001all right and we are back in public session um I'm going to go out of order and going to begin with my president's comments tonight um on October 7th 202 3 early on a Saturday morning terrorists from Hamas breached the Israeli border and perpetrated the greatest act of murder on Jewish people since the Holocaust the atrocities are unspeakable the tragic and senseless loss of so many innocent citizens is unimaginable this is an indefensible barbaric Act of terrorism this is not something that's just happening somewhere else many people who are suffering are right here in our own Community the Jewish Community is a close Nick group many Jewish families in our community know someone or had a relative who was brutally murdered or taken hostage many families know someone or have a relative who has been
002called into active service with the IDF the suffering of our neighbors and friends in our own Community is very real and they need our support we must also call for all efforts to be taken to ensure that the safety and well-being of the civilians in Gaza we're now caught with no place to go must be adhered to as well and we must hope and pray that civilian casualties throughout this conflict will be minable hatred has no place at Wong Hills but this is a teachable moment we must be clear that terrorism has no place in a civilized society and we need to speak up when we see evil when it occurs and we must respect the rights of all citizens to live free from the threat of terrorism regardless of their backgrounds or religious beliefs
003or where they're from any student needing support should not hesitate to reach out to the members of our school counseling team you may also want to visit our Warrior Wellness resource pages on our website for additional support but one of the key responsibilities as a board as a leadership team as a faculty and as a staff is to ensure a safe and nurturing educational environment for all of our students hate has no place on our campus the strength of our community lies within our support for one another I'd like to ask for a moment of silence for those whose lives have been lost over the past two weeks thank you Dr jitt so I'm going to reserve my comments for the presentation we have tonight it's nice to see uh so many in our audience
004and I would just like to recognize and I know Mr Morrison will probably want to do the same but we have our new student Reps for this year with us tonight so Sophie lamb and Juliana Santos and they are both 10th graders correct so hopefully we'll be seeing your faces for a couple of years so welcome to the board we are very happy to have you um and shortly in the agenda you will be giving your first report so thank you Mr thank you Mr President I just wanted to publicly thank the watching Hill Soccer Association um and the township wck department and Warren for helping us out when we needed fields in the beginning of the season um I asked once and they said whatever you need which is a good thing so just
005a shout out and thanks to them and and especially Mr Senna right Frank Senna was yeah with the watch Young yeah Frank he was great I mean he just said whatever you need we'll give you any time you need and he was great so and uh the townships have also been supportive through this Long Long Hill Township and Greenbrook also offered field so they were they were great excellent thank you that will give us an opportunity to go to our student Representatives so I welcome um Sophia lamb and Juliana Santos okay um I'm going to start with the student achievements we are pleased to report that there are 28 commended students in the National Merit Scholarship competition these designations were based on the scores of students who sat for the 2022 preliminary gastic aptitude test
006the PSAT and the National Merit Scholarship qualifying test the nmsqt on October 7th and 8th in conjunction with the Greenbrook Historical Society several students participated in the Somerset County Journey Through the past as volunteers at Washington Rock and Dr John verle's house in Greenbrook Washington Rock was a site where General George Washington surveyed the movements of the British troops during the important battles and skirmishes in the summer of 1777 General George Washington presented woman who saved America during the revolution at Washington Rock State Park on Saturday there was a Q&A at the end of the presentation and a book was awarded for the best question it was a great experience for the students school events class of 2024 senior college and postsecondary planning night took place on Thursday September 14th this year school counselors met
007with over 300 students parents and caregivers on their individual case loads to review topics related to navigating the college application process from interest to acceptance the evening's presentation is now available on the counseling page of the district's website Additionally the school counseling department held watchong Hills Regional High School College financial aid night on Wednesday September 27th the presentation reviewed strategies to navigate the upcoming challenges to the FASA the CSS profile and provided additional College financial aid and scholarship information hesaa representative Miss Jane O'Brien presented along with Mr Sabino the recording and H EAA slides are available on the counseling website along with other pertinent postsecondary information so continuing on with the school events um College representative visits began on September 15th for seniors and juniors um visits are held during student lunch and after school
008with oversight and support from school counselors um on September 27th 2023 our voter registration Drive was led by students Juliana oeld Gia parth and tiara Evans the students were able to get 44 students to register to vote during our lunchtime campaign and dozens of others to take home applications to fill out back to school night was held on Thursday October 5th The Faculty did an excellent job of sharing our instructional program with parents in the South cafeteria parents were able to obtain information regarding co-curricular offerings and were able to meet the Student Assistance counselors school counselors were accessible in the main office suite PTO representatives were present to register and inform families of important upcoming meetings and events and Project Graduation representatives were there to reach out to seniors parents were encouraged to visit our
009learning Commons and see firsthand a recently completed referendum Improvement kudos to our peer leaders for guiding parents and to trian member Leo Chen for the mesmerizing piano performance during passing time now moving on to the Athletics update um a few important School sports related dates to note um November 6th is the deadline to submit winter for sports physical paperwork to the nurse's office to ensure clearance in time for the first day of tryouts and practice um for information regarding registering and paperwork requirements please visit the Athletics page on the website or contact the athletic office we will be recognizing class of 2024 student athletes who will continue their academic and athletic careers at the N NCAA division 1 and division 2 levels on Wednesday November 8th at 2:30 here in the learning Commons additional recognition
010dates for division three athletes and Division 1 and two athletes that weren't committed at the time of the November 8th signing can be found on the Athletics page on the school website please be sure to let the Athletics office know that if you are planning to continue at the NCAA division 1 2 or three level next year to be sure we invite you and your family to our recognition day as the Warriors prepare for their state tournament contests here are a few highlights girls volleyball they are 13- one this team cinched their conference division championship with the Stellar record they will continue their season as the number two ceed in the Somerset County tournament football they are 6-2 their Warriors have had a great season so far and to enjoy their success they hosted their
011class of 1973 counterparts last Friday night for homecoming um the CrossCountry team competed at the Greystone Invitational and the girls took home the first place trophy for the large School Division they will complete compete this Thursday at the Somerset County Championship race at Pleasant Valley Park where they will also celebrate senior day as always we would like to thank our fans staff and families for their support of our Warrior teams go Warriors great thank you very much any before we move on any questions for our students all right um so one of the things that we allow our students student representatives to do you are welcome to stay uh but if you have other pressing things that you need to get to homework or other responsibilities you're welcome to leave whenever you see F great
012you're welcome and not all of our student reps always get a round of applause so pretty good good on your on your first time and with that we will uh turn the agenda over to uh Dr JWT and our action team co-chairs and Department supervisors thank you Mr Morrison and Board of Education members for the Board of Education members in just in case you have trouble seeing up there I did email you the presentation um prior to tonight but hopefully you can uh you can read it from the screen uh we did Jazz up our uh presentation a bit to make it a little more aesthetically pleasing uh so this is the the final installment in our fall presentation series for the board uh and this is going to be an update on our focus
013on our strategic plan goals for the coming year um so we will have our strategic uh plan co-chairs present um on the focus for each of the four goals for this year as well as each of our uh Department area leaders present on what their areas of focus for their departments are related to the Strategic plan goals and as you are all aware this is our driving force behind um every initiative that we put forward as a district as you know Mr sty uh requires everyone to indicate which strategic plan goal their budget requests are aligned to each year uh and this is something we obviously talk about as a board quite often when we are um allocating resources so and hopefully by now everyone's pretty familiar with our goals uh the first one being
014related to Social and emotional Wellness the second one being Pathways to educational success for all of our students goal number three is all about creativity and Innovation and goal number four is all about diversity equity and inclusion and I know I I include this slide a lot but this is what we refer to every year um specifically over the summer when we have our Leadership Retreat with regard to the cycle of continuous Improvement um one of the the I guess um advantages but disadvantages of strategic planning is you're never done uh you are always re-evaluating and reassessing uh your progress and it really is a living document because obviously needs change and you know one of the um areas of focus you'll see that a couple of our U administrators will speak about tonight has
015to do with artificial intelligence uh that wasn't something we were talking about several years ago and that is certainly something that we need to be aware of and you know that not only do we need to be aware of um how it shouldn't be used but how we can actually use it to our advantage uh both as Educators and with our students so without further Ado I am going going to turn it over to our first set of strategic plan co-chairs uh Mr Sabino and Miss Tobin and uh I see the students looking yeah you might see yourself in the presentation in some pictures so uh thank you Mr Sao thanks Dr Jan good to see everybody this evening unfortunately Miss po toobin was not able to be here tonight so I we going to
016speak on the goals for for both of us um so we are are um responsible Miss Tobin and I to review the updates related to the social emotional growth and wellness goals as Liz mentioned you know despite this being something that I'm speaking to this evening we all work collaborative as a team on all these different goals and you know speak into the progress that we need to make here so it's always good to have photos of the students that's also another metric that is utilized that little black and yellow um icon there it speaks to the the different ways that we look and approach uh the school counseling program that we uh we are looking to to align with which is the ASA U student model but it speaks to accountability management uh delivery
017of services and having a foundation to build off of so it's it's not to can't see that really clearly there but it is it is a model that we utilize so for the Strategic Bing goals this year um it's a pleasure to be able to review uh where we're at with the updates on so social emotional growth and wellness as the Board of Education the administra staff and students here tonight know well supporting all students in an inclusive environment where all students belong has and continues to be a priority of the district this school year will be continu continuation of that work in the following areas of focus so the first area that we're speaking on tonight is the um implementation of Behavioral threat assessment team which we we um we were asked us to
018update based on regulation from the state um but we fortunately here at watang Hills already have a wellestablished policies and practices for responding to concerns for student safety and well-being so this summer NJ doe introduced new regulations related to The Establishment and imp implementation of a behavioral threat assessment team fortunately as I mentioned uh we already have this strong Foundation of a crisis response team here we have individuals throughout our team that have years of experience both both in you know in supporting students our our security here have great experience working in law enforcement in different areas we have numbers of members of our crisis response team who have worked in mental health space and doing crisis assessments and crisis work so we really have a very a very established team here that does do
019this work and already has established uh plans to to address these types of concerns so the the district already has School Safety and Security plans already has a student crisis management plan and we also have guides for traumatic loss um what we were looking to do is with the new behavioral threat assessment regulations really using it as an opportunity to review with students families and staff on how to identify report and appropriately respond to student safety concerns uh so this past PD day on October 9th Dr Michelle pagot who is one of our Ruckers clinicians who works with us uh she helped provide a review of the crisis response protocols for our teachers and staff and additionally we integrated the new policy and regulations from this behavioral threat assessment team into our crisis management plans
020so there's a lot on that and again as to Li's Point uh this is something that you're never done with this is always continued work that we're working on and we continue to find Opportunities to provide both development for our staff you know and making sure the staff know and and best help to support to respond to these types of incidents knowing that their role is a teacher so they know that you know they they know enough to be the front the front lines to look into these types of concerns and make sure that if they are observing any concerning signs how to best address it based on what they're seeing but then also knowing that we have a professional team here of school counselors student assistant counselors as well as our rers clinicians in
021the building uh in addition to the case managers who work very closely with the number of our students so we have a great support here in the building and that's just an important thing you know it's been out there a lot about these the need for these behavioral threat assessment teams and this new initiative from the state but again I think it's worth repeating that the watch Young Hill is already already has a well established way we've been addressing these types of concerns for years and again just looked at it as an opportunity to reflect on you know the the work that we're doing and really making sure that we're addressing all of it uh so other additional areas of focus uh through these social emotional growth and wellness um uh part of the plan
022here um we also are looking at potential enhancements to providing ninth graders with incorporating more opportunities for interdisciplinary teaching so for next year we're looking to have opportunities to look more at the way that we're providing the the instruction to our nth grade students as they come in next year and seeing other ways that we can maybe enhance opportunities for teachers to have more common prep time so they can interdisciplinarily work together or other opportunities that we're looking to explore you know with the work of our team here miss Tobin is continuing to collaborate with Department supervisors and teachers on the approaches to demonstrate and discuss authentic understanding and learning I guess that that's you know to Liz's point about the AI being part of this now you know when we when this was initially
023in um we initially developed a strategic plan goals back in 2020 you know we weren't talking about AI to the capacity that in the degree that we are now uh we were however still mindful that academic integrity was important and that we're looking at ways for students to authentically demonstrate their understanding of the work so with with the now the new age of AI that I'll say we we were in here now we want to still continue to make sure we're looking at that and we're utilizing the best approaches to navigate that which is a challenge can be a challenge um additionally want to look at um continuing to partner with Rucker School climate transformation project uh we do an annual survey now I think this been three years already that we provide to students
024staff and families and and the Really the goal of the of our partnership with Ruckers is to know that positive School climates Foster physical social and emotional well-being of both students and staff and creating conditions for Effective teaching and learning and and as we know with a positive School climate that's really going to leave to lead to more positive student academic and development developmental success so really at the core of whatever we do is we need to make sure that we're providing a positive environment for our students and and looking at that annually to see which ways we need to possibly tweak our our strategic plan goals and the other supports that we're providing to students and staff so they can do that work and that they can develop as as we want them to
025additionally we continue to provide opportunities for professional developments and resources to our staff on how to integrate social emotional support for students in the classroom and that's again an ongoing process that will continue with all the years of this plan and I imagine into the future next I'd like to welcome Mr reemer and Mr SI Frost to review the next strategic plan goal good evening good evening uh here to talk about uh our strategic plan goal too the first aspect um I really like as a vice princible uh a lot of the students that I see in my office you know tend to have a little bit U more challenges both uh you know socially and academically and with our multi-tiered system of supports one of the biggest um things we love to brag about
026is our Empower program and the Empower program is a way for students to get credit recovery uh in smaller class sizes with concentrated learning um from their teachers and they're they're able to get credit very quickly um and sometimes uh classes that where they may be behind a year or two in a couple different classes were able to uh give them concentrated education in these Empower programs as a way for them to Reg regain their credit so it's something that um really helps the kid out kids that have a rough year can get back on track the next year and it's something that you know keeps them positive and motivated to success um the other uh multi-tier system of support that we're involved with uh Anthony just talked or excuse me Jason just talked about
027and that's the um the r the Ruckers clinicians and our student assistants counselors who are available to assist uh other students with challenges um you know more behavioral emotional anxiety things like that so we're very happy to uh to have so many nice programs in place um for these students to have an outlet to uh to seek some additional assistance we also have a um a transition program uh in the summer for students that are coming to wung Hills for the first time uh that's something that um that we started and that we look forward to continuing in the future Michelle so I'll take over for the work based learning and the community internship program so we continue to expand both of these programs for our Learners um our work-based learning we now have a
028full class of 12 uh special education students that are participating in this um it's an all afternoon program the last four periods of the day we have ex even expanded it into senior year it used to be just mostly for postgrads students that stayed until 21 um this year our job sites include Warrenville Hardware ShopRite Walgreens our learning Commons Cafe um the Sterling Library we work with the buildings and grounds crew doing deliveries and we also now this year working at the Warren rocket uh ball and fitness center which is a nice addition we are also looking into building the school store with Mr belli we'll see how that goes um the community internship program is really something that we're focusing on um this year and going forward of really trying to meet the needs
029of kids that maybe want to learn more of the workforce while they're here in high school so it's really designed for students to complete academic cours workk in the morning and then they gain work experience in the afternoon this year some of the places where our students are gaining that experience are at Panera ey exam group The Great Swamp green houses a landscaping and Construction Group and also the Jimmy Fleming Electric we can't thank our community businesses enough for really offering this experience to our students and we're hoping we can continue to grow it for more students in the future uh finally we like to highlight the collaboration with the K through 8 uh you know you read something like that and you're looking that collaboration with K through 8 districts what what exactly does
030that mean well we do something that's called uh a learning walk and basically we have um the Educators and Department chairs from the middle schools come up and they actually um you know go through the classes and they're able to get a really good feeling for the types of structure that we have here um in addition to the learning walks they they're also uh involved with understanding how we schedule and some of the uh the student transition uh things that we offer for the younger kids coming up once once these learning walks take place and they have an opportunity to witness some of the the programs there then uh there we then have these sessions where there's collaboration back and forth with uh the the the teachers to uh you know engage in whatever questions
031they may have ideas and also for us to listen to some of the things that they bring to the table that might be successful down at the middle school level so we you uh plan on continuing these activities for uh the next year as well and next we have Mr flacker and Mr Malo for goal three thank you everyone good evening um oh yeah lost control look at that one [Applause] second okay uh so uh work uh has begun on the course promotional videos uh we just met recently with some teachers and um some Administration uh the goal uh behind this was to put together a a video where students could uh view on our program or study on our website and maybe get a better understanding of what the course is about and Peak
032Interest in the elective so our our aim for this year is to get um at least one video created in each department and placed on a website U around the time the program of um studies is published um the videos are going to be about three minutes in length or under three minutes in length and it will feature uh voice over narration that was going to be done by our students in the theater program and with the help of um uh staff members in the um pack we're hope to produce a nice highquality video that uh students could view come uh the winter uh the steam lab um I don't want to take any thunder away from Tim but I think we're close to approving a bid and and beginning the next phase of that
033hopefully soon which will hopefully have some graphical renders that we could share with our departments uh department heads and teachers and uh some educational outcomes could be produced uh which they worked on a little bit last year so we could continue doing that into the next phase and that will also tie into what that space will look like and how it would function and uh Mr flacker will talk a little bit about uh design thinking and how that might get Incorporated in that space thank you so um you know you're where you know that we're uh making a significant investment in Ned steam lab uh creating a state state of art environment for students to work and learn uh so we want to make sure that um our faculty and everybody involved is prepared to
034utilize it to the best of its ability so design thinking is a a process and a methodology uh for problem solving and it it uh integrates and works well and and of course and programs that might be utilizing that space so uh this year we started the year off with some uh training for the leadership team during the summer Retreat we we took uh some time to dig into what design thinking is and how it can be used in a classroom and uh we carried over we did a a short professional development session during our PD days uh in August uh for some teachers who who signed up uh to be in that session uh looking forward we are planning a professional development uh day in early December we're hoping for where we can have
035some uh some additional training and create a small cohort of teachers who uh dig in learn a little bit more about design thinking and learn how it could be used best in our classrooms um and and hopefully uh be able to turn key some some solutions as we move art so um we have plans to to create that cohort and mo forward this year so next uh I'd like to bring up our goal for uh co-chairs Mr liera and Miss Valen good evening thank you guys for having us tonight um last year when I was here I addressed kissing the pig so I did not want to uh fulfill that uh that story without showing you evidence that there is Miss Tobin uh kissing a pig but also I wanted to address that is not
036the reason why she's not here tonight um she was safe uh no Vice principles were harmed in that picture um but that is an indication of something that came to us uh from our students that wanted to run this event um and we worked with the students and uh it was a great day um no words if we're going to continue to do that but if we are maybe we could come get a board member uh to be a valid participant maybe uh uh but we to come on that um oops go back so for divver uh strategic plan uh plan goal four diversity Equity inclusion uh we have a couple of area focuses that we'll talk on um and the first one um is their expansion of peer leadership events um and some of
037those things are really where we're really trying to get our students and our um collaboration of students amongst all cross-sections to really work together whether that is our um you know our tours when our students are our tour representatives for the middle schools when they're coming up at at various events throughout the summer um they were also great there during back to school night if uh anybody was there they were a fantastic service to people that uh maybe were were not where aware of where 280 was or 250 was um also we have them there for the eighth grade transition nights um we have a um a really establish a great relationship with our PTO and have many great events throughout the year um that we really cross collaborating with and getting a lot of
038traction with expanding our areas of focus with peer leadership events going on kind of a continuation of those of collaboration events is um some of our districtwide events that we've been hosting um we just got through our PSAT day and on our PSAT day we take the opportunity to have a whole assembly with our ninth graders so they have the opportunity to really get to know each other we actually use that opportunity to introduce our class elections during that time so the students had could see who was possibly their leaders for the upcoming year and then we had the elections after that so that was a a brainchild of Miss Kelly and Mr belli and it was a great idea um we continue to have pure Outreach in our Arts curriculum where we have a
039hybrid of students working work together and really learning from one another and like I showed you with the picture of the kiss of the pig we have a lot of student driven Spirit weeks that are coming from the students about what they want and what they're trying to see in their school um continuing on with um community service we're really trying to push and to try to see that not learning and teaching exceed far beyond the classroom so we understand that community service offers our students opportunities of maybe some experiences that they wouldn't receive in the traditional learning atmosphere so we have tremendous uh clubs and activities that are really going out into our community we have courses that are really promoting service projects as a part of their curriculum to really get our students
040exposed into the into the global community that exists out there and we have a great ninth grader who has her own organization called with grace that we have begun to partner with and really get involved uh she she has been a part of our community through another student far uh you know in the Years prior leading up to here when she wasn't even a student at our high school and we're really starting to get involved with her charity um which is really about action and it's really a call to arms and our students are really going to be able to participate in a wide range of activities that are available through that organization as Mr uh seiros identified about some of our Outreach in the middle schools he identified the learning walks which is a
041great opportunity for both vertical alignment and also horizontal alignment and we still have the opportunity that we're taking advantage of when we mesh our student Leaders with the middle school student leaders in the spring of the calendar year to talk about what to expect when they are coming into the school to allay any concerns and to really welcome them into the warrior Community it's key that I want to push that a lot of these things and if not all of them we're really trying to use the students as the centerpiece the ideas are coming from the students we're here to facilitate um we want to make sure that they are getting what they need and for us to be listeners and not deciders for that so we we try to facilitate this area Focus because
042we know when they are um at the driver's seat they're more apt to get a lot out of it rather than us coming up with the ideas for them so really thank you for your attention and at this point we're going to turn the microphone back over to Mr Sabino to talk about school counseling good evening again move forward here with the slides oh good so these are some photos of our school counselors in action and student assistants counselors in action uh doing some of the actual uh work that Mr La was just speaking on meeting with our ninth graders during our our recent PSAT morning where uh this the other ninth graders had chances to interact and and and work more directly with each other and do some activities we also I think we
043have a college visit there in the middle we and thank you for the student Reps for mentioning the upcoming the college visits that we had and we have them uh daily throughout the the school year for for students and juniors to take part in so for the goals for this year uh in regards to the school counseling department as mentioned these tie into a lot of what we're already seeing and what we' spoken about tonight so you've already heard that we're looking to continue to to provide opportunities to articulate more with our K8 districts uh we're looking at that as well through the lens of the school counseling department uh working together to potentially explore more opportunities this year to do a bit more professional learning together um we we are working at the high
044school uh utilizing the ASA the American school counselor Association National model so we're going to invite our school counselors from the k8s to come up and and participate in some of those additional opportunities this year and and do a bit more in the spring to enhance uh I'll say our work together uh on support strategies for the incoming class of students for the next year as well so we'll continue to do that work and and again there's there's always opportunities to to work more directly together and we look forward to opportunities to do that with the Kates uh additionally further con uh consider opportunities for dual enrollment And in regards to internship programs so again as as uh what Mr laber mentioned we are exploring opportunities for for these types of initiatives for students uh
045for a multitude of factors and reasons I think we're we're leaning towards looking at more opportunities for students to go into the community and do a bit more career internships uh we feel like that experiential approach is certainly of immense value and fortunately as everybody here knows we have a great community of network that we can have provide opportunities for some of our students to go more into the community and get some more practical experience in the in different career settings so we're looking to continue to look into opportunities for that this year uh additionally we continue you to uh utilize the ASA National model to enhance the delivery of of what we're doing through the school counselors to provide support for students and looking at the impact of certain uh cohorts of students to
046making sure that all different uh of our students have the opportunities for support that they need to be successful here and obviously best prepared for Success Beyond watch Young Hills uh and finally uh Mr seos already spoke on this but we are continuing to our work through the multi-tiered system of support model uh we've had a a range of success with our Empower program uh both for credit recovery and support for students but also I I would like to highlight the also proactive support that it provides so there are times when students as as you can imagine who may be a bit off track or or not or needing some additional support to get back on track during the school year and we've really been able to enhance the the supports we provide to students
047uh general education students as well as students with individualized education plans through the support of our Empower program so we'll continue to benefit from from the support of Mr scanland who we have for that as well as Mr kers offer who provides support and math so uh that's the highlights for the school counsiling department and I Look to turn it over to miss Carol good evening uh my name is Nicole Carol I'm the Director of Human Resources and professional development and I'm here to report on the professional learning goals um for the district for 2023 2024 so the first goal is to explore the impact of artificial intelligence on teaching and learning and use AI to enhance student learning and teacher Effectiveness this goal really came out of some of the surveys from last year
048we surveyed teachers on areas of interest and this is something that I think we see as an emergent need in education for me and I think for most of our teachers who view themselves as lifelong learning uh Learners this is kind of an exciting goal to have because no matter what department you're in AI is definitely affecting what the future of Education looks like the second goal is engage in professional learning activities designed to improve student engagement in learning so this particular goal came when we analyze the data from the previous school year so our school and every School in New Jersey has a school Improvement panel which is made up of at least a third of the membership being teachers and so it's myself Mr laera Mr flacker and a group of teachers who
049review our evaluation procedures and who look at the data and any trends that we see in terms of Faculty as a whole to see where our areas for growth should be and where our areas of strength are and one of the areas for growth that we identified as a group was student engagement in learning which is actually one of the pieces on the framework where teachers are evaluated for myself as a teacher um I've been teaching for over 20 years and I do see a a big difference in terms of what student engagement required in 2002 compared to what it requires in 2023 when we think about all the different Technologies um that are available so this was something that was really based on the data within our district but to me is also an
050exciting um an exciting piece to look at because I think if we think about 56 minutes in a classroom it's exciting as a teacher to learn and think more about how we can engage students um and have them really kind of enjoying their time as they're making progress the third goal was to expand our capacity in implementing methods programs and services that promote social emotional and mental health and I know that you've heard this throughout the rest of the presentation this evening um this is really important because we have a lot of programs and services available within the district so it's important that as a faculty we're kind of sharing that information and making sure we understand um what resources are available and to just continue our own professional learning about classroom supports that we
051can use um to enhance Wellness of our students so all three of these uh goals you'll see echoed throughout the professional development agendas from August from October and I'm happy to say as well in our professional learning communities so our professional learning communities teachers work in small groups to kind of further a goal that they choose and a lot of these are stemming from these District professional learning goals at this time um I'm happy to introduce Mr Dan Bertelli who is our supervisor of the Arts and co-curricular activities thank you Nicole she failed to mention the best part about professional development which is Family Feud R run by Yours Truly um so we have three development uh three areas of focus for the arts department uh one is continuing and two are brand new our
052first goal is uh to tap into one of our best resources that we have and that's our teachers we have such a great uh knowledgeable diverse group of Arts instructors um allocating a little bit of Department Time Each meeting to have them share a successful strategy that they use in the classroom uh Mr shower last week uh demonstrated uh some various uses on the CNC machine in the wood Arts uh classroom and he uh suggested a few ways some of our Visual Arts teachers can utilize that machine so hopefully throughout the year our teachers will be sharing uh their successful strategies and it will uh encourage a more cohesive and uh Dynamic uh Team team as we move forward our second goal is continuing and it is one that I am uh very proud of
053uh we have two types of uh sub goals in this category one is to encourage more display of student artwork and more performance opportunities throughout the district um this is both both Visual and Performing uh most recently in the Performing Art side uh Leo Chen uh some of you might have seen played the piano at back to school school night and some of our Visual Arts teachers are trying to find new areas to display Arts uh and murals throughout the building and a side note uh when Mr delesio gave a tour of the Class of 73 they were particularly pleased to see uh a lot of the colorful uh artwork in the hallway so that is a uh a bonus for me thank you and thirdly our department is uh collectively reading a great book
054that I stumbled upon called the creative act by uh um music producer to the Stars Mr Rick Rubin and uh it basically uh States about how every human uh is purpose is to be creative and one a wonderful um kind of goal for the Arts teachers who have to or who are you know teaching a wide variety of uh students with learning styles uh this book can help uh kind of understand how humans create and and how they can tapped into their creativity as a human being and I look forward to discussing it with my department members and next I'm happy to in introduce everyone's favorite English supervisor Mr James aquavia good evening everyone our first area of focus in English is teaching writing with AI when it was released less than one year ago
055chat GPT went viral on social media as the world started to acknowledge a groundbreaking AI technology today in customer service companies use AI to automate responses to common questions in education AI is used to create intelligent tutoring systems capable of providing personalized assistance in content creation journalists copywriters and content creators use AI to generate ideas draft articles even write poetry in business of all kinds AI is used to automate tasks like drafting emails or writing code we started reading about AI text generating tools last spring we attended Roundtable discussions and reached out to directors of University Writing programs this year we've already had two professional development sessions with Dr Caroline line datus a university coordinator of first year writing to help us learn what AI text generating tools do well and where they falter we
056found so far that AI text generators are good at figuring out a genre and replicating that genre AI can write you a serviceable cover letter but AI text generators are not as good at finding and analyzing appropriate textual evidence or synthesizing ideas is from multiple sources for academic writing this year instead of trying to out prompt AI we will explore potential uses of AI text generators to advance students critical thinking and writing our second area of focus personalizing feedback on student writing with the move from quarterly marking periods to two semester grading periods here at the high school we thought it more more important than ever to reflect on the feedback we provide for students and to renew our commitment to serving as thoughtful consistent readers of student writing at the start of the year
057we established clear guidelines we'll require students to write four to five essays per four to five essays per semester two yeah two of these essays will be assigned and graded by mid semester and at least two of the four to five essays will be written in class under supervision these guidelines will help us ensure that students receive consistent personalized feedback on their writing throughout the longer grading period of the full semester our third area of focus teaching literary reading this year we will work to engage students with classroom instruction and assessment that places greater responsibility on the student for interpreting complex literary Works our role is not to tell students what literary Works mean it is to create contexts for students to work individually and collaboratively with groups to advance their own strong Wells substantiated
058readings of complex texts we want them to earn their readings and own their readings Mike de alesio will speak with you next about mathematics and business good evening good to see everyone again uh three goals for the math and business department broken up up up there the first is to implement the practices of a building thinking classroom in our mathematics classes uh through book book study and practice this year the building thinking classroom rooms is a methodology that uh has our students to become more engaged for longer periods of time in mathematics um some of the methods include defron the classroom which we've been doing for a while uh with our uh different types of furniture that we have within our classroom getting rid of the pass passivity of uh classroom thinking having students uh
059guide themselves to what they feel is important by uh working together with our teachers and having them make the decisions on uh how they're going to study and uh longer and deeper thinking amongst the students uh this past week we started looking at the um the building thinking classrooms by looking at the first chapter on note taking um and having the students put note taking more into their hands versus uh the teacher um and uh this uh this week I'll be going to a uh conference that is focused on building teaching classrooms for the amtnj that's the association of mathematics teachers of New Jersey Jersey and bring that back to the department also our second goal is to identify our current 9th grade algebra 1 students who are excelling in mathematics and help them um
060achieve opportunities to higher level mathematics classes in their four-year sequence um a lot of students who come to us in algebra one we'll say they maybe late blers in mathematics uh and we want to help those students achieve uh higher level math classes so the process of talking to their teachers which are the best uh the best people who can really uh help those students get to the four-year sequence talking with parents and the students looking at they're doing how they're doing in other classes um we want our students to be more successful uh at that ninth grade level and um our research has shown we that we that those students who are allowed to uh have more um higher level math classes and Achieve do do uh do actually achieve at the high school
061our third goal is to implement uh the practices of uh take sorry I can't see first said taking people with you the uh the only way to make big things happen and this is in the business department it's also through a uh book study and practice uh basically this book was written by David Novak he is the CEO of Yum corporation multinational fast food um such as Pizza Taco Bell I don't want to uh promote fast food but he is the CEO of it um it contains a leadership framework an entrepreneurial framework uh those are big uh classes and big uh big Concepts that our business teachers are teaching we have an entrepreneurship class here we have law leadership and ethics classes um so we want to take some of those uh those Concepts out
062of the book bring it to our students that way I think a really nice quote from the book is that nothing great ever happens without a great team and that's very true I see that here with our teachers uh other administrators I work with so we want to get that out to our students as soon as possible the quicker they learn that the quicker they'll be better off when they when they leave us uh next I'm going to introduce Miss Gina Hinman from science hi everyone as a new supervisor in the district on my first department meeting I asked my teachers to fill out now you can really hear me uh to write down three goals one of which was a goal for themselves as a teacher for the year and what their goal was
063for their students was another one and from that information that they gave me I came up with these three goals that we're going to focus on this year the first goal is a continuation of last year's goal uh the teachers have been working with will vanderin over the past year um and we had two workshops so far that I've been able to be a part of with the teachers and the focus was on design and Implement lessons that engage students in investigation and design this is important in science because this is where students are really asked to critically think where past the days of when you know my teacher made me memorize all of the different classes of organisms in biology I have a device in my pocket that can allow me to look that
064information up now what we want our students to do is to be able to think deeply and critically about the information that's in front of them when they work through the design and Engineering Process of uh the work the engineering and design process is a loop it allows students to look at information create a model design an investigation that they can test and then what the results give them they analyze and figure out I wasn't right I need more information maybe I can start over again again and so we're taking that engineering and design process that the kids and Robotics have been doing and Cad and architecture and we're bringing that into science to really show the students that science is a safe place to make mistakes because it's through science that we're learning um
065the second goal is personalized learning to meet the needs of all of our students uh this one is very important because we have a diversity of students in front of us anyone who has more than one child at home knows they're they can be completely different with the same parents the same house so when you have 20 to 25 students in front of you we want to be able to meet the needs of all of our Learners that are there so in our department meetings moving forward we're going to be focusing on what areas our students that are in front of us need this year whether it's working on Executive functioning skills uh sheltered English instruction just making the content relate to their skills and interests to make it more engaging for them in the
066classroom uh and our last goal is to incorporate teaching strategies that promote exposure to stem careers um I love that we have a steam fair I'm working on that right now with our teachers we have a steam lab that's coming up and what we want to do is really expose our students intentionally on the careers that are available in stem it's not just doctor anesthesiologist um biologist or you know I'm going to be a marine biologist there are so many factors and layers that are involved in the stem cre and to just really be intentional when they're working in forensics you know these are skills that you know this type of person would have in this career Bring uh guest speakers in to let them see that there are different types of jobs that are
067available and good careers that are out there for our students to be exposed to and now I will introduce Miss Anita bck good evening thank you for having us here today so my first goal is sort of a replicate of some of the other goals that we've seen and that's with artificial intelligence as a department we have been working this uh year this semester on a variety of aspects of artificial intelligence we're looking at a number the tools that are appearing every day are just increasing obviously the chat GPT being barred um we have magic school we are trying to kind of narrow down what which ones are best for our teachers and our students so we've been doing a lot of examining of the different tools the other area that we're looking at is
068the ethics of AI it's going to be a big part of trying to decide what students can use artificial intelligence for what we want teachers to use it for both in the classroom and outside so that's become a another primary concern when it comes to AI at this point the social studies teachers have been put into collaborative groups they're each going to be presenting at a department meeting at the end of November to kind of hone in on some of these aspects of AI but again we're very focused on looking at the tools the ethics um even things like a citing AI if it's going to be used so it's new for all of us however we do know that if we do not educate our students in how to use this from writing the
069prompts properly to just understanding the tools itself that they will not be competitive in the world as they move on so we are really focused on the realistic and the authentic use of AI and that's what the entire department has been working on next semester we're going to focus kind of move it slightly to media literacy and one of the things that we're going to emphasize is a concept of really understanding The credibility of sources there's a an idea called lateral reading where it's the concept of you don't just use the first Google site that comes up on your screen the idea that you need to look and not just look at the about us on the actual website itself because of course they're going to be saying wonderful things about themselves instead who's the
070founder of this site what organization are they associated with what perspectives does that site have so that we're going to make our students become more uh experienced readers and really understand fact versus fiction we all are probably aware of the pictures that we sometimes see that are we call them I guess deep fakes that are made up and that Associates with AI and we want them to understand reality and what what is truth um as far as what they're seeing on the internet so media literacy is going to be a big aspect of what we talk about and then our final goal is focusing um specifically on one of the mandates the aapi the Asian-American Pacific Islanders we've had some speakers come in actually both on AI we've had two speakers at department meetings and
071two so far um on aapi so that we include the diversity of all of our students uh and look specifically at the influence and the role of asian-americans Pacific Islanders in in this case American history as a department I want to thank my incredible teachers because they are amazing at department meetings where we discuss these things I think sometimes although they want to leave and go home they can't stop talking because they are really they very much contribute to all of the initiatives and our areas of focus and in reaction to what's been happening in the world I commend them for their professionalism as their students are asking about the situations and their ability to to be again very professional in their responses to our students so those are my areas of focus and hopefully
072we will have a very successful year and now I will introduce Miss Michelle darer for special services thank you good evening again so this year's Focus for a special services department is around expanding some of our unique educational opportunities that we currently offer as you've heard throughout the evening we are all focused on collaborating with our sending districts so that is definitely in the Forefront for us as a child study team and as a staff um currently we have offered joint professional development um sessions for our child study teams over the past two years it usually is a legal update in the beginning of the school year to make sure everyone's ready to go for the year um we do meet with them are sending districts for transition articulations two to three times per year
073really prepping for what the kids' needs are coming up here and how we can expand programming together um and this year we're actually joining efforts for our special education parent advisory groups um so we'll be running collaborative meetings together with all of our groups our first one is actually on I believe November 1st um so we continue to look at ways that we can even share Services throughout the districts too um it's been nice I do meet with the sending District directors um once a month and it's been really nice that they're starting to share students and programming and how we can expand as a collaborative group instead of individual districts um the second area of focus for our department is to further identify opportunities for students to earn training and certificates and identified career
074interests um we're always looking to prep students for when they leave high school so um this is another way we set them up for success and we're currently looking to offer this year the Serve Safe food handler certificates to some of our students in the cares program um our third area focus is to expand our inclusionary programming for all of our students um historically we have always offered our peer Outreach class which has been a favorite for all students um so this year we do have our inclusive arts class during semester 1 um that we've worked on with Mr berelli and then we're also in the beginning stages of working with the PE Department to offer a more expanded inclusive adaptive uh PE class for all of our students so now it's my pleasure to
075introduce Mr Brad comeford supervisor World Language health and PE good evening everyone can hear me right can you hear me okay um the first FOC area focus in World Language is going to be on developing critical thinking skills and the instructional activities that we're going to explore to get to that point through the technology that we have we're going to hone our instructional uh choices so that the students can draw upon their own personal experiences and offer opinions to help them become better critical thinkers a lot of them do have access to cultural experiences and those that don't we expose them to cultural comparisons so for example we can focus on the Mediterranean diet and make corre connections with what is considered a healthy life style practice in the United States we will give them
076access to authentic resources to heighten their understanding of other cultures and this will give them the opportunity to make comparisons with their own culture and guide them into becoming culturally competent citizens our second area of focus has to do with opportunities resources uh and tools to create authentic work so this year we're going to be exploring more ways to use resources to ensure that we are actually getting authentic work from our students with the rise of Google translator in chap uh gbt reality it is a reality in the world language classroom so we're experimenting with the value of other types of technology that to practice listening and speaking that does not involve a connection to the internet right to secure samples of expository writing that truly reflects what our students Linguistics abilities are and help
077them improve those skills so they can become produce more in-depth authentic work and our final area of focus is going to be on on cultural perspectives and culture of acceptance and respect so our world language program consists of four languages Chinese French Italian and Spanish and those four languages are spoken in more than 60 countries combined this gives us a lot of cultural perspective to explore so our students can grow and learn from them however we currently have in our school a multilingual learner population our ESL students that represent 18 different countries that include El Salvador Ukraine Venezuela China Honduras Poland India Thailand and the Philippines just to name a few we will explore ways in which we can incorporate their cultural perspectives into our world language program so we can be more cognizant of
078what cultural acceptance is and respect what respect looks like for our school Community give us a slide health and PE three areas of focus the first one's going to be on how to assess physical activity going to be taking a look at the different tools and methods and best practices we're going to incorporate more student self assessment as part of our overall assessment package in physical education we're also going to revise our rubrics for various Sports we offer in the program to include student input so they're involved in establishing the assessment criteria we use this will allow them to take ownership of how they're evaluated and make their assessment make their self assessment of their abilities more authentic our second area of focus is going to be self-confidence uh self-perception and recognizing strengths that cont
079contribute to self-awareness so the focus this year is on exploring the different strategies we're teaching our students to be self-aware we look at positive awareness those are the things that you like about yourself how to understand your own thoughts and emotions and the factors that impact Behavior we'll also explore how thoughts lead to actions and actions lead to feelings and some useful strategies to reinforce positive self uh image we'll also we'll also see what works best in incorporate those elements into our curriculum updates and when students are self-aware their ability to achieve a goal increases in self-awareness will help them thrive in everything they do and our final area of focus is going to be developing an understanding of the connection between nutrition and physical health so we all know that eating foods that are
080good for you and staying healthy and active help you reach and maintain a healthy weight and improve how you feel right we're going to examine we do examine nutrition in the health 11 curriculum but this year we're going to be exploring other ways of getting that information across via the PE curriculum surveying our students with what their nutritional habits are what they should look like and how they can achieve good nutritional goals during their tenure here at high school and some of the topics will be exploring uh we make those connections between their own physical fitness plan and their healthy eating habits so they can understand the benefits of both and prepare them for life Beyond high school that is the end of my presentation and it brings this entire presentation to a close thank
081you for listening thank you Brad well we'll go in reverse order next time you always end up begins with a W so we're um Anthony can you go one more slide so the one piece we wanted to add to the end of this presentation so this is our portrait of a graduate and if you recall the we developed our expected schoolwide learning results the eslrs um with our 2015 strategic iic plan and then when we were developing our 2020 2025 strategic plan we developed the portrait of a graduate to basically be a kind of a more concise version of the eslrs and what we thought um would be nice to go along with it would be a graphic representation which is similar to what some of our students did for the last strategic plan so
082uh Olivia Schmidt who graduated last year and Sean Hall who's a senior this year uh collaboratively developed this graphic to represent the elements of the portrait of a graduate and did share this with the Strategic plan committee and they actually gave a little feedback we got from Miss prasa a nice little history of the school colors and so um the gold and brown are incorporated into the tree which represents growth and then each of the graphics in the tree represents one of the elements of the portrait um so this would be the graphic that we would um you know start displaying around the school um perhaps put in our school Publications um to to illustrate this and you know it's certainly I think even more meaningful because it it came from our students so I
083wanted to share that with the board this evening any comments or questions on the presentation I know there was a lot in there and thank you to all of you who spoke I had I had a comment sorry go ahead go ahead I'm recognizing sorry I'm sorry Speak got a turn um I thought it was excellent and I'm always impressed with everything and thought and everything that goes into everything but uh one of the goals has to do with opening educational opportunities to everybody uh or Pathways to education success and I every year when we talk about who takes AP classes I always am underwhelmed by the lack of diversity of the people who take our AP classes and so one of the things I'm noticing um and I'm not saying we're not not doing
084this we probably are and they weren they just weren't chosen for the illustrations but for the academic areas I didn't really see much emphasis on tying any of our goals to our fourth strategic plan goal and I'm kind of relating the two um I just thought I'd make that comment other comments questions Mr magio hi thank you that was fantastic all of you I have a question I think it was Mr berelli art what is a CNC machine out of the wood shop I just that's all oh boy uh the CNC machine is a machine where the students uh enter in a drawing and it and it cuts the the design out of wood with a drill bit no no problem we could have a demo at the next board meeting perhaps I know that
085would be cool thank you Mr belli um other questions from board members oh com please yep just want to thank uh presentation it was great sometimes I'm a little critical of uh some of the presentations but certainly not tonight also want to thank uh all those who help eff effectuate the Strategic plan especially the teachers the staff the administration I also want to thank my fellow Bo board members and Tim and Liz who uh make sure that we Supply the proper resources so we can effectuate the Plan uh last night I was very fortunate to be in a meeting with a former New Jersey uh Commissioner of Education Lucille Davis and uh she reemphasized that our Focus really has to be on the children and I think that's what this uh plan shows and I
086think everyone is certainly working toward that goal and helping uh our students hopefully be the best that they can can be thank you to everybody Mr Gall yeah I just wanted to thank you all and all the teachers it was a great presentation and I specifically just want to thank you for opening um the interest in AI it is it is the future it is going to take over everything um the children that you're teaching right now will do the vast majority of their work on AI and turn yeah right it just turned off our light do that they listening see that trying to cancel me already anyway thank thank you for opening up your minds for AI I really appreciate that other board comments or questions I just uh I I would just like
087to also e Echo everyone's thanks for uh the presentation um I actually this is one of my favorite nights just to hear uh from the administration and the supervisors um and the faculty about the work that they're doing for the year so I thought that it was very enlightening and I'll also Echo what Mr Gall said I was very impressed with the way that AI was uh woven throughout all the various departments um because it is you know what we're dealing with I'm I'm a business owner uh and I've had to hire four people uh just specifically to deal with the AI impact on uh the the industry that I'm in and my particular business um so it is um you know it really is the most important innovation that has occurred uh in decades
088and the fact that we're ahead of the curve less than a year after it's been released that we're aggressively incorporating that into our instructional practices uh not only for our students but also how it can be a great tool for our teachers um I think it's fantastic fantastic so congratulations I think it's really really well done all the way around so with that we'll move to the first opportunity for public comment the first public comment period will be limited to agenda items only for this meeting uh the second public comment period will be open to any topic all comments are limited to five minutes those that are coming forward to speak please provide your first name last name and town of residence first opportunity for public comments right seeing none we will close the first
089opportunity for public comment and we'll go to board discussion um I I guess before before you start we are for those that want to leave discreetly we will we will allow you an opportunity to to make your way toward the exits and then we will move on to our board discussion all right Miss Potter please so um just to follow up on our calendar survey discussion um we think we've narrowed down to two options for our survey um one inclusive of all holidays and one just keeping the existing calendar um does anybody have any comments on um do you want me to speak in a little bit of detail of what the it'll look like when so uh after talking to the Cal talking this through with the calendar committee um we're going to finalize
090what the the format of the survey will be um but we've had obviously a lot of discussion about this over the past two years um so one piece of it will be an introduction that kind of goes through the all the factors we've taken into consideration um and then what we're going to do is for each of the versions there's the status quo version and then the um or the status quo option and then the option that's inclusive of the holidays we've discussed which are um Eid Al fitter Eid Al uh Diwali orthodo Greek Orthodox Good Friday and Lunar New Year now every year those don't all fall on weekdays but we want to make sure that our calendar is somewhat consistent you know throughout the years when they do fall on on school days
091um so what we will do is for we've laid out you know kind of draft calendars what we're going to put in the survey is okay so for the status quo option here is what the first day for staff would look like for the next two school years here's what the start day for students would look like here's what the last day for staff and students would look like then we look at option b which includes all the holidays and we will do the same thing so that everyone can get an idea of what that actually means for how it will impact the calendar um and we're going to put that out to all the families and all the staff um and so for every family we are asking for one response so we want
092families to talk about it with each other um and provide a response of what their optimal version of the calendar is um and that will be through Genesis so that you actually will need to answer the survey in order to access Genesis once we release the survey which will probably be next week um we did a little bit of that uh when uh during the pandemic when we needed resp responses regarding what cohorts you know and parents wanted students to be in and those types of things um and we found it was an effective way to get a response from everyone and we do feel that because this affects every single family in the district that it's important to get everyone's feedback um so I'll be looking to finalize that with Mr maluso just in
093terms of setting that up the best way we can in Genesis and then figuring out too for the staff if we're going to do that through Google um or whatever that might be but we will likely send that out in the next week um because we want to get a draft of next year's calendar done so that way we can also share that with the k8s um because we do like to still try and coordinate that so I think that summarized for the most part our discussion uh any questions all right uh moving on any um any discussion on the addendum items Mr President because uh some of the folks made comments about the bid um with the steam lab they were discussing it but there's also bigger there's also other components of that bid
094uh D5 for the board who hasn't seen it yet um we had our rebid of the construction project the referendum that we're doing uh this in the come in the see in the winter months and one of the projects and then in the spring for the bulk of the projects in the summer um and that bid was successful the first bid we were slightly over budget this one we made some significant changes to the specifications we went back out U and we're doing the chiller separately but this came out pretty good um we had six bids about 30 picked up um we ended up with uh North Eastern is the low bidder uh they actually did our project um in the uh science area the the science La that we did last year um so
095we've had good success with them um but again it was a successful bid the steam lab is a big piece of that we also have a nurse um room that we're doing and expanding that and for our trainers we have a larger trainer area and we're fixing up sprucing up the gym 56 locker rooms um so a little bit of Health and Wellness I guess too but that's that's a good thing so those areas are kind of small if you've seen them but anyway so that it was a successful bid we're we're happy with the way it kind of worked out and that's on uh for your vote tonight on D5 great thank you Mr Stein uh any other discussion or questions on any of the addendum items right seeing none we can move to
096the action items uh yes I'd like to move items A1 through 8 A8 A1 through A8 second discussion roll call Mr maio Mr Gall yes M Lee mayek Yes sober yes Potter yes pra yes trur oh sorry M Mr bber yes and Mr Morrison yes motion carries I'd like to move uh item A9 A9 second second discussion roll call Mr maio Gall yes Lee Mr May yes obber yes CA yes Burber yes and Mr Morrison yes motion carries I'd like to move items C1 through C9 I'm sorry C11 C1 through C11 second discussion I just wanted to uh uh acknowledge and thank um Mrs faon for stepping forward to volunteer as a volunteer adviser for some of our volunteer clubs so they could run so I appreciate that uh Mrs faon um otherwise roll call
097please Mr maio Mr Gall yes Mr Lee Mr Mar yes sober yes Potter yes rasa yes bernberg yes and Mr marrison yes motions carry I'd like to move items D1 through D7 D1 through D7 second second discussion roll call Mr maio Mr Gall yes Lee Mr Meek yes sober yes Potter yes pra yes Mr bernberg yes and Mr Morrison yes motions carry and I'd like to move items d8 through D13 d8 through d113 second second thank you discussion roll call Mr maio Mr Gall yes Lee Mr Mayor yes Mr over yes Mr pra yes Mr bernberg yes and Mr Morrison yes motions carry excellent this is the second opportunity for public comment public comment on any topic please state your name first name last name and town of residence hi good evening my name is
098Greg oiy and I'm here as the wh president to speak on behalf of the association in response to Bob Morrison's statement from the last board meeting on October 3rd Bob Morrison read a prepared statement expressing his perspective on the negotiations process and then sent it to a letter to the faculty and staff and the parents of wung Hill students unfortunately his letter contained erroneous and misleading statements and I'm here to set the record straight in his statement Bob Morrison characterized the wh as an njaa representative and a Trenton based Union as though we simply follow the directives from the njaa however this is not true while it is accurate that we are local affiliate of the state organization this description disregards the good work that the wh has done for the students the faculty and
099staff and the community at Large throughout the years we've organized an initiative to personally handwrite farewell letters to each graduating senior to demonstrate how much they matter to us during their time here we have donated gift baskets to seniors project uh Project Graduation celebration we've raised funds and organized an annual wh scholarship for one to two graduating seniors who intend to pursue a career in education we will be conducting our annual wh food drive next month and with all donations going to the Somerset County Food Bank Network and we will be organizing our second food packing event this December 9th aiming to bring several different parts of our local communities together with a goal of packing 30,000 meals for those who live with food insecurity in a statement Bob Morrison said that the wh met
100once with the board negotiations committee two years ago however this is not true after the board refused to negotiate with our full negotiations team and took the Extreme Action of file an unfair Labor practice against the wh we met four separate times in 201 23 we insisted and in several cases begged the board committee to work with us to find a practical and tangible compromise so that we could negotiate a contract while we wait for the board's ulp to be determined at each of these meetings the wh has been realistic and understanding the board's perspective and offering com uh compromises sensitive to its needs whether it was offering to put a cap on the number of our negotiations team offering a schedule of what negotiation meetings they can attend or not attend limiting our bargaining
101Council to attending virtually each of those compromises were offered in good faith to address the concerns that the board expressed to us in his statement Bob Morrison said there is no precedent for a district negotiating with an Education Association with its full negotiations team including a bargaining Council of its full membership this is not true the board in 2019 negotiated with our full negotiations team for two meetings before they requested we begin to negotiate on two on two meetings our full negotiations team deliberated and voted to engage the board via two on two meetings which again demonstrates the wh's willingness to compromise with the board Additionally the wh provided a list of districts that engaged with local education associations that use this model in the bargaining process three months ago in July districts such as
102Riverside Township Public School District hesport Township School District Mercer County Special Services school district and more all engaged with their local education association's bargaining Council in the bargaining process we regret that Bob Morrison's statement disregarded this truth finally Bob Morrison's statement claimed that the wh is harming its own members because we are concerned with setting a president this is not true not only is it not true but it's a blatant attempt to divide our membership and it's both legally and ethically questionable the sad reality is the faculty and staff have feel felt disregarded and ignored by the administration and board for years and Bob Morrison's use of misinformation and untrue statements reflect his genuine lack of understanding of who the faculty and staff of this school are what they bring to the table and what
103they need from this District to be clear this is who we are we are professionals with years of experience and expertise in the functions of our high school we are collaborative and highly engaged in developing working conditions that make wat young Hills more effective and more efficient we are professionals whose contributions and input on negotiations proposals aim to strengthen working conditions improve salaries and benefits and most importantly create a contract that will attract and retain the best for wung Hill students and Community the bottom line is that the wh has consistently communicated and demonstrated our commitment to compromise and it's regrettable that Bob Morrison's statement stated otherwise as local president I will not have our reputation besched and I will vigorously defend my members against such mistruths so tonight I urge this board to act
104I urge this board to negotiate with the wh even as we await their ulp decision it's time time to focus on what matters it's time to focus on our students who do not benefit from the board and the association insulting each other nor does this community or District benefit from staff working under an expired agreement let's move forward and get this negotiations process underway thank you Mr Riley other comments good evening my name is Mike gangluff and I'm the lead negotiator for the watching Hills Regional Education Association and have been for the past 15 plus years for those of you who are unfamiliar with the process the wh's negotiations team is composed of both lead negotiators and a bargaining Council our negotiations team is literally the faculty and staff here at wung Hills that this
105board of education sings the Praises of but we all know that actions speak louder than words during negotiations there is a give and take and a degree of compromise that both sides make when trying to reach an agreement yet in this case there is only one side that is making continual compromises the wh and unfortunately not this board contrary to what others might have you believe negotiating with our full negotiations team is not a new or unprecedent and concept as Greg already stated earlier earlier this summer The Board of Education asked for examples of districts that have used this concept and we provided several examples the most pertinent example however is that we used our full negotiations team here at wung Hills during our last contract negotiation that's right this same expanded negotiations team was
106used successfully during our last contract negotiations making it neither new nor unprecedented and as Greg's already stated there are a lot of mistruths throughout Mr Morrison's letter to the community and staff and I want to clarify another Point our negotiations team has had several meetings with the Board of Ed negotiations team not just one in which the wrea offered multiple compromises to try to bring both sides to the table throughout this process we have offered to cut our negotiations team first in half then by 75% and most recently by 80% all in an effort to keep negotiations moving forward so when it comes to being accused of purposely stalling negotiations I'd like to clearly and emphatically state that the wh has been willing to offer and accept compromise after compromise regrettably not this board in
107fact at one of the last negotiation teams meetings in June the Board of Ed and the wh were able to reach a deal at the table after the wh offered yet another compromise in that meeting the board's team agreed to meet with 40 members of the wh's negotiation team which represents about a sixth of the of the size of the team from the the last round of negotiations let me emphasize we had a deal agreed to at the table that would start negotiations despite several of the board negotiation team members saying that they had no issue negotiating in front of 200 members again members of the board of edge negotiation team and specifically the board of Ed's lead negotiator Michael bernberg stated that they had no issue meeting in front of the full bargaining Council
108the deal of 40 members was approved by the full whr a negotiation teams days after being agreed to at the table but the 40 member deal inexp inexplicably was vetoed by the full board which I must add includes several members who must be recused from participating in negotiations because they have a conflict I don't know about anyone else but to me those are not the actions of a board who claims to love and respect the staff making this process even more contentious stressful and unnecessarily ranous than it has to be so with that that in mind I'd like to leave everyone with this final thought in negotiations when a contract is reached and ratified it is symbolic of the level of appreciation trust and respect that the Board of Education and District administration have for
109its faculty and staff if the last several months and even the last few years are any indication the actions of this board of education have been nothing short of disappointing and though I vehemently disagree with the content of Mr Morrison's letter earlier this month he did get one thing right when it comes to counting on whom Among Us has show has been showing respect and Trust for those who have dedicated their careers to watching Hills schools and students it's plain to say not this board thank you Mr ganga hang on one second there was some lady that started to get up originally I want to make sure that she has the opportunity to speak if you want them that's it's okay if you want them to go I just want to make sure you had
110a chance okay all right all right so we'll finish with all the union comments and then we'll go to your comment absolutely thank you um good evening my name is s feno and I've proudly been teaching math here at the watching Hills Regional High School for over 22 years I've been through many changes um physically in the building here and many negotiation sessions with the board over that time and some that left us with working with an expired contract as we are now um even though those times were filled with angst at least we were negotiating together and ultimately settled and when has historically been Fair contracts our experiences now as been said sadly have been the worst of my time here and in my 30 plus years of education this board has not only
111not supported us with meeting with us as Mr galof just said it is now sending us emails that are honestly insulting and hurtful while in one sentence Mr Morrison says he supports and appreciates Us in another he says the whre is not focusing on the needs of me I am the wh we are the wh we are focusing on the needs of us this is us showing that we are doing that many of us here have chosen not to speak publicly before tonight out of respect for the process we are trying to follow we are thankful that Mr O'Reilly and Mr gangl have shared with you our concerns over the this time on our behalf but it is hard to stay silent now it is hard for me to understand the disconnect that this board
112has shown as Mr gangloff was describing we were very excited to meet in June it was uh over a year with that expired contract and we got to know the four new negotiating members and we thought it went very well we left very optimistic we were encouraged that we were making progress and then on the day of graduation we found out otherwise and that was very um hurtful I do fear that the ghost of Peter Fallon is haunting this board Mr Fallon was the only member who was part of the previous negotiations and his strong opinion still must carry a lot of weight his biggest concern was that we are trying to intimidate the board we were not trying to intimidate the board then and we are still not trying to intimidate the board I
113think the four members who were kind enough to give up their time to listen to the concerns a month ago would also Echo that sentiment that we were very professional and we will always remain very professional in such an meeting so I sincerely do hope that this board does reconsider its position and not allowing its team to meet as they wanted to however if this board cannot be open to that change then I do hope you at least reconsider the one thing that you can do now to show how you quote valish cherish and respect all of our faculty and staff and that is to move every member member who's eligible to advance to their next correct salary step this is not giving a raise we would use the expired contract guide as we are
114currently using now this is not negotiating what this means is that a teacher who has been paid at a step 12 at the end of 2022 who is still being paid at the step 12 for the last three years gets to get the salary that they would normally have at step 14 those little differences make a big impact on the lives of your te teachers here moving teachers to do this I think will cause some extra administrative work I'm very confident in our business department here to be able to handle that task and I think to everyone here it would be a real sign that this board actually does support their staff thank you thank [Applause] you good evening you're good my name is Lee Brodsky I'm the vice president of the wraa and an
115English teacher here at wung Hills I started my career here in 2006 looking for a school that I could call a home over the years the faculty and staff here have become that a home we make wung Hills special for the students and for each other when you say that the wh is not focus focusing on the needs of the faculty that's simply not true the vast majority of the faculty and staff of this building are the wria there is no separation between those these two entities what we want is a voice the faculty and staff are major stakeholders in any school district a fact which I'm sure most people here would agree with here at the hills the wha collectively represents Decades of experience in the classroom and we are all masters of our
116content areas what we want is to have a clear line of communication to have our voices heard our goal is to make the educational experience the best it can be for our students but we cannot do that if our concerns are not being heard each content area has dramatically different needs and by having the bargaining Council in place we can make sure those needs are met so we can best support our students I was disappointed both to hear and read the comments after the last Board of Ed meeting as it seems the board does not understand this need nor does it seem to want to create an environment of dialogue this negotiation method is not unprecedented and for the number of times we've heard that clear communication is an issue in our district this seems
117to be a solution we want to be valued stakeholders in the room thank you thank you hello everyone Ken Carnes um I just want to say I we were treated to a really nice history lesson last uh week or two weeks ago at the board meeting I I genuinely appreciated hearing that it was something that resonated with me the story of the colors of gold and brown at this school something I'd never heard before didn't know I'm fascinated by this I love this story um and I think it's just a great reminder of who we are as a community that we can still build on these stories that we can Bridge gaps generationally that we can make those connections it's a great part of what this school is and what this community is I want
118to share with you a brief albeit probably less profound history lesson about our Union something that speaks to I think also who we are and something that I think is being neglected right now uh these shirts these yellow and brown shirts are shirts that nobody wanted by choice this this color Choice as you probably know yourselves uh is not a color choice that people leap at the opportunity to wear we uh and when our executive uh uh officers in our Union decided to wear uh a yellow a yellow shirt we went past blue white black a number of different options but the consensus we came back to was that these are the the colors of our school we are a part of this community and we want to express that both to the community and
119to the district that the union is not a separate entity a foreign entity we are a part of this community it's for that reason I was disappointed to hear the comments uh read at the last meeting sent out to the public as well about the that that the Union's decisions are treaton based decisions if this is what the board thinks is happening this board does not know their community and that's disappointing we can disagree on the merits of the bargaining Council I fully understand we have disagreements of that we've spoken about that that's going through perk that's fine but I think it's important for this board to know that we the wh and all of its members chose to do this the people that make up the wh are not a foreign entity in TR
120in New Jersey they're not the nja they are local community members who we are proud of particularly people who grew up in this district and who have come back to teach here and spent their lives here people like Angel bird Jeff dman Spencer Bren Christy de Baro I could go on they are who chose this bargaining Council they are not a foreign entity in Trenton people who don't live in this District but give up countless hours of their time to be part of the extracurriculars Athletics and coach at this school dedicating the time to theun of students at our school that we are grateful for people like Shan new Mike Porter Mo Kelly who give up countless hours they are who chose this not tran and also people who live in this District people who
121have sent their children through the school people who will send their children through the school people like K Platt Greg O'Reilly Ro clink ree kofer Karen dman I could go on those are the people who chose this I want you to understand that so you can understand this is the people in your community who are saying and asking to be a part of that through this bargaining Council that is the core part of this rationale to have those stakeholders deeply invested so that they can be a part of this if the board thinks that this bargaining council is otherwise then I don't think you know your community we are the wha and we are your community thank you thank [Applause] you good evening I'm Evan opad a member of the social studies Department um I'm
122speaking in response to the email that was sent a few weeks ago um I believe the email the intentions behind the email were genuine and reflected a genuine concern of the part of the board regarding the direction of our current negotiations I've never spoken to the entire board before I met some of you earlier a few last month at our previous meeting um and I want to believe that people have good intentions when they send something like that at the same time regardless of those intentions I was hurt by the contents of that email uh because it came across as you don't trust me um as well as other members of The Faculty um I'm speaking on my own accord and perhaps speaking in front of you this evening will help assuage some of the
123concerns that Ken and others have brought up with you um yet you know like I I understand that we want to reinforce this essential relationship that you have with us in creating a wonderful School community and yet I'm hurt because when it comes to negotiating a new contract that relationship is set aside and instead is replaced by at least from our perspective distrust um it seems that all this is because of a bargaining Council and I'm not getting into all the particulars that other people brought up um but I I do want to wonder like if that offer back in June was not legitimate why did you ask us ask us and I voted for it in good faith just as I would hope you'd have good faith in us um like I said earlier
124however our relationship however strained is crucial towards the betterment of our school yet right now I'm kind of bummed that this issue that could be so easily compromised is holding us back um like I said earlier our relationship is important and yet you know we just went through a pandemic together we wor so cooperatively it was amazing we set aside all our differences hey we got to get the school running and we did it and I was so proud to be a part of that and yet just as we're getting to the clear of coid the relationship reset and there's a filing of ulp and like maybe I naively thought that we went through all this together and we'd set aside hey why even having a contract negotiation let's just settle right away other districts
125did it Montgomery did it I know and yet I'm just bothered that we're in this position and I think that's a message you're hearing from my fellow colleagues um we're frustrated and I don't know there has to be some sort of compromise thank you thank [Applause] you any other comments from members of the Union so that we can stay on that particular topic before we switch topics okay seeing none then ma'am first name last name and town of residents please good evening everyone that was a very long meeting to sit through but excellent and informative I enjoyed it thank you uh didn't realize it'd be here in the middle of Union negotiations I didn't actually realize I would have to come to this meeting at all this evening my name is Tamara Jacobson I have
126lived in this community for 21 years I've been a proud member of Temple har Shalom I've also been a member of the kabad here in town I also have many good friends who are part of the high Community I'm here this evening because many of my friends and many of my family have been some what disappointed by the response from the Board of Education about the events that took place I speak for a living and I can tell you uh as a national author on educational issues I have never been this nervous I'm nervous this evening because the topic is so vital and because so many Jewish people people are in Jeopardy and that includes myself for being here this evening just for speaking here I could be unsafe for the boys and girls of
127this community and the Jewish children around the country this is how they feel they feel unsafe sorry take your time several events came to my rabbis attention and to my friends who called me as a leader in education in the state of New Jersey I am an educational consultant who specializes in special education and I love to speak for voices that can't speak for themselves and I am here tonight for those who don't either have the courage or can't speak for themselves the Jewish community at wung Hills High School has had several events over the past week to week and a half I know that many of my friends have called the principal and he's been very responsive and for that we are truly appreciative we know that Rabbi Randy M nitzki has written a
128letter to the school board asking you to please take this opportunity to educate the children and that and young adults of the Warren Township community to just take the time to do something more than just release a letter that most in the Jewish Community here felt felt short these are unprecedented times These are times that lead to a holocaust many of my friends and family and children have had to speak when they have never spoken before they've had to step up they've had to leave their comfort zone and that's what I'm doing here this evening in front of you I'm imploring that the letter that went out from the superintendant and the board did not make enough difference several Jew je children at wung Hills asked if they could start a Jewish organization that they
129needed it that they felt very very depressed and asked for assistance they were told that because of the negotiations and they have every right to to not show up that there would be no counsel or advisor for those students but seeing that one of your pillars one of the major things you're working on is social emotional um learning we have to take into consideration that these children are reaching out to you they're reaching out to the school and they're needing to meet with one another with an advisor so I'm imploring you to please reconsider um the requests from some of the students about allowing them to gather with some help the second thing that we're requesting from the Jewish Community would be to possibly use the wonderful Lang anguage that the president opened this meeting
130with if everybody heard those words it would go a very very long way with these kids and even those that might be anti-semitic might hear something they might not even know that they're being anti-semitic and lastly beside allowing the students to meet or gather or coming out with a stronger statement I was in my home with my daughter who some of you know um who has autism and cerebal paly and is nonverbal and had a feeding tube and you've seen the stories of the kids from the Cabots who were pushed into Gaza with a feeding tube and then murdered I'm saying this and imploring you there have been incidents in the high school and they went four to five days without being addressed where students went to their guidance counselor I'm letting you know the
131more you wait the more these issues escalate and the more you give minimum language the more it allows for more hate I would be saying this if it was slavery if it was the African-American population the Asian Community we say that we're for love and peace and the Jews in this community the Jewish students have every right to have that love and security and I ask you I'm pleading to the staff and I'm pleading to the community and to the board of education to please don't just do the minimum in this case we all collectively need to do so so much more I'm employing bring that of all of you and I thank you so much for your time thank [Applause] you any other public comments I will close the second opportunity for public comments
132um and I will I just tomorrow I just want to uh address your comments first the uh we have had a number of conversations um with the administration throughout everything that happened from the time that the that the attacks were first announced um before school even opened uh the very next week uh on Tuesday I believe because I think it was closed on Monday uh but on Monday we were in communication beginning to talk about what do we need to have in place uh regarding support for our students what do we need to have in place as it relates to um I know that there were a lot of security concerns and we don't go into details about security but we certainly made that you made sure that we were addressing those things um you
133know at that point in time uh as well as making sure that um there was a heightened awareness you know throughout the building um about the issues and what some of our students were going through um now I recognize that um not everyone's going to like every statement that goes out um you know some people want it to be stronger U some people say that it was too strong you know some people we start saying that it's you know you're not covering one one part of it the way that you should be covering the other part of it and you know personally I don't agree with any of that you know you got to call evil what it is it was evil it was Despicable it was unconscionable is it is unacceptable and the the
134idea that you can create some sort of moral equivalency where none exists um you know is certainly something that I personally agree with wholeheartedly uh at the same same time we also reached not only did we receive the letter from the rabbi I personally called the rabbi myself and had an extended conversation so I could have a better understanding and share that better understanding with our my fellow board members about what her concerns were with what she either was or was not seeing within the community so I want to let you know that we are taking this very very seriously and recognize that we have members in our community that are hurting very bad that we have members of our community that are afraid to speak out uh and I recognize that um to be
135honest with you uh my daughter pleaded with me not to make a statement not because she doesn't support it because she doesn't want a Target on her back she doesn't want our family to be Targets in this type of uh environment but I personally believe very very strongly in what I said tonight and I didn't say what I said tonight without the concurrence of my board members so what I read tonight was not only my remarks but I'm speaking on behalf of the board because they all supported those comments so how we move forward from here you know if I knew you know uh but I I don't know how we move forward because we don't know what's in front of us yet and I think that all we can do is try to make
136sure that we uh listen to our students um certainly take some of your recommendations and we'll we'll discuss those on uh some of the things that we can do normally in starting a club there's a process to starting a club uh but we'll certainly look to see what we can do uh in light of the fact that what you shared with us tonight so um I want to make make it very clear not only to you but to the Jewish members of our community and everybody in our community that hate has no place here anti-Semitism has no place here uh islamophobia has no place here uh this is a community for all of our students and we we need to support and embrace all all of our students and we will do everything that we
137can to make sure that this is a safe and welcoming environment for them and to the degree that you or others in the community feel that we have not done enough um we hear you and I'm sorry that you feel that way and we will continue to try to strive to do better so any other comments on the public comment you have anything to say you may okay it's up to you okay uh Mr Gall um first real quickly I uh wholeheartedly agree with uh Bob in his statements about um our Jewish community and the support wholeheartedly uh my grandfather was a uh um of the Jewish faith and lost the vast majority of his family in the Holocaust so I appreciate that it's it hits home um so um unconditional support for me at
138least you know I'm sure from the board also uh on mundane things more mundane still waiting for the traffic to get fixed in front of the school uh I'm just going to keep on repeating that until it gets done because it just has to has to has to get done I know I know um the other thing too is um back to school night uh was fantastic um I saw Liz in the hall superintendent jwi and uh she said oh you've been here a couple times and it's really funny uh yeah we've been here a couple times between myself and and my wife uh we started coming in 2008 and we'll finish up I think in 2032 is our last one um and then the grandchildren yeah so and and I want to say I
139I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the teachers and I think doing a great job wonderful job um I really don't have any you know feedback on that other than thank you um the one thing that did catch my eye though and this is something my wife brought up after I came back and gave the full report um in in the English class there was a particular book that was on the the list of books and so my wife jumped out and said oh it's still on the list so I wanted to read this email that my wife wrote says hello Mr Ross and you're going to start to understand that this was not recent uh Happy New Year my name is my wife Suzanne and I have a senior Rachel who is now 29 and a sophomore
140Sebastian who attended watch Young Hills notice I'm not worried about the Target on my back I'll say our names no problem I would like to voice my concern for the many books uh voice my concern for many books in the reading curriculum I waited until Rachel had made it through all four years before I had anything to say just to get a feel for the teachers in the curriculum there's too many in her this is her writing there's too many sexually uh graphic and depressing books in the required reading to name a few the kit Runner freshman year speak freshman year The Bluest Eye junior year which is now sophomore year uh which my daughter told me not to read and she's in parentheses I try to read all the books um um because it
141had no graphic it was so Ric and depressing and had no redeeming value when I looked up the synopsis for The Bluest Eye this is what I found The Bluest Eye is Tony Morrison's first novel published in 1970 it tells a tragic story of uh Cola breed love a young black girl growing up in marson's Hometown in Lorraine Ohio after the Great Depression due to its unflinching portrayal of incest prostitution domestic violence child molestation and racism there have been new numerous attempts to ban the book from different libraries some of them successful As She Goes On Children's CH children and teenagers as I'm sure you know do not need to get any help getting depressed and surely do not need any more sexual deviants or sexual crime descriptions flashing through their imaginations please let me
142know what your thinking was behind this and especially my teenage son who is upset about having to read about rape of both male and female I as a sophomore and I think that children should be adults before they have uh to begin reading graphic content like this even the movie theat put a age of 18 for re reviewing our rated movies and these books are far more graphic than the most rated our movie uh thank you for reading this and my concerns Suzanne now she sent this to the English teacher with no response she a month later she sent it again to the English teacher with no response she sent it to the principal with no response carry copying both of them uh this was in 2012 uh it continues to be that particular book
143continues to be on the reading list in the curriculum let me add on what my concern as being part of the board right now um most of you know that I come from a very large extended family extremely large uh and you can imagine that the diverse amount of uh well-being in that large group includes people that are not always um mentally health healthy and I can tell you for a fact for a fact that this type of subject matter triggers young minds into a very bad place and it's not okay in my opinion it's not okay to have the general populus of a particular School reading this type of graphic descriptions because it affects them differently and there has to to be there has to be a better solution than having this type of
144shock value in my opinion shock value um um stories as part of the curriculum I can't believe that this is the only way and the only book that can be inserted into a curriculum to make the point that it's trying to make and it's a matter of life and death it's not a matter of just opinion these are significant issues with young people and I think it's in that was 2012 I think it's worse by the pandemic and I've already heard feedback from the teachers about where we are mentally and I know personally where we are mentally it's definitely getting stressed I just implore this board and uh the staff to look for better reading material and specifically uh the reading material that includes this type of content um with that that's the end of
145that conversation and I just want to re-emphasize that we should Rebrand all our boys and girls things to xx and XY in both men's and women's sports thank you thank you Mr Gall other comments Mr may I just want to address a couple issues that were out there um one about the the attack in Israel uh I was in Israel a few years back and I fell in love with the place uh not Jewish but I feel like I am I feel like uh they're my uh my father in the faith the fatherhood in the faith so I just want to you know um extend my uh uh sympathy for those that are feeling threatened and as a board member I uh want to extend my full support I I'd be uh open to discussing
146any ideas that you guys have that that you think would help especially uh with the wellness of the children and I also wanted to speak to the unions as one of the newest board members it pains me that I came on with this issue and this is still going on and the um I think we can get past this I I don't understand why the traditional way of negotiating is not acceptable to the uh the union and I wish you know they would consider you know the wheel it didn't break why are we why are we trying to reinvent the wheel let's negotiate the traditional way we always had we can move past this um you do have Union Representatives I presume um the majority of the Union um trusts their representatives their leadership and
147I don't know why we can't allow them to do the negotiation that being said I'm not on the negotiation team I just do feel for the struggle that you guys are going through as teachers and um you know I I do want to resolve this as well and I know most everybody in this board does so that's all I wanted to say thank you thank you Mr Mar other board comments oh no then not not quite yet all right so um look I'm not going to go blowby blow for the continuing Mist statements that were made my response at the last meeting was because the union president stood up here and lectured us about 460 days how nothing was going on and it was you know the fact that those comments were made publicly and
148misstatements were made about what was happening with some of the negotiations after 2 years I had to set the record straight you may not agree with it but that's what I did and the information that is in that letter I certainly stand by I also stand by the fact that the vast majority of school districts have settled their contracts in this state without using the the process that the wha is insisting on as a matter of fact the New Jersey school boards Association Labor Relations practice followed up on more than 50 settlements that were done over the past year uh and the vast majority of them were done without any type of uh negotiation being done the manner in which the whrea uh is doing it so you know that is where we are um
149and I'm not going to speak for the negotiation committee I don't know about the June meeting because I wasn't part of it uh but I will say that there was also misrepresentation about the med meeting that was had between members of the negotiation committee and the members of our faculty where our committee asked to have a listening session with the members of The Faculty so that they could at least hear what some of the issues were not a negotiating session it was a listening session uh yet the wha leadership has positioned that that that was negotiations we have only had one negotiation session one there were other meetings but there was one negotiation session and there wasn't one last month that was a listening session so just to set the record straight there's a difference
150between negotiating and listening and when the the union president came up here and and was asking why there wasn't responses and they was glad that negotiations had started you know we were looking at each other going it was never negotiations it was a listening session so there's another misrepresentation so you want to know why there's a lack of trust is when things that we say and and things that we put in place are then misrepresented out to the rest of the community so when statements are made up here and misstatements are made they are going to be corrected the last thing that I'm going to say is I come from a one of the things that I was that I was brought up to do is defend those not present and I think it's shameful
151the personal attack that you guys levied on Peter Fallon who served this community with distinction for several years for several years not only at the high school but also at the descending District at Warren K8 it is ridiculous that you would make those kind of remarks about Mr Fallon and I would urge you to use CAU when you come to the podium and make comments about that again do not take the names of our former board members and and and try to be smch them for the service that they've done to this community you may not like him you may not you may disagree with him but he served this community well and he deserve better than the cheap shots that you threw at him I'm here I'll take him he's not so I'll defend
152him now I'll take a motion to adjourn Mr President I move to adjourn [Music] second