##VIDEO ID:ioXuaKzZvNA## e e e e e e e e e e yeah roll call M gar here M Calen Dron Hayden here M gunderman here M Moro here Mr Walsh Mr Zay you have a corner thank you please join me in the flag salute I to the flag of the United States of America the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all this is a public meeting of the Board of Education of the burough of New Providence adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with PL 1975 chapter 231 and that a notice was made in conformance with Section 13 of the ACT whenever the B business of the burrow whenever the business of the board requires it to convene to close session the session will begin no later than 9:30 p.m. at the conclusion of the need for closed session the board will reconvene to the public portion of the meeting at that time the board will complete any other business that may be before it and the public will then be given an opportunity to be heard before the meeting is adjourned good evening everyone um where did I put it um before we get started uh with tonight's meeting I just wanted to quickly address um the breach to power schools that occurred on December 28th um in know and you may have heard about it in the news um in a letter to affected districts they stated that power school became aware of a potential cyber security incident involving unauthorized access to certain information through one of their Community focused customer support portals power source the New Providence School District was not affected by this breach but has been made aware that the Bad actors gained access into the system by using a compromised credential to enter power source in response to the breach power school has deactivated the account to to gain used to gain access to the system and conducted a full password reset to further tighten password access control for all power source customer support portal accounts there is no evidence that other Power School products such as as the ones that are used here in District were affected and they have not found any malware or continued unauthorized activity in the power school environment so to reiterate the New Providence School District was not affected by the breach back in December um moving along as we continue our strategic planning during the school year for the next five years I thank everyone who returned a survey or or who has attended one of the first three sessions in our districtwide strategic plan for 20 25 will provide a road map for our district to achieve our goals and allocate resources effectively but it will only be as good as the input we receive from our educational Community I hope that you will join us for the remaining six sessions on mental health and resilience in February performance metrics and evaluation Elementary instruction curriculum and programs secondary instruction curriculum and programs Athletics music and Performing Arts and co-curriculars and finance facilities and security while we welcome everyone to join at the dialogue in person if you cannot attend but would like your voice to be heard I would encourage you to email Dr zley myself or the board with any thoughts you may have and lastly before I uh pass this off to Dr zery if anyone is in the area of the municipal building uh our student Arts show um open this afternoon and you would be amazed with the amount of talent that is in this District that's now hanging hanging in the hallway so I I implore you to go over and take a look and what's out there Dr zley that's all I have thank you Miss kakaro um this evening we have a new face here Bobby brass who will be our student rep for the evening filling in for Vince so welcome and the floor is yours good evening everyone thank you Dr zerle for the warm welcome my name is Bobby Br and I'm vice president of the senior class and I'm excited to share some fantastic updates from our school as we power through the academic and athletic Seasons let's start with that uh academics we're currently halfway through midterms I'm happy to report that our student body has shown tremendous dedication and hard work the exams are proceeding very well reflecting the rigorous effort put for by put forth by our students last day of exams will be this Monday January 27th our National Honors Society has been exceptionally active tutoring middle school and high school students enhancing our academic support network in terms of Athletics our teams are having a season to remember our ice hockey team has advanced to the count County finals where we'll take on Westfield High School in the championship game this Friday at 6 pm. at Weeno Park our girls basketball team has also had an outstanding performance this season a special shout out to coach pesera who secured his 400th career win on January 18th against Glen Ridge an incredible accomplishment the boys basketball team continues to show great promise and is preparing for our eighth annual spread the word inclusion games on February 1st against GL I encourage everyone to get their tickets early they're going fast in addition the team will be hosting a blackout game to to raise money for Red Cross and and Los Angeles fire victims the game will be on February 4th against oratory Kudo star basketball program for the work they are doing in support of these great causes our swimming teams are gearing up for their County Championship meet this Sunday at the Jersey Aquatic Center we're excited to see them compete right here in New Providence at the Union County Indoor Track championships two school records were broken the girls spring medley relay comprising of Caitlyn Orchard Sophia esot Jillian Troy and Miranda bournique with a time of 43155 at the G1 relay championships and in the girls 800 meter Miranda bournique with a time of 22.7 s at the Union County championships in wrestling Braden Valley defended his title as the Union County champion at 144 pounds dominating last year's Champion with an impressive decision of 10 to zero this marks his second consecutive County Title congratulations to Braden and the entire wrestling program last but not least our varsity cheerleading team won their division and were named Grand Champions at the Golden Bear Invitational held this past weekend beond Sports our students are also excelling in extracurriculars our model un team had had a remarkable achievement at their recent conference in Hershey Pennsylvania with 1700 students participating for the second year in a row they won the outstanding delegation award Tai Aikido won the Premier country award representing Japan additionally myori Raja karuna and Davis stas forth were selected as alternates to attend the National Conference Kona a testament to their exceptional skills and preparation Dan rosika a New Providence High School junior auditioned for the New Jersey music educators associ assciation All State Bann on Saturday January 18th 2025 as a result of this audition he was accepted as second chair Bas clarinet in the Wind Ensemble he will perform with the Ensemble on Saturday Saturday February 22nd as part of the New Jersey music educators Association State Convention in Atlantic City he will also perform at the Ensemble at NJ PAC on Sunday February 23rd earlier this evening a number of our students were recognized through the Student Art Exhibit at the board of educ Board of Education Office for their amazing artistic talents congratulations to all our students whose artwork was displayed as a part of this exhibit the variety of artwork is truly amazing in closing the achievements across our academics Athletics and extracurricular activities are a true Testament to the hard work and spirit of our student body and the unwavering support of our faculty and staff as students there's much to take pride in as a part of the New Providence High School Community thank you all for your continued support and for playing a vital role in preparing us for future success thank you very much Bobby at this time I'm going to pass it over to Mr yugul aluro for our enrollment report thank you Dr zerle good evening everyone at Allan W Roberts we currently have 633 students at saltbrook elementary school we currently have 5 82 students at New Providence Middle School we currently have 391 students at New Providence High School we currently have 647 students for a total of 2,2 53 students in addition we currently have 35 students in added District placements for a grand total of 2,288 students thank you very much this evening I would like to give an update on behalf of the board and the district on our redistricting plan I would like to provide for everyone the chronology of events that ultimately let led the board in August 2022 to make the decision to redistrict approximately in June 2017 The Bard property on Central Avenue was sold as the sale took place and it was known that housing would be developed on the bar property the Board of Education approved stati statistical forecasting LLC in August of 2021 to complete a demographic study the sole impetus at this time for the demographic study was the sale of Bard the sale raised concern of capacity at awr and the board wanted to be prepared in the event awr would be overc capacity the first demographic study was presented to the board on December 16 2021 the presentation included enrollments prek through 12 which were projected to increase for the next two years due to the home construction before reversing Trend enrollments would decline in the last two years at the as the elementary school and the last three years in the middle school there will be slight net outward migration of students present in the district and finally if not for the new proposed housing the pk12 enrollments would continue to decline the new housing would offset much of the enrollment decline that would have occurred what was also presented to the board at this time was that there was an inequity between the enrollments of awr and saltbrook and that Supra currently had and was projected to have fewer students than awr the board decided to have statistical forecasting to complete a redistricting analysis which was presented to the board on July 28 2022 based on the analysis the board and administration devised the redistricting plan based on recommendations that was approved by the board of education at the August 20th 2022 meeting in September of 2022 a letter was sent to the community by then superintendent Dr melli included in Dr Mitchell's letter was information about the redistricting plan Dr melli explained as a result of our evaluation of saltbrook and Robert's current projected enrollments there is an identified inequity this inequity would leave saltbrook school with a significantly smaller population than Robert School Dr melli explained in his letter that the next two years would allow families in identified zones time to become aware of the changes and evaluate them accordingly for their children the plan included moving the existing district line for elementary schools from Livingston to South Street which many years ago was the case the Salient points in Dr michelli's letter stated that the primary goal was to provide Equity among the elementary schools with the least amount of disruption for our students by this he meant that we were trying to ensure that all current students who started at an elementary school would continue to stay in that school through the sixth grade he explained that in September 2024 which was this past September incoming kindergarten students identified in zones A and D would attend saltbrook school instead of Roberts any newly registered students who move into zon's a and regardless of grade beginning with this past September would also attend saltbrook school instead of Roberts any student students who currently live in zones A and D and attend Allan W Roberts through the 2324 school year would be grandfather to stay at Roberts and would not need to move to saltbrook he explained that if parents had a child at Roberts and they had another child entering kindergarten who would attend saltbrook as a result of these Transitions and they would like for their older child to attend s Brook as well that they could make a request and we would honor it pending class siiz capacity at saltbrook this would allow for parents to have both students attend the same school however Dr melli clearly stated in this letter that this would not be honored in the inverse if they had children entering kindergarten that were in the identified zones during the proposed years they must go to saltbrook he also explained that in the 2526 school year we would start our second phase in I'm sorry that there would be no additional movement and we would continue our phase in of zones A and D he explained then that in September of 2026 we would start the second of our phasin which would occur in zones B and C beginning in September 26 school year 2627 would be zoned as a kindergartner to attend saltbrook beginning in September of 2027 at that point all students residing in zones a through D except those who were grandfathered and were able to stay at Robert's school because they had already been enrolled in the school when redistricting started would attent saltbrook in the 2324 school year the district continued to coordinate with Dr grip and the anticipated overall lower enrollment in the district started but full day kindergarten was also implemented and the numbers were higher than we had in initially anticipated Dr grip was contacted and he advised the district to look at the numbers from our October 2023 snapshot at that time Dr grip advised another report was needed to determine if the redistricting plan was still necessary in January 2024 the board approved a follow-up report from Dr grip statistical forecasting based on the full day kindergarten numbers that we had from the October 2023 snapshot in April of 2024 Dr melli presented the results of the update updated demographic study which showed that the district should continue with the redistricting plan the updated plan included the dwelling information for Bard it also recognized other potential housing construction but not included in this report where the Numbers number of dwellings um that would be at those properties if sold Dr melli stated at the board meeting that it is concluded that the projections and plans are correct and no changes are needed at this time this year during the fall months we had some requests from families that reside in zones A and D to keep their younger child entering kindergarten next year at awr as their eldest child is there this prompted myself and the board to revisit the work done by statistical forecast Ing and to also gather some further information we gathered further information on the numbers of families which reside in Pockets a through D Who currently have a child or children at awr which results in 96 families in total these 96 families account for 134 students as families can have multiple children in the building after having a robust conversation and discourse the board has decided that the redistricting plan as it was discussed and approved will be carried out here are the Salient reasons in addition to all the information that we have from our former analysis from statistical forecasting our redistricting plan can impact families with multiple children through the year of 2029 2030 if residing In Pockets A and D and until 2031 to 2032 if residing In Pockets BNC there are no way to make decisions on a caseby casee basis when we currently have 96 families that may be impacted in the event they have children that currently are younger than kindergarten age or have additional children in the future this is why the district and the board from the onset stated in all communication that in order to have the least disruption for students students currently enrolled at awr could be grandfathered to stay at awr parents could also request that their eldest child currently at ADW could be moved to saltbrook pending class size the board also chose to phase this in in two stages over four years so that families could plan I would like to note that there are districts that move the line and everyone moves with it our board chose not to do do this to accommodate families upon further analysis both myself and Mr Tesa met with the borrow planner to better understand future housing implications currently on Central AV next to the B property there are eight properties with no age restrictions that have been zoned for affordable housing what this means is that if a warehouse owner chooses to sell their property the likelihood is that a developer will purchase it because it has already been zoned and approved for a building we also know currently to this date that 221 chanin has been sold and plans are with the building department at the town there are a total of 104 dwellings at this property all of which are zoned for Roberts we also know that there are four additional blocks that already have been zoned for 143 dwellings 85 dwellings and 150 dwellings we all recognize that this is not easy for families who reside in zones a through D and will be impacted therefore for those families to choose not to move their eldest child to saltbrook we have already began working on school calendars to ensure that there is no overlap with events such as Halloween parades and clap outs we are also prepared to have an early morning drop off and late pickup at both schools for those families moving forward as we open registration in February specifically February 13 2025 on a caseby casee basis and pending kindergarten size at saltbrook we will allow families to make a request for an incoming kindergarten for the fall 2025 Who currently reside in Pocket C and D where there is not any movement currently to start their kindergarten child at saltbrook next year as their youngest child sibling to the kindergarten will eventually be there at this time I open up the floor for our board to add comments as we were all involved again in this very robust conversation that took place over at least a month and a half I just want to say that the board recognizes that this is not an easy decision and and it's not one that the board has taken lightly and we know that we would like to keep your families together so it it has nothing to do with that but it does really have a lot to do with class size and in districts right next to us two years ago they just ripped the bandaid off and they moved the line and they moved all the kids and we chose not to do that so that your kids would not have to move if if they didn't have to anyone I I was just gon to add I think to the part of the Dr grip discussion too we did that prior to the bond referendum right so that we were trying to determine whether we needed to add space which I think that was the main objective when we started whether we need to add space inclusion was we did not because we had it between the two schools and then that's what just I wanted to throw that in because the bond referen was a big decision that many here were involved in so yeah I I also just want to add that I know that this is not an easy decision for anyone and you know to what burn just said this has been something that we have been going back and forth with since I I got on the board in 2021 but I just want to confirm we are going to be monitoring all the class sizes moving forward with it and I think we have to keep in mind as well you know it was just a year ago that we had a large group of parents that were in here with awr students because they had very large class sizes and that's something that definitely is going to take into effect as the kids go down there's a time when we're allowed to have for open comments it's coming in next I promise we'll we're just following protocol uh I just think this is something to be kept in mind down the road because we've had many different classes that you know up until what third grade it's 25 kids capped and then it opens up to 27 and that makes a very big difference and right now we're playing around with a lot of variables that you know we don't know how many more kids we're going to be getting into the district and I think that it's a very scary situation not just for us to be dealing with but all the towns in New Jersey so it is something that we will be keeping an eye on and hopefully working with families and one of the other things is is The Bard property that's actively under construction um will be opening for residency in exactly a year from now which is halfway through the next school year and all of those dwellings are zone for Robert so as people move in with children in January we need to you know welcome them into our schools and they would be welcomed into Roberts and we need to look ahead into the fact that that is happening next year and you know if I'm mistaken on any of those dates but I remember that we' specifically asked that and it is a year and that is next school year um we we expect that those residents will be started to be moved into and there will be families in there thank you Dr zerle uh yeah so we're going to come back to questions so we're we're going to let Dr zerle finish her piece and then there'll be an opportunity for D be to heard so I don't want you to think we're skipping over you okay moving into state of the schools and midyear review um we do typically in January like to do a mid-year review um I called it state of the schools because a lot of the things that I'm going to talk about when I talk about how we're meeting our current goals will include things that are happening within the district and the schools but I would like to state that I'm not going to get into great detail because as we know in February it is our highlight board meeting with our curriculum report where Mr Keeny our department heads our teachers and our students do a wonderful job of highlighting the many many things that we're doing this year in our schools so the goals of this presentation are to highlight the progress and achievement towards our board and committee goals and as well as to outline the Strategic priorities for the remainder of the school year so as we know our mission and our philosophy is that in partnership with our students teachers parents and Community the mission of the New Providence School District is to prepare our students academically for their Pursuits to develop the appropriate social and emotional skills to be productive empathetic Global Citizens and to stimulate a growth mindset for continued lifelong learning and a culturally diverse Society we always want to make sure that when we're setting goals and we're looking ahead we're always rooted in just this the mission and philosophy of why we're here and what we want to do for our students so I'm going to start with vision 2025 um as you all know from your goals book um we have a very lengthy legal side um paper that goes over um Vision 2025 with all the Strategic goals over that fiveyear period and how we've met them I will share with you and you know that we have met most of those goals for this evening I would like to give keep it more big picture because as we ourselves go through strategic planning this year and when we get to the spring as I discussed with the board we'll be meeting in committees I will be making sure that I am identifying those sub goals within that long legal sheet of paper that we may not have hit upon in these five years but as you know over the past years Dr melli has done a great job of reporting out how we have met those goals Big Picture This was our vision 2025 so we were really looking to enhance our district-wide communication programs Focus focusing on technology distribution of District information continuing to enable improved engagement with our community I'd like to give kudos to Miss mangle sitting in the back who has been a tremendous part of fulfilling that goal and ensuring that we are keeping both our families our community our teachers our students AB breast of the wonderful things that we are doing I'd like to also point out that we did um I guess it probably is now four years ago started a Communications plan that every year annually we do take a look at which further along in the presentation you'll see some of that as well um we really wanted to look to enhance Elementary student student program for early student development have more resources and experiences to enhance student achievement as you know um we purchased a brand new I ready math curriculum two years ago which uh was a very lengthy process and a very in-depth process to choose the program that we would go with um it is doing phenomenal things for our students albe it um it was a rough go to begin that was not just here New Providence um any new math programs around the state that districts are purchasing and implementing uh because of the new standards and the new way of teaching our students um there are some Growing Pains to get through but currently our students are doing great with that as well as purchasing also for the um language arts and reading side of it the I ready diagnostic model for this year where we are testing our students with a diagnostic model in that area as well um of course enhancing secondary program student achievement um I'll just you know bring up that Mr Henry and his team worked very hard over many years um throughout Co and then right after to change the bell schedule at the middle school um in order to make it a rotating and drop and to add opportunities for students which again later on in the presentation you'll see some of that um of course we have social emotional learning which is intertwined within our curriculum and all that we do um there are many different ways that we've met this uh dog therap y program um and the like um as I just said we're continuing to monitor our Housing Development and proactively address the impact on the district in terms of facilities as well as instructional perspective um lastly enhancing our I'm sorry not lastly but enhancing our uh District facilities modernized learning we had all of our new furniture which we purchased with the bond referendum provided an extensive amount of professional development on that um continuing to um Foster higher level thinking real world problem solving we continue to do that through our personal learning initiative which really now is a program that we do observe our teachers through our rubric to guide effective teaching and then lastly develop and Implement data driven decision-making for teachers parents and students to enhance student achievement so that's an overall of the vision 2025 when we get into this year when we all work together last spring to develop the board goals we looked at um talking about strategic planning and that this would be the year that we would create our strategic planning topics that we would create a framework so that folks could come out and share their thoughts um this is the um ultimate goal of strategic planning that we do want to always start with our vision on top which is our portrait of a graduate our mission and philosophy which I just shared with you our values which this year m U is working on districtwide through our belonging and Community initiative to establish and then ultimately our goals which are strategic goals down here that's where they will land we know we came up with a series of topics and as Miss Karo said we really do invite you all to come out as these strategic planning sessions will give us both quantitative and qualitative data in order to inform us on what that will look like next is the monitoring and implementation of belonging in community um as we know this is um a large goal for us this year Mr Keeny and I have presented several times on this um throughout the past several years but I'd just like to show you just a couple ways of which we're monitoring that um as the board knows the year was the first year the board approved in our school calendar to have four early dismissal professional development days both of those days in October and January were focused around belong in community and you could see here just some feedback from our staff they really enjoyed the time that they spent reflecting on goals creating more goals and talking about how to achieve them um they really felt this past Friday um during the afternoon that it was an excellent session given by their colleagues it really got them to stop and think and take stock in how they personally view their students it's uncomfortable feeling to admit that we have biases but as long as we keep these disc questions in the Forefront of our thinking we will make progress with our Ever Changing district and that's what's most important about the work that we're doing we recognize that the landscape of the district is Shifting and changing and so along with that we are working very hard to provide professional development in order for our teachers to meet our students where they're at and to break down some of these things that could come along with creating an inclusive environment I'd also like to share with the board which I had mentioned several times um but I will show you some of information from that right now is that we are monitoring our students and staff by doing three surveys throughout this year one was um given in August the next will be given January in a week or so and the final survey will be in March and April there are about five questions to the survey and each time we survey both of these constituent groups those are consistent questions so that on the back end we could have some type of statistical analysis to say did we move the needle with everything that we've done so these are just some examples one of the questions we ask students is I have an adult that I feel comfortable talking to at school um you could see from March that was from us squared because we did derive them from us squared and then on the um teacher side I have a deep understanding of how unconscious bias can influence my classroom environment and student learning um so again we're working hard to be able to provide on the back end of the year some data for qu qu qual quantitative data for our board to be able to take a look at um of course the monitoring and supportive successful integration of the new superintendent myself um I thank the board for um being so open as well as always collaborating with me um being there to answer questions and the like um we are also working on um continuing to allocate any remaining fond referendum funds towards infrastructure improvements as you know at this point we are still uh facilitating all of our units being um installed in our buildings we are waiting for some additional equipment such as switch gears and we have reported out and nothing has changed about the spring hopefully awr will have air conditioning that is running and then for the summertime both saltbrook and the high school middle school at that point Mr test have a better idea of any Fallout money leftover money and the board then will be brought into the fold to have conversations about where potentially we'd like to place that in terms of our um infrastructure improvements and then lastly is completing the fiscal um 2526 budget Mr Tesa and I uh had our second meeting today so we're going to continue to follow our schedule and eventually be able to present that for the finance committee within the 2% tax tax levy cap restriction these are the committee goals that we all discussed um again um going back to belong in community one of the goals that we do have as a um as a district and Mr Keeny is leading this goal is coming up with a rubric which all of our curriculum will um be seen through so it's just one piece of what we're already doing in writing our curriculum but again we do want to ensure that our curriculum um is including different perspectives um and that our students are able to hear different voices from a variety of different people and background so Mr Keeny currently has put a team together including many of the department heads to begin that work um we also uh approved our AI policy which was at the tail end of this summer in August in order to get started on integrating um AI within New Providence and within the school district this right here just talks about what we believe in as a school district when it comes to using generative Ai and enhancing learning we believe that artificial intelligence can enhance teaching methods expand learning resources and contribute to a dynamic and Innovative educational environment for students and faculty I'm happy to report that our teachers in different ways are looking to integrate AI um they are allowing in different ways for their students to use it in certain assignments as well um Mr Keeny um keeps up with the analytics from Magic School in order to see how much our teachers our students our staff are using it and I'm happy to report that they are using it quite frequently but they're not overusing it which is what we do not want them to do um it's important that this is a very slow roll out that we continue to um inform them educate them provide professional development on it because as We Know when our students graduate they're graduating with AI right and as our students progress through our K12 education here in New Providence they're going to be progressing with AI so it's important to really teach the ethical ways of using it um next is again I'll touch basic on the personalized earning strategies this is something we've been working on for the past four years now um it's really become more of a program in terms of assessing the personalized learning strategies that teachers are using in their classroom when we go in to evaluate them obviously as you all know our dog Therapy Program has been a tremendous tremendous success at all of our buildings um I know I know just for myself when I go and the dogs are in the buildings it just gives a different feel to the building with the students with the staff and it's really done great great things for individual students who may need um the dog for that specific therapy on working on behavior management problems as well as then just as a whole for students to visit with the dog so it's been great um moving on just to the monitoring of the um New Middle School electives as I said we moved to the ritting and drop at the at New Providence Middle School this year we have two new electives which are Project Lead the Way electives in design and modeling and Automation and Robotics and we also have four new electives in creative writing and art of debate investigative journalism and media mashup I think what's important to note is that when we move to the rotating and drop we were able to rewrite many of our curriculums and rather than have our mods which they used to be called in six week spans our electives now are in nine week spans it also has allowed for more student choice they have some choice on what electives they'd like to go to whereas in our old model with the mods they had to go through all of them um the feedback that Mr Henry has received that the students are really enjoying the new electives and that the teachers feel that there's more depth of knowledge to get into each of these curriculums more deeper because they have more time to do that so that is going very well um as far as Finance facility Safety and Security committee um we've already talked about the budget we've already talked about the HVAC we've already talked about the bond proceeds and lastly is just monitoring the enrollment projections um the board has already seen this but this is the overlay that I discussed in my earlier comments um the brown is of course the barred property um the red represents a age restricted Zone which is 55 and over and then the yellow represents all of the areas where there has been an overlay of affordable housing and a developer could purchase and could build on that land uh lastly personnel management and Communications um again we talked about supporting me as a new superintendent and I thank you all very much um we also talked about um strategic planning and the expectations of that um again just another plug I encourage everyone to please come out to our remaining strategic planning sessions the next one is mental health and resilience on February 4th um our next next is to evaluate and update as necessary Communications plan like I said I believe this is the fourth year if not fifth of the communications plan oh what just happened sorry bear with me okay we're almost there um and um we met in the beginning of um the school year which we always do as a committee to go through all of that Miss mangle does join us and we make adjustments as necessary this year we didn't have many adjustments and I believe it was during October that we board approved the communications plan um evaluate the professional development for staff members as we know and I already mentioned this is the first year of our four early dismissal professional development so um a part of that is obviously monitoring that and we have been doing that after each of our professional development early dismissals by using um surveys allowing them to rate certain things as well as ADD anecdotal information which you saw um the next is to recruit and retain talented educ for the 2425 school year I believe that you know it's no secret that the state of New Jersey and the nation is suffering um with the pipeline of teachers however our Personnel um secretary Miss Stacy kinnam does a phenomenal job ensuring that we are getting our postings out to every place that we can we use something called handshake we post on LinkedIn we post on Facebook we have them in our newsletter our website next year we're going to be joining a Consortium hopefully if approved in the budget called NJ stride which is a Consortium with other districts that allow us to post on even more um web pages as well as be involved in job fairs we do post on the college and university Pages um where they allow us to when there are job fairs Miss kinum it's usually about once a year in the spring around March we'll attend that and on all the job boards we do as well um as far as retaining our staff we have an extremely robust as you know targeted professional development program with our four new early dismissal days that allows us to support our teachers even more so than we ever have in addition to um the negotiated three in school professional planning days um we also this year revamped our teacher mentoring program a bit um to add four our new teachers some new requirements where they do partner with teachers to go in observe ve and then to uh write feedback on what exactly they were looking to observe and what they got out of that um so we will continue on that front as well and moving forward uh for the remainder of the year um what we are going to look to do obviously um as we had stated in our strategic planning presentation is it is anticipated that the May 29th meeting uh we will have a presentation of that strategic plan as you all know and I've discussed with you prior to that we um will be meeting in committees to look at all the data that we have from all the strategic planning sessions we'll hopefully then approve the Strategic plan at the June 26th meeting um the next big piece is our 2526 budget as I said Mr um Tesa and I are identifying priorities at this time and building the budget within the 2% cap and then lastly is our um belonging and Community uh roadmap goals which uh you've seen before but I'll just pop up again our district goals our high school and middle school goal and our saltbrook and Allen W Roberts goals so we're continuing to work on these as well with our Administration and with our teachers are there any questions well again I thank you all very much you're a tremendous part of ensuring that we get these goals you know completed and that we work together so thank you and as always if you have any questions about any of the specific goals you know you can reach out to me thank you okay now is an opportunity for the public to be heard on any specific agenda item if you come up to the mic please give your name address um for our recording secretary and um just have to press the green button so that you can speak hi uh Montana chill 89 Woodland Road in New Providence um I first just wanted to say hi to Dr agoro and say thank you so much for all the conversations we had about the redistricting it was very helpful and you were very empathetic and and kind and um I appreciate it very much I had a few specific questions um so Amanda had mentioned that um class size is a primary concern with the redistricting in terms of the equity I did want to know um as I noted that this year the kindergarten classes at saltbrook had around 24 25 kids per class um and awr had about 16 15 per class what are your projected numbers um for next year for the kindergarten classes at Elementary we don't have that information yet so that's when we open up kindergarten registration which we're opening up in February so that will be February 13th we um put it out that we're opening it for a month but registration is really an ongoing process but we put it out that way so that we can capture as much as possible what our class sizes will be but I will tell you that those will continue to grow into June and even July because again registration is an ongoing process typically I would say by May we're in a good place with knowing what those classes are going to look like but that doesn't preclude someone in the summer coming in you know three families moving in and then registering as kindergarteners so when you mentioned that you would um be taking requests for kindergarteners to enter the same school as their sibling awr when will you be making that decision so the board and I discussed for Pockets um B and C so not Pockets A and D for Pockets B and C for example there's a family that has already reached out to me that not this coming September but the following September their child would be zoned I'm sorry for I'm sorry I apologize let me yeah um for this coming September yes they have a kindergarten student entering the district they live in Pockets B and C so they're not moving yet however they also have a three-year-old yes so their request to me is can I just start that kindergarten at saltbrook because my three-year-old is gonna be at saltbrook too right um okay so then why wasn't I offered that when my son started at kindergarten two weeks later we were told that we were redistricted that we couldn't start at saltbrook what age is your oldest child he's in second grade so I wouldn't be able to answer that because I wasn't the superintendent at that time okay um and then um so I had a second question I did want to say okay so you are offering um the option to zones BNC to start their kids at saltbrook versus aw pending class size okay and then um just to confirm you said there will be 93 siblings split up families split so how many how many children will be split up at two different elementary schools next year wouldn't I wouldn't have that information right now um and then my final question is in terms of the precare what time does that start and which school will be at so in terms of the precare as well as the after care um that's not something that is new from the beginning of discussing the redistricting plan that was something that the district and the board had discussed that if needed we would Implement that and put that in place currently to date we have not had to do that we are prepared to do that um what time it would start I I don't know that right now um we're going have to continue to have conversations about what would be appropriate in terms of an early drop off and then also what would be appropriate as a late pickup what is the latest they could pickup well I will need it I will have a kindergartener who will be at saltbrook and I will have a second or third grader at awr so I will need to know that information um and then the last thing I just wanted to make sure that you guys were aware that you're noting properties that will potentially one day be developed so that makes sense for redistricting in terms of the siblings there's one property at Spring Street um The Bard property as you noted that is actually in development I just wanted to make sure you guys saw that Dr grip had noted in his latest study the number was probably closer to like 32 33 students spread out across the three Schools elementary middle school high school versus 7 D2 kids coming from that property everybody was aware of that okay great I guess that's my final question I think I've said all I can thank you for your time okay sorry hello my name is Alison caravano I live at 20 Edward Court um I am also impacted by this uh redistricting and my family I should say um I my first question is I'd like to seek a little bit of clarity as to how the the data was reanalyzed or analyzed in a different way um to assess the number of families that were going to be impacted or families surveyed how how was that looked at I'm just curious so we use the information that we have in power school so we know all of the addresses of zones a through d and so we ran a report to pull that out to see how many current families that we have that have a child at saltbrook or children at saltbrook and that is the number so potentially 90 I'm Roberts I'm sorry so potentially at at awr when we talk about worst case scenario there could be 96 families that could be impacted because that's how many families we currently have residing In Pockets A and D who have a child at Roberts Okay so my my followup to that is I live in zone a and there are literally three streets in my neighborhood I know every single family that's there there is one family this year that is impacted I will be the second that will have families in on either side currently Roberts according to these numbers has 13 forgive my math skills 12 less kids in the kindergarten program than Sal Brook does but it wasn't assessed this year to see if that I mean we're talking one child and and and I would be one child next year because there's two of us well but also also in zone a there's the kids that started kindergarten this year are at saltbrook so when we ask for a grandfathering and we're not talking about kindergarten family starting now we're talking about literally the kids that are just there so that that's I I'm curious as to how that decision was made and and I respect the the need to redistrict I understand it I'm an educator I've been in education my entire career um and I'm an administrator and I've lived through redistricting and respectfully I understand that Berkeley Heights did this but they also offer busing for their families so for a family that has two working parents at in education who has to be at another District that's a big ask and it's not in the best interest social and emotional learning environment for me to have to make a decision to move my fifth grader Rising fifth grader who started kindergarten in covid with a mask on and has gone through all of those years of you know socializing and and we all we all know we all lived it but to my choice is move my fifth grader or have kids in two different buildings so I just I implore you to think about it on a case-by Case basis not just for saltbrook but we're talking about kids that are not here yet families that don't live in this town yet and we're we're projecting when we're talking one to two kids a year if can we not assess that on a year-to-year basis as opposed to just moving everybody and just making drawing that Line in the Sand so I'll share with you further and I don't want to get into the details here to have it back and forth because that's not what is this is meant to be but when we ran our data we ran them in pockets okay and so there are actually 21 children in zone a right now that attend Allen W Roberts right and so if any of those 21 children have younger siblings or Mom and Dad have not yet chosen to have another child or Mom and Dad don't plan to and have another child those are then decisions that would have to come into fold I will then share with you that when we get to Pockets B and C the number jumps tremendously So currently we have 99 students in Roberts In Pockets B and C in grades kindergarten through fourth grade because fifth grade wouldn't matter it would be irrelevant at that point they'd be in the Middle School I understand and and I appreciate that my question is more though can it be I I you're I heard and maybe I heard incorrectly that the case by case will be considered based on enrollment for saltbrook if families want their kids to go to saltbrook and want to start their kid at saltbrook for zones being BNC can we not be given the same opportunity to assess the enrollment on the other side of town if if we have a kid that's there already that's my question that I'd like to put up the other question that I have um is in terms of the before and after care options for families is this going to be covered by the district or are the families going to be asked to contribute to that the district will be covering that okay and can you please and maybe this isn't known yet but how what does that look like for the kids who will be watching those kids is there specific will they be by age how what does that look like so it's hard for the district right now to plan for it because again we we in this first year of redistricting we've had no families come to us and say that they were in this situation and have an issue um what we have discussed with both Mr RoR and with Miss drexinger is that if it were one student Mr RoR and M reinger are there so there is a place a safe place that the student can go which would be the main office and they could sit and they could take out work to do color whatever that might be if we get upwards of three four five six seven students well that's when we would have to have one of our certified teachers and we would have to if your administrator you understand we have to look at the schedule and we have to figure out how then we're going to have someone come in the morning to cover that and then the afternoon within their own schedule um what I will tell you is that um and I I hope that you recogniz and notice I know that you're new to the district but the district is always looking to be on the side of the parents and always looking to accommodate our parents as best as we can we have never been a district that does otherwise K12 it doesn't matter what school you're in so we will make sure that we do our best to get that right and we will make sure that we do our best to be appropriate with the timing so that it does accommodate those families that are in that situation I appreciate that I'm actually a New Providence High School graduate of 2003 so I am not to The District in any way um but I I also you know I appreciate that you're looking at this from the point of a parent but I also feel like there's there seems to be a lot of consideration for these families that don't let yet live here and we are the parents that are going to be living it on a day-to-day basis for a number of years before many of these properties are even inhabited so I I hope that we can follow up on this conversation to look at maybe a case-by case basis year toe based on enrollment thank you very much hi sorry um my name's Rebecca Nichols I'm 38 Charwood Road in your Province um so I came today because I just wanted this is I have less question and and just more a little bit commentary um as far as I know I am currently the only hybrid family right now so I have one child in awr I have one child in saltbrook um it has been a very frustrating year um I was not aware until recently that after care or before care would have even been offered um we have been paying out of pocket for busing for my youngest son and for aftercare and for things um the schedule that I'm was very happy to hear that you'll be addressing the calendar um because while it does seem small that things like back to school night in the Halloween parade um we as parents have had to decide what kid we're going to go to and that's really stunk um it it's not been fun the teachers and the principles at both schools have been wonderful they've been supportive and they understand um but it's it's been a frustrating year um and so I just if you are moving forward with care with calendars I really really do implore you to have that set ahead of time and communicate with these families um I have done my best via social media and other and ptas and things like that to just talk to these other families because I feel like I'm kind of the guinea pig in the room um but so people know what to expect um but having that communication well in advance I mean I I'm planning for my September in like you know March um and getting schedules going I'm I have three I have a high school but then I have two in separate districts I have three in three schools right now um and it's a lot it's just a lot keeping track of two calendar three calendars um knowing who's going to get what kid when that sort of thing um so having that well in advance would have been super super helpful because for me like I said I nobody even told us that added care would have been an option this year I think I just need to clarify when we're talking about before care and after care we're talking about like 15 or 20 minutes sure okay oh yeah you know just enough time for you to be able to drop at one school one and get to the other exactly so so it's not a wraparound it's not no but like even things like half days are like sometimes a scramble like oh my gosh who's where and I I admit that like we're even I'm in a little bit of a privileged State because my husband works from home 100% I am hybrid um we have a little bit of flexibility and I know so many of the families coming in don't have that flexibility um so I just wanted to put that out there that please the sooner these accommodations and plans are presented to people um the better we're all able to plan seeing no other comments I declare the public portion of this meeting closed at this time we're going to move on to the approval of minutes for the December 12th business and close session motion Amanda motion and Stacy roll call yes M castalano yes Dr abson Hayden yes M gunderman yes M Morano yes Mr Walsh and Mr Zayn yes action items Finance Mr Walsh I would like to move items one through three is listed on the agenda second Amanda no real comments bur roll call M Garo hi Miss calana I Dr hson Hayden Mrs gunderman hi M Morano hi Mr Walsh hi m z yes facilities Mr Walsh I would like to move item one as listed on the agenda second uh it's the uh approval for the power uh as relates to the uh to the distribution of the ER electric distribution of facilities which is all aligned with the budget and spend plan that we have roll call M car hi M calana hi Dr abon Hayden hi m gunderman hi M Morano hi M Walsh hi Zan hi education Dr Epson Hayden hi Rookie um I'd like to approve action items one through eight as listed below seconded um biggest things to note are um two different enrollments um just approval of recommendations of Hib cases and approval of the linked it pilot program that you all had in your packets which I will let Dr zeroy explain a little bit more about thank you Dr emson Hayden um so i' just like to bring the board's attention to item number seven which is the approval of the pilot of linkit and just to explain to you a bit what linkit is um so as I discussed with the board in the beginning of the year myself uh Mr yugoo Mr Keeny Dr Harvey and then as a princip principal representative Mr RoR would be meeting with three different groups and platforms so to speak to talk about data analytics um one of them we have had experience with and have attempted to use in the past and just has not worked out but I wanted to bring them back in in order to really dig in a little bit deeper to see if we were missing something um or it just wasn't the right product for us um it happened to not be the right product for us um and after much discuss discussion and a rubric that we did actually put together we um did have Mr yugul Laur and Mr Keeny work on a proposal for the 2526 budget for linkit um in the meantime something that they've offered to us pending at you know whether we end up getting it into the budget or not is a free pilot um that would begin now and would go through the rest of the year within that pilot um they will capture five years of our njsla NJ GP and park um test scores 3 to five years of our access for our L's two to three years of our I ready three years of sat PSAT from college board and five years of AP results as well as historical demographic enrollment data um we have vetted this contract through all necessary parties so I obviously have had my eyes on it um Alex Menard has as well as well as Jim mcin to ensure that it is both Copa fura compliant which it absolutely is and is consistent with any third-party uh vendors that we are using Jim also um took a look at it as well um I'd like to share with you that Berkeley Heights currently uses linkit Clark Cranford kennworth Mountainside and Springfield in Union County um we're very excited about the analytics um and we kind of geek out over it to be honest us three um because it does a lot of it has a lot of Fe teates where you're able to take different data points and really inform our programming and instruction um our plan is to first start with our administrative team we're going to break down each of our our administrative team into their respective buildings we have already started data exercise exercises with them on you know here's a piece of data here's our eth grade njsla math results we want you to take a look at this right now and two what are two things that you see right and going through those exercises with them so that we could all be on the same page about how really to use this data um from now until the end of the year they're each going to create their own goals based off of the data they have for their schools and they're going to work through that together through our admin meetings if this is approved in the budget the idea would be that next year we would start very slow continuing to work with our admin and then rolling it out for our inrs teams our 504 teams our child study teams all of our Support Services eventually we would get to the teachers that would probably not be next year it would probably be in subsequent years so that they can then start looking at the data as well to inform their instruction whether globally for example I'm an AP Lang and comp teacher and I want to understand more about my AP exam scores or an individual student um so I just wanted to give you some background on that it is at no cost to us whatsoever they even come and do professional development with us also um so again we're excited about it we've really vetted it and I think it'll be a great product so hopefully we'll be able to have some success and get it into the budget anything else any other comments no uh roll call m g Caro hi M calana hi Dr hson Aiden hi Mr gunderman hi M Morano hi Mr Walsh hi Mrs z i uh Personnel Mrs gunderman uh I'd uh like to move to approve items one through seven as listed CHR um it is you know a appointments some leaves um and and a resignation on there and uh Dr zerle I think you'd like to make a couple comments on these yes thank you so I'm happy uh to see that uh Lewis demsky is with us he's going to be um our new maintenance in HVAC as a part of our maintenance team um we're excited to bring lud a New Providence he'll have a very short commute because he's a New Providence resident um he's had me many years um experience with HVAC but most recently he has worked for the Glenn rock rock public schools for eight years um doing much of the work which would he would do here so we're very excited to welcome him on board and we wish him the best of luck I'd also like to just point out out um item number threea um it's bittersweet that I announced that uh Miss jeie drexinger who has been the saltbrook Principal for probably about 23 years and worked in District for 34 years beginning as a teacher here in District having a very short stint at the board building and she would say realizing that it wasn't the place for her and ending up back in the schools as a shared assistant principal between Roberts and saltbrook before becoming um the saltbrook principal um as you all know jeie is an invaluable asset to our entire School Community we will absolutely miss her but I of course wish her the best of luck it is very well deserved that she gets to go off into the sunset into retirement um the good news is is that she's done her homework in terms of making sure that she could still volunteer back with us with Bailey so she will still be around with Bailey as the therapy dog and of course there'll be many celebrations as we end the year for jeie um again who has really been an invaluable asset to this community for many years roll call M K hi Mr calana hi Dron Hayden hi Mr gunderman hi M Morana hi Mr lsh Zan hi leis you want to come up are you a Lou or a Lewis perfect hey Mr Walsh board policy I would like to move item one as listed on the agenda there are four revised policies um for first reading and then one regulation and then one that um is a policy has been abolished uh because it's superseded by updates um and um the they're all mandatory updates uh to comply with the comprehensive Equity plan and uh as Mr uro and I discussed each District's required to submit that um the comprehensive Equity plan to the county for approval so that's why we need these updates thank you Joe uh roll call M hi M calana Dr Hayden hi M gunderman hi M Mora hi Mr Walsh hi M Zan hi um sorry new uh curriculum Dr emson Hayden um if you guys want to pull out your school calendar options that's what we just have to go over um so we met as a curriculum committee with Dr zerle to discuss the 2627 school calendar and provided the two options in front of you to discuss and build consensus on for board approval for our February 20th meeting in both options um we remain consistent with beginning one week prior to Labor Day and allowing school to end on Thursday June 17 so under option A Columbus Day is a half day of school for students and a full day for teachers with professional development being in the afternoon and then this remains consistent with what Dr zerle mentioned earlier with our four early PD dismissal days um last year we kept Columbus Day as feels weird saying last year but um 2024 we kept Columbus Day as a full day offering for teachers and students but all of our neighboring school districts including ucvts uh Berkeley Heights Summit Milburn they all follow a similar model to what we're recommending um additionally the results of our calendar survey showed that parents were split pretty evenly 5050 when asked if Columbus Day should be a school day um on the option a spring break would also be the week after Easter with having off the Friday beforehand and the second adjustment is going to be to move from four Emer emergency days to three emergency days the last time we exhausted all three of our days was during the 2019 2020 school year sorry 28 2019 I don't even know but I was it the ice was it the ice way longer than two years ago um so in the event that we don't use any days one we always Reserve in the bank God forbid anything happens after the snow goes away um one is to be used the Friday prior to Memorial Day weekend for um per the teachers negotiated contracts and the other one will be given back in the school calendar at the board's discretion conversely with option b well say similarity option wow similarly to option A we'd move from the four to three emergency days with the same give back plan should we not use them but in this scenario we would move spring break to the week prior to Easter to gain back that extra day and we would keep Columbus Day as a day off with professional development as the half day prior to that weekend thoughts yes spring break spring break is going to move to the week prior to Easter as opposed to option A where it's after yes so that Good Friday the Friday before we would it would be inclusive of that week off as opposed to taking the extra day so that would allow Columbus Day to then be the day off with a half day uh for PD being the Friday beforeand and just to confirm you're asking us to are we voting like a versus B okay yeah any thoughts that anybody has so that we can get it on so to clarify in both in both instances we're doing away with that very long potential Memorial Day weekend yes um in both instances we're finishing on the same day yes and starting on the same day and starting on the same day so it's really a matter of what's happening in between what's happening specifically in October and late March um early April technically I think that it's also important to note for the board though that if the board builds consensus on making Columbus Day a day of school with students coming in for a half day and then in the PM having professional development that's a decision we're now going to make for calendars of the future as well not just for this year's calendar so I think that's another big decision that the board has to make is there an operational benefit to one or the other are they equal from so in this given year as I had said at the last board meeting we're fortunate that many of the religious holidays that we observe fall on the weekend right and so whenever and I had this conversation with the curriculum committee every year the calendar is going to shift based off of those holidays where where Easter falls where Christmas Falls where Dali Falls where rashash Shana Falls um so I don't want the board to say so are we making a decision about Columbus Day just for this given year no we should be making it for the future and operationally what that allows us to do is it gives us one more school day so the answer would be yes it allows one more school day to be flexible and then potentially on the back end of the year to not you know end up going beyond that third week of June which was the same thought process going from four to three days as well to gain a day but also just looking at past years of data and that we just weren't using them so so part of the impetus for us to move back to for Labor Day to begin with was so that we could get more instruction time in in the school year prior to testing at the end of the year um so for me gaining back that day in October and going to school half day on Columbus Day just makes more sense because it's another day of Education that wouldn't be otherwise and as Dr emson said it is consistent with our neighboring districts that all are in school on that day in some um capacity whether that's similar to the model we're proposing where it's students in the morning half day in the afternoon um or just a full day of PD for the teacher in some way they are having staff or students and students in on that day the only one other thing I gu to point out would also be is with the timing of spring break looking to see if if it's option b you can see from the month of April there is a larger time period of no breaks from the you know March 29th going back to school and then you're going to go till Memorial Day so that is a long even though it's one week it's still one week of time period so that's just something else to consider as well I'm looking at option A I'm option A too it wouldn't be in front of you if I wasn't okay with both of them so we had this discussion okay so um it looks as though then um we'll get this prepared and I mean it's prepared and ready but we'll get it prepared and ready for the February meeting and then subsequent to that meeting and it being approved we'll be able to send it out to the community as we know um you know burnhead mentioned when we started um putting the calendar for Labor Day but something else we did several years back has decideed to put the calendar out for two years ahead so families could prepare so as soon as it is approved we will be able to send that out and then post it on the website so thank you very much to the committee for your hard work and working through that am I allowed to say something here sure thank you so much for answering my many many questions about emergency use days and early and emergency proed early dismissals and things like that I that was incredibly useful in reaching those Mr wsh Finance facility we will be meeting Mr tesus gave us the budget timeline so we'll be meeting in we'll be getting it uh February 6 getting the draft budget and then we'll be meeting and then um uh we'll share it with the board I think for the February meeting and then we'll follow the timeline up and through April great thank you Personnel uh yes um so our committee did uh meet recently um and what we did is we explored a potential option of an additional platform for interactive um education in an example of especially our high school middle school if we have um an opening either for a long-term sub or you know a placement for things like a world language or specialized elective courses that we may not have a candidate for um that we have an option to continue instruction uh with a certified teacher in that specific area if we cannot find someone you know through um a regular course of means we're not recommending it for approval yet we're not in a place where we need that um we are you know hiring for um you know World Language teacher um and as Dr zerle said earlier um in her report there's a teacher shortage so we're trying to be proactive and plan ahead so if we ever find ourselves in a position where especially in a long term like a a leave replacement uh we don't find a certified teacher that speaks a specific language or teaches a specific art course or something that those students who opt into that elective um have a way and it is an interactive um educational platform where there is a teacher teaching virtually you know in front of the classroom on a whiteboard you know and so forth and then there would be a sub in the classroom for classroom management again we're not putting anything forth for approval but just so you all know we are proactively looking at additional Solutions if we ever need to so that education can continue um uninterrupted thank you Mrs gunderman I would just like to add that um you know where we're exploring these options that would never be our first choice our first choice is always to have a body in the classroom okay that's why we're not moving forward with approval we're looking at this if there was never an option yeah if the only other option was a daily sub in a long-term capacity that's not certified in that specific subject this would be a last resort okay old business anyone new business no opportunity for the public to be heard on any subject matter no um motion to recess to close session for student matters related to Hib yeah thank you