##VIDEO ID:T_z1cZEVM4I## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all can everybody please stand for the flag salute flag stes in accordance with the open public meetings Act adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising in the record and posting notice of this meeting in burrow Hall and the superintendent's office I hereby call to order the public meeting of the Little Ferry Board of Education Thursday October 17 2024 at 7:05 can I have a roll call please Mr broli here spatel here Mr fos here Mr scotle here Mr mey here Mr lzo here Mr borac here Mr Benelli here M Bradley here M Augustine here and we have a thank you be it resolved that the Little Ferry Board of Education approves the minutes of the regular public meeting held on September 12 20124 do I have a motion motion second second he Mr BR yes Mel yes M pyro yes m scotley I'll check the records Mr Ming yes M yes Mr BAC yes Mr Benelli yes Mr Bradley yes motion passes I'll now open open it up to Mr parado for his superintendence report all right good evening uh we have a a pretty jam-packed agenda today uh which is being highlighted by our new middle school project presentation uh our students of the month and also our njsla DM presentation uh to start the meeting first um a new member on the day is right now uh we have Cara Austine um who's going to be our 2425 student representative uh this year so like to give her a round and she will be doing her state of the student report uh a little later on this evening um now for the uh September students the month I believe our great six September student of the month isra the H yeah isra was chosen as September student of the month in sixth grade and the teachers at your grade level had the following things to say about you she goes above and beyond to help others in she is a role model she is kindhearted and eager to learn and motivated she took a new student under her Wing to help translate this congratulations isra have we didn't all right so we're going to start with the new Middle School presentation uh to give a brief update on the progress um of really post referendum right post March 12 um I want to thank you all for joining us this evening for the update uh but this update wouldn't be POS possible if I didn't first recognize a few of our our major Partners here in helping us secure some additional funding for the project for the new Middle School at this time I'd like to call up mayor rusio assembly woman Lisa Swain and assembly man chrisy to come up the unwavering support and collaboration we have received from these four individuals have been so important to the fut of our district it's is difficult for me to find the words to express my sincere gratitude for those of you who don't know thanks to their advocacy and treaten these individuals have helped award our additional $5 million for the construction of the new Middle School in addition to this initial allocation there are also future opportunities that we are seeking for more more funding towards this project looking for their support we would like to send a heartfelt thanks and honor he was a small token of our appreciation GNA read the plaque real quick on behalf of the students staff and the entire Community the little furry Board of Education extends a heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to these three individuals for your tireless efforts and dedication to securing additional funding for the little Public Schools your commitment has made a lasting impact on the future of our students and has brought us one step closer to the completion of our new Middle School your hard work will continue to shape the education the lives of our students for generations to come much appreciated thank you very much I want to give them the if they want to do say a few words well first uh thank you very much the superintendent to the board uh we really uh appreciate this I want to um I want to thank our assembly members uh Lisa Swain and Chris Tully uh Lisa was the mayor of fair laon and Chris was a councilman in Bergenfield so um when they became our assembly members in January of this year because we were in a different district and then we moved to the 38th District in January and uh of course we've known each other for many years but one of our first encounters I told them about some of the needs that we have here and as a former mayor and councilman they understand the balance of providing a great education and great educational facilities for our children at the same time the burden that that f puts on the taxpayers at times and why there is a need uh for state aid um and as soon as we told them about the problem um they went to work uh Senator Joe Lagana another great guy uh who was one of my first phone calls he not be here today uh but I'm sure he'll he'll be here soon he's got roots in little fery his uh his mother actually uh went to school here uh at was at Washington school so uh when we when we brought him in uh we gave him a tour of the and he also understood the the great need so I I am so thankful that we have this great legislative team uh that when I pick up the phone and we need some help uh they're there for us uh $5 million goes a long way I know uh that there's a commitment to to continue to help and I'll keep falling uh every year um and that goes a long way in reducing the burden on the taxpayers because as we all know this school is very much needed um and it is something that we're looking forward to kudos to the board and to their team uh to the superintendent uh not only for all the the time and effort they put into this and the research and the studying uh but also for making this open and transparent and that was my request at the beginning of your tenure Mr superintendent I said well as we go through this process we have to make sure that the public is informed every step of the way um and so that way collectively together we can we can support this and certainly the voters supported the referendum in March and I know that there's a lot of excitement and we can't wait to get a shovel in the ground and to build this so again thank you to you uh and and the board and heartfelt thanks to our great legislative team we are we are blessed that uh that you are represent us in Trenton and we thank you for all you have done and will continue to do for little fair so thank you so much um thank you to all of the board members for this Chris and I and Joe you know usually we're the ones handing out proclamations and certificates so it's really very special for us for me to receive this so thank you and thank you mayor for um all of your work um you know this is something that we really have a a lot of gratitude for being able to get this money for this town especially as your new representatives and I'm sure you can imagine we now represent 16 towns and everybody needs something but Joe and Chris and myself we fight very hard for our district and one of the things that we're so proud of is all the money that we're able to bring back to our district and you just heard the mayor explain like every dollar that we're able to bring back to District 38 to Little Ferry to our towns reduces the tax burden on the residents so that's why we fight so hard we know how important affordability is to everyone and we want to make sure that we do everything we can to have a little impact on that affordability in your town so thank you again and um I'll wait for that next phone call I just want to say thank you so much superintendent to the board you know I've run for a lot of offices in my life one position I would never run for is a school board artist most thankless position so thank you for all of your work and thank you for all you do for the little fair and for our PR resource our children which is what this money was this is what we we were advocating for Dan and Trenton and you have the best mayor uh not only in Bergen County but in the state of New Jersey Morrow uh the council the second that we became your representatives in Little Ferry he was on the phone to us he knows this town he knows the issues and he knew exactly what you needed so we were so happy to deliver we were so happy to advocate on your behalf as you said mayor we're going to work every year to make sure that little fery and every town in District 38 gets their fair share because you give a lot to our to our County to our state we want to make sure that we deliver back for you so we're so honored to be here tonight this is such an amazing evening and we look forward to the presentation all the hard work uh that you put in thank you so much everybody God bless all you okay e all right so we're going to PIV for two seconds I saw our okay so our eighth grade student of the month is Arniel Santos the teachers of 8th grade had this to say about Arniel he's a mild mannered very respectful student he is naturally gifted in music and always brings much ability and enthusiasm to music class he is a hard worker and helps his fellow students and always strives to do his very very best congratulations onel I have e Sophia's not here she's here okay well I think you least deserve to hear with meth grade teach seventh grade te rather say better uh so Sophia Cera was the seventh grade student of the month and her teachers had the fly things to say about sopia she's very helpful she is dedicated to her studies he's respectful to her teachers and her peers he's attentive in class completely we couldn't be more proud congratulations okay we're going to start our our brief uh presentation regarding the new Middle School um before I do so before you take it off um with us on the DAT today we have Conor Brian from Legacy we have Ralph Walker from RSC Architects and we have Mr B our Middle School principal okay so we will kick off our presentation hi everybody so uh before the presentation I'm sorry to turn this into a love vest but the passing of this Bond referendum um was The Blood Sweat and Tears of a lot of people and I just want to take a quick minute to thank a few people first the burrow of little fery thank you for trusting us and thank you for voting yes on this Bond referendum this is going to be a building that students absolutely need and they're going to enjoy for the next Century so a heartfelt thank you on behalf of this board the administrations students and staff uh thank you to my board uh there are a few veterans on this board who had a vision of this new school since superstorm Sandy and I want to thank each and every one of you for trusting me to be your president during this once in a-lifetime project and once in a lifetime opportunity so a heart fell thank you for trusting me um the the board also knew that this was a major project and that we would have to build a solid foundation for us to be able to even make this the success that it was and when the open superintendent position was available um I mean Mr parado and Mr Gomez bringing you in as the business administrator you two have been the absolute Foundation of this project and I don't think anybody here truly understands the depth of work that's involved in this type of project the undertaking is absolutely massive and this board wants to thank the both of you from the bottom of our hearts without you this would not have happened perod thank you to Laura Bishop Communications especially Christine who's over here you have been our thank you for guiding us for providing us with all of the information that we needed uh to make sure that this success and to Mayor Rio's point to make sure that we are transp is possible which I think we worked thank you also thank you to bian um and Laura and of course uh last but not least Ralph Walker at RSC architects who has been diligently working as of March 13th we parted a little on the 12 but we were ready to work on the 13th um just thank you to you and your entire team and I know Chris isn't here but thank you to Chris thank you to Dana and thank you to pH um we meet every two weeks to make sure that this project is on task um these meetings are extensive and we are Beyond grateful for everything we're looking forward to new beautiful building thank you R so I'm excited to share some highlights and our progress if we want to switch to the next slide please this is my absolute favorite slide of the entire deck and during the referendum process you got I spoke and we absolutely listened um if we're looking at the the deck right now we'll see that thanks to the additional funding by our assembly men assembly woman state senator and mayor rusio um and alongside the interest rate that we secured which was um actually lower than we anticipated we were able to uh decrease the tax impact by $110 a year it's a it's a significant decrease and um we also want to mention mentioned that this is in addition to The Debt Service Aid that was unlocked with the approval of the bond referend I also do want to point out that the $5 million provided to us by the state will not make this a bigger project we unanimously decided that we want to ensure that five million goes directly back to the taxpayers and that um it goes towards the debt relief uh not to increase the budget of the project um this is especially huge for this board because we've expressed our commitment during the referendum process that we would fight tirelessly to find additional funding and I believe that we're doing that and rest assured that we are not going to stop here um so we promise just to continue our efforts and ensure that offset Falls to our so if you notice on the bond referendum we we V voted for roughly 38 million but now with the state's additional 5 million um our bond is 32 all right the next slide um is sort of a continuation of the last slide but this breaks down monthly I'm sure many of you recognize this de or this slide rather um where we had um originally shared the average that um an average sucessful will pay per month um based on the bond the sale of the bond and what was originally about $50 a month has been reduced to $41 so again we're working hard to chip away this just broken down by mon um now I'd like to introduce Ralph Walker from RSC Architects to talk us through the process and what we've accomplished so far thank you and thank you to the board it's a true pleasure to work with with such hard hard Adra so it's been a real pleasure from get and as we said previously we have been working on this essentially the day after the excited where we're at so let me give you a few updates first on the process the ofeducation um to be the construction manager for this projects they're an active partner in this project with us so RC as your architect we have and designers as part of our process Legacy helpage the expectation budget keep us so it's a great partnership we're happy to have we've also been we're meting um local police fire departments big part of the process here is making building is as possible not just first day that it opens but for the next 15 to 100 years and they've been great part well um we've worked with food service and folks in terms of the plan cafeteria very excited about lunch we're excited about all me so I think you're going have a great experience in our CER um and we have been working with a number of other departments County State leveling going through the proc for connection Department all those applications and then we've been working through the evaluation on the design one of the things that you've heard about before and I know you're all familiar with is some of the challenges site with include issues related to and part of the design and in addition we're also looking at furniture and Technology requirements projects looking at the number of vendors District already working and then most importantly and and I will reiterate [Music] word let's get into some of the features of projects um you can go to the next slide so this is kind of a long list of items we'll show you some pictures in just a minute that a little bit but um one of the things in designing a a middle school for not just today the next 5200 years there's a lot of different features that consider in process um and most importantly is what is the student experience so when we're looking at the design of the building thinking about things like how do we make sure that the the entry is both wel but also secure how do we make sure that the as opportunities for not just Athletics but for observation way the we're making classrooms Future Ready making sure that they're design for technology not just today tomorrow designing in dedicated science labs speci art music and then creating common areas to create Community Connection through in addition we're also being careful how does this building fit within community and part of that design is about setting the building back from Street having drop off area an area where students for beginning end of school start finish go the next slide show you so this is this is what the building look like once it's completed across the street and again we're excited about the opportunity here what you're seeing is the classroom building over the entry there you'll notice that building itself is elevated got an elevated CL where students will will enter and set it's set on the right hand side of the building you see so this is a great what see some of the things that you may experience in the of the building um would be some of the UPS these are examples bu classrooms simar scale and simar types of furniture completed so see cleaning refresh classrooms integrated technology lighting Furniture there um and as we move through the building we also have some really exciting spaces so for instance our rooftop go to that we are looking that we have aop Recreation the equivalent of basketball court with the turf finish um in on top of really amazing opportunity for school to use for athletics and for SCH activities great commun so we're excited about the opportunity that school dist has invested in terms of process um where we're at right now wrapping up the design currently we are going through a number of State Agency Reviews so we have a AER um we finished up our Department of Education review Contin we expect to bid in January 25 and that means that you will start to see construction across the street really later the nature of 25 Orly spring so once bids come in contractors star to on site start to see showing up start still do not we very ex um and we expect projects to continue through spring of2 and we are working towards completion really as soon as possible as as everyone at this table continues to remind all of us to to move for asly as possible um but we are anticipating in Middle School by and move to the timeline all again we started here in March ta we move forward with the design immediately be going B the end of this year and then construction will take us us so back to finish up all right uh everybody so we encourage you to stay up to date on our progress via our website it's www.f.org fairy future follow us on Instagram follow us on Facebook I'm not sure if we're on anything else um but we do plan to post photos there um we'll post more on social media and we plan to give another update as soon as we have more information to share and we'll advertise it the same way um that we did for this meeting otherwise if you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out to us grab Mr perado in the hallway talk to Mr Gomez talk to your board members um otherwise thank you very much all right we um take about five or 10 minutes minutes and open it up to any questions if anybody has any questions comments oh Mr R coming up 16 first of I like to thank education I just have question and I'm glad I attended this meeting and here it was 10 million we can get you're working on getting uson for next year we requested 10 million weest done this year and we're told that reest our goal is every year during the budget process May obviously a situation recognize situation so we're make those we're going to try to get that full contribution the next and you still will your seat not that's the voter yeah I to question to um the I know you did submit the application can you me update on it please yeah we submitted the application we did a Ser of calls com we had a direct follow them toie the project and there were no [Music] yeah okay and as far as going up to the flood plane to build up how high are we going the end so we will be one foot above so from the sidewalk outside approxim High to the first the could you be told by the to go up higher but if there is changes you will definitely have to go correct no that's not if if we've submitted the plans' approved construction then you continue based on but our expectations okay thank you any other questions great we're going to take a brief recess e e e e e e e e e e e e it resolve that the little fa Board of Education determines it is necessary to meet an executive session on Thursday October 17 2024 at 7:48 pm to discuss matters of personnel negotiations and litigation and be a further resolve that these matters will be made public when confidentiality no longer exists uh yeah do I have a motion motion second 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 um we'll now open it up to Mr dun I know it was before all right I just I should all right at this point um at this time we're gonna have Cara Augustine do her uh student report C [Music] participated oober [Music] this all thank you great job G and I apologize again for making way if I can do it over again I would probably had to go off meeting but I live and I learn Mr R thank you for putting it together get start thank you okay at this time we will focus to G up for the njsla and the DM you're welcome you're welcome to stay you're welcome to leave be offend I will't be um thank you so much uh this presentation is on the nsla and the DM results uh so the DM is the dynamic learning map uh which is given to students with special needs um it it is generally 1% or less of our student population um it's given to those only with cognitive disabilities uh and specifically intended for those students who canot participate in general assessments due to their disabilities the njsla or New Jersey student learnings assessment is given to all students grades 3 through 11 eight for us uh in England language arts mathematics and science in grades three 8 and 11 um and it is an assessment to see if students have met the expectations of the New Jersey student learning standards um so those would be portions we'll talk about the DM nsla and then what are our next uh so the DM um as I went through the purpose of it is for those with severe cognitive disabilities uh and it is meant to be accessible to those students it is an Adaptive assessment that begins with survey by the teacher um so that it it starts the students at their appropriate placement and then they're able to work their way through the test uh 12 students uh both in District and out of district from fa took that from grades 3 through eight um grades 3 through eight taking math grades five and eight take science um I can't disaggregate the data further than this because any po student population less than 10 we can't report so if I tell you who did well pass didn't it'll it'll drop under 10 I can't talk about it further um but we were pleased with our student performance and we did see increases in our students who had taken it uh over the course of the past three years all right njsl um so a little bit about it there's five levels that you can um earn in ela and math uh from level one through level five level one being did not meet expectations level five being uh exceeded expectations and the goal being level four or five that's met or exceeded uh subject areas are English language arts in math 3 through eight and in grades 5 through eight uh science science is a different scale it's levels 1 through four and anything greater than level three is considered c um the assessment is then broken down by the different subgroups those being gender ethnicity students with disabilities multilingual Learners and economically disadvantaged all right so let's start with some celebrations uh 100% of our Algebra 1 students pass the same test um that is 60% higher than the state average of 39 um in grades three four 6 and 8 math um our met or exceeded scores um increased from the previous year grades four and six went up from the previous year in ela and overall our math scores are trending upward um with increases of 5% um per year whereas Mr lero told me the um the technical math term would be 133% of the yada y y he went into a lot of M um all right so how did we do I'm going to give an overview of our scores from 2019 through uh 2024 so pre- pandemic and post pandemic we'll over Ela um Math and Science with the current year a comparison of Frosty years comparison of cohort to cohort meaning Apples to Apples that apples to oranges and then the demographics each uh so here's here's a graphic of our performance overall so to the left you'll see 2019 and then you'll see a gap so that's pre- pandemic um and it goes blue yellow green for ELA math and science so you can see where we were pre pandemic and where we are now um so we have taken a dip post pandemic as the majority of the state and country has um but you know some things we're proud of in particular um is is math is that that increase and you can see on that line graph that it is trending upward um Ela took a little bit of a dip this year this past year um going down slightly um and then um science has been pretty steady at around that 16 to 20% over the course of the past uh three years something to note are district transparence we're having a lot of students move to little very popular town right um so a little bit of the timeline of that in 22 23 we had 78 new students The District 37 of which were multilingual Learners 15 of which those multi Learners started after January 1st that means if you start after January 1st you're taking the 2023 at gsla and you're taking the ELA assessment the following year you're not truly getting that one year of acclimating to the United States and to this country um because if you the cut off is July 1 of that school year um so it's it's really not fair to do students but that's how the state does it um last year 23 24 we had 82 new students 38 of them multilingual Learners 15 after January 1 and again um those students immediately take the 2024 math and are then set to take the 2025 um Ela um this year we're at 59 already it it's October 17th um 17 of those students are multilingual Learners and that means they all those students will take the math assessment this year and um will then take the ELA the following um roughly 40% of our um multilingual Learners are arriving after January 1 it puts them at a disadvantage we have an amazing ESL Department um but when students start middle of the year and then have you know two to three to maybe four months before they're taking the state test you know they're only starting to acquire that language so it's something to really um a lot of our students are coming with interrupted education so they are traveling uh in order to reach the United States so there's a gap in their education that's what's consider interrupted education um and then they're having limited instructional time they just arrive um and then they don't get that True full year exemption because of that uh July 1st cut off dat all right so let's jump into Ela so again you can see our scores from 2019 to 2024 um and and how we perform districtwide it's just another bar graph to be able to see this this is just our passing scores level four or higher uh this is a breakdown of each grade level um so the way this will work is blue is great that is uh SE expectations green is good that means you met um yellow is approaching orange is um um slightly or no I'm sorry yellow is just below Benchmark orange is um approaching and red is below Benchmark um so when you look from left to right it'll go grade three to grade eight and then also on the right hand side I have the comparison to the state um so you can see how we scored in each grade level you can also compare it to the state so in ela um three of the sixth grade levels outperformed in the state of New Jersey um and of the other ones they were very CL um grade seven was the lowest of those um what is a good thing to see and what you start to see in this graphic is how there are less and less level ones and level twos and I think that's attributed to the work that all of our teachers have done over the past three years uh in really addressing the intervention needs of our most struggling Learners and those who are just below Benchmark so there ones and twos are moving into threes and our goal this year is to move those threes to a four or pass a little bit of a comparison this is apples to oranges this is how grade levels have performed year to year from 2019 to 2024 uh on the right hand side you'll see the the current years's um percentages um so you can see where we started in 2019 and where we are today um I do say this is apples to oranges because this is just grade three scores to grade three scores it's not the cohort the next side will show show that cohort um so it could be a good group moving from year to year who's going to perform highly as as they've moved up or um one that has struggled when you look at the cohort comparison this is something we're very proud of um you're we're seeing increases as our students are moving up so grade three it's our first year taking it we don't have any previous data for them to look at um grade four you can see an increase from year to year grade five is increase um every year that they've taken the assessment grade six went down up just the touch um grade seven um maintained where they were at uh and grade eight went down a little bit we generally see that in grade grade eight um and the state overall grade eight is U generally the lowest performing uh assessment results they got their eyes U breaking down the demographics um from left to right you have male female Asian black Hispanic um if it if it has an NA that means the population population under 10 for native Hawaiian paf island white are two or more races so you can see how this how students performing with each in each of the subgroups uh the next demographic breaks down our students with iaps students with 504s are current multilingual Learners former multilingual Learners and students who are economically disadvantaged um next is a breakdown of our our lowest performing groups again it's apples to oranges looking at over the course of years um but our students who are black um you see that the the passing percentages have gone down slightly this past year in ela students with IEP there's been a decrease each year uh and multilingual Learners we saw a little bit of a decreases um you know that is attributed as a part presentation to you know our students moving in um middle of the year and not getting that True full year of exemption um and as that has dramatically increased um the past two years especially last year onto map you can see just in bar graph form that was on the line graph before our our data of overall for the district passing nice upward curve this is a breakdown of all the grades uh so again left to right you have grade three to grade eight with algebra that beautiful green and blue all the way to the right and then on the right hand side you can see the comparison um versus the state of New Jersey uh and out of the seven of them we outperform the state um we were close on quite a few again you notice eighth grade being the lowest but the state average also being the lowest this is our apples to oranges this is our performance at each grade level year to year um you do see growth year to year which is nice you go grade three four uh a little bit of a dip in five which I'll talk more about shortly an increase in grade six grade seven a slight in grade A maintaining about the same um and algebra going up uh that dotted line that you see that's our overall goal our long-term goal is to hit 75% passing or three quarters this is our Apples to Apples comparison of how our students did against one another so grade three it's their first time taking it grade four maintained where they at no additional students um grade five de grade five had um 19 new students last year n were multilingual Learners um and that attributes to it there were also students who moved out who had passed uh the test previously um we also had approximately um 15 students who had pre previously passed the njsla map um not pass um so what we have done is specifically targeted those students who have passed in the past pasts um to provide them additional intervention both before school or during the school here's the demog graphic back um breakdown other demographics from I AP to economic disadvantage and then a break down of our lowest performing groups um so we broke it down into four um our black our black student population uh has seen an increase overall which is lovely to see uh our Hispanic population has also increased it's also our largest subgroup overall but U it's been increasing our students with IPS have remained about the same at that um 5 to 7% uh and we've seen that decrease in MLS um again that's why I started our presentation talking about how we're having more students coming in and coming in middle of the year or at times a month before they're taking the test science uh here's a breakdown of performance pre- pandemic to today um theid a little bit wrong um so in in 2019 we not at 16% I apologize we're about 23% um so 19 and 24 should be flipped um so you can see where we were and where we are going uh here's a breakdown it's just 5 and eight it doesn't have the overall but the breakdown of those percentages uh so you can see a big chunk of the kiddos um in that just below passing and you can see on the right side the comparison to the state so in grade 5 27% approximately pass across the state of New Jersey we are at almost 20% uh and in gr 18% uh passing we were at close to 13% so the state overall has been performing uh has been struggling in their performances in um science um the the state of New Jersey has noted that and is changing the way state they're calculating the fusac scores where science will be worth less percentage points in comparison to ELA and map because that's taken every year uh in addition our science teachers have you know gone through each of the standards we don't get a lot of data back on these performances get told how they did in life science physical science and earth science which are gigantically broad categories uh but we've been breaking down how students have performed individually as well as looking at ways to integrate the uh practice tests into the curriculum seamless uh here's a breakdown of our performances over the course of the past three years uh so we can see where we're at 2019 and where we are today a break down of the demographics and the same breakdown for grade eight all right so what are the next steps this's a lot of data a lot of numbers I've thr at here so what are we doing with this data so there's a three pronic approach uh we're going through a deep dive into Data analysis we formed a data team to do so we have multi system with student supports or mtss uh and we have a variety of interventions for all for all of our owns all right so that analysis so boom more numbers on so this is a data this is something we created over the summer and have been analyzing with our data team it breaks down the students names are are blanked out but it will break down all of their scores overall uh both in our our Benish Mark assessment which is I ready um how they placed the nose how they performed in last years uh in njsla how could they perform I ready um what their reading levels are and what their previous years uh scores in on the nsla were um what we did was we created this uh over the summer and it allowed us to be fall action we started interventions as well as rise and shine um six weeks earlier than we have in the past so we were able to hit the ground running right away with our interventions right away with our rise and shine as well as with our bubble boost um we changed the way in which we provide our assessments um we're doing some of the assessments a little bit later in the fall because we're utilizing that spring data we're having a period zero we're calling it so that all new students are uh constantly assessed so that we can provide them interventions if needed right away or in some cases getal services and it just gives us more data in a in a more um expedited fashion allows us to you know provide these interventions more quickly and they're set to cohorts so that we're having students um receive intervention in cohorts of 10 weeks uh our multi-tier system of student support you with tier one is your classroom instruction in the center As you move to the left you have a tier two which is our bubble boost that's during our wi or what I need now period when students who were just below passing on the nsla or are are projected to uh score just below passing on the I Benchmark receive intervention in ela math tier three would be a pull out intervention uh during the school day in our wi period or before school and rise and shine on the reverse side um is no longer triangle it's turn into a diamond so tier two is additional in-class work for those students who are performing really well and might appear bored or behavioral and then tier three is our twice a week pull out for gifted and talent in construction so what do these look like in action to a little bit from left to right um in there you're in there um so you can see our uh our interventionist working one to one with a student he was Orton Gillingham trained we have now have two Horton Gillingham certified uh teachers as well as having all of our first and second grade teachers reive Porton Gillingham classroom educator uh certificates over this year in the center you'll see our rise and shine which this is one of the first days it grew from a handful of kids now close 50 um but they're still receiving that instruction in a small group of less than four uh and then you see Miss Stanis on the right providing intervention as well so that's some of our tier three supports and then I spoke a little bit about Bubble boost but I it's you know a project that Mr perado you know put on us to to boost those kids ahead and it was really to Target those kids who were just below Brave up and what we noticed was if you can see you can see on the left graph is that over 50% of the students who received that bubble boost jumped up from a projected level three are just below passing to a level four on their NS um and we broke it down by grade level on the other side um you'll see some that performed really well and some that performed lower we tried some different things we tried small groups as well as we tried to do it in full group uh what we found is in the data was that the whole group didn't work as well as the small grp and we were able to start the bubble boost early this something we started when uh late January early February last year and it's something that that we started at the beginning of October intervention for all so that was uh one of our dist goals last year it's something we continue this year that includes our family engagement nights which had on last week and very well attended a lot of new faces that's what I was most excited about a lot of multilingual learner families there um we're lucky enough to have a good staff um who are proficient in Spanish who were able to translate so um whether you speak English or not you're able to get that that information and then able to provide those supports at home uh you can see our win period our what need now so every class every grade level has a different win period so that our interventionists are able to spread out and attack every grade level we have um four um four Ela interventionists and three math interventionists across the district so we're able to service far more students as well as on the other end of the spectrum are gifted and talented uh has two sessions at each grade level each week uh some other overall things we're doing you know our district goals was to improve uh tier one instruction that through our districtwide teacher Clarity Playbook um book club um as well as through weekly administrative team meetings with each grade level uh improving those two tier two supports which is through that bubble uh bubble boost of small group instruction as well as just more more small group pull out in the classroom uh developing that portrait of the night we're really starting to fine-tune what were our expectations K to2 3 to 5 6 to8 uh and then improve our data practices which you saw through our data wall another thing I'd like to highlight is you we saw our uh students with IPS underperforming we've uh adopted a 95 rat which is important Gillingham multi-sensory approach um for all of our multiply uh disabled classrooms and in k through eight so they're receiving a higher level of um reading instruction so 48 slides thank you Mr dun y so last night I was at the Richfield Park meeting and we had the same presentation 94 slides and looking comparatively between richf Park and lfy a couple takeways um first one is as they were going through it they had a and looking at their slid I was coming through my phone looking at presentations comparatively um cou take was they had they reviewing their test scores and questioning why their scores in seventh eth grade were so much lower than 36 District then questioning what the difference was uh at the high school and then bringing up is there a difference in the ninth grade when Lil Ferry comes in and how that apparently makes a change when will fre District comes into the high school and how do that affect the T schools and looking at it we are way ahead of them in our schores if you go on their site and P up their scores and look at ours we're exceeding them in almost every area looking at science in the eth grade where both districts are doing below average at at the state level we are beating them by more than 40% at the so looking at where we are as a district and looking comparatively amongst the state level but here locally between us and at Richville Park where we share the same high school I just want to say that we are doing great job here amongst where we are with our own high school we Shing the same High School we're doing a great job here in our K school I mean looking at where we are test score wise looking at where we are as a district now we're constantly improving and listen the numbers are the numbers we're constantly looking to improve every day but looking at where we are with in the high school where we're competing with other not competing but where we are with others classmates in the same high school I think we do a great job and this and the scores tell the story I think we're doing a great job with our students and then as we approve I think that we should compar look at where we are with the other um elementary schools in the in the near the C and see where we are how and how we performing I think it's something that we should looking at because I think you're doing a great job here that'ss off to you Mr D and to your into the entire team it's really a great story so to share that all right presid that concludes my report thank you we'll now open it up uh Mr Gomez for the board secretary report good evening everyone uh first thing I'd like to address facilities even though we're building a new wonderful facility we're not neglecting this facility so one thing we're working on is preparing to go out the m in the winter to replace the unit ventilators in the rooms uh they're quite old uh we did go out for a comparison last year and the numbers came in extremely high so now we're going to go out to bid So What affected is almost every District in the state is doing unet for hbac so now that those are most mostly done we should get a better number um food service so I'd like to share with you some of our numbers so we don't have our profit and loss yet for September but I know where this is is going so last year in Washington school we served 2718 meals this September we serve 7,054 me those confirm so for Memorial last year was 3,173 meals that's breakfast and lunch together this year we serve 5,999 so they say the proof is in the pudding so we're part of the national school run program so we receive a subsidy from the federal government and state for every meal that we serve last year we received $1,171 73 this year subsidy $ 43,5 19 so I can't wait to see that profit and loss so it's that's that's amazing so it justifies the disc for to transition and with the breakfast Administration last spring really put an amazing effort and getting those numbers up and they're amazing I mean um I'd also like to highlight that this board uh is that our lunch did not increase so we are still at the $3.50 one and what is it for breakfast so we did not increase our prices so the breakfast at Washington last year it was 227 breakfast in September this year was 2,900 so that was the efforts of of our administrator not only did we not increase the prices we also added well that we had the okay meches to add two additional employees to the service line to help exate the process with these kind of numbers I it almost paid for it in September so and terms of enrollment we have our preliminary numbers um snapshots taken on October 15 last year just students in this building was we had 89 on October 15 this year we have 839 and that's not counting to 15 two students at 3k7 so that good uh for finance we close September the streak is still alive we did it in 13 days little mon so next month the board will see a a board resolution to return $2.4 million back to the capital reserve we've been using the capital reserve to pay for the preliminary cost of the project now since we have all the money in place for the new school I'll we'll put back in the capital reserve and it will be used mostly for the univent and other projects going forward like things like that great that concludes uh my presentation great okay all right we'll open up to miss BR Personnel the Personnel committee met on October 2nd on the agenda for this evening were uh proving the hiring of part-time custodian par professional ASD par professional and a part-time driver reason for the part-time driver is we're going to use that person as a safety net should our current bus drivers pull out sick have a day off at least we have someone that is available to take over their route uh in addition Miss konc is retiring like to graduate her which are very best while she's on her students and on her thank you Mrs biluso for Education well after Mr done amazing presentation all I have to say is thank you for the job well done great thank you Miss um Mr velli for finance Mr pretty much Stu great Mr mey for policy policy commit not Mrs Patel for transportation um m p was kinding up to get update for that parttime driver um no other update to provide at this time great and as far as expansion goes I think a comprehensible an hour ago Mr vet for B on report no Mr phro rich parkley is on report there was a meeting yes yesterday they did the same presentation that we had [Music] results testing and Mrs scottley for njsba delegate report well I'm not going board going down convention and Sh their knowled with board and all of the other building and they thank you before I open it up to public comment I just want to add that we're adding um a new item to agenda 123 be a resolve of the Little Ferry Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools hereby approved three-day suspension with pay pursuing to njsa 18a 68.3 of a custodial employee whose name is on file with the board I'll now open it up for public comment on agenda items only then we'll take a block vote on F39 to f42 do 154 to do 174 p107 to p123 fa1 C 12 to C 13 do I have a motion motion second all right Mrs RI yes yes Mr fos yes Bley Mr mey yes Mr L yes B yes Mr Benelli yes Mr Brad I'm abstaining from do 168 and all the rest are yes motion pass all right we'll open it up for um comments on non-agenda items all right do I have a motion to adjo motion second second