##VIDEO ID:gOzw9ktk5qo## good evening everyone welcome to the November 12th Workshop meeting I apologize for being late um I have no board president's report so I'm going to go right over to our superintendent Miss Welden okay this evening good evening everyone and welcome it's nice to see everyone again we have been uh part for a little while here a few weeks there's been a lot of exciting things happening in the district U most of all last week we had our first November professional development day where we provided professional development to our staff on an on a variety of topics things like the Elementary report cards intervention um I EXL preschool teaching strategies math programs uh just to name a few connecting with students Making Connections it was an amazing day very very meaningful our first time ever having a PD day in November so so if you remember we used to have a PD Day in June which we made the most of but it was not well timed for um learning something new and then applying it with your students right away so this new day in November We Believe did just what we were hoping it would do which was provide our staff with meaningful experiences and opportunities for growth in their profession that they can now immediately apply now that we're back in school this week so I would just like to thank each school's School Improvement panel the entire administrative team and Dr kalicia Morgan for planning out our entire event on Wednesday November 6 it was a great day so thank you very much okay so other than that tonight we have two academic presentations that I think are very important for the board and the public to know about different things that are going on in our district up first we have Miss Mrs Christ vonas Von you can come on up front Kristen vona is our director of preschool and she is here this evening to present the preschool plan which we intend to submit to the Department of Education for it's due this week 15 for next school year so this is the plan for 2526 okay miss vona this the floor is yours and just presenters in case I forget to say this there are Wireless m here as well if you need two mics because the next one we have two presenters okay okay and if anyone comes to ask questions we can share a mic Miss phone if I could interrupt for just one second I just want to let the public know that if there is a question um that they have for our presenters they are welcome to ask that question after the board has had a chance and if uh by chance we cannot answer your question we will definitely get back to you but we will be allowing questions from the public after the presentation okay thank you so much sounds perfect and first I'd just like to thank everyone for inviting me here and giving me the opportunity to speak to everyone and to introduce what the district feels is a good projected plan for the 20 25 2026 school year okay so what we like to start off with is giving you a little background about the preschool expansion Aid Grant and what it is it's the preschool expansion aid grant is also known as the Pea Grant and it helps schools districts establish or expand their current programming so that they can service all three and four year old students in their community so why do we apply for this grant there's many reasons and some of the ones I want to highlight for you is the fact that it increases funding and it helps the districts expand it pro it provides free high quality programming for the community the Pea also increases inclusion rates which ensures that more children of all diverse backgrounds have access to early childhood education and it also ensures that fewer learning behavioral and social issues for students in the future okay so the next two slides are going to talk about some of the features our paa program has within our district the first one I want to highlight is it we have an ecap which is an early childhood advisory Council it is made up of Community Partners it is made up of local organizations it is made up of parents and staffs that come together to support families and their needs we also have curriculum development and implementation and we have training for all our staff using the creative curriculum which is our State selected curriculum for our district Ocean Township believes in including all students in general education to provide training for our teachers and our instructional assistants and all the people that service these children so they can be included in the general education classes to the best to the most extent possible we also believe in transition planning and when we talk about transition planning we talk about from preschool to kindergarten we work heavily with the kindergarten teachers so they can understand any plans that we put forward for our students so that when they get to kindergarten they understand the students as Learners how they learn best and if they need any supports to be able to access the kindergarten curriculum one last part on this slide is program monitoring and evaluation so with our program the state comes out and they monitor and evaluate US every year and let us know how we're doing and if we're meeting all the checkpoints this is actually one of my favorite slides because it highlights some of the wonderful people we have within our program and it really goes over what they do and all these positions we would not be able to have if it wasn't for the grant because they are funded through the grant our first first person that our first couple of people that I want to go over are preschool instructional coaches these um these people specialize in supporting staff and improving instructional practices within the classroom we also have our cpis which is our community parent involvement specialist and she works to engage and support families we have our per team which is called our preschool pereral and intervention team and it is made up of professionals that Implement plans to support students experiencing developmental Behavioral or educational delays we have a behavior specialist that focuses on dressing behaviors within the classroom and we have a social worker that helps to guide parents to get the resources they need and also support students in the classroom by facilitating small social groups so if you look at this slide this is a kind of a nice interesting slide that goes over where we began in 2019 and where we are now so if you just take a second to Pro this I'm going to go over the beginning and the end but you can really see the growth that Ocean Township has made moving forward in this program in 2019 we started with one in District classroom we had two classrooms through the acelo learning center which when we put those classrooms together we were able to service about 45 students which brings us all the way to now which is amazing we have 22 IND District classrooms we have two classrooms that we partner with Head Start asaro Learning and we have a total of 24 preschool classrooms and at this time we are servicing about 360 students which is amazing okay let's move on to our next slide so this is a slide that we we felt was very important to kind of go over with you so we have this preschool expansion Grant and we're funded for these general education classrooms but we also wanted to highlight that in our district every year we still have about three preschool disabled classrooms these preschool disabled classrooms are designed to support support students who need more intensive instruction and we do at times work when a child is ready transition playing them into our preschool expansion a grant if they are able to so that's just something to keep in mind that besides those 24 classes this year we really have the extra three okay so these are just some current um statistics that you should be aware of just while we keep talking and then we go into what we're projecting So currently we have nine students on our waiting list which you know is not that many so that's a pretty good number our current enrollment is 316 students out of 360 seats all general education seats within our district are filled and the rest of the seats are the seats that when children that have special needs turn three we hold on to those seats so when they're classified they have places to come within our district another requirement of the Pea funding is to continue to grow until you hit your universe that brings us to what our universe is and I just wanted to go over that with everyone so they have a better understanding of how the state has us F figure out what our universe is and how to get there so the New Jersey Department of Ed calculates our universe as knowing first knowing how many students we have in first grade and we have 203 current first grade students as of right now we know that numbers is always changing but as of this right now we have 203 they tell us to multiply that number by two and when we multiply that number by two we get 46 and that is what they feel is our universe or preschool we multiply by too because in preschool we have two grade levels we have the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds so that is how they go ahead to figure out what our universe is okay so this is our projected plan this is where we want to go for the 2025 2026 school year I'm going to go over it with you just so you have a better idea of what we were thinking we would like to add two more additional preschool classes one at the wamas elementary school and one at the Wayside Elementary School we would also like to decrease one section of our acelero Learning Center to have one classroom next year instead of two this will still maintain our partnership with asalo and it will still help us hold on to our grant because we would still have the funding and we also want to implement class ratios of 12 general education students and three special education students across the district so all pea classes will have three seats for special ed students and 12 seats for General ed students right now just for reference if I may this year in one school the ratio is 11 general education students and four seats for special education students and we're recommending moving that to 12 and three just like the other two elementary schools which will also yield additional general education seats next year so we will have the continency of three special ed students in each of the elementary schools so moving from like Kelly was just saying from four at Dow Avenue School to three that will yield six additional general education seats for our district okay this is just a kind of a fun slide that I think visually represents what we're doing pretty well just so you can see if you notice in the black is where we are now and in the red is what we're projecting for next year so if you look at our IND District classes we would be going from 22 to 24 if you look at our SL Arrow we would be going down from two to one we would have a total number of preschool sections that were 24 to 25 and we will be able to service 375 students now just look at the footnote really quick that's 303 general education students and we would have spots for 72 special education students as we go throughout the year because we know when kids turn three our district is required to give them programming so that would be their rolling admission throughout the whole year okay so the impact on the township of ocean school districts this is kind of like how we're going to sum up the plan we will have 18 additional general education seats for our district we will have three special education seats in all of our preschool expansion aid classes across the district which will even out all three schools another big thing that parents really like that we do is at the end of the school year students who were in the program as three-year olds that will be in the program as fouryear olds have the option that if they're repl in another District school to return home to their home school so that would be offered again and then if you look at our numbers this is kind of just how breaking down the 25 26 school year currently we have 149 foury olds moving on to kindergarten that equals 123 gen Ed and 26 special ed we have 167 three-year-olds that will take four-year-old spots and if you break that down that's 153 General Ed and 14 special ed and we're also assuming approximately 30 students because of numbers and Trends will come into our district this year to be classified so this is what we're anticipating to be able to offer the community for next year we are anticipating to offer1 15 general education spots and 28 special education spots any questions Gilman yes just curious as to why we're reducing the acelero from two to one the the title one are we going to absorb those students into our other buildings so one of the things with Head Start we know it's a income eligibility and process and we are not maximizing all the seats we can use there so even on our weight list we have some students that would not be eligible for that okay so El eligibility yes so we so bringing that class back kind of you know because we're dropping one and adding two that would actually help us service more students and those seats are sitting unused right now Mr McCarthy wonderful presentation thank you it was very easy for me to understand you know so that's the hardest part right um I'm just one thing numbers wise I don't mean to Rattle this off of you but what's our total number of seats for special education students that we have now so we have 72 right now and so we're expand at 75 but we we only have 40 students that are currently filling those special education seats right now based on the presentations so yes so we have about 40 but we looked at Trends from the last couple years and we saw that in the last couple years I pulled it from November 1 to the end of the year over the last two years and I went back and I got the numbers of students that have been recommended through early intervention through parent recommendation and from teacher recommendation to see how many students the child study team actually receives so from last year's time frame we had 35 new referrals okay okay out those 35 new referrals 24 were classified and 11 were not so it seems based on that information that the reduction in the seats for special education you've kind of already allocated room in case we need which would absolutely so we're approximating 30 in case you know some some of the referrals we might have more kids classified than last year but we pulled the last two years just to look at that data and we found out that roughly it's around the number 30 that's awesome and very forward thinking it's wonderful to see so yeah and we're you know we really want that to stay true especially for this year but um it it was interesting too and one of the things we found interesting was that when I was looking even deeper into it our early intervention kids that get referred we have about half of them that get classifi okay and to me that seemed like a pretty low number like when I hear early intervention and I hear kids coming in to get classified I would have expected more but on our parent and our teacher recommendations almost all of those students got classified Miss McGovern um hi great thanks um is it a is it a goal of ours and I think you mentioned this but I'm not sure if this is what you said so I'm just of back is it a goal of ours to open always have a classroom that has you know a lot of classrooms have the 12 and the three or 13 and the three so we maintain that special ed in with our gen even so even if we have say more seats in J we still want to maintain that model that we've always had having some student like some classroom CLE so I I'm gonna try and answer your question let me know if I answer it wrong so our goal and the goal of the state as they CL came in and gave us recommendations they said between one and three special ed students in each class is like the sweet spot so we were hoping that we could bring the numbers down to three across the district it would be have more you know it would be equal across all three schools but we also looked at the numbers since we're adding the two new additional classes and asaro does not have any special ed seats so bringing that back also gives us three special ed seats so we would have the same amount of special ed seats open and we like the three yes we like the three um you know maybe one day if we see Trends going a different way we can look at two you know that's not a bad number either but for right now and for the population we have three is the most fiscally responsible in my opinion way to go and it's evening out the playing field and then we'll see like next year if we're still on the same trends thank you you did sry Mr Schneider did you have a question I did just a quick clarification it's like a balance of science and art strategy but the 316 that we have enrolled this how much of those General 276 so let me go back really quick hold on wish I had my so 40 students General Ed not General Ed yeah so out of 316 all our IND District classes are um full for general education students we do have the asaro learning program that is not full that's not in our district that's a space we rent but that is the Head Start program that's due to income eligibility enrollment process so there are some seats in that as well and then if that's figured out we have about we have about 32 spots as of right now for special education students throughout the year that if they come and they turn three or they move into our district classified we take them so the gened in District not using the SL arrows around it's 316 the genan district 316 is Gen thank you I just have a question as well and me it's just basically for clarification so if we get a larger number of special ed students than we expect by law we don't have to have a spot for all of them no we do we do so we get an extra I don't know 10 kids what what would happen so right now if let me go back to my I just want to make sure I have the right numbers in front of me for you could you just clarify that question for me Miss parlamis do you mean this year so going into next year let's just say 10 more students here that than you're okay and we we set a liberal number in case that happens okay so we saw like about 22 25 students being classified those were like the trends so we did round up to 30 for this year got it so we do have a little wiggle room in a play in playroom um you know we we can always figure it out and sometimes when our students get classified to they go into our preschool disabled programs also depending on the severity of how much support they need and what other types of teaching models they need Okay so we've been really we overestimated at 30 because we do think that it would probably be more in the 20s the M the mid to low 20s just to have that cushion thank you thank you for clarifying that Miss Gilman GL really appreciate that Miss F the curriculum for prek is that a state issued so the curriculum the curriculum is the one we use as creative curriculum and it's a state approv curriculum they have four different curriculums that you can choose from so our our district since the beginning has purchased the creative curriculum and has moved forward with those aspects um they also we're in a program called grow and J kids and is through the Grant and they give us professional development through with the creative curriculum so and it's free so we like sign our teachers up for it and they go into four sessions throughout the year that's that's great and does that curriculum kind of M with our kindergarten one so the transition prek the preschool standards are are somewhat different than the it's not the same curriculum but as Mrs vona said we work together for to make sure that transition right is a seamless one and when we do with the transition one of the things that we're currently working on and I know all you um people on the board also know about link it and how they pull the data so our preschool platform where we collector data is called TS gold TS gold is going to talk to um link it so when we transfer our information over to kindergarten even though it's not the same programming they have the students learning needs their learning styles where they were in the preschool um the where they were in the preschool curriculum where they were meeting the standards in preschool so the TS gold takes all the preschool standards and it breaks them out and the teachers assess each one for the students depending on the age level they're performing on so that all goes over to the kindergarten teachers that's amazing and then you know it was really nice like this year I felt like more than any of the other years we really sat with the kindergarten teachers and we looked at it and explained it to them I'm going to go to Miss Dam I know she had her hand up first thank you so much for all of this this was really great um I know my oldest is in the prek program and you you guys do a great job so it's really fortunate for oan to have this um my only question that I have is I see that there's going to be a new class in wamas and Wayside do we have those classrooms already set out for where those new classes are going to be or is that still getting figured out so that's something that the principles have been working on projecting because there is a square footage size requirement for those classrooms and they did find two classrooms in those two schools amazing thank you so we know where we're going as right now this govern my last question and this is and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that this is the first year that we've been three and four year olds and maybe five second year year so um do and maybe this shouldn't be asked now but I just wanted to know do we still love like like that model we like because I know it was able to pre up seats like get us to kind of be able to service more students do we still um feel that it's a good model to have them all together so about two years ago when the state came in and they recommended that us doing it you know some of the teachers have you know never did something like that before but when we started getting going and when they saw the difference and how we were starting our preschool instructional coaches were showing them how to look in the materials and see the wide range of lessons all for the same studies it was almost like a no-brainer it something that they really enjoy and every year the last two years they all told me that the kids keep the four-year-olds really help integrate the three-year-olds and it goes so much quicker the rules the how to act in class how to you know keep on the schedule because those four-year-olds really take three-year olds under their wing but the curriculum supports students from birth to age nine for the preschool curriculum thank you welcome anyone else from the board have any questions okay I'm gonna um I could just just add one more thing I just also wanted thank Mrs vona I think it's very clear when she speaks how passionate she is about and how much her heart is in the making sure that this is the best program that it can possibly be for the students um excellent job on your presentation when the slides went away and you had a couple questions I do just want to clarify one I believe you were asking about enrollment Mr Snider this year it's 276 General edged students this year 40 special ed students right this minute yeah with a prediction of somewhere between 20 to 30 more before the year ends enrolling okay I think you were giving some numbers for next year but I just wanted to clarify that the number yeah it's okay no I I wish I I was looking through my cards I'm like a lot going on so I just wanted to make sure that information was accurate absolutely I appreciate that and um that partnership that we have with asalo to clarify we don't rent space from them but we have a partnership with them they get funding from our preschool expansion Aid funnels through us to them to educate Ocean Township students and we have two sections there one is full one is not and we feel that we will be able to fill those seats if we move one section back here okay sorry thank you is there anyone in the room I want to miss anybody that has any questions from Miss vona no Miss Conway is there anyone in the queue that has any questions from Miss vona in regards to the preschool um expansion presentation no Madam president at this time there are no questions okay thank you all right thank you okay next up we have a presentation by our two math supervisors I'd like to introduce Mr rich ston and Mr Greg Cologne who are going to present to us on driving math achievement initiatives fueling student growth and I know Dr Morgan is here as well to support them and I I I was remiss in not recognizing Mrs Duffy who was here as well to support Mrs vona in the presentation on preschool sorry about that okay gentlemen there is an extra mic right there wireless mic if if you want to have once but otherwise rehear the okay very good the the floor is yours good evening I'm Greg colog the great 6 through 12 math supervisor and to my right is Rich ston who is DK to 5 math supervisor we appreciate the opportunity to come out and speak with all the board members tonight in the community about our initiatives uh that we have moving forward within our math department during the course of this presentation we're going to review how our district is working to ensure that every student has the support and challenge they need to succeed and Excel in mathematics next slide these are the three most important aspects of how we will Drive math achievement at the township of ocean School District next slide tonight we will cover our instructural programs from elementary through high school specific initiatives to strengthen instruction and how we promote student engagement through targeted intervention efforts and our acceleration program each component is part of a cohesive strategy designed to not only meet but exceed state standards and give students a solid foundation for future academic and Career Success next slide in the elementary schools we use Savas and vision and vision was first adopted in 2012 in 2016 we adopted in Vision 2.0 followed by Envision 2024 beginning this school year enVision Math utilizes and connects concrete Visual and Abstract representations to model and develop meaning towards mathematical concept and vision carefully balances the importance of developing strong conceptual understandings with the necessity of developing procedural understanding to become efficient with mathematical processes vision is highly aligned with the New Jersey student learning standards not just in content but in the rigor expected on the high stakes assessments next slide in grades 6 through 12 we have a combination of saas and vision for grade six and we transition to Big Ideas learning for grade seven and eight and then we move into our new preap program uh which will carry the students up until the AP courses that we start at AP pre-calculus uh in addition we also offer other classes uh such as AP Statistics AP Computer Science uh we offer discret mathematics and there's a new one that will be coming down to Pike for Board of approval uh technical math possibly these programs all offer differentiated instruction and digital resources which allow teachers to adapt the lessons to each student's level and style of learning each containing interactive lessons that makes complex Concepts accessible to all students in addition to our newly introduced preap and AP courses we are preparing our students for advanced level cours workk with using Rich math task uh throughout the entire curriculum and what that is is we are in the classroom utilizing real world applications of the math and that's to promote the student engagement uh We've experienced a high level of su of success recently with our AP program uh we earned a 2023 AP School honor uh R silver distinction and we also earn the AP access award these are in recognition for an underscore our commitment to expanding rigorous opportunities for students that are ready for advanced learning next slide after each school year we reflect as a team to ensure that we're supporting all students and driving academic success these are our district math initiatives next slide Kinder kindergarten through fifth grade schedules have been redesigned to segment the math period into core instruction plus time provided to provide differentiated instruction tailored to the student's needs the schedule redesign places extra emphasis on small group instruction intervention and enrichment as a byproduct of the 2021 school year curriculum companions were introduced to provide guidance and identifying where additional General support is necessary as well as which lessons should be emphasized continual review of student assessment data further focuses curricular emphasis iel has been integrated as a supplementary learning tool to deliver skill focused instruction practice and assessment as well as provide an additional data source by the means of a diagnostic assessment that pinpoints students abilities within and Beyond the scope of their current grade level all students in K to4 classrooms focus on developing accuracy and efficiency with math facts freeing up working memory so that students can focus on more complex mathematical work next slide for grades 6 through 12 we have three major initiatives that we actually began last year uh and that we're working through a three-year plan on and those are incorporating changes to our tiered intervention our preap program our instructional redesign within the classroom to help better deliver instruction to all students we've implemented extensive teacher professional development to build capacity and support our staff in delivering targeted differentiated instruction to all students within the classroom uh we are aiming to build the students analytical and collaborative skills through rigorous and engaging activities such as the rich math test that I described earlier and that's also with the change of what we're using for programs as well uh where we're incorporating significantly more math tests that are authentic and have real world applications to promote the student engagement uh our instructional redesign involves using Learning Centers and stations and that format not only keeps the students engage but it also allows the teachers to focus on smaller groups to better differentiate instruction and deliver intervention within the classroom uh we are utilizing and really have leaned heavily into database differentiation we've used a lot of time performing PD with the staff in order to have them better understand the tools we have at our disposal such as linkit uh and that is used with Fidelity at the classroom level currently and that's used to drive what instructions occurring within the centers and stations within the classroom uh we continuously Analyze That student performance data uh we're constantly uh adjusting our instruction we're identifying gaps we're filling those gaps and that's happening on a a daily basis throughout our curriculum through all the grades uh these initiatives ultimately are allowing us to deliver services to all students at all levels next slide now we will discuss our District's multi-tier system of support to support all students next slide over the last few years math intervention programming has expanded to meet the varying needs of intervention students tier 2 instruction continues to provide students with specialized small group instruction in support of the Core Curriculum tier three instruction identifies foundational learning gaps through a variety of diagnostic measures and targets gaps that are high priority prerequisite standards essential to access on grade level content individualized student learning plans are developed and monitored on Personal Learning logs next slide in our 6 to2 Intervention Program we're building on the succcess of the elementary Intervention Program uh we're offering quen support at tier 2 support at the uh Middle School the intermediate school and in the high school we're currently offering uh push in with algebra 1 and Algebra 2 because those are the areas most in need with plans to roll that out to Geometry as well uh every student that receives tier two or tier three intervention has an indiv individual intervention plan and that is developed based on the data that we have warehoused in our linkit system and also through the work of the interventionists they are the ones creating those plans and maintaining those plans and those progress reports for students in intervention are going out uh the same time the market period report card will go out and that's through link it and that's going to provide clear actionable goals for each student and it's individualized to each student based on what their particular needs are uh we conduct progress monitoring through EXL that's what we use with the math department and thatl will give us data on whether there's growth and the areas that deficient in and it'll better narrow down exactly where that work needs to happen at the classroom level and at the individual level with the interventionist and with the teacher within the classroom our data D driven approach ensures that each student receives the support they need to succeed in their current and more advanced math courses next slide I know what you're all thinking that's a sounds great but how does it work this graph displays the impact that tier three instruction had on 24 2nd through fourth grade students in a 2223 school year students were averaging 6.5 points of growth per month on their ISL diagnostic This falls short of the goal of averaging 10 points growth after beginning tier three and instruction these same students nearly doubled the rate of growth over the next four months next slide this graph details students ISL diagnostic growth with a full Year's worth of tier three instruction so this is from the school year 2324 the entire student population in grades 2 through four averaged 77 Point growth spanning eight months of the school year just shy of the goal of 80 points students who received tier 3 math intervention average 98 points over the same 8-month period closing the Gap to their peers by two months of expected growth sure is next slide and this is the data that we utilized in order to build out this program to now offer it in Intermediate School based on the success of how it worked in the elementary level so we will have data next year to support what we're doing in intermediate school with this program now we'll discuss our math acceleration program next slide we have spent a great many hours as a team discussing the merits of early algebra exposure which based on extensive research is considered a strong predictor of success in math in many other academic areas our accelerated pathways are open to students demonstrating Readiness for more rigorous coursework with research indicating significant cognitive benefits including improved logic and reasoning skills based on our internal data students in our district are prepared for this challenge so we are fully committed to offering them the chance to take more advanced course workk next slide all students are screened for math acceleration using exist existing District assessments students demonstrating Mastery of on-grade level standards are then assessed with an endof year assessment from the following grade level students who are not yet able to show proficiency on the next grade level assessment are offered opportunities to reassess creating a multitude of Pathways for students who demonstrate Readiness at different times classroom teachers help prepare students by utilizing the differentiated portion of the math period to intervene extend and enrich this means that students showing Mastery of current grade level learning goals are offered opportunities to extend their learning to correlated learning standards from the next grade level this leads to an increased level of Readiness for students attempting to skip the next grade level's Math course next slide these are our current course Pathways that are offered in the intermediate school and it allows and it gives many opportunities for students to accelerate at their own individual Pace based on of the level of rigor that they're able to endure in the classroom our accelerated option lead students from grade level math to Advanced courses such as preap algebra 1 and geometry in middle school with their peers and our Pathways also allow for flexibility with multiple entry points including options to support students who may need a slow down or speed up based on their individual progress on our next slide I'll discuss the newly established acceleration Pathways so these are our new Pathways that were established in the 2122 school year and previous to this for many decades typically a student the highest level they would be able to achieve with without a few unique cases uh that we would bust to the high school would be Algebra 1 and eth grade So based on the progress of our students based on what we were seeing in the data uh in 2122 school year we developed these two new acceleration Pathways so to your left that's our grade five acceleration pathway those students are brought into the program at the end of fourth grade they skip fifth grade math and go directly into math Six as a cohort and those students ultimately will end up taking geometry which as of last year uh this the second year we offer it at the intermediate school so we have full class of geometry taught at the intermediate school for eighth grade students you said pull class P class we have 10 and the other option again multiple entry points is grade six if a student may not be mature enough may not have uh that level of enrichment that they need to skip a grade level of Standards uh we give them an opportunity to skip uh in fifth grade where they will go directly into prra and our prior program that we've had our established program that we've had for many years uh that one allows them to forego math 7 and go straight into pre-algebra and ultimately hand up an algebra so there's multiple opportunities for our students in the Intermediate School uh to accelerate through the pathways next slide these are the numbers so this is for our newly established Pathways so these are students that are skipping fifth grade math going into sixth grade math or students that are skipping sixth grade math and going straight into prra so these students are all ultimately ending up in geometry in 8th grade at the intermediate school so as you see when our first year of the program uh there was a total of 11 students in that program and fast forward to this year we have 57 that are enrolled in that program so those are 57 students that are skipping a grade level of math and it's positioning them to be able to take geometry in the intermediate school and if you look diagonally through that follows the cohort next slide here's some totals when we add in the new acceleration Pathways to our previous Pathways this is looking at our total enrollment over the years that we've had the new acceleration so when you look at the inverse that group of eighth graders we've had geometry in eighth grade for two years each one of those classes had 10 so that's the 20 that we have for 8th grade if we go up to grade five we have 50 so those are students that are ultimately going to be taking geometry in the Intermediate School which that would be at least two sections so we have a significant amount of students that are being serviced and the established acceleration Pathways that we've always had it's adding to those numbers significant and it's putting students where their ability PA where they're capable of succeed next slide I know you're thinking again the sounds scra of how are these students doing with this accelerated rigorous coursework this pie chart demonstrates the success of seventh grade algebra and eighth grade geometry students have had on the nsla assessments meeting in exceeding rates at nearly 97% highlight the tremendous success of the students rolled in an accelerated math track next slide next slide thank you again for your time and attention please feel free to contact us to discuss any aspects of our math initiatives in further detail have a wonderful night wow questions that was very impressive really thank you we have a lot going on I just learned a whole heck of a lot do um does the board have any questions Mr Weinstein thank you nice presentation thanks so you know one of the things I think happens once or twice a year and also when we're around town we always get questions about what are you doing to improve the MTH scores right so is there some kind of forecasting predictability that you think we have here what what this looks like down the road when kids are taking SATs all that kind of stuff is there a way to think through that because because I guess you know as a as a community everybody is well aware of how the district's rated and all that kind of stuff and whether it's fair or unfair it still is out there and so I think one of the things that kind of always comes up is our test scores and how that works so is there a way to predict how this is going to turn out the only thing that I could speak to with Fidelity is what we're doing on the classroom level for the students and those are those intervention programs that we have in place there's tier one within the classroom that the General Ed teachers is delivering in tier two and tier three delivered by interventionist that potentially in theory would have a positive effect but I cannot speak withw up front it it it's hopeful but we are doing everything we need to make sure we're identifying filling the gaps with our individual students Mr Schneider great job so program has been in place for a while start so that the intervention spoke about the elementary level seemed like work that a pilot program exactly so starting in a 2223 school year is where we identifi the need to do something more for some of our students we had students enrolled in intervention and that year we had 24 that we identified is tier three in grades two through four we don't have it in first because it's already so foundational there's not that much more foundational you can get um the idea is to take those second through fourth grade students and GAP fill the gaps in the foundations that makes the house a little bit unsturdy um so it's very pointed can't fill every Gap because you'll spend too much time and you'll never catch back up and at the end of that year we checked if it worked we had great success and then what you saw on the second slide was a full Year's worth in a check and we had great suc success and we expect it again this year speaks check that out if I could just pedb back on that the big thing with math is math is linear so with math you're missing one concept as minor as it might be in fourth fifth sixth grade it's going to affect you throughout and you're going to just get L more deficient as time go on because you're not going to be able to pick up the concept A so this is identifying those as soon as they're happening and try to get some just in time intervention to be able to alleviate that issue see posi yeah and those students I mean hopefully if you look at state reports from nsla hopefully we're moving our our partially meetings into our approaching our approaching into meetings and ethical that we're trying to move the Intervention Program Mr dalon more of a comment than a question thanks for letting me nerd out here tonight um the mention of small group multiple times made my heart War because we know that for those kids that need support or enrichment you know many of us grew up with whole group instruction and whole group instruction is definitely important but small group is where the real the real rubber hits the road so thank you for using that term multiple times which tells me I know what we're doing as far as uh making sure that all these gaps do get filled right and we are using the data um the multiple entry points I think very often people think all right once you're in a track your Stu there I I loved hearing that so thank you and the rich math tasks right um again I grew up in the era of just do this and you didn't know why and you didn't you weren't able to talk about it um you just did what the teacher did and you repeated it 20 times um we're in a different era now so I think that we are it it sounds to me like we're building deep math thinkers and thank you for all of your hard work and the hard work of our teachers thank you m McGovern I kind of a two-parter um in the the um the XL and the and the envisions can you just briefly explain iel is mostly a um like a just explain I know that I know envisions the program yeah and then is is another program that we do that is more of a like more of a link it type of a thing or is it more of a so so link link it it's a data warehouse where we can put any information we want link it provides assessments that collects data for us too um I Exel is an online program that's probably why you're connecting it to um there's no paper based version of I Exel I Exel provides skill based when you even call it lessons you can identify a skill and teachers can use that skill to teach students with and then students can do independent practice and they can even do assessments with it but it targets certain skills so we use Envision as our Core math program Envision fils NJ student learning standards to a t um when we identify that we need extra support with certain skills but our Envision curriculum is moving on we can go towards I Exel to Target those skills we do that to go below grade level we do that to reinforce on grade level but we also use it as we mentioned to prepare students for acceleration buff grade them an example of that would be I had a fourth grade teacher tell me this week they're they're you know they're working to a certain place value they're doing multiplication up to the thousands times one digit it goes but the students that are doing that they're doing up to 100 thousands times one digit because that's fifth grade so right now in November fourth grade they're getting ready for math acceleration um Envision wouldn't offer them that for a fourth grader so they turn to Exel and there's a skill ready to go to help accelerate that student so it's very specialized EXL can be targeted to the need of the student right very specifically are are working well and because you know en Vision obviously we know has been in District as you spoke to for 12 years you know and but it sounds like the three versions of it that we've been able to get or three updates let's say have we're still happy with it like is are we still happy with Envision in this world or yes okay we're not like thinking of looking no and I yes yeah I didn't need I don't need anything more than I got Mr ston is a is a passionate leader and when he shakes his head no it's just a more emphatic yes he is very he is very fond of the program and feels that it's a strong program that we're using right no entirely even when I shoed around yeah no the only ones that looked remotely good and had the same strong reputation were ones that looked just like inion thank you Mr McCarthy um so so just to clarify based on that link it is what provided us the data that made us identify that we needed to have a more rigorous pathway for certain students that's where we got that data from the data that goes into like it right it's Warehouse there and then we're utilizing that to create the Gren models to better identify the schemes we're able to narrow it down more utilizing like it so I just wanted to comment I mean this is this is awesome this is awesome to see I think that it's fantastic that we're we're offering multiple Pathways here too I think that's fantastic that that we can identify at multiple points that we have an opportunity to push a student above their uh what we're testing them at I commend you for that I think it's a wonderful program that you created I just want to say you know I I give credit to uh to all Mrs Bona Mr ston and Mr colone tonight because this is a real selling point for our district these three things and it's no wonder that Mrs weld didn't kind of piggyback these two programs off each other that we're getting students into this District we're expanding the volume of students that we're taking in and then when we get them here we're ready to offer them an amazing program like this it's a a wonderful Testament to this district and I want to thank you all for how hard you're working at this kind of stuff because it's it's really awesome to see it's fantastic and Mr happy birthday sir now Sunday Mar birthday9 that was Sunday thank you for your service happy birthday fellow scorpion EV just just a a few comments I know you touched briefly on a technical map and that may not be totally fleshed out yet but I'm glad to hear that there is a math that may go in that direction making math relevant I think is so important for the students you touched on that as well small groups also excellent and it's really hard for me to wrap my head around sixth graders doing algebra so I agree yeah my own experience was into high school so I think exposing them to that way of thinking makes them think makes them think deeper of course but shows them that algebra is in fact relevant and geometry as well and opens new Pathways for the high school for AP so nice job guys Mr Weinstein um yeah um I think that I think all you're doing is great I'm just kind of curious since everything's being moved up or or kids have the opportunity to move up of their skills how does that impact when they get into that high school when they hit their Junior and Senior year is if they to two available is it that's a great question uh at the high school level we have multivariable calculus which is c three and the students that are in geometry in eighth grade are the students that will be taking calary in high school interesting pretty good it's absolutely impress really is and we one of the few schools that offer yeah we've had that course we've had that course now for a number of years the block schedule allowed that accelerated pathway at the high school not at the intermediate school but at the high school but now we think with this acceleration at the Intermediate School those sections should get larger which is great which is a wonderful enhancement that's Prett cool to that nice does the board have any other questions okay anyone in the public in the room have any questions no okay uh Miss Conway is there anyone in the queue that has uh any questions on math achievement no there are not all right thank you so much thank you both so very much great job all right this concludes my report all right thank you very much all right with that we will move on to the school business administrative report Mr Hastings thank you madam president um just three quick updates today we had a meeting at the intermediate school with contractors to review our boiler project as a reminder we're replacing the second set of boilers at the Intermediate School uh this year uh with a bid opening of November 22nd um we had uh believe it or not it's the budgeting season is beginning um if it hasn't already begun for 25 26 and we've had preliminary meetings with our supervisors to discuss that budget and to guide them uh in building it for next year uh and then the final uh topic would be our qac uh walkthroughs by the county uh business administrator uh as a followup to our health and safety inspections of the buildings uh so the county came out and walked with myself buildings and ground supervisor the principales through the high school Intermediate School and uh of the elementaries one Massa was selected this year and the report back was favorable so uh many thanks to our custodial staff and maintenance staff uh and teachers who helped us uh meet those uh standards thank you wonderful thank you okay we will move on to public comment regarding agenda items the following are a series of motions to be read by the committee chairpersons all motions have been discussed at a recent public work session some motions have been approved at a public work session and the minutes for the approved items are posted on the district website at this point in the meeting we will now conduct the first of two public comment sessions the first session will be open for public comments on agenda items only the second second session will be at the end of the meeting and can be on any topic uh the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest public comment is not a question and answer session specific questions can be directed to the administration the superintendent's contact information is on the podium we encourage you to contact her with any questions public participation shall be governed by the following rules each statement made by a participant shall be limited to 5 minutes duration no participant may speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard and lastly the presiding officer May request any person to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum would anyone from the public like to comment on any agenda item at this time I don't think there's anyone in the room room um Mrs Conway is there anyone in the queue no Madame President there is nobody in the queue thank you Miss Conway we will now move on to action items Mr McCarthy move to approve item 7.1 7.2 second this is item 71 and 72 uh Mr Dalton yes Mrs Dam yes Mrs Gilman yes Mr McCarthy yes m mcgan yes Mr Schneider abstain Mr Weinstein yes Mr pamas yes motion carries thank you Mr McCarthy Personnel Miss McGovern yes I'd like to move Personnel items 8.1 through 8.4 we have a second second good all items 81 to 814 Mr Dalton yes Mrs Tam yes Mrs Gilman yes to all recuse from 8.11 thank you Mr McCarthy yes Mr McGovern yes Mr Schneider yes Mr Weinstein yes m p yes motions carry thank you Mr McGovern financial management and Resource Services Mr Weinstein um thank you madam president um I like to move for approval of um items 9.1 to 9.6 second please second thank you thank second that does anyone have any questions regarding 91 through 96 skilman where is just spey located clever name but uh I I saw speech Tree location I looked on their since we're using them as an indic I don't know their location I can try and find that answer for you for next week wondered if it was local or kind of I'm sorry I don't know okay you know fine for next time Mr Schneider I I when I looked at it earlier I was was curious why do we have two Speech Pathology Services um the special uh needs department has uh a need for speech therapists uh however one company can't cover the entire needs of the district so we have a second um in speaking with uh the director the assist superintendent uh this morning uh we're going to start with the speech tree because it's slightly less and they have someone identified who can help us and just speechy will be uh uh used second as secondary source thank you anyone else all right maybe you should move those items and then move on to discussion we'll discuss thank you this is for 91 through 96 Mr Dalton yes Mrs Dam yes Mrs Gilman yes Mr McCarthy yes Mr McGovern yes Mr Schneider yes Mr Weinstein uh yes and Mrs par yes motion carry Jeff is there anything you want to say about 9.7 and 9.9 before we uh 91 oh 911 sorry about that um as I noted uh uh earlier we are entering our budgeting season uh we were just notified today of our U midyear budget review which is conducted by the county superintendent the county businesses administrator and their curriculum folks uh so that meeting will take place in January uh but the calendar is there and that's an estimate of what we're looking at uh typically uh we would need to approve a tenative budget in March and the final budget the end of uh April early may there's usually a 10 to 12 day period uh windows in those two months um and I believe there was a donation earlier you I missed it on the uh w thank you Wagman's donated apples I believe to our preschool program so the children are very excited about that and we'd like to thank them wonderful thank you Mr McCarthy um just regarding budget you mentioned speaking with the county superintendent do we to be proactive to avoid the the uh going back into discussing the budget that we had to last year because we were given an addition of a tax levy does the county superintendent intend to have any sort of discussion above about what's going to happen from the legislature is that something that we need to look to our legislatively aison committee to do what is the advice for handling that sort of thing the is there another Channel I'm not mentioning as an option that I'm unaware of no I think certainly contact with our legislators is is appropriate and always positive the county office uh provides us with information that they receive from the state uh so they don't necessarily have um immediate Direction until the legislature uh you know either passes a bill or provides them with additional instructions so I would not look to the um County necessarily to give us sort of Proactive or futur looking uh advice right now their advice is to look at either a flat budget for us going forward and any adjustments uh that would be made to the budget would be based more on enrollment than anything so we're looking at a flat to slightly less based on some enrollment issues uh coming up for 2026 okay thank you for answering my question Mr Weinstein yeah I would I would probably suggest that we just figure out at the beginning of January or something that we do meet with the legislators and find out what's kind of going on and what what what the what the opportunities might be or what what the thinking might be happening I should restate how that was a little bit by a surprise what happened and if we knew that earlier we would take different action possibly you know just going say what's available so just so just thinking um you know about what's going to happen with our uh our board come January we're going to have new new members present a new member present we're going to probably reshuffle committees but I don't think that this is something that we should wait for but I don't I also don't think it's something that we're going to want to schedule ahead of December so my theory is that the current committee will schedule this and then we'll move forward in January with that as long as the board has no issue with that we'll schedule that with our representation in Tren that okay M mcover I would just say that all that's well and good but we should also be realistic in knowing that the minute budget is closed there will be money most likely that not going to know about yeah because in the last many many years there has been different kinds of AIDs that have come in that have not um we haven't you know anticipated necessarily or anticipated the number on the right not always on the right side of it right sometimes we thought we might get this extraordinary Aid that would you know we will have say I'm I'm using round numbers I'm not in my head of knowing this but you know 10 million here when we only we got eight or 8 million here when we got 12 you know so I would say that I agree that you know it's it's not a bad idea to speak to them but I think that we also need to just be aware that more than likely when everything's said and done and after we've gone through the breuing process of budget that money will be somewhere uh yeah but you can only control you can control we can control setting up the meeting right so I'm saying let hope so yeah you got to do right we have a lot of anger at the end a lot of sometimes and it's it's misdirected yeah okay I would just add that that I believe that committee should have a pre- meeting to plan yeah because I feel like we had an extensive dialogue last year that was brought to a close and I would be unclear as to where we were going next so I think a pre- meeting would be Ben official to plan what it is we're asking for I think that dialogue being brought to a close is a generous statement okay generous very kind of you Mrs won very kind of you yeah very kind all right thank you um there's no other questions under Finance okay thank you Mr weine instruction education and Student Activities Mrs Gilman yes president Paramus uh move to approve items 10.1 10.4 our field trips our PD our annual operational plan and artificial intelligence innovation Grant all good things can we please have a second second all right is there any questions for instruction items 10.1 through 104 Mr Dalton yes M St yes Mr Gilman yes Mr McCarthy yes Mr McGovern yes Mr Schneider yes Mr Weinstein yes m p yes motions Carri thank you m dman um we will now move on to policy skilman yes we have approval of first readings of revised or new policies if you've had a chance to read those know that there is a new one for Grievances and the rest are revised so you may study them at your leisure and we will vote on them next week any questions second oh sorry just some clarification I do believe that was it's it is new because we did not have it before but it is not newly Rel released by Strauss smme this is in part of our look back over policies that we may have not adopted in the past so this one is coming on yes correct thank you right thank you Miss Gilman Public Relations Mr Weinstein yes um uh like to have a discussion around the uh around 13.1 um the USDA National School lunch program um what would people like to discuss is there anything this is this was from our meeting that we had to say hey can you Bo had directed us to uh find to put together or S to Deo for a snack list because we had provided I believe the menu the nutritional information about the menu the main menu but it did not include the snack and drink list and I believe this list now although it's called snack list here does have the drinks on there as well if I remember correctly when I reviewed it and then we just had a few other things that sedexo had provided for us so we've attached those as well um for your for your review some of this has already gone out to the community in my message from the superintendent monthly newsletter that I put out um so that the parents now have access to this nutritional information on the on the menu options um if that's something that they want to look at but the snap back list is not there so it's here now for your review yeah for your requests okay M Dam yes thank you um so I went through the neutr slice website app over the weekend I don't know if anybody else did that as well um I think it's a really helpful tool for parents to see what's actually there um but I looking at it you know just looking at the breakfast offerings today I have it pulled up but there's just a lot of items on there that is just filled with sugar filled with additives that I understand that's what I guess part of what we signed up for but I feel like we need to do better or we can look to do better to do that um I can go through some of you know the items if you guys want want me to but I think also with the statements from sedexo on paper it sounds really good it sounds like they're doing things but then you're looking at the menu again they don't seem like they're going hand inand with me so again and this is where I was kind of at a s last I'm not sure exactly where the right place to go with how can we do better where can we go is it that we want to go out for an RFP with not with sedexo or give a chance for another vendor to come or can we have sedexo come in talk to us about alternatives that we can be asking giving to students you know that's where I'm kind of at the stand only thing I can tell you is we can't really ask sedexo to come in because we it's kind of like we're overstepping that's something that the administration handles um I don't know you know I'm sure I missed the last meeting and I'm sorry so I missed the whole conversation that revolved around it um I don't know if if it was brought up to you and I I think it was that there is a contract there's a current contract and we're kind of bound to that contract um within limitations and I'm sure miss Welden can um tell me I'm wrong or not um and I think the only thing at this point that we can do is I mean I don't know if we could perhaps ask or Miss direct Miss Welden to maybe ask SED sedexo if there are other more nutritional options that they could add I don't know if they can do that but that may be something that we could try um and then it would be up to the board I mean come come whenever the year is over look into perhaps putting out an RFP I don't think you can do it mid year um but but perhaps for now we could ask them to see if they could add some healthier options yeah I don't think it's about adding more options I think it's about giving Alternatives like for cinnamon toast crunch what what better options do we have for that for the cinnamon pots what other options do we have up the the snacks that were just shown up there I mean there's many snacks that have dyes and additives that are terrible for people to consume and I think also with the Nutri slice it's just it's just sorry it's overwhelming a little bit and not knowing where to go from here with that okay Mr Weinstein yeah I think that I think for me the the part that was disappointing is when you um look at at all the stuff um especially the breakfast things for the elementary schools I mean it's basically cakes and pies you know it just it just doesn't and the other part I think was was interesting was that the first picture looks like it's old meal I was like okay we got some instant Nal or something but it seems a it seems because you know the whole thing about um engineering sugar out of people's diets right and trying to curve you know obesity and all childhood you know child obesity and juvenile diabetes diabetes and all that kind of stuff seems like that this is going fairly counter to that right there was one yogurt but um it was a flavored yogurt it just seems um seems like a little odd for a a school to provide that pie chart that has so much sugar in it so I'm not sure why I'm not sure what what you do about it or how to go about it but it just seems a little weird to me right Miss Gilman um I did the research and wrote down some things as well and while we're locked into the contract I would like to see several of these snacks removed especially the Cherry blue raspberry with uh red and blue dyes 24 grams of sugar chocolate scooter crunch 13 grams the lowfat orange blossom 40 gram of sodium 14 of sugar just a bottle of Snapple which we ourselves know 39 grams of sugar 170 calories uh the list goes on of of other 27 grams of sugar for a banana cream yet you read their statement their mission statement which is to provide healthy food for the community so even though we are locked into a contract I I think we should let them know we're not happy with these kind of snacks and it is the antithesis of what their statement is okay Mr mccor yeah I have a lot of opinions about different things with this that that I think I could talk about for a while but but I think to just look at this from a policy shaping perspective um I would like to see the way that we evaluate these con these proposals right so what is our scorecard for evaluating these proposals so that when this does come up for RFP we can as a policymaking board put in something that provides a grade or score uh that that measures this kind of thing you know are they are they providing this sort of thing for us where we have healthier options for our students um that we agree are healthier and I I think that's going to take some work I think I think the board is going to have to set expectations for the administration on what we deem to view in that way I say that all with the understanding that you know it is not our right to tell parents what their kids can and cannot have right I'm a firm believer protecting parent rights so that's so I struggle with that but I think we would not be doing our responsibility to the students of this District without saying hey we're evaluating this and then finally another big thing that I'm on is is being conservative financially right and so this to to me what what is going to be the biggest question but but doesn't stop us from taking the steps to see how we evaluate these entities but what's going to be the biggest question to me is what is this going to cost the district because I'm not on board with and I don't think anybody on this board is but you can speak up if you disagree I'm not going to be com uh comfortable with adding anything to the cost of the parent uh in this District either right so but but the money is going to need to come from somewhere so I want to see potentially how we evaluate this stuff to start um what we we've done previously and maybe where we can change that in the future and then when that evaluation comes down to it when we do go out to RFP I would like to um see what the cost is going to be to our district uh in selecting a healthier option I think that's our responsibility to the parents in this District Mr McGovern um while I agree with many things said I think that us making decisions for students and what they eat is not as important as students making these decisions so I know in years past we've had Committees of students that have had conversations with with their Administration sometimes being led say at the high school by the assistant principles that have had conversations with the students about okay and and I think in our meeting that you were not at I asked I believe I asked and if I didn't ask I wanted something to the effect of what are our top selling snacks right because we could say what whatever it is that you wanted to take off the menu the blueberry whatever whatever might be everybody's favorite snack that 90% of our kids I'm just making you know 90% of our kids buy and if you take that off the menu because we nine don't believe that that's the right thing and maybe and we'll have parents there too then then it's it's a little bit difficult right you have kids that grow up in many different kinds of households that are experiencing many different kinds of food and while we should try and make this as healthy as we can I think that you also need you need the input from the kids that will be eating it more than myself eating it so I would say that I've been on rfps for for food service I think two or three times ago and there's a lot of promises made in RFP you know there's a lot of ask there's a lot of promises there's also a lot of follow through that you know we have sedexo employees and that that you know communicate with Mr Hastings about things and and maybe you know and I think Mr Hastings has done a good job already of saying like let's try and get some better things out here but I do think that it would be more I would I would love to hear because listen fourth graders could tell you too you could have fourth graders you could have middle school committee and we've done this for I'm trying to think what we've done this for in the past we have done definite committees with students with student councils and stuff to have that kind of but but been down to fourth grade we've had committees in fourth grade dexo has spoken to them about what they would like to see as as expanding offerings right I don't know that this is going to go in the vein that that is being presented those two things are probably going to go in two different directions right and I you know and also I know that like the food guidelines from the federal government right say that Froot Loops is a fruit right now none of us agree that Froot Loops is a I don't think anyone at this table would say Froot Loops is a fruit but so so sedexo guidelines are that fro Loops are fruit so there's things that are going to be very difficult to go up against um we could look at what the RFP is and but the RFP does take longer than just especially a food service I feel like I don't when is our it does I mean the dire it would be up to the board but options that you have are to go out for RFP again for next school year which we would start working on not too far away from now developing an RFP we would need guide from the board on what you want in that RFP as a requirement of anyone submitting like if we were going to say we want you to provide just as an example organic only food products to our students that would have to go into the RFP so someone who was submitting would know that's the expectation that's just one example right we would like you to provide food you one choice a day that you're not permitted to provide any food that contains a red dye that could be a requirement that this board decides to put in and we could go out for RFP and then we would have to see what we get and what that costs the families in the district and then we'd have to choose and we may have to go out for RFP again and then we might have to go out for RFP again and all of that can happen we can do all of that that is I think just the clear line to the action that you can have and perhaps a PR Committee just as a respectfully a suggestion could get together prior to create this list of require of of you know deal breakers and musthaves that this board would like to see in an RFP and I would say that we should start sooner than later because I feel like first of all sedexo has every right to submit again so we cannot in any way take that away from them they have every right to submit again but I in case we have in case we are not happy with the results either financially or what what we get we may have to tweak our RFP and do it again or I guess Mr hazings at that point could we renew sedexo like I don't want to find ourselves in a situation where we don't have a food service program and all of the things that we do even in the summer that where we need a functioning contract and pro and a provider providing for us that is very very important and I don't want to disrupt the many things we have going on so as much as I understand this desire to make these changes we have to do it systematically to not interrupt any service to students and the operation of the school so we just have to add that layer of timing on top of this I'm gonna go to Mr Dalton because we haven't heard from him yet so I'm listening to all the points and um going back to what Mr McCarthy said I I think it's one of those things where we do need to be careful what we request right I mean we can all find ourselves in the grocery store and trying to make those choices sometimes drives up cost and we do need to be sensitive to that with our families um having gone through this process multiple times myself and including having in-house folks do it when the Cisco truck pulls up the Cisco truck pulls up and so what Cisco has available or one of the other food providers has available um is very often what they go to regardless of Provider so I want to be careful when we start to talk about wanting to change a provider for this because many of them have a very similar way of operating right they they use Cisco and some of those other Food suppliers and they go off of what they have available the same as you go to shop rer Wegman's and you buy what they have available um and cost does come into play um I guess a wondering I'm having is in the conversation with them um was it asked of them are there any districts or do you have any experience with removing items that um have these things in them and what has that netted you and I you know I don't know what the response would be to that I know when you're running a breakfast program especially you're usually looking at grab and go right like I worked very closely with Food Services um years ago and the person called it it's the grab and go items and so grab and go items have are typically packaged items um because of the amount of prep time and what's available um so I'm just wondering if sedexo has any experience with removing some things and do they have cost effective options to those because you know I I remember years ago people said well put granola bars on there well some of the granola bars when you look at them have more sugar than the cereal and more calories and more fat than the cereal um so you know I I think it would be fruitful to at least ask them that question and I you know I appreciate Miss welden's point and like we would have to start soon because it's a it's a process to go through and I totally agree you know with Mr McCarthy anytime we do an RFP we have to have a strong rubric on how we score it and what we value and put the points where we feel the points need to be and I think up till now we have been unclear as to the board's wishes it wasn't clear that you wanted items removed it appeared at first that you wanted to make sure there were healthy options in addition to the other options but tonight it sounds at least two members have spoken about things they want removed so if if you are directing us to develop an RP or tell sedexo Within the confines of this existing contract please remove these items we would need to know that that's what the board is asking us to do and I I just want to CL I'm just asking is it possible I'm not saying I definitely want to remove because going back to Mr McCarthy's statement there are some parents that are going to say I want my kid to have Froot Loops I mean I see parents buying Froot Loops in the grocery store because it's reminiscent you know like I don't but they do all right I'm gonna go back to Mrs Dam did you have your hand up did you have a question I did um so just a few points with what Mr McCarthy said about the cost that's obviously a huge proponent to this and you don't want to add costs at all um you know it would be something to look into their programs that have price matching of alternative options to cereal or to other to other types of grab and goes that might have better ingredients if we can look into those or and Mr McCarthy you said this at other board meetings that parents who are interested in this who might know other programs that maybe we should be aware of that could be helping our schools please send emails please call up like I want to hear it school wants to hear it so you know stuff like that with Mrs McGovern and what you said about educating our students right 100% even looking at this neutr slice website you see these symbols of what these foods are that they're saying that there's wheat and soy and Grain in them but they're not showing that there's sugar in them and like you like dig in and look at the look at the ingredients or that they have all these additives in it and it's not as prevalent if you're just looking really quickly you're seeing that these look good this is a good option for my kid and you know if you're not spending the time to really dig in they might not know that either so I think that's kind of where I'm getting at is offering options that for all of the students that it's not like you have to dig in and be worried about what they're eating it's just it's better for what they're eating regardless and not taking their freedom of way what they're eating just you know you wouldn't be putting drugs on the table just going extreme here right because we wouldn't want to give that option to that so adding I'm sorry so adding or removing I'm more of just switching it out we don't have to removing yeah removing I guess yeah okay sorry this so I I think guys so um there's a lot of things to agree on a lot of things that I don't agree with um one thing is that I'm not agreeing with is that um we this is the what's on these menus is the choices we're giving these kids right so we are creating a policy where we are giving them the choices so it's not whether we're we are telling them what they can eat and what's okay to eat like that's what we're already doing by giving them this so we're actually making that decision we're not tell nobody goes in and says you know what I want to have an egg white omelet can you scramble a couple eggs for me and give it to me no one's saying that right on this list it basically says nine out of 10 things are not good for you and that's what we're telling them that that's what they should choose from so to have so for me for us to sit with a bunch of seven you know five and sixth graders to ask them what do they want not really interested because if you ask them if you ask hey what do you want to learn in school we might get the Marvel mov movies all the time right so I think we're I think we're supposed to be of the level that we're supposed to be the learner group to this have the access information and data that tells us what's the right um Trend not fed but the right trend on how kids should be fed and do what we can to create those behaviors and those and those habits at the earliest level possible that's what I think our responsibility is so I'm not as in favor of having a group of guy kids doing this I'm also not in favor of telling people they can't have Froot Loops but I am saying that when you sit down and on the table nine out of 10 things are not good for you and I got a vet through and find out the one that is good for me and it might not even be something that's so great I'm going to the other nine I'm not going to that one so so just on the thing about this I don't think we should do anything right at this minute and I think we're moving stuff and all that stuff and not know what we're doing I think it's a little app Hazard okay if there was something on the menu right now that uh didn't make you know that really kind of stood out and said we got to get this off then that would be what I would be voting for but I think right now I think I would just keep it as is but let's get a real disciplined way of saying what is the right way to create the right behaviors for kids that can be on a more proper diet that would be my Mr Snider I just want to build on what Mr wison says I think we have to take a pragmatic approach to this because the uh the sentiment great but you know when kids are left with Choice which is where we want them to be to come in and they see the packaging the marketing that's geared to the sugary items all the time they're going to go there if you could find a way to have a better uh maybe Apple slay they might be more appealing to them but but I think from a pragmatic and systematic way I think we have to go through a pro process of helping the community engagement education both both at home and with the kids so they they when they get to that table they have a they have a better understanding SK might be better to close I didn't want to say that I don't think I think Tesco is changing you know Tesco you can find another guy that's going to come in they could be whatever you want them to be if if we're willing to pay for and and that's true and to be clear I'm not asking that we remove sedexo but I remember when sedexa was having those cooking lessons and contests over at the Intermediate School engaging the community and students to cook the healthiest products they did away with that of course during the pandemic I don't know if we've requested they reinstate that but I've also been on committees in the high school to try to make healthier choices and the result was a salad bar that so I think we can guide our food service into the things that we want them to do I would agree that high school students should have input on what's available for them to eat but I would argue that as Mr Weinstein said we're kind of in charge of putting in front of a three four five six seven eight-year-old here are your choices they're going to go for the packaging so I think we need to be very prudent about and if we do putut out an RFP and say let's eliminate things with red Dy and blue dye and offer something in instead I don't see why sedexo can't accommodate that and I don't see how it would increase the cost to parents across the board because of course no one wants to do that so not getting rid of of sedexo but if we're if they're going to be our food service from now through the end of their contract can we tweak a few things can we make our displeasure known with artificial dye red and blue and the excessive sugar that's being offered and perhaps offer some Alternatives okay so I'm going to ask the board two questions um the first one being does the board does the board want to go out for RFP is it is it something that we should direct the administration to begin preparing for not right now after the school year that's the first question the second the second question is going to be what do you want to do right now so uh my answer would be no to uh accelerating RFP ahead of schedule before because what I would like to do right now I would like to see how we are evaluating these food service companies years P um that's what I like to see and then and then with the board consider ways that we can increase our ability to evaluate somebody based on providing healthy options and then provide those recommendations back to the administration uh as to how we'd like them to evaluate in the future and go from there okay Mr weiny I mean I I I personally would rather so I would like to go with oury but I would also rather sit down and have Miss Welden and and Jeff I guess uh meet with them and say hey we want to we want to change this menu around and uh get your uh you know get your get your minds together and figure how do we create a much balanced uh offering here I don't know I don't know if that's possible I don't know what that means was gonna ask is that can you do that in the middle of a contract within theud it's in the contract that provides so so a couple different thoughts but I'll stick to the questions um yes we we have discussed with them through the information that's been provided recently the concern of the board and the community of what we're offering our students our children uh for breakfast and lunch and snacks uh and emphasize with them that we want to move to healthier options for our students um they do offer fresh fruit fresh vegetables uh those sorts of things to our students but of course kids being kids majority of them are not looking to that they're looking to other items um I think I may have mentioned in the past that the the the uh um division Department of Agriculture the food nutrition group the US da um look at this similar to a long-term smoking campaign type of approach so looking at the uh USDA website recently you can see that they're pushing regulations that over time are reducing salt and sugar uh contents by 5% per year 10% per year and pushing those standards down to people who participate in the national uh school lunch program which we do uh so they are you know slowly uh making those adjustments but certainly not as quickly as most people would like to see happen um in terms of going out to RFP uh they've made the Food Service program RFP very complicated now um so we would need to do that sooner rather than later because uh we offer summer feeding summer programs uh the companies that sedexo for example has to go out and hire staff and hire managers and and you know do that sort of work ahead of time so they come July 1 they can hit the ground running uh with with u with Staffing and being able to provide services to us um so if if that's the board's pleasure we would need to do that uh sooner rather than later in terms of the Matrix uh on the decision-making a lot of that is dictated by the state and by the the government and and I would note that um we had two applicants last year when we went out to RFP both sedexo style companies um and there were five or six uh criteria there have to be weighted averages and it's required that the highest weight be given to price or cost so again um you know the cost of the food and the cost of these things is is a little preeminent in terms of how we're evaluating uh so thank you interesting yeah covering I taking tally by the way no that's right so I do we have in the RFP that we currently have an actual list of all of the food offerings that are that are included in our price let's say we pay our price we're on the5 to7 per student range and these are I'm just making numbers here we're on the5 to7 student range for our cost or whatever and and these are what you get for five to seven now 7 to n is here now I'm not saying we're going to seven to n but do we have a list of what we can have so I would make two points one is we participate in the National uh lunch program uh the companies are required to follow the guidelines that they set forth for Food Service management companies to follow so we don't have a book upstairs that says here's 50 items that we want you you know Rice Krispies Froot Loops and whatever Pop-Tarts uh and that you know those are banned and these other things we want we just uh know that we participate in this program this National program has requirements and regulations associated with it in terms of the add addtional values that are being offered in meals and that's what the Food Service management companies are required to follow um we also in terms of uh what you mentioned about cost we're in a fixed price uh program so sedexo looks at the cost of the meal uh the cost of management and all the other costs that go into running this program and they set that as a cost per meal so um we're really paying sort of an Allin cost based on that concept so I I know we've said that like this is the board the policymaking board and and all of this stuff I would also venture to say that when we've been in Food Service rfps before or discussions before we've done it through finance and we've done like a couple of people meet with them and explain what that what we really want so while I can appreciate you know Miss Walen trying to get all of our opinions or whatever and trying to find a direction to go I personally don't think it's the worst idea and I usually don't say this but the worst idea to get a couple of ad hoc people to have a meeting to discuss with sedc so even if our even if our thought is okay we have Cinnamon Toast Crunch three days a week and on the day we have Cinnamon Toast Crunch is also honey gram crackers and Froot Loops or double chocolate chip muffin and a blueberry muffin but on the the one day that it's like sausage egg and cheese bagel we also have have string cheese and a strawberry yogurt cup so I would say if you take Froot Loops and Cinnamon Toast Crunch at out of both being offered on one day and take a yogurt cup and move it you know moving things around so that there is a healthy with a grain or whatever yeah you know and and I don't I'm not gonna say I but but I'm saying that yes it's in some cases I can say that this is an overreach of the board but in a lot of cases I can say that it's not because if we are deciding that we're going to go to healthier in any sort of option I think that listening to I think get and I've said it now twice figuring out on Thursday when it's sausage and and cheese zero kids buy breakfast but on Tuesday when it's Cinnamon Toast Crunch the entire School buys breakfast you know and knowing trying to gauge and I'm sure they try and gauge this too because they're not going to just put stuff out there that no kids are going to eat so they gauge the sausage egg and cheese is probably more more exciting than you know the egg and cheese or whatever you know like they know which ones they've had success with and they haven't and I think having a conversation with just a couple of people to be able to report back is you're shaking your head no but I you I don't think we I I I don't think that we should overstep our role as board members there's no harm in having an ad ad hoc committee meet and decide what they want to do and then of course include Miss Welden and Mr Hastings in there and direct them you know come to the board and then direct them to go and speak to I'll respectfully disagree with that so that's fine which I normally don't and I think that there's many things that that are overstepping and getting into the role of our staff that we you know that we that Miss Welden is in charge of and you know in a lot of ways Mr Hasting is in charge of the sedexo staff but the sedexo staff is a third-party person that comes into our schools and and feeds our children so when when you're hiring somebody from the outside to come in and do it and I listen I like sedexo and I think sedexo has a lot of promise and I think that the sedexo the people at the head of sedexo appreciate you know what is happening here even just walking past them at the in the in the uh hallways of Atlantic City I agree you I know they do but but the right way to do it is to have the administration speak to them and I think if I may just add to that I think even if if we were to talk further about your idea I still don't think that just a small group of board members here knows what the will of the board is yet right BEC and that's okay we're in this process of everyone sharing how they feel about this eventually we have to get to direct and some consensus because we have as Mr haing just said He has expressed to them and I have as well that there's some discontent but this is what they gave us and so right I we're in the early stage of them now responding and they may never get to where certain people are hoping they will get because of how it works as Mr Dalton just said they follow the USDA National lunch program nutritional standards that's their barometer of what they must do and we must use a provider that follows those standards that is those are the guidelines that are in place right now if we're if we as a board are trying to go beyond the federal guidelines then that has to be established and the board has to agree that that that's the direction we're going in that's what I think is missing whether it's Mr Hastings and I speaking with them or an ad hoc committee speaking with them that's almost secondary to what we're going to talk to them about beyond what we've already talked to them about right now I'm just to see because if we're interested in RFP I think the administration needs to know that so let me know you know what how you'd like to I don't know that I'm interested in an RFP without knowing what they could change in our existing contract okay I think that knowing what the option if they can give us a list of better options that we could possibly integrate into this and do that and and figure things out in a way that we can keep sedexo who does a good job for us right then I think that that's a better idea I think that at some point you go to RFP every couple years and you know we've said it's good bad and different if we got two people and now we're going to narrow our our decision next time we may get zero people exactly and so then we might endend up doing our own bring in which is going to be a lot not coste effective so I think they're open to making it better I think we just need to know what are the choices to make it better so that we can maybe have that conversation and then ad hoc committee can say here are all the choices here's what and also I would like to see the choices and I would like to see what sells that's what I would like to know I'm gonna go I'm gonna go around the room because we need to kind of wrap up this conversation so Mr Schneider what you know what are your thoughts I have a lot but I I want to respect your question about RP I think it's a little bit like uh the Seinfeld episode where unbeknown to then all of a sudden we're going out to RFP so I think having a conversation with them within the guidelines of the the federal ft to have a conversation on what we can mix and move also within the cost that we have to deal with I prefer that roundout um rather than going to the RFP immediately okay stamp um I agree I think asking for the Alternatives is the way to go and it's the foundational piece of we're starting this and I just want to say I really appreciate you guys putting thought in you know being part of this conversation also I think a really great question to ask toxo is California just passed the food safety School act I'm sure that they have schools in California that they have to change their menus for and we can just ask them how are they changing their menus in California and maybe that's what we can do and you know obviously cost we have to think about that but just seeing what that change is could be very helpful for what maybe we want our change to be so I think that would be a really great question to ask them okay Mr Dalton just one clarifying question we approve sedexo contract how long is it right now it's through the end of the year and it's renewable for another three years and it's renewable for another three okay this is year two so I'm I'm right now I'm not in support of going out to RFP I think we have a lot going on right now we have a lot on the plate um I'm looking over who the approved vendors are on the State website and I'm a little concerned that it's some of those places were I mean if we only had two last time it shows me that the Regional impact of some of this is we may not get again and also I think about this whole idea of the summer programs and the upheaval of Staffing and we all know in this day and age Staffing is one of the hardest things so if we had a brand new company coming in and then they had to step up are they going to hire the people that we already have in our kitchens are they not what is that going to be like so there's many components to it so I would rather work on the things everyone is talking about to see what options there are with staying within the cost maybe balancing the menu a bit with feedback to them but I don't think we should go RFP right now thank you skilman I agree I don't think we should go out to RFP U at this time but they are working with us and I would hold them to their statement on their website we strive to serve as many Whole nonprocessed Foods as possible and work with local farmers and produ us users for inseason offerings okay if that's your mission statement then we'd like to hold you to it and see if there are in fact better Alternatives than foods that are loaded with red dyes artificial ingredients they should be willing to work with us and they should have a few more programs available to make nutrition education available to our students like that little program for the best chef that they used to run right it was a huge success uh students came with their with their families and and cooked their best dish they were given prizes board members were invited it was wonderful why can't they do something like that again food education is just as important as every other kind thank you so um my my I got me forgot oh he spoke so you spoke no um I think just to simplify this we all know what better is going to look like I would just go right now for better I don't want to go I don't want to be a suburb of Sacramento right now I want to be I want to be better so I think no one knows how to define that but I'm pretty confident when they show us something we're all going to say you know what that's better okay let's just go for better okay so I think the direction of the board is to not go out RFP um and perhaps have a discussion with sedexo I think you heard a lot of the comments of the board members to ask I know that you were taking notes so we will we will move that way is that okay all right awesome thank you all very much all right we will now move on to Old business is there any old business Miss McGovern can I just go I'm sorry to do this but um go back into policy for one second I forgot to ask a question you may okay so in Old business on outside activities I just and I don't need the answer tonight but is there a reason why this is only directed to support staff and not all staff is there a separate policy for all staff um 40230 or it says Board of Education recognizes support staff members enjoy a private life blah blah blah blah blah why is it only saying revised or new I'm sorry I'm getting there um revised it's revised revised I believe we did the three version last month I believe but I would have to double check it I think I'll double check it you don't have to that's my mistake I must have we're that far in the list okay that's where we are in the list in the forest thank you old business I've got a few things uh first I'd like like to congratulate our um newly elected soon to be sworn in board member Jamie Stevens who is featured in this month's School leader magazine by the New Jersey school boards as a special education award honory for her Innovative program creating a therapeutic learning environment in the Linhurst School District so congratulations Jamie on that recognition very nice um also I'd like to congratulate Dr Hannah several of us were able to sit in as she defended her dissertation to achieve her doctoral degree and that was really um a wonderful thing to experience and I know she'll be a real asset to our community uh our school community and finally if you received the latest issue of community magazine there was an article about uh the fulfill food bank and it was written by one of our graduates Miss Emma Sylvia and I was very proud of her for writing that so we have much to be proud of that's great thank you so much for your comments you have your hands up no anyone else for old business all right we'll move on to new business anyone for new business Mr Weinstein just want to congratulate you two for uh yes for winning your uh title election very nice ni done you you nail it was a tough one I really I actually kept one of the signs uh did you yeah sure I mean just as a reminder that runs got put any other new business good question all right we're gonna move on to public comment on any item I just want to uh remind the public that not a question and answer session specific questions can be directed to the administration superintendent contact information is on the podium and we encourage you to contact her with any questions um there's no one in the room so miss Conway is there anyone in the queue yes madame president Alex Hayes please go ahead hi hopefully I am unmuted you can hear me yes can okay um I missed much of this meeting uh because life gets in the way so I can't wait to watch it upon um on YouTube maybe in a day or so but I did want to say it is refreshing seeing some of the school board members you know suggesting proposals having new ideas speaking up about their novel ideas um but good luck getting anything accomplished or changed when you're in the minority so it really isn't much of a shock that certain board members tonight tried to mansplain you know how to properly make changes in the district and how to go about policy implementations so um it's a fascinating discussion here over the last 25 minutes um it's interesting how some people said you don't think you should overstep your role as a Schoolboard members and obviously that's subjective because sometimes you want to do that and then sometimes you say oh we can't govern on a day-to-day basis so fascinating listening to this I'd love to see changes of how you do things um you know wholesale changes by this school board is a rarity so it would be nice to see any sort of progress in terms of health and nutrition um someone did say though that they heard there were parents complaining about the healthy options for snacks um and that's what you know precipitated some of this wanting to make some changes so um that leads me to just be curious how many comments you've received about the math curriculum for example in comparison to the nutrition stats of the district um you guys talked for over 25 minutes about the nutritional and Sodexo and what our food offerings are but it really would be nice if this sport of Ed um talked more about the math curriculums in the district um compared to how much time you just spent I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that you all have talked more about the food than um our failing math curriculums um as a parent we can have better healthier lunches sure that's a great thing but I'd rather have kids read and beond math grade level and that's something we don't currently have thank you thank you Miss Hayes we do encourage you to go back and and watch the meeting um on YouTube um is there anyone else Miss Conway um in the queue no Madam president there are no further commenters okay may I please have a motion to adjourn Mo second thank you so much meeting is adjourned great night everyone