##VIDEO ID:J7ABqFxYTmg## e e e e e e e e e e thank you okay um we need to have a a temporary president to run the meeting so uh can I get a motion so moved second second Miss Martin if you could just uh verbally say what you're moving that you're moving the person oh like I thought we were just saying Jim I mve Jim stus to be the temporary president thank you I second that right okay so now let me take let me take I'll take a roll oh yeah go ahead uh Miss Calderone yes Miss Keller here miss Martin yes Mr sankis uh yes and Miss stepin yes okay Mr stankus you are temporary president okay I'm going to call the meeting to order uh roll call please but before we start with the roll call we do have to make a slight change it is no longer Miss balot superintendent it is dror balani so congratulations thank you very much appreciate that thank you thank you very kind thank you thank you all so roll call Mrs Baris Miss Calderon yes Mrs Swang Miss Miss Keller yes Mr Lisi it Mrs Martin Mr Stanis yes here whatever Miss stephin yes Mr Weaver okay at this time uh everybody please stand for the salute to our flag all the way over FL United States of okay Public Announcement adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by mailing copies of said notice to the record fil filing copies of said notice with Municipal C Clerks of Hillsdale Montvale Rivervale and woodu lake and Publishing said notice in the record on August 26 2024 uh we're now going to go to the monthly reports we're going to start with the superintendent business administrator will go next and then we'll have committee reports I'm actually wondering if we should move the monthly report to after the swearing of in of our student reps and the vice president nominations yes is that okay yeah I would agree with that uh do we have to take a I think no I think you can just we can just move it so you can um Mr Senus you can just ask Mr Yami to swear in the Reps and I apologize I wasn't I didn't yeah it's fine okay uh Yas will you call the student reps up to the podium yes and swear them in okay I have Ella go go sorry I Ella golay do solemnly [Music] affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and this States under the authority of the people I Ella golay do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of student board member according to the best of my ability thank you do solemnly affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the government's EST estblished in this in the United States and this state under the authority of the people I Andrew Varian do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of student board member according to the best of my abilities thank you you take this one all right look here congratulations and thank you for continuing the Legacy uh pasak Valley actually had student Representatives on the board before it became a uh State mandate so we have a good tradition here okay at this point I want to move on to nomination and election of the vice president so I'm going to request nominations for the office of Vice President anybody like to nominate person I would like to nominate nominate Deborah stepin second second oh sorry I don't need the second oh yes okay are there any other nominations seeing as none now I get a motion to close so moved second okay all right roll call on the affirmation on the closing of oh the closing of the nomination okay we still need to vote it's it's a process yes yeah yeah PL of steps here okay we don't do the set off never accept all right roll call please if you want Miss Calderone yes Miss Keller yes Mrs Martin absolutely Mr Stanis uh yes for sure and miss stepin yes thank you this Stephens is our new vice [Applause] president okay so now the decision comes do I hand it off or it's up to us okay can I get a motion to approve the August 29th regular meeting minutes and the two executive session minutes so moved second discussion okay roll call please miss calone I'm gonna abstain from both Miss Keller yes Mrs Martin yes Mr stankis um yes Miss stepin yes motion passes okay hold on a second on the record I said August 29th meeting minutes because that's what's written here but it was actually July 17th 17 okay so let's I set you up Mr SAS I'm sorry let's go back to that again okay can I get a motion to approve the July 17th regular and July 17th executive meeting so moved second Qui catch okay discussion okay roll call Miss Calderone I'm G to abstain from both Miss Keller yes Mrs Martin yes Mr sankis yes Miss stepin yes Mo passes okay at this time we're going to have a presentation the annual score reporting and seal of B literacy scores all right good evening everyone uh so this is uh our first of two required score reports that we have to do each year uh for those of you who've been on the board know and for members of the public uh we are required uh when we receive our stating reports for the NJ GPA and the njla as well as DM and our access for elll scores that we have to report to the board uh within a certain amount of time of receiving those scores I was hoping we could do an all-in-one tonight uh unfortunately the state did not yet send us our njsla scores so we're going to have to have an additional meeting for that most likely in September to report on those scores but we'll give you everything else tonight and because uh has been our practice we share additional data I'll also share with you this evening information about our SATs our AP program our graduation rates other things that have been certainly part of our discussion for years spoiler alert we're very pleased with our scores uh so this evening as I shared we'll talk about njpa our access for Ells and our Dynamic learning Maps as well as sat and advanced placement um just a little background first on sats uh for those of you who have college age children know that um many schools over the last several years since the pandemic went test optional most schools were saying if students wanted to take the test they'd accept the scores but they didn't have to uh starting in the fall of 2020 we are seeing at least amongst highly selective colleges that Trend starting to swing back the other way the ivy league uh and other we'll say top highly selective schools are starting to look for that I imagine we might see other schools start to follow suit soon um stay tuned certainly for that um as part of this since 2022 uh our English and math departments have been infusing test questions related to this preparation to help students certainly perform at their best on some of these standard assessments uh in regards to our AP testing uh this past spring was the third year if you recall three years ago we uh put a board policy in place to make it optional for students to take the AP test it was their choice if they wanted to so you'll see that our data as that aligns with that and uh we continue to offer advanced placement tests in 25 different subjects our most popular continues to be physics and English language composition so as far as our advanced placement scores go if you take a look here uh on the board uh you'll see that for 2024 uh though our total number of AP students is declining that also mirrors our enrollment our enrollment has been on a mild decline so certainly It lines up there the number of exams however has remained consistent over the past three years or so uh the number of students scoring three plus although it's down uh I guess if you look at the percentage our percentage remains consistent and above if you look at the scores over the last couple of years uh at Pas Valley if you look at pasak Hills you will see similar numbers um enrollment not as big of a decline perhaps as Valley number of exams actually increased and the number of students uh scoring three or above which traditionally means passing uh is actually the highest it has been in several years at pasak Hills uh of interest to note uh this was last year was the first year we offered AP pre-cal and virtually every one of our students scored fives except for a few who scored fours so the numbers were off the charts for students who scored uh on our AP pre-cal in both schools uh for when it comes to SATs certainly this year uh we continue to have our scores be in line or increased over previous years uh certainly we're beating the state and the national numbers significantly so our students continue to outperform our peers in the state and nationally when it comes to SATs and math as well as uh under verbal as well so if you look here you will see our scores continue to be at or above where we've been over the past several years uh so we continue to excel in these areas for students taking these tests uh when it comes to the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment AKA GPA you may recall from previous years when I present on the old park exam and our uh issue we had with that was that it didn't count for anything and so the motivation of students was called into question GPA has been a graduation requirement for juniors now for several years so as a result students take take it far more seriously and the scores are a bit more reflective of that effort as a result and it remains a graduation requirement for both the class of 20124 that just graduated and this year seniors as well for the class of 25 so I'm going to turn it over now to Dr Russo who's going to take us through our maths course thank you so much and thank you to the board of education for having me this evening uh Miss matuch and I are going to touch base briefly on students performance on the NJ GPA in math and Ela um so as you can see from this table uh on the screen students did as well or slightly better um from last year the point that I would want to make um and I think this is this is important moving forward is that a couple of years ago we made a bit of an adjustment in our mathematics instruction and our approach towards the NJ GPA we tried to find the right balance between test preparation and all of the other things that we are trying to prepare students for and we think found um that kind of balance where students can be mostly successful on this assessment but still do all the other things we want them to do uh think critically problem solve uh prepare them for subsequent math courses uh and their um fields of interest um there are some areas that we're still working on as you can see from this table we're trying to reach parody where all groups are being successful in the same way um so that's obviously an area that we're looking at and we want to continue uh to focus on so this is pasac Hills uh and this is pasak Valley again num numbers are similar um we made some marked improvement last year and then we're maintaining that Improvement this year which we're very pleased with uh but once again uh there are some groups that are doing better than other groups and that continues to be an area of focus as we want all students and groups of students uh to be successful um our plans moving forward as a result um each year we take a look at the broken down data and we identify Concepts and skills that students do relatively well on and also Concepts and skills that students that are relative areas of weakness and we try and focus on that in our instruction and in our test preparation so that leads to spiraling and review uh we continue to look at Best Practices in mathematics um both in how we instruct students more generally and how we instruct smaller groups of students uh and then with the support of the Board of Education uh we're able to offer the math Center once again this year um so that will be taking place three days a week all year uh and then we'll have additional sessions in place around mid year and at the end of the year so we're very pleased to offer that and students certainly take advantage of that so I'll turn it over to miss matesich with EA good evening everyone thank you Dr Russo I'm just gonna say what he said and call it a night now I'm just kidding however spoiler alert as Dr Beck and Homer did say um basically it's good news all around and actually really not much has changed in Ela which is a positive um as you can see from the table right here our scores have stayed relatively the same which is great I mean just off by a percentage perhaps in each school all kind of toggle back and forth um obviously the boxes or columns that are boled in red are the ones you want to look at um and really for me the only area that I I try to hone in on and Mark will report about this a little bit later too um is the actual breakdown of the different student groups and subgroups and maybe where there's some disparities there um but the good news is for me as far as me looking at all this data um just the students with IEPs um we have so many supports in place for those students to continue to bring them up to proficiency and all of these assessments which is awesome that kind of leads right into what are we doing going forward which is we're always looking at our data looking for ways to improve again with the support of the board um and the curriculum team we have been happy to have the Writing Center which really serves as a Literacy Center it can provide help not only in writing but also in Reading instruction um my teachers are going to continue to hone in on that instruction in very targeted professional development this year which I am leading um and I think our independent reading program is really robust at this point and so students just overall reading habits fluency skill set and stamina for reading is an increasing even as everything else competes for their attention um so I'm excited for the year to continue to work on all of this but pretty good news overall so Dr Russo is just going to speak to the subgroup breakdown a little bit thank you again so in the next several slides we have a table version uh and then a bar graph version of the total achievement levels so here you'll see and I know it's very small I'm sorry about that you'll see Ela and math this is just reiterated data from the previous slides how we did as a district compared with the state averages in graduation ready on the right and then not graduation ready on the left both Ela math and combined so this is what Miss Mich was referring to and what what I spoke about briefly when you look deeper into subgroups there are differences and that is an area that we are aware of concerned about and working on uh here you can see the information broken up by free and reduced lunch Section 504 special ed gened and all students again we are pleased with trajectory um but we are focusing on how we can help all of our students and our groups of students continue to make progress towards increasing levels of proficiency so this is the information in a very small uh table uh you'll see the information here um in a bar graph so up top we have the district performance um beautiful green is uh graduation ready red is not yet graduation ready and then you'll see underneath uh the distribution for the state so again just information presented in a different way the beauty of mathematics we can show it so many different ways to appeal to so many different types of people so there we go um so this is a breakdown by race again I'll give you a moment to to look at this again graduation ready in green not graduation ready in red and then I believe we have um gender here and then program so again miss matesich brought this up certainly the the third group there students with I APS is a concern for us and something that that we continue to care deeply about and focus on uh I'll turn it back over to Dr bachenheimer thank you so both Miss mad and Dr Russo shared uh Department specific interventions these are some of the district interventions that we've employed uh with the support of the Board of Education uh for the last four years uh we we've offered summer classes as a result of the extended uh grants that we received uh for post pandemic money we continue to offer our college application boot camp through the ELA program which offers students help in working on their common app and M Mich has coordinated bringing in admissions reps to talk to students about helpful hints to get themselves ready for the college season for Rising seniors uh we offer tiered Support Services through our multi-tiered systems of support our classroom based interventions uh we do some small group instruction whether it's in the as we heard the The Writing Center or the math Center or teacher sponsored centers after school um and we also have some tier 2 interventions with one toone support that's funded from our ESA Grant uh specifically at Valley because uh we do get some Title One monies for that and we help out with some tutoring there we continue working with counselors in our uh Wellness Center and guidance areas our elll programs have several areas which Miss Safari will talk about momentarily our mental health Wellness programs and working in various kinds of uh problems that students will see on both state assessment and standardized assessments into the curriculum so the first time that they see problems like this will not be on the test but that they've had practice with that year long uh so the last piece that I'll share before we get to our access for is our uh annual graduation rate so if you take a look in red at the bottom this is for the most recently graduated class of 2024 um our numbers stay consistent for graduation um the 99.5 % graduation typically means that we have one student who perhaps didn't make it all the way to graduation for a variety of reasons um and then as far as the number of students who attend college and District that number is held uh a little bit of a decline at this point uh to 94.5 the past year with a breakdown of 85.5% going to fouryear colleges and 9% going to two-year colleges um the students who choose not to go to college are all finding space in either the military the workforce trade schools things that wouldn't fall under the college category and certainly our internship programs continue to work with those students as well um when you look at the breakdown of course versus Hills and Valley uh the numbers really tend to be in sync pretty much with each other this past year interestingly enough at Valley 83% went to foure schools 12 to two-year schools and at Hills 88% to foure schools and 6% to four to two-year schools so at this time I'm going to turn it over to miss Safar to talk about access for Ells and our sealed by literacy program thank you Dr buckenheimer um good evening and thank you so much for having me tonight I will briefly talk about access for elll so we have a small population of um El students in our um District but we take this uh job very seriously because a lot of the students are newcomers to our country and uh we are dealing with um a lot of um a combination of issues it's not just the language that we are trying to uh improve for the students but it's a lot of other things so one of them being mental health being make making sure that they are feeling a part of this community so um still I have to say that we're very proud of the scor compared to especially last year that we've improved our scores um so in order for students to pass this test um they need to score at least 4.5 on each of the four categories and categories are listening speaking reading and writing uh clearly some of these categories are much harder for students to accomplish than others for example speaking is usually easier because they are speaking they're communicating with students and teachers here writing most likely is going to be a little more challenging so that's why when you see the average it does not really reflect what the students are accomplishing but some of them can be very already fluent in speaking the language but they are still working on their writing skills or higher level thinking skills especially in our district that we have pretty high expectations for of the students um meanwhile we have three students who tested last year with an average score of 3.66 and we had uh a at pasak Valley and pasak Hills had eight students with an average score of 3.46 which was much higher than what we had last year was 2.57 and at pesak Value was 3.41 so we're pleased to see this um rise in the numbers and I also want to mention that I just wanted to bring it up that the numbers are rising for next year year we have for this coming year we have 18 students and again most of them a lot of them are actually um just have recently arrived in the country so it is obviously very challenging but I have to also mention quickly that because of the cohort work last year that Dr badi and um myself we were working on this interdisciplinary project and as one of the project results was that we had students in elll go on a trip to visit Ellis Island the immigration museum with with the history class and um Mr scarbo scarbo was phenomenal that we had him lead some of this you know information about the students and it was such a bonding activity and I have to say that they all returned with you know risen sense of self-esteem and appreciation of them being here part of the part of this country um so we're very happy of those initiatives in our district along with the ones that Dr Becken Heimer mentioned summer can summer um you know cooking and culinary things that we do um so this is another breakdown um as Dr Russo said we like to see data in different forms so it just shows here how um the the green uh represents the students who are reaching the expectations and the um highest part you see is those are students who are still developing in their language skills again this is related to specifically English language skills um and is not absolutely not a reflection of their intellectual ability um next I want to share uh some of the um information about the Seal of B literacy as you know we've had this in our district for several years now actually this was our eighth year of uh doing this seal of B literacy and we are one of the very few districts in the state that have numbers that are above and beyond of what other schools offer so you can see some of the schools are celebrating their District having 14 15 students in or 20 students and uh last year we had 86 students in a distri district and um and that is um actually it's it's very impressive and the in order for students to pass this test they have to um they have to score in each of four categories they have to score in at least intermediate mid level of the language and so they also have to prove that English is their first language and they're not you know taking the test in in their native language so it's very challenging and of course um I have to say we're very proud of our students this year year I just created this little um information thing so just to compare to what we did last year this is these are the tests that students took in in June so these are these were Rising seniors that took the test and we still have another round of testing that's going to take in October but the numbers are so promising already because last year at this time we did we had around 56 students I think that passed the test this year we already have 70 students that passed the test um and that means that they passed every section of the test with at least 5.0 um score which is an intermediate midlevel as I mentioned so and I also broke it down in two sections as you can see Reading Writing listening and speaking speaking is always the most challenging for uh students who are learning um foreign language so still 4.7 and again I only took data from the U from the languages that we did teach here because there were students who took um took tests in their in their native language uh so it could be someone who was born in another country they came here and they can prove that English is now they're very proficient in English they can take for example a test in Russian or Korean Chinese so I did not include that data here this data reflects basically the hard work that I teachers put into making sure that the students learned a completely new language um so it's very uh very I I have to say I'm very proud of this our teachers this year especially so and I'm look forward to another round in October which is going to bring those numbers even higher so and um I think that's it for me thank you so much for all your support throughout the year Mr our last uh piece of data is going to be from Miss flanner who's our supervisor of special programs talking about Dynamic learning Maps which is uh one of the ways that so many of our students in the special programs are assessed in Lou of State Testing so miss flener thank you Dr bachenheimer good evening everybody um as Dr buckenheimer said the dynamic learning map is the dlm it's an alternative proficiency assessment for students in our district who are um of the most significant cognitive impairment so students in our district receive modified curriculum in order to take the dlm and that's kind of how we determine it they're tested in English language arts and science as are all the other students only in their 11th grade year so um you know the very big difference here is that their curriculum is modified the Essential Elements um in the DM aligned to our curriculum so that students um and teachers can really inform instruction and goals and objectives in the IEP can be really geared towards um individual student growth um there's a lot of work that goes into the dlm upfront our teachers who administer it do it in a onetoone testing so it's over a period of almost two months um there are test lits that are um provided six to 12 depending on the content area um and the nice part about it is once a student has taken a testlet that will be scored and then generate what that next level will look like so the information provided from the dlm is very informative to parents to students to teachers um and it is some really nice information that we get so um just a little background um this is how our achievement levels are gauged on the dlm it's emerging approaching the Target Target and advance so you know our goal is for students to really hit at Target and um Advanced I'm sorry sorry the screen is a little blurry but I just wanted to give you a visual of what we get back per student per content per testlet so these are all the areas that are tested this is just a screenshot so in English um a student could have received 14 testlets on certain skills and this indicates for the teacher the parent for administration like what they were ex actually tested on and then where they scored on that so it's really um very beneficial to see if a student is at two these are the areas we need to focus on moving forward in English language arts and science so we have very small number of students who take the dlm so my data compared to um my colleagues we had seven students administered the dlm in the 2324 school year um seven of whom took the ELA in math and six for science um the reason for that difference in numbers is the student who took um did not take science was taking a resource level science class um so if you look at the numbers we have um in ela one student who's at the emerging level um three approaching Target and three at Target in our math which is the orange we had uh one emerging three approaching Target and three at Target and then for our science we had two approaching two at Target and two Advanced so um again like I said this this information for us is very informative moving into the next school year many of these students have the same teacher um moving into the next school year so it continues to help us really um inform our instruction thank you so that concludes our testing report for this time around uh just to summarize again our scores are either equal or showing gains in many areas and we continue to be very pleased with the progress of our students led by our supervisors who presented this evening any questions we can answer from the board seeing none thank you very much all right thank you Dr bachenheimer and uh also thank you to all the supervisors for sharing all that great information thank you all thank you good night okay I need a motion to enter into executive session let's do uh let's do um my report real quick first I'm sorry Mr shman can I project something quick and also we need to do the budget calendar I'm sorry we're all out of order today so we're going so actually let's do the budget calendar while that boots up okay um I just want to go over the 2025 2026 budget calendar yes we are starting the budget already um so you get an idea of what it what it's like as a matter of fact um I sent that documents today to the administrators and the supervisors I'm sure they appreciated that on the first day back uh but it is a process I'm sure they're looking at it right now and uh trying to formulate a budget but um yeah in all seriousness um I just want to go over the calendar so you get an idea of what is expected of the district people here and also the board um so on Monday today on August 26 I distributed the 2520 uh 2025 2026 budget worksheets to the administrators and supervisors uh on Wednesday November 27th the administrators will submit their completed budget worksheets to me uh in the week of December 16th the superintendent and I will begin to review uh the administrator's budget worksheets then uh a date to be determined later um there be a finance committee meeting it's an overview of the budget process as well as preliminary discussion of state aid projected revenues and the fiscal 2024 audit if it's not delayed we don't anticipate it being delayed this year uh the week of January 6 we'll meet with the administrators to discuss potential budget revisions and then another uh TBD is another finance committee meeting to review the tenative budget the week of March 10th the finance committee meeting uh to go over the tenative budget uh there'll be a full document and provided it'll be provided to the rest of the board in the briefing agenda on Monday March 17th there'll be a public meeting to adopt the 2025 2026 tenative budget uh which needs to be submitted to the county office um on Friday March 21st the tenative budget will need to be submitted to the county office um Friday April 23rd will publish and the notice of public Hearing in the record on Monday April 28 8th we will have the public hearing to adopt the proposed 2025 2026 school budget then the week of May 5th we'll have distribution of approved budget to administrators we'll also prepare the 2025 2026 tax requisition payment schedule that's to the municipalities and the a4f that is to um certify the school taxes again that goes to the municipalities uh all this is subject to change uh because we have not received the budget calendar as of yet from the state or county office uh so everything is a little tentative but this is probably fairly accurate as far as the dates are concerned uh might be off by a week or so and hopefully uh there's no delays or anything like that uh that occur but that is the the budget calendar for this upcoming for the next year's budget thank you Mr Yami Dr superintendence report I appreciate that thank you so I'm going to show a couple of pictures uh to talk a little bit about some of the things that have happened over the summer that I want to um highlight um so I got an invitation I got an email um specifically for the superintendent at pasak Valley so the invitation was really because of our school district I want to kind of point that out because I think that that is uh something that's notable um inviting us I was one of about 50 superintendant who were invited to participate in the first annual um they're hoping to do this annually uh the first annual white house uh USD Summit uh on digital equity and so we were selected because of the work we've done in the past with uh technology and Innovation um and it was fascinating um we were able to meet with various uh Chiefs of Staff and Deputy Chiefs of Staff throughout the White House we were able to meet with Deputy directors throughout the US Department of Education including the office of educational technology we met with someone from the Department of Homeland Security who talked about cyber security specifically in schools um and then they had highlighted basically Four Points of practice that they wanted to kind of disseminate to this group and the Four Points of practice and I I I bring this up because I you know I I sat there kind of smugly through these four points of practice um but the four four points of practice were things that we've been doing in our district for a very long time and so um they were looking at digitizing Student Learning Management Systems we've had canvas in place um for uh you know years um we're now looking at even enhancing our use of canvas they were looking at digitizing Student Records specifically around students with disabilities for 504s and IEPs again something we've done for a decade um looking at making sure that students have consistent access to the devices that they're given um which is also something obviously that we were uh on the Forefront of um and so you know it was really affirming to be sitting there um in a room full of other districts that they had identified as leaders in this field um and hearing that the things that they were talking about oh the fourth thing I'm sorry was was um a focus on common planning time which is something that we have done here for a long time so it was really just very affirming to be sitting there and listening to these other uh districts and knowing that we are like at the front um the the summit itself was really focusing on concerns uh that the USD has over opportunity gaps existing over the uneven use of appropriate AI instruction in classrooms so there's a big focus on on AI um and really looking at the need for digital citizenship and also on the need for prompt creation like this idea that we should be helping our students K12 understand how to utilize AI appropriately because there's a thought that in the workforce in the next 5 10 years that this is going to um this skill is going to be akin to um how to Google something now um they're really looking at um ways to balance ethical use of this with practical application and then from this Summit we were actually invited to apply for a Google it's called Google AI plus edu Fellowship um and so uh I nominated Dr bachenheimer to apply for the fellowship and I don't think that he quite realized how like he what exactly this was going to be but it ended up being um more than 50 districts actually applied he had to have a very intense uh interview with uh Google for Education and what they uh the feedback that they gave him actually was that um they were very pleased with the balanced approach that we were taking and that balance approach has been led by um Dr bachenheimer and Mr orlac and our our supervisors last year and into this year really looking at this idea that um we're we're going to embrace AI but we're going to do it by creating a district philosophy we're going to do it by giving our teachers talking points with how to use this appropriately in their classrooms if they so choose to do so um that we're going to look at um you know some uh some staff training around how to help students be good citizens um good digital citizens around prompt creation um and that we're having ethical conversations so backen Heimer in addition to doing lunch and learns where teachers could learn about AI we've been he's been hosting um monthly ethical conversations about what is this mean what does it look like how are we rolling out are we making sure that as we're talking about this that we're doing so in a way that um it's helping our students be better users as opposed to encouraging just uh you know kind of cheating so to speak and the one thing that we've been really focusing on is this idea that AI can take away some tedious tasks to give more room and more space for all of us to connect more um create more and um you know be there and be present more for each other which I thought was great that was the feedback we got um Dr bachenheimer nailed the interview we're one of now 15 school districts internationally that's going to be part of this fellowship program which I'm super excited about um and we can give him a hand of appla Round of Applause for that because that's a big deal um and uh I'm really excited to see kind of what comes out of it because what they've done at Google is they've taken their top engineers and um allocated resources to this idea that they need Educators to help them figure out how to better roll out their tools like Gemini and all of the other Google Suites that are using AI that we use here you know we are we're a Google Suite school um so super excited about that super excited that that was the outcome um I have a couple of other pictures here um and again just some of these speakers that were really interesting to hear from um there was a uh the first ladies Chief of Staff the deputy chief of staff for the vice president it was just really cool to be able to talk to um these various people and to hear from them about what their thoughts are on education and the future of Education um which was a a great thing for us to participate in we also uh had new staff orientation uh which was a lot of fun we had a very big uh new class uh so to speak um and I do want to just point out um for those of you who haven't met we have Miss babis who's our new director of personnel and people service and Miss Lee who I think all the board members met uh over here who's our new director of Technology um we're also in this inductee class um and so it was very cool and for those of you who don't know or maybe just kind of a reminder one of the things that Dr back Ander does for our new staff orientation is the afternoon of the first day he makes sure that all of our new staff get CPR bleed control certified and I point this out because this is not new for us he's been doing this for a long time this is very new for school dist districts um and has come out as a clear best practice to make sure that staff and students understand how to do CPR and bleed control not just to keep them safe in school but to keep everybody safe and to become good um citizens and so this is something that um you guys started I'm not even sure when 2015 which is remarkable so more than almost almost 10 years ago um and I will say that there's only been chatter about this throughout our state with within the last I would say like 8 to 10 months there's been a lot of new districts who are um capitalizing on this who have reached out to us to ask how we've done it um because we actually train all of our students in CPR and uh bleed control twice in their careers here um so I think it's remarkable that we have this we have a number of saves um uh you may know that more off the top of your head than I do but yeah please e which is incredible um and I love that you know I often will reference us being innovators in technology and in instruction um but I feel like we're also innovators in safety and also in just kind of showing students um you know how easy it is to become CPR certified and to potentially save a life and I just you know I love that one of the other things that I pointed out that um I wanted to point out just because I thought this was interesting Dr buckenheimer mentioned that um you now have to have some sort of way to uh give feedback when you're training when you're doing the compressions so he purchased these like Bluetooth devices it's the blue square in the middle which was really cool it was the first time I had used one and it basically tells you if your compressions are the right speed if you're going deep enough um and gives you some other feedback in real time as you're actually practicing which was I thought that was really interesting and definitely added just another element to the training which is fantastic um the other thing I want to point out um because this is just also very cool you all remember that Dr bachenheimer and his team uh received about $75,000 in Grants to implement the inter disciplinary climate change uh curriculum that's going to result in a greenhouse at Hills in an outdoor learning space here at Valley um Dr buckenheimer along with Miss Lind Miss Lindstrom U Miss Piccola and Mr Kennedy actually went uh the state offered a number of free professional development for anybody that's involved in the grant to do and a lot of that professional development is actually taking place down at the meal lands they have an Environmental Education Center there uh which is obviously very convenient for of us um and uh they got to actually take a day and go out into the field and look at uh lessons infusing data analysis uh into uh kind of focusing in on how when and where to plant trees in the Meadowlands which I think if you me if I'm remembering that it's going to result in actual trees being planted stud make one work that iend was about planting trees to increase the amount of exchange of carbon dioxide from the environment and what of tree would you plant and where would you planted and how would you Foster it and uh they said that obviously based on our research the metaland would actually be the greatest place to do it swamp land is better than that take away there but we had um probably another teers including missano attend workshops this summer and more during the year it's open to all teachers in New Jersey by the way and administrators even going fall and the spring as part of the st's climate initi it was very cool they did not send me pictures like Barry did so Dr B and arm's pictures are up here um but I love this and I actually you know this was really cool you had sent this I think to uh myself and maybe uh Mr poio to be you know just this is very cool that you guys got to have this experience and actually see in practice how to infuse this new curriculum into you know things that could be very meaningful to students because obviously everybody knows the metal lands are right there which is wonderful so very cool and in the rain Yes you guys are cured up uh I love it awesome um thank you so much uh thank you all for your time that was that is it for my report awesome thank you thank you all right and next we'll move move on to the curriculum committee report which I have so uh we had our curriculum committee meeting on August 22nd uh at that meeting we looked at uh assessments and particularly in math and science department and uh looking at the uh midterms finals we looked at uh how much impact they actually have uh with the students and the weight of those exams uh on the year and so having looked at all the statistics and um we came up with a couple of proposals um one of the proposals was to standardize the midterm and final as 5% of the year for each non-ap courses uh we continue to focus on spiraling test prep and study skills and then have data analysis with teachers both group and individuals so that they can look at the data and the next step after that would be to standardize midterm and final weights identify areas in link it data and share those with the teachers continue adjusting geometry instruction for the Freshman analyze the end J SL SLA data when available and then on of course we do this as a standard practice but ongoing data analysis and collaboration with the teachers so overall we we found that the uh final exam the impact was minimal uh most students grades remained unchanged uh the proposed changes though were designed to to create consistency support student learning and of course we're always uh moving ahead and adapting to new situations new environments new challenges coming forward so of course we always have to look at further data analysis and as we go into the future we're going to look at uh the data analyze it and that will inform our instructional strategies does anybody have any question questions okay so that was the overall meeting all right so moving on from there I need a motion to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing Personnel contracts uh this executive session will last about 30 minutes and action will be taken at the conclusion of the executive session do I have a motion to enter into executive session so moved second and I'm going to clarify I think it's going to be more like 10 to 15 minutes I know that we say 30 on there um I just want I think it might be a little bit shorter just to throw out there that it might be shorter so you know go get a coffee or quick break come back we'll we'll be back soon all right all in favor oh discussion enter into the motion anybody have discussion no all in favor I all right so move we are now into executive session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we are now out of executive session at this time we're going to open for comments to the public uh any member of the public who wishes to comment may do so on agenda items please state your name town of residence and which agenda item you are addressing anybody stepping forward okay seeing as none um we're going to move on to policy if I need to close uh comments to the public well I think you just did yeah I think so seeing none seeing none right okay can I have a motion for the items in policy so moved second discussion okay roll call please miss Calderone yes Miss Keller yes Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Miss Stefan yes okay motion carries so we move on to education item number 11 I guess can I have a motion for the items under education so moved second discussion roll call please miss Calderone yes Miss Keller yes Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Miss stefins yes okay we're going to move on to what do I say section 12 title 12 Human Resources Human Resources okay can I have a motion for the items under Human Resources including the supplemental supplemental oh including supplemental so it's items 1 through 26 so move second discussion okay roll call Miss Calderone yes Miss Keller yes Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Miss stens yes all right that motion carries so now we move on to finance can I have a motion for items under Finance Finance so move discussion roll call please miss Calderone yes Miss Keller yes Mrs Martin yes Mr Stanis yes Miss stepin yes okay hold on it keeps going there a lot of uh information all right okay at this time we're on Old business any old business seeing none we are moving on to new business any new business okay this is the second time for comments on non-agenda items from the public please approach uh this stand state your name and town and sign in if anybody's wishing to make any comments no seeing none I am now making a motion to adjourn so moved okay the motion carries we are adjourned