##VIDEO ID:UtIW8mIX6QI## [Music] [Music] I call this meeting to order please stand and salute the flag pledge allegiance to the flag of the United stes of America the Republic for which we stand one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all you I for my spee today is August 29th the time is 6:10 and we are about to start basically what youd say preview to Coming Attraction or next beginning of a new class class year 2024 2025 in accordance with the open public meeting act chapter 231 adequate notice of this meeting has been provided as follow on January 10 2024 notice was sent to the Home New Tribune Star Ledger tapa Pinter Lindon Union County local source and Clerk of the municipality by state law there is no smoking permitted in this building at any time in addition to the listed items in this agenda this board of education may discuss and act upon other items not specifically referred to hearing as is allowed at a regularly scheduled meeting under the Sunshine Law roll call Mr Dela Cruz here miss Peno present Miss Thomas present Miss uliss present Miss Armstead present Miss gillo Miss Centron and Dr beram president our next agenda item is approval of minut motions to approve the minutes of the work session held on July 23rd 2024 and the regular meeting held on July 25th 2024 second second Mr Del Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes Miss eliss yes Miss Armstead yes and Dr buram yes comments from the public members of the public Desiring to make a public comment may come forward at this time for those watching online if you wish to make a comment or ask a question please utilize a raise your hand feia on the online meeting platform please begin your comments by stating your name and address individuals are invited to speak on one Topic at a time and no individual will speak more than once until all individual so Desiring have spoken once the public is reminded that to ensure the efficient and orderly operation of the meeting members of the public will be limited to speaking on agenda items for 3 minutes do you have anyone online okay before the superintendent report I'd like to say something we had a awesome 2024 a lot occurred we have had we started with a scholarship of 12 million we end up with 17 million students getting scholarships we had over 90% of our students actually grow graduated from high school we hired a lot of new people we hired Mr Walker who is an amazing assistant superintendent of course we have our superintendent Mrs Perkins who also for our first year superintendent have done extremely well and her right hand who walked with her hand in hand for the entire year Miss Annabelle Lewis I also want to thank I also want to take this time to thank my board members believe it being a member of this board or any board is a heavy lift for many a night the board members sitting here till 10 11:00 at night trying to solve problems so you know there is a lot is saying the stuff that you do behind the scene where nobody is watching those are the stuff that really matters because when you come in front of the scene everything that happens behind the scene is taken care of but the real hero of the last year was our staff was our the the our people who worked to get our buildings ready we have so many of our our schools that are now have central air condition we have Marys in front of our schools we have playgrounds almost in every school we have teachers that were promoted we have staff that is doing very well we have won championships award we have students that that that competed in different states and we came out of all these activities triumphant 2023 2024 was a good year for our students and I want to give everyone in our school district a hand now we are getting enter the year 2024 2025 school year and we still have a lot of work to do but this year we have someone that we have recently hired in fact two people that we recently hired that this board is counting on to help us one of the people that we have recently hired that we are counting on is our public IST this board of education has hired a publicist because we are debt set and connecting our school district with the community I want you to give our publicist a hand stand BL you the next person I want to recognize who is going to help move our school district forward is our Personnel director of course you guys know that we have a lot of problems school districts all around the country are suffering we are struggling to get the right teachers in our classrooms because we want to make sure that our classrooms are filled at all time so we hired a publicist that a a Personnel director that is going to help make it all possible so not only are we going to fill up our our classrooms with good qualified teachers we're going to make sure we are not going to run this year with 30% of our our teachers Subs we're going to make a difference this year I want everyone to give a good hand to our new Personnel director Dr lot and last but not least we have again our administrative team we have our finance director who again is making Miracles happens we have done so much in our the last year and did not increase any taxes we have um we have Mr sarelia who is our finance director he actually got employee of the year last year because he didn't raise no taxes and he did so much for us John SAR and we have our superintendent and her staff that works long hours trying to get stuff done I want to let you know as a board president I am tough and I do not know how how they put up with me a lot because I have so much expectation and I drive them because I want the best I want everybody whether you a school crossing God or a superintendent I want everybody to be successful this is what we not I but this is what our board wants I want to thank every one of you guys for coming here today and I look forward and this board of education look forward to a remarkable 2024 2025 school year thank you our next report is our superintendent report thank you madam president good evening so um you shared a lot about as we uh closed out the school year and we prepare for the new school year so I want to start with just saying thank you to our 12 month staff for helping us carry out um the summer and get prepared for the school year 12 month staff consists of our custodian secretary payroll benefits Transportation administrators and all the members of the board office uh I always get an opportunity to shout out the superintendent team the secretary confidential secretary Miss Donna pop off and then the other secretaries in the department so we just want to say thank you for a job well done our buildings and grounds look great as we prepare for the school year to our supervisors over our facilities you know um we did walks around the buildings and we are ready to go as teachers are coming in these next few days just know we thank you for your commitment to service support staff as well all members of the Lea we appreciate you as we believe the mission possible I will be um showing having two presentations this evening one is for the access testing atmin ministration which is a state requirement to share out the results of the administration as well as the New Jersey gppa Administration which is the New Jersey graduate proficiency um assessment we are also very thankful for um as we prepare and think about diversity it's on the agenda this evening that we're honoring Spanish heritage month so we'd like for you all to get involved and understand that as a diverse population we believe in unity for the community um summer schools have uh come to an end and we had a successful school year from stem to multilingual language learning support to enrichment as well as remediation so thank you to those staff and coordinators and also building principles and vice principls for ensuring that the programming were R run successfully as well as or orientations that have taken place I will be sending a letter out to all employees over the next few days just to let you know that it is so the time to get ready but also to enjoy the upcoming Labor Day Holiday to all members of the board thank you for carrying us through through the summer as well as preparing for this school year as Dr berham you just stated the commitment is like no other so your time and dedication is truly valued so I'm going to ask at this time if um I'm going to connect to the screen here and I will begin the presentations um the first it's not a presentation as you can move you can get ready um but the first video I will be showing it is coming from our lynon media department and we are so thankful that as Dr burkhammer stated our publicists and our Lyon media Department are working very hard in showcasing who we are and where we are going as a district so the video I will be showing just got publicized yesterday and it is called lynon Mission possible spe [Applause] my for for cable for a Little Closer for this for [Music] for [Music] want the good news or the bad news there's no such thing as bad news in our line of work but our attention to Excellence is what puts us in a position of power what is the status well we have photos from the LPS administrators Retreat their focus is Mission possible in preparation for the new school year why didn't we see this coming we have video from sardu cloud right from The Retreat so here's sardo's footage of the admin going right into the retreat freezer right there it's David Walker and Annabelle Lewis they're always trying to make an impact with the kids sardu even tried to go inside but agent Walker stopped him at the door when is sardu going to get here well that was the bad news I wanted to tell you about they got him told them to be careful all right we're going to have to put together an extraction team to get him out of there no there's no need for that he actually joined them all these videos this up close that mean he's going [Music] rogue London public schools always making a difference who's the head of this operation let me see all right I got it this looks like agent superintendent Perkins according to the top secret folder we found her vision is to ensure Student Success uh by enhancing systems and structures and sustained accountability Roar come again Roar Lyon Public School School are tigers she's committed to Excellence through R resilience o opportunity a achievement R relationship sir there's nothing we can do their mission possible operation is in effect and their district is in for successful Awakening and I'm sure the community is going to be fully on board shut it down Case Closed lynon's going to roar like they've never roared before agents are we live yes we are we have 1 minute before they lock in on your location hello lynen families now is the time for us to stand up against systems of mediocracy we will no longer Stand By and allow our student and schools be anything less than their greatest potential now is the time if you are watching this video we need you to help make a difference I am now empowering all of us with the roar it takes to make this Mission possible agents are you ready to screenshot these four points are you ready I've intercepted the satellite and the files are ready R resilience don't give up resilience is our superpower oh opportunities don't settle be curious and ask questions a achievement Inspire hope unlock Peak Performance are relationships be kind and make connections with those around you agent Perkins get out of there the school year is about to start tell everyone you know don't let anything or anyone stop you remember lynen Tigers we are in this together this Mission possible task will take us to new heights [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so I'd like to thank again our lynon media team for uh producing what we believe is is part of the future where we're going it's real life experiences that video captured our administrator's Retreat that took place uh the week of the 12th where we came together to look at policies expectations and student achievement to push push forward our mission possible will continue and be heard throughout the the school year and we are excited and I want to say thank you to the two actors in the video they were true actors and they're actually a lum of the Lyon Public Schools and that is um their names are Tiffany Johnson and Jeff havock class of 2001 I believe and they were given a script and They carried out the assignment so for those of you watching from and we're excited to bring our students along this journey with showcasing videos as such the bottom line is the mission possible for Lyndon Public Schools is going to be seen and heard out the 20242 school year so now I'm going to move on to access am I ready is this the access presentation appr cop access assessment is for Els and it's called access um elll 2.0 and it measures the academic language based on the weda English English language standards for our students and the academic language is seen in Social instruction it's seen in language arts it's seen in math science and social studies so all of our students in grades K through 12 had to take the access test if they were identified as elll students they take the test every fall of the school year and it is part of state and federal requirements that they are um involved in taking this test the overall data of the test is to measure how students are progressing in their language and our goal as a district is to use this data to see how we can then support them throughout the school year I'd like to thank our world languages Department starting with the director of world languages Miss Danny orene she has helped to put this presentation together but more importantly the standards and expectations for teaching and learning of our students and to all of the teachers and the support staff who helped with carrying out what we need and the first piece of this is that the access test is broken down into scores and the scores range from one through six and the students are then expected to fall into a category if they are entering into the language acquisition a number one if they're emerging a number two developing a number three expanding in the language a number four bridging language number five and lastly reaching the language expectations is a number six the scores are based off of the weda English proficiency levels and the proficiency levels describe what each student can do in C atories that are aligned to listening speaking reading and writing again the scores range from 1 to six we had 922 students last year who tested for the access test 510 were Elementary 184 were middle school and 228 were high school students as you can see most of our ml population are on the elementary level so here's what the data looks like um when we're trying to disaggregate where we going and how to help our students so from the far left it starts with kindergarten and those bars indicate where are our students at the blue indicates that they're entering compared to Green reaching as you can see uh we're talking about kindergarteners with language proficiency it is a large number 86% of students are still in the emerging compared to if I had to go to ninth grade 15% are emerging and you see more in the green which are in the reaching level so we're really excited uh I'm sorry in the developing level we're really excited that we are seeing growth and now I'm going to just break the data down a little bit more by grade levels gender ethnicity and also um for each section before I get into that I'd like to show share with you how we did from last year so and students were tested in comprehension we saw more students are making growth in comprehension from 3.2 to 3.9 in the listening section setion of the test from 4.1 to 4.6 literacy 2.6 to 3.1 oral language we went up from 3.2 to 3.6 reading 2.8 to 3.4 speaking 2.7 to 2.9 writing 2.6 to 3.0 and composite 2.8 to 3.2 to as you can see we've made growth over the year in every single one of the subs scores for the different sections that the students were tested on so now if we break it into grade level clusters from kindergarten to fifth grade we see that 40% of the students 203 are still entering into that language acquisition compared to 4 4% or 21 students are in the expanding range when we look at grades 6 through 8 the high bar the green is developing those were 88 students who are showing langu language acquisition as far as developing compared to entering at 40% so now in 9th grade through 12th grade 24% were in the entering stage compared to we have one student who fell into the bridging bridging stage which is one stage away from the highest level is this uh normal data for MLS testing yes it is because language acquisition comes at different rates and ages and again we're talking about students coming in with a different language and they have to master the new language and so over time we see a lot of growth in the grade level and um we're really proud of the work that they put in so on all grades we are seeing that 32% of our students are in the entering stage 21% are in the emerging 40% are in the developing 65 70 not sorry 7% are in the expand Landing 1% are in the bridging and that's our grade level clusters when we break it down by race we see that um our race is is broken into Hispanic white black multi-racial Asian and Pacific Islander so over to the far left we're showing that and I'll speak to the green bars which are developing we have 30 % of students who identify as Hispanic are developing compared to 53% White compared to 31% Black compared to 33% multi-racial compared to 60% Asian compared to 50% Pacific Islander when when we compare our gender um from girls to boys we see again focusing on that developing section 40% of our female students are developing compared to 39% are of male students and that is because the population varies um the one student who who are who did fall into the bridging is identify as a male I also like to just pause here and and go now to the entering to see that they're not too far apart 32% female to 32% male even though that there's a different number of students they still fall into that category of developing so now that we have that data to see exactly where our students fall to see how we as a district adult Department a classroom um a group of teachers grade level of what we can do to help our students continue with language acquisition the first thing I'd like to speak about is sheltered instruction training which our district carries out and structured sheltered instruction training is a requirement a state law that we must provide to our teachers to support our ml population we also also provide support for Content areas of Math Science Social Studies I have science twice sorry and health and which helps the teachers with language development opportunities it incorporates language learning objectives that help multilingual language Learners practice the language and that language content area and when the teachers are using the sheltered instruction methodology it allows them to follow and identify key components to support those ml students and that's vocabulary instruction it is real life Hands-On learning experiences it's cultural relevance all of the data is showing that you identify with students and who they are they're more comfortable to begin to um focus on New Beginnings with language acquisition so building upon students background knowledge and then language practice opportunities that includes integration of listening speaking reading and writing they're saying the research is stating that a student exposed to those four components every day in a Content specific area helps them with language acquisition and then finally we provide students with alternative assessments because not all students we you know we have some assessments that are in different languages to help them with being able to read the content and apply their knowledge to the content we also have a scythe programming and Scythe programming is to identify those students with interrupted formal education we have a scyth program at school number four and Lyon High School and it's our multilingual language Learners who attend schools in the United States for less than 12 months upon initial enrollment into our district and they were identified for not being in school for two or more years or that they were below the literacy L level in their home language we also have students who are two years or more um Below in math due to inconsistent and inter interrupted schooling before they arrived in the United States so as a result we have developed a scythe extended day program at the high school to help support students who fall into this category as well as at school number four overall districtwide initi interventions that are taking place to help support our students with their language acquisition is that we are open opening up a multilingual Learners welcome center and this is to provide comprehensive support to all of uh the whole child their families and as well as in and out of the classroom we have an ESL before and or after school supplemental programs in all of our buildings we have two part-time bilingual programs at the elementary school we have new content sheltered instruction classrooms at the high school that are focusing on math social studies and science we had our first new steam based summer program in grades 1 through 11 and we plan to continue with that our multilingual Lang lingual Learners coach instructional coaches um are are on the agenda to be hired this evening so that they can provide targeted interventions for all multilingual Learners we're continuing with professional development to support teachers of multilingual Learners and we have continuous data analysis of all of our District's benchmark assessments formative assessments njsla as well as access testing we have instructional leadership teams who look at this data we have common planning we have great level meetings and Monday meetings where our staff and administrators come together to provide the support and look at the data and make datadriven decisions we are continuing with professional development to support the program of our students and our K through five classrooms our hmh math program is available in Spanish bilingual modifications and tips are found in our Ela and our math curriculums bilingual Ela and Math teachers receive common planning time in their teaching schedules so that they can come together and look at the whole child and data to make decisions our writing curriculum being a writer was res revised for the 2425 school year to align with State mandates to support ml Learners and we've increased our aids with bilingual aids to support our students in bilingual classrooms as well as non-bilingual classrooms if the teacher is not serving as a bilingual teacher our kindergarten classrooms all schools receive pushing services for their English language arts instruction for non-bilingual schools they follow a pushin model for ELA and math our ESL programs at schools 15 and 8 all follow a pushin model in kindergarten and then grades one through five will follow a pullout model for specialized instruction and that's a small group setting with a bilingual teacher to continue with that specialized instruction part-time bilingual programs are at schools number 24 and 10 bilingual support and general educa education classes is classes have increased ESL classes used is an intervention model for all of those levels one through four to be able to support the students and those AIDS are in there to assist them we have high intensity programs at schools 6 and nine that combines daily ESL instruction using a pullout model and again that's going into a small group classroom we'll be rotating intervention tutoring classes for ELA and math language acquisition and it will continue to follow a pullout model for ESL spoke earlier about that we have the Scythe program and students with interrupted formal education at schools number four and the high school so overall this is what our data looks like um that I broke down to you um this will be available to to all board members and we'll continue to look at this data in the classrooms as well throughout the department to see where our student achievement levels are so this isn't I gotta this is all about their language acquisition and then more importantly what we need to do as a district to support them and those interventions that we have in place um as the beginning slides show that we have been making growth from year to year with our students building upon their language acquisition each parent will receive the individual student report and it breaks down how their children did on the um access assessment last fall and that is the access presentation do you have any questions question okay um there's a black Audi with the trunk open outside if you want to um address that I only have one I don't have a question I have a concern I think we need to have two models we supposed to have eell which is English language learners but we also supposed to have a a next model and the next model is supposed to be second language learner which means when I look at this I think that we are not preparing all our students for the real world in the sense that granted we have a lot of the elll students graduating proficient in English but not enough English speakers are graduating proficient in a second language we need to have all of you guys have young children Malaysia how proficient is your son in a second language how proficient are your children in a second language the thing is what I'm saying is that English language learning works but we also have to have second language learning and a model to track the efficiency and INF fluency of all our English language speaking children speaking a second language what do you guys think about that I mean we discussed that before so I I don't think anybody would be opposed to it we got to find a way to make it happen right that's that's all I want to say great thinking because we do have a seill of biliteracy program at our high school which does provide dual language um not only support but for students to master a second language um we shared that data out in June that showed that we had an increase in students who became um dual certified and S of biliteracy and one of the things that I spoke with Miss orene about in the department that one of her initiatives and goals is to ensure that we're doing language emersion earlier on in kindergarten early grades so that there's a clear pathway for more students to go through the seill of biliteracy so that initiative is is something new that we are looking at to ensure um that it's meeting the board's expectation of students graduating with a second language in their back pocket I don't want just a second language I want English students speaking to be able to be proficient in a second language where they Creole whether it's Spanish whether it's Mandarin I would like to see our englishspeaking students be proficient in a second language we can't we are not these students are graduating but the playing the the field is not is unequal if we have a certain percentage that could speak more than one language and we only have our English students speaking one language we are not preparing them to compete globally and all our children should be prepared to should be prepared to compete globally yes and we do offer those for we offer Mandarin we offer Chinese I'm sorry we offer Chinese we offer Spanish we offer um Creole Haitian Creole in elementary and again that's what we're doing because yes some students they come in with the Dual language but we are appealing to to additional students because we do want to increase that number of students leaving with the S of by literacy good I'll be able to help you out track data to provide to the board good thank you you're welcome okay so now I am jumping right on to our our high school right so annual Statewide testing for the New Jersey growth proficiency assessment njpa is a test that has to be given every year um a couple of years ago the governor came out with that every student regardless of a high school's path for graduation they must take an assessment to show that they are graduation ready so the graduation proficiency assessment is given to 11th graders every year in the spring to determine their strengths and weaknesses so the graduating class of 2025 must pass graduation proficiency assessment in addition to the credit curriculum and attendance requirement that our district expects of our students this is a Statewide assessment that was signed into law um in July of 2022 and it measures students Readiness in English language arts and math the test aligns to 10th grade Ela state standards and math Al Algebra 1 and geometry standards when students take the test they must receive a cut score of 725 and both the ELA and the math assessments students take the test in October of their 11th grade year and if they don't pass the test then they can take it again if they're in 12th grade they take the test again 11th grade students with disabilities who are not eligible for the dynamic learning map assessment they have to take the NJ GPA assessment this last bullet is key as I show you the data you'll see strengths and weaknesses of who passed who didn't but every year we have 100% passing rate of students on the NJ gppa if they don't pass it in that oober Administration there are Pathways available to students so that they can pass the test so here's the data so our current 12th grade students who took the test last May in English language arts there were 442 students and 435 in math out of those 442 students in English language arts 97 were not proficient and graduation ready in mathematics 309 students of the 435 their test scores indicated that they were not graduation ready from last year to this year the blue line I'm sorry state to District the blue line shows that from last year to this year the state made 1% growth but Lyon Public Schools made 8% growth from 70.9% to 78% if you can see at the end that um we're very close to meeting the state uh proficiency level with um pass and gppa and English language arts and math the state state was at 55% last year and dropped down this year whereas we we were at 26% and we grew to 29% while the gap between um the district and the state is from 54 to 29 I'll share with you interventions that we have in place to decrease that Gap but we did make growth for English language Arts this breaks down by race how many students were proficient in that test our Asian population had eight students 75% passed our black and African-American had 150 students 77% passed Hispanic Latino had 214 students 76% passed and for our white students 55 students 83.6% of those students had were proficient in English language arts and math our Asian population was at 42.9% black and African-American was at 25.5% Hispanic and Latino were at 26% and for our white population they were at 43.6% for ELA by gender 73.1% of male students were proficient compared to 83.1% of female students and math were're very close 29.4% were male to 28.6% were female when we compare students to with IEP to non IEPs in math 53.6% with IEPs passed to 82.6% were proficient who were non IEPs and math students with IEPs 14.7% compared to nons 31.6% when we look at students by economic status that's free and reduced lunched students it's very um similar students who are not economically disadvantaged compared to economically disadvantaged it's 77.6% to 78.6 6 6% as well and math non-economic disadvantage where were at was at 28.1% to economically disadvantaged 30% again very close and looking at that data so what happens again reminder that students must meet a cut score of 725 in both Ela and math so if those students and I showed the data of how many did not pass so what do they have there are three Pathways that ass student can take in order to pass the assessment because they have to pass it in order to graduate so the first pathway is that students are able to retake the assessment so they take it in the spring of um the previous year if they don't the scores come out in the summer and then the students have opportunities to take alternate Assessments in the summer or October of every school year we offer a retake assessment a second pathway is that students can take the SATs The Acts or other path other assessments and if they meet a cut score on those it will replace the score needed for NJ gppa and then a third pathway is that students can do a portfolio assessment and during the school year we offer after school programming for students to come come in and they have reading and math support where they're given different um tasks to complete reading and writing and math and they put a portfolio together showing that they made Proficiency in those areas so to break down exactly what those Pathways were for the second again I spoke to act but there's also a test called the acup Placer and we are putting that in place this is the first first year that we're doing it the research shows that the acup Placer is a a more adaptive test to the the user and it will help our ml population and our special education students as you saw those numbers previously to help them with passing the graduation assess assessment requirement and then the other test I spoke to was SATs we have the SATs are ran throughout the summer and also fall and winter Administration students have options of what pathway they would like to take the third port pathway that portfolio process for ELA it's demonstrating competency and constructive response tasks those are called CRTs in the English language arts classrooms so students are given two grade level reading passages one is in liter it's literary and one is informational they'll have to answer multiple choice items short constructed responses or open-ended questions students will have to complete two writing tasks um and the writing tasks follow the NJ Ela learning standards they have an option from informatory informative explanatory argumentative or narrative writing pieces and this will begin in January for math it begins in January as well and they have to demonstrate competency in constructive response tasks CRTs and they will focus on mathematical reasoning to express appropriate mathematical reasoning by constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others and that's it they solve problems and have to explain how they got the answer the modeling piece applies to that so they apply their knowledge and skill to solve real world problems and they have to engage in that modeling practice to make sense out of when they're solving those problems some of the challenges that we saw when the students took the test is chronic absenteeism this school year we are focusing on chronic absenteeism in all schools as a district initiative to ensure that students are in school another thing we saw was student engagement and test taking uh it looks like a student may have just hit a a a AAA and not really applied themselves to when they took the test and so we're going to make sure that we focus on that this year last year we had staff s shortages excuse me and con and core content areas at the high school math science and special education classrooms were not filled with content Specialists we had substitutes because around the nation there is a teacher shortage and while we saw earlier that there were more students who were proficient in ela to math Ela is a four-year graduation requirement that means that they're going to go through Ela all four years of high school compared to math it's a threeyear graduation requirement so they have less time in math classes to meet credit requirements compared to math I'm and compared to ELA interventions that will be taken place this school year is targeted interventions for the retake for the fall admin ministration this upcoming October and that is going to be carried out with department-based professional development focusing on specific targets and Ela standards as well as math we're providing multi-tiered systems of support in the classrooms to address academics student wellness as well as discipline one of those things to help with chronic absenteeism is that each school will carry out their attendance review teams and that's going to consist of building Administration and social workers where parents and guardians or and students will be brought in to talk about chronic or if there's a pattern with absenteeism as well as tardiness we have a response to intervention program for English language arts that's going to be focused in specifically to our ml population to help them with um pushing through and understanding what's expected on the test and then we're going to continue to provide programs and interventions to support our students social and emotional needs all of the uh there's a lot of research out there that says that students are combating more mental illness and concern in 2024 post pandemic pic and so we put strategies in place to help the students we're going to continue to provide opportunities for our English language arts teachers our Math teachers as well as our special education teachers and ml teachers to come together and to see how else we can help our students and talk about um best education practices in the classroom to help them we are starting an NJ gppa boot camp that's going to be centered around center-based instructional strategies in the classrooms students are going to be involved in Center based instruction that is targeted to the standards that are for they need in the grade level we all we are also providing support to our ml students and as earlier we I spoke to the Scythe students and now there's the extended day program at the high school the sheltered instruction classrooms for math will begin in September and then we are going to continue to Pro provide sheltered instruction training to teachers so that they can support our ml population and that is the NJ gppa assessment presentation are there any questions have a question what are we um doing with the demographic data that was found so it shows um a few growth disparities between ethnic ethnicities so how are we utilizing that data to assist in helping those students in their growth so that goes back to the cultural relevant practices and we're working with our student services department to provide the teachers with more strategy of how to provide cultural relevant teaching practices um our curriculums are are broken down now um into resources that are aligned to cultural relevant practices and our evaluation tool that teachers are going to be um evaluated on we're they're getting trained on it now of how to support culture relevant practices so we not specifically like okay this one population but overall cultural relevant practices so you can meet the needs of everybody in the classroom thank you come up to the microphone oh I'm holding the mic I'm sorry you need to mic thank you thank you hello everyone um my name is sharen Morgan I'm PTA president for Lyndon High School uh I was just wondering what can parents do at home to help uh their teens prepare for the NJ gppa exams and especially if they felt the first time if they did not pass what can parents do at home uh to what kind of resources can parents use and what can they do at home yes so just like um I shared earlier each parent gets the Stu individual student report that identifies how their child did on the test so that's the first piece of data so that they know um what's available to them as a district we provide resources to through on our website student services department provides a lot of different resources to help with um social emotional support as well as providing parents with assistance of how to navigate parenting in 2024 phase communicating with our teachers as well as our coaches and building principles to help with students mastering those learning standards the New Jersey learning standards are online and if you you put in grade 10 language arts standards it will say by the end of this school year students should know how to complete constructed responses with four pieces of evidence it gives you um stepbystep but to the first piece would always be to communicate with your child's teacher because those test and the guidance counselor because those test scores were sent to the parents this summer it begins the process of having that communication with the teacher and the guidance counselor um those that did not pass it the administration is in the fall so there will be paperwork and documents going home when school starts to individualize what we have and how else to support the child you know um a lot of kids is not really test takers so what are we going to do you know they get nervous they fail and let's say they just don't pass but you know they can do so what are we going to do then so one of the things that like I said we saw on there that some are just clicking and not applying so from day one we're going to be starting with those conversations of how important important it is that they understand they need this test to graduate all right um so like I said in the beginning too the numbers kind of show a large group that didn't pass so we're going to give them these opportunities October is going to be the retake if they don't do it they don't pass it there then they can move on to the third pathway which is the portfolio assessment and then that's when they meet with teachers outside of school hours to help them with completing the task of showing Mastery on that great level standard so by the time June comes we will have 100% passing of NJ gppa we've never had a student not pass NJ gppa by the time June came those three different Pathways allows maybe they're just not a good test taker so that's why they may do the portfolio assessment or maybe that test didn't work for them maybe they'll do the SAT or the acup Placer so we have different assessments now in place too to ensure that we're meeting the different levels of of how students test um as well as just the environment overall are the pathways mandatory yes because they have to graduate and we don't allow them not to so you know i' I've spoken to some parents already this summer because there was a SAT um Administration that just took place Nate across the state so a student could have taken the SAT and dependent on the score there then that shows that oh they are graduation ready so it replaces them having to take this again before they take that assessment in October there's going to be that boot camp and strictly hardcore you you have to understand how important this is to pass it so we're we're giving them we're going to give them the support they need but again we're also this is just going to be for those that need to retake it but then in the spring the next group is going to be taking it again so we're just making sure we're going to be targeting them as well no more questions so we ready let's well thank you and that concludes my superintendence report that was very good very very informative thank you that was thank you it all right at this time we're going to move on to the attorney report thank you uh I do have one item it's the um sidebar agreement with the Lea that we discussed in Clos session we did get a signed copy of the agreement um that agreement with which John has a copy of will allow us to sorry that agreement will allow us to hire a third party uh substance abuse counsel to be start immediately uh and we'll be making some contractual concessions to uh to the Lea in in exchange for them agreeing not to uh not to challenge us with respect to the sack um again completely as discussed on Tuesday John has the agreement so I'll ask for a motion in a second to approve that okay thank you motion to approve the attorney's report I'm sorry motion to approve the attorney's report a second roll call Mr Dela Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes Miss Uli yes M Armstead yes and Dr ber yes thank you thank you Sam moving on to the education report excuse me prior to going over the education report we do just have one typo on page number 13 item number 15 for the Halloween parade at school number one that should read October 27th not December 27th that would make sense page 13 number 15 school one Halloween parade okay thank you thank you for finding it thank you good evening everyone education committee appartment recommendation of superintendent of schools and the assistant superintendent presents the following motions of the Lyon board of education for approval I approve item one through 51 no no no I'm sorry item through 55 I respect the ask for a second second is there any discussion roll call Mr Dela Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes Miss ulise yes Miss Armstead I would like to recuse myself from agenda item 17 numbers 27 through 30 uh yes to all other agenda items and Dr bammer yes moving on to the finance report she's not here so the finance committee upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools and the business administrator board secretary presents the following motions to the Lyon board of education for approval items 1 through 55 are especially ask for a second second any discussion no roll call Mr Dela Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes jise yes Miss Armstead yes and Dr buram yes thank you moving on to buildings grounds and Security Buildings grounds and security committee upon upon recommendation of the superintendent of schools and the business administrative board secretary present the following motions to the London board for approval um motions one through number 13 second any discussion roll call Mr Dela Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes Miss jiss yes Miss Armstead yes and Dr bur yes moving on to planning and policy the planning and policy committee upon a recommendation of the superintendent of schools presents the following motion to the Lyon board of education for approval item one I respectfully ask for a second second any discussion roll call Mr Dela Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes Miss UL yes M Armstead yes and Dr burkhammer yes at this time we're going to go to comments from the public at um we do need to discuss our Personnel in the back so we can do comments from the public right now you don't want to okay well um um we are not going to stay long in the back we just have a couple issues that came up between Tuesday and Thursday right that we need to clear up in the back before we do the personal report is that correct it's not person I don't know what issues you're talking about so we don't have any not really we have something that came up that is not going to require a vote so we can wait for the end I don't know what else if the board has any questions on the agenda we can go to we don't have any so then you can do Personnel then board are there any questions regarding Personnel is there anyone that needs to discuss anything right the Personnel committee upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools presents the following motions to the Lyon board of education for approvals all appointments and reappointments are contingent upon and may be modified based on student participation in the district's receipt of sufficient state school aid and other Revenue funding I would like to make a motion to approve items 1 through 58 I respectfully ask for a second second second any well no discussion roll call Mr Del Cruz they say yes to everything except and item number five no to 18 no to 23 and Noe to 33 Miss Pino yes Miss Thomas yes Miss ulise yes Miss Armstead yes and Dr buram yes you at this time we will move on to come do you want people from the audience who can I listen you know you know how I am right we have people who just got promoted or who just got the new new job the problem is that from the time you guys get the job we we not allowed to hear from you like that so anybody who got promoted or who got um a new job and would like to introduce themselves to the board we'd love to hear from you make sure uh good evening Board of Education and superintendent Perkins uh I am Frank Manti I'm the newly appointed vice principal at school number four with Dr ol I just wanted to of course introduce myself and personally thank you all for this opportunity and believing in me and giving me this chance I had a little bit of time to reflect on my uh career here in Lyndon and oddly enough it began at school 4 in 2011 right out of college Mr Cataline Cataline was the principal then and uh he started bringing me in as a per DM substitute I eventually was a one-on-one in the kindergarten classroom and then that same year I took over as a third grade long-term leave teacher and then that sort of got me started I've had I've spent my whole career here in Lyon uh I've never even subbed anywhere else so uh really I'm just grateful and proud to work in a district that has supported me personally professionally and has given me the tools to to get to this point where I am now starting as a sub uh what's that 13 years ago or so to now being appointed vice principal so really I'm just grateful and uh and very happy to be here and I really look forward to the upcoming school year and the challenges ahead and looking forward to working with all of you uh as well as the year goes on and years go on so just thank you again and uh it's truly my privilege to be able to serve in this position uh so thank you very much very much appreciated thank you [Applause] good evening to Lyon boy and good evening to superintendent Perkins my name is Jeffrey Wade I'll starting a new position at extra extracurricular activities advisor and Lyndon and the the athletic department uh I really really am overwhelmed and very happy to receive this position um I really feel like I'm the right person for the job I've been doing sports in Lyon for over 40 years so I just like to thank the board for giving me the opportunity to showcase and and my abilities to uplift the community and Athletics and academics thank you Mr Wade Mr Wade Mr Wade I remember you know my daughter is a special head was a special head student and I remember the first time she came into school you were at the door welcoming her and I turned to you and I said you know this is my daughter I wasn't on a Bor or anything but I said this is my daughter and she's special needs and you looked at me and you says I got this I would look after your daughter and I never ever forgot that thank you very much no pound you're welcome thank [Applause] you good evening my name is Rachel mson I am the new high school art teacher I'm just very grateful to be here and um it was a pleasure meeting you miss Perkins last week and I'm just looking forward to a year full of art making creativity and just empowering every student through the Arts um art is my passion I believe that art education is um just a huge component to um Academia so I'm thror to be here thank you [Applause] good evening M burkins and the whole Board of Education nice to meet all of you my name is marel amji and I we join your staff being as an eight at the ESL teacher and I'm so uh rejoiced to have met with some of you earlier and prior looking forward thank you [Applause] anyone online anyone online Okay um board we are going to have to make a motion to pass the blue paper that we have because we did not include that so this would be going into executive I'm sorry we have to go into executive no just to vote on it because it's not in here so this is under Personnel I let you have questions okay just go ahead all right I would like to make a motion to approve the missing agenda items I would respectfully ask for a second any discussion roll call Mr Dela Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes Miss uliss yes Armstead yes and Dr berghammer yes okay at this time we're going to go to comments from the public members of the public Desiring to make a public comment may come forward at this time for those watching online if you wish to make a comment or question or ask a question please utilize to raise your hand feature on the online meeting platform please begin your comments by stating your name and address individuals are invited to speak on one Topic at a time and no individual will speak more than once until all individuals so Desiring have spoken once the public is reminded that to ensure the efficient and orderly operations of the meeting members of the public will be limited to speaking on items for 3 minutes Craig Hower 120 Donaldson Place gets the fast question uh the school security cameras that are that show pictures from around the schools if they pick up any form of crime being committed in the area are they required to turn that information over to the police department yes okay thank you you're welcome Miss Donna all right hi Donna Hernandez 133 Princeton Road um I I guess a couple months ago it was brought up um about uh students and transportation um I know couple parents had asked that if I know there's a cut off with busting for students and someone was going to look into if a student wasn't able to get busted but they were maybe a block or two away from that bus stop and if there was room on that bus then we can try and expand it I don't I haven't heard anything I don't know if anybody brought that up to transportation is a gcia is that possible there is a there is a radius that you have to be outside of in order to qualify uh for for a busing that is that's accurate um I don't know that we can wave that um I haven't been participant to any discussions on that but um I will I'll look into to see what our options are and what other districts are doing with respect to maybe trying to find ways around that and I'll I'll have a report for you at the next meeting all right because I know there's a note was brought up that students are using the New Jersey Transit buses right um and I think they might I don't know if they have student discounts or if that's something that can be looked into also that could help our students I don't know what like I don't know the exact R I think it's like a mile for for maybe like miles two for high school and then it's a different one for but I I I do believe there are some towns where if you're inside that radius let's say you have to cross like a really busy street in order to I I know that some districts try to make arrangements to avoid putting their students in situations where they have to cross dangerous intersections and things of that nature so I will get confirmation for you on that and I'll at the uh at the September meeting okay thank you good question good evening my name is Dr Alero principal of school number four F first and foremost I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Mrs Kus our vice principal who will be transitioning to school number one as their new vice principal over the past 5 years you have been an integral part of our leadership team your dedication and hard work have made a profound impact on our entire School Community you've been a loyal and steadfast partner in navigating the many challenges and successes that we've encountered together we wish you the best in your future endeavors you will always be a cherished member of our school for family now as we start a new chapter it is with great optimism that I welcome our new vice principal Mr Frank Manti I am confident you're knowledge and Leadership will be an asset to our school I looking forward to the positive impact you will have on our students staff and Community buckle up Frank thank [Applause] you hello board and hi superintendent my name is Essence Myrick 532 to Princeton Road and I am the VP the PTA um vice president here at school can you speak up a little more we can't hear you can you hear me no no can you hear me now yes yes can yes Essence Myrick 532 Princeton I am the PTA um vice vice president here at school one I have a child with special needs and I have some concerns about the shortage of teachers and qualified therapy support for the special education programs and I've heard so much about the general education initiatives as well as the El initiatives and I was just curious to learn what initiatives you guys have in place for to address these needs and enhance support for the special education programs additionally I'm interested in the strategies aimed at resolving the shortage of specialized teachers as well as therapists in the special education program here in Lyon one of the things um that we uh did this year and we're continuing is to try to appeal to those teachers out there we did a job fair um that that was uh successful it was our first time doing it to um bring on teachers and we were able to hire more teachers is there a deficit around the nation in regards to to special education teachers there are so one of the things that we're doing to start the school year is that we have our par professionals they're hired specifically for students with special needs they've been in the classrooms um longer than many and so we're going to be moving them around into any of those classrooms that do not have a certified teacher in there at this point as we're still continuing to um reach out to retain those those um those special we've also partnered with um outside firms that provide substitutes into our district but we're looking specifically for those that are maybe retired special education teachers so we have our while someone may not want a full-time job we're we're looking specifically at um those that are out there that are that have the Mastery skill so those are the three areas that we're we're trying to increase as well as retain um until we we fully get those certified staff okay hello Miss blocker hi good evening um look here car the blocker 35 Elizabeth Avenue Lea vice president um first I want to just say congratulations to all the new new employees and the new positions just want you to know that the Lea will continue to build Partnerships with the school and the community um we have two programs pep which is public education and partnership and families and schools working together with students so thank you and have a good evening thank you anyone online right now moving on to new and unfinished business is there anything that the board would like to bring up did you all right do you back have to go close for two minutes at this time I'd like to make a motion for us to go into executive session and respectfully ask for a second we're not going to be taking action um when we come out so if you guys want to go home you're not going to miss anything joh will call here we could do the roll can I do roll call everybody but here come here come I'm going to do roll call for you roll call sir I'm done do roll call you you I'm bringing it so that it keeps everyone focused and then you just bring one roll call roll call Mr Dela Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes Miss uliss yes M Armstead yes and Dr berer yes all right at this time I'd like to go back to the superintendent's report thank you um my apologies earlier I um did not mention that we we do have more sadden to learn of a death in our district Roy Nunes Jr was hired by the lyen Board of Education in 1965 as a teacher of mathematics during his 30 years here in the district he taught mathematics at mcmanis middle school and Lyon High School he retired in 1992 Mr Nunes passed away in July of 14th 2024 so as always May um peace and love be with his family and friends and know that we appreciate all that Mr Nunes did for the Lyon Public Schools district and may He rest in peace oh that's so sad and then we also have retirements Joseph Daniel he started his career in 1986 and he worked as a custodian and Reporting custodian at school number n and 10 for 38 years he plans to retire this upcoming January Janine garan started her career in 2008 and she has worked as a special education resource teacher at mcmanis middle school for 16 years and she retired in July Susan roenh Houser started her career in 1988 working as a title one math teacher at Soul middle school and she plans to retire in November i' like to thank all three staff members for their service and dedication to all of our students within the district on behalf of the Lyon Public Schools job well done and we expect to hear you roar for the rest of your retirement days and know that we appreciate all that you have done thank you and that will conclude the superintendent report you superintendent Perkins at this time we'd like to ask any board members if they have any comment no okay at this time I'd like to ask for a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting to second second roll call Mr D Cruz yes Miss Peno yes Miss Thomas yes Mr uise yes Miss Armstead yes and Dr bammer yes me let's go [Music] [Music]