##VIDEO ID:O9rdCzaeTm4## 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 you'll see the red light come [Music] on e e e e e e e e e e e hello good evening welcome to a regular meeting of the East Bor re Regional School District Board of Education written advance notice of this meeting was provided at least 48 hours ago such notice provided the time date and location of this meeting and included the agenda to the extent it was known at the time notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with law minutes of this meeting are being kept by the board secretary and will be made available promptly to any member of the public requesting them from the board secretary at 25 a l Lane heightstown New Jersey minutes will be provided at cost in accordance with board policy are there any board members present who believe this meeting to be in violation of the open public meeting act there being none we may proceed in compliance with the fire code of the state of New Jersey I call your attention to the emergency exits for this room which are located in the back inside please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance item C having read the materials received I move the agenda be approved as submitted second any questions hold the board please M Drake yes Miss lens yes M Murphy yes M boli yes Mr weeks yes Mr Russo yes um item D be you resolve that the East Windsor Regional School District May hold two closed sessions at this meeting these closed sessions concern Personnel Hib report for September 30th 2024 minutes of these closed sessions will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exist second any questions hold the board please M Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss laruso yes yeah um we now move on to the student representative report uh good evening everyone we're so excited to be back and have lots of activities to report on in regards to the student body as we had mentioned at the last board meeting the student council had been extensively preparing for a rush week event this took place last week from September 24th through September 26th during both lunches in the main gym this Rush week was our busiest and honestly most successful one yet with around 50 clubs this year we had the pleasure of welcoming new clubs including the volunteering CL Club BT sea Rampage Muslim Student Association and wom in business it was great to see all our student body interact with new members and cultivate such a welcoming place for our underclassmen after such a successful Rush week we cannot wait to see freshmen and sophmores much more active and involved within our school when looking at our when looking at our school's academic accomplishments it is important that we recognize our commended Scholars for the 2024 National Merit Scholarship program who finishing the top 3% out of 1.5 million test takers due to their performance on the PSAT these students have accomplished an extremely challenging accomplishment and we want to recognize our nine National Merit commended Scholars Sanji kakarla Vidant Mitra anj Olen Ryan Adnan sahana premkumar Alicia radua arav Ral Shalini Shanker and sou sish last week our visits College representatives were in full swing as you may already be aware it can be very difficult for students to make their way to colleges during the school year especially if they are institutions on the other side of the country luckily we have nearly 50 representatives from colleges around the country visiting our school over the next two months Wednesday kickstarted our tours I mean our interviews with visits from Montclair and Princeton since then we've had visits from Newman University John's Hopkins University jaxel Johnson and Wales Providence and TCNJ seniors and juniors have been very grateful to take advantage of this resource and we are thankful that the counseling department has been organizing for this for us a quick update a quick update regarding College counseling workshops our senior counselors offer college clinics in the counseling office twice a week during lunches this is helping our senior class apply to college efficiently and ensuring that we have the resources we need to succeed on College related tasks now moving on to Athletics one of the major updates have been senior nights many sports have been excitedly preparing to commemorate their seniors C celebrating their incredible High School careers and wishing them well on their future endeavors in fact Fields hockey senior night is happening right now moreover all of our senior banners have been put up which is another way to commemorate them for their very hard work another major achievement with our marching band occurred last weekend with them winning their first PL winning first place in their competition we are very proud of our athletes this year our Heights on drama club will be presenting she kills monsters a story of love and connection we are super excited for our drama club and we are always inspired by their hard work in producing their show auditions have already occurred and the club is getting situated for a productive and successful year on Friday October 18th our underclassmen and juniors will be taking the PSAT exam like last year the test will be in online format instead of the traditional paper version which students have appreciated on testing day we will follow a modified schedule that will allow seniors to come into school later in the day Additionally the student body will end that day with the celebration of the pep rally which we are very much looking forward to getting into the week of the pep rally starting from October 14th our student council has planned a robust spirit week with the hallway decorating contest for each class with a movie theme we have also planned a series of spirit days to bring our school spirit to new heights not only is Friday class color day but also the day of the annual pep rally we are running a modified schedule so that students do not miss any classes the pep rally will take place from 12:30 to 2:10 with numerous activities such as class games the awaited lip sync competition and the announcing of the hway Competition winner after the pep rally comes our well anticipated homecoming game that Friday night heightstown plays Allentown and the whole student body will participate in the white out theme not only will it be a game of excitement but we will also be introducing our homecoming Court during halftime during that night's football game the homecoming king and queen will be announced and the football and cheer teams will celebrate alongside the marching band on the Saturday following the game we also wait our homecoming dance which will be hosted by the cheer team we are very excited for this event getting back to our suggestion box update from the last meeting we have now issued Flyers across the school and on social media to our entire student body ensuring we will receive input regarding student concerns so we are able to meet the needs of our students by addressing these issues with that being said we thank everyone for listening to our report and look forward to seeing you again at our next meeting thank you that was great thank you does anybody have any question I have a question so they just mentioned the survey what happens once they get the results are they then going to give it to the teachers or do you give it to the superintendent so we take those responses into viw and see what's feasible and see what their responses are and then we take them to our student council meeting where we talk with our advisors and then we bring concerns to the principal and superintendent okay thank you anybody else have any questions thank you so much appreciate it okay good evening everyone um just going to just do a quick introduction for this evening's presentation so each year uh school districts across the state need to provide an update regarding an English language proficiency uh assessment uh in terms of how students are progressing who are eligible for English language uh learner Support also there multilingual learner support now within the state of New Jersey so um that assessment has four domains these amazing folks are going to uh break this down for us this evening in terms of uh last year's feedback so with that said I'll turn things over to miss small Miss Faller and Miss Feliciano and uh they'll provide us with an update good evening so as Mark said along with me I have Monica Feliciano who is our 612 World Language ESL supervisor and Renee fer who is our K5 bilingual World Language supervisor so there are multiple slides we have here we're not reading the slides to you so we're going to just take bits and pieces of things that we think are important so we're really going to break this into three areas one is for you to understand what the access test is what type of data it gives us next the report that they show us and then how our students did so that's our three areas that we are going to um break this up into second please I'm not working just want to sleep okay good evening okay so our access for eles it measures language uh how and what the students can do and what they know across the four domains of Reading Writing listening and speaking the access for L's uh provides a snapshot of how well the students understand and can produce the language um the individual student report uh which is um given to each student indiv individually um and their families shows proficiency levels and scale scores for each of the four domains so it separates for thems writing speaking and listening when those domains that's what okay so proficiency levels are interpretive scores uh they are based um on scale scores uh but they're not the same scale scores are generated by statistical uh formulas that make scores comparable uh from year to year uh for the student individual student whereas the proficiency level score describes the performance in terms of the waa uh rubric uh and our levels from one to six so entering to reaching uh the proficiency level score is a whole number uh so for example you could have a student who has a score of 3.7 which indicates that the student is a level three in developing uh but the S demonstrates that the student student is approaching uh expanding and and and getting there to level four so proficiency level scores are domain specific so a sixth grader who earns a scale score of 370 in listening uh has a 4.3 proficiency score however the same student who receives a 370 in Reading which is a different domain uh will have a reading proficiency score of 3.8 so it's not um the same across domains proficiency level scores should not be compared across grades so it changes the the test gets more difficult each year so a student who is getting a 4.0 in second grade uh in listening is not the same as a student getting a 4.0 and listening because they're exposed to very different content in the test so uh what are they used for proficiency levels are used to make comparisons across um domains but not across grades again the test gets more difficult um as as each year grows and then uh we use the canu descriptors to develop um our lessons and guide our instruction for our students it tells us what the students can do um so it develops a portrait of what the student is currently able to do and where we want the student to go and it is uh used as multiple one of the criterias for placing students in program scale scores so the scale scores are similar to our star scale scores they are unique to um the student for each domain it tracks the growth over time so if we have a student in District who has been here from second grade and has been taking the access score every single year consistently we can see the growth within each domain uh looking at the scale score so a scale score of 355 and listening is not the same as 355 speaking because they are not um across domain just within the and it monitors their growth over time so now Renee is going to talk a little bit more in depth about listening our listening domain and how each level um speaks to the students abilities start talk about speaking [Music] inform should follow as what they are having all okay so when we look you can see here that we see levels six and five all of the domains are broken down with level six to one and when we look at level six the students who are in level six are the mainstream students they have been exited from the program they are able to use the content langage they are able to compete in the classroom in a mainstream situation level five students are still receiving ESL Services they understand directions they can expand on ideas they can identify supporting details and these level five students are for those of you at our prior meeting these are those students that we talk will be monitored because they'll be the first time that they no longer sheltered classroom and they're in the gened classroom and as said they still receive one per of ESL but they're pretty much ring solo so there of course we trying to give them throughout the year okay so when we talk about our level four students they're able to exchange ideas and information they can identify positions points of view they are not really able on their own at this point to be able to come up with their own supporting details they would be getting it all from a text our level three students can connect to spoken ideas from their own experiences identify cause and effect classify pros and cons and things like that our level two students can identify main topics in a sentence they understand how to categorize to sequence they can follow short oral directions our level one students are typically our newcomers our level one students unlike like levels 2 to six are learning not just content language but they're learning social language survival language they're new to the country so they're trying or certainly new to our school system they're trying to learn how to navigate this new world and understand what it's like to be in school in the US they rely very heavily on verbal um on picture cues as well as gestures and one of the things we've learned over the years level one as a district the state does not do this we break our students up into level one b and level one a because as reene just talked about our level one a we see are those students who are usually needed district and are very limited in your English language level 1B is catching on to the language but sometimes has a difficulty speaking but can hear what people are saying so we when you see some of our 1 a 1 dat that's what you're going to see didn't bring that we one what we're going to go through with you here is a really quick review of some of the data that the that we Des sends to us with access this which Renee just talked to you about the entering all the way through uh reaching and this is the type of a data sheet that is given to us so for a kindergarten um current kindergarten the total number of students that are entering they're telling us that 55 are at the entering level in listening 48 of them were entering speaking and if you go all the way through you'll be able to see this throughout what you will see is if you go into the level six 19 students are at a level reaching in our in one are listening and moving forward what you'll notice here is that there's no one that says is at a 6.0 throughout because Monica and Renee one of the things that we talk about is students tend to grasp the domains differently they're not all of a sudden they get all four of them at once you one you want to speak a little bit about when we think of second language acquisition students learn a second language just like your own children would have learned a first language and one of the things they do first is they have to listen they listen to be able to then reproduce the words that they've been hearing all along and when a student can understand when they it's not a hearing but when they understand the word you're saying then they can speak it because they have something to hold on to they understand what that means and then it moves into reading and into writing and what's interesting is Renee talks about it's the language acquisition this is the same exact process that our students who are taking a World Language um do as well so it's not just about um our students who are learning English for the first time it's students who are learning a new language throughout so what you'll see here is on all of these tabs you will see the breakdown from um kindergarten through high school and again you can look at that at your leisure because the data we're going to show you is going to be in an area that's going to be a little bit more familiar to you okay so here we have the access data from 23 24 the spring the students take this test every spring we have the kindergarten data now the kindergarten data we don't have anything to compare it to because this is the first time the students took the test you can see that eight of our kindergartners exited and as Sandy had said early we earlier we have been broken up into also level 1 a and 1B the 1A students would be those students who more recently have arrived whereas the 1B students it's a big jump from one 1.0 to 1.6 in terms of the amount of information that you're learning when we go down to first grade what I'd really like you to look at it the difference in the colors you'll see the green numbers or the numbers that are highlighted green and the numbers in red the numbers in green indicate where the students moved up and the numbers in red indicate where the students went down a level so just so just so that you can get your mind focused can you go across where the peach level is on level two because this might make sense to you here what we're saying if you see the number seven at the 20 23 scho uh scores we're saying that in 2023 when these students were in kindergarten seven of them scored at a level two when they came into first grade one of them exited one of those seven exited one was became a level four three of them became a level three and then two of them stayed a level two so that's how you're going to read through this chart so as Rene talked about when we have them in green they've moved up a level and in some ways exited it out the ones that stay black are pretty much they stayed on level and that doesn't mean they regressed it means that're they're just plugging along the reds are those questionable why are we moving kids back and that's time for us to be able to look at some of those domains is there a specific domain that our students are struggling with that we have to change some programs with so now when you look and you see second and third grade you can see how much more green we have we still do have some ones and that some in red and that is something that we are looking at and um we have students who again in second grade we had three exits in third grade we had two exits this is a very important thing for you to look at how for here for fourth and fifth grade it takes a student 5 to seven years to learn a second language with fluency to be able to be competitive in a classroom and we can see here for fourth and fifth grade we have a large number of exits for those students who begin with us in the kindergarten or in first grade fourth and fifth grade is really that sweet spot where they've been with us and now they are prepared and you can see that with the exit scores of 14 students um for the fourth grade and 25 students for the fifth grade Monica okay so now for secondary um it becomes a little bit more challenging um to show students exiting um that's because as we said earlier the test does get more difficult as the years go on uh the students are uh there's a lot of newcomers coming to District during the secondary band of 612 um so you'll see that uh for Rising sixth graders we had 21 exits um that's probably indicative of what they came with from Elementary School fifth grade um and as you start going to seventh grade you see no exits uh here we had a lot more students um probably um entering or or moving to to level two from the year prior um we do still have fewer as the grades go up fewer students dropping a level um and to exit they need to reach a 4.5 on the access score to exit at the middle school and at the high school that's our Baseline eth grade nth grade um the numbers are you see they start to stagger in green uh we have again fewer students going down they are showing progress the numbers are lower than what you see in the elementary school um and that's just because students have either been in program and have exited from elementary school where we have students uh new to District another thing um I should mention is that uh the numbers also don't equate for um students who are transient so our students leave District often in the middle of the school year so we Cann capture the data same thing this the numbers start to go down overall with how many students are in each grade um but students are still uh showing growth and then our senior year last year there were much fewer students this could be again exiting prior years um or moving out of district and one of the things that we did fail to speak on is that we had several parents Services those students still take this test and are still in because if anyone who qualifies for services still has to take this access test and every year they're offered they get the their their scores sent home and they're um given the option to op back in to program um since they if they haven't exited within that year they will be retested again the following year so they are also incorporated into the so now we're just going to try and summarize all that data because there were several slides that were in there so if on this slide you look through and this is for all of our students who took an assessment or who was eligible to take the assessment this past year you're going to see the number of students in K2 35 68 and high school who exited which are pretty nice numbers when you're looking through that then those students who are level five and again those students who are level five are students who are no longer in our sheltered or bilingual classes but they still receive a period of ESL support so that those are the students that were trying to give some extra support so that they don't feel like they're riding solo uh Riding Solo um for this year then you'll see the same thing for the number of students in level four one of and so forth one of the things that I will say that the district has done super well over the last several years is we have no level 1A students in our 3 through high school so 3 through 12 our students who are even coming in without knowing anything the English language are advancing they are getting some of the skills to make sure that we can move them forward the reason that you see that 34 in the K2 is sometimes they're students who have just become new to district and they're just developing so you'll see that all the way through um the trajectory here so that's really the summary of all the data that we just went through for you and then we talk about some of our deficits that we see how we have to go through and help some of our students who are struggling now we're going to go through and talk about something really positive that has happened in the district with this so uh we are participating in the field by literacy um since 2016 the state of New Jersey has um opted to be part of the the Seal of by literacy uh what that means is students who are able to uh demonstrate Proficiency in another level in the four domains of Reading Writing exing and listening um are able to take a test and show that they're proficient and graduate with a SE on their transcript seeing that they are um VI literate and uh on their diploma um as of 2023 now all 50 states were included just a little background we were ahead of the curve um here in New Jersey um something to be proud of um last year's numbers 67 students uh were able to receive the Seal of by literacy at graduation I'm sure you saw them walking across the stage with their Court very proud um eight of those students who receiv received the SE Bay literacy did so through the World Language track they uh passed uh with a four or higher on their AP exam 57 of those students received the seal by literacy by taking um and passing the seal by literacy approved exam uh I think that it's important to highlight this because now with so many multilingual Learners in District it's something that we can def definitely leverage and increase the numbers um come this school year um there are multiple uh Pathways for graduation and all of our students are able to prove that their Proficiency in um English and in their home language um two of the students last year one who was actually sitting here on the board with you all received uh the sealed by literacy in two languages uh on top of English so that was something to be proud of and overall we doubled the numbers from the year prior and 66 students um in total sacked for the exam so was a big big accomplishment and of those 57 students some of them were multilingual learner students who had their home language as well as English and others were um English language students who took it in Spanish French German and in some of them they took it in their native language that we don't even teach in school but they take the language in another area so this is an area that like we're super proud of and one of the things that we are working for and Monica's worked hard is trying to see you know the state that we talked about this L year the state now has gone from the deficit model of esls to our asset model of multilingual Learners and ensuring that our multi multilingual Learners realize it's an asset and they can become part of the Seal of VI literacy because they do that is an asset to have two languages behind them any questions for us I do have a question and I know you guys explained it but I just wanted to make sure I was clear so on the slides where it says no score those are the students that moved out of District no there are students who did not take the assessment for one reason or another sometimes they students who came after the test started and we do get a good portion of students that come in somewhere between April and September though those students are um multilingual Learners they were not present for the assessment others just did not test whether parents refused or whatever so it's a combination of things and when the parents refuse is is the test after school or is it just test is during the school day okay all right thank you thank you thank you thank you so much move on to superintendent report okay thank you good evening again um thank you to Sandy Renee and Monica I just want to kind of follow up on uh what our student repr reprentative shared earlier tonight just to kind of reiterate my uh appreciation and recognizing our high school seniors who've been name commended students they're pretty modest these two individuals here uh sanj and zahana because they were also part of the uh cohort small cohort within our school that was uh recognized as commended students for their performance on the PSAT last year so let's let's give it up for these two congratulations all right significant feet uh um you know two of 34,000 in the nation so I'm definitely proud of their efforts just want to provide a couple of highlights in terms of where we are in the fall hard to believe September is almost over um when we last met we were talking about kind of uh moving through our back to school night events for the school year so um we've concluded those we concl concluded those last week at periel Drew so I do want to take a moment to thank our very supportive families and parents for attending our back to school nights this year uh at each of our schools uh also need to express some appreciation for our teachers and administrative teams for creating a very warm and welcoming uh school and classroom uh environment for parents during those evenings uh I'm hoping that those back to school night events I'm kind of a you know I'm kind of nostalgic I find back to school night to kind of symbolize really is springboarding kind of this moving us into the school year with a very positive introduction some hope our families uh took that away um from from those evenings couple of uh events just want to highlight uh this past weekend um Saturday the uh NJ rise annual Latino festival took place here at Heist High School it was originally scheduled to be kind of on grass but due to the inclement weather it was shifted to the the new uh parking lot in the re of the building despite the rain um it was a well attended event this is our third year I believe that that we've been it's the 11th um Latino festival in our community but I believe it's the third year third consecutive year that we've partnered with rise that hosted here at the high school so we're proud of that um you know it's it's a great opportunity for our community to kind of come together so this Multicultural celebration showcases music Dance Arts crafts um we have health screenings there were Gaines for children um and obviously food you need food uh and it also it was just a you know I think a a great way to kind of symbolize the rich tapestry of diversity within our community and um it kind of symbolizes our continued collaboration with rise uh I really appreciate rise in terms of their resource um the resources they represent within our community anytime we can find ways to connect um I think I said something about us kind of sharing and raising our children within our community so um hopefully we'll continue that tradition and we'll host it here as we move forward quick plug for the Arts we have a marching bang competition that will be taking place here at Heist high school on October 5th on Saturday beginning at 4 pm so uh if you want to hear some good music and see some some quality performances uh our marching band will be representing among other schools as well but obviously I'm slightly biased for heist down High School uh in terms of parent support we just talked about the uh access uh testing data we have uh October 1st which is I believe tomorrow um that's tomorrow right 30 days in September yes April June and November okay so tomorrow night October 1st uh we have our pack night uh parent advisory committee uh event um for parents of our Spanish speaking families um this will serve as an opportunity for the district to kind of share some resources but also have the input um from families regarding our multilingual learning programs uh throughout the district week of respect so in New Jersey has been the tradition um for a number of years now we have the week of respect um which is connected to the anti-bullying Bill of Rights so it designates the first week beginning with the first Monday in October so this year October 7th through the 11th will serve as the week of respect the week of respect provides school districts with an opportunity to recognize the importance of social emotional learning while placing an emphasis on age appropriate instruction that focuses on the prevention of harassment intimidation and bullying uh so number of things happening within each of our schools um this also serves as an opportunity for our school safety School climate teams to kind of map out and kind of gauge where we are in an effort to kind of foster a positive School uh climate and just as a reminder uh all schools and district offices will be closed on Thursday October 3rd in observance of rashish Shana and that concludes my report thank you does anyone have any questions okay then we'll move on first opportunity for board member comments are there any board members who have anything they wish to share no there being none we will move on first opportunity for public comment is there anyone from the public who has anything they'd like to share okay there's none um the board is going to excuse themselves for exec session should be about 20 minutes and then we'll come back because there's items to vote on thanks e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay we're back in session moving on to Old business just updated committee [Music] meetings and then um Paul if you could just say put down for next meeting that we will put on the um VSS if anybody has any questions the the assess data presentation oh access assess access yes please um are there any questions on the committee meetings it looks like the next one is going to be Wellness on the 14th of October right yeah okay if there's no questions second opportunity for board member comments hi I have a two questions all right my first question is um in regards to cleaning uh throughout the school day when when staff is clean like when the custodial staff is cleaning throughout the school day what kind of products do they use and are those do they clean like while the students are in the classrooms do they clean while they're um like out of the classroom like how does that actually as far as like cuz I'm asking in regards to like um smells like the smell from the products cuz you know there's um the what I forgot what it's called is it called air pollution or I forgot what it's called um but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about yeah no I know exactly what you're referring to so like on our elementary schools generally we only have a day person and our our day person is generally not cleaning in the same sense like our night crew does so when you're thinking of cleaning a school that's generally relegated to at night when staff and students are not here that's when the sprays are going on that's when the mops are coming out so pretty much the day custodian is helping facilitating kind of the the the daily operation they're yeah they're they're like you know they're opening the building they're making sure the heat's working uh they're making sure all the doors are open the school's ready to function uh they're they're kind of helping staff and administration kind of run the school during the day a big part of their day is actually during lunch period when they're kind of helping in there uh a lot of that cleaning though is also done by our cafeteria people as well um so yes so like our deep cleaning really happens at night when mostly staff is gone yeah but that is something we're concerned about because that that that is a thing as far as you know a lot of people have sensitivities to any any kind of aerosol type of spray all right thank you I just have one more question though um to picky back off of that so the day crew are they the ones or if not them is there anyone that actually goes to the to the different like so I F I found right through um the times that I've been in the schools for you know the events for my son or the school or whatever um that different rooms have different temperatures some room the the temperature is it's so stuffy um and then where some rooms are just really cold some rooms feel damp so does the day staff actually go around um or is it up to the the faculty in that room to then you know voice their concerns thanks so as you know we have HVAC issues we have you know our a lot of areas are aged and need to be replaced so they're not operating as they should um our standard you know talking about moving forward so our standard is a a set point at 71 degrees regardless if it's summertime or in the winter uh we actually program our thermostats to give staff plus or minus 3° temperature range some school districts don't even do that they just set it at a given point and then they're done here staff can actually go from up to 74 down to 68 so if you're if you're in a room that has some temperature variation uh it very well could be that the the HVAC is just not working like it did 25 years ago and it needs to be repl which building was that so I remember at Walter SE black the nurses um like the nurse's office I'm sorry was really stuffy every time I walked in there um it was it was a lot but then when we went to when I went to back to school night at KBS I noticed that the different classrooms was was also like that in one um room in particular I think it was a social studies classroom it was very stuffy whereas the hallways were nice and cool um and then some classrooms were fine so that's why I wondered how they and I didn't see like windows open or you know I I couldn't understand what was causing the St you're kind of in a season right now which we call the shoulder season it's kind of right after summer right before winter and then there's another one on the other side of winter right before you get into summer where the outside temperature is 72 and that's gets very hard to control uh the temperature and really the related humidity because of that because generally it's kind of an equilibrium if you will it's a lot different when it's 98 outside and you're trying to keep it at 71 all right thank you no problem I know that we have some committee updates but I just wanted to before we get into those I just wanted to um um I wish that um Mr Vincent was here I'm just curious at the high school um with election coming up with the presidential election coming up um are we doing anything has there been any sort of like encouragement to have um kids register to vote a vote drive and I'm channeling Alice she always talked about that and theic Duty I know that we've been providing students when they turn 18 with voter registration information so I will follow up and provide the bo an update regarding what it looks like the election that I know we're required to engage uh students who turn 18 with voter information so we do that know in terms of like anything beond that grand scale um I'll provide do you know how you get that information because if you have maybe a summer birthday I don't comes through your guidance Council I think your guidance department but or your social studies teacher I'm not sure do you know Sandy I think I want to say guidance but I'll give back I'll get back to one that um okay if you could get back if we could put that too for business thanks I don't know if they do this anymore but they used to have um the students be able to vote on something so they go with their parents to the poll um whether it was a mascot's name or the naming of a road at the school um I think that was helpful in wanting kids to be active um and to pay back off of that yeah I don't know if they're still doing it but I remember um a few years ago there was like a project in the school where the the students actually reached out to me um and they were saying you know they asked questions and then you found out who voted for you and who didn't so they had like a a little voting project um in the school said yeah I would imagine that they would have something I my question I was just wor I was thinking more toward the 18yar olds just get the election coming up in terms of 18year olds we are required to provide them a voter the voter yeah voter registration materials some of it posted on our website but I need to get back to you regarding how we actually push it to students so they're aware of it and I feel like I don't know if I'm remembering correctly I don't know if it was the last election I felt like there was some sort of like voter registration or something happened at the school there was a drive or there was something I felt like somebody had told me that it could have been a student that it I'm going to give a a brief uh policy committee update we did meet uh for meeting on Tuesday the 24th we continue to um go through our existing policies to update them so each Committee Member was given a group of policies to go through and so part of that work is done and so in the meeting we reviewed the policies that we've already reviewed to determine um what questions we have and what work needs to be done to um you know to look at them and update them if needed or change them in a way that fits the district and then we also handed out additional um so we learn through our entire policy group and so we handed out new uh new groups of policies to look through so that we're continuing to review them on our own um and then we'll just continue to meet until we've gotten through uh all of the policies and then we'll will start to review them and bring them to the meeting to vot on thank you any questions okay I have an update on the curriculum uh subcommittee that was met this evening um just to recap or move this along quickly um there is an extensive PowerPoint presentation or PDF sorry attached to the agenda so we can all review that public can see it um but as far as a quick recap um the first part of the presentation revolved around summer um PD and um like extra summer teaching for the students we are almost reaching our typical one3 participation rate we're getting there um we have hope for the future that more students will come basically this is for a mixture of support for struggling learners and enrichment to get our students to the next level in school so if they're almost there we kind of push them to get them um that's for like the the students who are almost making it to like the next level of math or the next level of language arts or science and we help we help get them over that little bit of a hump to make it for the next year and then our struggling Learners who are falling behind we also helped support them to either move ahead or at least sustain where they're at so that they can move ahead easier in the next year um this is a combination of embedded learning support and after school um we also have I'm I'm skipping ahead sorry here we also have um the second half of it was for College and Career Readiness so there's three phases phase one of three is starting soon next week um and these are basically we have a high school mentoring program where we have a team of 14 volunteers which include teachers and guidance counselors who are meeting with students a select group of students again you can see all the details in the power in the in the PDF um basically helping students select and track goals working on Executive function skills study skills organization skills and test taking strategies um there meeting they're able to meet during the day during their prep periods or lunchtime and there's also after school opportunities um again these students are identified via a variety of data points this is phase one that we're coming into so there'll be two more phases throughout the year with additional students identified um for our next meeting or not our next meeting but next up we'll have a detailed data for the data that's in here but'll this was basically the data in this presentation was G like the whole population our next our next month will have a presentation with detailed data broken down by all our subsets of students um if you have any questions regarding this please compile them and ask them during the old business section at the next meeting I just wanted to keep it simple concise because otherwise I could go on and on about all these different points that was made it was a great presentation we had the whole curriculum team present and giving us information so it was great to be in that room this evening and I thank everyone for their hard work yeah I'll we'll share that information with the entire board any other comments from any the board members there being none we'll move on second opportunity for public comment are there any members at the public who wish to speak if there's none we will move on to item 9 policy to be abolished a policy 5755 equity and educational programs and services second any questions hold the board please Miss Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss laruso yes and 10 mandated policies for first reading a policy 1530 equal employment opportunities B policy 1550 Equal Employment anti-discrimination Practices C policy 22 2260 equity in school and classroom practices D policy 2411 guidance counseling e policy 24 31.4 prevention and treatment of sports related concussions and head injuries F policy 5750 Equitable education opportun educational opportunity and G policy 2423 bilingual and ESL education any questions hold the board please M Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss laruso yes item 11 mandated regulation for first reading a r24 31.4 prevention and treatment of sports related concussions and head injuries second any questions pull the board please MRI yes Miss plans yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss laruso yes itm 12 recommended policies for first reading a policy 3211 code of ethics B policy 5570 sportsmanship C policy 5841 secret societies D policy 5842 equal access of student organizations e policy 7610 vandalism policy 9323 notification of juvenile offender case disposition second any questions I have a question about the secret society one is can someone explain that I I couldn't quite um I just didn't understand it yeah I'll explain it to you I mean it's it's the title is probably um creating some curiosity But ultimately it just comes down to the fact that student uh assembled clubs or groups one need to be approved by the principal um so it's just you know it's really just ensuring that Gatherings as much as we do want to um you know students who have a First Amendment right to gather if you're going to frame it under some level of organization it should be approved it should be in line with what we believe is appropriate within a school setting we also do not want to sanction what would be deemed as a fraternity or sority or some other initiated group that's not uh something that's in line with the mission the vision of the district or the school so it's just if you're going to organize a club that will gather at the school as a student group it needs to be done in a way that is um transparent and uh is sanctioned under the school district uh umbrella so what I have a question though what does it mean by um participation in constitutionally protected prayer consistent with protections what is that about well federal law enables students to gather and have student L prayer right that that's that's that's a that's a protection that students can gather within certain parameters but but but student Leb prayer is is is acceptable in schools all right thank you are there any other questions if not pull the board please M Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss laruso Mr L Russo yes thank you sorry item 13 motion to approve routine items by exception having read the materials received I move that the board approve the routine agenda items as submitted a staffing for September 30th 2024 B approve travel and related expenses virtual and impers C out of District placement D Professional Services for students e non-resident students F approve Melvin H creps and heightstown high school high school winter sports schedules for the 2024 2025 school year G approve Surplus science books at NHK H approv curriculum documents I technology recycling batch number 51 J Co-op purchases K Transportation joint and quote L approval of Professional Services for SSP heon High School auditorium lights Phase 2 m board minutes for September 9th 2024 n executive session board minutes for September 9th 2024 and O Copy of Bill list for September 30th 2024 second any questions for H do we have any further anticipated curriculum documents to approve at the next upcoming meetings or we caught up Mark uh what do we have left counseling documents okay El this yeah we had mentioned that last meeting second semester sorry I just specific courses for second semester than just needed a refresh for my memory they definitely counseling that'll be K12 thanks well I had a question on N are is that change going to be made change that we had discussed yes we we'll make those changes that we discussed in executive absolutely okay are there any questions any other questions pull the board please M Drake yes Miss Lance yes for all except B and specifically the line item within B that has my name on it just that line but I approve the rest of B thank you m Murphy yes um but similarly um abstain from B uh the first three lines of the New Jersey school boards m Bol uh yes but abstain from the line uh be with my name with my Mr weeks uh yes except for same document uh yes M [Music] Luso obstain from a line six yes to the rest and yes to all the other items that was a l six before we adjourn I just wanted to um make one comment uh for the the next meeting will be celebrating um all the employees who have 25 years plus service um so if anybody wants to make a note of that um there's no need for a seconding succession so motion to adjourn well wait will we meet at 6 or still 7 good question okay it's not work thank you