##VIDEO ID:stRQ1kFBIeM## here here sorry else adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the following means I notice was sent to the Record newspaper Township Kirk posted in the lobby of the town hall and board office set forthcoming schedule work meetings and public meetings to the board have a motion to approve the minutes second call Mr four Mr androp M pasam four Mr Pas Mr four Mr Dr for Mo um get right to the state monitor report I have reviewed the financial reports for the month ending June 2024 and support tonight's resolution that certifies that there are sufficient funds available based on the June financials to meet the district's Financial Obligations for the remainder of the 2324 school year this is also supported by our AUD auditors preliminary review of our June 30 2024 financials that show a positive closing balance the district is working closely with our auditor to finalize our June 30th 2024 audit which should be concluded in the next few months I have also reviewed and discussed the resolutions on tonight's agenda with Mr dorso and support his recommendations to the board that they approve all of the resolutions on tonight's agenda that concludes my report for this evening I'd like everyone to like to introduce Emily she will be our new vice president at the vice principal vice president principal at the high school all right superintendent report thank you Mr pasano um welcome to everyone and yes um welcome Miss riging um when Personnel uh does get approved tonight Emily will be appointed uh the new high school vice principal so congratulations to her and Welcome to our team sir um central Office Team and all the administrators have worked really hard throughout this summer um making um hires and um you'll see on tonight's agenda Personnel is um uh separate now so if um you'll see our agenda and then our Personnel there's quite a few hires um each summer there's always uh transitions teachers leaving and coming into our district so um we have new teacher orientation uh this week so we're excited about that that um and um districts have struggled you know over the past years hiring teachers we really did a great job and we're pretty much 100% staff to start um our school year so really excited about that um the district as a whole did a lot uh throughout the summer I can't believe uh it's almost over we're about to start the school year um but come back in September um I'm going to do a formal presentation with hopes that there's some more people from the public here to really showc showcase some the projects that we did throughout the summer and throughout the tail end of the school year uh tonight we have a presentation um on the NJ GPA so it would have been a little too much to have two and I I kind of had a sense that there might not be a lot of people here from the public so I'm going to hold off uh for that in September but I am going to highlight some of the things that we did um over the summer uh Jefferson School um if you take a ride by Jefferson School uh the gym area uh was the the facade was repaired and building was completely repainted uh we did a Gaga pit off the back of Jefferson uh school as well um towards the end of the school year in June we did a complete uh camera system at Franklin School that was upgraded um with cameras throughout the building and um monitors and now that's a direct feed into the lers uh police department um that was done um Washington School playground um was upgraded um towards the middle end of last school year um and then um we had gotten some student concerns um about the high school training uh trainers room so we upgraded that this summer new lighting new flooring uh new equipment so that got a little bit of a facelift um also in June we upgraded the field lights at the high school so I think it's been what two years three now three years we have uh the new turf field but we upgraded to LED lights um which is going to save the district money in the long run as well um so we did that um the high school also got um a new fence um to kind of close in that High School field so we actually had some extra fencing here um at the middle school from when we built this building and we extended that fence uh down by the main parking lot there and sort of close off um the trainers room and the team room and that will help with crowd control and I think that looks actually really cleans it up and makes the area look very um very aesthetically pleasing um and then this week actually if if you take a ride you probably might not have been able to get by the high school because they're Paving the front of w AV but when you do when it is repaved if you take notice um we uh the township thank you to um superintendent gr and the township workers um and I believe there was a paving company involved as well um that street work the front of word is being completely repaved but they also upgraded the front entrance to the high school so it has a brand new sidewalk and a nice apron at the bottom of it so when the students exit the building uh they're not necessarily walking on the grass the concrete was really extended um and then it was extended onto the street as well the um the tree apron um parts of it were also um cemented so that when students are getting out of the car off their bus they have a clean entrance into the front of the building so that was done so uh thank you again um for the to the township and then finally um we got someone fortunate news um early in the summer that the Jefferson boiler um is really uh not operable and not going to be able to be repaired for for this winter so we are in the process of replacing the boiler at Jefferson School um so that's a large project that's actually uh starting tomorrow um so although it was unfortunate we're excited that um now Jefferson is going to be what the fourth or fifth school that has had uh or is receiving a new boiler um over the past couple cou years we've really tried to allocate resources um to upgrade and be proactive in our buildings this was more reactive but um Jefferson has two boiler two very old boilers um and we're going to condense those into one so they'll have a very energy and ficient and a brand new boiler um for the winter uh throughout the district we also uh this summer cleaned up landscaped and over the last week or so we've been mulching and preparing the front of the buildings um to start school so we're excited about that as well so um aside from that I just want to point everyone on the agenda to page 13 and 14 um twice annually the district is responsible to report our hi grades so if you look at page 13 um towards the bottom it speaks to our self assessment hip grades and then if you really look on the top of page 14 and in the middle of 14 you will see um the reporting period from January to June so the district's responsible to report these numbers out twice a year um we do so um at the end of December for um for September to December and then we have to report from January to June so these are our our um numbers um you can see those again on page really it's page 14 it starts to read on the bottom of 13 but carries on to the top of 14 and so um we do have a presentation um tonight on the NJ GPA um but I believe there's going to be a motion make a motion to watch the presentation at the end of the meeting do I have a second a second okay so um you need to take all in favor I okay so the NJ GPA presentation will we move to the end and I just want to mention one one more thing um I almost forgot um the district for the first time in a very long time did a summer newsletter and I have copies here um for um anyone in the audience tonight that that did not receive a newsletter but um I'm going to put them out front um it was a beautiful newsletter that we did we sent to every family um not just in the district but in um in the township um and working with the mail I I learned a little bit about bulk mail and I realized that it's actually cheaper to send the newsletter to every household in the township rather than just uh the families in our district because by doing so I can apply for a bulk rate permit since I'm a school district and the postage is so much cheaper which I guess makes sense the more I thought about it they don't have to sort the mail and actually look to see who gets it and who doesn't by just doing this bulk permit um we're able to give it to every um household in the township and I thought that was was nice anyway so um every family um in uh got this newsletter and it I think it really came out really very nice and I got so many positive uh so much positive feedback on it I want to do it a couple times a year um but some of the things highlighted in here were things that we talked about really throughout the year um but I just wanted to kind of um let the community know all the positive things happening throughout the township so you'll see um there's a special education classroom that's highlighted in the newsletter that won a um a state award some athletes um Anthony and Julia um who were student athletes of the year um I believe for um it was for the newspaper um The Observer um and that's the first time in a long time that there's been the mail and the female of both from the same Township they're highlighted in there the fbl is fbl is highlighted in there um as everyone knows people that come regularly come to the board meetings the fbaa um is highlighted every year for all the awards that they receive so there are some outstanding Awards they received again that's highlighted um the middle school there's a new schedule um in the middle school so that is highlighted with some of the electives and of course our beautiful culinary lab and then a program that I'm really very excited about is um and it actually classes were the first started today students seniors at Linhurst High School were able to attend Felician University today was the first day for classes and our students were on their campus it was it was amazing I attended their orientation I believe it was last week um we have close to 50 seniors taking classes on the campus at Felicia University and receiving credit um to do so they're going to have a jump start on College and I'm really excited about that program so kudos to the high school administration for putting that together um I know our students are just uh you know you need to take credit for that as well and and I'm not connected to it directly but I happen to be walking out of my office at Felicia and I saw the students coming out of classroom today and it was quite a they like legitimate although students keep getting younger and younger to me anyway like they belong one of my Coles probably more engaged in some of our freshmen and sophomores that started this week so uh kudos to you and and to Miss V thank you so much I I appreciate that yeah it it was amazing to see our students there and Felician campus is really is absolutely gorgeous um the facilities just everything they have to offer and um being so close to us it just it just made sense for us to partner with them and so I'm just really excited about that partnership and where we can grow it um from there and then as I look at this newsletter I I can't believe it as I flip over to the back cover I I realized that you know last year started with a fire at Washington school and so um it highlights um the transformation of that classroom that ultimately did um that was the source of the fire um and then it ends here with the Washington playground that I mentioned and our trebs program that we do so um thank you for everyone that helped cons contribute to the newsleter our administrative team and I look forward to putting more out uh in the future so um thank you Mr Pano that ends my report um oh wait James can you put I'm going to put these down in case anyone didn't grab one they can they can grab anybody sign up pursuant to the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the committee on finance recommends the following resolutions be moved forward for a roll call vote I make a motion to move forward Finance resolutions one through 58 to be adopted four against for four four pursuant to the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the committee on education and curriculum recommends the following resolutions be moved forward for a roll call vote I make a motion to move forward education and curriculum resolutions 1-4 to be adopted second four against Mr foro for pursuing to the recommendations of superintendent schools of commit regulations recommends the following res to a roll call vote I to be adopted four against for for for so to the recommendation of the superintendent of school the committee athletic students activities recommends the following resolution to be moved forward for the roll call vote I make a motion to move forward the Athletics and students activity resolution one 125 to be adopted second against for for pursuant to recommend ation of the superintendent of schools the committee of personnel recommends the following resolutions be moved forward for roll call vote I make a motion a to M number 25 and omit k-15 second Mr for mrop [Applause] against four I have new business yeah I have new business I can I have that microphone president of pasamano members of the board parents guests and fellow taxpayers I appreciate the opportunity to serve on this board however I can no longer continue in the role where this where the administration disregards your Authority outside pressures interfere with decision-making ethical standards are disregarded and collaboration is lacking as a wise friends one not as a wise friend once noted sometimes one imp Act is greater from outside the organization therefore I tended my resignation from the L Board of Education effective immediately thank you Daniel parda microphone so on and so forth there is a policy that governs what just happened that he resigned from the board so we will look into it Joe and you will look into the policy and we as a board we could um ask for people who would like to apply to fill his un position till December and then the board gets to a pick and appoint someone for that position yes there's a policy that spells out that you have to do it it could go both ways it depends yeah the board of there's a state statute with respect to filling a vacancy on a board of education we do have by 30 days and then you have your policy which you would you're governed by so if the policy calls for a posting an advertisement ultimately the your policy and the law would articulate that you would be appointing somebody to the position for the unexpired term so um we'll look at it we're passed when petitions are due so we're already into August so that would play a role in the length of time that the individual will be serving in the position we're looking at and I don't know enough about this situation in fact I'm I don't know what's left on Mr Prada's term but the anticipation would be an advertisement a posting would be up if you don't fill the position within 60 days the county executive will come in and app Point um and the person's going to going to serve until the next election cycle so it's going to be basically a 134 I can't count but whatever it is until the person yeah no it would be until December 31st of the following year yes there'd be an election you said December 31st of the following year no this year he's up for election oh he's up for election this year then I didn't I didn't know what his term was okay so we we'll make our best effort to resolve this at the next board ofed meeting e e e e is this on yes it's on wonderful we're gonna get this show started I know how many of you love this presentation hopefully it works James it keeps going on and on all right want just stay here in Cas all right so um every District in New Jersey is required to report its results on the state assessments and this particular report is on the spring 2024 uh New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment as well as the access for L's presentation so we'll first start off with uh the njpa um just reminder that in New Jersey we still have uh students have a requirement to pass a state assessment to meet their graduation requirements in this particular test the students are tested on their knowledge on 10th grade English standards English language arts standards and their knowledge on the standards in algebra and D and then the way that the students um are deemed proficient is whether or not they're graduation ready or they're not ready and there's those are the two performance levels so to get a passing score or what's deemed graduation ready the students must receive a score of 725 um and it's important to note that as far as the meeting the re for graduation students must sit for this uh assessment to be able to take the alternative Pathways to meet the assessment requirement so if a student does not pass the njpa there are other um they're allowed to retake the ngpa again we have some students taking it again this fall and I apologize let me step back I want to recognize uh our two supervisors of directors Miss Leon and miss thank you uh they helped to put this presentation together um if I'm not mistaken this fall correct we have students who did not pass uh they're retaking it again and those students are supported with uh preparation from last year um if they again do not do well on the fall and ggpa uh then they're open to perhaps take these alternative assessments and that's a live link this presentation will be posted on the district website and then if they also to pass these two other alternative Pathways then the students are able to create a a student portfolio and that's where we gather different math task we so here are some of our scores so again this is a comparison of scores from the district to the state um our scores in English language arts we had 94.6% of our students being graduation ready again that means they met a score of 725 high and then in our math we had about 54.5% that were graduation ready if you see the comparison with the state um we outperformed this state Ina and we're statistically speaking similar to the state with the ma this is a comparison from the spring 23 and the spring 24 assessment um between the two in ela we did go up slightly uh and again in mathematics we went down but statistically speaking that's still roughly the same I think it's always important to remind the public that these are also two different totally groups of students so um it's kind of weird looking at it from year to year because you're kind of comparing apples to oranges because they're not the same but in any case those were our results and then for those of you who prefer more visuals uh in terms of comparing the state to uh this is over the course of the two years overall you'll see that we are outperforming the state in uh both Ela and math except for this year that we were statistically uh tied with the state off by21 of uh we also required to report out on our demographic data so that's our different subgroups and you see here uh this is our subgroup performance in ela and overall many of our subps are performing well in ela we do have some achievement gaps but I think overall you'll see that they're still performing very well uh in comparison across the different groups of students uh in math we do see a dip in our subgroup performance uh especially particularly with our special education population um but I do want to highlight a difference so if you see here the comparison of between spring 23 and spring 24 um if you hit the next button I I want to highlight to you in in math we did have a larger jump in our special education population with Ela a significant jump um but overall our performance between our subgroups are all pretty simar and then in math again as I mentioned we do have that dip in our special education math performance for our students um but and then the rest of the sub groups if you notice still to be the same in terms of their performance but overall math is an area of weakness so here are some analysis takeaways when we review the data um as I mentioned Ela is an area of strength um when we compare and we uh drill down the a little bit more when we look at our data and some of the particular standards or the areas we see that these are the areas that we do well in um which is really uh the the writing components is still an are upon and then in math specifically we're doing well um with with particular uh Sub subcategories in terms of the content so some areas that we have identified that we need to continue to improve specifically in math uh is the ability for our students to model and reason their responses um so part of the math assessment is not just and I'm giving you a very simple example Not Just 2 plus 2al four uh you actually some students actually model what does 2 plus two look like or someone gives an answer and it says 2 plus 2al four and the student has to explain why that answer is correct so that's the modeling and reasoning give a very simple question they're not doing two plus two plus four equals four on the high school test but I wanted to give you an example that it's much more complex about functions and algebraic equations quadratic equations and that's the extent of my math you're proud of me Miss thank you um obviously we know we continue to work with with our special education students um in honing in in all the concept areas specifically in math and uh we continue to work on that and then something else that we overall try to improve in ela um not only for ngpa but it also helps them with their sat um testing or or um the ACT test obviously is continuing to work on developing the vocabulary and streng right their right so here are some interven I that we are going to be implementing uh this school year uh more most importantly in math as I mentioned we want to continue to increase exposure and students having practice with those model and reasoning type of questions during class for practice for homework obviously on our own internal end of unit assessments and our Benchmark so the more exposure we give to them so that when they see it on the ngpa um it's not the first time they're they're seeing it and it also helps boost their confidence giving them practice and like you see we did the same thing it just just happens to be on a high stakes test um the other components that we want to be sure that we're giving students time for um is increasing opportunities again uh in the use of some software programs that we have purchased called Delta math and Head puzzle uh these really are able the teachers are able to focus and pinpoint some of those specific standards that we have noticed that um our students are as well in as in the other standards so we're able to Target uh instruction for that uh more importantly we have um more detailed work internally with some of our teachers work with a consultant um and they're uh specifically working on the how they go about teaching math um you would think oh well I know my math but there's a specific way in terms of how to teach and instructional out and having them engage with math and we call that in mathematical terms conrete tutorial abstract CPA and that's just again helping them to De to better understand math and I know for some of us um that's not how we learn math it was just you plug in a number and a calculator to the end the story but there's a lot more critical analysis to the instruction of math now so that's something we've been working with our Math teachers about the most important thing that we have found from research as well as talking about this instructional model is that it's extremely beneficial to the students uh because they're making so I'll go back to my example of 2 plus 2al four I can manipulate if you think about it two blocks plus two blocks equals four that visualization and the tactile function of it also helps special education Learners uh get the concept better so that's something that we're looking to improve upon it's a very common instructional technique that's utilized typically in the early Elementary grades not so much at the high school so that's a bit of a shift uh that we're working with our SCH teachers in terms about how they go about teaching math so trying to do less lecture if you remember what high school math was like sat down someone spoke you took notes and you probably had a calculator and you walked out it's a different world that's not how math is taught and it's better to be more critical and so these were trying to do a different instructional way how to go about uh in ela we we're just going to continue with providing them with multiple opportunities uh to do writing assignments uh looking at different prompts doing research and critically analyzing the different articles that you read and then come up with a response to that and um one thing we found and this has nothing to do with the test is more test taking strategies some of our students just simply don't read the instructions and uh so the especially in math there's usually two parts to it they'll do the one part and totally forget the second part without realizing terms of it's scored it actually counts against us because then they don't get the full credit for it and so we we continue to uh re emphasize and reiterate to our students throughout the school year because we're giving them practice with us as well um that to please make sure you thoroughly read uh the question and then you're answering what the question is asking you for because that also happens in ela um where they're asked to um answer something and they give an answer it's a full great essay but it has nothing to what the question ask them so it defeats the purpose of what they read um and then something else is that uh as for ELA and maap teachers spe specifically for ELA teachers um all the work doesn't always have to happen in the ELA class and so we reach out to our content Area Teachers like our social studies and our science teachers specifically social studies which also has a lot of critical analysis reading and writing um we utilize another strategy called document based questions or dpq uh this was a strategy that typically we was utilized in our AP classes and we have uh slowly begun to expand how you go about looking at um different research articles and um coming up with analyzing it and answering the question and then it's very similar to the test where it has a resource T so that was the mgpa I'm also required to report out um how our multilingual students um perform on the access for L which is basically the assessment that we take to determine their English language proficiency so there are all right so um just a little bit of background explanation of this test uh as I mentioned it's an assessment to measure uh the English language skills of our multilingual Learners uh this is part of how the state also monitors uh a district so not only our state test scores but also how we are developing the English language for our mul Learners so when they the test they're assessed across four language domains uh they're listening speaking reading and writing and those are the different six levels um in the state of New Jersey you have to get a score of 4.5 and each one of those domains and overall to be able to exit our ESL program and uh there is an alternate for Access for L's for students who are um twice exceptional because they are both multilingual learners but they also have um special education needs and IEP so they have a modified access for L's test uh for us for this year we had a total of 105 students uh take the assessment so we had 100% participation um for the state of New Jersey to report out information you have to have more than 10 students um overall this 105 is across uh the K12 grades I don't have stud to report out her grate and so due to um protection of of student privacy I can't report out data but I do report out for the overall um how the district um um how District performed and we didn't have any students this year who actually took the alternate acties so this is just a three uh uh a three year look at the trends of our students performing in uh what they over all scores are and you see that for spring 2024 the majority of our students landed in a level two and level three score um and then we had some students who did exit the program because they scored a 4.5 or or more so again looking at the data what are some things we want to do and one of the things we're doing is uh I want to specifically point this out and I know that Mr deoro has mentioned this before I think it's important for the public to know but um our population of multilingual Learners continues to grow in our district um the primary language for this population does tend to be Spanish speakers um our other second languages if I'm not mistaken is uh Brazilian uh Portuguese and I think Arab uh Turkish is the next one that comes uh and so specifically what we're seeing is a larger number of multilingual Learners especially at the K2 level and in a comparison from last year I said 105 students took the test this year last year we had 85 students so we had 20 more students take the test this year um in 6 through 12 we are this is a new program that we're using it's called Lexia power up it's specifically geared to help multilingual Learners so as a multilingual learner not only are you trying to learn the English language you also still have to learn the content of the class that you're doing and so that's a you know it's two things to try to at the same time and so what Lexia does is he provides that additional support for them um we're going to continue to provide opportunities for students to practice uh speaking um and and writing uh more often than that when a multilingual Learners learns English um they will understand you but they can't speak speak to you yet and that's just part of the natural development as we learn English so we want to give them more opportunities to practice speaking another program that we purch for um our multilingual Learners I do want to say that these programs are being supported by federal funds what's called our title three funds that's what funds these different programs um and so the K12 program is adaptive to the students and they have opportunities to practice and listen through audio and video and it adapts to the students um uh how they're taking the assessment and what we the one of the main reasons why we also think this program is that it also mod uh the type of um questions the students are going to engage in when they do take the access for L and then the last one which I think is pretty cool and it just shows the use of technology to extend our instruction uh they're called C pens it's a digital translator pen and so a student uh typically right now in many school districts um multilingual Learners will have a dictionary in their hand and it's a word for word dictionary of their native language to English so if I were a Spanish speaking student and I don't know the name of the word book in English I would look for it in Spanish and it would tell me in English I have a I have this pen now where I just roll my pen over the word and it automatically tells me what the word is in my language um it if I want to practice speaking it saying how to say it uh it also provides me with the audio of that um and it also helps with pronunciation so I can speak into the pen and it'll help me pronunciate with that so it's just really exciting the use of this pen for that thank you questions e e e for thank you Dr Morell for your presentation before we I just have something to say about what just happened a few minutes ago number one there's nobody who influences I think anybody on this board we may all be called by parents asking us questions like I was just tonight and I sent it over to the superintendent we all try to help parents on the outside when they ask us questions but I think I could speak for everybody up on this board nobody influences us to make a decision we have our own minds and we make our own decisions if anybody on the board would like to speak on what was said about us tonight you're more than welcome too if not motion app cont that's it absolutely a motion to adjourn all favor I I'm