Hey, I call to order the Highland Park Board of Education meeting today, Monday, August 25th. The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to participate in the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or
acted upon. In compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act, the Highland Park Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting, setting forth the time, date, and location to be submitted for publication to the Home News Tribune and Courier News and posted on the board's website at least 48 hours in advance of
this meeting. Members of the public who wish to address the board will be given the opportunity to do so before the board adjourns for the evening. May I have roll call, please? Dr. Batty, here. Miss Cassell Dunn, here. Dr. Coleman, Dr. Pixley, here. Miss Puce here.
Dr. Skoolman here. Miss Stano here. Miss Bardman. Miss Vorhees. We'll now recess to executive session. Be it resolved pursuant to the Sunshine Act NJSA 10:4-12 and 13. The Highland
Park Board of Education will now meet in close session to discuss matters related to personnel. These exemptions are permitted to be disclosed in close session in accordance with NJSA 10 col4-13. Information regarding the board's close session discussion will be disclosed to
the public as soon as the need for confidentiality no longer exists. I move that we recess to executive session. Second. All in favor? Get Ah, come. Okay, we will now reconvene to regular session. May I have roll call,
please? Dr. Batty, here. Miss Cassell Dunn, here. Dr. Coleman. Dr. Pixley here. Miss Puce here. Dr. Squman here. Miss Staniel here.
Miss Vardman here. Miss Vorhees. Okay, we'll stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Okay. There have been no communication since our last meeting. Um we will go ahead to the approval of minutes. So these minutes are from the hybrid workshop voting meeting and executive section for July 28th, 2025. I move that
we approve those minutes. Second. Dr. Batty, yes. Miss Cassell Dunn, yes. Dr. Pixley, yes. Miss Bruce, yes. Dr. Skullman, yes. Miss Daniel, yes. Miss Vman, yes. Okay. Um, we are going to do our
superintendent report. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. First and foremost, before I get started with the more formal part of my student um the superintendence report at your um spots was a u welcome back to a new school year from our football players in
our athletic department. So the football players want you to come out and support them at some games and so they're offering you a sideline pass and um Dr. Bourero wrote a letter and the students signed it um all together. They kind of co-wrote it um and got you a a sideline
pass. So, we're excited to kick off the school year and they're excited to see you at some sporting events. Thank you. All right. So, tonight I have a couple presentations that all kind of are grouped into one theme of culture and climate. So, first and foremost, I would
like to present and toss over the mic to Dr. Jason Richardson, who this spring successfully defended his dissertation with doing work in our high school credit recovery program that has really profound and amazing. So, I'd like to turn over the mic to Dr. Richardson.
And before I do that too, um Dr. Richardson's going to do his presentation and then we're gonna the three of us actually are going to kick off for um the culture and climate presentation and then we'll open it up for questions or comments. You're welcome. Thank you.
So, hi, good evening everyone. Thank you Dr. Susa. Can everybody see me? Sorry. Oh, pardon my back. Yeah, you those chairs like we're the only ones here. Oh, at home for the ones here. Um, hi everyone. I am the newly minted
Dr. Richardson. I got to get used to saying that this year. Um, I want to thank Dr. Susa, um, the board, the committee members, viewers at home, and all the, um, the family and friends and owls that are, um, watching this uh,
presentation. Um it is about the credit recovery program at Highland Park High School, which I take um great pride in. Um it's something that was um an original program um that I started to help students stay on track for graduation.
And so the connected screen Can you touch the screen? Okay. Yeah, you're on. We'll do it for you. Oh, okay. There we go. Oh, thank sorry. Thank you everybody.
Uh, so the um the purpose of this program was to take um it was a qualitative study meant to explore the HBHS credit recovery program through the lens of our student participants. And with that, I address the um
questions that are posted on the screen. Um in addition to um identifying what factors contributed to students um loss of credit and um ineffective attendance, what activities they did while in the program and why they did them, what
aspects of the program that they attribute to the learning process, and what factors of the program they would improve if given the opportunity to. So um to be in the program to to be clear, this wasn't solely an academic
intervention. It was based on attendance. Um so students that have um ineffective attendance by um default can um forfeit credits. This program is an appellet process. Um that is a that will
help students recover credits and res I'm sorry recover seat time and thus restore set credits. So when a student becomes eligible um they're reached out to and given the opportunity to volunteer to participate in this program. Once they enroll in the program
they're asked to do a um five to seven prompt um personal statement that serves as an intake form. Um this form um takes on three different lives. Number one, um it gives the students opportunity to be metacognitive about the behavioral and
social circumstances that impact their academic progress. Um two, it provides the um student support team and the staff that support the credit recovery program an opportunity to provide targeted interventions throughout the year for social emotional support. And
number three, it gives the credit recovery teacher an opportunity to provide um a um to provide a curated experience that's aligned with a student's interest and their um personal needs.
SL 36 22 in. This is harder than he had no technical difficulties which was good. So um the the findings from the study revealed that the program the program
was generally effective in um neutralizing the three common factors associated with school dropout. Um number one are push factors. Um so push factors are literally um experiences that drive students or push them away
from the um the so the school environment um such as um prolonged disciplinary measures like out of school suspensions. um social isolation associated with disciplinary measures that involve public shaming or social circumstances such as bullying that
causes social um shaming and have students um discouraged from participating in the school community. Pull factors are factors that literally pull students away from the school community commonly associated with
costbenefit analysis scenarios such as taking care of a caregiver, financial insecurity or being with child or fallout factors which are commonly associated with prolonged or chronic inschool um concerns that drive students
to fall out of school such as um chronic failure or lack of institutional support. So what my study found is that the students that did find success in the program and just so you know all the participants did successfully complete the program attributed the the
combination of three key components of the program to their success. Number one was the self-reflective activities. Number two, the personalized learning pathways. And number three, staff support when used in in its totality. Um
together, uh students really felt a sense of self-efficacy and perseverance to not only successfully complete the program, but to have sustained growth thereafter. Um, it's freezing again, but I can still keep going. I can still keep going.
Don't worry, I got you. Oh, okay. So, as um uh as successful as the program presented to be, it did come with its limitations. This isn't a cure all. Um it's not perfect. Um the main
thing that was um the the main thing that was limited for students is those that had extreme socioeconomic or social emotional hardships. And I want to be clear as stated before this program is an academic safety net um based on
insufficient attendance and student engagement. Um it is not um a social service um entity. um students that had um issues such as financial insecurity. We were limited in our ability to be able to support those students solely
through the program and is not meant to be a program that is therapeutic or to be used um in to be used in exchange or to augment um therapeutic services for anybody experiencing a social emotional
hardship. However, for credit restoration and sustained personal growth and academic support, this program was able to meet the students needs based on what they stated. These um quotes that you see as I go through the slides, I'm stuck here, but just I'm
stuck here on the video. Oh, no. Okay. Um so, I'm still here. Thank you. Um these quotes, um first of all, they are pseudonyms, so these aren't real students names. Um but these were collected from um from focus group sessions and individual
um interviews that was done with the students that chose to participate in this study. So for implication of practice the um program improvements is to have a more streamlined approach. So the program has five modules. When the students complete the intake form, they
have activities ranging from um uh college and career readiness, academic enrichment, growth and development, civic engagement, and service learning. So, whatever their postsecary needs or interests or curiosities are, we got an
activity for you. Streamlining it means basically taking out the underutilized portions of the program and creating more experiences that students find engaging. So, case in point, um, one of our students who felt underwhelmed by some of the options were provided, I
gave them an opportunity to come up with, um, activities based on their interest to work with the um, with the the um, credit recovery teacher to come up with an experience and um, and program activities that suit their
needs. and we offered the opportunity that if it was popular and other students wanted to partake in it that we would keep it and we did. So, um so that was very helpful. Um embed embedded self-reflection all throughout
the activities. The students really enjoyed the opportunity to write out some of their personal feelings and thoughts, things that some of the students shared that they didn't feel comfortable orally sharing with other people. But writing it down um in their
own time in a place of comfort gave them the opportunity to really share more than they intended on doing on their own when when the opportunity came to be a part of the program. So they did enjoy that a lot. Having more opportunities to give students a share would give us more
data to provide more targeted approach and support them better. Strengthening accountability with um progress tracking. Um that note basically speaks for itself. And so implications for practice. So
when reviewing the findings, I thought to myself, this was a really cool program from a safety net perspective. However, how could we utilize this on a larger scale to have um more systemic
growth uh and systemic change to better support students, something more proactive. And so with that being said, um having having more initiatives that are social emotional learning based um and especially providing teachers, staff and
administration with traumainformed um what trauma-informed professional development practices and pedagogy may help neutralize the need for so for safety net um initiatives that are um academic and social emotional based. And
so with that in mind, uh my advice to anybody doing a credit recovery program or a district interested in doing a program of this particular nature, um having a holistic approach, that means the combination of social emotional
support as well as academic, helping building relationships between students and staff, um being able to offer um authentic assessment um personalized u learning pathways um are the key factors in reaching a student and buildings um
to build to build academic and personal growth um for our students and our new age learners. And so the um HBHS credit recovery program um highlights that and I'm proud to say that it's still going on and going strong and changing every
year um through the support of a dedicated staff and the students who still through surveys and self-reflective activities offer their own fingerprint um into this program and its success. And so, um, with that being said, I want
to thank you all for your time, your attention, and most importantly, your consideration. Thank you. So, as a PS, I I do want to spend a special shout out to all the students who were very vulnerable and willing to
give of themselves and share their personal story so I could create this. Um, I will never forget you. And just just so you know, like a lot of those students, it was it was hard getting students to want to participate and go
on the record and things of that nature, but ultimately they believed the same thing that I'm presenting to you that we have an opportunity to provide generational growth, um, systemic growth. Some of these students are generational credit recovery students.
um this isn't something that just like happens um in a vacuum. And so if we can take a more proactive approach and something that could permeate throughout the school environment, um I think it would do us some some real good and you know, I really appreciate the
opportunity to um do my study here at Highland Park High School. Dr. Susa, thank you for supporting me through my scholastic journey, through all four seasons of that journey. And I'm glad that it concludes. Yes, it was an epic that that's for sure. I
was on an odyssey. And so with that, I did want to present for anybody that is interested. I have a copy of my book um the credit recovery experience at High Point High School, a qualitative study that will be available in the media center. So I wanted to um present this
to you, Dr. Susa. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Dr. Dr. Richardson, and we really appreciate the um the donation to the library. In addition to the board, um Dr. Richardson is going to share the PDF version of his entire dissertation if you would like to
read it in full. I know it's a lot and you have a lot of reading to do already, but um normally when this is actually the first committee I ever sat on um for a a a doctorate degree and it was really profound and I spent weekends when he
sent the final um the final draft over for review to the committee and I read it and I sat there on a Saturday with a cup of coffee and I was moved to tears in his chapter 4 when he shared shared
some of the raw data and the coding that came out of the students voices of what they had to say about their experiences personally and in their academic journey both positive and unfortunately the successes right so there were a bunch of
students in his study that had tremendous success and I was flying high for them and I was crying in tears of happiness and then unfortunately there were some students that were unsuccessful and that brought me to a whole another level of tears so much so that I texted Dr. Richardson and I said, "I know it's Saturday." I said, "But I'm
reading the the the words that are that the students are saying, and I am moved to tears. This is really profound." So, I didn't want to take too much time with that tonight. Um, but you can certainly check out his book in the library or, um, review his dissertation. Um, and I'll send it to you. I strongly
recommend, uh, reading some of the the the, um, information that came out of there. Yeah. Okay. Oh, one more thing. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. And for those that heard, I I did say it correctly. It is High Point High School, just so you know. Um, if you're looking for it because for
pseudonym purposes, all the students ident identities were unprotected. So, it is High Point High School. That wasn't a mistake. Thank you. Thank you. So, I want to just switch gears because the work that Dr. Richardson was uh that did was really profound and in his chapter 5, one of the things he gave as a recommendation
to the um to the school community and to the district was this idea of healing centered engagement. How do we and I think he spoke of that last on how do we capture students before they get to that point right we're hoping that they don't have to get to credit recovery but when you read the stories that the students are saying it's a lot about being just
disenfranchised with school you know and there are some ex ex extenduating circumstances that led them there to you know personally how do we connect them to the school because we know those things are happening we can't prevent that but we can do is reconnect them and how do we help them and that's the idea
of culture and climate So Angelo, I'm not sure if I need to do anything here to switch to my presentation, but I'd like to transition us because I think that it it piggybacks nicely on this work. So what I actually asked Dr. Richardson to do was to um be my co-chair and and pilot and help with um
with Miss Copala and Miss Aimoa um to look at culture and climate. And actually, I'm going to lean to uh and invite both of them up to present with me. I'm just going to follow suit here and do the same the same instructions here without uh
being tasked. Do I have to hit the clicker or are you going to hit it for me? Oh, that's not it. That that's it. Okay, there we go. All right. Thank you. Um, so I wanted to talk a little bit about our culture and climate updates. I do.
Okay. So um remember that our culture and climate is one of our strategic plan goals. Oh me. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Uh which was to provide a safe inclusive identify affirming identifying affirming equitable and supportive educational
environment that uses its diversity as a strength. And what tonight I'd like to share is updates to three of those goals. The first one is research programs that could be used to provide staff with training and c crisis prevention. Research ways to elevate students voices and research
evidence-based interventions for students that struggle with school school refusal and attendance issues. So the work that Dr. Richardson did was really inspiring for us. And what happened was um the NJ DOE put out a report um or a
an opportunity for a grant for dreams and um I really loved it and uh Miss Copel actually got saw it and she goes, "Can we do this?" And I said, "Absolutely. Would you like to head and be the lead on it?" Meanwhile, I'm getting the back end of what Dr.
Richardson is doing, thinking this is all like really great stuff. So, um I'm really proud and and so excited that um Amy took this and ran with it. She did the whole grant and um tonight hopefully you will approve it uh formally as a
three-year um three-year uh program. So, tonight we're going to talk about our DREAMs grant and our implementation plan. So, what is DREAMS? Hi everybody. So I have some note cards just to keep me on task and to help me
um speak in front of all you tonight. So thank you so much for for having me here. So um what is dreams? So dreams stands for developing resiliency with engaging approaches to maximize success program. It's a traumainformed
initiative and it's organized by the state of New Jersey and the department of children and families. It's no cost to the district and it's a support program that offers training and resources to promote a healing centered school environment.
Highland Park has been chosen to participate and we are so excited. Did you click? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just it's just this slide. Yeah. Okay. So, we've been chosen. We're really really excited. The
overall purpose of DREAMS is to help districts develop traumainformed healing centered practices to support staff and students and classrooms to support positive student learning and the why I'll kind of I'll flip back to here. So
I think that that's one of the things that we've been talking a lot about is connecting the students to school. We do have students that are coming with trauma or school refusal or you know a whole myriad of issues and you know previously we've been implementing some really great student- centered
strategies including restorative practices um c um conscious discipline advisory um responsive classroom so there's a lot of seal and these best practice initiatives that we're doing however
what we found is that we kind of needed to reframe and re-energize this work to better align with the lived experiences of both our students and our staff. So, we kept finding that something was missing. So, early on when we when we were doing this work on restorative practices, that's really great and it
works when we talk about our students that are end up needing restorative practices, right? But what are we doing to prevent them from needing restorative practices? Right? So, it's that idea of sort of reframing um that because what
happened before any of our leadership when it came to some of these things is, you know, getting that buy in and leading to well uh oh, that means you're not disciplining students, right? They can just write a letter and and nothing's going to happen, right? Or getting that buy in to say, well, you know, that that seems too soft for what
I'm doing, right? So, there was a whole lot of things happening. In addition, the restorative practices is great. the assistant principles and building level administrators were really the ones spearheading it. We had some staff that were trained, but it became this idea of like I'm going to do a circle in the classroom and not about intentionality
on how we communicate and work with children. So, we do a lot with that at the elementary level, but we were still finding that even with conscious discipline and responsive classroom, it wasn't enough for our students that were um coming with some significant trauma. So this offers us a powerful way to
build upon the work that we're doing um to be more intentional. So it's not replacing those, but it's more of an umbrella. So it allows us, like Miss Copala said, to integrate trauma-informed care. We want to elevate student voice in the process and strengthen our community partnerships.
Um and that's through that idea of promoting dignity, belonging, and accountability. And hopefully by by using and deepening our approach with how we communicate with children and students, we're we hope to foster more trust, strengthen those relationships and create a more
inclusive and supportive learning environment for all students. Um so the dreams grant essentially is implementing the nurture heart approach. So from now on moving forward, we'll probably call it NHA. Uh but the nurtured heart approach, which is intentionality about how we communicate with students.
So as Dr. Dr. Susa shared nurtured heart approach, also known as NHA, is simply put um an intentional, mindful way for us to connect with students and with staff. It also connects all of our
program initiatives like Dr. Susa shared and it's really just a delivery service for all of the district initiatives like responsive classroom, all the work that we are doing, our restorative practices. Um, it's not a curriculum, it's a
method. Um, and it will be district-wide for all grade levels um, and all ages. And it also is part of our MTSS, our tier one and our tier 2 interventions. NHA is a relationshipbased framework
that focuses on students strengths, resilience, and engagement. It really shifts our focus from noticing or reacting to the negative and energizing the positives that we see in the classroom. Even the smallest
click. Yeah. NHA has three strands um which are the um foundational principles that guide this practice. These strands really focus on shifting our energy to the positive, gaining the strength-based interactions that we want
to have with students, but also at the same time setting clear boundaries. Um, yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. So, strand one is called absolutely no. And this means
that you refuse to energize any negativity. you deliberately not give attention or energy or connection to negative behaviors. Strand two is absolutely yes. This is where you super energize success. You
intentionally recognize and energize positive behavior no matter how small. And strand three is absolute clarity. This emphasizes fair and consistent boundaries. It emphasizes clarity and consistency. clear expectations and
followthrough when rules are broken and time for students to reset. Last question. I'm just gonna finish the presentation. Yeah, we'll open up. Yeah, last one. Overall, NHA helps educators and families and if they you
utilize this approach, they can transform challenging behaviors into opportunities for growth and most importantly connection. So our implementation plan obviously led by myself, Miss Capola, Miss Asamoa, and Dr. Richardson. We have two dreams teams. So what they require is that you
have two teams. Well, you can have up to three, but that didn't make sense to us. So we decided to do an elementary and a secondary. So um we send out a survey at the end of the year uh to request volunteers. Um and we received 33 responses, which was fantastic given it
was like two days to the end of school that they were told us we had to get this done. So we were very excited that we got such great responses. Um so we decided on 12 staff collectively between Irving and Bartle that include administrators, teachers, child study
team, and support staff. And then at the secondary level, we have 12 middle school and high school staff that include administration, child study team, and teachers. So we're really excited with that. So in terms of our year one, so we've already created our initial teams, which we're very excited
about. We're um Miss Capola and Miss Osimo and I have already received uh four sessions this summer of training which we're really excited about and um and intentional about our communication already and um the rest of the team will start getting their training at our
September inservice and then later that month. Um what happens during that time together with our teams is the development of a plan. So we're not going in with an a plan of like this is our goal for the year. The idea is they get training on that and then we've
identified two members of our team that get a really intense training in December and then they become a train the trainer. So the idea is instead of having to in the past we've really relied on these external um companies or coaches to come in and provide this ongoing PD for our teachers
and it just really hasn't been sustainable really because um and I'm sure Dr. Richardson can attest to this. The people that we've tried to use in the past like have ghosted us or not, right? Um, you know what I'm talking about, right? Have showed up and and they've come for the one off session, but the coaching that we've been asking and requiring and trying to set aside
money for, they just haven't really committed to for a variety of reasons. So, we love this because, you know, I myself am going to be included. Um, I'm hoping I can get the third spot. I'm going to wiggle myself in there because I really feel that if it starts from the top, if I can model this, right, then I
can coach the admins and the admins can coach the teachers and so on. So, I think it's really important that myself and Miss Capola, Dr. Richardson, and Miss Aimo are really committed to this and get the training as well so we can mirror it. One of the things I've already been intentional about at the leadership team meeting, we practiced
the nurtured heart approach with an activity that we did in my communications um to the staff at our back to school presentation. It's embedded throughout there and then my language that I'm going to use this year is going to be a lot of intentionality about the language that I use that's very nurtured heart. So, we're going to
come up with a plan and then we're going to do a smallcale implementation for our year one. Um so like I said we've already had some trainings um in July um in August some nuts and bolts of the three strands of NHA and what they do is they helped us unpack the um NJ sky data
to look at our school data which I know the um equity and excellence committee has seen as well. So we're doing some work on that. September we'll get a three-hour training with our Dreams team. In the winter and spring there is six-hour training for two Dreams trainers. We develop our plan and
applications of that training, what we what it is that we want to try out for the year. Um then we implement the nurtured heart approach. We train, we integrate those skills. Um we have monthly meetings. So we've already set aside with the team the calendar invites. We've already set it up ready
for the year. So thank you Miss Capola for doing that work with me. Um and that's one hour each month. um we then will implement our plan and then May June we have a showcase actually with other school districts that are implementing their dreams team.
So we went in May to see some of the showcase and the presentations were phenomenal what the work that's being done around the state is truly inspiring and so we're really excited. So in the spring we will showcase what we did and we're very excited our successes, strategies and outcomes. We will also share that presentation in the spring
with the board and what will success look like for this? This is something that we're very cognizant about this time around because I think one of the things I've said um some for some time about some of our other approaches was that you know things were done um the best I can I can
probably explain it is that you you build a house but you don't build a foundation. So it looks pretty on the outside and then all of a sudden the wind blows and it crumbles because it wasn't built on a foundation. So what I want to do is leave the district with a foundation. Build it with so that it's sustainable. And one of those things is
making sure we're intentional about what success looks like. So, not only is do we have a three-year plan, we have an in-house coaching model, it's free, which we're very excited about, and and the fact that we are going to use data to to drive that and monitor it very closely. So, I'm really excited about
all of those pillars. So, we will collect and analyze our SEAL data, the NJ Sky climate and culture results, the discipline data, the attendance data, um empower all staff to deescalate situations. So, we're hoping um potentially we can see that
qualitatively just by our observations. Um but also in seeing maybe hopefully less discipline referrals um if they're able to deescalate them, they don't have to escalate it to Dr. Richardson that he can empower the middle school staff to deescalate their own situations by using
the nurtured heart approach. Um, and our really our intentionality is about keeping students in the classroom because what we find is that there's that power isn't with the at the tier one, tier two level like Miss Capola was saying and they send them out. It's like they're not behaving, send them out and
now Dr. Richardson would have to, you know, handle this and try to communicate like this is not what we want to do. So, we really want to try to keep students in the classroom and then we want to develop a district-wide common language. We feel that's really important as well. years two and three. Um, so we don't
know what year one's going to look like yet, so we will to be determined. However, I will say we're going to expand the foundation built during our first year. We're going to create broader goals and strategies to deepen our nurtured heart approach practices, which means we're going to train more staff and then we're going to be
engaging families. So, we're getting trained first. We're going to start implementing and then the second year we're bringing in more staff and families. Um, we get the support of a Dreams mentor for the three years. So, our dreams mentor Gabby um Rios will be with us for three years and we get her
support and coaching along the way as well as access to resources and training modules through the Rucker's website. So, it's a lot. So, there's a lot going on amongst the three of us. Uh so, I'll open it up to questions or comments. Um
I'm going to try to bring my notebook over here so I can write things down as we talk um and try to answer things. So, I'll leave Miss Capola and Dr. with the mic for a moment and open up. Yeah, I I question. So, this sounds really promising and
that looks really exciting. Um, I just have a couple question. I guess this is um a twopart question. Okay. Um, I'm just curious how the absolute no and absolute yes, etc. works in like a real life situation. Like what kind of
example would that how would that look? Um and then also how would you implement that with students who struggle with special needs or neurodyiverse social emotional issues who just um struggle with making the connections. I would say
for your second part consistency and that common language that Dr. Susa was talking about um is definitely um the approach for for those specialized programs and our students. But I would say going back to the examples for like absolutely yes, no matter how small it
is, it's really just naming what you see and identifying the behavior that you want to continue to see. So being very intentional and explicit in the feedback that you're providing the energ um providing the energy to the no. And I'm excited to learn more about this too.
I've only had the the few trainings that Dr. Susa went to as well and Miss Asimoa. So I am also excited to ask questions like this and learn more. Um but just from my experience in the classroom as well, it's just um you know making the um
having the uh the connection between or breaking the connection I guess between the negative behavior and the attention for the student. So having the patience and the flexibility and the responsiveness to if you see a behavior happening, you're not going to give your energy or your attention to it in that
moment. Maybe you'll have a private conversation with the student, you know, at another time or maybe separately, but it's not something that you're going to draw attention to in the in the moment. Um, you're going to redirect, you're going to refocus, and then as soon as you see that small act of positivity,
you're going to name it and identify it. So, you draw the attention to the positivity. Sounds like a systemic culture change. It is a shift. It is. And that's why the training is so important. And that's why that 5 hour or six hour training that Dr. Susa was talking about it is an extensive training is a big commitment
because those trainers then will be turnkeying it for the staff. Thank you. Yeah. So, um I'm just curious actually how many were chosen for this because it sounds like a great I mean was it I mean
it was a very extensive application. I'm curious. Yeah, it was pretty pretty lengthy um and detailed. Um we are working with uh Rucker UBHC um with our owl program at the middle school and the high school. Um so um they were really my point of
contact um when this came about. I well I was seeing like um broadcasts and whatnot from the state about it. So I was interested right away um but Rosemary our um our point of contact with UBHC really is the person who brought it to my attention and said you guys should do this. this is really
aligned with the work that you are doing currently and um it's a great program actually um our um dreams mentor I've worked with um in a different capacity through my role as a McKini Vento liaison so that really um I think is a
great relationship that we already have um so that's that's how I heard of it yeah and then one other question um I'm I'm very curious if there just to learn more about this nurtured heart approach if there's like any articles or anything that because it sounds like a a substantive body of literature and I am
a nerd and I want to read something about it. So I I could definitely reach out to Gabby and see if there's you know I'm sure there is um definitely things that we could share with you all. Great. Yeah. Nikki asked my question so I I just want to um to to say I'm really
excited about this. I think um I was I was a little bit curious about the absolute no. Um I don't think not addressing behavior issues because I've seen pre-ervice teachers try not to be biased by not addressing behavior and it's a disaster. Um, so I was really
happy that it's more about shifting addressing the behavior, it sounds like, from a public space to a more individual space and and not necessarily um attaching the attention to it because it could be attention-seeking behavior, right? Um, so I I um I'm excited about
this because I also think about some of the discipline data we've seen um and and how we're reproducing some of the behavior uh issues but in the way we address those um and so I think both taking some of that addressing off the
public stage also deescalating um the behavior right not calling him out approaching with care right um uh trying to to the kind of the the source of kind of what the students feeling and and
acting on, you know, um is really really important if you look at any kind of classroom management kind of stuff. So, this sounds like it's very much kind of aligned with that. And the other piece I wanted to highlight too, even though I think Dr. Suski, you might have skipped over the year one slides a little bit,
but but um was that this is a much more long-term professional development approach. This is three years of planned PD which is about what we know it takes to actually fully implement something and some of the coaching and the kind of continuous kind of meetings you know
throughout the year like that's what you need to actually fully implement and and then the whole idea of turnkey within the district rather than consistently going outside. So I think this is the kind of model for the types of things we want to do if we fully want to implement
things. And so I just wanted to to say I really appreciate that and and the the attention that was kind of going into this whole effort. I think it aligns a lot with district goals with the kind of approaches we need we need to do and and to improve some of the things. Great.
Yeah. And I was going to say I was going to ask a question about the measure of success, but you addressed it and I love that you built that into you know thinking about the actual data and tracking it um as we go along. So, I think it's just it's yeah, it's something we can we can track and we'll have those conversations and and see
improvement, you know, hopefully. It's very exciting. Yeah, we're we're very very eager to get started. Well, if there's no other questions or comments, I'd like to thank Dr. Richardson and Miss Capola for sharing their expertise and their presentation. So, thank you.
And you're both more than welcome to stay for the duration of tonight's meeting. I know you've had long days and even longer tomorrow. We have new staff coming and lots of exciting things. So, uh, please feel free to excuse yourself to go home. Thank you. All right. Yeah, I'm ready. One more. I got one more tonight. I'm ready to go. Ready to go.
I'm pumped. Hang in with me. Hang with me. All right. Tonight's uh final I figured it was a really good timing actually to piggyback on the SSDs data that we have to share um that we have to share uh twice a year.
So, this is our spring 2025 SSDS data. So just uh reorient ourselves that I do uh twice a year. SSDS stands for student safety data system. We collect two types of information through that system. Um incidents of violence, vandalism,
harassment, intimidation or bullying, weapon offenses, substance restraint, etc. Our HIP trainings and programs. Um and again, like I said, it happens twice a year. So we're on the what you'll see tonight is the January 1 to June 30th data that I'll present. In
addition, I'm going to present the data collectively for this whole past year. In addition, I've thrown on a couple slides there to show how this year's this past year's data compares to uh last year's the year before data. So, just again to reorient because sometimes
the numbers look big. Um that is concerning. However, sometimes multiple off uh offenses have um multiple offenders are for one incident. So if you see something there that might be like 70, I mean theoretically it could be one incident that had 70 offenders or
something like that. So not that wasn't the case, but in those types of situations, it's talking about the number of students um involved. So a single incident can consist of multiple incident types. For example, a student might take a make a criminal threat toward another student while holding a knife. So also now that's one incident,
but now in two separate areas of the report as well. Um, and like I said, multiple offenders, multiple incidences. Um, so just to reorient ourselves, I mean, some of the definitions are here. Um, but I think it's important to understand when you're looking at the data, a fight is a mutual engagement, a
physical um, altercation that results in bodily injury that may result in bodily injury. It doesn't include a verbal confrontation or a minor confrontation such as a shoving match. So, if they shove, that's not a fight. Um, assault is when one person's to attempt to cause
um or purposely knowing or recklessly cause bodily injury to another person. A physical restraint is if we've had to use a handle with care to physically restrain a child. So, the staff that are able to do that are certified in handle with care to be able to do so in a legal
manner and a safe manner. A simple threat is attempting by physical menace, usually verbal threats, to put another in fear of bodily injury. um like the offender knew that the threat could make the victim fearful. So that would be a simple threat. And then one of our bigger categories
that you'll probably see quite often is other incidences leading to removal, which is any incident not listed in the SSDs guide book by the DOE that takes place on or off school grounds that results in a disciplinary renew removal for at least one half of the day that must be reported. So if a student is
cutting class multiple times or something happens and they get rise which is our inschool suspension that is reported as an other incident leading to removal. If there is something that happens um on social media outside of the school or something like that that
that isn't um a threat or violence or anything like that. It would go into um other incidences leading to removal if it impacts the school day and they have to be removed from the learning environment.
So for January 1 through June 30th, um I broke the violent incidents out. So the high school had seven total incidences for the second half of the year. Middle school had 12, Bartle had five, and Irving had none. Of the violent of the um uh sorry, violence, high school had
one, middle school had nine, Bartle had three, and Irving had none. of the violence for the high school, the one that they did had was a fight. For the middle school, of the violence um incidences, one was assault, seven were fights and one was a threat. And for
Bartle, one was an assault, one was a fight and one was a threat. For vandalism, the high school had none and middle school had two. And then zero for Bartle and Irving. For substance use, middle school had five, middle school had none. Uh Bartle had none and Irving had none. Weapons, all schools had none
the second half of the year. Um, of the HIPS confirmed, high school had one, middle school had one, Bartle had two, and Irving had none. The high school had 11 other incidences leading to removal. The middle school had 32 for the second half of the year.
Bartle had seven and Irving had none. For Hib's alleged high school, these so these are ones that aren't confirmed but are alleged and unconfirmed. For the second half of the year, high school had one, middle school had none, Bartle had one, and Irving had one. Now, if it was one in June toward the end of the year, it's
not on this report. It actually goes on the fall report just because of the timing of when this data has to go in. Uh trainings completed for the second half of the year. The high school reported no trainings and no programs completed. The middle school for the second half of the year had one training and eight programs completed. Bartle had
four trainings and 34 programs completed. and Irving had three trainings and 11 programs completed. So a comparison chart for the whole of last year um as you can see so in red are the incidences or the numbers from
September to December and in black are January to June. So for total incidences um the high school had a total of 14 um I should have put a total I apologize that I didn't but seven the first half seven the second half middle school had 14 total instances the first half and 12
the second Bartle had five and five and Irving had none um and then you can see the numbers from there broken out. So of the total incidences this was the breakdown. or for the high school um you know three were violence and nine were substance
substances. For middle school um 13 were violence, two vandalism, seven substance and three weapons. And for Bartle of the 10 you had uh I'm sorry and then one HIB confirmed for high school, one HIP confirmed for middle school and there were seven
confirmed total for the year at Bartle and three um of those incidences were violence as well for Bartle and then none across the board for Irving. For other incidences leading to removal, you can see that the high school um had
15. They had five alleged hips for the year. Only one restraint for the year. no trainings and 10 programs completed that they reported. The middle school had there looks like 65 total incidences
um uh for leading to removal. They had one alleged HIP for the year uh three restraints, four trainings completed and 14 programs. Um, Bartle had 10 incidences for the total for the year,
three alleged hibs, two restraints, and they're at 21 trainings completed, and I got like 36 70 programs completed. And then, uh, Irving had one alleged HI, 10 restraints, four trainings completed,
and they're sitting at um, like 22, right? 21 programs completed. Um, 21 22 programs completed. So they so that was the overall comparison for this past year and what I wanted to really show and highlight was the difference between
the 2023 24 data and this past year 2425. So you can see in blue um is the prior year's data versus this year's data. So uh for the high school um last year the year before they had we're starting a new school year so two years
prior now uh they had 27 total incidences. This past year they had 14. Um and you can see the breakdown. Last year seven of them were violence. This past year three were violence. In the past uh 23 24 one was vandalism. This past year none was vandalism. Substances
12 for the previous year nine for this past year. One weapons last year none. This year uh last year the 2324 they had eight confirmed hibs. And this past school year only two confirmed hibs. for the middle school in 232 24 they had 57
total incidences. This past year they had 26 which was great. Um last year or 23 24 they had 32 violence 13 this past year. Five were vandalism versus the two this past year. 15 that were substances
versus the seven this past year. One weapons versus the three this year and three confirmed HIV versus one for this past year. at Bartle uh in 2324 they had one total incident. This past year they're up to 10. Um last year they had
one that was violence. This past year they had three. Vandalism, none. Substances, none. Weapons, none. And then um this past year they had seven confirmed HIPS and none across the board for Irving altogether. Uh for other incidences leading to
removal in the 2324 school year, the high school had 39. This past year they had only 15. Uh middle school last year had 110 incident other incidences leading to removal. This year they only had 65. Uh Bartle last year had 66. This
year they had 10. And Irving they had eight in 2324 and this past year they had zero. Uh for Hibs alleged that were unconfirmed. The high school had nine in 2324 versus the five this past year. Middle school had seven versus the one
this year. Bartle 3 and three. and Irving, none in 2324, but one this past year. And then trainings completed. Uh, high school reported one in 2324 versus zero this past year. High school had 24 in 2324 and four this past year. Bartle
had 31 trainings completed in 2324 and 21 this past year and then 8 and four for Irving respectively. And then for the programs completed, the high school reported two in 2324 and 10 in 2425. Middle school reported seven completed
programs in 23 24 and 14 this past year. Bartle had 44 programs completed 23 24 and 70 this past year. And um Irving had 15 last year and 30 this past year. Um and just just to note the trainings are any kind of like legal requirements or
anything that they go to that are um really specific to like how to write the HI. Um, so those are more like very specific like legal type of trainings. Um, the programs are really the SEAL programming that they do. Whole school
meetings, advisory. Um, so there's actually a lot on there that sometimes I think the um the anti-bullying specialists and stuff like that might not know that's included. Uh, some maybe more know what's more included or that they do more than in other schools, but a lot of that programming counts um as
part of the programs completed. So that's why that number is is really high and especially at the elementary school when they probably do a lot more like SEAL lab at Bartle, they have the whole school meetings, they have morning meeting. There's a lot more opportunities at Bartle for that programming to happen um than maybe at
the secondary. So that's why you might see like some of the numbers are a little bit higher at the elementary than secondary level. But that's the difference between a training and a program. So the trainings are really for staff and the programming is staff and students. That's it. Yes. Oh, questions and
comments. Good. I'm I'm good. So, asking about the the trainings and I'm gonna move to sit down because there's here. So, I I know I can't be heard. So, in regards to like the trainings and the programs, um when it comes to the programs that includes the the students,
is that something that's planned through like ahead of time or is it just like they add it as if they see that there's a more of a need for it? Yes, to both. So, usually some of them are planned. So, um, Miss Oimo actually just met with the leadership team at our meeting and talked about all the character ed programming that the teen
center is doing and double downing, especially at the secondary level, um, that they can do to help and support. Um, our UBHC is doing some work as well. So, some of them are pre-planned on what we do for programming and sometimes a lot of it comes in the moment when something is happening and we need to
address it with students. is your feeling um because one of the things I noticed was the the not as much programming completed at the middle school and so one could look at that and say hey maybe we need more programming because that's where we see a hot spot
so is your feeling because you hinted a little that maybe they're not tracking it but it what's your feeling about that do we need more programming I think I think next year I think this next coming year with um some change in the middle school um staffing especially
at the school counseling level. I think you're going to see more of that. Um but also not only I think that we're going to see more of of it, it's actually going to be happening too. So there were things like the the fact that advisory isn't in there is alarming, but I think it's also um what what stood out for me as a
superintendent was to make sure that there is not only I the past couple years I've probably been focusing a lot on the legal training for administration and staff in terms of like what new comes out from legislation or you know things like that because there's a lot of legal around our our hibs um but that
um they should have more training on SSDS reporting um to know what qualifies so that when they when building administrators review that data because the data goes from our anti-bullying specialists which is um Rob Maruka, Tracy Maiden um you know like our our
staff. It goes to them to essentially the secretary in the main office. The secretary enters the data but it's on the principles to review the data and then it goes to me for certification. So we we're working on putting systems in place so that by the time it gets to me when I look at it I'm like I don't
know if this is true or not true right like I can't go through every you know all 72 things to you know in one school to see if that is so I'm leaning on my team to know but maybe some more education to understand what qualifies in each of these categories that I know came out of the work that we did a couple years ago when our data was
reported inaccurately was we need to have checks and balances to make sure what we're reporting is accurate um and that if the team needs help in understanding what defines these categories, we I need to make a a better job of doing that. So, that's the work
we're doing early this fall. Um yeah, I mean even as I was you gritting my teeth a little bit at some of the numbers it seemed, you know, you see like double digits, you're like what's you know middle in the middle school in particular, but my sense was at the same time these look lower, you know, and so I really I so I appreciate
the you know the side side comparison with the previous year and they were lower. I mean we're looking at 50% cuts you know or you know decreases across the board except for in Bartle which is weird and it's probably just random. Um so I guess so you even though you know the middle school is still higher than
the other uh schools you know they had the same you know substantial decrease. I guess my I I have two questions and then and then a sort of a cautionary um suggestion. So the question is like what what do you attribute all this to? I mean of course you're amazing staff
right? No but seriously I mean do you feel like we're just finally coming out of the pandemic life is getting back to normal? Have you been implementing some new programs and approaches that are finally taking, you know, bearing fruit and taking root? Do you have new staff, you know, or more stable staffing? I mean, what is going on that explains in
each school these these declines in in in uh in in disciplinary numbers? Yeah, I will try I will say that I did not um control for anything statistically. So, I don't I don't I don't know what that would be. Um it's probably a combination of all of them. Like at the middle school this past year
was the first time even when we were looking at our math data that we had our staff that were consistently here versus our long-term subs, people go out on medical leave, maternity leave, things like that. When you bring in the subs, that's a little bit harder because they haven't been exposed to, you know, um our coaching and professional
development. Um we've been doing a lot of work with um our consultant on co-eing models and check for understanding framework, which means when students don't understand something, we're capturing it in the moment and then pulling small groups to help them. So, what we're finding is behaviors are decreasing because aside
from trauma-informed students, I'm going to leave trauma-informed students in a separate category, but a general run-of-the-mill student typically misbehaves because they are either being underchallenged or they're o overchallenged, right? Like meaning that like they're there is they're bored
because the work is not challenging for them or they or they're frustrated because the work is too hard for them because they haven't achieved, you know, they're they're they're just not getting it right. So that's typically where beh we see a lot of those behaviors happening. Um and so what we're doing is
even that work intentionally around instruction to use data to drive that instruction and what do we do with that data? Right? So it's in the moment I'm doing a check and we're actually using that word. If you see some videos I think I set one of Jen Sai doing a small group and she said okay we're going to do a CFU now. We're going to do a check
for understanding and it's a quick one two question thing. Did students get it? And then I'm pulling small groups of students that need to be challenged, right? So I'm going to pull a maybe a G&T group. I'm going to pull a struggling learning group, right? And so we're doing those things intentionally.
That way if a student struggling, they're not left to go practice something that they're frustrated with. They're getting that support in real time. Our students that are getting it are then being challenged appropriately. So it's really that more like personalized and truly differentiated
instruction. I think that's helpful, too. Um, I know we've been really focusing hard and doubling down the the approval of those culture and climate specialists and using that title funding to support those have been really helpful. Um, because I think the students are feeling more connected to the school, too. I mean, you should see them running around middle school trying
to find little pictures of Mr. Depay for the hundth days of school. They had to find a hundred little pictures of Mr. Depay all over school. It sounds so silly, but they were so excited for it. So, those initiatives, I think, kind of really helped as well. um from that that
sort of core group. The the issue that I think we're still having is those students that are coming in full flight or fight. it it's very it's very it's a struggle for our staff and so we've been doing a lot of that work with UBHC and when this came up um Rosemary Flores who's our
contact um and and our liaison to our UBC and I told her I said we got the dreams grant I'm so excited NHA nurtured heart she goes I love that for you guys that's exactly what you need you have all the right pieces this is just going to kick you kick you off well that was like my my notes question
so like um I wanted to make sure that the nurtured heart isn't you know, um, uh, isn't changing the approach. It's clearly working, but in fact, what you're saying is it's targeted at the group of students that maybe we're still not reaching is what
it is, but it's but it's what's really nice about it is that it's for all students as well. In fact, actually, we were on the calls and this woman interrupts asked the question. She goes, "Can I use this with my husband when he doesn't want to wash the dishes?" because it's being intentional about not giving energy to maybe a bad behavior like not doing the dishes, you know,
watching TV or whatever it was. She was giving the example and celebrating when her husband was doing something and and the the trainer laughed and said, "Well, you know, if you're going to use it with adults, you have to be intentional and saying, I'm using the nurtured heart approach with you." Um, but there's actually ways to use that language that
is very intentional for secondary students so it doesn't sound so elementary. some things like instead of saying please take out your pencil to shift in the language of take out your pencil like it sometimes it's just that shift in that language to be intentional and that actually can impact all
students. So I'm not saying that every single one of those students on that report is a a tier three trauma-informed student. It's not. So yes, we're doing great, but we can do better. And that's the piece that we're missing is our teachers are yearning for something that
can help them locally in the classroom. The best way when I when I listened to the NHA um training, it reminded me a lot of the work that Grant Wiggins does around feedback. If anybody is familiar with his work as backward design model feedback, right? We give a lot of
praise, right? Great job, good job. We evaluate A, B, C, D, F, right? Like we do those things really well, but what we don't do as teachers is be very intentional to say why is what you did good or why is what you did not good or
what part of it was good. Right? The best example I can give off the top of my head is if I'm asking students to create a hypothesis for science. There's very key components of what is required for a great hypothesis. So it would be intentional about giving feedback. I see that you included an independent and
dependent variable, but I didn't see that you included a rationale or a connection or something about it. Right? So, that means they say, "Okay, I'm doing a great job at this part of it, but I'm missing not only did I get half credit, but now I know why I got half credit." Not just question mark or
circle or X or something like that, right? It's it's that very approach where it's like, I see this, right? I see that there's some sort of negative issue happening. you're cursing a lot, but let me give energy to what you are doing well. And how do I highlight it, you know? Oh, I see that you're
listening with intent because your eyes are focused on me. That's fantastic. I love that. Right. And and giving that intention and very it's almost like giving feedback to the positive and energizing that. And I think that's the missing link. So that's why it's not a new initiative. It's just
the way we talk to kids that I think everyone would would benefit from. in in not only our trauma-informed students but all students to make to like reconnect them because now someone's celebrating something great that they're doing and and oftentimes honestly like
sometimes our students that are acting out get the most of our attention right or those students that need it because whether they are bored or struggling but what about me the average student right who's just like enough to get by I'm good right and I'm just going to sit
here quietly right what about a focus on me how do we focus on all students students and I think that's where this um fits really nicely with our whole child approach. Great. Thanks. I just wanted to um clarify something I think I remember and
Okay, you can tell me whether I remember it or not. I think it was the 22 23 school year data that we had entered wrong. Correct. Right. That was um and it was really high because we had entered it wrong. Yeah. So, so the reporting wasn't really
reliable that year. Um, so these numbers actually show a comparison of reliable years. Yes. And things have gone down often more than half. Like in the middle school, we're talking 32 violent incidents to 13. And so I just um think
uh yeah, this is trending in a much better direction and and uh not getting complacent, right? And I think some of the new program will will be great, but but these these numbers look much better, right, in terms of just um just thinking about student
safety, mental health, and and all the kind of impacts and whatnot. So, I just think the staff should really be commended. Absolutely. Yeah. When I sent it to the when I pulled it all together and saw the comparison, which was a great idea. Thank you, Marilyn, for the recommendation. Um I got excited. I
shared this with the leadership team, too, and I said, "Look at these numbers. This is great. let's celebrate, but our work isn't done. And and it could be very easy to say, "Look, our numbers are going down. What we're doing is working. Let's continue it." But we know that's not enough. Um, and we can do better and and we're really excited for that work.
Okay, that concludes my report. Um, so we will move to our first public comment of the evening. The Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments. Board policy number 0167 establishes and regulates the right of the public to participate in public
meetings. We have nobody in person. Um Angelo, how many do we have online? Four. Okay. So, is anybody online has a public comment? Please raise your hand. Just want to confirm. Is this new business or is this public comments on
other topics? Uh we don't limit this public comment to topics on the agenda. If you have a comment, you are welcome to comment now. We just comments and questions. We take comments and questions. However, we will follow up on questions later on.
Got it. Okay. So, I'll ask a question if possible. Can we have your name and um place of residence? Yeah, sure. Uh my name is Roman Gorbach. My place of residence is 123 North 8th Avenue, Highland Park, New Jersey. Great. Thank you. Go ahead.
Sure. So, um I spoke to uh the tax assessor in Highland Park. Um I had some questions about certain properties and uh based on my conversation, it's been a few months going back and forth. Um my understanding is that the the assets are
owned by the Highland Park Board of Education. He informed me that in order to uh potentially purchase or acquire uh those properties, I would need to speak to the uh Highland Park Board of Ed. They are
not owned by Highland Park, but by the board of education. So my question is what is the process uh around this? Uh would it be with this in this venue with these individuals? Uh Is this the first time this is coming
up? If so, like yes. So, typically we don't respond, but my recommendation is um if you could email myself, I'm the superintendent, Christina Susa, Ksusca hpschools.net. My information is on the website as well. Um I can point you in the right direction and connect you to
our school business administrator who's sitting to my right, your left. Uh um if you're watching at home, uh Mr. Rosa and we can point you we can actually get some more information and try to address any questions that you might have around uh property that the uh board of education owns.
Got it. And just to better understand in terms of uh like turnaround time is this something that I could expect once I send the email to hear back uh like within a few days or my turnaround is usually within 24 hours. I try I don't I go home at night and fall asleep after a meeting. So not
tonight but usually first thing tomorrow morning um or sometime tomorrow. I always respond back. Um except though I don't have your contact information. I don't recommend giving it publicly. My recommendation is email me first and then usually within 24 hours or less I will respond and get you uh connected to
the appropriate person. Absolutely. Uh no problem. I will send that email. Thank you very much for the uh the quick response and uh I don't blame you for going home and going to bed. I've walked in and out about like six times waiting for this. So uh won't take up any more time in case others have questions. Thank you very much for
your uh for your attention and addressing my question. Thank you. Anybody else online for public comment? Okay. And with no hands raised, we're going to close public comment and we'll move on to our committee reports and recommendations. We'll start with
curriculum and instruction. um curriculum instruction met on July 31st, which was just after our prior meeting. Um we looked at the end of year benchmark data both in ELA and math. Um the literacy assessments are uh specific
to skills taught during that benchmark period. So they're not cumulative in this case. Um so they're not comparative across assessments. are just really assessing um what skills were taught in that time. Um
so at Irving the benchmark showed growth u of students on or above grade level. Um Bartle similar percentages of students were on or above grade level. Uh as well in the middle school sixth and eighth grade showed lower levels of mastery but uh results were better in
seventh grade. Um so um but I also think um one of the things that the district has really done is actually uh implement these benchmark assessments and and held them consistent to actually start to comparing them across years. And so that's something we're going to I think
u be looking at u but generally uh the literacy assessments looked pretty good K8. Um in math uh Irving students were uh successful in the spring as compared to prime prior benchmarks. Uh in math
the benchmarks actually are cumulative I believe. Um uh at Bartle second grade looked really strong but grades three through five um only showed about 40 to 50% success. So that's a bit of a concern. This is the
first time those grades have used the Envision assessments. Um, and they were not using the Envision curriculum along with those assessments. So sometimes that means that the assessments are assessing things uh at a time that is not the same time they were taught. Um,
so I think uh that is something that that uh Bartle is working on and looking at uh curricula. Um, but I also think using these assessments um and having for a second year and having teachers kind of get accustomed to them will will
um hopefully um pay off. I think generally the teachers said the the problems were fairly challenging in math and um it seemed like that was something to kind of aspire to to to provide more challenging problems in in in Bartle. Um
at the middle school the final benchmark assesses standards for the entire year. um passing rates were between 40 and 60%. Um most concerning was only 41% of algebra 1 students uh receiving achieving 60% se success on the
assessment. Um I think there was a concern that maybe there was some assessment fatigue given these were right after uh NJSLA. Um but uh we weren't really really sure about that. Um and then I mentioned um
one of the ideas to start to comparing some of the benchmark data across years now we've been using these these uh assessments regularly so we can see if our instructional approach is is kind of paying off or students are getting kind of more accustom or even if there's a
little bit of fatigue from uh just being overly assessed um especially at the end of the year. Um, we also talked about K5 report cards. Letters will go home three times a year for uh reading benchmarks and uh math
common assessment letters will go home four times a year in addition to a list of skills that are strengths and in need of growth. So I think there will be some really nice detail for parents to know what their student specifically what their students are really doing well on uh as well as areas of growth. So that's
a I think an improvement in terms of communication um through report cards for parents. Um we don't have a sample yet uh but um the board members really appreciated the specifics would be sent to parents in terms of what students I
just said that exactly what I said. Um we uh uh also talked about uh AI policy and district plan. The central leadership team will be discussing this uh this year. um the policy is approaching it as supporting students
and how to use it. Um we discussed discipline and making sure that the first offense was restorative to support students in understanding the policy and how they violated it especially around AI and in um just confusion since it can
be a tool uh but also that can be a violation and so u making sure that that it was really uh students were understanding kind of issues that they they were facing. Um this is we so what we were looking at was the early draft. Um and this is something that'll be kind
of discussed and refined as the um year goes on. We also talked about uh the adoption of a math curriculum. Um envision math was used in some classrooms in Irving uh this past year. Um it's a possibility um to to be picked
up in um in Bartle as well. uh but uh they're also looking at Eureka math. And so I think the idea is to do some sort of pilot um where teachers actually try out curricula maybe for a unit um to
sort of assess the utility of it, the success of it um and um and maybe even compare curricula to kind of see which one is really kind of serving and and and fitting their kind of needs. So that's something that that is being looked at um this year and I think the
hope would be that next year you adopt a kind of permanent curricula um based on teachers really kind of assessing um how things worked for them. Um and I think that's it for the
committee report. Um, in terms of what we'll be voting on, um, we have approval of field trips. So, there are, uh, robotic trips, there's a trip to the farmers market, um, for nutrition.
Um, we have approval of schedule B, um, athletics. Um, we have approval of university graduates, um, student teachers and internships and so forth. um all through the SCCL lab at Ruckers.
We have approval of New Jersey school climate initiative uh survey which aligns with what we heard about tonight. Um we have approval of the uh dreams program which we also heard about tonight. Um approval of a job description. This is actually something
uh we had but we were missing a job description for uh that position. approval of acceptance of New Jersey inclusion project um initiative. This is something I think we've been doing for a while and and really want to continue.
And an approval of agreement with uh Arizona State uh School of Social Works questions for curriculum. I just have what one comment. When we think about now that we have the ability to track year-over-year, the one thing I think we're going to really want to pay
attention to is that grade three and five and really mapping them out from a cohort perspective because that's when the gap like that's a really critical phase and that's when the gap gets wider and so the the comparison is going to be really important as we actually do those analytics. So just my comment
your numbers just a question I'm curious about the uh New Jersey inclusion project. How does that mesh with the work that Jan Lee Consulting is doing and this other like where does that fit in I guess? Yeah, that's so great. So, um we started
there's um there's uh for our three-year partnership we did year one last year at Irving. So, Irving was actually the selected school. So the work is predominantly being done at Irving uh first, but this year as part of our year two um at our inservice in September, what you'll see in my board notes for
next month um on the PD schedule is a um training for all staff on inclusion. Um so that will be going uh districtwide and then the continued work at Irving, particularly around preschool, kindergarten, first grade, the pyramid uh programming in terms of supporting
students in preschool for inclusion. Um and then it's the coaching that happens and professional uh development that's happening um really a lot with child study team um as well to understand what that model is. Um the ed services will
be pushing out a 3-1 model for uh related services which means three weeks of it's a three-w week on one week off model. So you get the same services if you read like for example speech OTPT you get the same services in your IEP but the services are delivered for three
weeks straight uh for students and then one week off where the related service provider is pushing into classrooms report writing um communicating with parents and teachers and there's like a lot of that push in. We're trying to do more push in to make it more inclusive. So, we're
that is the work that we're doing around inclusion um the the inclusion project, but it's really nice because um the work mirrors really nicely with the co-eing models because that's really about inclusion. How do we um help support students in a least restrictive
environment by putting them into co-supported classrooms with their general education peers? Um so, it it piggybacks really really nicely. A part of that um work with the New Jersey Inclusion Project is un is for child study team to understand um and our
related services and our staff to understand what it means to be um an inclusion model and then what it means to provide support within there. So we're kind of doubling down on on those efforts. I will move on to um equity and excellence. Equity and excellence met
last Thursday. It was myself, Dr. Susa and Missio. Um we really examined some um policy alerts from our latest um policy alert. That's what it's called. Um so the first one was health and physical education which is actually
going to be um going to encompass all statutory curricular requirements. So, not just the requirements for health and fizzed, um, but it'll add in things like history of disabled and LGBT persons, um, financial liter literacy, infusion
of African-American accomplishments into school curricula, Asian-American and Pacific Islander history and contributions in addition to some other things. Um, there's plenty of them. They're very interesting, including the instruction on Lyme disease, um, is one of them as well. So, um, you can go
ahead and review that policy. when we did um there was one area that we did ask Dr. Susa to um get further information on for our next meeting which was um language around pulling students from recess um to complete
restorative justice activities as a consequence of something that occurred um an infraction in the discipline code. Um, so both Miss Dano and I expressed um concerns regarding the removal of students from recess and asked if such consequences or restorative justice assignments could be completed during
perhaps a lunch portion. So like sit, eat, you know, restore and then go out um for recess and so Dr. Cusco will look into the language and requirements there. Um we also looked at interd
district school public school choice. This was nothing substantive um and we just excluded an optional part about staff non-resident staff members children's because we have our own policy regarding the attendance of those students. Um a new policy uh student son
protection. So the committee reviewed this policy um and you know discussed some preferences. We would prefer um the option to not require parent consent to bring sunscreen to school um as that would kind of be difficult to manage. Um
to provide principles the discretion as to which type of sunscreen to permit at school um noticing that there are very there are many types and um you know including aerosols which could be irritants to some students um with asthma or respiratory difficulties. So
we wanted to leave that um discretion up to the principles knowing their school communities and you know the developmental needs and tendencies of those students. Um and then we also um prefer they had an option in there to revoke a student's access to sunscreen
as a disciplinary consequence and we were like that seems silly. Um so we prefer to add a statement regarding instruction about appropriate use rather than revoking the students right to sun protection. Um which is the whole point of this policy. Um and then there is
also the semi program. There was no substantive changes. Um you know that we did note when we were doing the budget that we do anticipate a lot less funding coming in from semi due to their their own internal changes in what they're reimbursing. Um and we also looked at the AI policy
and district plans. So, uh, Dan provided a really good summary. Um, only things of note aside from what Dan presented were that, um, we discussed making sure that AI detection software is not the sole factor for determining if a student was involved in academic dishonesty, um,
because those platforms can be unreliable. Um, and being mindful of the AI tools that can aid our students with disabilities and our multil- language learners um, as well. And that concludes equity and excellence. Any questions? Are we required to have that sun
protection policy? Yes. Yes, it is mandatory. Seems just seems really silly. State law. Yeah, state law that we have to have one. State school choice also didn't really apply to us there. Did what? Because it did. It does. Yeah. So, um, these
will go through more committees, I'm sure, than just this one. Um, but take a look at it. You know, it's things like Yeah, it's hard to understand. Yeah. Well, a lot of it because some of it doesn't apply to us because they can't pick between one high school or another. They only have one high school, right? Thinking that
but there is when it comes to like like um the staff or transportation if they go to um like a private school or something like that aid in lie of transportation or transportation and and stuff like that. So, some of it is applicable to what we what we have going
on. All right. Any other questions? Okay. Um, finance and facilities. Um, okay. My thing just timed out. One second. Finance fac and facilities met on when did we meet? On the 12th of
August and Ann and myself and Allison joined us partway through there. Um, we talked about obviously some of the action items on our agenda today. Okay, there's quite a few non-public uh allocation agenda items like three
lengthy ones. So, those are just a pass through that we typically do often have less than we have today. Um we did finally get our title ESA allocations, but our title allocations and they are on the agenda. So, we were happy to get
those. You're a little bit lower than in the past, but but um not so far off. uh if you looked at that um those allocations, Bartle is no longer eligible because of improvements in test scores. Um so that's why that number was
was less. Um you'll see on our agenda that there are the salaries um what portion of salaries comes out of state and federal grants that's listed there and that uh the we're we're applying for the New Jersey water infrastructure grant. Um, and
that's only thanks to John's efforts, John Flanigan's efforts to get all the documents in order for us to be eligible to do that. The uh we had a number of policy alerts on that list. Board member election and appointment, duties of public school accountant, legal services, professional
services, internal controls, um those all uh and administrative employment contracts. uh no uh substantiative changes in those or modern changes mostly related to code numbers um and
some language. Uh 1636.01 notification of promotion new job and transfer opportunities is a new policy. However, it uh mostly contains processes that we already have in place for how we
um post new positions and opportunities and th so forth. Um 1648 is a policy to abolish because that was related that was what we needed during COVID um recordkeeping for healthcare during COVID. So that's an
abolish an abolished uh policy and a policy up for abolishment. These are all up for first read tonight I think and same thing with budget preparation. Not a sub substantiative change there. The other things we talked about at our meeting was the status of the champions
program and and that's our program our uh uh the company that is now uh running our afterchool program and um they had given us a progress report which I'm sure has been much updated since then um at in terms of most of the positions had
been filled um our three site directors will all be new positions no current staff applied for those positions um but all sta those positions have all been filled Um, and Champion is moving forward to uh set up uh ring cameras to see about getting
ring cameras installed to be used for pickup. Um, and they're working on subsidy applications with our families. They even brought in Spanish speaking staff to meet with some of our families to help them with the process. Uh, that's what I had on Champions. Things
were moving along well. They were accepting applications and things were move seemed to be moving along well uh at that point. That was about a week ago. The other uh thing that we talked about was um last month we approved the level the playing field uh that was it
was a grant and um Sean Harrison and um I don't know how to pronounce his name. Mark Marko I say uh they went to the level of playing field and they brought back $20,000 worth of sports equipments for our teams and our programs. Um it
was they were very excited about it. It's great. New a lot of new NFL um football pants and Nike cleats and all this kind of really cool cool stuff that they brought back and they um intend to go back again and um uh anticipate
bringing more great equipment to our our district. So that was really awesome. Um under finance, nothing was new here. we talked um with uh about the cell phone ban and the middle school had decided at that point to go with bins to
hold students cell phones rather than last month we talked about the yonder pouches. Um but because they have uh home room time now at the beginning and at the end it made it possible to try these bins which um given the fact that we'd heard mixed reviews on the yonder pastures they had heard mixed reviews on
the yonder patches um this is this is what they're going to be trying and those more of those plans will be shared with us because after school starts um and under facilities uh the week of you can probably tell us niece are we back
are we back open as best was closed was a bar was closed because of asbestos removal going on in the um the old walkway area and in the uh the uh bathroom that's being renovated. So they did we're doing as best removal. I
guess that was last week. Um and that must be done. We're back in the building. That's great. Um work on the baseball field was continuing at that point. Um 60% of the demolition had been done on the structural repairs at Bartle. Um, and the anticipated
completion date for that is November, but it will uh planning's been done, so there should be no uh interruption to the start of school while they continue to work. And like we say each month about that high school greenhouse bid, still working on it, trying to figure out a way to get it
to come in under budget. John's, if anybody can do it, John can do it. He's fig he's figuring out how to scale it back and change some of the uh specifications so that we can get it in and under budget. And the last thing which actually I saw on the website um there's now a facilities update link on
our website so that the community the public can follow the progress our of the facilities work through pictures like we had on our um think on our board notes or on minutes we had gotten pictures and now they're on the on the website for people to see.
And on the agenda let's see we got um we have our bill list July 29th through August 19th. Um the treasur approving the treasur's report approving the board secretar's report and all the certifications that you know say that uh
we have sufficient funds and no major account or fund has been overextended. Budget transfers, some checks that need voiding, travel and related expense reimbursement report. um one contractor to help us with
bilingual evaluation reports and um a lot of contractors well actually a lot of contracts for professional devel development many of them being done by Janna Lee Consulting um an EXL training which I couldn't
remember what that was what is the training for um can you remind us uh sure it's for um like a personalized learning platform the students students can go in and they take like level assessments and then they get some personalized learning. Um so predominantly using at the middle school
to get real-time data to support differentiated instruction. Okay. All right. So there's so there's a professional development for that. There's also uh that's there's one G is a non-public school pass through a nonp
workshop and uh that's also 10 11 and 12 on our agenda are all passroughs for the non-public schools. So we see what their um allocations are and some of how they're spending those allocations I guess certain other
schools including for um professional development I guess or technology and uh security technology and security. Um the other uh pieces on our agenda is continuation of the um contract we have
for registered behavioral technician. Uh and then here you can see the amounts for the um ESA grant applications. That's our title money. Uh we're uh voting on um approving the submission of the grant applications for these
amounts. And then you see the list of um how some of our salaries are broken out and then when they're paid for by state and f what portion of salaries are paid for by state and federal grants. And you can see that's a very extensive list. two out of district placements are on
the agenda, a a legal settlement agreement, um and then the submission of that New Jersey water infrastructure grant that we've been talking about. And the last one is a change order um for money that is going to uh the asbestous um the
removal and disposal of asbestous. it was part it's within the money that was allocated just one particular part I guess is coming out to pay for the uh asbestos removal and that's uh the agenda for finance and facilities any questions I do have a uh two questions one um just
if I don't know if you know this offhand but for champions I'm curious about the enrollment and how it compares to previous years and then for the is that is that a cross content area my two questions um So, the champions actually I don't have it off the the numbers off the top
of my head, but I um they're coming in tomorrow. Uh they're bringing their Bartle um site manager in to meet us all. So, they said they would drop off a report. I did invite them to finance and facilities at our meeting next week. Unfortunately, they have another open house, so they can't attend, but they're going to bring me a report tomorrow. So, I'll have those updates. So, we're very
excited about that. Um and I they use it for math instruction. Yeah. I mean, in the in the finance uh report, they said they had 80 kids, but that's like two weeks ago. Yeah, that was two. Yeah, so they had 80
kids about two weeks ago. I know their numbers went up, including staff, even I think I sent um a report over that two weeks ago, they had hired four of our staff and then there was a whole laundry list of staff that were like pending their meetings and stuff like that. So, I know they were trying to get them
onboarded as quickly as possible. um the staff that were hired emailed me um enthusiastic about it and how great the process was and so far so good. So um I could share some of those positive emails as well with the board. So hopefully I'll have some more updates. I know I'll have some more updates tomorrow and then I'll share them out as
I have them. All right, I'm going to review um the personnel. It should just read personnel, not communication. Um, all right. So, the number one is approval of appointments. I'll um they are as listed, but I'll
shout out a few. We have Rihanna Macau joining us as a special education teacher at Irving School. Welcome. Uh, Musa Ali as the boys soccer coach for middle school. We have also Mr. Turner, uh, Christine Crowe, and Erica Hernandez
joining us as lunch aid power professionals at Bartle. Um we have in addition to those are all like new um or new hires really or new positions. Um but you can see um N
through Z there's a lot of athletics volunteer football coaches um cross country wrestling assistants scorekeepers and ticket takers and all of those positions that are listed there. um double A through double E, I'm
sorry, double A through double D are also um athletics positions. And then um double E is uh tech crew for a stipen for Mr. Prey. Um number two is approval of resignations as listed. Um with note,
Miss Donnelly who has been here for a very very long time, her last day will be December 31st. So um thank you for your dedication to our district. Um, we have the approval of some transfers. So, Christine Pearson will be going from
high school to Irving. Uh, Miss Davis will be going from middle to Bartle and Cornelius O'Keefe will be going from Oh, instead of special education at the middle school, sixth grade math at the middle school. Okay. Um, the approval of PD presenters for a PD academy. So,
thank you for all of the staff members that are going to be providing PD as listed. Number four, A through D. Number five is for um afterchool treatment teams. We approve all of these folks so that they are if they need to have an
afterchool treatment team, they are able to do so. And number six is the approval of u maintenance overtime for um Gary Conursy and Wilfredo Roman. Number seven is the approval of some additional
instructional assignments. Um again, thank you to those of you who are taking on an additional course. Um we very much appreciate it and that goes all the way through yeah 7
A through N and that is personnel for policies um and regulations. We have the following for first reading. Board member election and appointment, duties of public school accountant, legal services, professional services,
internal controls, administrative employment contracts, notification of promotion, new job and transfer opportunities, which is new, and budget preparation. These were all reviewed by our finance and facilities committee. And then we have one policy number two
for abolishment which is recordkeeping for healthcare settings and school buildings related to COVID 19. Any questions on policy? So no. Okay. At this point we are going
to have our second public comment. The Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments. Again, there's nobody in person. Angelo, how many people do we have online? Two. Um, please raise your hand if you'd
like to make a public comment. And with no hands raised, we're going to close public comment. All right, we'll proceed to our action items. Curriculum instruction. I move uh items one through eight.
Second. Dr. Batty, yes. Miss Cassald Dunn, yes. Dr. Pixley, yes. Miss Puce, yes. Dr. Splman, yes. Miss Stano, yes. Miss Bman, yes.
All right. Finance and facilities. I move items one through 19 on the agenda. Second. Dr. Batty, yes. Miss Cassald, yes. Dr. Pixley, yes. Miss Cruz, yes. Dr. Schoolman, yes. Miss Daniel,
yes. Miss Vardman, yes. Okay. For personnel, I'd like to move numbers one through seven. Second. Dr. Batty. Yes, Miss Cassaldun. Yes, Dr. Pixley. Yes,
Miss Puce. Yes, Dr. Scholman. Yes, Miss Stanio. Yes, Miss Bartman. Yes. And for policy, I'd like to move numbers one and two. Second. Dr. Batty, yes. Miss Cassald Dunn,
yes. Dr. Pixley, yes. Miss Puce, yes. Dr. Skullman, yes. Miss Stano, yes. Miss Bergman, yes. Okay. Any board leaison reports? The commission for universal access is moving forward with uh making a donation
both to middle school and high school Globe program GLOW and GLOW Junior. And I just wanted to highlight that um to really support students who wouldn't necessarily be able to access some of the activities that without those funds.
Awesome. Thank you for sharing and thank you to the commission and commission for um human human rel human human relations commission. Couldn't say that. Um just want to let you know that they're doing a townwide
uh book read, but I don't have the dates yet. So once those come in, I will let everybody know and they want to make sure that everybody gets involved and that hopefully that the schools can also get involved. And the book for that is going to be Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. And they'd also
like to get involved with any kind of diversity days that that we have. It's an excellent book. I read it. Yes. Very good. Anybody else? All right. Um I do not have a president's report this evening. Any old
business? I think I have some old business. I don't know if it's old or new. Um talk a bit about cell phones. So, I was on looking at the starting times, end times for middle school because I kept starting middle school
and I was Yep. And I was very pleased to see that 2:58 to 3:00 in the middle school is now officially designated device pickup time, which is great. So, it's on the schedule. Um, so moving to bins, I was wondering if you could
explain, Dr. Susa, so what happens if a student arrives late or has to leave early? How do they get their phone? So, my understanding that they're going to sort of pilot in this is if they arrive late, it goes to a storage um
that will be held in the main office and then during that 2-minut time, they come down to the cafeteria where that rolly so the rolly carts will come in and they will pick up their device from that location. If they've gone to their first period class and it's there and they
have to leave early, um Mr. a or an administrator can escort them up to that classroom and get the device from the classroom. Great. Um, did we I honestly don't remember if we talked about this. We probably should have, but uh smart
watches and earbuds. How does the policy apply to those? So, that includes um those as well, unless they're designated as part of their IEP, IHP, or 504. So, if they come with a smartwatch or earbuds um for the elementary and middle school, they have
to go into um either the little coat rack shoe rack thing in Bartle or into the locked container at uh middle school at the high school. They'll keep them on them. Um and my last my last bit has to do with the uh the the nurtured heart
program. And I just was had a question about the application of the abs of the absolute no approach to the the devices and I just want to clar of course you don't want to give attention to a misbehavior. At the same time the policy is if someone's using their cell phone in class not supposed to take the cell
phone. So is that still going to be followed even if this absolute no which sounds very interesting gets um you know sort of um becomes our district-wide philosophy. Yeah. So they would still have to take the device and follow the proper um what
we have in the regulations in terms of um a logical consequence as a result of it. So they're still going to follow um that the absolute no comes in to reach to to not because students might engage in conflict about it, right? Because they don't want it taken away. So, um,
for those that reviewed some of that discipline data where I shared my screen and we looked at it, a lot of was like resistance to give it, resistance to give it, resistance to give it. That's that energy, that absolute no. Um, so how do we re redirect them to the yes, but again, there are still logical
consequences that come of it. So, the idea of nurtured heart is not that say that they can't, for lack of a better term, like get in trouble for something, right? like if they have a weapon or something like that, I'm not going to not discipline them or, you know, like discipline them or not address the issue in the moment. It's it's a lot about if there's refusal
to do so, how do we redirect them um to make sure that we're um addressing and and supporting the positive things that they're doing. Um because if they're breaking down a phone or doing something when they're not supposed to because they brought a burner phone or something like that, um then we really have to
look at um you know like why are they using it in the moment, right? Are they taking it out because they're bored? Are they taking it out because they're having um I don't know an argument or something like that? Like what is the why for that um as part of it? So you know um we haven't really tackled the
idea of what the nurtured heart approach looks like in that space. Um the so far the four trainings that we received a lot of it was around things like kids cursing um or kids misbehaving, kids acting out, that kind of thing. How do we because that's what we see a lot in these discipline um infractions is like
well they curse 65 times and now I have to remove them from their learning space and give them restorative uh rise or out of school suspension or something like that. And how do we how do we not give energy to the cursing and redirect them for the positive? Um, so a lot of that
training comes in. So I would be curious to see how they'll they'll blend together. Um, but the the regulation is the regulation. Um, and it is the administrator's um, responsibility to hold staff accountable to making sure that regulation is enforced. Good. Thank you.
I had a question about the the lock boxes actually because I'm just I hope it wasn't about nurturing heart because I'm still learning. Sorry. No, I'm just I'm just curious with the lock box. Are they individual lock boxes for the phones or are they like one giant thing and then So it's one thing. It kind of reminds me of a Chroma cart. So I know people at home cannot see this but to the board.
I'm going to point to the cart that is next um to Angelo over there. So it's something similar to that just a little smaller. Um so they're kind of like what our old school Chromebook carts or laptop carts would be. And in there is bins for each student. So they drop their stuff in a bin that's going to be
labeled for them um you know with something that can easily be changed for a new student coming in. Uh, so they drop their stuff in the bin and then it's locked up and that's it. So they can't get into that cart and at the end of the day the cart is open, their bins are put out, they grab their stuff out of the bin, then the bin goes back in.
Um, and that's that's how it goes. Um, I can't believe I never asked this previously when we were talking about this. I think because I didn't expect us to do the I think we were sort of thinking we were going to do the pouches. Yeah. Um, have we had our attorneys into our
liability for if we take private property from students. There's we have you have no liability. We don't. Nope. Okay. And um few responses to recent emails showing that if there is a concern because some people don't like the
policy and want it even more strict at the high school. An option always is that you do not have to send your kids with the devices. That's always an option as well. But you're right. There is no liability for taking them. There's no liability for having it with parents, guardians, or students don't come to
pick it up. It just stays locked up with us. But we assume no liability. But and if something happens like if it's in if a staff member takes it and it breaks in their presence or something like that, they drop it, we have no liability for it. That's not going to happen. We're not
purposely going to be dropping. That was a very long uncomfortable pause. I just wanted to clarify that we are not going to be throwing phones and breaking devices. Okay. Any other old business? Any new business?
Okay. Um I move to adjourn. Second. All in favor? I Good night everyone. Go.