##VIDEO ID:QcLWBDwCrMs## to the open public meetings act notice of this meeting has been provided as Follow by having a time date and place of the meeting posted on the board administration building October 14 2024 by sending a copy of meeting notice to the Star lger newspaper and the local Source on October 14 2024 and my file in a copy with the township Hills and Hillside Public Library October 14 2024 okay so a couple things before we allow our student up to come forward um one I'm not sure those of you who may have seen his interviews super talk the superintendent it was remarkable um it was it's just so refreshing to uh see someone that's so into their studies and academics as well as things as well around the education Athletics and family so I just want to commend you on a great interview you got a chance to get to know who you are and who is representing the student council I also wanted to con graduate our vice birthday shout out to a few special people um our superintendent celebrated a birthday a week or so ago happy birthday board member for given celebrated a birthday as well and also I know that uh one of our directors Christy Weaver she has a she's married now but her birthday is tomorrow so want to shout her well with that said Mr Cole would you like to come up evening everyone evening good evening everyone good evening my name is O and I will will be serving and I am serving as the Leon for po high high school and the Board of Education one of the things I want to address is the fall pep rally that we had on October 4th this was the first time in five years that we were able to have a pep rally and it was met with overwhelming enthusiasm by all the students the feedback from the students and attendance has been positive overall and and hopeful as theat uh all the pep r that we' had though this is was successful there are there are areas in need of improvement as by the students due to the size of the gym we were not able to account for all we had the 12 and 11 graders in the gym past years we were able to have all students but this year we were only able to have the 12 11th graders and moving forward we're trying to identify solution to this so that all students don't feel excluded and don't feel like they need to sneak into any events another topic of conversation amongst the students is the lunch that we've had recently while the lunch of clide high school was never inedible there were very few days that I could definitely say that I enjoyed the lunch and I would want to have it again but recently I can say that everyone has enjoyed the school and what I think personally and yeah in general the school's lunch has definitely been better I will continue to work towards Gathering more of the opinions of the students ofite high school and making sure that as many voices can be heard as possible thank you for your time thank you for that update now we will have our superintendent report good evening everyone good evening good evening everyone good evening first and foremost thank you for everyone for coming out that we have a standing room only tonight we are going to acknowledge several of our students and staff who have accomplished several great things part of the board meetings that we have is Showcase not just our students but also what's happening in our school this evening we also will be celebrating and highlighting our high school the north star of our district just got finished listening hearing from one of our students we're about to bring upal students now give acknowledgement over the last few weeks several months but definitely the last few weeks the Hillside High School students and Community have had the pleasure of being supported by some great young people who have done some very good things we about to meet these folks and several of them stand out for different reasons but this is why we do the work that we do why we all may come to the table with varying degrees of experience and perspectives and ideologies of what education should be the students at Hillside High School definitely Even in our early childhood Elementary and Middle School grades have definitely demonstrated that there are epitome of what it means to be a good citizen they make mistakes as children do but when they stand up they stand up in the best before principal will join me at the mic to recognize the scholars I want you to understand when we call them out four of the scholars help save the life of Hillside resident many other Scholars have embarked on a journey that has not been in our district in a while and our new career pathway led by one of our great sa another one of our I believe I saw mother I had the pleasure of meeting a national sports writer and then introducing another National broadcaster you might say well what does that mean it means that our children are engaging in those utilizing those skills that they have learned in the classroom specifically engaging themselves around those who have come from diverse spaces and Walk of Life or whether it's those students who who take those skill sets serious about being a good citizen and saving the life of another citizen so principal Ward without further Ado and board President and Vice President could you please join me at the mic so we can recognize the scholars Miss Teddy Loco who is the teacher of these beautiful students if you would come join us so several months ago Dr B who's director personal instruction and I and I had a conversation with a couple of our local Partners United Carpenter Eastern Carpenters Union maple wood shop and Thomas Edon University to develop a dual en rollment program and design and engineering and if you understand anything about career Pathways and also allowing our students to get certifications that allow them to be career ready or while they're still in high school earn a living this opportunity not only allows our students to get credits towards assal de but also gives them skills that they can use right now as high school stud hopefully our funds continue to go dire we think we will expand this pathway another SCH what I want to do now is bring forth the students let local our babies and and we're going to acknowledge please stand up here board President and Vice President join right here and shake their hands and get their Awards as you call them out Sagara Jayla Jen Charles Daniel Rodriguez gcia William tus Edward McCord AAS so as they are uh getting ready for the picture I just want to show you one of the things that they created uh they create bookcases tool boxes bird uh bird houses carel made this one for me and so I gave it to miss R Miss ruiz's children and they decorated it because you know when they give it to you it comes out looking like this uh and so I had them decorated I am not exactly the most uh hammer tool ready kind of individual so I turned it into my bookcase and that is what we will be doing so my tools are knowledge oh than good so about a week four of our Scholars on the proc in the process of going home and they noticed that there was a citizen of our community who was in distress collaps on the street instead of doing something that sometimes some students could do in a negative way they immediately began to support this elderly Community one of them took off the codes first they called 911 another individual the co put their Co underneath the head of one of the res stress and they stayed here pass by one of our Motors stopped and he continued to assist when I got word of it wasn't surprised because I keep saying we have the best stud JK but then it just said we have to definitely think about how we're going to celebrate that I really wanted to give them more but yet this is the form tonight to be able to say it live forever that we're acknowledging it's not just something that came from part of being a good human being but it's the skill set that you've been taught in your home it's also the skill set that youve learned about being the community so tonight Prince I want you to call your Scholars up I want you to definitely think of as a collective body think about how we all can help support others in stress not about the divisiveness that sometimes comes but we never know we may be on the other side of that when we think about when we say certain things it has a last impact on our students because obviously the high school and the homes have taught some values to our students that made them say let's be help us and not hurts George roas Les Melendez Eva Bal and Zara quinin I'm going to accept all one other Harmony if we come up andom and Mom Mom coming up and baby you got the baby with you right so about weeks ago Army was one of our district had a partnership right on sports program we started on Middle School elev all the SCH well last summer Army had a chance to participate and a few weeks ago she was invited to say speak as award annual award mom joined her and mom shared mom a very nice letter one of the best letters the superintendent can receive and you doing something right and I want to acknowledge mom for first and foremost allowing us to educate your daughter secondly for taking time on of your day because you didn't have to write a letter to say thank you and then to Harmony I'm not going to put you on the spot and ask you to speak but to acknowledge Harmony for the opportunity to put Hillside on the map and hopefully be a future writer sports caster or team owner I'll and I'll come work for you but the beautiful part about that is she was introduced to Peter King and for those who introduce he introduced you father and then you introduced I eag so if you know who Peter King is Peter King is a World world-renowned Sports wrer very famous and Iron Eagle for those who may be fans of the Jets the Giants or whomever are the Knicks you've heard his voice many times so to be introduced by Peter King and then to introduce Iron Eagle a student from Hillside High School 2.1 square miles 3,000 students When anybody else across the state could have done that's a true honor tonight Harmony and Mom we want to acknowledge you and say thank you for allowing us to educate your daughter and we're going to continue to support you while you our student here and beond thank you so tonight's superintendent's report is a little lengthy required by Department of Education to submit some documents to you and share communication some of it was shared last night at our community meeting and thank than for all those who came out last night to the community meeting but we definitely want to go a little deeper this will be published on our website some things I still want to make sure I clean up however I definitely want to share with you some insight into where we're at right now as we are almost 45 days into the beginning of the 2425 school year so let's begin I always begin by saying what our mission and vision I don't read it but you should know it lives on our website it lives in our classrooms and it actually speaks to something we just got finished talking about how do we build character cultivate Innovation and Foster leadership and I think that's what we demonstrated today we got we have students who are being Innovative we have students who are demonstrated a strong character and Leadership our vision is to make sure we are creating worldclass citizens who Propel not just our community but also they are successful in their future there's this word that's there are some words that's highlighted in here gold of Hillside side about reading this whole piece is to make sure that we are creating educational spaces where students are not just passive Learners going through the motions they are active participants in their learning he want you to understand what their why is and some people's why is different but I wake up and say my why every day is about the community of students parents and at large what can we do to make sure that this Society is better for them our priority goals have not changed but I they're on our website they're in our classrooms in our hallways and it's ironic recently some of our students were talking and they hit me over the head I won't mention her name but she is someone will be on the podcast next she challenged us to make sure that we are always taking care of the mental health of our students and staff as well as academic success students first their communication and integrity it's the core values not always 100% perfect but we have to be grounded to making sure that's our direction as I say as we embark on the month of November respect to all of our veterans who are in our families and our communities respect to those who may be battling diabetes sometimes we throw a little one out that you may not know but November is hunger awareness and and homeless mon we did our recognition of our students and at this time principal Ward I want you to come forth I want you to shine some light and spread some Joy about about your high school and the work that you're doing and good evening everyone good evening I am uh the proud principal of Hillside High School uh Hillside High School we have approximately 915 students at the moment okay we are all uh diversity we are all uh classes of people and we are just excited uh for what our students are doing okay so our um our team uh consists of myself I am Terry Ward uh one of our vice principles Mr imanaka obina amanaka Miss rosn Bartholomew our uh counseling director who is here with us somewhere today uh Suzanne heri yeah she's over there and uh our athletic director Helen uh MCN so Hillside priority goals as superintendent just stated Student Success student well-being engaged Workforce operational excellence partnership so we're going to take a touch on each of those quick quick touch so you won't have to be up all night all right but I wanted to make sure that I highlight our students uh you know going to visit colleges um down in the corner uh we were at NJIT this summer uh where one of our students peara received um she was the one with the highest scores uh in the state of New Jersey um we went to HBCU Fair uh over at Kane and uh that in the top corner is NJIT coming to us to talk to our students about college and different career paths as you yep go back to one more all right as you just saw our carpentry group all right so they were carpentry 1 um they worked over the summer so that when they came back in September they could be carpentry 2 all right and they have made all types of beautiful things bookcases bird house hous is uh they are learning measurement they're learning how to use tools uh and we hope next year to Branch out from just hand tools to power tools so we can make different things our uh junior Roc nationally recognized several awards first place in drill team uh LED our parade uh this past three weeks ago for homecoming uh Partnerships whether it be with ruter uh School Mental Health Services hack attac Meridian uh or using move this world and uh the children are right now taking surveys about themselves and what they expect and what they're looking forward to in school uh so that we can use those things to help them move forward Communications uh I am sure by now any parent who has me uh is tired of getting my emails um so I email at least two to three times a week um we put things on the website every week as well I try to keep in communication with the families to make sure that they know what's going on at the building um and to make sure that they understand what is expected from their children so this is uh just a homage to our football uh Legacy everybody knows we had the threee what people don't know eight years in a row conference Champs we're heading to the playoffs Friday so Friday we head down to Haden field all right and so we are very excited um we have students going to division one colleges uh we had one student going to Georgia one uh already went to Yukon one is heading towards Syracuse and one is heading to Ruckers thank you to Le is going to Ruckers all right so for academics I wanted to show you our academic uh deaon so those arecales we're going to talk a little bit about them a little later um but also we have a partnership right now with Scholastic and we're going to read across Hillside just like you've heard read Across America we're going to read across Hillside so Scholastic has given us books all right and literally hundreds of books last year they helped me out I had a goal that every senior would graduate with five books we surpassed that goal okay so we surpassed that goal and now um over a 100 Hillside community members and students it was about 85 students um got together and they said okay we're going to actually go out and read to the k through eight students oh I'm sorry uh go back one more I'm sorry I forget to to mention the Jets Club so the Jets Club down there in the corner they went to Florida to represent us so they they were uh state recognized uh and won the competition for the state and went down to Florida and even though we did not win in Florida we represented that was with Miss ebang uh up on the top you have our fla and deca students that is uh future Business Leaders of America all right and that's run by Miss grah uh and of course our National Honor Society uh and they have all been informed this week uh whether or not they were in the National Honor Society and that's coming up in December wanted to highlight Miss Ruiz and all the work that she has done we have students who are painting murals in the hallway all right so they got a grant to paint that mural that's in the hallway um and that is Miss Ruiz and her student they also are doing a competion right now where they're painting the ceiling tiles so if you ever walk into her art room it's not just these white tiles they painted them so the guy over there with the football and the the comet and they painted all these tiles and you would love if you walk in you'll see it's very decorated and now they're doing a bulletin board for me so the teachers are voting on which design goes up on the bulletin board for everybody in the community to see the decapit went to the beach their theme this year every year deaon has a theme the theme this year is our changing climate all right and so they took a trip to the beach to learn more about uh you know uh the the uh environment uh and what is expected and um what is the what are the problems down at the beach and down uh you know in in in that area um and they talk to conser conservationist to uh learn more for their subject our multi language Learners visited the Liberty Bell they went down to Philadelphia uh with their teachers and learned about the Constitution they visited the Liberty Bell uh and they had a very uh enjoyable day where they learned a lot about politics the good stuff all right so as uh Mr Cole was talking about we had our first pet rally in the last five years six years all right um and the kids had fun and the comet we found the body so that is the hillside Comet that's our mascot um and so the hillside Comon came out they played Hungry Hippo they played T of War uh they had all types of games teachers were involved as well kids had a great time hot uh Hillside cheerleaders doing an excellent job they come to all of the games make sure to keep our boys spirits up so we definitely thank Miss Britney and Miss Stephanie for the work that they've done uh we had a Hispanic college fair and our students went and the colleges that were there were uh promoting strictly scholarships for our Hispanic students we went on college visits and what we would do is we would hook up with students who already graduated from Hillside High School so you'll see dartan there um and we hooked up with them so that they could walk us around the campus for a personal visit as opposed to just you know having the the standard academic kind of thing you know Dart was able to give them a little bit more insight they're at fbu in that piure the band how many people have been out to the football games all right I need you to understand B used to be seven kids with a two and that's all it was there's 40 of them now there is 40 of them now and I can honestly say every week they've gotten better I can honestly not just as the principal every week they've gotten better uh and they're excited some of them are middle school students some of them are high school students but it's the start so that the band is going to develop and become better every year because we're going to keep these kids and we're going to keep teaching them and working them so we give a shout out to uh Corey and to Mr Kelly Cory's last name is Mo Cory Mo and Mr Kelly and big shout out to sua all right so Mr Cole and his team there Miss uh the Santos uh you know and and no no no I was talking about the the president Santos yes Ashley Miss D is the um is the the a teacher advisor but Ashley is the president um and they have done this incredible job of putting together all these different activities feeding the homeless uh stuffing bags for for uh students so they've done all this incredible work and I'm really really proud of everything they've done and I believe that's it and that's the last one and that is H Side High School and I need you to understand we are on the up we are on the uptake I need to say this okay um and and now this is the principal bragging we have increased in every metric we increased in our njsla scores we increased in our njpa scores we increased in our PSAT scores we increased in our attendance rate and we decreased our chronic accente is the problem so we have done everything we're supposed to do now there's a lot more work to be done because there incremental increases 2% 3% 5% but there increases and we're heading in the right direction and we can we we expect to continue to do so because I believe in our kids and our kids are the best in the state thank you thank you principal Willer thank you to the and the members of the Hillside High School staff who are here please stand stand please take this back tomorrow when you go back to meet with your fellow colleagues that not only are we to be proud of not just the students the leadership that's happening at the school proud of also the teachers and staff the dedication that you all serve give to our students definitely pay given today so just let them know that please on behalf of the board of educational superintendent we say thank you and being the first to present giv the opportunity to shine a light on this thank you very so I'm going to go through these swiftly Swift swift way however I do want to stop and highlight a few areas so I'm not going to read everyone I'm G leave it up here but I think it's important to kind of frame where we're at from a data perspective principal will just shared how the high school is growing we are equally grown in the district as well and we're very intentional about that gr made comment yesterday evening at our community forum and I'm going to make the comment again approximately 4 years ago when I arriv to the district there was a little over 100 students who were receiving ESL service bilingual service today 16% of our population we have 3,000 a little over 3,000 students about 357 350 uh 360 students in our district currently out of those 16% roughly 500 students are receiving ESL or by and or bilingual services and they represent a variety of langues me we also have to differentiate our services for our students evidence is showing that they're growing I came here three years ago four years probably four years ago there were many students who had not left ESL services for years and I say years there was some students who were receiving service the tier one level for almost seven or eight years not acceptable these are not growing today we don't have that there's data to show that our students are moving moving at a rate so that they are not exiting the program and still have supports and services with them and I have to give a major shout out they're doing this we don't have our full comp compilation of ESL teachers the hardest to staff in the state of New Jersey so the fact that our students are still moving dedication to our esm by to teach in District in language arts literacy this is data from the 20223 24 school year with the assessment taken in the spring of 204 in 2022 approximately 41% of our students were proficient across the district and English language arts increases to 44% last year with the sixth grade demonstrating the highest increase in fact most of our sixth grade six graders outperformed the New Jersey state average when it came to meeting the proficiency of the njsla we also you know there was a an statement about our elementary schools weren't even well the most recent results have demonstrated that in the area of language ARS ly our elementary schools grades 2 through six are started demonstrate a level of normality across all schools very intentionally we have made sure that all the resources that are the servant of our schools is making to all of our Elementary this year proud to say rising seventh graders going to our two middle schools are walking in the door with 63% of them proficient it's a big goal from where the r tax what that means is my seventh grade students this year should definitely demonstrate the same level of proficiency if not higher that will be a significant increase for our students especially at w y Taylor we're proud say that there's a lot of great things happening over there yes there's a new addition that will be hopefully we have a ribbon cutting within the next 45 days however that's a school that I recall my first parent meeting when they said we were forgotten School the small school Services didn't for reaching few years ago only 27% of our four graders were proficient you see the rise that they did in a matter of 2 and A2 years 61% to the teachers but also intentional workers principal Willard shared about the importance of showing the mechanics of growth I want you to see the comparison to where student took the NJ NJ GPA the high school assessment where they were at in 2223 and where our students were at in 2023 2004 as you can see Side High schol outperform state of New Jersey average 82% 83% that means graduation now you have to be transparent math continues to be a struggle I do want to recognize and acknowledge that there was distri wide GR in G grow in games in grade four across all of our schools I definitely want to recognize the fact that over two years we've seen double digit games for those who are statisticians statistically speaking 16 17 20% games is come rare however doesn't mean UNS satisfied because we started pretty low I think it's important to understand that last year we had n students in seventh and eth grade we took algebra one and all eight students passed algebra one all eight thereally had three students who were taking high school geometry High School I mean they have already completed algebra one and geometry and me they're prepared for advanced SP score when they get to 9th 10th 11 and 12 grade first grade SCH challenge that was put forth every day every board meeting last year 7 100% of our students would meet the first grade Master goals we understood that I was hard challenged some of our students still have some struggles well 75% of our first graders left first grade ready and walk into second grade ready as I've said in the past you walk out of each grade level on task then you're going to be much better you take any type of formal assessment I show you this chart because I think it's important to understand you need to also measure growth by cohorts cohort speak specifically to the same student being measured every year side doesn't have a high trans any a lot of students leave we do have a lot of stud as student enture the numbers in your D can be skewed at times compared to what it was in the past this chart right here and other charts that you'll see that will be available on our website will speak specifically to those students who the same students each year sitting in third grade fourth grade fifth grade or their respective grades that in the cohort analysis does show that we have definitely changed how many students are sitting and they did not meet impartially again I say we have a long way M there's some variables that we understand a couple slides I'll show you we've already done but I want you to understand that we are measuring cohort analysis that means student growth and those variables where they may not have the same quality of teaching year to year you can also take that into account put systems in place to support them science we can open up this High pip link and I will share with you that science concerns me greatly there's some variables that have changed in science number one science is not tested every grade tested in 5ifth 8th and 11th science has changed as the standards have changed over the last few years so there's a catchup we also have piloted a much more aligned curcular resource open sad that is different than the fos and we've also Al double down and spent more in training our teachers but I will share with you we're not proud of that at all and we understand where steps need to where the steps are we need to take improve but I'm transparent enough and saying this is where we're so what have we done and how have we spent the money so this is what we've done and this is working these are research based things and one of the things that was very important to do was we had to Sunset several things in our catalog of offering when I walked in the door there were things that weren't being used consistently if being used at all and we were paying for teachers had stated that the professional development wasn't always the best professional development now feedback is much different from the teachers and the evidence is being shown by our students I won't read through each one of of those but I can happily say some of those are Grant funded some of those are all of those are research based and they're having an impact on our student as as di is bringing up our next slide I there some highlights I want to share with you last year the Department of Education they just SP every District money for high impact suing and the high impact tutoring was definitely targeting learning loss phrase that's been used to say how are you going to improve through now well we doubled down and took our $192,000 grant and we added additional Caris fund to give in school tutoring for third and fourth grade SCH that was the department of education's Target grade level I want to share with you the results of that last year roughly 180 students in grades three and four that's across all schools all all all of our elementary schools were engaged in high impact to them some of them took both literacy and math but Mo most of them were engaged in one subject at a time tutoring took place five days it's 20 minute burst of outside tutors paid for at that time I missed that in his last paid for at that time by the vendoring company Sunshine education tutoring that we par the model I thought was a great model this year we adopted the we only and we're paying for it doing something's a little different it's small group it's one tutor two students Mach Three sometimes depending it might be one-onone depend on where the students are at we did it for 20 weeks it included as you can see comprehension word workk writing test fluency test prep all doing the course of the day no cost to the parents no cost to anyone it was all funded by us these are the schools again this is last year it started in late October and we concluded at the end of May and the this is the start point I won't read each data point but I want you to see the gains and significant gains by many of our students you have 81% of your students grow on leile levels that's significant 26% of those students who were not performing on grade level and Below were performing on grade 20% of those students were njsla ready in grade 3 90% of the students show growth increase on their link Benchmark assessment that took place in the L winter and spring and as you can see all the students who took the njsl A literacy assment 2024 25% of those students met proficient those were students who were not proficient walking in the these weren't your already high performers were the students who W need math an area that we recognize we struggled I can point out where we were at in April 20124 64% of our students grew in their IR performance and I is one of those research based software programs that says the correlation between njsla and I is about 8.9 which is very high one is it's a perfect correlation so that means that the information and the work that they're engaging in very similar to what they're going to see when they take their nsla assessment I want to get to this L we recognize that walking out of 2024 school year the 2324 school year where there was some growth points this is how we've addressed this issue number one we recognize our third grade students last year's third grade this year fourth grade still has some strugg so we contined toor and we doubl down and adding more resources to our current fourth grade our support for our our multilanguage Learners we also recognized that they were struggling and they need to have some tutors who also spoke some of the language so we hire tutors and your by our capacity of our tutors last year some of the tutors and we didn't hire the tutors last year this year we are hiring the tutors we recognize the tutor's training from the outside company wasn't as strong as we needed the tutors have already begun getting coached training and they go through weekly p and then tutoring it's a part-time job it's hourly job we've already understood last year that they get a new job at full time they're going to leave so we paying our tutors $25 an hour but it's not just about that we're also making them feel part of the school the leaders at those respective schools are making sure that they are integrated into the school day so when the students come to them they don't see them as it's a parttime tutor that's another teacher help attendance for all our student was over 90% so the students didn't miss that tutoring session they went there was incentives also baked in because you know our students love incentives and we also have one of our staff members who are definitely managing make sure they're on TX and again we don't ask the parents make sure our students come to school so they can get session you may ask what are they missing they're not missing content it's supplement so you were doing small group in language literacy doing a small group pull up if you might VI soci what ties into language litery they don't miss phal education you don't take that away from them they don't miss lunch they don't miss those things that still allow them to be a student Deep dive and drill down real deep to see what were the standards our students continue to struggle in those are the standards and those are the areas that we're focusing on because njsla pointed out these were the struggling standards for students across the state and we recognize it as well for us this is what we did this year an investment that we don't have the cares act any longer so this is an investment that the Board of Education allowed us as the district level leaders to engage it's going to cost us a little over $200,000 to run this but we budgeted for it and this what we wanted to do as we said we've also Diversified our materials this year we don't have them in all of our different all of our languages our students but we have it in Spanish students who are Spanish we have also utilized I ready continues I ready and their training for our tutors is year long compared to what it was P this concludes and summarizes the data this will be on our website we'll send it out we'll be happy to have engaged in more conversations so for people can drill down and ask more questions but I recognize and I st stand by this that yes we still understand our struggle points but we're able to a lot better our testing materials give us indication and we know walking in the door which students need support and right away have Target this just speaks again to as we continue to work on our strategic plan for our district and have that ready for you in the spring of 20125 these Community conversations allow us to think deeper about what it means to graduate a student from the Hillside High School to the portra of the hillside graduate as part of our conversations we have another one of our stakeholder meetings we two down will happen on December 17th thank you very much for your time and Happ thank you superintendent now I have a motion to residents are requested to State their names addresses and subject matter in the event it appears the public comment portion of the meeting they receive 15 minutes presiding officer limit each statement made by participants in Pre Administration issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and response will be forthcoming if when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals from speak specifically comment regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific real rights supported by the laws of the state of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights those affected or identified in their comments and be aware they responsible and liable for their comments Angel 54 Street um I would like to start out by saying I am very proud of the students who stopped to help the woman um who became ill um in Hillside the other day um my mom was picking up my grandson AT AP Morris and she P three and she was exiting out and she tripped and fell and I was a little disheartened because adults who were picking up their children or niece's nephews grandchildren walked right past her and left her on the ground bleeding um she's fine so that wasn't the point the point is more so that the adults need to we always tell kids to to look at what behaviors the adults are doing in this instance I'm going to turn it around the adults need to look at what the children did because it takes two seconds to just stop say are you okay help somebody up and wel them to their car so I the cing guard was wonderful there was an older woman who actually helped her up and got her to the car and the coursing guard stayed with her until I could get there so I do appreciate that um Trish I know I don't know her last name the cron guard right on at the end of Co and um wood she was wonderful um so to any parents or whoever is listening here this evening if you see something just help people they they're not looking to harm you someone just needed to be helped up while a three-year-old was standing there crying because he didn't understand why Nana was on the ground um I also wanted to say over the past my goodness six years or so um the district has always participated in some sort of some sort of breast cancer event they did not do that this year I'm a little sad about that as a Survivor and I participated prior to being a Survivor I look forward to it every year I would hope that the district would think about this and try to continue the tradition that was set forth and try to remember that although it's only the month of October people here have to live it every day and it's the little things that make everybody feel well the superintendent does wear pink every day in the month of October as well do I um so I do appreciate that but I really would have liked to have seen uh as we've done in years past a breast cancer walk for the district thank you scel New Jersey I'm a teacher at the high school um I'm going to revisit something we SP about a few years ago um as we're getting into the season where we're taking field trips uh the busing costs are prohibitive to many many students um I participated I was in that picture out in the Sandy Hook uh a couple weeks ago I was on that trip that we have a trip in another couple weeks for cathon I put together the trip to the zoo every year and I see students doing going on trips a lot and the cost coach buses are up to $1,000 a day at this point yellow buses if you're going to keep them past dismissal are $6 to 700 a day um I know we can do fundraising in the high school I don't know about the elementary middle schools but fundraising at times just isn't enough um so if there's something that as we're putting together together budgets for next year um if it's something that can built be built into the district budgets individual School budgets Department budgets um if there's a way that we can start to try to mitigate the cost of this because we're asking students I know when I start putting the zoo trip together I'm going to ask students for probably 65 or $70 and of that 15 of it is to get into the zoo um the trip that we're going on in a couple weeks of AC cathlon is a very expensive trip a big chunk of the buses so if that's just something the board can look into I know it was discussed a couple years ago to look at when we came out of the pandemic the bus cost Skyrocket and if there's something that can possibly be done you know from pushing on the legislative level to try to BR that in and then if there's a budgeting we can start to at least try to address that a little bit I know it's something that comes up all the time but just something to keep in the back of our minds as we're starting to move forward thank you good evening my name is Jackie BS and I'm a 40 plus year resident of Hillson and I understand why you cannot discuss Personnel issues I work in the district and I understand the legalities of it but um this is a situation that was created by you this unfortunately leaves a lot of us with a lot of questions that have not been answered my child never attended to schools in Hillside in the 40 plus years I had no problem that was my choice it was my choice to send him to other schools but I truly resent my taxes being utilized to pay for an incarcerated fell politics are strange when you come in with great new inspiring ideas professing to do better for than the other candidates because you on our votes but unfortunately along the lines turns and Roads and stuff relationships cause you to forget your promises maybe quck proquo or whatever reason why you don't do or you do what you do and to add any to iny we are now paying twice for this person through our regular federal taxes three Mills of the C and through our city taxes contributing to the contractable salary of $80,000 terms end and I will never F vote if you need one vote to get over because I remember you're all asking for everybody's votes because you're going to do the better for the hillside students the most ironic thing is you could have hired two teachers for which you're paying this person and you're talking about the greatness that our students are doing imagine two more student teachers that you could have hired two more tutors I've lived in Hillside long enough to remember the way it was before we voted for the mayor and the board and all of that and ironically it was a lot better then I strongly encourage you to read evaluate your decision and hiring this individual and do better for the students in Hillside and you have also put Hillside on the map by that New York article so if anybody didn't know who Hillside New Jersey was they know who we are now good evening everyone 125 Avenue um last night I did and I saw a couple of parents that were dejected and sad because they had not had a teacher um since the school school year started and I'm watching the presentation and I'm happy to see the increases but I sit and I think about how much more we could have been increasing how much more we could have done for our students how much more resources we could have put in classrooms had we not been incurring uh Mis Vates from the school board since I've been the mayor I've been talking about the School Bo I put the breakdown of 60% of our tax sist that come to the schools in all of our tax bills I've been very very transparent because one thing that me and my Administration are constantly yelled at about is taxes now I keep saying the Municipal Taxes have not gone up in 10 years but what I can tell you is that the school board has had over 8.6 million in ere expenditures and this public record and it's in your audit books all you got to do is look for it it's there and it's real 8.6 million in ere expenditures how much of that money have we not seen in the classroom why are we scrambling to get from the bottom higher we should have been doing so much better and now to have us risk our future State spending because now we are in the news you got Republicans talking about well look at East Orange and look at Hillside and look at North and this is how they spend their money they're itching to take our State dollars and what I heard in East Orange was oh well the state only gave us $200,000 so we're going to have to put it back on the taxpayers and because enough people are not watching how the school board is spending your dollars they always just blame the administration and it's unfair was Anthony stalters still in the classroom or still in a home of children when you knew he had fled back in January and I understand it may be still an offense that he could have still been before children but he has sticky fingers I wouldn't want someone who was arrested or pled guilty to fraud or embezzlement or tax evasion or whatever in my house teaching my children was he there and we have as people we are owed that explanation because it's our tax dollars and it's unfair for people to say that we're not deserving of any answers all of you on this stage took a oath all of you are responsible I don't want to hear about who voted came back to the board where was The Descent where was the questioning of that decision we had have not that in minutes and there has been no explanation thus far so all of you are accountable we've been talking about this for years and how can you have a board attorney that is clearly a conflict of interest for you there is no way he can represent the school district and his clients there's no way that's posability when we use that word let's live it and work it cuz we're very fast to come counc meetings and scream at the councel but people aren't coming here holding you guys accountable you took a oath remember it and live by it and do the right thing going forward good evening I'm Mohamed 1094 street Hillside newy I want to start with a quote it many Good Deeds to build a good reputation we all today and only one bad one to lose it so my address to the board of bed and it is about the 80,000 position that we gave to ANS and I saw the principal who a slide you said the first clear communication Integrity so as I read think of that word of Integrity so on your policy 142 board member qualifications prohibited acts and code of ethics it states prohibited acts business means any Corporation partnership firm Enterprise franchise Association trust so proprietorship Union political organization or other legal entity but not include a school district or other public entity and we all know that he was the chairman right that all of you all on so when you voted I didn't see any you should have a so no bo member or his or her family member should have an interest in a business organization or engage in any business transaction $80,000 or professional activity that is a substantial conflict with the propit dis charge of his or her in the public interest those who vot no board member should use or attempt to use his or her official position board members to secure unwarranted privileges advantages or employment for him herself members of his whole family or others I then wanted to read on the code of ethics uh number five recognize this we sign you become a board member that we will not do this or we will abide by this recognize that Authority invested the Board of Education and make no personal promises nor take any private action that may compromise the board refuses to render his or her independent judgment to special interest of partisan political groups or to use the schools for personal game for Game of Friends Seven hold confidential all matters eight vote to appoint the best qualified Personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative office I asked for Oprah to ask this advertise this position for $80,000 I haven't received anything and then if it was that you all have AOL to pick from and did you pick the best P thank you just one seconding up Andy Davis 1544 Mar here my question is are we still paying areay that's my question everyone Kim Young 855 Winchester Avenue Hillside New Jersey um yeah congratulations I'm making not just the New York Times but Politico New Jersey online and we even made it into a school tool that high schools use for writing props without morality so congratulations you put us on the map I have a number of questions the first and foremost was does our app does application process ask for criminal history and if so was this applicant honorable and honest in admitting that he had just pled guilty because if I'm correct the vote was in April of 2024 and he was hired on in the minutes at a step 12 master's degree position at $80,000 yet he pled guilty in January of that same year and was a waiting sentence so I'd love to know if you are all aware of it if if he did not disclose that how is that a moral situation it's a CRI if he did disclose that you all knew it and were complicit in bringing this person here I'm sorry that's a problem also a sec 12 Ma isn't that requiring 12 years of teaching experience and a master's degree that's what I thought that requirement was did we have any evidence that Mr stter is taught in a school for 12 years anywhere does he have a master's degree I'm not aware of that and I know you can't answer that but it is a general question the next was I do not know as a taxpayer here somebody who's been very dedicated to this school district for a long time who really involved with my kids here I want to know how Mr Hamlin it is ethical for you to sit on this board when you were representing Mr stalters as a criminal attorney in court when he pled guilty to one of the 11 federal indictments that were against him I don't know how you can serve the needs of this board the school or the district and hold that and hold that same position and we need a new lawyer and any of you who continue his employment are complicit in allowing us to do this it's not ethical and I would love to be able to act actually see the records that that your agency has submitted as far as invoices for everything that you have buil in this District since you started so I'm really curious to know where all that money went we need a new lawyer that's what and I'd also like to know who is currently teaching the homebound I'm curious to know who's covering the the Middle School advisory position that he had as well I haven't seen anything advertised for a position I don't see anything in the minutes for that so are we are we failing the needs of these homebound students because the new position we created is not able to be fulfilled by the person that you hired to do it and will not be fulfilled for six months um and then two how do the other stud feel about that and what kind of an example are we setting as a district when somebody who knowingly pled guilty to a crime applied for a position here and was hired before he even served his time I am all about Rehabilitation and people doing their their time I have no problem with that and there are a lot of people made mistakes who paid their dues he hadn't even paid his dues yet he wasn't even apologetic about it there's a problem with this and you were all complicit every single one of you who are sitting on this board with the exception of Mr Shapiro and Miss silow voted in the affirmative one of you is running for re-election you were not here you were not here so I don't know how you would vote but you're also on the labor committee so you were aware of this I have a problem with that you are not serving the needs of this District I would not beake knowing that you're hiring people like this and it makes me question every other H we can do better we should do better and you're all negligent and complicit in this that's right evening outla 3571 Miss Avenue New Jersey of course changing the direction just a little bit to kind of piggy back off of Miss laer uh the the community has a lot of wonderful Outreach Community initiatives and I would like to know how can we especially being the recycling coordinator claim communities coordinator we have a lot of cleanups we need the children involved I just want to know how can we possibly uh let the kids know let the students know they need Community hours things that um that they need uh for school and I just want to know how can I possibly get information out to our students also I want to commend you my daughter who is a cheer leader um and I don't know if I can discuss this but stop me if I can't uh she has been she's a captain of the cheer team and she has been talking to um the coaches about certain students cheerleaders who was a problem and they did not um take heed to what she was saying so the lovely picture that showed the cheerleaders it was 25 of them it's only 11 now because cheer leaders were involved with fighting filming some were uh suspended for 45 days some 11 I thank you for that but they didn't listen to my daughter so how can we get the those who uh have authority over them to take heed to what the children are saying she knew this was coming and unfortunately it wasn't dealt with until a situation arrives so I just want that to be taken into consideration and um we did have a wonderful Cancer Walk and if we could just come together and stop acting like Hillside is divided that the district things and the kids who are littering if they were part of the cleanups they would probably think SE have a second guess about picking up I mean throwing trash on the ground thank you so much Watson 83 first I want to congratulate the students on accomplishment know who is responsible for doing the background checks for AF for the district and then also I want to know what kind of leave um well Mr Sal what kind of leave is he on while in jail he's Tork from jail um I'm just curious how how can you be incarcerated in PR prison let me say it correctly and earn a salary from the district it's not like he was an inant happened he was arrested he's actually convicted sentenced and in jail was still working for the district so I want to know what type of he allow to be on to work while he in prison I just one question a couple months ago when I was at the Boe iwai 14 ter I just want to pigy back on who is actually doing position now because couple months ago last boy meeting I did inquire Anthony did actually get the job and the superintendent you did respond on your open request how important it was to have this position how important was for the kids who at home school need a de instruction so my question would be I don't see it in the minutes either who actually has this position now for the public certification I know there's been was it close hi um I was at the meeting last night with the superintendent and we were having a really wonderful discussion about how the district was doing and how we were moving forward and everything else that was going on and I'm just disheartened to hear about everything else that kind of pulls us away from doing what's right for the district um I know that a lot of people here will say everyone has a vendetta against this person Anthony Salters and that's not the case the name could have been John Doe and still it's up to you guys to make it right because there's so much more that could be done for the children of Hillside right now I know that the homebound students are being taught by teachers and so that's pulling resources from the classroom to do the job that this person was hired to do it's just not right and so when we talk about moving the district forward we had two parents last night that were almost in tears talking to you about not having a teacher in the classroom and their children falling behind having to hire private tutors in order to get their child to the basic and so how can we move the district forward making these support decisions thank you are we just for the public edification there's been comments about me as Council representing the school district and I think it's important for the public to know the circumstances surrounding my representation of Mr Sal Mr Salos was not involved in anything related to the school district which would create a conflict that's number one number two anyone in the state of New Jersey who is convicted of a first or second degree offense is prohibited by law from holding public office there are circumstances where a person who is convicted of a third degree offense all of which are referred to as indictable offenses can also be prohibited from working for a public entity there are circumstances where a person who is convicted of a fourth degree offense which is also considered an indictable offense could be prohibited from working in the public sector those are indictable offenses also known as fies in addition to um felony offenses there are certain disorderly persons offenses that would prohibit someone from working in a public um School District a disorderly person's offense that would involve someone's employment in a public um entity that could prohibit them from working for a public school district uh conviction for a a disorderly person's offense involving illegal substances could prohibit someone from working in the school district however a person who was convicted of a misdemeanor which is not an indictable offense it is not a felony offense does not prohibit someone from working in a school district unless that misor was or involved or touched upon the person's employment in this instance it did not so the suggestion that how could I represent Mr Salters in a case that had nothing to do with the school district and how is it that being convicted of a misdemeanor not a felony not an unable offense would prohibit public employment it does not whether people like that the law I'm responsible for interpreting the law the law does not prohibit someone with a misdem or a disorderly person from working in a school district unless it involved their employ with the public school district or the public entity someone suggested earlier that Mr salz is a convicted felon you're not a convicted felon unless of course you're convicted of a felony for indictable offense a misdemeanor doesn't proit someone working doesn't perit someone from voting there's no prohibition against it unless as I indicated before it involved a touch upon that is not the case here so there's no legal prohib but he's inil to do with this this is moral morally you should not be doing think of superintend so there are a few comments that were made the public comment that I am at Liberty to speak about I think it's important here first of all try to go in order quickly as Angel law appreciate your comments in regards to our students as always it is disappointing to know that there were adults who did not give assistance and to recognize that I doo understand that and look forward to our breast cancer I think there are some legistics on our side that will do better Ive forward Mr skeleton interesting about the busting cost so I think it's important to know we have already looked at our we added say we spent over a million dollars in blessing and I just said this last night so I'm repeat what I said I am adly against our parents have been paid for transportation and busing admissions to field trips especially when it comes to academics now the high schools are very unique space because there's so much happening and there are some things that we have said we will not be able to always fund but I am committed to making sure that our budget is healthy we increase our budget question how much do we get from the Department of Education in New Jersey stay $475,000 in transportation that doesn't that's a that's nothing we spend over almost $1.5 million in transportation and we have transportation costs that go from Athletics academics our students even when they travel to Florida when they travel to Louisville Kentucky we are trying our best not to have parents come out of this is an important statistic this is the reason why we can't and it does not account AR replacement when I walked in the District we were we were approxim about 54% free much for those in the audience understand the importance of that number it speaks to also the federal aid that we get in and what we're allowed to charge students today we are approximately 75% of our students in Hillside are free and receive free and reduced LS 75% mean we really shouldn't be charging because statutorily if you're charging students you have to be very mindful as I said last night I continue to remind D part field trips up fund that's a different case anything academic related we are committed to doing our best to offset the cost if not make it free for our students and no student will ever be denied from going on an educational trip academic trip because of their financial status so the commitment is already there and we will continue to look at that but thank you for bringing that up um M Tucker brought forth about open request M Tucker I will follow with my team to find out the status of that because that should have been addressed there were some other questions in regards to support of our students I will speak in generality if you look back at our previous board minutes and board agendas you will see that home B structures were approved just about every meeting prior today students who are in need of home bound home instruction are still receiving it and it depends there are varying reasons why we have students on home instruction cannot obviously go into every student's case but we are still making sure students who are eligible for home instruction receive it we have to report that out to the department and we have to make sure that we are eating those needs for those who don't know homebound instru homebound students receive a maximum intent can see should receive no less than 10 hours per week two hours per day of home instruction and when we created positions in our district he always thinking about our students I said this before last year so it's I'm put it back on record traditionally in this District homebound teachers were our certified teachers who after their workday was over would then going to the homes of the children and work with them that's been historic nature here last year listening to many of our parents who said they worked in the evening and couldn't be home when their student needed it we decided that it was necessary to have position that could work during the day you can't take our name is the skeleton a biology teacher who's working in the course of the day in high school and pulled them out of biology go so we had to utilize are after school after the hours of the teacher they were compensated for it to go into the homes but when you have parents saying I work in the evening and my child needs the homeb construction during the day and we didn't have anyone to operate so that was that's the case we also put out the application it was put out there you can go back and look we have definitely done that I'm sure you can open and see we do background checks it's on our applications we also are required statutory if we don't do background check we will hear from the division of student Protection Services we also are required to do certification checks New Jersey Department of Education has a system that if we do not and we employ uncertified uncertificated individual TR we will hear about it so all those things are required and we have been doing that dilig we're still doing it and we're still providing evidence that there was another question Miss Outlaw think you might here and from his Outlaw thank you for sharing information about Community Resources ironically are in the process of starting an advisory committee where we're bring more of Our Community Partners together that will be something that is forcoming within the month of November just to address our relationship with Community Partners I'm going to say this last one because it was made by someone listen I get it and I understand and I'm 100% believer that the voice of the community is important work because we're all here for raising our students to be healthy citizens and I too believe there should be healthy relationships between the municipality and the district because I every day when I wake up think about the 3,000 students who interface in this community and I think Safety First and God forbid something to ever happen to my students and I didn't have all the necessary resources that were available to them I'm going to feel real bad so it's not just their academic wellbeing it's also their acist mental health and physical health and we have we can sit all night talk about the things we put in place things that didn't exist prior to this board and administration but I too extend the out publicly for us to be able to set the table and have healthy conversation about what we can do to collaborate together thank you one last question that came a few times are we currently providing payment to anyone that is not working in District in capacity to Able thank you superintend attorney now we would like to move on to our committee reports Dr Howard get fin Mond item we also discussed um approval of theun 24 secretary report also discuss the approval of cash report and also we discuss we delated also um to accept the SDA am than you we discuss items one and thank misson get a report on education good even education committee met on this past Monday item one 16 and a couple of things I want to highlight two standa items discuss the process of managing fundraisers fi trips there are a couple of Grants and donations that have been provided to our district to approve a grant toand the opportunity for our scholar to earn credits while we're going to High School uh to expand our Mental Health Services that we're offering our children partnership with University which is a du partnership for trade thank you Shir would you get report on thank you thank you now take a motion to S before we um do go into executive session I just wanted to have a moment of silence for a recent codian that passed away in the district thank you we continue to offer prayers of comfort to his family the resolves pursuant to the open public meetings act at the Board of Education meet and close executive session at time to discuss matters relating to Personnel pending litigation labor and contract negotiations attorney client privilege the board will reconvene in public session at the conclusion of the closed session the matters discussed in Clos session will be disclosed to the public as soon as the need for confidentiality no longer exists thank you oh my