okay good evening it is November 16th 2023 and I would like to welcome you and to call to order the meeting of the South Brun of Township Board of Education please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance okay read the statement of advaned notice the New Jersey open public meeting Act of njs excuse me let me start over the New Jersey open public meeting act njsa 1046 also known as the Sunshine Law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon the primary purpose is for board members to discuss and vote on board business in accordance with the provisions of this act the board secretary has caused notice of this meeting 48 hours prior including datetime location to be posted in the South Brunswick Public Library the board office and filed with the Township Clerk and communicated to the home News Tribune and the Star Ledger it is also posted on the district website roll call please Mr palowski Mrs Julie Ferrara Mrs Laura Hernandez here Mrs Deepa carthik Mrs Alicia Khan here Mr rajer Krishna yes Mr Mike Mitchell pres Mr Mr Barry Nathanson here Dr SMI araj here Mrs Lisa Rogers here we have a quorum thank you Mr palowski may I have a motion in a second to approve tonight's meeting agenda Mr Mitchell second Dr Raj thank you all in favor any nay approve of the meeting agenda next order of business is the board minutes of September 28th 2023 and October 12 2023 Mr secret excuse me board secretary Mr palowski draft of the minutes from both meetings were sent to All board members on Monday November 13th 2023 are there any corrections to the minutes as distributed no then the minutes will stand and are written as and approved thank you okay we have a slight adjustment to the agenda tonight and it is a report of the president I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the recently concluded election season it is with a mix of appreciation and concern that I representing this Board address some crucial matters that affect us all in this community first and foremost I'd like to all of us extend the congratulations to Mike Raja and Smitha for winning the election the final vote tally has not been um provided yet um we hopefully it will come within the next week or so however the trust the community has placed in them through their reelection is a testament to the faith that you all have in this community in their ability to lead with honesty integrity and kindness their dedication to the betterment of our community coupled with a commitment to respectful discourse has not gone unnoticed and on behalf of the board I express our sincere gratitude yet as we cele celebrate this Victory we cannot ignore the challenging aspects of this election season there were individuals who sought to gain favor through fear-mongering and the spread of misinformation despite this our community demonstrated resilience and refused to succumb to negativity I commend Bal and James also for maintaining a standard of conduct that aligns with the principles we hold dear contribut to a respectful campaign our Township endured an embarrassing few months tainted by disgraceful comments on social media in which insults were hurled at members of this board ranging from misogynistic and racial slurs to baseless accusations they are not only uncalled for but are detrimental to the spirit of South Brunswick such Behavior does not reflect the values of this community have we forgotten the importance of Civility and Civic engagement respectful behavior is not only an expectation but a necessity for constructive discourse the golden rule of treating others as you would want to be treated should be our guiding principle it is disheartening to see rudeness and a lack of respect seeping into our schools and affecting our staff and our students our community must be vigilant in teaching our children the values of respect kindness and civil engagement this diverse and hard-working board operates without drama upholding parliamentary rules that are also practiced at state and federal levels it is disappointing to see these efforts questioned or belittled by some members the board is committed to responsible communication but it has faced unwarranted tagging harassment and bullying on social media henceforth this board will no longer acknowledge questions posed on platforms that do not allow for factual or intelligible information to be discussed while differing opinions are natural purposeful attempts to divide the community must cease and misinformation will be countered appropriately supported by facts South Brunswick is not perfect we on this board are not perfect we have challenges ahead that will require unity and a collective effort from all in conclusion on behalf of this board I extend gratitude to the community for your trust in exceptional School in an exceptional school system as we move forward let us all strive to be better engage in respectful um dialogue and work towards a brighter future for South Brunswick together we can overcome challenges uphold honesty integrity and character and build a community that truly reflects reflects these values thank [Applause] you thank you next order of business is the report of our student representative Deon Lee good evening everyone uh starting off with some news from the high school our hugs for Brady fundraiser was incredbly successful raising over $10,000 in support of Childhood Cancer Awareness student Senate is very excited to make our donation to hugs for Brady to continue to fund Student Government activities our November student Senate meeting took place on the 15th members of the student Advisory Board which discusses issues within the school and student body will be meeting with Mr verella on November 20th a meeting with all members will be held in December our October breast cancer awareness event had a great turnout we had prizes such as t-shirts pens and bandanas students collaborated to create an all hands in Against Breast Cancer handprint collage that is currently being displayed in the high school alongside stories ofhs staff breast cancer survivors the month of November is dedicated to honoring our veterans student council made several displays in the school honoring the nine veterans Who currently work at sbhs their classroom and office doors were also decorated as our way of saying thank you on November 14th we wore red white and blue or yellow for Veterans Day and this upcoming Friday we support red Friday to remember everyone deployed upcoming activities also include Deck the Halls an annual student council fundraising event where we decorate the outside of classroom doors for the winter holidays this is a beloved sbhs tradition that we are very excited to continue we have already received over 40 orders so far and they are coming in fast this is the second year that we will be decorating the board office as well C down there are several Evergreen trees set up throughout the school as our giving trees students and staff have the opportunity to purchase gift cards and place their names on the tree the gift cards are given to families in need in South Brunswick we are very excited to announce that student council will be hosting a semiformal winter charity ball to support hugs for Brady the dance will be held on January 26th and will be open to all grade levels it will take place in the annex gym with the DJ as well as the Freshman cafeteria where there will be Refreshments a photo booth and areas to hang out we are really excited to be able to host this event as it is something that students have been asking for for a long time and we are thrilled to make it happen the sbhs Asian cultural Club recently hosted a Diwali celebration with food and performances that was very well attended our newest Club chess club is proud to host new and experienced players we have students participating in upcoming chess tournaments with other schools some other great upcoming events at the high school are the King of Prussia shopping trips sponsored by the classes 2026 and 2027 and the senior class is sponsoring a trip to the American dream Mall the SBS marching band will be performing at the first ever NFL Black Friday football game where the Jets will take on the Dolphins at MetLife Stadium we are also excited to announce the sbhs PE teacher Ray asosi has been nominated for the njah PD teacher of the year award the winners are announced in February and we are incredibly proud of him for earning the honor of being nominated the gymnastics team placed fourth at GMC's over the weekend our JB gymnasts also competed at the novice GMC meet on Wednesday at St Thomas aquinus shika Anan was named to the GMC All Conference team we had three gymnasts who competed at sectionals on Saturday November 4th so way to go gymnasts on a fantastic season the sbhs girls volleyball varsity team secured The Ninth Place in the GMC tournament and headed to face the Rams of wlaw heartridge the Vikings showed their might by sweeping the Rams in two consecutive sets securing their advance in the tournament this program made great fundraising efforts for the making strides for breast cancer event supporting the American Cancer Society and raising over $900 lastly Junior jaizelle Parker was a awarded a spot on the all red division team this season a very well-deserved honor that's all I have for everyone today and I hope we have a great night very good thank you so much okay moving on our next order of business is a report the superintendent Mr feder all right well today I I proudly wear my Jets lanyard um not because the Jets are worthy of me wearing this lanyard but because our marching band was invited by the New York Jets to play at halftime of the first Friday after Thanksgiving football game ever yay [Applause] so the Jets are clearly better at picking marching bands than other things that they do select uh but it's a a fantastic um they are also paying for the marching band to get there in coach buses so that's good because otherwise we would they be walking but that is a really great thing it's an honor for the incredible hard work those students and the staff that works with those students do and the families that support them it is an amazing amazing situation um I do recall and I was reminded I wasn't here when it happened but when the Super Bowl was at metti Stadium they also went and played during the Super Bowl absolutely so this is a long tradition of excellence in our marching band um the fact that the Jets were able to ident identify that is pretty amazing um and we're thrilled to be able to have them go on Friday so it was a last minute entry on your board uh docket today to approve that so please approve that of course or you can face the marching band parents um so anyway great stuff and and that that is just um truly amazing I I'm going to Echo the congratulations to our Three incumbents Roger Smith and Mike I am just going to add one little piece it is not certified yet the election has not been certified Tuesday so just to be clear on that but um I'm very confident based upon the numbers we have seen that um the certification will just will just um demonstrate what we already know so congratulations and I also want to Echo Lisa's words congratulations on running a clean honest campaign to the three of you for not engaging in other behaviors that were being engaged with by others so that's not easy I'd imagine to sit back I know I wanted to write a lot um um but I think I'm banned from one of the sites because you know because I don't know why um I actually don't have a Facebook page anymore because I was hacked and wiped out so I'm done um so anyway awesome for the three of you and for this board but mostly for this community and these kids so thank you thank you for that um in line with that last night was our first meeting of the district advocacy committee and um we had 70 applicants um put in for that and we did select I think we're about 55 people strong and a lot most of them were there last night and some really good ideas it seem to be a very motivated group of people to work on this we've outlined um a whole bunch of things uh Lisa is going to finalize the the last document that's going to go out to that committee and we're also going to share that with the full board as well as the um admin team and leadership team so that they can see that and that we also videotaped the meeting that'll be posted on the website for the whole Community to see the the work of that group the first meeting was really an education um uh I I don't know how many times I have to repeat the same presentation so I felt bad for people that have seen it um 10 times Maybe by now talking about the issues with the state funding on that um but yet it was some for some people that was the first time in some cases and there's still discussions that people don't know so part of the advocacy committee is to figure out how do we get the word out to people it's obviously not working to do them here and to post and to send them what do we do so that's that's some work but we have a a two three Monon window here to alter this um I am going to share one piece of information with the board and the community um today we did receive an email from Senator Andrew wicker that he will be posting a bill at some point in the near future and that bill is going to the bill is designed to say districts that have been cut State funding would have the ability to go above the 2% cap on spending if they so choose without a vote is my understanding now we worked with um Senator wicker on that exact Bill and gave him our perspective and language to use in that bill we have not seen the bill yet but as soon as we do see in the bill that is something for advocacy committee to also work with and get involved with so um when a Bill gets put forth there most likely will be a hearing at some point we would have people from the advocacy committee there doing doing that so um we also want to just be able to say the work we have been doing hopefully will have some impact and again the the no impact we're in trouble so let's hope we get a lot of good impact um a positive real big positive of course our preschool program uh we have submitted uh for next year we've submitted an increase again of almost 100 students bringing us to just shy of 350 regular education students plus about another that comes out to about 40 almost 50 special education students so that's getting us closer to that called that preschool Universe where we start eventually where we want to have every parent that wants it would have access our next move is and does require us to move outside of the school district to What's called the mixed delivery model where we'd be working with a third-party provider um that is overseen by our district um so that's a whole complex issue that we've been working on um Suzanne Megan Tanisha white have been uh the three that have been leading the charge visiting schools and uh it's a tremendous amount of time and work to identify a partner but it's it's the right work um we also want to know we also want to let our families know if you know anybody with a three or four year-old that's looking for preschool please have them go to the district website and apply we'll be sending out a uh postcard to targeted areas of the community where we want to identify kids and get kids opportunities into these programs what we realize is reaching families that have nothing to do with the school district yet is difficult right if you have a four-year-old or a three-year-old you're not on any list yet so how do they even know if they don't know so we're trying to do that Tanisha white uh runs that side of things at the preschool level and she I know she's going to like go to clergy she goes to the um local grocery store she's out and about trying to get everybody involved and this this next layer is coming out I guess come out within the week I guess right within a week we'll probably before Thanksgiving is our goal if we can to get out the letter to the community so that's that's exciting so again all that's happening the form closes December 31st we're going to be making decisions um much earlier than last year as we as we do this we get better at it so that's all happening for a clean crisp opening for next year hopefully at full capacity at the the almost 350 regular education students in September okay quick homework free reminder uh the Thanksgiving recess is a homework free so no tests no assignments long range projects that kind of thing and no test given until November 30th so that kids have a chance to get back in it's also American Education week this week and um each year we we we do this before Thanksgiving it honors the team of people who work in our nation's Public Schools just a it's a big it's a big piece um so that's going on um we have Thanksgiving coming up we all know that um we have a something that we'll be talking more with the board about um we have a weird initial calendar for next year it's not a very favorable calendar for next year um where Things Fall is difficult next year so we're going to be working on that and um trying to get that into a better place than it currently is it's not in a great place right now the last day of school is June 26th for next year Harley I heard you from here the pain Theon Defan you have to control her [Laughter] please um so there there there's there's some other things in the cter that we want to also fix and work on that the problem is there's a lot of things that you can't fix so we're going to try and get creative the reason I bring this up is I think the the district is accustomed currently to the full week of November attached to this we have to look at everything for next year because we have some it's a challenging situation for next year so um just know it's coming um staff will be involved a lot goes on into this particular calendar so hopefully I have something to you by the December meeting that you can look at that's our goal but there's some ickiness to it I don't like it uh Harley's going to have to look at it and give me a sign off obviously you're in Harley all right folks um this is our last meeting before the the Thanksgiving break we have another meeting in December but before I finish I going to turn it over to Marty abuts and Bobby Bender from the Education Foundation and again I want to reiterate the Education Foundation this year gave the school district $42,000 for our engineering program at the high school [Applause] and uh I don't know what to expect right now actually but we're going to turn over to them and okay thank thank you Mr feder I'm Marty Abes I'm president of the foundation and I'm uh putting my cycling gloves on and now I'm uh going to put my helmet on and show the right way that hel is supposed to be warn oh no well we're going to talk about the toris South Bruns on which is the first Sunday in June and 2024 June 2nd it's always the first Sunday we are not here to talk about the tauris South Brunswick we are here to talk about the poster contest for the tour to South Brunswick oh that's right sorry about that folks yeah we're going to have a poster contest for third fourth and fifth graders this year to uh submit their posters uh by February 29th nice day to pick is starting the contest probably in mid January stay tuned through all the various social media and it will be coming home on Friday folders and it'll be on our website but it'll be third fourth and fifth graders creating a poster on and half by 11 and the winning poster will get a $25 gift certificate to Target and be featured in all of the ads that we do for the toris South Bruno which again it's on the first Sunday so it'll be on Instagram and x and Facebook and our own web page and hopefully it will be on the uh School District site with perhaps an additional notice in the uh District art show in April so thank you and again look out for it in our in the Friday folder and all the different media that we have and uh yeah third fourth and fifth graders oh thanks Bobby I completely missed that and and in conclusion we'd like to thank everyone who came out to support the taste for Education that was held on October 19th and to remind every one that money that is being raised going forward a lot of is going to be going to the engineering initiative that we've started in South Brunswick and we're looking forward to giving a lot of money thank [Applause] you I will say I I did I it seems so long ago that we had the taste but it was like standing room only in there that was that was a really great event and I won a meley pizza oven thing so that's no that was the good news but it was really a great event I I you have did you have over 200 people I meant to add that we had over over 200 that was amazing good job and thanks again for the donations remember donate to them because it goes to the engineering program so thank you guys very much and that is concludes my report great any questions thank you very much guys Ed Ed Foundation any questions for Mr feder um so I just want to say one thing I know that it's the Jets is really important to him but um for those Giants fans we need to actually cheer for the Patriots and the commanders because we need the number two draft pick so just everybody cheer on those two forget the Giants we really need that anyway thank you very much Mr feder moving on our next order of business is um a board brief presentation so I'd like to call Miss jod Mahoney principal of Greenbrook school and Miss Sherry cine supervisor of K through five language arts social studies who will be giving a board brief on dyslexia thank you y hi everybody I'm Jody Mahoney this is Jerry cassine and we are two of the core U members of our core team of our uh sbsd Team dyslexia we're really excited that you wanted to hear more about this so we're going to give you a little bit of a snapshot as to um what we do and why uh South Brunswick is really known as a dyslexia friendly uh District so oh I don't have the clicker do I oh it fell here we go now I do all right so before we move on I want to just sort of make sure that we all kind of know what dyslexia is um and kind of lay the ba the foundation here that one in five students May struggle with reading or may um have beyond the spectrum of of Dyslexia learning difference um and we NE research shows that early intervention can increase success for students so one in five 20% of our students um may be struggling with reading and that may be diagnosed or not formally diagnosed um but the thing is is that um dyslexia masks intelligence and intelligence masks um dyslexia so our students who are struggling with dyslexia are highly intelligent and they know how to sort of mass this or cope with this in lots of ways and so they may get to middle school and high school without us even knowing and then it's really showing up um I put in here I'm not going to read it to you but it's there for you to read this is the national um International dyslexia Association formal definition of what dyslexia is as a specific learning disability that is neurobiological and origin um so I can give you a minute to read that or just familiarize yourself with the formal definition and one of the reasons that this definition is important to note is that it is um with the neurobiological origin um it's sort of in this place between our education world and the medical field and so schools can't officially U diagnose uh dyslexia at this point um but we can certainly recognize indicators of and we can certainly know the interventions that make a difference um still in terms of diagnosis and formal diagnosis that really sits with our neurologists and our reading Specialists but um it is uh a learning difference that affects the way that we process information and so we'll talk a little bit more about that those who are dyslexic may experience difficulty with learning their letters sounds decoding words um manipulating text reading comprehension fluency written expression working memory um but there's a lot of strengths for our students who are dyslexic and uh those include verbal communication Visual Arts computer science um designs Sports thinking outside of the box our entrepreneurs our business owners um more than 40% of them are dyslexic um and if you look at your actors and your musicians and your creative minds many many many of them have said that they are dyslexic and wish they had known that earlier so there are so many strengths to embrace um and once we just know what's going on we can certainly make sure that we're in a better place to embrace this learning difference back in 2014 New Jersey passed Three Laws and these are the three laws that they passed two hours of mandated training for dyslexia for appropriate personnel uh typically that's our K to3 staff our special Educators our speech and language Pathologists and our child set team members um K12 screening for any child showing indicators of Dyslexia by the end of the first semester of second grade and we'll talk to you a little bit about our screening processes we have it just built into um our you know kindergarten through uh third grade um interventions and also dyslexia is now identified under the code of law as a spe under this specific learning disability you used to just say specific learning disability now in New Jersey we can say dyslexia which is a big deal because there are still many states that don't there are still some states that don't even recognize dyslexia at all which is crazy um and there's states that are sort of reticent to sort of say dyslexia but we do say it so if there is an sld that's identified related to dyslexia we can specifically write that in an i if needed so in 2017 with the support of the Board of Ed I was able to start my doctorate uh in educational and organizational leadership at upen and in 2020 I completed that program with a dissertation called both sides of the table schools and families aligning expectations for students with dyslexia and it focused on the experiences of parents and school administrators in supporting students with dyslexia and I bring this up for two reasons one is because the board here and the community was super supportive of me and being engaged in that program so I appreciate that but I also wanted to link it to the work that I continue to do in moving forward um both for Brunswick as dyslexia friendly district and also helping other districts do the same so what I found was that the parents in public schools really felt frustrated you can see from the word cloud that they were felt that they were being denied they were devastated their experiences with public schools around dyslexia were horrible and disgusting and uncomfortable and sad and school leaders when asked how are you handling supporting students and families with dyslexia said well we think the parents would say it some of it's good some of it's bad we're doing we're trying to do our best um so clearly a difference of opinion about sort of what those experiences were and um this cartoon is one of my favorite my child has dyslexia unfortunately the school system has a learning disability in that area um we don't want to be that district and we haven't been that District back in 2014 when we first started our initiatives here and created team dyslexia as soon as those laws were passed we began to create a cord team that put a focus on making sure that we were making the Mandate a mission for 9 years we have been dyslexia friendly and what does that mean means that our teachers are aware they are informed they have the resources they need we are proactive not reactive and we have a team dyslexia a court team that goes across administrators with elementary middle and high school and we have school representatives in all of our um schools that help us make sure that we're turn keying information and keeping our eye on the prize um o October just was ooc uh dyslexia awareness month and our teams in our district celebrate that by wearing red um red is one of the colors for dyslexia awareness um and typically we celebrate that on October 15th for the one in five uh statistic and you can see some of our teams there um wearing their red and sporting their fancy South brunic School District team dyslexia shirts that have that logo on the bottom um that dyslexia is not a disease to be cured of um but is a way of thinking and learning which has really been sort of our tagline as we Embrace this really not as a learning disability but mostly as a learning difference um so you can see I mean this is just a snapshot of a couple of folks around the district but um we put it in our newsletters we put it in our parent Communications we announce it to our students why are you seeing red these are the people who can help you um and these are the folks that are keeping this initiative going year after year after year so sh is going to talk to you a little bit more about how we've made ourselves be and what we continue to do um in being dyslexia friendly and our screening process and then we'll come back and answer some questions just so you kind of know about the continuation of all the work that um goes into keeping our eye on the prize okay okay so this timeline outlines the work we've done since 2014 so we've been pretty busy for the last nine years in the curriculum and assessment World um the en timeline includes training for staff strengthening our identification protocols and student screenings um integrating appropriate interventions and supports and selecting curriculum resources and materials to better teach all students so we plan to add to this timeline in the future because our work is ever evolving um okay so here are the list of the professional development that we've been offering to our teachers um over the last N9 years of um since the dyslexia legislation um we're very proud of the professional development that we offer because we believe that we are very responsive to the needs of our staff um we try and keep on top of the hot and current topics in the literacy world so we make sure that our staff is aware of those um many trainings that can happen um annually get a little stale but we really try to keep it really interesting for our our staff and um make sure that the topics are are what they want to learn and what they want to know about so we've been very intentional about keeping it fresh and keeping it new um so we tell her the PD every year um and each year the training is personalized to meet the needs of the staffs at the staff at the various levels that being elementary middle and high so the legislation does not necessarily require us to train teachers Beyond grade three however we believe that casting a wider net is super important to support students who have dyslexia so um we make sure that the the offerings that we provide are for prek through 12th grade okay so this slide here just has a lot of pictures of different programs that we currently have in the district it speaks to the many structured literacy programs in particular um that we've adopted in the general education classroom or through instructional support as part of our multi-tiered system of supports so these programs focus on the critical foundational skills of phonological awareness and phonics um and it uses a multi-sensory approach based on the Orton Gillingham principles so um yeah so it's a mix of what we use in intervention what we use for the summer Intervention Program as well as what we're doing in the tier one setting which is your General Ed classroom okay so this screening process it took several years to develop so I feel like it's still a work in progress as we evolve and learn more and um and update our assessments um this outlines our three-step dyslexia screening process in in K5 so we screen for dyslexia as part of our overall Universal screening at the elementary level so three times per year fall winter spring each Elementary School engages in what we call day-to-day um so there are established benchmarks for our literacy assessments that we administer to students and a benchmark is just a standard against which something is compared so we use multiple benchmark assessments to measure student growth over time so students are not just screen based on a single measure it's multiple measures and it's over time so this slide outlines our internal benchmarks to identify students who may possibly need additional support in various academic areas so as part of the step one in the process which is the graphic on the left uh we are particularly interested in the assessments that screen for phonological awareness alphabet knowledge phonics knowledge and reading level so at the end of the school year um the rapid Auto automatized naming which we also call ran for short um that assessment is administered to all kindergarten students around the end of May beginning of June um and it requires students to name an array of letters as quickly as possible and I call it the the Tiny But Mighty assessment because it doesn't take very long to administer but it gives you a big bang for your buck so it's important because students that uh present with a slower than average ran time typically struggle with Word level reading so it's it's really an important part of our screening process um so we're glad that we have it as part of the multiple measure battery of Assessments so we really use that compendium of Assessments to help with the screening of Dyslexia and then steps two and three you can see outlined on the right hand side they outline the process that once a student students been identified in Step One those that's the multi-tiered systems of support that's the process students can go through to find um additional intervention in in the areas that they're identified a need Okay so this slide speaks to instructional technology um we have various Google tools and extensions that um can easily be added to any students um uh Chrome browser and most kids have a have their own device so it's it's very helpful so voice typing is something that we use um a lot and it's it's really just an accessibility tool for any student that has it in their Google Docs and read aloud is a text to speech extension that you can also add for free and it'll it's a screen reader so it'll read allowed to the students we also have a number of ebooks um that are available we have a subscription to Raz kids in K3 um we have mac and Via through our libraries we have Bookshare through our child study team and we also have epic which has books that read aloud to students and it's that's a free um uh site where you can just access uh books for kids so we're actually going to be looking at our instructional technology and we haven't spent a whole lot of time recently looking to see what's out there and what's new but I think going down the pike as we're ever evolving this is one of the areas we want to revisit and see what's out there um it's been a while since we've looked to see um but there's so much it's you know there's already a lot happening in the school so we're very proud of the work that we we've been able to do thus far so as I mentioned um we have been on the track to be dyslexia friendly since the get-go um this has been a a passion of ours from mandate to Mission um and we're a leader and a model for this District uh both Sherry and I have spoken at the decoding dyslexia um conferences uh both back five six years ago and then most recently um last May or June um when they asked us to come back and share the work that we've been doing our district uh a few years ago was tagged to write um an article about our work um for uh New Jersey family magazine um and we have um many folks who find actually find us on our website and have contacted me from out of the district to say I saw your name on the website tell me more about what you're doing what can I bring back to my district how what happens I I want to move there because of the work that you're doing you know what can you promise me well I can't promise you anything but I'm glad that you found us um we are committed to sending staff to conferences were appropriate for new learning whether it's the Ida conference um or uh other decoding dyslexia or other conferences that are about this learning we share webinars with them um and so we continue to keep our eye on the prize um with communicating and and knowing what's current and also making sure that we as a District uh are informed and aware the worst thing that anybody could do would be come and say do you know anything about dyslexia and a teacher or somebody would say I don't know anything about it we wouldn't want that to happen that's not being dyslexia friendly um so that's sort of in a nutshell about sort of this passion project um but uh it is certainly um a lot of work and a lot of um just points of Pride for us to know that um in New Jersey we are certainly a leader and that we continue to uh really um model what this could look like and when we share with other districts our personalized uh professional development and the fact that we keep being responsive to what the needs of our staff um they and parents um they are really impressed they just you know most districts are just doing a video webinar two hours you know check it off and it's stale and it's old and it's boring and we are never about that we're always saying what do our staff need we make it differentiated if you're more of an expert if you're new to the district so um we're in the middle or beginning of developing this year's training as well but um it's been impressive casting that wide net for our staff um K to 12 including Specialists has also enabled us to help people understand not only what's happening in their roles as a district but also in their roles as parents so I've had many staff members come to me and say like wow I'm really glad that even as a p teacher I was included in this conversation because I have a kid of my own who I think I'm worried about and you've given me some resources and things to think about so um we will take questions um if you have them hopefully we didn't overwhelm but we appreciate the opportunity to share our work excellent thank you is there any questions yes Mr Nathanson uh so at this point uh congratulations on the presentation was really nice thank uh at this point are there uh Delia type of books and materials that the kids can get in uh in the individual classrooms yeah so often times students struggle with decoding if if they're presenting with indicators of Dyslexia so we do have a decodable text available for instruction in K1 for sure and grade to if need be also in the instructional support world we have those books for kids um but audio books are an important component so it t it kind of takes away that hurdle of having to decode the words but they can listen to a story and watch and see the pictures flash on the screen so um the mac and via the RAS kids the Bookshare all of those online resources are an important piece um to provide access to books for the students and what happens uh during testing okay so during testing If the child has an IEP um then they will be permitted to have text to speech or speech to text whatever accommodation they need for testing so including a if they have a 5042 yeah okay thank you any other questions questions yes Dr Raj thank you uh so uh there is an initial assessment to determine uh whether a child is struggling whether a child has a dyslexia uh has the condition so will there be an assessment at a later point in time to see if the interventions are helping to see if the interventions are helping yeah yeah so yeah we do have progress monitoring um that happened prior to any type of you know formal diagnosis of Dyslexia so we do try and provide interventions for students in the tier one setting which is your general Leed classroom sometimes students are pulled out into a tier two setting which is your instructional support that's the smaller group instruction where they receive more targeted instruction um based on what their assessments are saying so the instructional support teacher does have a progress monitoring battery of Assessments tools that are aligned with the programs that they're using with the students to keep track to to monitor student progress over time and we have the whole SST prog process and Suzanne can speak to that thank you m g yeah thank you so much for a wonderful presentation I had just one question I saw on the presentation you had you speak sorry I need to speak louder okay soft voice you had on the presentation I think kindergarten grade one and then grade three to five right so uh if we have children who are in Middle School who are undetected or you know we don't know about them or in high school that have gone through elementary and middle school and with us but but we don't know that they have dyslexia do we have a program to identify those that group I um students in the middle school and high school are going to probably be coming up in their SST process as well um and identifying the tiers at those levels as as well so that while their screening and assessments aren't part like the kindergarten first grade and second graders um and even some of our older kids can come through our generic screening tools at the elementary level if they've made it to middle school and high school and they're still struggling they're probably being brought up in the SST process and then we're screening them um there um but certainly the goal is to match the intervention to the need so all the programs that um Sherry shared with you that were at the elementary um many of those programs can work at the middle school and high school too um Wilson is one of the programs so no matter where how old you are if you're um struggling with certain sounds and things like that you'll start at Wilson level one whether you're in high school or whether you're in you know first grade so we're matching those programs and interventions to the needs of the students since dyslexia is a spectrum disorder it varies for each child um what they'll need and the progress monitoring will help us know which program prrs are making the most difference for those um students but we are working uh our that's why our core team is a K12 team and we're working to make sure that the teachers uh specifically at middle school and high school are also trained because it doesn't it's not just about reading it really it will impact your ability to read a social studies text to get through uh an English you know a novel it will your a science passage you all of those things and so as I said before dyslexia Mass intelligence and intelligence Mass dyslexia so um it could be that they could get to middle school and have there be a slower reading rate or a slower um fluency rate or slower maybe more difficult to comprehend um and they look like they're doing fine and then the um the amount of text that they have to handle at some point becomes overwhelming right but at that level middle school and high school is probably going to enter through the SST process and then we'll go from we'll go from there okay you said SSD right yes the that's our student support team process um and that's a process where teachers um and staff can identify a student who's having an issue in a particular area identify a goal bring together uh appropriate interventionists and put a plan in place and monitor it as it's inter as it's implemented okay thank you so much any other questions yes M Hernandez the is this on is this going not that I need a mic um the SST is at your inrs team yes oh okay yes and then also so dyslexia it it is something that never goes away correct correct so what we do here is we give the kids different strategies on how they can advance themselves using these different strategies it's not like it's cured we just teach them how to move forward it correct so that's what we do we figure out on our SST slrs teams um and then go forward with that if need be go to a fiber 4 or an IEP yeah and I think one of the things that we are really we proud ourselves on is because this is a a spectrum learning difference some students um will get interventions in general education in tier one or tier two and be totally fine with how they're engaging in their learning some students um may need a 504 um and with some accommodations text speech or extended time for reading be fine and able to access the education and some students may need an IEP which will give them accommodations and modifications in the curriculum with um even more specific strategic intervention um and you know it what we're really trying to do is make sure that what the interventions and the help is matches where the student is and it's it's you know um I'll go back to the intelligence piece because many of these students are so gifted um it we want to make sure that they still have access to the highest level of rigor with also with the accommodations they might need to access the education right and so um it can be in general education it can be in special education um not everyone is the same and we've even implemented for a very small amount of students um what we've created is called a dyslexia action plan so once they go through the inrs process our student support team process and we've already identified what we think what we know is working for them for a very small amount of students we say because dyslexia doesn't go away it's not a disease to be cured of um we say this is what this student needs these are the protocols that are working for this student they do have dyslexia next teacher make sure you understand what this child needs so we're not Reinventing the wheel each year with a new goal a new plan we know what's working we will revisit that annually just to make as a student gets older they'll have new strengths right to bring to the table but um it's something that we've added into our SST process um and managed by our interventionists to say that once we know what's happening specifically with this child we don't have to keep Reinventing the interventions I I would think this would go on any level not just in your little pocket of you know uh the the sleia but any whether they're just in a regular ed class or have a 504 or an IP or nothing that whatever accommodations that the team has come up with follow them throughout right and that does happen it happens more readily with if you have a 504 and I AP it's more readily along with and the SST work is also passed along so but in this very Niche you know couple of kiddos where we F say like we know exactly what's happening we know what this child needs we figured it out we don't have to keep going back every six weeks to say what is the process we have the dyslexia action plan as well and the and the action plan also identifies both the struggles and the strengths okay thank you any other questions I just have a couple um how does H how does this impact uh students when they have to deal with njsla and I know that Suzanne and Scott are going to talk about that but I mean if they're considered an IEP how do we manage that if they're having difficulty reading when they're doing uh standardized testing yeah if if they have an IEP uh or a 504 written into those plans are accommodations it's an accommodation so that's whether it's speech to text or text to speech or um ascribe or uh some directions right aloud there's lots of things that can be put into the plans for them um if there a student uh in uh with a dyslexia action plan or just that we're giving General accommodations to in the um we really need to make sure if if they have something that needs to be done repeatedly if they needing extended time they're needing speech to Texs all those things and there and those are things that H are working then we're going to need to do something more formal and for njsla you'll have to have a more formal plan they can't just um within the oh my goodness Within talking with your hands um within the context of the elementary World um we try to do figure out what our best practice is and what's really working before we formalize something like that and we can do that we have the gift to say we can give them a little extra time and also just um for English language Learners do you find that they also have um reading dyslexia yes so that's complicated that you don't have to go into detail but I'm just curious but so dyslexia exists in every language right and um what is ult I think sometimes is for us to know what is just uh learning a um a new language and what is really difficulty with manipulating language and so sometimes that gets um a little bit messy how much more time do we give them but there it is in asking the questions both to the family and looking at their previous records you know do they have difficulty in their native language right and so it's in the research a little bit and asking those questions the other piece I think that's significant here um is that dis Lexia is hereditary and so asking the questions to our youngest families as they register is um you know are there any reading issues in your family um you know anything you want to tell us about having said that um my son was diagnosed when he was in second grade as he was diagnosed I diagnosed my husband and his father and if you would ask me when I registered my child if I had any reading issues in my family I would have said no I didn't know at that time so um but it is hereditary and it does um it's likely that more than some a spectrum somebody else has it right wonderful well we know why we're still Lighthouse District because we have you guys in charge thank you so much any other questions before we end it thank you so much we really appreciate the [Applause] presentation all right okay next um order of business is um Mr feder and miss Suzanne lebor up to the podium for a presentation on District goals and assessment results members of the board you will received the presentation earlier this week if you can access it if not you feel free if you want to sit in the front row we'll be looking at our computers for those that are wondering what we're looking at yes some of the slides are a little bigger when you look on your laptop so good evening everyone annually as part of our qack and state monitoring we are required to publicly present out on our spring battery of Assessments to our public so that is what we are doing here this evening these are tests that were administered during the previous school year so a few of the initial slides are really just to orient us and remind us about our mission and our vision here in South Brunswick just focusing in on that mission ignite your passion nurture your potential and embrace your future we have core values that guide our work and those values include an emphasis on Equity Partnerships and Innovation this chart just helps to remind everybody how much State Testing occurs over the course of a school year believe it or not at this moment my department is preparing student Dem graphic data to upload to the state to ready for assessments that will happen later this spring so it is a yearr round task in our buildings our students who are multilingual Learners participate in the access assessment those are students that are learning a second language and have entered into our program that is an assessment for all grades students who participate in the dynamic learning map assessment is a very small percentage of our population and you'll see some information on how both of these groups performed the njsla which you heard Lisa reference when she was asking about accommodations for students with dyslexia just a few moments ago the new J New Jersey student learning assessment um is testing our students in ela English language arts and Mathematics you can see from this chart grades three through nine um that has shifted some over the years but third through nth grade particip in that assessment njsla science is a component administered in three different grade levels 58 and 11 kind of at those capstones and it measures the science instruction and their knowledge and then newer on the horizon is the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment and if you tuned into to one of the board meetings in the summer Jamie Bower had provided information she helps manage our assessments um the students um we reported out results at that time because when you receive the results you have 60 days to report those out so we reported that in the summer so it won't be part of tonight's report although we are preparing um we had students retest in October so we will have some information on that coming shortly so I think it's important just to highlight that with any standardized testing there are definitely some analytic challenges that we face um so it's a single point of data it's that moment in time the state scores are not always provided for us to be able to compare ourself to how South Brunswick is in comparison to the state of New Jersey and for that matter other districts or other like districts and most importantly you will see tonight slides that show you how we did did on the njsla in those grade levels Ela and Mathematics and Science in comparison to the state but we are also required to report on our subgroups and when we report tonight on the subgroups you will notice we have no State comparison yet it's not made available um one of the other pieces of our analytics of late is we are still um rebounding from the impact of covid when you think about the impact that had on our students learning virtually hybrid and then returning we know that that has had an impact um and then the the last Point um our special education students have been identified to have struggles in various areas they may learn differently they are assessed the same way at the same grade level standard when you are found to be eligible for special education students there is often a discrepancy that you are functioning two or more grade levels below when they sit for the njsla they are tested on the grade level that it says in the student information system so the waeda access for Ells test is given begins somewhere around February it's usually around President's Day it's administered by Tom Decker who over has oversight he is our supervisor of World Language and the elll program he works with his English language learner teachers throughout the district um they set up the schedule and they assess students during their regular instructional block um our students in kindergarten are assessed oneon-one our students in grades 1 through 12 are assessed online grade 1 through three also has a written component not all online there are many domains I keep looking at Laura because I know what you do for a living um they are assessed in multiple domains um um Reading Writing listening oral language comprehension um I'm reporting out tonight on their overall composite score um and so I think it's just helpful to let our popula our our public who's watching and those in the audience know what our enrollment looks like within our system how many students participate in this assessment so if you look up on the chart here you'll see that I've provided you two years worth of data the tested year which was last year and the year before that you can see that um we we remain pretty consistent in the K2 about 170 students um you will see in the last year we had an increase of 30 students in that grade level band of third fourth and fifth grade um 68 remained pretty much the same and we saw a little bit of decrease in our high school and that really just is when students are entering found eligible um for those interventions this chart is a 2-year comparison for you the blue represents the 2122 school year and the gold represents the 2223 school year the way that I've presented the information here is that you can see bands the bands at the bottom represent that overall composite score on those elements that are are measured on this assessment um 1 to 1.9 is this emerging level of language and and when um or of the English language I should say and when you look to the far right of the chart the four five and Beyond is what is needed to exit the program I think what I would like the public to understand is that elll students are really one of our more transient populations when they enter the system at any point in the year if they are here when we test they test so if they enroll role in December January they test in in February and like the rest of their cohort um one of the other things that's of note with this assessment is it's given when we've had roughly five months of instruction and there's still five more months of instruction to go um the program is delivered in pullout Services um for K through five and in grades 6 through 12 it's an actual course that the students have as part of their regular schedule the other thing to note is that our students May remain in the program for multiple years we know that it takes several years to acquire the full English language when you're coming from a different country and sometimes it it's based on the the age you are when you arrive to the states it's also based on the language your dominant language and that transference into English how those sounds that you heard jod talking about and the phic awareness how that is um translated so I think that this illustrates that we know we are working with our students to move them through that progression it's very individualized and customized for the Learners in this program the next group is our Dynamic learning map it's an assessment for our special education students but a very small percentage are eligible for this assessment and it's based on need um and it's when the njsla is not the most appropriate measure for students but we we are restricted with how with the percentage that we can put forward to take this assessment this is managed within our special education department um last year Megan plumber was the supervisor who had oversight of this um this year it will be Jackie mccardy and these um the supervisor works with the teachers to train them they administer the assessment over a period of time score and submit those results and so they are also tested in English language arts mathematics and science if that's their grade level at the time so you can see that the number of students that participate in this are is is a smaller set um so what's about 50 60 students taking that you can see that there are four ranges here from emerging to Advanced the at Target which is in gold and the green Advanced is where we want to see our students moving towards you can see some are at that emerging and this combines all of the grade levels while not required to report out on the the AP testing or the SAT data we we find it important to share and represent the high school and and the things that are happening up at that level um I think cause for celebration or acknowledgement to the staff at the high school working with our students in those advanced placement courses um South Brunswick as you may have read in previous communication received a platinum uh distinction for our college credit which represents the percentage of the graduating class that scored a three or higher on the AP exam the platinum and college optimization is the percentage of students who took five or more AP exams in high school and at least one of those was taken during their n9th or 10th grade year and the silver honor role silver in College culture is the percentage of that graduating class that took one or more exams during high school and as you see in later slides that's really a point of pride in increasing the number of students that are taking those advanced level courses so to begin with the SAT uh this year we chose to add um the national class average on Sat to give perspective um three years worth are represented here the way we read the chart is the date given for the class of 2021 the gold represents South Brunswick you notice the gold theme the blue blue is New Jersey and then that gray or the lighter blue is the national you can see in each of these areas that um our overall average exceeds New Jersey and the national you could see that same Trend continues for our the the literacy the reading the language arts component um and the mathematics and really if you look at it over time 2021 was kind of still that tail end of covid and you can see that that performance Still Remains consistent in how our students are performing so the AP program we have a really rich AP program and a and a variety of offerings in our high school when I when I talk with friends that have students in other districts just to hear how many are offered and the opportunity at our high school is really EX exceptional this uh assessment has moved also to online uh Mr ran at the high school managed this manages this with his high school teams and the teachers of those tested courses um one of the things that I would highlight here is the way that you're going to read the next few charts is you'll see a participation rate for 2022 which is on the left and the current year 2023 is in the gold you could see that we tested a few more students in the 2023 school year you can see that we had an increase in the number of freshmen taking AP tests you can see more than half of our Juniors and seniors participate in an AP exam at least one and you can also see the number of exams administered um more students took few less exams administered but you will see that our Junior and senior participation rate remained over 50 % the next chart here explains the exam frequency and performance what we chose to capture here is some of the assessments that were given with with the greatest frequency you can see 2022 on the left and 2023 on the right um You can see that this past year 255 students took statistic statistics with an 89% pass rate if you compare that to the previous year we're only 214 students so we increased the number of students taking that course and actually maintained and did even better in the passing rate end of note the overall pass rate for our AP exams were for all exams was 89% this year sometimes we're curious about some of the tests that are offered so we've categorized them here you see the mathematics and computer science you can see that totally the total number we had 709 tests administered in 2022 and we increased that to 8113 in the past school year we have those science tests listed below the biology 111 students with a 98% pass rate chemistry 106 with a 98% pass rate you could see we had an increase in the number of students that sat for the environmental science exam again with a a good pass rate shows you our English few years back we had an emphasis and focus on increasing the number of students in those classes we made some some adjustments to our prerequisites I would say that over time we are watching for a trend of increased participation we want to see more students enrolling in taking those classes and also finding success meaning that we've either maintained that same percentage of passing or we've increased that percentage of passing let me just show an example just make sure so just a real quick example if you look at the macroeconomics so um in macroeconomics you had 172 take it last year with a 68% Inc you know great generally speaking if you increase the number of students who take it without an increase in your total population right so our number of students in Junior and senior have reduced right we've gone down so when you look and say well we've had a a reduction in macroeconomics for example uh few less kids took it they had a massive increase in their pass rate right that should be expected if you have less kids taking it you would have a higher rate what you want want to see that's beautiful when you see it is microeconomics in microeconomics when there was 160 students you had a 78% pass rate the next year you had more students in a smaller n of available students and they really outperformed the year prior so when you see an increase in participation and an increase in score that's always the goal the one variable that sits in all of our scores related to this is the whole n is reduced so seeing a slight reduction would be normal the other part you have different kids that do different things and so you can see for example there two students that took Chinese in the 2022 they weren't even our they weren't even they didn't take Chinese in our school but we got credit for them so we're glad they did well um this is just the way it works sometimes you're looking and Suzanne talked about Trends over time so next year what you're going to see is 22 23 24 right but the postco year kind of a wash out of a year to see it all so we're going 22 23 next year you'll see the exact same two slides with 24's version so we can continue to track it in a postco era so that transitions us to the results of the spring njsla the slides that you'll see tonight we prepared by um we we subscribed to a new data warehouse this school year the board did approve us moving from performance matters to linkit um linkit has been very helpful in in a number of things first of all working with our supervisors at the elementary and middle school level to have assessment ments created in there to collect the data when you heard Sher and jod talking about some of those Universal screening components they live in linkit so it's a very powerful system but they also helped us in creating some of the slides that you're going to see this evening so the presentation from past years may look a little different than what you've seen in the past with some of the charts and graphs so I'll Orient you to those now so we'll begin with our English language arts this chart repres presents all of the students in South Brunswick who participated in this test it shows us our students in grade 3 through 9 um one of the things I I would point out here is that this is um ninth grade is the only year that the ELA njsla is administered years ago we used to test our nth grade 10th grade 11 so we are only testing our nth grade we're meeting a federal requirement to do so to offer a test to our students in the high school so that's why you see it only going up to grade nine remember our 11th graders take the New Jersey graduation test and that's also in March um you can see the number of students that were tested in that second column and the way we receive our results about njsla is in five categories level one is not meeting expectations level two is partially meeting three is approaching those three categories are still not at the grade level Benchmark and then the meeting and exceeding r one of the things I think is important to highlight is that South Brunswick um continues to exceed the New Jersey scores and the percentage of students that are proficient um I think what's important to note is when we get get those results that's information for us our goal is always going to be to key in to who the students are at level one two and three and what is it on those assessments that might be hindering them reaching that next level band the English language arts assessment is online it requires students to read several different types of texts it requires them to defend their answers it requires them to write essays which are also scored when we get the information we have the ability with our teaching staff and supervisors to do two things one of the things we do is we look at students that are not meeting the expectations impartially and we look to see what we can be doing to differentiate their instructional program and our supervisors use this information when they receive a different report that highlights the standards that were assessed were able to look at the standards and determine how did South Brunswick fa on those standards in comparison to the state this is the mathematics and again our students in 3rd through 8th take their grade level mathematics assessment we are required to administer to high school students at least one math the algebra 1 geometry or Algebra 2 when they enter there the reason we're still giving Al geometry and Algebra 2 in high school or the reason we do administer that is that some of our students take Algebra 1 in the middle school and they need a requirement to sit for an njsla math at the high school level so one of the things I would note on this slide is that grades seven and eight is when we start to see some of that tracking where students are taking more advanced math classes such as the algebra one and geometry so the N 8th grade I think that number says 241 students took that test the students that are taking that test in grade the grade level 8 test are not always the strongest math students they're students that need a little more more time to strengthen those foundations on those Concepts so just just look at that for a second so in eth grade just so really clear all the rest of the students who are in eth grade are taking a more advanced level mathematics at the same time so when you look at eighth grade math it's a third about a third little less than a little more than a third of our students are in that that means the other 2third of the students are advanced level mathematics either by one year or two years okay then now look at the scores in comparison to the state on that column of 8th grade you're looking at numbers that are very close to the state now that that phenomenon happens in many districts but not all districts you should see a very significant dip once in this District you get to eighth grade but in our district more so than the state you're also seeing the dip in seventh grade because we start that heavier push in seventh grade more so our seventh graders we have that number is 485 out of possibly a probably around 650 is those other 170 kids or so are are taking algebra or geometry even at that point so that's why that seventh grade which still significantly outperforms the state yes but look at the difference between 3 through six how much different the State numbers to the South Brunswick numbers are in seventh grade it brings it back to a normal in eighth grade it's still almost the same then you have to get into the other grades which I'll hand it back over to suan for now but it's a it's an interesting thing when you look at mathematics and um if you don't look at it with the the the knowledgeable eye you would go whoa what happens in eth grade why are these kids all of a sudden not good to math anymore what happens well that isn't what's happening so we have two more slides that will come later that's show you the math breakdown by grade level the jsla science uses a different metric for how it measures um performance so we have a level one which is the minimal competency up to a level four which is Advanced so three and four on this screen would represent um meeting that standard and Scott these are the two math slides all right so what what we're working on here is a more in-depth analysis of what happens with our students in comparison to this test and it's it's a very tricky scenario when you look at our scores compared to the state scores it's kind of doesn't make any sense to us sometimes so we actually talked with the experts on this topic and we had a meeting with them because we just weren't getting it and what the issue is not every school in the state tests all the students in the same way in other words you heard Suzanne say that we have um students who are even in eth grade who are taking taking geometry two years ahead right so the problem is when they get to the next grade they still have to take a test but the test they're going to take is they Next Level math so they're taking Algebra 2 test as a ninth grader the rest of the state doesn't really have much of that happening so when you try to compare apples to apples it just doesn't work they're not testing those kids the kids that are testing in so Algebra 2 for example is an 11th grade test for the most part that's your standard you take Algebra 2 and 11th you take geometry and 10th take Algebra 1 and 9th we don't do that for the most part the majority of our kids are taking Algebra 1 before they leave middle school and that is completely skewing the results when you compare us to the state it's just a bizarre occurrence that Suzanne and I were looking at this everyone's with us we're like why do our kids completely stink at math in Middle School in the high school what happens they're great and then all of a sudden they just can't do math anymore makes no sense we were so happy when someone explained that it wasn't a South Brunswick issue it was the way the state calculates the scores based upon every other school making their own decisions our kids are very advanced in mathematics and compared to the average in the state and therefore that is skewing the results of when you compare us to that with that said with that said we still want higher scores we now need to look and Suzanne touched upon this what is it about what we're doing versus what the test is asking that is not yielding different outcomes right because it isn't all of a sudden that the kids are not as good as they were the year that makes no sense it could be something we're doing that we have to identify um but we have to figure this out I don't usually care about these scores I really I really don't get too much into this because of the variables we can't control however however the state of New Jersey has decided in its Infinite Wisdom that they're now going to start telling districts whether or not you are meeting a fabricated standard and I say the word fabricated not by accident they created a scenario where every district has a different standard similar to like the um funding formula so then they're saying if you don't meet a certain number your District only we're going to tell you you're not meeting the standard what happens then if they tell us that is they're going to make us send letters home to our community saying you're not meeting the standards and that's just a bad thing when it has nothing to do with how our kids are actually performing but some arbitrary scenario the state has decided upon in its Infinite Wisdom what that tells us though is we can't not care about the testing it does have an impact now if they're going to start doing this which they haven't been doing they just started last year I think and now it's it's all over so we have to do a little bit more with the caring of this but if you look at that for a minute look at the eighth look at that that's high school look at Algebra 1 Algebra 1 one according to that document only has 2 what 49 I do it fast 59 259 259 I think 259 students where are the rest of the students in Algebra 1 does anyone know no they're in middle school they're not on the list you're strongest math students are not in the calculation so if you compared us to the state by grade we would look awful and if the state is going to make those decisions we're going to look awful we're trying to figure this out right now we can't fix that we're not going to fix that we're not going to have kids not take a class so they look better on a state report but when you look at our ninth grade algebra kids 200 8 that's less than a third of the students in a in that in in um of our algebra students so the majority of our students are taking it in either seventh or eighth grade so you can't use these numbers because it looks like wow why do we have no kids in algebra exceeding expectation that's awful that's horrible well because all the students that are already super strong in math are not here they're in the middle school math score ing since they've created this has been a mess and for those of you that have been on the board long enough you've heard me do this exact same statement in the same way the only difference this year is whether or not we're going to be dealing with the state of New Jersey issuing letters saying you're not meeting a standard which may or may not have something to do with our student performance to be honest with you we're trying to figure out now internally what is real what is Memorex and for those of you old enough you might remember that um correct so we also do the summer Institute is what sm's question was and those kids are they're not they're not here so so it's very hard to do the math and use the states numbers to give a real full picture it's very difficult because we don't do it the way the state wants to calculate it and I'm okay with that as long as they don't hold us against hold it against us for doing like stronger than the state so just Laura you have so where are the scores for our middle schools that are taking the algebra where those kids so they're there they're just not on this page what I'm saying okay when you look at a page that shows the high school math scores and you look at the algebra to Algebra 2 mhm we don't look great because all of the the kids that have already taken it are not on the list so there's all of your algebra kids right the reason the states numbers why we don't why we're not a lot further on than the state's numbers has to do with the other districts and how they're doing this all I'm saying is without getting too deep I'm already waiting to the weeds is the variables of reporting out on mathematics after grade six is problematic to get Apples to Apples across the so just keep that in mind it's a very difficult scenario and the more advanced your students are the more challenging right it is so that's just that and I'll flip it back over same with algebra 2 so I mean yeah it's Algebra 2 generally starts in nth but we do have some kids in eth you can see one one second Roger you can see 84% of our a third of our kids are meter exceeding Algebra 2 those are the kids in ninth grade the kids who are still has not t have not taken Algebra 2 yet by 11th grade obviously struggle more with mathematic Concepts doesn't make them bad it just is the reality of different kids different you know that's the way it works so you're always going to see that but if we tried to show you the grade level to the state it would be another nightmare to try and do a comparison so Roga go ahead how is the state using this information and is it going to reflect anywhere on us so our fear right now is the answer is they're using it in a way to create metrics in in language arts it might work better in mathematics we don't know if it's problematic yet we don't know we're just starting to look at that just we just got it last week a whole you know massive amount of data we have to go through we don't know if it's problematic yet for math we don't know what we do know is the their their the way they've created Benchmark meets is based upon I'm not sure where they when they based it upon it was based upon a score I think it was a fiveyear score average do do you know either of you remember soet yeah they just reset it so they reset it postco which is also another problem so we're trying I can't answer fully yet the question you ask is how will it impact us with that information I don't know that yet do you think that the criterias is not adequate to give a better picture across the board when you see a when you see an assessment and you get results you're going to you're going to probably make a hunch as to why your results are the way your results are and then your job with any kind of hypothesis is to test your hypothesis right test it see if that hypothesis holds true or not if not go to your next one to try and figure this out it's very difficult when we don't get the tests to evaluate the tests we we don't have these tests so we're not we don't we're not allowed to have them so we get samples we get standards but we don't get the tests so there's all kinds of challenges with standardized testing the problem now is if the state's going to use it to zap districts yeah I don't know yet last question is there any other District Who falls like like what's happening here so no other District it's not like the state doesn't give us that we have to go mining meaning we're looking for information it's not easy to get it's a challenge to get we also don't know what variables that district is dealing with so you're always going to have a hard time doing Apples to Apples however with that said the larger the set of data the better the results to for comparisons so if we were able to do like let's say 30 districts that look just like us in a similar demographic to us and we looked at all of those data together that might help us but looking at just one at a time that's tougher but the the state doesn't provide that cleanly so we have to dig so in the process actually Suzanne I think it was it was say Thursday Tuesday or Monday started the digging process and then she said she wasn't coming to work anymore it's just it's a very very very tedious but we're trying to answer those questions same questions you had Raja we're trying to do the exact same thing right now thank you yep Scott on slide 21 I had a question so what you explained just now was mixing the grade grade level and the sub what slide is that 21 yeah that doesn't I don't have a number yeah AR the title is uh 2023 spring njsla mathematics okay you go yeah that's one yeah so the last three rows that you have there is just purely based on the on the subject not mixing the grade levels right so those three rows correct me if I'm wrong are the true measure of our Performance Based on just the subject level so for example in Algebra 1 I may have a seventh grader I have a ninth grader or I may have a 10th grader taking that subject right yes the the number that is accurate is the district number the district the district number is the real number what I'm saying is you cannot compare it to the state number fairly because of the way the state is collecting the data not everyone is testing the same students in their District if you're not testing the strongest or you're testing only the weakest it's going to dilute the data we were told that is what's happening on the state data to use it in comparison to US once you start getting to 7th grade and up is very tricky to do with that said the district data for example Algebra 1 57% of our kids are metor exceeding which means 43% are not that should be the target for us not the comparison to the state is my point fair point so I'm saying for us to measure how we are doing internally those would be the true measures rather than mixing up except you can't measure one number to no comparative number because because of the reason I know I'm getting way too technical that's fine if if if if I created a test I was a fifth and sixth grade teacher if I created a fifth grade test social studies question and I saw got the test back remember this in college you might remember that you you get your college results what does the teacher do they curved the test why did they curve the test shouldn't the test be an accurate accounting of what was taught to be learned why would it ever have to be curved because they've learned something about their test we can't necessarily do that if we're the only ones looking at our own numbers if West Windor is looking at its numbers if we can't compare it's very difficult to say well I don't know if the test questions were the problem I don't know I'd have to hypothesize and then try to get the answer which I would not necessarily be able to get so we use State as a a way but if all things are equal like it is in third grade and fourth grade and fifth grade then at least we can say all third graders in the state took third grade math therefore we can look at that and say okay well we have 67% of our third graders versus 46% of the state that's something we can say okay that's good but once you get after sixth grade is all I'm saying after sixth grade can't do that anymore in math you can in ela sorry for that I don't understand say that if I mean in terms of the subject performance the subject performance those three rows gives me an indication of how are students are doing in terms of not meeting expectations meeting expectations or exceeding expectations regardless of grade very basic level at a very only thank you only at a very basic level because if there's something wrong with the test or the whole world fail the whole world missed questions 2 N and 12 because the questions were bad I don't know that yes and our supervisors will use a standards report in Algebra 1 just use that example they will use a standards report and be able to look at how South Brunswick students did on a standard in comparison to the state and see if we were at or above the the state performance so that is where some of the curriculum work and the pacing and our our program can be looked at um more so than just those individual students scores okay so let me just walk you through there's three slides that will show us us how our subgroups performed in ela Math and Science um the subgroups that were pulled out for this report are on the far left is um students that have been identified upon registration as Asian the next one over is our black Hispanic multiple race which they've identified at the point of registration or our white population you can see that the shades of green are the percentages of students meeting or exceeding that standard that gold is those that are approaching um what I would what I would draw your attention to is where we see higher percentages of the red and the orange that means that the students have not yet approached that grade level standard and and that's where the focus of our work needs to be remember on the earlier slide when I said I want we want as a district to see our students move between levels to continue to get closer to that level four or that level five the level ones and twos are where we need to concentrate our efforts and you can see that this is true on the ELA true thank you Evelyn yeah the the gold those that have approached are what you don't know from that slide is are they missing one question or are they missing a ton of questions right did they just move to approached so just oops you can see a district strength Even in our subgroups in the ELA doesn't look the same in math this one's read the same way and then I'll show you science because that one is those four bands and that again is too much read of our students not showing that movement one more you want so U we talk about people say why would you focus on the term equity why why do you do that and then um you know people talk about rankings and all those all those things you'll never move a district up without moving up from the bottom you won't the high are high you have to move up from the bottom you have to Target students that struggle and get them stronger your El students special education students your social economically disadvantaged students historically marginalized students need differently period if you don't do that and we don't Focus attention there doesn't mean we don't have to focus on every kid but if you don't do that work you'll never move the full aggregate up just the nature of math you just hit on something that I was going to ask um just talking to some Co other boards across the state that have been doing stuff like this or presenting this one of one District um actually separated and broke out those three cohorts that you just mentioned the economically disadvantaged IEP and El based on what we just heard before they're taking those njsla tests so one of the things that they're doing in another district and of I'm not saying you haven't done it yet you may have done this already just haven't presented um is to actually separate that completely out and show the distribution let's just use science for a moment um Asian black Hispanic multiple and white without economically disadvantage without um ep e um IEP and elll then you're showing in a sense Apples to Apples but we're still focusing on those cohort right we're still saying well let's look at where those individuals stand economically disadvantaged to um those that are not so what you need though just so you understand if you're the only one doing that right you have nothing to compare it to I understand that however if we are looking at let's use science in those five subgroups if I took out those um Co cohorts and I said I want to see um non elll non Ed non will that change those numbers will those change those graphs and one district has done it and forgive me I just can't remember who it is um and you see the difference you see that the um the achievement levels the distribution by achievement in all grades shifts that you actually see a higher percentage in black Hispanic white um and multiple in comparison so I'm just asking and maybe this this is not for here but maybe we could talk about it more at one of the Ed committee the education committees is to say let's look at taking those out and comparing it and seeing if it's any different maybe if it's just with science just with one of them to see if it's different but still using the data to help those three other groups right economically disadvantaged IEP and maybe utilize that information going out to the community and saying here's what we we could do here's what we could do for you here's what we can work how how to have a conversation around improving those do you see where I'm going am I am I making sense to you no but what I'll do instead of actually answering that question in full right now we will move it off of tonight yeah AB that's what my I have a tremendous amount to say about that yeah I don't think you'd want me to necessar I'm sure I'm not but it's an idea that I've seen so I just want to throw it out there there was a reason why you might do that and there's a real danger right to doing what you just described I understand but in any case we can bring that up at the next okay next meeting I appreciate it thank you so so in addition to sharing the data one of the things we need to do is make sure that we shared with our public um some of the things that we're doing to work with our students so the students in the red and the yellow the level ones levels to the multilangual Learners our special education population so not going to read everything on the slides here but I'm showing you some of the programs that we currently have in place and some of the strategies that we use to support our Learners um one point of Pride I would say we don't yet see the benefits in the these tested grades would be getting full day preschool getting three and four year olds into the school learning environment as soon as possible so the hope is a few years from now when those students who have been with us in our inaugural class make it to those third and fourth grades what does it look like for them the other thing I would say is that we've supported as a district you heard them talk during the dyslexia presentation the ready to rise summer program very phonic space based the K1 foundations implementation at the middle school through the Esser grants we have additional instructional support teachers supporting at the middle school four to five of them funded through that Grant currently and also the summer program that is offered at the high school for students that need additional support with their academics this just remind you that we are f focused on individuals and individualized and targeted interventions for students um program opportunities one size does not fit all we need to be able to afford our students that learn differently with different programs and different strategies to meet those needs um whenever we make a decision on a program we are we make sure that it is a deliberate decision and that we are able to sustain and support and now just to kind of bring it home um some of the work that we do as a district you know is stems from goals that we have it it guides our work and so we would we we are sharing this tonight what I want to say is that we hope that before we start the next school year you see these goals a little bit earlier than now but we've always married it with our achievement so we're now sharing the goals but I don't think there are any surprises for anybody that has been reading um our school newsletters and District newsletters so three goals that we're focusing on the equity and social emotional learning safety security and of course as you know in this upcoming year fiscal I'll just let you read that goal it's kind of where our theme of equity becomes with me comes from that last sentence goals will Target one or more subgroups of the district include relevant data and follow the smart goal format specific measurable attainable realistic and and targeted and one of the things I would say is when you heard Scott say that the district is only as good as when we move those students from the bottom upwards that's what that's designed to do these are some of the action steps we have I think just the summary of this is that Scott set our goals with the leadership team for the district which filtered down to the building level leadership creating goals which filtered down to the supervisors creating goals and teachers just recently submitted their own professional growth goals for the upcoming year all connected and moving in the same direction on behalf of students Safety and Security is still continuing to be something at the Forefront for us we are very fortunate to have Jim Conroy working with us in his Capac capacity guiding Us in staying current there are three highlights for the upcoming year we started the work with our reunification teams last year the families will receive communication within the next couple of weeks about the district and school threat assessment teams it is required that each school have one and with that communication will be how families can report a possible threat so that is another one of um it's a requirement per the state but we will be moving forward with that and we've also as you approach some of our school schools you may or may not have noticed we have new um door swipes and security features that are in place and then finally this is um the fiscal responsibility of our upcoming school year you can read that but Scott mentioned in his superintendent report early on about the advocacy committee um feedback will be coming to um our public our parents to help us prioritize some of our areas regarding programs and services the Boe finance committee is going to continue to meet and look at that stakeholder feedback and then the goal is that adopted balanced budget that we need to submit at the end um per the state timelines later this year and that concludes our presentation I know that we took questions and comments during I do see that Laura has her hand raised Laura it's just a quick one can we do we have access to the goals like you're looking at the equity and goals um like the building goals could could we have access to that so we could see the goals we can share those out okay they live in multiple places right now so we we could gather it okay very so uh very good presentation by the way thank you uh the the I've been reading some stuff and it was brought up at one of my meetings at at New Jersey school boards too uh that there is some settlement that the uh use of this test for graduation is supposed to go away uh is there uh is there anything moving forward with that because they made it sound like that was it coming across this year so but I haven't seen anything so the NJ NJ GPA is what you're referring to that's the one that all Juniors must take and um this would be the year that it's needed for the graduation requirement yeah okay and we have not heard otherwise in fact we are receiving all of the preparation to put that in place for the upcoming school year actually I could just make a comment on that um I was going to make a comment at the end of the the meeting but uh November 30th is a Lobby day in Trenton um if anybody would like to join me um we there's save our schools and some other um districts are going to be going um we're meeting at 9:00 a.m. at the State House to Lobby legislation to eliminate the high school exit testing that is November 30th if you'd like to join us um I don't have all the information yet but we are pushing to get rid of it because you could see how much testing is being done the purpose of an 11th grade test to me personally my personal opinion is ridiculous so hopefully we can get rid of it well we said what they were bringing up is that they were looking at that they didn't have to do it in the legislature that actually the but it's doe was going to make take it away and still has we got to get to the we have to get to the Senate and to the assembly to push through um uh I know that there are several senators and I believe Senator we I believe don't quote me is actually pushing to eliminate it which surprised us um but I do believe that it does have to go through the legislature that's why we're all meeting on the 30th to lobby and that note is is I've read stuff by her it's because where she's you know she's from the New York area and it and it affects exactly one of the reasons those type of kids one of the reasons so hopefully if anybody wants to join please email me and I'll be more than happy to help it provide some information on it any other questions no thank you this was excellent thank you so much um the next order of business is the first reading of the policies by Miss Deepa carthic chair of the policy committee however um are do you want you have to make a motion you have to make a motion you got to make a motion I move to recess okay we have a motion to recess for five not recess a break for five minutes we need a um Health break it's up to the board um anybody second and then we'll vote second we have a second do we have a um approval all in favor to break for five minutes yep five any Nays all right we have five minutes because it's late 5 minute break e e e e e e e e e e e e e I have a motion to reopen the meeting who is that Mr Mr Mitchell Mr Mitchell Miss Hernandez second all in favor I all right moving on we are going to have the next order of business is um Miss DEA caric chair of policy committee regarding the first reading of the policy thank you madam president uh the policy committee met today evening uh right before the board meeting in attendance was uh Miss Alisha Khan Madame President uh myself and Mike Mitchell uh Dave fosi and our superintendent Mr feda uh we had the first reading of these 10 policies I'm going to quickly read them out the policy 2270 religion in school policy 3161 Examination for cause policy 4161 Examination for cause policy IC 3212 attendance policy 4212 attendance policy 3324 right for right of privacy policy 324 right of privacy policy sorry 432 432 4324 4324 right of privacy policy 51 eligibility of Resident SL non-resident students policy 5116 education of homeless children and youth and policy 8 8500 Food Services I'll have a more comprehensive report uh for the for the board in our next meeting the policies will be on second read so please review the policies before the second read so you have any questions you can bring them up at the next board meeting before we vote on the next the following um the following meeting any questions for Miss caric nope all right moving on Miss carthic did advise that we have a policy committee uh meeting be prior to this meeting um any other comments on that we can move on if you don't no comments okay very good and the education committee um if you can please uh provide a report uh we did not uh meet uh we did not have a meeting uh in October so we'll be meeting uh in uh later this month uh so I don't have any reports for now good business operations any report no I do not we haven't met uh there should be a meeting coming up prior to the next meeting any finance committee report uh no report we haven't met but we are scheduled for meeting on November 28th very good and is there any liaison reports any comments or reports liaison I'll wait for Mr Mitchell I'm trying to pull it up now that's all right that's I um was able to attend the um well first I want to say congratulations to the class of 2024 uh on a very successful craft fair uh last Saturday um to benefit Project Graduation things ran quite smoothly um and the attentive and the attentiveness and concern our student volunteers showed uh towards the vendors was most commendable uh one of the mo one of the vendors was so impressed by our young people that she emphasized to me please give them a shout out and so that's that's what I'm doing tonight that's not the high school is not my liaison school but I felt I needed to share that with the entire board and Community um so I I thank them for that I thank the uh parent volunteers and the advisers for U putting this together uh it was my first time going and I even bought some things I didn't plan on it but I bought some things you know and uh I appreciate what the the work that was put into it very good Mr Nathan yeah just real quick uh I was able to attend the uh the township uh Veterans Day ceremony at the municipal building and the reason I brought it up is uh our band was there uh who normally come uh it's an annual thing and they did there uh it was what was Unreal was is the parents uh the parents actually drove them the bus drove their their equipment but the parents drove all the kids there and back to the school to change so it it was an amazing job by everyone very good any other comments no very good thank you we will close out committee reports and boardly aison moving on to public comments uh next public comments on agenda items only uh the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest complete copies of policy 0167 which govern this portion of the meeting are available to the public at the auditorium entrance online or by contacting the board office to permit the fair and orderly expression of comments we ask that participants be recognized by the presiding officer and preface comments by announcing your name place of residence and group affiliation if appropriate please complete the signning sheet at the podium please print legibly or we may be unable to document your name for permanent record each statement B made by a participant shall be limited to three minutes no participant may speak more than once on the same topic Mr palowski will indicate when you have 15 seconds remaining I'm going to continue with a few more comments All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer or superintendent no participant May address or question board members no discussion between a participant and respondent shall extend the three-minute time limit it is our plan to listen to each member of the public once all questions and comments from all members of the public are made the Board of Ed May respond or respond May respond or respond via email in the most timely and efficient manner available all questions and comments will be noted note the following the presiding officer May one interrupt warrant or terminate a participant's statement when the statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or irrelevant two request any individual to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum three request the assistance of law enforcement officers in the removal of a disorderly person when that person's conduct interferes with the orderly progress of this meaning four call for a recess or adjournment at another time when the lack of public decorum so interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting and five wave these rules when necessary for the protection of privacy or the efficient administration of the board's business this first P um excuse me this first comment is for consent agenda items there will be a second opportunity for the public to comment on any matter do we have any U members of the public Mr pki that have pre-registered not for the uh agenda items very good is there any audience members who wish to make a comment on agenda items only you may Pro approach the podium good evening everybody my name is thales Cle I live in Dayton uh my kids uh have both studied in the school the question I had is uh on the performance of mathematics science English we saw that uh there are buckets of um Asians Hispanics blacks and whites what I would uh beg to ask is what is the percentage of the students what is the percentage of Asians in high school or Elementary those are the things I want for whites and blacks Hispanics and all that way we'll have a better idea on how we can help people get the school level we that is one thing and the second comment I had is comparing the state is great but I honestly believe we should always compare somebody or some District which is better than us to challenge ourself so this is something I humbly request you people to consider um West Wier is definitely a very competitive school that is something we need to do I want to go in a slightly tangible a Tang I am going on a tangent I studied in NGIT NGIT had a vision to take Stevens as their Benchmark so this year US News has rated them better than Stevens in computer engineering so we should always try to compare ourselves somebody who's better than us as a competition and Excel but state is definitely mandated but these are the two things I'm just requesting thanks very good thank you so much for your public comment next was that okay with what I said [Music] hello uh this is David Sone ironically I wasn't going to speak at this part of the session but I felt compelled when I saw the agenda item on dyslexia and this hits home for me as Miss Mahoney put up that beautiful chart and the timeline on that chart and what I can tell you is my daughter is proof this program works she's been in that program since since 200 I think it's 200 10 11 11 and she has everything Miss Mahoney has said in her comments was 100% factual her IEP has followed her from kindergarten all the way to the high school she still has teachers following up with her uh it's been great some of them have followed up and now are in the high school um and ultimately seeing her bloom in the school and her grades achieve and I have to say she's going to kill me for this but even with a higher GPA than both her brothers we're so proud of her and it's it's a huge credit to miss Mahoney in the program um I can't say enough Praises for her she saw a need in the school because of her her child and she took it to the next level and there's no other school district that that will beat this school when it deals with dyslexia so thank you thank you very much for those comments any other audience member that would like to make a comment on agenda items only no we will close this portion of the public comment section moving on to Old business there is none at this time uh for new business I do apologize I didn't get to Mr pki but I just want to make two comments njsba I believe was quite successful we had some really good um uh attendance on the part of South Brunswick and I stated in the October 26th email if you haven't already board members please take a moment and complete the spreadsheet that we sent out for Workshop recommendations um I've received a few whoops I've received a few from those have attended and um once I get the rest of them and I'm going to ask to have it completed by tomorrow night um I'll review them with uh Scott for consideration um I did I just want to give everybody one final chance yeah sorry yeah if you have anything that you want to add please do so and also just as um a a note on the advocacy efforts as Scott said we did meet yesterday um I'm not going to go into into any details but the board and Community will be provided with updates on the community's efforts during committee reports We'll add that to the committee report okay all right next order of business is the consent agenda review by Mr Kowski so uh for this evening's agenda consent agenda we have a a pretty um straightforward agenda we have some transfers financials a bills list uh non-public technology order we're increasing and not to exceed for dco our energy Consultants we're recording and awarding some bids for our student transportation we also have some bids for athletic supplies we have um we're rejecting all of our proposals for our highquality tutting tutoring Services we did not receive that Grant we're authorizing disposal of some property that's out of date we have a preschool or prek projected enrollment uh submission uh preschool operational Plan update and a submission we have an hi and Hib uh self assessment and uh approving some district grades we're also looking at uh some uh security drill statement of assurance and Safety and Security plan statement of assurance um transportation jointure that we uh entered into we're looking at um an extension of some services for our special education uh programs and we have a professional services for some uh occupational therapy services and extension of uh and not to exceed we're also looking to do an outof District uh tuition adjustment displace ment uh students excuse me and we're going to approve a displaced students tuition contract we also have our Hib intimidation bullying reports uh travel related reimbursements professional development some student field trips we also um are doing a sidebar with our uh njaa approving the health and safety evaluation for school buildings our checklists with um Mr Redfield went through all the buildings and the head custodians and some principles or vice principles to do our required uh health and safety checks all passed uh with flying colors and uh a last ad was our uh maintenance plan and our M1 which is a state requirement and a comprehensive maintenance plan for all of our buildings in the district other than n you have your uh personnel and that's your consent agenda walkth through very good any questions for Mr palowski I don't have a question but I kind of have a comment I I just need the public to know that we get this report ahead of time and we're giving ample time to read everything that he just said and we're giving ample time to call them email them or whatever we need to clarify something to ask something so when we get up here and say yay or nay we're well informed of what we're saying before we say it so I just think that's really important that you and you people out there in TV Land uh know that that we're just not coming up here and looking at this and saying oh my goodness what should we do we are well informed and we do we drive Scott and Dave crazy sometimes with our questions when they're trying to work so just so you know that okay thank you very much part you enjoy that's the part she enjoys I'm really good at it Mr nathenson not to drive anyone crazy the uh I was a little uh upset let's put it that way that we didn't get the high impact tutoring Grant did they get either David or or Scott did they give a reason why we didn't get the grant or just said no so that that would require the Department of Education to communicate and they didn't even tell we we found out we didn't get the Grant from a newspaper article yeah really yeah yeah and that we're hoping to find out something and last time we didn't get a grant on the first try they gave everybody a second try so we have no idea number one why and we have no idea if there's a second try so there was no official communication no there there no we found it buried in a website but there was no letter sent there's no communication as to the reason there was no communication they even finished the grants until the newspapers reported it wow so at least the good news is they're consistent so it's typical doe stuff yeah okay good to the left Dr Raj so uh 1.9 uh prek projected enrollment uh there are talks of uh partnering with the U third parties so uh I just wanted to uh know the criteria that is being used to short list the this is again to ride on Laura it is sometimes we do ask questions so that everybody the public also know I'll give a but Suzanne jump in with any more specifics when we're looking at um partnering with someone we want to make sure of their capacity we want to make sure number one their space works so there's a certain amount of classroom space we need there's a certain amount of class size bathroom use um a lot of it is logistical and then it's uh what what is their capacity to grow so if we were to give them two classes this year do they they have room if we grow next year or do we have to Outsource after that um also location in the district where we can capture more students that that would be close to their homes so we're looking at all of that and the process that is happening Suzanne um Megan plumber who's the principal of the preschool and Tanisha white who is the family preschool partner person thing not exactly sure all these preschool has these crazy titles I don't know what they all I can't remember them all but those three have been visiting all of the interested party preschools so we had sent out like a massive who's interested anyone that's come forward they're visiting they have a set of criteria they talk to they ask all these questions and from there we'll eventually choose who is the best fit for our district and marries all of the various complexities to do we want to have a very good positive experience we want to make sure they have all the right capacity to handle us and have any more specific than that or good no you covered it thank you you're welcome can you just show me what is roll call oh I'm sorry yes so no other questions oh miss caric just a comment um and this is to uh Mr paloski I really uh thank him for his efforts for putting in the comprehensive maintenance plan I think that was very very helpful uh Dave to me personally uh I think it gives me a bird's eye view of what we're doing in terms of maintenance for all our facilities so thank you so much for putting in that detailed overview uh you know it's um I can't put detail and overview in the same sentence but it is it is something like that so it's it's awesome I I congratulations yeah it was really good very good all right that's it maybe you have a roll call can I get a motion oh I'm sorry motion for may have a motion in a second I'm moving it's getting late Mr Nathanson Dr Raj second all right here we go let's go uh Mrs Laura Hernandez yes Mrs Deepa carthik yes we abstaining from 1 Point uh 1.20 got it uh Miss Alicia Khan yes Mr rajer Krishna yes Mr Mike Mitchell yes Mr Barry Nathanson yes Dr Smitha Rush yes Mrs Lisa Rogers yes an abstaining from a 1.3b that's for the um reimbursement for njsba gotcha motion carries thank you all right moving on is a second opportunity for the public comment on any matter you are reminded of the previous statement made regarding public comment rules of public public of policy 0167 again at the podium please state your name spell your name excuse me state your name and announce your place of residence and or your group affiliation complete the signin sheet and you are limited again to 3 minutes you do not need to spell your name I apologize for that just fill it out you a register I I know um so just again you are limited to three minutes do we have any pre-registrations I have a David con but I is yes mrone I didn't know if he would already spoke earlier oops thank you David Sone Mama Junction New Jersey um I come here today to express some really big concerns that we have in our town and that is how this election went which was extremely disappointing um we had numerous candidates attacking each other we had debates that weren't open to public we had debates with people who knew someone we had signs being placed near schools we had signs placed on libraries we had signs signs signs signs that's all I kept hearing so I took it on myself and because it it irritated me because we are representative of our children and our children see this and there's groups in this town on Facebook that a lot of the kids are in and they're reading it and we have a bunch of adults acting like three-year-olds and I felt that there's a need for an Ethics Committee a Board of Education Election Ethics Committee so I brought that up to the middlex County Board of Elections and they say well if you have voter fraud let us know well what about that no we don't deal with with that so I take my letter and I bring it up and I send it to the Department of Education Ethics Committee and now it sits there I'm bringing this to all of you because I think we all need to look at ourselves and I'm talking to mostly the candidates not all to act like adults when you're running for an election you're being looked at in every single way you're putting yourself out there you're going to be critiqued you have to understand that but you cannot you cannot just think you could put signs up anywhere you want religious figures wherever you want you can you can drive up on people's property and put tires through it it's not the way we do it here I moved to South brunwick because of it's school and because the education that is it that was the only reason why my wife and I moved here it's an embarrassment I'm saying this here because I want everyone who ran to hear it because it is unacceptable it's I've been attacked and it's not going to happen anymore so I'm letting you all know I am working with the state uh ironically it's with the Ethics Committee in the Department of Education and um they are going to hear from me I am very persistent and I will continue to push that thank you thank you next you Tales again I had written my long name m okay um this is a great town I moved to this town in 2001 because it's a peace loving uh diverse Community the school district is reasonably good uh we all live with limited resources the school has to fight with the state for getting the money we pay high taxes we expect to get the best for our kids everybody is sweating to get that I have a proposal in this town we are blessed to have very diverse educated with uh competency in various places so we want to definitely create a voluntary group who will be independent outside the school and the border and partner to help the school district succeed better address all the issues how do we effectively spend the money whether it's giving a contract to clean the snow or do the building maintenance so we should treat this like a business get the most efficient way to get maximum benefit of our dollar we can also do fundraising increase the awareness of our district where there is a necessity for money we can get from the government we should help each other as a community and raise the money my Elder son is Artistic I was a board of uh director in Ark of middle sex which is next to the Board of Education building we have done some fundraising to help so we will come with creative ideas partner with the entire school to make the efficiency in spending the money we need to save money earn money and spend wisely even the busing no student or parent should suffer if the bus is cancelled or we change the route I'm because of the time limit I'm not going to SP spend a lot on this we need to recruit the best teachers we have to get the smartest teachers we have to make sure that recruitment is topnotch we have to evaluate the teachers because if we don't have the best teachers the graphs are not going to change all these things have to be done okay so we want to form an independent committee we will call qualified people it's not an election voluntary then we want to uh govern guide and help the school district succeed so we want ideas on how we can form this committee okay thanks good very good thank you very much for your comments are there any other comments from the public and the audience yes can have some is there a pen up there do you have a pen I have a pen did someone steal the pen is missing here you need a pen the Sheet's missing or the sheet did you take the sheet D took the we need that I didn't get the last good evening everyone congratulations to the board members that were reelected I think you know most of you know why I'm here my name is shini I am from sou R Hills Community I think you know have been coming here requesting okay I we can forget now the cesy busing but you know we came very close to resolve the subscription bsing you know it was stopped you know almost when we thought that you know we have resolution what are the reasons I see that you know initial perception is you know it was influenced by social media post but however after continuous followup we got another followup email indicating that we have other components that we need to look into so we're really looking forward for the board and the soent we are looking to collaborate for the resolution and we want to know like where we are right now on the subscription Bo thank you thank you for your comments any other comments from the public no all right all right we will close this portion of public comments at this point there is no further business to be discussed please note that the next scheduled Board of Ed meeting is set for Thursday December 14th and be it resolved that the Board of Education of the township of South Brunswick hereby moves into an executive session in accordance with the Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10- 4-6 through 10 4-21 to discuss the following um student thing was a student student matters yes sorry student matters be it resolved that the discussion conducted in executive session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the matters have been resolved formal action may be taken at any meeting May I have a motion and a second to move into executive session move Mr Nathanson move second Dr Raj thank you South Brunswick and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone e