e e e e e okay good evening so we have a little bit of an unusual start in that uh M varis uh was unable to attend tonight she unfortunately um had a death in her family that she needed to attend to um because of that uh to go with Robert's R of order what we actually need to do is um have a board member uh amongst the board members who are here we need a motion for someone to be the board member of record to preside over the meeting today Mr Yami is um ready willing and able to actually walk us through all of the various motions but we do need someone on the record to preside I asked um what is the most common practice when a situation like this arises and was told that typically what will happen is the board member with the longest tenure would typically be kind of considered to be the quote presiding officer for the meeting um Mr sanis I think that that Falls to you um if you're willing and your fellow board members would like to nominate you we would just need a motion to nominate Jim as presiding officer for tonight's meeting and then a second and then a vote and if somebody else would like to nominate someone else that's certainly acceptable as well so moved second you want to call a vote sure missal here no do you um yes is it an affirmative vote Yes Yes Mrs Swang yes Miss Keller yes Mr Lisi a resounding yes lot of support here Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis well okay yes Mr Weaver okay excellent so Mr Sanz if you can Us in okay so what just just the meeting is started okay the meeting of the pasak Valley Regional High School District board of education has begun thank you and then Mr Yami you can take it from there sure I'll do roll call uh Mrs fargis is absent Miss Calderone here Mrs Swang here miss Keller here Mr louisi here Mrs Martin here Mr Stanis here miss stefin Mr Weaver here okay flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by mailing copies of said notice to the record filing copies of said notice with the municipal Clerks of Hillsdale Montvale Rivervale and woodcliffe lake and Publishing said notice in the record on July 21st 2023 um just want to make an announcement we're going to do oath of office however uh Katie Keller here was sworn in officially on June 3 at central office uh we will do this again um this will give a opportunity to be um streamed as well as having your family here uh to hopefully take some photos Okay so if you step up to the podium I Katie Keller do Sol affirm that I will support the contition of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and theti of the state of and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and I will bear true faith and alance to the same and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people and to the governments established in the United States and in this state under the authority of the people kaat I Katie Keller do solemnly affirm that I that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education and I amif as1 and that I am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs19 col 4-1 disqualify to of crime orist njs nor disqualified due to the conviction of a crime or offense listed in njs 18a col 12-1 will per and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all of the duties at the office according of that office according to the best of my ability congratulations again you she's an we're all very excited thank you forgot about the photos oh no uh do you want to stand at the podium yeah do you want yes up there with you as the the the oath Giver do want me to take it with your phone way thank you so much congratulations Katie on the agenda we were having nomination election of Vice President however since uh president bargis is not here uh we will have that done at the next meeting table to the next meeting correct we have the minutes of May 20th regular meeting and the executive meeting on May 20th can I have a motion so moved second any discussion Miss Calderone yes Mrs hang obain Miss Keller yes Mr louisi yes for the regular abstain for the executive Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Mr Weaver yes right next we have a resolution of appreciation for Joseph blundo Mr blundo why don't you come sit up here while we [Applause] one [Laughter] last you're gonna see me not okay whereas Mr Joseph blundo was elected to serve as Rivervale representative to pasak Valley Regional High School District Board of Education starting December 2014 and did serve until April 2024 four and whereas Mr blundo did Faithfully attend and actively participated at the executive and public meetings of the pasak Valley Regional High School District Board of Education during that period of time and whereas Mr blundo did serve as board president starting January 2022 and did serve until December 2023 and whereas Mr blundo did serve as board vice president in 2021 and did serve again in 2024 and whereas Mr blundo did serve as chairperson of the pasak Valley Regional High School District Communications facilities negotiations policy and postsecondary planning committees and whereas Mr blundo did serve as a Committee Member of the pasak Valley Regional High School District Finance governance guidance and student Alliance committees and whereas Mr blundo did serve as a leaone for pasak Valley Regional High School District with the pasak Valley high school PTO PFO and njsba and whereas Mr blundo during his time on the board focused on facilitating discussions building consensus and making decisions that were in the best interest of the students and the community whereas Mr blundo always put students first in all decisions and in all conversations and whereas Mr blundo led the board with professionalism and fairness with a focus on pasak Valley Regional High School District's strong vision for Success including ensuring student Focus was on Innovation individuality and inquiry and whereas Mr blundo supported staff students and the community in his actions to move our entire School Community forward in the right direction and now therefore be it resolved that the pasak Valley Regional High School District board of education does express its sincere appreciation to Mr blundo on behalf of all of the superintendent board members students and citizens of our four sending districts for his efforts and his beliefs and be it further resolved that the pasak Valley Regional High School District Board of Education members individually and jointly thank Mr Joseph blundo for his contributions and camaraderie over this timeline and wish him well in in his other endeavors and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution recognizing Mr Joseph blundo be spread upon the minutes of the pasak Valley Regional High School District Board of Education I have a a couple words as well Joe um so Joe it's been an incredible journey having you on our board of education for the past decade from your early days as River veil's representative to your leadership roles as board President and Vice President you've consistently shown up and you've really made a dist a difference and a lasting impact on our school and on our community you were the stability that we needed and trying times and we thank you for being our rock your dedication to our students has been evident in every decision you've made made in every conversation you've had you've LED with professionalism fairness and an unwavering commitment to our District's vision for Success whether you are chairing committees serving as a liaison or building consensus among your fellow board members you always put the best interest of the students first in our community first on behalf of our entire administrative team our teachers our staff our students and the citizens of our four sending districts we want to express our heartfelt appreciation for all that you've done as you move on to other endeavors please know that you have our deepest gratitude and best wishes um thank you for being an integral part of our school community and of our leadership team thank you Joe we have some stuff for you here we've got sorry uh we have a plaque of appreciation that we'll present to you and we'll take a picture if you don't mind we have your yearbook yearbook is is coming and then we also have the the resolution framed for for you definitely thank you I'd like to say a few words please Joe we've worked together for many years I I've never seen anyone so dedicated to the community as you whether it was Town Council mayor Board of Ed just a terrific positive influence for the district for the community I thank you for uh your advice to me as a board member and I thank you for just keeping it all together and moving everything forward in a positive way definitely a terrific guy I'm going to miss you I'd like to add to that as well for somebody who came on after a lot of uh drama was happening within our district I felt that you helped me adjust and your decade of experience really helped the new board members and I appreciate all of your guidance and listening and even if you didn't necessarily agree you always fair and do agree that you always put students in the community first and I appreciate all of your time and we're going to miss you very much Joe I'm really mad at you no um I'm I'm was such a pleasure really that working with you over the last uh what two two plus years so really really really professional all the way very fair um just a pleasure to work with really um wish you the best Joe I just just want to Echo those guys sentiments too but I also want to know what haven't you done spend time with my kid I was able to do that okay well really it was a pleasure serving with you even though it was a short period of time your wealth and wisdom um definitely made an impact on me so thank you I I guess I'll end it and just uh for me it's thanks Joe because uh not knowing what I was getting into when I got here you definitely uh uh help lead the way for me and uh uh definitely an inspiration so we're we're going to miss you I I Echo what Jim Jim said you you a great member Board of Ed member great mayor better better person so thank you and I have to thank Joe too this short amount of time we've been together I appreciate your your balance and your diligence and and leading me into my new position thank you do you want to do the roll call Mr Yami for that motion and then I'm thinking maybe if you guys don't mind we could just get a group picture and we'll have Joe in the middle sure take a motion second giving people some ideas here um Miss Calderone yes Mrs Swang yes Miss Keller yes Mr louisi yes Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Miss stefin yes Mr Weaver yes excellent all right let's uh let's go in front of the screen maybe yeah the plaque do you okay ready one two sorry got it thank you everybody it's been a window on our lives I think all you guys I didn't really want to make a big speech you've heard enough of me for the last 10 years but um what you do is very important and sometimes maybe in a moment of I won't call it weakness but in moment of uh doubt whatever you might say why am I doing this and what you do is really really important we have something special here and um you're the Shepherds of it and you're the caretakers of it and um you do a great job and uh Jeff Jasper one time when I I said something nice to him he said what makes pasak special is the people that Walk The Halls from the superintendent the board office the administrators um the Board of Education the teachers and the students so just keep doing what you're doing you're doing a great job and I do a thank [Applause] you and we do have some cupcakes uh to celebrate I'm sure that you guys gra some on next next we have the resolution of appreciation for retiring staff resolved that the pasak Valley Regional High School District Board of Education at the recommendation of the superintendent recognize the following staff in our district retiring during the 2023 2024 school year Susan Bella Barbara borgi Jane comboy Patricia corkery Martin edelberg Michelle awusi Garcia Christine Gorman Eva MK Marney Rosen Christy rossig and Stephanie thomaselli I've had the uh pleasure of attending a number of celebrations for some of our staff are outgoing and I can say I've been so moved to hear the stories from their colleagues from students about how each one of our retirees has touched the lives of our students of our faculty um of our parents of our community uh Mr blendo was correct we have something really special here and while it's so sad to see really everyone on this list um go you know we wish them the best and we're so happy for them and we're so glad that they decided to you know teach here with us um and retire here from us so um we wish them the best and thank them for their years of service to our school Community next we have a presentation it's by the departmental metrics data review Dr bachenheimer and the departmental supervisors so to introduce um Dr bachenheimer and his team um while you guys come up and get set up I'll I'll do a quick introduction here so I want to introduce Dr bachenheimer um obviously uh he and his team attend and and present at a lot of board meetings one of the things I wanted to point out is that his full title is actually director of curriculum instruction and assessment um internally we kind of refer to it as CIA it's sort of our instructional team it's important to note tonight because he's going to be leading our presentation on departmental metrics and that's to say how our supervisors assess the learning that's occurring within each department it's also important to note because as our CIA leader he's overseeing and vetting all of the statements that you've heard and will hear about assessment practices within the district uh I want to just make a note that he and his team have my full confidence in how our assessment practices are evaluated and analyzed tonight's presentation is not going to address our current instructional assessment practice with regard to midterms and finals um as you know assessment has been an ongoing conversation over the last two years we went from having a total impact of midterms and finals at about 20% of a a total grade last year we dropped that down to 15% this year we actually dropped that further where almost every course is at 5% impact with uh all but um a handful of AP courses being uh no greater than 7.5% and I say that because I know that as we close out the school year um there's been a lot of chatter among um students and some faculty and some parents about what that impact of finals really is so I wanted to just um make sure that we clarify that you know we've set our impact at about 5% this is the lowest percentage average we've found so far throughout the state um we are still collecting data but we've collected data from a number of districts throughout our region other Regional uh High School Districts we know that other districts such as rwood uh I'm sorry Ridgewood wait their midterms and finals at about 20% Which is what we used to do we've changed from that practice Bergen academies administers midyear and end of thee cumulative assessments that are waiting the same as their unit tests which is about as close to our weights as we have found uh one other school Northern Valley who we are often compared to they've implemented a version of quarterly assessments that are given in place of midterms and finals but most of the other schools that we have looked at have actually gone to a strategy of reimplement reimplementing uh those traditional cumulative assessments we've gone to Great Links to try to meet the needs of our students by finding a balance within our assessment strategy and our assessment plan this has led to much variation in both the assessment weight and the assessment schedule over the past five or six years we've enlisted our supervisors of instruction to work with us to again evaluate and analyze the data from this year's administration of midterms and finals we're going to again run numbers to determine the overall impact of these assessments on a student's final score and final grade our preliminary data from running this data after midterms found that 92% of student grades were unchanged or went up as a result of the midterm that's aligned with the data that we see from the impact of other larger unit assessments we're going to continue from basically you know uh school year ended last week our finals concluded last week so we've started collecting the data we're going to continue to collect internal data as well as look at external data this includes a survey of all regional high schools throughout our region and throughout the state as to the status of their assessment schedule we want to know did they make any changes since we reached out to them last year either to the weight or the frequency of their cumulative assessments we also uh Dr bachenheimer is conducting a survey of our top 15 enrolled colleges that is to say the most the 15 most popular colleges that our students attend um we reach out to them to ascertain their assessment practices this is something that Dr bachenheimer does every year he started when we first started talking about midterms back in 2015 we also are going to look at an analysis of feedback from staff and students on the assessment schedule itself we have lingering questions such as are parents actively engaging with canvas to read and review each syllabus with their child do they know how to log on do they know where to look are teachers providing sufficient study skills or study guides in preparation for the these cumulative assessments are enough teachers assigned to our learning labs to properly serve all students that have questions are study guides accurate reflections of the material tested are our AP scores being predicted by other cumulative assessments given in our AP courses are our weights for midterms and finals appropriate are they in line with what other school districts of our caliber are doing are our student GPA align aligned with the surrounding High performing districts this is a big question that has come up and something that we've added to our evaluation list we're also looking our teachers giving given ample time to provide feedback to students and to address any concerns about the content learned and the content that was mastered these questions are going to continue to drive our analysis of our assessment schedule and our our assessment um practices we're going to be reporting back to our curriculum committee before presenting an analysis of our assessment findings to the full board I want to make that clear because um I don't want to confuse the two questions at hand uh the conversation that we're having right now through this presentation is about our departmental metrics the conversation about midterms and finals is something that we're continuously analyzing we're currently calling the information that I just talked about we're going to analyze that and go uh have that be a presentation first to our board curriculum committee and then we'll uh proceed uh with a presentation to our full board I wanted our board and the public to understand um the difference between the two and our um schedule for evaluating that and rolling that out so with that said tonight I turn it over to Dr bachenheimer and I thank him for his continued work in this area um and I thank you for allowing me to give some context uh to this and I want uh to thank you in advance for giving uh some additional information to our board and the public about our teacher evaluation system and uh you know helping to allow us to better understand how we answer that question our our students learning what they want them to what we want them to learn so Dr bachenheimer thank you absolutely thanks M bat and thank you members of the board members of the public for having us here this evening purpose of our presentation again is to share uh how we evaluate our programs and our staff and so uh tonight I'm joined by several of our supervisors uh two of our supervisors unfortunately suddenly could not make this evening so I'll be filling in for their parts everyone else will be sharing briefly what's going on in their departments and the ways they evaluate but to begin I wanted to talk about the way we evaluate our teachers as I know this has been a question perhaps and a chance to educate perhaps some of our new board members on the process that we use so back in 2013 so it seems such a long time ago um the state had us change over to all districts in the state use the e4j standing for excellent Educators for New Jersey teacher valuation system in short this required that every school district in the state had to come up with a system by which all teachers were rated with a numerical score and a rating of Highly Effective effective partially effective or ineffective and the state forwarded four models that you could choose from however they said if there were other models that if a state put a waiver in for they could use now looking at the four models at the time 11 years ago our district took a look at this and said you know we really didn't like the approach of the four models that were there and collectively the administrative team at the time took a look at it and said we wanted to go with a model that was much more coaching approached as opposed to finding fault knowing the outstanding staff that we have working with us we felt this was a nice match for what we did so we went with What's called the Kim Marshall system uh Kim Marshall if you've never heard of him is a retired principal from the Boston area who put together a model of manyi observations by which instead of um back when I was a teacher in the classroom I would have principles come in and watch me for a full 45 minute period a couple times a year instead this is multiple visits at shorter intervals so instead of two visits say at 45 minutes instead now you would have if you're a non- tenear teacher nine classroom visits at 15 or 20 minutes a pop almost seeing a teacher every month and if you're a 10-year teacher a few less than that typically around five or six visits um and so the idea is that through many observations and this coaching model we're able to effectively see what's going on in classrooms more frequently evaluate have Co collaborative conversations make corrections as necessary praise and really get a true understanding of what's going on in the classrooms they are unannounced so they don't know when we're coming um and then as part of this we very after each one of these observations have a obser a mini uh post observation where supervisors will sit down with their in uh teachers and our c counselors child study team members Etc and talk about goals of the lessons outcomes what did you do yesterday what are you doing tomorrow what are you doing next week how does this fit into our curriculum pieces like that and then Midway through the year there's a midyear conference where they reflect on professional development and other goals at the end of the year there's an end of the year conference where uh they sit down with the uh official rubric that are break down by several different areas and score the teacher in one through four four being highly effective three being effective Etc I'm pleased to share that certainly since we've been implementing the system with very very few exceptions our teachers consistently are rated as effective or highly effective and this isn't an inflation thing this is just truly based upon their talents in the classroom and the work that they do based upon several different areas considering including planning and preparation including uh implementation including assessment including professional responsibilities things along those lines um this model was so effective and interesting that at least in the Bergen County area many high performing districts joined us in utilizing Marshall including Northern Valley and their sending districts Waldwick Northern Highlands and their sending districts um several other districts in the area went along with it so much so that for many years we have what we call the Marshall Summit no connection to social studies for those of you have a history background um where we would talk about kind of implementing this all together but the ultimate goal with all of it is that um as certainly I believe our teachers would say if you ask them it's a high level of trust between the administrator ERS and the teachers they're observing it's collaborative not adversarial and the idea is that everyone sees it as a way to get better and make our system and District get better and not as a gotcha system so collectively that's how we evaluate our teachers and those ratings are uploaded as part of the state requirements every year in June moving on to how we uh evaluate each of our departments so we'll start with uh English language arts unfortunately Mrs matuch could not be here this evening but to briefly speak for her uh they evaluate students with several initiatives over the last couple years in both reading and writing we utilize a program called common lit where students will have reading and writing assessments the two charts that you're looking at here the top one uh just as a reflection of our 10th graders specifically what if you're taking a look at this there's a preassessment scale score a midyear assessment score and a post assessment scaled score these are not created students take them to really just assess where they are at in terms of their Ela skills and as you can see across the board there is a rise as students move through the year here and obviously as they learn more pieces and we you really use this data very heavily to prepare students for njsla NJ GPA SATs other things that students are assessed on as well as their curriculum the chart you see here at the bottom is what every teacher is able to see on a regular basis with what they're doing with their students evaluation so they're able to make adjustments for their classroom so they can see how they're doing each of their classes moving averages how certain classes are doing compared to other classes areas that might require attention and and it also flag certain areas within the curriculum such as reading for a main idea evidence and support things along those lines so our English Department has been using this format for the last several years and has been having great success with it as EV been certainly by our continual rise in scores over the past couple years on other standardized test measures I'm now going to turn this over to Mrs Graziano to talk about science thank you Dr bachenheimer good evening everyone my name is Megan Graziano and I'm the supervisor of instruction for Science and Technology education and I'm I'm here to talk to you about our metrics that we've been using this year for the first time ever we have been utilizing the linkit science benchmarks this is actually the first year that this metrics and this um product was actually available through linkit what this allows us to do is provide um a common Benchmark assessment to biology chemistry and physics students in every single class at all various levels of those courses um with a common assessment which is tied directly to the three Di dimensions of Science assessment which is um the three dimensions excuse me of science learning are going to be the science and engineering practices the crosscutting concepts and then the specific strands and topics that we learn within so as you can see it does produce a large amount of various types of data and I just wanted to give you a snapshot of some of the ways we're able to actually look at growth so that top chart on the right there was the results of our initial chemistry Benchmark where what we're looking at there is the measurement and achievement of each of these science and engineering practices so during one of our initial department meetings we took a look at this data and our teachers within each subject area really honed in on specific skills that they wanted to focus their instruction on they are constantly working all of these into their instruction but they really pinpointed areas um in need of maybe a little bit more Focus right in need of a little bit more growth and that's where we focused our discussions throughout the year we're able to look at the totality of the results so you can see here the difference between Benchmark a and Benchmark B and biology overall throughout the district and we're also able to look at the results overall in the difference of growth for instance if you look up top there where it says uh sep that's the science and engineering practice of analyzing and interpreting data we saw a growth from 49% to 89% achievement with that specific skill between form a and Form B on the physics link it and so this data really helps lead a lot of meaningful discussions but because it is a new product we are still actually giving feedback to link it to talk about ways that we can continue to improve um our use of it in the classroom and as well as like the product itself and that's actually been really meaningful and wonderful and because this is a new tool I also think it's important to look at other metrics and earlier in the year we reported on the raw data right that we received for njsla assessments this down here is actually our comparative data compared to where we stand within the state so as you can see there's a lot of green boxes there because comparatively um although the the rawad data May indicate you know the lower scores realistically comparative to the state we're actually scoring very very well it's a very challenging assessment across the state so overall we're actually scoring better than 88% of the state overall we do want to continue to climb there obviously and that's our goal always um but I especially want to point out the success that we've seen in the Improvement of our special education success on this test where they actually finished in the top 90% um this past year and so I'm looking look forward to getting the updated comparative scores for this year's tests as well and we're going to continue to utilize these benchmarks as well as others um and track the growth of our science students moving forward thank you okay uh Mrs Safari unfortunately couldn't be here this evening she's our uh acting supervisor of World Language um so what you're seeing here are the metrics that are utilized for World Language now as you know if you've either personally studied World Language or of a child who studied World Language our goal is not to conj verbs our goal is to have students be active uh communicators in the language both in speaking reading and writing and that's uh really linked back to the way that we assess our students with that using something called an IPA uh no this is not a Sam Adams drink this stands for integrated performance assessments uh really that's conducted at the end of each unit uh that we put together at least four times a year they're skill and goal based um and they analyze the student work samples as a department collectively during their department meeting and profession profal development times um and they use the same approach for eighth grade placement as well collaboratively looking at communication skills for students the rubrics that they use align with the latest aul uh standards for World Language guidance and just to give you a sense of what this means so on June 13th they tested all the Juniors to get a sense of where they were with the stamp data for Spanish language test so Spanish is our most popular language that students take um students as a median score scored between 4.96 and 6.9 97 what does that mean anything five or above qualifies you for the Seal of B literacy um we continue to have large numbers of students uh acquiring the sealed by literacy standard that numbers started when we start first started doing this about eight years ago we had about a dozen kids do it we are into a couple hundred by the end of the year and we'll present those finite numbers to you when we do our annual score reports for you in August but we remain very proud of our world language results as they go through and they're continuing to look at Future direction of looking at student data and continue to develop student portfolios as an additional way of measuring their growth in World Language now I'm going to turn it over to Dr Russo to talk about mathematics thank you so much for mathematics we administer three benchmark assessments one in September one in January or February and one in May or June uh with the goal of determining students relative strengths and weaknesses in key course standards and adjusting our instruction accordingly uh we're able to see how individual students perform on these key standards and as you can see in the two charts on the left uh we're also able to identify how students are doing in aggregate for each Benchmark Administration we then take these data and based on standards relative importance in each course and their prevalence on state assessments we identify areas of focus in the chart on the right you will see this year's initial analysis of students performance in Geometry which is extra importance in our first year implementing geometry first for a portion of our students while these data represent to the perform the performance of all students in Geometry I'd like to note that some of these data are incomplete and further that these data refer to all of our GE geometry courses including the courses that remain the same for students who already took Algebra 1 in Middle School in order to get a more targeted understanding I'm in the early stages of analyzing the performance for students just in our new geometry first courses I don't want to place too much emphasis on a single Year's worth of data and we will be on the lookout for Trends over time but when comparing this year's group to the comparable group of freshmen last year who took Algebra 1 data from our first year is encouraging students average growth from form a to form C this year surpass students average growth in 2223 by approximately three percentage points we still have work to do of course but Our intention is to maintain and build on this growth as we continue working to improve moving forward we'll once again identify areas of focus based on students Benchmark results and consider these areas in summer curriculum writing department meetings and instructional decisions throughout the year each of these standards tells a different story and we want to make sure we consider initial instruction spiraling and retention of topics taught earlier in the year and opportunities to make connections and synthesize Big Ideas later in the year we're especially focused on Geometry right now with our geometry first initiative but we'll expand that Focus to Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 as we move forward and look to additional data collection including student interest as we hope to provide multiple desirable Pathways for students as they progress in our upper level mathematics electives thank you again for your time and I'll turn it over to Mr orlac and our social studies Department thank you um thanks for having me speak about our program um the initiative that we undertake thank you Barry um is to strength of critical thinking skill skills and historical analytical skills in our students we look at this as a mandate not only for our students to learn history but to help them to become productive and informed citizens in the future So to that end we focus on six historical thinking Concepts this is the basis of our curriculum 9 through 12 and has begun to Lee down into the sending districts as well and that's establishing historical significance utilizing primary source evidence identifying continuity and change analyzing cause and conse quence taking historical perspectives and understanding the ethical dimensions of historical interpretations so to ensure that we are hitting on those uh six skills we established the Social stes Department assessment metrics plan organized by content area this is world history us one us2 not our elect it's just our core courses organized by content area academic level across the district and defined by Key by three key documents uh chosen from the we call it effectively shag Stanford history education group um which offers 140 Library of Congress documents and questions that are connected to those documents so teachers met worked on choosing the particular documents and in October February and may gave um assessments based on those particular documents we established proficiency scales highly proficient partial proficient and um and proficient not in that order um and this helped us most importantly to just our teaching of those skills throughout the year and it should be noted that these are lowrisk meaning not graded assessments these are either due Nows these are either integrated within the class or exit tickets and we utilize this and we thank the students for allowing us to use them to help us become better teachers on this side so there's an example here for our US1 Honors group and we see overall with our findings uh significant increases in student proficiency over time this is the second year we've used this as a metrics plan but we've been doing this for a number of years um our most notable success is in our ninth current ninth grade students two years ago we started sharing this information with our sending districts with the feeder schools all four of them and they have taken it to heart and have started to look at the different primary sources um that are utilized and how to interpret those primary sources so through the regional curriculum office um specifically this year pasak Hills really knocked it out of the water Valley was doing well all along um we're going to continue to have that articulation when it comes to those sending districts as they as they come to the high school one of the issues that we have for improvement which is a focus for next year is a difficulty for students comprehending era specific language I have the opportunity um to collaborate with the Department of Education as a author of the um dis FL L literacy project creating models for high schools to help students Implement targeted teachers to implement targeted strategies to improve accessibility and content specific support for language when it comes to social studies we want everyone to speak social studies and that's the real goal of this so we're going to continue I'll I'll be introducing that to the department come um when it's official which will be in a couple months but come September we'll have that in place to allow our students to continue to speak the language of social studies we're also going to continue that Regional curriculum office integration um with this year we had teachers from the eth grade spend time with our ninth grade teachers even though it's four different districts it's wonderful to see the teachers come up here and it's almost like a family reunion when they're seeing the kids oh yeah Mrs whatever so it gives opportunity for that connection to to continue um so again we we're really happy with the Benchmark process within social studies and for next year we're looking to Pivot to a a program called a DBQ Project which is a little higher it's more of a higher level than the Shag documents and and you know for those who are aware of this this could give us even more data and really Drive our our success forward but again um we really want our students to do well in social studies but we want them to be good productive citizens that's our number one goal thank you so just to conclude this uh this came about uh the year after the pandemic if those of you who are on the board remember the question was raised how do we know how we're doing especially post pandemic how do we know how well students are achieving how well teachers are reaching their curriculum goals so each department supervisor was empowered to look for a research supported way to really answer that question and I have to commend our supervisors who were here and even the two that are not uh for really really rising to the challenge um certainly we've adjusted a little bit over the past couple years bringing in linked it certainly has been an asset to us that we continue to develop but certainly the the goal behind all of this is in addition to the all the standardized tests that we use what are our internal metrics we continue to look at to know how we're doing again not so much are the students achieving but are the teachers teaching students learning objectives moving as we move through any questions from the board for myself or the supervisors um I want to thank all of you for the very detailed presentations um I especially want to thank you for the articulation work that's being done um with the Middle School I think that's helping prepare our students um the concern I continue to have and I know I voiced this in the past is in the area of the math uh with the geometry going first and I do see again as you obviously addressed that the growth is very small in that area and I'm wondering if those kids do not have the algebra background that they require um even in the State Testing so that's something I'd like to keep an eye on and see are we doing articulation moving backwards and are we preparing the kids with at least the algebra that they need to be successful in those geometry assessments absolutely and as as Dr Russo shared that's absolutely part of it we every program we start we have a pretty thorough evaluation system and we'll be keeping a very close eye on that and making adjustments as we need to if if we need to Great okay thank you any other questions from the board thank you all for your interest and your time we appreciate it next we have a presentation uh referendum planning uh architect Michael Berry uh of FKA e e good evening everybody uh my name is Mike bu with the firm FKA Architects and so tonight um I'm here to just talk to you about um a facility analysis and referendum process so um I have a presentation that's just going to go over the process of performing a facility analysis and also planning a referendum or we kind of call pre-referendum planning because you're planning to the vote of the referendum I'm going to show a timeline of what would be required for the pre-referendum planning and then some finally some examples of what you might expect to see in a facility analysis that we've done for some local neighboring districts so the facil facility analysis process six parts and I'll I'll walk you through each one um the first is to identify District space needs what are the existing defici existing deficiencies that we need to solve for in each of your schools what kind of desired programs might you might you have that you want to implement that you can't currently impact you can't currently Implement what are the enrollment implications especially from developments in the four towns and then finally is there a curriculum that you'd like to offer but maybe don't have the space or the right equipment or the right facility to to offer so it looks at all of those things and we start this by doing a walkthrough of the buildings looking at each space to look at the configuration and how it's organized within the buildings with a set of floor plans uh we would interview the various departments in the schools that would also not just be academics but it would also be Athletics um facilities are on the site and in the school also from there we'd identify any spaces that need to be either expanded or maybe can be Consolidated so when this when this comes together we have this this background information we then begin to prepare a plan for how the space might be best utilized this plan would have options for each one for each solution may mean certain departments expand maybe certain departments contract depending on the needs of the Departments and then each of those options would have a cost associated with it uh we utilize a program uh software estimating program called RS means which is a uh software that contractors will use to to estimate their construction cost so we're on the same line and we're able to project out costs with this software for years in the future because when we're planning a referendum these take years to plan so we have to make sure we have the right costs up front so when you go to build it years from now you have the right dollar amounts so that's sort of the background Gathering of information identifying what the needs is needs are and then putting a cost on each of the needs so this winds up to be a big list which I'll show show you an example of in a minute so usually what happens in a referendum planning is there's a dollar number that that the community would bear so the next step would be to prioritize and reconcile the needs and the cost to fit within whatever doll amount the community would Bear show you an example of that and of course the final step is to implement it and in this case I'm going to show you um a road map which I have a handout for I'll I'll uh give you some on this side okay so this road map that that you're seeing is this document here this has four phases to it and I i' like to begin to discuss this with the end instead of the beginning so the the end and the reason for that is because what what this is showing is is a potential vote date of December of 2027 the re the reason that that's there is because that's when the district's current debt expires replacing One debt with another so so the idea of this chart shows you the processes that are necessary to implement at the referendum starting with the end and working backwards if we're looking at December of 2027 the Department of Education requires we submit plans and application to the department for approval for a referendum six months at least 6 months prior to whatever referendum date you choose so in order to prepare in order to make that submission we need to prepare a submission so that backs you up another few months where we're looking at having an idea of what's in the referendum by the beginning of 2027 so then bringing it back to the beginning investigating the needs what I had mentioned in the facility analysis happens first that first sort of block of block of tasks here is all figuring out what the needs are and then estimating what the costs are for those needs so once that's all put together then then becomes the prioritization process what's most important to the district and which projects should be out top to be addressed first and then the SE the second bar this bar here is refining the plan so the first part happens uh 2024 2025 and then we're into the end of 25 and 26 to review the plan refine the plan prioritize The Plan update the costs begin some public Outreach get community feedback with surveys building tours and those kinds of things to understand what the needs are what the community Fields needs are so they can be coordinated what the board Fields needs are so that's the kind of outline of road map is any questions before I move forward with that no okay so I thought I'd show a couple of examples of what that all of that I just said looks like so the first example I'm going to show you is for Montville we we worked with Montville in their recent referendum and this is a this is a a planning document that we used with them this is one of the progress documents so their priorities in their schools were were both spatial and physical so we had a lot of renovation projects and we had some space projects that they wanted to solve for so what we did is the analysis we walked through their buildings interviewed the staff the administration the board to determine what items needed to be on a master facility list so this is this is one of the versions of their Master facility list and what we did here is prioritize what they thought some of the more important things were in their list and you can see the different categories that they had and then projects assigned to them so the idea of this this list is that it's almost like a menu you see each project and then what's in the blank column here we would ultimately estimate out a cost and fill it in there so you can make an informed decision what are you getting for your money and what is the most important thing so not every project fits into a referendum so in in the case of Montville we had a a lot of projects that didn't make the cut and these projects become future Capital Improvement projects or potentially projects that can be done by either staff or um just hiring contractor and one important item to note about referendum versus Capital Improvement projects is that with a referendum you have the opportunity to get Debt Service Aid with a referendum meaning the state will the state will contribute a percentage to your debt service whereas you you would not be able to get that with just doing a typical Capital apprent project that has one benefit of doing a referendum so this was their actual plan you can you can see the uh light blue colors are spaces that they wanted to renovate and by doing the U utilization and facility analysis we were able to reconfigure some of the underutilized spaces in their building take advantage of an overhang they had on a secondary entrance and close it and recover two classrooms in a renovation instead of new construction which is important because they were able to get Debt Service a on that so that's Montville um another neighboring district is Westwood um as you know Westwood's a regional district um so um we looked at all six of their schools including the high school as we were hired in the beginning of our engagement with them back in 2006 we started with a facility analysis which resulted in a first referendum with them which primarily focused on Space needs we I mean I'm sorry renovation needs but had a facility plan of space needs they just couldn't afford at the time so over the years through capital projects and planning of a second referendum we had implemented uh many projects with the district uh some being expanding uh their their locker rooms and athletic facilities consolidating special education from a lease facility they had in Township and this actually was in the first referendum is consolidating some of the science science Wing rooms which were oversized so we renovated them to pick up another couple of classrooms without building something new so the Westwood project also looked at outside facilities needs too which is what what we would do here as well some of the things that were identified at Westwood were the need for all Varsity Sports to play at the high school if you know Westwood they played at the middle school um which was an elementary school at the time so their desire was to bring everybody at the high school which we did here in this giving a field for each of the sports they also identified Fieldhouse and maintenance needs which couldn't be implemented in in in either of the referendums due to cost concerns so uh this wound up being a capital project and the second referendum for Westwood was was identified in the first facility analysis we did however there were just wasn't enough funds to do it at the time so a second referendum was implemented for Westwood to expand their middle school by 50,000 Square fet which in [Music] turn in the orange spaces on here gave them additional space at their High School to use for other programs that they desired to implement but just didn't have the space to do so so those those are just two examples of facility plans that we've done locally um what I'd like to just show you is a couple of a couple of things that you may be interested in using for a referendum so this is this is a board that we prepared for Westwood this is a board that has basically a snapshot of all of the referendum items within it it's might be hard to see the the numbers and stuff like that but the idea of this board was because they're a regional district this would be placed in all of the schools libraries town halls and also used for presentation purposes so anybody that comes into any of those facilities maybe it's not normally in a school can easily see what is included in the referendum project itself and that that was coupled by what I'm going to hand out now so this is a handout which was was put next to these next to the board so that people had the right information didn't have to go to website to find it but when they saw the board they could bring it home with them so we we developed this this handout with the district which describes what the importance of what they were doing at the time which was their their main need to create a true Middle School 6 to8 middle school so this explains that has the tax impact funding funding summary and of course the plans of what's actually included within the project so that was just kind kind of a quick overview of the facility analysis and referendum planning um be happy to answer any questions if anybody has them sorry so there's advantageous times to sell the bonds and not um typically you'll you'll want to sell them in in um coordination with when the construction is going to start cuz that's the biggest expense depending on what you do also um usually we will'll help your bond counsel or financial adviser do a draw Down plan which would show how much money would be needed at what points of a project so you have a strategic time when you when you sell your bonds obviously it also has to do with the market for interest rates and all that too thank you other questions thank you thank you thank you uh next we have comments from the public citizens are invited to make comments regarding agenda items and are limited to 3 minutes according to the pasak Valley Regional High School District Board of Education policy number 01 67 persons wishing to speak must upon being recognized rise sign in and state their name town of residence and which agenda item they are referencing just push the hello my name is Luke targan I'm from Hillsdale some of you may members May recognize me as I spoke at last week's commencement ceremony at pasek Valley in my speech as the executive PR I highlighted many positive aspects of Pas Valley as a new alumni the thing I didn't mention in my speech but value most my experience was the transparency and close relationship between students and teachers over the past year I've become interested in the midterms and finals at Pas Valley I've taken a wide selection of rigorous courses and worked with many different teachers after T taking these exams at the 5 and 10-month Mark of the year I noticed my grades never reflected my previous performance in class or my level of understanding as all of you know recalling information from 5 and 10 months ago is extremely difficult without the proper preparation after years of frustration another student and myself began developing a public policy presentation on this topic to understand other students opinions on these exams as we began researching we met with our director of curriculum Dr Barry bhe we presented our goals and opinions on the topic of midterms and finals throughout our conversation and us sharing stories he pointed out that our data was purely anecdotal since our current data was not reliable enough I thought let's use this the data the supervisors and Dr bachenheimer were crunching all summer so we requested data on the effects of midterms and finals to help understand the quantitative effects on student um averages as I stated before transparency is key with within education and efforts to hide the negative effects on the students in Pas Valley Dr binhammer refused to deliver this data as I understand that as a student seeing other students information may be a beat of privacy but I did suggest that important information would be covered or student ID numbers could be used I'm extremely disappointed um with the results of this project with Dr bimer due to his lack of transparency therefore I conducted a survey with students of varying ages and course levels after surveying students with over 150 students 66.2% of student grades were decreased multiple points and an additional 12 3 of student per averages were left unchanged therefore oing 78.5% of these students were not helped by these unnecessary exams with a decrease in student averages mental health Wellness is harmed as well as student confidence with a dip in grades after these highly weighted exams student GPS do decrease too this puts PV and pH students at a disadvantage to the students they are be compared to in the college admissions process the the students enrolled at schools who do not administer these exams consequently have higher gpas and will perform better in the college admissions process and earning Merit money the only thing that these exams are doing are hurting children and although these exams have been typical among high schools years ago times have changed the education here is on The Cutting Edge according to the supervisor's presentations at the April board meeting I simply do not agree these exams are outdated I expect us to continue to progress as a school we need to be at the front line as a district and follow the lead of many other high schools like Northern Valley old Japan demist the bermies ramot Indian Hills Westwood Bergen Tech creskill tenly and many more there's a reason why their districts are so highly ranked and we need to follow suit and eliminate these exams immediately thank you for your [Applause] time you guys can't keep calling yourself alumni though because it makes me want to cry am I okay to start good evening members of the board my name is Samantha forest and I'm here to speak on the topic of midterm and final exams at pasc Valley specifically um pre-exam review and post exam uh typically the preparation for these exams consists of large packets that are intimidating to indulgent uh as you're attempting to prepare for these exams that are on 5 to 10 months of material students are still actively learning information um that will they will be assessed on eventually uh teachers will sometimes not administer this these review packets until days before the exam forcing students to conform to a cram study mentality specifically in the science department in the past two years I know on various course levels students haven't received these review packets until days before the exams and were not provided with answers to help them engage in the review process and instead had to lean on their peers in a negative way administrators uh in the math and science department have also claimed to have communicated with students on how to better improve pre and post exam review however as one of the new newest alumni uh I've only spoken to one of the supervisors after the midterm exam this year and have yet to see any further Improvement made during the final exam schedule this year from speaking with several faculty members myself and my partner Luke have gathered that these exams are administered to prepare students for higher education uh exposure to these large exams does not necessarily mean that students feel prepared to take these exams when moving on to a college classroom we surveyed 163 sophomores Juniors and seniors on how they felt regarding these exams we felt that the freshmen hadn't yet been exposed to enough schedules and exam review packets in order to be a part of the survey 82.2% of students said that these midterm and final exams are administered that are administered do not increase their long-term knowledge of material learned in the class 74.8% of these students came to the consensus that teachers do not teach them studying techniques and strategies to succeed in these assessments 78.8% of the students said that their teachers do not go back and review the material that they've performed poorly on on the exam the only way to learn from mistake is through detail oriented correction not just an X or a check through a question mark that you got wrong we con commend and applaud the English and history department for providing us with a Superfluous amount of written correction and one-on-one teacher student time that go in depth on how to improve uh your um performance in math and science it is rare that you see more than two words next to a problem or a free response question that is marked wrong as a student who has utilized several outlets of extra help these exams do nothing but diminish your hard work throughout a semester and it's certainly an uphill battle that sometimes is not worth fighting with the lack of preparation and lack of review these teachers are not working towards the common goal of preparing us for college class averages and individual student grade point averages are being wrecked by these exams and the purpose is not accomplishing what it is being set out to do so why is valuable class time being wasted on administering and supposedly reviewing these strenuous test uh following this meeting Luke and I will be forwarding you our data collection as well the statements we made today thank you for your [Applause] time Michael Fox Hillsdale definitely hard to follow up that act for sure that was very well done um just to kind of go through you have three um alumni here in National Honor Society and you miss bot made the claim of 92% of students went up after midterms and finals and we have three National H students sitting right here who never had their grade go up after midterm and Final in four years uh I'm also I'll have to go through back through the presentation that I shared the last time that there are numerous classes that were 15% you said five so it's 7 and a half and 7 and a half equals 15 um just to kind of take you through those and I'll go through your uh information because we've been talking about this since uh February of 2023 and I felt we were on the same page so some of the information that you shared tonight which didn't share with me every time I ask I'm a little taken back by to be quite honest um you know sitting here I just want to bring up a few extra points I have a lot to say I'll share it with an email correspondence with the board um but you know this year alone students Miss seven days of education plus time spent on review for these exams every time I talk to students at PV or pH they discuss the positive impact teachers have on them and it's it's wonderful to hear I mean I you know talking about social studies teachers and English teachers um you know who don't give those exams and and they students just can't say enough about them and the impact they have and I've shared it with Miss bot and I've shared it with Dr bachenheimer on the great work that's given feedback wise in those content areas you know they NE rarely during the time I talk to students you know make complaints about the school year right so if we're talking about math and science they're really doing well in science through the year and they do well in math during the year it's these two large exams that elicit May major negative comments and actually then negatively affects their grade I haven't heard as much and I've I've shared this with Miss bot and Dr bachenheimer in math I really haven't heard too much um so I'm going to share a little bit of my thought there science is kind of a little bit different uh in the information that I've been receiving over time so if the board would like to see my emails on the subject matter that I've been going through for the last 17 months with all of the administration here you're more than welcome to access all the emails or right can forward them to you but they have access they can share those emails with you I always try to come up with Solutions I think one of the biggest things I'm not here to always you know be a complainer I want solutions for children and what benefits children and if I look at it Miss bad mentioned nothing is more than 5% this year I I think you said 15 then you said five I'm confused by that but if it is last year was 15% or last year was 20% this year moved to 15 okay all right so if it's only 5% this year I think maintaining that in math I I can see that run the course in two class periods in the midterm and the final this way there's no disruption you lost seven school days plus review for children they need student teacher contact time there's great value of that there's tons of research on that and I think it it's greatly important I really do believe though at this point in time in looking at science results the exams really truly negatively impact there was no data given tonight I know you're continuing analyzing 17 months of analyzing in my opinion is a long time um but utilizing unit tests for science I think has been a positive and I think students have shown in science they're progressing well throughout the year with unit tests if there's an option for AP and you have an AP exam at the end and you have your science group I don't think it's a bad option to offer a midterm for the AP students to prepare them for the end of the year AP final so once again uh you know I'm asking Miss balotti to make a change you know for the benefit of the students uh and it's not a major change you're talking about you know kind of minor shift you mentioned Northern Valley and quarterly I think quarterly have great value we've had this conversation for 17 months the reason cordys have great value is we can actually take that take that data and the assessment and utilize it for for teaching and learning I don't know what a 10-month test CU I haven't found a college that gives one yet I haven't found the point of the 10-month test in the students leave for the summer there was a feedback Day this year there was honestly I mean to the credit of teachers it's impossible to review in a shorten period of time and you from my understanding and asking around there really was no feedback you're just taking a 10-month test and going off to the summer we got to look for for the value for the children there to me is no value thank you very much thank you for your time I'm just going to respond to that's okay hello my name is Michelle Farrar I'm the parent of a pair of rising Juniors at pasek Hills I wanted to speak about the current proposal to merge the hills and Valley Theater programs due to the auditorium construction and sudden resignation of Allison andrini The Hills theater director while we appreciate the school's willingness to have a plan that will allow the program to continue the solution is problematic the current solution would have rehearsals from 4 to 6 and most weekends rather than 6 to9 that has been the rehearsal schedule for years this new schedule would make it impossible to do Sports and many other activities alongside the theater program the wonderful thing about the Hills theater program is that it includes a very diverse group of students my son Jake who unfortunately cannot be here today um has been acting and shows since he was five and loves the Hills theater program he is also a CrossCountry Runner and varsity track athlete he usually has track until 5: has a quick bite and shower and then goes back to school from 6:00 to 9: while this might seem tiresome he never complains because he loves them both equally but will have to quit one if this is the solution he is not the only one that will have to make this Choice the theater students and parents are a passionate and dedicated group and I'm asking that students and parents are given more time and involvement to come up with a better solution so that we don't lose students involvement in the theater program we also want to ensure that the hard work that these students have put in these past years will still result in the program opportunities that they have earned whether it is stage crew or cast that they might lose do it to an overcrowded program thank you anyone else I know this isn't a time to go back and forth with the public but is it an opportunity for us to have any conversation on any topic specific to what was discussed amongst the board or do we have to save those for the end for old or new business okay um so I I do want to respond uh theater I just want you to know that um we have heard you I know that after the initial parent meeting um there have been a lot of conversations between the two principls and between um the L lepers and the principes and I believe that they're working on a response to the concerns that you brought up there were some other concerns that were brought up by other parents as well my understanding is that they are planning to host at least um uh immediately a second meeting in the coming weeks to further explore those concerns and uh talk about possible solutions the unfortunate situation that we're in is that the hills Auditorium is going to be under construction which is going to necessitate a sharing space at Valley and that we don't currently have um a theater director at Hill so even if we were to hire a theater director Justa Hills there's no guarantee that that director would have the same philosophy um as our former director so I think these are all things that kind of are fluid that we're trying to figure out how to work to make this the best possible solution for our students so I just want to be very clear that it's not a final decision they're working on that um and that they're going to be reaching out to set up another meeting to to have a a better conversation about that so thank you I also want to thank the students and Mr Fox for uh you know speaking students you know student voice is so important to us and we always appreciate hearing directly from you I uh appreciate your willingness to share um that information with us uh we'll certainly look at it and take it into consideration as we look at this and move it forward um one of one of the things that I said earlier um is that you know we've got a smart and well-connected administrative team uh including Dr bimer Dr Russo Miss Graziano along with talented teachers and you know we we're all committed to implementing an assessment plan that aligns both with student needs and research-based best practices you heard that our supervisors are advisers to the doe they Ser they serve on committees to write State Standards we've had several supervisors actually writing the assessment questions for those State assessments that they referenced in their their um presentation earlier and I say that because we're not taking this lightly and we're not coming at this from a position of inexperience or lack of understanding uh one of the other things that I brought up earlier is that we have lingering questions and many of them are things that Mr Fox you just brought up um you know we've got questions about uh syllabus we've got questions about providing sufficient study skills and study guides we've got questions about um is there enough time for uh the teaching and learning and you know frankly is there enough time for that feedback after an assessment because our goal is to make sure that our students leave as well prepared as possible um we want our students to enter College being the most prepared that they can be and that includes truly understanding and Miss Forest you brought this up um that includes truly understanding the uh uh gaps and the strengths in their knowledge especially when looking at a cumulative assessment and so these are things that are on our radar these are things that we um do want to explore um and that we want to have answers for all of you for the other question um that is has been raised that we are looking at very critically is the question about are our student GPA aligned with surrounding High performing districts or are our gpas being negatively impacted by our assessment question this question is something that Mr Fox had brought up um at the beginning of the year and this is like a an extremely pertinent question and something that we are absolutely looking at and running the data for one thing that's a little bit difficult is that other schools are not always um as willing to share that type of data with us but there's other ways that we can at least get a sense as to whether or not we're being competitive one thing that we have looked at is our own gpas um our gpas have actually risen over the last four years on average um which gives us an indic ation that uh this is a trend that we're seeing Statewide so what we want to see is are they rising in a similar pattern as the other surrounding High performing schools um or are our kids somehow at a disadvantage because I we understand the importance of this question the other thing that um I want to just point out is that we really want to make sure that when our students get to College they're as prepared as possible and that's either through direct instruction through um feedback and evaluation and um making sure that they do understand and um obtain the study skills and executive functioning skills that are necessary to know how to study for those big tests and um you know I I'm hearing from both of our students that at least in some circumstances they didn't feel that that study skill assessment quite prepared them for the final analysis that's a piece of information that we're going to take under advisement and continue to look at and um if you um you know both wouldn't mind sharing with us any specifics that you have as well even if you want to give me a call and share that confidentially you know that's that we I would appreciate that feedback from you um I also want to just point out that this this is this has been an ongoing conversation and I interrupted Mr Fox and thank you for letting me interrupt you because it is a little bit confusing and it's something that has come up to question a lot and so what I was trying to clarify is that we were at 20% Which is where most of the state is most of the state that's giving midterms and finals is giving it at 20% of the grade we quickly realized that we did not want to do that last year we switched it to 15% this year we switched it to 7.5 or5 and the reason that this is a little bit confusing is that our AP courses are weighted a little bit higher because of the way that we evaluate and assess for our APS so let's take AP out of the conversation for a second because they're their own animal over here the rest of the courses are almost all at 5% um there are a couple of high level exceptions uh specifically in math that are at 7.5 but other than that they are all at five we we've looked at every single syllabus to ensure that teachers are adhering to that um I'm not sure how else to convey that information um but that is what they are in the overall Gradebook I will say that a couple of um people have brought to my attention some you know anomalies so to speak when we look at the grade books it's usually in how the grades are applied on an ongoing basis as you move through the year not the actual final number so when you look in the final number of the grade book at the end of the year the midterm and final assess M um should not be more than uh 5% once all the grades are entered and all of the tests are waited and I think that this is something that is confusing to our students because depending on how the teacher set up the Gradebook it could actually look like when you take a midterm it could actually look like it's almost like 50% of your grade depending on how your teacher set up the grade book um so this is an again a question as to how can we clarify that so that students understand what we're talking about because I think that's also important and we understand that that could have some anxiety and terms of what that looks like and and you know if you're looking at this and you think oh my goodness this test just was 50% of my grade like clearly that's not the message that we're trying to send so I appreciate you guys bringing that up um I just want to again reiterate that this is something that we're looking at we want to get our internal data and we want to also look at State and National Norms um as they guide us as we make decisions for next year so thank you thank you all for sharing that I appreciate you coming out um to several meetings uh to talk about it and I appreciate your tenacity with it and also your passion for trying to do what's right for our students and I appreciate our administrative team for you know continuing to look at this and really trying to figure out how do we balance this and provide the best possible program for our students um so thank you so I just want to go back I mean I think we just opened the door to be able to comment as a board on on these topics since the superintendent addressed it um I know we're not typically ever going back and forth with the public um any of us superintendent included but um I am going to offer my thoughts on this first with regard to Performing Arts um I have personally seen how when you change schedules it can have a very negative impact on uh participation so I I definitely appreciate that I've seen where you know we move morning rehearsals to after school and wasn't good for the overall program um so I'm curious to hear what the administration has his Solutions I don't know if we've looked into renting space I don't know if we've had Communications with St Joe's and when they r on theirs but as a board I know it would be receptive to spending monies that were necessary in order to um make sure the program um can continue to be successful the way that it's been but I'm just one person uh with regard to finals I just have to say I don't know what to believe um I it's not clear to me um what information is is true and I'm not saying you're lying and I'm not saying anybody here is lying it's just I'm confused like I've asked my son in math um like how much is your final how much is the midterm in the final worth He said to me like this was going back a couple weeks 15% of the final grade I mean he's not good at math which is why I've had to spend $3,000 on a tutor um that's not a reflection on his teacher he's just not good at math so maybe he doesn't know the difference between 5% and 15% but like we've got different people throwing out different numbers and I'm just it's not clear to me like I don't know what's factually true and what's not uh based on all the information that's coming at us so if there's a way to present to the board factually um what's actually in these core syllabus so that we can see it for ourselves um I appreciate you both coming tonight um and sharing with us your experiences um it's very important for us to hear that and um I hope you continue to to um offer information in this fashion or get your classmates to to show up to um because it's important uh you offer a perspective that we don't have um so thank you for that that's all I've got now I'm going to reserve my comments till all business but um just real quick um I'm on the curriculum committee we'll definitely take a look at all the concerns I mean we are constantly moving the ball so it's it's not a it's not a thing where people are digging in their heels or anything like that okay so we're on to our action item so we go to policy uh have consent agenda for three items one to three can I get a motion so moved any discussion Miss ceron yes Mrs Swang yes Miss Keller yes Mr louisi yes Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Miss stepin yes Mr Weaver yes yes to one abstain two and three on to education we have items 1 to 12 which also includes a supplemental can I get a motion so moved second discussion Miss C rone yes Mrs Swang yes Miss Keller yes Mr Lisi yes Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Miss stefins yes Mr Weaver yes okay we have human resources items 1 to 20 22 that includes a supplemental item can I get a motion so moved second discussion Miss Calderon yes Mrs hang yes Miss Keller yes Mr Lisi yes Mrs Martin yes Mr stankis yes Miss stefin yes Mr Weaver uh abstain 11 pascy Hills yes to everything else next we have Finance consent agenda items 1 to 45 can I get a motion so moved second discussion this called theone yes Mrs hang yes Miss Keller yes Mr louisi yes Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Miss stepin yes Mr Weaver yes next we have old business so I don't know if this is old business but I had mentioned before about um trade jobs um do that come on the old business I guess it does right yeah so um I had the pleasure of attending um a seminar on May 30th that was hosted by Bergen County Work Workforce Development and it was on Exploring Careers the build America construction and skilled trades there were some students from pasak hills that attended and some from Valley and um it was it was a really good session it was it lasted about two hours we had uh representatives from um Eastwick and rapo and Bergen Community College and we had some local business people male and females um who were in the construction business and we're talking to parents and the students about um careers and it was again it was very interesting and the general consensus um amongst parents and and the students that attended was that um any kind of trade job carries kind of like a stigma with it um and I find that um unfortunate because not all students are going to go to college and I think that we need to do a better job to support those children that may not be going to college and promote the the trade jobs that are out there they're um they're looking for people um they're having a hard job hiring children out of school because they you know they don't have any any background that they're not sure where to go they're not sure where to go to get information about um applying to maybe a trade school like Burgen Tech or something um eastw or Bergen Community College um so um I had heard that we had had a postsecondary um committee at one point um I don't know if that's true or not but if we did um I would definitely like to bring that back and have a committee so that we can kind of collectively talk about that and promote that and and obviously work with the administration on that I think it's kind of been pulled into curriculum I think that's what happened to because we did have one and I think it just became so many different committees that they started consolidating and that actually part of the curriculum if I remember correctly right is correct so that means that there's not going to be a committee is that what you're saying no no no I'm just saying that that was a committee we had too many committees at the time so that kind of got part of the curriculum so that is still happening within the curriculum meetings I would imagine that's that's that would be me so we can bring that up and um I could ask uh Barry to uh give a present on that that would be great yeah I'd like to hear about what's going on in that thank you that's a great idea thank you I'm GNA add a note about that right now I I do I do agree with you about the importance of trade and I think it's critical to the country our kids and is it is it crazy to think about perhaps a prerequisite to working with our uh our region doing work for us having uh the attribute of an internship program you want to do work for us you need to have an internship program we got to check that box off because I think a lot of there's a lot of hardworking trade companies out there that care about the kids and some that don't and I think that's that's something maybe we could look at and I do think the problem with our communities in this area is that everybody just pushes kids into college College college that's what I heard when I was at this session and I do think it's essential for them to realize that there's a lot of Honor in going into the military and going into the trads and you know helping out supporting family there's so many other things that these kids are doing and I feel I do agree with you kids feel like they're not successful if you know the first question they you know when the kids graduate is oh where are you going to college and it's like well it's when they do the PFA fashion show right for the seniors and they I don't know if they still do it um I guess I'll find out in a couple years but um they announce where the kids going to college how does that make a student feel that's not going anywhere or maybe is going into trade but doesn't want to say anything um some of these folks that were there uh Eastwick and and Bergen Community you know I asked them do you go do you come into schools you know and set up a table and he said well we have but kind of doesn't go anywhere because the kids see us and they kind of Veer away from us because they don't want anybody knowing that they're going to be talking to us so there's definitely this stigar attached to it which I kind of want to help remove maybe an independent night where it's you coming if you're interested rather than doing it in front of people who yeah kind of like what you were talking about yeah yeah so L you're talking about our vendors yeah okay so I do think it's an important conversation for to continue to have I think like we've tried to start it but it really hasn't gone anywhere I'd referenced last meeting where we um when Tammy um was finishing up her tenure uh we had talked about a board or District goals specific to the trades nothing ever materialized out of that um I know I've had some inquiries about like what our um what our elective program looks like with the pasak period And I know a big um selling point of the new schedule when it was presented to us was to increase student participation um in electives so I'm curious to know one from an elective standpoint what percentage of students were taking electives prior to the new schedule and now after and how has that Trend changed and how do electives promote the trades um and if there's opportunity to to grow in that area and then what percentage of our students who participate in the intern ship program are participating in programs specific to trades versus uh College and Career Readiness so I think it's an important conversation um you know we are at the end of a year getting ready for a new year so I I would hope that we would consider writing a goal specific to this topic and if it needs a committee of its own I would definitely be supportive of that uh I want to talk about the uh exam situation when I first started teaching I was teaching in New York City New York City has regions um and everything was towards the region I can understand the the uh concern about exams being like a regions kind of thing or something like that where everybody's push pushed towards that idea um but I don't I don't believe that's where we are I believe that we are in the process of moving the ball we are uh trying to find the middle ground um I know AP courses and I'm going to go back to that again but they do provide a lot of information about the AP exam so it's all there presented to the students from the beginning of the year they know what they expect ations are um there is that aspect of it how uh prepared are they before they get to a final exam so you know there's a lot of considerations in this and it's a developing process um I think exams are necessary for Preparation but I know some people view exams as perspiration so we want to find the balance here between preparing and not having them perspire or sweat it over these things as well and so um I'm confident that we will find that ground I'm confident that uh you know we will do the best for our students so I appreciate that perspective I guess my question would be like preparation for what I think Mr Fox made a good point where like you're right you don't take a a 10-month final in college right and you know I've right well I've worked at the college level and and and going back like it's well let's I think High School exams finals can be a little more um demanding than what you might find uh at the college level well if you take an AP course I'm I'm not I'm just looking at the whole picture right it it but it is a a year course and that exam represents a semester of credit so uh a final exam if prepared the right way would would re yield results of uh you know preparing the student for a semester of college well I know but I'm saying if if you if we recognize that model as a standard okay whereas an AP course runs a year you get the AP exam that's a half a year of college so there really are no 10mon final exams in a sense it even though it's 10 months the content area is the equivalent to a semester of college see I kind of disagree with that I know what you're trying to say but in college they go to a class maybe three hours a week um and they're going there for three and a half months and then they're taking a test on that material here they're going five days a week to a class they're doing it for 10 months and now they're being asked to remember what they've done in September and I think that that's something they're never going to see again unless they take like you know you know some major bar exam or but like through college like the next four years they're not going to see anything that's going to ask them to pull back something they did 10 months ago well you the thing is you revisit those themes throughout the year depends on class and I think that's what they're arguing that's not happening right well this is the thing this is how we're moving the ball we're assessing it we're analyzing it hey we're not we're not perfect but we're going to work through it we're going to get to the point where I think it would have the best I just think it's funny right now because like I'm starting this like starting to look at colleges right my kids a junior and so we did the the the Florida Circuit in January and we went to schools that he's got no chance to get into and we went to other schools that he's interested in so we' like go to the University of Florida and if I remember the numbers right I mean he he's not getting into University of Florida it's fine he knows he's not getting he's told me he's not getting in there but I say that because it's like the the requirements they get in there are significant and their retention rate for freshman is 96% and the tour guides who are students are are bragging about this and they're like yeah like freshman year you start off and you go and your classes are like two 300 kid lectures and nobody even really goes because you can access the stuff online and then you know you're doing group projects and they're talking about the workload I'm like this is University of Florida and kids aren't going to class and and these are the academic requirements for completing the courses and you have that's why you have 96% retention rate and then over the years your class sizes are smaller now I'm sure that's not every program at University of Florida right but I just use that as an example of like you start to see what college is like for different programs and different kids and I don't know like I think the college experience depending on the program and the student may be different in a lot of ways than what the high school what's expected in the high school experience which um isn't as varied where the expectations may be similar for all whereas in college the expectations are different for all depending on the program you're in and then there are those kids who aren't going to college who are in the trades who are like who maybe need that more would benefit from that that Personal Touch that that Mr Fox was talking about with those extra days of instruction so L it's a big conversation I know you guys are having it in the curriculum level um so it sounds like more work needs to be done to get us to the place where we need to be and I I just want to say the variation of colleges and expectations right we're seeing it here we're seeing it played out here the variations of expectations what we want as far as finals or you know non-f finals and everything else so we're trying to figure out all those variations we're trying to get the data on all those things and I've got to say every school is moving one towards One Direction or the other and what they're trying to do is figure out uh colleges as well because colleges are in flux as you know some colleges different from uh when I was at College totally different online courses and everything else it's all a game yeah I think we have a lot of questions that we need to work through and once we get through all of it you know a lot of the issues presented I think if we have all the data in front of us then we can come to an informed decision and and discuss it moving forward no I I appreciate all that I just made notes uh from um the discussion that we just had as well I think you know the other thing that has struck me is that there's a lot of data to support conceptually doing midterms and finals but the reason that this comes up here and if you look in the newspaper this is coming up in districts across the state High performing districts across the state are having these conversations and I think the reason that it continues to come up is that there's not a clear answer that applies to every District in every scenario and I think that that's one of the things that we're trying to also balance here is we want to make sure that the solution that we come up with this right for our students and is going to help our students have the most success um the other thing um that we'll make sure that we do is clarify uh some of the numerical data um we'll make sure that's part of our our you know next presentation about this um specifically how many courses are running a 10-month cumulative exam um the data on the percent impact um the data I know I shared uh Miss graziana H shared a chart for midterms um we'll get a similar chart for math to you both for midterms and finals that you guys can see that in black and white um I think that's helpful um and then also we'll look at the data on the overall GPA impact and that's all data that we'll share with you when we have it as well um and then some of the other questions I think are are a little bit more nuanced and and aren't going to be answered with sing uh singular data sets and that's the idea of study guides you know how well attended were our extra help sessions we offered additional um lab per learning lab periods at the end end of the year we're add we're offering additional learning lab periods throughout the year next year um and that's something that we want to continuously analyze and and look at the impact of that as well because as we've kind of adjusted we've continuously tried to meet student needs better and better um so next year for the first time we're going to have a science lab throughout the year um we're going to continue with the math and English Labs ma math and writing Labs um and continue to kind of analyze that feedback the other thing I just made a note of this and you'll see it reflected in our Friday up States is to add to our next curriculum committee meeting uh a conversation about career and Tech uh Ed um specifically looking at electives and internship and uh we have you know the people who are are kind of in charge of that are sitting here listening so I'm sure that their wheels are spinning I I actually I think that and we'll share um we'll share some of this data out with the full board I think you're going to be pleased with some of the offerings that we've expanded um over the last couple of years I know that um the first time I reviewed it last year I was really impressed with our offerings um so you know I think that's a great starting ground for us to look at and then I think our conversation can kind of go from there but I'll make sure that everybody kind of has that and we run that through the next curriculum committee meeting so I appreciate all of those um comments and questions and that's helpful for us to figure out exactly what to kind of Target to to bring to you information wise so thank you for that I've got one more thing yeah oh yeah I just want to make sure that you know we do these impact that impact doesn't mean necessarily stop okay uh it may mean modify and I think it does more than anything else I think uh absolutes on either end you know um when we do that there's consequences for that math may be a different animal than science social studies may be different than English how we M term how we final do we quarterly it it may just be a a thing that we see in the way it's taught so all right I appreciate that one more thing too I just want to know you know just in talking to some of my my daughter's friends or whatever good students doing performing well during the year and then they they fail a final or a midterm and do you know what kind of impact that has on these kids they're doing fine during the school year and then all of a sudden it's like I just bomb that test bombed it it's devastating so there's that too there's that impact that mental like wo just got crushed um I would like to see numbers on that too and again and I think that that goes back to my horsey vs like you know all those things that we talked about where these kids can say something and they have a voice and it's not oneon-one with the teacher or um it's Anonymous it's I just want to let you know like I have something to say you know I appreciate that well and and to miss Stefan's point I think like their perception is their reality like when you hear from a student like you said and you talk to kids which were at that point because they're young adults um and it's like well how did you do I got a 66 but everybody bombed it and so whether that's true or not I don't know but that's like the the perception that's out there that everybody bombed it and then the thinking is well now everybody's great suffers and so do you look at that and like is it being curved I I don't know I don't know um but everybody back there knows so um I guess getting facts out because it doesn't doesn't seem to be uh we don't seem to be in a place right now where um everybody's working off the same information and I think once we can get to that place um it would be helpful because we the kids have questions right and they're starting to voice their concerns which I think is a great thing um so look forward to continuing this work I'm not an educator so I'm over my head but but I'd be curious what what is the what is the typical root cause of a really good student throughout the year as you said bombing and test is it preparation or is it nerves it's got to be one of the two I if if everybody gets a 66 that's fine you know some people got a 68 some people get a 62 but I'm just concerned about cuz when you get into the Work World the prep oparation is is part of what makes you successful and I think we got to be careful and I think Jim you're right the modifications you know going one way or the other is dangerous here yeah but I'm really interested in what what's what's causing that great questions thank you also too that there's the student Factor but then it's like what's the realistic expectation of the assignment that you've been given like so if everybody's not performing well on it is was that assessment a true reflection of what everybody should be being asked right like if everybody's not doing well on it like if if you and your work and and everybody who you supervise are not performing well with a task is it the people who are being asked to perform the task or do you have to reflect on what you're asking your people to do and then be able to adjust it accordingly so that they can so it better reflects like the their skill set and the the the information that they've been taught um and what they've been exposed to right so there's that piece too I think there more are we still on Old business all right so just a question because I know it was in the Friday update and then I had asked a clarifying question the athletic um appointments aren't going to be on until July 17th so if they're not going to be approved until July 17th how are coaches able to work with the athletes from July 1st to July 17th so what we uh had established in the past that we're continuing with is that uh coach and assistant coaches who were previously approved for the program for the prior year are going to uh see those programs through until um those appointments are made so if a head coach is stepping down it would be one of the assistant coaches that move it forward to clarify that specific question is that a just a district practice or is that grounded in like legal Personnel language yeah we checked with the attorney last year um and he felt that that was acceptable what we're trying to do is move the district practice to have those um appointments be made earlier in the school year uh we've Mo been incrementally moving it earlier so our goal would be to move it to May or June for next year um because I think it's cleaner to do it that way um but I don't think it's uh inappropriate or um um out of line uh to continue with the program as they were um previously appointed and then those coaches move forward the the summer practices any other old business uh on to new business I have something um it's about the open board seats uh so there's a press release it's going to be out on on our website it might even be on our website now uh we also asked pascot press to uh put it in as press release um but there are three vacancies um one in Hillsdale one in Montvale and one in Rivervale and that will be for the November 5th election um the deadline to submit the nominating petition is 4 pm Monday July 29th um and you'll get all this information uh on the New Jersey school board's website they have um a board candidate kit um there you'll get all the information there and there'll be a nominating petition uh you need to submit that to the county clerk the Bergen County count County Clerk that's like I said the deadline uh to submit is Monday July 29th to get on the um ballot for November 5th so um please I know uh some of you are having um your terms expired ing so if you're interested in running again please get that done uh and then anyone in the public if you're interested in running for the school board and you're from one of those three towns um please visit that website and uh you can pick it up it will also be on our website um there'll be a link um to be able to get to the nominating petition through school boards any other new business no okay we have comments from the public this is second piece citizens are invited to make comments and are limited to 3 minutes according to the pasak Valley Regional High School District Board of Education policy number 0167 persons wishing to speak must upon being recognized rise sign in and state their name in town of residence hi my name is Christy Lucia gerine I'm from Hillsdale um I am here tonight to um I don't know get more information or understand better um I have three children uh my six-year-old twins are autistic non-verbal attend the valley program and out of District placement um they've also been receiving services in our home from the PAC Valley Council for special education Region 2 uh since they were three and it's been a wonderful experience um it's helped bridge the gap uh we've had some wonderful people um there's been some changes and unfortunately um extended school year only goes through July so August uh in the previous years we had ABA therapy and speech therapy through Region 2 and now that is not happening because the region is closed so they're not providing Services during those two weeks um and from my understanding during any breaks that the school are closed um I'm sure some of you are familiar with autism and the regression that can occur in one day in a weekend a week let alone the five weeks that the school is closed um it's detrimental to my children uh it's detrimental to my household um the problem being that this is the past practice is that I've had services in August I've had Services over the holidays the breaks um and now it's changed no written notice to my knowledge um even to my therapist she was very unaware of the change because we were making a summer schedule um I had requested speech and the speech is uh from another company so they're able to get speech for 5 weeks but not the ABA therapy through the region um so my question is was that when was that change made was it voted on here at a board meeting was were the therapists that we use even notified were parents notified because when I went for my parent training to receive the services you get a form you signed and it says that Arrangements can be made with a therapist to work any hours any days um as long as it's okay with them so um that's my issue here you know I can't if you're changing a practice that's I guess the way it is I can't fight that but there was no information given out there was a change made um you know some of the solutions given to me were called perform care which is a state assistance which it's June I needed to do that in February um find a private provider sure at 50 bucks a pop a co-pay times two kids times the five weeks in the summer you know um again anything for my kids and it's something I will have to plan for next year but I'm just confused as to what's happening with the program and why services are being taken away from the population that needs them the most um you know my kids regress in a weekend so five weeks in August you know I'm already paying for child care and now I have to figure out how they don't regress come September um so I don't know what the next step is here this whole meeting has been very enlightening uh for me um so I don't know if you're able to answer my questions or what the next step is but I just I don't understand what's happening um and I know my superintendent talked to you Miss blot you did touch Bas but it's just why why and why is this is going to come out maybe inappropriately and I apologize the interm person in charge of this program making that decision that now all of a sudden we can't have these Services during this time period sure so uh Miss mcab is sitting over here if you would give her your contact information um uh we'll have uh someone from Region 2 reach out to you to work this out for you okay thank you thank you any other comments from the public seeing none we'll close um we're going to be entering into executive session now um this is on a Personnel matter and probably yeah maybe five to 10 minutes with um action will be taken after so we'll be coming back in public and taking action thank you administrator team I appreciate your uh presentation and uh I appreciate you sticking around e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we are back in Open session we will not be taking any action uh so I need a motion to adjourn so move second by acclamation there are no objections correct we're done thank you thank you