##VIDEO ID:JN6rKWPv-go## right welcome everybody to our educatione for December happy to see all of our students educators of the month here excited to recognize you guys let me just read open public Mee statement the pledge of Alle Stu so the New Jersey public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of public that notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which time business affecting their interest is discussed and act in accordance with the provisions of this act and Board of Education policy 0162 Board of Education of the bur of B this meeting to be posted in the board office at high school and mail the facts to the C Newser South Board of Education and any person who has requested individual notice and the require fee please stand with plge [Music] alleg Al to of the United States ofer theice Mr pleas certainly Mr here mron hereo here Carlton Mr here miss h Mr bmer here and Mr J here M president you have a f pres thank you mrki for my president's comments this evening I will just be brief and uh recognize the wonderful gifts that each of the board memb should have receive this evening they are courtesy of our high school robotics team uh who used the printer and CNC machine to develop some ornaments for us so uh some working action forage team and um I'd like to give my thanks on behalf of the [Applause] board and that let me turn over to Dr frean for the superintendence good good evening everyone and Welcome to our December board meeting our last before the start of the new year thank we get to celebrate some of our wonderful students and staff before we go on break so I'd like start with our students of the month I'd like to call up Dr s for the students of the month for [Applause] the congratulations to ariela LeBron she is in our preschool program her teacher's name is Miss Sebastian she has one sister her favorite school subjects are painting and writing her favorite hobby is playing with friends when she grows up she wants to become a chef congratulations ariela y [Applause] congratulations to Liam Gomez Asia he's in kindergarten his teacher name is Miss Forge his favorite school subject is math his favorite hobby is playing with Legos when he grows up he wants to become a police officer congratulations Liam come on down y [Applause] [Applause] congratulations to Grayson Ramirez she's in first grade her teacher's name is Miss forgett she has one sister and one brother her favorite school subjects are math and music her favorite hobby is cheerleading when she grows up she wants to become a kindergarten teacher [Applause] [Applause] and next up for our students from Lafayette school [Applause] this our second grade student of the month is aan Kilpatrick [Applause] she is from Miss amar's class she has two brothers and three sisters her favorite subject is math her favorite part hobby is cheerleading and she wants to become a teacher when she gos up [Applause] congratulations congratulations [Applause] our third grade student of the month is Marjorie moika [Applause] araga she's from Mrs Pino's class she has uh two brothers she loves to read she says it's fun to read her favorite hobbies are gymnastics jump rope playing music and dance and she also wants to be a teacher when she grows up [Applause] [Music] congratulations Round of Applause next up for SCH school we have Mrs winter [Applause] so our fourth grade student of the month from Miss Diaz's class is Gabriela Galindo [Applause] Guzman she is from Miss Diaz's class she has a four-year-old brother her favorite subject is reading she likes to play with a brother specifically hide and seek she likes to color and she wants to be a lawyer when she grows up [Applause] our fifth grade student of the month for Miss Gonzalez's class is Samantha sales monoband has two brothers her favorite subject is math she loves dra and crafts and she wants to be an art teacher [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and our sixth grade student of the month is Nicholas [Applause] Lynch here us tonight he has two sisters his favorite subject is Jim he loves to play soccer and basketball and he either wants to be a doctor or a lawyer [Applause] [Applause] and next up for Community Middle School Dr Santa [Applause] Ser good evening everyone the Community Middle School is proud to recognize as its first nominee Juan Pablo Mendes [Applause] congratulations well done Juan Pablo was nominated by his teacher Miss Esposito uh has an older an older brother an older sibling favorite subject is language arts and Juan Pablo loves playing chess and watching motivational videos on YouTube when he grows up and I like this one he grows up wants to be a scientist astronaut or in your words maybe a normal job like in retail restaurant love it congratulations well done [Applause] the next nominee from the Community Middle School Natasha [Applause] Miranda Natasha was nominated by her teachers Mrs baros and Mrs Gonda Natasha has three older siblings favorite subject is math which I always find it interesting it's like the language arts teacher nominates the kids that like math and vice versa right favorite hobbies is liking to play loving to play with your uh with their brother drawing and watching movies and when Natasha grows up wants to be an architect [Applause] [Applause] next up for DHS Mr Smith good evening L school is pleased to recognize the Crusader citizens of the month for the month of December our first recipient Michelle Santa Maria Michelle has no siblings and is an only child her favorite subject in school is AP Spanish and makeup design through the rbcc workforce learning program uh she enjoys reading books drawing and coloring her career plans um are to become a software engineer what [Music] [Music] [Applause] our next recipient is Emily Batista em Emily has two brothers Brian and Denny her favorite subject in school is science because it Fosters curiosity about the world about the world around us uh she would like to go she likes to go on walks and baking new things as well as listening to podcasts her career plans are to attend a four-year University and study Neuroscience followed by medical school and residency to hopefully become a pediatric neurologist [Applause] all [Applause] right our next recipient Bianca [Applause] Lopez Bianca has two siblings Ariana Lopez and uh Kaylee L Kayla Lopez her favorite subject in school is math her favorite hobbies include walking listening to music swimming and exploring new places in the future she would like to study Finance business Andor economics [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] last but certainly not least the man the myth The Legend John Paul [Applause] Gonzalez John Paul has one sibling um Jan Carlos his favorite subject in school is Spanish his favorite hobby include wrest the sport of wrestling and in the future he's going to join the [Applause] Army one more hold on one more two [Applause] there all right round of applause for high school students [Applause] of at this time I'd like to call back to go forward to recognize our district employee of the month [Applause] congratulations to Mrs Kore and being selected as a district employee of the month for her outstanding contributions to our school Community as a dedicated mentor to new teacher she constantly goes above and beyond providing guidance support and encouragement to help them navigate their first years with confidence Miss kilgore's expertise and her Readiness to assist whenever needed make her an valuable resource fostering a positive and supportive environment for everyone her strong communication with parents ensures they are well informed and involved building trust and enhancing the overall educational experience this kill also played an important role in implementing the connect for learning curriculum providing helpful feedback that was key to its successful use her leadership and commitment to improve the curriculum has been essential to its growth whatever collaborating Co colleagues supporting parents or assisting individual individual teachers Mrs Kilgore is always ready to help she's truly a team player who constantly goes above and beyond for the of our entire School Community congratulations Mrs Kilgore your contributions are deeply appreciated and we are grateful for everything you do [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] okay okay this time with all parents and students of the month please proceed to the stage where we will take a group picture you guys can come right in front make we're not the important the important people in front that's you she [Music] [Music] SL ready one more one two all right w [Applause] nice job really really good [Music] so parents we're going minut recess if you to take pictures the teachers here [Music] is first of all I would hours [Music] [Music] wait love all right why don't we go ahead and we up the agenda item 2.3 this is a presentation by Miss so totally the floor is yours and uh we're looking forward to and actually um s Ed Smith will also be presenting [Music] everybody good everybody um so good evening we're going to present information um the results from the alternate access um testing for our special education multilingual Learners and also um Mr Smith and I will be talking about the grading guidance um that was put into effect for our multilingual Learners as of four weeks ago four weeks ago yes um so we're very excited about that as well um so the alternate access the wa alternate access is a large scale English language proficiency test for students in grades K12 with the most significant cognitive disabilities um the evaluation criteria it determines the English proficiency of each student um it is a different test in the regular access test um taking into consideration the students that need to take it um it compares the standards that framework that it uses it uses the waa standards um the five main standards plus the um the proficiency level descriptors and the target audience are again students with disabilities uh the purpose is to monitor the English proficiency progress throughout their years what we get from the alternate um report alternate access report is their proficiency levels it does um have a different scale than the the regular access test where at the in the regular access test we might get like a 3.2 2.8 the alternate AIS gives us whole numbers only from one to five and instead of being one to six as well um the composite score includes the oral language literacy and comprehension scores um provides a whole number reflecting student performance and explains what the students can do with their English at those specific levels for each domain um this is a sample individual student report as you can see it's 1 through five um and the alternate CL proficiency levels are unique um a student who scores uh for example a proficiency level of one on the alternate score is not necessarily performing at the same level that a student um multi learner taking the regular access test um you know would perform at those levels as well so it's different um and it is also a one-on-one assessment with the student um last year we had four students in our whole District to um take the alternate access test one was a student in kindergarten um the the proficiency level for that student is level one the other three students are from were from the high school so two of the students scored a proficiency level of one and one student scored a proficiency level of five so that is actually the highest that that student could um score we don't have um we don't have the cut scores yet from the educational um organizations so they ask also since it was new last year and they revised it they asked for us not to compare from the previous years to last year because it's two different tests but in the previous year also no students took the alternate test in b um so grading di for MLS we needed to implement grading guidance for our MLS to ensure that grades accurately reflect students content Knowledge and Skills rather than their English proficiency this approach promotes Equity supports their academic progress and aligns with the best practices for fair and inclusive assessment um just a little back background about the subgroups that we have um for our MLS at the high school we have a subgroup of long-term multilingual Learners those are students that have been identified as multilingual Learners and have been in the program for six or more years um their conversational English is usually pretty fluent so if you are having a students you would think wow they are totally fluent in the English language but their content um is not at that same level so they struggle academically and hence they they're they become multi um long-term multilingual Learners because the access test as you might remember from my previous presentation not only does it um give us the proficiency of language but it also they have um they get assessed in the grade level standards for every single grade so it's really hard to pass that test if the students actually don't understand the content um these students may be disproportionately identified as having special education needs at times and enrolled in lower level classes remedial courses non-credit bearing electives or classes that do not count toward a college preparation degree the contributing factors for this subgroup is um sometimes a learning disability um the recr effects of circumstances such as poverty um frequent moving from District to District sometimes from state to state um and the lack of appropriate supports in elementary and middle school the second subgroup that we have at the high school are newcomer students with interrupted formal education these students um are recent arrivals in the United States and they might have gaps of like two or more grade levels in their um academic MC growth and not necessarily just the two previous grades before they got to the high school it could be in at any um any grade span um so and then those students have less than grade level equivalent education in their home country um they may have lower literacy in their native language as well which makes it even harder um for them to attain the content because even if they were to understand it and read and write and native language that would be a benefit to them to understand the content but because they lack that um it's often kind of like you know more difficult for them um the third subgroup that we have at the high school are newcomer students who are at or close to grade level we actually have seen more students um in the past couple of months coming in in that subgroup um which is very interesting we normally don't see that but it's good because they're able to be placed at a higher level ESL course so they can go into ESL 2 and at times have gone into an ESL 3 class um and then they can actually understand the content with supports if they're provided um so they enter the they also enter our US schools with high school transcripts that are transferable to our grading system and our graduation um credits uh the group subgroup are progressing MLS these are the students that enter US schools in late Elementary or middle school as multilingual Runners they are on track to exit the multilingual status within the typical four to sevene time frame so all throughout the whole United States these are the subgroups but we do have every single one of those four um subgroups represented in our high school so as of um today we have 155 multilingual Learners at the high school 65 of those 155 students have been in the program for three or more years um and I put the breakdown there from three years all the way to um we have two students in the high school that have been in the program for 10 years those students um are sophomore right now and they entered the um bilingual program at a kindergarten level there's still um multilingual owners they cannot pass that access test um although we are making some gains um with all the students um this is what happens when we don't meet their needs um early on in their educational trajectory so how have we equipped our teachers um to get them ready for all these subgroups of students at the high school um we provided programs um that are beneficial to our MLS professional development tools and Bilal and a Bilal and ESL instructional coach um we have uh the high intensity ESL which we provide two periods of ESL for our students one is aligned to the World Language standards and the second period is aligned to the English language arts standards and they do get credit for World Language and for English language arts with those classes um so and then apart from that we apply for a waver for to have that test because we don't have full-time bilingual at the high school um and we are required just to have those two classes for high intensity asell to be in compliance but we go a little bit beyond that which which I think is why we are seeing a lot of academic Su success with our students um we also provide sheltered instruction classroom settings where the teachers have or are being trained in sheltered English instruction practices so that the students can comprehend that content that they might not be ready for um due to the language proficiency um and then so our students receive those two um supports at the high school the sheltered um instruction professional development um as you know we started this training last year and to date we have trained 139 staff members throughout the whole District every year in October we have a cohort or two cohorts um of the new teachers that were just hired or that might have been hired at the middle um of the previous year or after the training had begun so we do have a list where we track every teacher to make sure that they get that training um so 139 State and total um staff in the district is about 254 so we're kind of halfway there um um and the teachers also when they attend the training they get a lot from it and are very excited when we can just hand over um tons of resources and tools for them so we also provided the teachers with training um and the resources of candy descriptors those um Candy descriptors actually benefit the teachers as well as Administration anybody who's going in observing the teachers for the Educators um they can use them to differentiate the curriculum instruction and assessments based on what the students can produce at each of those levels for the administrators and school leaders um they're useful for communication with other Educators about the language proficiency and also to be aware of the needs of the students at those at those schools um they support that we are can do philosophy throughout schools and districts as well we also have link it which is our data um data storage is that the word warehous there we go um so it's our data warehouse where the teachers have also been trained to go in there they can they can look up any of their students from um well not kindergarten because we wouldn't have any information from that but from first grade all the way through 12th grade they can look at their students they can see the previous year's performance on the access test and it also provides it provides a lot more but um another highlight is that it also provides provides a proficiency um level like when would they like a prediction of like when they're going to be attaining proficiency so some of them might two years some of them might be three years so on and so forth depending on their performance um so those the teachers have been um trained like I said to use that and they are taking advantage of that um they have the reports growth projections and they can also use this um tool to plan differentiated instruction based on domain specific proficiency levels um they can use them to monitor progress and evaluate program Effectiveness and share accessible reports with stakeholders and everybody then is looking at the same data when it comes to like the supports that the students need um and then one one of the other supports is we have U Mary Picasa our ESL and bil instructional coach at the high school who is diligently working with every single teacher and is um very uh I think yeah so teachers are reaching out especially when we have the sheltered instruction training they learn what they learn about what she can help them with so they make appointments with her she goes in their classrooms whatever they need she provides for them um so provide job embedded professional development she goes in she can model um and demonstrate best practices for the teachers um offer non-evaluative feedback on a regular basis if they ask for that um and she's you know site based teacher leader who supports both the teachers and the students so she also is very aware of every single multilingual learner at the high school she probably knows their access course by memory um she also can create an environment where students need um needs Drive the professional development that the teachers might need offer guidance and feedback at the exact time that teachers needed the most which is one of the best benefits of having a coach there and available um she can also Inspire teachers to try new learning strategies and new schools and facilitate the transition from teacher center learning to student um center learning so now um Mr Smith will wrap up and take all that information okay putting it all together what does that mean for MLS at the high school thank you Miss Heyman I appreciate it okay so you know just the thought of like being dropped in another country visiting another country and expected to perform up to what all you know the native born speakers um are expected to do it's really an unfair expectation and you know what we've been seeing as as a high school administration is our multilingual Learners failing five six classes with you know fives tens sevens now several years ago we kind of scratched the surface with you know a PO not a policy but a procedure for grading the MLS but it never really came to fruition so this year myself miss heyerman Mr clear and Miss lson we kind of sat together and we really really worked through looking at different school districts and their their procedures and looking at the state documents and we had uh come up with um a a procedure that's going to work for us but it's in compliance and align with what the expectation is from the state so um in terms of our our procedure um providing Equitable and supportive grading practices to the students again it goes back to you know you have students that speak zero of um you know the English language and just to expect them to perform I mean some of our students think about this um went to school in like a mountainous region of Mexico they don't even speak Spanish in some cases and you know they're coming to school and they're dealing with Chrome books and textbooks and you know this high level rigor that we've been pushing here at the high school and we were seeing you know ultimately um they were being set up to be unsuccessful okay so we were looking at a way to um you know bridge that Gap and to break down the barriers for our students to be you know greated appropriately appropriately and okay so um I'm not going to read through all the different slides as you can see right here so um CLA had talked about can do descriptors and things that us as administrators of classroom you can see that teachers are modeling this approach and utilizing these can do descript students um Miss pitka uh she did she did a PD at one of our faculty meetings on using the fingertip files um we've been pushing data you know at the high school and it's you know I talked to Dr Freeman about this sometimes it's uncomfortable and in all fairness I think you know um we may have come up a little short assuming that teachers know how to use data to drive instruction and that's not always the case so that's been like an instructional focus of hours at the high schools focusing on data to drive instruction you know using higher level questioning but at the same time we need to be fair to the multilingual Learners to make sure that they're being graded equitably and that we're setting them up for Success so this is uh basically the rubric that we had come up with um so for your levels it says level one to level 3.5 and then you're going to see level 2.0 to 5.5 it's not a clean break because it depends you know you have some students that may blow it out of the water in testing for listening but their you know their reading skills may be you know deficient or lacking so that's why there's some overlap because it it's individualized per student instead of just making a cookie cutter ones and twos this and then threes and fours fives and six levels fives and sixes will be graded this way there is some overlap because you know like you had said there's a student that has been um a multilingual learner since what kindergarten and it's still a multilingual learner at this point where other students they progress pretty quickly through through the program and they're able to exit and then go into um you know regular education classes but with with support okay so if you see here a student is given a passive grade so it's a p or an F passing or failing obviously but in order for them to pass they need to be prepared they need to come to work they need to you know complete you know the work to the best of their ability communicate or try to communicate at least um you know how they're feeling obviously in English because we're trying to um obviously promote uh literacy amongst the students um they're attended during instruction so basically they're doing what they need to do in the classroom and we're teaching them how to be students is it really fair to grade them um numerically um and again as we saw five six seven classes failed because of the old approach that was being utilized because teachers did just didn't know so we put this document together we sent it out to our staff and we've seen a tremendous amount of growth in one market period usually when you're you're changing procedures it's a multi-year process with changing the grading um structure for the multilingual Learners I mean you're going to see the data in a moment it's kind of astounding uh how much growth has been made just in one marking period so I'm excited to see marking periods two three and four and how we're going to fair for duration of the of the school year so looking here uh we have comments in Genesis that teachers are expected to include on a report card once uh multilingual Learners are given a p or an F so you see here uh P Val due to language proficiency that will go in the report card for this level here working with ESL test modifications and then test modifications limited to one and a half time and by bu dictionary that would go on the report card as well so prf here you can still give a prf here depending on that level remember because there's overlapping levels right here but ultimately you can give students that fall in this 2.0 to 5.5 a standard grade but it needs to be modified work again you know you're not going to give a multilingual learner you know a five a five page essay you know you need to make modifications and take a look at those can you descriptors as Claudia had spoken about you know earlier in the presentation right there to determine what to expect from the students in order to gain proficiency and then finally here this is when students progress through the program and they're you know level six which is you know exiting they're um fluent in English um uh literacy they can read they can write they can speak they can listen in the English language so they're giv her standard grade as well and it's God bless you it's comparable to his or her peers so again students that are just trying you know to make things work and they're participating the best they could to their ability this next tier here is giving standard grades but with modified work and then in this final tier that's the highest tier it's like a pyramid you know the lowest the middle and then the high this highest tier here that's you know you're basically grad in students with some minor modifications but mostly um that's you know um the same as their peers so let's take a look at the data okay so 2023 24 this is marking period one there's aund there was 140 students Cate categorized as multilingual Learners last year okay of that 98 students failed classes so that 70% of them are multilingual Learners failed a class last year so we break it down even further failed one class was 34% F so think about that two3 of our students multilingual Learners failed one or more classes I mean it was at this point we realiz like something something has to change we need to implement some sort of strategy or grading procedure uh that is going to be beneficial to the students now here well let me go over 2425 first so overall so we had 150 so we add there was 15 students multilingual Learners added from last year to this year okay of that 69 students failed so we had more students categorized as multilingual learners but we had less students fail than we did last year so 45% of the students had failed um a course now this is a little deceiving so I don't want you to be alarmed last year 34% failed one class this year 59% failed one class so what does that mean last year 66% of the students failed more than one class this year for Market period one 41% failed more than one class so you see a drastic decline that is what that's um let me see 50 what is that9 plus 15% drop um right no 25% drop yes so 25 from here to here and 25 from there to there so the number of kids when I would run data in the past that would see the same student five different times this year it's you know you may have a student a student individual students is it perfect no but for one markting period to see this much growth it was really I thought personally was a tremendous accomplishment now here you have total percent or so these are these are courses right here that are categorized as ESL or bilingual courses this is the overall but this is specific to those classes that are ESL bilingual for multilingual Learners so of those classes 62% of the Val so you had 89 kids out of 143 enrolled in the ESL bilingual courses that fa that was 62% this year you had 43 students out of 2 299 I courses that was yeah they're the total courses that the students are enrolled in so it was %. so as you can see right there 62% to 15% which is huge and I think you know once teachers feel more comfortable um you I mean you saw the numbers how many of our teachers are being trained in sheltered instruction um Miss Picos is pushing into classes and you know initially once things catch on everyone doesn't have to buy in but once people are hearing what Miss petcov is doing for them and helping them with the tools and the strategies to set their multilingual Learners up and even to set the teachers up to be successful and educating the multilingual Learners um we're really moving or you know the needle to the right and moving in a positive direction so I'm really excited and you know hopefully maybe by maybe Market period two or even by the end of the year we can give you all the data from the entire year to see the growth from marking period to Market period okay all right so kind of just talked about it going over it here you go so the ml's increase from 140 to 155 over a year the percentage of multilingual Learners failing courses dropped significantly from 70% 98 students to 60 uh to 69 students which is 45% in one year um sh some fa pattern so the proportion of students failing only one course increased by 25% but on the other hand had students failing multiple courses decreased by 25% indicating a positive shift as I discussed the specific metrics for what we took a look at 23 24 34% of themel fil one course 66% F more than one and then 2425 59% of failing students failed one course um and 41% of students failed more than one course so obviously there's still challenges um that we're that we're dealing with but um I think teachers and administrators we're becoming more comfortable um collaborating and working to set the kids up for Success okay thank you skip Point well I just wanted to add um at the end like none of that would have been possible if there was no collaboration between administrators the support from the board Dr Freeman everyone I mean all of us had to be on the same page to have a success like this which for me it's you know it's just incredible because our students what and we were talking today that in a little while we're really going to see the impact that just that change is going to have and how the students even feel about themselves and what they can accomplish so um I'm just grateful and I'm proud that we can work as a team um and it's not all the time that someone can feel like the support is there for our students so I know we appreciate that um as well so alone we can do so little but together we can do so much and in a quick amount of time too so um but thank you do you have any questions or do you or comments any so why don't we start first with a round of applause for [Applause] presentation results I think you know a lot of what you presented here today speak to commitment and intention and empowerment how those things can come together and really make a difference uh for our kids in the classroom the teachers the administrator so thank you very much for the presentation and for showcasing the work that you guys did I think it's really difficult to ignore multi- percentage point or double digit percentage Point improvements in just marking period so really commending you guys for that I don't have any questions but if any of the other members would like to ask questions or speak up please feel free I this subject is close my heart I want to say first of all thank you because the day shows grow I don't think anyone can realize personal grow and to take CH coming from another environment that doesn't want to come to school that doesn't want to come to school or that doesn't feel comfortable in school and you're like Mr janzi said you're not only empowering a student but what you're doing for the family or for the community is is is astronomical results that we're going to see data comes and goes I mean I love numbers all day right I did an evaluation with a student today that was talking I realized because there's a s period Lear languages that the student in AC and you know the teacher didn't realize that and it's what you are on the precipice of discovering such growth personally and communal growth for our for our not only our district but for for our our kids I'm I'm I'm astounded I'm humbled so I want to thank you personally want thank you professionally and and Dr Freeman I I I can only say I'm humbled by the incredible job and the presentation I've seen here today [Applause] Excell and the CH to um this is great work and I think we're all really excited about the success that you're seeing and the collaboration and it's it's wonderful to see teachers and administrators on the same page to help our kids um I was really excited in our board report this weekend to read about the P for our staff about trauma informal practices think when we have the multi conversation we forget about um the experience that some of our students brings on so how that may impact their education and I think in uh in doing that work academically socially emotionally um like Roger said you guys really had an impact not only on the children's lives but their families our community and we're doing a lot of really exciting things that I think going to generate great results so thank you very much for your work and your dedication it's really inspiring thank you all right well thank you again presentation thank you [Applause] okay before we move on I just want to make sure that Mr recognized that Mr wi has joined us so thank you Danny and we'll get the roll calls right as we uh this brings us up to item number three which our student board member report okay so recently uh the sky conference um all teaming selections have come out for our fall Sports and we have over I believe down here like 20 20 of our kids across soccer and football so for um Skyland conference coaches all start selections honorable mention I'm just go through these M Guzman as a poer 1D we have Brian Enriquez as a Midfield second team we have Emma Baker As defense K ja as Midfield C merillo forward Brandon Sol of Midfield and Juan forward and for first team we have Rosie spean Midfield defense suie Julian who's defense Amy dvaro who's goalkeeper jir kok who's forward Matthew elori for Midfield defense and Aldo abage for goalkeeper and we also have two recipients of the All State group one award we have jir Koka and Matthew El for football we have uh for the All County which includes Warren Somerset and H counties we have 13 Xavier K as a defense puncher second team we have Andy per Perman as a defense linebacker and first team we have Grant cazino as defense lead and then also we have third team defense all big conference awards for Grant casino and Andy hering uh wrestling if you heard already have a competition in the gym right now so against sou I believe they're winning for all the cheers Prett good um track and field have a meet at East stford University on January 4th uh they also attended the ridge winter Invitational at the Ocean Breeze in satin Island on December 9th where we had three medalists uh Dylan Kean Baptist in fourth place for long jump Dawson Jean Baptist in third place for the triple jump and OD M TI second place for reference at this meet we have schools that SP for group one all with group four competing with Ridge um Hillsboro Montgomery and the fact that we had three of our athletes medal against such teams just shows the commitment that our coaches have for that or our kids uh boys basketball currently have a record of 2-1 with their next game on Friday in the gym against people PR at 6m and girls basketball currently have a record of Tuesday or what a h what a hard a fog game yesterday against B going to overtime five different with their next game tomorrow in the gym against burners in school news uh Barber High School hosted their alumni panel today with alumni spanning as far back as 1996 and 2006 uh for all grades in two separate assemblies one for under classman and one for upper classman uh the southbound Brook Tech Divas the school's robotics team qualified to Regional Championship for the very first time with the event having passed last weekend at Mount ol of high school the Annual Festival of giving hosted by uh the school's National Honor Society will take place this Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the laay gym with assistant I think they just want another one ass with assistance from other organizations such as the day byday foundation and the rvcc program there will be stations for little kids donations and food donations being given away in spirit of Christmas and more B High School is set to host two pep rallies for the underclassman and upper classman respectively which will take place across Friday in the gymnasium as college applications are set to be due coming new year bber high school has hosted several information sessions for parents and students Alik uh helping with the application process filling out the fast FL war with help from our guidance Department as well as other staff num from the high school um in other news uh I don't know if you guys the sirens last week but Sant visited the streets of town with kids and like I said a ton of sirens and Christmas tree lighting on mry was done on November 27th and lastly the uh the new student representative will be here come the January board meeting on January 8th with the V with the school I being sent out next week at ear we got yes thank you for the th report and as we're talking about transition just I want to acknowledge the fantastic job that you've done being our first student board member um I think it was a new position new experience for all of us and we couldn't have dreamed of a better representative for the first time so just want to make [Applause] we are up to our committee reports first education Mr do for well we've got a lot of content to SC over for the education committee there's an assessment for students who are multi we reviewed this he and Mr Smith's presentation about the alternate assessments for the multil kids uh the gring practices and going into that dat so I don't want to R the committee was very excited about their progress that's thank you Mr Dawson uh next report is governance Mr okay we do have a few things from governance this month first Mr Ross came and gave us a nice presentation about the implementation of the rotating job schedule at the high school we are hoping to vote on that as a board by February is the the hope just to give you the really brief highlights we would have the opportunity to go from 6,700 minutes in a year per class to 8,100 minutes per class giving teachers 1,400 extra minutes with their students uh the average um I think in the state is 7,800 minutes per class so we actually go from well below the average to above average per class student course load therefore would go from eight to seven classes as you can imagine we talked quite a bit about the rigor of having eight courses of the high school student especially with population of so many other things going on in their lives to give them seven courses as opposed to eight and and not to say that students can't take me if they want to but they would have the option now which could really help a lot of um obviously some things have to still take place it's not locked in at this moment but we hope that it will be very soon uh so Mr Ross has generously agreed to give us what He described as a 10 slide presentation to the board he used the number 10 so we will look for 10 or less slides it will not be 30 as as usual presentations are we were ass short um also we briefly discussed the committee that will be meeting with south bound Rook at the time of our committee we did not have an official date in time but as of this week we do it looks like we will be meeting January 16th at 5:30 p.m. over in southbound next uh we are looking at other options to replace Class Dojo at this time there are some more modern things out there Nick has taken a look at a few of them he uh Laura bishop and Nick both uh think that we should probably go something called parents Square there are a lot of advantages over what we have now now there are some others that they want to look at one called AP as well but parents where just as a as a couple of things that we can do uh parents who don't download the app which can be a problem can opt to get everything sent to them via text or email it also translates into over a 100 languages uh so any language that parent speaks they will be able to receive the information as well you can this one's a was a big favorite of Miss musim down there if you have students in multiple schools you can set it up so that there's something called daily D where you get all the information at the end of the day from all the schools in one message instead of receiving 300 messages throughout your day I have students at multiple schools too so ironically mine are in the same school they are but I remember you enjoyed it there and we would like to have that decided we have a little bit more time decided and hopefully start the migration process by July 1st so Nick I think will be kind of making a recommendation after he looks at a few more and and we'll be deciding on that pretty soon next we talked for really over the course of two months about online comments at board meetings and I'm sure you guys have noticed we haven't had any in months months and months and months and most districts in the state have actually abandoned the process altogether they're no longer even accepting online comments so we feel as a committee we are recommending that we do the same and foro that process from here on out uh obviously people uh the public is still welcome to come in person and give comments but we would no longer be accepting online comments at this time so that was our recommendation there and lastly this was not discussed the governance but I do want to throw this out there uh training with Patty Reese it was supposed to be tonight when I contacted her she said she was no longer available I asked her about January she told me that she is not available any nights in January at all and then just as we were sitting here about a half hour ago she emailed me back and gave me a list of dates where she is available in February unfortunately none of them are our board meeting night I think you have to write all this down now I can need all all out but she is available February 3rd 4th 5th 6th 13th 24th and 26th those are our choices so if we want to do it in February that I will send all that out we'll try to get a date that works obviously we're going to have to come in for a separate meeting to do that but we know our trainings are about an hour so it won't be overly cumbersome but as a more as a broader point though it seems like she's a lot busier than when was and and it's going to be harder to get her in District so if we are looking for more trainings I think we're going to have to plan them further out we're going to have to know what we want and we're going to have to plan them probably two or three months in advance from from now on so I just wanted to put that out there she guys we're not going to get you know we need a training this month what can you do when she shows up at our board meeting I just don't think that's practical so that's what I have it's a it's a little bit of everything from governance so if you have questions please I will thank you Mr B um just one comment that I would add with regard to uh the board meetings I think what we discussed was retaining the broadcasting part of it yes so that it was still accessible for people to consume if they couldn't come to an attend the meeting um and then we were only talking about eliminating the questions that could come from the public online as that part of the format and we would continue to make available the contact board form which is available on the district's website and anyone is available to use at any given point in time for course to reach the board so given that those things were out there we really weren't getting a lot of activity on the Live question side of the administrative effort associated with it that's really where the recommendations coming from uh with that comment I'll open the floor to [Music] questions for the training we would have a that would have to be advertised as a meeting yeah yeah we'd have to go through the we'd have to the public meeting St in and yeah would be like a regular meeting I doubt that public would show up if they are welcome to show up to watch us be train if they would like is would Zoom be an option I don't know question would Zoom be an option I can ask I don't know I don't know that we've done training over Zoom I can remember we can find out right it might be EAS she can project her screens right slides right all right thank you for the report Mr B um since miss high is not with us tonight I will just do a brief recap on the human resources meeting um as always we started with a review of the open positions and where the status was in terms of recruiting uh for people to join us um we went through two new position positions that were being proposed one had to do with the secretary for the athletic department the other the strength and conditioning coach uh position we' been discussing for a bit now um and progress on both of those uh has been made and we're looking forward to um seeing those progress early year next year um we had a an update on the exit surveys so as a reminder there is a survey process for any uh District employee that is leaving this was in addition to any oneon-one meeting dialogue that Dr Freeman may have with them and we were really pleasantly surprised with the uh progress and the comparative uh from this exit survey compared to uh the one last year so um significant progress being made there in terms of both retention and then the reasons why people um you'll see on the agenda tonight there is a resolution involved excits for the maintenance department this is uh specifically for certifications that would allow them to perform services that you would otherwise need to um subcontract to licensed providers so while it may be additional compensation that we're providing to District employees overall it has the potential to save the district significant amounts of money um and we actually have an employee who already has saved us uh am of money long than would otherwise be on the line for the it so again something the operations Comm is we discussing the school I'm sorry HR go uh school safety position um has been something that has been discussed uh it's a position that has evolved over time since it was originally uh created um so the H department is looking at comparable job descriptions in and around surrounding area to make sure that what we're asking for and what we are um fulfilling in that position is uh well documented and align with what we need as a district and I believe that is it any questions on human resources all right heing on we are operations Mr bless you thank you so operations um was a great meeting couple things talk about the situation lafette the basement Mr present the committee an email from an architect Paul where he I'm quoting now much has changed since my updated report was issued participation indidual meeting water test masary wall indicates the water is bypassing the metal flashing result is watertion basement I still feel brick shelf is not flash realiz verify the absence of flashing is disruptive and UL which can be explored is to cover the wall with a reinforced polye and leave in place this would permit several rain events to occur and test the um Mr G you want to add any comments on that thank you Mr Z the only thing I could add to that is so to the committee's request I have requested a proposal from mrto the basement specialist and I have not received it yet but he's going to give us a proposal and that will be for that sheeting put on the inside of [Music] worldis possible thank you so much we also talk about budget uh the committee is pres Mr G he informed the committee that he sent a letter to all district and stakeholders budget preparation sub administrators have been asked to present their department or School budgets to Griffin first [Music] for uh December 10th is the submission to M Griffin and December 16th is the date for final submission to Mr hor Dr Freeman addition Mr explain the process of budget office on December talk about the lont school preschool expansion update um moving ahead expansion with the modular addition planed for the 2526 budget that will be prioritized as a lease purchase financing of the unit which will be charged to the grant if approved the district will need to have two title searches perform confir property and um again Mr gy any little TI in on that um just to reiterate the board's determination to put an addition on lont MX which was proposed be a modular School addition of four or five classrooms to be determined and we're beginning that process Now by doing a survey of of the property to find out where exactly our our orders are and we'll be back to the committee shortly thank you sir finally weed IRS L pay taxes do as taach Mr gy informed the committee that the IRS levied our electronic payment Board of Ed from the provider the notice indicated that the IRS has the right to Levy funds and payments taxpayers to satisfy anying C debt the payment was $2,952 and it was redirected to state of New Jersey Mr Mor and staff leader contacted the state to determine that there was no indebtedness but in fact the jur withholding payments were honestly applied to the wrong periods upon payment they were able to resolve the matter quickly state will now issue a refund to the district for the levy Mr G has strug pay R staff to carefully make sure that the payments that they are periodically making must be applied to the correct period in the future possibly possible disciplinary measures be taken by the superintendent and do have any anything on that or we the only thing I have to add is that this was a very aggressive tactic by the IRS to Levy and Le on our ER transfer of funds back to the district which is our application to get a piece of reimbursement from federal um taxes on communication products and they they took the payment for about $23,000 they sent it to the state of New Jersey who was claiming that had eded this to them for the same amount for New Jersey withholding taxes upon putting a lot of time into this my staff determin that there were some payments applied to the wrong periods which have been straightened out and that the full $23,000 that was L will be returned to the district without the thank you Mr for for that addition uh Mr President I have no more notes for ises thank you Mr Z any questions or comments for [Applause] operation all right uh there are no reports for the Somerset County Educational Services Commission or sou for this meeting so that brings us to the end of the committee report any final comments or questions before we move on all right we are now open to the public for agenda items only so in accordance with District policy 0167 public participation board meetings members of the public are required to sign in in either the podium or offline provide their name address group affiliation compliable please state your name and address and limit comments to agenda I use only directly to the presiding officer each participant is allowed 3 to five minutes to speak and no individual May address the same time more than once until other wish speak had the opportunity to do so are there any questions or comments from the I see none how about online zero zero online continuing the TR that brings us to item number 6.1 be resolve in the bo education on recommendation of the superintendent approves the minutes of the following meeting regular and executive session meeting minutes from November 20th 2024 I have a motion motion thank you Mr Dawson a second thank you miss any discussion hearing n Mr dorsy can we do a roll call please certainly Mr B abstaining Mr Dawson yes M Caso yes Mr Z yes yes Mr bmer yes Mr janzi and can we just recognize Mr Minas as well B pardon Mr Minas yes motion thank you we are up to item 7.1 the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlining District Personnel resolutions these are items 7.2 7.3 I have a motion motion thank you Mr B second second thank you Mr Z any discussion heing none can we have Mr B yes Mr Dawson yes M Gazo yes Mr zco yes m m yes Mr Min yes Mr bmer yes J yes motion passes thank you we are up to it 8.1 we have resolved that the B Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined in District education resolutions this is 8.2 through 8.13 I have a motion motion thank you Mr B second second thank you Mr Joon any discussion pleas Mr yes mrw yes yes Mr M yes Mr minus yes Mr hmer yes and Mr Jan yes thank you it 9.1 have resolv that the B board education approves resolutions as outlined in board action resolutions this is 9.2 through 9.38 I have a motion motion thank you Mr B second second thank you Mr any discussion hear can have call Mr yes Mr yes M yes Mr Z yes M yes Mr minus yes Mr bmer yes Mr jzi yes Mo passes thank you we are up to other MERS to come for the board new business are there any topics that the board members would like to raise that are not on the agenda this evening all right we up to item number 12.1 open to the public for discussion uh I will forego reading the provision again I'll save your use for that but just Notting that this is uh open for both agenda and non-agenda items very good we are 13 resol the board education andent executive session is allow by njsa for the purposes noted in item one seven and eight have a motion motion thank you Mr second thank you m m all in favor all right [Music] currently e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e oh it's definitely darker here all right everybody we are back up to it 14 resolution this is item 142 motion motion thank you Mr B second second thank you Mr Mr B yes Mr dawon yes M Cino yes Mr zco yes Mr M yes Mr Minas yes R yes Mr J yes thank you it 15.1 be resolve B of Education approves the resolutions as outed approval of HIV cases under middle and elementary scho this is it tion yes motion any of have a motion and I say motion thank you Mr second thank you Mr daon uh Mr Mr B yes Mr Dawson yes M Gazo yes Mr zco yes m m yes Mr Man yes Mr yes Mr thank you1 motion motion thank you second thank you Mr everybody