001and Liz I'm passing you the controls thank you very much okay retive you've got to unmute yourself I didn't realize I was muted sorry thank you and I just so the rest of the board knows too because we have we have the student reps joining us and we have the administrators joining us for the Strategic plan presentation so they're going to join The Zo for the beginning of the meeting so if you see people popping in that's who it is okay so we're back from executive session um board correspondence we had one letter that some of us got um regarding the mascot um in favor of changing the mascot um and the warrior name um but as we know we've we had a resolution on that and we'll be moving forward with the next steps
002on that very soon thanks for the input from the member of the community all right so now we're in reports and presentations so um we are I guess we need everybody to be in all the administrators to be in on this portion of it because this is the I'm letting yeah they're not the first report on here but yes I'm letting them in oh yeah I see they're e okay all right so whenever you're ready thank you Miss Maron okay so twice a year I am required to um give a public report on our um uh our ssds report it used to be our evv RS report and it's the um uh I might get this wrong but I believe it's a student safety uh uh data system and I evrs was the electronic violence
003and vandalism reporting system and then they changed it to ssds um so just and it there's always a lag so the data I'm reporting tonight is actually from January 1st through June 30th of last year because of the way that we submit this and the the timelines that we submit and report it so for that time period we had um zero incidents of violence vandalism and um weapon incidents um and we had one substance abuse incident and with regard to HIV incidents we had two alleged uh HIV incidents and one confirmed and then other incidents leading to removal which is suspension uh were 17 and if you recall for that period obviously from March um I guess it was March six March 16th Monday March 16th on we were fully remote um you know so
004it's hard to compare this data to to Prior uh reporting periods um but that is the information for that particular reporting period um and we do have the the Strategic plan presentation so I'll save most of my comments for that um but I do just want to wish our community a very healthy and safe Thanksgiving and just remind everyone uh over the long weekend uh to make sure that you continue to follow the the health and safety guidelines set by the CDC and the the Department of Health and to please keep us informed uh of any um changes in in your you know in anyone's um health status and and just please make sure you're following quarantine guidelines and reporting to us any positive cases and also um please continue to even if you're uh
005you know celebrating over the weekend just please continue to check um communication from the district because as you know we have been updating you uh as we get notification of positive cases and while we are still continuing with our hybrid schedule right now um that is certainly a fluid situation that you know we are re-evaluating almost on a daily basis um based on the information we receive and and our in communication uh within our school as well as with our local Health officials as well as with um the New Jersey Department of Ed uh so please just make sure that you continue to monitor communication from the high school in case at some point uh you know we do have to transition to to 100% remote learning um and the health and safety of our
006community will always be our number one concern uh certainly providing an appropriate learning environment for our students is is a close second to that um but because of you know all the other concerns the health and safety is certainly uh at the Forefront of our decisions right now and so we will continue to carefully monitor that on a daily basis uh as we have been and I really do appreciate the communities uh support and cooperation and their communication with us um you know everyone has been very Cooperative when we have uh needed to get information for contact tracing and it's what's allowed us um to do that effectively uh and and really uh provide a safe environment for our students and staff so I I really am tremendously thankful for that uh and please continue
007doing so so that is all I have okay um on the other side of the coin I just wanted to thank everybody for participating the administrators the staff in our strategic plan um even though we are in these times where our Focus tends to be on um this different way we are pro providing learning to our students and the all the health um implications of being open and dealing with um those issues every day as well um so I wanted to just let the community know even though we're doing um uh we you know our focus is still primarily on dealing with those issues we are also moving the district forward um as you knew as you know we passed the resolution to retire the master Scott we're now going forward with the new Five-Year
008Plan which is um going to be a draft is going to be presented tonight um and the board has um last meeting went through uh and and determined their three board goals for the coming year um so I just wanted to thank everybody the board members Administration for keeping us moving forward in the district um on all these other important learning initiatives as well and that's all I have so Mr SC business administrator comments thank you madam president I have a couple things number one uh we did receive um official verbal election election results um finally took a while this year uh from so we welcome back Peter Peter Fallon from Warren I don't have the vote totals I hopefully I have them at the next meeting um in Wong we have Michael bernberg who
009will join the board um and we will say goodbye to Freddy but he's Freddy's going to be on the wat young burrow Council so we'll be seeing you at the budget meetings and then in uh and then uh in from Long Hill Township uh via right in we have Carol prasa and we'll give you I'll give you the official numers at the next meeting as soon as I get them um oh and just so everybody knows we did uh Liz did did reach out to our new board members um to invite them to a meeting to meet um Administration and myself before their first meeting sorry Tim that's okay thank you um and uh we I've been looking at the board training I know this is a subject that everybody loves so I I'll send
010something out I think uh a couple of you already set up um but I'll send you some some notices and whatnot so you can get that training done prior to the end of the school year um I'm sorry the end of the calendar year and then the final thing is just an update on the bipolar ionization the board um supported that purchase so where we are in the process is we ordered five we put them into classrooms in the south building uh and the feedback so far I think I mentioned at the last meeting so far has been very positive um we ordered we we did went out for quotes for 70 more that we can put into the units and they are being shipped as we speak so we got them quicker than I
011thought which we're very happy about um our guys told me it takes them about 10 minutes each 10 to 15 minutes uh they're not it's not they're very small and they're easy to put into the UN events uh so the balance will be in the bigger units which um our architect is working they put the um paperwork forward for the application and they're working on these specs as we speak we're looking to get a bid out in December and hopefully an award in early January okay and that's it all right then our next is our student representative comments yes and I forgot to welcome them to their first meeting in my comments so we have Jed who is uh returning third-year starter for the Board of Education um no I I actually you know I
012I like the structure we've put in place the past few years because it allows us to have some consistency um rather than just having all seniors every year who are on the the board for a year and then leave we've um we've had students from from different classes so Jed started as a sophomore and now he is a a senior on our board and we do have another board representative Carly that I'm hoping will join us uh this is obviously a little different than the way they joined us in the past Jen I've I've just uh messaged her on Instagram and I'm emailing her right now thank you so much um so we can actually do one of two things if we want to wait to do their the student rep comments we could do
013that after the Strategic plan presentation sure um assuming Jed did you have time to stay for that portion of the meeting oh yeah I'm Gonna Save the whole meeting perfect so I always as everyone knows I um so Beth Tim and I met with the student reps last week and we do always let them know that if they need to leave the meeting at any point to fulfill other school related obligations um including homework and and other types of things that we certainly understand um but Jed maybe we'll do that we'll just give her some time to join us so we'll go ahead to the presentation and come back to the student rep comments if that's okay with with you madam president that's fine with me is that work for everybody yeah it's great okay
014good okay so what I'm going to do right now um is share my screen and we do have our strategic plan design team with us we will go through the structure of the Strategic plan and then our strategic plan board committee members uh can also add their comments as well so I'm thinking the best way to do this might be to go through the whole plan and then have the the committee provide comments and then the rest of the board ask any questions or provide comments if everyone is comfortable with that process all right so let me share screen okay so I'm assuming everyone can see my screen okay so this is our strategic plan design team uh it was comprised of of myself our principal our business administrator our director of HR and professional
015development our director of curriculum and instruction our director of School counseling our director of special services and our director of it all of whom are with us tonight on zoom and who will be sharing in portions of the the presentation we had and and as I've I know I've said this before in Prior board meetings but I do just want to emphasize again that we had tremendous participation in the engagement phase of the Strategic plan in terms of getting very good quality focused feedback from various stakeholder groups um including the board members who I think gave gave really really good feedback and input especially those of you that had been part of the prior strategic plan and the development of that um but we we got very very good feedback this time I think because
016people knew what a strategic plan was um in terms of our our community uh and so they knew the direction that we were looking to go in terms of developing a plan and so we the the feedback was tremendously helpful as we took that to then turn that into the the draft plan that we're going to share with you tonight so our mission and our motto um if you recall we had uh a district vision and I think it encompassed you know certainly our our overall bigger picture I'm having a little trouble seeing my screen so I'm going to pull my hard copy out here and so we we wanted the the mission to really just capture the essence of uh the concepts that were uh that you'll see throughout the Strategic plan um and
017we also did have a little fun with our ews but we we did want to make the the mission something that that would stick with people so that was you know partially certainly intentional uh so that it really people could grasp the the essence of of what our district is about and so I am going to read the mission even know it's up on the screen for everyone to see whrhs is a learning community that encourages all students to embrace change today in preparation for the challenges of Tomorrow we Empower students to grow intellectually and socially with an environment that values wellness and respects all voices our students explore their talents and Excel beyond their expectations so the the the main Concepts Incorporated here are not I don't think should be a surprise to anyone
018because certainly we've had a focus on both uh social emotional and academic growth and we want to continue that um and we really want to provide an environment where students can explore you know find and EXP explore and develop their passion uh and so we want to provide you know as many opportunities as we can for students to really find out what it is um that they're interested in uh throughout high school and you'll see that uh throughout the the goals and objectives and then we pulled out the four uh key words here encourage Empower explore and Excel uh and you'll see those uh woven throughout the goals uh in the Strategic plan and and I'm going to turn it over to Mr laera to speak to the goals and you'll see that the goals
019are very closely related to the goals from our prior strategic plan um because certainly our work wasn't done uh and but but you'll see uh different areas of focus based on the progress we've made so now I will turn it over to Mr Lera thank you Dr JT um Happy Thanksgiving to everybody um it's definitely a uh would be I would miss if I didn't remember that this was a year ago at this meeting that I met the board of ed for the first time and it's been quite a year since and looking forward to uh better and quieter years going forward but tonight we're very proud to present our 2020 2025 strategic plan a proposal uh for watch out HS Regional High School to you guys tonight as Dr JW previously uh spoke this
020plan was formed through an in-depth processing uh process listing feedbacks of various stakeholders and as she just addressed you might notice that there are some similarities in the goals from the previous strategic plan but that speaks really to the progress that was made and the progress that is still yet to be achieved with these highly important topics so later in the presentation when we go through it you'll see that we have objectives that we listed under each of these goals and that is our way to dig deeper and aim to achieve more as we plan to embark on our next fiveyear plan so in the previous strategic plan um you might have noticed that there was only three three goals and we embedded Dei into the first goal but through our own internal discussion and
021with all the different subcommittees it was determined that something of this magnitude should be its own goal and we're excited to have it be such in our next strategic plan so at this point we're g to go into further clarification of each goal by looking at the objectives and how we're going to achieve and strive to attain these goals um and the next uh to hit on um our first goal will be Mr Sabino and Mr eer and they will speak to you about the objectives regarding the first goal so Mr Sabino and Mr Emer thank you good evening everybody I'm going to speak a little bit to start off about with Goal one which is social emotional growth and wellness when we speak about social emotional growth and wellness we're looking at the whole
022child with a focus on preparing students to be socially aware skilled and responsible not only do we want to give students academic resources but also provide them with an education rich and supports that allows every student to belong and succeed in school the objectives you see listed under the social emotional growth and wellness sent around integrating social emotional learning into the entire School environment we want to enhance programs and supports at the high school that will benefit each learner we plan to collaborate with our sending districts to create a seamless transition to high school and balance overall academic learning with allaround Wellness for both our staff and our students Mr Sabino uh good evening everyone um just to continue and add to uh what Mr REM already shared um I hope we could all agree
023that if this year has taught us one thing it's that we must continue with the district's focus on social em and emotional Wellness uh there is immense value in investing in social emotional and mental Wellness for all of our students and staff um we will accomplish this by utilizing established Frameworks including the American School counsel Association uh framework there is the collaborative for academic social and emotional learning framework otherwise known as castle and various other Frameworks that we will continue to reference and utilize When developing uh the next five years in regards to supporting students in this area um we'll continue to provide an enhanced professional development and collaboration with our teaching staff to integrate uh best practices into the classrooms and continue to monitor their students Wellness uh while they're instructing and educating them
024we will continue to assess how the students are doing uh my my one question I always ask myself is how is the educational delivery and the support we're providing to students making an impact and how are we measuring their social emotional Wellness so we'll continue to survey students parents and staff on how they're doing at the moment and also follow up with them on any additional needed support they may have or need and we will also continue to explore Partnerships with organizations such as the social emotional learning Learning Alliance of New Jersey uh We've recently spoken with the Rucker School climate transer uh transformation project and also uh my goal is to work with the Department uh the school counseling department on moving towards a recognized ASA model program accreditation which is the American School
025C counselor association's uh program and curriculum that they provide to uh visit how uh School counseling departments and programs are providing this social emotional and delivering their instruction and curriculum to all students uh we continue to increase one-on-one support provided to students uh from our school counselors our student assistant counselors and also continue our partnership with uh program providers such as Care Plus to provide therapy and services to our students including group and family counseling programs finally we will as U Michelle mentioned continue to deliver programs and Partnerships with our sending districts and we will look at the data on the students performance perance that is to make sure that this uh the programs that we're providing to students have the impact we intended to going into the next goal is um the goal that
026speaks to uh Pathways to educational success for all students so this goal and objective speaks to uh the fact that Wang Hills has a diverse student body as we all know and our educational program and services must continue to support the varied Learners that come through our doors or virtual log in this year uh each and each morning and make sure that we continue to offer both uh a rigorous curriculum with student enrichment opportunities the support and advisement for students uh in regards to Applications uh to from application to acceptance at colleges universities and other post-secondary options but we also want to make sure we're enhancing our programs and offerings to students that may be experiencing barriers to success uh here at school uh and and elsewhere by offering a dynamic challenging but importantly a
027flexible curriculum to those students we must give all of our students and support needed not only to graduate from Wong Hills but also be educated and prepared for their post-secondary success additional goals are to connect our students to Opportunities by looking at the current offerings to the to open the access to students seeking challenging courses in all areas and also to continue to have a student director master schedule to support students uh predominantly on their goals and what they're interested in uh studying here at wat young Hills we also hope to further develop programming and Partnerships so students will have internship volunteer and enrichment opportunities outside the building and also work towards the development of their career goals Mr rer I think you got it all but in the end you know it's all about
028inclusion for us and we want to make sure that people have access and that they feel included with whatever their educational goals are while they're at watchong hills goal number three Mr sty Mr maluso thank you Michelle um good evening everyone goal number three is Imagination creativity Innovation and critical thinking this goal and its objective speak to our continuing investment in expanding and enhancing the steam program here at the high school it also incl includes increasing its availability to all our students the new learning Commons will be the starting point for new programs in artificial intelligence augmented reality and virtual reality objective three reflects the technology skills and techniques teachers explored during hybrid learning and how they would apply it to Future curriculum and classroom practices the future uh action um items uh to these
029objectives will go into depth about how we're going to facilitate that uh process uh Mr sty yeah and and my role in this and probably in all of them um is clear clearly that um you have to support these goals with dollars um that's kind of the way it works um and and Liz always uh apologizes to me for having me spend the time on the committee but it's very critical that the school business administrator have an understanding of what the goals are because when we're putting together the budget with the supervisors and the team uh we have to be able to fund these things and in this particular goal and I think Anthony already explained it we have the the shortterm goals of you know things that we can put into the program that
030Aid our certainly our programs for technology and long range goals of the steam Labs um but the media center which we were all talking about certainly is is a big part of that so but yeah so it's it's it's pleasure to be part of this process and I you know it's it's going to be something that's going to help our school in Long uh and the next goal is number four that is I think that's bill um Mary oh Mary Ellen I'm sorry that's okay no problem we're happy to have you on our team whenever you have your checkbook goal number four is diversity equity and inclusion and as Liz and Bill both explained to the new board members the board members who were here with us when we developed our last strategic plan we
031put goal number four under Wellness um however not just because of the historical moment but also because of our students um actions and our students uh development uh they were very uh vociferous in their uh explanation as to why we would like this goal to be separate and the board ran with the feedback from um the uh survey so what I'd like to do for this goal is to focus on the language around the verbs Foster enhance grow and partner so when you consider a fourth four years of education although right now some of you would argue it's disrupted and you think about those verbs around diversity equity and inclusion I think we see positivity and we see action so in fostering we're developing in enhancing we're intensifying in growing we're thinking of progress and
032in Partnership we're thinking of either pair of people or schools or administrators or teams who are going to engage together in a shared activity or a goal so we're super excited this is a goal that we're going to really Embrace and we have action items already and we have students who are raring to go and now I'd like to turn my um goal number four over to Beth Sherman because as the board knows nothing good happens unless we have professional training and Beth is an expert in that in the state and no one comes into our school to train our teachers that has not been personally met and vetted by Beth so we're very lucky thank you Mary alen very very nice of you um yes uh this as everyone keeps saying began under goal
033one and um we began a lot of professional learning um driven by a group of teachers who form our Equity committee who are committed passionate knowledgeable um in this topic and in this endeavor and we began a lot of this work under the previous strategic plan and again just driven out of uh passion and um a desire to support the community in growth and primarily the students so continuing this work under professional learning it's not professional learning just for our faculty um but these objectives in orate professional learning opportunities for the entire Community for students for the faculty as well and continuing to um build and work with our group of Faculty leaders who had already been trained as um leaders and Dei under a train the trainers model so this will give us the
034opportunity to continue working with those people educate a lot of um people within our community and um hopefully see some really wonderful things happen in the future thank you now the closer thank you Miss shman Miss failen uh so now we are on to our guiding principles um and obviously I'm not going to read these here aloud um for you but what you'll see on this slide is that we we crafted 10 overarching themes that to act as our building block to strive to reach our motto of the as we go back the encourage the empower the explore and the Excel so these we going to serve as the backbone of the learning community that is Bach young Hills Regional High School and the key things here is that I wanted to bring attention to
035that notice that these these address all aspects of our school Community not just singular focused on you know the classroom or anything else but rather the whole and the whole student and I think that's what we strive to be as a learning community and we want to take this strategic plan as an opportunity to really grow in all aspects so that our school Community is a proper experience for everyone that walks through this um and these are our guiding principles that we will be using to really shape all our decisions going forward and at this point I'm going to turn the microphone back over to Dr JW who can speak to the uh ensuing steps for the Strategic plan and its proposal thank you so much all the members of Team um and what we
036just presented to you again was a synthesis of uh everything that came through from the engagement phase uh a and the um board strategic plan committee played a a tremendous role in this as well as we had several meetings with them after the design team met uh to draft this and they gave some some really great feedback um that helped us um come to to this I think cohesive um and coherent document and so just some of our next steps that we will be talking about more at subsequent meetings uh once the Strategic plan is approved by the board we will be forming our action team so that we can develop action items or activities they they both mean the same thing for each objective um we'll also be looking to develop a portrait of
037a graduate which will be um based on our current expected schoolwide learning results our eslrs as well as um the objectives uh and the the goals that we have come up with for this plan and then we also will be coming up with a U District dashboard um to measure our progress um and part of that which we talked about uh over the past couple of years it will be a climate survey so a climate survey will actually be one of our action items within the Strategic plan and it will also be one of the metrics we utilize to measure progress um but all each of these items uh will be talked about in more detail as we get to these steps the the action items uh are our primary uh priority for the next
038couple of months we want to get those done so that we can start implementing the plan um and the other two items will follow shortly therea after and that is our presentation so I am going to stop sharing just so I can see the the full board to see who has comments and questions all right I can see the participant list anybody have oh right there we go I got bom if I can just give a little context if that's okay sure okay so as Dr JW said um the strategic planning committee had the pleasure of meeting with the design team on two occasions um November 11th and November 18th and it was truly a pleasure and an honor to be part of this process um you know I think sometimes when you are hearing
039words on paper presented um it seems very straightforward and maybe sometimes seems easy but so I just feel like I just want to give a little context to what went into it which is a lot of thought and a lot of work um so you know and that's what most people don't have visibility into that and I think it's really important um I have to say I was I mean my heart was warm and I was so impressed with the level of thought the passion um the engagement that went into the Strategic plan so many considerations everybody's voices were heard um um you know all the facts that went into it the various you know Community feedback meetings the questioners staff comments Board of Ed comments there was a lot of feedback and and again
040I can tell you that I mean the design team members literally quoted things that rung in their ears um so everybody's voices were heard um and you know what you're seeing here is a lot of great words on the page but what I want to let you know is every word was discussed and debated and carefully and thoughtfully crafted um so I just want to leave you with the thought that I think we're very fortunate to have such a committed team um that is really shaping the future of this school for the next five years and as I was kind of sitting there listening to the plan and everybody's passion and thinking I almost kind of wished I had an incoming friend that would benefit from the next five years um so I just you
041know again I'm I'm really so excited about what went into it the passion that went into it I think maybe sometimes the words don't do it justice so I just feel like I want to give that background and if there's any other thoughts from any other committee members please thank you Jordana so um before Bob you had your hand up but I also n's finger NES yeah let NES go okay thanks Bob go ahead M just clarification regarding goal number three do we have the academic resources or you will need to hire somebody because when you're talking about artificial intelligence and the new emerging technology I'm wondering whether we will be just touching the subject matter or we will be going in into depth and you know hire the necessary you know Human Resources provide
042the life so what the plan for goal number three so the action maybe a little bit about the action plan if you can outline it now versus what I can tell you is that um yes to what you said we have resources um already uh within our staff um and some of them are here right now you know as as Mr maluso uh you know spoke he is certainly very very knowledgeable um with regard to instructional technology as our uh our other staff members we have our Project Lead the Way teachers we have uh you know a number of folks that are very experienced uh with these opportunities um but we also do seek outside um consultants and help and you know everything from some of examples from the past with regard to the um
043Hills hacks events that we've had where we've uh consulted with Ruckers uh and they have you know helped us uh design some of those events um you know so certainly we use resources from universities um we look we utilize different consultants for areas that we feel we need additional support in um so we uh certainly look within and without and if I could add to that NES each year the the the team and the administration comes back to the board with action plans under each of these goals and that's your opportunity and my opportunity as a board member to push for more stress on one action plan versus another or to say Hey you haven't considered this so and we're going to be coming up with action plans for five different years going forward so
044you'll have plenty of an opportunity to to have more input into things you think we should be doing in a particular area just a comment here you know we in New Jersey North Jersey we have the uh science fair for the high school students and I'm part of it for you know I never seen anybody coming from our school participating in that all the high schools we have you know a couple of hundred schools participate in that and students are given prizes and uh which is good for the students it provides them a lot of encouragement so that could be one of the measure that our students should participate in some competitive events you know uh otherwise uh we do not know how they are doing once they participate in competitive events then we can
045see you know how we are doing n you'll see from from the the board notes when uh you know that include all the student highlights they they actually participate in quite a lot of events as you saw we had a student um finished second in the regeneron science Talent search so they actually participated in a number of them and you'll re you you know you'll read about them uh in the the notes to the board but thank you for that uh Bob um so I first of all I want to congratulate the administration and the team um in the Comm comme as well as our consultant working on this project uh this is definitely a a significant step forward from our prior plan and it was great to see how this plan evolved from the
046work of the prior plan and particularly as it relates to really in in area one uh focusing in on the social emotional uh learning and wellness of our students um I think that that's a a significant refinement to what we had before and completely agree with the breakout of diversity equity and inclusion into its other areas and I think that speaks to part of you know section one where we're listening to student voice that's part of social emotional learning and wellness by by paying attention to student voice and agency and listening to them and including that uh in the reflection uh in our strategic plan um I guess two quick questions or actually one one uh one question and a comment I'll start with a comment um in going through the presentation this time um
047I noticed some inconsistency in language where we're talking about uh in section one we talk about academic um you know how we're going to address the the issues around social emotional learning toward academic outcomes whether it's academic decisions or other academic aspects and I'm wondering if if we're maybe being too narrow when we're saying that we're only focusing on the academic aspect of those things and not bring it out to be more inclusive and I know notice in other sections we talk about curricular and co-curricular you know so some places it's academic other places it's curricular co-curricular and and I would urge us to be broader and that we're not just trying to address social emotional learning as it relates to the academics and you know many people Define them different ways but actually to
048the over all learning um environment for our students so that's that's just my my comment for the team if if that's worth looking at Great it just seems like the academic piece seems to be handcuffing some things in section one um my question uh for Dr JW it would be I know you talked about the timeline on some of the out the the uh forward-looking work and my question would be uh on the uh culture and climate survey do we anticipate that that would be fielded this year that is our yes that is our goal um and whether it in terms of a couple of the um the Consultants we've talked to about that um the only thing that there's a couple things that play into that timeline one is just us you know determining
049which one we want to use um but the other piece is as much as we'd like to say that we can just move forward with anything regardless of the the state of covid and and the pandemic and how that's impacting School environment um is just if if that affects it all whether we want to give it in the winter versus the spring but our goal is absolutely to be able to um administer that at some point in the winter or spring whatever we determine may be the the most appropriate time to do that good thank you you're welcome Liz just a follow up on that when you said it was going to be used as a metric so I heard and maybe I'm incorrect like almost like a basis and then a years after that
050again and again to determine whether or not those that has changed to demonstrate progress it yes it'll be used to you know certainly determine what areas we've made progress in and what it'll it'll help us determine action items for future years as well okay okay all right I just wanted to make sure I was clear and because the climate survey can address different areas as well which is why it's important for us to to figure out exactly what we think the priorities are that we want to to measure in the climate survey um but it can really cover it's going to cover um multiple objectives on multiple goals in terms of what we're going to be looking to measure and then from that uh you know the results that we get of the survey I
051think that's that's going to then drive action items for future years okay Peter I see your hand is up yeah and I I was you made the same point that that my understanding was that it wasn't just going to be one survey one year but they were going to repeat it and that's why it's in part of the metrics and as Liz says will lead to the others but the other point I wanted to make is I did want to thank uh the Strategic plan design team I I think you guys did a fabulous job uh you know I was one of the ones who who had concerns as to how this was going to be put together but but you took every all of the input and I think you did a masterful job
052of taking the community input that was put together building on on what the first strategic planed and coming up with a great plan for us for the next five years uh I also want to Echo you know the point that Tim made uh for for the rest of the board members the reason that strategic plan the first one worked is because Liz and Tim and the rest of the administr ation said every year at budget time to every different department explain what you want in terms of the Strategic plan and related back to this strategic plan and it really became a guiding principle for us as board members on allocation of resources and I think that's a big thing that that kept us focus and and and I hope that we'll do that for the
053next five years as well thanks any other questions or comments I just wanted to thank Jordana as being the head of the Strategic plan committee um she will be leaving us so next board meeting we're gonna um have a little send off with our virtual cake for her um but I'm so glad that you took the opportunity Jordana to come to the board and and really I think guide us through this strategic plan I mean um as much as you were um providing um compliment to our strategic plan design team you were a major force in that team I have to say and you um have a knack for it and I'm so glad that you spent the time and and allowed us to create a produ a product um like this and allowing us
054to move forward in the next five years thank you so much again it was an honor um what a way to to go out um and again I could you know it's it's it's really the team so but thank you you're welcome okay all right so so just in terms of next steps with this we do need to approve the plan do you want to do that at the December 8th meeting um I know you know Bob made a couple of comments so we can take a look back at those and I'm thinking Bob I'm already looking at from what you made comments on that some of them and we can all discuss this we may want to keep be because the and then some of them we may want to adjust like you said
055to broaden them more because I think some of the objectives um we want to make sure we specifically are addressing the academic piece because that's what was brought up as the concern but for other ones we may want to broaden it so it doesn't limit us so we can um take a look at that between now and the next meeting uh and then put it on the December 8th agenda for approval does that sound yeah that's fine yes everyone and the committee yep all right and I think I think Liz what would be helpful though is also how how are we using the term academics uh because I think that there's you know different people hear that word and they interpret it different ways and I think that by being explicit that may that may
056alleviate some of my concerns no I I think it's a certainly a good point I mean that that's what we talked about with all this because that's why it was so good to have so many people reading this because perception can really affect how this is um received and so I I think these are all really valid points and I I do appreciate the board's um part you guys have spent a lot of time at meetings at board meetings um from the beginning of this process to now and I know it's taken a lot of time and you know it took a lot of time in the spring in the midst of us um addressing a lot of you know School reopening issues and closing issues and so I really do appreciate the time you
057put into this because as a result of us all being on the same page with this moving forward it just it certainly helps with all the budget discussions with the planning for future years so I just I really want to thank you for that time because I know there were some long meetings um because of the time we spent speaking about this but you know I know that our whole group um it made our design team work that much easier because we had such good direction from the board and such a good um understanding of what the board priorities were so just know that you know we feel that was time well spent and I hope that all of you do too yes okay right alrighty so we'll go back to student Representatives yes so
058now I can has joined us which is great R do you want to tell the our strategic plan design team that they can leave if they want to uh sure what Peter said thank you to all of you for attending thank you all thank you thank you and have a great Thanksgiving you too Bill and everybody else thank you so Carly welcome we're I'm glad you were able to get your Zoom working so that you could join us so I know you and Jed have a uh a student some student highlights prepared to share so the floor is yours so um for student achievements um Anthony Roa who is a senior he was recognized as a 2020 2021 Hispanic scholar through the national Hispanic recognition program by the college board and he was also named
059um to the national marit scholarship um commended list and another student um shiv go he was selected to attend the economics for leaders program conducted by the foundation for teaching economics and he has been formally recognized with a certificate of Distinction for participation in the program um for school events uh the class of 2022 Junior night took place on Thursday October 15th there were about 400 Junior sen students and parents that attended the event via Zoom uh school counselors reviewed postsecondary planning College selection tips Trends in college admissions preparing an impressive application identifying the most useful resources in the college search NCAA and eligibility navigating the process during the coronavirus pandemic and different alternatives to for your college the presentation sides uh slides and recordings are available on the guidance section of the district website
060the Watchung Hills student assistant counselors honored Red Ribbon Week 2020 during the week of October 23rd since its beginning in 1985 the Red Ribbon Week has touched the lives of millions of people around the world in response to the murder of DEA agent Enrique k C Camara camerana angered parents and youth in community across the country began wearing red ribbons as a symbol of their commitment to raise awareness of the killing and destruction caused by drugs in the United States in 1988 NFP sponsored the first national Red Ribbon celebration today the Red Ribbon serves as a catalyst to mobilize communities to educate Youth and encourage participation in drug prevention activities college visits have continued throughout the months of March for seniors and juniors a total of 47 College Representatives have done events uh from colleges
061such as the University of Maryland Northwestern Indiana ruter Illinois Princeton South Carolina Uranus College Elon Fairley Dickinson Delaware Stevens Institute of Technology University of Scranton nor Eastern Ryder Yukon uh University of Richmond San Diego State University of Rochester Boston University Duke Ithaca Marist Clemson morovan Pace University New Haven College McDaniel College American University University of Colorado Boulder University of Wisconsin and Case Western have visited our students as of Monday November 2nd 48% of stud of senior students have applied to college so for a little sports update um our our fall Sports season is officially over except for one cross country Runner Emma bayans who is competing on November 25th at the varsity Invitational um the girls and boys cross country teams finished fourth and sixth respectively at the state sectional meet with Emma finishing third
062with a personal best time so congrats to her um also the boys soccer field hockey and girls tennis all advanced to the state sectional qut finals the girls soccer earned the Skyland Conference Championship title and advanced to the state sectional semi semifinals football finished their season uh five- two uh the team took down the 18th R ranked team in the state Wayne Hills in their final game on Saturday uh the Warriors also beat number nine ranked Philipsburg for the first time in school history so that's very exciting um our football Warriors also earned the big big Central football conference Championship great I would just like to say really quickly that game against Philipsburg was like genuinely one of the greatest sporting events I've ever been at I it was [Laughter] incredible yes that is I'm
063not I don't even follow High School football but I knew that beating Phillipsburg was a f nuts and can tell you the people of Philipsburg are still very upset about it oh I'm sure I'm sure all right thank you both thank you K thank you Jeb and obviously you can leave if you like or you can play around whatever you like to do um all right so now we're going to go into the first opportunity for public comment um the first public comment period is limited to agenda items for this meeting only the second comment comment period is open to any topic all comments are limited to five minutes um if you have if you would like to make a comment um you need to uh click the zoom link and you will be um
064allowed into the meeting um and you can state your name and where you're from and provide us your comment so we're going to give a few minutes for that to happen since we're on a little bit of a delay with the YouTube stream I understand while we're waiting for that I'll just mention to the board under board discussion we have the 2020 2021 board goals and I realized that after I sent the draft to Rita and Greg I don't think I ever sent out the draft goals to the rest of the board so I just put them in a Google doc that I will pull up well they're based on what we came up with at the last meeting but I apologize we were sending so many other things out on Friday that I neglected
065to do that but I will um share my screen and display them so that you can actually talk about them are you sure you didn't tell me to do it and I didn't do it which is possible there were so many going out so I will take the the blank I just I looked forward at the board agenda and I'm looking through my binder and I said oh it would be nice if I actually you know sent you guys the go I was like all of a sudden I was like oh board go where are those I'll pull those up so you can actually see them um okay we do have one person in our waiting room Mr Huff okay Mr Huff go ahead and just state your name um and your role please oh
066you know what let me see if I'll un you have to unmute him or just and his town yes he can say that as well can you hear us Mr Huff it looks like he's muted yeah I can't I can't he has to unmute himself oh there we go uh yes I just I meant to stay on the YouTube and I clicked the wrong link so I have no public comment at all Happy Thanksgiving everybody well hey congratulations on a on a great fall season so thank you yes and the football game was amazing against Philipsburg as as well I agree thank you Mr Hub have a good night all right so that was a mistake no one else a world of Zoom that's okay at least we know it works the link works because
067we weren't quite sure right all right so if there's no one else who wants to um enter into first public comment I'm going to close the first P public comment period and again there's a second public comment period that'll be at the end of our meeting all right so we will move into the board discussion and um board goals we'll discuss first so there we go all right so if you recall we had our meeting on the 17th um to discuss board goals um and Liz put them into um words because we didn't really write them down like um she was just taking notes um so the first one is sort of a if you recall is a um carryover a little bit of the coordination of shared services with the k through eight districts
068including examination of a feasibility of K12 regionalization um and we discussed a little bit about one of the action plans in particular being trying to um uh spearhead of the feasibility study especially given that there is some funding for that um some if you recall some of our um roadblocks last time was if we uh fund the study and we don't have Buy in from the other districts is it going to have it is it does it really is it worth it that kind of idea we did have before covid we had one meeting um with um uh board members or board presidents I believe and superintendents from if not all I think a majority of our k38 districts to discuss shared services um and then we I don't think we did anything else unfortunately
069so this would be the goal would be for the next year to try to get that that feasibility or the action plan to get that feasibility study going in addition to the shared services and coordination a continual look at that um we had previously talked about shared services for special ed in particular um so that's the first goal um the second goal is um enhancing communication practices am among and between the board members superintendent and the rest of learning community at at large and we did talk about an action plan being you know also using the climate survey um that we would be doing in the Strategic plan to maybe get some feedback through that process to help us with that goal um so that we weren't like you know Reinventing the wheel and trying
070to get information to move forward there and then the last one is to establish a mentorship structure for new board members um which would really go to the next um leadership team for the board to discuss how to implement that I think um but the idea being that each board member would each more senior board member would be paired with a less senior board member as a mentor um is was was the idea so that we had uh continuity as old board members leave that you know the historical perspective is is is is facilitated uh between old and um new members to our board um so and if I hit the participant list am I going to see people's hands up let's see uh okay so anybody have a question or comment at this point
071I see Peter Peter Peter yeah you're muted what happened figure out how to he's trying to find the unmute I probably made it harder because I'm sharing my screen yeah it took me a while to get back to my little square yep okay uh but yeah no I'm I'm fine with with those goals uh I just wanted to let you know that the fell who will be joining us from Wang is a former bard of Milburn Board of Education member so uh may not need a whole lot of mentoring our lill board member was also I believe a member of the Long Hill Board in the 1980s so they have some board experience as well yeah and it's not just like board experience but just our board experience right so like I said the historical
072perspective sometimes Peter you're like so we did this and blah blah blah time right I mean I'm now Sandy feckner but we've had members I mean I've been on for four years but I you and Bob and Greg and Barry have been on longer than I right so that thought process in my mind is really like um also part of it not just like you know how is the board run kind of like what we do with our our um new staff even so even if they're not a first year teacher they're an experienced teacher but they're new to watch Young Hills it's helpful to have somebody that they have a go-to person for context you know for historical knowledge just those types of things yeah know I I think it's a good idea and
073as I say I I I missed last week's meeting but I'm I'm happy with all three of those goals great Susan you know I didn't really mentioned this last week um when we met and I've been thinking about it and I was thinking about it that night also I do think the mentorship is a good idea but I don't want that to take the place of formal training um both mandatory training and you know there's so much training that's available through the New Jersey school boards and um you know the the Somerset County uh uh School Board associ ation so you know I I kind of feel like that also needs to be encouraged strongly encouraged uh for all of us we we we all I think could benefit from that agreed agreed and really
074now it's it's so much online it's so easy to click onto it and and and to go to some of these things um okay anybody else have any questions or comments so I think the best way to keep accountability on these is to I don't know if it needs to be every board meeting but maybe every other board meeting it shows up as on board discussion so where are we what are we doing because that's the other problem is like we sort of like okay we have these goals and then there's no like accountability to them um and that's why also wanted to have those action plan kind of things in them so that just like in the Strategic plan where we would be holding the administration to the action plan and where where's the
075where are you on the actions I think those we need those three actions under in there so like I said the the regionalization study the climate survey and the uh creation and implementation of a mentorship program and I think Rita if we were to uh make this a reoccurring agenda item for all of our work sessions um you know since that's where we're doing committee reports and everything else maybe that's the way to do it yep that makes sense so I um so just in terms of process do you want these on the next board agenda for board approval as well yes ially adopted y yep and what I'll do too Rita from what you just said um is I'll uh put these uh the those uh action items you just mentioned under each one
076to give specific uh Direction great okay all right all right moving on oops stop share yep here's we now have discussion of addendum items which we have uh I think only under the season we discussed them in EXA no there's ones under the A's also oh there are some under the a oops what the hell did I just do okay uh okay so the A's have a six seven and eight and then we have have some under the Seas I think even the A's a couple of the A's we discussed in exec as well um the policies are just on for first reading um from The Blue Notes most of the changes were based on legal changes that the law has changed right Liz if I'm not mistaken the um these three are three mandated
077uh two mandated policies and one mandated regulation that we just we don't have um board approved and they're required as per qac and since we're undergoing qac monitoring that's why they're on here but they are they're all in line with statutes um and with the current practices of what we already do so I know Peter loves when we put all of the law in the policy and then approve the policy are on here as a spe get points get our qack points bonus for you here but yes there's nothing in them um you know that's of node or Earth shattering because it just follows the law and follows the our current procedures right and I'm assuming they came from Strauss Esme or something yes correct okay all right so any questions or comments on the
078addenda items R we did have a um I wouldn't call it an addendum item but we filled in the blanks on D7 okay that was the esip um right so we had a subcommittee of the op a subcommittee of our subcommittee the subcommittee of the operations committee comme we had um three board members NES Peter and Barry along with myself Chris Bick our director of operations and we also had our Architects uh Steve seagull and Justin kak our bond counsel Lisa gorb and our financial advisor Robbie eora um and we had about a threeh hour meeting it was literally three hours uh we discussed how to score um the interview process we interviewed two uh proposers Honeywell and will Dan uh and after reviewing the proposals and also interviewing um the two companies who were
079both very good um we we selected Honeywell the committee SEL Ed or subcommittee selected Honeywell and we um we have a written report that was first it was the analysis one that we sent with the board packet it's that's the the sheets that has all the numbers and the figures uh and then the second piece was a written document that was prepared actually um with the help of our Le our um Bond Council which explained the process and how we selected honey well in a nutshell um again both companies were technically uh efficient and they certainly could do the job uh Honeywell certainly had a um I guess more intimate intimate look at at our building our processes um they knew what our issues were they were very Innovative uh they mentioned things that um
080willan didn't willan probably responds did um very well to the RFP whereas Honeywell obviously went the extra step and we're looking at specific things that we needed help with and that's something we all we all kind of saw um any anything else you guys want to add to that because I no I think Tim the one thing I would mention is that Brenda circulated via email to all of us today including all the other board members that written report that you just referenced any other questions or comments on the addendum items all right moving on to action items Madame President I'd like to move resolutions A1 through A8 second any questions or comments all right roll call please Mr St Dr Chan yes Mr Fallon yes Mr Heek yes Mr Hunsinger yes Mr Morrison yes
081Mrs Zer yes M Potter yes Dr shilsky yes M ran yes I miss BR yes motions carry Madam president I'd like to move resolutions C1 through c18 second any questions or comments C1 through c18 seeing none roll call Mr SC Dr Chand yes Mr Fallon yes Mr haek yes Mr Hunsinger yes Mr Morrison yes M zer yes Miss Potter yes Dr shilsky yes Miss raban yes and Miss Baron yes motions carry Madame President I'd like to move resolutions D1 through d8 second any questions or comments on D1 through d8 all right seeing n roll call please Mr sty Dr Chand yes Mr Fallon yes Mr haek yes Mr Hunsinger yes Mr Morrison yes Mrs obber yes Mr Potter yes Dr shilsky yeah Miss Ron yes and Miss Bron yes motions carry Madame President I'd like
082to move resolution D9 second any questions or comments on D9 all right seeing none roll call please Mr SI Dr Chand yes okay I said yes Alan yes Mr Heek yes Mr Hunsinger unmute where is Barry there he is do a thumbs up Barry if it's a yes yes Mr Morrison yes Mrs over yes Dr shilsky yes Miss ran yes and Miss Baron yes motion's carry motion carries all right we are now at the portion of our agenda for the second opportunity for public comment then please uh click the zoom link and you will be um invited into the meeting and please state your name and where you're from and provide us your comment anything what is joining and I also always do keep checking my email just in case anyone had a problem joining
083during the first or second um so that you know they can email me but I there is nobody that is looking to join our meeting to make a comment okay all right um I guess we have to go back into exec right so for the Cs a contract portion um I guess we could do other business then do exec then adjourn does that make sense to everybody okay so is there any other business um Tim did mention the whole training piece make sure you get it done and I actually tried to join one that the sumers County um was doing and it still told me that even though it said in the email that I got today that I could register myself it still was T it still would it said that I wasn't eligible
084to register so I did uh email Patty P yeah and she still figure that out so Tim I think I'm gonna there was a governance there was a part of that that would meet governance for so I was going to try to do that on the second so I to get mine done I don't know who else but everybody needs to do that because otherwise you get these damn ethics problems I yeah I I I think that I have to register because I is there a cost involved Rita no cost oh okay I'm surprised then usually with no C she said you didn't have to register me but then when I talked to Gwen about it she was saying just in general you have to register us so I don't know it's very confusing on
085that respect and I don't really understand why we can't register us eles but I'm sure whoever's if you have it if you still have to do it you know work with Tim to get that done that was the only other business I had for today I actually have a question regarding that I think I keep getting a notice about doing some training but I kind of was happily ignoring it since I'm not gonna be on the board next year is that okay I don't want anybody to get into any um you know it's funny F actually Freddy's on the list and I would recommend Freddy that you do that because you're you have a different office but you don't want an like an Ethics problem with that but Jordana I didn't remember you being on
086the list I I'll research it just to make sure I I thought you weren't but um I think thees is I think Sue Susan is yeah but I emailed them and um it was about a course that I had already taken they're kind of messed up um they they it is a challenge with that I must admit and so they they told me that I um it was governance too and I I took that last year at Workshop so um they told me I received that email in error yeah so I was gonna I thought you were up for three to be honest with I've already taken three you did okay one two and three but I mean I'll talk to you separately about it but okay yeah Tim I'm I'm looking at the email
087here it's like foundations for Success you need to fulfill your mandated training requirement that's just a that's an ad like if you need that's the one I applied to because I know I have to do four because apparently I I forgot you had to do four every fourth year of no matter how many times you've been on the board or something Tim let me know if I need anything all right anybody else have any other business everybody's looking tired not I'll make a motion to go back into executive session to discuss the CSA contract uh after which action will not be taken all right all those in favor I I okay