Wall Township Board of Education Meeting 8-7-2025

001Good evening. Welcome to the Thursday, August 7th, 2025 special meeting of the Wall Township Board of Education. Uh please stand for the flag salute to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands nation for all. >> Mr. Smith sunshine announcement and roll call please. >> Yes. This is the Wall Township Board of Education special meeting for which adequate notice under the open public meeting act was provided by a notice to the co-star Asbury Park Press all Wall Township public schools and opposing in the board administration office on February 20, 2025. Take a roll call. Miss Adams >> here. >> Mr. Adesio, Miss Barbieier >> here. >> Mr. Burton >> here. >> Mr. Buffa >> here. >> Miss Diovani. Mr. Smith. Mr. Wander, Mr. Malow >> here. >> Thank

002you. At this time, we're going to open the meeting for public comment. Anyone wishing to make a comment, please come to the microphone. Seeing no one for public comment, we're going to close public comment. And I'm going to turn the meeting over to Dr. Han again. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Maliff. Good evening, Wall Township. Welcome to our board of education retreat. This evening's agenda includes our annual mandated board of education ethics training. This training will once again be provided by Dr. Tim Tian, our field representative from the New Jersey School Boards Association. After the training, Miss McCann, our assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, will report on our endofear update of our district goals from the 2024 2025 school year. The last segment of our retreat will be some discussion on our district

003goals and supporting actions for the upcoming school year. These proposed goals and supporting activities are outgrowths of the district strategic plan. This upcoming school year marks the last year of our current strategic plan. At this point, I would like to welcome Dr. Tim Tian to our podium. >> Thank you. All right. To start off with, just to I don't know if this is on or not, but it's on. Okay. Um I'm not an attorney, so understand that these this information is legal information. It's not a legal opinion. It's not a legal advice. So, it's just legal information. Okay. Um, school ethics act. It was created so that it would ensure that all of you as as public servants, board members, administrators would make sure that you were acting as ethically as possible so that the

004community could have faith in everything that you do and all the decisions that you make. So it is a minimal or minimum ethical standard which means that obviously you can be a lot more ethical than the standards that are in here but it gives you that foundation or that baseline that you're expected to behave by. So this if you look at this one this is um the four areas that you as a board member are responsible for. And if you look at the um two that are on the right, prohibited acts and disclosure statements, every um board member, superintendent, BA, anyone that holds an administrator C is responsible for those two, which means they cannot be engaged in anything that's a prohibited act and they are required to submit an annual disclosure statement. the one

005you and as board members you're required to do those two plus you have to do the other two on the other side which is a code of ethics and you also have to engage within mandatory training and the mandatory training is every year you have to do a training which is governance one two three and four which we're going to talk about in a minute so who enforces the act it is not it is not New Jersey school boards we are not the SEC police we are not the ethics police um however we do provide you as board members that information so that you're aware of what you should or should not be doing. It's actually the SEC that's actually appointed and there's supposed to be nine members as part of the the group and

006they're appointed by the governor and there's five that are supposed to be non-school officials, two that are supposed to be schoolboard members and two that are supposed to be school administrators. Currently, there are only six seats that are filled and that's been the way for over two years. So, they have not filled all nine seats and as you see um there's only one seat that's currently vacant for the school administrators and both seats are currently vacant for the school board members. People ask how do we get those seats? The best answer I can give you is since it is a governmental uh appointment, you have to contact your legislator and tell them that you are very interested in the seat and see what happens. um it still remains to be unfilled. So I can't answer

007what that will be when you reach out to your legislator. However, the nine members versus six members is important because when we talk about advisory opinions, you need at least six members. And so um when we talk about that, I I'll point that out. So you're going to be uh responsible for doing a financial disclosure statement. So, if you have a board member that joins your board for the first time, whether it's, you know, outside of the normal election time or if it's during after, you know, your your November elections and they're seated in January, they'll have 30 days to complete their financial disclosure statement. All of you have until April 30th of every year, and that is a QAC requirement um where they will be checking to see that you actually all did that

008on time. And if you're late, then that you'll end up losing QAC points, which means you're out of compliance. And then the SEC could also follow up with that too with you because you did not finish it. So as a board member, you required to do governance one, two, three, and four. And in the past, it was always you had basically the first year, second year, third year, fourth year to be able to complete each one of these trainings. uh last couple years it was changed for governance one that a brand new board member has to finish it within the first 90 days from the time that they're sworn in. Not the time that you win the election, not the time that the board says, you know, if it's an open seat and they vote

009you in, it's a time you're actually sworn in. So that's when your 90-day window starts uh clock starts ticking. um in that governance one gives you that basic foundational information so that you can hit the ground as running as you can be as a new board member. Um they will offer that that's the one that's a little unique. All of these will be offered in person. They'll be offered virtually. They'll be offered synchronous and asynchronous. Um but the new board members als the new me board member orientation or governance one is also offered over a weekend sessions for those that are interested in that. It's much more intense. Um and it gives you an opportunity to network with other individuals that are becoming a board member for the first time. Uh governance two you have

010to complete within your second year of service. Governance three in your third year. And then every time you're reelected, you have to complete governance 4. And um when you see what you see listed under governance two and three, New Jersey school boards has been um playing around with those and they might be switching some things around. So you might see student achievement actually in governance 2 and finance in in governance three but um I know they're still in the process of revamping that. Um you're welcome to take governance like a lot of people say I'd really like to take governance 4 every year. You're absolutely able to do that because that's the one that's focused on legal updates and people are very interested in what are the new things you know in terms of legal.

011Um, the thing is if you take it say in year one, even if you take it in year two, even if you take it in year three, you still have to take it every time you're reelected. Okay? So that's that's a guarantee. Um, so it's not like you can do it all ahead of time and then, you know, not have to do it. Same things if you're a brand new board member, you could go through governance one, two, three, and four all in your first year, but you'll still have to repeat governance two in your second, governance three in your third. So just keep that in mind. Um, so an advisory opinion that is more um when a board member or school official is being proactive, it means that they're thinking about doing something and

012they're not sure if they're allowed to do it. And so what they'll do is they'll send basically a request letter to the SEC and say, "Hey, I'd like an advisory opinion on this. If I do this, will I be doing something wrong?" And if they are, then the SEC will say, "Yeah, you should not be doing that." If it's okay for you to do it, they will say, "Yes, based upon the information you gave, you can proceed with whatever it is that you're asking." When um an advisory opinion is requested, if the SEC feels that it has a far-reaching impact, meaning it's not just your district, but that might be an issue that's coming up as a concern across the state, they will make that um advisory opinion public. They can only make advisory opinions

013public if they have six of the SEC board members vote to say yes, it should be public. And as we all know, when you have a board meeting, not every board member always shows up. So if they only have six, that means that if they only had five for a board meeting and they had an advisory opinion they had to decide on, they can still decide on it, but they can't decide that it's going to be public. and they have to wait until they actually get six and then they can vote on that. That happened this past year, right near the end of December. All of a sudden, we had I think it was 11 or 13 advisory opinions that were published at the same time. Why? Because they finally had six people that came

014to a meeting. So, you know, that's the bad side or downside of them um not having the full nine because, as we know, not everyone shows up every time. So, um, when we talk about advisory opinions, we've had board members ask us, "Well, it's called an advisory opinion. Do I really need to listen to it?" Because it's just somebody's opinion. In this case, it's the SEC's opinion. And the answer to that is yes, you pretty much do. Even though it it's titled advisory opinion, it actually what that means is if you if you take an example of a police officer, if a police officer tells you if you do this or you don't do this then you're going to end up getting a ticket or you're going to end up getting arrested. If you say

015well officer that's your opinion and then you go and do it. What do you think is going to happen? You're going to get arrested. So it's very similar here where the SEC has published advisory opinions whether it's to you individually or to the state as a whole and they've said based upon this information if you do this you will be found to be not in compliance with the code of ethics and therefore you will get a penalty as a result of it. So if somebody dismisses that and says I don't really care and they proceed to to do it anyway because they said it's only an advisory opinion. As soon as somebody um reports you and files an ethics complaint against you, the SEC is going to look at that and say, "Yeah, that was

016pretty evident. We had an advisory opinion out on that." So, it is your responsibility to know what those advisory opinions are. And if you're going to um seek to do something, that's why it's really important that you kind of bounce it off your board attorney because your board attorney will be able to look at the existing or newest um advisory opinions and then give you some guidance themselves on whether you should seek another advisory opinion or there's something that's already published out there and then you save your time filing it because you already know. So these are examples of advisory opinions that were released in 2024. And so the um there's a PDF of this that is sent to your superintendent, which I don't know if she sent it out to all of you yet,

017but if she hasn't, she will. Um but in this PDF, each one of these cases on the left, you see like the greenish color um thing where it says A and then whatever and others will say C and then some numbers. These are A means advisory opinion and C means um ethics complaint. These are hyperlinks. So if you click on them, they will give you a lot more information. So what you see on the right is just a summary. It's a brief summary of each of these cases. Each one of these cases is much longer. And sometimes when you read these summaries, they you say, well, you know, it doesn't give me a lot of information or I don't understand why they made the decision that they did. But when you click on it and

018you read the full case, then you find out maybe there was a little more reasoning behind it. So, I'm not going to go through every case, but if you look at the first one, um this is one that does come up where uh board members want to review the resumes of candidates. So, in other words, your superintendent has made a recommendation to you as a board of somebody who they want to hire. Some board members are saying, "Well, that's nice, but we want to know who else you interviewed. Can we see their resumes, too?" The answer to that is no. And you say, "Well, why not?" There you go. There's an advisory opinion that explains it to you. But basically, remember when a personnel matter is being put on an agenda, it's upon the recommendation

019of the superintendent schools. It's not upon the recommendation of the board. You guys are not involved in the interviews. You're not involved in reviewing the resumes. You may see the resume of the individual that she's recommending, but you're not looking at all the ones to make your choice of who you think is a better candidate. Um, because there's a lot of thinking that goes on and that within that interview process. So that's why you're not allowed to. Uh the next one is an important one and that's uh A1324 and that's was um a staff a board member had a relative that worked in the district and they wanted to be part of negotiations. And generally when you have a relative that's you know working in the district it will actually cause a conflict for you

020and you won't be able to um engage within the negotiations process. You won't be able to be part of the negotiations team. you might not be able to vote and to ratify the contract, so on and so forth. So, um, a board member had made the argument that that relative was not actually in a bargaining unit. They were somebody that was considered non-aligned, meaning they're not in like the teachers union. They're not in the administrator's union. They're just a one-off. Um, your business administrator be an example of that. A lot of districts technology department is considered part of that. So, they're called non-aligned. Um, so they tried to argue that they should be allowed to be in negotiations. The advisory opinion came out and said, "Yes, that's true. They're not in one of the unions.

021However, the reality is that a non-aligned position will generally see the same uh percentage raises and um parts of their benefit plan, whatever is within their individual contract. that's aligned to the actual existing contracts either of the teachers or the or the administrators. So unless you as a board member can say definitively and show definitively that there is no connection at all that the nine aligned are not that there's no consideration of those other two contracts or other three contracts depending on how many you have then you would be ne you would not be allowed to be in negotiations as well. If you can show that there's no connection, then you might be able to um if you're in a situation like that, then I would recommend that you talk to your board attorney and

022they'll be able to guide you appropriately. But chances are your superintendent is probably going to tell you that she'd probably say, "I'm not going to um give a non-aligned a better or worse contract than an aligned staff member because one of the groups is not going to be happy." So if I gave you're non-aligned and I gave you a 5% raise and you're aligned and you got a 2% raise, they're not going to be happy that you got 5%. So I'm going to create a problem there and vice versa. So that's why generally they are aligned. So all these are advisory opinions and these are more. So these were a lot of the ones that were just released in December. Um the second one down was an endorsement from a local union. Um there was

023once again we get this a lot where um a board member was endorsed by a local union and they want to know you know is that going to cause them to not be able to be involved in X Y and Z and in this case it was could they not be involved in any matters related to those union membership and it was actually found that it was okay since they did not receive any financial contributions um because a a union can endorse somebody and say you know we support this candidate but they're not financially supporting them. So, there's a difference there. Uh there was also some other um conditions within this one that they brought up as why it was okay for them to still participate. Um because the person actually had said, "I'm not

024going to participate for the first year. I'm a board member." So, um the next two down from that was um an interesting one and you're seeing this more and more. Uh a board member got on the board. They had been an employee of the district. They had been fired by the superintendent. They decided to run for the board. They got on the board. Why do you think they wanted to get on the board? They wanted to get rid of the superintendent. What they found out was that since they were fired from the district, they were not allowed to participate in the evaluation of the superintendent. They were not allowed to participate within um the hiring or contract negotiation for the superintendent. And you say, well, why is that? because it actually gives the impression like

025the community might not believe that that person's um opinion or or vote is actually not skewed in some way based upon the history that they had. So, you know, kind of let you know that if you if you know of someone who's going to run for the board who was fired from the district, chances are they're not going to be allowed to do a lot of things that they're hoping they're going to be allowed to do. So, an ethics complaint, it's important to know that anyone, anyone within the district, outside the district, even outside your community can file an ethics complaint against uh a school representative. They have 180 days to do that. And I've had board members call me and say, you know, hey, can I file an ethics complaint? Something happened a year

026ago. No, it's past 180day window. So, it has to be something that happened within the last 180 days, and it's a rolling window. So if you don't do it today and you wait a week, that 180 days just moved, you know, forward a week. So keep that in mind if you're thinking about doing it, but it's also for anyone in the community when they file an ethics complaint. They can't just simply say, I think you violated, you know, tenant A of the code of ethics. They actually have to provide factual evidence to support their position. If you have um an ethics complaint filed against you, what will happen is the school ethics commission will review the filing. They'll notify the person that filed it and say, "Okay, it's complete or it's not complete." If it's

027complete, then they say, "Okay, we're going to move forward." And moving forward means they're going to reach out to you as the board member who it was filed against, and they'll say, "So and so has filed an ethics complaint against you. Here's what their claim is. You have 30 days to respond." So, they're actually getting both sides of the story. They're not just listening to the ethics complaint. They're listening to you as the person who was filed against for the opportunity to basically state your side and then they look at both sides and that's when they make the determination of whether there was a violation or not. Okay. So, if there is a violation, what are the things that they can do? The school ethics commission can give you a reprimand which is like a

028slap on the wrist and they say you did something wrong, don't do it again and that's it. It's between you and them. Um, Asensure is much more up that next level where it's now public and the board has to adopt a resolution to say this board member by name violated the following tenants of the code of ethics on such and such dates and as a result they've been censured and then the board has to vote on that. The next level up is a suspension, which means the school ethics commission will say you as a board member cannot be a board member for x amount of time, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, a year, whatever it the timeline that they come up with. And the last one is a removal. And that means that they'll

029say you're you're off the board. You can no longer be a board member ever again. You're done. Um, if you've been removed, like people are saying, well, you must have to do something really bad to get removed. What we're seeing a lot more of is people being removed because they did not do their governance one, two, three, or four training. So when you get those notifications that oops, you're out of compliance, you need to hop on it and get it done because they they've been removing them left and right for that. So keep that in mind. Okay. So we're going to go through the the 10 tenants there. And when you look at the top of that, so once again, this is not by us. This is by the school ethics commission. But the top

030part of that actually comes from statute which is 18A and you'll see the um that's a hyperlink at as well at the top. The bottom of each one of these is the factual evidence that the person would need to provide and that actually comes from code which is 6A and that's also hyperl. So if you click on either one of those you can read all of these again and and see that they're connected to two. So when you the first uh tenant is that you will uphold and enforce all laws, rules and regulations. We know that sometimes you don't agree with a law, rule, or regulation, but you still need to follow it. It's not an optional. Just like we said with the police officer, the rules are the rules. You have to follow it.

031So, you have to follow it here, too. If you're not happy with a law, rule, or regulation, there's other avenues that as a school district or a community or a state that they can go about to try to change that. Um, the second one is that you have to make all your decisions in the best interest of all of your students within the district. So, you know, the main reason why we're all here is for the students. We're not here for yourselves. We're not here for your community members. We're not here for the staff. We're not here for the superintendent. You're here for the students. So, every decision you make has to be in the best interest of all your students. The third one is that you have to confine your uh work to policym,

032planning, and appraisal. In other words, you're the what for the district. You're not the how. you're not getting into the nitty-gritty of trying to run the district or the day-to-day operations. If you step over that line, that means you're violating in this area. So, policy, as you all know, policy is what helps drive the district. Your superintendent looks to policy to see what she should be doing when she's faced with a situation based upon the policy that you've adopted. Planning, you guys were just saying before about your strategic plan, that's part of planning. uh setting goals for yourself as a board, setting goals for the district, that's all part of planning. Long range facilities plan, technology plans, that's all part of planning. Um and we know the finances rules everything. Okay? Everything is connected to

033finances. So, you know, you're going to be doing a lot of budget planning. Uh and then appraisal, you do not um evaluate anyone else in the district except for the superintendent. Superintendent is responsible ultimately for evaluating everyone else in the district from the BA, secretaries, everybody. All comes through the superintendent ultimately. So you only have one person. So think of your job as a little lighter. You only have one person that you have to evaluate which is the superintendent. And you have to do that by July one every year otherwise you lose points on QAC. And it also um kind of sends the wrong message to your superintendent that you don't evaluate you don't value her enough that you want to evaluate her on time. It's beneficial for your superintendent to get that feedback from

034you so that she can kind of internalize it and then move forward for that next year in a way that's in compliance with what you guys are seeing in their strengths and and areas that can be grown. Uh the next one is that you will carry out your responsibilities to not administer the schools. In other words, do not get into the day-to-day operations. Do not ask and say this is how I want something done. It's more of this is what I would like to see accomplished, not how how to accomplish it. superintendent is always the one that does the how and that's the daily running of the district. Uh the next one is that you cannot make any personal promises nor take any private action. Example of this would be let's say a community member

035approaches you and says I don't like X Y and Z. Can you fix it? And you say yeah I can fix it. I'm a board member. No you can't. That means you just made a personal promise to them and you're trying to take private action. You as a board can only take action when you're at a public advertised meeting and you have a quorum of the board. Once that happens, then there's a resolution that's before you on the agenda. That's when you take action, not as an individual. And you do not make any personal promises, whether it be to an outside organization, an outside individual, even internal one. You you deal with remember students being your primary one. um you do not surrender your judgment or your actions to any special interest or political group.

036And that happens unfortunately more and more with politics getting involved in public schools and it should not be here. And the reason for that is your special interest groups and your politicians. Sometimes what they're talking about impacts schools, but their focus or main focus is not on the students. Their main focus is on something else. Whatever their special interest or political slant is. So you have to stay focused on the schools. Let them do the politics where they do the politics or the special interest. Let them, you know, do that whole advocating on their own outside of the schools. To me, this is the most important one, which is confidentiality. A board member has to be confidential. You guys receive a lot of information that the public does not receive, and that's as evidenced by

037executive session. the things that you're discussing in executive session that is 100% confidential. It cannot be shared with anybody. That's why when you look at the minutes for executive session, it's kind of bland. It's very, you know, broad in what it says. It doesn't break down into real uh heavy details like the actual minutes. And the reason for that is because it's very confidential. Um and there's 10 different areas that things that can go into executive session. Everything else has to be in public. And same thing that that you know it's in public it's fine. Um but once it's in private or private communication from the superintendent to yourselves that's private. So don't share that. And we've been seeing a lot more of that too where board members receive an email or like a weekly

038update from the superintendent and they'll go post it on social media. That's a confidential uh communication. So you shouldn't be doing that. Uh the next one is you have to appoint the best qualified personnel. and that will be through superintendent recommendation. She will make the recommendation of who uh she thinks is the best person for the position and it's your job to appoint that person. Now, how do you know it's the best qualified one? Because you haven't looked at all the other resumes. It's absolutely correct. Your job is to make sure what was the position, what was the certification that was required. Let's say it's a teaching position. It's a math teaching position. They need a math. Do they have a math? Yes, they do. Okay. you know, are they, you know, certified to teach

039in the state of New Jersey? Yes, they are. Great. Okay, they met the requirements. So, that would be the appropriate best candidate, per se. Uh, superintendent will explain to you if you have questions about a candidate, like what made them rise to the top, you know, what are the things that you really liked about the person, you know, she can share that information with you. She's not going to say, "Well, we didn't like candidate B because candidate B had this." Because now you're getting into the people that you know you guys did not see, nor is she recommending. Okay. Uh the next one is that you will support and protect school personnel. So once again, you do not evaluate anyone else in the district. So your job is not to sit there and go after

040individuals in the school district either. So you're not to say, "Well, I don't like that principal or I don't like that person." because that means in a sense you're evaluating them and that's not your role. Your role is to protect them. Meaning you're not going to interact necessarily with them in that way. You're not going to direct them to do anything because now you're not protecting them. If one of your staff members does something wrong, let's say they get arrested, your best bet is not to say anything, to remain quiet. As my mother always said, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. And that's a good thing to live by. And the reason for that is because there are will be times where staff members do get arrested and if you

041come out and you say, "I can't believe they got arrested. I they're criminal, but whatever." Right there, you have not protected your staff member. Okay? So, even when they've done something wrong, do not comment on it because you could actually be in violation of this code of ethics. Uh, refer all complaints to chief administrative officer. In other words, follow your chain of command. So when you get a complaint in the community, redirect that person to the chain of command, notify the superintendent you received it, and then that's it. It's on superintendent and her team to figure out, you know, what's going to what they're going to do with that complaint. And if you've redirected them to the proper level on the chain of command, which nine times out of 10 is the teacher, it will

042go up the chain if it needs to. If it's not resolved to the satisfaction of the individual, it goes up the chain. So these are cases that are related to the code of ethics. These are ethics complaints. Um, and the first one is interesting because it's a board member felt a staff member personally attacked him at a board meeting. So, he called that staff member's principal. As we all know, when you're sitting at the board table, people do say things to you and about you, and it's not always pleasant. And apparently, in this case, it was a staff member that was getting up in public comment and making a statement. the board member didn't like it. So, they went to try to shut the person down by going to that person's principal and telling make

043them stop. You can't do that. Number one, remember protecting staff members, you you can't you can't go to an administrator in the district and say, "I'm directing you to do this because now you've just violated that. You're running the school. You're not protecting that staff member who had the right to get up and speak." So, um you can't do that. And that person ended up getting censured. Uh the next one was, and this one blows my mind, that there was a board member who wanted the HIV decision to be reversed because it was their child who was the um perpetrator within this case. So, they went around basically trying to convince the other board members to overturn it. If your child is involved in HIV, that's a perfect example of when you would not be

044in executive session. and you would recuse yourself from it and you would not be involved in it at all and you let the other the rest of the board figure out what to do with it whether they, you know, want to affirm it or um flip it or make changes to or whatever it might be. So, no to stay out of it. You're and I don't know how your district does it. Most districts will just do either uh student numbers or they will do um they may say, you know, uh victim or perpetrator, you know, something like that. They generally do not use the students names. So, you might not know that it's your child. Your BA and your superintendent probably will and they'll probably grab you and say, just so you know, it's your

045child that's involved in this one. So, you're going to want to step out. So, don't be offended if they do that. They're actually trying to protect you and they're trying to protect your child and the board. Um, so keep that in mind. And when you I don't know if you've watched um I always forget the name of it. It's the they do it Kathy and Caitlyn from school boards. They're two attorneys and they do it. It's it's like coffee with Catlin Caitlyn or something like that and um I always get the name of it wrong, but they're really informative and they go over recent cases that are popping up and they do that like I think it's three or four times during the year and um you'll see that a lot of the cases are

046HIV cases. So, you know, if you if you get a lot of cases here and you want to be a little more updated on like what's happening in the state, that's a great one to tune into. And it's always recorded. So, if you can't do it when it's actually being uh live cast, then you can actually go to their YouTube channel and and watch the actual session. So, and they're really good attorneys. Um, this is a case where a board member took inappropriate action that was beyond the role of the board member. they actually um were trying to protect a staff member and so they the staff member was going to be talked about in executive session and so they actually went and got a letter and when they delivered it to the superintendent they

047actually gave it to the BA and they said do not share it with the superintendent. You can't do that. First of all, you can't go to a staff member's house to get a letter. Secondly, you can't exclude the superintendent from that process. if some information was given to you, you need to share it with the superintendent. And by going to the BA instead, you've actually gone to the next person in charge underneath the superintendent and you really circumventing the superintendent and their role. So, you can't do things like that. Um, this is an a recorded endorsement video. If you have that, that might be a case that you want to look at. If um you're involved in any kind of recording endorsing another board member, that's a really good case to look at to see

048if there's any similarities. So, we have a recusal and abstension. A recusal means that you're not permitted to um vote on an agenda item because you have a conflict of interest. So, it means that even if you wanted to, you can't. And it sends that message to your community that it's not that you're abstaining from you're just not voting on it. You're not allowed to vote on it. Um an abstension means you don't have enough information. Too often we're seeing where board board board members when it's a really contentious uh agenda item, they don't want to be involved in it, so they say, "I'm abstaining." Well, remember, abstaining means not that you're trying to avoid the vote. It means you don't have enough information. So, if you have enough information, but you just don't want

049to vote, then you really should be voting on it. Even though you don't want to vote, that's part of what your job is. Okay? So, you abstain, you don't have enough information. Perfect example, you weren't at this last board meeting and they're approving the minutes for this board meeting. That's a perfect time to abstain. You weren't here. You don't know exactly what happened. Um, and recusal is more if you are conflicted. These are just a list of prohibited acts that if you're um if you're a school official and any of these things pop up, these would be examples of when you would should probably recuse yourself. Um, if you're not sure, once again, reach out to your board attorney, ask him or her and say, you know, should is this something I should recuse myself

050for? Is it a prohibited act? Uh, benefits. A lot of times board members will say, "Yeah, um, this not whatever this agenda item is, it's not really a benefit to me. I know it's not a benefit to me." That may be true, but you also have to think about what is the perception out there. So, it's the reality of the benefit, but it's also will your community perceive it as being a potential benefit to you. If it's either one of those, that would be a case then you should probably recuse yourself from. So, these are just two uh conflict benefit cases similar to what I just talked about. And this is a list of relationship definitions. Um, I I'm going to be handing out in a minute uh a little packet, a three-page packet which

051has um the list of relatives. So, if you have a relative working in the district, you can kind of look at that list and it will give you an idea of the things where it might potentially create a conflict for you. As much as we love our relatives, they're also the ones that create the biggest problems for us as board members. Um, so keep that in mind. So, hiring personnel, you as a board member, you may not hire one of your relatives after you're a seated board member. If they're already working in the district, that's totally fine. But once you become a board member, if all of a sudden, you know, your child graduates, you know, college and they're get their teaching certification, a position opens up here, they apply here, you you can't vote

052them in. They can't actually even go to a position here. The only exception to that is if it's a really really difficult to fill position and I always use school nurses the example because they're they are hard to find. If your relative is the only person that applied for the position and they haven't been able to get anyone else, that's when your superintendent can reach out to the executive county superintendent and make a request for a one-time waiver. The executive county superintendent will give her guidance on how to proceed doing that. They may ask her to readvertise the position or they may say, "Okay, you know, that's fine. you can hire that person, but it would be a one-time uh waiver for it. So, it doesn't mean like every time something comes up, you can

053automatically do that. It's it doesn't happen very often. Let's put it that way. So, this is a a chart that's um pretty handy that tells you whether you might be conflicted with negotiations if and the first line is if you have an immediate family member that works in the district. So, you got on the board, your family member already works here, and they're in a um a union within the district. And once again, this is why there's a yes, no there in the second column. If they're in a non-aligned position, it might also create that problem for you because of what we said before on that other case. That will cause you to not be able to participate in negotiations and not be able to vote to ratify the contract. If you are a board

054member and you do not have anyone working in this district, but they work in another district where they're underneath the contract, like a teachers contract or administrator's contract, that once again could create a conflict for you and you won't be able to participate in negotiations. However, you will be able to vote to ratify the contract most likely. And people say, well, you know, they're not here, so why does that matter? It does because and I'll use NJ as an NJA as an example or even PSA, they will look at settlement rates of schools and districts across the state. And so when they enter into negotiations, they will say, "Hey, look at what this district settled for." So if you're on this negotiating team and and you get a really good contract here, even though your

055relatives works in another district, that district will look at this district and say they had a good settlement. So when they go to negotiate, your family member could potentially benefit from what you settled here. So that's why you're you're not allowed to be involved in negotiations. But the reason why you can vote to ratify the contract is because guess what? All the terms and conditions were already decided. So you're just voting yes or no, whichever way you feel. And then if you don't have a relative that works in this district or another district, you are the lucky candidate to be part of negotiations. You can not only vote for uh the contract, but you can actually participate in negotiations. And I I shared that there's a district I I'm working with that has four brand

056new board members that are the only ones that are not conflicted out of the nine. So they that is their negotiations team. So they're brand new all one all first year. So hopefully you're not in that situation. So I actually just did a session with them on negotiations. So this is just a slide on campaigns. If once again if you receive um financial contributions it could create a problem for you where you might not be able to be involved in anything related to negotiations for the first year. And then this is uh cases and we've had this case I think last year too where we brought it and it was interesting because I actually just presented um like a couple weeks ago in the district where the first two were and they're still bitter about

057it just so you know. But it's where you have a board president who has a child who works in the district who is an instructional assistant. As a result, the advisory opinion was that they cannot be participating in personnel matters, negotiations, instructional, which is like curriculum instruction or finance. So, they can't be on any of those committees. And because they're the board president, they also are not allowed to appoint any board members to committees, which is one of the roles of the board president. So, that had to go to the vice president. um in that same district they had another board member um whose spouse works in the technology department. Well, that ended up creating an issue for them where they're not allowed to um be involved in anything to do with obviously their spouse

058but personnel matters negotiations andor finance. And then the last one is a case where um a board member's domestic partner was a transportation specialist in the district and that meant that they had to remove themselves from anything to do with transportation if they had a transportation committee or any vote on anything to do with transportation. So this is advice of council defense. So sometimes uh when a board member gets into hot water, they'll say, "Yeah, but I follow the advice of my attorney, so it's not my fault. It's the attorney's fault." Well, if you look at numbers one through four, that's basically the four-prong uh test to see if you can actually use that defense. And what that means is that um if you look at the first one, approval or advice was received prior

059to the action. Meaning, you as a board member can't do something wrong and then turn to the board attorney and say, "Hey, can I do this?" Because you already did it wrong. Second one is the individual who actually gave you the advice was actually allowed to give you the advice. In other words, sometimes board members will say, "But I got advice from an attorney." An attorney and your board attorney are two different things. You have to get advice from your board attorney. Okay? That's the only person that can defend you. Yes, you're welcome to go and seek advice from another attorney, but ultimately you will have to follow the advice of your board attorney. And then the third one was all pertinent facts and circumstances are fully disclosed. In other words, you got to give

060the full picture. So, when you're discussing it with the board attorney, you have to tell him or her all the facts of the case, you can't leave anything out. If you leave something out, remember, they're making their legal opinion based upon the information you provided them. If you haven't given them everything, then if they knew everything, their opinion might have been different. And then the last one is that the individual has to comply with the advice received. In other words, if the attorney says to you, "Don't get involved in this or do get involved in this," and you do the opposite, you can't say it's that person's fault. it's still your fault because you didn't follow their advice. So, you have to follow all four of those if you're going to use that defense. This

061is just volunteering in school. Once again, if you're going to volunteer in school, which is great if you do, um just be careful about how involved you are. And also be careful about if the whatever position you're involved in that you're not in a position where you're directing anyone within the district that works here and that you're not handling money. Stay away from the money. Don't sell the hot dogs in the uh you know the snack shack or anything like that. Let that be some you can sell it but just don't handle the money. Um this is just cases where it's looking at volunteering for in schools. Um you can click on those as well. Social media as we know social media is the toughest one. Everyone complains about social media but yet it's out

062there. Um, basically as a board member, you have to be very careful about what you post on social media that has anything to do with what happens with board business. If it when the SEC gets a complaint, they will look at the content of what you posted. They will look at the substance of what you're posting and the context of what you're posting. They also do have a recommendation for a disclaimer. Um, but just because you use the disclaimer doesn't mean that you can still post anything you want and get away with it and say, "Hey, but yeah, but I used the disclaimer." No, it's actually the content is probably more uh powerful and can cause the bigger problem than using or not using the disclaimer. Okay? Your best practice is to steer away from

063any social media postings that have to do with board business. if it's definitely if it's executive session and even if it's public this is just some Q&As's that people will ask um so you can read those at your leisure and then this is um some general guidance for social media um we're finding that board members are you leveraging uh social media be you know when they're running for a board position they'll leverage some of the social media websites and they'll create campaign pages and all of that and you run on a platform you say when I get to be a board member. I'm going to do whatever whatever it is that you think you're going to do. You run them that campaign. Once you get on the board, you should no longer use that that

064social media page. And the reason for that is because everything that you made as a claim before people can read that and say, "Oh, that's the view of the whole board. The whole board feels that way." So, you need to shut that down or not shut it down, but you just don't post on it anymore. You don't use it. Um, the same thing is if you are not posting on the page, but you're the administrator of the page. And you're seeing this a lot more with politics where somebody is involved, you know, with a political group, but they're not posting on the page, but they're the one that administers it. And then all these posts come in and they say something, let's say they say something about board business, because that does happen. Maybe it's

065taxes within the town. That's a big one right now. um because you're an administrator of it, you could be held as if you had posted that as well. So, be careful. If you're an administrator of a page, even though you're not posting on it, you can still get into trouble. And that's it. Questions? All right, that was good. Thank you. Thank you. Did you get your epics training relationship there? How are you? >> Good. How are you? >> Good, thank you. >> No, you're good. >> Great. Thank you so much. Mr. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Tian. Have a wonderful evening. Um, as indicated earlier in our program, um, I would like to welcome our assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. Yes, absolutely. Your preference. >> Okay, sounds good. All right. Um, and um,

066Miss McCann is going to give us an update on our endofear wrapup to our 2024 2025 goals. And uh you may recall back in February she provided us with the midyear. So at this point I'd like to turn all attention to Miss McCann. >> Thank you Dr. Hanahan. Good evening. Um I am pleased to present the endofear update for the 2425 district goals. Our district work this year has been centered around five strategic goals um centered around academic excellence, wellness, engagement, fiscal responsibility, and communication. Each goal reflects our commitment to empowering students and supporting our entire learning community to promote personalized and rigorous learning experiences. The district focused on enhancing instructional programs, strengthening data use, and supporting educators through professional development. At the elementary level, foundational literacy instruction was bolstered with the expansion of the

067magnetic reading lit literacy portfolio, win periods, and a pilot math program in grades four and five, which led to an adoption of new resources for the 2526 school year. Narrative writing task, revised report cards, and ESL pullout programs were implemented alongside accessibility tools such as the read and write Google extension. Secondary schools reviewed world language offerings, adopted new math curricula, amplified Desmos and Reveal math, and introduced AP research and dual credit courses with Stockton University. Scheduling changes were made at the intermediate SK school and grading policy revisions were made across grades four through 12. Professional development activities included math pilot training, ELA vertical articulation and science item analysis. Teachers also received targeted support through curriculum development meetings, the letters cohort, and training on instructional tools and data analysis platforms such as linkit. Datadriven instruction was

068important to this goal as well with common assessments and benchmarks used across subjects and grade levels. Staff were trained to interpret data and apply insights to small groupoup instruction, curriculum planning, and interventions. The district's wellness goal was addressed through the implementation or continued implementation of the seven mindsets, a research-based K to2 program that promotes emotional intelligence, resilience, and character development. Monthly professional development sessions for counselors, teachers, and support staff ensured the integration of the mindsets across all grade levels and content areas. Students participated in themed activities, webinars, and leadership roles through programs such as the mindset mentors. The district enhances post vvention response by revising crisis manage management procedures and training staff and traumainformed practices. School and district-based crisis and threat assessments teams participated in targeted workshops to ensure preparedness and consistent implementmentation of protocols.

069A coordinated support system addressed academic, emotional, and health related needs through INRS team meetings, counseling services, base restorative practices, and partnerships with community organizations. Events such as mental health awareness month, vaping prevention programming, and community workshops reflect our holistic approach to student and family well-being. Wall Township prioritized student, family, and community engagement to foster belonging and purpose. At the elementary level, students participated in cultural celebrations, assemblies, and service projects, while the secondary students benefited from programs like Rise and Unified Sports, which expanded to include more competitions and student athlete involvement. Family engagement was supported through academic nights, transition events, and CPAD presentations. Programs such as Read Across Wall and Passport to the World promoted cultural literacy and community collaboration. Parent outreach efforts were strengthened through consistent communication, inclusive surveys, and strategic partnerships with the PTO's

070and local agencies. Goal four focuses on maintaining fiscal responsibility while improving our facilities. The district focused on overseeing our referendum 2022 projects. Construction and renovation efforts have been carried out at multiple schools including roofing upgrades, HVAC installations, and interior renovations. Progress was monitored through frequent meetings with architects and contractors and stakeholders were updated via board meetings and district website postings. The district also began planning significant upgrades to Wall High School's athletic facilities through site visits, stakeholder collaboration, and finalizing design specifications. Demographic studies were used to assess facility needs related to enrollment trends while plans were initiated to create a centralized support services complex for transportation operations and administration. Effective communication was the foundation of goal five. This year we launched our new final site website and continued our use of digital platforms including social media,

071s'mores and the wellness in the works newsletter. We continue to build relationships through community workshops, parent meetings and updates for our superintendent and princ from our superintendent and principles. And internally, we held regular administrative meetings, weekly department updates, and monthly grade level and department meetings to keep our staff aligned and informed. As a district, we have taken a comprehensive and intentional approach to achieving our 2425 district goals. The success of this school year reflects our shared commitment to students, staff, and families. We continue to foster a nurturing, inclusive, and forwardthinking educational environment that supports the growth and success of all stakeholders. We have a document that has all of our specific details. Chris, how do I click on it? >> No, I want the community to know. There will be a document that outlines all

072of the specific details of each of the goals and more of the activities that were mentioned um that will be posted on the website. Chris, can you scroll? Keep going. There we go. So you'll notice the goal is written at the top and our initiatives are on the side and all of our evidence and activities of what we have done in order to meet those initiatives um are listed there for each and every goal um based off of the summary that I just provided. Can you click out? Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? No questions. All right. Thank you. >> My pleasure. >> Okay. For the next segment, we can return to our original seats and we'll get started as soon as uh we're seated. If you need to grab some water, please do.

073Okay, the next segment is to um it's an opportunity for the board of education and administrators to start to flesh out some of our proposed goals and supportive activities for next year. This is an activity that um not only does it involve the full board like uh like this evening, it also involves a great deal of committee work. And following this evening, we will be um taking our thoughts and feedback into committee for the month of September. And our goal is to have our district goals all ready um all defined and ready to go and to have the board of education approve these uh 2526 goals at our September board of education meeting. So um our district goals have been shaped by our strategic plan. So the strategic plan for I think the last couple

074years really the root is f based off of five core goals and each and each goal and each year we have different supporting activities. Some supporting activities will straddle more than one calendar year. So um let's begin our conversation. Miss McCand did you want to start off with our >> Sure. >> Goals. goals one. These are again proposed and this is u the intention is really to have an open dialogue. So feel free to while we're in each of the separate goals to u ask questions um add comments, thoughts, feedback. So we'll start. >> Um so as Dr. Henry mentioned, we're in the third year of our plan. Um, and I hope as I expressed or you had the option to look through the document, there are a number of um, steps and action steps

075that we have already completed from a curriculum and instruction standpoint. Um, so moving into the upcoming school year, a lot of it is maintenance um, of some of the things that we have cha we have um, revised and changed over the past two school years. Um but what we are looking to do in the upcoming school year, we do have the new math program as I just mentioned. Um so ensuring that we continue to support our fourth and fifth grade teachers in the implementation of those no resources as well as start piloting some resources in grades K to three um to see which direction they may want to go. um as well as um ensure that our win period um and our strategy group times continue to be used effectively as outlined in our elementary

076schedule. um uh in utilizing our district grade level leaders, utilizing them more for professional development and when they meet with their grade levels doing what we're calling a learning lift where they'll have a particular concept that they're going to be providing professional development to their entire grade level. um at our world language department in K to5 continuing to look at the articul the vertical alignment of how we're implementing Spanish within our curriculum and resources to support them in their um implementation of the curriculum as well as starting a couple of new resources um at the uh preschool level as well as um at the kindergarten level of hand-to-minding our Sunday program down to the preschool and ensuring a smooth transition and implementation of the read and write accessibility tool. Although we did use it last

077year, it was for a targeted and piloted group of students. So expanding the opportunity for more students with that. At the secondary level, we are looking to um look at our world language department specifically and how we are doing our core sequencing for Spanish, French and Latin. Um looking at the exam options for SEAL by literacy, which is an assessment that we do provide to our students. Um but there are multiple assessments that we're able to use that meet the NJ DOE requirements. So just making sure that we are using the one that best suits our students. The implementation of our math program at the middle school and at the high school level. Again, they just adopted new resources as well. So ensuring our teachers are re receiving the appropriate support in implementation implementing those

078programs. Um, and then receiving uh stakeholder feedback and ensuring that the middle school schedule, as you all know, is changing for the upcoming school year. We've made some revisions to that schedule. So, making sure that we're in constant communication with those stakeholders to receive feedback, see what support they need, and make sure that they are comfortable with the changes that have been made. Um, at the high school level, oh jeez, we have a lot happening there as well. We have a whole new set of computer science elective courses that we're implementing there that are supported by the computer science grant um looking to implement some STEM events next school year um for the community to participate in. um as well as the AP capstone program for students who obtain the AP diploma with the addition

079of AP research as a course offering at the high school. um looking to make sure that our in using our data from NJGPA and NJSLA, making sure that our writing rubrics are all aligned in 9 through 12 and we are all using the same terminology across those grade levels. Um continuing to expand our NNDCC and NJOTC program. um monitoring our enrollment and our dual enrollment courses and trying to expand the number of students who are participating in that program. Um using that read and write accessibility tool across 6 through 12 and also starting to research some CTE opportunities, career technical technical education opportunities for the high school students. um and then also forming a committee at the intermediate level um to establish some criteria for academic recognition. Um in terms of best practices, continuing to

080use data to drive our instruction. Um making sure that we're utilizing our intervention programs appropriately and providing those tier one, tier 2, tier three supports to students. um providing PD on any of our new resources that are coming into play and also ensuring that our ML teachers or and any teacher who has an ML student is receiving the appropriate training of SEI which is sheltered um sheltered English instruction training um for all of those teachers as well. In terms of our initiative for supporting our data analysis, continuing to use our platform of linkit which houses all of our data at the elementary level. This is the first year the teachers are going to be dabbling in that platform to see all of the data. Last year we perfor we provided it for them. This year

081they're going to be going in themselves and starting to access it on a regular basis in order to drive their instruction and continuing to use it at the secondary level for conversations in their team meetings, curriculum development meetings, and their department meetings. um in terms of triangulating a lot of the data that is in there and housed in there as well as continuing to take their common assessments, benchmark assessments, andor midterms or finals on the platform. At the district level, the special ed department will be conducting a thorough data review in preparation for their state monitoring that's coming. and we would it would behoove us if we didn't continue to look at our attendance data given our chronic absenteeism. Um and also continuing to monitor our student behavior data. So that's next year in a

082nutshell >> for goal one. >> Any questions? >> Just uh can you give us any little uh an update on the the current number? How many students are taking advantage of the dual enrollment courses and how many dual enrollment courses do we currently have? >> So, we have 18 dual enrollment courses. I don't have the number of students off the top of my head. We did discuss it in CNI a couple of months ago, but I don't remember the number right now, but I could get that for you. >> But, but it's a good number of students, right? >> Yes, it's a good number of students. Um we were there are some courses that have better enrollment than others. Um so we're looking to make sure in the upcoming school year that not only do

083the students know that they're enrolled in a dual enrollment course, but so do the parents. Um so in working with Mr. Davis and Miss Misa at the high school and talking about ways in which prior to the school year to let parents know that their student is enrolled in a dual enrollment course and if they have any questions. I believe the representative from Stockton University will be joining us on back to school night in order for them to meet with the representative to ask them questions at that moment and then meet with their teachers for back to school night and get a better idea as to what the requirements would look like. And have we have any did any of LA our graduating seniors from this past year have they participated or was the program

084available to only students before last year senior? >> No, our graduating seniors there they had the opportunity to participate. Yes. >> Okay. Thanks. Anything else? >> Are we ready for number two? >> Sure. >> Let's keep going. Um so goal number two is our wellness goal and um Miss Steiner has done an amazing job in her preparation of entering into year three. Um and with that again we're all sort of in a spot where it's um just maintaining a lot of what was already put into place and maybe tweaking a couple of things. So from a K12 comprehensive researched um based program, we all know our program is seven mindsets. So that will continue to be implemented in the upcoming school year. at the elementary level. We'll we will continue with the mentor um mindset

085mentors as well as incorporate the seven mindsets as one of several resources that will be used in order to implement our morning meetings at the elementary level. Um, in addition to that, there will be continue to be um student and staff uh professional development conversations about the program as well as for the community. Um, we'll continue to roll out some restorative practices at the elementary level. In fact, our staff just our principles just received a PD today on restorative practices and what that looks like and how that aligns to the seven mindsets and what resources we have available for us in order to do that. Um and then at the um intermediate level, again, it's very similar to what we're doing at the elementary level with incorporating a um advisory period into all of the

086schedules at the intermediate school once a week um where we will continue to work on mental health and student wellness and use multiple resources for implementing those lessons. And again, when there are is a need for a restorative practice due to student behavior, that will be put into place as well as at the high school. Okay. When we get to postvention response systems, we've done a lot of work in terms of ensuring that we have our crisis teams in place, our threat assessments teams in place, and one of the resources we do use in district is the lifelines trilogy, which is supported by the New Jersey Department of Education, and that is implemented in grades 5, 7, 9, and 11. that will continue. Um, as well as ensuring that we continue our community partnerships and

087work with our school-based crisis management teams on a regular basis and continue to um ensure that they know what their roles are and when they're needed and the process and procedures that we have in the district. Um in terms of our last initiative with the wellness, it's really aligned to our in arrest process. Um, Miss Steiner and the INR arrest teams um, two years ago had worked on creating a manual for the INRS teams um, which we now have in place that is used with all of our guidance and procedures of what they need to do on a regular basis. Our INRS teams meet multiple times at least once a month um, throughout the the school year. Um, and those teams are responsible for not only looking at a student from a academic standpoint, but

088also from a behavioral standpoint and putting plans in place to ensure that all of our students are getting the supports and services that they need um and whether they're meeting their goals. They set realistic realistic goals for those students and then they also um provide them multiple supports throughout the course of the day to ensure that they're meeting those goals and they um want to make sure that the students are getting everything they they need and if they need more we make sure that they get that as well. Um and I think that's pretty much it. Dr. your hand. >> It's a full list for goal two. So, any questions on goal two this far we are? >> Yeah, I can hear you. >> I can't see you, but I can hear you. >> Um,

089something referral >> intervention and referral services. I totally blanked on the eye. I knew the rest. Sure. So when um when you think of restorative, right, it's it's more of instead of there always being a punitive consequence for a student. It's more of working with them for them to understand what it is that they did wrong and providing them with support to write the wrong. Um, so there's sometimes it's just a conversation of them acknowledging their inappropriate behavior and having that conversation with the student that they may have delivered that to. Other times it could be um going through a counseling session with one of their the counselors or their CST member and having that conversation of what could we have done differently in this situation instead of always giving them a punitive um consequence.

090Yeah, I'd just like to add too with the restorative the the goal we've we've looked a lot at our data with respect to uh student co uh conduct and um you know we do have some you know some repeat behaviors um with individuals. So, um really the overarching goal is to really take the these opportunities to work with the students in um you know in a for lack of a better word discipline context and um you know really work on developing changes um in the behavior that's not >> well the it's really a districtwide because we we've looked at some of our internal data and we're uh so much has gone on individually. Now it's about identifying it u really galvanizing our program and bringing in additional resources, additional training so that um you know

091that >> we can be we as administrators can be as effective as we can possibly be too. So, um, and there's also, um, an teacher component to this, but, uh, primarily right now we're working on, um, you know, our student code of conduct practices >> and this is, this doesn't replace consequences. No, >> there certainly there are still, just so people would know, >> there still are consequences for us. >> There are still consequences. >> Sometimes, you know, if you want to even use the word punishment, that's still available, right, for us to use. >> It's alive and well, >> just so we know. Yes. So in their code of conduct it says like if it's this infraction this is this is the consequence but making sure that there's some type of conversation in between

092so they start to possibly change and think before they do that behavior so they don't have to receive the consequence in its entirety sometimes. So essentially, we're taking the code of conduct um I guess chart that would be in a student handbook, adding another column to it and really galvanizing our counseling component in an effort to um you know uh lessen repeat behaviors. >> Is this more of an organic growth or is it a reaction to trends? >> No, I'd say it's an organic growth. Restorative practices have been around for a long time. Um, and to answer Marin's uh question, we were doing it in pockets in isolation and we you would probably hear Miss Bond or Tiffany within our sessions sometimes say, "No, we've done some restorative practice or the counselor had a restorative

093meeting. We've been doing it. We just want to make sure that everybody understands what um practices should align with certain actions and that everybody across the board is doing something along the in a similar manner. >> Yeah. And just to give an example um if a stu u across the nation vaping is an issue um part of the restorative practices that we have been doing consequences and that type of a thing. So, it's really um it's it's really u beefing up the educational component with that on why on the why >> I can hear What measurement? So um there's been lots of conversation around different ways in which we could do that that has come up um a a couple of times in terms of um how are we measuring the effectiveness um Miss Steiner

094and I and Dr. Handerhan have had conversations. Um, one way in which we were considering doing it which is a um qualitative is more of a student survey. So within each of the units and within each of the mindsets, there is a pre and post type of survey that goes along with it for the students to take um in terms of some very simple questions at the beginning of the unit and then at the end of that mindset as well so we could gauge some information that way. um we were leaning more towards that for this particular upcoming school year um in term for us to know how the students were reacting to the program. >> Yeah, welcome. >> Um I'd also like to add for probably um in because it really does echo um

095the restorative um elements to the discipline. We are truly analyzing our discipline uh referrals. So this I'm looking forward to seeing where actually the next June see where we are from a discipline context because we would have been implementing um some of the restorative practices which are aligned with uh seven mindsets to see all right are there less um you know less um you know bullying behaviors. Um I will say that um we did a small project or I shouldn't say we um one of our elementary principles will be reporting out on some of the data that he um that almost a pilot that he ran within his building that will speak to actual um number and datas with respect to the effects of a buildingwide really and in the elementary world the K5 um

096focus on um really the um impact of seven mindsets. So, we will actually have the data that will be coming up um actually at a meeting pretty soon. >> You're welcome. >> Okay. I'm the lucky one that gets to do role number three as well. So, >> I'll be getting you a water so you can take a break when Mr. Smite's up for number four. Okay. >> I'm going to take a walk. [Laughter] >> You're more than welcome. Would you like to do goal number three? >> Okay. >> Um so goal number three is centered around um student strengthening engagement and expanding opportunities for our students and for parents and community. Um so in let's talk about student engagement first. So specifically at the elementary level, some of the conversations that we had with um

097our administrative team that they felt were important around um strengthening student engagement. They feel the the lead picnic and the fun and fitness day um is important for providing the students to that um from all four elementary schools to come together and interact with each other prior to getting to WIS um or to the intermediate school um so that they do tend to have uh a friendly face if they didn't know someone from a different school. Um, in addition to that, working closely with the PTO's to sponsor and present events for students in the school and the community. Um, and our grade, it should say grade level, grade level leaders will be providing um, four parent nights um, in this upcoming school year. Um, regarding high school students go down to intermediate or high school

098students go down to elementary and do an activity and all the way down to primary and vice versa. um as we've talked about before um in um getting ourselves involved in the 250th anniversary of the United States. Last month at our board meeting, we had our student who won the poetry contest. And there are a number of other activities and events that we have planned for the upcoming school year for the schools to be involved in within the community and within um some state activities. Um establish possibly maybe an elementary extracurricular committee. Um, some of the feedback we have gotten when we started this three years ago was that there weren't many extracurricular school activities for students to participate in. Um, so what does that look like at the elementary level? What type of activities

099were they looking for? Um, so maybe creating a a committee where we can get some feedback and stakeholder uh information as to what that looks like. Um, and then also um I already mentioned it, but that collaborative extracurricular case development engagement. So, in order to expand our opportunities for the families and for our community, um, uh, we have our CPAD meetings that Miss Bond runs as well as eliciting support from our PTOs for neurodeiversity week. um continuing the district's outreach and developing relationships with key community groups and stakeholders. Um in terms of we've had a number of community events where people within foundations within the uh community have supported us in family nights. Um and then researching practices to identify opportunity for improvement in the students daily experiences um and school culture within the buildings.

100>> Okay. Thank you. I was just going to ask and then this might fall under this but certainly we're doing a lot of work in the schools and Mr. Smith has been doing a great job taking the board, the at least the finance and facilities committee to the various schools. Uh, as part of this goal, might it be uh something that we would consider doing to have, you know, uh, open invite the public in to see all all the work that's been done, you know, the especially the improvements to, uh, the uh, arts areas. Uh, and we'd also like, you know, I'm sure that at some point the intermediate school kids come over and we want to keep our intermediate school kids as best we can, uh, in the district. And I think showing them

101what we have, the facilities that we will be having shortly. All right. Certainly could go a long way perhaps in in, you know, encouraging some of those kids to stay. you know, they want we want they parents want to do what is best for them, but we want to give them the option to show that maybe our option is best for them. >> So, Okay. Any questions, comments, feedbacks on gold goal three? Okay. And as promised, I will be providing you with some water. U Miss McCain. Okay. But at this po point, um it is my pleasure to ask, um Mr. SM to provide us an update on some of our proposed activities to support goal number four which is in the domain of finance and facilities. And so goal number four uh p practice

102fiscal responsibility while maintaining facilities for student learning in the 21st century uh which includes clear and accurate reporting to the stakeholders. So, we have our three strategies and that's supervision of the design, bidding, and uh construction of the referendum. Uh, and we're in our third year of the referendum project. We are in full swing. We're doing about looking to complete about $40 million worth of uh construction this summer. Uh, and the majority of it will be completed by the end of August. uh some work will continue uh into the school year but we are maintaining uh job meetings on a weekly basis. We are working with four separate contractors uh with contracts that range from uh one has a little over $4 million contract. Two has two contractors have contracts in the area of 10

103million and we have one contract uh with preferred mechanical which is mainly the high school and central school that is in the area of $18 million. Um so we are working with the architect and the contractors to manage those pro projects. We provide the updates on a monthly basis on the uh to the FNF committee and as well on the website as well as the financial status. Uh we have our custodial account with Mnt Bank. Um and we report monthly on the spending with regard to the referendum funds. Uh additional pro those are the projects that are in construction. As far as the bidding, we have the athletic improvements at the high school, which we are receiving bids next Tuesday, August 12th, with the goal to be awarding at the board meeting in August with

104construction to start in December. Uh we are also have one other project out to design uh currently in design that will be bidding in the fall and that is roofing work that was not completed because we were waiting for some of the mechanical work to be um completed. We've already done two roofing projects. So, in essence, all of the roofing in the school district will be um will be new roofing or refurbished new roofing. Uh we have a couple sections that again, we waited for mechanical work to be completed completed this summer. Uh and we'll be putting that out the bid uh in the fall for work to be done next summer. Uh so that's under the uh first strategy with regard to the referendum projects. As far as analyzing our our existing facilities uh

105and projecting for enrollments, the district as reported for 2425 completed our demographic study. Uh we are using that study to compare actual enrollments to the prior projections and the projections that are put forth for the next five years. We are evaluating our existing uh facilities, their capacity and how those facilities are being util utilized which determines the uh capacity and then we're uh considering alternatives uh or options to address uh any enrollment issues that we may have in any of our uh school facilities. Um lastly uh the third strategy based on a district goal is to provide adequate uh facilities for our district support services which includes you know central administration uh but primarily our student transportation and our operations department which includes maintenance and custodial. Um we uh have continued and will continue into

1062526 looking at uh viable locations or sites or potential sites for uh its applicability for our needs for those support services. Uh we continue to investigate uh fi uh fi financial opportunities finances in order to be able to fund uh the development of such a facility for for the district. uh that works in conduct in conjunction with the high school athletic improvement plan. We have our phase one uh again that we're taking bids next week. Uh but you know we master plan the entire site and that master plan requires the existing operations facility and where we do our bus maintenance uh to be removed from the high school campus in order for us to uh complete those athletic improvements. So that's motivation for us to find that alternative location for our support support services. So

107again, we're looking uh at financing op opportunities both within the district. We have a capital reserve account. Uh we're currently finishing up the 2425 school year. We align transfers at the end of the school year to uh be able to fund our capital reserve account, which we've done over the last few years uh with with these projects in mind. uh as well as our uh maintenance reserves so that we can uh continue to maintain the Phil facilities uh that we're constructing. But we will work with the municipality with regard to affordable housing and we'll compare uh what's been projected within the demographic study with what's actually happening um you know within the township and and again evaluate our existing facilities and what adjustments we need to make to uh accommodate the future enrollments. Any questions?

108Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Uh, goal number five, I'll speak to u, as uh, certainly the board is aware and many members of our community is aware, we uh, had to switch our uh, platforms uh, this past school year to um, a different uh, website platform. So, uh, there was a lot of work that was done behind the scenes, and we're super excited because some of, um, some of the action steps that we want to take to support goal number five, our communications goal, is to incorporate an AI chat box onto our website so that we can aid u families, community members, uh, we can aid them into finding um, the information. uh sometimes it's no matter how hard we try uh you know sometimes it's a treasure hunt trying to find something

109on our website. So we're really excited about the implementation of our AI chat box so that we can try to streamline the process and get the information to the community members and to the families as quickly as possible. So we're super excited about moving forward with that. and also uh we're looking to also um work on providing our community and families with an app. So, uh to manage all of the happenings that are going on in our school district. So, um you know, there's a communications we're never it's it's a goal that will never be done. We always have to continue to improve and to refine. And um you know, we're just excited that we do have some tangible things that we've been working on to share with our community for this year. So um

110again, it is um you know, we're excited to grow. We're excited to move forward. Um as we wrap up this evening, I do I board members, you have all of our proposed activities, you have our proposed goals um and strategies. Um if you uh please I welcome you to um review it at your leisure. Uh come up with ideas you know write them down because th this will be um you know updating our goals will be an agenda item at all of our committee meetings. So if you have you know what typically happens to me is after you know you know when I go home or I might take a shower all of a sudden I have a great idea. Um, that seems to happen a lot. Two o'clock in the morning, I have my

111pad. You know, this might be a little too much information, but 2 am I have my nightstand pad. So, there's a lot of good stuff on that pad. But, um, so please, um, jot it down and, um, you know, because we would love to talk about it certainly a lot more. And, uh, you know, sometimes, you know, we're we're in it. We're, you know, we're in it every single day. um in meaning um WTPS sometimes we really we truly benefit from um a different lens and different perspective. So please um you know write down those 2 am ideas and uh we look forward to talking about them at our September meetings and they're coming up quickly. Holy cow. Wall Township enjoy the final weeks of summer. Please Mr. Maliff, I'm going to turn this back

112to you. >> Uh thank you Dr. Dr. Hender. I want to thank uh Dr. Handerhan and Mr. McCann uh Mr. Smite for uh the reports on the the current goals and also uh for uh putting together some very uh uh worthy uh goals for uh for the upcoming school year. Uh and from what I see, Mr. Alworth, you're going to be involved in quite a quite a number of these. So, thank you in advance for what uh for what you're going to be doing. Uh are there any other uh comments from any other board members? Mr. Buffer? >> Thank you, Mr. President. Um yes, so looking at the goals for uh 2526, I I would think that this is really ambitious and um if we didn't have the first presentation, I'd be uh a little

113more hesitant to believe that we would be able to accomplish them. But um the first presentation and the things that were accomplished by the administration um and the the district as a whole was very impressive. So, thank you for reporting out on that, Miss McCann. Um and then I just um there's a lot of great goals for the upcoming school year and um I'm I'm really looking forward to to how we do throughout that process. So, thank you very much. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Buffer. Uh at this time I'm going to ask for uh a motion to adjurnn. Mr. Baritin, Miss Bier second. All in favor? >> Any opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you.