Yeah, right. a minute. >> Okay, good. Roll call. >> Miss Kasalano >> here. >> Dr. Hayden >> here. >> Miss Gunderman >> here. >> Miss Clay absent. >> Mrs. Lra >> here. >> Mrs. Morano >> here.
>> Mrs. Zayn >> here. >> You have a quorum. >> Please join me in the flag salute. I >> pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This is a public meeting of the board of education of the bureau of new providence. Adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with PL1975, chapter 231. In that a notice was made
in conformation with section 13 of the act. 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 the 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. Um, I just like to welcome everyone. I don't have too many comments, but this is the probably my favorite meeting of the year because we get to see what everyone is doing in the schools. Um, but before I
hand it over to Dr. Zerly, I do want to thank our custodians and maintenance staff for clearing out all of the parking lots and allowing everybody to get back to school. I'm sure every parent in here is was extremely excited for drop off on Wednesday. Um, so that's all I have. Excited to see everything.
Pass it to Dr. Zerley. >> Thank you, Miss Morano, Ariel, for our student report. >> Good evening and thank you Dr. Zerley and the rest of the board for having me tonight. Since our last meeting, midterms took place at the end of January, and our students rose to the
occasion to see successful outcomes and results. On Saturday, February 7th, we hosted the Shining Stars Network, and a number of students as a part of our spread the word to end the word inclusion event. Our girls and boys basketball teams as well as the many spectators joined our shining stars for a dance performance and full basketball
game during halftime of the varsity games. It was incredible event once again this year. On Thursday, March 5th, is our Cake Wars event for students in the culinary arts classes. The theme this year is love, and students are putting the final touches on their creative masterpieces. We look forward
to seeing teacher and administrative guest judges decide our winners. The spring musical, The Drowsy Chaperon, is coming up next week on Thursday, March 5th, and uh Saturday, March 7th. There are four shows in total with the times being 7:30 p.m. each evening and 2:00
p.m. show on Saturday, March 7th. Come out to support our cast, pit, crew, and directors. On March 25th, we have an SAT school day. On March 28th, the PTSA's Big Tricky Trey fashion show. Um, the theme this year is bright lights, big
city. We excited to see the many senior models, including myself, who will be participating. The STEM club is ramping up their progress with the STEM parent teacher association, and they had about 89 kids competing in the team's competition. They are currently getting into the cyber security season with preparation
for the Garden State Capture the Flag competition underway. Lots of exciting things planned for STEM club. The girls basketball team had a thrilling three-point win this past Saturday over Westfield to win the Union County Championship and improve their record to an incredible 24 to1. They
will look to continue their success in the state playoffs with their first round game tomorrow home against Dunland at 4 p.m. Boys basketball has also been doing well, winning four of their last six games. They they look to have a successful state run starting tomorrow when they play at Piscatoaway Magnet.
The wrestling team recently had two duels last Friday and Saturday where the team found success. Senior Braden Valley set two incredible school records, most wins in school history and also 100 pins on his career, accomplishing both feats last weekend. Congratulations to the
team and Braden. The ice hockey team is competing in the state tournament where they earned an 8 to zero victory in the first round over Freehold Township. They will be going against Tom's River East tomorrow evening in round two. The girls swimming team took home our first ever state sectional championship, defeating
Governor Livingston. Congratulations to the girls in this amazing accomplishment. The boys team had a tremendous season as well as the seniors have paved way for future team success. The winter track team also took home their first ever sectional championship. The coaching staff and team should be
commended on a record-breaking season. Finally, the cheer team looks to have success in their upcoming state uh competition at Brookdale Community College. Best of luck to the team. Thank you. And that is all for this month's student rep report. Thank you, Ariel. Mr. Yugulo for our
enrollment report. >> Thank you. Good evening, everyone. At Allen W. Roberts, we currently have 600 students. At Saltbrook, we currently have 596 students. At New Providence Middle School, we current have currently have 388 students. At New Providence
High School, we currently have 667 students for a total of 2,251 students. We also currently have 39 students in out of district placements for a grand total of 2,290 students.
>> Thank you. Welcome everybody tonight. Uh as Miss Morano said, this is a very exciting night for us and we all look forward to our February board meeting where we do have our curriculum report and many of our students as well as our teachers show off the best things that
they're doing in our classroom. I would also like to give a very special thanks to our department heads as well as our principles, assistant principles, and Mr. Keany, our director of curriculum and instruction for putting together the curriculum report that the entire board
has uh this evening as well as this presentation. There's a lot of time and effort that goes into that. So, I thank you all very much. I'd also just like like to let the board know that today we did go around the district and we did celebrate our teachers of the year. So,
we will be celebrating those teachers. I believe it is at our April meeting. Um, however, for New Providence High School, Mr. Daniel Barleta is our teacher of the year. At New Providence Middle School, Mr. Brian Cooper is our teacher of the year. At Alan W. Roberts, Miss
Piccarelli is our teacher of the year. And at Salt Brook School, Miss Minnik is our teacher of the year. So, congratulations to all of them. Very welld deserved. And that's all I have. Thank you. I'm going to uh call Mr. Keaney take it over with the curriculum
report. Good evening everyone. >> Good evening everyone. >> Good evening. >> Thank you very much. I'm delighted to stand before you tonight to uh talk you through some of the exciting things that are happening in our schools and in our classrooms. As you all know that we have
two north stars, two guiding lights which guide our educational programming. We have our mission statement and we have our portrait of a graduate. In addition, now we have our strategic plan goals which will help guide our educational programming over the course
of the next five years. So we have those large initiatives, those large guidelines which guide us at the macro level. This year, for the first time in a number of years, we also introduced departmental and building goals to provide a little bit of more specificity
and a little bit more focus at the granular level to our teachers with what they're going to do in the classroom. So, what I'd like to do tonight is to talk you through a whole variety of these goals. We will mention the strategic planning goal number one about the balanced use of technology. We will
talk about our belonging and community initiative and a couple of those a couple of those initiatives and how they're infused into what we do. We will also talk about the Alan W Roberts and Salt Brook school goal and we'll show you how we're implementing that. And we've got three department goals as well
which are going to be infused into what we do tonight. So we're really trying to look at large broad goals and very specific focus goals as well. So I'm delighted to have a whole variety of different students here. We have six presentations for you tonight. Maybe I
should say six wonderful presentations tonight. We have three at the elementary level. We have one at the middle school and two at the high school level. And they will be focusing on sometimes more than one of these girls, other times just one of these goals. Okay, are we ready? Who should we invite first? Okay,
let's get up the K through six math students. We have I'm delighted to have Miss Tester here u with us, the Alan W. Robertson. The Salt Brook goal this year is teachers will explore, implement and refine targeted questioning techniques
to foster some higher level cognitive skills. Fortunately, as you will know, we put the I Ready program in place a couple of years ago and our I Ready math program really provides a tremendous opportunity for us to work with different questioning techniques. So,
I'm going to pass it over to Miss Tessa. I'll be back shortly. Okay. And welcome to our fourth grade students. Got a little ripple of applause maybe before I start. That's it. Good. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Keany. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to thank the board of education for having
the math department here tonight. We are here to um we are here to talk about questioning techniques in the I Ready classroom mathematics program. I have three fourth graders that are here with us that are going to demonstrate that tonight. All year, our
teachers have been working on different math questions. And so those consist of gathering information, probing, thinking, making math visible, and encouraging reflection and justification. On our develop days, we have a very
strict structure for our 60inute math block, and we're here to have our fourth graders tell us about it. Natish, can you tell us about engagement? >> Microphone. Sorry. >> Hi everyone. Good evening. Thanks for coming. This is a notice and wonder
slide, a routine we use to share our math brains every day. When you look at this slide, we aren't just looking for an answer. We're looking for patterns and we're asking big questions. First, we share what we notice about the numbers or shapes. And then we share
what we wonder might happen next. This routine helps us become better problem solvers by teaching us to look closely at the details. Next, our teacher presid presents a word problem and leads us through the three read routine to build
a deep understanding of the story. Once we have the context down, we jump into the try phase to tackle the problem using our own unique strategies. Instead of just following a set of steps, we use tools or drawings to make sense of the
math in a way that works best for us. After we tried ourselves, we move into discussed face to compare our different strategies and explain our thinking to our partners. Finally, we connected by looking for links between our various
methods and the new math concepts we're learning. These steps help us realize that while we myself think things differently, the underlining math brings all our ideas together. >> Yeah. >> So, tonight we're going to share a problem with you. We're going to go
through that try it, discuss it, connect it routine and we're going to share some of the questions that we might ask in a math classroom. Okay. So, the problem that they answered, our markers come in boxes of eight. For an art project, one group of students uses one and 5/8 boxes
of markers and another group uses one and 68 boxes. How many boxes of markers do the two groups use all together? So this is a six or four, excuse me, a fourth grade math standard and our fourth graders are here to show they are thinking. All right, Natish want to
share your thinking? So first I multiplied 1 and then I 1 * 8 and then I added five to get the numerator of 13 and the denominator of 8. And then I did the same for 16 by 8 and then I got 4 14
by 8 and then 13 by 8 + 14 by 8 is equal to 27 by 8. And then I converted it back to a mixed fraction to get three 3x8s. That's some seriously good math. So, one of our types of questions is gathering information. So, Natisha, I'm
going to ask you this question. What did you need to look for first before you could add these fractions? What I had to look for is that the denominators were all the same. The denominator of this question is eight. >> All right. You want to hold Kate for
her? Oh, you're ready. Okay. >> So, first I wrote that gray equals 1 and 5/8 and blue = 1 and 6/8 that I could see the difference. And then I colored
in 1 and 5/8. And then to add 1 and 68, I put 3/8 right here. And then I already have one hole. And then I have 3/8 left over. So now I can easily see that there's three holes and three eighs.
>> Thank you Kate. Definitely drawing models is a cornerstone of of our program right Kate. So my question for you is how did you model how did your model help you solve the problem? >> Once I was finished with it was very easy to see that I had three ace and
with three holes and three ace left over. >> Thank you. And that was a probing thinking question. Okay. And Marta's gonna share hers. >> So what I did, I broke down one and 5/8 into models. And I did the same for 1
and 68. Then I took out the holes and added them. Then I took out the fraction and then I added them. And I saw it was an improper fraction. And then 11/8. And then I broke it down to one hole and 3/8. I added that hole to the rest of
the holes. And then uh 38 it was the leftover so I just add it to my equation. >> I love it. Thank you. >> So we might ask this in a discussion piece of the try it discuss it connect it routine. Marta I'm going to ask you how is your model and Kate's model
similar? So, what we both did it was we pulled out the uh fractions and we both added them. But the difference is that I showed it in an equation and K showed it in her model. See, there's the equation and right there's the model. I love it.
Good job, GUYS. SO, as you can see, there is no right or wrong answer that. Well, there's some wrong answers, but there's no right way of doing that. Okay. As I looked out into the audience, I could see some of you mathematicians were nodding along and your eyebrows are raised and all
that. And a lot of you are like me, maybe glazed over a little bit. And for fourth grade math, but I hope you can see that there's different ways of solving those math problems. The most important thing is to get our students to discuss it with each other to increase that mathematical
discourse and then to start asking probing questions. Okay. And that's the objective and that's the goal for our Saltbrook and our uh Robert School this year. I also would like to note how much face-toface interaction is taking place
here. Okay, that 60inute math lesson is predominantly face-to-face, studentto student, studenttoteer discussions, questions, independent work. There's a very maybe a very small amount, okay, at the end using some technology, but a
vast majority over 90% of that is actual face-to-face interaction between the students and the teacher amongst themselves. So it's a very student centered tech no technology lesson there. Okay. And I think that's important for us to note at this stage.
Okay. Little round. Do you want to do you want to bow? >> Yeah. Round of applause. So as I said lessons with a very small percentage of technology in we also however pride ourselves as a
department as a a district on using technology in a transformative way. So we're going to see a slightly different lesson now which is going to use technology in a way that it can't be used uh or can't be achieved in face-to-face interactions. As you may know, about nine years ago,
we introduced our elementary STEM program. Okay? And I would have to com I'd like to commend Melissa and Denise here who took the program by the horns and have developed it tremendously well over the last five years or so, nine years or so. The thing that really
impresses me about what they do is they're always looking for what best addresses the needs of their students. They're always looking for what's coming down the line and what can we implement into what's happening in the classroom. So tonight the STEM annual department
goal is all about enhancing the lessons to address new standards. Uh and the state has a habit of introducing new standards on a regular basis just to complicate things a little bit. But they have decided that they're going to use 3D printing now to address some of the
new state standards. And as you can see here, I put in red, one of the emphasis of the new state standards for uh computer literacy and for design thinking is to take our students away from being passive users to being active
producers of material. Okay? And that's an important distinction for them to solve real world problems and be creative problem solvers and for them to start to develop unique perspectives and see the perspectives that others have. Okay, quite a complex task. I think you
might agree. Okay, but Denise and and um Melissa have done a wonderful job incorporating this into what they do in the classroom. Okay, I'm going to pass it on to them. >> Good evening. Thank you so much for having us here tonight. My name is Melissa Van Wingeran
>> and I'm Denise Post and as Mr. Kaney stated, "We're here to talk tonight about how we're using 3D printers to enhance the elementary STEM curriculum. Thanks to generous grants from the Ed Foundation over the past couple years, each of our STEM labs has been equipped with three Bamboo Lab 3D printers and
filament, allowing our students to do uh to bring their designs to life through rapid prototyping. We've made it a priority to use these tools with all grades to enhance their learning. Specifically in first grade, our students used Tinkercad to make
bubble wands. Uh they used additive manufacturing to test their own um geometric theories in real time. At the end of the unit, each student went home with a personally designed bubble wand with their name engraved on it. And to
say that lesson was a hit would be a drastic understatement. Our fourth graders have been busy mastering 3D design to solve everyday problems. And here tonight to talk about their project and to show you their winning prototype, I have Delaney and Hannah.
>> GOOD EVEN Good evening board members and Dr. Zerolley. Today we are excited to share how our fourth grade class turned into a team of engineers and designers. It all started with a program called Tinkercad. At first, we just learned the basics,
like how to group shapes together or use one shape to cut a hole out of another. To practice, we all got to design and personalize our own 3D bookmarks. It was cool to see our names come to life in 3D. But then, Miss Post gave us a much bigger challenge. She asked us to look
at our community and find a real world problem we wanted to solve. We had to move from just making stuff to designing prototypes that help people. Our class posted all of our designs on a padlet. Then the whole fourth grade
voted on their favorites, even the teachers. And that's where our project came in. We noticed that pencils were always rolling off desk and disappearing. So, we decided to make a pencil and eraser holder to keep everything in place. We
were so excited to win the vote. Miss Post even used her 3D printer to make a real version of the of our design for each of us. The best part wasn't just winning, though. We learned that we can use technology to think about other
people and solve problems in our world. Thank you for supporting our learning. >> Very nice travel. Thank you. This year we piloted a challenge with the fifth grade students where we asked them to design buoys that would alert boers to the presence of marine life. To
tell you more about this project, I have with me Ivy and Ranch. Our team Our team used Tinkercat to transform our initial sketches into a digital 3D model. Carefully measuring each component to ensure the micro:bit would fit securely inside. We quickly learned
that 3D design is an iterative process. Our first version helped us see exactly where the buoy was off balance so we can make precise adjustments for the final print. Good. Good evening everyone. My name is Rayanch and I will also be sharing to you about our first and second model
designs of our buoys. So after we tested our buoys models in the water, many groups realized that we needed to change the buoy to make it more stable in the water. So we went back to our designs to make any necessary changes which showed
how 3D designers test fail and then create a stronger second model version which will help stabilize the buoy. Thank you. But that is just the beginning. By introducing these concepts um we are building a foundation for design
thinking that will follow these students through their academic careers. We expect to return back in a few years here with a few I sorry we expect to return back here in a few years to demonstrate how our program has grown. >> 3D printing has limitless applications
across every level of our STEM curriculum. We are giving New Providence students the power to build the future one layer at a time. THANK YOU. IT'S ALWAYS TREMENDOUSLY encouraging to see how proficient our students are at presenting, isn't it? Like that
wonderful presentations from our students. as they leave. Let's just have another ripple of applause for so as I said that was a transformative use of technology. As a district we don't believe in using technology for techny's sake. We are moving towards and
really focusing on using technology in a supportive or a transformative role. Okay, that would not have been enabled without the Ed Foundation who did purchase for us those 3D printers. So, it's very important to know that a lot of the things that we're talking about really are supplemented by the Ed
Foundation. It's tremendous for them to be doing that. Okay. As you're probably aware, two years ago, we introduced our belonging and community initiative and it's important that we never lose focus of that and it's important that we do infuse that into a lot of our lessons. Also last
year you may remember we introduced uh artificial intelligence and we introduced magic school as a tool. One of the reasons we decided to do that was because magic school we can control. We can turn it off and on. The students use it in the classroom and then they're unable to use it outside of the
classroom because the teacher can control that. So I'm delighted to have uh to present to you tonight Shauna Damon and her students from Alan W. Roberts who are going to talk to you about some cultural connections and how they've used artificial intelligence in
the classroom to have conversations with historical Spanish speaking figures. Welcome to >> Good evening. My name is Shauna Damon and I am the Spanish teacher at Alen W.
Roberts School. We're so happy to be here tonight with all of you to have a chance to share a little bit about how we're trying to thoughtfully integrate technology to enhance student learning in our elementary Spanish classrooms. During Hispanic Heritage Month, our
students used a character chatbot through the Magic School suite to interview influential Hispanic figures. You'll see here some of the cards that students were given. And with this card, they were asked to use some questioning words to go through and find out more
information about that person. This was not technology for technologies sake, but rather it was intentional and it was aligned to our district goals, leveraging supportive and transformative tools to deepen learning and also fostered belonging and community by
helping students understand the lives and experiences of people who may be different from themselves. Through this experience, the students practiced authentic language use. They asked questions in Spanish and received immediate results. Students learned
about scientists, activists, and leaders from across the Spanish-speaking world. They explored diverse life stories, immigration journeys, challenges that were overcome, cultural traditions, and professional accomplishments. In doing so, they began to see
themselves as global citizens who are individuals capable of being able to connect across cultures through language. I'd like to introduce three of my students who are here to talk about their experience using the magic school's sweet character chatbot. Mara Machado in fourth grade. I have Sunonny
Urkbeck in fifth grade. And I have Maxwell Churn in sixth grade who are talked about their experiences. >> Hi, what? Hi, my name is Martto Machado and I'm in fourth grade. Spanish is my first language, so sometimes I already know
the vocabulary we're learning in class. When we use the chatbot, I always a I was able to challenge myself by asking more detailed questions and using longer sentences in Spanish. I interviewed an important Hispanic leader and I tried to use advanced
vocabulary and follow-up questions through the interview. Using the chatbot helped me practice expressing my ideas more clearly. I like that I could go deeper on my learning and set higher language goals for myself. Hi, my name is Sunny and I'm in fifth
grade. When we used the chatbot, our goal was to practice question words in Spanish like ko pa and quentos. I interviewed a Hispanic character and asked my questions in Spanish. The chatbot answered well, so it felt
like a real conversation. I had to really think about my grammar and vocabulary so the person would actually understand me. It made learning questions more fun and helped me see how they used in real life. Hi, my name is Maxwell Churn and I'm in
sixth grade. I interviewed a Hispanic scientist. I asked most of my questions in Spanish using the vocabulary we learned in class. Sometimes I wanted to know even more information, so I also asked some follow-up questions in English to learn
more details. The chatbot allowed me to understand the scientist's life, education, and challenges. I realized that language can help us learn about people from different backgrounds and careers. It made me think about my own future, too.
Thank you so much for your time and your continued support of our instructional practices that strengthen language proficiency, cultural understanding, and our shared commitment to preparing students to thrive in a connected and global world. Thank you very much. Again, a
transformative use of technology achieving something that we couldn't use just with a pen and paper. But it is important. The reason we use Magic School in the first place is because all input and output is historically collected. So we can always see everything that's happened during the
course of that interaction with the AI tool. Okay. So, I've always thought that one of the one of the really good things about the new Providence school system is that we really place a lot of emphasis on academics, but also athletics and the arts. And over the course of the last
couple of years, we have had uh our artists come in. We have had our um culinary students come in. We've had our video design students come in. So, tonight what we're going to do is we're going to expose you to a little bit of music, okay? But not just music for
music's sake. The objective, the goal of the music department this year was to increase creativity. Creativity is one of the strands of the art uh New Jersey student learning set uh standards and it's it's something
that infuses into a lot of the other arts but music is something that it's more difficult to infuse into. So I do commend the music department this year because they've started a process where they're asking students to create their own music to write their own music in a
very systematical way. So we do have tonight Britney Spina, our middle school u music teacher, who's going to talk you through the process that is used in the middle school classroom to create music. >> Good evening board and community. My
name is Britney Spina and I'm a middle school band director here in New Providence. With me this evening I have Alex on percussion. I have Lillian on saxophone, Dylan on clarinet and Asher on trumpet. These are four section leaders with the middle school band and
a really intrical intricral part of our program because they are helpers and um guides for the other younger students as they come in. Tonight I'm going to talk about creative composing in our music uh m uh middle school band classroom. Our department goal this year is to design and
implement lessons as Mr. Keiny said that's getting kids to create their original works. This has three separate processes here. One is conceptualizing and general generating ideas just the basics and then organizing and developing those ideas and finally refining and completing products. We're
going to talk to you and show you the first two steps today. In our band classroom setting, I like to mix things up often and sometimes we'll work individually on these kinds of activities in partners or in small groups. Here on the left, they worked in
sections. So, you can see the flute and the oos were working together on an activity. And then on the right, they were working in pairs. Uh we're going to have individuals play tonight in pairs, but this can obviously move forward into bigger groups eventually.
So our activity first that we're going to look at is rhythm creation. This is just starting from basics. So I'm giving them some rhythms that they can choose to make a four to eight beat pattern of their choosing. And when they first arrived tonight, right at 7:00 when the meeting started, I gave them a piece of
paper and said, "Write a rhythm." So this is brand new. They've never played this. We don't know what's going to come out of their instruments. But what's great, >> but what's great is that um they're just doing it all on their own. So, they're each going to play their rhythms that they just made a few minutes ago for you
right now. Quick hand. Good job. So, those are their completely original rhythms. I didn't even know what they wrote, so I'm glad they did a great job. Good job, guys. Okay, the second step is organizing and developing ideas. This goes just a step further and we're going to use an activity that we've done in
class before uh just style interpretation. So, as you can see right now, um they're just starting to work together in pairs and they're going to be adding elements um of creativity to an already written rhythm. So, things like that could be articulating or how
loud or soft they want to play, how the phrasing wants to be. And this really gives them a creative element to be able to change and work together. Um they've never done this. This is brand new, so we'll see what happens again. Um, but while they're doing that really quick, I want to talk about some of the district
connections that you heard about at the beginning and how they kind of connect to these activities. So, real world applications right away is right now they're thinking like professional composers. They're thinking about what's going to sound good, what notes do I know I can play, how can I make this
work and, you know, be creative with how it is. And also professional musicians, they're playing right here for you live, which is great. Um personalized learning is one of our initiatives obviously. So it's dis decision-m right now. They're taking ownership of what they're doing. They're trying things and being
creative. And then again with our belonging community, they're right now they're sharing their authentic authentic ideas. They're collaborating and they're working on a safe environment where they know that they're going to just try their best and whatever happens happens. And that's that's what creative feed is about. All
right. First, it's going to be uh times up. We're ready to go. Are you ready to go? Okay. Okay. The first one is going to be the pair of Alex and Lim. And let's see what they made. Give them a hand. Working their way through it. Again, they've never seen it, so it's kind of
exciting. All right. And next up is Dylan Ashra. Let's see how they're maybe different from the way that the first group made it. Give them a hand. So, as you can see, they're very different. The first one was a little bit more staccato and short and quick and the second was a little bit more
long and kind of moving together and creative. That was lovely. Um, as we continue this, we're not going to be have time to do that tonight, but what you can do is really continue and think about harmonizing, transposition, adding pitches, what kind of instruments we are using. And obviously, it's really neat
because these kinds of activities you can use at any age level. You can change the kinds of rhythms that you're going to use and use simpler rhythms. with elementary kids, you can work all the way up to what I'm about to show you in a moment, which is the high school um and their ability to create a whole
original work of art that they actually performed last year at their spring concert. So, at the high school level, uh Mr. Ziggler worked on this last year, as you can see, in March. They started from scratch. They just decided what notes they're going to put together, how to harmonize, every member of the high
school chorus, put forth some effort into this, and then they made it sound lovely. And then this is actually the final result. >> Okay. >> So this is a unique piece of music created by the students starting with the like single little note that was
played and then building that up until to this. Wow. Okay. We still we still we rise. Okay.
Would you like to stand up? Yep. Would you like to? Thank you very much indeed. It's great to see the creativity across the board, isn't it? And finding different ways to infuse creativity into what happens in our classrooms. So, thank you very much
indeed to the uh to to these four for being vulnerable, playing something they'd never played before and being given something to do a mere 40 minutes ago and then asked to come in front of people and do that. So, thank you very much indeed.
As you may know, it' be remiss of me if I didn't tell you or to remind you that our music our music program has been voted for 13 years in a row as a best community for music. Okay, which is a tremendous achievement and
congratulations to everyone. So about three or four years ago, Mr. Henry and the admin team at the high school was was charged with uh increasing act uh exposure to and access to AP scores
uh AP courses. So they went through a process of determining which courses maybe to open up to lower grade levels, which courses to introduce. And we were lucky to introduce to our freshman class AP World History. Okay.
To our freshman class. Okay. So, we've had two years of AP US history with our freshmen. These are the scores from last year, okay, which is an average of 4.5. For those of you who don't understand the AP scoring system, a three or above
is a pass. And these are college courses and students can get college credit for that. So, we had a group of our freshmen and now two years in a row that have passed an AP exam as freshmen. Okay. So to me, I'm thinking, I wonder what's
going on in that class. Okay, so I was delighted to uh invite up to the front here, Drew McCory, the teacher, and Ben Weinstein. We're going to talk a little bit about that instructional model and some of the things that they use in the classroom to promote this concept of
like deep learning. >> All right, >> good evening everybody. Uh, I want to clarify uh that that's Ben. I'm Drew McCully. We we look so similar in age. I just want to make sure. Uh, Ben is one of the rockstar students in a class. You
saw the slide. Full of rock stars. Okay. Um, all getting fours and fives. Uh, I've been teaching this a while, teaching various APs for a while. I've never seen anything uh quite this singular in how uh high the scores were,
but also not leaving anybody behind. And to do this as freshmen, um, it takes students who are wide open to new approaches. Uh, these students, after all, basically skipped, uh, high school, went from middle school to being a freshman in college. And I challenged
them with lots of different approaches. I started very early on talking about how they're going to need each other. We talk about supportive community and what that looks like in many forms. And I I talked a great deal about uh, it's a social studies course. we should
socially study. And uh not only did so many of them do that and run within directions, they kind of took a life on it of its own. And uh Ben's going to talk a little bit about how uh studying approaches changed uh during his experience with the AP uh world course.
So AP World is a very content dense course and it requires highlevel studying. What that manifested as for me and my friends was studying socially. When you study socially, you have a defined group of people who maybe you call or you get together with face to
face to talk about content. And that was really helpful to memorize information more effectively, hold each other accountable, and overall enjoy the studying process more. So when we had to explain concepts to each other and make
concept to concept or concept to life connections like connecting a history concept to an inside joke between your friends, you internalize information and you remember it for much longer after learning it. There were some times where I made connections in September or
October and I remember them through to the AP exam in May. As I mentioned before, that accountability when you have a defined group of people whom you study with, there's a sense of I need to go into this study session knowing the
content so that we can reinforce it together. And if you don't know it to that high level, you let yourself and the study group down. So that accountability drives you to learn and then use your studying more effectively to reinforce your learning and contribute to that long-term memory. And
as I alluded to before, just overall enjoying the studying process more when you're talking and laughing about content instead of just pouring over a study guide. It's more enjoyable and less daunting to study the vast content of AP World. And these techniques really
helped me and my peers find success throughout the year from September all the way to the exam in May. >> Thanks, Ben. So, how do students like Ben get on the path toward building a supportive community in spite challenging course? Well, I'll tell you how they don't do it. I think about uh
my experience as an AP student where AP meant just high pressure, lots of cold calling, lots of quiz, lots of high stakes, but not actually not much highlevel thinking uh to go along with those high stakes being tough for tough sake. uh I try to replicate what the AP
exam does but try to pull in some of these dynamics. Uh if the AP exam is going to bring in uh primary sources they've never seen before. It's their job to contextualize them. Well, I'm going to find first of all some of the weirdest maps, paintings, whatever I could find that are relevant. I see some
people who've seen some of those laughing already. Okay. Um and I'm going to say, "Hey, as a group, um instead of turn and talk, turn and hypothesize. turn and relate, connect, uh, make the best sense you can, apply what you know,
and I say that, you know, once that happens, I'm not going to cold call on anybody, but at the same time, uh, there's no bench, there's no sideline. Everybody's in the arena. I'm going to call whoever I need to to ask about what
is your least worst answer you have at this point. Okay? Uh, it doesn't have to be correct. uh this is complicated stuff uh using these thinking muscles uh it's okay and I think uh this group what made
them so special is they embraced that level of challenge and that level of risk uh very early on and built such a cohesive group and again our largest AP world class we've had so far. Um I do uh say that the note takingaking has to be
done on paper for a couple of reasons. First of all, it it gives us this quick back and forth of we're learning, we're applying, we're learning, we're applying. Uh students can use more organic uh sort of annotation writing forms to conceptually write out for each
other to share uh their thoughts the sort of thinking they're going to be using when they're building a very sophisticated argument for some of the highlevel questions of the AP exam. Um I try to tell them that every step of the way is reinforcement, even the things they're not looking forward to. Okay. Uh
Ben and other students were great. I don't think they look forward to homework. Okay. But if homework is the first step, uh I sometimes been saying this year like step across the grass. We're making pathways in our brain and you keep walking across the grass until
it becomes a pathway. Uh if each one is a step towards that where it's a permanent connection between concepts, uh things just take on a different tender across the board. Now, that is not to say we don't use technology. Of course we do. There's lots of times
where uh you find a really great resource like a map of the world that lit literally dates every border and when it was made. Well, students need to see something that high-res where they're zooming in and out showing each other the connections they made on
different parts of the map. Even some of the primary source paintings to really get into questions about author audience context. you need to really zoom in and out of the details to make some of these connections. But again, all this can't be done without a community that trusts
each other, makes mistakes together. And you know, it's interesting to hear Ben talk about how like, you know, this feeling of accountability. There was one some something I guarded students against and it was, you know, you're not going to make a lot of study groups with
people who know more than you. If you think you always have to be explaining just as much as you're being explained to that you have to be as as smart or prepared or whatever, you can get in your head and talk yourself out of an alliance with everybody if you start thinking that way in this sort of
course. So, like for Ben, for a student who like didn't want to join your study group because they worried they weren't going to be explaining as much or they would be kind of absorbing more information from you all more than they were giving or participating. What would
you say to them? >> I would tell them that the studying socially, it benefits both parties no matter what. So if I'm explaining something to a student who maybe doesn't know as much about the content, I'm still gaining the experience of
explaining it, which will internalize it forever for me. And if I have holes in my understanding, those will be exposed and we can cover them together and learn together. While he's absorbing, I'm also learning from myself and we're learning together to develop that long-term
understanding. This was a pretty consistent attitude across a group of 20 students. They helped each other. They succeeded together. Very proud of them. THANKS. Do you get a feel for a learning community?
You get a feel for everyone feeding off each other, helping each other out. That's the SEAL component, the social emotional learning component, which is also one of our strategic planning goals, you know. So, bringing that community together, bringing those students together as a community of learning is a very, very important
thing. Okay. So, last one. If you've been here before, you'll remember me talking about real world learning, real world experiences, authentic experiences. And the role of the uh the goal of the science
department this year, you can see up there, is to put more real world learning experiences into their curriculum to support student growth. So, I am delighted to have a former student of mine. I didn't mean to embarrass her. Former student of mine,
which says more about my age than anything else, I think, uh, Sydney, who's going to come up and talk about the about the trout in the classroom program, which is a program that we have in association with the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Organization that we also
got from an Ed Foundation grant. Right, Sydney? Hi everyone. Thank you so much for having us. We're really happy to be here and to tell you more about our trout in the classroom program. Um, but first we did want to thank again the uh New Providence Education Foundation for
funding the uh tank that we have and all the equipment to maintain this and also our field work. We had some waiters you'll see um that we used on our site uh visit as well. And so as an overview for trout in the classroom really in October we get about 150 to 200 trout eggs um from New Jersey Fish and
Wildlife and Pequest Fishery and then throughout the year we raise them uh learning along the way and then the goal is in May to release them into Greenbrook in Wong reservation. So the students are going to tell you a little bit more about the program. Uh hi I'm Naomi Lee. I'm a uh a
sophomore here at New Providence. Um our AP environmental science class conducted our initial site visit to Lake Surprise in October where we caught and identified uh various species and collected samples for water quality testing back in the classroom. This
enabled us to apply what we have learned to aquatic ecosystems and conservation in much more meaningful and impactful ways than just learning about it in the classroom. While raising this trout, we have seen firsthand the factors that affect survival and how species have
varying tolerant tolerances to factors such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pollutant levels. My name is Izzy Sylvester and I'm a junior here at New Providence High School. Not only is this program used in AP environmental science, but also the
Science National Honor Society has been volunteering to conduct water quality testing for the tank each week since the program has started this year. Here in these slides, you can see egg day when the eggs are delivered and students separate viable and nonviable eggs. Eggs
that are white will not hatch while eggs that are transparent usually will. The pictures here are all dark as you can see because trout eggs tend to be on the rocky bottom of the stream bed and they aren't exposed to light. Once viable eggs separated, they are put into the
tank, their new home, for the next few months until they're released in May. Hi, my name is Abby Gilbertson and I come in every week with Izzy to conduct water quality tests. As you can see here on the trout tank, collecting this data is important because it helps us keep the trout healthy until their release
date in May. Monitoring each parameter tells us when the water needs to be changed and how to balance the tap and distilled water to better mimic their natural habitat. Seeing how much these factors affect the trout raises questions about how much the increased amount of salt added to the roads this
winter have impacted stream systems. >> Um, hello. My name is Griffin Gold and I'm a freshman and this is my first year of mis bleach. Throughout the year and especially the first quarter we have learned about ecology which is um basically limiting factors how
ecosystems thrive or how they die off and um I'm seeing it in real time especially with the trout. I have noticed how they have been um as we started with 160 I think we are only left to five and I know most of those
factors are not um necessarily natural or as time evolved. One example is um we have had a aggressive trout that I believe or I hypothesized that has been um stressing the others out and I've been and stress for animals like that
size and nature could actually leave to demise. Um as you can see me um over there I'm watching him and talking to speech about what we could do to him and um we put him in like timeout in a way. Um, anyway, I learned about living
factors and I never even knew how to um take care of fish and like pH and water quality and Miss Bleach just took that risk with me and and thankfully it worked out. But um I see how like the nitrate could be higher than other days and overall it's been a great experience
and I hope I will be able to do it next year and I'm extremely extremely excited for release. Yeah. So, this this program has really kind of incorporated a lot of our NGSS and AP environmental science standards um kind of throughout the program and there are a lot of science um and
engineering practices that students engage in and skills that they're gaining um even when they don't know it. So, uh it has been a really great program and the fact that it's conservationoriented, especially locally, these students will be releasing trout into an ecosystem right next door. So, it's been great. And
Naomi is going to tell us just a little bit more about an activity we're going to be um starting with in AP as well. >> In addition to the trial in the classroom program in AP environmental science, we have recently started our energy unit and we're learning about the
solar panel system that we have here at the high school. We have data on historical and daily production as well as our energy usage and we will be assessing this information to answer the question on the board of should
Providence take ownership of this system of solar panels at the end of the power purchase agreement in 2027. Things we have to keep in mind when making this decision are energy production, energy usage, and the maintenance fees. Since maintenance will
now be handled by us if we do decide to keep this system, this addresses a number of our course objectives, and it's extremely useful in seeing real world examples from our school. Thank you to Mr. Renard for sharing this information with us so we can learn more about our systems here at the school.
And we'll be sharing our recommendations with our business administrator, Mr. Ta. Thank you. >> So we have AP environmental science that runs every two years. We have that in conjunction with environmental sustainability which is our project lead
the way course. The first year we ran AP environmental science again every student passed. Okay, which is a tremendous uh achievement considering it was the first year that we did that course. Having realworld problems for
students to actively immerse themselves in I think really helps with that process. So you've seen AP world history, you've seen AP environmental science, the scores from those courses and did you notice the vertical articulation from our math students
learning some more simple math all the way up to our students advising Mr. test on whether or not we should have solar panel. We should keep the solar panels. That vertical articulation is really very important. But now we have moved from being a bronze rated AP school now
to our gold award over the course of the last two. My apologies to being a gold award uh school which is wonderful to see and wonderful to see that progress. Kudos to the high school administration Mr. Henry for increasing access to AP scores, for meeting with our AP
teachers, to to make sure programs are in place, for the sort of strategies that you saw from Mr. McCauley and from the strategies you saw from Miss Bleach. Okay? All goes towards uh achievement at the highest levels in our school district. So I'm hoping that you can see by having
some large overarching goals, some more specific departmental goals which really focus what goes on in the classroom that goes a long way towards us being able to provide for our students a very varied,
balanced, rigorous educational program which puts their learning front and center. Thank you very much indeed for everyone involved tonight and I wish you a good night. >> Thank you everyone for coming and if any of the students want to leave we we're
excusing you. So thank you very much for coming. Okay. >> Um, and I want to thank uh Mr. Keany and all the department heads. That was fantastic. And like I said at the beginning of the meeting, it's my one of my favorite meetings of the year. So, thank you very much. Uh, moving along
for the next portion, we're I'm going to pass this over to Dr. Zerolley uh for board goal update. Thank you, Miss Morirano. Uh before I go up to the presentation area, I'd just like to draw everyone's attention in their binders are the actual goals that
we did print out for you, which are board annual goals as well as then our committee goals. I'd also like to invite Miss Kowski to come up and present with me. Okay, thank you for your patience. Uh, Mr. Keaney, I will give him credit where
credit's due. We walked in this evening and unfortunately the computer that we usually work off of is not working. So, we are working off of a laptop and I actually commend him for how well he did that curriculum report without our uh technology that we usually have here in
the media center. So, um thank you to the board um for working with us on our committee goals throughout this year this evening. Um I'd like to thank specifically the uh personnel committee. our personnel management and
communication committee as I will report out on our goal of advancing staff development and wellness to support student achievement. Uh Dr. Kristen Mson Hayden is our chair. Miss Gunderman and Miss LRI are our chair members. So thank
you um for supporting us and for giving all of the feedback as we look to um fulfill this goal for the school year. This evening, there are two goals that we're going to report out on. As I just said, the first goal is advancing staff development and wellness to support
student achievement. And the second goal, which will be presented by Miss Ugluro, falls under the finance, facilities, and security committee, strengthening safety and student well-being. What's really important um that the
board and I have really worked on um in developing the new five-year strategic plan is creating a strategic plan that is directly aligned to our goals here in the school district. So ensuring that the board's annual committee goals are
aligned to the strategic plan and then ultimately my goals, the principal's goals, the teachers goals all go back to the strategic plan. This evening, you'll see that the goal that I will discuss with Miss Quacowski focuses specifically
on goal number four, strengthening staff capacity and wellness to enhance student outcomes. And I just like to point out that this is a five-year goal. So next year we may have another goal that also
lends itself to aligning to this goal or in three years we may have that. But these are five-year goals. This is the goal that uh the personnel management and communication committee came up with. Each of our committee goals are smart goals. And so for this
goal, by June 2026, the district will enhance staff capacity and wellness to improve student outcomes by implementing a professional development framework focused on mental health literacy, inclusive practices, executive
functioning, and technology integration. We additionally will have wellness initiatives that will be introduced to all of our staff members including mental health supports, wellness stays and pure support systems. And you can clearly see how we specified that this
would be a smart goal. It is specific on enhancing staff capacity and wellness. It is measurable because it's measured by the completion of the framework and the roll out of these wellness initiatives and staff participation rates. It's achievable with our current
resources, leadership support, as well as partnerships. It is relevant as it is aligned to the district's focus on staff development, wellness, and improving student outcomes. And it's time bound as it will be achieved by June 2026.
And again, it is directly aligned to strategic goal number four, strengthening staff capacity and wellness to enhance student outcomes. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Quowski, who has helped me throughout the year with this goal and
implementing it here in the district. Thank you, Dr. Zerley. So, really, when it comes to this goal, it's two-pronged. The first prong is staff wellness and mindfulness. We know that if we fill the cups of our teachers, our teachers are in turn going
to fill the cups of our students, right? So, it's a very natural trickle down effect. And then the second part of this goal is just continued learning, right? And it's not always about content learning. It's also learning about how to keep yourself right well and and
feeling good. So, that's all kind of rolled into here. So, this all started back in a well actually pre- August because there was plenty of planning before that, but really with the staff, they first were introduced to the school back in August at our opening day
kickoff. We had a huge um gratitude giveaway and overall it was a super positive um experience and I think it really um the you know there were so many comments about the positivity and that morale felt really good at the
start of school which is exactly what you want when we're coming back into a new school year with with our kids. Also early in the year as many of you are aware as we started to do our anxious generation work. So that should be nothing new because we had I want to say
like at least 80 staff members participate in that book study. We had community members also participating in that book study. And again that was a fabulous way of kind of blending learning but also it informing our own wellness also the wellness of our
children and to also help us inform our decisions moving forward. going further into the year, we definitely um we started to do some work at the middle school with some executive functioning workshops and learning and then not only
just for our teachers to learn, but to again in turn start to implement those strategies and that learning with our students. Moving into November, we really leaned into all things gratitude in in November. Um and for any of you
who are interested, Dr. Zerley is excellent at baking donuts. Um it is a side hustle of hers now. Um but she we did she did she's like please no more donuts. Um but really in all honesty um she did bake the donuts and we as an
administrative team went around providing donuts and coffee and just a a few moments of just interconnectedness showing appreciation and the staff were overwhelmingly like shocked, surprised, happy. I mean we're going through those
hallways with music and it really was it felt like a very celebratory atmosphere for those few hours. Um, we are continuing, again, we've been talking a lot about technology. It's not a surprise for any of us, but we
definitely were leaning into learning more about technology, gathering data, and again, in order to take that data and make some really um evidence-based and well-informed decisions moving forward. Again, let's get into um
February. You know, coming into the new year, it's always a a restart, right? kind of that fresh beginning and we wanted to give that to our staff members. So we did um come together with LifeHive um who uh Lori Wasserman is
this the CEO and founder of of that company um and again it while while it has a dietary slant again it really leans into overall health and wellness. So, we established a a health and wellness challenge for our um staff
members. We introduced them to the fact that they can get through Etna um consultations with dietary um with dieticians. It's it's covered by Etna. So, again, just giving them that information to say like, hey, you can be healthy and it doesn't have to cost you
anything. There are these resources at your fingertips. So, that was um that's unfortunately coming to an end because it's the end of February, but you know, there's going to be some more things coming on the horizon. There's uh that's TBD and we're going to keep that close to the vest for now. Um but so, but
honestly, it's been great. And then to be perfectly honest, the feedback that we've gotten, which honestly is the the most important, right? Because this is where you see the impact of all the work and the decisions that you're making is really the feedback from our staff members. And I'm gonna let you read
this, but additionally this morning, Mrs. Allen and I happened to meet with uh our second grade team at Saltbrook. And unprompted, right, and you happen to be there, Dr. Zerley, unprompted, they they spoke about November. They talked about the donuts. They talked about the
giveaways cuz we were like, "Hey, what's a glow? What's going good?" And they unprompted were like, "Gosh, it just felt good. I felt refreshed. I felt seen and heard." Those were their exact words, right? Mrs. Down, I felt seen and
heard as a staff. And if there's nothing else we can do, we want our kids to feel seen and heard. So, we want our teachers to feel seen and heard, right? So, again, it's this trickle down effect. So, there's been a lot of positivity coming from these efforts. And as Dr. Zerly said before, this is not something
that we should just be doing this year, right? These are practices that we should be doing whether it's in a five-year plan or not. we should just be, you know, supporting our teachers to the best of our ability all the time. Thank you, Miss Kikowski. And as you continue to just read some of these
quotes that are directly from our staff um over the course of the year, I'd also like to point out that we did partner with local partnerships such as LifeHive um and also with the mindful generation for the an for the anxious generation.
Um and they have been uh extremely helpful to work with and really wanting to do what's best for our students in our community. Um these are just some statistics. Uh the other is obviously quantitative qualitative data. This is
more quantitative data. And at the end of each of our professional development sessions whether in August or our half days, we always provide questions to our teachers. And I think it was really great to see that over 90% of our staff
felt ready to start school, felt that our professional development workshops were meaningful, contributed to their professional growth, and that the strategic planning workshop allowed them to gain a deeper understanding of what our vision is over the next five years.
So, that was some really great data to show that we have and will continue to meet the needs of this goal. Are there any questions or any comments from any committee members before I allow Mr. U to report out on the next
goal? >> Um so for personnel committee when we met last week I don't know what the snow I don't know what day it is anymore. um with the concept of looking to see the real comments that teachers were were giving to us and the feedback we got was
I mean for me it was some of the most worthwhile information we got back. Um, but even going back further with it, just the breaking down of the goals where in the past when we've sat down just with goals to say, "Yes, we met it. No, we met it. Okay, moving on." But now going into this and breaking each
committee down, each goal down so that it holds us accountable, but it allows everybody to hear really what we're looking at and to see real life feedback, I think, has been huge, at least for me as board member, but I know we've all kind of said it in the past, too. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Kristen. Okay, I'm going to
pass it on to Mr. U who will report out on strengthening safety and student well-being. >> Thank you, Dr. Zerley. I'm very uh excited to speak about this goal to everyone tonight. Um before I begin, I do want to really thank the finance
facilities and security um committee which is chaired by uh Stacy Gunderman and includes Donna Zayn uh and Laura Castellano for their thought partnership and for the feedback they've provided us throughout our um
work towards this goal. I also want to thank our athletic director, Mr. Corangelo and our manager of information systems, Alex Manard, for all the work they've done on this goal as well. So, as Dr. Zerpolley uh spoke to you about,
we have these bigger five-year strategic goals and strategic goal number seven is to strengthen school safe safety and student well-being through facilities, technology, and mental health support. under that one of the annual board
committee sub goals number two this year smart is focused on this five-year strate strategic goal and this is what it reads it says by May 2026 we will complete a comprehensive review of all school security systems emergency
protocols and digital safety practices including visitor access surveillance cameras communication tools and staff training We will present updated policies and prioritized recommendations to ensure
alignment with current safety standards and instructional needs. And you could see all the ways that that is a smart goal that it is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. Okay? And when we've thought about this
goal this year, we've really looked at it through six lenses. Okay? The ultimate goal is strengthening safety and student well-being. And as we've pursued it, our six lenses have been really looking through our physical in
infrastructure, school procedures, emergency plans and preparation, our communications, our cyber security, and then our coordination and collaboration with key partners, whether that be law enforcement, whether that be um members
of the the state board of education who are experts on school preparedness. um and really consulting with them. And I'm excited really to share with you some of the action steps we've already taken towards this goal this year that are truly meaningful and many of which
have already resulted in our schools being more safe and secure. And one of the first things we did, and I want to really tip my hat to Mr. Corangelo for this is we had one of our SRO from the high school, our school resource officers train our school resource
officers from Roberts and Saltbrook on how to create digital maps of where our school surveillance cameras are for two reasons. Number one, it would provide easier access to our administrators to find and use those
cameras if they ever needed to review them. but number two to be able to look at those maps and assess where are there blind spots, where would we benefit from having additional cameras. That work has been completed um and it's generated a
list of prioritized a prioritized list of additional cameras to install at each school that we'll be going through uh by the end of the year. The second thing we did is we said we want to really look at our emergency plans and procedures and we want to stress test them. We want
to see do they work? Are we calibrated on how we would implement them? So the first thing we did is we had all of our principles along with Dr. Zerpoly and myself meet with me Chief Hen and other members of the New Providence Police
Department in which we were presented really our principles were presented with what we call a tabletop emergency exercise in which they were asked to to respond in real time to a scenario they had no idea of what was coming.
And it was through that that we were really able to identify where there may be some areas within our emergency plans that we could fine-tune and we will fine-tune. But also an incredibly valuable to what was also incredibly
valuable. We were able to calibrate our responses to the same situation across three different schools. Okay. So that was a step we we took. Another thing that we did I did was I took all of our emergency plans and I assessed them
using an assessment that's put out by the Office of School Preparedness and Emergency Planning, which is a um an office within the New Jersey Department of Ed to make sure it aligned with all those best practices. The next step that we took, which was
incredibly thorough, but so valuable, we had um all of our principles, head custodians, SRO's, and our head of buildings and grounds use what's called the site assess rubric, which was developed by the US Department of
Education to assess the uh the level of security and safety within schools and spans everything from signage to procedures. It's 40 pages long and each of our um
principles took that assessment, went through it. When they were finished, they handed it off to their head custodian. The head custodian then did it. Then the SRO did it and then it was handed to the head of buildings and grounds to make sure we were all aligned
to what our answers were um to those questions and that assessment. The final step is I'll be passing that off to the police department and they're going to review it and t together we're going to prioritize a list of areas um where there is need that we will address as we
move forward into next year. Incredibly thorough. The next step I think I found the most rewarding and that was we invited representatives from the office of school planning and emergency preparation to visit each of our schools
and so far they've done the middle school, high school and uh Robert Salt Brook's going to be mid-March. These are former police officers and former SRO whose job is school security. This is all they know. They get the highest
level of training even at the national level and they're in schools every day talking about school security. They spend a full day with me at the schools walking every inch of the building and point speaking to members of the staff
whether it was the principal, the front office staff, the SRO, the custodian. And our principles will tell you they came up with incredibly thorough lists of what we were doing really well and also areas that we could improve not
only long-term but immediately to improve the uh security of our schools. I then followed up and spent at least two hours with those people from each school and we walked the building and went through all of those recommendations. And I'm incredibly
grateful to our principles and administrators for taking a lot of that feedback and immediately implementing some of the changes. And a lot of that feedback will also be going towards longerterm recommendations heading into next year. Another aspect of security uh
that's not the first thing I used to think about when I was a principal is cyber security. that is how secure is our infrastructure, our networks against attacks, ransomware attacks, malware attacks and Alex Bernard, our management
manager of information uh systems completed a cyber security security assessment with our VCISO which is stands for our virtual um chief information security officer. So he did
this self assessment went through the results with our VCSO and is taking that the results to form goals around cyber security for next year. The final thing was we looked at our communication systems and we said is
this the optimal communication system for us to communicate effectively during an emergency with all stakeholders. Currently we use a platform called tap app. Um and we wanted to say all right we've been using this 7 to 10 years. Is
it the optimal application for us to use for this very important purpose? If it is are we using it optimally? So over the course of this year number one we've provided more training to our teachers on the tap app and made sure they had the updated version. All of our
staff went through that at their faculty meetings. Um Mr. Manard and I have met with other vendors who have products similar to TAP app to see if it was worth investing in one of their products. Um, and Mr. Manard and I met
with Chief Hen and other members of the new uh the New Providence Police Department to get their take on TAP app and what's working well for them and what's not and we got their feedback. So, where does this bring us? Where are we going next by May 2020 2026? Number
one, we're going to use those site assessments and those digital maps to create a prioritized list of security cameras in each building and a phased plan for how we're going to um get those installed whether by the fall or over
time. The second thing is we're going to immediately start using the feedback we used from the site of self self assessment that are that we did in house as well as the feedback we received from the representatives who spent time with us from the office of school
preparedness to prioritize recommendations for improving security procedures and infrastructure in our schools. And as I said, some of that's not going to wait. Some of that's already happened. We are also planning in late March to
have a second tabletop drill with the New Providence Police Department. And this time we're going to include our assistant principles and principles and our director of communications um to go through another scenario and continue to calibrate our responses and
to look for holes in our current plan uh emergency plans. And then finally, we are going to stick with Tap app, but we've learned so much about the use of Tap app that we're currently not using optimally. And we're going to provide training first to our administrators on
the best practices of how we can use it. Um, and then train our staff next so that we get again in emergency situations, we are confident that we are um communicating in the most optimal way possible. So, a lot of great work done
on this drill. Uh, thanks to a lot of people and I just want to thank everyone for that and also ask anyone uh on the board if you have any questions. >> No questions. I'll just say thank you. Thank you for um really the the the
thorough analysis you did and really prioritizing school security. >> Thank you. Well, thank you very much. And there's more to come on our next two goals that we'll report out on at our following
meeting in March. And we will be reporting out just for the public to know until May on all of our committee goals. >> Thank you so much Mr. U and Mrs. K. Dr. Zerley.
Okay. So, next um we're going to declare uh the public hearing on the student safety and data system for incidents that occurred during the reporting period September 1st uh 2025 through December 31st, 2025.
Back to you. >> Thank you, Mrs. Morano. So, um, the school district is required to publicly report all violations of violence, vandalism, harassment, intimidation, and bullying twice a year. Reporting period
one, which is what I'll be reporting on tonight, is for all incidents from September 1st, 2025 through December 31st, 2025. During this reporting period, we had zero affirmed incidents of harassment,
intimidation, or bullying. one incident of weapons possession. Two incidents of violence which were both which was simple threat and fighting. Um two incidents of vandalism which were both damage to property and one incident of a
substance offense which was substance use confirmed. I'm now going to share harassment, intimidation and bullying investigation statistics by school for this reporting period. There were three HIB investigations conducted at New
Providence High School, none of which were affirmed. There were two HIB investigations conducted at New Providence Middle School, neither of which was affirmed. There were two HIB investigations conducted at Saltbrook Elementary School, neither of which was affirmed. And there were seven investig
Hib investigations conducted at Alan W. Roberts Elementary School, none of which were affirmed. All of our HIP investigations were completed within the 10 days 10 school days required by law. And the nature of these HIBA allegations
range from race, color, gender, gender identity, mental, physical, or sensory disability, and appearance. The names of our anti-bullying specialists who led the investigations are Mrs. Kelly at the at New Providence High School, Mr. Chenjo at New Providence Middle School,
Miss Quacowski at Saltbrook Elementary School, and Miss Wittenberg at Alan W. Roberts Elementary School. The nature of the school's response to to these incidents was both disciplinary, which included in and out of school suspensions and after school detention
due to code of conduct violations, and educational, including restorative interventions and supports, including student safety plans, conflict resolutions, student parent conferences, and individual student counseling.
The trainings conducted and programs implemented with the intention of reducing incidents of HIP and promoting a positive school culture include education of staff and students on district HIP policy, mandatory training on HIP law and policy for our
anti-bullying specialist, trainings on social media and cyber bullying, instructional activities in our health curriculum that focus on bullying, peer relations, and conflict resolution. social emotional learning activities and week of respect and red ribbon week
activities in October. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh declaring that the public hearing on the safety student safety and data system for reporting period uh September 2025 through December 31st is
now closed. Uh open to public comments. So this is an opportunity for the public to be heard on anything specific to the agenda. Employ about employment. >> Yes. >> Just state your name and address please.
>> Hi, I'm Jennifer Neerhoffer from 32 Club Lane. With me is Anna Roth. She's gonna stay back there. Um, I am the secretary of the bandwagon. Anna is the treasurer of the bandwagon. We are here to speak on behalf of the bandwagon, the parent organization that supports and
fundraises for the new Providence High School marching band. We wanted to say thank you to the administration and the board uh for appointing Misspina as the new marching band director during tonight's meeting. Since joining the district, Misspina has proven herself to
be not only a wonderful music educator, but a kind and trusted adult, always ready to listen to and help a student in a time of need. Our parent volunteers, our student musicians, and our color guard members are so excited to welcome
Miss Beina in this new role. Miss Fina, the bandwagon is beyond happy to support and partner with you as you lead the pride and class from Leaderfield to MetLife Stadium to Main Street USA and beyond. Thank you.
No pressure that we have to approve that now. Um, okay. So, the public portion of the meeting is now declared closed. So, I need approval for the minutes uh for business uh and the reorg from Janu 8th and the special meeting on January 15th.
Closed meeting January 15th and the business meeting and closed meeting in January 22nd. >> Help you motion. >> Motion. >> Second. Ruba. >> Okay. Roll call. >> Miss Kelana. >> Hi. >> Dr. Hayden. >> Hi. >> Miss Gunderman.
>> Hi. >> Miss Klay. >> Hi. >> Mrs. Lee. >> Hi. >> M. Moreno. >> I. >> Mrs. Zayn. >> Hi. >> Okay. Uh, finance. I'd like to move to approve items uh one through six as listed. Second.
>> Okay. Nothing in particular. All pretty standard. >> Roll call. >> Miss Costana. >> Hi. >> Dr. Hayden. >> Hi. >> Miss Gunderman. >> Hi. >> Miss Klay. >> Hi. >> Miss Lee. >> Hi. >> Mrs. Morano. >> Hi. >> Mrs. Zayn. >> Hi.
>> Uh, there's no facilities updates. So, education. Uh, Mrs. Castellano. >> Thanks. I'd like to move to approve items one through five as listed. Second. >> Um just a quick call out, we are approving the calendar that we discussed
last meeting. Um which incorporates the three emergency close days. And as we discussed, um if if we don't um if we're able to give back two of the days, one of them will be on April 17th, the Monday.
Yeah, just to clarify for the board, if there is one remaining day that will be given um the Friday before Memorial Day as per the teacher contract, negotiated contract. And if there is a second day that we're able to give back, we have now uh recorded and documented on the
school calendar that that would be given back on Monday, April 17th in the 2728 school year. >> Thank you. >> I don't know if we'll have anything to give back after a winter like this, but
>> we'll see. >> Roll call. >> Miss Kalana. >> Hi. >> October Hayden. >> Hi. >> Miss Gunderman. >> Hi. Miss Klay, >> hi. >> Mrs. Lra, >> I >> Mr. Moreno, >> I. >> Mr. Zayn, >> yes. >> Uh, now personnel action.
>> I'd like to approve items 1 through nine as listed below. >> Second. >> Second. >> Any comments? >> Um, Dr. Zerolley is going to have a few. And then um just the other shout out of things you guys have in your packets um
are the 26 27 employee holiday schedules for 12 month and 10 or 10 and a half month employees to look at as well. >> Dr. Zerolley, excuse me. Um so I would like to echo
some of the sentiments of our of our um parents this evening. I'm very excited that this evening uh Miss Britney Spina is on the agenda to be our next marching band director. Um she is extremely
professional. Um she has a tremendous amount of passion for this work and I truly believe that she is the right person to carry the band, the pride and class of New Providence into the future. And I really truly wish her the best of
luck and we are here to support you. Um, we recognize how important this program is to our town and in talking with you for quite a while, I know that you recognize that as well. And again, we know that you're the right person. So, congratulations.
I'd also like to just make a couple comments on the retirees that we have this evening on the agenda. Mr. Randy Pratt, he has been here at the high school for several years. I I I don't know the exact years, but I want to say over a decade or just about a decade as a physics teacher. He's a beloved
physics teacher here at the high school. Uh Miss Moren Bernard, who is our data management specialist and works in central office with us. Um she will be missed as well. Miss Jessica Belt who is a special education teacher here at the high school and she has led for many
many years our LLD program which is our learning disabled program here at the high school. She is a phenomenal, phenomenal educator and she will absolutely be missed in that program. And then I'd just also like to recognize Mr. Chad Parlovecio, our head football
coach, who will be stepping down as the head football coach, uh, but will continue to teach with us here at New Providence. Chad has been with us for about nine years and, um, nine years ago, we were in a pretty bad spot with our football program and myself um, and
Mr. uh Carangelo at the time who was my assistant principal. We're not going to settle unless we got someone here that we thought would turn that program around and he did do it. So I thank him for his nine years of service to our football program and that is all I have.
>> Roll call. >> Miss Kelana. >> Hi. >> Dr. Hayden. Hi. Miss Gunderman. Hi. Miss. Hi. Merry. Hi. Morano. Hi. >> Mrs. Zayn. Hi. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Uh, Mrs. Zayn, board policy.
>> Yes. I'd like to move item one as listed on the agenda. >> Uh, sure. Um my comment is um you all received the uh policy and regulation. Uh this is up for first reading. It is mandated um
it's based on federal law and uh because this one policy satisfies the law the title 7 and title 9 um we are thus abolishing the two previous policies that the district had. >> Okay. Uh, roll call.
>> Miss Kasano. >> Hi, >> Dr. Epson. Hayden. >> Hi, >> Miss Gunderman. >> Hi, >> Miss Klay. >> Hi, >> Miss Leprey. >> Hi, >> Miss Moreno. >> I Zane, >> I. >> Great. Um, committee reports, curriculum, instruction, technology.
Nothing new to update. Okay. Finance, facilities, safety, and security. I get to give a little update. Um we did meet last week as a committee um to go over the the first draft or the one of the drafts of
the 2627 budget. We are still waiting on the state aid numbers. We expect those in March. Uh the latest draft that was um developed um at the committee level is assuming that there is no increase in state aid. Um we are keeping a 2%
surplus balance. The spending plan is approximately a 4% increase from the 2025 2026 uh budget. Our projected premium increase for employees health benefits is 16.3% and then 9.5% for dental benefits. We do
plan to utilize a health benefits cap adjustment as allowed by law for those. Uh the tax increase will be based on the state aid numbers once received. Our governor is scheduled to speak on March 9th regarding that. Uh and the plan is to send the draft um or the full board a
draft um once we kind of have those numbers um and then the spending plan you know is approved by the committee. Um once those state aid numbers are received, the draft budget will be updated and approved and then to submit the tentative budget to the county
office for review um at our you know March meeting which is looking to be rescheduled because we had it scheduled for March 12th to approve that. But with the governor's address on this being March 10th, that's not really enough time for us to actually get the numbers
and then review it. Um, so that is uh likely going to be rescheduled at board meeting. Did I miss anything, Mr. Ta? >> Yeah. Um, just one little clarification. I think uh what the plan is is we're going to actually send a draft out to
the full board um within the next week or so uh due to the fact that we're not going to get the state eight figures to the 10th uh because then the turnaround is going to be very quickly. So, we'll um I'm planning on uh circulating a draft to the rest of the committee members hopefully tomorrow, Monday. Uh
once they take a look at it and we get the blessing, then maybe by the end of next week, we'll try to get a draft out to the full board to give you some time, at least a week or so, to look at it and have any questions, you could ask myself or any of the committee members. And then the turnaround will be very fast. Uh once we get the state aid numbers, um
we got have a plan in place depending on what that number is. And then we'll meet and reschedule the meeting on the 12th um probably be that following week uh one day to come in and approve the budget to send it down to the county for approval. >> Thank you. Uh personnel management
communications >> nothing as exciting as a budget but um we met last week to review our progress on our goals that Dr. Zerley and Miss Kuiaowski presented on tonight. So we are good. Great. Um, any old business?
>> Okay. Any new business? >> I just have a one quick item. Um, as per the law, um, one, um, meeting at each year, we're supposed to go over the code of ethics. Um, so in your packets was the PowerPoint that we received from school boards. Um, I want you please to
go through it and read it. Once you're done with it, you do sign the acknowledgement receipt. um I send them down to the county office that uh says that you read it and you understand it. Um I have just have three basic um areas I really want you to take a look at. The
first one is the board training. Um the training that you have to do each year for the for a three-year term in your first term and then um if you're reelected then you have one class over the three years that you have to take. Um the next piece it speaks about the code of ethics in detail. Um all the
different topics that you should take a look at. Um the conflict and recusal area is very important. Um when you have to recuse yourself due to conflict. Um I highly recommend taking a look at that. Goes over hiring personnel, collective
bargaining um and relationships within the district. And then the last piece um uh which I find very uh important is the social media piece. It's the last page. Um if you're going to do it, please read it. Um I highly recommend you don't. Um,
but if you do, please make sure you follow the directions with regards to the social media piece. That's it. >> All right. Uh, thank you. This is now an opportunity for the public to be heard.
>> Okay. And, uh, with that, I need a motion to recess to close session for, >> uh, personnel and student matters related to HIP. >> Motion. >> Stacy. Second. Second group. >> Okay.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you.