001a bittersweet recognition of retired so i i i always enjoy this because we get to recognize our staff members but as dr schwelsky said it is also bittersweet for the district because we are losing some very beloved educators and we did recognize a number of them mid-year in december and we have six more retirees that we are recognizing tonight and three of them are with us this evening so i'm going to first read the proclamations for the three retirees who are not with us and then for the three retirees who are here i am going to ask you what's up podium when i speak about you um while we read your resolution so first i will start off with miss pointley this proclamation regarding gwen blake shall be read at the public meeting of the
002watchon hills regional high school board of education on june 1st 2021 whereas gwen blake was first employed by wachong hills regional high school in and whereas she has since utilized her professional skills in crisis counseling for students families and faculty during her tenure at launch of health and whereas she has presented to students on social and emotional wellness in health classes and provided a number of educational evening programs for parents in the community and whereas she participated in the wh rhs municipal alliance county sac meetings challenge day and week of respect and whereas she served as the co-leader of the intervention and referral team a member of the crisis response team and made regular contributions to the healthy edge program and whereas she has remained a colleague and a friend to the whrh staff has
003decided to retire now therefore be it resolved that the wachon hills regional board of education extends its heartfelt gratitude for gwen blake's 10 years of service and devotion to our school and wishes for a healthy and happy retirement to pursue her passions travel and whenever adventures lie ahead so congratulations juan and we are going to miss you next week this proclamation regarding aaron hodgson read the public meeting of the washington hills regional high school board of education on june 1st 2021 whereas aaron hodge was first employed by watson hills regional high school in september 2006 after teaching four years in michigan michigan and whereas he has been noted for his dedication to his students and his social studies classes including united states and world history as well as the numerous elective courses he taught enthusiastically
004engaging with his students to expand their horizons and become active citizens and to think critically about current issues and whereas his involvement in extracurricular activities serving as advisor for many clubs and competitions including junior statesman of america and the economics challenge and whereas he has demonstrated dedication to the social studies department which included interacting with colleagues and sharing thoughtful ideas during department meeting discussions in addition to working with others in cross-disciplinary endeavors and professional learning communities as well as being involved in using the new jersey learning standards into the curriculum and whereas he brought his pleasant demeanor and positivity every day to the classroom and his full environment promoted his motivation to learn from others as well as through coursework and outside studies at universities including his master's in educational administration and whereas after bringing
005unique perspectives to events in history and in helping his students reach their highest potential he has decided to retire now therefore be it resolved that the watchon hills regional board of education extends its heartfelt gratitude for aaron hodges 15 years of service and devotion to our school and wishes him a healthy and happy retirement to pursue his passions travel and whatever adventures lie ahead congratulations erin next we have would you like to say her name janet tron to follow this proclamation regarding janet trump of williams shall be vetting the public meeting of the watching hills regional high school board of education on june 1st 2021 whereas janet transfulu first joined watson hills regional high school in may 2005 as a substitute teacher and substitute secretary and in april 2006 as a substitute bus driver and
006whereas she became the district's transportation coordinator in august 2006 and has served our school district in that capacity for 15 years and whereas she has been valued a valued and loved member of the whrhs community who is known for her punctuality organization reliability and attention to detail and whereas she has been the driving force behind the safe and efficient transportation of over 2 000 students each year and whereas for strong collaborative efforts with ascending school districts bus contractors bus drivers private schools and parents various educational service commissions athletic department co-curricular supervisors were critical in establishing safe efficient student transportation in all areas and whereas she is known as a loyal member of the school's business office team that always stresses safety of the students and physical responsibility and whereas for strong transportation knowledge dedication and
007warm personality will be missed by many now therefore they have resolved that the watchung hills regional high school board of education extends its heartfelt gratitude for janet johnson flula for her 16 years of service and devotion to her school and wishes her a happy and healthy retirement to pursue her passions travel and whatever adventures lie ahead thank you very much okay so now we have come to our free retirees who are with us so the first person i would like to follow to the left turn is mr coyote this proclamation regarding joseph coyote shall be read at the public meeting of the wajon hills regional high school board of education on june 1st whereas joseph coyote began at the wajon hills regional high school in 2009 with the school security and safety staff and whereas
008he brought his law enforcement experience his concerns for school security and the lives of teenagers cooperative nature and ready sense of humor to the watchup hills community as a security aide and whereas he has endeared himself to our community for his knowledge of all students willingness to extend the hand to support all in need and its ability to ensure the safety of all staff members of the learning community and whereas he has always been a strong supporter of athletics giving up his time to attend many events to cultivate his relationships with our students coaches and parents and whereas he has decided to retire after faithfully serving our students staff and parents now therefore be it resolved that the wachon hills regional high school board of education extends its heartfelt gratitude for joseph coyote's 12 years
009of service and devotion to our school and wishes him a healthy and happy retirement to pursue his passions to travel and whatever adventures lie mr ahead i know that i'm going to be seeing you in the hallway uh as i'm doing my uh routes around the building you uh treat every student as if they were your own and i enjoyed talking to you about your own children and now they are successful in their careers so it's nice that they're finally letting you retire so you can enjoy some time but you have been a tremendous asset to our school community and i know the students are going to miss you as well so we wish you all the best and um because we normally have a cake for the retirees but given covenant and all of
010that we um didn't do that this year but our culinary arts students made a little treat of cookies for each of the retirees here tonight and if you would like to say a few words okay next we have suzanne pence maker please calm down so uh this is going to be a tremendous loss for our science department actually our next two retirees are really i serve as the foundation for that department and they uh i think when i first came to the district um for lack of a better term you know i think the two of you have been legends in the in the science department in a very positive way to the students and to the staff optionality proclamations for each of you this proclamation regarding suzanne fence to make or shall be read
011at the public meeting of the watchon hills regional high school board of education on june 1st 2021 whereas suzanne fenced maker was first employed by wachong hills regional high school in september 2001 and whereas she has been noted for her passion for science and in particular biology and for her boundless patients and strong desire for personal growth and whereas because of her expertise as a learner her knowledge of biology and her ability to motivate all levels of students she has been invaluable to the school as a whole and whereas she is a lifelong learner who's above and beyond the call of duty sacrifice of her personal time for her students needs prepared them for the challenges of life and the highest levels of post-secondary academics and whereas she has been a stalwart in the science
012department for 20 years and whereas after an outstanding career as a teacher who inspired all with her love of learning and perpetual search for a better lesson she has decided to retire now therefore be it resolved that the wachon hills regional board of education extends its heartfelt gratitude for suzanne fence to make her 20 years of service and devotion to our school and wishes her a healthy and happy retirement to pursue her passions travel and whatever adventures lie ahead we're tremendously appreciative of not only your 20 years of service but this last year which probably seems like it was 19 of your 20 years of service um and your passion for the subject is evident to everyone around you including your students and if you're going to be leaving very difficult shoes for somebody to
013go oh come on up you may have been one of the first teachers i met when i came here um probably because you're at the school as much as our maintenance staff and anyone else and so i think you were probably in your classroom easily setting up that summer when i was walking around but i remember one of i think the first conversations i had with the teacher um and you were very welcoming and warm and very enthusiastic about uh your your subject and the students and uh and that has shown you know this year as well which was not an easy year to to maintain that this proclamation regarding carol landa shall be been at the public meeting of the watching hills regional high school board of education on june 1st 2021 for us
014carol landa was first employed by watching hills regional high school in september 2003 and whereas she has been noted for her passion for science and in particular biology and for her boundless patients and strong desire for personal growth whereas because of her expertise as a learner her knowledge of biology and her ability to motivate all of those of students she has been invaluable to the school as a whole and whereas she is a lifelong learner who's above and beyond the call of duty sacrifice of her personal time for her students needs to prepare them for the challenges of life and the highest levels of post-secondary academics and whereas she has been a stalwart in the science department for 18 years whereas after an outstanding career as a teacher who inspired all with her love of
015learning and perpetual search for a better lesson she has decided to retire now therefore be a result of the wachon hills regional high school board of education extends its heartfelt gratitude for carol and his 18 years of service and devotion to our school and wishes her a healthy and happy retirement to pursue her passions travel and whatever adventures lie ahead thank you carol we wish you all i would argue with some people the people are certainly what makes much better and every time we uh we acknowledge our retirees i think we're reminded of the impact that you have had on the students here and i hope that you realize that and remember that because you know it's certainly something that you may not always be aware of until later on and really you've touched so
016many lives and we really appreciate all of your services at school and we wish you all the best and sleeping in september and traveling in september doing all of the things that you generally can't do okay so that concludes our return thank you very much and on behalf of the board thank you for your many years of service and commitment to the school we're now we'll move to the strategic plan update okay so um we have a number of the members of our strategic plan team the chairs of our team that are we're going to keep this somewhat brief so for the board members uh in your folders you have um i gave you a printout that is the entire strategic plan so if you were to fall back in like december when we presented
017the goals uh and the objectives um and so i guess we shared the mission levels the objectives um belief statements so that's really the foundational framework of the strategic plan and since that time the action plans have been developed for achieving each of the objectives outlined in the strategic plan and anthony i should be able to share my streaming correct so what i've included in your folders is a very comprehensive document so you are not expected to read it all and digest it all right now it's all actually available on our website as well but i wanted to give that to you so that you have it to refer to um so what you were presented back in december um was this document here which is on our strategic plan page for our website so
018these are our goals and our objectives since then and our guiding principles since then uh the action teams developed action plans for achievement of the goals and objectives and we are not going to go through all of those action items tonight because there are a lot of them because they really spent a lot of time outlining uh what the action plans would be for achievement of the objectives what we want to use tonight for is to just briefly show you the strategic plan dashboard on the website that you can visit that anyone can visit anytime they want um that contains all this information so that you're familiar with that and each of the action team chairs they're just going to speak they're going to pick one of their action plans that is going to that
019has a start date implementation date of july 2021 with something that's going to be coming up we're going to expect to hear more about and they're going to speak on that um and then after this meeting you're welcome to continue to look through this you know what these were everything that's in the strategic plan will obviously be spoken about at some level of the board whether it's full board or board committee but it's obviously a lot of information right now and then the other piece that we're going to talk about tonight is the additional component that was also completed since december with the portrait of a graduate and that is very closely linked to our eslrs our expected wide learning results that were developed as part of our prior strategic plan that's we're going to
020uh to give you a little preview of tonight so the strategic plan dashboard is something new for this strategic plan for our prior plan our 2015 to 2020 plan we utilized uh google docs to to monitor and document our progress on the plan so this is a little bit more robust platform to track our progress and there will be an additional uh tab on this that actually has indicators of progress and how we're going to what metrics we're going to use to measure progress that's the next piece that we still have to complete so we're looking at finalizing what we will actually be using what quantitative and qualitative data we will use to determine our progress on meeting these goals but if you look right now on the home page of this and again this
021is all on our district website on the patient page you have our our mission and our guiding principles and then this is what you actually have a printout of and anyone who wants to see this comprehensively there's a way to print it as a pdf and you'll see everything but if you notice here's our first goal these are the objectives for gold one so then all of this you've seen before this was on december so for goal one these are action items for achievement of a sorry for objective one these are the action items that will be carried out to achieve the first objective and if you click on this i over here what this does is it gives you the date the expected date to carry out that action item as well as who's
022responsible and it lists that for every single uh action item so you can see that this one is something that will be happening right away it is expected to be completed next year that particular step um so that is on here for all of these action items so what i'm going to do and so that way you'll get a little sampling of uh an objective and the action plans for each poll i'm going to ask the action team co-chairs just to speak briefly um about one of the action plans so i believe for goal one we have mr sabino and mrs tobin so i'm going to call them up to speak briefly about this and mr sabino is our director of school counseling is one of our assistant principals good evening everyone good to see
023the board this evening and everybody else from the community here tonight um happy to be first time uh live in person everywhere meeting so far since i've come on board so thanks for having me here so we're here on miss obama and i to discuss as uh dr few had mentioned some of the items that were professional that we set for an extra teaser plan so the one item we really want to highlight where we're kind of starting off right like right here from july going forward is the social emotional uh goal that's tied to the school climate circle so i know prior to my coming on board here there's been discussion about having some additional survey and get some some ideas of the school climate and large career but this should provide us an
024opportunity to do so and really apply well to social emotional goals but also honestly more broadly this will also tie into some metrics or for the other goals so with the support of the administration board we have partnered with rutgers and the school climate transformation project deliver this instrument that's utilized by a number of districts throughout the state we are in the midst of administering to all stakeholders actually now we're actually not and mr speaker one second just so they can cross reference i believe we're talking about objective 1.6 correctly right can we conduct self-assessment yes i can't see that fully from my angle so so the survey for the school time transformation project will be administered to all stakeholders students parents families and faculty uh and right now we're actually possibly missing it to
025the students and we'll be administered to uh faculty as well the next week and week and a half and then to the parents of the community the results from the results of the survey will allow us to engage actual items to prioritize and also again ties it to their social emotional goals um and also a large range of impacts on tiered support that we provide to students so certainly we're in the midst of coming out of the pandemic here so there'll be a lot of need that we anticipate will continue to fall carry into the fall and into the next five years but this will allow us to get some real-time data on the needs of the students from the both the students from the faculty as well as from the parents in the community
026rutgers staff will provide opportunity to meet with us over the summer to see the initial findings and then we'll have to make some decisions on whether to follow up with a follow-up survey whether that be the fall or the spring uh the tide for this will be professional development and support for staff based on that again the results of this survey if anyone has any questions about the rutgers survey or larger social emotional tricks out there or myself anybody have any questions feel free to let us know thank you thank you very much just a funny clarification talks about the focus on students but that survey is actually a comprehensive survey for not only students faculty but also the community is that correct that's correct and it will also tie to again not only for
027what we look to do for peer support for the students both in the classroom and outside the classroom but also for the faculty of the parents as well so you know what type of program you can target for parents during meeting events or major themes or they're primarily academic it covers the range to answer that more correctly but i also have i mean it's not a lengthy survey and actually the board should have access to the full questions and examples very easily as well as the community actually uh principal alberto sent this out to the parents in the community with a sample of the survey as well so um first question is to give you a for instance i feel safer and then it really goes in from there into the deeper questions about how
028students are going raw obviously socially emotionally but also academically the parents have other thank questions very much thank you okay goal two i'm going to call up mr sierpas one of our assistant principals and this goal is centered on helping our students pursue personalized educational goals in and beyond the classroom it does talk about ensuring that individual student learnings are measured very quickly so again through the data that we'll be collecting we wanted to highlight some of the activities that we put together so we're going to the objective looks at supporting all the students their individual needs with a focus on study groups organizational skills academic support programs i mean the only moment is obviously the students rely heavily on things counseling services teachers that are available for extra support extracurricular this is taking it
029a step further to the next level we're actually getting more students involved with regard to peer mentoring with programs study groups that are more organized a place where students can vote in addition to some of their supports they're not already one of the things i'd just like to point out is to actually thank the board and the administration because we had a discussion about a year ago whether to continue moving forward with the strategic plan process or not given pandemic and the disruption to our school year and i think that this goal and these objectives speak exactly to how the strategic plan has helped us put in place structures and steps to address some of the needs that have arisen as a result of this very untraditional year and while scl was a focus for
030us before the pandemic before it actually became a focus for the state you know this was something that came up in our land strategic plan i think that certainly some of these action items um grew out of the conversations this year of the additional supports that we realized students needed so i i really do want to commend the board for moving forward with this and giving your support to this because it has helped us really formalize some of the essential supports that our students and our staff is going to need moving forward any board members have any questions or comments thank you very much appreciate it thank you all right goal three that is mr maluso our director of informational technology and mr platform one of our assistant principals so we're going to see me
031on objective 3 3 and the focus of this objective teachers is staff so over the past year as mr joyce has mentioned um we've learned a lot about hybrid learning distance and our teachers are fantastic and we could form a team of these teachers and share some of these innovative ideas that they use every day in their classroom the technology they incorporated over the past year and a half and beyond that and there are many years of teaching experiences and but the team's focus and goal is to inspire teachers to try something out of their comfort zone explore research and build upon that in a formal structure whether it's in their own department or across the party and the whole entire staff as well another focus on objective 3.3 is also to incorporate design thinking
032into our coursework and uh design thinking is a process oriented design strategy that really starts with the premise of creativity is a skill in many ways it's similar to the engineering process design process or even the scientific method uh it's a structured way of thinking for problems that works nicely in project-based learning with our budget-based planning initiatives we're going to focus on empathy creativity and idea generation goal number four we have spelling our director of curriculum and instruction and mr o'hara our principal thank you very much uh as you know previously uh that was prior to this uh dei was wrong on this planet but going into this five years obviously we spend a lot of time and effort and resources into this and we're continuing to announce your future plan so one of the
033things that we're going to talk about today is um obviously there's a lot in there we're going to just mention objective 4.4 is partnering with our constituent districts um and what this is going to talk about is really taking a look at our student handbook and making sure that it is representative of what is going on in the current times and what is our or what we're seeing as a staff and then for the students this came up from a couple of different ways whether it be an academic council or meetings with our students in their different clubs and organizations that we want to revise and make it more representative of what is going on in our school so our vps that i've already spoken we're going to sit down this summer and really dive
034into our student handbook and make sure that it's representative of what's going on and how to be more respectful of the timing and the things that we are seeing currently in are we talking about stacy about came back because she was very instrumental in terms of being a concert master and helping all the different kings and giraffes to come together and we are very proud of this plan and bob really knows because he knows five years ago security going peter we didn't even know what a plan was and so now for us to move to thinking about analytics and data and the new members of our team we're really excited about the fact that we're going to measure these goals so thank you to all of you i would thank everybody to come here and
035every month as we had more children students in our building the energy has been palpable so thank you for your leadership if you go back to our strategic plan page please start with the mission statement the fortune of the graduate is using strategic plans expected school-wide learning results just as the mission statement is a fully developed description of our district work and we have a school motto that align is the same statement for the courage empower explore excel our fortune graduate works hand in hand with the eslrs mission statement it's on the it's actually on the high school yeah so i just wanted to use that analogy to explain the eslr and torture the graduate learning results during the last strategic plan the district formalized the expected supply learning results there are six categories with
036several elements in each category their fully expanded entitled description of the district's the fortune of a graduate because like the motto was to the mission of courtship and graduate sustained capture on the expected school libraries the fortune of a graduate include that will include individual designed by the representations the final five will be a brief and easily identifiable reminder by the district so that's what we had planned for the [Music] note related evacuated i think part of the reason we're getting the feedback um in the speakers is if everyone mutes their microphone when they're not [Music] there's a dj in the background uh so thank you dr jewett uh if there are any of our honor retirees that's still here i highlight one more time the public facing accountability on this plan and the dashboard
037itself because when you know as we've looked at the dashboard uh you know members of the community will be able to come in and see the progress that we're making for the strategic plan so it's not just the document and working on but you know the progress that's being made uh provides a level of transparency and accountability to the community for what we are promising to deliver on behalf of our students i think that's a a an important admission uh to this particular process as well as i think that the you know the school culture and climate survey uh is also going to be an important addition because that will also be reported as part of the strategic plan progress reports so again just another another way that uh the community can hold us accountable
038to what we're promising we're going to do on their behalf thank you and since you have the microphone to uh so the education committee met on may 24th uh and we had a number of talk the topics that we moved through that are in uh the minutes from the meeting but just real briefly uh we talked about the next board meeting there will be a presentation um of a of basically the progress that we've been making um toward the current strategic planner as we change turn the page to the new strategic plan where we'll be getting an update on the progress from the district administrators that tied to the four strategic plan goals but here we will be hearing from four groups of students and teachers that will be talking about their experiences this year
039aligning to those goals so actual projects that they've done um that are consistent with the goals of the strategic plan so that will be for our june 15 presentation we also spoke about the college acceptance we're in the middle of collecting all the data with uh over 300 responses we've received so far we know that 85 of our students are attending four-year colleges and universities and we'll have a much more robust update uh regarding the college acceptances once we come back in the fall and we get our fall report we also discussed uh summer and fall academic and social emotional learning support uh some of which you heard is incorporated into our strategic plan uh and and we'll have much more to report on once the plan is finalized but they're looking at a variety
040of options for summer enrichment for summer academic support uh sharing in-person opportunities for credit recovery and also looking at virtual means to support some of those issues as well they're also looking at creative ways we can bring our students back into the building this summer who have been 100 remote since march of 2020 uh including multiple activities to ease their transition back into september and we're also as we've discussed uh prior to this looking at what additional academic and social emotional learning supports we need to implement in the fall as schools begin so that we have enough support in place for the students that will need it as you may or may not know this year we uh we really served support for a lot of the students that needed it regardless of their status
041regardless of whether they had an id or a 504 if a student needed support they got support and we just want to make sure that as we transition into the new year that we are providing that same level of support as we begin to find our way to whatever this new reality is that we're going to be operating in the fall we also talked about there was a discussion about the setting up permanent lights outside of the area where the stage is currently which is also the field uh and they've looked at actually purchasing those lights but they're not going to be able to do it for this particular year so instead we're going to be running some lights to go out into that space almost like an experiment to see whether or not the
042idea of lighting that field over the long term makes the most sense successful in the fall then they'll be able to install permanent lighting in the future we also have some curriculum updates regarding both social studies and health they've been coordinating with the sending district middle school teachers on social studies to really follow up on the idea of how we can align social studies skills the goal here is that while we may not necessarily align curriculum that we can at least align skills that we are expecting from our students as they're working their way toward the high school and since we moved the ninth grade health class to the first quarter we found a great way of making connections between students from all four sending districts and their health teachers have committed to providing the
043sel support for ninth graders as they tradition transition into wash on bills uh so that they continue to build their relationships uh and then also working on developing a shared vision and vocabulary amongst our students uh creating our peer leaders and sports leaders and band captains and the adults in the learning community and you know bringing them together in a unifying way to support the needs of our students and that our students will learn how to reach uh and help each other through their own leadership potential as they understand that everyone can play a role in further cultivating the empathetic culture that we strive to create here at washong mills the last item that we talked about was one that we touched on at our last board meeting and dr chabelski generously brought that over
044to the education committee where we had a discussion regarding religious holidays and some correspondence that we received from members of our community and that led us to a broader conversation of our current calendar and our current approach to holidays in general and as a result of that we were looking at how milburn had approached similar issues on their calendar and how they looked to adjust the comp the the calendar and accommodate additional cultural and religious celebrations in which many of their community members participate one of the things that milburn did was to conduct the study to gauge absences on various holidays utilizing the information to determine when to close the school district in particular and that was generally with there was over 50 percent of the population celebrating a particular holiday but additionally they went
045further by not really indicating that the district was closed for a holiday but just that the district was closed and on our current calendar most of the district closing is district is closed with the exception right now i think of two holidays in september um so that got us thinking maybe we don't maybe we should just be indicating when our building is going to be closed and then at the same time looking at some things that we need to do like surveying our own community to determine what are the holidays that are being celebrated what impacts might they have on both the high school but also even coordinating doing that survey with our sending district so that we can have a comprehensive approach to how we address the holidays because after all we can't just
046close the school and disregard what's happening in the sending district so the idea would be that we will do a similar survey uh in the fall of 2021 hopefully collaboration with our sending districts to garner the feedback in considering potential adjustments to our calendar uh we're also going to look to edit the language on the calendar to not indicate specific religious holidays but to indicate a district closure and then finally we will formally communicate our current practice to encourage students to inform teachers of cultural religious and other obligations that are appropriate reasons for extensions on assignments by adding such language to our student campus as well as then looking at even if the building isn't closed but there are significant holidays that are being held uh encouraging you know through the use of the calendar
047uh that's significant events for that we would be host holding at the building would not interfere with some of those other help so that we're not going to put we're not going to schedule a major performance on top of a important observed holiday that impact a you know important community within our community but it's not large enough where we are closed so we're trying to get a better understanding of what all of the issues are the survey will certainly inform that and then from that develop the information in our student handbook be able to communicate that out to the rest of the community and also educate our own staff members on the calendar in such a way so that they can avoid um scheduling items on sensitive health so uh that was the end of
048our meeting and that is the conclusion of my report i provide opportunity for any of our committee members comment before we take questions uh i wrote the original policy on holidays for milburn years ago i helped craft that survey one of the things we also looked at was not just moving forward but we wanted to get a lot of get close to certain holidays beforehand and the reasons i just used to look into that wasn't extreme with regard to substitute i just want to be sensitive as well because that's a great strain on great point any other question well i sorry that i could not attend the meeting but i saw the petition which was submitted and there are two holidays which have been suggested for eve and each of these two festivals are celebrated
049by more than one billion people in the world each of them and actually diwali is celebrating even white house so and several districts here in new jersey they actually close the school they have the holiday and it is in their calendar and this example is edison you know they have you can see the calendar this year next year they have clearly marked this holiday so quite a few community members approached me also that why not we have a holiday here and we have a holiday for christians for jewish why not for muslim community why not for hindu community now diwali is not only celebrated by hindu hindu the dance that saves the buddhist you know more than a villain so if we can taste the goal of inclusivity and diversity so i see more reason
050to specify that we have the whole day for this particular occasion that way everybody would feel accepted because after all school is run by taxpayers and fairly large amount of taxes are given by these communities who are requesting these what it is that's the comment [Music] and i think that's exactly the reason why we want to do a survey of the community to get our communities feedback to see what we need to do and what is appropriate uh in the needs of our community in reference to the edison calendar and the you know the edison calendar they are closed for the rally but we're closed for diwali as well this year because it's falling on the time period where schools will be closed for the traditional um teacher recess so for the njea conference so
051it happens to fall on that same calendar so you know theoretically we're closed um so that students would be able to celebrate that but more importantly i think we need more information and then we can make an informed decision create an appropriate calendar get feedback from the community and then make sure that we're addressing not only as it relates to the two holidays that were brought up by the physicians but that we're being comprehensive and looking at are there other holidays that might be impacted through the rest of the community so that we can do this in one broad strategic approach instead of okay we'll address these two holidays now and then next time there will be two more holidays from somebody else we really want to try to get it right particularly as it
052relates to our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion yeah that's fine but to address this point of view if you see the calendar for the next year written there you know this falls under the category careful of what you wish for there were well over a hundred holidays that are recognized by the state of new jersey or the who recognizes or acknowledges i'm not saying i have an issue with that that's the goal that's going to create a major problem so we need to be very sensitive as well i'm just saying that some sort of realistic expectations are perhaps the better what the numbers are with respect to observance because if it's one person don't want to shut down not that i education an issue with that that others may have done status just have
053to be very careful edison great example however they're an outlier with regard to their student population and if we're going to use that as the example that's going to work because there are other districts throughout new jersey throughout the united states that are heavily concentrated with respect to certain truths and if we say that this group observes this because they're 92 or a certain proof let's just say well we should do that too where we have zero percent because that really makes sense or maybe it should because now we want to uh be inclusive of our brothers and sisters throughout the united states and observe their record even though we may not like and i don't know i don't know any of them there are obviously 700 more people only one person really large number
054of numbers again that's not the issue the issue is what that number is so it's probably our we're the elected officials in this district determine what the criteria is going to obviously 98 of our people then we know that makes sense but at some point what is our percentage and that's what we like to be careful that's what our rule is where that cut off about generally get over 50 so i don't know if either you or michael have any sort of insight as to where that number came from and how hard and fast was that i can't tell you they just were saying that they had they determined a threshold in making that decision they have some more insight on that i do but i don't want to comment that number came from but
055again we did do a study of the district there's a survey they went out and surveys in general got to be very careful because the way you craft this really that's historically why surveys are bad but we hear it all of them it's like surveillance but the way you ask the question can really create the answers that's why i'm not a huge fan of the surveys even when you look at questions that appear to be very binary you can still create uh the way you slam the discussion um and so our original issue of millburn bring up what the teachers were important that's what created the holidays certainly we went to the jewish home that was the first step it was originally going back about 30 years and there were no jewish holidays in most
056districts they weren't days off and if you had the absence excuse the absence then what was found that there were a lot of teachers that were absent those days of creator big scheduler so that's that's what created the first move going into the holidays and then you know that many more students that were coming in with jewish persuasion and just that stuff and about 15 years ago we saw it in town and a big asian indian community and we were addressing those things as well has changed dramatically over certainly the last 20 years that they think they're recognizing and you know at some point you just put a number down see where it is you know just kind of get a sense of what makes that two percent seem small also yet it's a significant
057part of the population and i think that's one of the things that we addressed when we talked about it in education but he that was i think the number from milburn was kind of a guide it wasn't okay that's the number that it's going to be what we talked about michael's kind of cheated to your point uh when you when we do get the information back from the community you know significant and trying to identify what is significant as it relates to our student population and to your point our teaching population um to the degree that there would you know there would be a where it would make the most sense to make sure that the building would be closed at that point in time so i think that um you know like anything there's
058there's nuance and i think that's we're going to have to make sure as we move forward with this that we are thoughtful uh that we're listening to the community and then we come forward with the best plan that will make the sense balancing the needs of the community there's no homework in that because that was an issue as well trying to educate everybody about why these days were important people did announcements this way yeah that wasn't a negative connotation of so and so it's not here today because there's very questions that was education second question and i don't know dr julia or mr morrison wants to address this just to give a realistic timetable in terms of what the public can expect given that calendars are coordinated with schools uh that sent to us ahead
059of time and calendars have been voted upon just that realistic expectation but sure well i think that the the current calendar for the 2021-2022 school year you know has been set not only by watching bills but also our sendings so you know what we would be looking to do is to do a survey you know out in the community in the fall um preferably in coordination with our sending districts uh with the idea we could then get the information back look at it collectively see how that may impact the calendar for the 2022-2023 school year and then make the adjustments to you know ideally fall into the line uh in that particular time as well as mr barbara alluded to making sure we also developed the appropriate training and support for the rest of the
060staff to ensure that even if the building is open and there happens to be a significant holiday for some members of the community that comes into place but we are not giving tests we're not putting on major events we're not putting on the spring musical so that it would conflict with the student's ability to participate being sensitive that we don't want students to be stigmatized in any way shape or form regardless of the strategies so any other comments or questions thank you mr morrison we'll move on to uh personnel report uh the personnel committing there on may 24th um we were able to discuss the items that are on the agenda for our next meeting preview we'll move on to our first public comment period which is limited to agenda items for this meeting only
061the second public comment period will be open to any topic all comments are limited to five minutes although comments regarding items not on the agenda are typically entertained at that second comment period uh i'll take the prerogative to uh include any comments on either the strategic plan update or any of the committee reports that you've just heard from this first public comment period as well so if you have a comment please step up and identify your name and the talent hello my name is jayanne quito i've corresponded with many of you through a phone and email hello so nice to put cases onto your needs um thank you for the discussion tonight about the petition that we put forward the community and for the benefit of those who did not receive the petition i just
062want to give a quick synopsis um it was a petition signed by over 300 people um and it was created it was the muslim hindu and jewish coalition i think it's interesting as we talk about surveys and how we're going to move forward you know there are people that are signatories to this petition that is requesting that the eid and diwali holidays the days off for the school and staff there are signatories to this petition and have no direct benefit to themselves there's the jewish community on this they already have school hog why are these signatories to this comic to this petition we have christian neighbors agnostic neighbors why are they signatories to this petition i was asked the question and you sir brought this up are we opening a pandora's box and i said
063when someone said to me what if this community that community i have children that go to the public schools and my answer is they would be richer for it to learn about what is yom kippur what is rosh hashanah qualities we don't celebrate but we live in a global society and i hope we're um we're uh teaching our kids to be global leaders at wachong hills i want people to look at our graduates and say wow wow you're a global citizen you're not clueless to what's going on around you sir you said these face these holidays are celebrated by billions i can speak about islam it's the second largest religion in the world and the fastest growing in the united states if you're not muslim you should know about islam and you should want your
064child your neighbor to know about it too and that's why these holidays are important it's not just about to celebrate it's what do we want our children to be and how do we want them to interact with people that are different than them that's why diversity and inclusion and equity is important it's not just about the people who are in the minority it's about us learning about them and how our community benefits from that so i just wanted the community to be aware of what the petition was because i know it was sent to you but they know they might not be aware of what it was for and it aligned with our strategic objectives of the four diversity equity and inclusion objectives and aligned with three out of four directly so it not only
065benefits our community but it is meeting our goals to move forward on these holidays just a few prepared remarks there are three reasons why the board should move to grant these holidays to wally and eid as a school holiday they are an act of love for the individual an act of love for the family and an act of love for the community first act of love of the individual in this case i'm referring to the student at wachong hills teenage years are a time of self-exploration it's necessary that we foster and encourage the chance for students to form their own identity faith can be an integral part of identity formation to deprive our students of this opportunity can stunt their growth faith can be a beacon of light guidance and comfort during uncertain times and
066boy have we had on certain times second granting these holidays to students chosen love with family celebrating holiday traditions is an important part of building a strong bond between family and community they connect us to our history and help us celebrate generations of family these religious traditions build a sense of stability regardless of whatever else is happening family members can look forward to and cannot participating in family traditions depriving students of the opportunity to build these bonds and create feelings of alienation i can only speak from experience when i share that my children this past ramadan tested for 30 days it's pretty amazing they volunteer they did acts of charity but they were denied the ability to celebrate with their community without penalty and what i'm referring to when i say penalty the existing policy
067that we have in place right now as much as this is about diversity equity and inclusion it is also inextricably linked to mental health finally granting these holiday shows in love with community when we produce healthy and happy children they grow up to form stable families and then in turn create strong communities don't we all benefit from that in addition at wachong hills we're looking to create strong leaders with depth character and pride in their own diverse identities these are the future qualities companies are looking for when they want to hire why because companies have found that the more diverse a company is the higher the diversity dividend greater diversity means delivering on greater organizational performance positive external reputation trust which gives which gives companies a competitive edge the most diverse and inclusive companies are
06833 more likely to have higher returns implementing these changes helps better prepare our students in the workforce finally it's with great pride that i draw the board's attention to the groundbreaking work of professor sahib and dr tarucci if you've never heard their names and you should know this is who they are you may recognize this from the cover of the new york times there are two muslim scientists whose work as the founders of the bio entec and pfizer kobit vaccine will enable watch on hill's students to go back full time in the fall professor sahin recently stated we need a global vision that gives everyone an equal chance intelligence is equally distributed across all ethnicities as a society we have to ask ourselves how can we give everyone a chance to contribute to society his
069words ring true how can we give everyone an equal chance many many districts in new jersey not just edison have already taken steps to acknowledge eid and diwali school holidays almost over a decade old time for us to catch up watch out i hope that you as a board will send a message to all future professor professor sahin all future athletes artists scientists innovators of our watch on people's community the message is a message of love for the student family the community we are stronger together many thanks to the broader coalition of watch on hills for supporting this initiative to create religious equity for all anybody else like me again if you just take your name hello i'm reyan i attend here a sophomore as a student at waltham hills holidays are a very important
070time for us it gives us the opportunity to focus on family and culture grades are our students first and foremost duty without a dedicated time off how can we truly take our mind off of the schoolwork we are missing the consequences for a student missing school can be dire it's not about close planning and assignment per test missing one day can be missing an introduction to a new matthew missing chem practice a new vocab unit in spanish it puts students at a disadvantage academically during the last 30 days of ramadan we fasted and reflected on how to be better people we came back to our community volunteering numerous ways i spent each day of that month thinking about how to better myself and our community it would be nice to know that my community feels
071the same about me thank you again please take your name hi my name is nora and i'm a current 8th grade gbms student and future washon hills freshman as a minority religion student in our school district i deserve the right to celebrate my religious holidays free of anxiety and stress in all my past in all of my past years here i have not gotten that in order to practice my religion i must be set back in my lessons i value my grades very much as an honors straight a student but this obstacle puts me at a disadvantage to my non-minority peers in order to celebrate my holidays i must individually contact each and every teacher of mine on that day and then constantly worry for fear of failure in my classes for students with more
072severe anxiety this process can be their personal torture as a board who strives for equality between students religious equality is a large part of that and should be a focus it's not at all fair for religious minority students to be unable to celebrate their holidays free of orient stress thank you hello hi my name is moore i'm a resident of guancha um my family and i have lived in washington for a little bit over a decade now um and while i've graduated from a private islamic school in south jersey i'm not attending the washington hills regional high school system i feel as if it is my duty as a muslim american to be here today to that which for every muslim student whatever you can do student to every other indian student who celebrates diwali
073um i have served as a volunteer as an empty at the watch and rescue squad ever since the winter of 2017 and continue to serve my community and just as as previous speakers have mentioned we expect the same as residents of this wonderful community i hope that the board recognizes the importance and necessity of recognizing and celebrating night and wealthy holidays and i pray that our community continues to grow and flourish as students continue to raise their religious social and ethnic identities unapologetically in this country school systems of clifton teaneck jersey city newark cliffside park edison elizabeth hillside and southwindswick among others have already been set to recognize guide and all the holidays in their school districts and i hope that our community follows soon we know exactly what we're wishing for today watch our
074kills it's about time now more than ever i ask your acceptance and recognition of these holidays and through our community you'll find yet more love and more light and light upon light thank you hello hi my name is jenny and i'm in sixth grade at the greenbrook middle school and i'm a future watching hill student i love my religion i love our traditions and our culture and especially with all the food and gifts we we fast for a month and in ramadan on the last day of ramadan we celebrate need we we eat after fasting criminal this day means a lot to me um and it hurts when i can't fully enjoy it because i'm taking a test i'm here to speak not only for myself but for all the muslims in the community that
075we would like today offer last night instead of listening to our meat prayers i was singing a science test i was worried about feeling it and i had not gotten much uh things to do with i'm sorry um i i think the entire muslim community would benefit from this so that means you can spend this special day with your loved ones with your community it would relieve stress from the students giving them a day off and allow them to enjoy their holiday overall i think everyone would benefit you know thank you for your time oh oh goodness good evening everyone my name is ali i'm a current resident of watertown and like many of you watching is a place near and dear to my heart i believe the strength of its community makes it the
076great town that it is but how do we take a strong community though and make it stronger than it already is we connect with others to create a stronger community we communicate with each other to create a stronger community most of all we learn from one another to make a strong community as a muslim i believe that all races religions and teachings should be accepted in a community and that in order for us to succeed in such a task we must acknowledge all types of people in our community we celebrate holidays because their origins teach values that help us advance other communities from kindness to gratefulness even selflessness the lessons religion and religious holidays teach are endless it is time for every religion to truly be a day off whether it be or diwali let's
077strengthen our community ladies and gentlemen and help the people and help the people in it understand each other on a higher level than we have already achieved as a great helen keller once said alone we can do so little together we can do so much we need your help you guys are amazing i know you guys can do this thank you good evening respected board members parents and staff my name is dr malika shaikh and i was a school psychologist in the milwaukee public school district for 13 years and i am currently in private practice in bernardsville new jersey i am here tonight to express my support with students in this community who receive a day off on eid and diwali over the years i have observed this community's population become more diverse increasing the
078need to become more tolerant and inclusive it was wonderful to hear from my students over the years about the holidays traditions and foods that encompass their identities and are the fabric of their families i remember when i was growing up as a muslim student in medicine yes i grew up in edison 36 years ago it was very stressful and anxiety provoking to decide whether to miss school and have to make up all the work or celebrate with family and enjoy one of the biggest holidays in our religion for muslim kids either like christmas or hanukkah we go for prayers in the morning spend time with family and friends eating delicious food and opening gifts most importantly heat is the conclusion of the 30 days of fasting during the long month of ramadan making it one
079of the biggest holidays of our religion as well as being celebrated by two billion people around the world divali as well is celebrated by many billions i think sir you had mentioned more than a billion around the world exactly we urge you to consider joining other public school districts in new jersey who have given eid and diwali off for their students personally as you can see it's very emotional because 36 years ago as a student it was so stressful and i'm emotional because i lived through it and now edison finally has even diwali but it is extremely anxiety-provoking for kids to have to decide and actually as an adult when i worked in the washington school district to not be able to take your day off on your religious holiday because there were many times
080when i did not take a day off so i just want you to think about that we're in a different time we all have to move forward and we have to really be there for our students and not only that but i will tell you i see students from these um these sending districts in my private practice and i will tell you that the incl inclusivity is really needed so thank you so much for considering for your consideration have a great night we will close the first opportunity for public comment uh everyone who would like to remain the president of the meeting is not welcome to if you would like to depart you may do so as well thank you all for coming thank you so first on our list for discussion is future action
081items uh does anybody have any questions for our demonstration about mr president i would like to amend number one and number two under a to read june 1st all right excellent choice and then yeah i know i'm it's under 27 uh in the very first part there's two items there that those two items related to the tennis court related to a um it was a storm that one of the light poles went down and broke the fence and we did get insurance reimbursement outside our deductible which is just wanted to add that underneath those two items is it says vendor banker that has classroom furniture and we did get um figures for that and you will see that on june 15th that's 131 000. it's five classrooms and we have budgeted two hundred thousand so
082we're pretty pleased thank you any questions anybody have any comments on ward goals uh it's just an update on the regionalization of work uh we're waiting for the new short forum application to be released this week which will allow us to put in uh and preserve the funding so we've been waiting since the last meeting for that uh them to formalize that short form so we will get that in right away um i'd also like to suggest a committee meet for the end of june uh just so we can go over next steps and we're expecting to get some recommendations of some potential consultants that would be able to lead us in the works we can begin to plan out okay what's our what are our next steps now that the funds are reserved and
083how we can process forward and of course as districts uh demonstrate their interest to participate great to hear about them thank you did you want that meeting before our next board meeting were you anticipated probably it would probably be any other comments about wordpoles i believe that takes us to agenda items mr president i'd like to move resolutions a1 [Music] yes yes dr chan yes mr fallon yes mr hunsinger yes mr morrison yes this is over spider yes yes mr president i'd like to move resolution c1 through c14 second anybody like to pull anything a separate discussion yes this takes us to our second opportunity for public comment for sure i have to say second opportunity for public comment and move on to other business earlier tonight we're going through the uh screen additionally i
084don't understand why it's not starting to use the technology here i'm sure we could do that you know that's a great suggestion for presentations in the future okay and the second thing having ended the last time zone and seeing this you may want to have experience we normally wouldn't be this far apart [Music] since you bring it up we might as well talk about that now um so as you as dr jewett already mentioned we're not the private wear masks uh in our discussion before this meeting we thought solidarity with the teachers students parents and everyone else was thought to come in during the building wearing masks that we thought would be appropriate to do so plus there's still students coming in and out of the school while we're here at the board meeting i
085thought it would send a less than desirable message that we're walking in without and they're expected to walk in with uh assuming that students will be out of the building before july and that the numbers still continue to look good our assumption and i haven't heard any comments yet but you still have the rest of the month if you want to continue the distance and mask or not for whatever reason and want to share that privately with me i'll do our best to accommodate everyone uh and well peter had mentioned uh the screen i did get a text message from someone in the public that when you've got a board member that's not physically here their icon takes up half the screen and then the screen that people are seeing the public not at the
086meeting becomes much smaller and so we might think about ways to improve that technology as well so that we optimize the viewing screen size within youtube live streaming the issue is when it makes it because that's the same thing like tonight i would have projected the presentation here and there instead of on that screen um i think it's i feel like it goes beyond the board we actually do have a policy about participating you're not supposed to do it regularly you're only supposed to have a certain report members doing it so so we actually can still do that but we may want to change it so that it's not via the screen because especially if we're going to be using other technology at the meeting um and plus the public well i think we'll be
087able to see us better if it's not you know anthony [Music] so but i guess could we can computer that's a great point about tonight's presentations this camera we all look like sure well once we get closer too so on youtube but what i can do is um the way the only way to do it was for us to we can't do it live we have to take the meeting and change it into a vhs tape from our visual file yes for them correct so this is i mean youtube it's very easy for everyone to get on think [Music] we have that it was preferred that we don't get into heaven that's the way more questions but i think wasn't there wasn't there a some sort of state policy that went into effect that allowed
088government entities to meet like this yeah so that i missed the question when does that expire exactly i think one that i was gonna say i think when the health emergent when he no longer has an emergency because we are going to have presenters here and they may be it's not going to be a you know powerpoint presentation but they may be showing things on video is we'll put our heads together to figure out what the best way is to show that and the meeting to people at home and here um so we'll come up with a better option for that can we bring up the whole policy rest of the year so i suspect that this big conference is the rest of the bank in terms of policy the distancing thing would probably help
089if we can again i don't i don't want to make anybody feel that's something we should consider because for the public is that we go back to two people instead of one person right now but you can't get them well we can zoom in more uh no longer i thank you michael thank you on the way everyone