##VIDEO ID:-cX7bAtixng## right so on to [Music] the regular monthly meeting of November 24 21st 2024 was called to order at 7:47 p.m. at Thomas Edison school 3701 fairon Avenue room 19 Fair New Jersey there were 19 members of the public in attendance can I have a roll call please Mr baldowski here Mr Banta Dr bertolini Miss Brown present M faich present Mr Rosenberg here Mr Spindel present Miss Yurman present Mrs Mayhan present we have a quum the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the fairon board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof distributed to the persons on the approved lists posted in the Board of Education administrative office and sent to the Bergen Record and the Star Ledger the announcements posting for the regular monthly meeting along with the date plac and time thereof was distributed on January 5th 2024 the items be the items discussed during the closed work session of the November 21st regular monthly meeting included Personnel matters student matters legal matters negotiations under Grievances and tactics and techniques utilized to protect the public safety and property the results of these discussions will be made public as soon as possible please join me in the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands under God indivisible with liy and justice for all this evening we have Miley zaku from Memorial Middle School Yi G from TJ middle school and Lindsay Samuels our Fon high school student R um joining us for our student Representatives reports the floor is yours guys Memorial's annual Veterans Day celebration began with an inspiring all school assembly where over 650 students and more than 120 staff members warmly welcomed our honored guest with a standing ovation as they entered the auditorium and took their places on stage it was a heartfelt tribute to those who have sered served our nation following following the assembly our veterans visited classrooms engaging students in meaningful and educational conversations sharing stories of service and answering questions about their experiences the day was made even more special with a delicious breakfast generously provided by our PTO each veteran also received a dinner goodie bag from a family affair made possible through SEF donations collected during our October pumpkin paloa event this cherished event continues to be a highlight of the year at Memorial to all our veterans thank you again for your service on Friday November 15th Mr Grumman facilitated a visit to TJ by local veterans who met with students to share stories about their service and has become a tradition at TJ we have set America's white table outside of the auditorium where it will remain until Thanksgiving to honor the men and women who have served in America's Armed Forces it's official several of Memorial's teachers are making a bold statement with their upper lips Mr Cohen Mr Puda and M Co Franchesco have joined forces for No Shave November and the results are well growing on us these brave men are sporting some serious and not so serious facial hair to raise awareness for men's health issues whether it's a classic stash or a budding caterpillar or The Handlebar growing on Mr Cohen's face these teachers are turning heads and starting conversations so next time you see them don't be afraid to ask what's with the hairry L it's all for a great cause under the direction of our guidance counselors Mrs Fleming and Mrs Van westerfeld our seventh and eighth grade peers for peace members visited the Stepping Stones classes at West Morland today November 21st for the first uh mon monthly play dates throughout the year our thanks to Mrs Delgado and the teachers at West Morland Miss grber Miss Garbus miss parcelas and miss stabinsky for their time and Care in facilitating these gatherings for our students TR traps short for entrepreneurs is a program that teaches students the basics of starting and running their own businesses and now it's time for them to shine need a last minute holiday gift our talented young entrepreneurs are here to help from handmade bracelets for that special someone gratitude jars for daily inspiration to delicious homemade sweet treats our students have something for everyone come support Memorial's budding business owners on December 17th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Memorial Middle School and find unique heartfelt gifts trust me you won't want to miss it on Wednesday in honor of world children day we kicked off our sixth annual sixth annual Christian kicks with love from Lucy and Peter Holiday Drive to support hackin sack Children's Hospital the Jackson strong Foundation the Peter T foundation and the Phil teram scholarship fund over the last six years years has become the most important time of year for our school a time where we work to honor the memory of students classmates and loved ones lost to deliver smiles to those in need Christian Lucy and Peter were givers always willing to offer a helping hand to others in a time of need our promise a promise our school Community has made is to honor this charistic between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve students families and friends are invited to help us raise funds that will be used to support children receiving care treatment last week Memorial's teachers and staff took school spirit to a whole new level with their first ever underground spirit week from alma mater Monday to Tiara Tuesday because teachers rule our teachers kept us guessing what was coming next Western Wednesday had us all channeling our inner Western selves though a few students thought the teachers were auditioning for Beyonce's next tour then came anything but a cup Thursday where the C creativity hit Peak levels teachers were sipping coffee out of shoes disco balls and yes Miss F even managed to hydrate out of a mini toilet we don't ask questions we just applaud they wrapped up with festive Friday where holiday cheer took over shout out to the math department for dressing up to celebrate Pi Day is it an official holiday no would we take a day off to celebrate it absolutely thanks to all the teachers for this surprise week and making underground Spirit Week an unforgettable and slightly confusing event to all Memorial students Keep Your Head on a swivel I know the teachers have more surprises up their sleeve on behalf of the students and staff at Memorial and TJ we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving we are so very grateful for all you do at fairon schools hello everyone I'm excited to be back to update you all in Fon high school for starters We've Just Begun our fall Spirit Week today we celebrated 100 Years of Fon with our birthday themed photo booth in the decaf tomorrow we'll be having a student teacher swap day this theme was very popular last year and we look forward to seeing the outfits our peers and staff will wear tomorrow we'll have a red day and gray day on Monday and Tuesday finally we'll close out off the week with FAL on apparel day on Wednesday we'll also have a pep rally on Wednesday to send our students into Thanksgiving break with school spirit and fun The Masks show began performing Sense and Sensibility this Tuesday November 19th and will be hosting shows until Sunday November 24th be sure to buy our tickets and support our theater program to continue Falon High School is joining forces with the Falon Police Department with their toy drive students will bring unwrapped toys to the school for the police to give to children in the area we're always happy happy to be helping our community overall our clubs are very active our organizations have been going on trips planning events and preparing for competition season our winter sports are also starting soon if you'd like to support one of our club's many fundraisers which I know you all love to do check out our calendar on the ferland high school website it's updated regularly with any new events especially fundraisers thank you for your time and Happy Thanksgiving thank you [Applause] thank you all so before we get to the superintendent's comments I just wanted to make a comment um on behalf of the board to um those members of our community who put themselves out there in support of our school district and our community and um ran for the fair loom board of education please know we are very grateful for the time and effort that you put did put in official results will be presented and certified at our reorg meeting in January but thank you so much your effort your engagement and your support is much appreciated Dr diio thank you Miss Mayan good evening everyone um I would like to begin this evening by drawing everyone's attention to resolution 7i on our evening's agenda uh it is my distinct pleasure uh to make the recommendation as your superintendent of schools uh to recommend Mrs CLA Keller for the position of assistant superintendent of Education Mrs Keller emerged as the outstanding candidate from a robust selection process that included 70 applicants and multiple rounds of very comprehensive interviews over the past several months with various stakeholders across our entire District what set Mrs Keller apart was her exceptional performance and being able to articulate across critical leadership domains particularly in the areas of the district's strategic priorities ities curriculum development data driven decision-making educational Innovation and collaboration her demonstrated expertise in building relationships and responding to community needs aligns with where we are in our District's Vision Miss Mayan I would like to ask you and the board to consider um moving making a motion to move 7i to the beginning of the agenda this evening um so we can uh have a vote on Mrs Keller's appointment at this time so move second second Jean Brown Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes Dr bertolini yes Ms Brown yes Mrs Miss felich no Mr Rosenberg yes Mr spendel yes with pleasure Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes congratulations [Applause] congratulations before I have Dr diio continue I do understand that some of our student Representatives may have tests and quizzes or just shows to binge watch so that you guys also get a wellness Break um as well as m teller thank you so much for being here thank you for your family for being here what an honor it is to see um your children see what a model you are for our community and our students as well um so if you would if there's anybody who would like to excuse thems prior to the rest of our meeting please do so now before we continue Mrs Mayan I'm going to and if anyone has everyone is anyone planning to leave Happy Thanksgiving and Mrs Keller I was going to ask uh if you would please come to the podium and say a few words good evening I am so incredibly humbled and excited to be here thank you to be joining this Fair law Community um thank you to Dr dnco for this whole process and the members of the committee that were part of you know interviewing and letting me know fairland's goals and needs um I'm I'm excited I know the members of the board and your goal is the the students of the district and that is your number one concern and that is now my number one concern so I look forward to January and starting congratulations Dr Latina I wish you all the best I look forward to working with you and thank you to my family for all their support and love and for being here so thank you [Laughter] nice job they did a nice job um Miss Keller would you like me to take a picture of you and your family yes and how would you like to would you like to introduce your [Applause] [Music] know I really read okay I'll continue I'll continue good Dr dionisio the floor is yours thank you Mrs Mayan uh so I have two more updates this evening first I would also like to recognize this evening and acknowledge Mrs Joan Cosgrove who will be retiring from her position as Secretary of student services at Edison school effective June 30th 2025 Mrs Cosgrove has served our Fair Lawn School Community with distinction for 28 years demonstrating unwavering dedication to our students to our families and to our staff we extend our deepest appreciation for her contributions and wish her well in retirement [Applause] lastly before this evening's presentation I'd like to take a moment to frame tonight's presentation on our gifted and talented program and the regulations associated with our program design our district has thoughtfully examined gifted and talented identification process over the course of many many years it's a testament to the reflection and evolution of programming to serve the needs of our students spe specifically the work of our District administration our gifted and talented teachers our support staff and our Board of Education who have all spent considerable time reviewing the program and the practices that we use regarding the use of school-based norms and all of our other practices the approach we use aligns with the National Association of gifted children and the research-based recommendations and in accordance with New Jersey strengthening gifted and and talented Education Act our current identification model recognizes that gifted Learners emerge from all backgrounds and circumstances by using school-based Norms we can better identify students who demonstrate exceptional potential within their immediate peer group in their school Community while ensuring we don't overlook talented students due to variations in early learning opportunities tonight Dr lactina and Mrs D will be sharing updates from our gifted and talented committee's comprehensive review process incorporating recent feedback from our education committee meeting on November 14th their presentation will demonstrate our ongoing commitment to both excellence and equity in student identification while ensuring transp transparent and uniform procedures districtwide I will now turn toid presentation over to Dr lactina and to Mrs D thank you Dr dionio and good evening everyone um as Dr dionio said can we get rid um I'm sorry uh ruie how do we get rid of that can you just just click yeah just touch the board sorry there we go thank you all right um they tried and I don't think they were able to get it yeah yeah um as as Dr D said um tonight what we are going to do is um walk you through our journey of gifted and talented uh revisions from 2018 until the present so that you can see how this program has evolved over the years let's move this yeah thank you all okay uh before we present the history of changes uh to Falon g&t program over the course of the past eight years uh we would first like to establish some common language and explain the framework for the work that was done in order to better understand why our current program looks the way it does so let's begin with a definition of giftedness Falon gifted program is Guided by the National Association of gifted children's definition of giftedness students with gifts and talents perform or have the capability to perform at higher levels compared to others of the same age experience and environment in one or more domains this definition is consistent with the New Jersey Department of education's definition that's put forth in the New Jersey Administrative Code strengthening gifted and talented Education Act gifted and talented means a student who possesses or demonstrates a high level of ability in one or more content areas when compared to his chronological PE in the school district and who requires modifications of his educational program if he is to achieve in accordance with his capability both of these definitions stress the importance of comparing our students to their local peers rather than peers in other districts across the state or across the nation the nagc stresses the comparison of students within the same environment while the strengthen and gifted act speaks in terms of peers in the school district because Falon students receive gifted services within their own building our students performance is compared to their school based peers these peers are indeed sharing the same environment and they are obviously in the same school district thus this practice of using school-based percentiles enables us to provide tiered services to like-minded peers within the same school additionally research tells us that in demographically diverse school systems it is best practice to use school-based percentiles for purposes of identification because it provides more equity in the identification process we will review this a little bit later in the presentation now let's talk about the structure of our gifted and talented program and services using a tiered approach in the elementary school a combined framework of tiered services and accelerated courses in the middle schools and a diverse offering of honors advanced placement and dual enrollment opportunities at the high school level Falon students are able to stimulate their academic growth in their areas of strength and this is a really important piece right here the goal of our gifted and talented programs is not to label a student but rather to recognize and respond to their everchanging educational needs in other words our goal is to make sure that we provide students with the services they need need at the time that they need it our programs are not about labeling students it's about matching student needs to programs and services um we know that students needs change over time so it's important that we recognize that and make sure that at any given moment of time students are receiving what they need to continue to learn and grow we will continue to talk about this concept as we um go throughout the rest of the presentation um as we mentioned in the previous slide we use a tiered program model for our gifted and uh services so what does this mean you'll see a graphic here on this slide and I'm going to use this to try to help explain what a tiered model looks like so on the left side of the graphic there are three tiers which depict a Continuum of services for students that may be struggling in uh an a academic area this is often referred to as RTI response to intervention tier one Services include supports that are given to all students such as differentiation in the classroom to meet individual student learning needs tier 2 services on the left-and side for struggling Learners can include targeted instruction for smaller groups of students in order to support them in the specific areas that are giving them some difficulties this could be a basic skills class um and then when tier one and tier 2 Services still don't provide that learner with enough support those students can receive tier three services those services are provided to students in even smaller groups maybe even on a onetoone basis if you turn that model and you create a mirror image on the right hand side now you see a Continuum of services but this time it's for gifted students so like the intervention side of the graphic students in need of gifted Services may receive differentiation in the classroom tier one they might get small group instruction focused on specific needs tier two or they may receive instructional supports in an even smaller setting which is tier three in order to address their needs this is referred to as response to intelligence this tiered model that you're looking at um supports our children helps them learn across the Continuum it's not just a model for struggling Learners it's also a model for gifted students as well um so that they can excel in their learning so what else guides our program and why have we made the decisions that we've made um in our most uh recent iteration of our gifted and talented programming we had an audit um in the 2022 2023 school year um and we got several commendations as well as recommendations about our programming and we use this information as well to help guide our decisions so I took some screenshots directly from our audit um and I'm going to share that with you now differentiated program one of the comments that we got was Falon uses a four tiered gifted mtss mod model this was back in 2022 this is a best practice in the field and other school districts do not frequently follow this model faron's model and mtss structure is exemplary it was also commented that the high school programming in faon is exemplary the students including those with giftedness have access to dual enrollment advanced placement courses and a plethora of elective and extracurricular opportunities available to them faon Universal screens its students the teachers differentiate in the regular classrooms and the gifted and talented teachers collaborate well within the district the gifted mtss which we just talked about as RTI as well follows best practices and provides a structure within which to modify Services as needed some additional comments the district is transparent about their identification plan on the district website Fon School District Universal screens all students using data and allows multiple entry points to Services Peron School District uses local norms and building Norms when identifying students for GI gifted and talented Services which is a known best practice in gifted education best practice in gifted education requires school districts to review placement and services for students each year including students already identified as gifted I suggest a districtwide screening one time in second or third grade grade and then ongoing review of students receiving Services each year thereafter as well as reconsideration of any student with data in the gifted range the auditor says I strongly advise removing or revising the district's outside testing policy privately issued IQ tests are nationally normed not locally normed additionally there are Equity concerns with accepting privately acquired IQ tests from psychologists hired by families so again as we go through this presentation you are going to see where we took these accolades and these recommendations and put them into practice good evening everyone I'm going to take you back in time to 201819 in this school year we met with the education committee as a whole on October 4th 20 8 and there we discussed our current reach program offerings at that time our program was called reach these are the programs that were offered from grades K through five as you can see it wasn't a truly tiered model at that time also at this time the board was supporting our attendance at national and local conferences because we knew that there was a lot that we wanted to build and improve upon with our current offerings you will notice with these um offerings the pull out was only in fourth and fifth grade for identified students for Math and literacy and those were in what we called rotations at the time some of them being approximately 10 sessions of of that math or literacy rotation at that time we were using our reach teachers to work with our our teachers to differentiate our classroom teachers we were also uh giving all students in grades 3 four and five those pushin whole class enrichment opportunities and we offered a lot of self- Select programs to those upper grade students at that time this was the criteria we were using for identification we were using the cognitive abilities test it was a screener and we were using the district percentiles that we received back this was just a screener it was not the full battery that we've more recently adopted we were using the comprehensive testing program the C tp5 again District percentiles were used and we were using the park uh which is now known as njsla but at the time we were using the park uh assessments we were also using our classroom and District assessments to identify our students then in the spring we met again and held an education committee meeting and a parent information session to let everyone know the changes that we were putting into place that following school year and here is just a timeline of the events that occurred throughout the 201819 school year we had sent a survey to all of the Bergen County districts and asked for feedback on the programs they were using the identification measures they were utilizing and at that time we also asked our colleagues in Bergen County if anyone was doing anything exemplary that they would love to host us to share their program so we were able to visit with Allandale um everyone that we surveyed and all of the feedback that we got all Bergen County Schools were asking can we have some of that information too so we knew we were on the right track with what we were doing um and we we were sharing all that information we were meeting with the reach teachers who were attending the Ruckers gifted conference Natalie and I attended the national gifted conference and we were sort of in this frenzy of taking on all this information and sort of sharing all these wonderful ideas to kind of talk about the vision and the direction we were going to take this program we also prepared grade two for the coat and we started hiring an additional reach position which the board supported so that was wonderful uh we did administer grade to the Kat that year and we completed Behavior behavioral checklists which we uh gave our teachers the information on how to rate students on those behavioral checklists and gave them the professional development on gifted um students which takes us to the 1920 school year Natalie's going to take you through that school year and how our work was sort of impacted by the pandemic so on October 30th 2019 again we held two um parent information information sessions to let the um Community know about the changes that were being made for the 1920 school year here is a screenshot from that presentation which shows the enrichment model that we were using at the time in grades kindergarten through five and you can see that everything highlighted in yellow were new um pieces of programming that were added to our model um these were primarily um offering trimester pushin and pullout programs for students in grades K through 2 a self- select study option for students in grades three as well as pull out literacy and math programs for students in grade three in the 1920 school year we continued to use the coat screener the ctp5 and behavioral scales and we replaced Park scores with the brand new njsla so those were the multi measures used for identification during the 1920 school year at that time we were using an eligibility Matrix where we took all of that data and we put it on a matrix and that was used to match student need with programming so that is how the eligibility um was being used at that time and we will show you later in the presentation how eligibility is determined presently so take all that information these are really the highlights of what happened in 2019 and 2020 this was the first year that we implemented a tiered service model in grades K through 5 we implemented revised grades K through 5 behavioral scales to help us identify gifted characteristics within our students we focused on PR professional development for our general education teachers so that they were more capable of assisting and supporting gifted students in their classrooms we strengthened our parent communication we updated our brochure we improved our g&t website we created student performance reports so students knew uh so parents knew how their children were performing in the GNT offerings and as Mrs D said we were very fortunate we were able to hire an additional 0.5 reach teacher so we went from three to three and a half reach teachers um or what we now call gifted and talented teachers and then the pandemic hit so we had all these great plans for 2019 2020 and then schools closed well we were able to implement the first two trimesters of programming quite well but now we were working remotely educating our students uh via technology and so so we had to rethink what the programs looked like for the third trimester offerings um so we do uh we did what we normally do and we pivoted and we put different um procedures and processes into place so that we can continue as best as possible with our intended programs so these are the highlights of what happened from March through June of that school year we implemented Choice boards for all students in grades K through 2 so instead of the pets program program which was very challenging to try to implement remotely we gave all students uh choices um and opportunities for them to participate in enriched activities uh we were unable to do our grade three independent study um but we did continue with our grade three and four math seminars we did that via Google Classroom we also did our grade five word Masters via Google classroom and we were able to continue the grade five stem program via online activities and resources and then that brought us to the 2020 2021 school year so in January of 2021 we had an education committee meeting um and at that meeting the following topics were discussed we reviewed the strengthening gifted Education Act and what that required we reviewed the programs and offerings um in grades K through 12 uh including all of our reach opportunities are enriched honors AP courses and all of those club uh clubs and activities in the middle and high high school we discussed the challenges we were having as a result of the pandemic and we also had quite a lengthy discussion about the use of local or school-based rather than District based Norms so these are some of the slides that we shared with our Board of Education about the use of local Norms um Scholars have always um highlighted inequities and gaps in education um this happens in the area of gifted education as well and so Scholars have provided us with uh ways that we can address these inequities so using Universal screenings and local Norms um particularly school-based are wonderful ways for us to try to address the inequities as you can see under local Norms gifted students don't have to be in a high performing school they need to be high performing in their school um local Norm comparisons are also consistent with the definition of giftedness first advanced in the US Department of educations National Excellence report which also recommended identifying student abilities in comparison with comparison with others of their age experience and environment today many schools draw students from local neighborhood attendance zones that commonly are segregated by income race and ethnicity that's why local Norms school-based Norms work so again by identifying talent in every building within a district gifted populations can get closer to mirroring the larger student population uh another highlight um from this research from Peters at all from 2019 is that um results from their research in tandem with previous findings suggest that transitioning from National or state reference Norms to local building norms for gifted identification would sub substantially reduced group differences in rates of gifted identification this was cutting edge research in 2019 we were very fortunate that we were able to put these practices into place in the 19 uh the 2020 2021 school year this slide as well as the next one just provide additional research uh that has been conducted on the use of local school norms and we had shared this with the Board of Education and again information from the National Association of gifted children website which also endorses the use of school based percentiles in the school year 2020 2021 unfortunately we were still without many scores because we did not have new njsla scores we were not able to um we didn't have all of our students in school to give them CTP FS so we had to Pivot once again with our identific ation for the 2020 21 school year and we were using the coat screener the classroom assessments we created a pets assessment to assess our K2 students in the area of critical thinking and we continue to use the behavioral scales um as this was information we can get from our teachers so the revision highlights uh for 2020 2021 implementation we implemented a grade six literacy seminar um we implemented temporary changes of um identification and self- select tier three for grades K through two because of the covid pandemic so these were temporary implementations uh until we could get all of the um data that we needed to be able to properly Implement our programs Kelly will now take you through 2021 and 2022 school year still me Sor we're getting there getting closer and closer I'll take theck that's okay there was uh an education committee meeting October 11th 2021 and in this meeting the following topics were reviewed and discussed we talked about the implementation of that reach liter literacy seminar into the grade six uh the prior school year and the reason for that is because in grade six that's when students are um in in those accelerated or those enriched math courses which takes the place of that gifted and talented offering so the reach seminar for literacy kind of filled that there and then here we reviewed the curriculum calendar we were doing everything in sort of trimesters so as you can see throughout the school year the teachers had an opportunity to push into all of the K12 classrooms for the pets program and push in for three for for stem and we were offering these seminars also on that rotating trimester um in the 2122 school year these are sample eligibility rubrics that were posted directly on our website at that time in 2122 there was a combination of percentiles and raw scores for K to2 and 3 to6 programming uh there were clear cutoffs you had to have 24 you had to have this many points out of 24 or higher you had to be in the 95th percenti or higher um and so those were all outlined on the website and the measures that were used for identification was the coat screener the school-based percentiles classroom assessments behavioral scales and that pets assessment that Dr lactina talked about so at that time in 2122 we were using school-based percentiles and that was basically the revision highlight for 2122 school year that we were using those local school-based percentiles from the Kat so that takes us to the 2223 school year and here is when we the strengthening gifted and talented Education Act takes effect in New Jersey and the district initiated a request for consultants and Meredith Thomas was retained as our consultant and she began her audit in February of 2023 in the winter we assembled an ad hoc committee based on interest from Fon Educators and administrators we had two Board of Ed representatives and we selected seven parent Representatives based on interest in our gifted programming we began that audit process with Dr Thomas which was comprised of a review of our curriculum guides our board documents our policy and regs she attended various department meetings with special services administrators she met with teachers from all of our buildings she met with our gifted and talented teachers and we had those uh ad hoc committee meetings to really get an idea of the parent teacher perceptions of our current program and what they envisioned moving forward with our gifted and talented program here is a snapshot of something that was found on our website at the time in grade six the literature seminar we gave the actual cutoff scores and things for identification um and as you can see next to Kat standard age score there's that Aster and this was just our way of letting anyone that visited our site know that we were using school percentiles for the purpose of identification for the reach program The Narrative report that got sent home to parents only included National and District level percentiles there was no option for us working with the Riverside data publisher to incorporate those local percentiles so we always made sure that we were communicating that with our families when the P when the uh profile reports went home parents had a letter attached explaining that on the enclosed report they would see National and uh District percentiles but to be aware that our district uses school percentiles for the purpose of identification for the reach program parents could always the next line informs parents they can always reach out to the enrichment specialist many parents did and our enrichment Specialists would have a conversation about individual student results and how they compared to their local peers the revision highlight for the 2223 school year was that the program remained the same but the focus was really at that time on conducting the audit and getting making sure that Dr Thomas had everything she needed in the 2023 2024 school year we had yet another Board of Education meeting on September 7th 2023 and this meeting really focused on the results and the recommendations of the audit so the recommendations that the primary recommendations given to us by our auditor really centered around the identification process the Continuum of services setting and establishing a Clear Vision and mission for our program along with professional development and improved communic ation um with our parent Community um and again we took these recommendations and put them into place our auditor also provided us with information about best practices surrounding identification and we used this information again when we built our program um so all of this information you will see embedded within our current practices that we use and again local cohorts not national rankings Universal screening eligibility every every year um using measures that are free from bias Etc in December 8th 2023 we held a gifted and talented meeting um and that is where we actually created and developed the vision and mission statement we did that again with administrators teachers Board of Education representatives and parents um and we had done a presentation um on this to the Board of Education and the public afterwards um we also reviewed uh our Atlas program this is where we house all of our district curriculum our g&t teachers during the 23 24 school year started uploading all the information about our gifted and talented program offerings onto the atlas program so the revision highlights for this year really no changes as this was our building year this was the year one year from SE September to June where we said that we were going to get all of this work done in order to implement it in the 2425 school year huge undertaking and Kelly gets to bring it home and explain how we did indeed um meet this challenge we'll share this year how's that okay so we're here we're at the 2425 school year we uh spoke with the Board of Education this was at the state of the schools presentation where we gave a very quick update on how everything was going and the the changes that were about to uh come for the 2425 school year and then in September we had the opportunity to hold two parent sessions one in the evening on September 11th and one in the morning on September 12th and it was just uh very well attended and a great way for us to interact with our parent community and hear their questions and concerns and and uh review the changes to the program and really just share our overall excitement for what was to come with the the changes to our program so this slide was taken from one of Dr Thomas's presentation this is that tiered approach where you see the bottom whole class push in enrichment meeting 100% of our students that's really our talent development that's our push in by our gifted and talented teachers uh to to enrich all of our students and it's also where our differentiated instruction and our our rigorous curriculum are in that 100% tier one for all students tier two is where our academic enrichment comes for students that are showing a achievement in areas such as for us math and literacy and tier three is really for that small percentage of students that are requiring more um and I it's a little clearer on this slide tier one Services we took everything that we were currently doing and put it on this three levels of services as I said our pets program primary education thinking skills in grades two k through two we push in and do these awesome lessons um it's on a rotation now where the teachers are getting in classrooms about once a month for that push in and seeing the students kind of develop throughout the course of a year where in the past it was just for a trimester so they get to see all kindergarten all first all second graders sort of grow throughout the year and share strategies with the teacher and work with the teachers and that's the same model for stem in grades 3 through four they're in the classrooms about once a month providing a Hands-On lesson talking with the teachers observing the students together um in tier two here are where we are providing those po aside activities um by the classroom teacher that are really created with the gifted and talented teacher if the teachers see a need and they need some more resources they're collaborating on those and the students are are given those pode activities right in the classroom and also our literacy and math seminars which have now changed to a year-long opportunity for our students that is one thing we heard time and time again that it just wasn't enough in a rotation or in a trimester and these students deserve to work with our gifted and talented teacher throughout the entire year so we're very excited that um they will be identified and then begin the programming in October and stay with that teacher for the entire year for either a literacy seminar or a math seminar if they're showing high achievement in those content areas and then tier three which probably is where we see the majority of our change is that we are pulling out students that are meeting the criteria for this very specific learning opportunity these are students that may not show huge academic achievement in math or literacy or they might but they also are around the 96th percentile um of their peers and really showing uh gifted and talented characteristics and in need of something a little bit more so this program will allow students to meet with the gifted and talented teacher and like-minded peers in grades three and four and work on a year-long project geared towards their interests their passions um their strengths we're really excited that we are going to be partnering with community members and experts out in the real world to give these students um sort of a the the vision that they want for their their lives in the future um I guess I can share now about this GT3 we're calling it GT3 but these students were told I'm not sharing anything that they don't already know they were told that this year's theme is a golf and arcade theme and on Friday about a hundred of our students in grades 3 through six boarded fairon buses and took a trip to Monster Golf together so they were with peers from all across the district and they got sort of a behindth scenes look at Monster Golf and they had the experts there teaching them what it looks like to build a course and they came off that bus so excited their eyes were wide open and they are just so eager to roll up their sleeves with their peers and and create this awesome event for the community actually at the end of the year there'll be more to come on that um but they they just they can choose anything so maybe maybe their interest is in actually building the course maybe their interest is in researching um you know types of clubs maybe their interest is in marketing for our event maybe their interest is in building a theme or or maybe their interest is in the money side of this so they will be able to EXP or whatever it is that interests them with their peers and with the GNT teacher for the whole year um and we're just thrilled that that we gave them that opportunity on Friday to all get together and and see one another to you so again just some information that we took directly from our parent presentation some important things for um everybody to realize about the identification process that we are um looking for scores that are at or above the gifted range as compared to their local peers um no single measure is going to keep a student out of the program or automatically um have a student receive Services um we are um implementing for the first time a parent referral form which again is not going to hurt or hinder a student it doesn't keep a student out of uh the program if a parent does not complete it but it gives us really valuable information about about the child that will help us make uh programming decisions for that student moving forward um we again will not be using outside testing uh for the reasons that we just discussed earlier issues of equity um and that when we have students new to the district we will have to wait one full school year so that we can get locally normed measures to use for that student for identification for the following school year this is a photo um of a sample profile data sheet so we are using this very holistic view of students where we take the criteria you see on the right those are the assessments and the data points that we use for this year we place all that information on this profile data sheet and it gives the RW score and it gives the percentile so the the further to the right that that um that bar thank you that that bar bar goes and the darker the green the higher the score so we have an identification committee that received one full day of training there's about 12 to 15 of us um they are volunteers from across um Administration and teachers educational Specialists and they work um with us for a full this year it was actually a day and a half to do the identification process and we use these profile data sheets where we look at the the student data in order to determine and match the needs of students with the programs being offered um these profile data sheets are anonymized we don't know what school the student is in we don't know who the student is so in this way there's no bias um it is really we're doing it blind without any of that information um so each year we will re-evaluate students whether they are receiving gifted services or not there will be an opportunity for review um annually so again here are the multi measures that we're using for identification for the current school year school-based percentiles for coat complete it's a complete assessment which gives us more data points more comprehensive data points um we use school-based percentiles for njsla school-based percentiles for Link at benchmark assessments school-based percentile for the torrent test of creative thinking we use behavioral scales there's alternative test data available when it's appropriate and we have the parent referral form lots of revision highlights for this school year because this is all based on the audit we established a gifted and talented vision and Mission we updated our gifted and talented handbook we have an anonymized process that's conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of trained educators we transitioned from the coat screener to the coat complete even though we're continuing to use local school based percentiles we've now gone to the Kat complete we have added the torren test of creative thinking we've added the link at benchmarks we have extended our tier two and tier three services from a trimester based program to a year-long program and of course the largest revisions to our tier three services opportunities for our students to collaborate with like-minded peers in which students are empowered to pursue a focus based on their own individual interests and strengths these programs are also designed to meet the affective and executive functioning needs of our gifted students and there is a community outreach piece as well so in summary you can see that this has been an extremely long journey eight years for us to get to this point it involved a great deal of professional development and independent audit of our gifted and talented programs along with several recommendations for improvement and then a subsequent Herculean effort by our gifted and talented teachers to get all of this information and uh changes and revisions implemented in one school year I can't thank Mrs D enough and our gifted and talented teachers enough for the unbelievable number of hours and effort and passion that they put into this program they believe in it with their Heart and souls um they love the work they do I hope that that's evident from what we've presented to you here tonight and we are extremely proud of this body of work so if anybody out in the public or here wants The Abridged version and does not want to read through all of that please refer here to slides uh 58 and 59 and those are very quickly how the program offerings changed from year year on slides 60 and 61 you can see how the identification process changed from year to year so the bridged version might be the way to go all right thank you very much thank you Dr Latina and thank you Mrs [Applause] D so what I will do now is um allow members of the board to ask questions regarding the present a only Mr Rosenberg wow thank you you're welcome both of you thank you um and please thank everybody that that was involved on the committee um this is what I want to say I remember going back to 2018 I I remember sitting at the school board's workshop with you Dr lactina in a gifted and talented um presentation there um and us talking about changing and I think that was 2018 right probably around then yeah yeah um and um over the years a lot of a bunch of the times I was on the small education committee or on or chair of education and um got to see this expand and I loved the expansion unfortunately and this is my fault I wasn't at Dr Thomas's [Music] presentation and picked up bits and pieces of it but didn't get the whole presentation this has definitely filled in um what I needed to see and I am very impressed um and I I personally um I'm I'm I'm glad thank you for doing the presentation because um you know I know that last month that wasn't good the way it ended you know it ended in a split vote and I I hope now now that I see this I know that um I definitely can can support it and um looking forward to hearing the kids uh responses and seeing the monster golf uh thing I'm I'm looking forward to going in June June is it going to be do um Mrs D yeah we're hoping we're hoping June yes so I look forward to hopefully uh you'll invite board members to come see it thank you and part of the purpose for this is again it's been an eight-year long journey with so many meetings so many presentations to the board and the public um covid in between that it was just important to really show um all the work and effort that's gone into it and how the program has evolved and why um so I appreciate your patience for the long presentation but we just felt that it was important to really see the progression uh so that everybody could truly understand how we got to this point today so thank you thanks Mich so do I ask a question and wait or do I ask all my questions at the same and then and get the answerers how do you how are we doing this because every time it's different so please ask all your questions and I am just going to note for everyone moving forward uh just so everyone's aware and I will repeat this for public comment as well as board but the but um comments on resolutions moving forward when speaking obviously for the public please state your name of municipality of residents specify what your resolution you're talking about this one is specific obviously to our g&t presentation but um our law prohibits board members and administrators from discussing Personnel student discipline or other dis uh confidential but I want to really point out right now and you'll hear that this sounds a little bit different than it has in the past um this is not a dialogue or a Q&A session between speakers and the board while we may not respond immediately to every comment made tonight or every question please all know that all input is carefully considered and it will help inform the decisions made by the administration um responses may come through emails reports board statements website updates and after the comment period closes so we really appreciate all that commentary all of the questions but please know that tonight and moving forward just because of um information that our Administration or our board may or may not have as well as for the sensitivity of people's time um we want to make sure that you all understand that not all comments or questions will be responded to um here and now so so that's for the board as well that's correct so we vote on something and we will not be able to know the answers until later that's what you're saying I just want to make sure that I understand so what I'm saying is that this is not a dialogue but all our questions are answered as board members since we're voting members so this is not a dialogue that is what I have to offer thank you okay so I have a couple of questions on the f one of the slides where you had the little Snippets with Miss Meredith from the um presentation it says local and building Norms are used and she prais that did we use local building norms and then we Chang it just to build building Norms that's one question that was where the little Snippets if you if that makes sense where I got I right from the audit yes yeah yeah yes so my question is if if she prays using local and dist uh local and building Norms I assume local means District wise because we're a local district and building meaning the actual building she she pra us for using both as much as I understood maybe I misunderstood so I'm asking that question my second question is the audit was made for K through six uh 7 through 12 as I recollect maybe I'm forgot uh she really didn't look at it that was her main objective was K through six so I wanted to double check if that was correct my other question um next question is the profile data sheet it was told um to me that it is confidential and its district and parents are not allowed to receive reive that information then I looked up what does Student Records mean and a student records based on fura and I could be wrong maybe the attorney can explain something that I'm wrong directly related to the student so it would say my name Rita F valovich on your profile sheet and it would maintain my educa uh it's maintained by educational agency which is the school district so my question is why is the profile data sheet not provided to the parents so if it's a if it's an educational record my next question is last board meeting during our writeups I asked a question does this uh using local Norms building Norms I'm sorry does that mean that students hypothetically in school a in the district may be denied Services while the same student in school B in the district would be given service they answer it could since the students are identified based on local school data so my question is how is that Equitable my other question is you have 30 seconds remaining my other question is the coet the tolerance test or the other test do parents sign permission to take this test or everybody takes this test how does how do people how do children are choos to take all these tests like the coet the T parents and whatever test other ones that parents are required to take thank you okay so I I wrote them all down and and hopefully I've got them all so the use of local and building Norms yes we were praised because at that point in time we were using local um District norms for some of our assessments um because we did not have the ability to create School B Norms um however in conversation with Dr Thomas based on best practice and because we are a very demographically diverse Community best practice is to use local meaning school-based Norms so there is nothing wrong with using District Norms there's nothing wrong with using school-based Norms the best practice is for us to use school-based norms and percentiles and when we were able to convert um those assessments to local school-based uh percentiles we started to use them um indeed uh Dr Thomas was not specifically looking at 7 through 12 she really was looking at the reach program at that point in time in K through six she happened to make a comment on our high school offerings so I thought that I would put that in there because it's just a really nice Accolade for our staff um and our students and our community to know that um profile data sheets um those profile data sheets are uh an internal document that we create for identification purposes so that our identification team can see all the data in one place parents receive the results of the coat they get a much more detailed report than what's sitting on on that profile sheet um and same thing for the other standardized assessments so those are not new scores to parents those are scores parents have received and again parents were told at our meeting they're encouraged all the time please come and review that sheet you are welcome to see the results they are your students results um so we have no problem uh sharing the information we just don't hand that internal document that we have created um we don't give that to the parents um but we certainly share that information um as far as school-based programs across all schools we use the 96th percentile um for identification for tier three 92nd percentile for identification for tier two um that is the same standard we use across every single school um and there was something about the Kat and Torrance that last part I'm sorry I forgot have to give permission for their kids to take it or have children we inform parents about that it's a universal screener which is best practice so we should not be saying you know this student is going to take it that student's not we don't get the choice of who gets to take it and doesn't it it is offered to all students and parents are informed about that if for some reason they didn't want their child to be part of it they can inform us and let us know thank you for those questions Dr lactina thank you for those responses I'm actually going to ask also Mr kamno to respond to the question around the school uh the student profile reports if you could thank you both for the presentation and as usual the procedures uh laid out not only reflect best practice but they're consistent with uh federal law and regulation uh great question about furpa in its application here uh used student privacy policy office has actually directly addressed this issue of accessing education records uh noting that under furpa schools quote must provide a parent with an opportunity to inspect and review education records within a reasonable period of time uh but schools goes on further generally not required to provide copies of Education records uh which is uh exactly the process that we've heard uh tonight we also uh this was addressed previously this evening um so the the point is there is access to U education records which include personally identifiable information which is what you noted this certainly is personally identifiable information uh parents have the ability here to come in and review it uh and see it and ask questions about it and consider it and talk about it um but copies are not made again as directed here uh there are other circumstances involving uh testing protocols in the special education uh process or other standardized testing uh data that for various reasons uh parents have uh an absolute access to uh look at learn about ask questions about but uh copies aren't made for various reasons so uh our practice again like with other things we hear you talk about it's consistent Dr bertolini thank you first of all uh I want to congratulate and thank once again Dr lactina and Mrs D for a thorough and understandable presentation uh I do have a question I I know it's going to end up going backwards on the slides but there's a there was a slide that talked about the parent referral form do you know where that can you go back to that of course I can I know it's probably like five slides back point of information I thought we only allowed to ask questions and then everything will be responded that's what you told that's actually not what I said you're welcome to review the YouTube video after we are finished um you asked and I suggested there was no formal um statement given is is this what you're talking about this no no it's I don't know it's where it's parent referral form well it says parent go ahead question okay for parents that are are are educated and well born in this country and know what they're talking about they know that they could hand this form in what are we doing for the students that have parents that don't know the language aren't involved in United States educational system I don't want it to be an unequitable situation where parent that knows the system can because you said it got a lot of information in there about the child from the parent and I want to know what we're doing for the parents that don't understand the language are not understanding the system that they their kids belong in do we go reach out to them to try to get something from that is my question so we do provide the information I'm just going to double check with Mrs D here um in the schools right you can translate yeah you want so each of the building principles communicated the deadline for the parent referral form and all of our communication through AP toj you can translate our our school newsletters can be translated so um we are hoping that our parents are reading at least our information um in their in their language their preferred language um and then since it's a Google form they could translate and use the Google form that way that is our hope so if there are additional ways that we can explore to to reach a greater whatever we can to try to get everyone in involved in the but again a referral didn't didn't yes didn't a lack of a ref referral did not exclude us from looking at every single profile sheet attention when one of you said that it gives them the committee of valuable information on the child so the parent that doesn't fill the form thr valuable information so it it's always interesting to see that um I'll give you an example so a student um is identified as being in need of a tier three service and that parent in the referral said my child is so curious about science loves astronomy and looking at the stars and blah blah blah the gift and talented teacher then might use that information and say hey if you're designing uh one of the holes for this golf course why don't we do a space theme because now they know that that child really likes space so there's a place where it can be helpful it didn't say it didn't cause us to say wow that's the reason to put the child um give this child those services but it might guide that teacher later on once student correct okay so that's an example okay thanks Miss yman thank you for this wonderful extensive presentation it's opened up a whole new world uh congratulations to Dr lactina Miss D uh all the any administrators parents teachers specialist anybody that was involved in this project it's long it's extensive but I do have a question one question and one statement so the one question goes back to one of the first slides where it talks about um 6A the law mhm could we go back to that sure the strengthening gifted Education Act that one it might take me time to go through 40 slides yeah sorry about that there's got to be an easier way I'm just going to add ask that everyone on the board please make sure your cell phones are away there you go okay so um the 6A 8- 3.1 A5 um it says that more content areas when compared to his chronological peers in the school district so it doesn't mention anything about um individual schools so is there any um any other part of the 6A law that states that you can go by the school uh Norms so that that's that's the and again Mr kamno can certainly correct me but there is a great deal of leeway in how you structure your gifted and talented program um as well as the multiple measures that you use and the percentiles that you use so what this is basically saying is that they want us comparing students to students that are within the district the students sitting in the classes with them are within the district they're not saying you have to use School Norms on this slide they're not talking about Norms they're just saying that when we're comparing students they don't want it to be comparing to students in the district next door in the state that's you know across the country they want us making sure that we are using the environment and the school district so students in the school are certainly part of our school district and because our services are presented within a school building it's really important that the students sitting in that classroom receiving services are similar to the other students and they're not necessarily similar if I'm comparing Johnny from one school to Billy from the other school so we are a diverse community and so best practice we are using students within the the school district we happen to drill it down even further and we're identifying school so as far as I am aware there's nothing that prevent school districts from choosing whether or not they want to use District or school-based Norms um much of that I think depends on sort of the demographic makeup of the of the school district okay thank you and then just the one statement and this is just a a generic statement um is um I don't understand and it doesn't have to have an answer I don't understand how we have to evaluate gifted and talented students every year but we're not required to or we are we're not required to do it every year but we're making it part of our program but special ed students and children with IEPs it's every three years so that's just it's a statement you can answer it's well with the gifted and talented remember we're not labeling a student right so we're not saying this child is gifted we're saying this child is in need of these programs special education students have annual reviews every year parents child study team that team including the parents sit and talk about what are the appropriate programs and what are the appropriate services for that student for the next school year so if you think about it less as about a label a classification and more about programs it's actually in line with what we do with special education each year we're identifying what are the programs and services that a special education student needs what are the programs and services that other students might need in the area if gifted so again it's it's that mirrored kind of triangle lying on its side the Continuum of services I need an answer I just want to clarify uh I'm talking about a full assessment is is the part of it like every year you're giving a full assessment whereas in special education that's what I'm saying it doesn't really need an answer to it but like it's a full assessment every year and then in for a child that has an IEP it's every full assessment is every three most of the time right I just want to remind everyone this isn't a dialogue and our we need to focus on specifically the gifted and talented um definition that was the focus of this question I am going to defer to um Mr kamno just to clarify something yeah wonderful questions um the the these issues of addressing student needs the my great perseveration when we look at these different vehicles and I love the fact that we heard that this presentation was talking about where we began uh addressing need intuitively in the moment as quickly as we can without label and whether we talk about IEP or 504 or mtss or g&t right they're labels there are different ways we regulate service but this is all about resourcing faculty and staff to address in the moment those learning needs which I know you're sensitive to as well um the gifted and talented law and if you note uh this began and this conversation began back in 1819 that's referencing Reg ulation that was that was current then regulations have changed in fact um current now because there are additional updates which I think Dr Latina referenced as well uh effective April 2024 uh the that citation now no longer notes compared to the chronological peers in the school district it actually notes District Boards of Education shall be responsible for identifying gifted in Talent students and shall provide them with appropriate instructional adaptations and services again addressing need in the moment through and how districts may choose to regulate that process so I wanted to make that comment secondly which was another great question comparing how we look at Broad assessment tools that arm uh faculty and staff and administration every year assessments that are given to every student broadly and then used in this process to identify students uh who may need additional Challenge and then we're going to Resource that that's everyone idea has specific you know Federal Regulations which specify how idea Part B monies given to us from Uncle uh are spent by the district including in part evaluations which are triennial and we got a number of special ed experts here who would tell you that we can't evaluate every year because of practice effect uh and other reasons which would actually impact the Integrity of testing so the FED set that number at every three uh not every year and that's only for students who are identified as you know uh as potentially disabled not all this is talking about all so I think those are uh important things Dr lacatena um Mrs D thank you so much thank you this is the P this portion of our board meeting is specifically for comments on resolutions listed in tonight's agenda this is the public comment section when speaking please state your name and Municipality of residents please do not give us your full address we do not need it um specify which resol resolution you are addressing limit your remarks to 3 minutes state law prohibits board members and the administration from discussing Personnel matters student discipline or other confidential issues please note this is not a dialogue or a Q&A session between speakers and the board while we may not respond imediately or to every comment made tonight all input is carefully considered and helps inform our decisions responses may come through emails reports board statements website updates or after the comment period closes thank you for your participation in our school community's governance the floor is open good evening everyone uh my name is Simon fer I am from Fon drtina thank you for presentation it's wonderful but a few questions still uh came up so uh my question is about regulations 20 464 which is gift and talented it's an agenda uh we talked about it a few times but still um part D with exit procedure so conent reduction says each student identified as a gift in tent that will be assessed annually for continuing uh to be in a program and assessment will include interviews with students student parents legal guardian teaching staff members educationally responsible for the student student review student uh profile including relevant test results and review student work in preceding year school year and the part B says the program will be revised uh as required to me students needs and interest uh the proposal one says uh each student identified the gift and talented uh will be re reidentified annually using the most current assessment data uh and so on so my question about it is based on those two points or those two parts of section uh d uh does it mean that students attending last year the program should be fully retested or re or reassessed based on what current regulation is saying because if we retest it means we don't say it's gifted anymore and uh the child can be removed from the from the program another question is uh if a student attended g&t program last year like um definitely should be removed because of it so there are two questions in the same about the same points uh I want to understand what exactly are we following on current regulation and what's going to happen when if new regulation will come into the board uh this probably my main two questions another question I had but uh uh Mr John sorry I don't know your last name uh replied or answer this question it's about um current law which has new joria state and you said has been updated recently I didn't see that yet I'm going to review of course but current law in chapter 18a section 35 says it should be chronological District comparison which Miss uran pointed out so uh because if we are changing the regulation as proposed it will be against my in my understanding so if we changing the propos if we voting for a proposal if you voting for a proposal to use local Norms but New Jersey state law says it's a district it's doesn't match there is no much thank you and I probably should sign up sorry there we go my name is Elizabeth esterson and I live in Falon and thank you again for the presentation I also have a few questions and comments about it specifically in terms of the part of the um intention in rebranding and relabeling the reach program as the gifted and talented program from the audit as was explained in the September meetings was about better representing with the program program was and aligning it with the gift Education Act in the state of New Jersey and to that extent I understood it as more of a recognition of giftedness as a neurode Divergent classification in the same way of other neurode Divergent classifications and so in that regard I do have some concerns or or unclarities of of the reassessments the reassessments seem to indicate it's more of an achievement based identification process that's why one student could be identified one year and not identified next year similar to trying out for a sporting team and you know you only get the top whatever number of kids and it doesn't matter if someone is excellent if there are 12 children who are more excellent It's about how you are ranking compared to your immediate peer group as opposed to a neurode Divergent classification that is really a a brain difference um as neurod divergences are evaluated um and that classification is not something that is really different or dependent on your local peer grouping and so I was also interested in that the reassessment annually is really only reassessing certain components of it from what I understood it's the njsla that is retaken it is the clicket that's retaken or is that the right term Co not not the coat the Kat is not retaken link it thank you link it that is retaken whereas the Kat and I think the Torrance also are a oneand done so I'm concerned or not concerned I'm curious about how the decisions are made of what is re-evaluated versus what is the standard valuation and considered a one time only um if the considerations about how children's brains change aren't all of the things worthy of re investigation or if the view of of giftedness is more of the psychological um view of it being a neurod Divergence why is everything having to be reanalyzed in that regard thank you let me just make sure that there's nothing on the Google act no one else wants to speak goe there is one comment on the Google Doc and that is from sorry from Mel I apologize for not being able to attend in person tonight but I just wanted to wish Mrs Joan Cosgrove much health and happiness in her retirement congratulations on your retirement and thank you for all you've done for fairon schools if she spoils her grand kids half as much as she has spoiled FL these past 28 years those babies are in great hands I would also like to welcome Miss CLA Keller to our district while she has big shoes to fill I can already see how she will excel in our district bloomfield's losses our gain for sure lastly Miss Erica mki it is such a pleasure to have you serve as our F rep for Edison school and we wish to congratulate you on this new opportunity with your passion for children education and impeccable organization skills we have no doubt that you will be amazing as the new before after Care supervisor which I definitely Echo those sentiments so Mr SP come on back up thank you uh about labeling this is definitely not about labeling this is about kids and kids if kids identified as a gifted how come they cannot get the become Ungifted next year this is unfair to them just imagine a kid goes to a school as a gifted child for a few years and at some point next year someone says you know what you're not gift anymore go to your regular class get bored over there don't do anything and L lose your motivation next year we'll assess you again and if you wish or if you will be able to pass the test you'll be come back as Drina mentioned about Dr Thomas uh audit she was saying child uh a child can fail a test it's not a problem for being gifted so I'm asking the board to take this into consideration and think about it again if possible thank you anyone else the floor is closed no I don't think we have any responses I think all the questions have been answered in the presentation tonight um I am now going to open the floor to board member comments on agenda items miss vich m uh Dr berini your okay so I might be at misunderstanding again but let me just make sure I understand the data Pro profile sheet according to Mr kamgno states that it is a student record based on the law again on the fura law we don't have to provide it as a school district for free but we can say We'll charge you $5 $3 $5 whatever the service fee is to actually get a copy for the profi uh profile data sheet if I'm Mis misunderstanding it again can you please explain how a parent if they want a physical copy they can actually pay to get a copy of it or can they take a picture of it can they do anything to actually have it in their hands to exp the next thing is I looked at Miss Meredith District that she oversees I wanted to see the policy because of the regulation I send it to the administration ahead of time so this is nothing new so that the and the school and the board leadership also received my email I never got a respon but I'll call it a day for that one it says her reg the regulation 2464 says students will be considered for participation in the gifted and talented program when compared to their peers within the district that's with Miss Meredith Thomas School District she over the gifted program she oversees that's the regulation also the regulation says something that I don't understand I asked this question again an email didn't get a response so I'm going to ask it here again it says the it says the selection criteria from St Esme and the selection criteria says has an IQ okay we not using IQ has a standardized test where does it say for tier for grade three the students have to have a 95th percentile or 96 percentile or whatever the percentile is in how many areas like four areas three areas six areas I have no idea whatever the areas are where does it say that and to get to tier two the child has to have four or five or whatever it is parts of six 93rd percentile in this in these areas I don't see that based on St esma it states that we do have to have it in our regulation a currently our regulation just says we'll just use different uh multi- level which is great but how is a parent supposed to know that their child didn't get in and it's supposed to be four or five where does it say I looked at the handbook for gifted and talent it doesn't say to get into tier two you need to have so many measures on our profile sheet to get into tier three there's so many level so many levels of 96 97 percentile whatever the percentile is and Mrs Merida's um um Miss Thomas her name is Miss Thomas Miss th okay thank you for interrupting me I appreciate it um it's actually says the criteria why are we not including it in the criteria okay I'll come back since my time is up I assume Dr berini I can definitely read this now I'm thinking what I want to say first of all I want to congratulate and I want to thank Mrs Keller for joining our district and our willingness to join Falone schools we're we're very fortunate from what from what I've seen replacing Dr lactina will not be an easy task as we all know but I'm confident based on your resume and our meet and greet earlier tonight that you could reach the high standard set by Natalie however I would be remiss and and I if I did not add this additional Point uh I am puzzled why everyone here did not support the selection of such a highly qualified applicant and I want to wish you the best of luck as you join a new chapter in your life so congratulations thank you Miss yman okay so um I want to congratulate Joan cosgro this is for 5A um it's a long time ago and it's right around when our kids her youngest started um grade school and with my daughter so I want to congratulate her have her enjoy her retirement with her grandbabies um it's it is an amazing Club to be in and and I wish her all the luck in the world um congratulations to miss Keller on joining fairon schools I've I went to Fair loone schools my kids went through Fair loone schools and it's an amazing place to be um I going another part is I still um have concerns with the 11a policy of the regulation 2464 um I happen to Google a um a few of the schools um I just Googled regulation uh 2464 and I basically got um one where it was seven pages long and it asked for specific criteria I I bless you and I googled one uh I goog another District that didn't even update it I go another District that was kind of middle of the Road kind of like ours and I googled one that was in uh I'm trying to think if it's in say or Bergen County I'm not really sure um but it's uh where it was very minimalistic um so I think that I go back to last the last meeting that we were part of um where we voted to um not pass the first reading and if I don't have that right uh stand corrected um but I think we have to go to the uh Committee of the whole of the education uh committee and and really really we look at it and put some of our standards from the presentation um into the regulation because it it you know such as percentages and tests that are going to be done and get more detail in in to it I have not seen the blank stra sesme policy so I I I wasn't able to log into stme uh to see what their policy was so I'm looking at a revised to for fairon a revised 2006 I think it is um policy rather than a Strauss asme as it as it would stand today if if it was made available but I'm not as said I wasn't able to log in um to their site so I'd like to start from what they have as you know 2024 or 2023 even of whatever their most recent one is and work within that one and produce a regulation I have absolutely no problem with the presentation and and what was said in the presentation and how things are done except for my little concern of of the what the law says but that's been explained um and I thank you very much thank you Mr Bowski thank you I first want to Echo the sentiments of my fellow board members with seven I Mrs Keller welcome to the district we look forward to working with you uh I want to thank the administration for 10i which is the donation of discarded uh cafeteria tables I think these types of Partnerships are great for the district in terms of sustainability um but also in terms of um ensuring that items that we may no longer have use for that still have life in them can be used elsewhere by students regardless of it's whether it's this District or districts outside we are all here for the support of the students across the state and then the last comment I simply want to make on uh 11a the policy 64 or 2464 um I want to highlight the importance of or warn against looking at other districts and how they they have the same policies policies that work for other districts may not work the same way it does for faon and that's why we need to adapt it uh for ourselves I I want to highlight that Dr Thomas's district has one elementary school so the language that they use in their policy when they say all district contains the entire school um and so just to to caution fellow board members when we look at other districts that there are many factors that go into a district whether it's the the um economic social groups whether it's the number of schools we are a large diverse District so thank you Miss Brown uh Joe Joe stole my thunder for a lot of things um I Echo the same sentiment about uh regulation 2464 which we're voting on tonight not policy um you're welcome uh I'm also excited I was also very excited to see uh the donation that we are providing uh in 10 I um I feel the same way we're in it for all students um you know I know we're here for fairon students um but sharing is caring so and what's good for our students is good for all so I'm excited to see that we're we are um reaching out and donating to other uh districts I also wanted to congratulate Joan Cosgrove on her uh retirement um and I wish her all the best and I wholeheartedly am so excited to have Mrs Keller here um and it is true that she has gigantic shoes to fill um but after listening to you speak tonight and after um being privy to you your uh tremendous um resume and all of that information I'm very excited to see what you're going to do in the district so I wholeheartedly want to welcome you um and we're we're very excited to have you Mr Rosenberg sorry I did not see you Mr Banta Mr Banta thank you thank you um well we certainly Peach jar Rec 2464 I mean I don't think there's anything left to say today is a microcosm of the issues we've been having for the past couple years trying to pass policies and regulations and there's no reason not to pass it we've got an attorney okay the superintendent and the central office seem to think it's going to work and I don't see any reason to vote no so I just wanted to say that thank you Mr Rosenberg thank you this Keller I hope we didn't chase you out of here congratulations again um you do have you know it it it's going to be really interesting um when Natalie leaves because she's just been such a fabric of this District but I'm sure that um you're going to do a great job and and otherwise you wouldn't be here tonight so um as far as the regulation as far I agree also on the the um donation to Patterson schools um they could always use stuff that even we consider um older and dated um they they if they have a use for it that's it's a it's a good thing um as far as um the the policy what is it 24624 regulation 2464 um again um I I I'm not going to repeat for that long considering how long we've been working on this since 2018 and I remember and even before that because the the the difficulty in Crea in this policy was way before or this regulation was way before 2018 so considering that we've been going back and forth for that long I think we need to go through with it and watch it work if it needs to be tweaked in the future we tweak it in the future especially as the law evolves um but I it was an incredible presentation and it answered all my questions so um that's it um and have a Happy Thanksgiving Mr Spindel M Keller I want to reiterate what all have said about you uh unfortunately my term expires next months I will not have the privilege and opportunity to work with you but from your vast experience that were noted uh I I think you're going to do an excellent excellent job of course I'm going to miss natal Natalie who uh I've worked with with with TW for the past 12 years actually it's been a long time so once again congratulations to you I don't typically make commentary but I just wanted to bring one other thing up uh not only do you know we all sat around and we talked about how grateful we are to you Natalie and to you Kelly and to all the people who are part of this process but for me I think what is the most important is really thanking our teachers our power professionals our staff who are in the classroom who are on the playground who are watching our kids during lunch because that's where real differentiated instruction come into play and that is the TRS of all education differentiating scaffolding up scaffolding to meet every need both High Achievers students with um individual differences neurod divergencies students who are identified as part of our gifted education you guys are the reason that our students are successful you are the reason that we are sitting here talking about how we can continue to expand continue to enrich and continue to differentiate so with all due respect to both of you who created an incredible presentation I'm going to use Miss Hoffman as an example and say thank you to you because as a teacher who sits here month after month and to all of your colleagues at every school every school in our building thank you for doing what you do because the heavy lifting don't get me wrong is a lot of policy and a lot of time and meetings but you guys are doing all of that implementing you guys are the reason our kids are getting what they need so thank you so much to you and Miss Keller I already thanked you for being here I congratulated you but something that as a social worker really hits me as everyone keeps saying that you have huge shoes to fill Natalie you're incredible you know I believe that I'm not asking you to fill Dr lacaine issues I'm asking you to join us in continuing to ensure that fairon school district is an incredible place to learn to grow and to be a part of so welcome okay so we actually are maxing out it there are two minutes left so you've got two minutes well he went twice who went twice Mr Rosenberg nope so I'm going to since I'm not allowed to speak I'm going to make a motion that we put the selection criteria the actual criteria to get into the gifted and talented into the regulation as the state law s uh uh the new state so my motion is to put the actual criteria the 95th per the 94th perel whatever it is to get into tier one to get into tier two to tier three in the regulation 2464 thank okay I'd like to propose a subsidiary motion to move this motion to a committee to follow the proper protocols and procedures to move a motion forward is there a second the sub motion but this is the policy that we're actually right now discussing it's the first read that's what the first read does you change it excuse me movich I'm going to defer to Mr kenno on the process floor is open miss valich the law states Miss Marth District says that the selection criteria Miss Thomas her name Miss I've been dealing with the and I appreciate that everyone is referring to um her as Dr Thomas I actually wasn't I don't think I recall that she is um a doctor and I do want to point out that it's really important that we refer to all of uh the people who have earned those degrees as doctors so I'm just going to ask that everyone moving forward andure that every single person refers to the person as their rightful um doctorate Mr and misses moving forward that means then W vot be voted on today if you move the move regulation I am yes I am discussing why I think we should not be moving it and that's why I'm not talking all right okay the law says that we have to have a criteria in their regulation that's what stuss Esme for the past four years anytime I wanted to change one word in the struss Esme language I was always told stress West knows better we're not allowed to change one word and what they recommend that's what I told I have the stress MTH as my paper because it wasn't M A Dr Meredith uh what's her Thomas um website and it says the selection criteria according to stress estimate it says students will be considered for the participation in the gifted and talented program compared to the uh peers within the district and it says one IQ score two standardized test three obviously we're using different thing but it actually actually puts a line to tells us what the number is what the I shared it with the administration before everybody jumps on me and says oh you never said anything I did I shared it I tried my best point of information I'd like to make it very clear that that was sent at 6:00 this morning and to ask anyone to respond to an email given less than 24 hours just seems unreasonable I don't know about you guys but I have a full-time job I have two children I drove to Oakland twice today after work and went to a doctor's appointment so asking anyone to respond to an email would be unfair please understand and for anyone in the audience who's listening anyone who has never gotten an email from me within a 24 to 36 hour is very unlikely I was responding to emails as the board president because I am the voice of the board from a cruise ship on my vacation to ensure that I was responding in an appropriate amount of time so to ask myself or the superintendent to respond to an email in Under 12 hours on the of a board meeting just seems unreasonable so I'd really like to clarify that you are making a statement that does not show the grand scheme of things we need to see the farest through the trees the trees here I'm glad you said that because the superintendent sends us at 2:00 the revised version of the policy that was um that failed last board meeting so if I'm not supposed to be looking at emails for 24 hours then we told as a board we discussed that a policy or any motion that fails cannot be brought up again until the next year or the board has changed the board hasn't changed we're all the same people so the policy changed as of 2:00 today or 12:00 today somewhere there we don't have time to look at it to change see what and we were and I wrote in my questions on Mon I think this weekend by the right by the deadline which says that the policy hasn't changed so we should not be putting this policy back on the until we meet with the committee we discuss it we Chang it we we met with the committee we got a beautiful presentation but the policy was never discussed that's one problem the second problem is we never had an education whole education committee meeting we never have a so I don't understand why we're not following um Robert's Rule Robert's Rules if a motion fails only the P only the person on the prevailing side can bring up the motion again so I don't understand why we even having this gifted and talented I wrote all of the things in the questions more than 24 hours in advance thank you I'd also like to make another point of information past practice P procedure although there is no policy or regulation and maybe that's a conversation we need to have is that all information is said to go through leadership that would be my myself as the board president and Mr bosski as the board vice president today is the first time we have ever received an email from you so you are now asking us to put ourselves out when both Mr baldowski and I have jobs and work all day and I did respond to your email after my workday was over so with that said I am going to ask Dr I'm going to to the whole board with my request with my comments no with with the board comments yes they were Dr dionio answered them everybody got them I am going to ask Dr dionio to respond gladly thank you um so miss felich we actually um to your point we actually did have uh education committee last week when we were having discussions in that committee for I would say it's about an hour 50 to 55 minutes that day it was I would say 50 of the 55 minutes was actually all related to gifted and talented and as you see that's all actually related to in fact the regulation that was presented last month as a first read furthermore the revisions that were provided that the board received that's on for a first reading today um the administration Reserves the right to be able to put on new regulations this is a new regulation because there have been substantive changes that have been made specific to the feedback that was provided and in fact you'll probably recognize that the revisions that are in there are all framed based on the feedback you provided in committee so none of it is a surprise to you Dr berini just two points one I'm gonna I think I'm pretty sure I'm gonna quote Mr Rosenberg who who doesn't who doesn't like motions at the last minute before it's been I think it's Mike us he said both of Mike always says it though uh and then the second point is I I I know Strauss Esme well very well for my years in education and I've been on many meetings here as a board member and there is no rule that says you cannot change Strauss Esme we do state that St estimat are the experts and we do respect their opinion but that we have never said I've never said on a committee meeting and I've been in a lot of committee meetings dealing with Strauss Esme you can change Strauss Esme but they're the experts we we respect their viewpoint but you can change it we've never said at this as a member of the Falone Board of Education or my years of EXP experience we have never said I've never said nor as anybody I've heard said we cannot change anything Strauss s has recommended thank you call the question can I get a clarification on said question and then a roll call please there is a subsidiary motion to move any discussion of Regulation 2464 changes to the education committee Mr baldowski please come back to me Mr Banta no Dr berini wait I'm sorry let's get a clarification I get a clarification if I vote yes that means it goes back to committee if you vote no it does not go back to committee Mr bant can I ask a further clarifying question yes if we send concerns to committee can we still vote on the first reading yes thank you Mr banto no Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Miss bovich so no if I I'm confused a point of information if I say no then we can vote on my if it prevails then we can vote on my motion if it yes then yes okay so no Mr Rosenberg no Mr spendel yes I think Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes subsidiary I'm sorry no thank you subsidiary motion wait hold on one second before I before I just want to make sure if I vote yes that means we can vote on my motion if I vote no to your goes back to your motion that you put on the no I'm confused correct no if she votes if she votes yes yes I'm confused can you please a point information I'm a little confused so if you vote no which you did you wrote you you voted in favor of going back to your motion however this subsidiary motion carried which means we are going to ask that any concerns after we vote on the first reading can still go back to the education committee please please understand that just because a policy or a regulation have a first reading and move to a second reading or a second reading and move on to voting in and moving into practice doesn't mean we can't have discussions about policy and regulation these are things that are our job as the Board of Education it is one of the primary functions of our roles as trustees so we can always continue to have conversations however as the board president president I will be referring this back to education small for further discussion however tonight we still will be voting on 11a as a first reading as is noted as a new uh regulation with the new inclusions regarding what was discussed at the education small thank you point of information correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure a regulation only needs needs one reading and will be voted it'll be going to effect tonight it could be adjusted after that but tonight's read reading vote would be the first reading and would be approved thank you so much for letting me know I actually um didn't realize it point of information the attorney never answered my question regarding profile data sheets if it's a student record can a parent pay for to get a copy of that record the answer that is no and just want to clarify that the subsidiary motion did carry yes okay so now we are moving on to the next agenda item okay okay so Julie Julie yes if I can make a motion given the hour can we just do a consent agenda for everything instead of doing one a one B one I that that's that's my motion I'll second third and fourth that all in favor you're welcome all in favor I no I yeah yeah yes please Mr baldowski yes Mr banto yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Miss fa no Mr Rosenberg yes Mr Spindel yes Miss yman no Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes why do agenda okay I actually know this I can say this I wrote it down got it 3 a five a through d 6 a through d 7 a through e and G and H 8 a through C 9 a through E 10 a through K and 11 A and B so moved second oh can I get a roll call abstain on 7 C3 yes on everything else Mr B yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown no on 7 E4 yes on everything else Miss fich no uh no on 5c I'm sorry no on 10K no on 5 C no on 11 A and B and I'll stain on looking together s 7 C3 I'm just going to read that that back to you 5 C 10K 11 a b and 7 C3 M thank you abstain on 7 C3 I'm sorry obain thank you Mr Rosenberg yes Mr spendel yes Miss Yurman no on 5c I'm sorry abstain on 5C and no on 11a and yes on everything else Mrs Mayhan abstain on 7 E4 yes to everything else all of the agenda items pass this is a portion of our board meeting is specific for comments on any matter when speaking please state your name and Municipality of residence specify which resolution you are addressing that doesn't actually make sense so ignore that um limit your remarks to three minutes state law prohibits board members and administrators from discussing Personnel matters student discipline or other confidential issues please note this is not a dialogue or Q&A session between speakers and the board while we may not respond immediately to every comment made tonight all input is carefully considered and helps inform our decisions responses may come through emails reports board statements website updates or after the comment period closes thank you for your participation in our school community's governance the floor is open Mr Weaver are you just leaving or you coming to make a [Laughter] comment uh good evening Mike Weaver principal Thomas Jefferson Middle School um I didn't as Natalie knows sometimes I don't always get everything in like on time like it usually comes like last minute um I might get a call nudging me to say hey you didn't send that thing uh but I didn't want to wait until the last minute um for this uh to the December meeting and then not have the opportunity to come um I wanted to make sure I was here tonight in person um on behalf of myself um the administrative team to thank Mr Banta and thank Mr Spindel for your years of service um whether I was principal at far school or welcoming in kindergarten parents or now in my role at Thomas Jefferson Middle School welcoming in fifth grade parents part of that orientation I always communicate that fairon offers the children of this town one of the best educations in the world I mean we certainly know the rankings and and that certainly tells a story uh but there's a qualitative piece that you really can't put into words um unless you see it every day like I do and um I can tell you that you both have made a huge difference in the lives of thousands of children and their families um I thank you for entrusting me to do the job that I've done over the years uh I can't thank you enough for your support um I know every time I would come to a meeting to present uh of our teachers for teacher of the year or introduce new teachers I always appreciated Mark um that you'd come up to me after and and thank me for those words that I had shared with the board um because you genely genuinely cared um and were listening not that everybody else wasn't um I remember when we had just finished the uh the construction at TJ and it was during Co um and Jean had come over uh to do a walkth through and I was so excited to show him different uh uh rooms like the the steam room um and the multi-purpose room and uh the guidance suite and I brought jean into the guidance suite and I don't know if he remembers this or not but uh I said and this is the guidance child study team site um and he looked at me and he goes you can't call it a site the public just won't go for that so it's not like there's a coner Lounge in there that that the district's paying for but every time I walk by there now in fifth grade orientation I I I catch myself and I always think of Gan now when I walk into those offices because I can't call it a sweep um but um the hours the time the care the dedication um it's we we as a district can thank you enough and so uh thank you thank you for the opportunity to come tonight and and speak Google doc there is one comment from Mel jurow uh please mark your calendars for the FL dinner dance it's called the Shameless plug right here uh on February 28th 2025 we are currently looking for sponsors and attendees get your tickets ASAP and uh I know we'll all be there so thank you very much Mel did Mel say anything about raffle tickets no don't you dare don't you dare don't you dare the floor is closed I will now open the floor up to comments on any item for the board Mr Spindel if the middle school or the high school if they're looking for uh another club to open up there's a new thing that's catching on like wildfire it's called the clean initiative you can check the information at clean initiative.org it's a club basically that has the kids helping the seniors with technology and in this day and age everything obviously is technology and a lot of the elderly people I'm not going to mention any board members here could could possibly use that help so once again it's it's clean initiative.org thank you and I I also want to wish everyone a happy healthy Thanksgiving Lisa so um in January I'll be losing the person to my right and the person to my left left but um I did mention to Dr lactina that I remember her first day at radburn school my children one of my children was was a fifth grader there and now I will be able to be honored to uh congratulate her on her retirement I'm going to do it today um as opposed to in December when we'll uh talk about the board members um but I wish you a wonderful retirement and um the many years that you've been here it's a long time and um you'll be terribly missed but again life move moves on and I wish uh Miss Keller um a new new her new opportunity and to work with uh the residents of fairon and the administration and superintendent and board so thank you very much and Happy Thanksgiving Miss valich I also want to wish uh Dr thank you for all that you have done you've always answered my question and I've always been respectful and I just want to say thank you so much for everything you have done so far my other two three concerns are the following I've been asking since May 30th for Education committee meeting to be included I've wrote it on text message no I've I've brought it up to board meetings no I wrote an email to the chair of the education committee no then I spoke to the education education committee and said can you please read your email I don't read emails wonderful what do you want me to do like I I I H I think I'm just going to bring a billboard and ask for it on a billboard I don't really know what else I can do I've been ask our policy says two it should be included in the next two meetings I've been asking for five months already can you please clarify what what you're asking for my topic to be discussed that I've been asking for for the past since May you've been asking for a disc a topic to be discussed in the education committee I've emailed Dr balini I've spoken to him when we had the education committee I said I sent you an email can you please read it he says I don't read emails so I would like to know can it please be put on for the next education committee even La the so I just want to clarify you said that I wrote it on in May 30th to him no no I just want to clarify because you said that we have to have two education meetings a year but monthly education small meetings a topic that is proposed must be put on the committee agenda within two meetings of having so if I pretend on May then within two meetings the topic must be put on that's what our polic I just want to clarify our policy and procedure does state that you're absolutely right however procedurally if if you're not getting an answer from a committee chair that's what board leadership is for and myself and Mr baldowski have not received emails for you as I stated before the first email we've gotten from you all year since we've been in leadership was today so please forward it to me so that I can ensure that it is put on an agenda because that's actually what our role is is to ensure that if something is missed as leadership and as the voice for the board we can move things for forward without knowing and without being privy there's no opportunity for that may I finish my sentence go right ahead I brought it up in September's board meeting the administration says it will be put on the agenda I'm still waiting so that's I'm just bringing this up so that everybody I've been bringing it up bringing it up bringing it up I don't know what to do anymore but okay for point of information I just told you what to do I just told you to email me please that's all we're asking for can you please stop interrupting me let me finish my time and then you can answer my question I will I'm not gonna answer your question Rita I telling you that this is our procedure all you talk about you're right Mrs bich however Dr jio is a doctor so moving forward nobody's responding to you unless you speak to all of us the way you expect to be treated I'm still speaking this is still my time can you please stop interrupting me when I finish my comments then you can make your comments that's respectful start your time now okay and then we can finish uh all of your questions okay thank you I appreciate it so I would like to make sure that my topic that I wrote since May 30th we put on the December uh education committee number one number two I was wondering we brought this up maybe two years ago and uh the board didn't seem to not like this idea so I was asking again if he can actually consider it um the snapshot of our meeting like in do Mr n's um new District they have every board meeting the vote what was discussed on one page everything it was it's like a summary that explains what was taken uh what was the vote what was this discussion anything on one page so it's like a snapshat for everyone to be able to read Because board is kind of difficult to um use unless you're really good at it so I was wondering if that could be please uh considered for the following year um I know that we're going to be discussing the school calendar sooner or later I hope the administration may I understand professional development is important I'm an educator myself but they have their profession development the three of them I was hoping the administration can eliminate them here's why I asking very politely to remove them first of all parents my mother was a single mom she worked a lot of hours half a day means she doesn't get paid because she can't pick up she can't pick me up so therefore she would have to like not have a paycheck that day and that's a problem for single parents second of all if my mom would be lucky enough to get the after school care the kid will the student will be standing from 12:00 to 6:00 that's 6 hours in a room without any really instruction time and I just don't think that's in the best interest of the children so I as much as I understand professional development is incredibly important I also understand that the mental health of our students is more important than anything else we ever do and having five to six hours of sitting in a room being watched is not really helpful for the kids so I'm hoping that the district calendar will not have the three half days in with this three half days you will also have four half days for conferences which I think is the very fundamental Madam president I call for the orders of the day you have 30 seconds remaining can I please finish can you stop everybody interrupting me and the last thing is the dinners I really would like the board to eat the dinners that the students eat every day not what we eat I just think it's important for us to understand what the students are eating I think it will be a better understanding thank you [Music] thank you Mrs Mahan just uh I think I need to respond to the comments made about me since I'm the chair of the education committee uh and and over the past two years as a board member I've received phone calls from re uh Mrs fich I received text messages I don't always answer my emails because everyone knows on this board I struggle with the email that we have in the system so I don't always answer emails [Laughter] I'm and I'm trying to be serious here I miss spendal that is a good line though I appreciate that yeah okay but so certainly but uh the interesting part and I I know numerous people on the committee we have spent most of our education committee time frame on topics that have been offered by Mr fich I don't know what the topic is that I'm missing but we certainly went over math curriculum for an entire meeting with everything displayed over there by you uh then we did uh the next thing we did was the the gifted and talented that Dr lactina and that was the entire education committee I had a topic agenda item that I was able to speak for about 30 seconds if everyone recalls about uh conservatories andies at the high school level so if I missed one certainly I can put it back on the on the agenda but we spent a lot of time a lot of time on your topics thank you the floor is closed wait I got to say one more thing I want to wish Dr ler good luck tell her next year next month it is 10:13 the floor is closed upcoming meeting dates are on December 19th it's our regular monthly meeting and at 7:30 p.m. here at Thomas Edison school please join us because during this time we will be saying thank you and congratulations to so many amazing people who have done such incredible things for our district and our community and then on January 2nd 2025 will be our organization meeting at 7:30 p.m. at Thomas Edison school can I get a motion to adjourn so moved it's 10:14 Happy Thanksgiving all in favor