BOE Meeting 2 10 2026

001Welcome to our board of education meeting uh this evening. I'm going to call the meeting to order. This meeting is being held in compliance with the open public meetings act and is open to the media and public. Notices were duly posted and the meeting was advertised in the courier news and tapped into effective March 1st, 2026. All legal notices and board meeting dates shall only be posted on the district website in conformity with state code. Formal action may be taken. We get a little Miss Cassidy >> here. >> Miss Fury >> here. >> Mr. Votes, Ms. Menser, Mr. Pieros >> here, >> Mrs. Rad >> here, >> Mrs. Ryan >> here, >> Mrs. Pindo >> here, >> Mr. >> Here, please rise for To the flag of the republic it stands one nation indivisibley and

002justice for all my welcome before I turn it over to Dr. heart and the superintendence report. I just wanted to mention how the agenda flows about while few people here may not have been to a board meeting before. So, I was just going to review the agenda at a high level so you know what to expect over the next few hours. Um, this meeting is going to be a little longer than usual because we're doing our budget presentations. So, over the next, I don't know, hour, hour and a half, the administration will present to the board the budget. Um, it's a great meeting for you to go to. is one of our most important things that we do as the budget as a board and as administration. So, it's going to be extremely inform informative

003but a little long. Um, from an agenda perspective, there are multiple items for the opportunity for the public to speak. The first one is going to be uh open comments from the public for anything on the agenda items. That's an action item. So you'll see if you're here to speak on any of the policies or anything that's in the financial section or anything on a referendum that's actually an action item we're voting on. So that'll be in the first public session. There's another one after we get through all the things that we vote on action items where it's open to anything on or off the agenda. That's just how the meeting's going to flow. And with that, I'm just going to turn it over to Dr. Hart. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Rizzle. Uh welcome

004everyone to our February board of education meeting. As Mr. RZA said, uh, we're going to begin the superintendent's report this evening with department budget presentations. Uh, this evening we have members of the administrative team from the curriculum department, our technology department, transportation department, people services, facilities. Um, and Mr. Bone will review our administrative and personnel section of our budget. Um, this is the first of several public meetings where the board discusses the budget development process for, believe it or not, the 2627 school year. I can't believe we're already talking about 2627. Um, uh, so what happens tonight is each department uh discusses with the board their tentative plans for their budget for next year. Uh after this meeting, the board of education and the administration waits for uh the governor to make her budget address

005and release state aid numbers to each individual school district. Because we have a new governor this year, that deadline may be extended. So we are unable to finalize our budget until state aid numbers are released. At that time, Mr. Bow submits the budget to the county office for approval. Um the county office reviews the budget, provides feedback if any um and then we move toward our final budget adoption at the end of April as well. So like I mentioned, this is the first of several public budget presentations where the board and the administration will engage in the budget development process for next school year. Um so with that, I would like to introduce members of our curriculum department, Dr. Brown, our supervisor of humanities, and Miss Pouch, our supervisor of math, science, and technology to

006talk about the curriculum budget overview and um some initiatives for next year. Uh board members, in your board portal online, um you'll be able to follow along really easily. All of these documents that Miss Pouch, Dr. Brown, and the other administrators will reference are in your agenda. Um you just click on each department. In there, there's a one-page overview where they're going to focus on their one-page overview uh which talks about some budget initiatives for next year and then the detailed budget report that's also contained in your documents as well. Um if you have any questions, feel free to stop any of us and let us know. Dr. Brown, >> good evening. >> We are here representing the curriculum department. It's currently formed with two curriculum supervisor and one supervisor of special projects. Um there's

007an overall total department budget at the top of the menu and then you can see that we have a reduction in our budget for about $18,000 this year. So the money included in this budget is partially new initiatives and reoccurring items. We have two new initiatives this year. One of them being TCI and Vista renewals. That is our middle school social studies program and our French textbooks. Um we also have youly foundations which we are implementing in the K3 as their um intervention program and then we have additional reoccurring items that you see here. The reoccurring items that you'll see um listed include uh curricular resources um money for curriculum writing over the summer as well as professional development for at a district level of the building level as well as the supervisors and this

008also includes our professional development program of teachermies and the inservice day and parent academy facilitations. Um, is there any additional information we can provide for you? >> So, this is the board's opportunity um to ask questions of the curriculum department on any topics related to curriculum, instruction, assessment um as well as some of those items like professional development that Miss Pouch um mentioned. Uh, I just want to make sure I understand the way this document is set up for everyone. When there's a year-over-year change in red, it means it's a >> it's a reduction compared to last year, not a >> it's red is reduction. Yeah. Y >> thank you. >> Okay, there's if there's no clarifications, um next would be uh Mr. Janelski, our IT coordinator. >> Good evening everyone. Um so this year

009our technology budget will prioritize several key projects as part of the referendum projects. We are focusing on the installation and update of interactive whiteboards for our elementary schools. We're excited for that. The current plan is to refresh the primary classrooms across all three elementary schools with installation scheduled from the beginning from the end of the school year through this summer. We're hoping to get through all three schools um in that time frame. Additionally, we are beginning the initial project planning phases for the implementation of an upgraded intercom solution at every middle school. We plan to use funding to offset some of the cost of our network operation license for the maintenance of our core network that covers all network components. We are also planning for the final phase of our core network switch and wireless

010access point upgrades which are tenatively scheduled for next summer as well. And this is also - category 2 eligible for district reimbursement. Um our technology budget and priorities focus on achieving two main goals. Maintaining high acceptable service levels and minimizing our risk tolerance. Those are the two general areas we we try to focus on. Um broken down more specifically we have software licensing which covers essential software and subscriptions infrastructure redundancy. New this year we are looking to implement a back to our firewall. This is something we'll be doing inhouse at a relatively um low cost but will provide us some additional redundancy. hardware updates, new teacher classroom laptops to fully support the functionality of the new interactive whiteboards at the elementary schools and student devices. Transitioning student uh student Chromebooks and possible staff laptops to

011um a more cost-effective Acer line. We're looking to transition to Acer um which likely will be able to provide us some some more cost effective alternatives. and I outlined some of the um the highlights of our budget which is on the second page. Um feel free to look through that. Um, also I just wanted to make a note of no impact to the budget. We're planning for as I mentioned the um smartboards for the elementary um schools um including teacher laptops building intercoms um and then students um all covered under the referendum or purchased with 25 each year. Any questions? Great. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time. I would like to introduce Miss Rebecca Burns, director of people services and Mr. Anthony Tubalo, supervisor of special projects, people services and professional development. All

012right, welcome. Um so for the pupil services department, our department consists of uh school health services, uh school-based counseling, English language services, child study team, special education, speech and language services, uh behavioral services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, section 504 and preschool. Um so it is a a large department and you know as you can see as far as the budget highlights um our change from last year is an increase of 29,000 uh largely due to the cost differential between our out of district student placement. I kind of um outlined that differential. Uh those uh certified tuition rates are provided to us. So those are things that are students are placed in those programs and it's provided and so I just included the cost uh there for you. Um some new initiatives from our department uh

013universal design for learning and our autism program. You'll see an increase um in those budget uh line items um in in the budget. Um but I did also include just an overview sheet of both of those programs um that I'll just quickly highlight some words um in the program sheets. The universal design for learning for example um is a is a framework. It's not a curriculum. So thinking about uh building capacity to what we're already doing. So our current teachers are you know they have their instructional materials from the curriculum supervisors and this is just a way to think about lesson planning. So in instead of thinking about lesson planning reactively to support students in special education to increase our uh inclusion rates or our multilingual learners um to remove those barriers from the onset

014of planning um is really the the purpose of universal design for learning. So again it's just building capacity in that tier one instruction in hopes to reduce our referral rates and also uh reduce our intervention services to students so they can be provided that instruction in that tier one setting. So, it's the general education classroom. >> Um, the other one is just um autism program. So, one of the things that I'm hoping to do is strengthen um and strengthen our autism program by building uh universal assessments for our students that ultimately will um identify students strengths uh based upon functional strengths. So, thinking about functional language, learning social, self-help, um you've been supportive of the community- based instruction um program that we have within our district. So, that would be something that these students um

015would identify goals through the AEL's assessment. Uh that's one of our benchmark assessments I'm hoping to bring into our program that's really going to u identify individual needs as it relates to that functional skill um in those programs. Uh so that is our autism program. The other are just recurring items that remain in the budget. Um and I just wanted to speak briefly if you know when you look at that the breakdown of the budget. Um as far as the large increases um we do have um oops um CBI uh crisis prevention. So that is our uh restraint uh services and deescalation services prior to putting hands on students, training our staff of what the most appropriate way and safe way for the staff and students. Um our two of our district behaviorists are trained

016trainers. So they turnkey that information to our staff. So by annually we have to certify our BCBAS to become that trainer. So that is an increase in um the related services um in the budget. Um the other one related services is a Hunter County ESC power professional. Um we have students that require a higher level of assistance in the classroom through a registered behavioral technician um in order to provide more explicit services for students in our autism program. Um and lastly, we have three district um staff that are trained in level one Wilson. um they are continuing to their level two which provides them um access to small group Wilson and at the conclusion of next year all three of them will have had the highest level of training through Wilson. So that is a

017continuation of uh their training other than that. >> Sure. >> So I'm going to share um a little bit about our council budget. Um just kind of review these are recurring items. Um so it focuses on uh professional development for our counselors um school uh supplies for them materials uh that directly support student wellbeing and counseling services. Um so you'll see um there's uh attendance for New Jersey school counseling association conference um uh budgeting for department professional development and workshops districtcl supplies um and then specific counseling uh supplies as well materials um and uh just to to emphasize that nothing's new the new cost is just recurrent from last year >> questions >> uh I have a question related to our the semi policy um that is later on in the in the agenda. But

018are any of these line items reimbursed as part of that? Um is that included in their assessment? >> Um so the the people services department covers the services that are part of SEMI. So SEI for everyone's information is uh Medicaid um not Medicare Medicaid for students in our district that qualify for that. We provide services based on what those students need and if those services are eligible for federal reimbursement um our staff and consultants submit for that online and then we get federal money for that. So that's uh what happens through the semi program. >> Okay. Thank you for clarifying. But I was curious if any of the budget items in that you were describing would be eligible for this reimbursement. >> Some of them would be but we wouldn't get that reimbursement until after

019the fact. >> Okay. So, >> so some services are this budget reflects our total output but not >> correct. Yes. >> I have one question and it's just more of a followup when you presented the UD UDL at the edtech. >> You talked about a three-year phase program and so on and maybe just share that with the rest of the board so they can understand how the program is going to work over the next three years. >> Sure. Um so one of the and again so as I shared during the edtech um I'm bringing together a committee myself Dr. Chumalo and the two curriculum supervisors and a and a teachers that are volunteering to be on the committee really looking at what our current practices are and what ways in which we can strengthen that.

020And one of the ways that we can strengthen that tier one instruction is bringing in universal design for learning. Again, it just being a framework for supporting what we already have in in district. And with any initiative, it's not a one-year thing. It's over the course of multiple years, bringing in teachers that are on board, the early adopters that are really engaged in the work and then turnkey keen to another cohort in year two and year three. So when I put $36,000 into it, that would be over the course of three years if the committee recommends that implementation phase plan as suggested through CAST, which is the organization that runs the UDL um training question. Um the just question just in general as we invest in the autism programming if there's opportunity to bring any

021of the students back in district is that something I know you're always looking towards but that's potential for the future. >> Yes. And I would also say that um building when I brought up the Hunter County ESC that's also retaining the students that historically might have gone out of district. It's just starting to build that capacity in the program um within district. The goal is always to keep students in district and then also even to to have neighboring districts consider Readington as a tuition in school um for stu schools that don't have an autism program to introduce Don Ree to talk about facilities. Thanks. >> Good evening everyone. You can see there if you see here um a proposed tenative budget for the 26 27 school year. The budget supports district's day-to-day operations for custodial

022maintenance security um you know grounds takes care of everything that that we need to keep running for day-to-day operations. You see my budget total there right? You see the overall change. Um, going down the line, you'll see these are some of our reoccurring costs that we've seen increases, continued increases in year after year. The biggest one being our custodial cleaning services contract, which this time next year we're going back out to rebate for. Uh, our security services, our wonderful SRO's, our police officers, and our collaboration with department of the police department. You'll see that place there. Energy. Energy has has natural gas has been okay, but we've seen significant increases in electric across the boards. We're hoping that some of these new efficiencies we'll be putting in the next couple years from the referendum will

023help that as well. And hopefully we can get the the additional solar off the ground which will impact definitely impact these numbers. We've seen really in the last year big increases in electric rates and it's not so much usage, it's just electric rates are just through the roof. Trash trash and recycling is also a big, you know, service. This time next year will be going up for bid with them again. We've seen increases in our general my part of the general liability insurance wellwater management water testings uh water testing compliance has gotten tougher these days. So there's more things we need to test for forever plastics and things like that that we're talking about. Um, and of course custodian supplies and paper, you know, and cleaning supplies, we've seen increases of those since COVID. It's

024been a small steady increase. So, it's getting more expensive by the supplies we can use every day. Uh, some of the things that's not funded by the local tax levy. Uh, in district, we always have a bunch of smallcale maintenance projects. Uh we've been stepping up these projects inhouse so we do not have to bring in vendors which is it really made makes the budget. It really does. My guys have had some great training over the past couple years and they are just you know those guys are tops classroom allocation at at three bridges for upcoming kindergarten preschool. We'll be doing some work in there that's funded through this year's budget and of course everything from our referendum projects in year one which is being funded through referendum questions. I'd like to introduce Miss Morsey

025Cole supervisor transportation. >> Hi everybody. Um, so you'll see my my line items. My three biggest ones are fuel, um, my the outsourced contracted routes for the students that go out of district and, um, Aid and Lou, uh, reimbursement to parents for non-public students. um some of the the um no impact to my to our budget um that was planned for. We do for new drivers we do in-house training for them to obtain their CDL. Um I coordinate with Flemington, Touary, Hunton Central, and the ESC's for transportation. Um you know, we all try and help each other out and it's keeps cost down. Uh we also in the summertime we do trips for Readings and Recreation during the summer for their summer run program. And um something that the drivers really like to do is

026um we deliver the preschool meals to the preschoolers to the the daycare centers um the holiday gift delivery um to the lowincome families. And um we have people that deliver produce um once a week to the um to the cafeterias at all the schools. Um is that it? Any questions? >> I have a question. Um I just want to make sure I'm reading the line item correctly. that last year under school bus supplies, that's our fuel costs, parts cost was 170,000 and we're budgeting now $277,000 or $100,000 increase. I just want to make sure that's our that's our forecast for fuel costs for the next year. >> Unfortunately, fuel is not one of the things that's going down. It just seems to be going up and and uh the when we have to take buses

027out for repair that's going up also. >> All right. I just clic Thank you. >> I had a question. I actually wrote to Mr. Bow um which he may answer uh for me please. But uh usually we look at the fleet list when we're going through the gentrification budget. So, I just was curious because we generally budget for an additional or a bus each year or if we can. So, I was hoping that you could maybe speak to that in terms of what that looks like for us. Um, in terms of new buses, >> you want to try first? >> Sure. Sure. Okay. >> Um, usually when when I ask for buses, um, we wait till April or May till the end of the school year to see how much money is left over. And

028if there's enough, then I'm a happy girl. If not, then we may do with what we have. >> Yeah, Beth, great. Thanks for asking for that. Earlier, I got a chance to look at all the bus list. I'm just looking at three of them are from 2010, one from 2011. Some of them are older and I think we try and get replace them before year 20. So, how does it work? So, the older ones that are from 2010, are they still operational? Any issues? A lot of maintenance? Um, they are still operating. They are They're in rough shape, but they still operate. They don't look the best, but they'll start up when in any kind of weather. Um, they the state says we can keep them on the road for 20 years, but it doesn't

029sometimes it doesn't work out that way. All the the salt and the brine that they use on the roads and they just don't make things like they used to. Anything else? >> Thank you, >> Mr. B. I'm sorry. >> Now, I'd like to administrator >> for you those that don't know me, I'm Mr. B. So, I have the pleasure of talking about uh superintendent and business administrators departments. Um, so our budget's flat year-over-year. Um, we increased $475 if you're into details. Um, our budget's pretty standard stuff. It's general liability for the district. Um, that actually is the highest cost in our budget um for this specific department, which everyone is feeling at their home insurance, their auto insurance themselves. It's the same thing for the district. Um, those rates have gone up significantly over the

030past two, three years. um legal fees have been flat over the past two or three budget cycles. Um we do our best to try to um keep our legal fees down and uh do things um proactive to maintain that you know so we don't get sued and we do the right thing. Um also set an example for how the staff and students in the community should operate. Um a lot of our stuff is software um obviously we have the audit fees um professional development um for Dr. card and my and myself but also for the board members is in our budget. Mandatory school boards fees um by statute are in there which uh represent a a good amount and then some minor stuff like supplies and and advertising. Um the big thing that Mr. Riza

031talked about is um the big change with advertising. So, we actually shrunk that in our budget this year because moving forward because the Star Ledger and many other major newspapers stopped printing. Um, the state changed the law. So, we no longer have to publish public notices in a physical newspaper. So, our public notices moving forward will be on our website and there'll be a state website that has every single district link uh in the state of New Jersey on it uh moving forward. That is effective March 1st. So, if you want to keep up to date with the district, um probably subscribe to our newsletters and look at the district website because that is where things will be moving forward. Um some other things that don't impact the budget but are just we do in

032the business office, low-inccome assistance. So, we partner with HSA. Uh we also partner with social services in town um to really try to help this the community as much as possible. So, we offer um free meals uh breakfast and lunch. We actually expanded because of Mr. Charleston's suggestion with the nurse um to offer meals on half days. So, we actually offer breakfast and lunch at half days uh which is pretty unique in the area. Um we also give out backpacks uh with social services in town. Um clothing. Um we even help staff uh secure low-income housing in town if they're eligible. So, you know, we try to coordinate our best to help out staff. We also um try to work with our private um providers for preschool to offer discounts for daycare. So, hoping to

033with retention recruitment, um daycare is a very expensive endeavor. Um one of the other things to highlight is that with BA program, the preschool program in town, um you can join the district free. Um several years ago, you gave refunds with state money. It's funded by the state. Um but right now it's free. So um open enrollment I believe is next month and um if you have a age three or four year old um register. Um we also do grant writing. So you the board adopts a lot of grants. You'll see trees for schools uh which is sponsored by the NJA as well as sustainable Jersey. Uh we've also gotten past EV bus some other major um things to offset the local tax levy. Um, I personally also do uh retirement planning. Um, so if

034staff or um need assistance with that, I meet with them one-on-one um show them how to retire or to financial plan for retirement um walk them through the pension process um answer questions um and then encourage them obviously to meet the state oneonone. Um, for our cafeteria services, um, we access a lot of federal money. So, we encourage, um, families to sign up for lowinccome assistance because if they qualify, they get free lunch and free breakfast. So, our goal is to get as many students on that program that qualify because it just helps the family. Um, also, um, because of that money, we generate a lot of profit in our cafeteria funds, which are not part of the tax levy, and we try to do special events for kids, um, as well as outdoor seating

035and some outdoor um, furniture through those um, funds that don't impact the tax. We offer summer enrichment with uh, Mrs. Ogden runs that um which um the staff graciously come back in the summer to dedicate their time to continue education for the students. Um I talked about preschool and the private providers. We have four private providers. White House Prep, Perry Patch, Stanton Learning Center um and um Global Pioneer are the four we partner with. We next year we will have 17 preschool classrooms. Um, so we are the largest that I'm aware of in Hernard County and we service our entire universe. So that means if you have a child in town that's three and four years old, there's no wait list. You can get into our program and there's no lottery. So that's something great

036that we were able to offer and that the board graciously voted upon a couple years ago. Um, and Dr. Hart was able to implement with the supervisors. Um, and lastly, referendum. So, uh, the public passed the referendum vote in November. Uh, we've started on those projects. They're publicly available on the referendum website for you to go through, um, and track the progress. And there's a couple on tonight's meeting for vote. So, that's central administration. Um, any questions? Um, turning over to the other, um, overall budget. So, personnel and benefits. Um, I'm going to do this at a high level because we actually have this an executive session. Um, remember that, you know, speaking about specific staff members requires a rice notice. We haven't raced anyone um this evening. Um, so when we talk about personnel

037in executive session and public um we're doing more broad strokes um than so if you have any questions try to be high level. Um so there's enormous pressure on the budget. Um you're seeing districts um through newspapers going negative. Um they're going under. You see Montlair, you see Amboy, you see Hackin Sack. Um you're going to see more because the pressure on the budgets is really from the healthcare. Healthcare increases are averaging over 20%. If you're in the state health plan right now, your increase was effective January. they could not budget for that increase. So you will see districts in financial trouble in May and June that are in the state plan. We are not in the state plan. Uh the board has been in a private plan for 15 years um with lower rates.

038So our impact is really next school year. So that's our challenge for next year's budget is our health increase which is $7 million is about to go up 20 to 23%. um which as a whole represents a tax levy increase of 4 and a.5% by itself. You add in salaries of 3% nominal, you know, increases. You have the pressure of general liability insurance through auto utilities that everyone feels at home. Um we have the same increases here. Um, so what we've been trying to do over the past two months is constrain everything to try to be cognizant of the taxpayers. Um, and hopefully when we get through March and we present to the public, we will have a very minor tax increase that allows us to continue the great programming for students and supports for

039the staff um while also trying to mitigate these large impacts that are coming externally. Um, so Dr. Art and I have been working hard. Finance committee has been working hard. I think in when we get to the March presentation, um, I think the public will be pleasantly surprised on um, how low we're going to be able to keep taxes um, while still, you know, providing for all of programming that currently exists. Any general questions? Right. Well, I'll throw it back over to Dr. Hart on that high note. >> Thank you, Mr. Bro. Welcome. >> Thanks for the good news. Um, I will um mention a couple of things. The board will notice that uh the presentations done by the supervisors, everybody, thank you for being here tonight, uh really reflect a couple of things. certainly

040our uh first and foremost our priority to our students and providing great programming next year as well as what we've done this year and two to expand to the degree we can the services provided to students you saw pupil services talk about UDL looking to you know improve services in the autism program as well uh looking for innovative or different curricular programs to enhance student interventions um we maintain a high level of encores or electives at the middle school uh which is a priority for us. So we're remain committed to that combined with what Jason said which is some challenges that we're facing for the budget for next year which are the same challenges that every district is facing and the same challenges that we face in our homes with increases to you know our

041own health care and utility costs and everything like that in our homes. Um, so we're going to continue to strive for, you know, excellence and, um, you know, I think I I think you saw that through our budgets. I'll mention we didn't talk much about preschool because the preschool budget doesn't come out until March, maybe April 7th. We have 17 classrooms, um, which can hold a maximum capacity of about 250 students. Registration is open. We have an online registration system that's open currently. As of the latest numbers I've received, we still have 20 open spots, but at the same time, it's only 20 open spots. We have about 230 kids already registered for our preschool program next year. It is our goal. It is 90% of our universe, which is 266. We've reached that target.

042Uh our hope and our goal, and I believe we can achieve it, is to service every three and four year old in a free preschool program for next year. and I think we're we're on our way. So, we'll have more details about the preschool budget later in the spring. Uh I'll open up to any general questions from the board. Okay. If there are no questions on the budget, um I will introduce Dr. Brown and Miss Couch to come back to the podium and ask Larry to bring up our presentation for tonight. Uh this is our midyear diagnostic review. Again, this is our ready diagnostic results. It includes our midyear growth reports, but also we'll start out with NJ SLA data. So this is a a two-way comparison. So previously at the beginning of the year,

043you get the actual scores. Now we'll have comparison between our peer groups and similar districts that look like us. >> You might have to get closer, Stacy. Go ahead. Go. I'm telling you. Go closer. And it like reconnects, >> I think. See? >> I can't explain it. >> Yes, we don't have to understand. It just um these are our comparison groups. So this is our ELA, math, and science trends compared to peer groups that have the same socioeconomic status as Readington. So we have good news here. As you can see in the in the text, it shows that we have outperformed our socioeconomically ranked peers in both e in ELA, math, and science. And then there's an extra note at for our last year's fifth grade classrooms and our algebra 1 classrooms that they also

044had exceptionally high scores when compared to peers of the same grade within our socioeconomic >> I can't help you here now. That's usually >> I need battery. This is our ELA achievement specifically comparing Readington which is on the left with our free and a free and reduced lunch pure grouping county schools itself and then at the end the state. Now it also includes a DFG which is one over from the right. What's different about the DFG is it is not our current peer group. It is our peer group from 20 years ago. The DFG was built off of socioeconomic status of the districts, but it hasn't been updated since the early 2000s. So, what is currently used to show socioeconomic status is the free and reduced lunch ranking, which you can see right next to

045the Readington scores. This shows of our scores for the past five years starting in 2018-19 and then continuing to last year's NJSLA in the 2425 school year. So you can see that we are outperforming our current peer groups in total and we are just four points off of that DFG which would be no longer considered a valid comparison. Do you have is there anything that I can add to this information for you? >> Yeah, just can you comment on if I'm interpreting this correctly? Readington on the left looks like we're trending down while the comparator groups are trending up. I just love to hear your thoughts on why that is. >> It's not an ideal picture. However, it's important to remember a couple of facts. one, this is a threeyear spread and we've lost four

046percentage points. So, four percentage points over three years is not is not a a large change, although it is something that we looked into. It does not appear to be a district-wide concern. We were able to target it to specific areas every single year and each year it was a different area that caused a dip in the scorch. So, it's something that we're going to discuss in more detail when we meet with the tech leader this. Thank you. Anything else? And I will sour for math and I will stand over here and I will do this for you. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. Good evening everyone. Um looking here at the math achievement for NJSLA. Looking at our um free and reduced lunch peers um county again as Dr. Brown mentioned

047the DFG which is socioeconomic but very much updated and then the state as well. So in our original presentation we pretty much only had Readington compared to the state. So now we have some more information showing that um that Readington is outperforming uh districts in um all areas except for the DFG which again is 20 year 20 years outdated. So looking at the socioeconomic which is based on free and reduced lunch that's a more accurate read on um so similar socioeconomic schools um we're also doing very well in comparison to Hunter County um and the state everyone is on an upward trend and we're just pleased to see they're ready all of those upward trends. The remainder of the presentation is on uh I Ready growth data. Is there any questions for NJSLA that I

048can answer? Okay. So, this slide uh gives us our uh I Ready diagnostic midyear scores with our reading results to the left and math on the right. Uh the graph is presented into four quadrants where we um based on performance and growth. We can see that for Readington we have all grades and all subject areas were in the um high performance high growth quadrant for the midyear assessment with the exception of sixth grade who was in high performance for math but didn't break into the high growth. Um so we would obviously like to see everyone with high growth and high performance but high performance is a good place to be. Um you might remember from last year's presentation um that seventh grade had very similar results to this last year and by the end of

049the year they had made their full growth. We had nice results on NJSLA and they had you know met their expectations and when you look at the math students as eighth graders you can see that the seventh graders who were low growth last year are now in the high growth area. Um, so focusing in on what those students need. We have a very similar plan that we what we implemented for seventh grade math last year. We're looking at implementing some of those same strategies with sixth grade this year, anticipating the same good results by the end of the year. The next slide um goes into a little bit more detail on what do you do with a student with students who show low growth and high performance. So we've already began begun working with uh

050the sixth grade math teachers looking for what similar actions can we take um making sure that teachers are closely looking at the results of individual students and seeing where does each individual student land in growth and performance so that we can see that uh grade level come up overall. So, we'll certainly um in addition to be looking at individual students um and where they uh fell within that graph, making sure that students are providing targeted instruction that's going to um promote growth and engagement for all students. Where sixth grade is the focus because they didn't meet that growth goal. are certainly using those same implementation strategies in all grade levels to continue to ensure that all students are continuing to make growth and have those nice high performance rates. Now we're going to take a

051look at each grade level individually. So any uh additional information on >> just one just one question. How is growth defined or measured? when we say low growth, high performance, like what's the correlation and how do you say this person's a low growth or high growth? Like what's how do you measure it? >> Uh so the diagnostic is the assessment tool that we use to determine that. And when the students take the diagnostic, the goal is uh to have a a student or class or grade level median of 50% at midyear. The program determines what is deemed appropriate growth for the full year. So at mid year we're looking for for halfway. So at the end of the year we're looking for 100% growth, meaning the students have made all the growth they need to

052move through an entire school entire grade level. Um so the the program really um analyzes the questions and provides us with that data and it's based on a it's we're looking for the median versus a percentage because we didn't have such uh outliers as very very high and very very low. Looking at the median gives us a more realistic midpoint. The rest of the slides are the details for each individual grade. So each grade level has either met or exceeded the typical growth with a 50 to 60% median uh for this point in the year and they have all shown improved placement. Um the grade level results to the right in the green are student is the percentage of students who have performed within their grade level expectations. In the parentheses underneath it can show

053where um that starting percentage began. So for instance um for kindergarten and math with meeting or above grade level you can see it it in parentheses underneath it says from 12% and the students at mid or above grade level has increased to 48% at midyear. So the parentheses give you the starting point from the beginning of the year whereas the uh graph with the dark green, light green and yellow and so on uh shows you the current midyear placement. to the left is that uh typical growth which again we're looking for each grade level to have a median of about 50 to 60% depending on whether they took the assessment in early February or or excuse me early January or late January. So kindergarten's been up there for a while. We'll switch to first. Um

054again you can see in first grade we have um students exceeding their typical growth um which also is an indication of gaps being closed. When the majority of students have are exceeding their typical growth they're meeting what we call their stretch growth and that's where you begin to close gaps for students who might be struggling. To the right we have our current placements. All of which have um improved with the number of students within the grade level increasing and the number of students below grade level decreasing. Second grade also performed very well and had nice high growth as well as good uh placement results. Third grade continues that trend. they were in first grade level to go above 100%. Which is always love for me to see. Fourth grade, fourth grade is special because if

055you look at their reading growth in their current placement distribution, the third the fourth graders this year came in at 63% below grade level and they are currently at midyear with 66% of their students on or above grade level. They made a huge amount of progress in just half a year. Fifth grade again within that uh 50% growth and again improved um placement from the beginning of the year assessment. Looking at sixth grade, you can see this was the grade level that would did not meet that uh uh 50% growth that we were looking for, but they were very they were performing quite well with 69% of the students within the grade level expectations. Um we would just like to see that growth go up to make sure that we meet the 100% by the

056end of the year. And seventh grade as well as eighth grade. And this was the group for math that had very similar midyear scores as the current sixth grade. Um, as seventh graders, they hadn't quite met that midyear point, but finished the year strong. And then again, um, as eighth graders are showing that they're making the growth needed to, uh, maintain grade level performance. And finally, our testing calendar. Um unfortunately um unavoidably we've had some additional assessments this year. Uh the state mandated the um fall uh field test. So that was an additional testing window that we needed to um implement. The 50 of our eighth graders will be participating in the federal nape test which is also again required and that will be happening uh next week. Um, and then for our regular testing

057calendar, we have NJSLA coming up in the spring. However, it is now NJSLA- A because it's been changed to an adaptive uh test. So, it will be our first time uh administering a new assessment. And we also have our DM for our students who will not be participating in NJSLA as well as the access assessment for ELS. any other addition uh information we can provide? >> First of all, well, I'm happy about fourth grade results. That was really great to see just because I know we were um looking at that from the end of last year and so I'm very happy to see tremendous progress in that. Um my question actually for Dr. Brown for the eighth graders for reading that um the students who are three or more grade levels behind seems to be

058higher than what I remember. I just didn't know if you had any insight into that number. >> They generally speaking as they get higher into the grade levels, you can see them start to climb. So they incorporate it here and then that gap widens mostly because you go from learning to read to reading to learn and the content in a sixth, seventh and eighth grade classroom um can be much more complicated than the the type of phonics that you would see in a first grade classroom. And if you're not able to read proficiently in decoding, then that further impedes your your progress. So we service those students in um intervention. Some of them are in special services or have 504s. So that doesn't delineate that here. It's just all into one bundle. So to really

059see if that was is a concern, we'd have to pull out which students are functioning, you know, currently in grade level classrooms, which ones have special services, and then we have to compare it to last year. I don't remember it being very different, but I certainly can look back at last year's scores, and then we can talk about that next time. I just I I didn't remember what I didn't have a chance to go back and look and then I also couldn't remember when the standards had changed over. So then I was wondering if maybe it was >> the standard change was two years. Okay. So it was they had a full year in. >> So we would need to look at like this class last year and see their seventh grade scores to see

060if that we if they had that same kind of gap. You can see here these seventh grade students are a little they have a little bit of a dip. You can see that sixth grade is at 100% proficiency with their annual typical growth already. And then we have seventh and then we have eighth. Um that seventh grade group looked very similar when they were in sixth grade. So this is just them continuing on their journey. They're growing. they're just not growing at the same rate as other grade levels. This is this is the path that they're currently on and we're using our services to help them. That may be the same type of situation there that may just have a larger group of students that need specialized assistance. >> Anything else? >> I did have

061a question. when you presented at the end of last year, one of the items was the I Ready scores in June were a little lower because of conflicts and weren't sure why. I think it was eighth grade. Exactly. Is there a plan to address that? Is still an issue that you think for this year coming up? >> This is similar to the growth that we had for eighth graders last year. There's some things that we can't control. there is um there's other special events. There's the mindset of an eighth grader going on to high school. So, we've done some things to try and offset that. We tried to talk to the students about the importance of the assessments and the impact that it has on their programming now and in the future. Um the teachers

062are presenting the diagnostic as as a serious assessment and trying to help them understand the purpose of it. Um we are trying to focus on instruction for as long as possible. However, the breaks in instruction due to testing from the state field testing is not help this particular issue. So we are keeping an eye on it. That happened one time. Um I can't honestly remember in the 10 years that I'm here another time that that happened. So right now we are also looking to make sure that it's it's trend or not a trend. So if it happens two years in a row, then we would have to put an action plan in place to make sure it doesn't happen a third. But right now, we are preemptively trying to avoid it and then also looking

063to see if it creates a trend or it was just an outlier. We did get information from parents that students were purposefully not taking the assessment seriously at the end of last year and that they have skewed results. >> Anything else? Um, I just want to say I noticed that there's a an end total of how many students took the test of who was eligible and we've got almost every single student. >> We try really impressed. Thank you. And I think that has that really is reflected in this data that it helps to have really great representation students. >> Thank you. The teachers take it very seriously. They try very hard to get all the students in in a timely fashion. We appreciate all their work. Anything else? >> Thank you, Sarah and Stacy. Are

064there any other questions related to the midyear uh diagnostic results for me or for supervisors before we move on with our agenda? Um I can I'll just mention that I've done walkthroughs throughout the buildings and in every building. I've seen principles and teams of teachers having mid-year diagnostic data conversations. They're planning instruction for students based off of the results that they received. They're having team meetings about it. The supervisors, principles, and I have all set uh done additional training with I Ready and Link. Uh so we have the data and teachers, staff, principles are creating action plans and building goals to do our best to close gaps between now and the end of the school year. So this is a great path that we're on. We need to maybe adjust our path in certain instances

065um or continue on the path in other instances. So um the staff and the principles and supervisors are all using the data actively and currently to make the best instructional decisions for our students. And that concludes my superintendent report. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Okay. Our next item on the agenda is public comment. is for any items that are action items on the agenda. Um, we have a timer that will be set up for three minutes for speaking. If you decide to come up and speak, please state your name and which town you're from and write it down the attendance sheet when you go up to the podium. Good evening. Uh my name is Scott Cohen. I'm from Ram Township. Uh former 20 year almost 20 year educator in public schools in New

066Jersey and former administrator in the 18 county school district. I'm here tonight to address policy 2535. Um I'm deeply concerned about this policy and regulation by the Readington Township Board of Ed that undermines both professional judgment of school librarians who entrust your superintendent to hire the staff that meet the needs for the district and the protections guaranteed under New Jerseys Freedom to Read Act. New Jerseys freedom to read law was enacted to protect students access to diverse education and age appropriate materials and to affirm the professional authority of licensed school librarians. This law is intended to prevent censorship and ensure challenges to materials follow clear, transparent and lawful processes. From discussion at the board from discussion at the board public's meetings. The goal of the language you propose to add to this policy and regulation

067is clear to circumvent the freedom to read act by micromanaging the library selection process and pre-banning books before they're even published or purchased. The school board must follow the law when writing its policies, not disguise censorship with prior review or vague restrictions on sensitive content. We must protect our marginalized student populations. If you look at our staff and you look at our district, staff doesn't reflect our student changing and evolution diversity in our district. They need materials that reflect who they are and where they come from. The vague language around sensitive content which is not defined in your policy places district libraries in an unattainable position. It is essentially a recipe for silent censorship. We want the board, if they're going to move forward with this, to be transparent and share the books that are

068being put forward for review rather than risk confrontations with their employer. Librarians, especially those without tenure, may be tempted to avoid purchase of books on any number of topics that current or future board members deem sensitive according to their personal worldview. Even librarians courageous enough to propose the purchase of such materials may be overruled by an everchanging cast of board members who lack the collection, development, training, expertise, and experience of the district's highly qualified certified librarians. The proposed library policy and regulations run counter to both the spirit and the letter of the freedom to read law. I urge you to revise the policy by deleting the language that you have around sensitive content. Thank you. >> Good evening board members. My name is Amy Barrett and I'm from Hybridge. I'm a retired teacher and a

069member of Hunton County NAACP's education committee. I'm here tonight because I too am deeply concerned that the proposed library material policy and regulation 2535 subverts the intent of the freedom to read law. The board has added language that micromanages library staff in selecting and purchasing books. The language added to your policy suggests that library media specialists do not have the professional training to determine what's developmentally appropriate without the assistance of the board. The language added to your regulation 2535 is even more problematic. And I'm going to quote from the regulation. The following procedure shall be implemented regarding selection of library materials that may contain sensitive content. If a library staff member identifies the purchase of material that may contain sensitive content prior to presenting the material to the superintendent or designate, the staff member shall

070present the material to a review panel consisting of the building principal, supervisor of humanities, and another librarian. The panel's review process may include presentation of the material to the edtech committee of the board of education for further review. End quote. Why is this language a problem? Requiring a school librarian to present potentially sensitive content to a review board or acquiring new library materials undermines one of the core principles of the freedom to read law, namely that school library media specialists are professionally trained to select developmentally appropriate school library materials. In addition, the phrase sensitive content is vague and could lead to silent censorship by discouraging librarians, especially those without tenure, from purchasing books on many contemporary topics, including sex education, LGBTQ people, race, immigration, and climate change. Those those with the most to lose in

071this scenario are the district's students whose knowledge about the realities of the world will be constrained to conform to the preferred view of the dominant board of governors. I urge this board to pass a version of policy and regulation 2535 that removes your added language and fully align with freedom law. Thank you for Good evening. Uh, my name is Kathy Charak and I am an 18-year resident of Readingham Township. Both of my kids attended the school, including this one. I come here with a cautionary tale as I stand here opposing amending language of policy 2535. My family survived Nazis and I survived oppressive communist regime in Poland. Censorship is very near and dear to my heart as com communists love to keep their people in the dark. Is that what we're doing here? In Poland,

072we had what was called a censorship office that controlled books, press, and entertainment. Are we creating a censorship office here? We were forbidden to learn about certain parts of our history like the Russian massacre of 22,000 people, Polish people, officers and intellectuals. We could not learn other cultures and forbidden to learn anything opposing our government. And of course, there were never anything about sexuality. Sensors removed sentences and paragraphs, often softening the text. Libraries were systematically purged and authors were forced to write communist propaganda. Is that what we're heading? But I'm here also to highlight censorship in another country, Nazi Germany. In 1933, the book burnings began. It was initially done by university students but eventually carried out by other groups. This was not done on behalf of the government but by German citizens who enthusiastically

073embraced the Nazi ideology. Whose ideology are we embracing here? The books that were purged were written by Jews, criticized the war, or were pro- leftist movement. Well, that sounds familiar. The Germans saw this as a renewal of German nationalism. They were demanded that teachers be screened to ensure that their thinking was in line with the German spirit. Many of the officers had either been citiz had their citizenship revoked, escaped the country, or were killed in the concentration camps. We are going to be screening people here too. In conclusion, the Nazi censorship campaign was seen as a triumph of of their worldview over competing ideas. Well, we are here because you want to suppress competing ideas. Lastly, to the librarian, don't give into the authoritarian tactics. Censorship belongs in an authoritarian regimes and not here in

074America. I'm not going to sugarcoat my last sentence and I want you to look at me in the face because I come from a different experience. And to the MAGA members of this committee, someday you will too have a starring role in the history books and will be comp compared to the Nazis and the communist sensors of the past. I will not stand as my beloved America falls into hands of fascist wannabes. Thank you. follow. Hi everyone, I'm Jason Township. Not thrilled to be here. I'm talking about 2535 regulation policy to find out that we're hiring people that we have no faith in assuming these are our librarians. I'm not thrilled that we are going against all state law and that means that presumably we're going to have to defend this and I assume that

075all of you are going to be defending that with our tax dollars, my tax dollars. Listening to Mr. Bow's report regarding the stress on budget, I do not know. Some people are asking, "What books are we going to ban?" If we're paying for all these attorneys to defend ourselves, what are we cutting? Because insurance is going up, fuel is going up, electricity is going up, all these things are putting strain on budget. What are we cutting? Are we cutting the autism program? That sounded like a really good thing. What are we cutting? So can the board provide a list of what in order we have to cut to make sure this policy works and that we can defend ourselves against the state of Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Anyone online? There's just one Wow.

076Wow. Now, John, there's an emoji with a crown number one and it says, >> so we received two emails earlier today being asked to be read aloud at the board meeting. Our policy is if we receive I'm sorry we received two emails earlier today. I actually received a lot and I'll talk about that in a little bit earlier. The two people specifically asked to have a comment read aloud at the meeting because you wouldn't be able to attend. And our policy is if we receive those emails by noon of the day of the meeting and we'll read them aloud. That's being done by our communication policy chair Ellen. So she's going to read two emails that we received earlier today. The first email is from a Katherine Duca. Hello, my name is Katherine Duca and

077I'm a Readington Township resident requesting my comments to be read out loud at tonight's board of ed meeting and documented as a public comment. I am strongly opposed to language incorporated into library materials policy resolution 2535, which undermines New Jerseys freedom to read act. Implementing a requirement for review board screening introduces an unneeded bureaucratic layer to processes that li that literary media specialists already have the qualifications to perform. Deliberate convolution is not a responsible use of resident tax dollars. Not only by diverting funding for our children, but also by exposing our municipality to entanglement in lawsuits by undermining state law. Literary media specialists are trained professionals that have the necessary background to determine developmentally appropriate content. The credentials of the proposed review board are unknown, but I find it unlikely that anyone has undergone the

078same depth of training as our librarians. Sensitive content is not explicitly defined and as such materials may be subjected to review board biases and censorship that may not reflect those of the community. Though I do not have school-aged children, I am of the opinion that education is the foundation of a functional society and a strong community and am adamantly opposed to any action that compromises this, including those done under the veneer of misguided protection. Literacy should be encouraged and materials that students can engage with, connect to, reflect upon, and have conversations about is crucial to developing the skill sets needed to take them into adulthood. Libraries provide a safe refuge to do these things through books and other curated media for preparation of existence in a world that is anything but. I commend our libraries

079and librarians for their commitment to this mission and further reflect that I would have had less opportunity and more uncertainty uncertainty in my adult years without access to literary material in my school libraries to develop my worldview. Thank you Katherine Duca Readington Township District 6. The second email we have is from Renee Ralph. Hello board of education members. Select true parents choice. Please leave the library material policy the way it is intended to be and refrain from adding language that will be out of the line with freedom to read act. I am a Readington resident but unfortunately unable to attend the Tuesday night board meeting. I would like my comment read out loud during public comments portion of the meeting if possible. Thank you Rene. >> Thank you. Before I close out public comments, if

080anyone else would like to speak. Okay. So, the way we do our comments is we generally don't respond to individual comments unless there's specific question asked. We we will when we go to section six where we talk about the policies and we get to a second read, we are going to open it up for discussion for board members. So in a little bit when we get to that one section the board will if they choose make comments at that time. So at this point I am going to close down the first public closing comment section and move to the next item. Okay. U we received two correspondences at the time of the referend uh agenda was made. We received other ones since then and we'll have them reflected in next month's agenda. Those two correspondences

081are on file with the board secretary. We're now going to move into board actions. Um the first one is the approval of our administrative reports. Um we have one item, actually two items, item 101 through 102. Can I have a motion followed by a second? I'll move along. Any discussion? >> Mrs. Cassidy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fury. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mener. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pier. >> Yes. >> M. Rad. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pinto. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Our next item is approval of minutes. We have items 2012. And I have a motion followed by a second. I'll move Ellen. >> Any discussion items? >> Ms. Cassie. >> Yes. >> M. Fury. >> Yes. >> M. Mener. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pierre. >> Yes. >>

082Mrs. Rad. >> Yes. >> M. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pinto. >> Yes. >> Mr. Riz. >> Yes. Passes. >> Our next item is finance and facilities. Michelle will has a committee report to read out, but prior to doing that, we had 13 items 301 through 313. Can I have a motion followed by a second? >> Motion second. >> Thank you. >> The finance committee met on Wednesday, January 28th. The first topic was the 2026 through 2027 budget. The committee reviewed the three-month timeline of key milestones for the budget process which is planned to conclude in March. The initial proposal takes into consideration staffing, educational, and operational needs across the district. The committee reviewed the healthcare and enrollment adjustments that enable taxes to be raised above the 2% cap. Two key unknowns for the budget

083are the number of retirements expected as well as state aid, both of which may provide a cost offset to the budget. More information on these two inputs will be available in the March time frame just prior to finalizing the budget. An overview of projected class sizes, staffing needs, and the importance of balancing educational needs with fiscal responsibility were a key focus of the discussion. The committee also reviewed the contribution of the district tax liability to the overall tax burden. An update on summer 2026 capital projects was provided, including the three bridges preschool bathroom project and the referendum. Capital reserves of 600,000 are lower than ideal, and the board discussed the importance of closely monitoring spend initiatives. The second topic was architect fees. The committee discussed the proposed architect fees and was pleased with the business

084administrator's update on the lower negotiated fee. To initiate referendum projects in July of this year, which is preferred to minimize disruption to education while students are in school, upfront funding is needed to support free work. Given the low capital reserves, the district cannot fund the pre-work directly. Therefore, the architect will develop a solution to begin work without delay. solar proposal and backup option. This project remains open. However, the July deadline is at risk if further delays are encountered. The committee agreed the project is important to pursue in order to achieve future savings for utility bills and ask the business administrator to continue to work with Easy Energy to advance this project. Bus route efficiencies. The committee discussed that mid-year transportation changes are discouraged due to disruption to families. Transportation will be a topic at a

085future meeting due to time constraints during the committee meeting which prioritize the budget discussion. The bill list was available for committee members to review and the next meeting is planned for Thursday March 5th. >> Thank you Michelle. We can open up the comments but I did have one question to Mr. Bone on the solar information. Do you have an update then that I know like what's going on with the deadlines and the new vendor and so on like that? Is there anything you can discuss in public? >> Um, so the board has established a a specific committee for solar several years ago because of the um tremendous success we had with solar um nine years ago. So we have an existing solar array that generates about 40% of our electricity and we have um seen

086almost no degreation in the solar panels over the past nine years um and paid a lower rate than what we currently pay for utilities. Um that um grid expires um in six years and then we would generate free electricity for 10 years that's under warranty. So we won't have to maintain the panels, but we'll get 10 years of free electricity, which will lower our bills about 40%. So the goal has been to expand from 40% to 85% which is the statutory limit on how much you can generate um locally as a power provider. Um so we've been exploring that and working with Easy Energy who installed our last um PPA um for solar and also is locally in town. The representative actually lives um right around the corner. Um so we have been working with

087that company um for the past two years and there's been some financing issues because of what's going on at the federal level um also inflationary costs. So they are on their third finance year right now um which is select which is a huge company out of Canada um that is funded through the taxpayer system up in um Canada. So um that company has given us some draft proposals to move forward with which are flat utility rate for 15 years. Um, I hope to have that in writing for the finance committee on March 5th. Um, in hopes that if that goes well, we would potentially adopt on March 10th before the deadline in July. Um, the deadline in July basically gives solar companies 30% off their installation. So, if a project is um $2 million, that's

088$600,000. So that deadline is the most critically important. Um if that falls through, there are two vendors that were willing to step in quickly. Um so really the finance committee has its work cut out for it next meeting. >> Thank you. >> And I just wanted to mention briefly and thank the administration facilities and the finance committee for working so quickly on the referendum that we have started uh purchase. We're in in process of purchasing um the whiteboards and playground equipment. This is going to have a massive impact on our students in our community very quickly and I just want to get so impressed. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other comments? >> Mrs. Cassidy. >> Yes. >> Miss Fury. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mener. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pieros. >> Yes. Mrs. Rod. >>

089Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Deinto. >> Yes. >> Miz. >> Yes. >> Awesome. >> Our next um committee report is from our education technology committee. We have four or six items to move. 401 through 46. Can I have a motion and then call by a second? >> I'll move. Last time we met it was prior to the board meeting, but we didn't get a chance to read out the committee report. So, I'm going to read out the committee report on behalf of Paulo because Paulo was unable to attend. Palo is the chair at the edtech. So, this is our committee report from our previous meeting. The committee met on January 16th. The members were Paulo, Linda, myself, and Justina. Administrative staff that attended was Dr. Hart, Jason Bow, Rebecca Burns, Dr. Stacy

090Brown, Katie Dayto, Sarah Pouch, Dr. Anthony Tumalo, and Jim Beltski. The first thing we want to mention is congratulations to Dr. Brown on their selection to serve on the statewide assessment advisory committee. The committee includes NJ DOE staff, KBM Assessments, Inc., and other practitioners. The committee will be responsible for English language arts content development for New Jersey statewide assessments. Congratulations, Dr. BROWN. The next thing we reviewed were curriculum and program initiatives for 2627 school year. We reviewed dates and deliverables for the five-year curriculum renewal cycle plan. The current school year includes implementation of a new curriculum for 6 to8 math, six to eight health, four to five science, K to3 STEM for the next school year. No new curriculum is planned to be but items will be piloted and evaluated. Next item we discussed was

091and this was touched on a little earlier during the budget presentation was a UFI foundations and the SIPs program. SIP stands for systematic instruction and ph fun phological awareness phonics site words. The programs are designed to teach foundational reading skills and can be used for core instruction of primary grades. The district is piling these programs for implementation intervention only. The district is proposing to implement universal design for learning which was mentioned earlier. This model into the multi-ter system of support. UDL has been successfully implemented in two neighboring districts and Randon is looking to introduce it through its three-year phase roll out starting next year. Each year at the phase roll out is approximately $36,000 and UDL will be discussed at the February BOE meeting just for that in the proposal presentation from the administration. Next

092item we discussed was the multiple technology projects that were presented to the committee. Some of the items such as network hardware, software and access points are eligible for -ate subsidies which are up to 40% of the cost. Other items such as smartboards and laptops that support smartboards are part of the bond referendum and once again that was discussed earlier in the presentation. Preschool classroom projections. These numbers are going to be off a little bit when I get to them because Dr. Hart gave a recent update, but this is what it was as of earlier. So the first thing we have is a district applied for was approved for 17 preK classes which is one more than the current year. The proposed centers are three Bridges Elementary School for one classroom, White House Elementary School for

093two classrooms, Stanton Learning Center for two classrooms, Barry Patch for five classrooms. This is a change and that is one additional classroom currently. White House Prep, two classrooms. This is a change in that it's two less classrooms than they're currently enrolled. Global Pioneer Academy, five classrooms. This is two additional classrooms from the current year. Um, these numbers are a little off as Dr. Hart said, but when we had the meeting, current enrollment was 110 returning students and 95 newly enrolled students, leaving 50 positions opened for continue enrollment. and district students with an IEP. As of today, that is 20 open spots. The district drafted anformational letter with details on preschool program that will be sent to the parents of the district. Um, we talked about testing administration timelines. A review of completed testing and future

094testing timelines were permit presented to the committee. The administration will present the results of the midyear IR testing to the board at the February meeting. Ed the presentation will include an overview of the testing the district undergoes including timelines and key aspects of the test. Some completed items were October September board review of access for ELL's in October board review of NJS SLA scores end of year I ready and in November we had the comparison data of HC PSAT data to write it to the edtech committee. Agenda items that were on the um agenda are STEM next community and nature grant fund render fundraisers Temple University study and the Judy Wilson strategic planning contract. And those are all part of the actually last month's agenda because this happened before the Our next meeting is scheduled

095for Friday, February 23rd at 8:30 a.m. Any discussion on those items? Miss Cassie, >> yes. >> Miss Fior, >> yes. >> Miss Ner, >> yes. >> Mr. Pros, >> yes. >> Miss Rad, >> yes. >> Miss Ryan, >> yes. >> Mr. Pinto, >> yes. >> Mr. Rosa, >> yes. >> Our next item is our clan. We have eight items to move. 501 through 508. Can I have a motion and a second on that? >> Motion. I'll second. >> Okay. Justina, do I have anything important? >> We do. The committee met on January 23rd. We discussed staffing updates and noted that we are currently fully staffed. There are no staff. There are no staffing changes at RMS, HPS, White House or TDS and no changes in the district or preschool. There is one paraprofessional opening. Transportation

096staffing remains unchanged. Additionally, there are four leave related openings that we currently are working to fill. Enrollment projections for 2627. We discussed um as registration is currently open. We currently have approximately 1,600 students in preK through 8th grade. Dr. Hart recommended closely monitoring enrollment at TBS due to the new development on the three bridges side. We discussed staffing projections also for the 26 27 year. We reviewed enrollment numbers and the staffing projections for that year. A climate the climate survey results were shared with the committee. Principles and Dr. Hart are reviewing the results with individual staff members and school climate teams to gain more insight. We had a preschool update and um weigh has been notified that they will run two classrooms next year. Dr. to Hart also informed the board that the governor signed

097a bill regarding NJFLA which changes thresholds and benefits and we discussed a personnel matter and we set our next meeting for February 20th at 8:30 a.m. >> Thank you. Any comments or discussion? >> Miss Cassidy, >> yes. >> Miss Fior, >> yes. >> Miss, >> yes. >> Mr. Pierre, >> yes. >> Miss Rat, >> yes. Miss Ryan, >> yes. >> Minda, >> yes. >> Men, yes. >> The next agenda item is policy communication. We have two items to move. 601 through 602. Can I get a motion in a second? >> I'll move Alan. >> Any discussion? I guess I had a question. You mentioned earlier that you were going to um discuss emails that were sent to the board. Is that what you're do in this section or in a different >> Yeah, I can

098bring it up. Okay. >> Did you have any other comments or >> I wanted to hear what you had to say about the emails. >> Okay. As I mentioned earlier and as Beth also just mentioned now, um the board of education receives emails on a regular basis on different agenda items. We received approximately I would say somewhere over 100 to 125 emails on the freedom to read act. What had happened was there was a website called savechool librarians.org org/writing to New Jersey which posted information about the freedom to read act with a draft email with a link to us and based on that we receive like I said probably let's say 125 emails or so in addition we probably in those emails you essentially were sending text actually read that text because it's a public

099website so you guys are aware of what was sent and then we received probably maybe half a dozen to 10 unique emails so most of them were the same exact email sent from this organization. So the site um had an overview a link to tapped into explained kind of what was said earlier about the freedom to read act and this was the draft email so that you guys are aware of the hund and some odd emails that come came through. It was, "Dear members of the Remington Board of Education, I am writing as a concerned community member regarded the newly introduced policy and regulation related to school library materials. New Jersey's freedom to read law was designed to protect students access to educational age appropriate materials and to affirm the professional judgment of licensed school

100librarians. I am concerned that requiring materials to be flagged and reviewed prior to purchase, especially using undefined terms such as sensitive comment content, risk undermining both the spirit in the letter of that law. I respectfully urge the board to ensure policy 2535 fully aligns with New Jerseys freedom to read law. Please focus on policy and governance, not individual books and materials. And then there's a spot to put your name and your town. So that was the letter we received. Like I said, probably over a hundred of those exact terms. So I don't know if that's you want to add on speak of I mean I guess my comments would be that this is our second read. So at this point if it passes tonight, it goes into our policy books. Um, I will say that

101at our last meeting during first read, we had three board members who were against some of the language in it and this board did not entertain adjusting or editing in any way. And now here we are and we received over a hundred emails. But I will say I was noticing where these um people writing in the public where they lived and I noticed a lot of Readington addresses. And so I feel like yes, it was this form letter that was online, but it was our residents, our voters who put us in these positions. And so I I feel like this is our chance to listen to our constituents and to change course if needed. Um you know, we put this policy language out there and it's clearly having a reaction. Um I would like to

102see us go back to committee with it and edit the language. We can't edit it tonight and pass it because that would be changing the substantive piece of the policy. So, it would have to go back to a first read anyway. Um, so I would like to make a motion to send it back to the policy committee and revise the language to pull out in the policy portion the sensitive content um pieces and then in the regulation to pull out the review of panel and edtech committee review portions. Um, that will put us in line with what other districts have passed. I saw Hillsboro had last week a lot of discussion uh around the same policy and they passed what I would call like the clean version of what Strauss Esme recommended to us which

103is what I was saying initially. Let's pass the same language as everyone else so we do not have lawsuits and so that we do follow the law exactly as needed. So that's what I would like to see. >> Okay. So just GET OKAY. So just something procedural. So there's different things. We actually have motions that are on the table. Our main motion which were 61602. A board member has asked for an amended motion or actually a new motion. So we'll take that up separately. Um Beth could have asked for a couple different things. She could have asked for it to be tabled which would have been one thing but she did not. She asked for to send it back to the policy committee. So, I am going to reiterate what you said, Beth. Make sure

104we capture it correctly and then we'll see if we get a second and then we'll open up the debate specifically on your motion and then we will go back to the main motion as needed. So, correct me if I'm wrong, Beth. Your motion is to take the agenda. Item 601 um policy 2535 and regulation 2535 to remove from today's agenda and move send back to the policy committee. >> Policy regulation 2535. Yes. >> Just the regulation and policy. >> Policy and regulation. >> Okay. Does anyone want to do a second? >> Second. >> Okay. So since we have a new motions once again this is just on that. It's not on the main motion. Any discussion on that? Yeah, I would like to comment that I I feel like um you know last meeting uh

105where we were discussing our perspectives you know felt a little isolated that I was reading the policy and regulation on my own and I was presenting my opinion on it. Um reading 150 that's more what I'm counting uh email messages from people who stopped what they were doing and wanted to and read through the policy and have comments on it. Um it reiterates that what I was seeing in the policy and regulation was overstepping and that the sensitive content um while well-intentioned when we were trying to suggest um an approach uh is not equivalent to developmentally appropriate which is what is in law. it goes a lot further and then the regulation instruction doesn't say if the librarian cannot make the decision on her own if the sensitive content is um uh justified according to

106the what the literary value scientific value the merit that we have indicated no it says everything that has sensitive content I I don't know about anybody here but have have you read the I survived series right everyone who's gone through this district has gone through those books Every single one is stressful. There is there is life and death and it is sensitive, but it's what interests our students and it's what gets them reading. And I just um want to support sending this back to look back at the content and I urge us to go closer to the the wall and supply a policy and a regulation that that fits the spirit of the law. Any other comments specifically related to Senate? >> Um, I actually found the opposite. I thought there was a small percentage

107of those emails that came from Readington. So, I don't know, maybe I missed some, but I do have a statement that I would like to read um in respect to this policy. So, this this policy is not about banning books or limiting access to literature. It is about ensuring that books with sensitive content are not made available to students in grades K through eight whose developmental needs and maturity levels must be taken into account. This policy is meant to provide clear guidance and consistency, not censorship by setting defined standards. It removes unnecessary pressure from our librarians who should not be placed in the difficult position of having to make subjective judgment calls on their own. This policy gives them support, clarity, and protection while allowing them to continue encouraging a love of reading. I strongly

108support children reading and being exposed to a wide range of ideas, stories, and perspectives. Reading is essential to learning, imagination, and personal growth. However, it is equally important that the materials provided are age appropriate and align with what is suitable for young students. Our goal is balance, promoting literacy and curiosity while also being responsible board members of what is placed in front of children. This policy helps ensure that students can enjoy reading in a way that is enriching, safe, and appropriate for their stage of development. >> Just a comment about my support to bring it back to committee. If you remember last meeting, I did not vote for the regulation specifically. Um, having read the emails that came through and listening to the comments today, it reaffirms that decision and for me it actually opened

109the aperture that the concerns I initially had were more narrow and now I have clarity that the concerns are even broader after listening to the comments and both hearing from the the emails. So, I appreciate everyone sharing that so that we can listen to you. >> Okay. Anyone else have comments specifically about returning it back to the policy committee? >> I would like to ask something. >> Sure. I understand that there's some discussion about going back to the policy committee, but I just want to be clear on the goal too because I I don't we've been we this policy has been out by Strauss Strauss asked me since December and we are where we are today. We have the feedback that I believe we have in front of us. I don't want to return to

110committee to come out of committee to then be in the same position again. I I just want to be a pragmatist about this and decide can we articulate a board goal to go back to col to and I know it's been part of your motion Beth but to go back to the committee um because I just don't want to be back here again. I I just want to see if like can we come to a consens consensus of what the goal of the committee will be so that we can be in a position where we can move a policy forward. >> Yeah. So I'm just going to echo what Dr. Hart said. We met policy committee in December, January I think twice, right? I think or at least one was meeting in January. There's multiple

111will be met as board second time, multiple readins. Um at this point I not sure send it back to committee will have changes. Um, so my personal view and I'm going to vote to not send it back to committee to move forward with it and then we talk about the actual freedom to read act. I have some comments on that as well. But um I would re my view is I would I'm going to vote to have it actually be voted on tonight so that we can either move forward or not move forward with a yes or no. That's just my vote how I'm going to vote. Um so I don't know if anyone else has any comments before we do a vocal. I have an additional code. I don't >> um No, I just

112I'm reading through the wording in the policy and the sentence that always stood out to me for the purpose of it was materials with significant educational value that may also touch upon sensitive topics must prioritize the educational, literary, artistic, and scientific merit over any adverse content. Those are the rare books that we are referring to where the balance may be skewed where there is hey this book is has educational value however I'm not sure if that educational value is more than this adverse content. So those are the it's rare books. It's not every sensitive book like you're referencing. So my interpretation and understanding of it is that the educational value must outweigh any of that like adverse sensitive sexually explicit material. Um and those are the books that would be presented to edtech if there

113are any. And I would expect that it would be a very rare occasion. And that's where this was to help the librarian in those moments. And then um just to change the language, I I believe last time I had asked if we should make changes to the regulation and add any clarifying language or anything and and the answer was no at the last meeting. So I believe that would be the same answer as today. >> Did you get any feedback from any board members on making changes after the meeting? >> No. >> Okay. Michelle. >> Yeah. I wanted to just share with the board a conversation, David, that you and I had around unintended consequences. And I think that it's relevant here because as I listen to all of my fellow board members, uh, and

114and I'll refer to that as the majority, those that are advocating for this policy to be endorsed. What I'm hearing is a positive intent. And I think what I'm also hearing from the comments in the public and from the emails is that there's the potential for a negative unintended consequence because of the way the regulation is worded and you know some of the language in the policy. And so my ask of all of you as board members is to reflect on the feedback that we now have because it's been quite a bit. We us if we get one or two emails a month that's a lot. This is a significant outlier of communication telling us that we are creating an unintended consequence because of the way that we have worded something. And I am asking

115us to go back and reflect on that and then come forward with our best shot. I think it's not prudent to push something through given you have three board members that are being fairly vocal about it and you have people in the district that need to implement this and they are saying that it is not supportive of them. So that is my ask of each of you to take this back and reflect on the feedback so that we avoid an unintended consequence. >> Michelle, if that's if that's the purpose right of going back to committee, I'm okay with that. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that we don't go back. I just want to make sure that we go back with some sort of reflective purpose if we're going back to committee

116just to make sure that we don't create an unintended consequence, spin our wheels, or, you know, otherwise, you know, get stuck anymore. That that's all. So, if that if that is a purpose, which I think I hear you articulating, you know, that that we at least reflect and see if there's a consequence to what's happening here, I'm okay with that. I just want to have some direction. So, I mean, I think we can be responsive to the community, but at the same time do it with purpose and a goal. Sorry, Pam. >> It's okay. Um, I wanted to read that sentence again that, uh, Miss Barrett commented on um, in the regulation of 2535. If a library staff member identifies the purchase of material that may contain sensitive content prior to presenting it to the

117superintendent, they would present it to a panel. It says purchase of material that may contain sensitive content, not sensitive content that they are weighing to determine the the educational value of. It is saying anything with sensitive content. It is books on the Holocaust and it is books about war and it is books with you know set a hundred years ago with a completely different um environment where kids are treated differently and we speak to people differently. It is saying everything with sensitive content which is again is not a defined term coming from the law >> doesn't involve >> doesn't invol policy though policy and then this is the how this is the law this is the how. >> Yeah policy is the law. So the way policies and regulations work, it's policy is usually the

118the what the law. The regulation is the administrative how how the administration implements, >> right? That's mandating that everything with sensitive content before the assessment of is developmentally appropriate and has educational value is being made by the this committee that the panel that the librarian has to escort to. So, I was going to add some comments. Actually, we actually vote on it, but um I'll just add my comments now since it's about the uh should we go back to committee or not? >> We can't hear you. >> Okay. Sorry. Sometimes it speaks a little like it. The uh one thing I just want to mention is that one of the comments was spirit of the law and actually in is it within the law as well. That was in the email template that I read.

119some of the comments was made as well verbally as well I think the email that Ellen read earlier. So one of the things that the policy says is the board of education this is from the law the board of education in consultation of school library staff member shall have discretion in selecting purchasing or acquiring library material for inclusion in the school library. And then it lists the policy and it said the law and it says nothing in this law or policy shall be construed to require the board of education to purchase or otherwise acquire library material for school library. So the law and the policy that we were given that the board the board of uh I guess the um department of education drafted through Shrazesme says that the board does have the legal right

120on the curation. The policy also law goes through different things as well like removing books and so on, but it is within there that the board nothing requires the board of education to purchase or otherwise require. And that's really not a change really, but it's just in the policy. And then one thing I want to bring up is the regulation as well. We talked about the regulation a little bit. Okay. And the one thing, and we've read it a few times, but um so I'm not going to repeat it. I think it was just read a few minutes ago, so I'm not going to repeat what was just read. But one thing to note is that I mentioned this last meeting is that you have a book that's flagged as sensitive content. Okay? It's up

121to the librarian, him or herself, to decide it's sensitive content or not. Right now the librarian is doing that on a regular basis. They're curating they're using their expertise all their knowledge to decide what books to bring in. So there really is no change on that. If for some reason they think okay this is content that may be sensitive I can ask a colleague. They're doing that right now would imagine there's a curation process. What the regulation does is just take something that's not written that's informal and puts into a formal thing that those rather than an informal colleague which is a fellow librarian the school principal and the supervisor of humanities it's just formalized and something that's probably happening already. They review that and if for some reason that group decides that maybe you

122know it is sensitive content they bring it to the superintendent. That's already happening. Every book that gets purchased goes to the superintendent for review already. So that's already occurring. So everything we discussed hasn't is really not a change per se outside of processes. the librarians already has full ability to decide this and to raise it to her colleagues or not to raise it to the principal to raise it to superintendent if needed. It's already occurring today and one thing that changes it says the panel review process may not shall may include presentation to the edtech committee and a superintendent is on every committee so he's on that as well. So that could happen today as well now. So a book could come through, it could be raised, it could be brought to the edtech community.

123There's no reason why it couldn't happen at the moment. It just has. There hasn't been any books that have occurred. So everything we're doing, it's not really a change to be honest with you. It's just saying what's happening, document it in a regulation, and have it go forward. And because it is, I believe, the spirit of the law based on the section of the policy that I read. Um, so that's the comments I wanted to make. Thank you. >> The only other comment I would make is to the point of the goal of bringing it back to committee, the the con the concerns that were expressed by the um emails we received, those were the concerns that we had while in committee. Those were the ones that we looked at and and questioned and and

124made sure that we were okay. So, we've already done the work. So, that's just what I have to say. I think one of the things that's important for a healthy board is to have a good relationship with the district staff. I haven't heard a single staff member get up to the podium and express their support for what we are doing here. That is notable and it's concerning. And I want to ask one option because Ellen, I think what you're saying is we're out of ideas. We've tried our best and I think an option would be could we have them look at the language? Can they adjust it? My concern is that it you're saying that we're not changing anything. Why are we spending all this time talking about it then? We're obviously changing something. WE'RE

125PUTTING SOMETHING YOU ARE DOCUMENTING a way to create uncertainty for the librarian who then is going to pump it up to the principal, the library specialist, and whoever the other panel member is who are also going to be uncomfortable and they're going to then escalate it to the superintendent. And who does he work for? He works for this board. So, I'm sorry, but I I really I'm so concerned about this. How could we create tension between the board and the staff? That's not healthy for us. Yes, we have to make hard decisions. I know we're in these seats for a reason. This isn't one that I think makes sense. And you, we have put Readington on the map not because of our green initiatives, not because of our phenomenal test scores. We put Readington on

126the map because we're causing tension. That's not who we are. I really would ask this board, we can do better. Take another shot. Don't push it through. >> Thank you. I just want TO clarify maybe Dr. part you can add on to this that you did reach out to staff in back I think in December right and you did circulate through them and get their input as well. Yeah, I circulated through the librarians several times um and brought their input, their feedback to the committee um and the the ideas they had, the thoughts they had, as well as the concerns that they shared. I think that's fair. I just want to mention um yes Michelle like you stated to me there hasn't been a staff member that came up here in support of it but

127I also haven't heard what the concern is either what is the concern from the staff's policy please is it not reflected in the emails that came through and through the feedback that Dr. heart share. >> Well, the email the email is a pretty copy and paste and like I said those were not I'm talking about you mentioning staff members so I'm talking about staff members >> staff members are worried about their decision rights being eroded. >> I haven't heard from the staff member. I I think that I thought the committee I'm not a member of the committee, but I I thought that they maybe that's a great next step is can we bring that feedback >> back to the committee to reexamine or or to the full board. >> Can I can I remind everyone

128that the union president spoke in our last MEETING told us that that we are impinging on their professional duties. I mean the way that we have the regulation written, we have a librarian who is going before a board committee to present a potential book to purchase before their supervis like it's unclear does the is the superintendent I mean he sits on that committee but we have we don't have staff members attending we have administrators that attend the committee meetings But to have a librarian go before a committee and you know, who knows at some point maybe a non-tenured librarian to go before a board committee to present a a book to potentially purchase. There just there's so many blurred lines in that whole scenario that it's uncomfortable. It's not what we should be doing as

129a board. It is not our role and we were told that in our last meeting. And I don't necessarily know if it would be the librarian of for the committee. The librarian would raise it to the panel. If to Ellen's point, a book actually gets raised at that point. A librarian herself would have to raise the book. It would then have to be raised to a committee of her peers and her supervisor or principal. It then would have to go to the superintendent before it goes to the >> I don't believe it says that. I maybe that's not clear. It's it's specifically how it's written in the regulation the steps how I was going. So and at that point who represents at the committee Dr. Hart represents the administration. He could request people to come

130in or not. It's really up to administration. Anyone that's outside of a board member that shows up at the committee is at the discretion of the superintendent. No one else. So Dr. Hark could represented. He could ask a librarian, ask the review committee. It's not up to the board. But that being said, it may be few and far between. I know everyone clapped when they said, "What really changed?" But what really it's not really changing too much. The librarian is curating. The librarians deciding if it's sensitive. Librarian sending it to her peers who then have to make the decision. Then the superintendent has to make the decision and it may go before the edtech committee. It's that's the way the regulations written. Go ahead. >> I I know it's been read a few times, but

131I just want to restate the language because I I think it matters because regardless of what we say around this table, we pro we may not be here when this needs to be enacted. And so what's catching my eye and again I implore us to take this back to change this. It specifically says if a library staff member identifies the purchase of material that may contain contain sensitive content, I'm going to skip the next phrase. The staff member shall present the material to a review panel and it goes on. The fact that it doesn't say can choose to or may present, it says shall. That is directive. If you were going to follow this to the letter of the law, that is everything. And what I'm hearing very consistently and I appreciate is both of

132you are saying they can choose. It's not everything. And I just want to point out there's a disconnect between how I'm hearing you both articulate it and the words that are written on the page. That's a great reason to go back and think about the unintended consequences and at least align the written words with what I'm hearing you say at a bare minimum. >> Michelle, I think that the first word is if a library member. We have shall that starts with if. So librarian, it all starts with the librarian. If the librarian identifies it, that's what's is before the word shall. That's where the librarian gets agency. That's where it's still in the professional discretion of the librarian because it starts with the word if. If if a librarian identifies. So that's why I'm okay

133with this because we're not taking responsibility. We're not overstepping in my opinion because it starts with the librarian. if the librarian decides. That's why I think that's coincides with court shell. >> And then the May is the presentation. >> Yeah. >> Okay. We still have discussion on the main motion, too. So, I'm going to take a any other discussion on Wheeler should go back to committee before I ask Mr. Bow to take a roll call vote on that specific motion. I just have one last question. Um, if it does go back to committee, I'm just curious what language um, you feel comfortable with >> or do you want the policy to read as is? I have proposals. I I know that I had mentioned that I wanted to streamline it uh a bit and I

134really wanted the feedback from the staff members who are impacted by it and we did get it that they were kind of not happy and they gave us a list of dozens of scenarios that would be sensitive content, right? And some of them were were getting to the point of ridiculousness. um that's outside the scope of of uh developmentally appropriate. I would like what we are doing in the policy and what is consistent with is we're providing um professional development and software and tools to aid the library or librarians in curating materials. We provide that to them. That is totally true. We've created a new content around we've created a new definition around sensitive content. I think that should go or it should simply be we provide tools for professional development in order to determine

135uh if material is developmentally appropriate that's in line with what the law says that's in line with what you're doing that's in line with what presenting and then in the regulation um it needs to be around developmentally appropriate questions right not every sensitive content it's directing every single book with sensitive content back to a panel up to the board that if if you identify sensitive material, you shall present it. It is not if you identify sensitive material that you've determined to be educationally valid, >> but the policy guides that portion of the education advisor that sensor guidance and this >> it's it's in the wrong order. It needs it needs to say that if it's determined to be outside of uh normal developmentally appropriate guidelines, that's when it would be right where the software says

136this is intended for grades 9 through 12, but it's the period plotter book or whatever. Sorry, there's seven. Um and then we can make the judgment follow up. I I'm just afraid that realistically we will not be able to manage the amount of content coming through here if the librarians follow this letter regulation. >> Okay. So I think part you bring up I think I don't I don't know if we've read the policy portion. We've read the regulation quite a few times over the last half hour. So I'm going to just reference the read the part that Pan mentioned. Um I read the part about the law by saying that the board has the ability to do it. Um this is the section that we actually added in. This is the new portion of the

137policy. It's just one paragraph I'm going to read and it basically states to that end the board of education will provide the school library staff member with the tools and professional development to ensure materials are developmentally appropriate for prek students served. Materials with significant educational value that may also touch upon sensitive topics must prioritize educational, literary, artistic, and scientific merit over adverse content. All materials selected shall be consistent with student interest, the district curriculum, and developmentally appropriate for the grade level served. The language is intended to guide selections, future selections. Removal of any material is guided by regulation 2535. So it does go through and echo the the spirit of 2535. The rest of it where it talks about professional develop materials are are developmentally appropriate significant educational value. Um prioritize educational literature literary and

138artistic and scientific merit over adverse content. So, so the policy covers that it's the and then the regulation is how it's implemented which is where the review committee comes in. So that's why I think it does cover what you're saying P in my view. Any other comments? Okay. So now just to reiterate where we're at from procedural perspective, we are not voting on at this moment to accept the policy or not. is specifically the motion is do we send regulation and policy 2535 back to committee. If we vote yes, it goes back to committee. If we vote no, it stays on the agenda and we'll have more discussion on it and then we'll vote either to implement it or not. So this is just to vote going back to committee or not. So just make

139everyone's clear on that. Okay. So Mr. Bone, I'm not going to have a roll call. Um, Mrs. Cassie, >> yes. Send it back to committee. >> Mrs. Fury, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mener, >> yes. >> Mr. Beos, >> no. >> Mrs. Rad, >> no. And can I just say that I because what you're saying is that it's the people that are on the policies committee, it's going to be the same thing. They're gonna the same people are going to vote the same way because I don't think anything's going to change. Miss Ryan, >> no. >> Minto, >> no. >> Mr. >> No, doesn't care. Okay. So, now we're back to the original motion half hour. So, we got 61. I'm going to read it so everyone's aware so we stay focused. It is 61 and

14062. 601 has multiple policies for adoption through second read. The two that we talked about were 2535 regulation and policy as well as other ones. So based on that, I'm going to open it up for discussion on should we adopt um items in 601 as for for policy through second read as well as 602 if we want to the district calendar. So, any comments on the main motion? >> Okay, no comments. Mr. P, we have a roll call vote on items 601 to 602. >> Miss Cass vote no to policy 2535 and regulation 2535. Yes. Miss Fury, >> no. On policy 2535 and regulation 2535, yes to everything else. >> Mer, >> no on policy 2535. No on the regulation 2535. Yes on everything else. >> Mr. Pierre, yes. >> Mrs. Ry, >> yes. >>

141M. Ryan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pinto. >> Yes. >> Mr. Riz. >> Yes. >> Passes. Okay. Shame. Our next item on the agenda is unfinished business. I'm not sure if we have any any unfinished business. No. Okay. Our next item is new business from the board. Um we have two items. The first is we want to recognize Justina. She is the NJ she has our NJSBA certified board member certification. Congratulations Justina. >> Justina, when you get your plaque, let us know. Speaking of picture, I never took her old picture. >> I know. And Paula is absent tonight, too, so I wasn't even bothered. >> Open for next time. >> Um, next item we have is additional March meeting dates. Um, her kind of alluded to this a lot earlier about with the new governor and

142new timelines and deadlines for state funding which are affecting our board. Dr. provide detail on that. >> Our regular board meeting in March is scheduled for March 10. Um, in years past, that's been the typical deadline that we've approved our tenative budget. After that board meeting, it gives Jason the ability to submit it to the county for state approval. Um, because we have a new governor and a new administration, the budget address is actually moved to March 10th for the governor, which means state aid numbers wouldn't come out until March 12th, which is after the deadline. We're unable to submit a tenative budget by resolution and to the county. without our state aid numbers, we won't have them. So, what I emailed the board as my proposal is to keep the March 10th board meeting

143as our regular board meeting and just have a special meeting to do the tenative budget presentation. The two dates I suggested were March 23rd and 31st primarily because the school calendars already developed and there's, you know, plays and concerts and events at the schools and I don't want that to conflict with the board meetings. These are two proposed dates that I selected that don't have any additional dates on the calendar, school calendar. So, um I want to bring it up to the board to see if there's a preference. You know, we need a quorum. I would love to have everyone all nine here because the budget is important. So, the date that most people could be here or be available either one of those dates were available. Um is there a preference is the question.

144>> 24th or 31st? >> 23rd or 31st. So, from a process perspective, do we have to decide now or would be had we emailed you after the meeting? >> Yeah, I'm okay with an email. That's fine. Jason, do we just need to advertise? It's after March 1st. We would just need to advertise whatever date we select. I don't know if you have a particular time that would be helpful either. I mean, we could also because it's a special meeting, we can make it five in case there's somebody's event, we could make it six or do our typical seven. So, >> I mean, I'll just throw out they're not available on the 31st. So >> US finance chair is kind of important for you to do that. >> It's an international trip that I can't reschedu.

145>> Okay. So the everyone okay with the 23rd time >> um what time >> what time do you all want it? You do it earlier or later which one's better? >> You know preference board meeting I go to anytime >> anytime on the 23rd. >> Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, I guess 23rd, but I don't think I could be here for five o'clock. >> Okay. >> Later, but so we can do our typical six. >> Okay. Is there a preference? Six or seven? >> It's going to be dedicated. I mean, there may be other business that comes up, but it's going to be dedicated for >> really. That's the purpose of it. Yeah. Because we'll still put typical agenda items on the 10th. like if we have a personal item that we have to vote on

146or something like that, it'll be there for the budget. >> Okay. >> Uh David, I wanted to add one more thing to mean business. There was a garden state coalition of schools meeting on January 21st um where two individuals came to discuss uh school finances and state aid. They talked about the school funding in New Jersey and how the formula was not uh keeping up with the costs of the districts. and they talked about the um SF school funding reform act. So I won't go into much detail but there are approaches that are being considered right now to maybe standardize or make it more fair with the state portion of funding. >> Good. Thank you. And one other item before we move on. Next item. Um new business from the board. The we created a

147new ad hoc committee for strategic planning. Myself, Rich, Linda, and Pam are on it. We're meeting for the first time on February 19th. So we will do a readout at our next board meeting on that. So it's just letting you guys know that the committee has been formed and we're meeting on February 19th to uh discuss the strategic plan for the first time. Okay. Any other items before I move to public public comments? All right. All right. The next item is public comments. Similar to last time, three minutes to speak. If you have comments, please come to the podium, put your name and address right at them. Um, different from the first time. It's not only on items related to the agenda. It could be items on or off the agenda. So at this moment

148I will open it up for public comments if anyone wishes to speak already sign in really disappointing on the outcome of the vote. Um, I don't have inside information into your district per se on what was what's been happening in behind closed doors with your staff and your faculty at this district, but based on what I hear in the background and based on some of the commentary that there was input from librarians and other staff members who have expressed concerns about the policy and you're not listening to that. That's extremely damaging in credibility to your superintendent who is hired by you to have the power and be enabled to do things that that superintendent needs to do which key is hiring. The superintendent has the skills and abilities that you've entrusted to hire staff who

149can make these decisions. And the comment about the fact that you're having so much discussion about it does is very revealing. So I would hope that for the sake of your community who's expressed deep concerns about this policy that you are fully transparent with them whenever a book comes up that goes through this process that the numbers just like HIP reports go out at different district board of ed meetings that the book report comes out and is shared with the public on how many books, what the titles were of the books and the rationale for the decision on why that book was chosen. chosen not to go through what was censored. Thank you. >> My name is Betty Sbridge. I live in White House Station. My kids all grew up here, went to school here.

150They've since moved on. And I am also very disappointed in the in the vote. Um, I just feel that it runs the risk of leading to censorship. I don't know who on the board has been trained as our librarians have been trained to be able to make these decisions. And the way it's worded, it's a lot of interpretation. I think like any book could be sensitive. You talk a book about someone dying is sensitive. like how do you define what's sensitive? And so I am extremely disappointed in this bow and I hope it doesn't um come back to haunt us later. Thank you. Look at you. Look at you. Look at you. I'm looking at you. I want to know why your eyes are down >> when I'm when I speak. Did something spring a

151nerve? I lived in something that none of you lived. The people that I came from were beaten and killed for because of censorship. But some of you just don't give a about this. Just about this. YOU SUPPOSEDLY STUDY AND LEARN HISTORY, BUT YOU NONE OF YOU LEARNED HISTORY BECAUSE I LIVED IT. My grandmother as a teenager worked underground to hunt Nazis down. THAT'S WHERE I COME FROM. I COME FROM CONCENTRATION camp being two HOURS AWAY FROM MY CHILDHOOD HOME. I LIVED IN NEIGHBORHOODS WHEN THERE WERE STILL SHOTS IN THE WALLS. That's where I come from. Does that make you uncomfortable? Does it? It should. People in there were THERE ARE CROSSEST IN POLAND STANDING where solidarity movement took out dozens AND DOZENS OF LIVES WITH MACHINE GUNS. That's where I come from. And this little

152trickle that you think that you ARE TWEAKING THE WORDS. You think you're tweaking the words, but in reality, you are slowly trickling into authoritarianism. That's how it began everywhere. That's how it be began everywhere. And all OF YOU THAT VOTED FOR THIS THING THAT SAID THAT YOU DON'T WANT THIS, YOU DON'T WANT TO CHANGE THE LANGUAGE. I hope you wind up in the heaps of ashes of history for WHAT YOU DO BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU JUST DID. I CARE ABOUT MY KIDS WENT TO THIS SCHOOL. They went to ALL THESE SCHOOLS. I LIVE IN READINGTON TOWNSHIP, DISTRICT 4. I hope you all go home and will not be able to sleep because eventually you'll find out HOW AUTHORITARIANS CREEPS IN INTO EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE. And eventually, do you know this

153poem that eventually they came from me? >> You get it? Just one moment. No, no, no. She shall >> eventually they will come to you. >> I just want to just read one thing from our policy because I let the first one few go. >> But the presiding officer which is made may interrupt or warn a participant when a statement, question or inquiry is abusive, obscene or defamatory blah blah blah. >> I think you said obscene. Now I interrupt you. You still have about a few seconds of >> blah blah blah. You know what? You can't hear the truth. YOU CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH. OH, FAMOUS QUOTE. YOU CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH. >> It's just the obscenity. We're in a public. People do watch >> now. Everybody is adults here. >> Not everyone watching is

154that that's why >> I know I hope ALL OF YOU ARE WATCHING OUT THERE ON YOUTUBE. This is what our future is. >> Thank you for your comments. All right. Anyone else? >> Hold on one second. You did you speak up? Okay. Go ahead. >> Oh, yeah. You can go first. That's fine. Amy Barrett again. Um, I am disappointed as well, but not surprised to have a reputation as probably the most extremist board in Har County. But I just want to let you know that Senators Wicker, who is the sponsor of the Freedom to Read law, has already sent a letter to the Commissioner of Education, New Jersey about this policy and regulation and that Michael Godisman of the New Jersey Public Education Coalition has sent a letter to the attorney general's office about this

155policy regulation. So, this might not be. Thank you. Pervis station. First of all, I want to apologize to the entire board for having to put up with what you just had to put up with. That's totally inappropriate. I I find it kind of odd. So, you make a small rule related to what can go in the school library and people are their hair is on fire. We have these rules for our movies. We have these rules on cable. We have these rules for public radio and TV. Why is it so inappropriate to have a very small rule for a freaking middle school library? I don't understand why people are so insensed about this. And to think that every librarian through whatever professional skills they have is not influenced by their own worldview is naive. That's

156all I have to say. Again, I apologize. My name is Mel Vans. I am the RTA president in case you missed it last time when I got up and spoke a couple of weeks ago. And I also a longstanding staff member in this district. And I can say I have never attended a board meeting where I have been more disappointed in my 23 years in this district. And I am sad for myself and I am sad for the community and I am sad for these wonderful staff members that are sitting down here because no matter what you think, what you did tonight is implied to your staff that you don't trust them. And I would have hoped that you would have at least considered having more conversation on the topic. And to the those of

157you who asked for that, we hear you and we appreciate you. But again, here I am up here as a staff member and as the union president. So yes, there is staff that did get up and speak. And again, you made the implication that we don't trust us. It's a sad day for this district. >> Hello, my name is Far. I also live in Hybridge and I'm also a member of the NAACP's education committee. Um I just have one comment and an important question. The comment is that regulation 2535 being passed today is not a recipe for consistent results. And here's the question. What does sensitive content mean? What does it mean to each of you? Is there even a consensus among the board members who voted for 2535 as to what sensitive content is

158any other comments from anybody? not as tough that problem. So, uh I have one question because I I don't think I was clear what happened before, but it seems like before the board didn't have a say in which books the librarians would choose. And now the board who theoretically has the ability to cut tenure, hire and fire people now has a say. So while if a librarian brings something forth, is it possible for a board member to say, "Hey, I want you to do this." Not saying you'll get fired if you don't. I'm just saying, you know, you should bring this forward and then escalate. So that I think seems to be the difference in my head, which is now there isn't so much an if as when. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments? Okay,

159no one's online. Um, so generally we don't make comments when people make comments, but I am going to make one comment. So something Mr. Cohen asks, he asked about if a book is brought up will be made known. If a book does actually make it to the edtech committee going through all the process before then it'll be on the edtech committee minutes. So definitely you'll see that when we do a readout that will happen. If it makes it to the policy review committee and not to the edtech, the board's really not going to know about that and that would be up to the superintendent to handle how he would want to do that. So, it hasn't happened yet. So, I'm sure we'll come up with a way of how to handle that through the regulation

160or through how he implements it. But, if it does make it to the edtech, it'll be an edtech committee. If it never makes it to the board, the board won't even know about it. and the superintendent handles that through his policy review. So there we go. Any and I don't think there's any other questions on that. I am going to move to go to executive session. Um, I am going to make the motion to adapt the following resolution resolve to adjourn to executive session in accordance with the sunshine law to discuss two HIVs, a legal matter and personal and benefits budget for approximately 45 minutes at which time the board expects to return to public session where action shall be taken. The matters discussed will be made public if and when circumstances requiring confidentiality no

161longer exist. However, it is not presently known when such circumstances will exist. I have made the move. Can I have a second? >> Second. Can I have a roll call vote? >> Miss Gassley? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fury? >> Yes. >> Miss Vincer? >> Yes. >> Mr. Pierro? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Rat? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan? >> Yes. >> Minto? >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. Um just one other we were going to be there is a chance that we shall take action after the meeting. So if you do stay around roughly 45 minutes or more um we will open the meeting back up just to let you know.