e e e hi good evening welcome to a regular meeting of huh welcome to a regular meeting of the East mensor Regional School District Board of Education written advance notice of this meeting was provided at least 48 hours ago such notice provided the time date and location of this meeting and included the agenda to the extent it was known at that time notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with law minutes of this meeting are being kept by the board secretary and will be made available promptly to any member of the public requesting them from the board secretary at 25A Leen Lane heightstown New Jersey minutes will be provided at cost and in accordance with board policy are there any board members present who believe this meeting to be in violation of the open public meetings act there being none we may proceed in compliance with the fire code of the state of New Jersey I call your attention to the emergency exits for this room which are located on the back and the side please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance item C having read the materials received I move the agenda be approved as submitted second any comments or questions P the board please M Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes Mr weeks yes Miss Salan yes Miss callia yes Miss laruso yes item D be it resolved that the East Windsor Regional School District May hold two closed sessions at this meeting these Clos sessions concerned personnel and HIV report of March 25th 2024 minutes of these closed sessions will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists second out any questions pull the board please miss Drake yes Miss Lance yes Miss marthy yes Mr weeks yes Miss Salter yes Miss Kalia yes Miss laruso yes now let's move on to item two student representative report thank you last Thursday the business department arranged for five guest speakers to come and speak to the students in Deca and fpla our school's Business Clubs the event was very informative as we got to learn about the stories each speaker had of their journey to get where they are now it demonstrated the unconventional path some of them took and helped students understand that no one path is considered the right one there were a few fun activities for the students who attend it such as decorated cupcakes the owner of anything but plates and creating t-shirts with the owner of other Athletics it was a wonderful opportunity and we were happy to see how many students participated we hope it becomes an annual event for future students as well our spring Sports season is underway with teams beginning to compete this week boys lacrosse had their first scrimmage last Thursday beating Triton Regional High School with a score of 73 the baseball team also played their first two scrimmages last week with more coming this week as each team begin the competition season we wish them the best of luck the robotics team qualified for Lehi which is their state level competition we had the chance to speak to a few of the students on the team and they share that they are ranked quite High the team feels that they have a good chance of qualifying the worlds in Texas later this year we admire their hard work all Year and hope to see them go very far the heights time drama Department put on their annual musical production this past weekend performing inred shows of SpongeBob the musical between the set design lighting music and acting the variety of talent in the club was visible on the stage each night I got to see it on Friday when Mr Vincent was featured as a pirate and he did a great job we would like to recognize the graduating seniors who starred in The performances and thank them for their contributions to HHS drama for the last four years on April 18th from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M student council will be hosting an event called Ram of the year which is ESS a pageant style competition where our school seniors will represent different clubs and Sports in our school Community they will partake in various rounds in an elimination style competition such as a group dance member talent show spelling fee and interview the winner will be Crown this year's height toown highness with prizes and honor for their club and sport that concludes our report for tonight thank you very much thank you so much for your informative report does anyone have any questions sorry about that um okay then we'll move on to the student achievement update presentation okay so this is going to serve tonight as kind of a midyear check-in regarding uh student progress based primarily on District related assessment data uh and and will serve as somewhat of a comparison in terms of uh where students were around this time compared to the growth that we are looking to see at this time of the year there'll also be some other assessment tools that will be incorporated into the presentation I preface this by saying that it's a lot of information um Sandy small our assistant superintendent for curriculum and assessment is not going to painstakingly go over every aspect of the data I'll say to the board um you know take some time to digest this after today uh and we'll obviously maintain this as an old business item uh for some further discussion uh I'd also say that in terms of a process standpoint uh if the board could just take notes and then wait until the end of the presentation for questions I think that's probably a more effective or efficient way at least in terms of um you know addressing some immediate questions that may surface tonight so with that said I'm going to turn things over to the small I'm going to put the presentation up on the screen bear with me so as Mark's uh putting it up so sort of like what we went through doing is we're going to go through a K2 35 68 912 and then at the end in the appendix because there's going to be a lot to digest we just placed in what each supervisor is doing with each level in order to help support how teachers are receiving the data how the teachers are using the data and the supports that we're given to both struggling Learners as well as advancing Learners so all that will be in the appendix so I'm not going to go through that one tonight so that's might be something that you're going to have to look through and at a later point come and ask any questions because there's going to be a lot of information in there probably too far away from okay so we're going to start with grade one Ela and there's Reason by for me going back and forth to some of the grade levels so if you would just bear with me so the first thing we want to go through starting with is grade one Ela and what you'll notice is that we're looking at their running records as well as El stands for early literacy which is what our K1 students take and some of our second grade students and then what we go through is we're looking at for the most part the two columns that are closer to the right the September and December scale scores and if you go through and try to compare May which is last year's to September December and March that's how we're going to look to see whether or not we see any type of a growth and where you see that pinkish box at the 645 to 643 that's an area of concern because when we look at that from December until March we are not seeing growth and we're actually seeing um a little bit regression in there but what you will notice is in most areas you're going to see a defin growth between um May and December and May and March that's where we really want to look at because oftentimes most of you have heard us over and over again talking about the summer slide so we sometimes can have a student doing really well in may fall off in the summer and then by the end of the following year have not even gotten to where they were that May before so we're looking at all aspects of that one so in this area you're going to see that all groups are showing growth throughout the year except multilingual Learners here and I'm going to give you the reason for that as we present as we keep presenting as we come in here when we look at total pop population which are all students in the grade level versus our general education students special ed students multilingual Learners and then we have a group that are both special ed as well as multilingual Learners what you're going to notice in here is that the pheic awareness is going along pretty well throughout the year which is exactly how we want to go through um our students moving what you will see is in sentence level comprehension you're going to see the summer slide hit those students a lot there but what you will see very nicely is they were able to pick that up fairly well uh progressing through December as well as in March now we're going to come into our multilingual Learners one of the things that we have been working with their multilingual Learners is that we have come to realize that some of the assessments that we were using I.E star early lit and star reading with our multilingual Learners wasn't telling us the whole story so we've started making sure that we are testing students in their L1 and that's going to let us know do they have a foundational literacy in their own language in order for us to be able to bridge so what you're going to see here in both kindergarten and first grade is that from May till especially in first grade you're going to look at from May till October which is when the first time the kindergarten is testing in there you will have seen grade one have a summer slide from 608 to 577 but you will say see the growth happening in January and March so they're Although our students who are multilingual Learners in those levels are not making grade level um expectations we are seeing growth and when we're seeing the growth in their L1 it makes us makes it a lot easier for us to be able to transition and bridge over to their L2 we're going to go go into our math one two and if we go into math grades one two what we're going to see is that you have a nice uh growth throughout here again if you're going to look at the scale score May September December March you're going to see a nice Trend in all populations that they are increasing you'll see a summer slide a little bit in September as we expect and then moving forward in here one of the things that I thought was interesting when I look through this is it's not just sometimes we say well why are kids not accelerating those last three columns really are detrimental for our students and our teachers really struggle with how do we help our students if they're not present in front of us so as you're looking at this out of 396 students in grade two 215 of them have missed five or more days 21 of them have missed 19 plus days and 90 have missed 10 or more days so as these students are not present in front of us it makes it really difficult for the teachers to be able to see the growth in them and that's how you're going to work through so grade two and then you will see grade one as well again making nice strides of growth in there throughout the year great this is the attendance I just broke off for you showing you what was what in the last slide going into 35 Ela what you're going to be noticing here is that as we continue looking through the data we see a lot of correlation between the njsla and star which is the reason that we started with star in this District multiple years ago and why we keep up with this because we can predict with 85 to 93% accuracy of where students as a whole not a Ono one are going to be with the state assessments because it's standards based um that we're looking at so when we look at our Ela scale score we and I have grades three four and five the total as well as broken up broken up into G&R and plld in here you will go through and see that when we look at the March scale score some of these numbers are a little concerning because if we don't have any growth between March and may when the assessment comes we might be in a little bit of a quagmire as to students being ready if you look at grades four and grade five those numbers are very promising grade three we have to do a little bit of work but you'll be able to see some of the work that is um trending as I said to you it's in the appendix that we're looking through when I continue on with grades three five and now I'm going to be looking at the instructional reading level so and if there's ever an acronym we're using and you don't know what it is please just stop because we just assume sometimes that people know things and there's no reason we assume that so if we look through the instructional reading level for May to September December and to March what you're going to see is that in some areas we're losing some ground again from May to September it looks like we're doing fairly well um I'm sorry from May to December we are to September we're losing ground which is the summer slide again and if you just follow through with the total for grade three you will see we have 2.5 falls down to a 2.1 comes back to the 25 which is bringing back that summer loss to a 29 so you're seeing that we have growth but when you see that 37.4% that are at or above um instructional reading level which is grade level you're going to see that falls below where they were last May with 47.7% so though there's growth is what we're going to say is not adequate growth in there in order to keep up to where they need to be so that's the Avenue so when you see sometimes it looks like it's a discrepancy it's because they are growing but they're not growing to the level that um of expectation this Slide the next slide here is pretty busy so I'm going to try and see if I can go through so what I tried to go through is looking at March where we were last year March of 23 to where we are this year March of 24th because then we can see and again this is going to be apples to oranges but but at least you can see where we were if you look at grade three of last year you will see the total was 41.7% of our students were at or above level whereas we're at 38.6% which is pretty comparable we're not there's no concerns that are um so alarming that we're worried about in plld we see a little bit of a slide something that we have to look at and again you'll see some of the things that are taking place um to be able to help Rectify this if you look at G&R in grade three you're going to see a little bit of a jump which is nice from a 38.2 to a 41 and then if you look at the Gen ed students uh in G&R went from a 54 to a 61.5% which is a nice jump for us as well then as we transition to um grades four and five math and again comparing the njsla to the star data what you're going to what you're looking at here and everything presenting I did pieces of each grade level we can compare this for every grade level but it would have gotten more than two hours worth of time in here so what you're seeing here for the total of grade four if we look at the end of last year which is May versus last year's nlaa the correlation is pretty strong and again it's not Ono one but the correlations are pretty strong so that's how we know that we're in the same ballpark um as to the state versus what our star has given us so this helps us to predict how our students will perform so that we know the the areas that we need to be able to help support in next we're going to go into uh grade three grades three for Math and when we look through this again very similar to what we did with scale score and instructional reading level you will see the May September December and March data what you will see in that September column is a couple of those um scale scores are in red because there was a drop from May but then you will see most of the scores are in green when it came to March because there was a nice jump where our students were able to go from a 517 the year before to a 574 so that's showing um some good growth in there um the one area that as we're looking on here the number of students if you look at plld I have an aster right next to 493 so it looks we like we jump we dropped dramatically from 493 to 400 401 and we never picked up the reason for that is that there were 18 fewer students in the special ed world that did not test in May that tested in those three other windows so it was a little bit comparing two different Realms of students if you will I don't know if that makes sense too so there is a reason that that number it's not that it's like alarm and that the kids were all going there are 18 additional students that had tested for the September December and March uh testing window proceeding to grade four math and in grade four math again you will see in September there was a drop off for the with the summer slide and then if you look in March you will see we caught up in some ways not everywhere but in some ways one of our areas of concern are bilingual fors not catching up dramatically enough to be able to withstand that summer slide you will see um the G&R for special ed students had a nice leap there as well as the Gen ed students and plld students overall had a nice transition up so they're growing but they're not again reaching that expected growth then if we go over to grade five we're going to tell you to say the same story so again you're seeing growth but it's not the accelerated or expected growth that we're seeing so again if you look at grade five at the total we go from a 664 average to a 719 which shows growth but we're dropping from 32% of our students meeting the grade level expectation the 25% of them that are meeting them and again we still have three months of learning so being able to catch that up from May to March that is still a possibility but that's where we come up with those red flags what are we going to do to help support those students now we'll go over to Middle School for sixth grade and if we go over to sixth grade for the middle school again what we're going to see is that if you look at the average in for our scale score from May through January you will see a nice jump what you will see is again what we saw in the K5 world that the percentage of students that are meeting or exceeded has not yet met that and that's twofold one is again with three months of learning left that it some of this is promising that three months is going to pull this up but also us having this data allows us to provide interventions that are going on now which again will be in the appendix for you to look through if we go stay with sixth grade and we look at now the instructional reading level when we look at our instructional reading level and you will see there's a little bit of a difference between the scale score and the instructional reading level if we look at our total population for grade six you will see that there were only 38.5% of our students at the end of fifth grade who were on or above grade level currently in January there were 44.9% of our students and I have to say something because if you hear me say two different dates Middle School tests in January the K5 World test in March so when those two dates that's why you'll see a difference in there so you will see that there's some growth that has happened in the sixth grade students with coming up to grade level but if you remember if you go back to where the scale scores were the number of students that are at or above doesn't say the same story as the instructional reading level does so even though our students are meeting we have there could be a big disconnect between our highs and lows for those of you who are looking at um those numbers and you will see that our general ed students have increased our IC students have increased as well as the total population when it comes to the percentage of students that are at or above instructional reading level in sixth grade going into seventh grade what you will see again we continue this growth with again that 44 and 61 that I've pointed to on the slide you will see we're not that far away from where we were we just have to make sure that we are continuing giving our students the opportunities for growth throughout these next three months so they can meet grade level expectations but if you look at the May September and January scale scores you will see that is rising at a nice Pace on that and there I'm sorry there is one thing I wanted to go back to with the instructional reading level in grade six I apologize what you will also see here is that between that 38.5 and the 44.9 that's we've gained more than six% of our sixth grade in that uh growth at at or above level there if we go over to grade seven instructional reading level you'll see that we have a jump but not as dram as we did in sixth grade so though we had 36.5% at our above level by the end of sixth grade last year we're to 39.6% at or above level in in January and again that's halfway through our year and if you look at all of the levels if you will our ela7 comprehension our ela7 which are gened students the IC students and OCR students and then toward the bottom our SEI students which are our multilingual Learners and we actually have those broken up by levels one two 3 four because we do see that they're going to excel at different rates so that's why you will see that there so if you actually look at the SE uh seven students level four you're seeing at this point that we have a group of students that are moving into the approaching and um meeting or exceeding expectations the difference that we have with our multilingual Learners versus our students who are homegrown is because is we have a lot of data to be able to say longitudinal we don't always have the data as our students are coming in for the first year or second year so it makes it a little bit more difficult for us to see what the trends are for them when we move Sor I just realized just give me the high sign if I'm not on the right slide guys I'm so sorry I just realized I hadn't move the slides and I know some of you are looking at your computers which is great if I go to grade eight again if you look at the January scale score average you will see a nice growth in all of them the only one that I want to bring to your attention is if you look our at the seci level one students between May and September they had a drop that nobody else did and they're still trying to re recoup that loss if you will so they're really um right at the same spot in January that they were in May of last year and again we're looking at there's growth but we're hoping for for more accelerated growth there when we go to our instructional reading level for eighth grade again you will see that we went from 31.9% to 33% and if you look at sixth seventh and eighth grade it looks like we windwind a little bit even though we're growing we're not growing as quickly as we did in the prior year what you will see in that the eighth grade Advanced we went we have 93.6% of our students who are in the humanities in eighth grade are meeting we exceeding expectations in there and you'll continue to see that Trend in there so our on level and struggling students again they're showing growth but it's not at the accelerated uh level that we need to be able to make up some time if you will then we go into our grade six Math as we grow go into our grade six Math and I will say straight up for our grade sixth seventh and eth grade math we struggle we have struggled We are continuing to struggle here um if you go through and you look at star scale score in September you will see most of those scores in red there was a summer slide and though we recouped some of that summer slide we have not recoup near enough to be able to have our students that are on grade level you will see our pre-algebra students they have recouped that's but our course one our IC students we are still having some struggles with getting them the um instructional levels that they need to be able to exceed in there if we to seventh grade math you'll see in seventh grade math we also add the algebra component because we do have algebra in seventh grade one of the things that I will bring to your attention we have 67 students that still is not meeting where we were prior to the pandemic of the number of students that are in the accelerated program we need to make sure that we're able to bring the students back into this mix because we know as we go into the high school that our levels really do matter for our students advancing what you will notice on the far right side is that yellowish Tannis box whatever color you're seeing in it is that the reason that that is colorcoded is that that is the star algebra not the star math so I don't want you to compare that to all of the other that's there because it will look different um in there but even within that algebra that's our Delo accelerated students if you looked at where they were for sixth grade almost 93% of them were meeting or exceeding expectations for the star algebra we're at 75% right now we have to again do what we can to be able to bring these students up before May and again we have three months so there's a little bit of an alarm there but being realistic we have to make sure that we are realizing we do have three months but we have to do something it's not just going to happen and again you're going to notice there's the direct correlation between staring and jsla and this is the concerns that are noted for us to be able to do some adjustments within our program going into grade eight again that's the same thing that that 10an thing says is that that's the algebra students in eth grade and then the grayish is our geometry and there was really no no comparison for you that's why that is great out there but again if you look at this data our course three students Contin our course one course two course three continue to be our cause of concern that we are not growing um our onlevel student as quickly as we need to to be able to give them what they need to success okay we're going to transition to the high school and there are lot of data points that I'm going to be looking at in the high school I'm going to start with grade nine and with grade nine the very first slide that I bring up is our star scale score from May till January and again that's to be able to see where were they at the end of last year and where are we now you will see again with um January is going to give us in for the middle school and high school we have halfway through the year we were at the end of uh eth grade 36% of our students were meeting or exceeding grade level expectations in January were at 32% but be be uh a war that it's 36% we're meeting eighth grade expectations in may we have 32% that are meeting ninth grade expectations so they are growing we still have have a half a year left so in May we'll be able to compare that what you uh can see with the Gen Ed special ed multilingual Learners that same situation that we talked about comparing then if you go below that um Red Line you will see the levels that are um receiving the scores so the academic academic IC honors Humanities and what you will notice is those students in Humanities 100% of them are meeting or exceeding expectation honors we have 81% of those so we have a little bit of work to do to make sure that that number is higher with our honor students our academic we need to get to do a little bit more work there because our academic level um is not typically at a 23% and then if we look at grade nine IRL and again because there are a lot of numbers I tried to color code it to make it a little bit easier for you to look through so if we just stick with the um grade nine general education total students you will see that in May they've had a 7.7 IRL to an 8.1 to an 8.3 so they are growing but they're still not meting grade level expectations as an overall but you will see there was a little less growth in September and Jan to January than there should have been so typically just I have a little note on the bottom just so for those of you who want to follow through the typical growth is 0.1 for each month of instruction so as you'll see that between four months between September and January we should have had more growth within that we only have two months of growth that are being shown the one positive thing that I will say with this ninth grade group is that we have fewer students that are slumping into that summer slide than we have had in the past now I'm going to start with uh grade nine and again the levels of instruction versus the PSAT T9 and for those of you who aren't familiar um all of our ninth graders take the PSAT T9 our 10th grade and 11th graders take the PSAT so when you see PSAT 9 and PSAT it's not missing something there're two different assessments but they build on one another so we're going to for purposes we're going to look at ps9 PSAT sat in that order so if we look at n are General Leed students you will see that 19 and 510 is that number that we look at to say we used to be a they used to have a scale a rolling scaling um a rolling score to determine where students are meeting or exceeding we stuck with the 510 that we've been working with so the 450 to 510 means that there that's what the average score is so that that's an okay score it's not that it's oh my gosh our kids aren't there the 510 is really for looking at students getting into a four-year selective school so what you're looking at in here that 19% of our current ninth Raiders are on track within the PSAT n you'll see Humanities are at a 70% honors at a 41% drops down to academic at a 6.7% and again this is really that precursor so it gives our students the ideas to what it is they're going to be looking at the PSAT and sat commission and then you look into the special Leed and the SEI so we know we have some work to be able to help support our students on this then as we go through and look at our 10th grade this like oops our 10th grade again this this slide is a little bit busy here but if you just stick with the English two honors what you will notice is to the left of the Blue Line you will see where they are growing with their IRL from a 2 10.3 10.7 and then if you go into the PSAT T9 versus the PSAT you will go through and see those honor students started out with 48% of the students were at or above that 510 range when they took the ninth grade PSAT T9 and then they're up to a 59% with the PSAT and if you work your way all the way through there you'll see that what um you will look at here is that the honors and Humanity students are showing accelerated growth from the PSAT 9 to the PSAT in 10th grade our academic and standard level students are shown limited growth and again there's some program adjustments that we can be making for that then we go into 11th grade and when we go into our 11th grade PSAT and our 11th and 12th grade let me go back there 12th graders we're not going to have a ps9 because that was during that dreaded Co they didn't take that so we don't have that ninth to be able to look at that so if we look at our grade 11 and we look at where they were ps9 PSAT and sat you will see that our honors and our academic students some are taking the SAT but they're not quite there because again we're in the middle of the year so if I just stick to the honor students that there are 71 of those students that went from a 9.9 to a 10.3 and they've tapered off to 10.3 we are working through as to why some of those things are happening um with the 10.3 staying stationary on there um but we look at our PSAT T9 those honor students went from a 28% jumped up to a 61% in PSAT and then a little bit hard to say that it's the same exact thing because it went from 71 students taking it to 31 students but those 31 students who took the SAT 84% of them have the 510 or better score in there and not all of the 11th grade students are on this slide because some of them are in AP in dual enrollment and that's going to be on another slide coming up which is right now so if we look at our grade 12 and some of our 11th grade students who are taking AP and dual enrollment they will be part of this slide so again if you look at the color coding you will look at the English for honors they not take the star test in January as once our students have reached that 10.9 for I'm sorry at 12.9 for two consecutive times they no longer test because they really have reached the max score the ceiling if you will for Star when we go into the PSAT for that group of students when they took it again they don't have a PSAT T9 the PSAT was a 51% and those students who are taking the which is the majority of the group that took the PSAT is at a 71% getting that 510 or above and you'd see the same thing with all that if you look at the AP Lit and Lang as well as do enrollment you will see 100% of the students who have taken the SAT are a 510 or better and now I'm going into math in the high school so just as a reminder when it comes to the math English 9 10 11 12 are grade level bands math is not grade level band algebra one has students that are ninth graders and students that are 12th graders in there so I can't talk to talk about the grade levels I have to talk about courses when it comes to the math so the students that are in algebra one honors really are our honor first-time honor students in the High School uh remember that we will have had a group in ninth grade that are in Algebra 2 already as well a group that are in Geometry that are double accelerated and accelerated so this um group of honors one Al I'm sorry algebra one honors students really is not the um top of the ninth grade when it comes to math we have those other two levels in there so if you also look at the scale score between Mar between September and January you will see some growth that um that's happening there but when we take the PSA T9 our Al students are struggling unlike the English nine students so we're working through on some of that when we go into the algebra 2 what you will notice is I'd like to say to you that hey this we're talking about apples to oranges but you when you see 30 students fewer taking the PSAT than took the ps9 I'm not going to tell you there's a cause for alarm between the 32% and 133% because those 30 students that um caused that 31.6% to rise might be those same students who did not yet take the PSAT so I'm gonna have to wait till the end of the year to say whether that's a cause for an alarm or not because our students still have uh at least one more sitting before um the end of June to be able to take the I'm sorry PSAT they all did not take it in Algebra 2 honors that's not I'm talking I'm thinking I apologize then we have our high school math and I literally listed this as high school math because it's all the other courses that are not algebra based so as we look through this in our geometry students you will see for the PS the difference between the PSAT T9 and PSAT is really negligible there's not there's not a huge difference between how the students scored in PSAT T9 and PSAT and then if you go into the recal honors you'll be able to see from PSAT 9 to PSAT to sat that you can only see that that's for the 11th graders because again the 12th graders were ps-89 was not available for them so when you look at those really small numbers that tells you the number of students that we're looking at one of the things that caused a concern for me on this is that very last row which says no math this is the first year I remember that 173 just about 40 to 45% of our seniors did not choose to take a math course we we don't we've we don't have those numbers that are typically happening so when I look at that and I say we had that many of those students who did not choose to take a fourth year Math course only 43% of them had a 510 or better on the SAT so I really do believe that as we look at um correlation that that that is a big um correlation for us so we've got to do a better job with explaining students that are looking at going to selective colleges the rationale behind that fourth year and I just threw a whole lot at you the appendix this tells you with everything that all the different levels of the supports that are happening in our appendix and with that I will be quiet and walk how you answer questions um I think for questions let's just make sure everybody has a chance to ask a question so maybe ask one qu if you have multiple questions if you know you're going to have like 10 questions maybe just ask a couple and then let's move it around just so everybody has a chance to speak if anyone has any um my one question is there's no comparison to the state in this that I my my apologies when I ever I talked about njsla that's the state so the njsla compar comparison to the scale score okay that's what I was referring to um how are we trending this time last year to the stage so if I have have to go back and for my so in some areas we are on par in some areas we're a little bit below so that's where when I looked at when um I went through this is where it becomes hard when I don't have my point to be able to go back and forth when you go through and look at um some of our areas that we're saying that this is where we were in May here's we where we are in March we have three month or March or January we have three to four months to be able to give some supports and in all levels you will see that there are that are happening for both our struggling Learners as well as our advancing Learners because even our students who are just on the cusp of going to that next level we're trying to provide supports there as well so that we keep on moving so it depends on the level that we're looking at in some ways that we're trending really nicely in some ways we have to do um some fast maneuvering and some programmatic changes to be able to help support that so I will tell you if you look at the six7 math that was that cause of concern that we talked about in course one and course two um some of our um Ela in middle school I'm sorry in elementary math we would look like we were trending nicely but again it's kind of a little bit harder compare because it's May to March but at least we know the trend that we're looking at there I have a few questions of my first one for the math 3 slide and those plld students can you extrapolate and get us give us the data if you were to take those students out who didn't test tell me where you're looking at I'm so sorry math 3 slide grade three G&R plld then it says grade five it says G grade three and five on there but it's the 493 students with the aster oh oh I see oh so can you this date is based so what on the number 493 is can you show us the data if you were to pull out 493 is actually the scale score of that group of students from the previous year from May but what that was it was that same group of students but students who um were in OCR or self-contained might not have taken it in May right but they took it that following year so there's more students that so there are more students in this year than there were to Prior year I thought those students took it in May and didn't take it this year so I was going to ask if you can go back and pull out those students and give us a better number yeah so that's really so if we had 36 students that took it now only 18 of them took it in May which is why that comparison is is really difficult to uh put in there but I wanted to put this year all the students that took that test okay I misunderstood no it could be just where I explained it as well thank you um since all right I'll go on my questions have to do with so the last time we had this the numbers are are great and whether they're going up or I guess I'm wondering what's working and what's not working based on some of the supports that you're talking about sort of in your appendix so um you know I have sort of a list there are tutors there was scop training there were eating protocols leg Lex power up data more data analysis or different data analysis there were some restructuring of you know to um you know make a realignment of curriculum at the high school so I guess and I don't know if you want to do that here or at a different time like what's working and what do we need to tweak so so that that's really a loaded question so there's a lot there's some things I can answer now but it's a great question because there's some things that you really want to be able to say what are we putting our money worth um to put in there so I will tell you that if you look in the K5 some of the things that we have put in because um it's easier to compare the K5 when we're talking about our Lexia when we're talking about the tutors that are in the morning and after school things like that um you'll be able to see that where that growth is if we compare like what happened last year in May to this year some of those growths are directly um related to those um supports that we've put in what you will notice if you um the those last think it's like 10 or so slides that have supports and um that we're doing in each of the areas the K2 3 five special ed multilingual Learners you'll see you should see some of that but what I can do for you is I would be able to get like a little document to say here's some of the things that we're seeing growth in that are outside of what I what I presented to you today that I said you just give me a little bit of time to get that but I that's a perfect opportunity for us to give that to you yeah I mean because that's what I usually take away from some of these present which you know um is what we're what we're going to do to be helpful um and it would be and I know that we've again added some programs and things that students can do you know either pushing into the classroom or pulling out of the classroom like how many people are we grabbing and I know that for Varsity Tutors I know there was a first round of folks who was going to work with a one-on-one tutor and then a second round of folks and I'm not sure how many students and who's participating I apolog I'm trying to write notes what I have to make sure I get Mark so I'm sorry oh you hav it no someone I pull my phone out I'm trying to put notes on myself for me but if Mark it's fine I can write it up no no no it's okay I just want to take notes so I'm saying what I'm doing okay so yeah okay yes no no it's a perfect perfect question okay and I'll get I can get that for you thank you welcome go to call I'll go no go well if you just a couple just if you have like 20 questions then no um I think U maybe what would be helpful at least for me is if you can summarize in like a sentence or two your main takeaways from what we just saw so I'm going to tell you it's probably a little unfair on my end of what I'm going to say because I expect things to work so when they don't work that's going to be the that I'm going to say so I will tell you things that I'm concerned about so it's for me it's really much more difficult for me to tell you hey all these things are great because they should be great that's really what we're going through so what I will tell you some of my takeaways of concerns are those areas that as Jenna talk about we've put some things into place and they're not working and we have to readjust again so those are sometimes those frustrations that okay you tried this that didn't work now we tried this this isn't working um one of the things that I'm trying to find out is to if this is working for this group of students we don't want to throw it out we have to find an alternative for this group of students that it's not working for and I think often times what we do is saying this isn't working for everybody so let's throw this out and try something new we have to we talk about differentiation a lot we have to be much more mindful that some of the supports that we put in are this group of students is going to work this support this group of students might need a different support so I think we have to do better with that so some of the supports that we have brought in really are working for some students we just have to make sure that we are looking for supports that for different groups of students to tell what that is if that makes sense hi I wanted to follow up on what Jenna said because I know we only started the Varsity Tutors really in January if we could get the number of students I know that we were identifying one group I'm curious as to how many of those identified students in that one first group actually accepted the help and have mainly The Varsity Tutors extracted that data extracted so that we can see if it is being effective since we're so I can answer I can get that exact number for you um as to how many accept it I'm going to tell you it was not what we had hoped for right well that's my concern and the second part the inconsistency that students have been showing up really like um I actually gave Mark some data probably a couple weeks ago that it's really hard to see if it's working or it's not for many students like when I see a student that has gone 13 times and hasn't blown in any which way then I'm like this isn't working it goes back to that strategy that maybe this isn't working for this student but when I see a student that has had 13 lessons and only showed up for one I can't tell you if it's working or not but we I can definitely get that data as to how many we invited how many have come in and all that because I I have all that together then great that would be very helpful um I also think this presentation would be helpful again in about June or July after this six-month period has happened because I feel like just doing this almost once a year it it's too I feel like it's not effective again in October Karen because that's part of what the state mandates us to do but doing something in August to say here's where we are at the end of the year and here's where we're moving forward that's yeah because I feel like we need to move it like pivot quicker because I'm just concerned about the timeline and is there a way to put the star scores for each student in the portal because I think parents I have not seen my students star score probably since elementary school and I just feel like parents should be able to be notified of what their star score is and be able to Trend it so one of the things we have been talking about Ken is there is a parent portal with Renaissance um that we could open up we just have to do some education with parents because when student when parent sometimes parents see oh my child's at a 9.5 um level and my child's in seventh grade oh my gosh I don't have to do anything more about reading when reality is unless people understand what that 9.5 means it's not all roses and all that it means that they're equal to 50% of those students who are in ninth grade and for those of you who know what the 50th percentile for that ninth grader you may or may not be thinking that's a great thing but it's where your student is at that point so some some training we have to do uh in order to get that out there but there's not a reason that we would not be able to turn on we just have to do some training I completely agree in the education I also just think that you could see even not necessarily the number but the progress longitudinal yes I I don't know if we can actually get it in Genesis or not where we'd be able to put that but we can look through something like that I'm not going to say we can or we can I have to look for that okay thanks just to jump in on a follow up are they not mailed home still like I no they haven't been mailed home in the star the star okay I guess I just asked for it yeah like everybody Any teacher would be able to talk to you about it and give you um the report and all that but yeah we don't mail them home is there a way we can get what the I know you said for the IRL it's point1 month but looking at the date it's hard for me to tell like the growth is it accelerated how far accelerated how far below like what we're expecting to see the growth for each of them and even what is the level for meets below or above okay so one of the um things that Renaissance has done is to be able to through not just East Windsor for the students in New Jersey who take this they're able to correlate and then um our dat data manager as well as myself we go through and make sure that correlation is still intact and we've been doing this for years to go through that but one of the things that we I can't say you is that the expected growth everything depends on where a student's starting point is so a student who starts at 100 May I'm going to make this number up for you may the expected growth might be something like 5.7 scale score points per week for the remainder of that year someone who starts at at an 800 may have an expected growth of 0.2 scale score points per week for their duration so unless there's a white pages unless you look through that and it's each individual we have to look at it as a whole rather than as individuals so I can't say to you oh this group of students are expected to grow this much in there what I can what I compare with are those students who let's say 800 is that magic number if you will that is when they're meeting or exceeding expectations which means for the um average student who gets an 800 they are going to be um meeting or exceeding expectation on the mjsa that's the kind of scale school we use but it's not the expected growth is a little bit different based on where each student's starting point is if that's make if that makes sense to you so we're looking at the growth as to how many mo maintain meeting or if that's or not correct so when I go through that that's exactly what I'm looking at is the number of students that are currently on target to meet that nsla so then is there a way we can have like I'm just looking total population grade seven the star math in September the average was 720 like I don't I don't know what the 720 means I'm assuming it's seventh grade something or it's not so that's so I have no like can we have an understanding of like what's that so what this is where it Bec comes because it's different for um the 720 is what the average score is for those students that which the 720 is where please just oh a slide 23 and what which love group are we first first it's just the first dra I just picked a number September okay so what what we're looking at there what I want you to look through at that point because that 720 in isolation means absolutely nothing so so then the 860 for algebra right so even if you just say with that 720 for a minute so you look at the May is a 7567 stay on that same line of the total cop so then the 720 is 740 so what I'm telling you by that 756 to 720 it was a summer slide but then when we get to the 740 that's still not reaching where they were the prior May so right so 56% are below but I mean are we below like they're scoring at 300 we have a lot to catch up like I don't I don't know what that 740 okay so there there's two different things so that 740 is telling me it's in red that is telling me that those students are far below the expected value which is where you have 56% of those students and I guess that's what the expected value so what is so in this I I I have to go through and just pull up I'm not expecting you to know right right now I'm saying is there a way that we can have that so we know okay our average is 7 that this number is what the seventh what the average seventh grader or Mr seventh grader needs to get in order to be meeting that so what I can actually do on each of these and I did it for the IRL for some of them I can actually put that number in a smaller thing for you be able to say this is what the average that doesn't mean that we want every kid meeting that because we want them exceeding that but yeah absolutely for the average because it does tell us like if you actually look through um any of our data you'll see that we have limits Far Below below approaching meeting and exceeding so we have that broken down which those numbers can very e go and then for the PSAT and the SAT we're looking at that number of 510 but the PSATs are out of 1520 and the SATs are out of 1600 so I would think we want the SAT to be higher than the five so the writing piece is never part of so we're not looking at the writing piece we're only looking at the reading piece on here there's a writing on the SAT you you have you have for the PSA for what we're comparing is the PSAT and sat we're still for these numbers we're still looking at that 1600 so the the PSAT goes up to 1600 no no oh so the PSAT goes from La up to P the highest you can get on the PSAT 152 1520 so the PSAT 9 is a little bit different than the PSAT so right I'm just looking at the PSAT so so we compare that with the SAT data so that because if I did the PSAT out of that 1520 versus the SAT that's out of the 16 right so we're looking here the 510 is the College Board tells us and again this is a rolling number because it could be anywhere from a 490 to a 520 which is what they're going to say is meeting or exceeding so the College Board is saying that the SAT is meeting if you get a 510 we're so to make our lives easier I stuck with the 510 this year it might be 510 next sitting it might be at a [Music] 490 so that so we keep but they're the same for the I I just don't just like cu I'm looking at this and our English for honors grade 12 sat 71% scored greater than 510 which I would hope if the honors because that would mean if they scored the same in math and I don't know what it was that's only a 1020 so I'm thinking the 510 is too low to be comparing to the 510 on the PSA well right I can go back and double check that but that's right now what they're giving us as that break point but as I said like that there's a there's that difference between a 59 a 490 and a 520 that we've been working through but I can go back and double check and I think it's not it's not the 490 and the 520 like I'm not questioning the 510 I'm questioning that it's the same numbers between the PSAT and the SAT when they're different the PSAT only goes up to 520 and the SAT goes up to 1,600 so 1520 and the SAT goes up to 1,600 so I would think look we' want the sat we want to look at a higher than a 510 to think that we're exceeding or meeting the expectations so we can go back I can go back and look through that but that's the numbers that we have at this point and that's what we're comparing just so that we're able to compare year over year but we could check that that's my mission and then just as others have said I think it would be really helpful to understand we made this change it didn't work we're adjusting here because these this presentation is showing that our njsla which is just in two months with a break in between is going to not be good again so yeah and we have I said that if you look um at those appendices you will see that the supports that have been in place some of them have been in place since September some were in November some have started in January some of them due to some circumstances started a couple weeks ago on there so the supports are in place it's simply a matter I think is like Colleen was saying he like sometimes they're working and sometimes they're not and we have to adjust as it moves on there so I'm just I haven't read through but support for struggling learners for special ed grades 6 to 12 providing modification and accommodations for students that's not telling that's not telling me anything that we did and how it's impacting well that's what that's what Jenna asked I said I would and that's right and that's even really General like we should be providing that for all of our special students modifications and accommodations and just my last question and I know you won't have the answer to this it's really concerning that so many seniors are not taking math I agree and if we could dig into why that is um because that's concerning thank you that was actually my question was about the the 17c 3 seniors who chose not to take math just if we know are these students who took the SAT are they going to college are counselors pushing for a fourth year or maybe could we just survey them to say why didn't you take I mean I have an idea if you did not have a good math experience and you've met your requirements one of the things I did notice going through the data though we have several of our students who are taking AP and dualan English who are not taking a math and that was surprising to me that was me um I I did not take a fourth of math and if you want to survey me I don't like math and that's why um so um and and if I were in school now um I know the uh the trajectory is even more now so it's not you know now it's like is it geometry is kind of the standard to take as a freshman no the standard so traditional is out one geometry Algebra 2 then we have the first the one acceleration is the geometry Algebra 2 preal and then the double accelerated would be Algebra 2 preal and Cal so I I think more students are doing like when I was there it was more students were starting with algebra 1 if I weren't starting with algebra 1 I would be so scared to take calculus as my fourth year I wouldn't do it so I didn't even take preal as my fourth year um so I think math is scary calculus the sound of it um so that's one survey here um I do you have another question oh no I agree with you I I would I would be scared too to take that but we just have to have a math course to make you guys understand it's not really scary if you're not a math person it's really scary if you're not super great in math and you struggled in Algebra 2 and that was your 11th grade year I could see where you'd be like now I'm done yeah um and then um um the question I have is how did all this data that we just saw um how does it correlate to report cards or whatever else allows a student to get promoted because to me if they're not meeting their grade level expectations why are so many students getting promoted each year so we have done a much better job making sure that correlation is there if you remember Mark is it three years ago that we changed it it that when we changed some of when we change the the grading profile to make sure that our teachers were pretty much online I will tell you that it's not with Fidelity that is happening so as administrators are looking at gradebooks they're like hey wait a minute yours is following the profile yours isn't and we have to sometimes go in and retrain so I'd love to say to you hey that's working 100% we're 100% On Target we are much more aligned than we had been um one of the um things that we are still seeing is since the pandemic there's still seems to be this fear of homework that if our students aren't doing some practices it's really precluding them from being able to advance some so we're we're having some of those conversations to say like where is this notion coming from some of the teachers really honest like I think I could give homework you know so where some of those conversations are happening and that should make some of those um that hopefully that's going to help us right thank you so when a student is getting promoted is any of this factored into it or is it really just your grades from daily school it's it's grades from your classroom one of the things like we are definitely we definitely use this data to be able to make sure the students are in the proper levels and that goes from grades six through 12 K5 because we're trying to make sure our students are getting what they need they're like a little bit more homogeneously grouped so what we are trying to make sure is that if let's say Colleen you have a hundred average in math but when we look at any of your data points that are saying look you're just not ready there we would not want to put you in that advanced level to see you fail we've got to be able to get some structures in there to give you what you need so then that becomes that conversation with the teachers you know what's going on here because the grades aren't matching and sometimes students may freeze with a state test but all the other measures that are out here are show shown that you can continue so no one measure does it for us we look at multiple measures on that I guess the last question did mentioned I think two or three years ago you recalculated U grade books in those two to three years has there been an increase in students getting um or not getting promoted um they have an increase in the number of students that have to take summer um Credit Recovery um resources thing things like that that are that we have to go through we have had those number of students um I won't I can't tell you right now that hey the number of students that Lo that did not receive credit I don't know that number but we have had an increase in the number of students that have had to take courses thank you um how does that then impact the summer slide your um they're taking summer resources and coming back in and and rting for some it helps for some it's a matter of getting the credit back um one of the things that we have talked a lot about as a supervisor group is that we have not seen that summer slide stop because they're taking these summer programs because sometimes they're in these and I'm talking really the um crit recovery courses not the um accelerating courses they're there to get a grade so that they don't have to take that course next year they're not necessarily there to learn so that they can build on it that's one of the things that we've got to try and hit home a little bit more that this isn't about the I got you and that's why you're here it's because we're trying to build your skill set so that you're not back here again next year and we're not we haven't done that yet um they made those inroads that I'd like to say that it's easy to do but it's not easy to do just have a quick question a few years ago we our main focus there was a lot of focus maybe not the main focus but there was a lot of focus on the middle student and what we were doing to support the middle student um are we still is that with the pandemic and everything is that something that we're still focusing on and seeing just looking at some of these for example and I may tell me if I'm reading this SL wrong like on slide 28 it's saying that there's um for English to academic there's 188 students but for English 2 honors is's only 89 just using numbers like that and maybe I'm reading the slide wrong but that's a big discrepancy between like the honors and the regular are we pushing or like so if you if you put the honors in Humanities together oh so if you add that so it still is this discrepancy but it's not as huge so there still is so one of the things that we have tried to do because for years we kept on talking about that middle of the road student beond level student all that and we forgot about the two as extremes one of the things that we really try to do is to say that we've got we have those struggling Learners we have our own level Learners and we have our advancing students and we need to provide supports at all three levels and those supports do look different like how do we get the students to maintain and then want to do better and then how do we get those students who are advancing not to get bored to be able to keep keep reaching and how do we approach those struggling Learners to be able to get them to the next level one of the things that I can tell you that has been working over the years is that we have really we have really strived to make sure that our standard level in the high school doesn't become that um place that students live once they're in there ninth grade that they live there for their four years and I'm going to make these numbers up but I'm going to tell you I'm not too far off we may have stud starting English n standard but by senior year we have um a small class of one class of Standard English form so we have done a really good job with moving those students out of standard level into the college prep classes so if we start with a 100 we have fewer than 20 that are in the for the most part it fluctuates year after year but that's the one area where I can tell you that has been um working so that students that are struggling and they really still would be that midle student we're just giving them the skills that they need um sometimes the academic and our teachers will tell us that the academic level is probably the most difficult level to teach because you have those students that don't quite make honors or don't want to go to honors because they don't want to do that level of work and then you have those students who just miss getting those extra supports in standard so the gamut is really really wide there so sometimes it's much more difficult to teach that class because you do have to do a variety of strategies whereas if you're in honors you might have to differentiate but not to the level and the extent and the same thing if you have standard level you're going have to differentiate but not to the extent that you're doing that academic so that is still a work in progress but it's not the forgotten middle if you will okay thank you does anyone else have any questions I just um have a request unless you can answer it tonight but otherwise a request to go with um J information um you know we hear about the Varsity Tutors and other programs year to year that are implemented but you know we've been on the board some of us for several years and each presentation kind of hear you know more negative stuff about data more than everything's going up and it's great so I'm wondering what um macro level changes might happen or have happened in an approach to I don't know anything education or anything that um rather than year-to-year changes I don't I don't know if I'm asking the right question but I think I know any H so one of the things that we try to do is that as we see what's working not working throughout the year we try to start saying what is our Focus for the following year is what we talk we talk about our essential PDS so as we see that there's something that systematically isn't right we try to say sometimes it's because I and I will give you the story several years back I sat in a middle school math meeting and I said well you guys all remember and I looked and said only two of you were here when we did that initiative so though we assume sometimes that everybody's on the same page as us just because they're sitting here they sometimes need that training and I think sometimes that's where we sometimes miss that boat so that's what when we seeing that something just isn't working right we try to make sure that we have what we're calling these essential PDS to be able to set it back on the straight path because even if I learned it 10 years ago I maybe I need to ressure within that so that's some of the things so you know it's funny you said I that's why I become very clear when I say to people when they say what's working what's the day to tell you I expect everything to work wellong so when I come in to tell you I'm going to tell you what we're still working on because those things should happen and I've got to make sure that I'm bringing out some of the things that are really really well so I'll say to you anything that I didn't address as though not working no it's working because it would have came out out um Sandy regard with regarding the G grade six Math um and this has been as you had a trend over and over that when our students are hitting middle school and they're struggling in math have I see there's some things on supports but can you send us some details about things that we've tried or what you think what is missing why why are we missing these students in elementary level support I will send it to you because um Tina that is something that I keep on shaking my head like I don't understand why we're still in that but I I will be able to send is there a certain skill set that they're missing like their their facts their math facts or is it a process are they having trouble reading word problems or is it like what is it specifically that we're missing so we do have a staff developer this year that's trying to help us to figure out pinpoint some of those things in there um but as soon as we get finish all those things we will absolutely share that because unfortunately that's that stays with them throughout their whole career um going back to the algebra 2 slide you had like you said something about less students are taking the PSAT I kind of got lost in that whole slide because the PSAT is not PSAT I Algebra 2 the PSA those students who are honors Algebra 2 for that double accelerated class take the ps9 not the PSAT okay because it happens during the school year so if we have 60 students that are taking geometry in eth grade the following year they will take the PSAT n even though they would be in honors AGB 2 that's where it's like the math is a little bit different than the English because it's not by grade level it's by the course sit that's where that difference just wanted to clarify because you quickly moved on and I was kind of still shaking my head thank you just to follow up on Tina with the math we've had a lot of changes the past years with math with the curriculum with homework and all of that and the grades seem they're definitely not getting better of some of those changes were they the wrong things to do do we know I'm not sure but you have to give more specific I'm not sure what you're asking me so we we have a brand new math curriculum right or textbook we have a what is it no longer go math it's I can't remember the name of it we have Savas now savis right so is there something in that switch that's not working it's not helping our students and then there has been the whole switch and I know from my daughter and from others that the math homework is no longer counted and I know that's part of the the portal thing and um the teachers are giving the same exams and there's no longer study guides being given out um are all of those things not progress they're actually hindering the students so study study guides are a teacher's prerogative there's nothing that says this teacher can't give them so that is nothing there homework there is nothing that says teachers can't give homework the Great of homework we did try to curtail so that um St there's not one grade book and that's where the equalization of grade books is that if you're in your student is in your class versus my class 50% of your grade is homework and only 10% of my grade so our grades don't mean the same thing any longer so that was where that grade book came in at but as far as the study guide that's nothing has come about with that homework given homework I mean we all know for Math and for reading reading can be homework math doing practice as homework none of that is there as far as the savis that you're referring to savis at the time that we purchased that was the only math textbook that was aligned to the new standards hold on standards are changing again this year so I can't say to you that salice is the problem or the solution we need to get the stabilization as to some of the standards that are in there I believe um many of teachers don't care for saice but we could not stay with big idea because it didn't address the state standards um I know they have been lobbying to CH to get a new textbook I think we have to make sure that we are training and what the standards are to make sure that we are building student standards up um because again those textbooks that we purchase our resources they're not um our curriculum they are a resource and sometimes we forget that we have the um curriculum to be able to help support the learning so that's in isolation of whatever textbook but I'm not going to tell you a salice is the greatest thing since sliced bread or the worst thing I can't I don't we don't have enough data on that one yeah and I would just dig a little deeper into the study guides and the homework and um because from what I'm hearing the teachers are saying that and not grading the homework and no longer giving study guides so I will tell I will tell you right here out no one has ever told them they can't do study that their perception may be that they can't it has never been stated they can't get a study guide and that's all I'm saying maybe we should reinforce that study guides may be helpful um for the students and again depends on the level some teachers are going to be hey you know if it's an honorous class I might not be so inclined to a standard level I will I mean that's where some of that um teacher prerogative has to still come into play with things like that but that has not been a district initiative saying that study guides are not permitted or must be there the grading of the homework we already explain it so that's definitely something that has been a district initiative the homework I attended a PTO meeting at craps and they said homework is not allowed to be given not true not true and this is where FY that I I shared there's what five homework free days well uh several of the parents are and then even the principal got up and said that because a lot of the students have after like they have responsibilities of taking care of their siblings or they said and and I even recently heard parents say they wish homework could be given I'm I'm not I'm just saying what I Mr stter 100% agree that's one of the things that I said um starting out is that there is this fallacy that homework is not permitted that's something that we are trying to work through to say we're not really sure we know it came about when the pandemic happened we absolutely told teachers that September and October that we came back in person please do not give the students homework they're trying to make a transition somehow that came out to be three years later we're still not I'm just saying what what was told at at the fall PTO meeting they were I just it was said and that and I just think our math our math numbers are really alarming and I understand how important the homework is for the practice of the math and even if the kids I understand that there's so many different circumstances so just give like on um completion not on accuracy but somehow we need to get these kids to be doing some of the the practice at home C Ken I'm just curious were those at the PTO meeting in the fall like were those parents saying that they're not not allowed to give homework or those actual like teachers you want to speak on that she said I had a lot of parents that asked about homework um and so we did talk about the troubles that go along with students getting it done but it was not that they are not giving homework it's that a lot of students are coming in the morning then and needing support during academic support So at no time did I say that we're not giving homework at school but with kids who are not getting it done at home for various reasons because we have kids from all walks of life we're then supporting them in school during the day in the morning or in classes academic support things like that thank you are there any other questions from any board members no um thank you Sandy thank you for the presentation and for Gathering all the data we really appreciate it and like Mark said we'll keep this on Old business so if there are questions or if you see something in between meetings we can bring it up at the next meeting um moving on item four superintendent report he's having some technical difficulties a l screen a lot of laptops okay uh good evening everyone um so I just want to just take a moment just to thank uh Sandy and the curriculum team for preparing tonight's presentation obviously it's a lot of information I will reiterate that um you know tonight won't be the last time we discussed this I'm going to encourage the board to to take some time to kind of digest this and um you know the feedback based on the questions tonight we have those and we will do some followup but I would recognize and acknowledge that as we move forward I'm sure other questions will surface in the next days and weeks ahead so we'll keep this as an old business item and uh we'll continue to revisit it just a couple of quick announcements tonight I will Echo the sentiments of our student Representatives uh last Thursday I did have the opportunity to attend the opening night of the SpongeBob musical it was it was great everything was just right um this included the set the live music from the pit uh and the amazing singing choreography performed by a very talented students so just want to congratulate everyone who was a part of it shout out to Mr camps the director in the entire cast and crew quick clarification regarding the pl principal uh update the search I call it I think a couple of meetings ago uh I was being probably a little optimistic too optimistic in terms of timeline uh and I think I may have mentioned that this meeting may be the meeting that we were I would be recommending a principal um and I don't know why I said that uh because that's not realistic so I'm going to clarify tonight that uh we did begin the process we we interviewed about 10 candidates um probably about three weeks ago now we're in the process of bringing about half of them back uh and that will take place the week that we return from Break um and we'll kind of continue that process I am not going to announce a date today regarding when we will have it finalized but we clearly will have adequate time to ensure that there's a smooth transition um just in terms of board recognition I'm in the process of working with this devenson right now to organize a couple of student recognition opportunities here um at some upcoming board meetings so kind of want to frame it around a co-curricular structure we've got a number of different different groups that have done well um you know outside our district and represented the district very well so we want to make sure that we we find an opportunity to highlight them to recognize them that'll be our our first group I'm I'm looking to to structure something for the 15th of April and then we also want to recognize some of our um our athletic achievements um based on fall and winter sports so stay tuned on that I I'll I'll be following up but definitely looking to to do some level of recog the part that we're working through is just that trying to organize it so it's not too voluminous so uh we will look to begin with our our co-curricular uh recognition first just a followup to our strategic planning process for this year so um as you know it's one of our goals for this year we've we've engaged in uh two of the the three meetings thus far uh Maryann Freedman from New Jersey school boards Association serves as the facilitator for those meetings so we did have our second meeting on March 14th it was well attended I I thank everyone for their participation commitment involvement um we had about 54 participants that evening um that night was more of a uh Vision night where folks were in groups about 12 groups and they were asked to kind of fast forward look ahead five years from now and uh returning to the East Windsor Regional School District in in this area and um finding an opportunity to you know look at a Time Magazine I have to tell maryan Time Magazine still here but may have to update that a little bit but looking at looking at the Time Magazine cover and reading an article front page regarding schools that succeed and um ask the group to identify you know based on the strengths that we we think exist currently what else do we want to see right this is kind of like a big idea moment um so good feedback um um a lot of large Post-it notes spread around the room uh obviously within groups folks were looking to identify consensus uh I thought that I thought the feedback was really honest and authentic um from that we then had to identify some common themes which can be tricky to do but I thought the group did a great job with that so we did Identify some emerging goal areas that were going to follow up with at our third Meeting those goal areas were student centered learning staff or Personnel uh Community engagement facilities and finance and culture and climate so our third meeting is scheduled to take place on Wednesday April 17th at 6 PM right here uh during this meeting participants will review the outcomes from meetings one and two and develop broad goal statements objectives and strategies for those goal areas that I just shared so those uh planning goals will guide the board in the district and as we look to kind of solidify them as I shared before the intent is for for them to kind of live I'd like to say five years but three to five years out as we as we begin to kind of map out where we're going so looking forward to the meeting on April 17th anyone who's listening watching right now if you have not had the opportunity to um attend one of the meetings I would strongly encourage you to do so uh we have uh we had number of uh our staff members serving as translators that night so we we welcome all members of the community to come and participate um I know sometimes when you feel like there were three meetings I missed the first two the feeling may be why would I come but no uh you only need to come to to one meeting to be quite honest with you uh for us to get some feedback if you can come to more than that awesome but I would say if you haven't attended yet I strongly encourage you to to try to make it on April 17th I'm a little apprehensive to say this last one tonight but I'll conclude with just you know we're approaching spring break which is hard to kind of believe because it seems like the school year is rapidly moving um but you know we've had three homework holidays this year and the reason that homework holidays are in place and so therefore we can have some consistency in terms of when we are assigning homework um so this is a homework holiday for spring break so there won't be any assignments or long-term projects or tests or quizzes when students return to school uh on April 8th okay so with that said I just wish everyone a very safe and enjoyable spring break uh hopefully the weather gets warmer for us and I'm looking forward to the kind of last portion of the school year with that it concludes my report thank you thank you Mark does anyone have does anyone have any questions if there's none then we'll move on um first opportunity for board member comments are there any MERS that wish to speak M oh sure this might qualify as a question but uh would be a comment too I know we had some uh issues with a neuro virus outbreak in middle school last week um there was a lot of uh feedback both of my son's your group and parents around issues with uh soap availability in the Middle School just wondering Mark you had mentioned that you were really doing a tour today yeah so so yeah so a couple of things um I wouldn't want to consider outbreak but we did have a number of students that were exhibiting um gastrointestinal issues at the middle school last week in particular in seventh grade so I do want to commend our U our nurses we did a pretty amazing job and we have a close partnership with the health department um I I did share with the board that I it was presented to me on Thursday that there was an issue regarding soap which we don't have a soap shortage so um I was in communication with our director of BU and grounds um you know the expectation was that we would have filled soap dispensers in all the bathrooms in the process we did Identify some uh soap dispensers that were not functioning appropriately um one could argue some of this due to students misusing them so they did have soap in them but they were nevertheless not working properly so between Thursday and Friday a last week every bathroom um had soap dispensers fixed filled replaced I did visit the middle school this morning uh and uh I was pleasantly um not surprised I was pleasantly uh encouraged to see that you know every bathroom had soap dispensers and actually they put additional soap dispensers in those bathrooms so it appears that we are um we're in good shape right now in terms of where we where we were part of our process with the uh Health Department we did share obviously we share the data with them um you know we're just basing it on often times the symptoms that that uh students were communicating and and we would describe it as being you know neuro virus like symptoms we haven't actually kind of categorized it yet I will say today I don't have the specific number but I know that significant uh significantly less number of students that were absent today and a significantly less number of students and actually that continued Wednesday on last week but today was a was a significant Improvement I think having the weekend helped uh our custodial team starting from last Wednesday was deep cleaning the building so I'd like to think that you know the bad thing about it is that it spreads quickly the good thing about it is that it goes relatively quickly as well so I'd like to think that we've we're on the down downward um downside of the Hill as it were in terms of dealing with that but yeah that kind of um jumped pretty quickly so I believe that in a place where we're going to look behind us with that okay I just have a quick follow up about the soap sure um I've also heard from a few students that there was a soap issue at the high school is that resolved I heard that there was no soap dispensers that there was no soap when have I heard it I heard it last week I have to follow up on that um I have well a couple things after this conversation at the middle school last week Patty malter our director of buildings and grounds did indicate that she would be addressing the soap issue districtwide um so I need to follow up I've only been to one bathroom at the high school today and it did have soap in it um it also had some other things in there but but no no but it did have so so we can easily follow that up all right I had a question it was following up on Colleen's last week about the equity audit I know that I went back and I know that we had the presentation in the fall but did we ever get a followup on a plan of how we were leveraging that data because I just remember the presentation in the auditorium I didn't know if that's what you meant Colleen because I didn't I don't remember ever discussing a plan or how we leveraged it so so a couple of things one there was a report um that I shared with the board there was a comprehensive report um I don't know if you got that you may not have been on the board at the time so I can follow that up and get that to you so if you recall there were five domains based on that report um structure systems resources culture and Community equity in the educator Workforce professional learning and personal growth and uh curriculum instruction and learning so the way that the report was structured right it was based on findings and recommendations so and each of those findings and recommendations were housed within those five domains so what we're in the process of currently doing is one capturing um some of the immediate recommendations one being establish a district Equity team so we did that um we actually rolled out the data the presentation to each of the schools via uh central office professional development meetings actually which occurred like the past two weeks um we actually meant to debrief that I think that was on Thursday of last week so there's a scheduled District Equity team meeting I think on April 23rd and then what we're looking to do with that is I look at those five domains and then determine within those domains you know where do we believe um there's evidence of progress or evidence of something being established within the district and then looking at the recommended next steps and and they're just recommendations it doesn't mean that we have to dive into them but it's almost like taking stock to say where are we within each of these areas what are some things that we believe are solidified and established and what are some meaningful next steps that we can identify in each of those domains and that'll be the work I'll be sharing that with the board uh before this year in terms of like where we're going in each of those areas and really kind of presenting in such a way where it's like here's where we are in this domain here's where we need to go and here's what that will look like so I will get you the comprehensive report but you know what I believe I shared it with the board I could I probably just share with the board again it's been a little while since since I shared that November 19th you got it well thank you colen so I will reshare that any other comments um a few meetings ago um I had brought up chronic absenteeism rates after just seeing a article about it in the school board association's um magazine um so thank you Mr Daniels for sending that um he sent it to us in an email a couple weeks ago just the The Chronic absenteeism rates for this school year so far um I was happy to see it included in sy's present this sounds weird right yeah is it weird enough that I shouldn't continue is that better okay um I was happy to see it included in the presentation um I think those numbers were actually worse than the ones that were emailed to us it looked like 31% of the first graders had chronic absenteeism last year and 23% of second grade um and those are just the two grades that were included on the presentation um in the data that was sent to us uh in just our board email um it looked like so far either 16% of all students were or approaching um chronic absenteeism um that's 18% of seniors and eighth graders um so my question is better yeah you all heard that oh my goodness whatever all right so my question is um in the article it said that if a district has 10% chronic absenteeism the district should report about it what why it's like that what they're doing to improve the rates so I'm wondering if we can get that presentation since it does seem to be more than 10 % of the district um and it was kind of I I was hoping an answer like that about before my macro level question I think that's a big deal um of course like Sandy said if a student's not in class they can't learn um and if at least 16% about of our total district is missing 10% of the school year that's hard for them to learn um this is very loaded I know but really I think it shows I would love a presentation on chronic absenteeism and how it impacts the learning um and also you know I know in the high school handbook if a student misses that many they shouldn't be receiving course credit um so wondering how many don't receive course credit because of absenteeism and you know I know it's a big issue but just wanted to bring it up so so a couple of things one I mean there's a whole series of State obligated procedures that we do engage in in terms of parent notification regarding x amount of days that students are absent obviously there's a balance between excused and and unexcused but even at times where the unexcused numbers are significant it still counts you know in terms of it being excessive so there is a pretty significant process in place that each school adheres to in terms of the high school you said it high school is um the stakes are higher so we do have credit acquisition there is seat time uh and yes students are either required to engage in some credit recovery during the summer um there were also times where students when they've missed a significant chunk of of um a course there's not enough seat time for them to make that up so obviously like we work with students individ individually to deal with that um so I'd say that I'm not going to say it's it's less of an issue with the high school because actually I think you know students are kind of preparing themselves for postsecondary opportunities but in terms of a structure the high school is just a little clearer because you need to acquire those credits in order for you to move forward and it's just cut and dry to to a certain extent so I can definitely provide some followup what I think what I'll do is I'll start by sharing kind of just process and then if you think we need to have a presentation to make it more Global we can definitely do that all right and we been dealing with you know chronic absenteeism and I'm not blaming Co but definitely that was a an issue that we know noticed as students were transitioning back but I think we've moved beyond that I think you know I'm I'm going to actually do like a three-year look back I'd like to think there are absenteeism has improved in the past three years but I'll definitely follow up and give you something a little bit more comprehensive in terms of like what we're doing to to combat it yeah thank you that that would be great um I think also what would be helpful is the breakdown of what's excused and unexcused because if it's excused also like why are our children so sick you know physically at least I know there's like also mental health is and stuff like that but um yeah I think that would be good to know as well I'd say demographics might be helpful too if we go that route to have a breakdown um economically disadvantaged for okay Nicole I sent this in an email but it wasn't addressed um I find it concerning that the curriculum and course guides from the January 22nd Board of Ed meeting that were not passed in our motion are in the Google Drive saying board ofed approved January 2024 so I would request that those get removed and when are they going to be up for approval again and appr approval because it's March and they're missing I just have two topics one was I reviewed the curriculum committee's presentation um and it said that beginning May 2018 there are certain curriculum items that are no longer approved by the board because they're too expensive and time consuming and I don't see a change to the policy that aligns with that and also that presentation included graduation requirements for the AP classes and that also that the AP science do not count towards the graduation requirements which may be the correct direction to go in but it doesn't align with our current policy so we either need to change the requirements or change the policy and then Nicole as I shared I went down that bunny hole of policies and I think the board really needs to start looking at every policy I mean there are some easy ones out there like the 5514 where only seniors were allowed to park in the high school and that's been changed to be Juniors also but then there were also and I only went through one little section supposedly we're supposed to have an adult high school and a Community Education Program homework is supposed to be given extra credit so I think the Board needs to put together some plan where we're actually going through every single policy to make sure they're still accurate I think there was even one in there that has the report cards at the lower grades and we've changed that to not be quarterly nailed the policy just has to respect that and then I had some questions on the budget and since we don't have the finance committee meeting Mr Dan said I should bring them up here so I'll start with at the February 5th Board of Ed meeting I think it was Judy who summarized there was a finance committee meeting that day also and there was a million dollars in additional state aid and I anticipated right um so since we didn't get that right so what were the items that we took out to make up for that 1 million right now we're pretty fortunate that over the past several years we've been able to build our um capital budget up you know kind of incrementally over the past five years so pretty much our our budget was Bal balanced on the back of reducing our capital budget we still have a pretty healthy allotment in there we're we're definitely not in the same grouping within our colleagues in the county but that's basically how we Balan the budget this year so we we didn't reduce what we're spending this year for Capital we reduced or next year we reduced the amount that's in the reserves is that what we saying no we actually reduced our spending in the Capital outlay Area so at the meeting Judi said it was 11 million for Capital and the proposed budget is 11 million unless I'm missing something or unless I Mis I distri what agree to said that's yeah if if you look at the year-over-year budget um that I handed out at our last meeting our proposed capital budget for uh fund 12 which is a capital outlay was $12.9 Million this year it's 10.7 right but at the four I've had a meeting on the 5ifth at the finance committee it was reported out that the plan was 11 million we'll spend $1 million in capital and if we and we're still spending it so that 11 million included the 1 million anticipated State a additional in state a and you don't have we can follow up on it we can you know hook up and discuss that a little more I'm just but the overall spending in fund 12 this is basically how we balanced our budg was we reduced our fund 12 spr um and on the presentation the that slide with the 17.5 savings over 10 years is that from which was great um like one year we only did 1.2% instead of two so it was those savings that yep that's absolutely right every year you know when we were getting those large state aid increases every year we put a a piece back to tax relief you know anywhere from 250,000 one year I think we did half a million dollars so I think we're built up to somewhere about $1.7 million now um and I know there was discussion a while back about Roosevelt not resigning I don't know what it's called but sending their students here are they doing that so right now this past school year uh Roosevelt well for the past five years right ever since Roosevelt has been trying to determin how they can uh maintain um some level of sustainability with reduced funding on the horizon for them they were looking at options to um see Pathways for their students so they reached out to us early this year to say they were looking to maintain the S receive relationship that we currently have where their students come to us in sixth grade but they're also exploring uh options on the mammoth County side because it you know to determine if their students could also um participate in a in a 612 experience there one of the things that they they've used is that you know in Mammoth County you've got a pretty strong program at the high school level so they they they based on where they're situated they didn't want to feel like they were losing out on an opportunity for their students so right now we still have the seven reive relationship I actually haven't U received any any hard data from them regarding a change in terms of students who will be transitioning to us in in uh sixth grade we have about 40 students from Roosevelt a really small number it's a really small number um and is it possible I know we have the budget by like group regular program instructions and then all of the items under there to have it a cut of it by line items like all together for instance there's in each section is a ton of other objects which I don't know what it means and they're small dollar amounts but when we add them up it comes up to a lot so you want to know what's in those lines is that what you're asking in total like General supplies like if I look oh General supplies it's 5,000 here no big deal that's only 5,000 but when you add them all and I haven't added them all up because it was too many but if I add them all up it could be oh my goodness General supplies actually went up $100,000 do we really need to do that just to follow up on that I I had that same question like on page five under bilingual instruction it says well there's nothing on that one for school sponsored co-curricular extra activities other objects is $33,000 which that's a lot of money for other objects when we already have subjects of salaries purchase Services Services supplies and materials and then other objects and then the same thing for school sponsored Athletics other objects is 39,000 I just I I kind of need to know what those other objects are for close to being $40,000 and then the do we have like a fiveyear cap or two years three years or even a listing of all the capital projects that we want to do so that the board can just review and say Yes it makes sense that we're choosing this one over this one this year sure um right now our capital projects have really been heading down three main Avenues uh one you can put under overall HVAC and another category would be uh updating G&R second and the third car be updating Walter SE black which is kind of the newer one um and we've kind of been heading down that track over the past several years and un under that General HVAC category we had a u districtwide assessment and cost out and I think it was somewhere around $60 million to to we're at that point where our HVAC is very open and needs to be replaced really across the board I would say the average age of our un is somewhere around 20 years and they're starting to go uh so that really has been you know the main thrust of what we've been after um on tuition reimbursement on one page for the proposed budget it's $260,000 but then on the budget breakdown tuition reimbursement is zero so I think the tuition reimbursement is on page 15 of 16 but then like the M the just the one pager tuition reimbursement is zero so I don't that's in conflict and is it a concern or why is it that bilingual education is barely going up any expenses I like I just at the strategic planning meetings we were talking a lot about the need for bilingual teachers and support and it it doesn't seem like there's much of an increase in that and especially since one of our goals is aligning is trying to close the achievement Gap I would think that we would want more money spent on that you know I could just tell you right off off the bat the biggest problem with our bilingual spending has been really just finding a lack of of candidates I mean it's a it's a labor intensive industry a couple years ago we put in five positions for bilingual teachers many of them are still being carried as vacancies just because we cannot find the candidates I'm sure that we could stock that department up we could be spending it's and just just a point of clarification we've been increasing personel I can give you we can give you a number but we've definitely increased Personnel over the past five years and some of that was obviously based on need some of that was the fact that we had the Good Fortune of of receiving additional state aid and we were looking to use that strategically for personnel so um we've definitely increased we've increased our Personnel under the certificated umbrella but you know from a bilingual standpoint yeah we we definitely wanted to add bilingual teachers to create um CL environments that we think are conducive or more conducive to support our students we're also in the process of identifying um almost like a bilingual basic skills approach as well in terms of identifying some additional support under that umbrella but um yes in the state there is a uh significant shortage of bilingual certified teachers so we've been um pursuing teachers there's not a lot of folks being grown out of the college level so we've been kind of actively looking to uh entice people from other districts and we've had some level of success with that so um if if the question you're asking is have we not invested in increasing Personnel the answer is we have I can give I can give you the comparison over a fiveyear window where our certificated staff has grown no I'm not questioning that I I'm just saying if it's not in the budget does that mean then we aren't continuing to look for no we are so so so good question so what I'd say is as Paul just talked about so couple of things so each year we do determine needs and then sometimes depending on the nature of where the budget is sometimes you go with some nice toab right so the five bilingual positions that Paul referenced and last year we we budgeted for three additional Math teachers at the high school because of need I mean I'm sorry the middle school because we wanted to create some additional supports to to move the needle sometimes those additional positions we don't fill them all let's just so let's just say you know we budgeted for five bilingual positions three years ago these are extra positions we may have filled one or two so when that budget is a couple different ways to do it we can we can close those positions down or we can transition those positions over but um as we as we establish a new budget we may say oh I look back to this year there's still a few holes we've already budget's already been handled we already budgeted for those positions so they will not have an impact on the new budget so there are some positions that we still have available um we have not given up sometimes we find ourselves as we transition into the school year if a need arises we may say you know we we budgeted for an additional math teacher uh we couldn't find it or the need is dissipated but another need may have occurred and now we're in a budget cycle where we're saying this isn't a budgeted position sometimes we can pull from that existing uh position that we did not F so we we've got some flexibility there and that's not going to you're not going to see that in this budget um but yeah we we've there's a there's a there's a host of of issues there that we believe we've got some scaffolds of sorts um because yes we want to make sure that you know I would always say that our most fragile Learners need the best teachers right and we want to make sure that we are being as aggressive and creative and assertive and take an initiative and this is recruitment season um but but that's a shortage area so uh we'll continue to stay the course but yeah we have I don't want you to think that we are not looking to to work that through because we have in Prior budget years allocated additional positions is it is it possible then to get our year-to-date actuals because that would then show the increase right so if we had what we spent so far this year and annualize it for a full year if we compare that to the new budget then we should see the increase yeah you may not see an increase because it may not be an increase like it it may not be an increase because for example you know fiscal year 23 24 you know we said we needed to hire um 12 additional folks right um but we only filled six so when we go to the fiscal year 2425 you know our PCR is going to be kind of based on what that existing amount was even though some of those positions are still available so we can I can give you a comparison you can see where we are and maybe then the the head count um would help how we backed into it and then I'll finish up here soon the health services professional purchase Professional Services and tech services we up 700,000 the health services line yeah that was the question that uh JY asked last meeting so after talking it over with Dave R traditionally we're budgeting for health services in the child study team area so if you look at the um at the detailed other Support Services student special um that area was where the Heth Services were so in the 2324 year we budgeted almost $1.2 million for uh those services and then it's down 600 thou down to 600,000 so basically we just reclass those Health Services out of the child study team area and put them in the health service area so so but what what is it like those are just like the nursing services that we provide to our medically fragile students so it's not in the the salaries it's in the um purchase Professional Services so it's it's out it's not are District's employees providing those services that is correct there yeah that's correct nursing Services Bata of nursing right Dave what what would be on those healthing services got it that makes sense under security there's 24 on the second line it says $24,000 but there's it it it doesn't say there's nothing on the heading I'll include that in there that's a purchase service line okay I'll right that thank you and then the last one for today is travel I know in the summary it said travel was going up I forget the amount was 200,000 but I don't see travel really in here so are you talking about in the approving resolution yes yes so what we're required to do in the resolution and spread throughout our budget and it's also not in our regular budget it's also in title two which you won't see here so we're required to set a maximum travel amount and that's just a number that we get from adding up all the travel which is spread out through all the different codes and adding in the grant budget that we expect to get next year so travel with imp Fe and travel so it wouldn't it wouldn't going up 200,000 it's about 200,000 overall um so it's not in track travel it's where are you looking at I mean if you go and maybe when you give the breakdown by the line item we'll I'll see it but going through it I see very little travel in this alog together right most of the travel you're going to find in our um if you look at the instructional staff training training I'm not sure what page it is but 11223 other purchase Services 223 500 that would that would include your travel area in other purchase services not travel right in that particular area the state is confusing when they come with their numbers and their names in some areas they'll be very specific and call it travel some some areas they just have a general like 500 number but travel would be in the 500 cost section so you'll see that 160,000 in there that's the vast majority so that's how you identify travel by the five the last three digits are in the 500s yes correct got it that's all thank you Ken let me just go back to what you just talked about you indicated there's something in the shared drive that wasn't uh approved right is that what you what was that specifically oh that's the business course right um okay I don't know Sandy do you have a timeline on that well you changed the date to 20 the the dates say 2021 but if you go to the bottom it still says January it still says board approved January 2024 and that's what I'm taking issue with because those were not board approved for all of the one I know what you're talking about so the ones that didn't get passed in January right okay you follow are there any other board member comments Paula you had all your questions I know you had a lot of questions so you had them all answered for now thank you there's no more board member comments first opportunity for public comment is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak there being none we are going to move to exec [Music] session it won't be long we only have a couple things to discuss and then we'll be back to vote on some action items e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e you happen to not want to if there is a committee that you know you're on and you don't youve realized you don't have the time commitment or you want to be on a different um Committee just send us an email um if there's no questions we will move on to item eight second opport I have a question because I I'm just gonna say this again I don't feel like these are enough dates I'm very very concerned with especially because I'm a policy committee I'm I'm reading all of the policies and they are very outdated and after I went to my njba training most if not all the districts that are run by committee have a committee meeting every month and it's not on the night of the board meeting so they run out of time I I I just if we don't need it that's great but I just feel like like the dress code and the tech and the tech policy I wasn't on the board for that but I remember it being addressed in the fall and it's now almost the end of March and we don't even have those policies for first reading I just don't feel like we're being effective I mean we shouldn't have that many policies that date back to 200 for like and I can go on about curriculum as well like there's a lot of outdated curriculum there's a lot of curriculum missing and I don't feel comfortable having having us as a board be that far behind on them like we should be look we should have a a policy meeting once a month on a Wednesday night or whatever night they decide for a few hour like not an hour before the meeting because we have to get updated on these policies that's that's the way that's my opinion I would love to hear what other board members if if you've read the policies or looked at them but a lot of them that even that Paula mentioned earlier were just they're so outdated they don't even apply do we have so Mark if we were going to consider so how would this work if we were going so right now what are we meeting like quarterly each committee yes say about quarterly I gu my question would be so if we're supporting the administration then we're we're kind of responding to what they having us review so to request more frequent meetings would be to request more frequent materials to review is that's something the administration provide I know we have a process we're going through where the policies that come up for review are pushed to us we're not pulling so what sets that frequency just using policy as the example policy is a great example I mean part of what um there two kind of two things at at state so um from a statutory standpoint there's frequent policy updates um that get pushed to us via Strauss s right uh that are mandated policies there are some recommending there but primarily they're mandated and they're really just forcing the revision to existing policy based on uh state code so and they come out in alerts every month so part of the issue um that I think is related to what Karen's referring to is they're pretty voluminous now Fran one could argue they're mandated so we don't have to like you know do a whole bunch of changes because the you know the the the code update is kind of driving that however the boards can still massage it to make it fit its need so I think we have to strike a balance between dealing because we're going to have a slew of those actually on the next agenda um and we're like um we're not at the current alert either so and the way that works is we get the alert about 25 to 30 policies on there it could be policies and regulations we divvy those up amongst the administrative team in terms of the area responsibility we overview we give feedback and then we bring it to the board after that to some feedback so so it's almost like putting those dealing with those but then also having opportunities to review existing policy um that we think needs to be updated that's not necessarily connected to a state driven update I think that's there's the the balance right because the slew of of policy that we deal with is more so given to us by the updates that the state is creating so I think I think the point's a valid one um in terms of engaging in a process to and and I think this is owned by the board you know I'm not going to say it's owned by the administration sometimes there are things that we deal with that we think we need to review dress code was one I wasn't looking to make a wholo change immediately but I think it was healthy to review in terms of where we are to determine are there some things that we to update um and the other one it was connected to I think it was at that point we were having conversation regarding cell phones and you know um the fact that the current policy kind of I mean it's it states it right it's just a matter of but the policy was developed in the earli stages of having technology in school and kind of like a bob model so I do think when we have policies from 2004 I think it's a great opportunity to review that I'm not sure but I think we may be able to I have to double check with the Strauss Esme portal that we use I I think I'm going to explore a way to say um you know any policy that's I want to see if if if it can be sorted that way where to to try to make life a little easier for us like is there a way for us to say without painstakingly going through each policy like is there a way for us to determine which of our policies are more than I don't know 10 years old right and then kind of gather that and then begin to kind of work through what we think we need to update because there are some policies that need to be updated you know based on kind of where we are it's not you know 2004 um and it doesn't mean that every policy from 2004 needs to be updated but I'd like to venture to say it's 20 20 years ago maybe something does right so I think that um I think moving forward um I'm going to look to see if there's a way for us to to identify that obviously there's some policies that board members or the administration believe just based on what we're living and I and I know this some currently then we can definitely bring those to the Forefront initially um but then subsequent to that I think it's just striking the balance between the um the mandated updates and then the updates that we believe are relevant and meaningful to the school district I think it's is it safe to say that as far as mandated policies we're compliant and we're we're we're hand I that in in the required timely fashion so from from that compliance standpoint we're fine but from a modern language for an older policy that's that's a self- audit the ones that I'm reading it's mainly the ones that are specific to our district I think the ones that come through the the Strauss asme that they they're pretty standard they're mandated by the state but I'm talking like the graduation requirement policy the that came from the state the parking right yeah I mean that's a state State grad it's based on New Jersey Department of Education graduation requirements so um you the parking one that that's that's easy to update there's another one in there that talks still about the park test that doesn't even exist anymore right but so I it's more ones that are applicable to us is what when I when I'm reading I'm going through that I just think they're out they're very outdated and it really at least deserves just a quick read just to see so I just want to make sure so your question is can the policy committee meet more than what's on the schedule I think I'm that's what I'm asking is that the policy committee yeah I don't think we can wait three months in between right now with so many policies outdated so just being on the policy committee I would say I'm on board with you know going you know figuring out how to go through some of these policies and and updating them I mean that's totally fine I mean you know I can you know I don't know how we would do that I don't know what we would need to do I'm just letting you know I'm like I'm on the committee totally into it that so all four members just said they're fine with that so um yeah I really actually I like that idea of maybe we set a time frame of like all right last any everything needs to be at least 10 years current and then we can put a stamp on them that says like even just like review 2024 just so future board members know like all right they took care of this we can not worry about it for now let me start by seeing if there's a there's an efficient way to determine the older policies and at least that way I would want to like gather those and then we can begin to prioritize what we think needs to be updated okay we have a meeting coming up next month um I think that'll be a great opportunity to kind of take stop in terms of where we are do I I've been reading a lot of them been taking notes so do I just bring those ideas to our committee meeting sure sure okay it's fine is there a way you can summarize that in like a brief an email so we have some reference so we can come prepared just to maximize our time yes just not right I could do it to the committee correct I could do it to the committee because that's not a quorum yeah got it you just give it to me and I can just give it to the community absolutely yeah just I because I feel like you're you're very well researched on this but so instead of going verbally through it in the meeting if we come with an agenda um that's that's a great way to maximize our our time I think and Mark if you could send my list to the committee that would be great and if anyone else has ever sent in a list that would be great no one else has no but after tonight I think the list are going to be growing bigger I was going to say we could even just like divide it by four yeah we could break it up like so I think we've been spending a lot of our time on more so mandate updates which are voluminous um and I didn't want the board to feel like they were rubber stamping them because it was almost like well they mandates we're going to proove it anyway but even though they this mandated content the board still has an opportunity to make it its own so that's easy so at the committee um so at the policy committee meeting on April 15th will the committee then decide if you're going to meet meet again in may I suggest we talk about it at the committee meeting in terms of the direction we want to go in okay it's all is the committee is the policy committee happy with that okay um I don't remember if I said this so item Eight Second opportunity for comments second opportunity for board member comments are there any board members who wish to make a comment I would like to make a comment Nico um this is jumping back to January um the husty peg meeting it's been on my mind a lot especially talking about curriculum and and looking at the goals for the rest of the year um back then Mr Daniels had a round table but I also got a chance to speak with some of the um student services members and just like hearing little bits of things it was unoficial the things that they were doing and things we have implemented in the district I think it would be really beneficial for the board to hear all of those things especially at the K2 35 level um supporting struggling students and all of that so if they can brainstorm and come up with like what have they accomplished in the last say three or four years that we've implemented for an example we've brought in Orton Gillingham teachers or training teach stuff like that um I missed the beginning I was that was my rudess this was at the January so you're talking about special educational specifically um yes but not necess necessarily you focus on stem from the h stem from the huy pag Round Table in January but a lot of those things can be related to but not necessarily related to special ed but it's just things that new that are in place supporting our students that we may or may not have heard about in the last number of years because like they're just going through the motions and getting it done but it's never celebrated like this is a good thing like I heard I just want to be clear because it you said it came through that conversation so so we'll address it through the student Ser under the student services umbrella okay okay perfect thank you and I have um a report from the wellness committee right right um so on the mar on March 8th there was a districtwide s day um and we were um each group um had sort of a different theme so the K through five um um had they had um highlighted different seal lessons 6 through 12 was encouraging messages um of you know um I guess self-esteem and so they had mirrors throughout the uh the school and folks were um sort of giving themselves um encouraging messages and then at the um at the high school they were they were encouraging messages um painted on Windows and things um and they had a specific seal night at plld which had a whole theme um of a luau and they had different sessions about journaling and creating stress balls and different tools their games there was a dinner um they talked about meditation um families and students and staff were in attendance um we got a little update on kosis people are still continuing to use it um it's definitely benefiting the district and our partnership with Jewish Family and Children Services um um Jewish Children and Family Services will come and do a social media um presentation on um on May 1st and that'll be at uh the KP school at six o'clock um we had a campfire program in grades 1 and seven um so the GR one curriculum talked about self- advocacy uh communication self-awareness and then grade seven oh sorry grade seven was actually effective communication uh peerto peer and then student to adult um they are also booked for 2024 25 um there was a retraining on the stop it app um it hadn't been used and so they were relaunching the program um and there was a retraining and there had been two incident reports um in the past year there's been some response to some concerns about vaping Vape detectors uh in the bathroom testing those out um a speaker and then a newsletter sixth grade um was having a presentation by their peer leaders uh the wellness day at heightstown high school continues uh freshman and seniors are doing team building social emotional awareness sophomores they're doing Wellness workshops with journaling bibliotherapy yoga and art therapy um the Juniors have a guest speaker uh going to speak about mindfulness um social awareness and confidence um there will also be a staff Wellness day on April 16th um where they'll have raiki workshops Stress Management yoga a yoga workshop and some therapy animals that was that thanks who comes up with these ideas or activities the different schools um so I I believe that many times it's the counselors who come up with the programming and so they lead the groups and uh come up with um the different ideas um at the different schools and so I know that sometimes things will happen at one school and they won't necessarily happen at other schools but I think it's you know they kind of are trying to pass it around so hopefully things that go well in one area will also happen someplace else just one what's the stop it at I don't know if I've heard that so I hope I can describe it accurately and the specifics stop it the stop it is it's a it's an anonymous reporting tool so um we we implemented it at the 612 level kind of a soft roll out we did communicate it but we haven't aggressively communicated it so it's through a grant we don't no cost to the district um years ago uh there was a a security audit uh conducted here right before I arrived actually and there were a number of recommendations in there and and uh overwhelmingly most of those recommendations we called up on anything there's a host of things there whether it's additional cameras and um reinforcing Windows a host of issues one thing that was recommended you could probably like look at it as being you know maybe not as significant in terms of feedback but one recommendation was to have reporting tool and that Anonymous reporting tool could be um you know I'm concerned about being bullied right uh the anonymous reporting mechanism could be I heard some chatter about something inappropriate that was going to jeopardize the safety of the school right um so there's a host host of pieces there but the the key component was you know creating that level of anonymity so people could feel more comfortable sharing so we did partner with stop it we did imp we did we did implement it um but I think we need to do a more effective job in terms of making it known now you know some of and I'll say this quite candidly there's also a partnership with the police local police department so uh there's a memorandum of understanding that that that's also um connected with that so it's a 24-hour reporting mechanism stop it indicates that they will capture a report that comes in there's a group of um administrators I think our Council also attack to that who received these reports depending on where you work depending on the severity of the of what the report is obviously we we pick it up if something occurs uh let's say student you know reports something you know overnight right you know often times one of us will capture that if it's something um that appears to be of concern uh the police department may also be tacted at so they're also aware of it so it's something that we're looking to kind of um reset and restart um because we just think it's just another mechanism for us to be aware of something that may be problematic look the downside to this potentially is you know one of the concerns is that you know someone's falsely reporting uh but if they are there's also a mechanism for us to kind of track that IP address as well and there also a concern that if someone reports something that may not be ACC you know do we want to engage in the investigation that comes along with that you know leaning on resources to the buildings and we find out was really a nothing story but so it's one of those things we we just want to uh like I said um bring it back to the surface make sure people understand its purpose and and we're not saying it's going to solve everything but it serves as just something else um to let us know that something may be off that's really what it is are there any other board member comments um I just wanted to make one followup to the jfcs um presentation on the first even though it's just happening at preps it's a districtwide it's not just 6 through eight so it's K through 12 any family members community members can attend so and then I had a question myself that I just answered because I always worry about anonymous surveys and this is truly except if there somehow I just scanned the QR code that didn't ask me for my student ID it didn't ask me for anything so I was able to get in in about two seconds to see so unless they could figure out getting to my phone it's Anonymous but that would take some I'm sure subpoenas and stuff like that just to follow up on that Tina I would hope to um that they re that the schools really really publicize especially I think a lot of the K2 schools publicize the um the event at crrs because I think it would be beneficial um and Mark our students or Dave I don't know who would answer Dave is every are all students aware how was the app like was there a reminder sent to everybody launched it last last year I thought it was last year it was last year right so we launched we communicate the ram report I feel like everybody listens to the ram report I said it as much as I think there value I do think because it's new I think there was a little uneasiness in terms of like what this looked like and where we were going so um I think that was kind of our uneasiness initially realizing there's value behind it but we're looking to make sure we we try again any other comments is that is that the kind of thing that um you could put put posters up in common areas or oh there's a whole there's a whole kit oh yes yes indeed I mean there's plenty of visuals um that that come along with this but clearly we we can make it very very very well known were they were they used before or we used it to some degree but I don't think like I said I don't think we you know we W overly aggressive with the with the communication but we had some of that um we were also and Dav I could be I could be mistaken we were also a little uncomfortable in terms of like the app like the initial push was app driven and we were uncomfortable with like our middle school students and even really any of us since like downloading an app we really weren't like thrilled about that and we we went with like a link on the website as an option A little bit of a different approach so there are a few things like I said as we try it on for size that was kind of some of the things we worked through so I believe that we're in a we're in a better place now from the original flyer I see here too there's a phone number you can call and also submit a tip any other comments second opportunity for public comments is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak if there's none we'll move on to item nine having read the materials received I move the board approve the routine agenda items as submitted a staffing March 25th 2025 B Hib report from March 11th 20 24 C approved travel and related expenses virtual and in person D out of District placement e heightstown High School updated athletic schedule for spring 2024 F Professional Services for students G technology recycling batch number 46 H approve new field trip sites for upcoming trips I approve heightstown High School Surplus library books for disposal and donation J heightstown High School approve njs AA Cooperative sports program application for swimming K approve acceptance of the New York State Bar Foundation Grant G&R L Professional Services for the 2023 2024 school year and board minutes for March 11th 2024 and board minutes for the special board meeting March 14th 2024 and O Bill list of March 25th 2024 second any questions I have a question on line J the Cooper of sports program for swimming it says um I guess I just want to make sure that our heightstown high school students are not going to be negatively impacted by adding another school's swim team the application said there would be no cuts to our program I just need like a verbal confirmation of that because I know our swim program has always yeah well I know because it just said no Cuts but it he well the application also said like I was concerned because we already have 16 girls they're bringing 21 the boys were much lower but it's also for the next three years how do we how did we anticipate that we're not going to have enough students for the swim program B our feed are we don't have have a good predictor in terms of feeder you know Allentown who we're looking to partner with is in a similar predicament um so we're kind of future proofing where we are not seeing how this program is going to grow based on the level of Youth swim participation in the community um so look I I think this has be be completely honest I think if we find ourselves in a predicament where we we turn around year two and there's 60 students parti ating on swim and we think that's problematic then I don't think allent town is going to have an issue with us saying hey this is not going the way we anticipated it is a threeyear commitment um threeyear look back our program is is dwindling um so you know one of the fundamental expectations is that we can't hurt the student from either school but but definitely not not from Heights down High School we're not going to be a predicament where because of the co-op and we we experience the same thing with our ice hockey team in terms of us having the partnership with Lawrence and Yan it's the same expectation we can't hurt the kids we're doing it to help the kids and if we think it's going in the wrong direction then there's ways for us to work you know get out of there yeah I will say I think it's a positive um the reason why the numbers are dwindling if you go back two decades there was a brook tree swim club right near preps that went away 20 years ago um but as of right before Co t swim team went away um and that was the main feeder and they don't have it because insurance purposes they got too much um so whatever the numbers are now it's not going to improve so I think having Allentown come um would be helpful I'm wondering if it's going to be a co-ed team because even with eight boys that's not enough to fill a roster okay because that changes everything then when it comes to like you know Varsity points and competing against each other other like Tron has a co-ed team I I think the intent is still to maintain the boys and the girls team okay eight boys that's going to be rough small but powerful um and then because Allen Town is coming here um do they help pay for our pool maintenance then um and then also with insurance like with other kids now being here how does that work Insurance yes but and I'll followup regarding look sharing of cost is something that to me is a given but I'll get theic they they're thrilled by the way to had this opportunity I think they they were like when we competed against them they were a co-ed team I'm pretty sure unless it was Allentown of Robinsville partnered with each other but Allentown was always small and always needed something so any other questions pull the board please M Dr yes Miss L yes abstain from the line item with my name on it for line it for C approve travel related expenses thank you m Murphy yes Mr weeks yes Miss salty abstain from oh with my line name with the fingerprint reimbursement yes to everything else Miss Kia yes Miss laruso yes um there's no need for a second executive session so motion to adjourn have a good night