I for hey good evening time is 7:04 I hearby call this meeting of the rider Board of Education order Miss can have a roll call please miss Brogan here Mr Donnie here Mr Mahmud here miss quar here Mr LMBO here can everyone please join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance and the flag salute thank you thank you pursuant to the open public meetings act advanced notice of this evening's meeting has been given to the news Bergen Record and the clerk of the village of Ridgewood in addition notices have been posted in the office of the board secretary and all of our school buildings I also have a resolution that I have to going to read from the state whereas the above caption matter arises from a complaint that was filed with the school ethics commission Commission on October 30th 2020 by Lori Weber complaintant alleging that she Brogan respondent violated multiple provisions of the school ethics act and whereas at its meeting on April 27th 2021 the commission adopted a decision finding probable cause for the alleged violation of New Jersey statute 18a col 12-24 C and in count one of the complaint in transmitting the above caption matter to the office of administrative law oal for a plary hearing and whereas the admin of law judge alj issued an initial decision dated December 14th 2021 and whereas at its special meeting on February 25th 2022 after thoroughly reviewing and considering the full record the commission voted adopt the alj's findings of fact reject the legal conclusion that the respondent did not violate New Jersey statute 18a 12-24 C and recommended a plenary of censure and whereas pursuant to New Jersey statute 18a 12-29 C the commission's decision was forwarded to the commissioner of Education commission commissioner excuse me for final determination on the recommended penalty and whereas on March 9th 2022 respondent filed an appeal with the repellent division set a finally appeal with the commission of Education as required and whereas the commissioner of education did not receive an appeal of the underlying violation from respondent and therefore reviewed the Comm comm's recommendation pursuant to New Jersey statute 18a 12-29 C and issued a final decision on April 14 2022 concurring with the commission's recommended penalty of censure and whereas June 21st 2023 the appet division dismissed respondence appeal for lack of jurisdiction and whereas July 10th 2023 respondent filed an appeal to the commissioner of Education challenged alling the underlying violation of the act and whereas by decision dated October 18th 2023 the commissioner of Education dismissed the appeal as untimely and ordered that the commissioner's April 14th 2022 final decision concurring with the penalty recommended by the Commission in connection with respondent's failure to recuse herself from executive session on May 7th 20120 despite her personal interest in a lawsuit slated to be discussed remains in full force and effect and whereas New Jersey AC 6A col 28- 9.11 D provides that penalty of centure suspension or removal a resolution shall be adopted at the commission's next me meeting following the commissioner's imposition of the sanction and the resolution shall be read at the board's next public meeting follow adoption by the commission shall be posted in such places as the board post as Public Notices for no less than 30 days shall be published online on the district's website if available for no less than 30 days and the reading of the resolution shall be memorialized in the board meeting's minutes and once approved a copy of the minutes shall be forwarded to the commission and now there therefore be it resolved that the commission adopts this resolution stating that the respondent is is hereby censured as a penalty for violating the act as set forth herin and be it further resolved that the board is ordered to read this resolution and its next regularly scheduled public meeting to post in such places as the board posts as Public Notices for a period of no less than 30 days and to publish it online on the district's website if available for no less than 30 days and be it further resolved that the board shall provide the commission with the minutes once adopted from the meeting at which it reads the within resolution Miss cot I believe you have a copy for the minutes for this too thank you what will the um actual heading say to be clear because it we know it's not on our agenda so the entire document that I received oh sorry read missed the top part sorry about that before the school ethics commission o docket number ec-400 6-21 agency docket number 8-7 23A SEC docket number c71 D20 resolution of censure in the matter of Sheila brogen Bridgewood Board of Education Bergen County Miss bran yes I I have a statement thank you anyone who has worked with me for over 27 years knows that I have approached my work on the board of education with integrity and honesty I've always acted responsibly and ethically my focus has been and continues to be on the well-being of our students and the success of our district on October 30th 2020 five ethics charges were filed against Me by Miss Weber four of these charges were dismissed by the school ethics commission these charges were without Merit one charge remained alleging that I violated the school ethics act by attending an executive session of the Ridgewood Board of Education held on May 7th 2020 where in the board was updated on an open public records act matter the Oprah matter disputed whether the requestor of the records was improperly denied screenshots of the email settings of board members personal electronic devices including cell phones belonging to me and another board member the dispute centered around whether board members were using personal devices is to receive and respond to multiple email accounts including Bridgewood addresses the name parties on the case where the Board of Education and our school business administrator it should be noted that by device set that my device settings were not the topic of discussion at the executive session as I willingly provided screenshots of my email settings prior to the executive session meeting to be clear on May 7th there was no court judgment on this matter and our lawyer at the time provided the board with a brief update on this matter subsequently on May 18th and June 1 when this matter had been decided by a judge I recused myself from any discussion of the board's response to the judge's decision the school ethics commission transferred my ethics case to the office of administrative law and on upset on and on and on September 23d 2021 a hearing was held Mrs Weber did not testify but another person did neither Miss Weber nor the witness called forth had any firsthand knowledge of what transpired in the executive session and their knowledge was based so on what they perceived to have happened the hearing presided over by judge Kimberly Moss lasted two and a half hours on December 14th 2021 judge Moss issued her judgment and found that my presence at the SE at the May 7th meeting did not violate the ethics act she recommended that the charge be dismissed for unexplained reasons and despite judge Moss's ruling the ethics commission chose to adopt the findings of fact but rejected judge Moss's conclusion saying that my physical presence alone at the executive session could somehow impact the ability of the board to have a candid discussion of the Oprah matter it should be noted that the executive session the commission believed that my presence was an issue was actually a virtual meeting through Zoom during the early months of the covid pandemic and therefore no one was physically present nonetheless the commissioner's conclusion was based on perception not truth not fact there have been no credible evidence off offered for the ethics commission to make this ruling of censure this ruling is based on the perception submitted by people who were not present on the zoom meeting at the executive session an affidavit submitted by our then business administrator antonet Kelly who is present at the executive session verified that no action was taken at that meeting her a her affidavit was sarily rejected I object to being censored from my mere Presence at the executive session on May 7th 2020 this ruling by the school ethics commission is based on perception and it defies logic truth and fairness thank you mik for letting me make that statement thank you m we have a student presentation welcome everyone and we have a presentation from our student representative Miss SAR bronstein Miss bronstein thanks so much for being here today and please feel free to take it away you um to begin with the December 4th report uh the winter track season recently started on Monday the 27th um the rhs cross country team had an amazing season and ended up seventh in the region at their Regional race and our own Junior Luke Pash was announced 33rd in the nation and will be proceeding to Nationals which is fantastic um the girls and boys basketball teams had their triy outs on the 20th to the 22nd Ridgewood swim has their first meet on the 11th against hackin saac and the swim team also delivered their pies on the 20th for all those who ordered from the fundraiser as for clubs and rhs the rhs fishing club caught carp and catfish during their outing at the Elmwood Park boat ramp on Saturday November 4th artbeat had their fall Fusion annual fall concert um they had an amazing turnout in the Campus Center in the courtyard there were nine student B um student bands that performed and they all did amazing um marching band Awards happened on the 30th uh during the awards next year's drum major will be announced and was honored while all band members will be celebrated for their commitment to rhs band they also performed at downtown for the holidays with the rhs ASL Club um on the 1st from 7: to 8:00 pm. the ASL 2 students uh live performed and interpreted for the Carol uh the carolers sorry to as they tore the streets um if you ordered any poinsettas from The Ridgewood band the delivery was on the second uh from the 14th to the 7th amadas will be performed at the little theater by the new players so make sure you get your tickets soon they tend to sell out project interact per usual had a lot going on they donated codes to the Kelly cre and code drive over Thanksgiving weekend project intera also volunteered at Winterfest in downtown Ridgewood with the ASL 2 club and the band as well they dressed in fun elf and Carol costumes while collecting donations handing out candy canes and setting up and cleaning up the event they also donated Thanksgiving cards to rid bridg Crest senior living and on the 27th project interact began collecting donations for the Mr pizo international student travel scholarship fund Mr Baza was a vital organizer in the rhs trips and project interact is helping make it possible for students to travel and enjoy it just as he did um additionally on the 30th the Cambodia Club had its steel wheel fundraiser uh they had 20% off dinin and take out proceeds went to the sister School in Cambodia they do a lot of work there and we actually a few of them will be visiting Cambodia uh come March so they're starting to set up a bunch of donations the AC capella groups had their concert on the 20th the 20th where they're performing the songs along with the AC capella group from University of Delaware Vocal Point they performed their yearly songs and premiered one song that they plan on singing during their January competition uh finally there was also an amazing turnout for the sharing the art show of Beauty and the Beast and for all celebrating this Friday happy Hanukkah thank you excellent with that we have our first comments from the public portion of the evening please come up to the podium St your name for the record welcome you have four minutes thank you Lori Weber 235 South Irving Street and um I hadn't realized that the resolution was going to be read this evening so I but I do want to respond very briefly I'm not going to relitigate the case the public should understand that government agencies when they receive complaints often refer as a matter of procedure those complaints once probable cause has been shown to the administrative Court the administrative court is not like the Superior Court it is an arm of these government agencies it tries the case but it is the government agency that truly understands those laws and then considers what the Court's findings were and comes up with the final decision on the matter so that's why there is sometimes a disagreement between the administra of court and the government agency um in this case what I think were was missing from Miss Brogan's comments although I appreciate her right to make them um and something that is relevant to the entire board is that the the uh School ethics Act is all about perception we as the public are not able to be in executive session so we have to be able to have something that protects the public Trust and that's what the school ethics laws are for to protect the public trust so as I read at the last meeting a perceived violation to the school ethics commission is the same as a violation because we as the public as Miss ban pointed out are not allowed to attend those meetings we we cannot we don't get to see minutes of those meetings except very truncated versions if that so that's the mean meaning behind that and I just wanted to clarify that but I also want to ask a question now the school ethics commission I me this is what I actually came here for tonight the school ethics commission adopted this resolution last week on the 28th and they would have immediately that day notified the Board of Education the board of education then according to um New Jersey Administrative Code 6A chapter 28 sub chapter nine I think um would then be required to do the things that uh Mr limbo read aloud in terms of posting and reading but so my question is why wasn't this on the agenda uh the agenda was came to me late uh on Friday and I did submit a an email to the board this morning the board leadership uh and and asking why why this was is missing and expressing my concern and the fact that it wasn't on the agenda isn't itself a problem so the way I understand it our former business administrator actually explained this to me at one time um it is the uh superintendent of schools who in possible consultation with other members of the administrative staff forms the the first draft of the agenda and then discusses that with the board leadership typically the board president so I guess what I would like to know and I think as a resident I have a right to know but I think also as person who filed the original complaint I definitely have a right to know which one of you Dr Schwarz or Mr LMO did Dr Schwarz make the decision to leave this off of the agenda or did Mr Limo make the decision to remove it M and I think that there is nothing there's no privilege there's no protected information in that question and I believe that I have a right to know the answer thank you thank you good evening my name is sonel Dan and I live at 390 Bedford Road I'm here here to ask to make the Bergen County acmy or BCA bus company adhere to the published schedule the bus that goes to BCA consistently leaves the bus stops before the published scheduled times um and by the time it reaches a last stop it leaves 10 to 12 minutes earlier than its published time this causes a lot of anxiety and stress and uncertainty for the students and the parents in the morning the parents have called the bus company multiple times and the bus company's argument is that the bus does not have the space on the street to wait for a longer time at the last stop however if the bus was actually leaving at the published time from every stop then it would not have to wait for long at the last stop additionally bca's official earliest acceptance time in their buildings for the students is 7:30 a.m. the bus drops the students prior to that time which should not be the case we have followed all procedures for escalation so far including contacting transportation coordinator um region one the Valley bus company um and Reporting it at the superintendent coffee but it has not been resolved yet I kindly request the board's attention on this matter thank you so much thank you hi I'm nandani and I live at 390 Bedford Road I'm a student at Bergen countyy and I'm here to ask to make the bus company adhere to the public schedule the BCA bus consistently leaves the bus stops before the published times and by the time it reaches its last stop it leaves 10 to 12 minutes earlier than it's the publish time this causes a lot of anxiety and uncertainty in the mornings for both students and parents the parents have called the bus company multiple times and their argument is always that the bus does not have the space on the street to wait too long at the last stop but if the bus was actually leaving at the published times from every stop then it would not have to wait too long please bring your attention to this matter thank you thank you good evening everyone my name is Kim patala and I live at 27 Kima Road my son is currently a sophomore at BCA and I'm here to talk about the BCA bus pickup timings in the mornings currently at our particular stop the bus arrives around uh 6 minutes earlier than the scheduled time as uh provided by the revised uh schedule that was provided to us at the end of September um this causes undue anxiety um and stress to the students and the parents in the mornings the consistency with which the bus um has started arriving has improved since the beginning of the school year uh but it would be highly beneficial for all of the students and the parents if the buses did not leave the stop before the scheduled time thank you thank you hi good evening my name is Elena Croy I live at 1112 Richards Road um thank you Dr Schwarz Mr LMO the entire Board of Education and everyone who's listening thank you for this space um I'm here tonight for a good thing I an incredible thing happened last week the federal government issued a joint statement between the doe and the Department of Health and uh Human Services regarding the inclusion of students with disabilities uh starting in early childhood programs um A Renewed commitment and urgency is the phrase that they used in their uh statement um uh in case this is the only four minutes that listeners will devote to this need I'm just going to quote from the uh from the November 2023 policy statement quote it Remains the department shared Vision that people of all abilities be included in all facets of society throughout their lives as it benefits not only individuals with disabilities but also individuals in our communities inclusion in early childhood programs can set a trajectory for inclusion across a lifestan that's huge they didn't say that I said that um consequently there is a critical need to improve policies and programs to support Early Childhood inclusion from birth and as children move into elementary school end quote as noted here the topic of academic inclusion isn't one that solely addresses the needs of students with disabilities the absence of a disabled child in a classroom is not neutral for general education students it is a negative for the disabled student the absence of peer models can be detrimental not only to their intellectual development but to the social emotional well-being that Ridgewood Public Schools itself stresses through District goals in short this means that all of our children need each other regardless of how they speak play or learn uh Willard School has embraced my daughter hope she's in first grade uh and she has Down syndrome although she was denied in-class resource for kindergarten and was segregated throughout her time at Glenn school um starting at age three she's in class now with two incredible teachers the best support staff and she's building friendships and developing skills that will last her a lifetime the first week of school a mom asked me if hope would like to join daisies and she's now been to three amazing monthly meetings with a group of two dozen or so extraordinary little girls last week a mom uh her daughter insisted that she get my cell phone number so that our children could have a play date um these things wouldn't have happened for her if she wasn't walking to our neighborhood school every day or socializing with children who could vocalize specific requests to their parents academic inclusion isn't just about curriculum it's access to language it's access to incidental learning it's the free freedom to explore new Concepts and not just about mastering the ones that are being drilled on a predetermined schedule inclusion in many cases is freedom it's creativity it's a fundamental Civil Right for all children in the United States I do need to note here that there's a difference between separate learning spaces and segregated learning spaces a separate space safe one is one that's protected by law when it serves as an accommodation for a child's disability a segregated space is one where a child is denied modifications and accommodations they need to be successful I'm not here to challenge the separate space um many of which serve as critical resources for vulnerable children and are integral to what we refer to as a Continuum of special education services I'm here to energize our community of families whoever's listening staff um who are considering the difference between these two Core Concepts when a child has been denied the inclusive education our state and federal government's encourage this w Wednesday December 6th our special education parent advisory group cpag is hosting a bimonthly public information meeting here at the education center at 930 a.m. the topic is on inclusion and a speaker from the New Jersey Coalition for inclusive education will be presenting please come and listen participate in this friendly Cooperative conversation and become an ally by relearning what you may have been taught about what it means and what it takes to integrate our children thank you for your time thank you we have a few callers hello hi sir hi um good evening my name is Saran Mand I resided at 43 barington Road in Ridgewood my daughter n kandum attends the Bergen County academies the issue I'm raising is one where the BCA school bus is not adhering to the published bus schedule specifically the bus consistently departs before the publish times um it also U by the time it least reaches the last stop uh it it leaves about 10 to 12 minutes earlier than the scheduled time while the departure is always in consistently late the exact time is not always the same um and this ends up causing a lot of anxiety and uncertainty for students and parents they also end up reaching the school prior to 7:30 a.m. the school is not equipped to have students arrive prior to 7:30 a.m. furthermore students also get less sleep as they end up reaching the school earlier than required parents have made several attempts to resolve this specifically we have contacted the bus company multiple times uh and the bus company's argument is always that the last stop lacks space for longer Waits but if they ADH here to the schedule they would need to wait at the last stop uh We've also followed escalation procedures contacted the transportation coordinator the region one coordinator uh and also reported the issue of the superintendent coffee uh despite following the above escalation procedures the issue Still Remains unresolved I request your attention and resolution to this ongoing problem and hold the bus company accountable to adhering to the publish schedule and ensuring that they don't drop the students off before 7:30 a.m. am thank you for your consideration and assistance thank you good evening my name Isa zala I live at 227 Kima Road my son goes to Bergen County Academy and I would also like to talk about the BCA bus schedule even though things have improved significantly in terms of predictability since last year the bus still arrives 6 to 8 minute before schedule as the bus doesn't wait it causes my son significant anxiety in the morning and hence he reaches the bus stop at least 10 minutes before schedule even though this might not seem like a lot BCA students are consistently sleep deprived and hence 10 minutes of lost sleep are very precious to my son um I kindly request the board's attention on this matter thank you thank you hello is hi um this is bavana Jen and sudhir Jen so we are parents of yika Jen who also goes to Buran County Academies and like the folks before us we wanted to Echo the same sentiments the bus schedule is very unpredictable it always comes you know before time and often times you would be we would be waiting for the bus without knowing if it has if it has left the stop or if it is yet to arrive so as you can imagine it causes a lot of anxiety um the only ask we would have is have the bus adhere to the publ schedule and as folks before me said if the bus starts the first stop at the right time it would get to the last stop at about the right time and that's should that should probably solve the problem we have tried all the other measures talking to the you know raising it to the bus company raising it to the transporter coordinator to the at the superintendent coffee and other things uh but those have not helped so if you guys can look at it that would be very very helpful thank you so much for listening to us and thank you so much for for your time um I appreciate it that's it thank you hello hello can you hear me yes ma'am this is Ann loving at 342 South Irving Street I'd like to talk for a minute about the word embarrassing first of all losing an election bid or reelection bid I should say I know that that must be extremely disheartening but to post a public snarky sarcastic sour grapes diet tribe instead of gracefully accepting the election outcome is really embarrassing second an Ethics violation was found to have Merit and while I am sure it is very disheartening to have this happen it is very embarrassing to have Miss Brogan basically deny instead of accepting the governmental process gracefully finally I agree with Miss Weber as I often do why was this censure resolution not on a published agenda to me it seems like an attempt to hide it from as many residents as possible again how embarrassing the board can and should do better you are the face of the best school system or one of the best school systems in the state let's get it together and stop these embarrassing commentaries on social media and on the days thank you thank you that's all the callers that we have is there anybody else left in the audience that wish to speak okay with that we'll close the first public comment portion of the evening there'll be a second one at the end of the evening thank you all yours Miss cot um I just want to request that if Miss Brogan's um uh comments could be entered into the minutes of the record as well thank you Dr schores if I [Music] may um I just uh want people to be aware that they may be unfamiliar with the proper escalation procedure es so unfortunately this is the first I'm hearing about the concerns about Bergen Academy's busing um people may not know that we recently had a retirement uh with our transportation coordinator there is uh someone filling in currently and the immediate oversight is handled by our assistant VA I also did not hear um her name or title mentioned um if you cannot get resolution at that level then please escalate to me uh the business administrator I'll be happy to look into it but uh now I'm aware and I can uh do some research unfortunately um I have I have nothing that I could speak of tonight because I'm just learning on thank you yep that's it this tonight we have with us tonight represent representatives of the rwood High School administration uh we've had some conversations both regarding our district goals and regarding um in in our district goal conversations and also at the in some of our um score reporting conversations about um our community's interest in understanding uh the landscape of college acceptances in response to those questions and concerns the rhs administration uh expressed an interest in giving a presentation they were slated to give that presentation in November of November 20 um and then uh just we we uh just had um um some some issues come up and some of our team was not available to join us so we rescheduled to tonight um this is something that the Administration has put together as a kind of a preliminary conversation as a state of affairs as to where things have been with respect to college admissions uh we will be including uh some additional conversation analysis and certainly some of this data as well in our state of the schools address um but we look for welcome them want to welcome them all up right now and uh and certainly welcome board member questions um as we uh as we continue to strive to make sure that we're being transparent and supportive of our community members we have uh with us we have Mr nias we have Mr Bailey and Miss Wood are you joining us okay great thank you so thank thank you for having us tonight um one of our our main goals in in Ridgewood High School and and the guidance Department this year is just to continue to educate and inform our community on the college application process so uh we put together pretty comprehensive uh presentation tonight we're going to go through it um and again any questions that you have throughout please feel free to ask uh but the reason why we're here is to truly educate it's another public forum um so we appreciate the opportunity to be here so we can continue to uh be transparent and communicate to the public uh what we're seeing at the high school level so tonight we'll review some recent College ad Mission Trends and go over some data we'll talk about some rhs enhancements in the college admissions process over the last three to four years um Mr n is going to talk a little bit about the student centered individual piece um of our counseling so looking at um I I I think it's worth mentioning how much time went into this and I want to thank Mr Bailey um and the guidance Department in terms of how much research and you'll see throughout the presentation um we have a lot of data and a little bit of anecdotal information um that I think will help support the data um and looking over the course of 35 years we have uh our former uh director of guidance before myself uh Peg lunam who helped us with a lot of this and and you know we'll probably mention her throughout this and of course my experience as director of guidance and then Dave's picking up through that so um you know we'll we'll we'll see a a trend throughout um and I think you'll you know see a history and you know answer some questions so just some some of the latest trends and we get asked a lot about what has changed in college admissions in the last three to five years so obviously seen a tremendous amount of of growth and increase in the amount of applications uh just this weekend I was looking over some data um ruter is up almost 40% from last year for example in their um admission uh application so far okay the largest pool in the history of ruter UNCC Chapel Hill they're up 13% from last year they had 44,000 um early action application so the application uh uh process is a lot easier now for students it's a lot more accessible it's easier to apply uh test optional um has has um made it also easier for students to um apply um and and feel more confident applying to more schools uh because they don't have to send test scores so that uh we do we we anticipate that to continue it has been a trend over the last four to five years and we'll show you some data uh in regards to Ridgewood High School we're going to look at some early action and early decision deadlines about 85% of our students now apply to college are applying to at least one school before November 1st so we start school obviously the first week of September so those seven weeks for seniors for our staff for parents is a is quite the rush um and that data has continued to Trend um in that direction that more kids are flying earlier we're also going to talk tonight a little bit about institutional priorities and enrollment management um meaning what colleges are looking for as well and and what our students can control in the process and what they cannot control so we'll we'll dive a little deeper into that so looking at return on investment um we'll talk about that in our ending slides and and you know that has changed significantly um and just you know looking at the cost of college and you know um a lot of schools in terms of our helping our kids find employable majors and even looking at other options um in terms of Gap years and to going to two-year college and and even just taking a year to you know work and and figure out some things um I think those are viable options um and then we'll you might hear us use the word rejective or selective because I think they can be used interchangeably um but you'll see in our in our data that you know we're going to be talking about a lot of Highly rejective schools um and finally the vast majority of our College colleges admit the vast majority of our applicants because many of our students are are applying to those highly rejective schools if you know we'll show some data that if they are looking at other schools with the same criteria in terms of size location majors and all of the things that you know we would consider a great fit um they'll see that the percentages of getting into those schools are much much higher just want to reemphasize that because students and parents juniors seniors uh there's a lot of stress around this but again the vast majority of colleges do admit the vast majority of applicants our job is to have highly individualized counseling with each student and each family and find the best fit for that student which may not be a four-year college and we want to help them with that journey and find the place where they're going to be most successful after graduating Ridgewood High School so this is an interesting slide um looking back to 2003 to 2023 um you could see I think if you're looking at the students column uh we're we're up around a 100 students in each of our grade levels but specifically in the ones you know applying to schools um which is senior year um the other thing I want to mention in this particular slide is the percent accepted uh you could see and you'll see in the next slide that you know we're we're around the in the 50 sometimes High 50% but par particularly between 52 and 59% accepted um and you have to remember many of our students are applying to schools that are less than 20% accepted so that's a very very good number and this is pretty much the same slide as I was mentioning over the last five years um and you look at the percent accepted as I was saying we're we're ranging in that 50 you know the 53 55 we were in 49 um when you look at 2022 there's a lot to be said about that look at the submitted applicants applications I should say it's almost a thousand more than the previous year and then it starts to dip back so that's a little bit of an anomaly um so you could see why the percent accepted would be lower and we have some other slides that will kind of show that in in you know when we show some Ed and EA um slides um but also you can also look at the number of students that year that was one of the high highest number of students that graduated in many many years at 467 so you know it it explains a little bit but it it is definitely an anomaly and then finally um this is one of this is a slide that I think um is very very interesting and when I was at the you know director of guidance back in 2015 um the first I was looking at some data from 1995 and this was something that I found um in one of my you know books in terms of Admissions and applicants and this slowly Rose over time but this was typical for Yale getting you know from probably the early 80s into 1995 it hasn't didn't change much but mostly around 12 to 13,000 students were applying the the admitted was 2 around 2000 between 2050 and 2100 and the enrolled was very very similar so I'm like well what is what would this look like in 2015 look at the admitted look at the enrolled it's almost identical right it's off by 17 and and admitted five and enrolled but it two and a half times the applications they received so obviously the percentage of getting in is much much lower so to take a step further getting to current this particular number is five times what it started with in 1995 um and that's the lowest admission percentage in the history of Yale so this is I mean when you look when I said look at that year 2022 you can start to see why the percentages start swaying down again very selective or rejective college in terms of what they but again what's interesting is that enrolled 1647 in 2022 you know it is up a little bit because they they've built another dorm at at Yale but the terms in terms of the the number of admitted and the number of enrolled it's only a few hundred off so I share this slide at uh nightly our meetings uh whenever we have any events regarding college and I I'll show you some other slides it is not to scare students and parents it is just to be extremely transparent of what the landscape is right now in college admissions and also to help students build a balanced list of schools if they're applying to fouryear school so we'll talk about what looks like um but again this is not a a scare tactic um I don't want students to feel demoralized by it uh we want it actually to empower them to build a better list of schools so can I can I ask a question or so just a a philosophical question that's important for all of us to think about obviously in the news right that's that's a big thing big theme as well right uh higher number of applicants and lower percentage M um but I do wonder what the real story is right because I kind of I suspect that what's happening right is technology Common App Etc is making it easier to apply so 10 15 years ago maybe one student was applying to three or four colleges and now they're applying to 10 right so now the number of applications the total number of applications has increased and so by just the basic math right the percentage is decreasing but now when a student gets admitted to maybe eight of those 10 they're only going to choose one right so there's still only one spot so it obviously things have gotten more selective for sure no one can deny that but is it as bad as the numbers make it seem because maybe this is a bit of an inflated um approach we're taking that could be demoralizing people a little bit I not rhs by the way I mean across the country country right because we have to really understand like what what that percentage really really entails I'm just wondering if you guys have thought about it like that if you've seen other data that would be kind of add more light to that piece or not yes and we have a lot of good news to share too um off of this but it is easier than ever to apply so the common application was a game changer um it's once the student completes it one time it's it's it's a it's pretty easy to send to multiple schools um so and it's to the college's advantage they want more students to apply it is better for them on their end so test optional also has um there's less self- selection where a student might have had a score and said ah it's not within the average of that school I'm not going to send now they they don't have to send it anymore so they're more likely to send that application in um so that's all a part of it um with the numbers we're going to look at 40 to 50 schools here in a few slides individually and that drives a lot of the narrative and the conversation nationally andal locally and and uh you know through the media however we're going to also look at the other schools um that are great schools um and and show you some numbers there that will be um a little bit more favorable do um just on a um on the ratings you know college ratings you know who's best the country or whatever is the n aren't the numbers um of applicants and then the number they accept isn't that part of the rating system when they are looking um at you know best colleges because that's my understanding am I correct on that if you go deep into the ratings there's a a lot of different measurements but I will say that yield so how many students that they accept are attending is extremely important to colleges because to them that shows um you know compared to peers that they're more desirable and that students want to attend yeah that's but it's not part of the US News ranking it's it's important for for them they do recruit to reject that's their strategy but uh it's not part of the ranking yeah and like a lot of people ask if we envision test optional um going away or um you know they're if we're going to ever limit the amount of applications to me I don't see that changing in the next few years just because again it's to the the colleges advantage to have more students apply they have more students to pick from um so on the student end um you know these numbers sometimes um are again not not demoralizing but scary um but I want to show also some other schools because uh this is not the total sto story it's just part one of the story I just want to like I think I'm hoping you're gonna get there tell me if I'm wrong here but like percentage accepted is one thing but also this the composition of the student body also changes I mean we see how our our average GPA has grown and I mean they even though the percentage is going down it's the same amount number of students are getting in are attending schools so are we seeing the same are we trying to you know the the portrait of The Graduate has to change right and that's what we're kind of going to yeah I think I think a lot of these questions if you will shift and I and I will we will take questions throughout obviously but I think you'll start to see where we're going um and it's and we chose these three schools Dave's going to talk about the next two obviously Yale being you know an IV League you know we can put a lot of schools up there with Yale MIT Georgetown very similar in terms of selectivity and and um and then we have you know we have a a school like Ohio State here and then another school Bucknell but just to kind of give you a vast look at different types of schools that our kids are applying to so y so this is a bigger State obviously land grant University Ohio State so we can look at how they've changed in the last 15 years or so so 2009 here's 2015 okay applications doubled now you'll see the number of admitted students out uh Rose as well and they added um another thousand students in enrollment okay so Ohio state was really growing um whereas y did not grow as rapidly um you see 2022 again this was the postco year when it was very very accessible uh to apply um there was a bit of a panic of um our kids going to get into as many schools so there's a lot more students applying to schools but you'll see 33,000 admitted so 20,000 more were admitted than 2009 and that enrollment continues that's for an incoming freshman class at Ohio State continues to increase Bucknell so smaller private school 2008 numbers about 37 uh 30% admission rate 2015 Okay small growth grow but growth and then 2022 so actually statistically the admission rate it was it was actually easier in 2022 than 2008 um admission wise at Bucknell so these are just three schools so Bucknell is a very popular school we had nine kids uh from the class of 2023 enroll there we have a student at Ohio State um so these are some popular schools for our kids there are three different types of schools um so we wanted to share uh you know some of that data these are just you know these are things that we're tracking in the guidance department so through our senior survey through our um the data that we collect we can track Trends and patterns so we're able to better um guide each class and each student all right so this is Ridgewood High School specific data and as and as we were saying earlier there are certain schools where the selectivity or the rejec livity is very very high um but if you can see if they're applying to some of this a similar School in terms of um you know what the child is looking for in terms of program size um you know uh fit and you'll see that what we're getting to is there are great schools that students can get into with a much higher percentage so this has stayed pretty consistent over the last three years so we do a senior survey every June so this is student uh data collected from the students through a survey so last year we had 81% of our seniors were admitted to one of their top three College choices so I always share this with Junior parents senior parents during the process uh just to alleviate some pressure and stress that um this has stayed true over the last three years uh it's usually in between 80 and 84% um so I always also share where did the other 18.8% end up that's always a common question so we actually looked individually at every student from the class of 2023 who reported that they did not get into one of their top three schools uh these were the places that they attended okay so this also um you know helps students and families in the beginning of the process understand that our kids are getting into uh great places yeah when when Dr when Dr schars was looking at this he goes Jeff is Princeton correct you know I mean as as as the other and and it is I mean and when you look back at that particular student yeah there some really really good schools so what you're looking at here is admission wise the most competitive colleges in the country at this point so these are um schools with an admission rate under 20% so again I talked about period or like that our students have applied to under 20% period like a national rate of admission and these are the schools that drive the narrative so a lot of our conversations when we're counseling students and parents is okay we have these schools but we also have thousands of other schools as well so when we're building our list we want to give um as much information as possible on different schools so um these are again schools with a 20% admission rate or lower from the from last year's class okay um and these are our Ridgewood High School admission rates for those schools just listed over the last five years okay so again I'll go back these are the colleges okay and I want to say from the class of 2023 we had 69 students attend one of these colleges we we had more accepted but 69 ended up attending and are at one of of these colleges that you see here which is 15% of the class okay so these are admission rates um again that 2022 year um you know seems to be the the aberration um but we wanted to share this because these are the the highly objective schools they do drive a lot of the narrative um we want to just be transparent with our our data from from Ridgewood High School looking at these schools all other schools in the country not listed this is our admission rate um for our students who apply to those schools at VIR High School okay so um just to clarify when you're saying admission rate it's total number of applic or total applications as a denominator and then total accept applications the total yeah but total number of applications opened so it's all this is self-reported data so it's it's there's there's some margin of error because you have teenagers in June that are that are filling this out but we've done it the same way for for 25 uh 25 or 30 years so the data is comparable across years um but this is applications open so it's the lowest the number could be because there could be some incomplete applications in our system but that 71.6 is the lowest it could be it's most likely four to five percentage points higher um but this always helps students and parents when we're building um that list of schools um to understand um that again the vast majority of schools are selecting the ma taking the ma vast majority of students early decision is another Trend that has um really developed over the last five years so Mr n is going to talk a little bit about historically what Ed early decision which is again that binding agreement if you apply and are accepted you will be attending the student the parent and the school signs off on that before the application is submitted so when you go back in time and and again that 2003 slide really didn't do it and we would have to go back further early decision when it started it wasn't a strategy so you have to remember that it is a strategy now early decision was something used because of a child had a that was the only school they wanted to attend it wasn't like I am going to apply here as a strategy because it's the admittance is higher and I want to get in and then I'm going to apply to these 14 other schools if I don't get in in even as early as 2 20012 2002 that was like or Ed was simply what it was I want to go to this school and that's all they applied to until they found out if they needed to if they got in they were done um now as I said and you can you can see by the data here too um it is it is a strategy and it's something our students still use you know and they'll use ed2 because that's something that developed over the last 15 years as well because when they didn't get into their ed1 a lot of the smaller schools it started with like a a Bucknell a Lehi they did these ed2 because they were like we're going to get some of these great kids and we want them to come you know in our January 15th application pool so so that has changed dramatically over time and I do want to mention Dave mentioned this early earlier 85% of our kids are doing EA or Ed as as little as four or five years ago when I was doing it that this was it was around 75 76% so that has grown I mean our kids are applying early they want to know early they want to strategize they want to know at least two or three of their schools hopefully by December 10 and then they decide what they're going to do from there because if they they like their options the ones they got in sometimes they're done but sometimes they're going to apply to that ed2 school and say you know what I love my three choices but I want that fourth and if I get it I'm done um so that that that has increased tremendously and 85% of our application our you know our pool you can you can see okay so really want to just concentrate for a few minutes on the message we do communicate to students so this is our guidance team at Ridgewood High School um who really helped us with this uh this presentation I think it's important that the community knows how we guide and um and help our students through this process we really focus on the things that students can control in this process and what they cannot control there's a lot that is out of their control it's one of the first things for parents as well um so it causes stress um so we want to really zero in on what we can control with our kids and and take it one day at a time so that's a really an important part of that individual counseling so what is in our students control what has not changed in 30 years of college admissions through everything the High School academic record the four-year um um transcript has always and continues to be the most important piece of the process from an admission standpoint so what classes are available to a student in their High School what classes they take and how they do in their classes that is the most important factor and determination for colleges um on how that student will do in their college then when you look further on this list the level of Engagement all of these things are important but they're not as as as important as Dave had said is the transcript um but the level of Engagement and again we counil our students the same way that we've you know since you know 2000 you know whenever I've started with a guidance counseling um we offer so many activities so many clubs Sports um you know new players and and all of these amazing um extracurriculars that a student can can get involved in our club Fair had over a hundred clubs around the track this year one of the things you really I we always tell kids quality over quantity you know be passionate about it be do two or three things well instead of eight or nine things you know where you're just kind of halfhazard going to running to different meetings um that's very very important because it tells a story and that's where you get your stories from your essays and your supplements um I've always told the kids that I've helped with counseling and and Dave the same in our guidance Department make your application a story make your um you know your teacher should be talking about your what happens in your classroom your guidance counselor should be telling the big picture and your particular you know uh special interests and things should come out in your essays in your story last two things demonstrated interest so uh schools want to accept students that they believe and think will attend their school so there's different ways uh to do that that we counsel our students and they're also tracking um through data um through algorithms um if students are really interested in their school so we talk to students about how they're doing that and um um again they want to accept students that are going to most likely attend that helps their yield and then a balanced list of schools that's something that's in control of our students and we can help them build that list so these are the thing that are things that are beyond our students control um and and a big part of it is enrollment management and instant institutional priorities so you have to think of a from the college's end they are putting together a freshman class so they want a very diverse pool they want students from all over the world all over the country uh with different Majors from different backgrounds so uh there are a lot of things that are out of our students control so we talked to them about looking at the previous year uh uh brag sheet from the college so every College when they talk about their freshman class from the year before they're going to have a brag sheet that talks about all the different uh students in their class and we talk to students about uh do you fit that profile are you someone that they're bragging about so we talk very candidly about that and there's a lot of things that are out of uh our students control so um for example the the list here first generation students is a um a big point of emphasis right now for colleges which it should be they're giving access to um different students um especially students who have not uh whose parents have not gone to college pel grant recipients point of origin is very important right now where they're coming from um so New Jersey is a very densely populated area Bergen County so there's a lot of students applying U so they're looking again from students all over over the country International students during our research most of uh the top colleges that we looked at are most selective I should say had about 10 to 15% International students in their freshman class which from a business component uh they are full-pay students so they are um that is a big component and something that is out of our students control obviously money um we'd be we'd be kidding ourselves if we said that didn't in talk so uh money is an important piece um as far as if a student can can pay fully um State legislation this is important so we had some questions earlier in the year about ubaa and UNCC so when you you do a a deeper dive into those schools UNC Chapel Hill has an 8218 law which states that 18 no more than 18% of a freshman class can be from out of the state of North Carolina so you look at the instate admission rate is somewhere in the mid-30s to near 40% uh where the out ofate rate is in the teens so those are things that are just out of control for uh for Ridgewood High School student so we just want to talk these things through be as transparent educate our students educate our parents and what we're looking for when we're building a list is that our students have as many options as possible in March and April what we fear is that they only have one maybe two options that's what we do not want so we want to be honest and transparent with the students in the beginning of the when they're building the list and applying to schools to avoid that we want them to have as many options as possible okay so I just wanted to highlight the uh the fit when we talk about that you know you hear that thrown around a lot um but I want to just give you an example of that this is Elliot Ule uh he gave me full permission to talk about him tonight we're very proud of him uh he uh was a graduate last year class of 2023 uh one of the top students in his class well-rounded um did it all um again just a just a just a great student and person um and then I got to work with him closely over the last six months just because it was really a struggle for him to uh to find the right school and we had many conversations about the fit uh he ended up being weight listed at Brown and accepted into Bowden um Brown Came Calling and said that they would like to accept him which was a very confusing time for him um but ultimately Elliot said no thank you to Brown and went to Bowden so again both very good schools um but the thing that really I want to impress upon you and it's something that I'll take with me the rest of my career and working with Elliott is he said Mr Bailey Bowden wants me I know they want me I know I'm going to be successful there uh they they it's not that brown doesn't want me they accepted me but they didn't feel I didn't feel the same love so when we're working with teenagers when we're working with kids um something that the most important piece is that they find schools and places that show them that they want them to be there okay and that could be maybe financially maybe that's scholarships maybe that's say they accept them early um maybe that's during a visit maybe that's a personal attention but I know Elliott's going to be more successful in the long run going to Bowden than he would have going to Brown and some people said even me I was like oh IV League maybe you should go there you know we just kind of went we talked through um but that's just that that narrative I was talking about before but Brown wasn't the right fit for him um so that piece like we talk a lot about all these things but we're working with kids we're working with teenagers with emotions and um they have like our seniors right now have no idea where they're going to be in August that's a very scary uh uncomfortable just different feeling for them so um so we've we've we've kept in touch Elliot's going to come back and speak to our uh seniors in a few weeks here I just wanted to share a few words from Elliott I feel valued at Bowden I can meet with any Professor one-on-one and know most of my classmates by name I got what I chose Bowen for further I don't feel like my prospects post College have been diminished because I chose Bowen over Amhurst or Bowden over Brown who I am has so far mattered more than where I go to school some students here learn that I chose Bowden over those schools and are shocked I attribute that to this idea that school name truly matters unless I went to Princeton Harvard or Yale my institution would never be an immediate Badge of approval on my resume your college is about what it can offer you how does your college improve your character writing thinking skills for for example part of most liberal arts schools curricula is writing seminars I am taking a seminar and affirmative action this semester my professor is brilliant he's the head of the African studies Department we have read the entirety of the 2023 UNCC and Harvard scotus decision I can confidently discuss law when I could not before at neither MIT nor Stanford would I've taken such a class and finally something I realized once I received acceptance letters I should have applied to less schools this is not applicable to students who are overly concerned with getting into the best possible school it is hard to convince bright ambitious kids that the 4% chance to get into Harvard is more like zero still many should take a step back and think before writing their supplementals it is not prohibitively difficult for any student from our town to get into the most elite schools consider instead whe whether you can live at potential schools I could have never lived at Amhurst I certainly can live at Bowden senior sh can consider how they want to spend their days as much as the school's reputation so Elliot along with five other recent grads will be talking to our seniors the day before uh holiday break um and that's part of the messaging that they'll give when you talk to seniors they're not worried about their rankings as much as they're worried about their dorm mates how they going to find a dorm are they going to want to transfer because they don't like the school um things that a 17 and 18 year old will'll talk about um so just wanted to give you a little insight um and again we're very proud of Elliot and I I I thank him for letting him letting us talk about him tonight and just think too if if I had the whole guidance team here from the past from the future from you know you these all of these stories I mean going back to 2007 my last year of guidance counseling and before I became an administrator a similar story to a kid who like the reason I'm telling you this because when you look back to 2007 we'll have one less kid that would have been in a Ivy League school because the student I'm talking about got into upen same thing off the wait list but in the in that time because they applied Ed they didn't have to go but in that time they got a full ride to Villanova that was a very very difficult decision why did she go to Villanova her parents were begging me to tell her to go to Villanova for the full ride she did and then year a couple she came back to tell me this and this is a great story I'll never for get it she went to upen for grad school because she got in so like it like everything worked for that kid but that's the stuff you would never know when you look back at 2007 statistics and that happens every year so so as we look forward and uh continue now to not only help our 2023 class but we already had our Junior parent meeting and we're meeting with Juniors now um or class of 24 I should say for the class of 2025 we're already starting the process so some things that we have have done and this is all credit to the guidance team uh our senior survey we we updated that it's electronic now it's a little user more user friendly for our public to access on our website it used to be a book in the department where you'd have to come in and look at it so that has a tremendous amount of information so I encourage all students families parents uh to look look at the senior survey data that is Ridgewood High School specific we've also updated the high school profile this is something we take a look at each summer we talk to you about the transcript being the most important piece this is what admissions officers use while they're while they're looking at the transcript so obviously there's different transcripts and different profiles for thousands and thousands of different school high schools around the country that they're comparing so this really gives them a glimpse of what our transcript um is reading Okay so the types of programs we have our GPA distribution uh we talk about our freshman year philosophy here um as far as what classes students can take so Ridgewood High School specific data and I should mention that the admissions uh people from different schools they have a specific region that they're responsible for and part of that job is getting to know uh each High School okay and getting to know the students that are coming from them all right so I just wanted to show you the school profile this is all available on our website um and we also updated the transcript this year so we want to make it a little cleaner we want to make it as easy and efficient to read for an admissions officer as possible okay they have anywhere from who you talk to maybe four to 10 minutes that they're going to spend on an application so when they're going over that transcript we want them to get all the information as quickly and efficiently as possible so a few updates that we did we include a GPA yearly now so each individual year which typic typically shows growth for students across their High School career not always but there's different stories like Mr Nas was saying that we can talk about in our letters of recommendation based on the uh annual GPA um here's the cumulative over here and we also added CPE uh College Prep enriched to six of our Advanced college prep classes in the curriculum so uh just wanted to point that out we're constantly trying to um talk to colleges see how we get better and make it easier for them to uh get gather as much information about our students in a timely way our monthly newsletter uh is hopefully a source of information for our community we've had positive feedback on that we have a podcast out um that we are trying so a big goal is to try to bring as many experts in the field outside of Ridgewood and college admissions um so that we can continue to educate um our community and our team at ridard high school we made the full transition to score Naviance is no longer and that's uh that was for our students benefit and uh so far so good so we're happy about that and I know we talked a lot about fouryear schools today but there we believe in this there is there are different paths for each student and we want to be a part of that Journey with them one of our counselors Miss Roberts has partnered with cpeg and with our child study team and she is our lead counselor now we created that position last year um in helping families where uh five schools that are supportive um and have structured programs and different programs for students with IEPs okay so we're we're growing in that area we're actually meeting next Monday the guidance team and and and child study team to talk about Transitions okay last slide so just the future of college admissions uh direct admission is something you may or may not have heard of so we have students that are getting acceptance letters to schools they never applied to and they're confused and how did I get this so now the Common App has over 80 schools that if you apply it's in the fine print that other schools can um um accept you if if if they uh look at your resume so this is again to that point of a there's many colleges out there that are actively looking for students and and and need students to apply to their school as well alternative campuses so this is North Eastern is is really uh kind of at the for front of this but our students will be accepted but we'll go to an alternate campus for that first year sometimes in Europe sometimes in California sometimes at different campuses uh ACT SAT we will see um MIT brought it back um everyone else has been a little bit slower in that so we'll see if they're going to um you know require that schools in Florida do um and some of the other Southern schools but we'll see um and continue to monitor that um if schools go back to requiring um one of the tests so the return on investment I mentioned this earlier um I just I thought about my four years in college my last year in college was just over $10,000 and if I added up the four years it was probably just under 35,000 my first year as a teacher was $33,000 that was a pretty good return on investment you I would it's hard to say when your schools are on average 50 to 75 to $80,000 you're talking about a sometimes a 300 $320,000 investment not many kids coming out of college are making $320,000 so the return on investment takes a lot longer for a bachelor's degree um so we want to help the child make good decisions make them get into programs that they want want to stick with make them you know interested in Pro and and again does that require them going to college right after high school Maybe not maybe they need a year to figure out some things maybe they need to take some classes at Bergen Community College and hold a job um maybe they need to you know take some courses at linol Tech and decide they want to do something different which and I think that's part of the conversation so and I think that's a family conversation as well so I think that's something that we really need to council and talk a little bit about the whole career and one of the things you'll see in the next slide um we're going to Pilot this year um and you know that's the senior experience which since we're here we'll talk about it um it's something we put together actually about five years ago um we've only done it with a few students it's actually something the board has approved back then um but it it gives our seniors a chance to get out the last month of school after AP exams and kind of experience a job you know maybe someone's interested in teaching they want to do something down at Somerville and they can be with a a a teacher for a month and really get some um personal and you know um experience in that particular field um we have Valley Hospital here which are which our rap students take advantage of we have many parents and through our alumni association that have expressed interest that would like to help so this is a viable option for us um and it's something we're going to look into further so on Monday we we're going to go up to Scarsdale some of our guidance team myself Mr Nas we're g to visit with their high school counselors uh have a lunch in with them have a working lunch and just talk about what we're seeing from our on our end what they're seeing on their end so that peer High School communication I'm part of the Bergen County director of guidance organization and I'm in touch with a lot of director of guidances in Morris County that's really invaluable information and um you know collaboration where we're able to compare notes um continuing to educate the community there's definitely a need and uh a great response for the Q&A panels for the zoom meetings for the um just those smaller in chunks of information session so I'm going to uh continue to adapt to that and provide what the community is asking for our alumni panel I talked about and then Mr ni just talked about the senior field experience so I just want to thank uh my guidance team uh really we've been working on this presentation since the summer I do think it's best practice for the director of guidance uh to be able to present to a board of education each year just so um the messaging that we give students and families in the building level um can be articulated to the community and um to the to the to the Board of Education Mr Nas we're we're fortunate in that we have a principal of director of guidance experience and direct experience in College admission so between him myself and the first thing I did when I got this job was I called uh Miss Peg Mrs Peg lunam who is retired now but she was the director of guidance before Jeff and then a principal um and she is a uh still involved in college admissions as a private counselor invaluable source of information uh great mentor to me and um very very smart as far as College admissions and a lot of other things but I just want to thank uh the the full team for for helping put this together tonight thank you thank you I just want to say thank you for everything it's very robust and I know over the years developing this program because a lot of parents have a lot of trouble having to hire a counselor or some sort of college prep and you're kind of replacing that it's really helpful thing so we really appreciate that thank you yeah no just uh thank you guys great presentation and uh well paced so thank you for that just one one quick thing I'll throw out um I think I think um obviously applying to universities is uh more more competitive more selective um but at least there's a Target that kids are shooting for I would argue actually the bigger scarier question for a lot of our kids is what do I want to be like what what's the career I want to go into um you know because you know so many of these kids are entering and not even sure what even major they want to be in and then what career do you even want to go into um you know even just personal you know relations I have or whatever people I've seen where you go helps and something but it's it's becoming less and less impactful on your future career as the world becomes flatter right LinkedIn and data and things are more available and you can I've seen so many cases of people that didn't go to IVs that ended up on the same career Paths of those that went to IVs those that went to IVs same career path those that didn't go to IV so it's becoming in my opinion a little less important even um but I'm just curious you know I think you you touched on it but I would I would personally love to see a lot more investment in that field or career Readiness area because that's the piece I think the data is like 10 or 15% of people of kids actually work in the field they majored in even right and then graduate you you hit it right graduate schools are more important right if you go into those higher EDS or higher uh degree pursuing paths um so all I'm saying I guess is I think we can have a a large or more impactful impact on our students just helping with that career shadowing internships placement discuss discs just helping these kids realize like what Fields you want to go into um because a lot of the stuff that's out there in corporate in the corporate world is not even a maor in universities they don't even know what's out there a big part of what we'd like to continue to do and build off of you know the pilot senior year experience we have a lot of members in the community a lot of members from our alumni association that are leaders in different fields so we want to be able to hear their story hear their Journeys hear how they got into the position they got into um and and we're starting to build that we had a meeting last week with our alumni association Mr fredman Mr nias and and we have a very active Alumni Association who wants to help they want to give back to kids they want to teach Sarah and her friends um and the question is like what skills does an entry level position need after college um so that's that's something that we're really excited about and we have some people in the community that really want to get involved in help so we'll be asking the community for more help in that area right and just to build on that two seconds um we've done this in the past and this is how we'll continue to do it um using a resource from the Alumni Association and a and a person right from GW Mr Monahan Tim manahan who's actually done this very well when he was at the high school during covid he set up I think 67 meetings during that year because of covid it was a little easier to do um Zoom sessions um with basically alumni who were pushing in people from Beck and Dickinson people from Investment Banking people from uh you know medical professions but they were they'd get 20 30 sometimes 10 or 12 sometimes one or two students but they'd have these Zoom meetings to learn about the field so we'd like to get that going again and even having lunchtime meetings you know because they could be Zoom meetings perfect thank you thank you guys thank you so U mran Mr thank you so so much for this presentation it was very helpful um there were a lot of good points made and especially like when you mentioned about the colleges that want to accept you versus the colleges that are rejective and they can be equal because um one of the books that I read from Jeff Singo who gets in and why where he talks about buyers and sellers schools and that you should be not looking for good book yeah so it's a good book and but um the the question comes down to be that parents May understand that but can they convince their kids about the those things right so those teenagers can they be convinced that okay it's it's okay to go to a different school but I have and also um I want to point out that I've seen a lot of improvements in the guidance Department in last uh three or four years um or since that's when I have been watching it right so I should not say that since it's okay Mr D I I told him when I when we hired him he was going to be much much better than May he's I have started noticing in in last three or four years and that's where I have seen continuous Improvement uh in in terms of communication the website the presentations the newsletters all of those things right the Outreach all of those things are improving so those are all good points and we should celebrate them um so where I have a few questions or points of discussions and that uh they do not diminish all the things that we need to celebrate um the the reason to bring these up is we should always be improving right so in this uh presentation what I did not see or or what I may point out is are there any room for improvement or where can we continuously improve more right so on that first one is when we compare past data have we looked at and these are coming from anecdotal uh conversations that I have had from residents or rhs alumni who have lived in rwood for a long time or who went to rwood high schools high school in early 2000 or late 1990s that there was a shift in our math curriculum our Reading Writing curriculum our overall approach on uh focus on academics starting 2008 2010 time period so have we seen any uh changes in admissions to mod selective schools or the rejective schools um since that change happened or early 2000s were we get were our students getting into more selective schools then now have we seen any change there in terms of college admissions or or college readiness in terms of college yeah so the slide that we showed went back five years so I I can go back further I can go back to 2000 but I just want to say in general and not just rid High School like for those highly selective highly rejective schools it's harder to get into those schools than it was in 2000 so one of the conversations we had actually at an HSA meeting the parents brought this up like a lot of the elementary parents coming up and some Middle School parents first time their child's going through this first time College admissions it it just hasn't been on their radar since they were in college they're talking about different schools and talking about their kids applying to it um and they're they're talking about it was when they were going to college so for instance what I just showed you right like a Villanova right now has an admission rate around 20% but in 2000 it was probably around 50% so there's a that steers the conversation in the in the community and that's a big part of our job is to just which again why I thank you for having us here tonight is to just educate on what we're seeing what the data is showing us um what the adjustments are that we need to make um but I don't even like I can look at the data for the last 20 years but I know it's it's harder for those you know most selective schools admission like admission percentage wise than it is uh than it was you know 20 years ago so I would ask it maybe differently same same question differently so uh couple of weeks ago we had presentation on njsla data and uh Dr Schwarz died into the data that what are the trends with the same cohort if that so instead of just looking at any specific years data he looked at what what happens to a cohort when they go from year to year and what was identified in that uh was that same students when they are going from fifth grade to sixth grade our scores are dropping in in math especially and then again when we are because we are skipping we have everybody goes to an advanced math right not we don't have we have advanced and double Advanced and then same trend is happening when students go from 8th grade to 9th grade so 9th grade and jsla scores are for the entire class we are not piing about a student who may have anxiety or who may have had a bad date data or bad day that day it's basically the the whole cohort that the same students who took eighth grade and the nth grade in re so there was a trend notice that it was going down and then when further our math supervisor looked at the data there are some topics that are skipped in last four or five years um so now she's adding a new um whole marking period basically called math applications that will cover those specific topics that were missed so should we have learned about that missing information or the other example is that we eliminated grammar in middle school or changed the reading things and our students were probably not well prepared uh and then we had to add it back so should we have noticed these things at the high school uh from some other uh assessments or from how they were performing in the classes or when they when we have say students who are in the our double Advanced program um in sixth seventh and eighth grade and if they were having difficult time in ninth or 10th grade math program so our students who have followed our curriculum throughout and if they had they were struggling in in nth grade or 10th grade and they are dropping math advanced classes or going to college prep classes should we have noticed that without the that njsla uh score but this is not admissions now you're talking about yeah but it was overall General but that impacts the admission eventually right the end goal for a lot of the students and parents who move to Ridgewood the end goal is a good College admission or with a allrounder development is one part just keep in mind something though right is is like the factors for College admission are uh ACT SAT scores is GPA extracurricular uh personal statement the most important uh factor that uh Mr Bailey mentioned today is the or or Mr Nas the the transcript right so just give me give me a second right so ACT SAT standardized across the country uh ex curriculars there's lots of extra that kids can be involved in so that's kind of not something we can really influence personal statement and personal application is up to you to write as a student now that leaves us with the GPA so I think so so what I'm saying is I think as a school there's not a lot they can actually control uh the question now I think you're asking is GPA so maybe I think the data you would want to see is has is what's the average GPA of an applicant has that trended down or up no I'm not asking for GPA I'm in this I have a GPA question too as a follower but in this question what I'm very specifically asking is that we had this trend of we changed something in our math program we changed something in our reading program and now the njsla scores when we go back four years and try to look at the trend we identify that but at at high school level just from our staff like was there was that nothing noticed there that our students are less prepared than before or in terms of less prepared for college for for the ninth 10th math program oh I think we have to let's let's dig the data a little bit there because I think we have look at that more carefully because I think in the math from 8th to 9th if I'm remember correctly it was harder to look at because of the algebra math sequence I think we I think we had we saw that strongly in fifth to six if I remember correctly um in both math and language arts but in the at the secondary level I think we saw that clearly in language arts but I think the spirit of the question is are we looking at the transition with some standardized data that we do have the transition from eth grade to nth grade are we watching that transition closely to make sure that our kids are having a strong start is that the spirit of the question so the spirit of the question is are we and I was going to go into that that are we actually looking at the academics and uh when if the um our students are not able to perform are we looking at the reasons right so and that I go back to the main argument that if our students a student is going through our school system for all the throughout the years and there are certain subjects where if there are a lot of students who are dropping or changing their um the courses uh one of the arguments that were was made here uh a few months ago or about two years ago was uh that math may not be for everybody right but but there was if there was a a a pattern that multiple students are changing from advanced math track from AP down to college prep level or honors level then that there's a trend so those type of trend analysis so the the other question that I was going into there is um very similar to that was the GPA or grades uh and standardization of that across different teachers for same subject same grade level right so you mentioned that colleges are looking at the transcript so if colleges are looking at the transcript and if we have John and Amy two different students that are taking two different teachers classes in same grade um and they have different way of different grading policy um I think this was rais last year like two years and there was some professional development done on that um there was some budget allocated for professional development we uh hired somebody external so can you talk about what was the result and what's our next steps to to make any changes to that one of the things I'll say is there is the supervisors are looking very closely at that now um I know I don't know if Miss n talked about it is in in her presentation but in ela they are looking at very very close comparisons between the courses that the students are take you know are taking and the teachers that are teaching them so like English n for example if there's three or four teachers teaching English n they're going to look at the grading patterns they're going to look at the types of writing um samples and make sure that they are getting the same program um and the same thing in in English 10 English 11 and so forth um I know Miss an nembo is doing the same thing in mathematics in terms of that um and to get back to your other question just briefly the one thing that I can like kind of compare it with I mean if you look at our SAT and PSAT scores in terms of from I mean that one slide showed it from 2003 till now the scores have gone up and I know SATs and act isn't the best data because not everyone takes them but PSAT is probably the most tested area where we get two-thirds of the class or more taking it each year and the scores are very very high in El you know in the math and the and the verb so I mean I I mean that is a a data point and it's a national data point I do want to also say and and really just it's Testament to the supervisors and their work and Mr Freeman but like what we can control is the curriculum that we offer and each year building on the curriculum and and offering um the best curriculum possible and their development each year I know we're going to meet with the committee next week on um the new classes offer I'm always Blown Away by just their development and their Forward Thinking and that they're continuing to progress um so I just want to thank them for that because that's something we can control the courses that we offer at Ridgewood High School right so I I get that supervisors are looking into it but my understanding is when I brought this up last time at the curriculum meeting we were told that there was um and that's before you Mr fredman uh that there was budget allocated for professional service and that that happened at last summer especially to address this grading inconsistency and how to grade and how to identify that so has that been implemented universally that all supervisors have been asked to look at or is it just few supervisors like from from institutions perspective from high school level is this your go goal like you're talking to all the supervisor that this is actually yeah the academic supervisors are all doing this um and I think as Dr Sor had said I I didn't know I'd be reporting on this tonight and would have had more information for you but I think it's something that we could get you more data on how so any so any of other of my questions if like it's not to put you on spot today or answer today I think for me this is the only Avenue I have I cannot walk into high school and talk to you right as a board member I can only talk to you when okay when I'm here as a board member okay so so that's my only and I cannot email it you directly so uh this I'm just putting my questions which I have received from other residents and then if you don't have answer that can come later sure so it's not it's I'm not trying to uh put you on spot it's this is my only Avenue right um then um we talked about the the whole test optional scenario so in since a test optional was implemented three years ago from our students prep to make our students more competitive so we know that it's not t can submit application we have more number of applications coming in we I looked at the transcript was one thing that you showed and you showed the profile so other than profile and transcript have we made any other changes to make our students applications more competitive in that crowd of test option like what have we done to make it more competitive senior Focus has been um and Mr ni created that before I got here has been something where we're able to um look closely at different parts of the application for instance this year we found that students were t uh spending a tremendous amount of time in preparation on the college essay but they were not doing so with the supplement questions which actually tend to be more important at times because they're talking about those specific schools and um we found that kids were rushing through those last minute so we're able to Target that um in September and October and work on the supplement Al questions um so smaller things like that through senior Focus what I'm exploring and that's why I'm going to Scarsdale next week is we want to uh we've seen a need to get going a little quicker so I'm looking at potentially doing something at the end of junior year uh not this year but the 2425 school year um sort of like a senior focus in the end of um end of the junior year to get kids ready to go because like I said about 90 85 90% are applying before November 1st so um there's little things like that that we can um you know Target and and and help uh make their applications as competitive as possible and also when when Stu when schools come and see us we we still have about 150 schools that visit us in the fall to visit with students um a lot of times you know I'll say to Dave hey can you ask the schools these three questions or or the guidance counselors come up with three questions and that's where we get a lot of firsthand data from the from the people who are reading the applications um and I think that helps a lot too um and and also them being in our school that we've been doing this for years meeting our students taking advantage of that um Sarah did you take advantage of that not to put you on the spot did you get to see any of the schools that came in yes I I did very much get to do that our the teachers are very lenient on that they let you if you tell them that before they let you and you truly do learn a lot so it's a great way to track demonstrated interest and not have to travel quite literally across the country sometimes to show your interest nice job I was W making sure you're still available over there perfect um so one more uh followup on that same grade uh and gpa's uh part so have we uh looked back uh as a pattern that how many of our students are getting fives in their APS but be in their class because I know of some schools that um based on the AP results they go back and redo the transcript sometimes that okay what happened uh so if we have have we looked at uh some certain classes that are students getting fives but multiple students are getting bees in the class and how does that add up well I can talk about it we haven't I don't think we've looked at it very closely I would say most kids that get a five are getting you know B+ to an you know an A in the course but they're two different things the AP course is actually an AP curriculum and it's you know given by AP so we follow that curriculum so if they get a five on the AP course it means they mastered the skills for the AP exam um the classwork is could be quite different it could be projects it could be um class participation homework and and other areas where a teacher has the discretion to grade so I don't think it's very common where a kid would get a a b and then get a five um but it could happen um and but I think it would more be in aligned with you know a higher B and you know you know an A minus a if they were getting a five on the exam yeah that's the Assumption that's that's like you are assuming that but if we look at the data I think that would help yeah we can do that but I'm just but I'm also explaining why that could be different yeah they can be different for like couple of students right but if there's a pattern then that's what I'm looking that is there a pattern there there can be especially for some classes then um when we do these surveys so I I see numbers of how many students did the um sat uh private tutoring right so we do asked that question uh during our uh survey and you me in that you have reported 71.9% of our students are taking act or SAT prep course um or hired a private tutor so that's uh 70% number have we done that same survey for uh College counseling that how many of our students are hiring private counselor and what's that number yes we have it's typically uh in between 30 and 40% uh um it's you know it's always a a question I receive and and my response is I I I'm not going to tell parents and and people how to spend their money um if they they think it's another person who can help with the process um but I do want to say our counseling staff is very strong right now in the College admission piece and the advice and guidance that they're getting um internally is no different than what they would get from a private it's just that it's onetoone attention it's in a different environment um it's a little bit more controlled and that's my experience that my personal experience was that the uh the guidance that we received from the guidance department and my child's guidance counselor was better or yeah not the same but but it was better than what we received from a private counselor so that's why I'm asking that can we maybe add a survey for parents so you are asking sending up survey to the students but can we ask survey to parents um that why what are the rationals so similar survey that okay what was their experience during College admission process and then if they are hiring private counselor then what are their rationals and maybe we can uh educate our students and community that those reasons may not be needed maybe they just need a another eyes on the essay um the the right fit like just creating your right fit for the college what's the list your college list and the essays but other than those two I don't know what they are adding so if those they can be educated in that process uh that would help um you talked about the uh 18% rule for UNC right or for the North Carolina but there are students who are getting selected from New Jersey public schools and uh for Ridgewood it's five years in a row that we have had zero students so have we teach out to those schools and their counselors admission department and talk to them directly that what are they not finding in our like this year he reported 24 students who applied to UNCC 24 students who applied to um um UVA both schools right so both of them were 24 and both were we had zero Admissions and this is a trend so if if we are seeing a trend of Zero from one particular school maybe we can reach out to them and ask them that what do they because we should believe that our students are competitive and yeah no it's a it's a good question and Peg lunam actually tells a story of one year they didn't get anyone into Yale so her and the principal drove up to Yale and knocked on the door and had a meeting with the dean right but she said you know she wanted to know why um some students were not getting selected for that particular year and then then but she said I don't want you to select students next year based on this Mee because that means I have to go around the country and talk to all the Deans um and so your Point's well taken I did a deep dive on North Carolina because I was interested in it myself and um I kind of geek out on this stuff sometimes and I'm passionate about it and uh my estimation for a public school student out of New Jersey for UNC is below 5% rate of admission uh just based on sheer volume of spots and openings when you talk about um all the things I mentioned with like pel Grant and international and athletes and instate students and you know the window gets smaller and smaller and you're right they're they're going to take uh a few public school students from New Jersey so I think it's well um I think finding out more information and having discussions and creating relationships and um we can always pick up the phone and and and or visit um right and and the other reason I asked if you ask them because when I look at their common data set for both of those schools they common data said they are reporting that they are only accepting uh top 10% student of the class and we don't declare that so is that can that be one of the reasons that they don't have the information that they need in order to make their decision because when you look at their comma data set and go to section c they are clearly mentioning that um the class rank is very important for them and they only accept top 10 person so that so if if our students are not getting into a specific college or some colleges because of our policies then we are doing a disservice for them I will say they they can see our top 10% though so if you look at the GPA distribution right like behind you there they so some schools don't show a distribution don't show a desile don't we we show the distribution now um which different high schools have different philosophies on that um and I do agree it is a it is confusing to parents and even high school counselors and us how are you getting these 10% classes when most high schools do not rank anymore or show the data even that we show with the GPA distribution so it is interesting is that self-reported on the college end is a CH is a student self-reporting that they're in the 10 top 10% of their class is it an estimation like I have questions about um how they're getting that data on their end because they do brag about it in every brag sheet you say oh we had this percentage of students in the 10 top 10% of their High School class and I have conversations with my colleagues like how are they getting that number for us you can you know you see the top 20% there in that GPA distribution so you can really if you're reading one of our applications and looking at the GPA you can make a really uh a pretty good call on if they're in the top 10% at rwood high school right but we started reporting for the current class this year this is the first profile we are reporting for the current class yeah we traditionally did the previous class yeah which gave like a snapshot um so yeah I understand the question though and we I I will say we like this profile is fluid so what I want to do with it is uh every year make adjustments as needed we go to seminars we go to conferences we talk to colleagues we um I want this to be as again easy and accessible for College counselors to read when they're reading our students transcript so I'm open to changing year to year is this a requirement or are we just doing it we just doing yeah it's it's it's I don't know it's a requirement or not but most every High School does it because it um it helps them when they're reading our transcript because transcripts for each High School are obviously you know can be vastly different um so it really helps them when they're reading their transcripts but you think it I'm just wondering does it help because if I'm looking at it there's no way to get what is that number you mean the GPA yeah I think it's yeah I think 20% above a 4.0 so if they're looking at a lot of our top app the highest bracket you have is just 20% so there's no way for them to determine is this person in the top five in the top 10% top s% I just wonder I'm just thinking out loud I'm just wondering if it does it diservice to those top applicants because all the college sees that all we know is that they're in the top 20% so I I think they can tell more closely to that top of that list though because it does give it's a distribution so the highest GPA is there so if they know how to read it they'll know who the top kit is and ones who are close to the top kid so we I just want like there's a long history about like for Ridgewood High School as well and they used to rank Peg lunam uh did away with that she's one of the first Bergen County Schools to do that if not the first and and and at this point we don't know of any schools that rank so it gets into that ranking question we used to do a death stle ranking top 10% 20 30 40 what you find is if you rank it's going to help three or four kids it's going to hurt everyone else if you do a des ranking it's going to help the top 10% it's going to hurt everyone else so there's other some of my colleagues are like I'm not going to give I'm gonna give as least amount of information as possible you know these classes you know the curriculum you know the grades figure it out on your end you're doing all sorts of uh GPA comparisons and you have all formulas on your end anyway to compare Ridgewood right to different high schools all over the country so it's a topic of like heated convers ation because the high schools um it's it's a tough spot they put us into um but what about public comment what about that public comment that um for students who are applying to competitive schools and for certain scholarship requirements they require or the expectation is that you have to report some kind of ranking or some kind of parameter how do you guide those students do you give them a percentage so that they can be assured that it's not self-reported that if there's some um School official recognition of their academic achievement most colleges when you apply you're applying for merit it's done in the application it's not done on a like they're going to ask you they might you know on their particular application if you're in the top 10% but again going back to what Dave said our school is known by its academic reputation um they they have ways just like we track kids who get into different schools they track how well our students do once they're at their schools so I would argue that UNC the kids that we have gone there have done very well and I mean I know a few of them they know it's it's pure numbers for in that particular school and it has to do with their state policy um but you know again and I think ruers is probably moving more towards that too as their their 40% increase this year they accept a lot of our kids and a lot of our kids go and I hope they do because it's our home institution they went up by nine points in ranking this year yeah eight or nine points so I mean you know and we had 35 40 kids go there every year right school ever asks like for West Point for example we have all that internal data so if a school asks we we share it with them privately right want our students to be um Mr on that same point for from that parent who made a public comment students are applying for joint programs bsmd program uh or bsjd pro bjd programs and those programs or when they are applying for presidential scholarships or any sort of scholarship those programs and scholarships do take class rank into account and not every college or university is reaching out back to you they it's part of their if there's a question that what's your class Rank and if you say not applicable or I don't know students don't know that right so when students are applying one they are not able to indicate that or sometimes they may be applying to a a reach School compared to where they stand they may they may not even know their own standing um at that point um and where we reported um that there are about 40% 40 uh between 40 and uh 50% was the blue line for how many students applying for Ed and then out of those 60 some perent are getting into Ed so that was about I think 79 students that get uh that got into Ed from 2023 so out of or 76 students so out of those 76 students um can you tell us how many are uh Sports commits how many are legacy admissions and um how many got into Ed in those uh um restrictive schools or selective schools don't have that information I can easily track athletes we do not track Legacy at this moment um but we could follow up with that information okay it's not because it again it's kind of that in control out of control thing with students so we don't harp on it too much um um but I know it's an interesting data point for some people but Ed should be because it's not I don't want to uh diminish the need for that um because if we are saying that okay we have a class of 400 students out of that 400 or some four 24 30 students and out of 76 students get into Ed their Top Choice where they are applying as Ed um and if you're are saying 81.2% students are getting into their top three choices these are the only two data points we are giving to our students right so when we are giving these two data points a lot of students May apply for Ed to those restrictive schools if we are not telling them that how many are not getting into the restrictive schools or what those ed schools are so if we are not telling them what those ed schools are or what is their Ed reason if they are sports commits then and if those are foure colleges not the research colleges or not Inter National universities then don't bother applying because if saying if we took if we took out the athletes and the legacies from our Ed data and other data then it's um more helpful in guiding a student who is not an athlete or Legacy so who's not athlete and Legacy and where to apply because uh when you actually look at the class profile presentation and there's a link to uh report from navian or squ one of the report that shows the zero admissions there are a lot of schools where we had zero admissions so we cannot have EDS getting into that because if there were applications there must be a lot of Ed applications to those School also I'll say like when we individually counsel that's the data that we rely on though like our counselors when they're working with the student working with a family building that list all that individual data that you're seeing um that's what helps us build that list so if you and see Chapel Hill is on the list now we have this data that we can show them we can give them the reasoning why this is a reach school um and it helps build the list and helps um again give them as many options as possible um in March and April of their senior year do I understand like that may it too late for a extracting data that is like only helpful or only um I understand like the the athlete part and the and the Legacy piece because it also contradicts with our messaging so we have one messaging where we are seeing that okay 81 more than 81% students are getting into top three 76 students are getting into their Ed choice but then we are saying that we need to be looking at the right fit and we need to be looking at buyers versus sellers not all colleges are for all of them so so which messaging is I think it's so that piece is I'm so this is how I see it that 82% number right I'm proud of because to me that means we were creating a balanced list so students parents Community counselors um for them to get into their top three I read it as that means that list was balanced um but that came from a survey right that that did not come from na that came from a student survey yes that self-reporting data yeah so did they get into one of their top three schools right and that is 81% of those who responded or 81 81% of those who responded or 81% of the entire class oh 81 of the 81 of the class 81% of the class and how many of our class students are not going to a four-year College last year it was about 7% was about 92% went to a fouryear 925 so it's about 7 and a half did not go to a so only 11% student students are not getting into their top three so 81 got into their top three right 92% went to college fouryear college so only 11% students did not get into top three no I'm I'm reading that as 82% of students who went to college and who applied to colleges and got into their top one of their top three um so I'm so 81 of of 92 I'm confused by your question so 92% of the 432 kids that graduated went to a 4-year school right and 82% 81% of that number got into their top three okay that I just confirm that it's not 81% of the entire class right right right it's actually 81% of the 95% which your College Bound because that includes two-ear schools because your first choice school could be Bergen Community or could be a community college right right um then uh when we talk about this whole messaging around uh PSAT uh I think last time when you were here I talked about the messaging that are we telling the students that PSAT is important exam and um it was changed so thank you for that but I still want to point out what I still see as a potential for improvement so when I look at College Planning guide for class of 2024 for which the link is now removed from the website so I had a I had downloaded it earlier I had an older version of it so that's for the class that that's applying now so the PSNS QT basically talks about what the test is and then it says this is a practice test that enables students to gauge how they would Faire on a standardized college entrance exam these test scores are not reported to colleges right so that that's what the students are looking at then same thing with ap it talks about what AP advanced plement placement exam and then it says it's subject specific areas and then at the last line it says these scores are not evaluated in the admissions process I don't know if that information is correct with the today's test optional environment whether APS are not evaluated or not but that's the information we are providing to students at least in their 2024 um College Planning guide um so the letter that went out on September 11 2023 for this year's um PSAT there is some information about uh its importance for scholarships but that importance for scholarships is embedded in two different paragraphs so that comes at third paragraph So first we talk about on Saturday we'll have the exam then we talk about traditionally a large per of 10th and 11th grade students take PSAT this exam will help prepare students for the SAT scores are not reported to colleges this is an optional exam so this is how we are starting the the messaging of that letter that went out to parents by that time some of them will lose interest to even read further because scores are not reported to colleges this is an optional exam then we talk about that this is particular importance to 11th grade students because of National Merit Scholarship um and the scholarship is approximately 1.5 million high school students entered this program and but then again next right in the next paragraph We again minimize it by saying total testing time is 2.5 hours if you have any concerns please have your son daughter see school counselor to discuss if this test is appropriate for you so when I read that this letter to me it looks like when my student is reading it they would say oh it's not that important I don't need to take it and with the college costs improving the expenses improving every dollar that they can get whether that is from their GPA whether that's from VI taking good SAT scores or PSAT which is the scholarship I think that should help yeah but but just keep in mind I mean because we would like them as parents or board members to take that exam should not be should not determine the messaging that goes out in the letter I mean everything you read is just facts that the team has provided about this exam right making it clear it's not optional doesn't go to colleges but also why it's important so I think they're just giving a full picture right but it does go to college right so same same as I'm talking about the overall messaging of are we trying to keep um academic messaging to to make tell our students okay you don't have to be very competitive yeah but you you you basically want them to tell the students please take this exam we'd like you to take this exam but I don't think I don't think that's a school's job to be pushing students to do one thing or another but then if there are only three students getting in we should not have seven guidance counselors standing with them and taking a picture to celebrate that yeah but but right so we either we are celebrating it or we are not celebrating it either we are telling the students that it is an important exam or we are not telling the student that I mean I I and we have some Burgen County schools that have 18 students like tanif had 18 students who qualified for semi-final this year and Rood had three students so um we should be comparing with other bar County Schools where we are but but how much does a school really control that's the question we need to ask right if if if the criteria for college application is GPA which is standard right grades based on the level of difficulty which we have all the way up to AP so we have the highest level of difficulties and we have all the offerings right act and sat is standard across the country for AP also we are sending the message that it's the test is not reported to colleges which is not correct test is not a factor in admissions it comes l no not usually actually it's a factor later once they get in for credit but they can see the AP course load but the the scores of APs is not supposed to be a factor in most colleges admissions that is their official policy but that's true that's assuming that you take the AP in senior year for a lot of the competitive students we are talking about AP placement tests that occur as early as ninth grade and so I'm talking and when we talking about G so with test optional my understanding is GPA is important right and if GPA is important we are we wait we give higher weightage to honors courses and then we give more higher weightage to AP class grade not the AP exam so this basically talks about the the whole AP class so are we encouraging the students to take I'm talking about our schools or I'm asking this question as our school's philosophy of how are we even celebrating academic success because last year we found out during that codan um visit um Dr Fitz mentioned that oh our valedictorian is was weight listed in Princeton and now he's going to Princeton that's how we found out who the valedictorian is and without that information nobody actually knows who the valedictorian is or who's the student who received the mo the highest GPA in Rew so the the question the the whole a theme of this question is are we celebrating academic success are we recognizing academic success and if we are how what are the Avenues in Ridgewood uh High School to recognize students academic success can I just say something too I was actually the first class when they got rid of the ranking and they went they had that desile for a few years and all it did was actually at first I know the students were very upset they're like wait I'm not gonna get a number but then we quickly realized that basically it caused a lot of problems a lot of competition amongst the students a lot of stress and a lot of issues and at the end of the day when I went to college I was in probably like the you know halfway mark I realized that I was coming from ridgwood high school I was much more prepared than students that are in my college class that were the valorian of their class and everyone was talking about gr I'm like ah we didn't care about that and they couldn't believe it but then I was more prepared in school so I've never seen from you know all the students the last couple years parents that talk to me cost ranking has not come up as an issue it's really usually just something that people want to you know show it off or or it's puts a lot of pressure on kids they're realizing I'm getting close I have to be number one or whatnot and I I don't know if you've seen that or I just noticed that that's an issue that I've seen and I've seen with parents and students currently and in the past well I what I can tell you from what we know I do want to know more about the students who need to know rank for scholarships because I don't know a lot about that I haven't seen that on an application but if if they want to come to us I think that will help us um the military needs it once you know and we'll disclose it to them and when they need it um but the other thing I want to comment on and thanks Mike for for saying that um is as far as class rank it's an Antiquated model it is not used by I don't know of any Bergen County school that uses it right now um Scarsdale the School we're going to see on Monday stopped using class rank in 1980 um we stopped in 2002 um so it's it's something that does it it has a lot of negative aspects to it and when we got rid of the desile ranking we were getting asked to use get rid of it for athletics reasons because kids were being penalized and not getting into schools because we would have kids in the second and the third desile with very high GPA 3.7 3.9 4.0 that were not getting in because they were said they were in the second and third desile when we took that away and they saw the grades and the GPA and how they performed in college we got more kids into schools so and that was uh 10 minutes ago a question the the rank one in this one I'm talking about um just recognizing academically strong students so when we go for our um the senior award ceremony right so that award ceremony we have a lot of awards for our Sports students we have awards for Arts we have those the scholarships we have scholarships or Awards we recognize students who are academically good and also need financial support because most of the academic based scholarships or recognitions are also tied to CSS profile or we have to submit that right so students who may not have Financial need and students who are excelling academically is there any Avenue at rhs where we just recognize them we because I the way I understand is when you when you recognize students for something they are doing good they will do it more but I understand if there's no recognition at all if you're saying okay this is not important because then is there any Avenue for to recognize those in any place well we offer 67 maybe 68 scholarship local scholarships many of them are merit-based scholarships they do look at the transcript they do look at the the um the grades in there um but they also TR to CSS and there's also honor all high honor rooll every quarter right that's right highest honor rooll and there's also and you mentioned this in one of your question questions Mr Donnie um about academic Excellence it's recognized um at graduation it's the only academic um probably 25 to 28 of 26 of our kids get it every year it's for kids who earn A's throughout their their career at Ridgewood High School um and it we've had students of all levels get that so that's that's another high honor you know and it's not monetary but it is recognized at graduation by so on that one um so we talk about uh when students go to their guidance counselors and they try to select a course um we talk about uh rigor right um and when we create the transcript then also we reflect that rigor in that transcript that if you're based on what type of course you are taking so if you look at our transcript um a B+ in an a P level course will give you more than 4.0 which is same as college prep a uh but when we ask all those students to rise we ask the students who have A's to rise so at that time at the graduation day are we saying that students who have the letter grade A in a CP level course are they uh more recognizable than students who have a letter of grade B+ in a AP course but more than 4.0 GPA in that course I think they should be recognized for the Merit that they' received in a um and that's how it's always been done and it's actually done by the women's league of Voters I mean you know they've they've done it every year I just use that because you use that as an example right so I'm I'm I think that in that example we are looking at letter grade A but we are comparing a college prep a to we are assuming that or recognizing a college prep a as better than APB Plus in that scenario if I can jump in a little bit I think that we're we're we we're touching on so many different test cases but all kind of on the same theme so I've been taking notes Here uh so that we can try to unpack each of these because I think each one of them more it's a different conversation but I think the overarching theme Mr Donnie that you're communicating is a concern about rigor in general and particularly this academic having a strong academic culture celebrates academics making sure that our systems align so that way uh that way our students who are um academically High achieving get get a maximum amount of recognition um I think I also heard in there are some concerns about we didn't say it here but like concerns about possible grade inflation like a difference between like what grades kids are getting at are assigned versus what the actual rigor of their coursework is um and to be clear we have we have talked a little bit about the trends in our educ and our academic performances looking at the njsla data which we did in last performance which again does not really fully represent the high school because we only have a few we only have a a we have a very limited data set with our high school takers and by High School many of them understand that it's not as important as as they as they believe it is at the elementary schools or the middle schools as well but I think we have seen some Trends in data that would indicate that like that we that that um and across a standardized data set that we're not seeing as strong performances as we want the coming through the younger grades in all areas some areas yes very much so but at a few key Transitions and it not we have a few areas of concern so I think generally speaking we the conversation is we can address this in the state of the schools address further okay and Mr Donnie we can compare notes and make sure that I got everything I one last point it's a different topic uh but it's related to some of our students and their eventual College uh path so um and this is I've heard from some parents when I was uh campaigning in couple of months ago that their students had IEP or special needs and they the student felt they were ready to take science class of like a physics class and um the parents felt that they were ready to take a pH physics class and rhs and I don't know the complete story but I'm just telling you what I heard that the rhs did not allow that student to take science class and then they had to go to Buran Community College for a couple of years complete their science uh classes there physics class and then they were able to go to engine it so is there um uh like do we allow our IP students to take U science of especially physics chemistry math type of classes or do we try to um discourage those I don't know that individual situation but we have a process in place where we have the teacher recommendations each year which happen in February March but then we have an appeals process so any student who disagrees with the recommendation um it's quite intensive the same override process yes we have an override process ultimately the parent has the right at ridgwood high school we allow the parent um in the summer I have to have phone calls where I have to beg some parents please let's not do this where like it's I can put the student in the class but these are the reasons why we feel like they shouldn't be in the class but at the end of the day without knowing that exact situation andess override applies to them a pretty transparent it's on our website um we have a clear timetable of um after the teacher to make recommendations and we'll have anywhere from 50 to 100 each spring that appeal and we handle them individually with with each student um because we want them to be appropriately placed so our most important job is that they're you know appropriately placed academically thank you so much thank you for all the answers thank you for your patience so thank you so much for uh presenting this is a something I've been looking forward to uh and asking for because not only do is it important for our high school parents to understand this changing landscape of college admissions but I hear it from our elementary parents will my child get into college you know and are already starting to worry you know first grade and second grade about what the future will hold for them so thank you and I appreciate that um your willingness to come back every year uh to tell about changes um the you know the question always comes up uh is not necessarily it's what's happening in the high school but are we really preparing our children for their future so if their future is work or if their future is a gap year or if their future is is right going right into college um and the request has come often you know can we can we get a some feedback from our graduates and I know it's so hard because they're in college and now they're out of high school and you know what do I care to answer your survey um have we made any um movement forward on on collecting that data because when I speak to students or I go to your panel and hear from students I am struck by this very common theme I could write I could speak um I could get along with my roommate and then I also could understand if maybe this wasn't the right choice but then my options were to to transfer and it wasn't the end of the world if that happened so um you know I've been impressed by um when I've talked to graduates who have gone to college but what have we done to sort of collect any data is there any movement on that it's been a few years with our alumni association we do have a nice database now of of emails that we could reach out um with surveys and with polls we didn't have great um results about about four years four or five years ago the last time we've done it but we do have a a much larger database to draw from because when they enroll the Alumni Association at the senior survey in June they input their personal emails so we're able to draw from them and then it's just who response um so we have some data on students that transfer based on requesting transcripts and things like that but it is um something that we're we're constantly talking about and and seeing how because they're our best resource they're our best source of information our our alumni our current students in college and then our parents in the community in different uh fields um where we can learn from them on what skills are needed in those fields um because that's really important I mean the reason I'm so I love the college process in that pieces it's not even really about college it's about taking an eighth grader um through a journey of high school and preparing them to graduate and be on that field one day and making sure they're ready for that next step in their life so that portrait of a high school graduate you know that's whether it's college or two-year school or you know Gap year whatever it is or the military um that's what excites us about it because you're really you know helping a kid find grow and find their next step in life um which makes it really rewarding and and and special right yeah and then you know really congratulations on working with the Alumni Association I did find that when alumni were invited back to talk to students or to do those panel discussions that Tim would would run uh a few years ago uh that was very insightful I thought um because I I do think that it's important for our students to hear you know what are those what's that skill set that I should be working on if I'm interested to be in science or go to be a lawyer or be a Trader or or whatever their uh career ideas our doctor um and I'm fascinated always to talk to the um students that are in um our Academy um Health Professions academy uh and I love it when they have said I've tried this but now I know I just definitely don't want to be you know working in a hospital or be a doctor or whatever or I think I'm really interested in OT rather than what I thought I was going to be interested in so those Explorations and the um senior field experience pilot I'm um excited to see that grow uh we have a lot of experience out here in the community and a lot of experience in our um uh alumni and it's you know we have alumni living right here in Ridgewood who I'm sure would are very supportive of our school district so thank you for that and thank you for this presentation tonight hi um thanks for the presentation just have some quick questions the first is um have you ever looked at unique um information meaning when I look at the um slide that says highly rejected schools and you uh in 2023 100 because it's a total aggregate number accepted applications and you know you you know the denominator over a thousand applications opened because there could be a scenario where it's it's a handful of very motivated students that have um captured the bulk of these acceptances which is why you have Princeton and Georgetown which are by no means any anyone's uh you know unacceptable schools listed there so do you have that information and what does that look like so we have 69 students from the class of 2023 at those schools currently that attended um so we had more accepted but 69 individual students are attending one of those schools on that chart um from the class of 2023 so I have data um on that that last year's class um there could have been more students accepted but chose to go to other schools not in those schools listed um but 69 from last year's class attended one of the schools no I'm talking about the second one highly rejected the admission rate for Ridgewood is about 15% of those uh rhs admission rates for highly rejected schools are about 15% right but you're saying actually it's more like 69 which is maybe because it's only 69 out of the 163 applications that were accepted only 69 of them went to one of those schools so it's more like how no so it's 169 is 15% of 11003 yeah the number of applicants yes so 69 unique students unique students out of the9 unique students 100 something applicants yes or applications yes and that that is 15% of total number of applications oh got it um okay then the other question is um but I do like that that unique um look which you just mentioned over here um when it comes to the transcript have what's been the feedback or when you speak with um admissions directors do they indicate at all about um how helpful it would be to understand the and we talked about it the percentages the Desa percentages just in some way as part of the transcript not as a separate proof School profile has that ever come up or it just not even you know that's not even a point it comes up in the ranking conversation in desile um it's it's a little bit of a back and forth between high schools and uh colleges so colleges want as much information as possible because if I put a ranking on a transcript or a desile it makes their job easier they can just look and say hey are they're number two in the class or they're in the top 10 Perc um all right I'll keep looking if not we're on to the next one so it hurts the mass majority of our kids which is why we wouldn't do it so for the is it is it something that you would be open to where for the competitive applications this U actually the public comment we actually ended up having a a great meeting um with that individual and this came up so um is there a way where internally because we know the top 10% we know the ranking of the students it doesn't publicly get acknowledged it's just an Internal Documentation that we have um would there be a way to do that privately um and it's a it's it's a convers ation I'd have to talk more about with with different people because I just morally too I don't know how I feel about that um about just you know specializing treatment to uh maybe 50 kids in a class um but it is a conversation that we continue to have um because the question is okay well we're doing what's best for the mass majority of the class but how do we also help um uh maybe the the top 5% or 10% um so the GPA distribution I feel like it's pretty transparent and shows that to any you can imagine from the admissions office you know I wor quite a with that you just want to make it as easy as possible because with 50,000 applications they're not going to take the time to go through multiple data points right so they're going to want a ranking right or or you know I understand the ramifications and the you know the cons against ranking but a percentile number would be helpful for those competitive applications so um if that's an ongoing conversation um that would be great um do you anticipate some kind of resolution that um for the current class that are applying right now is that something that would apply to them if if it's no so they have the GPA distribution which we did update this year to be this year the GPA distribution used to be a snapshot of the previous year's graduation so it was um a snapshot and and and high schools do do it that way but we we we update ated it so that GPA distribution is current so it's their GPA after junior year um so we did we did adjust this here so again I'm open to adjusting I mean this is very fluid with college admissions and there's a lot of changes happening so you know what it will look like in 12 months we'll see um but we're always looking to learn more and and be open-minded about it and whatever helps our students so the last question is um on the uh some of factors that are outside of any student control um there all these parameters and one of the decisions that came out um the Supreme Court decision was about using race um as a factor what kind of what are you uh guiding your students on and in in terms of what the admissions office have also telegraphed how they are following yeah so what we've seen so far um is they've they adjusted quickly the supplemental questions so it's really the the the mass majority now are tell me your story so tell me the background tell me um story your story essentially so they can um get some information that way also at a conference we were at a month ago the naak convention in Baltimore some of our counselors were down there they said which I was surprised in this day and age with technology they're going to increase the amount of in-person visits to high schools uh so to me that that that seems to mean that they want to you know see more of the students who are applying so those are just some you know um patterns we're seeing it's a Hot Topic right now it's the first class through it so we don't have you know we don't have really any data yet on it um but it's definitely I could tell you a Hot Topic obviously in in college admissions so I'm a brown Alum so it's really funny when I saw some of the you know uh the uh information that you provided for that student and I will say for certain colleges including including Brown um because I used to do the alumni interviews they have stepped away from that so at the same time as when you're hearing some in you know information in terms of they want to have more contact with students some colleges are not providing that because they find that inequitable um for certain students that live far away or they don't have access to um to the internet or just it's just difficult to get that telecommunications happening they've made it a complete um they've stepped away from that so I which you know thank you uh in the essence of time I'll uh I'll email Dr Shores my questions I just know that with the rankings I think we you know I my questions mostly are like with AI with even going through application I'm sure they're probably figuring those things out as well and also just you know we talk a lot about our high achieving but I'm also always concerned about our middle of the road students as well so I think you're doing a great job and keep it up please thank you is everybody else good thank you thank you send me my questions thank you Mr Nas thank you doc uh Mr baile and thank you Miss wood for being here with us tonight really appreciate your time all right I'm now move forward with the superintendent report um just to start just want to just acknowledge the folks who came and spoke earlier today just appreciate everybody who had their concerns um about the busing at Bergen countyy um there was reference to uh that concern being brought to superintendent coffee that did come up earlier in the year with superent coffee um but it came up I know in September um but we haven't heard about it in a little while so I'm not I wasn't aware that recently that wish wasn't resolved so we'll follow up on that for sure with everybody thanks so much um with respect to um uh just some qu just a question about um about the ethics matter that was discussed before in the agenda I'm just going to speak just very generally because um it's a it's a matter that's not necessarily in the purview of the superintendent um but I just want to to just share for the for the sake of the public I don't want to just just completely ignore the issue um questions of of a board member ethics are very very delicate especially for uh for the superintendent because my role is not to supervise and I say this because not many people fully understand the relationship between the Ford and the superintendent but I report to the board um but I do am responsible for working with the team as well as the board secretary to make sure that uh agendas are prepared for each meeting um when it comes to matters that are really board's purview and not my perview um it's really important that uh I focus on process and um so uh that involves when there are matters that uh that again do not that are not my purview involve consultation with the board president involve consultation with Council and then depending on the nature of the circumstances sometimes involve consultation with the county superintendent um but uh but just uh I just want to just acknowledge the concern that was raised um and certainly just want to say that just like we'll follow up with the transportation requests I'm sure we'll we'll be able to provide a followup um at least from Mr lmore and myself regarding that concern as well as far as the superintendent report um I just want to just share that our our annual planning activities are well underway um our audit process is underway we are we're hoping to have some uh some some firm information over the next two months uh certainly in the near year um our 2024 25 budget process uh budget meetings with our schools and our departments are well underway um we we had our first meeting last week and we have a a very busy slate of meetings over the next couple weeks um I want to commend uh Miss cot and all of our uh principles and department heads who have done put in a considerable amount of work uh to make sure that all of our information is uh all of our budget information is uh is accurate looking at uh prior your Trends um and making sure that we're identifying and itemizing as much as we possibly can in our request so that we're we're being as judicious as possible so it's been a very very uh detail oriented process thus far which I'm very pleased with and we look forward to uh continuing to provide reporting on that um we also have our district goal committees we've talked about the district goals we do have a we do have a uh each member of my uh my executive team uh is taking on one of those committees so Mr fredman is chairing the committee on uh Ela and math he's got a team of Administrators that he's working with right now um we also have Miss cot who's leading the team on facil on uh finance and Facilities Miss Murphy is leading our inclusion team and Dr Fenwick is uh is playing the lead with our strategic planning process um each group has got some some really nice movement underway um over the next month as they're meeting and we're reporting back out in our at our monthly uh monthly administrative meetings uh we'll be uh we'll be aggregating status updates and providing them as well to the board as well as to the community so we look forward to continuing to share that information with all of you um for the sake of the public I want to share that um uh Christine corus our public information officer has been doing a lot of work putting together our surveys for parents and for faculty members so we already have a student survey that we developed over the summer uh and was included in in the uh the summer summer um uh mandatory uh summer information uh packet for that was part of uh the all the paperwork that parents did for school but we have a parent survey and we have a a staff survey and she has reached out and we have representations of parents um on those on those committees as well um if anyone is interested but wasn't hasn't been able to be obviously we have to be judicious about how many people we have in the Committees but if anybody has any questions or concerns or contributions please feel free to reach out to Christine corus regarding any data that you think we might we maybe should collect we want to Welcome All the board members to that process as well if you think if there's anything uh that you'd like to share I think we have board representation on our parent committee um we don't have that this time so we'll follow up with you on that but in the meantime if any of our board members have any questions specifically that you think we should be asking parents uh definitely forward that on you can forward that directly to Christine and if you want to copy me I'd be happy to take a look at that as well um and then uh and if and if you are going to send us any topics please provide the spirit of the question too like what what we're trying to answer with the with the items that we're looking at um for those of you who are familiar with kind of what our focus of this kind of the pace of this year we're leading up towards a state of the schools address I've addressed that several different times um I've mentioned that several different times um and so the data presentations that we've been giving some of the conversation here about the uh the college act the college admissions process these are all topics that we're going to provide some uh some some more rigorous analysis of more some comparative analysis as well the reason we wait so long for the state of the schools address is because primarily the uh the state does not release the comp the comparability data for the njsla which is a lot significant portion of that information until much later um if it were if that data were to be released earlier we could back up the surveys do the surveys sooner and we could have more data sooner so but I found that just with the the state's uh pacing and timing uh it's best to wait until that data is there and we can do it all in one shot so we're looking at somewhere I believe the state released that data in April last year but I believe that was particularly late for them so I'm hoping that in the in the uh somewhere in that March April time frame we would get the data and be able to turn it around relatively quickly for a state of the school's address so please know that that that all these questions that we have we are aggregating them and we plan to give some uh some some quality analysis board members you all have a chance to uh within committees to of course raise any of these topics again and uh and we can uh continue to identify questions and analyses that we want to conduct and then lastly I just want to share out that we do have uh of you may have been following that we've been going through some changes with the company aark that we have that uh that provides um our facility services and our schools um and I just want to be clear that uh we have um I want to commend again miss cot uh who has taken a lead in working with uh the company and particularly uh working with the corporate structure in the company to uh to facilitate some some changes that have been necessary so uh over the course of the next month we are going to have some pretty significant changes in how uh those services are managed and uh we're hopeful that we're going to see some pretty significant improvements but in the short term there's going to be some changing at the managerial level so there may be um uh there also may be some hiccups so just please know that we're in transition uh if you see anything that's of concern uh please feel free to let us know uh kind of all hands on deck to watch and mind the ship as we manage this transition on behalf of kids uh but I just want to did want to let you know that that was something that was occurring and then lastly just want to give a plug uh we do have our superintendent coffeee on December 14 um but otherwise I want to say that uh as part of my um uh evaluation processes uh for all of our administrators I've been at schools a lot for observations of principles and uh it's been a real real joy to be in the schools a little bit more uh the first portion of the year I had to spend a lot of time just uh in central office here and I've have had a chance to do a pretty good amount of visits but I've been in the schools much much more and I'm really grateful to be here uh it's really wonderful to see such a professional faculty so passionate about the kids um and I've been really enjoying that time I know it's a festive time as well almost everywhere I go in schools I'm hearing like musical instruments at this time of year we have concerts coming up so I want to wish everybody the best uh we this is a time of year where there are across many different cultures uh and religions we have a lot of festive holidays so for everyone who celebrating I wish you all the best and uh a reminder that we do have one last board meeting coming up um later in December that's about all I have Dr Schwarz if I may um on the state of the schol address since we um it'll be the first one for us um will it be would you the Comm executive committee what would be the format would there be a Q&A or it's portion of it what you answer so what we did in the past is um uh what I did in my prior district is uh the first one we just did as like a separate special event that we did in person and we invited people to come and we recorded it and then we posted it and then um the format wasn't uh wasn't wasn't great so I actually re-record recorded it actually as a screencast uh what we what we then uh proceeded to do following covid was just follow the the the state the the superintendent coffee format so although it was a little bit um didn't quite have the Grandeur of having some big inperson event um we that's how we've done it the last couple years in uh in my prior district and that was generally pretty well received because it was a familiar format and people could attend from home and it was convenient um I'm happy to do it in person we have a very strong team here as you can see with our Audio Visual abilities so we could certainly do it in person we could do it as part of a board meeting it does tend to run pretty long it's a lot of data and a lot of topics um and I do try to focus it uh I certainly want to hear from the board members but I we do try to gear it towards the public and really let the public get engaged so the format that I've used in the past is um I would split it up between me and my executive team um as we were comfortable and as we saw fit and uh and then of course we would we would the culminating event would be question and answer um in the past we've probably spent about depending on the year somewhere between at least an hour to two hours in the presentation because we're talking about a 60 slides or so presentation um and based on the kind of analytics we've been doing here it might be longer um but uh so but then we end up with you know an hour or two hours of uh public question and response um so and it is participative just like a coffee whereas at a board meeting we would we could still structure it that way um but uh one of the other reasons why we've done it in virtually is uh why I did it in the past virtually as well is that again I've just found the pattern that um people love to be able to participate remotely but when there's an in-person component sometimes those who are participating remotely don't necessarily feel like they're as much a part of the presentation but again I especially first time around I'm happy to make it a bigger deal and try to do something more Grand and in person shorts um thank you uh I just have some follow-ups from prior meetings sure um so in October um the board voted for um I think it was in October uh we voted on a a resolution to authorize our attorney to file a complaint or an application with the superior court for reestablishing the election cycle um do we know if uh they filed it oh than thank you for that question uh we did get a commitment last week that our attorney would be filing it as of this week I have not gotten confirmation that has been filed anyone gotten conf on that yet okay no thank you but wasn't the expectation uh not that it would be filed but also that it could potentially be completed and we would be on like by the end of the year having a response like you know like officially confirmed meaning we got a response back from the court yeah I I my my impression I believe it's was that um it was tell it was communicated um that it would be um completely um confirmed by the end of the year so that it should it would not be something an item that would continue into 2024 right mind ass understanding based on that um the attorney discussion was that it's pretty simple application it's it's not going to cost us too much so it was like a small effort yeah it wasn't controversial it was going to be almost it was just a formality in some not formality it was a necessary step but not a complicated step I believe that information was conveyed by Mr jacobe yeah and I I I don't I don't have the uh the experience to be able to say that but I that's consistent with my expectation my understanding so I we will if the board if everyone's comfortable I'll follow up on Mr jacobe that we want to do or Mr would you like to do that I think we should follow up on what we had decided but we shouldn't make any changes until the new board is seated so if there's something that's already the process that's fine but we shouldn't file again it's not already done no we are I'm asking for a resolution that the board voted on status of that because we were told during that meeting that it's a very small expense and a Qui qu quick application so if it was a quick application it should not have taken him I think we're just waiting to find out I think that's that's yeah I checked on eour now it's not there yeah um so the other thing I wanted to follow up on was um so a few meetings ago I think in um end of summer or we voted on that pilot program um funding for CK um and that pilot is probably over so when can we expect residents to find out some information um from the summary or our next steps um on that reading program Mr Freeman did you want to comment to that like I'm not asking for status now I'm just asking when the residents can expect to hear more on that because there were some rumors after the pilot that okay what happened to the pilot so it it would be good if the residents hear from us directly so just a timeline right I would anticipate early in the New Year we're going to be talking about at the next curriculum committee meeting which I think it's next Wednesday so I'll be able to give you more updates then okay and and the last one was um at the last meeting uh Dr Schwarz we talked about um the policy 5111 and uh on that also I'd requested if we can get attorney opinion on can that be revised when uh negotiations are uh in process or should that be merged with negotiation or wait after negotiation so thought that was a three-part question uh did we get an answer from the attorney on that Mr per do we get do we were able to move that forward with the attorney did we talk believe we spoke about that it was the uh it's the question about the [Music] um given the given the given the status that we be going to yeah negotiations should this policy be revised uh before the negotiation as part of the negotiation like what are the you know ramifications of deciding this ahead when we are so close to taking off the negotiation process oh wait can you speak into the microphone please been a while since I had to use the microphone um we I did not discuss it with the attorney yet we do have a follow-up meeting with our attorney renegotiations shortly so I will bring that up in the meantime there was a list a long list of data collection that we had discussed so we are in the process I have a follow-up meeting this Thursday um just to see where we are with all those collections of data and whether other s what other sources we need to tap to get back some of the information that was discussed during the policy committee um such as like the impact to you know the impact and opinions on staff but but those um the data um collection the data request that would be continuing um will be an ongoing process this this um legal advisory would not prevent you know should be should be bifurcated from the data collection This legal advisory is is uh somewhat time sensitive uh given that we will be beginning negotiations very very shortly so I think I think that was the spirit of of of the question note taken I'll make sure that I connect with uh Mr J uh and yeah if if that could be kind of written or shared with the whole board because it's something that will be it's a it's a board whole complete whole board decision minus any absolutely no problem thank you thank you we good okay okay uh a attendance at conferences I move attendance at conferences I'll second Miss Brogan yes Mr Donnie yes Mr mmud yes Miss qua yes Mr LMO yes B Administration I move Administration second Miss Brogan yes Mr Donnie yes Mr mmud yes Miss quack yes Mr LMBO yes D curriculum and instruction I move curriculum instruction and um just a comment on the Community Schools courses for spring good job good things they do look very interesting I'll second it Miss bran yes Mr Donnie yes Mr mmud yes Miss quack yes Mr lumbo yes D Human Resources I move human resources I'll second it Miss Brogan yes Mr Donnie yes Mr mmud yes Miss qu yes Mr lumbo yes moving to page 10 e finance I move Finance I will second it I just want to thank specifically uh the Willard home and School Association um for their generous gift I know they've been raising money for the auditorium uh the rwood high school girls lacrosse rwood women's soccer booster Association and the r high school student activity count thank you for your generous donations Miss Brogan yes Mr Donnie yes Mr mmud yes Miss quack yes Mr Lambo yes we have uh no resolutions motions not included uh the approval bills I check the bills and I move all the bills uh that are listed I second Miss Brogan yes Mr Donnie yes Mr mmud yes Miss quack yes Mr LMBO yes board member announcements br thanks Mike um you know I uh was um enthused by the email that we got this week uh from or last week from uh Mr hos that and so congratulations to our 10 Ridgewood High School music students who were selected to perform as members of the 2024 all Bergen County High School band H and um this is the highest number of students selected from any one school so it's very impressive and we keep on that great tradition um of the Performing Arts in our school um and just a reminder to the public the right Ridgewood High School band will be performing their Winter concert uh this week December 6 that's Wednesday at 7:30 in the Campus Center it's a treat and if you haven't had that opportunity to hear the band it's amazing what our teachers have been able to do in a semester and of course it culminates in the spring at even a better concert um and uh on December 14th um there'll be an eighth grade parent meeting at Ridgewood High School as students uh begin to um uh as parents begin to help their students transition from uh eighth grade to the high school and then finally I had the opportunity last week um to go to to the maroon Awards uh bre uh breakfast or ceremony and you know it it's great I think 17 of our high school students were honored by their teachers for making the high school just a better place to be uh improving the climate being kind to somebody um being caring uh it was really a wonderful ceremony and you know they do it three times a year but again um it speaks to the very positive relationships that our our staff have with our students and to hear the staff say you know these students and our students are the reason I come to school each day it's the reason I've chosen this profession it's the reason that I'm teaching so it it's a wonderful event uh I know uh Dr Schwarz were there I I think Mr fredman was there too right yeah and of course Christine was there taking pictures thank you for that so thanks excellent I'm sorry I missed it great thing yes a few quick ones uh from the CPAC Community under uh leadership of Jamie Davis and team have been doing a phenomenal job so a couple of just quick upcoming events um on Wednesday the 6th 9:30 a. there will be an information meeting uh it's going to be about academic inclusion we will have a presentation from Michelle Lockwood from New Jersey Coalition for inclusive education I think it's going to touch on some of what we heard earlier from the uh the speaker uh the public speaker uh also on the 6th Wednesday the 6th in the evening 7:30 p.m. will be a parent social at Murphy's uh and then on Monday December 11th will be another sensory friendly dinner for families uh 4 pm at parza um the event is going to have uh lower dimmed lights a lower level of Music uh a little bit more uh understanding staff to wait on the families and then there will also be a special kind of private treelighting ceremony as well associated with that so some pretty cool events coming up and definitely check out Ridgewood cag.org for more information thank you team great that is a wonderful newsletter that they're putting yes it is really very impressive absolutely uh just a couple things uh follow M bran the uh the All County band was very impressive I hope I get a chance to see that um I was able I was at the downtown for the holidays Festival in downtown you know just um bronin touched upon it though every event I feel like I went to Winterfest you know and just everywhere you know whether there's always high school kids helping out project interact or a different group it's always great seeing our high school kids out in the community just giving back and helping out it's always a great thing to say um you know even at the the Kelly kin um co- drive it's really a positive positive thing uh a couple things on the m i just because I did wasn't able to go uh but downtown for the holidays uh our sign language uh our students who are in their second year of American Sign Language were signing I that was tremendous and for the deaf people that I work with um what a gift it was they're super talented yeah it was really neat so thank you for that and for everybody that came out in the rain and they they came out but a lot of some of the groups didn't come out because the rain so usually I like seeing the band marching up and down the street they couldn't come but normally you know it's great that was a great addition this year was really amazing um tomorrow at World Flats jambur is having a fundraiser anybody that goes and uh supports uh e at roll flast mentioned jeree support them you know just a quick note I was trying if I get a food thing I always trying to put it out there uh last month there was a fundraiser for I think it was O that had a had hot chicken I accidentally got the really hot one that was a bad idea really great food do not get the hottest sauce that Dave's Hot Chicken to this year aware fair warning um then uh really that's all I have uh just like T said you know there's the holiday season coming up a lot of um you know performances recitals but a lot of uh religions families everybody gets together at the end of the year to reflect back and it's a really great thing to say see so I really wish everybody the best um as we move on board committee reports I know we're having our committees meet on the 13th I don't think there's any other committees that met before that tomorrow is the bur County U uh School boarders y so uh everyone's available to log in for that or attend I have the fields committee to meeting tomorrow it's a public meeting 7 AM we can dial in yep 7 am they have I I I know I've asked this before how does somebody find think about you know I think it it should be posted somewhere I'm I'm I I apologize if it's not because it is a public meeting we do take um it is recorded and it is uh anyone can speak um I I have the link um provided by Keith cook so I can share it with Dr Schwarz and you can share it or maybe put in the website going forward I don't know but it it is a a public meeting virtual it's on The Village's website okay great thank you okay that's all in committees uh discussion items Mr D okay um if I could enter my comments for the record Miss Miss Scott um Miss Brogan censure became a walk-in item uh even though the board was notified about it early last week in fact the board president instructed the board not to share the board agenda item Miss Brogan's was permitted to make public comments objecting to this censure it should be and I I believe you agreed yes that it should be entered into the ren record of the meeting yes obviously okay great the board should be transparent accountable Equitable and ethical at all times Ridgewood deserves this and it will not be surprising if the community wonders about the irregular special treatment of this matter tonight thank you just want to just add uh you know we went on our vice the attorney you know the county superintendent the guidance of our superintendent as well to formulate this and the the just the thing not to share was just this why we were working through things that was a direct like that so thank you Mr limbo since um I would like to clarify that um this matter is unavoidably handled differently from another cens that occurred in October 2nd 2023 just within you know very shortly so that's it is it is a matter of public record that it would just handle very differently absolutely I agree with that very very differently um and for as far as the public is concerned it you know it was never printed um thank you yep and just the agenda has been updated um so we're going to thought the agenda has been updated because I didn't know that there was an update around um just a little bit after 6 this evening oh is that right a little bit after 6 it was communicated it was emailed out yeah it put on the no it's not it's I think it's just on the website but my last email was just simply without this so and and that's why I question the heading even the agenda that's printed on my page on on on the board members here doesn't have this what I got on this page for all the board members was this which is a separate item right so that's why I'm questioning if it really was made public why doesn't even us as a board have that I'm looking at it if it was updated an hour before the meeting an hour okay and so you know it would be great if we can get a print out I mean not print out it I mean okay thank you for cl went out it was updated in both the drive that is the board shared drive and on the website it's on the board drive but the but the public just on the website as well great thank you on the website yes so it was updated for an email was sent out to everyone um at 6:21 so okay it was done just before that time thank you you're welcome I just want to clarify the email just went to the board members not to the public right correct the email was to let the board members know that the agenda on the board drive and the district website had been updated with the following change addition reading of the resolution of censure right I think the overarching question is what agenda was published to our uh constituents and and one of our policies uh regarding board meetings I think 164 um requires agenda to be published 2 48 hours before so um the the the question is if if the board knew um about it then should it have been published and uh in if if you are changing the agenda not for just one matter as a as our practice when we make a change to an agenda item how do we going forward how do we communicate that to the public should there be an updated email that goes out if because we we send out an email on Friday we sent out another email on Monday so if that Monday 3 P.M email did not have that what change between 3 and 6: p.m. and in future if something changes between after that 3:00 email goes out or 2:00 email on Monday that goes out if there are changes to the agenda how do we notify that to our residents because we are sending out like it's a push we are sending out two emails so should we be once somebody receives an email at 2: or 3 p.m. in the afternoon they probably would assume that's the final agenda so if there are any changes to that in for going forward should we just send another email with the amendment or addendum to the agenda and I don't know the answer that's a for future a question yeah I think we I think we should establish what we want our Norms to be um I had different Norms in my last District um so I think uh we can clear I would appreciate it if we could as a board clarify how would you want to handle that including Walk-Ons that's why I'm not really haven't been um I don't love the walk-on model um because if it doesn't make it to the actual printed published agenda then it's missing from the from the view for the public so correct so I think that we need to so I do think that outside of this issue it's a norm that we need to reassert and establish so that so I think the the policy 164 if I have the number correct that may have to address walk-in items so the agenda that how do we add walk-in items and how do we communicate those to the public because it it talks about all other agenda and the walk-in items I mean there should be some standard applied to it not there this is quite a serious document that is from a government agency and we have we as a board by not making it public other than one hour before whatever it is this came out last week we've basically as a board we've not we've overridden it maybe I'm not sure now we've read it but I I don't know as a board member if we have satisfied that edict because as far as the well no because the handling of this and this is a question for you is this was handled very differently from another censure the other censor was part of the written public record that went out to the public in advance of the meeting the timing of when the board was notified and the district was notified was no different so this became a walk-in item and this is quite a significant item that I don't know have have we have we been compliant in following the school ethics commission edict by making a walk-in item I don't know if that's a question for the board attorney or or what or if you have information please share because well I I believe I don't have as much information G information as you have but why wait I'm sorry why would I have more information did you just I said the same information yes you're saying okay so what I was trying to say was the you know we have not um the last I've been very vocal the last can you speak into the microphone the last uh um resolution that we have they referring to I didn't feel that that was done properly and that's what I brought up in the our last agenda and when this one came out and made sure I want to make sure everything was done properly when we spoke with the attorney we spoke with both of the attorneys we spoke with the county superintendent and all the whole Administration that's why there was a little bit there were some issues that came out that I can't get into but this entire board I've been very open with everybody this entire time of what changed on Thursday and Friday I try to be very open and explain why there was a change today I contacted you know the parties that b to make sure what was going to happen because at all times we want to make sure we're following this order there's nothing that we've done here that's out of order we're still moving forward everything in here is totally by the book and I made sure that I just uh contacted our superintendent to make sure that we're progressing the proper way that's it and we we did it the proper way so I just want to put that on the record that what Mr Lambo is saying is that he he followed the proper procedure um and that he contacted the county superintendent and the board attorney and and they advised you that it should it does not need to be on the public agenda when I say because we as a board did get an agenda that we thought was going out and it did include it and somehow it got removed and I just I'm very uh uncomfortable with with uh you seem to have more information so if you could share that that would no I have the same information that but if but if I had the same information or the board had the same information we may have acted differently meaning we would might have put it on the agenda that we thought was going to go out but it was pulled and then this truncated agenda came out and then we got this if I had the same information as you I I'm not sure that I would have followed this or the board might have followed this path right if we all had this information the board might have felt differently did you know Miss [Music] broken yeah but this is your matter okay this is your matter okay so well just if you could include that the comment that would be great all of it good okay acceptance of minutes November 20th the regular public meeting acceptance of minutes second I'm sorry is all in favor all in favor I other business bran I have not Mr Donnie okay we have our second public comment portion of the evening thank you for hanging out with us and please step up to the podium thank you very much thank you um Lori Weber 35 South living Street I just I feel like I have to respond a little bit Miss Bogan has been cordial to me throughout this and I just want you to know that I appreciate that I think you you know there are things that you have that you do or say that I respect and and I'm happy to see that reciprocated and that we can be cordial and probably the only other person besides you who is is relev that this is over is me these things are not pleasant and unfortunately there were a couple of things that you characterized and I miss Broan I know so chucked every characterized that I just want to clarify this is not a joyful process and this is not something that I started doing for some sense of vindication I've been coming to these meetings since my 32y old was less than two and I've seen a lot of funky things happen in this room and after a while it just there was that around that time the 20 2019 2020 there was a lot going on and I just felt like I had to just do something not just ignorantly complain on social media so I learned what to do and it's not a small thing and when you dismiss these allegations as having no merit I want to explain something I filed complaints against four different people multiple complaints somewhere between 200 and 250 pages of legal briefs and Exhibits that I had to learn how to do I had to learn how to do what a lawyer does I had to learn how to think what a lawyer thinks and I had to learn how to research and understand how the law works and it did I do a perfect job absolutely not I did a better job than I thought I would do and some of those things that you characterize as without Merit weren't without Merit they were just outside of the purview of the school ethics commission and some of them were not well founded enough for them to pass muster but these things aren't done lightly it's it to to do this as someone with no legal training is not a small thing and I don't want anything that was said here tonight to belittle that because the school ethics commission is a great aenue you for people like me they are helpful they they encourage people to come forward if they see something wrong and give it a try and it's nerve-wracking and it's a lot of work and we do it I C I certainly did it with the best of intentions and with all of those cases cooking at once and that 250 Pages or so was just round one it was a lot of work and I was surprisingly successful as as a whole so I would hope that if Miss Brogan's comments are being put on the record verbatim that some of this will also be put there to correct that part of it because the school ethics commission is completely about the the public trust as I said before about the public perception and I do encourage every single one of you to look at it and try to take it in and understand it and you have resources that will help you understand that that will even tell you if you have a question about whether something is ethical or not before you decide to do it and I encourage you to do that because when I did that I thought I was going to stop these things from happening and that's why I did it to make a point that if someone's going to stand up and make you accountable maybe you'll think twice before you try to do it and I just want to really quickly because I'm running out of time here I want to thank you Dr schw Wars and miss kot and your entire administrative team here for being so responsive to hear people on from the administration yes reacting to to the public in real time is is a real treat and I appreciate your clarifying who was behind that decision and and and I thank you all thank you we have one caller hello Mr uh yes hello um so my name is James coo 351 rugby court uh I'd just like to briefly Echo the earlier speaker um on the importance of academic inclusion and really urge the board to focus on this issue um so the I think the previous speaker did an excellent job of highlighting the the broad research base supporting the benefits of inclusion for students both with and without special needs um and I'm sure the board could without much effort site many different metrics of excellent performance of The District you know GPA AP scores or as what was discussed earlier tonight College acceptance rates and a question I'd like to pose to the board would be would you be able to cite the inclusion rates in the district as an indicator of success for instance off the top of your head what percentage of St students in the district with an IEP are educated among their typical peers for 80% or more of the school day this is one of the data points required to be reported by Ida which is the federal law governing special education uh and this inclusion rate is also part of publicly available reports uh published for each district in the state um and for some context nationally New Jersey ranks last 50 out of 50 states uh in this metric uh in fact we are the only state in the nation where less than half of students with special needs are included for 80% % or more of the school day with their typical peers uh the state Target for 2021 to 2022 which is the most recent year with published data the state Target was 45% ridgewood's inclusion rate was just two points above this target 47% this is actually down from 51% from the year before and just for some larger kind of broad National context the national average is 66% and so though we with very good reason highlight the high quality and Great accomplishments of our students teachers and staff we should also be sure to keep our attention on areas where we could and we should improve and inclusion is one of them thank you thank you and with that I close the second public uh comment portion of the evening thank you everybody just one uh Mr cell thanks those points can you just send us the source of that data please if you don't mind and thank you for bringing up those good point good points okay I hereby moved that this meeting of the Ridgid Board of Education be adjourned can I have a second All In