##VIDEO ID:K72lLxhkG50## 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 hunon county Democrat and sent to the clerks of Delaware Township East Amwell Township Flemington burrow rardon Township and Readington Township the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda can I get a roll call Mrs dougen here miss gong here Dr Halper here Mrs Kellogg here miss losta here Mrs Peterson here Miss roal and Mrs santangelo here all right please rise for the flag salute Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay Rebecca would you please read the district mission statement yes yes uh hun and 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 all right for those who may not be aware uh Mr Jerry Rymer had resigned from the board of education at the beginning of the month and so we immediately put out a notice on our website as well as local newspapers um seeking interested candidates so tonight we are going to be in interviewing those three candidates and we're going to start with um Reverend Williams okay okay welcome Reverend Williams thank you thank you for your interest and your time this evening so what we're going to do the format is I'm going to administer seven questions to you that were prepared for us by the New Jersey School Board Association there will be no questions to the board you can then sit in the audience and then we will interview the other two candidates sure we will take a short 10-minute recess we'll confir and then we will come back out and make the nominations and take the vote okay sure all right so we'll get started so question number one why do you want to be a board member thank you president St Angelo uh members of the board my wife and I as 20-year residents of raron Township uh and the parents of a student who had the full experience of matriculating through the district and whose accomplishments included National Honor Society Red Devil Ambassador and captain of the state champion golf team led to my involvement in the district on many levels this included attending board meetings and interacting with other parents around multiple aspects of student life and education having observed uh and participated in the process externally I now feel compelled to be more involved utilizing my professional and personal experiences in planning budgeting analytical and critical thinking in addition I would provide a a voice and perspective from a seldom heard from Community within the district all of which will be a benefit to the effective uh operation of the board okay thank you very much next question what specific kill skills would you bring to the board as a project uh engineering manager uh and as a faith leader um uh I bring skills of planning uh scoping uh of um budgeting uh budgeting projects of over uh million of over tens of millions of dollars um critical and analytical thinking um also uh in my uh experience and uh ability of of public speaking uh I'm accustomed to making and presenting information in a public forum um that uh uh that allows me to uh be in front of folks with uh with Comfort okay thank you next question please give specific examples of your ability in interpersonal relationships and teamwork uh certainly I I could talk about a number of pro uh engineering projects that that that I worked on uh we bringing teams uh and various disciplines together uh of Engineers of uh of Maintenance folks of utilities folks uh but I think perhaps uh one personal uh small thing that that that I've done that I think you know I'm proud of and that is um uh putting on a a a uh a fundraiser that uh a golf fundraiser that raised uh thousands of dollars for uh for students uh for uh the United Negro College Fund and in doing this uh I had to bring together uh several uh folks for for this nonprofit benefit uh where we had to um where we had to plan where we had to uh bring folks together who would do uh uh Find the venue uh take on sponsorship uh uh uh finding um and also doing the public and in bringing that team together we were able to raise uh funds that were uh were critical for those who are underrepresented uh in college that that that that I'm very proud of thank you what do you see as the role of a Schoolboard member so so the role of a Schoolboard member you I think one one of the big roles is to support the superintendent uh and what she does uh uh in in in planning uh uh in administration uh building in budgeting uh also I believe that the role of the school board uh is to um uphold the the policies and um and and regulations uh provided by not only uh the individual board but by the state and uh to ensure that uh we are following uh state laws um the board is also to be respectful uh be respectful to students be respectful to parents be respectful to staff uh and uh more importantly be respectful to one another as you deliberate deliberate these very critical and important uh decisions that impact our district um and so the the ability to work collaboratively uh together to uh to work uh uh respectfully together uh and to move forward our district to to be the best that it can be all right thank you very much please describe your previous Community or nonprofit experience so um one of the things that that that I I I was a former coach for the Flemington riton uh youth uh basketball and baseball coach uh I currently serve on the hunon county NAACP as co-chair for our uh education committee uh I'm proud of that because one of the things that we really instit Ed this year and we be continuing and that is a scholarship uh that we have uh presented to three students one of which was a central student uh Vorhees and north hunon and so uh I'm very proud of that and I'm also currently among other thing uh things is I am a board member of Family Promise uh uh national uh where we deal with managing crisis of uh families uh in particular families with uh with children okay thank you what areas would you like to strengthen in our district uh I think that uh an area that that that I would like to strengthen you know in the district is uh looking at uh how we enhance uh um uh the communication with especially our students uh and making sure that our students uh uh felt heard uh make sure our students feel that we have been responsive um you know one of the things I do like that the district instituted towards the end I believe towards the end of last year and that was to make sure that we had uh two student representative on the board and I think that another thing that we could take a look at is um bringing a the Affinity groups uh to the board to be heard from uh to talk about what concerns they might have to talk about how uh uh how they see what is going on uh in in the uh in the district so okay thank you last question are you aware of the time training commitments and ethics law disclosures required for Schoolboard membership yes and I am fully prepared okay to execute those all right all right well thank you very much for your time and you can take a seat in the audience and then we'll bring on the next candidate okay hi welcome thank you for your interest in the school board great um so I'm going to be asking a series of questions and those were prepared for us by the New Jersey Schoolboard Association there will be no questions to the board and then we'll just ask you to um sit in the audience and we'll finish up with the last candidate we'll take a 10-minute break we'll come back we'll do our nominations and our vote okay great okay all right very good all right so the first question why would you like to be a board member I would like to be a board member because the last election cycle has really thrown us into radical change that I don't think any of us know what is going to happen uh what I hope to bring to the board is balance um I will say that I believe that dissent is an existential part of democracy thank you har Harry bellony for that quote um but I do believe that the board really needs balance in Flemington I think we really need to focus about uh having our children become good citizens whatever that means to them kind citizens and productive members of our society I hope to bring a different point of view is really what I'd like to do okay thank you um next question what specific skills would you bring to the board um I'm highly skilled in compromising I'm working with teams I come from the food world so um I've always worked with a bunch of really temperamental people so I've always managed to keep my team focused on what they need to do um I don't want to bring personalities into this because it is all about the kids so I really think that my strength is really being able to reach across the aisle um understand compromise and I'm an excellent listener okay all right very good thank you um please give specific examples of your ability in interpersonal relationships and teamwork um I'm an excellent Soldier so um I really follow directions well um I'm willing to do whatever it takes I am an excellent motivator of people doing that I worked in um a lot of nonprofit in New York City back in um a few decades ago when New York City was very different so I really had to um kind of keep one foot in the nonprofit and then working with the city agencies I worked with the homeless um population mostly teenage who um at that point had AIDS and it was basically a terminal illness so I really had to keep their um motivation up I had to make sure that everyone was safe at all times and I really honestly I had a I had a really struggle with the city to get money and kind of make a lot of negotiations on that level so I was able to bring it all together okay thank you what do you see as the role of a Schoolboard member um I think a Schoolboard member is an excellent bridge between the community and the board I think um I would advocate for students number one number two try to get the community involved which I know is the most difficult thing and historically has been that way but I really think it's supporting the students um really focusing on curriculum making sure the budget is being dispersed in ways that are really important um and really are the most effective okay thank you please describe your previous Community or nonprofit experience okay um like I said I started in a non nonprofit with a street work project which is now um part of victim services but we didn't like that name um so that I worked with the uh basically throwaway transi youths um right near Time Square um so that started as a volunteer position and then they just hired me to be director of the dropin center and what that entailed was um we provided showers we provided a food pantry we provided clothing Dental Care once a month Health Care um bi-weekly um so I was there for a few years um after that I would ended up at um Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens which is actually the second largest employer um in Brooklyn beside behind ConEd and again I started as a volunteer um and then they hired me on board I actually uh started out in the non nonprofit education department the preschool department so that um involved a lot of dispersement of funds um making sure that everybody was licensed and um that kind of thing then um I did a a career change and decided to go to culinary school um I went on Who Wants to Be a millionaire and won my tuition that way and um really so um while I was in culinary school I um won the distinguished service award because I did work so much with the community and the hospitals so I've really I've always been like hi okay I'll do it all right thank you okay what areas would you like to strengthen in our district um I would really like to strengthen um diversity and acceptance um I think especially now in today's political climate we do have to keep focusing on that I think school safety is of the utmost importance and acceptance um those are the two issues that I really hear from my daughter who's a junior at Central right now is she wants to feel safe and secure at school and I don't think that's asking too much okay last question are you aware of the time training commitments and ethic law disclosures required for Schoolboard membership no no I'm just kidding I okay all right very good well thank you very much for your answers you can have a seat in the audience and we'll take the last candidate welcome thank you for your interest in the school board um so I'm going to ask you a series of questions prepared by the New Jersey um School Board Association uh there will be no questions for the board and then what we're going to do is take a quick 10-minute recess confer an executive session come back out and we'll do our nominations and our vote okay so question number one why would you like to be a board member um so I have a a freshman in the school right now I do have two sons that just graduated I had one graduated 23 and 24 I actually did run for board member uh in 23 um so it was something that I was interested I mean always been involved in my kids school always part of the PTO um as a treasurer for most of most of the time but you know you're always part of the whole PTO um I just think it's important for parents to be involved um to see you know making sure that you know we're doing all the things that all of our kids need and to support you know the staff and the teachers and the administration as well okay all right thank you what specific skills would you bring to the board um so I think uh you know just working on the PTO as a Treasurer and then I worked here as well I was on the um football booster club as a treasurer for five years as well so I've always been involved with you know just working on a team with other members uh you know helping come together my background is as a I'm a registered dietitian uh so I'm always educating people as well I'm always working with people that's really my job and now my my role now as director of guest experience so so even more so I work with people um I think it's important just to you know I'm I'm a good listener I like to really try and resolve things and listen um it's easy for me to kind of see all points of view and then come to a conclusion as to what my opinion is but um you know I think that's a big part you have to be able to be open-minded for conversations with everyone okay all right thank you um please give specific examples of your ability in interpersonal relationships and teamwork um so again just I mean I that's all I do all day long is you know I'm working with the team at work um I am working with really dozens of people every day because again I'm doing guest experiences I'm training people I'm teaching people um I'm educating them I've worked in so many variations of jobs throughout the years I've been a director I've been a manager so I know how to you know work with employees you know I've had over 50 employees at a time so that honestly gives you that honestly gives you the most to me how to really uh work well with other people of all different kinds of all different you know um income levels you know really you learn how to kind of deal with uh you know I actually have had to do the whole gamut from hourly employees all the way up to Administration you know CEOs of companies um and then again like just being part of groups with the schools uh you know always being involved in my children's school has kind of just given me that ability to do so okay all right thank you um please describe your previous Community or nonprofit experiences so again kind of like with the PTO that's probably my you know my the biggest uh contribution um again I did it all through Robert hunter from uh I don't even know how many years I probably did it for five six years throughout that maybe even longer and then just went straight into the high school so I've been doing mostly that because I also have a full-time job so I do uh you know those are the kind of things that most important to me is that the PTO has been my biggest contribution okay what areas would you like to strengthen in our district um I mean I always when I was running I think part of what I was interested in is I I really want to make sure that academically we're really focusing on the kids academics um I mean I I would say I'm really more interested yeah I'm making sure that our the kids are really getting what they need from our school that they're doing well you know are they you know is the are the academics you know up to par are they leaving here with a good education to get into college I mean I do have a son in college so we've been through that experience um I have one that's in trade school so I feel like I have a little bit of everything um and and you know even the Athletics you know we can look you know I would be glad to look at Athletics all my kids went do athletics through the school as well um so those are the main areas that I'm more interested in I just think you know academics is just something that I really want to make sure we're focusing on okay all right thank you I feel like okay I'm sorry I skipped a question um what do you see as the role of a Schoolboard member um again just kind of working as a group together to see you know just really supporting to me I think it's supporting the superintendent supporting Administration here supporting the teachers and then we're really a voice for the parents and for the for the students so I think as a mom as a member of the community you know that's a big part of making sure that I'm giving that part of the perspective as well and I can listen to parents and you know other people from the community as well okay all right and last question are you aware of the time training commitments and ethic law disclosures required for the school board membership so I do know it's I think once a month mandatory and you know with ever and then I think there's other committees you can join and so you can have you know multiple um days out of the month yes that's my understanding yes okay all right very good thank you so we will um now take a quick 10-minute recess am I doing all so I'm going to do a motion to conven to Executive second okay all in favor I okay e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay can I get a motion to reconvene into Open session so moved second okay thank you all right should I just do all in favor yeah all in favor okay all right all right at this time I'm going to open the floor to nomination to I didn't finish let me start over Okay no no no no okay so I'll open the floor to nomination to vill the vacant seat from ridan Township through December 31st 2025 would like to nominate CL Claudia gray oh boy uh I don't know was that clear who went first but they were they were together the same time okay so how do we want to do that I think you should look at the tape okay okay why don't we just do it in should we do it in order yeah okay so let's start with Mr Williams right I'm sorry point of clarification what are you looking for so we'll yeah a second second for rever Williams okay [Music] okay no Mrs yes Dr yes Mrs yes no Mrs no no no okay I would like to nominate Claudia Claudia gray can I get a second second thank you Mrs Spitzer Mrs yes no no no yes yes yes all right Mrs Gray is she here oh okay so congratulations so Mrs Spitzer will be in touch with you with regard to paperwork background check and so we hope to see you at the table next month all right thank you everyone thank you to the other two candidates of Interest as well appreciate your time thank you no no we are actually in open session so we are going to continue with the agenda so at this time we are going to do the approval of minutes so that would be for the minutes for the December 16th Board of Education meeting approval of minutes for the January 6th reorganization meeting and approval of the retreat minutes for January 13th so can I get a motion in a second motion to approve the minutes uh from the three different meetings okay I'll second is I don't know if our mic is working I not can you hear me motion for to to approve the minutes one two and three okay roll call please she did second it me I BR Mrs dougen yes Miss gong yes Dr Halper is this all three yes yes Mrs k yes Miss Lacosta yes Mrs Peterson yes Mrs rothal yes and Mrs S Angelo yes all yes motion carries thank you all right we want to acknowledge that we received correspondence and that correspondence will be in the board secretary's office we are now going to move into our superintendence report Jessica thank you Lisa uh good evening everyone is my mic on yes okay good evening everyone it's good to be back here with you all after our Retreat a few weeks ago um you may not realize it but this month is New Jersey Board member recognition month so we do have a formal recognition later on this agenda but I'd also like to take a moment to honor and thank our dedicated Board of Education members during board member recognition month your unwavering commitment and service are essential as you know to the success of 100 Central and to upholding our mission as an Innovative educational Community something that was very striking to me at our retreat recently is your collaborative work on the landscape photo challenge that I gave you your explanations show that together we really are dedicated to fostering the intellectual social and emotional safety and growth of every student I hope you can take a moment to remember and honor your discussions with your partner your why and your role as a board member as we start our monthly meetings this year thank you for helping us guide our students not only toward academic achievement but also toward becoming contributed contrib in excuse me compassionate members of society and it's an honor to work alongside you in this shared Mission so thank you I'm going to do a small clapping for board members thank you all right so to help kickoff 2025 as you know we hosted an open house on January 16th with a special focus on our eighth grade families as well as elective course exploration we had a great turnout and it looked like we had nearly doubled the amount of families as compared to what we had last year 2025 26 scheduling information and instructions have gone out to all families and within the next few weeks all students will have entered their course requests into Genesis for the 2025 2026 school year our Student Activities and Athletics are already have strong showings in this new year I will give a few highlights here but I know bronwin will also be sharing some in her report in a short while so at the regional model un conference in early January Central's delegation was recognized as a premier delegation in addition six students were recognized as Premier delegates for their outstanding debate which is the highest award given at the conference congratulations to senior Tori Castro who won theun waren Sussex girls swimming MVP award and also beat the record for 100 meter fly over the weekend we had six students represent Central in the Central Jersey music educators Association honors choir concert yesterday at Monroe Township High School congratul to Abigail black Adriana L Piccolo anelise Guerrero Brooklyn Hopkins Cari pin and Luke snout and another music news senior Max Kenny auditioned and was accepted into the New Jersey music educators Association All State band Max will be rehearsing and performing with his honors Ensemble at the New Jersey music educators conference as well as a concert at the NJ Pack and our thespian troop Society troop 3035 competed with 29 other schools at the speech and theater Association of New Jersey Governor's award competition earlier this month in addition to 16 students earning the highest award distinguish distinction of accomplished we also had two pairs receive recognition Casey shrand and Leah Rosa took fourth place with their scene from a street street car Named Desire and Annie Felman and bronw Downey our student representative were finalists with their scene from heta gabbler wow that's a volume change okay uh congratulations to our students on these accomplishments I have one more update for you all that I want to be sure we review because it is an organizational item for Action tonight as you know our district has been preparing for the qac process as a reminder this stands for the quality single accountability Continuum and it serves as a review and evaluation process for school districts with the New Jersey Department of Education we undergo this process every 3 years and we are scored in five areas instruct in program fiscal governance operations and Personnel the first seven indicators of the instruction and program area are points awarded based on njsla test scores absenteeism and attendance rates and four and fiveyear graduation rates recently the State Board of Education adopted changes to how these indicators are scored which is scheduled to take effect in the 2025 2026 school year however in December the Department of Education informed districts going through qac this year that they could elect to utilize the new calculation and weights for their instruction and program scoring so under the current and soon to be old weights we earn 82 out of 100 points but if we use the proposed weights we will earn 83 points districts need to earn over an 80 to pass this area of qac so even though we passed regardless I'm recommending that we file the equivalency waiver on the agenda so that we can earn the maximum number of points available and now I'm going to shift into an update on our instructional program tonight's presentation is centered on artificial intelligence as you all know our district has been researching and experimenting with AI as it's called since generative AI exploded almost two years ago although this is not a direct District goal it does embody The Innovation and personalization that our district encapsulates into our culture and our mission so I'm going to ask Brendan mcisaac supervisor English drama and film Chuck Roberto supervisor of technology and the IMC and Denise Spina library media specialist and our unofficial technology coach to come to the podium for their presentation and I believe they also have some other staff guests with them as well good evening folks it's great to be here and great to be talking about such a kind of new and exciting topic um as just shared I'm joined by Chuck Roberto and Denise Spina and we're going to give you a little bit of the story of kind of what we've been up to for the past year and a half to two years sort of where we started where we are now and kind of where we see some of this going uh Chuck's going to hand out a few artifacts um we'll make reference to them but feel free to look at them as we're talking kind of look at what they um show and what they exemplify we'll make reference to them as well as um a number of te teachers we have with us here tonight to talk a little bit about the ways they've been employing AI in the classroom as well as a new student club and their representatives as well um if you recall about two years ago uh chat GPT exploded onto the scene and was sort of the buzz of pretty much everything and has kind of remained there uh I remember at that time reading an article uh is this the end of high school English and that got my attention I was like all right I better kind of lean into this and and see what this is all about and that started a lot of conversations within the English Department and within the school by September of 2023 we decided to expand that conversation so we reached out to the entire school and said hey if you're interested in artificial intelligence we want you to join our focus group and right out of the gate we got maybe 25 30 teachers across disciplines to sort of join us and we had a series of monthly meetings and we began to talk about what frightened us about it what excited us about it what we thought its potential and possibility was as well as the ways we were going to begin to experiment uh and learn how to use these tools in our personal lives and in our educational work as well um through those conversations we begin to realize some things remain fundamentally important in education and that's the relationships that we have with our students that will never go away and with the work that we do with kids it's things like preserving their voice their creativity their critical thinking and how were we going to you use these new tools to preserve that and sort of really explore the process of what it was this tool could do for us mindful of the fact that we had to kind of come to some understanding about how privacy works and how to protect students as we're exploring these new tools and trying these things out and this began a series of conversations of Staff sharing what they were trying um sharing their reservations and beginning to adapt what it was they were trying in the classroom and experiment and get feedback from students um what was interesting is over the course of the past year and a half we've now grown to our year two year focus group focusing uh our AI focus group continuing that conversation we've onboarded our new um student AI Club so with student Representatives we got out and we we also talked to students to get their input we went to the parents groups to get their input last well two weeks ago the night of the open house we did a presentation for the incoming eighth grade parents so that they could be aware of the ways that we were sort of Leaning into how to use this technology um and the next day at our inservice we had gotten to the point where we were offering nine different AI sessions all being led by teachers who were either part of that early focus group or early adopters of the technology you'll see the descriptions of those sessions in one of the handouts that you have and we had 135 staff members show up and learn from each other about these tools techniques and strategies so from that that initial interest we've now impacted over half the staff who are now actively exploring ways to employ it and rethinking their own teaching and instruction I'm going to hand hand off to Denise Spina for a little bit who has been working very closely with the teachers uh to help them redesign reconceive what they've been doing and then we'll have some of those Folks up as well hi everyone uh thanks for having us um by all intents and purposes I've become the um The Unofficial Tech coach here at Central so I've had the opportunity to work a lot one-on-one with so many of our teachers um and obviously AI has been the up and cominging tool as of late um o I think I went ahead too many slides so initially I think a lot of the work that I did with um teachers involved dabbling in productivity for teachers um because as we all know there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes um things that have to get done um but take up a lot of time and I mean we can call it grunt work but at the end of the day it's still got to get done so we're talking things like developing rubrics we have the content that goes into making a rubric but maybe having a tool to do the formatting for us will save a couple of hours of time when you add all of that up so a lot of the work initially was with doing stuff like that but then I think teachers started to see how there could be connections with bringing this into the classroom and having students engage with some of this as well um for example just today uh worked with a science teacher who was using a tool to help simulate interviews for her students who were applying to go to um a field trip experience uh in the biomedical Academy so rather than having to take so much time to interview every single student in the program having the simulation takes um a lot of that time off of her plate and so now the kids can all do that simultaneously as part of an assignment and she can look at the transcripts of those interviews after the fact uh similarly a lot of English teachers are starting to see the connection with doing writing conferences whereas it might have taken two two or three class days to get through every single student and have those individual conferences now there can be AI simulations to do that and now the teacher can spend the time focusing on some of the more important parts of those conversations instead of having to do all of them with every single student um and we also see in the world languages departments um a lot of those teachers are using the time to have the students practice their conversational skills because again having one teacher in the room Converse individually with every single student takes a lot of time so having a tool that will not only simulate that conversation but also record it will allow the teacher to do a lot of that work a lot quicker um I don't want to go into too much of that in detail because we actually have some teachers here to share those experiences with you firsthand so first up um we're going to bring Mrs Frank and Mrs axeman up from the World Language department just hold it high the signal is down low hold it up good evening um and thank you for having us and thank you for your support with the PD for this um School AI has been a huge help for the world language teachers um it allows us to set up lessons for example from a level one to a level four class we can um you set up the criteria you dictate the conversation and students must answer in a complete sentence they must add two adjectives whatever you studying you know a verb tense you you stimulate you you you ask it to do that um the school AI does a great job with that and then we get the feedback immediately so you know if your students having uh an issue with a certain aspect of your lesson so you can differentiate immediately so it really has a lot of um a lot of purpose for us as World language teachers we we get great use from it did you want to uh yeah I I just wanted to add also that with that feedback that you receive it can also inform your instruction for the next few days so if if students are are struggling with for example transition words then you may want to address that the following day oh sorry address that the following day um through a small lesson just to reinforce that skill and again as uh Deb said that you can design your prompt to um to differentiate for students they may need um they may be able to some students may be able to answer conversationally in full sentences so they would the prompt would include that whereas if they if they're not able to you can accept responses that are not in a full sentence so differentiation is also uh available when using it really helpful very helpful right and and you also see two other um defit and uh conmigo we also use that as well for writing for our students it allows us to differentiate and um it's really going to serve them well when they take their end of the year exams so thank you thank you um next we're going to bring up some English teachers Mrs Freeman and Mrs Kenya at the top right hello hi I teach AP Language and Composition and I've been playing around with um AI for most of last year and working with um AI as a peer partner for peer revision so I might have a student um feed a paragraph of their paper into school Ai and ask a question like can you help me with sentence structure and that sort of frees me up to do conferences with them on their ideas instead of um you know sentence by sentence revisions um and the thing that's helpful about that too is they can't just feed it feed their paper in and say how does it sound they have to be a little more specific so it requires a little bit of reflective thinking on their part um I've also used perplexity sorry thank you perplexity as a research tool perplexity is a tool where students can feed a question in and ask for um uh credible sources and and it's just as good as using um you know like Google Scholar or some of our databases hello I'm Christine Kenya and um I used AI in a few capacities if you look on the screen there my students had read Jackal and Hyde and when they were reading uh they were put in groups and each group was assigned a different critical lens through which they had to analyze the story and they took notes and collaborated and then in response to I have to give a shout out to Mrs Frank who last year um introduced us to an Emmy award winning author who came and spoke to um my classes about creativity writing and ai's role in in being a creative person these days we were compelled to do a project where students had to design using AI they had to design like mov movie posters or book covers that um not only captured some aspect of the text but they had to have features in it that spoke to their critical approaches so someone designing something from a psychoanalytic perspective would have something different from someone designing a a book cover from a mythological perspective and so they had to be very careful and deliberate with what they chose to put in um Denise was phenomenal uh with the technical aspects that I could never ever have figured out on my own and then students presented their work to the class with their annotations and their explanations and it was overall a really rich experience good may I ask who the author was that you brought in mark mcne Mark MCN he's a mystery writer and he's he's quite well known he's he's I think president of some mystery foundations just a wonderful guy we hope to have him back we do want to take this minute to introduce Kevin Hardy business teacher and adviser to the AI Club he was a part of the focus group and at the end of last year he told us about the emergence of this club so we welcomed him and his uh club members who have been joining our meetings this year hello Board of Education members uh my name is Kevin Hardy I'm a current business education teacher and computer science teacher here at hunon Central so about a year ago uh the president of our club Drew Su approached me and wanted to start a uh student voice of AI through our artificial intelligence Club so we worked for about a half a year to get the club right and here we are we started it in the fall and currently we are the student Voice or that's kind of our slogan for our artificial intelligence Club on uh our at h00 in central So currently right now we're trying to bridge the gap between student and teacher between artificial intelligence we currently go over different forms of artificial intelligence in our meetings and we just it's a safe space to talk about AI amongst the student body and amongst their peers right now we currently have about 28 members we meet twice a month um and I have some of our executive board members here as well so to talk a little bit about what we do in the club is our president duu suit thank you everyone um my name is Tru I'm the president president of the AI club and I just want to briefly go over our club's Mission so the first part of our club's mission is to just keep up with the rise of AI um we know it's a growing field and we want to be able to research um latest advancements recent news or just any AI tools um we think that doing this will not only help us stay up to date with what's going on out in the world but it'll also it could potentially help our school community and the second part of our mission is to promote ethical AI so we want to be able to work with teachers the AI teacher committee the focus groups to find ways that we as students can use AI but not as a shortcut but more of a tool that will help us understand the subject more and learn better um I have two of my friends here as well who are going to talk a little bit about what we do in our club and how we're engaging the members hello everyone my name is Ethan and I'm the vice president of the AI Club so recently as a means of gathering more information for our um our school in terms of using AI we have been creating a survey for students and staff to gain more insight of the ethical and social uses of AI inside of the classroom uh hello everyone my name is anvit and I'm the secretary of this club I just want to go over the member tasks that we conduct in our daily in our actually bi-weekly meetings um this is these member tasks are really just a way to keep all of our members engaged to keep the club running as you know AI is an expanding industry uh it's evolving at a rapid pace and so what kind of AI club would we be if we weren't also evolving at the same PA Pace um so we decided to split the member tasks into three different roles uh the first role being the creative role essentially uh this person will just be creating advertisements or Graphics to help get new members to join our club the second role that we have decided to make is the Outreach role uh we might get some guest speakers or we might even partner with other organizations or even clubs within this school and our last role is the research role uh essentially this person will just be finding new insights in artificial intelligence and they'll be reporting out to the rest of the club and maybe even the AI committee or even future board of education meetings thank you thank you guys I think we're just going to hand it off to them now our work is done the students will take it from here um but I do want to hit on one note of Partnerships that I forgot to mention before next week uh Monday uh We've re we've connected with the New Jersey Department of education's uh office of innovation they are very interested in our work they are coming out to our Focus meeting next week because they want to see how we're doing what we're doing and learn if there's ways what they can learn from us to replicate at other schools um a few of the other things we're going to highlight sort of as we wrap up are just the different ways we're thinking about our work now and one of them is sort of that illustration of the creative process with the shift to Ai and the power that AI tools have an increased amount of our attention is going to be on the learning process as opposed to traditionally it was the end product was the summation or the sum representa of what of what students can do because AI increasingly has the ability to do those things we recognize the need to focus back on the Journey of how kids got there and their thinking learning and and reflection uh along the way and there's a few other features about how we're using some other technology and approaches as well um one of the things you'll see on that screen in the bottom corner there is the suite of Google workspace tools and um a lot of those tools have what's called a revision history attached to them there are also extensions that we can download for example one that goes with Google Docs is called draftback and things like this allow teachers to see again a student's process in developing a piece of work so realistically if some if there were to be um a a breach of ethics and all of a sudden you see a giant copy and paste in a document that would be revealed through tools like this so teachers are able to see the development of a student's piece of work and that way you can actually gauge that there is process going on uh another tool is called Gog Guardian I'm going to hand off to Chuck because he can go into more details about how that works and go Guardian is is a tool uh that we have available to all of our teachers that allows them to monitor uh what their students are doing on their Chrome books at any given time on on one single screen they'll see each one of the monitors uh of of the students that are in their classroom they'll see what what tabs they have open uh they're able to close tabs they're able to to um to actually set they call them scenes so going into a class they can um just say you know you're only going to be working on Google Docs so I'm only going to open Google classroom and Google Docs today uh and that that's all that you have access to and that way uh they're able to have conferences with other students and and do all the other work that they do with individuals without having to to worry about you know one of the things you keep hearing about is ethical use of of of AI and ethical use of computers in general really um but goguardian is one of the tools that that we can use that helps keep kids focused on the task that they're supposed to be doing um and without the teacher having to to sit there policing it all the time um you can also you know have things a little bit more free uh and so you can say you know I want to keep things very open for um for student students um I just don't want them to go to chat gbt or perplexity or you know one of these other uh AI sites to make sure that they're not you know trying to trying to um get around doing the actual work uh so there's a lot of things you can do with go Guardian um and there's other built-in features where you can actually um I found it very useful when when I was uh teaching uh and we we had a during Co the uh the shutdown I was able to monitor my students using that and they were we were able to have chat sessions through go Guardian with within that so I was able to see if they were having difficulty on the screen and actually just you know shoot them a little text message uh through through the the product uh and they would give feedback we were able to have conversations that way and you can even do that in the classroom so you're not really kind of singling someone out about something you're kind of sending a little private message to them uh to to have a little conversation to help them with what they do um as as we we found from our students you know they're looking for assistance not necessarily answers they they want to they want to understand the content they want to understand how to do the things that they're they're um being asked to do they're not looking to cheat uh for the most part uh we do need to keep an eye on that because there are some people who might uh but you know overall that's not what people are looking for so we want make sure that AI is being used as a tool to enhance the understanding not replace the thinking um in learning and so we're giving teachers the tools they need to do that so um sort of the last point we'll make are the different ways it's being used I think another good example and you have a couple of them in your hands uh specifically the one dialogue that you saw that alternates between red and black is an interesting example of a teacher who creates the conversation that he would have with students oneon-one to help them develop their ideas because this is his process and his approach he creates that conversation that every student has simultaneously with the bot that he creates and if you look at the way the bot engages back with the student it follows his protocol and parameters make suggestions about where to develop or where to maybe go a little bit further you'll notice that the tone is always sort of complimentary and an affirmative and encouraging sort of deeper um and more developed thinking and that's what teachers are beginning to realize that their assignments that they can in essence sort of replicate themselves there are now 25 of them simultaneously having these conversations with every student in the room and then they are then inter they're kind of jumping in and out of that on a very different level and then sort of seeing the progress that every student is making and as um Deb and Tracy were sharing before getting that Su summary kind of feedback like who's doing well who's struggling and needs help in in what areas or who's lost and just needs uh a lot more closer attention so we are beginning to recognize the path to more personalized learning as was shared before teachers are recognizing these powerful tools that can streamline and speed up their own work and I think in terms of lifelong learning um as parents and Educators I think we all have the potential to use these tools very um successfully I'm very intrigued uh for parents in particular uh as you're seeking to help your students do the math that you long forgot how to do or to be that writing coach that maybe you cannot be you are now equipped with the tools to be that tutor and to be that assistant to your kids um so that is sort of a summary of our work we thank you for the opportunity and your attention and would certainly like to open the floor to any questions you may have yeah and that that's really just sort of capturing that it's the journey the learn the learning is the journey it's not the end and it's how do we capture the journey and all the steps of the journey because that's where the kids learn and realize what it is that they've learned other questions or what's the difference between school Ai and and AI I might use at home um so AI that you might use at home might be things like chat GPT uh that anybody could sort of go and use and put a prompt in or ask a question tools like School AI are being designed um in a way to interface with school platforms like Google and they also have much stricter sort of guard rails on their design so that where you could in theory maybe go ask anything of chat GPT what's designed in school AI will be designed by the teacher have sort of a knowledge base with which it's working and from which it's giving answers or kind of have the stepbystep instructions that the task is asking you to undertake whereas chat GPT is kind of wide open to anything that you might employ not to mention the school-based programs will then give you the more um differentiated and individualized feedback on how each student is doing all right thank you very much I just wanted to make a quick comment that's sneak in under the wire here no I just wanted to thank you for a very comprehensive presentation I thought you hit on a lot of the points that we think about um and have questions on with regard to AI so I appreciate that so thank you very much thank you so it's it's sort of a quick question the uh you know at universities you've got teachers professors using aous um lectures they tape them and then you just go out and listen to it so it's it's really great what you guys are doing but one question I have is when AI is working with each student how much interaction are the students having with each other so that they could actually learn from each other and actually build relationships with each other well and and I think that's the deliberate part of the design so there an expression that you'll often hear in AI is the idea of the human in the loop and whether that's the human you the user who's preserving what makes your work uniquely you or the teacher Andor the the peers who sort of bring to the table what makes them uniquely them so I think going forward what you're going to see is Teachers sort of figuring out there's going to be assignments where they're going to use AI there's going to be assignments where they're not going to use AI there's going to be assignments like Mrs Kenya shared where they're going to collaborate on and use AI uh and then there's going to be assignments where they're not using AI I think one of the things we already begun to discover uh which may come as a disappointment to a lot of kids while AI tools may be shiny and exciting and new they they then quickly realize like oh wait a minute I still have to do work here and it's like yes that's when we know we're doing it right we're getting you to do the work now let's have a conversation about the work you're doing or let's all give feedback on the work we're doing and I think that's an essential part of what we're trying to preserve thank you thank you and I just want to add because I don't think they gave themselves enough credit but I really am so proud so grateful to be working with you all um there's actually so many staff here using AI that we couldn't bring everybody in um and so many students I'm so grateful to you all our AI club and Mr hardy um because a lot of schools you see them shutting down AI so thank you all too as the board for your support and Trust in our staff um they're really at the Forefront of this and so much so that the Department of Education is looking to put out guidance and I think they're looking to see what our guidance is and that's why they'll be here on Monday which is so cool to know that the department of innovation at the Department of Education wants to be here and see what we're doing um and then they're also presenting at texo this week as well and they've presented at a number of conferences so thank you all you're doing great work I appreciate you all and thank you for coming beautiful job thank you all right so so next we are going to have our student representative bronwin Downey deliver her report and I think you'll see another little bit of trend of AI in her report as well yes thank you good evening everyone my name is bronan dowy and I am the student representative for the sport of Education tonight I will be giving a report about events and how the central student body is starting 2025 off strong so this month was an amazing time for competitions and besides the central M United Nations Club winning outstanding delegation and the thespian Honor Society receiving many awards at the St competition the speech and debates Debate Club also held a successful competition on January 11th with many acquiring bids for the semi-finals in the Nationals so this month was a really great time for our students January has also been a good month for sports with the cheer team performing well and earning top spots in recent competitions and preparing for national hockey and basketball games have also brought the school together and enthusiastic fans have been filling the stands and uh showing their resport support we hope to continue this support through all sports as they approach their County and state tournaments in the upcoming weeks on January 9th the central Red Cross Club held a blood drive to donate blood to those in need and Central counselors held the 11th grade College and Career planning night to help Juniors and their parents begin to plan out their futures after graduation Central also hosted an open house and electives exploration for families to welcome in the class of 2029 and showcase the great classes Central has to offer for next year for future events the trian music Honor Society will be putting on an All That Jazz Showcase on Friday February 7th and there will be a virtual admissions panel on February 20th for juniors and seniors looking to hear from admissions directors from colleges across the United States last week Central student leaders from student and class councils met with Mr Brandt and Miss calissi hay to discuss the impact of AI technology on the classroom just as we heard from before students mentioned being able to use AI for brainstorming and practice problems for English and math in class but understand how using it unethically harms learning we also discussed the possible creation of an AI mini course on appropriate and helpful uses of AI for School in the upcoming years just as Central used to do with their required computer science courses when computer programs were first being introduced to the classroom Erin the other student representative and I would also like to thank the um new board members and welcome them and hope that we will be able to work together to improve student experiences at Central together in the new year thank you so much for your attention to my report tonight and I look forward to continuing to share the passion students have for their their school in the new semester thank you Bronn and lastly everyone you will see our Hib and suspension report I do have a report on hibs for you during executive session so this concludes my report this evening and I'll pass it back to you Lisa thank you thank you Jessica so at this time we will be moving into our first um residents forum and this is for comments on action items only because this is the first full board meeting I would like to just read which is on the agenda um it's nothing new it's been there um every month but I just think since it's the beginning of the new year it would be worth reading the uh groundwork uh the guidelines sorry for public speaking so it reads as the opportunity for the board to hear public comment will be provided at every meeting of the Board of Education and will appear on the agenda as a residence Forum two such forums will appear on each Agenda One near the beginning for public comment on agenda action items and one near the end for General comments a residence Forum will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless extended by the presiding officer members of the public who rise to speak during any residence Forum must be recognized by the presiding officer and must preface their comments with their name and municipality which will be listed in the official minutes those recognized to speak during a residence Forum will be allowed 5 minutes to make their comments no one may speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer no participant May address or question other board members or District Personnel individually the board will not respond to all speakers at the time of their appearance the presiding officer May interrupt warrn or terminate a participant's statement when the statement is too lengthy abusive obscene or irrelevant the presiding officer may take other steps including but not limited to aour Jing the meeting or waving any of the rules of the residents Forum to respond to a lack of public decorum or to otherwise protect privacy or the efficient completion of the board's business so with that I would open up the first residents forum for Action items only you can come up to the podium okay so seeing none oh yes is there a sign here okay all right my name is Ed McAn and I am with Delaware Township and I'm not going to announce my phone number um so we heard from three candidates tonight and I think each of those candidates is is uh is obviously committed to uh uh partic participating and doing their best for the Board of Education here as a as a member I think each one of them is equally interested I think there was one candidate uh Reverend Vernon Williams who was um exceedingly qualified now I had not heard from any of the candidates other than what I had heard you know this evening from them but um we had one candidate who was a project manager for 20 years an engineer a coach a minister somebody who has managed budgets of millions of dollars over the course of their career is involved with you know both professionally and involved with not for profits across the board in my mind everything you could want for a qualified uh Board of Education member um uh that person was not voted on so all things being equal it seems to me that what what was voted on tonight doesn't seem to be based on the abilities or what that person might actually be able to bring to this board it to me like it was a vote based on ideology and um that's concerning obviously um you know if ideology is the primary criteria for inclusion in the board then my concern is that ideology is going to be the test uh by which policy decisions are being made on the board and I don't think ideology has a place whether it is regardless of what the ideology is the practical application of of policies and the Practical direction of of the school and serving the community that that that is the ultimate uh uh value that the board provides and if ideology is coming into play we're not we're not serving uh our community well um we're not serving our community we're not serving our school uh and broadly speaking at the local level broad broad level we're not really serving our democracy very well so I think reasonable people can disagree with each other but if we're ignoring reasonable people if we're not bringing on qualified reasonable people to serve on this board if we're marginalizing reasonable people that are members of this board um then then we are being unreasonable and we're not serving the community so hope you'll take this into consideration as we go forward make this about students make this about the business of running a school and running it well don't make this about ideology please thank [Applause] you okay that's a tough act to follow I absolutely agree with everything that was just said my name is Virginia parate I'm a resident of Ron Township for 34 years I had three students go through 100 and Central One grandchild I moved to Flemington in 1990 because the school district here was so much better than where I had been living I was always so um proud to have my kids come here because honestly all three of my children very different um from each other and they had different needs there was no way that I could provide for them all the support that they needed for the things that they wanted to pursue and hun and Central was just top of the line we had some wonderful teachers um everything I I never had a complaint at all and in fact my children came out of the school with with really good values one of my proudest moments was when my son was a senior my youngest one and I got a a citation in the mail he was caught being polite too it was from a custodian and that made me so proud that he that a custodian you know you can imagine how sometimes children can be you know rude whatever so I feel like between the school and our community that we lived in and me and my husband that everything went really well for our kids I'm very concerned that education has become a political football and um tonight actually I'm I'm embarrassed about what happened I only um I was familiar with the person um with Miss gray because she ran last year but I never saw an interview with her and I never heard her her criteria um it seemed to be a partisan uh vote and this year I came in I wanted to listen to the candidates and I heard some really good answers to questions and then I will just say I don't know how many more seconds I have but I was a PTO mom I was a treasur for the Cub Scouts I um was a CCD teacher brownie leader I did Odyssey the mine with the group one year I did all those volunteer things and I I I don't undervalue them I think they're they're extremely important and I and I think parents coming on the board of ed if that's their only qualifications that's wonderful but we really do have to to have people on the board we have to have diversity on the board we have to have people on the board that have strong backgrounds um it's a learning curve any job that you get and I'm sure she's going to enter her job and and learn what she needs to learn but I can tell you having been a teacher in a high school a child study team member there's so much more that goes on to a school there's so much more in it than that I feel that those things that I did as a volunteer would never have qualified me to be a board member especially the budgeting all those all those things no matter how much money I've worked with so I just want to say that um I'm actually ashamed about what happened tonight I feel like it's like a little girlfriend Club um that there was like a little click or something that everybody just wanted this person and it's not to demean her I'm sure she's a wonderful person but just to hear the other candidates and their previous experiences I I'm just a gas I I'm shocked that's all I want to say hi I just want to say he's the best choice and if you didn't vote for him you're voting for other reasons you're not voting for a qualified person um your name that's all that I have to say all right anyone else all right seeing none we're going to move on on um to our organizational items so the school board recognition was addressed by Jessica we have our committee appointments which are um set by the board President we have our standing and ad hoc uh committees as well and then we have uh the representative appointments and those appointments are for the New Jersey School Board Association hun Central I'm sorry hund County School Board associations hun County vocational and also hunon Central School Foundation um next organizational item is to move to resend the appointment of Gorman denella and Morlock effective January 28 2025 number five is our hund Central Regional High School District Board of Education member handbook we actually discussed this at our Retreat and uh included in that is our board norms and we also will be posting this on our website under Board of Education in addition we have a central email now address so if anybody would like to communicate with the board um they can send that to the one email that's provided that will be posted on the website so we've had some issues in the past where people haven't remembered or or forgot to add all of the board members so this way we will all see the the email come in and um we will be able to um capture that and then the final um organizational item is the qack waiver which Jessica has already um addressed so with that I would like to move and we don't need to move the Committees so I'm going to move items three through six can I get a motion in a second hopefully I did that right oh one as well too oh I'm sorry okay so so my apologies we're moving 1 3 through six can I get a motion in a second so moved okay just point of clarification why don't we have to move the one two three you know committee assignments I think because they're already assigned thank you right they're appointments that's why okay all right um can we have discussion on the board handbook so um there's a section in the board handbook that says that committee chairs are required to monitor board member adherence to board norms and Report de deviations uh to the board president as needed uh it specifically says that for a first offense of um I guess violating board Norms the chair will remind the board member of the agreed upon board norms and operations and then for the second offense the chair of the committee will make the board president aware and discuss appropriate repercussions including possible removal from the Committees um earlier today I did send some questions uh to the board president specifically what is the process for documenting um I guess alleged uh deviations from our board Norms is there an appeals process is there a way that we are recording this because we do not record board committee meetings so if we end up in a he said she said sort of a situation how do we resolve that uh are we calling people in front of the committe in front of the board to testify I I'm I'm just to me this seems like it it creates a situation where we're opening up the board to um additional liability if we remove someone from a committee either they you know that is an affirmative action that the board is taking that restricts that board member's access and role so the community that that board member represents is less represented and that board member is now experiencing repercussions so again I I don't see the need uh my understanding coming out of the board retreat was that this handbook was going to be discussed that the committies were going to be working through it so I don't think there's a need to vote on this tonight um and I again I'm concerned that there are specific things in here that we really need to address okay so I did respond to your email and um so the reason for that criteria is to keep people on track right so the the board president is not interested in removing committee members but to make sure that they comply with the board Norms right so we discussed that and but board Norms are board Norms there's no requirement there's no bylaw there's no policy it's an agreement among adults to behave like adults so the idea that there is a codified punitive Arrangement that the committee Chairs are responsible for enforcing is concerning well we did have a discussion at The Retreat the minutes do reflect that the consensus was that there were no issues so and again I had said you know it was a last minute request we can certainly address it in the future um but again it there were no other concerns that came up so yes excuse me I did Express concern during the meeting that there was insufficient preparation for reading the handbook considering all the options and everything at the retreat and I fully expected that we would have a session where we could address some of this stuff I do it does sound to me as though there is a desire somehow to to spend this effort on codifying what is misbehavior when we all know that what we're supposed to do as adults yes sometimes people get heated and they say things they don't mean and and that that should be discussed because we repare our relationships we don't just throw them out and so I feel very much like we we all deserve to be in a discussion where we decide I'm not saying we should take something out or put something in I'm saying we should talk about what the goal is and whether the goal is to punish people or the goal is to repair and and rejuvenate you know to make whole um generally speaking punishment does not actually help people it doesn't when doctors talk to patients about their weight in a shameful way nobody loses weight nobody okay punishment doesn't help things if we want to be civil to each other and treat each other with respect which is one of the Norms we have to repair we have to you know come to a place where we say I said that and that was hurtful to you and I didn't I'm I'm sorry right that is what is important to me so I don't think it is appropriate to vote on this today so what do you you know I wasn't going to speak so just bear with me because this could be emotional um I think the manual is good I wish I had it a year ago it's got some great stuff in it but now it's a 21 page document and I remember from The Retreat that at least my request was that we do have another board meeting to talk about the content it's good stuff but I had some questions you know we had that yellow Post-It note exercise and I remember the the superintendent saying we're going to send out these comments to make sure we've captured what the group said I don't recall getting anything um so that's not the way a committee should work in my opinion then I received an email from a board member that said I was really close I was on thin ice relative to violating two of the board Norms they said number one although I'm confused about number one because number one says the benefit of the student should be at the Forefront of our discussions and actions I always make decisions to the benefit of the students at Central and at that committee meeting we weren't making a decision there was no quarum there was no decision to be made so I don't understand why number one is a violation or why I'm oniz for that number four in this email to me was stay focused on the content not the person no personal attacks you know I've spent 25 years in human resources if someone had an issue with me someone would interview every person who was at that committee meeting and ask what happened what did Sandra say if I offended someone then that person should come to me and say Sandra I was offended by you for what you said and I would have apologized but that did didn't happen the person who sent me the email didn't come to me and didn't seek to understand what it was that I wanted to say I felt bullied and I felt intimidated when I got that email you know I got elected to the board I have a voice I may have a minority voice but I have a voice I have one vote I didn't come here as a volunteer to be silenced but the chair of a committee sounds like they are the judge and the jury what's the appeal process there's nothing in the manual who do I go to and say hey number three listen empathetically and with curiosity be open to learning what a person is communicating okay the person who sent me the email did not do number three where did I go for recourse I'm worried I'm concerned you want to remove me from a committee have a recall take me off of the board I didn't work this hard to be silenced you know I look forward to working with Mrs Gray she ran against me in 2023 but again I won't be silenced I'm going to act in accordance with my values as I said I felt bullied I understand now what kids feel like I haven't been bullied since elementary school for being Chinese this is hard for me to say last month I was silenced you know what I wanted to say at the end of the board meeting I wanted to say we have different values we come at things from different perspectives and that's okay but what I was going to also say is that I hope we come to a middle ground so that we can make the best decisions for the central students that was what I was going to say but I was silenced my values Define me as they do for everyone here I will not accept a false sense of Unity on this board and I'm not naive I'm not naive about how the majority of this board is going to vote Robert's Rules Robert's Rules allows the majority to vote I get that but Robert's Rules protects the minority voice so please don't silence me I am exposed as a minority but I will be more engaged on this board than I was last year I will work for my constituents I care about the kids here I care about the decisions that I make thank [Music] you thank you for your comments I don't think anyone was trying to silence you but I will say that when we H when we distributed the handbook we gave plenty of notice we asked that you come prepared for the retreat to discuss it to review it and you had several days to do that and I didn't hear any comments from [Music] anyone I don't know what I read but you when you organized The Retreat you provided no information about what we would do during the treat I we would discuss it I don't so and listen other people understood it that way so I'm a new person and so we have to consider that we don't like just know things right okay well that's fine I I don't whether whe I can accept that you did I won't argue with you whether you did or not I will look and see but it was January 11 but but it is important that three of us have said that we don't feel that the handbook is ready the way it is and we would not like to vote on it you have the power you have the majority you make the decision but it seems reasonable that if we are going to work as a team that it what's what makes a difference to take another meeting and talk about it it would so important for it to be accepted by everybody we are a committee right we could be more unified so why not well I think because the original Retreat um people chose not to become be prepared and to discuss it I think that was part of it there was no agenda for the retreat there was an agenda there was nothing on it and there was a clear em well let me let me rephrase this I would like to make a motion to table theb and have the commit review it this month and bring it up again next month so can we get a second okay can we get a roll call yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes okay thank you so do I just move the other remaining items okay so do we just go into a roll call then for those okay okay I guess we're good okay okay with that I'm sorry Mrs roal yes Mrs Peterson yes okay yes on numbers everything except for number four I'm going to abstain okay thank you Mrs Kellog yes on number one no on number four yes on number six any number three uh the representative appointments oh we vote on that yes just the representatives Miss gong so yes on one let's see yes on three no on four is that it and six the Q six yes on six thank you Miss losta yes Dr Halper yes on one yes on three no on four yes on six Mrs dougen yes and Mrs santangelo yes motions carry with number five being tabled I thought a tie is oh never mind I'm sorry okay moving on to Student Life and program Leslie so due to the reorg meeting we um the committee our slmp committee did not have an opportunity to meet but we had a priority action item that did come up and was reviewed so there is a move to approve the hund Central Regional High School marching band and orchestras to attend the Walt Disney company's imagination campus educational outreach program at Disneyland overnight trip in Anaheim California from April 21st to the 26th 2025 approximately 72 students and seven chaperon will attend cost for the trips will be approximately $3,550 per student and paid for by student and family and fundraising the student and family and fundraising so the motion to move this and a second second roll call Mrs Peterson yes Miss gong yes Dr Halper yes Miss roal yes Miss losta yes Mrs dougen yes Mrs OG yes and Mrs S Angelo yes all yes motion carries all right next is operations and transportation committee Jessica there's a few items um the operations and transportation committee met on Thursday January 22nd and the attendees were Sandra gong Ellen helper Lisa santangelo Jessa celosi hay Heather Spitzer and myself uh graciously Mrs Spitzer PR provided us with a um very helpful helpful demo on how to navigate board docs um even better we were happy to report that our physical year 24 audit came back with no recommendations and we are in Good Financial standing with a strong cast position because of our healthy reserves we'll not need to um we'll have no need for future referendums for Action items 1 through three it's customary every month to have standard Financial mve movement which keeps the operations of the district going these happen with invoices and transfers so therefore Financial reports bills lists and transfers are being presented for approval item number four is simply requesting that we relocate originally assigned stabilization funds from the electricity asset line to the bus asset line as our need has since changed item number five has asked us to accept the generous donation from local businesses um to our corporate sponsors program item number six is asking to approve par plus as our new translation services vendor these services are used for administration and staff to converse with members of our Compu Community where English is not their first language I would like to move items one through six second questions roll call sorry sorry I I would just like to congratulate you and your staff on the audit report that was really the one of the cleanest reports I've seen in the four years I've been on the board it was remarkable so very nicely done thank you Mrs Kellogg yes Mrs Peterson okay yes on uh 13 four five and six and on number two I need to abstain from several check numbers one of them actually two of them are 81015 and 811 38 which is uh which are checks to Gorman denella and Morlock I will be abstaining from check number 81030 and 81165 which are checks to skank price Smith and King and 8113 which is reimbursement for my workshop expenses thank you Mrs dougen I'm going to say yes to everything but abstain for check number 811 07 which is my reimbursement for the workshop thank you Dr Halper yes to all of it Miss gong yes to all the items but uh item number two I have to abstain for check number 8108 which was my reimbursement for the njsba convention Miss roal I also am saying yes to everything but number two for check number 8110 I will abstain reimburse and Mrs S Angelo yes with exception to checks 81047 8121 9 I just want to be clear that um the invoices are passing with yes votes except for those individual um exceptions for check numbers so thank you thank you all right next is the Personnel committee which met on Wednesday January 22nd the attendees were D Kellogg Heather Spitzer Jessica calosi hay and myself so every month we have a large majority of personnel is mostly new hires there are sometimes retirements resignations and terminations and this month is no different um we also have our personal development which is offered to the staff as well as conference attendees so with that I would like to move items 1 through 17 can I get a motion in a second second thank you can I get a roll call Miss yes Mrs roal yes Dr Halper yes Mrs Peterson yes Mrs Kellogg yes Miss Lacosta yes and miss M santangelo yes did I get everyone sorry Mrs dougen I had Mrs santangelo twice I apologize I knew that was incorrect Mrs dougen yes oh yes motion carries okay thank you so now we'll move on to additional business um we don't I don't think have any other committees or liais on reports but is there anything for additional Business board business I just wanted to mention um back in November at the board meeting subash derba and Anastasia Feldman had attended the board meeting and um they did an excellent job in terms of their both students presenting an issue um that they wanted us to address with regard to extracurricular busing so because of the end of the year um with the student celebration at our December meeting and the reorg and not having slmp this month we are going to be discussing that in the February student life and program committee so um we will be discussing that and then we will be hopefully reporting out a resolution in the near future I just want to thank those two students again for bringing that to our attention um okay so with that we will move into the final residence Forum if anybody would like to speak they can come up good evening I'm uh Jim Vargas longtime resident presid of reveron Township currently reside in M Beach um I think most you know me I started coming here about 20 months ago uh when a young woman at my Parish was attacked during uh her voicing about her her life and I stayed here a long time because another member of my Parish was cited for uh his speech against transgender issues and or voice and saying the people I watched the election tonight and it was really interesting to watch to the people came up and their candidate wasn't selected to to be sure that it was on ideology I would be really careful just because you see somebody different or you see skills of somebody else that you might need a person might be better but the skills of another person on the board might be needed so you got to be real open to that type of thing um and ideology when I started coming here I I did it for those two issues but I found that there was rampant force of ideology on the last REM Administration people who spoke out on one side were chastised people who spoke out on the other were lauded uh people were called named people were afraid to talk that is ideology this board changed okay and for some reason when I started doing this I wound up doing different boards and work with people this is probably the 28th board I've been in front of right and uh Lisa and Jessica I have no board I've been in front of that have more Hope and Faith in what you two are going to do with this board uh so much hope because what I've seen is great people come up and talk about what they're doing the things that are going on in education the young men that are talking what they did that young women over there that set up on the board are so great however there are also students sitting home watching watching videos okay the thing about Equity is equal outcome you can't have it work you can't look at a person like there and turn around to people sitting home and level the playing field it's just not the way life works the other thing I would say is um and dissension I've gotten to know Miss gong a bit we differ in our views boards need people who descent boards need people for a different opinion they should be respected when I teach my people that work for me if you're in the majority be nice to the minority because you're going to win anyway why make them feel bad okay help them make part of the solution right um along those lines again you know what I would would advise the board when I was seen is be careful even the view of we were over here now over here we're winners you have a chance here to be inclusive okay and go do it all right there are two things how much time do I got okay there are two things I would look out to where there's a lot of things change the change in Washington all the things going on about Di and all the things that are going on we don't know what to say I would still tell you I've been in front of the the um State School Board I've been in front of Congress I've been in front of the assembly a couple other places parents rights are still in danger okay and if I missed one thing that I wasn't I I missed should have been s in the c talk nobody talks about parents rights or what they're doing still where you still have the law um 5756 it should be repealed I I know the CH will be back to sit back and say let's see what goes on and vote on it but taking that your son your parent your child comes to a school and you don't have any say on what they do it is in that and especially key areas like sex and all that type of thing is just wrong all right the other thing in minute I would like to talk to that nobody ever gets to talk about and I think this board can do it choice and human beings are the most important thing we do I don't care if they're young or if they're old right one of the things that needs to be discussed right now choices the women's choice of on a portion is law of the land right but nobody ever talks about the consequences of it right if I understand there are 2400 students in it in this facility right now one in three pregnancies in New Jersey are terminated that would mean that if that if there was no abortion there would be 3,600 people here 1,200 people more than exist today you got to at least look and say okay what are the consequences of that what about those 1,200 people that will live their lives contribute to society share and love and be love right don't they matter you got to watch out because you can di di diminish what a human being is right one of the things that I do I never did it with children I do it with adults and class I do with is I have a three chairs it's called The Empty chair two people in an empty chair and I ask those two people that that are Pro chice say what do you think that person might be then I ask the other person look at your friend what would your life be without your friend and then I ask the other person and say do you feel so strongly about choice that you would give up your own existence would you cease to exist for that vality just to think about it so just those type of things bring you into I think are really important but in closing I think you guys have a great a great thing to do go do it treat each other well and God bless thank you where's your token now hi my name is Heather Mao I'm from Flemington I'm a parent here at H 100 Central I have one child that graduated last year and one that's currently a student as I've mentioned before uh when I was here in November both my children are trans and I would like to clear something up uh from Mr vargas's comments if I may I've heard him speak here on many occasions talking about parents rights being attacked and uh lack of transparency from the school with parents and I just want to say that when my children requested from the school to change their names in the system uh even though they weren't yet legally changed uh the school was very accommodating but there was absolutely transparency my child was in Mr Estrada's office and he gave me a telephone call and and made sure that I was aware of this request and that I gave my approval for such request and such a change to be made uh there was complete communication and transparency so I don't feel that any parents rights are being withheld or attacked um I just wanted to make that clear thank you one of the things that uh I think that you as a board need to make sure that you do and that is we we all come up here as the public and we will spout our ideology our opinions but you as a board have fiduciary duty to actually uh look at the facts you as a board have an a duty to ensure that you properly deliberate uh yes you should hear us but you should probably properly deliberate on what is said information was given out on tonight one in three individuals have an abortion in New Jersey I'm not sure if the individual who made that statement is aware that they were completely wrong it's one it's it's three in 100 now whether whatever your ideology is on abortion we you do need to make sure that you consider facts that you consider what is said that you Del liberate in a manner that is uh that is ethical and that upholds the Integrity of what you of who you are supposed to be uh as a board and so please as you listen to us and we spout our opinion and ideology you are to use uh uh critical thinking and uh uh and and analyze what you are to be doing please do not base any of your decisions on ideology yes you know you have your own ideology but as a body you are deliberate to to deliberate in the best interest of our district of our students and of our parents thank you good evening my name is Nikki Bryce I'm a resident of raron Township um I currently have a junior at hun Central and next year I will have a freshman coming in um just an observation on uh one of the agenda items which makes me question it and this may be just that I'm not knowledgeable about the inner workings of the board or this wasn't made public but um the item about the committee appointments um which was an item not to be voted on that these appointments were made um my observation is just that there are eight committees that are listed here there's currently eight board members sitting around the table a ninth one coming in that was voted on tonight um there I just noticed three of the members at this table are not listed as committee chairs whereas several of the members are listed more than once as chairs um some of the members are quite new to the board so I'm just curious why uh the chair positions of the Committees aren't more evenly spread out between all the members and again maybe it's just discussions you've had amongst yourselves and time commitments and interest Expressions I don't know but just an observation which um I found a little concerning maybe I don't need to be concerned but I did just want to raise that thank you anyone else all right so we'll close public comment and and um we are going to convene into executive session and there will be no action taken motion motion to convene yes thank you we get a motion motion to uh conveni executive session yeah okay uh second so you're the first and you're the second okay thank you I I in that room yeah we'll come back back and call the meeting