e e e notice is hereby given of the regular meeting of the Board of Education of the town of Westfield in the county of Union New Jersey at 700 p.m. on the evening of Tuesday January 23rd 2024 in cafeteria B of Westfield High School 550 Dorian Road Westfield New Jersey the purpose of the meeting is to transact the regular business of the board and to transact any other business to come properly before the board this is to advise the general public and to instruct that it be recorded in the minutes that in compliance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 entitled the open public meetings act the Westfield school board on Thursday January 18th 2024 caused to be posted at the office of the Board of Education located at 302 Elm Street Westfield New Jersey and delivered to the Westfield leader The Star Ledger the Westfield Library Town Clerk of Westfield tap into Westfield and patch.com a meeting notice setting forth the time date and location of this meeting Patty can we have a roll call Sahar aiz here Rob bonio here Kent Diamond here Brendan gallagan here Charles jinus here Leila melli here sonel Patel here Kristen Sonic schmeltz here Mary wickens here Casey can you lead us in the flag [Music] salute to the flag okay announcements uh CJ do you have any announcements uh yes completed petitions for candidacy in the April 16 2024 School Board election are being accepted petitions are due to business administrator board secretary Patricia Ramos by 4 p.m. on Monday February 26 candidates May email petitions to P Ramos westfieldnjk12.org with a copy to uh M Estes westfieldnjk12.org or submit by mail to Patricia Ramos 302 Elm Street Westfield New Jersey 07090 the drawing of names for position on the April 16 ballot will be done by Mrs Ramos on Wednesday March 6 at 2 p.m. at 302 Elm Street the nominating petition and additional information are posted under the board tab at www.westfieldnjk12.org thanks CJ Sahar three Westfield High School students have been recognized with the lift while you climb award in honor of the late Westfield High School principal Dr Derek Nelson nominated by High School faculty and staff for fall 2023 the three recipients of the lift while you climb award are 12th graders Nina shermack and Diana hinova and 10th grader Mia Sako congratulations to all and I just want to note that January is Muslim heritage month which is prompted school districts and towns across New Jersey to host programs educating students and residents about the diversity of Muslim Heritage thank you thanks SAR Leila the international technology and engineering Education Association has selected Westfield High School engineering teacher L Laura Doyle to receive a 2023 2024 teacher of Excellence award at an award ceremony in March this award recognizes Educators who are impacting and making a significant difference in the lives of their students and their development of technological literacy congratulations to Mrs Doyle on this well-deserved honor thank you ilila Mary 23 Elementary and Intermediate School students received recognition for their thoughtful submissions in an annual essay poetry and art contest sponsored by the Dr Martin Luther King Jor Association of Westfield the students and their families attended the 37th annual Interfaith service on January 15th you can read about the award recipients under the news section on the district website congratulations to all and thank you to the many students who submitted their creative works for consideration thank you Mary Ken yes do you know someone who is considering moving to Westfield and wants to know more about our school district well I'm glad you asked because newly posted under family and community on the district website is the thinking of moving to Westfield portal with all the key information in one easy to navigate space check it out thanks Ken Brendan y on February 1st the college men's club of Westfield will begin accepting scholarships or accepting applications for its 2024 scholarships the college men men's club annually Awards up to three $24,000 fouryear scholarships to young men from the Westfield Community Based on academics leadership and financial need the 2024 application will be available at CMC westfield.org on the application portal thank you Brendan Kristen online registration for kindergarten and first grade is underway for the 2024 2025 school year detailed instructions and forms are available under student registration on the district website please share this information with your friends and Neighbors in westfields who have Young Learners thank you thank you rob the next regular public meeting of the Board of Education will be on Tuesday February 13th in cafeteria B at Westfield High School beginning at 7:00 p.m. the meeting will be live streamed via the district YouTube channel which viewers can access on the board tab on the district website the complete agenda will be available on Friday February 9th also on the board tab thank you Rob at this time I'd like to turn it over to Mr Scott Cleland for a presentation of the audit for fiscal year 2022 23 good evening thank you very very much Madam president it's a pleasure to be here tonight to uh present the results of the 2223 fiscal year audit um before I get started I want to um thank the District administration for all their help during the course of the audit and especially want to recognize Patty Ramos and uh and caralina for all the time and effort they put in um as you many of you may be aware the audits have been filed like in March in the last couple years because the state has been unable to provide information timely enough and when it came up this year that we were going to receive the information earlier I talked to Patty and carmelina they both said let's go for the real deadline so we focused on trying to get the audit done by the December 5th deadline and just so you know at the December 5th deadline only 27% of the school district audits were filed with the state and you were one of those so again that's just a recognition for Patty and caralina and their staff for focusing on getting everything we needed so we can get the audit done um as part of the audit we render an opinion the opinion is unmodified ified which is a clean opinion which is the highest level of opinion that can be placed on financial statements and that basically means that everyone provided us or the district provided us with all the information necessary in order to say that the numbers in the report are materially stated and accurate um during the year the fund balance of the district improved so your financial position improved from the prior year and you prudently put aside various allowed State statutory regulations for different Reserves you have funds set aside for cap Reserve maintenance reserve and also for the Emergency Reserve again within State limits uh your food service program and wraparound program both performed with a positive results during the year and your self-insurance fund uh perform better than it had done in the 2122 fiscal year so all good results in all the various funds um as part of the audit we also spend time looking at your internal controls uh we look at how you process purchase orders accounts payable revenues and receipts in payroll and I'm happy to report that we did not identify any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies and there are no items that are identified in the auditor's mag report therefore you as a board will not have to fill out and approve a corrective action plan also as part of the audit we're required to look at some of your federal and state Grant programs um with all the covid-19 money that's was floating around obviously that's one of the ones that we looked at we looked at the educational stabilization funds which included Esser and some ARP funds and then from a state perspective we looked at your extraordinary Aid which pertains to your special ed students as well as your debt service Aid all which did not identify any exceptions again there were no findings in the in the auditor management report very very clean audit and uh this is my first year that I've been involved with this audit um the partner that was on the account for years retired so I had taken it over and and the water went very very clean so that's always a good good from me my perspective that when there's not any issues they not a lot there's not a lot to talk about um so with that I know you received the order reports I believe last Friday if you have any questions on what I just presented or anything else that's in the report be more than happy to answer them thank you okay does anybody have any questions okay thank you for that report on our audit much appreciated thank you have a good evening okay okay I'd like to turn it over to Dr Gonzalez for stud student safety data system report yep I have a a few items that uh I'll be including this evening but before I begin my report I do want to note that January is a school board recognition month uh it's a time to express our gratit itude to our members of the Westfield Board of Education um all of the individuals around uh me are not only just members of the board uh their neighbors their friends uh their Community leaders their parents um and they volunteer their time and resources make tough decisions and provide a vision for our educational future um to all of our school board members I want to sincerely thank you for your service for your vision and for your dedication to the Westfield School Community uh at this time I'd also like to provide just a quick overview in the notes for the record this evening we do have the submission for the first period of the school year for the student safe student safety data system report this is a report that is submitted um twice a year twice per school year uh and it shares the number of incidents um that involve violence vandalism substances weapons and or hi be in a school district um the number of instances that have led to the removal of students from school uh any time that uh restraint or seclusion was necessary uh and this is typically um as it relates to the use of those um techniques for behaviors um that warranted in uh student in programs that uh involves students who may be emotionally uh disregulated um anytime that we use such a restraint to um secure a student um we report them as well as part of this report we also include in this report alleged uh Hib as well as any Hib trainings or in any Hib programs so in the student sa uh safety data system report for this period we include all of those uh cases uh broken down by each school I I will defer to uh anyone to uh see for themselves what the report looks like uh it's located in the in the last page of the attachments uh for this board meeting but as I said each of those uh reports uh come to us directly from the schools as they are reported and uh mandated by the state to be reported uh twice a year on that note I do also want to use the opportunity to uh reference the security uh situation that we encountered yesterday uh given the uh the the times that we find find ourselves in when we get notified that our schools need to uh bring all of our students inside because there is uh police activity happening in or around our area certainly that that raises the alarms it raises the alarms and and the stress levels of those in the district as I could imagine for any member of the community or any parent uh who is encountering um a message from the community uh a message from the school district a message from uh that they might see even on on social media uh yesterday we followed our uh communication protocols in order to ensure that the community and families were aware of what was going on to the extent that we were able to provide uh details understanding that in in situations involving law enforcement that involve uh Safety and Security we're not privy to all the details as school districts we're privy to those level of details that allow us to ensure that our students are safe and that our schools are safe and to allow us to cooperate with our partners in law enforcement to ensure that all of those uh Protocols are are properly executed but we don't have levels of details that I know many people including uh members of our school staff our members of our school Community are interested in um but that's certainly because the uh members of law enforcement who are uh managing the activity who are investigating the activity are the ones who are in control of those details they they need those details in order to conduct their investigation they need those details in order to follow up with the investigation and they need those details in order to ensure that their work is is uh conducted and and impeded so while I know during those times there there may be uh instances where we're looking for more but I do want to remind everyone that uh we communicate what we can can communicate and we also communicate as quickly as we can recognizing that our first order of business is always to ensure that our students are safe and secure first and foremost then when we get that message out to you we will ensure that we follow up with that message to let you know the status update and when possible provide you with additional details a student safety uh data system report is just an example of how the state requires that we report this out to all of you but I just want to make sure that the community is aware that in in this day and age as uh instances arise we will continue to use our uh standard forms of communication to ensure that we keep you connected uh to what's going on in any uh emergency situation I've also included in an email out to the community uh two links one link is to our crisis Communications plan and that provides additional details about the types of uh protocols that we enact in emergency situations as well as uh in um information about um you know the details when we would make uh contact to the families and most importantly how you could uh help us in situations like that because we know that uh often times the initial reaction is to call the schools or even come to the schools but in order for us to maintain the operation uh in a safe and secure manner uh we need to be able to keep our focus on the students and the staff in our our buildings so again while we have the ability to take our time and and review those documents I encourage all members of the community to do so and certainly feel free to reach out to the school principes uh or to uh our Us in central office to be able to answer uh questions that that could help you feel more comfortable it's a scary time for all of us but I assure you that our schools are safe our cooperation with the law enforcement provides us with the sense of security that I know uh will allow us to continue to uh make our schools place where students can learn in safe and and secure environments okay um that concludes my two reports now on to the third report um for this evening and uh it begins with uh the first of a series of public reports on our school operating budget for the 2425 school year we're so used to 23 24 have to start transitioning to 2425 the 2425 school year uh budget is something that uh we begin to develop in the start of the current school year and that work continues through the winter and into the spring so what you will hear this evening is the first of a series present of presentations to give you an update as to where we are today and where we're headed um I do want to take the opportunity before I get started to also acknowledge that uh the audit report um certainly is is something that we take pride in but is also the hard work and uh diligence of a business office led by Patricia Ramos and caralina jusis okay um and who work together with the administrators work with their office staff to ensure that the uh the fiscal matters in in this District are uh appropriately attended to so when we receive information about clean audits it gives me the comfort and the confidence that our fiscal Affairs while uh dire potentially at times uh are certainly managed with the utmost care and consideration and as we build our budgets and develop our budgets for next year uh we have the same level of scrutiny and the same level of attention that goes into it to ensure that we are maximizing the taxpayer dollars in order to ensure that our student experiences are are at the highest level the presentation that we're uh going to do this evening is available on the district uh website associated with this uh board meeting so in the same uh space on the website where you find the agenda the attachments you will also find a link to this presentation so if there's anything that you would like to revisit you're more than welcome to do so um through that link I'm going to work both my computer and the presentation at one time okay um so tonight what you are going to hear is an overview of where we are starting with a a road map of how we got to where we are today uh we're also going to provide an overview of the most recent public law that was signed that impacts the public vote on the budget in April we'll also talk about uh and review the 2023 2024 budget the budget that we are currently enacting the budget that was first voted on last year by the community that included additions to uh our school district that I uh am thrilled to say have been already making an impact uh on our student experiences we'll also discuss how the 2425 uh School operating budget uh aligns with our strategic plan and in doing so provide a quick midyear report on the work of our strategic plan and then leading into the development of the 2425 uh budget we want to highlight uh our governing priorities and then give a a general overview of the preliminary budget recognizing that this early in the process there's still data that we are waiting we are waiting on information from our health broker our health insurance uh broker to be able to provide us with accurate uh percentages to uh factor into the budget for calculating uh Insurance uh increases for next year we also awaiting uh state aid figures that don't get released uh by the governor's office until the end of February so a lot of the uh the figures a lot of the percentages that we're basing off of are presuming uh that figures are coming in at certain levels and certainly uh Miss Ramos will will go into to Greater detail we also at this point in in time have not had an opportunity to have a full conversation with the board of education so we want to make sure that this as our first opportunity um has the the benefit of being able to hear from the board about what direction we need to go to to ensure that we develop administratively a budget for their consideration that reflects the needs and priorities of the Board of Education and certainly of the community and then last but not least we'll talk about the next steps in the upcoming presentations ahead so this budget roadmap is a is a variation of something that we've done before and and fortunately I think we are now about three budget Cycles Beyond uh where we were when I first came uh where this was uh something that was relatively new and in how we were presenting it as a journey that took us from a period before 2010 when communities throughout New Jersey were accustomed to voting on School District budgets to then 2011 and Beyond when that started to change after there were tremendous uh changes in how School dist districts were funded and the amount of um state aid we're receiving so for 10 to 12 years after that the school community of Westfield uh was not accustomed to voting on on School District budgets as the school uh Board elections were moved to November the school district operating budgets no longer required a uh a community vote as long as we did not increase the tax levy for the subsequent year by more than 2% or the cap at that uh time the cap could have been adjusted in any given year depending on uh Health Care adjustments or enrollment waivers that we may have been eligible for but uh by and large 2% was our general uh cap over the 12-year period and unfortunately in the last few years we discovered that the ability for us to uh fully fund and support the the maintenance of a uh operating budget that allows us to keep our current levels of Staff keep our current levels of program keeping our class sizes and enrollments uh in check unfortunately was no longer possible uh with a 2% tax levy cap so that is why in 20123 the Board of Education uh after a year prior of having to make drastic cuts to um our operating budget um the Board of Education made the decision and voted on a resolution to return the vote back to the community and that's where we found ourselves uh this past year the community had the opportunity to um hear from the Board of Education hear from the administration uh and then exercise their civic responsibility to to vote on whether or not to support uh an increase to the tax levy that uh fortunately was passed last year and allowed us to continue our work into this year so moving into this current year we find ourselves once again uh in in familiar territory this first um meeting will give that overview and at this time uh what I'm going to do is ask our school business administrator Patricia Ramos uh to walk us through uh the latest updates to the public law 2023 that uh impacts the vote for this coming uh spring thank you Ry so uh you may have noticed a few weeks ago Ry had included on one of the board check-ins about Senate Bill 4209 which basically stated that districts that moved to the April election would only need to vote on any additional spending proposals the 2% cap would now go back to the board of education to vote on and approve just as what would happen in the November election that moved a lot faster than we thought it would and it was signed into law last week so what that means for us is come April the Board of Education will vote on the base budget so that's the 2% plus if we got any adjustments which I'm not anticipating this year you never know but I'm not anticipating it the Board of Education would vote on that budget and that would be the end of it it would be approved anything above the 2% plus the adjustments would go to the taxpayers so instead of a question two it will now be referred to as an additional spending proposal it'll look the same on the ballot as it did last year but it will be the only question on the ballot and then of course there'll be the um board candidate election will still go on as normal um the change with that was it just solidified that board members serve through April 30th and it solidified some dates where we have to have meetings where we have to look at um we think this is a positive for us it's a positive that the state is addressing the situation um they they recognize a lot more districts are looking to move to April the 2% cap is not working and this is a way that they're trying you know it's a start it's a start that they're actually addressing something which they hav't done since 2011 there's been no movement on this so it was pretty big how fast this moved and then it was signed into law thank you Patty so uh again just to think two years ago we were voting on budgets as a board and there was no Community vote last year we get acclimated and educated about how to then present the vote to the public two questions and now the the Law changes again so I appreciate the the update but it is certainly a message that we are going to want to make sure is loud and clear and consistent both at these meetings and in our public presentations to make clear that the the community isw that the board will have the opportunity to approve a base budget that will not exceed the tax levy cap and that anything above the tax levy cap will require a uh an approval by the um the community via vote so as I mentioned I'd just like to to quickly revisit um some of the work from last year because I think it's important to note when the board uh and the Administration build a budget together uh we we do so with the intent to be able to reflect the values and priorities um that are representative in our school districts and last year that uh proposal that we presented to the community included the addition of Elementary guidance counselors interventionists and academic support teachers as well as in our base budget we also included the approval of ESL teachers these all represents additions to the school budget that we had not seen in quite some time often times there were when there were additions to the budget of Staffing it unfortunately came at at at the subtraction or the cost of other items so the fact that we were able to present this as an addition was exciting but we didn't take take it for granted so what I want to do tonight is just give a quick update of of the impact that we have uh experienced already with the benefit of these additional positions so for instance in the intermediate level we included um additional interventionist for both reading and writing as well as an interventionist from interventionist for math at the intermediate levels at each intermediate level and what that means is that we have individuals who are going to work with our students who are uh at risk for for struggling in each of those areas to be able to provide them with targeted uh instruction to assist them in uh meeting with success with those uh additions at the uh intermediate level we saw 141 students receiving um targeted reading in instruction 161 intermediate students St re receiving uh writing instruction as well as 125 intermediate students uh receiving individualized math support again all of those students were able to benefit by the additions of those interventionists and had we not had those individuals uh available to us those same numbers of students unfortunately uh would have not had that same level of support that that level of support would have been uh made available to the ENT possible by the classroom teacher but that classroom teacher as we know would be attending to all the student needs this allows us to truly Target our our work and as we've shared in in many presentations this year providing a multi-tiered system of support allows us to utilize both our classroom teachers and our ancillary staff to be able to provide both General and more specialized and targeted interventions when possible now the interventionist data that we uh highlight here is in addition to the interventionist data that already exists and is existed at the elementary level where our academic Support Program uh contined to uh operate as as usual we then moved into adding additional counselors uh the counselors at the uh Elementary level if you recall from from last year uh used to be shared so we didn't have dedicated counseling staff at each of our elementary schools so we are able to um staff our counseling department uh throughout the district to be able to have dedicated staff at each of the elementary levels in addition to our school guidance counselors at the uh secondary level we are also able to provide Student Assistance coordinators or counselors at the secondary level so that at each intermediate school and then an additional uh inter um sack at the high school uh we now have the ability to once again provide additional and dedicated targeted support so with those additional uh staff members you'll see here the individual student engagements on a monthly basis averaged around 1,200 students at the high school level with 80 of those engagements uh being divided between the two um sacks at the high school we have 300 intermediate counseling uh engagements at the intermediate level uh with 60 intermediate uh engagements by the sack and and what this represents is information that we're able to gather from our um student information system that tracks when our counselors have these uh engagements at the elementary level we have uh again across our our six uh elementary schools and and Lincoln schools we have about 200 engagements um which allows which suggests that our counselors on average are are engaging with students about 10 students a day uh being able to provide them the social emotional support and and and targeted uh uh assistance that they need uh to manage the the school experience in addition to those uh individual engagements we also see that our our counselors are able to put together group sessions including lunch bun bunches mindful Mondays social skills and other opportunities to acclimate students to their environments whether it be as new students to the high school or just even new students to the district all of these additional resources again are only made possible because we have the staff now available to us the staff that we had before again I am grateful and thankful for their efforts but when they were spread across different schools or spread across even more students then their ability to carve out additional time for some of these targeted and and additional supports just weren't there so we are thankful and and uh grateful that these supports have existed in the way that you see thus far and will continue to uh be in place for the remainder of the year and then last but not least the addition of uh our ESL staff um if you recall from last year ESL teachers um were limited in what schools they service they serviced uh schools on both the North side and South side at the elementary level they um service students at the uh intermediate level only at Edison and then uh of course at the high school well our student um who are multilingual uh multilanguage Learners uh unfortunately don't only go to those schools so we would have to move them and and ask them to go to those schools even if they weren't the schools where they uh Liv near so in being able to increase our ESL staff we were fortunately able to then staff our schools in such a way that allowed all students to remain educated in their homeschools and pro receive the appropriate level of multilingual language uh support support from qualified ESL teachers in in our ESL program and as you see from the data on the screen uh within our district uh across the 10 schools we have 21 countries who are represented with 15 different languages so it's not just uh a single language that that we are working with we are working with students who are coming from different backgrounds different cultures and and different linguistic experiences the addition of the um the new ESL teachers uh allows us to share them across the the school so that they're not dedicated in each school but they are able to provide those supports to students in their home schools on a scheduled basis um this year alone we had 97 multilingual Learners uh across the district that is an increase uh from prior years with 24 of those multilingual uh students being identified as newly qualifying in this year being uh new to this District uh and if not possibly new to the country all of those additional uh services and supports um allow our ESL teachers to work uh hand inand with our classroom teachers to provide push in Services where they may go into a classroom to assist students or assist the teacher or they provide those uh pull out Services where they uh pull students out into small groups or one-on-one um uh engagements and in all cases being able to provide them with both the social and the cognitive language skills to be able to successfully navigate um our educational system you'll also notice by some of the uh imagery on this slide that even beyond that our ESL teachers uh are instrumental in being able to help our students uh get acclimated into the culture of the school culture of their new environment and also providing support for families uh in in the work that they uh provide provide to our community so as we move into the coming school year we want to be able to think about the success of those additions from last year and try to create a an equally uh successful proposal for this coming school year and what we didn't have last year that we have now this year is a plan that plan that we that that I'm referring to is the Strategic plan the Strategic plan was in devel Vel M last year the Strategic plan was uh gaining steam as we gathered feedback from our community from our Board of Education and from our strategic plan steering committee in order to identify those goals and objectives that would help to be able to keep us focused and moving forward the Strategic plan that we shared in the fall and that was approved by the the board in the fall uh highlighted the activities that we were going to focus on for this year we we did not f focus on uh presenting activities for years 2 through four because in part those activities are going to be contingent on the resources that we have available to us as well as on our experiences from this year so for us um our work to implement our strategic plan is really uh an an effort to help us better gauge what we need to be successful in uh forwarding our school districts in each of the five goal areas which I will walk through uh briefly in in the next few slides so the first goal uh focus on deepening the learning experiences of all students to prepare for them for their Futures and when you think about our school district the most important thing to note is that the uh the primary resource for teaching and learning uh comes in the form of our curriculum our curriculum as a school district is undergoing a a tremendous and significant revamp and upgrade I'm thrilled to say um that has been taking place since the the start of the school year uh with work that is engaging our teachers and our administrators in deeper understandings in conceptions about what students not only are expected to learn but what they need to learn and what that looks like in a way that allows us to provide greater consistency across grade levels and across schools in our district the curriculum planning that uh underscores the the objectives of of goal one certainly uh may seem to be only one bullet on this slide but I assure you it takes on a large portion of the work that is taking place this year we've also included work um to support scci science-based reading spelling and handwriting program uh into our third grade with a tremendous amount of resource uh and professional development being allocated um to that effort and we're also expanding our opportunities to increase um experiences for for students at the high school level to receive high school credit as well as college level credit uh for taking those courses in our high school so we've uh worked with uh Syracuse University to enter into a partnership in the future with them uh through their project Advance dual enrollment program and we've also uh engaged in uh dual enrollment with Kane University and the University of Delaware um to take courses that we are currently offering allowing students to enroll in those courses and also pay for college credit um to uh to take with them upon graduation in addition to deepening the learning experiences uh for students um in the areas of curriculum and and course offerings as I've shared we also talked about uh throughout the course of the Year our multi-tiered system of supports in the area of reading and in particular uh the New Jersey tiered um uh reading intervention system that is uh been currently being piloted piloted at the elementary level in Franklin school and in Lincoln School in both kindergarten and first grades and the reason that that's important for us is because that is providing us with the tools the data and and the expertise and the experience in order to ensure that we develop reading uh experiences that ensure that our students are able to be uh competent and confident uh readers decoders and uh comprehension uh develop comprehension skills that they will obviously carry through their educational experience but that is also providing us with the same level of professional development and expertise that is allowing all of our classroom teachers to develop those base level tier one strategies that are going to allow all of our students to meet with the success and those who need additional support will then be supported by those interventionists as I shared earlier uh or other resources that may be uh become available to them and then last but not least uh included in this goal is an examination of school schedules there's been questions about whether or not uh we're ever going to be able to see um block scheduling at the high school are we ever going to see full day kindergarten uh in this school district well as a strategic plan uh goal uh schedules and time is is an area of focus and that work is already under review and under study by the administration uh in order to look at different options for re structuring our school schedules across all grade levels moving on to goal number two we also identified School culture and practices that prioritize Wellness as another goal for our school district and similar to our academic supports we're also implementing a multi-tiered system of supports uh for social emotional and and student well-being and that also looks at those additional counselors and those additional uh Student Assistance uh coordinators as resources to assist us in making sure that our students social emotional needs are met at the at the basic classroom level but also have those additional resources if more specialized and targeted support is necessary we're also through this goal doing a deep dive into uh a holistic wellness program and our school counseling department along with our assistant superintendent are exploring different options uh for programs that we could Implement alistic across all grade levels from prek to 12 and that work is continuing uh throughout this year and then last but not least in in this particular goal um the continued focus on student assemblies and parenty really takes advantage of the new found uh expertise of our counselors at the uh intermediate level the Student Assistance coordinator at s who could be able to provide those um experiences that support not only our students but also if you were able to attend the um the overview by our Sachs in December also give our parents the resources and access to uh Personnel that could assist them in helping their students meet with success goal number three uh was a goal that continued our work to increase diversity equity and inclusivity across all of our uh academic programs and extracurricular programs and as we've seen in in Prior board agendas uh included in that uh was ensuring that we provided our staff with the necessary resources to uh assist them in supporting um this endeavor in our classrooms so our work with District administrators our newly hired uh Dei coordinator looked our at our existing current instructional uh practices as well as evaluation practices to ensure that they're aligned with both breast practices in pedagogy and brain-based research ultimately to ensure that culturally responsive teaching and learning in essence is ensuring that our classrooms are welcoming environments and open environments and safe environments for students uh for all students so the work uh in that effort continues and focuses on ensuring that our administrators are leading the way and supporting our students um and our teachers we also uh have relaunched our uh Dei steering committee and de advisory committee with work to um schedule to explore enhance our uh understanding of equity empathy and inclus uh inclusion our school community and again helping to be a sounding board for all the uh the work that's taking place in the classroom um and in our schools and then you'll notice uh October I'm sorry objective two refers to the uh staff professional development um that took place in September and October where our new staff Institute and our teachers existing teachers were able to receive additional teaching uh strategy support on how to nurture that open and respectful learning environment for all voices and and perspectives moving on to goal number four we look to strengthen the relationship between the schools the district and the community this was a goal that that came about as a clear uh area of strength for our school district where our community partners are um not only willing and able but enthusiastically ready to support us in the work that we do and in order for us to capitalize on that we uh identified a series of objectives to try to organize that those resources in a way to help them help us and also to be able to provide uh each of our entities with access to information to ensure that the alignment of our missions and goals um are consistent so some of the work in this area included the work to develop a digital Community partner uh directory um that brings together all of our Community Partners into a single resource so that we know who we can reach out to when we need assistance or when folks reach out to us offering assistance we would be able to direct them to the appropriate uh school or Department um to assist in in uh our respective uh Endeavors we also created as you heard this evening a thinking of moving to Westfield uh portal and that was a portal that was designed to assist our Realtors and being able to work with their prospective clients to provide them with accurate and detailed information about our school districts um so that we can ensure that they walk into our schools with uh up-to-date and and current information uh from the moment they um purchased their home uh We've also included uh opportunities to uh maximize our alumni relations as well as working with um different uh Community stakeholders to ensure that our voice of the community is not just limited to uh individuals who are around this room uh or individuals who are in this um in our schools but also those who are at the community at large those who may not be able to attend our meetings but who have an interest we want to make sure that their voices are are are equally represented and we are seeking ways to increase that that opportunity uh whenever possible and that's part of the work of our uh goal number four to strengthen the Community Partnership with the school district and then of course last but not least is goal number five that goal uh is the all-encompassing goal because it identifies finances and Facilities as uh critical components to the success of the other uh four goals included in those goals were goals uh were objectives that focused on um conducting studies to uh establish Baseline needs and future opportunities as it relates to both our facilities and our and our enrollment so over the past uh several months we've conducted facilities walkthroughs in a demographic study we look to present uh the results of that demographic study uh at the upcoming board meeting and in uh future meetings uh allowing the details of the facilities walkthroughs uh to come through and the recommendations that we we are going to be making for uh either facilities upgrades or uh bond referendums in the future we've also been sending um buildings and ground staff to ruter University in order to uh get certified um receive uh additional um education regarding field maintenance strategies in order to maximize uh the use of our existing resources uh to be able to maintain our fields and certainly recondition them for the betterment and sustainability of our um Athletics and and educational programs we've also been using that same emphasis in uh creating sustainable and safe schools to pursue different um recognitions at the state level uh we're currently working with schools uh sustainable Jersey for schools in order to recognize uh our efforts and help us uh Channel our efforts to create more sustainable practices across all schools and all departments and we're also looking at ways to provide uh more safe uh School opportunities uh by partnering with safe routes to schools uh Partners such as easy ride in order to ensure that uh pedestrian and bike safety uh initiatives are part and parcel of the work that we do to educate our students at the um Elementary level and hopefully into the intermediate and secondary level we've also included uh as uh Hallmarks of our efforts in this uh Endeavor to be become more sustainable the fact that all of our interior lighting uh was recently retrofitted through a grant program uh in order to provide more efficient uh LED lighting uh and through the rebate programs at a fraction of the cost all of the the interior lighting throughout the district was replaced and retrofitted uh all for a few hundred I think it was it was about $600 um so all of these things are are are efforts that are channeled um to be able to be consistent with our priorities as a school district but certainly in order to maximize uh our resources so that we could put them towards uh other needed areas objective number three uh in the finance and Facilities um category talks about developing um safe schools and as I mentioned earlier safe schools is not just about um our practices and our protocols but this is also in reference to how we ensure that our facilities are safe those facilities um upgrades can be anything from looking at um how our schools are fortified to what technology we use um to manage our schools or in this case what technologies we are using to uh manage visitors uh into our schools and that is yet another opportunity for us to again reallocate resources in a way to ensure sure that uh we we keep our schools as safe as possible for uh staff and students throughout the day um other opportunities that we're looking for uh support in uh carries over into the work with our uh Municipal Partners as well as other school districts so the the final objective in this uh particular goal looks at conversations that we are engaging in with the Town Administrator and neighbor and school districts to identify possible shared services and potentially ways we could work together to uh manage our school district um Fields along with the resources available to the municipality again all of that work is the work that has taken place between July 1st and now uh a lot of work that uh is is uh still yet to be done uh but certainly speaks to how we are funneling our efforts and our energies uh but also how you will see um ways we want to ensure that our strategic plan will be reflected in the current budget so as we think about ways our our current budget can support our strategic plan we want to make sure that our current budget continues to prioritize academics and wellness with an emphasis on curriculum and program development so you you've heard in both um well actually in goals one two and three the importance of curriculum and program development in order to ensure that our students are um met with success in both the academic social emotional and um in our Dei goals but we also want to see not only how we prioritize that but how we could expand and enhance those programs and offerings we want to look at ways that we can within our school district provide resources that either we currently can offer or that we have to send students out of District to do so we would look to expand and enhance those offerings as a goal of this strategic plan as well as a goal for this um this upcoming budget and then as mentioned previously in the in the last slide we want to look at ways that we could uh continue to improve and sustain our school facilities and uh District Fields however to do so uh we experience uh the same challenges that we had before uh costs continue to rise above 2% of the 2% cap so with the tax levy cap that uh the board is limited to um we unfortunately would not be able to build a budget that meets all of those needs and stay within 2% there's no health care or enrollment adjustments expected so 2% will be 2% uh and while we're hoping for an expecting state aid for this year we still won't know for sure but under the state's to funding formula that was the funding formula that allowed school districts throughout the state to get adjustments to their state aid uh over the last several years that uh will be running out by the end of this year so we don't expect that same level of support um that we had received in the um the prior years that had slowly and incrementally increased to continue to increase in future years so that continues to be something that we keep in mind as we build our budgets and as we present uh additional spending proposals to the community and certainly um not not to mention the limitations that we have on our budget we also have limitations on our facilities um we'd love to expand all of our programs we'd love to increase all of our opportunities for students to receive all of these services but in many ways we just don't have the space to do so so without a voter approval via Bond referendum to expand our facilities we still are limited in in how much we could expand our school programs but that doesn't mean we can't continue to expand in other ways so at this time I'm going to ask uh Patty to take us into the uh conversation about um what our uh budget looks like as of today so as Ry said earlier this is a very preliminary budget that's why you're just seeing the bar graph that a lot of you at least the board will recognize from last year um we found it a very useful tool in explaining the different pieces of the budget the the tax levy but we don't know our our health yet I'm still working with the broker to come up with finalized numbers on that as Ray said we don't have state aid yet this is the last year as he said of S2 funding so we are expecting a bump in state aid I don't know what that'll be last year was a little over $900,000 we had an increase so that's still going to impact these numbers as we go forward but what we're looking at now just to maintain our current Staffing our current programs that we're offering in District we would be at a 3.58% budget now that does that does include some shifts that you'll see later on in different presentations where we may be bringing some special ed programs inhouse but by doing things like that we're also offsetting other costs where students might have to go out of District now they'll stay in District so it it's not there's no real expansion in here it's just maintaining our current status quo um any anything above that would be added on on top of the red but again as we get more state aid as other factors are known we are hopeful that it will change this a little bit the look of this so I I do want to highlight you know what this represents is the continuation of the existing work continuation of the existing levels of support for our students um through our counselors through our classroom teachers through our academic support interventionists um to our ESL teachers so again this represents a con uh continuity of programs and services uh continuity of uh enrollments and class sizes uh from the current year to the next year but as you see unfortunately it does not fit into a 2% tax levy increase so in order for us to um to see the continuity of these uh services and supports we would still require require support from our community and and need the community to weigh in what we did last year was We we found ourselves in the same situation we found ourselves uh presenting at the first meeting this meeting um this um level of detail and this level of budgeting because we did not want to presume that the board um was um in favor of uh expanding our uh budget options and budget offerings uh for the coming year uh we want to make sure we have this that conversation here so what we'd like to do is uh we have one more slide but what we're going to ask the um the board to um you know consider um in their review of this presentation and the subsequent discussion is um direction that you can provide us to give us the green light to continue to explore um opportunities to uh identify enhancements and program options and supports um that allow us to continue to uh fulfill the goals and objectives of of our strategic plan to take the work that we started this year and build upon that uh take the work that we've uh talked about and previously and build upon that um but again um in order to do so we just need um feedback from from everyone here so our next steps uh as mentioned would be um at the February 13th uh budget presentation we would include the outcome of this conversation with a level of detail to provide any potential program enhancements that would be listed on the April 16th ballot on February 29th we would then take the release of state aid and factor that into our budget so that by March 5th a presentation of the preliminary budget would take into account the additions that and enhancements that were presented on the 13th it would then finalize the the um the budget figures the expenditures and the revenues um in order to submit that uh preliminary budget to the County Office of the Department of Education for their review and then on March 26th the board would hold their public hearing on the final base budget as well as the additional spending proposal for the April ballot and on March 26th the board would vote on that base budget that that first portion of that bar graph and then on April 16th once the additional spending proposal was uh approved on March 26th on April 16th the budget vote and the board election would take place um in order to finalize that additional spending proposal for the upcoming school year I do want to invite everyone to our to review our 2425 budget portal which was launched this evening evening uh it is available on the district website and will be updated frequently um with presentations with uh facts and figures and with additional resources as well as any frequently asked questions ensure to ensure that any member of the community has access to uh the latest and greatest information that uh is available so that concludes our first presentation uh at this time I will turn it back to the board president uh thank thank you Dr Gonzalez and Patty for that detailed presentation with our road map to our 2425 budget process so at this time if there are any board members that have questions that they'd like to uh bring up please let me know go ahead SAR thank you Dr Gonzalez for that comprehensive um presentation and I'll just reiterate what you said how important it is for our community to be engaged in this this is the most important I think vote that the board takes year round um so I just have a couple questions to help think through um the priorities of the district which of course I defer to you and the senior administrators to recommend because you all are the ones administering the district um so first is the Syracuse University project Advance program ke University and University of Delaware I think it's excellent I I believe that means that the students can now get college credit during High School right which is excellent however I'm just curious how will that practically play out are these online classes maybe at Kean University potentially they're going to get busted there but Syracuse and and University of Delaware are far away so um so I guess the two the second the first question is how will they actually take these classes and two um how do they get admitted is it a test is it based on GPA um is there a limit as a result there will be a filtering process but just to help us understand and obviously what cost will there be to the district of any so uh in general dual enrollment programs um allow school districts throughout this the the country to uh offer college level courses on site so we partner with colleges and universities who allow us to either in some cases allow our courses to count towards their um catalog or we actually adopt their curriculum and actually Implement that in our district so in the University of De in the case of the University of Delaware in the case of Syracuse University they actually have curricula and courses that we would then teach by our staff so the the requirements generally are on the instructors so that our instructors generally have to have a master's degree uh for instance as well as um may require additional training or professional development again each School each College University has a different uh set of requirements but in doing so it allows us essentially to have two transcripts the uh Westfield High School transcript would reflect our course and then the respective uh institution of higher education would have their own uh transcript so a student who chooses to enroll in these classes and chooses to um uh secure the the uh the college credit would essentially have a Syracuse University transcript that would identify the three courses two courses one course however many courses so that when they move into the um the post you know High School experience um they would have their High School transcript as well as their uh those additional college transcripts to be able to put towards their uh undergraduate experience so there would be no traveling necessary by students no virtual they would be taught by our students um in our school and how does that affect AP in other words you know the as you know the AP curriculum has its own very strict syllabus would students then have to choose between AP and college credit it it affords options is in essence so you know the um AP students uh I mean students who take AP uh classes would have the benefit of having that advanced pement potentially being applied and used throughout you know schools um that that perhaps a dual enrollment you know credit may not uh uh necessarily align to so we're going to when we uh build out a robust dual enrollment program that's part of the conversation that we need to have as a district is really how we we don't want to duplicate our efforts we we want to complement our efforts to be able to give students who may not necessarily want to or or feel they're strong enough to take an AP class to still have the ability of an an advanced experience and potential benefit of of college level uh credit uh benefits later on but they're they're not necessarily the same so there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the counseling side you know to to make sure that our students are are properly educated and counseled our parents are properly educated and counseled there's no guarantee that if you take a dual enrollment course that every school will count it um so you there there's sort of uh you know some consideration that needs to take place but it's it's it's considered within the realm of uh course planning that APS are but it wouldn't necessarily uh replace and then do we need additional teachers will that take from other classes or no that that's why we we look to identify those um those opportunities within our course offerings that allow us to uh take advantage of the experience and expertise and education of our staff I I am always impressed by the level of Education that that I see among our uh staff the number of uh staff members with Masters and doctorates is is certainly uh not something I see everywhere uh so that affords us even more opportunities to bring some of these opportunities uh to bear for our students thank you uh I have more questions but you can add me to the queue yeah uh Rob sure so a couple things couple things I just want to point out to the public that were mentioned here but also that that also inform the budget process just things that I've learned being part of fin facilities and seeing where we are so one of the things I'm always happy to see and that has come up in in various committee meetings that that I've been part of is that before our administrative team is looking to add they're looking to reallocate so you know part of our curriculum report for example you know last time was that the you know Dr Bolton is looking at the curriculum budget but he's doing so in a way that says well how do am I are we allocating the resources we have properly right before we ask for more make sure that we're allocating what we have in the right places are things outdated do things need to be improved upon within um so when the district comes to us asking for a certain budget and you know maybe more on top of it I want to see that happening first which you know based on certainly what I've seen preliminarily it seems to be the case the second thing that I've picked up with as well you know look there are things that you know any one of us when we're budgeting you know within our own families if we want more of something or different something we we cut other things right there's a limited amount of Revenue that comes in through salaries and whatnot um and you know you only have so much that you can work with um I have learned in this process that the idea of budgeting at a school district involves a level of understanding that generally also involves a removal of some levels of logic um there are state requirements that we are required to work in some of which don't make a whole heck of a lot of sense for our district quite frankly um but we've youve got to go and do them anyway so folks will look at it as I did when I when I first got on the board looking at the budget saying why in the world are we doing this we don't need to this isn't something that even applies to us and yet we have a budget allocation for it I said we'll cut it we don't do it we can't why because we have to because then we'll be out of compliance with what's going on in the state so I would I would suggest strongly to the public first of all if you got better ideas like definitely read through the budget if you can I know it's not exactly the most fun thing to do on a on a weekend evening um you know I ran for this so obviously I wanted to do it but and I'm going to continue to do it um but just understand that some of the stuff that we like to do isn't things that we can move out and reallocate in as simple a manner as as we can do here so that that I want to recognize the challenge that we're going through as as as part of doing this um and you know talk about public bidding laws adding it to all of that it just you know when prices are going up and costs are going up and we only have a certain way we can shop around um that also makes things a little bit more difficult to to work with so when things are coming to the budget and are being added to the budget you understand there's a there's a lot more background that goes into it so I'm going to end with by answering I think or at least giving my answer to the question that you asked which is what's the board's appetite for going above and beyond the status quo uh my short answer to you is it depends um which is a deeply unsatisfying answer but one that I think balances are due to the public and our due to the students um we I think quite positively have asked our District administration when they're submitting budgets to come in with everything right tell us what you want tell us what you need give us the wish list justifiable of course but give us the wish list I think before I say yes let's jack up a budget and add it in I'd love to see some of the wish list what's what is exactly that's out of the range because that will allow us I think to go back to constituents of ours and get feedback you know what we may think you know the nine of us here is important may not necessarily drive with what people are seeing out you know you know outside as they're educating their kids and and dropping their kids off so you know I don't know how you run continue to run in place we did that a lot for too many years right eventually when you run in place you're going to get lapped and the finish line does not come to you you come to the finish line so my initial instinct is yeah we got to do better than just keeping what's in place but before I say yes go Hazard forward I'd certainly want to see a little bit more about what's there and I know this is the very beginning of that process and I know that comes but I just that's my perspective is is sure maybe let's see okay thank you rob Lea I was going to say something similar which is um I'd like to see the wish list um I know that you you all have worked hard with um the administrators and the supervisors to see um what they're asking for but I'd like to um I'd like to see also I don't know if it's a possibility but um to get a pulse on the community wish list as well um if we could do some kind of poll or survey I don't know if that's even something that is something that we can do but that was my my my first thought um I'm a little more inclined to say yes let's let's let's ask for lots of things that we want um my my second thing was um when we're talking about the dual enrollment um you know there's been a problem uh expressed for years about um that kids are limited in what they can take due to scheduling constraints I'm hopeful that with the dual enrollment and maybe we can talk about it more at a later point there will be more opportunities for children to take for students to take courses through different means including um dual enrollments for like Financial financial literacy at through through the internet or you know through different districts um and I was wondering if there there's a possibility that any of these courses could be offered over the summer like how college courses do it you know they they um I don't know if it's a possibility but sometimes they have like a condensed College course over the summer and you can opt in to that I just just food for a thought so so I'd like to add on to that as well that yeah I'm I'm also interested in trying to start to build up um our offerings what we can do since we have been in place for so long and now we're at a point where we can build on but before we get ahead of ourselves we do have a strategic plan so I would like to see that we tie uh whatever we do add on to the Strategic plan and get our ideas from there as well as from Administration what they've already put together as items they've identified that need uh that could be could really benefit us and in the in the priorities they've put together so I think that's also something we need to look at from their side what they've what they've already presented to us or have or presenting to us zahar okay so I have a bit of a different perspective than Rob because I had a stark Discovery when I first a very jarring and startling Discovery when I first got on the school board which is that you know to put it in perhaps vernacular lay person's term or broke in terms of the having to lay off we got to the point where we had to lay off staff and we heard the disapproval and understandable um Grievances and um dissatisfaction by our parents so when you get to the point where you have to lay off staff that is crisis mode especially for a school district that has had to I mean I'll just repeat what I said last year and the year before we have at least 35 5 million less money today than we would have as a school district if it weren't for the 2% cap that was put into place in 2010 so as a result our district has pretty much cut everything it possibly can over the past decade to the extent that again we had to lay off staff and we're just trying to rebuild what we had um and again it's going to take a long time to even get back to uh the same level so I would really like to understand how we can continue to rejuvenate and bring back what what we presumably used to have um because when you when you no longer have 40 million and we estimated that based on the 4.9% increase every year that got cut to 2% and that 2% was wasn't even enough to keep up with the cost of living increase which usually range between 2.5 to 3% depending on the year so that's where a lot of the cuts came so my question to Dr Gonzalez I'm not asking this I'm not asking you to answer this today but just as a thought experiment some of the things that have come up um that I hope fit into the Strategic plan is things such as you know improving science labs returning after school in Rich programs especially for elementary and middle school kids such as robotics debate coding you know other 21st century skills maintaining our athletic fields which we've heard quite a bit about from our from our Pro Sports town but in light of the fact that we no longer have the Edison turfield renovation project which was going to be funded by the city now we need to decide whether we're going to maintain our fields or we're going to not have anything for our athletes except the minimal um and then renovating the internal facilities of our very old buildings so that's separate from building new buildings or establishing a full- day kindergarten which requires a referendum but I think you know we've seen the roofs and we've seen all the other problems these are old buildings so that also costs money um so I I guess my my question is and I understand in February 13th you're going to provide more details but these are just some of the things that I've come across during my time on the school board is um where do you see the the the primary space for you you said excuse this was on the presentation uh student academics and wellness with an emphasis on curriculum program development enhance and expand offerings including in District programs and then you talked about district field so is there can you give us a little bit more of what you're thinking I I don't you know if you don't feel comfortable doing that before February 13th I respect that but it would be helpful for us to just get a a general ener idea of what you're saying from your Vantage Point sure and and I I appreciate and respect the desire for the detail um and and I certainly you know look forward to being able to provide it I I think the most important thing is that um the the work that we are doing is certainly work that um doesn't start after this meeting we've we've been having these conversations we've been thinking about these things we've been looking at at the work of our strategic plan and and in some cases it's not necessarily to replace what we lost but to catch up on things that have over the last 10 years education in the world has evolved a lot and we haven't been able to bring those um things in in all cases and that's not to say we as a district are missing out we we have a phenomenal District uh we have phenomenal teachers and they have done amazing things with the resources that we have um but there are additional resources that I know we could bring to our schools um that allow us to take advantage of the experience and the expertise um to do even more so I think some of it is is going to be ensuring that we have the most up-to-date resources educational um uh and uh curricular and teaching tools um as well as looking at the facilities and and the resources as well um so I think many of the things that have been mentioned are are conversations that we've been having as a community and as a board I think some of the topics that have just been been brought up um and things that have been part and parcel of of really the emphasis behind all of these priorities um being established as part of our strategic plan I wanted to make sure through a strategic plan that it obligated us as a as a board and as a as a um as an Administration to deliver so anything that we do is going to uh ensure that it does reflect that as our priority um so that I think you know in in what you'll see and what you'll hear on the 13th uh will be indicative of many of the things that have been been brought up uh today and in in Prior years again how much because we we can't get it all done at once is is one thing but we certainly will continue to to make incremental progress I'm very confident of that I I guess I just want to State my position that I hope that we grow and improve rather than stagnate and so asking for simply the money we need just to remain the same I would interpret that as regression because of that loss of you know 35 million plus dolls that we've lost in tax revenue over 12 years thank you anybody else Kristen um I pretty much Echo Sahar Leila sonel and Rob when I'd like to say that I do not want to stay status quo I definitely want to see expansion and I look forward to what you have to present in February um and then I also am curious do you know we've talked I know I saw it in finance and then I you spoke about it today um when the potential ref referendum might be presented to the public well my finance report oh it is so I'll wait I can wait that's fine we met with the architects today so we're looking at a possibility of next April for that um next December is too close of a time frame so we're thinking it it could be around then that's the earliest so it would be in coordination with the following budget mhm got it okay um and then Community outreaches when will those begin like how we went around and educated everybody yep so um we actually with the launching of the the board portal I'm I'm sorry the budget portal uh we'll be including all of those uh Community engagement dates um but once the board approves the March 26th um first proposal or the the the base budget and the additional proposal um is uh finalized then between March 26th and the uh the vote we will have uh a series of in-person virtual morning noon and night presentations uh in order to make sure we get the word out okay thank you anybody else okay I'd like to turn it over to Casey Eisner for the student representative report as we close out the second markting period at Westfield High School students and staff are heading into the second semester strong on Friday January 5th sgaa held the schoolwide game show activity period many students and staff members volunteered from the crowd to compete in challenges ranging from trivia to Simon says to hula hooping this event was a fun way to come together as a school Community step out of our comfort zones and figure out which student knows their dis trivia the best we hope this game show can become a yearly event for students to enjoy SJ has also begun working with the community service Club to play community service week for the end of March during that week numerous charity drives will be held to gather supplies for Charities such as the fun club which helps Refugee families sgaa is creating an Amazon wish list for people to donate supplies beond the lookout for an email from the ptsl at the beginning of February with a link to the wish list and more information on how you can help with community service week also this month over 100 whs students travel to Hershey Pennsylvania to participate in the annual Model naations Model United Nations conference tomorrow students will begin taking midterm exams with midterms Comes The Return of stress relieving resources around the school in between exam blocks students can pet therapy dogs watch movies or participate in additional activities set up in the cafeterias clubs also take advantage of of this time to hold bake sales and other fundraising events lastly it is with anger and frustration that I must report that a swas was discovered in one of the high school's bathrooms last month two years ago when saskas were found the community rallied together to stand up to anti-Semitism and other forms of hate now again we need to send a clear message this kind of behavior is unacceptable in Westfield thank you thank you Casey uh we'll turn it over now to board committee reports first starting with uh curriculum instruction and committee uh curriculum instruction assessment by uh committee chairperson Rob bacho sure so the uh the SI committee has met twice since our last meeting so this will be a a relatively detailed report uh we've met on December 20th 2023 and most recently on January 8th of 24 uh discussing a number of items related to current and future changes to curriculum the upcoming budget process and responses to questions that fall within the committee's role uh at the December 20th meeting the committee received an overview of the K to2 World languages and ESL program from the district supervisor Enrique pin at each level of instruction Mr pin provided an in-depth review of the standards scope and sequence of the curriculum the goals and competencies it focuses on compliance with State mandates and an overview of AP participation and scores that presentation is accessible on the district's website under District communication then Spotlight on education and then information Series so a few highlights you can you can read the whole document at your leisure uh the world languages curriculum focuses on multiple modern and Classical Languages with instruction in Spanish beginning at elementary school consistent with State Standards the department is working to expand instruction in Spanish now to second grade students as early as 2025 in addition to traditional Language and Cultural education instruction the district ALS also offers language education via a discovering language through culture track which provides an alternate source of instruction for students who may learn their languages better through cultural immersion it's also ideal for students who enter Westfield from other districts and may need to catch up to current levels of instruction and for some of our special needs students who may not thrive in a traditional classroom setting World languages also offers AP courses in each of its languages of instruction those results uh based on the uh the data presented to us are significantly higher in both the number of exams taken and the scores achieved than in comparable districts uh I'll add that uh our committee had some questions about the addition of AP Mandarin we do offer Mandarin uh Chinese instruction uh the supervisor reported that well we do have some students who have reached that level of study and are interested in the AP course those numbers haven't quite gotten to the point where we're ready to break out into a full AP course to cover those students though they do receive you know students with Advanced knowledge and they do receive um some some specialized instruction uh Westfield also offers a biliteracy seal on graduate diplomas the number of Westfield students achieving this distinction is exponentially higher than peer districts we had last year for example 122 students earn the seal and the average in peer districts was 14 uh our ESL program was the next part of that presentation that's shifting focus and we will be rebranding itself to better reflect the outcome of the program which is transforming students for who for whom English is not their first language into multilingual students or ml students so you'll start hearing that more as opposed to ESL uh ml enrollment has doubled in the last 10 years in New Jersey with ML Learners in Westfield tripling in number since 2018 um we did talk about some of the budget increases and and where they were focus Dr Gonzalez covered that in his presentation so I won't repeat them here um I will add uh to conclude this portion that a significant focus of the program is teaching students the language of the subjects they will be encountering school so the the ml prr program doesn't simply teach you words languages it'll teach you for example the language of math and science there thereby placing the English language in context as well as Syntax for these Learners uh our January 8th meeting uh we had a presentation from the uh English and language arts supervisor uh Liz Riley she provided the same level of detail that uh Dr pin did um and again her presentation also available on the district's website again District communication Spotlight on education and information Series so some of the highlights here uh in addition to fundamental skills the curriculum focuses on core disciplines of responsibility for learning enhancing communication competencies building knowledge and understanding self and others the New Jersey state standards for ELA were recently revised and this curriculum is undergoing a significant revision at all levels to make his goals and subjects clearer and easier for parents to digest that was a very common theme throughout the presentation of how we're going to take this curriculum make it more accessible to parents and communicate more clearly with parents about what's going on on what's being taught and how parents can be supportive of the students in their classroom um the redesign itself as a general matter is focused on consistency and Clarity again as well with better Communications with parents uh with the additional budget funds allocated this year again that they were significant in adding interventionists to the ELA program and classes again I won't reiterate what was said there um there is a holocaust studies curriculum in grade five um the professional development for that was complet in December to ensure students learn the background behind the books and articles that they're reading at a great appropriate level uh for intermediate curriculum uh also being redesigned um students there are are growing classroom libraries uh and instituting a program called first chapter Fridays where students will read the first chapters of books that they might be interested in the idea there is to get them to encourage them to to read the full text so a title you might not necessarily think is interesting to you you'll read the first chapter of it and see maybe it is um we are also again expanding interventionists to to combat learning loss there uh and there's also uh coming this year a uh a second year of the interdisciplinary unit on Holocaust studies which experienced a further redesign uh in consult with the can University diversity Council uh and then um some additional PD to model classroom experiences and a focus on acquiring more screening and diagnostic tools to better address and properly Focus effort to stem learning loss and most of that is especially at the elementary level uh there are mtss grants that that the district has to at least start the acquisition of of most of these tools uh for future tracking down the road uh finally going to do a quick focus on the high school curriculum uh that curriculum is focused on core novels and teacher created lessons the redesign there will again be same themes uh consistency in themes and consistency in in uh in the redesign so greater consistency standardization sequencing of courses uh and very important an expansion of some of of the the electives that we offer uh we do have as an elective an award-winning journalism program that begins in 10th Grade with introductory courses uh and students who continue on uh can in their senior year become involved with three nationally recognized Publications uh the high eye which is the newspaper also nationally recognized optic uh the magazine nationally recognized and a new sports journalism program also getting National notoriety uh on the horizon at the high school uh the curriculum expansion we're talking about will also include student input again intervention support there and uh additional dual enrollment opportunities which we highlighted in this presentation as well uh for AP and the high school two AP uh English exams so to speak language and comp and lit and comp 22% of our seniors take one of those courses 105 exams were taken in 2023 the average for language and comp is 3.99 for lit and comp is 4.24 um in addition to all of this our meetings are long uh we also heard an update regarding the budget and different curricular development goals uh the assistant superintendent as I mentioned actually in an earlier comment is revamping the budget process to better Target expens expenses and expansion programs to keep increases minimal and manageable uh heavy focuses being placed on data management curriculum writing enhancing special education programs and creating opportunities in District to minimize future outof District placements uh also providing additional added behavioral support one of the significant costs in our budget is the amount of cost us to send students who have special needs out of district and the more we can expand facilities the more we can expand hires and programming the more we can keep those students in District which you know money aside is is quite frankly where they belong and where they would be most comfortable learning but it also as an ancillary focus is is uh will result in the cost savings so so positive all the way around um and again looking very closely at alternate models of scheduling at all levels uh up for approval tonight with all that is two very simple things two field trips for the the West Seal High School indoor Color Guard our next meeting is scheduled for January 29th 2024 uh and there will be one report one meeting to report on next time around so thank you very much for indulging thank you rob does anybody have any questions about the Sip report um so a couple questions with regard to the ngpa which I believe is a new graduation requirement and so this may be more tailored to Dr Gonzalez but maybe the committee can also answer this um so it appears that we do have a number of students that have not met that graduation requirement and can you explain what is the kind of consequence or remedy of that such that it would you know how would that affect our graduation rate which I think historically has been quite high at 98% so the uh New Jersey uh graduation proficiency assessment um had been implemented the past couple years but finally came online officially to count towards graduation this past spring uh Dr Bolton you know in his presentation uh I think would would be able to speak to it in more detailed but in general you know the um ability for a student to meet the graduation um assessment uh criteria is not just limited to the NJ GPA so they do have multiple opportunities both the spring assessment and the October assessment or the the fall assessment but then they also have the ability to do everything from demonstrate proficiency through uh other assessments whether it be passing the acup Placer the SAT the act or um through a portfolio uh process and again all of those are things that the administration is working on um so the guidance counselors the uh Department supervisors and the high school administration are working in coordination with with uh Dr Bolton um as well as any you know special education staff who would be necessary uh to ensure that they uh get to the finish line so ultimately if students don't pass obviously it does not you know uh it would impact our graduation weight uh but more most importantly is we're focused on making sure that they do get to the finish line and and we'll exercise any of those alternative Pathways to get them there um and then just one other question and again I don't know if you all discussed this at the curriculum committee we've had a lot of parents um ask about the Holocaust and genocide curriculum uh which I think we all support including myself we also had some parents ask about you know to what extent does the program address genocide in other parts of the world rohinga Rwanda and currently in Gaza where we do have a genocide complaint um by South Africa against Israel under the international court of justice right now so are the students learning about uh genocide both both in the past and the present um as a threat to multiple vulnerable populations and is that something that or is it just a genocide as it applies to Holocaust the Holocaust Holocaust genocide studies is is uh mandated by the state and and includes uh more than just the um uh the Holocaust but it does include uh learnings and experiences um you know across um across the globe and across history um so how contemporary that is I think would be uh the responsibility of the you know teachers working with the administration to ensure that it's appropriately aligned to our our curriculum um so the the state mandates uh the the the standards in that regard okay thank you can I address that just a little bit also so um I was thinking about this earlier today um and I spoke with my kids um I just wanted to get a sense of what you know I we I can read the curriculum but I'm not in the classroom and I wanted to see um you know what what's been going on there and both of my freshmen in two different English classes read and I'm going to say this wrong but prolis is that right am I saying it correctly this year which um has to do with um uh islamophobia and the Muslim Community and um I know that that was in um English and then also in social studies um the aboriginals and the genocide there and Australia and all of those things were discussed as well so I do think that across the board um throughout the grades um and the disciplines I think that there that that at least my my freshman felt like they were getting a um a glimpse of a very diverse um experiences my older daughter only has negative things to say so I don't listen to her but but the twins did both say buiness thank you I just I mean I'm asking this for obvious reasons because the point of genocide studies is to prevent genocide from happening again and learning from the past okay uh thank you can we have the uh report by finance and Facilities committee uh Brendan or Kent absolutely the finance and Facilities committee met Friday morning uh for about 2 and a half hours it was one of our longer meetings but we covered 11 very different and important topics uh Kristen you're lucky you got to miss that one uh I'll start with the easy ones uh that have already been covered tonight we had our audit report uh showing no findings or recommendations which is the best find or best score that a district can get from an audit report uh capital reserve account closed out for the year with a balance of $9.8 million of which we took 5.8 million and immediately used it to pay for Roosevelt so we are back to about where we started the previous year with about $4 million in our capital account uh for a district our size that's both good and bad if you look around we have Capital needs that far exceed that um our maintenance Reserve account is at 2.9 or 2.09 million um although we're going to be spending about 600 ,000 of that in the current budget year on various maintenance projects throughout the district on to our budget review so we before we started previewing the next year's budget uh we figured out where we are with our current budget uh it's almost a standing line item here that specialized in transportation are much higher than we anticipated and the costs continue to rise although health benefits are doing okay right now uh we're monitoring prescription costs that are up higher than we expected uh but overall uh we're looking at about a 7% increase uh sorry the state plan is uh anticipating a 7% increase so we don't expect uh waivers for healthcare to the 2% cap uh like we have in previous years uh interest rate our interest revenue from Investments contined to exceed budget expectations because we put that at almost zero so everything is gravy um moving into our budget preview uh we Dr Gonzalez opened by explaining uh Senate Bill 4209 which eliminated the double vote uh we discussed the pros and cons in that uh obviously it's better and simpler for the voters to have one question to vote on it makes it easier for us to sell it overall the consensus was that it would have been nicer if it was a single budget line item of 125 million instead of a budget that we vote on and then a separate question that goes to the voters again it just to make things simpler uh the fact that the legislature addressed it at all is amazing and the governor signed it is remarkable I don't expect them making our changes so uh the fact that they passed a new law for about 10 districts Westfield being one of those 10 that has an April election with a budget vote uh means somebody is listening to us or somebody else that has similar problems although as more districts moved to an April election uh this may impact more districts uh we spent a lot of time talking about our 2425 budget tonight uh I'll just highlight that we discussed uh where we can increase and where where we practically can increase where we'd like to see the district eventually get and what the limitations are uh we all have ideas for programs that we'd love to see happen whether it's F day kindergarten or stem Labs or in expanded industrial Arts at the elementary middle school you know all everybody has a pet project that they like to see happen we have almost zero space for any of it um so that's really the limit and as we start we've been talking about the idea of a referendum for a long time and that we can we can grow although we have to maintain at the same time uh we could get a budget uh sorry a referendum out to the voters next week but it's going to be 3 years before those classroom spaces are open to students so to grow in that threeyear time period there are things that we've asked the administration to come up with ways we can expand student offerings without space so that when we have the space we have a budget that allows us to shift and reallocate to utilize that space uh small increases now will minimize a bigger increase once space opens up because we will have to hire teachers to fill any new classrooms we have um we so the end result from that discussion was that we directed the administration to look at what we can do internally with the idea of going a little bit above and beyond the 2% that they're forecasting uh not saying we're going to approve any budget like that but we have to talk about where we can use resources next year in the space we have uh so the the administration will come back to us with recommendations uh at our next meeting we then quickly looked at a draft study from our architect architect inspected every building with us uh walked every classroom and measured everything took pictures of every classroom uh for current status we received that report Friday morning it's a 50-page report we'll discuss it at our next meeting but we do have a draft report that's available on the board portal for board members to review um our in the fall we contracted out with a firm called Advocate uh to review our custodial and maintenance services uh and they came up with a number of recommendations for us and some which we can do this year some which we can't do but uh we'll be recommending that we add an assistant supervisor of building and grounds in addition to two maintenance and grounds Keepers uh we're also looking to work with the association to shift the maintenance schedules to begin so that the our maintenance workers start an hour earlier every day before school start allowing work to actually happen in the classrooms if repairs are needed without disruptions to the students uh we're looking at streamlining our maintenance and operating procedures for various systems throughout the district and eliminating uh the energy stien for custodial coordinators neither of those are in the association contract um moving into referendum conversation we reviewed our demographic study um looking at development in town and where shifts in enrollment and are projected to take place over the next couple years uh our demographer anticipate or has factored in the uh construction of 562 new apartments recently and in the next couple years uh that will not be age restricted units and he believes that those apartments will account for 190 students in grades K through 12 um in anticipation of the conversation around full day kindergarten uh we've been directed to plan for at least 510 students per grade going forward so if we're going to build a full day kindergarten we need to plan for 510 kindergarteners uh more on that will'll occur at our February committee meeting moving into uh sorry I lost my place I was scrolling around uh we also had a presentation from Dr Gonzalez on a tool that he has purchased for the district called thought exchange uh it's a interactive survey Tool uh that we plan to recruit a group of uh AC cross-section of the community uh we haven't decided on the exact numbers and the numbers may change based on the uh based on the B whatever we're asking for but really is to help us steer a referendum as we work through iterations uh so we'll reach out to our parents Community groups and really want to hear from uh opponents of any construction we want to hear all voices so that we have an idea of what to expect if we go to a referendum dissenting voices are important in our process and we want to hear from everybody uh thought exchange allows people to if we said you know if we reached out to 300 people and asked them what their priority for the district was uh I might say we need better facilities Kristen might say I'd love to see uh more art in the elementary schools and Rob will have a completely different opinion uh thought exchange allows people to then go back through and rate other people's responses so if we see that uh you know of the 300 people that responded 200 also liked Kristen's answer of more art in the elementary schools then that would help steer our conversations going forward so it's not just you respond and move on it'll be an interactive process going forward it also incorporates AI to help aggregate similar answers so that we're not looking at art in the elementary schools music in the elementary schools it would combine it into an art and music thing and help aggregate the data to help us best understand what the community wants uh Expediting any process and results that come from a survey uh so we anticipate using that for a referendum uh Budget Building in the future as well as any other issues that we feel may be necessary CommunityWide uh we can use it for school climate surveys internally with our students and staff and yeah it's a tool to solicit immediate feedback and hopefully take action on it and lastly our wonderful Roosevelt facade project uh the decorative panels are being installed two of them were broken they also happen to be the only two of their kind so we had to go back to the manufacturer to have more made uh there'll be at least 3 weeks weather dependent before they can be installed uh parts of the facade uh the brick is being repointed uh due to the cold weather that has to wait till March uh but and we're in discussions with the contractor about whether they want to continue the W through the winter to do other parts of that project and then hopefully complete phase two and three next summer uh the contractor didn't use the correct sub for the roofing Pro repairs so they have to redo it uh for the company that we have warranty with uh waiting to schedule this due to the weather it's in a holding pattern and other roofing issues include Edison and tamis uh we're working with our Architects Roofing roofing company Executives and and uh contractors to repair uh We've also brought in an outside roofer to look at Edison we did this at our own expense uh he has some investigative work to do uh we have received 22,000 from the New Jersey school Insurance Group for damage to the ceiling in the Edison Auditorium and we have a contractor ready to remake the repairs we're just waiting on a permanent fix to the roofing issues before we fix the ceiling uh we're also waiting on a warranty report from the from the for the roof at whhs due to Statewide weather issues every roofing contractor that does work on schools is backlogged and that's where we're at uh tonight on the agenda Finance item a is the audit report items uh J are donations of uh we want to thank the YMCA of Westfield for the donation of $1,335 to cover the cost of a nurse and substitute for the whhs model un trip in January thank the whs PTO or ptso for $423 to purchase a share which will be awarded to a teacher at the senior Awards night again the whs ptso for $500 to fund a David good presentation for whhs students and under item I we have uh $42,000 for boiler repairs at Washington School uh about 10 years ago we replace many of the boilers districtwide Washington's was not old enough to be replaced uh so now it has to have some substantial repairs but we'll extend its life and then uh $20,000 to remove Sol panels from our schools so that they can repair the roofs I know I threw a lot of various information out there uh and I didn't pause for questions along the way so if anybody has any questions ask now thank you Brendan go ahead Kristen um I'm just wondering you said there's going to be 510 kindergarteners that we have to account for if we do a referendum um how does that compare to our current numbers our our current numbers are we have about 300 rough give or take by a lot uh half day kindergarteners uh we found that our most less than half of our first grade class or sorry just about half of our first grade class attends half day kindergarten most will find a full day alternative somewhere else okay uh so we we're basing our full day numbers on first grade numbers got it okay because we anticipate it may not happen the first year yeah but within a couple years we imagine that almost everybody will come in for kindergarten and it's better to have the space built once than get there and then a couple years later have to add classrooms on yeah absolutely thank you and then um also thought exchange so is that essentially kind of like a large online focus group yeah it's a community engagement platform I I think that's probably the you know a great way to describe it uh because it does allow for that engagement uh um to take place between members and participants in the uh exchange whereas a survey would just gather you know one-way information this allows for that uh interactive interactivity to take place um and with a a larger um Outreach so that we are able to uh include as many people in the community as possible and when do we foresee utilizing that as soon as possible oh so we already own what whatever we yeah okay and what cost was that to the district uh I don't have that available but you have it it was $18,000 for the rest of this school year and $34,000 for next school year okay and we're not the only District that's using it Madison Ridgewood Wayne also uses as well okay so will we be using this for this budget too we're we're going to be using it for everything that we can for that for that amount very cool okay the cost is is comparable to one townwide survey if we were to set mail out postcards and ask people to respond okay anyone else yes Sahar no question um so one I have a followup to your question because that's really intriguing um what is in place in this technology that will make engagement constructive I think all of us know that sometimes electronic engagement causes people to behave poorly in ways that perhaps they wouldn't do in person or perhaps not in a survey but based on what we've seen in social media and other Trends I assume that there's a way to make it constructive or is that a so I I had a similar question during the presentation uh when you're commenting or when you're responding to another response it's a a star-based rating system it's not a comment thread uh and that immediately removes any sort of back and forth or inflammatory responses or slander or defamation exactly right okay great that's good because it'll make it more constructive um so I have another clarify question based on what Kristen asked so how many first graders do we have right now what's our class uh about 480 if I'm correct Dr Gonzales in a an approximate it's about 480 approximately I believe it's somewhere around there yeah yeah so in other words with the building of the new apartments it looks like the increase is only about 30 students cuz you said that we have approximately 500 kindergarteners for a full day kindergart we'll have approximately 190 in K to 12 which works out to 14 per grade but we've also had bubble years we've had as many as 550 graduating seniors and we've had as few as 475 I'm sorry I think the question you're asking um is is what's the doubling of the number around half of the kindergarten population pays privately for full day kindergarten and the assumption is that if there's a full day kindergarten option through Westfield which will be free those that it would come back that the students would come back okay but but my point is those new apartments are not the cause of this big number the first graders are kind of our Baseline correct okay the new apartments would increase across K12 190 they would yeah they wouldn't be just kindergarten it could be anywhere so we don't we wouldn't know until an apartment actually opened if it would generate that number and where that number would be because people could all move in with all ninth graders or you know it could be spread across the district pretty evenly so factoring in the number of students we've lost at the start of covid and who's come back that addition of about 190 puts us approximately where we were preo in terms of K to2 distribution although if we add kindergarten obviously those numbers are going to go up uh so our enrollment should go up about 200 students if we add fly kindergarten right um so my question is related to some related to the demographic study but also something I've brought up before is part of this demographic study and part of the facility study and walk through um you know as we know their our our special education budget is is a significant percentage of our budget and one way that one presumably could um follow Rob's suggestion of of finding ways to save costs is to how do you keep some of our students in District so that we are not paying other districts or private schools for services that maybe we could provide for some students and I understand it's not all of them because it's highly individualized but how can we get a sense of some kind of analysis of there are certain types of special education services which we find there is a high need for such that it would justify building additional space that would go into the voting referendum and then that money savings from not having to send kids in District imp possibly bringing kids in District because we have the Specialized Service would then pay off some of that building cost over the long run how do we get that analysis so that analysis is being conducted by special services as well as the rest of the administration it's one of the three real prongs we're looking at for a referendum uh bringing special ed back in District offering new programs or enhanced programs in District uh general maintenance and upgrades there is a laundry list of needs be a cosmetic syst systems or just state of good repair that needs to happen and then full day kindergarten so sorry four four four main prongs we've been approaching this referendum with uh but special ed being one of the key drivers of what we can do so when will that be done everything you just discussed an an exact answer around when uh we plan to discuss with our architect at our February meeting and probably March will'll have a better idea yep okay ID like to turn it over to ilila for a report for a policies personnel and governance committee thank you um uh PPG met on the 9th we started our discussion um with regulation 5751 which is sexual harassment of students this was presented at last month's um PPG meeting and was approved for first reading at our last board meeting on the 19th we Revisited it during this meeting because we had to choose between two options you know you had to check one or the other um made by uh the decision maker upon receipt of the report the committee selected um the option the the preponderance of evidence standard as this measure is interpreted as most likely looks like rather than clear and convincing evidence standard and this will be up for our first reading tonight with that option applied um we then um looked at uh policy 5520 disorder and demonstration and this policy was reviewed due to concern expressed regarding language this policy was created in 1992 and while and most other similar districts have this policy in place the committee found that the language using the word end students will not be disturbed Ed in the exercise of their constitutionally guaranteed rights to assemble peace peaceably and to express ideas and opinions private or publicly provided that their activities do not infringe on the rights of others and do not interfere with the operation of the educational program we also discussed that this policy does not replace the code of conduct um we discussed the conduct of board meetings as well um as we had a huge discussion about this at the last board meeting this is uh 0167 regarding public comment periods the general consensus was not to diminish the opportunities for the public to speak suggestions moving forward include as a courtesy allowing current staff and students of Westfield public school to speak first to clarify action versus non action items for first public comment section and action item column colum will be added to the first public comment signning sheet and this will be enforced by the board without exception if someone is not speaking on a action item at the at the first public comment section they will be asked to stop speaking this will be enforced um 0168 recording board meetings was also discussed when someone speaks at the podium they're being recorded by the district we want to allow families to video their children playing instruments and getting Awards Etc if the behaviors of participants members of the public or the board disrupt the operation of the meeting and interferes with the business of the board the president will intervene as needed including a verbal warning recess stopping recording for everyone removal of part of participants and adjourning the meeting concerning behaviors included but not limited to recording in a disruptive or interfering way addressing the audience heckling will be addressed by the president as management of the board meeting needs to be guided by the principles of decorum safety and efficiency in terms of governance um we had a board training update Patty Reese confirmed that she will be here on February 13 to discuss referendum and on April 30th to discuss ethics it was suggested that parliamentary procedures training be held in August as new board members will be present at that time there is no action at this time however the committee is recommending that we add a section to the board handbook about training we continued our discussion regarding potential changes to the school calendar and the committee is recommending that the Sip committee discuss the proposed changes so that we get more input our next meeting is February 1st thank you ilila does anybody have any questions yeah yes Brendon Lea can you uh expand on the decision to go with the perance of evidence versus clear and convincing evidence it a lowering of uh the standard should shouldn't come without uh discussion um sure I can do my best but um when someone for example if a Hib is filed and um the person in charge of making the decision um is hands at a report you you have to you have to determine the two options one is that there is clear and convincing evidence that this happened or the other is that the evidence um shows that this is very likely um and it looks like this did happen and so to air on the side of of caution the preponderance was was um determined the checkpoint okay uh and are these in regards to matters that may be referred to law enforcement or purely internal because it's uh the sexual harassment of students so it's a serious topic and right which is why if it was likely to happen we want that to be the one that we're checking and judging based on as opposed to it's definite okay go ahead SAR yeah I just want to add that so so generally ponderance of the evidence means it's more likely than not which is about anything over 50% right clear and convincing is less than Beyond A Reasonable Doubt so it's somewhere if you had to guess in the 75 percentile um so effectively what this is is if people whoever the decision maker believes that it is more than half more than 50% likely that this allegation is true then um that would be be the whatever the the consequence is so what is there I mean I I'm agnostic at this point but what's the basis for lowering it is there a practical reason yeah I I could speak to it again administratively what because these are the investigations that are conducted either by administrators um by our Title 9 uh coordinator or you know as it relates to any student matter uh you know we we recognize that um the the clear and convincing threshold is is often an unachievable threshold and and as a result it it represents more difficult standard for us to attain and be able to act upon so so as a matter of practice our our investigations have uh generally uh was relied on the preponderance of evidence uh for Discipline matters for HIV matters so we'd be looking to maintain the same standard for investigation uh purposes in this case as well uh to to the uh question regarding law enforcement um if there was any um instance where the matter uh crossed into the threshold of potentially criminal or or mandatorily uh requiring a report to the police um it would be done so and then their investigation uh would dictate the the pace and timing of ours so we may have to suspend our investigation while they conduct theirs uh but they would uh in essence uh work in Tandem and and in coordination with one another so really the administrative Rec recommendation again I that you know I originally when it was presented uh in December had uh presented the incorrect option so this was recognizing that um we wanted to make sure that the uh the proper administrative recommendation was reflected but given the the substantial change this would require that we put it back to a first reading rather than just say it's just a minor change and we're just going to move it to Second reading so that's the reason why we represented it and added for discussion go ahead CJ well and tahar do you want to continue with 552 or do you want me to I can I can start okay yeah so I I wanted to follow up on 552 as well we did have a very robust discussion um about the uh initial paragraph I think a gentleman had brought up in public comment um uh the month before the idea that the Proviso in that first paragraph Was a little troubling to him um I think based on Lea's Reed um uh the report uh tonight and based on our discussion you know we were comfortable there that U the and was less of a a conjunction of two different things and more of a you know kind of a continuous concept or at least that's how I took it um that you know infringing on the rights of others and interfering with the operation of the educational program was kind of a Continuum and so that the decision could be made it wasn't just a stark you know conjunction but um you know in considering the policy more uh at least from my own perspective you know I found that the writing um of the second paragraph in particular uh was quite troubling you know I unlike say um the uh R 5751 where you'd want a lower standard to assist the administration in doing their investigation and coming up with appropriate um consequences to the investigation here I think you want to raise the standard um and I think you want to have carefully drafted uh policy that restricts the enforcer of the regulation as much as it as it um affects the students and staff um and here in particular you know I I find it a little troubling the language um you know any of the language pertaining to stopping or interfering with the proper operation of the educational program or the school itself I appreciate um and um uh I I wouldn't want to see disruption there um but where we're talking about the exercise of First Amendment rights um uh and constitutionally protected rights by students you know I find it troubling um you know uh number one that you know we're putting in a list of restrictions some items that are clearly not protected speech you know obscenity is not protected commercial speech is not protected so those things are clearly something that can be restricted without affecting a student's rights uh but some of them uh are a little more troubling and um you you know you know for instance uh advocating um uh advocating the violation of law for instance you know to me that would be a quintessential counterpart to acting in Civil Disobedience right that you know you can have a fundamental disagreement with the with a law um or a school rule for that matter and you know you could you should have the means to assemble and express your opinions accordingly again not viol not disrupting the school but otherwise just by ver by virtue of itself um expressing a desire to um you know uh to advocate for the violation of law in a civil disobedient fashion as for instance uh to me would be the the Highlight would be the qu the quintessence of actual you know of of engaging in free speech and I think we want to encourage our students to do that um I you know some of these other things as well I know there's an intent to why they're drafted the way they are but you know at least in my lawyer's brain I can see uh interpretations are very frustrating you know another one would be um you know advocating the use of force um nobody wants to Advocate the use of force you know on school grounds for instance but if I generally ad Advocate the use of force uh say in one nation state protecting itself from another as a for instance well uh it it depends on the reviewer of the claim um you know how they feel about that so I I think again we you know I know this is standard language uh uh and I think we really need to take a a think about it um I don't think it's written with enough Clarity to really kind of enforce the um to to help restrict the enforcer um so you know I I I want I want to hear what other people think about that as well but um you know those are my thoughts go ahead Leila so um this is our it's up for a second read um you know you you can have your opinion you can have your um beliefs uh you can we can definitely have a discussion I wish some of this would have been brought up prior to the board table because then we could have um maybe drafted something or or sent something out for the rest of the board members to look look at but um one of the things that I I I I just want to to say and and again it this is not um I don't disagree with much of what you're saying but what I do want to say is that you you can have free fre speech that creates a hostile environment and that is not acceptable and there there is a line that when it's crossed is not something that is allowed in in in a school setting and I think that this policy is appropriate for that that's just my two cents and and I appreciate the the the the point you're making about timing you know it's it's taken me a while to really think about this and really kind of work through the consequences you know of the language as it is you know again I I agree with you a hostile environment is not good um where it interferes with the proper functioning of the school I you know I really think we want to think through um you know uh where feelings of discomfort uh by themselves are the consequence of language are the consequence of uh you know um meeting you know uh again for instance I you know I just hearkened back to the idea that I think people are capable of holding you know two different things in their hand at the same time we can we can tolerate you know ambiguity we can learn how to tolerate um handling that uh and so I again I just want to you know again I I know this is in a later read but just based on my my thinking about it you know I really think it's important for everybody to you know um uh think through the consequences of that as well um that's all does does anybody want to uh respond about policy 5520 okay Sahar okay um so I appreciate this conversation I think it's really important this country was founded on descent Revolution and what the British called terrorists but what the Americans call Freedom Fighters um so I think there's a reason why the first amendment of our Constitution and every state constitution um highlights the right to free speech and we want our students to be able to exercise that obviously within limits and schools are not the same as public spaces and or private commercial spaces and so I think what um CJ's highlighting is just the need to go back to the table and add some language that ensures that we are not effectively dissuading or discouraging our students from exercising their free speech rights when usually that is um needs the most protection when it is a minority view um and when it is something that is not uh in mainstream so for example advocates for the use of imminent Force right because that's usually the it's about the imminence of the force rather than a general threat that is abstract or far in the future uh advocates for the violation of imminent right or imminent violation of law or school rules which would presumably that could be interpreted as disruption as opposed to a general advocation or or opposition to a particular School rule or law I mean there are probably some students who completely oppose the state laws right now that are being passed that either prohibit or restrain abortion and they may oppose that right and advocate for violation of those rules as as part of their speech I mean we're just giving some examples so I I think that it's worth going back to the table and talking to council frankly to make sure that we can um word it correctly I have another issue which I did bring up before I did which is the language um that says the board specifically prohibits any assembly or expression that materially disrupts instruction is obscene slanderous or grossly prejudicial I've been trying to figure out what the definition of grossly prejudicial is because it's very vague and can be subjective so here's some hypotheticals what if a group of students hosts a pro-israel event that chant we stand with Israel which our Palestinian and Arab students may find grossly prejudicial toward them what if there's a group of students that hosts an event or some kind of program or or some free speech event or excuse me political expression event supportive of Palestinian self-determination during which they chant free Palestine which our Jewish students may find grossly prejudicial towards them so the phrase is and we can use it against other you know things that may offend or find that lgbtq communities may find grossly prejudicial or uh racial minorities may be may find Etc we you see the the point so the phrase is just too vague because I'd like to know if anybody here knows what grossly prejudicial means whereas with obscene and slanderous we have case law we have I mean slander is clear it's a false statement about a person and there is harm that is caused but with grossly prejudicial I I cannot find that definition um so I I don't think that's good policy I know that this is the standard that has been used by this company that we hired but CJ and I appreciate this and Rob probably as well just by our legal training is that doesn't mean we have to adopt it I mean we can still be thoughtful about what language we want to apply to our district in order to ensure that our students are not being forced into some conformist Mo uh mold but allowed to act on their critical thinking and descent obviously within the boundaries that do not disrupt but and I understand your concerns with hostile environment the reality is that and you and I both know this there's somebody's speech that they believe is for to protect their Community could be interpreted by another Community as very hostile and so then there's no speech no well so this is where perhaps we disagree I just I am more speech protective I'm not saying that there's no speech I'm saying that I think that this policy is is encouraging free speech within the limits of um the of what is deemed appropriate and we also will be including the code of conduct obviously as you know Administration will be doing that as a you know supervising body I understand what you're saying I don't I don't necessarily agree that this is an anti-free speech policy I don't I'm not reading it that way I think it does but that's that's me well I don't think it's anti-free speech it just restrains it but I guess the point is what does grossly prejudicial mean I I would really like to know what that means can I can I just make a suggestion here uh I I think we all have a lot of good ideas um I don't disagree that it probably needs some more review can we send this back to policy uh my understanding and I don't know this for certain but on the bottom of each policy there's a series of laws that are reviewed um so why don't we have policy review those laws because I don't know exactly what all these laws St state but I do know that the policies essentially summarize these laws and so maybe somewhere in this law it us further defines you know what kind of um I don't know like restrictions higher restrictions that schools can have or maybe it doesn't Define it maybe it defines uh what you're looking for so I think we need to send this back to the table um and have it further looked at do you want to make a motion I I don't know is that how I do it thetion not we're not voting yeah okay so then I'm going to move on to recognizing the public which is all your different uh comments and input from everybody for our else to think about when we get to the uh agenda items so at this time I'd like to recognize the public on agenda action items only during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on agenda action items only the board requests that individuals sign in and state their name Municipality of residents and group affiliation if applicable for the record the specific action items they are commenting on and ask that all remarks be directed to the board president the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public if a matter concerning a District staff member is of Interest or concern to a resident the matter should be referred to the responsible building principal superintendent schools or the Board of Education either by telephone letter or email although the board may not respond to items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered whoever wants to please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from the meeting or adjournment of the meeting in light of the feedback received during the new business discussion at last month's meeting subsequent emails we received from members of the public and input from the board policy personnel and governance committee we are making the following adjustments to public comment during regular meetings we will maintain separate public comment periods for agenda items only and any item so we will keep to two public comment sections a new electronic signning sheet will be implemented to improve the legibility of the speaker's name municipality and the specific agenda item reference during the first comment period a Chromebook is set up at the table over there on the side near the podium with the Google form pre-loaded which should be um self-explanatory and is very brief you will be prompted to choose first or second public common at which depending on which time you go up there please note that if participating in the first public comment period for agenda action items only you will be asked to select the action item section for example Personnel finance and Facilities Etc and to input the action item Leever letter under that section which you are addressing upon sign in a spreadsheet will be updated uh real time to support the efficiency of the meeting agenda as board president I will monitor enforce the comments during the first comment period to make sure they are limited to comments directly related to a current action item as a courtesy we invite Westville student students or staff to speak first each speaker statement will be limited to 3 minutes in duration uh rabit Faro from Westfield I would like to address the disturbance and um demonstration policy um just want to clarify this is a policy for elementary intermediate and high school students correct so I'm actually just having a problem understanding why these kinds of demonstrations belong in school in the first place I think our children are there to learn um you know I know that there's a lot of uh academic deficiencies after covid I don't understand why demonstrations that may offend other children should belong in school if a pro-israel rally is going to be offensive to Palestinian students then we should not be having pro-israel rallies in school if a free Palestine rally is going to be offensive to Jewish students then you shouldn't have those rallies in school the same thing goes for pro-life pro-abortion this is an environment that we want our children to feel safe in I don't even understand why this is a discussion for them to be allowed to protest in school we're not talking about universities we're not talking about graduate schools we're talking about elementary intermediate and high school students all under the age of 18 mostly correct okay thank [Applause] [Music] you I am also talking about um the policy for disorder and demonstration when can you please state your name sorry I I thought signing the form Scott kler from Westfield um the disorder and demonstration policy that we spoke about at the last meeting when I looked at it this afternoon it appeared to be exactly the same as the way it was presented last month when I had asked questions about the use of the word and in the first paragraph and then the use of the word or in the second paragraph I believe that that was touched upon but not really addressed again uh as L speaker said this is for speech conducted on school property during the educ program um so again I agree with the last speaker I don't see why this is controversial why there should be demonstrations going on during the educational program during class time on school property um though it's hard for me to say this I agree with some of the comments from the board earlier about the ambiguity of some of the language used in the policy um and who is the Arbiter of what runs a foul of this policy and how that's decided and what rights a student has who is accused of violating this policy and I think those are things that we really need to consider and that they should be addressed in the policy so we have a fair ability to judge whether or not there is improper speech um speech is the free speech is not absolute as we all know and we recognize and especially on a school property right there are rights that Educators have that normal citizens don't have over students and that applies to speech as well and so we shouldn't be afraid to make sure that our schools are safe um environments for our children to learn and they don't that they don't feel that they're being uh threatened or intimidated by people who are engaging in action whether it's speech whether it's physical contact I don't think it needs to be an imminent threat threat I think that any threat should be considered under this policy I'm not sure what makes something an imminent threat threat based on speech in a school and that certainly shouldn't be going on in any school let alone Westfield schools thank [Applause] you Kyle George U I'm speaking on governance a and policies B uh regarding governance a uh there are a lot of hibs on the agenda tonight uh resolution approval uh 18 of them that sure seems like a lot without getting specific about student details through demographics I think the public deserves to know the nature of these Hib incidents when they're on the agenda for example how many of the hibs on tonight's agenda are for swastikas in our schools we'd like to know uh we know that there was yet another swasa found in Westfield High School recently uh what was the resolution of that case and is and is it on tonight's agenda uh regarding policies B there's a second reading for new policy 5520 disorder and demonstration it seems like a good policy overall students do not have the right to disrupt learning during school hours with their Tick Tock inspired Antics like walkouts schools are for Learning and the these are disruptive I have a few questions about it though uh about how it would be implemented um and a couple example scenarios what you would do I want to know what you would do uh would 5520 disorder and demonstration prevent an organization like SJP which I think would fit under the grossly Prudential provision quote unquote from demonstrating on school grounds and if there was a student chapter of SJP how would you respond under this policy uh the reason I'm asking and is because I'm concerned about SJ uh sjp's ideology coming to Westfield public schools because Boe member Sahar supports SJP at least according to her interviews and social media posts SJP was briefly suspended from rers University where she teaches and she recently spoke in support of their return videos posted online after they were reinstated are are full of mass speakers just uh and the content is appalling and I feel sorry for Jewish Rucker students who are surrounded by that hate excuse me Mr George can you please uh keep this to policy 5520 I am I am right now I I think you're you're getting off topic here no I'm not no I'm not this is a real threat we're focused on Westfield School dist while chapters don't usually operate in high schools if it were to happen I want to know how you would respond under this policy yeah right this is a very relevant question and I think I've tied it together nicely right there I'd like a chance to finish it's nothing but an ad hominum attack against this is not relevant to our our it absolutely is this polic 552 which relates to our students is about is about demonstr it's entitled disorder and demonstration what if there was a demonstration correct Mr at Westfield High School like like like we like we see like we've seen at Ruckers recently what would the district do Under This policy I hope it would take action and that's that's why I support this policy would you like to use a different University example thank you [Applause] Mr okay at this time I'd like to close public comment um and I'd like to approve the minutes from December 19th 2023 regular board meeting minutes can I have a second thank you Kristen all in favor say I hi hi okay at this time we'll move on to board action items uh Rob for governance sure I'd like to move uh board action item a under governance for approval do I have a second second Kent and now move to the discussion anyone have any questions sorry okay can we have a vote Patty um I'm sorry is item you're doing governance item a b and c is that right there's only a there's only a why am I on the wrong person is uh Patty can we have a roll call Sahara aiz yes Rob bonio yes Kent Diamond yes Brendon gallagan yes Charles jinus yes Leila melli sonel Patel yes Kristen Sonic M yes Mary wickins yes okay I'd like to um Mary if you'd like to move Personnel items yes I'd like to move items a through V under the Personnel section of tonight's agenda is there a second second thank you Brandon does anybody have any questions or Personnel re retirements oh are there any retirements R sorry thank thank you thanks yes this evening we do have uh one employee who is retiring that we would like to recognize uh Deborah PNE py thank you uh began her career in the Westfield public schools in December of 1994 in the department of special services and her career as a speech therapist has been defined by dedication commitment and a profound impact on our students she's demonstrated an exceptional skill and proficiency setting a standard of Excellence in speech therapy her Innovative approaches have positively influen countless students and Beyond professional achievement she has cultivated positive rapport with students staff and parents her kindness genuine concern uh and genuine concern created a supportive Community within our school and we extend our heartfelt congratulations and thanks for her outstanding contributions and wish her a happy and healthy retirement I just wanted to add to that um Miss p as her students say cuz they can't say that um really um was a gift at Lincoln and I think that um it's rare to have someone work with kids who understands the gray kids the kids that aren is clear um and I think she did a wonderful job with everyone and the families and I wish her the best of luck thank you Patty can we have a vote Sahar aiz yes Rob bonao yes Kent Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yes Charles jinus yes Leela melli yes sonel Patel yes Kristen Sonic schmeltz yes Mary wickens yes okay uh finance and Facilities Kent yes I'd like to move items a through L under the finance section of tonight's agenda may I have a second please Brendan any questions Patty can we have a vote Sahar aiz yes Rob bachio yes Ken Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yes Charles jinus yes Leila melli sonel Patel yes Kristen Sonic schmeltz yes Mary wickens yes uh action items uh agenda items under policies Lea I'd like to move uh items A and B under the policy section of tonight's agenda is there a second second second son any wait how does it work if we if I want to make a motion to send 5520 back now second what we what are we wait don't I have to make the motion oh okay so I make a motion to send 5520 back to policy table it table it well I want to send it back to policy that's actually a better it's the same thing it's not so much tbling it right as sending it back or okay whatever that's how I should say it okay I would like to make a motion to table 5520 and send it back to policy second second so Patty do Patty do we vote on the that motion yeah okay yes we'll vote on that and then the motion to add that to to table it correct if it passes yeah if it passes then St okay Sahar aiz I'm going to need you to explain again what we're voting for so you're voting right now to table it okay just 55 just 5520 Sahar aiz yeah yes Rob bonao no Ken diamonds yes Brendan gallagan no Charles jinus yes Leila melli no sonel Patel no Kristen Sonic schmeltz yes Mary wickins yes so you have five yes so the motion passes so it's staed okay refer back to the committee yeah sear what about um so now we vote on now you would move just item a and what about uh n B1 y okay I'd like to make a motion to um approve a and B1 under the policy B2 sorry B2 under the policy portion of the agenda second can we have a vote Sahar aiz yes Rob Bonia yes Kent diamonds yes Brendan galled no on a yes on B Charles jinus yes Leila melli yes sonel Patel yes Chris Sonic schmeltz yes Mary wickens yes okay curriculum instruction and assessment Rob sure I'd like to move item a under the curriculum instruction and assessment agenda do I have a second second Kent any questions seeing none Patty can we have a vote Sahar aiz yes Rob bonio yes yes Kent Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yes Charles jinus yes Leila Morelli sonal Patel yes Kristen Sonic schmeltz yes Mary wickens yes like to uh acknowledge the notes for the record and move on to unfinished business new business liaison reports go ahead Rob sure I attended the high school ptso meeting on January 11th um Casey does a great job going through most of the information that uh that goes on there with all the events that the ptso supports the one thing I would add to that um is the ptso is also looking for with respect to the uh support for students during midterms um they are looking for volunteers to help out so if you are able to help out and manage some of these things during the course of midterms please do reach out to the ptso Presidents um I also want to recognize that most of the the group on the ptso was also concerned as a general matter for um for health and well-being of students you know how students are handling and coping with midterms is a general matter these events are very nice but um to the extent that students are having you know more serious concerns about what's going on with midterms that can't necessarily be resolved by a a dog or a movie um they wanted to ensure that counseling services and such were readily available for students number one and number two that as students come up through the elementary and Intermediate School ranks that we're providing students support for um what's coming uh in in high school uh not just you know the first time you see this this level of midterm exam is is not in high school so uh that's something that I'll be taking back to our our counseling department I know they're generally there anyway uh but I think it's it's um it's certainly something thoughtful and something to think about so certainly if your students are having trouble please you know please do not hesitate to reach out to school counselors and seek you know seek any of the help these are just tests I understand they're important I understand what we've got here going on in in in Westfield and and we take our academics seriously but you know mental health is is is equally important as well and we need to find right balance and perspective in any way we can help that out we should we should be doing as a as a district and it's good to see parents speaking up for that so um just keep that in mind and know that it was brought up and I'll I'm going to bring it up you know on behalf of them with counseling thank you rob any other liaison reports okay then at this time I'd like to recognize the public for comments during this portion of the meeting members of the public are invited to address the board of education on any topic the board requests that individuals sign in and state their name Municipality of residents and group affiliation uh if applicable for the record and ask that all remarks be directed to the board president the board ask that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public if a matter concerning a District staff member is of Interest or concern to a resident the matter should be referred to the responsible building principal superintendent of schools or the Board of Education either by telephone letter or email although the board may not respond to items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from the meeting or adjournment of the meeting we will continue to use the um online signin at this time and as a courtesy I invite Westfield students and staff to the podium first each speaker statement will be limited to 3 minutes in duration hello wa can you hear okay uh Janice rapperport Westfield um I just wanted to make a comment on the Strategic plan about dual enrollment uh I currently have a sophomore at the high school and I have two daughters who graduated um and I think continuing to build the dual enrollment course opportunities at Westfield High School is amazing and I'm hoping though as this grows that there's also consideration to have these classes weighted in a student's GPA uh like an honors or an AP class is waited at the GPA since it's a college level class I imagine it's going to be extra challenging and you know someone's trying to build their course schedule you know some people are going to pick an AP class just so they could have the weighted grade assuming they're going to get an A in the weighted in the AP class versus a dual enrollment many kids are not going to pick the dual enrollment just because they're trying to manage their GPA um uh I quickly looked on the internet it does seem that we might be able to do that that other high schools do that so I just wanted to bring that up um also I want to thank the policy committee for clarifying appropriate and acceptable behavior at the Board of Education meetings um I think that's really great so thank [Applause] you Lindsay betala Westfield on Wednesday January 17th I got a phone call a text message and an email at 5:30 in the morning alerting me to the schools being delayed then I also got a call to my work number that's forwarded to my cell phone so it's four different notifications that school is opening 2 hours late yesterday got the same number of alerts in the afternoon telling me that schools were in a shelter in place so it's all good the communication systems are intact and they work but a major question comes to mind what constitutes need to know when it comes to sending m messages out to the district families in that fashion who decides when we'll be notified of something obviously we need to know if school's opening late or closing early but what about acts of hate in our schools what about direct threats to our school security coming in Via group chats between the students what about AI being used very inappropriately I'm just unclear on who decides when the families know and what and I hope that in the future the entire district will be made aware of Acts of hate and threats to our students in the schools when racial slurs and multiple swastikas were carved in the bathrooms here in December of 2021 Dr Gonzalez you issued a statement with the mayor the Town Council and many others the very next day but in December of 2023 when a Jewish student found aaska in the same school your small acknowledgement in the community newsletter came days after we had all already found out because we talked to each other many of us have kids in multiple schools in the district why doesn't one act of hate Warren notification to everybody it should one act is too many and without the proper communication to the community we can't rally together to combat it or any other acts of hate as well so in the age of constant communication which we all know is here AI chat gbt and always changing social media platforms you as the board have to know that many of the students will find out about things happening in the schools quite possibly before their parents do I would hate to find out about a hate image or anything of the sort in a different School in the district from my kid because he found out on a group chat with his friends who have siblings in that school I was told to call them gc's so for the sake of the students I'll refer to them as that but they're the hottest thing since sliced bread and it's just one example of how technology and communication is always present and Ever Changing we all need to accept that and adjust our policies and I hope that you'll take all the technological advances and specifically the changes in the way that students communicate with one another into account when you reevaluate the district's communication policies next thank you oh happy board appreciation a month Kyle George um speaking of AD haminim attacks Sahar aiz has made baseless accusations of islamophobia against members of the community it's shameful that you tried to curtail My First Amendment right to talk about policy 5520 with a very relevant and real world scenario but you let her deride the character of community members I want to talk about something that happened in a neighboring distri District Scotch Plains recently scheduled professional development centered around the book Mornings in Janine the scotch plane superintendent said at the recommend at the recommendation of Staff members an upcoming session was set to focus on the mornings of Janine the book's author weaves together the in intricacies of Palestinian people while delving into Universal things of shared humanity and love shared humanity and love that's a bold claim given the author Mornings in Janine was originally published under the title of the scar that's c a r of David the book's author is Susan abahaa if that name sounds familiar it's because her daughter daughter Natalie abua is listed on Canary Mission a site that tracks anti-Semitism and Natalie was once defended by Sahar aiz I've spoken about that before Susan is also listed on Canary Mission Susan abalo once posted online the world quote the world will be a better place when Israel is wiped off the map and Palestine is once again the Glorious pluralistic place it always was the end of that anachronistic Colonial experiment is near the future is Palestinian indigenous black post postcolonial post capitalist end quote does that really sound like the kind of source that District should use for professional development of its teachers obviously not due to pressure Scotch Plains postpone the PD I mention all this because we've seen issues with PD here in Westfield before during 2020 teachers were given controversial PD also as part of the also as part of of uh of that same era uh BLM at school endorsed books were brought into Westfield as we we saw right after October 7th and as I and others have informed you recently elements of the BLM organization celebrated the Hamas terror attack on social media BLM at school the organization put out an put out a statement on October 17th that was anti-israel and called for decolonization quote unquote this kind of outside influence can't be allowed to affect our teachers and children what are we doing in Westfield to make sure that any future PD is fully vetted and that the materials that we are using in the classroom aren't still affected by lapses and judgment over the past few years thank [Applause] you hi Scott Kesler Westfield when when my children were were smaller we were in um uh athletic class that we at beginning of the class or the end of the class we would talk about our highs of the week and our lows of the week and I I I want to bring up for the last month since the last board meeting the the high the highs of the month and the lows of the month I'm going to start with the lows when we were here in December we heard from members of our community that we were exaggerating uh the amount of anti-Semitism that existed and currently existed and then less than 24 hours later a swastika was found in a bathroom at our high school and it took some time for that to be communicated to all of the parents in the district it was communicated in an email that you really had to click through to even see anything about it that was a month ago since then what have we heard about it exactly nothing there's been nothing about it there's been no followup we don't know if there's been any investigation we don't know if the person who carved the swasa has been identified if there's been any type of um action taken or any action taken that would prevent anything like this from happening again in our schools we just don't know we do know that there's a way to track who enters the bathroom at certain times so probably the person could be identified if we cared about it but I just don't know if the school district does care about it because nothing has been done and nothing has been communicated and so we talk about Holocaust studies and we ask why is that important should we talk about other genocide too yes we can talk about other genocide too but it's important to talk about the Holocaust it's important to teach about the Holocaust that's why it's mandated that we do it right we're required to do it and it's important that we do it that brings me to the high of the month which is the Holocaust curriculum that our eighth graders just went through I have an eighth grader in the school district he probably doesn't like me saying that in a public form but I have an eighth grader and what I saw and what I heard from the teachers the eth grade teachers they shared with us what the students did and it was fantastic they shared the gallery of all the different projects that the children submitted and they allowed the parents to see that one a lot of us are personally we have family members who were in The Holocaust who were impacted by the Holocaust and we were able to share our family members stories and for people who had no other connection to the Holocaust they got to share their Reflections on on what the Holocaust meant to them and how they were affected by what they learned in school and I want to thank the school and the teachers for doing that so that was my high of the month was that program and I insist that we continue on it and it should not be infringed upon by by other people's stories because the story of the Holocaust is important to a large community here in Westfield thank you can my okay um Kathy oera Westfield um I appreciate that sign in because last week or last month someone took a picture of the signin and then smeared um an individual who spoke which was I felt very inappropriate I don't know if this makes it a more confidential or less I I I don't know but in any event um I I've been coming more recently to these meetings and um I I've noticed when we talk about hate in our schools which is painful to to recognize that it's occurring um it seems to be in two categories anti-Semitism and other forms of hate Holocaust and other genocides and then we have um no place for hate in our schools but that's an extension or an arm of the ADL um which is the Anti-Defamation League and it's um it's a it's a really it started out as an anti uh an organization to combat anti-Semitism that's largely its focus and um we have extensive Holocaust studies at the elementary middle school and high school which we talked about this evening that was that was interesting but still swastikas and I'm wondering why and I think that some uh individuals raised really important questions uh this evening like I would love to know does the child get interviewed what what what what was the thinking um it it just I think that could help prevent this type of occurrence sometimes I I wonder is it ignorance is it it's like writing Fu on the wall and knowing it's going to get a big response I just I I just don't know without asking children why like what what made you consider doing that I I don't know that we'll ever know and I do Wonder are those questions asked or is it just straight to punishment I and I do think consequences are very very important for that form of hate or any form of hate but I'd love to have an understanding of why um I I it occurred to me that you know we really do a lot of Holocaust studies and is doing more and more and more the answer or are we missing something um because no one wants to be in a community where this is occurring um I also wondered is it somewhat of a a backlash for some groups that feel or some individuals who feel that's the only genocide that matters and we're not talking about other um genocides um we want to create upstanders but you know children are seeing in our community upstanders are being punished if they're upstanding for the wrong movement like for instance me standing up for our Palestinian neighbors i' I've been threatened physically attacked um and my uh work has been contacted multiple times so and my children see that so they you know the message is it's got to be the right right upstanding right thank you thank you thank you so I started coming to these meetings um sorry r t far from Westfield New Jersey I started coming to these meetings for two reasons number one because I was afraid for my children's safety and number two because I was very upset by conduct of board members I believe that politics does not and should not belong in our schools or our school board school is a place where our children need to feel safe need to feel included Scott Galloway a professor at myyu has said that one of the greatest compliments he receives from students at the end of the term is wow I don't even know what your political views are he says that is when he knows that he did his job because he gave his students the tools to find their own ways in life and form their own views that is the job of our teachers to let our children find their own way in life and feel free and included without being tainted by views or opinions of teachers mentors including Board of Education members I understand also that everybody has a right to attend these meetings and to speak up however I find it extremely disturbing that certain people have been brought into these meetings to intimidate and harass constituents of this school board people have acted aggressively towards people and our children they came here to lecture us about terrorist organizations lied about what municipality they were from and in fact it turns out that this particular person was has actually been arrested at rallies in New York City for assaulting police officers and has been allowed to come here and harass Westfield residents so I believe number one if people are lying about where they're from um they should not be allowed in these meetings in the future and also as a board you guys need to decide the correct forum for who is allowed in here and what they are allowed to do especially if they are not from this town I think that that is a privilege that people should have and that's up to you guys to discuss my last point is about the growing anti-Semitism at the last meeting a board of aded member um asked if anti-Semitism is in fact a problem and if it is that's terrible but is it a problem and that we need numbers so that we could truly appreciate whether or not it is well I have some numbers for you according to the FBI hate crimes against Jews have gone up by 400% since October 7th probably way higher than that number because I last looked this up a month ago 700% on college campuses 24% of American Jews have personally reported being a victim of a hate crime since October 7th so clearly this is a significant problem how are these numbers for you two days after our last meeting there were swasa found in our high school and the high school of a neighboring town as a few of my predecessors have asked I would love to know how this is being handled and what exactly is being done uh I know that the communication from Scotch Plains High School was light years above what we had gotten in Westfield uh I also find it extremely disturbing that on the day that these saskas were found before the marker was even dry uh Board of Ed member tweeted and I'm going to quote okay thank [Applause] you oh it's when I start got it hey I'm JJ uh my last name is B salel I'm also a Westfield resident um I would love to to to be able to finish what she wanted I think it's uh I'm not going to speak to all of you I sorry I should be speaking to all of you as a group but I I would like to single out one of you it's very rude to completely disrespect somebody who's speaking to you as a community member and just sit on your phone like this acting like that person doesn't exist I'm sorry I just stood over there that's incredibly rude you can do whatever you want say whatever you want post whatever the hell you want obviously but that's not cool um at least give her the respect she sits here and listens to you drone on the whole time let her do the same just sit here and smile that's totally fine don't pretend like you're on your phone to finish the point that Scott was trying to make about why Holocaust is so important in the education and to go on what Tally was saying Jewish Americans are 2.4% of the population and they're targets of more than half of the religious based hate crimes I don't know what other numbers are necessary it's it's pretty straightforward I I don't need to join on about it and I'm not going to make a whole thing about it either um I I came up also to finish somebody else's I apologize I didn't really come or write anything I I really just wanted to say that was incredibly rude um like it is now and also uh you know I really appreciate the rest of you being here and doing everything else that you do I have a lot more to say oh and one other thing on the SJP thing sorry it wasn't about SJP it's just about the fact that like T said also our our kids should be safe here and just like she said I didn't have to she just mic dropped the whole thing the the fact that you had somebody come here who literally punched the cop in the face at the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center that's the guy who's going to come here take videos of us FaceTime and like act like a and tell us that hamas's Charter isn't what it is sorry let me go to that other thing right hamas's Charter I I I you know what I'm not going to waste the time cuz this isn't the place for it right this isn't the place for it that guy shouldn't be here talking about it it's as simple as that if you want to go ahead we can have a moment of silence for for everybody who's perished that's fine but everybody's side has some fact to it some truth to it of course course that's why there's always two sides of a story but if you're not even going to listen or act like that person exists in front of your face then how are you going to have that conversation that's about it let the 40 seconds be a moment of silence right like what else you should want that moment of silence for both sides by the way here's somebody on this side saying both sides okay just want to point that out one last time [Applause] okay hi Lauren guar um I want to say also happy board appreciation month I very much appreciate you all of your hard work that you guys put into being board members um Dr Gonzalez as I as you know our Jewish Community has been extremely disappointed by your failure to support us and recognize and condemn the terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7th like so many of your surrounding superintendent colleagues have done however after the November meeting when you made a statement at the beginning of the meeting that you strongly condemn anti-Semitism amongst other important topics that you mention that you condemn as well as when you spoke up at the end of the meeting about wanting to work better on the framework of our Dei curriculum in the Westfield schools those were words from you that definitely helped our Jewish Community to feel a little bit better that you were hearing us and thank you for that in spite of that there was still an inent in December with a SWAT STI a found in the high school bathroom that is because you've not done enough your words have not been enough and you have not been put and your words have not been put into actions to prevent anti-Semitism from happening in our schools by not condemning the terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7th you showed the entire Community where you truly stand and now students in your town feel comfortable making anti-semitic drawings on their school bathroom walls for everyone to see because their own educational leader cannot verbally stand up for anti-Semitism and condemn an attack against the Jewish people so why should they condemn anti-Semitism either in addition it wasn't important enough to you to immediately get out a solitary statement to the community about this incident on the day that it happened but instead you waited to roll out your statement combined with your monthly newsletter the next day some of the characteristics that are used to describe a good superintendent are emotional intelligence and empathy you have not shown these characteristics by failing to actively listen to the Jewish community of Westfield's feedback and Westfield's feedback and perspectives and create solutions that produce positive outcomes for everyone in your District in addition if you could ethically and morally condemn the terrorist attacks on October 7th and have harsher consequences for students who participate in Acts of hatred then you would show your community and students The Firm Stance you are taking on anti-Semitism in all all acts of hatred and then we wouldn't have to deal with symbols of hatred on the kids' School bathroom [Applause] walls um hi um Michael Sherman Westfield here we are another month has gone by 109 days since the horrific terrorist attack in Israel and Dr Gonzalez still has not admitted that he was wrong and the board remains silent in all this talk about Israel and Gaza islamophobia and anti-Semitism and everything else on this topic the true issue pertinent to this body has gotten lost the issue before us is that Dr Gonzalez has been unable to condemn the acts of Hamas on October 7th is barbaric terrorism plain and simple until he does that this entire discourse will not end so many of the superintendents of our neighboring communities that failed to act appropriately at the outset of the War quickly corrected their wrongs and I guarantee you since that moment their school board meetings have not been about the ongoing War full stop their boards and superintendents acted decisively to admit their shortcomings and issued the statement that their communities needed to hear they plainly addressed the facts of what transpired that is what you have failed to do and that is why we will come here month every month in Anger yes we are angry about hamas's actions yes we are angry that so much of the world has shown its true anti-semitic stripes in the days since but that is not we what we are angry about here we are angry that you the people in charge of the education of our children have not shown us that you can be unbiased empathetic and educated this is not about the history of is of the Israeli Palestinian conflict this is about our complete distrust of a school system led by someone who fails to act in the face of such extreme hate I'm sure you are tired of these types of public comments I'm sure you're tired of hearing of our anger but I have news for you you control this narrative you have the power to stop the anger and correct the wrong we are still waiting for you to do the right thing do your jobs State the facts show the students of this community that you can call balls and Strikes and teach them the importance of correcting wrong or step aside this nonsense has to end thank [Applause] you okay at this time I'd like to close public comment like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting can I have a second second thank you Mary all in favor say I I say