Good evening, and welcome to our meeting of the Elizabeth Board of Education. This is a combined regular agenda meeting of the Board of Education pursuant to New Jersey statutes and rules adopted by the Board of Education. Notice of this meeting was sent to Star Legend Cablevision of Elizabeth, New Jersey on 08/14/2025. In addition, this notice is posted on a bulletin board in the lobby of 500 North Broad Street. And pursuant to this act, a copy had been filed with the city clerk of Elizabeth, New Jersey. We wanna welcome everyone present here at school fifty one and to our online viewers
to this 08/21/2025 meeting of the Board of Education. We are here to govern, provide management oversight, and make policy for the district. The superintendent manages the district. This is a meeting of the board in public, not a meeting of the public. This meeting is being recorded and will become part of Elizabeth Board of Education permanent record. So that the recording will adequately reflect the proceeding, please refrain from talking while others are speaking. We ask that you silence the sounds of your electronic devices since it is a legally it is legally mandated that the proceedings be accurately recorded.
We may have to ask for order periodically should noise begin to interfere with our recording capabilities. There will be a public portion for citizens to address the board. Participation for the public portion must personally sign in prior to the start of the public portion so that they may have an opportunity to speak. The sign in sheet states the name, address, and telephone number and the reason the person wants to comment, whether it is an agenda item or general education comment. We are pleased to have taken this time this evening for you to join us for our board of education meeting. Thank you for your interest in the Elizabeth Public Schools.
We wish you all the very best, and happy summer to everyone here. Mister Kennedy, roll call, please. Barbosa, Bathurst, Carvallo, Chevres, Jacobs Present. Marino Ortega Present. And Cabo Spistana Present. Rivera. Here. Naran. Present. At this time, please stand as we pay a moment of silence to the director of the Union County Interscholastic Interscholastic Athletic Conference who most recently passed away, mister Tom Lewis. Our thoughts and prayers goes to the Lewis family and all those who are close
to him. He's a dear friend of the Elizabeth Public Schools, and we'll miss him greatly. At this time, we'll have board member, commissioner Jerry Jacobs please lead us in the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for the Star Spangled Banner. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed
at the twilight's last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming. And the rockets are red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the
night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave for the land of the free and the home of the brave. Thank you for standing. Board member, commissioner Isaiah Rivera, please lead us in the pledge of ethics. As a member of the Elizabeth Public Schools professional learning community, I will treat people
as I wish to be treated. And to do that, I pledge to understand that the school community is a special place. Listen respectfully when someone else is speaking by paying close attention and not interrupting. Speak in a calm voice and use proper language. Dress appropriately for teaching and learning. Inspire the best in myself and others by celebrating successes and learning from mistakes. Care about others by demonstrating acts of kindness. Be a lifelong learner by taking every opportunity to learn from others. Thank you, everyone. You may be seated at this time. At this time, we want to begin the public portion, public participation of this meeting.
Citizens may address the board. At this time, microphones are open for public comments to those who have signed in prior to this session. At this time, we have, mister Jermell Howard. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Hello. Hello. Hello. Good evening. I'm Jamelle Howard. A lot of people may know me as a actor from shows like Power with 50 Cent. I'm on I'm one of the main characters of the Purge movie and a bunch of other stuff, law and orders and things like that. So I'm a known face, around here especially.
So I partnered with a company called Meta, which is into highly into tech. As you know, Meta owns Facebook and Instagram, but also these Oculus headsets. And I created a partnership and we, found a way to teach kids financial literacy and also CTE programs. We made it so that a 100 schools in New York is making kids leave high school with the trade because we know AI is moving in and it's gonna take a lot of people's jobs.
So what the AI can't do is actually take a trade because you're gonna need people still to do electricity. We're gonna need people to weld. We're gonna need, you know, people to be carpenters and things of that nature. So nurses. So with Meta, what we did was we created a company that we can now, teach kids not just financial literacy, but we also license to certify kids before they leave high school and and have a trade. Because you know what what's going on now, a lot of things is being cut. Jobs is, Job Corps is gone now and a lot of those things like that.
Also, in addition to that, we've also created a platform for kids to go on field trips. This is all taught through virtual reality through our Oculus headsets. So these kids can go on field trips. You know, the budgets are not like they used to be. I remember going to field trips when I was a kid. We used to get on a bus to go far. Now, you can go to Egypt. We can go to Italy. We can go to we can take these kids anywhere, and it's immersive. And meaning, like, all the kids in the class can go at the same time, and they all can be around each other at the same time, like, they're really
there. And everything is to scale, so it don't matter if they're looking up, down, looking around, it's in Italy, you know, so all of them are there. So we I spoke to around three people, within the, board and and and anybody that has something to do in education. I've gotten nowhere. Then I look at China and I'm like, they are so far ahead of us and and that's the reason. It's because no matter what innovation somebody bring, it's so hard to get to somebody, to speak to somebody. Mind you, I'm a celebrity.
You know what I'm saying? And I can't get a meeting or sit down or talk to somebody and bring this innovation to anybody. And in Manhattan right now, in in The Bronx, we in a 100 schools teaching this. So I'm trying I live here. I'm trying to bring it here as well. And I would love, that participation with the superintendent and you guys to help bring this to Elizabeth and to other schools in New Jersey as possible. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. We'd love to sit down and talk to you some more. And, superintendent, I'm sure we'll have, assistant sup, address that, and and we will be
in touch. Absolutely. Thank you. Our assistant superintendents, please, if you could meet, with mister, Jamelle Howard, that would be fantastic. And thank you for taking the time to come and share, this amazing program with us. Missus Finch Johnson, our assistant superintendent, will be meeting with you. Thank you. At this time, public participation is closed as there is no one else that signed up. And I'd like to turn the floor over to our superintendent, superintendent Olga Hubermeyer.
You have the floor. Thank you, mister Neuron, our board president. If I could, begin with our announcements as we're nearing the opening of schools in just a few weeks. Oh, thank you very much. So first, we would like to be share with our community that our welcome back letters for all of our schools have been posted on our district website and the issue the letters have been issued by each of our schools by their respective principals, and these letters have a great deal of information that will be very informative, including back to school night dates, welcome to our for our families to our schools, updates
regarding, our parent resources as well are included in the communications. So I ask that our families please visit our district website, and you're going to click on back to school parent resources on our home page that will take you to the welcome back to school, letters for each of our schools. So we certainly will have this information on the website and will include a step by step guidance in order to assist our families in accessing the information.
Next, I'd like to turn, everyone's attention to our PowerSchool student schedule. Our PowerSchool is our student information system and I'd like to thank our technology department for having successfully rolled our PowerSchool over to the new 2526 school year. And a reminder to our parents, you can access PowerSchool. You're able to see your child's schedule for the new year, find out who his or her teacher will be in the new year, including the guidance counselor as well.
We're going to post once again, the steps for our families to be able to access their child's schedules and as we prepare for September, which is right around the corner. So next to the slot next, you will see the step by steps that our families are able to take in order to access your child's teacher, in PowerSchool. As you can see, we've listed all of the necessary steps for you to be able to familiarize yourself with our student information system.
So it's just four simple steps. We're going to post this on our web page. You're able to then access PowerSchool and learn more about your children's, new year. Next, an important reminder that we are sharing with our families with regard to a requirement of the New Jersey Department of Health, where children born after 01/01/1997 and enrolled in sixth grade are required to receive the Tdap as well as as one dose of Menactra, vaccine in order to attend school.
Parents, you have the option of either going to your private doctor or to a clinic where immunizations are given free of charge. The schedule for these clinics and necessary forms can be obtained by the, nurse at the nurse's office in your child's school. We also, recommend that you contact, the school nurse if you have any questions regarding any any of the immunizations. If your child has already received the immunizations, please send the written report from your health care provider so that we're able to update our records.
Children must be in compliance with the vaccine requirements or they will be excluded from school on the first day of school as required by the New Jersey Department of Health. We're going to be sharing some very important resources offered by our city of Elizabeth Department of Health and Human Services. They're hosting their immunization event is for our Elizabeth sixth grade students as well as
our 11 year old students. It's by appointment, and it's only eligible for eligible Elizabeth residents who have Medicaid or family care part a or are uninsured. These flyers will be posted on our district web page as well as part of this presentation for our families to be able to access the information. As you can see, it's available in English and in Spanish. And next, another valuable resource offered by the city of Elizabeth Health and Human Services is our, additional free immunization clinic, and this immunization clinic is open year round.
It's by appointment only to our eligible residents for children ages two months to 18 years old. Residents must have their Medicaid or family care part a only or be uninsured to qualify for the free vaccines. If your child had previous immunizations, the record should be brought to the clinic appointment, and you may make an appointment by accessing the website that's listed on the flyer, elizabethnjvaccine.org. Please, we ask our families, ensure that they fulfill this requirement to ensure that children
are in school the full one hundred eighty days of school because we know that the moment children impacts their education. As we turn now to InsideEPS, I think I have to give, mister Kennedy a moment to be able to report out on this community update. Mister Kennedy, would you like the pleasure of sharing the breaking news with our community? I certainly would, and our director of property and planter here. As you know, we embarked on a cooling project in one, two, three, twelve scores.
And this summer, we're completing our final three. So hopefully, next week, they're going to be turning on the final three air conditioners. The final three air conditioners. We're very hopeful for the start of school that those final three stories, and cool. And, I know the board has been very anxious and supportive over the years of all the projects we've done in these schools, and it's really just a wonderful thing that buildings, that had previously been hot and stifling are now gonna be up to
up to speed as far as cooling goes. Thank you, mister Kennedy. I also would like to recognize our director, Luis Milanese, for his leadership. These projects have been presented to our board, last year, and the date for completion was actually going to be in the spring. And we are well ahead of schedule, and as a result of your, paying close attention to these projects and accelerating them so that we would be able to open the school year on time. So this is truly breaking news because we discussed this in the conference room, as
early as 03:30, 04:00 today. So this is fantastic. Fantastic. And we'll be able to share with our community the wonderful news. And madam superintendent, can I just say thank you to, the administration and mister Milanis for pursuing this? This is an initiative that has been, on the hearts of the board for many years, and we've been pushing and pushing and pushing, and we're we're elated that we're at this point and we finally got this done. And I'm sure all the directors are just as happy, and the teachers and the students and families will be ecstatic to know that their schools will have the proper
HVAC systems, and and cooling, when the summer months come. As we know, climate, there's been major climate change and it gets hot. So we're excited. Thank you so much. Mister president? Yes, mister commissioner. I just wanna quickly echo, your comments as well. Also, give my thanks and congratulations to mister Kennedy, the director as well, and all the staff for getting this done because this is a monumental, project that has been ongoing for the last ten years, as since I've been on the board, before I've been on the board. And we're happy to see that our children will be able to function and and
staff in, in a cool, climate environment. Thank you, mister president. Thank you, commissioner Jacobson. Just wanna welcome commissioner Baffler, who just came in. Thank you, commissioner Bafflers for joining us. Mister Kennedy, can you make sure the record reflects that commissioner Bafflers is here? Thank you. And as we continue with our community updates, we're now going to turn to also communication that we received just last week. We want to be able to share that the admiral William f Halsey Junior Health
and Public Safety Academy Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, the, JROTC program was recently designated a naval honor school by the commanding general of the Marine Corps Training and Education Command for the 2425 school year. The naval honor school designation means that a Marine Corps JROTC program is in the top 20% of all programs. This marks the sixth time in seven years that the JROTC at the Halsey Health and Public Safety Academy has received this honor.
There are 250 JROTC programs worldwide currently divided among nine regions. Halsey Health and Public Safety Academy is among 19 high schools that make up Region 9. So congratulations to our Halsey Academy and to Master Sergeant Gerald for his leadership. Amazing, amazing, accomplishment. Next, we'd like to turn to another communication we received this week. It has been an incredible two weeks with just wonderful news.
Seven schools within the Elizabeth Public Schools received a gold designation from the New Jersey Safe Routes to School in 2025 as part of the organization's recognition program. This encourages safer and more accessible walking and bicycling environments for our children in New Jersey through education, training, and research. Schools are required to meet certain criteria in order to receive the designation, whether it's a gold, silver, or bronze designation, and this includes implementing active transportation best practices, assessing
walkability, bikeability around the school, and participating in pedestrian or bicycle safety educational programs. The seven schools that received the gold award were Joseph Batten, school number four, Christopher Columbus, school number fifteen, Victor Mravlak, school number twenty one, Donald Stewart, Early Childhood Center, school fifty one, J. Christian Volwich, finance academy, Alexander Hamilton Preparatory Academy, and Thomas Jefferson Arts Academy. Additionally, I'd like to mention that Christopher Columbus, school Academy. Additionally, I'd like to mention that Christopher Columbus, school fifteen, Annex, and Elizabeth High School,
Frank j Siccarill Academy received this year's bronze award, while Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson STEM Academy received the first steps award. So congratulations to the and STEM Academy received the First Steps Award. So congratulations to all of our schools. Wonderful, achievement. This week, we received The US News and World Report ranking of the high schools nationwide. And Elizabeth High School, Frank j Siccarilla Academy, and Alexander Hamilton Preparatory Academy ranked among the best high schools in New Jersey as part of the 2025 US News World
Report. Elizabeth High School Frank j Sickerel was rated among the top 600 high schools in the nation in 2025 with a national ranking of five number 594 and a state ranking of number nine, 32, while Hamilton Preparatory Academy received the ranking of 1,197 nationally and number 56 in New Jersey. In accordance with the US News report, 17,660 public high schools out of a nearly 25,000 were reviewed, and our two high schools, both ranked among the top 7% of
high schools in The United States. We're incredibly proud of the designation of both of our high schools. And this concludes our announcements for the month of August. Thank you. Thank you, madam superintendent. Congratulations on the status of those high schools and on the status of our junior ROTC. That is a huge accomplishment in all the great things that are happening throughout our district, some which you did not hear about today, but we wanna thank everybody for all their hard work this summer in pursuing all the summer programs. And we had a very robust, summer with lots of activities, athletic programs, and some
enrichment programs that happened in the district. So I want to thank all the staff and administration for all your great work. At this time, we want to review the agenda. We have items 1a, the official and private minutes of 07/24/2025, and, 1b, the treasurer's report of 06/30/2025. I just want to poll the Board if we have any questions or comments. If there are no questions or comments, please add items 1A and 1B to the
agenda. Items 2A and 2B, personnel reports, are there any questions from the Board? Seeing none, hearing none, please add items two a and two b to the agenda. Items three a three and three a, which is the tuition reports. Are there any questions or comments from the board? If there are no questions or comments, please add items three, three a to the agenda. Item four to four d, superintendent's report. Are there any comments or concerns or questions?
Seeing none, hearing none, please add items four to four d to the agenda, five a five five five a authorizations report. Are there any questions from the board? Seeing none, hearing none, please add items five a, five, and five a to the agenda. Item six and six a, finance and accounting report. Any questions or comments from the board? Seeing none, hearing none, please add item six, six a to the agenda. Item number seven, award of contracts reports. Are there any questions or comments from the board? Yes, mister president.
Yes, commissioner Moore. I have couple of questions Sure. Like, three or four. Thank you. Okay. Top seven. First question. Okay. It's page number six for doctor Dabney, director of elementary secondary education. And nobody have the question the answer right now is fine. I can receive the answer later. This is a contract, with Texan Texas Instrument. Is to provide development focus on the implementation of the plus calculator and graphic calculator
and everything. I'm so excited for this contract. I want to know a little bit detail. That's me, will be the teacher who received that specific instruction. And and I'm so excited because I know teacher lose a lot of time or instruction when the student will not be able to use, the calculator. And everybody know that takes us instrument always, have a new version of calculator. And sometimes the teacher is let behind on teaching and take too long only in
the process to teach the student how to use the calculator. I'm excited for the contract. I want only clarification. The teacher will be to receive this training, then the teacher will be communicate with the student. We will buy this new calculator. It's a new system. I can't receive the answer, on the superintendent later. You don't have the answer today. Yes. Of course. I'd like to be able to answer the, question. The reference to this contract Can you clarify the madam, Yes. Commissioner, can you clarify the question?
My question? Yes. Okay. My question is the contract is to training, with the new Texas instrument calculators. As you know, Everyday Technology, the company, which, you know, is the best company right here. They only have new calculator. I want to clarification to specific in this contract. Who will we receive the benefits? The teacher, and then the teacher explain the student. This is a new calculator. We will buy a new new calculator. We already have the calculator.
What are the specific details in this specific contract? Certainly. So this contract refers to the supplemental, calculators that are required. This calculator is built into our curriculum, so our teachers are trained on how to use the graphing calculator, and in turn, it's built into the curriculum, therefore, they provide the instruction to the students on how to utilize that calculator in order to address the instruction. The contract is for 51,200. It addresses the classes that were missing certain calculators, so we're supplementing so that every
child has access to the required calculator, which is also, prepares our students for the state assessments as well. So both the curriculum as well as preparing them for the annual state assessment. Thank you, madam superintendent. Very good. Thank you. Mister president, second question. This contract is in page seven. It's for doctor Dabney, director of elementary and secondary education. The contract is to provide k to five general education to teachers, supporting early, literacy
instruction. The only quality first, I want to know what's mean based on their RFP submission on August 14. What's mean that RFP? And the second question is, how all these organization is are aligned to the contract? Thank you. Certainly. So RFP stands for the request for proposal. So, essentially, we put a request for proposal out with the type of services that we were requesting in order to support literacy in our classrooms for kindergarten through fifth
grade. We've been working with children's literacy initiatives since 02/2017. They provide a coaching model, so they are working alongside our teachers in the classroom. They're, providing, coaching strategies to our teachers. They are also, not only in every single classroom in kindergarten through fifth grade, but they're also working with our administrators as well. So they are reviewing strategies with our administrators, essentially reviewing how well our curriculum is being implemented in the classrooms. So there's a series of coaching visits that are embedded in this contract as well
as meetings, that are incorporated with our administrators in select schools. Okay. Thank you. Okay. My next question, oh, no. Next is a comment before my next question. This contract with Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, I really like to see this is 416 student, this three wide, will be benefit, visit museums, visual arts center. That's been, so exciting, and I want to, communicate with the community.
It's not only in our our district is not only worry is worry for everything, and art is part of the student development and support social emotional learning. And I'm happy to see a contract, recommend by doctor Dorothy will motivate 466 student to visit different kind of museum, and it's part of, you know, integrate art into curriculum. This mean, I'm so excited. This is a comment.
Now my next question is page 15. It's for, doctor Sandra Nunez is not here. No? Don't worry. I will send email to her. It's just to clarification on the contract of with learning AC. Great company. But I have only one question about the license. If the license will be interactive, or what kind of the, what include the license on the contract pay fee team? This is a supplemental, instructional tool that we utilize, learning a through z. It is yes.
Absolutely. So it is an opportunity in order to address our native speakers and assist them with the English acquisition, and that's aligned to our, English language arts curriculum. I'm a a superintendent. What's been ML student with also access to English level readers? Our multilingual Okay. Learners, ML or multilingual students, will have the opportunity, to have access to English leveled readers. So as they're acquiring English language, they have the native language, and then they're transitioning
to the English. Thank you, my superintendent, for the clarification. Certainly. Thank you, mister president. I'm done with the questions. Mister president? Yes, commissioner. Thank you. My question is for tab seven, page four with director DiDonato. Contract with Kimberly Ann Wilson Foundation. Is this, geared towards our staff, our, students? And this is just to provide clarification. This is a partnership to provide for mental health programming? And I see that you so it's a super question.
I see that we have a contract for four schools. How do you go about and pick the schools? Is it our first year also having the partnership? Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. I have the floor. Sure. Good evening. Good evening. Kimberly Ann Foundation actually works with our students. So they do assemblies. They do small group lessons. They actually, identify the schools that they're gonna work with based on their criteria. And this is, I think, our second or third year working with them. Wonderful. Okay. So based off they analyze our schools and they pick the schools that better fit. Correct.
They work in conjunction with my office, and we work to see what schools would most likely benefit and which ones they could support. Well, thank you to them because it is at no charge to the board. So Correct. Thank you, director. Are there any other questions or comments in regards to tab seven? Mister president? Yes, sir. Wanna commend the administration and the director for that contract. Thank you, commissioner Rivera. Mister Milanese, I did have a question for you on okay.
Question. I'm not sure. Who, is this the same company that did the paving at Dwyer on Yes. On, page 11? Yes. Perfect. Okay. Merri Paving? Yes. Yes. Alright. Can we discuss that afterwards? Sure. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, hearing none, please add tab seven to the agenda. At this time, we'd like to have a report from our negotiations committee from chairperson, commissioner Jerry Jacobs. Thank you, mister president.
The negotiations committee met on August 11. The committee was briefed on the ongoing negotiation meetings with the EA. The discussion included offers, counter offers, and a history of three year cost out of proposals during negotiation sessions from January 17 to the last session on 08/07/2025. Thank you, mister president. Thank you, commissioner. At this time, we'd like to go through our claims list. Are there any, Alright.
In the absence of our vice president, I just want to share with you the Properties Committee, Report. The Committee was briefed on the upcoming, revised lease renewals for JVJ STEM Academy, Hamilton Annex, School 15 Annex, the Dwyer, Ninth Grade Annex, including the leasehold capital improvements for the additional, addition of tempered air. Proposals for the additional leasehold capital improvements for the tempered air were also presented for
School 9 Annex, Jim, School 16 annex, school eight, Elizabeth High School ninth grade annex, and the school three annex. An update of this status of the final two air conditioned projects, remaining at school five and twelve are under the district's ESIP project, was provided. Completion is scheduled for early this fall. I think you heard some progress earlier, when we talked about the completion of all the other projects as well. The committee requested that this time this timeliness by this vendor be provided, providing custodial
uniforms under its lease contract with the District, being investigated by the plant and property. We were also briefed on the, I think that's it. All right. That's it. That's it. No more. Mister Jacobs gave his his his report. I don't need to go into that. Alright. Thank you. Alright. Now for the claims list. Any questions for our claims list? Seeing none hearing none, please add, tab eight and tab nine to the agenda. And at this time, we'd like to look at our resolutions.
Are there any questions or comments from the board? Alright. So we have agenda, assignment of custodial records for the 2025 school year. We have, honoring National Hispanic Heritage Month, tab 10 a, which we will be proudly celebrating here throughout our district. Tab 10 b, the curriculum repository inventory. Tab 10 c, the five year curriculum plan, which we're proud to present. Tab 10 d, the programs of study for high school offerings in the high school strand, in sequence for the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six school year textbooks, tab 10
e in use for the 2025, 2026 school year transfer of maintenance reserve funds for the, twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six school year Tab 10 g, the transfer of capital reserve funds. Tab 10 h, payment for unused sick days. Tab 10, payment for unused vacation days. Tab 10, agreement for the rental property between the Elizabeth Board of Education and the St. Mary's of the Assumption, which is essentially, the Newark Archdiocese.
Agreement for the rental property, between the Elizabeth Board of Education and Saint Anthony of Padilla Church, the lease agreement for 539541 West Minister Avenue, And the resolution approving entry into contract with children's literacy initiative, tab 10 n, adoption of superintendent's, goals, which we were able to finalize at our board retreat, which we're proud to present before you
today. Tab 10 o, the adoption of Elizabeth Board of Education goals, which we also established at our Board of Education retreat. Tab 10 p, agreement with the Essex Regional Education Services Commission, transportation services for the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six school year. And the final tab, 10 q, suspension without pay for a b l, school nineteen. Uh-huh. And final resolution, tab 10 r, return to work for x y, at school sixteen.
Any questions or comments? Yes, mister president. Yes, commissioner. Tab 10 c. 10 c. 10 c is the five the question is for madam superintendent. Top 10 c, the five years curriculum plan. Yes, ma'am. As a teacher, I know every five year, we need to renew the curriculum plan. It's exciting time for the district, for teachers, because we are we're looking for improve or new implementation based on global chain, based on the student needs. I want, madam superintendent.
You can explain me how we're doing that process. You select the assistant superintendent, tough teacher in the district. How is the process do? You know, the five years curriculum plan. How is that process? Because I'd be happy to tell. Is is is is important. It's changed, like, we need to do. Right now, I'm happy to announce I'm part of the redesign, the curriculum, the state level for world language at the state of New Jersey. And it's important in our conversation, like, the district, you know, select teacher with high
performance, assistant superintendent. But how is the process, the feedback? How do you select that process? Like, is why we'll be teaching for the next five years? Certainly. So the process begins by, creating a posting. So I in fact, this evening, I have the updates to the curriculum that I have to report out on after our HIV report. So we begin with a posting. So I'm gonna use the mathematics, curriculum as an example. So we'll post and, recruit, committee of teachers to revise the curriculum.
So we have it, structured in segments. So for instance, kindergarten through third grade, right, four to six, seven, eight, and high school. From there, the supervisor will then review the applicants, and then based on their experience, will make a recommendation to the board for a committee of teachers to work on revising the curriculum during the summers. We also have some curriculum writing that takes place during the school year. Recommendation is made. Board then reviews and approves for that, committee of teachers to be approved to work for x number of hours, in the summer to develop the changes to that curriculum.
Committee, works with the committee throughout the entire process, and then reviews the changes, brings the revised curriculum to the director for that final approval, of the curriculum. And then from there, we are required to report out on what curriculum has been updated, from there, we are required to report out on what curriculum has been updated in the summer and also make that available to our board. Thank you, madam superintendent. Thank you, madam mister president. Thank you, commissioner. At this time, I wanna turn the floor over to our superintendent who will present the HIV report. Thank you, mister Neuron. Going to begin with our HIV report pursuant to board policy fifty one thirty one
point one, harassment, intimidation, and bullying, and the New Jersey statute 18 a colon 37. The results of each investigation shall be reported to the Board of Education no later than the date of the next board meeting following completion of the investigation and include any services provided, training established, discipline imposed, or other action taken or recommended by the chief school administrator. Since our last board of education meeting that was, held on 07/24/2025 and through 08/14/2025, our school counselor has completed one HIV investigation.
There were no founded HIV investigations during this reporting period. There was one female special education student that was the alleged victim, and there was one male regular education student that was the alleged offender. Of the services provided incident. The HIV statute further requires that at the next regularly scheduled meeting, after board members receive the initial report of HIV investigations, that the board issue a decision in writing to affirm, reject, or modify the superintendent's decision pertaining to the 26 cases that reported to you investigation summaries from those investigations that were reported to you at the last
board meeting have been provided for your review prior to voting, and this completes this month's HIV, report. And mister Nearing, if I may, mister president, briefly summarize the curriculum updates. Please do. Thank you very much. So first, I would like to begin with a report from our visual and performing arts department. There were, two curricula that was updated during this summer. The first was the integration of the African American experience in the arts into the art curriculum. A dedicated unit on the African American experience in the arts was developed and embedded
into the curriculum. This initiative reflects the department's commit commitment to fostering cultural awareness and inclusivity in the arts education. More specifically, with regard to the work that was completed was the development of an Amistad integrated lesson plans that were created for the various subjects. In collaboration with the Amistad curriculum advisor, these comprehensive lesson plans were created to authentically incorporate the African American contributions into art, music, Differentiated for K to eight and nine through 12 grade levels, these lessons included historical and contemporary examples, cross curricular connections, and
culturally responsive teaching strategies. The second revision for this department, involved, revising the student growth objectives of the of the assessments. The assessments were updated to align to the New Jersey student learning standards and the district expectations, and it involved, improving the instruction, ensuring consistency with expectations, in ensuring the scoring, was appropriate, making the tools appropriate for both new and experienced teachers, and also
providing measurable data on student progress as well as ensuring that the benchmarks were clear for the 2526 school year. We continue on with updates as it relates to both our bilingual and our ESL curriculum that was updated this summer as well. In kindergarten through eighth grade, the focus was on small group instruction, specifically in our language arts, our ESL, and our math curriculum by providing additional resources for planning and designing small group activities.
In addition to that, there are also, additional resources that were added to the KEDA three curriculum. Bilingual English Language Arts included support to students and specifically with regard to the expansion of the guided reading libraries for our self contained bilingual teachers. And as we continue on at the middle school level for our self contained, ESL classes at school school six, nine, and twenty seven due to the high enrollment of our multilingual students, ESL courses focused on placing our multilingual students according to their proficiency
level. And as a result of that, the curricular work, focused specifically on the resources for our bilingual in class support teachers as well as the English language arts block. The curriculum for grades six to eight was also updated by, addressing student academic language proficiency and accelerating the language acquisition by implementing a diagnostic also additional instructional routines with AVID strategies woven throughout the lessons.
At the high school level, there was a focus on small group instruction in both ESL and mathematics by providing additional resources to our teachers for planning and designing, targeted small group activities. And in, the next content area was world languages, and the world language department also revised revised its curriculum guides this past summer. And to support that, excuse me, to support the world language curriculum that implements VISTA high learning licenses for Spanish in school seven, twenty two, and 26, and also school
number 26. They, also revised a curriculum in alignment with the licenses for the Mandarin Chinese classes. One final curriculum writing addressed utilizing all of the high school academies and addressing the expectations for our French, our Italian, and our Spanish classes. And lastly I missed the last one. And lastly, there was also, an curriculum writing that addressed the pacing guides for the
world language instruction at the middle school and high school level. Next, we move on to our social worker curriculum updates. And the curriculum updates involved, clarifying the social worker's role in counseling, behavior intervention, family engagement. It addressed the INRS and five zero four processes, the anti bullying responsibilities, and also ensuring community resources, were expanded. The curriculum also included suicide risk screening, threat assessment, substance abuse policies, child protection requirements,
our MTSS and five zero four supports, addressing the homelessness policies, and our behavioral interventions. That's an expansive report to follow. And then lastly, our updates in our English language arts, our mathematics, and science curriculum in our English language arts for k 12, specifically honing in on our grades k to six. There was an update to our district assessments where we removed a screening tool that's referred to as the DRA three, and we adopted the M class DIBELS as the
universal screener in order to comply with the most recent legislation, public law twenty twenty four, chapter 52. In also in kindergarten to sixth grade, we enhanced the writing pacing guide with strategies from the writing revolution and updated materials to include, UFL UFLI Foundations teacher manuals for small group foundational skills instruction grades three to 12, and we added actively learn as a digital reading platform to support our diverse learners.
In kindergarten through third grade kindergarten through reading benchmark assessments were updated. In grades four through eight, core novels were replaced, routines were updated, and marking periods also had an expansion of writing prompts that were included, and at the high school level, Cornell notes replaced with focus notes. Additional strategies were embedded in the curriculum, and also core novels, were replaced and updated.
In the mathematics, curriculum, in kindergarten through eighth grade, additional reteach opportunities were embedded in the curriculum. We also embedded NJSLA released items into our lessons, only to learn, 20 on August 13, thirteenth and fourteenth that The New Jersey SLA has been replaced and will now be the NJSLA adaptive exam. We don't know much about the assessment.
So, I anticipate we will have some further revisions to our curriculum in order to address our familiarity with the expectations from this new assessment. We, embedded opportunities after each benchmark assessments for students to conduct a student error analysis and have a better understanding of their areas of, deficiencies. Also, all teachers and administrators received the Building Thinking classroom books as a professional development resource. We, provided white books to all of our math classrooms and also hand to mind
small group manipulative kits and expanded ST Math in middle school as a supplemental resource to support our students. And then also, included math stream intervention videos to provide step by step tutorials tailored to the student needs with real time feedback and remediation, provided student resources, everything you need to ACE, a series notebooks for geometry, algebra one, and algebra two, provided the t, TI 84 calculator reference guides to all of our students as discussed earlier this
evening, and maintained use of the AP preparation books and the flip math AP workbooks, as well as, increase the allocation of science instruction. We emphasized the importance of small group instruction, across k 12, our science curricula. And we also, revised patterns in the solar system of Earth and space science in
order to increase the cohesion between grades five and six. Increase the cohesion between grades five and six. And lastly, at the high grades six to 12, we expanded the resources, available to our classrooms in order to address middle school science, biology, chemistry, and physics. And this completes the report for this month as it relates to curriculum writing. Next month, I'll be providing reports, specifically with regard to our, social studies and CTE curriculum writing that was just completed, and a summary will be provided to the board.
Thank you. Thank you, madam superintendent. At this time, mister Kennedy Mister president, I have a comment about it. Mister Mala, superintendent report. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. To give me the floor. First, I want to say to Olga, thank you very much for the amazing detailed report. It's it's it's it's amazing. You know, the update of the curriculum, the update of the benchmark based on the student needs, It's it's couple pages, but it's a lot a lot work behind the
scenes. It's it's it's not easy task. Analyze data and doing all these updates in less than two months is a marathon. That's mean and thank you. And I want to thank you to our superintendent, director, and every teacher who is behind the scenes. Also, my superintendent come in, like, this is for our community knows about it. August 14, everybody received a everybody who's in education or support education or the state level, we received a letter about the new state test.
And I want to be clear with the community. Then you and I can say this. The New Jersey Department of Education does not communicate on time with the school district, and this is a headache for us. This mean it's August, almost the end of the August, we approach to the new test. And I want to know always our superintendent, our administrator team, and teacher were on record to update everything we need to update. The good news about this is our curriculum is update right now from the next
five years, and all we will look for a line. But I want to clarify for the panelists, New Jersey Department of Education, that I communicate on time with the district. Thank you, mister president. Thank you, commissioner. And in light of what you just stated about the delay of the notification that we received, one thing I will say is, you know, want to and thank you in advance to our administration and all our directors and the people who work diligently
on this to make the necessary adjustments because it's gonna be you know, there's frustration that can settle in and that can take place when these changes happen. But, you know, we're very confident that we have a a very robust and and competent team that has the capacity to, adjust when change comes. You know, change is not always easy, but, you know, this is like, you know, life happens. Right? And, we make the adjustments as we move along. But, again, I wanna thank you in advance because, you know, when we come together and we work it with a concerted effort, there's no task that's impossible.
So thank you for that, madam superintendent. Thank you to all our directors for being here. Thank you for everybody in attendance for making time out your busy schedule for joining us. At this time, may I have a motion and a second to approve the entire agenda along with the additional items? Mister president, I make a motion to approve the entire agenda in its entirety. Second. Motion has been made and properly seconded. Any comments or concerns? Seeing none, hearing none. Roll call, please, mister Kennedy. Bathwas. Oh, she's down here. Sorry. Jacobs. Yes. Marina Ortega. Yes. Concabas Pastana. So the entire agenda has passed the seat.
Thank you, mister Kennedy. And at this time, can I have a motion and second to adjourn? I make a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting. Second. Motion has been quickly made and quick quickly seconded. Everybody looks so excited. Motion has been made and seconded. Mister Kennedy, roll call, please. Jacobs. Unheard of. Yes. Marina Ortega. Yes. And Cava's Pestana. Yes. Good night, everyone. Enjoy the rest of your month. Rivera. Yes. Nara. Yes. Have a happy weekend, everybody, and we will see you all back in September.
And, enjoy the rest of the summer. Mister president everybody be blessed. They're done. Mister president, I I want that.