001Welcome everybody to our Welcome everybody to our meeting this month. So glad to see so many people here. Um, I'm going to call the meeting to order. This meeting is being held in compliance with the Open Public Media Act and is open to the media and public. Notices were duly posted and the meeting was advertised in the Hun County Democrat and Courier News. Formal action may be taken. Can we have the flag salute [Music] now to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nationice for all Mrs. Cassidy here Mrs. Fior here. Mr. Lopes here. Mrs. Benser. Mrs. Borski here. Mrs. Rad here. Mrs. Ryan. Mrs. Depinto here. Mr. Rizzle here. All right. Uh, good evening everyone and welcome to our April 8th board of education meeting. It's so nice
002to see everyone here tonight. Um, we have some recognitions for all of you. This year, students from Holland Brook School participated in the New Jersey Destination Imagination State Tournament. Destination Imagination is a tournament that requires students to engage in research, presentation skills, collaboration, quick thinking, teamwork, creativity, and communication skills. The Holland Brook School team, named the six amazing girls and a mysterious Mark took second place. and the team named the Seven Dwarfs but taller took first place. A very special thanks to Mrs. Vance and Miss Mahoney for their leadership of our teams. I'd like to ask Miss Mahoney and Miss Vance uh to come up to the podium and assist me in calling students names and presenting certificates. So, we're going to hand out some certificates to everybody. Sure. [Applause] Sure. Thank you for having
003us here and for um recognizing these students. They have been engaged in this process since um late October when we had tryyous. Uh we needed to see some quick problem solving, good communication skills, some improv acting, and uh some commitment to team dynamics um in order to make these choices for our team. And we have 14 students who have been with us since our practices started in November. um they've engaged in a lot of research, a lot of practice, um and a lot of time getting to know each other and know how to communicate effectively in a very short amount of planning time. So, they had um some stuff they had to research, but every time we would pick things out of a hat, they had two minutes to plan and then they had to
004present a five-minute performance. So, they have done incredibly hard work. Um, and we always say to them, our time at the tournament is your time to shine and to show off all of these skills that you have learned. And our wish is that you are most proud of the performance that you give on the day of the tournament. And we are very proud to say that they were the most proud of their performances on that day and they were recognized for all of their good work. So, thank you very much for having us here and thank you very much for being with us this season. So, Miss Mahoney is going to call your names. Uh, when she calls your name, you can come up to us. I will hand you your certificate. You can shake
005my hand and then stay up here so that we can get a picture. Most importantly, for your parents to get a picture. Okay. Then you're going to send them to me. That's right. That's right. So we are going to first recognize the six amazing girls and a mysterious heart summer Kessa Gardella [Music] Alison Gutierrez Welcome Medela. [Applause] Mam Lenn [Applause] Mark Spidey. [Applause] and Addison [Applause] Sto. Squish. [Applause] And our first place team, the seven dwarfs but taller, also got a special recognition at the tournament. Um they got what is called the the Renaissance award. Um which recognized some innovative and um creative problem solving, which is a an award they don't have to give out and they chose to to this team. So, um, special recognition there, too. So, the seven dwarfves but taller,
006Llaya Greenberg, Alex Konich, Fiona, Kurtzo, Grace Lynch, [Applause] Eliza Marsha and Squishing Squishing. [Applause] That's all right. Boys and girls, congratulations. Thank you so much for representing schools in this amazing competition. Uh I think I've heard that you already have pizza or else I would tell you to go ice cream now. You are welcome. Everyone is welcome to stay. We're going to continue with our uh board meeting in just a moment. I do want to ask if Mr. Vizo or any members of the board want to recognize the students or anything like that. Yes, let's say for Thank you. Thank you for coming and congratulations on your awards. A great [Applause] job to stay. We're going to continue with our agenda, but feel free to appcate. [Music] Don't think about our strategic plan. [Music] pizza
007just before this. Okay. Okay. participating. No, I'm talking about bring Thank you so much [Music] Dan, would it be better for you to have the um Google slide deck? Would that be easier? Just that's this is okay. Uh for the second item on the superintendent report, uh I wanted to review with the board of education our uh strategic plan summary. There it is. Um I can't believe that it's been five years already that we've accomplished uh a great deal of our strategic work. We sat in this room in January of 2020 um identifying a strategic uh direction for the district and uh we came up with developed three goals with a group of stakeholders and tonight uh we want to take a little bit of time to summarize some of the work that's been accomplished
008over the course of the past five years. uh annually uh in parts part of my goals every year have been part of focusing on the strategic plan. Um so tonight is really just going to be a brief presentation to update the board on where we've come and summarizing everything that we've accomplished over the past five years. I've invited Miss Pouch, Dr. D. Roza, and Mr. Tumulo as well uh to present tonight. Uh when we did the strategic plan, we identified chairs for each one of the three goals. Um, Miss Couch shared the inquisitive learning goal. Dr. D. Roza shared the partnerships goal and Mr. Tumalo uh shared the social awareness goal with a faculty member as well. Uh, a lot's changed in five years. Some of those faculty are no longer with us. Retire, retirements,
009resignations, things happen. Uh, so I've just asked three administrators to come tonight. Uh, our three strategic goals included inquisitive learning, partnerships, and social awareness. Uh, they read as follows. Our inquisitive learning goal was to create and establish an inquirybased framework that values interestdriven learning environment. Learners will individually and collaboratively focus on identifying, analyzing, and solving problems as inquisitive members of our community. And I'll turn it over to Miss Pouch to talk a little bit more about our inquisitive learning. Sarah, I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to ask you to come. I mean, I could, but it'll take a lot longer if I know. Thank you. There you are. Good evening everyone. As Dr. Hart mentioned, I'm Sarah Pouch, the supervisor of math, science, and technology. And I had the privilege of chairing um the inquisitive learning
010part of our strategic goals. Um in doing this, it was broken down into uh four sub goals. And the first one was simply to raise awareness. Um, as was mentioned, we um had uh committees that work with us with a group of teachers and our first meeting was in the first week of March of 2020 and then promptly less than a week later, our school closed down as well as the rest of the country. So, it began became the challenge of well, how do we get this message out of what we're going to be working on? And um I think one of the things that we're most proud of is how much we were able to accomplish even in the midst of trying to figure out how to communicate that in a different way um
011when we weren't meeting in person and we needed to find other ways to um deliver this message. And that first uh sub goal was uh geared towards that with simply raising awareness of what do we mean when we say inquiry learning or being inquisitive. And we worked very hard to send out uh information to both to the parents, to the staff, to the students. We were able to do that um through our uh parent newsletters from the different buildings as well as well as including information in our staff meetings um monthly with at each building and then using the screens that were available um within the buildings whether it was the in the hallways with information cycling through or at um the middle school or Holland Brook sometimes they have slideshows going during lunchtime. So
012we took those opportunities to deliver some of this information to students at that time. Um we were able to um also have parent night presentations um so that we could also get that message out to parents as well. Um one of our highlights was having John Spencer as a keynote address for one of the opening days of school. um he's a real guru in this area and um is is a leader in how how to encourage uh students to be inquisitive and what that might look like in your classroom. We were also able to do our own in-house presentations as teachermies and had 129 participants um see teacher participants in our 10 classes over the last few years and that was just for this first sample. Um, here are some of what we were able
013to uh push out to students and parents and teachers um talking about that students should be asking questions just as often if not more than when they're answering questions and that inquiry can fall into uh different different categories whether it's a goal or making change. Other ideas that we were able to communicate were the ideas for inquirybased learning and that it's not just creating something but it's also asking questions about what can I learn, what change can I make, what difference can I make, um what are some of the things that I do that I love. as well as letting students know that an inquisitive student has many forms and many ways uh to to look at those things whether they're um capturing their learning digitally or on paper if they're um finding different projects
014to do and then how do they share that out to the larger community. Our second sub goal was again if we're asking uh students to pursue something and ask questions about what they're interested in, we definitely want to be able to we need to know what their interests are. So we looked at creating a bank of interest inventories for students um so that teachers would be able to get to know their students more and um stressing the importance of making those connections with their students as well. The inventories had a wide range all the way from down uh to pictures and infographics for our youngest students. Simply circle. Um and then all the way up to our middle school where the middle schoolers were starting to identify for their teachers what learning styles that best
015fit them so that the teachers could um have the biggest impact on their instruction. These uh interest inventories were discussed at faculty meetings. We were able to create a bank that the teachers have access to and um we also were able to run some teacher academy classes over the years and it's just kind of become part of what all the teachers do now. We don't really have to advertise it anymore. It's just it's just ingrained in what we're doing. For goal three, we wanted to cult uh have a culture where teacher inquiry was inspired and this was really spearheaded by Dr. Hart along with Dr. Devanna Steinbeck where we were able to have cohorts of teachers where they pursued their own inquiry research on something they felt would have the most impact on their instruction,
016something they were interested in pursuing with their students um and increasing their pedagogy. So we were able those teachers have had their um some of their findings in publications. They've done presentations. um they've turnkeyed quite a bit to each other so that each cohort as they finished through a cycle brought on new members um and new teachers to take a look at that. Um Hunter Essential heard about what we were doing and asked if their teachers could be involved in well as well. So we have a a group of teachers at Hun and Central who were pursuing similar projects. Currently, our coaches are continuing this effort um with teacher uh the practice of teacher inquiry and it's bas either an individual grade level and they happen to be working with all of the teachers at
017Holland Brook this year where the teachers decided as a grade level they wanted to pursue specific topics um with the help of our coaches which has been great. We've been able to provide more information about this to teachers during 11 different teacher academy classes where we had we've had 93 participants over the years. So 93 of our staff members have been involved in this process and we also made um information and resources available during the inservice days so that everyone had access to this. Goal number four is our student passion projects and students pursuing uh learning about their own interest. This has probably become our most publicized um part of our goal. Um so many of you have already seen some of the P fashion projects firsthand, whether it was family nights for third grade
018during board tours or at board presentations over the years, as well as um attending the civics presentation over at the middle school. um are some of the highlights. Um we started rolling this out kind of one year after another. So it wasn't just dropped on everybody and kind of a tadada. Um so we started uh that first year with our third grade students and just having them have a followup picking a topic of interest and doing some research on it and then ending with that idea of well what do you wonder now? Where does this go? kind of building that idea of just because you had a question and you researched it and you found a possible answer or you got more information that just generates more it should just generate more questions. So we
019had uh the third graders start there and then um that grew over the years as well. By the time those uh third graders became fifth graders, they beca they used their passion project during um their writing units for uh research and they were able to highlight that at different board meetings as well as during the board tours. And then finally, as our students rolled up into eighth grade, uh we had a focus on uh the civics projects where students pursued uh a topic of interest of their choice and then have presented it um during during those uh presentations over at the middle school. We didn't have quite as many teachermies on this because it was geared towards the students. Um, but we did have a couple of classes for teachers in the other grade levels
020if you didn't happen to be in third, fifth, or eighth grade. We also wanted to make sure that all the staff was aware of what we were working on as well as having that information during the inservice days. So, we have a couple of pictures here from our um our different passion projects that have occurred over the years. And I think we're all just so proud of what the students and the teachers have been able to accomplish with this goal in the last five years and it's been very exciting and rewarding to be a part of that. I will turn things over to Dr. D. Roza to tell you about partnerships. Thank you so much. Hi, thank you for having me. As Miss Pouch said, this has been an amazing five years. Back when we
021began and we talked in this very room like Dr. part said about the strategic plan when we talked about partnerships together as a group. We said teachers are already connecting children with so many great partnerships. Is there a way that we can stop as a district and curate a directory? So we know what we have and we know what connections are already fostered. So our partnerships goal has four sub goals also. Um the idea for our partnerships was to curate a bank of local, regional, national and global partnerships that can enhance learning and be of service to others. We'll talk about that in a moment. Um so what we did in the beginning years at the K3 level we piloted it piloted it did and then um people on the committee like my co-chair was
022Alyssa Bulo and subsequent years she tried to get buy in here at Holland Brook before five level and then Will Daly was also on the committee and you can see that he takes everything to the next level with his civics program. So over the course of five years, we really had the right people on the committee to try to get buy in and to know um what was going on in their respective buildings. So we began with up here um Google forms and we really just surveyed teachers like what what partnerships are you doing? What what do you already have connected to your current areas of study? and um who do you bring in as guest speakers? Who do you seek out? And while we talked about that, this was our first sub goal, but
023our third sub goal um was about field trips because we talked about sometimes partnerships visit the school, but we also go out into the community and engage in field trips. But as Miss Couch said, a couple of days later, we're all sent home. So we were thinking how can we keep the good work alive and m make forward progress with our strategic plan. So it turned into creating a bank of virtual field trips because we were home for most of the time and then we came back um in a hybrid fashion when we pivoted. So, um, we began asking teachers through our Google forms, what virtual field trips can you embed into the curriculum to enhance learning for students. So, the the data and as a board as board members, you could probably um click
024on some of of the links embedded in this, but the data was raw and we put questions in the Google form on virtual field trips and field trips having teachers rate the usefulness of them. So we had like lists and lists of um teacher entries and then the good work of Jodie Rarig over one summer she looked at it found redundancies and created and you'll see it up here and you you can click on it in your presentation the partnerships directory and that's where we combined if you can see it from there um one column has partnerships and the other column has connected field trips by grade level and and um content area. So we really um are proud that we were able to take all teacher contributions and put it into a userfriendly format
025for teachers. It is a work in progress. Just the other day at my faculty meeting, we were in it making sure the links still work because sometimes links are no longer working and we we feel that if we want to keep it current, we have to continue to revisit it and build in time like faculty meetings for teachers to take a look at it or even remove things they don't want or add new things that they think um are helpful. And that might if we have to remove something for from a category because this is a good curricular resource, we will want to try to find links or other ideas and field trips to replace it that are are just as good if not better. The next page has some pictures of partnerships. We have
026our Ruckers Master Gardeners on the top left. Conton Central brings their play to us. So that was a great experience. Down in the left we have the Harlem Wizards. Of course, our men in blue, the Readington Police are always partnering with us. And then on the right hand side, we partnered two years ago with one voice from Flemington. And it's um a wellness and anti- drug awareness group that they they came to White House school and I think they're going to Three Bridges soon in Hollra to show an age appropriate message at our level. They don't really talk about anti-drugs. It's about making wise choices. And they have a new mascot called Albert the Wise Alowl. So kids kids really like that. The next goal involved and this was pretty important during COVID because it
027was about getting resources to families in need. So, if you look at this um slide, we they did our our school nurse and counselor did create an ultimate resource guide that you can look at, but they have one before that in its infancy where we were trying to find resources how to connect people to the internet and get food to families if if they were um food insecure. So we ended up having a small resource bank for COVID and then when we came back to school, we um integrated the things that could still be helpful to families in need into a bigger directory and and if you take a look at it, we break it down by categories. It's it's pretty robust. It's on at least our school nurse website, but I know Mr. Chumalo
028had the school counselors because Mr. Smith was a big contributor to this who shared it with all school counselors so they have access to resources if families um are in need they can point them in the right direction. I talked about virtual field trips and then our fourth so goal is is really um goes hand inhand with what Mrs. pouch was saying it. Let me put one more. It's about our passion projects and what we thought we could do to enhance learning for students and to um embrace the partnerships we have. We had all children try to partner or find an expert through their research process. So we found a way to combine their projects and research with our partnerships and the directory did help to try and match students and their topic with ex
029experts in the field. Okay. And here are some pictures. Um you did see that picture before but they do take it seriously. If you look on the right hand side a student actually bought his brought his race car to the cafeteria. We got it in there. So he was passionate about it. And now I will turn it over to Mr. Tumulo. Social as Mr. Tumulo comes up. I just want to point out for the board too even internally I think Dr. D. Roz and Miss Pouch and Mr. Tumalo would say too we have so much more school-toschool connection now too where middle schoolers are visiting Holland Brook to do presentations. Holland Brook students are visiting Three Bridges and White House. Um Three Bridges and or middle school goes to Three Bridges and White House. And
030in years past, I think White House and Three Bridges came to Betsy Freeman's class and did a whole bunch of Earth Day activities. It's so cool that we have the interchool connections as well, and kids are able to to go back to White House and Three Bridges or um you know, bring knowledge uh to different grade levels. So, not just within schools, but among all of the schools. Please, Mr. Chill. Sure. Hi, everybody. So, I'm here to present um about our social awareness goal. Um I uh co-chared it with um uh Mr. Smith who works really closely together with a team of uh teachers that were passionate about the work. So um the the goal really I'll just read it to you. I know you can read it but it's nice to hear it too.
031Our our learners will feel connected, valued and secure in digital and non-digital learning environments cultivated by a shared sense of community. Every individual will develop skills that promote an awareness of self and others as well as the environment including the ability to understand the impact of their decisions. So while the goal focuses on social awareness, it really does encompass all the five competencies by castle. The self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, self um sorry, responsible decision-m and relationship skills. So we have five five goals. Um the first sub goal was to really enhance parent and community education about what is and what does it look like here in in the district in Readington, right? There's a lot of different definitions. Um so how do we define it and what does it look like and and and what
032does it look like in classrooms? So we tried to increase that awareness and understanding um providing resources um offering some events um that focused on SEAL specifically. Um we offered five virtual um parent academy parent nights um that were um also uh studentr run as well. We had student teachers that came in and um from each building and and offered some some training uh which was really nice. Uh and they talked about from their experience what does it look like? What does self-awareness look like to them? How do they define it? Um we um yeah so really just was really just trying to engage engage the parents. We offered webinars as well. We worked um uh we we tapped in with some teachers um in each grade level and tried to create a bank of
033resources um that other teachers can look at. Okay, so what does it look like in this classroom if if this teacher is teaching responsible decision- making, right? What are some examples? Um and that was really nice to help with new teachers coming in so that they understood what does it look like for the district. Um what does it look like in classrooms? And all of that is on our website as well. Um we started podcasts. We kind of got away from that, but that was something that was spearheaded by Adam Connelly who left our district. Um, but that was he was a really big part of that initiative at the middle school for sub sub goal 2 um was really about building and increasing student mental health supports. Right. So, as we know coming out
034of COVID um there was a lot of in increase and for that that that support for the the mental health of students and staff as well, right? So, um, we looked at specific programming. Um, that's where we brought in the CAP program, child assault prevention, um, team CAP and grade eight. Um, we offered it for grade five and grade three, and we're continuing that to this day. Um, we brought in Avidum for grades two, um, which is, um, it's called, it stands for I've got your back. It's a program that was started, um, in a high school out in the Midwest um, for um, because one of the students um, at the high school committed suicide. So we brought that in of how can we um train students and and kind of teach students um
035to find those trusted adults in their lives right in school in in the community. Um and also how to um uh identify um when they need help, what does that look like for them? Um it's a really great program and it's kind of we've connected that with um partnering with with Miss Houch as well um connecting it um into the health curriculum as a support service as a support resource um that's in there. The um also um many many counseling department meetings. So that's when we started to really have our monthly department meetings as a counseling department to discuss what are we seeing, what are the trends that we're seeing um to kind of make sure that we're really keeping this at the forefront of of the conversation. Um sub goal three um diversity, equity,
036and inclusion. So we looked at again one of the things that came out of um out of uh the pandemic was just access, right? noticing that how um you know, how are we making sure that we we are offering um that that every student in our district can access um supports and and and have an educational the same educational experience. Um so really that was a collaborative effort from the leadership team. We had um two consultants come in for the district to work with us um for two years in the summer. Um and we really kind of dug into different areas in our curricul within the school environment um the school system. We looked at um policy, we looked at right Dr. policy. We looked at facilities. Um we talked about curriculum. Um and then
037we created from there transportation um technology and we from there created short and long short and long-term plan of action of um how can we again look at access making sure that sort of students can have the same same experience and that was a really good experience that we had. Um, sub goal four was establishing an MTSS, multi-tered system of support at the middle school. Um, and this was really important because again at we were seeing our um the student numbers at the counseling office was just increasing and and they had such an influx of of need of students that really just needed support um with their mental health. So we created this multi-tered system of support. Tier one is a universal um that the whole the whole school gets this this education. Um tier
038two is identifying um about 10 to 15% of the student population that needs a little bit more support um on top of what they're already getting in class. Um and then you have your tier three um which we brought in a a mental health um an outside mental health professional that was funded um through ESSER funds. Um and that person um was working grades six to eight with about maybe 20 students that really just needed intensive um school-based counseling. And we came up with a system for referring students. We created a document a multi-through system support document. Um it was a lot of work that we put into that. Um the second piece was um focusing on the um the framework of leader and me. Um the whole staff under the support of of Mr.
039Charleston. Um we read we we purchased the book for the whole staff. um and did a lot of professional development through faculty meeting time on how can we um implement some of the tenants within leader and me into the classroom. Um yeah, so that was really great great work. So just to show you the tiered system of support here. Um again like I said tier one is for all students and that really does reach about 80 to 90% of the population. Um and then you have your tier two which is 10 to 15% which is more of like one-on-one support. um student check-ins, um school counselor support, um maybe some uh the BCBA behavioral supports, uh coming in, child study team, um and then you have your tier three, which was for our school-based counselor,
040which now we have um we've hired a person full, you know, full-time, Miss Buntless Bologani, who is with us um providing that support for our students. Really proud of that. And then our last sub goal is um based on sustainability. Um so again this was a partnership between all the chairs as well as the principles um to really work together to to become um you know uh recognizing that embracing that sustainability and becoming digital citizenship focus on dig digital digital citizenship sorry um and that shared responsibility um and again all four schools uh had achieved silver status um green ribbon status as well um we that was worked through the green committee um and then collaboration with the township as well. Any questions? Thank you so much. Here's a picture of that as well. Just
041photos of that. I'll take appreciate it. Um so our strategic goals um came from uh surveys that were sent to faculty, parents, students, certificated, non-sertificated staff back in 2019. uh and what and then a focus group happened here in this room to develop all of these goals and sub goals. Um so we sought to recreate that survey. I actually kept copies of the 2019 survey and we recreated and asked some of the same questions in anticipation that you know we moved the needle here with our three three goals. Um so some of the highlights that we saw this is from from the faculty. Um and you'll see from the responses that we summarized here from the faculty is that we've really started to promote uh exactly what our strategic goals sought to promote. Intellectual curiosity,
042perseverance among students, um collaboration among students as evidenced by the awards tonight. Um we clearly hold high expectations for our students. Now more than ever, we use data to inform our decision- making when it comes to devising instruction. Um you know, Dr. D. Rosa talked about um networks of supports for students. Those those um handbooks that we have now connecting our students with the community and resources out there are are tangible documents that we have now that show um that we really want to bring networks of our community and for our parents especially those in need. Um we support partnerships not only on a local level but on a state level and even a national level. We have access through virtual field trips to visit places we never thought we could visit before. Um you
043know a lot of support for student social well-being. Um and then climate and culture of the school is positive. Um the parent survey highlights um you know parents really responded. It's it's funny when I think about the faculty. So much has changed with the faculty over five years. It was really difficult for us to make a onetoone in comparison because of the teachers who have retired or those that have resigned or for other reasons. The faculty has changed in the past five years. Our parents really haven't as much. You know, they're they're here for five years. Maybe they were in kindergarten, now they're in fifth grade or fourth grade or maybe they were in sixth grade and um you know, they have a younger child coming through. Parents were incredibly positive when they responded to
044the survey about the strategic work. Um, so there's been a lot that we've done that I believe parents are noticing as a district in promoting a place that's nurturing and kind and caring, a place that cares about all learning uh learners. Um, providing uh students with um access connecting children to the world beyond uh just Readington um as even evidenced by what Mr. Daly does on a an annual basis um that Readington teachers are committed lifelong learners. children are happy to attend school. Um, innovation, creativity, these things are supported in our classroom. So, parents really responded very, very positively. Um, and then our students as well. We gave the survey to students grades five through eight. Um, students are comfortable. They have an adult that they trust. They talk to at school. Um, they're taught
045the importance now of having curious and open minds. Um, they're treated with respect and kindness. teachers take an interest in them as people and as learners. Um they they understand their classmates, their differences. Um what we're seeing is, you know, mapping some of our surveys from back in 2019 to then asking some of those questions again. We're seeing that we've made some progress that that things are moving forward. But we know we're not done. Um this is a nice summary of five years of work. But as we presented the budget to the board of education for next year, uh the administration is planning to engage in this work again. Uh we're not we're not finished. You know, we they're in the surveys. We see some continued areas of focus. Uh we want faculty meeting our
046faculty members to have input into the curriculum. We want them to have a major role in designing curriculum. Uh we want to make sure that uh we focus on some of those academic areas. Um that students are taught even the value of more community service that we explore more ideas. We give uh students the opportunities to tap into even more interests and we create that time into the day. Um you know that we create academic progress monitoring for students. We let them know how they're doing. I know at the middle school at least in math Miss Pouch and I have talked about goal meetings with students. You know they know where they are. They know what they their goals are. they know what they're working on. Um, so we're planning next year to, you know,
047engage with someone to come in and do the same thing. Readminister some surveys, pull some focus groups, have some community forums, um, and work with our district to identify what the focus is going to be for the next five years. It doesn't necessarily mean we abandon all of these goals. Maybe we tweak them, maybe we change them, maybe we refocus them some way. But I think um gathering all of the stakeholder input, looking at some of the surveys that we've done from this year and the work that we've accomplished uh will help lead us in the next direction for the next five years. Um so it's been it's been a five-year journey. It's been great work. Um and I'll I'll open it up to the board uh to ask any questions if they have any
048and if any of the presenters want to um add anything in or answer any questions, you certainly can. But I'll go up to the board. Yeah, Miss Cassidy. Uh, hi. I want to say I probably am in a unique position as a parent in the district who my oldest uh graduated 8th grade in 2020. So, just when you were initiating this and I have two more who are now in fifth and eighth grade. So, I've borne witness to the passion projects, the partnership with the guest speakers. Um I was unaware of of some of the uh mental health support that you've instituted here but could tell you my oldest benefited from that. Um and I have personally noticed a massive difference in the education in our district and the type of learning and the encouragement
049uh to follow their passions and explore um their interests and work independently. Uh, and I just it's wonderful to see this five-year retrospective of looking back and seeing what the difference was because it is it is noticeable. So, I want to thank you all for your work. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Any other questions for Yeah, I've enjoyed the um civics presentations and the passion project presentations and I think we're giving the students amazing skills for presenting and getting up in front of adults. and when we go there, they're they're not nervous to speak um to an audience. And I think that's a a skill that's just incredible at such a young age. And I I think that's really I hope it continues and I really enjoy uh coming to those programs. Thank
050you. Thank you very much. And I I think too, you know, even if we set some new goals for the next five years, I don't know if that necessarily means that we abandon the goals that we've achieved here. One of the crowning achievements of of these this strategic work is I think it's embedded. It's ingrained. If you talk to a faculty member about what our strategic goals are, I think they can tell you what our three strategic goals are. And that doesn't always happen. I think this has become part of the culture of just who we are. So even if we do set some different goals, I don't know if we abandon the work that we've done. I think we've come so far now. It's just maintaining this good work and picking up the next
051set of good work too. Yeah. I just want to recognize also seeing the district over the years and and I want to recognize the staff and your leadership in this because it's a tremendous amount of work on top of what they're already doing. Yeah. and the the coaches or leaders I don't know the exact title for um the team leads for each of the subles and stuff but I mean just huge huge difference and what where the district was where they we are now and it's just um just wanted to commend the work and say thank you thank you really appreciate that anybody else yeah Mr. Yeah, I just wanted to say I can tell that all the projects, all the teachers, students, staff, the supervisors is done with passion and it's not just like
052I'm checking off a box. So, I appreciate that coming from you until they really love their job and I appreciate that. Yeah, we try our best to avoid the check the box kind of thing, right? We talk about this at leadership meetings, I think, and Miss Pouch, I think I say it to you all the time, too, like we have to do it with purpose. Like, let's be purposeful about it. And I say that over and over. We don't want to check the box. It's got to be who we are and we we don't want to let go of it. So yeah, thank you. I appreciate all those comments. Excellent. Anything else? So, uh, this is our update. I look forward to keeping the board updated. So, we're headed into a really exciting time for
053the district. You know, it's the springtime. We'll be doing superintendent evaluation. We've talked about board evaluation. We'll be doing some retreats. But I really look forward to launching, you know, a reflection of our work and starting another strategic plan. Now with a new board, right? This is you're all going to be involved in some way, shape or form. Um, and five years ago was a very different board. So now you we'll have your input like you'll be able to help set the next five years for the district. So I look forward to that work with all of you. Um, thank you Sarah, Anthony, and Ann for coming tonight. Really appreciate it. You're welcome to stay. Um but but thank you for your time and thank you for your work on all of this. Thank you.
054And that concludes my superintendent report. Thank you. Okay. So, next item on the agenda is public comments for items that are on the agenda. So, I don't know if anyone has comments that they would make at this time. Okay, I'm sorry, Dan, can you um go back to the YouTube so that we can see if there's any comments [Music] online? Okay, so next item is correspondence. We did receive one correspondent about the substitute teacher policy and that is with the board. So our next item is going to be the board action. First item is approval of the administrative reports. We got three items items 101 to 103. Can I get a motion and then a second for those three items? I'll move Alan. Second. Okay. Thank you. Any discussion on that? Mrs. Cassidy, yes. Mrs.
055Fury, yes. Mr. Votes, yes. Miss Borski, yes. Miss Rad, yes. Mindo, yes. Ma, yes. Passes. Okay. The next item is approval of our minutes. We have two items, 20120. Can I get a motion in a second on those two items? I'll move Ellen. Second. Okay. Any discussion on that? Mr. B. Ms. Cassie. Yes. M. Fury. Yes. Mr. Lopes. Yes. Mrs. Pagorski. Yes. Mr. R. Yes. Mr. Pinto. Yes. Mr. Russo. Yes. Passes. Okay. Now, we're going to go into the each of the committees. The first one is finance and facilities. We have 15 items. 301 33 15. Um, and then we're also going to have a committee report which I'll read out. So, can I first get a motion and a second on those 15 items? I'll move. Second. Okay. All right. So, I'll read out
056the committee report. So, the committee met on April 2nd. The people that attended were Michelle, Paulo, myself, and Justina. Dr. Hart was there as well as Jason and Don Race from facilities. The first item was health dental insurance for 2526 school year. Jim Finn from Brown and Brown reviewed rate changes across the various insurance pools with the committee. The committee agreed to continue its shift as is and expand the offering to include Etna as an additional coverage option for staff. The expected rate of health insurance renewal is 12.13% which covers both shift and ETNA at the coverage and cost. Several benefits of shift were discussed including that shift is one of the lowest cost pools over the past se five to seven years by si sign significant margin and that the district has a strong
057utilization ratio experience rate rating. So there's a potential to reduce premiums over the long term. Express scripts will continue to be the pharmacy plan at a rate of 4.7%. Prior issues with express scripts have primarily been resolved with a few exceptions remaining. The committee agreed to continue dental coverage with Horizon as is since Delta Dental and others would not be equal or better. The second item we discussed was the semicorrective action plan. The committee acknowledged that the ongoing corrective action plan would be noted in the audit. The third item was Ryerson Road. The committee discussed the Ryerson Road property during the meeting. Fourth item was night custodial renewal committee endorsed a rate increase of 3% driven by inflation in order to retain the existing services and staff which have been beneficial for the district. The
058next item was Damasio's cafeteria food service renewal. The committee was informed that a 10 cents increase in menu prices will be incurred and a 2.5% contract increase. For budget, we discussed bank cap which is bank capital for 2627 is expected which will assist in future budget needs. We also discussed the referendum communication guidelines. The committee was asked to review the refer referendum communication guidelines and will provide feedback. We reviewed the bill list that was available for review. The sustainable New Jersey grant. The committee was informed that the district received a $2,000 grant for TBS from the sustainable Jersey program. The grant will enable students to learn about safety in our local area. And our next meeting is planned for May 16th and then July 2nd. Are there any items for discussion on that? Okay. Mrs.
059Cassidy, yes. M. Fury. Yes. Mr. Los. Yes. Mrs. Vagorski. Yes. M. Rad. Yes. Mrs. Pinto. Yes. Mr. Riza. Yes. Passes. Okay. Next item is the edtech. We have five items 401 through 405. And we're also going to have a committee report that's read out. Can I first get a motion and a second for items 401 through 405? So move that. Second. Okay. Yeah. The edtech committee met on March 28th. The first item we discussed was the preschool data presentation. Uh preschool coach coordinator Mrs. Christo joined the meeting to present a report on preschool classrooms enrollment curriculum analytics and the newly implemented student assessment methods which include my teaching strategies gold creative curriculum fidelity tool teapot and eer 3. The preschool program has seen tremendous growth which initially included only has seen tremendous growth which initially
060in only included only one classroom sorry half day uh and will be expanding to 16 classrooms full day which is 240 students projected for the 2526 school year. Mrs. Aquisto discussed internal and state required assessment methods to keep the program successful and compliant. The committee commended the hard work of the preschool team to provide such a tremendous learning experience for the littlest learners. Going forward, Dr. Hart will invite the preschool team to present assessment and analytical data at the October board meeting when the other statewide assessment data is presented. Uh next, we had a quarterly tech update. Mr. Develki presented a quarterly tech update which covered data privacy and security protocols to make sure our service providers are adequately protecting district data. Mr. Bellski also talked about two factor authentication and how our district has
061implemented security measures that are dictated by the insurance company. Uh next we talked about 100 central PS8 PSAT data data presentation. Dr. Brown and Miss Pouch reported on the most recent PSAT data that Hunton Central has shared with Readington. The data shows uh what has been confirmed through other results. Readington students are performing at the same level or above their peers from surrounding sending districts in both English language arts and math as measured by the PSAT assessment. YMCA club enrollment. Dr. Hart reported on the enrollment for YMCA after school clubs. Initially, these clubs were provided for free through ESSER federal funds, but once that funding expired, parents have been paying a fee to register for the club. Enrollment is not as high as when it was free, but the clubs are still well attended. Um,
062we the agenda items, field trips, fundraisers, and other typical agenda items. And we scheduled our next meeting for April 28th. Okay. Any discussion on the items? Mrs. Cassie, yes. Mrs. Fury, yes. Mr. Votes, yes. Mrs. Pagorski, yes. Mrs. Brad, yes. Mrs. Depinto, yes. Mr. Yes. Okay. The next item is communication. We are going to have committee report as well on that one. Before we do, let me just read out the we have two um action motions. 51259. Can I get a motion and a second on that motion? I'll second. Okay. The uh personal meeting on April 3rd and topics included staffing updates for the current school year for next school year, non-tenure staff and nonertified staff. We also discussed administrative structure, nonaligned salaries and other personal needs. Agenda items included include new buyers, retirements, renewal,
063contracts. The next meeting was scheduled forth. Any discussion items? Miss Cassie. Yes, Mrs. Fury. Yes, yes, Mrs. Borski. Yes, Mrs. Ry. Yes, Mrs. Yes, Ma. Yes, communications. We have two items, 601 through 602. Can I get a motion in a second? I'll move. Second. Okay. Yep. The policy and communications committee met on March 24th. The first thing we discussed was we uh reviewed the policy tracking document. Uh the committee um reviewed the timeline and process for the tracking document and provided feedback on how it is going. The committee agreed to review and discuss the policies in one section, make the necessary changes and then bring them to the full board for first read before moving on to the next series of the manual. We also discussed bringing certain policies to the appropriate committees for input
064on policies that pertain to their specialties. Um we then reviewed um policies in alert 234. Both policies will move forward to the full board for first read. The first one was policy 5111 eligible eligibility of resident and non-resident students. This policy required updating in order to comply with the new statute NJSA18A uh 38-3 which required tuition payment from parents of non-resident students. The new statute was inconsistent with non-resident students of teaching staff members and required some revisions. We revised our language to distinguish between non-resident non-resident teaching staff and non-resident non-eing staff according to the new requirements. Both teaching staff and non-eing staff who do not reside in the district will be permitted to enroll their children in the educational program of the school district with the payment of tuition if the child's educational program can
065be provided in the district. Adjustments were made to the entrance and exit dates of students who anticipate moving to and from the district to allow us to include them in our enrollment numbers and have them count in our NJSLA test scores. The next policy was policy 8500 food service. The workingclass families anti-hunger act has been revised. The revisions to the statutes include new terminology, expansion of income eligibility to qualify students for free meals, and additional parental notification of school meal information. Food service policies often undergo revisions when there is a new president or legislative action. This policy is mandated and must be adopted by the board if the district participates in the national school lunch program as it is a United States Department of Agricultural audit requirement. The next uh item we discussed was the
066key communicators meeting. This meeting has been rescheduled for May 6th. Dr. Hart has received a positive response to his new invitation with many yes responses, including two eighth grade civic students, and we are looking forward to having a great meeting. The following bylaws required uh further discussion after our last meeting when we reviewed the new policy tracking document. After our discussions, the committee made the following determinations. Uh bylaw 0155.01, 01 board member participation of board meetings using electronic devices. The committee decided to abolish this policy that was implemented during COVID to allow for remote board meetings. Abolishing this policy means board members will attend all meetings in person with no remote login option available to them. Bylaw 0168 reporting board meetings. The committee agreed that reporting of committee meetings will not be allowed and that
067we will hold off on including the use of AI tools for taking minutes at this time. bylaw 0169, board member use of electronic mail and internet. The committee agreed to add a paragraph to this policy instead of creating a separate policy to state that board members are to be guided by the code of ethics when it comes to social networking sites. Uh bylaw 0175, contracts with independent consultants. During our research on the bylaw section of the manual, we noticed that another district has a bylaw for contracts with independent consultants. After further discussion, the committee determined that it will be best to revisit this policy when we review the 6000 series of the policy manual to see where we can best incorporate this into one of our existing policies since contract processes are strongly guided by
068purchasing regulations and are inclusive of vendors and independent consultants. The agenda items are 511 and 8500. The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 16th uh at 4 p.m. Thank you. Any discussion? I just have one thing. So for um 6.01, the student use of wireless communication devices with cell phones. First of all, I just was surprised that Mr. Peach was not here in the audience tonight to see that we finally passed a cell phone policy after many years of lobbying. Um but I just had a question, Dr. Hart, in how are we communicating that out to parents? I know that RMS had a survey that students and parents filled out. So, they would be aware that we were evaluating this, but in terms of HBS or how that's going to be shared out to
069the parents. Just curious. Um, we have a leadership meeting with all of the principles and the administrators coming up on this Thursday. this policy because it's passing the board second read tonight. I plan to bring the policy to the full leadership team on Thursday um stating that it should go in a genesis blast and then their newsletter to inform parents that this is a new policy that we should be that they should be abiding by and it's got some language in there that they need to put directly into those blasts that we can communicate with parents. I also think that the principles should bring the policy to their faculty meetings as well to make sure the faculty are aware um of the policy too. Um we did agree as a committee that we wanted to
070um implement the policy as is and then if there's any issues that come from Mr. Charleston or even you know here at Holland Brook um that we have we are open to revising it or looking into it over the course of the next year as well. So I'll inform them of that too. Thank you. Yep. You're welcome. Any other items for discussion? Miss Cassidy. Yes. Ms. Fury. Yes. Mr. Lopes. Yes. Mrs. Borski. Yes. M. Rad. Yes. Mr. Pendo. Yes. Mr. Rosen. Yes. Okay. Any board member want to raise any unfinished business? Okay. So, next item is new business from the board is any delegate reports. Okay. I know we have a committee meeting read out if you want to read that one out. Green committee met on April 3rd and the strategic focus was for
071the 2425 school year uh presentation by Mr. R. The green committee aims to reduce environmental impact and enhance school sustainability during the 24-2 school year. Some of the items listed in the presentation are as follows. Sustainable New Jersey reertification aiming to achieve silver status. Referendum project and committee. Refer the project committee received board approval for sustainability projects including HVAC upgrades, outdoor space enhancements and LED lighting. reduce waste, increase energy efficiency, enhance environmental education and expand solar energy to all schools. Adding solar to white house school and three bridges also expanding on RMS and Holl will give us 100% electric independency particularly in the summer. Current solar provides 34 to 40% I'm sorry 35 to 40% of the school's electricity. The solar expansion will provide free electricity after 15 years, saving over $250,000. We spoke about
072improving health and wellness with the updated bonus policy. It was brought up that the school district has a new electric school bus. Uh we spoke about the fourth grade field trip to the which I don't pronounce that black and black and minor trail. Thank you. to learn about local plants, trees, and wildlife. Partnership with scouts planted 19 trees around Hollra with the help of Dr. Neil Hendrickson. Students went on field trip to learn about recycling, reusing, composting. We also worked with Masio on obtaining local source food. Uh RMS received a $10,000 grant for Ecoa action news grant. School clubs waste reduction. Also during professional development, food trucks brought in to provide staff with lunch and reduce the environmental impact by having staff eat outside on a nice day instead of driving to lunch. Staff still
073had the option to go out to lunch if they desire. We also spoke about $2,000 grant that three bridges partnership received partnership with go hunter in it was to educate children on bicycle safety and Betsy Freeman is recognized as a sustainable hero. Miss Betsy spoke on her students work with on inventions that monitor outdoor quality working with Mama University and also Eric Zerling pointed out that the committee's foresight on solar in light of rising electricity costs. Eric also mentioned that we should add this information to the website. C Foster mentioned cooperation with the town led some successful results of the outdoor trip and wanted to say thank you. Neil was impressed by Betsy students help in protecting the environment resources. Mrs. Adakari coordinated with supervisor Sarah Pouch and town to make an outdoor field trip
074happen and stated that students match the standards of NJES science learning outdoors. Pillar two was reduce environmental impacts and costs. We mentioned the referendum Jason highlighted. Referendum vote shall occur Tuesday, November 4th. More communication events forthcoming. Solar array expansion. Mr. B stated district is wanting waiting on JCPNL and BPU for authorization to proceed. Pillar two, improve the health and wellness of schools, students, and staff. The NJSBA, a decade of progress. Dr. Hart highlighted an article from the NJSBA out of three bridges school district. Out of the three school districts mentioned, Readington was one of them. Jod asked if we could promote this article in the Chronicle. Dr. Hart is looking to publish the article in the Super Sentinel and other outlets. Pillar three was provide environmental education, STEM, civic skills, green career pathways, etc. HBS
075Scout Project Jason thank wanted to thank Pamela, Dr. Moss and Neil for helping and supporting the scouts and planting the trees around the Hollywood trap. The scouts learned how to plant and create trees and create for trees. Cure for trees, sorry. Ecoaction news grant was updated. Brief updating provided by Betsy Three Bridges School 2000 sustainable grant. Dr. Higgins are elaborating on the details of the 2001 grant and the partnership with thean trees for school grant. Mr. Bull mentioned that there is a grant by sustainable New Jersey for tree planting. The grant is between 10 to $250,000 and includes two years of maintenance. Betsy spoke about looking at all four properties and devising a plan for a meadow to reduce mowing and incorporate tree planning. Jason also mentioned these goals are for next school year strategic
076focus brainstorming for 2526 school year. Beth previously shared the draft rington schools climate change action plan. The sustainable New Jersey trees for school grant was mentioned again. Referendum communication was shared as an idea for sustainability and wellness projects. Dr. Hart stated that the website will be redesigned and when it does, we will look at the green site. Marina Orlando mentioned interweaving tree planting with the type of trees to plant, the size that the hole needs to be dug, and the type of soil to add to the trees. Jody mentioned at her last environmental commission meeting that they focus on biodiversity, native plants and trees. Air quality was also discussed. Neil mentioned at that Betsy student project on air quality could potentially feed data to the SA. He was also discussed. He also discussed native versus
077non-native trees and have deer eat certain trees and plants causing invasive trees to take over. Robert Becker spoke on how students could collect sap off trees at three bridges learning woods. Dr. Higgins will take a walk of his path to take a look. Miss Alakari spoke on having a sitting area with wild flowers and rainwater collection at Hollywood. Mr. Berling Zurling I'm sorry mentioned posting an article and more communication on the website. Then we spoke about unfinish and new business. There weren't any seminar. Next uh green committee shall meet in the summer of 2025 for strategic planning with administration and board members only. Thank you. Anyone have any discussion items on it? Yeah, I was just wondering if we if the board members could get a copy of the um district's um climate change action
078plan because I've never seen that. Thank you. It's it's not a it's sort of like a draft. It's okay. Yes, but it's not I wouldn't call it a plan. We said example from another district that we just kind of are looking at. We'll look at it in the summer. So, okay. Happy to share. But yeah, we could share. We're not really following it yet. Thank you, Mr. Dependo. I also think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I also think it's a place where we're storing and housing some of the things that have already happened as well. Like it's not all Yeah. like solar solar arrays. Like, so it's not just um what we plan to do. It's also memorializing what we've done. Well, you can share it too so that you can see that. Any
079other items? Okay, thank you. All right, the next item is the public forum for any items on or off the agenda. Anyone want to speak come to the podium? Okay, anyone on it? Okay, close of that. Next, we're going to go to executive session. Um then we have a motion to adopt the following resolution. Resolve to adjourn to executive session in accordance with the sunshine law to discuss HIVs and a legal update for approximately 30 minutes at which time board expects to return to public section for action shall be taken. The matters discussed will be made public if and when the circumstances requiring confidentiality no longer exist. However, it is not potentially known when such circumstances will exist. Can we get a roll call? David, I just want to point out there's a misprint here.
080No action will be taken. No. No action will be taken. Just want to make that clear. So move that second. Mrs. Cassie, yes. Miss Fiori, yes. Mr. Lopes, yes. Mrs. Porski, yes. Miss Rad, yes. is in. Yes, Mr. Rosen. Yes. Thank you for coming. Thank you. God damn it.