WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=4xOQZ6nmNUA

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: 4xOQZ6nmNUA):
- 00:00:00: Meeting Opening, Flag Salute, and Introductions
- 00:01:03: Community Classroom Initiative: Strategic Plan and Goals
- 00:05:39: High School Pathway Program: Career Exploration and Experiences
- 00:12:35: Recognition of Retiring Staff: Mike Vergalo and Eric Zimmerman
- 00:19:35: PTO Absence, Correspondence, and Minutes Approval
- 00:20:38: Superintendent Report: West Amwell School, I-Ready, Athletics
- 00:23:42: Superintendent Report: Class of 2026 and Graduation
- 00:25:51: Public Comment 1: Lauren Brunfells on Technology Use
- 00:29:53: Curriculum & Technology Committee Report: Summer Curriculum
- 00:33:14: Personnel Committee Report: Appointments, Salaries, Director Search
- 00:35:23: Policy Committee Report: Cell Phones, AI, Board Communications
- 00:37:18: Buildings, Grounds, Finance, and Safety Committee Report
- 00:43:45: School and Community Committee Report: Climate Survey, Fundraising
- 00:47:52: HIB Report Acceptance and Public Comment 2
- 00:49:05: Motion to Enter Executive Session


Part: 1

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required by the Open Public Meetings Act. It was provided on December 5th, 2025 by posting the notice with the respective clerks of the city of Lambertville, Burough of Stockton, and Township of West Samuel and advertised in the Star Ledger and Trenton Times newspaper. You all join for the students

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in the flag room to the flag of America >> here. >> Here Paulo >> here. >> Machete. >> Brian Bees >> here. Aroni

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Ronnie Don Marino >> here and >> here. So this evening's program or meeting uh brings in something in two different ways uh that I think is really important to the school environment which is community.

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So we are going to start with a recognition of a new initiative that we took on called the uh community classroom and Mr. Suz would like to share a little bit about it. >> Yes. So, I'm just going to have kind of like slides playing in the background as

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I talk. So, feel free to look at those and listen to me at the same time. So, the history here, uh, some of you in this room were part of that history, right? Where in 2023, we met several times to develop a new strategic plan

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for our district. And we had several meetings uh for our strategic plan. And one of our goals, goal two was community engagement and specifically establish maintain lasting collaborative relationships between the district and

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its community in order to enrich and engage learning experiences for both students and community members. And then specifically as far as one of our, you know, sub goals of that goal, establish a network of community members as resources for teaching staff to use to

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make connections between classroom content and career exploration. So we talked about that starting it this year, right? We, you know, as a strategic plan, you kind of lay out your goals and kind of what different things are going to attack different years. Our strategic

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plan goes from 2023 to 2028. So this was the year as we started out the year um and specifically in our school and community committee we talked about how could we establish this and try to get this off the ground. So,

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one of the ideas that we had was could we try to develop a database of community members, um, community members, parents, business owners, whoever it would be that would be willing to come in and make a connection with our teachers and to try to bring

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some real life application to into what our teachers are doing each and every day with our kids. We all remember when we were in school, our teachers know now. Kids are always saying, "How am I going to use this? when am I ever going to have, you know, use this in my real life? Um, so that was important. So, we

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put it out there early in the year in September, kind of launched it at one of our board meetings. Um, put out a Google form and we started to get names and it started to pick up momentum. And then what I did was I put out a Google forum to our staff and said, "Hey, if you're

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looking for someone at some point in the year to try to make a connection with your content area that you're teaching, let me know and we'll see whether or not we could kind of merge the two together." Um, and quite honestly, it really started to evolve even a lot better than I thought it would. You

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know, I think from the school and community side of things, we thought year one, if we could get some people in just to kind of gain the momentum. Um, what you'll see is on these on these lists, we had 41 people, I think, that came in throughout the year. And I

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apologize if I missed anyone because I probably did. I tried to track this down. Next year, we'll do a little better job of tracking, but I tracked it down with our teachers and was able to kind of go through and look at and obviously get pictures. A lot of the pictures you'll see are from our news bites that we send out and they're on

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our website every two weeks just to kind of capture these. And it kind of spanned the gamut, right? We had folks that came in from the elementary side of things. We had folks that came in from the middle school side of things. And we had folks who came in with our high school. Um, so I had an opportunity to like what

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I told our teaching staff was, hey, if this is going on, let us know. One of us will try to get down there. I'd love to be able to see it. If we can't, make sure you get pictures. Um, and we were able to do that. And by the end of the year, the number of people that came in was awesome, right? And just I think our

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teachers embraced it even more than I, you know, teachers are busy with all the things they got to cover and get through at the end of the year, but they really did embrace it. You'll see there's some content areas, you know, especially that embraced it. Um, and all the feedback was very, very positive where there was

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connections made. I know in some of the classrooms I was in, kids made connections. Oh, I see how I was in AP stat class and the person who came in was talking all about how you use this in everyday life in her job as a statistician and oh, I could see why the formulas and this is how this works and all those different things. So, that was

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really, really cool. So, that's like step one, right? We want to continue to build this. Now, we have a database already with a lot of names and contact information. Obviously, many folks that are in this room right now. Um, we want to build on that and continue to build

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on that. And then I'm hoping that you all had an opportunity. Last week we released a press release for the high school on a new program that we're starting called a pathway program. Um, that's going to be starting in September for our ninth graders. And the goal of

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that program, if you didn't see it, I highly recommend you do. It's on our Facebook pages. It's also on our website um if you look under the news section. So, what's going to happen is next year our ninth graders all are going to be required to take what's called a career

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and college um course exploration course where they're really going to learn about start and thinking about what is my pathway? What do I want to do eventually when I leave South Hunter and what will happen is that will progress to the point where next year we are

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going to have speaker series. So what that means is we are going to look for some of you and others to perhaps come in once a month and during our flex period for our ninth graders and our 10th, 11th and 12th by the way because we don't want to forget about them even though we're phasing in the program.

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We're going to have folks come in and hopefully kids will be able to sign up depending upon what pathway they have interest in. And we have three pathways right now and if you read the article it'll give more information. But that's going to be great because then it's another opportunity for our high school

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kids to say, "Hey, I want to sign up for this and go listen to this person kind of give an overview of how they got to where they got to, right? What did their path look like?" When our students in ninth grade eventually get to junior year, we are then going to be looking to do work-based experiences, right? So, we

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want our kids to be going out during a school day to get experiences, not just hear about it, but actually go out and experience. So right now with our program, we're looking at doing two job shadows in our junior year and then two field experience in our senior year. Well, that's where you all come into

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play, right? Because we're going to be looking to develop partnerships with community members and businesses to place our kids, right? So if we have a student who's interested in starting their own business, we'd love to have a business owner where they can do this field study with and get an idea of what

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is this all about? Is this really what I want to do? Right? And the goal will be by the time our kids leave senior year, they've had four different experiences between their junior and senior year that hopefully will direct them in a pathway. All right? It may not be the exact pathway where they wind up.

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There's a lot of research coming out talking about how kids are graduating from college and they're going to careers that had nothing to do with what their degree is in. Right? A lot of times you may have had experiences yourself or kids experience. They get to senior year and they're ready to

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graduate college and are like, uh, I don't think I want to do what I've been studying for the last three years. So, either I'm going to continue in school, which is only going to be more time and money, or I'm going to have to figure it out or eventually go back to school. So, what we're trying to do is give them a leg up, right? For our parents and our

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kids, maybe save them time and money. So, they may experience some things and they may not like some of their experiences that they really thought they were going to, you know, we did a lot of research on this program and we we talked to other school districts in Pennsylvania that are doing it because it's a graduation requirement. You know,

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we heard the stories where the student came in day one, I want to be a lawyer. I've wanted to be a lawyer since I was six years old and I'm going to be a lawyer. And then they did their internship and they said, I don't want to be a lawyer ever. I hated it. Right? I thought I wanted to be but I don't want to be and I want to be something

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different. Right? So, it's a lot better for that student to figure that out maybe now than down the road after they put in a lot of time and energy. So, you know, on behalf of the district, this was a huge success year one. We want to continue to build on it. We're going to need our community resources in order to

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maintain and build this high school program that we now have. Um, so we're hoping that maybe for you the next step would be a continue to do what you're doing, right? Where we pair you up with teachers. A step beyond that that might be you're willing to come in these

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monthly speaker series. All right. Last month we board approved James McManis who's going to be our new pathway coordinator. He's new to our district. He's coming with a lot of exciting and innovative ideas. He's going to be starting to tap into. I'm going to pass along all this contact information I have and say, "James, these are people

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you could tap into. Maybe they're willing to come in once a month and and you know for this program and then eventually whether it's you or perhaps an extension of you and people that you know that are in the field right or in different fields within our community

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trying to get those placements for our kids, right? Trying to get each and every year, you know, we typically graduate about 65 kids. So we're looking for 65 placements in our senior class and then another 65 placements in our junior class. And the nice thing about us is we're small and we can do this,

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right? School districts that maybe have 500 kids in a class, that's tough, right? To try and quite honestly, I'm not really aware of any other New Jersey school districts that are doing this right now at the high school level. You know, there's a lot of talk about career, but there's not this experience where you're actually going out unless

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it's a specific work-based program, but that's usually only for a certain population of kids. It's not for all the kids. all of our kids would do this as part of their experience at SA. So again, huge kudos to you. You made a a definitely a lasting impact not only on

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not only on our staff but on our kids. And some of you came in more than once. I know that multiple times, different grade levels, different schools, even different topics. So we truly appreciate that. Um, and that's why I decided to put all these names, not knowing who's

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going to come tonight, but obviously I see a lot of faces out in the crowd and um, it was a huge success. So, thank you for giving your time and your effort. I know our teachers, thank you. And we look forward to only building this bigger and better down the road. The board, anything from the board? just

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I mean school and community if you want to >> I to echo what Tony said we really didn't expect to have such success and we know that the communities are rich with experience and um information and talent and so having our kids have that

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opportunity to meet people and you to have that partnership is just so wonderful. We're so grateful to everybody that that made that time for us the kids. >> I'm disappointed the chicken's not here though. Oh yes, tickets. They were big hit. >> Yes.

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>> So if you are here tonight and you're able to stand up just to be recognized >> in our program. >> Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Perhaps they could go out for >> Yes, that would be great. If we could get you all out in the in the hallway for a photo with Miss Lennon, that would

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be outstanding. >> Great for my shorts. >> That's right. And then we also have another level of celebration this evening as well as two of our community members within the

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schools are will be exiting hopefully at least at their current role. All right. So, it's an honor and a privilege to present to the board of education for recognition our 2025 2026 class of retirees. Each retiree has

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demonstrated excellence and incredible work ethic, dedication, and professionalism during their career in our district. They've done an outstanding job supporting and servicing students, staff, parents, and our community. And I'm going to first call up principal Adam Wright who's going to

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talk about one of our retirees. Good evening everyone. It is truly an honor for me to be here tonight as we recognize and celebrate the remarkable career of special education teacher and coach Mike Vergalo as he announces his retirement from the South Hunter School District. Mike has dedicated his life to

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supporting students both in and out of the classroom through his compassion, leadership, and unwavering commitment to education and athletics. Before joining South in 2017, Mike spent 21 years with ESC as a special education teacher, impacting countless students through patience, understanding, and an ability

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to help every child feel valued and supported. Beyond the classroom, Mike built an equally impressive coaching career that began in 1992 at Hun Central Regional High School, where he served as an assistant football and lacrosse coach before becoming the head lacrosse coach in 2005.

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In addition to coaching two demanding sports programs, he also dedicated his time to middle school basketball programs in Kingwood Township, Delaware Township, and here at South. Throughout every role he held, Mike's greatest strength has always been his ability to connect with students, athletes, colleagues, and their families. His

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calming presence, friendly demeanor, and relationship centered approach created an environment where students felt comfortable, respected, and encouraged to succeed. Mike's impact on South extends far beyond lesson plans, practices, and games. He has been a trusted mentor, supportive colleague, and positive role

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model whose influence will continue to be felt for many years to come. On behalf of the South Hernand staff, administration, board of education, and the many students and athletes whose lives you have impacted over the years, thank you, Mike, for your time, dedication, and unwavering commitment to

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building meaningful relationships within these walls. We wish you nothing but happiness and success in your retirement and your future endeavors. And we sincerely hope South will continue to see you as a familiar and welcome face in the years ahead. Mike Fergalito. Yeah.

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Bye. Tonight we recognize someone who truly represents the heart of South Hunter. Eric Zimmerman whereas generations of students came to know him simply as Zim. Eric dedicated 33 years to the district

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serving as a bus driver. One thing never changed over those 33 years of driving for us. Eric's unwavering commitment to our students. Every district has what I call legacy employees, the people who become woven into the identity of the school community itself. When you think

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of South Hunan, you think of Eric Zimmerman. Over the course of his career, Eric reached a remarkable milestone that very few people ever do. He finished his career driving the children of parents he once drove when they were students themselves. That kind

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of longevity speaks volumes, but it also says something much deeper about the trust, consistency, and care he brought to work every single day. For many students, Eric was the first person they saw in the morning and the last person they saw before heading home. He

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understood that mattered. What many people may not know are all the little quiet acts of kindness carried out behind the scenes. He genuinely cared about his students, especially students who may have needed a little extra support. Whether it was helping to pay for a prime ticket,

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address, lunch money, or making sure a student can feel confident and included, Eric stepped up without seeking recognition. That was simply who he was. He also was the kind of employee who never said no when the district needed help. No matter the time, no matter the

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circumstance, Eric was there, dependable, loyal, and dedicated. One of the most powerful moments this year was the clap out held on Eric's final day. Our entire high school student body joined by staff lined the hallways to show their appreciation for Z. It was a

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reflection of the impact he had made over more than three decades. Not just as a bus driver, but as a trusted adult, a mentor, a supporter, and a friend to so many. Eric, on behalf of the entire South Hunter community, thank you for your years of dedication, compassion,

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and service to our students and families. Your impact extends far beyond transportation routes and bus runs. You help shape the culture and the spirit of this district. We wish you nothing but happiness in your retirement. May you enjoy every minute of it, especially your sunflower harvesting and sharing

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those sunflowers at local businesses throughout our community. Congratulations, Eric. You will always be part of the South Hunter family. Congratulations. >> Nice. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Nice.

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This one >> it doesn't look like our student representative >> here this um do we have anyone from the PTO here this evening? LA everyone is enjoying the wonderful

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weather. >> We did get some correspondence and included a response here as well. Um so acknowledging that and uh moving on we need to approve our minutes from the last meeting and

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executive. So >> second marked. Okay. Uh all in favor? >> Any abstension? >> That said, we will turn out the lights again and go on to our superintendent

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reporting. All right. Just a few things um that I wanted to make bring you up to date on. First, which I know we've been doing updates each month with the update on the sale of the West Annual School. So,

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our buyer did ask for another extension of due diligence, um another 30-day extension, which we did grant. There's actually an addendum on our finance agenda tonight that the board will be approving later in the meeting. Um, so now we have a due diligence period which

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ends on June 18th, 2026. And I will share that the addendum does actually have a closing date where before it was more just we have to close in a certain number of days. Now the addendum actually has a closing date of July 17, 2026.

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So we will keep you updated. Um, I think we have a meeting a couple days on the 22nd of June. So it will be a couple days after the next due diligent period ends. All right. So, I wanted to share this information. Um, I know this has been a

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topic a the future of I Ready. So, after much discussion beginning uh in the 2026 27 school year, the district will be discontinuing the use of I Ready. Uh while this change marks a shift in the tools we use, our commitment to using data to drive instruction,

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interventions, and programming will remain strong. We will continue utilize multiple measures to monitor student progress and ensure students receive the support and enrichment they need. As part of this transition, the district will place a great greater emphasis on hands-on learning experiences. We'll be

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talking more about that in the coming months at our board meetings. More meaningful student interaction and instructional practices that reduce overall screen time. We believe this approach will help foster deeper engagement, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills while continuing to support high

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levels of student achievement. So, I just wanted that to be out there. Obviously, you know, our teachers didn't even know this uh until tonight. So, I'll be sharing that with our staff tomorrow. Uh but, you know, we'll be talking, like I said, in months coming uh before the next school year of what

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that really looks like with hands-on learning. We're really excited about some of the things that we'll be moving towards. Okay. Um, I did want to mention this. I hope it didn't get lost. It was on Facebook. Um, congratulations to Jason Miller, our athletic director, who was

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voted Skyland Conference athletic director of the year. So, I just wanted to give a shout out to Jason. I know it was on social media, but I wanted to just give a shout out at a board meeting, congratulate him for all the hard work. Um, and you know, just going along with it. I'm sure everyone saw that we finished our turf project, which

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we're really excited about. We had our first game on uh last week with our girls flag football team which is a huge success and uh we're really excited about being able to get that off the ground and being able to utilize it throughout the entire school year. And then finally,

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one of the most important things of the year typically in this meeting I'd like to kind of celebrate our class of 2026. So we usually put something together that shows, you know, where our kids are going to be going next year. Um, we're really excited. You know, May 1st was

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decision day. So, you know, I go to our counselors and they put together a list for us and then we put it into a graphic. So, I'll be sending this out obviously, you know, as part of my update tomorrow. But, you know, for us, this is a big driver of, you know, student success, right? When we look to

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measure student success, we have kids going to great places. We have kids that are doing other things as far as military or workforce. um they're really doing some great things and obviously this will play well as we continue to move forward with our pathway program that I talked about earlier. But for me,

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this is a great culmination of the year of all the hard work of our stat, our kids, the board kind of wrapped up in the one slide. So obviously we're in graduation mode. The 95 degree temperatures today didn't help. Um but our seniors are starting to get close to that point where we're starting to get

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in that graduation mode that's coming. and Tony, that's that's reflective of where our our seniors are going. That doesn't even include all the additional schools that they got accepted into that they had to make decisions. That's I wanted to say something last year because it's like

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they're getting into a lot of good schools. So, that's that's showing where they're going, but there's a whole other list of schools where they're not. >> Lots of conversations with our seniors about you're exactly right, Brian. like here's the eight schools that I got into and this is how I'm making this

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decision, that decision. Um, so yeah, I mean there's a lot of options. It's not kids coming to us saying I got in one school and that's the only school I can go to. So that's an awesome thing and that's a that's a huge benefit to our kids for their hard work, but also to our staff and the board and our

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community and their parent obviously for all that support. Any other questions about my update? to celebrate. >> Yes, there is a lot. >> That is going to bring us to our first

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period of public comment. So, uh we do have rules of around public comment. Um so, please three minutes. Um, keep it respectful and uh, if you would like to make a public comment, please introduce

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yourself and um, give the municipality you are talking about. Feel free to approach. >> Hello board. Um, uh, my name is Lauren Brunfells of Lambertville. Um, I wanted to take a moment to continue kind of

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making some comments um around the use of technology. I'm pleased to see the decision um around I Ready and what you're planning to replace it with. Um uh furthermore, I've been seeing some things at home with my middle schooler

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with the Chromebook in particular that it is being she's using it to look at her Pinterest account and um basically do things that once the phone time runs out. Um so it's kind of a continuation of her of her personal as a she as a

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personal device, not really a learning tool. Um I don't really want it in the house to be honest. Um but I say that because I think more um just about the ways in which we can continue to encourage excellence. I think again our size, you pointed this out with some of

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your comments, our size, right, really is an advantage I think in how we might be able to um to work with again styles of learning approaches in classrooms, approaches in in curriculum

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um that that would encourage students to to develop executive function um confidence, competence over long stretches of time, over complicated projects. um in ways that I'm not seeing um right now in the curriculum. Um and

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that that is um somewhat concerning uh to me um as a parent of two um two children. So um that's something I I think as well I'm sure we've seen some of the you know like there's mixed initial evidence about whether phone bands work don't work. I don't actually

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think we need need to get into that. Um I think more of again the point of like what is what is our purpose as a district educating students you know helping students to navigate a world together um and navigate right different

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kinds of information different ways in which they're they're performing inquiry and modeling inquiry and I just think again that less and less and less is that we need to use technology as the tools um to which to open that world to them and invite them into to it. Um uh

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so I continue to sort of see technology in the education setting more as um a cost a cost in many ways, not just financial um and potentially a barrier that we can experiment with doing things differently. So that's um I just wanted to kind of lay that out. Um I'm really

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appreciative to see the way the board took on the the strategic planning goal of community involvement. I was part of that group. Um and so that's really positive to see and also to see such a responsive board to the concerns of students and parents um uh and the larger world right around particularly

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the issue of technology in the classroom. Thank you. I I do want to just say um as we talk about our curriculum committee report this evening, there was significant and robust discussion about what you were saying and hopefully we'll

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see that in in our committee when we anyone else. >> Okay, not seeing anything online either. We will close um this public comment session um and then move on to curriculum and technology. Miss

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Fchetti is not here this evening, so I will actually be doing that presentation. Um and as I just discussed um we did have a a pretty long discussion on all of this. Uh but the

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first thing that we we did um is that Miss Lennin informed us of our summer curriculum uh that we will be having teachers develop uh both the pathways program and um science. We will be bringing that in line with standards and

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make sure that um we are aligned in both seventh and eighth grade for uh for the future. Also a much more hands-on approach there. And um we will also have the elementary ELA and math standards

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updated. Um as many of you know QAC is part of our audit process and um our standards do need to just be updated to align with our QAC coming up. And then our final

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thing is that we will be introducing the character strong program in uh next year and Mr. Mr. Davi will be writing a curriculum around that and making sure that it goes to our course framework and again that is

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not only navigating our world um interpersonally but also navigating with technology as part of that as well >> and executive function. Yes. So, uh, that will all be worked on over the summer and we should be approving

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that hopefully in August. Um you we did finalize our committee goals and um you can find them in the minutes but um basically we wanted to really emphasize critical thinking skills and

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collaboration and that we again went back to academic rigor for every child as uh something that we are looking for. And then the second goal would be uh ensuring that districtwide technology

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practices align across both our use of analog and intentional use of of digital technology. We did go ahead and uh table the AI guidelines. This is such a a a this is a larger issue than just our committee and

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we felt like the entire board needed to be involved in this. So the board will be having a workshop session that everyone will be participating in uh the discussion. So uh that was tabled. We also um

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did get an update from uh Mr. Zuzo on how STEM will be handled in the future in the middle school. And then finally, we talked about screen time and reporting and really what we were kind of trying to get at from all the reporting and evaluate how we might be

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doing that for the future. With that said, uh we do have a bilingual waiver that needs to be moved forward for approval this even >> second. >> Thank you, Brian. Okay, this is a voice

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vote, correct? Where is this? >> Okay. >> Jennifer Bachler. >> Yes. >> John Banani. >> Yes. >> Martha Denn. >> Yes. >> Paulo. >> Yes. >> Bashetti. Brian Ke. >> Yes. >> Aron. Ronnie Don Marino.

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>> Yes. >> And Michael. >> Yes. >> Okay. Personnel. >> So personnel committee met Wednesday, May 13th at 7:30 via Zoom. We discussed and reviewed the following appointments. Leaves of absence,

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substitute teacher, substitute secretary, extracurricular appointments, all for approval this evening. Knight will also be approving all salaries for all employees for the 26 2027 school year.

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We also um discussed an open positions. um specifically director of people's services and correct me if I'm wrong Tony. So approximately 28 candidates um they've chosen a 12 person committee to conduct the interviews on May 28th. The goal is to identify two to three

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candidates to move forward to the next round and the final goal of having the final candidate presented for approval in the June board meeting. >> You got it. >> I'm with that. So I'd like to move items A and B.

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vote. Oh, discussion. I'm sorry. I will be recusing myself from uh section. >> Okay. So, shall we vote in uh two parts? >> Uh no, we could just say the same.

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>> So, Johnani Martha Dennis. Yes. >> Paulo. >> Yes. >> Bashetti. Brian Key. >> Yes. >> Larry. Jennifer Bachelor. >> Yes. >> Bonnie Marino. >> Yes. >> And Michael Terrell. >> Yes.

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>> Okay. Um, our policy committee, >> we did meet on May 4th via Zoom. We had three discussion items. The first is the cell phone loss status. It is a no new scenario. The district is waiting for additional guidance from the Department of Education on their current direction.

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may be revised and clarified. In the interim, the administration will continue developing Q&A materials and planning for implementation. The current proposal includes collecting student cell phones at all grade levels, including the high school. This approach has support from the curriculum committee and school and community.

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While other districts have cited size and logistics as barriers at the high school level, the superintendent believes that these challenges can be effectively managed within our district and staff feedback to date has been supportive of that approach. policy updates will be required to support any final approach and the committee is

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awaiting further guidance from the department of education. We also talked about the AI guidelines and policies. Um the superintendent expressed a preference not to create a standalone policy given the pace of change in the area instead to rely on the guidelines

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but as you showed Michael um there are a variety of different opinions on the issue and the board is going to come together on June 10th to reach the final approach and Lastly, the policy committee is considering the adoption of a formal policy on board communications

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with the public potentially modeled on the approach used by the Flemington Ritan School District. The request originated from school and community uh which is in the process of developing a document on board norms and in that context identified a potential gap in the existing policy and we are currently

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the policy committee is currently reviewing the pllemington raring policy evaluating whether a similar framework work would be appropriated within our district. I have nothing >> discussion on any of that. >> Uh buildings, grounds, transportation,

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finance, and safety. Bachelor. >> So we met on um May 12th. Um so we covered um the sale already covered uh that we are sending due diligence. Um but we do have a potential

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closing date. Uh in July uh we talked a little bit about the sale of proceeds um and the fact that we have to be accounted for next uh fiscal year uh due to closing post June 30th. Um we

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discussed options of applying the proceeds like how to how to apply the proceeds to the debt service. Um but we have not made a final decision at this time. So we have time to do that. Uh we talked about playing field which had all

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opened that same day that we met on June 12th with a win the girls flag football thing. Um we discussed uh the possibility of all the uses of the new field, how multiple sports will rotate schedules so that all get to use it

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throughout the fall season and we also discuss potential u to rent the field for use by private. Um then things of note that we have on the agenda for tonight. Um we have a resolution for a cap transfer for some

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band fees. Um we have a resolution tonight proposed resolution tonight from NJSBA. This is just a resolution to document advocacy um asking the state to fix the state

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health plan due to true rising healthcare costs. Um, and in our financial reports, we uh we we will have a one change order uh to come up for turf, not in the agenda this

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month, but something that will will come up in the future. Um, within our contracts, we have u of note something that would impact uh community. We have a a contract to accept uh with i3 education which will allow accepting

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electronic payments via payold um which is something we already use today for lunch accounts but this will allow us to accept electronic payments across fundraising activity fees and and hopefully streamline some of that. Uh we also have a contract on the agenda

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tonight for USA architect. remember we've mentioned in the past we are due for our long range facilities plan um and USA to help us with that. Um, and also I was interested in this contract for school

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radio managed services which will allow radios on each bus which I was surprised that you know didn't have radios on the buses but the radios will allow they will use cell towers and allow for location tracking of the radios and just

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make sure the bus drivers can communicate without using personal books. Uh we also have we have an update on the Guana scholarship. Um we are adding that uh adding to that total amount for grant money to support middle school STEM um

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program uh and archery programs. Uh notes. Then on cafeteria, our high school stove has been delivered. And then uh within transportation, we resolved some issues that we had run into with uh tickets for failing documentation inspection that went to

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court. We were able to get one ticket dismissed. You do have to pay a small fine processes have been put in place uh to prevent anybody shoes. Um and I note I forgot even though I had it noted myself at the very top, I wanted

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to uh note that the softball dugouts were completed. Um and again, Carl, for uh the in-house work we used uh to soft softball dugouts, it saved us in total around $300,000. The contract amount to

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go outside of district would have been um >> around 174 something each. >> Um so we saved a ton of money and they look great and it was a lot of hard work. Um and just wanted to really thank for all

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>> and his response to us was it was fun. Yes, >> he enjoyed it. Win-win. >> Um, so go back to the agenda. I don't remember what items are.

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So, we do have items A all the way through R. >> And we did one other thing, and I apologize because this came in after finance. We did get awarded high impact tutoring money, which was nice. So, we had had that in the past. got $20,000

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awarded from the state. So, we will be using that for summer programming um because we think we might be able to access kids a little easier than in the past we've tried to do it after school within channels and so that's also on there for us to accept a second for that

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>> second discussion. I I did want to note uh that Jen kind of talked about this a little bit, but uh we are aligning with the rest of the districts within Hunter

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County and the New Jersey School Board Association and passing this resolution, anybody who has been following our um budget process this year does know that healthcare costs were of particular concerns. though we are asking uh that it be looked at at a state level. So um

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every district in Hunter County is going to be casting a similar um resolution and all of it will be delivered to the governor. That said, >> uh Brian Kee, >> yes. >> Uh Darren, Jennifer Bachelor,

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>> yes. >> John Bonami, >> yes. >> Martha Dennis, >> yes. >> Paulino, >> yes. individual and community. Uh before you begin, okay, I I might take a little I do want to take a a moment to thank you because you have put in an enormous

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amount of work on board and uh Martha just just mentioned it, but that's something that that I think is really helpful to our new board members and then also for us as an entities functioning together. Um I I have to

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just tell you I appreciate everyone you >> are very welcome. It is It's an important thing. I think it's a document that everybody contributed to and it's about us functioning well as a team. So we do already. So this is about making

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us look better. All right. So school and community met. Um the first thing that we looked at was the school climate and culture survey which if folks remember the climate survey is something that we put out every year to gather information from

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students, parents and um uh staff. Because the climate survey can confuse people, we've renamed it. It is now the HRSD tell us how we're doing your voice matters survey. Um, we're trying to keep

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the questions that we've asked in years past so that we can track, but we had we made the decision to add questions about AI use and the recently added um homework policy. That survey will go out at the end of May shortly. I guess the end of this week is the plan. Um, and

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will remain open until mid June. We'll look at that to see if we need to um um extend it once we once we get a response rate in mid June. And then also the correspondence will include information about initiatives. That's one of the

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things about the survey is it always drives initiatives. Um and really want to make sure that people understand how much their voice is heard um when they're giving this feedback. So the that correspondence will include some of the that information from years past.

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We talked about TUR fundraising. Um, one of the things that we were patterning our fundraising around was what Delva did. And we noted the fact that Delv Vao did this fundraising effort to raise all of the funds for the turf. This is more

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about having a fund in reserve if there's any maintenance that needs to be done in the future. Um, we are going to be approaching businesses. Um and we work we were contacted by by a business that does that but we made a decision

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that we will go ahead and try and not successful our re and reaching goal that we set um then maybe we would use that in in the future. Um we also talked about a local group that's already approached us wanting to rent the first. So that's a wonderful thing. We've

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talked about end of year events and ceremonies recognizing that graduation and promotion dates are all set and have been communicated to the public. And we talked about the community classroom program and how we will honor the the people as we did tonight. Um the school

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and community always has an open agenda item for anything that just doesn't fit in in another um in another committee. And one of the things that was noted, we had our our meeting at the middle school uh so that we could all enjoy um the middle school art and STEM show which

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was a great success. There were a lot of broad range of projects and great so make sure that we know that as well and that is it >> discussion on any of that. >> Can you give any details on the group

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that's interesting? >> I can Yeah. So, it's an outside uh soccer entity who is interesting in rent rent renting the summer and the fall three to four days a week in the evening. So, we're going to meet with them and

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just talk. One of the things that we need to do, Peter and I actually met about it today. We have to update our facility policy because we don't have the turf on there and how much we would actually charge per hour. So, that is something that we'll be bringing to finance and to policy probably in June.

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Uh for the next item, we need to accept uh the harassment, intimidation, and bullying report from last month and then fire drills and safety drills. So, I just need a motion. >> There's nothing else. >> Oh, there's no we don't have fire.

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>> No. >> Yeah, but they don't have >> the HB. Yeah. >> Okay. >> But there's no voting. >> There's no There's no vote. >> The board has to vote on letter A to

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accept the need HIV. >> Okay. Well, moving on. >> Except that there was none. >> That's a good thing to accept. >> That is going to bring us to our next um public comment. Uh again, same as before. Um you are limited to 3 minutes

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and uh please approach the podium if you would like to share. Not seeing anyone in the gallery. Is there anything online? Okay. Uh then let's close this period of public comment. Uh we do have a need to go into

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executive session. Uh we anticipate that being 20 to 30 minutes. Um and we will not be taking any action afterwards. Uh So, please feel free to go and enjoy the beautiful weather outside.

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>> Can I get a motion to go to executive session? >> Salute. >> Thank you, John. >> Ronnie, all in favor? >> I