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MINUTES OF THE PATERSON BOARD OF EDUCATION WORKSHOP MEETING

April 1, 2015 - 6:52 p.m. Administrative Offices

Presiding: Comm. Jonathan Hodges, President Present: Dr. Donnie Evans, State District Superintendent Ms. Eileen Shafer, Deputy Superintendent Joanne Butler, Esq., General Counsel Comm. Chrystal Cleaves Comm. Lilisa Mimms Comm. Christopher Irving Comm. Flavio Rivera Comm. Errol Kerr Comm. Kenneth Simmons, Vice President Comm. Manuel Martinez Comm. Corey Teague The Salute to the Flag was led by Comm. Hodges. Comm. Teague read the Open Public Meetings Act: The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to insure the right of the public to have advance notice of, and to attend the meetings of the Paterson Public School District, as well as other public bodies at which any business affecting the interest of the public is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this law, the Paterson Public School District has caused notice of this meeting: Workshop Meeting April 1, 2015 at 6:30 p.m. Administrative Offices 90 Delaware Avenue Paterson, New Jersey to be published by having the date, time and place posted in the office of the City Clerk of the City of Paterson, at the entrance of the Paterson Public School offices, on the district’s website, and by sending notice of the meeting to the Arab Voice, El Diario, the Italian Voice, the North Jersey Herald & News, and The Record. PRESENTATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS Update on Urban Schools Human Capital Academy Review Dr. Evans: I would like to begin by reviewing briefly with the Board a report from the Urban Schools Human Capital Academy. That report is in the form of a program review that follows an action that the Board took last fall. If you remember, on October 8, 2014, the Board approved supporting an initiative that we had undertaken to conduct a very formal review of the human resources department and the recruitment of a chief talent officer. The district then engaged the Urban Schools Human Capital Academy and the

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Strategic Data Project. During that presentation when you voted your support we described in detail both of those entities and what they were going to be doing. As a result, they have engaged our staff and conducted a very comprehensive assessment of our human resources unit as well as units with which they interface, which includes the business office and the MIS office. We have a number of offices that are responsible for crunching data, disaggregating it, distributing it, and displaying it in some form or fashion. The Urban Schools group completed its initial work this winter and the task of revisiting the report and developing a plan of action followed. Tonight you have before you the report itself. It is the PowerPoint that you have and I'm going to review parts of it on the slide. The cover is blue. It's this document. You have a copy of the report in its entirety, the complete PowerPoint. You also have a copy of the action plan that was created, drafted first by the Urban Schools Group, and then a group of individuals that constitute a steering committee reviewed it with them, modified it, and further developed the action plan that evolved from the study. Information describing the work group is in your packet as well in the form of a memorandum that I prepared and distributed among them in January. Lastly, you have two other documents that I'll describe as they project on the screen as I proceed with the presentation. My goal is not to give you this the first time and then ask you to engage with us. It's to allow me the opportunity to provide you a very brief orientation of the report, answer any initial questions you have, and then ask you to take it, look at it, and then work with the President and schedule a workshop specifically for this purpose after you've had a chance to read through it, digest it, determine what questions you might have, and then we can follow up with a workshop to answer those questions as we move forward. That’s my goal. I'm going to run through this pretty quickly. It is a very comprehensive report. My intent is not to cover every single detail. I want to be clear about that. It’s simply to orient you to it and talk a little bit about how it's organized and what you should look for as you proceed through the document, which is in PowerPoint format. Page two of that document includes an outline which includes background and review of the methodology that they used to conduct the study. It includes an executive summary. That executive summary is not represented in this PowerPoint. It includes key findings and those findings are represented as strengths for each program. They found a number of strengths associated with each aspect of our human resources operation, and then major areas that they characterize in the report as weaknesses. I refer to them as areas in need of improvement that need to take place. Then they ultimately have some recommendations that follow as it relates to implementation or execution of any changes that are necessary consistent with strengthening the areas that are in need of improvement. Then there's an action plan that I'm going to orient you to. It is a massive action plan. I apologize the print is rather small, but we can produce that in a larger format or a larger piece of paper if you desire. Then there are appendices included in it as well. A little background and review of the methodology that ultimately drove this study, and if you have difficulty reading from the slide you have a hard copy in front of you as well. The Urban Schools Human Capital Academy is a group that's been around since 2011. It’s based in Boston. They are connected with Harvard University along with the Strategic Data Project that we've talked about. They exist primarily to assist urban school districts in helping to strengthen their human resources units. They refer to it there in the document as human capital. Right now, they're currently working with 16 urban school districts across the nation helping do what they’ve done for us. That ultimately will help us to ensure that we have a strong supply of teachers, principals, and district office administrators moving forward. That’s one of the outcomes and that will be discussed a little bit later in the report as you read it through. The next slide provides an orientation to some of the research that drives this work. You've heard us say many times that the number one factor associated with student achievement is the quality of instruction that goes on in the classroom. They repeat that on that slide. The pie chart that you see there, for example, breaks out the

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impact of the teacher, the principal, and then there's a broad category of other that includes a long list of other factors that impact on student achievement. They say quite clearly the effect of teaching on student learning is greater than student ethnicity, family income, student attributes, or class size. Research has been saying that as long as I've been reviewing the research, which is probably 25 years now, on this particular topic. It's been consistent. That’s not to say that those other factors don’t have an impact. That's not what this research is saying. It's saying that the greatest impact on achievement is the quality of instruction in the classroom. It also makes it clear that the second most impactful factor on the quality of instruction in the classroom is leadership in the school, specifically in the form of the principalship. The old saying that I learned a long time ago is as goes the principal so goes the school. That’s still very true. The principal sets the tone. The principal hires the teachers. The principal is responsible for everything that goes on in that school. There’s more that’s represented, but this sheet just provides a very brief overview of the research basis that the Urban Schools Group engages in. Why do you need a human capital strategy? I'm not going to go through all of the bullets there, but I will restate the first one. Teacher and principal effectiveness are the first and second respectively most important factors in driving student achievement. Then it goes on to give you some other whys there. Again, I won't go through a lot of detail because we are giving you an opportunity to read through this and digest it before we engage in a very thoughtful discussion around these, but those bullets you see there really provide the rationale for the work that this group does and the reasons why we engaged them to work with us. What are the key questions to ask to determine how well your human capital strategy is working? This represents some of the major questions that drove their work in our district and every district that they work with. They seek to answer these questions and they ask many more questions to get at the questions you see represented on this particular slide. In the center you see a circle with student achievement in the center. Then you see career management, pipeline development, selection and staffing, performance management, development and support. Those are the major areas with which the rest of what you see here, when we get into the meat of this report, is organized around those five key areas. I’ll make a brief comment about the methodology, which is the next slide, or a review of the methodology that they use. You see on the left-hand side of this particular table the review component that they looked at of core HR functions, processes and procedures. Again, that's part of how they organize themselves and it drove what they did and what to look for in those particular areas is represented on the right-hand side of that particular slide. Continuing with the methodology, they indicated a number of activities that they engaged in. They actually spent considerable time in our district. They started with conference calls with key district staff, including myself and other members of my senior team. They attended a kickoff meeting here in the district that included 20 individuals, key stakeholders and the SDP, the Strategic Data Project Group, reviewed key documents and data reports with follow-up meetings to gain clarification about what they were hearing and seeing. Then they came and spent time interviewing people. They conducted interviews with me, Deputy Superintendent Shafer, the assistant superintendents, executive directors, the HR leadership, the school business administrator, central office leaders, association leaders, union leaders, members of the union, our key community partners including PEF and some of the area universities that we work with. Then they held a number of focus groups with principals, new principals in particular, veteran principals, new teachers, SDP fellows, and we have seven SDP fellows involved with them, HR and business office team members. They interviewed many of the staff working in the HR unit. Their effort was very comprehensive and focused on talking to anybody who could help inform the compilation of their findings, whether they were strengths or areas in need of improvement. The next slide is the Human Capital Continuum Framework. You see those five key areas in the center that I alluded to earlier. The rest of the report is organized around it. It shows that in relation

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to culture, resources, organization, and systems support. The next section gets into key findings. As I mentioned, they're organized around those key areas that I mentioned. For each of these key findings areas they first illuminate the strengths. They found a significant number of strengths as it relates to our human resources and operations. But the subarea that's discussed here is recruitment and pipeline development. Then on the next slide you see the areas that they identified as strengths associated with it, beginning with the fact that staff will attend or hold job fairs. We have job fairs ourselves, but we have staff that attends job fairs to seek highly qualified candidates to come to our district. It talks about Apple Track and the strengths associated with that, the postings, and other attributes of our HR operations. Following that is a number of weaknesses. The area in the rectangle you see that's enclosed at the top of the page represents the first big area and the other bullets underneath it are subcomponents of that big area. Recruitment is a shared responsibility with minimal analysis to measure and assess overall applicant pool quality and strategic impact. They saw that as a weakness for us. When you look at the bullets underneath that you will see some of the areas that caused them to identify that as an area of weakness. For the candidate the district is not fully leveraging Apple Track to better attract candidates and improve the candidate experience through the process. That was information they got from a lot of our newer staff who used Apple Track as a mechanism through which they applied for positions in the district, and similarly the bullets underneath illuminate the reasons why they identified that as a weakness. Then they offer a statement to reflect what research has indicated when you talk to individuals who are seeking jobs. 62% of job seekers wish the application process would take less than 20 minutes. That’s a piece of research that those of us who are familiar with the kinds of things that applicants who are applying for jobs experience and would like to see is a result of what that research is telling us. The next weakness, for the hiring manager the district is not fully leveraging Apple Track to better attract candidates and improve the candidate experience through the process. You have bullets underneath that that illuminate why that surfaced as a weakness. The next big area was selection and staffing, which is a major function of our human resources unit. They again illuminate some strengths for that particular subsection. Annual staffing reorganization meetings take place. What they're referring to are the reorganization meetings that take place between human resources staff and principals of our schools. Assistant superintendents for those schools also are in those meetings and they talk about what the school’s needs are and implications for staffing for the following year, so they saw that as a strength. Principals are empowered to make hiring decisions. You're going to see a contradiction as we move through here because some principals are going to complain about forced placement, particularly when we find ourselves in a situation where a tenured staff member is displaced for one reason or another. Sometimes principals are forced to take them if there's a vacancy for that particular person, but for this section the Urban Schools Group identified that as a strength. If you exclude those situations where forced placement occurs principals do determine who's going to work in their school. They have to get approval because we have to make sure that they are certified and otherwise qualified for those positions. The level of approval is for that purpose, but principals are the people selecting staff for their schools. You see some other items that are represented as strengths. Presented as a weakness you see in the rectangle at the top is district policies – not the collective bargaining agreements – are inconsistently enforced and restrict schools’ ability to hiring the best. One of the examples is the one I just gave. Sometimes there are forced transfers when you have tenured teachers who are displaced for whatever reason who require a placement. That was one of the big items that surfaced that led to that being identified as a weakness. The hiring process is over-laden with manual and paper-driven requests and redundant approvals. We do move too much paper and a lot of effort is being made to change that. In fact, we are doing away with paper forms. We're not quite there yet, but I think Terry is leading the effort to take us into a paperless

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operation and we’re very close to getting there. That was one of the concerns that led to that and you see other items listed there as well that impact on that. I don’t mean to go through each one of these reading it to you because you can read just as well if not better than I can. But I wanted to give you a flavor of how this is organized so when you take it back and go through it in preparation for the workshop that Dr. Hodges and I will schedule to actually hear what you have to say after you've digested it you have some sense of how it's organized. I'm not going to read these as I go through it. I'll just orient you to the sections. The next section following selection and staffing you see some tables there that I think are explained. In fact, by the time you get to that point the comments that will have been made before that will explain this is an attempt to illustrate some of those complex processes that take so much time. This particular slide is hiring process redundancy and again that’s a challenge for us in our human resources unit. Then it gets to performance management. It's organized in the same way as the others. I won't read this as I've read the others because I think you see now how it's laid out. Continuing the structure that’s there there's a discussion of the strengths for that particular section. That's followed by weaknesses in that particular section. The summary statement of the weaknesses is encapsulated in the rectangular area at the top of that section. Then it gets into development and support and follows the same structure with the strengths and areas of weakness with some illustrations. Career management and retention is mentioned as well - key findings, strengths and weaknesses. In the end, once it goes through each of these sections it offers some recommendations for change. It does that by section. Looking at each of those five sections it goes through each one of the array of recommendations that they offer as it relates to this particular engagement. Alan, if we could have the action plan. As a result of all of these findings an action plan has been developed. The Urban Schools Group actually drafted the action plan, engaged me and members of my staff to go through it with them, and some modifications and assignments were made. That's what the action plan looks like. You have a hard copy attached to your plan. It is very detailed and there's actually a longer version than that that has additional information added. In addition to those particular items, we realigned the high-priority items we need to do first. Then it had medium and on to those that are less challenging and we can take more time over the next six months to a year and make changes in those areas. This is the plan that's driving the work that we're continuing. We've begun a series of meetings around each one of the items in the action plan and we've developed substitute-action plans. We call them charters. It details how that particular area is going to be addressed. Each charter has someone leading it. I think we have the names of the people who are in the lead for each one of those on that action plan. I'm hard-pressed to read it from here, but you have it in front of you and it says that Ms. Shafer is responsible for one of the items or I'm responsible or other key members of our staff are responsible for those items. The last item actually illustrates how we've divided ourselves to accomplish this task. There is a senior level group or a decision-making group that I lead. You have this in a separate form. It's not a part of the big book, but it's in the packet that you have. At the top is the steering committee and I lead that group. Obviously major decisions are made at that particular level. Then it has underneath that another group that after we make some of the decisions, or we may hear from that group before we make decisions about how we're going to address this and that challenge. So far, it's been process. What process are we going to use moving forward? Then each one of the individuals in the middle group is identifying a subgroup to work with them to operationalize the charters that are being written to show how each piece is going to evolve. It is very comprehensive and it is very detailed. You also have a few additional items in your packet that I want to orient you to as you take this back and review it. You have a memo dated January 13, 2015 from me to the steering committee giving them their charge. You have a list of individuals who are on the group in a separate item. I lead both groups. Then you have descriptive

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information that you received last fall in October describing, not only the Urban Schools Academy and providing some background information on that, and obviously the packet itself that includes all of these slides. Again, it is very comprehensive so I wouldn’t dare ask you to try and digest this tonight. I ask you to take it back, read it, and generate your questions. When Dr. Hodges and I schedule a workshop, which I anticipate being after spring break, then we can get inside the questions that you have and clarify any issues that you want to raise or any information you want us to know that might influence what we're doing moving forward. That concludes that presentation. Comm. Hodges: Are there any immediate questions? REPORT OF STATE DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT Dr. Evans: You may recall reading an item that went out by email – and it was actually publicized in the local print media – that recognized Paterson Reads as one of 30 programs that was honored as a pacesetter in early reading. In fact, I have copies of it for you if you missed it. Comm. Hodges: The awards ceremony will be on May 20. Dr. Evans: There is an award ceremony on May 20. We are very proud of that and I wanted to thank Rosie and PEF for their efforts in helping us. They are one of our key partners in helping us to move our student achievement agenda. Not only that, but other things that they do such as the book drive at the library and other activities help us tremendously in helping our students to improve student achievement. I wanted to thank her and since she's not here I'll thank her in the next meeting when she shows up for the work that they've done to help us. The next item that I want to mention very briefly is PARCC. We continue to experience minimal challenges with PARCC. The execution and implementation has gone exceptionally well. In fact, we've been meeting three to five times a week. Some weeks we've met every day of the week and other weeks we met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to stay on top of the implementation. We have done exceptionally well. It's not been completely without glitches. There have been some challenges here or there. When I say we've done exceptionally well, I'm referring to execution and implementation. I see some individuals sitting in the room who have helped to ensure that. From José sitting over there to Yacine and the team led by Dr. Newell, just about everyone sitting over there participates in those regular meetings and helps to contribute to the success. I want to thank them for their efforts. By the end of the day tomorrow when we get a complete picture of how many kids actually took the test, the percentage, and other information relating to implementation we're going to have a report compiled and get that out to this Board. You’ll probably get it one day either next week or the following week so you'll see what happened and why I'm singing the praises of these folk who’ve helped make this happen. Lastly, we have more than a couple of challenges with our facilities, but some specific planning is underway as it relates to an alternative for HARP and for alternative education that we're working on. I've asked Ms. Shafer if she could pull together a status report in terms of where we are with regards to that and meet first with the facilities committee because I know the facilities committee has been intimately involved in some of the inquiries that we've made about some possible alternatives. Then we can bring a report to the Board in its entirety relating to where we are with those two focuses. That again focuses on HARP because we do want to get the students in HARP out of the mall that they're in and into a better facility. Then there's a better plan evolving even for the long run as we move forward. But the immediate challenge is getting them out of that mall into a much better facility. Ms. Shafer will pull together what she has, meet with the facilities committee, and report to the Board in its entirety. That concludes my report.

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PUBLIC COMMENTS It was moved by Comm. Irving, seconded by Comm. Cleaves that the Public Comments portion of the meeting be opened. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried. Comm. Hodges: I will remind individuals coming to the microphone that it's three minutes per person. Ms. Darlene Morris: Good evening everyone. I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to come here and just discuss some of the things that we're doing. I'm the parent coordinator for School 28 and Dale Avenue is part of my responsibility. As we face many challenges we've come up with some solutions for some of the challenges, but we face even deeper challenges that I think you should be aware of. With regards to School 4, we had a very bad group of kids that were a big challenge. We came up with a program and we got a lot of institutions in Paterson involved. We got the Board of Education, PTA Police, as well as the Paterson Housing Authority, BROTHERS, and there are some sororities involved. They are helping us to bring these boys together for a seven-week program. We're getting the community involved to help us help these children. It impedes the education of the other children that are in the classes with them. We did that for boys particularly because we want men to help them. A lot of these children come from single parent homes and they need that example in front of them. In addition to that, we're now coming up with a new project for some eighth and seventh grade girls that we're having a lot of challenges with them, so we're in the process of getting another program together for them. I think that you'll see some results from it. We’ve also built up our PTOs in School 4 and School 28. I'm really proud of them. A lot of them are here advocating for themselves and also learning how to advocate for their children. They’ve come up with a lot of programs that they're implementing themselves working with our gym teachers to bring families together to have more family time together. The one thing that I want to bring up in addition to that that is also impeding the educational process is that I've been bombarded with people being homeless. My responsibilities are to bring PTOs together and action teams and help the parents navigate through the school process when they have challenges. One is near and dear to my heart right now because I have a mother with five children ages 13, 8, 5, 2, and five months. They are literally homeless going from place to place. That’s just the newest family that I've been working with. The one thing that I want to get across to you is that that is causing a serious challenge with regards to behavior. When I get to digging deep and get to the root of the problem more often than not it’s because the child is living in such a state that they're unstable before they get there and then we want them to sit there. It’s very difficult. It's taking a lot of time. I spoke with the people from the welfare office and they're getting ready to cut off the TRA for a lot of people. That's going to hurt us even more. I'm looking for support from not only just you, but from the community to help us to try to get in front of this problem because it's going to affect all of us deeply, not only with our job responsibilities but in our pockets and in our hearts. It's hard to walk away from these families knowing they have nowhere to go. Thank you. Ms. Daina Richardson: Good evening. My name is Daina Richardson and I'm a parent in the City of Paterson. In extension to what Ms. Morris said, I'm part of the PTO at School 28. I just wanted to express that to me the parent coordination program is a personnel of security for resolution in such a diverse manner within our needy home schools and in a more intimate expression an extension of my own family. Thank you.

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Ms. Yolanda Brown: Good evening. My name is Yolanda Brown. I’m a parent at School 30. I have some kind of concerns about my children’s well-being. Education is a really important thing in my life. I've been struggling, not so much with the education. My kids are in three different schools and I don’t have any help. I'm on dialysis. I have a disabled child. They all go to three different schools just because the schools are overcrowded. I just got fined because my son is being late because I'm trying to get my other two to school. I really need the City of Paterson or the Board to try to help me as a single mother that's really concerned about her kids’ well-being and their education to try to come together and help me. We need more after-school programs. We need more curriculums for the kids. We need more recreation. That's why these kids are out here getting killed and being on drugs, because they don’t have anywhere to go. Certain things you have to pay for, but a single parent that’s on dialysis and doesn’t have the money, how do you expect a single parent like me to go to dialysis if I don’t have anywhere to put the child? That’s why I'm here now, to see if I can get any help from the Board or the City of Paterson to hear me out and please just try to help me. Thank you. Ms. April Brown: Good evening. I'm a sister of Yolanda Brown. Basically, I'm here on my nieces’ and nephews’ behalf. As far as her baby son, like she said, she's just been fined $500. That money is coming out of the kids’ pocket. We're trying to save up money to get the disabled one a new wheelchair that we have to pay out of our pocket because Medicaid only allows you one wheelchair and you're not eligible for another one until a certain time. He is a little bit bigger than the average seven-year-old. He's wide so the wheelchair that he has he's hanging off of it. That money should be going towards that, but now she has to pay the fine. I know it will be easier if she can maybe get help with transportation or whether all three of them can be set up in one school. It will be just one drop-off place instead of three. Another issue I had with my son is I know that they we're telling me from the information that I have already gotten that with these charter schools with the lottery is a little bit of a letdown. I've been to two lotteries and I've signed my son up for all of them. I have been to two already and he wasn’t picked for them two yet. I'm still hoping and praying that something different comes up, but I'm a very concerned parent of where my male child is going to be educated. To me that’s very important starting with a babe. From a babe it starts and then it grows. I'm just very concerned because I looked at the board and all the names coming up. Even though they said the charter schools are not really under your jurisdiction it still needs to be something done. The schools are here in Paterson. They are in my district. That’s just a concern for me. If you can help me in any way, show me what would be a good place to put Malachi, I would appreciate it. Comm. Irving: What grade is he in and how old is he? Ms. Brown: He's five years old and he will be going to the kindergarten this year. He’s very bright. I want not just the best for him, but for all kids. I'm here on behalf of mine. I'm just saying if anybody knows any information you can get in contact with me. I'm volunteering now at the courthouse from 9:00 to 2:00 in human services. You can call me. They can get you to my extension. I'd be willing to listen to anything. Dr. Evans: Do we have your phone number? Ms. Brown: Yes. It was moved by Comm. Irving, seconded by Comm. Martinez that the Public Comments portion of the meeting be closed. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried.

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BOARD COMMENTS Comm. Irving: I just wanted to thank Dr. Evans and Ms. Shafer for addressing that concern. I know we had a parent who came at the beginning of last year who had a very similar issue. One parent was at three or four schools with kids. I think on some level we've got to have some conversation with parents about if they find themselves in hardships about what they can do. Even though the sending school might be within their geographic area if you are a single parent and you have three kids, do you walk one? Are the other two old enough to walk themselves? There are several scenarios on how that might be articulated. It's just something we can consider for next year. I don't know if there's a way for us to flag parents of kids who might go to multiple schools. Two schools is a stretch. But when we're talking about three schools and three kids, even if it's two parents who knows the situation? Dr. Evans: One of the things that obviously we're not as good as we should be is communicating options to parents. There are options. Say they are all elementary kids and they find themselves in three different elementary schools, we work with them and the assistant superintendents do that. But we haven’t said to a parent if they have this problem here's who you need to contact and we need to close that gap. Comm. Kerr: The question for me is here we have this parent and she mentioned that right now she's trying to get her kid into a charter school. We never stop to ask this parent why a charter school as opposed to Paterson Public Schools. I believe that's where the work comes in. We need to find out why they would want to send their child to a charter school. We just didn’t even care to ask her why. Dr. Evans: I wanted her number for a reason, Mr. Kerr. Comm. Kerr: Oh, okay. Comm. Hodges: Over and above asking her why, I kind of understand why. I hope that in their ensuing conversation that the Superintendent describes some of the options that we have available here and some of the programs that we're developing that may give her child the balanced and sound education that she apparently is looking for and that we hope we can provide for our students. I don’t disagree with you, but Dr. Evans did ask that there was a way to reach out to her. But I do know that we have a number of educational opportunities here in this district and we ought to be trumpeting that and helping people like this understand that there are some high-class programs in this district. We have to do a better job of making sure that they are extensive enough so that we can touch all people who need them. Comm. Mimms: I want to commend Darlene Morris. She initiated a conversation and talked about programs. They didn’t just talk about the problems that they had or identify within School 4 and School 28. They came up with some solutions and partnered with the community. Those efforts are very commendable to the efforts of what's happening in the parent community engagement department. We want to see the parents and hear from them, but it's so disheartening for them to have to come to the meetings to express these concerns. I'm not sure if we could initiate a frequently asked question and answer fact sheet to parents which identify to them if they have questions with this, this is the department. A very simplistic and legible in both languages so that our parents are very informed earlier on so they don’t have to come to this process. If they're out of school more than 20 days these are the implications. Then work with the parent to make sure that we're in touch and communicating with them and making sure

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that we don’t have situations where we have children in three different schools and they're trying to do what they need to do. There are so many other things. We want to make sure that our children get the best and that parents are engaged in the learning process and they're partnering around the district. We want our children to stay within the district. We know our parents have choices, but we want them to know that Paterson is a great educational process and that we're listening to what they're telling us. Comm. Hodges: What we should have are Magnet Schools which clearly identify an opportunity for a different level of educational opportunity. We've not done that and that's a concern because it does a number of things, as you know. It changes a school that may be struggling. But it's also a way to draw other people into those areas, people who are looking for just this kind of opportunity. I've pushed for this and other members have pushed for this in the past. She’s going out to a charter school because she thinks that’s her best opportunity here within our district and she lives here. That tells you what people are thinking about our schools and we have to do something better. Not only to just advertise what we have available, but to provide that higher performing opportunity. Comm. Teague: In regards to Ms. Brown and the issue with the fine, is there any way you can do something about it? The situation that she spoke about with the special needs child, being a parent of an autistic child I know it's a lot. I can only imagine what they go through on a daily basis. They just spoke about the wheelchair that they're trying to raise money for and that the money they were going to use for that now they have to put into a fine. Is there some kind of way that we can work with that family? Dr. Evans: Kemper is raising his hand back there. He’s talking with the parent. Comm. Hodges: Are there any further comments? RESOLUTIONS FOR A VOTE AT THE WORKSHOP MEETING: Comm. Martinez: Point of clarification. We just received this resolution for the energy savings plan, but on the agenda it's listed as pulled. Are we acting on this today? Comm. Hodges: No. There was some question as to whether or not it had been seen. So we went and further brought it back to you to make sure that you received it, but there is some issue about the language and the payment schedule. How that works out is going to be reviewed by legal but it's not going to be done today. Comm. Cleaves: I thought we sent it back to the drawing board to have it revisited and it was revisited. So now this a different issue than what we discussed in facilities? Comm. Hodges: Dr. Evans, when did we talk? Dr. Evans: I was going to say last week, but it may have been Monday. Comm. Hodges: There were some other questions about the language and that's what we're going to be reviewing in legal. Comm. Irving: Dr. Evans, you still have an issue as far as the language? Dr. Evans: I've made changes reflecting my concerns. In fact, it's represented there and you'll notice what you have is stamped ‘draft’ because the changes I've made have

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not been vetted with the company. Until the company accepts the changes that I've made it remains in draft. The Board has a decision to make. The Board can still vote on an item even though the contract isn't in final form. What you're voting to do is authorize moving forward if indeed we're able to reconcile the issues with the company on the language. The changes that were made were only changes that I made to address concerns that I had with regards to payment. The company still hasn't received them and I believe that was negotiated with legal, which reconnects legal back to it. Comm. Hodges: I'm not prepared to vote on something that the company hasn’t agreed to. Comm. Irving: My concern is we've met with these folks now four times. My thing is just about the way we look as a Board putting this on the agenda and taking it off. I just want to make sure the next time it comes up it comes up for certain without any issues. Comm. Hodges: I didn't expect it to be on the agenda because my last conversation was that there were going to be some changes. So I was surprised to see it there at all. Comm. Irving: I got it on the Board action agenda that came to us on Monday. So I saw it and knew that it was certainly going to be on there. I just think we keep embarrassing ourselves. Comm. Hodges: Point taken. We'll come together on this one. Comm. Martinez: If it is time-sensitive, if we're able to move on it at the regular meeting, is it fair to say that by the 15th we can have this resolved so we can go head and move on it? Dr. Evans: Is the legal committee going to meet between now and then, and then get back with the company with regards to the changes that I've made? Comm. Martinez: If that's the case, then the other option that you presented is perhaps moving on it today with the hopes that this will get resolved, assuming that all parties can come to an agreement. That's the other option. Dr. Evans: That’s the Board’s call. Comm. Kerr: It's not going to happen. You can't be working backwards. I don't think it's a good approach for us to vote on it and then… Comm. Martinez: I put it out there because it was mentioned as an option. Comm. Kerr: I understand. Comm. Martinez: If it's something we can move on, the vice president just informed us that legal will be meeting before the 15th. Comm. Kerr: Let them figure it out and bring it back before we do anything regarding a vote. By the way, this is the workshop. If it's not on the agenda as something that we're going to move tonight there's no need for us to even look at it. It was not slated to be voted on tonight. Comm. Hodges: Again, the question was raised and I'm just responding to the question. My last conversation to the Superintendent on Monday was that he had some

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concerns. He was going to make some changes and run it past legal. I did not anticipate seeing it there. That’s where it is. The concern is time sensitivity and if this is possible we want to get our hands on this kind of service. That would be a good thing. But I won't bring it for a vote if the language isn't there. Dr. Evans: Obviously, the Board is in different places. My suggestion is to go ahead and get that legal meeting scheduled ASAP and make sure every Board member knows when that's scheduled. If anybody has a question and concern they attend that meeting and resolve the issue there so that the next time it appears it's done. Comm. Martinez: I'm comfortable with that. Again, if it's the four then they can convey that information to the others with the hope that this will be resolved so we can actually move on it by the 15th. Comm. Kerr: How time-sensitive could this be? Somebody explain that to me. Comm. Rivera: I don’t know if this is going to address your question. I'm here on the Board to spend as much time as I can or as needed to make the right decisions. But we've met so many times with this company in the facilities committee and the last time we met the only concern came from the Superintendent regarding the language of the contract. How long was that? Do you recall? Dr. Evans: That was at least a month ago. Comm. Rivera: You say, what is the urgency? What this program will do is help us make some improvements to the facilities of the district, which we all know need a lot of improvements. You asked the question how sensitive is this issue. We have a new facilities director that recommended this. This is something that he had implemented somewhere else. The Superintendent I'm sure has done his research to see if other districts have done it. Yes, we have to be careful and responsible. But for a change of language a month and we couldn’t get it the company? Come on. Comm. Irving: I have to agree with Flavio. We've beaten this thing down to ground. If the language was an issue we certainly want to make sure we see why ourselves and make sure the company has the language. Let's just assure that legal has the opportunity to vet this and get the information to the company so that it goes on the agenda for the regular meeting on the 15th. Comm. Hodges: More importantly, the company has to accept the terms that the Superintendent as proffered. I don't know whether that has happened because they haven't seen it. Dr. Evans: No, they haven't seen it. Comm. Hodges: They haven't seen it so there's nothing to vote on. Dr. Evans: Let me comment because I did more than change the language. I actually made some phone calls to first determine if this was still a best practice and I spoke to folk in DOE and a number of other places. Yes, this is something that was enabled by the state for districts to do. But the caution was – and I'll use my vernacular – don’t sell the farm in the process. If you have a contract that says you're going to pay for something before you've actually turned one light switch off then you're in trouble. That was the change I made in the contract to ensure that wouldn’t happen.

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Comm. Irving: Dr. Evans, can you make sure you get the contract from your office to the folks in the energy company tomorrow? Dr. Evans: Yes. Comm. Irving: By the time we get it from legal, if there is any kickback… Comm. Hodges: That’s not a good word. You mean pushback. Comm. Irving: Wow! If there is any pushback on the issue at least by legal we'll have it hashed out and it will be on the agenda on the 15th. Comm. Hodges: I'm far more comfortable with that phraseology. Comm. Irving: That was just a misappropriation of words. Is that fair enough for everybody? Dr. Evans: Yes. For me it is. Comm. Irving: Comm. Simmons, by the time we meet in legal it will have been someone from your firm to let us know what's happening and then we can put it on the agenda for the 15th. This is like a hot potato. Comm. Hodges: Any further questions? Comm. Irving: Hopefully you guys will come one last time. Comm. Hodges: The legal committee meeting will be on the 13th.

Resolution No. 1 BE IT RESOLVED, that the list of bills and claims dated March 26, 2015, beginning with vendor number 86 and ending with vendor number 799444, in the amount of $12,796,485.11; and BE IT RESOLVED, that each claim or demand has been fully itemized verified, has been duly audited as required by law in accordance with N.J.S.A. 18A:19-2. It was moved by Comm. Martinez, seconded by Comm. Mimms that Resolution No. 1 be adopted. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative, except Comm. Hodges who voted no, and Commissioners Martinez and Rivera abstained on anything pertaining to NJCDC, and Comm. Hodges on anything pertaining to the YMCA, if necessary. The motion carried.

Resolution No. 2 WHEREAS, on March 15, 2007, the State of New Jersey adopted P.L.2007, c.53, An Act Concerning School District Accountability, also known as Assembly Bill 5 (A5), and WHEREAS, Bill A5, N.J.S.A. 18A:11-12(3)f, requires that conferences/workshops have prior approval by a majority of the full voting membership of the board of education, and WHEREAS, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 18A:11-12(2)s, an employee or member of the board of education who travels in violation of the school district’s policy or this

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section shall be required to reimburse the school district in an amount equal to three times the cost associated with attending the event, now therefore BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of Education approves attendance of conferences/workshops for the dates and amounts listed for staff members and/or Board members on the attached and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that final authorization for attendance at conferences/ workshops will be confirmed at the time a purchase order is issued.

CONFERENCE/WORKSHOP REQUESTS

STAFF MEMBER CONFERENCE DATE AMOUNT

Lisa Pollak Legal One Conference – The Changing Legal Landscape for Tenure and Evaluation

April 15, 2015 $150.00 (registration)

General Counsel/Legal Dept.

New Providence, NJ

Tom Hirz Playground Safety Inspectors Certifications/NJ Recreation and Park Association

April 15-18, 2015 $625.00 (registration)

Construction/Fire Code Manager/ Facilities Dept.

Hasbrouck Heights, NJ

Oscar Rivera Playground Safety Inspectors Certifications/NJ Recreation and Park Association

April 15-18, 2015 $625.00 (registration)

Sector Supervisor/Facilities Dept.

Hasbrouck Heights, NJ

Juan Vazquez Playground Safety Inspectors Certifications/NJ Recreation and Park Association

April 15-17, 2015 $625.00 (registration)

Project Manager/Facilities Dept.

Hasbrouck Heights, NJ

David Lowe Teacher Learning Center – Motivating and Managing Hard to Reach, Uninterested and Disruptive Students

April 16, 2015 $215.00 (registration)

Teacher/BTMF @ JFK Saddle Brook, NJ

Eliu Pomales Teacher Learning Center – Motivating and Managing Hard to Reach, Uninterested and Disruptive Students

April 16, 2015 $215.00 (registration)

Teacher/BTMF @ JFK Saddle Brook, NJ

Laureen Moloney NJICLE Seminar – New Jersey Public Employment Conference

April 17, 2015 $159.00 (registration)

Risk Management Officer/Legal Dept.

East Brunswick, NJ

Carol Smeltzer NJICLE Seminar – New Jersey Public Employment Conference

April 17, 2015 $159.00 (registration)

Asst. General Counsel/Legal Dept.

East Brunswick, NJ

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Sameh Abdulazeez 2015 Horizon Users Conference April 19-22, 2015 $2,314.75 (registration, transportation, meals)

Computer Technician/Food Services

Lanier Island, GA

John Gorlach 2015 Horizon Users Conference April 19-22, 2015 $2,314.75 (registration, transportation, meals)

Chief of Operations/Food Services

Lanier Island, GA

Mary Howard Foundation for Educational Administration

April 20, 2015 $149.00 (registration)

Supervisor/BTMF @ JFK

Monroe Township, NJ

Jorge Osoria Foundation for Educational Administration

April 20, 2015 $149.00 (registration)

Vice Principal/BTMF @ JFK

Monroe Township, NJ

Peter Affinito Bright Futures Strategic Plan, Effective Academic Program – Meeting with Admissions Staff at MIT and Harvard University

April 22-23, 2015 $541.50 (transportation, lodging, meals)

Director of Guidance & Counseling

Cambridge, MA

Anthony Cavanna Bright Futures Strategic Plan, Effective Academic Program – Meeting with Admissions Staff at MIT and Harvard University

April 22-23, 2015 $626.50 (transportation, lodging, meals)

Assistant Superintendent – Unit III

Cambridge, MA

Linda Cobb NJALL Annual Conference April 24, 2015 $36.06 (transportation) Teacher/Adult School Lincroft, NJ

Eugenia Ortega NJALL Annual Conference April 24, 2015 $37.56 (transportation) Teacher/Adult School Lincroft, NJ

Jacinta Vilas NJALL Annual Conference April 24, 2015 $30.00 (transportation) Teacher/Adult School Lincroft, NJ

Lorraine Zoeller NJALL Annual Conference April 24, 2015 $37.84 (transportation) Teacher/Adult School Lincroft, NJ

Timothy Gillen American Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED Instructor

April 27-30, 2015 $250.00 (registration)

Health & PE Teacher/SOIT @ EHS

Summit, NJ

Mary E. Rhodes Bergen & Passaic County Education Association Leadership Conference

May 1-3, 2015 $150.00 (registration)

Teacher/Destiny Academy

Long Branch, NJ

Anthony Cavanna University of Pittsburgh, Institute for Learning - Writing in ELA and Mathematics: Setting Students Up for Success

May 6-8, 2015 $0

Assistant Superintendent

Baltimore, MD

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Eric Crespo University of Pittsburgh, Institute for Learning - Writing in ELA and Mathematics: Setting Students Up for Success

May 6-8, 2015 $0

Interim Director/Humanities

Baltimore, MD

Sandra Diodonet University of Pittsburgh, Institute for Learning - Writing in ELA and Mathematics: Setting Students Up for Success

May 6-8, 2015 $0

Principal/School 5 Baltimore, MD

Catherine Forfia-Dion University of Pittsburgh, Institute for Learning - Writing in ELA and Mathematics: Setting Students Up for Success

May 6-8, 2015 $0

IB Coordinator/International H.S.

Baltimore, MD

Wanda Kopic University of Pittsburgh, Institute for Learning - Writing in ELA and Mathematics: Setting Students Up for Success

May 6-8, 2015 $0

Supervisor/Language Arts & Literacy

Baltimore, MD

Rita Route University of Pittsburgh, Institute for Learning - Writing in ELA and Mathematics: Setting Students Up for Success

May 6-8, 2015 $0

Supervisor/Gifted & Talented

Baltimore, MD

Joanna Tsimpedes University of Pittsburgh, Institute for Learning - Writing in ELA and Mathematics: Setting Students Up for Success

May 6-8, 2015 $0

Supervisor/Mathematics Baltimore, MD

Linda Cobb NJTESOL/NJBE May 27, 2015 $25.63 (transportation) Teacher/Adult School New Brunswick, NJ

Jacinta Vilas NJTESOL/NJBE May 27, 2015 $22.00 (transportation) Teacher/Adult School New Brunswick, NJ

Eugenia Ortega NJTESOL/NJBE May 27-28, 2015 $46.41 (transportation) Teacher/Adult School New Brunswick, NJ

Lorraine Zoeller NJTESOL/NJBE May 27-28, 2015 $66.02 (transportation) Teacher/Adult School New Brunswick, NJ

Christine Breit 2015 National School-Based Health Care Convention

June 16-19, 2015 $2,485.80 (registration, transportation, lodging, meals)

Supervisor/FSCS Austin, TX

Tobi Knehr 2015 National School-Based Health Care Convention

June 16-19, 2015 $2,485.80 (registration, transportation, lodging, meals)

Director/FSCS Austin, TX

TOTAL CONFERENCES: 33 TOTAL AMOUNT: $14,541.62

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It was moved by Comm. Martinez, seconded by Comm. Irving that Resolution No. 2 be adopted. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried. Resolution No. 3 was pulled.

Resolution No. 4 Whereas, the DECA students at the School of Business, Technology, Marketing & Finance at John F. Kennedy Educational Complex are competing in the DECA International Career Development Conference in Orlando, Florida. Whereas, during the five day, four night trip from Saturday April 25, 2015 to Wednesday April 29, 2015 students will participate and compete in a competitive event as one strategy used in assisting students to develop the competencies needed to prepare and advance in marketing, merchandising and management careers. The DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) competitive events program and leadership workshops are congruent with sound educational practices and addresses cross content workplace readiness skills. The support Standard 9.3 – Career and Technical Education (CTE) Marketing Career Cluster. Furthermore, they are also aligned with the District’s Strategic Plan, Priority I: Effective Academic Programs, Goal 1: Increase Student Achievement by providing Extended learning opportunities. Whereas, the trip will include two (2) students and two (2) teachers, and is being organized by the JFK DECA Chapter with lodging and planning guidelines being provided by the New Jersey State DECA organization. Transportation arranged by Gabriel Travel Agency. Whereas, all expenses and transportation costs in connection with this trip will be paid by the John F. Kennedy Educational Complex (JFK DECA) Student Activity Account and the BTMF Field Trip Account. Be It Resolved, that the Paterson Public School District approve this educational opportunity for the DECA students of the School of Business, Technology, Marketing & Finance at John F. Kennedy Educational Complex.

Account Account Number Amount

Student Registration 15.15.190.100.800.306.000.0000.000 240.00

Student Lodging 15.15.190.100.500.306.000.0000.000 1,000.00

Adult Registration 15.15.190.100.500.306.000.0000.000 240.00

Adult Lodging 15.15.190.100.500.306.000.0000.000 1,800.00

Adult Meals-gsa rates 15.15.190.100.500.306.000.0000.000 448.00

Contractual Stipend 15.15.421.100.101.306.000.0000.000 800.00

Transportation (Taxi) JFK DECA Student Activity Account 320.00

Transportation (Flight) JFK DECA Student Activity Account 1,252.00

Student Meals-gsa rates JFK DECA Student Activity Account 448.00

Entertainment JFK DECA Student Activity Account 447.32

TOTAL 6,995.32

It was moved by Comm. Martinez, seconded by Comm. Mimms that Resolution No. 4 be adopted.

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Comm. Cleaves: Which budget is this coming out of? Is it this year’s or last year’s budget? Ms. Daisy Ayala: This year. It's at the end of April. Comm. Kerr: How many kids are going on this, just two kids and one chaperone? Ms. Shafer: This is the finals now in Orlando. There are two students, one male and one female, and we have to send a male and a female chaperone so it's a total of four. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried. GENERAL BUSINESS Items Requiring a Vote Curriculum and Instruction Comm. Hodges: The curriculum committee met last night. I didn’t want to say the reason we have this computer ware is so that we can get rid of all the paperwork. It's both a saving of time and resources and will enable us to more efficiently go through the meetings. I look forward to the full implementation of this equipment, which clearly hasn’t started yet. The curriculum committee met last night. In attendance, in addition to the curricular staff, were Comm. Kerr and myself. There were a number of issues covered in the conversation. There was extensive conversation around A-2 concerning entering into an agreement with MS Operating Company to provide outreach to Paterson families about the state mandated preschool programs. These are essentially 30-second commercials to be placed on WBLS and Hot 97. We also placed these kinds of advertisements in newspapers and newjersey.com. The idea is to make people aware that we have preschool slots available and we're trying to fill the universe of possible students. Normally a formula is calculated by the state. We have 4,666 available students and we're not close to that in terms of having the students in our preschool programs. This is an attempt to have further outreach to reach the community and make people better aware. One thing that they did not have was Spanish language stations. We're going to try to look for that. You can reach out to Ms. Peron and give them a couple stations. I know there is more than one. They can also advertise there. A-5 discussed the violin program that’s over at School 1. Apparently we contracted with this company to oversee this program in the afternoon and it requires a certified teacher to do this. The idea was to have them hire a staff person to run this program. However, they could not find a staff person who would work for the money that they were offering. So we essentially had to augment that to ensure that one of our staff people would in fact participate and enable that excellent program to move forward. A-8 was a discussion about training Gifted & Talented teachers. This was an additional course to bring forth another cohort of teachers who would be trained at this new level of teaching ability, looking at curriculum and acceleration of curriculum for our students. I think those were the essential parts of that item. We also got into a major discussion about how we want to look at the preschool and the k-1. What do we need to ensure that those students are reading? The real concern is, are we providing the level of training? What exactly is the sticking point for helping those kids progress to this point where they can read? Is it the preschool program? Do we need something different? We did not want to wait until the third grade to say these children should read. Let's try to find what's holding them up. Is it a problem with vocabulary? What is the problem? Just finding an approach to review the data because apparently we have

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students that are coming in who are not going through our preschools entering kindergarten. You have an indication as to what kind of performance our preschools are providing for this new cohort that is coming in. We have the data so we can take a look at how effective our preschools are in adding to the students’ ability to read. We're going to compare that data and move forward. That’s what they're working on currently. Are there any further questions about the curriculum? Comm. Teague: I spoke to you earlier that I would ask for permission to be excused. *Comm. Teague leaves the meeting at 8:06 p.m. Legal Comm. Simmons: The item for legal is actually for the monthly HIB report. It’s the end of the month so you will receive the report and we'll have it in time for the legal meeting in two weeks. Then it will come to the regular meeting. Fiscal Comm. Kerr: The fiscal committee was hampered because of scheduling, the budget and so many other meetings, so we were not able to have our meeting last Thursday. We are here to present to the Board tonight Resolutions C-1 through C-27. I have a question on C-12. The Educational Development Software has offered to continue licensing its software to the district and to provide ongoing technical services. What is happening here is that last year we approved the contract. This year they want us to extend down to 2017. I'm just trying to find out why that wasn’t part of the original contract. Why are they forcing the issue now for us to approve an extension of that contract down to 2017? Dr. Evans: Ms. Corallo will respond. I will also say while she's coming forward that this Board can't commit another Board. For the 16-17 year you're another Board. Any commitment we make is through the end of this year and it continues in the next year if the next sitting Board allows it to continue into next year. The law says you can’t commit. Don’t get me wrong, we do bring multi-year contracts to you, but it's always with that understanding. Ms. Terry Corallo: You basically just answered the question, Dr. Evans. Did you have further questions about it? I am familiar with it. Comm. Kerr: I'm just curious why we did this. Why didn't we just approve the contract if it was for three years when the contract was presented? Ms. Corallo: We were hopeful that with the Infinite Campus system that there was going to be more ability for that system to do what the system is in front of you. Unfortunately, at this point it does not. If T.J. were here I know that he would be saying that this particular system is something that is much more robust for reporting of HIB that the state requires and has the ability to upload to the New Jersey Smart system, which is also required, and facilitates not only the HIB but the other report. Comm. Kerr: That’s the argument I heard the last time. That would not have been a new argument to apply to this new action. I'm just curious as to why this wasn’t considered prior to now. It's like they're forcing us to roll the contract over for two more years.

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Ms. Corallo: I don't think that's right. Dr. Evans: If I can restate what Ms. Corallo just said, the initial understanding was that we would only need it for one year because we had engaged Infinite Campus with the understanding that it could pick this up. Ms. Corallo: With the hope. Dr. Evans: With the hope that we could pick this up. In the end we found out that it couldn’t. Ms. Corallo: Not yet, not now. Comm. Kerr: But that was not the argument that was made last time. Ms. Corallo: At that time we didn’t have Infinite Campus. When we first went live with this we didn’t have the Infinite Campus system. When T.J. brought this before the Board Infinite Campus was not in place. We had to have something because he was a one-man shop trying to upload all of these reports to a system. That’s why we invested in this originally. He only did it for a year thinking that when we did go live with the Infinite Campus system we would then have this ability to go there, but we're not able to do that. Dr. Evans: And your question is why we didn’t say that. I understand your question and that's a good question. Comm. Kerr: Present it in a clear way so that we know where we are going with this. Dr. Evans: Good point. Comm. Rivera: We've already used them for how many years? Ms. Corallo: I believe it's been about a year. Comm. Rivera: Why can't this resolution read with the option to renew? That way it doesn’t bind us. That way we stay away from the RFPs and at least it comes to the Board again for the approval. The way it reads right now even if we don’t like the program we're bound. It doesn’t make any sense at all. Dr. Evans: That actually makes sense. Comm. Kerr: We are not given a report on it, but we are asked to approve something into 2017. We don’t even know how well it's working. Comm. Rivera: Exactly. Also, it becomes an issue with the certification of funds. They are certified right now, but then we have to do pending inclusion in future years. We don't have budget accounts for next year. You don’t have a budget for future years. I would say with the option to renew in year such and such. If we change the language, I wouldn’t have a problem approving this. Dr. Evans: Terry, if you would get that to T.J. so he can change the language. Comm. Hodges: So you're going to modify the language before the next meeting?

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Dr. Evans: Before the next meeting. Comm. Hodges: Okay. Comm. Simmons: I'm reading this differently. It doesn’t read to me that we're bound to renew. We're just relicensing. We're paying for an additional year to use the product. The way I'm reading it the license is only good for one year. You may want to look at possibly getting a multi-year license if that's possible. It also says maintenance. How much of this is the maintenance cost and how much is the actual license? Does it automatically include upgrades and bug fixes? Dr. Evans: We'll pursue all of those before making a decision. Comm. Mimms: Have we identified other software companies? I know this is one, but do we do cost analyses to determine if there are other companies we can use that can give us more for our money or save us some money? We need flexibility to identify other sources. Because this was the first one this year doesn’t mean it's the best of the best. We want to make sure that we can… Dr. Evans: There were actually several questions raised. The first one Mr. Kerr raised regarding why the focus now on both the 2015-16 and the 2016-17 when we didn’t explain last year when we entered into it for one year that this is something that we wanted Infinite Campus to assume and we were going to move it over. That wasn’t explained at the time and now that’s the explanation for moving forward. We’ve learned that Infinite Campus can't assume this responsibility. That was question number one. Answer question number one first and then we'll get into number two. Mr. T.J. Best: In terms of Hibster, it was designed based upon New Jersey’s anti-bullying legislation. It's specific to New Jersey’s law. There are certain fields that are unique to New Jersey’s process that Infinite Campus does not have. Infinite Campus tracks behavioral issues in general, but it's not specifically designed to New Jersey’s legislation. Also, in terms of tracking and reporting, there's the ability underneath Hibster to just essentially hit one button and be able to print a summary report that can automatically be uploaded into the state’s website for the violence and vandalism reporting, which Infinite Campus does not do. Infinite Campus has the ability to create it, but it's not part of the standard package, which will come at an additional cost that’s more than what we currently pay for Hisbter. In terms of the timeframe, we got it in the middle of the year. So it being a 12-month contract it goes from the start of the middle of the school year to the next school year. Comm. Kerr: So you’re saying, Mr. Best, that the Hibster software is the only software out there that is tailored to the New Jersey system. Mr. Best: It's not the only one. There are several other ones, but the ones that are tailored to New Jersey are unique for reporting bullying not part of a comprehensive student database system like Infinite Campus. Comm. Kerr: The reason for that question is that we didn’t get a report actually in terms of how effective this software program is. You're saying you hit the button and it collects all the data that's required regarding bullying and that feeds into the state’s system. Mr. Best: It's a little bit more complicated than that.

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Comm. Kerr: Well, it does that. If there's another system out there that does the same job, and probably could do it more effectively, why would we just take Hibster without competition and roll over their contract year after year? Mr. Best: It wouldn’t be year after year. Comm. Kerr: That’s what we’d be doing here. Mr. Best: The original contract called for one year with the option of renewing for two years. We went out for bid. There were several firms who bid and Hibster was the one who met all the specs that we actually put out. Based upon the success and the fact that we finally have all of our staff trained – which was a very tough process getting 5,000 staff members trained in the software – we felt that was important just to keep the consistency moving forward. Currently as we expected we're almost doubling the number of bullying reports that we had previously last year with the software. Before we had the software I think we had less than 200 reports. Now we're pushing 1,000 reports. In the last report that was given out by the state Paterson was listed as the number one school district in terms of reporting bullying. I don’t want anyone to get alarmed and feel as if we have a problem. Comm. Kerr: We still didn’t get any from School 10? Mr. Best: We have some from School 10. Comm. Kerr: I get that we are trained on Hibster, but I had that same problem in transportation. We never go through the contract. We keep rolling over the contract year after year. I don’t think that’s part of best practices. I questioned this so as to get the clarity that I need so I can move on and know that we are doing the right thing. It's explained. I got it. We are trained on it and so on. After two years, I would want to see your assessment and some comparative company and what they can do. Then we move on from there. I got it. Mr. Best: There are more companies coming about. This is a new field now and a lot of companies are starting to produce stuff, but at the time this was the best one out there. Comm. Kerr: My question is answered. Dr. Evans: There were two more questions or recommendations. One had to do with the two-year engagement, 2015-16 and then the following year. We enter into multi-year contracts all the time, but it's always with the understanding that our commitment can never go beyond one year without the option of going that next year and changing the wording to suggest that it's optional to go that 16-17 year. Did I get that right? Comm. Rivera: Yes, and actually in his comment he answered my question. But you have to understand that I'm a new Board member and I didn’t see the previous resolution. I'm going to ask legal that in the future although it says here that the parties agree to extend the contract pursuant to the written agreement we never had the benefit of that. Could we add we're exercising the option to renew the contract? I've seen it done in other places like that. I just think it would be helpful to new members. Ms. Butler: I will discuss that with general counsel and there's typical language that can be implemented where options can be done, subject to the Board’s ability to fund it. Yes, that can be done.

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Comm. Rivera: I know what you're saying. You're talking about the certification of funds. That’s not what I’m referring to. I'm referring to the line we have here that says ‘parties agree to extend the contract pursuant to a written agreement.’ You didn’t see the previous written agreement. I didn’t. I'm saying in the resolution itself it can say… Mr. Best: We can attach the original resolution. Comm. Rivera: On the actual body on the same line you have there just mention that the Board is exercising the option. I've seen it at the city and county levels. I think it would be helpful to have it here. Dr. Evans: Lastly, if I understood you correctly Comm. Simmons, how much is the maintenance and license? Did I get that right? Comm. Simmons: The actual cost for the license itself and then the actual cost for maintenance. Mr. Best: It's all-inclusive in the fee. The only thing that was an add-on was additional training, which is $1,000 per session, but we were able to have $1,000 per day. So we're going to have four sessions per day. We had six days of training scheduled which will essentially take care of all our administrators, anti-bullying specialists, affirmative action representatives, and members of the culture and climate teams throughout the district. Every year they come up with new improvements to make the process of communicating with the state system easier. This year they actually have new options that would actually allow for us to generate all types of behavior reports in addition. We're in communication with Captain Smith to see if he wanted to use it just to do general behavior reports or anything else that he felt was necessary. But they have that option within the software now that’s already included in the fee that we're paying. Comm. Simmons: So it's all-inclusive. Does the maintenance include any upgrades or bug fixes? Mr. Best: Yes. They've been good in terms of communication. A couple of times we had problems when the system had gone down because of some things that happened internally. When PARCC went about there was something that happened. People were having trouble logging in for a couple of days but they were able to fix it pretty fast. Comm. Irving: In addition to the HIB training, do we have scheduled the mandatory two-hour suicide prevention training? Mr. Best: It's inclusive. It's a five-year cycle and it's not mandatory two hours on suicide prevention. They said that you have to have mandatory two-hour training on anti-bullying that includes suicide prevention. Comm. Irving: Each district is required to have two hours of suicide prevention every single year. Mr. Best: Every year or every five-year curriculum cycle? Comm. Irving: That law and the suicide prevention provision are two separate provisions. Mr. Best: That's not me.

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Comm. Irving: That’s why I asked. Mr. Best: That would be Kathy. The anti-bullying bills of rights requires that we do training every five-year curriculum cycle mandatory for two hours around bullying that also includes suicide prevention within it. It’s not specifically just for that. Comm. Irving: But also the Board needs to go through a two-hour training as well. I encourage you as the Board President to have that conversation. Mr. Best: They offered the training at School Boards. I don’t know if everyone signed up for it. Comm. Irving: But you don’t necessarily have to do it there either. Mr. Best: Whenever you want it, I'll do it. Comm. Irving: You're the HIB coordinator. Mr. Best: Yes, whenever you want it. Comm. Irving: Thank you, sir. Comm. Mimms: Are we looking to identify other software resources that may be more cost-effective and may save us some money in the future, especially with upgrades and the way technology is increasing? Are we looking at other options before we renew with this company? Mr. Best: Not at this point. When we originally went out for bid it was actually under the bid threshold but we still went out to bid anyway. They were the lowest bidder and they also met all of the specs so we decided to renew the option. We're not actively looking for anybody else at this point. Also, it's eligible for a grant from the State of New Jersey where they reimburse us. Last year, they reimbursed us $13,000 of the total cost, which was about half of the grant so instead of costing us $26,000 for the software and the training it only cost us $13,000. Comm. Kerr: Are there any other questions regarding fiscal? Facilities Comm. Hodges: There are no items to be considered in facilities and we did not meet. Comm. Irving: Are we meeting next week? Comm. Hodges: Yes, because he's leaving to go on vacation and I can't do it tomorrow. I don’t remember the date. It's at 4:00. Oh, the 14th? Okay. Policy Comm. Simmons: There are no submissions for policy. Policy and legal meet together and that meeting is scheduled for the 13th. Items Requiring Review and Comments

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Personnel Comm. Martinez: The personnel committee was unable to meeting yesterday. I was out of town and I was unable to get back in time to hold the meeting. We will be rescheduling hopefully for next week. Information Items Comm. Hodges: I did receive the schedule proposed for School Board meetings for the remaining committees. I'm looking forward to having the reports on the 15 th. Because either the curriculum or the facilities committee, and sometimes both, meet a day or two before the workshop meeting you'll have a more comprehensive report at the regular meeting, unless we change that schedule around. Comm. Cleaves: Please note that the Joint Government meeting is after. It's not until the 20th. So you won't get your report until next month. Comm. Hodges: That’s fine. OTHER BUSINESS Comm. Hodges: There is one item that I did want to get to and was missed in the curriculum meeting. We scheduled a trip to MIT for our students. I was approached by Principal Festa and Mr. Swangin at PANTHER. They wanted to arrange a trip to MIT for their students. Originally it was 10 students and subsequently it expanded to 40. It sprung out of this Space Day program that they had and they wanted to reward their students. We approached the administration and we told them we wanted 10 students and then we told them we wanted 40 students and they said that would be fine. But we also said to the administration we don’t want to just send students up to MIT. We were hoping to send staff so that we could have a long-term relationship with some of these schools. To their credit the administration has gone even beyond that. They’re sending Dr. Cavanna and Mr. Affinito to Harvard the day before the trip to MIT to speak with that school about having some sort of joint relationship with Paterson. They're also going to be going to MIT the next day. This portends something special for our community. We have an IB program which we hope to open up in two more years and if we can establish a relationship with either of those to colleges or both we can do something special with our students. As part of this we have three seats available, which I'm offering to the Board members. It’s on April 23 and I want to give the Board members an opportunity to go if they possibly can. I think there are three seats available on April 23. They’re going to be leaving at 6:00 or 6:30 from PANTHER. Comm. Kerr: 6:30 in the morning? Comm. Hodges: Regrettably. Comm. Kerr: Will you be up, sir? Comm. Hodges: I'm not sure how that's going to work out yet. This is an opportunity, not just to see this campus, but we want to promote these kinds of outreaches to universities across the country so that our students have a broader opportunity to enter and be made aware of what's happening there. It might excite students to do something different. There's going to be quite an agenda. We pulled it out especially to cover the agenda and then they lumped it into the trips and it wasn’t separated. So we had a discussion in the curriculum committee last night and unfortunately you don’t get to see

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the extensive agenda, but they're going to be looking at the wind tunnel. They're going to be looking at some ongoing experiments. I think they're going to the museum. It's a robust opportunity and I encourage you. There are three seats, but if more people want to go let me know. We'll pull names out of a hat or whatever it is, but I want the Board to have an opportunity. Comm. Martinez: Is it a day trip? Comm. Hodges: It's a day trip. We'll leave at 6:30 and be back at 9:00 or 10:00 at night. The meals are all included. Comm. Cleaves: I would love to attend, but I will be out of town. My five-year-old granddaughter just went on a field trip to visit a space museum in Virginia and they toured the planes, spaceships, and everything. I would have loved to go so I could have a conversation with her because now she’s going to talk to me about it. Comm. Martinez: I believe Vice President Simmons will be celebrating his birthday and I see no better way to celebrate his birthday than on a bus. Comm. Hodges: I don’t want you to think for one minute that we're using you as a chaperone. That is not the case at all. Any rumors to the contrary, I want to squash those right now. However, I want to make sure that the Board has an opportunity to go if they so desire. Let me know and I'll get it set up. Is there any further discussion? Comm. Cleaves: My keyboard does not work. Comm. Mimms: I don't know if this is the right forum, but since I'm new I'll use it as a learning opportunity. The School of Education and Training is having an awards ceremony on April 16 at the Brownstone where they’ve identified eight outstanding leaders in the community. They reached out to me and wanted to get some certificates from the Board. I reached out to Ms. Jones and they’ve been provided. There are eight honorees in the community. I don’t want to overly-announce, but one of the recipients here is Mr. Kenyatta Stewart. There are seven others. This is on behalf of the Board, so I wanted to make sure the Board was aware. It's on April 16 at the Brownstone. The tickets are $60 and I will hand deliver these to the School of Education and Training tomorrow. Comm. Hodges: Thank you very much. Comm. Martinez: We're holding onto these computers now so instead of receiving these lumpy paper packages, how are they going to get the information onto the computers? Do we have to return them for them to upload them onto the computer? Comm. Irving: It will be on the website. It was moved by Comm. Irving, seconded by Comm. Simmons that the meeting be adjourned. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m.