ready. I have a question before start. Uh we're going to we're going to go right into the board meeting now. You can ask a question once we get into um the board meeting. So I'll call this meeting to order. Trip and Board of Education,
August 11, 2025, 5:30 p.m. Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand. Pledge allegiance to the flag. Roll call. Gerald Truhart, present. Denise Johnson, present. Jean Buie present. Howdy Dams Lane
present. Austin Edwards on his way in. Yolanda absent. Larry Trailer. Genie Wland present. We have a quorum. New Jersey Sunshine Law. 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 date, time, and place. Therefore, posted on the website,
the Times, and the Star Ledger. Formal action will not be taking place at this meeting. Mission statement. All students will graduate with the vision for their future, motivated to learn continually, and prepare to succeed in their choice of college or career. May I have a motion to adopt the agenda?
So, second. So, move. Motion by Denise, seconded by Mr. Jean Buouie. Gerald Groard, yes. Denise Johnson, yes. Gene Buoie, yes. Aie Dames Lane, yes. Austin Edwards on his way. Yolanda
absent. Larry Trailer, yes. Kenny Wland, yes. Motion has been approved to to adopt the agenda. Uh we have a special presentation, two special presentations tonight by one of our favorite people at
New Jersey School Boards Association, Maryanne Freeman, who is our senior field representative. And we're so thankful to have you here. uh was in touch with her a few weeks ago and we just thank God that you're here to go over our five-year strategic planning process and our next strategic plan
which takes us through 2031 and then also our master board certification transcript and opportunities for PD and future requirements so we maintain our master board certification. So I have Maryanne as your floor is yours. Thank you.
person. There we go. If it was any simpler, it would be ridiculous. Okay, so I have for you your Mercer County School Board Association meetings. Okay, the first one is going to be on Thursday, September 18th. It's
an AI panel discussion and then the rest of them are listed and you know you get individual board credits for attending those meetings and I know all of you always strive to maintain your certifications. So that's one way to do that is to go to
those county meetings and Miss Addie Daniels Lane is one of the um officers for Mercer County and we're always thrilled to have her there. She gives great presentations and great updates. So thank you very much for that. The next thing you have is a board
transcript. And this is something that I asked our IT department to develop for us because they said that they thought that it was possible, but it hadn't been deployed yet. And we were able to get it in an
Excel spreadsheet that really didn't mean a whole lot. So, this shows you everything that you have done since 2005. And in going through this and in looking at your credits, I realized because remember I haven't had you for all this
time. So I picked you up again in 20 23 I think. So um yes in 2023. So in going through this the way this is I see that you did you used NJSBA for a
superintendent search to get Mr. Earl. Okay, Jesse, I know that this was a a mistake on his part and an oversight on his part. Never gave you three credits for that. So, guess what? This is the surprise.
So, I spoke to my director today and you already have 1.5 credits from when I was here the last time. Okay? And a credit equals an hour. So, whatever tonight comes to, you'll get an additional credit, credit and a half, whatever it
is for that. And then I'm going to add in the three credits that you should have received when you did the search. Okay? Now, if you use us again for a strategic plan, you'll get another three credits.
So you could get this year three for the superintendent search, three for a strategic plan which gives you six, one and a half for the previous meeting that I was at that has you at seven and a half already. You only need 10 in a
two-year period to maintain your master certification. Now your master certification goes from November of 24 to November of 26. So, in talking to my super uh my my superintendent, in talking to my
director again today, I said, you know, what can what can we do with that because they'll be getting, you know, certified again as a master. And she said, we can hold on to those so that in 2026 when your master certification
would be up, they will just roll over. So you could be set very very nicely for your next master certification without having to do a whole lot outside of what you've already done. If you do the strategic plan with us again, you'll
have another three credits that you'll get at the end of that strategic plan. Um, which could be at the end of either probably I think you're going to do this in 26, right? Looking to start the strate the new strategic plan in 26.
Yeah. Okay. So, whenever that ends, you would be able to get the three credits for that. So, you'll have you'll probably have close to 10 credits by then that will just be held over until 2026
when you can just get certified again as a master board. Okay. So, that's really nice. I was thrilled to get that news. So, I'm hoping that you will be too. Okay. So for our strategic planning process,
I do have it on. It's not taking down. I went up, not down. My bad. Okay. So, we're just going to talk about what our strategic planning processes are like. These are different from what you did
with Jesse. Okay. The last time um what are the what is it? What are the advantages of it? How to be a part of the process? And also any questions? So really what a strategic plan does is it creates an organizationalwide vision for your mission statement and it helps to
get all of your stakeholder groups on board and engaged in the process so that they are helping to reinforce what you've done through the strategic plan in getting the community involved and really stepping behind stepping up and
behind the school district in moving forward. So that's one of the things that we hope this will do, that the community will work together for the common good. So I think you already know what the advantages are of strategic planning because you've gone through this before. Hi Austin. So it allows you
to be proactive, which a lot of boards have not been able to do for a long time because the state keeps coming through with things. So, it allows you to really look five years ahead and with your community and with all of your stakeholder groups, see what it is they would like to see, including you, your
teachers, your staff, your community members, your ministerium, your business owners, anybody who wants to be a part of this to see what they would like to see in the Trenton School District over the next three to five years. Then it helps you to be more creative and
innovative because sometimes those creativity exercises and ideas and those innovative ideas come from outside. They don't always necessarily come from the inside because people are hearing what's going on elsewhere and they may bring those in that information to you. It's
also a process that's flexible because as you go through the process and the action plans are developed, if some things aren't working because of the re the direction that's been taken, you can alter that direction because it's not going in a positive way and change the
direction and you can still be getting towards your end result. It helps you to optimize your limited resources because we know every district right now has limited resources. It helps you to really build up your resources and creates that ongoing cycle of planning
for you so that you'll be able to see as the action plans are developed and are up on your website, you your community members, your families, your parents, um your business people, your ministerium, they're all going to be able to follow along with those action plans to see
what's what's already happened and what's happening next, what's coming up next. It also increases participation and communication across all of your stakeholder groups. It allows you to have a clearer focus on decision- making because you're going to
know exactly what your stakeholder groups want you to be doing over the next three to five. It helps you to have good information for that decision makingaking process and it also helps to create that district-wide vision and mission as I said earlier that allows
people to work for the the common good. So why would you plan? Are there changes in your family structure in your community? Is the economic structure of your community changing? Are the educational levels changing? Is there competition for your public schools?
Okay, there are quite a few charter schools. Some of them have closed now, but there are still quite a few charter schools and private schools in in the Trenton area. And then is limited funding really impacting the things that you're able to do, programs and services.
So also, if your enrollment is changing, the makeup of your school population is changing. We already know that in just about every community in this country, there are more people that do not have children in the district than have children in the district. So you have a
whole group of people who don't have children that are coming to that that belong in a school district. So they need to be a part of this too and they can we can benefit from their information as well. And then really would you benefit for a roadmap because this gives you a road map. It gives your
superintendent a road map over the next three to five years or is your current strategic plan coming to an end and that's where you guys are right now. So if he answered yes to any of those, strategic planning could certainly be
for you. So this is the waterfall effect of strategic planning. And as you know, strategic plans and we've done goal setting before. So you know that all of your annual goal setting now flows from your strategic plan because that strategic plan is at the very top and
then everything else flows from that. So your district goals, your board goals, your building goals, your administrators goals, department goals, and then teacher and classroom goals. filter down to your student goals and that all provides an increase in student
achievement for your students. So we have two different plans. We have a traditional plan that's more like a six to ninemonth plan and then we have a 3D plan which is like four to five months. The traditional plan is a Friday
night and a Saturday. So it's a Friday evening and then pretty much Saturday morning from 8:30 to about 3. And we have committee meetings ahead of that. We have two committees that will form that will develop a state of the schools
report and another that will form a state of the community report. And we will come in and train those folks. We usually do this in twos. So myself and another FSR would come in and work with them to identify and let them know the kinds of things they should be looking
at to develop that state of the schools or that state of the community report. We would also have stakeholder kickoff meetings where we would come out and talk to your public, a couple of different places probably a couple of different schools for your staff and
talk to them about the strategic planning process. So the commitment of the board at the bottom of the pyramid and alongside the t the side is to show the commitment of the board to not only invite people in to to see what they have to say but to listen what to what
they have to say and to utilize that in the strategic planning process. So the information is the state of the schools report and the state of the community report. Then on Friday night, we would get a synopsis of that state of the schools and state of the community
report. It's sent out to anybody who's attending the Friday night and Saturday weekend conference, we call it. And then we would do a vision and a beliefs activity. Then on Saturday morning, we come back and we talk about the mission statement.
Does it need to be tweaked? Does it need to stay where it is? Um, I personally love your mission statement. I think it's direct. It's to the point. It says exactly what you plan on doing. And um but that's up to all of you. And then we
would discuss from the mission statement. We would identify strengths and challenges, identify goal areas, not more than three to five. Okay? Because again, if you give your superintendent 32 goals, he's not going to be able to
concentrate on with focal laser-like focus. You've heard you've heard my story about the 32 goals before. I know you have. Um, so you don't want that. So you want him to be able to have that laser-like focus and for you to have that laser-like focus and your community
to see your parents, your staff to see that that's your focal point. So we would come up with goal statements and then some strategies. And then in this particular plan, we would also have an opportunity for people, anybody who wants to participate in the action plans
to help to develop those action plans. Okay? So your community, your staff could be involved in developing the action plans. Okay? Then once that's all done, I finalize everything in a report. I come back in, I present that to you.
We do a presentation, we thank everybody, it's a celebration and then the the um strategic planning process really it gets implemented. The 3D process is sometimes PE we we developed this probably close to 10
years ago because boards were having trouble getting people to commit to an all night, you know, all night Friday and all day Saturday and that's a given in a lot of districts. So this is a different version of this. Okay, you pretty much get the same thing except we
don't address the mission statement, but you would have the commitment of the board along the bottom, the commitment of the board along the side. The information is the state of the schools the superintendent would develop. Okay. So, he would develop the state of the schools, talk about your demographics,
your academic programs, your extracurriculars, technology, facilities and finance, budget, all of those kinds of things. Okay. Then that first night is the state of the schools report by the superintendent and then we go into
small groups. The larger group is broken up into small groups and they identify strengths and challenges of the district as they see them. now. Okay. We give them that activity. It's it's like a David, you'll remember David Letterman. He's actually back in the news a lot
right now because what's happening with Steven Coar, but David Letterman always had a top 10 list. So, we asked them to come up with a top 10 list of strengths and a top 10 list of challenges. They then report out to the larger group and then we identify common themes along all
of the top tens that every group has done. The second meeting then we do a visioning exercise. We ask them to think that they've moved away from Trenton for about three or five years. They come back in addition to all of the strengths that they
identified the previous meeting and the challenges which that list of outcomes is all at their tables for them to review. What would they expect to see happening in the district three to five years from now in addition to all the great things you are already doing? So
we talk about them looking at those challenges and saying, "Okay, what if those challenges were overcome and now their strengths? What would that look like?" So they come up with a list of initiatives they'd like to see happen and they come up with a vision statement. Okay. At the end of that,
each small group again reports out to the larger group and then we identify common themes and from the common themes then come the three to five goal areas because those common themes are really going to help us develop those three to five goal areas. Then the next meeting
which would be the third night we look at those goal areas. People can go to whatever goal area they would like to work on. The first two meetings, we separate them completely randomly um because we try and get people to sit together that may not typically sit
together because if you sit together with all of your friends, your ideas are pretty much going to be the same, right? Your values, your opinions are pretty much the same because we tend to gravitate towards people who think like us. So, we want people to sit with people who may not necessarily think
like us so that we can get a full scope of what the Trenton district is comprised of to see what other people have to say. And believe it or not, each group is always able to come to consensus because there's always things that you have more in common than you have differences.
So, at that third meeting, we would identify the goal. The goal areas have been identified. So people go off to the three to five tables that we have for those goal areas. They develop a list of objectives, three to five objectives they'd like to see happen. Again,
they're looking at the outcomes from meeting one and the outcomes from meeting two because they're at their tables. And then they develop an overarching goal statement. In this plan, the difference is that the superintendent and the administrative team develop the action plans.
Okay? And a lot of boards and superintendent like that because the superintendent and the administration administrative team know what can happen and how they can make those things happen better than the community at large is going to know and know what's
possible. If you go with the traditional plan, there may be things that are developed in the action plans that can't happen. There may be things that are developed in this action in a a 3D action plan that may not be possible to happen too.
And that's okay as long as the superintendent when giving that state of the strategic plan on an annual basis talks about the things that we tried to do but we couldn't do and what those reasons were. Okay. And what an alternative might be to those things. Um
so for instance I worked with a district that was um down along the shore area and um they had students that were involved in the strategic plan and at the goal areas point one of the students said it would be great if we had a
rooftop pool. A rooftop pool. Okay. It is it's a great idea, right? It's an absolutely great idea. the school. I don't want to make fun of the idea because it's not making fun of the idea. The school was literally a block
and a half from the ocean and it was a very old building. And I said to him, "Okay, we can include that in because this was where the community was doing the part of the action plans." I said, "We can include that in there,
but I don't know that your building is going to be able to support the weight of a, you know, of a pool of a rooftop pool because it's a very old building." So he looked at me and he said, "Do you think we could do a rooftop garden?" I said, "Now that's a possibility."
And so they ended up being able to look at a rooftop garden rather than a rooftop pool. The student was happy. Everybody was happy. the student felt listened to and he felt heard and it was great. Okay, so this is this is why in
this process the superintendent and the administrative team put together the action plans. And if you wanted to do the traditional process with the Friday night and the Saturday, I have had boards who have said, "We'd like to do that because we'd like to have everybody together for two days in a row, Friday
night and Saturday, because we'll have less people kind of drifting off." Um, and they have asked that the administration and superintendent complete the action plans. So, there's some tweaking that can be done to any of these. Okay. But that's what those two plans generally look like. Once the
administration and the superintendent have completed the action plans, they send those to me and I put everything together, bring it back to you in a nice spiralbound similar to this. Um, and that will have all of the outcomes from all of the meetings, an executive
summary, whichever plan it is will have this, the list of all of the attendees at all of your meetings. If we do the traditional plan, the list of who were on the committees, the state of the school, state of the community, and any action plan committees, and then we'll have those um action plans at the end.
Okay. Yes. Yes. So this is our second you did you did a different version of both of these. So what ended up happening was you
actually paid for a 3D plan. Okay. But because it was happening during the pandemic and there was a lot of you know there meetings were not always possible with people in person. So Jesse and um T Jesse Adams and Terry Lewis came up with
this other version which brought you tons quite literally tons of virtual meetings. Okay. I think there ended up being 15. So yeah. So, if you wanted to do the 3D
this time, we could, you know, potentially put out a survey to your parents, your community members, your staff, that kind of thing, and gather that information and utilize that at all three of those meetings. Okay? I don't want to squash anybody's participation.
Um, and with the three, excuse me, with the 3D, um, this is what always happens to me. I'm so sorry. You brought this just for me.
I keep saying to myself, take a bottle of water with you. That's a smart man. That is a very steep step. Question. Yeah. So, one one question and kind of along the lines of uh what Jean was talking about. So, I also know cuz when
I came on the board while we were pursuing our masterert, we did another strategic planning visioning session as well. Is that similar to the 3D plan or where does that fall? Is that a meeting that we did to that
you did with me? Yes. Okay. So, we were we were talking. So, what we did with that meeting was we were doing goal setting and so we went through the strategic plan and the strategic planning goals to make sure
that then your district annual district goals flowed from those. So that's where that conversation came from. Okay, Mr. Trailer. Oh, okay. So, so, so real real question for me is,
so we currently have our five-year plan and we currently have five goals that the superintendent and his team have been working on for the last five years. They tweaked that plan as we went along. We tweaked it in different areas as we should. So, it's not something that's on
the shelf. is alive and active plan. How do we go into this next strategic plan and not in a sense displace those five goals that we're working on and work so hard
toward to achieve? How do we incorporate those five primary goals into the process in some sense to kind of maintain or structure them in that structure the strategic planning process along the lines of those five goals that
we currently have? So part of what we would do is I would suggest to the superintendent that he incorporate into his state of the schools report the goals that were created during the last strategic plan and the activity towards completing those and how the district
did towards that towards that end. Okay. And then I have several districts who are follow when they follow up very closely with their previous strategic plan. it's like right on top of the next is that when we're talking about those
district those strategic planning goals, we talk about the previous strategic planning goals and ask if it's okay because so much work was done on those and now just like with a district goal, a lot of times the district goals can
stay the same but the action plans change. So, the strategic planning goals, I'm sorry, I knew I was going to do that at least once. Um, the strategic planning goals can stay the same. They might be tweaked a little bit, but can
stay virtually the same and then the action plans pick up from where the progress that you've made and now move you five years forward. Okay. So, yeah, but we
could be. Yeah, but the action plans have been updated through the years, right, as we've crept because we really haven't met the goals, you know, so it's been tweaked and we actually do follow the plan very
closely. Like everything we do is based off of that. So I would say instead of a whole new strategic plan because not a lot's changed is maybe just taking a deeper dive into what we currently have like don't just
throw the whole thing out and start over again because you know it's still a viable relevant. Yeah, you could do that too. Yeah, you could do that too. From a corporate perspective, we used to
have like that fiveyear, but but then there was really a 10-year because when you think about financials and cash flow and growth, it's it's it might be a short term, but it's really longer. So
you kind of roll that stuff, it just rolls over, right? So to speak, right? Similar. That's what you're saying, right? Okay. Yeah. So the 3D plan now is 4500 and it shows
you and it's in your book on page where is it? 14. One question. Sure. Oh, thank you. Um I was just going to ask about the last process especially with you. I know you said we did about 15 virtual community meetings and I know you said that this process is going to
be two days um or three nights. Three nights. Um so would that look would that be over the same I know you said potentially be maybe a Friday or Saturday. Would that be all at once or like how would that like be spread out? I know the sample calendar goes from
like September to April. Like how would that look in this model if we decided to you know do a strategic plan next year process? So, if you wanted to do the 3D process, it would be um we would get together, we would talk about the the state of the
schools report that Mr. Earl would put together and then we would talk about marketing the plan and inviting people to come in and we have forms that we, you know, can provide you with and you can take those and you can do different things with them. You can have students
put in um you know give you some ideas and make um you know graphics for it and things like that if you have kids in the in you know into the arts and I know you do. Um and then we would have three meetings over three months.
So it could be September, October, November. It could be October, November, December. It could be January, February, March, however you would want to do that. Um if it's the traditional plan which is the Friday night and the Saturday um then you would have we would
talk about a weekend that you want to do this and we would hope and in a district this size it's going to be very difficult to do it on a weekend that doesn't conflict with other things that are going on in the district that parents and community members would tend to go to. So that's often why the 3D
works better because we try and do it on three different nights of the week over three months so that it's not a Monday in January in you know September, October and November. It might be a Monday, a Wednesday, a Thursday might be
a Tuesday, a Thursday and a Monday. um so that people who were in school or taking classes or have commitments every Monday night or every Tuesday night can get to two of the three of them. Anyway, um you don't have to be there for all three of them, although we would love
for people to be there and a lot of people do come to all three of the three of the strategic planning meetings. Um but it's a really nice way for folks to meet other people. Um there are a lot of times when people will say well you know I need to I had one gentleman a couple
of weeks a couple of months ago who said came in late and he said well I brought in a person who's at table four and you have me going to table six and I said that's okay. I said she'll be here until the end just like you will be well I
have to take her home. I said okay just make sure you find her at the end of of the meeting. And he was like but I really need to be sitting with her. And I said, "We really want you to be able to sit with people that you don't necessarily know so you can hear their thoughts and ideas." And he was like,
"Oh, okay. That makes sense." I said, "I promise you I've never lost a person at strategic planning. It's an hour. It's an it's an hour and a half and I've never lost anybody yet." I said, and then I looked at him and I said, "Don't make this be the night."
And he just started laughing. He was like, "No, no, no. won't as long as I can find her at the end of the meeting and we had about a hundred people in that that meeting room. So, you know, I made sure that he found her at the end of the night so that she he could take her home. That's good. And probably follow-up
question um through the D 3D model, could any could a potential setup be where we have two in person and then maybe one virtual for people who like, you know, can't be in person? I know especially in our district we have a lot of parents who have very weird schedules
and you know especially now with the whole you know immigration status thing many people don't feel safe coming in person so maybe a virtual model might be something we might think about at least for one of those sessions we could try and do that um it's not very easy because we do great break
people up into different groups so we would have to use different you know we would have to have small group availability within the zoom call or or whatever it is. I'm sure we could work that all out um if we needed to and if you guys wanted to do that and I understand the you know the potential
conflicts certainly people are dealing with an awfulen lot. Yeah, people are dealing with an awful lot out there right now. So, you know, we would I would be able to work with you on that. Okay. So, the standard program or the
traditional is 6,500. That's the weekend because that's involving me coming in and training lots of different people for those committee reports and then for those action plans and then the weekend and all of those good things. Um so everything is up there and that's on
page 14. So who can participate in this? Really everybody can participate. And the thing that I want and I don't know if you had students involved in the last one. I'm hoping that you did. Do you know if you had students involved in the last one?
Okay. Because they really need to be heard. Student voice is really, really important. We get some of our best information from our students because they're here five days a week and they know what's going on. But board members
can be present, parents, past, present, future. They may not have kids yet, but they live in the district and they think they're going to have kids and they want to be a part of this. staff and administrators, students past and present and and you know um future students can also be here from your
middle school. We've had kids from kindergarten participate in the strategic plans. They are the most adorable um you know little little people on the planet and they provide us with a lot of good information. Um community members in your town council,
they can all be here too and then community businesses. So the only thing that we would need to do is if the full board felt that they were going to be there for any one of those nights or for the weekend depending on which you do if you use either of these processes we
would say you need to just advertise the meeting that you know you do expect a quorum of the board but that no action will be taken. So if there was a quorum of the board you would open just like you did tonight in whatever area we were in. That's the second time. um somebody
count for me and um then you would open and then you would go right into public comment which would be the process itself. Okay. And then that student voice it's already here but we have to acknowledge it and we have to honor it. So really having
students there is such a key piece to this. So I would say you know in each of your schools you could see if there's you know most of them will have a student council and if they'd like to send somebody from there but kids can just come. The most amazing thing is of
all the people who will say I need to be with my husband. I need to be with my wife. I need to be with me by with my best friends. The parents will come with their kids and they'll say I need to be with my son or daughter. And the son or daughter will say I'm fine by myself.
I'm okay at a different table because they don't want to necessarily have, you know, have to be critiqued for what they're saying or anything else and they know that if there was some place else. So, it's really a lot of fun for them. Um, but they really do tell us what they think. They really do tell us what we
need to hear. There was a district that I worked with a couple of years ago. It was a high a regional high school district and you know the faculty and everybody was really involved in the student life and and with students and everything and it came out during the
strategic plan that the water fountains were not giving off clean water. Faculty doesn't go to a water fountain. Kids do. that was fixed like within the next week and they felt so empowered
that that had happened that their voices were heard. So that's why it's really super important to have the kids there. So how can you participate if it's the traditional plan which is the six to ninemonth process people could participate in the state of the schools
or the state of the community committee. They can participate in the planning council conference weekend. They can participate in action plan teams if you put that out there for the community to work on and attend board meetings where they're going to see and hear updates on
the strategic planning process. Okay. And then in the 3D they can attend and actively participate in any of the three meetings or all three meetings become involved in the schools to the extent that they're able because a lot of times people come to these things and then they say you know what I'd really like
to be more involved and you put out community volunteer programs and you know surveys and things like that and they become active in those and it gets you more involvement and more um support for the school district and then attend board meetings where they can actively
here about updates as well. Okay. What questions might you have? It's okay. I take them throughout and then I take them at the end. Well, the floor is open. What's the um Oh, go ahead, G.
Yeah. 3D. Yeah. So, what is the what is the consensus? Um, not not that we're taking a vote, but what is the consensus of the of the door right now? Gene, you like a 3D plan? Um, what's the consensus of the board?
Some version of the 3D. Now, I will say we got fantastic turnout from the community when we did it and we did three in different wards. You know, we got I think over done we
got close over a hundred people. Um the community came out and they participated. I think they didn't understand what they were participating in until we all broke out and sat down at tables and came up with the issues and everything,
but you know, their voices were heard and it did work. So, so that sounds like maybe modifying it to four meetings versus three because we have four different sections of the city. So, that's four meetings versus three. So that would modify the 3D plan to compens to compensate for the
strategy that we have in mind for the district like we did last time. Yeah, that's what I'm that's what I'm hearing. Yeah, you need to need to be in each section in each ward. Yeah, the nature of the sections are different.
And and I also think maybe this time we should um do like a because I know that one of the biggest issue here is education information. PE community members don't know what's going on. Maybe we can do like a PSA or maybe a video like we did for the um campaign for school awareness saying hey we the
strategic plan process of starting up again. We're going to be going to each ward having community meetings that way we can share online share on the district website so people can share with friends and family because I know that some of the sometimes people have a you know we we know we know that is an issue with reading comprehension and we
know that people sometimes can get digital media easier and watch videos easier. So I think maybe and use that also to help spread awareness of this process and explain this stuff to people. So, students can share with parents, everyone can access it, we can share it on Facebook and other forms of
social media. I'm just thinking about new ways for us to have at least prime people for the meeting. Wonderful. So, I would say if you want to go outside of the 3D process that we have with an additional meeting and possibly
some virtual aspects to that that um Mr. Earl and um Mr. Truhart and I could sit down with Miss Howard and see how we could coordinate all of that and how you would like to ultimately do that and then I can get a price for you because
the price would be a little bit different. So, But would be happy to do that. And if you wanted Denise, Miss Johnson to be there also, we could certainly pow on that and see how we could come up with something that then, you know, could be presented back to the board to
see if that's what you would like to do. So, you don't have to make a decision tonight. That's that's the first thing. Yep. This is just information. Just information. Okay. the motion.
No action this meeting. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Now I've lost you. Well Well, I I I think which frequently happens. Come back to me. I've lost you. Any other questions?
I'm I'm not sure if this is a question. Um, oh, well, I know I I don't know if this is a question, but I think it goes back to what we was talking about earlier about the the idea of making modifications to the strategic plan that we have in this way of how do we carry over a lot of the
core things? How would that look in these workshops and questions? Like would we center or even ask people to take an input on the current goals that we have and you know saying okay what issues or what concerns did you have in
these specific areas and saying okay how do we add this on or how do we like see if this is important for the district to consider when we move forward. like how would that look uh when it comes to the community forums and asking people for their input while also you know saying
we want to keep on a lot of these things that we still have to work on. And you know what you need to remember too is that typically the goals for a strategic plan just about anything can fall under one of the five three to five categories. So, you know, in your
strategic plan, I know you have those those goal areas and pretty much if somebody says, "Well, I'd like to see this happen." It's generally going to be able to be put under one of those categories. So, it could be an objective then underneath one of those goal areas.
So we could address that throughout the process either process and keep pointing back to the current strategic planning goals which can be maintained. The statement might need to be tweaked a little bit but oftentimes the statement
stays the same and then just the objectives and the goal and the action plans change because now you've moved five years from where you were initially to that. So now you're going to move to the next five years. And people are
generally pretty um able to accept and and come on board with that when it's explained in in the in the right way. Okay. And you talked about also about how we go about marketing the current plan as we roll it out roll out that strategic
plan the next five through 3031 and how we actually market that. These are the five five goals, the five goal areas and the five goal plan our plan, right? Um and incorporate that into how we communicate that out to the community
and get that incorporated in their minds at that point and then bring in of course their ideas around those particular. So once the once the final plan is done and I bring that into you all would get it in you know a packet
like this a lot thicker and then I send once you've approved the adopted the plan I send it to you electronically so it can be put up onto your website and then you have a section I think you do now that says strategic plan and all of that information is on there and so
people can follow along with that and sometimes what people do also what boards do is at their on their board agendas they'll have action items and oftentimes the superintendent and the BA
will include in that this applies to this goal area of our strategic plan goal one and what that goal is um so that way people can see that the act that the the strategic plan really is a part of everything that you're doing
it's going to be a part of everything you do financially and building wise and facilities and academically, extracurricular, all of the community information, um, community engagement, all of those things are going to apply
pretty much can apply to your current strategic plans. So you can include that in your um in your resolution or your motion statement that this applies to this is part of goal one blah blah blah goal two of strategic planning and what
that is and then people can refer back to that on your website to see those things and that's how you stay focused on the strategic plan moving forward and how your community your staff and your parents can stay focused as well. It's so interesting. That's interesting because what came out of our governance
committee meeting um about six months ago, maybe three months ago, well, maybe it wasn't six, was this exact same strategy is to incorporate and link our agenda items and resolutions to our overall goals and superintendent working
on working on that um and has been working on that with the board. And so we're working on getting that done. So it takes it takes a little bit to get working on how we actually want to structure it. That's one of the conversations we're going to have on started. Yeah. Once you get it started,
it just becomes part of your practice and you know all of your district goals also flow from your strategic planning goals. So both of those are going to be identifiable in the actions that you take pretty much always.
Okay. All right. Thank you so much for all you do for all of your kids, for your students, your staff, your community. Oh my goodness, you guys are so good to me. So, I'm good. Thank you. But remember,
you're going to have So, I'm going to drop in now those three credits from the superintendent search. Okay? And an hour for tonight. So you'll actually have four, five and a half credits towards
your next master certification. Okay, you guys are awesome. I also I I also I have to tell you I do brag about you guys all the time. I tell them that this is a board where every single board member is certified.
You know, either new board member, board cert, you know, got their board certification, master certification or or certified board leader. And there's no reason why whatever board I'm talking to can't do that as well because it does help you.
You learn together and then when you become a certified board and a master board, you're learning together. So you're really understanding where each of you are coming from. You're getting to know more about your commonalities than your differences and it makes a huge difference and impact on your
student achievement. So thank you really for all you do. And I do use you guys as an example. So, [Applause] like they say, Trenton makes Governance for just governance four, right? Legal
updates. No, the only and the only reason for that is because it changes every year. So if you took it at if you took it at workshop in October, you would get this year's legal updates. You want to get next year's legal updates.
Okay? So yeah, but you can take if you're if you're in your first year, you can take of two in October and it'll count for next year. If you're in your second year, you can take of three for next year and it'll count for that. The only things you can't take now at workshop or governance one or governance
4 for the following year. Okay, I'm sorry. I hate I hate to be the bearer of bad news. All right, take care everybody. Good night. So, we just have two more things before
we go into executive session. Um, one is around the superintendent's remarks and some of the com conversations around our uh board presentation scheduled the connection board goals to to the agenda. Mr. Mr. Earl,
so do we have scheduled? I don't think we have yet. No. So, we don't we have to have a conversation. Okay. Good evening and uh welcome on this uh summer evening. Um to everyone watching and to the board. Uh we're
currently developing the board presentation schedule. Um we are working to diligently set that schedule prior to the school year so that our community and our school staff along with our board members are aware of what's uh
coming forward in terms of board presentations. So stay tuned for that list. Uh um for example, when we uh provide the testing updates, we know those dates in general. So one of the
things we want to do is to put those on your calendars so that you know they're coming. Uh you can have conversation in the community, the SSDs report where we talk about violence and vandalism. uh the reports uh the quarterly reports
that I share with you and the public regarding our progress and goals. So all of those things we're building to create a calendar so that you're aware of what reports are due. Uh you will have that in advance. Uh so if you are looking for
specific information as a board member or you're hearing in the public uh that the public is interested in specific information, we can add that as we present goal information or whatever that report is.
Um and the second thing was connecting the board goals to the so yes so we will uh be taking a look at uh the board uh agenda and on the agenda which is easy to do. We do it often uh
we make sure that all recommendations coming from my office are connected to goals. So what you'll likely see is an agenda that looks a little bit different. same information but it'll have some level of connection so that you know every recommendation is uh
related to a goal as Maryanne said earlier it would be hard not to find a space to enter uh an activity that we are hoping to approve in district so uh the goal would be that you would know if there's a recommendation that was
related to goal five uh goal four goal three goal one um because we're going to outline the agenda in that way which will take some little bit of creativity. I mean when you look at it at first you're kind of paralyzed thinking about
changing it because we're so used to it but we do this often uh and we actually it's a requirement for principles to send to us uh when they send a recommendation or when we create a recommendation we all put the gold on
it. So, it's just a matter of us reformatting the way we look at it at board meetings and share it with the po public. So, just wanted everyone to know that it's an easy ask. Uh the hard thing is getting someone smarter than I am to organize it. And so, so that's that's
the goal around that. So, and and yeah. Oh, no. Just um just a reminder for uh listeners uh that we are moving. We're at mid mid August. Uh and we are planning to move in the direction
of limiting phone use during classroom time. Uh we will we're planning to implement the yonder pouch uh process. Uh, and as soon as we have more information, probably by the end of this week, it was my goal by August 15th to
announce, share information about what that process is, uh, share demonstrations on um, uh, on our website and social media so that parents know. This would allow students, as we talked about before, to continue to hold on to
their devices. However, it would need to be unlocked by an adult. Um, and so they'll still have those. It's a small pouch. It's lockable and it's really easy to unlock. And we would designate several members in a building to have
that access, administrators, uh, climate and culture and different, uh, people who access students more regularly. Uh, and by the end of each school day, uh, end of school or at lunch or whenever it was appropriate for a student to be able to use their cell
phone, an adult would be able to unlock it. So, we're excited about that process because if you have the iPad or a device in the classroom, what do you need your phone for? And so, we're hopeful that our students can focus. It's um a long
line of strategies we're using to increase uh engagement in the classroom uh and support the teacher as they're working to get students to learn the content. So, uh just keeping keeping that on our radars. We don't want
everyone to be surprised when they walk in and they can't walk down the hall and watch their social media account. So, we want to free the brain up some uh and gain some time with our students in the classroom and in academics. So, that would be the only announcement
for the summertime. I have a question towards that. Are we monitoring how, you know, now that the kids are on the iPads, how much screen time they're getting from that? because my fear is they're losing other
things when they're on the iPads all day. So, they're not like handwriting skills. Yeah. Like iPads are uh it's like a book. It's a resource. Um and so it's not intended to be used for a whole class period. It create it creates uh
better engagement because the student who was most unlikely to engage might use that device because they're comfortable in the device world. But we also the whole child tells us to make sure that play is active in the school
and that's why we want to limit phones too. So uh we want an appropriate use of the device. Um we want to you know as much as you would use a book we still anticipate that students will uh we have a writing initiative across the district
so we need students to write. Um but this was just a way to eliminate the carrying of books potentially. uh you can do research easier in this way because you have a device that can go do your research. Um and then we're increasing the access to print material
in especially in the early grades in our libraries. That's the whole idea to redesign the way we so we're trying to keep some traditional around with innovation covered in it. We still need students to read. We still need them to
write. We still need them to touch print text. So, um, we we can monitor everything on the device because it's ours. And so, we set it up that way. We know where they go, how much time they go. We can actually turn it off. So, we
have the ability to do that if we see any concerns. The only thing that I have on my agenda is I'm going to send out the uh New Jersey School Board Association Association has a 12-month calendar that outlines various activities that the board would
address uh throughout the year. It's on their website, but I'm going to send that out to the board as well as a part of a resource that we can incorporate into superintendent um in our calendar as we move as we move forward into next
school year. And the other thing was board goals, which I think um definitely the strategic plan is one of them, I believe, and then also our master board certification, maintaining our master board certification, making sure that we we're on task with our professional
development. and then any other board goals that the board sees fit. Those are two goals that I had in mind for this going into um into the next year. And if any other goals that the board members would like to incorporate, a goal three
or four um let's we can certainly discuss that. If you have any additional goals you want to add to those two existing Okay. But I was just Yeah, I think uh tonight when we uh have
conversations about where we're going, uh we'll talk about that. We can have those. I think we had our first uh retreat uh late August and I always want to get feedback from the board uh before we actually write them. We can actually
write them beforehand, but I want to get uh input. What are things that the board uh when you're hearing from the public might be interested in us including in our goal work? And so, um, that gives us, so
we're going to do I have a ton of things that I can share with you this evening and then we'll write those having prepared for approval uh by like we did in September um and ready to go in September. So, uh, we start working on
them uh on September 4th, though. They're they're essentially approved because we just we keep doing the same work. So, yeah. I think I think
I I agree 100%. So, um, so the goal tonight is to have some information so that I can solidify. We met often and all of our teams are ready to put in print so I can get those. Yeah. So, we we can be ready.
No, I mean, we have to be ready. So, we're trying to get uh ready sooner um every year. Thank you, sir. So there's no no public participation. So any board member comments at this
time? No board member comments. No new any new business. Ready to go into executive session. And whereas the public open public meeting act codified NGSA 10- col4-6 permits the exclusion of the public from
a meeting under the circ certain circumstances. And whereas in Trenton board of education is of the opinion that such circumstance posists presently exists indicated as follows. Any material considered confidential by federal law, state statute or court rule. Any pending or anticipate
litigation or contract negotiations to which the board is or may become a party to and any matter follow within attorney client privilege. The extent that confidentiality is required to preserve the attorney client privilege and relationship and allow the attorney to exercise his or her ethical duties as a
lawyer. Mo batters caption district goals source five years plan superintendent goals now therefore be resolved by the Trenton board of education county of Mercer state of New Jersey that executive session be held August 11 2025 for the
statuto principal purposes indicating this resolution be it further resolved that action may be taken well action may not action will not be taken by the board when it reconvenes in open session be finally resolved that the minutes executive session with regard to The above matt subject matter
shall be disclosed to the public at the date later date and to the extent that the same is not prejuditial to the interest of parties involved no longer adverse to the public interest or does not endanger any individual's right to privacy. Motion to enter into executive
session. Second. It's been moved by Jean Buouie, seconded by Austin Edwards. I say yes. Denise Johnson. Yes. Jean Buouie? Yes. Addy Lane, yes. Austin Edwards, yes.
Is absent. Larry Trailer, yes. Board member Wickland, yes. Motion carried. We're in executive session. Thank you. Oh, you're fine. All right, board members, back in back
in um public session. Motion to adjurnn. So move second by Jean Buy, seconded by Austin Edwards. Austin Edwards. All in favor? I. Me. Ajourn.