##VIDEO ID:0oVvPbUtaUg## [Music] know e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e if you could call the role Please Mr Clark here hello Miss Miss Evans here miss groger here Dr King miss casula here Mr pluta here M Santos here Mr van heis here dispos absent you have a quorum right thank you all right whereas the open public meetings act authorizes Boards of Education to meet an executive session under certain circumstances uh where's the open public meetings act requires the board to adopt a resolution at a public meeting to go into private session therefore be it resolved that by the Lawrence Township Board of Education that it is necessary to meet an executive session to discuss certain items involving matters involving anticipated or pending litigation including matters of attorney client privilege and specifically a residency case and special education settlement formal action will not be taken in executive session and is expected to last about 30 minutes uh do I have a motion so second Motion in a second Mr truart Mr Clark yes M Evans yes M Kroger yes yes Mr pluta yes Miss Santos yes Mr van Heist yes Miss Bose absent you have all approved okay thanks hear right again e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon as required under law adequate notice of this meeting has been provided via email and or facts to the times the Lawrence Ledger the public library and has been filed with the municipal clerk this notice was provided prior to the 48 Hours required by the open public meetings act the board reserves the right to limit public discussion of personnel items and other matters as defined in the law we'll now have the flag salute iance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stand indivisible jusice all all right we have no student representative report tonight uh recognition and acknowledgements nope all right uh we'll now have the adoption of minutes can I have a motion so moved second all right with a motion in a second Al the Rope please Miss Clark M Clark Miss Evans yes M groger abstain Dr King yes Miss pasi here yes Mr pluda yes Mr s Miss Santos abstained Mr van heis yesos is absent okay motion has been accepted and move option amend is moved approved all right reports to the board we start with our superintendence report okay my uh board report tonight will start with a presentation from Dr Panos and M mzy if you want to take the podium they'll be reviewing our NJ um our New Jersey GPA scores access testing and AP exams please don't take the podium we need it for tonight okay good evening uh my name is Gene mzy and I am the director of student achievement equity and opportunity and this is my first board presentation on data yay and I'm Dr Mary panco I'm the instructional supervisor for English history World Language business theater family consumer science and health and physical education is that all do you fit that on a business card I do um so I'm excited to be here with Miss mzy uh to talk about our assessment so we're going to start tonight with the GPA so our GPA is our graduation proficiency assessment this was the second year that it was administered so last year it was administered as a field test so that was a class of 20 23 this was the class of 2024 and it counted this year and here it's going to count again so um for the class of 25 and this is what we did right now the uh Juniors who took the test in the spring last year in English we have 86% of our students who are graduation ready and you'll notice that it's graduation Ready or Not Yet graduation ready the state average is 82% and in MA last year for 2023 it's 59% this year steady at 57% still beating the state average of 55% and it is really steady uh we also talked about every single Junior must take this assessment must so if they are not successful on the graduation test this is where we look at how we can help them during their senior year so you'll see the menu of tests available to our students among the tests are the acup Placer for the first time this year we expanded the offering of the acup Placer to our students who did not meet the requirements on the GPA we also administer to the students the PSAT every fall so our Juniors take the PSAT in the fall prior to taking the GPA it's there as a safety net and if they get the score that they need to have you know there's no more testing because we don't want to over test our kids but we do want to make sure that their graduation ready our third pathway for graduation is a portfolio appeal and we'll be talking about that a little bit more but basically we have a class established where students have an opportunity to work through the tasks to ensure that they are able to graduate from high school and to demonstrate proficiency and the skills that they need to be successful after they leave us and these multiple pathways are the way we support again all students so we're going to talk a little bit about the analysis of mathematics scores I know I'm in of eight departments mathematics is not one of them but I'm going to happily talk about them anyway uh Miss Foster is vacationing this week um but she didn't trust me with her slides so you can see our district average at 7:34 is right next to the state average of 735 the Highlight from this is a lot of our students if you look at the reasoning and modeling skills that are tested on the GPA we're moving the students above so what we're looking for is the skills to be you know above uh what the state expects so that is moving up the students who are not yet ready to graduate that percentage is shrinking so we're seeing some improvement in our cohorts right and that's a real positive because reasoning you know we talk a lot about critical thinking that's where we want our students to have those strong skills so that that's really encouraging uh and now looking at the U math GPA by race you know we definitely see where our hard work is in front of us um we have some strong blue bars on passing but we have to look at our Hispanic and black scores we're really trying to hone in on those um the Hispanic population as you know at the high school is especially High especially with our English language learning students as Juniors so um we do know where it is as we look across all of those bands and that's true here too as well yeah um but compared to last year we're looking at some success for our 504 kids um you know looking at our free and redu reduced lunch children beginning to clim as well um but again this is a great indicator of where we need to be placing our efforts and as aside from some of our students being identified as English language Learners I think it's important to note that 30% of them who are still learning the language were capable of passing this very language intensive math exam so I'm really proud of their efforts on that so the path forward in math we're going to continue to look at some of the math programming that we have uh Miss Foster and the middle school and high school teams are looking at um instituting the Desmos uh platform in grade six up through algebra um which really involves building thinking classrooms and getting students to really interact with numeracy in different ways and as Miss mie mentioned to really hone in on those reasoning and modeling skills we um also have a second uh our year two this year of our summer program which is our bridge to algebra program Miss Foster has been tracking that over this year and our students who were enrolled in it last year we did see some gains while they were at the high school this year and year two was was just as popular so we'll be able to continue to grow that and as I mentioned earlier we do have a math lab for students this is where they will work on test prep skills so that they could take another test like the SAT and they'll also be working on their portfolio so they will get through um Meeting those standards in math so now we're going to talk about my subject which is English um I'm happy to report we're above the state average and we saw gains this year in four out of the five uh skills that are tested the most significant gain was in vocabulary which has been a focus of our Middle School and High School this year so it was really pleased to see that gain the only one we didn't gain in was writing conventions but that held stud exactly 73% % from last year so we're happy with the consistency there and again there's some good strong evidence that our Ela scores are moving in the right direction we're still honing in clearly we would love to see those red um not passing bars be reduced but we have a strong blue passing um representation I'm pretty happy I see and there we have it by program as well miss yeah um and we go back to the same thing but you know when you looking at you know our our free and reduced lunch uh students you know they're they're they're able to achieve and do amazing things we have high expectations for these kids our elll program we we know what we need to do and um also make some changes support our special education children and we we're happy to see again that 20% of students were able to meet the expectations on the U elll from the elll population L many of them haven't been here for that long so so the fact that they are passing this very rigorous test to in fact graduate from high school uh brings us some Joy uh we have the highest number of English language Learners um at about 60 students this year um about 15 of them were Juniors who took the test path forward in English is as I mentioned continued support for that ESL population here at the high school we're looking at um bringing some professional development to our teachers and supporting our current ESL staff we have the English lab uh class to strengthen our student skills and we're expanding those alternate testing Pathways like the acup Placer in the SAT for students to demonstrate ma uh Mastery in English and the weda um organization is the group that Consortium that brings us the access test for eals that is a langu English language proficiency test it is mandated for every English language learner enrolled in our district from a to 12 213 the largest number of students that took the access test um of those kids you know we were just looking like um the the weda starts at like a level one which would be entering into our programs as newcomers to pass that 4.5 you're all the way over here with having enduring language which is very close to being a fluent English speaker so it is there's a lot here to grow our newcomers are arriving and testing sometimes at one or two so to only have 6% it's not surprising um we have a lot of newcomers that are entering our district right and if they enter the district in March when we're administering the test they take the test in March with no preparation or English instruction at all so when you're looking at our especially our elementaries our third fourth fifth sixth yeah um they're not getting fours and fives on the New Jersey student learning assessment the SLA is our state testing and again it is um those critical thinking skills it's asking students to analyze and synthesize and apply their learning um so our newcomer students you know in third fourth fifth sixth may not have those skills yet um we're starting to see a little bit um you know in the math area but even the math um for our you know elll students there's a lot of reading on our math assessments and the access test is really like a a multi-prong test it's reading writing speaking and listening so there's a lot all right from there we're going to move to the AP exam so we rece just a question real quick sorry just before we move in I was wondering if we could continue to look at the progress with access for ows based on the number of years students have been in the district absolutely so we got we had a great conversation in our curriculum meeting but um again just to instead of kind of generalizing when we're looking at progress because we know there has been there's a difference of student who's been here for five years and what score they have totally and when you're looking like I just quickly did this before we came you know in kindergarten we had 17 students take that exam um half are brand new to the country the others have arrived within the year before 47% of those are in that lowest category that entering but when you start to look you know you're starting to look at third grade or fourth grade now they're moving into that developing so I think when you can track kids across time but as they get what I think Mary and I were also looking at with the high school it's always been usually those kindergarten and first grade classrooms where the newcomers came you know they were babies they left their country you know they came now we're really seeing it with sixth grade seventh grade 10th grade 11th grade the world events have impacted how we're seeing our newcomers you know arrive so to have those level one of access or level two but to be 10th graders it's a whole different uh situation than we usually see but tracking them is a great idea I'm going to be on that all right next we're going to talk about our AP exams and we're going to start with how many tests were administered so as you can see we've significantly increased the number of tests that were administered from May of 2022 to May of 2024 that's the largest amount ever yes so we're really happy about that the format of the test has also changed back in May 2022 was paper based um last year in 2023 it was paper based with the exception of World Language this year it was online and paper based and the College Board has announced that more of their tests are moving to online tests so nine tests are going online we were happy to Pilot three of the nine for next year and our students were very successful in those three how they just how do they do that because when they're taking the test here there is so much control about leaving the room yes um timing wise how how do they control that it's online here oh so there's still they're still here I thought they were taking it at home no no they're not taking it home but that's a great question M thank you yeah um so here for mathematics sciences and the Arts um you can see the pro progression of scores from 2022 to 2023 to 2024 the percentage of three three is the passing score it's three out of five um or higher has been reported out for um each of the categories where you see it in green that's where we notice increase So This Is Us Versus ourselves these are different cohorts of students um if you look at physics uh C the second one electricity and magnetism that hasn't been called out separately before which is why it's blank that course used to run every other year this year it ran with the physics mechanics class so we were able to offer both of those classes which we haven't been able to do in the past so we're really excited to have an extra offering in the stem uh field for students to engage in um but you can see our scores were pretty happy about them um here's how we compare for our 3% or higher it's LHS in the First Column the second column is the students in New Jersey I don't know why the extra three is in there and uh the last column is global so that's us versus the world so everywhere that it's green a lot of green is where we are outperforming those other populations and yeah there's a lot of green up there pretty happy um so for my department English History and the world languages World languages had less than 10 students take the exam so I've omitted them for the purpose of reporting tonight publicly but you can see from 2022 to 2023 to 2024 um the progression of skills um the English language and composition test has not been uh recalibrated yet but all of the other ones including the stem Fields as well have been recalibrated by the College Board um these are scores I'm pretty happy with all of those green numbers and some triple digits up there 100% that's fantastic um do you have uh information on the number of kids in a class that don't take the test versus the number of kids who do I do not but I can get that for you um but I will say from going from 200 to nearly 500 over 500 significantly more and the teachers did report that more kids opted to take the test this year which which is especially okay um important to notice as uh we look to expand some of our offerings and as we talk about dual enrollments these are the classes that we're looking at we're looking for kids to get three or above on these tests so we're hoping to further those conversations uh in the future and as we compare what we did to New Jersey to the rest of the world there's a lot of green and a lot of three-digit numbers so I'm very happy to see that and to really appreciate all the work of students and the staff who the staff is amazing to push the children students to that level it's so encouraging to see the growth in every subject so I'm really excited about that and that concludes our presentation thank you for your time you thank you both so much I know a lot of preparation goes into you know analyzing the data and I appreciate that um so for us it's been a super busy summer getting ready for the school year launch I did want to let the public know our strategic planning progress report has been updated and is online some of our constituents have asked so my office definitely took care of um making sure that the public is able to view that um I'm so excited I was over at Lis today the beautification process has started um you'll see the warmth when you walk the hallways everything is fresh and bright um a lot of our community conversations have um sort of surrounded this idea of if we're going to become an upper elementary building we want to feel the warmth of sort of that invitation you know the elementary families are looking for so we're absolutely hoping to achieve that I think you'll be pleased the teachers have been in setting up and they think that it's so comforting and and and fresh and nice and we've cleaned up the front area too and you'll start to see our new logos um emerge so it's it's awesome so thank you buildings and grounds and maintenance and they've coordinated a ton of work orders to get all that going um on the topic of cell phones I'm sure you've been watching the media um you know smell cell phones SM SmartWatches earbuds um you name it a lot of districts are really moving towards a ban um I'm certainly not looking to to ban cell phones all together what we're looking to do is to park them at the high school during instructional time um it's really time for us to kind of turn our attention and our Focus to our students mental health if you are watching the news or you know reading the book The anxious generation and you know understanding the surgeon general's warning around social media and the mental health impacts which is a topic very near and dear to our district we want to make sure our kids are healthy it's time to put the the cell phones away so you know when from middle school on down we have a way for the day and you know it's managed very nicely um at the high school level it's definitely been something we want to turn our attention back to we do have board policy that's pretty open and flexible um so we are certainly not implementing anything that isn't within our parameters to do but we need to give time back to instruction and we need to empower our teachers to park the cell phones and our office of instruction has already purchased sleeves for you know us to have the kids park their devices during instructional time and then they'll be allowed to view their cell phones and engage with whatever they engage with during passing time um but it's time to get back to business so just wanted to make the public aware there'll be more um information and newsletters coming out from the high school the high school administration will be speaking to our students early fall there's been conversations already held with the board uh with our teachers and certainly Opening Day activities will include behavioral you know management and class management to to kind of get back to the instructional Focus so for the third uh consecutive summer ltps has partnered with um New Jersey Center for future Educators I'm proud to say that this is an organization um at the College of New Jersey dedicated to finding and inspiring and recruiting future teachers as we know the pipeline of our teachers and good instructors is drying up we um utilize these Partnerships and we actually are host site for a summer future Academy that runs and Rising seniors are able B to participate the program aims to recruit students um from marginalized and underrepresented groups and the future Educators collaborated this summer with our camp Eagles I was able to interact with them a bit um providing multilingual students and future teachers opportunities to learn and grow the future Educators observed our Lawrence Township teachers participated in a Roundtable discussion and received advice on how to pursue teaching in the future the week come uh the week sort of ended with a science lesson on flight designed and taught by high schoolers and it was followed by a Kite Festival um the future Educators Academy is a nationally recognized model for developing and supporting Future Leaders and we are so proud to have our teachers be role models for our students learning and listening alongside us and finally we'll be work welcoming back our staff on opening day convocation September 3rd for those of you listening 8:00 a.m. in the High School auditorium we'll have two full days planned of professional development we are so excited for this school year everyone's been working so hard from technology to facilities um you name it our teachers are back in and already peeking up their classrooms and getting things going um that will be coupled with the launch of our new school logos so pay attention parents we'll be getting some information out to you soon we're highlighting that um for our constituents coming back to us and it will also be coupled with our reign Ed mobile app and our website which will be fully up and running and functional hoping to streamline communication to everyone and have it be is accessible as possible thank you I look forward to this year great thank you all right uh do we have anything for the board secretaries report nothing to report great thanks all right and the board president's report we have nothing to report I just wanted to wish everybody teacher staff parents students a great rest of the summer and welcome back to uh the news school year uh turning to committee reports uh we did community relations did not meet this month uh we're meeting in a few weeks so we'll go right to Liaison reports uh we don't have our student board member yet um so we'll go to New Jersey Schoolboard Association okay the other thing I wanted to add was our custodians and maintenance staff they are hard at work when you're walking in the building today you could see all the work they're doing now currently so many thanks to them for the long hours and dedication they're doing for all of us New Jersey school boards we have several webinars that are on uh line if you go to the uh New Jersey Schoolboard website we have live and virtual meetings that are available um one is tomorrow actually securing our schools how to effectively Implement cyber Security Solutions and this is a virtual event only um and you all receive the information that September 19th merer County School boards which is going to be held here at the high school is going to be held in the Commons unfortunately for us it's the same night is our back to school night for all the elementary schools so I'm going to be bouncing all over the place trying to do it all but the um the topic is something that I'm not really that familiar with um which is looking at um let me just see what I have right here let's see redefining what it means to be student athlete Champion um inclusivity diversity all of that but also they're looking at Esports which is the area that I really want to learn more about so I'm hoping I can bounce back and and jump in on that program too so um they're also looking at new sports like Cricket that are being offered in other districts to see if any other districts are bringing on boarding sports that we're not used to um being held in our school system so if you have time and you want to come there dinner will be served and we'd love to have you and there'll be more next month from New Jersey school boards okay thank you all right our Student Services report student services was held on got the wrong date student services was held on Tuesday in attendance was Vanessa Barak and myself arand Del Clark the esy and connect summer programs have completed successfully uh with the parents being thankful for the provided transportation and consistency everyone felt it was condensed uh enough which helped with all of their planning um position vacancies there are some available District positions that are available and that information will be posted by next week home instruction the district is looking into potential home instruction programs that will help supplement the curriculum in addition to the assign to the assigned teachers of of particular subjects that's all there is for the report okay great thank you uh we don't have a review of communications tonight all right we'll turn out to our first uh opportunity for public input please come to the podium limit your comments to 3 minutes and write your name and address on the sheet provided seeing none uh we do not have a board discussion and work session tonight um so we'll move to board discussion action action items Personnel okay Personnel did meet August 7th in attendance Sean fry excuse me Kevin vanheist Rob Puda Arendelle Clark and Joanne Koger we reviewed current vacancies including a district nurse LMS special education L's high school counselor and maintenance position we have several staff to appoint including LMS school counselor Ben Franklin third grade and second grade and Lees special educ education we discussed a restructuring within the technology and curriculum office Personnel um talked about NJ smart eoy which is end of the year report that was sent snapshot submission is completed we're working with the business office on payroll and on the Personnel side of Genesis we continue to hire an onboard new staff for the upcoming year and all policies and reg regulations we discussed are going to be moved for the first reading on tonight's agenda you'll see Corrections um uh resending of a new business item amendments confirmation for appointments due to clearances approvals for non-certificated substitutes staff members non-certificated staff pending background clearances substitute teachers security monitor mentors uh let's see uh all staff both non-certificated to work athletic after school events for both high school and the middle school buildings and ground substitutes for summer work salary adjustments due to earned credits congratulations to that staff who's done that transfer resignation prep time for jump start meeting training for open Science Education Program leave Replacements appointments for mentors there's a lot on this agenda agenda all School nurses to provide extra duty all certificated teachers and substitutes appointed for the 2425 school year or retirement I'd like to pause here we have a person who's retiring who is held in very high regard Dorene Welsh I was very surprised to see this she has been in our district for 35 years she's served as a school counselor at this high school she's touched many lives in her ten serving in this position we're grateful for her dedication to our students and families we wish her well in her future endeavors and we thank you for all the time she devoted to our district but remember she's not retiring till October 1st so she has to show up in September so let's give her a round of applause for her service I I'd just like to throw out there that as a guidance counselor helping kids that who are College Bound she had the task of holding hands with both parents and students which is double trouble or double Joy depending on how you look at it and at every graduation you see her helping everyone she's just a phenomenal every college fair yes she got two Evans girls into college so look at that look at that and last but not least you'll find on the agenda appointments for volunteers Subs instructional assistance substitute secretar staff for jump for jump start staff for summer sum evaluations IEPs leave replacement and staff for 24 esy and connect programs and with this tiny little list I'd like to recommend we move P1 through p55 please if I can just uh have p15 pulled out separately so P1 through 14 and then 16 through 55 and I'll second all right a motion in a second Mr chart can you call the rooll yes Mr CL yes Miss Evans yes M Kroger yes Dr King yes Miss pasi yes Mr pluta yes M Santos yes Mr van Heist yes and now I'd like to move P5 please we have a second second all right Motion in a second Mr truart Mr Clark yes M Evans yes M Roger yes Dr King yes Miss Miss B yes Mr pluta yes Miss Miss Santos yes Mr vanheist abstain motion moved thank you pass all right now we have our CD report CIA PD met August 1st from 8:30 to 10:30 and in attendance were Robin Sarah pimmy P's assistant Mary Moren two Michelle's uh Diana ignita and also we had Damian and Kristen B so was crowded didn't get there early you had to stand so um on our agenda in your minutes that I sent you you'll see um social justice curriculum and links to sixth grade science curriculum AP English Literature curriculum a AP language curric culum and dual enrollment English are in the um minutes I sent to you we discussed summer programs update they all went well um we already touched on cell phone use in schools uh there's a link or cell phone toolkit if anyone wants to know about uh cell phone bands there's an a link to an article about that and a link to Lis cell phone use uh your agenda will reflect a a lot of PD um many of our teachers are going for morphology that's the Orton Gillingham training um it's the foundational writing skills struct structured literacy instruction and the students are creating binders of the words that they're learning that will and the lessons that will follow them from grade to grade um we have I think I think that's it we've got um out of District placements and uh nonu spending so I would like to move ois 1-9 and OSS one through three second all right with the motion in the second Mr Clark yes M Evans yes Miss Kroger yes Dr King yes Miss pasculli yes Mr pluta yes Miss s yes Mr vanis yes okay great so that was for OAS and OSS before we move on if I could just um make a note or comment that um in the professional development what we're I'm seeing and what we're seeing is a very tight connection between what our curriculum and instructional needs are and where we are uh supporting our staff in terms of professional development so while certainly staff uh ought to um opt for those programs that are um akin to to them uh we also have a need as a district to ensure that uh we have some consistency across our program delighted to see that all the teachers all staff will be trained in uh Orton Gillingham and many have done so their own time this summer and the few who did not come in over the summer will be trained in the fall yes yes no I I think this is a a perhaps in the last year or two I think last summer it was a similar yeah similar adventure for us um and I think it it makes a lot of sense and uses our dollars very well yeah it's great thanks all right uh moving on to finance um Finance did not meet Tom uh finally got a well-deserved well earned uh little time away so uh we're all a little hungry and we'll double up on our breakfast for next month's meeting um but uh the guys at the diner have written to us saying where are you yeah we were lost woke up on free Friday um but uh and we have the normal uh budget transfers end of year uh type of transfers fire drills um contracts on their submission of projects to doe um so with that I will move sbm1 through 13 second right with a motion in a second Mr truart Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes M Kroger yes Dr King yes Miss basuli yes Mr pluta yes Miss Santos yes Mr van Heist yes all right great we have our second input uh opportunity for public input again please limit your comments to three minutes provide your name and address oh dear okay that's it 's up with that uh we move on to new business okay on new business there's a recommendation to hire a new supplemental payroll coordinator substitute approvals volunteers LMS school counselor Lees special education teacher leaves of absence summer programs and Mentor appointments and you'll notice at the beginning of personnel my notes the Personnel department has hired so many of the people that we talked about the beginning of the month and found awesome candidates so I have to applaud personnel and and their quick action in finding awesome people to to fill these vacancies so with that I'd like to move nb1 through NB 17 please and if I can just make one Amendment on that motion and also pull nb5 for separate vote please okay so five so NB one through four and NV 6 through 17 we're messing with you one second all right the motion on a second Mr Clark yes M Miss Evans yes M Kroger yes Dr King yes M Missi how you say that I like it so cute Mr pluta yes Miss Santos yes M van heis yes and now I'd like to move nb5 please second Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes M Kroger yes Dr King yes Miss basuli abstain Mr pluta yes Miss Santos yes M van heis abstain great thanks okay uh do I have a motion to adjourn so moved second second all in favor I I great e e e e e e e e