hey amen thank you for the um ninth grade understood call the meeting to order for Shan Board of Education pledge of Allegiance marian wait a second we opening the meeting couldn't hear that
call to order the board of education meeting March 24th 2025 5:30 p.m pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and
justice for all roll call please gerald Truhart present denise Johnson present jean Buouie absent addie Daniels Lane present austin Edwards absent yolanda
Lopez present larry Trailer present jeannie Weekland present we have a quarum all right new Jersey Sunshine Law new Jersey public beings law was enacted to ensure the rights to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the
meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted on on the rules of this act the Tintonville education has caused notice of this meeting by publicizing the date time and place therefore posted on the website the times and the star ledger formal action
will take place at this meeting mission statement all students will graduate division for the future motivated to learn continually in their choice and prepared to succeed in their choice of college or career need a motion to adopt the agenda so move second one moment
please i do have an addendum to the agenda i apologize for not bringing that up for first we have a addendum to for one moment please we do personnel transactions we have new hires as well as a student study
trip so those are the two addendums for tonight's meeting and as I want to reiterate that this is one of the areas that we agreed to as a board to give the superintendent um the opportunity and and really the
recommendations to the board for addendums with these two areas being those areas which we deem necessary for to have an actual addendum which are new hires and study trips that impact kids so those are two agendas two additional addendums on two additional addendums on
the agenda for approval can I have a motion to approve the adoption of the agenda as amended so moved second probably moved and second and roll call joe Truhart yes denise Johnson yes jean Buouie absent
addie Daniels Lane yes austin Edwards absent yolanda Lopez yes larry Trailer yes jeannie Weakland yes motion passed all right well we have a great distinct
pleasure of having our field rep Maryanne Freeman here this evening from New Jersey School Boards Association we've known each other for for many many many years and you've been not not a stranger to this overall board and we thank you so much for taking your time
uh to be here tonight but before we get into that presentation we will have remarks from our superintendent good evening good evening uh and welcome everyone to our uh meeting March meeting uh we just
want to take this opportunity i hope everyone is uh healthy and preparing for the spring i know spring break's coming up it's a little bit later this year so I know our team and everyone's excited about the opportunities to get outside and enjoy the day and so as we get
around to our schools we're seeing the same thing so really excited about uh what's taking place in the district but I did want to report to parents about two critical issues and to the board um that I know that people have been
watching uh in the world today one is that uh we've been listening and paying attention close attention uh to the reports that the Department of Education the federal department of education uh might be eliminated or drastically
reduced and how that might impact Trenton public schools and schools around us um we don't have direct information yet but uh we know and we'll be sharing as we go through the budget
presentation about dollars we receive uh that are uh earmarked as federal dollars uh and so we don't know the impact of those we haven't been told at all that we would not receive federal funding but we have been thinking talking planning
and preparing as if something might happen um and I know I've been asked that in many meetings and many many circles sorry fairly quick information
share progress and then share information so good evening um just want to take this opportunity to thank the board for giving us an opportunity to share information about goal progress uh I
know each year we start this progress with this process very early uh to determine what we will attempt to accomplish during the year and this in no way uh will share some of the really good things that are happening but there is so much work to do and a lot of pain
points in this work um but we want our public and we want the board to know that we're making steady progress and we'll continue to do so and in the areas where we don't do as well we plan to address those areas immediately so
tonight I have a few slides oh I have a few slides more than I wanted to so I'll move through these very quickly um to make sure because they're really a lot of what we communicate with you already but we tried to throw some things in there we
put a lot of images in to share with you because we think it's important as we talk about pro progress that you see it uh if you can and and at the end in June maybe have some video progress some testimonials about what's taking place
and what a struggle point like I'm not far away from that i understand that in every success there probably 10 times you aren't successful so let's jump right in let go in a different direction i think I figured out why it wasn't moving i was pressing the wrong button
so uh goal one student achievement the the last the slide before that was just the goals that you already have in your possession but what we've done is tried to share some evidence and information that you can see uh of how we are
accomplishing each goal and the heavy work that's taking place so you see in goal one the focus was on PBL which is project-based learning high quality instruction and formative assessment in ELA math you see the blue links what you
see in those pictures is some of the work that's been taking place during the training sessions during professional development you see some of our staff members involved and engaged but those blue links actually are hyperl and live
uh on the on your when I sent you the the presentation and the public's presentation you can actually click click those links and see the evidence of how this work is being accomplished it's vast so we didn't want to click
every link we would be here for all of tonight so I wanted you just to have an idea that we are making great progress and I have some data to share with you that I think speaks to the work that's taking place and teaching and learning and everything we do we we speak all the
time about about the five goals how the five goals actually reach teaching and learning our breakthrough result is high quality instruction in the classroom with appropriate resources we want that to
happen every day so every building that we repair every air conditioning unit every PD that we have that leads to this so as you can see we have some information here this is quick
information i can certainly go into detail with you at a different date but uh if you see in 2223 where the arrow is notice and note notice and note is a researchbased uh document that then helps our uh ELA supervisor actually
started to push in in the 712 this is information about the high school we've shared a lot of information with you about elementary schools and how how we're making gains so we're going to start moving into how we're doing in the high schools at the secondary levels but
you can see we've made steady progress and because the ninth grade you see Tangga the pilot and adoption so the first 2223 was notice and note that's the conversation some of the training and planning of the teachers with the
supervisors getting ready for it uh 2324 is implementation tangga has a year-long ELA program so the only assessment we can see this time of year is assessment form B that's why you don't see the
comparison on the other side so as you can see for three years we made small gains right but gain is gain 1% each year if you go over take those same students from 2223 and move them to the 10th grade
English 2 form A to form C you can see because we believe of the implementation of the work the professional development of notice and note and the work by our staff our teachers our supervisors we're starting to see those gains
37% from 28% when we started form A in 2324 you see the 2425 scores moved uh to 37% at the end and you actually see a gain in form A and both of them you see
a dip in form A and the uh English 3 that would be students who were ninth graders in 22 23 who are now 11th graders but you also in form C on that's the last assessment that's the comparison assessment how much growth
you've had if you digest that you can see we've come from 28% to start with uh for 10th graders to our 11th graders on link form C that's our internal assessment uh being proficient at
47% uh which we're proud of to see oh 41 i'm I need glasses to get that close so uh but getting there so uh 41% so we're excited about that um let's see this is that information shared again uh if you
look at the dark blue bar graph represents the implementation or the conversation around uh uh the the note notice and note notice and note uh because I'm going to go fast and forget it the orange is implementation you can
see in the implementation years of ninth grade and those ninth graders the reason why we have those two data points circled those ninth graders are now in 10th grade and you can see they went from [Music] 15.3% to 30 30.4%
uh in the new year from the beginning to the end of the year so you can see where we're making gains with this this is the same information if you look up to the big arrows on uh NJSLA NJ GPA ELA data
trends uh 9th graders made 6% three-year growth 11th graders made 5% three-year growth and down at the bottom our h uh hootin mifflin and hardcourt reading gravel lead reading level assessment uh
percentage at or above averages uh from the beginning of the year bi 16.2% to 27% that's plus 10.8 so that's gain that's work and we believe our staff and our students are doing tremendous work in the classroom
whom our teachers are working really hard uh working with each other and learning uh how to continue to implement we also uh have implemented AVID and 2324 28 teachers were trained impacting
2100 students uh we think this is our way to really move uh teachers are excited staff members are excited so you can see 142 teachers are now trained impacting 10,000 students and the focus
of this group they meet often is writing all three middle schools and the ninth grade academy correct all three middle schools and we have intent to go in the 10th grade and then to Capitol City uh in the new year but we have teams that
work together i visited one of their meetings just outstanding work around writing instruction what it means to write high quality um so I just wanted to share these things under academic achievement we're no longer just talking to
ourselves because we can hear us forever and agree with us uh even dispute us sometimes but students tell the truth uh so we have a student superintendent student advisory council we met twice robust rich really really awesome to be
with students because they tell you what adults can't say they tell you like it is they're on the ground so we're listening and we're teaching them how to be leaders how to bring information to us with facts uh not social media information but what's factually taking
place so they've been really really bright really really competent really really smart um so our technology and innovation progress in goal one you've seen probably this slide if any of you who've been able to go to Mcnite uh
elementary school and maybe Holland Middle School in their space Jefferson uh Dunn we are we are outfitting all 25 spaces over the next three years the spaces are amazing you can see some of
the work this was just an idea on paper after the uh information technology specialist at Mcnite designed it by hand and then our vendor came in and constructed this and then it turned into this this is real time real life if you
want to go there and see it it has these this is a real picture of the media center there redone from soup to nuts and it's our goal to do all of our spaces that way to continue uh you can see Holland
Middle School's innovation space uh if you go there it's totally redone we've redone Dun Middle School uh and we'll continue to add schools as we go through this process um you can see our team at Jefferson who is probably the the
furthest ahead they are actually innovating and we're working with them closely as they uh begin to integrate the technology into the instruction like taking a con taking content information and applying it using the technology
that's the goal we're not just purchasing the iPad and all of the screens and some of these pretty things that you see we want this to be a learning tool and a learning structure always so you see that at Jefferson and they've presented many times but you can
see the kids using green screen uh 9th grade academy autism class takes a virtual trip with VR class headsets so we have VR class headsets around the district and so those are really cool so I advise you to sit in a chair when you
put them on so you don't fall uh uh brother Buoie um uh and then you can see our work and our progress so far so green means active these schools are active uh orange is developing inactive means they haven't started yet but we
are bringing three or four schools on at a time on at a time so our goal now is to capture the rest of the schools and begin to implement and then innovation schools we have two schools that have moved really close to like they they're deep if you go in their schools their
their teach their students can speak the language uh one school has a 100% of their teachers Apple certified Apple teaching certified i forget the exact language but it's really neat to go in and see students using this this this
technology to learn and they're excited it changes the way the classroom feels when you can walk in and engage in that way um go two community engagement that was all under goal one that's connected to how we're trying to create spaces to
learn some of the professional development uh kindergarten registration is underway uh we've made an effort this year to get our kindergarteners out earlier um so that's trying to communicate and engage with the public and the community and parents let them know that they can come in and register
now and just to be clear registration does not come with pain it can be painful sometimes because we learn on the fly we're dealing with uh sometimes people who may not have the documentation needed so we want a process and our number one goal is to
not keep children out of school so sometimes it's very painful when we're going through this and we'll continue to work to make that process better um but our parent programs you see our healing heart series on the right we have multiple multiple schools multiple
nights you can see our parent connect series on the left we continue to connect in the community getting our parents engaged um and this is one that uh we're really excited about we have a tri- district consortium that's Trenton
um Hamilton and Euing we are working together to define outline create what community schools really are we have community schools written in our strategic plan and we
have two or three fully functional in district so we're saying I've talking with Miss Howard recently about committing funding the right way so that we can build this out but this is really neat this is from one of our sessions uh Mrs sun and Mrs grant have attended with
me eventually most of our team will go and understand what it means to be an actual community school we all think we do but when you go there there's so many pillars so many tenants so many things you need to know uh so the Mercer Community School Coalition we go once a
month and we spend lots of time and we're trying to become a triist consortium to be able to apply for large amounts of funding because it's difficult to do it in one space but if you have a large space then you have a better chance so we're really excited
about that um you know that we if you haven't seen them here are the the billboards around the city some of you have been able to communicate in English and Spanish on your PSAs so we're still communicating to the public and engaging uh the public
on getting our kids to school that's why I made the statement early it is safe to come to school as safe as we can make it uh but this is cool to see if you haven't seen those around the city we partner with Isisles Stacy Hetting and his team to uh uh create these
billboards around the city um communications you know that we're redesigning the logo if you missed that opportunity it was really cool uh so we will spend time designing the logo but you see some other things some professional development um and then
just regular communications you know because we communicate on the website social media this allows us to talk about what our story is styles change but stories endure and in those meetings I learned about the history of Trenton i
know that I better not touch the colors right i did learn that and I have people on that stage that said "Do not touch the colors don't dab a little blue in it." So what we're learning about the logo and we've done uh we've had logo presentations or meetings with students
community uh parents uh our staff uh and there have been battles in those meetings about what we want hopefully we come away from this with understanding our history but not only that what it means to us if you know what the logo stands for because no
one really knew what the little flowers were on that logo right and we started doing the research that's wheat on the logo so we're doing some work there um this is the timeline for logo rebranding for those of you who have been in those spaces if you want to be in that space
and you're in the audience let me know because we can get you in that space uh it's really cool to see but discover define and design we're defining now will be in the design phase soon um and this is the survey that's
going to go out uh maybe tonight if not it will go out tomorrow uh districtwide logo survey just asking everyone's opinions uh thoughts ideas on everything from color to style to what should be left in from the old logo so the these
are all ways we build community around us by bringing them in um and this is something to look forward to uh this is the brainchild of one of our board meet board members who uh has been attempting to get us moving so uh these are our
first two spotlights which will come out very soon and then we will actually be reaching out to solicit interest in our citizens academy so those two we have designed and ready to go with those and uh so we will be asking if you know
Trenton alumni that we want to spotlight send names i have a list of names that we'll go through but we'll likely I know there's some Trenton graduates on this stage so we'll be interested in talking with them at some point there's a survey that goes out collects a lot of
information and do we we do a feature story on that but you can see we were able to get this fairly quickly and so if you send someone to me make sure I have contact numbers they're interested all of the above um developing the whole
child uh you know some of our work there and what we're doing around trauma informed care but we're also doing some climate information very interesting when you look at this if you haven't seen the NJ guys surveys the school climate uh improvement survey that we've
given out to schools we're in our third year for pilot schools second year for uh all other schools we had seven or eight pilot schools what you see if you look across most most of us and you'll likely hear people that come here talk
about how awful it is in Trenton and I'm the first one to say publicly not the first one but I say often "No this is just not a bad place it's just where we are where we live you know don't say that about where children stay you know and we're quick to do that sometime but
if you look at uh sense I'm going to talk about sense of physical state the light blue line the really light blue line with the with the cut off score of they flag your score if you're below 2.5
sense of physical safety for students was 3.11 for uh at the top maybe I'm looking staff it was 3.10 for parents I think it was 3 2.85
oh 612 students in 612 uh 2.85 for staff it was 3.10 10 for parents and caregivers it was 3.33 so this is a survey where people can talk about us talk about us as much as they want score uses the way they
want this is the score and we've gotten tons of data from this if you look above that to the teal looking line you see a yellow triangle right so that line is I mean step away negative student
interpersonal behaviors that's how students behave and you can see all four areas are under 2.5 what does that tell us that tells us that that's an area to work on and so our schools are already working on those things to see if we can
get better results when this survey goes out the next time but I wanted to show you just an example of what this looks like so when we're talking about climate we're doing the work we're actually finding out what the people are saying about their space and then making decisions based on that data um
developing the whole child quarter 2 progress around uh trauma-informed care um the following schools have scheduled and provided workshops for their parents you can see Gregory Kilmer uh Hedgepath TCHS Tangga Franklin Stokes Jefferson
CCHS and Washington all schools have the hope team the hope is healthy outcomes from positive experience the hope teams exist in all of our schools so we're really excited because it's a lot of work we had to check ourselves and say
are we giving principles and uh staff too much because we're asking them you know to have every formal mandatory committee and then we have them creating other committees to try to get information for us to help our families
and our students so uh you can see some of the good work going there this is how we collect information we just wanted to show you this this is in your file so if you want to look through and see what we collect to make determinations about how to assist families please do staff
development well-being we had a powerful day with staff uh we believe that the third year has been our best year betina Dr betina Love was our main uh presenter uh she gave an awesome presentation uh
relating her life to education talking to our educators about who we teach and understanding who they are how they don't learn the way I did and what that means for us in education now so you can just see other images of us in the
classroom in the auditorium in the gyms working together just learning together we've had a good year of doing that as I said professional development doesn't come without pain points either because not everything we do everybody likes and so we get that we have to do better have
to make sure we get information for our people uh uh dodgeball if you didn't know we had a final four team on the right final four in round and the cheerleaders the business office
represented the district office well uh they made it to the final four I think the semifinal was it semi-final final four and eventually lost to guess who Austin Hu you know you know
uh the students who were here on alternative spring break who participated so what a great opportunity we had teachers and students and people getting hit in the face with balls and so next year we need a board team uh I don't know who's going to lead that but
I won't be on it cuz I stayed in the stadium this time Jean i just want you to know but really exciting and the way we're thinking about staff well-being we do have a day in May may 7th for staff um uh what is it called may 7th is
wellness Wednesday i'm sorry forgetting my terms wellness Wednesday um so let's go through so other things is you know we have our uh NJ uh educators wellness program through our health provider uh
for 24 the calendar year we had 1300 employees were enrolled and 23 employees see receive gift gift cards you can earn money uh in this program by walking just staying healthy it promotes good health some of our uh departments have teams
some of our schools have teams so we're promoting healthy living through this process finance and facilities uh district-wide interior LED write light lighting upgrades is some images about what we're doing in some of our schools
if you walk in you can see it you notice the difference in here when you walk in as opposed to the beginning of the year we'll continue to do that uh currently 70% of our schools are completed um uh air conditioned spaces uh in our in all
large gathering auxiliary spaces so we're talking about big spaces like gyms we have that up and running in classroom we're committed to get that in big spaces too because you might come from a classroom that's nice and balanced to a gym that's 100° in the summer or
freezing cold in the winter so we're hopeful to get that balance but a lot of good work going on there um we're proud that we are 100% complete on all of our um fire inspection certificates we just wanted to share a couple there so a lot
of good work some of the things we committed to and our goal work is happening or happened um improvement of maintenance in school grounds i can't wait i've been in my yard already in the cold so we
started that fight in the previous year and we're going to approach it again with a different intent to make sure that our grounds look great on the outside and our buildings look great on the inside we are committed so if you
hear about me you'll know uh that that we're committed to that process no excuses we want these things to be done uh I think that you're going to see a difference and we are work we've worked to get the appropriate number of staff members sometimes when things aren't
kept up it's because we're down staff and that's part of life but as long as we have people here we'll work to make sure we have great ground space um the Ziggler building as you know uh we're involved in the demolition process which
will start or has started uh asbestous abatement 40% complete overall project uh completion date is in August um finance facilities around the budget as you know you've had your budget
presentations we'll be be presenting as soon as the county I think in April we present because the county has to approve we're really excited we talked about uh some of the funding we received some of the funding that was taken we feel fortunate here because all of our
employees who want to work here can continue to do so and we feel very fortunate because we believe we can continue to implement highquality program programming for our students our staff uh and our families in the district so uh this you can see we are
working with the bank to increase our rate uh and then setting some parameters uh to have the ability automate charter schools and preschools providers so uh you can see some of the progress there um and then in uh we you know STEM
civics uh did announce and informed us that they would be closing so we had a STEM civics uh recruitment fair on grounds at STEM civics we were fortunate to get five staff members we will continue to work we're also making sure
that we're paying attention around us as districts might communicate that staffing might be reduced uh we're always looking for highquality people sometimes we've struggled to get vacant uh vacancies filled in those high
priority areas like bilingual special education ESL go down that list and and in a teacher shortage almost every position now has become a high priority so we did go there we're looking at their spaces also uh to see uh the
quality of the physical space to see if the district might be interested if we were to uh need space for students we're already taking students we have April 1st 2nd and 3D as evening registration at STEM for STEM civics we'll be working
to create teams who are here in the evening that can register students who want to come uh we are hoping that students we take them if they come but we hope they finish the year there so that they can get appropriate credit i was on the uh phone Friday with their uh
superintendent just discussing logistics so we're working closely with them to trans transition so and I think that is the final slide for me uh any questions a lot of information uh I just wanted to give you
a small swath of kind of what's taking place uh and I know I went through it fast but I'm happy to take any questions um what I'd like to do is um if board members can have comments uh to the presentation then any specific detailed questions would be in executive session
but okay c certainly general questions uh can be can be asked at this time or board comments thank you ladies yes I I just have uh one question you mentioned the hope hop program tell
me about that again and I was I was writing but I I don't think I uh healthy outcomes healthy outcomes from positive uh uh experiences and and what what is that again that's a team in the school building oh yeah okay
it's a team so team in the school building that focuses on creating positive experiences which we hope will result in healthy outcomes um so teams meet about and use data such as referral data to the office students who are
acting out students who are withdrawn in school can we create structures by which they are active in the educational process so there's so many things and if you look at that form that's right behind that that form collects specific
data about students and the family to determine what we do next maybe with an individual student or with a group okay and it's in every school is that what you said is in every school every school all all 25 schools yes thank you
great so I have three points so the first one is around uh the growth you know I'm a like passionate about this reading thing right and to see that growth well done all right so so I think it's important that folks pay
very close attention to how much our children are growing um when you look at where we start from it's not where you start from it's where they move to and so well done that was the first one the second one was
um uh Oh yeah the spaces i I really got to get some time off to come visit those spaces because that fantastic alive when children learn better when things are are like that and then the last one is
I'm excited we going to buy another building and keep a charter school from opening never mind i'm just close to borrow money to do it but we have to figure out but that's a great it's great that it's being investigated because we do need space but we also need to watch
the competition so yeah all right thank you i mean one one of the points I'll make about students just quickly that uh we we listen to what I think how the public and people may view our students as a whole but we are ultra focused on
them which doesn't allow us to pay a lot of attention to what people think they know we're spending time finding out the facts and that's how you educate you have to know where people are where they're coming from and meet them where they are so we will implement
programming that does just that and it might not be popular but at the end of the day we're interested in growth and can our kids get to that goal line and can we build foundations i have a question um a lot of the data
you presented on the growth was high school related um my question is what are our third graders doing since we started this program three years ago with when they were in kindergarten how's their
foundation coming along we see growth in third graders too but are you seeing them because they've been in it since kindergarten are you seeing them at a higher level so what I will do I mean standing here I can talk about it what I'll do we made a conscious effort in
this particular presentation because we always talk about elementary we presented elementary data from the time I got here so we want to be able to present in June i'll have both and we'll have uh DRA data and anything that we
can share about their progress but we're seeing progress we see it in higher in some pockets our dual language immersion students I'm told are performing well so we're seeing students do well i would just prefer to have that official data in front of you okay I'll do that for
you thanks i don't have a question i just want to say thank you this is exactly the presentation that we we're looking forward to and thank you to your staff and all the teachers involved that
have adapted this vision adopted it rather and are really making it theirs we're seeing as you know they may be small growth now but they are certainly bigger than they were last year yes so it could only snowball from here thank
you very much continue with the good work yep we we want to stay steady uh we know that you you know you have to build the foundation before you can actually live in the house so our goal is to continue to build and eventually we hope that things move so but we're realistic
we know where we are we understand the challenge so want to be smart about that yeah i was just going to say the same thing as my um board member Phil followed up with i deeply appreciate this presentation a lot of great information i was just curious because I
had a chance to go and visit some of the schools with you and one of the things that really made me feel really excited in visiting the schools was seeing the leader in me and a lot of the billboards inside the schools and I would love for you to talk a little bit about that especially as we talk about um one of
the goals being especially in the school climate survey uh dealing with students interpersonal behaviors and how the district is already setting up those strategies so any leadership program if you spend the time I think that uh what happened um maybe in the past is
commitment was very different so we said in the face of adversity we're going to commit to this and what it does is if we don't teach third graders second graders and first graders how to be leaders they're not seventh and eighth and nth
grade leaders right all of the students who lead but we did just didn't quit there those student advisory panels that I've started that's going to go down from 912 to 78 to 46 so we plan to close gaps
on this because we seeing that's where you see less behavior more um uh uh collaboration when there's an incident kids say "Can we go to the reset room can we have time in the space?" That's a
talked and now learn behavior that's adverse to what they learned in the beginning it might have been hands first and so we're teaching hands down talk first talk to each other talk to an adult get that out a reset room allows
you and it's off limits you can go in and say and almost do as long as you don't hurt yourself or anyone whatever you feel like you need to reset and then we're going to try to resolve the issue but I've been in schools where students come the same way they show up our
students don't show up different right they show up like you know they show up the work we have to do is to show up different when we are in in uh in their presence okay so tell me what's going on and as I said to someone recently so
that's is that really how you feel you know you have to talk through that and you get through a point where they're having that conversation because they might not been a might not have been able to explain it to you so leader in
me many of our social and emotional programs is really about teaching you know kids how to regulate themselves how to manage conflict without saying it's conflict resolution we take them in there and we're saying we're teaching you how not to fight now we have to
teach you about good leadership and I'm telling you for all of you sitting there and anyone sitting here if you're good leaders you learn that when you were one then two then three then four and then first grade then kindergarten it just keeps repeating itself it is a system
and what we're hoping to do around that work if we don't do if we don't teach you how to add subtract or write a letter if you're great at people you can do work in the world so but we do want to teach that other stuff we want to
teach it at a very high level so but but you got to be a good person and understand how to manage people and our kids are learning to do that so we're we're really excited about that work but I knew when I came I needed to provide some achievement data i love talking about all the great things we're doing
around social and emotional uh education and character education and building the student but I also know that um we have the public looking to see are you making gains and we talk to the staff about that um we are charged to do that and
it's my job to continue to push us to get to that point so we'll keep doing that work thank you any other comments that's it questions all right next presentation by Marian Freeman Jerry School Board Association Senior
Field Service Representative thanks Marian okay well actually before we do that if I could just say that was a wonderful presentation on where the how you've been working on the district goals and letting everybody know where you are
because that's really important because you're getting ready to do your evaluation and the board is getting ready to do your evaluation so they really need to know that information and you need to know that they know it so that they don't when they sit down to do your evaluation they're not scratching
their heads and saying we haven't talked about this in months so you've been talking about that and that's really wonderful it's very exciting to me to see all the great things that you're doing in the school district also and I think your students can only benefit from it i know that it takes time to
make those kind of incremental changes but it sure sounds like you're all very focused on that and I know that because we sat together if you remember last summer and developed those district goals and so what I'd like to do first
before I do ethics is talk to you about your board self-evaluation because that's another high point for today so I'd like to leave one have one high point lead into another okay okay so in your packet on the right hand side you will have your board
self-evaluation there's no um PowerPoint for this and as you know this is something that we consider any board that's doing the work at a 3.0 or above in the averages to be doing a very effective job and working well together
okay and all of your scores are over well over 3.0 so on the first page the things that we asked you to do were to give quantification of relative value of those nine areas that we asked you to evaluate yourselves on and I'm very
happy to to announce that your student achievement and board performance were given the highest rating of 4.0 i can't tell you how much that means to me when I come in and meet with a board and they've given a 4.0 to student achievement because that means that
that's their laser focus that's what they're truly focused on over the year everything else is right in there between 3.6 and 3 point and 4.0 so you're doing really really well with that if you flip to the next page you'll
see the planning section and by the way this is the last year that we've used this evaluation so next year when you do this the end of this year when you go to work on this it's a new evaluation tool and it's really working on how you feel you
individually have done as a board member and have performed and worked together as a board member and how you feel the board has worked together so it's really going to be looking at you as individuals and as a board and we've modeled that pretty much in um in
collaboration with the CSA evaluation or the chief school administrator evaluation so the scoring is still the is the same all of those ratings are the same as the CSA evaluation now so in terms of planning this is you're doing an excellent job excuse me with broad
community input you established a district-wide vision and goals multi-year plan for education and you plan and collaboratively set those goals every year so you can further you take your strategic planning goals which are at the top and then those filter down to
your district goals they filter down to your building goals to administration goals to department to building goals to department goals all the way down to improving student achievement that's how that whole system works and you're doing that on a regular
basis your comments are all very positive they're all about working together i know that you don't always agree on things and that's okay but you don't go after each other when you disagree on something you use you know you're you're civically and civily
engaged in dialogue without going after one another personally and attacking somebody and that means a lot and that's why you've had all of this training together you're a master you're master board certified which I have to compliment you on again because we did
that last spring I think or did we do it in the fall did we do it in the fall we did it in the fall at the county meeting so you earned your master it was the fall you earned your master board certification and that means that you have worked together to get that training and that professional
development and oftentimes board members don't realize how much they need that personal board development and professional development as a team because when you work together as a team you come together as a team and that's how you benefit from that professional
development just like your students benefit from your teachers professional development and your staff's professional development you benefit from working as a team together because you learn how to work together you've under you understand each other's working styles we did a program on that
over the summer and you learned about each other's working styles so you know why people are asking the kinds of questions that they ask and understanding that allows you to be more accepting of people and how they learn the way they do and how they make decisions the way they do because
otherwise it can be easy to just say "I don't know why this person needs this information this is crazy." And not want to listen to them but you do listen to each other and you've learned all of those things through some of that professional development in terms of policy this is also an area of strength
you're oppos operating as a policymaking b body and you're reviewing and updating your policies in accordance with CUSAC regulations cusack NJQ is the New Jersey quant oh my gosh I just went blank
quality account quality quality single accountability continuum wow there's only one other time that I did that and it was in front of 300 people at at a governance one training it was like in 2009 and I absolutely
went blank and I always said from then on I was going to write down exactly what CUSAC was just in case and I didn't do it this time and I asked somebody in the a if somebody could tell me what CUSAC was and they rose to the occasion and they did it but it it makes sure that all of your bylaws and your
policies and your regulations are all up to date and all re being revised and looked at on a regular basis and again your comments are all very positive in that you're working together always to improve your policies and move them forward when they need to be revising
them and looking at them on a regular basis student achievement this is also an area of strength requiring written curriculum um with specific evaluation components in accordance with all statutes a lot of teams don't have that
don't make sure that they have that you're already having that and you had some of that tonight you were given some of that information tonight and then using the expertise of your professional staff and your professional administrators to be able to bring student achievement advances and um
different revisions that they all would like to see along with your administrative team and be able to approve those and put those into effect and make sure that it's always focused on student achievement okay next
is finance this is also an area of strength for you exercising financial oversight over the district budget okay making sure that you have you know your your community has the ability to pay and that you're being financially
accurate and financially um responsible to your citizens and then also balancing the educational needs of your students with the budgetary requirements that you have and that was also very positive when you see something that's blackened out in the comments it's because it
could be evaluative of a staff member or the superintendent or the business administrator or an administrator i can tell you that they're positive okay there's nothing here that's negative but a positive evaluation is just it this is
not the place for those evaluations to happen okay you can't evaluate the business administrator the board evaluates the superintendent the superintendent evaluates everybody else okay board operations this was also
very high holding your meetings in compliance with all of your policies bylaws and statutes making sure that you respect the administration's leadership by thoroughly deliberating on the superintendent's recommendation and then as a board all four of those areas below
method of board governance contributes to the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the board board method of governance has clearly defined bylaws and our board method of governance lessens the total work of board members and it also ensures appropriate communication to the board those were
all very very high and you can see that through those numbers and equally as as the board about you as the board member those ratings were very high also sometimes I see boards that rate themselves as a board very high and then when they look
at themselves they're not going out and getting that professional development but you all have done that because each of you is individually certified in one way or the other in any of our certification programs and remember the individual certification is when you as
an individual come out to us to NJSBA for training so it could be workshop annually in October it could be county meetings it could be the delegates assembly um and it could be going to webinars and there was the w we just had the women's leadership conference so
some of you went to that um be able to go to those things that gives you individual credit when I come in and meet with you or somebody from NJSBA comes in to meet with you and there are seven of nine board members here you receive board credit for that that's how
you got from board certified to master certified because in addition to the 16 credits that you did which are 16 hours of additional training not just sitting here as a board but additional training hours and professional development then
you went the extra mile and within two years achieved 10 more hours of training and that got you your master certification so congratulations again board i'm sorry that's right it was one year and at that
point at that point I had just gotten Mercer County back okay because Jesse Adams had retiring and I remember Miss Mar Lopez calling me and saying "We need to do this in a year by the fall." And I said "No you have two years to do this." And
she said "Oh no we plan on doing this in one year." And I I remember saying on the phone "You're killing me i don't know how Because remember you're not the only district that I have and to get 10 hours in in one year is a lot so we did that
with a couple of different Friday nights and Saturdays we combined we had two hours on a Friday night three hours on Saturday you were all there you worked together and it was really wonderful and I really do use you guys as a model and you men and women as a model sorry I
don't mean to say you guys that was perfect [Laughter] timing but I do use you all as a model for that and and I think that you know what you do is wonderful and I know you want to continue to achieve those credits and you'll get credits for
tonight as well so that all gives you credits towards maintaining those certifications so your board performance you had a bunch of 4.0's O's in there where they're really your um your strengths recognizing the need and importance for
confidentiality making sure that everybody's working together in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect and also operating within the um and adhering to the code of ethics which we're going to go over next okay the next area was board superintendent
relationships this is also very high respecting the management responsibilities of the superintendent not delving into the day-to-day operations those are all things that need to be done for a board to be effective not getting into the minutia and the day-to-day operations is huge
making sure that you're working with the superintendent in an atmosphere of trust and respect maintaining those open lines of communication from him to all of you and from you to to u Mr earl conducting that comprehensive CUSAC review every
three years and working with the superintendent to develop the performance objectives and goals and we did that over the summer and we worked we spent a lot of time working on those and I think it's showing that those things are working because your focus as
a team as a board superintendent team and administrative team is all focused on student improvement and student achievement so again congratulations on that board staff relationships this is also very high providing effective personnel
policy direction and oversight recogn recognizing the importance of staff development i heard a lot about staff development in Mr earl's um you know update on the board on the district goals that's wonderful that you're making sure that they have that and treating district staff with courtesy
and respect also very very important when you hold that respect for your staff they can turn around and hold that respect for you because they know it's equal okay and um that was it pretty much it for board staff relationships
board and community is next and that's an area of strength for you also I love what you're doing with the community and all of those programs that you're doing those parent programs um acting as representatives for every student in your school not just your kids or your
grandchildren or your best friend's kids making sure that community involvement is encouraged in the district also promoting the community use of school buildings and school facilities was also very high so those were all areas of strength then the next thing that we ask
you to do is talk about what your highest priority is in in talking about your highest priority being student achievement what are three major challenges that you feel are facing the district in the upcoming year and not surprising all of the things that you
talked about are already being highlighted in those district goals okay you're talking about student growth and performance and attendance talking about special ed continue to provide that compliance bilingual education increasing graduation changes in federal
policy we don't know what's coming down from the federal level and so being prepared for that and the fact that you all are working on that to make sure that you're updated and that you know what's coming down as soon as it happens is really important continuing professional development for your
teachers and your staff continuing to be aware of any budgetary challenges that you might have increasing enrollment teacher and staff shortages and community involvement those were all some of the challenges and those are all what's already being addressed in the
district goals that you all developed for this year and they're being addressed in a positive way and they're take they're accelerating and they're taking effect then we ask you in terms of effective oversight what specific areas of board governance require
additional focus on your part you talked about board retreats so I'm sure that there's going to be a phone call coming very soon about we need some dates for board retreats and that's fine that's wonderful continuous improvement for the board you expect your students and your
staff to have continuous improvement and you expect that of yourselves as well and that really means a tremendous amount equity and inclusion understanding student data which Mr earl went over some of that with you tonight and he talked more about the high school because usually these things are talking
more about elementary but he's already said you're going to get all of that information and see what that looks like for your end of the year um conclusion of how things wrapped up with the district goals your stakeholder engagement your strategic plan is through the end of this year and then
you'll be able to start working on another strategic plan if you would like to so we can talk about that um legal and policy trends you want to stay up to date on those looking at schoolboard notes which comes out every week and also looking at school leader which
comes out four times a year you can really get a lot of information about labor relations governmental relations and legal and policy kinds of updates in those areas and then there's also I don't know if you're aware that there's a new newsletter that's going out I
believe it's going to be four times a year called capital watch and that talks about legislation and so there there's one issue that's gone out already and if you go to advocacy resources on our website there's advocacy resources as a
tab you'll see on the right hand side capital watch so you can click on that and you can get lots of really good information on that so that's your board self-evaluation and then to take that further we look at the charts so we always have the charts and you all have
this in your packet as well the first five areas from planning to board operations are those are your task areas and that's where we often find that the board feels that they do better as a board together than they do as individuals and then the last four areas
are your relationship areas and we what we looked at on this first chart is how you rated the value and then how closely you feel the board is working towards that value and you can see that those two columns are very close together there's not a big gap between those
areas okay which is also very positive the second chart talks about your board to individual ratings and so in this one in the blue and the and the yellow you can see that in policy finance board operations and board staff relationships
the board rated itself higher than you did as individual board members and then in five areas you rated yourselves as individuals a little bit higher than the board but all of those things are very positive they're all very close together there's no big gaps there i don't see
you know a full point and remember we're looking at anywhere from zero to 4.0 so if there's a gap of 0.5 it's a big gap and I'm not seeing that anywhere then the last thing that we look at is your chart this year to last
year now next year you will not have this chart to look at because there's a different chart based on the standards that we've put together for the new board self-evaluation but you can see that in all nine areas they're rated above 3.0
and are pretty much very similar to last year there might be they might be off by 0.1 but that's not statistically significant either so in all of these areas you're doing just as well as you have over the past year and that's really something that's positive any
questions on the board self-evaluation this is really good and it shows the work that you've done as I said to um Miss Wiglam in the in the conference room I said "This is a really good evaluation." She said "Do you know why?" And I said "Yes I do because you
all work together and you work together to get that professional development to be able to work more effectively together." And that's when we see scores like this so again congratulations i look forward to working with you again over this next year i'm not going
anywhere and um I hope that's a good thing as far as you guys are concerned and um if nobody has any questions we'll go into ethics okay and see see how we can get through this okay so this is the ethics program
for school officials this is our basic disclaimer the information that we're giving you tonight is not legal advice it's information if you have questions about legal advice or need legal advice you would always want to talk to Mr r about that okay he's your board attorney
he's the only person you should be taking legal advice from okay the next thing is the school ethics act was really developed um in order to the the legislature wanted to feel that it was essential that the conduct of school
board members provide that have that respect and that confidence of the people in their communities and so in order to do that they put together some guidelines which will make sure that you're not violating the public's trust and will also make sure that you're not
even giving a justifiable impression of violating the public trust okay with the ethics presentation and with the code of ethics it's not just whether somebody actually violated but if they've given a justifiable impression to the public or to the staff that they have violated the
public trust okay so in order to guide the conduct school officials have the benefit of some specific standards and then some disciplinary mechanisms to help to guide them in and you is used to um uniform for uniform maintenance of those
standards these are considered to be the minimum standards that board members should be able to maintain in terms of ethical standards so the provisions of the act and accountability are on the left are the provisions that apply only to board members or trustees board of trustees so
your charter schools and your traditional public schools and that's the code of ethics and mandatory training so as board members you have to comply with those and make sure that you're always staying in compliance with those two things and then things that provisions that apply to all school
officials have to do with prohibitive acts which have to do with conflicts of interest as well and then your disclosure statements so you all know that in January if you're reworn in you have 30 days to get those disclosure forms in to the Department of Education
these are public documents once they're once they're completed and then anybody that's returning that's not being sworn in again in January has until April 30th to get those done okay and if she hasn't already Miss Howard will be getting
after you if you haven't done those but typically boards are getting that information through the state department of education and they can go in and complete that i always suggest that when you complete it for one year you print it out before you submit it so that you
have that to look at over the next year okay and all of us at officers at NJSBA have to abide by the um disclosure forms and they do also because they're board members in their own districts but professional staff at NJSBA we have to
complete these also so we do these every year by April 30th if somebody's hired at NJSBA or if one of your administrators is hired um then they would have to do it within 30 days okay so who enforces the act the school
ethics commission so for tonight's purposes the SEC is the school ethics commission and not the securities and exchange commission and the body that they are the body that's um charged with enforcing the act there are nine total members right now we have six that are
functioning as at the at the school ethics commission there are five non-school officials two board member school board members th there are two seat those two seats are vacant right now and then two school administrators there's one seat that has a school administrator on it and then no more
than five can be from any one political party because they do want the school ethics commi commission to be nonpartisan and there are nine members and they're usually appointed by the governor for a three-year term okay so again those financial and
personal relative disclosure forms you have to do those within 30 days of being re-sworn in or sworn in as a new board member or when somebody takes their position their first day of work for administrators and then returning school officials have to do it by April 30th of
each year so what training is mandatory you are some of the most trained school officials school board members in the country because you have four levels of train of mandatory training the first one is governance one it used to be that
you had the whole year to be able to take governance one now you have 90 days so anybody who joins the board who has not been on the board for more than three years would have to take govern or has never been on the board would have to take governance one within 90 days
and governance one or new board member orientation gives you basic knowledge and skills about CUSAC about HIV harassment intimidation and bullying superintendent evaluation the open public meetings act and also the code of ethics and then by the end of year two
of your first three-year term you need to take governance two which is finance and policy by the end of year three you'll need to take governance three which is about student achievement and labor relations and then every fourth year or every reelected year or
reappointed year you'll take governance four which is legal updates okay so governance one is within 90 days governance two and three you have the full year to do it however if you go to workshop in October and you're due to
take governance two or three next year you can take it at workshop and still be covered for the mandatory training not so much for governance 4 okay so governance four you would have to take in your actual fourth year or reappointed year because those are
updated every year so if you took governance 4 this year for next year you would be getting this year's legal updates and not next year's legal updates okay make sense yes
okay so I guess my question is twofold the governor is four since I just got elected again I have to take it right right can that be online or does it have to be in person no it can be online so you'll see we provide the training through in person live virtual you can
go to a live virtual session you can do live in person or you can do self-paced great thank you okay there's all different kinds of of mechanisms that we have for that so if you go on to our website and you look at you go to mandatory training under our services it
will show you when those different programs are being offered okay okay and then advisory opinions so advisory opinions are given and board members can ask for advisory opinions any school official can
when you think something might happen in the future okay i may have told you this already but when I was on my board and I got onto my board if I told you this already just do this um there was another woman that ran at the same time that I did and we had April elections at
the time because it was 1999 and she came to the board and she said "My husband's thinking of running for the town council if he should be elects for town council and should be elected would there be any conflicts of interest for me or for him?" Well the SEC can't
really tell you what conflicts he might have if he won the election and he did win the election but it was on proposed activity not on something that had already happened and so we got back as board members as a board all the
information that she would have to abide by or think about when she if he was elected which again he was so remember if you had an April election back in 99 and your budget failed because we all voted on our budgets at that point then as a board we would have to go to the
town council if she went to the town council then he shouldn't be seated at the town council at the township committee level making a decision on that if she recused herself then he could be sitting at the table and make decisions on that okay um and it gave us
lots of other information that was valuable shared services things like that that one of them would need to recuse themselves from but again it did stipulate that the SEC cannot control or enforce somebody who's not a board member so they had to come to those
decisions themselves and we were lucky that they always came about it fairly and one would participate in one thing and the other would participate in the next thing so that was always helpful so it's future conduct that's happening and your board attorney on the school on the
board's behalf can request an advisory opinion if you think you might be requesting an advisory opinion for something that's coming up that you're not sure about the SEC is asking that you first look at the plethora of advisory opinions that are on the
website or talk to your board attorney to say "This is my situation do you know if this has already been given an advisory opinion?" because they don't want to be doing things multiple times and they're they really get bombarded with advisory opinions and with
complaints okay then a complaint u or actually so six members of the SEC would have to vote in the affirmative for that advisory opinion to become public and oftentimes they are if they feel it has broadreaching or far-reaching impact
then they will make those um those public information okay so if you ask for an advisory opinion because we've had a lot of board members not here but a lot of board members who said so I asked for an
advisory opinion but it was just an opinion so it really I am here to tell you that we at NJSBA cannot make up the stuff that happens in New Jersey we just can't okay
all this stuff is true so if you have asked for an advisory opinion and then you turn and you've been told by the SEC by the school ethics commission that you should not engage in those act certain activities and you engage in those if somebody files an ethics charge against
you it will most likely not be the lowest punishment or disciplinary action because you've already been warned so it's like if you went up to a policeman and said "I'm thinking about doing 65 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone." And the police officer says "I
wouldn't do that if I were you." And then you go out and do that you're absolutely going to get a ticket right you're not going to get just you know a verbal okay I'll let you off this time you didn't know so that's where the advisory opinions are telling you what
would constitute a violation of the ethics code and you need to be advised of that and you need to be really cognizant of that okay so these are some advisory opinions that were released in 2024 um there was one that asked can a board member review I'm only going to
read a couple of these and you're going to get this tonight i'll send it to Miss Howard in a PDF so you'll have it the reason we don't bring it in anymore is because we do this in November December we update it for the year but then there's always changes and so we found I
think two years ago that we had about 400 copies of a PowerPoint that we had to make changes to that now are no longer really accurate so we don't do that anymore we make the changes when we need to and then we send it to you in a
PDF so can a board member review the resume of candidates before voting on the superintendent's recommendation so the SEC said whether it's allowed is outside of the jurisdiction of the the school ethics commission but um if allowed the role is limited to
observation and assessment the superintendent solely recommends hiring to the board okay the board cannot turn around and say the board recommends unless you were appointing a new superintendent so that's the only time the board would recommend the
appointment of of staff or of personnel and then if a board member has an aunt who is employed in the district but she's not a member of the local union can the board member participate in negotiations the answer is generally
no because even though the person is um unable to is not part of the union the union and the negotiated agreement always influence those of the people in the district that are not under an agreement okay so they will always
benefit by the negotiated agreement and there's a bunch more there when you get this if you keep it electronically and save it electronically if you rightclick on any of those highlighted areas you'll be able to get to the actual decision okay and what it all contained and
included so some other advisory opinions um a child an who's a can a board member whose adult child district employee alleges that board counsel has a vendetta against their family participate in matters related to board counsel the SEC said to prever to
preserve the public trust the member should recuse themselves from any and all matters related to board counsel and then um can a board member who received and used an endorsement from the local union in their campaign materials participate in policy matters relevant
to union members so SEC says considering the type of level of union support um provided an absent of financial contribution it's not necessarily a per se conflict when it first came out I
think it was in 2008 that if a board member received an endorsement by their district's union their district's association they would not be able to participate in first year in negotiations at all and NJSBA kept saying to the SEC what if they didn't
ask for that endorsement okay because sometimes people don't ask for an endorsement and they get an endorsement and in fact the district that I had come from um there was a a person who ran for the board who had been very vocal about our negotiations the previous year and
didn't feel that the association should receive any raises that year ran for the board and was endorsed by the teachers association so that way he wasn't able to participate in negotiations that year
so there are some very very smart things that go on okay and that prohibited him from being able to participate and in honesty I believe rightfully so but now they're looking at each case individually and if the person didn't
receive a financial benefit they didn't pay for signs for you and put them all up they didn't donate money to your campaign then you can probably you know participate in negotiations but you would have to talk to your board attorney about that okay so then an
ethics complaint is anybody can file an ethics complaint against any board member okay and um they have to be able to do that within 180 days of the actual incident you have to be able to stipulate what
violations what tenants of the code of ethics you feel the person has violated and then provide factual evidence for that okay and the SEC will consider whether the facts and circumstances would lead a reasonable person to believe that the act has been
violated the reasonable person is the area that sometimes comes into to question okay so if the the school ethics commission finds that somebody has vi they've been they've had an ethics charge filed against them and
they find that the person did they feel that the person did violate specific tenants of the code of of ethics they can do a recommend a reprimand which is a rebuke by the commissioner okay it's kind of a slap on the wrist um that's not a formal resolution a censure
however is a formal disapproval by the commissioner and by the SEC and that means that that has to be read out loud at an open public meeting telling what the the board member's name is and what they violated and what the the disciplinary measure is okay it does not
mean what the term censure generally means that they can't ever talk again okay at a board meeting it does not mean that and then there's suspension barred from engaging in any board activity for a certain period of time usually it's 30 or 60 days and then immediate
termination is removal and we never want to see any of our board members have immediate termination okay because then you're really leaving the board in a difficult situation because they have one less board member to be able to help enact things so going to go through the
code of ethics the the A and in the the um kind of colored background there it's kind of a very faint blue or gray that's the tenant of the code of ethics the standards below are what you would have to be able to use to prove that somebody
violated that that tenant of the code of ethics so the first one is I'll uphold and enforce all laws rules and regulations of the state board of education and court orders pertaining to schools desired changes shall be brought about only through legal and ethical procedures the second excuse me is I'll
make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race creed sex or social standing
c is confine my board action to policymaking planning and appraisal and help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who would be effective by them d is carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but
together with my fellow board members to see that they are wellrun e is recognize that authority rests with the board of education and make no personal promises or take private action that may compromise the board and we're going to talk about the chain of command
in a couple of minutes and I know we've we've talked about that and I think you all have a pretty good handle on that i'll refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use the schools of personal gain or for the gain of friends
g is I'll hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which if disclosed would needlessly injure individuals or the schools in all other matters I'll provide accurate information and in concert with my fellow board members interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community
for its schools this is the tenant that's most often violated okay people may forget that they heard something in executive session sometimes boards stay in executive session in the same place they're having their meeting and the public is just excused and so those
kinds of things so a lot of times boards will move to another room to have executive session that seems to work better in my opinion anyway because you know you were in a different room not in this room when something was discussed and you know that's
confidential okay i'll vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer your superintendent is the person with the educational background the qualifications the experience and the
certifications to make those determinations he has to look at every applicant that that gets to him and say who is going to be the best fit for this particular school this particular grade level or this particular department and only he
can make that determination for this board so if you were a board member but you were a superintendent in another school district it doesn't give you the ability to make those decisions about appointments only your superintendent for your your district is able to make
those decisions for you and then I'll support and protect school personnel in the proper performance of their duties this is also one of those where you really need to be aware that talking outside at a function um whether it be at somebody's birthday
party or whatever don't talk about staff don't talk about board business and you'll be a healthier happier person okay and then refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and act on the complaints at public meetings only after failure of an administrative
solution so there's a a um a chain of command for everybody there's a chain of command for parents chain of command for staff and your parents you need to be able to know what that chain of command is so you can refer people back to the lowest level in the chain it doesn't
mean that you don't want to talk to them or that you don't care about what they're telling you you can listen to what they have to say but you need to let them know that your job as a board member is not to fix their problem but to give them to the right person who can
help them to resolve that issue okay so if a parent is calling and complaining about a teacher you want to refer them back to the teacher if they don't feel that there's resolution at that particular point they can go to an assistant principal or a principal then
they would go to possibly a department chair or a department head or an assistant superintendent then to the superintendent if something gets to the superintendent or he knows is coming to him he's probably going to let you know in executive session that there's
something that's being moved through the chain i feel like we can get that resolved but if we can't then it will come to the board and you want the person to know that you're talking to that if they get through to the superintendent and pass the I don't mean that they get through to the
superintendent like they couldn't get them if they get if they get to the superintendent and still feel the issues not resolved then they should send the board of education a letter not to you personally as an individual board member but to the
board of education okay that will go to your business administrator and your board secretary and then it will come to the board the superintendent will then let you know what has been tried in terms of trying to resolve the problem and then the board can can make a decision on that okay keep in mind also
that resolution doesn't necessarily mean that the person got exactly what they wanted it may mean that they understand why they can't have that resolution that they wanted okay then after you hear from that person and by the way staff has a different chain of command they
would have a building rep that they would go to if they had a problem and you could refer them to that person then they would go to union leadership and then go to the superintendent and then come to the board but remember after that happens after you've referred
somebody to the chain of command you want to let the superintendent know by the way Mrs freriedman called and she's having problems with her daughter Eva's third grade teacher eva is 33 she's not in third grade anymore but I use that as
an example and I to I had her go back to talking to the teacher and that lets the superintendent know that there's something that may be in the works that may come to him or her but it may not and usually these things are resolved at the lowest level okay so you always want
people to follow that chain of command okay so cases that were related to the code of ethics in 2024 i'm just going to go over one of these a board member felt that a staff member personally attacked him at a board meeting so he called her principal identifying himself as a board
member the board member's action to silence the public andor encourage them not to attend future board meetings by calling their employers to get them in trouble in the workplace can compromise the integrity of the board so that was a censure okay if any of these when you're
looking at these at home and I know you're going to read through every single one of these right when you're looking at these at home if it says recommended censure that means that it hasn't been determined by the commissioner it's gone to the commissioner but the commissioner hasn't
made a decision yet if it just says censure or reprimand so the censure was a a reading a resolution read at a public meeting with this board member's name and how they had violated one of the tenants of the code of ethics okay
somebody really did that you betcha the second one okay member was involved in ongoing efforts to reverse an HIV harassment intimidation and bullet bullying and code of conduct violation in her child's records contacts were made to the superintendent the board
individual board members and board counsel to further her personal agenda telling you we can't make this stuff up this action is unrelated to board duties the reversal directive is administering the schools a non-board member would not have access to board counsel and the
action of influencing board members to overturn a CSA a superintendent's decision could compromise the board and that was a reprimand okay so these are some of the things that happen pretty much on a daily basis and
we know that the SEC usually gets about 50 or so complaints of violation you know somebody violating the code of ethics and usually about 85 advisory opinions each year so sometimes when we feel that they're not acting fast enough on things it's good to know the volume
that they get and they don't even have a full commission right now okay um a 15-year board member took inappropriate action that was beyond the role of a board member the action of the board member usurped the authority of the superintendent who's responsible for
making disciplinary recommendations the board member took upon themselves to go to the employees home pick up a letter present it on behalf of the employee directed the BA not to give a copy of the letter to the superintendent and then instead of recusing herself from the matter in which she had a personal
interest and personal involvement the board member advocated on behalf of the employee and questioned the superintendent recommendation of the employee and that the recommended suspension is for 60 days now that hasn't gone to the com the commissioner
hasn't decided on that yet okay big no no don't do that okay um you're going to be able to look at a lot of these so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about this recusal and abstension this became part
of the SEC's recommendation um I think last year may have been at the end of 2023 2023 so if there's a board member who's conflicted and they want they there's an action before the board a resolution or
motion before the board they should recuse themselves from the discussion and from the vote okay you don't want to abstain because the recusal indicates that you have a conflict of interest and the SEC wants that to be a part of the
motion and the the recording of the roll call okay abstaining from a matter is really not sufficient to convey that conflict and you want to abstain if you feel you don't have enough information um you got the information too late you don't have enough information to do that
but it doesn't represent a conflict of interest so if you're conflicted you want to recuse yourself and then you would always talk to your board attorney because sometimes the voting then has different meaning to it and that's by policy so you would have to turn to your
board attorney Mr r and say "Okay how do we how do we measure this then whether it's you know approved or not?" Okay some prohibitive acts this is just an excerpt so you need to recuse yourself if there's a benefit to you as a school official or your immediate family due to
business interest or professional activity in conflict use of the position to secure unwarranted privileges financial involvement that may impair your objectivity service or employment that may prejudice independent judgment gift favor etc offered to intent offered
with intent to influence and financial gain and then other considerations is that you can't represent anybody else in an action before the board okay so if a board member and your family were taking action against the board you would have
to remove yourself from the board okay because you can't take action against you can't sue yourself okay and um it's not a conflict if it's not acrewing a greater gain than others so I usually talk about um because sometimes board members say if they have kids in the
school they'll say "Well my my child this happened to me um my daughter was in the band at the high school the superintendent had recommended ordering new band uniforms for all of the students and it was in my first or second year on the board." And I asked
if I could vote on that since my daughter was in the band i was told that as long as it was not purchasing a band uniform for Eva Freriedman exclusively but for the entire band I wasn't getting any different and my
daughter wasn't getting any more of a value or any more of a benefit than anybody else in the band so that's how you can kind of take a look at that and weed that out so the ethics regulations definition of a benefit is direct or indirect
advantage profit privilege or gain when whether personal financial or otherwise the determining factor here is the perception of the public it's not whether or actually it happened but the perception of the public okay and in this case an acting superintendent son
was one of 160 individuals was a large district on a a list of substitutes that she recommended for board approval she didn't recuse herself and that constituted using her position to secure employment for her son due to the son's financial involvement it might
reasonably be expected to impair her jud her her objectivity and that was a reprimand okay some conflict benefit cases um a member is the president of the parent staff association owns a spiritware company that donates
merchandise to sell as a PSA fundraiser through the company's website using the principle to promote the sale with the families use of this private company to transact fund raise possesses a conflict board members may not conduct business donate goods or services or collaborate with the PTO in the district in which
they hold office parents may feel pressured and in an effort to you know thinking that they need to buy something and the free advertising could garner benefits for the company contact with the principal could impair objectivity and so the person it was recommended
that they receive a reprimand okay immediate family definitions immediate family is spouse civil union domestic partner or dependent child residing in the same household relative is the bread box okay the whole ball of
wax it's spouse civil union domestic partner or parent child sibling aunt uncle niece nephew grandparent grandchild son daughter-in-law steparent stepchild stepb brotherther steps sister halfb brotherther halfsister of the individual or the individual spouse or partner by blood marriage or adoption
and that's covered pretty much in your nepotism law and in your nepotism policy okay and although the term relative doesn't appear in prohibitive acts a relative can create a conflict and anyone not listed may be considered as an other if the conflict exists so there
is a chart on the left hand side behind the code of ethics and behind your signing the acknowledgement that you that we had this conversation tonight that you'll give to Miss Howard today is March 24th 2025 you need to print your name and sign it give that to Miss
Howard and then behind that is that chart that gives you all of the relative conflicts okay so you can look at that that we consider at NJSBA we considered that chart a gift from the SEC because it really answered a lot of questions
okay you may not hire a family member or relative once you are a board member so most of the time applications for hiring for school district will ask are you a family member are you related to a board member okay because if you have a
daughter who's married her last name may not be the same as your last name and the superintendent may have no way of knowing that so you always want to make sure that that's in place so once you're a board member you can't hire a family member or a relative unless you appeal
to it has to be in limited circumstances it has to be difficult positions to to hire in and you would have to go to the executive county superintendent would have to go to the ECS executive county superintendent and say this is the person who's the best qualified for the
position and has all of the certifications and experience oftentimes the ECS will say please run the ad again and see if anything else rises to the top okay but that's usually the parameters that they'll use and then if
that's the case they will often say you can hire this person so they give the superintendent and the board a waiver to hire that person even though they are a family member or relative but then that board member cannot be part of negotiations or a part of any matters
involving personnel above their family members chain of supervision up to the superintendent okay you can however run for the board with 500 relatives working in the district that would be a gigantic
district okay but you can run for the board but once you run for the board and if you're appointed if you're elected you would have parameters that you couldn't negotiate and you wouldn't be able to evaluate anybody in the chain of supervision personnel wise above your family member or relative up to and
including the superintendent okay and if there was um going to be a superintendent search if your superintendent was retiring or leaving to go to another district you would not be able to participate in the selection of a search firm or anything that has to do with the search including and up to
appointing the next superintendent and negotiating the contract so for collective bargaining if you if the relationship to board member is an immediate family member or relative and the family member or relative works in the district whether they're part of the
current association or not negotiated um you're part of the statewide public teachers union or not you would not be able to participate in negotiations and not be able to ratify the contract okay if you or an immediate family member are
working in another district okay because you know as a board member you can't work in Trenton if you're on the Trenton board then you may be able and the person is in is part of the statewide union you would not be able to negotiate the contract but you may be able to
ratify the contract as long as the memorandum of agreement has been attained salary guides have all been done all the benefits have been identified and have been selected and settled okay if the person is a relative and they're not working in the district but in another school district they're
not a current member of a statewide public teachers association you probably can participate in negotiations and you probably can vote to ratify and where there are those little asterisks in the participate in negotiations vote to ratify if your family member or relative
or you are working in another district and you're part of the negotiations team at that district you're going to be out okay so the leadership in negotiations in another district of you or of a family member or relative would knock you out of
everything okay board members who receive union endorsement may be conflicted collective bargaining we already talked about that i think we've got that handled right um impact on committee assignments when a relative works in the district this came
out at the end of 2023 and it was pretty huge we used to say if you have a family member or relative you can't participate in negotiations and you can't participate in any chain anyone in the chain of supervision above your family member or relative up to and including
the superintendent this changed that a board president has a child who's working as an instructional assistant in the district the SEC said that they could not choose the chair or committee members or be on any committee that remotely touches upon or directly relates to the family members's
employment this was big okay including but not limited to personnel negotiations instruction and program and finance committees so where something would have knocked somebody out of two things previously now there's a plethora of things that
they could be knocked out of a board in the same district a board member spouse works in the technology department and the SEC said they couldn't be involved in any and all matters including service on a committee that remotely touch upon or directly relate to the spouse's employment
including without limitation personnel negotiations and/or finance committees okay so this made things a little bit more complicated when there's a board member that has a relative or immediate family member that's working in the district or when they're the board
president and then a board member's domestic partner is a transportation specialist the SEC advised that it would be prudent not to serve on the transportation committee that goes without saying okay advice of council defense for penalties so so there is a defice
defense of counsel that or advice of counsel that can be used however it usually only serves to mitigate the penalty so if you had advice of counsel and all four of those things have to be um all four factors have to be present
and have to be met the prerequisites for advice of council defense for penalties approval advice was received prior to the action the individual who offered the advice or approval relied upon possessed authority or responsibility all pertinent facts
and circumstances were fully disclosed and the individual complied with the advice received okay if those are not in place or even if they are in place and the person does that and the SEC somebody files an ethics charge against them and they declare advice on advice
of counsel that's their defense they may have a lesser um penalty if they're found to be in violation okay it doesn't negate the penalty it just may lessen the penalty volunteering in school as you know board
members are generally people who have come through volunteering in their schools you are not prohibited from volunteering in the schools but you have to think about how often you're in the schools to do that volunteering and what kind of authority either is given to you or you have taken upon yourself to
direct staff or students okay if you're in the schools I I like to use an example of I had a district a while ago who had three elementary schools one of the elementary schools they considered a class parent to be in the building once
a month okay another elementary school said they wanted the class parent in there three times a week i don't know what they had them doing but they wanted them in the school three times a week the three times a week would be a problem because you could be considered to be staffed by some somebody and that
would usurp your ability to be a board member and you also don't want to have any kind of authority over students or staff and you don't want to need to be directed by students or staff either okay so those are those prerequisites there so it's the frequency and the
level of involvement that you'll have if you're working with a PTO PTSA um PTA and you're involved in a book fair or holiday gift you know holiday boutique or something like that don't count money don't collect money don't
take money to the bank okay let somebody else do that it's an accident waiting to happen and really it's an accusation waiting to happen okay and we have had those so again volunteering in the schools if it's considered an inherent violation then that would be a problem
if it's not an inherent violation and each situation is is really considered unique so it's one time infrequent you're going on a class trip with one of your kids or one of your grandkids or nieces or nephews that's not a problem field triper that's not a problem meet
across America not a problem okay these are one-time things um if you're constructing sets for the play or you know to help the marching band move their equipment on and off the field those are not problems okay as long as you're not directing other people to do
those things and as long as when you're working on the sets students are not involved in that as well okay and then executive officer of a PTA or a home room parent you need to consider what your involvement is and um if if you're
on the PTA and there's a donation now that's being made to the board and you're very active in the PTA or PTO you'll want to recuse yourself from that donation okay social media when a board member makes a statement the SEC considers the
content the substance and the context of the statement we have a disclaimer that I'm going to take you to and I'm going to cut this short because you're going to have this to be able to look at later and I know you have a meeting to do so you want to use the disclaimer to clarify that you are speaking as an
individual not as a member of the board of education nor do you speak for the board of education nor does your opinion necessarily represent that of the board of education okay the suggested disclaimer is right there the following statements are made in my capacity as
private citizen and not in my capacity as a board member these statements are also not representative of the board or its individual members and solely represent my own personal opinions that used to be a get out of jail free card it's no longer a get out of jail free
card because depending on what the content of your post is or your communication is if the SEC feels that a reasonable person in your community would not be able to discern that you were not speaking as a board member you
will get nailed for that and be found in violation okay so use the the disclaimer but just understand that it doesn't particularly get you out of jail free okay it may come up that if your content is such that you're talking about the board and what you do on the board it's
not going to it's not going to protect you okay okay so does the disclaimer automatically protect me no um but it does help to clarify the capacity in which you're speaking what would cause me to be in violation again the content the message being delivered to the
public and not using the disclaimer if I don't use a disclaimer does that mean I'm automatically in violation not necessarily but please use the disclaimer and then must I use the exact wording no but it's best to use the exact wording okay just some social media
guidance once you're elected as a board member if you had a campaign um social media post or social media um site or you know um profile stop using that because that will inherently say to your
public that you are now speaking as a board member okay you can like or share a post from a personal account and if you're an administrator of a social media account it's not a per se violation but you would have to work through those things that are listed there as well i want to thank you for
serving your community your students and your staff okay this is some of the best work that you can do as an individual in a community it's often thankless and I hope that it's not thankless for you because we appreciate you and I hope that your community does
as well it seems to me that you're making great progress it's not go it doesn't happen overnight it really doesn't all of those test scores and things that's not going to you know elevate 50% 50 points in one year but
you're making great strides and as long as you continue to stay focused on those things you will continue to do that and then here are some of the resources that we used for this program i thank you so much for your attention and do you have
any questions thank you Maryanne Freeman thank you for your time we appreciate you we look forward to uh to seeing you again real soon okay call me and and let me know about some dates for for for August retreat yes we will thank you so much all right should I give this to Dennis
or to you guys dennis okay thank you so much have a good rest of the evening thank you all right all right so uh board members we're going to move on to uh to old business we had one item from the February 24th
2025 meeting uh students naomi Lopez and a few junior class officers were here uh making a recommendation to the board for digital um ability to pay for different events and things of that nature whether it be
Vimo or Cash App or other digital type fun for fundraising activities for payments um they made a a great plea to to us made made a lot of sense in our digital age but currently uh the high school in the district does not have the ability
to to process those requests at this time and so that's where we are with that but we of course we'll continue to look into opportunities in the future we'll now move on to board comments by board committee chairs in
your agenda there's an order for us to follow so we'll start with Larry trailer face and move down from there thank you uh thank you board president um the face committee has not met yet for this month we will be meeting on uh we'll be
meeting this week so um but can I I wanted to give some updates about um the legislative committee uh for the New Jersey school boards but I might save that for individual board comments uh yes board comments would be appropriate thank you
okay the report on the facilities committee um I'll provide an update of the various maintenance projects currently in progress across the district um required maintenance projects for Capitol City High School and Grant roof section uh the purchase
orders have been issued work at Capitol City is already in progress um the Trenton Central High School cafeteria extension the outdoor tent area uh the project is approximately 45%
complete the tent erection is scheduled to begin on Monday March 24th which was today uh Dun Middle School we have restroom upgrades um a site meeting was held with the general contractor and district plumbing
mechanics to review renovation plans for the four staff bathrooms uh reserve capital maintenance projects Zagler warehouse building the asbestos removal is 95% complete demolition is scheduled to start in two
weeks uh electrical service upgrades for Harrison Kalader and Franklin pos have been issued work expected begin mid to late April uh the new elevator addition at Harrison the purchase orders were
issued issued on March 14th the kickoff meeting is yet to be determined uh HVAC upgrades at Harrison and Franklin uh contractors are on board and equipment is being ordered uh renovation and alterations at
Tinga 9th grade academy the project is currently out for bid bids are due May 25th with the notice to proceed scheduled for June 1st 2025 emergency required maintenance projects uh relocations of buses and B&G building
and grounds fleet vehicles the township of Euing is prep preparing for excavation at building and ground site necessitating the relocation of several district vehicles uh Department of Health kitchen inspections ongoing inspections are
being conducted by the county office dca fire inspections state inspections are currently in progress and the right to know surveys and chemical dis disposal notification process is ongoing
um that's it for the projects ongoing um I'd like to announce that we will be uh we're putting together a committee with the superintendent to uh start the naming process of the new school that's
being built by SDA and the south ward um we will be sending out a press release announcing to the community the date of the first meeting for people to come forward with their suggestions on a name for the
building and that's all I have tonight thank you Governor's Chair we met on Tuesday March 11th at 6 PM and there's four items I'd like to just share with the rep for the with the board i have shared with some of the uh board members as well already uh we've made some
enhancements to our board agenda uh one is a table of contents for each of our sections of our board agenda to make sure that uh it's easy to to find various items that you may have questions on or may want to reference later on easy reference point just
enhancements to our overall overall flow of our board agenda to make our meetings efficient and effective and time time conscious you notice that we have in terms of our board commit comments by comm committee chairs a list of committee chairpersons a list of uh our
order uh will make help us to uh extradite our meetings as well number two wanted to make sure that we recognize and understand for tonight we have our pre-conference with our superintendent uh we do have and we go back into executive session uh we go through our schedule for uh from start
to finish for this year to complete our superintendent evaluation number three we want we looked at also August retreat one of the main things we did want to focus on is our strategic plan at our August retreat as one of our main topics but I'm also
looking for other board members to share what they think is important for our retreat so we can include those items uh for our retreat in August uh number four tonight we also have we have to discuss and share with the with the board and the public an
appointment of a new board member we had a board member on the board resign sasa resigned and so I'd like to like James Ro to to share the process and our policy around the new appointment of a
new board member james Ro thank you uh yes um quickly stated the uh the policy the the bylaw 0143 I believe it is that speaks to the uh the appointment of a new board member when a board member is lost simply states that in situations like this where you just have
a board member resign midterm the board has to publicize the vacancy i would recommend putting it publicizing like we would do a public meeting in a uh in a publication like the tranonia or star ledger or something like that um and then the board is allowed to receive
candidates and then invite people in for interviews the interviews can take place in executive session if the board chooses but any conversation about the candidates or their interviews must be done in public and obviously the vote must be done in public as well
thank you Mr rose so we'll start that process uh once we get the um the ad in the paper that process will begin uh after this meeting thank you all right so uh nothing specifically for grievance um but we did uh meet with HR
uh last week um getting updates from that uh meeting i did want to highlight uh just two two things uh specifically uh my favorite sections the uh new hire section all right where we have um a lot of people coming in um and I'll just
highlight a few things right uh we have a few people coming in at bus aids at uh $21 an hour bus drivers coming in at $35 an hour and we have a variety of different uh positions open right including uh special ed teachers science
teachers speech therapists uh math teachers right uh school nurses right uh and and not just for the board but for the public as a whole right these are amazing jobs with amazing salaries to boot with it right you know some of these salaries you know really
range uh starting off at like you know in the 60s right and some of them uh essentially are kissing like a 100K right so these are opportunities in the district that we provide to uh allow you uh to you know feed your family and really give back uh to our kids in every
very meaningful way uh the other thing that I want to highlight uh is not just coming into the district but also uh how many people uh stay with our district right uh if you uh look towards the uh section of retirements right uh we have
people retiring I think the the lowest time served right uh and most these are teachers right the lowest time served was 14 years and uh somebody's retiring right on the higher end uh custodian engineer 41 years with the district all
right and so I averaged everybody out and really on average right everyone stayed essentially about 25 years with our district which means that we are providing a great space uh for people to really thrive here so you know I'm just
excited to u highlight those two pieces of the uh HR report and I encourage everyone to uh not just come into the district but stay with us for a while get that good tier one pension going all right and uh enjoy your time here at Tren Public Schools
[Music] good evening uh my report for negotiations is going to be short and sweet and it is that we just settled the contract with our secretar's bargaining unit and we're very happy about that so
thank you and we are negoti We just signed off well at least I can say this for the first time in 15 years we are up to date
with all our bargaining and contracts that's great all right all right all right thank you thank you that's fantastic operations Mr buie uh so we met Tuesday we went over
transfers the transfers uh was a total of $66 million 2 million of that from central office the secretar's report treasures report travel and the bill list and for February 28th and u March
14th uh we paid [Music] 41,186,664 um we also got some good news that um the three-year comprehensive equity plan is being shared with the state so that's a good thing and then lastly
um I list out the donations because we're really grateful for the sacrifices that people make for our students um organization uh Philadelphia Eagles NFL $3,000 donation to Tren Trenton Central
High School it's for girls flag football initiative yeah um Isles Incorporated a mural furniture decorations valued at uh $2,500 for Trenton High School R&B um
Women Who Moves Mercer Non-perishable Foods valued $250 family and community engagement shine and Inspire Hygiene Products valued $250 family and community engagement girl Scout books valued at $300 family and community
engagement bethl United Holy Church $500 to Stokes uh clothing and toys for students uh Smith Family Foundation Trenton Thunder and Book Smiles $5,000 to Stokes for library resources and
winter jackets and we thank folks very much for their sacrifices for our children thank you good evening everyone uh I am giving the update for the policy committee uh so we met and you will see
uh on the agenda we have up first reading select policies for the 8000 and 9,000 series uh for second reading we have se select policies for the 3000 4,000 5,000 6,000 and 7,000 series i am
happy to say that we are up to date with um reviewing and revising our policies we were meeting twice a month to try to get that done um but now we are just going to meet once a month and um but we
still need to continue to um review the requisite policies and make changes um as suggested by our vendor Strauss Esbay um we're also going to look at uh what regulations needs to
what regulations need to be reviewed and revised as well that's it okay so um good evening i am reporting on behalf of the um teaching and learning committee and it met on uh Tuesday March 18th and at this um
meeting we reviewed specific um agenda items um they were in reference to numerous programs some that we um highlighted one was the expansion of um Abbott and the comparative data that supports this particular expansion we
also um highlighted a program that was tenatively named future forward and this program is being designed to support um students who may have had challenges with interrupted education or um challenges with um language learning uh
we also took a look at um professional learning that's being provided um focused on literacy during the summer and being offered to uh all staff that are involved with the uh teaching of literacy um there's also numerous parent engagement uh activities that will take
place um over the summer and we also took a look at uh social emotional learning um activities that were based on the um standards that were set we also received an update um concerning a concern that was brought to the uh board back in December uh about a student with
um dyslexia and uh the supports that were given to the student and the family after that particular u concern was brought to um our attention and in fact there are further conversations to be had regarding that particular um student and the support for the teacher um that
will be upcoming uh and that was basically it for our teaching and learning committee for um this particular month so thank you thank you board committee chairs we'll now move on to public participation i read the advisory for all the Trenton
Public School District welcomes the attendance and comments from all members of the public at its meetings this 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 a concern to residents of our
school district each person who signs up to comment will have five minutes you will be notified with your when your five minutes are up you cannot yield your time to another person when it is your turn to speak please address authority comments to the board president please conduct yourself in a respectful and courteous manner for
anyone who whose comments or actions either harass intimidate or threaten the safety of any person we will provide you with a warning or immediately end your comment time also if you curse use vulgar language or make personal attacks we will provide you with a warning or in your comment time comments that adhere
to these guidelines will not be interrupted if you have any questions please ask your questions during your five-minute comment period after the public comment period is closed the board of superintendent or designate will address your questions to the extent provided by the law we also ask that the members of the public not
interrupt the speaker during their public comment time our first person for public comment participation is Paul Bethea representing self and he has a question around the school district school
name mr pa good afternoon uh my name Paul Beth and u I'm speaking about the the school system of
Trenton and uh I had an act incident with my granddaughter at the at um I call it Mama Mika school but it's down West Street all right uh but I say it should be called Mama
Mik cuz she did a lot and um when I got there uh the staff handled it real good but the biggest problem was the
mother told her child to come to school and fight it wasn't the school they handle it very professionally but it was sad to see how a mother going to send her daughter to school to fight and my granddaughter was
involved in too but she got disciplined for that cuz I don't send them to school to fight you want to fight you get paid for it you know but when the mother got there she was using a lot of um bad language that shouldn't be used
in the public school and it goes back to say one time I came in front of y'all and I was talking about Monument School well I owe that principal a big apology and I said it here and I I was
looking from on the outside until I got in the inside the school is ran right and I want to give her a 10 it's ran just like Miss Bethea school miss Bethea school uh my daughter came from out of there she's
she's about ready to graduate and be a state trooper now so the schools in Trenton was ran perfectly all the things that he I was listening everything uh God I ain't got my glasses on forgive
me you know when you get that you lose your eyesight so forgive me brother but um the schools are ran perfectly but we got to get the mothers on board it's not the schools it's the mothers that's not on
board because if I can get the educ if I could just go back in time and get all the education that y'all providing for the kids today I wouldn't have made the bad choices I made for myself the kids do not really know and I
don't think the mothers know what y'all offering them their child man y'all made a big big achievement to where I came out of school in 78 when I came out of school
in 78 I couldn't read read and write they gave me my high school diploma but today you got the curriculum here these kids is no reason for them to go to school and fight you know do you really understand
what I'm saying y'all got it y'all I mean it's no excuse today what we got to fight is the social media because that's why war with the so that's the war y'all have y'all really actually fighting the social media
because the kids get on social media and they transferring this and transferring that and then when they get to school they're fighting and and and it's sad to see how how kids not going to school and getting
an education and they going to school to fight so I'm not saying from the board that y'all doing anything wrong and y'all can do this right and y'all could do that right but the parents got to get them involved you got to admit Mr bethe
thank you thank you and if the parents don't get involved it's just it's a waste cuz as long as y'all fighting social media the kids some kids going to go to school and get it but a lot of kids ain't in this day and time our children
have to go to school and get it i'mma close this with a note too what happened to the picture of the first mayor i'm not gonna mention his name he went to Tren High and he graduated from Trenton High
the mayor of New York City why Trenton High ain't named after him i'mma ask you that question when I see you again you know who I'm talking about i'mma ask you cuz I'mma see you i'mma ask you god bless you thank you Mr okay god bless you too one moment
please um have a student signed up we're speaking of the young lady to the right of me to my left to my No she didn't okay thank you just want to confirm that you were the student that signed up to speak just confirming that
our next uh participant for public is Joyce White thank you increasing use of TCHS pool is Joyce White here our next speaker is Judy Martinez from Tessa Human Resources judy
hi good evening board members and superintendent um my name is Judy Martinez and I'm here I represent the Trent Educational Secretaries Association i'm here tonight to discuss the concerning lack of meaningful
collaboration between human resource department and our unit the purpose of the union is clear to represent a collective interest in our members to ensure fair treatment to advocate for our unit likewise the human resource
department plays a vital role in managing employees relationships and ensuring compliance with labor laws however the current disconnect between human resource and Tessa has created issues that we have voiced to the superintendent and to the board numerous
times we have witnessed patterns of limited communication dismissive attitudes a lack of proactive engagement or just no response at all from human resource i have repeatedly requested information
from human resources which has gone unanswered for months one of the reasons we request information is to enable Tessa to police the actions of the administration to ensure human resource is in compliance with the terms and conditions of the
collective bargaining agreement between the parties we are legally entitled to do that decisions impacting our members are being made without adequate consultant consultants and input from
union representatives lack of transparency breeds mistrust and res resentment concerns raised by the union are often met with dismissiveness rather than a genuine attempt to understand and address the underlining issues
policies and procedures are being implemented without collaborative discussions disregarding the collective bargained agreement and the spirit of partnership instead of working together to solve problems there is a retro there is a reactive approach dealing with
issues only after they escalate the breakdown this breakdown in communication and collaboration is has tangible consequences it leads to increased grievances and disputes consuming valuable time and resources we
urge the human resource department to respect the collective bargaining agreement as much as I come in here to discuss all the mishaps of this district I love hearing everything that this district does for these students and the
staff and all the wonderful things that happen in this district but if you do not address what's wrong with the district you can never fix it you cannot sit up there and ignore the things that are happening that are bad in the
district everything isn't always all good two minutes Miss Martinez and unless you plan on helping people out and doing things and putting policies and procedures in place that will help the employees you're going to get nothing but grievances in return thank
you Miss Marcel to Aerosol good evening everyone marisa Toado uh Tessa vice president i'm here today to speak about the issues in HR we tried our best to communicate over and over again with the head of HR and who
have always mentioned the issues we continue to have without resolve to the superintendent as well as you all know I retired as of March 1st and though I am still in my TESA vice president position I did not expect to be speaking at a
board meeting anytime soon but here I am and I'm pretty annoyed about it but enough is enough on Friday we discovered that we have a secretary that submitted verification of previous work experience two years ago
and was never paid for it and she submitted it twice we now have all the emails that she sent to HR she will be paid from the date that she submitted it another secretary reported that she did not submit her previous experience as an administrative assistant because the
generalist told her she can only submit it if she worked in a school depending on which generalist you're lucky to get depends on the interpretation on work experience and salary adjustment we've gone back and forth with HR regarding prorating our
secretar's days our secretar's days are not prorated we finally resolve this issue with the last head of HR here comes a new one and it starts all over again then we think we resolve it and every single time there's a new generalist on
that comes on board here we are again a new member reported that she did not receive any of her entitled days when she started i again reached out to HR to let them know i get an email back that said that her days were prorated
and we're back again at one point it was happening with every new secretary and just when we think we resolve it each time the nonsense starts again the new secretary also did not receive her salary adjustment on this board
agenda after she was told in writing that she would she will get the salary adjustment from the date of hire because she submitted all of the required documentation before she started and don't get me started on the ongoing so-called process i don't
understand how you have a new employee come in you call them you offer them a job they come in cuz you call them to come in they have their paperwork in their hand and then the generalist says to them "Oh don't give me that right now contact me sometime next week week to schedule an appointment so that you can
bring the paperwork in the same paperwork she has in her hand." If you wonder why that process takes so long that's why the lack of knowledge in HR is insane and should be completely unacceptable
one minute please one minute there's no rhyme oraries on how this HR functions and at times she have two i'm sorry okay two two and a half now at times they were submitting salary adjustments for previous experience they
didn't verify but when a secretary does submit all of the required documentation they're still not paying them the turnover rate in that department is so high it makes one wonder why you aren't questioning that what kind of experience is required to work in HR what information training or tools are given
to anyone when they start in there and I'm standing here asking you those questions when I worked in the same HR before it is not hard to complete your job efficiently where is the supervision the only consistency in this department
is the incompetence that we continue to see in HR and the district continues to condone it thank you thank you Mr darren Freedom Green good evening Superintendent Earl Board President congratulations Brad i didn't
know they put you at the top of the voting poll congratulations congratulations uh I I want to talk to a couple of issues i have a couple updates that I'm excited about but I want to address what I struggle with right here in this moment the superintendent's
presentation was on point it gave us goals that we've achieved it gave us goals we're working towards and it laid out a vision of where we're going whether it's parents listening online community members like myself staff members even board members who are here you have a clear mental picture of where
we are but more importantly as Dr king says where do we go from here i was offended disrespected and I really felt violated listening to the second conversation it was between the trainer and the board members and I'm wondering as you sit up there you I all know you
personally and professionally you have great character commitment and care for this district how did you arrive at a decision of deciding to do a board training at the expense of the people nothing that trainer was talking about was pertinent to any of us that are sitting here and really we were tortured
listening to it because the information is relevant to for and about you so how did you think that was okay to take our time to sit here to listen to something that I should consider going forward should be done in executive session it's the trainer it's you it's the information it's what you need if and
I've committed to the superintendent to get this room packed full of parents and community members there's no way with parents who are working two and three jobs are going to come down here sit in chairs exhausted probably have to go back to work and then sit in here for an hour or so listening to a training
that's not pertinent to them or their reality we need to change that it's inappropriate to do it's disrespectful and again it's offensive i'm not going to come to this podium and be disrespectful even though I feel disrespect did because I've sat in this space and seen coffins rolled up i've
seen signs and disrespect i don't ever want to go there and I think this board has been a great part of moving us to a really great place but this tonight I'll be honest with you as I look you in the eyes I was disappointed that you decided to do that let's not ever do that again it's disrespectful to the people who sit here is disrespectful to people and
community members who try to commit with you to this great mission and vision of creating an institution where our babies can learn and grow the two updates are we're just about in place to start with the high school with the uh uh entrepreneurship program that we're doing it'll be eight weeks for the high school students when they leave the
program there'll be official LLC's what are we struggling with here attendance and really good behavior so in the lessons that we're teaching we're moving them through courses where they become a business an institution a brand and it changes how they value themselves others
and their community and I think would have a great impact on students coming to school now because the thing that they're learning about the thing that they're growing is benefiting the greatest weapon they have which is themselves as we do updates and we move it forward I'm going to be excited to come down here and give you good news
about good things which what we should do when we come to this podium this can't always it's okay and the last thing I'll say is I'm working with the amazing principal at Darlene C mcnite Mr elijah with I'm like the elder Gene now my grandson goes there so I'm over there consistently now
uh he's 5 years old but he's a whole handful but also some of the work that I'm going to be doing and I said to the principal I committed to do it i'll speak to any of the students who are having problems with behavior attendance and doing that work and just so people are listening I'm not being paid for any of that work because I'm doing that work
to honor the beautiful matriarch that that school is named after she was a mentor to me and I think that's how we transform this district by doing the work that needs to be done by speaking not about the babies but into them but I just want us to be clear about where we're going and how we're going to get there it require all of us who live here
to be a part of getting us to where we need to go thank you thank you Mr green that ends our public participation we now have Yes Mr buick okay all right sir all
right board discussion national consent agenda i have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second was it properly moved and seconded question on the motion what's the
question right here hr all right one other thing I want to share with you in reference to the board agenda announcement is uh two employees were pulled from the terminations 115463 and
115363 this reflect in the 325 32425 board meeting minutes this is our minutes for tonight that is the adjustment excuse me Mr ro now you have to read the agenda okay have a motion to read the
agenda with that change so moved second it's been properly moved and seconded roll call gerald Truhart yes denise Johnson yes jean Buouie yes addy Daniels Lane yes austin Edwards uh yes just recuse from anything
oh we're not there okay all right so yes yes yolanda Lopez yes mary Trailer yes jeannie Week yes motion passed okay so the the board's consent agenda has been pro moved second and approved
uh any board discussion on the action on the consent agenda any questions see seeing no we did the roll call we approved it correct so now we'll move on to I thought we did that already amended the
agenda okay so we amended now okay now I need a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended yes so moved probably moved and seconded roll call gerald Truhart yes denise Johnson yes jean Buouie yes addie Daniel
McClean yes austin Edwards yes but I'm recused from anything involving okay eliza Lopez yes yes and I recuse myself from anything involving larry Trailer yes jeannie Week yes but
recusing all things related to Grand School motion passed got you now in terms of board board member comments I do want to make a first comment u want to make have a moment of
silence we had two two former board members Wanita Joiner as well as Alanon Ward transition uh unto eternal life as well as we had Rocky Peterson our former board council also transition
from this life to eternal life so I want to have a moment of silence for those three members of our community thank you any additional now we open up for additional board comments mr buouie uh yes so
um I think that uh it's important for the public i just want to go on record that we are required by law to have our ethics um training in the public um and and that that's been done because it it
forces us to be to act responsible for the things that we are accountable for and so you know I don't think that was known so I think it's important that folks know that that we do it every year um and this time it just happened to be
backtoback with our um self-evaluation but but we are required by law to have our code of ethics training in the public so that there is no way we can deny that we weren't taught the public
knows exactly the grounds uh and the things that we're responsible for so I I think that uh it's important to that everybody knows that's why we have to do it in the manner in which we do it right i'd also like to add that besides
um it having to be in public cannot be done in um in executive session uh one of the purposes is for our stakeholders to also learn the things that we need to do what we're responsible for and so
that they can really also be involved in in um evaluating us the proper way there are things that uh as Mr betha said earlier he didn't know how things worked at the school until he was in the school
and so that's one of the things that we're hope we're hoping um to see our stakeholders learn about the board but at the same time I was wondering and maybe this is something that we can discuss later on in
committee is if maybe some of these trainings can be held with the face uh committee meetings and made public you know because we have to everyone has to be all all the board members have to be there so it has to go through the
process of going public so something to think about yes uh yeah just very briefly uh one thing I wanted to not today's discussion but a different discussion uh I just want to
salute the uh uh the kids at Trenton High uh over this past weekend they had an amazing Aladdin performance i am slightly ashamed to admit that I had to be a whole 34 years old before I ever saw Aladdin in my life all right
that's true story all right but they performed it excellently um I know I was there for the Saturday bilingual um uh performance um so outside of them just uh doing an amazing job uh pretty much putting on a Broadway performance I love
the bilingual aspect of it because if anything it really forced me it was just like oh okay I'm learning very specific phrases right that I had no idea about or you know just the context really helped educate me and I know that's uh that's an effort that we're trying to do kind of in the schools itself right you
know really prepare our students for you know not not just you know graduating from Trenton but really being you know not just US but global citizens and I thought that that was amazing because there were so many students uh that were performing that you know openly said this was the first time they ever really
had to learn and speak a different language so they were learning real time along with us so I just thought that was an amazing performance wanted to highlight that and um uh and everybody involved in that performance thank you oh okay so I just wanted to share that
um I represent um I serve as a representative on the board of directors for New Jersey school boards and um at a recent meeting just as we're talking about budget here in the district they were also talking about budget and just for our information um their budget this
year is going to have a 1.5% um overall increase uh in the dues that we pay so we'll we'll have to um put out some additional funding to continue our membership in New Jersey school boards um there is however a strong focus on um staff development but again it's a
1.5% increase in um members uh dues and also there will be a large degree of variability in those dues i'm not sure why that is um I think uh Maryanne I know I see her face right uh Maryanne has also talked about this uh new
quarterly online online newspaper the um Capital Watch um and that Capital Watch provides critical updates on pending legislation that could significantly impact New Jersey schools and students and communities so that's something that we do need to pay attention to especially in light of things that are
changing uh also the New Jersey School Boards Association had the new board member orientation weekend they've done um two this year they did one in uh one in uh January I believe and the other one in um February and they also have a new category of membership for this year
an associate membership and it's for district technology leaders they can belong to New Jersey school boards association with an associate membership and there are upcoming spring training programs uh including the women's conference that was held this past Friday the school public relations forum
it's coming up on April the 4th and the equity expo that's coming up on April the 11th all right and also our um Mercer County School Boards Association last week held an unsung heroes student recognition ceremony um at West Windsor Plainsboro High School last week and it
involved all of the high schools from the Mercer County area and we had six or seven students and whose names I won't attempt to say because I can't pronounce them correctly so I don't I won't want to embarrass them or myself but again we had six students representing um the different communities at the high school
as well as Capitol City and they received uh recognition as unsung heroes and again it took place at West Windsor Plainsboro High School and our schools were very well represented just want to say that so thank you Denise Johnson Vice President
yes actually I was just about I was going to mention the unsung heroes uh ceremony and how nice it was to um or refreshing it was to hear um those
students highlighted um by their different school districts so it was it was nice to be I had never been um at the West Windsor Plainsboro High School i've always driven by it so it was nice to be there but also to see those
children just embraced by their uh school counselors and administrators and their parents so it was nice to be there so thank you Addie for mentioning that and I just wanted to thank superintendent for sharing with us the data on the student achievement um it's
nice to see the results of testing to ensure like your interventions are working so and I'm I'm glad that we're going in the right direction so thank you for sharing that this this evening yep so um had a conversation with Addie
and with um Denise Johnson and we we all agreed that was important to uh have updates from the Jersey School Board Association as well as um Mercy County School Board Association both uh Eddie and Vice President Johnson are delegates
and and alternate delegate denise is the delegate and Addy Lane is our alternate delegate and so it's important that we hear the work that's happening at the state county and state level and so thank you so much for both of you we're going to continue to do that um each board meeting if there's any updates
that they might have from the Georgia School Board Association um they will certainly let us know and keep us informed of what's happening at that at those other levels yes Miss Lane okay because I'm thinking that Larry represents us in terms of the legislative aspect of the um New Jersey
school board so I'm not sure if there's anything that Larry needs to share larry yes I was going to u mention that thank you thank you Addie for saying that um yeah so the legislative committee they met on the 15th and u one of the big things that they was talking about was the full the budget proposal for fiscal
year 2026 got released so they was telling us that they are having um public hearings to solicit feedback and input on the budget one will be tomorrow morning on the 25th at the state house annex um that's for the assembly budget committee and for the senate budget
committee is going to be Wednesday the 26 at 10:00 and then on Thursday April 10th at 10 o'clock and that one the Thursday April 10th is going to be online um big thing with the budget this year is that um the budget will have
uh a 3% increase over fiscal year 2025 with uh 12.6 billion with um proposed with um expanded school preschool aid um and focus money on teacher retention and recruitment uh
student health um they're going to be giving out um proposal $3 million for cell phone removal grants and um $2 million in schoolled filters i think those things are really big important things especially along with um proposal 7.5 million which is new for high impact
tutoring grants so these are those are some of the few updates we also had a speaker um come in and speak to us about um uh from the legislature talking about his um one of the bills he's a sponsor for which is talking about cell phones
which is something that um our board member Sasa mentioned that the state was looking for and the bill basically requires cell phone and social media guidelines um be developed by the by the state department of ed um and that the policy would match each adopted school
district so um you know uh that was a you know was a growing conversation that we're having and they're trying to find a way to balance uh knowing that that we use technology students may need it for emergencies and but making sure that that's not something that's going to
disrupt instructional time and um you know impacting student student learning so uh that that was one of the big things that they're trying to find a way to make sure that um the legislation gives districts the flexibility to describe for themselves but that's going
to be a state standard guidelines moving forward once the bill pass so those are the major updates from the legislative committee larry did you say 7.5 for tutoring 7.5 million for tutoring is that is that
what I heard you say yes i will actually share with y'all the uh presentation but um that like that's a new addition to the proposal budget it's 7.5 million in grants for high impact tutoring for grants okay great thank you for the
state any additional comments request say yes Miss Wland yes i just I had a busy month so I'd like to go over and uh thank um Mr pereira and uh Michelle Morazzo at Mcnite School for invitations to their
Black History Month living museum at the end of February which I attended um it was an impressive and engaging event that showcases students dedication to honoring and educating others about significant historical figures within
the African-American community the student presentations were wellprepared and thoughtful and it was inspiring to see their enthusiasm in bringing history to life i also participated in Read Across America and enjoyed uh reading to
a bunch of third graders and while there um I was able to tour the new rebuilt new library over at Mcnite School and it's just beautiful it's this whole engaging area that just kind of lights
up the hallways of the school that it's so bright it's age appropriate there's you know there's some technology in there but not a lot of technology there's a lot of books for the kids to read and everything and I look forward to seeing these type of libraries in all
the schools because I think the kids will really benefit from it and that's all I've got for the month thank you good everyone everyone all right just one one more last comment uh 2025 great futures dinner a snowy soray February
2025 you have this uh with you i attended this event hosted by the bro boys and girls club of Mercer County uh who will be named youth of the year uh just so you know we have if you look inside the uh the uh program about 98%
of the students are from Trenton or Trenton students and one of our youth was named youth of the year and that that that person is Johnny he was named youth of the year so he's on in the program here and he had attended he's been attending the Boys and Girls Club
for some time and was up last year and didn't win last year but this year he won so it's exciting to see the work that he's been doing pay off for him as in his senior year so kudos to him and all the other students from Trent and the other students from other schools Yuing and Thrive Academy who
participated uh in the uh in the youth of the year program boys and girls club event for Mercy County thank you i did from Yuing our kids are doing great work any new business board
members seeing no new business we'll go right into executive session whereas the open public's meeting act codified in SJA810 col4-6 permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting under certain circumstances and whereas the Tinton
board of education is of the opinion that such circumstances presently exist indicated as follows any material considered confidential about a federal law state statute or court rule any pending or anticipated litigation or contract negotiation to which the board is or may become a party to and any
matter falling within attorney client privilege to the extent that confidentiality is required to preserve the attorney client relationship and allow the attorney to exercise his or her ethical duties as a lawyer matters captions trust of John Ralph staff action negotiations update memorandum
agreement between TBOE and Trenton Business Technical memorandum agreement between TBO and mechanics labors memorandum agreement between TBOE and Trenton Education Secretaries Association action superintendent Evaluation Discussion now therefore be resolved by Trenton Board of Education
County of Mercer State of New Jersey that an executive session will be held on March 25th 2025 for the statuto permit indicated in this resolution be it further resolved that action may be taken by the board when it reconvenes in open session be it finally resolved that
the minutes of executive session with regard to the above subject matter shall be disclosed to the public at a later date and to the extent that the same is not precedential to the interest of the parties involved no longer reverse the public interest or does not endanger any
individual right to privacy can I have a motion to go into executive session motion second probably moved and seconded roll call joe Truhart yes denise Johnson yes jean Buouie yes addie Daniels Lane yes austin
Edwards yes yolanda Lopez yes larry Trailer yes jeannie Week yes okay [Music] we They do we just Okay
no you just got to do it once yeah so Darren don't have to say y'all disrespectful y'all don't want Darren to pull that on you again right on this side oh well I guess we got it
all right everybody we missing board members oh uh motion to open public session so moved second probably move to second it roll call
no roll call we're good okay all right motion all right move to approve uh the contract or Yeah the contract for uh N B&T tbnt tb&t thank you second probably
move to second roll call joe Truhart yes denise Johnson yes jean Buie yes addie Daniels Lane yes austin airport yes yolanda Lopez yes harry Trailer yes jeannie Wiggle um she absent right i'm
just put Motion passed motion to adjourn still moved second all in favor i return