i wasn't i came thinking what i could give you know yeah no i i love that question i think that um you know i've i've been in special education for for 14 years in various capacities a paraprofessional a classroom teacher a board certified behavior analyst and a teacher trainer across the country in various districts and i but i've never done this i think that the the reach of the policy work that you guys do and and really um holding that for the district is uh is really cool and i think it would be a a great learning opportunity for me to see the way that you

078guys are doing that and also to contribute in the process uh so always learning i'm a i'm a i just got my master's four years ago i'm like a constant learner so definitely definitely i would like to learn how this looks in new jersey at this at this level which i've never done before thank you sure whoever asked deb that question it was a great question rachel it was rachel ah rachel kudos does anyone else have any other questions for ryan all right i am i did have something that i wanted to to say to you guys if you don't mind absolutely that's based on the conversation i i was listening to i just found this today actually um but the center on positive behavioral interventions and supports has put out a guide on returning

079to school after a crisis and it really outlines steps like systems level steps that districts can take to to do some of the work that you guys were talking about so i just wanted i i think since i'm in the meeting i think i could no idea there's no chat i could email it to you if you're interested in looking at it as part of the discussions on um sort of operationalizing the goals that you were just discussing it's a good guide please please forward that to me you got it it'd be great and then perhaps we can use it while we're action planning right yeah it really breaks it breaks everything down very nicely and and and what i like about it is that you don't have to invent this process other people who

080specialize in that have have already thought through the process and then you can just implement it you know because it's it's hard it's hard work okay thank you sure thank you anyone else all right well ryan thank you so much for joining us joining us this evening um i hope to see you soon thanks guys nice to see everyone nice to meet you thank you uh moving on in the agenda to our committee reports um can we i know that we did not meet this month uh tara for community relations is there there was nothing to report out on that um can we start with uh curriculum instruction and technology there sure uh good evening the curriculum instruction and technology committee met on june 9th with all of our members present and rich brown our

081director of curriculum our agenda focused on the safe reopening uh plan for 2021 2022 um which has much of what we've done this year in place with following state and health guidelines and that will be continued to be updated as the state makes changes as we move forward to the next school year we also looked at a social justice update there are some books we've been discussing adding to the curriculum which we will be following up with in july so look for those in your july agenda we discussed future board meetings and looked to move our monthly meetings to in person in august as long as we can maintain all of whatever guidelines are in place at that point in august social distancing and other guidelines we continue to focus on student mental health um

082we had some discussion about homework regulation 2330 which we had previously um had an initiative prior to the pandemic and we focused on just reviewing that regulation to um have it in concert with our policy one of the things we highlighted was having no homework days around specific holidays and mr bender is going to discuss with the principles making sure at faculty meetings at the beginning of the year that teachers are aware that no homework days are days when they cannot assign homework after coming back from a break so that some students don't feel stressed over the break in order to finish assignments prior to returning to school that's actually a break we've been focusing on mental health this is part of that initiative we also continue to look at our monthly data analysis each

083month we look at a different data-driven assessment or particular area this month we focused on our enrollments and withdrawals it was noted that interestingly north hunterton over the course of four years following the class of 2021 had the same number of students incoming as outgoing and we had more students enrolling in voorhees than leaving us so we will continue to analyze that data for all of the classes in future meetings and i believe that is it for our agenda thanks rachel questions no questions for rachel all right moving on um can we get a report from facilities finance and transportation yes hi jess john asked me to read out tonight because john wasn't able to make the meeting it was held on the 7th of june and where there were four major agenda items um

084we talked about the proposed board of education meeting calendar as rachel just mentioned about returning to in-person board meetings beginning in august and also the shifting of the meeting dates from the third tuesday of the month to the fourth tuesday of the month beginning in august there's a couple reasons for that but some of them are are financial in that that that will facilitate the availability of financial reports so that the district stat business office has uh time to prepare them um in advance of the meeting and and some of those reports are right up against our current um third tuesday of the month window so that fourth tuesday would would make that more effective so the finance the fft committee was in agreement with that revised calendar and supports the decision to move the

085meetings to the fourth tuesday of the month we talked about the rfp for the anti-bias consultant services and the fact that there were two respondents and um synergy consulting and training group is the recommendation of administration based on uh price location qualifications and experience um the scoring rubric is in the fft folder and the recommendation is that we approve the action that's on the agenda tonight um to appoint synergy consulting uh katie talked at length about the solar update um essentially um and katie keep me honest here but i think we're a little bit our partner advanced solar products asp is behind schedule based on some delays in submitting the required paperwork and documentation to the state um so we have an amendment to our agreement with them on the agenda for tonight to extend

086the completion date of the project based on um the fact that the approvals have been delayed um but katie has been negotiating hard on our behalf and has gotten some con agreement to some concession demands that basically financially compensates us for the delay in the time frame in the projected completion of the project so asp is going to keep us whole to the projected savings of the solar project for any months at anything anything after october 1st 2021 so if it's for every month that it's delayed that will basically be kept whole for the savings that we would have been realizing um based on the full implementation of the project in addition to that we got a one-time um concession of eleven thousand dollars um again as an acknowledgement that this um project has taken

087longer to get off the ground um than was committed to and scheduled um their the um panels uh so the solar racking i guess that's the racks for the roof will be delivered in june and asp is optimistic that the racking can be installed during the summer recess months and that the panels will be installed after school in september and october um so and if there's any questions on that um i'm sure katie can answer them easily but that at a high level is basically in a nutshell we're being kept whole for the savings that we would have achieved if this project were implemented on time so we are the fft committee is recommending um board approval of the amendment to the agreement tonight um we talked about the agenda other items that are on

088the agenda which include a variety of things slight increases in the cafeteria prices for next year due to increased minimum wage so i think that's on the agenda and the remedial summer program to address to begin to address learning loss from this past school year we we do have a certain amount of that that's being provided to students at no cost funded by a state fund specifically for learning losses due to covid so i think that's on the agenda for tonight too uh anything else katie that i'm missing here oh that was very well said too so i completely agree with the statements i think the only thing i would add rob is the fact that all work that's going to be done in september and october will be done after hours when no none

089of the kids are within the buildings or on premises yep good good point thank you roger any questions about the fft report i have a couple when do we anticipate they would be functional the solar panels as soon as possible so we are going to be made whole lives of october 1st i i would anticipate october november time frame but again right now we're at the mercy of the doe and they're very behind that's been the issue from the beginning and unfortunately until we get that paperwork that'll give us a better guide as to when our starting point is versus when the finishing point is so as soon as they can get on the roofs i would expect it to be about a three to four month window and then my other question was on

090you're muted rachel thanks katie um i had a question about 14.2 what is the need to have legal bond counsel is that related to this project um legal bond counsel is for anything and related to the referendum or the ecip project that we have so we do use them on occasion but they're paid out of the ecip funding as well we needed to have a separate council other than our normal board attorney because there was a conflict at the origination of the ecip between biker danzig and honeywell so that's why we needed to have them at the beginning so we would continue to have them through the end of the project thank you welcome any other questions okay uh the negotiations committee continues to meet um we will continue to do we have some meetings

091scheduled for the remainder of the month and into july and the next committee to report out would be personnel hi jess so the personal committee we met on june 9th virtually at 6 30 all committee members were in attendance and we discuss the personnel portion of the agenda and that's basically all i have i think shelley can we get a report out from policy and sick and school security yeah hi jess uh policy and school security committee met on june 7th and discussed three agenda items plus some additional discussion which i'll recap the first agenda item is the second reading of four policies that we saw last month there are no there were no recommended changes so the policy committee recommends approval tonight the second agenda item was on policy zero one five five about

092board committees and committee meeting participation by administrators and whether an administrator needs to be present at all committee meetings and after discussion the conclusion was that a certified administrator will be present at all meetings but there may be circumstances where a district office member so not a certified administrator who has been briefed by the administrators prior to the meeting could be at the meeting in lieu of a certified administrator due to um unique circumstances uh at any given meeting it would be up to the discretion of the committee chair though um if that was sufficient and if necessary the meeting could be rescheduled to allow the certified administrator be president um that led into so that was the discussion on zero one five five and the conclusion is that there's no recommended changes to policy

093zero one five five but that just that clarification of um and so that committee chair people were aware of the opportunity to reschedule those meetings if an administrator couldn't be there we then dovetailed into a discussion about policy zero one five two which is the board officers policy which defines the process for a nominating committee and there was discussion about those two policies potentially being in conflict with each other and an overall discussion about the need and appropriateness of having a nominating committee at all and so um the the end of the discussion was that additional research was going to be done on sort of the uh and some of that research is already underway but the committee is going to further research that topic about nominating committees and how other districts in the state

094uh go about nominating and electing officers and that we would discuss it again next month uh following that additional research so in conclusion no changes are recommended for zero one five five further discussion on zero one five two next month then we discussed policy 2-4-3-1 which is athletic competition and whether policy 243-1 should be changed to allow home schooled students to participate in athletics and then we sort of broadened that discussion to talk about extracurricular activities as a whole and the need for parameters such as random drug testing and academic eligibility thing things that are considerations around um whether if if the decision was made that we would change that policy to allow homeschooled students to participate in school athletics and the conclusion was we would do additional research on that as a committee identify

095what our neighboring districts allow including our sending districts and take up the discussion at the july committee meeting to consider changes to that policy and then finally we had a brief discussion on zero one four four which involves training required for board members and the administration is was going to be reaching out to gwen and get clarification particularly on whether there was a specific and separate requirement recommended by njsba for hib training or whether that hiv training was encompassed in the governance one and governance to the other training modules for new board members so um there will be a follow-up on that at the next committee meeting as well those are the topics we discussed i'll take any questions or redirect them as appropriate seeing none back to you jess all right um do we

096have any report outs from the hundred and county vocational school district liaison nothing to report uh how about the new jersey school boards association delegate uh no we reported last month we won't have another delegate meeting until the fall okay what about the hunter and county school board's associate delegate we did not meet this month we will resume in the fall thank you rachel yes back to the vote the vocational school district um you know i don't have a report per se but maybe jeff like it but it's probably worth commenting there was a really um detailed article that was written in nj.com i think there was some progress made on our on the um the grant and the the progress at the state level so it might be good to report out on that

097thank you rob uh the governor had uh formed a committee to review all of the submissions that uh were put in relating to the cte grant that the state approved two years ago uh i had been working with the board uh over the last two years and with the hunter and county polytech who wants to uh build a building on the north hunterton campus to offer full-time classes to students in the county that project was approved by the committee and is now being forwarded to the legislature for approval uh i fully expect that the legislature will be approving that and as soon as we get some more information relating to timelines and construction schedules i'll have that information afforded to the board but it's a very exciting it's definitely going to expand opportunities for students

098in the county uh great opportunity for north hunter and voorhees students to attend a full-time program and what that means when i say a full-time program typical student only attends polytech their junior and senior year this is actually a four-year program the students don't travel from their home school they actually become a student at north hunterdon high school which saves it gives them another instructional period every day that they would typically lose transportation so it's really a fantastic opportunity for the kids and i thank you rob for uh bringing attention to that thank you that really is a really exciting development and uh i think it's on the verge of being a big step forward in ter as soon as it gets approved by the legislature agreed and then just to wrap it up do

099we have anything from the huntington county educational services commission representative i don't have any report okay uh now is 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 in the register provided for the for this purpose and to state their name municipality of reference residence group affliction 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 when appropriate school board members members will not respond to the speakers at the time of their appearance the public comment period will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless there are unusual circumstances those appearing will be allocated three minutes to speak

100and no one will be permitted to speak twice until those speak wishing to speak have had a turn this is also the opportunity this evening to comment on the safe return plan for 2021 2022 school year which is a requirement of the american rescue plan elementary and secondary schools emergency relief funds application at this time i would like to read uh two letters that were received for public comment the first one is from uh donna leary and it is it states uh two board members i am writing to ask you to consider allowing students in the district to participate in available team sports regardless of where the student receives their education in this particular case uh dana gillette currently being homeschooled plays soccer with several north huntering girls on a travel team and would like

101to continue to play with these girls as they try out for high school team for the upcoming fall season dana played for the middle school team in prior years and would like to continue to be able to play for the school district she is an experienced player exhibits good sportsmanships and would be an asset to the team i see nothing but a positive result in being inclusive and allowing dana to play soccer for north thank you for your consideration and then the next um letter that was received and bear with me um was from uh joe torsch and i forgive you forgive me if i'm saying the last name wrong i'll spell it for you t-c-h-o-r-z and um this too is in respect for uh to being homeschooled but good afternoon i am respectfully writing

102to show my support for the homeschooled students being allowed to participate in high school sports and activities at either north or voorhees regional high school as equal tax paying residents of hunter and county same as families with students attending the public school system homeschool children should be eligible to participate in the same school activities sports as any other student who attends public schools in person their tax dollars are funding the public school system just like the rest of us i have logged onto our website our website and i read your school district tagline providing success for all students since homeschooled students are students they should have the support and opportunity to find success in after school activities and sports in our school district i my opinion not allowing these students any high school opportunities would

103be a deviation from our school to district tagline who knows these students may have such a positive experience at north of voorhees that they might want to attend the high school full-time i would ask the board to allow homeschool students to participate in sports and really live the district tagline of providing success for all students thank you for your time and consideration i appreciate it at this point um rich do we have anyone in the waiting room um for public comment yes we have four people okay i can let jennifer's iphone in first if that works okay looks like she's still connecting to audio yeah sometimes it takes a minute to come on hi jennifer it looks like you've connected and you're on mute could you please come off mute and introduce yourself okay can

104you see me or we cannot see you but we can hear you okay um good evening my name is jennifer gillette i'm hoping at this point the letter i wrote to the board regarding my daughter has already been read and you are familiar with our situation my daughter dana will be a freshman this year and would love to try out for the north girls soccer team we have lived in this district for the past 11 years and like all other tax paying citizens have paid a large amount into the school district as home schoolers we have not used any of these funds but feel it would be only fair that my kids have the same extracurricular opportunities as any other kids in the district regardless of the classroom they are learning in two of my

105girls have previously played for the clinton township middle school without any issues and had a great experience with that team dana is a straight a student she's very self-motivated in both academics and sports she currently plays on a division one club soccer team with many incoming freshmen for both central and north north hunterdon we honestly just don't understand the thinking behind discriminating against certain students solely based on classroom especially considering that most students were technically homeschooled in new jersey for the past year and a half we asked that you would please give our daughter the same opportunity and consideration that you would give every other student after all it clearly states that the north hunterdon orhis schools are aimed at and i quote providing success to all students uh and lastly one of the main

106points which i heard repeatedly through the first hour of this meeting was the the equity for all students and equitable opportunities and inclusiveness for all students so we just feel like banning homeschoolers is like is the total opposite of that i just thank you very much for your consideration and hope to hear from you yes your roommate yes you're um can you let in the next person in the waiting room yep give me one second here i'm gonna put jennifer back in the waiting room and i'm going to let dana's ipod touch in uh can you hear me we can dana you have some background interference though you might be playing the youtube channel in the background uh is it better now i think so okay hi my name is dana gillette i am going

107to be a freshman this year and i have been homeschooled for nine years i've been playing soccer since i was five and have been on two travel teams and am currently playing for a division one team i also played for the clinton township mid middle school team soccer is my favorite sport and i love playing i was really hoping i would be able to participate on the high school soccer team as many of my teammates will also be playing this year i don't think it's fair that i'm being discriminated against just because i am homeschooled and i am very committed to my schoolwork and have earned straight a's in all of my classes this year all of which were high school leveled i also train hard and and am devoted to soccer and i would

108like the opportunity to play for north hunter hunterdon i would greatly appreciate your consideration in this matter thank you thanks dana which we have one other person in the waiting room uh yep we have one other person that jumped in since then so i'm gonna go down the list christina is who i'm letting it now okay hi christina um could you please take yourself off of mute and introduce yourself hi i'm christina cagno hi christina hi you're you called for a public comment do you yes yes can you tell us where your what district you're calling from of course sure i'm from tewksbury township i'm in powersville thank you and your public comment and my public comment is regarding the plan to come back in 21 2021 21 22. okay okay so do i start

109now yes please okay hi my name is christina cagno and i would like to speak about the plan to come back in the fall so i had a chance to read it and my my biggest concern and comment is with the masks and i know that in in our um in our plan to come back it has to do with what the policy is what the guidance is and i know that governor murphy has said that he would plan to have students in mass for the fall so that that's my big concern i have two boys um one son is an incoming freshman and just wanted to go over some information that i've come across in the last year about masks and and my question about the whole decision data the whole metrics um that

110we're basing our numbers on in our county which is grouped with somerset and mercer so the whole cali report is based on two other counties which are exceedingly higher they've been a lot higher in cases right this whole year so for example somerset has been two times the number of cases and mercer has been three times in the merv cases for the year so my big and i've also written to our legislators and also to our governor about all these situations i'm going to discuss tonight um so really it just comes down to masks being more harm than benefit and there's there's really no good data to show that they are truly helping with reducing the virus especially the cloth and the surgical masks so there's an article in the new eagle new england journal

111of medicine that stated quote wearing a mask outside healthcare facilities offers little if any protection from infection and the desire for widespread masking is reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic i also came across a very comprehensive article that is dated march 2021 from in the internal journal of environmental research and public health and the title of the article is a mask that covers the mouth and nose free from undesirable side effects in everyday use and free of potential hazards so it it is long and there's even a section i can i can send it to you section 3.14 on children um you know and how we know that in impaired speech clarity it reduces our ability to have empathy with others our perception of others feelings the anxiety and the feelings that other people

112in the air we breathe are harmful so i really love for us to have that as an option and the other concern is especially with adolescents and the fact that there's a much greater number of suicide deaths this past year then covet deaths with that group with the school age group from five to 18 and 18 to 24 year olds 63 percent have increased his despair and anxiety from all this now we don't know if exactly from masks but um it's definitely part of it so my my takeaway my my call to action for our board that represents us is if it's possible i strongly encourage you it doesn't take too long to write a letter there are 30 school districts in new jersey who have written letters to governor murphy to lift executive order

113175 so we are proactive and know that this is not going to happen um ideally i'm speaking for a lot of parents because i know some parents have kept their kids out because they don't want their kids wearing masks they did the whole online learning this whole year because of that so thank you very much for listening and appreciate the time to speak tonight thanks christina richie said we have one more in the waiting room so two more two more two more then um so we have three all together now um so i have suzanne's ipad i think you need to put christina back in the waiting room too oh sorry yeah i mean where did christina go oh she left all right yeah i don't see christina on here anymore so okay i'll put

114suzanne's ipad in okay and then we have two people calling in from phone numbers it looks like so okay hi suzanne um could you please take yourself off of mute and um introduce yourself and the district you're calling from yes thanks christina i'm sorry i'm lowering i'm suzanne wonder calling from union township okay i do need you to try and silence your background noise okay can you hear me i can okay so suzanne wonder from union township um i am calling actually interestingly enough i was called i was joining the board meeting for one issue and then happened to come across your other topic of discussion that i'd like to also provide a public comment on uh with respect so do that one first with respect to allowing homeschool students to participate in athletics and

115school activities i too would fully support that and the i have one child who's going to north and one child who's actually homeschooled um and i too feel like those children should be included as much as the other children within the district um you know probably held to the same requirements that the other children are but i think that can be done to allow those opportunities for those homeschool children my other topic or conversation or my other comment i should say is it sounds like in your reopening plan that the goal is to provide a year that is as normal as possible as i heard several of you comment on earlier i too believe that one of those obstacles to normal are the masks i can go through lots of data there about children i

116can go with lots of data about not being spreaders how they survive covid how we have already protected the vulnerable and how we have already preserved health care resources all of which were the goals of the original pandemic and i think we've met them it sounds like the board is awaiting quote-unquote permission from murphy and i have read through all of his executive orders as um to look at those options so it sounds like you guys are waiting for his permission to do so but i would encourage you to also take a bold move if you will there are other districts in the state of new jersey that have released their reopening plans and you can find them as well that have already made masks optional i would like to see that for this district

117it would allow those students who choose to wear masks to continue to do so and those students who choose not to also that option as well i don't want to wait for quote unquote you know murphy it sounds you know him to do that change the guidelines or change that i think a lot of it now is being put towards the local districts and i'd like to see the local districts make these decisions for what is most appropriate locally here in hunter and county thank you thank you suzanne rich we have another two people in the waiting room uh yes we put suzanne back in the waiting room um we have someone dialing in from the phone okay i think they're not connected it has that little phone with the line through it sir that

118means they're on mute they're on mute um can phone number 908 96355 please come off meet you and introduce yourself maybe not i don't think they're with us rich okay i can put them back in the waiting room maybe bring in the other one yeah let's try that was three five two four actually it's the same phone number oh no it's not here's three five four two that was three five four two let me try this one can phone number 908-310-3542 please come off a mute and uh introduce yourself it says they're back in the waiting room rich it's it's confusing the last four digits are almost the same for you oh okay a different person i think i unmuted can you hear me you are you are we can hear you okay okay hi

119i'm steph yaeger hi steph how are you okay i'm live in the meeting you are okay tell us your public comment yes great so hi i'm steph yeager um i live in bethlehem township um i have um two kids currently in the district two kids coming up um and i just wanted to um comment on um i heard um a piece of the conversation um there was some debate about the goals and whether or not um to keep the focus on um the diversity equity and inclusion and um you know i i had heard mr melnick um feel that maybe we didn't need to focus on it and i just wanted to say um there are some parents in the community that got together we've been meeting twice a month for years now because it

120is something that we feel that we need to work on it's not something that we have the time for it's something that we feel we need to give the time to i think as a group we have introduced ourselves to the board of education in writing before we've come to the mic multiple times we have a great working relationship we believe with the administration in the district um and i think if at this point in time the work that we're doing outside in the community and working with the administration is not clear to the board then maybe we need to do even more um more communication work i'm hoping that everything that we're doing is very transparent but i'm hearing that maybe you're not um you're not hearing a lot of the the work that

121is happening so i'm hoping that maybe we can open those lines of communication so that there's a more uh open dialogue and that there's more open communication so you can understand more of the concerns of the things that are happening on an ongoing basis my oldest son is going to be a senior and the concerns for us started in the second week of school freshman year so it is not something that's new and a lot of great things have been done but it's certainly we're not in a place where we're ready to just let go of all the uh the great forward progress that's been happening so i just want to say i i'm congratulating the sort progress that we've been making but i would be really upset to think that we're um anywhere close

122to done i think that you know i just want to celebrate where where we've come from and where we're going and if there's any more clarification if if anybody would like to talk to the steering committee of parents in the community group called evolve that meets to talk about these things we'd be happy to come and talk to the board if there's any um you know i guess if any clarity can be brought to the matter thank you so much all for your time and volunteering to be on the board we do appreciate it thanks steph rich we have one person left in the waiting room yeah do you want me to try to that was the person that didn't um connect before on audio but i'll try letting him in again see if it

123works again give a minute or two okay good evening uh can phone is this phone number 5524 can you please introduce yourself my name is frank chrysologo from pittstown new jersey hi frank how are you good how are you good i'm calling with regards to making the board aware of senate and assembly bills that have passed unanimously and are currently sitting on governor murphy's desk to be signed hopefully they specifically address areas of special needs with children that are aging out of their placements but had not received their final year of much needed special needs specifically with regards to community-based instruction job services things along with the iep speech physical occupational therapies and my question is if it could be answered who makes the final decision on placements in special needs um situations such as

124that frank the board can't answer that can i can i get that in writing or some way uh can somebody they can't tell me who makes the final decision we can we can absolutely get back to you on it but we don't answer questions in public comment okay i just wanted to put it on uh the the uh the minds of the people and on the board that this is out there and that there's a need for people that especially special needs people that did not get their instructions the things that they need to move forward with the rest of their lives um and it's a great need obviously the assembly in the senate having unanimously consented and if going onto the governor's desk says a whole lot so i just want the board members

125to be aware of this and hopefully look out for it and i look forward to getting the answer to my question sent to me thank you rich is there anyone else in the waiting room nope it's all clear now okay can i move the meeting forward and call for a motion and a second to approve agenda items one through fourteen point one six so moved i'm sorry second term tara you got the second i have the same oh you have the second tara was first sorry does anyone have any questions regarding agenda items 11.1 through 14.16 okay seeing none um can we all in favor i i i anyone opposed or have any abstentions kitty mission passes who cares carries she carries um now is the time uh for any old or new business does

126anyone have any older new business for the board i was going to wait to see if anybody wanted to go first but rachel we're all waiting for you rachel um i actually just wanted to bring up the fact that i appreciate that um we had the opportunity to have student representatives on the board this year i know that that was something that was concerning to some members of the board i think that the representatives from each high school conducted themselves in a wonderful manner to represent each of their high schools i thought it was really great during this pandemic to get their perspective as we were faced with making some challenging decisions and i really hope that we continue having student reps going into the fall so that was my first order of new business

127and then my second new order business is that in the third round of the cares act and the essa grants i've seen some sprinkling in our agenda with essa money spent but part of the third grant money is to have a committee formed with stakeholders to talk about how that money will be spent so i wanted to know when we in our district were going to be forming that committee thanks does anyone else have any older new business they'd like to discuss or bring attention roger so new business i know that uh in august we're going back to in-person meetings i'd like to ask the policy committee to revisit the issue of having people remotely come into the board meetings that we've been doing for the last year and a half i'd like to extend

128that policy that people can still join in on the not for executive session but for regular session board meetings that we make that as well an opportunity moving forward are you are you looking for board members to be able to access remotely or are you talking about the public being able to call in remotely uh well i guess you'd have to have both i don't think you could say board members can do it and public can't so i think we'd have temple so you're looking for a hybrid uh yeah i'm looking for us to readdress it so we can use technology to join in the board meetings again because i think it's it has not shown to be a detriment and it has been effective and i think it still allows board members to still

129not worry about their work life as much that they can do it from anywhere okay i agree with roger we brought this up and um it would have to be a hybrid but um as working uh professionals and volunteers on the board we might get more community members um involved i know we've had open seats in the past where there was no one running so i i support roger's thought on that i like the idea as well roger um i think it's worth exploring does anyone else have any older new business they'd like to bring up all right seeing none i'd like to call for a motion and a second to adopt the attached resolution zero six one five two one dash ten for executive session to discuss matters falling under the categories four seven

130and eight as reflected in the attached resolution the board expects to be in executive session for approximately one hour i have a motion rob second step uh all in favor opposed staying so moved we are in executive session um welcome back i can i have a call for a motion and a second to reconvene from public session or from reconvene to public session sorry go move roger i i can't tell which one's the second but uh was it rob and roger yep okay great um all in favor aye aye any opposed or abstain we are back in public session um and i have uh at this time is there any new business to propose i have new business rachel so um we had a um there are some concerns i guess about the way in

131which the the designee was appointed for the superintendent evaluation previously in my experience on this board and on my previous board we never had a designate it was always the board president or vice president in in concert with one another that wrote the eval so i'm respectfully requesting that a discussion be held in policy on how we are operating under 1240. actually i would review the whole policy again okay we can bring that up in policy committee anyone else seeing no more new business um i'd like to call for a motion and a second to approve uh agenda items 19.1 and 19.2 including can carries uh that were provided and in addition the board resolves to approve the settlement agreement as discussed in an executive session for the terms of the written agreement um brian

132and i think camp kim can't second yeah all right um is there any questions what was that katie go ahead okay any questions about the items and it all in favor i will have to break out the uh executive session minutes for last week or last month i would i will you need to abstain okay all in favor this is a roll call oh sorry i i apologize katie miss bonomi yes mr chapman yes miss crystal logo yes miss dietrich yes with an abstention from the executive minutes from last month mrs yes mr kirchberger yes mclaughlin yes mr mielek yes miss seleno yes mr straight yes with my abstention i miss fyodo yes okay motion carries can i have a call for a motion and a second to adjourn motion to adjourn second roger rob

133all in favor hi any opposed abstain motion carries meeting over you