00:00:04:38 - 00:00:26:24
Unknown
Good morning. This is the castle connection. I'm Jared Claiborne. Today is July 30th, the end of July. We're right into the summertime. And I appreciate you joining us today. I have some special special guests that are going to come on today from our Summer Equity Leadership Institute. Before we get to that, a couple quick announcements. Okay. First of all, the summer mailing is going to go out today.
00:00:26:24 - 00:00:52:19
Unknown
So that is the snail mail information with a letter from me, from Mr. Sheehan, from Mrs. Considine. And it has that password for on course. Right. Because you're going to have to do annual on course registration. Every parent guardian needs to do that annually. That information is only available from that letter. So that should reach your homes and in your mailbox by Monday, August 3rd.
00:00:52:21 - 00:01:17:02
Unknown
If you hit midweek and you do not have that letter, then you're probably going to want to contact the school and find out where that letter is. Okay, so that mailing goes out today. Look for it next week. All right girls, I'm super excited to have you guys here with us representing. I appreciate your time. Why don't you do me a favor and introduce yourself one at a time so everybody knows who you are, and then we'll talk about your program.
00:01:17:07 - 00:01:42:26
Unknown
Hi, I'm Olivia Satchell. I'm going to 12th grade. Excellent. Hey, my name is Ileana Rodriguez, and I'm going to an 11th grade. Excellent. So you guys are here right now in day three of this summer, equity Leadership Institute. This is something we've been doing annually. I think this is the third year of how it looks right now that we've been doing this.
00:01:42:31 - 00:02:09:02
Unknown
Tell me what is like the main goal of what is happening. I think like for the summer, we're really just trying to bring, well, come together, figure out what we want to address to admin and then address them to admin, but also sort of learn about what it means to be equitable, especially in like a school space. Okay, great.
00:02:09:02 - 00:02:33:48
Unknown
And when you say we who's who's we who's who's at this right now, just a group of students from all backgrounds, all grades, selected by teachers for being leaders, not necessarily being in the light. Like not SGA really, although there are some in there who are on SGA, but just students around who have something to say to give them the space to say it.
00:02:34:00 - 00:02:59:01
Unknown
So great. So it's not just like the student government representative, it's not the star athlete. It's a pretty broad demographic of students that are there. Great. And who are our staff leaders there? Honestly, I'm not sure. But I do want to add on to one thing. I want to say that we want to make our little voices bigger and just to give more, you know, just recognition across the whole school.
00:02:59:02 - 00:03:21:07
Unknown
I'm new to this, so I'm not really sure who's in it or whatever, but I'm just ready to make a difference, you know? Excellent. I love that. I appreciate your passion for that. So who are the staff people? We have this Jordan, Mississippi, and Miss O'Neil. Great. And then how many students have participated in the summertime here? A few have come like certain days and some have come all days.
00:03:21:07 - 00:03:43:31
Unknown
It's like, I think a group of 20. Okay, great. And then today is one of the what we're going to do later today is one of my highlights for the year. I love it. So tell us about what we're going to do today. So today we're going to do a roundtable addressing some of the issues that we came up with, but also trying to explain what we learned across the three days.
00:03:43:31 - 00:04:24:33
Unknown
So we read this book also called Do the Work. And it's really about understanding power imbalances, inequities, who has the power, who gets to use the power and things like that? Excellent. Also, how power isn't just up to one person, it's spread across. Very good. Excellent. You're learning quick, I love it. One of the things I really enjoyed is it was really three years ago, something that didn't dawn on us in a and this is just a minor one, but it's an example is the original old girls locker room bathrooms.
00:04:24:38 - 00:04:46:31
Unknown
There was only two bathrooms in there. And that that was like the main bathroom for PE classes during the day. And then after school you had like the entire girls track team. Everybody's trying to use two bathrooms. And then what you guys added on, which we didn't really consider, is that some people don't want to change in open space.
00:04:46:31 - 00:05:10:14
Unknown
They would go into those stalls to change, and now they're taking up more time when some people are just trying to use the restroom and we just, you know, we were using this old girls locker room for literally 60 years in that capacity. But in this student equity, in this leadership, you guys found the space, the voice to bring that to our attention.
00:05:10:19 - 00:05:26:45
Unknown
And that's a small example. But I'm proud to say that, you know, we heard that and the board was able to allocate money. We since renovated the whole space. We have six bathrooms. And it's like, why did it take us 60 years to get that done? But, you know, there's an example of a lot of great things there.
00:05:26:48 - 00:05:45:33
Unknown
Number one is we just we need you guys to tell us some things, right. Number two, it can't happen always overnight, but thankfully we can get there. Are there any other like little tidbits of things you want to share right now, or do you want to wait for the meeting? There's one thing. Okay. Speaking of the bathrooms, I was going to look into the locker room yesterday.
00:05:45:36 - 00:06:01:48
Unknown
They say, oh, we need showers, but then you guys already at a shower? That's pretty good. Yeah, there's showers in there. Nice. That's correct. Yeah, yeah, we're coming up with a list right now actually to bring up and how to bring it up. But like you said, you really don't know what you don't know. And it's not necessarily ignorance.
00:06:01:48 - 00:06:23:07
Unknown
It's just like you don't know. And it's a part of what we're doing is to bring it to your attention. And what you choose to do with that information is something else. Awesome. Well, on behalf of the administration and the staff, I just want you to know that we really enjoy the time and space, the opportunity to speak and dialog with you in that.
00:06:23:07 - 00:06:42:28
Unknown
And these are when we do these days. There are some of our favorite days of the year, so thank you for your work. Thanks for joining me here. Thank you. Yeah. It's awesome. Let me get through a couple of little pieces of information here for people at home, as I put my password in wrong all the time on my computer.
00:06:42:33 - 00:06:57:57
Unknown
Okay. Couple other announcements. So you did hear a little bit construction. So yeah, we do have some construction. If you're on campus just make sure you're avoiding those construction zones. If you saw earlier in the week we had a crane on site putting a new HVAC, the HVAC over the media center had to be replaced. So that's happening.
00:06:57:57 - 00:07:17:36
Unknown
We're getting all that done in the media center. School is going to start on Wednesday, September 2nd. That's actually before Labor Day. So make sure you're ready for that. We will have off of school then that Friday before Labor Day, Monday, Labor Day and then we get really started full blast. So there's two days before later Labor Day.
00:07:17:36 - 00:07:35:26
Unknown
I'm going to make sure you have the school calendar. The school calendar will also be attached in that summer mail and that comes home. Athletics is going to begin very soon. Over the next week. After this, we go into what we call a blackout period. So that's where the districts come together to say, hey, listen, no one is practicing.
00:07:35:26 - 00:07:55:50
Unknown
There's no student events during that time so that you have an opportunity as families to get away. Student athletes have a chance to take a break and do something other than the amazing things that happen here, because you need that mental and physical break. It also gives our coaches a chance to go away so personally. Like that's where my family vacation is, is next week and many others.
00:07:55:50 - 00:08:19:24
Unknown
So we want to encourage you to take advantage of that. Then football and girls tennis will start the week of August 10th. All other fall sports will start August 17th. You need to make sure that if you are a participant, that your athletic registration is submitted. That has to be done annually. Okay, one other thing I alluded to last time on the air is that we are going to make an update to the attendance policy.
00:08:19:26 - 00:08:43:47
Unknown
We are going to put a max on total attendance. Okay. So what we've seen is we are a school that, per the state of new Jersey, is under chronic absenteeism. We have more than what is permitted as far as chronic absenteeism. So one of our efforts is going to put a cap on total total absences, whether they are excused or unexcused.
00:08:43:47 - 00:09:11:47
Unknown
That means if even if you have a doctor's note, multiple doctor's notes, if you exceed a certain number, you are still going to lose credit. So if you have a major physical ailment, mental ailments, whatever it is, then we have to go through the process of homebound instruction, which has to be medically approved so that we are making sure we are meeting the requirements of the State of New Jersey to get you the proper time in your education while balancing whatever that medical need is.
00:09:11:47 - 00:09:33:48
Unknown
So just make sure you're proactive with your counselors, and we'll make sure that that does not impact you in a negative way. All right. And then finally, as you know, we continue our process in reducing distractions. At Sterling High School. We will be talking about the cell phones and continuing to do that. We continue to monitor our own student tablets.
00:09:34:00 - 00:09:58:55
Unknown
So those are just things. Just make sure we these are our ongoing focus to us so that we are make sure that students are engaged both emotionally, physically and academically in the school. So appreciate your time. If you have any questions, again make sure do not hesitate to reach out. Some of us will be going away on a vacation, but we are in the building Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. throughout the summer.
00:09:59:02 - 00:10:03:57
Unknown
Thank you guys, and thank you again for joining me. And as always, Go Knights.