##VIDEO ID:p28-03WI5Bs## Rob's not here group okay the New Jersey Public's meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advance notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the beler board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted With The Star Ledger in The Express Times and submitted to the town clerk of the town of beler on January 19th 2024 the meeting will be live streamed at www.bad sd.org flag salute please IED ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible justice for all the mission of the beler school district is to celebrate our past and Empower our future while focusing on our four cornerstones of our district tradition Excellence academics and Community we strive to build confidence and promote collaboration we encourage an equal partnership with our students and staff as well as its community members we empower everyone to develop the best version of themselves the beler school district is committed to shaping students into Global Citizens who take initiatives for their success and contribute to their continued Excellence of our district our students are leaders in the decision-making process of their education and will be prepared to excel in the 21st century Society roll call please Mr aaman President Mr Blum Dr zith here Mrs Duckworth here Mrs gleen Mr Scott here Mrs Stefan here Mrs wenner here Mrs cbone here Mr chiarelli here Mrs Cardella Mrs rbat here okay so we are on to committee reports and we had Sports ad hoc so I apologize we didn't get the meeting minutes out it was just last week um so we had Mr carabinas as we know is taking on the new role and Mr Feldman who joined us and had some and I asked for him to be present because I understand the sports class has been really well received from a lot of the students and wanted to hear a little bit of what he's doing there so he talked about um really revamping and kind of unifying all the sports programs and he's putting together a new club in the school and it's called the Red Zone so it's going to be a sports club where I guess it's all the kids from all the different um sporting teams are going to join and the idea is also to increase the school spirit they want to get um you know more positive I guess social media they're going to do interviews things like that just really Vamp up the whole sports program with this Red Zone club and I believe it's already started because I think um I heard some kids are already getting involved in it and they're going to have like a a president and a vice president and so it's going to be an official Club within the school so we're really excited about that it's going to also help with community going to also help with Community awareness um we talked a little bit about getting um some sorry I'm just going over my notes getting some sponsorships for school swag and talked about the need for a lot of the kids to kind of sport their swag throughout the school and be proud of representing you know whatever their sport is throughout the school um let's see what else did we talk a little bit about Mr carabina has talked about some programs through St Luke's right that we have some opportunity there to okay y so he'll talk a little bit more about that um and then also we have some academic coaches which is something new to I think the high school right this year or we've had them Just Sports specific as well okay so Sports so then this way that the kids what they want to do is really help the kids get the grades that they need in order to participate in the sports that they're playing rather than just saying okay you don't have a grade so you can't play we want to put all of the you know all things in line so that these kids are actually set up for success and that we're not just punishing them saying hey you don't have good grades so at least this way we can say go talk to your academic coach and see how that goes and try to you know get those grades up so that they're not penalized with not playing their sport was I think pretty much it any questions on that no okay okay now we are going to look at going into executive session I need a motion for to go in executive session for personnel negotiations and shared services motion second all in favor I any nose any extensions okay any discussion held by the board which need not remain confidential will be made public as soon as practicable minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists the board will reconvene in public session at the conclusion of the closed session and approximately half hour half hour or less okay so that brings us to public participation is there any public participation on agenda items anybody no okay do we have are we doing testing presentation before correspondence um I have any either way you don't have any correspond no okay then we'll go on to get this presentation so excited about presentation come on down dror McKinny grab the microphone oh don't worry I ER will chase will okay good evening all right so every year we do the testing presentation to share our test results from the year prior so I'll go through the um njsla testing that we had um which includes the NJ GPA the 11th grade test the SAT PS and AP scores so just some background information our current laws governing the assessments that we give uh they are federal requirements through Essa all students need to be assessed in ela and math grades 3 through 8 this says once in high school but for all us High School parents you know that the kids will take a test in nth grade um 9th grade ELA and Algebra 1 and then they do take it again as Juniors the NJ GPA that's their graduation requirement uh the assessments must be approved by the US Department of Education um prior to any schools being able to um give them and then the performance measures proficiency and growth measurements are used to help identify schools that are in need based on the scores and um the supports that must be used and it's also qac NJ qac uh compli we have to have our state assessments um as part of our qac assessment so the njsla assessments they are um still using the uh Baseline scoring from prior to covid 1819 um I know obviously we didn't assess in you know during covid uh but they kind of kept those uh Baseline scores from back then and then the performance level range from did not meet to exceeded expectations I tried to put the beautiful colors in there for you to show actually the colors that they use on the score reports for the parents and you'll see the uh score ranges for each of those uh it starts at 650 which is did not meet expectations and it goes all the way up to 850 for students who exceed the expectations and then test durations change from grade level to grade level uh 2 and 1 half to 3 hours and then science is 4 hours so science is tested over two days they do two hours one day and then two hours the other day uh because we are not allowed to test them over a certain number of hours for each sitting so here's your comparison uh bees only obviously we can't necessarily compare at the high school because they only take it as freshmen and then take it again as as Juniors so we have the grade level comparisons um so you know starting grade three back in 2023 to now you know the then uh fourth grade students in 2024 and you can see that all the way down uh grades three through 7 in 2023 and then grades 4 through 8 in 2024 um grade three jumped up as fourth graders and then you could see some of the other grade levels um they kind of went up a little bit and then some went down and then here here's the math again same thing grades 3 through 7 um in 23 and then their grades 4 through 8 uh your eighth graders for math are split you have students who just take grade eight mathematics and then you have some of those higher level students who take the algebra 1 as eighth grader so I made sure that I put both of those scores in and you'll see our scores compared to the state in a few minutes but our eighth graders did really well on that Algebra 1 so here we go uh the comparisons between beler and the state grades three all the way through grade 11 the njpa um it's nice to see especially when it comes to junior year the students just want to get these tests done they're tired of taking these tests but it was nice to see where our students fell while they fell a little bit below the state average it was very close so I was I was happy to see that uh but again you'll see you know our scores do fall um below the state average um last year 2024 and then our math scores and I think I say this every year math is traditionally our uh tougher area our tougher tested area uh again you'll see the bees algebra kids they scored above the state average our geometry kids while it was only one point it's nice that they're right there um and then the NJ GPA the 11th graders were just slightly below the state average here are science scores you ask the science teachers they're not fans of the test but um they're they'll tell you that the subject matter is all over the place in science and they try to focus on things during the year in their classes and then when it gets to the test it seems like the the topics are all over the place um but again not super far off from where the state is so we'll look at those scores and kind of see what those theme those recurring themes are these are the AP scores from 2023 um in the next slide it actually shows some really good stuff but you can see the number I I based the number of ones twos threes fours and fives obviously we want our students to get between three and five on their AP exam uh some exams are much harder than others uh one little caveat with physics last year we had we've been having the issue of finding a physics teacher so you know those students kind of were um split up and they did it online and that was a difficult program for them to be on so that definitely shows with their um with their test score because of the timing that they were put on the program they didn't necessarily have all of the material when it came time to take the test but they were Troopers and they took the test anyway so we're really proud of them I do want to point out uh with our AP language English language class oops touch okay our AP English language class we had 84% of the students who scored three or higher and US History all of the students scored a three or higher so um those are some really nice statistics to see and um we're proud of that so this is this this is the one that I like the fiveyear summary um we have gone up from 2023 to 2024 we had a 54% of students who scored a three or more back in 23 and 68% in 20124 so again a nice little um statistic to see especially when you talk to the kids and they tell you how difficult they feel the tests are going to be they actually perform well and um try their hardest so we're happy to see that and it's nice to see that 68% SAT scores for so we do an SAT school day uh the purpose of doing an SAT school day is for the kids to have a familiar place to take the test um research has shown that if they take it in a familiar place they do better and I think this is definitely a testament to that our students performed their mean score was 1025 compared to the state they do it by public schools and then all all schools so compared to all schools that took it in the state of New Jersey at 893 and then globally 952 was I don't remember us ever being that high off the state before I know it's it's good stuff and then math same thing and again math is traditionally the one that we don't do as well in but it's nice to see again that our students scored a 530 average compared to the 450 1 State and then the 485 Global oh right at or just below so it's good this when I was putting this presentation together I was really happy seeing these scores uh did I I'm sorry that was the reading and writing um and then here's our math but again same thing we're still we're still above both the state and the global scores here are the PSAT T10 so we give the PSAT T10 to sophomores to give them some practice taking the PSAT prior to taking it as Juniors as Juniors they had the op they have the option to take it they actually took it today in school in this room and so you'll see where last year's sophomores fared in in comparison to New Jersey and National so right there 878 uh mean total range and then in New Jersey was 8 92899 nationally so we're kind of right there with everybody else um above in English reading and writing for our kids above New Jersey a little bit above National math again that's our area um a little bit below uh both New Jersey and National we had 78 sophomores take it last year and then here's the breakdown of male female and students that met both benchmarks met the English Reading Writing benchmarks and percentage that met the math benchmark then as Jun Juniors who took it last year uh again we are above New Jersey a little bit below the national and then we're kind we're above New Jersey a little bit below and so on and so forth all the way down um we had 29 students who took it last year and then here's the breakdown male female and students who met both English Reading Writing and then math so a couple of curricular additions that we've had at the High School Mrs Koch has a mindful living class so for those of us that have heard the term mindfulness a lot um they kind of work on things like that she's got her back room that she's turned into a mindfulness room and they do all kinds of different activities um and from what I gather the kids are really enjoying it so she's trying to build that up see where it goes and see where we can take it um for the the following years to come and then I don't know if you've heard but woodworking has taken off the kids love it uh Mr Lutz is doing some really amazing stuff with them they're making little Silhouettes in there and uh he is really building that program and the hope is to be able to at some point bring them on fulltime uh because I know that there our other kids now that are seeing what's going on that would love to get in there and we would love to put them in there so it's some it's good stuff I I like when they first started cutting the wood you walk down the hall some of our kids were like do you smell that burning and I was like oh that's that's wood that's good that's a good sign it's a good sign don't worry it's we're okay um but we haven't smelled that in so long and it was just nice to be taken back to the time when we had that happening um so it's good it's it's nice and the kids seem happy uh Mr Lutz is doing a phenomenal job so the support programs that we have for our BHS students we have response to intervention which is a multi-tiered system of supports and we meet as a team to discuss things that we can do to help our kids like one of the um pieces is the academic coaches for our student athletes we have academic coaches just for our regular students as well so teachers will say that you know such and such student is having difficulty we'll meet we'll talk we'll look at the data and we'll try to come up with some ideas as to what interventions will help them be successful and then if we get to a point where we have exhausted all of our options then we move on to the next phase which is potentially referring them for a child study team evaluation but we try to do everything that we can do before we get to that point we have our media center with Mrs Bader there's a ton of resources in there for the kids um to have peer support centers so we do have some peer tutoring so sometimes using a teacher as an academic coach might not benefit a student but they prefer a peer tutor than we look at at that option as well our teachers are available twice a week for 15 minutes during lunch to provide students uh with extra help and then again the academic coaches that we started this year for the student athletes to help them find success our bees student supports same thing we have response to intervention academic and behavior coaches they have their character Ed program K to3 grades four to five have targeted skills where they work on those areas of weakness and try to strengthen them uh same thing with RTI and pipac grades 6 through eight have Ela and math Labs where they also work on Ela related um topics and math topics that they're having difficulty with to try to strengthen those and find success with those areas uh response to intervention study skills and then they also have a character Ed program so in looking at all of that obviously I think the number one one thing would be to analyze the data look at the the recurring themes of where the students are finding difficulty and seeing what we can do to help those students strengthen their those individual needs uh one of the ways to do that is to utilize Renaissance Learning which is the new program that we have the with using the data from the Star assessments uh teachers can assign freckle and Lilo for the younger ones um to provide them with the targeted practice in those areas and from their star assessment data if you remember when uh Mr heinlin was here the teachers can then get that Freckle to provide them the the practice in the areas that they did not do well on um so we're hoping to see the successes of that and use that as another piece of data to help us figure out where we need to help our kids and then lastly determine the need for the academic coaches to help the students based on all of the data that we have all right any questions yes thanks no Mr Blum does is the curriculum exactly the same no no everybody does it a little bit differently um the same topics will need to be taught the question is how they're taught that's the difference so that Mak it's a good good point any other questions okay thank you thank you right into my report yep superintendent's report all right right thank you Dr mckenny for your nice presentation I'm going to start out by handing out my updated goals from our meeting last week and um you can kind of take look I took the topics that we had discussed excuse me I did change the percentage on um the student growth and I jumped that number to 60% after some discussion that kind of came out uh during the meeting um and I actually already started to put the database together of all the students scores from last year so we can really take a good look from student to student each year so this is more just for everybody to take a good look at we can quote unquote formally approve it at the next meeting if you have any questions comments concerns just please email them to me this is very much open for any potential changes um but hopefully uh at least we we get off to the to the right start I didn't fill in the staff yet because we know the staff is basically myself Dr mckin and Mr carabina so um with some other folks helping here and there and Miss Black when it comes to uh chronic absenteeism and attendance okay I want to mention um and it's an agenda item so it's it's worth mentioning we have the agenda item under uh education I think it's education you think I would know the agenda little better oh I'm sorry it's under business to approve Pro the creation of a veteran's wall of Honor um I'd probably say about 10 days to two weeks ago uh Mr carabinas came to me and told me a little bit about the idea and then Mr zrom emailed me uh one of the students I don't know if I could say the student name publicly uh came after we started talking about the our Veterans Day assembly and thought it'd be a great idea if we could create a wall to honor all of the beler graduates who have served in the military and um it's very similar to when Mr stom came to me about 15 years ago with the Veterans Day assembly and we thought it was going to be a small thing take small steps and then it in the first year was about an hour and 40 minute assembly and it was great and it still is and I think he didn't realize how many names he had gotten when I saw Mr Z this or yesterday morning said he's close to a thousand names from beler high school alumni that have served in the military so um still hoping to have everything in place right around when we have the Veterans Day assembly which is um the Wednesday before teachers convention um I think it just became a little bit more than he realized but um we thank the student who came forward we say we thank Washington Collision to help us with the costs and and certainly for uh Mr zrm for the work he's doing on us I think it's a great just a great thing for our school into a great way to honor those of those who have graduated from here and who have served you know in their military and if you think you should be on there you know somebody who should be just make sure we have the name um because we do miss people along the way and we're not doing that intentionally so I just wanted to mention that it can always be added to can always be added to in the future um one of the things that Dr mckin had up there is uh Mrs K's mindful class Mrs K sent me a text yesterday that said that through Google she got a $500 grant for some some equipment and furniture for the room so that was really nice to hear the Google is doing a whole mindful Outreach and it was a she's she metor she got 500 so um we've been doing pretty good with those those small grants this year between the football team with the 5K and I think it's it's great to mention um before to um when Mrs wner was talking about Mr Feldman just in case you don't know there is an Instagram page it's BHS I think it's underscore Red Zone underscore again I think it's the second underscore it is great it's it's it's awesome get all information on all the sports um player profiles and things of that nature so highly recommend if you if you follow Instagram to to jump on that because it's just a great way to get the information and and the class has done done an excellent job with that I also want to just comment too about the academic coaches the sports academic coaches um Mr carabus and I have a shared item which is both of our sons are uh student athletes at St Joe's University in Philly um and I've known about that you know my son has been working with academic Coach and he's a freshman he's a senior now and that's I think where the idea sort of uh we're talking about that's where it came about came about where our academic coaches will work with specific sports teams I think the best part of it is they not working specifically with their sport team um so I think that I think that it's really good and I think it's just another great way to support our Stu student and our student athletes and just to mention we have Homecoming coming up next week five days of of great events followed by the football game next Saturday so I'm talking a week from this coming Saturday and the homecoming dance on Satur Saturday night correct homecoming dance yep um it's a always a great week a lot of school SP this year all of our sports teams are doing really really well this year it's fun to see we get a lot of out there um you know just to mention them all I had my opportunity to see um the one senior for senior night of cross country last week that was great to see um you know I've been to a few soccer games you know it's been great field hockey is always always doing well and and again the football team is doing good so it's just been a great great start to the year with our with our sports team and then finally just a quick plug for the murder mystery on November 15th again uh if you want to come please let Mr zrom know looking very much forward to that so and the 16 thank you Mr carab um and that's all I have for my report tonight a question sure the Red Zone club that U Tyler mentioned we normally get information did I miss that information we get it's just just getting rolling it's not anything that's because normally we approve that before they started yeah we're just getting Rolling Y just getting rolling we'll get that all that moving just check it I didn't know if I had missed something all right so we are on to Personnel items 1 through nine can I have a motion to look at one through nine Personnel o and we have an add-on 9A sorry motion second all right any questions no okay roll call please Mr Akerman yes Mr Blum yes Dr zeith yes Mrs Duckworth yes Mr Scott yes Mrs Ste yes Mrs wner yes Mrs cbone yes Mr chiarelli yes Mrs Gardella yes and Mrs ratham yes okay so now we are on to education items 10 through 13 and there is an addition for 13 on your extra sheet tonight can I have a motion for 10 through 13 motion any questions I just had a quick question on the fifth grade um Camp is that different it's not Stokes anymore it's still Stokes I think they just changed yeah just formally changed me any other questions no okay all in favor I I any nose any extensions so we're going to go on to business items it's going to be 14 14 through 21 and I have a motion for items 14 through 21 motion second any questions item 17 we're approving card blanch everything that's going to happen are we approving card blanch everything that's going to happen or just for insurance purposes because we haven't seen any approvals for fundraisers in quite a while and we haven't seen any accounting records from any booster clubs in quite a while we're supposed to get that stuff the the Avent supposed to be approved prior of them happening and the B angs are supposed to be every year right so I'll talk about the booster club first um that's something Mr Carib had talked about about that sort of slipped through the cracks and he's going to be on top of that shortly I don't want to give you a specific time put too much time on it um as far as the mass approval um I don't necessarily have a good answer to that question at the moment I look I'm not thrilled with that I'm going to vote no because I don't think we should mass approve I have no idea what somebody's going to do in the future and do I want the B high school name associated with that or not sir could table it and then we can bring it back it's just for insurance reasons that's one thing but if this is going to be the card Blan going forward that I have a problem with the motion itself has just been carried forward for insurance purposes um the specifics I mean some of it has been in here like the the booster club trip on Sunday for the girls is on here now um but I would definitely say that's something that needs to be rized but typically a list would be approved yeah yeah may not PR may not may give you a list of 20 we're only going to do 10 but at least they're approved well and there was a facilities request form UTI but there's also another form to do the fundraising event and it's been so long since we've gotten one I can't remember well I just personally for soccer booster club I know we've submitted them all this season so I don't know where they're going but I know we're submitting them yeah the fundraiser forms I don't think we ever approved them on the board agenda but per policy I believe we're supposed to I just don't recall ever doing that let's look at it yeah so if this is just for the insurance that's a I'll vote Yes but if it's for more than that I'm voting no because we need to get that clarified I'd say table it until till November yeah I AG that you want to so what number is that 17 make a motion to we don't have to make a motion we're just going to table it if everyone consents well then you just okay I said table it with notification that they need to provide us with lists whether it's the booster club the PTO the Project Graduation and all booster clubs because it's like they all need to be notified that they need a list or we're not necessarily going to approve a blanket statement well are you but what are we saying we're not an approve insurance or we're not going to the activities right not say the insurance it's like the activities so what she's saying like I think what I hear Maryann saying which I I don't disagree is oh they're going to have you know an open mic night at a local Tavern or a bar or something and they're like well we don't really want our you know I mean I understand I understand that but this in particular covers multiple things it's covering the insurance yeah four four so like the PTO is having activities having a trunk Retreat which they filled out the facility for so I would hope that we would be okay with the insurance but I also understand that we would want to approve any kind of a fundraising activi well that was my question if this is just for insurance that's one thing but if this is for more than that I would recommend that we go forward with the motion for insurance purposes insurance purposes only insurance purposes only um but that we also our activities have to be make sure that we using the prop forms and we clarify what we put on the agenda versus what we approve internally right okay let's do that so we'll keep put on continuing business for next time we we can we'll say this is just for insurance yeah because for facilities we have to fill out the facility use forms and they get approved and we get that back but anything that would be anything off grounds like you know team bonding that's off grounds or you know any going to games or whatever that are off grounds could be approved otherwise because you're not using the facility right so to cover for insurance and things like that for them traveling or whatever so okay so we're going to go ahead with 17 for insurance purposes only which is what is it says motion is what it says doesn't say insurance purposes right okay I'll have the word in the minutes how was that only yeah you only only only in the minutes okay okay all right any other questions on any of the business items 14 through 21 and then the the comprehensive maintenance plan is that the the whole the grant with the no no this just the annual report okay and the the plan itself was in your packet it's pretty vague yeah any other questions yeah literally the comprehensive plan is bag really was it's only a couple Pages anybody else all right for item business items 14 through 21 all in favor I I any nose any extensions okay so that takes us to continuing business just two two quick things to mention um one we're still in the process of working through the sale of Third Street um we just submitted everything that needed to go to the architect after we approved that at the last meeting hopefully that starts to get the process moving quicker second is we are still on target um I reached out yesterday on the regionalization study we should be getting the study to the steering committee by the end of the month we're still on that time frame end of this month end of this I said the end of the month was this month yes we had just um they had requested a couple last minute items and we should have everything to them by the end of the week so expect that report pretty soon good any other continuing business new business anybody have new business yeah I'd like to say that uh the artwork I forget the art teacher's name this is oh okay um has done a fantastic job with all the windows and trick-or treat we did a video on it and it's got like 1,700 views and the comments around town on the video on the um on the artwork and all the stores is very positive and um also we're getting like three over between three and 4,000 watches on our football team which is hopefully going to win the last game of the season and make us all very happy that's all I got any other I had one um so last November we had discussed as a part of our um a little bit around education kind of continuing to look at doing a career day and so in I think May or June we were able to facilitate the first career day and I was wondering if there was intentions to continue that and grow that program as a yearly program okay if you need any um support in trying to recruit yes we'd be willing to help from Harmony mhm any other new business no all right so we are on to public participation again is there any public participation hi stepen gransky um my wife and I were out at the uh March meeting here she spoke about the uh the elementary school playground floring there um the Third Street one or the sorry um the uh getting getting the mulch replaced with the the rubberized flooring mhm um we were short at that meeting that this is something that would be done by the Fall um we came back to school in the fall and we found only half of the playground was done um you know we we've heard from a couple of other parents as well that were concern what happened um we didn't hear anything about why it wasn't the whole playground um we're we're obviously concerned about my daughter Madison who has the uh special needs um she was in preschool which is the side which is done but now she's in uh kindergarten that is the mulch side now so uh we've sent a couple emails but we haven't really got any clear answer on what's Happening what the plan is moving forward um we just like some information regarding what's going to be happening um moving forward and you if there's any issues that we can help with or the community can help with be happy to what what's going to happen I'm sorry it's it's a two-phase plan two-phase plan I know they got the first part done and I'll just have to follow up tomorrow with our chief of operations just to find out the exact plan for the second half and I'll I'll send an email back to you guys okay thank you other public participation good evening everyone whoa uh Matthew Hoy social studies teacher and National Honors Society adviser I want to take a second to uh formally invite you all all to our induction ceremony which will be in 2 weeks October 30th at 7: p.m. in the auditorium we have 23 fantastic Juniors and seniors being inducted this year to add to our 14 returning members um they're doing a lot of great work so we'd love to see you come out support them and have a piece of cake if you're around and then also in November November 8 uh 18th 19th whatever that Tuesday is is our first Miller Keystone blood drive so that's for staff students and we're extending the invite for our board members as well so um if you're interested I can make sure that I get the information in lorett out to you the sign up and everything else so I want to thank you all again for your support for all of our programs thank you thank you other public participation no okay great can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting motion second go home all in favor I I any nose any extensions okay great thank you everyone have a good evening Jackie Jackie don't run