Meeting the order of the Titan Board of Education, June 3rd, 2025, 5:30 p.m. Stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Gerald Truhart, present. Denise Johnson, present. Jean Buouie, absent. Addy
Daniel Lane, present. Austin Edwards, present. Yolanda Lopez, present. Barry Trailer present. Jamie Weekly present. We have a New Jersey Sunshine Law. New Jersey public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights to the public to
have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted on. On the rules of this act, the Triton Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting be publicized the date, time and place. Therefore, posted on the website, the
times and the star ledger. Former action will take place at this meeting. Mission statement. All students will graduate with a vision for the future, motivated to learn continually and prepared to succeed in their choice of college or career. Superintendent adoption of the agenda.
We do have uh one item that's pulled item R stipen appointments JM summer movers. Uh other than that like a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. Second. Probably moved and seconded. Roll call. Joe Truhart. Yes. Denise Johnson. Yes.
Jean Buoie. Absent. Addie Daniels Lane. Yes. Austin Edwards. Yes. Yolanda Lopez. Yes. Larry Trailer. Yes. Jeannie Wel. Yes. Motion passed. Yes. Superintendent remarks.
Mhm. Good evening. Good afternoon. Good evening. It's wet day, nice day, cold day, warm day, depending on where you are in the building. and thank you all for coming out this evening. Um, just want to send a thank you to all of our staff members for the outstanding work
teaching, planning, cleaning, preparing food, meeting with parents, coaching, advising, and being just being there for children this year. Uh, we had a great year with a lot uh lot of awesome things that we got done and we're excited to
return next year uh uh to do more work. Uh I am so proud of the work we've done and look forward to our uh you all returning those of you who are ending 10 and a half month and 10 month ending your journey today. All of us 12 month
people I see in the audience will be here continuing the work but we certainly look forward to our partners uh coming back. Uh this evening we also had running on a loop there on the video was uh our educators of the year. We
celebrate with them. Uh I've had the honor to celebrate with the whole group uh and to get to know many of them individually. And these are warriors for kids. They are awesome people in their buildings selected by their peers. They
arrive to work with a purpose to engage, excite, and to inspire. And they truly care about others around them. So, I want to congratulate those individuals for their outstanding work and being selected as educators of the year and
also for representing Trenton. Um, just a quick note on June 21st um Princeton Rowing uh company and Trenton Public Schools partnered to hold an indoor riata rowing event. Uh I'm tired
just thinking about it. Uh we used urgge machine URG machines. It was held inside and five teams from Trenton, five intermediate teams. We've had them competing uh for a while now. So we're trying to grow that program, but we want
to thank Princeton Rowing Club and uh Mr. Bruce Boyd for organizing the event and the district for partnering with them to make that happen. So it was a really nice event. Um, one key point note for the summer, uh, and I know that
we've been discussing it among our group. We want to make sure we get all the resources, but just want to alert parents and students in particular that we are planning to implement a limited cell phone ban or restrictions during classroom instruction. Next year, we'll
begin announcing the process and the procedures in the next few weeks, so stay tuned. Uh while we do not intend to ban cell phones, that's not what we're after, we do want to limit cell phone use in classroom and areas where
learning is taking place. So stay tuned for more to come. And just as a note, point of note, we do believe that uh devices can be a distraction. So we want to be clear uh about making sure that we don't have distractions in the area of
the classroom. So, we do have some work that we're doing right now that we'll be sharing with the schools and principles and then out to the public about how we will proceed on September 4th. I think that's the day we return. Tonight, we
have two presentations on the agenda. Uh we have our annual um student safety data system report uh SSDs that will be shared by assistant uh superintendent hope grant and her attendance managers
which she will introduce. And we will also have the fourth quarter strategic goals progress update uh presented by yours truly and potentially others in the audience. So thank you for coming. Uh enjoy your summer. be safe if you're
out there driving and traveling and we look forward to seeing you back in September if you're not working during the summer. Thank you. Uh Mrs. Grant, will you introduce your team and we can go from there? Good evening.
All right, here we are once again. Um I'm going to just quickly turn this over to my team. We have the school support managers, Mr. Terrence Stokes and Mr. is Miss Iselda Neptune, who will be uh showing us the presentation and all of the gains that we've been making with
the work in reducing our suspensions and um making our schools uh the culture and climate more feasible. So, I'm going to turn this over to them, but I'll be close by. Good evening, board members. I hope you guys are doing okay today. Um the topics that we will be talking about today is
our HIV um incident of violence, incident of vandalism, incident of substances, incidents of weapons, nonviolent incident inc incidences and um demographic breakdown. So to begin um we're going to talk about
the second reporting period incident of HIPS. Um and this year we had a little bit more um hibs that went on with the school maybe with the implementation of our new um program that we just started using and um some our unfounded are
higher than the last previous two years and this year we had 33 unfounded allegations and for our confirmed allegations is also higher than our previous two years and that is 20 confirmed allegations. I'll pass it over to Mr. Stokes.
So this information is just for the second reporting period. And before getting into a lot of these other numbers, just want to let you guys know that these these this is raw data, right? There hasn't been a whole lot lot of analysis done. This is just raw
numbers that we're presenting to you. And it's over a three-year period, right? Typically when you have three years worth of data, you're able to draw some conclusions or really start to have some analysis. But we have three different
data points in this that we're presenting. 2022 2023 we were returning from COVID. So those numbers are an anomaly. 2023 2024 that was the year the first year of
implementation of the new student code of conduct. whereas this year is year two. So we do have three years but it's not three years under the same controlled environment. Just want to put that out there before we begin. So if we look at our incident incidents
of violence and this is just for the second reporting period and that's our fights, our assaults, sexual conduct, threats of that nature, you know, we see that from last year to this year there's been a a small increase um just for the
second reporting period just in the assaults and the fights. Threats have gone down though, so that's a positive. incidents of van of vandalism and these are reported incidents. You know, we're we're doing very pretty well in those
areas, right? That's the so arson is one that's very difficult to categorize. So, you see arson on there. Um, you know, a kid playing with matches in the bathroom. That's what that one incident is. So, it wasn't like a kid was trying to set the building on fire.
So, I just want to make sure we understand how we categorize um arson. Um damage to property's gone down and our incidents of theft are pretty much, you know, pretty much the same at the six. False public alarm is pulling of
the fire alarm incident of substance, right? So, substance use and we're thankful that we don't see a lot of usage in our buildings, right? um the possessions have gone down um and then our distributions continue to be
zero. Um I'll talk a little bit more when we get to the other suspensions about you know the vapes which kind of how we categorize that. All right. Um weapons, weapons use and weapons possession. Again, those are going down.
The weapons possessions could be the orbe guns um that that students come to school with. Um, you know, unfortunately, we live in an environment where, you know, a high school student has to be to school at 7:30. They may be leaving their house at 6:30,
7:00, walking through some communities that might not be the safest of communities. So, they may have mace on them. Um, or they may have a blade. These are things that are actually confiscated at the security checkpoint. So, it's not as though they're getting into the school, brandishing them.
They're confiscated at uh the security checkpoint at the check check-in our nonviolent acts or our other suspensions. So this is an area that is very um interesting to me and that if it's not considered violence and
vandalism, this is where we've categorized the other suspensions. So when I talked about you know the vapes because that is the thing that we have seen an increase in right students are being found with vapes not vaping but
found in possession of vapes and there have been suspensions a rising number of suspensions for students being uh caught with a just with a vape on their person not necessarily using but having a vape on their person. Um and these are where kind of suspension becomes a choice
right. So if we look at where we were first second reporting period you know over the past three years you know there was a small increase this year and a lot of that increase this year was for the vape possession of vapes.
So if we compare the two um there were 160. So while there was an increase in the second reporting period, right? Um if we look at it over the year, right? because this is what this is looking at from over a three-year
period. We're actually down on the vi in incidents of violence and vandalism, but up a little um for the other suspensions that non that acts of that are nonviolent or vandalism. And again, I this is for second reporting period. So
that's combining all of the categories. I misspoke initially. Sorry. So, year-end data, um, our acts of violence and vandalism year overyear, we're up a little higher this
year. Um, we're up a little higher for the other suspensions and our confirmed uh, incidents of harassment, intimidation, and bullying um, is up this year beginning in January.
um our coordinator, our HIV district coordinator, uh Miss Wyatt Simpson, she rolled out Hipster, which is an online reporting and tracking program for HIV. Um so that has allowed for the district
now to have a better process of tracking. Um and there's also um a directive that any allegation had to be investigated or anytime HIV was mentioned, bullying was mentioned
that it had to be investigated. So that's kind of dri that's driven some of the higher number of unfounded claims as well as the higher number of founded claims as well. Um in terms of suspension, so what you have here is the number of sus number of
susp incidents of suspension and then the number of unique students. Those are the number of individual students that have been suspended. So again, that first year is an anomaly, right? Right. Out of of COVID, you know, we've
had maybe 20 more suspensions this year. And again, vapes and then unique um unique students, a little more than 100, maybe 120, 130 more individual unique students that were suspended this school
year. This is probably what you guys want to see, the demographic breakdown of what students are being suspended, right? So, historically, our black men have been suspended at a higher rate than any other demographic
throughout the district. And that continues to be the case. Even though from a percentage perspective, black men probably make up less than 20% of the students in the district, our black females still are suspended at
a higher rate. Um, our MLL students, um, and then our sp students, particularly our sped males, right? And if I extrapolated black male, black sp males out of the sped, the black male number would even be higher. So that sped number is inclusive of all demographic
of special special education students. Oh, I went the wrong way. Sorry. So as I conclude and then open up to questions, as I said, you know, this is these are raw numbers. Um over the summer, you know, we will sit
down with the respective schools and go over their um number of suspensions, their demograph demographic information, as well as let them know what the suspensions were, right? Because we have all of that data
that we share with the schools. And from there, we begin to develop plans to um address, you know, some of some of the concerns um some of the issues that are repetitive um and then try to try to do better for next school year. And I know
one of the things that I'm going to be doing this this summer as well as throughout the school year is really making sure that our schools understand the updated student code of conduct. Um it was rolled out and the imp after
seeing what happened the first year the the impression was that okay people understand what's in it right they understand every part of it but when going back and analyzing some of the suspensions there was not a reliance on I can say
that there wasn't a reliance on going referring to the student code of conduct when deterine when determining to do to do issue a suspension And some of that I'm going to take on the chin, right? Because I know I need to do a better job. And every time I speak before you at the end of the school year, it's it's a self reflection
for me as well, right? Because I present the numbers, but I also see every suspension. And I know that I need to do a better job of making sure that our schools understand why we why we why we redid the student code of conduct, what's in the student code of conduct,
and how do we react when we see incidents that that that that are happening in our school. We can't refer back to the old mindset of suspension is the only way that we deal with issues. You know, restorative practices is something that we've introduced and we
embraced as a district. social emotional learning. We embrace that as a district, right? So, we have to make sure that we're continuing in those practices and using suspension as the last as the last resort and not our go-to.
And I'll end on that and take any questions that you may have. I I do have um first of all I want to say I'm really glad that we are reporting all instances of bullying and it is you know unfortunate that the
numbers rises but that means that we're doing a better job at um documenting these incidents. So I'm I'm glad about that. But but I had a couple of really quick questions not profound questions. You said that mace is considered a weapon.
mace is considered a weapon. It is considered a weapon. Okay. Um and I was wondering if you could be able to tell us specifically how many uh incidents were nonviolent
and how many were um not nonviolent, violent, and how many were vandalism because we kind of grouped them together. But when I think of violent and and vandalism, I'm thinking about people and property. And so um I don't
think there was was there oh okay right so if we look at the instance of vandalism there were six seven no seven eight 14
okay 14 instance of vandalism these are the violent incidents right and I think I have that somewhere on another chart. Okay, I see. I have it here. Okay. And this is second reporting period.
Sorry. No, no, no. Okay, that's fine. I can look at that later on. And then my very last one because I didn't quite catch it. You It was at the very end. Um the suspensions, did you say the the children in the
spare in special education, they're not included in the other um demographics, right? That is correct. That's their own demographic. Correct. Perfect. Same as with the um with the MLS, right? Even so some may be Hispanic, we do we separate
that out. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. And we separate that out because every year we have to do a civil rights report for the uh for the feds and this is the way that they want the want the data. This is where they want the information.
We'll go to Gene and we'll just come on down the line. Okay. If you have if you have any questions, Jean, okay, thank you. How are you? I'm Terrence. Good. So, so I came in late. Excuse my tardiness, but um one of the questions that I have and I might have
missed this is what are the drivers for the increase? Like if you look over last year and this year and we know some of the things that that were put in place last year, what are the drivers now? Is it just that folks aren't you alluded to
it later um that folks really aren't clear on what's in the code of conduct and and uh or so what's driving that increase? So again, these are raw numbers and I there's going to be a a deeper dive into what the drivers are and we're going to that's when we meet with the individual schools, right, to
give them their information. Okay. Um but you know, just anecdotally, you know, as things happen in the community, they're going to filter they're going to filter it's going to filter into our schools in some way, right? Um, and you
know, while I just don't want to put a blanket statement out there to say that people aren't referring to the student code of conduct, some of the suspensions that were administered were contrary to what's in the student code of conduct. So, there just need to be a refresher. Right. So, we continue along the trend
that we started with redoing the student code of conduct. Mr. Grant, yeah, a couple things. So I think one of the other things is that as we see our population grow in our schools, we're going to see a little bit of an influx and change with some of our numbers. Um the other thing is that when we are
talking about things like vapes, so students don't get suspended for the very first time they bring in a vape on the 55th time that we continue to take it, we continue to bring it in, you refuse to give it up, it then becomes an issue that is more than just you have a
vape. Um, we also are seeing vaping and students using vape at a much younger level. So, when we're talking about vaping, we are talking about people who youngsters who are coming in in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades that have vapes. Um, when we are looking at our HIP numbers, um, what Terrence said, our
hipster program is our online portal that houses all of our information. So families, community members, students themselves, staff members have the ability to now go onto our district website and fill out a form for HIV.
Every single form that is submitted has to get um has to get researched and the HIB portal um provides us the template for all of the steps, all of the timelines and everything that we need to do. So this really has made us uh
ensured that we are doing it properly and that we are hearing um situations and incidences that we may not have heard from last year. Okay. So, um, my question had to do with, um, the demographic breakdown and
the fact that, um, black males and black females are suspended at a higher, uh, proportion than others. Um, that's a discussion that's come up in special ed as well, the whole idea of disproportionality. And so, u, just thinking ahead, um, and I know you said you're going to take a look at the
information over the summer. So, what kinds of things can we do or can we or are we considering to address uh, turning that number around? Yeah, we've actually started that work. Um, our Mr. Earl and uh Dr. Conway, they've been
setting up trainings for our school administrators to actually unpack uh the data around disproportionality as a district, but also by school so that they can look at what is happening at their own school and develop a plan of action. And so schools have been in this
process for like the last three months to develop a plan specific to their school and we are submitting one on behalf of the district. So, we've already started that work um because it is disturbing and we need to really unpack what's happening. Uh and then when you and this is kind of going down another route, but when you look at the
uh the sped students, when you see the breakdown of how sped students by race are being identified um and what their IEPs are coming forward, it really gets us to question um our own biases and those of the folks who are making those
decisions about how students are being classified, what what categories they're being classified under, and why. So, we're starting that unpacking and really doing that work in order to make a change. And and uh I think at one of our last meetings, we said, "So, are we
looking to say that we need to have more kids in other categories?" No, that's not what we're saying. What we are saying is that we need to really take a step back and do a deep dive as to the how and the why and what changes we need to make in our own structure and our own organization to make sure that these
numbers make a little bit more sense. Any more question? You can stay on this slide. Um, how much is, you know, a lot of times when kids have behavior, it's not the action that's happening
right there. It It's some sort of trauma- based thing that brings it to the front. It may be the principal is a trigger for the child for them to react. Um, how much trauma healing are we doing with these kids?
because I'll bet you those numbers are reflective of trauma of some sort. Absolutely. So, we have been doing I think we're in year four of our traumainformed care work. Schools have hope teams which is to look at um
students that are really struggling. But on the flip side of that is, and I'm going to use one of my colleagues perfect examples. So, um, when you look at the number of our black male students that are being identified as sped, so for those of you in the audience that can remember, and I hope I'm going to
tell this story correctly, uh, how many times as a young boy did you maybe swing on the door of your home when you were five, six, or seven years old, right? You swung on the door because sometimes that's what kids do. And are we taking
situations where it really is normal student or normal child behavior and categorizing it as uh an identification rather than saying sometimes children need a different sort of outlet that is not necessarily a category but just
because you know they're boys and maybe they need to swing on a door sometimes and it's just you know sometimes you don't know why they're swinging on doors but they're swinging on doors and allowing ing young f and allowing our students to progress
out of some of that behavior. Um the other thing that we know that we're really trying to unpack is um what are some of the cultural aspects that that come with that? uh and that is there a difference between a student who is a foreignb born student and the um
and and how they're feeling coming to school and the value of school than some students who are Americanborn students that may not have that same value ed that same value right and so we're looking at all of those kind of things but we are doing that trauma work and
that's part of the disproportionality work that we're doing to really kind of identify are we talking about cultural are we talking about bias? Are we talking about natural student behavior that we need to kind of just be reminded of that sometimes young folks are just going to be young folks and at what
point does that cross? But are we doing it with those students? Yes. Okay. Specifically. And my next question was about the substance abuse suspensions. Do we know the um number of alcohol
versus marijuana? And has the marijuana increased since the laws have changed? So alcohol, we had one person that was caught in possession of alcohol. Um everything else has been uh marijuana. Can I go next? Okay. No, go ahead. I'll
wait. Okay. Um thank you so much for this presentation. I just wanted to confirm. So the numbers that we see on the screen u these are 152 individuals 129 129. Okay. And you said that that um
black males and I'm just you because we see that we're talking about black males is 20% of the population. Maybe less but maybe less than that. Okay. Um, I wonder what the what the percentage is of the
suspensions. Say that one more time. I'm wondering what the what the num what's the percentage of suspensions? Like so black males are what part if you got a 100% of suspensions, what number they are. So I
mean so I can do that math real quick. So did you did you show Okay. I didn't know if you showed that already. Yeah, we can do the math. We had 7 We had 979 suspensions, right? Black males were 152. So, if we just do
a quick division, we can find out the percentage. Yeah. That they make up. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Actually, it would be of the unique students, not of the suspensions, right? And then you It would be the unique students. It' be of the 787
Should I do the math real quick? 25. How much? 16. 16% of the unique students suspensions. Okay. 16%. 16%. I didn't do it. 16. Okay. That That was it. No. No. That was it.
Great. Okay. Yes, sir. Awesome. Uh thank you for the presentation. I just had a question around the hipster reporting um software and everything and I wanted to know since we have implemented the um the system have we notice more parents
or like do we know the types of people that are in that are filling out the reporting because I assume like parents would be more prone to report incidents. Are you referring to hipster? Yeah, for the hipster. So I'm I don't manage that system. Linda Wyatt Simpson does. I'm just reporting the numbers that you know
has to be reported to the state. We can get that information. Yeah. Because we know who reports for you. Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to acknowledge something that Sister Hope said about children will be children. I was around
a sevenyear-old today who typically I've seen her three times. two times she was good. Today she was somebody else but she was but and so so so being aware of that
reality sometimes we place expectations on children but we lose sight of just how old he is. The the the child is tall but she's still seven. She's not 10. And so, thanks for bringing that up because that's one of the realities when you look about those kind of relationships
and growing children and discipline that you need to be aware of as a guy who's got 17 grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren. One of the things that you'll see in um almost every classroom in our schools is classrooms now have calming corners so
that when students feel a little bit disregulated, they can calm themselves down. What you'll also see as you're going in, and if you don't have one, get it. It's the greatest thing ever, are um weighted stuffed animals. And you will see an increase in weighted stuffed animals in counselor's office and
classrooms. And it really is a calming tool. I know there are some schools I go into, as soon as I sit down, I grab the animal and you just kind of and and you can feel yourself just kind of calming down. And so we're trying to get to a point where we are understanding that
some children's behavior is normal behavior, but how do we get it where it does not become a major disruption to the school or the classroom? Any other questions? Um I don't know if you have this data yet or this data point yet, but do you know when it comes to the assaults and
the fights, do you know what grade levels um the majority of those things are happening at? Whether the high school or the um middle school or intermediate level. So with that's data that I mean we have it. I don't have it readily available. So that's information that I can
definitely get to you. Any uh any additional questions from board members? Uh seeing no additional questions. Thank you so much. Great presentation Mr. Stokes and your hope grant your team.
God bless you. Superintendent's goal four board goals presentation. Thank you. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to share progress around our goal work. I know we've done it a couple of times already this year just talking
about where we are in terms of goals one through five and some of the work that we committed to do with you and with our principles with our schools uh and we feel like we're making great progress. So I wanted to share a bit more about
quarter 4 and then some year end type progress. So you'll see uh some culmination of some of the events. So there about 40 slides here, but a lot of images. So I'll go fast and I'll do my best to go through this data very quickly. But I also want to offer the
opportunity for you to ask questions. Uh I did not reach 57. I know I see James laughing. There's a joke inside the the room about 57 slides. So I'm at 48, I believe.
So anything under 57 is a win in our group. Um, so student achievement is goal one. Uh, we've gone through this several times, so you know the goals as they're written. Uh, we've talked to you and we all talked about these goals
together, but you can see the TNL staff have put some of the evidence in writing. Uh, I'm going to actually show you some data around some of the work that we've done, but this talks about all the training that's been done, the looks for look fors that's been
developed. um building agency for students like some of the really good work that so many of our principles and our teachers and everyone in our district is committing to. It feels different. It looks different during uh professional development and I want to
thank all of our staff for uh engaging in the way that's necessary to change the paradigm in Trenton. So I give you those things. Take a look at them and if you make any notes for slide one, I can certainly go back too. But you see tiers
two and three intervention reidentified and confirmed. We are working diligently. We talked about those black males. And so you've heard about disproportionality work. We're not bashful about who we see on that. You see me on that screen. And so I want
everyone to be clear that we will change that. We're going to do everything in our power not to see that number so high and not to always see us in that number. We see it in special education referrals and classification. We see it in
suspension. And as our researcher tells us and the person working with us, these are all adult decisions being made. They're in policy. They're in codes of conduct. They're in how we see people when they walk in the room. And we're desperate to change that. We do that
through high level education, high level training and that's what you see in some of this work. So I wanted to share some data points with you around in the integration of the projectbased learning. You'll see be PBL a lot and we we believe that an experience in
learning confirms learning. when you do it through experience and not always through just I sit in the classroom. Gentleman told a great story during our Apple training about the 10 worksheets at the back of the room after he finished the first worksheet which was
powerful because that's the way it used to be. We're so desperate to get far away from that and to build agency and student learning. Um so here's couple of first data points and just wanted to share with you ask us uh frequently about reading and this gives you some
idea. You can see their gains in every area kindergarten the winter dr we don't have a fall because uh they come in from kindergarten but you can see there's a plus one in growth plus five for first grade plus sec plus five for second
grade plus seven plus three plus eight plus nine. So we're moving in reading and the work with our kids in seventh grade uh uh reading progress through I ready. You can see the number of above
level students on level and approaching level in all of the grades 7 through 12 increasing and the number of below level uh and far below level decreasing which means our students are increasing and
we're seeing more students move toward approaching on level above level. uh if you look at seventh grade at the beginning of the year 2% were reading on grade level midyear 6% end of year 12%
through using I ready and you can see if you read across on each one and down in the columns it gives you an idea I wanted to share with you some of the progress that we're making and and you know if you look at far below that number started at 74% and in some cases
when we walk into this work we are and we are deeply behind and that's why it's urgent to work come to work and do the work. So from 74 to 63, from 76 to 68, from 46.9 in 9th grade to 37 we're
seeing kids less far below which means they're growing toward below level toward approaching. Is moving to below level progress from far below? You bet it is for the student who's struggling to read. That means they read better and
read more. We present reading data because we know it's the lynch pin to learning. If you can read, you can do all other subjects. You can analyze, you can compare, you can contrast, you can present, you can collaborate. But when
you cannot read, it is difficult. So we will stay on this work K through 3 now 7 through 12 you will see we will continue the work and continue to look for progress.
So these are just some images. Tangga students at the watershed uh institute uh doing a PBL summer program, secondary multilingual students to support the uh continuation of language acquisition, the rise up program. You see a group of
staff members and I see a principal in there and a supervisor. Um uh one of our teachers won the Richard Roder award for excellence in environmental education. Um you can see K6 bilingual multilingual
students working on PBL activities. We believe in getting students active. Uh these are just some images and these this is probably just a small deep corner of what you'll see if you go in our schools. When Larry and I went uh to
the schools, I remember him saying, "Oh, it it's not like what they say it is." Well, no, it's not like what they say it is. Um we promote that all the time. This is not what you believe it is. It's what we believe it is. We can do anything we want to do, but our students
are doing great work and our staff's doing amazing getting it done. And we have that much more to do. We're just We were so far behind. We just keep pressing. And so tomorrow is just another day to press. That's what it is. It's the summertime, but it's my time to
get ready for the school year. Um, so I'm going to call my friends up from the bilingual department. This is some of the most amazing uh statistics that I don't want to do uh injustice to try to explain it. And I wanted Ya to uh come
up and just help me talk about what we see here and the staggering numbers. If you look in the second to the last column, uh we increased developing a uh re reaching developing and reaching I'm
looking at the hyphen from 546 to 809 students. It's a 48.17% increase in the number of students who moved to that point. So, she's going to talk about the amazing data points in this slide and then I'll share with you
some of the information and you can certainly ask any questions. I'd like you. Hello everyone. My name is Yammy Era. I am the supervisor of the bilingual ESL department for the little ones K6 and um Jared Velasquez here is
my colleague for the 712 world. Um so just as Mr. was saying these numbers are astounding because it shows that what we have been doing for the past two years is finally showing up. So one of the most impressive things that we're seeing is that our multilingual learners that
require ESL and or bilingual supports exited by 36%. That is a huge number. That basically means that we have less students needing these supports. So we can have these supports allocated for our influx of MLS that we see growing at
an astounding 8 to 10% every single year. The next thing that was unbelievably amazing was that 48% almost 50% of our students have achieved English development skills that will
allow them to exit out as long as we continue to work with them um through the programs that we have been doing for the past two years. So these are the students that if we continue to work with them, we could consider them the bubble students or the lowhanging fruit.
They're the ones that have the most potential to exit the program. So, if we think about this, this is 400 students that we could potentially move out of ML support and open out up for our our other students coming in. Um, two things
that I really wanted to speak on is out of these 36% in exits, an astounding 40% came just from the 712 world because we've instituted a midyear exit. So, these are
students that have classically been in the program for more than five to seven years. They're called the lifers that we just cannot exit out. And so Jared Velasquez was able to establish a program that we were able to exit some of these students out and astoundingly
we did 40%. Which we have not seen those numbers in many years in the 7 to2 world. Right? So that's really really impressive. Um, two things. We grew the most in the writing domain and that is impressive because traditionally that is
the one area that students struggle the most or the one skill that takes the most amount of time to develop. And so seeing this 4.4% increase is amazing. And really this is due to the fact that we have finally
established a writing program that is also supported for our multilingual learners using the core resource schoolwide. So last year and this year we've worked with our curriculum writers to create a program that really fit the needs of our multilingual learners. And
then the other thing that I really wanted to focus on that spoke to what Mr. Earl was saying on our rise of literacy was we grew by 3.5% in oral proficiency. Um that's amazing. That is a testament to
the dedication that we have done as a district to have K12 strategic professional development in the area of sheltered English instruction. So, if you've been here for a while, the previous uh practice was
our sheltered teachers would have a 15-hour shelter training. That's it. We're done. So, as of last year, this hopefully being the second year, we've instituted a yearlong strategic and very powerful uh
professional development through our consultants, Jared and myself going in to do demo lessons with teachers of MLS that not that doesn't include just bilingual teachers and ESL teachers, but at this point, Janette teachers, shelter teachers, administrators. So, everyone
is getting the same message to make content accessible for our multilingual learners. And really, it's not just our multilingual learners. It's really the best practices for all of our students because all of the students in Trenton are coming in learning a second language
because many of them come in learning academic languages. So, thank you. Any questions? Well, at the end. Okay. Wonderful. I'll go anywhere. Oh, okay. No, no, you can have a seat and then I'll finish and then you can Thank you. if they have questions.
So, I I I would have been able to explain it, but not like that. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Um such powerful data as you know they were sharing with me. Uh so, this is essentially the same thing that she just shared. Uh, so I
wanted to break it back out so that when you read all of all of those lines and those numbers, you have some data points that you can actually uh use to share out to the public. And this is going to be posted online anyway. So, uh, just wanted to share that with you. Uh, and
she talked about some of the strategies and, uh, K12 PD focused on academic language, higher order questioning, thinking, um, collaborative dialogue with KA's levels. You'll see that throughout this presentation uh when it
comes to teaching and learning. Uh so this is just some of the same information that Miss Herrera shared a few minutes ago. Uh let's see. Okay. Oh, touching the wrong button. All right. And then we broke this out at a glance.
And so there three slides at a glance by grade level. And I won't go through each uh bit of information because that data that you just saw breaks this out one more time by g by grade band. But what you can see is what grow what drove growth. If you ask sometimes what are we
doing that's the area and if you say if you see strategic datainformed instruction and planning at the early grades professional development when we go to the 46 targeted professional development
always focused we talk about that that's a goal area targeted and focused professional development and I'll be sharing data about that work in just a few minutes and the same thing in this slide. So, all three slides give you uh at a glance
some of the work that we've been doing to get to that point around access 2.0 data and for ML uh ML kits. All right. And then AVID, of course, we implemented our AVID elective advancement via individual
determination. This is just an an image of the work that they started doing. It's our first year into the the course. Uh and I think if I'm not mistaken, we did it either uh halfway through the year or we started the full year. But
it's going to be amazing the work that young people will do through this program. And it's building that strong foundation to present to be confident about your work to compete in a world where competition is the thing that you have to do. healthy competition uh but
being academically sound with these students. Uh did a couple of PBLS and a career day opportunity. So look forward to more images and more information and more invitations to go see this uh in action. So I think you'll be excited
about it. Goal two, community engagement and partnerships. We shifted a bit because we accomplished some things that we decided to accomplish in goal two. uh we had already implemented registration. So this year we had an opportunity to pre-register students returning from
STEM civics. Uh that was a huge success. The whole team went over there. We came back here scheduled meetings for parents, group meetings, days by grade level, individual meetings so that everyone at this point is registered who wants to come back to Trenton. Then we
heard that they are open again. So that's another whole story. um uh open enrollment has kicked kicked off and then we worked closely with the preschool uh Miss Carmichael and um Mr. Ortiz worked on a plan to be able to
register as many students. I think we're up in the 829 or something like that. Typically those students come in the summertime when in those long lines. So we've registered most of them now. So we're desperate to eliminate the long lines. So we are calling people, we'll
stay longer. We've scheduled already evening sessions so that parents and families can come in. So it's a lot of work engaging with the community and understanding their needs, too. Um the extravaganza is coming up, so you're all invited. So if it's hot, dress
appropriately, bring bring plenty of water. So hopefully we don't have a rainstorm on that day. But it's really a nice event. Uh lots of families. is you get to meet people, they get to see you uh in a different way out on this in the space. If you haven't been, please make
every effort to come. Um and then around uh communications, we're doing some really cool work around the logo. Uh we involve the whole community to get information. We've gotten that information. And we're actually at a
good place right now to share the new logo which I'll do in in uh July with the board and it encompasses what the community and what you and everyone all the stakeholders some of the images like the bridge um
and it'll tell a story. We're going to have a video that tells a story about Trenton and how we got there. So we're doing that work connecting with the community. a lot of good good work cuz I'm I'm not a Trenton native so it
wouldn't have been as important to me to stay red and black or to use a bridge and a logo or those things but it was clear from people like Addie and many of many of my co colleagues Paula Bethea who they were calling us out like oh
absolutely not it's not up for discussion so uh we are very proud of the work that our community, the whole school community and the whole community did in responding. These are some of the examples of the image. You can see the
gold dome, the capitol bit building that captures the city. These are some of the things we had to choose from. So from that, we had to make one or two, one seal and then one image. But it was interesting what the uh families and what everybody chose as the top things
to include in a logo. but it was really engaging. Um, this is the South Ward School naming. We have had our meetings. Uh, you can see the the stadium here was packed with a lot of good information about our candidates on uh June 18th.
Uh, and then we met before that on June 3rd, I think it was the day um that we met here. So, I want to thank um the chair of the facilities committee, Miss Waklam and Mrs. Grant, uh, Miss Glennon,
um, see, Janice Williams, there were several people who led the effort to get our team in. We will begin scoring, uh, the candidates in mid June. We've gotten all the information. Now, we've heard from the public. So, our goal is to um
engage everyone. So, this is about including the community. People have voice in the decision making uh about naming the new school. Um, if you don't know about the brushstrokes of Trenton, this is our mural project. We talked about those uh around the district. Many
of our schools have already started. You can see the one in the left, the welcome in different languages. Uh, some of that's kind of an art mural project. If you look at the very top of that, you can see the CAD Waller cat. Uh, what are
they? The lions or what is their whatever their thing their mascot is. They will paint that in and then you'll see some amazing work around the district. The goal around the mural project was community engagement and partnerships. So we want to bring to
life in our schools the community through art and murals. So when you go in, you should see some probably images of the bridge, potentially images of that neighborhood, many images of students, and then some educational images through art. So, we had a great
opportunity with some grant funding and we took advantage of it. So, you're going to see some really cool things I think happen in the schools through goal two. Uh developing the whole child, just amazing work here. We already talked about trauma informed care and the the
years that we've been in there. You've seen some of this progress already in print. Um and so, just to talk about what happened in March, April, and May, uh Dr. Conway leads this work and gets out to the school. But many of our
principles has take have taken this and made it their life's work in the building because if we develop the whole child and understand their whole self, we get a better student in school and we want them to be uh focused on academics. So you can see some of the great work
being done. I won't read it all to you, but um we the the NJ Sky results are the um a New Jersey school climate inventory. Is that right, Dr. Conway? Yes. Okay. School climate
improvement. Um so you're going to see some of the work here that we've done. Uh and we put some numbers up here because I thought it was important. grades three through students grade three through five what they rate
highest and what they rate lowest. And so you'll actually see the lowest negative student interpersonal behaviors throughout the district in almost all grades. Um but the highest is sense of
belonging for students. Uh supports for uh student seal is a high number. And even those last two, they're over the threshold. But when you get down into three, 2.42 and 2.35, those are areas we
flag because we have to do that work. And you see that also in suspensions. Behaviors sometime lead to suspensions. And as uh Mr. Stokes said a few minutes ago, we're going to have to wrap our heads around what's truly a behavior that warrants suspension versus
something that's normal behavior. And even if it's a little outrageous, can we reset a student and keep them in school? Um, you can see the results in grades 612. Supportive staff and student relationships uh was a high number. Physical safety
was a high number. Supports for student seals, social and emotional learning, but again, negative student interpersonal behaviors. Who controls that? Students. Who teaches them? We do. And then of course you can see the same
uh number the lower scoring domains uh around uh what parents said here. Uh so this is very interesting around developing the whole child and then staff results staff rated organizational resources. So
we need to dig into that and find out what that means because we need to see that number move. Do they need resources that we supply? Does that come from the school? Can we get more input? And that came up in a recently in a um a training I was in from another district that came
up as a same concern from staff. So, we do want to dig into the data now that we have it, make some decisions about how we change uh perceptions or change reality really for our staff members. And this is the overall data and the way
you see it. If you go across uh the different the top shows you the students and the grade bands then the parents and caregivers. So you have this information and the public will have it. So you get an opportunity many of our principles see their data and have seen this data
but that's where those bar graphs came from. So this is just the full chart of the information. So you can kind of get a look at how they were um how they scored. So, and we score well in a lot of area errors areas. Um, I think we if
you go below what's the threshold to go below? 2.5. Anything below 2.5 get gets flagged. So, when you see numbers in the threes, that's a, you know, we're in a good place or at least a better place. Um, maybe we
can get and that's out of four, correct? Yeah. Scores range from one to four. on the right it gives you a little bit of um uh information. All 15 15 schools have met at least one prioritized area. Uh schools have been we we are in the
third year I think and uh we had pilot schools. So some of the schools are in their third year of doing this work and have already implemented strategies to address some of what they see in their NJ sky data. So
staff development and well-being uh we've worked really hard to do that work. You can see some of the goals there. 100% of the professional development se sessions supported one or more strategic goals. We typically don't add anything that's not related to a
strategic goal. Um and you can see we survey our staff after PD. Um we uh you can see we went to Apple and we had some images on Monday and Tuesday with the entire administrative staff all 85
people who could come. I think we had in the 70s but just had a good day learning why we implement Apple edu. It is not for the device. We could have done it with Google. You can do it with anything. It's about mentality paradigm
shift. How do we engage learners differently in the 21st century to get them learning to help them learn now? Uh so we've spent time doing that. Uh over 100% increased professional development
sessions led by staff. So we do get staff to actually lead development sess profess professional development on purpose. Why? Because eventually we don't want to pay for it. We want to become our own experts and turnkey. But until that time, we'll spend the money
that we have to do so. Ultimately, we would love to see staff uh do more professional development. Um and you can see some of the responses. I wanted to provide you some data here with charts. Um out of 1362,
I think we have around 1,800 people here. Uh I don't know that number factually but student achievement was rated as the uh the number one uh what strategic goal did professional development session support? People said
it over 80% said uh student achievement and that just from their m miles to from their lens to us that we're supporting uh uh student achievement through professional development more regularly
than not. And then you can see the other areas if you read the chart on the the bottom chart. What was the professional development re? Was it relevant to your work? 96.1% of the people said yes. Uh and we're starting to see that grow some because
we're asking the questions. What do you want? We feel like we know what they need, but we're getting input and that helps when you do that. Um these are some of the uh examples of professional development topics facilitated by staff. So you can see these are led by the
people in district. Uh some fun things and some help other teachers, other educators learn. There's also Micah taking a walk. She didn't invite me on.
So here we have uh over 1,300 employees were enrolled and 23 employees receive gift cards for completing the wellness incentives and we hope to increase that and on the next page you'll see some of that you get depending on what you do
and some of the cool things you can get money for this. So we hope to dangle money out there and it certainly creates a healthier district. Hopefully, we see less people having to be away from the school building or the office uh when they're healthier. So, we want to
continue to promote this. And these are some of the other activities through wellness matters, line dancing, swimming, yoga, wellness walks, uh those types of things. And the location and the facilitators names you can see Hope Grant actually did a
wellness walk. um around staff development well-being we hold care team meetings this is interesting data because we think we know why students don't come to school but this tells you out of 26 I mean out
of all the 440 uh 548 responses care team meetings that we had 267 responses said it was a health issue as the reason they don't come to school transportation is an issue but we break that down into
uh a bit more much more information so that you can see it. So you can see in kindergarten 86 86 uh responses were from kindergarten that's 15.7%.
We always talked about kindergarten being the highest number of absences in the district. They don't drive right. They don't can't walk by themselves. um and in some cases can't ride a bike. We break that data down in the
transportation is issue too far to walk. No, they actually say the greatest number was no reliable way to get to school. Um and so this gives us information for how we might as a district address issues. And if you go
into home issues, cares for younger siblings, what's number one? Student oversleeps. So, how do you overcome a student sleeping? Do we arrive at the house? So, we wanted to give you this data so that you can see what the actual breakdown of
why students really don't or what we're hearing from uh parents and care team meetings involve the parents, the family, the student, the uh administrators and different people in the school. It's a whole group trying to in uh impact attendance and get students
into school more regularly. Uh and March Madness, our attendance challenge winners, elementary K3 was uh Gregory Elementary. It's cool. They were able to get Xboxes. Perfect. Attenders got Xboxes and the others got uh
Nintendo Switch. So, these are cool images. Um, thank you to the principles. Um, you can see the 46 group was Hedgepath Williams and you can see their team. Just cool stuff that we're trying
to do to get get students excited about coming to schools. And then our 7 to 12 group was done uh middle school. We had some winners there. We couldn't give out as many prizes. No
bikes this year, but we may find a donor who can help us do that. That's what we're looking for. Donate a bike. This was Apple training for administrators. I talked about it a few minutes ago. We all got on a train for those who went on the train. the majority, large majority
went on the train up uh and had a day with Apple determining what this is all about, why we do it, how it's going to impact our district, how it's going to impact our students. Uh so I wanted to share some images of of of the
administrators and I appreciate them taking the time because it was a busy time. It was right after graduation on that Monday and then again on that Tuesday. The hottest days, right? It was hot. So, uh, but a really neat time. We
learned a lot about not just, uh, Apple, uh, education, but who we are in this district, what we're willing to commit to through that training. And there was, it was purposeful for me not to learn more about Apple, but for us to do
something together, learn more about each other as a team and prove that we can do this. Apple when you go into their universe, we're wondering what's everybody drinking because they're all excited, they're all happy, and I know you that's not life. But we can arrive
at our work in that way. Um because we know that's a more productive way to lead uh finance and facilities. You've seen some of the things that we've done. This is kind of the culmination. We we have accomplished everything in that area in
goal five and we were just finishing up lighting in June. I don't I think we got there or we're close. So, we're so excited about many of the projects and we will com um uh assume a few more in the new year. So, we'll spend time uh
figuring out what needs to be done and make sure that we get that done in our uh and you know, the budget was done on time. Those are all things I uh uh talked about at the quarter three. Um human resources. Um we had over 17
career fairs. Uh many hiring events. We had virtual hiring events. So we really did a great job. Uh we had more than 20 individuals that secured uh NJOE certifications that came from either substitutes or pairs. So a lot of good
information there. And then you can also see some of the uh results of that hard work over 100, you know, 253 new hires. Uh and for the first time, we're we're starting to see that number of vacancies
go down. Some schools are saying, "Hey, I'm fully staffed and we're going okay." And then some aren't. And we worked really hard. Just want to thank our associations for working with us to be able to transfer people around to fill some of the hard to fill bilingual
education positions, some special education positions that were hard to fill for multiple years. So, just really good work in district. And that's the end of the presentation. I know it was lengthy, but tried to get
through it very quick and I'll take any questions you have. Start down Larry and we'll work our way this way. Okay. All right. Um I'm just trying to gather my thoughts. Um thank you for this great um
presentation. A lot of great information here. Um, I think it definitely reinforces everything that I saw visiting the schools. I know you mentioned that earlier in the conversation, but I think, you know, we're seeing um a lot of investments in not just the school
community and the culture, but also the infrastructure, making sure that um our schools are some of the best in the state for our students. So, deeply appreciate that. I don't have any questions at this moment. Um, but I might come back around. Well, I don't have any questions, but I
do want to say I am ecstatic to hear about the um exiting of our students from the bilingual program. That's something that I've been asking for for years, literally for years. Um so it just I'm
just really happy. I can't take the smile off my face. I keep thinking about it. So, thank you very much for that work, guys. Um, I know that we've been working on that for a while now and we're finally seeing some of the fruit. Also, um,
um, another thing that I think is really great is to know that the shelter training is being extended throughout the year. I think that would be it should be a lot more effective and apparently it is because it's so it's showing through. And um the other thing
is I will make sure to get one or two bicycles for March Madness for next year. All right. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. We should have a contest to see who gets the most bikes. So we'll have it hooked up so that way we can give some away. So
a board competition, right? That would be for us something to do. Yeah. You don't have to get the most. All of us get one bike. How about that? if you can commit to it, not forced. All right. Um, well, Superintendent, um,
I definitely, uh, want to start off by saying that I really appreciate, uh, such a well done and well, uh, formed comprehensive report. Um, I can definitely understand uh why James came out and said that the goal was to keep
this under 50 slides. But these are really good problems to have to have all this information uh showcasing right the great work that we're doing, how we're committing to our goals, and how we're achieving them. Uh, first I did want to say um and all this
is all this is praise. All right? So, you know, you're good. You're good here. All right. I'm good with wherever you go with it. Uh first great job uh making sure that the community was involved as much imposs as much as possible throughout all of this. Right? I keep saying all the time I'm the community
guy and as many people that we can get involved in this as possible to make the lives of our children that much better. It's an investment that just pays dividends time and time again and you are really committing to that. So I just want to say thank you for that. I think you highlighted that in the first few
slides. um for professional development. Uh I love the classes that you had uh our teachers, our staff, our administrators take um for the members of the public. Uh we too pretty much have to go to class, right? As board members, right?
You know, the state literally mandates that we have a certain amount of credits that we do and uh seeing the amount of classes that they did and the topics uh the way that it ranged, right? really fall in line with some of the topics that we address and the things that we get classes for uh were amazing. So,
keep up the great work on that. Um I love the uh slide uh specifically the one that had the barriers to education, right? And how detailed that data was. Um I know even with uh Mr. Mr. Stokes um in his presentation, right? You know,
we're constantly looking just to have this data and understand exactly what's going on. So, you know, that level of detail um ac like across the board that we've seen today is spectacular, right? So, thank you for pro uh providing that information because it helps us form, right, some of these policy decisions
that we have to make. Right. Um and finally, just to just to keep it short, um I did have um a few uh comments and questions. Uh first and foremost, uh shame on Micah for not inviting you to the Trenton Downtown Fit Group. All
right, listen. We run every Tuesday night, Thursday night, Saturday morning. More than welcome to come and meet us on the corner of uh what is it? Warren Street in Lafayette, right? You know, it's nice. It's nice. Good luck. I didn't really say that for real.
Go ahead. Come on. Come on. Um I do want to um uh also ask uh Miss Toller, right? Because I saw there were a lot of uh connections with schools outside. All right, we got to make sure we get that Howard Connect going. All right, with all the uh outreach that
we're doing. Yes. And then finally, I really want to know where's my Xbox. All right, we're giving our Xboxes left and right. What's happening now? I'll settle for a switch, but you know, I'm just saying I show up to work every day. So, Hope is doing an attendance check for all of you now. Your your attendance is
good. We'll get you one. The most board member attendance, all right? You know, gets an Xbox. All right. I think we can commit to that. But no, seriously, thank you for the amazing work that you guys do day in day out. Uh, thank you, Superintendent. I just have a a couple of questions. Um, that
acronym AVID, what does that stand for? You mentioned it, but I was typing. I couldn't get it. Advancement via individual determination. Okay. Advancement. Individual determination. Via individual determination.
Okay. If you type it into Google, you'll get a whole bunch of information about AVID. Uh, but it's a college readiness preparation type program. It builds foundations for the student who's academically sound or approaching and
may not have all of the resources they need to get prepared to go to college or career. Okay, it really kind of brings forward all of those cool things around students. And uh my last question um
I just had it. I apologize. Hold on. Uh um I'll come Oh, I I see it here. Brushworks of Trenton. Tell me a little bit more about that program. Like do you all does the district um connect with local arts communities like artworks or
Okay. No. Okay. So not necessarily. So at central office we will have an artist who will do some art here because I can't do art. Okay. Uh but in the schools we've given the schools the opportunity to hire in district staff
art artist teachers but not everyone who's teaching art. Uh they're not the only artists. We have a ton of people. So we have teams in schools okay that have identified spaces and are really doing some creative work. And we have a
many more potential images that we can share, but we put a few things up, sketches, so you could see this already in the works. So, all around the school. Yeah, they'll be inside the school. Yep. If you walk into a school, you can probably go down
hallways. Some may have many, some may have one. The goal was to bring the community to life in the school through art and murals. [Music] Not me. I want to thank you for this
presentation. It was really well done. Um I'm excited to see that the bilingual program is the kids are exiting finally. It's always seemed like nobody ever gets out of there. Um I also want to say you forgot to
mention the library over at Mcnite. I did in the last presentation of it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I shared images of it. People need to see that. It's It's just amazing. But, um, thank you. It, you know, the road forward looks really promising and I think we're all headed
in the right direction and I want to thank everybody for their time and commitment to this. I think it we're just putting out better kids. So, thank you. Okay. So um good evening. I don't have any specific uh questions. Uh certainly the um information presented was
all-encompassing and that was the whole point of the goals to touch on very um strategic areas that in fact needed to be addressed. So again I I have no questions and uh very happy to see the progress in front of me and it kind of brings back a lot of the things that you were sharing with us during the school
year in our interim reports. So again this just highlighted and made it a little bit more visual. So thank you for that. No questions. Yes. So I don't have uh any questions either. I mean just a few observations. The first observation is growth is
amazing. If you think for the past three years that's what we've been talking about growth and to see that slide and you know I'm the guy who's always asking about reading scores and evidence right and so to see growth at that level when
you know where we came from phenomenal work by everybody in the district who's doing that work for the children and for the children for their due diligence diligence and the time it takes because it's not easy to go from something to nothing right so So that was the first
thing. I'm really psyched about how strategy maps to goals and you see the evidence of the work. So we're about to go into the next five-year plan, strategic plan. And so just watching how
that went from nothing to this evidence is phenomenal. And then um that number 253 new hires where other places in this state are laying off hundreds of people
is phenomenal work. So thank you very much for that. And then um I really like so really have five I'm on four now. So so so children learn better by doing. that project-based learning effort is
real and it bears fruit. I mean, so the evidence speaks for itself. And then lastly, um I'm going into my 10th year here. To see the kind of investment that this district has made in its children and in
the buildings in which they go to school is nothing short of incredible. When you look at our schools, 25 that every classroom has air conditioning. Last week the children got out, but it
was 100° for three consecutive days. Children can't learn under that kind of oppression, right? So, so kudos to that. And then, um, I just think that this year was a good year. I'm the chair of
operations and finance, so I see numbers all the time. we get our reports from you by monthly. So, it's really nice instead of just reading the notes to actually see it um on the board. So, kudos to every administrator, every
teacher, every janitor and everybody is supporting our children. So, thank you very much. That was outstanding. Thank you. That's an awesome report. I think one of the things I I gleaned from your presentation just looking over the past
decade I've been on the board along with Jean um there's been a serious paradigm shift and what I mean by that is it's been a shift in relationships a shift in academic uh support and progress even a shift in the culture and that doesn't come by chance that comes by strong
leadership um and also it comes through stability and consistent effort um and your team and and the staff who's who's here, administrators who are here today. Uh kudos to all of you who are here, our board members being consistent, going
through training, mandated training and master board membership and all the things that we do to add value to the work that you guys are doing. Uh we support you 100%. Please continue the good work that you're doing. The entire team that's here here tonight, I see a lot of familiar faces out in the
audience that I know personally and have worked with you in the past. And continue that great work. continue to be consistent, continue to be uh stable uh with the resources that we provide through the state and through the city. Uh we'll give you everything that you need to to continue that great work that
you're doing. Um and then and then lastly, um I did find out uh the Apple training is sold out, is over subscribed for professional development this summer. Um so that's a good thing, right? You can't get into class now. Y'all better y you better you better
better get online quickly comes out. And what that does, what that says to me, right, is that people are hungry. People are engaged. I'm talking about our employees. They are excited. And so, I'm really excited about the next
chapter, our like like Jean mentioned, our next fiveyear plan that goes through 2031. I mean, we have so much to look forward to. So, foundation of of work that we've established over the last uh five years and a consistency in your
superintendency here in the district uh doing great work and your leadership. I mean, we have sky's the limit. Actually, the sky's is not the limit. We have we have a bigger our our our limit is even higher than the sky, right? Um, and so we have great work to to continue to do
and I look forward to all of the team here participating in our fiveyear next five-year plan because we're going to need you to contribute and be a part of the team and continue to work and strive forward for our students. They deserve every bit of it. God bless you. Thank
you, Superintendent. Any last comments from anyone? Superintendent, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Yammy. I appreciate you coming up. Uh, and thank you for supporting us. Um, we look forward to getting back to work because there's so much more to do for every data point you
see of success. There's one behind it that's, you know, riddled with struggle. And so, we have to get to work so we can share all the data about everything and how we're really doing. So, uh, we appreciate your time. Uh, and thank you for letting us present.
[Applause] So, we have comments for board committee chairs next. I was first I gave my comments already um regarding the five-year strategic plan coming up next and uh finishing our superintendent evaluation process uh two weeks before
the due date. So, we got very very early and got it done this year uh way ahead of time with the support of all of the board members here seated here. Um we appreciate all the efforts of our board members to get that work done. Um again in the five-year strategic plan is
what's coming up. Um and we look forward to the work that that we have in front of us. It's it's a good it's a good time in the city of Trenton in the Trenton board of ed. It's it's a good time for us. We're we're in a good place. I really believe that. So, we go down to teaching and learning with Addie Dames
Lane. Okay. So, um good evening. Uh so, the teaching and learning committee met on um June 24th and at that time um we reviewed agenda items including um summer programming uh after school and before school activities for the
upcoming um school year. Um, we also took a look at um various organizations and partnerships that were being proposed for the next school year and during the summer and professional development for um special needs as well as regular education and also some
programming um that is projected for gifted and um talented uh for the gifted and talented students that have been identified. There was also again information about curriculum writing initiatives that were going to take place. Um, one of the highlights that
was um, addressed was a focus on the computer science curriculum um, and the fact that it is being um, revised and um, let's say strategically um, set up so that um, we can continue to progress in terms of the Apple partnership that
has been um, developed and then how do we best use the um, Apple devices and equipment to expand and in fact enhance uh, learning. We also um took a look at the student study trips that were being planned as well as staff travel for
professional development. Uh additionally, we talked about special ed summer programming that was inclusive of engagement with community with with community partners um like the fire department um and that there are very um
stat uh can't talk tonight. Um district-wide highlights that happened at the end of the school year. Um there was a restaurant um day programming that was shared as well as a um a writing as doing presentation where students shared
um their personal narratives. Um we had a healthy um discussion regarding um student progress and how do we obtain um accurate reflection of student progress at this particular time. We also talked about um referrals continuing to be processed over the summer months and the
fact that um child study teams are uh engaged to actually uh do that. Um we also talked about um complaints and the fact that uh complaints are down and that um we also are working on compensatory education for certain
services um that needed to be addressed. And again, the focus was on getting schools set up for the um excuse me, getting summer programs set up and then schools set up for the upcoming um school year. And there were a number of programs that were in fact uh outlined
to um do that. And uh the fact is that um special ed assignments per building are being um set up, discussed, and planned out. And so that was our report for teaching and learning for this particular um month. Thank you. Thank
you. uh oper the operations committee met um on Tuesday also we reviewed the secretar's report treasures report bill list and transfers and uh number of the transfers um was to ensure that orders
were placed and also to cover trips. Um our bill list uh the bill list was 66,319,713 and that was for May 15th, May 30th and June 13th.
And let's see. Okay. And then lastly, we um we had a ton of donations and and it's very important from my perspective that we acknowledge people that sacrifice for our children. And so the
Ross Foundation, the donation of $1,400 uh to Trenton Central High School, Charles Davis and Henry J. Austin Clinic CEO donated $1,000 to Trenton Central High School. Oh, voice and piano class.
Nice. Bernardet Stanley, $500. Voice and piano class. Wanita Cherry, $100. Voice and piano class. Um, the Monumental Baptist Church Music Ministry, $260. Trenton Central High School.
Calani LLC, $75. Voice uh piano class, I believe that, but no, it isn't. Trenton Central High School VPA. Sorry about that. Verina Reynolds Jackson, $100. Trenton Central High School, VPA. Stokes for Mercer
County Commissioner, $100. Trenton Central High School VPA. Paulo Scazari, $30. Trenton Central High School VPA. Cross Community Incorporated, $100
on Ninth Grade Academy. Fidelis, $1,500 check for family and community engagement. Shine and inspire food, toiletry items, and non-p perishable food. $500 family and community engagement. Women Who Move Mercer food, Toiletry, and other
miscellaneous items, $300 family and community engagement. Horizon, 10 gift cards valued at $250, family and community engagement. Wellpoint $1,500 check family and community engagement
New Jersey School Boards Association $1,000 scholarship Trenton Central High School and Sustainable New Jersey $2,000 for Robin School. So, thank you very much for your sacrifice for our children.
Good evening. The facilities committee met um on la last Tuesday on June 24th. Um we went over where the current maintenance project uh Ziggler building is still underway. Delays are due to the
result of PSNG uh not requiring not performing the required disconnection of the electric main and gas service. So we're still always hanging on them. Um the electric service upgrade for Franklin Harrison
and Kev Walader school. The project is 90% complete. Kev Walder will be the last one to be connected. Uh the new elevator addition at Harrison. The permit has been submitted for the new elevator. Uh we're waiting for the New
Jersey Department of Education approval letter in order to uh complete the project. HVAC upgrades. Permits have been submitted for Harrison and Franklin. Uh Franklin has permits and some minor
upgrades have begun already during off hours. Um now that school is out, the work will continue during the day. It is estimated that these projects will both take roughly a year and a half to complete. Um renovation over at 9th
grade academy. Uh the contract was awarded to SK Scazari Builders. Um the beginning budget was $15 million and there's uh bid came in at 14 and change. So hopefully we can stick to the 15
million with change orders and everything. Um the district is looking to move forward as of July 1st. The renovations will start in the basement area. Eight additional classrooms and an extensions to the cafeteria will be added and renovations to the gym
teachers offices will be done. The rest of the projects will work its way through the building. Um required maintenance projects. Uh people have been over to the high school. They've seen the cafeteria extension which is a
semioutdoor space with a enclosed area that's being added. Um, and I'm happy to say that the concession stand is now fully functioning, has a fully functioning kitchen, including new sinks. Um, and a hood for the new grill was
also installed. And, um, so it should be fully functioning for football season. And then Monument and Mcnite, the interior walls, support, um, have been removed. And what they're
doing is they're putting up permanent walls in those areas where partitions have stood in the past. And the last thing I ask that maybe you could tell me is about the transfer of the property at MLK and where that stands.
So James is James Ro in the process of we are writing we met with them. So we just need to coordinate our documents to make the change. So we're at that point. We've had the final meeting. So not sure where you are in that process. So they
are in the process of uh uh doing some sort of grant writing or something. And so what we have to do currently is appear before the city to uh to change the boundaries of our parking lot. So the parking lot is off about 100 ft from what's Yeah, it's a
it's a whole process. We're helping them by providing necessary documentation from us so they can complete their so they can do it. Yeah. Okay. All right. And then I'd like to fill everybody in on the status of the new school renaming committee. Um
we've had two community meetings and um there will be a third not a community meeting. There will be a group of seven people that have been selected to go over the applications that have been submitted and uh score them against a
rubric that we have for school renaming. And then at that point, we'll um once those are all scored, we can total out and average numbers and come up with the four names that we're going to present to the board uh probably by the end of
the summer. And then uh the one thing the board is going to have to think about is because this is two different it's two schools we have to have two school numbers we do have the
ability to select two names. So just keep that in mind when we bring the names forward that you know if we want to do it we can do it but we need to do it early on and that's
all I have for tonight. All right. For uh HR committee, um if you have uh seen the packet of the let me get it exactly right. The 221 pages that were before you today.
Most of that Apple programming. All right. It's that Apple training. All right. So, you know, I echo I hope everyone signed up for it. uh the stipen appointments. But um we do have a lot of essentially uh what you see most of it is in the stipen appointments is to uh continue the great work in education
that we have going on over the summer to make sure that uh uh we don't have any specific learning laws from our children um while they're not in the uh uh normal school year. So they can come back in September as bright and uh amazing as
always. Um, other than that, we have a few uh uh people coming in uh that were hiring and I always highlight uh those who are retiring from the district. Uh I think the average this time is about yeah on the news 25 years, right? So
salute to the uh uh three people who are retiring uh at this juncture. And then finally, we have um a few different job titles that were updated um for you guys review as well. And that's uh the end of
the HR report. No, no, I'm after you. Okay. So uh for the policy committee um we uh met recently uh to look at the
policies that need updating. You all have your first reading um that that was part of the agenda for today. Um we are um guided by our vendor to ensure that district policies are relevant, current and compliant.
So, we're meeting on the third uh third Thursday of this month to continue to um review policies to see what else, you know, needs to be updated. And uh I think that's it. That's all I have.
Hello everyone. The FACE committee met on June 26 and uh we discussed uh next year's parent program, the parent connect parent talk series. We also discussed um the um food choice pantry
summer launch u launch um partnership with Amtrak um Aramark um making sure that we have food um accessibility for students over the summer. We discussed the back to school extravaganza that's going to be happening in August as well
as um potential PD professional development opportunities for our parent leaison within the district. Um as well as we discussed um school attendance initiatives. um a little update on our
um you know uh you know uh our billboard campaign and initiatives around increasing school attendance and you know making sure that we um incentivize our students to come to school. Um some of our recommendations for the next conversation is to review some of our
school attendance data and to review the district's uh HIV um procedure and policy. That was our report. Thank you board. Thank you board committee chairs. We now move the public participation.
Her first name on the list is Terrell Smith. I don't see Terrell though. I don't see Terrell. Next one on the list is Nashia Thompson. Nashia Thompson. Is she here? Okay.
Monica Carmichael. I see Monica. Good morning. Good afternoon. Supervisors Association Our association unit is representative of principles, directors, vice principles, supervisors, and coordinators who serve students and
families and lead various staff settings within the Trenton Public School District. Today, we come before you due to the current status of our contractual negotiations with the district. For those viewing and present who may not
understand contractual negotiations, a contractual negotiation refers to the process where two groups discuss and modify the terms of a proposal agreement to reach a mutually acceptable work contract. It involves communication,
offers, counter offers, and adjustments until the parties agree on the final terms. The process aims to minimize risk, ensure fairness, and establish a legally binding agreement that protects the interest of our members.
Effective and fair negotiation aims to secure the best possible terms for all parties involved, not just one-sided. Last week, our negotiations unfortunately reached an unprecedented impass, which requires the assistance of a
mediator. Today, I come before you on behalf of the Trenton Administrators and Supervisors Association, seeking fair and reasonable outcomes for the work we perform, we commit to, we extend each
and every day for our students and families from preK to grade 12. Consider the labor commitment management it takes for the post-pandemic educational situations, the changing mandates, new
populations, and the list goes on and on. We, the Trenton Administrators and Supervisors Association, are not just numbers on a sheet or spreadsheet. We are part of the paradigm shift. We
are and have been contributing stakeholders to this district. We lead. We serve. We have goals. We also are human. And we also have healings. So we ask that you remember that culture
matters. Culture and climate aid in how employees hearts and stomachs feel on Sunday night and Monday morning when they are appreciated. Again, culture matters, climate matters,
fair contractual bargaining also matters. Let's move to get the contract done. Let's settle now for our members who serve lead support for the betterment of our district. Thank you.
Thank you, Monica. Christian Clockner. You're not. Oh, you're not. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much. That concludes our public participation. We now have board discussion. National consent agenda.
Seeing no discussion on the consent agenda, make a motion to move it to action. Some moved. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Roll call. Yes. Johnson. Uh, I I just have to recuse myself from any action involving
the Department of Children and Families, but yes to everything else. Jean Buie, yes. Daddy Daniels, yes. Austin Edwards, yes. Elijah Lopez, yes. Mary Trailer, yes. Jamie W, yes.
Recusing myself from anything to do with grant school. Motion passed. We have board comments at this time. Any board comments? Seeing none, this one, one of mine is just to really recongratulate the
graduating class of 2025. Um, this was uh I tell you one thing, man, it's my first time shaking 800 hands. So, uh, I was I was standing next to the superintendent. And I said I said I said man you are you we how many more we got
together. And uh he said he looked at me he said yeah yeah. So it was great. I mean cuz every here here it is. Every student is in they're there individually even though they're in a group with the class and every every hand I shook was a hand
I shook it with um with vigor and with congratulations to let them know that they they've accomplished great things as high school graduates and I kind remember back my days back in 198 you know 80 in the 80s when I graduated how
I felt when I crossed the stage and then when I crossed the stage at from Morehouse College at and 20 in 1988 I had a big smile on my face and I still have that picture of sick and Leeward Keef who was the president of Morehouse at the time and so that handshake is so very important.
So even though I was I was weary and tired I stood strong for the board of ed and and stood in there and shook every 800 students in his hands. There was 200 uh over 200 or so at Dana right over at Capitol City High School and of course
uh Courtney and about what 600 or so at Trenton High. So it was it was an it was an amazing day board members and many of you were there and enjoyed it. So those who come to know away and doing different things and you've been there in the past and been there before and
done great work in leadership roles. So those are some of my comments that I wanted to make for tonight. God bless you guys. We got new business. No new business. Go right to executive session. We're making record break time here tonight. All right. Whereas the
open public meeting act codify as NJSA 10 col4-6 permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting under circumstances. Whereas the Tinton board of education is of the opinion that such circumstances presently exist indicate as follows. Any
material considered confidential by the federal law, state statute or court rule, any pending or anticipated litigation or contract negotiations to which the board is or may become party to any matter falling within the attorney client privilege to descent that confidentiality is required to preserve the attorney client
relationship and allow the attorney to exercise his or her ethical duties as a lawyer. Matters caption settlement in the matter of grievance number 072404073. Settlement of the matter of TC. Settlement of the matter of perk file
filing CO2240. Settlement of the matter of AW versus TBOE. Approval of 202526 administrative contracts. Balancing hearings super not having that balancing hearings. Now therefore be resolved that
by the TR education county of mercy state of New Jersey that executive session will be held on June 3rd 2025 for the statuto permissible purposes indicated in this resolution. Be it therefore resolve that action may be taken by the board when it con reconvenes in open session. Be it
finally resolved that minutes of the executive session with regard to any above subject matter shall be disclosed to the public at a later date and to the extent that the same is not presidential to the interest of the parties involved. no longer adversely affects the public interest or does not endanger any right
to privacy. One moment, please. All right. Add superintendent evaluation as well to our executive session. Motion to go into executive session. So moved. Proudly moved and seconded. All in favor? Roll call. My apologies.
Board. Roll call. Joeart. Yes. Denise Johnson. Yes. Jean. Yes. And James Lane. Yes. Austin Edwards. Yes. Yolanda Lopez. Yes. Yes. [Music]
No, President. All right, back in executive session like a vote on the matter of agreements number 0724044073. A motion for us to move um the grievances. I second
call. Yes. Joart, yes. Denise Johnson, yes. Jean Buy, yes. Daniel, yes. Austin Edwards, yes. Y Lopez, yes. Larry Taylor, yes. Jean. Yes. Pass. Senate on
the matter of TC. I move we approve. Second. Prophet moved and second. Roll call. Joe Truhart. Yes. Denise Johnson. Yes. Jean Buouie. Yes. Addie Daniels Lane. Yes. Austin Edwards. Yes. Yolanda
Lopez. Yes. Trailer. Yes. Genie. Yes. Motion passed. Settle in a matter of AW verse TV. Moved and seconded. Wait, which one are we on? A A first TV. I move that one. Sorry. Okay. Properly
properly moved. Oh, who? Who? Who? Who? I move that we approve the settlement in the matter of AW versus TBO. By Austin. Second. Second by Genie Wland. Roll call. Joe Truhart,
yes. Denise Johnson, yes. Jean Buoie, yes. Addie Daniels Lane, yes. Austin Edwards, yes. Lopez, yes. Larry Trailer, yes. We Yes. Motion pass. Approval of 2025 26 administrative contracts. So
moved. Second. Probably moved and seconded. Roll call. Gerald Truhart. Yes. Denise Johnson. Yes. Jean Buy. Yes. Addy Davis. Yes. Austin Edwards. Yes. Yes. Yes. Excuse
from afraid artist. All right. We good. Superintendent. Yep. I know. Okay. Motion to approve the superintendent's con superintendent evaluation. So moved. Second. Probably moved and seconded. Roll call.
Yes. Denise Johnson. Yes. Yes. Yes. Austin Edwards. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion to adjurnn. Motion pass. So
moved. Second. Probably moves a second. All in favor? I. [Music] This one.