001Good evening everyone. I call to order a meeting of the Wong Burough School District um the board of education. It is February 19th at 7 p.m. Uh let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome to a meeting of the board of education of the Bureau of Wong. Please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act chapter 231 laws of 1975 and that the advanced notice required therein has been provided. This is a regular meeting of the board of education of the bureau of watching at which formal action may
002be taken. This meeting is being livereamed on the district website where a recording of the meeting also will be posted. The public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda at points in the meeting provided for the public to address the board. Recording or photographing other than for private personal use requires the consent of parents and guardians whose children may be included in the image. Can we have a roll call? Mrs. Alearo >> here. >> Mrs. Amado >> here. >> Mr. Desaniano >> here. >> Mrs. Harvey. >> Mr. Craft >> here. >> Mrs. Maddox >> here. >> Mrs. Marcellis >> here. >> Mrs. Santos >> here. >> Mr. Durka >> here. >> Thank you. >> Okay. First up, we have a finance and budget presentation from Katherine Purier from the NJSBA.
003>> I'm going to sit up there. You don't have nice to see everybody again. Thanks for having me. So, I know it felt like I was just here doing norms and you all did a great job. So, I hope that's all been going well for you. Uh, tonight we're going to talk about the board's role and in finance and budget development because as board members, you are kind of in budget season. Last time I did this presentation, I made the point that your BA, their budget season's like 365 247. basically they're always thinking about the school budget, but right now you're going to be really in the thick of going over, reviewing, and approving your budget um over the next couple of months. So, your budget, first thing to know about your budget, it's all
004about students. um that is your first priority, providing your students with a free and appropriate education that they're entitled to and making sure that your your finances are able to support that for all of your students. So, and again, it's also about relationships, your relationship with your superintendent, your relationship with your BA, your relationship with each other, and how you collaborate to support all of your students and staff through your budget. So, and then what are we going to talk about tonight? This is one of my colleagues loves a cute baby picture and a cute baby picture meme. So, we have that up there. But what's involved with your school budget? What builds a budget? What are revenue streams? What's an appropriation? All of those things that you might be wondering. It's when you're a
005new board member, you get these pages of documents with numbers on them, and it might be a little confusing to understand what those mean. When I first joined the board, I was a stay-at-home mom. I did not have a finance. My background is in special education. I don't have a financial background, but my first leadership role on the board was chairing the finance and facilities committee, and I learned a lot about it through doing that. We had a very experienced superintendent who knew a lot about uh budgeting, and we had a really great BA who taught me a lot. So, you can learn a lot from your more experienced board members and from also from your administration. Uh these are some definitions budgetary and finance definitions. So your budget obviously the budget is your framework
006that guides every financial decision your school district makes. You plan for the appropriation, encumbrance and expenditure of revenue. An appropriation is revenue that's budgeted for a particular purpose. That could be one time or reoccurring. An example of that would be if you have a designated amount for technology needs. So, you know, next year you need uh new computers for a grade level. You'll appropriate a certain amount for that purpose. Uh encumbrance is a legal commitment of all or part of an appropriation. So, an example of that would be a signed contract um or a purchase order. So, revenue uh funds the district um and it's funds that the district expects to receive during the year. Obviously, your biggest source of revenue is your tax levy. Um, state and federal aid and grants. And I know
007school districts are always looking for other sources of revenue. So, your fixed costs, your non-discretionary appropriation. Um, that would be an appropriation over which the district has no control and which remains the same from period to period period. your uh debt service, your contractual obligations, the how much you know your um collective bargaining agreement, you have a set amount that it's going up every year. So that would be one of your fixed costs. Uh teacher salary increases. And then you have uh variable, which is an appropriation over which the district has at least some control and which may change from period to period like employee wages, benefits, um supplies, classroom supplies yeartoear. uh you'll have a professional development plan which you may have different costs associated with that uh things like that. So, New Jersey
008QAC, I'm not sure where you are with CQAC, but QAC is the New Jersey quality single accountability continuum. They come in every three years and they will look at everything. And a big part of that is finance and governance. There are indicators that we'll go over in a minute. But yeah, your your DOE will come in and just make sure that your school is being run effectively and that you are hopefully a high performing school district. So these are just the um things that they look at for QAC for fiscal management in the uh indicators for their performance review. So it's maintenance of standard operating procedures, satisfaction of your audits, management of grants and capital funds and imple implementation of a facilities plan, completion of your annual annual safety reviews, preparation and analysis of fiscal
009year cash flow and employment of a certified facilities manager. These are ones for your finance and budget. So you have, you know, annually reviews, updates, and adopt policies. Uh you have a policy and a contract with your superintendent and you annually evaluate and adopt goals. You oversee a budget process that target student achievement. You review all of your audit recommendations um and approve corrective action plans for audit findings and recommendations. Um then you follow a budget process. You conduct a public hearing on the proposed budget. uh you adopt the budget at a public meeting and you provide ongoing information on the budget status and any revisions or emerging conditions and make the budget available for public notice and inspection. So next we'll go over some board financial responsibilities. So this is you probably have a
010copy of this so we won't go through all of these things. you can go on and read them. But this is just a walkthrough of your annual budget cycle. Uh it shows how your school district builds a compliant and transparent budget uh and an education educationally aligned budget. So you are obviously in February. So you hopefully are uh your finance committee is reviewing your budget status um discussing significant budget items um reviewing uh you know all sorts of financial components of your budget. So, your finance chair will be updating your board of education, approving um the things that you need to approve in February and March. And then April is typically when you hold your public ear hearing and adopt your budget. So, next we'll go through the board financial responsibilities which are overall planning
011and policy, your budget, your audit, bidding, and continuing responsibilities. So overall, remember your role is oversight, um, governance, stewardship, not day-to-day management of the budget. Uh, you're like the board of a company. Your superintendent is the CEO. Your BA is like your CFO. It's that type of role. You're in an oversight role. You do have shared financial responsibilities, but really you are the what and the administration is the how. So the board develops district financial goals and supports the district's educational plan. Again, the what and the how. Uh you have to balance the educational needs of the students with the taxpayers's ability to pay, which is can be a difficult concept sometimes. Um you oversee the financial management of the district. annually set district educational goals and then you provide financial support for the goals
012that you set. So when you're thinking of future district goals, you have to take into account, well, can your budget support these goals? Um then you develop policies and pro procedures to expedite financial processes and ensure appropriate financial oversight using monthly reports, uh the budget, your audit, and your other um financial records. So, and these are your overall more of your overall financial responsibilities. Every month, you're reviewing and approving the monthly board secretary and treasurer of school money's financial report. So, I gave you a handout. It's how to It's an older handout, but it's actually still pretty relevant uh that says uh what you should look at when you're reviewing those reports. Uh you annually appoint an auditor, a treasurer of school monies. That's optional. Some districts have a treasurer, some don't. Uh and your
013board secretary. Usually uh most boards, their BA is also their board secretary. Um you're approving your expenditures and your monthly financial reports and understand and approve all line item transfers, which should be budgeted expenses. Um, and what I would suggest if you're new to all these and new to looking at these reports is to make an appointment with your BA, if your superintendent is is okay with that, and sit down and look at them and look at the bill list and look at all the things that you need to review every month. Um, and learn about them. When I first joined my board, I went in, sat down with my BA. She, you know, showed me the bill list, showed me, you know, all the items that I should be looking for. So your other
014financial responsibilities are planning and policy. So look at your long range educational goals. You if you have a strategic plan um you want to look at your plan going out five years. Um and determine what are the financial implication of the long-term goals that you have. uh what are appropriate financial strategies to reach those goals and what is the community impact of those strategies. So and then you want to every year monitor and evaluate the progress towards those goals and your CSA evaluation plays a role in that. So every year you want to set budget parameters and priorities for your budget development um process in accordance with policy. I would advise that you go on and read your policies, but you want to set parameters. Uh so parameters would be what percentage of the tax
015levy increase is your board comfortable with? Are you going to go to 2%? Are you going to use if you have bank cap? Are you comfortable using your bank cap to go over 2%. Those are some of the parameters of the budget that your board um can decide. Um making sure, you know, are you going to rely on, you know, what revenue do you have? If you have revenue that's a one-time revenue, making you might want to make sure that you're not relying on that revenue for recurring expenses. Um look at your surplus. If you have surplus, where is that surplus going to go? Is it going into a capital reserve or a maintenance reserve account or what is it being used for? Um, you also want to think about your student outcomes. What student
016outcomes um are your priorities for the following year? Maybe you have a literacy initiative or other student uh initiatives that need to be funded within your budget. There were those are all things uh parameters and priorities that the board needs to out and communicate. You >> okay? So, and understand what the implications to the budget will be uh for the following year. And then you need to reach a consensus on a budget that's appropriate for both students, making sure you're providing the students with the education that they need, that you're funding your staffing, um what are your class sizes, and understanding what impact those things also have on your taxpayer. So, it's a balance. You have to be mindful of your taxpayers while also supporting your students in their achievement. Um, your role is to
017assist in explaining the budget to the public in accordance with policy and then also indicate how does your budget support student achievement and then evaluate year-over-year ongo on an ongoing basis the implementation of your budget. So your audit every year you appoint an auditor. Um that usually happens at one of your reorgan at your reorganization meeting. Sometimes we used to do it in May. Um some boards approve all of their make all their appointments at their reorganization meeting. Some boards do it in May. Uh our board used to do it in May. You also you accept the annual audit report. So, your auditor will probably come out and either attend a finance committee meeting or come talk to your whole board and explain the audit to you. You'll get a copy of it. I have
018about nine of them sitting in my basement. They're like this thick, but I highly recommend that you go through and read your audit because they're pretty important and you'll learn about if there's any um recommendations that they make or if there's a corrective action plan. Um those will all be will all be addressed in your audit. So bidding you have to adopt and uh ensure imple implementation of policies covering all aspects of the bidding process and you approve or reject bids in accordance with state statute. So again uh read your policy manual. Uh typically there's a bidding threshold if you have um a qualified purchasing agent a QPA. Uh the bid threshold is 53,000. So, if there's a purchase that's above that amount, that would require um it to go out to bid and for
019all of you to approve that. But if you don't have a a QPA, that threshold is 39,000. Some boards are also um they use co-ops for large projects. So, my old the school um built a new playground and we used a co-op. So, you can use a co-op and that's uh pricing that's already been competitively bid. So, I don't know if you're involved in any co-ops or not, but yeah. Yeah. And your board would approve when you your board would approve uh being part of co-ops. So, these are some continuing responsibilities. So, you approve all purchase orders and bill list prior to payment and in accordance with your district policy. You understand and approve all line item transfers. provide for transportation for public and non-public students as required by statute and board policy. So, it's
020transportation costs have been rising. And then if you also have an outof student or an out-of district placement for a special education student, those costs can be um quite a bit into the between tuition and transportation can be into the six figures for one student. Uh you're reviewing and approving your monthly board secretary and treasur of school money reports monthly. So, uh your bill list. Sometimes um you approve your BA to make purchases in between board meetings. So sometimes, and I'm not sure if your board does that or not, but um my old board did. So we would be approving bills uh retroactively, but some boards some boards do that. And if you do do that, it's because your board has authorized your BA to do that. But again, all of the purchase purchases on
021your bill list um should be budgeted expenses. So this was an older task force on student achievement and just some things that they found. Um and these are recommendations for boards. So we recommend that require a high level curriculum that prepares students for global competitiveness. Commit to addressing achievement gaps within the district that you identify you know through your state testing or through indisting. uh you seek alternative funding sources including grants to support student achievement. That can be a tricky one. There are a lot of grants out there. Sometimes sports do different things like um you know there's facilities use fees and things like that. Um actively engaged in sharing services with other government entities that save money to expand academic and other programming to support improving student achievement. So maybe you share, you know,
022snow removal or grounds maintenance with your your township. So this is kind of a a cycle of a bill. So your bill list uh the payment cycle. So your appropriation and I don't know do any of you remember these definitions from before or do you want me to go through them again? So appropriation that is an amount in your budget that is set aside for a specific purpose. Um, your incumbrance is a legal commitment to spend money. Uh, that would maybe be a purchase order. Um, once you have a purchase order, you have a commitment to to spend that money. Um, your expenditures are the actual spending against the appropriation. And then your bill list is basically every penny that your school spent uh that month. So those go on your board agenda and then
023your board ultimately approves the bill list and at that point they're paid. And if you have any questions, I know I'm giving you a lot of information. If you have any questions along the way, feel free to stop me. I'm happy to answer them. So items to consider in budgeting your educational program and your district vision, mission, and goals. You're setting goals, district goal, board, board goals every year. You have a mission for your district. You want to make sure that your budget supports that. What are your enrollment projections for your district? Um, what are the needs of your building? What are the needs of your curriculum? Are you purchasing new curriculum or new materials for students? Staffing levels uh for classroom support and administrative staff. uh class sizes. You might have a policy that
024states what your class sizes um should be or what the board aspires your class sizes to be. So negotiated salaries and benefits for your colle for negotiated units and non um union personnel. So sometimes non-union personnel are given the same increase as um the staff that's in your covered under your collective bargaining agreement. So inflation inflation as we all know costs are going up every year. Equity of spending among you know if you have multi um if you're in a multi-school district or you have similar grade levels you want to make sure that there's equity and spending between your grade level classes. And then equipment replaces replacement schedules and needs. Equipment can be expensive. Maybe your cafeteria needs a new dishwasher. They're actually very expensive. Uh maybe you need a new lawn mower or your
025maintenance staff needs a tractor or something like that. So transportation, your mandatory transportation and your if you have courtesy busing, you're courtesy busing. Uh and again also transportation for out of district placement students. um your building maintenance, uh your upgrade of your buildings. You usually approve every year a maintenance plan, a comprehensive maintenance plan that goes over everything that uh all the maintenance that your building needs. Um what building upgrades do you need? You know, does one room need new carpet or new tiles? Uh your long range facilities plan. Are you familiar? If you're not familiar with the long range facilities plan, that's uh a plan for capital projects for five years. And if you have a capital reserve, your capital reserve can only be used for projects that are in your long range facilities
026plan. So that's an important thing to go over and learn about. Uh your unanticipated general fund balance level, which is your surplus, do you have an expected surplus? um the evaluation of projected revenues like tuitions, building rental activity fees, grants, foundations, and projected local property tax impact. Uh your long range technology plan, you know, does your fifth grade need new computers next year? Uh special education costs. Again, like I said, um you have your special education costs within your district. And of course all um those students are entitled to their education but if you have an out ofd district placement that can be a very large cost. And then professional development costs. You'll approve a a professional development plan every year typically. So what are your costs associated with that? Are you bringing in speakers
027or what are you doing? What is your administration doing for your professional development? So what is your budget comprised of? So, revenue sources, again, your local property taxes, state aid, state aid's been a difficult one. I know um I live in Hunter County. I know districts for years have been, you know, seeing really large state aid decreases. Your federal aid typically isn't as much as your state aid. um tuitions, your miscellaneous revenues, your capital reserve fund. If you have a big capital project coming up, that can come out of your capital reserve fund. Uh and then your surplus. Um uh your expenditures would be what are your current expenses, your capital outlay for like maintenance, buildings and grounds, your capital reserve fund, uh and your debt service if you have debt service that has to
028be accounted for within your budget as well. So your budget is really your financial expression of your district's educational goals and aspirations. It's a management tool that you prepare annually. Uh it's a plan for controlling the level and type of spending in your school system system during the budget year. It's a means of determining the efficiency of your school systems educational program and the progress of your district towards your educational goals. and it's a consensus document that reflects the input of your administration, your board, and your community. This is a sample, again, you have a copy of this. It's a sample from last year of what a typical budget calendar looks like. The dates will be a little different this year. The governor's budget message will be on March 10th. And typically about two days
029after the governor's budget uh message, we'll get information about what your district's state aid will be. So you can find it on the website. It's you have to really like looking at teeny teeny tiny numbers, but you can go on the website, you can see your state aid, you can see what it's been year-over-year. You can look at surrounding districts, you know, every district in the state if you want to and compare uh state aid numbers. And if you'd like, I'm happy to send you the link to that. I used it when I was a board member. It's I was would go on there right away to as soon as the governor's budget message was done, I was on there looking for what our CD numbers would be. So the board's role in the budget.
030So we have to understand how the district operates. Um again, what your role in governance is, read your policies. I know there's a lot of policies and policies can seem sometimes boring, but they're actually really, really, really important because um it's what your superintendent will look to when issues and things occur in your school. It's your superintendent's role to implement your policy. So, it's important for you to know what your policies say and what they are. Um your curriculum and programs, your staffing. You should understand the budget process. And if you're a new board member, it's okay if it takes some time to learn. Just make sure you're asking questions and reading through all of your documents. Um, you should establish clear and realistic budget goals, again aligned with the district mission to instruct all
031of your students and making sure that every single student is provided with the education that they deserve. Uh, you want to remain informed on the development of the district budget through uh, periodic updates from your administration, from your BA, your superintendent. So, offer meaningful and constructive comments and questions. Ask all the questions about the budget that you need to. Um, but make sure they're they're constructive and coming from a good place. Um, review and approve preliminary and final budgets for submission to the executive county superintendent. So, um, before you have a public hearing and you actually approve your budget, typically in April, your budget will go to the, um, executive county superintendent's office, I think, by March 17th or 18th. It'll go to your executive county superintendent for their approval. So, they have to approve
032it first before it comes to you for your public hearing and your ultimate approval as well. So more of your roles, you hire and rely on the finance experts who are your business office staff. They are your finance experts of your district, your independent auditor. Um, understand the various means used by central administration to manage the district budget. Again, you're using uh reviewing and approving those monthly financial reports that we talked about. um you know review and approve the annual audit and I highly encourage you even though it's like very thick and long and also has a lot of tiny numbers encourage you to look through it and ask questions about it um try to remain informed on any budgetary issues uh through updates from your administration and communication that's where communication with each other
033is so important again this is just a summary of the role of the board and in the role of the BA. So if you did a you know have taken a roles and responsibilities training is similar to that. It's again the what and the how. So the board you establish your priorities um for the fiscal management of the district. And I'll give you an example that I've been liking to share lately of what you can do because we talk a lot about cuts and things like that sometimes with budgets but there are some things that you can do if they're important to the community. So, a few years ago, um, my board received some feedback that paying for field trips was a a burden to them and could the board explore possibly covering the costs
034of field trips for students. So, our finance committee took that up, talked about it with our BA. Our BA went over the numbers, decided that it was possible. So then our finance committee brought that as a recommendation to our full board, discuss it with our full board. Our full board decided to set it as a budget priority and then our BA took it and put it in her budget presentation that was publicly presented and we adopted it. So that year we were able to make some members of our community happy and cover the costs of some field trips. So you can do you know some good small things like that hopefully. I know you know rising costs and budgets are getting tighter now. This is a few years ago, but there I always like to
035give an example of some good things that you can do as a board to help your students and make your community happy. Um, so you provide leadership and securing community support for resources. Uh, that's a big one because you're asking a lot of your community. This is their taxes and of course yours, too. Um, but making sure you're communicating the importance of what you're doing and the budget that you're creating for your students out to your community. uh you review and approve contracts. Uh if you're negotiating or in negotiations, it's always a very very important thing to think about with your increases, making sure it's within your budget over the next few years. Um you review annual audit reports and make appropriate adjustments. So, your BA is your district's budget officer, prepares a detailed budget
036based on the board's priorities and parameters, and presents it for approval, provides a rationale for budgets to maintain community support, oversees monthly financial reports and presentations, and acts as the financial and legislative resource to the board. So, your BA is really a wonderful resource and usually a wealth of information. So, and I know we have some a big concern lately has been health insurance costs. So, there's been a huge rise. So, that's something that every district is facing and experiencing right now. And to give you an idea just of how much it is, like back when I was on a board, uh, which wasn't that long ago, uh, we used to budget, they used to say budget 8%. And that was a pretty good amount. A lot of times it wouldn't even go up to
037that amount. Now they're saying what they went up 20 between 20 to 30%. So yeah, that's really really something that is hard for every school and every school district is expressing concerns about this and that's going to be a difficult one for this year. All right, any questions? All right. So, we truly appreciate all of your dedication and the hard work that you do. All of you, your board, your administration. What you do does make a lasting impact on your community and your students and your staff. Um, and just I always end with always remember to keep student achievement at the heart of every decision that you make. That's, you know, the most important thing you can think about when you're on a board of education. So, if you have any other questions, you know,
038my email, you can email me, call me. I'll hopefully get a copy of this presentation. And I'm always available to you to support you and your superintendent, your BA. I wish you the best of luck with budgeting and your budget. And again, anything you need, feel free to reach out. >> Thank you so much. Welcome. >> Nice seeing everybody and have a great meeting. >> Thank you. For those board members who are new, the training, the upcoming training at the NJSBA will give you a lot more detail on finances. Next up, we have uh the state of the district with Dr. Glazer. >> We're gonna do SDSS first. >> Okay. Okay. So, Dr. Glazer would like to do the district student safety data system SSDs presentation first. >> That yes, thank you. I just have
039to open it my own self and just I can't see forward and back and up. So when I keep taking my glasses on and off, stop making fun. Some of you are making fun. Don't I can't do it. So, the student data um student safety data system, we call it SSDs. This gets reported twice a year. There's two different periods of reporting. The one we're doing tonight, period one, covers from July 1st through December 31st, 2025. The next period began January 1st. It runs until It runs until um June 30th, 2026 and we report on that typically at the August or September meeting. It's always a look back just so um everybody's clear on that. Um the the system this system um collects incidents of violence, vandalism, weapons, substance abuse, harassment, intimidation and bullying, HIV
040what we call it. Um, it also records the HIV trainings that we do, the programs that we conduct, um, that support the anti-bullying efforts. All of the information's collected. Um, it's really good information, but it is a compliance piece. It's done to fulfill state and federal reporting requirements. Um and again I shared that this is done um twice a year. Erin, could you go to the next slide? So this slide is a summary of the districts Bayberry and Valley View for each of the reporting areas. Um there are as you notice um incidents of violence, vandalism, substances, weapons and HIV confirmed. That is the the overarching right that is all incidents committed against or by a student. It happens on or off school grounds depending on the topic. And again we report everything all the
041time. A single incident can pick up multiple right of these incident types. So um I want to make sure that that's understood. This top row of incidents you can see three total. Two at Bayberry, one at Valley View. Um, we have obviously very few incidents here in the W Chong Burough School District. I am going to um detail a little bit about what that means and what they are, if you will. Um just just so everybody's clear the other incidents leading to removal the next category down when you look at that 14 at Bayberry four at Valley View 18 total I don't want you to be misled by that okay it's really important it probably looks high um but you need to know that what's listed here again on or off of school grounds this
042any disciplinary removal for at least um a half a day. It could be um maybe removed for a school suspension, maybe it's an expulsion. It can also mean anytime you're removed from the class to a different educational setting, right? And I think that that's really important um for you to understand because in context right at Bayberry School if you have 360 students you have 270 about here at Valley View. So our reporting period right if you have those say 85 school days it's not excessive at all but it looks a little scary. So I just I want you to understand that. Obviously, we hope that we wouldn't have any students removed for disciplinary reasons. To that end, we continue to provide training. We support students, staff, parents trying to um give strategies, ideas around behavior
043management. Maybe it's um deescalation strategies. Maybe it's opportunities, how we're going to use restorative practices instead of suspending or an expulsion. The whole idea, right, of the trainings and programs that support when you see this incident report, if you will, the whole idea of this, we're trying to build community. We're trying to um repair any harm if there's harm. Address the root causes of behavior. Maintain a connection to the school. Right? If you're somebody that's being removed for suspension or expulsion or from your class, we still need you to feel a part of that community. So all of the work we're doing around these other incidents and as I continue to get through the report um are towards those goals. You can see we did not have any um restraint or seclusion incidents. Um we
044and again under our incidents you'll hear an alleged HIV is investigation right one that was founded is reported as an incident and again I'll go back to that school by school in a minute um we also detail all of the trainings what I just referred to and I will detail those as well as our HIV programs different than trainings and we'll do that for the district by school um and by program. So, I'm going to start with the Bayberry summary, the incidents, right? So, you see two incidents, one was a fight, one was a confirmed HIV, just those two. Um the other incidents leading to removal, obviously, we don't go into detail, but even in this report, it tells you what all of those are. So, I'm going to tell you seven of those inappropriate
045physical contact. Pretty straightforward. Two, inappropriate comments, language, gestures. Okay. Two or unsafe behaviors. An unsafe behavior um is a harming behavior. Maybe that's biting just as an example. Um then we add three incidents of fights during recess at Bayberry and that is what comprises that total of incidents leading to removal at Bayberry. Okay, you're looking like you might have a question. No, you're just also doing like me going back and forth. So Bayberry. Then when we go to Valley View, you can see again you had the one incident that was a confirmed HIV and then the other incidents leading to removal. All four of those were negative physical contact for a valley question. No >> need your school. Is the number of students? >> No, this is incidents. This is incidents. And like I said
046at the beginning, sometimes an incident has multiple people that might cross over multiple students. >> Yeah. No, this is specific to the in Yep. No, I'm glad you asked. I don't want anybody to be confused. We do. Erin, if you could go forward. Sorry, I went forward. Yours, didn't forward. That's Bayberry Valley View. One more. There we go. So, um, the trainings also get reported. The top things that you see, school and district, HIV trainings, we try to detail it by school or district. So for us um we have our opening day inservices where we review the HIV policy with all staff and by all staff obviously that includes our um paraprofessionals substitutes all of these trainings are for the whole purpose right of everybody understanding the district HIV policy um what we're doing with
047bullying prevention instruction all of this is ongoing Right. The board, all of you um also receives training on an ongoing basis. It's not just um our staff, students and parents also to help you understand the HIV policy. Um a lot of what we do is around the review of um incidents. So your training might include um let's beside the policy the investigation process maybe what constitutes a protected class right what would make it um a hip versus a code of conduct maybe um during the strategic planning process we spent a lot of time talking about expanding parent information could we do um parent university expand the series that we had have more information about what is an HIV. Um, more information for families of maybe managing behaviors, whether those are elementary or adolescent behaviors. Um,
048talking about cyber bullying and just bullying in general. And we've really spent a tremendous amount of time doing that for this reporting period. Um, you can see that we beyond our staff training at Bayberry, there was the bullies to buddies training for students, parents and staff. Um, we also had that same um training for the principles and counselors both schools. There is additional other training um involving our parents and families. We did I know February no uh it's not this reporting period but I know it's in your head January 27th we had Detective Rich on the bullying and cyber bullying. Last week we had uh Mary Beth Rearen talking about the adolescent behaviors. Right? Those are examples of the kinds of programs in our four first reporting period beyond the school and district HIV trainings.
049We also have youth suicide awareness, prevention and postvention trainings. Um those are things we do um mandatory but also in collaboration with the county. We have our district um training the beginning of the year back to school nights. this kid and um Lauren, our school counselor here at Valley View, did a parent piece on bullying recognition and response. So again, these are all um examples of the different kinds of trainings that we're trying to do to support our various um levels, students, staff, parents, right? I thought it would be interesting for you to know wasn't part of what I did tonight and I don't see one of our PTO reps tonight. I think Bayry, you have the talent show auditions, right? So, I think we may have lost some people. But um this week when
050we were having our meetings, we spent a lot of time um talking about uh our lunch program, our afterchool clubs. The PTO is really involved in both of those areas. And some of the things that came up is additional volunteer training for our lunch volunteers, additional training for the people that maybe um work with the clubs. They would be interested in knowing the difference between um HIV and the code of conduct. They would also um like the opportunity, Miss K, this one's for you, to maybe have with the volunteers some of the not the full-blown safety and security, but what to do if there's a fire drill while they're volunteering in the APR at lunch or what to do um if the alarm goes off after school while they're while they're running a club. So,
051I thought those were incredible suggestions. So, I'm bringing it forward to you now, too. >> Yeah. No, I thought it was great. I really I'm excited to have the conversations. I think that uh just having sometimes different conversations and different viewpoints helps us even look at what we're training and presenting differently. So, the last piece of this um is there additional Oops. Erin, if you could go forward. Additional trainings that were specific just to Valley View. Um, with uh one of our outside providers, NJ4S, there was student training in stress management skills. We had um the just joking parent training here at um Valley View again um with Miss Kidd. Um we did that for students as well. And you can see they the report gives us some of the guidance of what it is
052that we're trying to attack, right? Conflict resolution, school climate and culture, um peer norms, social norms, and that's what the training is geared towards. And then finally, Erin, if you could go forward. Sorry. is our HIV programs. These are a combination of programs um whether they're um curricular, co-curricular or um outside. You can see that the week of respect activities at both schools um are part of what we're doing around school culture um climate conflict resolution. Um, further down at Valley View, you're going to see Red Ribbon Week. And even though Red Ribbon Week raises the awareness of, you know, the dangers of drug abuse, tobacco, alcohol, violence, that drugfree environment, living a healthy life, that ties directly to what we're doing with our harassment, intimidation, and bullying. again trying to address those topics of
053the emotional environments in the schools and the district safety um student relationships with um each other with trusted adults as well as just the morale overall in our school community. So these programs um you can see second step at Bayberry our early act club is um part of the Rotary it's the school and student version of the service club what they do responsive classroom is a third-party program but that morning meeting um implementation supports this at Bayberry our prek program um one of the things we purchased as part of the budget was the Alice Pal's another social emotional learning program. And then here at um Valley View, we have our Mountaineer Mondays. And if you have a student at Valley View, you know, but some of you um I know haven't gotten up here yet
054to the middle school. That is um a series of bimonthly lessons, right? Developed um with counselors and teachers. They are mixed grade um almost advisory groups, small groups focusing on social emotional skills, executive functioning, school spirit. It's really um an organized way to attack specifically this harassment, intimidation, and bullying piece. Um, and since we are fortunate to have Miss Pikner and Miss Kid here, I know that this is, you know, our report for that first period and, um, the incidents. Is there anything? We're continuing with our parent programming. anything maybe upcoming to support this since this is a look back the reports a look back >> just well this is parents students and um staff as far as HIV trainings and programming sorry we're live streaming I have to bring you the microphone fabulous um
055no you already mentioned two of the parent programs we've already had the second half we are having um NJ4s come in and do a winter blues assembly. Um, so actually they're going to be working with our health classes. Um, so small groups in the different grade levels, um, to talk about the winter blues and how to deal with them, especially appropriate right now with all the snow, right? >> No, we we do have one parent chat coming up. I haven't sent the flyer out, but it's um something that Mary Beth Rearen is going to be doing and it's nice where you actually bring your children and then you're split into two groups and it's about executive functioning and learning independence. So, that should be coming out soon. So, we're excited about that. I do not
056know the date. I'm working on the flyer, though. It's it's sometime in March. It's at least a month away. The >> date will be on the flyer. >> Yes. And as they said, you didn't hear that part, but the date will be on the flyer. So that's something. Um, thanks you guys. Is there any um question from the board on this report or anything um related to the HIV incidents, trainings or programs? No. No. Would you like to move on to station? >> I would, but I need to to get with Aaron for just one minute. If we could um I don't know if you want to take like a twominut recess because I do need to go into the tech room actual into the tech room for this. >> Okay. >> Up to you.
057>> Um sing. >> Okay. Uh do I need a motion? I think I need a motion for recess. >> Oh, you know what? That's that's not a bad idea. How about how about we do our committee reports and principal reports? >> Well, but no, >> we have people here that are part of that too that I am also part of. I am sorry. If if we could just take two minutes, I can get in there and work on this with him. >> Is there a second? All >> in favor? >> Okay, we'll be back in two minutes, everyone. >> Thank you. We are back in session. Dr. Glazer, will you please give us the state of the district? >> Yes. Thank you so much and apologies for the the adjournment. This presentation was supposed to
058be last month and I noticed that the date was still wrong and one of the things that you had done at the last meeting was still in here. So, we did update that and we're good to go. So, welcome back um from that adjournment, but also um welcome back because our state of the district every year we we try and start off in January um with this information. um being a little late. It also gives us, I guess, the opportunity um not the the traditional new year, but to say gung-ha choy uh happy new year celebration um for our lunar new year that began on Tuesday. Um and it's interesting because this is the year of the firehorse and that's signs associated with energy, speed, bold change. And then yesterday um we can also recognize
059Ash Wednesday and Ramadan which started yesterday and those symbolize um a time for deep reflection. So very much in keeping with the spirit of what we are doing tonight. Um I think that going through this some people call it an exercise for me. I hope for the whole community it's an opportunity to really see where we've come in a year. It is exciting. It's bold. Um a lot of things have grown and changed. It feels sometimes like we're moving by inches, but when you look backwards and see how far it it is exciting. So, I'm I'm looking forward to that piece. Um Erin, you can click up. We always start off um with the mission, right? The mission of Bayberry. We'll also have the mission of Valley View. The mission is our presence, right? This
060is the work we're doing at Bayberry. Um, introducing the young child to formal learning, building a foundation of skills and knowledge, nurturing an environment, right? Like what we just talked about with the last report where we're trying to promote that self-confidence, encouraging a love of learning, celebrating each individual child, right? Their uniqueness. that that is where we are in our present at Bayberry School and that does feed into obviously the mission at Valley View. Thanks Aaron. Um and at Valley View we're enhancing and further developing right that academic and social competency. every child, every student. We are striving um to provide various experiences, promote again that self-reliance, self-motivation, that community awareness. Um that's what we do. That's our purpose. Now going into the vision, that did change a little bit, right? So the mission brings
061us together around that shared purpose. The vision is what we want to become. It's what we aspire to. It represents the desired outcomes of all the work that's happening from the mission. During the strategic planning process, we reviewed as a community um all of these statements. We looked at um where we not just aspired to but I would say the expectations for the hopes of the community and the vision was updated. It did add um academic success to what we aspire to to what the expectations of the community are and our updated vision um is intended to better communicate those expectations. Excellence on the Hill is a is a I want to call it old predates me. I'll go with predates me um here in Wong Burough and it fell by the wayside I think
062more because it's um a motto and what we talked about during the strategic planning process was how to embrace that right how to really not just have lip service and a couple of words and a motto but how do we really take that to the next level and again that was part of the vision statement conversation. So, I didn't want to change that um take it away, diminish it. It is, I think, um very clearly stated what our community aspires to. So, there's vision here story. So watch burrow um we've spent a lot of time over the last two years year and a half maybe um maybe during uh regionalization feasibility study you've had those reports talking about our um elementary K8 districts are sending districts to the high school right we're each small and
063I I am proud to tell you we're mighty in so many ways we We are blessed um with a team of people that are just amazingly committed to our students. We have to be grateful for the team that story-wise, right? We talk about um you know prek to four, our certifi certificated is the state word. I know it's not a real word, but that's what we say. our certified staff members and at Valley View we talk about districtwide the number of our staff that are tenured the number of staff that have been with us for years and years Karen and I Karen Bishop Johnson can't see her you see me our business administrator as part of this state of the district as part of what you heard from Kathy Pier on the board's role in
064finance we are kick kicking off that budget season, right? So, we look at every aspect for that budget and you know, we're talking about our tenure certificated staff members and that 70% but we also have a number of staff that don't earn tenure. We have pair professionals that have worked in this district for 15 years, 20 years. You have custodians and secretaries that have worked in this same district for over 20 years. That cannot be understated. When we're talking about our story, when we're talking about the learning community that's being developed, the commitment to our students and families, I think that um we we just don't recognize that enough. So, um, we have five secretaries. I will say I think they do the work of 10. That's just my opinion. We have our accountant, um,
065our payroll, health benefits, uh, confidential secretary, business assistant, um, in our business office. Again, these two tireless folks with Karen um, are the whole department 247. We have Ricky Boyd, our um completely amazing uh manager of buildings and grounds, a jack of all trade, a master, truly a master of all. And when I reflect on the referendum pieces in a few minutes, would not be where we are without Ricky. So more than grateful and appreciative. Then in our booth um our oneman band, our tech manager who not only keeps us all online but um in the recent year has added to his I guess tech manager responsibilities working with our grade level teams coming up with tech minutes for instruction. That was something that came out of the strategic plan conversations and Aaron has truly
066embraced that. So, thank you. Um, Erin, I'm looking at you guys. I'm not sure some of you will remember Captain Kangaroo and I I talk about this a lot amongst our team. Um, if you remember that, you remember Mr. Green Jeans and the book Caps for Sale. And on the cover of the book, they had the hats just piled on top of one another practically tipping over. That's um the image truly the image that I use for our leadership team. Speaking of small but mighty um Mrs. Fickner, Miss Kidd, they are doing much of the curriculum instruction assessment work. They are doing um a tremendous amount oops a tremendous amount of um our early childhood work multilanguage learner work they are um doing work with 504s with hib right it's an overwhelming responsibility for those
067members of the leadership team Karen Bishop Johnson um also wears all of her many hats. You I think you know business administrator and board secretary. You might not know, right? Grants manager and um homeless liaison and McKini Vento whatever the work is incredible in a small district. Doesn't matter if we have a thousand kids or 10,000 kids. the jobs are the same for all of these people. Um, and it couldn't happen without them. This year, we've also spent a lot of time um on our director of special education position. We have um worked on our programs, our systems, our protocols in special education. It has helped us I think redefine um what we would hope for as a leader of that area as somebody joining our team um in a leadership capacity. The uh we're
068hoping to have that position finalized in March. We're also finalizing a position that came up during the strategic plan, the supervisor of instruction position. that role um in in the budget does not show up as an administrative position. In fact, it is another certified position. But that allows us to redistribute some of these hats on our leadership team. And um when we talk about our goals and the action plan towards the goals, support our staff and their professional learning having that opportunity for daily job embedded um professional development feedback and coaching. And that should be also finalized in the next couple weeks. So very exciting when you're looking at and I say our story, the district story um and who makes up some of the characters and absolutely characters by the way of our story.
069So Erin, if you could move on. Um as part of this right, I have to highlight the programs that we have before I can talk about moving forward. We have very established STEM steam programs, designated spaces in both schools um for those opportunities. We have um at the moment it's pretty exciting um library programs, curricula that are working on media literacy and um information literacy. Our soar program opportunities provide some of the um experiential enrichment that we would hope for all students, but in this case for our students that have been identified through the selection criteria for exceptional learning, all of those, the steam, the soar, even our pursuit of excellence program, which um is a remediation program and enrich agement program. They're providing um differentiated personalized instruction with that same goal, right? Mission vision
070of developing a depth of knowledge. That small group instruction that's happening, the um opportunity to go across content area is very very powerful. But some of the other highlights that happen, some of the other opportunities happen because of our community partners, right? When when we are looking at CPAG, which um somebody asked me at after the last meeting, they they had made a wonderful donation to the special education program. What is it? It's our special education parents advisory group is what? See, look at some people that's interesting. So that's what CPAC does, but they support not just our special education program. They support a learning environment that makes it possible for every child to be included in instruction in this district. Opportunities for um bringing in the therapy dogs. Some of you were on the
071board when we got to meet Fouchy. I don't think we've met uh No, we met Mozy, not Fouchy, but they're still coming in. Um, we've been spending time and I'll go a little bit deeper on this um during the referendum, but building um outdoor classroom, right? The learning commons, making partnerships um across the board um not just in the burrow, but looking broader. I think we'll hear that maybe in the curriculum minutes. Um tonight an opportunity coming up our professional learning because and I'll talk about this with the budget goals but we lost a lot of professional learning. We lost opportunities for our staff um over the years and those were able to be restored. Right? Those were um identified as not just critical highlights, but one of our strategic plan goals to continue that
072kind of professional learning, not just for our staff, obviously. Um we talked during the last presentation about how to also help our parents, how to um build the board. We talk about the board goals, build all of our professional learning. Curriculum writing also had um slowed way down to just mandated, right? just what was mandated by state changes to the different content areas because we were able to adopt new math textbook because we were able to at the um elementary level K4 level redo our curriculum our scope and sequence our resources in um English language arts to um work with the reading of science science of reading There you go. Yikes. Um, the science of reading and writing to change some of our assessments, right? You've heard us talk about adding the Dibbles assessment. We've
073added um some instructional pieces at that elementary level. It's impacted the need for curriculum writing. We need to have our staff involved at every level, not just the mandated legislated updates. making our own curriculum the scope and sequence reflect again those same aspirations and goals that we set um in our mission and vision. We also were able not just the resources I'm talking about in um English language arts and math but in our software to support programs right adding um social emotional learning programs across the board being able to offer resources community resources for things that don't exist for us in a smaller district county resources. So all of those things have been highlights during the course of this year. Um I do want to just make sure that um yes CPAG is a supporter
074of ours highlights. I'm going to keep going. We also are supported at the county level by the youth services commission. They support us with funds um not just for pursuit of excellence but for the Treps entrepreneurial program which really expanded this year not just with the county but with the PTO. I think we had double double the amount of students participate this year than in previous years. Again, all just wonderful um focus areas and highlights, but some of the discussions that we were having a year ago at this time, right? What's missing? What do we need? These I hope are are bringing up some of not just those conversations, but how we address and attack, right? those things. You can go Erin to the oops to the next one please some there. Just some fun
075pictures of highlights. Um keep going with our highlights. There you go. Um we also amongst our other partnerships um partner with the bureau on a number of activities um throughout the year. I am not sure that the community is aware, but I will tell you that the mayor attended all three of our strategic planning um town halls as did many of our council members. And one of the things that um I think was a clear message for us in the school district to them in the bureau and from the community was that those partnerships um not are just important but it's the way our community really interacts together. This is a big year in the bureau. It's the 100th anniversary. A number of um projects and and things where we are working together. We've expanded
076the work we've done together. Um you're going to see and hear about um an art project that extends prek to 12. Um the um board approved a video from the historical society, a history of the schools that is I think just completed that they will be doing a screening in the community. Um the PTO um I is looking to do um holy later into the spring which is a renewal celebration um in the Hindu religion but it's also an opportunity for the community to come together and once again another fundraiser. So you'll be hearing a lot more about those kind of school bureau um and our own partners partnerships I guess is the best way to say it. Um it's pretty amazing to have that. I I list the regionalization feasibility study for a number
077of reasons, right? It it was ongoing. Um we've reported on it. it will um have an impact and inform as we go forward right in our work in our budget. Um we did announce again a different partnership with the bureau um a working group to look at what those impacts might be. We um invested together in a demographic study that um thank goodness will be done in time to also inform our budget discussions. It also is the opportunity for all of our sending districts, right? Our other sending districts to come together. We have regular meetings of the superintendent, regular meetings of the principles and curriculum, special education. We also now have regular um with the all the districts and the high school together. And we've continued the articulation between our staff content staff here at
078the middle school and the high school so that we all stay on the same curricular page moving forward. But even that um I think has been expanded. It also has us talking about um additional shared service opportunities. Right. We have shared services with the high school around transportation. And I think that's the next slide. We do um with the Department of Public Works, but now we're also talking with our sending districts in the high school. What other opportunities are there for shared services? Is there an opportunity around content? Is there an opportunity um for us to to share um the different classroom space configurations? For instance, we do not currently have um a preschool disabilities program. Warren has a big one. How can we have their um middle school students perhaps participate in our middle
079school autism program and have our prek kids work with them. So really expanding um a look at those shared services. Um, I left on uh Valley View Boys and Girls Basketball just because it's happening now. Did we Are we over, but did we make I We were at the that we didn't go further. All right. I left again. This was supposed to be January, so one thing I missed taking out. We're still proud of all of it. Um and when I keep moving forward through this the expanded extracurriculars just overall um and maintenance of effort in some of the others not just basketball and girls and boys programming. >> I was going to say I was waiting for you to say it because we maintained it and it's in a slide later but I figure
080you would want to say it. I just figured it was better from you. Um, referendum projects again in the space of a year, right? So many different things happen. The HVAC projects are um winding down. The um art room and media center spaces are being used constantly. They're beautiful. We couldn't be prouder of all of that work from previous boards and superintendent who planned that because we are bearing the fruit. We're currently, if that snow and ice would ever melt, ever melt. Um, coming down to the final stages of the outdoor learning commons. Um we have just some railings, some shade um spaces, shade structures to put in place so that hopefully um we'll be able to be using that if the snow ever melts um in the spring here at Valley View. We also
081have our fields projects you hear almost every month, not this month, um from Legacy Construction Management talking about the progress on um those pieces. last month. He um was sure, of course, we didn't know we'd have this ice still out there, um that we would be ready in the spring, but the goal is, and I keep looking at at Miss Kidd because she's begging me, we have all of our PE classes outside in the spring. Um we are still on track according to Connor um on Friday, last Friday um for getting you out on those fields and coming up with a plan to get the work done and the students using the projects. So again, really exciting. Um it is past the substantial completion date, but when we're talking state of the district, this is
082the exciting stuff. And I will be the happiest person, I guarantee you, except maybe Ricky, um, in the district when we can invite the community to come out and see that final outdoor learning common space and see those improvements to the fields. Uh, Erin, next slide, please. Nope, one, too many. There you go. So, transportation was a huge topic still at this time last year, I think. um with the help of um Kelly Shehan, who is our prek to 12 transportation coordinator or shared service with the high school, we have really gotten to a place of consistent service, consistent routes. Um she's been out sick this week, but any day I expect the community to be receiving um information. I can't believe in February we have to do this, but information for the fall um
083on busing services just the same as we implemented last year, an opportunity to opt out. Information for us if you're um going to be moving or on a different route. The routes did not change last year. Some of the stops did based on um some of the development that's happening in the community. um some of those routes might end up changing. That's why that opt out information is so important and so early. Um we don't have that information. It's really soon. But I do want you to know we have not stopped for a minute on keeping track. I got an email late this afternoon about something with transportation. Um, we continue our um our partnership with the Durham Bus Company and First Student Bus Companies and um they've really really stepped up to make sure
084that we've maintained this consistency. Um, I do know again depending on the demographic study, the regionalization feasibility study, the opt out that we will need to have a conversation and perhaps a presentation specific to transportation in the spring. um as part of maybe our budget development and honestly as we look to the the new school year. One of the other things we did do with transportation um that came out of the strategic planning process, we did maintain our bus volunteers um for those first days of school. Um I think some of the trepidation is gone. So, we didn't get as many volunteers as I think people had hoped, but were on those buses and we did um maintain on the meet the teacher day at Bayberry that afternoon having the buses there so kids could
085practice buckling and buckling, especially our new kindergarteners um on both kinds of belts, the lap belt and the harness belt. For whatever reason, that's a really fun thing in the afternoon. Everybody wants to buckle and unbuckle. Um, and we will continue both of those things into the new school year. Erin, thank you. So, we do our strategic planning. Um, the strategic plan goals and that will be coming next though are the umbrella that everything else comes underneath. But we also every year at the um board retreat in the spring come together the board the administration and set district and board goals that come under that big umbrella. These um are the three areas right of focus for me as the superintendent. So the community is aware of that. This is where we um focus, right?
086Where you focus is where you'll see activity. And these are the areas that I'm evaluated on as the superintendent, achieving these goals. So, um I know that um people are sideways. So, our three district goals, implementing new initiatives to enhance student achievement, you've gotten to hear about some of those already. ensuring systems are in place to identify and assist students who face academic challenges, fostering um equity and access to learning. You'll be hearing a little bit more about and fostering student and staff engagement and positive culture. Again, you'll be hearing about some of those under our strategic plan goals and action plans. Those are our district goals. Erin, if you could move ahead one, the board also sets goals. you got to see some of that in action um February 10th at the working meeting
087and tonight with Kathy presenting um establish and maintain clear norms, protocols and operating procedures to ensure effective, respectful and transparent governance aligned with again the district's mission and vision. Second one um again is what you saw in action. The board continuing to engage in professional development to build upon their um New Jersey School Boards Association um certification and hopefully to achieve their master board certification. I think you guys are well on your way. An amazing change overall when I'm doing this state of the district address. Um, and I I say this a lot, but I do mean it. I hope you're proud of yourselves, but I know this community really acknowledges the tremendous amount of work it takes not just to be a volunteer, but to collaborate, to come Oh, bless you. to come together
088around those norms and protocols and governance and policy and to to continue your own learning to be even better board members. And the last communicating how the board decisions and actions align with the district goals with transparency, accountability, and again this um kind of strategic coherence. something that you um do not see previously and I noticed on uh I'm going to talk about one of the advances that we made that started tonight but we missed something important. We are now um attaching to your public agenda a public facing document of minutes for each of our um four board committees. We have um personnel, curriculum, policy, and our administration and finance committee. You hear those reports every month, but now you also have something written. What this third goal also had us do is on all
089of our committee reports, it lists the district goals and the board goals. And I when I'm saying this, I notice in our public facing document, we didn't include that. And I think next month and going forward that we should as long as we're putting it out there, let's keep it front and center for everybody does support that third goal. Um, and I just will say, Mr. Desaniano, since you're not facing, we just want to acknowledge, we can see you just weren't there, but I wanted to make sure you saw that we did update for our new board. Um, and thank you again to our new board members because as part of that professional development, you might not know there's new board orientation. They have to attend governance one which is through the New Jersey school
090boards association, our existing board members um do a governance two, right? All of these things again on our board members own time um separate from even our committee and board volunteer responsibilities. Go ahead, Aaron. So during the strategic planning process, we had um three goals developed. From those goals, um we created uh administrative team created smart goals and action plan to support those. It's really important for the board and the community to remember that our strategic plan does extend through up until 2030. Right? So, some of the goals we're setting here, some of the things that um we'll be reporting on throughout the next couple years are cumulative. So, I don't want to give any misrepresentation of of what you're looking at. Right? So under that student learning and achievement goal, right? And and this
091is we are hoping to do this by 2028 because that's when my contract is up. You'd actually have more time in your strategic plan. But since this is a primary focus obviously of the administration, we we set that date. But student proficiency and growth in ELA math and science and again we have many content areas. Those are the state tested content areas. We'll increase 10% districtwide with our local benchmarks. We also want to extend the programming, right? We want to expand the programming. So participation in steam in world languages in experiential learning opportunities, right? our our goal is to expand all of those um by at least 20%. Um and when I'm talking about that just from, you know, when I say an an action plan and um accomplishment standpoint, right? If we're here at
092the state of the district conversation, how what is it that we're talking about? More opportunities for personalized learning. You heard me talk about that, right? With grouping strategies, um, pursuit of excellence, a number of things um, with grouping implemented and being implemented at the middle school level. Um, curriculum enrichment. I know science tomorrow. Science Valley View. Science. What's tomorrow? >> Oh, I won't tell you then, but we've expanded that, too. Um so enriching the curriculum in steam in world languages um in immersion in in culture right we had students go to bise um last summer we're planning for the Japan a year from now more interdisciplinary problem based learning opportunities beginning at the elementary level partnering um with our farms our art organizations the businesses to create applied learning opportunities. Um AI has been a
093big conversation. Um and you'll hear some of that discussion during the policy um committee report. Staffing, right? Adding curriculum, again, this was the goal. Adding curriculum specialists, instructional staff to support enrichment and intervention by next year was the goal. Um, I think that our uh, supervisor of instruction is going to be that addition. I do not believe curriculum specialists, I'm just foreshadowing for everybody and to manage expectations is going to be realistic given um the the financial situation locally, statewide, and and even nationally. However, as I said, we've expanded some of those articulation opportunities with the sending districts and the high school to try and um take advantage of of that content and curriculum expertise where we can. Enrichment and intervention programs. Um part of what we talked about doing was program review. looking at
094the programs that we have, how do we um make them um deeper as far as depth of knowledge, more robust? How do we expand them? And again, um I think during our ongoing budget conversations, you'll hear more about some of those plans, but pursuit of excellence, um scheduling during the school day, looking at all of those opportunities, providing professional learning, you know, um world language was mentioned in the last one, specific professional learning to our staff, um expanding our multilingual learner instruction, Right. All of the work that we're doing in special education, these are all supporting this goal. Um and then the final um action item piece, this co-curricular expansion. One of the conversations was, you know, why don't we have a this where is this from the community during the strategic planning? And frankly,
095it was um frustrating. Sorry, I'm speaking for you to um Mrs. Fner and Miss Kidd because we have a lot of programs, right, that are happening here. Um some of the programs that were listed have been ongoing for a long time, but we did commit um to trying to add at least one new opportunity per building per year and we are maintaining that. I I won't steal any thunder because they it's their hard work in the buildings um that makes that happen. But making sure that we're aligning our curriculum to those core competencies, to those foundational skills, making sure we're consistent with the state standards, right? That's happening through um our commitment to curriculum writing, to updating our texts and resources, enhancing that academic excellence, um personalized learning, um collaboration across content areas, um expanding
096those opportunities, whether it's in soar or across the board for project-based and problem based learning. Um so students are challenged at their appropriate levels offering leadership opportunities for students. Um implementing opportunities for careers right opportunities for participation um and I when I say this they are expanded because we do this already national and state competitions right um we have uh Mrs. Morrison in the audience. We just had the honors band. Woo. We have a woo. You're not on mic. You got to be a louder woo. Um but um our our honors band, the region band, right? Those opportunities happen. They also happen across the curriculum in um robotics and in um team building. We talk about them during the reports every month. One of the things that um we committed to and I will speak
097to again under the other goals celebrating that right we talk about it here um it was a little bit of a rude awakening to me when I wasn't here last month and I logged in to watch the board meeting I just assume the entire community is sitting at home you know enjoying this and the the low number of people that are actually taking advantage of the stream was it was shocking and surprising communication is one of the goals. transparency. We think I think often that we're communicating through flyers and the web and the calendar. Um but expanding how how that happens um even even we had a conversation in committee even expanding um I don't want to use the word marketing but I think it is the right word to try and get more messaging
098is better how we expand that messaging right so we get more engagement right when we're inviting the parents we want you to come when we are inviting the community we really do so looking at how to to enhance that message messaging um access to technology is a piece of this um and of course as I said the staffing so all of those items under the strategic one plan goal you are going to continue you'll hear about all of these but you'll continue while we talk about the budget over the next couple months to to get referred back to these pieces of the goal and pieces of um the action plan. The second goal that professional learning development and capacity building goal um this one also had a short timeline right up to 2027 mostly because
099we really found that in previous years by limiting some of that professional learning we were playing catchup. Um we've done a tremendous tremendous job over the last two years and the staff have really taken advantage of the opportunities to participate. Um I would say that a 100% of our teachers and staff are already participating um in professional learning. We want to take it beyond that, right? 15 hours of targeted professional learning. meaning if you are um special educator professional learning geared specifically to that um last Friday we had um all of the paraprofessionals in the district attend um a a specialized training on what the different special education diagnoses mean and behavioral strategies may be geared towards each of those. Some of our paras are contracted, some are district, but that consistent message hasn't gotten
100out there. So, we've learned a lot and we are working really hard to make sure that we're providing this. We've started um using our thought exchange surveys across, you know, the community. We also will be surveying our staff specifically in needs, right? What what would support you? These are anonymous and then doing it um by grade levels and by schools so that we know we're offering what we can we would like to be able to do um and it's uh an unusual thing to do in schools. It's often um done in corporate, right? Have we increased your confidence in new instructional strategies or technology? Have we provided you opportunities to practice without risk, with no harm, no foul, um different strategies, different instructional methods, and again the support you need to learn that. Um that
101was a big part of our conversation in the policy committee with staff around um AI. How do we roll it out with efficacy? How do we give you know it's overwhelming? How do we structure it so people get what they need? So under that um professional learning goals, strategic plan goal number two, right? um we we've done already we've started with a lot of those um pieces the specialized training delivering um even advanced instructional strategies as I mentioned we do have a number of tenur staff experienced staff we have to meet people where they are helping with um training for transitions right you're transitioning between buildings into special education out of special education. How do we help our staff? Culturally responsive teaching, how do we support that? Leadership development, everybody's a leader. You lead where
102you stand. How do you use that? Right? And how do we as a district capitalize on that for engagement, for innovation, right? How do we with the addition of a supervisor of instruction um use a coaching model? but even expand that to peer-to-peer coaching, right? We have our technology committee. I already shared that Aaron has expanded in that area, but technology is a big area of training, right? that people have expertise in some and some need to learn. How how do we provide that regular support as well as um we've started this during our professional learning days, our district um professional learning days, cross school teams for curriculum design, getting those multi- um language learning teachers together, the art teachers together, the PE teachers together, right? having those opportunities for those conversations and and I've
103given you a bunch of examples. So, I'm going to um keep moving with this one with the next goal. Um our third goal, this communication and community engagement goal. Again, this was set for June 2027. During the strategic planning conversations, we said 75% of families and community members would report feeling informed and engaged, right, in our initiatives um and what we're, you know, participation rates at events. We're going to try and measure that through um surveys. Honestly, now a year later, I think 75% is really low, right? I think we were um I think we were being honest at that day. That would be a big growth because no matter what somebody says, they've never heard of it, never seen it, never did it. Um so I think that um just in the context of
104a strategic plan is not like printed out a binder that's sitting on the bookshelf. It's dynamic. It grows. It changes. It evolves. I would say that this is an area um of people feeling informed and engaged where um we we could absolutely increase the priority of that, if you will. Um and with that, what are we doing, right? How are we celebrating achievements? Um one of the things the bureau would like to do, they have their monthly um spotlight newsletter, right? They do some social media campaigns. Um they talked about highlighting staff and student accomplishments. We could be doing that, right? So that's one area. Public communication. We are um talking about how we can say all of these parent um series or whatever we're doing, how can we create an archive so there's a
105wider um ability to use that. Right? If people aren't coming in person and if consultants are like, "Hey, this is my my work. I make money off this. You can't just put it on your website for anybody to steal." How can we maybe um get links that we can provide individually, right? Not published, but provided for people to watch on their own time. or I know that after the um the parent um session at Valley View, the adolescent behavior um not the streamed presentation, but we were provided with a kind of a synopsis PowerPoint that we will be able to use and publish and and make that ongoing those kinds of opportunities that we haven't had. Um more community events. I've talked about that, talked a little bit about um a parent series and how
106we've grown that. The topics in last year, a year ago, were digital safety, learning supports, and navigating the school systems. We have accomplished those even just already this school year. Um and the last one under that was um the volunteer network, right? Developing a a network. And this was part of the PTO conversation the other day. So many people have gone back to work, right? Have needed to go back to work. We've lost a number of um consistent volunteers, community people used to get a lot of retired um people, not just our school staff, but community staff. And again, people are working longer. They they have to they they need to. Um the other piece of this communication and community engagement goal um which again is a state of the district I'm going backwards but
107going forward is was um school culture and climate breaking that out is a its own goal for breaking that out as its own smart goal right to um really work on that sense of belonging kindness collaboration to um create a learning community where um everybody in our learning community, right, our students, our staff, our families, community members feel that they can contribute and so that will be um an update with that action plan. There's um a lot of work happening already in the district around culture and climate um some surveying some programming and you will be hearing I expect a lot more about that between I say January in my notes but between January and June because um we're we're really percolating up with those and we're really proud and excited about all of the
108different opportun ounities um that are existing. So a fourth goal and a fourth set of um action items. Erin, can you push ahead? Thank you. So again, last year during the state of the district address, going into strategic planning, going into budget development season, we shared the previous year's budget objectives. So the current year that we're in, these were the budget objectives that were set um when we created the budget we are currently working in. Um you can see the the different goals obviously support teaching and learning in accordance with the district vision. I think that we are doing a really good job of that this year and um putting our money where our mouth is, if you will, because that's the point of budget objectives to make sure that we are investing in what
109we think is most important to continue to maintain and restore fundamental positions cut previously. Um to support growth and development in our operations. You've heard me talk a little bit about that as particular to special education, but it's true across the board. Um, one of our objectives was and has been for the past several years, maintaining um, class sizes, managing the budget efficiently, looking always to reduce expenditures, ways to generate surplus and build reserves, um, and again supporting our um, teaching and learning with the district vision. So those budget objectives that were set last year um were huge, right? It was only one year beyond having a deficit, having to open up the budget, having to rearrange our um revenues to be able to even balance. I I am just amazed at the accomplishments. This
110is Karen's well January I guess would have been your second anniversary right it's two and a half years for me and honestly that that um framework that has been developed serves us very very well when I talk about the objectives what we've done right based on those budget objectives what have we done we did maintain our class sizes we um reduced one of our sections of kindergarten with enrollment going down in kindergarten. We did maintain all of our other staffing levels during that year. We this year we did not um cut staff. We kept our programming for transportation for clubs for sports. We did not um reduce that as many districts had to do. We continued to expand, as you heard me talk about, our professional learning, our collaboration initiatives. we have continued um to
111prioritize curriculum instruction and assessment because the goal right is that um improved academic success and outcomes. I you've heard me talk about um what those investments have been new texts, new resources, um additional professional learning opportunities. We added a bus route um you know that we have maintained. All of those kinds of things really lead to this last piece that strategic stabilization, right? How is it that we can continue where we are, right? Not not lose ground. And and I have to say this because we're starting our budget season in the face of what is happening again locally, statewide, and nationally with economies, health care, all all of the different drivers of the budget. So, our strategic stabilization that we're in this year, right, that that we're so proud of that we're sustaining, it's going
112to take a lot more work as we start to talk about that going forward into the budget season. Um, these are just the areas, Erin, if you go forward. Thank you. These are just a reminder of the the areas that we were able to restore and we have maintained. Um Erin, if you go again and maintaining again our sports and our clubs. Um the PTO supports the Bayberry clubs um really robustly. Um and here at Valley View, they have continued to add continued to add to what is um possible here. You don't see again a $16,000 donation from CPAG to um support a new LLD classroom. You don't see when WEF supports the professional development for staff, the inspection of the equipment and the rehanging of our entire um uh it's called something that's out
113of my head. This course the adventure thank you adventure course here at Valley View. those things are outside of our budget but could not have happened or have been maintained without that support with there's just no possibility. So I I will leave you with we continue to grow. I think we continue to um aspire. We continue to acknowledge the incredible amount of work that it takes again from staff, from the community to make this happen. And I will also say this is unusual. Watch burrow. I say it every time. It is unusual. Look at our budget in the context of neighboring districts and look what we're doing. Look at the goals you've set in the context of prek to 12 districts, othersiz districts. We have not lowered our bar. We have not changed what we
114want for our students. we continue to to grow and as we continue to have these conversations in this budget season again it's going to be a hard conversation but I hope no matter what we don't lower that bar change our expectations lose our aspirations questions from I'll start with any of you on the board because I know for a lot of the new people. If you only have children at Bay Barry or you don't have children in the district, some of it might raise a question. If you're only at Valley View, you might have a question. Now, you're looking at me just smiling. Sit down. Stop talking. We have to go home. And that's fine, too. >> It's a great presentation. No, >> I again, I want to just acknowledge what we're doing because it's
115not I'm standing here. I get the pleasure of standing here and saying it. It's not me. I can't. I cannot accomplish this. It's you. It's all of you. We do have an audience tonight. So, all of you and we thank everybody. >> Thank you, Dr. Glazer. >> Let's move on to enrollment. >> So, I already know the answer. No, we are um one student down this month from last month. That's it. >> All right. Uh superintendent's remarks. >> I think you've heard I was going to say I think you've heard from me. You're going to hear from the principles. If we missed anything, I'm sorry. The next piece though, and this is an important piece, this isn't really my remark. Maybe that's why I get confused. Yeah. So, this piece will get approved by the
116board under action items. We do have a retirement on the agenda tonight um to to accept to approve. I have uh had the opportunity to tell Mrs. Morrison at least five times by now um that we we're excited for you. We congratulate you. Can't believe you're leaving us with that. Um, if you have seen the agenda, there is a proclamation and I am going to read this. Mrs. Morrison and her husband are with us tonight and she deserves to to hear it publicly and I'm thrilled that you are here. Whereas Nora Morrison began her employment with the WHung Bau School District in September 2005 as a district music teacher. And whereas Nora Morrison exemplifies expertise, commitment, and professionalism in her duties. And whereas Nor Morrison actively collaborates with faculty, staff, and administration, students, and families
117to foster a positive, respectful school culture, and plays an active role in the community she served with passion and kindness each day for almost 21 years. And whereas Nora Morrison, in addition to her teaching schedule, is responsible for the fourth through 8th grade level concerts, district honor band, central Jersey region band, as well as preparing for county and state level competitions, including having to schedule field trips to make that happen. Um, and the eighth grade promotion. And whereas Nor Morrison demonstrates creativity, leadership, and positive, transformative, and lasting impact on enhancing student learning. And whereas Nor Morrison is held in high regard by students, parents, and colleagues, and was recognized for her expertise in music education, being nominated and named at 2024 Governor's Educator of the Year. And whereas Mrs. Norm Morrison's skills, knowledge, mentorship, energy,
118and work ethic, but most of all, her friendship. We'll be sorely missed by everyone in the Wong Burough School District. Now be it resolved that the Wong Burough Board of Education and the entire school community recognizes Nor's retirement effective July 1st, 2026 and extend our deepest gratitude for her dedication, commitment, and service to the Wong Burough School District and wish her congratulations and best wishes for a happy, healthy, and enjoyable retirement. Thank you for your service. people at home, she is getting a standing ovation. Brava, brava. You'll also get a copy of that proclamation for you. >> Anybody else want? >> Thank you so much for your your generosity and for everything you've given to the district. Can we have principal reports? stretch. >> I know. >> Pokey. >> Oh, you're going down first. Yes.
119>> All right. First, I'd like to say congratulations to Nora. Um, very angry and very happy for her at the same time. Um, one of the strengths, um, that Nora has is she reminds parents and children how important the arts are. um through all of her interactions, whether it's performing during lunchtime um for all students, whether they're part of the band program or not, whether it's extending those conversations to families to encourage kids to stay in the program, or scooping up some kids that maybe are kind of lost and looking for a passion or an interest and giving them um some direction and guidance. So, thank you so much, Nora. It has been an absolute pleasure working with you here. All right. Now, good evening. We are pleased to share February highlights from both Bayberry
120and Elementary School and Valley View Middle School. I wrote read that wrong. I'm tired. You guys are asking a lot of us right now. Okay. At Valley View, Mountaineer Monday lessons throughout the month focused on strengthening peer relationships and fostering greater connection within the Valley View community. Along those lines, we are excited to recognize our January model mountaineers of the month, Lily D. Pascal, Emma Sutton, and Maria Angamara. They don't even know yet, so you guys know before them. We'll put it in the announcements probably on Monday. Congratulations to these students for exemplifying our school values. This month, Valley View World Language Teachers also participated in learning walks at the Wong Hills Regional High School. These visits included classroom observations and collaborative discussions with world language teachers from the regional high school and the sending
121districts. This professional learning opportunity supports instructional alignment and strengthen strengthens vertical articulation across the grade levels. In recognition of Black History Month, students engaged in meaningful learning across content areas. In Spanish classes, instruction focused on presenting and discussing Afro Latino artists and the meaning of the term Afroatino in the United States. All featured artists in musica miracles m gosh mccoles and >> Wednesday gracias and bala vieres were afro latatinos. >> I'm going to say it all now with an accent. Seventh and eighth grade students participated in scavenger hunt and stationbased activities highlighting black and afroatinoameans. Sixth grade students researched influential Afro Latino figures and their global contributions. and student presentations began this week as part of our Black History Month recognition. We also at both schools included in our daily announcements um interesting facts about
122key figures throughout the United States Black History um in Valley View Band program. Ready, Nora? 19 students participated in the sending district honors band and performed at the high school on January 28th. In addition, several students auditioned alongside nearly 700 Central Jersey students and earned placement in the Wind Ensemble, the highest performing group. Congratulations to Alec Trollwi, who earned first chair for the third consecutive year, as well as Katrina Ling, Allison Park, and Caitlyn Park, who is a sixth grade student. So, amazing accomplishments, and thank you to Miss Morrison for supporting them. We also congratulate the top finishers in this year's AMC8 math competition held on January 22nd. Caroline White earned first place. Darcel Patel placed second and Marcel Gilbert placed third. The AMC8 is the annual mathematics competition sponsored by the Mathematical Association of
123America and is designed to promote problem solving skills and positive attitudes towards analytical thinking in a low stress friendly environment. Valley View has participated in the AMC since 2006. Well done, Caroline, Darcel, and Marcel. Marcel, sorry, sorry, very tired. Okay, almost done. Second graders truly shown during their performance of How Does Your Garden Groove? Oh, I like that name. Um, in the week of February's, they confidently delivered their lines, worked beautifully as a team, and filled the room with joyful voices. A heartfelt thank you to Miss Kaskkey for her dedication and hard work and to the second grade teachers for their continued support in making this performance such a success. The week of February 9th was filled with friendship and love as Bay celebrated fun spirit activities and festive Valentine's Day parties creating special memories
124for all. There's no Valentine's parties at Valley View, but we dressed up. We did. We dressed up. It's all good. Alrighty. On the early dismissal day for students in February and the afternoon inservice for teachers, our district ESL teachers collaborated with a consultant from IDE to enhance resources, instructional practices, and supports for multilingual learners as well as to develop strategies to assist general education teachers. The remaining Valley View staff participated in a professional development workshop on adolescent development facilitated by Hearts and Hands Educational Consulting LLC. At Bayberry, teachers worked with a different IDE consultant to analyze Dibbles scores and plan instruction. Dibbles is a new researchbased well not new but it's new to us researchbased screening tool we have implemented this year to identify how our students are performing on foundational skills of reading on
125fe February 12th 15 coding and robotics club students participated in the national teams competition demonstrating their steam skills this year's theme engineering the past explored how engineering innovations have shaped history Competition results will be available in March. On February 14th, Valentine's Day, I don't know why you didn't have a party. Source students participated in the Prism Science Bowl in Princeton, competing against nine other New Jersey schools. The Prism Science Plus Bowl is a buzzer style STEM competition for middle school students grades 6 through 8, hosted by the Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science in New Jersey. The event features rounds on life, physical, earth, space, and engineering computer science, often featuring questions from student research. It includes roundroin preliminaries and single elimination playoffs. Wow. On February 18th, preschool students sang a variety of winter
126songs for their parents. We all enjoyed their performances and they looked so cute in their winter hats. Thank you to the prek team and Miss Kowanssky for a memorable performance. Tomorrow, February 20th, five source students will represent Valley View in the New Jersey Middle School Science Bowl, also in Princeton, where they will compete against 15 other middle schools. The New Jersey Regional Middle School Science Bowl is a prestigious annual fast-paced quiz competition that tests students knowledge in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and earth space sciences. Primarily hosted by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the Princeton area. That's a tongue twister. The winning team secures an all expenses paid trip to the National Science Bowl in Washington DC. Thank you for your continued support and attention of Bayberry Elementary School and Valley View Middle School. We
127look forward to sharing more updates in the months ahead. Thank you and have a great night. >> Know who's Julie? Dr. Glazer, is that your phone call? >> Oh, probably. Thank you. Okay, next up, um Karen, >> thank you so much, principles, Finn, and Kid and Fner. Um, >> thank you guys. >> Karen, do you have an update for us? >> Uh, yes. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to grab the minutes. Um, >> yes. As everybody's heard numerous times tonight, it's budget season in the business office. So, that's what we're doing. We review all the current accounts. We move funds as needed. We check everything. before we start the projections. So that's what's going on now. Whole department besides regular duties. >> That's it. >> Okay. Is there another district update I see on the
128agenda? >> No notes. >> Okay, great. >> Um, so moving on to committee reports. Um, given the time, I will ask everyone to be succinct and try not to repeat each other if there's content that goes across all committees. Thank you so much. Um, curriculum committee Fatima, do you have anything to share? >> Sure. >> Curriculum committee uh met on Wednesday, February 11 to 2026 from 4:34 to 5:34 p.m. In attendance was me, Leticia Marcellis, Rich Diano, President Danielle Amado, and Dr. Glazer. Followup regarding the referendum. We're almost done. The safety work for the railing and shade structure in the outdoor learning commons is almost complete. Furniture in the field and a storage shed will be fine. All pieces. Nothing is happening outside now due to the snow conditions. Everything will start up again after
129the snow melt and project are still expected to be completed in the spring. The LLD classroom transition is still happening. Interviewing for the special education director and supervisor of instruction is currently happening and as part of the budgeting process, the discussion of student projections and placements have begun. Dr. Glazer will follow up with Manville regarding their experience with opportunities for ongoing programs, partnerships with Duke Farms. 2026 2027 district calendar is still in the BOE packets and there are no changes since December except June 2nd. The district will be closed for staff and students. It will not be a professional learning day for staff. Valley View Middle School 8th grade promotion will be held June 15th. Sergeant Tom Rich, cyber bullying and technology safety expert, returned to the Valley View School for two student assemblies, fifth,
130sixth grade, and seventh and eighth grade January 27, generously funded by the PTO. And then in the evening, a session for parents to connect with student learning during the day. We didn't have the parent participation the second time that we had the first time. We are looking to try again back to school nights when we have the most parent participation. New business. On February 10th at Valley View, we had another session in our parent series on the topic of adolescent behavior. The parent series and the topics for this year came out of strategic planning discussions. Dr. Glazer will try to have speakers provide a link non-public so those who are not able to attend in person can still access the information. Tuition reimbursement is included as part of the WBEA contract. There has been an
131increase in c course uh reimbursement requests requiring reimbursement to be provided portionally as per the contract. This is the first time the allocated funds have not met the demand administration and the WBA are following to see if this will be a pattern. Friday, February 13, 2026 is a half day for professional learning day for Bay and Valley View staff. Sessions include consultant Mary Beth Riarden presenting the Valley View staff the adolescent behavior session done for the parents on February 10th. Consultant Dr. Diane Apple will be working with all paraprofessionals on strategies to work effectively with special education students. IDE will be working with K24 instructional staff on understanding and analyzing the Dibbles reading assessment scores to plan for instruction and ID will be continuing their work with MLL staff. March 20, 2026, schools will also
132be closed for a full day of professional learning. >> Thank you. Uh administrative and finance. >> Can you hear me now? >> The administration and finance committee met on February 12th at 5:00 pm. It was a virtual meeting. In attendance were myself, Adam Craft, Leticia Marcelis, Danielle Amado, Dr. Glazer, Karen Bishop Johnson, and we had guest Connor O'Brien from Legacy Construction, who provided the committee with a referendum projects update, some of which you've heard. Um, additional items would be that the HVAC project is substantially complete and in the closeout phase. The cost of the mold remediation is being covered um by DRG and HNS. So, the school won't be responsible for that. Uh fixes related to the roof will have to wait till the snow melts, but they are covered by warranty. Um when the
133weather improves, work will start back up on the sports area and fields at Valley View and drainage drainage solutions are being investigated. Um moving on with the meeting, we had an update on right at school, the vendor who is providing before and after school care. They have agreed to ch charge parents the current rate for siblings. The pricing will adjust next school year to a 10% discount. The staff have transition from being employees of the school to employees of right at school. The request for proposals for an architect has yielded four responses. The next step is for the administration to review the proposals and provide recommendations to the committee. The county has approved an administrative transfer within the budget. the transfers needed to cover unexpected legal and audit fees. The committee discussed the reintroduced pilot
134bill in the Senate and had concerns regarding changes on the allowed use of pilot funds by the district. We will be reaching out to our local legislatures local legislators to ensure our concerns are considered. Agenda items are standard, including professional development, a referendum pay application to HNS for HVAC work, payments of bills and financial reports, continuation of current legal contracts, and a waiver for the special education Medicaid initiative as we do not have enough students to require reporting. Finally, the committee discussed the upcoming 2627 budget. Unfortunately, the budget numbers from the state are going to be delayed due to the transition to a new governor. State budget address will be March 10th with us getting the numbers March 12th. In turn, we will have a very short time period to finalize our budget. The committee
135received an overview of projected expenditures and revenues from Mrs. Bishop Johnson. An extra committee meeting has been scheduled for February 24th to review the full budget. That's it. >> Policy committee, uh, Rich, is there a report? >> Yep. Uh the policy committee met on February 4th uh virtually and attendance was myself uh Danielle, Jessica, Dr. Glazer, Pinky, Neielson, Aaron Lenovich, Heather Berg, Doris Santos, Kevin O'Connell, Susan De Villers, Susan Walsh, just and the committee expressed appreciation to the staff members who volunteered their time until 7 p.m. on a Wednesday evening. Their thoughtful participation and teacher voice were valuable to the discussion. The committee spent the majority of the meeting discussing artificial intelligence. Staff shared prof professional development experiences, workshops attended, and collected resources. A shared resource folder has been created with the sample rubrics, digital
136literacy, and prompting tools, use agreements, and learning tasks utilizing AI. Teachers describe being an exploratory phase and shared instructional examples, including using Gemini to support sixth grade mock trials, Canva AI for image creation, and using AI to assist with essay revision after students generate the original work. The focus emphasized emphasized AI as a resource to support thinking and revision, not as a generator of original ideas. Aaron Lenovich introduced the pivot framework for evaluating AI tools uh which stands for purpose, inclusivity, value, oversight, and tracking, highlighting the importance of vetting platforms rather than individual lesson ideas. Platforms such as Gemini, Magic School, and School AI were discussed as possible training wheels due to built-in guard rails and student work tracking capabilities. The importance of teaching critical thinking, ethical use, media literacy, and awareness of AI's broader
137implications, including energy use and plagiarism, was discussed. Information literacy standards currently being developed in New Jersey should be integrated into core instruction. The committee discussed developing AI literacy by grade level, establishing clear expectations for student AI use at each grade. Alignment with sending districts in this high in the high school was emphasized to ensure consistency for students. Examples from Warren and Westfield were reviewed. The Westfield model focuses on developing student and staff dispositions and being task specific rather than tool specific. Warren district is using a plan that is dynamic and focuses on questions rather than a policy boilerplate. The committee discussed whether watching bro should prioritize developing an AI policy and a plan or both. Excuse me. The district currently has three policies impacting AI under review. P 2365 acceptable use of generative AI, P5701
138academic integrity, and P2361 general acceptable use. Work on these policies has been ongoing for near nearly one year. The committee agreed to move forward with drafting a high level guiding AI policy, work with the tech committee andor AI committee to develop a detailed AI implementation plan, structure a schedule for introducing AI use to staff and student projects, and focus initial roll out on a limited number of vetted tools. Finally, providing targeted training for stu staff and students. The draft policy will be revised to include approved platforms and changed age limitations. The timeline for plan development is flexible. However, work will continue given that AI use is already occurring. Dr. Glazer will work with AI committee to structure implementation and training following policy development. Uh and finally, Dr. Glazer reviewed the board policy review process for
139new members and clarified the distinction between a policy, what is required, and a regulation, how it is implemented. It was confirmed that regulations should be reviewed alongside any related policy updates. >> Jessica, is there a report for personnel? Well, I got off pretty easy. Um, only because there was a Dr. Glazer reviewed a lot of it today. So, I um it's very minimal. But we met on February 11th from 5:45 till 7 o'clock as myself, Jennifer Sahil, Danielle, and Dr. Glazier were in attendance. Committee first reviewed the 2627 school calendar. Uh Dr. Blazer confirmed that the calendar has not changed since December discussion was the exception of June 2nd. The district will be closed for staff and students and not designated as a as a staff development day which is consistent with the WBEA contract
140language. Um going down to hiring update, I'm not going to review that. We did discuss the supervisor instruction, but Dr. Glazer had mentioned that earlier. Uh we also discussed the director of special services. Um Dr. Glazier mentioned that earlier in her uh presentation. And then we also um discussed the retirement of Miss Morrison. And uh the final piece was the committee was informed that the board members will reinstate onschool information communication. Board members are reminded that the operational questions or feedback should continue to be directed to Dr. Glazier in accordance with established government's rules and that was it. >> Board board liaison reports uh the legislative liaison. Um that's me and uh that information was already covered in the admin and finance report. So I do not have an update. Um Jessica, is there a
141Somerset County Educational Services Commission report? >> Yes. >> So we met on February 4th between 4:30 and 6:10. the meeting uh was the Somerset Educational Services Commission and um superintendent recognized the 2526 Governor's Educator of the Year. Teacher was the English teacher, Mr. Shawn Norris, and school psychologist, Mr. Michael Waxman. highlighted. They also highlighted the commission's second annual unified volleyball tournament which brought together students across districts in a strong show of inclusion and community partnership. The board um received the 25 um 2025 comprehensive annual financial report and auditor's management report with the uh review and approval the 2026 27 annual school district budget. Uh budget transfers board secretary and treasure reports bill list and related financial items were approved. Transportation items included special education transportation corrections and coordinated transportation services agreements with Florence Township and
142Ran I'm gonna say this wrong. Ranco Rancus Valley High School. The board also approved an agreement with Logic 54 LLC for student transportation management software to improve operational efficiency. The board approved 2026 27 school calendar, revised emergency day provisions, conducted first readings of several policy updates including nepotism, employment of the chief school administrator resource materials, public complaints, sexual harassment, library materials, and consider the abolishment of outdated policies to ensure compliance with current legal requirements. And that was the conclusion. Thank you. Somerset County School Boards Association, Leticia, there an update. >> Nothing to report at this time. >> Great. Uh, School Boards Association, Jen, >> nothing to report. Just everyone remember to do your mandatory training. >> MJC, Dr. Glazer. >> Yep. They're in the same boat as um all of our other neighboring districts. We're
143starting budget season. We're reviewing all of the pieces that go with that. Our next meeting is uh March 5th. Um enrollment growth working group. Is there an update? >> No, we're waiting for the uh results of the demographics. >> Great. Community engagement. Do we have anyone from the PTO? How about WE and CPAG? Okay. Um executive session, I don't see anything checked off. I believe we do not have Okay. Can we have that taken off next time? Perhaps if there's no >> No, the piece stays there, but when you see nothing checked off, you know that there's no It's a public thing also. >> Okay. Comments from the public on agenda items. We welcome input from the public. There are two times during the meeting when the public is invited to speak. The first opportunity
144to comment on agenda items only is now. The second opportunity for public comment is toward the end of the meeting. All comments are limited to 5 minutes. The total time allotted for public comment is 30 minutes. Before you make your comment, please state your name and municipality residents. In the event it appears the public comment portion of the meeting may exceed 30 minutes. The presiding officer may limit each statement made by a participant to 3 minutes duration. Our public forums are not structured as a question and answer session, but rather are offered as opportunities to share input with the board. In instances where the board feels a response is needed, the presiding officer or superintendent will address the comment. New Jersey statutes do not permit the board to to discuss personnel or hiring in public
145session. Names of students should not be used. Members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected and identified in their comments and be aware that they are personally legally responsible with potential liability for comments that they make to the board. The board shall not be held liable for comments made by members of the public. Hi, I am Emily Kaufman and I'm from Watch. Good evening everyone. My name is Emily Kaufman and I'm an eighth grader here at Valley View. I am here tonight to talk about the eighth grade graduation. Once the date was made for June 15th, I realized there is a major conflict for me. My last three dance recital are on June 15th, the exact same day and exact time as my eighth grade graduation. The
146graduation starts at 6 p.m. and so does my recital. This is probably the worst news I have ever received. I was devastated because this means that I have to choose between attending my eighth grade graduation and my final dance recital of the year. Dance means the world to me. It's not just a hobby. It's something I want to pursue in the future. I have applied to the honors dance program at Somerset County Votch and I really hope I get in. I actually missed my ballet and contemporary class tonight so I could be here to speak. At the same time, graduation is something that I've been waiting for for a very long time. My friends and I have already have already made plans for graduation. We were going to get ready together and enjoy our last
147few days as eighth graders. It marks the end of my middle school years and something that I have worked on for four years to achieve. Our eighth grade is a small class and I truly believe that every student should have the opportunity to attend without any conflicts. Ever since I've gotten this news, I've been upset that I at the idea that I have to choose between these two things. I'm here to say please if there could be any consideration to change the date, it would literally mean the world to me. The whole graduation thing has given me a whole ball of stress and I can't seem to get over the feeling that I would have to most likely pick one or the other. Thank you for listening and I hope my thoughts and feelings will
148be taken into your consideration. Thank you and I hope you have an amazing rest of your night. >> Thank you so much. >> I see no other commenters. Okay. Action items. Um, Jen, would you uh move under administrative items just items one and two, please? >> Sure. I move administrative administrative item one, approve minutes of previous meeting and two, approve memorandum of understanding between the Wong Burough School District and the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Any discussion? Let's have a roll call. >> Yep. It's okay. Take your time. Second. >> Okay. Mr. Craft. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Maddox. >> Yes. >> Mr. Desaniano. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Marcellis. >> Yes. >> Mr. Ta. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Santos. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Amado. >> Yes. >> Mrs.
149Aglaro. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Harvey is absent. The motion passes. >> Okay. Um Jessica, would you mind moving administrative item three only? >> I move to um move number three resend. And the motion passes on January 22nd, 2026 to approve the legal services agreement with Prozy Bomb Bombberg and Newman PC for special conflicts council effective July 1st, 2025 through December 30 31, 2026. >> Second. >> Great. Any discussion? I'd like to share um that this motion to resend an approval from last month uh is due to incorrect contractual language and dates um because the admin and because the administration would like to engage this firm for additional services. So um we're separating these items out so that we can specifically vote to rescend this and then the next two motions will address these new these
150changes. Any other questions or thoughts? Okay, let's have a roll call. >> Okay, Mr. Craft. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Maddox. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Agliero. >> I wasn't at the meeting, so I'm going to abstain. >> Okay. Mrs. uh let's see. Mrs. Harvey's absent. Mrs. Marcelus. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Santos. >> Yes. Stain. >> Mr. A >> yes. >> Okay, let me see who I didn't get. And Mr. Desaniano, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Amado, >> I'll abstain on this. >> Okay, I think that's everybody. Mrs. Harvey's absent. Motion passes. >> Okay, Jen, can you move the rest of the administrative items, please? >> Sure. I move item number four, approve the legal services agreement, special counsel. Number five, approve the legal services agreement, special counsel. Number six, approve the 2026 2027 district calendar. And
151number seven, accept Bayberry and Valley View School drill reports. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Okay, you're ready, Karen. >> Okay. Okay. Um, Mr. Desaniano. >> Yes. Okay. Mr. Craft, >> yes. >> Mrs. Marcellis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Maddox, >> yes. >> Mrs. Santos, >> I abstain from uh four and five. And yes, the rest of them >> abain four and five. Okay. Okay. Uh Mr. Tricka. >> Yes. >> All right. Um Mrs. Harvey's absent. Mrs. A Zado, >> I'll also abstain from items four and five and yes to the rest of the items. >> Okay. And Mrs. Agliero, >> I abstain from number four and number five and yes to number six and number seven. >> Okay. Um and I said Mrs. Harvey was absent and the motion passes. >>
152Great. Jessica, would you like to move personnel items? Yes. I uh move to approve personnel item number one. Approve m retirement number two. Gosh, accept revised resignation. Approve appointment of long-term substitute. Approve district substitute for the 2526 school year. Approve leave of absence. Approve salary guide advancement. Approve appointment of extracurricular positions for the 2526 school year. Approve revised extracurricular positions for the 2526 school year. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Okay. Okay. Roll call. All right. Mrs. Aleo. >> Yes. >> Mr. Craft. >> Yes. Mrs. Marcelis, >> yes. >> Mr. Tricka, >> yes. >> Mrs. Santos, >> yes. >> Mrs. Maddox, >> yes. >> Mr. Desaniano, >> y >> Mrs. Emado, >> yes. >> Mrs. Harvey is absent. The motion passes. >> Um, Adam, would you mind moving operations and
153finance items? >> I'd like to move C1, approve payment of bills as follows. yada yada yada. C2, approve transfer of funds 2025 2026. C3, accept financial reports. Four, resolution to join slashrenew schools health insurance fund. Five, authorize waiver of requirement special education Medicaid initiative program. Six, approve revised change order for Bayberry and Valley View HVAC upgrades. Seven, approve change order for Bayberry and Valley View HVAC upgrades. Eight, approve payment application Bay and Valley View HVAC upgrades. Nine, approve revised indistrict transportation services agreement with SCESC. 10, accept revised donation in support of TRS. 11, approve updated professional service providers list. And 12, approve professional development/school business and related expenses. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Any discussion? Ready? Roll call. >> Okay. Okay. Mrs. Maddox. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Marcelus. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Santos.
154>> Yes. Abstain on check number 46808. >> Okay. Mr. Tricka. >> Yes. Mr. Craft, >> yes. >> Mr. Desaniano, >> yes. >> Mrs. Agliero, >> abstaining on C1 for check 46808. Yes. To everything else. >> Okay. And Mrs. Emado, >> I'm also abstaining on C1 uh for check number 46808. And yes to everything else. >> Okay. Uh Mrs. Harvey's absent. Motion passes. >> Okay. Um All right. I see no curriculum or policy items. Um is there any board business? Okay. And any comments from the public? I see no public. Oh, there you are. >> All right. I think we're ready to endure. To adjourn. Can I have a motion? >> So moved. >> All nine of you. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> have a great night everyone.