Good evening everyone. Welcome to a meeting of the 10 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 Hunter County Democrat and sent to the clerks of Delaware Township Eastwell Flemington Burough Raridan Township and Readington
Township. The public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda. Can I get a roll call, please? >> Mrs. Dugen, >> here. Miss Gong >> here. >> Miss Gray >> here. >> Dr. Halpern >> here.
>> Mrs. Kellogg >> here. >> Miss Laclasta >> here. Mrs. Peterson >> here. >> Mrs. Rothell >> here. >> And Mrs. Santangelo >> here. >> All right. Yes. Please join us in the flag salute. To the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> I'd like to make a point of order before we get started. >> Yes, you have the floor.
For almost the entirety of my three-year term on this board, I have been engaged in an appeal before the Commissioner of Education regarding the actions of the 2023 Board of Education and District Leadership, who investigated, prosecuted, and punished me for alleged violations of the code of ethics without
legal authority. The School Ethics Commission is the only entity that can do that. While we await the final decision from the commissioner, the judge overseeing the appeal in the office of administrative law has vindicated what I've been saying all along. She concluded that there is no
evidence in the record connecting me to the allegations this board brought against me. Additionally, the judge made the following findings of fact. In March 2023, the board led by then President Lisa Hughes, Vice President Dorothia
Kellogg, and Superintendent Jeffrey Moore initiated an investigation to demonstrate that I violated the code of ethics for school board members. Then board attorney Alicia Danella ignored communications from my attorney and never acknowledged that I was
represented by council. A special board meeting was held on March 29th, 2023 to adjudicate whether I violated the ethics code. During that executive session trial, the board was represented by Danella, but my
attorney was excluded entirely. I was not permitted to challenge any of the evidence brought against me. I was not permitted to present evidence or witnesses of my own. I was not even told which part of the ethics code I was accused of violating.
I denied and continue to deny all charges against me. The board then had its attorney, Danella, craft various punishments that the board could impose, including resolutions of censure and resolutions declaring no confidence in my ability to
continue as a board member. The judge also found as fact that during that trial, Dorothia Kellogg stated that the purpose of the board's punishment was to publicly humiliate me. Miss Kellogg and her collaborators
continue to act in support of that stated goal of public humiliation. Miss Kellogg has vilified me for defending myself and called for my resignation. The board apparently believed that I was supposed to shut up, take it, and if
they had their way, resign from the board. They picked the wrong target. Miss Kellogg twice tried to limit my ability to vote on certain matters by contacting the school ethics commission. The commission twice found that Miss Kellogg's concerns were unfounded.
You can find one of those responses published on the school ethics commission website under docket number A1 11-24. Additionally, Miss Kellogg, whose personal attorney is the former board attorney, Danella, tried to exclude me from helping to choose a new board
attorney. Rather than risk the ethics commission declaring her concerns unfounded once again, she chose a tactic many of you are all too familiar with. She made passive aggressive allegations to seow public doubt. In fact, the three candidates who ran
for and won seats on this board echoed Miss Kellogg's allegations in their campaign. They claimed that I chose the attorney representing the district in my appeal. Of course, this is a patent and easily verifiable lie. The attorney representing the board in my appeal was
appointed back in 2023 by the board led by Miss Kellogg herself. But I suppose the truth does not make good campaign fodder. The reason for this point of order is this. At the end of these comments, I will be stepping away from this table for the remainder of my term. I am not
resigning. However, I am recusing myself for the following reasons. In August of this year, one of the board's regular critics made an open public records request for all legal billing records related to me from March 2023 to the present. I was provided with
these records on August 14th. A review of those records reveal evidence of malfecence that goes well beyond the actions of the board and superintendent in the spring of 2023. This malfecence has to be challenged and
all parties who abused their power must be brought to light, otherwise it will just happen again. The law requires that I file notice of any potential claims against the district within 90 days of discovering the violation. Last week, I filed notice.
Therefore, I will be recusing myself from further participation in deliberative or action items. My time on this board has been mired in toxicity and bald hatred fermented by bad actors both within the district and in the public. People who get a sick
kick out of humiliating others. People who place their thirst for power and personal ideology above what is supposed to be the best interest of this district. It would be easy to despair for this district except that I've also seen so much good from our students, staff, and teachers.
I've seen teachers take the time to file praise reports recognizing students little victories even for the kids who aren't at the top of their class. I've seen staff members, Dr. and paraprofessionals happily spend their birthdays and anniversaries on the sidelines coaching or helping a team or
club function. So, thank you to all of you who create a positive experience for our students, no matter what nonsense is happening at the top of this district. I wish there could be more focus on student outcomes versus the hateful politicking this district has been forced to endure for way too
long. Sadly, I think the selfishness and abuse will continue. I know that the spears smears will continue. So, thank you to those whose involvement in this district is motivated by supporting students. And as for everyone else, you cannot hide from the truth for
much longer. Have a good meeting. All right. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, the district can confirm the receipt of the tort notice. We'll address this further in executive later on tonight.
>> All right. Thank you. All right. Next, we will read the district mission statement. Leslie >> Hunton 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. Next up, I would like to move to approve the executive session minutes of the August 18th, 2025 meeting. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Can I get a roll call, please? >> Mrs. Dugen,
>> yes. >> Miss Gong, >> yes. >> Miss Gray, >> yes. >> Dr. Halpern, >> abstain. >> Mrs. Kellogg, >> yes. >> Miss Lacosta, Mrs. Rothal. >> Yes. And Mrs. Santangelo. >> Yes. >> All yes. Motion carries.
>> Thank you. All right. Next up is the approval of the minutes for September 29th, 2025 board meeting. >> Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Second. >> Thank you. And can I get a roll call, please?
>> Miss Gong? >> Yes. >> Miss Gray? >> Yes. >> Dr. Halpern? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Kellogg? >> Yes. >> Miss Lacosta? Abstain. >> Mrs. Rothal. >> Yes. And Mrs. Santangelo. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> All right. Thank you. Next, I would also
like to acknowledge the correspondence received by the board. It will be maintained on the file in the office of the board secretary. All right. Next up is the president's report. I would like to address a very serious issue that was raised at
the September 29th board meeting and provide clarification. Miss Kellogg, the longest sitting board member, read deliberative and draft committee minutes at the September 29th meeting. This was not an action item or on the agenda. I informed Miss Kellogg
that the minutes were not correct. that Miss Kellogg compounded the problem by comp by claiming that a particular administrator was responsible for the minutes in question. As I indicated at the last meeting, the minutes Miss Kellogg chose to discuss were apparently
placed onto a shared Google folder without review or approval from the committee chair and were were inaccurate. I only became aware of the issue earlier that day when the board received an email from New Jersey 12 News asking about inaccurate deliberative information that was
contained in those minutes. How in the world did those draft minutes reach New Jersey 12 News prior to Miss Kellogg outing them at the public meeting? More importantly, why would someone leak confidential minutes to the press? If Miss Kellogg had a question, confusion, and or concerns about the minutes, the
appropriate action is to email the administrative liaison andor the chair for clarification per the board handbook on page 11. Instead, Miss Kellogg chose to bring this to the board table in public to make it seem like the committee was doing something wrong or
acting on the behalf of the board. deliberative information and especially a draft document is confidential and protected as a legal exception to public records law. The exception is intended to allow for candid and open discussions
before a final decision is made as the quality of government decisions could suffer if all preliminary discussions or inaccurate uh recitations were public. A breach of confidentiality in this process erodess trust within the district and the ability for decision makers to have
frank discussions during committee meetings. Draft minutes must be properly vetted to ensure that constituents had a shared understanding of the discussion. Established board practice provides for the committee chair's review and approval of draft minutes to address any
confusion and ensure accuracy before drafts are finalized. Mr. Trent stopped the discussion during the September 29th meeting as it was veering towards evaluative speech about a staff member. Let me be clear. I had no intent to
discuss, let alone evaluate any specific staff member during the board meeting, nor did I name any specific staff member during that discussion. Fortunately, the meetings are memorialized on video for anyone to rewatch. To top it off, the
administrator's attorney contacted the board attorney regarding the meeting discussion. Mr. Trent set the record straight by clarifying what actually occurred during the meeting and directing him to the video recording. Ironically, any issue with the professional development at issue was
moot be prior to the September 29th board meeting because the professional development sessions at issue never required formal board approval and were approved by the administration prior to that meeting. This is why we are supposed to follow a process. Someone apparently leaked draft committee
minutes to the media. A board member discussed deliberative information at the table and attributed their creation to a specific administrator. Does anyone else find this disturbing? Some of us on the board have dedicated countless hours of our personal time serving the
students in this district while others have spent most of their time trying to disrupt and damage it. Let me say again, good governance requires people on this board to be able to sit and listen to people with differing viewpoints and to take different viewpoints to find the
best outcome for students. There are many who see this as a threat and are working very hard to silence diversity of thought. Again, there is a focus everywhere except where it should be, improving the educational outcome for students. Thank you. Next up, we'll move
to our superintendent report. Thank you, Lisa. Good evening, everyone. It's great to have everyone together again. I know there are many items listed under my report tonight, so I'll try to move swiftly through my verbal report tonight. I would like to highlight some items that speak specifically to our district goals and
metrics. I've also coordinated with Brunwin and Alexis to try not to duplicate items that we present. This has been a busy time for everyone, but especially for our seniors, many of whom had college application deadlines of November 1st. Our counseling teams
are meeting regularly with students to check in on their four-year plans. This includes early discussions about students course selections for next year. These counselor and student conversations center around what the students passions are and what they think they would like to do after high
school, whether it be college, workforce, or military. Speaking of post high school plans, this week our counseling department is hosting post-secary pathways week with a variety of events including military recruitment and RVCC career training
center opportunities just to highlight a few. Last week, our soldier support club and achieve program organized an event to honor our staff who are military veterans. I would like to thank and honor the following staff members for their service to our country. Dave
Batkkey, Sal Beavona, Michelle Broco, Dan Conacio, who's right here, Greg Hickey, Andrew Laffy, Kevin Jones, John Kunka, Matt Nun, Darren Powell, and Paul
Tanko. Paul's also right here in the back. I'm going to clap for them. This event was incredibly special and is something that I will remember forever because our amazing veterans shared their military stories with the full group. We heard about their decisions
that led them to pursuing opportunities in the military, about the sacrifices they made during their course of service and the profound impact it has had on each of their lives. It was very powerful for our students to hear this, too. I'd like to thank Miss Ge, Mrs.
Beam, and Mr. Dashaine and our students for organizing this event. I'd also like to provide you with an update on our climate and culture survey work. As you know, one of our goal metrics includes administering pulse surveys to our student body at least twice this year.
With the help of student le leaders, we designed the pulse survey and even tested it with the group of the students. And today, Principal Brandt sent the survey to our student body. We are looking forward to delving into the results on Wednesday when Principal Brandt and I meet with our student group
again for a leadership lunch. Bronwin and Alexis will be speaking more about this and they will also be helping to lead us through the pulse survey analysis work with the other students. We also dove into the climate and culture survey questions with parents at the most recent parent engagement
committee meeting. Principal Brandt took the group through an activity to review all the questions and make recommendations for keeping, revising, or removing questions. There was also an opportunity to introduce new questions. We received really insightful feedback
and suggestions from our parents. So, thank you to those who were able to attend and participate. Last month, we held a showcase for our magnet programs. The showcase was an opportunity for seventh and eighth graders and their parents to learn about the high school's specializedmies
in architectural design, biomedical science, computer science, engineering, media and communications, and robotics, as well as our two new magnet programs for next year in education and performing arts. Attendees received
program information, met teachers and current students, viewed student projects, and visited magnet classrooms. I am so thrilled to say that we filled the commons with visitors and received much positive feedback that families felt well informed as well as energized
by the showcase event. Thank you to our staff who planned and attended the event. As you know, we have been working on solidifying our 2026 2027 school year calendar. Because of the late Labor Day in 2026, we realized that we would be in
school until late June if we started students after Labor Day like we have done in the most recent years. Therefore, we surveyed our students, staff, and parents to provide input on their preference for students starting school prior to Labor Day. We received
close to 1500 responses with a rather even split and representation between staff, students, and parents. And 74.1% of respondents prefer the start prior to Labor Day. I have also worked with our sending districts to see how we can most
closely align our calendars, which is helpful for our families who have children at Central as well as at one of our sending schools. We have a few more details to work out, but I anticipate having the calendar on for your approval next month. Under organizational items, you will see
an approval for our QAC placement score from the New Jersey Department of Education. And I'm going to read that to you now. We will be accepting and approving the results of the 2024 2025 New Jersey QAC which stands for the
quality single accountability continuum review and acknowledge that we have met the state performance standards in the five key areas of instruction and program fiscal management governance operations and personnel and we have been designated as a high performing
district. So, thank you all for your support in that even though it happened last year, we just received the scores uh most recently. And lastly, I wanted to publicly thank you for your support on interim approvals last month. I appreciate our ability to work together on critical
items due to the October meeting cancellation. I want to assure you and our public that our good work was able to continue due to our collaborative efforts. to highlight a few items. We received interim approval for our memorandum of agreement with law enforcement, which
you'll see on the agenda tonight, our HIPS self assessment, which you'll see on the agenda tonight and will also be a presentation, and our NJSLA results presentation. Additionally, your interim approval of an additional social worker position and
a social worker candidate have kept us on track with starting our own mental health program at Central. I am pleased to say our new social worker will begin on December 1st. We are continuing to collaborate with NJ4S and additionally we have learned about more free programs
through the Department of Children and Families, specifically ones that offer wraparound care and support for students and their families. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to Brahman and Alexis for their student representative report. Good evening everyone. Our names are
Bron Madani and Alexis Chen and we are the student representatives on this board of education and tonight we will be reporting on student life here at Central throughout October and November. Over these past two months, Central students have certainly been keeping busy. In October, student council hosted
its annual spirit week contest with classes battling out who had the most school spirit by decking out in their what I want to be when I grow up outfits or coming to school in their comfiest pajamas. Miraculously, after spending the entire week in last place, it was
ultimately the class of 2027 who pulled through to first during our annual pep rally. again. Additionally, Central was able to recognize 11 seniors as homecoming court nominees with Georgia Kurki and Joshua Fisher ultimately taking the crown.
Unfortunately, it hasn't been all fun and games for students. During the month of October, many 9th, 10th, and 11th graders took the PSAT or the preliminary SAT, which serves as a National Merit Scholarship qualifying test for juniors. Those who score high enough in their
junior year may be later eligible for National Merit Scholarships during their senior year. Later in the month, students took part in the New Jerseys pilot testing program, which features an adaptive question format to best cater to each student's individual level. In
other news, several honor societies held inductions to welcome new members, including all the World Languages and Triumph Honor Society. Additionally, middle school students were able to get a taste of Central's array of magna programs, including architecture, architectural design, biomedical
sciences, engineering, and many more. Finally, looking forward, Central's theater department will be for performing its 1112 play, Arsenic and Old Lace, on November 21st and 22nd. Get your tickets to watch this comedic masterpiece.
As for sports, Central athletes won game after game as they entered the final weeks of fall. Boys football won 28-7 against East Brunswick at the beginning of October with two touchdowns, 25 and 41 yard passes by senior Drewella to senior James in the first three
quarters. For boys soccer, I'm proud to announce that they had a 2-1 win against one of their main rivals, Pingri on October 22nd. In girls tennis news, the whole team won against North Hunan in early October and junior varsity had a 6-3 record, which was one of their best
records in years. We also have very exciting news from girls cross country. Senior Molly Dome ran the course at Homeell in 18 minutes and 37 seconds, breaking to school record set in 1996 by 16 whole seconds. And she most recently
beat her own record um and ran uh 5K in 18 minutes and 8 seconds, I believe. She is also a group four cross country champion and the eighth runner in the state of New Jersey. We want to congratulate her and all of our fall athletes who have done amazing this year and we're looking forward to updating
you all on winter sports in our next report. Alexis and I have been going around to different groups of students during lunch together to gather their ideas for central in these past few months. In these conversations, um, majorly with a majority with underclassmen at this point, we found
that students would appreciate having more bathrooms open during unit lunch, more options for lunch foods, and greater accessibility of cross-campus passes so students can get to class on time. Also, we recently launched our student input form where central students can anonymously submit
suggestions for the school. These students appear to really want Apple Pay in the cafeterias to increase accessibility for all students. and would really really appreciate the various class options and freedoms that central offer us in terms of ACU extracurriculars.
At our lunch with Mr. Brandt and Miss Angela Haye on November 4th, all student all candidates from our September student representative election met with Alexis and I to give feedback on the poll surveys that was sent out today and will be sent out throughout the year
with the candidates discussing their interest in hearing feedback about phone and Chromebook policies as well as interest in HCRS extracurricular activities. Thank you so much to listening to our report tonight. We hope everyone is having an amazing fall and can't wait to
continue sharing the passions that Central students have this year. Thank you. >> Thank you, Brahman and Alexis. And we will get to see more of you shortly when you do your presentation for us. I'm now going to ask Dr. hall to come forward to
present the spring 2025 NJSLA results and the 2025 graduation pathways report. We can all stay at the table. Um, and I think it's going to come alive on the screen behind us. You should have it on your computer. Good evening everyone. Uh my name is
Matt Hall and it's my privilege to serve the district as director of curriculum and instruction. And as Miss Kangalosi Hay uh just announced, uh tonight I will be going through our spring assessment report uh specifically the the NJSLA
as well as our graduation pathways report. Um originally we had planned on uh presenting this last month, so this has been rescheduled. Okay. So, a little bit of an overview as we go
through um as we did with the NJ GPA. Um this is one of those times when we get to focus on some indicators of student performance uh where we compare our students here at Hunter Central um and their performance with those of their
counterparts across the state. So when we talk about the NJSLA, that's a different assessment than the GPA, which is the graduation assessment. So it's important to keep in mind that this test is the one that serves as our federal uh
you know, our federal uh accountability measure. So the English language arts portion of the assessment um is given to nth grade students and the math is a little bit more uh complicated. So it is
nth grade students who are taking algebra 1 for the first time or if they've already taken algebra 1 then it would be geometry or if they've already taken that then algebra 2. Um, and it also includes students who did not take
algebra 1 as 9th graders. So, it could be 10th, 11th, and sometimes even 12th graders um within that cohort of students. As with the NJGPA, uh there are five performance levels. Um so, we're looking
at we're focusing tonight really on the five and the four score. Um and as we did before that one way of thinking about that that that's helpful is those are students who are uh performing at or above grade
level. So they met or exceeded expectations. The New Jersey SLA is a mandatory assessment uh mandatory for us to administer, mandatory for students to participate in. However, it is not part of the graduation pathways. So, that's
one of those things that um that can complicate the seriousness with which students take the test. Um and the NJSLA um as as our student uh reps mentioned before, we just did our field test of
the new brand new version uh for the spring. So, what we're looking at tonight is the the last bit of um the former NJSLA and then we'll be transitioning to a new assessment suite this spring.
Um, also of note, some students um who are exempted from the NJSLA uh instead complete what's called a dynamic learning map assessment and those um will not be reported in this
presentation tonight. Um and the reason for that is it's a it's it's a small number of students and so we exclude the those data so as to ensure um their privacy and um the accuracy of the data overall.
All right. So let's um let's jump in here. So one of the things uh that is sort of interesting about these federal accountability assessments is each state sort of sets the thresholds uh for
performance. So, New Jersey set, in other words, sets this threshold for the passing score on the NJSLA. And if you're a student in another state, Pennsylvania or Texas or or wherever, those states set their own
passing rates for whatever assessment those students are taking. So, as we're looking at this and as we we do each time we we look at our assessment data, we're comparing Hutter and Central against the the students as a whole in
New Jersey. Okay? And so that's a that's our point of reference. So, as we do this, I think it's important for us to keep in mind what that means because New Jersey has exceptionally strong
students. Okay? So, we're comparing our students against a very very strong student. So, um just some indications of that up here. Um, we've seen recently, um, US News and World Report listed New Jersey as having
the number one best education system in the United States, particularly that of preK through 12. Um, when we look at how New Jersey ranks nationally, it consistently ranks very high in both
mathematics and reading. So, if you look at the lower right there, the NAPE assessment, that's our national assessment. And then I also included up here just so we can consider that. So New Jersey is ranking highly within the United States and the United States
itself ranks highly internationally. So some other assessment systems that we can look at and sort of think about where are we referencing? Where's that reference point that we're comparing ourund central students against? Um I have some some um information up here
from the 2022 PISA and 2023 TIMS assessments which are international assessments. So >> it that that information there is not available yet. Yep. Um okay. So let's
jump in here now um with that additional context here. Okay. So, we'll start with English language arts and look at our performance here. So, um in this this chart here, the um lighter blue color
that is 100 central students. Um the darker blue color is um the state of New Jersey as a whole. And the number of students that we had who participated in this assessment um our 9th grade students last year was
500. Okay. And so when we're looking at this, we want to what we hope to see is that on the level four and level five, that's our performing at or above grade level, the light blue and central bar is higher than the New Jersey bar. And in
fact, that's that's exactly what we see. So that's that's good news for us. Um these data tend to fluctuate year by year and so sometimes we can sort of get in the habit of saying oh no our percentage rate dropped by seven points
this year or it went up by seven points um the other year. So we look at trend analysis so that we can because the test itself changes every year. So, if you look at this, this sort of gives us an idea of what those five-year trends look like um
with Hutter and Central being the red line in this case because red devils, right? We got to go red and New Jersey being the blue line. So, you can see that there's annually there's a fluctuation up and down and the the trend the 100 and central trend and the
New Jersey trend tends to stay together. But the consistent thing is in English language arts, Hutter and Central um continues to perform above that that New Jersey average. Um and New Jersey is that really high bar that um that we see
nationally. So good news. All right. So now we'll move into Oh, I jumped the gun. I thought we were going into math. Um here's another way of sort of looking at these five-year trends. And in this case, what we're looking at is the the relationship or the ratio
between our students who are exceeding grade level expectations and those who are meeting grade level expectations. And so it's fluctuated a little bit. So we did see last year we saw our exceeding um dip a bit. Um and that's
something that we're going to keep an eye on. Um what's not really represented on this, but I wanted to follow up from um when we talked about the GPA uh data a couple of months ago, we continue to see our um our performance of male and
female students that gap um closing. So that that's continues to be good news. All right, so let's move into math now. Um, so I'm going to start with math is a little bit, as I mentioned before, it's
a little bit more complicated because not all of the students take the same assessment. So our fewest number of 9th graders participate in the geometry assessment. And so these students are the ones who took algebra 1 in middle
school and oftentimes or or some of these students have also taken algebra 2 in middle school. So these tend to be students who really um they really excel in mathematics and they like mathematics. So our group size here is
pretty small. We had 19 students who fell into this category. And again we can look at um our passing rate and and how we did comparative to uh the New Jersey um the New Jersey mean. Now, this
is a a pretty good comparison because the NJSLA for 9th graders who took geometry, we're comparing them against other nth graders who took geometry around the state. So, it's this is really sort of
an applesto apples type comparison. And we can see that our students uh did very well here. So outperforming um the the state and 100% uh of the students met or exceeded um
the their grade level expectation in geometry. So this is good although this is not you know this is a very select group of students. So if we look at sort of the next slice of math here. Oh there I jumped the gun again. Here's how our
trends um continue. um a little bit more noise in in the lines um which is to be expected since we're talking about small group sizes, but our five-year trend has been um our our geometry students have
have continuously outperformed their New Jersey peer group. And we see that um there have been some fluctuations in the the um ratio of exceeding students exceeding the grade level expectation to meeting the grade
level expectation. So pretty similar to last year um still sort of climbing up this there was a postcoid year that was really high but you know that's one of those things we we keep watching and and making sense of.
Okay, so let's move into algebra 2. So these are students who as eighth graders uh took algebra 1 and then came here and so they participate in uh the NJSLA and the algebra 2 NJSLA
and we had 144 students and just to sort of um you know easy math in your mind if we if we are looking at this group the algebra 2 cohort here and the geometry cohort that's about a third almost
exactly a third of our students. Okay. And then twothirds of our students um encounter algebra 1 for the first time once they get here to the high school. So this is the bulk of that third of um sort of uh we'll call them sort of
mathematically accelerated students. And so in this case we see um that our level four that's meeting expectations exceeds this their state counterpart but we're
seeing a little bit of a dip in the level five. So that's that's something that we are looking at and thinking about and um and and and making sense of here. And we had a little bit of a spike in level three um which is the approaching
um expectations, the grade level expectations that's higher than we want to see here. Um so that's something that the math department is um is is taking a look at currently. Okay,
you can see as I mentioned before the these data tend to fluctuate a bit each year. So you can see that the the red line, the Hutteran central line, the shape of it and the shape of that blue New Jersey line are similar, but that
gap is closing a bit here. Right? So that's something that um that we need to pay attention to and make sense of. Okay. And then here's our five-year history comparing the ratio of exceeding to meeting. And
pretty pretty consistent all the way across here. Okay. So that is our our our accelerated one-third math students. So now we're going to move into the twothirds of students who um who who
take algebra 1 once they get here. So when we look at the data here, what we're talking about is mostly 9th grade students who have not yet taken algebra 1 in middle school, but also mixed in here are some 10th and 11th grade
students. Um, and so this data obviously does not look as great as the other stuff that we were just looking at a moment ago. And so one of the things to to keep in mind with
this because this is this is our focus area. We we um we've mentioned that before we have a district goal um that is focused on raising our our mathematics performance. So this is our area of focus. And one of
the things that's important to keep in mind as we consider the context here is there's a there's a phenomena that regional high schools um that we see in regional high schools and all of the regional high schools experience this same sort of thing. So, if we're looking
at uh North Hutter and Vorhees or Bridgewwater or any of the regional high schools, we're only counting our algebra 1 students who are taking algebra 1 in 9th, 10th or 11th grade, right? We don't include the algebra 1 students from
eighth grade or seventh grade or in some cases sixth grade. Um whereas a K12 or pre-K12 district, all of that data gets combined. And so it becomes harder to sort of use that dark blue New Jersey
line in this case as a real um as a real comparison point. But what we do see here is that we do not have any of these students performing at the level that is um exceeding grade level expectations.
And we have um you know we have 3/4 of the students performing on that lower um 321 level here. So this is this is our area of of focus for sure. Um
if we look at our five-year trend um you can see that this one you know this is the one that doesn't look like the others. This is the one where we're seeing the red hotter than central line. Um though it's following a similar pattern, it's the gap is it's below the
blue line and the gap is is increasing. So um this is our focus and so we're going to get in a into a minute what some of those interventions are that that we're deploying at this time.
Okay. Um, one final sort of um, piece of information that we want to look at when we're trying to make sense of this is how does this sort of compare with where the students came in um, to the
district. Right? So, um, in this case what I have included and I was only able to include three years of data here because I wanted to layer over it um, our eighth grade students. And so the black line in this graph is our
Flemington students and how they performed in 8th grade. So it's shifted so that it's compared. So it's basically shifted so it lines up with the high school. Um, so the eighth grade students you're seeing there are being compared
against their ninth grade selves effectively with the exception being we have some 10th and 11th grade students mixed in there as well. But you could see that the performance pattern that yellow performance pattern that's
Readington Township is it looks the shape is the same, right? So the students are coming in lower and they remain lower in ninth grade with the Flemington cohort. There's
something else happen happening here um that you know that we have questions about but I you know it's tough to draw conclusions. So we can see that they came in with coming up a little bit higher this last year but then dipped
anyway. So that's something um that we need to to keep in mind. So we're always trying to interpret this data and um and use it sort of to to point at what action can we take to to continually improve our student performance
outcomes. Okay. All right. So here's our algebra 1 five-year history. And the pattern if we were going to lay over this for our math people in here. if we were going to lay over this our line of best fit um or or
trends, things like that. It's, you know, it's this is not a a a good pattern. You know, it's going down. So, we want we want that to start reversing and going the other direction. Okay. Um going to move into science.
Sorry about that. Going to move into science and then we're going to come back to um next steps. What are we working on and and and that sort of thing. So, we also administer the NJSLA science in um in the spring. Um this is
uh this covers science content um all of the science content and it's administered to 11th grade students. And this is not a graduation assessment uh just like the other NJSLA. And in fact, there is not a graduation assessment u
for science at all. same same um sort of thing with the exception that we only have four performance levels on this one. So in these cases, we're really looking at level three and four. Um when we're we're saying this is students
meeting or exceeding grade level expectations. Okay. So light blue versus the dark blue. So what we want to see in this case is our light blue bar being taller than the dark blue
bar under levels three and four and we are seeing that that is in fact the case. Um so this trend is um is one that we think we think of as positive um even though the cut rate here the where we're
saying the passing rate um is still you know it's less than half the students. So that's one of those things that, you know, New Jersey sets our cuts very high. Um, so that's why we're comparing against the blue bar in this case to to
make sense of this. Okay, here's just sort of a male female comparison. Um, we had talked about how the ELA one was the one that we're working to to close that gap on. Um, we continue to see progress in that, but
more progress needs to be made. uh geometry um is sort of a false like good news thing because everybody a 100% of the kids male or female are passing. So there's a little bit of a ceiling effect there. Um
and you know we're seeing a common pattern that that this is one of those patterns that we see nationally that um on the math and science test the males um tend to be uh performing a bit
higher than female students on the NJSLA. So that's a that's a trend we are seeing across the state for some reason. So, um, with the reverse being true in ELA, here's a demographic breakdown. Um, and
this is sort of a noisy slide, but what we can see, um, is that the, um, you know, some of our subgroups are, uh, performing at a level that is lower than their, um, than some of the other counterparts. specifically
um our Hispanic and Latino and our black and African-American students are performing at a lower level. Um this is something that we want to look at um and and make sure that we're providing equitable access to to all of our
courses and to all of our resources to all of the students. Um and also it's you know this is one of those things where um those demographic groups tend to be smaller and so the the numbers fluctuate
um with just a few students um on either you know if we're talking about 20 students in a subgroup um two students make can make it have a 10% jump either way.
Okay. Um, and here's another way that we break it down where we're looking at not the um the uh the race backgrounds here, our demographic breakdown, but um students with IEPs, 504s, and economically disadvantaged students um
and also our ML students. And keep in mind that individual students can be um represented in multiple categories here. Um, for example, you could have a student who has an IEP but who is also
uh a multilingual learner. Okay. So, I referred to earlier that we have a district goal this year. One of our district goals is to improve our math um state proficiency in in in math by 3%. Compared to the 20 24 25 baseline. So
what we're looking at here is really that baseline that we'll be comparing against. Um and so uh the work that's being done now is um you know it's intended to help improve the student um performance outcomes and that that
minimum goal that we're looking for is 3%. So some of the things that we are doing. So I mentioned when I did the NJGPA report that um Genesis and some of our other uh databases that we're using is
allowing us to to look at the data and access the data and compare it um uh in in easier and in better ways, more more accurate ways. And so we continue um to look at the data and to to make sense of
it and to make sure that we're looking at it within context like some of those five-year trends that I share at that type of thing. Um, we've also continued to work to um to fully implement our multi-tered
system of supports or MTSS. And that's been something that um if you're a frequent attendee at board meetings, you've heard a lot of conversation about. Um, one of the the ch changes this year from in past years is our tier
2 level, um, which up here is is referred to as RTI, is fully scheduled, fully staffed this year, eight out of eight blocks, uh, to make sure that there is an RTI uh, staff member available for students at any time
during the day when their schedule might allow them to to connect. Um, our math department continues to to use um a platform called Exl to target skill deficiencies with students and to to, you know, to really be sort of surgical
with how they're addressing um and closing gaps there. Um, our ELA um teachers are using common lit and some targeted uh practice materials. Um, we continue to utilize
tutorials on block five as well as some after hours tutorials to support students. And we're we're about to launch a new um weekly lunch group targeted support program where students
um will be specific students will be invited to participate in additional contact time during lunch. Um, you know, where where they'll have lunch. It'll be sort of a um a fun math or ELA uh
um support program while the students have lunch. We've also developed um bell ringer pro or uh problems that are modeled after NJSLA and NJGPA question types that are
that the teachers will be using to build um daily practice and fluency um with assessment expectations to help the students get familiar with the types of questions that they will see on these assessments. And we're talking about more strategic
planning for our administration to minimize um you know the you know student uh test fatigue and to to optimize students opportunity to do their best. Um and then um and I know
I'd mentioned this in in prior presentations, but we continue to work in departments um to engage in curricular alignment studies, improved instructional pacing um and better alignment between general ed, special
ed, and multilingual um sections of of classes um and of course our vertical articulation with our sending districts. Um we know that if students arrive here um at grade
level or above then um we don't have you know it's it's easier to to to keep them on that trajectory without um having to close gaps but there where there are gaps we want to know about them ahead of time so that we can be in a good
position to address them. Okay, so that's the NJSLA and next we'll move into graduation pathways. So there are three pathways to graduation for students. The first of
which is the NJ GPA. Yeah. So that's the primary pathway and that's the pathway that most of our students um meet. And so students who meet or exceed proficiency on the NJGPA are automatically um have considered to have
fulfilled their graduation assessment requirement. If that's not the case, there are alternative assessments. There's a whole suite of alternative assessments that can be used to fulfill the graduation assessment requirement
as long as the student has already attempted the NJ GPA. And so um those are posted up there or projected up there. I won't I won't read those to everybody. Um the third pathway, so the pathway for
students who did not pass the NJGPA and did not take or pass one of these alternative assessments. Um there is a portfolio appeal process. So essentially what that is is it's an opportunity for students to demonstrate their that
they've met the grade level expectation in a way that's where it's a performance a series of performance tasks instead of a test a traditional test. And that's really a um a good option for students that testing is just not their thing. Um
and so we do have some students that go through the portfolio appeals process as well. And so this these pathways are very similar um between ELA and math. Um just some of the details of the secondary pathway are
a little bit different. Okay. So our graduation pathway. So the the green in the upper left here, this is our um ELA students. So students in order to meet their graduation assessment requirement, they have to fulfill both the ELA and
the mathematics assessment requirement. So most of our students in ELA um they fulfill this through that first pathway the NJGPA. So when we look up here you see 526 of our 2025 graduates um
fulfilled their requirement through that pathway. We had 11 students who met it through that second pathway and then 17 um students fulfilled it through the portfolio appeals process.
You'll see the seven there next to MET um ELA IP alternative. Um so that could be um you know those are students that are exempted from um the you know the NJGPA. Okay. In math you see a very similar
pattern although more of our students um met their their graduation assessment requirement through the second and third pathways. um rather than the NJGPA. Um and then when we look down in the
white and then that sort of peach color there, those are sort of the overall um students who met both. Um what we're looking at is a graduation rate last year of 98.6%. So very high. Um and then comparing that
again to New Jersey, the New Jersey graduation rate um for the was 91.3%. Okay. Um we did have eight students who did not graduate. Um and many of those students it was um
you know for reasons like they they uh you know they lacked the credit requirement um that they needed to graduate. So, for whatever reason, you know, on home instruction or something like that. Okay.
All right. I know that was a lot. Do our board members have any questions? Uh, Dr. Hall, question. The difference between the performance levels there were the five levels versus the four levels. I thought it was interesting for
that five levels. The middle one said, >> is it approaching? >> Approaching, >> but the one, two, three. The fourth one said that they sort of met it. So I thought it was interesting. I would have reversed it just as an observation. Um, and the question about your inter or a
question about the interventions, the lunch intervention, these are kids who need help. Is that it? >> These are students who would be identified as as being at risk. um and they would be similar to the students who are being invited to
participate in those RTI um periods, but it's an extra some extra contact time between uh staff members and students to work on their own individual um you know, whatever the particular skill is that they're working on.
So, they're invited and they must attend or they're invited and >> they're invited to attend and incentivized because we're going to try and lure them there with pizza and and snacks and things like that. So, >> do do you know a percentage that
actually do take part in it? >> This is a new this is a new thing that we're going to try. Um and and the reason for that is our RTI periods at this point in the year, a lot of the work that they're doing is to help those
students who are in that third pathway, the portfolio appeals process. And so that is a priority is to have students meet their assessment, their graduation assessment. And so so we can get to s the students who aren't at that point
yet earlier, we're rolling out this new strategy. And so um you know, we'll continue to to figure out what it is that is the best way to, you know, however fun we can make it and the right kinds of snacks that we can provide, I
think, are going to be key to that. >> Yeah. Because we know snagging them early is better than than later. >> Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. >> Oh, sorry. I have a question. >> Yes. >> Um,
since the trend has been downtrending for five years, I really have two questions. One is, do you feel like there's friction points, barriers that have gotten in your way that you could use
help with that still continue to remain there to this day? and of the strategies you guys have in place for what you want to do moving forward. How many of them are repeat or evolution of what you guys have been trying for the last five
years? >> So I think I'm understanding you're specifically talking about the algebra group and so there are a lot of of variables in that data that we're working to
account for. So for example um the students who are coming to us in that group um are the ones who as I mentioned before were not the ones who took algebra 1 at the middle school
right so the more that our sending partners accelerate math the lower the result is the lower our algebra one scores. So some of it is figuring out
how much of this is is the other side of the success of the middle school's math programs, right? And the in the elementary schools for that matter. So the earlier they begin to accelerate students, the more of those students are
taking these assessments before they get to us. And so it has an effect of lowering the overall score. So some it's figuring out some of that and and that is a different kind of problem, right?
Some of this seems to be um you know and not to everything tends to be blamed on COVID, right? But we see some patterns coming out of that that make us ask questions about you know whether or not there were some um gaps that happened in
in foundational skills during COVID and it could be other things. Um and there are strange you know when we and it's important to look at those longitudinal kinds of comparisons because you could have a situation where a group of
students has you know a a leave replacement teacher for two years in a row at the elementary or middle school that introduces some gaps that are that we're still seeing. And so the only way
we get to close those gaps is by getting better at detecting them and figuring out specifically what they are and then putting structures in place to address those. So you'll notice in those interventions there's a lot of this structure stuff in there like we really
need to lean in hard on the MTSS. We need to make sure we're staffing um RTI all day long. There's some questions about whether or not um students, seniors specifically, who have late ends
or early outs um that when they do that, if they're not meeting their, you know, grade level expectations in in math or English, it becomes sort of hard for us to connect with them if we're not pulling them out of somewhere else. So, it's figuring out all those places where
we can detect the the what needs to be addressed, the specific skills, and make sure that we have a staff member able to connect with a student in a way that's
um impactful to them. And so, there's a lot of work with with that. So, the the data sort of is directional. that points in certain directions, but it's not specific, right? You know, we um it
doesn't specifically say this is the thing you need to do. Um what we're looking at um in terms of curricular, we know that our curriculum, our algebra 1 curriculum is aligned to the standards. Um, one of the things that we've started doing more of is making sure that it's
calibrated also to the performance level that the students will need to meet on the assessment. And so that's a that's a nuance there that there's some important work happening within our PLC groups. Um, and and a lot of good work happened
this summer over that. So, um, the strategy is really we're doing a full court press on algebra. And so, what I would expect to see is that we'll start seeing it go up. So, that that's
hope that's the district goal. That's our that's our intent. Good question. Thank you, >> Dr. Hall. >> Yes. >> Thank you for the presentation. I just had a couple of observations. Um >> so some of the slides for the current
years have percentages and number of students and then for example 4 6 8 and 10 and then some of the slides show comparisons across the years do not list the percentages >> um which is five uh slides 5 79 and 11. >> Um so it might be good to have that
consistency and also notice year-over-year slides don't have the state averages on them as well. So, um, like algebra 1, right, has been above state averages in the past, but now it's below the state average. So, it went
from 37 to 24. So, it' be good to see that just so we know where we're at. >> Um, and then just my question is why was there a 13% drop in the English language arts? What what's your sense on that? My
my sense is that we saw a drop across the state. And so that was one of the reasons why I put that five-year comparison in so that we could see that the pattern the the pattern was consistent between
us and the state. So why that is um it that is sort of honestly invisible to us. Um we aren't we we don't get a glimpse into how those cuts are set. um you know so what a level four is how
many questions a student needs to get right to get a level four or level five that's not necessarily something that that we know the answer to right but something about that test that year um
less students across the state um performed higher so that's you know when I put those comparisons in so that we can see our our performance next to the state's performance. And when you see when the state goes up, we go up. And
when when the state goes down, we go down. That's sort of how we account for the test itself, the fluctuations in the test itself. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. And thank you for the feedback on the slides. I I I recognize
that there's a lot already and uh am sensitive to not put too much uh out there and so um next time around we'll we'll put some more detail in there. Any other questions? No. Okay.
All right. I'll turn it over to Mr. Brandt. Thank you, Dr. Hall. Okay. Mr. Brandt is going to come up now. He has two presentations. We split them out separately because each one is a separate requirement for the NJ DOE. So
we have the harassment, intimation and bullying or hib self assessment and then we have the school safety data systems reporting period 2 which is the second half of last school year um that Mr. Brandt will be presenting on for us tonight.
>> All right. Thank you. So yes, this first presentation is a report out on last year's 2425 school years anti-bullying bill of rights school self assessment. The anti-bullying bill of rights is
basically the state law that pushes and forces public schools to have um the bill of rights but also our HIV process if you would. And this is not a report on any of the actual um investigations
or anything like that. This is on our team's uh work to try to support um the work we do so that students can come here day in and day out and not feel bullied, intimidated or harassed.
So um the self assessment is conducted by a school climate team. This is different than the climate and culture survey team. So I I put that out there. Sometimes the the terms are are used frequently and uh this is a team that
meets multiple times a year. It is made up of our anti-bullying coordinator, our anti-bullying specialists, which are our four student assistance counselors and two other counselors as well. And it also is made up of staff members and
parents and another counselor. So it's a team uh a cross-section if you would uh to provide input. There are 26 indicators that are provided by the state. Basically it's a a a tool that we can
use to get good ideas on how to have a comprehensive anti-bullying program. Um and then each of those indicators has to be scored from a zero through three uh level there. And the it's required each
state, each school, each district meets the minimum requirements of that 52 points. And if you score three points in every one of those 26 indicators, you have 78. So I'm going to walk through uh there are eight core elements. I'm not going
to read the whole program to you here. However, basically it's an assurance to make sure that we have programs here for the students, for the staff, that we have processes in place, um that we have personnel in place, and then the reporting is thorough.
So, each one of these elements has a number of indicators and um these are the same each year. Um but I what I did highlight real quick kind of the second tab there are some of the indicators that we had special focus on this year
last year if you would. So um one of the things we did was we moved the education to the ninth graders earlier in their um health and PE classes in that scope and sequence. uh we made sure and we took advantage of the last two years if you would where we
had the two PD days that opened the school year for staff and we infused uh you know a higher level of review of the HIV process um for the faculty and also the school climate team uh has to meet at least three times a year and they
they did meet three times last year but they also meet ad hoc at times especially during any specific type of uh maybe very unique cases um and they'll take a look at that as a full team rather than just maybe the two anti-bullying specialists who are
working on a case. Um as far as that second element there deals with uh training. All of our staff members go through the safe schools training online. It has to be completed by October 30th each year. And we also had additional training for adviserss and
coaches and the coaches of all three seasons. Um and also uh we included more layers for the incoming ninth graders both in the freshman orientation, the class meetings that take place that second week of school and also in the
ninth grade PE classes. Um the third the third element here is again uh staff instruction and training. One of the things this this is the state's version of encouraging schools to
support staff members going to the training to be a part of this and you have any time we've had staff members who needed to go through any of the training you've supported all along. So thank you very much. That includes not only PD maybe outside of time but also just having the school climate team meet
during the school day so they can all be there. Uh so thank you for that. for core element number three, curriculum and instruction on HIV. Uh again, the two main areas that we do it, we have the push-in lessons both in the ninth grade, but also in the 10th grade um as
well in the um um the program that we have for them and also the week of respect. We highlight that in October. Uh the fifth element here is dealing again with personnel. Uh we're fortunate. I mean, we need it because
we're a very large school. I communicate periodically with the principles of very small schools and they are the anti-bullying coordinator and they are the ones conducting the investigations. So, we have a team of four anti-bullying
specialists. They are they are each grade level student assistance counselor and they are the primary people who are assigned cases. What we do do, so you know, is say for example, a case deals with two tenth graders or a ninth and tth grader, we try to keep that grade
level student assistance counselor to not be the person who's conducting an investigation because we're going to want them to be supports for both ends of that. Uh so again, having one at each grade level is fantastic. We also have two on reserve. Sometimes we have a situation where it's maybe a large
group, maybe something that deals with a club or a team and for time's sake, we have 10 school days to complete this. It's hard to investigate that many um students involved or it might be in a classroom and you have a large number of witnesses.
Um the seventh uh element here is the investigation procedures. I like to say our team does an incredible job putting together a very thorough set of procedures both in communication and also documentation
um throughout the years. Uh we have a a spreadsheet that we use internally that we can look back at previous years as well because one of the things the state uh mandates as part of the anti-bullying uh bill of rights is if you have a student who um may be either an offender
or a target multiple times over their time here, maybe the third or fourth time that they've been a target or the third or fourth time they've been offender. we have to put something in place to support that student, you know, at a greater level than we normally would. Um, and again, the last uh piece
there is a HIV reporting. And you'll see in my next um presentation, the SSDs, student safety data systems, all of our HIB uh processes are submitted to the state and internally kept here. And the last
piece there is this actual self- assessment. So just a a brief recap. Um we did last year meet uh that that level the minimum of 52 and proud to say that again following that rubric that the state
gives. We aspired and we did meet um that level three for all the indicators to to have a 78 out of 78. um to give you some data and this will be reflected again on the next presentation. Last school year we had 40 reports of HIV
that's either um submitted by students, staff member, parent can access that on our website if needed. Um there were 34 investigations conducted. There were six of those reports um using the principal's
determination. Basically, that's saying that based on the evidence given, it may have not met the initial threshold to go through a full HIV investigation. We would still investigate it as a code of conduct violation. Doesn't mean it didn't happen. Um, but it it didn't meet
the the state guidelines of an HIV. And of those 40, 17 of the 40 were um found to be confirmed yes. So, that's that report. I don't have any questions
before I go on to the next one. All right. The other presentation again dealing with uh you know Dr. Hall uh shared information and data about um some of the levels of achievement. I have to report here on some of the levels of
behaviors and this is the second set of six months of last school year. So this are any of the reports that came to us or took place from January 1st through June 30th of last school year. The first couple slides just walk
through what needs to be reported. And when I say reported, this mean there is a state database where we have to report in um as the school year goes and it has to be submitted, you know. So, for example, I I I want to say it was August 15th. The information for for this
period had to be submitted to the state and there's certain guidelines what what's involved in this used to be called the violence and vandalism report. Um so these items here are what needs to be reported. also any and all of the HIV processes that I just spoke
about, they are part of it as well. A more detailed list, any uh basically anything that would have a consequence of removing a student from class, whether it's a student going out of school suspension or in school
suspension, that needs to be recorded. also things like an HIV alleged so that that wouldn't have a student be removed from school. Um, but it also does need to be reported. This is a little bit of a duplicate of
what I just reported on, but for the second six months of the 40 that I mentioned, there were 24 reports in that second set of six months. 21 investigations. six times I use that principal's preliminary discretion.
There were 10 of those 21 investigations found to be confirmed and there's a breakdown of what the distinguishing characteristics that were part of that threshold um for the interaction. Three that were on sexual orientation andor
gender, three on race and ancestry, one on disability, and three were under the category of other. But all three were about body shaming and and appearance. Um and then the last piece there is actually what I just spoke about were
the HIV grade reports. Again, um that report is not about the actual events or any of the data. It's it's on our self assessment on our processes. This slide here talks through and gives
the data on any of the incidents that took place like I mentioned where a student was either placed in out of school or in school suspension. This is a not an update of the slide, but previous years I did not and we did not
report inschool suspension um consequences. And I bring that up because I don't want for example that on there is truency. There were five cases of truency. We're not going to take a student who's truent and put them out of school suspension. That was that kind of
defeats the purpose. So those are students that we may have put an inschool suspension. Let's get them caught up with teachers in the classes there um so that they can get back into class. Sometimes students are truent because they feel defeated and they don't want to come to class and then feel that defeated. So we use the
inschool suspension and support program there to get those students involved. Same thing with tardiness. Um you know come to school and get to school and get to school on time. Those are some that in previous years I would not have on had on there. I also want to mention too
and one of them for example me putting this together the very first one there was assault 11 so that jumped out at me I'm like what? So that doesn't mean that there were 11 11 incidences separate events that may be maybe one event that
had six or seven students involved. They are all accounted for in that. So, um, I bring that up because that, be honest, is principle that jumped out at me right away. Um, and I looked further into it. Some of the supports that we have in
trying to combat those behaviors, again, within the nth grade health curriculum, that's where we have the anti-bullying um, uh, work. Uh the the one I I couldn't remember in my previous um presentation was the 10th grade the teen mental health. One of the units in um
the 10th grade health and PE is the teen mental health and within that is the idea of being an upstander and not a bystander and speaking up when you say something or see something. Um again I'm not going to go through all this list but these are the number of
interventions and programs that we have to help prevent. Um, and also along the way build community here. I think one of the things that we do have is a great community. Um, I I talk about it all the time with the students and staff and you also as as board members and with the
parents. It's one heck of a community and we are a community. We're a little small town here day in and day out. Um, if you think about it, probably, you know, close to 3,000 people in a very small space. Um and then also coming out of all that
information, we then take a look at both at a very um micro level but also a macro level some of the things that we have in place to help prevent any of the behaviors that lead to uh getting on this list in the first place. And that's
everything from the AM and PM supervision. You know, the buses let off at 7:15. There's a bit of time there where it's unstructured time before the 7:35 bell. lot can happen right there. But we have a um a lot of number of staff members that you support um in
hiring them each year in the AM supervision. So that's just an example and that's my last slide for there. Any questions or >> principal rant? Just a a question with the security staff. Are they getting
their training only through the school or do they get it elsewhere as well? >> Uh the sec through the school but also the class 3 officers and rear township police officers they have training outside of school as well. So they're supported in that way too.
And and sometimes we we'll have for example um Miss Jessica Long is our uh safe school safety specialist, one of our vice principles. And with that assignment, if you would, she goes periodically to statewide trainings and
sometimes uh Mr. Kacial will join. Sometimes she'll come back and relay that uh to the security team and that goes throughout the year. The state's actually very is excellent at and most of those are free. Uh there are excellent trainings uh that she'll go to
and before it was Mr. Ebner and and I go to periodically. Mhm. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Brandt. I'm actually going to ask Principal Brandt to stay up here now because we're going to present and honor our National Merit
Scholarship Commended students. So, this is an exciting happy part of the meeting. >> So, and I I do want to mention I'm going to piggyback off a comment that Dr. Hall made and it's something that I did not know until recently. So yes, New Jersey has excellent excellent school system
and I' proud to say I think we're an excellent school within an excellent school system and um there was a mention there about the PSATs for the 10th graders and that's a a benchmark if you would or a a data point to identify
students that are recognized nationally as national merit scholars. I did find out that actually each state has different levels of what they consider to be. So New Jersey not only um you're part of a pretty good strong school, but you have a higher bar if you're in the
state of New Jersey to be identified as a merit scholarship um as compared to maybe some other states. So hundreds of thousands students take those PSATs every year. Thousands of students take throughout the state of New Jersey. And we had nine students,
nine students who are identified as commended scholars. So I think we have four of them here. So if you would come up. We have Alexis Chen right here. Come on up. We have Olivia Davis. Olivia. And behind me we have Christopher Doyle.
and Samuel Mucker. Okay, we have five other students. I don't unless somebody snuck in when with my back turned, but we have uh Gabriel Klene, Henry Shroop, Drew Sud, and Surin Shrevastava also, and Abigail Black is
honored as merit um commended students. So, congratulations to all of you. you already got I want to say it was back early October and we gave you your certificates and your picture was you know on the front of the um website but congratulations to
you guys again >> to go >> okay this is a little awkward But um we have another honor to present. So yeah, if you could just hang out there. Um Principal Grant has been chosen as a 2025 New Jersey exemplary
educator by the New Jersey Department of Education. Mr. Brandt was nominated and then chosen for this award based on the following criteria. Exceptional educational talent as evidenced by effective instructional practices and student learning results in the classroom and school. Exemplary
educational accomplishments beyond the classroom that provide models of excellence for the profession. Contributions to the education that are largely unheralded yet worthy of the spotlight. Engaging and inspiring presence that motivates and impacts students,
colleagues, and the community. And strong long-range potential for professional and policy leadership. I have said this time and time again, and I think it's echoed by many here um and in our district. But Mr. Mr. Brandt is the heart of Hunter Central and it comes through in every single thing he does
here. We are so proud of him and so grateful to have him leading and supporting our school community. Please join me in congratulating and honoring him. Okay, I promise we're at the final part of the report, but certainly not least
here, I would like to ask Brarwin and Alexis to come forward for a presentation on their work as student representatives and their goals this year. All right. Hello everyone. Uh once again, we're Bronn and Alexis with the student representatives. And what we're going to be reporting on tonight is
hopefully a little interesting compared to the other presentations. Um we're going to sorry, we're going to be reporting on um our role as student representatives and what we've done so far this year um to start the year um
really getting the student voice now that we have a brand new student rep and someone that's more experienced. Okay. So, we're just going to um start with some of our overall goals that we're trying to achieve through these different methods. So, number one, getting honest thoughts. Um we really
want to maximize our relationship with our peers and having those peer-to-peer conversations as opposed to administration versus peer conversations. Um, the example that we bring up a lot is if a teacher asks their students how often they cheat,
chances are they're going to say zero to minimal times. But if you have a peer-to-peer question of how often you cheat, that answer might be a little bit more candid. Um, secondly, we also want to um achieve a uh accurate and wholly
representative um representation between Bronwin and I. Um, we know that between the two of us, we kind of cover a lot of the same ground. And so, we miss a lot of um, students that aren't part of the clubs that we're part of or classes or sports
as neither Ronwin nor I are um, athletes at this school. Um, so we want to make sure that we're able to have as many voices represented as possible. And then as far as bringing the board to students, um, one thing that we noticed a lot last year, um, is that the groups
that we were hearing from were the most passionate students. Um, whether, you know, passionately positive about the school or passionately negative. Um, which is great, but even students who aren't super passionate have ideas for our school that need to be acknowledged. Um, so this is why we're creating these
new strategies for this year. And just to go over some of the things that we'll be talking about in this presentation, number one is administration lunches. So those are um lunches between Bronin, I uh Miss Kangloi Hay, Mr. Brandt, and various
student groups um to brainstorm different ideas and talk about different issues that have been brought up. Number two is something that we've introduced this year, which is having a lunch census. So that's when Roman and I are going around during unit lunch to just ask as many students as we can what
their ideas are about central and any issues that they see. Um third, we also want to talk about the polls and idea forms that we've been sending out. Also get to get candidate thoughts throughout the year as opposed to just one climate survey. And then lastly, we'll end with
our next steps and our future plans. Okay. So, when we're talking about admin lunches in this presentation, we're talking about, like I said, the meetings with the superintendent and the principal and us two. Um, but they're also going to include students groups with something in common. Um, they may
all be club presidents, for example. They may all be student council members. Um, and that helps get a really like comfortable environment to share ideas um with people that have stuff in common. >> And then we'll also be discussing our lunch census um initiative. Um, and like
I mentioned before, this is to allow us to get as many student voices as we can. So, what we've been doing is during unit lunch when we're able to going around to as many different tables or groups of students as we can and just asking them, hey, if you could change something about
Central, what would you change? And the goal with this is to try to get as many student voices as we can um in kind of a a mildwide inch deep fashion where we're not having those more in-depth conversations that we would with administration lunches, but we're able
to get a wider range of opinions. And then as far as our pulse forms go, we're kind of using that passion for good. Um these are going to be about those hot button issues. um for example, phone policies um that we can really get a good idea of how people feel about
those issues. Okay. So, a lot of these might seem a bit redundant in collecting different student voices. So, I'm just kind of going to explain some of the uh differences and why we're um using each one and what distinguishes each. So
let's say that this is our sample student population and this is Ronwin and this is me. So so first um the one thing that we've been consistently doing is using forms and
the one issue with forms is that it requires students to bring their voices and opinions to the form. And this is good because it is quick, efficient, and is our easiest sampling method. But the downside of this is that we're putting the burden on students, which introduces
voluntary response bias. And this is what Bronnin was alluding to earlier on where you have those more extreme opinions being represented. But with non-response bias, you have everybody else who's a bit a little bit more ambivalent or moderate, not um bringing
their voices to the table because of that burden. that's placed on the students and as a result the issue with this is that too many voices go unheard because really only the extreme ends and minorities are being rep represented.
Thank you Miss Donna hower for this. So that's why we wanted to introduce the lunch census initiative. So here's our student body again. And so the difference with this is that instead of asking students to bring their voice um
to a Google form or to a lunch is we are going to students instead. And the goal with this is to try to get as many students represented as possible. And so with this again like I mentioned before it's kind of that mildwide inch deep fashion where we're trying to get
as many student voices as we can. And so the goal with this again like I said is census collecting. So we're just s we're just trying to grab everybody's voices and this is is to help ensure maximal population coverage and again brings the board of education to students instead
of just relying on them to come to us. We know that as board of student representatives we are not just the leazison from the board to or we're not just the lelayison from students to the board but also the board to the students. And so that helps to supplement our goal of bringing the
board to the students. And so this moves on, this helps to connect with our administrative lunches. So once we've collected all this data with students, what Brawin and I will do is we'll take all that take all these notes and bring them to administrative lunches. And so
like Roman said before, these are usually with student leaders or anything else that they all have in common. And so we'll sit down with these student leaders and administration and have more in-depth conversations that we're able to bounce off ideas and have deeper conversations that are more
solutionbased. And so the great thing about these lunches in particular is that everyone everyone is different. Obviously we have the different students so we're already getting different ideas that way. Um but we have different objectives for each one. Um, so for example, at our student
lunch meeting, we discussed the idea of having these poll surveys that we just released today. Um, and what kind of questions we would want to be on it. Um, so that way, not only are the students going to be able to respond to these surveys, but they're going to be informing the topics that then they will
um, be able to give feedback on and to really get the topics that we want to talk about essentially. Um, and the way that we do this, um, millions of post-it notes, uh, a lot of whiteboards, um, and I think a lot of just it's simple conversation. It's really nothing
formal. I mean, there's pizza there, so that already makes it informal. Um, but we're really just, uh, getting these ideas. Um, some people will definitely talk more than others, of course, but I think we really get every student um, to share at least one idea or bounce off of
each other, which is really cool. Okay, so here's what we found from our lunch census. Um, so number one, by far the most frequently um brought up issue is bathrooms. Um, a lot of students mentioned that they're um unable to
access bathrooms, especially during passing time, before and after school, or finding locker rooms after school for changing, especially in athletics. A lot of students also voice um preference for cleaner bathrooms um when that's available.
Um the second most frequent thing and this was most predominant when we went to the freshman classroom was cross-campus passes. Um many students uh voiced that they weren't able to get a cross-campus pass and so they were often
late to class as a result and so a lot of them preferenced or voice preference for our earlier system where they would rather be late to their class instead of leaving their class early. Um and so a lot of this um stem from the fact that
they felt a lot of teachers taught up to the bell um instead of vice versa where they would um uh start at at the early bell and then kind of die off later. Um and so I think a reason for this kind of
um inconsistency is the fact that um we imple or the the cross-campus passes were implemented because the teachers had the preference for the ladder option. Um and so that lack of communication kind of um didn't resonate
with students as much and so there's that um kind of dissonance there. And then third with lunch options a lot of students also cons voice voiced concerns about the price of food which again u may stem from the lack of communication that the price of f food comes from the
state and not the um school. And then finally, uh, just a couple more details on the pulse forms. Like I said, they're formed by student input from student leaders, from us, too. Um, but the great thing about them is that throughout the year, they're going to adapt. Um, so rather than getting like
consistent data on specific questions, um, we're actually going to be informed by the answers that we get for the first one. Um so for example, if a lot of students are saying strongly disagree um to a question about whether they um like the phone policies, then the subsequent
surveys are going to be asking questions about, you know, what would you what would your ideal cell phone policy in class be? Do you find that the policies are consistent across your eight blocks? That kind of thing. And the great thing too is that there's not just the liyker scale multiple choice questions on the
survey. There's also an open-ended um and of course um some students are going to take that how they will. Um but something that I really appreciate is that some students will actually um leave compliments about the school. Um and I think most consistently we hear um
students really appreciating the amount of classes and clubs um the freedom that they have here. Um, so I really wanted to emphasize that as we kind of wrap up our presentation. Um, and just going into some of the more preliminary results of our forms that
we've been sending out, consistent with what we've been seeing at the census is that overwhelmingly bathrooms are students number one priorities. Up in the top left corner, this is any this is kind of that multiple um choice option where students are able to click as many
issues that they're concerned about. Um, and then with the second one on the bottom right, this is if you only had to choose one issue, which would it be? And again, we can see that consistency with bathrooms being overwhelmingly the number one priority that students are worried on, followed by lunch pricing
and cross-campus passes. As far as our next steps, um, Alexis and I, being the public speakers that we are, um, did a morning announcement segment for the first time. It's called, "Are you bored yet?" It's based on the title of a popular song. Um, and what we did is we kind of shared, of course,
what we reported on at board meetings. We also did a board member introduction, um, based on y'all's bios on the website. Um, we also talked about, you know, the decisions that the board made at that meeting to really connect the student body with what happened um, in a in a two-minute format essentially. And
what Alexis and I are planning on doing moving forward with the segment um, is kind of communicating those things that students may not know. For instance, there are bathrooms open during lunch. Um, people just aren't sure which ones they are. Um, so if we can communicate that, that would be ideal. We're going to continue our forms of course
throughout the year. Um, and really fill in the gaps that we don't cover. Um, especially with underassmen, of course, um, with athletics is something that's really important to us. Um, to continue highlighting with all the amazing achievements that our athletes have been
doing this year. Thank you. Do you guys have any questions? Thank you. Thank you so much, Alexis and Bronwin. That was awesome. I think um I don't want to speak for Mr. Brand, but we're so happy when we met with you because
you keep your finger on the pulse. you know, we're doing the poll surveys, but really you you know, it real we realized I think there is a disconnect like you talked about the lunch prices like we don't have a lot of control over that and Pmptonian doesn't necessarily have control over that either but it's
anformational piece and I think you're going to help bring that forward. You're going to bring forward issues. You're going to bring back information and I really we really appreciate it. So great job. I just want to make one comment, one thank you and looking forward to hearing more, but also take care of
yourselves and make sure that you uh have time to do all the work and all the other things that you do while you're doing this. Thank you again. Okay, last on my report, and yes, we still are on my report, um, is the HIV and suspension report, and I'll be
reporting to you all an executive session on on HIPS. So, thank you very much. That concludes the total report tonight, and I'll pass it back to you, Lisa. All right. Thank you. So, next is our first residence forum. This is for
agenda items only. So if anyone is interested in speaking at this time, it would be on the agenda items. Good evening, Scott Coen, Raron Township. Uh, first I just want to start off by saying this has been a great night. It's been really great to hear
all the great reports that we've heard from our administrators and all the good work that's happening at Central, including the recognition of our National Merit Scholars. That's a big kudos to our district and all the excellence that occurs here. And also,
of course, to Mr. Brandt for his stunning exemplary service to our students and our community. We appreciate him greatly and look forward to the continued work that he does. And lastly to our board of ed student reps. Uh unfortunately they left because I
really feel Alexis did herself a disservice. She's definitely shoulder height to Bronnin and she clearly didn't realize the disproportionality of those slides. But great work to her and and both of them actually for all that they're doing for on behalf of the
students. Uh I also want to applaud and thank the district uh for having the interim process that you did have to get the social worker approved because that as you know has been a real source of contention with the community on ensuring that the mental health of our
students is attended to and this uh delay and gap and the discussions and process leading to this point have been disheartening to say the least. Um, I reflect back to the August 18th board of ed meeting where the board disagreed
with the superintendent's position and wishes for the student supports that are needed. Uh, they made their case. the case was a no vote and I applaud the administration for looking for alternatives and figuring this out in a heartbeat literally and getting somebody
in place so rapidly because social workers are tough to find period across the entire uh country no less the state of New Jersey. Uh so I applaud your efforts on that and I really hope that the person coming in is able to support
our students in the way that we wish to and I hope that this board based on feedback from the administration as they observe what happens and where the gaps may still be uh given all the work care plus did beyond the school schedule and
contract hours with our staff with our students with our students parents and guardians that if there are still gaps that this board will listen to our administrators and support their requests for the supports that are necessary to achieve the degree of
excellence for all of our students when we talk about equity and supports as Dr. Hall so eloquently stated and was discussing with strategies for science and math but across all disciplines and and areas of study. So please listen to the administrators when they make their
appeals. Um, I know you do. Uh, but I also hope that you're listening to the public because at at that August 18th meeting, we heard from administrators and staff as well as community members about all of the necessary work and the additional stress that not having these
supports puts on our staff as well. So, when we talk about emotional support, it's not just our students, but of course the staff that supports them. If our stu staff aren't well, our students are certainly not well. So, uh, please do that. Um lastly, I would um because
this is all about the social work position that's on the agenda, uh I had hoped that the board president would have used the opportunity to uh in the president's report to discuss why the October meeting had been cancelled for public record uh at the board of ed
meeting because that gap of time as far as I know and can reflect and I may be wrong, but I don't remember any board of ed meetings being cancelled in the past other than if it was a weather cir circumstance or maybe during COVID. Um certainly board policy doesn't stipulate
that board meetings have to be held on a specific day of a month and given the agendas are put together the dates for the agendas or putting schedules etc should have been well known or vetted way before the announcement for the October date cancellation and certainly
a rescheduled date would have been a courtesy effort for on behalf of the public and the responsibility of the board. So, um, anyway, I thank you for your time everybody. Have a great Thanksgiving and keep up the good work through the rest of the year.
>> Thank you. Before the next speaker starts, I'm sorry, I just want to address with regard to the October 28th meeting, the board did give another option on a date to the superintendent and she chose to
leave the date as today. So, we did do that as an alternate date. Um, so we didn't necessarily make that public, but that was the offer. Um, so just so you know that. Thank you. >> Sorry. Thank you. >> No worries. Uh, Robert Lica, Raritan
Township. So, I had uh just sort of a comment on one of the uh documents that's on the agenda. It has to do with the school resource officer program. Uh, and I think this is a first read, so I understand that this is most likely going to go through, you know, one or
more iterations. Um, so just my comment here as I read this, and I've put a lot of job descriptions together in my career, uh, I'd like to ask the board to put a little bit more meat on this for the public, and and here's my my feedback on
this. So unfortunately I understand the need to have to have security in a school that we are in a a crazy time period where children are getting killed in schools. So I get what you're trying to do. Um it's sad but but I get it. Uh
but what I what I'm not clear and this is I guess where I'd like maybe some uh feedback or or clarity on this uh on this piece of legislation. So, I know that we have currently support I think from either the Raritton Township Police
Department or the Hunter County Sheriff's Department. Some somebody is here. I know because I I see the police here when I drop off my my daughter when she has to go to school, right? When we miss the bus. Um, so I know school, but I but I believe they're probably not in
school. I think with See, I don't know. And I probably should should know this a little more. However, this is my point. If we're going to have uh level three security officers that have weapons on them inside the schools, my suggestion uh would be that we fold into this
legislation some sort of a I'm going to call it a change management process with with the students. uh because if all of a sudden the students see uh armed officers in class, they may automatically go someplace different in their mind like something weird is
happening and and it may trigger them. It may do a number of things. So that that's our first suggestion that that we have some sort of an orientation meeting or a notification that goes out uh just to alert everybody why this is right and
it is to to protect the kids. that that part I get the the other thing I wasn't really sure about reading this is I wasn't sure are we pulling away from our existing security support and replacing it or are we augmenting it which I don't
know it it wasn't really clear as I read this thing I I I read it a few times and I couldn't quite pick that up. Um whatever it is it is I I just think that we we should understand that. Um and uh what was the last thing? It was one other item I wanted to do. Of
course, I'm having a senior moment as I'm explaining this. Um, but the change management piece, I think, is very very important for for the kids. And oh, I remember what it is now. Now I got it. Um, it was the degree to which we need to hire additional SRO's. So, this is a
big campus. So, do I have somebody in the 910 building and someone in the 112 building? Do I need three people? Do I need five people? You know, I I I just think some of this needs to maybe in the second revision uh could be better laid
out. I I think we'd understand it better. >> That's it. Thanks very much. >> Thank you very much. Okay. I'm Ron Levy and I'm from Delaware Township. Actually, my remarks are very very brief. Um, first I I I'd like to
congratulate the newly elected members of the board of education, Marisella Wallace, Vernon Williams, and Nicole Bryce. The community has voted for change and I hope the current board will take notice of that. I hope the new board will work
all together in a collegial and transparent way. And finally, since the new board is going to be taking office in just six weeks, I hope the members of the current board will confer with the new board members before voting to make any further changes to the school
policies. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, we will close out that first forum.
Um, next up is to move the two organizational items that were addressed by the superintendence report, which was the school self assessment and the um New Jersey CQAC. So, with that, I would like to move those organizational items
one and two. Uh, can I get a second? >> Second. >> All right. A roll call, please. >> Miss Gong, >> yes. Miss Gray, >> yes. >> Dr. Halpern, >> yes. >> Mrs. Kellogg, >> yes. >> Miss Laccasta, >> yes. >> Mrs. Rothell, >> yes.
>> Mrs. Dugen, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Santangelo, >> yes. >> All yes. Motion carries. >> All right. Thank you. Next up, we will be moving into our committee readout reports, starting with student life and programs with Leslie.
Thank you. The SLMP committee met on Monday, November 3rd at 6 PM. Present were myself, Sue Dugen, Rebecca Peterson, Lisa Santangelo, Jessica Canalosi Hay, and we were joined by Dr. Matt Hall for a portion of the session.
In our session, we discussed special education placements and tuition. The committee reviewed the range of special education placements and how costs reflect the level of support of each student. We also reviewed adding workplace partner target for our achieve
program. Early education for a sorry early graduation, excuse me, for a specific student request to approve overnight trips for our cheerleaders and model UN. and we discussed a staff research project for approval. I would
like to move items one through six. Can I get a second? Second. >> All right. Are there any comments on the action items? All right. Seeing none, can we get a roll call, please? Miss Gray? >> Yes.
>> Dr. Halpern? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Kellogg? >> Yes. >> Miss Lacosta? >> Yes. Yes. Mrs. Rothell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Dugen, >> yes. >> Miss Gong, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Santangelo, >> yes. >> All yes. Motion carries.
>> All right. Thank you. Um, next up is our operations and transportations committee report. Jessica Rotha. >> The operations committee met on Tuesday, November 11th. All committee members were in attendance and I did not receive
any questions in advance of the meeting. Items one through five and 17, seven through 15 are standard organizational items that are approved annually or monthly in order to conduct the day-to-day business of the district. Um, a major amendment to the long range
facility plan is underway to maintain state approval and capital reserve eligibility. The LRFP is an administrative team effort that leverages resources such as the district architect to assist in finalizing timelines and create possible project combinations to approve cost and
minimize district disruptions. It's important to note that this plan is an evolving one where curriculum needs leveraging rod grants to maximize funds and maintain facility quality and tracking expired warranties um receive precedence. items on the list are not
binding and could be seen more as a district-wide wish list. While this is up for a vote, I would like to mention that as we proceed through our strategic planning in the spring, we should also remember to address building problems outlined in our surveys that will address student needs and concerns. Um, while upgrades to administrative best
spaces could be considered, we should make sure student needs are always taking precedence. Uh we're also seeking approval for two professional services contracts that will be used as needed to support district needs in a timely and efficient manner. With that, I'd like to move items 1 through 16.
>> Second. Any comments on the action items. >> Uh just a brief comment on the long-term facilities plan. Um, I understand that it's not binding and I think obviously with what we heard tonight about bathrooms, the fact that there's nothing
on bathrooms on that long-term facilities plan, um, I think that should get revisited. >> Okay. Anyone else? >> No, I always just want to uh know more about conversations that the board has with our board attorney.
>> Okay. Any other comments? All right. Roll call, please. >> Dr. Halpern, >> yes. >> Mrs. Kellogg, >> yes. >> Miss Lacosta, >> yes for one through five, no for six,
and yes for 7 through 16. Mrs. Rothell, >> yes. >> Yes, Mrs. Dugen. Yes, Miss Gong. >> Yes, on all items except for one check on the bill list, which is check number
83943. >> Is that a no abstension? >> Sorry. No. >> Thank you, >> Miss Gray. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Santangelo? >> Yes. Thank you.
>> Thank you. All right. Next up is the personnel committee report. The personnel committee met on November 11th. The following were in attendance. D. Kellogg, Jessica Rothl sitting in for Claudia Gray who was absent. David Baly,
Jessica Hayd, and myself. The committee did not receive any questions prior to the meeting. The action items on the agenda tonight include new hires, various appointments for curriculum writing, home instruction, chaperones,
advisors, coaches, leaves of absences. Most of these are standard and we see these on the agenda every month. Um, so therefore, I would like to move items 1 through 24. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Any comments on the action
items? Um, just one observation. While I'm absolutely thrilled about our new uh, social worker, we did not get a copy of that job description at the personnel committee. It was attached to this agenda. And the job description is from
2003. Uh, it does not actually mention mental health. Um, so that might be something we'd like to look at updating. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. I just have a comment as well regarding the social worker position.
Um, interestingly enough, while we were at the New Jersey School Board Association conference in October, a woman um actually saw our name tags with Hun Central on it and expressed her surprise to hear all the negativity around dropping care plus. This woman
works with the division of family services and apparently um she had shared there are many free organizations in New Jersey such as perform care, the tri county care organization and New Jersey systems of care and that these
services are offered on a wraparound 247 uh for mental health for kids. Um she also said that central kids and their families were already receiving this care. So she was kind of dumbfounded why we would pay 300,000 for a service that
was not only existing but was already servicing our kids. These services are available to anyone and absolutely free because it's through the state grants through the division of family services. So, not only do we now have this new
hire, which is a very positive step to the counseling department, and we also have New Jersey 4S, but we apparently have had and are using these wraparound services for our families and kids at a critical level. So, clearly there is not a lack of support of free mental health.
So, that's very good news and again happy to see all the support for that position. Um I also just want to mention I thought it was interesting research about the external mental health in the school systems. There's um a few
different reports out one being from the Lancet Journal which is a considered a gold standard. Oxford and Cambridge all did meta analysis on these external mental health services in the schools and came up with overwhelming results that these services may not be effective
and could potentially be harmful in some cases. I think the reference there is the universal mental health screening which often times pulls false positives. Um they also attribute the ineffectiveness to being in a school setting and not in a clinical setting
lacking some parental involvement. So just so everyone is aware um that was just interesting research that we were also shared with but um again glad to see the internal um social worker hire for us. Um,
with that, I would like to get a roll call, please. >> Mrs. Kellogg, >> yes. >> Miss Lacosta, >> yes. >> Mrs. Rothell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Dugen, >> yes. >> Miss Gong, >> I'm sorry. >> Yes. No, >> I I do need to recuse myself. >> Okay.
>> From number three in action item number 10 >> in. Okay. I'm sorry. Number three. Number 10 and number three. Yeah. >> Sorry. >> Sorry. >> Nope. Anything else? >> Number 10 within it. Number three.
>> Oh, I got it backwards. Sorry. I'm sorry. >> Let me find it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me be more clear so we remember. >> Thank goodness for video, too. Miss Gray. Yes.
>> Dr. Halpern. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Santangelo. >> Yes. Thank you. All right. Next up is the policy committee readout, and we're going to have Leslie do that this evening. The policy uh committee met on November
3rd at 7:15 p.m. Present were myself, Sue Dugen, Rebecca Peterson, Lisa Santangelo, and Jessica Kangalloi Hay. I'm going to read this out on behalf of Rebecca Peterson. It starts with I would like to take a
moment to recap the work of the policy committee since its establishment in 2024. In the short two years that Miss Mrs. Peterson had the opportunity to lead this committee. The committee has done a lot of work. In 2024, the policy
committee abolished eight policies and updated and adopted 64 policies. In 2025, the policy committee abolished 25 policies and updated and adopted 66 policies. Additionally, in 2025, the
committee reviewed 83% of the policies in the manual and reduce the overall size of the manual by approximately 25 policies, which is approximately 5% of the manual. Mrs. Peterson said she would like to thank the committee members who signed
up to wade through the legal ease and did not shy away when faced with the scope of the work. It is not glamorous or exciting work, but it is important and your dedication is appreciated.
Specifically for this month, there were no questions from outside the committee on the first read items. You will see P5560 disruptive students on the agenda. We
just did a second read on an update for that policy last month. The committee heard concerns from a community member last month regarding the lack of specificness in the definition of disruptive student.
The committee agrees with this concern. The committee proposed adding additional language which was pulled from the corresponding NJSBA policy to provide greater guidance and clarity. The items for second read have not been
changed in any way and we received no questions about them. I would like to move items 1 through 4. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Second. >> Any comments on the action items?
>> Yes. As I had said in the September board meeting, I think that we've added too much language to policies or bylaw 0177 and policy 6220. So I will be voting no
for those two policies on second read. Also, I won't repeat what is in the committee minutes, but it seems that we should pull 0174 based on what the committee said. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.
>> 0174 is legal services. >> I'm sorry. Can you repeat that? I'm sorry, I can't hear you. 0174 legal services. If you look at the committee minutes, and I'm not going to repeat the committee minutes. It seems that perhaps we should pull that.
Okay. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Unfortunately, I don't have that information. Right. Do you know? >> Okay. All right. Any other comments? We'll have to look into it.
I just um because Rebecca is in here, I wanted to comment. I know we received a public comment on policy 7446, school security program. That is a Strauss Esme policy that we should have had. Um and when we're, you know, this is the purpose of reviewing the policy manual
by the thousands and by section, um we did not have this one, so we needed to put it in. Um to clarify, we do contract with Riden Township Police Department. We have one school resource officer and three class 3 officers. They are armed. They're part of the police department.
And then additionally, we have five security staff of our own, four security officers and one security coordinator who is new. um a request um and I think agreement came with Ryarden Township Police Department that they would like
to see our security coordinator in also be armed. This is not carrying around a gun. Uh this is it's a conceal and carry essentially and only used in the event of emergency. Of course, we're following all protocol that's required
with this. There's a lot of steps required in order for this to happen. One of the first things is that we even have a policy and that's how we discovered that the policy was missing. >> Okay. Thank you very much for that explanation. All right. With that, can
we get a roll call, please? >> Miss Laccasta? >> Yes. Mrs. Rothal? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Dugen? >> Yes. >> Miss Gong? >> Yes. except for bylaw 0174 which is
number five under K1. So abstain for legal services >> abstain or no I'm sorry >> abstain. >> Thank you >> for number six bylaw 0177 professional services. No for item number 13 policy 6220 budget
preparation. No, >> Mrs. Greg. >> Yes, >> Dr. Halpern. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Kellogg. Yes, except for um bylaw 0177, item six
and policy 6220, item 13. And under item three, um items one through three, I I don't think we should be um abolishing policies that have public involvement.
>> So those are all nos. >> No or abstension? >> No on those three. >> Thank you. Sorry. >> And Mrs. Santangelo. >> Yes. All right. Thank you. Um, next up is additional business. So, um, if there's
any other committee members or liaison reports, I don't know if anybody wants to speak about the attendance of the workshop or anyone or share anything. No. Okay. I covered
that in my uh personnel comment. So all right with that I will uh we'll move on to the additional board business. So this is anything that we would want to see in our committee me meetings. So is there anything any suggestions for that?
No. Okay. Seeing none we'll move into our final residence forum. Um this is for any uh topic not necessarily on the agenda. Hi, good evening. Uh, Jeremy Long, uh, proud resident of the Burrow of
Flemington. And uh just out of for interest of transparency uh I'm a guy who wears a lot of hats. Uh my one hat is I am your employee. I've been here since 2008. I've been an English teacher here. Uh
I'm also the parent of two children who attended Central. Uh and then my sort of side quest for the past six years, I've been an elected official in the bureau of Flemington. I've been a councilman uh and I'm finishing up a second term. So, why am I here tonight? I'm not here to
talk about anything related to my job or my kids. Uh, I'm here to talk about this this sort of side thing I've got going on. Uh, when I decided not to run again in the burrow, I decided to kind of put together some sort of civic engagement
project. And so, I f I fell upon something very important. Uh, and uh, I wanted to call attention to the uh, two young ladies who were actually awarded tonight, Alexis Chen and Olivia Davis. They basically answered a call when I
needed young people to step up and and lecture the rest of us about how to engage them, uh, how to reach the youth and are we doing a good job. Uh I was fortunate uh when I reached out last spring to to have have uh these these
students had expressed some interest uh a couple of their former teachers has me had mentioned this to them and they jumped at it and I trusted them and I said it's all yours. It's all yours. I'm not I don't micromanage it. It's just your lecture. So uh last week Thursday night we were at the Huntington Chamber
of Commerce. these two individuals gave a really top-notch discussion lecture uh and and it opened up a really great dialogue which was the point of of the entire thing which is this. So, so there's a, as you know, Flemington Burough has a fairly rich history. Um,
and recently I stumbled upon it. Uh, we had a a I don't know what you call it like a a division of or a version of uh the Lysm movement which was from the 1800s uh from about roughly 1820s
all the way up until actually the the the early uh 20th century 1920s when it kind of fizzled out. But it was basically uh the civic classroom. It was people got together, had conversations. It was your original social network. Um the idea was to inh enlighten uh and to
teach. The Lysm movement was very much uh behind a true public education uh across the United States. It's it's it was helpful in getting that done. Now we have state constitutions require public education every single state. So So they were helpful there, but they
actually had uh where our firehouse is, it was a building called the Lysum. Court Street was called Lysium Street. And uh that's a that's a bygone history a lot of people didn't know. And I was able to figure it out and and dig it up. And the the sort of uh vibe of it is to
learn and to teach. And you had two uh essential students do a really fine job in a center of uh commerce and community and all that good stuff. So I wanted to give them their props. They did a fantastic job. They got adults talking. They schooled the the adults. We learned
a lot. they were able to convince the maybe maybe it might be a good idea for 16 year olds to vote for school board members. I don't know. I wasn't I was on the fence, but they they pushed me over to the other side. So, it was really amazing and I will take no more of your time. I thank you. Bye.
>> Thank you, >> Scott Conton Township. I'm not going to sign back in. Um and Miss Santangelo, thank you for the update on on the conversations you had regarding mental health. I think that warrants a richer conversation um across everybody's understanding
because there are misconceptions um you know yeah all those services are free and I think it depends on what what direction the district wants to go with supporting mental health in our community. Is it a district that wants to outsource everything to these
agencies that are free and students are using them? I know families that do use all of these including my own family. Um, and they're free and they're great and they serve their purpose. Um, but are they as qualified and as good as having somebody inhouse? For example,
mobile response uh will typically only come out to the school an hour after they get authorization from uh from um uh why am I drawing a blank? Um uh oh jeez. Uh from perform care, I'm sorry.
So um you know that's an hour. We're talking about crisis situations in the school and we need people here to support the students. So when we look at the mission statement of the district about supporting students mental health and I guess we'll get into this sort of
tussle if you will when we do our strategic planning for the district in the spring. What do we want for our kids? Do we want to have in-house support so if they're considering harming themselves or others right away, we attend to it and we put a team into
place and a response team to address it here and now? Or do we make a phone call and wait for an authorization for an hour while we're attending to this issue and drawing administration and staff away from other problems in the school? So, what is it that we want? And that's
just a question we have to answer. I'm not looking for an answer tonight. I don't think I'm expecting one, but I think it's something we need to dialogue about and really think about what does it mean when we're talking about our kids' mental health. How do we want to enable them to be back in the classroom
to be supported and get that support right away versus waiting and what happens in that wait mode? I mean, if you're in a school and you see what happens at the instant that this situation arises and occurs, you cannot
appreciate it to the degree in which the intensity of the support that's needed for these students occurs. We can talk up here. We can talk sky in the pie and all this other good stuff, but when it the rubber meets the road in the building at the time and point of
intersection of this crisis, that's when it's needed. not an hour, not five minutes, not two minutes at that moment. So I think, you know, this is just a conversation that I think we need to have as a district and figure this out
because this is the essence of the needs that are here in our school and we want to support all of our students in the best way and that's exceptionalism. That's not what every other school does and this is the challenge with NJ4S. you
know, we'll see what happens with NJ4s. They're funneled through agencies that are out there. Great. But they're out there. They're not here, and that's the problem. So, having a social worker is a good start. And I think we're on to something, but we need I'm sure we're
going to need more. So, I hope we don't I hope that, you know, rather than looking at the numbers of decreasing enrollment and looking at decreasing supports as a result, they're they're not the same. Support needs are support needs. So, um the mental health issues
are rising. They're not decreasing even if our population is decreasing. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Seeing no more speakers, we will close out the final public session
and we will move into executive session um where we will be discussing attorney client privilege, HIPP cases, pending anticipated litigation, negotiations, personnel, school security issues, and student matters. Um can I get a second
to move into executive >> there be action after? >> No action after. All right. Thank you. Can I get a roll call? >> Miss Rothell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Dugen, >> yes. >> Miss Gong, >> yes.
>> Miss Gray, >> yes. >> Dr. Halpern, >> yes. >> Mrs. Kellogg, >> yes. >> Miss Laccasta, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Santangelo, >> yes. >> All right. Thank you everybody for coming out.