order please stand for the FL the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of this act the cedar Gro board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be advertised by having the date time and place thereof posted on bulletin boards in the district published and or transmitted to the Verona Cedar Gro times and the star lger newspapers tap into online news filed with DET Clerk and posted on the District website can I have a roll call please Mr grandi here Mr Maro here Mr P here Mrs Keegan here Mr here good evening everybody everybody's enjoying their summer this warm weather um at this time I'd like to open the meeting for public common on agenda items only seeing that there's no I move to close this portion of the meeting and we're going to move on to we got a couple committee reports that we're going to do this evening and then um we'll move on to some updates and then we have a presentation today that's coming um so we have two committee reports um this week facilities and uh Personnel M I'm going to start with facilities we're going to tag team it this Keegan and myself we attended a facilities meeting um this week Dr T was in um in attendance Mr Bannon our buildings and grounds supervisor and Mr D business administrator um the focus of the discussion uh that I want to talk about tonight is our Rod grants that we um were approved for that the district was awarded uh on the agenda tonight you will see a resolution resolution um to accept the bids the this is the second time around just to kind of recap a little bit the first time we went out for a bid the bids came in significantly overpriced or over budgeted um so we went back out for a second time and tonight hopefully we will be passing a resolution to accept these these bids the bids will include new HVAC systems for the gymnasiums and to upgrade uh new electrical services at North End and South End Elementary Schools there is an alter there was several alternates that were attached to the rod ramp um applications and the first one being adding additional sub panels I'm not going to get into the details but basically adding additional sub panels that will allow the HVAC systems to um provide um air conditioning so down the road the goal is to get air conditioning into the buildings and without um adding these sub panels we would not have that opportunity to so tonight on resolution includes accepting the first Alternate which is the additional sub panels and the second Alternate which we are not in favor of and it's not on the resolution tonight that involved uh painting the ceilings in the gymnasiums um not inos to painting but the price was significantly overpriced and we are altered we are looking into um looking into other ways to be financially responsible and get the more reasonable rate so we will see that on the agenda tonight anything else you want to add to that yes theed school and sou all of the ls have been reped and the Northend walkway and South basketball court were also resurfaced and basketball systems for the court at are on order and should be insted and working by the time school starts there are you if anybody has been on the um grounds of the school you'll see that there are portions of the parking lots that look like they were left out uh they were purposely not repaved at this point because they will be impacted by the work that's being done for the rod grants on the upgrade of the electrical so it didn't make any sense to put down new pavement just to tear it up and repave it so uh there was a reason why they they've been left as is and will be upgraded once the the electrical systems are all in place voice over the CL and voiceover new Voiceover IP system um is in in the district is being figured and all that's going to be completed by the time school starts um the high school gym yes is being repainted it looks fabulous it's in the works right now weeks the floor is also going to be completely finish so we're looking forward to seeing that fin Pro as well and then the water the water meters yes water meter upgrades are happening in the district just like they happening across town um the sum are builds you also mayid recently they were completing the of upad that was P last week the CR was there on site and insted rooftop units they'll be configured and in service within the next couple of weeks and those units control all of theas always off so a big shout out to our buildings and grounds Department who has been working tirelessly um to get our buildings up and and ready for September and with all the upgrades and um I'll just announce it now but I'll announce it again at the end that the next board meeting will be is being moved because they need the availability of the elementary schools to finish some of the projects so we'll be having the meeting here but I'll repeat that again at the end so I think that's it for facilities that's a lot um Mr P you want to take over her personel person last we and you know time time of very important time espe those are difficult jobs they're not easy jobs to interv for and to secure top um I'm very happy with uh the way that this has moved forward as I said in a very efficient manner but yet not compromising on candidates and ensuring that we can bring the best that we can into our school district all of those individuals will be as part of our businesses this evening as presented by the superintendent I would like to make one one comment regarding curriculum um I would really like to commend our supervisors and especially Dr T for the way that they moved um solidifying in the new math program um you know I made a lot of comments regarding the gaps that were in that program it didn't educate seemed like it was a legitimate way to proceed with the program I knew there were cost factors but as soon as Dr P was able to come into the district and was able to find and secure the moneyy because as you it's it's it's much better when the program is Unified and everybody is being trained as a staff together not bits and pieces and that you don't have certain grades segwayed out of the program and then have to come back in and start the program a new in a year or two so just accommodation to all our supervisors and to Dr te for making sure that happens for SE thank you thank you Mr P um okay at this point um I don't have too many of board president updates because they kind of shared a lot of it but I just want to reiterate about the basketball courts because I know the district has received um several phone calls regarding when the courts going back up the South End courts will they're on order from what I'm being told they're due to arrive at the hopefully at the end of this week but we all know when we order things they don't always arrive when they say they're going to so they are coming so the community who's watching they are coming I promise um just please we ask you to continue to be patient and um the kids will be out there as soon as we can um that's really all I have we updated everything else I know that Dr T has some um super update so it's all yours Madame President thank you and good evening SE grow School community I hope everyone is doing well enjoying these summer months I would like to highlight a few items that have already been mentioned but also want to share my perspective about them that are on the agenda this evening I am very pleased to share that we are hiring a new high high school guidance counselor on tonight's agenda her name is Stephanie podias and she comes to us with 10 years of experience which does include working as a high school guidance counselor Stephanie will be able to join the guidance Department in August and be will be with us full-time in September as we kick off the new school year and she's actually in the audience so Stephanie welcome we're excited to have you appreciate you being here this evening thank you I am also excited to share with you and the community that we will be hiring Dr Eric milu a mathematics professor from Rowan University to support our teachers throughout this upcoming school year with the implementation of our new math curricular resources Dr milu is highly regarded as an expert in the field of elementary and middle school math programs and was actually one of the authors of our new math program inis Vision 2.0 he will meet with our teachers in their classrooms throughout the school year to assist with planning teach model lessons and provide ongoing coaching this evening's agenda also includes the official rehire of our security guards I know there was some discussion in the community this spring about reducing our security Force to four guards we have made some adjustments and we'll move forward with five guards for the 2425 school year as well as access to a subse guard if needed last week I met with the leaders of the MSU Siege program which has been supporting our students and families in the area of providing Counseling Services services for the past several years I want to reassure the community this partnership will continue during the 24 and 25 school year I also look forward to working closely with this partnership to better understand our community needs and how best to use these resources in service to our students and families in the future and then lastly but certainly not least I am super excited introduced tonight our new it coordinator who will be hired this evening Mr Christopher Hyde is with us tonight and after his official appointment on the agenda we will invite him to the mic to make a few introductory comments we could not be more excited about Mr high high joining our community he has previously worked in Rosel Park and the East Brunswick communities where he provided highlevel leadership in the areas of Technology support infrastructure and Innovation I am confident he will quickly prove to be a great asset to our community and with that I conclude my report and in doing so I'd like to invite for our presentation this evening both Bart and Janine to come up and are going to present about our NJ GPA results so if I can hand the mic over to the two of you thank you for good evening my name is bar parison I'm the supervisor of humanities um this is my partner Janine Barbosa um we'll be presenting tonight the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment scores uh taken in the spring of 2024 um forward the New Jersey graduation profy assessment was designed to measure the extent in which students are graduation ready students are assessed in grade 11 in both Ela and math the in the ELA section the test is aligned to grade level 10 New Jersey uh learning standards and in mathematics it's aligned to the algebra one and geometry standards on May 23rd 2023 the uh New Jersey Department of Education adopted the proficiency level cut scores for the NJ GPA and Ela and math components and approved the menu of alternate assessments and align cut scores and we'll talk about the alternate Assessments in in a little bit do get on to the scores because we don't want to have this build in ela at Cedar Grove High School we had a 96% graduation ready um percentage with only 4% of our students not passing which I think equals five students alog together um both as you can see it's both hired State and um state in graduation not graduation ready and in graduation ready um by 14% which is this is a nice number for us um in math you want to do this one I'll do this one in mathematics we have 74% graduation ready which is approximately what our scores were last year and we have 26% in a cohort that we need to support and that is what the plan is anytime we have any type type of scores we have to focus on what comes next to support our students and be proactive and so here are our next steps further disaggregate data and identify individual students and needs some of the data that comes to us are individual question types not the actual questions but questions in which we can make a correlation between standards and evidence statements and that is the type of data that we we sit with building principles um obviously it's it's Mrs Mrs englas um and the teachers of the current students and identify what their needs are because the next step is to prepare them for the fall administration of that test which is sometime in October I will also say that when it comes to data it's not just about focusing on the students that we have to pass with the fall Administration it's using that information to be proactive and prepare our next group of Juniors who will be taking it in March of 2025 and that information will be disseminated to our teachers at the junior level so that we can even more aggressively Infuse some of the practice questions with different Platforms in Algebra 1 and geometry into their mathematics courses and their Ela courses as well um the last step is building leaders supervis visor guidance Department teachers will work collaboratively to support students who may need to consider alternate Pathways what are the alternate Pathways I'm not going to move it's okay it's not try as we are trying to get the next slide I will explain the next Slide the first pathway is for the cohort of students who were not graduation ready take the NJ GPA in the fall that is the first step last year a significant number of students passed this in the second time around leaving a very small handful of students who had to take this in both Ela and Ela and or math the second pathway um and and those students went to the second path way which is to take another competency test such as PSAT sat act or acup Placer and there are separate cut scores and a rubric to follow and that would replace the need to pass the NJ GPA and we are happy to report that those students last year the small handful they all passed the acup Placer and we did not have any students need to go on to the third pathway which is an option and and that pathway is to submit a student portfolio to the NJ dooe and that Port portfolio includes a series of different tasks that are standards-based and meet different domains for each of ela and math so there are a lot of things to be proactive and we are going to be ahead of the ball this ahead of the game this year and do our best to support our students moving forward thank you and so as we come back just want to again thank Bart and Janine for your presentation this evening the work of ongoing analysis of our student achievement data is ongoing uh so I do want to assure the community of that um and our next robust data presentation will happen either during the October or the November board meeting when we report out about our most recent NGS SLA scores um and then lastly I want to reassure the community uh myself and our leadership team this summer are beginning to jump in to design our district goals for the next school year those goals will be informed by all the various levels of data analysis that we're completing so with that Madame President I'm going to hand it back over to you thank you sure all right moving on to moving some business stop just GNA keep going okay thank you okay um under business administrator report can I have a motion for G1 through g12 please any discussion roll call please Mr Ry yes Mr Mar Mr pal Mrs Keegan Mrs D yes under superintendent's report under General Administration can I have a motion for H1 second discussion roll call please Mr Grande yes Mr marzulo Mr P M Keegan yes m d yes under Human Resources can I please have a motion for i1 through [Music] I15 second discussion roll call Mr Grandy yes Mr marul yes Mr P yes Mr Keegan yes this time I open the meeting uh for public comment on any school related items the Board of Ed recognizes the value of public [Music] com recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest public participation shall be governed by the following rules rules please preface your comments by stating your name address Municipality of residence and group affiliation please be mindful of your statement length and keep each statement at the three minute limit participants may not speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard please direct all statements questions or inquiries to the presiding officer and the presiding officer May interrupt Warn and or terminate a participant statement question or inquiry if it is to or abusive or obscene or maybe defamatory that at this point we have one person this sorton welcome you to the microphone everyone so I just wanted to talk about just state your name and address it's okay uh Jessica Horton 91 Winding Way um so I just I spoke at the last meeting I wanted to bring up again the seeds program after the last meeting my daughter's uh guidance counselor got back wasn't sure of the status of the program so I'm glad to hear today that it is continuing um I've also heard that it even though it is continuing it's um cut 50% from what it was in previous years so I was wondering if there was um a possibility of that ramping back up in future years or if that's finalized thank you okay yes please yes so welcome thank you for coming out if I could also use this as an opportunity to start to orient myself with the community about um my approach to responding to public comment um and so what I like to do is allow for all public comments to be made and then provide a response as best I can we had the one public comments ton night so you're this is very good Training Wheels for me so I thank you for that um and uh what so what would technically have happened is we would have closed public comment at this point and if we had let's say five comments I would do my best to respond to all of them but we have one and I would like to share my thoughts with you about New Jersey seeds so I did allude in or I did mention in my report that the partnership is continuing we are taking a look at what the right capacity is for us um and at this point we're not anticipating the exact same full capacity that we ended last year with however what I'm doing is I'm inserting myself as the main point of contact with the program so I'm going to have monthly meetings with the partner you and myself to review what our needs are in the district and if there is a need to adjust the capacity we will be able able to do that um this is going to be a part this is a program that I'm going to personally take ownership over um and be able to share more information with the community in the coming months okay that's great because I know there was weight lists last year so I wanted to that's what that's why I want H Clos okay thank you thank you okay motion to close that portion of the meeting yes um announcement of future meetings like I said earlier the next meeting is um August 27th and it will be moved to the auditorium here uh at the high school uh same time 6:30 executive regular open meeting 7:30 want to do the 29 yes I know is everyone okay the 29 there's disc potentially having to change the next meeting was was distracted agenda yes let's do that and then while we're doing that check your calendars yes please hi thank you for being here thank you welcome so thank you for the warm welcome and the introduction Dr T um just wanted to briefly introduce myself um I've worked in the public sector for close to 20 years now um between both municipal government and uh more recently for the past eight years on the school side of things um working in East Brunswick early in my career uh with the office of emergency management and overseeing Technology integration uh Township wide and then before moving on to Roso Park School District and aing them building out their infrastructure to really take advantage of everything technology has to offer um in terms of making sure that students can learn uh staff can stay focused on teaching the students and their you know and the roles that they uh that they uh provide to the district and making it easier for the community at large to interact with um you know with the staff and um so I look forward to uh you know working in your community with all of you uh to see that through and uh conveniently I just happen to live a little bit down the road in Little Falls so uh certainly a nicer commute for me and uh me that I'll be able to spend more time um you know making sure that uh the technology is working that the students are able to learn that the staff are able to stay on task uh to provide the best you know for the community for City Grove welome thank you very much thank you thank you okay announcement of future meetings the next meeting will be August 29 please note the change on the agenda uh 6:30 will be closed session 7:30 will be open and then the following meeting is uh September 24th um and that's all I got at this point um all motion to close adjourn all in favor meeting adjourned thank you everyone