hello all right let's get started um thank you everyone for showing up we uh really appreciate it we met an executive session we're going to start the regular um meeting right now um this is a regular meeting of the burnard Township Board of Education uh notice of time and place of the meeting were provided and copies of the resolution were forwarded to the official newspapers as designated by the Board of Education and Township Clerk a copy was posted on the bulletin board of the Board of Education offices for those members who cannot attend there is a live stream at burners boe.com um we very much welcome input from the public there are two times during regular meetings that public is invited to speak one time is early in the meeting before the board votes when you see speak about any item that is listed on tonight's agenda towards the end of the meeting there is another public forum to address any matter of public concern related to the schools when you approach the microphone please state your name and address each statement May shall be limited to 3 minutes in duration no participant may speak more than once during a given public comment session the first public comment session will be limited to 30 minutes and the second will be Unlimited in order to run an efficient meeting and allow maximum opportunity for members of the public to speak the board reserves the right to set a different time limit for individual comments and the overall time limit for the public comment portion of the agenda all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer no participant May address or question board members individually um please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions but are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board uh we will respond to public comments to the extent possible any board responses to public comments will generally be addressed during board for or committee reports however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when speaking comments may not be abusive of seen threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students employees please also understand that the board will not be responsible for the content of comments made by members of the public members of the public are cautioned that they are speaking at their own risk and are personally and any personally directed statements that they may make uh May subject them to Legal liability to the effective individual if it's necessary for us to go into executive session at the end of the meeting we will provide you with an estimated length of time for this session and whether any actions are anticipated to be taken Upon returning to public session um Jim you want to do a roll call please Mr sammon here miss white here miss Lake here miss Cado here M mun here Mr Molinari here Mr am here M chipo and Mr Shaw here all right thank you Natalie take it away hello guys I hope you guys are all well it's lovely seeing you guys after a little bit of a break so especially with Valentine's Day uh being over we saw the overall School pass notes on how much we overall care for each other and how much grateful we have for each other we also saw amazing school spirit boost within a tremendous ly successful Sports season clubs and so much more so we'll start with the ridge girls swim team they crushed it again with the final score of 104 to 66 and they secured their spot in the njsiaa swimming championships group a State final at Ruckers and they won against Egg Harbor yes so this one is specifically important because they haven't done this since 1980 so we'll have another round of applause for that please all right so even especially with the senior and te Captain she broke uh her own team record in both the 100 fly and 100 back winning both events our boys basketball team had their last regular season home G home game last Saturday our girls basketball team na nailed their first round of States on February 21st now if you have been spotting some students with bleached blonde hair around campus it's all thanks to our Victorious wrestlers after finishing their section they made a b old statement by dyeing their hair collectively and no longer the students but also when they won by a point our coaches and faculty members like Dr lazic and Mr grber joined in on the fun dying their hair as well to show their commitment the forensic team also competed at the national Harvard tournament during our break making us proud and creating Unforgettable memories along the way so keep shining sports teams so huge round of applause to our boys fing team as well for clinching the overall same typ um Team title at The District 5 championships what an incredible achievement and a big shout out to our girls fencing team for earning runnerup honors as well and finally for the rich cheer they took the mat up for the last time getting third last weekend for States and they were saying their great thank yous and goodbye to their seven seniors as well we've also seen a lot of successes from other clubs as well like 12 Keys who celebrated Valentine's Day uh February 20th doing singing performances the ridge Culture Club celebrated Chinese New Year with food gifts and educational presentation and dancing a lot of students went to that uh including myself went to the chiner New Year celebration and no longer if you celebrate it or not we indeed learned a lot so we love seeing those type of activities here the big siblings program has more than a 100 members who help upper classmen but it's also looking for mentors from the high school to match with elementary and middle school students who share common interests um I also do this big sing program I recommend if you guys have a student within the elementary school or a student within the high school that would like to collaborate with each other they do tutoring sessions or even even like emotionally they can help their young student either way um our music department continues to impress us with Ridge choir going to Atlantic City for the njmea conference Ridge band students participating in Allstate band concert in Atlantic City and students creating new clubs to continue to share their passion for music as a reminder this Wednesday is early to mot Ridge as we have another Wellness day students are especially looking forward to one of the activities that the student government is hosting it's a schoolwide basketball tournament if students have any suggestions as a reminder we have our Anonymous QR codes within the hallways that they can submit to address anything that would like that they would like uh within the ridge reports until next time and make sure to keep your student actively reading daily announcements and Friday folders to stay involved within their school thank you any question questions for Natalie I guess we're going to have to invest some money in bigger trophy cases this is like unbelievable um all right great we are going to head down in the front row or wherever for a uh presentation by the special services department Def I'm just use I get to use theks everybody for joining us tonight this is live okay good evening everybody and Welcome to our brief but spectacular overview of what is going on in the special services uh department so as most of you know special services or most of you may not know we's many different hats you know us for the taking and working with classified students we won many programs which we're going to talk about each of those individual programs tonight we have the preschool program we have a cbap program our lld our bridges program our research rooms our in-class support and our related services but I think what a lot of people don't realize is we also work with struggling Learners in the general education Pro in the general education classrooms because one of the things we want to make sure is that students have all the appropriate interventions that they need before they come and before they're evaluated in special education and why we do this in special ed is because we sometimes know those strategies we know those interventions we work with students that struggle so we take that and we not only use it for students that have a disability but we also take that level of expertise and we use that in the general education classrooms we help students that are have academic Pro progress uh issues Behavior social emotional well-being we've seen a rise in school refusal over the last few years A lot of times we will help with the inrs in order to develop plans for them we also work with the school teams with 504 plans so who are we and what do we do I'm the director of the so I more or less oversee all of the Departments I also supervise the vocational program at the high school along with the child study team Lisa vital stanion is the supervisor Lisa Works predominantly with the K5 specialed students in the lldd programs Bridges I icr IC and resource room Lisa also works with inrs and 504 at the K5 level she's also involved in training our special education and our general education staff at that level Dr Allison Reed another supervisor works with our preschool students in both the cbat program and our Palace program Allison also works with all of our cbap students and related Services uh program um Stephanie or is a supervisor and Stephanie works more with our middle school and our high school in the same capacity that Lisa works with our elementary school I also also want to put another line in staff our programs would not be where they are without the staff that work with us day in and day out they are the people on the ground they are the people in the classroom our child study team members it starts with them they do evaluations they meet with students and it doesn't just stop after those evaluations they continue to meet with students if you go by a child study team office a lot of times you'll see students that are in there you'll see parents our teachers are Beyond fabulous our behavor behaviorist our related service providers and our instructional staff members I don't think a lot of you understand what happens inside some of our special education and our self-contained classes what those people do day in and day out I think you would be shocked to hear we could not run I am telling you any of the programs we could not do what we do without that staff so they are part of who we are so what is special education and why is it important well I guess in 197 75 the federal government decided that it was time that we educate students with disability in a public school setting at that point the federal law was introduced in education for All handicapp Children's act that act went under a lot of changes over the past few years and in 1990 the law was eventually changed to the individuals with Disabilities Act or idea and that's probably what most of you have heard me speak about is idea under idea there are 14 categories special education eligibility after a child is determined to be eligible now once again in order to be in Special Services you have to have a disability this isn't a child that's struggling this is a child that has been determined to fall under one of those 14 categories after that determination is made and we have decided that a child does require a special education and related Services a meeting is then held and we have to develop an indicate an an individual ual education plan or what we call an IEP so what is an IEP an IEP is both a plan and a process it's a written document it's a legal document an IEP is reviewed each year annually it can be changed anytime during the course of that year and what we have in that IEP is how that individual will access their education very specific needs are addressed within that IEP we have annual goals and we have short-term objectives and we have benchmarks once a child study team decides that a child is eligible and does need an IEP The Next Step they have to do is decide where that placement is going to be we always want to go to the least restrictive and then to the most restrictive they work with their par with the parents as part of that IEP team to determine what res resources the student needs and the student will use to be successful uh last summer we did a guide to the special education process in Bernard's Township is 45 pages so when you go home tonight if you have any additional questions feel free to enjoy the 45 pages and it should answer every question you have because I think we mostly identified everything there so the next thing I want to talk about is classification numbers now remember I said to you before there are 14 classifications altoe I don't have all 14 classifications listed here but what I did list here were some of the classifications that we see more prevalent especially here within the district I labeled this as of the information that we have by um NJ smart from 2017 2020 2023 and then we added a current row because some thing that happens in special education is you can look at our numbers today and guess what tomorrow our numbers can be different so students are continuously being referred and they're continuously being classified so as you're going to see here what we had in October and what we have now has changed and this why is it's this why is so difficult sometimes for us to project forward what our budgets going to be how many students are we going to have what do we need so we base it off of the numbers that we have but we're not always correct tried to be as close as we possibly can so if you look at the first category it's autism and something I want to make sure that we understand if a child is classified as autistic autism with autism it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be in the cbap program now majority of our students that are classified with autism are in our cbap programs but the classification doesn't necessarily identify the placement every child has a classification but they're looked at as an individual so if you come in with a classification of autism it isn't automatically assume cbap is the place for you we have to take we have to sit down we have to work with the parents we have to look at all the evaluations we have and then we have to make a determination as to what placement we're going to put the students in so if you take a look at your numbers you're going to take a look at these numbers you're going to see though where we have seen the biggest increase over the last few years our students with autism has started in 202 7 17 with about 127 today we're up to 145 currently um the other class the other classification that we watch and we take a good look at is preschool students with disabilities now why do we do that according to idea we have to educate students from Age 3 to age 21 we have to have a program in place the day the child turns three so we hear from um agencies we hear from earlier intervention they usually give it a heads up but when a child is turning three we have to develop a program the child comes in the child gets evaluated and if it's decided at that point the child has a disability they are classified as a preschool child with a disability and we have to develop that program for them the other thing to note here too is students in this category only stay in this category from age three four and maybe up to age five at that point re-evaluated and then they go into one of the other classifications but all students do not in this category are are youngest students so you also want to take a look at these numbers because these are the numbers of the students that we are projecting moving forward more than likely these students will be with us from age three to age 18 and some of them will be with us until age 21 so when you look at those numbers those numbers have really fluctuated and they seem seem to be going up quite a bit too as of today we have 71 students currently that are with that classification the other place that I highlighted was the other health andair and we're going to talk a little bit more about this New Jersey and the federal government are very strict on how we categorize students according to race and we have been we have been disproportionality in other health impaired and we'll go into that a little bit more but what I wanted to highlight here is one of the things that we have been mandated to do is to take down that classification as much as possible and sometimes we do that with our struggling Learners so what we've been doing over the years is giving more emphasis to our inrs so that we're getting those students before they're being classified and giving them what it is that they need and as a result we've been able to lower that classification rate and we have been cited to do that how do we compare to some of the other districts around so our numbers right now are 14.52% of our students we have this was as of October 690 students that were uh classified um Summit is a little bit lower Milburn a lower New Providence about the same uh same average as us Somerset Hills which is right next door is a bit higher Chad's a bit higher so it's all sort of in that ballpark you'll see Statewide the percentage of special Edge students is 17.62 and that's the number of special education students in the state of New Jersey now now we're looking at the programs we have in District and what I highlighted here with some of our bigger programs and those are the ones that I highlighted a little bit more so that you can take a look at we also took a look back at our programs on 2017 all the way up to current once again our lldd numbers if you look at them have fluctuated a little bit but not all that much our bridges program the same thing our preschool program once again those numbers are climb climbing if you look at 2017 there were 37 students now we're up to 69 students in that program our cbat programs there were 61 we have 56 currently in the programs there another program which we'll talk about a little bit later are our vocational skills programs we run two vocational skills programs here at the high school and those numbers have really climbed over the past few years if you look at 2017 we had 25 and 17 now we're up to 32 and 34 and once again we're going to go through each one of these programs with you and describe it in a little bit more detail so you'll be able to understand we have some um uh Whatchamacallit and then if you take a look at this we do have some added District students we have our speech only students but then remember that total that I told you before which was 704 that we currently are at we also have as of today 34 more students that have to be evaluated now these students may become classified or they may not become classified so once again that number which we thought was a bit high now could possibly jump again so I'm going to turn this over to the supervisors hi so um I'm Lisa vital stanion so I'm going to be talking to you about the K 5 language learning disabilities program um I have the next three slides and it it is formatted the exact same way so we're going to talk about the staff so when you think about a language learning a learning language disabilities program or lld we would have a special ed teacher and there also would be a Jenna teacher that special ed teacher is the okay so better okay sorry um so um in the Staffing what we would have is a special a teacher and a jened teacher the special a teacher is what we would call the home based teacher so in elementary that's the classroom that the teacher houses and the students come in to unpack they're also connected to a general education teacher when we look at instructional delivery we're looking at Reading Writing math social skills some content occurring in that special ed classroom with that specialed teacher when we talk about general education they're connected to that gened teacher we have to provide mainstreaming mainstreaming is provided those lld students with access to their gened peers the way that we do that in an lld classroom is by grade or building level events and activities last year we were or two years ago we were lucky enough to have all our LL classrooms move to Liberty Corner which has been fabulous because it's one building the program is there and we have a lot more continuity between K1 2 3 4 five we also have a wonderful way to then ensure that our students at all grade levels um no matter what are involved in the building activities if there's a holiday party they do KFC they have um counselor there student counselors all of that our children and the students are involved in and then we also look at lunch resist and specials they're mainstreamed with their gened teacher or gened peers as well as science and social studies for the science and social studies at times we might do some pre-teaching or we will have them mainstreamed into gened based upon their interest level or if it's a topic that they're really uh knowledgeable about we may look at that so it might not be every single day but we try to mainstream as much as possible when we look at some elements that you would see in an LOD classroom right off the bat you're going to see there is some gened curriculum that's tied in but these students also have IEP goals those IEP goals are driven by what we need to provide in terms of supplemental instruction so in a gened class classroom we might be looking at a reader Workshop or Mentor text at a k to 5 level we still might use a mentor text we still might read it but it might be that we have to now do two more Mentor texts on that topic to then at least have the students Master the idea of predicting or making connections that supplemental material is key um to our budget and to the access that we have so that as the students are going through the academics if that child or a group of children need a little bit more in math we have something right there to provide that additional instruction flexible pacing so in a genit curriculum you know there's usually a Time lot start a finish in lld the pacing is based upon the students's needs so if there is a goal or an objective that we're looking for that child to acquire a certain Mastery of a certain obtainment a percentage um a with teacher help or without teacher help we can control control that pacing so if a lesson has to or a unit has to take maybe two weeks instead of one week we can do that if it's going to take four weeks we're going to flexibly Pace what our students are learning we also are fortunate enough to have instructional Aid support I know Dr Connell said this and I will reiterate it there is no way we can do what we do in special ed without that instructional Aid support the instructional Aid support in lld lunch recess and special they'll attend they'll also attend the content but they also provide a time in the lldd classroom where when the teacher is focusing on a small group or individual instruction the students that are working on their own because our goal is always to reinforce and scaffold that Independence they can be checking in on the students making sure that they're moving forward answering some quick questions this allows us to make as much meaningful progress and student achievement in that lld classroom just as as if they were in a gened classroom social skills and related services are integrated so the speech therapist will come in and they'll do some social skills the staff is there those social skills then are then applied and brought out to lunch and recess the instructional AIDS are familiar with what's going on as well so it's all consistent it's all together when we look at our related services that would be otpt and speech those Services sometimes are pulled out some times they're pushed in especially during a writer's Workshop what we would see is maybe OT coming into the classroom in order to facilitate the handwriting in the application in that moment um what we did do over this past summer because we had everybody at Liberty Corner we looked at some curriculum writing on inclusive opportunities so we were able to take all the opportunities that we already had underneath our belt when we moved to Liberty Corner we then worked with Dr Dr Oliver as well as Mrs Lawrence to look at what other opportunities are there and tapped into those this year so we made sure that we are fully included in the building Ki Bridges program so the staff here we have a special a teacher and a gened teacher the special ed teacher is the homebased teacher meaning when the students enter the building get off the bus from Carline they're going into that special education classroom they are tied to a Jenna teacher the instructional delivery is different sometimes the academics might be taught by that special ed teacher that's their homebased teacher other times the general general education teacher might be teaching those subjects it's all dependent upon the child's needs their strengths and their areas of growth that we are looking at when we talk about general education mainstreaming some of that again looks very familiar like what you saw with LL we have our grade level activities class parties lunch recess specials and parts of science and social studies the one element that is part of the bridges program that makes it unique really has to do with the behavior modification system so when we look at that what happened uh gosh 10 okay like 10 11 years ago um we were sending many students out of District to a particular program um as Gan always does she says why are we doing that bring it back into District so we went to the program we learned we had training and we brought new Mark is what this is based on came and trained us and we brought the program in District so we've been able to when you look at those that number 40 of the bridges program K to 12 those students are with us because we brought a program here where we were previously sending students out for so when we look at that it is a behavior modification program program so what we're looking for is students earn points for behavior and academics they receive timely corrective feedback as well as positive reinforcement when they earn a certain number of points they cash them in in the prize or schools for prizes in the school store we also look for social emotional regulation um many of the times if you're walking through Cedar Hill or even in some of the other classrooms um across the district you might hear that was unexpected that's expected there are social emotional regulation terms there short catchphrases that do not allow students to have to process a lot of um auditory information but they know what it looks like and they know what it means be your best is another one it's an acronym it's all of these types of self-regulation skills and programs that come into that classroom that make it function and it builds those students ability to be emotionally regulated behav behaviorally regulated and socially regulated we also have instructional Aid support the AIDS are key in that program not only for the gened mainstreaming but also within that classroom they assist in delivering that feedback in order to reshape a child's Behavior it needs to be immediate and it needs to be positive waiting 10 or 15 minutes to grab the child to ask them or talk to them about what happened that's not the way to reshape it those AIDS are in there constantly fostering that reshaping of behavior we also have a debriefing and intervention component the debriefing is that sometimes and we all are capable of this um we lose it and kiddos do too so in that time we're looking for the students to come out of the classroom and we work with them we have a debriefing teacher a DI teacher is what we call it she will work with the children talk through and actually work through some questions a format in order to debrief with them to get to the root of what's going on then they do an intervention or a strategy and the whole point of that is the child comes out they get heard it works out we figure out what's going on they get the intervention and then they're back in that classroom the main purpose of that is that instruction is still going on in that Bridges classroom while that child's needs are getting met in the social emotional area um the last piece is the do have weekly counseling so the case manager of the program will come in on a weekly basis they do projects teamwork and building uh K to 5 inclass support and resource room so in this when you look at the staff and the instructional delivery the one program I would highlight first is in-class support so that program has a gened teacher and a specialed teacher and they're in the same room at the same time teaching the same subject areas so it's two teachers or sometimes we'll call that co- teing um when we look at that it's any academics that are occurring in the gened classroom and the gened curriculum is used the pace is the same as jened the rigor is the same however these students will get modifications either to assessments or sometimes even to projects or it could also be um where they're working in a small group or retach or a pre-teach setting when we talk about resource room general education teacher and then they also have a special ed teacher the difference here is that special ed teacher is pulling them out of the classroom for their academic instruction so if I needed help in Reading Writing or math I would come out of the gened classroom and work with a special a teacher in her classroom or his classroom um also the gened I'm sorry the general education curriculum is touched upon so if there's Mentor books if there are Writers Workshop prompts persuasive the different genres that go on at K 5 we are still writing about those it's at a different pace it's differentiated and it also is flexible and it's also driven by their IEP goals so what the research room teachers will do usually on a yearly basis right around and review season they'll look at the children and do some assessments they're assessing their strengths and their areas of needed growth and those become their goals and objectives and then those goals and objectives are in their IEP and that's what drives those resource rooms teachers curriculum the materials the supplemental materials that's based upon their professional judgment and based upon how that child's mastering the goals and objectives for the topic some of the elements that you would see in a resource room an IC setting um evidence-based reading instruction um more than ever uh research is out there we know how to teach children to read we know what is needed to be done and we're implementing it the second piece is more comprehension so when we talk about metacognitive strategies a lot of times we comprehend and when we're comprehending we're doing it all in our head so the metacognitive is just bringing that out to the open so you'll see teachers doing think alouds read alouds they might stop when they're reading a book and question it it's all that process that are going on in our brain that we want to shine and showcase to the students so that they can see and then start to model that visual representations in mathematics so this is um out of some research recently where what we're looking at is a lot of Hands-On the manipulatives as well as drawing or sketching it so we usually will do a sketch to stretch and comprehension when we talk about word problems this is a very great best practice research based practice for mathematics where you're looking to visually sketch what you're reading in that word problem so it's not just the highlighting of the words it's really bringing back A visual representation we also look at development of assessment modifications this is key in the IC setting so the students are following that gened curriculum but some students might need extra time some students might not just need it to be an essay but they might need some bullets or graphic organizer first to then develop the essay those are all things the inclass support teacher looks at and figures out how do we look for that child to produce and produ I'm sorry how do we look for that child to produce that academic product that is really highlighting what they know and their Mastery um the last one would be observable and measurable IEP goals so one of the pieces that we look for is those goals have to be something that we can observe and they have to be measurable many times you'll see goals in an IEP that will say 80 85 90% we differ it between assistant it might be maximum teacher assistance minimal teacher Assistance or independent we also look at how are we going to say that they've met that percentage is it a portfolio is it a structured observation is it an actual work sample is it pre- and post assessments those are the pieces that you would see in a k to 5 in class support and resource room Alice nice job Lisa thank you uh my name's Allison Reed and I supervise our preschool programs our comprehensive Behavior analytic program or our cbap program as well as related services and so I'm going to go through each one of those tonight so for our preschool programs we actually have two programs um we have a full day program that's our cbap program and we also have a halfday program where we have AM and PM sessions the sessions run for 2 hours and 45 minutes and there's no session on Fridays and so as Jean said earlier uh every child who's in our preschool program has a classification of preschool child with a disability at this age many of our students don't have diagnosis or they're so young we're just starting to figure out what's happening and why they may have delayed language or behavioral issues or or anything else and so um every child has the same classification at the end of their preschol school time the students are re-evaluated and as they enter into kindergarten if they continue to be eligible for special education They will receive one of those other 13 classifications so referrals that come in from preschool they come in from a variety of different ways we get the most heads up when our referrals come in from early intervention early intervention will contact our case managers and let us know if we're lucky six months ahead of time it's a great heads up then we know who's coming down the line who's coming in the other ways we get referrals are when parents have a concern about their child and their development maybe they've noticed something maybe their preschool that they're currently in has identified a need and they come to us directly sometimes the pediatricians are referring us it's all part of the process that we have to go through for child find where we're identifying and finding the finding the children and so um we don't always have the heads up of when they're coming and so we are able to start testing just before a child turns three if we are aware of them so that way when they turn three their birthday we have that program ready and available for them to go um and typically it takes us 90 days to do all the evaluations so even though six months ahead sounds like a long time sometimes we're running up against that 90day clock to get all the evaluations done so our evaluations just as they are throughout special ed are pretty comprehensive so the staff will do an observation in their current preschool if that's where they are sometimes they go into the home um they'll do information gathering because uh the children are young and so they rely a lot on uh caretakers and parents to give inventories and um you know start to talk about the needs of the child and this all goes through our child study team we'll have a social worker a school psychologist learning disabilities teacher consultant to look at the educational piece and we may also include therapists so occupational therapists physical therapist speech therapist depending on a student's needs sometimes as well we have students with hearing impairments so we also have a teacher of the deaf that works with us in District and we'll work with those students and evaluate them as well so we are lucky to have these two programs our halfday program takes into account um some of our some paying tuition um students and families that come in from the district and so they are our typical peers and so we are able to have goodness eight sessions where we have typical peers come in uh for am sessions 4 pm sessions and then what we do is have our cbab students push into some of those uh Pals sections so our preschool is really uh a very very large piece of Mount Prospect and uh they really work in collaboration with each other it's not just two separate programs they really work as a team as the students come in and determining what the students needs are so all of the students in any of our preschool programs they all have the opportunity while they're in school to interact with peers materials and adults and this is really important at the this age because we're identifying early academic needs early language communication uh social and behavioral needs at this age we are really working on expanding play language and communication just like any other preschool classroom when you walk in our students are playing if they're playing that's a good thing they're supposed to spend the majority of their time playing with toys playing in centers and engaging with the materials now the staff that we have in the classroom do help support that development of language communication social skills um we have a saying especially in the in the Pal's class a child can be in a in a center and they should be able to access all their education even if they don't want to leave that Center meaning we have opportunities for reading for writing for counting for color for sorting everything within one Center so if you get creative and you think about a block Center there's lots of things you could do with the block Center we do a combination of whole group small group direct instruction we do follow the creative curriculum and we keep many of those large group or whole group sessions very short we know we're working with students who are three to five so these you know it's not going on for 30 minutes uh usually 101 15 minutes is appropriate it's quick and then we get the students back and transition to the next activity um we target language communication play social fine motor and gross motor and self-help and this is the area with fine motor gross motor and self-help if a child's having difficulty with the motor skills our occupational therapists will focus on more of those fine motor needs or uh zippering jackets and uh closing opening buttons uh getting dressed any of those types of things and our uh physical therapist is responsible for helping the child to access their uh their environment in the classroom so navigating their environment not tripping being able to move around obstacles um as a child gets into kindergarten they need to be able to carry lunch trays and balance and so those are all things that we are looking at we consider it a multi-disciplinary approach there are lots of eyes on these little kiddos making sure that they're developing as they need to developmentally um we as we do within special ed we uh create their programming as individualized as possible and so we identify their needs we put their goals within their uh their IEPs and we Define what skills we're looking for we monitor the progress we actually have an assessment that we do on all of our students twice a year it's called the gold assessment we do that on our uh students with special needs as well as our typical developing students to make sure that they're Meeting those age expectations our full day program is based on the principles of applyed behavior analysis and I will get into that just shortly um and it is for students who require more instruction than learning through play some of our students don't acquire the skills that way and so for any child who requires some one-on-one some small group direct instruction of skills a slower pace of learning um those are the students that uh would be within our full day ABA program and so always a mouthful comprehensive Behavior analytic program um while we utilize the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis and what does that mean it means that we break skills down we Define what behaviors we're looking for we measure the progress we collect data and we graph um and so those are all the pieces of holding us accountable for a child's progress in learning um and it's considered the most intensive instruction uh that we really have within District uh for our Learners so they're the Learners who have the most needs the most Global needs um you'll find most of these Learners may have speech therapy occupational therapy Physical Therapy they really need that tremendous amount of support we do service to students 3 to 21 within this program we focus on behavior management our district Behavior work with our students in the program we focus on skill acquisition and collaboration across multi-disciplinary team meaning we're working on helping the child through all areas of life and remember I said the child most likely in this program has more Global needs so we're working on toileting we're working on self-help dressing washing face washing hands more than the typical child would need in order to learn those skills so of course we have individualized programming um where we identify the skills that the child needs to work on we have a very comprehensive evaluation and assessment that we do right within house so even if a child's been evaluated by the child study team we utilize uh two different types of Assessments VB map Ables in order to identify the exact skills the child needs to work on and where they are in their development um we look at that if we need to identify any uh behavior management strategies we already have uh many strategies that we utilize as part of our program token economy systems positive reinforcement all of that is part of our program already if a child needs anything above and beyond we have the assistance of our district behaviorist if they require a behavior plan sometimes our students engage in self-injury or aggression or um or Screaming anything that's really interfering with the their ability to learn within the school environment then we're working on reducing some of those behaviors and replacing it with appropriate ones instead of screaming we want a child talking and making a request and interacting with others and so those are the areas of focus that we have to help them to integrate into the classroom we do collect uh weekly data uh we graph it very nicely that's all part of the philosophy of ABA for many of our parents um having a child with autism or a significant developmental disability is is hard and so we work together very closely to help train the parents parents will come into the classroom our teachers will go home and work with the parents um on generalizing a skill from school to home so if we worked on the child you know um getting dressed will help that child at home if we worked with the child on brushing teeth will help that uh parent at home because they're encountering that skill every single day in the home environment and sometimes it's not easy we can't as Jean said before we can't do anything in our programs without our instructional AIDS they really assist with the implementation of all programming in all areas um of the domains that we're teaching we have uh intensive related services so I spoke already about speech OT occupational therapy and PT which is physical therapy but many of those uh therapy sessions are done within the classroom not necessarily as a pull out because again like Lisa said within the lld when that is a major area uh that we want to focus on we're really embedding it within the program and also training the teachers and the instructional AIDS and how to facilitate that language as the child gets older and we will go into this later um we do help with transition planning and transition planning starts at 14 and because our program goes through 21 we take many of our Learners through that transition as they leave the public schools and head into the adult Adult World so for each child we do have an individualized curriculum it's not just one replacement curriculum it's we pull from many many many different sources we may use some similar to gen Ed we may use some of gen Ed we may use something that's a complete replacement um and so every child is that different and that's why we do that uh comprehensive assessment when they come in this would go across any of the skill areas so language arts Math Science Social Studies Health we have replacement curriculum and we address that based on the child's needs many of the times we are creating additional pictures and curriculum because sometimes we can't find something that's out there so we're taking two things and we're we're putting them together and creating them for a specific child then their materials go up as they move through our program they go up with that child we have lots of inclusion and mainstreaming opportunities and we've had a lot of growth in this area over the past couple of years um we've recently changed the name of our K to 5 uh peer mentor program and this year we are called buddy Builders and we have the cbat program at uh Oak Street and Mount Prospect and so we have fourth and fifth grade um at e each of the schools well fifth grade in one some fourth fifth grade in the other depending on how many students were interested um they come in and they work with our students in the classroom and I think it's a really great opportunity to start to train peers who may want to be other uh buddies and peer buddies as they get older um we also continue to have our peer mentor program that works with our middle school students at William Manon as well as high school we have many opportunities uh especially as they get older for the students to choose to come in and work on Leisure skills with the students many times as they get older they'll be playing card games and uh we used to have we the Wei Sports and and things just to help them understand how to learn to engage in leisure activities that are typical for that age group our students um can be anywhere within the building we can be in general education we can be in specials lunch recess our students in uh B both buildings are part of building based character education programs and so at Oak Street they divide up up into nests and they stay with those nests until they graduate in fifth grade and our students are moving right along um in those nests we see peers who are giving them high fives in the hallway and it's been such a wonderful experience for them um they also attend building based special events assemblies to the extent that they can so it's you know we always attempt to go and we hope that the children can can make it through some of the activities are wonderful and so we you know we really help to support them to have access related services so related services are provided to help a child to access their education so if a child has difficulty with language and they need language to access math or science or social studies the speech therapist helps them to build language and communication and vocabulary to access that curriculum so that's kind of the purpose of school-based related services to help them access the environment help them access the educational materials right so our occupational therapist is working on grasp um so that they would that they can learn to write and do complete their assignments participate in art those types of things in order to access the educational environment so our services are provided usually on a daily weekly monthly as a direct service which means they work onetoone with the child or as a um as a consultative service meaning that the child may have a lot of skills and they just need support from a uh a teacher to help them to implement the strategies and so then the occupational therapist or speech therapist is working with the actual adults within the classroom to help to implement those strategies so we work with the students in a variety of different ways depending on what their needs are and of course it's all individualized so we have speech language therapists we have occupational therapists for the fine motor the daily living skills we have physical therapists who work on uh gross motor Mobility strength using the stairs that's a big big one using stairs using reciprocal reciprocal steps uh our teacher of the deaf is fabulous she goes across so many different buildings and she helps to support our students who have auditory impairments uh they may have clear implants or they may have um hearing aids and so she helps not just support the students but also that technology which is itself a a big task to take on our district behaviorists uh work in both special education as well as general education so they help support students with IEPs they help support students with 504s with the iron RS plans and so we're really working um as a team within the buildings uh and we're really able to help support the students in a variety of different ways as they're developing their behavioral skills adaptive physical education is a modified uh physical education program and so some of our students access a combination of our regular physical education you know 50 minute class at elementary and some need more of a modified program where it may be 30 minutes over the course of more times in the week um as we know fette is uh mandated and so we uh we strive to meet the same minutes as the general education student and so we just look at modifying the activities that they're doing or building up those activities so they can participate in the general education class and moving on to Stephanie so I'm Stephanie or and I am the supervisor of 612 so William Anda middle school and Ridge High School um I'm not going to go through everything again because some of this you've heard from the elementary school but it does look different in the middle school and high school and that's really what I'm going to focus on with you today so the in-class support setting is again that setting with the two teachers in one classroom um and the resource room setting is that smaller class setting where we reduce the ratio of um the teacher to the student and we make sure we're working towards more IEP goals and objectives specific to that students needs in grades 6 through 12 what really is changing is the students aren't coming out of a home room um to go into a in-class support or resource room setting that is their schedule we set a student schedule based on their need and if you've ever looked at a middle school or high school schedule you will see the names of the classes are the exact same names of the classes as you would see in a general education setting and that's really important that you understand that we don't have our special education students walking around going oh my third period is a resource room right they're just going to third period English they're going to Fourth period um science right they're not saying oh I'm going to the in-class support class or the resource room class the exact same thing um happens with the transcripts and a lot of people don't realize this but when you graduate from high school and you look at your your high school transfer script it will say biology it will say chemistry it will say global history it does not say research room or ICS and that's something that a lot of um our parents and students don't know until we talk about it but we want students to be in the right setting the right placement for them that they can learn best in and not necessarily worry about wow am I being identified so students at Ridge High School and williiam Mana Middle School there is no identification with that on paper and that's important for us to get across to you um within the resource room in the IC setting we look at the general education curriculum first and we bring that curriculum into the resource room and then we change the curriculum to get rid of you know some of the activities that they may not be able to reach at that time we might move it to another time we adjust the pacing but the content that we cover the curriculum that we cover comes from that general education curriculum in all of our resource rooms so focusing on William Annan the students take five academic classes just like every other general education student in William Anon Middle School um they go to a home room so uh Lisa described a little bit what it was like when a student walks into an elementary school when a student walks into a middle school they go right to their general education home room and then they go ahead and they follow their schedule periods 1 through um 9 then um any time that uh the team of teachers the M the middle school team of teachers meets anytime they meet they're not just talking about general education students but they're also talking about the special education students so that team of teachers includes not just general education teachers but special education teachers too um in addition in addition it's important to know that these students have the option to take study skills multi-sensory language arts gened Cycles um or gened electives it's all determined based on the individual students needs special education teachers at the middle school um they don't just teach one thing right they're not teaching all resource room or all in-class support so when you look at their schedule you might see a combination of they teach two resource room classes two in-class Support classes and maybe a study skills what's wonderful about my staff at the middle school and the high school is that they are content specific so if you are in a resource room English teacher you are learning from a special education teacher who is trained in English if you are in a resource room science classroom you're learning from a special education teacher who has a background and experience in science and that's something that I'm really proud of our instructional AIDS as you've heard from everyone here today um they are critical they support our students not just in the content classes but they also support our students in the unstructured times and if you think about what it was like when you were in Middle School in high school right there's a lot of those unstructured times that's when the students sometimes need a friendly face need someone to guide them and really to be there to support them so our instructional education our instructional AIDS um help not just in the content area but around the entire school day at Ridge our in-class support and resource room classes run similar however they is only four academic periods just like for a general education student um again those student schedules are created based on the individual students needs some students may be taking one resource room to IC and might be in a general education class for their last academic subject every single decision is based on the IEP team which includes the parents who sit and decide what is right for their child special education teachers again at the high school are highly qualified right they know the subject they are teaching and they're really really well-versed in the general education curriculum so they know what they're teaching they understand the materials and how to get the students to progress through the curriculum um throughout the year our teachers also teach study skills um and there's a general education class I'm going to tell you about later called study strategies that is run by right now our Special Education team move around the school they change classes they have different teachers different expectations we do use the instructional AIDS in the lld program to provide some consistency so if I know a student is having a rough time period one and two that instructional Aid is going to make sure to tell that period 3 teacher you know what maybe give them a little space and we sort of work together um to communicate that so everyone is on the same page we also make sure that we use the therapists so we're using the speech and language therapist the occupational therapist the physical therapist they're working with that team of lld teachers to make sure that the students are getting the same message throughout their entire day even though they do have different teachers and the teachers who teach in lld also teach in research room in ic as well so they understand where the students are but also where we'd love to get the students to um one of the other things about lld and sorry Gan I just forgot one thing um they have a daily Foods class which is so um which is such a wonderful experience for them every single day students in the lld program have the option of taking this Foods class and by the time um they are done with the foods class you would want them in your kitchen because they really really know what to do and that is a life skill that we're so proud of teaching in the Middle School 612 Bridges program Lisa described what the bridges program was in the Middle School and High school it looks a little different it is not a self-contained program these students follow the schedule that includes gened classes resource room classes and IC classes however we do have a lot of support for them throughout the day um our deescalation and intervention specialist in each building is there to support the students throughout the entire day if the teacher's like this child really needs a little bit more support the person is called the teacher is called the students are given the opportunity to leave the classroom talk to an adult deescalate debrief and then go back into the classroom our goal for these students is to allow them to deescalate in privacy to keep their dignity there not to um helps them maintain those positive relationships with their peers and that is our goal is to be able to use that teachable moment to take the students teach them what they need to learn put them right back in and not have this big scene in the middle of a classroom um we have had a lot of success and many of our students have graduated out of the program successfully and you would not walk into a classroom and be able to identify them that's our goal for them is that they can be successful in life um we do use a point system as well we have a school store the kids love it and we're really proud of how far our program has come they start in kindergarten and by the time they are leaving us in the high school we're really proud to say they're ready to leave us and I'm going to hand this over to Gan for our vocational program so this is one of my favorite programs so um because you know uh bridge is such an academic uh school and we want to make sure that all of our students have opportunities and we feel in this vocational program we really do we have what we call a functional life skills program a prevocational and work-based learning that's involved what we do in the functional life skills as we give the students skills so that they will be they will be successful as go adults so they'll have a math and math would be considered functional math where they might be learning how to do a checking account people may might not use that anymore or budgeting or things along those lines that are super important they also begin to develop soft skills so that they can go out to work which is another piece that we want these students are probably not going to go on to college so we want to make sure that they have the skills that are necessary to be successful adults our functional life skills programs will offer academics in English math social studies science adaptive PE their life skills develop practical skills in laundry cooking shopping exercise money management time management and navigating the uh Community our prevocational we start uh jobs in the school so we start here we get the students ready at age 16 they begin to practice job skills on site in this environment we have a coffee card we have the greenhouse outside they do copying projects we have sorting we have laundry service and we also have all different types of delivery items and in-house work then we go out to work we also once they turn 16 be able to go out to work even if it's just for part-time work they do work work-based learning and that's a really good experience for these students to work right within the community we want to also take this opportunity to thank the community I have to say the community has been fantastic the amount of jobs that we have for students I mean when you think about it these students will most likely be living in this community for the rest of their lives so it's really nice to see that everyone here and everyone within the community gets to know them so a special um shout out to all the businesses that really have worked with them plus the transition coordinators and unified we began to expand unified program we started the unified program in 2016 and now we have extended it not only to Unified sports we have unified club and we're going to begin hopefully this September our unified leadership classes so those programs have totally extended okay now that you thought we're finished guess what we're not sorry about that it's just a little bit more so remember before when I told you you guys will never ask special services to come up again I know that for sure um we go on and on so remember when we mentioned before there's two hats that we wear the other part was sort of where the classified students are and what the classified students need that's really our passion and that's what that was a little bit more involved I promise this part will be a little bit shorter now we're going into the struggling students we have to identify students before they become classified so in 2016 Governor Christie signed into legislation RTI which is the response to intervention this this Law requires districts to develop an inrs plan and RTI framework that is B based on Research that's done in the general education setting now remember what I said before is when students become into special education they have to fall into one of those 14 categories but students do struggle and we understand that and by addressing those struggling students hopefully we can work with them in that general education classroom and make them successful we use Universal screening inside there there's multi-level multi-level evidence-based interventions that are provided Lisa and Stephanie both work at both levels in this group and we do continuous monitoring of student progress I promise they're going to be very short and read I know got it um so one of the pieces that we look out for instructional I'm sorry struggling Learners is intervention and referral services or irns each building has that it is something that like Jean said by state we need to have when we look at the committee it is um the assistant principal or principal myself or Stephanie as well as other members that interact with that child we also look for RTI which is response to intervention so we're going to propose interventions and see how the students are responding um along with the 45 page manual that Jean nicely said about the guide to special ed there's another link here too I don't know how many pages this one is but there's Bernard Township IRS manual so about two summers ago we got together we uh created a manual we presented to our colleagues um in August over at uh the media center here got some feedback and that manual is something that we use K to 12 so that there's consistency reliability and validity when we look at our numbers um from 20172 20 and 23 you can see that the numbers are moving up keep in mind too at that time as we're going from 2017 to current we're building out that intervention and referral services and you'll see in the next couple of slides exactly what we have done in order to help those struggling Learners prior to or even without having to go to special services good okay so at the elementary level um it is myself the assistant principal a guidance counselor instructional support as well as the teachers at times we'll have a behaviors come also we might have speech and language OT or PT so that's who's making up that school-based team the first thing that we're looking at is we're looking at data so we want the staff to bring any data they have we want to Ana Analyze That and look for any areas of identified needed growth that could be academic it could be social emotional or behavioral we do that through grade level assessment screeners and Diagnostics we also then take that information and then look for interventions those interventions need to align with best practices as well as evidence-based instruction when we look at that we're listing out the interventions we're assigning teachers or staff members to those specific interventions and then we're also talking about how are we going to collect data to determine is this intervention working is it not working do we need to stop do we need to revise that progress monitoring is usually six to eight weeks we look for the students and the staff to go through those interventions come back and discuss next steps next steps might be continue change they met the goal we would like to increase the goal it might also be a CST referral when we look at 504 accommodations we're trying to take the reason the the child has the 504 that major life function of education is being impacted how is it being impacted and what interventions will go there and level that playing field for that child at middle school and high school um is a grade level team so when your child starts in sixth grade that sixth grade assistant principal and school counselor follow them to seventh and eth grade and so does the inrs team so the same the same people that are hearing about your child in sixth grade will hear about your child in seventh and eighth grade if they continue to need help through inrs um and the same thing happens with the high school the assistant principal and the school counselor will stay with your child the entire time and when a when someone comes to um the inrs process in eth grade I always say don't worry I'm taking your kid up with me so you know I'm monitoring that those plans from 6th grade all the way up to 12 12th grade so I really get to know these kids very very well one of the things we do is we look at not just academic progress students who are struggling academically we also look at students who are struggling socially emotionally any kind of medical issues come to us as well um behavioral issues and at least once a month we're meeting with a team and we're looking at attendance we're really monitoring that school refusal monitoring some of the attendance issues to try and catch them and help the students before it becomes unmanageable uh we develop interventions we talk about that response to intervention plan right where we put in the interventions and we see are they working how is the student responding and then we progress monitor sometimes six weeks most likely at the middle school and high school we are going 8 to 10 weeks to really allow enough teachers to get those interventions in play we developed those 504s to see where a student is substantially Limited in a major life activity and then annually we monitor the plan to make sure it is working even though those are living doc doents and they can be changed at any time so if a teacher or a parent is seeing an issue we just go ahead and take a look at the plan and make changes um the other thing that you should know is that going from elementary school to middle school and middle school to high school we take transition very very seriously when it comes to inrs we meet um before the school year ends and then we meet again sometimes depending on the child in the summer um and right as the school year is beginning so the teachers know exactly who they're getting and how to support those students before the students even walk into the door disproportionality this is sort of what I mentioned before with the Ohi students in December 2016 uh the Department of Education gave guidance as to address racial and ethnic disparities in special education and their placement and school discipline uh these rules require states to develop a r risk ratio threshold to identify districts for significant ific disproportionality New Jersey has established a 3.0 ratio risk ratio so disproportionality is specialized students placement and school discipline are the biggest issues that need to be addressed in education and policymaking spec specifically for students of color especially students of color with disabilities disproportionality is subject to exclusionary discipline and may often students may be placed in segregated SE sessions settings so that limits their access to a rich and rigorous education bird Township unfortunately has been cited under under indicator number 10 which is the percentage of disproportionality Representative of racial and ethnical groups in a specific category our category was white students eligible for special education and related Services Under other health impaired so as I mentioned to you before you saw those numbers that we had spoken about so those numbers numbers are are on the decrease so we're moving down with that um so it has helped us somewhat but we have to identify that a portion of idea grant money is funded towards disproportionality to address that issue under what we call CIS what they have been able to do and I'm going to hand this over to leas is between Title One and the grant money that we have received from CIS a lot of the programs that we have spoken about for the struggling Learners are the programs that we have been able to put in place in the general education setting so the money that we receive from CIS and idea has to be applied to general education students and not special education students usually idea funding goes towards just special education students so I'm going to talk a little bit about what we're doing or have been doing at the elementary to address this concern so one of the pieces a little bit more oh sorry one of one of the pieces is title one so um I want to say maybe seven years ago we were fortunate enough to receive Title One money one of the pieces that we looked for the title one money from the state was to fund a tiered system of support so we started off with intervention um early literacy screeners and Diagnostics that focus on phonological awareness as well as phonics which are the foundational skills for reading and success we also developed what I need that a period um in the elementary um it's a tier two when we talk about um RTI and multi-tiered there's a tier one which is gened tier two is gened plus a little bit more tier three is gened plus a little bit more plus a little bit more so when we looked at that what I need period what we've done is we flooded um a grade level grade one across all four Elementary buildings with special teachers is teachers and gened teachers the students take a diagnostic they then also take a uh screener we then look at that data and we break them up into specific skill deficit groups those groups are no more than five students they run them every day for about a half an hour and then we come back and we progress monitor this the difference with the skill deficit and the win is you are with a group of students as are you're the students are with groups of other students that are working on that exact same skill all pulled from that first grade group of students at that building so they might have a different teacher for that half an hour it might be the same teacher it might be the is teacher that they have or the is teacher that they had last year everybody is pulled to work with that group of students we also looked at evidence base literacy in tier one so as we were doing the what I what I need win period our data over two and a half years started to show that there was a gap in our tier one core so in order to help that tier two we needed to focus more of our funding on the next two years on our tier one so what we did there is K 3 became um trained and materials for the core program were purchased phonological awareness and phonic program was instituted after we had the uh training for that first year we had on-site coaching and we also had um the teachers also doing some instruction but following along with a consultation model so the staff and the cons Consultants would come into the classroom observe our Consultants would also teach and our teachers would observe a lot of PD went into that for about I would say the four years and that again was all through Title One money um the last piece that we looked at for intervention at the elementary for the disp portional was the CIS Grant we funded curriculum we funded curriculum writing this summer as well as last summer um and we looked at that for writing interventions we also looked at that of what accommodations are going on in each of the four elementary schools what were good ones what were not so good ones where could we find some more it brought some consistency the biggest curriculum writing project that came out of this which I honestly loved 100% And I would do it again every summer is the kindergarten and first grade teachers were able to sit down together and collaborate and figure out what materials they might need in supplement to that tier one core and they created a whole entire dock that follows each concept for this school year in kindergarten and first grade with a supplemental material so that they could facilitate the differentiation that's needed for phonological awareness and phonics without them all recreating the wheel so they they have a bank and then every time we do the screeners the three times a year we go back into that bank and we review what are you looking for now where are you picking your differentiate activities and they all align to evidence Bas based practi best practices so at the middle school and high school when we look at the disproportionality we're really focusing on a lot of executive functioning issues so organization time management being able to start tasks and maintain tasks um so we did a lot of teacher training on Executive functioning so students didn't have to leave their classroom general education teachers were able to implement some things on a daily basis to really help all students in the classroom but specifically our struggling students so we use staff within our district we also used outside resources again using that CI money we brought in some outside speakers some authors to come in and just give us a little bit of a different perspective we are so proud of our after school Intervention Program that's been running at the middle school and high school students who are struggling in general education who are identified by their school counselor by their teachers have the opportunity to get sometimes one two or three times a week help with executive functioning in a small group or one-on-one setting for an hour after school and that is covered through our CIS grant money it is helped so many students um and really it's helped the parents too I have to say because we help organize that student before they go home so you know when your child comes home and you say what do you have for homework and they look at you with that stare of I have no idea so the students who are coming to the after school program they're getting the help to organize themselves learn the skills they need to to start applying it at home and we are hearing Time After Time the parents are saying thank you thank you so much Pro for providing this for my child because it's making a difference and that is our goal with the CIS money is to help students before they get to classification um so that's at Ridge and Williams we're really proud of that we also have Support classes so we really push our seminar classes that we have at Ridge our motivating adolescent performance um or you might hear it as map we also have study strategies which we developed because of this disproportionality it is a gen elective that any student can take for a semester and get credit for it and they learn those executive functioning skills and earn credit and get a grade for it it's wonderful um not only did we do it at as an elective at Ridge it was so popular we brought it down to sixth grade at whams so every single sixth grader at whams takes a cycle of study strategies and it's using that same kind of curriculum of executive functioning and more and more we are seeing our sixth graders and as they move into seventh grade they seem to really get it a whole lot more than they did before so we're very proud of that and of course we have our Viking Academy program our lit and mor master program that we're using as well to deal with some of these foundational skills we need to teach um the CIS grant money is also funding a pilot program with tutor.com tutor.com is an online tutoring service which allows students at any time they need to to go on through clever and within two minutes they have an online tutor um who they can talk to and ask their academic questions to it is phenomenal it is a pilot program that we started for struggling Learners students who are identified because they are through the inrs process by their school counselor by their teachers they are getting the opportunity to get this help um when their teachers are not available and their parents are saying I don't really remember that math so this is a great opportunity for students who um need a little bit of extra support We are continuing to develop new programs and support for students using the CIS money and using our staff to really make a difference in our students lives and Gina is going to finish up by telling us about what's coming next what's coming next is my bedtime when I go home okay what we'd like to do is extend our programs and continue to monit monitor our students both in special education and all of course our struggling students uh we spoke a little bit about the after school intervention programs we'd like to continue with those they have been very successful um we'd like to expand the tutor.com pilot program it's taken off a bit slow so hopefully that this will get better as it moves along as I mentioned before the expansion of unified we're super happy that these classes will begin um in September and we hope for those to be exp uh extensive we're also looking to begin a a mentoring program for general education students we have a mentoring ENT uh uh program here at the high school for our special education students where they meet with uh special education teachers um and they go over a variety of different things we hope to extend that program we want to increase uh teacher counselor training opportunities uh for struggling Learners in Jed Ed we definitely always want to expand our community- based instruction as good as it is we really want to reach out to more of the community members out there and the businesses to continue to work with us more inclusion opportunities for our self-contained students this has been an area of Interest we know from some of the parent groups and this is something that we continue to work on uh placement programs and school capacity is a big issue as you can see our programs are growing so where do we need this based where are we going to move them so that's something that we continue to look at with those growing numbers uh will we be able to keep all of our programs where they are I know two years ago Holly was very generous in opening up her space at Oak Street School we did that during the summer so again we're going to take another look at some of where some of our programs currently are and if we have to make some changes come September we also launched the new special education website that's on uh the district website beginning today so if you want to go home after you read the 45 page book you can take a look at this website there but most of all what we've been doing is we're also partnership part doing Partnerships with CPAC and peek um there's a lot that we can do here in education but there are some things that we can't do in some areas that we can't address and we look to the these women and these men to help us in those areas where they can help parents that are struggling there are a lot of areas it's not easy raising a child with a disability and the range of disabilities that our students have are very mild to very extreme so what can we do in a school we do as much as we can but there are many times that we have to look to these organizations to reach out and to help the people within the community so both of these women are going to take a few more minutes and talk about their organization thank you I'll be quick um good evening my name is Megan lipet and I'm the president of the Bernards Township CPAC a role I stepped into when our former president Janice carado was elected to the board of education and I'm grateful to have an opportunity to quickly speak to you tonight um no that went backwards okay what is the CPAC the CPAC is the Bernards Township special education parent advisory Council or CPAC is a parent-led organization legally mandated by the state of New Jersey to provide input to the district on issues concerning students with IEPs or 504s the size and the makeup of a CPAC are not defined by the state but left up to the individual districts in fact up until recently our CPAC was part of the burnard's PC program in 2002 the decision was made to define the burnard CPAC is a separate entity from the PC in order to more robustly collaborate with special services what do we do the CPAC regularly provides input to and collaborates with the Department of special services in a mutually respectful manner on the development of policies programs and practices that widely impact students receiving special education and related Services it's important to understand that we don't Advocate on behalf of individual students or Families Our focus is systemic issues impacting entire programs or groups throughout the year we use a variety of ways to collect feedback from our membership which is made up of any parent or guardian of a student in Bernard Township with an IEP or 504 and these are some of the ways that we collect feedback and most importantly I want to highlight our CPAC Liaisons our CPAC liaison are volunteers in in throughout our school district in the schools and every classification that work as ambassadors for the CPAC and make connections within the school Community they work with the bto's um to make sure that they're sharing the needs of the CPAC families and that they're sharing the mission of the CPAC we also have meetings and workshops um probably the spine of our of our meetings is a um meeting that the executive board has with the administration three times a year where we where we bring our feedback and um those who join us at the meeting are director special services other uh special service supervisors other administrators as invited a Boe liaison um and this is where we bring the feedback that we collect um oh yeah I can stand this one and then um most crucially for the public to understand or to know is that we have workshops um and in fact we have one this Thursday um we're holding a virtual parent seminar on ADHD in executive function and directly following that seminar CPAC members are invited to stay logged in or to join for an open CPAC meeting where they can share feedback related to how the district can better support student executive function and to share any other feedback they have information on registering for the workshop and or the open meeting was included in the special services Friday folder um from this past Friday so if you're interested we'd love to have you join us um if you've got a child who's classified um please register for that and um we'd love to hear from you at Bernard CPAC gmail.com um you can also find us through the special services website we have a Facebook um page and we look forward to collaborating with the district and um with the members of the community and last but not least thank you there we go okay um thank you Megan so I am co-president um with Ali Harrington for the Bernards parents for exceptional children um which Works hand inhand with CPAC um that Megan had just told you about so Bernard's parents for exceptional children you'll hear often referred to as PE or PEC all the same group um it's a supportive Community comprised of families whose children struggle in different ways so originally it was formed in 1985 by local moms as a parent support group it evolved into a more advocacy focused subgroup of the Bernard CPAC in the 90s and then formally became a 501c3 charitable organization in the early 2000s today we operate with an executive board of parent volunteers who help facilitate all aspects of PE without them we would never be able to accomplish everything that we do each each year Bernard's PEC operates with the mission to provide the support that families Educators and Community organizations need to help individuals with disabilities reach their full potential in essence the PEC serves as a special education PTO representing students and their families in all six of the district district schools as well as outof District placements we accomplished these goals through programs events and education opportunities offered to our PC families as well as the community at large PEC offers seasonal programming like the always popular fitness with Mr Tony and pec soccer through FC Burna that is designed to provide opportunities for differently abled students who are not able to participate in mainstream recreational programming through these PEC activities children can practice socializing with peers and mentors improve their Fitness and skill levels and simply just have fun to facilitate connections between families the PE hosts social events throughout the year such as our fall family picnic various parents night outs and the very popular photos with Santa we also hold workshops to educate and Empower parents by giving them the access to professionals to help strengthen their skills and learn new strategies all in all our hope is to is for parents to feel less isolated and more confident about themselves and their role as advocates for their children we believe that an informed Society is an empowered society and so through our PE Mentor program we have educated hundreds of students over the years making them more aware of disabilities and fostering an environment of understanding and support within our town and schools incorporating peer mentors into all of our programs and events is an essential part of connecting our special education students to their general education counterparts each year we offer training to interested mentors that teaches them the knowledge strategies and empathy they will need when mentoring PEC children thanks to our annual fundraising efforts such as last year's wildly popular Touch a Truck at at the Mahan collection on Crossroad and the movie afternoon fundraisers that are actually happening currently at elementary schools we have been able to support the PEC Community for almost 40 years and this year PEC is donating a Comming sensory kit to each of the six district schools to have available their events and activities for students who might need to regulate or reset with a sensory break we're hoping that having this resource available more families will be encouraged to attend and participate in school functions that they might have previously shied away from additionally PE will also be donating various items to special education special education classrooms across the district schools in the past we have funded a sensory path at Mount Prospect provided annual disability awareness workshops for third and sixth graders and donated sensory kits to our Township Police to summarize for those of you who just got lost and all of that information PEC is an organization that is available to any family whose child struggles with behavioral developmental emotional or academic challenges within the last year PEC has revamped our website as well adding an exceptional resources page to help guide you and your family through education related family support and disability and learning resources that you can explore by using this QR code forgot to change the slide um the scope as Jee actually just said the scope of uh what it takes to raise a child today has changed dramatically since we were kids but luckily we have organizations like PEC and CPAC full of reassuring and empathetic individuals all on the same Journey thank you for your time tonight guess what we're [Applause] done for another two years you got it thank you very much to Dr oconnell Dr Reed uh Miss Vitaly stanion and miss or uh and Lindsay and Megan um I know they worked really hard on that presentation it's been a long time coming so um I think it was great to hear about all the programs that we have in the district which are obviously a lot um and to hear about um different uh the different organizations CPAC and PC that are supporting um families and students with special needs um and that are struggling in other capacities as well so uh it was really great to hear all that that information um we're up to the board president's comments Nick okay so uh I'm not the board president but I mean Tim okay so I'm back I'm back um no so uh nothing really to say tonight um I know last meeting we did talk about voting on school start times tonight we are not going to do that um because we are waiting for our state aid number so that goes into the calculus of what our final budget will look like we'll have a little bit more discussion of that b um during the finance committee uh portion of the meeting um but we will not be doing that and um for the super indendent report Nick is going to give an update on the pool situation which was kind of a monkey wrench in terms of late start times uh moving start times so uh that will be under superintendent report so Nick thank you thank you Mr salmon uh just to uh Echo the thanks there for Dr oconnell and and Dr Reed Miss FAL stanion and and miss or uh thank you guys I know that uh I asked you to put a lot of work into that and I just appreciate everyone's patience I know it was long but as Mr sammon said um there's it's complex right there's a lot that goes on uh and I really appreciate appreciate you guys taking the time to to try to make that uh understood uh we didn't take time for questions tonight from the board obviously um just due to time I think um I will make sure that in addition to the public the board has uh complete access to your slides and if there's any followup I will certainly uh pass those questions along to you guys um so as far as uh superintendance report as Mr sammon mentioned I know at the last meeting um we talked a little bit about um one significant challenge to any possible change in start times for Ridge um relates to uh pool swim time so um first of all congratulations to the to the swim team the girls swim team that was pretty awesome um I did not I did not get to the swimming I I did get to the wrestling I I'm sorry I didn't get to the swimming but um it's tremendous and uh the kids this year are just are just killing it uh with the Athletics at Ridge so congrats to them um but but as far as the swim times go I know I I did um speak about the challenge that if and obviously as M Sim again said we're not voting on this issue tonight but if we were to change um dismissal time at Ridge um obviously in in connection with starting a little bit later getting out a bit a little bit later um for the sake of you know giving the kids a chance to get some more sleep if we did that what's the impact on swim so actually I see Melanie here hi Melanie Mel helped me out because I've been trying to get answers uh from the YMCA and and she helped me get uh a connection there so um we did have some conversations with them uh and basically what it came down to was um alternative times that they um offered uh three nights a week Monday Wednesday Friday they offered 7 to 8:00 p.m. um they also offered uh an opportunity for sometime Sunday evenings for an extra practice if we wanted to um um they would make some time for early morning practices if we wanted to mix any of those in um in addition we talked about our neighbors uh over at um Somerset Hill School District at um Bernard's high school they have uh a time from 8: to 900 p.m. our time is basically 2:45 to 4:00 p.m. um and we talked about pooling those times together sorry terrible pun pulling those times together and um you know sharing different slots trading times um they might be interested in taking some of the time from 2:45 to 4: which would make their 8 to 900 pm. slot available as well uh I know that our athletic director uh Mr manino uh spoke to the athletic director over at burnard High um and they were very interested in collaborating and working on a schedule uh and the why uh was very committed to to working with us to help uh make sure we could get our swim practice in um even if it were a slightly different schedule so uh I think everybody was supportive everybody I talked to um and I you know I did tell them we haven't made a decision but we wanted to know if we would have options uh and they were they were all committed to working that out so I feel good that um we can make something uh happen that would allow the kids to have practice time even if they get out a little bit later and they can't get to the pool in that 3 to 4:00 range uh on a daily basis basis uh as far as agenda items go I just have the one uh HIV report great uh could I have a motion to accept the H report Dave and Robin roll call Jim Please Mr salmon yes M white yes Miss light M Cado yes M mun yes Mr Molinari yes Mr am yes M chipo yes and Mr Shaw yes great thanks um okay we're up to public comment on agenda items uh come on up to the mic uh state your name and address don't forget to sign in and we will start the clock on three minutes thank you good evening Aaron Lake 380 South Finley Avenue um I had a whole thing here and you just kind of solved that a little bit so I'm going to kind of dabble into it because I think I still have some valid points um we've had some swimmers here tonight who um and families who have very patiently awaited the evening so I'm hoping uh they come up maybe with some gratitude for such a great solution um a quick thank you for prioritizing the drama club students this evening by moving this meeting to the cafeteria tonight I know they appreciate it um let me jump down here for what I was starting off with this evening still important for those of you that missed it the ridg girls swim team had a history making win yesterday solidifying themselves in the record books as the best girls swimmers to have ever walked these Ridge holes and that deserves a huge round of applause um I'm back here tonight I was advocating for all student athletes as Ridge as well as many of the extracurricular clubs in relation to the school day ending later and the impact that such will have on these programs and the student athletes now while I was very partial to the swim team I can skip over that for now and I'm grateful that there seems to be some advocating for those 70 students um because it would be a shame for them to lose the spot that they have found at Ridge where they matter and belong um I do have other questions as to whether their casualty or what casualties will result at the push of the High School dismissal Time by 45 minutes to an hour uh this still impacts many teams they will lose precious daylight minutes tennis softball baseball cross country they all don't have lights drama club choir band all have late rehearsals already putting an hour on the front front end means it has to be tacked on at the back end but at what cost uh I did a very rough estimate of teams and concluded that the Ridge High School has 35 to 40% of the student body being involved in athletics and that's a lot of students that will be impacted the board in the past has talked about being reactive and it seems once again that we kind of get stuck in that rut of dealing with this process um um I can skip that part because we seem to have a a solution of anything so I will end with this no one is disputing the importance of sleep no one is disputing the need to find an inventive solution to the exorbitant amount of tax dollars being spent annually in this District on busing but no one however is talking about what the repercussions and trickle down impact there will be with the proposed changes in school start times for our students thank you and thank you for making uh progress I have few words to articulate my gratitude and hopefully some of these swimmers might come up and say thanks thank you Miss Lake any other public comment hi everyone good evening uh my name is Melanie dep 70 Quincy Road um and normally I would introduce myself as a William man teacher and the ridge varsity swim coach for the men and women program but as of yesterday I can introduce myself as the head coach of a state championship winning um varsity swim team program so I don't probably won't get to do that very often but I'm going to do it tonight so congratulations to the girls swim team uh we've got a bunch of swimmers here tonight um and there were some families and some swimmers that asked me to come and speak tonight um just to make sure we um think very carefully about both the intended and unintended consequences of changing the school time for The Wider community and for our sports program so I recognize that the Board of Ed of course is tasked with making decisions that benefit the entire Community right and the entire student body but maybe it's like the Swagger of winning a championships but I'm going to take the opportunity to be selfish and talk just about um the swim team tonight and the 70 kids um that I represent every year um so as soon as you know I want to thank of course you know Mr marcarian Mr manino I know that they they've been calling around connecting with the YMCA so I knew that there would be a home for the swim team that we wouldn't just you know disregard and ignore any off-site program so I knew that there would be a space and swimming is a very small community so as soon as Mr marcarian started making calls I got calls from all of the coaches all of like the U Pool Management in the area what's going on what are you doing what do you need you know what can we do and and so I I knew that there'd be a place for the swim team but I just want to make sure it's a place that continues um to grow the program and the time doesn't turn people away um and that we recognize you know that the rich swim team has really grown um quite a bit over the years swimming is a big part of this community Somerset County in particular has a huge swimming tradition that's why Rich swimming has grown into such a tremendous program um and and I would hope that you know if we move the school time and we go to a three days a week or a Sunday night or 7 to eight I recognize that is a home but it's not our home it's not our time it's not what our culture is build and I've been coaching now for 17 years um it takes a lot of Blood Sweat and Tears to build the program to the success um it is today um so you know I often see swimmers from a very young age on deck at the YMCA right after school it's convenient the kids take the bus to get there um and I do worry about a later time I know Bernards who has a later time has struggled with some enrollment um and filling their Lanes in the pool and I hope we don't go down that road um but again I I I will commit to working with everyone um to make that happen I do know coaching and staff um could be an issue the only reason that I'm able to coach right now is because of the time um after school I wouldn't be able to do it um at night so I certainly worry about that as well I I know someone will take it on and I can certainly help them um but I want to make sure the program continues to grow um so I know that there are so many pieces that go into this Vision again I'm being selfish tonight and speaking on behalf of swimmers that I love and respect um just we matter the kids matter swimming team anything offsite tennis hockey um I appreciate the time you're going to put into making sure that it works for everyone thank you thank you coach D any other public comment tonight on agenda items um T Lake 380 South Finley Avenue um thank you for discussing the solutions regarding um practice for the ridge swim team many of us appreciate um uh the swim team and have a large amount of love and support for the team overall it would be it would be a shame for our team to be negatively impacted to the due to this sorry uh due to the start uh time changes um but on another note I am part of the ridge drama club and vice president for tech crew I'm currently supposed to be rehearsing our show for drama club but this issue is too much to ignore uh pushing back school start times would result in tech crew uh specifically to go home at 10 to 10 :30 opposed to the typical Tech week time of 9: to 9:30 not only the clubs and teams I am a part of uh but all Ridge activities will be impacted by this change and not in a good way um many of us are not sure how you can possibly change school start times without uh finding viable solutions for all all of these Ridge activities uh that would be immensely impacted by these time changes uh Sports and clubs have huge are huge aspects of your students's lives uh cutting down our meeting times will have no benefits to any student at Ridge or any student in our district if you are looking to help the students you have to listen to them the parents have said that they don't want the start times to change the teachers have said this and most importantly the students have said that they don't want this change many of us are here tonight to advocate for what the students want we are all saying exactly what we said in those surveys which you decided to think were irrelevant after the results went against your agenda changing our start times will not have enough benefits to truly help us and the only way to truly benefit the students is to listen to what we want and what we need thank you thank you tally any other public comment on agenda items tonight um can I move it up okay okay I'll grab it okay hi my name is Julie beverini and I'm part of I'm a captain on the Ridge High School swim team and even though I'm a senior I feel like this is important to bring up because even though looking for like next year Bridge swim team has been a very tight community and even though it's small I feel like it's important to bring like light to that even though it's like a small team and no one really like comes to watch or anything our pool time is important because uh with having our practices at the YMCA many people create like friendships and also taking the bus I feel after school allows people not only to be transported to the YMCA but also like you said practicing in the morning if we're adding sleep time wake going to school at 8:35 I feel like that wouldn't be beneficial cuz if we would have to wake up early to go to swim I feel like that wouldn't help also if we're looking even from like a student perspective students school is like all about time management and I feel like if you can't manage your time or your classes and homework pushing back the starting time of school wouldn't I feel like it's not beneficial because students would still go to bed later homework would just be pushed back activities that would mess up clubs that would mess up after school after school sports and like tally said with drama club I have friends who have rehearsal right after school until 8:00 p.m. so if we end school at 3: then that means they end so much later and homework would still be pushed back and that doesn't change the fact that assignments are still due at 11:59 so adding sleep so basically I feel like we're not giving students enough time because they're just going to keep going to bed later and even if we look at Wellness days I'm not going to lie I'm going to I'm going to sit here and be like I have if I have school at 8 maybe I'll stay up a little bit later because what I get that one extra hour of sleep and especially for Rich swim this year I feel like we've done or as you see we've like we're undefeated 12 and0 and I feel like that's really important and all these students like benefit from practicing right after school in our home pool us practicing at the or for next year them practicing at the jack is not like it doesn't add to the team like spirit and yeah that's it thanks Julie any other public okay hi everyone uh Gina Capi 62 Winding Lane I I'll just leave it um so thank you again for all your research and due diligence to look into this um one other thing that uh throughout the years has been a problem is transportation as is right now so if moving it whether it's morning night um to a different town pool somewhere um I Heard the JC was a possibility how is that going to affect transportation to and from um same within the morning how does that affect you know my son will be looking forward to you know finally getting able having that senior spot to share with somebody else what happens with that are they going across town to then come back and pick up a friend to then go back to the high school school in the morning that that just adds a whole other piece of driving back and forth through town for young drivers um during the icy winter season um so please just look into that or think about that as you're moving forward with this that's it thank you thank you miss capy any other public comment on agenda item tonight no okay we'll close public comment on agenda items um Nick do you want to have any responses or anything I guess the the only thing I would say is um you know we we've certainly had a lot of conversation in general about um the impact to after school activities whether it's sports or other activities um and we have consulted with the athletic director in terms of whether or not um he thinks that there's going to be a materal material impact in terms of the ability for students to have success um and and honestly he's been really positive in um kind of the concept of trying to make better use of time and being more efficient with the time that's available so I I'm not feeling like uh the feedback from him is really problematic in terms of the overall amount of time and in fact he's talked about the fact that um a lot of the research supports that students that get more sleep um are actually doing better in terms of their Athletics and having fewer injuries so um he seemed really positive on that and and actually thinking that we might see a reduction in soft tissue injuries all right the next thing is approval of minutes can I have a motion for that please Jen and Janice roll call Jim Please Mr salmon yes Miss White yes Miss Le M Cado yes M mun yes Mr Molinari yes Mr am yes M chipo okay and Mr Shaw yes okay thank you we're up to the finance committee report there are um there are only 21 items because item number one we are not voting on um so there's items two through uh 20 21 I think two through 22 that we are voting on um and so I just wanted to point out um for item six we are accepting the the audit from 2023 uh for the board members and for item seven um Jim do you want to just give a quick you know one minute on that please sure yeah H happy to report on on item seven that we have you want to pull that closer for please uh how's the audio yeah there you go okay much better uh happy to report item number seven uh our successful bid for HVAC upgrades at the high school um we had attempted to bid this project almost The Identical project uh last spring and it came in over budget with only one bidder um we slightly increased the scope of the project to take care of some um you know engineering uh problems that that we thought needed addressing so we increased the scope uh rebid the project and actually the winning bid is lower than the bid last spring and we had a much more competitive environment with uh six contractors bidding on the work so the motion seven is is to award it this is a rod Grant we will receive 40% of the cost of this project back from the state uh once it's complete thanks Jim the remaining items um are uh standing items and student services per their um IEPs or evaluations um should we get a motion first on the items or just go into the discussion Matt Motion in second okay we have a motion for items 2 through 22 Dave and Robin um so discussion related to item one which is uh start times so did you need a roll call on those no no it's just you're just opening so it's a motion and and then you can have discussion on the agenda um okay so uh K Kiron had to leave so um just to set the stage uh for item number one which is transportation school start times and the preliminary budget um next week we will have the draft Bud budget presentation right Jim March two weeks two weeks I'm sorry March 11th um so that's where we'll be making decision on start times uh the finance committee this week did go over the uh projected budget and it looks like we are about $5 million short on the revenue side related to our projected expenses um the expenses do uh account for uh the one and a half tier scenario which we believe if we went out to bid it would be 5.5 million um we also talked to our transportation consultant and um found out that if we State at the status quo the current schedule uh that budget might be reduced to $5.2 million if we went to double tiering we would drop another $600,000 and if we went to Triple tiering we would save $1.4 million so um that was on the the transportation side uh other expenses that we looked at were um related to non non non-instructional staff and instructional staff on the non-instructional staff side it was um more uh and the administrative level uh administrative assistance uh different administrative positions at different buildings in the district on the instructional side it was primarily focused on um section numbers that could potentially if a teacher for example retired and the position did not get filled it would increase class size but we wouldn't change any programming um so when we looked at the $5 million gap and the projection of expenses and revenue um we're already contemplating uh and this is subject to discussion but we're already contemplating at Le at least a 2% tax increase um we do have what's called banked cap uh meaning because of previous years when we did not raise taxes last year was a 0% increase and the year before that was 7% there is that difference between those amounts and 2% that we can access um as the board without having to put it out to a a public vote um so there is the contemplation of using that banked cap uh to increase the tax levy Beyond 2% to bridge that budget Gap um on the revenue side uh there's also what's called state aid so the state gives out money to school districts um based typically on enrollment uh so we are waiting for our projection that's why we're not voting tonight we're waiting for the governor's address which is tomorrow and the state aid number which is March 1st right could be could be earlier could be earlier right so we're waiting for the the governor's uh office the Department of Education to give us our state our true state aid number this week um and then we'll have a full like understanding of the the revenue side and then on the expense side it's really what can we do to kind of bring that gap down that $5 million gap down so um like I said we did look at Transportation um non-instructional staff instructional staff and um some other kind of like smaller items like maintenance um staff and central office staff um is there anything anybody wants to chime in with um Dave go ahead yeah just to chime in on the transportation you mentioned the 5.5 million just to be clear because everyone's talked about over 9 million for next year so the difference and correct me if I'm wrong here that that's all the the five million is the general transportation budget there's another four million or so for everything else yeah so the five million is you want me to go or let Jim jump in there not nine yeah it's no the the the 5.5 is the two from uh in District transportation the overall Transportation cost center is is a lot L larger than that it contains um transportation for added District students Athletics um Aid and L payments and and other other areas that's a good point because somebody did bring up the the $7 million number in the budget which like Jim said is a combination of all Transportation needs in the district the five five million and change number that we're talking about is general education bus sending and all in District special education any other folks have anything to weigh in on at this point go ahead and Miss yeah I would say we try to minimize instructional um time or or cuts um and and focus in on on administrative um roles that that could be reassigned and transportation budget that that we're talking about to to save most rather than either cut instructional time or raise taxes any more than than than necessary um there's I I I I don't know if we can we should talk about specific things but ESS is a big line item I don't know if that's been discussed or what the justifications for for not really considering um really looking at that budget rather than some instructional time or or raising taxes even more than needed uh so the Personnel committee met um just this past week uh last week I'm sorry on Friday um that was with the administration uh Dr lavic and miss hudok and um the directive I think from Nick was to go to those folks and say you know how can we do that how can we reassign roles within the administrative function uh and then miss fox went to the supervisors to get some ideas for on the on the instructional side uh so that was kind of the list that we went through um ESS was on there uh that was kind of like a TBD as far as the committee uh went um based on you know if that program so that program Services 30 students or a capacity of 30 students in the high school and the middle school um and I think the discussion was more based on how can we do something like ESS but but maybe not particularly with ESS so it it wouldn't have been necessar a full savings just elimination of the program essentially just to clarify though is that is the $420,000 budget for 30 students and yeah and and the instructional staff that comes with ESS it's for the contract with ESS yeah the contracts are 420,000 for well is it like a pay yeah okay it's basically for sorry it's basically for three full-time staff two here at Ridge and one at Anon um they're basically licensed clinical social workers and their case load is about up to 10 students each so three staff 10 students each yes it's 30 students y you know and and they're they're providing supplemental Services too for General training for District staff as well as those parent presentations that you know are open to the full public yeah Robin um in in terms of ESS I mean those students need Services um if we don't provide them in District um some of those students might end up in out of District placements which could cost a lot more money than what we're spending so I think you know we've had several presentations in committee about ESS um and what what um needs the students have and how we could serve those needs but regardless of how we do it whether it's with ESS or with in District staff it's going to cost money so it's not you know we wouldn't even know until we tried to see if there would be any savings possible but I don't think that that should be something we don't have it figured out yet in time you know for this budget because we have to you know meet the students needs Keith yeah uh two things I don't know if maybe somebody mentioned it's been going along already but the bigger biggest drivers of the increase uh percentage wise was well Transportation which we're all which we're all talking about that was an enormous driver which went up over almost 27% since last year um out of District tuition was probably the second largest one going up over 33% so there was a lot of stuff that was outside of our purview to control um looking at the different busing hearings is within our purview and I think that's that's why the we're not deciding on tonight we're waiting to see what the state comes down with which I think is at least for me is going to clarify the choice between double or triple not between doing nothing because that's not going to be an option with uh with where our finances are um as far as ESS goes I mean it is a lot of money and it is the benefits are hypothetical and as far as I've seen the only benefits we've seen have come self-reported from ESS itself so you know does it keep students in District there's no verifiable proof of that there is VI verifiable proof of the money we're spending on it and I also think it's it's questionable whether that's that's really our place to be doing that um so I think there's questions and a discussion to be had about that not tonight because that's not when we're making those decisions but you know just to make that point Jen a couple things um I think that ESS is definitely something that we can be discussing at some point but I think that the families of students who are in the program would disagree and say that they feel that the program has been what has kept their children coming to school and I believe it is our responsibility to do all that we can to educate each and every student um in this District so I don't agree saying that ESS is not necessary I do agree that we need to discuss it I do agree that perhaps it needs to be um reimagined how that education is delivered but there is not a doubt in my mind that we um have a responsibility to those students who are enrolled in the program to continue to provide them what they need the other thing I want to say is I'm not quite sure everybody really really understands the dire situation that we are in in terms of the budget it is no longer just about getting the kids the sleep that they need that may have been what started our discussion years ago but that is not where we are today getting the kids extra sleep is 100% a benefit of switching the school times but this is being driven by the fact that we have a huge huge Gap we need to close and one of the ways to do that is by changing the transportation and it is no longer about you're not listening to what the students want you're not listening to what the parents want I mean I talked about this earlier when we had our um meeting with the PTO presidents there is not going to be a decision that makes everybody happy on this there just isn't there's going to be a decision that hopefully we all can share in the pain for lack of a better word but we're going to have to do something and we don't want to impact programs as much as we can so we have to look at other ways to sustain this incredibly wonderful education that our kids get in this District but we are past the point of being able to say we can't do anything we did a 0% tax increase last year we have to do something different this year we have no choice Dave go ahead so I I'll reiterate what was just said we right now last we looked at it's a $5 million difference between revenue and expenses we have to wait for state aid to come in to see if that can be closed but $5 million is a huge number we have no choice but to close that so we can do it in only a few ways like was said before if we increase Revenue every 1% brings in about a million doll so if we go into the bank cap and we do 2% more that's $2 million if we do the triple tiering that's a million and a half even if we do both of those that's $3.4 million we're still not there we still have a huge gap to close so if this state a doesn't come in we're going to have to make some really tough decisions here Janice go ahead I think I would like us to look at this as a community you know last year when the decision was made to um keep to a 0% tax increase you know that was done in an effort to to help the community overall you know we're all in this together and these are the hard decisions and this is where we have to really support one another other and anybody who's here understands the wonderful education the wonderful teachers the wonderful instructional AIDS the materials and curriculum the extracurricular Sports and activities that this District provides which really you know are very similar to what you would get in a private school and so I think that we need to be cognizant of what it is that we provide and also when we aren't able to provide every single thing that we may have done in the last couple years we need the community to ride that out with us and hopefully you know we'll get through this and come on the other side some point where we can you know have better Financial projections but you know I really hope this doesn't devolve into you know acrimonious conversation about the budget we we need to pull together and do this together as a community all right so we'll see everybody back in two weeks um so uh Jim can we do a roll call on items 2 through 22 please on the finance committee Mr salmon yes Miss White yes M Cado yes M mun yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes M chipo sorry uh Mr Shaw yes all right Personnel committee um I don't think there's a report there's 17 items um can I have a motion please Jen and Robin roll call Jim Mr salmon yes Miss White yes Miss curado yes M mun yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes and Mr Shaw yes thanks Jim uh next item is the policy committee report um Dave do you have policy great thanks so the first policy we discussed is policy 77438 which is lightning safety this policy related to lightning safety is more of a procedure than a policy for high school sports the njsa has mandated lightning policy we already follow this policy for high school sports which requires everyone to go inside for 30 minutes if there's thunder or lightning the policy includes the use of a detection system which is optional we don't currently have a detection system however the policy covers this in the event we ever added one in the future this policy is not mandated the policy would apply to all outdoor activities including PE field day Middle School sports recess and dismissal as a few examples one board me one board member asked if the policy could be more practical and if there could be more discretion used for example if there are 3 minutes left in an activity and the lightning is so far away does it make sense to send everyone inside for 30 minutes rather than finish the activity Mr markarian agreed that he would look in look at other districts and see if he could soften language to give additional discretion the second item was a second reading for policy 2419 and um and R 2419 there have been no changes since the first reading as mentioned in the first reading the district is required to have a a new policy and regulation based on a new state new statute from the state that specifies who has to be on the school threat assessment team we have always assigned a level of threat so it is no no different than what we have historically been doing there are three levels of threat which were discussed during the first reading one one board member asked about parent involvement and wanted to ensure that the school was concentrating on prevention and not reporting and administering the board member was also concerned about overregulation Mr markarian said that parent is mentioned 25 times in the regulation and the parent is always included in the process in addition he mentioned that the intent of the required regulation is not about teaching kids appropriate behavior or whether a threat is made the intent of this required regulation is to document the steps Whenever there is a Potential Threat and that the only change to what has been practiced for many years is naming who is on the threat assessment team there was always a question uh there was also a question from a board member about the link between Hib and the threat assessment policy Mr markar mentioned that there could be threats that are linked to to Hib but that they are definitely don't have to be and they are two separate assessments thank you thanks Dave any qu questions for Dave on policy we do have an item to vote on it's the threat assessment policy and and regulation I forgot to make a motion ask for a motion for that can I have one please uh Jan and Dave roll call Jim Mr sammon yes Miss White yes Miss Cado yes Miss mun yes Mr yes Mr yes and Mr Shaw yes thanks Jim uh curriculum committee report coming uh we're meeting on Friday so R report out next meeting okay Janice Wellness March 11th all right Keith facilities yes uh facilities met on February 8th uh we start off a discussion talking about solar panel installation potential energy savings uh the consensus was the best time to do that is when placement time for the appropriate roofs come in um so Administration is going to explore that as opportunities arise uh we welcomed our new facilities director uh Bill mickley work order statuses HVAC there's 100 work orders this is of February 8th older than 90 days 51 are scheduled in awaiting parts uh one board member asked about the 49 uh orders not awaiting parts Mr R explained that the stepwise process involved in HVAC work orders um Bill EXP has been prioritizing heating as opposed to cooling being that it's winter uh Jim's going to break out heating versus uh AC work orders and uh bill will review with Jim the oldest orders some have been aging significantly and that delay will be investigated um overall we're making good Headway the new system is tracking how this is going and staff is reporting improvements with the process uh James Keane has resolved 211 outstanding work orders since September uh there's only 28 work orders older than 90 days and of those 28 are scheduled in a waiting parts so everything that's can be done is being done in a timely fashion uh and Jim's going to start uh tracking orders approaching that 90-day Mark to keep the efficient Trend going uh as we keep improving in this respect uh we may get to the point where we need less AR Mark employees for this for this purpose and uh we added one additional maintenance position last summer to help get caught up on maintenance and work orders uh Barker Transportation up update uh eight finable lates on uh with no route repeated since January basically means they routes had were lad up that we could find Barker Fort um it's happened 8 time since January but no route has has it happened twice upon uh there's been 15 finable lates from November 17th through uh December 20th uh versus 70 from uh September through November so the finable lates are improving overall but they're not where we want them to be uh we had a discussion on the AR Aramark uh renewal contract with uh Bill gitner uh Bill helps us manage the arar contract uh now arar they can increase and correct me if I'm wrong they can increase the contract uh by the index rate which is now 1.5% that is not financially feasible for aramar so bill is trying to obtain a waiver from the union at our Mark with the ra waiver we can renew it the 1.5% with no reduction staff and the first $100,000 of wage reconciliation of Revenue goes back to Aramark which is isn't in essence a 4 % increase in what we're paying right now I know it's a bit convoluted so um if there's any questions this is uh Le uh most likely our least bad option because if we have to go out for a request for proposal this year we could see up to a 16% increase so when I referenced last year we're getting squeezed Every Which Way from our vendors this is an example of that uh we also had a discussion on the ridge sewer line uh Doug white he's an engineer from tnm Associates he joined remotely and talked about his analysis analysis of the sewer line um parts of the pipe of the 400 Wing are leaking they may need to be remediated which can be done non-invasively by installing a liner uh manholes are being checked daily clogs proactively removed while permanent Solutions being explored uh one exterior manhole seems to be clogging which a riging of the channel and the manhole May alleviate uh this could help alleviate issues further Upstream in systems and Bill feels we can do this ourselves over present's day um that that was done I think I saw that in the bills y okay uh the town has also asked us to explore straining some the runoff school property and Doug feels this is a fairly easy project I think that was done too wasn't it that one hasn't been done yet but that would involve sort of a new installation on one of the last manholes off of the property okay uh on the capital projects update our Rod grants uh Ridge High School classroom bid opening on February 22nd did open uh replacing unit ventilators for Ridge High School uh Varsity Field compex uh the D Department of Environmental Protection there's um analysis is a minimum of 3 to four weeks out um Boswell engineering said the wetbacks the wetlands setbacks review was delayed to the due to the Department of Environmental Protection it's not in our hands um and it's likely it's going to negate the Project's completion by The Fall season but we're continuing mitigation efforts to ensure Varsity fields are playable and JV soccer will either be on the field or has an alternative place to play uh facilities condition assessments the contracts were signed kickoff meetings coming soon and the whams paving Loop was sent back the proposal was sent back from the doe uh nothing's wrong with it they just want an additional resolution that we're not using State funds for this we are not um and it shouldn't be a big delay the project is moving forward uh Liberty Corner direct install preconstruction meeting uh happened the Friday after after our facilities meeting uh lee audio uh equipment was received targeting an early March install for the audio system on re Leaf field uh the Ridge High School public address repair uh winter break upgrade done uh cafeteria equipment it's arriving install P Mill it's coming in as it's coming in we're installing it uh canopy repair at Liberty Corner uh this entails repairing post for the covered walkway Mr mickley is exploring options for this and the Mount Prospect Bas that's the building automate automation system uh we're upgrading the system controls getting as much as we can accessible online uh we confirm going forward first Thursdays of the month for facilities and Ops and let's see miscellaneous one member asked about the wham's cafeteria use right now the plan is to rotate three home rooms out of the cafeteria per day which works out to a student not eating in the cafeteria once per three weeks we're going to see how this works out and those are the minutes any any questions it's it was lengthy thanks Keith um any questions for Keith no no NOP all right uh uh liaison committee reports any no yeah yeah I just I just want to uh give a reminder to the community that the uh scholarship that the township is running with in conjunction with the league of municipalities is still open that's the uh essay submission on municipal government and students have till March 11th to get that into the mayor's office great um okay we're up to public comment anything that anybody wants to speak out about once going twice sold okay close public comment uh board Forum anything that anybody wants to bring up a board Forum at this very late hour no okay um okay can we have a motion for adjournment Jen and Nish all in favor I all right thank you everyone have a good night