this meeting to order. Mr. Gibbs, please read the statement of compliance. In compliance with the Open Public Meeting Act, public law 1975, chapter 231, notice of this meeting has been properly advertised in the daily record in Suburban Trends. Its agenda has been posted at the appropriate locations and
a copy has been filed with Mcquanic Township Clerk. Thank you. Please call the RO. Mr. Bloomer, here. Mr. Mr. Reesi here. Mrs. Espazito here. Mr. Gon here. Miss Ikeo here. Mr. Mcweeny here.
Mr. Pompeo will be late. Mr. Senic here. And Mrs. Chanton will be late. We have a quorum. Thank you. Everyone please stand for the flag salute of the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. All right. Good evening everyone. Welcome to our September 2nd meeting. School starts on Thursday and the board would like to welcome back all our students as well as our teachers and staff. To the staff, thank you for your efforts this summer to prepare the district for the start of the school
year. Whether it was writing curriculum or cleaning the buildings so they're ready for the students. The board appreciates you all. Thank you to the students. Give your best efforts in all your assignments and demonstrate the character and positive attitude of aquanic panther. Also, treat your fellow
students as you would want to be treated. Invite a new person to sit with you at lunch or start a conversation with a student that isn't being included. You are all in this together and on the same team. Have fun. And next to Dr. Poris. The preseason is over and you have a Thursday night game in two
days. Good luck and continue your hard work. We are behind you. Next, the board would like to thank the Veterans Wall Committee and specifically Colleen McMahon, Dave Cole, and Elvis Vinovich of Green Nature for beautifying the House memorial in front of PTHS. The
work came out great. Thank you. Last, I want to announce that I have signed the new PTA contract which was settled in May. I want to again thank our negotiations committee as well as the PTA team uh for a smooth contract negotiation and we're looking forward to
another good term. Now pass the mic to Dr. Poris. Thank you Mr. Senk. And my report is going to primarily focus on today's events and today's event uh was our first day of professional development with our staff. It was great having them
back in their buildings. We started out in this building and I have a few things to report from that and I'll also leave an opening for Mrs. Vans to be able to chime in as well. It was our friends from Pmptonian were kind enough to provide breakfast. It was great seeing
uh so many people congregated in the cafeteria having a really nice time catching up and enjoying one another's company. Um I did point out to one of our staff members that I am pathologically punctual and we were a little late getting into this room. probably wasn't until like 8:03 and I
was totally cool with it because I was so happy to see the energy and just the element of joy present here. So, I was able to forgive those three minutes. Um, what I think really helped set the tone for the day as well is we had students um stationed at different doors to greet staff members as they entered. It's
great for the high school staff to see the kids who actually go here, but also for the elementary and middle school teachers to see the kids who they they taught however many years ago and see how they've grown up so well. Um, we were treated to the national anthem from
the octaves. They did a wonderful job. Um, the marching band also played a song for us. Sounded like they were in mid-season form. It was sensational. Um, I was happy that I had a chance to speak. Um, which is not often when Mr. Hazler is near a microphone, but I was able to work my way in there. Um, I had
an opportunity to thank those who helped carry us through the summer, which includes our custodians and maintenance team who did a fantastic job making the schools look great. Uh, secretaries and office staff who made sure that schedules were set, the materials were appropriately ordered and designated. Um, the extended school year staff, uh,
the IT team who did a marvelous job, especially um, through August, um, with the board board office staff as well as our administrative team. um takes a lot to get the engine back up and running and we were definitely clicking on all cylinders today. Um we had an opportunity to welcome our new staff
members um and they they stood up. They they they took in some applause. Uh teachers who were earning tenure, not as many of them stood up and then the quarter century club, barely any of whom stood up, but um they were all proud and happy to be recognized. Um, we also had
a very exciting moment um through the New Jersey School Board Association unsung superhero and education program. I'm happy to say that Pquanic is be going to be represented again this year at uh school board workshop. Uh Mr.
Brian Boyce is the NJSBA unsung superhero in education uh for security team and uh he was very surprised by it which made it that much more fun. Huge thank you to Dr. Liry for um really championing the cause and setting up the
nomination for that. Um we had some of our senior actually we had four members of our uh senior leadership team speak to the staff today. They did a great job. Uh the Zgler sisters um spoke as did Isabella Kruchi uh and Miriam Kazi
and four of them had different messages but they delivered them really well. I was proud to hear them talk about their experiences. I I will admit it was a little kind of kind of an emotional moment when the Zegler girls were talking about their first day of
kindergarten um back 13 years ago because that was actually my first day as a principal when I made my come back to the district. So I remembered that day quite vividly. Um we talked about the culture committee which we're now officially calling the culture club but um one of the
suggestions was to have an initiative to raffle off um for each of the schools that one teacher would get a um a free class coverage voucher and we had several administrators volunteer as well as members of the culture committee club
um who are willing to cover classes. Of the five people who won the the vouchers today, four of them told me that I would be covering their classes for them. Um I tried to advise them they're making a grave mistake, especially at the elementary school level where I do not
have a teaching certificate, but the only person who did not. Um today was actually her first day, so I admire her restraint. But I'm excited for this. People were very excited to have the class coverage and the certificates are good through June 17th. I did explain to them there's no way I'm covering a class
on June 18th. Um, and also I predicted there's going to be a threat of rain and possibly storms at 6 pm on June 18th this year. Yep. You can Yep. Um, and then um Mrs.
Vans provided uh some CNI updates. That's curriculum instruction. Um, she gave a great idea about um that got me really thinking. What would be your walkup song? So, um, she played something for the staff as a very inspirational song, but I've been thinking about it quite a bit today.
What would be my walkup song? I don't have a definitive answer just yet, so you'll have to let the sus suspense hold until our next meeting on the 15th. Um, and before I give Emry an opportunity to speak, actually, I'll make a couple more points. But the energy in this room was
phenomenal. Um, anytime you speak in front of any type of public room, you can feel the energy and that either helps to really energize you or can actually innovate you if it's not great energy. And people were here, they were ready, they were excited. Um, and and I
and it really made me that much more fired up for the school year. Um, and I will admit I didn't sleep terribly much last night. So, after that huge adrenaline surge this morning, there's a good chance I might capsize over the course of tonight's meeting. just step over me on the way out. I'll be fine.
Um, and then a couple other quick notes. I I want to also extend my thanks to Colleen, Dave, and and Elvis for their incredible work for the Hess Memorial. I I feel so fortunate because we have these magnificent projects that they've really undertaken and and I haven't had
to do a whole lot for it. I I just get a chance to thank them, which I can't do enough. um and then see these beautiful renovations that are just making our school looks just fantastic and really honor and recognize people um who are certainly worthy of such honor and
recognition. Um and one other note and then I'm going to give Amry a chance just to chime in. I realize it's superintendent's report, but we're a team here. Um that we're going to be pushing out a substitute teacher handbook. It's very much in the vein of what Wayne has. Um and I give give a lot
of thanks to Mrs. Lisa Nelson, who is one of our um full-time subs, who helped to put it together and was very good with some of my revision notes um including changing the font. Um but it's something that we're we're ready to push that out and make sure that all of our
subs coming from Kelly, wherever else that they have this that they understand these are our expectations. It'll also be publicly available on the website. So, we'll give universal access to that. Um, and before I wrap it up, I just want to bounce it over to Ann Marie to give a chance to talk about a couple of things
that you talked about um during the meeting today. Yep. Um, so you took almost all my points that I was going to point out. So, I'll just reinforce the thank you to the Ponttonian for the food and the breakfast this morning, the coffee. That
was great. Um, and also the custodians, the administrative assistants for helping us set up super early this morning, bright and early, 7, 7:30 to make sure it was all ready to go when we walked in the door. Um, as well as the IT team helped me set up um, for here. I
loved seeing the the students. Um, the senior class officers did a great job of sharing just their kind of walk from kindergarten to high school and and welcoming the staff and um, telling them how much they mean to them. Um, the
culture and climate committee raffle was fun. And yes, they all asked for Dr. Poris, which is great. That means the rest of us don't have to cover. Just kidding. Feel free to ask. Um, and we also gave away t-shirts. Um, we threw out some t-shirts. Apparently, some of the administrative team would like to
buy a t-shirt cannon so that they could have it be more exciting, but I think that's out of our budget. So, we talked about maybe slingshots. So to make it more fun, um I did a whole presentation on curriculum updates um which I'll actually cover in my uh workshop session
and um for the PD day tomorrow we have um again this is part of my other conversation but I'll just cover it here. Um we have some workshops on co-eing with our in-class resource teachers and our gened teachers which I'm excited about um because they don't always get a ton of time to plan
together. So tomorrow they really have time to think about what it means to be co-eing, how they can work together. Um we also will have new line training for the staff at the high school. Um everybody has a bunch of new new lines. So that's exciting for them. And um we
had the town health department, Tom Kantisano and Cassidy Duck, um coming in to work with our health teachers in the morning to go over um resources that the health departments created related to vaping and psychoactive substances. Um they'd really like us to um work with
their resources if they if they can. So the team's going to meet um but it's not just for students. This is also for pushing out information to families and to help parents be aware of the dangers and how easy it is uh to access these materials. So, um it was a great day. We got a lot of good feedback from the
staff on um the relaxation of the day, how we focused on in-house things and gave them a lot of time to collaborate, be with each other um and to get some work done even though they had department meetings and faculty meetings today and they're all ready to go. So, it's all good.
Thank you, Emry. And I I was really impressed with just how efficient and organized everything was. Staff members knew what their sequence of events was going to be throughout the day. It was broken down by staff member. And that's really a tribute to Mrs. Vans's um organizational skills and just vision
for how the day should go. And I can tell you as as a former teacher, I would have thoroughly appreciated that you were giving people the gift of time. Um, we were able to wrap up even the opening part a little bit quicker today. Um, which put enormous pressure on Mrs.
Finnen to be pretty efficient with PTA meeting, which I'm sure you were. U, but we gave people more time to to work on their classrooms to to collaborate with one another to to to get into the school year without feeling frazzled. So, I I was was very impressed. So, I just want
to say that publicly and and I'm really excited. So, we have one more day and then Thursday it's go time. Um yeah, I um it's this is this is year 29 and and I got to be honest, it still feels like year one. So first day is really special. So parents, thank you for sending us your kids. They're awesome
and uh we look to do great things with them this year. So wraps it up for me. Mr. Gibbs, you have a report. Yes. Good evening. On tonight's board agenda is the acceptance of $85,849 in extraordinary aid for the 2024 2025
school year. The increase in extraordinary aid will help the 2026 2027 school year for special education needs. On Wednesday, August 20th, PSEG came to the Puquanic Valley Middle School to replace the gas meter. This
was at no cost to the school district. A new exterior door for the Pquanic Valley Middle School media center was replaced on August 20th, and the exterior door to the North Boulevard Elementary School media center was replaced on Friday, August 21st. The five-year uh sprinkler inspection
took place the week of August 25th, and all the schools passed inspection. On August 25th, the New Jersey Department of Education approved the revised long range facility plan for the new board office located at 494 Newark Pompton Turnpike. The perk test for the
site has been ordered, but we have not received confirmation as to when that will be done. On Tuesday, August 26th, Mr. Anderson and I expect inspected all five schools for the summer cleaning and painting as a ska as scheduled. Projects were completed on time. I want to thank
Mr. Anderson and his team for doing a great job. Thank you. Just to comment on that, if you haven't already done so, get the film on those doors, the ones that you just put up. You what? The safety film on the glass doors. You want safety film on the glass doors?
Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That brings us to our first opportunity for public comment. Members of the public may speak for a maximum period of 5 minutes by the clock. During this portion of the meeting, the public may speak on any any agenda item. And if
the member of the public does raise a question, please direct it to the president and state your name and sign in before you begin. All right. Seeing no one coming to the mic, we're going to move into the approval of the action items. And up first is PMC. I'm going to ask Miss Shenton to please move the items under PMC.
Yes. I'd like to move PMC 42-26 through PMC 48-26. Second. question or discussion. I just got one thing. I just want to say congratulations on your retirement to Miss Finnen. I know we're going to celebrate you probably 16 times before
January, but you will be missed. All right, Mr. Gibbs, please call the role. Mr. Bloomer, yes. Mr. Sesi, yes. Mr. Gon, yes. Miss Ao, yes. Mr. Mcweeny, yes. Mr. Pompeo, yes. Mrs. Chanton, yes.
Mrs. Espazito. Yes. I'm voting yes, but with regret to PM45-26. And Mr. Senic, yes. Motion carries. Okay. Up next is CIS. Miss Espazito, please move the items under CIS.
I'd like to move CIS-15-26. Second. Question or discussion? Mr. Gibbs, please call the RO. Mr. Bloomer. Yes, Mr. Sesi. Yes, Mr. Giddon. Yes, Miss Ao. Yes, Mr. Mcweeny. Yes, Mr. Pompeo. Yes, Mrs. Shenton.
Yes, Mr. Espazito. Yes. And Mr. Senic. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Up next is FFA. Mr. Bloomer, would you please move the items under FFA? I'd like to make a motion to move FFA 30-26 through FFA 35-26. Second.
Any questions or discussion? Mr. Gibbs, please call the RO. Mr. Bloomer. Yes, Mr. Sesi. Yes, Mr. Gon. Yes, Mrs. Ao. Yes, Mr. Mweeney. Yes, Mr. Pompeo. Yes, Mrs. Shenton. Yes, Mrs. Espadio. Yes,
and Mr. Senic. Yes. Motion carries. Okay, that brings us into the workshop portion of our meeting. And first up is PMC with three discussion items, the district goals for the upcoming year, the staffing update in the elementary school code of conduct revisions. Sorry, dramatic pause was not
intentional. So, I'm going to I'm actually going to break sequence a little bit. I'll go with uh I'll go number two, number three, and then get to number one. number one's a little more involved about the district goals which are available in backup and will be publicly available after the approval on September 15th. Um for staffing
update um we're going to note we did have to use an agency to fill some of our world language positions. Um the goal is to get back to being able to fully staff the district with our own teachers for all teaching positions. Um this is something I've actually been in
contact with the association about. um did vent I shared some of my frustration that I I'd like to see more happening in Trenton from um at the state level, not NGA, but at state level about making teaching more attractive to young
people. Um you don't see teaching represented as favorably as it really should be as as something that young people should pursue. Um, we spend a lot of money advertising on various things and I'm not questioning the validity of that, but I'd like to see something
there. I'd like to see um something that could be done to provide affordable housing to early career educators um so that they can afford to live in the communities or near the communities um where they're employed. I think that could be another inducement. Um I think loan forgiveness for people who commit
to teaching for five, seven, eight years, whatever it might be, is another great way to do it. And there is there is loan forgiveness available if you work in um in areas that have been designated as greater need um in content areas that are determined to be harder
to fill. Why not make that universal? And so there there are things that I would like to see take place. Um I certainly don't have the authority to put these types of things into into place, but um it's a little bit of a soapbox moment for me there. But,
you know, they actually do have that in some cities called workforce housing. And some of the jobs that we bid on are workforce housing for like firefighters and and policemen. I don't see why they couldn't do it for teachers. Thank you for Yeah, thank you for adding
that because I mean, I even look at where I live in Lincoln Park down the hill from me, they're putting up or they've put up 96 units. I don't know if any of it was allocated for educators in the in the area. So, um there there are things that can be done. It just requires vision. Um you know, we should
have an improved funding model. I'm not saying that's going to happen anytime soon, but um I I'd like to see some some action take place by by people who can can make these things happen. Um sadly, I'm not that person. Um we we also uh
posted for a point4 music position at the high school. Um, this is to help support some larger classes that we have um for the band program as well as hopefully provide some relief for for lessons and maybe give us a chance to also check out anybody who might be
looking to audition for a possible full-time gig in the district as a music teacher. Um, so we're we're we just posted for that. Um, we already have received several resumes, so we're excited about that. Um, and then the other thing we still have is that we're filling some leave replacement
positions. Uh, many of these leaves haven't begun yet, but we're anticipating that they're going to be coming up. Um, and we're excited for our staff members who have their families growing. We just got to make sure that um, as they're having kids of their own, that the kids
here are also well supported. So, those are that's our staffing update. Um, overall, we're we're in very good shape. Um, and hopefully we stay that way throughout the year. Any questions about staffing? All right. And then the third one, um,
something I put in a backup, it's not it's not something that requires board approval, but I think it is important to to note, um, so that the board can see it, but also just to mention it publicly. Um, that the elementary school code of conduct is being was revised. Um, this is something that was
collaborative among Dr. Schler, Mr. Riner, and Mrs. Stagger. Um something that they really wanted to focus on was uh restorative practices. Um we're working with kids who are generally between the ages of five and 11. Um and there are occasionally times when you
have to drop the hammer, but those times are fairly infrequent. But um our goal is to make it so whatever mistakes they make at that age, they learn from them and they understand that there are other ways around the behavior that they chose or the decision that they made. Um, when
I was an elementary school principal, I used to tell the parents quite frequently, uh, because they'd be mortified they were getting a call from the principal. I used to tell them, well, better better gets out of his system now when he's eight and there really aren't significant consequences than 18 or another age where it leaves a
mark. Um, but I I I appreciate their work. It's consistent with my philosophy as well. Um, and also they're making sure that we move away from using writing as a punishment as as an English teacher. that used to g me. But um yes, you have a child write about the
experience, what they did, but do it in a manner that's reflective so that they're focusing on this is what I did. This is what I could have done differently. Um and there are things you can do. If you call somebody a mean name, all right, you're going to give me a list of 15 nicer things you could have called that person. And a lot of times
what you get from a kid would be will venture into silliness, and that's okay. But it gets them thinking about, yeah, there's there a lot of better alternatives to this. Um and then one other thing that's important is um they do want to address smartwatches. Um we're gonna and this come this is going
to come up in policy as well, but the the wearable technology is increasing in its in its capacity. It's also increasing in the draw to to very young children. And to me, you can't have a first grader in a classroom with a smartwatch going off and then expect any
of the other first graders to stay focused on whatever the lesson might be. So, um, that that was another thing that they worked in about just if you have your smartwatch, put it in your backpack, you can get at the end of the day. Um, so, um, updates were there. Um,
we tried to make sure that the formatting, um, was easy to follow and also that chromatically it was consistent and I did require that Mrs. Stagger take care of that as a as an English major, which she was in college. So anyway, any questions
about the elementary school code of conduct revisions? The smartwatches are like a replacement for the phone. Yeah. It's like instead of getting your kid a phone because you don't want to get them the phone, but you still want to be able to talk to them and know where they're going, you get them a smartwatch. Yep. And I get it. Like I'm I'm already
of a different generation with that. Um but our our focus here in the building is is on on education and um the watches detract from that experience. Is there any expected change to policy with the phone as a backup? You know,
swapping, we take the smartwatch away. Did the phone suddenly show up again um in those crates? I I think that that's that's a good question. I mean, the our policy is going to the updates. I'm getting ahead of myself a bit, but um the the policy is going to reflect
what our actual practice is. Um and that is that you have it, it goes in your bag, it stays in your bag. You don't have elementary particularly um but we we know that you know there's a great line I think it was u it might have been
WB Duboce the harder you push down on a man the harder he pushes up to resist you and so we know like if if if families feel like we're pushing down on it there's going to be some type of resistance back up I think it was Booker T Washington um but you know again our our our focus here is providing optimal
learning conditions in an educational environment for our kids and something that detracts from it, we're not going to allow it. So, we'll see how it goes. One last question. Sorry for this. Just no. Was with my nieces recently uh go to school in New York City. They were
introduced to the pouches for their phones this year. Um any thought of at least introducing the pouches for elementary school for the watches and whatnot so the kids don't lose because that's a big thing to you, right? Like I don't want Johnny to lose his his watch. uh put everything in a pouch that can be
then turned off. Yeah, we we we did look at the pouches. Um I was in I was in contact with a group called Smart Social. Um and they were they were pretty aggressively trying to market them. Um I suspect the price of those is going to go down as they become a bit more commonplace. But
right now we we don't really have a need for them. Um, where I was really looking for them was was at the high school and you know, you put it in the pouch, seal it up, and then if you want to take your phone out, it's that very loud Velcro sound or you can make it just fully locked. Um, we've looked at it. We we didn't we didn't feel like we had a need
for it. Like even the high school policy right now, kids are able to have their phones in the hallway between classes, uh, as well as during the lunch block. And, you know, do do we have kids who are putting a burner phone or an old iPod in the in the shoe horn or shoe rack? shoe horn's different shoe rack
thing. Yeah. But um but we just police that you see it in the hall, it's like, "Hey, it's not supposed to be out here." If it's if they're in the hall during class time because this kid gets text, meet me in the bathroom. Something that's helped a lot with that as well is um the smart pass system. And I I know
I'm veering off in different territory. We have data on on that and it's really interesting how many attempted meetups have been blocked because teachers are able to identify as are the administrators students who should not be in the hallway together. So if if
you've identified that um student A and student B are usually up to no good when they're in the hall together or they're too frequently there um you can make it so that they can't get a pass at the same time. Student A gets the smart pass, student B can't get it until student A
reports back to class and checks back in. So, yeah, the thing with technology, and we we realize it, we're always going to be about a half step behind the kids, but as long as we're not losing any more ground than that,
we're we're competitive in the battle. Um, Exactly. Exactly. And then um then finally the uh so the district goals these are also in backup. So um these were developed
during the administrative retreat which took place in the middle of July. Um some of them are based on actually two of the three are really based on ideas that we've been developing over the last couple years. Um, one is something that I felt like we were moving towards. Um, and that's the data one, which I talked
to when I talked to Ann Marie about that back in like April or May and I said that I want to see our staff generating data and sharing it out with administrators. She was pretty excited about that. I kind of knew this one's going to work. So, the the first goal is the um is under the strategic goal
category of ensuring student success and that is the profile of a quantic student. This is year three of your three-year project. Year four will be the actual implementation of it. Um I did do some revisions to the document actually over the weekend including we
initially as the rationale that the the profiler graduate will focus on identifying the core competencies that inform the final then keeps going but I I want to read focus on identifying and defining implementation of the core competencies. you can have all the great ideas that you want, but if you don't
have a straight line pointing towards implementation, they become largely pointless. So, we're very much focused on making these real for this year. Um, and then being able to infuse them into curriculum, into things that we're looking through in our walkthroughs so that when we roll out the actual profile
of graduate for the 2627 school year of everything in place, it'll be ready to go. We're gonna have attractive posters really pumping it up that it's not this isn't just supposed to be some initiative that's a it's a rahrah it's supposed to be focused on these are the outcomes we're looking for for our kids
so when they leave these buildings at 18 years old or whatever age they they have these abilities they have these competencies and so it doesn't just happen in high school it has to happen um all the way throughout and I still say and actually I think I missed an
opening today with the staff you But you look at our our our scores for APs, they're really good. And I used to teach AP Lit and my scores weren't nearly as good as what Mr. Trazy got this past year. Um, but if you think about it, what what that assessment is really
testing are a lot of the same skills that I saw Ann Myers teaching in kindergarten classes that Marjger is teaching that that our kindergarten teachers are teaching and we just keep improving upon it and getting deeper into it, more sophisticated as the kids move up. Point being, our our
kindergarten staff is responsible also for helping our students develop these competencies that we want them to master by the time they graduate from our schools. And that's that's the expectation. Um, and what I like is we're putting it to print. So, that's
that's that first goal for this year. I don't know if there's any questions about this one. I'm just excited to see it come to fruition. It's going to be a good year next going to be a good year next year. I I agree. And I'm excited to have um both Dan O'Keefe and Rich Hazer will be
speaking about it at the Cedar Crest meeting. I have a feeling they're going to be very well received there. Both great guys. Um but I'm excited for them to hear about, hey, these are things that we're really looking at. And one thing I'll add, too, I really appreciate the board's patience. I mean, this is
been a long time. I mean, third year of a three-year goal, and we're not we're not doing the hurry up and and and put it into place mentality. It's let let it let it form, let it develop. I mean, you've heard me say it that the slow walking man rarely trips. And we want to
make sure that what we put out for this um we're not tripping. We're actually That sounds like a bad slang word. We're we're not falling over ourselves because of sloppy work. Hopefully, we can edit out that video. I don't want to sound like I'm resorting to slang words. Sound like you're tripping.
No, I do not. Thank you. Hopefully. All right. Second district goal um is in the strategic goal vein of ensuring staff success and this is the one that I think is the um amry vans special. It's the gathering and applying data to measure student learning and growth. Um this is
also intertwined with the board goal surrounding the multi-tered system of supports which is something we should be focusing on as educators as it is. Uh but we really want to help staff um feel that they have the competency and and the authority to generate meaningful
student learning data from their own classrooms and then report that back to administrators so that they can demonstrate this is this is how I can tell that the this cohort of students is progressing as I want them to. This is how I can tell that I have to retach certain concepts to this group so that
they can they can identify and modify according to data that they're generating. and we're going to support them every step of the way. I was thinking about it earlier today with as SGOs are slowly being phased out, which no one's lamenting that. This is really what the SGO was supposed to be about,
which was helping teachers really study their own classes and develop strategies based on the actual learning data. Um, couple things that are embedded in here that I'm excited for. One is the team put in to create opportunities for peer observations. One of the best ways to to
learn as an educator is to observe your peers and have conversations about it. It's so hard to set up because it comes back to time. Um, but if it's in our goals, we're committed to making sure that we provide the time for it. I'm pointing at you almost like I'm accusing you of something here, but this is
holding our our feet to the fire and I'm excited for that. Little nervous too, but excited for it. Um, we're going to look to establish data teams. Uh some staff members are more comfortable with analyzing data than others and that's fine. Um use their skills and abilities
to help to elevate um their peers um and a judgmentf free environment. Um and then something else that I'm really really happy for this and I've I've worked this into some of my evaluations of the admin team and that's supporting student ownership. Kids should know
about their own learning data. I think we focus on sharing it with administrators and pushing it out to parents. I think a lot of times we neglect to let the kids know like, hey, here here's what your metrics are showing is let's let's get you to this next level. What can we do together to
get you to um the next place in your learning where we need you to be. So, so some stuff in there I'm really excited about. Um, this one it looks looks simple. Um, and it's it's actually very very demanding
and as far as I can tell, you haven't shied away from really hard work with data and I I don't suspect that's going to start anytime soon. We have an admin team that's completely on board with that as well. And I'm not saying that we have a board that's comprised of data geeks, but you guys
seem to groove pretty deeply to whatever data I provide. So, I'm excited for that. That was slight groove. That was impressive. Thank you. Thank you. My how I've grown. The last one is in the strategical um thread of family and community
partnerships. Um this one the subtitles collaborating, informing and improving communication. This one I'll admit we actually started working on um back in April and I had an initial meeting with uh Mr. Reiner, uh Mr. Lucas, uh Mrs. OG,
and we also had Matt Sheay um in as well. Um, Mr. Riner was part of it as in his role as school safety specialist. Mr. Lucas, of course, as director of curriculum, not director of security. Sorry, he didn't take your job. Um, Karen was there to help to referee
between those two. Um, and then obviously Matt with the tech side to make sure that we're using our tech resources to communicate effectively. But what we really want to make sure we have um are two different crisis communications plans. One is just give me a simple like two three pager that we can push out to the public so they can
be aware in crisis situations. What and crisis is a word that's used somewhat um liberally in that the crisis could be it's going to there's a good chance it's going to snow tonight. Here's how it's being communicated out. So whatever the conditions are, we want people to be
aware these are the plans that we're going to follow. The these are the communication channels we're going to use. We're gonna have a much more indepth um one for um for the district staff um really at the administrative level to to manage. Um and we're going
to make sure too that we we list people by position, not by name, so that this is a document that doesn't have to be revised every, you know, every six months, every year. Um, but we we really want to have something where if if a situation comes
up, you're not doing the mad scramble trying to figure out, all right, what do I do next? It's right there in front of you. And in some cases, we're going to have laminated sheets as well for certain um evacuation type events where you might have to go outside and it's raining. Okay. Well, if you have a laminated sheet and outlines what you're
supposed to do, it'll be right there. So, um, this one, the crisis communication plan, I thought it was going to be pretty simple. And um when talking to Matt and Ron about it, it became a lot more complicated, but in a really good way. Ron had this list of like 43 different possible situations.
We did not go with the um the volcano plan, which actually was one of the recommendations. Um but we we are working on our tornado plan, which we actually had to use once 2013. The tornado didn't touch down. Um,
we also are going to have an official communication plan. Um, this one we we might be able to consolidate into one. I don't know if we need the separate ones um to have the public facing one as well as the internal one. Um, but this more or less says like this is this is how we communicate with the public. These are the channels that we use. This is the
type of information that we convey. Um, and I think we we have a lot of this figured out, but we just haven't put it to paper. we haven't memorialized it necessarily. Um, something that I integrated too was um to develop brand identity guidelines. I have a feeling
that Mr. Serial loved this one. Um, and I I linked in Vill Nova has something about this. I don't know if you guys have heard it's an outstanding institution in Pennsylvania. Pope went there anyway, but it says like
these are these are the acceptable logos for our school. These are the acceptable colors for our school. This is this is the font that we use. It's it's it's really quite good. Um they get into like forms of address for people. We're not going to get that deep into it. But I like the idea of this is how the brand
will be marketed. This is the Panther logo. This is the Panther P that should appear on documents. And um I we we've talked a lot about building the brand. And I think we've done so. Um, I'd like to see this the the brand marketing also
integrated into the 2026 strategic planning. Um, I'd like to see our mission statement be revised to something that's memorable. If I were to ask anyone on our staff if they could recite the mission statement. I am quite certain, I'm not a gambler, but I'm
quite certain that no one could do it. I know I certainly can't. It's not memorable. We need to improve that. And I hope this doesn't sound heretical, but I think we need to have our own district logo. We currently use for the high school and for the district the seal that's actually the town's seal. Um, no
one's ever called us on it, but that's not that's not the district. It's it's the township. So, um, I'd love to see us have something that's specific to the district, but that's for the strategic plan 2026. But I want to use this goal to help plant the seeds for that.
Sam, is having a uniform color code for the logo and font something you could get behind? We we actually do have the the colors. Um, and Sam did help with that. So, we we actually have the specific color for the blue, specific color for the gold, as well as the alternate powder blue.
But but it's good like this this way there is something uniform we alternate I I it works um yeah but I think it was a great thing um when when we went to
having all five schools being blue and gold all five schools being Panthers it's a really good thing so let let's keep building on that um then a couple other quick things from district goals and then I'll I'll wrap it up um we're going to do a social media review look at um whatever ever analytics we can get
to see what what is really working. Um I I I know Instagram's very popular. I'm not really comfortable with it on a personal level, but this has nothing to do with my personal preferences. Has everything to do with our target audience. Um we actually have kids managing a lot of our Instagram work and
they do a great job with it. Um we're also going to look at our website. Um could our website be more efficient? Um could it be more effective? Matt's already Matt's already spoken with a couple vendors about that. So, we want to do a review. Um, and the website's good. It's just I'd like to see it be even better and integrate it with an
app, possibly even integrate it with our our messaging system as it is right now, we have um final site is our that houses our website. And then separate from that, we have school messenger, which is what I use to push out my messages as well as what the principles use. There
are ways you can get that integrated into one, and it can also be integrated with the app. So, um, we're looking to to be more effective and efficient with that. And we've had a couple vendors make us, at least one in particular, make really, um, compelling offers. Um,
and then we're going to keep convey, we're going to keep communicating the value of attendance um, when we do the school performance report, well, the the data report in October, and that's really going to be Anarie show, but it a lot of it does come back to attendance and our attendance numbers have improved across all five schools, um, which I'm
excited to see. And this is attendance awareness month. So it's good to be able to mention that yet again. And then in the in the latter parts of the goals, you see a lot of things there are carryovers, keeping up with the parent university webinars. Um I like having people in person for the parent
universities. It's not always easy to get out for them. So I like that we not only provide the live stream, but we also provide recordings. We're going to keep promoting themies. Um and and keep recognizing volunteers, too. we have a community that's really involved and
that's something you don't ever want to take for granted. Um when people feel appreciated, they tend to want to keep working with you and for you and that's something we want to continue to develop. But so just to just to summarize it all, the district goals are meant to um continue the strategic
planning that took place back in 2021. You don't want to have goals all over the map. We really do want them all to be integrated together. So what you did as a board back in February pushing out the board goals, those align with the strategic plan, the these need to align with it as well. And we're trying to
keep logical threads yeartoear. I will say when I was a principal, I felt like we would do this goal and there's a terminal point June 30th and then we went on to something else. And sometimes that that can drift into the bright shiny object syndrome and we really want to avoid that. We want to be intentional
and we want things to to build on themselves. So, ideally it works. Hopefully they read well. Any feedback you guys want to provide, um, you'll have obviously the opportunity to do so. And we'll look to get these approved on the 15th. All right. Anybody have any comments?
All right, Dr. Porters, thanks for that overview. Uh, next up is CIS and three items under CIS curriculum updates, the opening PD days and the PD plan for this coming year and the freedom to read act update.
Thank you. Um, so some of these are just going to squish together a little bit. The first two, um, actually the third one as well. So I'll just kind of run through them. So um, we gave a broad curriculum update overview to the staff today. Um, so a few things we mentioned
is um, all the curriculum that we have gotten approved over the last two board meetings. I think I have a couple more possibly for the next one. Um, but between math, social studies, science, reading, writing, um, in AP classes, and some other high school courses, a lot of
work was done this summer. So, I really want to thank the teachers and the supervisors and everyone that helped um, pull that all together. So, that was fabulous. Um, another update is the requirement for the K to3 universal screening for early literacy skills. Um, that starts
now. We have, um, sorry, lost my train of thought. Um, all students in K to3 need to be screened for literacy. We'll use Dibbles, which is the dynamic indicator for basic early literacy skills. Um, screener. It's a
really short um, assessment. takes depending upon the grade level. It could be two minutes to five minutes. Um, and gives us a lot of really good data about the students phonics, funological awareness, letter naming, fluency, different skills that we really need that are foundational to reading. It's
possible to have a student who is reading, but yet they're missing some funological skills that they really need for the upper grade. So, this is a great screener. Um we'll be providing this goes into some of the PD plan. Um at our halfday PDS this year we have a
consultant company coming in to provide additional training and support to our staff on analyzing that data really using it for instruction and um one important component of this is that parents need to be informed of the results of the screeners within 30 days
of the screening at least twice a year. We screen three times a year. So, we'll probably be doing that three times, but um that will be something that's new. And we're going to be offering a parent night. Um we're trying to arrange a date now ear in late September, early
October. Um hopefully our three reading specialists will be there to help us run it to give parents information about these reports and the process and the screener so that when they get the results they understand what they're looking at and when they have conversations with the teachers um
everybody is on the same page understanding what the data tells us and what it doesn't tell us. Um it doesn't really identify disabilities or anything like that. It just kind of tells us where there are some gaps that we uh need to work on or where there are strengths. So that will be a good thing.
Is it possible to have that recorded? Have what? Have that recorded. Recorded the parent university. I will let them know. Sure. I I was just going to say I think that would be incredibly helpful. And then I think when the scores go out to reference the recording and point people to it because I know as
a parent myself when I had really little kids and I wasn't doing any of this, I had no and no idea what anything meant. And so you get it and you're like, is this good? Is this bad? And I'm calling my teacher friends to try and get them to explain it to me. So I think that would be an incredible resource,
especially to parents with, you know, the younger kids coming through. Perfect. Um, any other questions on that one? Um, I we talked about our evaluation instrument. Right now we have Danielson 2011. Um, we're going to update next
school year, not this year, to Danielson 2022. So, we'll reconvene our DACK committee just to go over that and to um answer any questions ahead of time. It's not a big shift, it's a small shift. It's just time to get uh updated. Um we also went over the student growth
objectives with the teachers. Um they are staying the same for 2526 and 2627. Um where non-tenure teachers will continue to do SGOs, but the tenure teachers do not have to do SGOs. they can keep the score that they um last had
when they were last done and um that relieves some pressure from them of an additional thing. But what Dr. Poris was saying about um collecting data, we want all the teachers doing that and um we are excited to see where that goes. We do have data teams running already in
our elementary schools. Um last year we were doing uh work with them with the Dibbles and I Ready and and these other um resources. So free in math. So it'll be interesting to see where it goes with all the content areas.
Tenure teachers do not have to do SGOs's um unless they want to. They could actually do it again if they like. Let's just say they want to improve their score. They can they have that option. NJSLA and NJGPA. Um, we all received updates from the
state a couple weeks ago that the test is changing to an adaptive test this spring for ELA and math for both NJGPA in March and the NJSLA in May. So, we are going to be working on training for that this year in our PD plan. Um, we
will be doing a field test between October 27th and November 15th. They're not full tests. We're not sure of what it will be field tested, how many days or how much time that's going to take yet. So, we are waiting um with baited
breath to get that information from the state as soon as possible. I'll be attending a training on September 16th along with Matt Shay. So, hopefully we'll have more information at that time and then we'll be providing uh training to our staff most likely on October 13th uh to catch up to that. Um,
and I just want to confirm that the governor's office did let us know that we were not blindsided by the updated assessment and as long as um we talked about lesson plans and
CUSAC mandates. Um, I had uh the whole staff today was great. They um did a little bit of work with me with some CQAC crosswalking for some of the mandates that we're required to do regarding Amastad Holocaust and Asian-American Pacific Islanders. So that was super helpful and appreciated.
Um another thing that we met today and we'll be meeting tomorrow, um the Freedom to Read Act. I'm just going to go right into that because that also is curriculum update and um basically we have policies in place for any type of
challenges to materials. Um it's just an update that we're going to follow that we're the state has updated information regarding that. So we'll be following the updates. So um each building has its own committee. We'll be meeting with um Alyssa Bellardina, the ELA supervisor
will be running point on this project to make sure everything is up to date and in compliance. And we started that meeting today with the high school which was super productive. Um, and it's nice to know like we already have things in place. Um, but it showed us areas where we can uh grow and improve the process.
Um, and uh follow the guidelines that the state has provided. So once that's in place, I'm sure we'll bring that to your guys' attention just so you have that all. The other thing that um we will be updating is the three-year mentoring
plan. So that'll be on the 9:15 agenda for approval. Um meeting with the teachers again tomorrow. Um basically anybody on the skip committee, we have a meeting tomorrow to review the mentoring plan, make the tweaks that we need to the changes to that. So then we'll send it to you all for approval um after we
meet tomorrow. Anything else? I think that covers everything. Anybody have any questions on any of that? Okay, next up is FFA and there's two items, a new board office and moving the
garbage containers at SJ. Uh for the update for the new board office, um the board office is actually moving forward as the architects are working with the engineers on providing site information to the New Jersey Department of Ed for approval. Uh a copy of the progress report is in the board
package packet which shows the items completed for the new facility as well as the items still to be completed. Once the site work is done, the school's attorney will put in our application to the town. Any questions? Okay. Uh moving on to uh move the
garbage containers at SJG. Uh as I previously mentioned, um Mr. Anderson and I did an inspection of the schools and we took a look at the area around um the playground and the garbage dumpsters are right next to that
playground. Uh we currently have a bee situation in the school which is being taken care of. But my recommendation is to move those dumpsters uh away from that side of the building and put it on the other side of the building. Uh I think this will help not only protect the students but also aesthetically
it'll look better with a cover in front so we're not seeing the dumpsters. also for a usefulness. Um the dump trucks can actually or the the sanitation trucks can actually come in straight, pick it up, dump it and go. The way it is right now, they have to pull them out and then
turn them and then go up down, put them back, and there's no gate. So, you're just seeing dumpsters. So, it's a suggestion. If the board is okay with it, we'll go to the next step, which is getting quotes on getting it done. And then, obviously, you have to board approve it.
We're okay with it? Yes. Okay. Is that perfect? Okay, that's it. Thank you. I'm just going to share something from behind the curtain that when um we were developing the agenda, Gordon knows the drill like you can't have one bullet
point and you can't have a list of one. So, I was like, you got to find something else. And to his credit, he Mr. Anderson, we're we're we're doing actual inspections, but he he found something. And it's a really good one. And to me, it speaks to an emphasis on on quality. like is that the best spot
where we should have it? No. So, we're gonna we're gonna put it somewhere better. So, I appreciate his work and also his patience with my quirks. Well done. All right. Next up is policy. Two items, controversial topics and the use of
electronic communication devices. Okay. Controversial topics. Um feel like we've discussed this. We discussed it on here before in committee. I don't remember. Yeah. So, discom twice. So, controversial topics. Um, we have we
have policy 2440 on the books. It's been there for a while. It's not bad. Um, you know, but we could always make it a little bit better. Uh, so I went out and I we looked at a number of other districts um that have obviously 2440 on
their books as well. Um, some and they vary very widely. Sometimes they're just kind of cut and paste right from Strauss's estimate. Other times they've completely rewritten them and kind of gone crazy with them. Um so um couple points that I found were
good in some of the other ones we looked at. We looked at um Mountain Lakes, Kennelon, our nearby neighbors. I looked at a Montville, but it turned out to be Montville, Connecticut. Um but uh we didn't discuss it here, right? So um
yeah, there were just I think three points that I found that were good. Uh one point that is not in our policy that I think we should consider adding is that um con that the content should be age appropriate for the students that it's being presented
to. So while uh a topic may not be controversial to a high school student, if you presented that to a kindergartener, you could then consider that a controversial topic. So if you just say it's you know age appropriate then that removes that um or something that it should be suitable to the age of
maturity of the student. Um another point that was in I think the Montville Connecticut one was that um administration principles should be support and protect their teachers when um criticism comes up and it's undue
criticism. um there isn't there is a process to go through and that the teacher shouldn't be feeling the brunt of it and shouldn't be feeling that they're you know uh not be able to do their job in the classroom. So the principal that maybe including some wording on that um and one for the students as well that the students
should be assured that when they're discussing and um going over controversial topics that their right to form an opinion should not hurt them in the classroom, hurt them, hurt their grade or jeopardize their relationship with the school or the teacher. Um and then another one, one more. Okay,
that's the last one. Um that the principal is the person who should be responsible for reviewing the controversial topic. Um some schools have it as the the superintendent. Um but I think it should be the principal. Obviously, the principal will let the
CSA know this is happening, but uh we should include that in ours as well. Yeah, I remember when we went over this uh I don't remember when it was. A couple months maybe, but I thought the Montville, Connecticut one was like very very detailed and like you said, a lot of good ideas in there.
Yeah, I was I was fooled by Montville, Connecticut. It's something we talked about in the committee is having um the board work on a draft for this and then send it my way and and I I'll give you feedback. A little bit of a reversal from, you know, me me working on stuff and sending it to
you. I'm I'm I'm very interested in seeing it. I know obviously you guys put thought into it. you've done a lot of research um and you're you're coming at it from a different angle for me. So I think that that'll that'll enrich the quality of what we have and like you said doesn't need a massive change but needs I think the language should be
more precise. Yeah. When you when you look at the other other districts there are things like oh yeah that makes sense. Yep. Yeah. You want me to take 55 5516? Yeah that's fine. Yeah. So, so this is one that um we got
from Strauss back in December. Um I think we actually reviewed that packet in January. Um but it had an update to um the 5516 use of electronic communication recording devices. Um it's now become just use of electronic
communication devices. But we applied the logic that the state was going to be making um changes to the requirements and expectations surrounding um how we regulate cell phone use. And what we got was nothing terribly specific,
which which I'm actually more than okay with. What the state gave us was more or less an umbrella of a philosophical position on um moderating cell phone use and being mindful of the inherent dangers of social media use and excessive screen time. Um and they left
it up to local authority to be able to determine how best to form not only the policy but perhaps more relevantly the the the regulation. So something that we talked about was um to to work on implementing or or integrating our existing
practice which is memorialized in student handbooks and making that line up with what's in the regulation. So in other words, I I'll take care of the revisions for that. And I have some some recommendations from um some of the
admin team members about things that they'd like to see. I have a I have an admin meeting coming up with them probably after the 17th but nevertheless but I'll discuss this with them. So this this one might be a little of a slower train moving out of the station but we'll we'll have something solid in
place that's workable that um is also current and we're aware it's probably going to end up having to change every two three years just as technologies emerge. We don't have anything right now about AI pins but that's coming. So, um,
we we we were waiting for what state was going to do and didn't really do anything. So, we'll take care of it. Was not blindsided. Anybody else have something on policy? So, it's not here, but I do want to let
um the rest of the policy committee know I am working on a draft. We talked about at a meeting last week. I know I said I'd get everyone to everyone by the weekend. I didn't. you'll have it by the end of this week. So, it's still being worked on item for Thank you.
And then, yeah, and also just a logistical thing. Um, in our committee, we discussed the July policy alert from Strauss Esme. It's it's a really bland series of policy updates. Um it's just nothing exciting in it really.
But um it's just a matter of of Karen being able to get to it to just start to um format it to to our needs. We we couldn't get it done for this meeting. So we'll we'll wait on it. But there there's nothing urgent or pressing. The only new required one is about
sunscreen. And really the only thing there is that we don't want kids applying their own sunscreen in school because they might use aerosol cans. That could be problematic. So yeah, we we'll have that one. Um if it's not ready in time for the September 15th meeting, it'll be ready for the
October 7th. All right. Thank you. Uh that brings us to our second opportunity for public comment. Members of the public may speak once for a maximum period of 5 minutes by the clock during this portion of the meeting. They can speak on any topic they like during their five minutes. And if they do want to raise a question,
direct it to the board president and state your name and sign in before you begin. All right, seeing no one coming to the mic, I'm going to close public comment. Move on to unfinish unfinished business. Is there any board member with unfinished business? Any new business?
Any board member would that would like to make an announcement? I would just like to say uh to everyone staff uh have a great year, an enjoyable, fun, productive year.
Woohoo. Go Panthers. Go Golden Panthers. Anybody else? Yeah. I just want to thank the uh custodial staff for getting our schools
and buildings ready to go. It's um tall task in those hot months of uh the summer and they did a fantastic job. Yeah, I was just going to jump on and say same thing to technology and buildings and grounds as well.
Okay, we do not have reason to go into executive session tonight. Uh so we will adjourn. Our next meeting will be September 15th up at Cedar Crest. I invite everyone uh to go up and attend that meeting. It's always one of the best meetings of the year and we'll look forward to seeing you all. Is there a
motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Anybody opposed? Good night everybody.