Oh, on Saturday. I call to order the Highland Park Board of Education Hybrid Workshop Voting Meeting today, Monday, June 23rd. The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to
attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon. In compliance with the open public's meeting 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, Miss
Cassald Dunn, here. Dr. Coleman here. Dr. Pigsley, Miss Cruz, Dr. Coleman, Miss Stanio here. Miss here. Very. We will now recess to executive
session. Be it resolved. Pursuant to the Sunshine Act, NJSA104-12 and 13, the Highland Park Board of Education will now meet in close session to discuss matters related to a grievance, personnel, and HIP. These exemptions are permitted to be disclo
discussed in close session in accordance with NJSA 10 colon 4-13. 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. All in favor? I are you ready? Y I move that we reconvene to regular session. May I have roll call, please? Dr. Batty, Miss Cassell, here.
Dr. Coleman, here. Dr. Pixley, here. Miss Pruce here. Here you hear me here. Nothing. Her mic is muted.
I'll come back to her. Dr. Schoolman here. Miss Daniel. Miss Gardman here. Miss Vorhees here. Miss Cruz, I'm here. I don't know why you're not hearing me. I can hear
Marilyn. I don't know if you guys can I'm here. I don't know. And um can you Dr. Sman here? Can you hear me? Yeah.
That's a problem. Hey, hey, can you fix that? Oh, Miss Cruz here. Thought I heard her. Yeah, Dr. Skullman says he's speaking, but we can't hear him. Can you hear me now?
No. Can you hear us? Can you hear me? I don't think they can hear us, Marilyn. Sorry for the delay. my computer on. Is that the issue or not? I'm speaking in the microphone. Can you pick that up?
But that's a problem. We have people on for public comment tonight, you know. Marilyn, can you um say here? Here. Can you hear me?
Yeah. All right, we're going to close the Zoom um and reopen it. Hope that'll hopefully that'll address the audio problems. Test test. Can you hear me now? I'm back. Okay. All right. What about Dr.
Scholman? Can we hear you? Oh, I'm here. I was muted. Can you hear me? All right. Nice job. Marilyn, say here. I'm here. Here. Um. All right. Stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and the republic stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. Okay. The next item on the agenda is the public hearing to extend or alter the superintendent's contract. At this time,
we will have public comment um on the superintendent contract only. 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. Is there anybody in person for public comment regarding the superintendent's contract? Angelo, how many people do we have online? Is there anybody on Zoom for public comment regarding the superintendent's
contract? Please raise your hand. And with no hands raised, we will close that public comment. We will now recess to executive session. Be it resolved, pursuant to the Sunshine Act, NJSA 104-12 and 13, the Highland Park Board
of Education will now meet in close session to discuss matters. Oh, this is not right. regulars to to discuss superintendent's contract. Um, these exemptions are permitted to be discussed in closed 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 we recess to executive session. Second. All in favor? We'll be right back.
Okay. I move that we reconvene to regular session. Second. Roll call, please. Uh, Dr. Bey. Miss Cassell Dunn, here. Dr. Coleman, here. Dr. Pixley here. Miss
Puce here. Dr. Scholman here. Miss Stanio here. Miss Bardman here. Miss Vorhees here. Okay. Um so now we have the resolution of the Highland Park Board of Ed to enter into the contract that would be
dated July 1st, 2022 through July 30th, 2027 to resend that contract and enter into a new 5-year contract to begin July 1st, 2025. Now therefore, be it resolved that with the consent of Dr. Christina Susa, the board of ed hereby rescends her current
employment contract and with the approval of the executive county superintendent of schools in accordance with NJAC6A23A-3.1, the board of ed approves a 5-year new 5-year contract of employment with Dr. Christina Susa effective July 1st, 2025
through June 30th, 2030 in accordance to the terms and conditions therein. Um, this new contract shall supersede and replace the 2022 2027 contract that we have rescended and be it fully resolved that the board president is authorized to ex execute the contract on
behalf of board as per attached. We yes. Okay. I'd like to move letter action. Oh, I'd like to move letter F. Okay. Second.
Miss Cassaldon, yes. Dr. Coleman, yes. Dr. Pigsley, yes. Miss Pruce, yes. Dr. Schoolman, yes. Miss Staniel, yes. Miss Vardman, yes. Miss Voris, yes. Congratulations, Dr. Cisco. You are
stuck with us for another five years. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. It's a real honor. Thank you. Okay. Number nine is the communications. We had one with no subject. um three regarding the field trip, the out ofstate field trips and
one about the Pride Month flag raising. And now we'll move on to our student super student representative. Oh, I'm sorry. I missed one down at the bottom. Number 10 is the approval of minutes, hybrid voting minutes and executive session from May 27th, 2025. I
move that we approve those minutes. Second, Mr. Cassal Dunn. Yes. Dr. Coleman. Yes. Dr. Pixley. Yes. Miss Puce. Yes. Dr. Schoolman. Dr. Skullman.
Miss Stanium. Yes. Miss Gardman. Yes. Miss Wares. Yes. Okay. Now we move on to our student representative report. Seth. All right. Well, we don't have a student representative report. Um Oh, welcome back. Uh, we do have two new student representatives though that are going to
be joining us next year. Uh, Lami couldn't be here in person, but Bri is. She's going to be one of our new student representatives next year. Um, they've both been very participating and active members in student congress this year and they interviewed and I wasn't able to be there, but uh, Anna said they did
well and Mr. Madnik uh, selected them to be our student representatives next year. Awesome. Welcome. Okay, we're going to move on to the superintendent's report. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm going to make my way over to the podium.
Thank you. Test. Test. All right, we're good. Uh first I'd like to take a moment to extend a heartfelt welcome and recognize some very uh very special members of our school community tonight. This is uh such a wonderful time um that we have
now twice a year to recognize um and celebrate the service of our retirees uh whose years of commitment have helped shape the success of our students and the strength of our district. Your impact is long lasting and we thank you
deeply. We also honor our student board representatives tonight whose voices have brought insight, leadership, and a strong reminder of why we do this work. Thank you all for being here as we celebrate these important milestones and the people behind them. I would first like to call up our esteemed principal
at Bartle, Miss Jennifer Knap, to the podium. Good evening everyone. It's always I'm short. I'm sorry. It's always an honor to be here to speak about our staff members. Um I am going to begin with May Lewis. She could not be here
today. Unfortunately, she is sick. Um I did send her what I'd be saying, but I want to honor her here as well. Today we come together to celebrate the retirement of someone very special to Bartle School, the one and only May Lewis. After 25 remarkable years in
education, May is closing this chapter of her professional journey. And while we are excited for what lies ahead for her, we will deeply feel the absence of her wisdom, warmth, and unwavering dedication. As a teacher and more recently our
reading interventionist, May has touched the lives of countless students, guiding them to discover the joy and power of reading. For so many students, May has been the one who helped them take those first courageous steps towards literacy,
meeting them with patience, skill, and a deep belief that every child can succeed. Her work has not only changed academic outcomes, it has changed lives. But May's impact extends far beyond her students. She has been a generous and supportive colleague, always willing to
share her expertise through professional development workshops, offering her time and talents to help others grow and develop. Whether leading sessions on literacy strategies or simply or simply offering a thoughtful suggestion in the
hallway, May has made all of us better educators. And of course, we can't talk about May without mentioning the calm and mindfulness she brought to Bartle. With the creation of our yoga club, May didn't just teach yoga. She gave our
school a way to breathe, to slow down, and to reconnect. She brought zen to Bartle. May, your legacy is etched in every child you helped read, every colleague you supported, and every person who left your yoga sessions feeling just a little
more at peace. Bartle is better because of you. We thank you for your 25 years of service, your unmatched dedication, and the love you've poured into the school community. Enjoy this next chapter filled with rest, reflection,
joy, and plenty of yoga. You've earned every moment. Congratulations on your retirement. You will always be part of the Bartle family. And now I'd like to honor Len Nai. Today we gather to honor someone whose
quiet strength, generosity, and unwavering support have last left a lasting imprint on our school community. A dedicated power professional for 27 years, Len has not only served generations of students, but has also
been a trusted teammate and constant source of support for educators throughout the district. I've had the privilege of knowing Len since my early days as a first grade teacher at Irving School. Even then, her willingness to step in and lend a hand
without hesitation stood out. Len has always been someone you could count on. Throughout her nearly three decades of service, Len has worked with countless students, but just as profoundly, she has supported her colleagues.
She has been the reassuring voice in moments of uncertainty uncertainty and the helping hand whenever and wherever she is needed. Her colleagues have always known that Len has their backs. As principal, I have been fortunate to
see Len's impact from a different perspective. She doesn't seek the spotlight. She simply shows up and does the work that matters. Your departure is bittersweet because while we will miss you dearly, we are
excited for all that this next chapter holds for you. Three decades is a long time. May your retirement be filled with the same joy, peace, and warmth you've so generously shared with all of us. On behalf of the entire school community,
we thank you, Len. You've made a difference in ways words can hardly capture. Congratulations on your welldeserved retirement. You'll always be a dolphin. I'd now like to call up our esteemed high school principal, Dr. Christina
Donovan. Hello everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about Miss Simmer, a gem as bright as the jewelry she hand makes all the time at Highland Park High School. Tonight, we gather to celebrate the remarkable career of Miss Zimmer,
who has left her unique and impactful mark on our school community as she steps into a well-deserved retirement. Miss Zimmer's heart has always been in the library, her favorite place in our building. For over 13 years, she shared not only lunch duty, but also a closet.
Yes, a closet with the wonderful Miss Pooio, creating memories filled with laughter. These moments in the library weren't just about supervision. They were about building connections with students, fostering a love for learning, and making the media center a welcoming
haven. Miss Zimmer has spent countless hours in our cafeteria and our auditorium, supporting our students while they have been in study hall. She greets students with a smile and ensures they are supervised with care. Her dedication extended far beyond our
school walls. Miss Zimmer hosted the Chess Club, Rubik's Cube Club, and the African-American Culture Club. Examples of her amazing contribution were taking the African-American Culture Club on unforgettable class trips both to Washington and to New York City,
broadening students horizons and sparking their curiosity. During Black History Month, her talks in the media center were a highlight, inspiring students with her passion for history and her commitment to improving their lives. Her pursuit of growth never
stopped. She eagerly attended professional developments at the Rucker Law Center and always sought ways to better serve out our students. Miss Zimmer, you've been more than a co-orker and a prayer professional to staff and students. You've been a colleague, a confidant, and a friend whose presence
will be deeply missed. Your warmth, your wisdom, your random Irish brogue, and an unwavering dedication have shaped countless countless lives. As you turn the page in this new chapter, we wish you joy, adventure, and all the time you
need to explore your passions, perhaps with a good book from your beloved library while riding the rails across America or Canada. Congratulations on an extraordinary career, and here's to a retirement filled with happiness. You deserve it.
Thank you, Miss Snap and Dr. Donovan. And it's I get the uh the honor of celebrating our student representatives, and it's with great pride and gratitude that we recognize these two outstanding young leaders in our school community, Anna Jerusk and Seth Shapiro.
Serving as a student representative on the board of education is no small responsibility. It requires dedication, thoughtful insight, and a true commitment to representing the voices of their peers with integrity and passion. Anna and Seth, your willingness to step
into this role demonstrates a remarkable sense of civic engagement and leadership at such a formative time in your lives. You have been the link between the student body and our district's leadership team, ensuring that perspectives and concerns of your classmates are heard and considered in
our decision-making process. Your contributions have enriched our conversations and helped shape shape decisions that impact every student in our schools. Whether it was attending meetings, preparing thoughtful questions, or sharing your honest feedback, you have modeled the kind of
active participation that strengthens our community and helps us grow together. On behalf of the entire district, thank you for your commitment, your courage to speak up, and your dedication to serving your peers. You are setting an inspiring example of what
it means to be an engaged citizen, an engaged citizen, and compassionate leaders. We have no doubt that the skills and values you've demonstrated will continue to serve you well in all your future endeavors. Please join me in giving a warm round of applause to Anna and Seth for their exemplary service to
our school district. Anna isn't with us tonight, but maybe Seth, could you accept her her award too on her behalf? Thank you. Thank you again and just another round of applause for our retirees and our student representatives. Uh the African proverb at takes village is an
understatement given the magnitude of what we heard here tonight. So I would like to pause in my superintendent report now for a brief interlude so that we can celebrate um our retirees and our student representatives with some light refreshments. We'd like to take a couple of pictures and then we'll um convene
back to finish my report. Thank you. Uh, I'll finish my report. She's talking to Miss Stevenson. Oh, she's there talking. Oh, when Miss Vorhees is done, we'll have to learn. She's really engrossed.
Start again. Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate everyone's uh celebration of um such a great occasion. So, lastly on my report, I wanted to just give um some brief updates regarding the discussion around
outofstate overnight field trips. I know that's been a hot topic. I've sent out several communications. Um but I wanted to just give a couple of talking points. I probably uh recognize that a lot of people are gathered uh today to to express some concerns um and some excitement over uh trips that they've
been on. So, um, just to kind of reorient everyone, after the 2025 2026 budget was passed, um, we received a request for an overnight out ofstate field trip. So what happened was during the budget season, if you listen back through December, there were conversations
regarding the um amount of money through the district operating budget that student trips um was were that the district had to fund in a very tight um very tight budget season that we had to cut um a number of different things. Um
unfortunately the district operating budget could not sustain the ongoing costs. So, after the budget was passed, um I received a request for an overnight out ofstate field trip. Um I was not able to approve that request uh because it was an unbudgeted item. So, we put a
pause on this trip um to uh have a conversation um to figure out what we were going to do since we couldn't fund it. The discussing the discussion on budgeting in the operational funds for the field trips um for out of state and out of country only um
was about the funding for that in particular is about the incidental payments that have to be done or incidental funds that have to be done to fund trips. So in the past some of the operating budget was covering uh hotels, meals, air travel, things like that. Um
and those were items including the cost of the actual chaperones and now administrators to attend those trips. So understanding that administrators have to go and chaperones go in terms of the cost for them to attend, that's what we the district was picking up some of and
or andor most of those funds for certain trips. Uh but some new requests were coming in for trips that we hadn't supported in the past either. So uh communication went out to staff. Um and upon reflecting on the two communications that went out, obviously
um looking at better ways to communicate that information, um however, we had to definitely put a pause on it because we were getting the requests and we couldn't just say no without providing some sort of explanation or some way to support them in that in that moment. Uh
so right now um and we currently have been doing a full analysis um at looking at what those costs are to the operating budget. So, what is an all-in cost for a trip to run? Um, so right now, for example, I think it was just this past
year, um, the district uh, put out about $40,000 in field trips and about 14 to 15,000 of it were for I'm sorry, this was last year was for overnight out of state trips. Uh, this year we've estimated about at this point 11,000 for
out of state trips um, and overnight trips. Um, that's where we're at, but we're not fully we're not finished with our analysis only because it's very nuanced. The funds come in and and go out in two different platforms, student funds and and operating budget. So,
we're looking through those particular areas to find out what was a district operating cost versus a student fund cost. And what I mean by a student fund cost is that the students pick up the tab. So when you pay to go on a trip that your cost of your trip does it include just your cost to go or is it
your cost plus some of the incidentals involved in that trip to to fund chaperones and things like that. So um with that said the cost of a trip which is also what we have to look at is not only the incidentals the cost of the
chaperons to go there's collective bargaining agreement uh needs that we have to do uh we have to adhere to when paying for staff to attend overnight and out of state trips as well as administrators. That's a new cost to the district as well through the collective bargaining agreement and district policy.
We have to pay for substitute costs if it's needed for teachers, nurses, and paraprofessionals to attend. So, that's something that we're looking into factoring into how much does that cost. Our sub costs have been extraordinarily high this year. Uh the potential need for an insurance rider. Um an insurance
rider is an additional insurance policy that goes above and beyond what ours normally um will include. And that is included for any trip over two days long. So when a request comes in, the request goes to our insurance carrier and the insurance carrier looks through
it to decide if an additional rider is needed or not. If it is needed, it tells us the cost and then we have to fund that cost. So those are sort of um backend costs that aren't necessarily seen when we're talking about an all-in cost for operating these trips. So
that's why we're still doing a further analysis to figure it out. So, for example, um there was a a um an insurance the insurance carrier did deem it necessary for at least one known trip recently that they had to have the um the insurance rider. Uh again,
administrative costs. Our administrators are not chaperones on the trip as per policy in the collective bargaining agreement. And this was a new added expense and rate. Um and then again, like I said, for all of these people, your administration and your staff to attend um the trips. So what we had to
do when trying to look at all of those costs was to create a balanced budget that had the least amount of impact on student instruction knowing that there were particular areas that we wanted to support within the budget. So again, we decided to limit the board's financial contributions but
not to ban them altogether. So trying to figure out ways that we could continue to support overnight out ofstate field trips as they are a really great opportunity for our students. um but doing it in a way that was financially feasible for the operating
budget. So we are exploring options and researching ways that student funds can absorb more of those costs. So like I said, we're doing an analysis to scrutinize the requests and costs associated with each trip. That way we have a list so that if you if a staff member puts in a request um they know
how much an all-in cost for student funds would be to to um hold that particular trip. So, for example, we're looking at could student funds cover hotel, flight, registration, and meals for chaperones. And then the district operating budget could sustain the cost
of um the PDM rate for our staff to attend. So, student funds would pick up potentially for the chaperons and administrator to travel, to stay in a hotel, all of that kind of stuff, attend a museum or whatever those
payments are, those those fees. and then the district operating budget to pay for the perdm rate under the collective bargaining agreement and policy for those staff to attend. Um we're also looking into seeing if we can take advantage of a thirdparty travel agency
to assist with booking travel um which would be then covered under student funds. So student funds would then potentially pay a travel agency for the cost of the trip. Um, and this may be a more cost-effective solution given the fact that travel agencies sometimes have
a little bit ne uh more negotiating or bargaining power and leverage um to fund a trip. They may have other options or coverage under their insurance policies that may or may not allow us to get a rider. Again, those are things that we're exploring and every trip is going
to be different. And one of the things that we don't want to do is limit the amount of trips that we're going on. The trip that came across my desk was one that we hadn't budgeted in the past at all for and we want to create a model that's sustainable that's open to every
club and organization in the district that would want to take an overnight outofstate trip. So, um, what we want to do is rethink the model so it's sustainable and like I said that that, um, gives everybody access to attend a trip, not just a small select, um, uh,
uh, group of, uh, clubs so that any club could potentially want to go could go. Um, I've already met with several staff to plan around the new model. So, we're finalizing the list of budgeting cost items. Like I said, we're reviewing the law under what things can be funded. So
we are um reg we are guided by some law because there are some some legal issues regarding what student funds can pay for and what the operating budget can pay for. So we want to make sure we get all of that right and there's and that timeline for requests to deter to
determine insurance costs. So because we have to send every trip to the insurance company to be scrutinized to see if there's a rider or not. We have to figure out what the timeline is. So, we'll work with the insurance carriers to say, "What's the turnaround time? What does this look like?" Then giving it to the club to say, "Here's how much
a rider would cost to roll that into this the cost of the student funds as well. And then researching the uh potential for an approval of a third party travel agency, which could assist with organizing the travel and potentially be cheaper for the students. uh because that's something we're being really
mindful of as well with um a a potential rethought process of the model is that it's also financially sustainable um because the costs of everything are rising and we want to make sure we're mindful of of that for our students and student funds as well. Um so the plan is
to have this all done over the summer so that the upcoming uh school year the students will be able to enjoy their trips. So that's um my office and the business office are working feverishly to have that list of items. we are chipping away um really quickly as best as we can given end of year um uh
constraints and then hopefully by the end of July um that should all be finalized. We'll send it out for a lot of a lot of input and review and then uh in August we should have that finalized that way we can kick off the school year with that sustainable model um for all
students to have access. I'll open the floor up to the board for any questions or comments. Um I have a clarifying question for the new model. I mean obviously there's going to need to be um further discussion and you know please know we
are really working hard on this. Um but to clarify students would be able to attend these competitions as Highland Park correct students and teachers would be there officially. Correct. Yes. Correct. Um, I have a quick question uh regarding
like the budget and the money if you have it. I was wondering if you have like a percentage or share that for the overnight trips that's being paid for by the students and the club through fundraising and the students individual tickets and then the portion that the district would be paying for. So, I
don't have that yet, but that's what we're finalizing now so that we know what is currently being done and then what does the new model look like um to support whatever that difference is. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Ethan. Uh yeah, thanks Dr. Suska.
I really appreciate the deep dive, you know, the uh you know, true to type. I know you guys are taking this really seriously. Um and it's a um kind of a comment. I mean, I I really I think I really respect the idea that the ability
to go on overnight field trips shouldn't be available just to those the biggest clubs, the most established clubs that have historically done it. If you start a new organization or there's an organiza or a club in school that has just a handful of students, you know,
that's that club is as important to those students as the bigger clubs is to the bigger audiences. And so, they should have every right to have their requests considered. So I think that's a perfectly valid consideration. It makes a lot of sense. We should keep that in the balance. Um at the same time some of
these more established clubs um you know a substantial percentage of students in the school I think I I was reading online not the greatest source you know but DECA for instance uh I saw in one source 20% of students in the high school are involved in DECA that may or
not be exact. That's a lot. And you know as important it is to consider the balance of ability for the small clubs per student we have to think about that as well. Um and so I think there has to be a balance between making sure that clubs that are that are established have
really very well organized students are you know this is a big part of the the culture of the schools um and a lot of parents and students count on being able to go abro you know go overnight with these things that also has to weigh. it shouldn't be not considered just because the other the other considerations are
important. So, I hope we're taking that into account, too. Um, I was going to say something that kind of piggybacks off of what Ethan was saying is that some of the these trips that we have funded in the past require a qualification, right? It's a competition. They're earning the right
to be there. Um, so I think that we also have to take that into consideration. um where there are events that do have certain criteria that you need to meet in order to go to these competitions or to these um conferences. Um and so that
might carry a little bit more weight um as opposed to other trips. not to discourage other trips. Um, you know, I think that there are other organizations and student clubs that could benefit from, you know, also having those opportunities to earn co, you know, earn
placements in out ofstate um, competitions or conferences or whatever they are called. Um, but I do think that that that is an important element of some of these clubs is that competition factor is the fact that they earn it. Um, and so that's something to keep in
their minds. Yeah. Um just to kind of also provide some context on that. I do really agree with that. Um although I think another important factor is the value of the trip in terms of culture. A lot of these trips the purpose is like when we go I've been very lucky to be able to go on
some of these out of state trips from MUN and a lot of the main focus is on you know when we go to places like Mexico is learning the culture there. So I think that's another thing. While there might be not an official competition, people are selected based off their performance previously to attend. And with DECA, I know while 20%
of the school does participate, I think only about 10 to 15 students qualify on state levels to get to go to those out of state trips. So, I think while competition is very important and it's something that DECA does well of really qualifying a lot of people, which is great, also the cultural value cuz I
think with clubs like the African-American Culture Club, um there's not competitions to go on those trips, but you know, Miss Simmer was here earlier and they've gone on some great trips, I've heard, to New York City and DC. So, I think also the cultural value of these trips is something that should be really considered, too.
And I think currents also apply to go on these trips. I don't think we're limiting it. We haven't really they they haven't really come across our desk yet, right? Well, they they have and that's that's why I had to decline them because we hadn't we didn't budget for them. Okay. Um
so that's some other information. Okay. Um that you know we're we're kind of unpacking and looking at as well. These two clubs even though they're well established and really big, they are open to all kids. Correct. You know that they could you know apply. Not even apply. they could just join the clubs
and and try to register for the competitions. But um totally unrelated, one thing I was really concerned about was that um like Allison asked before, we can do this with our school name. Can um can teachers use their email addresses? Can teachers will they get paid time off for this or do they have
to use their own like vacation days to go on a trip? That's a big concern came across. Yeah, everything under the the the um the revised model will still allow those same things. The revised model is just looking at putting more of the financial
um requirements on student funds and less on the district operating budget. Um to make it a more sustainable model for all students to have access and all clubs to have access. Um so that just might require some of the student fund
organizations to to just do more more fundraising and things like that or um a higher parent paid model. And like you were saying, a lot of these decisions will be made over the summer. So kids will know going into next school year if they want to join DECA. It's because this trip still exists. So it's going
all those things are going to happen. The trips will still be there. It's just going to be um just a revised model of of what it looked like. Um another thing I wanted to mention was model UN. Some of the trips are bigger than others and I know that those are limited. You know,
they'll do Mexico for example, that's once every four years. They do that on purpose. It's not every year that they're doing the really really big trips and DECA the same thing. I think every other year is California and then it's Florida. So those as you're looking at the budgets over the years sometimes there's a big difference between what we're spending right and and we don't
know sometimes too and that but that's also part of it is from a budget perspective we don't know then how much that might cost the operating budget to predict. I mean a part of the revised model I mean is it could be people putting in and we a whole year and change ahead. I mean, we we look at the
budget, we start budgeting in the fall and winter, right? And so, it's like we would have to kind of know things really far ahead to be able to put it in the operating budget for an upcoming school year. So, in the revised model, it it it could be open to a group saying, "We'd
like to do this and here is our request." Because we would have in the operating budget just the PDM for the staff to go and the administrators, their pdium cost, right? And then everything else that we could put onto student funds under the model would then be student funds. So
then we would get the request in the trip. We'd reach out to the insurance company. The insurance company then could say a rider is needed. No rider is needed. If a rider is needed, it's $3,500. Okay. Then to the group, $3,500 is needed for the rider to do this. You know, because in a in a in a model in
which we don't know those costs, it's hard to predict them to budget for them. So then we would say, okay, here is your all-in cost to run this trip. Divide it by the number of students that you have and chaperons that you might need and administrators and then this is the cost
per student to go on this trip if that makes sense. I kind of want to pick it back off. Yeah, that last one is a so I appreciate all like that these trips these opportunities that these trips give all of our students and with that we do have a very diverse community
financially as well. Is this something that we take into consideration? Um like a lower income student who wants to go on these trips. Do we take that into consideration when we make the decision? We do. Well, not when we make the decision. All of them get passed. When they come to my desk, I don't deny one. If we have the budget for something, I
don't deny it. The what happens now with all of them is the the student funds covers that cost and they will provide a a reduced rate for our students that qualify for free for free and reduced lunch or and or they so they fund raise.
So they fund raise to try to offset that cost or they put um a larger amount of the paying model onto the full paying people. So the full paying uh students that'll go. So, um I don't I have I'm not sure what a most recent trip would
have cost, but let's say it would cost $500 a person. A free U or reduced student might pay half of that $250, but then a you know um so then if there's 10 students that are going, I have to factor in that amount of money and divide that up amongst the full paying
people to attend. So, that's our model now and we would continue that. Absolutely. We wouldn't want any student to be left out because they couldn't afford to to go and we know of um other districts that use these travel agencies. Can you speak a little bit to that? Sure. Yeah. So, I
was in a district in particular that used the travel agency to travel out of the state overnight. Um I know that um Mr. Rosa was in a district that did and then actually one of our own staff members uh who runs one of these clubs that is working collaborative with me
collaboratively with me shared one as well. So we have at least three that we know um are vetted um that we can use. So like I said we are working collaboratively myself and staff um and Mr. Rosa and the board to work feverishly to redefine the model um and
and look through those. So we have three and I was really excited the staff some of the staff brought some to our attention too. they said, "Oh, we use this one. We really like them. They're really great. Can we can we approve those?" So, one of the things would be to consider board approving like a couple of select travel agencies that then they could pick from to be able to
help support that um support that especially for district for our trips that maybe a larger amount of students go on. For sure. And just to reiterate, using a third party travel agency, it would still be a Highland Park Public Schools event. Correct. because we would
approve we would also approve those travel agencies as like vendors for us. The but the the check to the the check to the travel agency is paid out of student funds, not out of the operating cost, but the chaperon going or the administrator going would get a money in
their paycheck from the Highland Park public schools because we would be picking up their PDM collective bargaining rate. I have a question about administrators. Is that something we could maybe change that an administrator would count as one of the chaperones? I think we that is part of the collective bargaining process. Okay. So we would
have to with an extra person versus one of the current correct. So you would have to work with the administrative team through the collective bargaining process. Okay. Okay. We're taking public comment in a few minutes. Thank you. Yeah. I was just
going to say to um so it sounds like to me I would just kind of like to sum it up that um the the final thing that you're working on is the model but you're going to be able to resolve solving for this kind of part that has unpredictable costs and it's just a matter of how we solve that problem for
how that that those finances are kind of reabsorbed by the student. So just you're you're working through those we have that list going and it's we're in the in the final works hopefully again the plan is to have that list of those things by the end of June and then early July is sort of what those costs are so
we can look at them um work and look at the travel agent companies so by the end of July all that will be wrapped up and presented to the board at the end of the month um that make you know uh we'll have some conversations around that and then in August nothing has to be finalized or passed or approved um but
just so that we're communicating clearly so that in August that information can go out to our staff when they welcome back to say hey welcome back um well really the beginning of September um welcome back and and here is the the our our revised model of what this looks like. So now you can you know feel free
to submit your requests knowing that these are things that you have to have to consider for the cost of your trips and then this would solve kind of the what you brought up earlier which is having to decline things because it wasn't in the budget. So it allows for a little more innovation in in what we
want to do to test new things out and there's a model to do it. Yep. Okay. Great. You're welcome. Can I ask one more clarifying question? Sure. I think the the idea of administrators, the new, you know, the new requirement for administrators and
the, you know, the idea behind collective bargaining and the policy change is a little unclear because that kind of Did you spill? Sorry. No, my it was rolling away. Sorry. Um because that kind of all unfolded over the course of those last year in kind of pieces. Um so
we revised the field trip policy. Um and in that it stipulates that an overnight outofstate trip requires an administrator. Correct. For liability purposes. That was something that was very important. Very important. Um
so that administrator now within the new contract that was negotiated with administration has a reimbursement has some sort of payment for correct that supervision and kind of some of the new numbers that we're working with. Correct. So that is now the cost. So
that was part of that. So the policy says we want a an administrator has to go on a trip that's overnight and out of state. Uh it actually if you read the policy there's two components. There's there's an on call one. So if it's an instate overnight trip, an administrator
is on call. So if there's an emergency, a disciplinary issue, something that's happening, an administrator volunteers themselves to be on call. It could be me, it could be Dr. Donovan, it could be Dr. Richardson, it could be Miss Brady, you know, Miss Nap, an administrator, and then if we were called to the to the
site, whether it's the Hyatt or something like that, we would go and then attend to whatever the issue was. the policy. The second part of that is that if there is an outofstate overnight trip, an administrator must accompany them on there. That came that policy change then came with a conversation and
a collective bargaining agreement with the Highland Park Administrative Association um to pay them a perdm rate. Same thing if our teachers attend an overnight out ofstate trip in their collective bargaining agreement, they have a perdm rate that they get paid as
well. the right now based on the collective bargaining agreement that PDM rate is to be an administrator only not a chaperone. So like I said if that's something that you want to collectively bargain we can start having conversations around that.
Okay. All right. Thank you. That concludes my report. All right. So we're going to move to the first public comment of today's meeting. Um the Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments. Um we do know there's a lot of people to speak tonight. So if um we could limit
our comments to three minutes, which is what we usually do, but we are not limiting the time that we take comments. Um so it's just we're going to kind of warn you close to three minutes to wrap up. Um but we're not we're going to take comments for as long as people want to
comment. Um, and then there's a second public comment period after we go through our committee reports as well. Um, all right. So, is there anybody in person for public comment? You're going to go to the podium, sign in with your name. Um, and if you're a student, you
don't have to announce your name, but we do need it to be signed in. Correct. Is that it? Oh, you don't have to give your address. You have to give your name. You don't have to give your address. Thank you. Is there anybody for in-person public comment? And there's a p piece of paper there.
You can Yeah. Okay. So, I heard you guys talking about like the travel agencies, but um I guess like the way that I've learned about them is that it's its own like agency. It's trying to sell its own trip or expedition.
So, for the I guess diverse trip that I went on, the cultural trip I went on for Model UN, we were able to talk with like a variety of different people that specifically um Dr. Adam Gold was able to set up with us. um like being able to meet somebody from the OAS, um from
various other things. We're able to learn a bunch of stuff, but my like main concern with these travel agencies is that it's going to like prevent us from doing this cuz they're trying to sell their own trip, their own their own experience. And that's what we
would be paying for. We'd be paying for their experience with time to go to conferences, which is a huge part of model UN. I think another really big part of our club is being able to talk with people that we might not be able to
talk with normally. When we went to DC, we were able to talk with people that sure we could get on a call and talk with them, but it was a lot more pressing to be able to go up and to talk to them and to learn about something that we wouldn't normally learn about and to learn about different things that
we didn't normally learn about. Um, as well as the administrators, I'm a little confused on I guess why exactly they have to be there, if there's a specific law that makes them be there. Um, and also the whole this whole thing with
the reduced trips, reduced whatever, it was very unclear to the students. Um, many different teachers and parents were sent out various emails, but us students were given nothing. the only thing that we were truly given was a article written in the fling um which was an
interview between um Ardan and Dr. Susa. So I think the main things that we want is more clarity, more transparency with the student body because there was many rumors flying around that trips would be bland banned totally. Um that things
would be reduced completely and that students would have to take on whatever and it was just very confusing in like the students point of view. We're going around school and we're hearing various rumors and it's not helping us in any way. We're just getting more confused.
um and it was a whole thing. But yeah, that's my main concerns. I know other people have other things as well, but yeah. Thank you. Hello everybody. Uh my name is Joseph
Lou. I will be a junior uh next school year. I have been an active member of model UN for both of the two years that I've been in high school and within my class, the class of 2027, I have been on
the most conferences of anybody. I believe to date I have been to nine Maluan conferences and the most impactful ones have always been the outofstate trips. There's something about the immersiveness of these trips,
the ability to interact with these people whose jobs are so pressing for our international relations, whose cultures are so different from ours and who understand the world in such a different way from us. For example, in
our Washington trip, we were able to talk to uh people who work for the American Society of International Law, people who actively participated in the creation and research of this. And we were also able to talk to people in the
Stimson Center, which is a think tank, I believe, also for international relations. In our Mexico trip, we were able to visit uh the National Museum for I believe it was anthropology and we learned a lot about the culture of
Mexico and a lot about a world that was completely different from ours. The point I'm trying to make is that these trips are extremely valuable for students for the education of these students. We only learn so much in school. There's only so much you can
learn from looking at a packet or reading online. There's only so much that you can get from a textbook. But being in person with these people, being able to talk to them, and being able to connect with them as people has allowed
many of us to expand our educational horizons so much more than we ever could have imagined. I'd like to ask for you to maybe attempt to reconsider uh putting board funding back into these trips. It's much easier for us to uh
have these trips. It's much easier for us to talk about these trips. And for a lot of people, it'd be really helpful to be able to go on trips that they can much easily uh much more easily afford. Thank you. Thank you.
No pen. And for our non- students, we're just going to ask name and address. Um, I'm Robert Katz, 299B South 11th. Um, I'll keep my room short because I know there's a lot of people virtually that'll be speaking about this as well. Um
I'm going to speak from my perspective on a couple of remarks. Um my son is um in the 12 plus de um glow program. Um he's been involved with DECA for five years now. Um, and I can't say enough
about DECA that the, um, I know the kids work extremely hard to in all their competitions, um, both the regional and instate and as well as preparing for the, um, outofstate competitions. Um,
they spend a lot of time, the kid, both the kids and the adviserss spend a lot of time of their own time, um, as well as in school time fundraising for these trips. I know for a fact that they spend a lot of they go like the street fair, they'll do other out of um fundraising
on their own time to um help fund raise help fund these trips which I think are very important both academically as well as socially. Um I know especially for I shouldn't say especially for but I know as far as my son's concerned and his friends in the Glo program that actually
do make qualify for both the um instate as well as the um outofstate trips. Um it's it's a very big social opportunity for them as well to experience the whole the whole thing. Um financially I'm concerned with this new
model that the price of these trips are going to be increasing potentially significantly. um for the for the kids which is going to either and my and my worry would be to that would potentially preclude other
some students from attending who orally would be able to attend or and or I mean it would also require potentially significantly more fundraising which may or may not be possible um on the students the students group um from the
student groups. Um I do I do so I I really hope that you would reconsider uh changing the current policy keeping it keeping it status quo. Um I am a teacher um a public school teacher so I do know how a little bit
how budgeting works and I do know that budgets for the for the next year are started in the fall of the previous year. Um, so I'm a little confused as to why you can't postpone new requests for the f till the following year. So if you
if you receive request new new trip requests after the budget process has already been started instead instead of um deny changing your policy that year,
right? and affecting those groups who already have their crypts approved for that year. Why it's not possible to use to push it to the to the next year. So for example, if they requested for this coming year which budget was
already finalized just they it just push it for the the year after next. Um, I just don't think it's fair to to penalize the student groups that have their trip requests in on time for the current budget to be penalized um for
those student trips that are requested after the budget press has already been started. Not that they shouldn't be allowed to have their own trips, but I think it it needs to be factored into everything. Thank you. Anybody else in person for public
comment? Hi. Uh, my name is Andrew. I'm going to be a junior next year at Highland Park High School. Uh, I'm raising a similar concern to the previous speaker. He talked about the affordability of these trips and how the students that were
going on these trips in these clubs already will be able to afford them next year if the school board is contributing less. Uh you talked a little bit about um the fairness between clubs and having smaller clubs, giving them the
opportunity as well to go out of state and also bringing in maybe third party sources to help organize these trips. Uh but my understanding of these third-party organizations is that they would most likely be more expensive for
the students and provide a less opportunity for these students to get the same academic experiences that they have had previously. Uh so I guess my main concern is that the school board uh cannot maintain the same experience for
these students uh with a new plan if less people will be able to afford it. Okay, our next inerson public comment My name is Lisa. Um, I'm Maya's mom. I'm She's going to be a junior. Oh, do I see
my address? 416 South 8th Avenue. Uh, everything that they said I'm very concerned about. Also, I'm very concerned about the lack of clarity um in the school district. We hear all of this and it's like, okay,
well, we ask questions and it's very vague. So, my main concern is why do administration why do they need to be on these trips? Is there a state law? If so, why wasn't this implemented before? Um, but also, if it's not a state law,
can we go around it, not have the administrators have the regular chaperones that they're used to, and that way it cuts cost? because I can tell you that with all the trips that my child goes on, plus, you know, wanting to do the SATs and we're looking at
colleges soon and and you know, God willingly, I have a son that's going to be doing Middle Sex. It adds up and I am a mother of three. So, there's one salary, three kids, and I want her to experience all these trips, but she can't experience them if you guys are
going to raise the trips, the prices to it. So, what are we going to do about it is my main concern and question. And also, I I want you guys to understand how educational these trips are. Maya came back from Washington DC and it's not even just my I'm sure the other kids
as well. And I learned so much from her and we're a politically, you know, we're very political in our family and we're very well read about everything that's going on. And Model UN has engaged her so much more than I've ever seen. and my
son as well who went from not really wanting to ever register to registering when he turned 18. So, as a parent, I'm asking, you know, for more clarity and also what we can do to make sure that these kids still have this opportunity,
which and one last thing I want to say, our school isn't very big and there's not a lot of athletes. And I feel like lately there's been more emphasis on athletes in the school instead of model UN. And these kids have such a chance to use this for college. You know, Ruckers
does it and it helps them. So again my closing statement would be I really hope that you reconsider this budget and try to you know keep the funding as it is for the students. Hi um Jennifer Sullivan. I live at 227 Graham Street and I have a very
different perspective because I have really little kids and um I mean uh it's quite obvious that these kids are benefiting from these trips because uh they're all extremely well spoken. So, it's obvious that it's very important, but I think why I came and and what I
had to say about it was a little bit more um on the like lack of clarity process because what was um I appreciated in hearing uh Dr. Suska's report was I guess how giving a little bit of the background of how this
started. It sounded like it came to you as what you called a new request not budgeted for. But in my mind, this can't be the first time that that possibly has happened. That a a new trip not budgeted for came to you that way. And as a parent of super young kids in the
district, hoping to have a very positive experience coming through all the way um through these schools. I kind of that that's really why I came. not necessarily thinking I would speak, but hearing that, wondering why that turned
into the flurry of communications that I was seeing about all of this and what looked like really really serious and real concerns. Um, and kind of hoping that they the board would also be looking at ways to avoid that going forward, I
guess. Thank you. Anybody else in person for public comment? So, uh, my name is Declan Woodside. I'm, uh, going to be a junior at Highland Park High School. And I want to talk
about I think um something that might be a little bit more niche but I think something that these trips uh definitely bring of value um and that's language experience. Um
I think specifically uh the trip with Mexico uh that Model UN hosted um I wasn't able to go on that trip but I can only imagine the experience
that the attendees had with the Spanish language. Um I personally hold language very dear. Um, it's a huge passion of mine. I speak Spanish at an intermediate level. I've shown a lot of interest in a
lot of other languages. And I think language is it's not just something of a skill. It's a power that you have. Being able to speak a language, I think, is important. And
there's never a situation where being able to speak a language is not useful in any way whatsoever. And so I think that although it's a bit more niche, it's definitely something that needs um
uh recognition that the value that going to some of these trips, even if it's not out of country, such as Florida, there's a huge Cuban population in Florida and you're going to get
enough experience even just going to some other state where there's a different ethnic group that's located there, you're going to get a lot of uh different language experience. And I think that's something that is valuable and
I hope is taken into consideration uh when the new plan is uh brought up. Thank you. Uh my name is uh Karas Sadala. Uh and uh I completely agree with what the
previous speaker has said, but I'd like to as uh many of the other students here from the model UN club have addressed. Uh I just like to bring up how much uh value these uh trips have brought to me because personally uh before I started
model UN I was a very introverted person. I was very shy. I couldn't really speak up and uh communicate with people. But now uh I feel like uh as a person I've been I've been a lot more confident. I think that model UN the
educational opportunity that it brings is just immense. It's not found anywhere else. and the the opportunity that we have uh I had to uh I was able to go to DC and just the people that I've talked to from different states uh the people
that I've talked to from different countries it's just uh an opportunity that I've not seen anywhere else and it helped me grow as a person uh by a considerable amount and I uh I'd like to request uh that you don't change the
policies that have worked so well uh in the past because They have helped me as a person uh so greatly and have helped so many other people whether uh it was considering new careers or just being a more confident person in society.
Thank you. Anybody else in person? Hi, my name is Fama Aaron. I live at 240 South Adelaide Avenue. Um I think many of us especially after hearing from some of these students can see and know
the value of these groups specifically model UN and DECA for those individual students. But I think maybe we need to think about how we all benefit as a community um and how
the schools specifically benefit from those students succeeding and going on and getting um merit to uh colleges that they you know getting in getting merit going to those colleges and reflecting
good upon our community. And how do we prioritize these groups and the trips that are inherent to them? Because specifically modeling UN and DECA may not exist if we don't have these
specific troops because they are like bound together. Um they lift the whole school system up. So how do we prioritize them? I mean, certain groups uh may have an amazing trip planned, but
is that going to raise the whole community up? Is it going to improve the school's quality literally, you know, in the numbers and how we rank? Um, so I think that there's possibly ways to look at things and how
to prioritize and how to say, you know what, this is a specific value that we want to keep. and we want to allocate funds to these particular groups. I don't know if that's in the realm of possibility, but it's something
that I wanted to bring out. Anybody else in person? Okay, we'll move to Zoom. If you have are on Zoom and would like to make a public comment, um please raise your Zoom hand and Angela will announce your name. Um and you can unmute.
Okay, Rebecca. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, my name is Rebecca Hirsch. I live at 331 Felton Avenue. I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person today. Um, but thank you for having the hybrid option always. It's much appreciated. Um, I wanted to
request that the district put a pause on the restructuring of the funding model, um, however laudable it might be to the following to not starting in September, but to starting the following September 2026. I think that springing
this on these clubs um at such a late such a late date will could easily end up killing the clubs for the next school year. Um there are already students working on these projects that have been in these clubs. They work towards these
projects and programs. They are extremely motivated um and driven to participate in them and to achieve these next levels of achievement. Um, and I think that not knowing what they're going to cost,
um, or I think, you know, I mean, if these trips are going to be $6,000 a student, I think springing that fundraising burden on these kids with almost no notice will effectively kill these programs. Um, DECA and Model UN
really exist to do these activities. And um it's not just like uh the clubs that you know do things then they just meet at lunchtime and they're they're very these clubs are very different models and I don't think that they're going to have enough time to adjust
to a new funding model so quickly. Um if there's a way that we could do it in a more deliberative way and give people a year to adjust um I think that would be really valuable. I am very worried about the kids that are currently in these programs that are working towards these
projects that don't have a year or two to figure it out while we figure out how to raise, you know, $50,000 or something. Um, you know, these kids are a lot of the kids that have spoken tonight are going to be juniors and seniors and this is it for them. Um,
so I would I would really urge the board to put a pause on this and give the community and these programs another a year to adjust to a new model that you know um achieves the equitable distribution model that the board is
looking for. Um and you know I just wanted to reiterate what Fama said was that these these particular these two particular clubs really raise the profile of our district so immensely. They are so motivating to
the students that are in them and they the trips motivate people to join these clubs. Um they are really the gold stars in our district. um they provide students with um you know research, writing, public speaking, all these experiences that they do not get in
class and I really think that and scholarship opportunities and career ideas. I really think that um take taking them away I mean I know that we say that we're not taking them away but you know if we find out in August that
each kid is going to have to raise $10,000 to go on them that's killing the programs. I mean that's let's be real. So um Rebecca I'm gonna ask you to wrap up please [Laughter] anyway. We have another public comment
after committee reports if you want to add on. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay, the next person on Zoom, Andrew. Hi everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, board of education. Uh my name
is Andrew. I graduated um in the class of 2024. Oh, sorry. Uh Andrew Dalton, 24 South 6th Avenue, Helen Park. Um Allison at the beginning of the meeting and or discussion I know you raised concerns of of not concerns but the topic of
qualification uh for these trips. So I wanted to speak a bit on that. Um I was very heavily involved with DECA. Um and when students join DECA they have the option to participate in what we call a manual project. Uh out of around 95 students we
had in DECA last year roughly 55 students participated in these projects. This commitment includes three main components. The project itself, a formal written paper, and a presentation. The projects are comprehensive, ranging from organizing charity events with hundreds
of participants to collaborating with district programs like the GLOW program. These require dedication and creativity along with teamwork. Uh, and the written component of these projects is a 20page academic paper detailing the project in
depth. Uh, and the presentation is a 10-minute pitch that students carefully script and rehearse over many weeks. Uh, out of I'm sorry. Uh, so out of the 95 students we had, we also took those 50 students to the state competition uh,
in which we all had the opportunity or the chance to uh, make it to the national competition. Uh, 55 students is a lot in our in our school. Um, so I know one of the concerns was having a small amount of students on the trips. uh but 50 about around around 50
students have the opportunity to uh make it to uh the national competitions. Um but students often spend the majority of the school year working on these projects. But why do we do it? Uh it's because of the skills that we develop. They're invaluable. Collaboration, public speaking, adaptability,
professional writing, and the list goes on and on. Um, I'd also like to add that every member of DECA is required to do a job interview formatted project that builds on quick thinking skills and prepares students for job interviews in the future in which I had to do a few of them in my first year of college and I
can confidently say that DECA had helped me with those skills. Attending these competition competitions allow us to apply these skills outside of the classroom in real world environments. Uh, I'd like to thank the dedication from the board on this issue. Uh, thank you again.
Thank you, Andrew. Um, our next public commenter online, Carla. Hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Hi, my name is Carla Yanni. I live at 332 334 Summit Place. Um uh and I
would like to bring up a new subject for the evening which is uh credit bearing music classes that go on outofstate trips. Um I think the music program I think the music teachers do an outstanding job. The concert a few weeks
ago was incredible but for example there was there were there wasn't a jazz band this spring. Um the fact that the music classes meet period A is a real disincentive. It makes music seem like a
burden rather than an opportunity to the students. I just think I think any reasonable decent high school should have a good music program to create well-rounded students and it should be available to everyone. So the outofstate
trips are an incentive and a recruitment device for a part of our curriculum that is already I think um being uh diminished by its scheduling
in period A. Um the many of the same skills that have been mentioned about clubs like model UN and DECA are true of of music as well. collaboration, social skills, it looks good on college applications.
Um, and and think about the profile of the of the school district. I mean, if I had known when my son was in second grade that there would be no there would be one language in the high school and
you know, it just I feel the district shrinking the opportunities. I want these opportunities to be available for everyone. I think the question we we should be asking is how do we make these opportunities available to more people
to every student. Um, and I I also would would like some clarity about the fact that if the budget for 2026 is due in the fall of 24, why does it makes why are we making
changes now that affect next year's seniors? That's it. Thank you. Our next commenter, Alex. Hello, everyone. Could you see? Could
you hear me? Yes. Okay. Um, I am Alex U. I am a rising senior. I live 15 Row Road near Edison. So, um, I've been a dedicated student in
Highland Park High School. Um, I'm currently the president of Science Bowl and Mathletes. And I want to go back to the topic of the overnight trips because I think it is a really serious concern that the
budget is being cut for that area. Um, I think a little over a month ago, I went to a math competition where I was fortunately able to talk to a lot of other students
from, you know, very academically inclined school districts. uh and uh a lot of discussions with students and teachers uh involved
around you know different activities uh in their school school districts and I really think that school districts can improve in quality from their high schools activity.
So clubs uh are a really big part of this and I think for our school right it's really just DA and Muin um and I think cutting off the funding for
these two clubs uh the trips at least for these overnight um these overnight trips for these clubs would like you know a previous speaker said really kill these clubs. And
what I think that would do to our school district, um, honestly, um, is that our rank would really take a impact from this. And in
turn, our school district could really suffer from future funding because our school doesn't seem to be performing really well. Now, by no means am I really qualified to, you know, speak from a political,
you know, perspective or like social perspective on this topic. Uh but from what I've observed uh looking at other schools is that you know the better clubs they have uh the more academically inclined their student body is and that
leads to better funding more opportunities for those schools and I think that could really help our school's funding instead of hurt if we actually put more time and effort into increasing the quality of our schools
pro uh clubs and programs. Thank you. Thank you. Angelo, who's next Kieran? Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, I'm Kieran Crowley, 218 Harrison Avenue. Um,
I have a question about a different topic um relating to the hiring of uh Dr. Ressa who was announced a month ago. Um it's a specific one asking for clarity on his interim title. So um yeah
since that announcement I've been wondering why it's an interim position for that executive director role. Is it because of the, you know, the the significance of that role that it's just standard or is there something specific around um, you know, I guess the length
of his commitment or or the district's plan? And um, yeah, I guess it's just one word, but I think um, knowing some of the context around that would be would be very helpful. Thank you. Thank you.
Eliza. Eliza, you can unmute. What's the last name? B. Eliza B, you have your hand raised. If you're ready for public comment, you can unmute. We can't hear them.
Eliza, I'm sorry. We're not able to hear you. My suggestion would be to pop out of the meeting and pop back in and I'll come back to you in a second. Jenny Jennifer, I'm sorry. Jennifer Alman.
Oh, hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, hi. This is Jennifer Alman. I'm at 31 Walter Avenue. um and a mother of a rising senior. So um as you can imagine, very concerned about the quickness of this change for her flagship year if you if
you may. Um so I I uh would like to piggyback on uh the the idea of pausing on this or just making sure it does not affect next year. Um but that was actually uh not what I wanted to say. I I two quick points. I'm sorry, two quick
questions and a and just a point I wanted to make. I'll I'll say the qu questions quick. Um one was I was just um curious if um and I'm you probably have all looked at this is cost sharing with the district on these trips maybe with the nurse or any of those other
aspects um because I know that's a very expensive cost and I have heard that districts have done that in the past especially for trips like DECA or model UN where you have uh schools from all over the state competing. Um, the other
quick question was if it could be public, how much the cost of administrators perdm is. Um, I'm very concerned about that new rule. I I I sorry I missed whether it was a mandate or whether it was a district decision or
whether it was a it may have been a contract decision, but I think that is a uh that that just seems like a cost that's not needed. um cuz I know the teachers do this on their own already. So um if there's any way to negotiate
that with the union or anyway I think that could make a huge difference. And then just my my point um and I'll I'll think about how to articulate this. Um I'm I'm concerned about the teachers that are involved in this work. I'm
concerned about how they heard. I'm concerned if they are being um given the praise or the support um that they deserve because this is I know they get paid for the extra time, but the commitment and the success of
these programs is so exemplary that I really want to make sure they're taken care of, for lack of a better way of saying it. So if they were not told in a way that was open and early enough and
um just I just I just hope that that has been you know that they're given new explanation um and and um I really really worried about them going into the summer and feeling that these programs that they
really put their heart and soul in um have been so so again just I just as a parent who's concerned as uh my child and many of their friends are very very close to these teachers. Just I I would just ask to um go out of your way to
make sure that they're thanked and they don't have to worry going into the summer about these programs. Thank you. Thank you. Did Eliza come back? Eliza, if you want to try unmuting now.
Nothing. Is she on mute? She's muted. Eliza B. I know, right? Is there anybody else? Libby. Libyan. Hello. Hi.
My name is Libby Pekman. Um I am a rising uh junior at Highland Park High School. Um I want to, you know, share my concern. Uh because uh personally I'm thinking, you know, what's the what's
the point of paying for um education if we don't prioritize the experiences that genuinely and truly bring it to life? Um, these trips are where so many of us connect to what we've learned in the real world. Um, and discover new
perspectives and grow in ways that, like, uh, Joseph said, textbooks and tests just can't offer. Um, and if we're investing in education, shouldn't we be putting real value on the parts that, you know, make it meaningful, the parts that stay with us long after the school
day ends? And that's uh, so that's prioritizing these trips in fund in in our funding in general. And um additionally, I understand that middle-class families are already often end up Lily, I think we Liby, I think we lost you. Hello.
Yeah. Can you just go back like one sentence? Yeah. Sorry. Um, I understand that uh middle-class families already often end up covering a large portion of the costs for students who receive financial aid and I really respect the
effort to make these trips accessible. Um, I just worry that if funding goes down that burden could grow even more and I hope we can keep thinking about ways to make these experiences fair and sustainable for all families.
Thank you. Thank you, Libby. Maxwell. Maxwell fan, you can unmute. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. to speak a little bit louder. Okay, hold on. Let me fix my settings. Um, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. Um,
my name is Maxwell Fan and I'm an officer of the Highland Park Model UN and Congress Club and a rising senior and I wanted to talk about the importance of these trips and why I really hope that the budget could be reconsidered. I remember how important diversity and civic participation is to Highland Park
and I've lived my entire life here and I think it shows in who I am and my values and I remember learning in Bartle about civic issues and how to be civically engaged from a diverse set of teachers. I remember in middle school having Miss Fango as a teacher in my eighth grade global civics class. And of course, I remember learning so much about
different cultures and global trips and more about our country's history to an extent not achievable in other textbooks and lessons when we went to Philadelphia and DC in the model UN club. And the trips that we've had the opportunity to go on in Model UN are deeply valuable to
us. And as you've heard from many previous students, they all learned a lot which they could not have in any other opportunity or on trips that were not curated uh that were not curated by their club adviser and social studies teacher Dr. Adam Gold, but instead curated by a for-profit third party
organization. Uh even if that cost may be lower, the value is just not there quite simply. And it would it's a vacation for fun with friends rather than an educational which should be the top priority of any school trip. An educational trip which teaches us things
that we couldn't learn in other ways. And the proposed the new proposed budget plan would to be quite honest effectively kill these trips and greatly damage these clubs which have a great value to our high school. And I know it is out of place for the town that I've always lived in, Highland Park, the town
which cares so deeply about diversity and civic understanding, to excise that from the grasp of so many kids who have worked so hard for this opportunity or even looking forward to it. These trips not only hold value for the kids of Model UN, but they're also a deep part of our high school as a whole. We've had 330 kids, I believe is the number from
the last board meeting, take an AP exam in the 23 to 24 school year, and 304 get a three or higher. These trips are motivational to high academically achieving students in our school or people who are maybe not at that level yet but want to be. These trips motivate
them and bring them closer to care about school more. We've had the recent saludiatoran Ethan Ross who he was a he who was an officer in model UN and the graduating class of 25's class president Sophie Hutner was also an officer in model UN. And we also offer financial
aid in the club to those who need it. These trips are open to anybody. anybody can join the club and participate and try to get into these trips. So I would just say please reconsider the damage caused to the heart of the school cannot be greater than the budget saved given all of this. Thank you.
Thank you Angelo. Who's next? Mary Tren. Hi. How are you? Um, Mary Trin, I live at 214 South Second A in Highland Park. I just wanted to touch upon really quickly honestly the communication side
of this whole issue. Um, we can see obviously that, you know, by the amount of people that are speaking tonight, uh, that it, you know, touched a touched a cord, right? Is that the right saying? Um, and I feel that, you know, this
happens every so often where, you know, everyone felt a little blindsided. You know, I heard from my son when he came home from school one day, "Oh, I walked into, you know, my class and found this all out that there's not going to be any more trips." And, you know, so it was the way that the parents, I think, heard
about all of this so secondhand um from their kids. And, you know, and the same thing with the the teachers. I know that um the superintendent, you know, mentioned earlier that yes, you know, she acknowledges that the communication probably, you know, wasn't ideal of how that was first handled. So I hope that
you know going forward and you know especially over the summer as all of this is reviewed that there can be you know much better communication and you know emails sent out and updates as to you know what the next steps are and you know what's going to happen and um you
know and hopefully avoid something like this in the future because it just seemed like had it been brought up at a at a point where oh you know we're thinking about this and we'd like to get your input you know what I mean it would have been a better way to go about it um as opposed to it seemed like a decision
was kind of made and then um you know and now you're getting obviously all this feedback about it. So that was really just my, you know, my point was that I felt like the communication, you know, needed to be a lot better. And I'm just really, you know, hopeful that going forward, you know, we'll get a lot more communication on this over the
next, you know, couple months because it is very important as we get into, you know, this next school year, um, to have this resolved, you know, as soon as possible. And I think there's a lot of students and parents obviously that, uh, will try to help and and just want to be, you know, a part of the the
decision- making. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Jillian. Jillian, if you'd like to unmute. Uh, can you hear me? Hello? Yes. Okay. Uh, hi, my name is Jelene and I'm a currently a rising junior at Highland
Park High School and a member of DECA. Uh like others have said before, these trips are monumental to all our high school careers and what our high school experience is. I've heard my peers who are in Mali when mentioned how their trips have helped them before as grow as a person and I can agree that our decad
trips have done the same. I'm one of the students who are able to qualify for ICDC through a manual that Andrew has mentioned before and I cannot stress how many skills I've gained through this. Not only have I learned how to carry out a project, but at these competitions, I learned how to present with passion and
learn how to network. At ICDC, I was able to speak to people from other states and other countries. I was able to learn about these cultures firsthand, which I probably wouldn't have been able to get this chance just by staying in state trips. This was something that cannot be replicated elsewhere. I would also like
to say that DECA has helped the Glow students so much. My brother is a part of the Globe Junior program, so he isn't able to go on these trips, but seeing students that are like him being able to have the same opportunities as me is just as important. We have done numerous fundraisers throughout the year, and we can only fund raise so much. I'm also
the current class president of the class of 2027, and I know the importance of fundraising and what work has to be put in. I believe that if we raise the cost of these trips for students by a great amount, it'll only become harder for us to attend, even through all the effort we put in. So, I hope you can take this into consideration when allocating the
budget's money. Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. Hello, Jackie. You can unmute. Hello. Go ahead. And uh you can hear me, right? Yes, I can hear you. All right. Yeah.
I'm my name's Jackie Lynn and I'm a rising junior and I'd like to reiterate what a lot of my peers had said already about how integral these trips are to the the respective clubs like model UN
and DECA spec I want to talk to these I wanted to talk about these two specifically because I am a member of both and they are clubs that are really dear to me and that I like to see continue get funding. And I just wanted
to to bring up a previously mentioned point and really emphasize it that these clubs these trips these clubs are really built around these trips. The the the trips such as ICDC and
uh like Mexico for model UN these are trips that are the entire club is really orientated around. It's what all it's what the students put their effort into. It's how it's what they put research
into time and really is the major learning experience for these clubs. And I believe that not the these clubs not getting the funding to do these trips severely hinders and really really
hinders these clubs and drain them of their educational value. Thank you, Jackie. Mary May. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Um, so I'm a rising senior. I've done moduan
since freshman year and I live at 1304 LLAN. So, I would like to talk about the same issue, but bring up a different point that I don't think has been explored enough, which is about the cultural value that these trips bring. As a sophomore, I was luckily able to go
to Mexico, and I think that was probably one of the most important high school experiences to me at all. We didn't just debate there. We also learned about the Mexican people, how they live, their cultures, how they um view life and different uh viewpoints. We actually
visited two high schools there. Um, and got to bond with these high school students and I realized that the world around us is not just the same. It's not the same educational values. They talked about their political views and it I really learned a lot of new things that I don't think I would have ever gotten
before. And it's the fact that not only does these trips give us cultural value, but these high schools, Mr. Gold, Dr. Gold um who is our club adviser had told us that we have these partnerships with these high schools for years and they
rely on us to bring um new experiences and to help develop their model UN clubs. So it's not just our school district gaining value from these kind of trips but the high schools around the world and from these trips that I've been able
to go on to DC to Philadelphia. I've met people from all around the world. I've met people from Morocco, from Mexico, from Puerto Rico, from Guatemala that have really just opened my eyes on how people live differently and experiences that I don't think you could get just at
here, just at the states or even in just America in general. And not only do these trips provide cultural aspects and um accomplishments and benefits, but they really help develop you as a person. Dr. gold. He really stresses the
importance of being thankful and grateful on these trips. And every time I go on one of these trips, I come out so more positively and thankful for just everything around me. And I think they could bring lots of value such that to other people. We do shout outs, we talk,
we encourage each other. I talk to people that I would have never talked to at school regularly through these clubs. And I think that is an important experience that is something that everyone needs to have and should be considered when reconsidering the
budget. Thank you. Thank you. I need to say that louder. Eva. Um hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Hello. My name is Eva Pandini. I live on 53 Lambian Court. I am an alumni of the
Highland Park Moduan and um Central Jersey Moduan Congress Club and I just have to say that I think that as an alumni it's really been such a formative experience to get to go on these trips and that the students will be making extremely important memories. I've had
the opportunity to speak with other students who are much older than me who still regard these trips as some of their most formative memories from high school that really shaped their experiences culturally um and how they formed long-lasting bonds and how they remember Highland Park, the true culture that
they experienced here. And I think it is incredibly important to prioritize these trips, especially at a time now where cultural experiences are being minimized. to really act against the current political situation. It's more important now than ever that this is prioritized along with also the language
program. I think it's quite a shame to have only one language available as a proper learning program throughout the school as cultural development is also crucially entwined with language and travel. So I really do hope that this will be reinstated as a policy that
these students will be allowed to experience so that they may form these memories and experience the world with a more greater expanse and understanding of education. Thank you. Thank you. Eliza,
can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Go ahead, Eliza. Getting used to the non-school Chromebook, I guess. Um, so I am Eliza Boland, 127 Park Place. I just graduated, um, this June. Um, and I
was the president of the Highland Park High School choir. Um, I just wanted to talk a little bit more about choir. I'll be really short, but we got the amazing chance of going on a trip to Boston in the 2324 school year. It was such a like
amazing experience just looking back on my high school years. We were there with students from all across the country and some from Canada, people speaking French. It was really amazing. Um, so I just kind of wanted to stress the importance of trips not only to the
model UN program and to DECA but also to in our music department. Um, I also wanted to talk a little bit I think it was Carla that mentioned the A period. Um, it definitely does limit our membership. Uh, I don't know if any of you have ever tried to sing when you
first wake up. It's not the easiest thing to do. Um, but it does it does limit our membership. There are students that aren't available that early and I don't know, maybe trying to reconsider that would be helpful to our program. But that's all. Thank you. Thank you,
Eliza. Angela, Angela, you can unmute. Um, hi. Can you hear me? Yes. So, I'm my name is Angela Chowo and I'm a rising sophomore and uh I just want to reiterate on the point
about transparency. So, I found out about this entire thing during a math class where a class was like, "Oh, did you hear you're not allowed to go on trips anymore?" And there was a lot of like misinformation going around. Like at first it was like, "So, no field trips allowed." And then they were like, "Oh, no, it's just overnight trips." But
then now that I found out that it was out of state overnight trips, so I think if there was an email sent out to the students as well as the parents, it would have assured many people since I'm the vice president of the Asian culture club. So I was really worried about
that. But along with that, I'm also a member of DECA and Model Yun as one of the previous speakers was. And I think that it's very important. These trips are very important. Um it's a great bonding experience and especially learning experience. I would not have
been this um deep into politics and I wouldn't be so much more aware about the world and I think right now it's very important to about these things um and it really greatly affects our future uh with these competitions because there
something great upon your college application. My sister uh she graduated this year so I saw a lot about um how she was on Common App and putting her applications in and it's a great thing to put onto your application. Um and as
well as the Mandrin program. I know a lot of my friends they're taking Mandarin and for a lot of colleges they would like you to take three years of language and maybe even four years. And as far as I know, they like you to have the same language for the entire time.
So I feel it's a little unfair and disadvantage to them that they find out at such a late notice that um they now have to change to a completely different language that they've been learning for maybe the last four years. Thank you.
Thank you. And with no other hands raised, we are going to close public comment. Excuse me. I was wondering if real quick I could just make a comment um just after now the public comments. Is it about trips? What is it about the trips in general? Yes. Can you wait till finance
and facilities discussion? Perfect. All right. Um we're going to move on to our board action items. I'm sorry, board committee reports and recommendations. Skipping ahead. Um we'll begin with curriculum and instruction.
All right. Okay. You all can hear me. Um so we met um on 612 with Dan, myself, Ethan um as well as Christina, Michelle, and Michelle Rodriguez and Lisa Saka. Uh a main uh one of the main points I think
a really lively discussion we had were about the pilot program uh from Envision for the math adoption that we piloted in five classrooms. We got some feedback that the teachers enjoyed um that experience and kind of having the in the box solution that linked to assessments. That was something that made it easy for
them from an implementation standpoint. Um and one of the things that it really pushed the conversation um on what we think about the future of math adoptions and what we want to use as a high quality instructional material. We really uh discussed that and there were some concerns um shared about the actual
academic rigor of envision and and thinking through you know what we want to actually once we implement something it's it's a big change for uh it's a big change for the teachers we want to have the right resources but we also want to drive to student outcomes. So really a vibrant great conversation about that
talking about the kind of bigger context for academic achievement in the nation where it's we're seeing you know not the gains that you might want to see and how we as Highland Park can really lead the way. Um one of the things we discussed uh was the kind of intentional
integration of assessments over the past year and investment in that. We want to continue that very strong um investment in in showing the commitment to supporting um student growth and achievement for all students. So, uh really continuing on the outstanding
work of Miss Saka and Rodriguez as you know we think through this next wave of incorporating feedback. Now, it's it's picking the right um the right high quality instructional material to make sure that that that can uh uh help students uh across um all proficiencies.
And so, um, one of the things that that we we landed on continued discussion around what is that what is that material that's really going to suit the needs of our students. And so, there's continued discussion about that. But I think it's important to note that, you know, we don't take the decision lightly and we want to make sure um that that we
are really um thinking about a coherent uh solution um on the math adoption side. So, very vibrant conversation there. Um, let's see. We've got the focus grant was accepted. So, we received a grant from the DOE to pay for
the universal screener for ELA for GA for grades uh K3. And um that was uh the amount for that was $445 to be precise. Um we um uh we discussed policy 5516 and
regulation 5516 for the use of uh electronic common recording devices. So we appreciate you know that this was brought up. A concern was raised from uh for the high school about allowing students to use phones during study hall and field trips. So the thought was that it uh interrupts social relationships
and maybe better to have a full ban there. So we want to return um that and have more you know future discussion there. Uh we discussed field trips uh which were approved uh we approved the field trip for the glow program specifically to explore the community.
Um those are the main I think you know again very robust good great conversation on on that side. I thought I thought um good kind of forwardlooking um discussions to come on that and then we will be moving
um I think it's 1 through 11 and I'll read through these uh approval of the field trips uh approval of the HIB reports uh approval of the evaluation of the
instruments for uh the back to school 2526 school here. Uh approval of the safe opening and continue uh continuity of service plan, approval of a universal graduate students for teaching internships uh and junior practicum and
observation. There's a list of stu of uh um students there. Approval of the sidebar agreement between the Highland Park uh board of education and the Highland Park uh education association. Approval of the spring school bus
emergency evacuation drill. Approval of the submission for funding of optimal uh comprehensive universal screeners. So that's what we mentioned before uh the grant that was approved. Approval of the agreement with school of health sciences, approval of the agreement with William
Patterson University and approval of the home instructions. And I think that is it is and if Ethan want to add anything I know we had a robust discussion if there's anything I missed from that. conversation we had. Feel free to add any any questions.
No, that was great. Sarah, of course, I have something to say about cell phones, but um but I want to make sure you're finished with your report first. Yes, please do. Okay. Um well, anyway, I just wanted to say, you know, really uh happy to have
the chance to review um the the policy and also the accompanying regulation, which is sort of where the rubber hits the road. Um I think both are a big step in the right direction. Uh I know the the central leadership committee has discussed this in depth for nearly a
year done a community survey considered the results. Uh the committees have had it the standing committees have had a chance to to look at the uh policy and regulation and offer feedback. Um you know so the process has been really good which I think is important because we need community buyin here and I think
the result is going to absolutely benefit academics and mental health. So, I'm absolutely glad to vote to adopt it. Um, I think that it's really important that the policy rather the the the proposed regulation explicitly states uh
that devices will be placed in secure locations for the duration of the school day for the Irving Barlo Middle School or just for the uh the instructional period for the high school. In other words, it says in the regulation itself, you know, that there has to be a place in the in the classroom or in the school
where cell phones are put and uh it's not up so they're not in students pockets or coats or desks or whatever. Um and that's just super super important that there's no wiggle room around that in the district or in any of the schools. Um you know, research shows that just having access to a cell phone
uh reduces students concentration uh is distracting. So we want to remove that temptation. So students can really get the most out of this new regulation, focus on their classwork. And also, you know, having a secure place to put phones either for the whole day or the instructional period is going to make it
a lot easier for teachers. You know, if they're not having to constantly, you know, monitor things. There'll be instances of course, but if there's an external place the cell phones are put, make it much easier for teachers, which is going to make it much more likely this policy is is rigorously enforced
and succeeds. Um so again this policy is a big improvement over the status quo. Uh you know I I do think it's a missed opportunity in the high school. Um because unlike at Irving Barlo in the middle school high school is not a bell-to-bell ban at least in the current proposed regulation. So in fact the
regulation explicitly for the high school will allow cell phone use during lunchtime on a bus for a school field trip overnight or not uh and during passing time between classes in a study hall. Um, you know, the research is really clear. Cell phones have no place in classrooms. Uh, it's still emerging
on cell phones and person social skills, social climate in a school. That kind of connection is harder to get really uh, you know, firm results on. Um, but just speaking as a parent here, you know, and any I think anyone who's watched kids at a playground or at a party, uh, or just
hanging out in the, you know, in the street, um, sees how cell phones change it, change social interaction. You know, it reduces eye to eye contact, talking with people. You're posting to your friends and, you know, instead of talking with them and and and and
discussing things. Um, and I think we need every we have to make every effort to strengthen kids social skills and create a climate where students are respectfully talking with each other and not posting in ways that are counterproductive and uh at at uh and
don't you know allow these these beneficial social relationships to develop. Um, so you know uh I think good step in the right direction. I think there's a missed opportunity here. Um, and I I just really would like to see uh data come back to the board about uh how
this policy is being enforced and how students and teachers and administrators are feeling about it. Um, how is it going? Um, is it is it succeeding? I'd like to see this included. Questions about the cell phones included in the culture and climate survey. That's an annual thing with our district. Um, and I'd just like to hear from
administrators and teachers on how they feel this policy is um, changing the schools, you know, for better or for worse. It'd be great to hear that about the next year and a succeeding year so we know is if if the regulation is working as it's written now or if it perhaps needs to be strengthened in the
future. So thank you very much. Thanks Ethan. I knew you would add your your touch there and I knew it. Um one thing to note to there too that you know that was a big topic of conversation which is how we how we actually enact this. And you know, I think there's an understanding that um uh we're going to
have to take a lot of thought and care and um you know, monitor this as we as we actually enact the policy um to its fullest and and think through different models in the way that it's going to be as as uh facilitative of what we're trying to achieve. So that was a main a main point there. And then I think Jen,
I saw you were gonna before Ethan was talking. Um I just had a question about the um the storage the way that we're talking about storing the phones because I haven't seen any specific notes about that, but I know that's still to be determined. And I think there were some some advantages to something like the yonder pouch where in an emergency you
could cut it open or rip it open somehow or something so the kids would have the phones on their person. And I know some of the community members were concerned about those emergency situations. And then someone else mentioned some kind of a metal locker and I just was curious how that worked. Are there metal lockers in the classrooms or would the kids hold
this metal locker with the phone in their backpack? Yeah, those both those both came up um as a as a point of you know potentially younger pouches and I believe those were discussed for some reason as being a little easier for younger uh students and then the potentially the lockers for older
students. um that we discussed different mechanisms for making you know the unlocking um kind of that with the lockers you can imagine the lines and how that would work. there's actually real, you know, real operations that need to be thought through here. And so there was discussion around that.
Christina, was there anything? I mean, I think it was all we we were discussing what the options were and and looking to what some other districts have done to more automate it, but there's risks with that as well where there's things they can unlock themselves, but then some you have to guard, you know, there's there's
a lot of practical. I don't think we came to an answer except for we're investigating. Yeah, we're investigating both of those. We are trying to explore some options including how to fund these things um either option or you know what we're going to do with them. So we're still
exploring all of those options in that summer work and then managing it right. So there's the actual purchase of whatever the whether it's the pouches or lock boxes or something like that and then there is the human resource capital of it the logistics on you know do we
need to pay more staff to do something with this do we need to um you know how is it how is the flow going to work and things like that. So, the feedback we've gotten from other districts that have done similar things is that it just takes some time in the beginning to develop a process, but we kind of have
to look at what what we have at our disposal um to figure out what is going to work best. So, we're we're exploring those over the summer. That was my Oh, sorry. I was just going to Yeah, I was just going to ask it because part of my question was going to be about the human resources. Who's going to do it? How are
we going to implement it? But I'm also on the side of Ethan where I'm like high school doesn't really need it during the day. I'm open to lunchtime, but like on the buses and in the in the hallways, it still really doesn't cut down on a lot of the bullying or or behavior issues
that we have. And if they have access to it, then you have to have a teacher ask for it. And that could be a potential um issue for both the teachers and the students. Yes. So, I think what we're going to do is we'll continue to to moderate. So the idea is I've done a
deep dive into the discipline um and referral data regarding anything that's been uh through uh personal communication devices and then we'll continue monitoring that and seeing how that comes especially particularly in the high school if um we want to tighten up the policy um excuse me regulation if
we want to tighten up the regulation moving forward because the data is showing that still during those um unstructured times for for high school like passing time and study hall it's still becoming problematic then we always reopen the regulation based on that data and adjust it. But the idea is
through education um the students would be granted more access as they got older be to to also teach them how to be good users of the devices. I think there's a lot of value in that too um because they're going to go out in the world and if we don't you know if we don't allow some sort of gradual release of this at
some point I think we're also doing the students a disservice. So um but again we'll look at that data and monitor it very closely. So, is it something that we're going to like roll out where we start off doing it, you know, more strict with the younger kids and then monitor um while we're giving like the
high school more access and then monitor in the next year seeing if it does reduce any kind of issues. Correct. Yes. And change accordingly. Yes. So, full band Bartle and Bartle and well Irving Irving, not that we've seen that issue, but just to include them. Uh Irving, uh Bartle and Middle School, full band all
day, instructional and non-instructional. And then for the high school, it would be just during instructional time. So when a high school student is sitting in their math class or their social studies class or whatever that they're not allowed to use their own personal electronic communication devices, all students in grades 2 through 12 have access to the
district issue Chromebooks um that they can use for the need for for that instructional um instructional work. And how do we handle burner phones? What what I'm sorry I I heard of how do we handle the burner? So if you look at the
regulation, the regulation clearly outlines if students have those and there is a progressive form of support um and disciplinary action that happened and it's by um grade appropriate. So if you read the regulation you'll see I first offense, second offense whether
it's elementary, middle, high school and you'll see that and it definitely comes to a point where if the students continue at some point a parent, a guardian or caregiver will have to come and retrieve said device. Um and there's but there's restorative ways, actions and and and things like that. So you can see it's age appropriate and that was
feedback from um from the schools. And again, we'll revisit that as well because if if that's not working and we need to change course on what it means when students um you know um don't follow through on their end of the bargain of of the regulation, we can we can adjust that too. But we thought this
was um you know the buildings had a lot of input, the school leadership teams had a lot of input in um in working through this. Yeah. And the other thing too, you know, is that especially when you think about the high school and the logistics, it's just harder. So we're going to learn a lot in doing it in situations that are a little more
contained um where we can get feedback and and figure out what just works. And so when we do roll something out, it's going to be really methodical and and uh you know, I think have a higher rate of success while acknowledging that we're we're still figuring out what's the best way to to to do this.
Um sorry, I had a quick question um about the phone policy, too. So, I apologize if I missed this at a last meeting, but are middle school and high school students still going to have um control over the location of their phones? Like, are they going to be able to have it in their bag? because this has been an issue that's been discussed
heavily among high school students and I know the overwhelming majority of high school students feel that at least if they can keep it in their bag in case of emergency that is the feeling of the student body. Yes. So from Bartle Irving Bartle and Middle School um that's to well the Bartle will be I think the um
under Missnap's leadership she would like the uh pouches there they in the high school you know the ones where you put the they're like shoe shoe rack thank you shoe racks at Bartle um just because the students it's a little bit more controlled at the elementary level because they're pretty much with the same teacher all day. So right now
they're actually um under some change, you know, some some um new tier one and tier 2 behavioral supports at Bartle, we're actually not seeing as much of an issue. Um so they thought that that would be a fair way to sort of control that. Um at the middle school, we're exploring the two options, which are the
pouches or the lock boxes. If it's the pouches, the pouch would be on the child. So the physical location would still be on them. They put it in the thing, they lock it up, and it's with them, and on the way out, they unlock it. If it's a box, it wouldn't be the lock boxes would have to be in some sort of central location. So whether it's,
you know, the main office here, again, those would be logistics we'd have to figure out. They would not be. So, um, the the decision to go one way or the other for middle school would be, um, based on obviously what we could afford
to get and afford meaning the physical purchase of whatever it is plus the people power to be able to do it. So, the same thing. And then uh at the high school we would look at um you know the potential same thing but most likely just the lock boxes or maybe the shoe
racks or something like that with um I know that they're there. I just don't think they were used previously with consistency. So uh the the plan is in um August as part of my communication to the district. My welcome back address would be about that. That communication
would be carefully crafted from my level on down. The same communication goes to the admins that goes to the teachers. So in their syllabus and their course expectations in their Google classrooms are putting out the same expectations and there is adherence to to to those expectations. Okay. Sorry. Um just a
quick follow-up question. Um so the pouches would those be able to be student unlocked? Like in the case of an emergency, a student could go into their bag and unlock the pouch. That has to be unlocked by a magnet. So they'd have to get access to the magnet. Okay. Okay. Because I know the main concern, and this is something that's been discussed in classes I've been in or history
classes, when there are national emergencies in schools, students want to be able to contact either emergencies or their parents in these scenarios. So, that is something that I think a lot of the students are concerned about when we say like locks, lock boxes. So, we appreciate it. Oh, I will just say that.
So, at any time if anybody has an emergency, they can go to the main office and call home or call somebody and um and vice versa. Right now, you can call the main office to contact your child and we will bring them down to to adhere to that. I'm going to circle back
to the emergency we had, God, last year, the year before at at the high school. A lot of times when you have access and you want to contact, I understand making sure that your child or someone that you love um your parent, somebody is is okay
in an emergency, but also sometimes by that quick access has um released some confidential information in terms of our location of where we are and puts us at a significant um risk in an emergency. So, I know that we want things timely to
come out and I know I've been criticized in the past for those emergencies that my communication doesn't come out timely, but that's because I we're reacting in emergency. We have very particular things we have to do. I'm operating under the Office of Emergency Management um and local law enforcement to be able to push out communication.
So, those things are important, but I would also probably just push back a little bit to say we have ways to contact anybody in an emergency now through the main office phones. quick access to your device will actually make us safer, believe it or not. Yeah, I was just going to respond to that, which is
um I think it's a really good part for communication where acknowledge that's like a a fear of folks. They want to be able to open it, but however, there's a protocol when there's emergency and it shouldn't be just to pick up the phone, right? I mean, I think that that's kind of to there's a broader um a broader way
to to handle that, but I do think that's that's like a a per something to deal with, right? where it's like I know I want I want to be able to under a situation where and have that control. Um so I think maybe that's communication point that's worth um incorporating. Just one more quick point that I think
we brought up a couple months back about this is that maybe we could look into education for parents on how to model good behavior at home. Um because that even even as an adult like I think Ethan brought up just having the phone on you. You're kind of tempted to use it. I recently was at the doctor's office and
in the waiting room, everybody's just sitting there either filling out paperwork or on their phones. However, I ended up needing an X-ray and had to leave my purse and phone and everything in the room and walk to this other room and we were all just chatting waiting for the X-ray cuz nobody had their phones and and we commented on it like, "Oh my god, we're talking to strangers,
you know." So, even adults, you know, could use some guidance on that. And certainly, I mean, I'm yelled at for my kids, put your phone down, you know, we're we're supposed to be playing this game. I'm like, "I'm just checking." Doesn't matter. Put your phone down. So that would be helpful for the the parents too. Uh can I make a quick comment unless
someone else has something to say? Um had some time already. Um two things uh fairly quickly. First um just Dr. Suska, I hope you feel comfortable talking to the board about the different levels of resources that might be needed for different ways of implementing the policy. I mean it shouldn't be all on
you and and and Denise and your staff to try and imagine how much money could possibly be spent, right? I mean, if if we had a menu of options and saw the possibilities, uh, I think we could all help to make a decision if that was appropriate. Uh, and so you might feel more confident in coming going back to
the community and saying, "This is what we've decided. It it's this it's cost this much, but we think it's worth it." So, I I just hope that's some uh something we get a chance to take a look at this summer as a board. Um, and also speaking of funding, I was wondering sort of whether the district is
considering uh asking students who bring cell phones to contribute to the equipment might be needed to to to implement the new policy. I mean, cell phones cost money, plans cost money, cases and and and what other stuff. I mean, building in the cost of the the
the supplies in school to store your cell phone seems reasonable to me if it's not extravagant. And I think that might take some of the bite out of the district uh the you know take some pressure off the district as well. So is that also being considered?
No. But if the board would like me to pursue that option, I certainly can, but we can talk offline about that. I'm not sure I would ask students to pay for storage of the device. Um I'm hoping that we can come up with a couple models to be able to to to to fund it. Like I
said, it's it's I I am working collaboratively with with everybody because it's I don't want to make a decision for what will work for the high school or work for the middle school. They know their schools best. Their their school leadership teams are doing remarkably remarkable work about problem solving. So, I would love their
suggestions and input to say here's how we think we can run this model. Um or here are some options. We cost them out and then from there we could decide from them. So, I would lean into our school leadership teams who do remarkable work around problem solving to help with that. Um, and I'd just like to remind
everyone that uh in the governor's proposed budget, uh, he had suggested $20 million to go to grants to school districts to help fund um, these kinds of cell phone bands to fund those lock
boxes and the yonder pouches, for example. um a budget should be introduced this week and has to be passed by June 30th. So, we'll know very shortly if that money made it into the budget. And I
would imagine that um guidance on how to apply for that grant funding would be um coming shortly thereafter in order for it to be um available to districts by the fall. So, as we think about funding,
we will know shortly whether we're going to be able to access help from the state in order to help fund that. Um, I would, you know, I agree. Um, I would just say, you know, we ask students to pay for um
insurance on uh district provided devices. That is a a family expense. And I, you know, as we work to figure this out, you know, the yonder pouches aren't extraordinarily expensive. And if it turns out that the manpower is more
expensive, I don't I don't think that's the end of the world. I think just on the topic of having students pay for the pouches, just kind of from the perspective of a student, if you're going to tell them that the district is locking up their phones, they're not going to pay to help you do
it. So, I don't think that's Yeah. just keep their phones in their bags. Okay. Um, equity and excellence. Well, that conversation just took about a quarter of my notes off the plate as we did have that topic on our agenda. So, we met on June 12th. Um, and we
actually had special guests for the first time in a while. Um, members of CPAC, our um, uh, special education parent advisory group joined us. Um just a little bit of background on that. Uh we did get a request from the leadership team uh uh at CPAG to attend an upcoming
E&E meeting, equity and excellence meeting to um kind of discuss their focus um areas and align efforts uh to support all students across special education services with the district and board level conversations that we're having especially in light of the um
upcoming are actually currently um in the preliminary stages of the evaluation of our special education program. So of course we welcomed members of CPAC. We're very happy to have them and we had a very productive discussion beginning of what we foresee to be uh more
discussions in the future. Um so they came very well prepared with a nice presentation on some of the discussion items. So I'm going to just kind of go through uh highlights from their presentation and key takeaways and then this discussion that we had. Uh so first
CPAC shared highlights from this past school year 2024 2025 highlights high points um accomplishments I guess. Uh one they talked about improving CPAC operations um examples of which include
uh incorporating themed meetings, guest speakers um updating their bylaws for their organization. So just doing some really good operational work um and re uh energizing um their meetings. They strengthened family engagement across the district um with diverse families.
Um they also spent time on clarifying CPAC's role as district level as a district level advisory group focusing on parent experiences. Um they also identified priority areas in collaboration with DDRE and our board liaison uh Sarah Pixley. um haven't yet
advanced an action action plan around those priority areas, but they have been working closely and will continue to work closely with board and district admin to um fulfill that. So then we talked about CPAC's goals for 202526.
Um three bullet points there. We're defining clear and measurable measurable goals in collaboration with the district. Um partnering more effectively with the district. They really want to be in service to the district and the students. um to turn ideas that are
going to benefit special students who are on special education plans or 504 plans, turn those ideas into actions um and to also address reoccurring equity gaps. So on that note, um CPAG representatives shared some um
information or input from parents that they've received over the course of the year and these are of course parents of students who are receiving special education services or on 504 plans. some of the priority areas for parents that um did share and provide input to CPAG.
Um one of the kind of bigger broader areas was around transparency and equitable access to services. Um and a couple of the concerns that were raised or a few of the concerns that were raised by parents um in this area revolved around just not really
understanding the very confusing by nature. I think 504 process, IEP process, um parents just frequently reporting that they're just don't understand why their kids who may be in the 504 system don't qualify for IP services or support. Um and particularly
those parents who um have been told that their students have made progress I guess in the 504 system um so they don't qualify for the IP um special education services. Um and these are parents in some cases who students may be reading far below grade level but have still
been told that their student does not qualify for special education services. Um there's also concern about a lot of concern about lack of clear criteria for tier entry and exit um and process uh progress I should say. So this is you know definitely a systemic issue um just
in terms of the movement around in and out of um the different tiered levels of support. Um another big area just generally speaking about equitable access to services. Um parents have talked about delays and barriers to evaluations uh and support for their
students. some families um who do have the financial means or have had the financial means to pay for private evaluations um have done so and those evaluations have in I think in most cases resulted not I think but what has been reported
or shared with us have resulted in the district agreeing to IEP services that had been previously declined. Um and you know we talked about especially with a few of us uh on the committee being in special education talking about these are definitely systemic issues that are clearly um evidenced in the research in
around special education. Um so Highland Park is no exception to sort of these kind of concerns about um the equitable um access to services and how oftentimes unfortunately getting those outside evaluations private evaluations that cost a lot of money end up resulting in
uh more services. So we talked about um you know just the concerns around that and that's an area that we definitely want to continue to to to address. Um we also or they also shared concerns around um inclusion and high academic
expectations for students who are on IEPs or have 504 plans. This is another area of concern expressed by parents. Um for example, some parents worry that their students are not academically challenged enough or sufficiently supported to be successful. Uh many
parents worry about for example missed state targets um for special education students and really concerned about what the district is doing to make sure that um those students are being academically challenged at their level. Um also concerned about lack of access to rigorous content. Um some parents feel
that their students are limited to low lower level courses quote unquote even if they have the ability to be in more higher academic level classes. Um so for example students with IEPs are not allowed to enroll in academic cl I
shouldn't say not allowed but they there is a requirement or there is a there is a concern that students who want to enroll in academic classes like honor and AP classes. students who have IEPs um they have to wave parts of their
IEP for example like the IEP um they may have an accommodation in their IP that they can receive two teachers in their classroom and AP and honors level classes um do not provide that additional support. So in that sense parents are saying well you know my child then is not being allowed to
really reach their academic um level in terms of the classes that they can take. So that was kind of one of the examples that was provided to us um based on parent input um and feedback I should say and this is again something that um unfortunately I know me and especially as being a special educator we see this
a lot and it's it's generally a concern that parents have um we talked about also difficulties with inclusion related to academic expectations um particularly at the middle school and high school level so concerns around um just uh what is expected of students who have 504s or
have IEPs um and the level of uh challenge that is uh given to them. Um let's see and then lastly around that note of inclusion and high academic expectations there was concern about um students with IEPs
being publicly put on lists that have stated their disability status. Um, an example provided there was uh during periods uh when there is no sub available on the lunchroom signin sheets and I believe this is a high school is at the high school middle school. Um
there's a there was a publicly listed there was a space on the sign-in sheets that publicly had a student's IP status on it. So this was uh just one concrete example that I would hope would be able to find an easy solution to. So Dr. Susa definitely took um copious notes on
that. Um but certainly uh that feedback was helpful to know as well for us at the board level. Um then we moved on to I'm sorry my mouse just jumped out of the area. One second. Let me get back to where I am.
Okay. The last area that um or bucket area I should say from a parent feedback related to equitable access to dyslexia services. Um so this is uh a concern that many families have regarding their child's struggles with reading. Um ex
and especially in terms of being able to uh get evaluations. So again just this issue of parents finding that their child may be reading maybe one or two grade levels below and um still not qualifying for an evaluation um to
determine whether they would be able to receive special education services. Um and again where wealthier families or families who have the abilities or means to be able to do outside independent evaluations um are able to but then again this also creates an equity issue.
Um so you know again just parents saying they reported uh repeated requests for dyslexia and disgraphia evaluations being denied um until they went outside for an evaluation independently or they brought in an advocate and then they were able to see um better results in
terms of getting an evaluation for their student. Um and then lastly on that note um there was a concern about also only having one multiensory reading interventionist in the district at this point. parent feedback um is positive
around the the the um impact of that intervention. Um but noting that some students with IEPs are unable to access the intervention. I think more so about scheduling concerns. Um so yeah, we had a very rich conversation, a lot of um discussion
points here um that we went into depth on. I'm going to talk a little bit about um some of the discussion that we had as a committee after the presentation. Um some of the I think the input that then Dr. Suska provided was obviously taking copious
notes but also reminding us that the compo compeno is that how you pronounce it? I never get it right. Kamango Kamango consulting. Yeah. Every time I say it differently. Kangno Consulting Group who is working on the special education evaluation. They are in the process of reviewing documents and
waiting for a few more documents um to be uh reviewed. Um so that process is ongoing. We don't um we're not suggesting that some of the concrete items that are low lowlying fruit that was brought to our attention cannot be addressed in the meantime. Um but Dr.
Susa did offer an update on that um that work that Kangno is doing. um we discussed um a partnership with CPAG at the board level and in and equity and excellence in particular, but also in terms of and I did offer up C curriculum
and instruction as well as another venue for CPAC to sort of collaborate and have board level discussions particularly because um issues around for example the co-eing model or inclusion practices really do fall more directly under the realm of curriculum instruction. So
thinking about how we can continue to sustain these discussions and really put forward um and hear about concrete actions and the impact of those actions around those areas of concerns. Sometimes the the dis the the issues may fall under curriculum instruction more closely and sometimes they may align
more closely with equity and excellence. Um but the bottom line that discussion is we do want to see and I think we all agreed that we do want to continue meeting with CPAD periodically um to have a more close working relationship um and to uh see that happen in both
curriculum instruction excellence. Um and then we talked about and sorry I'm just going to try to get down here. Um some of the questions that arose out of the um presentation specifically were around what is the par what has the district done to educate parents on the
504 and IEP um transition and processes. And so I think a concrete uh next step we talked about was thinking about putting together um an infographic FAQ uh resource for parents um really pushing that out doing
a parent workshop on with presenting sped processes. Dr. Zesa talked about um definitely wanting to go forward with that in the fall. So we really agree that it's important to get the information out there, provide clarity and also just make sure that internally as Dr. Susa talked about just kind of
removing any sort of silos in the system so that there's more collaboration, communication, understanding around these processes even from you know like I said internally. Um so just kind of closing the gap on those um areas of information and streamlining the
information uh sharing process as well. Uh I think that pretty much does it. Let me just see. Um lastly, CPAG did express that they do want to be involved in the transition process with the new director of um uh ED services um and having
broader conversations with all the bodies that will be included in that process. Um and that wraps up I think my summary of that significant uh portion of our meeting. Um significant in a good way. So we
dedicated 30 minutes to uh our first half an hour of our meeting to see bag. It was a very rich discussion and we went over by like five minutes and I think we were all left out of there feeling positive I think about the results and next steps um coming out with some tangible um items that we
really want to see um going forward in terms of in more information and a pair workshop in the fall and then um some periodic meetings with CPAC in the future. So, next topic we talked about was uh our law enforcement policy 9320
which we've talked about before. Um the committee has um well Dr. Suska presented to the committee that uh Strauss uh Bush I'm sorry the Bush law firm did recommend that we should keep Strauss's policy and adopt all the regulations as it does match the code
and requirements of the regulation as we sort of talked about before. Um Dr. Dr. Dr. Suska also discussed um that our safety plan does already mirror the law enforcement. So we are you know in alignment there. We have to be uh so on
that note the committee did agree to move forward with first reading. Um but we also talked about keeping on our RA radar the concerns around um uh the police interviewing of students when it comes to uh you know incidents that rise to that level. So we did talk about some
possible professional development opportunities around that issue as well. Um then we talked about uh policy 5516, regulation 5516 around use of electronic communication devices. I don't think I have a whole lot to add to what was
already stated. Let me just see if there were any points that equity and excellence raised that we didn't already discuss in curriculum instruction. Um, yeah, I I think everything here was covered. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure I don't leave anything out.
We did have a pretty lengthy discussion about the onus for taking students phones lying on staff's hands and um and of course, as I think Ethan mentioned, we would hope that that wouldn't happen frequently, but it's it's going to happen. So I think our concern was just
around the burden that will li that will place on the shoulders of teachers and also kind of the tension that could also contrib. Um so we we also had questions around um how the decision was made to have staff or teachers um take the device away from
students when they're found to have them and they're not supposed to as opposed to administration. Um, so you know, we're gonna continue to uh discuss this and I know Dr. Sus is going to get back to us on sort of those decisions. Um, uh, we talked about uh,
I think that's it. I think that's all we talked about that we didn't already say. I'm sorry. I'm just making sure that I'm not being redundant here. Um, yes, we talked about the storage system already. Yes. Considering the costbenefit analysis. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um,
and moving right along, we talked also briefly. Um, oh, we didn't talk briefly. We're done. That's me. I'm sorry. Sorry. You're shaking. Yeah.
That's all. Sorry. Any questions? Very quick because I know it's getting late, guys. Don't don't get mad at me. Um, so it's been an interesting point where where we've kind of worked with CPAG and understanding what their priorities are and we're a little bit waiting for Kango because I think part
of what will come jointly together is like what those big rocks are that we can but you had mentioned some of the lowhanging fruit and I know there's the presentation and that but was there other things that were surfaced that were some of the lowhanging fruit things that we could I'm just curing
thing I think the main thing was just the kind of the communication around the processes and like really putting together that infographic, pushing out that preparing for PD in the fall. Am I missing anything about other low addressing the um the student identification like you know where
students are listed? Oh yeah, fair enough. Yeah, but we're excited about moving forward with just working together and you know really seeing some these areas addressed. Any other questions, comments, concerns?
Okay, thank you. Finance and facilities. I don't have as many notes as you do, so it won't be as long, but I want we had a lot of a lot of things discussed. So, we met on um the 11th. Um and it was uh Ann, myself and and Dan joined us and uh
uh that was his first finance meeting. He told told us it was riveting. So, of course, Dr. Saska, Mr. Roa, and John Flanigan were there as well. Um we um some of the main action items which we'll I'll come to that in a minute. The agenda um the usual reports uh we're
going to be we're going to be voting on breakfast and lunch prices which are no increase um for next school year. There's a uh item on there about our property casually casualty insurance. Um and I believe that we we've we have a
14% increase in our property casualty insurance. Um, and we're looking to add um, uh, uh, Mr. Rose has been looking to add a crisis management policy has been recommended, which is an additional $5,000 and will cover the district in the event of damage and other costs when
there's an a crisis in the um in the district because in fact, we don't have we did not have coverage for that in the past. Um, so that's on the agenda. There's a proof there's going to be all of our contracts we're approving and a blanket. Um,
one of the bigger items that we that uh we've talked about and there's been some conversation since about is the uh Bartle uh bathroom uh renovation. So, um at this point we've gone out to bid three times and um to get one boy's b at
least one boy's bathroom uh renovated in Bartle. Um and the first time the bid ultimately was withdrawn and a sec I think a second time we got no bids. This time we have three bids. Um
and we had three um on the third time we had we had bids come in. They were all over budget. Uh we had we there'll be a readin tonight um about that about that topic. And we um
the the lowest bid was still um significantly over our budget. So our budget that we had budgeted 120,000 and if I got something wrong here, Denise, just stop me. But we had budgeted 120,000 for the job. The lowest bid came under at 196,579.
Um, so the way we might have we have extra money, we have money potentially to do that job would be because the Irving Foundation project came in significantly under what we budgeted. We budgeted 130,000 and the project cost 30,000. So,
one option we have is to to go ahead and and accept the lowest bid um and use the additional money from the Irving Foundation project to complete the Bartle bathroom renovation. Um or we can not do that, right? And that money then
would go back into capital reserves. Um so that's one thing that we will be on the agenda tonight to discuss. Um so yeah we will probably come back to that but that was one of the items we talked about. The other thing we talked about is before and afterare um some of
the updates in the before and afterare program. So at that point there had been a um uh preliminary meeting for a presubmission meeting and we did get five companies came in to uh show interest in the uh RFP for the
afterchool program. Um, and there were follow-up questions even after our pre submission meeting. So, we're hopefully that we we'll get some proposals. Um, and there's a committee that has been set up to review those proposals. And, um, I think we're hoping to do a July
10th meeting to, um, make a final decision about the, uh, uh, the RFP for the afterchool program. I think that's all I had on that. We looked at the um the continued concern about the um the
budget um of the after school program uh we looked at the financials our um uh because of the increase in cost of um some of our substitutes from our substitute program. So our our loss on
that had has gone up a little bit. Um and in fact the subsidies we had at that point we didn't have any additional subsidies or very few students had been approved um for subsidies. So that that problem that area continues to be a significant concern. Um
we had a conversation a preliminary conversation about the co-curricular outofstate field trips um with some of the numbers that that uh Denise had gathered but there was a lot of work still to be done on that. So we talked about the cost of insurance. Some of the things that we discussed already at
length earlier. So I don't need to do that. We and I won't do the cell phone policy. We also had that conversation. But any suggestions we made have already moved forward. So um so all good there. Last um under facilities.
Uh let's see what we got. Um John reported on the baseball field project that's on schedule. There's a meeting with the boosters about changes to the bleachers. Um, so I think that's all moving along well. Considering also the boosters are considering making a change to the front gate, but all that's going
along well. The dugout concrete, the dugout will be poured at the end of June. Um, the Bartle structural repair, the the formerly the walkway area um is they have set their plan to be to work um to remove the old boilers and start
putting in supports to get that pro that uh moving along in the over the summertime. the greenhouse project had to go back out to bid. Um so there's that's still not yet moving forward. The other thing that John brought up that was new um which will be a readin on the agenda tonight is that there are
chemicals stored at the high school in the science department that need to be disposed of. They've been around way too long and there's chemicals that should not be in our buildings um for that length of time. So, at that point, he was looking at vendors um to come in and
do a bid for removal. And that is on our agenda, which will be a read in shortly. And I think that's it for my for my notes. Yeah. Questions or
a quick question about the um the chemicals? Is it at least once a year, maybe twice a year, we have free hazardous waste removal in Highland Park? I wonder if we could partner with DPW on that. I have no idea. I know there was a whole there I know he was talking about the
need how you get it out of the building. Something about you very specific. Yes. Very specific. Yeah, these are are really specific chemicals. They're not like normal like household waste. I think it might be the quantity in chemicals and quantity and how it can be taken out of our also includes um uh the
relining of a pit a chemical pit that we have. So um the sinks don't just drain into our regular water system. They go into so that needs to be a little more complex. Yeah. A little bit more complicated. Yeah. Moved and realigned.
Yeah. Actually, I realized I didn't do the agenda items. So let me go back and do the agenda. Go back to this. So questions. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So on our agenda, we have the uh the bill list uh through the end of June through June 23rd. uh travel and related expenses,
all of our usual. The treasur's report is through the end of May. Um as is the board secretar's report, um all our typical uh certifications and budget transfers.
We have approval for the transfer of unexpended appropriations and excess revenue to reserves. So that's moving uh money to transfer to our capital reserve account and into maintenance maintenance reserves. Um we have a uh sort of a
blanket approval. It's a rep uh all of our awarded contracts and if you look at the agenda it's a very long list of um what areas we um are generally we are approving. We have the uh breakfast and lunch
prices with a no um actually a little bit of an increase here. Price and variable price. What is what's the difference on that? There should be no angry. What is that down as I'm kidding? I thought there was no increase. Variable price is for um
students that uh pick a alternate lunch. Something different. It's a higherend lunch. I guess you want sushi. There's a variable price. Okay. But our typical okay just stuck my eye. Uh approval of contracted service providers
uh and related services. We are adding a a wrestling uh wrestling clinic for 6th through 12th graders. Um there's a non-public pass through for a contractor for professional development
um and handle with care for our staff through behavior management services. um contracted also contracted service providers for for the ED services department and then all of our out of district placements for the 2526 school
year are listed here. Um contract renewal for our cafeteria um software program and support for the cafeteria um uh POS point of service system. uh installation of an oven,
purchase installation of an oven in the middle school. Um and then our approval to renew insuranceances for the 2526 school year. And you have a a list here to review our school-based youth service contract. We
are voting on um we are voting on three non-resident students to attend Highland Park High School for next school year. Um and those are students who will be paying tuition and the tuition is listed here. uh two McKenna Vinto students who are going to be attending school in New
Brunswick. Um and then we have two readins which will be number 20. Is this recording an an award of bids for the toilet room alteration at Bard Elementary School? Um and the Do I need to read all the numbers and everything
on this? I do. Okay. Um, I move that the board of education accept the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the recording and award of bids received for the toilet room alteration at Bartle Elementary School bid number 2425 uh 202425
as follows. So it says that we got through Arista Builders and Designers their base bid was $330,000. Um, everybody also gave a bid for a um girls uh bathroom extent alteration that was 300,000. And the total for the
Aristo would have been 630 for both bathrooms. CRICO had um their base bid was $196,579 and they had an alternate bid for the a girl's room for $149,000
totaling $345,579. JH Williams Enterprise um their base bid was 227,000. Their girls uh bathroom was 157,000 total 384,000 and coming from Salazar and Associates
was a base bid of 249,000 248,000 248 900 900 I'm sorry a really long day uh there uh there alternate bid was 145,000
for the girls room totaling 393,900 so be it resolved the award the base bid to Cyprico Industries in the amount of 196,579. So that's number 21 and number that's number 20. Number 21 is approval of proposal to provide hazardous waste
management services. I move the board of education accept the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the proposal from Old Colony Group LLC to provide hazardous waste management services to the Highland Park High School in the amount of 29,000
$1.79 covered under the ED data cooperative bid 12182. And that actually is the end of the finance facilities report. And now any other questions? I have one quick question about the
McKenna Vento students. Yeah, I understand how that works for the most part, but I thought it was generally when the districts were a little bit further away. So, I'm just wondering how it works out that they're just going to New Brunswick, which is so close instead of here.
Did you help me understand that? Um, so if there's a student that has mck that is McKenna Vento, by law, they have a choice. They either can remain in the district, their last district of residence, which would have been Highland Park, or they can attend where
they're living. So, it's their choice. If they choose to continue in Highland Park, then we're then we're responsible fiscally. If they choose to attend another school district, then we're we're responsible fiscally for their
tuition and transport. Yeah. Okay. Same same goes for other mechan students from other eleas that are surrounding we we build them for tuition. Gotcha. Thank you.
I just want to clarify the borrow bathroom. Yeah, I realize there's some more things I should add about. So, um the decision that we have to make tonight is is whether or not we award this bid over budget. Um now the money that would be used over budget is from
another project that came in under budget but this type of money which is from capital reserve can only be used for cap capital reserve projects. Correct. Okay. So it can't be used for anything else. Um so we kind of have a tough decision
because this is the third bid that's gone out for this bathroom. Um we've been talking for the bathrooms a long time. The kids really want the bathroom. That's what I meant to add. Right. um you know in in all of the things that they ranked as priorities at the school the bathrooms were one of them but it is
a lot of money to spend on one bathroom. Um, I know that John had said that the water retention or like the standing water problems that had existed in the pro uh bathroom have been remedied, but that issues pop up maybe every other
month where there will still be standing water that they have to um it's because of a snake that's stuck in a drain. I think justic backups. Yeah. Any thoughts on this? I feel a little bad that it's only the
the boys bathroom, not the girls as well, that we can't do both of them because all of the students were looking for a new bathroom. So, I feel a little funny about only awarding it to the boys. That has been the plan. That was the worst one. And that's that's what, you know, obviously the goal would be to try to do, you know, some one a year,
two a year, ultimately go we get to a referendum some years, but I think D said there were 12 bathrooms or right or John said or something. So, there's a lot. It's, you know, the facilities are old. you know, our our facil our schools are old and and uh they need to be maintained to do another one next year. That's already kind of done. That's all
right. We didn't budget for that next year because how pipe money is, right? So, it's it's you know, it's challenge but again it's not out of the operating budget. Just to clarify to everyone this is not extra money could go into the
operating budget to fund other priorities. This is a separate budget for capital projects that we can't even just decide to spend one day. You have to plan to spend it, right? We've worked on this for a while. It just it just uh
it's not going to get cheaper as we all know. That's a problem, right? I don't I did bring a copy of all the bids. The first bid we received um which the bidder withdrew was $129,000 and included in the bids is an allowance of $30,000. So, if if the contractor
doesn't utilize the allowance of $30,000, it would come off the base bid. Um, the second bid we received came in at $251,500. Um, so that was completely over budget. Um, and then the third time we went out
to bid, we actually got four biders. But if you look like the the the skew of numbers, it's high. It's higher than we budgeted. We bud we prepared the budget, you know, about two years in in the spring, you know, late winter, early
spring of the year prior. So, it just is a indication of that prices are increasing. Um, and we all see that, right? So, um, question, oh, sorry, sorry, question. If if we were to not approve it, where
would those is there another option for where those monies go? I mean from the monies get by statute have to get deposited back into capital reserve to be utilized for future projects. So okay this year out of capital reserve or the Bartle walkway and the prek alteration
of the cafeteria to add a prek classroom. That is all that we can do in the 2526 school year. So when these monies get deposited and hopefully additional deposits we can make as you see on the agenda we have to approve um
up to those amounts to be deposited in capital reserve maintenance reserve and emergency reserve. So if we can add more money to those reserves then in next next year when we plan for the 2627 budget we could uh plan to look at what
items of maintenance uh and capital improvement projects we want to tackle. Um this was a a really important um yeah item last school year uh because of the standing water. Uh but we were connected
with a certain company that had a video scope and could remove the items that were caught in the drain. Uh but as Allison mentioned about every other other month, John has mentioned that there is a sudge that comes from the drain specifically in this um bathroom.
Um because there is a drain snake that is clogging the the drain. Um and this bid would include the replacement of the drains. It also has in in it um a preparation for the other bathroom which
is on the girls side. So if we were to do that in the future, those pipes and those uh would be there in the walls because they have to remove all the walls. Uh there's asbestous in the tile and not the tile itself, but um the grout I guess has asbestous in it. So
there will be some asbesus removal um that goes along with it. That's probably what drove the price so really high was the uh asbestous removal because that was the issue with the first bid year ago is that they didn't include asbestous. That's what they threw their bid. Correct. That's why they would
129,000 because they said they did not include the asbestous removal within the bid. So the question really is, you know, if we were to not do this and and apply this to other capital you projects, there's also the same risk that things are going to be more expensive because they're just more expensive today than they were a year
ago. So that's really the to the you know it's a risky in a sense in a way but you know um at first glance I think my first inclination was that's a lot of money and perhaps we can gain economies of scale if we had additional monies to
do more um but the future's the f you know I I can't predict labor costs I can't predict um the cost of asbestous removal and the cost of fixtures the fixtures are expensive as well. Um,
so I do have a question along those lines though because if we were to um because part of this project has to do with replacing the pipes and preparing to do the girls bathroom as well, which you know the complaints are about both
both bathrooms. The boys bathroom just happens to be worse, but those two bathrooms are a major problem at Bartle. Um, and you know this idea that we can do the girls bathroom later, but then that
price is going to go up and you're also doing a smaller job because it's the one bathroom. Um, theoretically would we're if we're not talking about pushing it five years forward, but if we don't do
the boys bathroom now and then plan to do both bathrooms at the same time, wouldn't that be more cost effective? Theoretically, it's the future. Yeah, in theory it could. Um, you know, but even
like the all the alternate bid for the girls, just the girls alone, the savings is roughly um $45,000, right? A difference, right? 149,000 to do the girls room. So, but if
you were doing the girls on its own together, right? So, if we were doing the bid for the girls on its own, theoretically, it could be much higher. It could. Yes. So, do we know that if fixing the boys
bathroom type situation, would that actually maybe reduce some of the issue in the girls' bathroom? I I don't know the issue in the girls bathroom other than old.
Yeah, old and smelly. It's a It's old and smelly. I think the bathrooms are that way. Transparency. I think there's bathrooms at the high school that need to be remodeled as well. Um and bathrooms are expensive. Um
yeah, this the two boys bathroom at Bartle became a huge concern in the 23 24 school year because of the standing water. Um it's a health hazard. Um and we wanted to address it then. So that's why it was included in the budget. And just to be clear, so the standing water
issue is an ongoing issue. Okay. And that no other bathrooms that have constant was constant. It was fixed in one of those. So there's still the snake in there though. So that's why it's causing some of that issue that that has to be
removed. But we were able to remove some of the stuff that was causing the problem. So yes. Would that also be included in the remediation the bathroom of this particular bathroom? That pipe would be replaced. But you cannot we cannot remove the snake without demoing
the floor, right? So we have to redo the bathroom to remove the snake. And I realized when I wrote that, I was like, I hope they don't think it's a real snake. Snake or a dead snake. It's it's a
plumber snake. the Star Wars. We are definitely It was not at one time a live order. It wasn't. Okay. Oh, it's my turn. Okay. Oh, Seth, you had a question about trips. Yeah. Sorry.
I just had a quick thing. We can save it till the end, though. It's not a question. It's more a comment. And if you want to continue with your report, that's fine. Okay. All right. I will. I had the momentum but because I would also like to clarify some things later on too. So in old business would that be
okay? Yeah, I think I can do my thing in old business. Okay. Okay. Um personnel. Uh number one is the approval of withholding salary increment for an employee. Number two is the approval of the um reappoints of Highland Park
administrators. Number three is the reappoint of the resident residency specialist for the next school year. Number four is the reappointment of the HPEA 12 month schedule G staff.
Number five is approval of reappointment of our teacher associates. Number six is the approval of education uh board of ed appointments. Um so Dr. Mort Trello and Dr. Russa who we um hired at a previous meeting now fill these particular
positions. Um then number seven is the approval of leave of absences for two employees. Number eight is the approval of appointments. Um some notable ones include Michelle Rodriguez will now be
our executive director of curriculum instruction. Um, we have Angelo continuing to support tech for the board of ed meetings. Um, we have lots of staff volunteering for freshman orientation. Thank you so much. Well, I shouldn't say volunteering. They're
they're working freshman orientation, but thank you anyway because who wants to work in the summer. Um, we have some office and classroom moves. We have movement on the guide for three employees who got their doctorates and one employee who got their masters.
Um, we have uh something. Oh, a new guidance counselor for the middle school, Michael Spino. And then we also have a part-time art teacher for Irving, um, Erica Martone Rosha. And then we have a readin. Oh, and we also have an
elementary teacher for Bartle School, um, Hannah Mendes, who will start in late September. Um, and then we do have a readin. Um, and this is for Derek, Dr. Resta. Um, we had previously improve approved him on an interim contract which was perdm per day. Um, and the
reason that we did that, I kind of want to answer Karen's question from before. The reason we did an interim was there was not enough time to have a full hiring process, search, committee, um, all of that. And we wanted to be really intentional with the approach we took to
hiring the director. Um, and we also wanted to wait until the KGNO evaluation was finished because obviously if they determine our needs, we want to look for somebody who really shines in those areas. Um, and since then, what we've
done actually is offered this one-year contract to Dr. Resa. Um, so he will be committed to us for one year, which affords us more time for that process and also um will provide some consistency for the school year. So um he has h taken that. So thank you very
much Dr. Russa. Um and we will do like the full hiring process after the kangno report which includes you know focus groups um well that came out of the kagno report but includes you know including um caregivers on our committees um students you know we do a
really nice really nice hiring process. So um we'll do the whole shebang. Um number nine the approval of transfers of note. Uh Mr. Depay is going to be moving to be AP at the high school and Dr. Richardson is going to be moving to
be AP at the middle school. Um we have approval of all of the 2025 2026 schedule B positions as listed. So those are many. Um
we have approval of summer staff, approval of nursing staff, um twice. Why? Oh, one's for school physicals and one is for registration. And then we have approval of the job
coach stipend for two employees um or the star program. We have approval of staff for summer CST and IEP meetings. Um there's a lot of those staff members. Okay, we have approval of staff
translators. We have many of those too, which is awesome. Um, we have approval of changes for staff for 2025 um for the the STAR program, the summer star program. And you can see those. Did
I H29? Which one did I Oh, Paris. Oh, that's important. Um, okay. So, 16 was the approval of extra compensation for school nurses. Um, 17 was the approval of home instruction staff. And then 18
is the approval of reappointment for our wonderful power of professionals for the next school year. Okay. 19 was staff translators. 20 was approval of the staff changes for the star program. Um 21 is approval of changes. Did I miss
something again? No. No. 21 was the approval of changes of toileting stipen for star pair professionals. Um and then 22 is the approval of educational services staff travel for the 2526 school year. 23 is the approval of
summer curriculum writing and 24 is the approval of interns and practicum students for the teen center. Okay. Then for policy and regulation, um the policy and reg for electronic
communication devices and for cooperation with law enforcement agencies are going for first reading. And that's it. And that's it. And that's it. Okay. Any questions about either of those that I can answer?
All right. Cool. Um so now we're going to move to board action item. Nope. We're going to move to public comment. I'm sorry. It's like after 8 PM my mind melts. Um, public comment number two. The Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has
reserved this time for your comments. There's nobody here. Oh, no. No. Okay. I didn't mean nobody. We appreciate you being here. There. It was a very crowded room before. Um, is there anybody online for public comment?
You can raise your hand. Maxwell fan, go ahead. Oh, um, sorry if I missed this earlier. I just wanted to ask, I know in the last board meeting, uh, finance and facilities discussed, uh, having a vote on competitive contracting versus, I'm
assuming, lowest bidder. Uh, what are the results on that or what policy has been adapted now? Sorry if I missed this. I believe you're talking about the RFP for the before and afterare program. Uh yeah. Yeah. Um the bid the proposals
are due tomorrow. So nothing has been awarded. The difference between competitive Oh, what the difference is between the process that we chose. Oh no, that's fine. I I I think I got the difference. I just wanted to ask like what decision was made. But yeah. Oh yeah. Thank you. Okay.
Anybody else for public comment? Lily Solomon? Hi, thank you so much for doing this. Um, I know that there was a public comment earlier and a lot of other students and former students spoke about this, but I kind of just wanted to add on and talk about my experience with
DECA and how it really shaped my high school career. I graduated, but I was involved in DECA throughout all four years. And it seriously made my high school experience more academic and taught me so many skills that I wouldn't
have learned otherwise through just taking classes and following a curriculum. Um, I think DECA is the first time I ever wrote a real paper and for that matter a 20page paper and really had to work together with a team
to create something that was our own. And then we were able to present those things and it really was just an experience that I think was so beneficial and taught me so much. And without having that sort of end of the year trip to
nationals where you get to see all your work come together, there's not much of an incentive to join clubs like DECA or Model UN or other clubs that have really big outofstate trips. So, it's sort of unfortunate that these programs are at
risk of being cut because so many students benefit from them. And also, as a student who recently went through the college application process, I can definitely say that being able to show that I competed and um placed at a
national level helped me get into business schools that are pretty competitive and that I'm now attending in the fall. So, I think without experiences like that, schools are less inclined to accept students from
Highland Park because it just shows that you've been able to learn these skills through a club like Deco or Model UN. And without these national competitions, it sort of devalues the clubs and makes students less inclined to join and also
gives students sort of less of a resume or things to show to college admissions. So yeah, I just wanted to say that thank you so much and I hope this helps you guys with your decision. Thank you, Lily. Anybody else on Zoom
for public comment? Rebecca, hi there. Um, I know I spoke before, but I just wanted to add one thing. Oh, uh, Rebecca Hirs, 331 Felton Avenue. Um, I wanted to add I we a number of um
community members submitted a letter that's on the board agenda outlining the real importance of these programs and um the importance of these opportunities and um and I just forgot to add that um now we're up to 360 community members
who have signed onto this letter. So the community really really cares about these programs and um about a third of those signitories are students. Um you know Highland Park High School is quite small to get a 100 kids to sign on to something like this is a big deal. So a
big portion of the student body also really really cares about this. So I just wanted to put those numbers out there. Um all right. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Libby. Um, hello. So, my name is Libby Pekman.
I'm a rising junior and um to the issue with uh the cell phones, I agree that cell phone usage is a big problem in our school and it's um it becomes harder to make friends with people and interact with people and um further in our educa
in our education when we have our when we have cell phones. I think that's a uh not a a a point that many students will of my age would take. But um I think that a big a good way that um could
combat this um maybe a in addition to a um a physical um a physical barrier to our phones or maybe um instead of would be more uh education on h how students
to teach students uh to you know interact without our phones especially Since when you're given as a 16year-old, right, given a phone, given a phone at a young age, right, I've I myself have found out that I become it's become harder for me to um live without my
phone. And I do I even do a lot of my school work on my own phone. Um and I found myself relying on my phone to do school work, especially this year, and it has helped me a lot. Um so some so
some further education on um living with or not living with um uh doing school and uh just um h how you know like doing things with without phones right for students I think would be pretty helpful.
All right thank you. Anybody else? Did he say no? No other hands. Oh, can you speak by Alex? Go ahead. Hello. I'm Alex Yu. I spoke earlier. Um, I have a different point to bring about.
Uh, and it's a topic that hasn't really been brought out today in the board meeting, but um, I would like to quickly bring this up because it would it is it's not a lot of effort. Um, so I know that our school has
uh banned the usage of CAT GDP uh in other AI tools uh on our Chromebooks. And I feel like if phones uh are going to be banned or you know definitely withheld in the duration of
class uh I feel like the usefulness of AI tools should not be understated especially in the next era of you know our generation. We should be taught to use AI tools correctly in class because I feel it
would greatly help our education. Uh, personally, I've used CATDP to organize my summer really well. Uh, and it's made me feel a lot better going into this summer than any other summer at this point. And I feel like if used
correctly, CATDP could greatly could greatly induce a better learning experience for every student. Uh and for AI helping cheating, uh that problem is actually really easily addressed because there
are many AI tools out there that can notice usages of AI in homework. So, you know, just off the top of my head, I can think of like four. So, I think that should be not as much of a concern
compared to like allowing the usage of AI in terms of helping students rather than just only thinking about the consequences of AI, making students more likely to cheat.
Thank you. Thank you, Alex. There anybody else for public comment? Libby. Hi Ben. I'm sorry. Um I just want to add to my point. Um I um agree that so there
are things that are blocked on our Chromebooks. And that is also one of the things that I've been using my uh phone for in class. Um, and it's there's not a
it's not a quick system to get things unblocked on your Chromebooks. Like, you know, things have to be blocked. Obviously, I I don't necessarily agree with Chachi BT while I do agree that um artificial intelligence should slowly be introduced into our education. I think
that is not uh something that would be it had to be carefully thought through. Um, and I'm not sure if um allowing chat GBT is the the most intelligent idea, but um there are things that are blocked
on our Chromebooks that we can only access with our phones and that would have to be taken into account also in with a cell phone ban. Thank you. Thank you, Libby. Any other hands? All right. And with no other hands
raised, we're going to close public comment. We're going to move to board action items, curriculum and instruction. You may begin. I move 1 through I think it's 11. Second. Miss Cassell done.
Yes. Am I right? What am I supposed to say? Yes. Yes. Uh, Dr. Coleman, yes. Dr. Pixley, yes. Miss Pruce, yes. Dr. Schoolman, yes. Miss Stano, yes. Miss Bardman, yes. Miss Vorhees, yes.
Finance of facilities. I move items 1 through 19 plus the two readins, which are 20 and 21. I don't want to go first. Oh, this is the bathroom. Is that Alphabetical order.
Any second? Oh, suck it. We're tired. Miss Cassald done. Yes. Dr. Coleman. Yes. Dr. Pixley. I This is momentous. We've never had something go to the bathroom. To 20. No
to 20. Miss P. Yes, Dr. Skullman. Yes, Miss Stanium. Yes, but abstain from 13. Miss Gardman. Uh,
yes. Abstain from 13 and no on 20. Miss Borhees, no on 20. Yes to everything else. Motion carries. Okay. For personnel, I'd like to move numbers 1 through 24.
Second. Miss Cassaldon. Yes. Dr. Coleman. Yes. Dr. Pixley. Yes. Miss Cruz. Yes. Dr. Schoolman. Yes, Miss Stanio. Yes, Miss Gardman. Yes, Miss Borhees. Yes.
And for policies and regulations, I'd like to move number one. A through D. A through D. Second. Oh, thank Miss Cassel Dunn. Yes. Dr. Coleman. Yes. Dr. Pixley. Yes. Miss Pruz. Yes. Dr.
Spman, yes. Miss Daniel, yes. Miss Barton, yes. How about me? [Music] [Laughter] Miss Vorhees. I mean, I don't know. Sure. Yes. They're
not late night people. At least not for me. I think Okay. Uh board liaison reports have to mute somebody. Okay. No leaison reports. Oh, do we have one? Really
quick, I just want to share I got distracted. I'm sorry. No, somebody's speaker. Oh, okay. I just wanted to share that the human relations commission got to meet with Dr. Susa and all the principles today from the schools to come up with some different
ideas so they can collaborate and help each other out. So I thought it was a really exciting meeting. So I'm I'm really uh positive and looking forward to see what what happens bringing it all together. So many connections. Anybody else? I have a quick question from the
board of health. Um and I may have even asked this already and forgot to take notes on it. Do you know who takes care of her lawn care here? They said it used to be the town that helped out with that. Do we have our own staff? And the main thing is that there's they're talking about the blowers uh not being uh gas powered anymore. So, they were
just wondering what's happening here currently and is if it's the town then we're under one roof, but if we have our own service just what we're doing with that. So, we don't have we have we contract with Pritchard for facilities management. So, there is one grounds person that they employ for grounds
grounds worker. Do you happen to know if they use gift? You have one. Oh, I just wanted to since our last meeting um there were a couple of uh district events. There was the CPAG
fundraiser which was last Friday uh at Penos which was a Super Smash Bros. tournament which is awesome. Uh Mikey Wild Whiten won. Um and then also uh there was the Highland Park Boo athletic
boosters uh trivia night at Penos which was uh really fun and it was great to see everybody there supporting uh both our you know special education parent advisory group and the Highland Park athletic boosters. So and do Dr. Cisco
is there and I won a bag. And I won a bag. It was not great. Um, and I do have something to share actually on be Dan's behalf is that the commission for universal ask Access requested a student rep. Correct. Yes. So, Dr. Donovan is going to work with
Dr. Susa and that commission to get a student rep. Yes. Okay. Um, I have no president's report. Uh, old business. Um, sorry, I have I have a family movie
going on in the background. But I just wanted to very quickly say I'm grateful to all the students especially who stayed up late tonight and gave us um, uh, you know, shared their views. That was great to hear. And now I'll stop bothering everybody. Um, so I just wanted to there were a few
questions I jotted down that I think were quick to clarify. Um, so one of the question was one concern was that third party agencies would not allow you to plan your own itinerary and I don't think that's accurate. Correct. That that's not accurate. It
would be your own itinerary how you want to do it. They just facilitate the coordination of like planning the travel and the transportation and things like that. But they don't actually plan your trip. you plan the trip. Okay. And it's also an option. It is like it's not
requirement, right? It may be an option. We're exploring it to see if it would something that would work for us to help us theoretically with whatever the costs are because we want to make them affordable for everybody and this might be an option. So, we're exploring that.
Seth? Yeah. So um just one last thing on the topic of the overnight trips. Um so I mean first I know um and this is something that's been discussed in the clubs but there is you know of course a lot of cuts to education. So we do understand that there is some cuts being
made to education everywhere. So this is something that's been going on. Um but just to discuss the importance of the overnight trips for these clubs one more time. Um, I think something that wasn't brought up too much was the importance of these overnight trips for the recognition of the school. Um, like I
know just to start off with choir when they go to things like Boston. I know I think the last time they went they won a lot of awards and they represented this school district very well. Um, DECA when they go to states and then when they go to nationals they have people who win awards. And then MUN, which I have the
privilege of knowing more about because I'm an officer there. Um, consistently win awards. We've won outstanding delegation when we went to Philadelphia um and when the Mexico trip happened. That's a conference that's the biggest in that country and they ask us to come here cuz we consistently win awards
there and last time we went we won the best delegation award. So, I think it's something I think normally when we think about, you know, representing the school, we do it from a scope of athletics. I think that's also something that should be considered more from clubs cuz a lot of our clubs, I think, do a really great job at representing
this really small public school district. Um, and typically we go when we go to these conferences and with these other clubs, we're competing against schools like East Brunswick, these group four schools that have a lot of our population. Um, and secondly, I just wanted to talk about I think the
importance of these clubs in terms of the image. A lot of people, I mean, including myself when I was a freshman, joined these clubs cuz they kind of see in terms of the big picture, oh, we get to go on trips. And I think it was brought up a lot, but not having that to kind of advertise with will hurt the
programs. Um, and these are programs that are incredibly important. I know I've personally grown a lot. And I think also I've seen a lot of growth. A lot of the people that came and spoke were underassmen that I've seen join the club and have gotten a lot better at public speaking that we saw today. Um, one last
thing. Yeah. And I think it's just shows the importance of these clubs and these overnight trips that on a day like today, a lot of teenagers are taking time out of their day to advocate for education. I think that's also something that important that we recognize for the importance of these trips during summer
break too. Yeah. Yes. It's really impressive. Very impressive. I love it. Like, keep coming, please. Um, there was another question about whether trip requests were in for
2526. And so, we've only gotten one trip request, correct? Correct. Yeah. No other ones have been submitted yet. Okay. um at that point. And then in terms of the administrator on the overnight out of state trips, that is now due to our change in board
policy which was made due to liability concerns. Um providing some more supervision on these trips. Um also providing some more, you know, support really correct. Um and in terms of the payment, you know, we had to negotiate uh payment for work. You get paid for
your services here, you know. So, we're going to compensate administrators who take time out of their very busy lives to join students on these trips. And teachers, too. We do that also. We do both. We do both. Uh, but the
administrator was a new one. He had always compensated teachers. Um, I think that was the quick questions. I had a couple other that I thought could be clarified. So, so there were some questions around um the the precipice of this being because we weren't able to
budget for certain trips and it my understanding is I mean really it's because we had a budget shortfall and we had to think about how to close that gap strategically where we're not cutting programs but you programs that we can't you know can't be subsidized by families. So it wasn't you know it wasn't that that was kind of the
catalyst. So that that that was one. Um and then uh the other uh the other question that came up that I thought was um maybe worth a clarification too is uh the idea that this model it's not necessarily the purpose of this isn't to make more clubs have more trips. That's
just a a byproduct of moving to a model like this because um because it you know absorbs the costs in a different way. So that that's that's kind of like a a you know a kind of that's what it seemed like to me. So I'm I'm curious if that Yeah.
access and and equity were also the focus on that. So um in previous budgets there were some line items for very specific groups to get operating budget to go. Other groups
didn't weren't afforded those line items. So when people were putting in they're like well how come this group gets operating budget and our group does not and so that then speaks to and then when we looked at how much that was
costing there were conversations around that in terms of you know sustaining other instructional items um because there are other student fund models to be able to support trips. So by happen just by the just looking at
those line items alone in in a significant you know budget crisis we made that financial decision. A repercussion of that when looking even deeper into that is how do we make an equitable sustained model so that
anybody has has the ability to access this without just saying we're only going to operating budget fund one or two organizations versus some other organizations. I really don't want to get too in the weeds. Um we can kind of talk offline, you know, what what what
that looks like and and where that information is. Um, but that's, you know, because there's there's quite quite a little bit of history here, too. Um, but the reality was is that it was part of conversation going back to December when we were talking about the the cost of the trips. Um, and I know
there's a lot of things that we want to fund in terms of going above and beyond. Obviously, our legal mandates and the state requirements. We want to do more for our students. Um, but the operating budget can only sustain so many things. But we also all agree collectively that these trips are of
vital importance. As a teacher myself, I chaperoned and ran a number of trips and the amazing things that happened. You can't replace that in a day-to-day classroom, but there's only so much money in the
budget, too. And when we're looking at making decisions for 1600 kids, we have to figure out what what those things are. Um, and then again as we unpacked it a little bit more, we were actually I was just thinking about I go, "Oh, there was a couple trips named on here that
I'm not sure I have to look into now that weren't on our radar that may now have to be on our radar." So, a lot of this is just we will get through it this summer. I am committed to making sure by the end of the summer we have a sustainable model um that everybody can
access if they want to. I think that's really important to say to a an organization, I'm I'm sorry, but we can't fund it because we're funding only these particular ones. Or is it the board wanting to have a conversation about maybe there are guidelines on what they
fund if you want to fund things? So, those are conversations we all need to have um around this idea of what what what what it looks like. Yeah. And in the context of a smaller budget and increasing insurance costs. Yes. Yes. That's the reality. We need to be That's
the reality. Yeah, that's the reality. Okay. Any other old business? Okay. New business. Okay. And move we adjourn. Second. All in favor?