001um to our regular board meeting on tuesday may 18th of 2021 at 7 pm this meeting will be held virtual due to the governor's executive order limiting indoor gatherings feel free to click the link or access our live stream recording of the meeting to make a public comment uh you can visit our zoom line or call in to 929 four three six two eight six six and enter meeting id nine five eight four seven nine two five four eight two and password three seven five 888 or email board secretary at nhvweb.net by 3 p.m on uh as of may 18th 2021 i would like to call to order um and uh provide the public meeting notice um the north hunter and voorhees regional high school board high school district board of ed meeting on tuesday
002may 18 2021 is now called to order in accordance with the requirements of the open public meeting act njsa 10 4-6 adequate meet adequate notice of the meeting has been provided by submission of notice of the time date location or instructions for remote access to the hundred and democrat and the star ledger on january 21st 2021 notice and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting have been posted at the north hunterdan high school and voorhees high school and provided to the minimus to to the municipal clerks of bethlehem township california town of clinton clinton township franklin township glenn gardner borough hampton borough high bridge or high hybrid borough lebanon borough lebanon township tewksbury township and union township as well as all other interested parties and posted on the district website fire exits are
003located in the direction indicated in your home um if alerted to fire please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the nearest smoke-free exit and at this time i request that we um uh either mute our lines if we're not speaking um or silence any phones um and uh katie will you take a roll call miss bonomi president mr chapman here miss crystal logo president miss dietrich absent miss hintz president mr kirchberger here ms mclaughlin here mr melech here mr role it looks like kim is here um she's on she's in the meeting but then there's also it looks like she's in the waiting room as well katie rich can you take a look at that yeah i was just texting shelley to see if she could text kim because i don't have kim's
004number to see if she's trying to get in with christian id but i can let her in and see if that's her then we'll go okay let's i can prom i'm sorry no worries yeah i just wasn't sure kim it can you tell us um if that's you on both of your lines okay well i had to log off on my my laptop i'm having technical difficulties so give me a minute okay but you're here we just did roll call yes sorry i i i just texted um just to say so yes i am here sorry that's okay this out thank you thank you mr strait absent and miss fiodo here at this time can we do the stand for the flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america
005and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all can i call for a motion and a second to approve agenda items agenda item 4.1 as a voice vote and that would be the minutes from april 27th school board meeting motion john mielek does anybody have any questions about the meeting minutes all in favor all right any opposed or abstained there we go motion carries katie okay yeah um at this point um we'd like to have our student representative provide the report emma is out this evening so we are only joined by corinne van waren i'm from voorhees welcome karen hi evening so i don't have much to report you know end of the school year everything's kind of settling down but since this is most
006likely my last board meetings the next one's in june right before graduation not gonna lie i'll be mentally checked out by then but since it's probably my last one i just wanna like thank you all for giving me the opportunity to be here to be like a student representative for the board has been really awesome and also to thank you all for doing such a good job this year i know a lot of you like putting a lot of extra work to make school possible with covid and all the different photos you had that would come and uh everyone really appreciates it even if they don't know it's exactly you guys because they kind of show up but everyone appreciates it well you're very welcome and we appreciated all that you brought to the board
007this uh this year it was a pleasure having both you and emma uh represent the student bodies i'll relay that to her please do so thank you i got the pleasure of meeting emma in person the other night so um at the national honor society so um so thank you for all you've done this year karen uh moving on um jeff can you provide us with the chief school administrators report yes thank you on thursday may 3rd the cdc announced that they were recommending that fully vaccinated individuals no longer had to wear a mask indoors or outdoors governor murphy has since announced that in new jersey masks must still be worn indoors by everyone both vaccinated and unvaccinated people therefore mask wearing is still mandatory in our schools until further notice from the new jersey
008department of health or the governor's office in addition today we receive clarification that the governor's executive order lifting the mask mandate or outdoors does not apply to schools however the njsia sent out an update today stating that masks no longer need to be worn at outdoor high school sporting events we will continue to keep everyone updated in the event that the department of health makes any changes to the guidance for schools before the end of the year so i just want to repeat that during the school day we still have to wear masks outside at sporting events outdoors we do not have to wear masks also governor murphy announced on may 17 that his executive order allowing remote learning as an option will be expiring at the end of the school year and it will
009not be an option for next year we will await further confirmation from the new jersey department of education and any guidance that they may be providing relating to individuals who still wish to exercise a virtual option we'll have to see what what the future holds on that issue uh for my monthly update on the district's anti-bias anti-racism initiatives committees made up of various stakeholders at both schools are in the process of identifying activities for the 2021-2022 school year our faculty and staff will receive training during the august in-service days to make those activities as effective as possible report on harassment intimidation and bullying i need to make a correction first uh there was an unfounded case that should have been reported at the april meeting i'm reporting it late uh i will ask the board
010to affirm that report at the next board meeting for tonight we are affirming the report from april for the case with the identification number starting eight 22085 one you're you're muted miss yoda do you need me to call for a vote on that yes please okay um can we have a motion and a second to affirm the determinations of the uh the hiv incidence report uh dated april 27 2021 please so moved ryan rob um and then we need a a voice vote so all in favor aye opposed or abstained all in favor katie motion carrie thank you the next item is the professional development plan there's a typo there it should be 2021 not 2012. so it's the 2021-2022 professional development plan we are continuing with our focus on student mental health on anti-racism
011and anti-bias we have trainings scheduled to work on the new standards the new jersey learning standards any questions on the professional development plan all right can i have a motion and a second to adopt the 2021-2022 professional development plan i moved dab second rob all in favor aye aye any opposed abstentions motion carries katie motion carries um the only the only other thing is the monthly reports are attached for your information thank you rich before i get to my report is um rob in the waiting or tom in the waiting room i do not see him there yet okay um hey when how do we can we uh i guess we'll just keep moving forward with this if you want i can text them real quick just to check okay yeah i can um i'll
012start on the rest of the of my report um voorhees high school graduation ceremony will be held on june 16th 2021 at 10 a.m at the high school north's high school graduation ceremony will be held on the same day in the same time um at north on july 26th at uh july 26 2021 at 4 pm is the deadline to submit your november school election nominating petitions to the office of the hunter and county clerk for any re-election or new positions that might be open on the board um and at this time um why don't why don't we go to committee uh reports and then can we can we john is it okay to change the order of the agenda items to do the committee reports first before we talk to mr roll yes good
013evening madam president it is i'd recommend that you uh ask for a motion to take the agenda out of order in that regard uh with a second and a majority that we can then uh change the order okay tom may be coming on momentarily he just said yes sorry so okay i don't know if you want to wait or make the motion it's up to you um give it a minute here he comes okay there we go mr roll thank you for joining us sorry about that my parents just got here so ah well we will be missing you dearly so um we are very happy to have you one last time join us oh well thank you very much um i would like to take a moment to recognize our outgoing board member thomas
014roll who has uh so proudly represented um highbridge borough and lebanon township marin is holding up your plaque tom which we normally would be handing to you in person um but unfortunately you are not with us in new jersey so um i have to say it has been a personal honor and pleasure to serve with you um for the last five years so thank you so much thomas uh uh tirelessly served from january 17th through april um of january 2017 through april of 2021 so thank you so much for your service tom we really do appreciate everything you've brought to the board thank you very much yes and unfortunately i need very happy to have you but i need to call for a motion in a second to accept the resignation of board member thomas
015roll representing hybridsboro and lebanon township can i have a um motion and a second rachel motion shelley all in favor with regrets with regrets yes opposed or abstain opposed abstain so sorry tom motion carries you will be missed you will be tom thank you so much for all thank you thank you tom thank you guys it was great to know you guys and i'll uh i'll i'll be back i'm gonna swing by the office i'll be back in jersey every month or so so i'll uh i'm sure i'll see some of you please try thanks absolutely thanks have a good one bye-bye bye-bye tom um at this time um i'd like to go to the committee reports can we start with uh community relations and student affairs tara hi good evening community relations and student
016activity um met on may 13th at six o'clock um virtually um we had all of our uh committee members uh brian shelley kim jessica and marin smigala was present we spoke about the elimination of cohorts that went into effect on monday after our meeting and at that time the cohorts were limited on may 10 and the increase in the population both at north was by 300 uh for the week of students and 170 at 40s at the time the schools both had approximately 50 percent of population still on virtual instruction and as uh mr bender stated i guess that'll be there won't be virtual after this year so we'll see whatever the numbers are for the rest of the school year but next year will be a whole new um focus we spoke about the
017loosening of capacity restriction and for end of the year activities as of may 19th there won't be capacity on outdoor gatherings and indoors so the proms will be held outdoors and north is now going to be able to have a junior prom which is going to be on june 5th at the high school outside um we also spoke about graduation board member attendance so all the board members were sent a survey um if they're going to be attending in which school and when to pick up their cap and gowns um and that's all we had um the only other thing we had was in regards to the question that came up the month before uh regarding dogs on campus and based on our policy vori's had many more signs uh stating the policy and that
018dogs are not permitted on campus so they're going to be adding additional signs at north hunterdon the notification was also sent to parents and was posted on the facebook wall reminding everyone about our policy and prohibiting pets on campus it was talk that the athletic directors will let the visiting teams know when they come onto our campus not to be bringing pets when they come watch their children play and that was it anybody have any questions okay thanks tara welcome uh curriculum instruction and technology good evening uh the curriculum committee met on may 12th all of our members were present including rich brown jeff bender and guest deb was there because jess was unable to attend we also talked about the hybrid instruction update which uh tara just reviewed so i will not repeat what
019she said um we also had an update on our social justice curriculum we are continuing to look at summer curriculum hours and we will be adding a new course next year african american history so a number of curricular hours are devoted to writing new curriculum for this course we had a discussion which i believe will also come up during policy where we will be eliminating final exams or they'll be optional for students who have already passed the course this is being done because of challenges some students face when attending school virtually we do not want students grades to be negatively impacted by issues that are beyond our or their control such as wi-fi issues and an email will be going out notifying parents of the change but exams will take place for those students who
020may need the opportunity to take the final we reviewed the professional development plan which mr bender had gone over in his superintendent update we continued to look at our enrollment data every month the curriculum committee looks at a different piece of data this month we focused on enrollment data and how long the students are staying within our schools we had also asked to look at additional data for future meetings perhaps looking at the transfer rate and we will continue to monitor enrollment over time and we also looked at future topics for other meetings in the future and that is my report does anyone have any questions for rachel okay uh facilities finance and transportation sure thank you thank you jess um our committee met last monday the 10th uh five of the six members were
021there as well as mr bender uh katie and rich it was a relatively short agenda compared to what we've been working on in the last few months with budget items um we had a facility update uh first item on that the district bathrooms we have a five-year plan that's in our folder we're going to be tackling uh these in-house with our own maintenance team these fixes won't be as extensive as the the ones that took place uh prior years uh you know the worst ones have already been taken care of but the remaining bathrooms are listed and we'll tackle them in house over five years additionally um the vorte's tennis court is in need of some more repairs immediately and we have a report in the folder from our district architect uh detailing a more
022extensive rehab that's gonna we're planning to um put into place uh next uh summer summer of 2022. as far as uh the honeywell update um there's some most of the lighting is now in place and there's lots of pictures in the folder before and after uh examples of the improvement uh the solar component of the honeywell project uh is seeing some delays and surrounding the um submissions to our department of education so at this point um advanced solar has hired our um architect to help with the making sure that the the paperwork component is approved and so we can get back on on course so um tonight you'll see um uh that we're um you know the administration and honeywell they're working more closely to get this project back on on place so they will
023be slipping a little bit but um you know we'll see it completed next year uh health benefits for um for next year we're also discussed our um our renewal is on the agenda tonight unfortunately it's a 5.6 increase uh roughly that'll amount to around 340 extra next year and that uh you know based on the our experience rating um so we're working with our district wellness plan hopefully um you know we can manage that in the future also you'll see on the agenda renewal of the prescription plan the benecard renewal rate is a two percent increase for next year and also dental the recommendation from brown and brown is to join the shif state health plan for dental benefits this will result in a small savings and you'll also see tonight on the agenda a
024annual safety grant that's been approved by the board of education and we'll be accepting it any questions on any of these items or anything else rachel i have a couple questions that you may or may not be able to answer there were things that jumped out at me on the bills list um i was just curious about there's an expenditure for north for imax and i didn't think that we use those what are we planning to use imax for i'm gonna defer that one to katie then if it's on the bill list i can give you the item number if it's helpful that would be helpful um it's zero two eight three four five it says north imax which i assume that means north hunterton katie i'm happy to jump in if you want they're
025used in our video lab as well as our photo area and our basically in our department thanks greg yeah without pulling up the purchase order right now i wouldn't have the detail of the description but as greg said they are used on on campus thank you for that um one more the the it's item028406. um it's expenditure for nurse desks so i just didn't know like is that all nurses both schools how does that get allocated again i can look at the purchase order right now i would need to just look at the detail for a moment if this is going to hold up the vote then i would just need a few moments you could just send me an email that's fine okay thanks thanks jess just as a reminder to the board members
026this stuff is posted well in advance of the meeting if you have any questions please reach out to me or katie we would be more than happy to uh you know have this information on hand uh in a timely manner thank you thank you thanks john uh the negotiations committee met on uh may 13th and we discussed um the ongoing contract negotiations um shelley can you please update us on personnel yes jess thank you so the personnel meeting was on may 12th at 6 30 pm myself board members in attendance for myself john mielek dembonomi and lisa dietrich as well as jeff fender and mr burgess we discussed the personnel portion of the agenda and then we also reviewed the job description for the affirmative action chief equity officer and the committee felt that there
027were no necessary uh no changes that were necessary at this time and that's all i have for you can you hear me thanks yep thanks shelley i was on mute um next would be policy and school security here rob are you yeah hi jess uh yeah i am going to read out on our brief policy meeting that we had on may 10th um i'm filling in for the recently resigned mr roll so uh jess and myself and rachel and lisa were in attendance on may 10th and we had a relatively brief meeting there was a small number of policies um that are all have mandatory revisions there are four second readings on the agenda tonight that we saw last month there is one um regulation on the agenda that's paired up with one of the
028second readings the every student succeeds act complaints regulation so that is a first and only and then we have first reading of four more mandatory revisions that are in the folder and the revisions are i would say they're uh like language revisions that are inconsequential changes of names of things and such so not much to see there but they're there for your review and we'll have them up again next month for second readings in addition to those policies we had a brief discussion about the policy 7490 about prohibiting pets on campus which was discussed earlier and the assessment of the committee was that the policy is in place and is uh written clearly so from a policy perspective there are no changes recommended but as was previously noted administration will be adding signage and instructing
029school security to enforce the policy and that is the extent of our policy report if anybody has any questions i'd be happy to answer anybody have any questions for rob all right um can we have uh is there anything to report out for the hunter and county vocational school district liaison no updates um what about the new jersey school board's associate delegate yeah hi hi hi tara hi we had our um delegate assembly this past saturday and there were two resolutions that were reviewed and uh past the the finalized uh verbiage will be forthcoming but it's pretty much intact with what um what was uh proposed the first was that the south orange maplewood board of education in essex county proposed the revised policy language to express the belief that it's important to cultivate inclusive
030affirming and welcoming school communities that contribute to the overall safety pedology and school climate and to support and work with board members and school districts to create greater awareness to ensure continued safety support student engagement and implementation of best practices and policies of all students including those that are perceived to be lesbian gay bisexual transgender or questioning or who are lgbtq plus um and there was a slight change at the end of that but that hasn't been finalized so once that comes out i'll let you know but the um the the assembly voted to um approve the resolution and then the second one was a proposal from the new jersey school board special education committee then they proposed policy language as follows and that was also approved the new jersey school board believes that trained
031non-lawyer parent advocates provide a valuable service to parents and students mandatory training of non-lawyer parent advocates is essential to protect the interests of parents students and districts training for parent advocates should result in an understanding of the appropriate role of a parent advocate as well as the requirements of federal and state special education laws and regulations iep development and conflict resolution training should be ongoing the state should provide funding for such training and uh the assembly approved that and as it stated in there the funding will come from uh at the state level so uh those will be two new policy changes coming forth uh from school boards does anyone have any questions for tara okay um thanks tara uh hunter and county school boards or sorry hunter and county school board's associate delegate is
032there any updates for that um the hunterson county school association met on may 3rd we were privileged to have a presentation by amy hassa she is the president of the hamilton township board of education she gave a presentation on purposeful wellness talking about the mental health of not only our students but of board members it was the second time i've had the opportunity to hear her speak and i will be happy to forward on her presentation to any board members that might be interested in looking at it um and we had our annual elections and i was reappointed vice president thanks congratulations rachel um does anyone have any questions for rachel um is there anything to report out for hunter and county educational services commission dele representative nope okay at this time we have an
033opportunity for a public comment during this portion of the meeting the public is invited to address the school board with questions and comments the public is requested to sign the register provided for the purpose for this purpose and to state their name municipality of residence group affiliation if applicable and direct their comments to the school board president while all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate school board 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 and those appearing will be allocated three minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak twice until those wishing wishing to speak have had a turn and to
034kick off public comment we did receive a letter um from a question uh to the board regarding virtual attendance options for 2021 2022 this question is from veronica lambert of hillside drive in the town of clinton she is the parent of a 10th grader at north hunterdon dear board first i thank all the members of for your service to our community my question relates to virtual attendance options for the 2021-2022 academic year will the option to attend school virtually be maintained for students who cannot attend in person due to due to illness and or other reasons um for example traveling for a college visit um i hope that the board considers revising the attendance policy so then so that when so that even when school resumes to a full in-person mode students who are sick
035with a cold or flu etc can stay home and be marked present if they attend virtually there are benefits of such revision both for public health and for student learning students could stay home without missing instruction or impacting their attendance records and the spread of cold flu and other disease pathogens could be minimized and that is the only letter to read into public comment um rich is there anyone in the waiting room for a public comment i do not see anyone in the waiting room okay maybe we'll give it a minute let's just see if anybody comes on right well seeing none um the next item on the agenda is to call for a motion in a second to approve agenda items 10.1 through 13.4 one four um can i have a motion and a
036second please motion kim john does anyone have any questions um regarding these agenda items before we called about all right all in favor aye is there anyone opposed abstained motion characters okay um uh now is the time for uh old and new business is there any older new business uh to discuss rachel i knew we couldn't i knew it was coming i was just waiting it's a good one give it to give it to us rachel it's on teacher recognition so last month uh we read the names of teachers that were retiring um and i have had the pleasure of going to some other board meetings in the last couple of months and i also have the experience of my school district and one thing that i think would be really great if we as
037a board could start to do is recognize our teachers for years of service for milestones so for example if they reached i mean you would have we would have to decide but 10 years 20 years 30 years bigger milestones where we would just at the board meeting recognize those achievements as well as those who are retiring i know that we aren't meeting currently in person but previous to covid we were doing student recognition at board meetings so it'll be really great if we could also recognize staff as appropriate thanks we'll consider it kim you had um older new business to talk about uh yeah i have both but before i touch base on that um can you just reflect um katie that i was not here last month so i'm abstaining from the minutes both
038uh regular and executive yes we'll do thank you so much um i just wanted to um this is all positive uh new business uh congratulate vores of varsity baseball uh on their 12-2 win over kit uh kitted tinney in their tournament play vory's high school is 13-1 just fantastic um also two graduates from the class of um and one of which is from our township bethlehem township uh congrats to the class of 2018 graduate justin johnson for being named to the patriot league academic all league team which is just stupendous way to make an impact on the field and the classroom um congrats to class of 2018 graduate colin mclaughlin names to empire 8 all conference second team baseball congratulations i mean those are just stupendous to hear from our graduates um also um is
039it possible to make a recommendation for policy 0155 for an amendment to include a minimum number of board members to be present as well as an administration um if we could visit that i don't know if we need to i'll i'll take that sure sure yeah yeah that'd be great uh as far as business i'm sorry what are you recommending i'm recommending an amendment to the policy oh 155. okay just language um an old business i was not president last month and i apologize um was there any information given about a board evaluation and the superintendent evaluation a drop deadline for the board um actually it was something i was going to discuss um an executive session just to bring up um to the to the board but i can bring it up now um
040we do need to get the the eval uh the superintendent's evaluation was submitted um and we as a board need to complete our superintendent evaluation as soon as possible and we will be um scheduling an evaluation discussion meeting prior to uh next month's board meeting okay jess so can i assume that we should have that in by may 31st what's a hard deadline because we're obviously going to have to have that discussion in june yeah absolutely let me um just look at a calendar um i think may 31st would give us adequate time to get the um evaluation in and then um we'll set up a um we'll take out we'll do a survey or figure out a date um katie and i will work through a date for um the evaluation thank you can
041you send out an email to the board for a reminder thank you i have one more okay i just wanted to thank the administration for the in-person national honor society um awards that were held on the football field the other night it was really great to see mr d lorenzo organize such a wonderful event the parents were thrilled to be meeting yet again in person and the kids were all smiling at the fact that they would be able able to be close together with their peers um seeing that murphy's executive order um limiting in capacity capacity numbers for in-person gatherings i'm asking that as things start to open up with kovid that we think about meeting in person again um i was really moved by some of the speeches actually i was gonna congratulate emma
042mcdevitt but she's not here tonight um but she gave um a really great speech and she talked about the capacity to make tough decisions in difficult times and i think all the board members have really weathered making tough decisions in these difficult times um and so it would be great if we can continue to look at that as the restrictions are lifted and i would like to uh thank mr cottrell dr cottrell as well for the wonderful ceremony thanks it was a nice ceremony rachel i was there as well so very nicely done greg thank you everybody appreciate it uh any other older new business yes i have new business um i was just i it's just an idea i was wondering uh since most of the students are back in person at the school
043um has guidance or uh the school checked in on those kids who who are still home going virtual um to see perhaps if there's an underlying issue such as anxiety uh that may be needed to be addressed um you know because the school you know it said that the governor's gonna have all in person come fall time so i figured maybe start looking at that to see okay who needs maybe extra support counseling to get that them back into the school and that's right maybe that's something we can take up again i think that would just be really good i'm just curious to see you know how many are staying home at a convenience right because it's convenient i know my daughter will take advantage of that once in a while um and then how
044many are actually staying home because perhaps they got anxiety you know from the code and that fear to return to school so that's all i had thanks charlie kim can we add that is that something we should look at in curriculum maybe we can talk to rich about that or you mean jess i meant you i'm looking at kim and i'm ta and i'm thinking rachel but my bad but yes in curriculum rachel i'll add it to the list for next month thank you um any other older new business all right um i would like to call for a motion and a second to adopt the attached resolution zero five one eight two one dash three for executive session to discuss matters falling under the categories four seven and eight as reflected in the attached
045resolution the board expects to be in executive session for approximately an hour i have a motion and a second place second brian uh all in favor aye aye aye one opposed abstain motion carries we are in executive session and this would be a voice vote um all in favor aye aye aye aye anyone opposed abstain good motion carries katie um i have a call for new business is there any new business to discuss jeff yeah i have a new business i i just want to uh acknowledge the four retirees were their retirements tonight uh perry andrews from north hunterdon music teacher in north hunter for 34 years mary mayo north hunterd in english 18 years of service sue pileckiah secretary of north hunterdon 18 years of service and grant spinks who has worked in both
046schools as a custodian he has also served the district for 18 years so i just want to thank all those people for their service to the district and our students thanks jeff is there any new business any other new business no okay um next on the agenda i would like to call for a motion and a second to approve agenda items 18.1 and 18.2 including two hand carries this will be a roll call vote those hand carries include zoe pettit who is being recommended as a special education teacher at voorhees she is recommended to begin at step five be um ba salary uh 56355 with a start date of august 16th 2021 she'll be replacing uh ben perlowski and alexandra geico is recommended as a physics teacher at voorhees she is recommended at step one
047ba salary of 54 865 her start date will be august 16th of 2021 and she will replace dave novak does anyone have any questions or oh sorry can i get a motion and a second john second second second brian um does anyone have any questions regarding 18.1 or 18.2 kim i think you're you said you're abstaining on 18.2 yeah anyone else all right all in favor oh i'm sorry katie my bad okay miss bonomi yes mr chapman yes miss crystal logo yes miss hints yes mr kirchberger yes miss mclaughlin yes mr milik yes mr lino kim yes i am i will be abstaining from 18.2 and i would everything except for i'm standing on 8.2 north hunter in high school i miss fiotto yes motion carries thank you and can i have a uh call
048for a motion and a second to adjourn motion rob john tara we're all in everyone in favor hi hi hi the opposed abstained motion carries everybody you