##VIDEO ID:H-UJG3b_F00## thank you good evening welcome to this public meeting of the Princeton Board of Education the board is an elected unpaid group of 10 citizens who set policy and make decisions on educational financial and personel matters for the Princeton public schools on behalf of all residents we are always pleased when members of the community attend our meetings the board and the school district operate under applicable New Jersey laws and under regulations of the New Jersey State Board of Education each meeting includes an opportunity for those attending to comment on items on the published agenda or other matters of interest to them the board reserves the right to limit the time allotted to public participation law limits discussion of individual personnel and confidential matters we hope our meetings provide useful opportunities for communication between the board and the community thank you for attending as required under the open public meeting act njsa 1046 at sequentia adequate notice was given for a calling this meeting it was authorized by the Board of Education and forwarded to the municipal clerk Princeton packet in the Trenton Times on January 9th 2025 it was also dist distributed to the schools and others on the standard distribution list the board reserves a right to go into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education board policy 168 recording devices requires that we inform those attending this inperson meeting that proceeding proceedings are being recorded this meeting is being live streamed the representative of the sending district is authorized to vote on such matters that affect sending District students or affect the governance of the princ of public schools as more specifically designated in njsa 188 38.1 Sate District votes pertaining to Personnel actions referred to high school Central administrative and districtwide staff only votes otherwise are considered abstentions in the event the statute is amended the law should take presidence over this bylaw thank you Mr Balden would you please call the world sure DNE Kendall here Beth Baron here Adam Beerman present Debbie bronfeld here Mara franceski here Elanor hubard here Susan caner here Ari miselle here Chris santarpio here Katherine here we have a quorum thank you Mr Balden can I get a motion please for the adoption of the minutes for January 7th 2025 so moved all right second Mara D Kendall yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes debie bronfeld yes Mar franceski Elanor hbert yes Susan caner yes AR Mel yes Chris santarpio yes Katherine L yes motion passes thank you uh can I get a moot for the adoption of the minutes for January 8th 2025 Chris second best de Kendall yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Debbie ronfeld yes Martin franceski yes Elanor Hubbert yes Susan caner yes AR mael yes Chris santarpio yes Katherine wara not sure if I was present at that one I was thinking no no I don't think so either wait the eth was the where we appointed mik you I was here yeah okay you convinced me yeah motion passes thank you Mr Balden okay good evening everyone thank you for coming out tonight in the very very cold weather we appreciate it Happy New Year uh we want to welcome our newest board members again Ari Chris and Katherine Lara from cranberry welcome we're so excited to have you here um so right now um the the next thing up is a presentation from uh Max from Riverside hello Max hello everyone um and you're going to tell us what that presentation's about yes and I have two co-presenters who are joining me f okay and if you could tell us just their first names that'd be great we're that's all you're gonna do that okay great but uh good evening everyone my name is Max doel I am principal gide school it's my second year in the district happy to be here and I'm G to have my co-presenters introduce themselves I'm Alex bansel I've been here since at Riverside since kindergarten and I in Mrs to chesky's fifth grade class I'm Violet spross I have also been in Riverside since kindergarten and I am Miss in Miss champong fifth grade class thank you we're going to talk about social emotional support initiatives and programs this year at schol okay so I wanted to start with this goal because this is an elementary goal across the board that uh by this spring we wanted to increase the percentage of students who feel there's a trusted adult they can turn to or go to for help in each of our buildings that is one of those Elementary go across the board but that also is I wanted to present that to as I go into programming so that you can oh I'm sorry I'm sorry so I wanted to present that gold because as you can see a lot of the program we're going to talk about will um reflect back to that goal okay so all right okay uh start stting off with our morning meeting uh we every morning we have morning meeting uh all of the students do with their teachers in every classroom and it's focus on creating a caring and respectful community and helping students feel valued and heard I also as principal uh visit every morning meeting every morning as long as there's not a meeting going on or or something else going on I pop in say hello and just uh sometimes I join sometimes I'm only there for a moment but I like to start the day to say good morning to every room uh with that being said I'd like to my co-presenters to talk about what they thoughts about morning meeting on um so every day in my classroom we have an activity that we do um around the class from a one minute mingle to any game you could imagine and um it's really fun it helps us start off the morning on a high note and gets everybody pumped up for the school day um we also once a week a group or a student will make a slide presentation or a poster and lead the morning meeting teaching the class about anything they they want or just making up games so we can have a fun time our morning meeting we just play a bunch of fun games to let you be a community from SLE ons where you put antlers on you it's called Moose and there's a to a skill game where you toss bean bags around to each other we just try to doesn't matter if you're this person or that person just be part of the community okay all right uh we also uh are supporting our upstander values uh throughout the school we have signs of positivity that Riverside students and staff are respectful responsible safe and positive so there's an example of some of the signs that we do have spread out throughout the community just positive reinforcement uh you know respect way positivity leane all of these different things but it we do take them seriously and we try to live by those values so um Mr Samar our counselor who cannot be here this evening he does his classroom lessons uh each whenever in uh he rotates uh each week he goes to different rooms and some examples of things he talks to students about are growth mindset teamwork and cooperation think it through assertiveness character strengths and identifying and handling emotions at the K to 5 level so did you share some of your experiences so probably one of my favorite lessons that we do is I don't know is called think it through so it starts with what happens and then goes to your thought which is the main part of this so it can either go negatively or positively let's say me and violet are in a fight and my thought can be Violet is so annoying my feeling can be anger and we could start maybe a physical fight or get the worst trouble that we would regret or we could I could have a thought like how exactly does violet think her perspective from this maybe like a feeling of empathy and I could try to maybe try to keep the situation better and one of my favorites that we did in third grade is called the character strengths and as you can see up there with all those colorful dots that worksheet we um we are handed that out and we get to pick um a couple of character strengths that we think we have in ourselves and uh that reflect on us and um I I just use this every day it's such a great way to see the good in me and other people um and it's also very fun to do with your class okay um Mr Samar also does a Lunch Bunch style groups and he tries to cycle through two to three times a year um in small groups in his office to get to know the students a little bit better designed to build Comfort level with the counselor uh in the event there's a need as well as to build social skills and reinforce class lessons so he does a variety of different activities with the students there's always a lot of banter laughing joy in that room when I walk by I jumped in and played Jenga the other day there it is uh so you have Cooperative picture making some examples he does using AI should I or shouldn't I card games uh totika is a stacking game simar to Jenga and activi is about recognizing and describing feelings and emotions so I'll let you share about some of these activities so definitely the best part of this in my opinion is The Cooperative Ai and it's just so fun to learn about compromizing and stuff like that like me and my friends made a pink blobfish riding a roller coaster drinking a pumpkin spice latte photographs is very bigi building so he uses AI with students to talk about a variety of topics and they create a picture correct so like I want it like one person might want to goat and then another person might want this so it teaches cooperation in a very fun way I totally agree with everything Alex said it's such a fun um it's such a fun way to teach about to teach kids this stuff um I me and my friends made a flying hippo wearing a tutu um it was it's just a really fun way to learn about this stuff okay so one new initiative this year at Riverside School is Mr Samara got off the ground and very uh proud of him for this is we have a staff student mentorship program so we have currently 25 students receiving a onetoone mentorship with a staff member so those staff members volunteered their time during lunch preps planning periods um to spend time with a student who could use a little extra support making sure every child feels a part of Riverside and as a trusted adult uh so there there I am with one of my and he's helping me feed the fish and clean my fish tank so it's Jeremiah in third grade so um it's been a great program and um we check in once a week with our uh mentees and we connect and we've done things from throw the football to some people do crocheting some people do different things but it's just a PO uh the point of it is just to connect with someone in the building who might uh you know like to have a little bit more support so okay and then we have our student council we have fifth graders uh who meet monthly with Mr Samara and I also stop by those meetings to to help improve the school Community um subcommittees this year are they're focusing on bathrooms recess playground and lunch those are the these are the subcommittees of where the students said this is where we could use some TLC at Riverside so I'll let our I'll let our fifth graders take it away so the the student council like anyone can join it doesn't matter what you want to exactly do but one thing that it it's not like kids say I want a swimming pool and then the the teachers are like what so we asked for an easier way to line up to get our lunch quicker and I'd say within two days that changed and it's small stuff like that that makes it so much better and the things that the student counsel do um and I'm also in theud Council um I just think that even in a big group I feel that I can tell uh people what I've been thinking about and I get to and I feel heard and I think that the student council uh in small groups and big groups is just a great way to share great ideas um and it's a great way to have students to be involved in changes in their school so I think it's just an amazing thing to be able to share your ideas I just have to ask what was your recommendation for the bathrooms um I think you could use an extra paint job okay I didn't know if you wanted flowers I'm just very interested very diplomatic answer yeah when I had my discussions also some of these ideas that they had I took as well from some of our discussions and some improvements we can do so from the students so do appreciate the student council okay um uh some other examples of things we do throughout the year we had a gratitude challenge uh in November that spilled over into January students and staff could fill out the Gratitude slips for each other uh more than 200 gratitude slips were filled out and it's goes along that theme with the Grinch's heart that grows quite large and students and faculty would just fill out gratitude and we'd put it on the board and you would thank someone in the building uh coming up next week is our uh kindness challenge the week of January 27th and Mr Samara has a uh array of wide variety of things students can do during that week of kindness so that we that the students it's usually a pretty fun week so all right and lastly uh Mr Samar and I have got we go into classrooms we went into classrooms in September we're going back in February to touch base with each morning meeting and each it takes there are you know 18 18 home rooms at Riverside uh so it it does take a while but it's important we we sit we come in for the morning and we talk about what's going well what things you know kind of hitting reset in January what things we can work on as a grade level or a class to make our uh our school a safer and Kinder place so that's been very successful and I enjoy that too because I got into all the rooms to get to meet the students and get to connect with them a little bit better uh that being said any final thoughts from our students after being at Riverside for six years I just feel like every year I've had many people to talk to from our substitute to my teacher that year I feel like every teacher tries very hard for us to learn things and make it a very fun class um and I've been at Riverside for six years as well um I I can tell and even though we have the mentorship uh program I can tell that every teacher at Riverside works so hard to make sure every student uh feels welcome and feels that they have a trusted adult and I can see that every teacher makes it fun and to see the uh students point of view which is so amazing that they can realize stuff like that yes and that is our presentation and we have a picture Mr Samara is up there with us that was with river bear our mascot in our in our foyer that's the four of us so uh but I would like to thank you for having us present this [Applause] evening thank you for coming Mr akto and uh Violet and Alex thank you very much uh you're doing great work keep it up thank you trust for Success all right I will turn it over to you now Dr Foster thank you good evening and thank you again all the families of Riverside go through so um I'm going to start every year uh the New Jersey school boards Association identifies January as school board Rec recognition month so I thought this would be a great opportunity to share a bit about the roles and responsibilities of our uh 10 unpaid citizens while taking the time to express our deep gratitude to our board members for their service to our students and to the Princeton Community the Board of Education guarantees that the school district remains accountable to the community by ensuring that students receive a superior education while maintaining fiscal prudence and efficiency the Board of Education acts as a single enti entity so some fun facts according to a survey conducted by the national school boards Association board members spend between 11 and 50 hours a month on board related duties now I don't think that includes superintendent search so you might want to double that uh for that as well Princeton board members are actively engaged on a variety of committees including policy student achievement operations Personnel long-term planning equity and negotiations So based on my experience I can tell you that each of our board members devotes countless hours to volunteer service every week much of this time is dedicated to reading policies reviewing curriculum evaluating various documents related to budget facilities transportation and Personnel just to name a few each of the 10 members whom you elected offers a wealth of e expertise and experience from their professional Arena many members have or have had children in our schools so did you know that a few of our board members are Educators others served for many years in the field of finance and business we also have an accountant two attorneys an author and an entrepreneur because each member brings unique insight and personal perspective the whole board engages in robust and healthy debate while wrestling with complex issues weighing consequences and making thoughtful decisions for the district as one who has been part of very difficult deliberations at times I can say with complete confidence that each of our board members is committed to putting our students first it's an honor and privilege to work with each of our 10 board members thank you daphna Susan Debbie Beth Mara Adam elanar and our newest members Chris Ari and Katherine thank you for your willingness to spend countless volunteer hours to serve the 3,897 students of Princeton New Jersey thank you for bringing your passion intellect insight and resources to the table for listening as well as speaking for raising questions wondering and challenging your fellow board members and me this important back and forth enables us to make strong and well-reasoned decisions for the sake of our children and the Princeton Community we appreciate your abiding service your loyalty your leadership and your guidance thank you for always putting our kids first congratulations I also want to highlight um something that hopefully everyone has heard by now uh it is a week away our January 28th uh uh 2025 uh facilities Bond referendum uh voting will take place uh next Tuesday uh we have been so grateful for all of the opportunities to share the details of our referendum in the many inperson and online forums these past few months we are always willing to talk more so if you have any questions before the vote please reach out to us because we're happy to come to you in any form uh that you would like but we also want to just say it's time for our community to make a plan to votee um we're going to share on the website what that looks like we are tracking weather so please makeing a plan to vote because it looks like there are a few snowflakes um uh on the on the horizon either uh up upcoming on uh a Sunday or Monday of next week so we want to just highlight uh first um Matt I want I don't know if you want to walk through I'm right behind it but um can move over to so the uh on the 28th the four locations and there's a great little app I don't know uh some of you have tried it Cu uh certain members I know some of our board members who live in the little Pro Zone would usually uh vote at Littlebrook are voting here at Valley Road um Suzanne Patterson Center on Monument Drive hook and ladder on Harrison Johnson education uh Center over by Johnson park across the street and then the uh Valley Road which has uh seven districts voting here I don't I don't I mean I didn't I don't want to give people I I have a question did you check yours so um I'm voting here and I tried to do the mail and ball but I forgot um because you need a stamp I mean who has a stamp you do need a stamp yeah put in the Box no you wanted to do a vote by mail application right application but anyway which that date has passed had to be in today by anyway yes so I'm gonna vote here at Valley Road but if like and I was looking it looks like it could snow Monday so let's just say there's no school Tuesday would Valley Road be open what was the question SNS how much is it going to snow uh well so I think what we would do is maybe um hypothetic I would say over under six inches we uh but the elections are hard to close the elections would be hard to co close the Board of Elections would make that final determination however that's why we're asking to make a plan to vote um also those that maybe got the ma mailin ballots in December and then put it away and then can't find it now you can do a provisional vote in in person uh at one of those polling sites and if you notice there um there is no school uh voting site and uh so we are working on making sure that other elections this will continue so and that's great and that's why I was asking so really it's not the school's call correct thank you I think we'll be okay though yeah I think so I think so too yeah sorry for the hypothetical no that's good okay and then are we going into thei the audit discussion great thank you Dr Foster um so I wanted to talk really quickly about the uh the audit so we have every year we have our a auditor uh come to operations committee they're the most F uh familiar with our um Financial reports uh just real quick I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this uh but you know we get our annual external audit um have to be done by CPAs um registered with the state so uh niss saachi and Company just completed their third audit um and the audit partner came and presented uh some financial highlights which I've attached to the uh agenda there's also um a resolution that the the board has to accept the audit um not there a whole lot of choice uh it was a it was a pretty good year uh you know Financial Ed just go really quickly um you know we've uh seen a lot of downside to the uh inflation but we did benefit from uh significant interest earnings on invested proceeds um from referendums and also from the operating uh Investments so that helped um but that's not recurring Revenue so it's kind of a you know one two-year thing we don't know how long um obviously if inflation sticks with us we it's counterbalanced by higher expenses so it's you know but this year turned out uh okay mostly because of those um excess in revenues over expenditures uh because of the interest earnings uh there were uh no findings this year but um you know I don't like to Pat myself on the back or my team or anyone here because there are so many compliance things no no no there are so many compliance things that an audit firm you know would have to spend you know thousands of thousands of hours to audit all the compliance issues that regulate school districts we all know they're all shaking their heads so um it was a good year but um yeah and that was pretty much it like I said the uh I don't know if the committee members had anything to add from the presentation we spent about 25 minutes discussing the audit yeah I was going to add that we spent like 25 minutes in Clos session we had a very robust discussion with the auditor um but I think the committee members came away impressed with um how Matt's team performed and a couple of minor suggestions that the Auditors um gave that Matt is going to take under advisement but um it was probably one of the smoother years we've had in terms of hearing the hearing the response from the audit team great job Matt thank you thanks you're welcome um next up is the is G governance semiannual student safety data report so uh twice a year we have to uh publicly report out on our student uh safety data uh and you can see the different categories uh once uh oh okay there there we go um and I want to um just clarify I think uh the agenda was published on Friday and um there was an error so this is the accurate updated just make sure this is the right one Del the Delta is wrong yeah the Delta is wrong for that but uh so we will this will be ongoing updated um uh this is accurate because uh the numbers were in the wrong places so uh at first uh glance uh it looks like you can see that there was an increase um and there was uh in uh certain um student uh data that includes violence violence um is defined as um it could be um a fight between students um it could be um a threat uh so there are are various um definitions for um for that um out of the 15 um most of them took place at the Middle School uh now you you may be concerned about that but uh honestly uh across the board if we compareed to um other districts in the county and across the state and Across the Nation this makes sense because middle school students um uh struggle more with self-regulation uh and uh we know the prefrontal cortex takes a little bit of time uh to develop uh with all of our students um but we also know that um the impulsivity and self-regulation is a challenge for Middle school students so it is a learning process we are a learning organization uh and I I just want to commend uh the administration for continuing to work with students um to educate uh in how to resolve conflict um I will also say about our Middle School team and our high school team is that anything that is reported they will investigate so um you know it again uh sometimes the increase in um uh cases could be that they've investigated everything that was reported so it's really important um to think about a few of those things uh what else do I want to highlight um so uh also I think um you know we are working as I said I um next month uh he couldn't come this month because he's doing the program of studies but our supervisor of um counseling uh uh School counseling John McMichael will come and talk about uh some of the preventions what what are the ways that we can prevent uh some of these um uh issues from happening uh to reduce some of our suspensions reduce our um uh harassment intimidation and bullying um events and so he'll talk about that and also um some professional development for our staff because we know that with everything it takes a village and every person uh just they T um you know Max talked about all the important adults in that Riverside Community and you can hear the way students spoke so articulately about how to resolve like think it through um those all are uh help us uh reduce uh these incidents any questions um thank you Dr Foster um other incidents leading to removal is that expulsion is that what that one is that that is expulsion so we have not had in a few years now um any really serious issue that led to the removal of a child um I think also what would be interesting is I believe enrollment has gone up um over the years um it went down during the pandemic and then it's been coming back up so that probably also has something to do with increased numbers that would be um maybe Mr McMichael can share that with us when he comes next month I'll I'll add that to our discussion okay thank you yeah any other questions no okay uh and now moving on to the highlight of the evening the student board memb report with Maya and Nikolai hello hello that's loud um we wanted to start by saying we're so excited to see new faces here I've gotten the chance to come say hi to each of y'all individually uh but it's always very exciting and I remember I think it was last week uh Dr Lusa had came into the high school to say hi and you know take a tour and what he said to me was that his vision uh for the Princeton Public Schools wasn't necessarily entirely focused on adding that extra point to our test scores but rather creating an environment where every student feels like they have a trusted adult uh and then they become confident in themselves no matter you know where they end up I thought that was such a beautiful sentiment so I just want to share that I'm very excited about that uh today Princeton High School got off early uh we had a what happened the the HVAC had a leak HVAC you know what that had me thinking about now what there was this crazy thing happening in like a week and it's it's a referendum where we can fix that so I I don't know if I'm allowed to tell anyone how to vote but we're definitely gonna get on intercom and hopefully uh find our way into myth burge's email to tell the seniors that this vote's coming up and if you like the school not smell like I don't know then there you had early dismissal so exactly we we can early dismissal is the good thing and then the school smell like paint is the uh the downside but also some of the classrooms were freezing like my English classroom it was probably 10 below it was we all wear coats yeah so yeah we we'll be talking to them about that and then another thing was uh I was asking my little brother Hugo he's in fourth grade at Riverside said Hugo what do you what are they doing well and what do they need to do better his first thought was that the government he says the government law that we have to have vegetables with lunch is bogus so uh do what you can with that but he also he said he said there's a new swings on the playground he's a very big fan of those so I [Applause] thought and that's also you have a very strong PTO over there so definitely Mr Baldin can take some of the credit but tell Hugo thank the PTF I'll let him know yeah let him know and the vegetables you know 10 years from now he's gonna want he needs them yeah all right another thing that we wanted to talk about is so we bed the idea of academic Integrity um a few meetings ago actually and so we've been working with Miss Burge on that ever since and um One new thing that we thought was important to highlight is that we've recently started piloting I think it's called AI zero or Chad zero that that's it um actually we talked about it today in English also but um so that's being PED in some classrooms so I thought that was exciting to share um and hopefully that will also be an important step towards um improving or maintaining academic Integrity so um some of the main points that we wanted to focus on was like dis um discouraging an atmosphere of like open cheating and also discouraging like the high academic stress that might um that cheating might come from and so um a few things that we talked about Burge about was like possibly having like workshops So like um having more support for students um like I know like last year when I taking um AP Chemistry my teacher um on her homepage the first thing you saw was like um resources for like meditation and breathing exercises which I thought was really helpful because it was very stressful it was very stressful class I'll just add here I was told today by a freshman that they don't get like a free period And I I get that because they're not always doing what they ought to be during free periods but I think the more we can build in time for them to have chances to go one-on-one talk with teachers I know that helped me a lot uh in my first years of high school trying to you know keep up with the course work and so I think the more we can build in opportunity for that the better and I think also like um having more like education being more knowledgeable about ethics and about like the seriousness ma chaining is really important so we thought like possibly running like an Ethics Workshop would be really would be really cool like I don't know if we can force students to take that but I think just being more knowledgeable about that in general like I know at least for me like that helped me realize the magnitude of not cheating at all like so I think that'd be really interesting to kind of work towards especially for the coming like 2025 26 year um and like also having like more support from teachers so like an emphasis on office hours and tiger time to make time for students who are struggling um because I think that would also decrease likelihood um which also bring things my next Point um we wanted to um kind of talk about well I we wanted to thank the counseling department and the um Administration for um just having a great emphasis on meeting meeting with students personally so I got the opportunity to um have a chat with my sens principal Mr Johnson early in the year like he set up with me um we just talked about we didn't talk about like anything serious at all it was just like a chat about my summer and like what goals I had what colleges I was flying to so I think um it's really great like and I we see from the Riverside presentation also that like um it's really great to have like the counselors and um just people who are generally making bigger decisions being able to like meet face to face with students so we just wanted to personally say that and I don't actually know if we talked about this but I had the same experience with Mr Johnson and he's trying to have a one-on-one meeting with every student and I thought that was wonderful and it's great because now I see him in the hallway and it's like hey yeah their names um and then lastly we just want to share as a student council we've been we know in the past years there hasn't been much going on at the high schools in terms of what the student council is plann I mean we're always been doing stuff but we're adding more events in this year um I remember early on we were talking about kind of increasing school spirit and making sure kids feel connected to that as a community and we think that these events are a great way to do it so we're planning like a PHS Got Talent oh be great so yeah fun things to come yeah let us know hopefully get that off the ground yeah thank you thank you let us know we would like to come thank you um next up is well Jay one is the harassment oh no no public forum uh right now uh is our first public comment um so if there's anyone here who has any thing to say please come up to the podium all right there's no one it's 10 degrees outside thank you for coming we're not going to make you speak um sorry we don't have ref Refreshments next time we should have coffee or something yeah all right um so there's no takers for public comment but there'll be another shot uh moving on J1 harassment intimidation bullying and then K1 um board committee reports and we're going to start with long-term planning we didn't meet we didn't meet all right love it operations to Kathy's comments about I'm I'm oper operations um so um we had an operation meeting on January 15th at 8 am as always we begin in Open Session um my co-chair uh Beth and I welcome back Adam and Mara who served on the committee and we also welcomed all welcomed Ari who will be joining us this calendar year on our committee uh we had a very dense session so I'm going to give our old me a report a little like Brian used to give I apologize but we'll go fast but um but it was a very dense um meeting um we had a lot of updates so we began as we always do with updates on the uh referendum that are still outstanding first was the 2022 referendum um and we went over the projects that will be uh worked on this summer they include uh work on the elementary HVAC boilers uh 75% which is funded through a psng energy saver Grant and the balance through the referendum funds and also the PMS perimeter heating control upgrades which we awarded on December uh 17th and and lastly uh we discussed uh work the PMS HVAC work which will be completed in the summer of 2026 uh we then reviewed the 2023 referendum and we have um many completed projects in that referendum already the PHS cafeteria the pool lightning the JP cell repeater access card upgrades the 10 gig and then we can have continuing work on the door hardware PHS security upgrades security camera upgrades detention Bas improvements and phase one and two work as mentioned earlier on Elementary playgrounds throughout the district and we really would like to thank Matt and Dave for all the hard work they've been doing to get these uh up grades um to the elementary and middle schools um we then had a very lengthy discussion on the work that will be done this summer and is on our agenda today for the PHS track and field upgrades and we'll be is that'll be awarded um tonight and then as we always do we always have an update on the sustainable uh updates in our Princeton Public Schools we discuss the uh energy saving challenge that we learned includes Valley Road and our school schols um and that's why it's so cold in here they really want that pizza here at Valley Road um and then we also very excitingly discussed um the beginning as they look at for energy Consultants so we can begin the work of bringing solar uh panels to our district which is I know something very exciting to all of us as we discussed earlier in close session we went over the results of the audit and again as Matt doesn't want to Pat himself on the back we will Pat him on the back um the Auditors were um very complimentary of the work that he's done throughout the district uh so our next meeting um is February 5th at 8 AM it is on zoom and the public is welcome to attend all right thanks Susan um it's your first report without Brian but got to speed it up a little bit I don't know we're doing so much work in the district it was it's great it was a two-hour meeting it was very dense meeting but really good all right thank you Susan uh next up is Personnel Debbie the Personnel committee met on Friday January 17th the 2025 committee will be myself Mara daphna Beth and Eleanor and we look forward to working with everyone um we discussed the timeline of hiring a new director of student services and we discussed a lot of other Personnel matters thank you thanks Debbie you like that so why can't I be more like de no no no just no you're you're perfect just the way you are I'm just saying all right uh no more jokes um moving on now to policy with Beth um policy committee met on January 15th welcoming new board members Ari and Chris as well as board vice president Susan caner and member Mara franceski who was sitting in for Elanor hubard together with administrators we reviewed the December policy alert from Strauss Esme the outside service that provides periodic mandatory and recommended updates to the PPS policy manual several policies were recommended for first reading on today's agenda and I'm just going to um go through those so everyone understands what's on the agenda procedural updates are proposed to comply with the two 2023 changes to the form of uniform State memorandum of agreement between the schools and law enforcement and these include U policy 5512 which concerns Hib to conform parental notification requirements and procedures for causing internal HIV reviews in cases where law enforcement is investigating uh policy in reg 7441 they clarify that the law enforcement may be able to monitor school video live stream only during emergency situations and uh policy reg 9320 to clarify the district point of contact tasked with receiving Handle With Care notifications from law enforcement when students have witnessed something traumatic outside of the school environment separately and unrelated to the Moa um policy 5460 on high school graduation requirements is being updated to conform with the new law relating to the completion of financial aid applications which may be waved um policy 8500 on Food Services is being updated to reflect legal changes relating to terminology the expansion of income eligibility to qualify for free lunch and additional parental notifications we note also that the annual board ethics training is scheduled for February 4th meeting um and the next policy committee meeting is scheduled for February 5th 2025 at 2m and will'll be closed thank you and next uh up is elor with sack uh yep uh so the student achievement committee met on January 10th at 10:30 a.m. uh with my co-chair Debbie bronfield and also our new member Chris andario and Susan caner and Dy Kendall uh we discussed two field trips the upcoming kentus field trip um that's like a one-day field trip this year uh and the prince High School orchestra trip uh to Europe that is planned for next year and both are on the agenda for approval tonight and then we went into Clos session and we also met again in Clos session on Friday January 17th uh where we discussed the school calendar for 20242 and 2025 uh 26 and our next meeting is scheduled for February 7th at 10:30 on zoom and members of the public are welcome to attend thank you Elanor and then last up um Debbie is going to give a update on the equity committee which hasn't met yet but you're gonna yes so the equ equity committee will meet quarterly our first meeting will be March 10th at 6 pm here in Valley Road and then we'll do Zoom Valley Road Zoom um not sure of the subject yet we're still kind of working on that but we will share that the next meeting but yes love to have people and join us and the committee is going to be myself um Adam Eleanor daphna and Ari thank you looking forward to it thank you all right uh moving on now L1 um policy policies for the first reading that Beth mentioned um and they have to come back on for a second reading before they go into effect moving on to Personnel m one retirement uh we want to wish uh Senor Hayden um a very uh healthy and long retirement uh she will have completed uh 22 years in the district so um all the best to her um moving on now uh we have M2 resignation M3 appointments M4 Personnel items M5 leave of absence M6 P salary guide movements uh I always forget where I am M7 uh six period compensation M8 uh curriculum instruction M9 student services M10 substitutes student placement M11 Pressa Aid certification stien M12 termination M13 revised reappointments appointments 2425 uh N1 uh student overnight trips and two student day field trips that Elanor mentioned and and three is purchase of equipment Apple moving on to Student Services o1 um Princeton speech language and learning center then P1 the business uh annual School District audit that we discussed um P2 Financial reports P3 uh fire and evacuation drills P4 Turf and running track servicing that Susan mentioned P5 change order authorization PMS doors and hardware replacement P6 registration traval agenda now we move on to our second public comment anyone no takers um I think this is well the first meeting in a long time that we haven't had public comment but that's okay um you can email us if you want and thank you for coming we appreciate it um so now moving on to the consent vote um can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda Mara second Ari d m Kendall yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Debbie bronfeld yes Mara franceski yes Elanor hubber yes Susan caner yes Ari miselle yes Chris santarpio yes Katherine Lara yes consent AG Jenna passes all right thank you Mr Balden and you know this don't get used to these meetings being so short but it's January um just want to uh Echo what Kathy said um please make a plan to vote it's going to be very cold for the foreseeable future um but please how are you going to vote please vote uh next next Tuesday uh January 28th and with that can I get a motion to adjourn Beth second Eleanor all in favor all right thank you good night