The adequate notice of this regular meeting as required by the open public meetings act was provided by the posting mailing delivery and filing of this notice on January 9th, 2025. This notice was on that date posted on the bulletin board in the township office, sent to
the courier news, echoes sentinel and tap into Warren and filed with the township clerk of the township of Warren. All in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act. Let's rise for the pledge allegiance to the flag of the United
States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call. Right. I will now call the role. Mrs. Dalton here. Mrs. Granholm here.
Miss Keller here. Mr. Mfetta, Mr. Otto, Mr. Tour, Mr. Valentino, Mr. Weinstein here, and Mrs. here. We have a quorum. Thank you, Miss Keller. Resolve that the board of education
approves the public session minutes of the July 21st, 2025 board meeting. Do I have a second? Second. And I'll call the role on the minutes. Mrs. Dalton? Yes. Miss Granholm? Yes. Miss Keller?
Yes. Mr. Weinstein? Yes. And Mrs. Yes. Motion passes 50. Dr. Mingle. Correspondence and information. Nothing to report here tonight. Good evening everyone and welcome to the August meeting of the board of
education. Welcome back. Summer's coming to a close and I know they're all looking forward to the start of school which will be happening in mere days. On behalf of the board, thank you to the Warren Youth Basketball Association for its donation in the amount of $4,43.88
88 cents to replace middle school hoops and nets and which is on the agenda for approval tonight as item B7. Thank you to Warren Township for its donation of office and conference room furniture which appears on the agenda as item B12.
And congratulations to 16 staff members who have obtained additional education and degrees and as such are advancing on the salary guide. The board is very proud of our teachers and their commitment to continuing education and personal growth. The advancements appear
for approval on tonight's agenda as item C4. And just on a side note, we are welcoming all of our teaching staff back tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing them all. Dr. Mingle, superintendent's remarks. Thank you, Mrs. Zan. Um, as you just
said, we are welcoming back all of our staff tomorrow, which is Tuesday, August 26th. All of our K through8 students will be back on Thursday and our preschool next week on Tuesday. Welcome back everybody. There will be more information coming out to parents uh and community members on Wednesday uh with
some welcome back messages from me. But we are excited to be here and ready to go. We are as of tonight's agenda fully staffed and ready for our students. Um which is always a huge amount of work for our administrative team throughout the summer recruiting, hiring, making sure we're ready to go for the first day
of school. Um, I just was able to walk through our new science labs here at the middle school today, which was the last part of the last referendum. Those, uh, are all ready to be opened and populated by students on Thursday as well. And it's always kind of a miraculous thing in the summer because if you had walked
through a week ago, you would have said there's no way they're opening those science labs next week. But, uh, Mr. Pate, Mr. Hegel, our architects of record worked really hard to make sure that everything is ready to go, not only with those bigger projects, but with all of the things that happened throughout the summer. So, um, happy to see
everybody this week. Thank you, Dr. Mingle. Um, we have a couple of presentations and a couple of discussion items. So, starting right off, um, I believe Mr. Kimmick is our first presenter.
All right. Well, thank you everybody. Um, so I appreciate the opportunity to present tonight. Uh, what I'm presenting tonight are a portion of our mandatory reporting requirements from the Department of Education. So, usually um this portion of this would take place in
October when I usually will present NJSLA results and and give you a a detailed overview of of those results. The state changed the reporting requirement somewhat uh for New Jersey access because it's administered earlier in the year and requested that we do this um separate from that presentation.
So, I'm breaking this apart a little bit. I'm going to give you an overview tonight of the New Jersey Access for L's uh overview in terms of the testing and what that assessment is and then also talk to you a little bit about just our results and then also talk to you about
our testing schedule. You can see on the bottom of here um access actually means something. It's assessing comprehension and communication and English speaking students. Um, so it's this idea again of for students that are joining us from um
non non-English-speaking homes a lot of times and many times these are students that uh their parents are relocated to New Jersey to work at universities. They're relocated to New Jersey to work at corporations in the area. We have a range of students with different needs that will come into the district and
English is their second language. So really what this assessment uh allows us to do is measure their English acquisition over time and the state requires these students to have a fairly intensive program in terms of working with a English language certified
teacher. So it's a second language certified teacher who will work with all of these students who may have a variety of languages but the strategies that the teachers use are the same strategies to help the students develop their English acquisition. The other thing we wanted to emphasize around this is the idea
that you're approving a a board curriculum tonight for multil- language learners. Those are L students. Those are English language learners students. The state has changed the language a little bit on that to refer more to multilingual than to L's, but the
assessment has stayed L's. Um the idea being again that these students already have a language that they're proficient in. They're developing their skill in a second language, which is something that we should celebrate. It's a strength for these students. We don't want them to lose their proficiency with their first
language. We want them to develop their proficiency with a second language in the same way that we do with students in our world language programs and uh other opportunities for that. So, I think it's important to keep that in mind as we're talking about what the goals are of this program as a whole. Uh this slide just
again just gives you a sense of what these students uh have to do in terms of their their proficiency assessments. Uh this assessment is administered by our L's teachers. We have four L's teachers in the district. Um so they're divided among the five schools. This something
that we keep an eye on carefully because uh I would say in the past 10 years our enrollment in L's has really doubled but it's been a little bit more stable in recent years. So it hasn't spiked uh you know in the last five years but it is something that we do want to watch
carefully because these students do require in the same way that special education students require specialized programming these students also require specialized programming. So they'll work with these teachers but they spend a majority of their time the overwhelming
majority of the time with their English speaking peers in just their regular classrooms. And that's where most of their social acquisition of language comes. uh the academic language acquisition also is is very much uh something that they acquire by being in
the classroom. We don't remove them in that sense, but the specialized instruction part for about a half an hour a day is where they work with an EL's teacher to have very very specific instruction around the nuances of English because English is really confusing. uh you know there are terms that we have in English that we just
take for granted uh that actually are very nuance for somebody who who is not speaking English as a primary language or first language. So really all students that uh are identified as English language learners must take this assessment whether their parents accept
the services or not. Parents can refuse those services but we're still required to have the students take the assessment each year. Um, these students in grades three through eight also take NJSLA. So they they take the access in the February March time frame. They work
with their teachers to do that. It actually takes multiple sittings to take the assessment because there's multiple components that I'll show you in just a moment. And then the same students also have to do NJSLA. So they're assessed a lot uh during that time frame. So, we try to be sensitive in terms of when we schedule things for all of our students,
but also because we have groups of students that have to take other kinds of assessments as well when we think about our assessment schedules. Um, again, these results are used to help us make a determination as to whether or not students need to continue with L
services and to really help us determine whether or not our program is doing what we want it to do. U, so we have uh what's here is an access for L's proficiency levels. This continuum is is a nationally accepted continuum. This is not Warren Township's continuum. This is
really something again when we think about um L's as a as a as a system and proficiency levels as a system. You could see the beginning of this when we look at a one the entering level is really limited social and academic language skills. So we will have
students that at a middle school level for some may come and they don't speak any English when they arrive. the students stay in their classroom majority of the time. Uh but they'll work with an LS teacher for one period a day, that type of thing to to work on those strategies, to provide supports.
Uh but the goal is to as as we look at this continuum when we get to that four or five level of expanding and bridging. That's where students social language is pretty fluent and their academic language is also developing at a level that will allow them to begin to just
access grade level curriculum without the support of a specialized instruction. So when we think about that what what the assessment is telling us is when a student scores between a four and five level they're exited from that program. So we want to be looking at that carefully. We want to be monitoring
that because we also want to keep in mind the idea of a least restrictive setting for those students. So if we don't need to provide a service, we don't want to continue a service for the students. So the assessment when it's administered assesses these three areas. So we're looking at oral language, literacy, and
comprehension for our youngest learners, for our students in kindergarten and first and second grade. A lot of this is administered by the teacher sitting with the students. And there's not a big digital component. As students age up a bit, there is also a digital component where the teacher is administrating around that as well. And you can see
those three areas are broken down into an overall score with that breakdown in terms of the score. So when we think about academic proficiency, it's looking at those areas in terms of reading, in terms of writing, in terms of listening, in terms of speaking and really looking
at that and suggesting again that those four areas are what allow a student to be very successful in terms of their interactions within a classroom. So I break this down a little differently in terms of results for you because I don't want to identify any student. So we may have one student at a
grade level that's actually identified for L support. So I don't report one grade level at a time with this because what I don't want to do is set up a situation where we have an identifier for a student. So if you look at this in the K2 band and the 38 band 38 being
where students take NJSLA as well, you can kind of get a sense of where the students that we assess are actually falling in terms of their proficiency. You'll also note that we have a lot more students at K2 than we do in the 3A band. And the idea being again that many of those students when they come to us
receive those services at a very young age. Those students at a young age are also prime for language acquisition, you know, at that point. So they pick up English very very quickly and they pick up that academic language very very quickly and that social language. And a lot of these students you could see are
exited or almost exited by the time they're done with second grade going into third grade. We have a smaller group of students that receive services in grades three through eight. As you can imagine, as the academic language becomes more robust, more rigorous. Um I I think the demands of the academics and
the social pieces become more robust, more rigorous, the level of support may change or or the kind of support may change for those students. Um so we have students in grades three through eight that are entering right now. that will progress fairly quickly, but it is the type of thing that we want to be able to
watch this so we know when to exit students from that level of support and that level of programming. Uh so really thinking about those ideas of expanding and bridging is what we're striving for. I think our teachers do a very very good job of this. Uh the level of support that they receive and the quality of the
support that students receive we're very proud of. Uh is the students again part of this is to also set up this idea of a very inclusive kind of approach. So, you know, we want those students to feel accepted, to feel welcome, to feel part of their classrooms and and we promote
that as well as for for those students. And then really, as I said before, those students will take NJSLA. The schedule for this again is is in that February March time frame. The parents have already received notifications of what the child's results were. So, we
received that over the summer. by by code we had to notify the parents and also by code we had to do a presentation for the board so you understood what those results were. So that's kind of the the brief overview of it. I'm happy to answer any questions that the board has some but I'll turn it over to Mrs.
Does any board member have questions for Mr. Kim? I just have a comment if I may. Um it's anecdotal but I remember and I might need Dr. for being honest. But for those of us who have ever uh read at the
author, not the author's day, um Dr. Seuss day, what is that? Read across. Thank you. Read across America. Um I believe it's Woodland that does the expressive reading program. And is that is that fifth graders? Yes. Fifth. Yeah. So there was a student a couple years ago who had entered the
school early educ, you know, was probably kindergarten, first grader coming without having English was not at all the first language. And not only by fifth grade were they much more proficient and able to read a pretty
complicated book out loud, they felt comfortable participating in the expressive reading um sort of activity as part of that. and it was you didn't think about it until you were told after and I think it was Dr. Mingle who made that announcement and I believe that student was presented at one of the board meetings as well. So that's just
an end of one but I think it really speaks to kind of just the impact of that. So thank you for sharing. If I could I just want to mention one other thing. We we also do uh every year and this has been probably I would say year three now a fairly large celebration of of these families and
these students at a at an event in I would want to say in the May time frame and Mrs. Buno is the one that is is really the direct supervisor of this department. Uh but the teachers do a phenomenal job I think of not only celebrating the students but celebrating
the families. And if you ever as a board member have the opportunity to attend that event, I would say, you know, in terms of just um the way the families respond to the support that they receive in the community and I think the uh welcome environment that results from that is is just something that's very
very special and and that's something we started I would say four years ago and it's just a wonderful event where you know we celebrate the students uh we celebrate their accomplishments but we also celebrate the families and want to set up a a support system for them and a network for them and and it's just something that um I just want you to be
aware of because it is very special event. Anyone else questions, comments? Thank you, Mr. Kevin. Great to see you all. Thank you. Uh Dr. Mingle presentation enrollment update.
Okay, good evening everyone. Evening. The usually this um presentation is something that I can prepare a few days ahead of time, but this year our enrollment is changing at a moment's notice. And so before I even get into the slides, I want to say that our
projected opening day enrollment a month ago is 50 students lower than our actual enrollment is today. So we have increased by 50 students in a month, which is unprecedented for the summer um for our enrollment process. And that's
why on tonight's agenda, you see the creation of three new home rooms, three new pair of professional positions. We don't normally add home rooms in August. It's actually our practice to use August 1st as the cutoff, but there was so much enrollment happening in the weeks leading up to the first day of school
that it was necessary for us to bring that to you to stay within our class size guidelines. And so I think that I the data that I'll go through will give you more color to that. But I think that's the what's happening in the schools right now, which means that administrators I mean through three or four o'clock today were sending me
updated information. Uh and there are still a few outstanding registrations where we think the students will be here, but they're doing some final paperwork to to be here for Thursday. So, uh what you see on the slide here is a three a three-year snapshot of actual numbers and then this year's numbers as
of today um by school. I just want to highlight a few things here in the 2425 column. The reason you see two numbers is what the school what our enrollment was on the first day of school last year and what it was on the last day of school last year. And that's important because uh is it possible to move the uh
the little thing on the bottom there? It's important because our enrollment is growing not only in the off season of the summer, but also throughout the school year, which creates different kinds of challenges and opportunities for our staff as well. And so if you look at last year, we opened with 1666
and closed with 1719. We predicted that was going to happen based on when new housing units were opening and getting issued their certificates of occupancy. As of today, we're at 1707, which is a 12 students lower than we were at at the end of last year. However, we projected
to be somewhere around 40 or 50 students lower than where we were at the close of last school year. Uh, and so that's where you see that that increase over the last few months. Uh, as you look across the years, you'll see certain schools have been affected in different ways. We made our reszoning decisions so
that we could kind of adjust for that. We haven't seen the huge increase at Woodland yet. And that's because, and I'll show you a slide in a few minutes, the big developments that will affect Woodland have not opened yet. And so otherwise, we are um we met with our demographer just this morning. I think
he said we were within nine students of what he predicted we would be for this year, which is quite accurate uh for for this kind of data um work. The orange line here is our actual enrollment. The two different blue color lines are without and with new housing coming
online. And so you'll see we're pretty much right in the middle of the projections of without and with housing, which is where we expect it to be. We are in the process of getting a new demographic study. We'll have the initial results for that by the end of September probably. Um so that we can
then continue to look out past 26 27. If you just look at K5, I wanted to show you. So this shows you the projection versus actuals for the last three years. So you can see kind of how close we were, where we were above or below in an individual school. Uh what I want to
point out is that ALT is trending lower than projected. ALT is also not affected by new housing developments. So that's something that's one of the reasons why we chose ALT as the place to expand our autism program because that's where we have the room for it. Central is is
trending higher than projected, which is one of the reasons we needed to move preschool out of Central and back to Mount Horb this this year. Mount Horb is trending lower. It doesn't necessarily feel that way in the school because we have all of our preschool sections there as well. And then Woodland School, as I
said, is trending a little bit lower than the 259, but that was assuming that all of the new housing would be occupied for this school year. And it that is not the actual case. So, we're trending a little bit lower, but probably where we should be given the fact that housing has not all been built in the Woodland zone yet.
So, let's talk a little bit about the the makeup of the student body within those numbers. So, at our opening of this school year, you can see the students who qualify for no cost lunch. We are now over 200 students where just four years ago, we were at 40ome students and pre-COVID, we were at
single digits. That's a significant change to the makeup and the needs of the student body and the families where our students are coming from. And we crossed the threshold to 12% of the overall student body for this school year, which is one of the reasons why our breakfast program is launching this year as required because we are over the
10% threshold. I also wanted to point out in our special programs, these are special education programs for students with particular high needs that require specialized teachers with with um unique programs and often separate facilities.
Our autism program has grown um significantly over the last few years from two classrooms and we're not talking about 15 years ago, we're talking about just a couple of years ago from two classrooms to five this school year. Our social emotional program for students with certain kind of behavioral
needs went from one classroom to two and a specialized uh disabilities program which is at Woodland School went from one to two over those same periods. But if you look along the bottom the number of students have more than doubled who require these services in a very short
window of time. And so that that is not just tied to enrollment changes due to new housing. I want to make sure that that's clear. We have enrollment growth from turnover in the school district as well. But we in in the existing housing stock, but we also have needs from students who were already here that are
uh exacerbated by all kinds of different things. We've been able to support that through the board support of a of the budget, the community support of our budgets, but it requires a lot of staff and a lot of space um to run those special programs. We've been planning for this. The
housing obligation for the housing that people see being built right now was projected to bring us about 418 school age children. That includes students who might be at Wong Hills, not just in the K8. Uh, and I'll come to the to where those students are here. So, I've shown this chart each year now for a few years
of the actual developments and how many students are there. You can see the 25 26. We are now as of today 153 students enrolled at addresses that did not exist before the housing developments. um began in this round of housing. You can see how that breaks out um by by
location. But what I really want to highlight are the three this is the same highlight I made a year ago. Aster Grove is where most of the new students in the last 10 days have come from. A new building opened there that's in the central zone. And then we're starting to see students at the Hills at Warren,
which is in the Woodland zone, but the very first students. We are hearing inquiries from people who have movein dates in the fall. So, we know that there will be students moving into Woodland throughout the school year. Hillrest Crossing is still TBD when that would be opened, but that also projects a large number of students as well.
Those numbers that you see on the slides, 89, 110, and 109 again are kindergarten through 12th grade. So, we wouldn't have all of those students in any one place. Some of them will be high school students as well. Looking ahead to the next round of housing, uh the the township did adopt a
plan in June. That information is in the hands of our demographer. where we expect the the initial projections of not only from that housing plan but also from regular turnover of housing later in probably in the late September October time frame. As you all know, we
have a planning for growth working group. That information will be brought to that group this fall to start talking about what does that mean for us moving forward. I'm going to stop here, take any questions from from board members. So, quick snapshot of where we are as of today.
questions everyone. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Mingle. Okay, we have a couple of discussion items for the board. Um the first relates to the board's self-evaluation uh which we completed a month or so ago.
Thank you very much to all the board members that uh submitted um their responses to the board self-evaluation. Out of that process, the board uh every year comes up with what board goals should look like. Board goals as distinct from district goals. These are
goals that are uh within the ability of the actual board members to um to affect. So, um, I'm going to start. Dr. Minkle, do you have anything you want to say about any of this? No. Okay. Uh, why don't we start? Does anyone have any questions or comments about the
evaluation itself? Okay. So, let's move right on to board goals. Um, last year's board goals, we had three. They are on your board agenda. Um, I'll just quickly go over what those are were. Um, one was to
comply with board norms and represent the board at school and community events. Two was to draft communications and messaging strategies for key community topics like enrollment growth, enrollment growth, strategic planning, etc. And the third one was to support the implementation of year five
strategic plan priorities and adopt a new five-year strategic plan. The uh board successfully did that last one. We did in fact adopt a 5-year strategic plan and our communication committee has been robustly addressing how to
communicate and message strategies around key community topics. Out of the communications committee has come a recommendation for perhaps a single board goal, something that all board members can um focus on over the course
of the next year. Um Miss Keller, do you want to speak to that? Yeah. So, I'm going to give an update um as part of the planning for growth readout, but I think one of the things that um the communications committee as part of the
personnel overall committee has been talking about is um the need to have uh better sort of two-way communications between us and the broader community. you know, we do a really good job of um communicating out to the school
community, the parents, guardians of our students, and provide multiple avenues for them to um get back in touch with us, whether it's through the teacher or principles or, you know, coming to board meetings. Um but we we have a more
difficult time reaching community members that don't have kids active in the schools. Um, so what we're trying to do is updates like Dr. Mingle just gave, updates like Mr. Kimick just gave. You know, I think there's there are people in the community who probably are
interested in hearing what's going on with the schools, right? Even when they're students and they're they have kids, they age out. Um, and so we're trying to identify ways to reach those individuals and those community members. And so one of the things that we have talked about across at least two of the
three committees is um leveraging board members and their sort of you know circles, social circles, the types of organizations they belong to within the community to do just that. Um, so one of the things we we literally just talked
about is, you know, how do we sort of identify all the different community members and sort of social circles, if you will, within Warren that would be good for us to, um, be communicating these updates around things like enrollment, um, things like, you know,
exciting things that are happening in the schools. And so, you know, I think there's an opportunity for us to get board member engagement in saying, you know, I, you know, I'm involved in that organization or, you know, I see that that group of people every week, so I
can, you know, sort of volunteer to talk about the schools and be kind of almost the spokesperson for the things that are going on. Um, so that's the the thing that we talked about. So, if it makes sense to have a board goal around that, um, you know, we can talk about it.
So kind of what we're thinking is that we are a body of nine and um under the um kind of guidance of the communications our communications committee um agree amongst ourselves
that as a board we all are going to undertake outreach and the communications committee is going to be putting together um lists and um opportunities where people can sign up and to push the information that
we share here out into the broader community. Um so the proposal I think that we're talking about is setting up a single board goal um with buyin from all nine board members that each of us will personally
undertake at least one such outreach communication during the course of of the life of this particular board goal. Um and choosing to do just a single goal focused on that. We're hoping um if
everyone thinks it's a good idea um will focus us in on the importance of of that effort and and really hone our attention um to that and and just so you know this we've already started this there is um
the superintendent and Mr. Hegel will be speaking to the Warren Seniors Club next week um about um you know the presentations that have been made here um and going forward we expect and would hope that the board members you know in
furtherance of this commitment would immediately begin to look at those opportunities to push out into the community. Uh do we have thoughts None other than I'm fine with it. And then just confirming. So we're we've got three goals right now. Yes.
Is the recommendation this singular goal and bypassing additional goals? Do you have a thought on that? Yes. I think I'm fine with it. I think though that maybe if there's like sub language within the go the one goal to
maybe make it as expansive as possible. So that yes it's focused but we have um different ways in which to approach it. Do you have proposed language Mr. Weinstein? No. Uh I need I need to think about that.
No that's okay. Um yeah typically what we do when we talk about board goals is we kind of brainstorm here but then there's an opportunity to you know walk away from this and Dr. Mingle who's a craftsman at this type of stuff usually comes back
with something and and at the next board meeting the board as a whole adopts whatever the goal is. So what we're what we're contemplating here is a single goal surrounding communication out to the community and the method of communication being an individual
efforts by each board member to undertake at least one instance in which they do that. um supported by the administration and leadership and the um uh communications
committee with materials and you know Q&As's and guidance and assistance so to support the board member doing that but that's I think what we're talking about. Yeah. So yes, and in listening to you speak, I think it makes sense to let's just take two of the three goals that we
have right now potentially. It's those instances where the board member contacts whatever group it is and maybe one of the topics is five-year strat plan implementing plans for growth so that we're not pigeonhold into potentially one topic, right? But it could be different things based
on the direction that we'd like to take it and over time I think that'll change, right? So we could get two months out and there's something that the board is discussing here might be the new topic that gets pushed out. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right.
And are we okay with board norm because I don't think board norms fits into that. It doesn't. So are we I'm not saying yes or no, but I think we just need to be okay with board norms not being a goal.
Well, what do people think about that? I mean, the the the methodology for board norms, um, which for the public is a document unique to the Warren Township Board of Education that assists us in making sure that, um, we manage our
business in a way that, you know, works for the community, how we communicate with each other, how agendas flow from our committees, just so everyone knows, uh, those are the norms. um we annually readopt those um in January
and um that goes on the board agenda at that time and you know we also train on that. New board members get trained on the norms. Um I'll be honest there a recommmitment to the norms by all board members. Perhaps
we do that more than once a year. That's a thought. Um, just as a reminder, yeah, I don't know that we need it as a goal. I'm fine with it not being I just my point is that it shouldn't go away. No, I it can't go away. It can't go away. Yeah,
I would I would say that I think the um board reflection was reflective of, you know, acknowledging some of those things. So hopefully it kind of came to the forefront for some people. And I don't know, I'm hopeful, I guess.
based on what was written there responses. Um yeah, I mean leadership is certainly open to suggestions from board members of how we can assist in any board member um kind of meeting norms.
Um so you can contact me and Laura and Matt if you have thoughts on that separately. Uh or you can raise them here certainly of course. Um and if if there's a belief or consensus that you know we should put those on the agenda for the board to discuss or revisit that
can certainly be done at any time. I mean I think we should always all nine of us always be striving to meet our board norms. Yeah. I I think your point is even
though even if it goes away as a goal because we like this single focused goal, it doesn't go away as an expectation of the board. So I think that's that's important. Yeah. Yeah. Additional thoughts people my friends in favor of the one goal. really do. I
think that's a very important goal for us at this point in time. And I think it's broad that, you know, we're not focusing in on one topic when we're doing these kind of, for lack of a better term, meet and greets or whatever you want to call it. But, um, it's a good way to just push out information
about the district in general. Any further thoughts or comments, anyone? Okay. So, we'll draft something up and that will appear on the next agenda for adoption. Okay. Um, moving on. Um, cell phone policy.
So, a year ago, the board of education adopted a um guidance um and changes to our use of electronic communication devices policy. That's policy 5516 for you out there in the public. Um and the
change in in the policy a year ago uh before the last academic year uh banned the use of electronic communication devices uh by all students during the school day at all grade levels. And uh
so we had asked the administration uh as we begin the new academic year to give us some updated information on how that went, whether or not that worked as we had hoped and intended. And so, Dr. Mingle, would you like to share that outcome?
Sure. Thank you. So, um, this is in the memo I shared with the board in advance of the of the discussion that the revisions that were made by the board a year ago, uh, confirm the existing practice of requiring electronic devices to be kept off of students uh, during the school day. That's different at the
different levels. At the middle school, they're put in student lockers. At the elementary school, they're in their bags. Um we one of the important adjustments made last year was it was clarified by the board that this is not just cell phones. This is all electronic devices which importantly includes
smartwatches. That's actually maybe a bigger concern than uh cell phones because they're a little bit easier to hide under your sleeve and that sort of thing. uh and then importantly added the sort of the the stick to the carrot and the stick approach of principles are
expected to confiscate cell phones when they or other electronic devices and require a parent or guardian to come pick it up. Uh so that was the process last year. I did survey the principles to kind of get a sense of how their experience was and and really looking
for were there consistent or inconsistent uh experiences at the elementary schools. All four principles said they had limited incidents where they had to enforce this policy. There were occasional reminders for students who mostly just forgot to leave it in
the backpack if they had it with them on the bus. Um there were a couple of instances where students used devices on school buses to take photos, which is something that our policy specifically doesn't allow um because we shouldn't be expecting a seven-year-old to consent to
their photo being taken in that situation, for example. and those were addressed through the code of conduct. At the middle school, they noticed that once it was implemented, uh incidents went down over the course of the school year. There were confiscations. They actually wound up having more
confiscations of AirPods. Um you know, students will, you know, either with long hair or they'll wear something so they can kind of block their ears and and wear and have AirPods on which can communicate from a a far distance with a device. So there were some confict
confiscations there. The principles all feel that the policy language is clear as written. They're not looking for any um revisions from the board. They also reported and this is something we weren't sure about a year ago that there was no significant push back from parents or importantly from students. Obviously there are people who are going
to test the boundaries when they can. Um there were a couple of examples where parents were not happy that they had to come pick up the device. Um, we all and we we actually had more concerns, although people ultimately complied uh around
wanting their child to keep the smartwatch on during the school day in case there was an emergency or something like that, but everybody complied once they, you know, talked to the council or the principal about it. So, generally positive feedback, uh, mostly appreciation for having stronger and more stringent rules. Uh there were
sometimes middle school students who would say, "Oh no, my my parents said it. You should just give it back to me." And obviously we made sure that that was not the way it worked out. Um so generally speaking, we we saw more issues at the middle school than the elementary schools, which I think we all
would expect based on the ages of the students and the amount of device ownership at that level. Um fewer disruptions in school related to devices and as I said, no administrative requests for additional revisions. Thank you, Dr. Mingle. Uh, board
members, Mr. Weinstein. Yeah. So, I was the the culprit that brought it up, so I feel obligated to speak. Um, yeah, I think it's all positive feedback from the principles in terms of implementation and um,
adherence to it. I'm fine with the policy as is. I think we just need to be aware of of other states andor our state coming down with other regulations. Like New York State, I think it's a full ban, not allowed at all on campus. Um, New
Jersey may or may not go through with that. I think the other thing I think we should keep in mind is unstructured time or areas, right? Dr. Mangle brought up school bus, bathroom, um, you know, maybe it's recess or lunch,
things of that nature. Uh, so I'm personally, and I obviously won't speak for the other board members, fine with the policy as is. I would like to, and we don't need to to determine this now, have a revisit at some point in the not too distant future just so that we can
assess again as the school year gets underway and things work or don't work. Other comments, thoughts? I mean, I think that this is top of mind with so many parents. And again, speaking from my experience of having
elementary and middle, it I didn't quite understand what the student experience was like in the middle school until I went through it and just how little time they actually have to go to their locker, but I think until you're in it, you don't really appreciate it. And so there's a lot of schools now that are
banning devices, but then what that looks like is because they were allowed it in their classrooms in the first place, which we never did. What that looks like for them, they have to layer in. They they're not removing completely. They're doing things like pouches and stuff like that, which to me would be a step in the wrong direction
because now you're putting it inside the classroom. And so I think the inside the locker is a fantastic solution. I think the decisions last year that we made, and Mr. Weinstein, you were the proponent behind this last year to revisit the language. So, strengthening the language, adding the smart watches,
I think was the right thing. So, I think it's worthy of having this be something that we just assess once a year, you know, to because I think parents really are paying attention to this now and I think reassuring them that we, you know, if again, if you haven't been through, and I'm I'm kind of picking on the
middle school, but if you haven't been through it, you're like, are we doing that? Are we doing that? I'm seeing these schools and they have pouches. like, yeah, we're actually doing even better than that because we were conservative in the first place with it. So, I think always having this be something that we're assessing how are we doing in the space, could we be doing
more, how do the staff feel, you know, do they feel like they have the right language? I think that I think it's just important to stay on top of it. So, I agree with you. Nothing else to add? Sorry, nothing else to add. Okay, Bridget. Nothing. No, this is if
ever there was a policy that I like fully support, it would be this. Um yeah, I mean I I fully support regularly getting updates on this annually would be like a minimum and at any other time in my my opinion at any
other time where circumstances warrant revisiting it. Um I don't know what those would be but if we suddenly start seeing uh uh discipline situations or HIVs where phones or communication devices are implicated as a part of the problem. I would at that point want to
be revisiting this. So whatever information um administration can secure at the time so that they're able to access data would be a good idea. Yeah, I agree. I think the other um input perhaps although we don't exactly
want to be guided by this because obviously our district is unique compared to others and vice versa any external data that is available. I think we've all probably read the data that says devices are not the best thing in an educational setting. Uh however, if there's any new data that potentially
comes out, I think we should just be privy to it and we could bring that into the discussion as well that resides outside of our school. For instance, I brought up the I think that New York State has like a full full ban like cannot bring it at all. Um
again, not to say that that's what we have to do, but I think things like that to keep tabs on is good. Agreed. Further thoughts or comments? Anyone? Dr. Mingle any
we given you good guidance. Yeah. This so um one of the things I wanted to mention you you had mentioned about the data collection. So one of the lessons learned the way elementary school handles discipline is very different than the middle school. As you can imagine, at the middle school, it's easy for us to
pull data like this because every disciplinary referral to the office is documented in our student information system. So, we can just run reports and see how many times did somebody get referred for this or that. We don't do that at the elementary schools. Um, we will have a process to document better
these kinds of because then we can have much better data to share out instead of the principles trying to go back and think, okay, three months ago there was this thing or or that thing. We don't need the same level of documentation. Certainly. Um but for this topic, I think it's very important to everybody.
So, we'll make sure we have that. Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Um moving on. I don't think we have any reports from external assignments. Anyone raise their hands if I'm wrong? Nope. Okay. Moving on to
committee reports. A curriculum and technology committee did meet on August 13. The chair, Mr. Tour, is not here. Bridget, were you going to cover for that? Yes. Thank you. Miss Granholm. I thought about doing it in a English accent, but I don't think I can pull that off. So,
uh, yeah. So, we met on August 13th. Uh, Mr. Kimmick presented an overview of curriculum revisions, uh, that were completed over the summer that focused on middle school cycles. Um, some key takeaways were, um, like he said,
the changing of wording from English as a second language to multilingual language. Um, we also discussed the addition of time for kids as a resource for teachers in K to 5. Um, and the committee recommends the board's approval of the curriculum revisions and
the time for kids resource. Thank you, Miss Granholm. The uh there is no report for finance uh personnel negotiations communication committee. Miss Keller, yep. We met on Thursday, July 31st. We
had a few agenda items. The first was the superintendent and board self-evaluation timelines for 2026. So we kind of assessed did everything work well this year? Do we recommend a similar time frame and process for next year? Uh and then we talked about some
of the challenges that we have with uh kind of daily fulfillment of positions. So not the the long-term positions that uh Dr. mingle cupboard, but the uh things like when somebody is a staff member a stick and trying to find a substitute. So, we talk through that
both from um the supply sort of side of it, which is availability of uh substitutes, getting access to them, finding them, recruiting them, but also on the demand side. So, when an employee uh needs to take a day off. So, we talked about both. We brainstormed some ideas with that and administration's
going to proceed with uh pursuing some of those solutions. Um, and then we talked a lot, which I alluded to earlier, around kind of a communication strategy for um that community outreach, which I which I mentioned. Um, as most of you know, we have a planning for
growth initiative, uh, which I'm going to give an update next. Um, but we think it's really important that we're communicating to the broader Warren community about our schools, what's going on, things like enrollment, things like, you know, just achievements in
general, the programming. Um, so we we talked about, you know, who are all those different groups that we think it might make sense to to have this type of outreach with. Um, we then talked about what might be the ways to get in touch with them. How could we do outreach to
them? Um, and what would be the types of messaging that we think would be most um interesting for them, most important for them to hear about. And that was the that was it for the personnel committee. Planning for growth working group also,
Miss Keller. Yes. So, planning for growth working group met on July 21st. This was our second working group meeting. This one focused solely on preschool. And I'm going to read um the recap of that meeting
because I it does a really nice job of of talking about it. We um all of these materials. So this what I'm about to read and associated materials are available in a new section on the website. So you can see what I'm about to read and all the other materials that kind of were discussed in the meeting.
Uh so the planning for uh growth working group met on July 21st to examine the future of Warren Township's preschool program. The session centered on how to best serve the needs of current preschool students while also preparing for projected enrollment growth across the district, which is exactly what Dr.
Mingle was just talking about. Participants reviewed the history and evolution of the preschool program, including an ex expansion from a half-day special educationonly model to today's full-day integrated program. The group also considered the increasing number of classified students and the
resulting need for more general education peers to meet state inclusion requirements. The discussion included the roles of early identification and intervention through the child study team, the physical space needed to support expanded services, and the
impact of recent programmatic shifts on student development. members explored the potential benefits and challenges of applying for preschool expansion aid pea from the state which could support broader access to preschool but would also bring specific implementation
requirements such as transportation staffing and facility constraints. The group compared the option to maintain a tuitionbased model and discuss the financial and equity implications of both. As an aside, we did decide to not apply for the pea
grant this year. So, just to clarify that uh throughout the meeting, members emphasized the importance of delivering a highquality inclusive preschool experience while remaining mindful of long-term sustainability, space availability, and community needs. So, that was the the summary of what was
accomplished in the July meeting. And then we are meeting on Thursday, September 5th. Is that right? Yeah. Fourth, I think. Whatever that Thursday. Yep. September 4th. So, that's the next planning for growth meeting. Thank you, Miss Keller.
Uh, that completes our committee report readouts. So, we are moving on to the first opportunity for public commentary. This is the first of two opportunities. I ask that anyone interested in addressing the board please raise their hand or use the raise your hand feature in Zoom. Uh, people out there can't
tell, but we have no audience, so it'll be just Zoom today. Each speaker is asked to limit their comments to three minutes. Please bring begin your comments by stating your name and address and by directing your comments to me. Please know the board of education welcomes and encourages input
from the public. Public commentary is intended as an opportunity for the board to receive such input but is not intended as a Q&A session. Following public commentary, if appropriate, the presiding officer or the superintendent may provide some response. For this
first opportunity, we ask that your comments be limited to items that appear on tonight's agenda. There will be a second comment opportunity for all other comments later in the evening. Looking to Zoom, is there anyone in our Zoom audience that would like to address the
board on an agenda item? Last chance. Seeing none, do I have a motion to close public commentary? Motion. All in favor? I opposed. Abstain. The first opportunity
for public commentary is now closed. Dr. Mingle. Items for board consideration. Yes. Thank you. First, there's one uh adjustment before there's a motion in a second so that it can be voted on as is. This is in C1.
Employee Kira Harkness is listed as a TBD position. Uh that position is grade four at Mount Horb. So when we vote on it, it's grade four at Mount Horb. That's the only adjustment. And then I did want to share a little bit of additional
information about item A5 which Miss Granholm talked about with the curriculum report out because I think this is one of those things that if you don't have a child who's gone through the middle school you're probably not aware of the this the extent of the cycle elective uh offerings which have
uh you know assuming they pass tonight which will be greatly enhanced by the work that was done by our staff this summer. So I just want to mention that we have courses such as infosloo a communications lab the art of communication that's a sixth seventh and eighth grade sequence of courses related
to communications um which will give students opportunities to build skills in research critical thinking and public expression that is a building on a previous program we had in those areas uh and we have seen students use those skills not only in a capstone experience
which is a kind of a natural place but even at board meetings and bringing to the board specifically ideas around the dress code a few years ago. Updates in our home arts program uh include creating uh a revamped eighth grade course which is now called future ready skills for life beyond middle school
where our middle school students all go through a cycle where they learn basic sewing and cooking and the kinds of skills they need for life outside of a classroom. Uh which is really nice that we are able to have the facilities and the program for that. We have an extensive computer science program,
innovation and design which is kind of an engineering and and creator space and as you heard about our multilingual program. So you can find out more about all these programs on the district's curriculum website. The links to the actual curriculum documents are all there. But it's really nice that our
students have those that that diversity of experience. It's not just English and math and science and social studies and languages. It's it's all kinds of life skills. So kudos to Mr. Kimick and the curriculum department and all of our staff who spent time this summer updating those courses.
Uh thank you Dr. Migle. Does any board member wish to pull any agenda item for separate vote or discussion? Okay, seeing none, Mr. Hegel. I'm sorry, Miss Keller. No, no, no, no. You've got to move it
first. Motion to approve items A1 through A7, B1 through B16, C1 through C16, and D1 through D2. We have a second. Second.
Now, Mr. Hank. All right. I will call the role on the consent agenda. Mrs. Dalton, yes. Mrs. Granholm, yes. Miss Keller, yes. Mr. Weinstein. Yes. And Mrs. Z. Yes.
Motions pass 5-0. Thank you. The board does not have any unfinished business or new business on the agenda this evening. So, we are moving into the second opportunity for public commentary. Uh this is open to any topic you wish to raise to the board's attention. Again, please use the
raise your hand feature on Zoom. Um and remember, comments uh should be limited to 3 minutes. Please state your name and address before beginning. Um, so does anyone in our Zoom audience wish to adjust address the board on any topic?
Last chance for the evening. Seeing none, do I have a motion to close public commentary? Motion. All in all in favor? Opposed? Abstain. Second opportunity for public commentary is now closed. Miss
Keller. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. Uh all opposed. All in favor. First. All in favor. Opposed. Abstain. The meeting has now ended. Thank you everyone. Thank you all.