The time is now 7:01. I'll call the meeting to order. Um, adequate notice of tonight's meeting has been provided in accordance with the open public meetings act by the following methods. Distribution of notice to the record. Posting of the agenda on the school district website and through parent square. Can everyone please stand for
the pledge of allegiance. Can we have roll call, please? Miss Troy, Mr. GR. Thank you, Dr. Mester. Miss Molina, Mr. Park, here. Mr. Zepka here. Mr.
Deel, Miss Thompson, Vice President Melman, and President Lee here. We have a quorum for tonight's meeting. Okay. Thank you. Um, please note that Mr. Grow and both both Mr. Grow and Miss Milman contacted me before the meeting and they
both have personal conflicts tonight. And also our superintendent of acting superintendent of schools, Dr. Carammanos and our three uh student reps are also present with um as well as our board attorney, Miss Lea. Okay, thank you. Uh so brings us to
item 1.4, public comments regarding agenda items only. Anyone from the public wishing to speak, please step up to the podium, provide your name and address, and you'll have two minutes to speak. Yeah, there a microphone there for you. So,
um I would prefer to actually speak a little bit after the presentation, but many of us are here um on account of the gifted and talented program audit, which we're very excited to see on the agenda. Um, Zanthy knows that I have been barking up this tree for quite some time and so finally seeing it on uh the table
for discussion is really exciting. Um maybe a couple of things just to sort of front I know I have two minutes. So um I did want to mention without sounding um too negative that you know some of the confusion that you saw in the parent
feedback um part of the survey I think especially from the elementary school parents um it's a little bit of an understatement to say it was just confusion about what's going on. It really was just like outright sort of like this feeling of what there is no program. What are you even talking
about? Um and some of that is, you know, to be fair, um Dr. Martinez is no longer here and cannot really defend herself, but she certainly kept a lot of us parents at bay. Um she also fed us a lot of smoke and mirrors about the program and its existence and and how it was or
was not in compliance with state law. Um, and I just want to sort of represent that there's a level of distrust within the parent community as a result of a lot of those cumulative conversations. So, there's a lot to discuss, I know,
especially after the presentation. So, just to be practical, a few things. One, we really would urge the board to consider including parents in a more ongoing manner because we're really important stakeholders in this conversation. um rather than feeling
like we're just being sort of presented to at like cherrypicked moments. Um and you know it starts with even what's happening tonight but doing in a way that could be more expansive and more inclusive so that more parents can be sort of dedicated to this conversation
asking questions um and really having a conversation about it rather than just being presented to. So, if there's a way to host that conversation, I would really encourage the board to lead that discussion because if not, I have a feeling the parents will be off on their
own corners doing so. Um, and I just don't think that that's as efficient as it can be. And I really would encourage you to think about outside of this meeting how we can have a more full and robust discussion about uh the program. Um, another couple of questions. The state requires there be a coordinator.
Um, it was actually something was supposed to be filed as of like October 2020. Um, as the district's gifted and talented program coordinator, I'm curious if that happened, who it is, um, and if that can be shared. Um and then
also I'm curious to hear at some point if the plan and the timeline that's been proposed um in this presentation if you feel that that's reasonable um especially given that there are very few tangible and actual studentf facing
results that we can see until 2627 um which as we all know is more than like a year and a half from now. So, we're curious to hear a little bit about your uh reaction to what's being proposed on the timeline. Oh, um Christine, did you give your name
and address? I did not. Okay. Um I'm Christine Kang. My address is 316 Avenue. Thank you. Anyone else from the public wishing to speak? And we'll address your questions after this the public portion. Um, anyone else from the public wishing to
speak? No. Okay. Seeing no other comments, we will move on to board member comments, including responses to the questions. And I do appreciate your frank your frank comments and sharing um those with the board. Beth Caramanos, they'll let you answer some of those
questions. Sure. So, um I'm actually going to hold off on answering some of those questions until uh we go through the presentation because a lot of the present a lot of the uh information and the um questions that you have will be in the presentation.
Um we are looking at parent opportunities like you'll see in the presentation um that there are parent opportunities throughout the process. Uh the state coordinator that we do have was Dr. Martinez at the time. That was the last time we were uh monitored which was in 20. The last time we had to
submit our report was when we were CQAC monitored which was last school year when Dr. Martinez was here. Um now the next time we go through CQAC you know we'll have to identify a new monitor but you'll see also in the next few years the um the gifted and talented program
in general will be changing. So we will have uh we will be identifying a different coordinator regardless. Um and then everything else I think yeah we will Yeah, I mean we do I think after the presentation then we would like to have an open session for the public to be
able to potentially ask some questions. I mean the board I'm sure will have questions as well. Um but we would allow the public to ask questions about the presentation also. And I think the the last question was about uh how realistic is it right? Um and you know the work
that we did with Donna um I do think and the the conversation we had at education committee we do want to be purposeful and realistic right we want to make sure that before we throw something at our teachers that our teachers truly understand what gifted education means what enrichment means. Um so we do have
a timeline that we feel comfortable with and the education committee has reviewed um that we feel comfortable with and that is um we feel confident that the way we have this timeline set out that things will go in that order.
better. Yeah. Uh I was able to meet a few of you uh on Zoom at the education committee meeting and um I appreciate the opportunity to meet all of you. Thank you um Miss Kay for your comments. Um it's very important to have parent stakeholders and I'm just going to start
really by giving um an introduction to myself. I think maybe it'll just breed some confidence in who I am and my background and work. Um, just a little bit about me. I recently retired um after 28 years in public education. I
started my career in the Wayne Township public schools as a gifted and talented teacher. Um, teaching was a second career for me. We had to revamp and um repurpose our program. There was um a successful program that is still in place today that I'm really proud of.
And throughout my career, I worked as a teacher, a principal, a curriculum director, and I spent the last eight years as the assistant superintendent. I worked with um school districts around the state um helping just give guidance. It's really a passion of mine. Uh made
numerous presentations at conferences about best practices for gifted and talented instruction. And there's a wide range of parameters um and a lot that's up to um the district to make determinations about and I'll explain that and you'll have a better
understanding. One thing I was able to glean is that um as a board you made this a priority and um as a community this is something very important and that was clearly recognized through your strategic planning and your district goal. In the presentation, I will go
over the audit focus and priority statement um priorities. We'll review your strategic plan, specifically what you said in there about gifted and talented instruction and um your district goal. So, there is a commitment from the district to do this
work. Uh we'll talk about the law. I know that there were some questions there. Um share the stakeholder feedback and input. We did 360 surveys. We asked board members um all instructional staff and parents and guardians to participate
and share their feedback. I came on site and conducted structured interviews with the administration from each building uh and some of the supervisors. We have a summary and recommendations and a suggested um again I'll just emphasize
that word implementation timeline because um this is work but what's nice is as you're doing the work you're making enhancements along the way and as you know someone who's worked in education a long timeline is really important because as you know um our
teachers are tasked with a lot and they're working with all of our students. There are so many needs vast and varied and the most important thing is professional development and having a realistic timeline so everyone can embrace really understand the process
and make small enhancements um and growth along the way. So you just want to set up something that's reasonable and realistic knowing that you have new teachers entering the system, you have people who go out on maternity leaves, um you have a change even in administration. you see that all the
time and and there are other goals and things that you're working on to strengthen your academic program. So taking it all into consideration you just and and there's budgetary constraints also. It's something that you have to be well planned for. Uh the autofocus and priorities
were to evaluate the current gifted and talented program offerings at Anacey Scott Elementary School, Leona Middle School, and Leona High School, assess the identification process, and ensure equitable access for all learners, analyze the instructional strategies and
differentiation that's occurring in in the coursework and classes. Audit the available program of studies at all levels. conduct surveys and interviews to gather input and feedback from all stakeholders. Look at professional development and the sustainability just
knowing that um you have to have an ongoing plan because otherwise sometimes the message loses its value. People may think this isn't a priority anymore. Um and people develop at a different rate. There may be other things happening in their classrooms that require attention.
So, it's really just being very reflective along the way and setting a practice and a timeline to ensure that it's ongoing and sustainable for everybody. And I'm here to also make recommendations that align with your district mission statement and strategic
plan. Uh obviously you're all aware of of your board goal, but I just really um think it's important to emphasize that um the board um committed to a goal by June 2025, the board of education will oversee and support the district's
efforts to evaluate the current gifted and talented offerings and gain a better understanding of the current thinking around enrichment programs. The board will support determining a comprehensive program, identifying the path forward, and will support efforts to educate the community about the components of a
quality enrichment program. Um, so this was really nice to see. This was one of the first pieces of information presented to me. And when I got started with the audit, it's really taking a deep dive into the website, seeing what's there, you know, what information
is put out to the community, then looking at all of the stakeholder input and and recognizing, as you said, that not every stakeholder engaged. But, um, the message was pretty clear and I was able to summarize and I think it was pretty consistent. Uh the mission
statement really reinforces you know the district's um responsibility and desire to inspire and motivate students inspire best practices and and what's prioritized. AI is probably the best example just looking at how rapidly our
world is changing and you know we always need to consider what are the jobs of the future look like what skills do those students um need to come out of our high schools with you know what are these post-secary pathways look like and starting all the way down in kindergarten um communications one of
those key skills that really prevails all the way through what does that look like how do you include it in everything you do and how do we inspire and spark an interest from an age and that changes over time. So audits are really important. It's a best
practice for districts um over over the years. Um you run a cycle. You may have a special ed program audit. You're doing a gifted and talented audit because things change. So um this is the first step moving in the right direction. So I applaud you for that. And it demonstrates a commitment. um it's very
public and you know from then it's really you taking that information and saying what can we what steps can we take to move forward how does this align with what we are doing um how does it align with our educational practices the professional
development time we have and our budgetary budgetary resources you could see there that um there is a clear sentence about you know making a positive difference in an increasingly complex and interconnected Ed world and making sure that programs
are rigorous that they encourage relevant learning in the humanities, arts, sciences, math, wellness, vocation and technology and that students learn to think critically clearly and creatively and and that's really in line in keeping with what I was just saying.
So you're always looking at ways to you know when you look at your curriculum what how can you enhance it? what resources can you bring in so that it's current and you're keeping students interested and it's relevant for future learning. You you mentioned the law. Um
on January 13th, Governor Murphy signed the Strengthening Gifted and Talented Act and um it was really just codifying gifted and talented education. It defines students who are gifted and talented as those who possess or demonstrate high levels of ability in one or more content areas when compared
to their chronological peers in the local district and who require modification of their educational program uh if they are to achieve in accordance with their capabilities. This can look different um in any district. So based on your website um not
everything there is completely accurate because obviously you have changes you have fifth grade in your middle school things have happened and that was a big part of the audit. Let's look and refine what we have and make sure that we address all this moving forward. Um but in terms of what you're required to do
you are meeting a compliance standard. So do do I know that all those things are happening? I can't attest to that but there is differentiation happening in the classrooms. um students are being assessed, students are being bench benchmarked. So you have all those compliance pieces in place and gifted
instruction can look different in each district. Uh really just based on the student demographic um you know you have to look at your special ed population, you have to look at your multilingual learners and you have to look at your resources. So it's not a requirement to have a dedicated teacher a pullout
program. It is a requirement that curriculum is modified and differentiated so that students who show that they met the basic grade level standard are being challenged at their level. Um just to give a very basic
example I'll use area and perimeter. Um so a student who is being instructed in fourth grade that's a fourth grade standard. um they'll be looking at squares, rectangles, and show how to calculate basic computation, area, and perimeter. If a student demonstrates
that they're able to do those calculations, um there's no reason for them to do 25 problems. The teacher would differentiate and maybe have them do a few and then give them a real life application. You know, we're building a garden. Um maybe you give the measurements. Now, we're going to build
a fence that's three feet away on each side. we're going to build subplots and have them engage in a real life problem using those skills so that they're not doing basic computation and um the curriculum you have does allow for those modifications. So I I don't know if it's
happening in every classroom. I'm not visiting. I haven't visited every classroom. And again, it's best practice to do a curriculum audit, look through and say, where can we add um in enhancements? Where can we bolster curriculum? Where can we add these real
life applications? And that again changes from year to year. You have the benchmarks in place. And it's really taking the time to I know your teachers are doing data dives and looking at all this data. Um there has been a very heavy emphasis in recent years on um
since the pandemic on any learning that was lost intervention pieces um MTSS multi-tered system of supports gifted and talented education is in there and um I feel like you're in um keeping with um the pace and the timeline you know
first what is it that our students lost making sure we're catching them up and now how are we making sure that we're really bolstering and meeting the needs. You know, we're back where we need to be, but we want to enhance, grow, and expand. And just know that for students who can do more, um, we're offering
those extensions for them. I'm going to share, um, these are broadstrokes, so I took all of the survey information. You had, um, I think a little over 86 participants in the survey data. Um, you know what I felt like, as I said, the message was pretty
consistent. So, this was summarized and I can share with the board um all of the survey results if you were interested in seeing them. Um board members appreciate u the existing gifted and talented offerings but seek more details particularly at Anace Scott Elementary
School. They recognize parental interests and areas for improvement. While satisfied with the Leona Middle School's portfolio program, they request clarity on its application process, content areas, student challenges, and its exclusion from math. They commend
the high school AP courses, academy programs, and student success, but advocate for staff training and exploration of model programs. parents and guardians um shared that there's widespread uncertainty and concern at the elementary level about
whether the current program effectively identifies and supports gifted students. This highlights a need for better transparency outreach and a review of the identification practices to ensure consistency with the New Jersey state law which requires clear identification
of gifted and talented students and program implementation. Parents indicated that they are unclear about the program structure and would like to know more about a formalized G&T curriculum and teacher training. Parents want more rigorous math, science, reading, coursework, and hands-on
learning experiences. Communication about the GT program also seems lacking, particularly regarding how G&T students individual and specific learning needs are met. Uh so I think that this echoed some of the sentiments that you shared and um this
was the information summarized from the teachers. Teachers largely agree that Leona lacks a dedicated gifted and talented program with some questioning whether existing offerings like global citizens and portfolio classes truly serve G&T students. While portfolio
classes provide added rigor, most feel the current model does not effectively meet gifted students needs and that a clearer program structure, identification criteria, and professional development are necessary. Elementary teachers emphasize the need for more direction in program design,
while middle school teachers suggested refining portfolio class selection process to ensure fair and appropriate placement. It it seems um through my discussions with the administrators over time um all classes weren't created equal and that again with with new
teachers starting um teachers going um it seems like there is a lot of value in the program um there's tremendous pride for the program there does seem to see um be a very um clear identification process I just think that um the program needs to and I'll share that in the
recommendations um there's always room and a time for modernizing rebranding, rebooting. It sends a very clear message to everyone and we all roll up our sleeves and do the work and then you have it moving forward. You have a blueprint. This is how this is how we operate. This is how we instruct. Um and
they have something to follow. They need something consistent. Uh these are the insights that were shared from the structured interviews with the administration. The anace Scott administration emphasizes the need for professional development on differentiation and instructional strategies for gifted and talented
learners. They propose creating a structured identification process for gifted students and suggest embedding the global citizens program into social studies to free time for tiered interventions including gifted and talented enrichment services. Establishing a pullout program for
gifted students in grade four and enrichment centers for added rigor were also discussed. Uh I know there's a a newer administrator at Anacey Scott. Um she was very enthusiastic and and very eager to be involved in the process. Um the assistant principal who's there had
the institutional knowledge and was very helpful in providing all that. Um so again she's new um and sees an opportunity for growth and enhancement and making change and it's the perfect time you have somebody who is really excited about this work. The Leona
Middle School principal and um assistant principal they were lovely to speak with. They talked about a very well- definfined identification process for accelerated math and portfolio classes. Um there are tremendous offerings in terms of clubs um enrichment clubs and
athletic programs. Uh I think they could be better publicized. There's so much there. I wasn't able to find it on the website. I was you know this is why there was so much value in having these conversations. But um it it was uncovered that grades five and six do not have a defined program and that's an
area that needs attention. I know um fifth grade was resided here at one point. It was moved out. Um, so again, it's a perfect time to look at the whole middle school scope and sequence and and look at how this can all be embedded and um and and changed. The high school
principal highlighted the strength of the AP and academy programs. Um, the program of studies is is very good and very comprehensive. Um, the programs are are fantastic. they're competitive and um they're current and and what we just talked about was regularly updating the
elective offerings because um the workforce trends do tend to change and you have to be current with that and even visiting other high schools looking at top high schools across the state and it's nice to sometimes just be able to have those dialogues and and see what they're offering and um you know in even
considering you know embedding student videos and things there's things you could do to your program of studies to bring it to life. Um when people move into a community, they they're looking online. So, you know, again, um there there's a great program there, but you always look for ways to enhance and
improve uh recommendations. So, transparency and communication uh is very important and uh you have a passionate involved parent community, which is so nice to see. Sometimes you go places where parents aren't involved at all. You know, to me
it sends a message that you're um very caring um and interested in what your children are learning and that's how you develop the best learners. They we know they have the support from home. So parents who are requesting um a better understanding, they would like to know
about the G&T programs and the responsibility to meet the requirements of the code. I just want to emphasize again um I did you're not not meeting the code. you're looking to improve based on what I was able to see in the conversations. You have differentiation in place. You have processes in place um
but your community is really um requesting a program where they know you know and and they want to know which students are identified. They want this on the website. How are they being identified? What does this matrix look like? Is there a cognitive skills test there? So there's nothing unreasonable
about that. Um and then that was I think a um one of the reasons that you moved ahead with an audit that was you know our first discussion and conversation. Uh again the the website needs to be updated and I know you're moving ahead with a different website that was in the
plan. So I was happy to hear that and when you unveil a new website um there would be a dedicated gifted and talented page. Uh the recommendation is to include a description at each level of what's offered. Include the eligibility
criteria. What does the identification process look like? Um there should be an appeals process in place. So that you would have a designated person and you would know right there. What are the performance expectations? Because sometimes there needs to be exit criteria. Um you need to make sure it's
a commitment on the part of the student as well. and and just really understanding and distinguishing between gifted and talented and enrichment. Um enrichment is something that is available to all students. We always want to spark an interest and motivate
students to take part in other things. That could be arts. Um it could be just challenging themselves. There may be a concept um an idea or a content area where they just have an interest something that you can get them involved in so that you're enriching them um and
improving their outcomes. Gifted and talented is identifying students who are performing at a level above their peers. They're demonstrating that they have met the standard and should do something that's above and beyond that. They need
to be challenged at their level. um I use the word modernization um and development. So this is an opportunity. It's a fresh opportunity to modernize your program and and just think about ways that it can be developed to
um have more current projects um areas of interest and things that your students are interested in. Um it's nice to survey students and have them and families because there may be things that we can learn from you. Um it could be explorations, it may be, you know,
just even places that you visit, things that we learn about your families through this process that can be vetted. Um all of these standards can be adapted to almost anything. So when you're researching, you're exploring, you're creating. Um the best learning happens when kids research, synthesize, and then
share with their peers. It's great for them to be able to learn from each other. So, um, what I said was modernizing the elementary and middle school gifted and talented program to ensure all high level ability students receive appropriate challenges to maximize achievement. It could be
accomplished through a multi-year approach that includes staff training, curriculum development, community engagement, program development and enhancements, and website updates. I think that um, we mentioned all of those things. Um at the elementary school
level, we'd enhance the curriculum to ensure gifted and talented enrichment and acceleration opportunities are infused within the academic school day. Um I'm not insinuating that this isn't happening, but you go through and we look at everything to ensure that it's
happening consistently across every class. We work um oh I'm sorry, develop a clearly defined program. So again, that would be on the website. we would have parent information sessions. Um there does seem to be a strong desire to have a pullout program. Um the principal
mentioned starting in fourth grade that is an optimal optimal year because you have your standardized test data. It comes in from third grade. Um again and that's at the discretion I'm making recommendations and with your um superintendent the board would have those discussions and um and then you
would decide how how you wanted to proceed and move forward and and these are ideas but it could be reworked a number of different ways. Uh the global citizens period um that's time that can be repurposed and reused. they expressed
an interest to have a clear scope and sequence with the sustainable development goals designated um for each grade level. So it seems like there was an overlap and there hasn't been a clear conversation where each grade should be assigned specific goals and then they
can develop projects and that would become part of the curriculum and they would know this is the scope and sequence. There was an overlap there. uh that can be embedded in the social studies period and we would include critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and innovation,
communication, collaboration and information literacy. So any of these skills can be built into any of the projects you have. But you have this great program, they seem to value it. Um they seem to want to maintain it. You have a place to plug it in and it just needs to be repurposed and and
redefined. That time could then be if it's moved into social studies reallocated to include a win period. That's an acronym for what I need. That period um would be structured for tier services. So that can range from having reinforcement of
skills. Um so anyone who you know you may need a fixitive group we need to practice and it could also be um enrichment where you have centers you have project based learning and you could have gifted and talented instruction where students can work independently with their peers and this
is all guided by the teachers. So on your website it clearly says that there's differentiated instruction. You show a number of ways that this could be happening. So I I don't know every way that it's happening. I know what I was able to read and then glean from the surveys and um from the discussions that
I had revitalized the middle school portfolio program. Um I would bolster the curriculum in grades five and six to ensure that gifted and talented 21st century learning um and projects are infused. So, you just want something clearly defined so that when you have
those kids and they're showing mastery um or that they have met or exceeded the standard, they may have benchmarks. Um it may just be a test, it may be um them just, you know, flexing in and out of things, but you want to make sure that those projects are available so that
you're challenging them at their level. And and students of different levels can also participate. They could do parts of things um or they could participate at their level. I would redefine and relaunch the portfolio classes um and and really make sure that everybody understands the purpose, structure, and
the branding so that it's aligned with best practices for gifted and talented instruction. Establish a program timeline, a scope and sequence that ensures consistency with rigorous coursework and projects and student expectations. and provide ongoing professional development and time for
curriculum development and staff articulation and planning so that there's a clear vision of what the program looks like that everybody um agrees with. And again, I I know I said this earlier, but I'm re-emphasizing refresher training and support should
always be put in place. And I um included that again because it's a commitment um from the administration, from the board because you have to allocate funds and there's only a certain number of designated days. Um so it's something that requires a lot of planning. High school, uh you have a
great high school. Uh there's tremendous satisfaction there and um parents seem to really be proud of the AP course offerings and the academy program. I looked at your performance reports. 72% of your high school seniors took at
least one AP exam during high school and 58% of those scored a three or higher on at least one exam. you have 15% who took five or more AP exams. It's very impressive. So, um the end result, whatever you're doing, you're getting them to the finish line and they're
doing um very very well. So, that that's impressive and um you should be applauded for that. It's tremendous work. Uh, and then one of the other things I spent some time talking with the um MLL supervisor um multilingual
learners and we talked about um Vanthia and I special ed population just making sure that access to advanced coursework is reviewed through an equity lens. Um so we remove barriers at the high school level. There are a lot of prerequisite classes and maybe some of those students
didn't have the opportunity but they shouldn't be procluded from taking the courses. they can do the work. So looking at how we can assess them differently and get them involved and included if they show that they can u meet the demands and the rigor at that
level. So here's a suggested timeline and um I know there were concerns but I'm just going to reiterate uh this takes planning and time. uh you know it's April the end of April you're in budget scene budget season I'm sorry and um and most of your teachers are
10-month employees so you really just have to be very mindful you know I I know as a former administrator and teacher um you know the hardest thing is when we overwhelm teachers and the most important thing is when we provide them support training in a way that's
feasible and realistic. You want to set everybody up for success. Um, it's overwhelming to set an expectation and then not have all the support and resources. So, timing is everything. Uh, I'm gonna move a little closer. My eyes aren't that good. Um, so, you know what?
I'll come shadow. I had LASIC eye surgery many years ago. I think it's it's wearing off. That's good. So, um, so right now really we're we're preparing for 25 and 26. We we started this conversation in the fall.
Um I I think we started the conversation. We met uh we met with the previous superintendent. Uh and then we you know we planned the audit because that takes a lot of planning and visits and time for surveys. Uh then we reviewed the audit results. Um, and and
it takes time to really read through and put everything together in a way that's authentic and truly reflective of your community when you're getting in all of those comments um and you're trying to capture everything and and and put it in a concise paragraph. It's not so easy.
But I really have to say I I truly do believe that that captured in a very very honest and true way. Um, so the recommendation would really be at this point to start the summer. You you always start with your administrators because your leadership really needs to
understand the mission and message uh and work together uh because again they're they're the leaders of this building. They're setting an expectation for their learners and they have their faculty meetings. They have their summer opening daytime with them and the message has to come from them with
everything they do. and they just have to also ensure and breed confidence that they're in this with them. Um you have very spirited administrators who uh are passionate about this work. So I have no doubt that would happen successfully but you know they need to understand what the strengthening gifted and talented
access what the requirements are um how to establish the best practice. It's something important and um you know it's obvious that your community um has expressed an interest in really doing this and going above and beyond and having a defined program and and they
understand that but again that takes planning and preparation and and and budgeting. Um and then you know setting up an instructional expectation. Um you use the Danielson observation tool. There is a whole lot in there um about
rigor and differentiating and meeting the needs but really just starting with that and looking this is what we have set as um our expectation for what classroom instruction looks like and having those discussions with teachers in a meaningful way and talking about what their practice looks like to ensure
that it's being done and providing support and training along the way. Um you know even for teachers your students um are performing at different levels your teachers have different levels of expertise um and experience and there could be students who have different needs that occupy their time. So looking
at the structure in every classroom to ensure that everybody could be successful and it can be done uh in the in the fall and throughout the winter. Um we talked about establishing a gifted and talented committee and um we talked about including parents their
stakeholders. So we would have representatives from all of your stakeholder groups and you know again that would be the at the discretion of your administration but that would be a best practice and develop a common language for gifted and talented um enrichment gifted and talented
instruction. Uh just learn about the cognitive assessments and how it is that you can develop a multiple measures identification matrix that the community is clear on. Um from what I can see from the website it says you have benchmarks in place. Um students are assessed a
number of different ways but really making sure that we have something clear. Um I usually like to use a minimal value matrices. So this way parents know there's a point value associated. Um and again that would be determined by committee. How do we want to value standardized tests? How do we
want to value the benchmark? That requires discussion um and conversation and working together to develop and then making sure people understand what that means and and so the parents have an understanding of how we look at the full picture. Uh and then um you know looking
at um district data. It's something that you already do. It's a best practice but really looking you know we're looking at students who are requiring intervention who are not meeting the basic grade level standards. There are students who are very close. That's um to they're
they may be meeting the grade level requirement. They're performing meeting expectations. Um but they could they may be very close to exceeding. And if we add that rigor and we push them, that's the easiest group to move. Um but that's really looking at your data and saying what are we doing to challenge them so
that they will move over to exceeding expectations. Uh again, that's part of your data plan and part of the datadriven discussions that they have at the building level. I know it's something that's happening. I haven't been part of it, but just continuing those conversations and having them
guided staff development. We talked about having um professional development next year. Um so that would be throughout the year. Again, you know, it's allocating time and planning for that. um to understand best practices. look at the curriculum and content areas
so that you can see where enhancements can be made and then just bolstering the curriculum um adding in new projects to make sure that you have that inquiry based learning and further developing the portfolio classes to bolster 21st century learning and ensuring that the
academic rigor is there and students understand the expectations um and it's consistent throughout all the portfolio classes. Uh the spring of next year would be really preparing um for a launch for 2027. So finalizing what the
G&T program will look like. Will there be a pullout program? Will there be a dedicated teacher? Looking at your internal resources. Um very often there's a staff member, um somebody a technology teacher or specialist. Um you have to be creative with schedules. These are tough times um budgeting and
it's not so easy to just add an additional full-time employee. So, looking at ways to reallocate some time for somebody who may have an interest or have a time in their schedule. Um finalizing changes to the portfolio process and making sure that
all that information is ready to go so teachers understand and it could be communicated um to your community and having that all clearly delineated on the website. uh reviewing uh the high school student data and demographics for a access to AP honors uh courses and
just strategies to improve so that through an equity lens. We had just talked about that. Um making sure that all students have access communicating all the changes to family. I know that is an important um point of concern that was brought up and updating the district
website have an identification process. Um, very often if you start a pull out program, you would identify the students in the fall and then you would launch in like October. You want to make sure you have all the standardized tests. You give parents an opportunity of a notification window. All that would be
communicated to parents and an opportunity if parents had questions, wanted to meet or there were any appeals to address all of that and um create a curriculum for any new GT program. So that's something that could be ongoing. you could, you know, do a couple months,
a couple projects at a time and there would be a 20 26 27 implementation um at Anacey Scott. We'd have the implement the changes to the Leonia Middle School portfolio program and staff development would be ongoing. Uh and then, you know,
usually you go back to your community, continue to survey them just to um seek out information about overall parent satisfaction um and engage the students. they can be part of your stakeholders so that you could have an understanding of the work that they're doing and how it's
manifesting with them. Uh that concludes u this part of the presentation the audit findings and I don't know if you want to take questions now if you have questions uh whatever your format is I'm happy to accommodate. Um I think we should start with taking questions from the board and then we can
open up to to the public. So um is there another part of the presentation or no? Okay. just wanted to clarify. Um so if the board members you can make your way back to your seats. I did have a quick question about
um just in terms of one of the on that last slide you indicated that uh we would the recommendation is to start gifted and talented committees uh at ACS and LMS. Who who is part of those committees? Is is it just the administrators and teachers or No. So I would have several committees. I would
have um so I would have a committee with all the administrators because you just want to establish the message and make sure so we would start with the administrators this summer um and because you're a smaller district I would involve most of them uh and then there would be a committee at each level
where you would have teachers who were involved um you would have the administrators of that building um you would have your assistant superintendent superintendent um curriculum supervisors so that would be at the discretion of your superintendent. Um you know
typically you may invite education committee members to some of those meetings um so that they can participate and then um you can have parent representatives at each level. So um you know it's important for them you know so it may not be at every meeting they
wouldn't be part of developing the curriculum but they should definitely be part of the conversation. That would be best practice. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation to open with that. My pleasure. Questions from other board members?
the interest is there. You have um very strong administrators who had a lot of passion and a lot of heart for this work. I I have no doubt um they they need um the green light and some direction. It's not their area of expertise and they're running building but they were very um clear that they
wanted to be part of the process which is very important in night see okay um I echo that was a great presentation I really appreciate it um I have one question um so gifted and talented the
spirit of gifted and talented Is it uh really geared towards academic excellence at the end or are we envisioning more than that? A broader and beyond is that broader and beyond.
So um I'll just give an example. Um I'm working with the Weihawk at school. I I sent the superintendent video today. We we did um a a whole class project in fifth grade. So we engaged them in a marketing and branding project for um chocolate chip cookies. They had to come up with their brand. They had to come up
with a campaign. They used AI to generate a song. But they exceeded my expect. I went in to see the presentations and they used Canva and they some of them created merchandise and um they had digital um overlays on their Canvas slides because some of them
were really artistic. But we had a student who some of them sang. They were able to put in their own voice. but a student who sang his whole song and he had the whole class he created a beat because he's musically talented and had the whole class participate. So, um it's better through an example just so you
can see, but you really want to tap into all their gifts and talents um and enrich them. So, that's part of your enrichment building a schoolwide enrichment model. Uh you don't want to exclude anyone. Uh and that's why we had the conversation at Anacey Scott about having enrichment centers and really
distinguishing because enrichment is for everybody and ensuring that everyone you want to um encourage and motivate and get everyone involved in higher level thinking. Um textbook can be very boring sometimes. So when they can engage in a game where they're using you know their
their skills and their thought processes and sometimes a little competition's good. Um, you know, those are really great ways to enhance and get students involved who may have been less interested academically before. Sure. So that sounds like so we we
talked about AP. So AP exams are strictly academics, right? Yes. So maybe for high school then we havemies. You have your academy program or for G&T is we're talking you know what both. So if you look at high school G& it's your AP
and yourmies because um there are students who showed specific interest in a content area and then exploring that pathway and then your dual enrollment classes um it could be looked at under a number of different lenses they all qualify as
G&T ask you one more followup so is it natural to so the example you just talked about for fifth grader that is um it it's almost like a boundary. There's no boundary. Well, you have to
um so you have you have to really train the teacher so that they understand. Sorry, I I started off with the wrong but they also have to maintain um you have to maintain a pace. They have a responsibility to teach the whole curriculum. And so when you build in these projects, you have to make sure
that they're aligned with standards. you have you you're sure that you're measuring all the standards and then you're giving students an opportunity to extend and go beyond. Um so it's distinguishing between what's an enrichment project to enhance the instruction and that's why we talked about that win period making sure
students get what they need. So is it so what we're envisioning is like our for instance portfolio classes in middle school um for math I I can't speak for all all portfolio classes I
haven't sitting in in them themselves myself but like math as far as I know it's math has accelerated so those are it's more of an they are different so math and portfolio is different and and that's something when I talked about modernizing and rebranding I would
probably recommend that we called that like it had an honors math track because it's very different from the portfolio. I thought it was different. That's why I brought it up. Yes, it's different. The identification's different. So again, that's all part of your branding. You're modernizing and you're having clear
descriptions on your website and sitting down with the administration. Um because there is a clearly a clear defined process. Um and they were able to speak very articulately and eloquently. So I know it was authentic. you can tell when it's really happening. Um your your
middle school principal and assistant principal um they they were able to talk for um it was like very streamlined and it was coming from years of expertise. He's been doing this for a long time. So um it it seems more like the portfolio
we have to address fifth and sixth and then just having new staff and and really having it divined in the curriculum so that everybody has access to the same project and idea. Um, and as part of the discussion, I have a quick question. Um, I know this
may be subjective, but rebranding. How do you rebrand it when you're not excluding other people? We're saying these kids are all honors and you guys are just regular. So, when I say um rebranding, you it's a website refresh and then re um the you have all kinds of
clubs. Remember I said that they they weren't well publicized there. you have things offered for everyone and and also in all of your classes, there's always an opportunity for students to be enriched um for them to have an extended standard. They can have project-based
learning. So, having those discussions with teachers and then really looking at how this is all communicated to the teachers and to your parents so everybody understands what education looks like. And again, enrichment is for everyone and there are lots of enrichment opportunities. I just don't think everyone is or I couldn't see it
on the website. That should be part of your website. Yeah. Uh I think that like well the uh when I first time you hear about like a new rebranding of this G&T program is that um it's not like all about like you know um the students achievement. So
such thing as like right now the a lot of public as well as the board members kind of confused about like you know um the currently honor classes equivalent to G&T classes. But I'm like you know the the G&T versus these honor classes or like these advanced classes is kind
of like you know the my understanding was uh is separate. So it's more of happen to be those gation. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Transparency and communication. Exactly. So that like you know a lot of parents think that G uh G&T pro G&T education is about you know their grade
this their kids grade and then what kind of what type of class they're taking it. But I I think that's totally miscommunication and confusion about it. It's a G&T program the as as far as I sees it is a more opportunities and more um for example um so we're currently u
we have um the um um portfolio classes we have math English but art classes you know such as art classes that doesn't has to be necessarily to be like they're like you know uh they're great art but nothing to do with like theirademies or their math or English.
So it's more like I is it's more about like opportunities not about like you know that there are students grades and then going better school is totally different from that. So that that's something that like you know what we should aware of it and the public should aware of it as well too. Yeah. So then
you'll get more student interest although there is a lot of student participation. I just don't think it's clear to the public. Um because the it's hard to glean all of that by going on the website and find it needs to be a defined page where you can click on a middle school tab and see everything
that's there. One other thing. So besides the rebranding and everything, you're saying the the opportunities is probably fourth, fifth, and sixth to really install something that's missing. I mean that um so you know that came from my
discussions the the principal mentioned fourth grade as a launching point you know there are and we would talk about this moving ahead you know we could do training with all grade levels so that starting in first grade it could happen in the classroom it's it's so that teachers understand how to meet the
needs of all their students so for in first grade um you may have students who come in who are beginning readers you may have students who come in who are at end of second grade reading level so typically you have guided reading groups and you're having them read books at their level. Um just ensuring that
everyone is being challenged at their level and you know it could look different from district to district and and that would just be taking a deeper dive knowing you can't do everything at once. Um but most of those things are happening. Um and it's making sure that teachers are are trained and they have
an understanding and just know what the expectation is and that they have all the tools and resources there to do it. But it did seem like there is a very strong desire to have uh a dedicated pull out program. Um and fourth grade would be a great launching point. The
kids are a little older, they can be involved in in more. So, um, you know, again, that's a recommendation and that would be a ongoing discussion and we definitely want to look at all grade levels, especially at the elementary level, um, because we want our teachers
to be able to when they have kids in front of them be able to identify um, behaviors of gifted students from very early on. So, even though we might not have a pre-K pullout program, when there is a pre-K student in that class, a teacher can say, "Oh, I'm seeing behaviors." and can articulate those
behaviors to our MTSS teams that we've established that we've been focusing a lot on our remedial work with MTSS and now as we've talked about as a board it's time to think about our how we bring in our gifted work into that MTSS process. So that's the importance of
seeing and training all of our staff. I'm also curious um this is relatively new mandate um are there mature enough examples that we can look up to within
state of New Jersey like role models or you know success story even for training is there like a robust like training programs and resources that we can have our administrator and staff to go to uh
there there are districts if we wanted if we there was a decision made to make um some visits to see different types of programs. Um there are also opportunities for um gifted for staff um you know for teachers who are working with gifted and talented students to
come together. Um you know one of the things that I do as part of my work is that I invite teachers from so I'm running something down in the Jersey Shore. So they're smaller districts, so we have teachers coming from all of those districts and it's um so they'll be doing professional development with
me, but they do a make and take where they bring examples. So yes, if there was an interest in getting involved in that type of work, um that's available. Um but again, you know, setting up a timeline and starting with your administration, having the board um make
a decision to move forward with some things based on the recommendation from your superintendent. Um and then you know once the board makes a decision to move ahead then deciding what that looks like you know we start with the administration and then we would have those conversations but you really want
to start with internal PD so that you have a consistent message and and look at what's here. You may have some really talented people who are doing this well. Um it's it's very nice to be able to create lab classrooms um to find teachers who are doing some of this work
and then inviting other teachers to go in when they can do it in their own district. You know, sometimes we isolate as you know individual teachers even though you're a whole district, but to be able to visit each other's classrooms um or have them each create something and let others go in and showcase and we could have a discussion. That's the best
practice. So there are many ways of doing it um and you build on it over time. Any other question? Um, I did have one question um, in terms of the timeline and I know maybe Christine might want to ask that question later as well, but and I think
the question that came up was related to the the like how long it takes to really roll these the the program out and you provide a lot of details in your timeline, but I think can I know maybe maybe better present to to explain in terms of like budgetary impacts and how
rolling out a gift in the talented program like why it takes you know a year and a half to roll the program out. Um, I mean, I think I have a good understanding of why, but just for the bit public's understanding, if you could maybe go over like budget timelines and
and implementation of, you know, P, PD, potential staff, etc. Right. So, the biggest thing is um professional development and teacher buyin, and parent understanding as well, right? We want to make sure that we have kind of all of our ducks in a row before
we implement a new program, which is why we can't just throw a program together and have a pull out fourth grade resource uh uh G&T program for September. We really want to take our time. We have we want to establish a committee where people are really understanding because if we're we're we're going to have to take a deep dive into our assessments to make sure that
our assessments are giving us the information that we need to be able to identify and create a matrix with multiple measures um to give us a strong a strong identification process. Um and then also articulating that process to the staff, to the families,
to the community. um and having people take ownership of this. Along that along that work would also be training the staff in what enrichment looks like in the classroom, what gifted and talented actually means and um what behaviors we
see with students that are identified as gifted. Um that takes time and that takes work, right? We have four PD days in the school year. So that's four times to do this work on top of all the other work that is required of us. Um, and we
we do have um opportunities to bring in staff developers throughout the school years, but we also want to make sure that our teachers are in their classes. So, there's a lot of planning that goes into a roll out. Um, we've also given the strategic plan and uh the the
discussions we've had around gifted and talented education. Um, as we've made budget decisions this past school year, we've kept G&T and our future of the program in mind as we've made uh some decisions regarding our budget and staffing going
into the next school year. Um, you'll see too like prepping in the first column, we've already taken steps to move towards a a a program, right? We've already started first of all, we started with this audit. Um, our principles are looking at how to incorporate a win
period. Um so next year will be also time for them to for teachers to understand how to use a win period. Uh how to differentiate during that win period. Uh we've also you know updating our global citizens curriculum like that. All of that is part of the bigger
scope to get us to that 2627 school year. Um you know if things move well and move fast that doesn't mean that we can't have pilot programs going on at in the spring of next school year. Right? This is the timeline that felt realistic
to us to be able to take the next school year to really purposefully make decisions on what this program will look like and then implement for the 2627 school year. U but again if everything goes well and we can smooth sail our way
through um and establish everything we need to establish then you know why stop and not pilot in the spring and go from there. really I and I guess Don in your experience with other school boards I mean with the timeline this long it's a
year and a half I mean in the grand scheme of things not a very long time but with board members changing um year to year um I imagine this would be like a goal that we would we would assign to the the superintendent so that we can
have something to track and make sure that it carries on year to year. So, I would establish um a district goal for next year. Um so, this summer I would establish or in the spring, I don't know when you um set your goals for um district goals, but I would establish a
gifted and talented goal. So, you already have one. It would be the second step. And then, but I would have it more detailed that I would have the action plan that goes with it. So, what what are the steps throughout the year? Um who's involved and what is the monetary commitment? So, the commitment next year would really be the professional
development. Um but you know this way um if it's clearly um spelled out everyone who's involved knows what the timeline is. They know what's expected of them. Um and then you're committed as a team. You're working as a unit. Uh differentiation is part of the
requirement when we talk about the law. So that will happen next year like we'll ensure that if there are teachers who are struggling with differentiating to meet the needs of their gifted learners. That was part of what I took away just hearing and listening to what you were saying. Um and and and that's what Dan
just said, you know, like it may not sometimes you're differentiating PD also based on the needs. Um and we'd have to look at the data. There may be classes where you have sometimes you have an unusually you know population high class a group of learners and maybe another
class has one student because if we do look at that data and we look at students who are exceeding standards and they're showing that they are advanced proficient um required that then maybe we have some small group and we flex group during that win period. Now those are things that we can pilot and try
along the way um so that we're making progress and making gains. The most important thing is our students. So we're never compromising student outcomes. Um you want to optimize the learning experience for every student. So the work that we're doing is student centered. Um you know for for all of us
like you you've committed to a goal. Um I did an audit if I'm working with your teachers. Um you know this this is my livelihood. So of course I'm going to make sure that the professional development is meeting all the needs and that you have all those bells and whistles. But at the end of the day, if your students aren't embracing it and we
don't identify those kids and we don't go in and see how it's manifesting with them, and we're going to know from from our parents because they go home, they talk about it, they they bring their work home. Um, you know, one thing I saw in a district I was working in this year, I had a parent, right? Um, she
said she's a professional speech writer. She was in DC and she said, "I I can't tell you who, but her third grader was um recording and practicing at home." And that was something new and making a speech and working on eye contact and elecution and you know I had a
conversation with her. I said my first board meeting I watched the tape back and I started every sentence with so or um those are skills. So for kids to watch back and record those are life skills that build confidence and character and practice. That's something
anyone could do. That's part of the enrichment in creating those opportunities. And maybe for some it's getting up and reading a slide and for others it's getting up and having a talk. It can look very different but that's the work that I would prioritize next year and and then visiting the classrooms. We talked about what does it
look like and the administrators would be able to give us that feedback. They're doing walkthroughs and they're setting an expectation. It would you'll get the greatest gains next year from that. Thank you. And in terms of next steps then is your now that the audit is
essentially complete. Is your involvement done at this point? Does everything trans? Okay. Absolutely not. Okay. As long as as long as Donna is willing to support us, um we do appreciate the having a staff
developer and you know, my dissertation is on professional development and the impacts of long sustainable professional development. And one thing is having consistent a consistent consultant working with staff. So my hope is that we can work with Donna next year to bring her in to do the administrator training to work with our staff to help
coach our uh committees and help kind of guide that work forward. Um because this is her focus. My focus is on everything else where she can really target and be that strong support system for our uh community. Thank you. Any other board questions?
My the final um one final recommendation was we talked about um at some point I would set up a dedicated uh email for gifted and talented at Leon School just so that any parent messages or parents obviously who aren't here tonight they all go to one place and then we could track them over time instead of going to
a board member an administrator um because eventually we could create an FAQ and we'd add that to the website. If one person has a question, many people probably have it. Uh and and then you just add to it over time. Great idea. Um so if there's no other
board questions, I'd like to open it up to the public for for any questions. Oh, can you just can you provide your name and address before you provide your question? My name is Jin Park. My address is 171 Highwood Avenue. And thank you very much for your
presentation and I hope you can work with us next year. Thank you. Um and uh we are all we have a um kids in um elementary school and we have younger kids and you know uh for the like fourth
grade and up um it's easier to identify gifted uh children like accelerated math uh music or something like that. But uh for the younger kids, I want to hear more about the identification and um like there will be
um teachers and uh psychologists or who will identify if the teacher or parents um identify. Yeah. Uh well, the district has an obligation to identify students at all levels beginning in kindergarten. Uh you have benchmark assessments that
are in place. There are a number of ways that um they can be identified. You have math benchmarks, you have reading benchmarks. Um one of the recommendations that I made was to add a cognitive skills assessment. We don't have we have a cheapen test but we don't have aptitude tests. Um the
recommendation for that is always to start that in second grade because it gives you a bigger picture and um sometimes there are students who don't perform you know maybe they don't have the maturity at that level but they have the cognitive abilities and it's just tapping into their aptitude and learning
how then to engage them and and knowing that they're they're capable. You can't always see it. Um but again, yes, there is a responsibility to differentiate and set up an individualized learning plan similar to an IEP. So a teacher would know, you know, if they have 20 students
in their class, maybe so um statistically 3 to 5% of students um of the population in general is gifted. That's statistics. Um, best practice for a district is usually to if you are going to establish a pull out program at
some point, uh, usually identify between nine and 11%. That's best practice because you're looking at kids holistically. You're looking math and ELA. They may score higher in one area. Um, but you're not going to have a dedicated pullout person for such a small group and you would be
underserving your student population. uh but you would be looking at them independently for reading and for math and then interest they may be artistically talented uh musically inclined. So we would work with all the instructional staff and and maybe you
know over time we put in some clubs or opportunities where for a few weeks at a time they can go during their lunch and you know have um advanced G&T art. Um those are things you can build over time. Um, but again, it's looking creatively at staffing and setting
something up that's manageable and sustainable because you don't want to you can't put it out and then take it away. So, once you start it, you want to make sure you have the resources to continue with it. I see. And um will they be in the same um class or will they? No. So, um best practice is to
have heterogeneous groups because um kids emerge at different times. You know, very often um you see students who you know are truly gifted and performing at a much higher level in second grade than their peers. Um, you know, you have
other kids who in fourth grade suddenly just mature and grow and, you know, they're performing very differently than they did younger. Some a lot of times it's just patience, maturity, you see boys mature later. Um so heterogeneous groups and again just having all that
data you have all that in place having those conversations and putting um an equal emphasis on students who need intervention reinforcement practice who should be just enriched to enhance the overall experience and students who need
to be accelerated. Hi, my name is Hilda Hilda Kim. I live in 248 Panu Avenue. So my son is second grade and we came um ACS um his first grade. So what happened was um we went
to Dr. Martinez and then I brought in his cognitive test result and what happened she did not mention about any of this program and then we just skipped his grade. So he didn't go to um kindergarten here. he just went straight to the first grade and I didn't know
about any of this program and then he's supposed to be gifted you know by psychologist that he evaluated but he's just a little silly boy in the class and then he's not really um I cannot tell he's not really excellated in his
academically he just you know he feel bored and then I show I show all of his test result to every teacher he you know in his class but they don't think he's gifted and he said oh okay I don't think they really understand those test mean
you know so he's just a little boy silly boy he's just you know fing around in the classroom that's how you know class but you know live like here uh with training and by looking at all that data and um and providing different
educational experiences because there are ways to elevate skills and tap into them um where students who are a little more active, maybe more engaged their games and things um you know then you would see a change and that that is something that we have planned for and discussed. So what happened? So my
question is when I present his test result right when I came to ACS and they supposed to like look at the test or keep us informed any program they have so I don't have to skip his grade. So what happened when he when we skip his
grade know he can he's okay with his academic level just average student but he's more young younger side with his peers so he's not really you know like very mature especially his boy so I felt like and I kind of like misinformed by
school that's how I feel at this moment and I think that's an important conversation to have with the teacher and when you have now it's the end of the year but when you have a new teacher next year and um and give them an opportunity to share that information when you have parent teacher conferences or in the beginning of the year request
a time to speak to and and this way they'll have a better understanding from the start of how your child learns and you know there there are surveys and things that we can give to the parents and students to learn more about them and and those are things that maybe we'll need to infuse and embed you know
those are things I can't answer for you but the teacher probably could at this point Donna thank you for trying to answer that I do I don't want to I'd like to try to I appreciate your concerns for your son. I would like to try to keep the line of questioning more geared towards the overall curriculum.
Um and and if you have it sounds like you definitely had some concerns for your son, things that came up. Um that would be more a question for to speak with this the either the principal or the superintendent. Actually my question was when I present not I don't know really who I can really speak about it
and also when I present the principal I was not informed. Okay. And then if I you know if I told them go to this person or you know what's the department and you know I just I I would not inform anything that is my most concern. Understood. I don't think I don't think I'm the only parents that have this kind
of question and it's not very approachable you know to contact you know the department. That's my question. So when there's when there's issues with line of communi with communication um typically we always ask parents that you know to start with the closest source. If it's in the classroom then to to
start with the teacher. Um, if you if things don't work out there, then you ask to go to the the principal. If things don't work with the principal, then you work up to a superintendent's office and then ultimately the last option is really with the board. Um, but we hope that it never really comes to that and it actually is very rare that
it comes to that. Um, but that's the process and I apologize that you you experienced that before, but that's that's the the the chain of communication. So, start with the teacher and then the principal and then the superintendent and then the board. Okay. Um, Christian Hudson, 316 Moore Avenue.
Um, thank you very much um for for doing this and thank you to the board as well as well as to doctor and your administration. Um, this is a long time coming and we really appreciate the initiating the process.
Um, I think it's is Justin. Is that your name? I can't see your Yeah, you're Joseph. Oh, thank you. um all of us are here representing ACS. So when you say 456 is really where it starts, I think you're going to find the community is really behind ACS being a significant
issue at this point in time. I know I just want to make sure that we're on the same page. Awesome. Awesome. And and Miss Choy, it the actual original law was passed in 2004. So it's a strengthening because
schools didn't do it. So they passed a new law say no, we really meant it this time. Um because nobody was doing it. So the law's actually been on the books for over 20 years. Absolutely. No. Um Dan, thank you very much because I
think you hit on what I think is the key point here, which is next steps is defining the who, the what, the how, and how much, right? And putting that plan into action. And it sounds like Dr. you're already thinking about that as to who's going to do the next thing. Because what we have here is a very high
level roadmap as opposed to a detailed action plan. Who's responsible for the next step? What is that next step? What does that deliverable look like? And how can we begin to as parents, again getting back to what my wife said, be transparent, right? Because I do think at
ACAs, sorry, there was a lack of transparency. There was a lack of there was a lot of misinformation. I would be very careful with what you put up on that website because the whole idea of identification, notification, appeal
process, you're going to find a lot of that wasn't really there. Yes, teachers have a way to identify kids. And you're right, we probably pass legal muster, but be very careful about because the law is also very specific about the other pieces as well. So, in terms of
like making sure we're transparent on the website now, we might be better off kicking that can down the road until we have the next program in place. I don't want to look backwards. I just want to look forwards. Um, you also blended
oftentimes between gifted and talented, enrichment, and accelerated. And those are three very different things. And I just want to make sure that you were we're all on the same page. Gifted and talented is a very defined structured identified set of students 3 to 5%. Do
we know how many are in Leonia right now? How many kids are identified? Since we have an identification program, is there a number right now that we have in Leonia? Off the top of my head, I do not have it, but I could find it and get back. I was just curious if you knew it. I It's
It's irrelevant to me. My head. No, I do not. I was just curious. Um, but whereas enrichment I agree it should be available to anybody who wants it. And accelerated means that just because I'm I'm in second grade doing third grade math doesn't mean I'm G&T. It doesn't
mean I'm gifted and talented. It means I'm accelerated. Okay, gifted and talented. You need to define kind of what that looks like. And again, getting back to your point about what does the identification process looks like. And if you're going to rely on a teacher to be like that's gifted, that's a a
qualitative assessment as opposed to a quantitative assessment. And I do believe, and I think you mentioned this as well, that the assessment should involve both, right? It's not just about how they look relative to their peers. It's also about what those tests look like admin administrated by somebody who knows what they're doing.
Um, as as I tell my wife all the time, I don't have the question. I have all the questions. I'm so sorry about this. Um, right. The um are the survey results available? Um the survey results um yes
uh no there they can be provided to the board and um it's up to the board to make them available. Well I mean I could file a Freedom of Information Act and that would be available right? You could have that. So will the board receive will the board receive the
actual survey results? I mean yes. Awesome. We can get the survey result. Cool. If you can make those available that'd be great. And if not then I can follow. We'll review it with the education committee. It's the concern is just that there are you know private responses but I mean well the summarization at least x number of
people responded a x number of people responded b right those statistics yes awesome thanks excellent oh so do you want me to compile statistics for um you want specific we can talk about what that um information will look like at another time that's that's more of a board and education committee
conversation with you Donna so I mean again I'm going to I'll close with my hope is is that as you begin to work out what that plan does look like and what those next steps are that there is another session with the parents and administrators and you know I think that
the more transparency we have up front that's how you begin to build trust again that's how you begin to kind of like engage with the community is like this is what we're doing why we're doing it and I think the board had a great example of doing it with the the the three-year plan right the the sessions
that you guys held fiveyear plan sorry you're I the the way I think about it is anything past three years never is going to happen anyway. So um you we've joked about that. Um but you had that model where you had three sessions, you had a number of you know ongoing
communications with the public about what you were thinking, why you were thinking it. And so I just encourage you to think about this in the same way. That's it. Um, just to go back to the timeline and all of that and I guess my question wasn't really about like how realistic
is it. I was curious about the board's sort of take on the timeline and whether it seemed like reasonable and I think you know I've also worked in a school system to know that things take time. Like I really appreciate that. I think what I'm concerned about is that this
timeline, which is chalk full of a lot of things, is going to be a black box that parents only get like a little sneak peek into every so often. So again, sort of like emphasizing whether it's at the committee level, whether it's even coming out of this meeting and
having more information from this the audit results. um having like very clear communication so that it's shared more broadly with parents and that questions are like solicited and answered like that kind of interaction I think is
going to be really important so that this timeline doesn't feel like it's just sort of like trucking along in a way that suddenly after a year we're like whoa what just happened I mean if anything then like that's going to feel too fast we want this process to be
really informed formative to everyone that it's going to impact as it's happening. And so like I just really want to emphasize that piece and I think the coordinator where you know I had asked earlier like who was that and how does that work? Like it may seem like a
trivial point but if we're going to have a concerted effort to work on something there should be someone very clearly designated to focus on it. Um and I really commend Dr. Carmanas for always being open to like my emails, my
questions, everything, having the time to sit with me, but she is way too overstressed, especially in this moment in time, doing two jobs at once and everything else. Like, we need someone who can really carry the torch. I think it's great to have a consultant, but we need someone embedded in the school
district who's going to be the point person, the person of record, who's going to help coordinate and really represent the work that's going on. So, I feel like if nothing else, that might be one immediate takeaway that the board, you know, if you could discuss that, figure out who it is and then
discuss how to share that. An email address is great, but who's answering those emails? Like, that's another piece of this just in terms of taking responsibility and actually being able to help focus the conversation um I think in the most productive way. Um I
also, you know, I really appreciate that yes, differentiation is happening. Like that's a big part of where the passion I think from the community comes from is that this is a school district that believes in all different kinds of learners and different ways to meet people where they are. It's the hardest thing about public schools to think
about the community as a whole and focus on individual needs whether they're you know remedial andor high-flying like there's a big range there. Um and I think when it comes to gifted and talented students as my husband's saying um and I think Mr. Parker was also
saying, I think we want to avoid it all starting to blend together. As much as I believe that all boats rise with the tide and like that's a big part of what we want to see because the level of education at Leona will get better with all of this work, there's also a very
clear subset of students and we need to be clear with everyone about who they are, how it is that we're finding them, how it is that we're serving them. Um, and I think that there's still a certain level of like ambiguity, murkiness in
that, um, that isn't going to serve us if we just keep saying like, well, we're doing pieces of it and it's all kind of there. We just have to and like rebranding to me is is the surface treatment. Like, we need to actually define the backbone of the program in a
way that's much more fundamental. It's not just about like what are we going to call this, but it's like what is the this that we're even talking about? There's still some really deep work there that I think needs to be done. Um, and again, I would love to have more
conversations like this. I so appreciate the length of this conversation to begin with, knowing how long the rest of your evenings will be to get through the rest of the agenda as well. So, thank you. Um, but if we could try and find more opportunities to keep this conversation going, um, I just think it behooves us
all to to do that. Thank you very much. Yeah. So, first, Donna, thank you so much for the presentation and thank you for coming. Like, keep coming, keep keep, you know, sort of making this a priority. You
know, I' I've been on the board for six years and as long as I've been on the education committee, this has been a huge priority and we've been pushing for um gifted and talented opportunities in particular at ACS because the program
was much less defined uh than in the middle school and the high school as you mentioned. Um even before COVID we had several presentations from ACS administration you know promising us that differentiation was happening that there's a global citizens
curriculum. I would say that differentiation happens sometimes in some classrooms and less in others and that has to do there's a lot of different factors that affect whether that happens and that's been my my personal experience. um you know we've
had a lot of setbacks like if you think about COVID our priority was right this this strengthening of this law came in January of 2020 and then in March of 2020 we closed the schools right so we had a lot of setbacks like how do we even get the kids back in school and
then what do we do with the learning loss um we've had you know changes in our um uh you know in our central office right like we've had several superintendent and Dr. Carmas has had to step in now twice, right? And so that
impedes that forward momentum. Um, and that's not to say like we're, you know, we shouldn't do it. It's just to explain like why it might not be as as fast as like we'd all very much like it to be, you know, for the for the benefit of all
of our kids. Um, I'll give an example. I think last year we funded math curriculum writers, right, to to create um projects that that teachers could could use as as part of a toolkit um for
kind of more advanced learners. It probably similar to differentiation sometimes gets used and and sometimes doesn't. And so we need to really, you know, work more on that. And I think um Dr. Carmanus is incredibly supportive of of the efforts and um we're going to try
to keep, you know, kind of sometimes you have to go slow to go fast, you know, and and uh and we're going to keep trying to plug away at it. Like as as long as I'm on the education committee, it's going to continue to be a priority of mine. Thank you very much, Donna. Thank you
very much for the presentation and to the public for all your comments. We really appreciate them. look forward to the next steps. Um, so I think we'll move on. I just may I just make one final comment? I just wanted to say that um an audit is the the first step and and typically you put
everything out there and in a perfect world you would hire a teacher who would come in and be the coordinator and set up a program. Um, but you're looking at an ecosystem where you're trying to balance it all out. And so the the next steps would be for the administration,
for the board to say what where do we want to take action? Um and again, you know, there are board meetings, monthly meetings, and and it takes time, but I applaud everyone for the commitment to the work and through reading the strategic plan and the conversations um with their with your superintendent,
with your acting superintendent, um it's obvious that it's work that you're committed to. I I I wouldn't be here. And um and just in terms of the presentation um you I have to keep it real in terms of you you don't want to set up an expectation that's not going
to be met and knowing that you have how many teachers? U how many teachers do you have? Yeah. So you know there's a whole family involved and getting everyone on board. So thank you for the opportunity and thank you for your involvement. It's
obviously um a very smart community. um eloquent speaker. So I I'm sure that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and um I hope to have the opportunity to continue the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So we do have another public
presentation on ethics for the board uh that'll be presented by our board attorney, Mr. Lapiro. It's very exciting. Okay, now it's on. Right. Okay. It will hopefully be interesting in a different way. Um it's uh but I will tell you when
I hear a presentation like that, it makes me think maybe I should stop being a lawyer and be an educator. But my um my co-workers and wife would kill me if I did that. So I will continue to be a lawyer. Um, so good to
go and I will do the abbreviated version of this presentation. You all have it. You still have copies of the the various things. Perfect. Okay, great. Um, I've given this presentation a number of times during the year. Originally, we were going to do February 11th, but a couple of things happened since then, so
we got moved to today. Um, the one thing I will also say is that having the privilege of coming from these meetings for many years, I can tell you that and I go to a lot of other boards of ed um but I can tell you that this board um probably needs this training the least
uh because I think this board really understands what it is to be a board member, what the role of the board is and how to comply with the school ethics act. So just as a general overview, we'll talk about what the powers and duties of the board are. The reason we talk about that is because I think there
are a lot of misconceptions in the public, not necessarily here, but in other places as to what the board does, right? So, what is a board of education? You are a public body that oversees a public school district. You get your
various uh abilities and and powers and duties through the statute. 1811-1 specifically says you're required to enforce the rules of the New Jersey State Board of Ed. We know that make, amend, and repeal rules for the operation of the school district uh for
the management of the school district and this a general catchall to perform all acts and do all things consistent with the law for the lawful and proper conduct, equipment and maintenance of the district. What does that mean? What do you do? The boards are required to do a
variety of things. You have to approve curriculum. You have to adopt a budget to make sure that you are providing for that thorough and efficient education as you're required to do not only under New Jersey state law but under the constitution of New Jersey. You have to hire and when I say hire, you approve
the hiring of the necessary certified personnel to educate the district students. Um, of course, as you know, the superintendent makes those recommendations to you and then you approve those or not, but you know, we here has always been approval. um and develop policies for the management of
the school district. And policies are important because you're going to hear later in this presentation. The role of the board is oversight, policym, planning, and appraisal, not running or administering the school district. Sometimes members of the public don't don't quite know that. But that is an
important um consideration because if you are involved as a board member in running or operating the school district that is going to put you squarely in conflict with the school ethics act which says you shall not do that. So um none of these things are action that the
board takes alone. The superintendent of schools makes various recommendations to the board and recommendation. Oh, the superintendent of schools. That one is a little Irish um like a leprechaun there. But uh of the superintendent of schools, perhaps proofreading. Um but that's what
happens. When do you act at public meetings such as this? You do have a variety of committees and you have committee reports that are read out at every meeting. Those committees are very important. They provide recommendations to the board, but ultimately the board
acts as a whole. You have to have a quorum. your meetings have to comply with the open public meetings act which of course they do. Uh committees are less than a quorum and therefore they make recommendations to the full board then the full board votes on those. One thing that I always say, this
isn't really an issue here, um, and it doesn't I haven't really seen it in a lot of our school districts, but, um, always be careful with emails and text messages in theory. If you are having like especially um, text message chains, group chats, right? Those are the bane
of my existence when I'm at work and I get like 70 or 80, you know, important semi-important messages and then I look and, you know, 75 of them are from my family talking about like what's for dinner. I can't stand group messages, but don't do it because they would also violate the Open Public Meetings Act. If
you're having communications going back and forth throughout the day, you're basically having a meeting, right? So, oftentimes board members, you may have seen too, sometimes you'll get an email from the board president. I know that's happened in the past um where it says, "I'm sending you this as a point of information. Please do not reply all. If
you have a question, please talk to me separately." That's fine. Um but we don't want to do that. The reason is is because you can only operate at a public board meeting and you operate as a unit, not individual members. You may all have your individual opinions about what
should or shouldn't be done. Um, but in the end, the board acts as a single unit as a whole. Um, and we do this here pretty typically, but you know it to preserve decorum and to make sure that you express a single consistent position. The president alone speaks on
the board's behalf. President of course can always you know ask another board member to speak that's common but in terms of the official position that typically comes from the board president. Now the board of the administration this we always put in all of our presentations. It's not really an issue here but we always bring it up. Um
the board's direct responsibilities are to make policies, develop plans, evaluate outcomes. You all do that here. We've done that for a long time. It's not to manage day-to-day operations. Right. the um the school ethics act which was enacted maybe like 40 years
ago or so maybe 45 years ago um ensures that or it sets forth two things like prohibit prohibited act section but also the schoolboard member code of ethics in the schoolboard member code of ethics one of the things it says is that board members are not to administer the
schools but to see that they are wellrun that's critical um that's probably to me that kind of embodies what board of ed members are required to do You have a bylaw that specifically addresses it and it's not surprising. It mirrors what the school ethic act says. No board member by virtue of his or her office shall
exercise any administrative responsibility with respect to the operation of the school district or as an individual command the services of any school district employee. Um you don't have all access to the schools because you're a board member. You can't just say I want to go visit the schools today. You are a school visitor. You
have policies about school visitors. You comply with those policies just like any other member of the public. So what you do is you hire individuals to run the school district. And so if we think about it in the traditional corporate structure, if you are a large organization, your superintendent is
your CEO. The superintendent runs a school district, keeps the board informed, makes recommendations, your business administrator is your CFO, overseeing business, maintenance, uh the custodian, so forth and so on, purchasing agent, all of those different things. Um the board oversees all of
that. Again, not an issue here, but you know, the relationship between the board and the administration is cooperative, not adversarial. If there are issues with the um administration, always um ensure that those are being discussed in the appropriate venue. Um you do have um
one thing that you have to do also is when it comes to community complaints, sometimes that happens, right? It might be like on the soccer field or wherever you are and some people come up to you and say, "Hey, I can you take care of this? We have this problem at whatever school uh may be and um you know, you all volunteer to be part of the board.
You want to be helpful and responsive to your constituents and and we always want to say we'll you know, we'll take care of that." Well, what I want you to say is not I'll take care of that or we'll take care of that. What I want you to say is I'm going to refer that to the superintendent who is going to reach out to you or may have someone else reach
out to you to ensure that this gets done um to ensure that you're that what you're complaining about is addressed in whatever fashion is appropriate. Um you have to refer matters not only by law 142 but also the school ethics act says you must refer matters to the
superintendent. The board can only act at a public meeting if there's some kind of a failure of an administrative solution. That's when it comes to the board's level. Um, and that's consistent with the chain of command, always trying to make sure things are resolved at the lowest possible level. Um, one of the
things that you do have to agree to when you uh get sworn in as a board member, the code of ethics talks about I will support and protect school personnel in the proper performance of their duties. So, what that means is is that when we have criticisms of school personnel or
whatever it is, those are done in the appropriate venue, which is going to be executive session. Um, if we're talking about uh employees, we need to be careful what we say about employees. It could violate the privacy rights. It could undermine um the superintendent. If there's public criticism about that, so we have to be very careful about
that. That doesn't mean you have to agree with everything the superintendent says, but we have to be careful where we express that. Um, and we want to make sure that we're not undermining the superintendent because that in of itself is going to be a violation of the school ethics act. Again, this is a very general comment that really has not ever
happened here. have been coming to board meetings for 101 15 years at least and I have not seen that. So um again we talked about this uh this is kind of redundant but board members on their own no supervisory authority um
the supervisory authority comes from the superintendent. The only person actually that you technically supervise or evaluate is the superintendent. It's also the only person that you hire. Technically, you're you're approving hires, but your superintendent is hiring
everybody else in the entire school district and presents that to you for approval. Confidentiality. I think we all know this, but there are certain things that we have to keep confidential. Um I know that sometime this is I don't know that this is an issue here of course, but there are
other places where it's difficult. You know, it's mostly smaller communities. Um there's an expectation, hey, you're on the board, what's going on? You know, the the answer unfortunately is guess what? I can't tell you any of that. Um, hey, what about this kid in in, you know, so- and so's class? I know you have a kid in that class, too. Um, yeah,
and you can refer that to the superintendent and I can't have any discussions with you about that. You may know exactly what's going on, but you can't talk about it. There could be a number of things. There could be, you know, matters that are student matters. Um, that is protected. You can't disclose that. There could be a situation with a staff member. You know,
they might ask you, why is that staff member on leave of absence? Can't discuss it. That's a personnel matter. Um, there may be issues with negotiations. So keep that in mind. We always have to keep that confidential and that's one of the requirements of the of the code of ethics which is what we're going to talk about now. So uh enacted in 2001. Oh I thought it was 40
years. Oh no I'm thinking of open was 40 years ago. Sorry. So the school ethics act 2001. So now you know almost 25 years old here. Um why was it enacted? Maybe because there were some issues that happened back uh before 2001 and we needed to have a very delineated code of
ethics explaining what board members can and can't do. The school ethics commission is a state agency that oversees this. There um there may be from time to time. It hasn't happened here in forever. Um but in other school
districts sometimes there are school ethics act complaints that are brought against board members. Technically administrators too, not the code of ethics, but the prohibited act section of the school ethics act applies to administrators. Um they so any citizen could bring a a
code of ethics uh complaint um or a school ethics act complaint. The school ethics commission hears those. They probably hear I don't know maybe it's about 100 a year or so. I would tell you that the overwhelming majority are dismissed because oftentimes there they are not ethical violations but they
could be potentially. Um and so that's the enforcement mechanism that exists. So the so now this is the code of ethics and I'm just going to read through a couple of these and give a little bit of an explanation on some of these and there are I think there's about if it's 10 or 12 I forget exactly the number but
the first one I will uphold and enforce all laws rules and regulations of the state board of ed and court orders pertaining to schools desired changes shall be brought about only through legal and ethical procedures. Okay so just in general what are we talking about here? Um, it should be somewhat
self-explanatory, but to give an example of what is would be problematic. Um, if we go back to 2020 or maybe even 2021, there were some school districts that were saying, um, well, you know what? I know that there's an executive order out there that says that kids have to wear masks or whatever, but I don't want to
do that. Well, guess what? You have to because that's the law. We can't take it upon ourselves to say we're not going to follow the law. Just like in contrast, back uh back in like 2020 or late 2020 or 2021 in Florida, the governor passed
um an executive order that said school districts can't require students to wear masks when they return to school. And there were certain school districts, I think it was like Miami Dade County and Broward County where Fort Lauderdale is and maybe Palm Beach County, they said, "We're not doing that. We're going to
make kids wear." Well, guess what? that also violated an executive order. Regardless of what we think about the executive orders or the laws, we have to abide by them. And so those schoolboard members um are no longer schoolboard members because they didn't follow the law. So number one, always has follow
the law. Your lawyer and every lawyer that you will talk to loves it when people follow the law. We don't like it when people don't. Um B. I will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children
regardless of their ability, race, creed, sex or social standing. Self-explanatory. We do that. That's in our mission statement. I believe that's also in you know your various board policies. Non-discriminatory. That's straightforward. C. I will confine my
board action to policym planning and appraisal. and I will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them. Okay. So again talking about the big picture, the board wants to make sure that the school district is wellrun not to run the school. That is one of
the things that that drives that specific uh requirement. Um in terms of consulting with uh members of the public or or people who will be affected by them, that comes in a variety of forms. That could be through committee meetings. That could be through public outreach. It could be when you just have
a board policy that you're proposing and you have it on the agenda for a first reading and a second reading. When that happens, you are now consulting with the public. The public can come out here. They can give their thoughts. That's happened. We've heard thoughts from the public about policies. Arthur Zad has given us a number of thoughts. Um, very
helpful. So, that's the um that's the thought process there. D is I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see they're wellrun. That's obvious. E I recognize that authority rests with the board of ed and will make no personal promises or take
any private action that may compromise the board. Where we see potential violations or allegations of violations of this are things like letters to the editor or um Facebook posts or whatever social media post we're talking about now that may
not tell people, oh, I'm a board member, but this is my personal opinion. This is not the board's opinion. And if we do engage in social media posts or letters to the editor, things like that, we have to disclose that as board members. You have to put that in there um to make
sure that there's no private action that could technically compromise the board. F self-explanatory. I refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use the schools for personal gain or for the gain of friends. Obviously, we all know that. Uh
G, I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which if disclosed would needlessly indiv needlessly injure individuals or the schools. In all other matters, I will provide accurate information and in concert with my fellow board members, interpret to the staff the aspirations
of the community for its school. Also self-explanatory. What are potential violations of this? Years ago, there was um I think it might have been Lodi. I forget which school district it was, but I'm pretty sure it was LOI. There was a board member who I don't know had a had a beef
with the association president and had a blog where he put all of his thoughts on the blog and a lot of the information and thoughts were not accurate information um slanderous I would say uh with regard to the union president and other individuals uh so violated a
number of different um uh provisions of the school ethics act including the one about not taking private action that might compromise the board. his defense was not successful. Um was well I put the disclaimer on there. Well, it doesn't matter if you put the disclaimer on there if you violate all of these other areas. So um he was suspended for
6 months uh from serving on the board of education. That's one of the penalties that can happen. I I should probably go back and say if there is a violation, it's not going to happen here, but if there were a violation, the school ethics act can require either that um the board member be reprimanded. It could recommend a censure, which is
embarrassing. the board has to read a p basically a public censure at a board meeting. Um it could be suspension from the board and in very rare instances doesn't hasn't happened very often but I have seen it um they could even expel them from the board. So that could happen. Um the last couple uh I will
vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer so that we know and I guess the one thing that I would say for the members of the public not necessarily here but whoever may be listening is that the just to reinforce the the board doesn't hire anybody. Um
the superintendent makes recommendations. Does the board always have to say yes to those recommendations? No, it doesn't. But the board as a whole can't say, "Well, I know that you recommended so and so and we didn't like that person, but we want you to appoint Joe so and so." You can't. The the superintendent has to
make the recommendation. If the superintendent doesn't, it's not happening. Um I I will support and protect school personnel in the proper performance of their duties, which we basically talked about. And Jay, we also talked about I will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and act on the complaints at public meetings
only after failure of administrative solutions. That all goes back to trying to make sure things get resolved at the lowest possible level and also not administering the school, right? Um, again, limited involvement in personnel matters. We talked about this already. Um, again, I said you can you don't have
to vote yes every time there is a recommendation, but you also can't withhold your approval for hiring a candidate for arbitrary or capriccious reasons, right? So, you can't just say, well, you know, we keep hiring these people from XYZ school. I don't want to do that anymore. I want someone from a different school, you know, like from a
different college. Well, that's kind that seems a little arbitrary to me, right? Um there could be various reasons. I don't like what's on that person's resume. Okay, that's a valid reason. Um so, and in terms of board member involvement, again, not really so much of an issue here, but I've seen it
in other school districts. Some places the um especially for certain um hires that board members want to be involved with like principles or things like that. That's not really best practices. That's actually something that shouldn't happen.
Um it can happen only in very limited circumstances. Um if you're hiring like a a high level um administrative position and only to give basically to give some feedback to the superintendent, but you can't participate in those generally. The
school ethics commission offers advisory opinions. If there's ever something that a board member thinks, I'm not sure if I can do this. um you can request from the school ethics uh commission advisory opinion. They will send it to you. It will be private. Some of them get published, but they're published anonymously. You don't know what the
school district is or anything like that. Some of the more important ones um talks about whether you can participate in negotiations if you have an an aunt employed in the school district but is not a member of the union. The answer to that is no, you can't. Um for a variety of reasons, you can't participate in
discussions. You can't vote on it. You can't even be in the room when there's a discussion about it. Um what if you are a professor? Do you have a conflict related to personnel? Right? Well, if you're a professor and your students maybe are, you know,
involved in some way, like you can't give workshops or professional development to district employees while you're a board member. I mean, it's nice that people want to volunteer, but you can imagine there might be some um confusion there about whether or not you're uh running the school district or getting involved in personnel decisions
in that uh nature. interviewing personnel. We just kind of talked about limited circumstances. You could have a board member or two sit in on interviews, but they cannot interview the person. Um, you they don't want you to undermine the superintendent of schools. You hire a superintendent to do
these things because they have the expertise to make these recommendations and that's who makes the recommendations. The schoolboard members should not be involved in that generally speaking. Same thing like exit interviews. Sometimes we have scenarios where we have um an exodus of people for
a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's a coincidence, sometimes it's not. Um as a board member, you can say to the superintendent, I really think that we you should all be doing exit interviews and we should figure out why this is happening. There have been board members who said, well, I'm going to do the exit
interviews. Guess what? They got in trouble because you can't do that. That's basically administering the school district. So, um that goes beyond policymaking, planning, and appraisal. Um, and people might say, "Well, what if the superintendent doesn't do that?" Well, guess who evaluates the superintendent? It's the board. So, um,
those are things that you can ask the superintendent to do and have an expectation that they'll get done. Uh, if a majority of the board wants to do that, some areas where people either got in trouble or didn't get in trouble very briefly. In Lacy Township Board of Ed, there was a board member who while on
the board um, was endorsing people to run for the board. Oh, I don't know. We lost that there, but was endorsing people to run for the board while she was on um the board and basically saying don't vote for these people who are my current board members, but vote for these other people. The way that was
done when it was done seemingly in the official capacity of a board member as opposed to saying I'm a private citizen and this is who I think you should vote for. That was problematic. Otherwise, that wouldn't be that may be a short we may have shortened the presentation
totally. Um, but let's see what happens. Yeah, that's fine. That happens. Um, I also have it on my laptop, but I probably can't project it. um big picture perspective which I think everyone here knows because of all the
meetings that we've been at together is that um the board is here to make sure that the priorities that you have as board members what you think is best as a whole as a body um for how for like
what your priorities are those are get get reflected in your budget they get reflected in the direction that you go on when it comes to professional development or other things like that like gifted and talented is a great example that we were talking about here today. That's meeting your responsibility as a board member to make
sure that the school district is wellrun. You have the overall broad perspective as to how you want to see the school district run and and the things that you think need to be prioritized and then the superintendent is the person who's going to look at the
nuts and bolts of all that, how that gets implemented. the board the board doesn't get involved in any of the implementation process in terms of the actual implementation. You just follow up and say, "Okay, is this process working? Did we commit enough resources to it?" And your superintendent is the person who's going to give you all the
feedback about that. Um, before we get the presentation back up, I will also, and I know this is in the presentation, so when we get back to it, we'll skip over it. Social media use with respect to board members. That's an area where people sometimes get themselves into trouble. Just remember
the disclaimer number one is important. Um I'm also going to give some uh advice about I can go through this now. Yeah. Social media use which is um and the advice I give this to teachers when I give presentation to teachers and whatnot. I have some very easy advice
for social media use. If you um so we used to say like would you write something in an email for example that you would um not want uh posted on the front page of the New York Times. Right? That's kind of a dated example now. So now it's like, would you want your post
to go viral? If you don't want your post to go viral, don't do it, right? Or alternatively, the other thing I say is if you're sitting there and you're composing, whether it's an email or a social media post or anything else, and you say, "Oh gosh, I wonder if I wonder if people are going to take this the wrong way, if they're going to be
offended, you've answered your own question. Stop." Because if you had to think about it, that means the answer is yes. Um, so when those things come, like you look, you have an obligation or you have a responsibility that you feel that you want to communicate with the public, that's fine. Social media is one of
those ways, but just be careful. Um, because where people often get themselves into trouble, schoolboard members, is that they post things on social media that potentially compromises the board and constitutes private action. And that's among all the violations, that's one that's more
common. Um, so back to this in in Manchester, this seems like a like a like a strange situation here, but we had a board member who was a volunteer volunteer football coach. He got appointed to the board for a brief period of time. He still stayed as a volunteer of the as a football coach.
Technically, you can't volunteer while you're also volunteering to be on the board. The reason is because you're now engaging with other staff members. You're engaging with students. It it really blurs the lines. Um, in this particular case, even though they said the guy
violated the act, they gave no penalty whatsoever because he didn't know. Um, it wasn't really clear. There are things that you can do. So, for example, if there's no interaction with students or um staff members like building the sets for the school play that happens like
off school hours and not even like in front of the students or whatever and then you know, you just help out, that's okay. But anything like you couldn't be the assist volunteer assistant play director now you're interacting with students you're interacting with staff that's that's going to be problematic and there are cases that deal with that.
Um in this is a great example of what not to do. Um in this particular uh situation there was a school employee who had an issue with uh the principal andor superintendent. And so the school
board member knew this person and was friends with this person and the person said, "Well, can you bring this letter to all of the board members um so they know what's going on here, but don't give it to the superintendent, but I want you to give it to all the board me." I mean, right away, like as we talk about I'm starting getting more and more anxious just thinking about it because
you can't do that, right? The number one thing that that board member should have done is to say, "Hey, listen. I feel for you. We have a personal relationship. We're friends. That's why I can't get involved. Okay. You need to refer this to the superintendent. If the problem is with the superintendent, then refer it
to the board president and they'll and they'll do whatever they need to do. But I'm not going to be part of any of that because we have this relationship. I can't I can't be involved. Um and that board member not only follow through on all those things, but then also was questioning the superintendent's position. All it was a mess and that
person was suspended for 60 days. Um, other potential problems. Um, someone came to a board meeting, I guess, in Mano Township, uh, who was a school employee somewhere else and comp and was complaining about either the board or a board member or whatever.
And, um, this board member was agrieved. And so, he called that person's supervisor in the other school district um, said, "Hey, I'm a member of the board and this is what's happening and you need to be get control of your employees or whatever." You cannot do that, right? I mean, members of the
public come here, they have the right to complain. That's totally fine. Um, we can't try to silence members of the public. Um, or encourage them not to attend meetings by calling their employers. That's obviously no good. That board member was censured. Um, should that board member maybe have been
suspended? Maybe. I think so. But that's what happened. Um, this, okay, like this one is pretty straightforward, right? If you're a board member and your child has uh some issues in the district and has perhaps like a disciplinary record or whatever
it is, you can't try to change the record and get that removed. I mean, sure, you could make requests through the appropriate channels to say, well, I, you know, the law allows me to ask for things to be removed when they're no longer relevant or inaccurate, whatever.
Sure, you can do all those things, but you can't throw your weight around as a board member and say, "Well, hey, I'm a board member. you need to take this problematic reprimand. Um that's what happened though in um Alamucci Township in East Orange. Um this is like you can
kind of see maybe how this happens, but it shouldn't happen. Uh the um the board member um as I recall was voting on uh against a board policy that said we're only going to name schools after individuals who are
deceased and the name can't be connected with anyone who's involved in politics. This board member said, "No, no, I don't want to do that. And I actually want to put it on a motion to name one of our schools in honor of the lieutenant governor when she was the lieutenant governor before she passed away." Um, and it just so happened that this person who was a board member served as
lieutenant governor's chief of staff. Guess what? That's clearly a conflict. That is like the definition of surrendering your independent judgment to special interests or partisan um groups for person or for the personal gain of friend. I mean, they just can't do that. That was I don't know how that got past the smell test for that person,
but it somehow it did. Um, so um we talked about social media use. I mean, you have I think you have, if I recall correctly, I think you have a policy that specifically addresses it, but don't post anything that would violate any of the district's policies. Self-explanatory. If you do refer to
your position on the board, make sure you say that I'm a board member, but this is my own personal opinion. And make sure the content is appropriate. Um, it doesn't prohibit you from putting stuff on social media saying like, "Hey, here's the, you know, there's a board meeting tonight or here's the list of the, you know, here's our agenda or
whatever the that's fine." Um but other stuff kind of goes uh beyond that. Um and the other thing I would say is which we kind of talked about in one of the other cases um mere inclusion of the disclaimer is not enough if you violate other aspects of the act. So the the
content of the speech is important. Um one of the things that I can tell you too because I represented some schoolboard members who um had uh cases brought against them and another school district. They had social media accounts. They were as private citizens
advocating for certain people to get elected to the board. Fine. They had general disclaimers on their website. They didn't have to put a disclaimer on every single post. They had general disclaimers like on the main Facebook page or whatever it was. That was fine. However, they had like when they were
running for the board, they did they did something like Peterson for Westwood Board of Ed or Pontillo for Westwood Board of Ed. And they never changed the name. and the school ethics commission said nothing here violates the act but you really should not keep that on there should be your personal page it creates
confusion you know people might think that these are official communications so those are things just to be mindful of um in terms of recusal very quickly if you have an immediate family member um or a relative who is and that's you
know defined as all these individuals for some reason cousins aren't in there but everybody else seemingly is um whether by blood marriage your adoption and there is some type of employment action. If they're employed in the district, you got to recuse yourself. That means not even participating in the discussion. Forget about not voting, but
not participating in the discussion at all. Um even if the person is if it's not an automatic recusal. So you may have situations where you have a spouse who's employed in another school district um but is also you know covered by the NJA.
Can you participate in negotiations in that situation? The answer generally speaking is no. Um certainly not for an immediate family member like a spouse or dependent child or things like that. If it's an out of district relative and it's someone that's somewhat remote, this is where you're going to get
friendly with some of your relatives maybe you haven't spoken to in a while because if when you get elected to be a board member because if they have a leadership position or is involved in negotiations in the other district, then maybe you can't participate negotiations. So, you know, if your um you know, if your nephew is is an
employee of a neighboring school district and you know, negotiations are coming up and you want to participate on the negotiations committee, check to make sure that your nephew isn't on that district's negotiating team or is uh the grievance chairperson or some other leadership role. Those are things to just keep in mind.
Um, and there is also circumstances I I whenever there's a a question, I always pull up this chart and I always look at this chart and then I look at the cases as need be. But basically what you will see from this chart is that um you can't participate in negotiations
essentially if you um are in a similar union in another school district or if your spouse is a member of the local union or a current member of a similar unit or dependent child or things of that nature. Um relatives may be depending upon their
circumstances. You also can't vote to ratify the contract in most of these situations. However, the other thing too is if you have a a a spouse or maybe a dependent child um who is employed in the school or even actually any relative who is employed in this school district,
you can't participate in any issues involving a superintendent or even a superintendent search, right? Um so those are things that sometimes come up uh just to be mindful of. Anyway, that was the short version, I think kind of short, um of the uh school ethics act.
Um, again, like I said, we never really have any issues here. Um, so, uh, thank you for letting me present on that. If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, you can just ask me at any other time, too. Just real quick, just to clarify, in terms of volunteering, it has to be an actual school type entity,
not like not the HSA because it's not No, that's totally fine. Yeah. In fact, there was a question about um in one of the advisory opinions, could someone be part of I think in that particular district it was like an educational foundation that raised money for the schools. So that person was not only the president of the board of ed but also
the president of the educational foundation. That's totally fine so long as when you are acting in your role as a board member, if there's something that deals with the education foundation, you have to completely recuse yourself. Don't discuss it. Don't vote on it. just be you don't even be in the room when
it's being discussed. That's the way that that should happen. But otherwise, yes, that's totally fine. Schoolbased clubs or athletics or things like that that we really can't be involved. Very limited. Uh again, like there was one case where a guy helped out by um
helping someone in the school district with the band by I don't think he drove the truck, but he unloaded and loaded the van that had the band the band equipment. That was fine. That was so minimal it wasn't a big deal. But anything more than that is problematic. Yeah. We're such a small town that the
people that typically contribute are doing things in multiple locations. That's typically what happens. Yeah. The smaller the town, the more you see that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Again, I had the same thing because I volunteer. I coach a lot of kids in the town through WCK programs and other but not school
related. Yeah. No problem. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Okay, that brings us to item 2.1, student representative comments. Any comments from our student reps? Okay, so item three, approval of
consent agenda items. It's items marked with an aspect on the agenda. Can I have a motion and a second, please? Motion, Thompson, second. Dr. Dr. Mester. Uh, roll call, please. Miss Choy, Dr.
Mester, Miss Molina, Mr. Park, yes. Mr. Zepa, yes. Mr. Seel, Miss Thompson and President Lee. Yes. Motion carries on consent agenda. Thank you. That brings us to item five, administrative reports. Dr.
Okay. I will report as short as possible. Um before I get into my report though, I did want to share news with the district and anyone watching. Um today, uh we found out that uh Mr. Augur Ratino, who was the superintendent here,
um many many years ago before my time here, um he passed uh whether I think it was yesterday or the day before. Um he passed. Uh so we wanted to send our deepest condolences to his family, um to his loved ones. um his uh services uh
will be held on Thursday and uh there is an article uh with more details. If anybody uh wants the article, please reach out to me. If you can't find it online, um please reach out to me and I can send it your way. So, we did want to share uh and give our sincerest condolences to his
family. Um okay, then moving on. Um today on the agenda it did mention uh that we were going to have the board uh and district goal update. Um so we did not go through the full update which good thing we moved it because we would still be doing presentations at this
point. Um we will do the board and district update next meeting on May 6th. Um the on the agenda today uh on the consent agenda, the board approved the revised school calendar. Um so for those
of you that have been calling the main offices and have been dying to know when our last day of school will be, um you will see that the agenda is now approved or the calendar is now approved on the agenda. Um, it is scheduled to go out through Parent Square tomorrow at 9:00
am. Um, so all of the community will get the information tomorrow at 9:00 am. Um, but for those of you that have stuck it out and are listening and for our student reps here, I'll give you the inside scoop. Um June 19th will be in the morning will be ACS moving up
ceremony and then in the afternoon will be LMS graduation and then June 20th we will end our school year with the last day of school being June 20th with LHS graduation. Uh more information will come from the building principles uh either tomorrow or in the next few
days. Uh then we have uh a few things over break. Um uh our humanities academy students and our STEM academy students had a successful trips. Um our uh humanities academy went to uh Italy and they
traveled through Italy. They spent uh almost 10 days other I think it nine 8 n 10 days I think. Renee, were you on the trip? Yes. Um and then our STEM academy students went to Japan and I had the honor of chaperoning that trip. Uh it was an amazing experience. Um it was it
was phenomenal to see the students our students our kids in a completely other country with a language that they most of them don't know. Um and just the way that they they uh presented themselves and the way that they carried themselves and were was just so exemplary. Um you
know huge thank you to the teachers miss uh Kelty who organized the Italy trip and Mr. Lenerys who organized the uh Japan trip uh and the chaperones, all of the chaperones that took their spring break and spent time away that they could have been on a beach somewhere or
you know relaxing with their family um decided to go to and chaperon these trips. And let me tell you, chaperoning is work. It's a lot of work. A lot of work goes into that chaperoning. Um but our kids did a phenomenal job across the board. Uh they represented Leonia so well. Um, and a huge thank you to the
parents that raise these children that come to Leona schools because they are phenomenal children. Um, our tour guide in Japan was just completely in awe at how amazing our kids are. Um, and that credit goes to the parents and to the community here who just you do such a
great job that makes our job easier. Uh, and then just finally some a reminder that our Limelighters spring musical is coming up. Opening day is Friday. So, if you have not bought your tickets yet, um, Friday night, Saturday
night, and then next week also Friday and Saturday, I will be at next Friday's show. So, if you want me to save you a seat, you let me know. And that's it for me. Wonderful. Thank you. It's Mean Girls, Movie of My Generation.
Mr. Thomas Evage. Thank you, President Lee. So tonight I just have a uh various items to kind of um let the board know for some updates as well as the public. The first item relates to the application uh for the increase in expenditures in the proposed
2526 budget that was approved last board meeting. So all that information has been filed with the state. So currently the district is still waiting to receive uh receive from the state for the approval allowing the district to move forward with revising the expenditures
and that will you know happen at the public hearing on May 6th. So you know we're working with the state and getting that approved and any additional information that's requested. The next item relates to our SRE auction which was held on April
19th. So the district sold 477 ESRs uh for a total amount received about a little over 93,000. So which is over what we anticipated our anticipation in the budget for this school year was about a little over 85,000. So that came in over
which is a great thing. Uh the next the next area relates to our EV buses. So we currently I I'm happy to report that we currently receive four of the seven EV buses which has been a a long process uh relating to uh getting the grant funding
from the D as well as securing a lease for the additional proceeds. So, uh, currently the installation of the EV charges are are underway and and expected expected completion date uh should be in a few weeks with the
remaining of the three EV buses shortly following within those those few weeks. So, everyone, you know, for the public, the board, you know, be on a lookout for those EV buses. They'll be driving through the community transporting our students whether it's to and from school as well as field trips, athletic events.
Uh the next item relates to the summer EBT that is currently underway for the summer of 2025. Uh which to just inform the public and the board again, the summer EBT is a federal program to help communities buy food for school age
children during the summer. Uh families will will receive the the same amount as last year, which is $120 for each elig eligible child. Um in New Jersey, summer EBT benefits will be loaded on a card. That
card um is mailed directly from the state, not from the district. Eligibility is based on household income levels. Um and that determination is either done by the uh state automatically through direct certification as well as an application process that families would have to be
have to fill out. So, for all um families listening from home, we encourage you if you haven't filled out an application and you think you might be eligible to complete an application by the deadline is May 9th for this upcoming school year and you would still, you know, qualify if you are
determined to be eligible for that $120 per child. Um, and the last piece I just want to read as far as a statement relating to my resignation, which is on tonight's board agenda. It has been a privilege to work
alongside a dedicated board, passionate educators in a community deeply committed to the success of students for work tirelessly uh to ensure that our district operates with transparency, efficiency, and integrity. I am proud of
the progress that we have made together uh with the board with administration from strengthening our financial operations to financially supporting initiatives that enhance the educational experience of every student which you know we see from the presentation with
the gifted and talented. Uh to the board, thank you for your trust and collaboration and leadership. uh to my colleagues and staff, your support and professionalism have have meant a a lot to me and to the community. Thank you for your engagement and and and the
underwing support you provide to our schools and to me personally during my tenure in Leonia. As I move on onto a new opportunity, I carry with a with me a deep appreciation for the work we've done together and the relationships I
built here. I wish uh continued success for the district of Leonia and thank you again for the opportunity to serve the district. I will always hold my time uh with the Leonia Board of Education in high regard. Thank you very much, Eric. And we do
still have Eric for a few more months before he goes, so we'll have opportunity to say goodbye. Um we do appreciate all the hard work you've done for us over the years. Is the construction that's going on in the LHS parking lot, is that the EV chargers stuff? Okay. finally. Um, okay. So, that brings us to
item six, committee reports, uh, student representatives. Uh, thank you, President Lee. For tonight, we have two different items to report. First one is the NJSLA is coming up next week and AP exams through May 5th to May 16th are
coming up the following week. and make sure that students are getting ready for it and good luck on their exams. Second one is to all seniors, congratulations on getting accepted into college. Make sure that you accept the offer by May 1st. Update your Navian and post your
commitment on the Leonia seniors Instagram account. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. Um that brings us to um board of ed practices and principles. Miss Melman's not here tonight. Is there anyone from the committee that can or has anything to
share? We met virtually last time. Uh, everyone kind of met uh on their own to work on the presentation. Thank you. Um, buildings and grounds, have you had any meetings? No, we have yet to have meetings um since our last um board meeting. But I'd like to say
I'm excited about the EV buses and the chargers. And one other thing, I know it came up, but um the doors are installed at LHS. Yes, they are installed. We can stop talking about doors. It's great. Doors
and EV chargers will no longer be on our agendas, everyone. It's exciting. Yes. So, there will be some student parking spots that will need to be eliminated. Um but Mr. Service and Mr. calendar are working on it and then they'll they'll contact students
directly. Okay. Education. So, we met um and got a preview of the presentation that everybody saw tonight and and discussed that at length and next steps. Um we also talked about uh amending uh the the school calendar
which which we approved tonight. Um, we also spoke about um potential trips to Germany and Greece next year for spring break and those were also on the consent agenda, I believe. And the last thing I wanted to mention is that
is um we've been looking at the graduation credit requirement at the high school and aligning our requirements uh with the state standards. Currently they we we've been at 130 credits versus 120 which is the state requirement and something that um
most of our peers adhere to. So we are um going to be moving in that direction. That policy is on the agenda for because that went to the policy committee next which I'm sure will then update and that's on first reading on this agenda.
When it comes to finance and planning, that's myself. Um our our last meetings were actually regarding the the recent special meeting that we held. Um we haven't met since then. Um our next meeting will be the
um following the county's confirmation of our budget. Um that brings us to policy. Right. So, we met actually u towards the end of March and had a very productive meeting kind of covering off over a half a dozen policy updates um many of which
are now on the first reading for today. We do have some work to do um to have some live discussion again on some other future policies. So, we'll be scheduling that in the next few weeks uh you between spring break and some of the superintendent search. We've been rather busy, but we look forward to having that
meeting and then being able to see those policies that are reflected on on the next board agenda. Thank you. Okay, that brings us to our next agenda item. We have no new business for tonight. Um, public comment is the following agenda item. Receiving
no from the public. We will move on to board comment on any non-aggenda items. Any board members have any comments? I would like to wish Eric the best of luck and thank him for his time here. Um, you know, he had set a high standard and I hope whoever comes in after him,
you know, we'll keep it up. We have him until July 1st, so we have time to say our goodbyes. June 17th, we're going to say our goodbyes. Okay. Um, so the next item on the agenda is executive session for close session. Um, we do need to go into close session
for some discussions and we do anticipate that to be about 45 minutes. Coming out of that, we will take action on personnel and then adjournment. Um, so for those of you watching at home on YouTube, we will have to terminate the session. And for our our student
members, we'll have to ask you to to leave. Um, and I will take a motion and a second. Miss Thompson and a second. Second, Mr. Sagel. Uh, all in favor? Uh, any opposentions? Okay, we are now in close session at
9:25. Miss Troy, Dr. Mester, Miss Molina, Mr. Park, yes. Mr. Zepka, yes. Mr. Seel, Miss Thompson, and President Lee, yes. Motion carries on personnel. Thank you. Can I have a motion for adjournment, please? Mr. Park, second.
Miss Molina. Um, all in favor? Any opposed abstensions? Okay, we are adjourned at 9:53 p.m. Thank you, everyone.