##VIDEO ID:ljov7tnNnV8## like it can you hear me in the back Dr Bina yeah all right let's get started this meeting of the ma board of education is open to members of the public to be physically present members of the public that attend will be asked to follow the same procedures as all other visitors to our schools those procedures can be found on the agenda page of our website Additionally the board meeting will be live streamed for viewing purposes only anyone wishing to view the meeting May do so via Zoom the webinar ID for this meeting is 84 3608 9891 and the required password is 086 863 all right I call this meeting to order a roll call please Mr Mr use here Mr kmari cannot be with us miss Jansen here Mr copin here M ziero here Mr D Silva here Mr Denise here Mr Gallow here Dr Morton here adequate notice of agenda of this meeting has been provided to the Ridgewood news and the record specifying that the m board of education will meet on October 30th 2024 in the administrative offices 60 Ridge Road Mawa New Jersey a copy was filed with the Township Clerk uh salute to the flag Mr Denise you can lead us plg to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we do not require a executive session in the beginning uh so we will go to agenda questions all right please limit your questions at this time to resolutions your new business on this agenda it's a matter of fairness you're asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than 3 minutes if you are here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you are here as an individual please give us your name and address this section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes please specify the resolution you are referring to in your question all right I need a motion to open the meeting to the public Mr dilva second by Mr Gallow we are officially open to the public all right seeing no one come forward at this time motion to close the meeting to the public Mr coplin second by Mr Hughes all right our MAA student representative report we will jump right in today is your mic working hello bring hi everyone um so to start off talking about fall Sports girls and soccer girls and boys soccer team are both doing really well they're headed into States the girls as the fourth seed and boys as the sixth we also have our marching band which just competed at barit high school in the state championship and they came in third in open class which is the most competitive one and they also competed at West west6 High School um where they came first in the region in region 10 um recently as a school we had spirit week which the seniors won so students participated in theme days Banner decorating and we also ran a food job where all the donations were brought to the CFA uh recently last week we had eighth grade open house which was a success eighth graders and their parents came in to talk to students uh they learned all about the clubs they spoke to guance consors and learned about our care Pathways uh they also looked at Athletics to get information about that and we they want to join at the high school tomorrow for Halloween SGA we're going to host a Halloween ition for everybody give out some prizes to the winners and then also the fall play is coming up in November it's get smart so the dates for that are November 20th is the senior citizen preview at 4:30 Thursday November 21st is at 7:30 Friday November 22nd also at 7:30 and then on Saturday November 23rd there's one at 2:00 and at 7:30 and lastly I just have this poster to show everyone so this is what we've been creating we started it last year and we call it what's the word Birds to show students like upcoming events at the high school and it's hung up at the front of the school for everyone to see so this one was from October great cool I'm not sure we're so we're not cool enough to say that we thank you very much thank you thank you they say it enjoy Halloween thanks all right now we move on to Dr Doro do we have a superintendence report this evening I see we have our testing report it says a s all right so let's do this does your microphone work can you hear us in the back John you can all good they can hear us okay um I have a a large number of things to share you go there we go have a radio voice yeah so I have I have a number of things to share but most importantly um I wanted to make sure that we were able to provide the district testing report we have Mr Sheik and Mr Mr Jarvis here to present um a large a number of data points um ranging from the dlm to the njsla so I'd like to call them up so they can make the presentation and I'll continue with my report following that this one work you uh good evening everyone uh thanks for coming out tonight appreciate see you here um tonight we're here to report on the district testing results for the spring of 2024 my name is Denis Jarvis I'm the supervisor of science for grades 6 through 12 and Integra design and Engineering for grades 9 through2 I'm joined by my colleague tonight Mr isik felik who's our supervisor of mathematics for grades six through 12 so the two assessments that we're going to report on out tonight are the New Jersey student learning assessment or the nsla and the dynamic learning Maps or the DM um both assessments were given like we said the spring of 2024 and both these assessments assess our students on our New Jersey student learning standards in ela mathematics and science um the njsla as you can see on the screen here is assessed through grades 3 through n for ELA um in science it's assessed at grades 5 8 11 I'll speak more that when we talk about science here shortly uh and Mathematics it's assess grades 3 through 8 mathematics um the difference is from grades 7 through n gets a little bit more differentiated largely depending upon student placement whether they're in Algebra 1 geometry or Algebra 2 um the first assessment we're going to speak to tonight is the dynamic learning Maps the dynamic learning maps are assessed for a very special subset of our special education students these are the students that have the most significant learning um learning issu um so what they do with the dynamic flaring Maps is they assess on what are called the Essential Elements um and these essential elements are statements of skill and knowledge that are aligned to our New Jersey student learning standards um so for lack of a better analogy it's essentially designed to meet our students where they're at um many of our students are not at grade level um not exposed to grade level standards so these Essential Elements allow for um the differentiation for IND ual student needs um as you can see on the bottom there they're on a four point scale or four four Target scale one will be emerging approaching at Target or Advanced um obviously our goal is we want all of our students who are taking DM to be at Target or Advanced so our next slide here gives us the rundown of all our students that took part in the dlm okay so a couple things to note here you'll see the total of 24 students down the bottom there um this represents both in District students and students who are out of District placements who took part in DM um the second piece of this is that 24 is representative of students who took some combination of the assessments whether they were all three Ela mathematics and science or they took one or two of those assessments so um wanted to make sure that we were clear what that number 24 represented okay next slide here shows us our students met uh basically at Target or advance for our DM scores mathematics HC was 11 students Ela was 17 students um you'll notice that science is noticeably absent from the list um New Jersey has a requirement of 10 students as a reporting threshold of 10 students science did not meet that threshold so we cannot report out on those results um so you'll have to indulge me here um each one of our assessments whether it's science Ela mathematics is going to have an intervention SL um and there's a lot of meat on the bone so to speak there's a lot of things that we're doing to help our students in our individual content areas um so I'm want to highlight a few of these but please feel free read along you know go be ahead um I just want to make sure that I I I cover the you know honor the depth and breadth of the work that's being done with our students that our teachers um so the teachers and the child study team meet very frequently they they look at specific learning goals for each of our individual students um as they hear the IEP process we want to make sure it's an individualized approach so that we best need the needs of our students we certainly use data from the dlm as well as our inhouse assessments whether the IR ready link or other inhouse assessments um to cater those individual intervention strategies for our students to make sure that we're best meeting their goals um we do have Project based learning opportunities that align to those Essential Elements so the kids are getting real world application of those different skill sets um we utilize academic coaches in the classroom with our teachers especially focus on our Cent based instruction um so that our students are really getting an individualized attention in the classroom uh We've added different assessments for our general education settings whether it's dibles or the f&p um and those just other tools that we can use to assess our students at a deeper level um that we may not get from our general assessments okay um we also provide professional development have and continue to in our functional reading programs whether it's Edmark or Orton Gillian um and we continue to search for those opportunities to embed these students into our general education settings whether it's more meetings specials at Middle School um extracurricular experiences so now we're going to transition to science um you know obviously my sweet spot um so science and you're going to hear me say a few different things about science um science Ela mathematics I'm going to give a couple comparisons here so that you know we see the science is a little bit different um science instruction and you'll see the the ter Next Generation science standards and njsls okay New Jersey student learning standards they essentially are one and the same Next Generation science standards came first New Jersey adopted those standards so if I use those terms interchangeably there's a reason for that they essentially are identical um what they focus on are what I call our three dimensions of science instruction which I always use the expression with my teachers it's just what quality science instruction looks like we focus on disciplinary core ideas which is the content cross cutting Concepts which basically Branch across all content Sciences even in the mathematics um there are characteristics that that you can see in any of those different disciplines um the last part of that is our science and engineering practices which is really the skills that are applied in a good science classroom whether it's interpreting data um you know using mathematical computational thinking any of those apply to the science engine practices um one of the main differences you'll see Ela and Mathematics they're assessed grade by grade so every year the students get those assessments we assess at grades 58 11 our way our standards are written they are threeyear bands of Standards so those consist of life science standards the space science standards and physical science standards um so it's it's a Hardy test at 5 8 11 for our students there's a lot of information on those tests that they're responsible for um mathematics and Ela score on a scale score of 650 to 850 science is 100 to 300 so that's one of the the other key differences um science or mathematics La have five standards or five levels of performance we have four so from level one which is did not yet meet expectations up to level four which is exceeded expectations obviously our our goal is all of our students to meet expectations or exceed expectations so our first slide here is simply put just our performance um in grade five grade eight and grade 11 so you'll see on the left hand side of the screen the blue slider piece the portion of the slider that's blue is % of students that met or exceeded expectations the portion of the slider that's read are students that are below or approaching expectations um we'll talk about that momentarily I want to draw your attention to the right hand side um those numbers there represent the number of students that actually sat for the Science assessment relative to the number of students who could have sat to the Science assessment um so to talk about that very briefly first you can see our participation rates are very high they're not 100% but we're working on that but they're pretty pretty darn close um look to the left hand side of the screen the numbers do jump out of you we know we have a lot of work to do um within that we do have some highlights um but we do know there are areas that we need to Target and we are working to make sure that we're addressing those needs next slide here shows our scores are for students who met or exceeded expectations in our blue compared to the state results in the red so the good news here is that we have out Pac to State at both or all three grades 5'8 11 okay clearly we want those gaps to get larger okay um if you look at grade five we're going to speak to the interventions we realized there was a need there um we're going to speak to that momentarily when we talk about our interventions we want that Gap to be consider really large okay we want the same in grade eight and grade 11 um you will notice though in grade eight that represents about a little over a 5% improvement from last year scores which we're very happy about we have some cautiously optimistic that that's going to continue um unfortunately gr 11 represents a slightly under 5% drop from the your prior so while we hope that's an anomaly we're not you know we're not banking on that we know that there's work to be done so what you're going to see with Ela mathematics you know soon in the presentation you're going to see cohort slides goor comparisons where students are tracked year by year um science doesn't have that it's large part due to the fact that the test is only given every basically every three years from grade five grade eight and grade 11 um New Jersey requires us to do fiveyear trajectory of that cohor comparison um obviously in 20221 we don't have those test results because of the pandemic so you're seeing the results from 2022 onward um as you can see we have progression with the the you know the case in the 11th grade unfortunately um but we have progressed they're modest progressions but they are progression um you know clearly that's not good enough for us we want to do better um like I said we're going to speak through those interventions here momentarily this represents our subgroup data okay so a few things to to notice here we clearly know there are disparities in the data and again our overall scores were not where we want them to be so we you know naturally our subgroup data is also going to fall into that category um a couple key things to note as well when you look at these numbers representing these are percentages okay we want the blue obviously increase but the percentages not all numbers of students that's number one number two um you're looking at students only in grades 58 11 so your subset of data is also smaller so you're going to have a much wider range of fluctuation in terms of those scores um another part you want to take a look at is that we don't have a couple of different categories up here um in large part because they didn't need the state requirement of 10 students and they didn't e that threshold so we didn't report them if we can um we also have students and you'll see the same for ELA you'll see the same for mathematics where students will fall into multiple categories as well on the backg so with interventions we broke them into two categories the same mathematics as well okay um our primary interventions and our secondary interventions okay um we're very excited about our our K5 interventions um and I'm speaking selfishly about this because I was part of the process so we realized that there was a need with our with our K5 program um our program in our elementary school was largely online based okay um I was asked the part of last year uh our three five science committee okay Dr Buie headed that up um and part of the duties of that committee was you know what makes a good science program so um myself Dr buy and and selected teachers from JK met we did a lot of research on the programs that were available to us um Ved out those programs brought those vendors in they did presentations for us but really what we were looking for is a few key things we wanted to make sure the programs were truly aligned to our standards and they actually had expectations where our students could demonstrate the knowledge of those standards um we wanted students to to be exposed to science when I say exposed to science meaning they're working with science handson they're talking science with each other they're writing science they're communicating science um so that was a big part of the process okay Dr buy also work know very tirelessly to increase science time in the classroom by a few hundred minutes per year we all know it starts with teaching but giving the teachers the tool more instruction okay far more instruction they've had in the years past and a program that gives them the tools to help inform our students we are really optimistic that's going to be a winning combination moving forward um so we're looking forward to seeing where that goes and the progress our students make with that okay um as you read on down these interventions you'll also see a lot of overlap with our secondary okay um what we realized and this is not just a mwall problem or a secondary elementary problem this is a national problem students grasp a vocabulary and reading is a national problem okay we are no different we realize that vocabulary is an issue had to focus on so at the grade school and high school we're focusing on basic morphology of vocabulary prefixes suffixes root words um you know you'll see a couple of examples that in our next slide all right uh in the grade school we're using open court we're increasing exposure to non-fiction text reading is a challenge especially non-fiction text um our assessments across the board are are they're wored they're verbose um so we know our kids needed that that help okay um and clearly we going to utilize our maker spaces leveraging those to get science conversation going to talk about the scientific engineering or the engineering design process the scientific method we have these spaces already utilize it to you for all their work okay uh relative to our secondary intervention um we now have two years and we're beginning the second year of having link again we know it starts with teaching and now our teachers have a diagnostic tool catered to science okay um and looking at our results link it allows us to see where we have struggling students okay at risk students um you know curricular gaps okay um where we need to make curricular changes we've already started that process okay um part of that process was really doing a deep dive into our standards making sure the teachers understood you know our standards read are what are called performance expectations meaning that the students are be a supposed to take a standard to be able to demonstrate their knowledge of it in this manner um so making sure that we're aligning our experiences in the classroom to best meet those standards okay did we do good enough did we not let's improve that that's what we're doing that deep dive with with our with our teachers and uh we're also looking at in-house assessments to make sure that they are modeling those style of questions modeling that kind of thinking for our students and again not just for test prep this is just to make them good science students okay um so that's part of the process we're also utilizing IR data the data allows us to look at Ela and mathematic dat both of those apply to science okay most of your early early you know primary secondary science is El okay so that allows us to take certain lessons cater them towards science okay and give the students The Experience um in the classroom okay um we are also focusing on problem solving strategies which are for La they language based strategies okay what's the information being asked of you what data do you have and how do you use that data argue your point okay um so we're aligning that to strategies that we use use the classroom okay relative through our subgroup supports we know our work is across the board our scores overall are not good we know that a lot of our interventions are enroll down through the subgroup supports um the biggest piece of that is the idea that we can use this data now to support purposeful grouping in a classroom so that our teachers can really H in not only as students that need that individualized one-onone attention but also our high Achievers too and push them even further as well okay um and with that I'm going to transition over to Mr sheet who's going to present our mathematics and Ela results thank you okay so I'm going to be talking about mathematics right now so um unlike science um Ela and Mathematics are graded are assessed um on each grade level from 3 to 9 including Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 um the testing components incl include applying skills and Concepts multiset problems requiring abstract thinking modeling real world application problems um the scale score as Mr Jarvis was saying is different from science is it ranges from 650 to 850 and our performance levels are five there are five different performance levels as opposed to the science four so here we have our breakdown by gray level of how we did um as you can see the blue excuse me the blue represents level four and five meing and exceeding expectations and the red represents approaching expectations and on the right hand side you can see valid scores versus possible test takers um and we Ed all this information to make our intervention plans and I'll be speaking about that further in the next few slides so here we have our state versus MAA data for mathematics and as you can see the blue is MAA the red is the State averages and we are very happy that um we are above average however you know we know that there's that dip in the Middle grades and we are taking that information and taking that data and making sure we're using that information to design our interventions one thing to celebrate here is the algebra 2 100% of our nth graders who took the algebra 2 assessment met or exceeded expectations um we're also really happy with our third grade um that also were significantly above State average one thing to note is that the eighth grade data um remember that not all eighth graders take the eighth grade assessment because many eth graders take the algebra 1 or the geometry assessment so that data there does not represent all eth graders because the eighth graders are included in the algebra 1 and geometry data here we have our comparison from the year prior so this does not represent the same students it is the previous year in that same grade level versus this year and we are fairly consistent um and again we know that there's a dip in Middle grades and we're doing um everything we can to make sure we can make that change um and again we're celebrating where we remain consistent especially in third grade um in Algebra 1 for seven seventh and eighth graders um and also in Algebra 2 so here we have our cohort comparison so this does represent the same students as they progress Through The Years so the first cluster represents our F our current fourth graders and how they performed in the previous years notice in grade two there is no assessment which is why there's no data for grade two in the middle cluster um it is represented as the current fifth graders and how they did in the previous years and the last cluster represents current sixth graders so we recognize that this is not great data to have um we know that there's this there's a decline as they progress Through The Years in mathematics and we are definitely working towards making a change and and again I'll be speaking on how we're doing that this is our cohort comparison for grades 7 through 8 so again the first cluster represents current seventh graders the second cluster represents current eighth graders but again please remember that e8th grade does not represent um those that took the alra one assessment or the geometry assessment so again we want to see a steady incline and we do not see this here um but we do like to see that there is an incline between sixth and seventh grade um so we're taking that information in and then we're looking into how we can work towards keeping that incline going as they move on to eth grade so here we have our subgroup data um things that we want to definitely celebrate here is our comparison of subgroup data from last year so last year our students with disabilities were at 24% for proficiency and now we're at 29% we're very excited about that and our ml students last year were at 12% proficiency and we're now at 27% that's a 15% increase we are very excited that our interventions worked and we want to continue that great work and then also in the economically disadvantaged um category we went from 22% last year to now 27% um one other thing to note is that some students fall under multiple categories so they may be included more than once in this data but again we're really happy with the growth we've made and we just want to continue that further so here's our intervention plans for grades sorry one second okay we'll also go over the intervention plans for grades for the Middle grades sorry secondaries grades 6 through 12 um we have the I ready and linkage program which includes our um which is a online assessment that we use throughout the year where and teachers use that data to inform their instruction we also are launching small group instruction in the Middle grades um which is really important because it really targets the needs of students individually in small group settings we also have the myath program which is an online personalized um supplemental exercise program thank you um the other thing we're doing in the Middle School and as well more so in the middle schools we're integrating geometry standards um throughout the year so traditionally geometry is T taught in isolation in one unit and when we looked at our data we noticed that our geometry scores specifically in each grade level were lower than they should be so now we are integrating them throughout the year so we can strengthen their geometry understanding um there's also professional development provided for the middle school and high school in student discourse and um we are also aligning our new math standards so there were new math and Ela standards from 2023 and we've aligned them with our current curriculum so make sure we're teaching um the standards as current as they can be in terms of subgroup supports we're really excited about our preal resolutions class which is geared for ML Learners in Middle School um and that's really giving that individualized learning for ML students in mathematics and we and that way we can continue to see them grow and we're continuing our work with math lab and CCR courses in addition to their regular math classes so they get that additional support as well so um I also have here it's not in on the on the screen but the mathematics intervention PL for grades K through five I'm going to read them through um we have a new math curriculum for at the elementary level called Ready math and we're really excited about that because that also emphasizes problem solving and student discourse so now stud students are really explaining their thinking and thinking deeper about mathematics we also are using the I ready program again where students take online assessments throughout the year and teachers use that information to inform their instruction we have math coach we have math coaches excuse me at the element at the elementary level and they work with our Math teachers in latest uh teaching practices and how to integrate small group instruction and there's also a win period at the elementary level which is period in the day where students can either get interventions or enrichment based on their needs um and it's another opportunity for students to get that targeted individualized instruction okay I'm going to be moving on to English language arts so just like in mathematics um it is every grade level from 3 to 9 the testing components include literary analysis research simulation narrative writing and comprehension for fiction and non-fiction test the scale score is just like math 650 to 850 and again there are five performance levels so here we have our data for our current year again the blue represents meeting or exceeding expectations and the red represents approaching expectations on the right you see ballot scores versus total um students and here we have our averages compared to the state um we are very excited about seeing this information here especially where we're 70 and in fourth grade where we're above 70% fifth and sixth grade above 80% um and we're really excited to celebrate that and our significant um difference compared to the state average here we have our year toe so again compared to last year these do not represent the same students um we're happy again that our averages are in the 70 and 80s and we just want to continue to grow from here we're also happy that we've remained consistent especially from 5ifth to 6th grade it's usually a very difficult um it's usually historically a place where there's a dip and we were able to maintain that high average in sixth grade and we're very happy about that here we have our cohort comparison so this does represent the same students so again the first cluster represents current fourth graders as to how they did in the previous years middle cluster current fifth graders last cluster current sixth graders and this staircase figure is what we want we want to see steady increase so we're very excited that we're continuing to improve in language arts and we just want to make this even grander here we have our codor comparison for grade 6 through n again first cluster current seventh graders middle cluster current eighth graders last cluster current nth graders so that last CL CL is the ideal we want to see that steady incline and we're looking into how we can make that change for that seventh grade and 8th grade cohort in terms of subgroup data um again just want to note that we're taking all this information in to make sure we can intervene where we can and not all students or rather some students um are represented in multiple subgroups um and again we're taking that information into for our intervention plan which I'm going to speak about next here's our intervention plan for grades K through five for ELA specifically so again I ready is also used in ela an online diagnostic tool We are continuing small group instruction there's a heavy focus on Ela and vocabulary strategies and also um focus strategies on informational and literary text in the analysis level there's that wi period again that I mentioned earlier which is a great opportunity for teachers to intervene or enrich students based on their needs and also are we're continuing and with our subgroup supports with our following ilps IEPs um having reading Specialists um and continuing that focus on small group at the middle school level um again we have I ready we are updating our curriculum or we have updated rather our curriculum with the new 2023 standards there's again that focus on informational and literary texts so with language arts it's more continuous from the elementary um and again a heavy focus on small group instruction because that's where we can get that targeted um intervention so that concludes our presentation today folks um we wanted to take the opportunity to thank you you know a sincere thank you to the board to central office to the families uh and to the teachers all the support that we've been given um in trying to best prepare our students and again not only for the the assessments but only just to be good students good well-rounded informed students um and a special thank you obviously to the students um for doing their best on these assessments um you know and really demonstrating their knowledge moving forward um so with that we wanted to open the open the floor to uh questions from the board glad I'm glad to see the trend in ela um kind of heading in the right direction the math and science Trends obviously are are disappointing um you know kind of hoping with I and some of the tools that we have that we you know be seeing better results at this point um it seems like a lot of the interventions that you know we're talking about I and I'm look I'm not an educator it sounds to me I don't want to say a lot of the same stuff but you know looking at at the trends I I don't know I guess I'm um I guess I I defer to instruction curriculum committee not on that one but just looking at the at the graphs and the results so let me let me speak to that point because I understand where you're coming from I think even though there are similarities of interventions between last year and this year a couple things took place along the lines of the use of I first of all the understanding and training of I ready of getting it up off the ground and utilizing it um in its full capacity but also with the data teams a lot of things were on Earth last year that the result is H taking place this year meaning if you noticed a number of the interventions that were in place were um identification of new resources whether it's curriculum at the various levels whether it's the new math curriculum the new science curriculum because they saw that there were there were deficiencies within that curriculum when they side by side the that curriculum with the standards that are being assessed so I'm encouraged by the the opportunity of this specific curriculum you're absolutely right in what you're saying so what what I can tell you is looking at the use of the I ready platform and really the value of the data teams um I am optimistic along the lines of um it really growing roots with the productivity and the intention ality of identifying what the deficiency is creating the plans and remediating accordingly so it's my hope that next year when we're sitting at this at this table you'll start to see um the uptick in the different aspects um of data that we do find concerned especially I mean considering I I know it's a ton of work that the data teams are putting in and teachers are are really digging into that um so I I know they're working hard at it putting in a lot of time to to study that I just I guess I guess I'll I'll look forward to seeing what we look at what we look like next year but you you make a very good point and often times being that I've sat through 14 years of this um often times it's you know we're we're going to work harder to make sure that the kids learn and the this the the grades or the assessment data improves you're absolutely right that they are working extremely hard but I what I am really encouraged about is the work has become more intentional and more specific as opposed to Broad stroke efforts and I think when you really look at how to move individuals forward you can't do it by by a grade level all at all at one time this is going to fix the grade level you have to really be honed in on uh either individual students or pockets of students as well it can't just be this is going to fit fix all of the issue so I'm I'm optimistic for sure have a question um I I went through my parent teacher conference today and got results for my I already for my fifth grader and I have the math and the ELA but is the science report also shared with parents what grade is your for my fifth grader they wouldn't have taken fifth grade doesn't I just wonder how it lines up in the first yeah linkid is the second linkit is utilized in science secondary assessment um K5 is they focus on Ela and math okay okay just cuz when I see the I ready reports and I see the way it's laid out it makes sense to me how it lines up into this data so as a individual parent and then looking at the results this makes sense to me of how you can communicate that to parent so I think that's a plus um for how it's laid out and where each child is and how that Ls up to the data and I I know Dr Vino spoke to the in instructional committee about this but I think it's important for the board as a whole to to understand last year we held off on parent reports because we wanted the teachers to be able to speak to that information this year we are releasing The Benchmark assessment data for I ready to the parents at the elementary level it's utilized as one of the talking points at the parent teacher conference it's not going to be the entire teacher appearance conference but I think it's a valuable uh source of information and I think it's it's really important that the teachers are able to talk the parents through exactly what they're looking at so that's that's being M out great yeah I think Rick to your I mean I think when we when we saw this data the other day we all had the same sort of concerns you did um but the thing that we know or have discovered in our interventions is when we do this with Fidelity and consistency and we have real Buy in with everyone we have results predictive results that that correlate to our standard our njsla results um it needs to be more widespread needs to be more um uh more adopted and as Dr dor has mentioned we haven't had the parents involved in this at all and I view that as you know it's another lever in our toolbox to get the whole Community together to to support these types of inies I'm glad to see that we're tracking the same kids where we can because I know that was when this stuff first came out we each other like what does it mean that you know that's that's meaningful for us to be able to see the progress or La thereof when we're when we're looking at the same cohort kids and I I completely agree and and that's another benefit of the program that we have is that now they're able to track not just njsla data but within link it and I um for I were're able to track their data with that system but with link it there's a number of either uh there's a number of Assessments not just the benchmarks that they have but there's various homegrown assessments that we're building at the K5 level that we started this year that we're going to be able to track for the duration of their tenure here in Mawa so we'll have um more comprehensive data at our fingertips as opposed to just the state data and the feedback also making the decision on science curriculum change at JK and the change in the math per which we're just piloting in a couple of schools right now um I forget Dr bino when we see the new math curriculum everywhere that'll be next year September of next year September that year so that those foundational mathematics skills that you learn in the low grades are a lot of what's Mr is um leads to a lot of core performance in the upper grades have that Master right then how do we make that up catch that's the other part that's the already link part so if they missed it early they well and but we're now finding it that's a small group how much of this is we're still trying to get out from under Co learning laws I'm sorry John can you say that one more time how much of this is attributed to the covid learning loss and we're still trying to get out from underneath that it's a it's a great question I wish I could have a very specific answer to it um there's a lot of conversations about the impact that it had um but what I I can tell you is with the with the the clarity of the information we have in front of us um I feel like we're in the best position to identify depending on the student because it varies student to student exactly what the plan is um I think without the information that we have right now I think it would have been a big challenge um but I do think that with the different data sets and the the scripts that it has within each we're able to specify exactly what you talking about of what is our plan with this student it's just not more of the same we have to identify exactly what that plan is he just to piggy back off Rick said um Ela great job looks like we're doing really good with Ela just going off back with math and science is there something that because it seem like sometimes in 2022 to 2022 test scores were better than what they are today is there something that we differently in 2022 or or like a different Trend that was coming up consistently with the new test scores that uh could explain some of that there there's a couple answers to that number one I wish I could tell you that the the that the test itself had a standardized score that carried year over-year that we can compare how our scores did for 2022 2023 and 2024 but they fluctuate year over year not even just within the grade but across all the grade levels and I'm not using that as an excuse but I would be able to give you a very specific answer if that was the case if that was all standardized it's just not um along the lines of the the different the the different years from 2022 to 2023 to 2024 there's also different students so what we would really have to do is take a look at the specific cohort and track those individual students over time that could give you a very specific answer um to tell you where they either increase because there's a large number of it did increase and where they decreased what's the specific area um uh or or skill or standard that was deficient when we looked at the curriculum and we looked at the data that we had what we did identify is some of the curricular flaws that we had specifically at the K K5 levels in math and science is that there were some standards that were saturated within the curriculum and some standards that they were a little bit shallow and when they looked in both categories in math and science um I know that Mr Jarvis spoke to that along the lines of science being that it was a online experience and then lack of exposure when you're talking about the time Dr V and the team uh took a look at what are what are the two major things that we can create that impact and that's time on task time of exposure within that content area and then also the curricular adjustment so they did take a look at when you look at the standards and you look at the curriculum where do they line up and where do they fall short thank you thank you very much guys I got greatly appreciate it and thank you very much to the principles for coming I I don't want you to feel like you're getting kicked out you're more than welcome to say I have riveting information thank you Mr wcal thank you guys thank you good night that's great back that's okay I have so many other things to share thank you uh first of all for anyone who didn't know um hopefully you did we had a parent Academy this was not on my notes I just added them to my notes we had Parent Academy today for K5 parents on the report card thank you Dr bino Miss savastano Miss Kars for I just want be able to visually see all the there's a lot of action going on right now um so we had the parent Academy um it we had uh around 30 people who attended we talked about this in the past Al lines of parent academies it's great for the people who do show up um but we want to make sure that we get the message out so Dro has worked extremely hard to catalog all these experiences on their website but also send it out to the population for anyone who wasn't able to attend um so I strongly suggest if you weren't able to attend um they did a really nice job breaking down what that Elementary report card looks like and all the different indicators within so thank you so much for that um our next slide is I'm going to keep beating this drum because it's extremely important organize the communication we spoke about this last time I wanted to put it up one more time um the the schools have been working extremely hard to get all the exciting things that are happening within the schools out to their Community I strongly suggest um that everyone follows different schools to get a chance to not only see um the pictures and the images but there's also VI videos that are that are shown they're posting about two or three times a week at least the high school's posting a lot more um because there's so much to to really celebrate and Mr Pascal said the kids get upset if their stuff's not posted so we want to keep them happy um so but on a serious note there's there's a lot of exciting things that makes makes us proud about just a well-rounded experience that our kids get um here in MAA uh I said at the last meeting that the MAA School District page was was coming soon we just uh went live with my school page so don't don't have high expectations just yet we're still building it uh give us a couple weeks what that we always have I know I know but that that is I promise you that's going to be just as exciting as all the rest of the school so that is a an exciting moment Ross um if if you notice the the the three slides is all about communication Mr DOA um for our strategic plan I'm not going to give you the the the rundown because nobody else is here I gave it to you last time um but it's this is an extremely important moment for Mawa Public Schools there's going be a letter in our RSVP that's going out next week explaining the process uh providing the save the date information and having an RSVP we we have not identified a location because it's all dependent on how many people come I truly I ask that you uh reach out to all the people that you can and it does not have to be just parents in our community it's really important for us to get um our community members that do not have uh children in our district because what happens in our district really impacts our community as a whole so it's open up to everyone um again there's going to be a letter that's going out next week with all three dates but an RSVP for Monday December mber 16th our next slide communication continued is our tber talks last year we started we were really excited um about getting this up off the ground our first session in my opinion was extremely successful we had a really nice turnout the conversations uh were really productive the second one not so great because it wasn't very well attended but we we kind of took a step back said what can we do differently um we're going to be sending a letter out tomorrow for this um to make sure that everybody marks their calendars and RSVP for November 18th but we want to give people enough lead time for the next two days so we're hoping that this is going to be well attended for all three um if you remember in the past our t- bird talks um it just so happened last year our first one was in January right after our strategic Plan update it was great that we were able to get the information out but we also don't want to stifle the conversation so we're going to keep our updates very brief to allow time for our community to share out what they would like to share out obviously it's going to be important for us to kind of set the parameters to explain to the people were there what it's all about hopefully they they feel comfortable again in the first meeting last year there was there was a great back and forth um and I'm hoping for the same on November 18th so please mark your calendars for that M did we change the first one to the 26 we initially did and then it was a conflict so we had we had to CH I apologize so it's back it's and we're back and we're yes just making sure yes usually Dr Fair shares these these exciting things so I stole it from him and I asked if I could please share this exciting um this exciting nomination this is this in all seriousness this is an extremely prestigious honor um District administration is a very um well-known publication on the Gat for in a second we are a finalist for district of Distinction specifically for the ma High School career Pathways program the Thunderbird partnership internship program and the Thunderbird Thunderbird partnership externship program let me tell you about what District administration the publication is it's a print and digital media service and they serve the top K12 administrators at virtually every school district in the United States with strategic information about how to most effectively manage their school districts d helps administrators make informed decisions about best practices and research-based approaches designed to help them improve teacher quality and increase student achievement across the districts so just allow me a moment this is the letter that we received uh just explaining what this this honor is says we are thrilled to congratulate your District on their advancement to the final stage of the esteemed District administration national award of distinction program your dedication Innovation and excellence in education has brought you to this moment of well-deserved recognition as a finalist for the 2025 da Awards of Distinction to honor your invaluable work we Cally invite you to Be Our Guest at The District administration Leadership Institute superintendent Summit on December 18th to the 20th they you a little fancy here in the Sunkissed City of Charlotte Harbor Florida where the finalist will be recognized winners will be announced this Summit attracts the most influential leaders in education across the country offering a rare opportunity to share insights strategies and best practices this is a monumentous uh occasion and your presence would Elevate the The Prestige of our Summit we eagerly await your reply and look forward to celebrating your remarkable accomplishments de December 18th you guys travel well December 18th to the 20th um so just just the show um along the lines of branding and communication um again this was for our Thunderbird partnership program specifically internships and externships and our Pathways program so just this past week um at the open house no no this this this one actually is for for our career Pathways this is thaning a lot of the businesses that that sponsor our internships and our externships and as you can see the businesses vary from the medical profession to to uh the legal professions you have the township you have you have coding you have a number of different local businesses that have been extremely generous of their time and their resources to our students so we can't thank them enough this is also going to be posted on our Instagram just showing our appreciation of them partnering with us for the internships and interships program so just wanted to take a moment to share that information with you as well Mike how are we nominated this award um we worked with Laura Bishop uh we utilized um Dennis and his Department we created a summary of what the program was Laura Bishop Laura Bishop's company submitted it to this organization and we were nominated great yeah um I'm not going to talk a lot about the uh open house because our student rep did which was which was wonderful I want to bring your attention when we talk about branding um for the for the more seasoned board members if you remember correctly we used to have a catalog of offerings at M High School it was a little stale so we felt like it was really important for us to Showcase all of those Rich experiences in a catalog that gives it the respect that it's due so Mr Pascal and his team did a lot of work on rearranging adding and um including pictures um that showcase a wide variety of experiences that that students can experience that can take part in once they get to ma High School it ranges from the academic side the athletic side to performing art side and the ex and the club experiences that they have um at MAA high school so you don't have to go Page by Page just yet you're more than wel to if you want um but please take this home uh this is something that was handed out at the open house to all of our incoming parents we also have a here for all new families that are that are coming in last but not least is um uh you know the Mawa schools Foundation does so much for us um we can't thank them enough for the support that they give to our to our district k k 12 um you walk through the different schools and you'll see um the grants in action uh across different classrooms different grade levels in different schools one of their biggest fundraisers aside from the gala please go to Galla um is the ma schools Foundation run we have been able to appreciate the amount of work that goes in to preparing for this event they do such a wonderful job and it starts in the spring um to get ready for the fall um so we had around 500 runners in Walkers it was an absolutely tremendous day um for the event which is which is great we had a really nice staff and student turnout as well as the community um they do a really nice um thing for the schools to make their have them have a little bit of a competition which I love good competition um and what they were able to do is the winner of the K5 student challenge was GW They will receive $500 to go to their school's PE program um that's the percentage of students who participated in the event um the winner of the 612 challenge is up real quick yeah GW as you can see will also win an all School Ice um an ice pop party so I don't want to forget that yeah it's a big deal huge they love ice pops who doesn't right um the winner of the grade 6 through 12 challenge is the eighth grade class they'll receive $500 from the msf to go to their Brett you ready for this one their eighth grade graduation fund I can't that is awesome then the staff challenge um I think this is two years in a row didn't happen when I was a JK um for 20124 ripo Ridge won the staff challenge uh they won an all staff breakfast which we're going to have to get the date so we can go on that day that's going to be hosted by the Mawa schools Foundation um congratulations all the winners us I do want to take a moment to thank um Mr ODU and Mrs Kaplan for their work in organizing such a wonderful event that is all I have thank you very much Dr Jor um I mean very com we had a lot of information thank you very much all good stuff all good stuff and congratulations on uh being selected uh as a finalist uh to our administrative team for this award and um we'll make sure that uh we you know include you know board travel uh on the next agenda I'm just kidding um all right so um let's go on Mr lamb do you have a report for us this evening yeah just and maybe we could get the can we put the lights back on thank you for now I unless we have videos I just briefly want to update you uh last month the board approved changing our health benefits affected January 1st uh that process that transition is underway uh and we're uh in the process of open enrollment for our staff and they have until November 15th to change plans if they wish and they don't have to do anything if they want to keep the equivalent of the same plan that they have and I just want to thank on behalf of our entire District our bargaining units were very cooperative and supportive of this transition and that made it a lot easier for us so thank you to that thank you very much um Dr Fair we have assistant superintendent report this evening oh lights back off yeah I mean there there's a lot of great things yes we need someone at the light now obviously so um the first piece is we have a retirement to announce on this evening's agenda you'll see agenda item 19a Mr Dominic leot who has served as our director of guidance our AP coordinator and a member of the administrative team for ma high school for 16 and a half years uh during his tenure he has offered evening guidance programs for each grade level coffee with counselors college essay writing financial aid night and has increased the number of colleges and universities visiting MAA High School Mr Gata created an alternate to the four-year college fair at MHS which highlights technical trade and other specialized schools uh he oversaw our guidance and counseling program our PSAT SAT and ACT College Assessment programs um and our our irrs team and high school 504 team Mr Gata has also served as the president of the Bergen County director of guidance for the last six years throughout his tenure Mr Gata has also maintained a case load of approximately 40 students that he guides and counsels through the high school experience so we wish him all the best in his retirement uh many of you were in attendance at uh the first annual de lighting here at Town Hall um in honor of uh Dali which is often called the Festival of Lights um which is a vibrant celebration that symbolizes the Triumph of light over darkness and good over evil uh Central to this Festival is the DIA a small oil lamp that represents the inner light and spiritual awakening um as homes are adorned with these fing families come together to celebrate love joy and new beginnings and it was wonderful uh for all of us to be a part of that so that was really nice uh and we were so honored uh to be invited so um great tradition uh here in town the next piece uh worthy of highlighting M schools has partnered with killer Williams and the center for food action to provide Thanksgiving baskets to make the holiday that much more special for some of those families in District who are in need of the support those who have signed up would receive a basket that would look much like the image on the screen and provides sides for family's Thanksgiving meal a gift card for Thanksgiving turkey and other Essential Elements for the day uh those who have signed up will be able to pick up their basket at the school of their eldest child uh some really cool things happening in our K3 buildings uh recently uh the MAA fire department has visited uh Meadow School to talk all about fire safety with all students in the school um and there was also a visit by mayor Waki um to our third graders uh who had the opportunity to meet with the mayor uh where he talked about his responsibilities as a leader in local government um you can see in that second image students also were able to vote on um whether they were a Yankee fan or a Mets fan Betsy Ross school had a visit from Kayla Ericson um Kayla Ericson actually lived in Mawa um and went to one of our elementary schools um and she is the voice of Pinkalicious for those of you who don't know Pinkalicious it's an animated series based on a book series of the same name which is a light-hearted story about consequences the importance of rules eating healthy and other important lessons for youngsters so what's so great about this is one of our library media Specialists Miss Kayla Ste she invited the voice actor of this series to speak with our students and uh Kayla returned to mwa to speak with our students at Betsy Ross um and she talked about um what it's like to be a voice actor and also spoke about um the the themes found in the book uh you can see here there are kindergarten students from myth Smith's class um composed with Miss Ericson uh lastly at George Washington School uh you can see an array of pictures where the students celebrated National pumpkin day which occurred on October 26th um our second graders enjoyed an exciting science activity um that obviously was all about pumpkins students began by reading books on how pumpkins grow they explored each stage from seed to full grown pumpkins then they move to Hands-On investigations using their senses to find adjectives to describe the pumpkins inside and out they also measured the pumpkin's height circumference and weight comparing their estimates with actual results and to top it all off they tested each pumpkin's buoyancy to see if it would float or sink so this engaging activity helped students expand their vocabulary and deepen their understanding of measurement and scientific observation some other cool things happening at the ridge um the New Jersey Council of social studies conference which happens every year um had their annual conference at Ruckers University with the theme being challenges and changes past present and future the conference span a range of relevant topics for K through 12 social studies Educators rampo Ridge 73 social studies teachers Lauren savet and Andy Bell present on Project based learning and young adult fiction integrating literature to talk about historical events in the classroom and at the high school we have Amy Lono who has been selected as a mentor by The Fellowship of language educators of New Jersey mentoring program uh this commitment not only ensures early stage World language teachers receive critical support but also strengthens their ability to Foster language acquisition in the classroom uh Amy will Mentor a teacher in their first five years providing guidance on best practices for language instruction and curriculum development uh we touched on it earlier but Ma High School band members um were just congratulated for their acceptance into the College of New Jersey honors High School Wind Ensemble uh dong hun Kim for clarinet Sebastian Miller for trumpet heren Robbie SAR for per us and Michael bergbower for percussion as well um and we had our student representative who spoke about uh the MAA marching Thunderbirds who just won third place in the most competitive class at bar high school and last but certainly not least uh the top soring thunderburst program was introduced last year um you'll see that uh this program um focuses on the of trusted Brave inspiring resilient determined and spirited all making that acronym what it is um we have our top storing Thunderbirds for September and October um Elena Hart as student um in the nomination form for Elena it states her ability to inspire through her actions and relationships creates a positive ripple effect making her an invaluable member of her community Alena's dedication and compassion for truly deserving of this recognition um in September Mr fuches was also recognized for being determined and inspiring uh where the nomination form States Mr f is one of the smartest and most passionate teachers I have had in my life his dedication to his classes and his students is so inspiring and for October um our student Alyssa John was uh recognized for being inspiring and determined as well uh she uh is the combination of being driven to succeed academically while at the same time being able to be there for those around her which is incredible she's truly selfless and she makes others feel value um Mrs Mana is uh being recognized for being resilient and um she's nominated for uh her through the ups and downs Mrs Mana meets students where they are at and works with them individually so that each student can see growth and progress and turn and feel good about themselves so um really great stuff happening throughout the district I know it's a lot of time but it's it's really worth highlighting um here publicly um just really good things thank youn thank you thank you Dr fair I think you've taken most of my report this evening but that's okay I always can find things to say don't worry um but number one um I just uh my report let's see so but all good I mean great stuff I I don't have I have to work on having pictures and and I'm feeling a little I've got to up my president's report game with video and photo yeah well it might just be me at the top but I'm gonna have to work on that for this year um all right so uh first off um several of us attended um the New Jersey school boards Association conference uh last week in Atlantic City um and a few highlights were um one of the keynote speakers was John kones uh from what would you do a program that has actually been locally in town um and actually his um speech and what he spoke of was very inspirational as he had come from um migrant parents uh and the successes that he's had uh because teacher believed in him and supported him uh and even helped him uh with you know getting into college and so on so it was actually very inspirational um there was also um really tremendous uh workshops networking experiences uh that focused on a variety of topics so I think we have we have a lot of information uh that we brought back um secondly I want uh to take a moment and um Dr far thank you for highlighting the the first annual de lighting um I think it went very well and and thanks to all the board members who attended the administrative team um and I just wanted to wish happy Dali to um our Hindu sik Jane and Buddhist communities um and I really want to uh take a moment to say under the guidance and Leadership of Dr Doro the administrative team members of the Board of Education uh Dali in MAA is even more special given that Friday is a holiday today um and as many of you know this is close to my heart um and the week kicked off with the D lighting as you spoke um to and and again thanks to the township leadership for that and um the mayor um for um that and it was really tremendous event um but what I really wanted to say is this one's close to the heart it very much highlights how Mawa and our schools continue to push forward to support and embrace cultural diversity inclusion of all people um I I really think it's a very very proud moment uh for us so enjoy the day off enjoy the holiday um on Friday and uh again Kudos uh to all of us here at the table for making these things happen thank you very much um our teabird and tops ring te- Birds has been covered um and oh I only wanted to also say congratulations to our North Jersey student of the week um for October 25th see we all find things which is good our t- bird kayn brisbee kayn yes brisbee so uh you know congratulations to her that's exciting uh and I also wanted to highlight the donation that was received um for our Music Department um that's in our agenda tonight the $2,500 donation was an anonymous donation but thank you to uh whoever um made made that donation and I'm sure it will go far in our music department it's always helpful to receive donations from the public uh lastly happy Halloween uh be safe enjoy trick-or-treating and your day off the next day I mean it couldn't be a more perfect week teachers are very grateful yeah are they really do the kids come like sugar high the next morning yeah it's a tough one okay anyway good good excellent timing um all right let's move on to um board committee reports Mr Denise policy yeah just real quick uh policy had a policy meeting on October 7th we continued our review of the policy and regulations inventory on tonight's agenda we only have one policy for first reading uh policy 1110 organizational chart we just included language in there we're going to put that sh on the um District website great thank you very much Mr Gallow I'm not sure what you're waiting you're just quickly um finance and Facilities committee will be um uh uh moving to higher gear over the next few weeks we have three uh main topics on our radar one is the completion of our annual District audit the second is the submission of the ly infrastructure audit um which was a repeat of the one we did back in 2019 as an update I should say and the third thing is the beginning of our budget development process for next year um one of the sessions I attended uh while I was down Atlantic City for school boards was how to manage um how districts manage uh difficult Financial situations the good news that many of the districts who presented are have serious financial problems and um and to their credit they're doing as much as they possibly can to get out of their holes um many are subject to reduced uh state aid Mawa in contrast is in relatively good condition um we have um we've had we've utilized all our Tailwinds in the past and we have some Tailwinds still helping us we have a community that is attractive to businesses and new residents or our rad base is is growing albeit slowly um we have also been the benefit beneficiary of some small state increase State a increases um and um but our superintendent and the and the central office team are very focused on the district's expenses so we already anticipating some of the the risks and um and shortfalls that could occur in cases where um that's some District's experience I've been going on school boards for many years years now and often times I run to my colleagues in other districts and they they have this tale of whoo it's it's always good to think when I come back from oh I go we don't have that problem we don't have that problem we solved that one and we're head of the game on on some stuff so it was um uh somewhat um uh disappointing for those districts that are struggling but M was in relatively good condition but the challenges that face those districts also face could face us at some point in the future so prudence and and good planning is um is the Hallmark of what we need to do um and did I say budget development is our third sort of focus coming up so we'll have we'll have some meetings on the schedule Prima thank you sure I don't interrupt but I I'm glad Mr Gallow brought that up something that was really eye openening to me and I think Mr Gallow was able to Spotlight it very very well um the district has over the course of you know the P let's just say the past four years um as because that's all I can speak about um the we've really tried to take a look at um the and I know prior to me too um the really being fiscally responsible with a number of different things um with the building of various um structures around the district updating different things utilizing our capital reserve um but when I went to one of the meetings which was very similar to the one Mr Gall said it was very enlightening to just get an understanding of why we're at where we're at currently as a state and something that I'm sure we'll talk about during the budget process but I wanted to share with the board so you have an understanding now um I attended something about avoiding the fiscal cliff um because when you go out into the news you see all of these very difficult stories for different districts and some of it is because of the redistribution of the funding formula which still is very gray along lines of what the formula is and districts are being um pinched for Millions tens of millions of dollars and very difficult cuts are happening but the bigger picture of it which I appreciated the clarity is that from 1990 to 2010 the average tax um increase was 6 and a half% year-over-year for 20 years um Governor Corine came in He adjusted that he he set the tax increase at 4% then Governor Christie came in and adjusted it again to 2% this has nothing to do with political this is just factual of exactly what happened I know that I know that Mr Gallow over the course of the years I've been here have talked about when you're talking about negotiations when you're talking about all the different things and all the different Financial Obligations that we have we talk about that 2% cap and we talk about how um prices are arising across the board whether it's health benefits whether it's just utilities whatever it may be and you always talk about when they're going to really intersect and that's going to be a difficult time as much as I am proud of the financial strategy that our district has had um we have to continue to be cognizant of that in the coming years because every single year when now the the budget numbers come now which I think is in Tom February January or February yeah uh preliminary budgets approved in March the the numbers for state aid numbers come out at the end of February at the end of February you know th this is going to be this is going to be an ongoing challenge for us and each year we're going to have to make very thoughtful decisions about where we're going to go because as as we all know our priority is our student experience here but that's going to take a lot of work from all of us and the financial on the finance facilities committee and then the administrators across the district along the lines of where and how do we get to that experience while still operating underneath that 2% cap with all the rising costs across the district um so that's going to be an ongoing discussion that we have and I think it's really important for all of us to be Eyes Wide Open on where we're going from now thank you Mr G okay um any other uh board committee uh all right quickly from instruction and curriculum um we had our meeting our October meeting um the one thing we uh talked about and we had a presentation from Nikki vaness about the teams program I think we I mentioned it earlier as well it stands for the empathy equality entrepreneurship Mission uh it's a nonprofit group that partners with schools and connect students with real world experiences in the areas of social studies science business uh several Burgen County schools are partnered with them and participating with the program we participated last year um and it was a project with Ukraine and it was very successful um this year's project is um very interesting it's going to involve building a well for water distribution in Bina FASA which is uh in Africa um and there are courses at the high school the ridge uh and in addition this year we have an after school club as well participating uh at malwa High School uh with almost about 40 students who uh took initiative and went to Mr Pascal um and created an after school club so there's multiple um students middle to high school participating uh in this project and one of the things that was interesting is they said our logo our Thunderbird logo would be on this um on the water tank that will be um so it's it's you know very symbolic so you know any any of us who travel maybe we go to Bina we got a lot of trips actually here planned I think to see this but anyway again it's it's a great um it's a it's a great um opportunity to see how um cour workk um also works with real world experiences so again um thank you very much to all those who participate with that um we also have the njs LA testing presentation that was done uh this evening we just had a a preview of it um and there were was a fairly robust conversation from the committee and I think the committee is very committed and I know Dr bino as well um at making sure that this is something on our radar and that we continue um and I think strides have been made um and I think we're all on the same page of we need to look at the data and continue to do what is needed to make sure our kids um are continuing to improve so um that was that our next meeting for instruction curriculum is November 15th all right um all right any board member remarks Mr Dila um so I know it's been uh brought up already but I'd like to thank the organizers of the dting I think that was it was it was a great event it was cool to see it they had I think there were about 200 people there so there was a great turnout um it wasn't just people who celebrate Tali it was everyone which you know we talk about the strength of our community you know how great it was to see hey that many people come out this event and the diversity of people that were there it was it was it was really cool as great event um again congratulations to the marching Pand this is their uh their first season in open class and I think there were some people who were a little bit nervous about moving to open class and uh to to take third place in the state in that class was what does that mean open class versus closed class no it's it so they have different classes based on the number of musicians in the band and then they have I guess that between the different scoring um the open class is more kind of performance as opposed to just you know more drill work and precision so it was it was a bigger production they had scaffolding and I mean it was it was a whole it was a whole thing watching everybody put that together and break it down after every show was was was pretty cool a lot of a lot of uh um um parent volunteers made that happen so that was you know it's always cool to see as well but the kids had had a had a great season um and last but certainly not least congratulations to you guys on the um uh a District administration award nomination I think that's awesome and well deserved and I hope we December 18th yes there go thank you thank you mrva Mr C I want to pyb back on Dr fa's report real quick and just congratulate the K through3 hsos uh week and a half ago they had their annual walk aons they this was one of the years that I can remember having absolutely beautiful weather um they were all well attended I wasn't able to attend all of them uh but the turnout was great the community uh support with the wons are always great and I always love to hear about the alumni who could be in JK Ridge High School going back and supporting the wons as well so just congratulate congratulations to all those that put them on I did it for many years I know the am of hours that go into it um and hopefully they enjoyed the day because it's a it's a lot of work but it's always just a great fun day so congratulations thank you Mr cin Miss Janson just wanted to mention the close out from some of the middle school teams who played in The Falls a lot of excitement I just came from the volleyball um games at the Ridge and there's just so much excitement so many kids playing it's great to see um as we close out the season they have a little more time back or if they go to a winter sport so a lot of fun there um also to mention that some of the sessions I went to for school boards mentioned open Communications transparency a lot of what we're doing um so a lot of what I saw was reinforcement of what we're doing as a district the move to Instagram continuing open communication about what we're doing is is just really great to see so a lot of districts are struggling with this concept but I what I like what we're doing um and continue to move in the direction and just one other mention um for awareness um there's a bill that was pass this year um this this week 3 446 on the freedom to read um establishes requirements for Library material in public school libraries and public libraries and protect School library staff members and Librarians so not in law yet but just in awareness readout as we continue to watch these things come forward thank you thank you very much M chansen any other remarks okay um and since we've talked about the deal lighting and Mr just you brought up again I'll actually give a shout out to the the moms who did it uh because I have the names chra Nama Mira Suba priia Prasad and Sima sha and amria kurana so thanks ladies R you were involved I I yeah I I'm silent partner Mr jila all benefited from thank you very much we also assisted we stopped at the pastry place to pick the stuff up Yes actually that's true Mr Gallow and Miss Jansen and Miss davano yes had a little field trip to uh Edison yes so all right anyway um all right let's move on to 17 uh old business let's take uh 17A minutes from the August 7th uh meeting U Mr I need a motion should we do A and B but okay fine A and B together sorry I thought I was taking it individually um I need a motion Mr Gallow second by Miss Jansen roll call yes roll call Mr loll call on 17 a and the minutes Mr use yes M Jansen yes Mr Copan yes M davo yes Mr dilva yes yes Mr Gallow yes Dr uh yes on a and abstain on B all right uh let's move on to new business other uh let's take 18a to S we have an amendment on 18i um which uh let's let let me have a motion and uh a second and then perhaps you can explain the amendment sure okay uh let me have a motion uh so it's we're taking 18a to S with amendment to I Mr Copan second by Mr Hughes Mr lamb so the amendment to I which is the approval of the professional development workshops for the conference Workshop breathe for change the cost of the uh Workshop is $999 and we apologize for the typo error uh all right now we can take a vote so vote on uh 18 a2s with amendment to I correct Mr use yes Mr uh excuse me m Miss Jansen yes Mr coflin yes Miss devano yes Mr DVA yes Mr Denise yes Mr Gallow Yes except on EA I will be abstaining from checks number is 17424 17503 and 17587 thank you and Dr M uh yes motion okay uh now let's take new business Personnel let's take 19a since we have a retirement we usually do those separately um I need a motion and a second Mr copin second by Mr Hughes let's have a roll call on 19a 19a Mr use yes M Jansen yes Mr coplin yes M Deano yes Mr the Silva yeah and I'd like to thank Mr G for 16 years of dedication I know there's there have been a lot of advancements in uh in the guidance Department under his so thank you for Mr Denise yes Mr Gallow yes Dr M yes uh let's now take 19 B through uh B through uh R uh all right motion on the floor 19 through Mr Denise second by um Miss Janson roll call on 19B through R Mr use yes M Jansen yes Mr coplin yes and thanks to all the volunteers m d Arrow yes Mr DVA yes Mr Denise yes Mr Gallow yes Dr Mor yes all right public questions or comment public participation at board meetings is in accordance with bylaw 0167 at this time members of the public may ask questions or make a comment on educational issues or School matters of community interest as a matter of fairness we ask to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than three minutes if you're here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you are here as an individual please give us your name and address we need a motion to open the meeting to the public um Mr Gallow second by Mr copin we are officially open to the public seeing no one come forward at this time I need a motion to close the meeting to the public Mr Hughes second by Mr C all right um we uh will be recessing to Executive session from here so I need a motion to recess um Miss Jansen and Mr Denise uh and then we will adjourn the meeting from there directly so thank you everyone have a good evening