##VIDEO ID:UYidTveZ0TA## for for e e e you I I'll s I don't know they just kind of changed the angle of you doing bud doing all right how are you missed you last meeting yes we were traveling through California oh nice very nice part of hello what what I have it over there is there a pen in there yes there's a pen on top I remember this time right there is I think it's Mark is that grind is pretty this RT this I don't know who's giving the presentation um Natalie first and that is perfect thank you awesome oh cool yeah all right gotta yeah thank you do you happen to have a pen m r i do oh my gosh thank you you want my jacket GNA say I tried to ask one thank you sure to give it back I want to wear my Ender Blue Ribbon today it was perfect because yes yes that's a good question I'm not really like I don't like social media I don't like I have a Facebook but I don't really use I don't have like a Snapchat or like a or anything like that don't have anything like that Tick Tock I don't do that I don't know I'm more an analog kind of girl no no I do have a Kindle yeah I have a Kindle but because I read so much I need something to yeah exactly but if I had a choice you know right yeah I actually had I had like the came out like with with barn and Noble I was like still Happ it's like a brick like so heavy like I can't believe I used to carry that around with me like I'm back problems do even any we'll put up next one okay we're going to go good evening this is the matachin Board of Education meeting for Tuesday August 27th 2024 would you all rise to the flag salop please flag United States indice thank you notice of meeting please I hereby make the statement to indicate compliance with the open public meetings act known as chapter 231 of the public laws of New Jersey 1975 which became effective 90 days after enactment January 19th 1976 notice of this meeting was given by providing the location time and date of this meeting a posting of the same on the front door of the Board of Education offices by delivering copies to the burough Hall and the mouan public library the home news and Tribune The Star Ledger and by filing a copy with the burough clerk as prescribed by this law thank you R call please Mr bot here miss cook not here Mr der oh I apologize Miss Cook had let us know she wasn't going to be okay thank you so much Mr derer Mr glassberg here Dr Johnson Marcus here Miss Colleen here Mr lifton here Dr Spar here Mr SAS here thank you uh Dr Caputo we have some guests here this evening I see one of the favorite things that uh we get to do is to bring uh new hires to The District in front of the board to have fa time with the board meet the public uh virtually or if they're in person today so we continue that tradition we'll have some more at the next meeting um but we have um six or seven folks that were able to be here tonight with us and really excited Miss Taylor thanks for coordinating that always as as our personal coordinator and and thanks to the group of you who had three long days last week two long days today and and still here tonight to um to to meet the board so I'll call you up you could say as little as a few words you know thank you or or spend a little time tell us you know what you are who you are you know what your goals and and dreams are so we'll start with blizzy dorsa who's going to be the matachin high school business teacher hi Lizzy hello I'm Lizzy I'm the business teacher here um I'm very excited to start tomorrow and thank you guys for giving me this opportunity I love my touin so far so thank you thank you good luck welcome next is Christine jarck she's the uh High School culinary arts teacher good evening hi Christine hi nice to meet you all thanks for having me I'm really excited to be here I'm excited to meet the students tomorrow I have a lot of exciting plans for them so I'm really excited to be here thank you thank you thank you welcome Mr lifton our our new teachers go through um Dr herzog's three-day new teacher orientation um whether they have everything from a bus tour and a lunch in with the union and they get a chance to meet and work with their mentors um and um and all kinds of other sessions during those three days and we're fortunate that we have some great mentors and some some great new teachers to the district next up is Danielle P who will be at Mo school as a leave replacement for Mrs Herold hi my name is Danielle and I'm looking forward to having a great year this year in preschool over at moss and I thank you all for the opportunity and no tears tomorrow right no fingers crossed thank you thank you for coming good luck next up is Laura Petty who'll be at Campbell school as a leave replacement for Mrs Murphy good evening evening thank you so much I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve the children in matachin public schools I'm looking so forward to it thank you again thank La thank you congratulations welcome thanks for your positive attitude as as well uh next up is Ashley petki who will be at um Campbell uh special ed hi I'm Ashley um we had a great open house today and I'm so excited to continue that tomorrow thank you EXC thank you thank you for coming welcome our schools uh Campbell moss and Edgar all had the students in today um in some cases they got a chance to even meet their teachers which is really made the days special the high school had their their usual visit and walkthroughs um and you know people setting up lockers and parents coming in and it was really a good vibe um the last couple days so so we're excited by that um next up is is Morgan schloo and she'll be Edgar is fifth grade teaching math and science hello I'm Morgan scho I'm to be at Edgar um I actually grew up in Edison so I've become pretty familiar with the area and I used to actually work at a daycare in matachin so I've got to know some people um so I'm so excited to be a part of the community well thank you thank you for coming and welcome we love that we have the connection a lot of folks have these uh second third you know order connections a touch in in it really is special so and we have one more teacher who's not here tonight so we'll invite her to the next meeting um but she's also on the agenda tonight and board will consider ameds later on she's a high school math teacher and Miss Taylor thank you for sting this we'll invite Amy to a future meeting when she could be here well if she comes if she happens to come in just give us a heads up and we'll introduce her okay we well thank you all for coming tonight I know I'm sure it's been a long day and a long number of days but we're all so excited to have you in the district and I want to just welcome you congratulate you and welcome you and thank you for all the effort that you have and are going to put in to the children of matachin so thank you so much for coming tonight congratulations now my Mr lifton my next favorite thing to introduce new teachers is introducing Mrs Dy to provide us with some Access Data today hi everyone thanks for having me here tonight um I'm a little sad cuz during I was hired during 2020 so I missed the whole oh sorry did you miss the meeting oh I'm sorry that's my fault stay right there okay or well sit down right there okay no we have to leave the we have to leave the podium over for a moment um I'm sorry we we skipped I'm like do you need do I need to dance now yes a jig okay so um the meeting is now open to the public for any item I apologize we we missed it on the agenda for a moment please just state your name and address for the record thank you thank you I'm really passionate about access dat so uh good evening um I attended the uh Moss open house and the Campbell School open house this afternoon and they were both very informative I have a question about um Transportation I guess would be the general issue uh because I for years now I've seen all of the community going to one school for their children because that's where they're all located and then we have them going to Campbell from all neighborhoods in the town my concern today is when I saw all of the construction going on at Moss I asked how are they how are the children going to be brought into school and exit school I'm told that they're going to walk up to the corner or something the teachers could someone explain what's going to happen sure I will turn that over but before I do can you please uh state your name and address for the record please oh I didn't do that you didn't so sorry that's okay uh Carol is nusi 182 Crystal street thank you so much and I've lived in town for eons yes yeah can you uh I can give a brief um certainly Mrs asol is the new principal at MOS could give a much more detailed explanation so you could contact her but in general um we've change because the construction the back of moss like you said we've changed the drop off for kindergarten to the um Simpsons side so we've we've worked with the police and our own folks to set up a nice Valley system for our kindergarten students on I'm sorry I really can't hear you that well it's right we have a we apologize we have a brand new board uh audio board tonight so we're getting we're getting the okay I hear you very well but I didn't hear him I seems to be talking to you but that's okay okay so try it again so I would suggest you talk to Mrs asperis she's the new principal at Moss school I'll give you a very brief overview so kindergarten students will be dropped off on Simpson cars will come up Simpson come into into the circle in front of Simpson we have a valet where we have more staff will take kids out of the out of the cars and walk them right into the school preschool be as it always is they'll Park and walk their students to the school so Mrs aspar colus or missalice at Moss can certainly provide a much more detailed um uh plan for you those were also sent out via a video a cute video and also a slideshow about how the drop off will happen yeah I I didn't ask Mrs Miss Aspera she's actually very refreshing and was very nice to meet her um she seems to have a handle on everything but I didn't ask her about the drop off but I even though you're telling me this I see it as a big problem I see for years now I've seen parking issues with people who are trying to come and meet their teachers or drop their children off and pick them up and I'm wondering have you uh thought about at least for this year while this construction is going on having a bus buses pick up the children and being delivered to the school that would uh eliminate a lot of cars so um I I'll I'll take it um we we've we haven't really talked about buses buses um sure they transport more children but obviously are much larger and it's the same number of students attending the half day this year as have always been it'll be the same amount of cars and to me that drop off in Simpson is in a way even even more convenient than the old drop off in the back of the school it's actually going through the the front of the the original front of the school and I think that makes a lot of sense um we all know that there will be a change in traffic patterns this year specifically with the construction and we've asked all of our neighbors of that area we've sent them letters and communicated that please bear with us we know that there'll be um there'll be um changes in in traffic patterns and drop off patterns but the main concern of course is to keep the students safe so the drop off on Simpson sounds to me like it's a pretty it's a safe an option as could possibly be devised it's a circle a deadend circle and um we just would ask if there is any type of disruption that that uh we ask for patience and forbearance um it's an enormous construction project and and we're going to do the best we can and we have professionals on it we had a traffic study we have traffic professionals we have construction professionals we have all types of professionals have worked on it and all we also have um the new principal Miss Miss pis as asperis who uh has been a principal in in in other schools and other young young CH Children's Schools kindergartens and Elementary School and uh she is very familiar with what we need to do to secure and protect our children so I no I I'm not concerned about the principal I I think she probably will do a very fine job okay but as for dropping my grandchildren off at Moss previous years I thought that was actually the safest place for the drop off and I was impressed with that I am not happy at all about the drop off and pickup at Campbell now I don't have anybody at Edgar yet so I'm not familiar with that but I speak from experience and I I think Simpson is a very narrow road you're going to now have all cars coming in and dropping children I I can't even imagine how many cars you're going to have going up and down Simpson at the same time well I would I would suggest you send an email to to the principal and express your concern um the plan was was put together with multiple layers of professionals um well I think I should send the letter to those professionals I'd like to see what they say because I don't think the principle had very much to do with it and I still don't understand why a bus or a bus is you just said that that the street is narrow do you think a bus would be better going down it well I don't know maybe you should have small buses buy new bus maybe you should have a bus coming in another Direction I I just who's going to be there tomorrow to watch it CU I'll go there tomorrow to see how it goes but I've witnessed at Campbell it's ve it's very unsatisfactory you have na people who live on the street putting out garbage cans to protect their spaces in front of their homes and truthfully I can't blame them and I just can't even imagine how it's going to work and how you're going to drop off so many students and they're going to all get there on time it do it just doesn't make sense to me I I would suggest that you send an email to the principal and ask her and perhaps listen you are more than welcome to um come on on the public streets and watch the drop off Simpson is a public Street well of course I am that's not an answer well that is the I would like you to consider buses for these children okay we we we I I explained that we have multiple layers of professionals Educators could you provide me with the names of those professionals no I cannot you you can cuz I don't know the names of them you can you can email who are they if you're telling me that you've had multiple layers of professionals who has spoken to them Miss I'm I'm I'm done with the back and forth this is a public comment you've made your cup up the comment I've explained to you that you can email the principal and ask for more information you know what I'm asking for more information you should ask from the professionals not from the Board of Education this is a public comment not a back and forth uh okay so would you like me to write a letter to you asking for you can write a letter to me but I will send it over to the the Dr Caputo and to the princip I'll write it to Dr Caputo please do I will thank you I don't understand if it's it's public comment I would think that you would expect some answers actually we we are actually told by New Jersey school boards as a general not to engage in this at all because you don't get the answers you want and you continue to come back and forth and we're not in a position because we well when you say that you have many when you say you have many people who've looked at this and studied it including the superintendent and the business administrator and traffic studies with those people and see why they think that that's a good idea email you Mr Caputo very good thank you any other uh uh anybody else would like to make a public comment at this time seeing none we'll move M Dy to miss Dy welcome hi thanks for having me um I was saying I missed the whole like welcome to mouin board WR of Passage since I was approved in 2020 during Co we did pause our so do you have a joke or do you have something youd like to I mean I should have prepped a joke I'm I'm sorry I didn't um during welcome to the district thank you for being here love your enthusiasm um during new teacher orientation I was showing uh the teachers how to use magic schools AI joke generator so I mean we we could have prep some really great ones today um so tonight I'll be talking to you about our spring access testing results um the access tests are the tests that we um are required to give to our multilingual Learners um just a Refresh on terminology uh we provide English as a second language instruction uh we refer to it as ESL and that's the type of our of our instructional delivery it's not a label for students um as you remember last year I had let you know that um the chapter 15 revisions changed um the terminology of English language learner to multilingual learner which is much more of an asset-based approach um in terms of language referring to our multilingual Learners um Mr lton this slide is for you because last year you had asked um how do we know how our kids are growing because the way the scores are reported um and based on our end number being so low um I I usually report out how we did in terms of um the levels that are scored but our school performance report um essentially measures the English language proficiency growth from year to year um our annual Target you can see is 27.4% um and in the 2022 2023 school performance report uh we met that goal with 58.3% of our MLS um meeting their expected growth so just wanted to make sure I I I put that in because I figured you would ask again um so as you can see um from the chart over here our growth um has been astronomical um in Spring 21 we had 33 um mls in the district as of last spring we are up to 88 um so our population of students is growing and that addition of a new teacher at Campbell um last year has really been helping to serve our population of kids um so we had 100% participation rate with seven students um registering after the testing windows so they were not tested last spring um the way the test works is it's a score on a 1 through six scale um six is really considered reaching that they are fully bilingual um in New Jersey the exit score is considered a 4.5 to be able to exit um multilingual status um so you can see by the distribution of our students um our our scores so we had 32.1% of our students who were assessed um did exit um the um multilingual status um and you can see uh based on these results um we should have that same kind of trend for next year in terms of exiting um and I think this really is attributed to the changes and support in our program which I'm going to talk to you about in just a second so um things that we're currently doing to support this population of students we have a double block of um ESL support at Moss Edgar and the middle school so essentially our newcomer students um receive uh the standard ESL period but then they also receive additional period of support and this um replaces their English Language Art English language arts requirement so they're really able to get those supports in um speaking listening reading and writing uh at moth and at Campbell we've been able to provide more pushing and co- teing support which is you know co-teaching isn't just something we do in special education um we ALS Al have moved to this model in delivery of our English as a second language services and it's really created these cohesive home rooms um where our content Area Teachers or Home Room teachers have more strategies and support and we've been working with um a consultant for the past two years on essentially providing those Home Room teachers um in sheltered instruction observation protocol or scop which is really best instructional practices um to meet the needs of our um multilingual Learners um at the high school and middle school um Mrs Park actually has consultation built into to her schedule um so not only is she servicing those students for double blocks who need who qualify and need it she also has built in where she's contacting on a rotation every single teacher of our multilingual Learners in the content areas to provide strategies and support so that way we're providing more of a wrap round approach to these students um through Esser and our high impact tutoring Grant we've been able to provide tutoring services to provide that additional supports um and as part of our process our um ESL teachers create multi-lingual profiles that are shared with the content Area Teachers um in terms of who they are as a child uh who they are as a learner who they are um thinking about the the whole picture of who that child is and the supports that they need um thinking about accommodations um and different resources um we've been providing a lot of ongoing professional development for our ESL teachers but also um as I mentioned to our content Area Teachers to really provide um support and ownership to those students uh and our school counselors continue to be such a partner in supporting our multilingual Learners and helping to be a point of contact with those content Area Teachers when we're talking about you know grading or um different types of supports needed for our students um something else that's not mentioned on here but through some of our federal funds we've been able to buy um pocket talk translators which have allowed us to really um provide more opportunity for our school counselors our CST members our front office staff our nurses to be able to communicate with our student our multilingual Learners and their families um so we're really trying to put steps into place to provide um more supports in not only um helping their educational progress but also um making it a more inclusive community for our students so um that sums up our access presentation and I'm happy to take any questions thank you Mr Dy appreciate it can you go back to the SL which shows um the students exiting the program yep thank you um so maybe I missed it I'm just I'm just not that familiar what do the students have to do to exit the program yeah so um a couple years ago with the new admin uh new authorization of um Essa the requirements change so previously under the old Essa requirements students needed to receive a 4 point uh they could receive a four the 4.5 but the district also had the opportunity to use multiple measures to say like okay they may have not reached that 4.5 but based on our internal measures and how they're performing we could exit them currently under these guidelines of Essa a student has to receive a 4.5 in order for exit and when is the test administered the test is administered in the spring so when students first enter um part of the part of um our intake process um we our home language survey lets us know is the student who might be um an ml then we do a records review where I'll review their records um and also call parents to interview to get additional information and then from there we administer the access screener results the access screener which then identifies whether um that student would qualify for services and then in the spring they take the access test so we essentially kind of have the pre-test which is that screener and then that post test which is the access given in the spring and it's given to any and all grades grade L yes in including kindergarten yeah the kindergarten test looks different it's administered oneon-one um where grades 1 through 12 is all on the computer um and grades in grades 1 through three the writing is done in a booklet um but that is an accommod that we can offer in grades 4 through 12 okay so so what I what I'm trying to understand is this I think this is pretty good results 26 uh I'm sorry 30 almost almost a third of the students yeah um are exiting the program but is that is do you I assume you have it it would be a pretty big slide so I understand why it's not included the breakdown by grade so I can't provide a breakdown by grade because the N number would be too small so for confidentiality for for those students I can't break it down by grade level to to provide in public for can you provide the average amount of years a student is in mouin before they can exit yeah so T typ in a typical es ESL program it's usually 3 to four years um in a touin it's hard it's hard to say like on average because we have such a range of students that come we have students who come with zero English but then also have students who are coming who are literate in their um Native in their um primary language and also have um received School schooling part of their schooling in English so this isn't their first exposure to English so it's hard to say like hard and fast like this is on average the pro like what a typical student is averaging like exiting because the the spectrum of the students in our program are it it's wide and varied no I I I understand that is this a a state state of New Jersey test or a federal test so it it is a it so states have the option to participate in weda weda is I guess you could say a federal test but in New Jersey we're this is the Consortium that New Jersey subscribes to in terms of the testing there's another one I'm blanking on the name right now um but there are other states that use use the waa assessment it's not just specific to New Jersey um the test is out of actually Wisconsin but this is not a this is not a federal test this is a consorti that New Jersey belongs to as a state but we required under the Essa guidelines yeah okay underst but the test isn't Federal the test is one that New Jersey has adopted as a state private company right comp yeah yeah okay so um my concern is not with any of these numbers okay my concern is maybe a little it goes under the heading of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing I know your daughter is an my daughter is in yes as an ESL teacher they don't call it that in New York they call it English as a new Lang enl yeah but one of her and she's a relatively new teachers and teacher and we've had conversations and one of her concerns is that the test for can sometimes to get out of the program you have to test higher than many of the students who aren't in the program would would would get if they were in the program this is a conversation that we we've actually been having especially as we're seeing a more diverse population where some of our MLS will say are twice exceptional they're receiving um special education services and they're receiving multilingual ESL services so for those students sometimes based on their disability they may not it it may be hard to exit the program to get that 4.5 so there are things that we can do within um an IEP essentially so say it's a student with a specific like reading disability they can be exempt from the reading section of the assessment um and then it would we would talk to the state about they would calculate the composite score but this is something that the multilingual supervisor group across the state is concerned about and we're talking about and um Miss bonisa and I are talking about in terms of a process when you know we have students stents who are have been in the program for a long time they're also receiving special education services there's only so many minutes of the day what makes the most sense in terms of how that student is spending those minutes so those are conversations that we're having internally as we're really reflecting on our growing population when um and that's thank you that's important to know when students in in this program are not progressing as quickly as we would hope to and obviously the goal of this program program is to have the students every student exit the program right the goal is to bring them up to a standard of English proficiency that they can exit this program and don't need these extra services so as students spend more time than average and I know you explained that average is a tough word in mouin but for shorthand as students some students struggle to get to 4.5 are there additional Services we add on that and and focus to to students my my my my main my main concern concern is again not with any of these numbers is that I would hate to feel like any of our students end up trapped in the program and if we see that Trend happening or that that outcome happening with our students do we have resources to bring to bear to individual students to help them Reach the proficiency to exit the program which is the goal yes so we've really been looking closely at our our MLS previously there was this Antiquated notion that if a student was receiving ESL services and they shouldn't be receiving intervention services that notion is gone in aouch in like we are really looking at the data and looking at who our students are and what support they need so for example we have students at Campbell who are receiving ESL services but then are also receiving RTI services but again we're really mindful of how much is that child being pulled out of the class so the addition of push in services at Campbell has really been instrumental so if that child does need inter vention services and their pull out they're not being pulled out now for 40 minutes of ESL and 40 minutes of RTI so the push in has really helped at C at Edgar um we now that we have that flexibility of uh Mrs Park not traveling to a million places in the school um we have been able to be more flexible with the Edgar schedule so for example our fifth and sixth graders um Ela is a double block for them so instead of receiving both blocks of ela one of those blocks if it if they only attend for one period is that Ela class so instead of previously sometimes the schedule is very limiting and they would miss their cycle class now those students have access to those cycle classes but cycle when cycle classes are that's also when intervention is available so those students do have the ability to attend in intervention along with the ESL services so it's something that we've really looking at as um we look at scheduling well right well I appreciate that uh explanation I I um that's something that the identification of students who were struggling is obviously one of the main things that you guys do as administrators and and U special services and I I I'm hearing and I'm I'm glad to hear that that this is also something that's on the radar that students who were struggling with their with their language proficiency their gaining of English proficiency are on the radar and that there are services available to Target those students it's similar to the question I asked at the last meeting about students who were having difficulty passing the graduation exam and that there's a whole process about portfolio and all types of things and I asked the question are any were there any students last year who didn't who met who had enough credits to graduate but couldn't because they didn't pass the state exam and the answer was no every student that had enough credits to graduate M touin High School school was able to meet the state requirement and I was very happy to hear that it's a my similar concern here that there are students who are going to do very well and their students who are going to have difficulty and that we can identify those students and get them to 4.5 and get their proficiency to the point where they can exit and identify those students and provide the services is something that I think is unbelievably important and I'm glad to hear we we can do that and we're also looking on the other end Dr Herzog and Dr Caputo will tell you I I love to look at data and really Thinking Beyond of how we're making sure that we're providing Equitable Services so last year I did an audit of our multilingual Learners looking at um those that are receiving special ed services and also those receiving um that are enrolled in our g&t program so those are things that we're really looking at in terms of all do our students all have access to these services and are we ensuring that even if a student is M like a multilingual learner can they qualify and be in g&t programs cuz when you look at our students who have exited ESL we have over 50% of them in advanced in AP classes so are we making sure that we're servicing all of the right students and really looking at um our our criteria so that's something that you know we're looking at the whole gamut thank you Mr Arty and I apologize for monopolizing it's just uh as I said a little knowledge is dangerous and I've had so many of these conversations with my daughter about her work in New York City and um these topics come come up often and and I want and I think to myself what are we doing in mouin and not that I couldn't ask behind the scenes as the president of the school board but here you are presenting this data so I apologize to the rest of the board for taking up so much time are there other questions from Mardi yes Mr grasper I accept your apology now thank you for the presentation just a a different sort of question is there are we at the sort of numbers where um having a summer program or something like that is important to kind of keep the learning going through the summer for these students yeah so we um have been able to the past two summer through our Esser funds been able to provide some services this year we actually braided our federal funding we used Esser and part of our title three to be able to run the star program which we were able to really hone in on um our our youngest Learners and provide but then we also were able to expand the high impact tutoring Grant to um our Middle School MLS so it serviced um 3rd fourth fifth and then Middle School ml so we were able to really provide those supports um but yeah it is something that as our population is growing in terms of how do we provide those additional summer opportunities so it is it is something that we're you know looking at closely um and thank you thanks to Federal funding we were able to provide some summer opportunities the past two summers great and maybe we'll see if that has that impact on exiting some of them yeah sooner thank you thank you other other questions from Mr Dy I'm going to take one more question I apologize um so I understand that every population in every district is different so the numbers are hard to compare District to District but do we have any idea whether this 32% uh 4.5 number how that compares to the state like we get those other types of things that's a good question I don't know around the state um of of how many uh percentage of test takers reach 4.5 and exit I haven't seen that I haven't seen that information like floating around but I think that's also it's hard again to compare because you have some districts who are getting a lot of Port of Entry students where I would say our students that are coming a lot of them um even if they are coming directly from another country usually have had some sort of school like part of their schooling in English um so it's it's really hard to compare those numbers but I haven't seen that floating around um the the ml supervisor group at all it would be interesting to see I to me 32% sounds like a like a really nice high number considering that's a snapshot the students who don't hit 4.5 have another opportunity the next year that's just this year a third of our students are exiting the program each year yeah well I don't know about each year but this year right that seems to be a very nice robust success number if you look at it too if you look at the the students in the 3 to 4.4 category if they kind of move on projected like we should almost be at 40% of those kids exiting but again some of that population has moved in out like there's a lot it it's hard sometimes to have like really a longitudinal study with well you know movement I I have a feeling that that that this is a very successful slide and although I don't have anything to compare it to I'm going to congratulate you anyway because uh and the entire team because it seems to be a very successful program and so I appreciate you coming and sharing it with us thank you thank you so much and and that also speaks to the support of the board and being able to hire that additional teacher to really move to that co- teing model and it's something that I would love to expand but again it takes personnel and that's the support of the board so thank you very much thank you thanks Natalie and and um that was the short portion now we have our goals presentation from Dr kaputo with the long portion of our presentation so thank you Dr Kap I'm going to make my way up to the uh Podium as well please [Music] thank you Mr IG that was perfect timing Mr lifton members of the Board of Education yesterday morning at our um our first in service day uh I presented uh via Zoom to the entire District people are in their faculty meetings uh in their schools and um I was able to present our district goals these are posted on the website by the way thank you Miss alich for doing that um so you can follow along there as well or you can re refer to that later on our our theme for the year is better every day um and that that speaks about the the student experience that we want students to get better every day it speaks to the the adults that work in the district myself included I want to get better every day it speaks to the construction project and the idea that our conditions will get better every day uh then we'll U be able toj the fruits of all this this work over a couple years uh when we fully done with the project and realign the schools so I'm a touch in public schools 2024 2025 better every day we're always looking to make our district goals more inclusive um and more relevant to the everyday work this year our goals are organized around the school empowerment networks quality schools so what are quality schools quality schools first employ rigorous engaging and coherent curriculum offer in effective instruction that yields high quality work and use assessment and use curricular law and assessments that inform instruction quality schools have a clear philosophy and intentional structures for a positive Equitable School culture and they support a culture of learning that includes high expectations quality schools show clear alignment and intention between resource allocation and Mission Vision and goals quality schools have effective systems to attract develop evaluate staff and leverage professional collaborations to improve outcomes and finally quality schools have effective structures to evaluate decisions and to Monitor and accelerate student growth with this school empowerment Network framework uh about quality schools we took all the feedback that feedback that we got last year and it's harder and harder to get more feedback but we were able to accomplish that again this spring and summer not only feedback from the board feedback from our administrators feedback from our teachers both in a Google form and also a session that I hosted at the May and service day feedback from our parents through our parent advisory boards and our Friday forums and feedback from our students through our various advisory boards we put together what I think is and I probably say this other years our most focused and uh our best set of goals that we've ever uh put out there now they're rigorous uh they're ambitious as we set out every year but I think the board and the community has come to expect that uh I think our goals this year which I'll unveil in a second um allow every stakeholder group being Paras coaches advisors teachers administrators parents board all to have a part not only in the the collection of the feedback that led to the goals but into the the hard everyday work that will allow us to accomplish these goals ultimately hopefully with a significant impact on the student level so our first Focus area this year and you can see each each Focus area has that quality School statement that I just read uh our goal in the first Focus area is to implement rigorous curriculum effective pedagogy and assessments that drive adjustments and supports to maximize student learning so in each of the focus areas we'll have between three and six key actions uh those key actions will uh direct the school level teams and teachers and principles uh to implement these uh every day uh to guide their work uh and we heard today from principles and supervisors uh in their sessions about how the focus areas as part our district goals is already aligning and and driving the student work so the first key action is collaboration around the implementation of revised curriculum guides um the board will be asked to approve a number of curriculum guides tonight uh Dr Herzog and the supervisors and the teacher writers and in the the teachers in general today began that process to really Implement these revised curricular guides with a focus on interdisciplinary connections that social emotional learning and climate change and problem-based learning and stem in addition to additional curricular mandates which we have to include and common resources across the grades second key action is to review our new the new suggested AI policy create a district AI plan and provide age appropriate lesson on the acceptable use of artificial intelligence we know the initial um knee-jerk reaction to anything new in education is to ban it um and we flirted with that but we also know um we we don't do really well at law enforcement right we do really well is instruction uh and Second Chances and we want to make sure that our teachers get professionally developed and that our students are instructed not only what not to do with artificial intelligence mainly copying and pasting work that's not theirs but how to effectively use this new and emerging tool we know this is not a one month or onee activity uh but we wanted to make it a particular Focus area key action for 2425 so I'm excited to see the work that happens this year that work is has begun in the over the last 12 to 15 months but as a as a tool and with age appropriate lessons we see us kind of leaving the the kind of pushing the envelope and leading the charge in this area and the third key action under Focus area one we have five Focus areas this year is letter C here facilitating student discourse and maximizing instructional time to ensure high levels of student engagement and we were at sessions today with department meetings and we really heard supervisors talking about content and department and grade level ways of ensuring high levels of student engagement and that's student to- student discourse that's Max maximizing instructional time um I'm really excited to see where that key action goes this year Focus area two the goal here is to create a positive learning environment that supports high expectations that's pretty generic so we have some really specific key actions of how we plan to do that this year select and Implement SE uh several recommendations from the parents's partners Forum to force their collaboration and increase engagement between parents and school Personnel last year we emphasized the chain of command so that parents knew the right place to go to get their answers um but we need to take that to the next level now a higher order uh and this is to increase engagement between parents and school personnel and our parent forums really gave us solid suggestions and and schools we implementing those this year letter B to enhance the systems of communicate enhance systems to communicate progress on school and student achievement still in an area that I think schools in general uh certainly here in mouin can do better but to have um systems in place where we can communicate those you've already seen some some highlights or some previews of some of the things that that we'll be doing in terms of social media and uh some other things as well letter C is to mobilize students by leveraging co- and extracurricular experiences to force our kindness and connectedness this is a followup to a goal we had last year um and we really want to connect to use the word connectedness to this goal um and we know that coaches Club advisors have such an important play such an important role in the overall school it's not just the the the subject teachers but it's those other activities so this is a really important goal to create a positive learning environment and then finally emphasizing character education through structures for coordination of social emotional learning and supports so character education is not new but the idea that we're going to emphasize character education through structured programming this year is the next level for us here in matachin Focus area three the goal is to dedicate time resources and expertise combined with stakeholder input to analyze indicators of success so we want to take our um our standard um indicators such as you heard Mrs D presenting ACC Access Data you heard our you'll hear our AP scores and our our SLA scores coming up so uh our key actions for 2425 a to boost achievement in tested areas specifically with a particular focus on early Ela Upper Elementary and Middle math and entry-level AP courses how through focused PD supplemental programming and vertical articulation B we want to review accountability data and make shared decisions around glows and grows um we you've heard those when the principles present to us but the idea of making those shared decisions really really leveraging the expertise that we have have uh in our district letter C align instructional approaches and establish common Focus areas through Department collaboration and letter C involve Community stakeholders in school Improvement initiatives by eliciting feedback and we're going to do the Ruckers collaborative survey we do that every three years for staff that'll be in the spring we'll have school surveys for staff parents and students and we've done that um uh sort of in fits and starts over the last several years so I'm excited that will be a a formal goal this year we'll bring we'll continue with the njsi that's the school um uh Improvement survey that's put out by the state of New Jersey the school climate Improvement survey and then client surveys which will be emphasized this year they're always been a part of our strong evaluation system we're going to ensure that all staff um survey their clients whether that be parents or students or colleagues or or teachers that report to them Etc as part of the evaluation process Focus area four the goal this year will be to enhance teacher support use collaborative structures and encourage distributive leadership to further develop our district priorities kind of looking at our priorities discussing those priorities getting those out there explicitly key actions for 24-25 our slts will address clearly identified initiatives that impact school outcomes and celebrate those achievements B training administrators on equable hiring practices and incorporating these prct practices into our hiring routines C develop a statement of commitment aligned to high performing inclusive organization D formalize and communicate current District priorities we know them we want to make sure those are outfront explicit for everybody to see letter e updating our new teacher orientation program and the three-year new teacher Academy series to align with those aforementioned current District priorities and finally we Five Focus areas this year the goal of the fifth area is to support student mental health and wellness by enhancing tiered systems of support to remove barriers to student achievement so not just providing and being aware of of mental health and wellness but using those systems to remove barriers to student achievement because that's ultimately why we're here key actions for 2425 a implement the lifelines trilogy as a comprehensive suicide prevention program B educate staff and students on wellness and particularly the impact of social media letter C include parent representation on our district mental health leadership team we have a lot of expertise here in mouin and we've we've invited them into our forums our next step is to put them on our district mental health leadership team letter D provide professional development for our multidisiplinary teams especially IRS and 504 on tiered interventions aligned to common areas of need and letter e coord and communicate steps towards prevention intervention and efforts to modify behavior when responding to instances of HIV we've always talked about if there's one case of HIV our job's not done but we really want to take a holistic approach looking at prevention looking at intervention and then there's the times that we have to modify Behavior change Behavior but all those are important when we respond to instances of HIV we are still aligned to as CD's whole child tenants so to pull those out from the slide to make a separate slide this year we have our Five Focus areas down the left and the indicators are listed by the the tenants healthy safe engaged supported challenged and sustainability and I've put the link on there I've put several links which is new this year the link on the bottom for the public takes you to the ascd's whole child uh website um and I won't read all the numbers but you can see some Focus areas touch on on all six whole child tenants some touch on one but across the board I'm really I feel really good that our our indicators um in our Focus areas cover the whole child uh tenants some more than others in certain areas some spread evenly across the tenants we also set out in the beginning how we're going to measure our progress this year so this is the same system that we've used in the past it's a homegrown home homegrown system system um that goes from one which we didn't do or circumstances prevented us from doing it we don't have many we have a few um we can't predict where those are all the way up to a level five which in some cases is hard or impossible to reach because it means we did it well and we have significant evidence of impact at the student level in many cases our goals are four which means we did it well and there's some evidence of impact at the student level and you'll hear updates and again in June on how we did on our our goals this year so thank you for the opportunity the time to present these These are on the website for anyone watching at home these same slides so you can feel free to re uh review those on your own ask us questions uh how we going to do it in this area how we going to do in that area and then stay tuned in november-ish around Thanksgiving for our first update to the public on how we're doing so far thank you Dr kuto for your as always in-depth um pres not just presentation but development and um and back backend uh coordination and pulling together so so many diverse views on on what should be in the goals but um I will uh as usual play the role of Dan benderly tonight and say that um I think you you use the the district goals in such a I think I don't know if it's Unique but it's Unique to me um of using them to really drill down and to drive the the types of initiatives you want to see down through the schools through the principles administrators down into the classroom and um I I haven't I've only sat on this board but I have gone to njsba function and I've had seen other goal presentations and I've never seen one quite like this and it's been a lot of years now that you've refined this process and um I think it serves this kind of of very granular and um and targeted and verifiable uh setting of goals that are implementable it's not just well we say we're going to raise everyone's SAT scored 20 points and if we get there we did it and if we didn't get there we didn't that's what not what these goals are and I I know for one I I appreciate the um the uh the really educationally focused and classroom focus of these goals and and I appreciate and look forward to the updates question and comments from the board on the goals Mr sus thank you uh Dr kuto for the presentation can you go to the previous slide I don't really understand like for example I see the numbers like 7 9 10 6 I don't what do they refer back to yeah great thanks for giving the opportunity so the link on the bottom is to as.org ascd.org um it's it's the the national um Association for supervision curriculum development one of the biggest providers of PD in the world really certainly us and the world as well um and the whole child initiative kind of was put together summarized not the only people to do it through ASDS work so to that um to your question each of the tenants healthy safe engage supported Challenge and sustainable has like a definition and 10 indicators so we'd like to do all 60 10times 6 tenants things in every class in every grade but that's a lot to do right so we work to ensure that number one we address all six indicators not necessarily evenly sometimes there's more in healthy and some years there's more in supported or whatever it might be that's number one and then number two we look to align our work with the whole child tenants because if we say we're a whole child tenant we believe in whole child education we have to point to something we can't just say that so the way we point back to it is to ensure that our goals are aligned to the tenants and that our tenants are covered by our goals so it's a sort of a reciprocal process so those numbers up there we for example in the first in the second column the column under healthy U of the 10 healthy indicators 1 2 6 and 7even align closely with Focus area five if you look look one column over the ASC 10 of safe we think that indicators 3 4 6 and 7even align with our Focus area 2 indicator 9 aligns with Focus Area 3 and safe indicator 10 is closely aligned with indicator uh with um focus AA five aligns with safe indicator 10 and you can go across so we'll use that as a a secondary measure we'll have our principles and school leadership teams evaluate on our 1 to five scale but we'll also be able to Circle back with those scores and align those to the healthy safe engaged supported challenge sustainable indicators throughout the year as well which is really important if we say we're whole child uh tenants you know whole child focused let's look back and see are we are we doing the work to meet those tenants well thank you I I actually looked up the website I mean that's great actually good um just a couple more questions please go ahead um just a comment on on number three I was happy to see about the uh the surveys I think this is a year that we do the climate survey and I know in the past we haven't had good participation hopefully you know it's one of our goals and we can really uh push and publicize that um just again back to the previous slide uh the the slide we were looking at I know you said it's uh some things more are other we are looking it would be it would be great if there were more balanced especially you know more engaged and challenged uh you know I see some of the other items like three of the focus areas you know for safe uh four the focus areas for supported um but only really the one for uh right we did look at that when Dr Herzog and I were were were looking at this but my response to that was if you just stick look across number one we feel that number focus our Focus area number one includes five of the engage indicators a support indic indicator and four challenge indicators so so it's not quite as maybe the engaged we don't see in 2 3 four and five we see a lot of that in Focus area one um so there are a lot of a lot of those indicators covered by one although you don't maybe see engage and challenge in the other goals but you'll see a lot of engage and challenged in Focus area one so yeah it's it's a balance um I feel good that we've across the board everything is covered even if they're they're heavily weighted in one or or two of the indicators and just one last last question I just couldn't uh pick it out and hopefully the the the uh public knows you know there's all this conversation about cell phones in the school I know you guys are thinking about it is there any particular item here just working on the just peer-to-peer communication you know face to face or public speaking opportunities instead of just you know me texting that person or that person you know Etc right so I I would say my first reaction there's two places that kind of addressed your question in Focus area five under letter B we're focused on the idea of social media right so the I the phones may not be the problem but phones are the medium by which students engage in social media and social media can be hard on Public Image U you know their their their image social media can be distracting social media they use it on their phone but it's social media so we are specifically looking at the impact of social media uh educating staff and students on that you also mentioned um areas where we'll see um students interacting so I would take you to focus area one number a especially around um uh a around problem based learning and around C really focused on student discourse and student engagement this year so I think I hope that you will see the idea that students people talking to people humans talking to humans will really see that in in area um um focus Area 1 A and C great thank you thank you other questions for Dr Caputo thank you for your presentation we'll look forward to the updates another great year special thanks to Dr Herzog her as I said in our um our uh opening session yesterday her fingerprints are all over this her writing skills her synthesizing skills uh to take a lot of feedback I mean when we're looking through multiple uh Google Sheets and inter inters and email feedback to put that together really um re really made this a uh a special uh slide dect tap so thank you for that well thank you to Dr Herzog thank you okay we are moving on to the reports first is the president's report I do not have a report this evening um we will move to the I'll speak slowly to the superintendent report i' just like to tell the board and the public that we are ready for opening day we are ready for students um we talked yesterday in my opening to the staff about um Grace and understanding um so we want to get better every day but we want to get better every day with Grace and with understanding and I gave some examples we want Grace for um the superintendent we want Grace for the parent that can't get to um you know the parking spot on time we want Grace for the student who needs a little extra help um so we want to get better every day today with Grace understanding we're excited for students tomorrow um we we we saw almost every teacher and Power in the district today as we went around to the sessions and they are ready they're excited the um it was kind of a a tease today to get the students for a few minutes and um looking forward to getting them in first thing tomorrow morning and uh um and then getting off the 2425 school year to a great start wonderful I I uh I know my son is very excited I think to start 11th grade tomorrow so thank you I I think he's excited for school I'm just not sure he's excited for the time schedule maybe he could start at 3: in the afternoon and end at 9: or 10: at night he has been practicing I think he'd be much better much more excited about it but thank you Dr Caputo okay um committer reports um M cook is not here was Pol did policy meet no policy did not meet okay Mr derling a curriculum thank you uh uh oh I'll come back you're not in your normal spot that's yeah we're not we're not sorry we'll come back to you um so C met last Tuesday um we uh continued our long discussion about curriculum guide updates so we continued that conversation and continued that review um process a topic that we discussed involved a matachin high school with zero period um there was a conversation around zero period at the high school and which courses are scheduled at that time for this year um some of the constraints on the schedule were discussed with respect to why zero period is being utilized um some of this included in increased requests for science courses space issues and a larger freshman class this year um pros and cons of the zero period were discussed we shared our concerns around zero zero period which included I'm going to be saying zero period a lot I apologize I'm hearing my that's a lot um which included a longer school day which was one concern earlier start times and the additional workload of that extra class um this was really more of a concern for you know our new freshman kid that are coming into the high school and for those who aren't requesting that extra class um we did discuss the advantages which included you know being able to offer more courses allowing more students to receive their selected classes and giving more students who requested that opportunity to take a double science class that's kind of what we were seeing this year um some data was shared to show which cours has ran during zero period over the last several years and our next steps will include additional conversations data collection and and further discussion um Dr Herzog reviewed curriculum motions for board approval that will take place this meeting and our next meeting um she shared the plans and schedules for the district's new staff orientation shared the plans and schedules for the opening day for staff which took place already and shared the plan for the district's teacher mentoring program which will support the district's new teachers this year and new staff members um certified staff members and finally Dr hazo shared the district's access testing data which we all saw this evening and that concludes my report our next meeting is September 17th thank you Mr deringer by the way what is the incoming Freshman Class what's SI how many students it was a big uh it was 190 how many graduated from igar last year 196 195 I can I can find that it's okay just you know just mentioned the size of it it's that is a very very large class for us um we usually pick up students also well we lose some but we also pick up some coming into High School we do so um just interesting if you have the number if not it's somewhere somewhere around 200 I guess which is a big number for us thank you um going back to Mr glassberg sorry construction that's right we did throw you off I don't know how we ended up like this today actually uh on August 17th some members of the construction committee met at the farmers market to meet members of the public and to talk about a construction update I was joined by Michelle cook and uh Eric sus and Dr hazan Johnson Marcus and uh it was a very engaging experience we were busy all day and uh members of the public were extremely supportive um positive um but also not afraid to have some pointed questions and it was really great to engage engage in that format um catching people on their way out of hot yoga or on their end of a bike ride or just sitting there having their food and coffee um it was a really nice informal setting to be able to talk about some of the construction progress and also the issues we brought along pictures all that is on our website we have a flyover um courtesy of Mr julig that's also on our website now and uh and all the pictures of the updated progress um we even engaged with a lot of people who don't live in matachin a lot of teachers who looked at the drawings not the drawings the photos of the progress of the building and then the renderings of what they will look like and uh many of them were saying I I wish that my building would look like that I wish that my building would have air conditioning like like that we'll have um and all that we did was we encouraged them to apply to matou in and if there's openings and uh maybe they'll want to work here too so it was a great experience and we hope to do it again sometime so thank you for the invite from the mouen farmers market uh organization our next meeting is September 9th and then our next open public meeting for the construction committee is October 14th and that is at 700 p.m. on October 14th in the mouin high school library that's open to the public thank you thank you Mr glassberg um moving on to Dr Johnson Marcus uh from the um burrow I have no report at this time however I will note that the district leadership team will be meeting this Thursday uh at 3:15 so I'll have a report next meeting on that wonderful thank you uh Dr spner Equity yes Equity did not meet but I think we have one scheduled for the 17th as well postively Mr sus construction uh Finance Finance F Finance did not meet but we're also meeting on September 9th okay thank you are there any comments or questions extracurricular didn't meet either I'm having a very bad night I apologize I uh I had some things that threw me off I think and Dr spner m well I have a listing of your names right I have a I have a listing of your names thank you um Miss Killian extracurricular extracurricular did not me but that was worth it though that's the punch that's that's the winner okay any comments or questions on those that we did meet and didn't meet thank you all for the uh for the reports and I apologize for my my performance this Dr Caputo mentioned about giving us Grace you know giving super you didn't mention board member Grace board member I need Grace this evening thank you okay we will move to Old business is there any old business from the board seeing none is there any new business from the board seeing none I'd like to move the approval of the following Board of Education minutes August 13 2024 special business meeting 1 August 13 2024 special business meeting 2 August 13th 2024 board meeting is there a second Dr Johnson Marcus there any comments or Corrections on those minutes sing none roll call please Mr bot yes Mr durflinger yes Mr glasberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss Colleen yes Mr lifton yes Dr spner abstain thank you Mr SS yes motion carries thank you meeting is now open to the public for any topic seeing none I'll close that section and move to the recommendation of the superintendent of schools often times it may appear to members of our audience that the board of education takes action with very little comment and in many cases unanimous vote before matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent of schools if the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the board of education is then referred to the appropriate board committee the members of the board committee work with the administration and the superintendent to assure that M the matters fully un that the members fully understand the matter when the committee is satisfied with the matter is presented to the board of education for discussion before any any final action is taken only then is it placed on the agenda agenda for Action at a public meeting I'd like to move the Personnel items a one through 31 we've been busy keeping me busy keeping you busy is there a second Mr derflinger are there any comments or questions Mr sus just a question uh a15 is the approval of the list of substitutes it seems really small and sorry um Carolyn did text me to say if you had a question about about that she said that the first round of substitutes did their training and then they're going to have a second round of substitute training and then they will be on the agenda after they do their training I suspected Carolyn is the best recruiter I have ever seen so so we've insed a few years ago a pretty extensive uh Mr pri's very involved with that and Miss Taylor a very extensive sub training program each year so until the sub does the sub training they can't sub with us that year so we schedule in the summer and then we schedule when folks are back in school if people are on vacation so we'll have additional folks that are approved for this year based on their completion of that program so the subs are approved year to year okay thank you thank you Mr C are there other questions comments or questions seeing on will call please Mr bot yes Mr derflinger yes Mr glas yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss Colleen yes Mr lton yes Dr sner yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you Mr Lon just I should have mentioned this also and while we do this training in the summer and right at the beginning of the school year we also add Subs all throughout the year and they do a individualized uh training to make sure they get the same information so if there's anyone watching uh family college students whoever wants we're still looking for substitutes throughout the year and Mrs Taylor will take them through from A to Z with the process and get them on agenda and get them working thank you thank you Dr Kudo I know that uh having a a large enough roster of Subs is very important so as Dr Caputo I'll only I'll only say also that anybody who's interested in subbing should uh should take the plunge um it's uh it's tough but we prepare them and we support them you're prepared and you get to work with children for anyone who likes to work with children um it's it's a nice way to spend a few hours on your schedule cuz just cuz you sign up to be a sub doesn't mean you have to sub every day or you know it's really uh a very flexible situation and um we certainly could use as many as as many Subs as we we can get thank you uh Finance Mr sus I'd like to move items B1 through B8 as listed on the agenda thank you is there a second Dr spegman are there any uh comments or questions on the finance items seeing none will call please Mr bot yes Mr derflinger yes Mr Glasser yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss cleen yes Mr lifton yes Dr spner yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you um Mr derfflinger curriculum thank you I'd like to make a motion to moves items D1 through eight as listed on the agenda please thank you is there a second Dr Johnson Marcus are there any comments or questions about these items yes Mr Su I think it's uh worth noting I think Dr Caputo you're speaking at one of the uh items that they're doing on the field trip you were mentioning I am that's very kind uh was asked by the GMC to speak at their sportsmanship sportsmanship Summit this year at Woodbridge Community Center I think it's September 18th is the date um and they ask a superintendent from the county each year to present so I'm very honored that they asked and um looking forward to addressing the student athletes from around middlex County uh at that Summit so thanks for mentioning very nice thank you uh other comments or questions about those items VOC call please Mr bot yes m Mr derflinger yes Mr glasberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss Colleen yes Mr lton yes Dr Spar yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you the meeting is now open to the public for any item seeing none it'll close that section moose move to announcements Mr bot uh yeah I just uh we have quite a list here as we're getting back I just want to start by saying welcome back I think um if you were around any of the schools today back school was extraordinary successful all around uh and just appreciative of the administration the school leadership teams teachers staff volunteers PTO PTC everyone um I think the first day of school may not be the happiest day in my house for my kids but it's definitely a day of Pride uh we can acknowledge that balance uh one thing that'll make it better for him though is we are slow rolling the heck out of the start of the school year so half day tomorrow full day Thursday half day Friday and a day off Monday don't get used to it um for Campbell schools uh some highlights Meet the Teacher Night on 919 picture day on 9:30 um I wouldn't be ready for picture day on 9:30 I have a lot of weight to lose from my summer vacation Edgar family's open house was amazing proud recipient of an earned Bulldog brief and just great work from Principal Alo so uh and I believe that's being extended to the students this year uh who are going to get that as well which I think is great mou in high school picture day on September 5th uh and parent meeting and meet the teachers on the 12th uh PTO registration is open uh sign up volunteer class parent lists join the matachin PTC uh through the matachin p uh PTC website and then I think uh just worth saying and I may be overextending myself here but feels worthwhile uh just be mindful and curious as the school year kicks off I think everyone is finding their footing their wheels you know bus drivers finding their Rhythm too uh the whole Community always does appreciate uh Dr Caputo highlighting Grace I think at this time it's going to be really important for all of us as we just work together and I also want to thank Mr lifton for striking a balance today trying to answer questions while also just honoring Civic communal ethical responsibilities of this group which among the most important is to encourage conversations about the front lines to take place on the front lines by guiding you back to our principles and slts we're just doing our best to build those direct commun Connections in community as a first step so really important and illustrative reminder today of why it's just important to start the conversations where the conversations need to be started uh so with that thank you very much well I appreciate the kind words Mr P thank you very much it's uh as as uh who who former presidents on the board Mr glassberg is one and I think we lost our other former presidents along the way so it's just me Mr glasberg right now um it's it's not easy to uh to people come to the podium they have the right to speak they have the right to be heard and we want to hear them um the the back and forth of question and answer is always problematic because you want to be forthcoming with information that you have but as a board we don't have all the information to answer that's one of the reasons why as I started to say njsba really doesn't recommend engaging in a back and forth because we don't have the answers most of the time that the person at the podium would want and instead of misspeaking and creating a negative situation we're supposed to point back to the administr administration either Dr cter or building principles or or other other administrators um and that can be frustrating for the public um who wants their answer um to be given um but what I tried to say to the person who came to the podium is that and this is I think important for any member of the public who's going to come to the podium if we can answer the questions simply and and clearly and quickly we'll do that because why wouldn't we we're not here to to make it more difficult for anybody but as a general rule it's a public comment section meaning the person at the podium gets to do the talking we don't do the talking we do the listening and anytime we're talking back and forth we're sort of getting ourselves in trouble and you know in an effort to be helpful we can lead ourselves down a road where it can get to be negative and I I hope it wasn't too negative for the person who came to the podium um I she she has a course of action to ask her questions more in depth to either the principal or or the U or the superintendent but you know it's always a bit uncomfortable to not be able to answer the questions and it starts to feel adversarial and that's never what we want so thank you for bringing it up at the end and and and for your compliment to me personally I certainly appreciate it it uh it's never comfortable and I appreciate the uh the kind words thank you okay is there a I'd like to make a motion to adjourn is there a second Dr Johnson Marcus all in favor thank you and good night