##VIDEO ID:f9P9UePfpuM## we're going to quiz everyone tomorrow that is bizarre know the reason why there's a scientific reason to it we run the whole black and blue open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act and that advanced notice required therein has been provided this is a meeting of the Board of Education of Branchburg at which formal action may be taken the public will have an opport opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda can I please have a roll call M M here Mr H Mr Mater here miss notto here miss sha here Mr Tuma here miss Joyce here Mr carier here can we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands God indivisible withy and justice for all okay and I will hand it over to Dr Chase for the superintendent's report okay good evening um I have three items the first we'll start with just the uh board the enrollment report so as of today we have 1,46 students in uh in our school district today um this is an increase of 10 since we've last met as a board and when comparing to last year we are 26 students more than we were at this time last year 10 people since two weeks ago yes wow okay the next item I want to bring to your attention is on the board agenda tonight under the governance section you're going to see there is a motion to accept the approval of the anti-bullying self assessment grades as you know Dr Stanton who is here this evening has been working closely with the principls and the school counselors to continually refine our practices and bolster a lot of the programs um amongst that is she also provided some additional training for staff and the counselors have been going into classrooms doing some push-in lessons and then also ensuring that our uh procedures are running effectively so as a result I'm happy to report we actually have an increase in our scores from this time last year um so both uh Stony Brook and Branchburg Central Middle School went up in points um white and stayed the same so it's a small little data point showing that there is progress being made so I wanted to bring that to your attention and lastly we have the team here because each year school districts are required to present the results of State assessments um this evening Miss Anderson Miss landisburg Miss Nash and Dr Stanton are here and they're going to share both the analysis of the findings of the New Jersey student learning assessments as well as provide you with some information about the ongoing work that they've been doing to support students both academically and also their well-being uh in your purple blue folder um you have the analysis the actual data that Miss Anderson is going to be speaking to in her analysis so um if unless there's any questions from the board I'll turn it over to the team okay Miss Anderson it's all [Laughter] you all right can everyone hear me okay um thank you for letting us join uh you tonight here we are going to do our presentation a little differently than we've done in the past uh for those who have been board members or been a part of a board team at given time you've probably dreaded this presentation because it's just a lot of data a lot of slides um we tried to move away from that piece while data is important is not the only thing that's important about the students that we have in our buildings every day so we're actually going to take you through our presentation which talks about supporting the whole child so we're going to talk about the academic piece but um equally as important is that sense of well-being um that we are working to provide our students with when they are here in the district with us so tonight's presentation is going to take you through um this agenda so we have five different areas of focus we're going to be talking about our vision for Student Success here in Branchburg um how the first side I guess that right side if we want to think of it of our triangle talks to academics and the data that we collect um to support student learning here um then we're going to talk more specifically about this analysis of the findings for the state assessments as we are required to um but that will be a small portion of the presentation we'll shift over to the other side of our triangle which is equally as important the support of well-being for students um and then round It Out by talking about how the community is also an integral part in that full team of supporting students so here in Branchburg we have a very comprehensive view of Education where we look to educate that whole child so Dr um almost said santon for a second sorry about that Dr has referenced um through previous presentations at times those um the importance of both our cognitive and non-cognitive factors when we support a student so cognitive is what we are used to right we are used to those test scores coming out and saying how did we do in comparison to everyone else Reading Writing arithmetic you know go back in time they are important and they have their place in education obviously that's what brought us to school to begin with but equally as important you also see those non-cognitive factors and the motivation resil resilience and emotional intelligence that are needed in order to be able to get to those cognitive factors so for when we're talking about our students we're looking at the combination of those two things and how they marry together um to really create the student that we have in front of us each day so miss landisburg is going to start talking about our academics here um as our supervisor of educational programs um she can speak to many of those components okay so um Branchburg really should Pride the themselves because we have a robust um academic program and a support system for our students here we are constantly looking at our curriculum to revise it for best practices and make sure that it's aligned to the New Jersey learning standards um our programs are rigorous and that's because we really place a focus on critical thinking as well as the application of the knowledge that the students are learning for real world application to set them up for Success one of the ways we do that is constantly looking at our programs our course offerings and evaluating them for their success as well as for Student Success and um interest we really want to make sure that what they're learning is something that they can apply in the future we have support services in our programs for academics instructional support is provided for students in K through 8 and we have two different tiers to that so we have a tier um two and tier three which means that there's different levels of intervention that are happening to provide remediation for both math and language arts this year we've really focused on our inrs Pro um procedures and protocols to make sure there's consistency across the K8 um school district and intervention inrs is intervention and referral services so this provides our students with targeted interventions based on skills and concerns that teachers and parents have about students and how we can best support both the staff member and the student um districtwide professional develop Vel M this year is focused on tier one supports tier one is what's happening in the classroom how are we differentiating how are we um putting in scaffolds and supports for our students with the learning that's happening within the classroom we use a lot of data to inform our decisions this um slide shows you some of the ones that we use so it's not just about State Testing or njs um our map test we look at our academic grades we look at Benchmark assess anecdotal records which is what's happening in the classroom what are teachers observing what kind of conferencing is happening um we look at a multitude of things kind of like a doctor has all different diagnosis um diagnostic assessments that they give same things for teachers so we look to really Define and figure out what is the best way that we can Target our student learning and get them to where their objectives need to be and hit those targets so what do we do with all this data the first thing we do is examine it and look for patterns um you know what are the trends in the data what is it telling us what story is it painting for us and we draw those conclusions from it to then make decisions about what strategies we're going to use to help support the areas we may see of weakness but also really play off of the things that we see where we have strengths so we can kind of put that across in the other areas um so then we imp Implement those um informed decisions to both our instructional needs so what's actually happening from the teacher end and how are they instructing our students but also from a curricular end so what are some of the larger trends that we see across our curriculum and where do we need to make adjustments and then we're always reflecting on that so how did the changes go are they making the type of impact that we hope they would and if not you know we're then cycling back through this whole process to constantly review and look for ongoing Improvement some of the changes that you know we would look to make are as I mentioned the instructional improvements so how are we tailing our teaching methods to address student needs um and really making databased informed decisions and targets for improvement our intervention and progress monitoring so are we hitting the students we need to that we notice are struggling early you know we want to attack those um needs early so that we can help them and build in the support so that they can then make progress um and then again as I mentioned we're look at the curriculum and we make decisions based on that and also what do our staff need to best support our students so we look at data and we look to see like where are there some holes in it or where are there areas that we notice that we need to really um bolster the staff's professional development and it might be in you know we might be doing well but we always are striving to do better so you know how can we meet all of our Learners and our staff so some of the things things that we recently acted on um as you know phonic instruction of phonemic awareness we we really should I'm going to brag about us a little bit um I feel as though we are ahead of the game a lot of times in Branchburg and I know that in recent years the science of reading has come out and shared that you know we should really be focusing on phonic based instruction Branchburg implemented this over the last 5 years so before the science of reading even came to come out we looked at our data prior to that and decided that we needed to start incorporating more phonic Bas instruction so that's when foundations and hegerty came into play in kindergarten and then over the last few years we have really been working to support our K through five staff on um phonics based instruction and looking at morphology and other things in the upper grades inquiry and play based learning approaches um are things that we know are best practice and things that we identified over the last few years to really work on how do we engage our students how do we help them build connections and this was prior to the pandemic and just happen to be something that really is beneficial for our students because they need to work together and we know that they learn through play especially in K1 so we've Incorporated a lot of opportunities for that but then also really focus on inquiry um approaches in the upper grades as well because you learn by exploring and thinking and working through the process mathematics um we revised our mathematics uh program and also our program resources so we incorporated um or we use Envision in grades 1 through five in kindergarten we changed a different program a couple years ago and we've now um decided to bring that up through 6 through 8 and the reason that program resource was determined was because of the data so we noticed our students were performing well but we weren't really getting over into that um higher level thinking hump and this program really incorporates the rigor and consistency that we want to see across our district social studies is something we've also updated and this really supports our language arts the data that we received from language arts in the years past with our companion standards which is um RH which is reading history so one of the reasons that we decided to bring in a new social studies program is to really build that bridge between literacy and um historical fiction and kind of build foundational skills because we were seeing a um weakness in that in the upper grades and then language arts we have continued to revise based on the standards but also really to bridge that transition between Stonybrook and um bcms so we're doing a lot of work on revising units in sixth grade eventually up higher um to bring the practices of small group instruction differentiation mini lessons into our U middle school and then we've sent a lot of staff out for multi-sensory reading training and we've been able to incorporate that approach into our classrooms I'm going to pass it back over to miss Anderson so I'm going to take you through one of the specific um data points so obviously Miss lburg just talked to you about that sort of plethora of options that we have the state requires us to report on the state assessment data so I'm going to go through just a few slides that take you through a general overview um as Dr Chase had mentioned before you have the append um in front of you but for those who are viewing at home um the appendix is at the end of this presentation that will be posted so you'll have access to that as well so um you know three main points I'm going to go through our first one is our overall njsla performance so what I have captured here for you is what our overall performance in levels four and five were in each of our content areas so the njsla um New Jersey stud learning um assessment has five scoring categories in ela and math um level one being not yet meet not yet meeting um expectations all the way up to five which is exceeding expectations so what I have here is I've pulled the combination of levels four and five and as you can see Branchburg is um outperforming the state and I say as consistently because every year that we look at data we tend to be outperforming the state in all of these areas um so this is just captured there in science they only have four levels of scoring so those top two levels levels three and four equate to the four and five the second point that I want to speak to is a cohort comparison so just to clarify for you on the slide that we just looked at that was just our grade level um performance cut and dry as it compared to the state that is great information but that is just one capture of a test in time um we actually value looking back to see how students have performed over time so that cohort comparison really talks about the performance um or you know growth um what we hoped to be growth from grade level to grade level so if you were a third grade student um in the previous year and last year you well I guess third grade last year moving into fourth grade or vice versa um I guess it would actually be third grade the prior year so a current fifth grader we would have their data as a third grader and a fourth grader had to set myself up there um how did they progress from year to year because we can look at the performance of a third grader in 2022 and a third grader in 2023 but guess what they're not the same third grader so that is while it's data to have it's not as impactful as saying well what happened with this one child and was there growth so in looking at that we are able to draw out some conclusions in each of our um content areas and that's what I have here on each of these slides so in English language arts um the areas of focus that we have determined from doing that data dive we will be looking at the progression of our students from grades 4 to grade 5 we'll be looking at the progression of students from grade 6 to grade 7even and we'll be more specifically honing in on the subcategories of literary text and vocabulary so if you remembered our presentation from last year not to hold you to it um these two areas were areas that we were also looking to work on last year so we have started our progress um you know we started work over the past school year but we are making a little bit more progress this year we've brought in um a consultant into the middle school because that's where we tend to see our trends of needing additional support because the instruction that we deliver at the middle school is different than what we deliver at the elementary school where we tended to see our scores being a little bit more successful um so we are saying that some of the possible impacts to where our scores may not have made the growth that we have expected um could be from the transition in sixth grade we have a double block of ela when we move into seventh grade we have one block so you know if you think about it you're cutting your time in half but you still have just as much curriculum that you need to cover um so looking at that as being a a potential reason as why that might not have been as strong as we had hoped um and then the change of lesson delivery so as I said Elementary level is much more Workshop based small group conferencing um we don't have that same delivery as it as it lies right now up at the middle school but we are working on bringing that piece forward so that we hope to um have Improvement in those areas in mathematics the area of focus that we'd be looking at is the progression from our grade five to grade six um that was an area that showed through in the in the data this year um and more specifically the subcategory of expressing mathematical reasoning that is a difficult concept for our students it's one of the reasons that we shifted to the envision math program to explain the mathematical thinking not just do the math um to do the ma the rote mathematics some of the possible impacts um to the scores that we saw this year we felt could have come just that transition to Middle School moving from fifth to sixth grade in and of itself is a challenge for some of our students um change of program so you went from having The Envision program down to the elementary up to the standard program that we had previously um which weren't as closely aligned so that that difference could have been something that was a little bit more of a challenge and again that lesson delivery so at the elementary level we have much more of a small group instruction workshop model and as we move into the middle school um you have a little bit more of an independent piece going on I almost would liken it to probably what we all experienc is more of the high school setting where you have the teacher presenting information and working off of it um so we're trying to sort of bridge that Gap as well but that could be possible reasons why the data showed the way that it did um in science we actually um science is tested on only grades five and eight so just something to keep in mind we don't have consistent data to show from year to year we performed um we actually improved in all areas in science so our numbers in levels one and two decreased and therefore in levels three and four uh 3 four and five they all increased so that was across the board in both of those content areas so I don't have a specific grade level of focus because we performed well in both of them um but we do have subcategories that are areas of focus for us so the critiquing practices and Earth and space science showed as two areas that we wanted to sort of explore a little bit more um possible impacts this is a little bit more difficult because we have intermittent assessment data we only have assessment data in fifth and eth grade so we sort of have a hard time making connections with that same group of students for three you know two to 3 years before we get them again and see what they've um what knowledge they've acquired through the state assessments we obviously have our own in-house assessments but to have that standardized piece we feel like we miss a little bit of data along the way and not every kid gets the same question so then you also try to correlate all of those pieces it makes a little tricky um the other piece Elementary delivery of our science programs is not every day so just based off of the schedule and the structure that we have there it isn't the primary content Focus um it pulls in the ELA the mathematics piece of it but as a result of that you know our scores could be impact if you're not teaching and learning something every single day that could potentially have an impact let me just make sure I didn't miss anything okay um so those were our cohort comparison pieces and now I want to talk a little bit more specific to our subgroup analysis so a subgroup um our first slide that I showed you showed the full grade level um performance subgroup now breaks it down into our socio economic bre uh breakdowns our race gender and even our special ed programs so we are able to look at data a little bit more specifically to each of these categories um and you know looking into that data this year it really demonstrated that we had some minimal variability in performance across all of those um of all of those areas across our multiple years so what I chose to do for this presentation was talk about our largest subgroup which is our special ed group um our special ed students that subgroup and the data analysis there talking about what it is we want to pay attention to so what we were able to see in the data is that there was um there are opportunities for growth in the area of English language arts and I will say that makes sense to us because many of our students who are classified are performing below grade level um and so this assessment is on grade level it is testing them on the material of that grade level so our students don't always perform at the higher level as their gened peers do not a problem I expect that to be the casee what I want to do is hone into what is the data that this assessment is actually able to give us and how can we improve from where we are right now so what our goal throughout the year is going to be is looking at our programs and our resources um that we regularly utilize and what instructional strategies take place in those classroom settings so that we can make sure that all of our instruction is aligned to research based best practices I'm going to briefly talk about um some of the alternative um assess State assessments and other programs that are um a part of this presentation but we really don't speak to because we have such a small population of students there that we're not able to report on them but I just wanted to let you know um we do have students in the district who um the njsla is not appropriate for them so they qualify for the alternate assessment which is the dynamic learning Maps we call it DM um it is also computer-based but it is presenting things to students at the essential so almost the very basic building blocks of what those standards are for the grade level expectations um so our students are per all of our students are participating in some sort of State assessment either njsla or DM um the other assessment that I want to speak briefly to is our access for L's um so that is the assessment from the state for our multilanguage Learners we do have an increasing population who are participating in this assessment um it is the English language proficiency assessment and what I um have as one of the data points I think it's one of the very last slides in your um appendix it does show the comparison of last year this year I can't break it down any more specifically obviously because it would be identifiable but one of the things that you'll notice is um we do have an increase of the students who are performing in that lowest level um and what I would speak to there is the amount of students who have come into us that are considered newcomers so that this is the first time in school the first time with English language they tend to perform lower on that assessment as expected our goal is that over the course of five years that we are progressing each year and moving them up to potentially exit out of the system so um what do we do with all of this data where are we going and what are our next steps so curricular revisions as Miss Landsburg had spoken about it is something that we are looking at continually um what we do with this data is we pull the standard specific areas of Challenge and we use them as our Focus we don't wait till the summer to do curriculum updates um we're starting to pay attention to now what are the changes we want to do we might formalize those pieces in the curriculum documents that you see and you look to approve for the following year but we're already thinking about how we can Implement and how we can change things um we also look at our supports and our resources in the district to make sure that we're aligned with our standard-based instruction program updates that could influence things um we are exploring different course offerings that bcms for the future um which also include looking at the building schedule exploration um at a very broad level this might be something that gives us more time um on a daily basis in certain content areas and that could impact our testing scores um it might explore it might give us opportunities to see different content areas which also could um would could benefit um the test scores that we see from year to year um in addition to that talking about the special ed Associated programs that we have and that instructional delivery that I just referenced would be a program update um that we'd be looking at going forward professional development again Mrs landisburg had touched upon this as well those tier one strategies so this data helps us to see where we might need additional support as we work through that goal for this year and then continuing to work with Maggie Roberts who is the um representative that we're bringing at the middle school this year finally intervention and referral services again we've already spoken to this um we are looking to update this procedural process um making sure we have supports for students that Focus on the data that we've collected linkit which is our data warehousing system which I know that some of you may be familiar with we have expanded to include their intervention manager so that when we pull data and we're talking about students everything is in one place um it makes those conversations um a lot easier to have we also are looking it's just that additional focus on data literacy so here are all these numbers and if you're not a numbers person you might not know what to do with them so we need to work to support our staff members to make sure that when we're having conversations about data there's meaning behind it and we can have that um turn into aspects of change so again one side of our triangle focusing on the academics but equally as important now we're going to shift over to the other side which is well-being for all students good evening everyone okay so I'm going to talk about the left side of the triangle now because um I think both sides are equally important when we're talking about how we are providing for our students because if we're being totally honest about things if students are not feeling safe they're they're head is not in the right space if they're not fed for the day they are not in a space to learn and perform as they should on all of these assessments we're not at our best when we're in a not in a head space or we're hungry so we can expect that of our students as well um so a huge part of what we've been pushing over the last few years for our students is that overall picture of well-being so one of the things that I'm looking at when we're thinking about well-being for our students is this idea of universal supports so um Miss landisburg had talked about those tier one strategies that we do the things that we do in the classroom every day those are Universal supports for our students um and they occur also in well-being so there are our trainings for our staff those are the programs that we Implement on a daily basis or they may be uh Universal screeners that we do for our students to identify um anyone who may need further support or to look at larger patterns in the population um and those are ways that we are trying to be proactive in addressing any issues that we may find um that may impact the well-being of our students so some of the things that we've continued to focus on this year um that we started our work on last year um was our access to extra curricular activities so last year we started um increasing our programs especially at whiten and at Stonybrook this year we've continued to do so um because one of the things that we know is that students happy students who want to come to school because they want to engage in something that's important to them and for some of our students that might just be that one club that they go to at the end of the day and that makes it worthwhile for them to come to school that day and excited to be here so those extracurricular activities are a really key component of us um providing for those well-being of our students um and another thing that we continue to focus our our efforts on is expanding how we support both our students and our families in the transition between buildings um you know as we look at it that movement into whiten that first year in kindergarten um that movement from White and to Stonybrook and then Stony Brook to bcms and onward to Somerville school so um this past year we had a big Focus especially on our parent programs that we were doing and we're continuing to evolve um that work as we look at the data from that and um find other ways that we can support our students now we do have some new things that we're integrating in this year so the lifelines program listed on there um it's a fantastic program through summer um Empower Sommerset it's actually something that's free for our district and it is incredibly comprehensive um in the ways that it helps our district look at our students who may be um struggling emotionally um and at risk for certain behaviors including possible suicide so the way that this lifelines program works is it helped us as an administrative team look at the um preventative measures down to every single policy we have our traumatic loss manual um anything that we may do including if something happened um an event happened and how we would handle and support the rest of our school Community another fantastic feature of the lifelines program though is a curriculum that we can use with students um it's a program that's appropriate for students that we're going to be implementing in fifth grade and in seventh grade um this is going to go part of our requirements our state requirements in providing instruction for our students in these areas but it's helping them provide language that's going to um notice signs for you know others and and notice what's happening for other students who to go to as a resource and help them manage those big feelings that they might be having um and providing support for it um we have an upcoming parent meeting that we're going to do before we roll out any of this curriculum it's in no early November um and that's going to help us um roll this out for our students but it's a really important program that we're we looking to implement um and the training that they provided for the staff was fantastic including the resources um as Miss Anderson and Miss landisburg mentioned part of the um overhaul that we're doing is our inrs process and I'm mentioning it again because this also applies to our students who may be struggling behaviorally um who may be struggling in um feeling good about being in school so I think that's an important component of mentioning it in this well-being perspective Ive and some of the interventions that we might provide for our students have to do with possible well-being um work with our tier three mental health um and well-being social worker or other counseling groups so it's important to mention that that's an aspect of our inrs process um another thing that we are focusing on this year is trying to Pro to provide more staff in the district with training on deescalation techniques um previously this was something that only key staff memb members in the buildings tended to have um who were dealing with some specialized um populations but as we're reflecting on these techniques I mean the ultimate goal of them is deescalation before a student gets so upset that they need other strategies so it's just a good tool to provide all staff with when provides them with the language and you know how you help a student um when they are struggling emotionally um when when we're talking about our Universal screeners this year we are going to be um implementing our Panorama um survey tool this is going to help us provide or find out data on how we're doing in the district in terms of school culture School climate um and our students in terms of like their social awareness their perseverance their grit um their sense of belonging in the district um it's going to provide us with some really nice information that we can then um our guidance counselors and our and our administrators can use as actionable next steps of oh I'm I seeing an issue here this is something that we can really work towards or I'm noticing these five students might be a little need a little bit more support let me pull them in a group and provide them with some strategies to help them with perseverance or or social awareness um so it's going to be a great data tool that we're going to be able to use um we actually have our first administration of it coming up tomorrow um and then the last thing that we're doing for our um schoolwide is breakfast offerings this is something new that we're doing in the district this year um because again we all function better if we are wellfed and ready to learn um so this is just providing that opportunity for students in case they're not having food at home that they can access this or like many students I forgot to have breakfast they have this opportunity um when they get to school because sometimes life is hectic or we have some growing boys and girls maybe it's second breakfast time they're Hobbits it's okay um a big push this year um not just in Branchburg but across the state is a focus on attendance um so right now as a nation we are having a problem with chronic absenteeism so the way that the federal government dis determines chronic absenteeism is they say that it is missing 10% or more of the school year so in New Jersey that means 18 or more days absent and they don't really care if you are sick or if you are skipping school or if you are um you know on vacation a day out is a day out in their eyes and it accumulates very fast 18 days is as little as 2 days per month that you are missing school um so it it really does add up quickly and we tend to not think about it in those terms um but Across the Nation in 2022 we found that 27% of students qualified as chronically absent now part of this is the message that was sent during the pandemic that it's okay you can do school at home no problem just stay home or also that mentality of oh you have a cough you better stay home for 5 days so I mean we are are trying to retrain some of these habits and patterns to get back and and emphasize how important being present in school is um because you can see some of those factors that the research has suggested are impacts of chronic absenteeism including AC low academic achievement dropping out delinquency gang envirment these are all things that the state has identified as possible consequences of this um and while in Branchburg we are doing better statistically than the state and the national average we still have seen a rise over the last few years so our big Focus this year on attendance um we're trying to enhance our communication methods um as parents I'm sure that you've seen the numerous attendance notifications that we've been providing especially the utilization of Genesis and part of that is so that way we have all of that data in one spot um and we can really clearly collect the data analyze it and then communicate out in a proactive manner when we start to see patterns of of attendance because we want to make sure we're updating parents um because like I said it accumulates fast you don't even realize it's happening especially if you know we have a planned vacation coming up in February you might not be accounting for your child getting the flu in December five days out with the flu five days in Disney you're already at 10 days it it accumulates very fast so we really are trying to focus on that as a district and continually monitor um and we've put a lot of systems in place especially utilizing our guidance counselors and our um tier three mental health and well-being social worker to provide support to families in terms of this so one more thing that we're doing in terms of well-being is a focus on school culture and climate so it was mentioned earlier that this year we are doing um G uh guidance counselor lessons so this is something that's happened across the buildings um a few times per year this year we're trying to really focus on having a Common Language around wellbeing and making sure that those themes persist K through 8 and that all students are hearing those same lessons so our guidance counselors are providing for our students every month a lesson um around a Central themes so for instance being kind being inclusive healthy relationships goal setting um transitioning into the school and knowing who your counselors are and what resources they can provide um so these are lessons that they are providing throughout the year to provide that common language to students that they can and we're also making sure that our teachers are involved in those lessons so that way they can take that language back to their classroom and use it there as well um and the other thing that we're doing is as Dr Chase mentioned we really do have a focus on strengthening our HIV programs in the district um we are trying to make sure that we are training every possible staff member in the district for things to look for around HIV um as well as other key areas like homelessness and child abuse and um you know uh threat to self those things that we want to make sure that we're providing that common language for and keeping our eyes open to what our students are what messages they're sending out there and what to do um so for instance I went to the transportation department two weeks ago and did a presentation in the garage for those staff members because all of our staff members they see our students in different settings and you never know for a student who's going to be that go-to person that they connect with and confide in and you want to make sure that those staff members have the tools to then take that to the next step so we're really trying to work on that preventative measure in terms of Hib and other areas and training all of possible staff um in what to look for um and making sure that we're providing a supportive respectful learning environment so overall when we're talking about any of these areas whether it's um Hib whether it's attendance whether it's lifelines for the risk assessments the some common themes that we're finding is that we're trying to standardize our procedures by creating manuals and go-to process IES um for what to do in these situations and how to um how to make a a protocol for it um and then we're also looking at what's our progress monitoring of our data where do we need to reflect and go back and then are there areas where we need to increase our staff training so those are some kind of common themes that we're looking at I'm just going to turn it over to miss Nash now to finish this out okay all right so um the last piece of our puzzle is community engagement um this is something we you're an integral part of this process and we can't do any of this without your support so these are just a few of the opportunities that we have some of them are new some of them have been ongoing um you know uh partnering with the community PTO membership our district cpeg which is our special education parent Alliance Group um but we have Town Hall meetings and building based meetings that are open to anybody if they need information have questions um our building based meetings are ways to get in touch with your building principal um who are present at those meetings in addition to the rest of the supervisors typically and U Miss Anderson as well um we have school sponsored evening events and informational parent um nights the upcoming lifelines training the upcoming Invision math night um these are just a few of the opportunities so all right so you've seen tonight that um we are all working together as a team um all of us and we are looking at Student Success not just as a measure of how well they're doing in terms of academics but how well the child is doing overall and that includes well-being that includes academics um and so that's our goal moving forward it has been but we are going to continue to work towards that whole child um well-being and um promoting success in every aspect and then your last slide has your appendix of all of that data so little lackluster for the last one um if you have any questions I know that's a lot of information it's always a lot of information I did not hit the time frame goal I apologize um but I hope that you found it to be very informative so if anyone has any questions uh we are willing to answer I have I have two questions so number one thank you for the framing of this and really talking about his whole whole child being I think that's such a nice way to really dimensionalize all the work that's happening to support the student in full uh versus the academic so appreciate all the work that went into it the framing it's really nice to go deep um really understand all the work you guys were doing so thank you for that of course uh two questions of course as it relates to the academics um it's great to see our scores appreciate it I just sat through somerville's last week um so it's you know I love seeing these this level scores the one question I have is do you have a sense of you know obviously there's you you combine four and five and you can see a a very material Gap versus the state so it's great to see us continue to to exceed which be has become our expectation do you know if that Gap to the state has that narrowed or is that expanded over the past few years do you have a sense of what that looks like um I would say that I would say we're pretty consistent um cons yeah just that it's we are pretty much seeing that same percentage Gap it might shift a little bit depending on the grade level that we're looking at um and there are sometimes I don't know that I could speak to us ever really being Below in the four and five but when you get to level three you have to think of it as a Continuum so students will FL U between all the different levels so one year we might be lower than the state in level three but that might be because we had a larger population of students in four five sure so you know I chose to group those ones together because if you see the how the grouping of four five is you could naturally understand if we're higher here that means that we are lower on the other end so there's there's always fluctuation in those different areas but not trending in any not necessarily trending that has got it okay that is any area of concern for us got it okay and then just one um additional question that I'm done is um it was interesting just sitting through the Somerville one and they talked a lot about for the multi-lingual Learners um if they you know if they are being tested in their native language especially for not necessarily english comprehension but just comprehension of language understanding the materials that they're reading or even of course math because if they're tested obviously in English you might not really see how are they doing and Performing so I just don't know do we do we do that do we test we have we have two um I will refer to them going forward just so you all know as ml teachers are multilanguage Learners the stage has changed that language there but it's still access for L's so I kept for here um we have two staff members in our district who are split across the buildings to support our students um and they actually are the staff members that help to determine how we are administering the assessment So based off of what data they have they would determine whether we're assessing them in English or language arts um they are so for njsla any student who is new to the country um after July 1st of the current testing year does not take Ela because they are not able to participate in that assessment the way that we would like them to be um or that we would really get valid data um mathematics and science though however they could be enrolled in it and then that's when we would determine are they taking the English version or the Spanish version they don't um I'm not positive but I want to say I don't know that the trans adaptation in different languages is there for all languages um as of yet I think each year we go back to the training you get a little bit more and a little bit more um but we do I can speak specifically to English and Spanish but we have set it up so that we have it in their native language so that the data we're collecting makes sense when they take access for elll however it is in English because it's it's set up as an English literac yeah um English proficiency assessment um to gather information and there's a bu more pictures and things that go along with it got it okay great yes um but for our district Assessments in the classrooms uh The Envision program for mathematics has a component for in Spanish um and then we are looking into I just sent out a quote for um a program that is available for L ml students in particular to kind of take them through those steps of the five guides that's trans um translatable into over a 100 languages oh wow okay great thank you no problem anyone else the quick question of course great information thank you you're welcome more esoteric right we're focusing on the entire child yep we can measure aptitude yep through testing what are we doing to measure and monitor wellbeing so to me that's your Panorama survey that we're starting with tomorrow so that's going to be our first Baseline and what we get in that first Baseline is going to be where we start and we're administering that multiple times throughout the year so we're going to be able to hopefully see progress in different areas the data that we collect out of this first Administration is going to help us to structure some of those guidance lessons going forward that Dr Stanton talked about um so we're hoping to pinpoint and Target specific areas which may be different at each school right each population is taking you know is getting this um this screener and it's it's um differentiated per grade level shall we say or you know Elementary versus that Middle School piece so I think what what our plan is but we haven't gotten the data yet is to sort of be able to pull that in and mine it and say okay where do we really see the need at Stony Brook where do we really see the need at bcms and hone in there so that when we do our second Administration we can sort of see that comparison and and are we doing anything from a parents perspective because excuse me a student will tell the mother and a father school went great today or school was terrible today but when you put a survey in front of them and give them a one to five y right three yeah so are are we bringing the parents in to kind of gauge what they hearing versus what our information is telling us are we administering screening opportunities for the parents or just the teachers will be our next steps for our plan so for through Panorama so we I don't know if that is what his question is um oh you're looking to just capture like if the parents want to share information with us I'm I'm wondering if what the parents are hearing from the students okay are the same information that we're getting from the students right so if a student students having a problem they're much more likely to go to their to their parents and say are students actually reporting to us what's happening are they telling you what they're actually seeing or is there going to be some type of survey bias way answering right are they answering because they think they want you to answer that way or are they answering how they honestly feel yeah so there is a thank you um there's a standardized script that our teachers are um using with all of the students in the survey Administration just to talk about that this is a data point for us it's not an assessment encouraging them to be honest obviously sometimes there's going to be some bias because some students are going to want to answer as you're wanting to hear um at this point we're not planning on sending home like a full score report to parents but as um guidance counselors are going through the data and if they are pulling students because you know you know Johnny Susie and Sally they're really kind of they seem to be struggling with emotional regulation as they're reporting anytime those guidance counselors are going to pull the students to work for a group they're first going to reach out to the parents to have that conversation and and get consent to pull them into that group um and in when those groups happen that's when we'll also provide um like a like a check-in on the progress because as with any type of um intervention that you provide if you're going to do three or four or five lessons on something you're going to want to know did this have any impact so they'll be those specific students will be provided with that check-in um so that's kind of how we're working on communicating that out and then certainly if we notice for any of these students who are in the inrs process we can look at what's being pulled in Panorama also as another data point that can inform that conversation if they're coming up with terms of academic concerns or behavioral concerns it's another data point for us to pull into the conversation thank you that it's been decreasing like if I can just chime into to elaborate on what Mr Tuma was saying so you were asking you know in in academics for many many years in education we've been measuring that so we have a lot of tools built out um you know well-being and this understanding comes from the comes from Castle and all the literature that shows that when students fundamental needs are met they're more likely to be successful so there's going to be a lot of um there's going a direct correlation to like a specific measurement tool however when we're looking at how students are as a whole child we have some data points that we can look at um that we've been Gathering throughout the district because we have standardized processes now so you know obviously we should be seeing some improvements with Hib we should be seeing um lessening of Crisis we send students out right now who are displaying either um some significant concerns about things that they're saying we send them for crisis referrals we should be seeing um risk assessment referrals reduce we should be seeing greater attendance so there's going to be a whole picture that's painted off of this to prove proof of concept right um because the literature around all of this is showing that students when we are fostering their well-being are more likely to succeed than not in a myriad of ways so that's going to be that's the exciting part in education right now because we haven't historically seen this kind of work being done we've seen more of the standardized assessments measurement of content in one's brain um and we know just from the way the world is going technology is advancing education is advancing it's no longer the students who are in our schools today we don't know the jobs that they are going to have they do not necessarily exist but we do know there's going to be more problem solving there's going to be more critical thinking skills and if a child is coming to school and they don't feel like they belong those higher level thinking skills will never be able to happen so um we're going to continually measure this the nice thing about the work that this team has been doing like I said things were historically handled at the building level but now we have District practices where we can get all of that data and look at some longitudinal information too which is very exciting for Branchburg any other questions I just want to chime in and since I think I've seen more of these in anyone sitting not more than Miss wary she's seen 30 all all right all right I was I was just going with the age thing but anyway um I want to thank you all it was so nice to see this as a team effort because like been you said the framing of this is so much more meaningful I think for board members I hope for parents at home I know we've always looked at the numbers and you know we've worried about certain groups of kids in certain grades and as Dr Chase said like it's all related and we are going to as as you guys get more of these processes in place I can't wait to see next year's presentation because I think it will your presentation will be more integrated just as we're integrating all of the work that's happening in the schools and it's going to as you said we're going to see some numbers increase hopefully uh in our assessments and other numbers decrease as far as some behavioral issues and I can't wait I'm excited so thank you for all that hard work awesome thank you that is uh the superintendent report so thank you everyone thank you is anyone oh I got a is it okay that brings us to public comment on agenda items only no public so besides I don't consider them public they're always weird they're a staple um okay okay so we will move on to governance I have no report other than the fact that I think some of us have some training that is still outstanding I'm not calling out anybody by name don't worry um so maybe as the the year comes to an end and things slow down hopefully a little bit we can just everybody can get that done um we do have some voting items we have one approval of minutes two approval of Hib investigative report three approval of hi findings report four approval of 2023 2024 anti-bullying self- assessment grades five approval of school bus emergency evacuation drill report and six approval of submission of 2024 2025 NJ qac School nursing Services plans can I have a motion to move those items motion second any questions comments can I have a roll call please mrit yes Mr Mater yes as to one 2 four five and six no as to three Michelle yes to one two four five and six and no to three Mr Tuma yes to one two four five six and no to number three Miss Joyce yes Mr Carpenter yes I'm Sorry Miss no that's okay so I've stay on one and three yes on two three four oh no two four and five and six so abstain on one and three and yes on the rest did you call Mr REI yeah that was first sorry all right moving on uh next up is policy um Miss deai is not here we did meet two weeks ago um she has already gone over um everything in item number one for second reading um item number two the first reading um there was just pretty much language changes I don't think anything groundbreaking like Miss Anderson said uh they changed the ESL acronym to MLL for the multilanguage Learners um and then item number three Poli to be abolished they're just removing the uh stipulation that we can meet um remotely that was enacted during Co um yeah so we have a couple voting items we have one policy and regulation second reading two policy and regulations first reading and three policy and regulations to be abolished can I have a motion to move those motion sorry um any questions comments I just just one question just for clarity uh P0 41.1 just because I don't know if that concerns uh it was just if you do not meet a certain criteria of of people in that school district I think it was like 25% yes ah okay then your seats gone and then it also spoke to some bullets that you're allowed to vote on oh okay so that's did I not send you that yet yes okay so that's that oh that yes that's the policy got it okay perfect thank you I want to make sure there was nothing new that came up I need to be aware of thank you um anybody else can I have a roll call please miss fitzi yes Mr Mater yes Miss noo yes Miss Shaw yes Mr Tuma yes Miss Joyce yes Mr caria yes next up is corriculo report uh voting items we have one conferences and travel two approval of fundraiser service projects three approval of revision of contracted service and four approval of acceptance of Grant funds can I have a motion to move those motion second any questions or comments can I have a roll call please miss fitzi yes Mr Mater yes Miss noo yes Miss Shaw yes Mr Tuma yes Miss Joyce yes Mr Carpenter yes next up is Personnel Mr tumor do you have anything no report uh the Personnel committee hasn't met since the last meeting but we will meet next Wednesday okay cool thank you very much we have voting items we have one approval of reti IR M two approval of revision of leave three approval of extra duty pay four approval of resignation five approval of personnel six approval of home instruction and seven approval of 2024 2025 extracurricular activity AIDS can I have a motion to move those motion second any questions or comments just a comment on the retirement of kski wishing her so well she's just touched so many so many children various roles here she'll be missed second that anybody else can I have a roll call please Missi yes Mr Mater yes Miss noo yes Miss Shaw yes Mr Tuma yes Miss Joyce yes Mr Carpenter yes next up is finance and Facilities M CH do you have a report I do have a report the committee met on October 17th was last week wasn't it um we got an update on uh the business office the business office uh has oops you know what I did not bring yeah I did um so our business office has had quite a bit of turnover as we all are aware um since actually before Dr Chase became our superintendent so uh just to point out that number five under uh Finance facilities this evening we're approving the contract for um Miss Vorhees to continue with us through the end of the year to try to give us a little stability in the department um the Auditors were in the district this week work or last week working are they finished or are they still uh they're not finished but they're not here okay um so all the departments in the business office are in the process of creating business process manuals um so far the manual so I and I think uh they were talking about so we're doing business man or we're doing uh process manuals all over the district which is fantastic um so far manuals for purchasing and Student Activities have been completed and the business office is working on those for transportation technology buildings and grounds and payroll um that way everyone will have a common understanding of how things work uh and hopefully it will make future transitions easier because I don't foresee uh turnover ending anytime soon um so as far as facilities technology and security the tech and maintenance departments are reviewing all our systems to make sure everything's in working order and up to date uh Miss B's also went over the comp gave us a little description of the comprehensive maintenance plan item three tonight that we're voting on um it's a one of those state reports that we have to do um it shows uh it's just to assure the state that we are spending the minimum required to maintain our facilities um we talked a lot about the budget the upcoming budget for 2025 2026 I know that's sounds strange to hear but the budget process um kicks into full gear I think it begins officially in November but um our Administration is always thinking about the fiscal health of our district um we spent a lot of time discussing this the um the administration shared their concerns about keeping the educational program strong and making sure our facilities stay clean and safe and meeting our legal requirements and we have to remember that we have to do all this within two within a 2% tax levy cap and this year there's a strong possibility I should say next year of cuts to our state funding um just like the cost of living the cost of operating our schools continues to go up with our largest costs increasing at more than 2% much more than 2% the administration will continue to share the process with the board and the community as they formally move into the 2526 budget cycle next month and we all begin to tackle the difficult decisions that will need to be made so in addition to talking about next year's budget we also had discussions about what's happening this year um obviously uh we have Rising costs this year as well we have um outof District special education expenses which continue to grow as we as our population continues to grow um we also have uh higher salaries that we're paying to some new staff members can command new higher starting salaries due to the increasing scarcity of qualified staff as the population of our town increases our student population is growing as well and we will start to have a need for additional busing and educational programming so um I know it's not much of a consolation but this is not just about Branchburg this is happening everywhere um all the districts in the state are facing the same issues and some of them are taking very drastic measures we haven't had to do that yet here and Hope hopefully we won't have to um but our administrators are continuing to evaluate where we are educationally and where we want to go and they're doing all that while they're balancing the needs of the district with the current availability of funding so um we had lots of good conversation and we will continue to have it and share it here and our next meeting is on November 14th that's my report thank you very much we have voting items one bill list and payroll two approval of donation three approval of comprehensive maintenance plan for 2023 2024 through 2025 2026 four approval to pay bills and five approval of contract with hunon County Ed Services Commission Board of Education can I have a motion to move those items motion second any questions or comments no questions just a quick comment um I just got back from Workshop this afternoon one of the most highly attended sessions at workshop on Tuesday was a session called is your District ready for the fiscal cliff okay it was in one of the largest rooms in the convention center the room was capped at 650 people and there was not one empty seat in that entire presentation Rising enrollments increasing special education costs inflation higher teacher salaries due to demand and not enough Supply common themes across not just districts but the entire State okay we're we're trying to get ahead of it as a finance committee and understand what the drivers are and where we're going to have to make some of these painful possible decisions in the future but there are other districts that have already been there and done that so I don't know if you saw in the news last week East Orange or was it East Orange I believe it was East Orange had to lay off almost 100 teachers because of of a balance on their on their budget issue right so we're cognizant of what's going on we're we're discussing it in committee we're trying to stay ahead of it and we we'll do our best to keep the board informed as these issues arise and we come up to hopefully satisfactory solutions to them thank you thank you is um just for my knowledge is the 2% cap like is that every District or is that that's or is it just ours it's only districts who have April um have November election election oh okay you stay within the I'm sorry oh no go ahead I was just gonna say if if you move your election back to April your your um School Board elections to April then you have to get your budget voted voted on right so if okay so it has to be within 2% cap because of our Cycles on November but if it was April so say if it was like a 5% no so here's how it works you don't if you have a November election and you keep your budget at 2% or less right the voter it doesn't need to get voted on it doesn't need to be voted on if you have your election in April right the voters vote on your budget got it I I have any increase regardless of the increase they would have to vote on the budget as a whole so to get it okay unless that's changed I know the law changed in Janu last January to allow a additional question but I don't I know if it changed how that works or not um I know yeah I know there were some changes with regard to the the reason why school districts initially moved to not having a vote um was because the governor at that time who I believe was Chris Christie implemented the 2% tax cap Levy to ensure that the taxpayers taxes don't exceed a certain amount of money um so with that being implemented the taxpayers didn't have to vote on it anymore because it was being assur reassured that it wouldn't exceed a certain fund um anything so then there were a lot of school districts that moved to that situation but there were also some districts that maintained the vote um in cases where a board's budget is voted down on by the taxpayers um and their Cuts need to be made historically that would go to the township committee and the township Committees of the towns would make the cut to the school district's budgets part of the challenge with that was that they didn't understand fully the operations of the school districts I was actually part of a school district where that happened and Cuts were made and um you know when you look at things on paper you have a certain perspective of how things are happening but when you operationalize it happens there have been some changes over the past couple years I'm not too clear I could get clarification for the board I do know there were some districts that did move back to having a vote but minimal the majority of school districts maintain the 2% tax cap Levy and don't have a public vote on it that you can have a 2% Levy and not a vote and still add an additional special question oh that can be voted on and in addition you can go above the two% for specific reasons example uh you have a pension bill that is larger than you can pay that can be one you open a new school that could be another um I think there's five or six different reasons if your State Health if your health benefit increase is larger than a certain percentage of what state health is inre inre thereby you can ask uh for an increase and an enrollment increase and I believe there might be one other which is I believe special tuition no it the one right so you you captured most of them on the enrollment increase it's a greater than 10% so we need to watch our numbers because last year we were very close yes right so you're allowed to exceed the 2% if your enrollment exceeds 10% year-over-year if our enrollment keeps increasing as it has in the past we may get there right employee benefits is another carve out that that can exceed the 2% um bonding so if if you go out to a referendum and the bonds come in and you're approved you can exceed the 2% on that as well yes that's under a different fund fund fund 40 versus your operating budget now as M forhe said speaking about the second question so many school districts have been employing the second question because what that does is once you go to the taxpayers for the vote to have money money your marked you actually increase your base budget year after year so once that second question is being put in place and I was in a district that did a second question for security which interestingly enough is no longer allowed to be voted on Via a second question um Miss for he just made me aware of that recently that's a provision that changed but what they that was being done and it was increasing the base budget which was ultimately increasing the amount of money you were getting your budget because then your 2% cap was then calculated on that so there are several you know as Mr Tuma said um there are there are ways that the school districts go to the taxpayers to address some of the cost um costs that they're acing that are extending beyond that one is a second question the also is referendum and you'll see many school districts doing referendums across the state because for the very reason that M Joyce and Mr Tuma spoke to just to keep the what I call the lights on to roll over for next year is exceeding the 2% cap so it's becoming increasingly challenging just something else interesting I heard in one of the sessions at um Workshop was they explained referendums as a combined lack of Maintenance that was deferred in Prior years being paid for all at once so in the past the maintenance was one of the first things that got cut out of budget so the schools would deteriorate a little bit and everything else and what they said is now a lot of schools let's say you need a $5 million referendum for school improvements had you been able to fund those improvements over the course of the prior 5 or 10 years you would have eliminated the need for the referendum to do the maintenance which was deferred for other reasons right so it's a very fine Balancing Act of what's covered from operating versus what becomes capital in referendum and there's a lot of different ways that different districts are handling it and it was just very interesting to see how many of them had deferred the maintenance to the point where they had to do a referendum one that comes to mind is seille seille had put off building maintenance for over 20 years and had to do a $97 million referendum just to get their buildings back into shape if you recall back in time uh approximately I'm going to say 10 years ago the many schools were in that situation for the exact same reason you know we have to make decisions that are best for for kids kids are a number one priority and do you want 30 kids in the classroom with less staff or do you want to just not do the roof repair this year right and a lot of boards admirably made the decision that didn't impact students but what the state said was because all these buildings then became dilapitated and we needed help and that's when Rod grants came through and that's when the state funding gave us back the 40% and there's also if you go to a referendum and if you're your needs meet your long range facility plan um certain specific areas you also get a Debt Service Aid relief when you go to a referendum as well so the state recognizes where we're at but I'm been told this year that we can plan on a decrease in Aid and in my 32 years I've never heard that and I heard it in September so I I was shocked to hear that they're already talking about the loss of state aid this year so I they say prepare for three scenarios I I think that you need to prepare for a loss that would be my recommendation to the board so we will be crafting and working and looking and seeking you know a budget's made up of revenues and expenditures you either increase your revenues or you cut your expenditures it's as simple as that and that complexity is what we need to as Administration present to you as the board on where the priorities will lie and what we will be doing and we talked about that at our finance committee as well okay thank you a lot to look forward to good discussion we didn't vote we did not vote we didn't vote yet we did not vote yet can I have a roll call please Mr Ritzi I don't even know what I'm v um yes Mr maer yes Miss noo yes Miss Shaw yes Mr Tuma yes Miss Joyce yes Mr Carpenter yes that brings us to our second public comment I don't think so I was getting nervous hello okay I'm Randy Lee Childers I am just here as no president hat on I wanted to just say I know You' mentioned Mrs Kaminsky and um she was my mentor when I first started working here 17 years ago so I felt like I would be remissed to not say congratulations and um she will absolutely be missed um she has been I know you mentioned people being a staple that is what she is so um you will be you know again miss super thank you thank you okay that brings us to our board aison reports first off is Summerville okay um sville board met last Tuesday the 15th um just a few things they are undergoing a qac audit um so we'll be busy with that um they also presented their uh their njsla results you can watch that if you're interested I won't go through the comprehensive uh assessment that was done they had also brought in Consultants to do a curriculum audit um so I I passed along the public report uh Dr Chase to you just because I thought the the Auditors did such a fantastic job of really getting in there since summertime talking with all the staff especially Kate ruid and and some uh in the high school to really get at the underpinnings of you know what the staff felt was going on and how can just the district do better and so all of that is available and online um from the sville board meeting on 10:15 so nothing else really much to add from that we spent a lot of the public session discussing just the the audit as well as the the district assessment results you want to just roll right into PTO sure why not um super excited PTO has trunk orre treat tomorrow Friday so if you can come and support that'd be great get some candy and some cavities but support the PTO um and all the great work that they do thank you where's the where's the trunker or treat Charlie let me look just so in case anyone wants to go and white that white Randy say is that is it that way they have a sign out front that says it's right there I should know I always thought it was that I think it's oh crap I Saw the Sign might be wrong I I remember talk something Middle School sorry I'm looking at their flyer online and I can't even see where it says it usually it's at White o yeah I'm pretty sure it's usually but it doesn't say I'll come back to you on that keep going if it's tomorrow can't believe it's not on there it's not on there um summer said that uh Services Commission I don't have anything school boards just another reminder for your training that's Weir and I'll pass it off to brinberg Township no report uh Mr Sai is not here cpeg anything no report no report okay you're running out of time has actually mha it um I'm on their website and it says whiten Elementary School Whit yeah I think it is yeah I thought it was thank you I saw the sign Charlie is at whiten Elementary School 470 Whiten Road not not for me in case anyone's watching and wants to attend my costumes are too small yes and please I'll go that all right can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting motion second all in favor thank you back