good evening everyone welcome to a meeting of the 100 Central Regional High School Board of Education please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act and that advanced notice required therein has been provided meeting notice was also posted in the
boardroom of the upper school campus sent to The Courier News Star Ledger Express Times and the hund county Democrat and sent to the clerks of Delaware Township East Amwell Flemington burough ran Township and Readington Township the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the
agenda we'll stand for the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for stands Nation indivisible andice okay at this time we're going to
read our district mission statement Sandra it's my pleasure to read that hun in central is an Innovative educational Community dedicated to the intellectual social and emotional safety and growth of all students while fostering curiosity and promoting
Wellness we aspire to create powerful learning experiences establish strong Partnerships and serve as contributing members of society thank you at this time we'll be doing the um oath of office for our new board member Claudia Gray
she's doing good I Claudia gray do swear do sorry do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey
and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people so help me God
and this state under the authority of the people so help me God I state your name I Claudia gray do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications of membership prescribed by law that I possess the qualifications of membership prescribed by law
including specifically that I am not disqualified as a as a voter including specifically that I am not disqualified as a voter pursu to R pursuant to our period ask 19 colon 4-1
as well as I am not disqualified as well as I am not disqualified due to a conviction of a crime or offense due to a conviction of a crime or offense listed in njsa 12-1 okay listed in n.j. S.A 18a
colon 12-1 iay I CLA sorry I Claudia I Claudia gray do do solemnly swear that I possess the qualif qualifications prescribed by law that I possess the qualifications
prescribed by law for the office of member of the board of education for the office of member of the Board of Education and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform and that that I will Faith faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of
that office all the duties of that office according to the best of my abili so help according to the best best of my ability so help me God thank you congratulations thank you so we'll do a roll call Mrs Spitzer Mrs dougen here miss gong here
Dr Halper here Mrs Kellogg here miss losta here Mrs Peterson miss Ro roal here and Miss oh sorry Miss gray here
and Mrs santangelo here thank you at this time we are going to convene into executive session can I get a motion in a second move to go into executive session second second roll call
please Mrs Dugen yes Miss gong yes Miss gray yes Dr Halper yes Mrs Kellogg yes Miss losta yes Mrs Peterson yes Mrs roel yes and Mrs S Angelo yes and just for
the public we will probably be in executive session for about a half hour thank you e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e yes sir for the timer you're ready I'm ready all right thank you everyone for your patience I would like a motion and a second to reconvene
into Open Session I motion second roll call Mrs dougen yes Miss gong yes Miss gray yes Dr Halper yes Mrs Kellogg yes Miss lacasta yes Mrs Peterson yes Mrs roell
yes and Mrs santangelo yes all right currently right now we're going to be doing our ethics training Mr giobi is here he's kind enough to uh take the time to do our ethics training that is required in public so with that
we'll turn it over to Matt thank you good evening everyone sorry my backs to you um I I I I'm not going to do it singing uh even though I could be a thesbian at times um so I've handed out to you an outline on the school ethics
uh act and school ethics decisions and it covers the entire law and so what I want to do tonight is explain to you uh what is the school ethics act um within the school ethics act and it's a statute it's a statutory
requirement that you have to follow and as you saw just earlier this evening we saw Miss gray take the oath of office and you agreed to uphold the uh law state of the laws of state of New Jersey and the federal government US Constitution state constitution you're
taking an oath of office and part of that oath of office is that you're going to follow the school ethics act and within the school ethics Act is a is a is um code of conduct of of what you have to follow and what I've done is
I've outlined the entire act and then within it there are cases that deal with each aspect of uh the code of ethics and what's required of board members but I'm going to summarize it I'm not going to go through the whole outline because I think it's around 20 pages long so this
is something that you can look at if you have you know questions talk to um the board president talk to the superintendent and then they can involve uh me and I can give you guys Guidance the school ethics Act is is is
interesting and I represent a lot of Municipal governments County governments State entities um and when you're a board member you're in a you're an elected official you get elected just like the other elected officials get elected but your role is very very
different you make the policies and what are the policies the policies are the laws that govern the school when you're in a municipality they pass ordinances that are the laws that govern the
municipality zoning ordinances Etc you create the laws that operate the schools and a lot of the policies that you create some of them are mandated by law such as the harassment intimidation and bullying it's mandated by law that you have to have a policy that addresses
that what you guys don't do is you don't get involved in the day-to-day oper operations and you'd ask yourself why why why is that the case well the case is somewhat logical because many people who sit on Boards of Education have kids
in that school and I don't know about you but when it involves my kids they're right you know you looking out for your kids it's like kind of like you know papa bear or Mama Bear syndrome so the legislature when they crafted it they said we're not going to have board members involved in day-to-day
operations they're going to make sure that the district is well run that things are being operated appropriately you set the policies you set the rules you fund the operation and then you let the chief
School administrator execute on on the plan and so the analogy I like to use is you guys are a pro football team and the board members you're the owners you're in the owner's box you're not down on the field
calling the plays you're funding the operation you're making sure that you know they have the jet to get to the far away Games Etc you're hiring your coach and your coach who runs the day-to-day operations
is Jessica she runs the the the thing she makes the hiring recommendations she makes the non-renewal recommendations she figures out who's the best teacher for this class versus that class she's your coach and if things aren't white
the person that you hold accountable the only person that you evaluate the only person that you hire is Jessica now what's important is as board members you guys aren't just elected officials you're the employer you employ
Jessica and you employe lots of people and so the rules that you pass these policies are the rules for not only Jessica but all the employees you have policies about what employees can and can't do on social media you have dress
code policies you have workplace harassment policies and these are policies that you update all the time they're not just stagnant policies that you pass once your policy committee has to look at them laws change they evolve and you have to make sure that these policies are up todate Etc so that your
employees know the rules of engagement and the policies is where any employee can look and say oh what can I what can I do politically in the classroom well you can't there's a policy on that uh what can I do on social media what can I
write can I take positions on things there's a policy on that you as a collective body do that now no individual board member has any power whatsoever none your power though is fairly awesome when you come into this room you as a collective body have a
tremendous amount of power and that power is that you and the other school districts when you look at your tax bill you guys are the largest portion of the tax bill and you because you're educating kids it's a people business you're hiring teachers you're hiring bus
drivers you're hiring custodians this whole team of people that Jessica orchestrates every day to make sure that your children and the children of this Regional High School System are getting a good education every kid whether they
have special needs whether they're the highest achieving kids they're all getting a great education and so when you come together you're setting a budget and you guys are in the budget season and you're going to get your state aid numbers I think Thursday or Friday and your budget is
due to the county I think March 19th that's where a lot of power resides and you know what when you have a well-run school system which you guys are all in you you took the oath of office to make sure it's well run not run it but make sure it's well run it
also has a huge impact on all of your property values and all these folks that are sitting out here because when you have a high performing District people want to move to high performing districts and so you guys have awesome responsibilities and I can tell you if you look at your tax bill and I know I
represent a number of municipalities and they like to point it out well we're only 20% of your taxes it's the school that is 60% of your taxes but if you look at it the county is usually 20 the municipalities is about 20 and the lineon share of it are the school districts and so if you think about it
you guys are controlling the biggest Pur strings in in your respective towns and you're setting policy by which all of your employees will be following that policy so that you have a great school
district for your for your kids now the school ethics act there are certain things that the school ethics commission looks at I would tell you that the thing that angers them the most absolutely gets them bananas is when there's
breaches of confidentiality because as a board you guys meet almost every meeting I would imagine you guys have executive session and in those executive sessions you're discussing employee matters whether somebody should be let go whether somebody's on a family medical
leave issue you're discussing student matters could be disciplinary could be HIV it could be the special ed placement these are highly confidential matters so you guys are entrusted with very very confidential information that can't ever
leave the confines of executive session and so the school ethics commission they look at that and they say you as elected officials you're being entrusted with very very confidential information that directly impacts students and staff's
lives so you have to keep that confidential that's something that they want to make sure now some of the things that are are quite obvious are you know you can't vote for uh your husband's company to appoint them that that's a violation and I think everyone would
understand that it gets more nuanced and in in our handout we have it is um the school ethics Act is very particular about your involvement if you have a family member that works for the district and and I have a whole list in
there about what family members are well clearly your spouse your child those are family members but it's could be a nephew a niece those are family members so you have to know who works in the district and what does that do for you in terms of voting so let's let me give
you an example let's hypothetically say that that you get elected and your brother works in the district as a teacher I mean you're allowed to get elected if you're elected you can't hire your brother's a teacher but if your your family members here in the district
working and and you get elected what does that mean for you well what it means for you is that you can't be involved in collective bargaining negotiations you can't vote on a collective bargaining agreement can't be involved with grievances there's all these nuances and it goes farther let's hypothetically say that your spouse is a
teacher member of the nja in Hillsboro can you vote the answer is you can't participate in the negotiations and so long as your spouse isn't the lead negotiator in other District you can ultimately vote on the final
memorandum of agreement but you can't participate in the creation of it and so one of the roles that we play as a board attorney is we will give you I'll send you a questionnaire that you guys can all complete and we will give you an
analysis of what parameters that you can vote on what parameters you can't vote on if you have conflicts Etc and the benefit of it is is it gives you guys you know an idea of of how nuanced this can be and um we will give each one of
the board members that opinion and we'll give it to both Jessica the board president and the ba so that they can help guide you through it now the one benefit of being a board member is that the school ethics commission will issue
advisory opinions so they won't issue to you if you've already voted if you voted and said H I don't know if I should have voted let me get an advisory opinion they won't give you a get out of jail card but before you vote we can get an advisory opinion for you and I'll give you an example of a a unique one that we
got usually if if there's a phone call and we get a phone call saying is this an Ethics violation or can we vote on this or can we not we can give you an answer there's generally uh either an advisory opinion or an Ethics case on it so we could give you guidance but I'll give you an example of when I had a
number of years ago I had a board member in a district I represent who was a division one Collegiate athlete phenomenal athlete and um in in in her um she no longer a division one athlete
she became a referee for the njsiaa in gymnastics competitions she was a college gy gymnast and she never did any officiating at at the district that she was on ever because she said that' be a conflict then she's thought
to herself she said you know what I've been asked to do the big County meets and the state finals what if one of the kids from the board I'm on is in the state finals can I officiate or is that an Ethics violation well I can assure you there's no advisory opinion on this one so we wrote to the school ethics
commission they said no that would not be an Ethics violation because it just happen stance that that kid that's in your district is makes it to the finals and you're officiating it that's an example of when you would get an advisory opinion um there's advisory
opinions on all all kinds of things and the thing that I also caution board members on is where I see a lot of board members that get in trouble and we defend quite a few ethics cases um because the insurance companies
assign them to attorneys of my firm is the use of social media social media people say things and do things on social media that it it doesn't go away it's there for good and
the school ethics commission says that you don't give up your First Amendment right if you're a board member you can espouse your First Amendment right but you must use a disclaimer you must say that this is my opinion not that of the board because if you don't people in the public might pres presume that you know
Lisa's position on this is she's speaking for the board so you need to have a disclaimer now you know the the simple thing is you know you're taking a position on National politics or something like that um you use a
disclaimer but you have to be mindful that the disclaimer is not a get out of jail free card you can't use the disclaimer and then just start trashing people and I had there's a case uh that took place in North Jersey where the
board president was not a fan of the local NJ president of the school district didn't like the union didn't like the person they're all from the same town and had a Blog in which he had a disclaimer this is my own opinion not
that other board and then he just went after the the union president because he didn't like the NGA he didn't like this person so the NGA hired an attorney they filed ethics charges and ultimately the school ethics commission removed them and said you're not allowed to do that
she's an employee of the board you may not like her that's okay but you keep that private because you're an employer you're not allow do that you're not allow to disparage that person publicly and just because you use the disclaimer you don't get out of you don't you get get a go free from jail card you're off
the board six month suspension so that's one example where and so I just tell people if you if if you wouldn't say it to your grandmother if you wouldn't talk about it at Thanksgiving dinner with your grandmother don't write it on social
media because it nothing good comes of it like personally I've never been on Facebook or Instagram why because I've seen it destroy way too many people's lives because they write or take positions and you as a board your power is in this
room collectively when you get together and so when board members leave and start writing things on social media or that a it's very divisive and it doesn't help the board function as a whole because the as I said before individual board members have no power when you
come together you have lots of power so I think it's it's very important that before you hit send or you post on social media you have to be extremely careful and if it involves the board it really it's forboden you shouldn't be doing it you should any type of
announcement that goes out should be being sent out by your superintendent any type of social media should be collectively decided on by the board and it's put out by your superintendent because you guys work as a team not as individuals and you know when the team's
working together collect ly usually you got much better results um I mean we saw that recently in the Super Bowl with one team working much better collectively than the other team so I don't know if you guys have any questions what I would um encourage
you to do is I will send to Jessica the questionnaire this isn't a gotcha questionnaire it's a questionnaire I use in a lot of districts all of our districts and we have you fill that out and then we will give you an individual assessment of what you can and can't
vote on it's not it's really so that you don't get in trouble voting on Collective negotiations on um you know if you're involved in certain uh you're on the PTA or PTO what you can and can't do we try to give you guidance so that you know
and it'll you know trigger something in your your mind saying you know what I should ask about this before you vote because the one thing I will tell you is nothing that you generally do on boards very rarely is there emergency very rarely is the a school catches on fire very rarely is there something that you
have to take action immediately usually your agendas are published way in advance there's discussions so when in doubt you pick up the phone you ask your superintendent and then we can give you guidance on whether or not you should recuse yourself or not recuse yourself
and my final thing is what is a recusal so a recusal is you have a conflict Matt before you get there so just back to all the familial stuff so we'll get a survey we fill it out so collectively do we share that
information or is it just kept by our superintendent or our business administrator well I said I send the the result of everyone everyone I do it for each one of you individually your superintendent and your business regat will have on their file so that they can
give you guidance if they're at a meeting and you something's on they might say wait you know what uh Miss gong you have um you know your nephews on this you can't vote here so it's really to help protect you guys from Mis
stepping and it's important that your ba and your superintendent know that so that they can help give you guidance because you don't have Council here and they're they they know what's on the agenda and they'll know what things are coming up um but let's get back to just what what a accusal is I'm going to end
it here if you have a conflict and you need to recuse yourself recusal means you don't participate in the discussion you don't it's not a recusal to take a position argue about it on the day we shouldn't do this we shouldn't do that
and then comes to a vote and say I need to recuse myself I have a conflict because you're participating in it has now already infected the entire vote and there's a case that came out of it was a planning board case where that happened where a member who had a conflict and
didn't disclose it was participating in the discussions Etc and at the very end recused themselves and the court said that's not a recusal the whole vote's no good so if you need to recuse yourself my suggestion would be you step off the
de you w you don't participate in the discussion if it's involving something that you know and and we can give you guidance on it but if let's say it's your your your spouse is an employee and you're voting you can't vote on the contract you don't even want to discuss
it just step off the day and not discuss it and that will avoid it because the whole goal of this is to avoid ethics charges and why do you want to avoid ethics charges because it costs money it
costs taxpayer money people are like oh the insurance company pays for it well guess what the insurance companies you're paying the premium you got a lot of claims guess what happens your premium goes up I have three sons I can tell you all about my car insurance what happened when they're in high school um
so it co and you also have deductibles so the whole goal here is is that you're much better off spending money on your kids and your students and your staff than attorneys and so that would be my strong recommendation is to you know look at
this follow the guidance and if you have a question ask before it's too late all right thank you very much Matt I just have a quick question sure so you stressed the importance of confidentiality in executive sessions was one of your
examples is that also applied to committee meetings it yeah it's not just an executive session if you let's say you're on um a Personnel committee or you're on if you're privy to confidential information
whether you hear it from the superintendent in her office or you're at a committee meeting or you're in an executive session it's confidential and confidential means if it involves students Personnel it maybe it's a property acquisition maybe it's an
ongoing litigation it can't be discussed outside the confines of the board the committee or the superintendent it can't be discussed publicly and it can put the it can literally put the board in a horrific position if you're in
litigation or it could frankly lead to litigation because a family member or a staff member could say you breached my confidentiality I didn't want the whole world knowing about my medical condition or I didn't want the whole world knowing about um you know my kids's medical condition
and that's why and so you guys are entrusted when you get voted into the office and you took the oath of office uh like Miss gray did this evening you're being entrusted with people's lives and their kids' lives more so than any other elected official okay thank you yep well thank
you very much enjoy the meeting thank you Matt all right so at this time we'll resume the agenda items um starting with the approval of the minutes from the January 27th uh board
meeting separ we do that separ right yeah so can we get a roll call no no no I'm sorry um can I get a motion
in a second remove the approve the minutes of the January 27th meeting second roll call Mrs Dugen yes Miss gong yes Miss gray abstain Dr Halper yes Mrs kellock
yes Miss lacasta yes Mrs Peterson yes Mrs roel yes and Mrs santangelo yes um motion carries thank you all right we have correspondence that was received by the
board that those correspondents will be on record in the board secretary's office um next we're going to move to the president's report uh chairman Sant Angela before we move on I just want to
um say that for correspondents that uh I appreciate the email that came in from a parent uh asking about our health class curriculum and I appreciate the response that was sent out by our super attendance so thank
you thank you all right so the president's report is a new item on the agenda we will use this report to highlight a variety of topics in this particular report I would like to explain the committee structure these monthly board meetings are more of a formality in fact most of the discussion
and consideration of issues is done through the committee process amongst board members on and off each committee I believe it is important to share this process with the public our monthly standing committees are operations in transportation Personnel policy and
student life and program the agenda for our regular board meetings is created jointly by the superintendent and board President we strive to ensure that each item on the monthly agenda has been considered in a committee meeting which also provides a process for board members not on the committee to share their comments or concerns on those
agenda items prior to the regular meeting this process supports one of the New Jersey Schoolboard association's most frequently reported Norms no surprises is at the board table there are rare occasions when the administration will need to add a last minute agenda item however we try to
avoid that as much as possible when a parent staff member board member or student highlights an area of concern or requests the Board review a particular practice those items can be directed to a committee for consideration each committee has both discussion and action
items official board action can only be taken with a quorum a quorum is five or more board members no committee has a quorum therefore a committee to make recommendations to the full board but cannot act on behalf of the board the agenda is posted prior to each meeting
and available to all board members all board members can email the committee chair with questions comments Etc so that they are fully informed of all board matters the minutes of these meetings are shared with all board members providing everyone access and ample time to have their voices heard notably when policies are up for either
adoption or abolishment there is a first and second read across two committee and board meetings this gives board members extra time to reach out to the the chair with questions or concerns committee meeting discussions are confidential and deliberative in nature not all discussion items will become an action item and action items May remain in the
committee for another month for further research and discussion the items being moved this evening are all action items that have been well thought out and thoroughly discussed throughout the process action items are the only items that can be discussed at the board table and that's it for my report I will
kick it over to Jessica uh before we kick it off to our superintendent just a point of information and thank you for the board processes uh that was a lot uh to go through for the public so Sandra I'm sorry I just I want to keep the agenda moving this is not a time for board
comments uh this is a point of information so I think I'm allowed to speak so it's a a question just for additional business additional board business has that replaced our board comments so that's not an action
item it's a point of information a question okay well it's not an action item on the agenda Jessica all right good evening everybody it's hard to believe we're almost at the end of February this month seems to have
flown by unlike January um this month we went through the majority of our qac review that stands for the quality single accountability Continuum and it serves as a review and evaluation process for school for school districts with the New Jersey Department of Education
you'll remember last month that I told you we go through this process every 3 years and we're scored in five areas these are instruction and program fiscal governance operations and Personnel for each of these areas there are many indicators that the Department of
Education checks I am pleased to report that we did very very well in terms of the requirements for each indicator we will not yet have final scores until later this spring but I wanted to give you this update so that you had that at least for the time time being until we're waiting the scores we are still
waiting for the State Department of Education to look through some documentation and when we do receive our final report it will be on a BOE agenda for your approval um approval excuse me I want to thank our District's qac team um as well as our admin one team and
support staff who helped prepare us for the review and the visit the amount of documentation we needed was tremendous and we all spent our day or days with um the Department of Education so I really appreciate that time and that attention as you know February also
presented us with some weather challenges we have used one emergency closing day so far this year and we originally had three days allotted in our calendar as I noted in the fall we recognize that this year's school calendar does not allow for maximum
efficiency at the end of the school year we had informed our staff and families that if we do not use all of our emergency closing Days by the end of February we would revise the calendar to end the school year prior to the state observance of juneth which is June 20th
currently our last day of school is June 23rd 2025 and graduation is June 24th however if we do not use any emergency closing days this week There's no wood for me to knock on uh we will be
able to shift the end of the school year with the last day of school for students being June 18th and graduation on June 19th so we will notify everyone officially at the end of this week I also need to share an update with you all on Transportation specifically
pertaining to our ongoing discussions with Flemington Ryon school district and the busing Services provided to our community next school year as you know the hunteran central Board of Education and the F Flemington raron Board of Education have worked together over the
span of decades to provide transportation for students in our combin districts by pooling resources and coordinating Services last school year our school board decided to terminate the existing joint Transportation committee JTC for
short between our districts effective the end of this school year however the current leadership from our respective districts have agreed to explore a new Arrangement that would continue our long-standing cooperation to provide student transportation into next year
and Beyond this Arrangement is different from the JTC and more akin to a shared services agreement for transportation which we already have in place with two of our other sending districts I will share more details when they become available both districts leaderships and
Boards of Education are committed to ensuring that all eligible students receive the transportation they deserve at the lowest possible cost to our taxpayers we look forward to continuing our discussions and partnering with f frsd and we hope to set on a new shared services agreement that is equally
acceptable to both districts I'd also like to give a few very um noteworthy recognitions tonight as well I know bronwin and Aaron our student Representatives will also have some news but I will be remiss if I didn't share some recent accolades we received news that our
strength and conditioning coach Mr Paul cot was selected as National Coach of the Year from the National High School strength coaches association this award is given annually to strength and conditioning coach and recognition of his or her coaching achievement and passion for the
profession on Friday New Jersey assembly woman Michelle drulis visited to present coach cot with a proclamation recognizing his selection coach kod has been at Central for over 10 years and one word that is perfect to describe him is passion in fact I asked coach kod to
come tonight so we can honor and celebrate him in person and he informed me that he had M multiple training sessions going on tonight it did not want to cancel on the students however he did offer to zoom in from the floor of the wait room um I turned him down um
but this is a perfect example of why coach Cod is so deserving of this honor so congratulations again to coach Cod a few other celebrations um our girls fencing team are officially the district six Champions our Corral
singers meline carvalo Analise Guerrero and Kari perin participated in the All State treble choir this past weekend they performed at the NJ Pack in Newark our Hunter and Central Cheerleaders captured the group four state championship in three different
categories and wrestlers Nehemiah bugos Rhett weski and Grant Thompson are District 20 champions in their respective weight classes so congratulations to them as well so I'm now going to ask Dr Hall Mr Brandt and Dr Hastings to come up to
provide an update to you all on our progress with multi-tiered system of supports which is part of one of our district goals this year and we're going to go into the front row as they come up and get set up let go
Sor here we go boy that's tight good evening everybody I'm Matt Hall director of curriculum and instruction and uh myself Mr Hastings and uh Mr Brandt are here to uh give an
update about our multi-tier system of supports project um or initiative I guess is probably better better way to describe it this year here and uh a little bit of a refresher because we do have um several new board members and um
of course for the benefit of the public we'll we'll do a little bit of a Refresh on what we're talking about when we talk about our multi-tiered system of supports and then we'll shift into um what H what we've been accomplishing so far this
year so as a reminder when we talk about this system what we're really talking about is um a sort of a a a a number of different support structures that are articulated to one another to to support
students in um and being successful in school so ultimately uh what that means is um graduation right and so there are four different pillars we can almost think of the multi-tier system of
supports um as a a a stool with four legs right and so those four pillars or the four legs of the stool are the academics of that the the students um engage in and their academic success
there's social emotional uh growth um behavioral and also attendance and so when we see students who are um you know they're having difficulty in one of these areas uh there are a number of of
strategies to support them in one or more of those um and as those all come together in a system that's what we mean when we talk about this multi-tiered system of supports so to the tearing piece of this
so when we talk about multiple tiers what we're talking about is different l levels of intervention that are brought to bear when students are um when they they they need support and so as a first
tier when we talk about tier one interventions what we're talking about are the types of things that every teacher does every day within the classroom the regular classroom environment to support their their students
learning um this has been a big Focus this year and really codifying uh what we're talking you know what we've begun to refer to around here as high impact instructional priorities and practices and so there's been at
multiple board meetings and and and many of our meetings and professional learning around the district th that is is the buzz this year so that is our tier one every student
it receives tier one support that's you know those are all the that's the um classroom differentiation that's the um small group sort of uh mini lesson type thing that happens within the classroom that's
U additional support um answering questions all of those types of things and sometimes students need additional support beyond what happens in the regular classroom so a a more intensive type of support and that's
what we talk about as tier two okay so the the sort of diagram that we use here to describe this is a pyramid and um the reason that that's how it's portrayed is because what you're seeing is the percentage of the population that tends
to receive those supports so at the bottom of the pyramid is the largest all of the students are there tier two is really um tends to be you know a smaller uh percentage 5 to 15% of the
students okay now if further support is needed more more intensive support is needed that's when we have a tier three uh support and that tends to be the types of supports
that require a uh a change of program so a special program of some type um that is more intensive the most intensive for the smallest percentage of students and this is sort of a fluid system so students will you know be
within the tier one sometimes up into the tier two up into the tier three and then as they um are meeting with success can move down so it's uh you know there isn't any part of this system where sort of you know somebody gets there and
that's where they're stuck now right so that's important to sort of con consider so I'm going to pass it uh to Dr Hastings and he's going to uh uh sort of contextualize it with a u sort of a
hypothetical student for you so Dr Hastings thank you Dr Hall so in order to understand how mtss and the District staff comes together to utilize mtss services um we're going to contextualize this in a case study like Dr Hall had said um
with Jonathan so everybody meet Jonathan he's a fictitious ninth grade student who attends hcrhs and there's a lot of areas of support that Jonathan is in need of right now so first of all he's not attending school okay he has an attendance rate of 65% he's missing five
to six days of school per month okay as he's not attending school his academics and his academic perens is decreasing so assessment data has shown that in this hypothetical student um is struggling with reading comprehension specifically
with making inferences okay and he's becoming easily frustrated in his academic setting so he has some off-task behaviors he has some occasional outbursts um and when he is attending school sometimes he's even cutting class so there's a lot of different areas of
focus here that the mtss system needs to address there's the academic piece there's the behavioral piece and there's the attendance piece so this case study is going to show how everybody works together to address these needs um in a hypothetical situation so starting with academics
he's struggling with reading comprehension specifically with making in inferences and things like making inferences using context clues uh making connections between texts these are all standards that are language arts standards in grades 9 through 12 so in
his classroom he receiving high quality instruction on these skills so a strategy in that classroom on a tier one level could be his teacher modeling making inferences maybe she has a passage she's annotating and she's modeling different sentences that could be
inferential the teacher could be thinking aloud oh this is interesting this is what the author said I wonder what this could mean right there's targeted direct instruction on inferential thinking this is happening with Jonathan in his normal classroom and with every other student but if he
still struggling to comprehend the material for a variety of different reasons there are some tier 2 supports that the teacher could utilize so these are examples of some of them um obviously there are more but let's say for instance all of our students have
the opportunity to attend a block five tutorial for extra help with their teachers a tier 2 support for Jonathan could be a required tutorial where he'll work in a small group maybe twice a week and he'll get extra instruction so what he's receiving in the classroom plus these extra required
tutorials he could also be placed into a response to intervention Block in his schedule where progress monitoring occurs and progress monitoring is where the teacher on a bi-weekly basis will measure the growth of a skill or a subset of skills so these tier 2
supports are targeted on his specific academic deficits and it provides him with actionable strategies to move forward um in his academic learning okay on the behavioral front we mentioned earlier that he's becoming easily frustrated he could lead to some off
task Behavior some cutting class so just as required tutorials happened on the academic front counselor meetings could happen as a tier 2 intervention to meet with him more regularly to discuss his school avoidance his frustration his of task behaviors and the counselor could
work with Jonathan as a tier 2 intervention to develop a signal that expresses his need for help help being maybe I need a break and I need to just walk down the hall away for 5 minutes to the restroom and back or maybe I need these directions Rec clarified for this
assignment okay the counselor would work with all of his subject teachers to say hey here's the signal that Jonathan might display in class here's what it means when he says it um and that way everybody can work together to give him the help he he needs so that he's not having outbursts in class or he's not
exhibiting off tax behaviors he's learning coping strategies to help him with his behavior and as as part of that process Jonathan might also work with his vice principal to understand that there are numerous consequences to cutting class so it's not just the disciplinary aspect
of potentially having an in school suspension with too many repeated Cuts but also if you're not in class you may fall further behind in your academics so the vice principal and the counselor may work with him to help him understand all of what happens as a result of the
decision making process that he's making as far as attendance his attendance rate is 65% he's pretty much at a loss of credit at this point he's missing 5 to six days per month so an intervention that the vice principal could take on this front is there could be frequent check-ins with his family to
provide progress updates so the vice principal would be talking to his family throughout this process but maybe that communication happens more frequently at this point and something that could happen as a tier to support is Jonathan can work with his vice principal to sign
an attendance contract to improve his daily attendance and potentially that percentage Rises and he earns back some of those lost credits andal support you know meeting with this counselor to combat those School avoidance patterns um can take place as well so as you see
through mtss teachers are working together counselors are working together Vice principls are working together curriculum and instruction supervisors they're all working within a system to give Jonathan the supports that he needs in order to learn and to graduate and to
become successful outside out of 100 in central when he graduates okay so I'm going to pass it over to Mr Brandt who's going to talk a little bit about how mtss supports each child's development uh thank you so uh Dr Hastings gave a a case study if
you would of of one student but we have 2400 individual students here and we work to as most day in and day out the students are you know flying in that tier one area for all those four areas however you know using using various
assessments and evaluation tools we identify whether or not students need assistance and temporarily or longterm in that tier 2 or tier three area depending on which one of the legs of that um that stool that Dr Hall was talking about so again that was just one
student um and throughout the year it varies as well some students have various needs in September versus you know right now in kind of the cold of the winter never used one of those sorry um and for this last side
where are we now and what we have done so far uh basically number one um becoming familiar uh with the terminology it's a Common Language um when I first started looking into what mtss was um over the past few years it
realized it's really good teaching and learning and really good supports and program to help the teaching and learning uh but the good part of it is it's a Common Language both within all the different departments in a school um but also within schools so for example the math articulation team that works
with the sending districts they're using the same language as well so at least it's a Common Language and I think that's a first big step it's almost also I think an acknowledgement to the good work you know when teachers and counselors and such SE the language that's involved in here and they realize
oh I do that oh I do that and meanwhile the state's saying please do this uh it's a good pat on the back to them hopefully they realize uh the good work um again I think also this tier one language is an area where uh staff
members hopefully felt you have a license now to use those tools within the classes uh Sometimes some of the tier one interventions may maybe uh teachers may have been hesitant thinking am I allowed to use that in here is it it's a little different for this student than that
student it is okay it is okay that's what uh good teaching learning is all about um we have instructional design assistance working with as well amongst the staff who has you can see there are conducting informal classroom walkthroughs to identify that good work
teaching and counseling can be very isolated at times so a teacher may be doing great work and not a lot of other people get a chance to see that other than the students so this gives us the ability to find out hey you know what what you're doing right there is excellent we'd like to spread that out
and spread that good word to the rest of the staff members and that's through uh the professional development that we have for example um in January we had that professional development day after that third back to school night and the staff members had an opportunity to to
select and go in and sit in on professional development a lot of it which came out of this work um so appreciate also you guys giving us that time uh to do that there's other layers of that as well whether it's during block five also for staff members to go
get help um or also some asynchronous modules uh for stev members to jump in on and use um as they see fit and then the last step here is uh working on as we continue to um use Genesis day in and
day out and learn all the ins and outs um we hope to be able to have data reports kind of a data dashboard if you would so that um we'd be able to more quickly monitor all those four areas of mtss and not have to wait for an
emergency or wait for um you know the red light to go on to help these students but maybe see it coming before we get there um and that that's a recap of where we are now a lot of great work and um I'm proud to be a part of it thank you any uh
questions right thank you thank you again Dr Hall Mr Brandt Dr Hastings uh one thing I did want to note but I was trying to wait for the microphone if you Google multi-tier systemus supports you don't always see attendance as one of the legs of the as
Dr Hall explained um but in New Jersey New Jersey requires attendance and specifically chronic absentees to be a part of the system so that's why we've incorporated as well I think it makes sense as you know you really need to be in school in order to learn so um it
just really all ties in but I did want to make that note so next I'm going to ask our student Representatives bronwin Downey and Aaron Johnson to deliver their report good evening everyone our names are brond Downey and Aaron Johnston and we are student Representatives on this
board of education tonight we'll be giving a report about events and ideas directly from the student body starting off the second semester Strong the trium music Honor Society put on a Jazz Showcase on February 7th with songs all sung and played by our
talented Central Music students for students interested in writing the Society of young authors is collaborating with Ed ERS of our student newspaper the lamp with plans to revamp the creative writing section of the website to include poetry and short stories alongside Student News coming up
Central's cast crew and pit Orchestra are gearing up for the musical Hello Dolly with performances on March 6th 7th and 8th and a show for senior citizens the afternoon the day before opening night finally our Orchestra and band students will be playing in their spring
concerts at the end of March surprisingly winter sports are already coming to an end we've seen great success across the board with cheer winning the state championship and placing Ninth at Nationals the hockey and fening teams are currently in States and spring trials will follow shortly
after at this point all current freshman sophomores Juniors and the incoming a grade class have selected their classes for the next year and we'll be working with their counselors in the coming months to ensure that students are balancing their APS honors CP and electives classes Juniors and seniors
were also able to learn about the college admissions process directly from the admission counselors across the country during the admissions panel on February 20th and juniors will be doing NJ GPI testing in mid-march College college acceptances have been slowly
coming out over the past few months and aside from deferrals and regular decision admissions seniors are now starting to decide where they will be accepting from now until May 1st we held another monthly lunch meeting last week to talk more about the results from the climate and culture survey students
expressed that they appreciated the variety of clubs offered at Central but some struggled to find and maintain members to resolve that issue we are brainstorming ideas like more Club fairs and advertisement advertisements on the morning announcements our previous student lunch on AI use in and and
outside of the classroom has continued to showcase the impressive ways students are using AI technology to supplement their learning such as using chat Bots to practice conversational skills in World language classes thank you so much for listening to our report tonight and we are excited to continue to share the
passion students have for essential in these next few months thank you so much bronwin and Aaron um and board members lastly you'll see our hibb and suspension report um I'll have a report on hibs for you during executive session and under
organizational items those are the hibs that we talked about last month in executive session so that concludes my report this evening and I'll pass it back to you Lisa thank you thank you all right at this time we are going to have our first residence Forum this is for action items only on the agenda so if
anyone would like to speak on those items they can come forward okay okay so seeing none we will move on to organizational items the first item is regarding the comprehensive Equity plan which is mandated by law specifically New Jersey
Administrative Code 6A 7- 1.5 each New Jersey school district is required to sub submit a mandatory report to the New Jersey Department of Education and this is approving the team that will conduct the assessment I just wanted to mention briefly I know there's been some
confusion with the new Trump Administration talking about withdrawing the Dei within the 14 days so we have not heard anything from the state uh Board of Education or um the state of New Jersey so we are going to continue
to do what we were mandated to do and that's why it's on the agenda um second item is the Hib report which Jessica just re uh just mentioned that was reviewed by the Board of Education in closed session on January 27th item three is an ad hoc committee
needed for the RFP for new legal council the members um who agreed to be on the committee are Ellen helper Leslie Lacosta Rebecca Peterson and myself we are scheduled to conduct interviews of prospective attorneys on March 12th and then the last item is the Board of
Education handbook so with that I would like to move items 1 through four can I get a second second all right any comments on the action items one through four um have we talked to the board attorney about
um any members of the board that have litigation against the board being on the legal RFP committee no so you can submit a an email request if you'd like I will thank you okay any
other comments all right can we get a roll call Mr Spitzer yes M gr yes Dr Halper yes Mrs [Music] Kellogg uh yes on one and two no on three and
four I'm sorry yes on four yes on four thank you Miss losta yes Mrs Peterson yes Mrs roell yes Mrs dougen yes and Mrs
S Angelo yes um motions carry thank you all right now we'll move into our committee reports I just want to remind everyone we mentioned last month that we're not itemizing the um items on the agenda because everyone can see what they are we're just doing a
brief summary so with that I will pick it over to Leslie for student life and program thank you so the slmp committee met and had the opportunity to review and discuss accommodations that are needed um for making it to championships for wrestling and swim teams and so with
that we are moving to a uh moving to moving the motion forward for one items one two and three can I get a second second okay roll call I'm sorry any
comments okay roll call Mrs Spitzer Miss gray yes Dr Halper yes Mrs Kellogg yes Miss losta yes Mrs Peterson Mrs roal yes Mrs dougen yes Miss gong yes
and Mrs santangelo yes yes motion carries all right Jessica the operations and transportation committee met on Tuesday February 18th uh in attendance for Sandra grong Ellen halpor Lisa santangelo myself uh Jessica calosi hay
Heather Spitzer um we also welcome John Weiss and Laura Atwell our Auditors from pkc who gave a top level overview of the financial standing of the school district and at that meeting reiterated what we had mentioned last month which is that our audit came back with no recommendations or corrective action
plan once again thank you to Mrs Spitzer and her team for a job well done um we're moving actions 1 through three which are just angal Financial operations which include Financial reports bills list and transfers for approval item number four requests the
acceptance of our annual con comprehensive financial report item five is being moved for approval of the budget objectives for the 2024 20 2 annual budget um we are aligning um these objectives with our district goals
item six seeks to approve um project Adventure as our proprietary service vendor for the challenge course um repairs item seven seeks to approve learn well Professional Services as our virtual T tutoring service I'd like to
move items one through S second any comments just that again I would also like to thank uh Mrs Spitzer for all the good work thank you all right roll call Dr
Halper yes Mrs Kellogg yes Miss losta yes Mrs Peterson yes Mrs roell yes Mrs Dugen yes Miss gong yes Miss gray uh abstain and Mrs
santangelo yes motions carry thank you all right um the Personnel committee met on February 18th in attendance was Jessica Keli hay Heather Spitzer D Kellogg and myself um this month we
discussed resignations new appointments professional development courses for staff leaves of absences in addition to salary advances excuse me advancements per the 100 Central Education Association so with that I would like to move items 1 through
21 can I get a second second thank you any comments on the action items um Miss Kel isy ha would you like to add anything about the um uh descriptions the job descriptions the security
officer that's the only one yep so we um we've had historically I forgot I can leave that on um we've had five security officers here that we employee in addition to our school resource officer and class three officers with verin Township Police
Department um we'd like to have four security officers and then a fifth security who kind of is the coordinator as well as our treny officer we believe this will bring more cohesiveness to the whole system and um better coordination not that we're not well coordinated with
renon Township Police Department but a person who that can be their sole Focus instead of it being on the vice principal Andor the principal um we also would like to make sure that we're following up on chronic absenteeism and TR and treny charges um a lot of times
right now that requires the vice principal to leave school to follow through with those treny charges so by putting this position in place we'll be able to have a person so that we're not removing the vice principal from from school for a day to do that
thank you thank you for the explanation all right um roll call Mrs Kellogg yes Miss lacasta yes Mrs Peterson Mrs roal yes Mrs Dugen yes Miss gong yes Miss gray
yes Dr Halper yes and Mrs santangelo yes oh yes motion carries all right next we have our policy committee Becky so we have a lot of new board members on the board now so I'm going to give a little rundown for the public and for the board members who haven't had an
opportunity to attend new board member training yet how the process works um first and foremost Boards of Education are in fact policy-making bodies we adopt policies and the superintendent handles the day-to-day of how to implement those Pro policies which uh was reiterated in our uh ethics training
um some of our policies are required to be included in our policy manual either by state law regulation um in fact a significant portion of the 70 policies the committee focused up on updating last year were policies required by the state that benefited our
qac review um this year in addition to our regular updates we're going to um initiate a rolling review of each section of the manual this process can take a month or two for each section depending on how much wiggle room we have within that section um so this work is going is going to be rolling
year-over-year it's not going to be completed in just one year all the proposed policies that we have are available for board members to review Once the committee agenda is published uh Jess also shares the proposed policies with members of the administrative team for review We generally get the policy committee
agendas out fairly early so everyone has ample time for that review and can send questions or comments to me prior to the committee meeting and then I can include those into the committee's deliberations uh the unique thing about policies is that the review process spans two months so we have a first and second reading of
the policies board members have the opport to engage in that deliberative process with the policies across two committee Cycles I will note that we did not receive any questions or comments prior to this month's committee meetings we are recommending approval of 12 items
for first read and um eight of the updates are mandated by our policy vendor due to minor changes in the language of Statute of Regulation and this month aside from our regular updates we focused our attention on the board's bylaws which are pretty old uh the updates to the bylaws align with the
District's goal of supporting Community engagement and connectedness by increasing operational transparency and ensuring that we're keeping our stakeholders well informed we also have two items on for um abolishing but they are not actually being abolished the language is just being moved into um
other policies so there really is no abolishing language it's just moving around uh the committee unanimously agreed on all agenda items that should be recommended for approval to the board uh there are no items on for second read this month because we have just started our work for the year I will note that
as of 4:00 today I did not receive any questions or comments from any board members um about any of the items on this agenda so if there are any concerns they can be sent to me prior to the March committee meeting and those concerns can be incorporated into the March discussions and with that I move
items 1 for2 for approval on the first read and two items uh to abolish for the first read can we get a second second any comments on the action items um a couple of comments and uh one
question so I I would like to thank the committee for their work it was um the the minutes from the committee were very thorough um and we also were provided detailed information on on the purpose of updating all these um uh uh policies
so again I I would like to thank the the committee for its work and um and I think it was a really really good report out this month uh I continue to have the same concerns uh with the nepotism policy that I had last year but I won't reiterate all of those um and I did have
one question on the legal services uh in that the way it's currently written where we're not allowed to expend any funds for litigation without a board vote um I guess how would how would that
work if the board is the subject of the lawsuit so if we need to respond within a certain amount of time would we be calling a specific you know special board meeting to approve that or is this only um you know approving expenditure of funds for litigation if we are
initiating the the litigation so I would I would just recommend emailing that question to the chair and then we can put that in the committee for discussion so this way we all can have h a chance to deliberate that's the process so any
other comments my apologies uh to Mrs Peterson because I sent my email after 4:00 today but um having been on policy committee last year I still have a question about again combining nepotism and collective
bargaining so you're going to tell me to send an email yes I'll send an email thank you very much to keep with the process all right uh if there are no other comments then we will take a roll call uh just one other comment I'm sorry on policy 0174 Legal
Services it seems that uh and correct me if I'm wrong are we sort of bypassing our business administrator or making it um I don't know more uh of a committee in terms of what gets approved for legal services so again I would just recommend
that you email the chair so we have a record and follow the process thank you got it thank you thank you all right roll call thank you Miss lacasta yes Mrs Peterson yes Mrs
roal yes Mrs Dugen yes Miss gong so since I have questions I guess I'm saying that uh number one and three abstain or no
actually and all others yes is that the way it should be done do you mean item three on the actual motion bylaw 04 2.1 and bylaw 0174 correct yes so okay and yes to all
other yes okay Miss gray abstain Dr Halper abstain uh Mrs uh Kell uh no to 01
42.1 and 0174 and yes to the rest and Mrs Sant Angelo yes okay okay so we'll move on to additional board business this is where we would
want to see anything new added to or suggested to the Committees just to think about it no comments okay so next is our final residence Forum this is for anything on the agenda or general comments if
anybody's interested they can come up to the podium I wish I could see good evening my name is El Bishoff I'm a senior at Hunter Central and I'm a resident of Aron Township I'm here today on behalf of myself my peers and my teachers who are concerned about the
current political climate and what it means for us here at Hunter Central for those who are dismissive of a statement like this let me make things clear from the top down the rights of students to the quality of Education they deserve are being threatened to what extent I don't know I do appreciate the ear comment on Dei policies but from what
I've experienced and observed is that students and Educators alike are afraid they're afraid of immigration officers making AR rest in their classrooms of laws that make their existence illegal of half-hazard curriculum censorship and funding cuts that compromise the Merit and integrity of our education these aren't non-existent problems they're not
arbitrary problems and the extremely real tangible fear they create cannot be dismissed we are living in a state where attacks on our Collective freedom and intellectualism are becoming normalized I enjoy being a student H in central I enjoy my classes that challenge my critical thinking and understanding of the world without an irrational fear of
supposedly dangerous diversity Equity inclusion I enjoy reading the books I want to read and I've been for the most part assured that each and every one of my classmates can walk into our campus feeling safe and supported we have an exceptional environment here but as I look to the board in front of me I implore each of you to consider the
power that you have because from the top down we are in a period of anticipation awaiting game of fear so protect all of your students offer us the respect we all deserve as young adults support supporting our freedoms to learn what we'd like to learn to be who we want to be and to love who we love I'm speaking not out of paranoia but in care of these
values and having been alarmed by the kind of rhetoric that's bearing nationally and here in our community represent us all of us with the Integrity that you're meant to upheld thank you thank you good evening Scott Cohen RAR and
Township uh just two things real quickly uh because I was not at the last meeting I've been coming to Board of Ed meetings for probably the last 15 years uh about 85% of those meetings unfortunately I missed last month's but um what kind of
troubled me and I don't know the rationale so I guess I'm asking the rationale or for reconsideration in all those 15 years we have had a board comment section and there's been some really rich discussion amongst the board members throughout all the
transitions of the boards and board presidents that we've had over those 15 years so I'm not quite clear as to why that has suddenly changed this year after a 15-year run or more of having that on the agenda um I think the public
would like to hear the disc course and the discussions of what's happening and the thoughts and opinions of people on the board it feels like there's a sudden silencing of board Rich board discussion that's happened over all those years in
that board comment section so um there may be a good rationale I have no idea but it just struck me as odd when I didn't see it last month I wasn't here I thought maybe it was a mistake and now I see it's not on again so um I'm curious
as to why that's occurred and what opportunity there is for the public then to hear the perspectives of the board members other than just rubber stamping everything that's on the agenda so that's item number one item number two
is in line with what uh our very uh studious student just talked about L um I'm deeply concerned about the national landscape and the implications for this school district we have a tremendous staff here we have tremendous
administrators all the way through to our custodial staff that look at and care after our kids day in and day out we heard from Dr Hall Mr Brandt and Dr Hastings about the mtss structure which is aligned to support our school's
Mission around social and emotional capabilities of our students which is critical if our students aren't here and they're not feeling well then they can't learn we can't just expect them to walk into a classroom and teach what we think
they should know so I implore this board as we go forward and whatever Direction at the national level whether the department of Ed gets abolished and the pressures we're going to feel from a budgetary perspective that we be very cognizant about the policies that we're
putting in place for our students I know I can count on the administration and the staff to implement and support those policies I'm not convinced yet and I hope you'll prove me wrong that this board will uphold and support these
students as the rest of the nation seems to want to cut carve and scrape out certain segments of our population thank [Applause]
you hi good evening ladies my name is Jesse I'm coming here from East Amwell class of 95 100 in central thank you very much um I used to sit right over there for study hall uh my senior year oh excuse me I'm sorry to interrupt can
you just write your name down on the why sure thank you thank you okay uh I'm coming to Cu uh on ethics and I actually thought it was pretty interesting that the first Speaker tonight also spoke about ethics and the
changes um to some of the ethic stuff which ties into what I'm going to ask you guys about tonight the agenda has a motion to establish an ad hoc committee for the legal RFP for bringing on a new lawyer um my question primarily my two
questions primarily are around who will be on that committee uh is there a plan to have members of the administration for the school school on that committee uh and if so will they have any Sway in the decision making for that lawyer and then the second part of the question
then is uh are any of you guys going to be on that committee if so how will that be decided uh the reasons I'm asking is because to me I see potentially some conflicts of interest amongst and within the board on being the people deciding
on who gets to be the new lawyer my primary concern is with Miss Peterson uh as their is a pending legal issue that I think to date has cost the district approximately $20,000 so far and the fact that she
also works uh for Murray Nolan and brudy so there could be a personal interest in the outcome of who is chosen for that position so to me I see the potential for a pretty big conflict of interest there um and then kind of broadening out
from I think the more obvious one is um back in [Music] um Miss Rowan thaal uh was given a $100 campaign contribution from Mrs Peterson unfortunately I mean they could be
friends and that could be you know a friendly like hey let me help you out but that also then has the opes of you know being more strategic um in in in nature as to why it was given um you
know was it to Curry favor was it just because their friends I don't know I'm not trying to cast dispersions but I'm just kind of throwing it out there that it just doesn't really have a good look for the for you guys um and then kind of you know piggybacking off of that but um
potentially less so still kind of you know gosh um back in 2022 Miss Dugen and Miss Peterson they ran together and you know what is there a potential conflict of interest there in the outcome for who's chosen um were there any contributions made then to miss Lacosta
or Miss gray that we don't know about you know what are you know the potential inner phrase there and then U Miss B uh santangelo you did speak in favor of Miss Peterson back in 2023 before you yourself were on the board uh was that out of friendship was there a caign
contribution that is unknown um to us um you know again what you know what are I guess I'm just kind of asking you know what are the potentials for conflict of interest and what lawyer is chosen for this position again not trying to cast any dispersions just saying that you
know the the looks of it um the Optics just aren't necessarily the best and you know this is perhaps where you know having some of those board comments would be helpful kind of you know where do people stand and all that stuff but since that's not really out in the open seemingly that you know we don't have that available to us as to what con
those conversations would be so kind of again just putting it out there you know what are the potentials for um conflicts of interest if you guys are on there are there going to be admin people on there choosing those things and uh I guess just kind of putting it uh saying asking
not asking apologies um it's been a long day um but just kind of you know reminding you guys that the Optics aren't really looking so good if a lot of you guys and and in particular certain people such as Miss Peterson are on that committee for choosing the next lawyer thank you that's it I'll put my
number down here too since it's not just your name on the list it's also your phone number and thank you for your time thank [Applause] you good evening good evening sign in
I'm Susan talowsky as a taxpayer of raron Township I'm concerned about recent decisions made by several board members there appears to be an unprofessional approach to resolving issues I think we've heard a little bit about that previous speakers you're
aware that the Flemington ritton School District budget issues have resulted in a referendum on March 11th this potentially will result in a tax increase if it's approved and I fear that this board will be leading theun in Central District down
the same disastrous path without thought we all watched the selection on January 27th of Miss gray to join the board Miss gray is clearly not as qualified as the other two candidates it was obvious that the other candidates
were both more experienced in working with young people and managing substantial budgets I've been interviewing candidates my entire career and that in my opinion was a failed interview it also seems unusual Miss s
Angela was your first order of action as president would be to fire the board's longstanding attorney this is the same attorney that would have represented our past board member Noel odonnell concerning your ethics complaint if it had gone
forward that complaint concerning the rainbow mask that she wore to a board of ed meeting in February of 22 was ultimately deemed frivolous Miss s Angelo did you release Gorman danela and Morlock in retaliation
for the $100 fine that you were assessed this firm represents 30 public school districts and municipalities and has an unparalleled reputation your motivation is in question the fine that you were given
was for filing a frivolous complaint that was deemed so by the state ethics Commission in their own words isn't it also true that this frivolous action and other Leal expenses have cost the district thousands of dollars that could
have been spent on education I would also like to understand how the new board members Miss lost and Miss rothel voted yes to release the legal firm since they are both so new to the board what did they base their decision on shouldn't they be
asking asking more questions it appears they are blindly following incompliance and we expect more of the board members Miss santangelo wasn't it also a violation of the code of ethics when you voted for the new attorney considering the obvious conflict of
interest in closing will this board's actions under Miss santangelo as president be focused on retaliatory acts personal vendettas and hidden agendas or will you make decisions in the best interest of our students faculty staff
and taxpayers thank you [Music] hi my name is Ed mclin I'm from Delaware Township and um I think there are some uh some common themes tonight so I'm going to harp on them as well
um so an impression of of one of the things I I saw transpire tonight uh really it speaks to what I think is a lack of transparency um so I'm here attending
these because I would like to hear open public deliberation of uh questions around policies you know how you intend to Define policies how you intend to run the school and um questions came up about the policies
around the uh around uh the uh legal representation legal services and uh it seemed like they were valid questions and the directive was to to uh to miss Kellogg to send an email where it would
be discussed in committee now the committee as far as I know the committee minutes the committee records aren't public right because those are Works in progress so here we've got a question about legal services that are coming up and rather
than having some open deliberation or some open commentary about it instead we're being asked to send an email so that it's quote on the record as if the minutes that are being kept here were not a record um but what it looks like
to me the impression it's giving to me is that it's not something that you want to talk about uh in public you'd rather bury it in committee and rather have it you know be buried into the into the uh the policy itself so it's just not
transparent and I don't want to beat a dead horse but the fact is is that there are two members of this committee who I think we're already discussed that are now or have been in litigation against this very board two members of this board that are now or have been in
litigation against this board um those folks should not be on a committee that is making decisions about legal services or legal representation for this board it is just an obvious ethics violation I'm not a lawyer maybe it's
not maybe there's some particular loophole out there that that you can you know crawl through but from a perspective from a perception standpoint it just it's it's just it is bad it just does not look good so it looks like there's that that you're trying to bury
specific topics keep them out of public conversation um the topic itself it's it seems like it is is something that you know that affects directly two members of this board who those legal services are from it's just not transparent and
um I for one I'm here because I want more transparency I want deliberation I don't need deep deliberation on every topic but if one board member asks you know for some clarity on something I would expect better than send us an email and we'll talk about it in
committee right so thank you that's all all right seeing no other comments we'll close out the residents forum and um I will move uh and ask for a second on convening it to Executive session can I
get a second second roll call please Mrs I'm sorry Mrs Peterson Mrs roal yes Mrs dougen yes Miss gong yes Miss gray yes Dr Halper yes Mrs
Kellogg yes Miss Lacosta yes and Mrs santangelo yes so we will be um going into executive session for approximately 45 minutes and we will be coming out and taking action thank you e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e are you ready you ready okay all right so can I get a motion in a second to reconvene
into Open Session motion to reconvene thank you can I get a roll call or should we just say yeah we did the second and Sandra as well yeah all in favor I I I okay all
right so we would like to move items one student discipline ad hoc committee the long-term suspension from school are we you know what let me read this move to approve the long-term suspension from school for the following students until the date as indicated in accordance with
the decision of 100 Central um can I get a second second roll call Mrs roal look at I messed up see Mrs dougen yes yes Miss gong yes Miss
gray yes Dr Halper yes Mrs Kellog yes Miss Lacosta yes Mrs Peterson yes and Mrs S Angelo yes I'll yes motion carries all right next item is uh to move item one the settlement
agreement um we are moving to authorize the board president to ex execute the following agreement on behalf of the board so can I get a second yes roll call Mrs dougen yes Miss
gong yes Miss gray yes Dr Halper yes Mrs Kellogg yes misss losta yes Mrs Peterson Mrs roal yes and Mrs S Angelo yes well yes motion carries all right and
finally we would like to um move with a second to adjourn the meeting those in favor I before we do that so point of order so I love the whole policy thing because I was looking at 0164 so point
of order so policy 0164 that I think you guys are going to look at next month it does say board comments so we've violated our own policy because board comments are contained in policy 0164 um so correct me if I'm wrong um
0164 about the order of the agenda so if it is on the agenda there's a lot of things on 0164 because it was put out in 1998 that we don't do anymore including student council report and things like that so organizational when things are on the agenda they are in a certain
order although we actually also have not been following that because it used to do board it lists board comments before the second public comment session so it's actually been out of order for like 30 years right so it talks it is out of order but it does contain board comments
so just FYI we should take a look at that now we can adjourn