e e e there we go will you have notes my brain's your just I printed it out and then I was like I can't it I was like writing the numbers on the side my God I did not sleep well last night cuz I do not like this stuff there's going to be like two people here there's going to be like two people here don't I know I know the M work yes how about the mic doesn't work well that's I was like if I stand over there can they see me at home so where are we yeah where are we standing that we can be out of sight jus come on all they're going to see is the presentation oh they're not going to see the best the best I'll just as you guys flick through I'll flick through on here do we have a clicker yep okay going with first then actually I wish we were doing this first because I describe these interventions and then I talk about how we're using the titles and the oh be great I don't care no no no no we're not taking it do whatever she wants to do what she H she didn't say oh she didn't say I don't care you can we can go you first on the agenda has the you and one first all right fine go first I don't know if that means anything or no it's not it's better 7:30 was this I'm like oh my God like 15 minutes [Music] like there's Trails I've been going Trail to hiking and everything like that to change I can't be in here like I can't so course AG go like I come back I'm like right 6:00 full session I come in out right oh I like it good go to the bathroom so I can change looking at go upstairs like just I didn't even say anything I'm like maybe if I talk I just walk to the bathroom no one's going to notice me in my clothes I did have this in front of me like this is like luck I know I got three miles in I've been doing seven miles I'm morning when Chris work or doesn't work so I I get up at like 4:00 in the morning and then I'll go for a walk and it's like hilly and yeah yeah so I'm trying it's hard it's hard but I to get up the FL do you know what I kind of Cate it cuz I'm like tired of people like isn't that terrible I'm just like tired people like I just and it's the only time that have to myself I can listen to what I want to listen to I don't to kidf kids whatever the nonsense they want to listen to because now they know how to tell Alexa what to do so that's yeah like it's just like my time to just so no he he works nights so like if he's working nights so like if he's not working I can go out at whatever time he's kids if he's working he gets home around like 520 530 so then I'll go out at 5:30 I'll be like literally he's coming in I hear the garage are open and I have my shoes on I'm like going out so the most morning is I can get like 3 three and a half miles in but I like it I'm czy it like I'm enjoying it so you know what while I'm enjoying it I'm doing it and then like I'm sure one day I'll wake up and be like I can't do yeah we were good for a while and then I know even you and Denise at 5: in the morning we would see Linda running I drive up the her and then you sketch it's like around me I'm like I'm out there I'm like all right with the deer I'm with the deer I am and then one morning like a week ago I'm I'm walking along and I hear this strange barking and I'm like what is that and then I like I kid you not cuz it was still kind of dark out I see like the outline of a fox now normally SE things like I'll see them like freaking cares like but it it held its ground this little thing and it was barking at me but it was a distance way I'm like not going that way and so like not jogging CU I don't to think like I'm running hermit so like I'm walking away really fast I'm like in Amazon going all right I need to put like ma in my pocket because like not even for people but like animals so I have this little like personal ma but now it's it's going to get darker and I still go I do go out when it's dark already so I'm like do I get her collect the best so I become one of those [Music] people sorry then youd have to present by yourself next [Music] year get some time [Music] my who Russ both both kids really my son and my daughter I got cool what year are they Addison's going into seventh grade hey Justin how are you good how are you how your trip good thank you that's why I up I I stood up before like yeah packed meeting again so different when I started years ago it was always and the meetings would go to 1:00 in the morning every single resolution would be read and debated and then voted every single one oh and the board was divided like so they each wanted to try to get shots on the other one wasn't that your that know oh god oh they got Ron Graham had a gun put a bullet on this is for you three the police oh my God it makes sense CU we're going to have to three anyway yeah okay she's been very good I hated the most were when Dave was in trouble for teaching religion in the bathroom all the TV for like months nighted no [Music] Anderson what a mess that was and then he and P it there you know you know Clair I know him from and then for the one time he came here he was he was so difficult because it was his son that he got to [Music] record sorry I forgot to ask if anyone needed a separate vote for anything so does anyone need a separate vote on anything I think just pay a bill no separate VES yeah I don't think there was anything when I looked are every here are we in accordance with chapter 231 laws of 1975 open public meetings act this meeting is called to order to discuss regular board business please be advised that adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the Jersey journal and the Star Ledger notice of the meeting was filed with the office of the Town Clerk and posted on the district website roll call Dr boy here M here Mr car here here Mr McKenna here Mrs pedig here Mr Suarez here mrus here here pledge of [Music] aliance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands God indivisible andice for all approval of the [Music] minutes uh let's see uh we need a motion to approve the special meeting June 12th 2024 at 6:05 p.m. so move second discussion roll call back the boy yes Mrs B yes Mr Carri just was June 12 the special one we had you said yeah Special meeting it doesn't say absent for you you were at that one this the one on the bottom you were yes Mna yes Mrs ped yes Mr Suarez yes Mr biscuso yes president P yes I need a motion for the regular and closed session on June 17th 201 24 um Miss Paris you were absent so move second discussion roll call Dr boy yes Mr B yes Mr car yes Miss Linda feler yes Mr mcken yes Mrs pedig yes Mr Suarez yes Mr President not voting as I was absent I need a a motion for the special meeting Open Session June 24th 2024 6: p.m. U Mr car mruse are absent move second discussion roll call Dr Boy Yes Mrs F yes Mr car not voting Miss Linda feler yes Mr McKenna yes Mrs pedig yes Mr Suarez yes Mr without voting president passis yes and lastly I need a motion for the special meeting closed session June 24 2024 and U Miss Burke Mr Cary and Mr biso were marked absent so move second discussion roll call Dr Boy Yes Mrs Berg not voting Mr carry not voting Miss Linda feler yes Mr mam yes m gr yes Mr Suarez yes Mr viscuso I'm voting president Paris yes there are no observers go to committee reports first up athletic Student Activities Mr viscuso I had nothing to report on atics except that everybody received a copy of what went on of the eff committee meeting okay curriculum instruction Dr boy [Music] oh sorry a curriculum and instruction did not meet in July and I know there are some people who are relieved that they're not following the curriculum and instructions repard next up facilities Mr Tes uh that's not the Mark I I hope Dr Bo Dr Bo wasn't referring to me I I miss her report imens uh I just like to say that we have plenty of projects in progress this summer and we just had a bid opening uh yesterday and Paul uto was the lowest bidder this was for the Franklin school classroom Improvement and it was [Music] 2,738 th000 which our cost estimate was almost $4 million so that was a great number to get in so uh right now it's in review so hopefully that all go through the fine and we can start that project also that's a l okay next up Finance Mrs Burke I Look to Mr fio ly Finance did meet this week uh last week actually um tonight uh Dr Le and myself will be presented the federal audit results for the 2324 Federal audit that's it okay um negotiations Labor Relations Personnel Ms lynen feler um no report for negotiations and Labor Relations for personnel everything is on the agenda except we have two retirements Michael keski maintenance after 22 years of service to the Carney Public Schools and Robert winsky head custodian after 36 years of service to Carney Public Schools next and that concludes my report thank you policy Mr McKenna no report we didn't need this all okay so we have a couple of presentations this evening we're going to begin with uh Mr Fen and Dr lebek uh for the collaborative Bing audit report [Music] no way [Music] out I know okay the first [Music] thing forward and back I'm follow let me switch over give me one second [Music] ready um thank you everyone tonight we're going to we're going to present the 2324 collaborative Federal monitoring presentation um on October of 2023 the district was notified by the Department of Education that carne was picked to be part of one of the 15 school districts of New Jersey that they were going to be audited for all of the federal grants for the 2324 school year here so they let us know that the last week of April they were going to look at all of our federal grants and this was going to be taken virtual um this is one of the first audits that the car school district has ever had that was going to be taking place in regards to all of the federal grants at once we had single federal grants audits before but not all of them at once we do get audited yearly with it with our regular audited but not with the federal uh within within the state for all of them want um this take place in U in the last week of a of April um they about two weeks before April or about two months they we met with the state it was Flor aliki Dr left check on myself just to see how the process was um you know they they told us that they were going to request uh all the PO vouchers the payroll records more policies more minutes and then we're going to really dig into all of the reports to make sure that we're in compliance with all of the federal laws and state laws uh they uh we make sure that we try to make sure that the process was running smoothly that they had all the required documents that it was all on time the first day of the audit uh they the state asked Flora Mr caral to make sure that to say if there was about 20 27 people from the state on that meeting and it was Miss Dr Le and myself uh to say something about the Cory school districts anything special about the school districts and M Mrs inel did and the St was pretty impressed with all the great programs that we are providing for our students um after that it started to break down into breakout sessions and Dr left check actually took care like was part of that afterwards um until our next page these are all of our federal grants that we do get from the from the state the all of them at the top is what we usually get yearly until we get to the Arps this is the one that we got through CO as a one-time uh onetime funding that that's the one that's going to be ending this October 15th which was the 11,1 197,000 so as you can see for the as of 23 24 it was just short of $6 million of federal funding that the County School District did receive okay use of fund so um thank you as the uh District supervisor of federal programs I oversee a majority of the federal funds so I thought it was important to go through how we're using the different title funds and um because we do fund so many of our initiatives from here so for title one we use our academic support instruction teachers in the elementary and middle school we also have our elementary family engagement teams our um Family engagement team at the middle school our academic support after school programs and our summer programs right now the academic support after school programs and the summer programs are being funded through uh ARP because they specifically have subg grants to um address those needs but once that funding source comes to an end in uh October then then title one is going to take that over again so I've already budgeted for that um in submitting the application for this fiscal year title two we use that for outed District learning opportunities for teachers administrators so many of the workshops that um we attend out of District that's all covered under title two as long as it's not any type of Workshop or professional development that's a requirement we have our district-wide professional development again a lot of the um presenters that we bring in on our in service days they get funded out of title 2 we have our partnership with fairly Dickenson University for the ESL Certification program that's funded through title 2 as well as the NJCU Special Education certification partnership so that comes out of federal funding for title three we have our family engagement events our multilingual learner tutoring program our after school tutoring program for the newcomers and also our newcomer summer program and under title three immigrant we have our College and Career advisor for high school students our tuition free ESL classes for parents uh with our partnership with the carne Adult School our tuition free language classes for faculty and staff and the know your rights parent workshop and then under title four we have our K to2 after school enrichment program which is different from the academic assistance program it offers students a chance to just learn different things so teachers bring what they're passionate about and students can um learn learn from them and we have our academic assistance lunch programs our Lunch Lab programs at the middle school and high school where students can get assistance with um math and language arts during lunch our seala by literacy testing comes out of title 4 many of you know how passionate I feel about that so I'm not even going to go there with that but I'm so happy that we can do this because many of our students wouldn't be able to take this assessment if it wasn't for a title 4 our dual enrollment courses at the high school and then our Multicultural awareness program is funded at a title for and then the RRP the American Rescue plan our academic after school programs for the um past two years have been funded from ARP our uh prek through 12 summer programs our SAT prep course promethium board purchase um our family engagement events that were held this year they were building base in the elementary school so those were in addition to those other family engagement um events that I described this was something extra our data uh data leadership teams that we have in each of the buildings and also the elementary air conditioning projects were funded out of the ARP so you can see that we have many different programs that come out of these federal grants so now the findings um finding one under title one was that the district did not provide documented evidence that it conducted a comprehensive needs assessment CNA to include active participation of all representative stakeholder groups so basically under title one we are supposed to engage all our stakeholders in developing how we're going to use these funds so the state wanted to see something formal um they wanted documentation that showed okay all these people met on this state we weren't able to produce that but I can assure you that there is collaboration that takes place among our stakeholders and many of the programs that are funded under the titles uh the parents that uh whose students participate in it our students and our teachers receive surveys at the end of these programs and one of the questions that I always include in the survey is what can we do to improve our program and what would you like to see so while we didn't have that piece of paper to hand the uh monitors showing okay yes we met on this date there is collaboration that takes place and um these programs are a result of that so um moving forward we will have a more formal process with our stakeholders that we can document and show our monitors that we are meeting that requirement finding two it looks like a lot it really isn't it's related to our uh middle school program the annual School plan so the district did not certify that the school met the esa stakeholder engagement group requirements the ASP listed only one development team meeting during the year and no supporting documentation was uploaded the district did not upload the required evidence in the evaluation of prior intervention section of ASP the budget totals do not align to the school level allocations as listed in Esa uh consolidated sub Bret application while it looks like a lot these really are minor infractions and again these um meetings are taking place um some of these were even addressed before the monitoring process was over but they had already I guess started the report and had included these items but we did our best to address these concerns so moving forward uh we will work with the together with the Middle School to make sure that all these documents are part of this plan I also should mention that the platform that we use to put this plan is um it's not the best platform and even the monitors have admitted that so sometimes files will get uploaded and they get deleted or if two people are working on the plan at the same time it won't record that uh so that's a shortcoming on their side which they acknowledge but we will work together to make sure that when they do return that this is all um documented and it's satisfying the requirements finding three for title one was that the district did not provide evidence of a school level parent and family engagement policy for each Title One funded school or that a policy was widely distributed to parents and families so what this um means is that they were looking for a school level policy for for each School Mrs andares and I in the fall we worked on updating the District level policy and the school level family engagement policy however they wanted to see that each school had an individual School level family engagement policy so um with the start of the new school year we plan to address that we're going to develop a survey that each of the principles can send out to the parents in their districts so that we can develop a school level family engagement policy that's tailored to the needs of each school and that was it for fi for title one for title three finding one the district did not have a monitoring process in place for newly exited students from the multilingual learner status so we are required to track our multilingual learners for two years after they exit um after they are identified as multilingual Learners and exited from the program so what the district wants to see or I'm sorry what the state wants to see they want to see forms for each of those students that shows that the teachers that they currently have are monitoring their progress and that we're looking at that data and making sure that they're not falling through the cracks what I can say about our multilingual Learners is that even after they exit if we're noticing that they need academic support we provide that to them um on occasions where a teacher thinks that maybe they have to come back into the program we'll re-evaluate that student and see if they do need that extra support and if it's something that they need we will bring them back into the program although it's rare um I also should note that even though the um the the cut cut off score for students exiting the program is 4.5 sometimes we have students who reach that 4.5 and we don't exit them right away because teachers feel that they could use additional support for a year so we aren't quick to exit our students as much as we want our numbers to go down our class sizes to be smaller our teachers are not going to just exit a student if they're not prepared so um this rarely happens that we have students coming back in but moving forward we will have a formal process and we will have forms that teachers are filling out and we will do our best to monitor those students to make sure that everyone is receiving the services that they need and Y when we look at the administrative part of this audit there were two findings the first finding was that the district submitted board policies for examinations which address certain uniform Grant guidance Provisions copies of the request uh requisit weing procedures to implement soci policies however were not provided for review as requested or were inadequate um we did provide all the policies uh the district does use stress asme what this finding was that one of the policies that we do use the stress asme had uh the wrong citation in the policy uh and one of the citation was that it was It was supposed to be 200-214 strust Esme had 200- 213 um we did notify strust Esme about this error that it was in the adopted policy that the district have this finding was the most common finding in all of the districts because a lot of district has trust esate so it was just it wasn't anything that the district kind of did wrong it was just something that the wrong citation was in the policy so that that was just what this find in was in regards to find number two um a PCH uh a number of purchase orders uh order voucher packets were selected and examined during monitoring the district was enabled to provide evidence that a bid and multiple quotes were obtained uh as a public school district were supposed to follow the public school contract law uh the two uh purchase orders that they selected and they picked um one of them was for uh curriculum for the schools and the other one was for a preschool provider that we currently use um as a for we uh during this audit they we are supposed to follow the more restrictive of the two laws if it's a federal procurement process or a state procurement process and we and there's the federal procurement laws do do not have any exceptions that the same that that the state have so we have to go with the most restrictive so you know moving forward we just have to make sure that we are getting the adequate quotes when needed to or that we do have to go out to bids um we currently are fix we currently are fixing both of those uh those two POS that they picked and uh are in the in the report that everybody has um so that's that second finding that we have there no findings all right my favorite slide so um out of all the titles that they looked at Title 1 Sia title 2 a title 3 immigrant title uh 4 a idea Arps are and the related subgram there were no fiscal or program findings so um I think all things consider we never want to have findings but even going into this process they told us that there would be a corrective action plan they're going to find something um so at least with these grants we were doing everything right we had the documentation that they had asked for and um there were no findings any of those titles and what are our next steps as after this presentation we had 30 days to present this to the board um after tonight the the report that was provided to the district and what we have outside it will be published in our district website we will put it under the board of act um the administration we will have to develop a corrective action plan to tackle all of the six findings that we have um the plan will be presented to the board again during our next board meeting the board will have to adopt the the corrective action plan um upon the approval of the bo of the cap we will submit it to the office of fiscal accountability and compliance and once they um once they approve it and that's significant they will come back and visit us I believe for 6 months after that to make sure that we are that we fix all the fin finds and that we are in compliance with that um throughout this process again we've never had this before this was something new and after reading I I definitely read all of the I think eight audits that they had there this audit was very good for the district out of all of the you know I you know some of them had a lot of more findings so I do want to say that Dr Le did did really Co with the state that the state was very impressed with all of the F like all of the programs that we are offering to our kids they are very very very happy with everything that we are offering to them that's that's it thank you guys um does this monitoring does it affect our funding at all will not impact our funding okay cuz that's really what everyone want no it will not impact our funding I would assume you'd have to be pretty bad to lose your funding yeah no we we have our funding please yes who are the people in Old back that are going to come and revisit oh it's so many people back the void there were about 27 people in that meeting so each title have had about five people that does each Grand so we were dealing with like different people for each grand um they do have a head like Lisa like she was the head of it but each there had a different department for each of the grants I think did you have a question no I just anybody else thank you guys I would just say before you go uh and Echo uh what Mr ful and say said regarding Dr L and her work with the grants um the organization uh attention to detail with the requirements and also everything that's provided to the students uh we have such a range of variety for our kids and it's really impressive and they were impressed and in addition to that Mr fulin uh I had a pleasure of sitting through a lot of these breakouts with them and I heard more than once um how impressed they were with what he was producing the timeliness of it the organization uh they would make comments like this was the fastest fiscal break out ever and I think that says a lot with all of the districts that they uh do this with that that the kind of commentary that they were uh giving time and time again with each of these breakouts so I commend both of them for their work [Applause] than yes it quite evening I will be presenting the NJ GPA scores the New Jersey proficiency assessment and Dr Le will be uh presenting the access scores so the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment is given to all 11th graders to determine their um for um the purpose of meeting their estate graduation assessment requirement um the test is students are tested in ela and Mathematics the ELA component is aligned to the grade 10 uh standards and the math component is aligned to the algebra 1 and geometry standards students receive a score in both English language arts and Mathematics and the performance levels are measured by not yet graduation ready and graduation ready so this past year in March of 24 we test Ted 404 students one more than last year in 22 was the first year of this test um Carney students were 33.5% graduation ready um this was 5.9% behind the scene moving to 23 uh Carney students were [Music] 81.6% graduation ready and that was um we were 1.1% over the state um the difference in scores from 22 to 23 you see a large difference between the state and the district the increase it's because the state changed the cut score so the cut score in 22 was 750 and they lowered it to 725 so now we're comparing really 20 3 to 24 with the same cut scores so I'm happy to share in 2024 85.4% of our 11th graders were um graduation ready and this was a 3.8% increase from last year breaking it down by ethnicity and race in 22 we were able to report out our Hispanic students were 29.5% graduation ready black and African-American students 30.8% and white students 44.1% you'll notice going forward not all Races and ethnicities are recorded because we have to suppress subgroups that have less than 10 students this is to protect our students so in 23 we were able to share our Hispanic and Latino students There Was 80 .9% graduation ready and our white students 85% in 24 our Hispanic students increased by 3.8% our white students we're at 83.8% and our Asian students at 100% for Eli by program our free reduced lung for 22 was at 34.8% 504 27.8% ell uh 2.2% special ed 1.9% and our general Ed was at 38.1% moving to 2023 our free and reduced lunch increased to 77% 504 81.8% % elll 23.8% special ed increased to 55.6% and General Ed 86.5% looking at this past March our free and reduced students increased 6.5% to 83.5 our 504 students increased 6.2% to 88% our elll students increased 32.9% to uh 56.7% passing our special ed students increased 6.9% to 62.5% and our general Ed increased 3.2% to 89.7% passing gender in 22 see 41.5% of females passed the assessment and 26.2% of males in 23 increased 85.9% of females and 77.7% of males in 24 our females increased by 4.1% bringing them to 90% passing and our males 3 2% increase to 80.9 mathematics you'll see in March we tested 416 students this was 12 students more than less than the previous year but 12 more students than we tested in Eli the reason for that is our newcomers that receive services for elll um they're not required to take the English part of the test they have to take the math test but they have a buy for the first year so those students that didn't test in March our new um newcomers they'll test in October of their senior year they'll take this test for the first time so in 22 we had 33% of our students passing in 23 39.7% and in 24 we increased 3.3% to 43% ethnic City and race in 22 Hispanic students were at 29.8% black and African-American students 46.2% and our white students at 41.4% in 23 Hispanic and Latino 39% proficient Asian 60% and white 40% for mathematics in 2020 4 our Hispanic students increased 1.6% to 40.8% our Asian students increased 13.3% to 73.3% and our white students increased 3.9% to [Music] 43.9% program uh free and reduced lunch for mathematics in 22 was 32.9% 504 3.5% um our elll students were at 6.5% special ed 1.9 and General Ed 38.4% moving to 23 we increased uh free and reduced is at 42% 42.5% 504 36.4% elll increased to 14.9% special ed increased to 6.3% % and General Ed to 45.5% comparing 23 to 24 are uh free and reduced increased by 4% our 504 students decreased by4 um our elll students increased by 16.9% our special ed students also increased 7.8% and our general Ed um sorry our special ed increased by 1.5% our general Ed increased by 3.99% bringing them to [Music] 49.4% gender this was females in 22 were at 33% males were at 34.4% 23 females 40.3% and males 39.2% um comparing 23 to 24 our females increased by 6% bringing them to 46.3% and our our males were at 39.8% academic interventions we're going to start with Ela these are the interventions that we're using for the high school pertaining to just um do you want me to do it oh you're doing it yeah right for ELA um some of these interventions are also used throughout the district for K through 12 students so like differentiated learning or individual and small group instruction that's provided by the classroom teacher learning II is a program that our students have access to it has a generous library of audio books and also visual text um that support uh reading comprehension me beam to an Adaptive vocabulary development program achieve 3,000 supports development of the reading Lexile growth sips was used at the high school for a small uh special ed group um for reading instruction um there was a five-week summer program that included reading interventions our in-house tutoring sessions uh that were provided during lunch periods at Lincoln and the high school and this past year we had a academic literacy intervention class for our nth graders to support learning for in mathematics our differentiated learning instruction provided by the classroom teacher I ready was used by a special ed group up the high school all of our students use en Visions curriculum Desmos is an interactive and creative program for mathematic instruction to increase skill development formative uh it enables teachers to work online with the students students they could see the students answers in real time and provide feedback to them there was a foundations of mathematics class it was an algebra 1 intervention class for our ninth graders Alex was brought in to also help the high school students it was a computer program to help with topics that they're ready to learn the five-week summer program had mathematic uh interventions and also the in-house tutoring centers is at uh L and the high school also help the students with mathematic um deficits now I bring it to the access sces Dr Leb is going to share these okay so the AIS for L's um it's an annual assessment that we administer to our multilingual Learners to uh determine their English language proficiency and uh it's solely based on their academic English language it's not based on content areas so there are six proficiency levels entering emerging developing expanding bridging and reaching um in the four domains that the students are tested in Reading Writing listening and speaking they receive a proficiency level score and then from the um four scores that they receive there's a composite score that the students will receive so um once the student reaches the expanding level and they score 4.5 that's what when the state says we can consider that student to exit the program um but we have to consider multiple measures so we have to use benchmark assessments um grades teacher observation so um even if they reach that 4.5 they um we have to have other uh factors that support them exiting the program so we have our scores going back to uh 2021 and I'm going to just refer to the bottom row for right now uh as far as exiting the program in 2021 we had 11% of our students in 2022 was 10% in 2023 it was 5.6% and this year it is 7.7% so we increased by 2% and I know that we want to see these numbers going up instead of um going down but if you look at the totals of our program you can see that we've had a significant increase in the number of multilingual Learners in our district so uh 2021 431 and 2022 65 7 in 2023 770 and then this year we have 997 students so we've over a period of 3 years have more than doubled the amount of multilingual Learners that are in their District so um while that's 7.7% may seem small I'm actually really proud of that because um it's out of our 97 students and many of our students that are coming to the district they're um especially coming out of the pandemic they they did not have formal education they don't have the foundational skills in their home language that they can transfer to um when they're learning English uh they've been through trauma they are in not the best living conditions they they have so many different hurdles that they're overcoming they truly are res resilient um so again 7.7 we'll see that increase next year when I was presenting last year I remember looking at that 5.6 and saying we're going to increase that and we will increase the 7.7 but it takes time language development on average takes 7 to 10 years for someone to become fully proficient in a language and what we're asking them to do to keep up with language and the content it's um a tremendous undertaking and we try to provide as many supports as we can for them but still it takes time so looking at our elementary you can see that we had some increases in our grade two uh in increased by 10% this year as well as our grade 5 you're going to notice that the kindergarten in grade 1 is low and that's um to be expected because we do have some of our multilingual Learners who are born in the United States but are living primarily in households where the language is a language other than English so they'll come into the program in kindergarten in grade one and by grade two they are making strides and they are exiting the program so that is fairly quick that we're seeing them um make those gains in the Middle School um for this year we saw an increase from last year which is fantastic um I know that our middle school has been really working to uh make sure that the students have the the services that they need and especially we see a tremendous rise in the number of students coming in at the middle school level so I'm really proud of those numbers and then at the high school we also see an influx of students arriving because they want to come to the United States learn English and graduate with a high school diploma so um the high school is unique in that our 10th grade is usually where we see an increase because then if they're coming in as 10th graders then they have enough time to uh eventually graduate so that's our high school and then as far as supports for our multilingual Learners um academic interventions we have our after school ESL tutoring program our ESL summer program both of those programs focus on the needs of our newcomers we updated the ESL curriculum in grades 7 through 12 that was presented at CI in September and that was in response to the the needs coming out of covid and also the influx we recognized that we needed to update our curriculum to meet the needs of our students our academic support instruction teachers that are specifically for our ESL students so that was a new initiative this year at Washington school where we saw uh the greatest need we added an academic support teacher specifically to work with our multilingual Learners and um give them an extra period of support during their writing period in the classroom so that's something that we're doing um we're trying to increase that in some of the other schools too to give them that additional period uh for our newcomers our ASL bilingual certification program with our partnership with Fairley Dickinson so in December we will have 23 teach teachers who are certified ESL teachers in District who decided to pursue this program out of those 23 teachers 12 of them pursued the bilingual certification so we'll have um 11 who are certified in bilingual Spanish and one bilingual Portuguese and the plan was not to take them out of their content area or take them out of their classroom and bring them into the department this was rooted in having teachers who are in those areas who have this deep knowledge and understanding of working with our students so that they can be successful in all of their classes um outside of the their ESL bilingual classes our sheltered instruction training we hold this annually for our general education teachers who work with our MLS and that um training is a 15-hour training where they learn strategies and uh different approaches to working with our students we have our ESL instructional coach who was an addition to the team this year and she has um been wonderful working with our teachers and especially these teachers who attended the sheltered instruction training she's a great followup to that training so they go to this training and then they have her to support them and help them Implement some of these strategies so that our students can be more successful and the supplemental ESL curriculum guide this is something that was developed this year with um our curriculum team and the ESL coach and the purpose of this guide is to um kind of bring everything together for our ESL teachers as far as all the resources we have available in our district so that they can use them as effectively as possible to help our students make those gains um some additional supports that we have we have our immigrant social worker um and Community involvement specialist she works with our immigrant families and she connects them with resources to help them meet their basic needs with um food clothing uniforms uh whatever they may need she also developed a community resource guide for our parents so that is something that we're um happy that we can distribute to them to help them um as they come into this new school Community our seala by literacy is another way of celebrating and recognizing um a second language College and Career advisor so this is um you know how I said we have surveys from our programs this came from that where um we were having students that wanted help with the financial a process the college application process uh their resumés looking for scholarships like what's that next step be on high school so this year we had our College and Career advisor it was um well received by the students at the high school so we're going to continue it for this year we have our ESL Honor Society we just had our uh first induction in June really proud of our students uh it's a way of recognizing their uh academic accomplishments and having them become leaders for their peers that are in the the um ESL program and they're really eager to get started in September and start um they have lots of ideas so I'm really excited to help them move forward and uh see what they bring to the table I know they're going to do great things at the high school we have our ESL bilingual family engagement team they hold monthly meetings um on Saturdays which uh kudos to the team for giving their time on Saturday are so passionate about helping our families and the the I don't know if you have seen the posts on on social media but it has grown tremendously and our families are really uh it's really building a community among our families they do just wonderful activ ities with them our right to know Workshop series it's a workshop series to inform parents of immigrant rights in the United States this has also been popular we're going to continue it this coming school year and then our ESL classes for parents this was something that parents kept asking for and finally we formed a partnership with our um Carney adult school and this past fall we were able to budget for and it was out of title funds for 70 parents to take the course and then in the spring another 70 parents were able to take the course yeah and attendance was pretty good they pretty much kept to it so um those are some supports that we have in place and hopefully with all these supports in place we will continue to see those um those you know the percentage of students who are exiting uh increase but also we want to recognize that language acquisition does take time so slowly but surely they will get there they're wonderful wonderful students and that's everything that [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] sorry that's [Music] okay I'm [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] goor okay next up we'll do report of the superintendent Mrs Carn thank you president Paris at this time I'm requesting ing uh that the board approve part one uh Personnel items a through I so moved second discussion roll call Dr Boy Yes M yes Mr car yes M lter yes Mr M yes M yes Mr Suarez yes Mr mcus yes president yes I also request approval of part two non-personnel items a through K so move second discussion roll call Dr yes Mr yes Mr car yes Miss Linda feler yes Mr M yes Mr P yes Mr Suare yes Mr yes presid yes and finally I request approval of the addendum items a through D discussion roll [Music] call yes Mr B yes Mr yes M Linder yes Mr yes Mr pedig yes Mr Suarez yes Mr biscuso yes president Paris yes and that concludes my report thank you president Paris thank you next up report of the business administrator and board secretary Mr [Music] fight [Music] G second discussion roll call Dr boy yes Mr ber yes Mr Harry yes Miss Linda felzer yes Mr Mna yes Mrs pedig yes Mr Suarez yes Mr President yes look at the motion to approve payment of bills so move second discussion roll call back the void yes Mrs bird yes Mr car yes Miss Lind feler uh yes with the exception of any checks made payable to Ken Lindon feler due to a conflict of interest Mr McKenna Yes except for any check me out to the cation I have conflict Mr P yes Mr Suarez yesid yes with the exception to any check written to little friends as I have a [Music] conflict so moved second discussion roll call Dr boy yes Mr yes Mr carry yes M fer yes Mr M yes Mrs P yes Mr Suarez yes mrus yes president yes personel motion to approve a through z so moved second discussion roll call yes Mr B yes Mr Mr Cary yes M Lind fer yes Mr mum yes Mr pedig yes Mr Suarez yes Mr viscuso yesid yes lastly looking for motion to approve A1 and A2 move second discussion roll call yes Mr yes Mr car yes Miss Linda fer yes Mr mcon yes Mr pedig gr yes Mr Suarez yes Mr puso yes president par yes thank you next up report of the board attorney Mr Linden Felder nothing for 050 okay does anybody have any new business any observers would like to speak yes just state your name and address for the record please sure good afternoon one and all uh my name is Dion r d y n rello r a b e l l o I live at 196 Oakwood Avenue here in Cy uh my niece attends Skyla school I'm also the Secretary of Ian calun col Cultural Center we are one of the two Islamic centers in the town um my question today to you is that how can we apply to be considered for the E holiday to be part of maybe 25 is too late but maybe 26 on the part of the calendar for the for the students what is a application process what we need from from you guys so there isn't uh an application process per se um that is something that has been on the table for us for the past couple of years um you know we have to work within the confines of of the months that we have and the number of days that we're required to offer school and account for the different holidays Etc so um we've been trying to find a way to actually acknowledge that day uh noting that the population is there that um does uh celebrated so we're hoping that uh within the next year that we can somehow incorporate that holiday as well in addition to the others that we have and still be able to uh maintain the calendar beginning and end stes that are reasonable and uh that work with the school year thank you uh second question um I know that there has been some consideration especially at the high school for students being able to pray during the school day because one of the main prayers of the five daily prayers Falls just about 1:00 mainly throughout the year so I just wanted to know can we get your clearance uh for the students throughout the year especially the middle school and high school students even it's it can become mandatory for some of the elementary students in the higher grades so just wanted to know if there's something that we can and understand between the community and the Board of Education that the students have maybe some area that they can use where they can perform their prayer uh each day so we've already um had those types of requests in the past and so um there's really uh two parameters that we have to follow and one is that we can provide a space that is not needed for instruction or any other purpose uh for the school um and then also in addition to that it can't disrupt uh the child's educational process so um if there's certain times of day if that impedes on the child's schedule or the activities that they're obligated to perform right as part of their education um then that would be uh an issue but outside of that if there's a lunch period a recess uh times that don't impact that and then we work to provide that uh space within the building we have accommodated that in the past I did check with u Skyler school um there's some lunchtime time allocation available and even the afternoon recess that's available as well so that's something that if we coordinate with the building principal we can certainly look to accommodate okay I appreciate it thank you so we can connect afterwards of course okay thank you