e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e I just all right hello everybody good evening and welcome to tonight's board meeting we called our meeting to order earlier in our closed executive session so we are now ready to begin the public portion of our meeting and first um we're going to hear from Jessica Smedley our director of School counseling for our special public hearing on harassment intimidation and bullying thank you okay I think this will be easier Can Am I'm good okay all right good evening everyone so tonight I'll be presenting our semiannual report for reporting Period 2 which covers January 2024 through June 2024 and also give some information about um kind of our next steps and planning for the coming year so uh we'll be covering just reviewing the um the definition of harassment intimidation and bullying uh going through a review of preliminary determination which was something new to um that our board passed last summer so we now have one complete year with the preliminary determination so we'll go through that um take a look at some of our patterns and themes in the data review of our culture and climate Summit that we had in May and talk about some of our brainstorming and plans for the 2024 school year okay so just to review for everyone the way that New Jersey defines harassment intimidation and bullying uh includes any gesture written verbal or physical act or electronic communication whether it is a single incident or series of incidents um to meet this definition it needs to be reasonably perceived as motivated by either an actual or perceived characteris IC um an event that takes place on school property at any school sponsored function on a school bus or off school grounds and finally to meet the definition of Hib it would substantially disrupt or interferes with the orderly operation of the school or the rights of students and that's been the same so we did talk about this a little bit at the semiannual report in um reporting period one when we had our first um half of the school year with the with the Amendments from 2022 so in 2022 the state legislature made some changes to the anti-bullying Bill of Rights um which included having one universal form that all school districts across the state of New Jersey use for reporting we affectionately refer to that as form 338 um we updated the forms on our website so um this also this change also allowed for anonymous reporting from families and caretakers and students um staff still do need to give their name so you cannot report anonymously as a staff member and then finally last summer our Board of Ed um amended the policy to allow for the use of preliminary determination um which essentially and you can see um I clipped this from our board policy um it allows for the opportunity for the principal and the anti-bullying Specialists other people including myself to be to have a conversation of when we first hear the words um bullying or there's an initial uh complaint we have some discretion to take a look at does this fall within the criteria should this be investigated as an act of harassment intimidation and bullying and in some cases we find that um people use the words bullying or use harassment and intimidation and it really is more of a straight code of conduct issue so again it's not a way of pushing any event to the side or ignoring anything it just we know that um having this preliminary determination lets us take a look at particularly and I think most importantly with our younger students who are still learning is do we have something um that we can do use and use restorative practices to address um and may not really fit the definition of course we're going to still be dealing with it in one way or another so this was our first complete year with that so we'll take a look at how we did with preliminary determination um we we ended up having 22 total preliminary determinations of incidents um that were basically then just events that were handled through the code of conduct through conversations with the with our principles and assistant principles with counselors and case managers families and students so here you can see um we of the 22 total toal preliminary determinations we had 10 in grades K through 5 which represents uh 45.8% of our total um in 6 through eight we had nine total preliminary determinations which represents 41.7% of the total and then in grades 9 through 12 we had three incidents which represents 12.5% of our total so again this is not that we aren't um addressing issues that any issue that comes forward certainly one of the things that we rely on is see something say something so if um we never want to um discourage people from letting us know if they think that something's going on and that could include members of the public um parents families uh staff members and students themselves but we this gives us a little bit of Leverage to be able to address it um through other means besides the harassment intimidation and bullying okay so for report reporting period two that represents January through June of 2024 we had a total of 92 incidents in the district um 54 of those were founded or found to be confirmed to meet all those criteria that I went through in the earlier slide um and then we had 38 that were either unfounded or inconclusive which kind of go into the founded unfounded category so 41% 41.3% were the unfounded and 54 represents 8.7% of our totals for reporting period two then we take a look at our incidents by grade band again this is just reporting period two so um second half of the year January to June we had um total for prek to 5 31 incidents grades 6 through 8 30 incidents and 9 through 1231 so um you can see from the pie chart it was a pretty even split this is a change over um last year we've typically seen more in reporting period one we saw more incidents in K through five I think in particularly with going to full dayc I think that that um we we have students who are new to us for the full day so even learning and new brand new to the school district so we we saw a little bit of an um a higher number in K through five than anywhere um what's interesting is we have typically trended over the past several years and I would say having this is I'm just completing my first year here in West Windsor pboro but um I've been an anti-bullying coordinator for about 15 years prior to this and I would say what we typically see is the highest number in our Middle grades so in grades six through eight so it's interesting to see that we're trending kind of in a in a little bit more of an even split I mean our obviously we we are working and we do our restorative work at all grade levels and our our primary goal is prevention of these incidents but certainly early intervention it's um an intervention we're seeing about the same across all um all grade levels so that was sort of an interesting change over over even the first half of the Year okay then we have so where what was happening what did what do we have happening in our schools and being reported so here um you see and I'll just read for um for the audience who don't have a copy of this and it's a little bit unclear on the our um a little bit light on the board so um distinguishing characteristics so appearance was our most common distinguishing characteristic uh that students accused um offenders of violating um this typically represents when we take a look at further into the data this would be um appearance typically includes um things slurs such as ugly fat skinny um so generally physical appearance although it can be um in some cases something like um insulting intelligence could also be like you look stupid those kinds of things so examples that would fit into that appearance that wider appearance category um that is actually the same is um that's our number one category for reporting period one two so same Trends came through in the in the school year of appearance and then with the second most common category with 16.9% of our incidents being um race and ethnicity so um again that is the same Trend that we saw and I'll talk a little bit that about that and what we're doing with that data when I get to our restorative practices so other categories here gender and gender identity um which also includes gender expression 5.6% of our incidents uh disability 5.6% sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation 6.7% religion 6.7 and other 2 2 um I think the other piece that I want to point out on here the no identif identifiable characteristic at 19.1 is a big chunk those are typically there they there was an accusation there was no identifying characteristic and likely that is what led to it not being a confirmed Hib because if there's no identifying characteristic it hasn't met the criteria for the the law so that could be typically it's insults that don't meet the rest of the criteria so those that would be an example of it's an unfounded Hib but we certainly it doesn't mean that it wasn't referred for code of conduct issue and for restorative practices um with the counselor Andor case manager or a restorative conversation with um with the administrator and the family okay so patterns and Trends we talked a little bit about this um our total numbers have decreased over last year and I'll get to that on our next slide I think some of that is probably due to preliminary determination I also think that we have um with with reporting the way it is and we're talking to people we continue to train and retrain our staff and our students about what's going on and um we continue to do the work and building climate and culture in our classrooms every day in our school community so um we we do see the number of Investigations going down I think also um it feels like we spent four years saying like we're getting back to normal we're getting back to where we were but it really has taken several years to re acclimate our um students back to school and what what our lives look like now and so we saw kind of bubbles in that Trend where when we were all home there were far fewer incidents and when we came back those first couple years after the pandemic particularly the last two after the hybrid year when we had very few students in person that that led to um a pretty steep increase Statewide that's trending that was trending everywhere um it was certainly the talk in I know in the circles that I I run in of what people were doing and just trying to hit the reset button on being kind to one another being good citizens learning how to be in a class learning going after two years of don't touch anything don't touch each other don't really share anything um don't really breathe near each other to go back to and teaching them that all the things that we do in school teaching them to be um be on the rug together work in pairs or work in groups together it's taken time so um I think that we'll see I mean certainly this data is yet to be published and everyone's publishing and talking about their local data the state then collects our data and will publish and their Statewide Trends later in the fall so um when I come back in January to give the first half of um of the following year of the 2024 2025 we can also talk more about sort of Statewide Trends um so preliminary determination has been um helpful I think that you know it was something that we had to work towards uh or work through and even in our process but what I can tell you is it led to a lot of really productive conversations about um and not and having those conversation of what do you think what do you think I mean when in doubt um we always investigated it was really just those um and you can see of of our total incidents 22 to have those 22 for the most part we are investigating and going through the entire Hib process even though we we have some that are unfounded because we never want to take the chance so um but that was helpful to have some of those productive conversations um race and ethnicity I mentioned and appearance were our two most prevalent distinguishing characteristics both in the first half and the second half of the school year and we saw this year an increase in the number of reports from classroom teachers so when we look at who's actually doing the reporting um our classroom teachers which tell us that they're being vigilant and so if something's happening in the classroom and they need assistance with what's going on or they're they're not then trying to figure out okay this is or is not a Hib they're taking it to the people who can do the thorough investigation so um I see that as positive as well okay so some year-by-year comparisons last school year to the school year we just finished 2023 2024 this shows just our total so um total investigations this year um for July 1st 2023 to June 30th 2024 is 175 of that 175 104 were founded 71 unfounded or inconclusive and then um I mentioned before the preliminary determination total of 22 so um in 2022 23 you can see from the bar graph they were they were higher so 246 was our total with 139 founded and 107 unfounded so um from you know our percentages are a little bit different but I think that those unfounded ones that you see higher in the 2022 23 those would would likely also represent the ones that we now this year use the preliminary determination to um be able to deal with that in a different way so that represents about a 30% decrease in total incidents um again not controlled for because I we have no way of knowing go going back and the unfounded ones had we done preliminary determination so not really a fair Apples to Apples comparison so that's why that chart only has the one bar okay so just want to go over um what are our proactive approaches to bullying prevention you see here we have a lot of different um different approaches different stakeholders all of our stakeholders are involved in this um everyone from students to the general public and our community members so um I think that having our two District goals the equity strategic goal and having um the social emotional learning strategic goal in the district we we are trying to work towards um what are we doing that supports those goals and and that they are really part of our proactive overall approach certainly our school counseling department um we have have more lessons happening in our gate five than we have before and I'll talk a little bit more about that maybe in the in the coming months but Coming Attraction for some exciting newal work um that we're working with uh suo on so um we also have our school-based climate and culture teams um we we informally uh surveyed our staff members about how they are addressing social emotional learning and climate and culture in their classrooms where else and for people who are not classroom teachers H how else are we addressing it in school to try to really figure out what are we doing where is there overlap and do we have um some gaps and so we'll hear a little bit more about that we have our mental health um and counseling staff so we still have our partnership with Rucker's Behavioral Health and um we also have our school counselors are School psychologists and school social workers who help with that we um took a really proactive approach to professional development and training for staff um and I'll talk a little bit more about that from in the in a coming slide about our anti-bullying Specialists and making sure that they're trained and any new um we did have some new counselors this year so that meant new anti-bullying Specialists we've also worked to train to C keep up to speed or catch up and U make sure that all of our new administrative team understands including our supervisory team what the importance of knowing this about this this so that it really is a job for everybody and then certainly informing our students what are the reporting procedures do you know what to do again like I said um if you see something say something stand up for yourself how to be a good upstander for other people um because we know that um the the times when things like this happen tend to be are more unstructured time so Less in the classrooms more so in the places that they're not to be an adult right on top of you so things like the lunchroom recess um hallways bus um the bus is still I did not do a slide on this but the bus is still the number one place where we get reports so probably unsurprising to anyone who's put a child or ever ridden on a bus themselves the school bus themselves so taking a look at data um and using data driven approaches to bullying prevention um this year once once I got here underway we started in November having monthly meetings with the anti-bullying Specialists and myself um and our several of our assistant principles attended when they could which helped us be able to on a monthly basis so really every four weeks what's happening what are we doing it also um acted kind of as a calibration exercise which was helpful even in filling out um the board members are aware of this we use a a a software package called hipster that helps us to write their reports and that's what you end up seeing in your in your board packet but having consistency in how we um keep track of that because we know if we want to be able to do analysis of the data we have to make sure that the data going into the database helping us is um is accurate and complete enough to be able to then analyze and feel good about what we're what we're taking a look at what we're seeing as Trends um and then it also helps us to connect back to again some of our board goals our goal teams um and just have connection between um what we're doing in the counseling department and as anti-bullying Specialists to The Wider school and District community so with that we brought back and um I know that uh before the pandemic the um Dr McDonald had run some culture and climate Summits and so we brought that back so very exciting I did not ask Miss totero to for her picture I checked all the kids but I did not check her to see if she had the media releas so hopefully you're okay with it but she's pretty small up there um so we had our culture and climate Summit on May 31st this year um these are just a couple snapshots this is actually um the one on on the left here is the north the High School North team doing their share out so this um The Summit brought together uh teams our culture and climate teams from all 10 of our schools and that included culture and climate team includes um the anti-bullying specialist who kind of chairs that committee um at least one administrator most of our schools brought to where they could um but and keep still keep the building covered um we had students at the upper grades so in grades six through 12 the schools brought uh brought students with them and um parents are on that committee as well so we did have a parent representative um with us as well and actually one of the schools brought she's a parent but she was also coming um representing the Muslim um affinity group in the community so that was really exciting to have that Community connect action um with us as well to just sort of see one to be able to talk through what are we what are we currently doing what is what's happening at each School looking at those Trends and data for their school specifically and kind of doing some wonderings what's happening what you know what what do we see that's happening in our school how how could we improve it what do we what are we doing well what do we want to do differently what could we expand and do more of so that was exciting and the whole last power was the share out and I think I mean I I get a little stressed about school buses and we had a bus to get to but I feel like they were pretty excited to share and my assignment was one slide and several schools unsurprisingly created more than one had had enough information that they needed more than one slide so um that was really exciting so um taking a look and of course celebrating what we are doing it was an opportunity again to hear from a various group of stakeholders but also what is does this mean for moving forward how are we going to plan for the 2025 or 2024 2025 school year and so um this is a representative sample I didn't want to um read you 10 more slides of all of the things however um we certainly we'll be hearing more about it so I took this and these are the themes of what all the schools essentially we taking a look at so um what we found in looking at this is most of our schools are doing very similar things they may call them like their committee something different but there's there are initiatives happening in classrooms there are schoolwide initiatives School building school spirit these were ideas in terms of brainstorming and one of my questions to them was even like a magic question if you had unlimited dollars um what would you want to do and so that's fun always fun to do with kids because they get really creative on when you take away the barrier of like you know if you could stop school for a day or if you could do this you you had no rules around it what would you want to see for this work so um but honestly I think a lot of their ideas are totally attainable and things that we're already sort of headed towards so um some of their ideas um we have Affinity groups in our community and in our schools and particularly at the high school level uh they were interested in um perhaps having like shared experience and be having opportunities I know our high schools have done this on day of dialogue and some of our um Affinity groups have already had the opportunity whether it was on North day or at High School South they they um engage in it through faculty meetings but having students be able to talk to staff members about what their experience is like in our schools every day um I thought a really interesting one um that came out of our middle level was increasing inclusivity at after school and night events and specifically this was around um students who may not like we we were really they were really into spirit days like I could tell you that was a theme is everyone wants a spirit day like the de-stress day the you know kind of let's all have fun and make connections build relationships um but they there were a lot of students who were really concerned like what about kids who don't like a pep rally who have some um noise sensitivities or they don't like crowds and so like how could we look at being inclusive for a variety of reasons so that um so we can have more of our students connected to each other and to our schools so I thought that one was really interesting definitely warrant some more conversation um I mentioned the spirit days getting students involved because we know and I think our our students and certainly our culture and climate teams know we know as staff members that when you feel connected at school you tend to you feel safe and secure and that's what our entire um program is about is having safe and supportive School environments for our kids so um talking about assemblies and programs specifically on Mental Health they talked a lot about self- advocacy how do we how do we teach students to speak up for themselves um and be able to handle when you know there is a conflict or if someone says something to you that's offensive like what do you do with that information and make sure that you Advocate to get yourself help when you need it that you don't have to handle everything on your own um both with mental health and with anti-bullying um so that was a big theme um increased opportunities uh for social emotional learning instruction in all subject areas so um certainly they want to see that that and I know Miss Bean would agree that you can getal in every subject including math and so having that built in because we know we know but it was really inspiring and encouraging to hear from our students that um seal isn't something that's an event so it's something that has to be embedded and that's how it be then becomes part of the climate and culture and again when you're when you um build that empathy people who are who have high empathy tend to to not hurt other people um mentoring program students are interested and I know um the grover I know is working on this but mentoring between staff and students like having inter making connections between um trusted adults in the building who maybe aren't your teachers so they're interested in that um the elementary schools talked all about how the different programs that we already have in place for older students to visit them kind of like um Big Brothers Big Sisters kind of thing um and on the other side of that um I I put students but um there was some talk about uh like adopt a grandparent or like grandparents and making the connection to older Generations or people in the communities to for for high school and even Middle School age students to reach out to sort of get some information and build connections with people in the community um many of our schools have Wellness or de-stress kind of zenen they call them different little things um places that uh kids and faculty can go for um to take a break um and so that exists in some places I think the the kids like the idea of expanding that and then also making the connection and strengthening our connection and programming for families and caretakers on bullying prevention and so um I see that as being able to build um a bridge and maybe work collaboratively with all of our ptas and ptsas um going forward so we're looking forward to so a lot of tall uh tall order coming out of the culture and climate some but it was really um a great day and a good way to um both take a look at our data and see what what's happening and because that's a requirement of the law as is tonight's presentation but really not just be about compliance but future planning so and that and I'll just end with our our district Mission so obviously all of our um we are committed to providing all students with a safe learning environment that's free from harassment intimidation and bullying so right thank you Miss medley for uh sharing the data and explaining it as well as your insights on continuing the work on culture and climate uh right now I'm going to open the floor to the board for any questions or comments for Jessica oh go ahead thank you so much for that presentation it was really interesting I'm glad to see some of the numbers um come down from from previous years but um just one thing for the uh preliminary determination I just want to clarify that all like for the example those 22 cases they were all investigated through thorough you had mentioned that they were all investigated even though they might be preliminary determination um so they're all they were all addressed I should say so when we decide that we're going to take the preliminary we made a preliminary determination that we are not the other half of that senten is not going to go down with a not proceed with a full hip investigation so it kind of goes into like if you pictured you're at a a a T intersection right is for hi left is you're still going somewhere with it but you're taking it through typically its code of conduct so if that's something like a nasty think someone is teasing someone or someone is harassing someone but it doesn't mean it it's look there's nothing that suggests that there's any piece that would fit the rest of the criteria we just deal with it as if that's a bad behavior perfect um and then the second thing is in terms of the form that you mentioned earlier because I know it was something new um did you find that parents utilize that to reach out or to I guess report um an incident that their child might have experienced or a concern that they had we did see so it's the first we it's not the first time we've used the form it's the first time it's the really the state updated the form and sort of split it that it's family and caretaker versus staff member so um we did have the majority of our fors were electronic so that means they F like they got to the form sometimes we needed prompting they might call you know sometimes you call the teacher and it's like okay you can walk them through where to find it on our website um Kia Bergman worked with me to make it fewer clicks to find the form so it's an easier and a little bit more specific so that if you um you know we we tried to take a look at that website and actually that came from feedback from families and students of sometimes when we post something we know what we're talking about an acronym something like seal or Hib but if you don't know the word if you don't know what to you're searching for it can be hard to find so um you can now get to that form in fewer clicks on the website it's one of the quick links so um I do think that we we got very few I think we had a total of four forms that came in on paper so they can report online but we also the law does require that we have paper copies available so if someone was unable to make the report they could come into school and fill out the paper but the overwhelming majority of reports coming from um from families and caretakers use the form so all families and caretakers who have um a I guess I don't have complaint or want something to be looked at they have to submit the form that's yes they should yeah gotta I mean if we we can take an an initial um you know concern I wouldn't want anyone to feel like they have to do the form first you're always welcome to reach out to us um in any format phone call email um because if we if we need to point you to the form we we'll get you to the form gotcha yeah now just um you know when you talk to friends or other people who come up and they have an experience you know so it's good to know that you can direct them either to someone in the building or and they'll work through that with the form absolutely yese this you I think that H that making sure that we're reviewing this um we always review it with staff every year um to be able to when we're on in the onboarding process in all of our opening faculty meetings we do a sort of a retraining and refresh but I think keeping it on people's radar sooner and also it's one form now so that was that's important to see and every and making sure that our staff members know what's happening Even in our meetings our monthly meetings because the counselors are also the a abses they also sit on those other committees so it becomes part of the conversation I think more frequently of if you come you know if if a teacher is still going to go to an administrator or a counselor and say I have a concern but it's important we like to try to get when there's an accusation and you for investigative purposes it's really helpful if the person closest to the incident does the report so um that's important like so that you're not starting with secondhand information so I think um I I don't I wouldn't want to weigh in are they more comfortable we've kind of told them that's what needs to happen so I compliant they're compliant which is good so um but that's important like write it down and with our older students and even even younger students to the degree that they can and certainly you know some of them have harder time writing and doing those things but whenever possible we really want the report from the the kid who's saying like this happened to me there's an import there's several important pieces there one it's helpful like from an investigation standpoint and really looking into um what's what happened but also that's part of how we when we're talking to the perceived or the um alleged Vic victim it's how it helps us get information on is this um a significant or substantial impact to to the educational environment to this student or to other students and so um the closer we are to and that's that advocacy piece is like it's so if you should say something as much as you can and I I wouldn't ever discourage a family caretaker from doing that or a teacher to doing it on a kid's behalf but the closer we get to the students being able to say you know what someone mistreated me and I know that there's adults around who are going to help me deal with this because it's I don't need to I don't we we are not we don't tolerate it and we're we want them to be able to stand up and say this didn't happen or including for their friends and that being that upstander yes I think um yeah that's very helpful and definitely something we want to do is again pull all those people together and have um and I think I think the kids who said that and who mentioned the inclusivity probably our kids who've participated in the events that we um you know are expanding with those students and their families is to that everybody belongs here and everyone has a place here and we we can all we can all play and we can all learn together Dana I think you have a question so thank you um thank you for the presentation and all the work that you and everyone else is doing in this um area I wanted to know if there was like sort of I'm going to say like maybe preventative work going on that um includes like educating and informing staff and students about I'll give some examples like religious cultural appearance inappropriate things or insensitive things that people could say or do like kind of because you know particularly the younger students may not know and older students may not understand the full implication and I hoping that there's like sort of like preventative or you know so that we're I would say that we are addressing that not just really through Hib and with the anti-bullying specialist but across all of our curricular areas of um understanding because I think you make a very good point that some of it is true ignorance like they they don't know or don't understand Customs culture um background you know anything and and we are not not devoid of the culture and climate of our community State nation and world around us so I think those are the conversations that work is done primarily through our curricular areas specifically social studies um really every subject English um so I guess I was wondering if you see like a pattern in certain um areas of Hib like um maybe in relation to cultural religious um you know comments or actions um are you looking at those and saying oh maybe we do need to deal with this you know this particular issue because maybe people don't understand that students don't really understand this you know what's let's say what someone's wearing or um you know that they observe certain um Customs like are we addressing those if they start coming up more in Hib sit situations or report a reporting of hibs yeah so the um the data that we have that we is always shared with our with the principles with our um with our staff to be able to what do we see I would say um much like the whole what are we on 13 years of of this law um the incidents tend to Trend like what's happening in our larger society so um when there's world events going on um and when there's the general public is attacking each other in various areas our hip data tends to Trend along with it so um it's a really complex like how we teach what our living in the context of our wider world is really something that all of us do together thanks Dana uh puan thank you for the presentation um you mentioned that the majority of the Hib incidents is um occurred on buses are bus drivers receiving special training in they are they do um they're required all of our staff K through 12 um including related service providers um cafeteria workers um even our our buildings Grounds Maintenance every every staff member is trained every year I think it just um I don't think that we have a deficit there I think it's just a really it's hard to drive a bus and be addressing there's a lot of opportunity for comments to fly unfortunately so um and again these are it's it's verbal so it's that's hard to be doing at the same time we're not seeing when it's Hib incidents there are things that people are saying it's not that we we don't have violence on our bus so I just want to make that clear too do you have another just one last question because I was curious after your comments and what Les said about um the culture and climate Summit I was just curious how were the six to 12 um grade students selected and also parents and I was wondering if um there's an Outreach to folks who may have you know had some experiences that they wanted to kind of uh share not share but um that they could have offered up some you know um just kind of share their experience in terms of how their process went like how are those people selected kind the um each school gets to um they basically solicit volunteers for that for their um climate and safety team which that those are the teams that came um I believe the high schools also have some clubs so I think they they asked around for clubs who have shown an interest in these topics before um but as uh for members of the public we certainly um you can join we we have unlimited number of seats available at the table for um for our culture and climate committees and one thing that I have made the recommendation I've seen it work really successfully in another school district is that when there is um when a student has been a victim um or and a and or a family There's an opportunity there to invite those that family and the students in to hear what it feels like um and also feel like they have um the ability to get involved in making a difference and so um yeah so we could call this a solicitation we always looking for families who are interested they do meet during the school day so I know that's difficult for some of our um some of our families to be able to give up the time but um every team has every school has a team and they typically some meet monthly some meet every other month so definitely an opportunity and if there's anyone out there who doesn't know how to get themselves involved you can always reach out to me directly I think that does it for questions from the board so thank you again for your presentation uh love the ideas that came out of the culture and climate Summit like like adop a grandparent um so that now it takes us to our special opportunity for public comment on harassment intimidation and bullying the board invites thoughts and reactions on the district semiannual report of harassment intimidation and bullying from members of our community who are present each participant is asked H to give his or her name an address prior to making a statement each comment should be directed to the presiding officer not individual members of the board and must be made in in accordance with the procedures and 3 minute time limit set forth in board policy 0167 this public comment period shall be limited to 10 minutes uh do we have any comments from the public at this time hearing none I will close this public comment portion and can I have a motion to um accept the January 1st 2024 to June 30th 2024 District semiannual report of harassment intimidation and bullying as required by the New Jersey State Department of Ed education under the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act and to verify that the school district and school grade report issued by the New Jersey Department of Education was reviewed as required by the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act and that this report was posted on the district's website pursuant to uh njsa 18a 17 to 46 um Liz and Pua um any questions or comments okay okay we'll start with Miss chenera yes Miss bonsel yes Miss K yes Miss maliga yes Miss zich yes missan yes that adjourns our special public hearing on harassment intimidation and bullying uh next we will have um Community reports oh no I'm sorry um totally looking at the Ron section here uh no comments okay we actually will now have our first opportunity for public comments uh the board invites thought and reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to 3 minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 60 Minutes uh any general public comments seeing none I will close this opportunity for public comment and now turn to the uh Board of Education committee reports I will turn it the floor now over to Dana for administration and Facilities okay good evening everyone um the ANF committee met on Tuesday July 23rd um Miss Melissa LaVine came um she's the director of special education for the district she joined our committee to provide a special services update she highlighted programming across the district including Autism Therapeutic and postgraduate student supports including a sensory room at milstone River Elementary School sensory a sensory playground at Town Center Elementary School family and school schools work together um sometimes called Fast community events um the United athletic Partnerships integrated phys physical education and the pathways programming at the 72 Grovers Mill High School North Campus next the committee reviewed several policies and regulations which we are recommending for a first reading at tonight's meeting and that is regulation 52000 which is attendance um policy 5350 student suicide prevention policy 8420 emergency and crisis situations and the policy and regulation 8467 on firearms and weapons the committee also reviewed several other policies which are recommended for a second reading and approval at tonight's meeting first one is policy 2260 equity in school and classroom practices and it's um and the regulation um also R 2260 which is the same thing equity in school and classroom practices um complaint procedure and then the P um policy 220 curriculum content next um Dr McDonald the deputy superintendent shared artifacts to support his mer goals for this past school year 2023 24 the committee recommends approval for submission to the County Superintendent at this at tonight's meeting referendum updates included um finishing touches continue for the media center at morce Hawk and Village Elementary schools with elate Summer occupancy expected the committee also reviewed updated job descriptions including assistant director of building and grounds assistant transportation coordinator Community Education programming administrator District Food Services manager diversity Equity inclusivity coordinator mental health clinician program analyst social media manager technology manager transportation coordinator and security monitor the committee recommends these job descriptions for approval at tonight's meeting our next meeting will be on August 13th thanks Dana uh now I'll turn the floor over to LY for curriculum committee thank you grayan uh the curriculum committee met on July 18th we discussed several items uh one is um District professional development Dr gold shared with the committee some of the highlights and topics that will be discussed at the annual administrative uh Retreat which is going to be held this upcoming August 12th to 15th this year's theme is centered around from belonging to connection to mattering uh we then discussed um and previewed the wonderful professional development opportunities of ailable to Educators through the TCNJ teachers a scholarship partnership uh then we discussed a presentation that was given by Aaliyah Dench um titled designing uh non-human animal inclusive C curriculum and investigation into teacher uh disposition orientations um this Community Middle School teachers shared uh her excuse me a Community Middle School teacher um shared her dissertation action research request which centers on working with world uh history teachers to understand the curriculum designing process uh on the agenda for vote tonight um several uh evalu in evaluation instruments which the curriculum committee recommends approval for uh first the Charlotte Danielson uh framework for teaching 2013 as the evaluation instrument for all certified staff except administrators then the uh New Jersey principal evaluation for professional learning as the evaluation instrument for administrators uh next the highly effective option and the alternative evaluation rubric um are being used as part of the evaluation process for highly effective teachers and last the Charlotte Danielson framework for teaching 2022 as the evaluation instrument for all certified staff except administrators um next committee recommends acceptance of the entitlement grants for the elementary and secondary Education Act uh from the state of New Jersey for the fiscal year 2025 as follows title one part a 22884 title two part a uh $11 15,879 title 363,462 32,000 and 60,1 32,000 and title 4,948 next uh the committee recommends approval of a new textbook AP Psychology Myers at all Myers psychology for the AP course fourth edition uh BFW 2024 uh we also recommend approval for professional development through the foundation for educational Administration to provide mentoring Management Services for new administrators in the district at a cost of $850 each the district also agrees to reimburse new administrators for the cost of their Mentor at $1,500 for the first year and a thousand for the second year the curcum committee recommends approval for profession Prof development consultant uh this one is Tesla teeso trainers to Pro uh present for scup institute professional development sessions at uh to district teachers during the 20242 school year at a cost not to exceed 31,000 including travel the curriculum committee recommends approval for uh a couple of professional contracts First District membership in a professional development school network at the College of New Jersey for the 20242 school year at a cost of $3,750 membership includes registration for one staff member and each teachers as Scholars seminar and the second con professional contract for that we recommend approval for is um in the teachers as Scholars at Princeton University for the 24th 20242 school year at a cost of $2,160 membership includes 21 professional development days at teachers as Scholars semin uh the curriculum committee recommends approval for Community Ed programs uh this fall 2024 for adult youth and after school enrichment programs which can be listed in tonight which are listed in tonight's agenda um and the committee recommends approval for a field trip uh for Middle School for the outdoor education to Camp uh can canadensis in um Pennsylvania from June 9th uh through June 13th of 2025 the cost of the trip is approximately $250 per student and the committee will next meet on August 13th thank you thanks ly uh any questions or comments for either committee okay so that takes us to the voting portion of our meeting um can I get a motion for administration items numbers uh 1 through 13 uh Dana and Liz uh any questions or comments okay we'll start with Miss crw yes Miss chenera yes Miss doic yes Miss bonsel yes Miss migga yes Miss McAn yes uh can I get a motion for curriculum and instruction items numbers 1 through 11 L and Pua any questions or comments okay we we'll start with we'll start with Miss malga yes Miss bonsel yes Miss chenera yes Miss crw yes Miss zich yes Miss mcon yes and can I get a motion for finance items number uh 1 through 20 plus the blue addendum uh Robin and Pua any questions or comments okay we'll start with Miss sovich yes Miss bonsel yes Miss chener yes Miss Krug yes Miss malga yes Miss MC yes and we'll move to Personnel can I get a motion for personal items number one to three plus the green addendum and uh note the revised job description for 2C and 2i for Community Education Program administrator and social media manager um ly and Pua uh any I'm sorry good evening just uh one comment about an item on tonight's agenda just joining us in the audience is the recommended candidate for the the assistant principal position at Village Elementary School uh it's my pleasure to introduce azer uh Diggs to the district uh Miss Diggs is currently a vice principal in Hillside Elementary School in Hillside New Jersey uh for the past two years uh prior to that she served 20 years in Hillside as an elementary teacher primarily in grades K1 and three um she's run their new teacher induction program for numerous years before becoming an administrator and has been an adjunct professor at Clair uh University so we're thrilled to have her joining our district and we welcome you this evening with M with Dr tol thank you and welcome to the district um I did ation we we'll start with Miss malga yes Miss bonsel yes Miss chera yes Miss zich yes Miss M I miss miss M crew yes Miss McAn yes and before we move on I do want to acknowledge and congratulate Susan Lee uh town center physical therapist on her retirement after 21 and a half years serving in wwp uh thank you for your dedicated years of service and we wish you well best of luck and enjoy uh every moment of your retirement um next can I have a motion to approve the June 25th minute um Dana and Liz um all those in favor say I I any abstentions yes Iain do we have any other do we have any other abstentions um any board liaison reports uh any new business NOP uh second opportunity for public comments the board invites uh comments from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer and this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes um do we have any public comment at this time okay seeing none I'll close this second opportunity for public comments and that takes us to uh adjournment can I have a motion to adjourn uh Robin and Liz all those in favor say I I all right thank you good night