##VIDEO ID:FBOTK4vcbWE## okay we are back thank you uh sorry we went a little longer we had a couple additional items to discuss an executive session okay all right we're back in play okay do we have any board correspondents this evening we do not okay great then let's lead let's move right into the reports and presentations we have an njsi survey results overview with Mr Sabina would you like to introduce him yes and before well actually in concert with introducing Mr Sabino um if you recall at our last meeting we had a scintillating presentation on our district assessment and we had mentioned our uh progress we've made with our advanced placement uh participation and performance and how we've made the College Board honor roll and we just got the letter this afternoon that we've made the College Board honor roll again um and if you look at this there are different levels so we've made silver however of the three criteria um two of them we are actually in the gold qualification for one of them is silver and one of them were're almost in the Platinum level um so they they evaluate different um aspects and the one piece that we will actually will certainly see an increase in the coming years one of the things that they have um emphasized more and that they account for in the the honor roll is 10th graders um taking advanced placement exams because and they say it right in here to alleviate the stress of students taking so many exams in their 11th and 12th grade years um giving them the opportunity to take them in 10th Grade and that's what we have started to do those of you on education committee know that we have talked about that with realigning some of our courses so we actually expect that percentage to increase uh next year so it's just another nice um piece of recognition for our staff uh our counseling staff in terms of guiding our students into those courses and our teachers who prepare them um along with our our administrative staff so that was little nice news to get today in alignment and as a followup to our assessment presentation last meeting now we have uh the next in our presentation fall presentation series for the board um what I did do for tonight's presentation is I printed out uh hard copies just because this is the first time that you're seeing this type of data and some of the slides have a lot of information on them so I thought it might be easier for you to follow along there's a second piece as well that Jason is going to reference which actually has the domains and the survey questions that he'll speak to a little bit so as this is our first time sharing this information with the board we didn't want to make the presentation too long but we also don't want to leave out information that you may want so feel free to ask additional questions we also can continue this conversation in an upcoming education committee meeting um but Mr saino did a really nice job of putting together we offered it to staff after school today if they wanted to get update on this we'll also be sharing it at an upcoming faculty meeting um but please you know ask questions ask clarifying questions uh because this is really important work and this is um going to definitely be a key foundational document for our next strategic plan so without further Ado Mr Sabino thank you superintendent jit nice to see you board hope everybody's doing well I hear to some baseball on today but I'm not really sure everybody falls so I I won't bring that up uh so so good evening I'm looking to I'm happy to be here today um as Liz mentioned there this is a good segue U connecting some of the progress that was made with the district with this testing when standardized testing uh however there's certainly other data out there and other ways to obtain data on the school climate here at wung Hills and how it's how we're doing here uh so hopefully this will be an opportunity to really provide you some uh greater Insight in another key area that speaks to the wonderful work being done here at watch Young Hills so tonight I'm going to hit on a few key points but again as this is the first time publicly reporting out on this uh to the board and to the community if you have any questions feel free to you know interrupt me or just you know hold it to the end whatever works for you just while I go through some of the the details here and if I don't have that answer for you I'll certainly get it for you afterwards so just an overview of of well today the things we'll hit on this evening uh we'll hit on an overw riew what school climate surveys are intended to measure uh we we'll speak a bit about our partnership with Wong Hills and Ruckers School climate transformation project I know I've I have presented through other updates to the board on information about our partnership with them but I'll I'll remind you a bit on that piece just for the context of it we'll also talk tou touch base on um why we chose to implement that and what it'll be looking at uh some of the domain survey domains that are related to this school climate survey as as well as how we go about administering it and then of course looking at some of the results so just uh quickly I know you could all read this slide um this does speak to the need for um many districts do utilize School climate surveys uh we were approached a few years back this is probably four years ago now five years ago Liz that we were approached by the opportunity to Pilot this um survey through a partnership with Ruckers which I'll speak about again Mr I'm going to interrupt you for a second I pulled up the wrong presentation I believe to print from canva today so I think you actually have uh the presentation have the April version of it for the Ed committee some of the slides are similar but they're a little bit different it I it took me about a half an hour to get the printer to print it from canva which is why probably the I was having some technical difficulties so I'm not going to tell Dena that she made copies of eventually the wrong one but just so you know you have the wrong but there is a I'll email everyone the link I did put an electronic version in the board folder so I'll send you an electronic version in case you want to follow along so so a lot of the foundation of the presentation you have from the Ed committee report back on April 30th is consistent with this uh this is just some enhanced slides some additional information that we wanted to add since we had those meetings uh so so thanks for that Liz um so just to again a touch base overview that little graphic there that I've come to be quite fond of as odd as that is to say about a graphic does represent present the multi-tiered system of support model uh that is something that we utilize here in the school district to measure uh how we are providing support to students uh academically and otherwise uh really it's just a a good graphic for me as I look at things about how we deliver the supports to students here that Center graphic is intended to to to show how all students are provided differentiated instruction which we speak quite a lot about throughout different meetings of course with Mary Allen and the rest of the supervisors through the curriculum and the supports in the in the classroom for students and then it does in my my view Vantage Point fan out both directions both in some remedial additional support we provide to students as well as some enhanced enrichment support that we provide to students here at w Chong Hills uh and all of this is to say this goes back to the school climate survey because we need to know you know what our students are experiencing what our students are are need for support for and and that's what this is all intended to do so we have had the pleasure to partner with Ruckers uh on this initiative uh the Rucker School climate transformation project which is a mouthful but I say it often enough where I feel like it's not anymore um that is a partnership with Rucker universi Graduate School of applied and Professional Psychology as well as the NJ dooe so that's a partnership that came together several years back what now when they were looking to move away from the former State uh njcs survey to this new New Jersey seci which is known as the NJ Sky survey um we we did begin to Pilot this as I mentioned I had heard from some some colleagues of mine in other districts that they were looking for school districts to partner with to Pilot this survey so we were on the very much on the ground here with with implementing this of course this came about uh not planned in advance but during covid time so we did they did come up with some modified version of the survey that we actually ultimately administered still while we were partially on a remote status uh and that was that became known uh at least internally the Ruckers as the modify learning environmental climate survey they call it the malx because everything in New Jersey has to have a an acronym that you could pronounce so just so you know a little bit of the historical background here if you have any questions on that feel free to let me know so when we initially administered this survey back in the 2122 school year we were one of a very small number of school districts again that piloted the survey uh I want to say under a dozen but I don't want to lie to the board of the the public but I it's approximately around a dozen school districts I can get back to you on that if you want the exact number and then it continued to be expanded upon during the 2223 school year uh about 50 school districts throughout the the state was were administering or utilizing this survey which en encapsulated 250 schools and then just last year uh approximately 160 New Jersey school districts uh came on board with utilizing this survey uh representing approximately 520 schools so that's a to to to this's earlier point it's a very busy graphic there but I did want to try to provide it for you at least so you could review it and read through it uh just as somebody who's looked at this a few times if you look on the right side there that is the the nine domains that are consistently I think it's nine uh in this one two three the the eight domains on the right there are the domains that are solely for that are actually for all responding groups so students uh staff as well as parents and caregivers all the questions that are on this survey which I'll speak a bit more about in a minute are administered and it It ultimately measures domains on on on those eight consistent groups so that speaks to things such as academic culture and classroom practices uh the supportive staff student relationship uh student social emotional learning behavioral expectations for students negative student interpersonal behaviors which I'll speak a bit about in in a minute as well pro-social student interpersonal behaviors so how you know the the behaviors we hope to see by students uh student voice and involvement as well as a sense of physical safety which I would argue and I think I'll say a few times throughout this is is of course the most important before you can learn right um so just just as you're looking at that if you have any questions that's that's just a graphic a One-Stop graphic so you can hopefully see some of these domains we're talking about so I just wanted to give the board and and the public just a little bit more insight into some of the samples what these questions look like that I'm talking a lot about here uh so so one of the questions for instance they start off with saying in this school I feel safe during the school day so the responses are often strongly disagree disagree agree or strongly agree and that for instance is in our domain sense of physical safety so that's a question once it's responded to that does factor into the domain mean score for sense of physical safety as you see at theot there in that light blue box this is all scored on a like psychometric scale a lyer scale so strongly disagree for all the different responses is scored at a one and then it goes up to strongly agree which is scored at a four and that's how that overall mean that I'll be going over in a minute is calculated based on all the responses by all the students and all of those individual questions and then it factors into the domains uh and similarly you'll see that third question there uh blank of my teachers would give me extra help with with my work if I needed it and the responses could be none of my teachers some of my teachers most of my teachers or all of my teachers and again this is you know from the students responding as well as uh parents giv their their feedback and their and the staff so for that um again none is scored out of one all the way to all being scored out of four again this is designed to the higher the mean the overall score the the more strongly this should correlate with a positive School climate if that makes any sense um if you can click for a minute Andy is it possible to click on that hyperlink those are two hyperlinks there for your future reference the one that says NJ Sky survey that's a sample of the entire survey there's no surprises here the survey is provided in advance to all parents and students so parents and students can see this in advance of responding to this uh we provide this here now and you know obviously if there's any revisions we would share that with you and it's provided well in advance of the the survey being an administrator and I'll go over the timeline again in a minute if you're looking at this I have had individuals look at this and get back to me you'll see the first half of it is the grade uh the elementary grade level responses so Andy if you scroll down just a few a bit there um somewhere on here it indicates that it's the the first few the first half of it is the is the elementary survey and then about halfway through the document you'll see the questions that are for our our high school students so about here is where it starts off where it starts showing each of the individual questions that are uh for the high school students and if you can go back please to the main presentation and just pull up the other hyperlink and if you're looking at it to me this is a more useful document uh I don't want to judge for you all but this will show you the questions by the domain so if you're looking again that first one there and if you stay there for a minute says support for student social emotional learning so all of those questions there are the ones that will then feed into the overall domain score that I'll speak about again in a minute uh that will ultimately come up with the indicator for school climate so I know this this I've been looking at this for a couple years now so it may look like it's it's a bit more straightforward to me if you have any questions about anything that I'm going over here feel free to ask now or ask me at the end of the presentation but I just want you to know you have all this information and if you just go back to the main thank you so if you go to the next slide Andy so just an overview of the timeline so uh this is for the upcoming school year but it does mirror our timeline for the previous school years so each March uh we will P push out information to all stakeholders so to the students to the to the to the parents to the staff about the plans to up to uh to administer this up annual survey we do each spring uh that goes out through similar means that I'm sure you're accustomed to with the warrior weekly student announcements Etc uh and also gets shared to all the staff uh in the the weeks of April depending on where the the the breaks the breaks fall each April we will administer this to students we do provide opportunity it's completely voluntary but we do provide opportunity for students to take this survey during school being mindful of in disrupting education we do it by different disciplines for each grade level so that you're not hitting students each year in the same discipline you know to try to disrupt you know minimize the disruption as much as possible uh we also provide opportunity to staff or and department meetings and then for parents and caregivers we give roughly a two-e window uh to to make sure they also have plenty of time to complete it at home some of you here may be familiar recall having done it hopefully at some point uh if not we'll look into obviously increase the engagement and I'll speak about that in a moment as well uh and then June we usually get the results and then I'll look to each year if you'll if the board will humor me I'll do it each year to update and provide updates on on our results from one year to the next so get into the survey results thanks to do to Mr batelli for the graphics so this is just a a snapshot page that shows the overall number of students that participated each year uh number of staff and parents and caregivers um very proud of approximately according to my counselor brain math about 84% of our students last year completed the the NJ Sky survey again on a voluntary basis about 167 of our staff which I believe Miss Caro is a good percentage of our staff as well and we also have parents and caregivers who completed it last year we had 175 I would hope that would number be more uh at our Peak we did have 410 parents and caregivers uh complete this Believe It or Not each year even with the 175 last year we do get commended from our partners at Ruckers for for the amount of participation we have from our parents and caregivers not dist many districts do not see anywhere even new near that number so uh very interested in any ideas you may have uh for the board and the community on how we could potentially this next round get more parents and caregivers to complete it it is available in a variety of languages as well so that's not a barrier and we do provide this we partnered with the PTO to make sure we got the word out this year but uh you know conversation for another day but I did want to acknowledge that piece of it as well uh you have any sense sorry do you have any sense as to why the decline in uh parental participation no yeah I I I really I I I honestly can only think of things that we've done more since the first year to to Really to really push it out the only thing I'll say which is kind of an obvious thing is that the first time it was administered during uh the co times so obviously a lot more people were home remote and looking for potentially hopefully if they were well enough they were looking for something to do and that was something they did um you know just just having and also more used to at that time honestly you know being on the on their computers a lot for a variety of reasons um so hopefully it's it's there's pluses and minuses to all these things and that's one thing that we we have certainly looked for more opportunities these last couple years to try to push this information out again last year our idea was to also partner with the PTO who was great about really sharing it and pushing it out I asked them a couple times to keep so they were great with it but but it didn't it didn't produce the results I would have hoped it would so this slide has probably the most information of all the ones I've shared with you thus far but I thought it was important to share a good snapshot overview here so this is an overall summary of all of those those means that I indicated you'll know you'll note here that there's nine different mean categories for students this is looking at students over the last three years and the comparison of their their mean scores in each of these domains um it also goes from left to right just for your for your ease here of the the rank order of the highest uh highest overall mean to the lowest overall mean and I know again it's hard to read on the screen over here uh and then on the the the columns um I'm sorry the rows rather from the top to the bottom it starts with the most recent Administration which was spring 2024 then spring 2023 and then three years ago spring 2022 um so you'll see just for a very specific for instance the sense of physical safety uh this year uh the green for the font on all that first category is purposeful it does show that we've had increases in all those nine domains over the last three years which I'm quite proud of the community and everybody for U you know for for for showing that um so you'll see um there's been significant increases in the sense of physical safety which is the highest overall mean thank you thanks Bill and and then going across the board here the state's guidance on this or the Rucker School climate transformation guidance on this is anything over 2.5 is an overall positive indicator of school of positive School climate so you'll see we started off in a good position I would argue and then we've just increased and enhanced that over the last three years and and that's consistent across all categories which again I I I find uh quite quite remarkable you know really showing the efforts of of the staff of of the students uh of of everybody involved in all indicators that this this uh this survey is is meant to represent um there's one that I wanted to highlight I do want to highlight for you again I mentioned earlier negative interpersonal behaviors that actually is designed to go down not to throw you off anymore but that is actually an indicator that the lower the score the better that that's showing School climate because just an example of what negative student interpersonal behaviors questions are students this is one example students at this school are mean to each other online or through text so students at the school are mean to each other online or through text and then again you of course want students to disagree with that or strongly disagree with that statement so that's the only one of all these nine indicators categories that actually you're looking for that number to go down and I'm happy to report that we do see that one going down as well um so does it yes U with Within These categories are there U are there subgroups that you can look at so I imagine that these are accumulation of individual questions so that you can look at the individual questions to determine if there are any you know particular items that may be un underperforming that we may need to focus on Mr always jump into my next steps but you're no you're on it though you're that's exactly that's a great question because really yeah that that would be where we're looking to possibly go you know my goal today of course was to just kind of provide the broader holistic overview but there's a lot in the data here that I can say that would speak to some specific questions that would stand out to me that we may want to explore more as a community as a board or otherwise for you know things that may have be particular concern for our this cohort of students and then there's there's also sub subgroup data there Mr Morrison as well in the rest of the board so so there will be some information about different subgroups because I'm very mindful in my role of a director of School counseling I know all as well that not every student has the same experience here you know so so that does provide opportunity to see um it's great this you know this is in my opinion an opportunity to see that holistically we're doing well but there's certainly some information in the subgroup that as well and and I and I mentioned that because I think that we'll find some areas where we're exceptional you know doing exceptionally well with our students while also there are some opportunities for improvement so yeah certainly so and and some of these other slides that's what I'm just I wanted to also just highlight so that L larger overview is is again that the the the overall mean scores but some things that just jumped out of me I just wanted to share with you all so for the students highest overall means for this last Administration was sense of physical safety so it's great to hear and you know again everybody feels you know students do report feeling safe here which of course is essential to learning uh on top of that they've reported supportive staff and student relationships so again we're not surprised by that with the partnership and the professional staff that we have here and the dynamic teachers that we do have but the students do also share that that vantage point they say that they feel the staff respect them they care for them they support them they they they're they're mindful of their of their diverse backgrounds student sense of belonging students feel that they belong here which again is is something I want always want to hear a culture of belonging Miss Fon often speaks about and and we want to make sure we're continuing to to to recognize that all students feel like they belong here at Watchung Hills and and this would indicate they do uh additionally students have a voice and involved so again after they feel safe and they feel like they're they're getting supported they feel like they're able to have a voice in high school which again is not I don't think all students across the state or in other places will be able to say that but they do say that here they feel that they their voice is valued their involvement is valued and they have opportunities to take on leadership opportunities while they're here and prepare themselves for the future so uh that's some of the takeaways for the students for the parents caregivers and staff um the two uh highest overall means was in sense of physical safety and a feeling that they had supportive staff student relationships and then you know from a growth mindset looking at things that these are the these were the lowest domains in each uh stakeholder group so but however I do want to note that even though these were the lowest domains in each group before I speak to them overall they were still the means were all in the in the positive and they so for the for students academic culture and classroom practice was an area that was the lowest overall lowest mean however still 37% of students agreed and 16% of students strongly agreed that they that they felt there was a sense of academic culture in classroom practice um that where students were motivated they had they felt they had access to to their educational experience here and that they they were able to engage in in their learning uh similarly for staff um leadership support was the lowest overall mean however it was still in the positive with 45% of Staff agreeing and 133% of Staff strongly agreeing that they felt they had the the needed support and then parents and caregivers uh reported uh supports for student social emotional learning was um was the lowest area overall mean however that was still quite strong store at 2.77 and uh roughly 58% agreed and 133% strongly agreed that they were getting their students were getting the right support here in that regard uh that was actually an area I meant to high highlight in the earlier slide that somebody who's again in my role looked at that in regards to making sure students felt like they had the support here and that actually has increased significantly over the last three years so just finally a little graphic here this mirrors uh often Dr JT speaks to The Continuous Improvement cycle so this is actually the model that the school climate uh change process highlights in all their literature and this again speaks to what we're doing here this speaks to the fact that we collect collected data you know which we did in each spring they have a chance to analyze and look at it and again you know look at it even further hopefully this year as the year progresses we provide opportunities to to to modify our goals for the year based on this data which we do routinely through the Strategic plan which you know I know we speak about often and we do look at different metrics and different things we need to modify based on the results from this and and other indicators throughout the school year and then of course plan for next steps for for the future and then plan for future administrations of a survey like this so I think I already hit all of this for next steps um the good thing is that this NJ Sky platform that we utilize is continues to be enhanced so it does provide opportunity for more customization as we you know may plan to utilize it for the next strategic plan there would be opportunity to look at ways to look at maybe some of the specific subcategories that we're interested in and and maybe finding ways to have more goals or some uh data that speaks specifically to that um we're also looking for opportunities to cross compare this with other districts I as you noted I'm I'm sure I did not provide that with you today uh unfortunately at this time there's really not data out there yet being shared about overall you know how how these means compare to other districts that have been administered it again we we are somewhat in the earlier process you know we're still three years in with this being a statewise instrument so I'm hopeful that'll that'll come out in the years ahead uh Liz and I have discussed a number of uh local um districts are looking to utilize this or have begun utilizing it yeah we so our County in particular has talked a lot about um folks that are starting to implement it so what I was saying to Mr Sabino is that I may ask my superintendent if they'd be interested in you know if I created a a Google spreadsheet and we not for us to present publicly on their districts but for all of us to basically you know enter kind of our our domain averages just so we can get an idea of how other districts are doing so I was going to bring that up to my colleagues um because it could be useful data and obviously you know it it's helpful but it's more helpful when you start to find out you know you it a little bit to see um you know what it what it looks like in other places so just another piece of information to help us I think that's all I had for you tonight so thank you very much does any have any questions for me there is um a session as well at Schoolboard just so you know on the NJ Sky because the they since they partner with the doe um so you can actually go and and be experts on it and uh share with you know but there is a presentation on it down there if any of you are interested in bring your slides yeah um I do have a question on when the kids are taking this are they allowed to I have it on you need to move it closer when the kids are taking this are they discussing it amongst each other or do you try to keep it so that there's no real discussion like that it's just their own point of view as opposed to if there's a couple of them together they kind of just no it's in it's individually administered I mean it's administered in a classroom but everybody's the expectation is everybody works on it individually uh there's there's a script a very brief script that the teachers review you know most notably reminding them that it's a voluntary opportunity for them and then it'll speak to just you know the duration of it which is roughly around what I found that between 15 to 20 minutes uh if if a student you know for a typical student completing it um but it may take a little more time for some depending on how how long they spend on each question Mr Sabino um first thank you very much for this information is really interesting um but secondly um and I want to just make the statement at the end of those remarks does anyone else have any other remarks you do okay I'll go after you about so I just um getting School culture and climate information has certainly been something that we've talked about for a long time going back to uh the implementation of the first strategic plan and we always struggled to find the right kind of mechanism the right kind of tool to be able to use that would be um would be sound would be you know uh accurate uh and would be written in such a way that the question weren't biased or anything of that nature um and so to actually be able to see this begin to take shape starting with our our work on the pilot with Ruckers and now see this in full full blo full bloom uh for all of us I think is just it's an incredible Testament to the administration and to your team that worked on this to be able to have the kind of Rich inform Rich unbiased information that will allow us to make informed decisions uh so I just want to say congratulations to to you and and the administration for agreeing to participate in the pilot to get a jump start on this information so that now we're kind of in in the groove of implementing this so that now the now now we really get to dig into the information so that we can make sound decisions on the direction of the district uh particularly as it relates to the upcoming uh strategic plan and also this will be very informative for um our discussions on shared service and regionalization so I just wanted to thank you and and your team for all the great work on this thank you thanks to the board support for this everything Bob said too um no I just want to thank you often we don't get a chance to thank our our professionals and teachers um one of my kids was pretty sick at the beginning of the year I reached out you coordinated um him getting all the lessons perfectly and the teachers really responded to your direction really well and it was very very helpful for for that start and I want to thank you for that I hope he's I hope Su is feeling well and again thank you so much for that and uh you know Miss Krueger and and the school counseling team also you know it was a great support as well so I appreciate it look forward to to continue and support all the students thanks thank you anyone else great thank you I appreciate everything you done for this great let's move into the committee reports education well thank you Mr President the education committee um met on uh September the 26th uh we first talked about the academic Fair the administration's been discussing the expansion of the steam fair to a more uh comprehensive academic fair that will include the humanities students have expressed an interest in participating in the expansion and the expansion would provide for more student involvement the academic fair is scheduled for March 19th 2025 at 5:00 p.m. uh we then had a discussion around the Design Lab uh formerly known as our steam lab uh so the new construction uh has been redubbed now as the Design Lab uh Dr JT shared plans uh the planning phase for the utilization of the Design Lab uh once it's completed this fall hopefully later this month or early next month uh we'll spend time organizing materials and getting staff and students trained on the equipment so that our robotics classes can start U utilizing the space uh this spring we will be providing further professional development for staff as well as developing introductory design courses to be offered in the 2526 school year followed by intermediate and advanced level courses that would be offered in subsequent years uh we're looking at developing a credentialing program for staff and students who will be authorized to utilize a space and additionally uh a job description for the Design Lab coordinator has been developed and uh has been brought to the Personnel committee and I believe shared with the board uh for our review and discussion uh more information will be provided at a presentation uh at our next board meeting um we also discussed the former nurses office conversion uh Dr JW discussed the use of the former nurse's office by the um school counselors um the space already provides two spaces that can be used for offices as well as an outer space for secretary and waiting areas uh Renovations are needed and installation of uh HVAC is needed uh the committee asked questions regarding budgeting and the additional use of the space uh and more information will be given uh at the operations committee uh last item that we talked about was um a theme that we started at our prior meeting which was the cell phone uh policies and practices uh principle librera gave an overview of the current cell phone practices um how students when they enter the room and deposit their cell phones into caddies for the duration of the class uh this procedure has worked well and there have been really no issues uh uh that have been reported uh Mr laera discussed the need to purchase additional uh phone caddies to replace some of the old caddies and to have Surplus C caddies uh for our future needs uh the committee then discussed the need for uh either updating or creating a policy on the use of cell phones uh and agreed to drafting a policy to that end uh the administration will be working on language for the policy including uh being in consultation with Strauss Esme uh and then we'll bring it back to the education committee for review and refinement before we bring it to the full board um that was uh that concludes my report I open it to any committee members who have additional uh comments they'd like to share questions from the rest of the board thank you Mr President thank you Mr Marson uh Personnel we discussed many items that were required to do so in executive session is there anything for public session go ahead um we had our Personnel meeting on September 26 and we have to update some policies uh policy 3160 policies and regulations were reviewed and discussed Nicole explained the physical exam policy and reg regulations and the volunteer athletic coaches and co-curricular advisor policy are being updated because the New Jersey Department of Health updated the criteria from all School Employees are required to have the TB test to only those at high risk and then on we have uh policy 5350 the student suicide prevention policy has an update because the status uh was uh revised to include several new sections related to the training of additional staff members the requirement for staff to be trained to warn and protect when they have information that a student intended to harm themselves and a requirement to not notify all staff who are required to be trained um in accordance with the updated statue and the district specific reporting PR prevention and response procedures and then policy 9181 the volunteer athletic coaches and co-curricular advisors um we had under number six we had a question about it of the committee had concerns about the language being too vague on when a volunteer should be sharing student matters when it comes to the safety of the students um and we did look to we do have some revision on the language uh that everyone's going to be looking at that's it any questions Katherine comments okay great uh Carol operations the operations committee met on September 24th attending were Elizabeth JW Tim sty Chris Bick Heather tror Bill marich and myself Tim reviewed the financials of the 2022 referendum and stated that there is a balance of approxim ly $563,000 and noted that there are additional change orders and Furniture purchases which will require funding from this account with the completion of the new health nurse Suite we can proceed with the renovation of the old nurse's space which was originally slated as an OP uh PT room the committee has discuss renovating the space for use as student assistant sack we love our acronyms Student Assistance counselor space Elizabeth explained some of the problems with the current spaces used for sack Tim uh noted that he consulted with Bond counsel and was assured that such a change would would be within the scope of the original plan the committee agreed to move forward with the change Tim provided an update on the status of other construction work there was some damage to the wiring of The Stadium scoreboard which will require a SE separate contractor to resolve there is an issue with the asphalt and Tim noted that the contractor has not been paid as work needs to be redone Chris noted that he was working with a contractor to update Lighting on the stadium flag pole Tim uh discussed some policies that need revision the policy regarding remote board meeting is being abolished Tim um explained required changes to the residency non residency student policy noting that the district is now required to obtain County Superintendent approval in cases where tuition is being charged um the committee noted also noted policies which would require future revision there is a need to update the policy on acceptable use of computer networks computers and resources the booster sub uh booster club policy also needs updating and Heather por Dan Gall we volunteered you Dan andly that's right and exactly and I will meet with princip with the principal and athletic director to move forward on this update uh we adjourn the meeting at 953 were there any questions or comments great thank you Bob we are back to you with shared services so the watchong hills shared services and regionalization advisory committee met yet last evening um and we had representation from both uh school district and Municipal governing boards as well as our Rowan School regionalization Institute study team uh there are few items that uh I want to report on uh first regarding data analysis the group has received a our group received a report from uh the Rowan team about the study progress in acquiring the necessary data for the various parties they've been and continue to be in the process of collecting State data for each district and have requested additional data from each individual District uh the goal is to complete the data acquisition by early November for analysis um appropriate to tonight's presentation we also talked about uh School culture and climate surveys uh discussion ensued regarding the NJ Sky survey developed by Ruckers as a source of information for this particular study uh Watchung Hills reported ours this evening watchong burough is in the process of starting the survey uh Long Hill is reviewing and considering implementing it before the end of the year uh the information from these surveys will be critical in helping the study team understand what additional information may be needed that is not covered in the data or through these surveys uh we spent a lot of time talking about uh Community engagement uh The Advisory Group spent a significant portion of the meeting talking about various strategies and timing for Community engagement uh in the following timeline for sequenc ing of the communication in October uh the uh study team will be scheduling meetings with District uh PTO or PTA leadership um the team will coordinate with the districts on a Roundtable discussion with each of the districts executive leadership for the PTO and ptas uh in November following the election uh we will look to uh distribute articles um a community summary outlining the shared services regionalization study process and progress will be released and distributed through all district and Municipal communication channels uh we spoke specifically about how we can get it not only to um the the parents of the students that we have but also to the broader community members at large and that's where the municipalities all you know volunteered so that they could use their uh systems to get that information out uh also in November we plan on scheduling some editorial meetings uh so that we can meet with local editors to review the study process in progress and try to get some additional media coverage for that process in December a key stakeholder meeting will be uh held uh the study team will meet in District with educational leaders and 8th grade and ninth grade teachers to glean more information that might not be readily ex extrapolated from the data that's been collected uh including uh District professionals to help fill in the gaps uh from the data that we received Reed from the states and the district um that we can then see how that can be um considered for inclusion as part of the study and then in January uh the goal is once we have all of this information in the data analysis done uh and those meetings held uh that we would host a community Town Hall uh we wanted to avoid the the Thanksgiving Christmas holiday because they're all kind of scrunched together this year uh but this would uh uh provide us the first opportunity to have an imp person town hall to bring the community members together for a discussion regarding the shared services regionalization study and to review the process remaining to complete the project um the fourth item we tackled was demographic studies uh the advisory committee discussed the process for acquiring uh demographic studies for each of the communities uh there was also additional discussion regarding the impact of the new round of affordable housing requirements uh that are supposedly to be released uh sometime in 2025 it was clear from the discussion that uh these the new round of requirements will not have any bearing on the study uh given that the potential impact for the new requirements will not come to fruition for another decade if at all um the fifth item we tackled was the the study priority review uh again the committee reviewed the priorities for the shared services uh analysis uh as we've reported before those priorities are special educ education transportation and curriculum alignment uh there was discussion regarding models for in investigating curriculum alignment including a model used by Northern Valley Regional School District and their sending districts this model utilizes a shared curriculum Center that coordinates the vertical curriculum alignment across all of the districts and coordinates all faculty and staff professional learning uh the uh Rowan study team will be investigating uh this model for future for further consideration um we then went over the timeline uh the goal for the advisory committee and the study team is to produce uh and for the districts to accept a thorough well-organized detailed and easily accessible document for all stakeholders the goal is for this report to be uh available toward the end of the second quarter of 2025 which is that May June time period but it may be adjusted to ensure the best possible study report is prepared and the Pres and presented for all the communities um for us the goal is to be right and not fast so while we are targeting that that um the end of the second quarter um it may be possible that we may need a little bit more time to really refine the study so uh the study group or The Advisory Group will reconvene later this year as the uh study teams makes additional progress uh and this the information I shared with you has been shared with all of the um the the committee advisory committee members for them to share uh with their various governing boards as well so we can make sure that everyone has the same set of information on where we are with the project it's very important to all of us that we're open and transparent with the community throughout uh any questions uh Mr Gall first I'm incredibly disappointed there's no acronym got to be the acred there there is but I spared you the acred did um secondly just a uh clarification um round four of affordable housing is required as of January 1st and will have an impact immediately so we have round we just we completed round three as a planning uh episode and and are building out round three now uh round four buildout could start as early as next August so it's not decade out it's literally months away just to keep that in mind yeah interesting that was not what the municipal leaders shared with us yeah I know this stuff this I know you do I know I'm not I'm not contradicting you not only and so just for to give you some idea of what the scale is um initially the numbers were about 560 for Warren which could turn into about 2,000 new units um but right now it looks like we're going to be in the 350 uh if we do it right it won't be as nearly as many as Builders run do you know what the do you know what the multiplier is uh there's no multiply it all depends on how it's planned out and we're hoping for no multiplier we'll see it depends on the courts other questions thank you again Bob thank you for shepherding this is project and certainly appreciating the community thanks you okay and uh just Sor before we move on for those that care the Mets One 8 to four so okay it's the first public comment period will be limited to agenda items for this meeting only the second public comment period will be open to any topic all comments are limited to five minutes if anyone has a public comment you're more than welcome to come up hopefully you've signed in already state your name and where you're from are there any public comments okay see seeing none uh I now close the first opportunity for public comment and we'll have an opportunity for second public comment shortly or discussion uh do we feature action items anyone have any comments or questions with respect to those items okay let's move on to action items then uh Mr President I'd like to move items A1 through A6 okay any comments or questions roll call please Mr maio Mr gallik yes M Lee marich yes Mr Morrison yes sober is it Iain I wasn't here on the 17th do I abstain or recuse do whatever you want you can sometime a lot of people abstain obain thank you I'm abstaining on A1 and two and I'm appr uh yes on the rest uh Miss Potter yes M proa yes chour yes and Mr Burber yes motions Carri Mr President I'd like to move items A7 and A8 second comments questions roll call please Mr maio Mr Gall yes M Lee M yes Morrison yes sober Yesa yes shour yes and Mr Burman yes motions car Mr President I'd like to move items C1 through C8 second any comments roll call please M maio scall yes Lee Mar yes Morrison yes sober yes Potter yes proa yes chour yes and Mr Burman yes motions carry Mr President I'd like to move items D1 through D6 any comments okay a roll call please Mr maio G yes Lee marich yes Morrison yes sober yes Potter yes CA yes shour yes and Mr Berber yes motions carry Mr President I'd like to move items D7 through d10 second any comments All call please Mr maio yes scall Lee May yes Morrison yes sober yes Mr CA yes Mr trur yes and Mr Burber yes motions Carri okay as I mentioned only a few minutes ago it's now the second opportunity for public comment it's can be on any matter do we have any public comments okay I see none other business Mr Morrison I believe you had something uh yes I just wanted to take an opportunity to provide an update uh to the board uh regarding the the state work on reviewing the uh educator evaluation process uh the New Jersey education educator evaluation review task force released their report to the governor uh yesterday afternoon uh and I just wanted to uh share with you uh some information just as an overview uh the task force um report dated yesterday provides a comprehensive review of the current educator evaluation system as mandated by the teach New Jersey act and Achieve NJ the report highlights the challenges and successes of the the existing system and presents recommend ations aimed at reducing administrative burdens supporting educator professional growth and ensuring the evaluation system meets the intended goals of enhancing student achievement and instructional quality um I want to share with you a couple of the findings and I'll just get right to the recommendations uh and we'll make sure that we circulate all of this for you to to to be able to look at yourself um some of the key findings on the educational value uh the task force found that the student growth objectives used in evaluation have limited educational value as they have not significantly contributed to the improvements in student achievement or instructional practices administrative burden the sgos create an administrative burden that detracts from time that could be better spent on meaningful educational activities such as lesson planning collaboration and providing feedback to students uh impact on evaluations the current structure causes Educators to focus ex excessively on achieving certain evaluation scores rather than improving instructional practice leading to a compliance driven mindset fourth un intended consequences the system has resulted in increased pressure on teachers and administrators detracting from professional growth and collaboration it's it has created a toxic environment in many districts and disincentivizes Innovation and rigorous goal setting so the recommendations and and there are three that they shared in this report um are the following eliminate sgos and redesign evaluation structures uh the task force recommends eliminating sgos as they are currently implemented and integrating multiple objective measures of student learning in pdps Implement a three tiered rating system consider revising the evaluation system for a four from a four tiered rating which is highly effective effective partially effective and ineffective to just a three- tiered system effective partially effective ineffective to reduce the unnecessary disputes over minor rating differences and then third is to Pilot new evaluation protocols they suggest piloting new protocols in a dozen school districts to give feedback and refined changes before going to Statewide implementation something you would have thought they would have done with the original version of this but we waited 12 years to kind of take a look at it so here we are um so in conclusion the task force recommendation aims to create an evaluation system that focuses on student Lear student learning outcomes while reducing administrative burdens supporting professional growth and fostering a collaborative and positive teaching environment these changes if implemented would significantly transform the educator evaluation process in New Jersey to better serve the needs of our students and Educators alike so the report was transmitted to the governor there was a suggestion that that maybe they put in in place some sort of task force that would oversee how these uh recommendations are implemented um I think that the fastest way to implementation would not necessarily be to go back and open up the legislation but the changes that they're actually suggestion suggesting could actually be done um you know by uh uh by uh updates from the state board so basically not having to go through elongated legislative process but could be more quickly uh revised by coordinating with the State Board of Education it remains to be seen how these will be implemented or if any of them will be implemented but it's I think an important first step to address some of the issues that we've talked about for years around this table uh about the inefficiency the inequity uh and the burden that this is placing both on our administrators and our Educators so they can focus more time on doing what they should be doing ensuring that we have high quality educational opportunities for all of our students so uh we'll get a copy of that around to all of you and uh uh feel free to enjoy it second thing is October SE uh 10th uh Somerset County School boards association meeting uh down uh it's it's a hybrid meeting or in person so you can go there the topic I believe is artificial intelligence in education um if you go to the meeting at the Somerset County votek a dinner is served by the students there from their culinary arts program which is always really good on top of having a great presentation that the county has uh prepared so if you can't get there you can sign up and and attend uh online via Zoom so those are my two items Sir Mr President thank you thank you appreciate the updates anyone else have anything Mr President if I could add of course you can so on the survey um the physical safety was a was a very positive thing and being at the school district for a while it's something that all the boards this one all the other boards have definitely supported over the years um I go to I've gone to about five National Association meetings I went to one this year and I go pretty much every year to the New Jersey ones uh and I always go to security things mainly because I just want to see what everyone else is doing uh I can emphatically tell you that um this board this board this school has always put that as a priority um the Safety and Security of the staff and the the students um I think you saw it in the numbers at least that's what I saw uh so you know hudos to all of you for the support our superintendent has a very active uh um active conversations with all of the police forces of the all the towns um so I don't know I I these things don't happen by accident I think people see this and I think they they see what our security staff does Mr Shay and his group are excellent um and I think take about because that you know there's always more we can do I can tell you that we always have to be vigilant it is what it is in today's world but um you know I think this board and this community has always just supported that and it's very appreciated and I'm just one staff member but I can tell you all the staff members feel that way thank you appreciate that anything else I will entertain a motion to adjourn all those in favor we are adjourned thank you everybody appreciate your time