##VIDEO ID:83u3zy4qV10## e e e e e we stand for the pledge of [Music] 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 we have our roll call Joel truart present Denise Johnson pres Jean Buie present Edie Daniels Lane absent present Austin Edwards pres Yolanda Lopez present Sasa Manana present Larry trailer Genie weam presid we have a quarum all right we have a quarum New Jersey Sunshine Law the New Jersey public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights to the public to have advanced notice of and 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 Trenton Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting by publicizing the date time and place thereof posted in the world website the times as well as the Star Ledger formal action will take place at this meeting our 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 we will have an adoption of the agenda but we do have a few um addendum items for our agenda tonight uh the first one is our policy 511a uh access education uh I would like this to be approved tonight if the board would allow that approval tonight on the first reading this is involving uh immigration and enforcement in our relationship with our overall community so I would like to have that particular policy approved tonight in its entirety and not waiting for a second second reading our finance agenda resolution to approve the Garvey school uh as a performance a school a school educational and cultural program uh for the garby Garvey program also we have an addendum on the agenda tonight our resolution 0227 1 17-1 affirming the commitment to educating all students I'm going to read this entire resolution uh tonight into the record as discussed with my colleagues whereas it is the right of every child regard of immigration status to accs as a free and public K2 education and the district welcomes and supports all students whereas the district has responsibility to ensure that all students who reside within its borders boundaries regardless of immigration status can safely access a free and public K12 education whereas the federal immigration law enforcement activities on around the district property and transportation routes whether by surveillance interview demand for information arrest detention or any other means harmfully disrupt the learning environments to which all students regard of immigration status are entitled and significantly interfere with the ability of all students including US citizens students and students who hold other legal grounds for presidents in the US to access a free public K12 education whereas through the its policies and practices the district has made a commitment to a quality education for all students which includes a safe and stable learning environment means of transportation to and from sites the preservation of classroom hours for educational instruction and the requirement of School attendance whereas the parents and students have expressed to the district fear and confusion about continuing physical and emotional safety of all students and the rights to access a free public Cas of Education through district schools and programs and whereas educational Personnel are often the primary source of support resources and information to assist and support students and student learning which includes their emotional health now therefore be resolved that the US immigration Enforcement office ice state or local law enforcement agencies acting on behalf of ice or agents or officers of any federal state or local agency attempting to enforce Federal immigration law laws are to follow District policy 511a attached to and Incorporated in this resolution to ensure the district meets its duy to provide all students regardless immigration status access to a free and public education now therefore be it resolved that the board board declares the district a safe zone for students meaning that the district is in place for students to learn to thrive and they seek assistance information and support related to any immigration law enforcement that interferes with their learning experience be it therefore resolved that the district shall within 30 days of the date of the resolution create a rapid response team to prepare the in the event of any minor child attending school in the district is deprived of adult care provision or guardianship outside of school due to a federal law enforcement actions such as detention by ice or cooperating law enforcement agencies be it therefore resolved the dist will provide professional development for faculty staff and administrators to ensure schools are safe Havens for students and learn about the resources available to undocumented and other immigrant students be it there be it further resolved it continues to be the policy of this District not to allow any individual organization to enter a School site if the educational setting would be disruptive by that visit given the likelyhood of substantial disruption posed by the presence of ice or state or local law enforcement agencies acting for ice any request by ice or other agencies to visit a School site should be presented to the superintend office for review as to whether access to the site is permitted by law a Judicial warrant is required or any other legal consideration apply this review should be made expeditiously but before any immigration law enforcement agent or officer appears at a school site be it therefore resolved be it further resolved and a continued commitment to the protection of student privacy the district shall review its recordkeeping policies and practices to ensure that no data is being collected respect to students immigration status or place of birth and cease any such collection as it irrelevant to any educational Enterprise and potential Le discriminatory be it further resolved that should ice or any other immigration law enforcement agents request any student information that request should be referred to the superintendent's office to ensure compliance with family educational rights and Privacy Act student constitutional privacy students for judicial warrant and any other limitation on disclosure this review should be conducted disly but but before any production of information is made be it further resolved the district shall post this resolution that every School site and distribute it to District staff students and parents using usual means of communication and the resolution will be translated into all languages spoken by our students at home be it further resolved the superintendent shall report back on compliance with resolution to the board at his next meeting be further resolve the board direct superintendent to review District policy and practices regarding bullying report back to the board at this next meeting and communicate to staff students and parents the importance of maintaining a bully-free environment for all students be a further resolve the board affirms that certified District employees have the academic freedom to discuss this resolution during class time provided is age appropriate and students are to be made aware that District councils are available to discuss the subject containing in this resolution and be further resolved after school providers and other vendors or service providers who contract with the district shall be notified this resolution within 30 days days and required to abide by it that concludes our resolution 022 Denise Johnson yes Jean buoy yes Addie Daniels Lane yes Austin Edwards yes Yolanda Lopez yes Sasa man yes Larry trayer yes jeie weam yes motion pass with amendments we now I have our superintendent's remarks um May I just ask a question before a question to the motion um no no yes related to the motion would it be possible to please have this translated into Spanish into French into all the languages that are as possible that are represented in our school district and gotten out to parents and posted and just as a that might make it easier this is um judicial language I mean it's it's difficult I think maybe for some families to understand if there could be just also a synopsis that basically tells them that that their children are safe while they are in school I it would be great yeah to the the resolution speaks to that as well and the superintendent will certainly follow those instructions thank you thank you good good evening I was about to say good morning but but good evening Monday on board meetings are like that it's a long event um and thank you um so just a few comments and then we'll have a presentation uh I just wanted to follow up on much of what uh Mr truhart shared a few minutes ago and talk about practically how we're attempting to apply this I say that uh knowing that uh similar to uh covid when that came our way this is new in the way that we are hearing about enforcement uh in particular potentially our city so we feel like we're headed in the right direction attempting get information out to families I'll always say that uh we will distribute factual and Legal Information uh I don't pass on post I ask that you not not pass on post text and information that hasn't been investigated because that creates anxiety and we hear those we heard one recently today about uh something at Sovereign Bank Arena and so we know we try to in investigate to make sure CU we want to pass as much information to our people so we appreciate the information if you can send that to us we will um address those issues and try to get information out to our staff and our families that's factual and uh legal uh we certainly don't want anyone to have illegal information so just a couple of quick comments um the district understands enforcement of immigration policies have created fear and Ang anxiety for our families and for our staff and for the people who work in this District or around this city uh and we hear it and you can feel it it's a heavy weight um and so we're all dealing with it we also understand that parents and Guardians may ask our teachers and School staff questions about District um about District immigration policies about Federal IM immigration policies so what we ask is when this happens for all of our staff uh direct those concerns and questions to principls Vice principls and District administrators not that we don't trust we don't want you to have to negotiate information we want to give you I sent information out to principles I sent information out to the board sending good information out that comes from board policy and from the state that you can share with families so I sent that information out Rec as recently as today and we're working on making sure that the information is factual we have also received as as I said numerous posts from social media along with text emails uh and information about immigration issues in the city and we've investigated to the best of our knowledge each report and at this time we haven't confirmed uh these reports and we will only again communicate factual and Legal Information why do I continue to say that because I'll be asked as superintendent and I was speaking with multiple superintendent about the need to communicate information uh we believe you Comm communicate information that's important to your people appropriately not just it happened and you don't know I need to know that it's factual so if you send it I'm going to ask you 10 questions about it to make sure we can get it right uh so I do want to support the information at comes in and make sure we get it out to staff and parents uh it is critical that we share the most accurate and update information with our families uh again we ask you not to forward posts texts and emails uh that aren't not grounded in fact not that you heard it it's that you know it you saw it you witnessed it so then I have a sense of that we can investigate further and get this information out out to you as Mr TR trueart mentioned uh Trenton Public School District is Guided by policy 5111a which out outlines procedures schools and District staff should follow when managing access to education student privacy and immigration enforcement all principles and vice principls and District officials has spent uh nearly three hours training recently just so we could get up to days it's not new policy this policy and this resolution has been around for eight years I think what we're forced to do now is know our business um the good thing about this if there's a um silver lining for us is we've been practicing you don't enter schools anyway without some level of documentation and many many questions and what we are doing is just reaffirming that we know how to follow this process and tweaking it to tighten it up to make sure you eliminate gaps in communication and access when it's not legal or necessary so that's very important um so we do ask that um since all principles have been trained we did ask them to share this with you and I understand that that may not have been shared to date so I did send out similar information today so that all staff have that information that you can share with families uh and we also received uh the New Jersey stepbystep family preparedness plan that was included in that uh that's a good resource for families so they have information it's lengthy but I think included in all of that is some level of comfort about how do you move forward in uh times like these um this policy requires that we follow the same process as I said we won't change the process that we follow since I've been here the last four years and as I said prior to my time here this was in place when I came so we were able to pull it tonight we're just reopt it um we have the information that's in it it's shared with you those are the steps that we'll follow those are the steps that should have been followed a year ago two years ago eight years ago 10 years ago always following steps to keep children safe my message to parents is that we will continue to keep your children safe when they're with us we will follow all legal all factual processes to do so and when or if we need to make a decision to engage you about your child we will continue to follow that process also by reaching out to you we work for the Trenton Board in of Education we will respond to the Board of Education about how we contact parents so it's our intent to always contact parents when uh there's a need uh regarding an issue about your child so uh just wanted uh let and we also as I said we trained uh last week last Wednesday and last Thursday uh we sat in spaces and uh I talked about this being heavy and it was emotional wondering about a child coming down a hallway having to hand them off to someone they don't know they may know me or you the principal we take that very seriously we didn't sit on information it's just that when we give it to you it's fact so the information you read from me the superintendant you can use anywhere I stand by it and we want to help you be able to to um navigate questions request at the door how to say no we've talked with our uh staff and we don't promote this in public about when it's appropriate to activate a safety protocol if you don't have enough information and we're hoping we don't end up in those situations but all of our principles all of our vice principls every supervisor every director should know what they might do might in any instance and I say might because we might write 22 things down and 24 23 24 and 25 happen so you have to be prepared for the unknown when you're in a building what we expect is is that any official coming to our building will adhere to the policies outlined in our district if not we have a duty to protect students from anyone interfering with the orderly operation of a school or the educational progress for any student um so I want you to know that we have spent time uh and I sit on this side so I've spent the last two months uh thinking about planning for the wh ifs and I think I talked about that at this board meeting and we're here and so uh we had plenty of information to share with principles we took them through scenarios what about this and the one thing that was really striking was emotion plays a huge part in this and I bet you're all thinking the same thing this is deeply emotional for all of us and so when you find yourself in these situations and you're wondering what to do that's emotion and I always ask the question does does emotion matter when you're making these decisions and the answer was you need to check your emotion read the documents comply with what the law says and the policy says and execute appropriately that doesn't mean we won't cry at night if we end up in those scenarios you're not human if you don't but you can call we have a an outline to all of our principles who to contact they know who to contact first they know who to contact second but contact someone and we have a uh structure by which we plan to be at your locations if needed uh at any point so we want the district officials our teachers and our staff and our community to know that we take this uh responsibility serious when changes happen in our community we'll always take them serious we don't talk about it we put the plans in place we meet about it we plan and we plan our action we don't Telegraph what we'll do because we don't talk about safety protocols in public uh it's not it's not wise to do that we want people to know we're prepared as best we can and we'll be there to support you if you need us so thank you all for your support I want to thank our principls all of and all of our teachers and our parents who've reached out to me to talk about sending their child to school the anxiety that they have sending their children to school and we ask that you send your child to school we're going to open our buildings like we do we're going to follow our procedures we're going to educate as much as we can and as hard as we can and try to show as much love as we possibly can in Trenton Public Schools um we spent some time this week just wanted uh to plug our Student Government associations at Capitol City High School in Tren high school this week we did get together with them our district team and many of our school teams are involved in 4dx leadership training it's just highlevel leadership training through Franklin cvy and one of my goals as the superintendent is to add student Voice to my work I want to hear from students we often hear from each other even in the tug of war about what to get done in District uh but it was an opportunity for students to train with the trainer here at the district office and we have another opportunity in February on the 28th for them to actually train with us about how to represent their constituents collect information and bring it to the people that serve them so we're really excited about that and I want to give uh our principls and uh the two representative Miss uh boli and Miss Feliciano who joined those students on that day uh last week um and then the only other thing is we have a presentation not other thing important thing we have a presentation this evening our comprehensive annual financial report from Mr Dave Ganon partner of pkf O Conor Davies LLP will share our financial audit this evening thank you and just one one footnote to uh the superintendent's comments uh this policy was the first reading in February 27th of 2017 adopted March 27th of 2017 and at that time our past president Mr Jean buy was the past president at the time so this goes back to 2017 as a superintendent eluded to we're reopt our position on this policy for immigration thank you thank you superintendent good evening everybody good to see everybody um first you know the audit process is about a 9we process uh so you know what I always like to to to make sure I note right up front we really appreciate all the effort from The District's employees uh that partnership uh and that hard work you know all throughout those those weeks of getting the audit done really makes it us enable us to be able to issue our report and file within the statutory guidelines uh set for by the state uh you know during those nine weeks you know we request a lot of information so it's it's a significant amount of work more work than normally they would have to incur um and what I would say is that we always receive really excellent cooperation uh and very professional uh and of course you know you know Mr Earl and Miss Howard you know really provide a a really good tone at the top as far as letting the employees know that the art process is important um so I think that permeates through the whole process process to enable that partnership and cooperation all throughout uh and although we spend so much of our time with the business office it is important to note that our audit touches all departments within the district uh whether it's special services student services Transportation the individual schools uh the audit is heavy on compliance so there's uh all those departments kind of fall within the order process uh in order for us to get the work done uh point to note the objectives of the audit uh the objective of our audit is to perform um a financial statement audit issue an opinion on the financial statements uh often when you hear audit there's there's multiple view points of what the audit means uh you know there's a forensic audit an operational audit a performance audit all those have different Scopes in meetings uh so ours is a financial statement order dictated by State Statute uh we audit the financial statements to make sure the uh district is following all the appropriate accounting practices and procedures um and then as far as you know because of the level of funding received by federal and state agencies we also required to perform an audit in accordance with the single audit act and those are Grant specific type audits uh we also report on internal controls in accordance with government warning standards uh that not that we issued an opinion on on internal controls it's just that we performed test of control rols and compliance all throughout the district and if we note any exceptions especially ones that are material weaknesses or stand deficiencies we note those in writing to to management and the board we also audit uh Accord with certain standards as Auditors we're required to follow standards of our order procedures uh those prescribed by the ascpa that's considered ting standards don't accept in the United States of America government aing standards as well as the federal uniform guidance and om 158 by the state for those federal and state single audits as far as the results of the 2024 audit we issued an unmodified opinion on the district's financial statements again we we found that they follow all those required standards uh we found that the financial records are an excellent conditioned you know information that we request to support balances to support transactions the district has no issues in providing that information to us uh so any different transaction that we ask for support for the district has had no issue providing that information to us the district as I will note on the next slide is in you know strong financial position uh we continue to file the audit in accordance with the statutory deadline uh this year was January 15th that's been a moving Target over the last number of years uh but this past year was January 15th uh and as you know the district continues to get strong QC scores further as far as the financial position goes the general fund fund balance of the district was 104 million. 7 uh at the end of the year and that was an increase from $ 79.2 million of the prior year however it's really important to understand the different composition of the elements of fund balance $1.2 million were incumbrances so those were orders placed for either goods or services at the end of the year that just hadn't been provided yet those orders then roll into the next budget the budget 25 2025 budget that we're in and they become part of that budget $42.5 million was considered a funding source for the 25 budget that we're in now so that was a prior excess Surplus so that's now funding this year's budget $1.2 million was restricted for maintenance Reserve uh $17.8 million restricted for capital reserve over the last couple years the board of education has passed resolutions to put put certain funds uh aside for Capital maintenance purposes $7 million is considered unrestricted so the state dictates a maximum of 2% of your operating budget a lot to be set aside as unrestricted for other types of emergencies and $15 million was considered excess Surplus uh from the prior so everything over your 2% minus any specific balances for designation again important to realize that the $15 million so that would go towards the 26 budget but it's important to realize that in this year's budget was $ 42.5 million this upcoming year will be 15 so there's almost a $30 million gap there so it's important to understand that so it's some takeaways from the from the financial position you know best prct practices that you're never budgeting your excess Surplus for recurring type expenditures uh and what I would note that your 25 budget almost $33 million was uh designated towards facility upgrades so that was a good use of of that onetime type fund balance kind of helps close the gap between years uh on the decrease for that it's also important to note that you know your torter school AG is is can be inconsistent uh this this past year was 55.3 m milon if you look at it over the last six years you can see the growth it's it's it's it's increased almost $20 million and then in the 25 budget it's budgeted for $70 million so you know there's a s amount of your your budget resources your state aid are going towards uh the charter schools obviously and it's also important to remember sometimes when you when you look at the the financial statements uh the state aid amount may appear different than what you know we gu presented in the budget uh that's because in the financial statements there certain amounts that were reflected that are on behalf payments from the state so uh the state uh reimburses the district for Social Security of employees uh it pays on behalf pensions and and on behalf retirement medical so there's there's roughly $ 52.6 million of state aid that gets reflected in the audit that's different than what gets actually part of your budget that you have control over uh in the special Revenue fund Early Childhood had a carryover of $4.2 million which was a slight increase from the prior of 3.9 uh your food service fund balance increased to $6.6 million uh again the Food Service fund continues to be self-sufficient and doesn't require any board contributions um there is a a maximum amount that the the state looks at as far as your your food service net position goes and the district has exceeded that over the last number of years uh mostly because again you know when you have a a district that's providing free lunch to all K students as well as the reimbursement rates during Co were extremely uh increased a lot of districts throughout the state had the same issue uh where the net position of a food service fund has increased greatly uh so the State Department of Agriculture looks at that very closely uh and just requires the district to kind of double down their efforts in making sure that they're uh investing into the Food Service program whether that's uring that you know the better food served or whether there's equipment purchased that could be you know upgrading the facilities uh so with that you know the district was $4.8 Million over that maximum amount that the the state likes to look at uh but $2.3 million was actually uh an equipment was ordered over the summer in the fisc year 25 to help try to invest in the program bring down that balance and lastly uh you know results of our in control testing no material weaknesses no singing deficiencies uh results of our uh single audit procedure over the federal major federal and state programs unmodified opinion on compliance no matur efficiencies again if you remember last year there was a pretty significant finding as it relates to the state aid cluster corrective action has taken place for this during this audit period so that that finding was corrected no issues going forward uh and then as far as order manag rep there's no other items that we required uh that we noted that require corrective action if there's any questions I'll be more than happy to answer hey Dave uh thanks for the report I do have a question um maybe it's not a question but uh could you help qu could you help clarify for folks who aren't um who don't have the financial aptitude for budgets of this significance what does that uh excess surplus mean if you look at 42 million a year ago going down to 15 million what's the impact and how does the district look to you as to be able to manage that Gap like what did we do right or what did we do wrong for that matter yeah so the impact would be is that you thought you had $42 million in one year and you expanded programs uh expanded employment that would require uh recurring Appropriations going forward chances are that $42 million would not repeat and then you'd have staff programs that you started that would not have not be able to recur over another operating year uh creating a budget shortfall so it's really important to really manage that amount and understand how much may repeat versus how much not and then to really look at either programs that are very specific that could be targeted for a year to provide those and Implement them look at items for uh upgrading facilities whether it's a maintenance perspective or um an actual hard construction perspective and and invest in that way thank you Dave thank you I'm good to everybody all right that's all good everybody everybody's good all right we now um have committee chair reports and I'll uh I'll start out with with governance I I want to let let um board members know that on the governance committee the way we we structured it was the president and vice president and the two past presidents uh on that committee because you have strong leadership um there with the two past presidents the vice president and the president as a four members on that governance committee and we will be sharing out I I'll share that committee for for for a time now and we will um certainly share out all all the discussion points with the entire board um this past week we did communicate out with board members as a team Addy Lane shared information I shared information Denise Johnson shared information so that the entire board was aware of what's happening at this meeting tonight around our um immigration in terms of what we're going to do around immigration and so I want to make the board aware of that in terms of how the governance committee is is structured uh as we move forward in this year 2025 uh we did also have a conversation around uh committee chairperson reports many of the board members who are currently chairs of those committees remain chairs of those committees and I reached out to each one of those uh chairpersons to confirm that they would continue uh to be chairs of those committees and I just wanted to share that committee those committees out right now facilities chair jeie wam with Sasa and Larry as committee members operations of course Jean Buy my Edie Lane and jeie wam uh as committee members teaching and learning that's one of the one of the um policy names that we did change requesting to change in our bylaws um to teaching and learning we felt that that would be a better appropriate a name I did communicate that and share that with our the chair of that committee to get agreement and buy in uh daddy Addie Dan Lane is the chair of teaching and learning Jean buy Yolanda Lopez on that committee Human Resources chair Austin Edwards Jean buy buy and jeie wam on that particular committee facing School support chair Larry trailer Denise Johnson and Austin Edwards on that committee a grievance chair is Austin Edwards Jean buy Alanda Lopez on that committee governance Yours Truly chair Gerald truart Denise Johnson Eland Lopez and add D Lane on the governance committee and then policy chair or vice president Denise Johnson with Yolanda Lopez and Larry trailer on the policy committee and our negotiations chair is Yolanda Lopez so that kind of rounds out our committee assignments for this current year 2025 it is a draft please on it's on the board tonight as a as a for approval but certainly if you have any questions or adjustments that you see fit please please let the governance committee know anyone anyone any member of the governance committee you can let know uh any changes that need to be made in terms of the board uh committee assignments one of the things that we also discussed was extending the dates for not only our board meetings which is a board only document but our chair our committee meetings through December of 2025 to coincide with the reorganization meeting that comes up in January so those are a few changes that were discussed in the governance committee and also shared out uh with the committee and I want to make that note again at the meeting today um about the change some of the small minor things that we're updating in terms of board meeting schedules through December as well as committee meetings through the month of December also we we discussed in governance um our presentation schedule tonight's presentation was statute truly required for our audit which is which a great a great presentation by Dave Ganon great job Jane Howard and your team when to give her G Jan your team I see Sean here tonight other members of your team here tonight uh thanks so much for your continue hard work that you're doing to maintain our District's Financial health and strength um can please continue to do that good work um as expected and I know you love to work and want to do a great job so thank you again thanks so much to your team Jane and superintendent of course of leadership of our district as CEO so that schedule was for tonight in February we're going to have our ethics presentation by our um school board's Freeman our school board's representative as well as um the self- evaluation we're going to have at that particular meeting in the in in February and so we're looking forward let you know we're looking forward to having that meeting in February with Maryanne Freeman she's going to do the self evaluation she's also going to do ethics and that keeps us in line with all of our requirements for our Master board certification and stay on task following in the footsteps of our past board president Yolanda Lopez thank you so much for getting that work done and getting that work started and we'll continue that that work that we need to do to stay a master board and stay trained and and stay on top of things so thank you so much in that area the other thing we talked about uh was also school facility walkthroughs I know that jeie wam is going to share about that and her comments in terms of from a board her board chair comment comments we also discussed a board retreat in in January 2026 and also in August of 2025 so that's more of a planning stage Retreat uh PL we're in the planning stages in terms of a retreat all this information will be shared with the entire board uh after this meeting so everybody has all the information that they need to make plans also we want to we're going to be starting our superintendent evaluation later this year in the in the spring season so that process will start sometime in April wrapping up in March and then through the end of the year uh end of the fiscal year so those are some of the things that we discuss and continue to discuss in terms of planning in our governance committee there's so many more things that that I could discuss and share but we'll I'll leave that for for next month and we want to also let you know that please reach out to any of the committee board chairs uh or committee members uh for any question questions that you might have about the district in terms of those particular committees so we'll now move on to our our policy committee with our vice president followed by operations and finance followed by teaching and learning then human resource facilities and then finally facing School support thank you Denise Denise Johnson our vice president thank you so much um I want to thank you first Gerald for um asking that I chair this committee I thorough really enjoy being part uh of this committee and looking at how we can re review and revise our policy so thank you so much um we are the policy committee is working tirelessly to ensure that our Poli policies are accurate updated um reviewed and approved um we are meeting twice a month uh and initially we're reading twice a month just so that we can make sure that these policies are accurate um the last time we met was January 16th um and we are we have up for second reading policies in the 2000 series for the first reading we have policies for the 3000 Series and 4,000 series and then also for the first reading we have our bylaws 0155 is the number and I just want to make one just one more comment I just want to thank everyone thank the committee I want to thank the board members as we continue to review update and improve our district policies we know it is a lot of reading that we're all you know and I I see you brother Jean yes it is a lot of reading um but we just want to make sure that these policies accurately reflect what we're doing in the district so I just want to thank all of you for all that you're doing I guess I'm next right okay so uh we met this week and before I even give my update I just want to commend the policy committee cuz that that's a lot of workot that's a I mean it's a lot of reading when we have to prepare for this board meeting right that's my Sunday chore but the policy committee you do a lot of work so appreciate y'all um we reviewed the uh transfers uh the security report Treasures report uh staff travel and the list of bills uh this list of bills 6,744 853 uh for two Bill lists 12324 and 115 2025 I would like to um just uh commend uh the school leaders um as they manage transfers and just for folks who does don't understand what that means is when we when you plan out a budget you allocate funds to go in certain areas the proof of the of a good job is that you have min minimal transfers in other words you need to move money to other buckets to get the work done and so I really want to commend the school leaders for doing an exceptional job as it relates to that because year over-ear we keep seeing Improvement so so well done thanks to you and your team superintendent and then um uh we spent a lot of time during our meeting um reviewing the audit that Dave presented um and I I called out that exer Surplus because when you think of a half a billion dollar budget folks think that that's like money that could be done whatever it's done with it and that's not the reality and and it's really important that when you have Surplus that you don't invest that Surplus in salaries or people because it's not sustainable that drives you to the point where if your budget goes down or that Surplus discre uh decreases is you can't sustain those positions so so I think everybody all understand um what helps drive us to maintain and then um lastly um I'd like to acknowledge uh the donations uh it's really um important to to say thank you to people who support our children and so first we have Mana Community Church classical organ valued at $5,000 to Visual and Performing Arts Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey Coalition uh affinity group diapers baby food uh diaper bags value at $5,000 uh Trenton Central High School uh parent linking program uh cross community Incorporated $100 for the ninth grade academy project project red hygiene items baby items undergarments and other uh miscellaneous items value $250 to family and Community engagement and the City of Trenton Health and Human Services clothes uh gloves hats and coats Valu at $250 to family and Community engagement and again we thank all those folks for their generous hearts e e e e good evening the facilities uh committee met last Tuesday the 21st um and this is what we discussed um the facilities and infrastructure update uh junior 1 Project that's ongoing the project remains underway with the contractor's change order currently under review by both the district and New Jersey uh schools Insurance Group um the review pertains to the removal of an underground storage tank that was discovered on site the project is scheduled um the tank removal is scheduled for completion in March of 2025 um reserve and capital maintenance projects the Zigler building the contractor plans to mobilize by the end of January with asbest abatement to be completed prior to the demolition of the building the project is expected to conclude by the end of summer 2025 um the YMCA building after ongoing discussion with the owner's realtor and the dis the district has decided to withdraw its purchase offer this decision stems from the building's worsening condition minimal stabilization efforts by the owner and Rising renovation costs it just was not wise to pursue the project um emergency maintenance projects um the maintenance and custodial teams have Dem demonstrated excellent response times they effectively cleared and salted all District Schools administrative buildings and surrounding areas uh during the recent snowstorm ensuring the safety across parking lots entrances exit sidewalks and Pathways um that's it for project updates the one thing I did want to bring forward is um we will be starting um facility tours monthly with the superintendent and board members if you would like to be in attendance to let the superintendent know uh we'd like to have a board member at least one there every month to tour the facilities and see project status and what's going on in each of the buildings thank you cool oh man all right so um uh first of all I definitely want to thank uh board president uh for selecting me again for the position of HR chair I especially appreciate this committee uh because it allows me to give a lot of the great news that we're doing in our district um specifically I want to point to the board's attention uh our new hiring section we have um accounted is about 30 new hires that are coming into the district right and and a lot of this stems from you know ongoing efforts right that the district is doing uh so salute to you superintendent salute to uh the HR team I know that there was a hiring fair that happened recently uh to reach people in the community and get them into the district this is something that uh you guys continually do throughout the year um and you know the results speak for themselves right uh in this uh this hyn pool for this month uh we have job ranging from custodians to bus drivers pair professionals music math ESL teachers like we're getting the Gambit of people into the district and a lot of these positions like you know range in different pay like these are good paying jobs you know some of them start at 21 an hour other ones go up to $39 an hour all right salaries are ranging from 40K and I think we have uh one that's uh topping off at 95k right like these are a lot of positions that we have like good jobs in the district um and we just uh keep asking people to apply um and I also want to point out right you know not just not just coming into the district but um uh our retirements right I counted it up and we have um with everyone retiring this year over 277 uh years of service to our district all right and during the math on average of them of the 13 people that are retiring uh they averaged about 21 years of service so people are coming into the district people are trying to stay in the district we have great opportunities for people to um uh give back to our kids and take care of your families at the same time so really enjoy uh being able to report on some of the great work uh HR and the district is doing so thanks okay um I want to thank the board president for nominating me to chair the face committee um the face committee met on January the 14th and we discussed our um Healing Heart series which is helping parents and supporting the whole development of the child providing them a space to uh you know talk about strategies and learn techniques to be you know more effective in the home and make sure that we're um practicing our school values of um and our you know um around the development of the whole child in school and out of school we also uh discussed the attendance matters campaign billboard campaign so as you will um see on through social media and through the Billboards across the city the district is really committed to increasing student daily attendance and reducing chronic absences um and these Billboards are constant reminders to encourage people um to come to school we want you here this is a safe space and you know your education matters and you matter so um please be on the lookout for those and share them um share our post around the billboard campaign and ab and encouraging students to come to school um with everyone you know we also uh discussed um I had a chance to attend the urban school board meeting on uh January 10th and we had Robert Kim who is the director of the education Law Center come and speak about some of the current Civil Right challenges with um with education especially on some concerning Urban school districts and the big Focus that they had was on making sure that we're protecting or they're monitoring student civil rights regardless of what um intersection of identity that they're existing and one of the things we was talking about is what services can we provide in District around educating um you know uh parents and community members around their rights uh there was also conversation around making sure that you know um continuing program services around um uh housing insecurity and stability and making sure parents know their um and community members know their resources within the district around that and that was our report so thank you I'm sorry was this the comment section no okay not yet we're going into Old business right now response to public participation thank you all thank you all the um board chairs for your for your um reports out uh to the rest of the board members and to our community that's here uh with us today on our board meeting our public meeting uh terms of our our old business we have some board concerns back in December Paul Bea grandparent of Monument student was concerned about the lockdowns and not being able to have access to the schools during a lockdown drill um and to Paul appreciate you coming and sharing your heart with us but one of the ingredients to that procedure is that no one gets into the building that's why it's called a lockdown so no one from the public other than officials police officers uh people who are officially on duty for that particular lockdown drill are the only people who can enter the building uh for for a lockdown so no public entry to the school district buildings during a lockdown drill so that's the response uh to that we have to follow our procedures and practices around lockdowns is very important to the safety of our students and safety of our community so um I appreciate Paul PA as a grandparent of Monument student expressing his uh his concerns about not having entry to the building at that particular time uh that concludes all of our responses to concerns during the December 25th board meeting so we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is public participation the Trenton Public School District welcomes the attendance and comments from all members of the public at its meetings this public comment period is your time to be heard on any school or School District issue that a member of the public may feel is of concern to the residents of the school district each person who has signed up for comment will'll have five minutes you'll be notified within 5 minutes you're up you cannot yield your time to another person when it's your time to speak please address all of your comments to the board president please conduct yourself in a respectful courteous manner for anyone whose comments or actions either harass intimidate or threaten the safety of any person will be provided with a warning or immediately end your comment time also if you use curse use vulgar language or make personal attacks we will provide you with a warning or end your cont comment time comments that adhere to these guidelines will not be interrupted if you have any questions please ask your questions during the 5-minute comment period after the public comment period is closed the board superintendent or design will address your concerns or questions to it to the extent provided by the law we also ask the members of the public not interrupt the speaker uh during their public comment time our first Community member citizen to come and to communicate with us is Raymond Collins is Raymond Collins here Mr Collins how are you yes yes please come right to the mic hold on press the button with the little on the right if you press it the red light will come out on the oh he's yeah want to make sure we can hear you okay go ahead yeah I just want to um speak to the children or somebody else could about soil depletion yeah it's a you know it's a major issue obviously so I just want to make the children aware or have them write a letter to the you know president or somebody like that about the issue is that a possibility huh soil depletion yeah you guys aren't aware of that it's a it's a real thing it's a major happening so since the children are our future you know I like to make them aware of What's Happen into the soil since we all need it right so yeah so so one of the comments okay we we'll have somebody communicate with you huh or have somebody to uh communicate with you directly okay yeah thank you guys our next our next person for Public public participation is Dawn kungl it's Dawn here tonight Dawn conle special at teacher you don't see okay Jackie Sullivan Tren Central High teacher uh good evening board members um thank you very much for having me this evening um my name is Jack Sullivan I'm a social studies teacher at Trenton Central High School um I'm also a union rep with uh tea and a Trenton resident I live uh right over by unity Park on Hamilton Avenue um and in all honesty I had some very different remarks prepared um this evening before um superintendent you sent out your um advisory on on our District's policy about um immigration enforcement um because I was very alarmed over the past week seeing the fear um in my students and and in the community more broadly um I mean I had students telling me that they were Desperately Seeking an immigration attorney um and and trying to scram together money to try to make sure that their families can stay here I'd others say that um their parents feared to send them to school um and that simply isn't something that we can have um so I really want to thank you um superintendent uh Earl and and the rest of the board and everyone else involved in um being proactive about this issue um for being clear about this procedure um and being clear that um when immigration enforcement or if immigration enforcement is to come to the doors of one of our buildings that um we're prepared and that we have the right policies in place to to keep our students safe as much as we possibly can um I want to also reiterate um Miss alessie Montano's um consideration that this needs to be clearly communicated to families um like I said I've talked to students who say that their families are fearful um and I think that needs to be a big priority um making sure that our families know that their students are safe and that we care um immensely about protecting them and their children um in this community um so again thank you for being proactive on this this issue um I expect that we will continue to stay proactive and stay AR breast as further changes come um in the coming weeks months and who knows how long of um further changes in in Immigration enforcement um but thank you so much for um being clear about this policy and um and communicating that to us so thank [Applause] you sorry John Forte tea yeah good evening Mr Earl Board of Education I'll be brief because I think um Jack summarized it pretty well but um the issue of um immigration enforcement in our schools is already affecting our students learning right we've already seen students who are bothered and you know you go up and ask them like hey you know you okay and you know they concern about family members being deported so we were really glad to see the district step up take a proactive stance and I you know I think um you know the way that Chicago Public Schools approached it last week we were hoping for that kind of policy and we you know I think that um what was put out today was excellent and we're we're we look forward to seeing the policy be implemented and you know our students be feel safe to learn in the classroom so thank you Miss toia Duncan to yes all right good evening board members and President truart congratulations superintendent Earl and community members I did have part of my speech about what Jack and John spoke about so I will just say that I did forward something to Mr Earl and Mr Ro that we received that we could possibly hand out to our families um to let them know if ice does approach them at the school building or in the community what I did find out since I emailed you both is that if we print it out and distribute it it should be on red letter um red paper because that's called their red card so tea is willing to do whatever we need to do to assist the district into assisting our families and our students because a lot of our teachers received a bunch of phone calls and text from scared parents and students alike ever since uh January 20th all right I do have a few complaints and I'm going to say them as clearly as I can um in the sped Department the BD program is being dismantled I am not opposed to the BD program being dismantled if we do not have the resources necessary to assist those students with those issues my issue is I was never called or emailed or reached out to by the director of special education about the closing of the BD program and the moving of teachers it was only when I reached out to him that he said Oh I thought your members told you I have to do a better job next time after speaking to him and discussing some movements I explained to him that this is not how this works one of our members even said when they were B in to be told about the movement the comment was made do not go run to tiia in the union and complain the director did deny that I don't have proof that he said it I just want to put on record that he should not be saying that if he did say what they alleged he said because that is anti-un unanimous and this is not the relationship or the working relationship that Mr Earl has put into place um on the board agenda tonight of the BD program being dismantled only um the teachers at Holland and one teacher at PJ hill is listed the teachers at Grant are not listed on the board agenda on the board agenda the teacher at Holland that is being moved is being moved into the incorrect placement based on the discussion that was had and had the discussion happened before the director of sped made the movements we would not have this issue to at hand um I did speak to him on Friday he did tell me it would be corrected at this board meeting it is not corrected I'm not sure if it's his fault or hr's fault but it's someone's fault that the grant teachers are not on the agenda and that the Highland teacher is in the wrong placement next I want to move on to issues with HR we get a ton of calls from our members about HR not being responsive to emails phone calls Etc I am telling my members to come in person because I do know we get busy and people are swamped with emails I am not complaining about the entire department but what I'm saying is if we are a customer service or uh organization and we are looking to fill all those vacancies Austin the first line of communication or non communication that they don't get from the HR is not a good look on us I have a member who is out on the leave I have not had a chance to investigate it but I'm going to put it on record his parent came in to Tender his resignation and he said someone at the desk asked him was he too much of a coward to come and turn in his resignation himself the parent did not know the name of the IND individual who supposedly said it the parents said that Miss Ali heard the comment and interjected and said I know the situation and then helped the parent of our staff member and the parent was satisfied with Miss Ali's customer service but whoever he talked to prior to that he wanted to make a complaint because the person made the comment about his son finally I just want to say tea has been working very hard to be collaborative cooperative and to handle situations before they get to the point where we have to come and speak at a board meeting right because this is not what we want to do HR is in need of some serious help when I'm talking to someone in HR that is in a leadership position and that person does not know there's a difference between State FMLA and federal FMLA and we've been having an issue for several months and I asked for documentation and nobody can present the documentation it's unfortunate that I have to be like Oh I'm going to go tell your daddy like Mr Earl and make a complaint that's not what I want to do I want to try to confront these issues before we get to this place so that we can continue operating in a collaborative communicative place and move forward like we have been thank [Applause] you all right thank you everyone for their uh for their board member for the Public Public participation we'll now move on to uh board member comments I have a few comments um as usual um so so first of all I really want to thank my colleagues and the district for reaffirming um 5111a uh you know I look out tonight uh into an audience where I usually see a lot of Latino families attending these meetings um whether documented or undocumented and I don't see one clearly our families are afraid they're afraid and by by virtue of being afraid their children are afraid so I think that any way that we can get this message to our families um and certainly thank you to the two our our two um teachers to that are seeing what they're saying and that they can assure reassure our students that the school is and should be a place of safety for them um you can't drive that home enough and have them share that with their families the sooner we do that the better because we are a district that already has problems with attendance and the last thing we want is for these families not to send their children to school so um I also have to applaud our district for having this on the book for eight years because we are in a Repeat Performance here so um I'm just so grateful for this uh in addition given the climate that we're in I'm also grateful that we've finally seen the light about the YWCA program building you know I've been vocal about this from day one um and as convenient as as it was for our for our Capitol City High School it you know it just would have been a money pit and an albatross especially now where you know we are hearing at the federal level that they are considering disbanding the Department of Education that we get a significant amount of funding from us and so many urban districts across this country so we have a a wonderful Treasurer who does a great job Jane uh in watching all our pennies and certainly you know we will this money that we won't have to spend I know will be looked at looked at and we'll be able to you know definitely um help us in the future there's there's other locations that I know that we can focus on um um so this is actually a good thing um three things I just wanted to get an update at some point superintendent was something I brought up last time at our meeting was about the cell phones in schools and fortuitously our governor spoke out on that like a month later about how important that would be to be have some sort of removal or policy regarding cell phones in the schools especially you know given what we've heard about social media affecting our kids and them having access at lunchtime or whatever um I think it's really important that we examine that um the other thing was I had asked you a while ago about and I'm sure you're having discussions about this but if you could brief us on AI I I did see something on the agenda about a program we're funding using drones and Ai and wonderful but I just wonder at the administrative level what kind of discussions cuz it's moving fast and furious and you know I have concerns for our teachers too that have to grade papers and you know all those sorts of things our our students are incredibly gifted and you know smarter than many of us probably in this room so and then finally just an update on how our program evaluations are going I know we've been working on that for a while so at some point if you could share that um doesn't have to be tonight but at some point you could share information on those things that would be great thank you um I have a question slash comment for both superintendent and councel um it is it is my understanding that ice must inform local um law enforcement and the mayor when they are coming into town um and that in turn the mayor or lawy law enforcement are to inform council members my question is is that correct one and two if it is if there's any way that we can have the director also informed our superintendent of such a possibility um and that he would keep of course the board informed if you could confirm that um also superintendent I know that you have already begun doing the work that is in this resolution and I just wanted to highlight that for our members in the audience and whoever may be seeing it via YouTube that they know that work has already begun we're not just waiting to approve this reaffirming of this resolution another thing is Sasa was a I think it's a great uh recommendation that we translate the resolution into the different languages and that we give a summary um and so I would love to see that done as soon as possible and I was wondering if maybe superintendent we could speak with ta and and if they could create their own resolution so that they can go out together to our parents and that they know that both both the board and the teachers are fully vested in educating their children and seeing the best for them so that is all for now e very so being one of those being one of those folks that have been um a real advocate for AI since I've been engaged with it probably almost two years now right I was in going through the policies having policy 2365 right use of artificial intelligence what I found very um interesting it it touch touches every aspect of the work um it touches how the teachers use it how the children use it um and it aligns with what the Department of Education has stipulated so so I like to commend that was that was a long read um that was a long read and but but to to add's point it's an Ever evolving thing so so we will have to come up with some kind of review quarterly or whatever because it changes so quickly but I was like really pleased to see that that that was in there and then um Gerald reminded us that um when 45 when 47 was 45 is when we first went through this work right and so now um through these executive orders he's back with avengeance and so it's really good to see that uh the superintendent and his team are taking a strong stance on this and I just hope it doesn't come to that where we where we have to engage and our children um at the schools and our our our leaders and teachers have to Eng engage with this um stuff right so thank you so much for being proactive on this on this topic thanks that's it uh Jean I just wanted to let you know I remember that you had been advocating for Cuma a while back well um through the uh fore Workforce Development Committee we are using them for the the students at Capital City who are participating with h forc so it's a start yeah I just wanted to say um uh echoing a lot of sentiment that's been going around tonight how proud I am of uh uh my fellow board members in the district as a whole for uh really standing and supporting our immigrant communities um literally not just tonight with the policy that we're reopt that you know that's that's been around for years but also so uh frankly on a daily basis right um I remember recently I was uh just in conversation with some Statewide Partners is with that's salvation social justice right you know the job pays me right but was talking with them um and we were talking about it's just like yeah you know we come to school board meetings right and regardless right we always have the headsets in the back right where you can just tune in and understand everything that's going on and everybody was just like wait y'all do that in Trenton like that like we haven't heard of that and I'm just like wow like we're really leading the way and making sure that we communicate um effectively uh with the community and the students and the families that we serve so definitely proud of everything that we do um and and really just proud of the work just happy to be uh sitting with you guys and uh really affecting our Trenton Community positively hey Austin could you just briefly talk about the Howard University alternative spring break just a little bit well since you asked uh if you don't know about the illustrious Howard University uh the premier uh historically black college and university HBCU down in DC you want me to say it again all right I'm proud alumni yeah proud alumni uh myself um and what they have is a um it's called ASB or alternative spring break program right uh they've been doing it for I think think this year is going to Mark the mark the 30th year of ASB and it's a program where the students volunteer their time where they could be going out to you know Cabo and you know Miami and you know wherever else around the world for full debauchery but instead they give their service and their time and their commitment to uh different communities and different uh uh areas of need uh they reached out to us to uh partner uh this March uh to come to Trenton and also work in our district work in our schools and focus specifically on Youth and education so I think that'll be coming up uh hopefully uh next month uh the partnership with Howard University for the ASB program um and it's going to be a blast I know I did it about three times between Howard undergrad and Howard law um I went to Chicago and we worked on gun violence uh went to uh New Orleans and we were doing um immigrant rights down there like it's it's really an amazing program and it really helps Define these students um and shapes them for the rest of their lives so it's a great program I'm excited to have it up here uh next month I might have my just ignorantly big Howard sweatshirt on right just to prove it um but yeah glad that we're partnering with that we you know no and we do we do have a few uh yeah there's a lot of people in the district that are Howard University graduates um working across the board teachers I see you shro all right uh HR uh yeah yeah um and and a lot of people in just um administrative positions a lot of people teachers right across the board uh there's a lot of Howard already ingrained in the district so this is a natural fit I'm very excited for I have one more thing and hopefully this is the last thing I just want to say thank you to IET Reyes for the work you've done to help us with all this technology that we now have um you have there's something here now uh Gerald that I absolutely love it I didn't realize it so you're gonna have to use this now as president you can see who will um the names of the people who want to speak so you can um just tell whose turn it is on uh you don't have it on your screen yeah see I'm speaking right my name is there I love this thank you and we're really sad to see you guys very sad thank you for all you did for us uh I just want to say thank you for being on top of things with this immigration nightmare um I couldn't can't imagine what these parents are going to through and this is just another cause of trauma for these children that have already been through enough so thank you for being proactive um I also want to thank tiia and tea for working so hard to collaborate and make this you know a smooth working relationship I know there's problems and everything but you guys are really putting in a lot of effort and it's really showing and I think it shows on our end and you know board meetings aren't like what they used to be you know I remember sitting there at my first board meeting in the audience before I was sworn in and I was like oh my god what have I gotten myself into so thank you thank you all and uh we look forward to working together in the future could I make one more more comment since Austin was Shameless about Howard I also want to be a little bit Shameless um I'm on on the board of an organization called ldef it's an immigration organization here in Trenton and this is for benefit of the teachers and the public what they're seeing is a lot of uh parents coming in and desperately applying for passports for their children Lev can help them do that so if you have any families that you hear whatever you can they're on Clinton Avenue you can refer them there uh and they can be help to fill out applications for their children and they do other things as well but that's what they're seeing um Sasa what's the full name because that's a that's an acronym right American legal aid and education fund L def yeah any additional um Bard comments at this time Larry anyone else you good no I just agree with everything my colleague said um also um also uh fast was coming up so you know I know I know that that was a big thing that we talked about the last couple months and making sure that students know that you know um that there's a waiver option for students who may not necessarily want to complete it and that we're making sure that you know this process is not you know going into a tracking system so that students feel 150 families in the first session I'm not sure the second session at Trenton High last week right yeah so we had a second session and I think we have I know we have another one I think they're multiple sessions and in between that if uh families and students need individual support I think the team is uh structured in that way and we tried to add support so that families can be supported in their native language also so miss Grant's work with the team to make sure we get the right people and kind of spare no expenses to make sure people understand that process I'm sorry just one more thing because I did forget this I've never spoken so much right excuse me I I heard several concerns from some members of our community because of the application for preschool it is asking for the P's uh birth uh place and so um after you know looking up some things I know it is it is a state requirements is there any way that we can um one either informed the parents is just a state thing two can we be proactive and asking that be changed and three my concern is that if I were to ask the Department of Education for uh Records that they'd be able to get that so that's another concern that we need to look into so they're not kept private do you know superintendent that information is not kept private it should be that information on where the parents are from would not be kept private if they fill it in well depends I mean I think James can help me answer this but um information is no different than any legal request you make you must have a reason and legal authority to have that information otherwise we would not share it and I don't think the state would be allowed so here if you ask for information unless you have something that's signed by a judge that says or something legal that says you're allowed to have it we just will not give it to you uh and we wouldn't do that in any case so as long while it's in District now uh State documents or state documents I think they are also Bound by some of the same procedures and laws that we are so we don't anticipate uh information being shared that shouldn't be for non-legal reasons uh and that's important to know and we'll certainly ask the questions about the application and in any way that we can ask for that information or be flexible we will and in some cases we can't uh but we can also share the concern that people have and I think the state's been uh proactive also in sending out information to us about how to help families protect themselves so I think they would be open to that question and I'm a member an executive member of a group that can get fairly good access to answers like that so I I'll get on that tomorrow the other uh Group which we should be cognizant of are members of the lgbtq community for the older students that's of great preoccupation in terms of identify you know them identifying themselves and transgender that could somehow come down and hurt them y so we I talked earlier in my comments about how how uh heavy this issue is and we were talking about immigration but uh before War we talked about lgbtqia issues initially and how that may come to us sooner than even an ice agent being at our doors and how do we protect our uh young people and we talked about what laws they have protections with now and that we same thing we're going to enforce uh the same things that we've always enforced to keep our young people safe and do our research you have to do work because things will come to us and you don't know the facts and I know there's a need for a quick response often uh but I go underground I get the information so I can be so I can be smart I mean I can be accurate so when people get it from us they can feel confident that that's coming out um we seek legal advice we seek State advice we seek uh other we see what other districts are putting out we try to make sure that when our people get information from us they can trust it uh and so we'll do that same thing for students every student however you identify wherever you come from uh we want you to know that you can be feel good about being here as best we can protect you uh we you know we say we'll protect you inside things happen happen inside our buildings now that we're not proud of um but we are proud to educate the the young people here and serve the family so thank you you're welcome everybody everybody's uh good good at the order everyone's good now see I promised the superintendent we were joking in the back uh before we came out um I preside sometimes in Lawrence as assistant ba I chime in for time when he's when he's uh on vacation and I'm known for having short meetings so I challeng the superintendent today we'll be out here by 8 so I think we're I think we might might make it we just might we just might make it to be out by 8 so we're gonna we're going to move on to board discussion action on consent agenda board discussion action consider agenda all right I need a special motion for 511 511a the policy 511a on immigration can someone on our board so moved I I moveed that we wait a minut hold up one second general counsel yeah I just want to be clear um our policy generally requires two read pass that's right this motion is being called for specifically a motion to move in pass 5111a on one reading yes thank you did we move that was that was discussion you voted to amend the agenda to include thank you general counsel can I have a motion so I moved I move that we approve um the resolution for the affirmation of and I missed it here 5111a 5111a on the first reading all right second proba move and second it any discussion or questions seeing none roll call joal truart yes Denise Johnson yes Jean buy yes Edie Daniels Lane yes Austin Edwards yes Yolanda yes Sasa mon C Larry trailer yes Genie W yes motion passed all right thank you General counsil now we can move on to board discussion and action on consent agenda can I have a motion to move the board consent agenda so move second proper move and second it roll call Joe truart yes Denise Johnson uh I I just have to abstain from approval of the transportation calls for DCF but everything else I uh say yes okay Dean buoy yes Addie Daniels Lane yes Austin Edwards yes Yolanda Lopez yes Sasa mon yes Larry trailer yes jeie weer I abstain from All Things grant school and yes motion passed okay is there any new business on the anyone have any new business no new seeing no new business we move right into EX session whereas the open Public's meeting act codified as njsa 10 4-6 permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting under certain circumstances and whereas Trenton Board of Education is on of the opinion that such circumstances pres presently exist indicated as follows any material considered confidential by federal law state statute or Court rule any pending or anticipated litigation or contract negotiations to which the board is or may become a party to any matter falling within the attorney client privilege to the extent that confidentialities 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 Dr Priscilla Dawson versus Trenton Board of Education now there be it resolved that the body of Trenton Bo of Education County of Mercer state of New Jersey that an executive session will be held on January 27th 2025 for the statut toally permissible purposes indicated in this resolution be a further resolve that action may be taken by the board when it reconvenes Open Session be it finally resolved that the minutes of executive session with regard with regard to this above subject matter shall be disclosed to the public at a later date and to the extent that the same is not prejudicial to the interest of the parties involved no longer adverse to the public interest or does not endanger any individual's rights to privacy motion to move into executive session so so moved you have a second properly moving second roll call Geral truart yes Denise Johnson yes Jean Buie yes Eddie Daniels Lan yes Austin Edwards yes Yolanda Lopez yes Sasa man Larry trailer yes jeie weand yes move to Executive session we now conven to Executive session thank you all e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e no okay and um Janice the TR Board of Education meeting is back in public session I need a motion to approve the settlement agreement I move that we approve the settle the settlement in the matter of PD versus Trenton Board of Education second properly moving second at roll call Gerald truart yes Denise Johnson yes Jean buoy yes Edie Daniels Lane yes Austin Edwards yes Yolanda Lopez yes Sasa man yes Larry trailer yes Genie weakland yes motion passed motion to adjourn so move second prop move in second all in favor I have a good night 8:00 I made it