##VIDEO ID:4fMEK8mPOls## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e Miss Peterson will you please introduce yourself hello my name is sa Peterson and I'm here to interpret any public comments that are made from Spanish to English thank you so much um welcome to everyone here and those of you joining us virtually to this October 15th do Board of Education meeting for those who wish to provide public comment remotely a Google form was posted on the district website at 6:30 p.m. and those remote comments will be addressed in the second public comment section this meeting which is hereby call to order at 6:46 p.m. is in compliance with the notice requirements of the law public notice was posted in the office of the Board of Education and communicated to the municipal clerk and daily record on January 9th 2024 can we please rise for the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the for stands na indivisible andice for all Mr sabahu may we have a roll call mrto present M STS present Mr Miller here miss nothing here miss Phillips here miss penales here Dr sener present Miss soles here miss mandz here we are going to begin with some presentations this evening um Mr Hime will you introduce our first presentation I'm sorry actually before we get into that Miss nutting will you please read our mission statement of course working together as a community our mission is to Welcome All provide opportunities for all our students in AED and accepting learning environment to become creative empathetic resilient and who choose to make an impact thank you Mr H our first presentation for this evening is a robotics presentation by Mr Kinski and the robotics Club of the high school thank you hello my name is Aaron Brooks I am one of the head coaches of the robotics team tonight you are going to hear from the lead Mentor or the lead students on of our team from last year on how they designed and built this 120 pound robot to compete in last year's game so I give you the robotics team hello everybody my name is Matel B and I'm going to be comment for this demo so this year we have developed a new drive system which to do cool spins and moving all for directions what the robot is doing now is going to intake a the not is the orang and our robot to spin and go toward the St system we just to score points and our scorpion mechanism is going to LIF upwards and the note into the [Applause] M thank you everyone so our first competi was March 1st through March 3rd at Mount Olive High School which is very close by uh our highlight for that event was we placed 19th amongst 34 different schools which when somebody hears oh you got 19th they're not super happy and thrilled but when you think of the accomplishments that these students did they took two months and created a design and set everything up and built it from the ground up that is a very large accomplishments for our students also highest we've finished yet so far in the past five six years all right next up we have our assistant coach Mr Raymond Snyder just wanted to uh thank you for the opportunity to talk to you tonight um our second competition was at Montgomery High School March 16th through March 18th uh there we were um fortunate to be able to um get the third uh imagery award that we've won as a team um and you can see just by the picture um with the the jerseys and you can't see just the emotion and the uh camaraderie that this team brings to the event which all plays a big part of it so thank you very much for uh for that and uh you've seen it before but I've got Mato uh coming up here now to talk about structure hello everybody I'm back so uh I am the lead of the structure department for our robotics team and what we do in this department is that we are essentially building the skeleton for our robot so earlier during the demo I mentioned a new swerve drive system uh before we were using a tank drive system so the way that we move our robot was typically more fashion of today's cars where you can move forward backwards and turn to the left and right this new sort of drive system instead of uh operating on two Central Motors it has two Motors on each corner of the robot so this gives us more control over the speed of our robot and how we can turn the robot this allows us for us to get more maneuverability in our robot and allows to sort of like how a drone would move from side to side up and forward we can uh do all the caral directions and yeah so this year we've been trying something new we've been overcoming challenges with our short drive system and oh yeah yeah the challenges have definitely been there but at the same time we have also been able to successfully establish a new base that we are hoping to use for our future years and save us a bit of time and with that out of the way I'm now going to pass the mic on to our motion Department leader Timothy manherz sorry I'm a little bit taller um uh so my name is Timothy and I'm the motion Department lead for the robotics team uh Mato and I work really closely to really uh develop the motion and structure aspect so we really work hand inand together to build the base and mechanisms on the robot so uh this year we used retention Springs to add a retractive attachment which can be seen on our scorpion uh base which is what holds and deploys the note and then um so that would be the new mechanism that we developed this year and that new mechanism is new for our team and and the first organization as a whole uh we use linkage this year which is a program that ows us to model online uh 2D sketches and then we're able to simulate the movement so that when we put it into action on the robot it's more clearly and like visually represented so we know our measurements then so that would then that we we would then be able to use that to create our new mechanism which was the Scorpion and overall we became more mathematically based in desig planning our robot due to linkage thank you I'm now going to turn it over to Marcus the programming lead good evening I am Marcus I am lead of the programming uh Department we've learned a lot from this year and programming is no easy task but it is thanks to our uh this department that we are able to make this whole thing move as a whole it is a major accomplishment because we have been able to make the swerve Drive mechanism which is what how you saw this whole thing move for the first time this year we were able to make it work and it is a major accomplishment for all of us it is also the brains of the system so that means it it also works on an autonomous system which thanks to that allows us to move the robot without needs of a driver we also were able to program the Scorpion and the arms which are in the back and these movements were done with uh a tedious task as it is something we have done uh something new in first and something new in our robotics team so it is thanks to a lot of uh help that we've gotten over the years that we are able to make this whole thing move now this is not able to be done without uh our electrical department uh who is uh Freddy hero he is the lead of the electrical department hello everyone my name is Fred hon I'm the electrical department I'm the electrical lead for the Department um this is our first year using absolute encoders the absolute encoders allow the robot to not only remember its zero but also remember uh to also allow allows us to read what the steering shaft is at during the movement of the wheels uh you for the absolute encoder to work we have to use breakout boards these breakout boards allow for the the numerical number that given for the steering linkage for each wheel to be read out for each to the computer so we can understand it and be able to fix it in case something is off by a bit um these are connected to our Dio ports which is digital input and output um these allow the the absolute encoder gives us a understandment of the how the the r are working we we also were able to use server Motors this year that hold on the robot arms although right now they have changed up during throughout the year um we were also able to accomplish using different a whole a whole different layout of organization for our wires and electrical for our electrical components this allowed for much easily accessible these allowed for much more easily accessible components for us to repair in case of an in case a problem occurred we with this layup we were also able to optimize pneumatics um this allowed for the Scorpion to work and lift up and drop down as saw in during the presentation we were also the wheels are controlled by Falcon 500 Motors there are eight total allowing for steering and movement back and forth they use silent FX motor controllers with with that allow us to fully control the robot through the computer the we were also able to use bag Motors and 75 motors with Victor SPX controllers that allow for the in the intake and outtake of the notes as seen from the Scorpion and as mentioned before this is our first year using breakout boards so this also allowed us to use custom soldering MX connections so that power is given to the wires for the breakup board that leads to the absolute encoders and I'm G to this is all for me and I'm going toop give it off to the 3D printing lead um edar okay so hello I'm in the lead for the 3D printer team uh we pretty much do we pretty much 3D print stuff for the robot to keep holding each part together and you can see the robot with the orange bars they're supposed to they're supposed to call all the robot together together and make it look nice we won three trophies for imagy award which make us look cool and yeah we learned a couple of new stuff we learn how to use on shape more which is a web software to be able to do cat which is pretty much designing the stuff we also did the uh we learn how to do the uh assemble these non shape which pretty much leted us to do some uh what's it called uh prototypes on there so we don't have to waste any materials on real life and we can were able to do it on web just like in the Scorpion we pretty much talk too much of the Scorpion today but that's amazing thing ever and we were able to do it over there was more quicker yes now I'll we also learn how how to use dual extruder we install it last year and today we're finally figuring out how to do it and the DW for our 3D printer let us 3D print two different materials at the same time and or two different colors you can see it over there on the pictures with the tigers or cat depending on the size and now I'll let you for uh the next lead this is entrepreneur lead Amanda I'm so sorry okay so I'm the entrepreneur lead Amanda Moraga uh things we like made this year would be uh new and more Spirit items since our team has grown uh and that would be banners mini flags and uh buttons or another way to call them would be pins uh the materials we use would be wood like sticks or dowels uh to attach fabric from the mini Flags so you can make a little flag and you can wave them around uh we mostly have them uh in red and blue because in competitions you're either on blue or red team so we'll have to like switch uh depending on if we're which team we're on we also used uh vinyl like heat transfer vinyl and then a regular like sticky uh vinyl for like bottles and bags for the team and we also use the sticky vinyl to put our sponsors that you can see in the shirt over there that says thank you to our sponsors uh on to our robot so and our robots on the field and competing everyone can see who has sponsored us um we have a theme they always give us a theme each year and uh the theme was Crescendo which is pretty much like uh a musical term so we went with like music stuff and we specifically went for a sound waves kind of thing so uh I don't have it up there and I apologize but uh if you saw the shirts uh that are like bright orange uh how the stripes are sound waves oh yeah Tim yeah um we also uh to uh uh add to the music theme we have a Spotify playlist on our left slave that is uh uh workable uh and that pretty much has like uh any music that we wanted to add in there friend uh School friendly of course uh things we accomplish this year would be uh how we uh combine the art department and the marketing department into one which would be the ENT entrepreneurial department and uh how we just secured new sponsors and even more and we were able to get back some old sponsors too uh and we won our third imagery award uh oh yes and with the Jersey we also uh worked with a professional designer to make it and yeah I thank you all for your time and your patience [Applause] any questions first of all thank you for that um amazing presentation you know one of the last times we had um the folks from robotics here I shared how amazing it is that the next grade invention can come come right here from our own robotics team in Dober right um often times we look to and I shared this last time Silicone Valley like the Millionaires and billionaires out in Silicon Valley to like create the next big thing but it's right here in do and I think that's amazing so um thank you all for sharing um this presentation with us today I and you know on a personal note I have eight nieces and nephews and when they leave my house there are things all over the place so I'm looking for a robot that can pick those things up so I mean anyone else like to share their thoughts Mr Miller so the the there's going to be another competition this year in the the spring two of them yes and so um or what what do you have to do now to prepare for that competition so right now the students are working on securing sponsors so that we have enough funding for the material and the trips and such um we are also working on training our new members and how to use our tools and stuff um after this meeting in the club fair this Thursday we will actually sadly be disassembling this robot because For the First time we're going to actually reuse a part and in order to do that they actually have to write and post papers to the public saying what they did writing up like the facts the size the dimensions the process all of that in order to reuse it um also we intend to to spend some time working on our code the entrepreneu team is doing new designs for potentially a team flag um and some new spirit material the 3D printing team is working on getting a new 3D printer as ours is dying um the we have already done an outreach program and one competition this year um we are putting together hopefully some inhouse Outreach programs for the end of the year and there's more but I can't remember at all right now so do they give you um for the competition you have to design something did they give you specifications of something that you have to do so on January 6th we have they have what's called kickoff where they release the game for that year and you get a manual which is about an inch thick which specifies all the rules and the requirements of the robot everything from how tall it can be to what types of Motors to what types of wires and more oh that's great well just want to call out the programmer because I used to be a programmer so good job Dr sand um thank you so much I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed that presentation and I'm not sure if all the other board members saw depending on where you're seated but as every student went back there were like fist bumps and they're just the advisers and you're all just so supportive of each other and I just appreciate and love seeing that um I have a request if you could please share the SP Spotify playlist with the board I think we I personally would love to of I'm only 50 I do have Spotify thank you you got your phone yeah easy process okay I I was gonna settle for an email okay and then I was wondering if are you in Spotify oh I'm not in Spotify you have to be in we'll send it via email we'll send it via email ask questions and my one question was um are we doing anything to recruit young ladies in do to our cyber Tigers we are um we found the most successful thing is to get our female members to get their friends we actually have how many do we have now five young ladies we have five young ladies which is the most we've had um yeah ever we we try to emphasize with many of them that they don't need to know anything to come to us and you know we're actually trying to get more artists so we're hoping to have success there because you know a lot of the girls we go up to and like hey come build a robot and they're like that's boys so once we get them on the art team we kind of push them into the robot a little bit okay thank you so much I really enjoyed the performance the presentation it's a little of both Dr s right I'm sorry was the performance the robot performance it was I it was amazing um anyone else seeing none one last round of applause thank you so much thank you all so as we say that again I just want to SC oh okay as we um Move Along we are going to go a little bit out of order here um so we're going to skip over to item three under presentations um so unsung heroes and Ed education the unsung heroes and education award celebrates the invaluable contributions of School District staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure their schools run smoothly and provide a safe and nurturing environment for students we are proud to celebrate one of our own unsung heroes selected to receive an award at this year's njsba Workshop in Atlantic City on Tuesday October 22nd so before I entertain a motion to approve uh this resolution I am going to toss it over to miss asabo to read the um resolution into the record honoring on sun superhero in education Rosemary chamers himz for service in the do school district whereas Rosemary Chambers jenez has served with the distinction in the do school district as food service director for 14 years and whereas through her work in the Dover school district has continue to be a safe and nurturing environment for all students and whereas she has further contributed to the community by serving as a highly dedicated food service director for the do Public School District and whereas Rosemary Chambers he menis Exemplar commitment to the well-being of the young people of Dover has expanded opportunities for them both in the classroom and the community whereas Rosemary Chambers Jimenez has worked tirelessly as an unsung superhero making an immeasurable impact on the students of do and whereas by performing her duties with competency compassion she has demonstrated a commitment to the welfare of all students now therefore be it resolved that the Dober Board of Education recognizes Rosemary Chambers himis himes's dedication and commitment to advancing student achievement and be it further resolved that the members of the Dober Board of Education extend their sincere appreciation to Rosemary Chambers Jimenez for her devoted service to the do school district and be it further resolved that the members of the Dober Board of Education extend their best wishes to Rosemary Chambers Sim menz in all her future endeavors [Applause] I just want to share really quick that I am the one that nominated you at the uh Middle School um very proud to give you the certificate Rosemary thank you so much you mean so much to our kids so much to our staff you always come in with a positive attitude you're always willing to help everyone else and I didn't want that to go unnoticed so thank you so much for being the person that you are thank you [Applause] [Applause] I need to I will entertain a motion to approve that resolution so moved second was that Miss nutting so we have a motion by Miss nutting who second Dr Ser second Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote please miss ESO yes M DS yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Miss penales yes Dr sener yes Miss SES yes Miss mandz yes okay we are going to toss it over to Mr Hae to introduce our next presentation uh this evening we have our NJ SLA presentation by Mr Carl and Mr pandel good evening everybody um so Mr Carl and I are back for uh more standardized uh test results as were required to by the state uh tonight we're going to be talking about the uh njsla for language arts English language arts math and science that most students took many students took back in the spring of 2024 um I'm going to do the first few slides and then turn it over to Mr Carl um so the only thing is I know this does look like a very similar presentation to past presentations the results are uh you know very similar we it's not since really the we came back from the pandemic State assessment scores really have uh lagged behind State averages and that's that's true for the results this year as well so I know this is a this is English language arts it's a very very busy slide um this is levels four and five there's five different levels uh that student scores are put in on njsla four and five that is the expectation that that's considered the passing rate um so Compares all the grade levels from 23 to 24 and then the overall passing rate for this year is uh in red at the bottom uh right of the of the table and you can see we're still about uh 52.1 is the state passing rate our passing rate language arts is 37.3 so we're still about 15 points behind the state average the gap between last year and this year actually grew by a couple of points so when we looked at this and tried to examine you know the some ray of sunshine using a growth mindset we did notice that each year the same class meaning from third grade in 2023 to fourth grade 2024 fourth grade 203 the same class it has it's mostly the same students taking the test obviously not exactly the same but each year it seems like the the passing rate went up and that held true through sth to e8th grade but then from 8th grade to 9th grade there was a precipitous ninepoint drop but for the most part there was up up until then there was definitely more students were passing the exam from the previous year uh from the same exact class so in math it's uh look looking at the bottom right the passing rate the state passing rate for the for all grade levels combined 38.1% for the district is uh 22% so there's even though the the algebra 1 99.2% is not not a great score it's still twice as it's twice as good as it was uh last year uh one really outstanding accomplishment here is the students at the middle school algebra one class 82.6% the students and the teacher preparation in this particular subject is is absolutely outstanding it's more than twice the average of the state and that's just a phenomenal accomplishment um but overall you look at the Assessments in most grade level so we're saying in throughout the state of New Jersey 62% of the students are not meeting expectations if you look at the eighth grade exam over 80% of the students are not meeting expectations you know and we we brought this up once before about the validity of some of these this the current state assessment so when I Was preparing for this and I I was putting through the computer I I found an old presentation for NJ ASK from 2013 now the NJ ASK was a stateus assessment that was still not a basic skills test it had a level of riger on it that was still pretty high most people thought it was mostly a fair test some people thought some of it was a little unfair but the state passing rate at that time was about 66% I believe in language arts and I think 77% in math overall and those are the state averages and most of our grade levels so by the way language arts was the lower one they said the language arts one was too unfair all right but most of our grade levels actually exceeded that if you go back 10 11 years so somewhere along the way uh the tests have become increasingly difficult if not really uh not really fair to our students and I I do really do believe that some of the some of these tests are so difficult that some of our students you know start taking a look at it and it's so just so difficult I'm not sure they're actually put 100% effort into it because it is such a difficult test so now with science um well that's okay so science there's four different there's four different levels um so that's not the data so science they take the science in grades five 8 and 11 and there's something cut cut off there because the the passing rate for the the state on the state assessment for 2024 was 24% and the district passing rate was 12% and again even though that that data is not up there that's what the data is um again you have three quarters of the state not meeting the expectations so with and with the science test I don't know if I already said this there's there's four levels and proficient and advanced proficient um and that's the the expectation but again the expectation on the science test is that they're not really it's a incredibly challenging test and most students are not meeting those demands so we also have to report by uh subgroup and as in the past there are some subgroups that are an outlier a little bit higher than what we have as a district as a whole but there has to be at least 10 students in a subgroup so the ones that are reporting that have that little outlier above average uh than our test scores there's not a ton of more students than 10 students in those particular subgroups and then the outlier the other way students with this disabilities and elll students there there are a significant amount of students that do take the exam uh from those particular subgroups I believe student with uh disabilities it was about 177% of the students that took the exams uh was had an IEP and I believe about 26% of uh elll students you know took the exam and you can imagine in a a test that is so rigorous that even though those students do have accommodations it it would be very difficult for them you know a student with a disability or a student learning a new language to really be able to meet the expectations on that particular test so over the course of the last couple years I kept on talking about this state uh growth model this the stat that the state actually uses and it applies it to schools is the uh median student growth percentile so the median Stu student growth percentile they compare stud students test scores with students who had similar test scores from the year before or two years before they call that their academic peers and then put them in order from at least the greatest and they get a medium number and then their teacher gets a medium number and then the school gets a median number and then the district gets a median number so now this was the first time we've had it since uh um an msgp since 2019 and this is just one year because this is actually not from the test that the students just took it was from last year's test because the msgp doesn't come out into December so if you actually look the the our growth rate is a 51 which according to the state is under typical growth I went back and looked at our 2019 uh growth rate and our 2019 growth rate was a 60 but also too I'm I'm still I'm I'm vinced that hey this is only one year's worth not not a two-year comparison but um you know like I said it's not applicable to the test that for 2024 this is from the previous year but I I I am convinced that the rigor of the test does have uh does have does apply to mssgps because I I do think that the test is so rigorous that there are some students that maybe aren't giving 100% in that area thus affecting the growth rate because our growth rate you know is is down comparatively to from uh from from 2019 but I don't know if I'm comparing apples or oranges it's just you know just a feel something I feel and I've been around you know testing and state testing for a very very long time so that's just my two cents um at this point I'm going to turn the mic over to Mr Carl who is going to go over uh other data related to student growth thank you Mr Pand Alo uh Rory Carl director of curriculum instruction and professional development um and so kind of like we did with NJ GPA we want to just take a look at some of the data um and dive into you know some of the numbers we've looked at with you know how long students have been in our classrooms as a Dober student with our Dober teachers so if we start at the top the Top Line are the third graders so last year's third graders who were proficient on the njsla their average time in District was 4.2 years compared to those same third grade group uh who were not proficient the average time in District for that group was only 3.5 years that Trend continues so you'll see that anywhere highlighted in yellow connects to the green um and that was not uh trying to match it was looking at you know how much longer have those students been in District right if we go down to the ninth graders last year's ninth graders current 10th those who scored proficient were with us for 6.7 years compared to 6.3 years so just kind of looking at those differences and something we're really diving into as we start to look at these numbers because that consistency in a do classroom is invaluable so again taking even a little bit of a deeper dive uh looking at last year's sixth graders 25 5% so 1/4th of our current seventh graders last year's sixth graders have only been in the district with us three years or less um last year's seventh graders current eth graders 33% um have been in the district three years or less and that Trend continues and something we've looked at you know looking at Algebra 1 scores and how long have we had the opportunity to work with those students before they sit in our Algebra 1 classrooms so again just something you know an admin team as a district we're really looking at Mr pandala was talking a lot about the math assessment um and so we just want to give you a little example of what uh students are seeing when they take the njsla so we're going to play a little game Guess That grade level so the problem says a parking garage has a total of 87 parking spaces if there are three levels in the garage and each level has an equal number of parking spaces how many parking spaces are on each level and now for a student sitting in the classroom they have this and be like great but that blue arrow means it's not over yet because that's only part A so still the same question but here's Part B that parking garage will add two new levels of parking spaces each new level will have twice the number of parking spaces as the old how many parking spaces will be in the two levels now for some student sitting in that classroom and this would have probably been me I'm just thinking about a parking garage at this point because I already told you how many cars in the first problem and now you're making me still go so in my mind that's what I'm picturing and maybe you lost me already but that blue arrow means we're not done yet because there's a part C and this is part C I won't read it all but you'll see some of the things write an equation to find how many customers the garage had before and many many bullets apologize for some of the things that that got changed there but does anyone want to guess what grade level are we looking at anybody want to take a guess grade level this is a fourth grade njsla problem and when we talk about the validity of an assessment um you know that part A was what NJ ASK was like and for those right I was teaching back then it was you know nobody likes these end of the year big state tests but it was at least a test that we felt we were PR preparing students for and then we go to this level and we go from concrete to abstract in one problem and for some students that's okay but for those that are in the concrete and they're really feeling comfortable now in that fourth grade classroom this has now made it so abstract uh and we start to lose them just in the wording in the phrasing so just something to consider but we want to celebrate Student Success and you know driving that continued growth here in do so I want to first take you back I don't know why this is the slideshow is uh sending the things on top I don't know Stephen if you can there was like a it like built on top of it but we'll kind of go back if we if we can get the view but behind that uh is looking at the growth from Fall of 2023 to last spring um and although we can't see what's behind for language arts 111% growth was the average student growth in our K to8 classrooms in language arts again 100% being the goal that typical Year's growth we have accelerated past that uh and in the image behind really kind of shows where that's occurring but we're diving deeper right and and when we met over the summer uh when I was here back in July we talked about how our admin team was already getting together and doing this work and this has now continued we're looking at that same data but we're looking at students who started the year in these places so for a student who started three or more grade levels below they grew 106% now when we dive into this data we know that a lot with language arts has to come with the language piece because when it comes to the state assessment it's only available in English and so that's one component we're working to strengthen but we'll look at some other areas and we're just ensuring are we giving an equitable amount of growth to all of the areas that we have in our classrooms and for our teachers they have all of these levels within their one classroom within that group of students same thing for for math we'll kind of look take a look at the overall uh but we will come back and take a look at you know how we accelerated that growth into those green areas of being now on grade level but 115% again the goal being 100 surpassing that many of our students making a year to a year and a half worth of growth in just a single school year but again we're diving deeper into that data right now we see okay three or more grade levels below 133% for the average student who started in that place so now we're looking at almost 2 years worth of growth but the ability to provide that instruction um in English in Spanish and assess them both on our benchmarks and the state assessment in that language as well and then we're diving with our grade levels so this is uh real data I just met with one of our fourth grade teams and the image on the left was where we were last year and the yellow highlighted areas were areas where we had grown from the prior year before that from 2122 now the image on the right is when we just put together and I went and met with this team two weeks ago and I was so pumped up to go meet with them because within one year of being able to really Target and look at their instruction and say okay these are the areas we're going to kind of focus on look how much more yellow right all of those areas grew and some significantly and we'll continue that work moving forward in the other grade levels so we're going to talk a little bit about diving into Data so what you're looking at is not Reed over student data it is just demo data but these are the new dashboards so when we meet to go meet with a grade level uh this was actually some work I was doing with one of our principles uh meeting with grade level teams and providing them all the data on their students and then kind of looking at different ways to analyze it saying okay where are you right now in math where are you in language arts okay let's pull up that domain let's look at your students how can we group them how can we kind of strategically work them through this unit so that they all find that success independently same thing looking at I ready in njsla number one to say okay are these assessments telling the same story and yes they are but being able to look at a specific domain right if I'm in language arts and I'm teaching comprehension of literature well let's see how they did on I ready and njsla or they telling the same story yes okay let's dive deeper within each of those domains and kind of pinpoint an area that we can drive most of the students uh towards that same growth goal and then taking a look at standards based grading this was in district grades K through two this will now be grades K through five and the big thing with standards based grading not only does it provide more in-depth information for parents in terms of each of the academic areas and places where we're seeing a lot of growth uh areas where students have mastered a skill and those areas we're still working on but it also provides the teacher with just a quick checklist right on the left was Traditional report card student comes home B+ or a B minus okay but why why were they at that B minus on the right we have standards based right makes it more visual you can see each of those areas and how they relate to the report card and those performance areas uh indicated at the top and that's everything for tonight and my kids think I'm famous cuz I'm on YouTube so I promised I'd say hi anyy great Brody love you guys thank you thank you for um sharing this presentation with us and Diving deep into the data we appreciate it um we'll open it up to the board for discussion Mr Miller um you know obviously you know looking at the scores they're not trending up and they're trending down so my first question because I need to dig deeper what is passing you know how many questions do they get to say you know the third or fourth grade whatever math like how many questions do they have to answer um so it it depends each year U and some of the questions with the multi-arts will change that uh but but I would say on average it's between 35 to 40 questions okay so do you get an actual score for each student so you could see which students are in different ranges yes and and that's one of the uh the breakdowns where we were able to kind of pinpoint by grade level the questions um and that's where we were able to build those evidence statement analysis Trends to kind of dive a little bit deeper and really look for standards that we saw growth and then ones where maybe there was a decline in that growth so the passing is yet they have to get a certain number 750 yes 7 uh 750 is uh where proficiency levels start okay so that you get to see which questions they get wrong so that you know which area that needs to be researched not specific to the student but yeah we get an overall snapshot okay so when you look at uh was looking at the chart that had proficient not proficient average years in the district so if the student in grade three is not proficient or and the students in grade four and you're following that student and they're still not proficient what are we doing to figure that out because now that we've been able to work with them a couple years why is it they're not like how many of those students do we have that are still not proficient after being in the district multiple years yeah and so so that's one of the things we've really been looking at at now having a tool like link it to be able to dive into that data a little bit more um you know quickly without having to compile everything and we do see it um and it's mostly those students who you know when we look at I ready in the beginning of the year and maybe they are a third grade student they are two or more grade levels below um and so now if they're in third grade they're taking the njsa chances are their score will not be proficient but now and that's where you know and we'll see if we get the I ready but when we look at the students who move from like it's the red with the black line three or more below within that year we can get them to two or more below so we've made a Year's worth of growth and that might even be an accelerator years's year and a half worth so now they're in the red but now they're a fourth grader and so it's it's always trying to push growth past that normal year range but still having that expectation that it's going to take two or three years to get that student to grade level and within I ready we see those projected growth Pathways and you know it's never an expected one year a year and a half and all of a sudden we've now accelerated that student to be on grade level we don't have many students who are not making the growth it's just ensuring that their growth is following that consistent tread toward proficiency um and like the one piece of data we dove into were how many of our students in each grade level School scored between a 740 and a 749 so those are the students who were one to two questions away from proficiency um and we're looking at a very high number of students now when we look at the scores it only shows us proficient but we have you know these chunks of students like in one grade level of I think there was 75 students 19 were within one to two questions away from proficiency so we're seeing the growth but they may not be you know within the a two-year it can take some some time to get them there and I guess the a follow on is that you see the growth and I ready but the the growth isn't always translating to proficiency proficiency yeah so is that a sign that the growth is that you're seeing may not be real for what they need to do for this test no it's it's we have a student who you know let's say they're a fifth grade math student you know they're they come in this year at a third grade math level we have a good chance especially if if they're in our BSI program to accelerate that growth to a year year and a half and now there are student sitting in the yellow so they haven't reached proficiency but we have moved them from a place where they were starting two or more grade levels below okay now they're one year below and now if we continue that work that next year and that's where when we share I already that stretch growth it's above and beyond the normal expectation but it's a place where we can continue their growth so they do hit proficiency sooner than they would have without that accelerated um you know in-depth support yeah uh I mean the the state passing rate is not good either so no and it has not been um and you know I that was one of the reasons we felt it was important to share what some of these questions look like um you know now I ready matches that rigor because they're keeping up with the test so we do see similar scores so we know the assessment we know already's valid but there is a lot to be said about the math assessment for NJ GPA where again that assessment saying 50% of New Jersey 11th grade students are not graduation ready and now we have the njsla saying a very similar thing um about now our kindergarten through you know algebra geometry students so so the outlier is the algebra and what what do you attribute that to So within our algebra program um you know at the eth grade level we do have a a significant number of students who take Algebra 1 um we usually have about 60 students there so those students come in and instead of taking the algebra 1 assessment are now taking geometry um you know so part of that is losing some of our eighth grade students to not losing them to do algebra one early and the second piece of that is is you know and looking at some of that data we do have a large number of students who are coming into Algebra 1 who have you know limited education or they're coming in and and you know we are doing everything we can to support them but the assessment doesn't provide those type of supports no I'm I guess um I mean we we had a higher level of passing compared to the state for our algebra at Middle School yes that yes yeah so oh what will I attribute that to the teacher 100% um yes our algebra one program at the middle school um it it's incredible you know I I remember Mr pandal last year uh coming up and and sharing some similar about that CL and last year's score was incredible this year's was uh you know when I spoke with the teacher you know it's just she has a passion for what she does uh she loves Algebra 1 and she is able to get our Dober students past where many other school D districts are are are getting their students um which is phenomenal thank you Dr s thank you both for that presentation I struggle as a board member with wanting to hold you Mr Carl and Mr Pand Alo and our staff to very high standards so that our children are held to high standards and also with understanding that you're faced with an impossible task right that first question was ridiculous um and so my questions I'm I'm trying to ask them from a mindset of are we as a board doing what we need to do to ensure that our do children are getting the best that they can get and doing the best that they can do on these um tests and possible as they may seem and so so my first question I was thinking as you presented the what grade did this come from if a student misses the first question they do the math wrong will they miss the subsequent parts or will it allow them to do the second and third Parts based on an incorrect first answer yeah so if they miss the part a um Part B and C always work off that first answer uh so first answer incorrect Part B and C and that is a big place we're diving into so those are um the reasoning and these you know with depth of knowledge these are like the high the abstract level they seem to be adding those in more frequently um and you know I do attribute that to the state seeing the same you know in speaking with other districts it's I understand the the need for rigor but when you pose a question like that you know I'm not sure what it is that that we're really looking for you know we want students to be confident in mathematics we want them to be confident human beings we want them to go out in the world and be successful but some of these are you know questions specific to those who are going into a specific field in mathematics it has gotten that specific um and I feel like we've gotten away from you know what we were looking at just in Shing okay yes these third graders are can all work towards similar skills and now it's like how abstract can we get an eight-year-old um um to think so it's tough okay um you mentioned uh that uh using I ready to show the average growth and depending on whether it was Ela or math it was over 100% that's great um what percentage of students because that's an average what percentage of students did not make 100% growth and and if you don't know that I can I I I'll see you in a couple weeks at curriculum but how what percentage of students didn't make their yearly growth yeah so you know I don't know the exact percentage um but that is something that we start diving into you know pretty immediately and a lot of the times you know it's at the end of the year and you know the teacher will reach out so one thing we pull up is uh you know duration so we could see okay how long because sometimes it's just attributed to a student who that day you know uh it just was not for me and some of it we're finding it's our third graders it's you know they're not used to taking an assessment online so we're working working through those pieces um but any of those that we are concerned about becomes part of our BSI watch group so I work with our BSI team and we dive into a lot of those pie we start at the end of the year we meet with the BSI team as soon as the last diagnostic is done already planning groups for the next year and that's the one group we're really looking at okay so that leads into my next question which is if I'm a parent or we're board members looking out um at you know looking at student scores that are um below proficiency um what happens right so you talked about the end of the year you get a report back you can identify students that are not proficient what are the supports that we're offering those students to get them back on track um moving forward yeah so you know the first I'll say with our our BSI teams uh so that starts in June uh so we met and started looking at groups so that's phase one uh phase two we met with that same BSI group on our first day back the 28th and now we start looking at uh data that maybe come in from our summer programs or we have I ready that is open through the summer so we can see students who have been on there so can you explain for people at home what is BSI and so if we're talking about a John Doe that is struggling and you get that score back in May or June what is John Doe going to experience yeah so our basic skills program uh for both math and language Arts um is used to support students in just that really providing those foundational Concepts um so if you know I'm Johnny and I'm a fourth grade student uh if I'm in BSI which means that you know maybe a state assessment or internal benchmarks or the teacher um has suggested that Johnny needs some assistance um now Johnny is a part of what would be a BSI pull out program so pulling out Johnny obviously not out of the class uh he needs support in so if I need support in math uh you know maybe I'm getting pulled out during a science or social studies and we're using that data from I ready so although I'm a fourth grader we are working on the foundational skills that Johnny specifically needs to continue moving forward so the BSI teacher will connect with the you know the grade level teacher hey here's what we're working on on class okay here's where that concept started and now both are trying to bring Johnny together one building the foundation while other is providing what is really an extension trying to you know connect those two pieces together uh same thing for language arts and the BSI model is something that's rolling so it's depending on the content or um you know if we're in algebra and algebraic thinking we're working with those students who need reinforcement in that concept um so what does that look like for that that sounds to me like a lot to ask of a classroom teacher um that that he or she knows where every student is at identifying students that need to come out for BSI providing maybe for a student who's quote unquote only a year below grade level um what support is available especially for all our teachers but I'm thinking specifically of the classroom teachers to help them in providing the support for students who are remaining in their class but maybe below grade level yeah and you know before I say you know what they have it's and you know I've talk about fist bumps walking into a classroom you see a wide array of levels um and and when you think about teachers like I'm one and there's 20 to 25 and I have those who are above grade level down to three or more below and that is a task that uh you know it can feel daunting and it can be daunting but our teachers have really found a way to balance that by meeting each student where they at and as a district you know we're trying to provide the professional development in working with small groups because this is not something that can be done whole class right it can't be the teacher up front and I'm teaching everybody we might be together for the beginning and here's what we're working here's the goal but now we're breaking out into groups and if we're in language arts each group has a book at their level or in mathematics you know each station is designed in a specific way to build on that concept um and so those are the pieces we're really trying to drive in the classroom but it is it is a very challenging in education where Co whatever got us here we just have a big gap but we have an incredible staff filling that Gap um and that's where the graphic behind there I wish you could see the top green but we have accelerated that growth for so many of our students um and it's just something I'm really proud to be here and be a part of thank you I'm sorry I have one more question um I saw that you correlated the njla um data to the I data have we at least with older students um 8th grade and Beyond um have we correlated the data to sat data does it correlate to sat dat does a um below proficient or above or proficient or exceeds um does that correlate to um SAT scores yes and we're also seeing that with our our benchmarks so at the High schol School level um with the link at benchmarks again getting really specific to the standards we are seeing um some of those Trends now with our SAT prep class really diving into those reports we are seeing some of those same Trends yes thank you any other discussion um I don't necessarily have a question I'm just going to share my thoughts I too struggle with my role um as a board member and holding the administration accountable for High student achievement and my own personal beliefs on testing right um because personally I don't care for testing right um but I was elected to this seat um to hold the administration accountable on behalf of the parents and the community that elected us to be here and and I believe I shared this at convocation that I think that in Dover we should have a culture of measuring success by growth but I'm I'm struggling to see um I'm struggling to see growth um and that is concerning to me um I know for at least the last three years since I've been on the board we've had these uncomfortable sometimes conversations that we need to have right around this because we can't grow speaking of growth we can't grow without having these conversations so for at least the past three years we've had these conversations and talked about supportive measures that were going to be implemented and um result after result I just the growth is very minimal and I don't know what the answer is I I quite frankly it seems like no one necessarily knows what the answer is and it seems to ring true you know for school districts across the state and I'm sure the country due to any number of reasons right um so that's all but thank you for all the work that um the both of you do and and our staff you know across the district you know we recognize that you're all doing um an exceptional job you know just some things are just beyond our control and this is one of them um and I too think that that question is absolutely absurd I don't even know if I can answer that right now um so um so if there's no other discussion we will move along thank you so much thank you thank you okay we have one more Pres presentation Mr he do you want to introduce the presentation or presenter um are presenting on building based projects presentation by Mr campino campasano sorry good evening I'm Michael Bryson a senior project manager of the USA Architects um joined by Kate Bernardi our senior designer of our prek-2 studio at USA uh tonight uh by way of the binders have in front of you and uh the digital submission that we gave to Mr haime and Mr sabulu uh we're presenting an overview tonight of our facility assessment report of five of your school buildings in the district do high school do Middle School East do Academy Street and North do uh this report is a physical onsite review of of these buildings it's our look at the brick and mortar of those buildings we understand you have um you know overcrowding issues capacity issues throughout the district this report doesn't focus on those we're really looking at you know the physical infrastructure of your buildings the um the makeup of of each School specifically um we looked at items around the property everything related to the building envelope everything related to the mechanical electrical fire alarm systems within each School uh as well as um your Interiors your your finishes and anything else that was important to the school that we considered um within the report the report is is meant to serve to you know quantify and qualify the scope of recommendations we're making to you um and with that we'll be which Kate will will present estimated um cost or budget cost to make improvements in the district based on uh very specific assessment categories that you see uh on the screen uh our Focus was always uh number one is you know life health safety um building code any emergent issues in in our review and and moving down the list you know anywhere we saw you know damage around the property or to to the structures themselves any recommended building improvements that we you know we think should be implemented to enhance uh each of the schools uh and all the building systems that we mentioned um within the report and of course a focus on accessibility barrier-free if there's an opportunity to improve access to buildings access to Upper floors of buildings improvements to uh maneuvering within the buildings themselves so with that I will let Kate give you in a summary of each of the schools and um let's you know you know where each school stands in terms of their condition today so we started by interviewing all of the principles of each school um so with Dober High School it was constructed in 1964 uh it does have an addition that was put on in about 2004 and is 132,000 square fet it's located on 43 and a half AC and has grades 9 through 12 and about 1,150 students currently um the building is in and facility is in average condition uh it's exterior is generally good um with some water drainage issues on the exterior site so you're going to see uh budgetary numbers on here and this is just kind of a cost of magnitude it's not something that necessarily needs to be done tomorrow it could be done over the you know next coming decade and it's really for you to give you all a basis of conversation of how to move forward with some of the improvements that may need to be done to the buildings in the site um the high school has some um other issues such as the hbac that need to be addressed um tuck pointing improvements for accessibility to the interior cour yard spaces um some issues with doors windows um keying issues with the doorways so for security purposes um upgrading those things on the interior looking at some of the Aging systems of Electrical Plumbing and corresponding um systems with that when we go down to the middle school you're going to see a lot of similar things here um when I kind of walk through them the middle school was constructed in 1955 it had an addition in the early 2000s it's about 105,000 square feet and located on 12.2 Acres it has the elementary school and the middle school in the same facility so you have K through six with around 400 students and then 7 through eight with 500 students there's some building site issues that need to be addressed here mainly security issues around the playground site drainage with um the field as well as some building exterior issues mainly with the windows um that have to do with the acrylic that has started to kind of frost over over time there's once again the door keing issues for security purposes um that need to be addressed older mechanical issues and ceiling issues that have kind of developed over time because of that those same conditions there's also toilet rooms that will come up in the next two schools as well that have been original to the facility and are now passed or exceeding their their their lifespan we then have Academy Street which was constructed in 1927 it has an addition that was put on in the 1970s it's about 52,000 square feet and located on 4.8 Acres it has grades K uh through six and about 520 students Academy Street is a little more more complicated as far as site goes it's on a very steep slope topographically so there's a lot more concerns with degrading retaining walls um the degrading stairways handrails water issues coming into the site that need to be addressed um and and that's why you're starting to see the numbers for the building exterior and the site to be a little bit higher in this instance in the interior um we encounter similar issues again with Hardware keying issues doors toilet room upgrades this school does not have a secure vestibule um which was addressed this last year in the middle uh middle school and East over Elementary School and it has a lot of accessibility issues this is the you know a multiple floor school you don't have an elevator um and there's there's no accessible entrance into the into the school it's also once again has outdated mechanical systems that are um nearing or past their lifespan finally we have North do elementary school which was constructed in 1954 and has an addition in the early 2000s uh it's about 64 ,000 square fet and located on Seven Acres it has uh grades K through six and about 650 students um for the site work around North do it's a little bit less than some of the other schools mainly looking at security surrounding the playground um for for students um to play and as well as aging playground equipment that should be addressed door hardware again a similar issue same with the windows and the fogging acrylic um which makes it difficult to see in or out of the school there's also toilet room upgrades again mechanical systems and plumbing fixtures and that's where we kind of come to that is a very high level overview of the the schools and um um there's a obviously a lot more detail in the binders and I know it will take time to kind of disseminate that information so um first off thank you for um putting in the work to uh visit each of these sites and meet with some of our administrators and teachers and um come up with this this plan you know we recognize this took a lot of work and we appreciate um all of the work work that went into it um finance and Facilities committee has um dove into this so um I will open it up to the board for any further discussion Dr s um yes I would encourage the board members there's a a lot in here um it's a lot so there'll be a test in November um just kidding um but there's a a lot of pictures in there um documenting where some of these issues are I think most of us have taken tours of our buildings within the last few years so we had a sense of but this goes beyond what you what a lay person may have noticed um I'm really thankful for the thoroughness of this project I think this is going to be invaluable as we look forward to subsequent budgets and you know discussing well we have X amount of dollars so we can you know we could do a and b or we could do X and Y and instead of guessing or you know well I think roofs are important um we now have um actionable priority items and so I think moving forward um this is going to be really valuable to us as a board and for our taxpayers right that we are prioritizing the correct things as we um spend our limited maintenance budget um on our schools and remind me I'm sorry if anyone else had a question remind remind me of the total number um in terms of if we had an a limitless budget and we could do everything that is in this plan what was the total number again I believe it was somewhere in around the 28 million Mr Miller you did the math yeah it's about 28 milon yeah and and I'd like to preface by we kind of throw budget numbers out there as um you know Architects and and kind of like magn itude numbers and this is not all-encompassing and it's not necessarily like this is the exact number that this is going to cost you to fix all of these issues or um to improve the certain conditions in in the facility so it it's a good starting point for it um it doesn't mean that that's the the perfect way to to solve every solution and also there are recommend or there are recommendations in here for you to look at as far as going forward for certain issues like we don't put numbers in for things such as like the accessibility um of Academy Street so those are things we would have to look at in more depth and and study the building to see what your best option would be or whether or not that's feasible any other discussion if you can and and we talked about this in committee but I just I would like to share this um with the public if you can maybe um think thinking about this plan and thinking about um or taking into consideration your professional um careers and you've been doing this for a while if you can pinpoint maybe one or two things across the district that you think should be a priority for us um sure so I think one of your one of your big issues that I saw across all of your buildings is your keying and dooring your hardware issues um that's consistent across all all of the buildings you don't have a consistent keying system which is a security concern I I just want to interrupt for one second yeah I think we've acknowledged that there are some security concerns in here yeah I would not in public go into too much detail no about what the security concerns are yeah so that's something that I I think could be addressed um I also think that obviously toilet rooms sanitary issues are are a big thing they they start to age at a certain point um um and then they're typically the bigger issues that you would do as well as finishing your continued efforts to add security V vestibules to the the schools I think those are some of the big ones thank you thank you no other discussion right thank you so much it's 8:07 right we're moving into public comments on agenda items only the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of 3 minutes public comments limited to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the presiding officer please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees please be advised that you're commenting at your own risk any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to Legal liability for defamation with that public comment on agenda items only is now open is there any member of the public wishing to speak good evening everyone Susan shower 346 West Clinton Street in do um thank you very much for all of the presentations it it's a lot for one night um I'm sure for the board you start early and uh for the for the public also to be here um but I appreciate the presentations in the last presentation The Five-Year long range facility plan I know that is a mandate that the district has to fulfill and I'm just wondering when the last one was is done because it's been quite a while since we've seen any presentation like this and I'm also wondering the director of facilities Mr O'Brien um I I did not take part in this presentation so I'm confused how the board meeting in committee will take this binder and in Lay person terms look at this and prioritize um $29 Million worth of work that is actually supposed to be the duty of your buildings and constructions and maintenance department so it seems that in a lot of what's been going on in Dover over these past several years um there's always one component component that's missing in tonight's presentation of of our state test scores um and in looking at our qac results online in the agenda um they seem to be a bit a skew to what was already developed by the board and by the Acting Superintendent as District goals and board goals both of those goals seem to be very broad with a lot of words and not specifically zoomed in to where your problems are they it it seems to be in a vague way coming about saying we're going to improve this and we're going to improve that but not specific not saying we're going to uh improve the graduation rate specifically by 10% we're not going to you know I don't have to give too many examples but for that reason um so it just seems like things have been disjointed for several years here in Dover and I'm optimistic that that is going to change but I also strongly and and I hope I'm not being too critical with this but I will be plain spoken um we have to change our thinking our mentality there can be no acceptance of failure we can't make it right we can't give excuses we can't keep saying the word covid we cannot keep saying it's the test and the entire state has gone down the entire state did go down so that is indicative of a a rigorous test but we have to take the test we can't not take the test in our school district and we also can't say well the the state went down and everybody went down but we went way down we we we exceeded down we are rock bottom and we can't keep coming here every year giving these presentations and saying well we have remedies that we're going to put into place but then we see that there are kids that have been in the district for 4 years that are still not achieving and we have graduation rates that are sinking we have to remember that every single one of those numbers is a child that is being left behind and Mr pandal indicated a test from M show your time's up so please finish up thank you I've missed the stopwatch um we did the test from 2013 where we were at that point we were struggling to rise but we did it we did it and to say that these kids can't achieve because it's the test or because they're new to this country I know that those kids that were here tonight with the robotics the millions of pieces that were in that thing that they made work they all were not just born here in do they came from somewhere else and they came here and they learned our marching band members are not all born born and raised here in do or the United States of America and still they March and count and play an instrument at the same time without falling down it's not easy and but so we have to stop saying we can't do it because we can't do it because or because of this or because of that those words need to be taken out of our language here in do if we want to achieve the top has to want to be in achieving down all the way through the bottom and the kids in the middle will get it thank you any other member of the public wishing to speak okay good evening John kigo 24 tailor toown Road modville okay um so in regards to our our presentation tonight and thank you to Mr penalo and Mr Carl for the information um you know sitting here as an educator myself in this District I have a lot of feelings about this and I'll tell you that in do my feeling and my opinion is as an educator that seeing growth is more important than being proficient because a lot of our kids come to this District not knowing any English they come to this District as their first time in America and to ask them to be proficient at A fifth or fourth grade level when they don't even understand English and the test isn't even in their native language is very difficult and I'm I'm very emotional about this because I feel for them and we should not be looking at scores and saying we need to be more proficient we should be looking at the growth and saying this student started at a kindergarten level and now is at a second grade level that's great that's great if they started at a second grade level now they're at a fourth grade level that's great that's what we should be looking at now we did a little uh guess the question earlier so I'm going to do guess the grade level this is a a a classroom in one of our schools so I want you to guess the grade level we have one student this is based on I ready scores in September we have one student at a grade 5 level 15 students at a grade four level 15 students at a grade three level 13 students at a grade two level and five students at a grade 1 level that is a fifth grade classroom ladies and gentlemen one student at a fifth grade level five at a first grade level and we are expecting these students to answer questions like those and be proficient I have a hard time with that we have a lot of challenges here a lot of challenges we have chronic absenteeism which we're doing nothing about we have students that are absent constantly and we just move them along and we have a dual language program that to no fault of anybody here we are trying we're trying something new we' we've tried it it has now gone up to third grade those third graders are going to take the state test this year and I'm very concerned we have to look at that dual language program we have to look at how they're progressing because from what I'm hearing from our members and from from the staff it is not progressing in a good way and we're upset of these scores now tonight get ready for next year we have a BSI teacher in one of our schools basic skills that would be great for these kids that are not being proficient filling in for a teacher that is out on medical leave for two months so those students now are not getting basic skills math because the basic skills teacher is filling in for one of our other teachers we couldn't get a substitute teacher so now those students are missing out on BSI math it's things like that the absenteeism the BSI the Dual language we have a lot of major concerns that we have to look at thank you thank you any other member of the public in wish in person wishing to speak on agenda items only good evening Mary sa 217 Baker Street um I just want to start with something else um our Facebook page for the district it's a great source for our community and um on the agenda there is the invite for the next special Board of Education meeting for this Thursday uh to make a great announcement that's great for our community I feel you need to invite people to these meetings you need to inform parents of what's going on do you follow how many views do your YouTube meetings have out of the district we got a already as a parent um BSI letters um home with our students as a parent I can opt out out of BSI that's only 30 minutes if I'm not wrong please correct me if I'm wrong a week I believe 30 minutes a week I can opt out my child knowing that it has been recommended that they get BSI and you want test scores to be higher listen to the teachers as a board Mr Coniglio I had missed them and you're hearing it directly from the teachers as a nor DOA parent I know at the beginning of the year also we lost a ESL teacher classroom a Spanish speaking classroom teacher at the beginning of the school year and all those students in that classroom has to be spread out to the other regular classrooms at the beginning of the year there was no teacher for that classroom that classroom was physically empty and all those students had to be split away to other classroom wherever there was room English Spanish same idea here last year towards I'm going to go with this school year there was tutoring that got approved $50 rate for students that were you know recognized to need tutoring it hasn't started this year I highly doubted that the ones that you know exited out of the tutoring program no longer needed this year we have our uh teacher parent teacher conferences coming up in less than a month if you count the days that we're out of school and um with the test scores and the whole I ready and Mr ime you promised the website was going to be up and running on August 27th which was two days before the school year started the number of 404 errors on that website it's unbelievable there used to be an I ready report from for families with a whole instruction in English and Spanish that you could go to because you need a code as a family member to obtain your child's I ready report which they already took the diagnostic test which as a parent I can tell you is very very hard to read and so is the test course that we got in the mail from the njsla my daughter just took it last year she's this year in fourth grade sometimes I have no idea what I'm looking at inform us as parents let us know what they mean have a special meeting have one of those meetings that you're inviting two people on Thursday and you know bring the IT department to every single you know School event that you have to inform parents what's going on with the letters I can tell you for a fact that and teachers administrator excuse me ma'am I'm just letting you know your time's up please finish up are easily approachable when we have questions but I don't know if you can count how many people if everybody's really reaching out directly to a principal and teachers so um I just want to for that report on the 29 million remember you asked for like 70 million from from the district and that was not for existing buildings so you know keep that in mind again uh for the future and uh when you're talking about a decade that's a whole lifetime for one students so um for nor over I'm going to go with black top please right now the playground what was removed a new one's coming in this week next week and the kids are only in the black Tob and the black Tob I will get a letter from the town if my black tub looked like that thank you is there any other member of the public wishing to speak seeing none public comment is now closed um there are some things that um were mentioned in public comment tonight that involve personnel and Staffing and some other things that we will not address right now um but Mr haime is aware of some of these issues and we'll look into them um there is a couple of things Mr haime will talk about and um this evening but before we do I just wanted to share um in terms of Mr O'Brien being involved in this process he was involved in this process um and he does attend our finance and facility um meetings uh so that's the one thing I can address and then let me actually mention this as well in terms of inviting inviting folks to the board meetings that does happen right so the um announcement on the website and and and that is an invitation for folks to be here we advertise so that folks can come to the meeting you know the parent conferences and the um back to school nights and the um technology get ready for with get ready um events like that's the opportunity to have those conversations with with with those departments this is um more policy related so like that can't happen at every board meeting it's just not realistic um and then in terms of and I don't want to I don't want to like belabor this topic but in terms of testing I think that we all agree that we we want to see [Music] um growth we want to see higher student achievement I do think that there is a philosophical difference among many of us in this room on what that looks like um or what that means um but I'm okay with that because I think that's good governance and I I think you know it allows for healthy debate and conversations so I'll leave it there before I get myself in trouble CU I tend to do that one when I start to talk too much so Mr hman U just in regards to the the website I know that we have been continuously asking and working with the company in regards to addressing the needs of our public through our website to making sure that the information that is provided is relevant to our community uh it is something that myself and the tech department are continuously working on and I don't want to make excuses for anything uh but we're continuing to work at it as much as we can and hopefully get to that point where the website is to meet our expectations uh we definitely encounter some roadblocks that we didn't uh anticipate uh but it's something that we're definitely going to continue to work towards And in regards to just community outreach we're continuing to to do as much as we can with community outreach and one of the things I already started had a discussion with building Administration is the fact that we are looking now to start hosting some of our parent forums at the PTA meetings so that'll be another opportunity to continue to have conversations but parent forums and community outreach is definitely always in the Forefront for us and we'll continue to do our best thank you Mr H we are going to move along to the approval of minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes from September 17th so moved second we have a motion by Miss nutty a second by Mr Miller is there any discussion I'm trying to look to the left first Mr Miller sorry Dr s seeing no discussion Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote please M ASO uh yes to both Miss STS yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Miss pelis yes Dr cner yes Miss SES yes M mandz yes um we are moving along to Communications um there are no hboard Communications that I'm going to report on this evening um are there any that I missed no seeing none we are moving along to the student representative to the board report Mr Lei it is your moment to shine once again good evening everyone so I wanted to start out my report um just letting the board know about everything going on at the high school currently uh right now we have a lot of clubs and extracurriculars opening up I know most recently we had uh uh an Esports team that just started up this year it's something brand new that uh was trying out this year and also recently we've had Club fairs run throughout our lunch periods which will take place until October 21st during each Club Fair we have five clubs have a table during our lunches and during that time any student during their lunch can go up to these clubs um interact learn about what's going on and like what they can do and if they want to participate in these clubs and and another club that's been starting up is our dance clubs as our dance club is getting ready for upcoming For an upcoming Hispanic Heritage Month celebration and also I wanted to recognize the robotics team that I was just here presenting they had just won second place at their most recent competition not that long ago so congratulations to them and I also wanted to take a second to congratulate the winners of the novaris art competition we had three 11th graders finished in the finals um Brandon DeLeon and 11th grader won first place Mercedes Gonzalez an 11th grader that won second and Louisa abara that won third place in the competition and coming up October 22nd we have psit and sit testing here at the high school and on October 23rd we have a student assembly where John hallan will be coming in and talking to students about bullying and awareness and on November 1st we have another speaker Tim Shoemaker he will be coming in to talk about substance abuse and all all of that and some things have been going on around the school I had recently talked to um Dr NES about the HVAC issues and he gave me a little more insight about what's going on and how that's being handled so recently there's been like a new main system on how those issues are handled and stuff like that so that kind of helps like small issues so some classrooms will be fixed but it's going to be really hard to get every single HVAC issue solved in the school since it's a really big problem and each each problem needs a different solution for those issues and another thing I wanted to let the board know is that I came with Dr Nunes and we together we decided that I wanted to open up a Google form to students around the school that can let me know or let Dr ners know any concerns that they want to bring up to the Board of Ed and then that way I can read them and report it to you guys thank you thank you Mr leay um I actually really like the idea of the Google form I think that's perfect it's funny because I was gonna ask you um this evening what your process is like for deciding what you're going to report to us because last meeting you were just like Bam Bam Bam like you like shot it at us um and then this meeting talked about HVAC which I'm like I don't know if that's coming from the students but um so but I really like the idea of the Google form yeah um any comments or questions based off of his report I I have a comment barely I can attest that the HVAC issues are in fact coming from the students because they tell me about it all the time and I will second that when I was here decorating Lockers in the one hallway where I think the forensics class is it was like a thousand degrees I was dying so but Faith complains about the heat as well as a lot of her friends so I can totally attest to the fact that they are telling him about the HVAC issues thank you Miss Phillips and I remember you telling me about how hot it was I totally forgot um Miss nuty um just a quick question with the sports program about how many students are participating um I know we have a good handful uh coming in right now they're still having interest meetings and more students are coming in right now I don't have an exact number off the top of my head right now but I know they're still having um they're still getting everything together and still opening to new members well definitely pass it along that uh Esports is definitely something that is big and scholarship opportunities are definitely out there uh there's a possibility about 15 students in the program now okay perfect any other comments or questions I'm not GNA dive into HVAC because I think that um it's it's it's in here um no promises but we're aware but thank you for sharing um what are we moving along to now we're moving along to the board president's report um I will start off by inviting students parents staff and Community to the special meeting on Thursday October 17th at 5:30 p.m. the board will consider a new superintendent contract and if approved celebrate our new superintendent Mr hman uh now Mr haime while there are many great things I can share about you um and why we should all be excited for our District's future I'm going to save that for Thursday so um but today I would like to take this opportunity during my report to thank the board I want to thank each of you for giving up many weekends over the summer to interview candidates I want to thank you for working late nights to review applications I want to thank you for taking the time to call references and believe it or not I want to thank you for all the healthy debates throughout the process um but perhaps most importantly I want to thank each of you for your unwavering commitment to Dober Public Schools our students our staff and the community um I I didn't um and this is supposed to conclude my report but I am deeply moved by um the teamwork and how we rallied um together to get this done um it was a Monumental task and we teamed up and we made it happened so I am um personally grateful to each of you for making it the process a little bit easier for me um it's the first Super intendent search I've ever had to quote unquote lead um but working alongside each of you made it um a lot easier so thank you for for for that and that now officially concludes my report we are going to move along to um administrative reports um Mr hman good evening everyone Wes uh Matthew did a good job out there uh so tonight I'm going to start off with our NJ qac uh report a fiscal management at 92% governance at 100% operations at a 98% and Personnel at a 98% um our very owned Hispanic heritage festival is uh tomorrow Wednesday October 16th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at DHS please join us for an evening of family fun bonding celebration art and immersion into the Hispanic culture I want to acknowledge Miss G matate and Mr Renshaw dpd and all the volunteers assisting for that evening tomorrow uh today we close out Hispanic Heritage Month uh I'd love to share that our students participate in several activities like lesson plans promoting Hispanic heritage a month as well as trivia and events throughout the school uh DHS openhouse was hosted on October 2nd Dr nun supervisors students and teachers teamed up to give our future n9th grade students families and a taste of what's to come at the high school level about 30 families toured and participated in a Q&A that evening meet your case manager night Dr Sab Miss verar and case manager set up an excellent evening for information and intimate meet and greet with her case managers uh I want to uh congratulate uh The District in getting a grant we excited to share that we received an additional 49,000 from the NJ dooe part of their tutoring grant extension although the state is not continuing its high impact tting initiative this year District like ours that applied and were awarded awarded last year have have been granted a smaller percentage of the remaining funds to use for the 2425 school year uh we wouldn't be running the full tutoring program but these funds will support after school close focusing on our students academics and social and emotional wellbe classroom Champions we're excited to announce that Ed fourth grade team received a classroom Champion Grant applied for classroom Champions empowers students to thrive academically socially and emotionally through the mentorship mindset of worldclass athletes they improve student engagement build growth mindsets and Inspire positive classroom culture our fourth grade team will have access to the champion mindset social and emotional curriculum eight units of lesson plans a pair to grade level with Olympic athletes their structured holistic scaled membership programs integrate lessons like gold setting leadership Community involvement in local curriculum train and provide around the-clock support for teachers to develop athletes and mentors and engage families in conversation uh week of respect uh during the week of respect in the month of October we have uh staff join in various activities and Spirit Week um our football homecoming great turnouts Community member for our community members we even had a special guest Olga Deli DS class of 1944 who gifted our crowds with not one but two cheers without skipping a beat uh homecoming dance our DHS students had an amazing time at their homecoming dance thank you to the administration and staff for creating an amazing night for our students exciting opportunity for collaborative Tech projects technology integration specialist uh Katie sherbeck will be developing Technology based projects to align with their upcoming current Uh current areas of study this idea is simple to bring your content to Katie to bring together our TCH expertise to collaborative design alternative assessments that allow students to demonstrate their understanding creatively and initiative in innovatively sorry um our building Bridge family engagement that is a northover parent workshops all established importance of family engagement provide effective strategies and the second Workshop they're having will equip families with tools and techniques to support children's academic learning at home our back to school nights closed down in September they were all success uh thanks again to all the staff and administration work together our school custodian appreciations it was October 2nd so special thanks to them at keeping our schools clean and healthy uh there's um we're updating I just wanted to update everyone I know the last board meeting we had a discussion about the paintings and former portraits of our former superintendent and I want to share that we found them all and we have them all ready to go we have a plan to put them throughout the building at Belmont as well as showcasing some of the historical pictures that we have we have one of the schools from n from 1776 a first school in do I think that's going to be a great way to really showcase especially in at warc coming Center when we have families coming in that are able to see the history of do um and the Jets playground at North do playground it's going to be theil is going to be on October 17th I invite everyone to please come by uh they are actually demoed and they're still doing the construction and that is all for my room report thank you thank you Mr hee are there any comments or questions based off of his report no um before we move along I will share that um when I found out about the paintings and portraits that were found I suggested to Mr himman that he hang them all up in his office he politely declined so there's that uh Mr sabahu you're report please good evening everyone uh on the agenda in the finance section uh item eight you'll see clean clean School Bus rebate uh application again I'm saying again because uh we applied last year we couldn't get it we are going to try it again uh we are trying to uh replace three diesel school buses with the electric ones they also reimburse uh uh for the infrastructure for the charging stations uh in finance section also item 17 you'll see comprehensive maintenance and M1 reports these reports we prepare and we send the county after the board appr Ral the report shows uh last 10 years for the maintenance per uh expenditures per building uh it also shows at the bottom that uh ma maximum uh Reserve amounts uh for the maintenance so we cannot go with that amount in our budget uh lastly uh we are getting audited for like a yearly a regular State audit for 23 24 school year Auditors were uh at the board office last two weeks they're going to be coming tomorrow on Thursday hopefully we're going to do the submission uh in couple months which is going to be in by the due date uh for the district audit that's all thank you thank you Mr sabahu are there any comments or questions based off of his report seeing none we are moving along to Boe reports Mr Miller any updates from the Morris County Education Services Commission uh I was unable to attend but um uh looking at the agenda there was nothing that would have needed to be reported at this forum thank you Dr Ser any legislative updates yes so um signed into law is Al the alleviating bus driver shortages um as signed the new law will expand existing statute which currently allows School Personnel to transport students to school related activities to permit School Personnel to transport students to and from school vehicles used to transport students must have a capacity of eight passengers or less excluding the driver drivers will have to meet various age driving physical training and background check requirements um a number of bills now that the legislator is back in session have been um introduced and sent to various committees and I just want to highlight some that I think are really important to our district um there is one before the assembly that requires schools to universally universally provide free meals to all students regardless of what whether they are federally eligible for free or reduced price meals um there is oh I'm sorry um one of the bills before the Senate requires the commissioner of Education to submit a report on SDA District designation as we know this is really important to us because we are not an SDA District but um the report the request acknowledges that many of the districts that were originally designated as SDA districts have changed dramatically and no longer meet those same requirements or have those same needs so I am hopeful that um this may lead to a path for other districts such as Dober to become SDA districts although that would be further legislation and then a number of bills in both the Senate and the H and the I'm sorry the Senate and the assembly um looking to legislate cell phone use in schools so of there's at least three or four um that would legislate where cell phones are or not allowed to um avoid distractions so that's you know something that would impact all of us thank you that concludes my report thank you for that report um a lot of valuable stuff in there thank you um we are moving along to um Miss DS the Morris County njsba report good evening um the Morris County School boards Association held their first hybrid meeting of the 24 25 school year on October uh 2nd um at Panic High School the meeting was called to order at 650 and ended at 8:44 um the topic for the evening was Mental Health Resources for your school district with eight presenters from throughout Morris and susex counties the presentations were informative and I appreciated having a number of resources available for this topic the next meeting will also be hybrid meeting um this time at Morristown high school on Wednesday December 4th in person is at 6 and virtual is at 6:45 the topic will be creating an effective board culture governance collaboration and mentorship Mentor mentorship remember to register if you are available to attend I believe the topic is fitting as many Boards of Education will be gaining new members in the next few months this concludes my report thank you thank you Miss TOS um we are moving along to administrative approval is there a motion to approve items one and two so moved second I have a motion by Miss nuty Right N Miss Phillips was that you yes and we have a second by Miss Phillips is there any discussion no seeing none we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Miss Phillips Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote Please Mr yes Miss DS yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Miss penales yes Dr sner yes Miss SES yes Miss mandes yes we are moving along to Personnel Miss nutty I would like to make a motion upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the board approved the following Personnel resolutions 1 through 13 we have motion by Miss nutting is there a second second we have a second by Mr Miller is there any discussion so seeing none we have a motion by Miss nning a second by Mr Miller Mr saahu may we have a roll callable please miss esto yes Miss STS yes Mr Miller yes Miss NY yes Miss Phillips yes Miss penales yes Dr sener yes Miss SES yes Miss mandz yes we are moving along to negotiations Miss nutting negotiations I have a one item that I actually need to make a motion upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the board approv the following negotiation resolution and I will read that right now you don't have to read it oh perfect just say number perfect just one item we have a motion by Miss ning is there a second second is that Mr Miller yes we have a motion by missing and second by Mr Miller is there any discussion seeing none Mr sabahu may we have a roll call please miss ESO yes Miss DS yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Miss peles yes Dr sener yes Miss SES yes Miss mandes yes we are moving along to governance Mr Miller yes the governance committee met virtually on September 26th and uh we were discussing some updates to the bylaws that are specific to uh the governance uh committee um and we also um discussed um the committee descriptions that had uh been had gone around to everyone to finalize those um and we worked on finalizing the new board member orientation packet I think there were some additional changes that were made to that um so probably will need to review that with you you know one last time so that it's all ready um and uh there will be um on the agenda um there are some U bylaw changes that we'll we'll talk about um specifically from Strauss Esme some things to change it was nothing in particular other than just putting some numbers in for that they requested so with that I would move that uh we approve items of one through two the first is the bylaw first reading of of uh 0141 and 0141 point2 and the abolishment of 01411 we have a motion by Mr Miller is there a second second Miss nutting was that you we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by Miss nutting is there any discussion seeing none uh we have a motion by Mr Miller second by Miss nutting U Mr Sabu may we have a roll call please miss ESO yes Miss towns yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Miss penales yes Dr sener yes Miss SES yes Miss mandz yes we are moving along to student achievement and curriculum Dr s thank you Miss Mendes we met on October 1st um we as always discussed the professional development that was um available for many of our District staff members um including language art language arts coaching um Orton Gillingham plus training for our k 2 teachers s continued SEI training with a new new cohort of teachers who are learning um how to support support our mlls in their classrooms and then we uh purchased new Spanish and Spanish Heritage textbooks at um at least the high school and um teachers received training on that um we received information about a new program called I station Benchmark um this allows us to um it's two programs together um it allows um assessment in both English and Spanish and then as well as resources provided at the appropriate level in English and Spanish and it also um provides data to link it um we saw the linkit Benchmark data uh from the fall so um as you may remember linkit is Mr call you can attack me from the back if I'm wrong but it it's a compilation program that compiles data from I njsl um a lot of different places and we looked at the fall Benchmark data um and talked a lot about what Mr Carl talked about in the presentation tonight about how um we are as a district using that to improve instruction um across grade levels in classrooms um in every possible permutation um we learned about the aspiring educator program um there are nine Dober students in this uh program with William patteron um hopeful future Educators that will come back and teach in do um and and two students out of this cohort um were selected and will be traveling to the New Jersey teachers the njaa teachers convention um on November 7th and uh William Patterson will be um handling all of that we looked at the qac results and our district Improvement plan um we talked a little bit about the planning that's already um in place and you know starting to happen in terms of um courses um that will be added in 2025 2026 at the high school and we received an update on the Esports team as well um this concludes my report I move that we um accept motions um I move that we accept items one through six we have a motion by Dr serer is there a second second misso we have a motion by Dr Ser a second by Miss ASO is there is there an agendum on number seven I'm sorry is there an agenda on item seven yes yes so we need to modify the motion okay um I move that we approve items one through six with the addition of the field trip that is on the revised list second so we have a motion by Dr ser and now a second by Miss n okay um any discussion Dr s um Mr he I was wondering if you could please explain the agreement that we're approving tonight um and the with Rowan University and the advantages for our do students please absolutely the student teaching agreement with Rowan University offers several advantages to the D uh Public Schools enhanced learning EV environments uh do students benefit from having student teachers to bring fresh perspectives updating teaching techniques and initiative approaches to the classroom uh support for teachers uh student teachers assist the classroom task allowing teachers to focus more on individualized instruction and student needs uh future Educators it Fosters a pipeline of trained future Educators some of whom may eventually join dover's teaching staff for profession uh number four uh sorry professional development do staff may benefit from professional exchanges collaborative with roran University enriching instructional practices uh this partnership supports student learning while contributing to teacher development and District capacity building ultimately gives us a larger teacher candidate pool and allows us to grow our own teachers and with and we've had great success in hiring student teachers in permanent employ as permanent employees thank you very much any other discussion seeing none we have a motion by Dr serer and a second by Miss nutting um Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote please misso yes Miss St yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Miss peles yes Dr senner yes Miss sones yes Miss mandes yes we are moving along to community relations misso thank you Miss Mendes the community relations committee met on October 7th at the Dober free public library board members ASO pinales solines as well as five members of the citizens advisory committee were in attendance questions regarding Transportation procedures district and individual school calendars and other issues were discussed and will be forwarded to Mr haime for feedback the next meeting will be held on November 18th at 6:30 at the do free public library thank you that concludes my report thank you Miss ESO I have a question um in terms of um the work that's happening at the citizens advisory committee um meetings would you say that um there is a constructive amount of back and forth where it's not just an opportunity to um share complaints but there is a back and forth where there are solutions being discussed absolutely I I believe so yes awesome thank you um we are moving along to policy Miss pinales thank you our policy committee met on October 1st um for first reading we have policy 3160 and policy 4164 physical examinations policy 53 37 on service animals we're doing certain updates that an admin can inquire about the task and purpose um we we requiring more specific medical documentation on vaccinations and others the there's an item new to the policy for students with autism the district will not be liable or responsible um we all have to take into account reasonable accommodations for regulations on first reading we have regulations 31 60 on physical examination also TV is being eliminated because the state requirements are the same as the regulation also regulation 4160 the language to be inclus in order for the language to be inclusive and align with state regulations on physical examination on second reading we have policy 8467 on firearms and weapons adding Firearms policy 5350 on student suicide prevention policy 9181 on volunteer athletic coaches and co-curricular activity advisor assistance we added a criminal background and signing of a waiver on policy 8420 emergency and crisis situations is revised adding to e EIP if the students disability require support to participate in the drill or emergency also policy 5420 on class Frank on second reading for regulations we have regulations 8467 on firearms and weapons again adding of firearms regulations 52 z00 on attendance there's are little clarifications that were not specifi as qualifying for excus absences such as bring your child to work day civic duty Veterans Day and added numbers to college visits a specific to Juniors and seniors we also added some job descriptions work based Lear learning teacher option to teacher translator and chief academic officer our next policy committee meeting will be on November 5th 2024 I would like to make a motion to approve items one through five five on their policy we I think there's also an addendum six yeah addendum six addendum six for curriculum yes to approve it so basic I think for first reading for first reading oh okay okay I saw it that you eliminated it and addendum six for curriculum so for clarification the motion is um to approve items one through six under policy perfect is there a second second is that Miss nuty we have a motion by Miss Bales a second by Miss nutting is there any discussion Dr s um I had a question about policy 4160 um is this a new procedure requiring physicals for all new hires um and the policy as it was um attached to the agenda does not indicate whether we are proposing to adopt the optional statements and so I guess my general question is what exactly will we be what exactly will we be requiring of new hires and the reasoning for that as per the U administrative code of 18a 16-3 we'll continue doing the same uh physical um examination as well as the TV in regards for the options the option for requesting um for like additional uh additional testing to be done whether it was a psyche vow or as well as drug testing which is not something we've done in the past um and we were just going to continue with what we've done um with the regular physicals as well as TV so we are not uh adopting the optional statements at the end we are not okay thank you any other discussion I think um Can someone remind me in the past when we've had a a a policy on the agenda the policy committee together with the administration chose the options we never saw as a full board what those options were we just got the final um delivery of that policy if I'm correct right correct Dr that is correct I will say that I like seeing what the options are because I did not attend that meeting and I do find it helpful to know that there were other options out there and I think it gives other board members an opportunity at that point to say well why did you or didn't you choose the options fair enough yeah I didn't think about it that way I was just thinking like I don't want it to confuse anyone or cuse yeah but that does make sense I do appreciate that okay um we have a motion by m pinales second by Miss nutting Mr sabahu may we have a roll call please misso yes Miss STS yes Mr Miller yes Miss nin yes Miss Phillips yes Miss peles yes Dr cner yes Miss sones yes Miss mandes yes we are moving along to finance and Facilities Mr Miller yes the uh finance and Facilities committee met on September 24th the Belmont uh Administrative Building um we had had a we discussed space utilization with our architects in addition to the long range facility plan we also discussed uh some potential projects uh looking at uh our space issues uh we also discussed um renovations to the basement of Academy Street which is about 95% complete we also talked about uh construction upgrades at East do and Dober Middle School uh HVAC upgrades um soliciting bids for Dober middle school and North Dover for uh those upgrades uh we also discussed the placement of um where the generator would go for the high school um that's a project that's ongoing um I believe that that's it um so with that uh I would like to move that we approve items 1 through 21 we have a motion by Mr Miller is there a second second uh oh now I heard both of you doesn't matter Miss nutting so we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by only I'm looking at her she's smiling so I thought it was her okay so we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by Miss ASA is there any discussion Mr Miller I keep looking over your way first and this and now you're not well that's because we're good today Dr serer um I have a few questions um first of all why do we need to employ the services of a payroll consultant uh our previous uh payroll uh coordinator need to leave early because of uh some uh medical issues so we need to have the payroll done for two pay periods Okay so this is a temporary position uh it's just a temporary uh gap between the new payro coordinator and the old one okay thank you okay why does the amount of capital reserve on the treasurers Treasures report um differ from the amount on the board secretary's report there's a withdrawal uh for uh revenues this year uh so we did the transfer so uh next month uh treasury report is going to be updated okay thank you we've already transferred 8.75% of the general Administration budget out and it appears that it was transferred into the school administration account um what was this for and why was this so NE why was this necessary so early in the budget year uh we organiz organ organization actually we are organizing the position control roster so we mov some positions uh we abolished some positions that's why but they B under the admin cap so it doesn't really matter between General admin and building admin as long as we don't out and it's less than 10% so okay thank you and last um can you explain the need to for the contract with sunb Staffing why did we not hire this position directly uh actually we advertised since May we couldn't find any candies so far thank you any other discussion seeing none we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by misso Mr sabahu may we have a roll call please m yes Miss DS yes Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes with an exstension to payments to vendor 1950 1950 Miss peles yes Dr cner yes Miss sues yes Miss Mes yes we are moving along to informational items um upcoming Board of Education meetings October 17th a special meeting um November 19th December 10th and then January 2nd will be our reorganization meeting um with a snow date of January 3rd um Dr sner do we have any trainings to highlight um other than the Morris County Schoolboard meetings and workshop um in a week next week um other than that there's nothing posted thank you Dr serer um facility requests there are three of them um the Morris County Vocational School District do band boost and Dober W basketball I will say um I look forward to the spaghetti dinner now every year so I'm excited um for that happening in February and then free ESL classes which is amazing uh 9:14 through 6 uh 8:25 okay um we are moving along to Old business are there any items of old business seeing none we are moving along to new business are there any items of new business seeing none we are moving along to public comment uh the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of 3 minutes public comments not restricted to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the presiding officer for those who wish to provide public comment remotely a Google form was posted on the district website at 6:30 p.m. remote comments will be read by a member of the Board of Education the Board of Education will alternate between inperson and online comments please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees please please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to Legal liability for defamation with that public comment is now open is there any member of the public in person wishing to speak all right John klio 24 tailor toown Road modville um so I just had a few other things that I wanted to mention I know my time was up earlier so I'll mention them now um you know in regards to in regards to the test too um getting back to that when there are long questions like Mr Carl and Mr penalo showed us earlier and students get frustrated um it's kind of similar to if you think about like a long social media post and we say as adults like I'm not reading all that like I I can't look at all that and it's kind of similar to what the students are looking at when there's a lot of text a lot of times they're getting frustrated and then they just guess their answer and like uh Dr serer said when there's multiple Parts you get the first part wrong you're getting all three wrong so um you know I think not making excuses for that but I think some of the questions are flawed in that way and it's very frustrating especially for people that don't speak the language um there is no Spanish test available for language arts so if you are coming into this country as a student not speaking English and you're looking at an English standardized test how do you think you're going to do on that um it's very difficult and you know dictionaries are available but if you think about looking up every word on that test a dictionary that will take forever so it's very frustrating it's a very frustrating experience um if you don't know basic skills for example in um the upper grades Upper Elementary GES grades fourth and fifth grade a lot of students are still struggling with regrouping when they subtract okay if you can't regroup When You Subtract how are you going to do fractions or upper level things when you still need those basic skills which kind kind of takes me back to what I mentioned earlier about the basic skills being crucial and so important and that's why it was very um unfortunate that that position was removed temporarily um so we have to look at again the growth of our students getting them um from one level to the next and not looking at them as failures and not being um you know not proficient in certain areas I think you know moving up from kindergarten to second or like I said earlier from like second to Fourth is a substantial uh achievement and I think that's what we need to look at thank you thank you um any virtual comments Miss Phillips no any other member of the public in person wishing to speak Mary sa 217 Baker Street I just want to say I watched the last meeting um online and um Mr pondo's presentation on the um H I believe it was and then since then until this last meeting until this meeting um something came up in the news the board speaks about transparency I think it was an important step to take and acknowledge that there's a lawsuit against our district and provide the public with the right information for the public to look into on our own I feel like it's being hidden I and and I love all the reports from every one of the members of the board Administration so many great news you know so many great things happen in clubs um activities extracurricular working with the Town recreation and everything but even two meetings ago when we had that report from you know our psychologist team you had those six kids that have trouble you had the one kid that failing it just brings all those great news down and I know it's hard to focus on you know let's not take into account the Spanish speaking you know kids that are not able to pass this you know English only test and whatnot but you know all the pluses and the great news and everything I think it just gets demolished when you hear of this one kid Failing North over in the list of hip cases there's one case that's confirmed it's just as a parent as a community member this lawsuit is a concern coming from the top Administration I know it happens everywhere anywhere it can happen nowadays it is unfortunate but I think it would have been a step forward to acknowledge it and given the community access to it instead of hearing it from other sources on our own finding out or not finding out thank you any virtual comments Miss Phillips no any other member of the public in person wishing to speak seeing none public comment is now closed um Mr crew can you um speak to why we can or cannot talk about a lawsuit yes there is you know there was a reference to a lawsuit there is a lawsuit pending um but uh our insurance Council and as well as myself would advise the uh the Board of Education um and the administration that with respect to a matter first of all pending litigation and also a Personnel related matter that it would not be appropriate for the uh the Board of Education or um or the administration to comment in any uh detail regarding the uh the pending litigation thank you um Mr haime you have anything to add no any board members want to say anything no well I will now entertain a motion to adjourn at 916 p.m. second I'm giving that one to miss Phillips I heard Miss Phillips and then I heard Mr Miller so we have a motion by Miss Phillips a second by Mr Miller all in favor say I I any oppose good night everyone meeting a