001What? >> There's a mic check. Check the mic. >> The mic? Yeah, but also this right here. Um, wonder if it's dead. Do you have a way to check see if the battery is dead on there? Oh, >> okay. Doesn't seem to be want to be turned on. It seems to be dead. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Oh, this is Pam's. Oh, she I guess she used it last time, so I just sign up. >> Oh, no. No. Maybe just do add her up first just cuz >> she's already up. >> She is. >> Yeah. Does that sound any better? >> I understand. I always forgot my email. The extension is I'm trying to Yeah, this is actually uh it's >> What's that? >> It's go. It's working. So, I don't know. You want >>
002What was it before? You think it was >> I think it just sometimes it's a delay. >> Oh, there is >> when you power it. Yeah. >> Oh, cool. Thank you. Shut the battery. Okay, the battery is 89%. We're good. Thank you. I got it. I was like, "Oh my god. You're not Larry. Larry. Larry. >> Good evening, everybody. >> All right. Good evening, everybody. >> All right. Thank you guys for all coming out tonight. It's great to see you. I'm going to kick off the meeting by doing a call to order. This meeting is being held in compliance with the open public meeting act and is open to the media and public. Effective March 1st, all legal notices and board meeting dates shall only be posted on the district website in conformity with state
003code. Formal action may be taken. Mr. Bones, we get a roll call. >> Miss Cassidy >> here. >> Miss Fury >> here. >> Mr. Lopes >> here. Mrs. Mener, Mr. Pieros, Mrs. Rad, Mrs. Ryan >> here, >> Mrs. Depinto >> here, >> Mr. Rizzo >> here. Okay, please stand for the flag of the United States of America to the stands nationy and justice for all. Okay, first item is the student representatives. So, please come up and make a presentation. >> Next one. Um, so hello everyone. We're doing a update on the RMS spring sports. We're doing an update on the RMS spring sports. Um so for the girls lacrosse um coach reported significant improvement in stick skills, game knowledge and teamwork um from the beginning of the season and throughout the end. Um there is
004strong commitment and enthusiasm from all the players despite um facing some teams that may have been more experienced. Um there's a lot of development in leadership skills among returning players and there's a lot of increased confidence among the new athletes and they started building up a strong foundation for the future of the person. And then in baseball, coach reported that they have that they had a 1 to 7 to1 overall record and they ended the season with their best game um when they came back to tie Franklin after falling behind by sixth place. The game was led by Joey Mandel, Gory Sen. >> So for the softball for a softball, they ended the team with nine wins to drop and they finished second in the league. It was leer Jordan who ended the season with
0053.46 era and 87 strikeouts over 11 starts scoring 11 or less. Jordan also offense with a point and zero batting average four played at the home run this season Jordan Kendall and who had three. However, the team's greatest strength was defense field led by first baseman Sam and second base with Gloves. Uh and the B team won the championship game victory over the rally game for boys lacrosse girls reported that one over nine overall record 39 goals. They had five of all all of last season. Defenders were safe as Anthony and Jackson. Heading was Gavin. Starting mini were Schwarz Lucas and Matthew. Starting attacks. >> Okay. Um, for track, the RMS track and field team competed at the meet of champions at Warren Hill Regional High School, bringing home three medals. Brandon Cracker placed first
006in both 100 meter or 800 meters, sorry, and 600 meter races. Uh, in field events, Ray and Carrera earned first place in a shot put with throw with over 34 feet and 5 in. This beat the school record by over 3 ft. Uh, many Vikings delivered outstanding performances and achievements and personal records for the season. In the 800 meter race, both Brandon Crinker and Joshua Gman set personal best. Athletes setting personal records in the 400 meter race included Harley, Reed Lean, Nina Harson, and Ra. Our athletes also did a great job in the hurdles. Ed Finley stepped in as an athlete alternate for the boys hurdles. set a personal record with the time 29 seconds. Mia Shaw had an incredible meet setting a personal record in all three of her events, the 100 meter, 200
007meter, and the 400 meter relay. The girls 400 meter relay was led by a team of Ael Weber, Millie Shaw, Emily Vin, and Alex Burgie finished in an impressive time of 1 minute flat. All three boys competing in the 200 meter race also ran personal best times. Congratulations to Harlem Selecti, Graden Roth, and Matthew Garcia for their outstanding efforts. Made Morgan Allen, Noel Palumbo, and Kayen Woodward each achieved personal best in the 1600 meter race. Audriana Holinka also had a strong performance and long jump, setting a personal record with a jump of 14 ft in the 3 1.3 in. RMS coaches are very proud of their athletes hard work this season and are grateful for a successful season. We wish to see our eighth graders do their very best. Looking forward to their and looking
008forward to the returning athletes back on the track next spring. >> Good evening and welcome everybody to our I just wanted to thank the student representatives. This has been kind of your third or four report. It's been a fantastic addition to our board. Um made the meeting's great. I really enjoyed the updates. I don't know if anyone else wants to make any comments before we uh >> I just want to mention all of these uh student athletes. It's stunning the amount of time and energy and dedication and passion they put in to participate in sports. It really is quite a lot of time that they're giving up of, you know, study time and free time and it's admirable. Um, and I'm glad you're able to bring some more attention to what they've accomplished this year.
009>> Well, thank you very much. >> I want to also recognize our three students as well tonight. This year, we were privileged to have three students attend board meetings as representatives from the student body. Tonight, I'd like to recognize the hard work of Ira, Ean, and Jimmy. They were selected based on an application process. Mr. Daly and I reviewed each student application and essay, and these students really stood out. They showed their commitment to our school, a desire to connect with the board to connect, excuse me, to connect the board with our students, and a sincere and genuine interest for public discourse. Over the course of all four board meetings, they've delivered meaningful updates from RMS spanning academics, athletics, civics projects, and biking visionaries. I'd like to personally thank Ira, Ean, and Jimmy for their
010commitment and their service to the board. So, these are three Congratulations. Jimmy and I was like, Jimmy, I don't know what to wear. So, we decided over here. >> I wanted to recognize that. >> I didn't realize that. >> It's okay. I stuck it in there. That's right. Don't worry about it. Um, and for the superintendent report, we have other student recognitions this evening. Uh, so there's a lot of us here in the room. What I'll do is we'll do our all of our band recognitions first. We'll take a quick five minute break if anybody would like to depart after the band recognitions and then we'll do what happens if that's okay with everyone here tonight. Um, so tonight we recognize the CJMEA Honors Band. This evening we celebrate the accomplishments from Reington Township Music
011Department. For the third year in a row, we've been selected to receive the National Distinction as one of the best communities in music education. Now in its 26th year, the best communities for music education designation is awarded to schools who demonstrate outstanding achievement in providing music access and education to all students. We also received a letter from US Representative Tom Kaine and I'll read his remarks now. He wrote, "Dear Dr. heart. I'm delighted to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the Readington Township School District on being named one of the 2026 best communities for music education by the NM Foundation. This is an extraordinary accomplishment and deserving of this national recognition. The district's support and encouragement of student participation in the arts is truly admirable. I applaud the entire community for making music education a priority
012and your music faculty for working with students to develop both the skills as well as a lifelong appreciation for music in their lives. Once again, congratulations. This is a well-deserved honor. I extend my best wishes to you and the Readington School District and a restful summer and a successful year ahead. This exemplifies our sexual jersey music educators association honors band and orchestra recognitions. Tonight CJMEA hosts competitions for students in Hunteran, Mammoth, Mercer, Somerset, Middle Sex, and Union counties. Our students from Holland Brook and RMS had amazing performances, met other musicians from all over the region and of New Jersey, and worked hard to put on their concerts. And I'd like to take a moment to introduce two of our teachers, Mrs. Lrange and Mr. Council brain to help you present awards for musicians. >> Okay.
013So, I am going to um talk about the Holland Brook Elementary. The way that CJMA does this is fourth and fifth grade are elementary. Um actually fourth, fifth and sixth are elementary, seventh and ethn are um are um middle school. I also wanted to mention too that we had just um come back from Hershey on Friday. Um our middle school or orchestra course, jazz band and band all participated in this and we earned a superior rating from um all groups which means it's a nine year club. So we are really proud. Raise your hand if you are a music student that went on this trip on Friday. Go ahead. Raise your hand. There a lot a lot of them in the audience right here. So I am really proud of them and their accomplishments. For
014Holland Brook School, we have Thomas Hammer, Timothy Hammer, Tristan Dream, Jesse Gold, Lance Hart, Leland Philly, Kylie Leon, and Mark Spy. Absolutely. Sorry. >> I'll slow down. >> This is a strange fact. >> Here we go. Okay, for our middle um for our RMS MS participants in the elementary honors band. I will read a little bit slower. Sorry. Um Isabelle Bolivar, Real Dasio, Nicholas Guerrero, Peter Leid, and His Pits. There you are. I got you. And for our middle school honors, um, and and quick note about the middle school honors, um, they really step up the difficulty of the music here. So, the middle school honors was, um, music that is like eighth, borderline, nth grade music. And anyone, everyone that participated in this did really such a great job preparing the music. Um, it
015was not an easy beat, but they did really well on this. So, congratulations to them. They are Victoria, Jaden, Nathan Gartella, PHIL, ADRIANA, REMY, Michael Alda, and Nick Spying. I think everybody next to Jaden. All right. Michael. Very nice. OKAY. Uh this is uh for the team honors orchestras. Uh we met in April. There were two different events. So it's organized the same way. We have fourth, fifth, and sixth in the elementary category. Seventh and eighth in middle school. Let me start with elementary. Um, if you're here, come on up. Made by Morgan Allen, Matthew, John, Katie, William, PA, Devin S, and Caroline Cubert. Okay. And so, uh, for our Thank you. They're fast. Glory. Uh, for our middle school level students, call your names. Diana Haml. HIGHER NEXT. Congratulations to all of our orchestra
016students who who participated a freshman It was a lot of fun. We had a great time. These are all of our music recognitions for this evening. If anybody who received a music recognition would like to depart at this time, we'll take a quick break and we'll start the athletic recognition in just a moment. So, thank you very much for coming. Congratulations. Yeah. >> Yes. This is a backup. This is truly. We also have several athletic awards as well. Um, we have three athletic teams who had extraordinary seasons this year and tonight we recognized their accomplishments on the athletic field. The boys cross country team had an undefeated season. The boys soccer a team ended the season with an 8 and3 record with a trip to the championship and I'm told that this was their best
017season in over 10 years. And lastly, the softball 18 team ended the season with a record of 12-2 and won the championship game on May 28th. To help me recognize these students are their coaches, I'd like to invite Mr. Newamp and Mr. Typton up first to recognize Wait, just kidding. I'd like to I'd like to bring up um Miss Wha for the softball team. this way. >> Good evening and thank you to the board of education for recognizing our amazing softball team tonight. It is an incredible honor to stand before you all tonight and recognize a truly remarkable group of student athletes. While the championship victory certainly worth celebrating, what makes this team so special goes far beyond the final score. Throughout the season, these young ladies demonstrated what makes a team. From the first
018day of practice to the final out of the season, they embrace every challenge with confidence and grace. They not only celebrated each other's successes, but lifted one another through adversity. In instances where teams would have been become frustrated or placed blame, they remained calmed in the face of chaos and only cheered each other on louder. They continually push themselves and their teammates to become better players. Whether it was offering advice to a friend or asking, "Can I have another one from coach new camp?" These girls create a culture of genuine positivity and support for one another that would be difficult to replicate. To start the season, the girls had a sevengame winning streak, but were coming up on their eighth game with their biggest competitor, Valley View. The girls put up a tough fight when
019tide calls made by the umpire did not go in their favor. The girls took their first loss two to one and they came back calm and more determined. They went on to win two more games before going up against the undefeated value team. At this 10th game, many factors unfortunately kept the girls from doing what they love and showing what they are truly capable of. In the face of chaos and unfairness, they worked each other up and sparked a new motivation within each other. They were more than capable of winning it all and they were going to prove it. This team went into playoffs with already the best record of any B softball team in school history with 10 wins and two losses. But that wasn't enough for them. With every playoff win and the
020many good games, each coach told me the same thing. They were rooting for the girls that had been so good to theirs. Not only did they win, they slept. Beating the previously undefeated team, the RMS Vikings won 8 to nothing with a storybook ending. With an incredible season in championship win, we have some incredible highlights as well. Riley Ratsky, our starting hitter, showed versatility on the field as our starting shorts stop and pitched for her first season at RMS and she recorded 22 runs this season. Lucy Richards was a vacuum of the first base and the MVP of our championship game. She recorded 21 runs this season, was an anchor for the team and kept everybody calm. Molly Martin is an incredible second baseman. She recorded 22 runs this season. She was always loud on
021the field and preparing her teammates for the next play. Victoria Anetta was our starting pitcher. She recorded at least 70 strikeouts this season. Abby Tenor was our starting catcher. She grew so much more in her confidence and had many incredible plays this season with her infielders and at bat. Jordan De Antonio was ready for any position and a passionate strategist for her team. Olivia Pimez was flexible and ready to do what it took for her team. She came back from an injury and was always ready to support her teammates. Emma Molak, Ella Molak, I'm so sorry, was calm and confident. She's a strong third baseman and her she had pivotal plays in the championship game. Kendall Ba is a passionate player. She's always looking to grow and she had several catches in the outfield this
022season. Mary Grace Spark came from playing baseball and had an incredible first season. She was the biggest cheerleader on our team. She was always loud and proud for her teammates. Emily Mueller came to our team as a new softball player and came out a new player with a game-winning catch this season. These young ladies accomplished something that will forever be a part of our school's history. They brought home not only the first softball championship our school has ever won, but the first championship for any B team in any sport at Remington Middle School. Years from now, students of all sports teams at our school will look back and strive for the excellence of their 2026 RM RMS softball team. As their coach, I could not be prouder. Watching them grow, not only as athletes, but
023as confident, compassionate, and resilient young ladies has been and will continue to be one of the greatest privileges of my career. I would like to thank our families, our teachers, administrators, and community members for supporting these athletes through their season. Their success would not have been possible without the encouragement they received from so many people along the way. To the team, thank you for allowing me to be part of your journey and for all you have taught me. You have made your coaches, your school, your and your families incredibly proud and you should be incredibly proud of yourselves as well. You set a standard that future teams will strive to reach and you have left a legacy that will be remembered for years to come. When our season first started, Coach Newamp asked the girls
024when our school or other teams see the RMS softball team, what do you want to be known for? And I think they figured it out. Please join me in congratulating our 2026 softball champions on an extraordinary season and historic accomplishment that will forever be a part of our school's history. You girls earned every moment of this recognition. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, we have some certificates and some surprise for the girls. Um Mary here. Um Antonio Molly. I WILL do Richard. Abby and Victoria. Oh, sure. Mr. Develer, um, just want to highlight some of the soccer teams as a whole and how special it was what they did and how hard it was for them to do. Um, let me give you some numbers here. 486, 1,200, 675, 1,200, 760. That's enrollments that we play.
025So, Dr. Hart says it's the best uh record we've had in 10 years, longer than that. And before that, we didn't play in this league. We played against the little schools. So, Bridgewater has 127 eighth graders. We have 486 total kids, six to 8. So, I mean, it's like Iceland getting to like walk up. Um, so, um, yep. Um, and another thing that makes it special, and this goes out to the parents, um, Reington since about 2016ish doesn't have a program either. So, they don't have a program that these kids play in, and that's travel. They have to go elsewhere. So, parents have to drive, they have to get them on other different uh, clubs. And uh without a feeder program, you know, it's really hard to fill a team of all full-time soccer players.
026So, I like to thank the parents for getting them all to the proper training. And uh they they would not be able to do what they did without that versus these giant schools. Um the team is special. They were uh they're special, determined, skilled, fearless, and most of all accountable. Um in this day and age in team sports, a lot of people like to place blame on someone, something or anything but themselves. This team held each other accountable to every step. When this eighth grade class came onto this onto the scene as sixth graders, some stood out and made the 18 right away and uh others it took a little while for us to spot. Um once they did, they quickly took many many of the other of those currently greater spots. Um which is
027tough for those guys, but um I mean they were full-time, they're trained, determined, again fearless. So even as sixth graders, they came in like you know just no fear and just hey I'm going to play coach see it eventually and we'll be out there. Um that being said their sixth and seventh grade years lessons were learned um about teamwork molding them from individual skilled players into into the team they are. Um everyone has a job in soccer. No one is above their job. You do your job and good things happen. One person doesn't do their job can break the game for the team. Um, I also I've never had so many leaders that were able to coexist within one team. Um, when I gave the Leventenna award this year, I gave five. Um, supposed to
028give two or three. I gave five. I couldn't separate five of the guys. Um, and that's not even that's not even a knock to the other guys. It's just those the five the five guys that kind of led the way different ways. Silent leader, vocal leader, um, you know, skilled guy that we go to on the field. Just so many different uh, leaders on the team. sometimes not being too many leaders doesn't work, but uh these guys it worked. I'm going to share a couple of highlights with you guys this season. I'm not going to go through individual stuff. I could do that all night with these guys, but go. So, we defeated rival JP Case UH their parents were not happy. The second time was an overtime thriller of the semiinal um with uh
029the case and uh Reington players together from Central and it was like they're heckling and us and you know they're like together because they're 100% central guys now but uh they uh it was it was it was a good scene. It was very uh passionate and like you know a soccer team should look like when it's a big game. Um this team actually lost their first two games of the season. So we lost to Bridgewwater one nothing to start the season. um at Bridgewwater which showed that we can play with them and then um we had a couple injuries and uh we lost to Warren. Um and then after that, eight straight wins. Uh we dismantled Montgomery 4 nothing, a big school. We uh beat Hillsboro 72 in their coach's last game and he he
030had beaten us up pretty good over over the over the time of uh my time here at Hillsboro. We would get him sometimes, but they they were there's always tough they cut more kicks than we ever come out. Um we beat them seven to2 on the road. Um reaching the finals for the first time in my tenure. We fell to Bridgewwater 3-1. Um we were in the game and just you know blow up. Um now this goes up to soccer my boys. Um I've always seen soccer as a vessel for young people um and to get to where they need to go in life. Um without soccer I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be a 22-year teacher um teaching teaching students my career and special needs students. Um I wouldn't be here without soccer. So
031these guys, you know, soccer is going to get them where they have to go. Without soccer, it teaches so many lessons and these young men have learned many of these lessons already and will continue to use soccer as a vessel to their guys will be in their 40s probably playing in the over 40 league. Um and my honeys, they'll be playing together. Um, I'll leave you with this one last line from the seventh grade Anton Martinez out of nowhere. We're just standing and the whole team and he's like, "Coach, to me, Mr. We'll be number one." I don't even know like what he's talking to the state. I don't know what he's talking about, but he said one and we almost pulled it off. So, uh, THAT'S THAT'S TAYLOR. Brandon and show their dedication. You
032heard the track awards. A lot of these guys are on track and that's great for soccer player. That shows they really want to improve their soccer skills and soccer together. OH, Nicholas Noeski. Matthew Michael. Victoria. There we go. Good evening everyone. Thank you Dr. Park tonight. First want to congratulate Mr. Belder and Miss Whman on remarkable campaigns. I got to see the boys a soccer team firsthand against a super talented JP squad in the playoffs. Um the atmosphere here at RMS was electric and the boys soccer effort that night was just master class. So well done gentlemen back in and then I got to help be softball team. Um the experience and knowledge of the game was very wide on this team. Um we had two girls that never played softball before. Um and fast
033forward two months they're champions. So it's due to the cohesion of the group and the improvement from late March until now. Thank you Miss W for fostering such a supportive environment uh where these young men young women felt empowered to grow as players in the dugout and also on the field. Um tonight though I'm here to talk about the remarkable accomplishes of our cross country team. The boys had their first undefeated season um since 2009. So very long time that was before we joined this big league of all the larger schools. We used to just compete against the Herman County schools. So Mr. Tint and I weren't coaching back then. So I went dig even dig deep digging in through the archives to compare the talent of this team to some of those teams back
034then. What stood out most about this group was their incredible depth. We had six runners break the 12minute mark on our 3k course which is running a six-minute mile or two miles. Uh six six men did it this year running in the 11 or 10 on 3k. So the foundation for uh though this team success was set last year. Um our team actually won to beat the champions team title last year and um all but two of those runners came back. They were underassmen. So naturally coming into this season the expectations were very high but the team embraced them. The practices were very competitive. Their work ethic was outstanding and uh their toughness and togetherness was second to none. Uh those qualities led to a perfect season. They finished 13 and0 the regular season. Uh
035the road wasn't easy. We actually had some injuries. We lost two of our top five runners throughout the season. But the depth of this team prevailed and they were resilient. Uh, and we had some underassman step up like Noah Leky and Kaden Woodward. Uh, they were true team. Um, the error though of our RMS cross country team was really set by our eighth grade class. We had actually two media champion winners. Colin Hershorn accomplished the feat last year. He actually broke our school record and the home course record and he finished first at the champion as a seventh grader. And then this year, Lucas Sans did the same thing. um broke the school record, the course record, and won the champions as an eighth grader. Uh so while the team fell two points short of
036winning the team title, meet a champions year, we hosted RMS uh for the first time in late October. We did have five runners finished in the top 12, um which was the second straight year. Uh what makes this group special isn't just the victories and the records, it's the legacy that they created. Uh your running careers are just getting started, guys. Uh I can't wait to see what the future holds. Um, I think that where the journey ever takes you, um, the accomplishments that you set here in RMS will be remembered forever. Uh, at least remembered in our back gym, um, there's a banner that we accomplished there on the season that is brand new and, uh, congratulations just on an unforgettable journey and, uh, you're one of the greatest teams that our school has
037ever had. So, we're going to remember you for a long time. Um, Mr. Typically echoing what Coach Luke said. Um, it was so great working with boys who were very dedicated and worked hard at every single workout and they really earned it. And they competed so hard as a team. They also showed great sportsmanship. Once the meet's over, whatever the results are, they were very supportive of the other teams. And uh just to give you an idea of how close the meet was um in the champions where we were second out of 11 teams in the conference meet we were two of our runners were probably about five feet behind two runners that if we had caught them we would have won. So that we still have high respect for William and because they were
038a great team. Um, but it's just it was so close. But the regular season was really impressive to be 13 and0. And the whole season I'm just really thankful to work with a co- coach where Maria and I really worked hard to get the best workouts for the team. And these student athletes always showed up and worked out really really well. Had a great time, had great sportsmanship and competed really, really well. Jakeiano Jacob. coming John and Anthony Roie fans. Smith, Let's go. Thank you all for coming. This concludes our student recognitions this evening. You're welcome to stay for the rest of the board of education meeting. Uh before we go, Mr. Riza, anything else to add? Congratulations everyone's amazing accomplishments. >> Congratulations. Amazing. Dad was a dad. Turn this off. >> I just turned
039it off. Take care. The final part of my superintendent report this evening is uh to review one of our strategic communication goals uh which was to develop a key communicators committee. Um, and we had a really nice meeting a couple weeks ago at the end of May. Um, but we had a great year together. Uh, this was our first full year of doing our key communicators group. Uh, so I wanted to share with the board, uh, some of our accomplishments. uh key communicators. Our our purpose is to uh receive and provide important updates directly from the school to a key stakeholders out in the community. Our key communicators group is made up of local businesses, member of the board of education, Mrs. Pinto, uh members from the faculty and staff, um Mr. Charleston, Mr. Daly,
040Mrs. Vance. She's a key communicator um our union representation from the RTA uh as well as parents uh and community efforts. Uh so we have a key group of stakeholders and their purpose are to do these four things including share insights, feedback, suggestions that help shape the schools. They serve as a liaison when they get this information from the key communicators group to the broader community these key messages and any concerns that they have could be addressed by me or a member of the administration or the staff and these meetings are engaging. There's discussions on various topics related to student success, educational initiatives and major school events. So these are just samples of some of our agendas. Key topics in our key communicators group uh this year were things like the referendum, strategic planning, discussing
041more student engagement like having board of education reps come to the board of education meetings and topics like Project Citizen and Viking visionaries where students have a day of community service out in uh the community with local partners as well as Project Citizen where students engage with community members in a project of their own passion or their own interest as well as a multi-generational literacy program that we began this year at White House School that includes members of the senior community, older students from RMS as well as elementary students where they engage with literature and after school reading club. So these are some of our agendas. You can see that these were some of our big topics over the course of our three meetings this year. And in May, we had our celebration meeting. Uh
042the the key communicators had several we we talked about several key goals in this May meeting. We celebrated our accomplishments. We reviewed the entire year and all of the things that we were able to um do with students and enhance for students over the course of the year and we generated excitement and talked about opportunities for the future. Uh so these are some snapshots of our meeting. You can see the stakeholders around the table in this room um meet doing a presentation actually presentation very similar to this celebrating all of our accomplishments. And these accomplishments include strategic planning. Um, our key communicators group when we met back in January, one of the things that we discussed with them was the fact that we were going to need and require community input for our strategic plan.
043Remember, our strategic plan included one-on-one meetings, surveys, focus groups. We engaged our community and we had a high participation rate, especially from members of our community that don't necessarily have children in the schools. We really wanted to hear the voice of those folks in terms of what they would like to see for the future of our district. We explained to the key communicators group the process, the core team meetings, how we mapped out long-term goals, and how we're currently developing some action steps for strategic planning. We showed them some photos of our work in action during our strategic planning sessions. One of our huge successes this year is undoubtedly the passing of a referendum. We met with the key communicators group back in October and the purpose of our meeting in discussing the referendum was
044to ensure that we got community support for the referendum. It was easy for us as a school to engage our parent community and our staff, but really to have our key communicators go out into the community where there were members and uh citizens who did not necessarily have children in the district and provide the message of the referendum. Those key messages were how success those key messages led to the success of the referendum. Those messages talked about the tax impact, the improvements that were going to be made to the schools. We had a strong communication campaign. We engaged all of our stakeholders and our clear messaging led us to the successful vote. And here are some photos. Um Holland Brook School, we started to install the smartboards. There are some boxes there, too. and some
045of them were sitting in boxes before spring break, but most were installed over spring break. Um, and we also had um we've developed plans for two new playgrounds at White House and Bridges. Uh, but the key communicators group really wrestled with in one of our meetings how to best um promote the referendum and give out our communications. We created new partners through our key communicators. Hunter and Health came in and did an assembly for sixth grade students, fifth grade students, excuse me. At the bottom of the the slide deck, you'll see they came in and did something called an organ road show where they brought in healthy and non-healthy organs to show students impacts of things like smoking and to show them what a brain may look like, what healthy heart looks like and what
046healthy habits and healthy eating and exercise can do to your body or lack thereof can do to your body. Um, fifth graders loved it. They enjoyed it. You see members of the hospital um presenting to students. It was it was a great day. I've been serving um through these new partnership. I've I've been serving on a partnership for health, which is a group of Hunter County stakeholders that meet with uh the communications officer over at Hunter Medical Center to talk about overall health conditions in Hunter County. And these partners range from um hospital members, our department of health, emergency management, um prevention resources is our at these meetings. Um gound are at these meetings. It's a entire group of county stakeholders and they needed some leadership from the schools and asked me to sit on
047the partnership for health um committee and we created a nice partnership with Marada Senior Center. There's a the top picture is the Halloween concert we did at the senior center which led into a holiday concert in December at the senior center. Um and that was one of the opportunities that I had to go visit the senior center um and shamefully handed out referendum packets back in back in October uh for the the Halloween concert. I think most significantly the key communicators group has uh two students from the middle school sit on the our committees and there's been a ton of community engagement in terms of enhancing programs and opportunities for students to be out in the community. Um the BWIN multi-generational literacy program um was developed by Dr. Bengals over at White House School. And
048it includes a senior from our community who sits and reads like you see in the picture pictures pictures with children in um the elementary schools, grades K through three. But we also bring students from the middle school to participate as well. So it's kind of like three different generations of individuals sitting and interacting with the texts. There were certain themes, there were projects, there was writing. Uh Dr. Angles gave a survey to see uh how well students, the seniors and the middle schoolers liked the program and the results were relatively positive that they want to do it again and we want to expand again next year. And then in terms of civic engagement, as you've seen from Mr. Dailyaly, um project citizen was today over at the municipal building. Viking visionaries was last week. Through
049our key communicators group, Mr. Daly has been able to connect our community with our students. So when we do these days of service or when our students need an expert in the field somewhere in the community to engage their passion project, we have connections out in the community. Uh so we've we've accomplished a lot in terms of civic engagement between students and our community. Um so we we've we've done quite a bit of work. I'm proud of this group. It's our first full year. We launched last May with one meeting and I think we really have some momentum over the course of the year this year. I'm proud of everything that our staff and our students are doing and I want to thank the key communicator group for their engagement in this participation. It's it's
050a hugely successful program and something that we uh worked hard over the course of the year to accomplish. So, thank you. Are there any questions from the board? >> Not a question, but just thank you for letting me be a part of it this year. Um it's really nice to see I think every town should have one. Um it's really great seeing and inspiring seeing everyone just willing to help um sharing ideas and and really, you know, trying to make connections between the students and the seniors in our town. I think um was really nice to see um and I just it's such a I think a great great idea, a great group and um yeah, it'll be nice to see where it goes from here. Yeah. >> One of the things we talked about
051um and Mr. just reminded me of this when we engage with the senior community. So being part of the partnership for health group um the the medical center has published their health needs assessments on their website. One of the things that the partnership for health is trying to tackle in our community is social isolation particularly for the senior community. And by having a group like this where students are engaging with seniors not only with those concerts but even with the BIN program really helps bring seniors out of their homes to engage with people that are younger to read books to share information and knowledge. And I think it's a really nice way for us to help try to combat that social isolation. It's really easy in the year 2026 with technology and with the mobility
052of some some of our senior community for them to feel isolated. So if we're if we can do our small part uh to help with that strategic goal of the medical center, I think it's really important. It was a great group. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Hart. Next item on our agenda is the first public forum is for any action items on the agenda. So, if you'd like to speak for any items on the agenda, please come forward, state your name, town, sign in, and you have three minutes to speak. >> Jason, township. Uh, I noticed uh agenda item 407 um which is I guess related to uh policy and regulation 2535. for appointing a board member and I just would like to ask the chair uh according to what I remember of this
053this is happening this only happens when a book is challenged uh is has a book been challenged >> yeah I'll answer I normally don't answer questions but yes a book has been challenged >> okay um I guess my next uh comments are and is there a way we can get an outline kind of the procedure like when do we find out what book has been challenged? What is the actual process that will be going into this? Um this is seems to be happening at the end of the year. I know we're going to be uh redoing rates and everything. What are the you know is there any additional cost based on that? >> Yeah, we'll address comments at the end. Okay. My name is Capernia Reington. Now that we know that the 407 is a
054real thing. Um, I always want to remind everybody when I come into this room where I come from, my family survived Nazis and I survived communist Poland where we were when we had a censorship office that controlled books, newspapers, media and performances. The list goes on and on. So, when I look at tonight's agenda, all I have to say is here we go with this item on of 407. Um, I'm I'm hoping that it's not one of you who made this um complaint like somebody that did last time. Are we going to drag the Liberian in front of this board behind closed doors and make her explain herself, her credential, her choices, her judgment? Will the public get a chance to speak and object or is this going to be uh done beh done in
055the dark? I I suspect we don't even get a chance to say a word. But let me tell you how it should be done. This story takes place not far from here. In the months leading up to May 2024, North Hunteran High School was engulfed in public outrage over a book called Let's Talk About It. A parent stood at a microphone and read passages aloud, demanding its immediate removal. The book was written for teenagers. Teenagers too scared to ask the adults in their lives about sex, sexuality, and relationships. Rather than be grateful about such a resource existing, they manufactured the outrage. The Liberian was called a ped pedophile and a groomer. Then this backfired. The community showed up in undeniable numbers. The board voted to keep the book and that librarian won a national award
056for standing up to censorship. This is how it should be done in the open with the public accountable to everybody. What you are doing is the opposite. And I want to understand what I want you to understand what it looks like from where I'm standing as someone who lived it. Censorship never announces itself as a censorship. It starts at the edges. One sentence, one book, one librarian forced to justify herself behind closed doors. Then it moves to subjects, authors, entire body of thought. That is exactly how it always has been built by every sensor sensor in every regime throughout the history. You have chosen which side of history you are going to be on. Now you will reap the consequences of your choice. >> Okay. Any other comments? Um, well, my name is Judy Roth.
057I'm currently a resent. I did live in township for many years. And I'd like to echo my concerns about censorship in whatever form it takes. And uh, it's very denigrating to the librarian to put them through this as well. And so I want to voice my support for librarians and for the availability of resources for students. Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Hi, my name is Alice Tankovich. I've been a resident here of Bington Township for 20 years. I have uh three step kids that uh groomed and accomplished with the help of the schools here. Uh by and large they put on a quality education. Uh thank you for that. Uh part of that is because of the community involvement in the schools and the school board. Um, one thing that is bothering me is
058I last time I was out and reading here, there was a discussion on uh the book banning and I was disturbed that the board passed that despite the uh more overwhelming objections of the community. Um, it was acknowledged that that policy had faults. It was offered to reconsider the uh the vaults, rewrite the policy and resubmit it for uh passage. That was refused. It was passed in anyway again the wishes of the community. Now I understand the policy has been forwarded to the u state board of education for review. However, despite there being false in it and despite being out for review, the board of education here is attempting to implement it before we hear back about correcting the flaws in the policy. >> I'm sorry. Say that again. the policy is being implemented despite
059the flaws and despite not having received feedback from the state board of education. Is that true? >> We'll answer questions at the end. I'll answer that afterwards. >> Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay. I'm going to close up public forum. As normally, we don't generally answer questions, but sometimes we do depending on what the questions are. They're usually more factual in nature. Most of the questions here were actually were factual, so we can actually give some answers to them. I'll start off and then I'll probably I'll turn it over to Dr. Hart to actually go over the process of how it's going to happen. Um, a couple of comments. one on there's a regulation 2535 which you're all familiar with the portion that on book challenges was not changed it's exactly as given to
060us by the state so we're following exactly regulations so the portion that we changed was not about book challenges that's word for word from the state so we're going to follow that process so just to answer you that one question so it's not the part that was controversial to um from a couple months ago. The other thing is we will um announce what the book is. We will do the challenge. We are going to it's obviously operable, but we you know reached out to attorney. We're just going to put it out there most likely redact it so people can see the challenge itself. There's it's not um we don't think it's confidential, but we are waiting for a board council just to confirm that and then we'll we'll make the actual complaint public. So that
061answers your question, right? M look at >> uh yes when what is the timeline for the expected answer? >> Yeah know I'll let Dr. Hark go through the actual timelines on that. So what we're going to do is we're going to exactly follow policy regulation 2535 is extremely specific in what needs to be done. So a challenge was made. We have it and we're going to start going through the process. So today's first thing is item 407 is the board gets to select a member to be on the board. Doesn't have to be a board member. So it could be anyone that the board selects to actually be one of I think a seven review people. So that's specifically in regulation 2535. So we're going to be doing that. So that's all 407 is is
062the board today. Hopefully, we'll get a vote uh saying that we nominate somebody and we accept that person and they'll represent it. There's another half dozen people that are selected by the superintendent. Extreme process on that. So, Dr. Hart, if you want to talk about the process, Sure. So, the the book complaint according to our regulation gets received by the school principal. Within five days, the school principal has to forward the complaint to me so I can convene this committee that Mr. Rissa um had mentioned the committee will consist of the superintendent, the school principal, uh the libraries uh media specialist, a representative selected by the board which will occur tonight. Uh one age appropriate teacher uh so a teacher that has knowledge of the book or the grade band of the book. Um a
063parent of a student enrolled in the school district. Um a student if we were grades 9 through 12 but we're not so a student will not sit on the committee. um and any additional members that the superintendent deemed necessary. Um so one of our supervisors who's familiar with the humanities and language arts will also sit on the committee. It's our first time going through the new regulation. So this new regulation is in conformity with the new statute. Um and one things that one of the things that we noticed as we were reading it really closely was that the timeline calls for 60 school days until that committee has to render a decision to to the committee has to recommend a decision to the board of education. The way we interpret that is school days will
064stop on June 19th and then they'll pick back up again in September. So, what I'd like to do before the end of the school year is convene the committee, talk with them about, you know, reading the book over the summer, their availability, and then look to try to schedule a meeting sometime in the fall to have the the committee convene, have a discussion about the book, and then move from there to make a recommendation to the board of education. So, you know, ten tenatively, and I just want to say tenatively because I have not talked to all of the individuals on the committee. We're looking at possibly the process stopping or pausing over the summer just because it's not a school day and then picking back up in September. Um, so that we don't have
065to put, you know, any kind of summer expectation on our certificated staff who traditionally don't work in the summer. Um, but that's the rough timeline. Mr. I think we answered the questions. Any question we didn't answer? Well, the timeline for also hearing back from the lawyer to announce it, when does that expect for the complaint? Uh, that is a legal matter. So, we really don't discuss legal matters. And you're talking about the one that's filed with the DOE, right? >> No, I'm just saying you said you were going to announce the book as soon as you hear back from your lawyer. It was going to be >> Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Releasing the complaint. Yeah. We'll we'll find that out relatively soon and most likely like someone's either going to opate to avoid that. We're
066just going to proactively put it out there. Most likely we just have to redact a few things but it'll probably be on our website. Um we'll probably hear back tomorrow be honest with you. So it will be out there relatively quickly. >> So days not >> it's the complaint will be out there. We have to hear back from our council. Once we have that we'll put on the website. >> Thank you. Okay, we will close our public session. Our next item is correspondence. Uh we received five correspondence. They're on record with the board secretary. Next item, we're going to move into board actions. We have the first one is an approval administrative reports. We have three items 101 through 103. Can I have a motion followed by a second? >> Just another motion. Second. >>
067Okay. Any discussion? Mr. >> Ms. Cassidy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lopes. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Menser. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Rad. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dependo. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rizo. >> Yes. >> Pass it. >> Our next item is approval of minutes. We have two items 2012. And I have a motion. Follow by second. Please. I'll move. >> Okay. Any discussion? >> Mr. Ms. Cassidy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lopes. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mener. >> Mrs. Rad. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Pinto. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rosen. >> Yes. >> Passes. >> Our next item is finance and facilities. 28 items to move. There's no recommittee report this month, but we are meeting tomorrow. So,
068we'll have them next month when we meet. So, can I have a motion for items 301 through 28 and then a second? >> Motion second. >> Second. Okay. A lot of items. Any discussion on any of them? >> I I just have one question. I think it's um 3.24 for Machio's service contract. Um I we renew that annually. Is that correct? I just want to board we could so here's my question. If we wanted to look into uh the cost of the lunch and potentially increasing that cost in the future, I'm not saying this is the right time now, but what when would we potentially do that? At what point is the contract renewal? don't >> um so this year we had to go out to bid um for a new contract because you're after
069five years of renewal um you must go out so this resolution is for the first renewal uh first bid results of it which will allow us to renew every single year for the next five years should the board want to which we review in finance committee um each year there's a tool the uh New Jersey Department of Agriculture uh requires us to use to see if We must increase uh food prices um for staff and students including breakfast which we serve. Um but that's an annual decision that can be made at the finance committee level also at the board level um by board resolution. So um the determination to increase or not would be up to the board >> on annual I wasn't sure if it was every fiveyear cycle that that >> that's just
070a bid every five years but annual renewals with annual price increases. Great. >> Thank you. Okay. Any other items? Cassie. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't >> I was making a face, but I really wanted to congratulate this board, the administration, and previous boards after the, you know, presentation of awards earlier today. It's really evident that we are investing in students beyond just the academics and that with your financial stewardship, we're ensuring that we retain our music programs. for retaining our sports programs A and B which is not available to every every school in the area. So I really want to acknowledge the hard work that you've done and it's remarkable and you can see um with with the number of positions that we've been able to well sorry I think that's in the next
071section like financially you've really done a fantastic job and I wanted to thank you for your hard work. Thank you for any other comments. Mrs. Cassidy, >> yes. >> Miss Stewart, >> yes. >> Mentor, >> yes. >> Mrs. R. >> Uh, yes. But I'm just going to stay from 3.2. So, >> Miss Ryan, >> yes. >> Miss Deto, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Passes. >> Okay. So, for eggte um we do have a committee report. We have eight items. So I want to give a little preface before the motion then. So we're going to do a motion for items 401 through 408. 407 as we talked about earlier is the board nominating and voting on a member to sit on the committee. As Dr. Hart explained a few minutes ago, we're going to
072have to do an amendment on that. So I'll go through the process and I have to give like a legal disclaimer as well. So, for right now, what we're going to do is I'm going to ask for a motion for 401 through 408. Paulo, you'll have to abstain on 407. Okay. On the on the when we go there. Um, so that being said, can I get a motion and a second of 401 through 408? >> Motion to >> motion. Okay. Second. >> Second. Second. Okay. So, before we get to 407, we're just going to get the committee report on edtech and then I'll go further after that. >> Edtech met on May 18th. Um, we went over preschool program assessment overview. Three key measurements tools track program effectiveness. Curriculum fidelity tool measures creative curriculum implementation
073across 45 indicators. Tapot assesses peer model usage for social emotional learning and behavior support 3 evaluates overall program quality across 10 10 randomly selected classrooms. There are two tools that tracks student progress. ASG's re screen tool completed by parents at the year start for early intervention identification. Gold assessment provides actual student development data. Curriculum fidelity results dramatic improvement from spring 2025 to spring 2026. Implementation increased 86% to 90%. Fidelity use increased 65% to 76%. Major breakthrough in gold data collection. In spring of 2025, only 40% teachers effectively collecting student data. Spring of 2026. 94% of staff now collecting and utilizing global data appropriately. One provider is performing below the shift average at 67% fidelity versus 88% overall. Social and emotional learning progress. Teapot assessment shows significant gains across all areas. Overall averages across key practices
074jumped from 61% 2025 to 87% in 2026. Among the following focus areas, improvement was made. Teaching behavioral expectations from 42% to 87%. Social emotional competencies 44% to 84%. Intervention from challenging behavior 22 to 90%. We had zero child study team referrals this entire school year. Only four per cases and one moderate case currently active. Program quality assessment with S ers3 SRE 3 conducted by an external assessors across 10 classrooms significant score variations between buildings standard deviations of one to two versus typical 0.5 math identified as a pre primary weakness area statewide and will be a preschool plan to use internal coaches for next year's ESR degree assessment to ensure standardized evaluation preschool goal math curriculum enhancement initiative create a curriculum provides insufficient math guidance to spike overall effectiveness. New Jersey released updated early learning math
075standards this month. Summer curriculum writing project plan. Collaborate with state leaison math specialists involved in writing new standards. Create goal oriented math activities integrated into daily creative curriculum schedule align with kindergarten readiness requirements. Uh Mr. Timo represented um uh had uh presented some summer teacher academy. He had a list of course descriptions and dates were shared with the committee. 21 courses will be taking place this summer taught by teachers and administrators. Uh Dr. Brown presented on the green portfolio portfolio log data analysis. low parent engagement despite 80% of parents who opted into the portfolio. Instructional time impact was five to 10 minutes on average. 84% of teachers found find the tool not valuable for instruction or replicating. Lowest performing students spend most time on form versus actual reading instruction. Some solutions discussed with reading log
076will be a homework assignment starting in 2026 making a reading portfolio optional for teachers starting September 2026. Reading Tim will op uh district will add the form to the website for easier access to the parents. Teachers will remind parents during back to school night about reading topics and the ability to opt out of reading certain books. Next topic was sex education opt out trends. Stable participation rates across grade levels. Grade two had a lower opt out than previous years. Grades four to five consistent with historical data. Grades six to eight slightly lower than past years. 24 students opted out districtwide grades three through uh eight. Uh the committee recommended future opt out trends for sex education updates are not needed. Then we received the NJSLA updates. Testing went smoothly considering test challenges and scheduling challenges.
077A board member had asked about the NJSLA optouts. The supervisor identified the majority of the opt outs in 8th grade were often due to private school transitions for high school. That concludes my minutes. Uh next the next meeting was uh yesterday was on 68 8:30. >> Thank you. Before I go into 407 which I'm sure a lot of discussion any items outside of 407 that we want to bring up and discuss >> I just have a question and I apologize I didn't ask this when you sent the minutes out but I thought we discussed the reading mod being on Genesis not on. >> Yeah. So that was >> yesterday's Monday's meeting. So this is the edtech agenda from I guess a month ago. So we have one yesterday. So we're gonna have another committee report.
078We didn't have a chance to do it. >> It's okay. >> You can bring it up, talk about it if you want, but it just hasn't been shared yesterday. >> I did want also talk about the reading log. I sat in on that edtech committee meeting even though as a substitute I'm not typically on that committee. Um, and I just wanted to tell the board members who didn't participate in that meeting or had a chance to look at the documents that were associated with that meeting. Um, that just to to dive into a little bit about this reading log, this was an initiative that was driven by the board to come up with some way to connect parents with what their child is reading. Um, this was implemented in the fall. The teachers at back
079to school night pushed this. The students all year have been going into these logs and writing which book they're reading I guess when they got out of their classroom library. Um Dr. Hart which I I'm very thankful or Dr. Brown whoever uh came up with this survey to see is this actually working and a useful tool. Uh so this data was presented in that meeting and the interesting thing to me is that we um while there were a few very small handful of parents who were accessing that log and looking at what their child is reading, majority of parents were not looking at that. There is not this big uproar and concern about the books in our schools because if there was more parents would be looking at that um portfolio. So, I just wanted
080to point that out for anyone who wasn't in the meeting and didn't get a chance to look at that when that came across. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Beth. Like, we did discuss this on Monday in detail and we do have an update on that. So, we could bring it up now or we could wait till next board meeting. >> It was a discussion so I don't know if that's allowed. >> Okay. So, we did discuss it yesterday as well. We went back through the data and the survey and there was a couple of points that um were brought up is that this form is actually in Clever. Parents I don't think go into Clevver. That's that's a tool for the students. There is no parent login for Clevver. There's a staff login and
081there's a student login for Clevver. What parents log into is Genesis to look at grades. So, and the the other fact to this is that students can actually opt for parents out of it. So I don't think that information is accurate at all. >> Okay. So one of the things um that came up so just give an advanced notice because it was discussed on Monday and hasn't been circulated yet in the edtech is that one of the members of the administration came up with a suggestion that in September on a Genesis system we're going to ask a question. Did you want to maybe get a little bit more detail on that Dr. 8:27 p.m. >> It's um we don't have it finalized yet, but the suggestion was to when parents log into Genesis at the
082beginning of the school year, they sign up a bunch of forms, right? uh forms that include um whether or not your child can be photoed, uh whether or not your child can interact with the therapy dog, that you've certified that you've read certain policies, you know, those sorts of things that we could develop a question that says, "Do you want to monitor your child's reading through reading along or something along those lines? It's not a well-worded question just yet." So, asterisk right there. um just to see what the interest is among the parents to actually have access to some sort of log to monitor their child's reading. From there, that can drive administrative decision- making on what, if any, tool needs to be implemented, whether it's an individual parent thing or whether it's really the
083kind of issue that the data suggested in the the edtech committee that we had last time. So, that that's our starting point. we we had there's we haven't communicated this yet broadly to our staff and to the teachers. So I I just want to be cautious that because this communication hasn't gone any further. I want to be sure that whatever the decision is at that level that we handle the proper training and tools so that teachers know the expectation are aware what needs to be done or what doesn't need to be done in the future. I just want to be I want to caution the board about that because we did not roll anything out after the edtech meeting we had in May. We didn't we didn't communicate anything about um uh what you just
084read Paulo in the minutes and if any changes are going to happen we haven't communicated that yet either. >> I just wanted to add to that. I mean I thought it was a great solution to do that. I was happy with that. Um, but those board members that maybe don't have students in the school district or not familiar with it, those questions have to be answered in order for you to get your teacher assignment in your schedule. So, that would be a great way to have parents actually answer the question as opposed to a survey. >> But I know the teachers did they put it on their slides at back to school night. Um, but the the intention was to create a link that parents could bookmark and they could continually go in throughout the
085school year. I want to give them I want to give the teachers credit for following through with the initiative and following up with the parents and doing the best they can to manage a new process. And if the process wasn't working, I think uh we have to revisit it some way or another it'll be okay everybody. I got you. >> So in other words, once we get more data, >> right? Exactly. That's the only way we'll get more data is if we actually have parents answer their question. >> Yeah. All right. Before we go into 407, any other comments, discussion items. Okay, I got 407. All right. So, I'm just going to read it aloud before I go into it's going to be more procedural and basically, so we're gonna have a few votes that
086go on this um from a procedure perspective. Make sure we follow Roberts. So if you see why we're voting a few times will should be evident if I explain it well. So the motion says motion to appoint blank as a representative selected by the board of education in accordance in accordance with district regulation 2535 library materials. We need to select somebody. The policy says or regulation says it could be a board member or it could be anybody selected by the board. So we're going to vote on this today. So, because it's blank, we have to amend the motion. We just can't vote on a blank motion. So, we're going to go through and we're I'm going to ask if anyone has nominees that they want to go forward on this to be on this committee,
087open it up to the board. Um, if we have items or people, if one person gets nominated, we'll just do one amendment. If multiple people come in, we'll do two votes. Let's just say person one and person two both get nominated. We'll do an amendment to add this person on. If it passes, we also we won't do the second one and so on. So, the first thing I'm going to ask is does anyone want to nominate somebody? We'll do an amendment on that and then we'll actually do a vote on it afterwards as well. I think you have to vote. So, unfortunately, because there's no name, we have to do an amendment. It's just how how it works. So, at this point, I thought about this and I'm going to make a nomination and anyone
088else could I would like to nominate Justina to be on the board representative. So, that be my nomination. Anyone else have a nomination that they would like? Jim, >> uh, I had not realized till I read the regulation exact language, but you're right. This is a representative recommended by a board. I would like to propose that we bring in a former board member who has sat on this board before uh who's sort of independent of any of the conversations and the discussion on this policy and regulation but is also you know trained on board policy and how we operate and I see Carol Hample sitting in the audience as better right now. Camille Suchello was a former president at just a few names I was coming up with that I think would be educated and
089experienced and independent in the workplace. >> Okay. So we have Justine Ryan Carol Hample anyone else? Okay. Does anyone want to have any discussion on either one? >> I have a discussion. Yes, please. Um I I'm sorry. Before we dive, I have to do one say one more thing. I forgot to say I did speak with board counsel. As you guys probably figured out when I asked PA to abstain is that Mr. Lopes is the one who submitted the request. Now because of that he not the request to challenge. He's not allowed to have any discussion and he's going to abstain completely from this. And then we do votes he's going to have to stayain as well. When this comes back in September, October, November, whenever it actually the report comes before the committee, Paul's
090also going to have to abstain from any discussion and any votes as well. So when we go forward through here, we're going to have discussions now. Paul will be silent and then we do the vote. He's going to vote for abstension on 407 and however else he wants to vote on the other seven items. So that's um we're on that. Beth, >> my first comment is just in our committee handbook that we've worked on for years, it we designate the edtech chair as the person who would sit on a book challenge committee. So, if we're not doing that in this instance, I think we should update that piece of it that says who sits on the challenge committee. That's number one. Um, number two, I have an issue with Mrs. Ryan sitting on this challenge
091committee. During our last book challenge, the committee um voted for the material to stay in the library and Mrs. Ryan made a motion to remove the book. Um it did not pass, but I feel like that is biased and not and I don't feel like she can come to a book challenge with impartiality. Um that's just my personal opinion on that. Okay, >> any other comments? Okay. So, I know I made the motion first. I was going to go into order of the motion, but since I made it first, I kind of maybe surprised people. What I'll do is I'll go in reverse order. So, the first amendment I'm going to suggest is the suggestion by Pam for Carol. >> So, I'll make a motion that >> I'm going to make a motion. I I'll
092make I'll make a motion. You can second it. So the first one is a motion to amend to say motion to appoint Carol Pample as the representative selected by the board of education with accordance with district regulation 2535 library materials. Can I have a motion for the amendment? I'll motion it. Second. Any discussion on the amendment? >> I I have a clarifying question. Did it do we need to have Carol's approval that she would accept? >> Yeah, that's a good point. >> So, Carol, if you were appointed, would you I know Carol. >> I assume there's also going to be other members like selected for this committee. >> So, okay, we really can't vote. That's a good point. She's not here. I thought she Okay, so we can't really say how because that but I'm
093going to modify the motion. Is a motion to appoint an I say a next board member as representative selected by board of education in accordance with the district regulation 2535 library materials. I'll motion that second. >> I'll second. >> Okay. Any discussion on that before we vote on the amendment? >> Thank you Michelle for bring >> Okay, Mr. Bowman. >> Mrs. Cassidy. >> Yes. Mrs. F. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lopes. >> I see. >> Miss Ner. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Rod. >> Wait. Are we voting that we want that person to be on? No. >> Mrs. Ryan? >> No. >> Mr. Pinto? >> No. >> Mr. Rizzo? >> No. Okay. So now I'm going to do the second motion. The motion to appoint Justina Ryan as a representative selected by the board of education in
094accordance with district regulation 2535 library materials. I'm going to do a motion. Can I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second. Okay. Any discussion on this item? >> Okay. We get a roll call vote in scity. Yeah. Mrs. Fury, >> no. >> Mr. Lopes, >> say. >> Mrs. Menser, >> no. >> Mrs. Rad, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ryan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Pinto, >> yes. >> Mr. Rosa, >> yes. Okay. So, now 407 has been amended. So now when we vote for 401 through 408, we're going to vote for 4707 as amended. Carlo's going to abstain again. Any comments on 401 through 408 before we take a roll call. Okay, Mr. >> Ms. Cassidy, >> I'm sorry. Please clarify. Is this 401 to 408? >> Yes. >> So I'm Yes. 4146 487. >> Mrs.
095Fury, >> same. >> Mr. Lo, >> yes, except for 407. I receive. >> M. Mener. >> Yes, except for 407, which is a no. >> M. Rad. >> Yes. Mrs. Ryan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Deento, >> yes. >> Ma, >> yes. >> Okay. Next item on the agenda is personnel. And we have 25 items to move. Um, so I get a motion and a second for 5015. Motion. I'll >> second. Second. Okay. And we do have a committee report. The committee met on May 22nd. We discussed staffing updates for the 2627 um school year. We then discussed enrollment for the 2627 school year. Enrollment at three bridges increase slightly, but class sizes across all schools remain reasonable and stable. The committee also discussed the 81 units of affordable housing being developed on the three bridges
096side of town. At this time, the township has not received any applications and future applications will include information regarding the ages of children residing in the units. Dr. heart continues to remain in communication with the township. However, a board member suggested that a representative from the board attend township committee and our planning board meetings related to the new housing developments. The committee then discussed two personnel matters and the agenda items are new hires, transfers, authority for the superintendent to hire over the summer and we set our next meeting for June 12th at 8:30 a.m. >> Any discussion items? M >> Cassie. >> Yes. >> Miss Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lopes. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Menser. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Rad. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pinto. >> Yes. >> Mr.
097Rizzle. >> Yes. >> All right. Next item is policy and communication. We have four items to move. 601 through 64. And I have a motion followed by a second. I'll move second committee report. >> The committee met on June 1st at 3:30. The first item we discussed was um policy 2535. We discussed whether or not the committee would like to further revise the language prior to meeting with the attorney next week, which was this week. One committee member provided language that she felt would better serve the policy. has suggested that sensitive topics be replaced with advanced materials and to remove the last sentence from the regulation that states the panel's review process may include presentation of the material to the edtech committee of the board of education for further review. The committee member expressed concern
098that the regulation violates the law because she feels it is saying the librarians will be commanded to bring any book with sensitive content to the review panel. A committee member shared that she disagreed with changing sensitive topics to advanced materials because sensitive topics is consistent with district language and mentioned that it is used in a letter sent home to district parents in September alerting them that there are books in the library as well as classroom libraries that address serious or sensitive topics that they may wish to discuss at home. One committee member offered that she would be open to bringing over the language from the policy into the regulation to clarify that it is not every book with sensitive topics and only books where educational value may be outweighed by adverse content. In response to
099the suggestion that the review panel's possible presentation to the edtech committee be remove be removed from the regulation. One board member stated that historically the edtech committee used to review library books up until a few years ago and the regulation states that the librarian has the discretion to bring the books to the panel and the panel has the discretion to present it to the committee if they feel it is necessary. One committee member feels strongly that we should strictly follow stress estate's policy and not spend any more money on this. As a result of the discussion, Dr. Hart will bring our suggestions to the attorney for input. The second item we discussed were the updated policies from our Strauss estimate audit. Policy 0175 contracts with independent consultants. This policy is good as is and does
100not require any changes. Policy 1110 organizational chart. Simple statement that the organizational chart is located in the superintendent's office. The personnel committee reviews this chart every year and keeps it up to date. Policy 3324 right of privacy. This policy is good to have. Dr. Hart highlighted how this policy speaks to our acceptable use policy when it comes to audio and video recording. Staff uh will be made aware of this policy to avoid any issue with social media, etc. Policy 3340, grievance. This policy speaks to teaching staff members that are not in the teachers union agreement. This policy mirrors the contract and will work for those staff members. This brings the staff through different levels of grievance beginning with the direct supervisor then superintendent then the board. Policy stays for decision is final. Policy 3410 compensation.
101This policy will be helpful for certificated teaching staff that are not a part of the negotiated agreement. This policy explains how substitute teachers are hired. It covers how some ESY teachers and speech therapists are paid. The committee recommended that we adjust the language that the u that references the rate of pay for the speech therapist um that it should be rewarded to mention that the rate is the minimum. This will avoid issues should that amount change. Dr. Hart will make that change. Um the following policies were considered but not updated and um or they were policies with errors that have been corrected. So um policy 1642 earn sick leave um does not apply to our district. It is for unaligned PDM and non-regular employees. We do not need this policy. Our district maintains policy 1642.01
102for sickly. Policy 2230 curriculum guides was previously approved but not posted. It has now been posted. Policy 2428.1 standardsbased instruction instructional priorities. This policy is not needed and not mandated. It overlaps with several policies in the 2000 series that speak to the same topic. Policy 3351, healthy workplace environment. After review of this policy, Dr. part would like to add some language to 3281 as it would work more appropriately in that policy. Policy 3440 travel expenses policy 6471 was adopted to abolish 3440. This policy is abolished at this time. We then discussed AI related policies for update. During the last committee meeting, a member suggested that prohibited use of AI be added to the handbook. Dr. Hart met with the leadership team and added language to the handbook. Policy 2361 and 5701 now mentions that we
103have an AI handbook. During the review of policy 2361, a committee member mentioned that we need to address the part that mentions having a yearly public hearing on internet safety and making sure we add this to our agendas when the tech department gives their annual report to ensure we get community feedback. We then moved on to Strauss SMA alert 237. We received three of several policies from alert 20 uh 237. These three policies are revised due to changes to the New Jersey code chapter 6A 8. Policy 1230 superintendent duties. It's mandated and revised minor changes. So the language is consistent with the code. Policy guide 1230 is mandated because a board approved job description is an essential component for the required evaluation process. Policy 2200 curriculum. This is a mandated or biased policy. Um, policy
104and regulation guides 2200 have been combined into a written a rewritten policy guide 2200. Um, the new code and policy guide 2200 describe a board's responsibility for the design and delivery of curriculum and instruction needed to address the New Jersey student learning standards. Policy guide 2200 2200 is mandated because PAC district performance review instruction and program indicators require the adoption of a policy on curriculum. Policy 2411, career education and academic counseling. This is mandated and revised. Policy guide 2411 is mandated as it includes the language required in the C needs assessment section C equity and guidance programs and services. This guides what we offer to our eighth grade students when selecting their courses for high school. Strong cess failer 237 abolished policies and regulations 2200 and 2411 need to be a need to be abolished
105because they were fully re rewritten due to the code being updated. Attorney recommended update was the next um item we discussed for regulation 2418 section 504 mandated. This is a mandated regulation. It ensures that students with disabilities are not excluded from participation in school. It is about access to education through accommodation. The attorney reviewed our regulation and found the grievance procedure to be updated. We need to update ours to reflect the federal law and have the 504 coordinator investigate the grievance and give their decision to the parent. However, if the parent disagrees, it needs to go straight um to due process. The superintendent and board cannot get involved in disputes of federal law. We then um reviewed our handbooks. The committee recommends that the handbook be updated each year to reflect the correct member names.
106There was a brief discussion about getting committee meeting attendance processes to the committee handbook and referencing the bylaw. The handbooks will be distributed to board members in time for discussion at the retreat over the summer. And we finally reviewed the policy tracking document. The committee continues its work on the policy tracking document. We will each highlight policies that require immediate attention based on our notes and the stress audit in our assigned sections and address those as priority at our next meeting. The agenda items are policies 0175, 1110, 3324, 3340, 3410 related to the audit policies 2361, 5701 related to AI. Policies 1230, 2200, 2400 related to alert 237, abolish policy and regulation 2200, and 2411 related to alert 237. Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, July 15th at 3:30. >> Thank you. any discussion.
107>> So, I find it ironic that we start started our meeting talking about the key communicators group um and asking for community stakeholder input and later on for the um strategic plan. We're going to talk about that again. We wanted stakeholder input, but for whatever reason on policy 2535, regulation 2535, we've had stakeholder input and we're not hearing it. And I was actually excited that okay, this was going to be kicked back to committee. We hadn't discussed it since I think January as a committee. >> This was an opportunity to take that feedback, try to come up with wording that would maybe satisfy all members of the committee. And I was really disappointed that not everyone was willing to compromise or hear the feedback that was given to us. And I just I'm really disappointed
108in that. I feel like this is costing the district money to defend this and I would rather see that money go to student learning to staffing what other reason that the district facilities you name it I would rather see it go to that than to go to a uh complaint before the department of education inter attorney fees related to that complaint >> any other comments or discussion >> I have a comment Um, a couple things that I want to address, especially after having reading read the policy meeting minutes. We had staff express concerns about the phrase sensitive topics. However, the letter that the administration sends to parents each September dated September 2025 states, "As part of a literacy program, seventh grade students engage with various texts through book clubs and independent reading. As students mature,
109so does the content of their reading materials. Some titles may address serious or sensitive topics that you may wish to discuss at home. End quote. Given that this language is already used in district communications, I am confused as to why staff are able to identify and discuss books containing sensitive topics in that context, but were unable to do so when the same terminology was used included in our policy. Our use of the phrase is consistent with existing district language and communications. I also went back and reviewed the public ed tech committee meeting minutes and found that books were regularly included on committee agendas for review. For example, on June 10th, 2019, 21 books were reviewed by the board. On October 2nd, 2019, three books were reviewed. On January 11th, 2021, 18 books, and so forth.
110I have meeting minutes printed. Everybody's welcome to review them. This practice appears to have continued through June 16, 2022 when the edtech committee meeting minutes noted, quote, "The committee discussed the current protocol for which books come before the board for approval and recommends this to be further discussed in the policy committee." End quote. The policy committee subsequently met on August 4th, 2022, and its meeting minutes state, "These policies were reviewed by the committee, and no changes are currently proposed. Given this history, I don't understand why the practice of reviewing books in this matter stopped. Based on the meeting minutes, it appears that this had been a routine part of the process for many years, including prior to 2018. What I find particularly frustrating and concerning is that we have a current sitting board member previous
111that previously served as chair of the edtech committee in 2022 and would have been familiar with this long-standing practice. Yet during all these discussions, whether in committee, whether at board meetings, that historical context was never mentioned. Okay. Any other comments or discussion? All right. That being said, can I have a roll call vote on items 61 through 604, please? >> Yes. I'm sorry. >> What? I'm sorry, >> Miss Cassidy. >> Miss Fiori. >> Yes. >> Mr. Vos, >> yes. >> Miss Menser, >> yes. >> Miss Rad. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pinto. >> Yes. >> M. Rizzle. >> Yes. >> All right. Unfinished business. Um, NJ SBA convention in October. >> I'll just mention to the board members. Um, Mr. ago sent out an email I think a couple weeks ago,
112something like that. Um, just requesting board members to let them know if they're going to be going to the convention in October. Um, I think we've got time probably up until the September board meeting at the latest uh to identify I forget the dates off the top of my head, but it's late October like 20th, 21st, 22nd, something like that. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, for board self-evaluation, I'll start that off. As you know, part of our policy, we do a board self-evaluation. The way it works is the board president goes into the NGSBA website. I initiate a form. I cut and paste in the board goals. I get a link. Once I get that, the survey is open. I send that link to each of the board members. Um, we give them a certain
113amount of time to populate the survey and then our NJSBA representative will compile the results for us and send it to us. I haven't initiated that because we have some time and we got other things going on. I didn't want to have competing things. So after this meeting probably this week sometime I'll actually go to the website. I'll initiate the survey and I'll send a link out to you and we'll come up with the dates. Our board retreat is July July 20 something 21st >> July 21st which we normally go over there. We usually have either someone from NJBA or Judy Wilson two people we've used in the past. to determine who we want later on how we want to do that. I'm not going to add anything, not Dr. Hart. >> Yeah, just I
114I can call both and I and I can just reserve uh either Judy or NJSBA and see if they have anybody available. I think that would be the first step. Um I also know that we got some communication from board members who may not be able to be here on July 21st. So there's a possibility that we could maybe do a retreat in August when we have more board attendance. Just so we'll see. I'll check both dates with both parties. We'll get back to you. >> And last year was interesting. We actually had both Judy and and NJSBA give us both two presentations on this. We actually used both. We did one. >> Yeah. So they presented differently. So that's just something. But just be aware I will be sending out the link later today.
115>> All right. New business from the board. Township of Readington delegate. What's that? >> Yeah. So sorry we when we had our policy comm community our policy I'm sorry my personnel committee meeting one of the things we track is enrollment and we track enrollment through monitoring uh some of the housing developments in town. I'm generally I've been the communication between the the district and the township um talking to the township administrator or talking to uh the social services liaison just to find out if there are any what the timeline is for housing developments and how many applications perhaps they've received as well as any children that may have um been on any applications. And there was a comment brought up by a board member that to discuss whether or not we wanted to actually have
116a member of the board of education be a liaison, if you will, between the board of ed and the township or the township committee. Um, so it's just an open discussion. It can something we certainly can table. I don't mind doing it. I've been doing it for eight years, so I'm happy to continue. But if there's a member of the board that wants to, you know, go to township committee meetings, engage with township members, um, you know, we're certainly happy to add it to the, you know, the liaison list, uh, board appointments that we put on our committee reports. So, >> a question and a comment. So, that does seem to be pra um, common practice at different districts, which I kind of learned at the convention. um just thought it would kind of alleviate
117some of your meetings that you attend, but can you elaborate on what the responsibilities would be so then a board member knows what it entails, how much time to see if they'd be willing to do it? I I think the primary if if I were to create this with this board, if we were to create collaboratively what a liaison between the board and the township committee would do, I would I would imagine first and foremost would be um attending somewhat regularly the township committee meetings to see what kinds of discussions are happening at the township level to be able to report that back to the board. >> And they're monthly. >> I think I think they're monthly, sometimes twice a month to tell you the truth. Uh I don't go to them those meetings as
118often. My communication with the township committee generally goes to uh the the township administrator where Jason and I usually get together with him maybe on a quarterly basis where we discuss various issues, shared services, things like that. Uh or my communication is either a meeting or phone with the woman in the social services office as well. Um, so if somebody were to take that, I think primarily it would be attending the township meetings and reporting back, but also, you know, some kind of engagement perhaps with the township administrator and social services, although I don't know their governance structure. It it may be better for like a board member to watch township committee meetings and like administrator to administrator have conversations. There might be some other, you know, way we want to arrange it, but that
119that those are the things that I generally do. Sometimes I'll meet with the mayor, right? Sometimes I'll go over and talk with the mayor and ask questions about some of the things that are going on in the township as well. Um, and that's maybe quarterly as well. >> Any questions on that before I move to strategic planning? >> Um, Mr. Ros, it also could be something we discussed more when we do reorg like in preparation for reorg come January. So, it doesn't have to be a right now decision. >> Thank you. >> Okay. gonna read the committee meeting minutes from strategic planning. The committee met on May 18th. It was attended by myself, Pam, Richard, and Linda from the board. Administrative staff included Dr. Hart, Dr. Brown, Dr. Burns, Tim Charleston, and Judith Wilson was
120our facilitator. She led the strategic planning process. So, she was there as well. The first thing on the agenda was a preparatory statement and goals review. Um, we discussed that on April 29th and 30th, the strategic planning core team met to discuss the 2026 to 2031 strategic plan. In attendance were stakeholders representing the administration, staff, BOE, parents, students, and community members. Day one consisted of reviewing the various input streams, including surveys, forums, and one-on-one interviews. They two centered on finding common themes across the feedback and culminated in creating the initial preparatory statement and goals. The committee including members of the administration met on May 18th to review the output of the core team. The objective was to review and possibly rephrase the goals and statement crafted by the core team while keeping the content message
121and feedback from the core team in place. committee was able to successfully accomplish this objective. The draft goals created by the core team consisted of four goal statements with two versions of each statement. So basically there were eight statements. Upon review of the goal statements, the committee decided to merge two of the goals into one while incorporating the key messages of both. While each goal had two draft versions, the committee highlighted items in each and created a combined version that was aligned with the output of the 14th. The committee also reviewed a preparatory statement and made minor adjustments to ensure alignment with the three-fold statements. The committee agreed that Dr. Hart and Mr. Bone would draft the fiscal goal outside of the meeting and share with the committee. Dr. Hart was requested to share the
122final version of the statement and three goals with the board team. A proposed calendar was for the week of May 18th to 22nd. They would Dr. Har identify co-chairs. The week of May 25th to June 5th, develop the first 18 months of action plans on the June committee meetings or June BOE meetings. Share the goal statements. I'm actually going to share them now. So we actually haven't part of the agenda and our proposed launch is September 1st. Agenda items are none. Next meeting is not scheduled. So I'm going to read the preparatory statement followed by the four goals that were developed. The statement is our strategic plan serves as a guide as we navigate the intersection of traditional excellence and future ready innovation. It is a bold commitment to elevating the teaching and learning experience
123within our schools. By anchoring our mission in the following four focus areas, we ensure that every initiative drives toward a singular goal. Empowering a generation of deeply engaged thinkers, creators, and resilient citizens. Our first goal is entitled belonging and human connection. Belonging is the catalyst for achievement. We cultivate a culture where every learner and educator feels valued, supported, and heard through intentional systems, equitable access, and amplify student voice. Every member of our community is empowered to shape our collective success. Our second goal statement is entitled academic rigor. Academics are grounded in excellence. We will hold high expectations for every student, provide the essential supports and diverse pathways to ensure that rigor serves as a bridge to future success. By meeting students where they are, we transform potential into achievement regardless of a students are learning
124starting point. Future prepariveness is the four is the third goal. In an era of unprecedented change, we empower students and educators to be wise and responsible consumers and creators in an evolving world. With an emphasis on digital literacy, critical thinking, sustainability, and essential life skills, we equip our learner community to act with confidence, discernment, and a commitment to ethical and impactful contribution. And the fiscal goal um that I mentioned a little earlier is the district is committed to prudent fiscal planning and responsible budgeting practices that ensure the long-term financial health of the district while being cognizant of the impact on taxpayers through proactive monitoring of rising costs and strategic allocation of resources. The district will anticipate financial challenges and implement forwardthinking solutions that sustain high quality educational program and reflect the trust our community has
125placed in us. Any questions or comments? >> Um can you expand on the financial uh goal and why that is not an annual goal? Why is that part of the strategic plan? It's >> a good point. One of the things prior to this is we did a lot of research. I did almost every district does have a financial goal as part of it. I thought personally I thought it was important because without sound fiscal responsibility, it's hard to achieve everything else if you're um not meeting your targets, if you're not you can't buy books, you can't do this, you can't have the programs as be as Pam mentioned earlier without a strong financial. So I think that's why almost every district had I looked everyone has a financial goal or know that I'll defer to
126Mr. Bone or Dr. Hart of how they came up with the word. >> Do you have a question on the wording because I >> I don't I just I don't see it as an appropriate strategic goal. I feel it's better placed as an annual goal because it's going to change throughout the five-year plan and to to set action plans when we don't know what the contracts are going to look like for RTA and RTAA and you know these things that are going to be coming within the next five years to put that as a strategic goal now without knowing what our financial situation looks like I feel is better as an annual goal. The other thing I can see it as a strategic goal if it's we're going to be looking for new res revenue
127in income revenue sources or some sort of advocacy we're going to go after the funding formula something in that nature but if it's just to be prudent in a financial way I feel that's an annual goal so the the other and I've said this before I don't like that we the process of the strategic plan was that after that meeting of 30 that the board came behind and then tacked something on that they wanted to see. Do I I don't know if this came up in the meeting with the 30 and this rose to the occasion of of you know a priority in that group because I wasn't there obviously. Um I just have a problem with that whole process in general of saying well we want to see this so we're just going to
128add this on. My other thought or the other concern I have is that um the last time we talked about how the strategic plan was going to work was that you were going to gather board input then go back to that group of 30. I guess I'm not sure how and then it just was not clear, you know, who was going to have the final say in what these goals are. So, >> okay, thanks Beth. So, I'll answer the first part. So, fiscal goal did come up. It was addressed by Judy. I'm beginning of both days. She specifically said that post meeting the administration will write this goal. So it was made clear at the very beginning of both days. She started with that and she wanted us to focus on non-fiscal goals because that's
129something that Dr. Hart and Mr. Bone would write and present to the committee. So it did come up in both days. So it was presented. So it was not a surprise. Um the reason why fiscal responsibility why just I've looked at dozens of districts fiscal um strategic plans. every single one of them have it because if you don't have good fiscal, nothing occurs. Look at all the districts that are doing 15% raises, 7% raises, laying off 60 teachers, doing all that because you have to have strategic planning, have financial impact. What are you going to do a year from now? What are you going to do this? Maybe if some of these districts had better financial planning in their strategic, they wouldn't have to raise 15% taxes. So that's really what it's about is just
130keeping it aware and then there's an action plan that gets done every 18 months. So by having that action plan on finance, it just keeps the focus there so that you're not in a situation where like we have to do a referendum to meet our budget or we have to lay people off. So that's really what it is. And that's why almost every corporation I've ever seen, one of their goals is always their customers, their employees, their finances. It's look at every statement from every corporation. So that's why I believe it was in there. That's why I I I wanted it in there. So, and then going back to I guess the comments from last time, we did do things slightly different this time. All right. And one of the things that we did differently
131is, and I mentioned it last time, is that the core team met, right? and they came up with goals and it's rough I wouldn't say rough draft it was great everything that came up was incorporated in the comments everyone had right but what we did as a team was we just announced just for about setting expectations that you know what what you wrote we're going to take it in this is what our goals are going to be but we may have to rephrase it we may rethink it like for example every one of the the um headers were sentences. We thought it'd be better rather than have a sentence call an academic rigor. Um there were certain words in there that you would almost have to need a dictionary to read or you have to
132Google I think. Right? So we said, you know what, let's just simplify it. So we kept the same concept, the same exact things that came out of it, but we just made it a little cleaner. That's all. So there's no new goals came out, no new statements. It was really just a rephrasing. Um, and it was a joint thing between the the administration at four people and the board. Um, so if you read this, you read the originals, they're identical except for rephrasing that. That's really the whole part just to make it cleaner. That was really the whole purpose of it. Um, I don't know if I answered your questions and >> I I have an idea. I'm I'm just I'm sitting here thinking about your comment Beth too about fiscal responsibility and when we
133meet as um strategic group or when the chairs with their committees meet they they will set about 18 months worth of work you know action steps and I I wonder if maybe to your point a suggestion that the board could take is Jason and I can meet and create action steps in a budget cycle for the fiscal goal so that we don't have for example you know long drawn out five-year action steps or 18-month action steps or 24-month action steps, but maybe if it's okay with the board and the finance committee, um, when we do our fiscal goal, Jason and I can sit in the summer and look at the year ahead. Right? Here are some of the challenges. Here are some of the health benefit increases. We know we're negotiating with this bargaining unit
134this year and create some specific action steps related to the fiscal goal so that we're not looking too far ahead where we can't properly manage our finances but maybe we look at setting I don't know if I want to call them sub goals where maybe we have the action step be like 12 months or a budget cycle at a time so that we don't get too far ahead of ourselves or too far behind that might be a suggestion that could accomplish maybe what your concern is but at the same time. So, >> it's a goal. So, I I guess my biggest concern with with the financial goal is that it puts work on the BA office where they're doing a fantastic job as it is and then to say that we're going to be tracking
135this and we're going to be, you know, I feel like it's putting this pressure and and um more more work on the team to be doing this when this isn't an area where I understand of some districts this is an area that they really need to focus on. While this is an area we need to focus on, this to me doesn't rise to the occasion of a five-year plan of how we're going to get from point A to point B, I feel these annual budgetary timelines that you're talking about is more appropriate. >> And it's bold, but if you don't focus on your action plans, you find yourself possibly in trouble. That's all this is. Keeping the focus on it. That's what you're doing. That's where the action plans come in. because if you don't
136focus on it, you can be find yourself in a situation where you're in financial trouble. So that's like I said, I looked at so many districts. Every district has some version of a finance finance or um facilities one in there. So >> yeah, I had a question for um Jason because you're closest to this. You know, long range financial planning is part of running a business or our own individual expenses. Can you just share a little bit about what you're currently doing that extends beyond a year and how this may or may not impact the the workload that you're carrying? >> Yeah, I mean the unfortunately most of budgeting um can be yeartoear because of the nature of state aid and how uh that impacts about 10% of our budget and uh federal grants which
137can be changing administration. Um but from a long-term perspective um our costs are tied up in salaries and benefits. So the negotiations team has a large impact on that because settling long-term agreements with the various unions allows us for fiscal stability. And going along with that, there very likely will be a new law in place from the state on healthcare um when the current one elapses in 2027 that will also allow us to plan for multiple years um through NJA and state probably negotiations. So other things that we've come up in the finance committee as well is utilities where we're progressing where 85% of our budget will be solar. So the long-term aspect is there for a lot of things but also there's some annual things. So tracking those is um feasible in either aspect
138you guys determine >> can can I help answer Jason is going to undersell himself here now. So let me let me just let me move backwards and then we'll move forwards. We started talking probably seven five to seven years ago about the referendum that just passed in November. So when it comes to things like long-term planning, um it was on our radar. So like that that might be some kind of like long-term financial goal, um we began we we talked about upcoming facilities projects more than 18 to 24 months in advance. As far as far as long-term planning, both of us are aware of the fact that we're going to negotiate with one bargaining unit next year and then the other bargaining unit the following year. We're also well aware of the health benefit um
139chapter 44 sunsets in 2028 and that's at the same time that we're going to be bargaining. So these are things that are on our radar. Are they formal? Are they everyday discussions that we have with one another? Yeah. But are they formal and written down? Maybe not necessarily. But long-term financial planning is is >> going very well. But I think if we want to set short-term goals, we can also look at that as well. I I if that answers your question, I'm hopeful that that gives you kind of a retrospective look and then a prospective look. >> It it does. I guess my summary just because I know the recording and the AI will probably type some notes at some point, but what I want to make sure is clear both to the board and
140to the public is that there is already some effort to support long range planning. I think what you're doing is formalizing it. And Beth, I appreciate that you're cognizant of the workload on the staff, too. So, um I'm hopeful that we can strike the right balance when it comes to um the energy and effort that goes into the outer years and do you have more certainty on the near term and then as you get further out there's more noise in the assumptions that you make? >> I'm I'm glad you said that Michelle because I just and I think Mr. Rizen would agree like for the public we're not we're not setting a goal because we're in a deficit situation here. We're setting a goal to keep our vision on >> financial planning. Right. That's what
141you're saying. >> Correct. Uh I wanted to chime in too since I sat in it on these strategic planning sessions. Uh Judith Wilson did point out early on as well contradictory to proposing a financial goal was that we should not be setting goals on things that we already do well. She said that's pointless. We shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back. We really need to look at those things that are concerning our community and our district, our students and our teachers. And while I did not commit to memory every survey and parent result, I don't recall a single one >> being about financial concerns for our district. >> I don't recall either. P. I know you're looking at me. >> No, I'm saying not a single comment. And I just wanted to reinforce that it
142was contradictory that Judith would propose that we would do a financial goal when it's I'd offer up we're we're a gold standard in the area. >> And if there are any suggestions for word I mean I don't me Jason and I do not own the language if there's a a language tweak you know we sent this to the strategic planning committee. We we shared it, by the way, to answer your question, we shared a via email just so that everybody saw what the final draft looked like. >> I just had a comment real quick. I'm sorry. >> I'm sorry. You say something? >> No, no, >> I was just going to say uh I looked at all the goals and I really was like, "Wow." Like really like the wording and all of it, the
143financial aspect. I think because we do have a referendum that was passed, I think it's important to keep this here. Um, it will help us with the referendum and future uh fiscal polls and I think I like it and I would like to keep it. >> Anyone else? >> All right. What's on the agenda next? >> All right. We are going to move to our second very quick. I promise it'll be very quick. Under new business, uh there was a garden state coalition's the the coalition of schools meeting on May 20th. Dr. Hart and I attended. Um there were a number of speeches including a panel that addressed um questions around the school funding formula at the state level where there was consensus that transportation, healthcare contracts, and special education need to be prioritized um
144and how to address it either locally or uh regionally um or at the state level. talked a lot about student wellness um including the NJ4S um program that Readington is bringing in house and how critical that is to um maintaining a a strong school district and healthy students. Uh they were asking about cell phone policies in schools as well as AI policies in the various schools. We we addressed and talked about a number of topics and aligned on them. So just wanted to to share that. >> Great. Thank you, Pam. All right. Before I close out this sess section, anything else? All right. Now, we're going to move to our second public forum. It is for any items on or off the agenda. Once again, please come up, state your name, your town, and you
145have three minutes. >> Comments online. >> Yeah. Tom Curtis, White House Station. So, uh, if I understand correctly what one of the board members, uh, spoke to, the book review process, I guess, has been around for a long time. I don't know who's been on the board for a long time, but I guess my question would be, was that something that occurred during uh, the acquisition process? Did it happen after the books had already been acquired? And how is that so different from what's currently being done other than the fact that maybe it's been more formalized and now the librarian has the option of bringing it up the chain if they feel that there might be you know an issue with the book. So that's my question. Thanks. Anybody else in the audience? Okay. The
146warning signs of authoritarianism don't announce themselves. They accumulate through policies, complaints, and votes that seem isolated until you step back and see the pattern. The playbook has been used before in Nazi Germany. It began with targeting the vulnerable, gay people, transgender people, the mentally ill, the disabled, and any books discussing the same topics. There were labeled threats to children, culture, and nation. Ordinary citizens filed complaints, cast votes, and quiet and made quiet decisions that together built something monstrous. We are not Nazi Germany. But every book censored leads to thought censored, ideas censored to a dumber society. Amending policy 2535 was the start of your journey toward embracing authoritarian values. And this is not just about books. As part of the national MAGA movement, you have enshed yourselves with an ideology ideology that hates diversity, hates
147LGBTQ citizens, and despises any literature that ex explores different topics. You have entered the authoritarian territory. Let me tell you what this looks like when a community fights back. In May 2024, the north the North Hunan Borhees board of education voted 74 to keep the book Let's Talk About It. An illustrated sex education guide to keep it on library shelves. The librarian defending that book was threatened, smeared, called a pedophile and a groomer. She fought back with such courage that she was awarded Lemony ticket prize for noble Liberians faced with adversity. She won. But she should have never had to fight that battle. We live in United States of America for God's sake. Not Nazi Germany, not communist Poland. and not Putin's Russia. Fast forward to February 2026, the Readington Board of Education changed policy
1482535, allowing board members to scrutinize books before they are even purchased. The same month, MAGA members of Hunteran Central Board of Education began manufacturing outrage over the same book as North Hunteran. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not this does not happen in a vacuum. Just listen. So, let's connect the dots. The president of Readington Board of Education is married to the former president OF HUNTER CENTRAL BOARD OF Education who is still sitting on the board today and juning up outrage in the comm in the community over the book let's talk about it and the law firm of Murray Nolan and Biruti currently suing five New Jersey school districts over policy 5756 is the same firm a former Hunter and Central Mega a board member worked for while sitting on the board. These are facts. This
149is not fake news. From board member to law firms to coordinated policy changes to manufactured outrage. This is not coincidence. This is coordinated effort. Same people, same targets, same playbook. History has seen this before. And I am here at this every meeting to make sure everyone else sees it too. And I'll call you out on it. >> Okay. >> Good evening. Laura Mahoney. I'm a teacher here at Readington. Um I wanted to offer um just a point of clarification from the educators um in the off in the audience tonight um about the um book log. Uh book logs at the beginning of the year were introduced to us from the committee and the decision that was um put in place that this was something that we were going to implement with all of our students
150and allow parents to opt um into or out of the reading log. we were going to put um uh it up on our boards every day for the kids to log in and that we were going to give them time and remind them to do that. Um every parent received a direct email either from the teacher or from their students account with a Google link to that um form. So Clever is not needed to access that form. um and uh it could be searched up in emails or reached out to a teacher to get that form again. So, just a point of clarification on that because it was not an easy process to do to try to figure out. We tried to find a lot of efficiencies to get that done and it did not
151work the way we thought it was going to. So, just point of clarification there because tax are um important. Uh data is important. Um we do a lot of work here. um our administrators stand up and give presentations on data. Um and all of the data paints a picture. So we need to use that data to inform our choices like we do in the classroom. And the discussions tonight are sort of painting a broad picture. And that seems to be that um feedback is solicited, discussions are had, but decisions are made before the discussions are had. And that whether or not that is the intent, that is the message that's being sent to the people that are sitting in the audience that are online. Um there's about eight of us here tonight. uh from the
152teachers union. There are many more watching at home and that has been the discussion um after board meetings. So that's probably important for you to know. Um having a discussion about who was going to sit to follow the process of a challenged book is an important discussion and it's a really important role. um you are following the exact process laid out by stress Esme which is important and uh the standard procedure for everyone but it is stunning to have a discussion or to have no discussion um raised over any any shadow of impropriety for someone that you are going to nominate to be on that board. It does not engender trust with your staff. um it does not engender trust with the wider community at large who cannot be here. And if you are going
153to take data given from the community and choose only the parts that continue to support the outcomes that you want, that is not what data is used for and it's very disappointing. Um second, um was the term sensitive Um, and I pulled up a definition just to see because words are important and we teach these in our classrooms that um, some words have one definition, some words have many definitions. Um, the reason that sensitive keeps coming up and I lost my tab. um is because when you look up sensitive um on dictionary.com there are 13 separate definitions of sensitive. Sensitive could be reading a story um in which a pet dies. That's a sensitive topic. A grandparent dies, someone has to move to a new place. Um somebody loses a favorite item. Those are sensitive
154materials that kids could have a hard time with depending on where they are. Clarification in that language is important because sensitive can be anything from having senses to being empathetic to other people to being highly um sensitive in uh being agitated. You're sensitive over people's comments or something that does require tact or caution because it is a touchy subject. So that's where that feedback is coming from. and um say this hoping that it's reaching open ears because that is the intent which it is delivered. Um here are some books that have been challenged in other schools across the country because someone thought they were sensitive. The giving tree, the Lorax, straganona hair love, the last stop on market street. what is Junth? Um, when we use language to have a dialogue, we need to make
155sure we're using the same definitions of things. If something is offensive or damaging to the development of students, that is not fully encompassed by the word sensitive. So, that is the reason why this keeps coming up. It is not about particular books. It is not about um us versus them. It's about allowing students access to things that will enhance their learning and allowing parents to be part of the process where there's an open dialogue and discussion and you can decide for your family, but you cannot decide for everybody's family because people are ready for different things at different times. >> Thank you. Anyone else in the audience? >> Luca Readington. So, uh, as Mr. Curtis mentioned there seems to be a chain of steps taken and I guess my question is it seems like it
156all is really one step a board member has chosen to challenge a book. There is now a committee how many members of those committee can directly be fired or have their salaries held up promotions held up by the board. there's another committee that is mostly board members and it goes to the full board. Like it seems like at the end of the day the board has made a decision and now we're just going through the motion before it happens if I'm correct. Thank you. >> Okay. Anyone else from the audience? >> I know we have someone online. Um, >> yeah. >> Can you scroll to Larry? >> You're going to have to scroll up a little bit so we can see the comments. >> Um, right. Right there is good. And then I'll just need
157help as I get to the bottom. >> Um, at K Duca 7014. Oh, Katherine Duca, Readington District 6. Mrs. Cassidy provided rationale for why selecting a prior board member would be appropriate, and Miss Fury expressed her reservations regarding Mrs. Ryan's uh impartiality based on her actions on a previous book challenge conducted in accordance with the existing policy at the time. It is disappointing that Mr. Chair as the nominator did not expand on this rationale for why Mrs. Ryan would be an ideal representative and it is unclear what if any criteria the board is adhering to for their selection. It is also disappointing how limited the conversation regarding potential nominees was and how the concerns broached by Mrs. Fury were not addressed. If the chair wishes to address any of these items specifically, it would be
158welcome. And then they add Sarah S--R9F. Mrs. Ryan's incompetence when it comes to listening to the public and having knowledge on school policy will cost taxpayers thousands of dollars. We will think of this at the poll. Okay, thank you. At that point, I'm going to close out the public comments. Um, we did have a question for Mr. Curtis was more of a factual nature, so I'll I'll attempt to answer it. Um, the section on our website, you go to the board of education, there's a section for committees and one of them you will see the um edtech. I mean, they're all out there, right? And it goes back years. So, what was being referenced was the committee reports from 2019. So, I think it's 2021 or 2022. Um, there's like four or five reports per
159year. So, if you wanted, you could you could look at that. You can actually see what books were brought in for the edtech committee to review. And so, and um it doesn't give it just basically says the books are brought in for review. I don't think any were rejected. I've read the minutes. Um, so you can do that. It wasn't library books. It was resource materials, which is different. And this was pre- policy 2535. So if you want to actually see it, you can actually go into the board um website. That's where that was from. Mr. Luca, you had a question at the end. I'm sorry, what was it again? >> How many members of the committee that Mr. ride is now on are able to be directly fired by the board or have some
160sort of financial amount that the board can has control over. >> I mean >> like their salaries, their ability to be promoted etc. >> You mean from the book challenge? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So the regulation specifically says people who can make a book challenge are teachers. I believe parents and students and is it students or >> students? Students. So the person who made the challenge is a parent in the district. So they're authorized per 2535 to make that. It's not that they're a board member, it's that they're a parent with children in the district. That's one of the three groups that can do it. Um we met with our board council. We're following the recusal and the abstension. So there is no financial, there's no conflict of interest. We're following guidance from
161our council on how this could occur. But because you're a board member does not mean you give up your rights as a parent. Um there's parents here on the board. It's just >> David, can I reframe? I as I understand the question, it's how many people on the book review committee are employees in the district? That's really hard to So there are seven members. So there's the superintendent, the principal, the librarian, and language arts teacher, and the supervisor. So five out of seven are board employees. The only one who's a direct report to the board of education is the superintendent. Everyone else is a direct report or indirect report to the superintendent. >> Does that answer that? That's the that's what I picture the question understood. So thank you Michelle. >> He also asked if
162the panel decision is is final or if it gets promoted >> the the decision. So the committee will convene the committee will the the regulation reads that the committee has to read the book in its entirety come together and discuss the book provide a report and a recommendation to the board of education within that 60-day timeline. I think I mentioned earlier. So between the committee, the committee makes, for lack of a better word, a recommendation to the full board of education. The full board hears whatever that recommendation is. The full board then makes a decision. I think there's three decisions according to regulation. Keep, restrict, or limit, access, or remove the book. Those are the three decisions in front of the board based on I don't have it in front of me right now, but
163that's my understanding. So from committee to board is the process. >> I think that was all the questions. So I'm going to close our public session. Thank everyone for speaking and online as well. We're now going to move to executive session. I'm going to make the motion. Motion to adopt the following resolution. Resolve to adjourn to executive session in accordance with the sunshine law to discuss two HIVs. A legal matter. the superintendent evaluation for approximately 60 minutes at which time the board expects to return to public session or action shall not be taken. Matters discussed will be made public if and when circumstances requiring confidentiality no longer exist. However, it is not present in their own circumstances will exist. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Can I get a roll call vote?
164>> Miss Cassidy, >> yes. >> Miss Cury, >> yes. >> Mr. Les, >> yes. Miss, >> yes. >> Miss Rad, >> yes. Mrs. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Pinto. >> Yes. >> Mr. Riza. >> Yes. >> Thank you everyone for coming. >> I'm gonna stand up.