good evening everyone this meeting of the Denville Township Board of Education is being held in accordance with the open public meetings act notice of this meeting was was provided to the Daily Record and orar lger of Morris County has been delivered to the Township Clerk and has been posted on the bulletin board of the board of education office and at each of the school buildings in the district uh I will call roll call uh roll call Dr Moore here Mrs dallis is running a little late and uh Dr rason is not going to be here today Mr Cass here Mr Anderson here Mr Capello here Mr Kim yes I'm here and uh Mr Capello can you take us to Executive please I would be happy to uh if there are no objections I move to convene an executive session in accordance with Section Eight of the open public meetings act the purpose of this closed session will be to discuss negotiations legal security and Personnel issues minutes of session will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists do we have a second I'll second thank you Mr Cass all in favor I any opposed exensions we are an executive at 7:01 p.m. 7:32 p.m and good evening everyone we are going to jump right into the agenda here and move on to the pledge of pledge of allegiance if everyone can rise please okay we do have a special presentation today uh Dr Forte Dr Cullis and the New Jersey school boards Association will present District goals um for the 2023 2024 school year and maybe set goals for the next year as well so um uh Dr Fort am I handing it over to you in Dr culs first or we GNA go right into uh uh School boards new for the board self AOW first okay great so all right if you wish to proceed okay yep outstanding thank you very much so um my name is Matt Lee I work for njsba and uh I was asked by your representative Charlene Peterson to help you guys out tonight with your goal setting and board self- evaluation review um I you should have in your packet a document that looks just like this which is essentially a recap of the board self-evaluation um input that you all have uh gathered over the last few weeks and uh we're just going to go over this document quickly the reason that we do this of course is that this is about the board uh reflecting upon its performance for the last year and identifying ways identifying their strengths and their challenges and ways in which the board can improve as a governance team going forward so um Charlene took the time to create this nice little um recap of the information and I'd just like to go over it very quickly starting with the top chart which is a recap of all of the uh different facets of boardsmith board section because there are two about the board and about the individual board member uh the about the board section averages a 3.4 out of a 4.0 scale the individual contributions to the board team uh average a 3.3 on a 4.0 scale and that pretty much matches up with last year's about the board scale which was at a 3.6 to recap high level uh the evaluation was completed by all members of the board our highest board area was a 3.9 in the board performance area and the lowest was in the planning area at 3. 0 uh and that was a considerable change from the prior year as you can see a 3.0 versus a 3.3 um last year's scores uh there were 12 adequate ratings which is a a about the middle of the scale that we use for this and uh this year there were 32 and then four unsatisfactory ratings looking at some of the individual areas the uh the planning which was the lowest rated board area at a 3.0 had a couple of strengths identified in the glow section so well organized strategic planning sessions uh great public engagement and a good effort to understand the Public's perceptions of what's going on in the schools and of course the longer range planning was taking place the Strategic plan serves as a framework toh do some of the budgeting that has to happen and looking at some of our pressing issues uh especially here in Denville where you have some consideration for increasing enrollment uh some of the areas that the board identified to grow in was uh regularly monitoring progress and implementation of goals which came in at a 2.4 underneath the policy area uh some of the positives were the board is commendable or good in avoiding involvement in day-to-day operations of the district which of course um respects the board's defined role within the district and also that they navigate the gray areas fine with respect and good intent airing on the side of caution also uh policy seems to be an area of strength as identified by the board and the administration was helpful in bringing new and updated policies to the board in areas of growth it was identified that um there might be a better way to review policies going forward and that the board could uh benefit from a deeper focus and understanding and referring to policy the student achievement area rated at a 3.3 positives were the board's Focus was a main priority is is student achievement and it was something that the board spent a great deal of time and consideration on at their meetings uh respecting the professional Educators within the district was a strength and the Imp committee does a good job in terms of challenges uh board can do a better job of tracking student achievement progress by getting more data on a regular basis uh reexamination and redefining of the student achievement success and how to measure intervention Effectiveness and uh also it was pointed out by one member that the board needed more info from the committee moving on to the finance area positives close Financial oversight by the board and clean audits on the growth side could be more proactive in finding resources in advocacy and also in educating itself on areas of Finance within the district also a clearer process for unbudgeted items finding uh the fund finding where the funds will come from when unexpected items do come come up for the budget and ongoing struggle to balance the needs which is pretty prevalent everywhere and certainly suggestions for Improvement areas in the board operations areas rated at 3.6 um all members rated this area commendable because there's a climate of free open and orderly discussion uh that it was all respectful orderly and effective a strong respect for the governance process and effective committee structure in terms of growth areas the indiv one individual member said a board could benefit from more workshops and education and one said that the committee structure was not lessening the total work of the board for board performance uh just positive areas there six of the 12 indicators rated at 4.0 open consultative discuss excuse me decision-making process that benefits from Synergy of new and Veteran members and ethical standards were respectful well-prepared both board and individual members and the board superintendent relationship once again a growth area excuse me a glow area of mutually respected strong working relationship and a growth area of more specific goal setting process and dialogue in board staff relationships uh a positive the board has respectful and supportive relationship with the staff recognizes accomplishments and does follow the chain of command one growth area always more opportunities to acknowledge the great work of staff and one unsatisfactory rating can attend more school and community events finally the board and Community uh positives good working relationship with the town uh to include shared services and Facilities good working relationship with the community and representing the needs of community and every child and also attending events and Comm and commend accomplishments growth areas promotion and use of facilities and Fields can increas can increase involvement question mark one one unsatisfactory rate rating enhancing communication through the website and online interaction and finally the creation of community relations program when it came to the last couple of questions which are asking for for btim responses and on to the major uh challenges facing the district in the coming year uh space and enrollment and class sizes was primary there there are also mental health and meeting students needs budget and funding Staffing shortages and security and cyber security in terms of the governance areas for additional focus and training uh there were a lot of different ideas posited uh no one common theme there were things like board preparedness understanding data policy advocacy cyber security Etc so that was um as I see it a very comprehensive and diligent review of the board's governance process and performance and I often use this with my own districts as a way to start the the uh discussion about where boards may want to set their goals in the coming year so um I'll turn that back to you Mr President thank you thank you very much Matt for the um for the presentation I open it up to questions from the board members um I do have one question here um do you find how do you find districts uh sort of going over policy and uh what are some best practices from other districts that where they can have a better process of reviewing policies I guess well I think think that there's two sort of main approaches that I've seen the one is to pick a series over the course of time typically it's a year uh a district will take maybe start with the Thousand series and move through that updating reviewing and um sort of customizing for their own District um and sometimes boards will take a break from a yearly review of policy and do a comprehensive review a few years down the road where they go through every policy on a cycle typically about a three-year cycle and review the entire policy book um that's that's pretty much the two approaches that I see great thank you sure and of course I didn't mention that there are policies that are issued on a um as needed basis by by the uh policy Services when boards need to update things on a mandatory um basis so um those things can't be pushed aside they have to be considered as they are delivered by the policy Services thank you yeah I I think that Dr Forte does a good job of uh um presenting the board with a series of policies that we review on a monthly basis um I I do find that one challenge that I have is that having a deeper Focus this quote here of what areas to grow uh does resonate with me where um if there's somehow we can benefit from a deeper focus of understanding on understanding creating and referring to policies I guess so um but yeah um are there any other board members that wish to uh ask questions not so much of a a question I get maybe more of a question for the board I think from a planning perspective it is interesting to see that that looks like one of the biggest Deltas from our previous years and I'm just wondering if anybody has any feelings on why they think there is such a change from last year um I think we had our strategic planning last year so I don't know if that played a part into feeling like we were much better with it I I do think from a policy perspective uh I agree with James Dr Forte does a great job of like staying on top of it to the point that I think the board sometimes maybe doesn't recognize how much we actually review so maybe we can keep a tracking document to understand how many policies it's unbelievable actually how many policies we revise and review on a annual basis I think I think we probably don't even realize we do it and it just kind of is done behind the scenes um but we're not the ones bringing it to Dr Forte is usually the one bringing it to us we do about 80 a year so 20 a quarter approximately in that range and they are the ones that come to us that need to be updated or they're new um but we don't really have a committee of the board that reviews policies that do not require updating meaning like if it's something that a specific board member or the group of board members is looking to make some changes to a current policy we don't have really have a mechanism for that occasionally one of you will say can we look at this policy like I think Mike did a couple of times I think you did I think Dino has but typically it comes from the policy company to me we review it with inside it goes we don't have a policy committee right so it goes to the committee that is closest to that area so like the 5000s go to sy's group the uh you know all the operations goes to dear's group like that and then the Personnel goes to my group and that's pretty much how we do it yeah I'm glad you mentioned that Steve because uh I think the Advent of the governance committee could help us you know begin to have that conversation I know that the bylaws uh was one area that I wanted to focus on with the governance committee you know and just a simple you know wording on like the um uh that first meeting that we have every year uh is something that we could just simply update because the law is updated so yeah I think that the governance committee uh the new governance committee that we start utilizing can be an area where we focus on some of those policies that are not so much um updated because of Regulation but maybe because we want to have a conversation about it too like I said typically that comes from me to you in this particular area it would have to come from you to me you might have to say Steve we want to look at these three could you you know pull them down and and take a look at it and give us your opinion on them something like that typically it would have to come that way I bring the ones to you that I think we need to do but you would have to bring the ones that you think we need to do yeah I think that's a fantastic comment safe thank you very much for that so I think this area right here um the policy section is that something that we want to create as a board goal for next year then um as a opportunity an area of opportunity where we can maybe develop a process where a policy that may not be affected by regulation could be um a conversation could be started maybe in the governance committee and we can start rolling on that Mike do you uh don okay I'm still mulling over the 3.0 the lowest score on on planning you know which is uh it's a very good so there's nothing wrong with that that score even though it may be low and um if I'm counting right i' been here for three strategic planning sessions and this last one was the best one and especially with the group of stakeholders we had there and the attendance and and all all of that and um throughout the years I mean the Strategic plan is the plan and there's always been reference to it some where we are especially if we have some achievements tied into that so um it's good but it just uh even though it's the lowest I I just think this very the board and the administration did an excellent job on pulling that together advertising it and then going through the entire process before the final strategic plan was done yeah I'm oh sorry um yeah I'm kind of I was kind of going through this the planning section trying to really decipher where because I actually I had uh rated us pretty highly across the board I feel like besides the Strategic plan we have a space committee I mean we we as a board I believe have been pretty forward thinking about our planning it looks to me like based on the scores anyway and kind of reading the comments is that it seems maybe there's more uncertainty or questioning around that we're not following up on things like the action plan reviewing the action plans and seeing how they're going um monitoring progress towards the see you know so is is that maybe where some of this is coming from is that there's a disconnect and we're not we're not on top of of it as much as maybe we feel we should be yeah that's a great question um because I I was getting the same sense the context of the planning section might be more towards as a board are we following up are we asking those questions are we getting updates on uh how we're doing uh from District goals or from board goals and and and where do we stand and how can we as a board better improve so I'm wondering if that might be the context behind that I know that again through the governance committee with that governance calendar uh my hope is to have conversations more frequent regarding District goals or board goals uh as you know when we when we put it on here on the agenda that it becomes one of those topics of discussion uh like a spe special presentation topic so um where do we stand in in May for our board goals or in January or December where do we stand on our board goals so yeah I I agree James I think I think we've got to take a look at instead of looking at the like document overview I think we've got to look at this document as Dino referred to because I agree those were like we did 3.7 was with broad it Community input established districtwide Mission multi-year educ plan for Education we did really well with that but then you're right it was it was other areas of that uh section that we were Lo lower end so I think that's this is the more important document I think to look at yeah it seems like um and particularly like number four right uh is the worst one I mean not that it's terrible but it's it's the lowest one is probably a better way to phrase it regularly monitors progress toward achieving the the district's vision and uh we seem to do a good job of not of of really attempting to not micromanage and cross boundaries and this is one of those ones that sort of butts right up against that right like how how much monitoring is too much how much you know getting involved in making of the soup you know are we you know this is sort of asking you know are we we checking the ingredients the time that it's being cooked you know that sort of thing um because uh that there's there's a lot to that when you when you say something like regularly monitors progress you know how often are we like looking at you know how you know on a on a monthly basis how close are we getting to that goal what are the steps that are being taken I don't think we tend to ask those questions and that seems to be what this question is is begging for um whether it's it intended to or not so that's it's it's item three and four that seem to be the um the ones that uh drag the the score down a bit um and I guess as far as policy goes it sounds like we need to um since what we're talking about is is is initiated by us if we're not initiating anything I don't know that we need to Institute a process it sounds like we have to work on um you know that end of things like are we you know what what are we doing to kind of look at you know uh policy and um you know generate interest in in in in in in looking at it and reviewing it right if we if we create a policy or a process for policy revision but you know no one's really bringing anything up it's kind of doesn't seem to matter just maybe maybe a suggestion is what I started doing here is going through this document and circling anything that was as a board under a three and just maybe those are the things for us to talk about um and then obviously I think the the final questions which are related to board's highest priority to improve student achievement and then uh policymaking effective oversight what specific areas of the board governance require additional focus and training I don't know just maybe an idea to go through this it's it's a lot to take in in a few minutes but that was just kind of maybe some ideas to start with well maybe if we do that um I mean we could take a stab at one or two of these uh items here one or two of these pages and do we want to maybe also try to develop a board goal for next year off of that I mean this planning section alone is yeah reviews action plans and develops uh to reviews action plans developed to support the goals that to me seems like an easy fix if we just simply present it during a board meeting right um on a regular basis and regularity monitors progress towards achieving the district's vision mission and goals making adjustments as needed is that something as a board that we could just if we bring it up regularly during these meetings that um we would suddenly accomplish that uh board goal I just think looking at the uh the scores there the detail and I know we talk about planning and strategic plan and and the goals we we have discussed it in meetings and maybe it's just kind of we we got a lot of things to talk about and a lot of things to read so maybe it needs to be a formal maybe like you would corporately a quarterly presentation of uh the action plan that have been instituted to achieve the goals the objectives Etc and um you know to the PowerPoint presentation and everything there it's out there for the public to see and they can actually see what's happening or not happening you know every now and then something comes up that uh thrs things uh off the rails like Co so that would be uh just one way to address it there is a a formal presentation where you know say well we did this four times a year or maybe it's two times a year whatever we think would be best so so typically we do is um Sandy and I take this information and we create the plans and then we present them to you by September and then we update you on the progress of it by January and then we have another meeting now this so it's we do it three times a year if if you would like us to do it in between the January and June we could do that but but that's when she puts it that's when Sandy does her um her data presentation on student performance are we talking about board goals or District goals I was talking about District goals are you guys only talking about board goals right now because that's different we don't we don't I don't present on your board goals yeah well we're talking about we're talking about the monitoring of District goals right I mean that's what we're yeah that's what I thought yeah so I mean a board goal that would be better monitoring or better involvement in the district goals um I mean I think part of this is something that I've struggled with since I started as a board member and if everyone feels the same I'd be interested to hear it is that we kind of go from thing to thing we we do the board goals we cross that off our list we move on we have something else every meeting we're handed a bunch of stuff to look at and to make decisions on and I think sometimes we lose the forest for the trees um and I think that's maybe some of what's coming through here because it's been it's been a challenge for me is that I feel like okay we did this a year ago wow what the heck happened right like it's a year later and where are we at and I know we've had meetings and I know we've had presentation about it but I think a lot of times it gets lost in the you know in the Cadence of all the other stuff we have to do I don't know how we solve for that other than maybe creating more of like a calendar of doing things a calendar of reviewing policies a calendar of talking about where we are with the goals and maybe they don't have to be formal presentations but maybe they have to be more defined way points in time so that we don't miss them so here's one idea is that I think sometimes when they're presented so I think Dr Forte Dr Cullis do a phenomenal job actually reporting on it and I agree with you know we just we listen to the presentation and we move on right and we're like focused on our agenda maybe those updates can be done in a committee setting as opposed to a full board meeting maybe it gives it an opportunity for a little more engagement in a smaller group and questions to kind of make sure we're aligned on it because I don't think it's a matter of their presentation it's a matter of us interpreting it and listening to it and making sure that we're understanding where we are with those goals and and I think also we've indicated too that we struggle with setting what we think are really good goals so now tonight we have an opportunity to do that right so I think setting the goals that we feel are really strong because if there if they're goals that we're interested in we're going to be much more interested in the update if and and then obviously maybe looking at them in a smaller setting just a couple ideas think about no are we setting District goals tonight too or is it just board goals the plan was to do both and was there a prese a separate presentation on how we did uh as a district district goals we we do have a presentation that has our district goals that Sandy and I are responsible for that you create and we also have an h a spot on the agenda to review your 2324 and to set your 2425 on this next presentation the one that's up there okay so so we still haven't heard the results of the district goals then yes and it also you haven't discussed the results of the board goals as well that are on they're on this PR this PowerPoint so then let's proceed um if everyone's okay with that let's proceed with the next step which is the district rules recap then and the goal setting so thank you perfect so Dr Cs and I are gonna go through this um Dr CS you can do uh you know the parts that you worked on and I'll do the parts I worked on is that good okay so so our first one we always like to put up there is our strategic plan which we spent a lot of time on and we did have over a hundred community members involved in creating that plan and um we're proud of it and it's posted everywhere that that is the actual poster that we use it's a uh they're on PVC and they're posted throughout the whole District also if you notice on the agenda there's always a um for most for most um agenda items you'll see a code like ss1 that means Student Success one so that's how that's how the Motions on the agenda have something to do with the Strategic plan in most cases okay next slide so here's our goals for the year goal one so uh would you go through your two and I'll go through the bottom to sure so goal one was to increase achievement for all students inclusive all curriculum areas and I know this was a discussion because it's very general and when we tried to narrow it down you as a board decided that we wanted to go more General and not you wanted to include the words inclusive of all curriculum areas so certainly we work in all of those areas and we do monitor all of those areas but we do have a focus because there's extreme amount of data that we collect uh that I want to report on some of the areas that we're really focused on the one area we primarily was in math and we did the Intensive coaching in four and seven just as we did in three and six the year before can you just this one we're just going through the four we're gonna break it down I apologize and then goal two was to continue to develop the tiered systems of supports for students and staff mental health needs and promote success for all students and then three was to continue to investigate plan and communicate options for the expansion of the current buildings to accommodate possible increases in student population and then the fourth one is De develop a plan for consistent and streamlined Community Communications next slide please and now Dr Collis will go over Achi so we did have the focus although we like I said we collect data on all areas and we really do focus on the whole child so many of the presentations that we bring in to the board meetings that is also data right we want to show you what our students are doing in a variety of different aspects of Education not just the academics but we do have a lot of academic data in many many forms that I could present the one I'm going to look at tonight is in grades four and seven from math our coach Jen Kori really worked with them just as she did with three and six last year uh one of the things was to revise our scope in sequence rearranging the units to make sure that the students had ample time specifically to spend spend on fractions for fourth grade before they were going to be assessed on that and so we moved that to the beginning of the year we tried new instructional and small group strategies uh and worked with each individual teacher every single elementary teacher in those two grades and all of the middle schools as a team but also individually we're still awaiting the nsla results so it's hard for me to present on how did we do except for we have link it which is an amazing data analysis program and so the data going to give you is what we've collected in house so the first slide uh Compares three years of data so you have three different groups but 21 uh 20 2122 22 23 and then this year 23 24 seventh graders so we're looking at the math results of different groups of seventh graders but across seventh grade and what you'll see is the the first year we had a 2% increase this second year we had a 1% increase in the number of students that were exceeding expectations and in this year we had 12% so this is a an assessment these benchmark assessments are taken by students all over the country a lot of schools in New Jersey now take these assessments and they're compared against other students in New Jersey so the cutof point changes every year but if we took apples for apples across all years that it would be 12% % um this year because now the cut score is to get exceeding you have to have a 99% so that's really no mistakes because there there's not enough problems to be a 99 okay next slide to compare the same students so the same students that took the assessment in September they take another assessment of the same types of questions the same length same content in June the cut scores change because in sept member to meeting expectations is going to be much lower because they haven't covered a lot of the content and as the year goes by the cut scores increase so we really have to look at well how many are falling into the expected meeting expectations and exceeding not necessarily the score itself so in seventh grade you'll see that we had in um 31% in 22 23 uh that when it went down by the end of the year it went down 6% so as the cut scores got harder or higher our students really didn't grow as much as they should have um in 22 23 after the Intensive intervention this year we went from 34% at the beginning of the year so we started higher and we also ended higher we went up to 53% so as the cut scores went higher the students grew even more so we had a large increase there next slide hold on fourth grade one more please okay so you have I'm sorry Ricky go back one to number six okay so number six is the 2223 data comparison from a at the beginning of the year to C at the end so you can see the bars going up and down but we're really looking at see how the bars are moving from the beginning of the year obviously we want them all to be to the right and then we look to see how many are falling into that meeting and exceeding now this assessment is supposed to predict how students will Fair on the New Jersey standards um the assessment that they take njsla slide seven is the same data but in 2324 a to c so that group we then went um instead of going down like we did in 23 22 23 we went up from 34% at the beginning of the year to 53% at the end of the year okay Nick slide eight thank you so the same data for fourth grade this is three different years 21 22 22 23 and 23 24 the final end of year assessment how did we fare fourth grade the first first year 15% of our students were in meeting exceeding I'm sorry we're exceeding expectations in the second year 16% and then this year 22.4 side nine um is the 2223 comparison a to c but of fourth graders that's a nice slide to see you can it almost is an exact inverse that the beginning of the year we start at the lower end and we went had fewer kids in the exceeding and then at the end of the year we had fewer kids at on the left sale and a lot of kids in the right so we had a 30% increase um in that so 22 23 we had a 177% and then if you look at slide 10 this year even more pronounced we had a 30% increase we had a large number of kids that moved to exceed and again to get exceed on this year you had to have % because there was the cut score was um had increased so much okay questions about that's just one like I said I have any area you would like to see data on I can gather um this is one I know we really focused on in comparison to uh like three to six we worked on last year and four to seven we work on this year once I have the nsla data I'll have a lot more to to share with you but any information that you want to get on any subject area um I can get data for you Dr cus what's your reaction to these data these slides like you know how do you feel about the results I feel very good about looking at four and seven and the same way we had the same kind of result in three to six because we did a specific intervention like we had been flat it feels like we've been flat for eight years and we're just have not been able to do that thing that really pushes the students up to the exceeding and and having that intense intervention and it worked in three to six and we were hoping it wasn't just a oneoff and then we did the same intervention with four and seven and they had that kind of success next year is five and eight now I also am going to look this we're going to run all these same slides with every grade level so I can see how did three to six do are they keeping what we worked on because that's obviously the intent whatever they put employed in the first year of the coaching we it continues um so we should see higher three to six this year high four to seven and then hopefully next year we'll see this dramatic increase in five to eight and then just keep growing I mean that's really the intent and these are the grades that uh Mrs kaori uh assisted in she coaches them and she's with them every single day so like I said we tried something different in fourth grade I don't know any school district that did this um but we were G to take a chance we said you know it's not we're not nothing else is going up you know we've tried everything we've independent coaching small groups we've changed math programs we tried everything and we still kind of keep the same number of kids in the different categories but we tried this year to move one of the some of the more complex Concepts like decimals and ratios in seventh grade earlier in the year and and fractions at the beginning of the year in fourth grade usually we start with like multiplication division again and instead of that we put those content at the beginning of the year so that they would actually have about seven or eight months to practice it before they're asked to take tests on it usually it comes right before nsla and it never comes out well for us on njsla and this year we put it to the front and then infused more FRA the multiplication and division as we went we didn't let that go because they still are on dream box and reflect um reflex math but we move that and I think that's working also the one-on-one with a coach watching them teach and giving you know we call it um Shadow coaching because she actually stands right next to them and gives them feedback as they're teaching like okay this is say this do this or she'll work with one on a teacher with a one student at a table and she'll watch how the teacher coaches and gives guidance to that one student and then give some feedback okay that you should be saying this and this and this so I really do think it's working obviously it's labor intensive but we needed to do it and hopefully we'll see we're going to hopefully see the same thing next year in 2425 like is this again a one-off we moved all the curriculum around does it really work or was it just one group um so that's kind of where we're at but I am happy to see that because we haven't seen a change in the curve the curve is a it goes up a little but not like this not like almost inverse yeah I find it very impressive thank you the next goal number two so we continue to develop the tiered systems of support right so we worked on our mental health with students and staff but we also really focused on creating these tiered systems teams within the building we have full teams and we also have case managers within the TSS team so these are gened teachers or interventionists not CST members or special ed teachers that are serving as case managers for general education students who have support plans this slide indicates the number of open cases that we worked on this year we typically have less in the middle school because hopefully by the time we get to Middle School uh we don't have a lot of open plans we've either worked out areas that students in general education need or we've gotten gotten them more support through an IEP um so we had 105 cases that we monitored this year and you can see what the percentage was 9.5 in Lake View 6.3 in Riverview and 1 .7 in Valley View overall 6.2 100% of those cases that we did refer um to the CST did qualify for services so the intent is that they go through four- week monitoring plans there's three meetings for each student so the students will be brought up by the teachers or parents they are the teachers meet then they meet with the parents and they develop plan similar to what you would an IEP of the goals that they're going to monitor something very specific like a specific math goal then they're going to monitor that student for four weeks and check in every week they might be getting additional Services through a math Specialist or reading specialist and at the end of four weeks they come back together they reanalyze the data to say see if they need another four weeks or if they're ready to exit sometimes they exit sometimes they go on for another and this continues through this the school year by uh March we make decision whether or not that student should be referred to CST for further or if they're going to remain in a TSS program for the next school year six families did request because families can request the CST evaluation at any time they don't need to go through a TSS evaluation but once they once we shared that with them those families agreed to let us go through the TSS process first and all of them were able to get their needs met through TSS and did not need an IEP at the end of the year so we're really happy with that because many of these are like kindergarteners or first graders it's really early to start giving them um an IEP uh when we might be able to just provide more intensive reading intervention and catch them up at that place next slide please so the number of cases another way to ma monitor this goal is how many cases did we end up referring to CST you can see there were eight uh at Lake View six to Riverview and zero to Valley View so a total of 14 students at the end and you saw how many were in our plan we had 105 at the end of the year only 14 were recommended to go on to a CST evaluation which I think that's great because our special education percentages are pretty high right now we're about 25% um so we're trying to to keep those numbers lower and meet the needs of the students earlier on average the TSS team met four times per case a year and that was about 420 meetings as you have all the follow-up meetings and so forth most TSS cases went through at least two eight-week cycles um before being considered for closing the case and that's 840 meetings so by the end of the year that's how many we had so you can see we really are monitoring that I feel like this is such a great Str strength that we have built upon and this year we have hired that supervisor of student Support Services which will now be in charge of this program she has been really in charge of it at Lake View and she will now um take over that process at Riverview and at Valley View so she'll be the liaison between all three buildings so kids that are going from one school to the next from the elementary to the Middle School their cases will continue and she will monitor these and build those teams as she has done at Lake View so we're pretty excited about that so she will be starting um this summer uh and and we're we're just hoping to continue this this growth that we've seen I mean it really has worked out quite well for us do you want to add anything I me that's a great that's a great data point so about 90 students are receiving Services through this program that did not have to go to CST also if you recall we were asked by the Department of Education if they could use our our model to promote this particular program to the rest of the state um two years ago when the state put together a plan for TSS they used our model so so um I like this this data to me is is excellent that that we are being able to service 90 students without having to um send them to the CST so great thank you so much we had a um goal number three was to convin continue to investigate plan and communicate options for expansion to the current buildings to accommodate possible increase in student population we had our ad hoc committee that presented the data to the board on uh December 11 2023 the video and the uh PowerPoint presentation are embedded in here we also um purchased three acres on the coal drive to add to our current adjacent acreage we renewed the Riverview Annex lease for five years and we have commissioned a survey and study of the Nicole Drive property to be used in the future if if needed to uh provide us some more space for instruction and then I put this in the wrong spot I'll move it around in um in the next slide is to develop a plan for consistent and streamlined Community Communications which is um what we did was we had our Communications committee was formed under the direction of Susan Marinello who's our district Communications committee um commun coordinator District communication survey was approved by the board and the data was collected we had 350 plus responses the um committee presented their findings at the May 20th Board of Ed meeting and embedded in this document in this PowerPoint is the communications plan for 2024 through 2027 and um we came up with four goals to work on from now to 2027 the first one is to um actually create this create the plan and consider a follow-up survey and there's some information there about that and then goal two is to investigate a uniform learning management system with with uh translation possibilities um this is something that came up through the Strategic plan was where in the in the classrooms sometimes teachers uh use the remine app some teachers use um different types we were looking at ways to do one thing to be to be a uniform throughout the district and the next one is what are we going to do about the Friday folders is there a way to look at that to try to improve it and we will be studying that and trying to work on different ways that help that and then consider a new website SL mobile app that may not be a totally new platform might be a new revi a revised platform from the same company but there's a lot of different opportunities there and uh that will continue as well we uh some notes for 2425 we have $110,000 budgeted for the consultant if we were going to increase and revise uh and switch to a new website we would need to increase the budget for people to work on the website and then um for 2425 since we did not budget for these items we do we would prioritize the free items which are really just kind of being consistent maybe looking at a way to make the Friday folder more um easy to use what give you one example that Susan had I thought this was a pretty interesting one is when we we host all the Comm Community documents and in another District she works at they they will not accept a document they will only accept a link to the document that they host that might be something we want to consider um because really a large part of the Friday folder that we have now is really Communications for other groups not as much for us and um one of the things that she mentioned was that could be something we'd want to consider so just those are just a couple items that we're thinking about and Dr CIS and I next slide please you got it thanks in some possible goal topics for 2425 again this is like we normally do we give you we provide a few topics that we think are important and we try to come up with some goals from this so the first one is really continuing right the yeah I don't know how else we would I mean it might be another area but the achievement I don't think we're going to change that goal that's probably every Year's goal and just a focus area and then number two I really do think we should probably continue this goal because now that we have the supervisor of student supports I'd really like to put it in the other two buildings so that we have a whole District um I mean those those would be the focus areas that I would have or recommend those two are like directly related to Student Success and achievement so those are important goals not that all of them aren't but those two are directly related to student achievement um number three continue to discuss investigate and report on possible solutions and the challenges in areas of instructional space Finance transportation and special education classification rate number four using the data and recommendations from the 2324 Communications committee to implement a district Communications plan which I just showed you and number five is something along the lines of cyber security those are again just topics and then the next slide Rick these are your board goals if um Dr Mr Kim if you want to review them with the with the public and uh the next slide is just like I left it blank for you to think about possible goal going forward and I know Matt will take notes on what's discussed and then he'll send it to me I'll put it together I'll give it to you we'll put it on the agenda in July or August for approval and then Dr C and I'll work on getting our our next year's goals uh charts set up thank you Dr Forte thank you Dr CIS I'll open it up for the board to ask questions uh well I guess um in terms of uh uh goal number one and and number two sounds uh um impressive you know in terms of uh uh goal number one I I I I love the idea of of innovation especially if it works and looks like it's it's potentially working um and uh for goal number two uh it's it's just nice to see again some some actual data points and um the possibility that we're we're ahead of the trend in terms of of providing Services um in terms of uh goal number three I think it needs some work um I'm not really sure that that's so much a a goal is a lot more research items in instead of an action plan and um you know I think uh looking at the the communications um fine-tuning that to get some more concrete uh goals would be would be helpful thank you Dr Moore just remember these are topics not specific goals these are things that we're recommending as topics we can work on the wording to make it specific but I I just wanted to make sure you guys know these aren't the final goals just again topics are we planning on working on the wording tonight yes we usually do great Mr Cass these are some great topics here um a lot of times you sometimes have to cut back a little bit when you have a laundry list of uh things to do and sometimes you don't get them all done but I I think uh number four should should be a goal going forward uh because we did invest you know time and effort in the communications committee um they did a great job and I think there's some definitely some fine-tuning that needs to be done to our communication process I I think it's improved tremendously since I've been on the board but there's some more things uh that need to be done we talked about upgrading the website um th those type of things so um that would definitely would be something I want to see as a goal um you know the the achievement of the students I'm glad to say the numbers are improving and to me that's just an ongoing type of thing that you're going to be doing you have to do that every year right I don't know if you'd ever get to 100% that everybody's in that the top tier uh probably wouldn't happen but if you see uh very little on the on the lower end there that'd be uh terrific so that's ongoing um the the space issue you know we made a lot of progress on that but it's there's still new units being built new housing being built in the town and um there something we definitely be you know keep keep an eye and I I think we can done as much work as we can on it now in terms of getting information of what we're going to do well if there's no further questions why don't we Dive Right In and uh work on the wording I will say this in terms of the board goals I do want to focus on some of the disappointments that we've had in our self-evaluation and see if we can address some of that as well um and I have some clear thoughts on that but we'll stay on topic and uh discuss the district goals um the first one number one curricul um I do feel that uh we want to continue on the math but also maintain uh Ela right and so how would we want to word that for from a district goal standpoint I would recommend keeping that for the district goal but in the action plan I had specific uh content areas and then I just thinking through the comments from your board self-evaluation I could easily give pull some of this data at every imp meeting and just have like the handout a flyer of like each month like here's some of the data so that you can see what's go ongoing um and then uh as far as the action plan I think I mean my thoughts are we have to finish with the like the math intensive but we really need to look at science so I think we're kind of those are the two content areas that I feel we would be looking at more focused obviously we do everything we have to keep everything but those would be the two that I need to put more energy more resources more PD and things in if I might uh Mr Kim and thanks Dr CIS I think your presentation was excellent and appreciate you always find really great data for us to look at even despite the challenges with some delays and some of our test reporting we get from the state so I appreciate you always finding uh good data spots for us to look at um it I think we varied a little bit back and forth on my time on the board are making the goals really broad or really specific and then and I always go back to kind of like you know smart goals making them more specific so I personally and I'm okay with I I like the fact that you've already got some ideas of specific action plans I would prefer but I'm open to it to have that goal a little more specific if we've already got those action plans just you know of course we're always going to focus on all culum areas I all the confidence in the world that you and the uh Team are going to always be focusing on making sure that everybody gets um you know increased in achievement and we're working towards that um but to me the goals should be a little more specific but that's just my one of seven opinion so and if you do that I think it is a little clearer to parents on what you're working on I mean but we have gone back and forth it used to be more specific like we did Ela and then we did math and then last year we kind of went to more General because we wanted to make sure that it aligned with the Strategic plan I think but either way th that would be my recommendation Focus area but I do agree with you that parents if they know you're working on math and science it it is helpful I think for those that read it do you know yeah no I mean I I think um Mike and Sandy hit it right on the head um I think the wording of focus I think would be would be would Telegraph to parents in the community that we're focused on these areas in the middle of you know pay paying attention to achievement for everything um so I think it's a good way to maybe to word it I like that I like that phrasing really really I think it works with the focus like with a focus on with a focus on math and science correct something like that just a quick uh well I don't know if it's a quick question but it's a question um the way that we're measuring achievement is that is that solely the test scores how how are we doing that it it's not it is not we have so many matrices uh depending on if you want the raw data like numerical data I can get that for every um that of course is aligned but then we have data on um student work habits I have data on all the TSS how many students are getting intervention services that's data that I could be presenting that's why I was thinking if if that is an something the board would like to have more of those I certainly could do a handout for imp and provide that because I know that it the time is short at board meetings and we have all of these different groups coming in and showing you different aspects of of achievement whether it's sports or our gift and talented programs or our uh our Java Juniors or any of those programs our math clubs and so forth you can see that all of those are are anecdotal uh achievements um but I could also give you data on how many students are going to The Counselor how many students are seeing St cla's mental health professional I can give that if maybe through IM well I mean that it sounds like something that might be worth um looking into I don't know if all that data would be necessary but there's sort of this perception I think from the community a lot of times we focus on on the test and um from my perspective I kind of like to know how the students are doing right because there has been you know like uh what's what's our percentage of of of kids that are are meeting expectations you know um by our standards right by the grades that we're handing out and and and that sort of thing is there a disparity between the test scores and and how we perceive our students to be performing you that that that sort of thing um in addition to some of these because I I do think um that's very valid some of those other uh ways that we we we emphasize uh uh character building and and and some and other areas that are really noteworthy and important so I I but what I'm thinking in terms of when we're talking about increasing achievement I'm wondering about how we Define that and I I don't know if if for me anyway I want it totally um resting on those scores even though there's sort of a push for us to I mean they're always going to be a priority the way written I would interpret it as how are students performing against the standard and the standards have you know range from every content area but there's also the skills with each content area too so it's skills and content I don't think that includes I think that anything with work habits and executive function and mental health would all go under and and um interventions would go under number two do we feel that the specifics whether it is the achievement um and or the focus on math and question mark is that something we should go into committee to finalize and um and hash out or do we want to hash out here tonight I mean like the achievement by itself is something that almost could be a multi-hour conversation well I mean I think the goal is to the goal is to have the goal tonight is I think so um I think you I think we want to try to hammer that out Sandy touched on something though that's really interesting and I think you bring a good point is achievement right because if now there's data that gets to a more granular level of things like work habits and resilience and and ability to do all of these other things it kind of opens up the definition of achievement I think you're right it's kind of dangerous in a way because it's now making that a much broader kind of what is that mean and who does that depends on who you're talking to and what you're talking about I don't think we can answer that question tonight so I think we have to kind of focus ourselves but it's a really interesting conversation and I really would like to I personally would like to have that conversation in curriculum and look at some of th those more granular pieces of data because I think it would give us a more holistic view of the students and how they're doing and where maybe they're struggling maybe areas we haven't even thought about study habits and things that we could have really good conversations about so so then we keep the word achievement I mean I think unless you want to be here for the next six hours I think we have to and um I I do like the addition of the word of the the phrase with a focus on math and I do believe Ela um continues I I don't feel like we should leave out Ela only because for fear for it for fear of it slipping is uh my concern so I mean I mean math and science science I almost feel like math and science are tied together anyway so well we have new science curric or new science texts and curriculum this year the ELA we do have only write we have new writing only in three through five um so it really has to be focused also our sign scores are not very good so improve science yeah I think at Ela I we're still performing at one or one or two in the focus groups we always have to do Ela I mean clearly we will not let that go great thank you just real quick though Dr CIS you you would say because of the new science and because of our continued emphasis on math those were the two areas that you would say are those Focus areas let's put it that way academically yes those are our lowest academic areas I mean right and and I think that's that's and I'm glad you said it that way because that's what I would say is our Focus right and I know to Dr Moore's Point like how we Define that is one thing but I think we've you know the scores we have to use as like an indicator of kind of where we have an opportunity to improve so I think if those are the lowest areas and I agree with you I think to to Mr Kim's point we don't want to start slipping in other areas um but I think we have to have the confidence that Dr cus is going to do everything to not slip in those other areas I agree thank you okay and then the wording on number two continue to develop the T the TSS process to address student academic and mental health needs necessary for all students to be successful unless anyone has objections I think the wording on that seems to be fine C can I just ask a question what would that look like in other words what else do we need to and we've done a great job with it what would be step two of that River viw and Valley View so we don't have as thorough program we do have it closer at Riverview because we have the same personel right uh Mr Sopo was instrumental in bringing it so she whatever she developed a rview and then she can take took over to Lake View um we need to build that at Valley View and build a bigger at riverv viiew Valley View does not have the intervention the pullout type of interventions the short-term interventions that we do have at the elementary levels so we have we have some work to do there so then I would just um add continue to develop and expand I I didn't catch that Miss so if you're looking at goal number two continue to develop and expand the tiered systems of sport and expand and I think some of the wording in my opinion goes back to what Dr Cole said before and if somebody were to look at this and say well you're going to continue to develop awesome high five like but if you're saying I want to expand it that it's more specific as to what we're really trying to get at so that's why I want maybe just take continued to develop out and just put expand expand yeah that's perfect Matt are you getting all this good so number one we had the in the inclusion of math and science and then number two we have instead of continue develop it's expand all right moving on to number three uh continue to discuss investigate and report on possible solutions to challenges in the areas of instruction space instructional space Finance transportation and special education classification rate you remember this came from that major concerns document that's what this goal is from those that I shared with the board a while back um this obviously comes from the fact that we think there's going to be a big increase in student population at least from our our demographic study and from the new developments going around that was one the um transportation I mean the you know obviously that had to do with the flooding we had this year and also the fact that we have a hard time um fitting the transportation needs in the budget as well as recruiting and keeping staff and then the classification rate is a budget stressor that we talked about as well and it we are in our comp group if you recall we are the number two out of 12 in terms of classification rate so I don't know if it's too high I just know that we're number two out of 12 so it's the these are the things I put on there and I think we've had a lot of discussions about that and I'd be okay with eliminating that from the goal because I think we have some good answers to it Dr Moore and I spoke about it for a while and um it might be something that we could consider that we don't need to worry about not that we don't need to worry about it it doesn't have to be a part of the goal does the classification rate actually apply to finance and transportation as well or is it just special education classification rate no that's just part of that major concerns document I those were the major concerns and the M the reason why the classification rate was a major concern is because you're taking uh uh 25% of the population and they're getting a higher percentage of the budget and when that number encroaches on 30% it just stresses the budget more it it feels like that this goal included like a number of different topics that don't seem to be related other than maybe budgetary right I mean is is this all budget related then uh the I know the instructional space is probably but I'm just trying to see how that all fits so these all of these come directly from the major concerns document I probably could have just said major concerns document may I can help I mean you weren't thinking this was going to be one big goal this is just a bunch of possible topics right correct like these are these are some concerns I have that I'm putting to you guys to say these are some things we need to think about right like remember Don just brought up right now instructional space right because we talked about that I don't have a specific goal topic just for instructional space but you know these are really operations issues not not so much curricular it's it's more operations um if I were to take a stab at it it almost seems like you were asking for flexibility on anything that might come up in the future for us to sort of be able to um react quickly and if needed pivot and um so that the district could benefit or right I mean because any of these can happen right and finance issues of budgetary issues or the transportation can continue or the challenges behind the uh issues in transportation so is there a possible area I mean yes we could drop this completely but also if we word this um a district goal could possibly be that we are flexible and uh where we need if we needed to Pivot on any particular item uh we would have the flexibility to do so I mean I like the wording the way it is because it's not it's talking it's it's continuing to discuss right investigate and report back to you and actually you report to me and report to each other on all these issues that we've been pretty much talking about for a long time right I mean we talked about the fact that the there's there two floods last year and we've been that's been causing us concern um you know and and again removing the special ed classification rate from it if if because the other ones are really much more focused on operations and like these are all concerns that we've been talking about for a while um and may maybe it doesn't need to be a goal maybe we just keep doing it when it doesn't have to be one of the district goals yeah I mean I'm not sure you make these a goal um other than maybe Transportation the only one that to me looked like you would make it maybe a concrete goal is to come up with a plan for improving our transportationbus garage situation or come up with options right right to me that's a to me that's a goal like okay let's look at all the different options we have right now for moving that bus garage or or you know and what that would look like to me that's a a more concrete goal um the rest instructional space we've been talking about forever we're going to keep talking about it Finance is a core piece of what we do so I don't think that should really be in there and special education classification I don't think there's a right or wrong answer there like I don't think we want to start looking at should we reduce it should we change it I mean to me that's more kind of it is what it is um maybe you want to do some research into the why um I I could be okay with that but um that's about as far as I would take it so we could take it out and we could just we could just say I I would say it should be instructional space and transportation and you could remove the other two pieces because we have been talking about instructional space that's the you know lack of instructional space if we have to um and I think sometimes the reason why I like things on here is that it stays in the Forefront and it's it it just keeps it's it's really a big issue for us let's face it right I mean we've spent a lot of time and energy on it and to not have it as something that we're gonna report back to on you know on a consistent basis I guess I was a little concerned about that I'm itely okay with striking Finance um continue to discuss special education class uh what do the other board members think I can make a case with keeping Finance in there we just went through a very difficult budget cycle and uh the way things are going with the state the financing inflation Etc um it could be just as challenging or more challenging next year but we will deal with it with the finance committee and the budget process but um that's something we need to keep an eye on also and I'm okay with the uh the instructional space and transportation um you know we've had more floods recently and it's been uh very damaging to the bus garage so we need to keep on working on that and having it as goal is important we have made some progress with it and um some I just found out today at the uh before we started here that uh springpoint is going to be uh putting the uh St Francis Property on the market so that's something else on our radar screen now that that wasn't in terms of something to uh a big piece of property that would be suitable for uh another school if we needed it as well as the uh the school bus I would say sorry just to jump in uh I do like the goal I think something needs to be there but it needs to be specific continue to discuss investigate and report on possible solutions to District challenges specific to impending space considerations Transportation um and if you want to throw one more in there I wouldn't I wouldn't yeah I just you know yeah I find the special education classification rate uh interesting topic and is this something that we can bring to our legislators right and a resolution can we get school boards involved right and that would be a board goal as opposed to a district goal so just remember the word advocacy for and I think it's already there I think you already did that yeah I I agree with Andre I think I'm not a big fan of goals that start with Contin to discuss or even continue to I mean at the end of the day I think we need to set a goal that's for this year it's time relevant this year um and I agree I think it needs to be specific measurable achievable I'm not sure what the intended outcome of is you know it's just I I I don't like special education classification rate in there I I think that there's a lot of questions if if our rate needs to be higher because that's the student population we have and that's required then great let's make then our rates higher if it if there's a why behind it like Dino said and understanding the why behind we have a higher rate if there's a way like the tiered systems of support if that's going to help us potentially lower the rates long term because we're providing more support to students to not get into um special education classification then great um that's going to be a long-term solution because it's going to take a while to to see that benefit but that's a beneficial thing and that's a it's a a great program it sounds like it's working well so I don't I don't know if that's a one-year goal Andor something I would necessarily want to put into a district goal but I mean instructional space and transportation the only two areas but even Transportation I understand our challenges I'm just not sure if an you know one year goal is GNA get us an I don't know if we're going to end up with an achievable answer after one year I just don't know I'm I'm just not sure I'm not I'm not a hugee fan of this goal altogether just trying to wrap my head around it a little bit you know Steve I think we could keep these topics in the agenda um and maybe this is something we just simply strike as a district goal that's fine I agree we could keep them on the committee agendas and and on the board agendas okay moving on to four using the data and recommendations from 2023-2024 Communications committee cre and Implement a district Communications plan but on this one we could even right off the bat eliminate the create because we have it so it's it's more of using the data and recommendations from the communications committee to implement the communications plan we can cut we can strike they create because we created it it didn't feel like a plan to me did you look at the sheet I gave you yeah but it seems like um they still seem a little a little Broad in general and to to be considered like an actual action plan that we're g to we're going to do this step this step and this step and I don't know if no one else feels that way that's fine right but just feels a little I can you open up the document again it's in the PowerPoint it's link it says Communications plan and it has like specific things like for example one of the things that came out of the committee was to have reply email addresses come from one email address rather than several that was one of the things that this survey came back from um make sure parents know that email address is required because sometimes people opt out of the requirement like that may maybe I'm I'm just maybe it's just me sometimes I I I definitely um think off the- wall uh but um to me these are still kind of there's it's not saying how we're going to do that which to me is is what a what like a plan is like this is saying like this is something we need to do but I don't see a plan to actually do it like you know uh you know make sure parents know well I don't know something's just not clicking for me but again I if if no one else feels that way I'm I'm I'm fine with just no I think you're I mean I think you're on to something into the extent that I think there is more creation here that needs to be done there's more pen that's more pen to paper that needs to be put to flush some of these out so maybe create should stay in um in there because I think you're right I mean this is this is an outline this is a one and a half page outline um I think the plan would be would necessarily need to be more extensive and more granular I think the word implementation kind of has to be expanded I me we had a presentation they had a lot of suggestions and recommendations they haven't been done yet um we'll probably have some discussions and debate about which ones are feasible and the most important but the implementation piece from my perspective just it's got to be more meat on the bone at this point maybe you can add something in that line just with an action plan like they're creating and implementing no an action plan if that's what you're looking for us because we don't know which actions you're going to accept right at this point yeah let's include that uh wording into number four and um and yeah go ahead so I took a step back for a second and I pulled up our strategic goals and I think this is really important to come back to as we set our annual goals right and so when I look at them for instance I'll give you a line out of it streamline and enhanced communication coming from the school district right like that almost could just be a district goal like literally take that wording it's right out of our strategic planning I'm not sure if we've accomplished it yet since it's we're only a year into this so maybe that is a goal directly from our strategic planning document and and actually as I sit down I'm actually really happy and to say that as we're going through this process and we're you know probably most the way through getting our goals done we actually have a goal in almost every one of the four major categories right Student Success obviously that's always going to be a goal for ours and we talked about it carrying culture um probably some of the the the second goal I think we talked about probably fits into there although we could talk about that a little bit more operations we just talked about whether we need that or not maybe we do now that I look at this goal right because I realized that's something this is something that the community wanted to make sure that we understood operations and family and Community connections we're talking about right now so I think it's important maybe for us to have a goal in each one of those four subcategories and maybe even pull out one of these you know specific areas and I think Dr Forte and Dr KS have done a really good job of doing that here but maybe we kind of refocus on this document and maybe some of the words out of here would help us form another for a direct uh District goal thank you Mike I really appreciate that for operations then how would we change the wording on number three that might help us with our strategic plan or from the Strategic plan how would we change the wording on the district goals I mean one of the ideas is Dr Forte has up here just cyber security you know if that's something we think it's important it does say on here ensure the technology backbone of the district is able to support the entire uh School community and optimize facility functions that also happens to be one of the goals we talked about for security upgrades recently we've talked about a few times so maybe that fits into there also so I'm not sure how we want to kind of fit that in that's an idea that jumps then let's jump right into the number five cyber security um what could we how would we want to word cyber security from a district goal standpoint do we want to reassess our level of cyber security to determine where our needs might be or do we have that already Steve we could take it right out of the Strategic plan like Mike just recommended it's got the wording in there just continue it any objections Mike there I would say be more specific because if you're going to have if you're going to have a technology goal or cyber security goal then you should have a spe something specific that you want to be accomplished in the next year yeah I mean this is always tough because the measure the measurement is that nothing happens right I mean so like what is the measure what is the measured goal like putting in more putting in more contract putting in more security like that's not necessarily a goal in itself the goal is that you're preventing something so I it's proving a negative so I always have a problem trying to figure out you know what what's a what's a good metric for for goals like this they you know it's worthless until it's Priceless as we found out this year so you know how do you yeah I don't know I'm not crazy about it only for that reason like I think it's obviously something we should be doing we should be paying a significant amount of attention to it but I'm not sure how we write a goal that actually means anything yeah I I don't disagree Dino I think we may want to think about for the operations two ideas number one it could be Transportation related I think we've all agreed that that is something we we could work on um or it can be optimizing facility functions through security enhancements which we're already going down that road right now I don't know we've kind of I think we already have a plan in place but implementation has a big implementation right that's a that's a big upgrade for us that's multifaceted not just one area so just some ideas I don't know Dr Forte do you have any thoughts on either one of those I I agree cyber security doesn't have to be a goal it's already in the Strategic plan and it's something we're going to work on and I think four is fine I do think that we should have something I I mean I wouldn't have put them on here I didn't think it was important so I mean uh like I said I think we've I think the thing with the special ed classification rate we've talked about and and have come to some terms with that I mean we do have to keep an eye on it because it is a budget stressor um but then and again I'm only speaking about it from a business point of view right now I'm not talking about it from the from the student you know aspect more about from the stress around the budget but I do think that number three it's important that we have something about instructional space and something about Transportation I'm okay with eliminating five and I'm even okay with eliminating four I mean it's okay we're gonna do it anyway if if that's what the if that's what the committee if that's what the board doesn't want to you know doesn't want to have a goal that is a continuing goal I I understand that we're going to be implementing the plan um and I don't agree that the that there's not specifics in it because because some of them are very specific like one says don't like have all email addresses come from one email address that's a pretty specific thing and it I think it tells you how we're going to do it by having all email address come from one email address I don't I don't know if there's more to that um so I'm good with I'm good with five eliminating and and if you want to you know get rid of number four or make it just implement the district Communications plan or if you feel like it needs to be have more detail to it we could say um you know finalize and then Implement that's fine something like that all right uh so number four uh let's go back to number four I think uh I think the some of the opinions of the board members are that the entire website and the communication side of it the uh what um what was what Susan presented to us suggests that there's a need for a complete overhaul you know the having a list and showing the list of some of the uh issues that parents identified through the survey and then fixing those issues to me specifically is just like a Band-Aid and you're just fixing the Band-Aid issues I'm wondering if that if there is almost a complete overhaul of the of the website and everything that else that uh from a communication standpoint um might be affected would that solve 90 to 95% of the issues that were found in the survey and stuff like that so you know I I I think Steve from from the communications plan standpoint Susan was suggesting that there could be an opportunity where if we found a solution you might address n like almost all the issues that were found and I'm wondering if there is a potential solution to that and I think that's sort of where um you know is there a solution out there and if so how much would that cost and I think that's sort of the question that uh I have personally I don't know um you know is that new to you or is that something that you understand and see as well no definitely it's definitely something that we need to do so is that something that maybe we start with as opposed to like the the list shows a few of the issues and then uh how we can address some of those ISS issues but I I'm wondering like goal number four website mobile app you know what would a new and a website almost is a misnomer because the website is the end product the the the what the solution that we're looking for potentially is something that encompasses everything and the website happens to be one of those windows that shows us those uh pieces of information that we're looking for or the mobile app or you know emails that are sent out by teachers so you know I'm wondering if there is something bigger that we could investigate uh a an all-encompassing solution that of course we understand has a price tag but will will address 90 to 95% of the issues that were found in Susan's sort of report I I guess my answer to the question is that's what I put together here is the things that we could do for free or for little cost in year one and then budget for the larger expenses in year two that's that was the whole purpose of it do we spin our Wheels by addressing some of those smaller issues when we should SP be spending our time looking for a a a complete solution I guess and could that POS be a possible goal uh you know where we change it to um uh research and find uh a complete solution that would address 90 to 9 5% of the district communication plan uh the issues found in the district communication plan C can I offer some suggestions on wordings I think we're I think we're heading down the same path I think you were so what about create and Implement a district Communications planned in order to streamline and enhance communication coming from the school district and at the end of the day there's going to be action plans I think we're getting a little bit into the action plans and the details of it and I think one of the challenges we've always had is I think we need need to if we all have really strong ideas and and ideas about the action plans I think that we need to communicate those better to the administrators as to what we want to see out of that goal right that the goal should be a I know I'm probably talking out both sides you're probably saying Mike you told me to make it specific but you also said kind of make it let them kind of run with it to a certain extent and I think if we have ideas we should talk about it but I don't know if like like I I don't think saying create a new website is really going to get us to where we want to go I think you're talking about a much bigger kind of overarching project and and I think there's challenges I'm not going to lie guys that we pointed to mhr's website as as something that was good on the communication presentation I could tell you four examples this year where I found duplicate things on their websites that didn't match that were a mess right and I had to email them and find out well is it is this the right form is that the right form oh that's the one from last year I don't know how that got stuck up there that's the wrong book you know this and that so it's it's it's a difficult process I'm saying I'm not trying to make it seem easy it's it is difficult but maybe just that overarching goal of just using the wording out of the strategic planning and what we kind of have up here mixing them together might get us to where we're trying to get to and then be specific on the action plans that we want to see out of it I agree thank you Mike so then I final like did you get that Matt sorry let me give it to you I'll give it to you yes sir go for it create and Implement what number you can number it whatever you want create and Implement a district Communications plan to streamline and enhance communication coming from the school district and please if you guys have feedback I'm not trying to Dr Moore does I don't I don't think I do I don't want to spin wheels too uh I I just think what what this means is what what you're also saying on the back end is is we really have to nail down the action plan because that seems where everybody is kind of um falling yeah we're we're not in agreement on it or at least how it's supposed to uh unfold so and as long as we keep the word create in there then we're establishing that it hasn't been created yet we're not in agreement on it and and go from there great and then any suggestions on cyber security I think we can leave it off I think it's something that we're always going to do it's not that it's not important but it's a little bit reactive too we've already implemented something recently right we feel like we did pretty good with a recent incident that occurred and we've implemented even a higher level already so I'm not sure what we could always do more but I think we're okay right now I'm not sure yeah I mean you could you could do more assessments you could do lots of things you could do more training for people understand what they're you know the risks when they're working on you know the working on you know on their computers and not to open stuff but I mean that should be ongoing anyway so I mean you you could do that but like to Mike's Mike's point is we tend to be a little more reactive with that stuff than than you know proactive because again you don't know what the next threat's going to be um so I think I think leave it off I agree great if we wanted to add something on that end not for cyber security but we could talk about like I said the security sorry implementation U we could say something along the lines of um in imp M enhanced security technology that will ensure Denville schools continue to lead in providing safe and secure physical physical environment or something along those lines only because that is something I don't know I mean I guess we're already kind of doing it so we could also say we don't need to add it in there but it is a big project it is overarching and it does point the community to also what we're doing it this is a little bit of telling the community as to what's important to us and what our Focus areas are this year that doesn't always have to be something brand new that we just created great and number three then are we did we reword number three uh where we're keeping it in now or is that off as well it it sounded like we were trying to bring it back particularly in terms of the transportation piece right to keep in line with an operations goal am I remembering that conversation right what do you have Matt I have that I have that we were um reconsidering the two pieces of instructional space and transportation but not finalized so then what if we just focused it on transportation and present some possible solutions for the transportation so we can uh finalize the uh Transportation committee that we created the ad hoc Transportation committee what do you think Steve yeah I'm fine with that I think um we will have this is probably not going to be one that we're going to solve like one of you said already but there will be some possible solutions presented I don't know if we'll be able to solve them because we might not have the finance for it at the time meaning we might have an idea of which way way we want to go but I don't think we'll actually have this particular thing fully finalized in one year I agree I I think maybe if we could just present some options uh like Dino had suggested earlier um and we could discuss that in in the committee and determine what those possible options are maybe put a price tag on it and then present it to the board so how about investigate and report on possible solutions in the area of Transportation I like that you got that one Matt are you I do perfect so I am going to have to go back to Mr Anderson's last contribution which was around security so if you want to just I know you took a piece off do we wanna do we want to add that or not I'm totally fine either way guys I think we should strike it then because yeah no problem okay okay so you have four right Matt I do would you like good we move right on to the bo goals yep so for the board goals number two to represent the needs of the district through advocacy on matters of concern at the local state and or national level I think is uh um resonates well with me so I think we could keep that does anyone else want to comment on number two real fast I mean I think I think we made good uh you know progress this year on that you know uh with your leadership uh you know we submitted those um resolutions to school boards I think that's a you know is a good step um I mean you know I think there's obviously many levels to this we you know we can individually and as a group be reaching out more to uh to our local state you know um Representatives so I mean I think there's always going to be work to be done here so I don't mind keeping it on yeah I I'm really I'm particularly interested about the special education uh rate that uh Steve was mentioning so um classification rate um number one I feel like this is more of a district goal than a board goal um but I do have some other ideas but uh want to hear some comments on number one and whether or not uh we feel that's a board goal these TW these are your board approved board goals from 2324 forgive me I think it's uh my brain is a little tired so um all right so then do we want to keep number two for the next next year's goals as well I would like like to personally yes just number two or both one and two um I have different ideas for uh other goals but uh I'd just like to keep number two I would just make the suggestion with regard to our current board evaluation that we would add in the language that with the district goals in mind or with the Strategic plan goals the the Student Success caring culture operations and Community connections which I think we had a little bit of a disconnect with in terms of our self- evaluations and our board evaluations that we add some kind of language in there to to move that forward in 2024 2025 are you suggesting to add that to number two potentially I would say something along the lines of again like with the guidance of the I don't want to say District goals but the Strategic plan perhaps um because that was what we were just discussing with the board evaluation yeah my idea is to create a separate board goal for that okay so um the first first board goal from last year uh we're not going to continue for this year uh is everyone okay with that okay and then uh so we'll keep this the second board goal from last year and we'll carry that over to next year and another board goal that um that I would like to introduce is to similar in lines with um what what Miss zalis is saying I'm trying to think of the wording though and I'm drawing a blank right now to regularly monitor progress towards achieving District vision mission and goals U making justice as adjustments as needed so regularly monitor progress towards achieving the district's vision mission and goals making adjustments as needed and do we want a third goal for policies I personally would like to review the bylaws as a goal for next year and update it where necessary and we can do that through the governance committee as well James just one thing to think about I I try to think about our community involvement and um you know we're talking about trying to enhance communication with the community I think one thing that's really important for us and I think we've had it as a goal maybe one or the time when I was on the board was to increase the board's Presence at school activities um I know we we do a and that's a hard one because I know everybody says like we're out a lot doing a lot of things but I think it's really really important and I think it it is a reflection of who we are as a board when we're at graduations when we can be when we're at you know uh whether it's a a play or whether it's a sport event um I just think it's important for us to be there both for staff to see us and for the community to see us I think it actually kind of enhances all of it I don't know I just I'm not sure if everybody is up for that but I I I think it it adds to that piece of the strategic planning when you talk about um kind of our family and Community connections I think that's fits in perfectly into there but that's just my opinion on it I don't want to add too many goals to I think two or three is a good number for the board I don't think it should necessarily be four I think that's a lot for us to handle so how would we want to word that um increase Community Presence by the board uh at school functions Dino said he would do it he's yeah I volunteered by not being here Cliff yeah any objections to that or I don't think I have any objections I mean it's one of the evaluation items and um and it's easily measurable well it's reasonably measurable and we tend to struggle to find those so um for those two reasons it's and and of course the the larger reasons that Mr Anderson already presented um I don't have any objections to to get in on there yeah I think also engage in school activities but also in community activities you know a lot of people know we are on the board to B when we serve in our other volunteer capacities there and sometimes I'll get i'll get questions about certain things that are going on so I think both are important I know a lot of us are already doing that but I think uh I put both in there especially the school activities it's great to be in the schools and you know just chitchat with the administrators a little bit it's it's an opportunity to do it that you don't normally get when you go up there for a a play or a graduation ceremony great so Matt do you have those three goals then uh three new ones and the old one carried over yeah ah yes could you uh repeat what you have please sure regularly monitor progress toward District vision mission and goals and make adjustments as needed uh the carryover from last year to represent the needs of the district through advocacy on matters of concern at the local state and National level um review the Denville Public Schools Board of Education bylaws and revise when necessary and increase the presence of Denville Boe members at community and District activities there's only 32 bylaws so it's a doable goal I think for a year I agree Okay I uh I'm going to assume that the silence means that we're done and we should move on to the rest of the agenda so um thank you very much Matt I really appreciate it you're welcome so as Charlene would typically do um you'll get a recap of these in writing um over the next day or two and then of course it comes back to the board for any tweaks revisions uh in the meantime action planning will take place with the administration for the district goals and the board president typically for the board goals great thank you have a good night folks you too thanks Matt okay moving on with the agenda superintendent comments please so today was the first day of our summer programs I'm sure Dr cus will add a little info about that next I thought our uh graduations were great the Valley View one was a success it uh they did the uh the graduation along with the awards assembly and I was at the lake view um prek graduations I I made two of those and I made it to the lake view lead and fifth grade graduation and the Riverview graduation and um I thought I thought they were great the Riverview one where they had the uh person from the community who donated her time to work with the students and create the uh mural it was really nice Mike you were there at that right the unveiling of the mural it was an amazing did anybody else see it that it looks great it's like a river scene for riverv viiew which is pretty cool with the like the sun in the background it just really came out nice and she showed a slideshow of how they developed it with the students and it it just came out great plus the fact that you had a Community member donating your time to work with the students who's an an artist and uh presented it to the community and she's also a Riverview graduate so it was it was really nice um that's it for my report great thank you very much Dr CIS assistant superintendent comments great uh so today we did start our summer program so that was our summer dala which is Denville accelerated Learning Academy our extended school year and our summer Explorations um we started with a bang literally because we had quite excitement this morning we had 250 students come in smooth everybody was in their class we had um a tree I think hit the pole and we had Transformers blow it was very loud pop which is where we lost power and of course when the of course the electrical line went across so the Franklin was no longer usable for us to get kids in and out so that was an added fun part of the day but we were able to manage getting them down Birch Run and down up you know through on 10 and get everybody home and parents to come and pick up who needed to be picked up we were not able to run summer Explorations the afternoon program however we've been in contact uh all day and that's why Jerry did step in to give me the latest update we are planning on opening as scheduled with all three programs tomorrow and if that changes then I will do another update but we just emailed out to parents everybody in the district in case anybody had anything going on in the building uh that that we will be open tomorrow we have we'll have everything back up and running so that is great news we have over 400 students registered um for something in one of these program well I'm not even counting summer Explorations I'm just calling esy and dala now they don't come every single week we have pretty much about 250 a week but over 400 kids are coming at some point one of the five weeks so I think that's fantastic that a lot of kids are getting service and from that we're offering a variety of things we have individual tutoring math tutoring for middle school students we have have reading tutoring and then we have our three-hour program for that are more comprehensive so quite a lot of quite a few things going uh as far as kindergarten we're about the same we're still at 177 so that hasn't grown um so we're sitting at a nice space there this concludes the assistant superintendent report thank you very much and um Miss kosi is not here so do okay so no business administrators comments and 9:29 we will open it up for a public discussion seeing no one online and no one in the chambers we're closing it at at 9:29 p.m. and old business action to be taken Mrs Adelis could you take us through that please sure um if there are no OB objections I move to move uh sorry I move to um approve the following resolutions under old business a treasur of school monies uh board secretary reports for May 2024 education reports Hib report of Health officer enrollment um and approve the 2023 2024 General schools Hib self-grading the C minutes resolved for May 30 13th and May 20th second thank you any questions or comments okay roll call please do Dr Moore yes Miss delis yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes all right new business action to be taken uh Mr Capello if you could take us through personel pleas uh I would be happy to if there are no objections under Personnel I would like to move items one uh that represents uh a through a through QQ and I will call your attention to uh the yellow sheet um additional addendum for RR and then I have items 2 three four five six seven and eight which include um updated staff lists for the esy dala summer workshops uh the stiens for extracurricular positions for the next school year uh an agreement for uh $450 to continue the CJ Pride um now known as New Jersey stride for 2425 um the board approving the Denville administrators agreement to daa agreement for the 23 20 23 to 20 to 27 contract year um resending Motion One FF under Personnel from from our June 10th meeting and finally uh the retirement of Shirley Meyer effective 912 2024 I'll second thank you very much questions or comments uh I just want to call out besides uh uh Shirley's retirement we do have several staff members that have movement on the guide um I see Michael Shamus uh Taylor C coochie um also Cheryl Galino congratulations to them um I don't know if I there's anyone else here um Allison burkowitz I think also oh thank you Mike and did you uh FF Diane uh photo rusu oh y just bring attention to uh retirement of Janet op petta who's a beloved our beloved family consumer science teacher she has been with us a long time and taught a lot of kids how to sew and cook and I know she'll be sorely missed I didn't know if you want to thank you were you gonna say that something yeah I I was just gonna add that my uh my kids literally this morning were making overnight oats from Mrs petta who taught them how to do it so a lot of life skills taught by her and uh she'll be missed okay if there's no one else roll call please Dr Moore yes Mrs adalis yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes Dr Moore please take us through instruction and program I'd like to move uh for approval the following resolutions under instruction and program under item number one A and B is Star Lab training workshop and item number two is uh the approval of the attached proposal for Cornell Thomas lead from the front program for Valley View and item number three is the board approved the Denville Township District ESL three-year program plan I'll second thank you questions or comments roll call please Dr Moore yes Mrs Adelis yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes and Mr Anderson uh letter C Finance if you may sure if there's no objections under C Finance I'd like to move items number one [Music] through 19 as a block that includes a checklist as well as uh some resolutions for movements of money and whole bunch of non-resident uh contract tuition contracts maintenance of Reserve trans uh transfer standard operation Pro procedure and internal control manual um some donations thank you to the e8th grade Valley V PTA parent committee headed by Christina asterino and Christine Schiller of 10 pickle ball nets and 10 pickle ball sets to be used during recess and physical education classes agreement between the uncommon thread um as well as some out of District placement tuitions um board approved the attached agreement between core BTS to provide professional communication and communication project management Services as well as the board authorizes the resolution of member participation in the mammoth ocean Services Commission Cooperative pricing system I'll second thank you questions or comments uh as a a recent pickle ball convert I'd like to thank the Valley View PTA for their contribution see now what he's doing is he's connecting the board get more involved in the school and a benefit for himself because he's going to be playing pickle ball at recess now at Valley View someone's got to test those Nets out and yeah roll call please hey Dr Moore yes Mrs idelis yes Mr CA Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes and Mr Kim yes operations Mr Cass if you may I'd like to move item number one transportation is a block we have uh two items for approving field trips for the little earner Academy you using our uh our buses and um we also have uh board to approve the rental of a minibus from from Rockway Township for the school year 2024 2025 and the last item is to approve the following Transportation contracts for the upcoming school year under building and grounds we have two items we have the submission of anticipated facility request for the 2024 2025 school year to the Morris County Superintendent of Schools and and uh we have number 2.2 an attached quote from OSI for a security project for the district for $647,500 35 utilizing capital reserve funds second questions or comments uh is is item 2.2 the one that we discussed in terms of uh putting to the question yes that that no longer on the table I'm not recommending it but I know it was a conversation it's it's something to think about for the future um it's just the fact that we want to pick this as the item because remember there's going to be delay it would we wouldn't be able to put it on the agenda we'd have to put it in next year's budget for a vote the following year yeah I think that I think the timing was the concern was the need for this sooner rather than later yeah I do think the conversation we had was an important conversation for if something else like this comes up that we might want to consider doing that and just one quick question on item number 1.3 the rental of the mini school bus from Rockway Township I'm not sure the Maris I know it's not here tonight but I don't know Steve if you know is that like every day we're renting that or is that as needed we were renting it because we were short of bus because the bus we ordered didn't come in yet so we use it when we need it but um it's not every day it's not every day forever if that's the answer got it and they have an extra Mini Bus that's the story yeah most places have extra buses just not extra drivers roll call please okay Dr Moore yes Mrs adallas yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr H yes and Mr Kim yes okay section five good of the cause committee reports correspondence and discussion items these are the three things I have for for today's highlights I have uh Matt Lee from New Jersey School Board Association and the District administration presented to the board on progress of the 2324 district and board goals along with the board self evaluation for 2324 the board discussed and created distri district and board goals for 2425 and the last one the board accepted a donation of physical education equipment from The valy View PTA sounds great any other contributions yes our Challenger soccer program for Hub soccer for the special needs students has really taken off this year we're close to 40 enroles so um going to be needing a lot of help that's a that's a good thing we've always struggled with some the enrollment but the last couple of years been very good and uh Grace's Communications have really helped generate a lot of interest I've getting a lot of emails but questions and things like that I know it's noted here on the um agenda um for transportation the electric bus Grant but um I think you guys saw the email from from dearis that the State Department of Environmental Protection as opposed to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency uh they both EPA and D had grants available um and she was looking into both and obviously the one we talked about previously was the EPA she also got the D it was a higher amount um so that's why the resolution for the EPA was pulled off and she's evaluating she said that she had a really good conversation with the D and um they're very accommodating so she's trying to look at different options on what we could potentially do with that I think that that amount was don't quote me but about I think she said $270,000 per BS as opposed to 200 so it may help out with some of the infrastructure and also they were willing to do one at a time one this year and basically almost a guarantee for the second one next year it sounds like so um she was looking into those options I know she said she would get back to us it wasn't as pressing as the EPA Grant was I can tag one more thing onto that I sent uh dearis an email I did a little bit of research on hybrid school buses I didn't know they exist they certainly do for the cars and um they're expensive just like the diesel and gas buses are and the E buses are also but you don't have the infrastructure cost for uh having to charge them so it's again something to investigate as we move that initiative forward thank you okay um moving on to the agenda uh we'll go ahead and open it up to public comments again at 942 pm. uh and as we're doing that uh Steve do you have a need for an executive yes we do excellent okay no seeing no one in the chambers and no one online we're going to close the open public comment section at 9:42 p.m. and Miss Dallas can you take us to Executive please sure I move to commun and executive session accordance with Section Eight of the open public meetings act the purpose of this closed session will be to discuss negotiations legal security and Personnel issues minutes of this session will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists second thank you all in favor I any Nays any obss exensions okay we are in executive at 9:43 p.m. for the public we will not be voting when we come out of executive so we'll be adjourning afterwards thank you very much