##VIDEO ID:9lCai0lwx2I## e e I pledge Ali United States America stand indivisible Mr secretary can you please take the role Mr Cherry present Dr Connors pres Mrs cordino here Mr King here M Rasheed here M Rivers Mrs Salado Cen Miss Smith Miss Stafford we have seven present thank you hereby be it known that the Piscataway Township Board of Education has complied with the notification requirements of the open public meeting acts for the announcement of this meeting date in place on April the 19th 2024 in the following manner posting of the public notice on the posting board for the Board of Education in the administration building email notification to the newspaper serving Piscataway the home News Tribune and the Coura news email notification filed with the min ipal clerk at the municipal building on H land this meeting is being videotaped this recording is not an official record or supplement to the minutes and is intended only as a source of information that the public might utilize at a later date to familiarize themselves with the board's activities executive session be it resolved that the board adjourned to Executive session for the purpose of review and discussion of personnel agenda litigation HIV monthly reports and other matters persuading to njsa 10 semicolon 4-12 B can I have a motion can I have a second all in favor we're in executive session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e meet in back to order uh can we um reconvene public session have a motion Mo have a second second all in favor all we are now in um public session uh we're going to deviate off of the agenda tonight Dr Rell is going going to start us off and then I'll take that over so our own uh Gary Miller usually leaves after the student presentation but I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate him uh he just came back for an award ceremony where he won four awards from for our district from the New Jersey school public relations Association uh we believe for is the most in the State uh he'll put a formal uh news thing out but we wanted to make sure we congratulated him as soon as possible very to have you guys thanks for being here thanks for well really apprciate okay now now we'll go back to following the script okay this evening we have Martin Luther King School financial literacy uh Club presentation uh this is an introduction for us tonight for the presentation to come to us from the financial literacy Club of Martin Luther King Intermediate School the club includes over 100 fourth and fifth grade students each year at MLK in conjunction with the Junior Achievement buzt toown organization this club provides a solid foundation of business economics and free enterprise education and here is MLK principal Andrew Ki to tell us more drelli president cherry and scouty Board of Education thank you for having the MLK Penguins here tonight to uh present a little bit about the financial literacy program um I'm going to pass it off in a moment but I wanted to say um and kind of recount uh what was one of my favorite memories since I've been in Piscataway of my first year at MLK and seeing this program sort of run its course for the first time uh we had um you know me coming in uh to the position of principal uh I didn't really have a grasp on exactly what this program was I knew a lot of kids were uh participating in it I knew a lot of kids were very passionate and the teachers were very passionate about what they were doing in these you know over the course of the weeks of the program that they were running the club with but um it wasn't until I drove to the BizTown facility where they put on their culminating event and the students you're going to see them in action our presentation in a minute uh where they kind of run an entire business town uh and you see a lot of the skills that they were working on uh leading up to this and it just kind of just brought to my mind exactly what education is all about you know the teamwork the collaboration the inspiration um all those things kind of coming together to see a real world practical application of skills um so without further Ado I'm going to pass it off to uh one of our leaders of the program uh Miss Adrian Torres hi good evening thank you B of EDS for having us here today my name is Mrs Torres um I am the Hispanic teacher at King School um I this is my 13th year teaching at King and my fifth teaching the financial literacy Club um it kind of fell on my lap we started back in 2018 um a teacher started the club and then um I took it over the following year um I kind of fell in love with the club because I just went um to accompany the kids on the trip I was not a teacher when I first went that first year we we started it and math is one of my favorite subjects other than Spanish and I said wow this is amazing so we said okay let's make it bigger so then the next year I ran the program with u Mr hygate 2019 2020 and you all know 2020 Co hit the day of um that we closed in badway was the day of our field trip March 14th I'll never forget because that's the day my niece was born so you know it was it was weird because I was supposed to be at the field trip but she was born but we closed so it was devastating to me because it was my first year that I was supposed to take the kids so that happened we did it virtually for one year back in 2021 Mr and I did it and then 2022 we created our own biz town because they still weren't open so we kind of bought a lot of things the kids shopped and went around 2023 came and then they said we're open again I said awesome good we're going to do it again so myself Mr abgate Mrs fryo and Mr Kaiser are the four teachers that um we run the program at King School um this is the third year I will be taking the kids on the field trip and it's a it's a great thing the kids love it they learn about things like interest rates which I know they probably don't care about but it's good to know I mean these are things that you know as adults we fall into this hole if you don't learn about these things and I I very passionate when I teach it um a lot of the students here tonight were in my class there are four classes with at least 23 kids in it um we service at least 100 kids every year so it's one of my favorite things to do and I um we made a little video to kind of showcase what they so than [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay [Music] all [Music] um I'm going to have Mr appgate speak for a moment and then I'm going to follow the students so they can tell you all about what they did as their job and what their role was in this town hey my name is Applegate and I'm also a teacher at Martin Luther King school and I'm also one of the club instructors for the financial literacy program as Mrs Tor as mentioned I've been doing the club since 2019 so I've done I've done I've been worked doing for several years um last year was my second year actually going to the BizTown location um as M Torres had said the previous years it had been closed because of Co and I can just say from my own personal experience watching the kids in action it's just amazing how they get right into it they we spend all that time training them about you know how to work the finances how to use a checkbook how to run the different businesses and once they get there they just step into the role they're given a a notebook explaining what their tasks are and they just they run the show the adults are there kind of in the background assisting when needed but the students are really the ones who are actually running the businesses and you know actually making things go um so we're going to ask the students who are presenting to please come up and the students are now going to each give you a short little statement about their own personal experience at Bap so they're going to let you know a little bit about um the business that they were working in and what they learned from the experience all right this is Ariana Pat Ariana oh my gosh Rachel I'm sorry Rachel me she's gonna talk you can stand Rachel all right okay hi my name is Rachel Canin and in bwn I worked at Horizon Wellness one thing that I've learned at Horizon Wellness was how to examine someone's eyes it was a great experience I thought that it would be a piece of cake but I was wrong so many people came to our business and everybody needed help I was getting exhausted and everyone was starting getting patient it was nothing on how I expected it to me but in the end I felt accomplished and had a wonderful time at town and to go again [Applause] my name isah Watson and my job at J Town was a representative at w Fargo when I started my job I was a little nervous about doing something wrong when I got to J Bown there were adults to help me I finally started getting a hang of it soon enough I learned saving your money is sometimes better than spending it all one place myob was to sort out the money in the vote I had I had to fill forms and that was fun it felt like I was in I was in a real job it'll help me experience what you might face in the future things they taught us will will really come in handy this is Juliana hi I'm Juliana B I worked as a team member at Chick-fil-A I really enjoyed working at Chick-fil-A because leared attct customers I also learned how to work as a team to accomplish our task for that day I could use all these I could use all these skills in the future financial literacy was a great experience I enjoy the club so much thank you for your [Applause] time hello my name is Kayla I really enjoyed working at UPS because my friends worked there too and I was stock manager stock manager was a good job and so my I loved it thank you Jonas last year by job at J B time was a teller at Citizen's Bank as a as a teller I was responsible for giving money to people who went to Citizen's Bank on a break shift during the first half of the trip I helped people deposit their money and I gave $2 to everyone who visited the bank during the second half of the trip people came to the bank to make withdrawals and I gave them their money I learned that working at a bank can be stressful when I first thought about it it sounded like it would be easy would you really try it it's actually pretty hard I had a great time because I loveed interacting with friends and I got to try out a real world job for today Aaron hi my name is Aaron Santiago what I did in financial literacy is learn how to manage my money how taxes work and how to use cards to take money out of the bank at the end of the club we went to ja Bown where I worked at UD designer as a graphic designer at design our motto was you design it we make it we would make posters for your business where you would tell us what you want on it and we would make it on a piece of paper every 30 minutes you would get called by the color lanyard you got when they would call you you would get a check and have to cash it out at the bank where they give you money so you can buy toys or advertisements at some places you you can go to different places if you want to buy a toy where they would charge you an amount of money and you would have to pay them there was a raffle ticket that you could buy and at the end they would call you call the winning numbers and whoever won the all the toys they had there working at you design it helped me learn how to use my creativity and my job and value the money I earned from my hard work I love JD Bown and would be honored to sign up again [Applause] this hello my name is sham shakla I would like to say what I learned from the financial literacy Club my job at the ja btown was a logistics engineer at Philip 66 I learned that the company manufactures gas my favorite part of the job was delivering the types of gas to different companies what I learned from the job was you have to deliver the right amount of gas and the correct type overall I feel like the financial literacy Club was a was a fun and educational Club throughout the year I learned a bunch of valuable stuff that I should keep in my mind for the future that's why I enjoy the financial literacy Club [Applause] Horizon Wellness Center as a receptionist help me learn how to help people in get them started and help give a service for clients it was fun handling my own money and working because it was an experience where we could become adults for the day and learn how life with a job Works ja B also gave me a chance to learn to save money and sell things in conclusion I think ja Biz is a great opportunity to learn what having your own money to spend and save however you want and work job I think J time PR kids for when they older when they get a job and how to Z hi my name is Alexis and my position 6 my job is fun and educational because I got I got to have hands-on experience paying rent checks and helping run a business it was also very fun because I learned skills that I can use in life such as making decisions and taking risks thank you all for your time well I don't think I can top what we just heard from our incredible MLK financial literacy club members I have to tell you I'm beyond impressed because you've learned how to work save your money spend it and know that you can get tired from working so now guess what I I am so proud of all of you but most importantly you went you came here you were able to stand in front of us give a presentation to give us an idea of what you experienced that day and you have those memories for life but most importantly you're learning how to control money not let money control you and I heard about the savings and not spending it all at one time and I applaud you for that so now I'm going to come forward along with Mr Andrew and um we're going to be presenting certificates to each one of you for coming here this evening from the board of education for giving us an idea just some of the stuff that's going over there across town that we don't know anything about because we're all at our jobs and we're kind of bored too but we still have to go there every day now you're qualified to be now now you're qualified to uh be on the fiscal plannings and operations Committee of the Board of Education you do not want to come join Dr Conor Dr Conor will have you at that meeting all night and you all right Siri Alexis Rachel come we'll stay up here for picture Juliana [Applause] Bor Ariana K Caleb [Applause] C Aon Santiago sh [Applause] Jonas [Applause] stock Jah [Applause] Watson want come up get picture while they taking a picture I want to say thank you to all parents for giving us your most POS award winning smile thank thank you again thank you so much for stopping what you were doing at home and bringing them here tonight but to be able to see them to come talk and way buz Coury I'm talk for the next 20 minutes congratulations [Music] very good wonderful of a [Music] do for the the old school USB [Music] you can get get out of but this is a location they go and the end [Music] of building congratulations practical for the rest of your life yeah I think we're okay yeah you're not going Tob right that's fine just still Glen out of respect to you two student Representatives we'll wait for Dr Conor to return okay for okay next on the agenda student Representatives report Tyler good evening and thank you for being here this evening so Tyler I know you always start first because you're the junior oh good evening everybody uh so month has passed since the start of the school year everybody's getting set on nicely all the have started and coming up this month actually next week we have our spirit week which is know everybody dresses up I think Monday we're having the people dress up fresh dress up as babies sophomores is regular teenagers Juniors as adults and then the dress up as like grandparents or whatever and then at the end of the week we have our prep rally with a bunch of games all the students come out we have a little bit of fun take some time away from the actual School part of it and then the following Saturday of that we have our Homecoming coming up which should be a great time what we just had was our PSATs so our nth 10th and 11th graders took that and from talking to all the students the team to have well this year so hopefully when we get those scores back everybody's happy and their scores and then over the past month just do a little recap on the sports our football team actually who's playing against East Bruns right now four and two on the season they're looking good for the playoffs and our soccer team went 61 and one over their regular season and they are in the GMC's right now in group play and they have State Games in November so hopefully when I come back here next month I can give you guys some good news on our sports teams too that's a little thank you Ty so much yeah um thank you guys so much for having us just to heads up my voice is gone so I just want to give you a warning um but I'm so happy to be here here so I hope you all are having a great week um so there are some things that are just starting clubs are starting up um one of the biggest things of October is Halloween so we have our haunted high that FBA hosts every year which is a huge event here at the high school um so all the clubs are preparing for that um I know FBA is trying to work around with all the clubs and get operations set up um all the honor societies are getting involved as well they also had their huge meeting a couple weeks ago go and it was snhs so science National Honors Society uh National English Honors Society math Honors Society which is new which has been really exciting because I know a lot of people have been interested in that um social studies Honor Society and it was just a kickoff meeting so that went very very well um Miss priter uh she talked about ways to deal with stress and studying um I was at the meeting and I thought it was really um informative I thought it was really nice um so that was a really good thing about that um like I mentioned clubs were starting up so on October 22nd the 23rd we have our club Fair which is a huge hit at the high school as well um and it's during the gym periods at school so the Freshman come to the pat gym and you know all these clubs are out there talking promoting what they want um it's like a little marketing moment speaking of the business that they just had so it's really exciting I love it um so I'm very excited about that to recruit more freshmen and sophomores and underclassmen you learn a lot um going back to the honor societies I know science National Honor Society is having a meeting on Monday with the guest speaker who's actually a professor and she's talking about neuroscience and cell bio um which is really interesting so that should be good um we actually had our first sad meeting today um which is students against destructive decisions which is a club Miss Benjamin and I have started this year so a lot of new clubs new meetings Tyler was there too and I think it went very well and it was really exciting so a lot of new clubs a lot of new opportunities for students a lot of college applications as well I know the seniors um he mentioned PSATs uh I had a field trip that day for safety ambassadors which also kicked off so that was really good um we went to the banquet which is the opening ceremony of the year uh and we learned just about the topics that we present throughout the year uh just to recap safety ambassadors is the program where you go to the elementary we go to Eisenhower and we talk about ways to be safe and give presentations so that started this year which was really good it's also different being the senior up there so that was also new um so overall the the so far the month has been really well and we're looking forward to all the new clubs and exciting stuff going on thank you so much Tom thank you very much we appreciate you guys bringing back the informative information that's going on up there PHS um because there's so much going on up there we could keep up with it if we wanted to so we appreciate your little Snippets that you bring back to us um I know you have school tomorrow so we know at this time you're always free to go we thank you for coming out again and get home safe if you decide to leave thank you all right thanks again no and thanks for all the clubs because the uh you know in terms of inviting people back like having a professor back one of those Club is really great okay next on the agenda is going to be the president's report um we are very proud to announce that the Piscataway high school has been recognized with two distinguished Awards by the college board for his outstanding efforts and expanding access to AP courses PHS has earned a bronze status on the AP school honoral for welcoming more students into advanced placement courses and and setting them on the path to college success in the three merits for the award PHS earned go status for college credit which rates the percentage of students in the graduating class who scored three or higher on AP exam furthermore we are particularly proud that the PHS has earned the access award which is given to schools that allow all students to access the AP courses including students from under represented populations these accomplishments were made possible through the ongoing collaborations of the high school administration counseling department and the district Department of diverse equity and inclusion congratulations to everyone on these amazing honors thank you to our high school students who have been volunteering their time on the weekends to clean up our community Parts the National Honor Society started on September 14th at C toown Park then got an even bigger turnout the following week and they were able to clean up ping toown irvy toown wide wind and Riverside Park all total they hauled away nearly 140 pounds of trash then just this past weekend the future Business Leaders of America help their annual Johnson Park cleanup picking up over 100 pounds of trash around the rington river and East Coast Greenway great job for our community-minded and service oriented students in addition to that and my report tonight on September the 21st the National Council of negro women greater Elizabeth area were had their 18th Annual harambe breakfast of 2024 at that meeting Dr Basketville was honored and presented with a professional education leadership award for all of his years in education and for all that he does for students since he's been in education I have the magazine brochure with me tonight if you would like to read about it it gives you a snippet of where he started and all the things that he's done over the years in education for all students not just one in particular and I couldn't be more honored than to have been sitting in the audience to watch that award be presented to Dr B I just want to tell you again congratulations Piscataway super proud of you and we're glad that we have my president's report Dr vanelli superintendent's report thank you very much as usual please check out our superintendent report on our website under the superintendent's Corner uh this month highlights include articles on our cultural diversity a lot of Staff accomplishments uh our wonderful volunteers ISM from our kids athletic updates and of course our Super Chief band Festival which hosted 15 bands this past Saturday night so when you get a chance check that out uh special thanks to uh a bunch of groups number one the Piscataway Elks number two kimly lane and the Piscataway public relations Advisory Board number three the Junior Achievement of New Jersey and number four assembly Joe Danielson for donating backpacks and school supplies for our students we received almost 200 backpacks and enough school supplies for every B we really appreciate them thinking of us uh they'll be uh put to good use and uh we can't thank them enough for their for the generosity and lastly before I turn my report over to Dr Baskerville uh the niche.com report came out uh week ago and we got a hold of the report today now niche.com is a tool that people look online to sort of uh judge uh if they are looking to a play for a place to live or comparing one school district over another a town over another things like that and uh Mr Miller helped me write something up here I'm incredibly proud to announce that pasaway Township Schools has once again been selected by niche.com as one of the best school districts in New Jersey for 2025 uh rising in the rankings in several areas from our 2024 rankings we got an overall grade of an A minus achieving an A+ in the areas of college preparation and diversity our overall ranking for districts of New Jersey Rose from number 74 to number 69 and we Rose from number eight to number seven in middx County as diversity is a point of pride in our district and a valuable asset to the culture and climate of our schools I'm especially proud that our ranking among the most diverse districts in New Jersey Rose from number 13 to number 11 and that's our entire District several of our individual schools are again among the top ranked schools for diversity in New Jersey Eisenhower Elementary uh school once again ranked number one in the most diverse elementary schools in the state followed by Arbor at number four Grand View at at number eight and randil at number 22 scataway high school was ranked number two the second most diverse High School in the state and all of our middle schools were in the top 25 with Shore being number two and quibbletown being number three Niche ranks nearly 100,000 schools in districts across the country based on statistics and millions of opinions from students and parents it's one of the leading web resources for finding information about towns school districts colleges and communities so we're really proud of all the work number one that you all do uh in setting in setting the tone and the course and the culture all of our administrators uh we we really uh are are are happy that we could boast these accomplishments now I'd like to turn my report over to Dr Baskerville who will talk about the njsla and the access reports which you received on your desk good evening everyone it's good to see all of you again on tonight uh before we get started I want to say we want to thank everyone one because we are on an upward trajectory regarding our academic programs of course we thank the parents for what they do to take all Administration everyone the board itself but we also want to give a special shout out to our teachers who find a way to make it happen and so they know how to reach our students so we really want to thank them as well uh we're going to dive this right in going to start with the first slide is the k212 elll proficiency levels we have them listed there 1 2 3 4 5 and six from entering to bridge along with the descriptives right there beside them denoting what exactly each one of those categories mean and when you take the access test we fall students fall within one of these six categories uh as you can see it takes a 4.5 to exit the program and in order for you to exit ESL you need to make at least a 4.5 asong along with recommendations and so forth corroborating evidence from the teachers as well our proficiency levels are on the next page uh entering into this year according to access tested and all the students we screened on last year 8% of our students fell into entering 16 emerging 47% developing uh 30 25% expanding 2% bridging and 66 uh 0% reaching which is the highest level of course if they were on that level they would not actually be into the program so that's why you see like really a zero there and of course you have to be somewhere between expanding and that 4.5 to be able to exit the uh ESL program the next page shows our numbers in 2023 24 our highest number of MLS was 651 as of today our number is 675 so we at 675 today that's the number of students that we have in our district right now yes sir 675 is today uh 647 in 2023 24 took the access test in the spring of 24 uh of 647 81 achieved a 4.5 or higher uh our exit rate is basically on on par with that of the state so we're not sub the state or we're not ex uh exceedingly over but we're right on average with where the state also exit our kids uh and just another note today we have 374 kids mls in grades 1 through five so that's 600 I mean 374 more than half of those students reside in grades 1 through five uh and that's also I'm going to bring that up where we had to get a waiver for because of the numbers at that level uh agenda we see 296 females 351 males the state requires that we report the information out to you regarding the numbers of how many students we have and all of the uh subgroup demographics the ethnic groups the largest demographic group is Hispanic Latino with 47.6% of our L's are Hispanic Latino followed by Asian at 42 and it's interesting to see that our Hispanic Latino uh demographic is 47.6% whereas their uh overall demographic in the district is 23.3 so you see that is the largest number of uh multilingual Learners that we have in our district in agents Encompass 33.6% on the next slide you can just see a visual of that so you can see we broke it down so you can actually see just the same same thing from the preceding slide you'll see what those percentages are which takes me to the bilingual waiver um the state requires that we offer a bilingual education B bilingual education law says that we are required to offer a fulltime bilingual education program when enrolling 20 or more eels in a single language group so in other words we look up here we see language groups we have six language groups with over 20 kids in them so you see our largest group Spanish with 306 kids garaji 87 Arabic 35 erdu 37 Hindu Hindi 21 and Korean 22 so all of those are over 20 so in other words the state is saying you have to offer a full-time bilingual program when you have students in that demographic group at over 20 unless that we can have a age range that inhibits that uh grade span across the district that would prohibit that and of course geographical locations where the kids are spread out all over the district and it renders it impractical to try to actually get that done so what we have is we have to apply annually for a bilingual waiver because of our numbers uh we got a conditional waiver for this year because of the number of uh Hispanic students that that that we had uh in grade three at Eisenhower primarily and grade four at Arbor school so because of grade three and grade four we were given a conditional waiver and we have this year to actually be able to figure out what kind of way to just give the state and they're working with us along the way to see what we can do to offer and to remedy that particular situation just to give you a little heads up when when um the numbers of MLS have grown exponentially since I I was even in in Dr bced and before that I've been here uh 11 years and it's I mean more than quadrupled uh so it's just it's so the the waivers are now we have a conditional one the waivers are getting harder and harder to come by because our numbers are growing so quickly so my question was was it's a waiver because um according to the state they should be getting education in their native language yes that that's that's what the waiver is for but they give us the waiver because they're spread out and they're not all in one place because we meet meet the that's what we need a waiver for that they're not being taught in their native language which is yes right and we and Dr B and his cohort of uh tesle students yes teachers did a nice job of uh getting more skilled people and certified people around the district to be able to do that that must be very difficult yeah it is that one of the things we successfully had the uh program of ESL cohort but now we're getting ready to take some of the ESL cohort teachers that we had to actually send them back uh for an additional coursework to get the bilingual U certificate as well so the they're working with us along the way and we're looking at certain things called a temporary or part-time bilingual approach and so they many different ways we can actually settle this and get this part of the day yes and then you share Services I yes and and just so you know we we appreciate your support because the things that we do sometimes we ask for your approval and finances and things like that uh like these like getting these teacher certified so we appreciate that support where is the uh least number of uh teachers that do the multilingual in other words what subject is the so we have it's two ways that we actually satisfy we we have what we call a shelter instruction that takes place sheltered instruction is K through five and this what we use we use ESL endorsed teachers to do the sheltered and the high intensity so we find that a lot of the students fall within the sheltered instruction they have to get 30 minutes of ESL uh per day by trained person who has a ESL endorsement so they they they do that uh high intensity means they have to have two periods of ESL per day that's from 6 to 12 um scheduling is more difficult from 600 to 12 to actually get that done if you don't have enough teachers to actually do that but we able to get that done but it's like running into class sizes then when you schedule those kids into the classes you have to make sure that you don't have more than like eight or nine I think it's 10 when you start moving too many kids into one class then then becomes your ratio the ratio becomes too high so we have to make sure that we take care of those things as well shelter instruction is sort of you know where teachers are trained s yeah to do accommodations next page we go into science uh we want to say that first of all science is a little difficult and we're waiting for the state to actually well just if I can be frank just do it a little better because what happens is is that science is tested grades 5 8 and 11 but it's tested across a three grade span so grade five is tested from 3 to five grade eight is 6 to8 and then of course we have in 11th grade one of the things that I really want to stress is that we do not get evidence statements back from science Testing so we get evidence statements for Math and Ela going in and showing us where the students we don't get any type of report for that for Science and so that makes it more difficult if you look at where we are in science uh last year for grade five uh you see that highlighted the state was at 27% we were at 36% proficient you see that in the little highlight but this year we fell 30.5% so we fell this year um but we want to make sure that we mention also that even though we fail in the proficiency rate science only has four uh proficiency levels while Ela and math has five so if we we actually moved in level two but level two is not actually moves to proficiency so we actually got better in level two so I just want to bring that up uh we also we have a integr science model that's really beginning to help us with that and so we're getting much better also we find an anomaly this year that happened across the board on our fifth grade uh we had a dip in fifth grade in ela math and science so we saw a dip and we were looking at some of the things that before I even go further with that so what we did we actually uh with the curriculum writing we went in and we changed the scope and sequence of the curriculum so that certain things happen sooner so we have more time to spend trying to mediate a lot of things that happen in grade five so I want to bring that up uh grade 8 Dr Conor you would be happy to know that our students did well on grade eight and the questions on the uh njsla that actually dealt with physical science with physics and chemistry they seem to be doing quite well with that uh last year uh the state was 18% we were 177% uh this year we are 18.3 uh one of the big things that we want to look at is that we even though we kind of fell a little you know and we we it was our number got larger than it was last year in level three so we're getting closer to was my question yes we're moving from left to right we're going that was my question me how rare is it to find a teacher that can teach science in multil language that's that was my science teacher yeah yeah next page you see uh science uh grade 11 uh one of the things that we see is that for some reason uh at the high school the females began to excel in science for some reason at the high school uh so this year for example the female proficiency rate uh at three Ohio was 37.2% last year was 25% so it seems to be moving forward the females they're taking more interest in science at the uh middle school and moving into the high school also our males got better at the high school as well so you can see that they are like right on the tail of the females last year they were like um at 23% and they actually move to 36% so we see that we're gaining in science there but one thing that we're really proud of if you look down and one of our goals of course is moving our multilingual Learners and our sped students and moving them up if you see down our current multilingual learners last year there were 18.2% at level two this year they're 46.7% so you see we're moving from left to right we're going up the band of proficiency if we look at Ela and achievement I think we really wanted to show and Dr reel and I we spoke about this inra LIF we really wanted to show a story here so we did a fiveyear comparison so you could actually see uh 2017 up to 2023 you see 17 and 18 prior to covid-19 so you go all the way over to the right me and plus exceeding highest two levels you will see that at our Apex prior we were at 60% in ela for um 2017 for grade three and 2018 we did we went down 3% Co came and we were out for two years we came back we had went from 57 down to 45 the first year back from Co then you notice we have started climbing again we to 48 then we went to 54 and we can see that we are another thing that tells the story is that the percentage of approaching is growing as well as we move our continuous narrative is going from left to right of the Continuum going from not meeting uh to partial moving to approaching eventually getting to meeting and exceeding also want to bring your attention down to uh grade five there again you see we dip that 7% we went from 61 down to 54 and again we made those adjustments we were well aware of that and we're looking at the things that we're doing to make sure that you know we are as a matter of fact I had a meeting today with the supervisors and they tell they met with the principles and we like all on top of that so I just want let you know in those subjects we have a very uh big hand on that and they give you the samples of right of so you have idea to see absolutely they released items and we're looking at the released absolutely next page we see uh the high school Ela one of the things that we learning at the high school that we've known for quite some time but we're beginning to do something I want to just give a shout out to Miss Janine alanes for she's doing a great job with that and that is read and comprehension at the high school because many times reading comprehension is a focus from in Elementary School uh in 4 or five and it starts falling off in 6 through 8 that old adage where when you're young you learn to read and as you get older you read to learn by the time we get to high school there's been a falling off when you start reading novels and you start reading the cannon and so forth and reading comprehension is not so much but we have found and thanks to Mr Scott Hood as well that we have to actually put some focus on reading comprehension so if you see uh we came down on 23 24 you'll see 59% uh in ela which was beyond our original pandemic number of 49% so we've come back at the uh in grade n at the High school from actually 49% prior to the pandemic to actually 59% and we've made climb huge steps we've been climbing the ladder there since we've been back and I just like to add reading seems to be a more difficult task for young kids in general just in general people don't read for enjoyment anymore it's you know all the other distractions and social media and uh really um it's a it's a lifelong skill you can't go from one year to to another it's very difficult to do that and um there's a lot of research regarding research is always ever growing regarding I know he's curriculum committee regarding how students learn to read and so we have been doing some things in our curriculum committee and within our teachers professional development and so forth around the science of reading how we connect brain research and brain knowledge and how students learn so we'll be giving more information about that spell it uh the next page of njsla if we look here uh I just highlighted some things that kind of help guide the conversation you see grade three change in levels four and five from 23 to 24 we were up 5.9% we actually went up 5.9 and you can see a good example highlighted there you see in level five we went from 78 to 84 uh and you can see over in level four we went from 39 to 45 so when you combine those two numbers you can see where we grew there uh and you just come straight down if you look at grade four look at uh where they were uh in level 5 and to 23 and look how they went from 18.5 to 24 you can look at grade five how it went from 15 to 16 even though it went down when you put the two numbers together they still had some uh some growth there so all the way down here you can just see big and huge leaves and how we at least move in the needles within certain places so we wanted to make sure this slide we we fully understand what this means I know I know Dr B is talking about level five which is really important for us so these are the same kids a lot of times we do comparisons of grades well one couple some kids did last year's grade three versus this year's grade three versus two years ago grade three these are the same kids and how they've grown which is really important to us how they do from year to year not just in third grade all the time let just more you know because those kids are different they have a different base so we thought this this slide is probably the most important for us for understanding how kids are doing as they grow a dumb question but the assessment is done once a year yes and how what's the lag in the getting the results normally takes about we get the results we get some preliminary results in about three months two to three months and and just to Echo Dr reell is concerned uh putting this report together we could have done uh non-cohort and cohort so cohort means it's the same students traveling across the grve non-cohort exchanges next page you can just see again English language arts page 14 you can see look at the Highlight look at the gains there from four and five + 5.9 + 2.4 plus 2.1 + 6.6 seven so you see the gains that are taking place you know we're very proud of all of the progress that we're making there on the next slide you can see subgroup race Ela uh we want to start with our Asian population you can see that our Asian population went in level five again and when we look at proficiency we combine levels four and level five so can I not to have the multi linguage Learners are not desegregated on this njsla correct they're not one of our segregated categories yes they are not on this page not on this page okay but we have data on them okay yes sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you okay uh we literally could get into this and my this he go way down all night we down yeah we started out with how many 140 slides and he went you knocking that down and he went uh no okay so so what are they going to get under SAT scores did you predict that it's funny because you know we we talk about that and and these test I mean yeah I say it every year when we have this presentation when I was in Dr B Spot and here yeah um you know we put these in perspective right um a lot of these kids are taking these and they don't see the um the benefit of these right where they see the benefit that our SATs right if you look at this Niche report uh it'll talk about our SAT average being in the 1200s M right so it doesn't it doesn't really correlate you can't really predict because of how serious or not serious they're taking this test um what I will say and I know Dr B might he might talk about at the end of this is our all of our schools have developed a data team under Dr B's you know tutelage here and they'll be looking at all of this and um really trying to break down a lot a lot more than what we're doing here but at the school level at the school level yep to make sure we're kind of doing it the same way and then we'll be able to compare within our district and and so I think that's that's a big and sharing out cross yeah but again you know our kids are way more than these data points so really try to make sure we take care of them and uh and who they are as people so Bill sorry to interrupt I started it it's okay uh so if you see on page 15 look at all the yellow it's just easy to see instead of me going down each line so you can just see how well we're doing on that right side uh how we're just going up uh with our subgroups in our race with our Asian population our black population our Hispanic our multi- uh ethnic groups we're just improving in all grade bands in elementary school middle school and high school so we see we're getting better we we're really really getting there on page 15 same thing uh go all the way over and this is subgroups again uh we're looking at the subgroups for ELA language us look at that again so we just see females we're doing a by gender here so we see how the females are doing how the males are doing doing uh we see some uh in blue I mean in in yellow and then we have something in like a green but the ones in green show that we are holding steady so if you see that we're holding steady at five so we're not going down and we're picking up a little bit over in uh level four so that's another way that we see that we're moving forward because we want it our goal is to increase the level threes and level fours we like we focus on the level threes a lot that way we we can move them we can get them to the to the fls page 17 math the same thing uh we look at these students and we see how they are this is a what they call a cord group so you see how they're doing um for the pandemic in math you can see that they were at 61% 68 then the bottom fell out with Co and we went from 68 we dropped 21 points went down to 47 came back at 47 and and 47 again and now we're at 52 so you see we're out of the red we're beginning to climb again so we're doing real good in grade three and so you can see the similar thing happening in grade four happening in the other grades where you can see how we are like really picking up and we have whenever we have growth we having some good growth and so we're having good growth in those areas page 18 it's just a continuation of that uh we see what happened to us look where we were with algebra one I also want to say that sometimes our math 8 scores the reason why our math 8 scorestime go down is because we're pushing kids fewer kids are taking math 8 and more of them are taking them algebra so what's happening is that that that stronger students are moving out of math 8 and they're in Al them that they're taking algebra they're taking alge algebra assessment that's why we see the numbers growing there and fall and and and U math 8 how do you explain the next number in Geometry from 73% down to 37% over a fiveyear period in exceeding another thing with the geometry was the number of kids number of kids yes so when we look at down to 27 when we look at the number okay it's the number it's the number of kids yes when you're deal with such a small number too yeah CU geometry was always the thing where you know when we were we were pushing Al on eighth grade and and the accelerated kids and a lot of some of the kids even in eighth grade were taking geometry but it's a very small number yep and on page 19 again you see the mathematics I said instead of just going down and just a similar thing and you can of course uh just have this and just read it at your leisure but we can see how we are just improving you'll see plus plus plus plus going down the columns you can see where we're actually growing and we move to page 20 that's a good visual where you can actually see again um level one and two level one and two so you could just see how for example algebra one you see that how we went up to 4.3 and because the kids are moving out of in that algebra one Middle School the kids are leaving math 8 and taking that algebra and those are the the kids who are are doing better Proficiency in mathematics and on Geometry it's like youing me on page 21 you could you can see a lot of movement and we proud ourselves in moving kids like I said from 3: to four you see a lot of movement in middle school and that's the particular reason to try to tackle the algebra and the geometry Problem by moving those kids and Mathematics in middle school that's where we need to move them at so you can see uh the Asian population went from 49 to 56 uh in level four so we we we need to just continue to move from 19 to 23 from 17 to 21 and look at uh multiple races from 18 to 32 so that's where we're moving using targeted interventions tier two tier one right there to get those kids where they need to be we think our support St for the work they do with our kids and the last page uh is always we just list some of the interventions that we use uh in the district and the state is always happy to see us include this because they they actually tell us to and so you see the interventions here that we use uh on the last page on page 23 we just we're focusing this year on what you see in Red so we have math 1 180 that we were using we really like Math 180 because it's an Adaptive intervention uh that goes along with uh dtail as well with the GO Math so what Math 180 does is a teacher can actually put a child on a plan based upon we're getting ready to move too uh to do some map testing but the teachers can actually go in and put them on a plan and it becomes adaptive and the student can grow based upon the work that they're doing so Math 180 is working well tiered interventions we are really beginning to push out our tier interventions because that's exactly where it's at not only for academic but for social emotional learning uh we're looking at doing screeners um multi for mtss screeners that we have not even done before and I don't want want to get ahead of myself but let's just say we're getting a lot of new screeners there that we have there uh we're using a coat screener we're using that for uh and our attempt to make sure that we have multiple language Learners and sped students in g&t classes so we will be using the coat screener let's say if a kid is on the cusp academically or he may be falling short then we can give him a coat and if he passes the coat it does well in the coat then we can internet y'all into um g&t so we're looking at that and we have math Labs edable one in Geometry for freshman and sophomores idea I mean we always offer like summer cies for the AP these kids take uh these courses to prepare them because it's a shorten maybe we should be targeting those grade levels we saw like a drop and offering some sort of like summer um enrichment for targeting some of those um like it seems to be like the fifth grade yeah we have we have the jump ahead that we that we invite the kids to um we should look at it more carefully maybe look at this data I I think uh again maybe right looking at the data and having more pointed towards yeah to see like so we can Target you talk about that yeah just something to think about that we can look at some of this data and maybe Target some of those uh these at risk where maybe some extra we can start bridging some of that Gap so next year we're a little bit more um you know prepared yeah we will be starting this month with the tutorial programs at each school and they are using they're targeting this data as well to pick up on areas what we but somewhat related how do you Dr B how do you feel about the um State School Board uh lowering the graduation requirement only getting passed Al one well what he after one well according to them it's quote unquote the the gatekeeper so Algebra 1 is like the gatekeeper into success so that's why they're focusing on Algebra 1 as passing the algebra 1 because there's some resarch that ties success and Algebra 1 to postsecondary success so that's why Algebra 1 seems to be the target of where people want to take does it increase our graduation rates well a lot of things it's the our graduation rates are pretty high yeah so I mean you talk about school one way or another I think it's important to look at you know I mean the functional math you need to be successful moving forward you all and we as a district really took a a a nice hard stand on offering as much as we can to College Bound Learners non- colge bound Learners you know the whole gamut of our of our of our Learners so I think it's really important that we continue to do that right and we continue to give the the kids the the tools the basic tools they need to be able to be successful and and they'll know early on and Sarah and I were just talking about you know her own child right they'll know early on what path they want and what classes that we have and we have the levels that every child will need to go anywhere he needs to um so I think that's really important for us and the rigor in our classrooms the rigor is there and so we find that our children are learning how to analyze they're moving to the higher order skills they they're learning how to think and so they're really doing very well just the most important Dr thank you appreciate it that concludes my report personnel and Labor Relations Mr King be resolved that the following motions identified as items a through K be approved as presented second Mr secretary can you take the word Mrs gordino yes Mr King yes M rashed yes Miss Smith yes M Stafford yes Dr Connor yes Miss Cherry yes motions Carri uh committee reports um there are plenty we have a couple of them but let's rock and roll curriculum the curriculum committee met on Monday October the 7 20124 to discuss njsla gifted and talented and science updates and more njsla Dr basille individual score reports for the New Jersey student learning assessments were mailed to families on October the 4th Dr basille will be making a student achievement report at the October 10th board meeting which we just received and it will show the progress the district has made from grade three through high school performance is above the state level average in all areas SL levels Dr Basketville will also share demographic breakdowns and a 5-year comp comparative showing great progress in the Years following Co strength gifted and talented was also presented by Dr basille Becky Dayton and Miss gerado Moran the district is working with them middle sex consor for gifted and talented on identifying students who meet certain academic criteria and finding ways for multi- language Learners and special education students to be a part of gifted and talented programs honors and enrichment programs have begun in fourth and fifth grade selection process is on the way in the third grade the coat assessment will be used in grades 3 through 5 and in grades two as a pilot Title One in ESL novels was also presented by Dr B the district has purchased books for our K through 5 Title One schools to place into the libraries to promote and assist parental engagement Dr basille shared examples of these collaborative readings books as well as social emotional learning resources that will be added to all K through 5 libraries we will also have ESL history and science books added as well um science update was done by uh Mr Cel middle school science Dr Cel discussed phase two of in the science curriculum with a Purgatory Focus including cultural relevant and inclusive science ambitious Science teaching practices and small group instruction an assessment Focus including evaluations on thinking evolves over time and NJ njsla science reflective s summative assessment items teachers will study the book ambitious Science teaching over over the next few years aeroponics towers and Tantrums aeroponic Towers which grow plants by missing the roots are being installed in grades four through five classrooms to help students make to help students with making connections to climate science sustainability and resource consumption and will tie into the science and engineering curriculum on November One professional development day teachers will travel to the spotted leaf plant shop in Somerville to create closed rant rooms this will help dippen into understanding of the energy flowing in nutrition cycling Star Lab the Star Lab digital project traveling planetarium will expand on and reinforce the space science curriculum visits are scheduled for all grades prek through eight buildings side D frog dissection in seventh grade science presents ethical concerns for some students Dr Cel showed a s day birth synthetic frog which allows students to stimulate a dissecting and actively participating in classroom activities without dissecting an actual frog they are reusable and maintain inclusion science of reading miss albanes the science of reading sore is a vast interdis disciplinary body of science research about reading and issues related to reading and writing Miss Alban shared scar Scarboro reading rope which illustrates the comp complexity of learning to read with many strands moving into skilled reading these include background knowledge vocabulary language structure vocabulary reading and more Dr liberman asked how this connects to curriculum planning Miss alvan said support and intervention complements the work in classrooms it is a re re-education of how reading works Miss Albin sh a resource to review before the committee's next meeting how the brain learns to read by professional stellis Dei defening your knowledge of Science of reading will be the subject of the November One professional development for K8 teachers and administrators and that concludes curriculum I have to say with the curriculum to witness the frog dissection and it wasn't a live frog but you're able to go in with the suture and make your scaffold cuts across pull a skin back and pin it to the side and pull out the organs as need be and identify them um and participate without being grossed out and still saying okay we got the work done was incredible but most importantly that you can now take another piece and snap it back into place and put it back together and make it whole and you can start the process all over again yeah it was pretty cool how he demonstrated how how to use it it um it's a good visual on an hour was impressive it was impressive I I'll miss the faldy smell yeah well they still have it this is just Al this is the alterate route for those who were not able to participate you got to have that FAL right in addition to that to see the growth in um the expansion of the growing of food um in order to secure your own learning and being able to sustain your own without actually having to go to the grocery store and the younger grades are also going to have one classroom that has the growth um system within them with the misting um I would be curious to see that in person because you see in the store where they always had the Mist come down and you prayed you weren't reaching to grab something when they came down but this I think I would want to get missed by but it was a very good meeting it's it's pretty cool sustainability wise to see these aeroponic yeah you know like in schools and and students being actively engaged and how to grow it's um but this the excitement on their faith that they're actually doing it this is what we did and look at what we've achieved that's the important part about it again being Forward Thinking yes always always uh fiscal planning and operations fiscal plannings and operations committee met on Wednesday October 2nd 2024 to discuss the 2023 2024 audit the 2025 2026 budget calendar facility capital projects and more on the 23 2024 audit the yearend field work was finished in September District administration and Auditors are working on the annual comprehensive financial report the acfr which will be filed before the deadline of January 1st 2025 2025 2026 budget calendar the committee approved uh the budget calendar which will be on the October 10th board meeting agenda for approval tonight kitchen equipment installation the district received three bids and is recommending the Board of a contract to K andd contractors on the October 12th board meeting agenda construction is expected to be completed by January 1st 2025 facility capital projects uh heating ventilation air conditioning upgrades the contractor is disputing their responsibility for several incomplete components District administration will be working with the architect and board attorney to prepare a formal response the scow High School dust collection the dust District received two bids and is recommending the award of contract to faros Enterprise on the October 10th board meeting agenda work is estimated to be finished by April 30th 2025 the uh high school media center the district had a design development meeting with spel Architects to review Design Concepts and answer questions about the district's needs follow-up meeting is scheduled for October 17th acoustical upgrades Administration met with spel in the high school Anthony Jim and reviewed acuso panel options bidding is to begin on November 8th and we can finally get rid of the dents from the baseball team for many years that in that uh Energy savings um Improvement program update maintenance um hbac staff continues to work with uh Seaman Honeywell on the remaining projects close out should be completed by December 31st solar panels the district contracted with talva energy to complete a solar evaluation at at the high school Food Service updates univers free breakfast Mr Ola noted the positive response from students and what appears to be a noticeable increase in breakfast serve breakfast is served School meals and summer EBT applications this is the new name for the free and reduced lunch program the state requires that all families must either complete an application or actively decline the application appears to have a positive impact on identifying eligible families it appears the district's free and reduced percentage will increase to 36 % to at least 40% the ad hoc committee on Food Service debt Dr Connor summarized the discussion from the committee's first meeting Mr Olivera noted that the district uh eliminated the inactive negative balances as of June 30th using general fund Revenue SC high school student yac meeting Mr Al reported on the positive feedback I received about the food service program at the first youth advisory committee meeting New Jersey school business legislative update Dr Connor discussed several bills including the New Jersey School Board Association School Board notes Mr olera updated the committee on the governor's conditional veto of a bill regarding School Bus driers licensees and the legislature's quick response to approve the amended Bill the revised bill should provide some additional flexibilities for school districts this is the one where the governor actually Ved it and then was something and then he came back and approved it business office update investment account the committee reviewed the current balance on the September New Jersey adjustable rate something it's called njr Uh statement and current interest rates all funds remain in the joint account because it is currently yielding more than the long-term investment options policy 6700 Investments the uh policy committee approved the changes recommended by Mr L and the policy will be uh on the October 10th board meeting agenda in first reading and this one was actually and I'm really want to give the businessman very clever because uh the 16 million that we're investing didn't didn't include 25% of the 16 million as a fund going forward and so there's a potential to um invest more money and then have um uh 5% return on it so it could mean an additional over this uh like a couple hundred thousand dollars which is a was a very good idea and then the policy committee uh approve it and that's my report M Dr Conor courney you're Nancy tonight so I guess you're up next correct um culture climate yes culture climate and Community Relations Committee met on Tuesday September 24th 2024 to discuss positive messaging Community Partnership and wellness Services positive messaging Mr M shared a slideshow of the monthly themes quotes and Marquee images for May through September 2024 the committee acknowledge upcoming Marquee images in quotes of October which will include rashishana yankapur dwali and Hindu Heritage Month following discussions from last year images and weekly quotes are now being shared on social media as well as school mares Community Partnerships Dr Gray shared information about various Community Partnerships Ruckers National Society of black engineers junr and project Health links which will be starting in the coming month Miss Cherry expressed interest in seeing the students in action at one of the health link trips efforts are being made to restart our partnership with rers Business School Junior Achievement the district's partnership with Junior Achievement will increase for this school year including financial literacy curriculum and resources in middle school and high school middle school and High School career trips High School Heroes program at King and Arbor schools Jersey cares the direct the district's partnership with Jersey care started the year with a virtual Hispanic Heritage Month activity for two of our high school classes Wellness Services The Haven has begun meeting with students counselors spoke to all freshman seminar classes to explain the services they offer at Pas scataway High School The Haven is planning a family night for January and will be leading parent webinars from Winter through the spring the committee discussed possible parent webinar topics such as peer pressure building resilience and ways parents can learn about language terminology a recommendation was made to bring back the parent presentation hosted by The pasaway Alliance on vaping and ways to help parents identify such behaviors in their children new business a discussion took place about the possibility of exploring how effectively we communicate with families we will continue the conversation at our next meeting members were encouraged to attend at least one school event prior to the next meeting the committee also discussed the possibility of members attending an event together as a demonstration of community thank you Mr King policy and legislative Miss Smith uh the policy and legislative committee met on October the 1st 2024 to discuss policy updates campaigning School functions and cell phone use at school the committee approved uh proposed updates of Pop to policy 6700 uh Investments policy and regulation 7510 School F facilities and regulation 5200 attendance to be placed on the board agenda for approval the committee discussed strategies for addressing students cell phone use at school the committee members agreed that the cell phones are dis a distraction during classroom time and an impediment to students social socialized socialization outside of class the committee asked Mr Rubin to consult with the administration about what ground rules are in place and any operational concerns the committee should consider in developing a policy that concludes next we have approval of minutes page two thank you be resolved that the following minutes be approved as submitted business meeting executive session business meeting September 12 2024 executive session September 12th 2024 so moved all in favor appr um public comments from special special meeting special meeting September 23rd 2024 so moved second all in favor okay that's approved as well public comments from the floor I'm looking around no one okay can I have a motion to open second second have a motion to close motion second okay public comments now open and close fiscal planning and operations Dr Connors it resolves following motion identified as items 8 through o be approved as presented second can I just have a comment just or a question I should just say um David I was looking at the bids um uh one under a was under I'm sorry under f for the high school the kitchen yep so I I see we went with the the lowest bid but there's such a huge discrepancy between the two um I just it always makes me question everything is included you know sometimes they try to back door you and charge you more on another end so uh it's a fixed price contract there's an allowance in there um you know we're pretty diligent if for change orders it's only if it's something that wasn't cuded in the specs now as it relates to this particular vendor uh I did speak to the architect and I believe for one or two of the subs they actually have that inhouse I see so the other two vendors literally had to go and contract with another subcontractor and then they have to mark that up Etc so um that I think is part of the explanation I just saw that then the pharoh is one that that then won the bid for the next one that's what made me question uh the first bid to make sure that it was a because like I said a huge discrepancy but that makes sense that there's less a less step and we were glad that he came in on the second one because he was nearly 300,000 cheaper than I mean it's huge um and then could we're right we're still right here can you just I was the uh the renewable energy certificates that we selling yep can you just like briefly the same question explain what that means so um the district put its first solar panels on our buildings back in 2008 2009 we added some in 2012 2013 um and we own those panels so the panels that are up there generate electricity helps us to keep our electricity bills lower but in addition to that the amount of electricity that they generate gets a lot more than we need um or more than we're allowed to use usually not but either way as an incentive to get districts or not districts entities in the state to put solar panels on the state has a program where they generate what is called these credits solar renewable energy credits and there are actually obligations for Public Utilities to generate a certain amount of their electricity from renewable sources the utilities don't have enough infrastructure in place to do that they bu so they buy credits from private or or public entity that has put solar panels up so there's an open market for these things uh at the time that uh the panels were put in I don't know if there was the first or the second batch but I mean the credits got as high as 600 $650 a credit um the market fell significantly since then but we've been getting over the we've been selling each year we sell some credits and we've been getting in the 200 to $230 range per credit um so these are credits from energy year 20121 so the panels we have to log how much electricity they generate you input that into a system and it generates how much your how many srex you you get and then we go out for like a public auction and sell them interesting that's called The Generation attribute tracking system you put in to check how many doesn't physically sold it's just meeting oblations sure that's interesting okay I I was just like trying to make sense when we tried to do a solar referendum in 2010 and it didn't uh it didn't didn't get approved 10 years ago there was a selling point that we're going to get like yeah like $600 for Sr and blah blah blah and then things just didn't lucky kind of luckily it didn't pass because then it kind of crashed after and just to clarify so the EIP we did we put a lot more solar panels on but we don't own those so those through a power purchase agreement a private company owns them they use our buildings they get the credits now the state has changed the program and so they're no longer called srex now they're called T-Rex they're not as valuable um I think they're those are a fixed price the srex is a bit of an open market the T-Rex is a fixed price of $152 a credit it's a dinosaur T-Rex is the the companies when they bid on I'm putting the solar panels on our buildings factored all that in they knew how much they would make they calculated how much savings we would get and that helped to finance the EIT project in which we did LED lighting we put rooftop units on so many different buildings but we don't own those solar Ps thank you for uh making it clear to a you know L I have a question on U number M who are the participating in New Jersey stride so there are uh districts and entities in New Jersey help find highly um highly functioning Educators particularly one uh one of color minorities things like that so we're going to join that Consortium to try to get in that Loop of of um districts that they promote to newly um newly certificated or uh veteran uh Educators to come and interview with us and so like job fairs and things like that but they also outside the job fair will recommend and uh promote Piscataway as well once we join the so their availability and resumes are sort of circulated and yes everybody knows that this is an available resource and that we we support NJ stride and we're part of the Consortium and um you know we uh we promote highly efficient Educators what districts are involved I'm not sure Colleen West windsboro it's one of them do you know other districts that are uh involved in inj stride which um the top def's a okay they're not all middle seidle no no it's all over the state yes because I went to one of their classes at uh last year at school board convention and that's where I actually saw them for the first time and what they offered so it was very I learned a lot being in that their room sounds like a good idea yeah okay thank you uh can I have a motion did this get approved well I read it and then uh more discussion we can vote okay we need to take the vote Mr seur can you take the role Mr King yes M rashed yes M Smith yes M Stafford yes Mrs gordino yes Dr Connors yes Miss Cherry yes motions Carri policy Miss Smith be resolve that the following motions identified as items a through C be approved as present can I get a second secretary can you take the mred on item a yes to all except policy 9700 on Item B yes to all that was yes to all on B and C as well um yes to a except 9700 and then B yes to all NC NC NC Miss Smith yes Miss Stafford uh yes to all except policy 9700 on item a on Item B and C yes to all cordino yes Mr King no to policy 9700 special interest on item a yes to b andc and yes to the other policies on a yes Dr Connors on item a uh yes to all the policies except policy 9700 and Item B yes to all and C yes that was yes to C yes and Mr CH yes to a abstaining from 9700 yes to all of BNC motions carry except for policy 9700 curriculum Mr King be resolve that the following motions identified as items A and B be approved as presented second Mr secretary can take the RO Miss Smith yes m stord yes Mrs cardino yes Mr King yes M Rashid yes Dr Connors yes M Jerry yes motions Carri pupil Services sorry yes be resolve that the following motions identified as a through C be approved as presented second secretary can you take the RO Miss Smith yes Miss Stafford yes Mrs cordino yes Mr King yes yes Dr Connors yes Miss Cherry yes motion is carry Administration and auxiliary mord be it resolved that the following motions identified as a through e be approved as presented second Mr secretary can you take the v m Stafford yes Mrs cordino yes Mr King yes M rashed Miss Smith yes Dr Connors yes M Cherry yes car oh business Dr relli has something for old business yeah last month of our at our board meeting in September I mentioned that the PHS experience was going to move to October to uh benefit a more timely delivery of that information uh that date wouldn't work so we had a meeting today and we'll have continual meetings with uh the high school administration as well as some central office people um to really talk about the delivery of that information the timeliness of it in January for everybody and see about delivering it at uh kind of more focused point and and a more timely way so stay tuned I just wanted to make sure that everybody kind of understood before our next meeting it was supposed to happen October 23rd but that's not going to happen we'll get out all the information about the uh what we're going to do to to satisfy really getting um the pertinent information to the families from the eighth graders going could you explain that again please sure so uh we had something called a PHS experience in January for all eth graders and their families okay and at that point um the families would come with their children with their eighth graders and they would sit in the auditorium and hear um you know deliveries and presentations from um different departments Math Science Social Studies gym things like that um as well as they would talk about um clubs and activities that are offered Athletics that are offered things like that um you know that happened since before I came here so that's at least 11 years old and the timeliness of It kind of morphed into not being appropriate in January um a lot of the times we back then the applications to other districts were due in January February now they're due in November right so as of right now we have uh a presentation for academy uh potential Academy f families parents and kids in October that's going to happen next week every week okay so that takes care of that where where when the student is considering leaving the district um and all the other things January we think is too early right for September right so we're trying to figure out at what point in the year do students and their families need to hear about different things right right course selection you don't have a month yet no not yet because we think we're going to do multiple presentations for different things some on zoom and some not okay um you know course advisement about what grades what eighth graders might take for classes the following year uh that might maybe should happen in February because their counselors start talking to them in March uh things like that uh Athletics that might happen in April because their physicals are due in June things like that so we're we're kind of planning on all that and making sure that we uh do the best thing for the parents and the kids so what I'm hearing you say is that students coming out of middle school and their parents they have the choice to leave the the scataway public school system and go some other place every district and every district and so you're trying to try and time it so that we can tell them about the scataway high school experience so they have that knowledge in with all the other knowledge so that's part of it right students who are considering uh leaving or going to vocational schools or things like that um those that information really needs to be to them by what PCAT high school offers needs to be to them by October yeah this month because they really need to make applications and Decisions by November December to be accepted to these schools and we've been always holding out till January no we well we we have done an academy night in October for the past few years right but aside from that all the other information was delivered in January for a September start and then we had a parent orientation back in the summer again in the summer where we showed almost the same slides you know so it was kind of kind of redundant so we're kind of rethinking um the January PHS experience just because it it's always happened that way doesn't mean it's the right thing for 2024 25 so we're talking about the best way to go so thank you appreciate okay thank you anyone else with old business uh Madam uh president just two things the first is that under old business you know that we're very close to finishing our New Jersey school board's uh board certification and the last one piece is this board self evaluation and uh I have uh put out the link to people to do that evaluation and seven out of the nine um board members have uh filled out the evaluation I have a uh email into our New Jersey school board's field representative that if that is enough then we can schedule a uh a review of um the board self evaluation and then do a couple items and then so we're shooting for so if you haven't done it uh a couple of people that haven't done it there's still time to do it um and then um that t you know ties into uh probably our December meeting uh being presented with our board certification which would be in that line over there 2016 I think didn't do it we do tried to do it every about four years so there's that and then the second thing is that um I just give a brief update on the ad hoc um committee and School Meal debt uh we formed this committee last March uh but we finally got around to meeting um last month and then we had a meeting today and um thank everybody uh the committee um you know our mission was to review and discuss the next steps on the issue of you know food service service debt and uh you know this issue you know needs more of a focused attention because it was always being handled in the fiscal excuse me Fiscal plannings and operations committee and and it would take up a big portion of that but I'm happy to report that after the first meeting uh the committee uh reviewed active and inactive um debt balances and and then the committee unanimously agreed to um eliminate the um scho meal debt balances for the inactive and now our uh District staff is uh reviewing a meal time email to sent to families um and we're also uh looking at um there's there's some students that uh have that have graduated in parents that have positive Meal Time accounts and how can we have a method where that can actually be uh uh they can they would donate that money back um and uh so David Al prepared a letter and the committee reviewed it and we're going to review the the final letter probably at our Le next meeting which will be we've been holding them right before these business meetings so probably in November and um and then and just brainstorming and other ideas of how to communicate with our our our F uh families about Meal Time so that we don't find ourselves in the situation you know subsequently going down the road so so uh you know thanks Nancy you know Chantel myself Sarah David ala and the uh and Dr relli for you know taking a deeper dive and really looking at the data and trying to come up with um you know a way forward because uh you know it's going to be there and it's something that we're not the only District dealing with it so that's it that was my the on the addon committee take over what take over take over take over you're go sit there got two things left okay okay uh that's anybody for our other old business no okay well I'll be I'll be brief on new business because I have to do an ad here is that um as you know um I am the uh one of the state officers from New Jersey school boards and workshops coming up like the week from October 23rd to the 27th so Monday through Thursday so uh everybody get ready uh it's always a great week and what's exciting for me is I got to be in a meeting where uh uh one of our keynote speakers is John konis of ABC News who does uh uh what would you do program but he to he told us that uh advertised that still watch it because actually we're scheduled it's right after Dancing with the Stars so his RS go down so we got so so anyway he he's going be one of the key note speakers and uh it's going to be a great week um the legislative Chantel and I actually sit on the legislative Committee of the New Jersey school boards Association uh representing District 17 and we we you know it's advocacy and and we had a great meeting this past Saturday uh where we had the deputy majority leader of the legislature uh Roy Fryman um who had his um work working on school funding reform in terms of a bill that would when we had our budget presentation you know that one of the suggestions by the New Jersey Association of school business officials was to do a fiveyear average in part of that formula to help out that's what that bill is about so he's uh you know there's a good group and and uh it's always a big issue for everybody but at least we know they're doing something about it and uh and and hopefully that uh that'll keep going um um there was some take there was a board of directors meeting and the takeaways there is that uh you know there was there was a bunch but uh you know du's collection was good so the they were very healthy in terms of the finance and the school boards and workshop always brings in a lot of money and um what else was there there was uh the board certification we're we're in a small group like across the state um just just this particular fall there's only like eight other school boards that have done board certification so it speaks volumes to everybody here your commitment that this is what you really need to do is to keep going on the topics and the better local governance you have the research shows that the higher the student achievement and that's proven you know year on year uh in in research so thank you for your commitment to be on the board and and just train and you know get ourselves trained and that's it I have no business I'm sorry before we get ready to go I just felt as we talked about policy 9700 and many people voted no I just because we did talk vigorously about this at the policy that I just kind of wanted to highlight the point on why I thought it was an important policy to move forward the part that talks about Distributing political literature to the students or on school grounds that promotes favors or opposes any candidacy and any candidate for election at any school election or the adoption of any bond issue proposal or public question submitted at a general municipal or school election um so I just thought as a parent as an educator who works in a school that this was important policy because I think that um that's not something that we want on school grounds um or to our children um so I just kind of wanted to State why I was in favor of that um and why I don't you know people voted against it but I did want it to sort of everyone to see what the policy was so that's it um may I uh uh Sarah so in my opinion when I read the policy I didn't feel it was wholesome enough for the district I felt that it was more infringing on the freedoms that are provided by the election laws and that's why I felt that the policy was not okay well election well on days of election right there are laws but there's no election laws where you should be campaigning on school property um where there's a captive audience of students a captive audience of parents um it's just in bad taste and um again for me as an educator I don't like seeing it where I work it um it just doesn't have a very good feeling to um to send it's sort of like having people who are held and it's in your face and they can't get away from it so it's my opinion and it's obviously people have different opinions and that's certainly okay uh but I just wanted to know where where where I came from and why I felt like it was important that's it any other further new business but I understand I do Tom so I want to just talk for a couple minutes about the food service program uh so we're six weeks into the school year and I have some preliminary information on uh particularly the breakfast program uh it's too soon I don't have financial information and frankly I really wouldn't want to discuss financial information after one month anyway because I don't think it's indicative of of much but I mean I can tell you that the breakfast numbers are up through the roof compared September this year to last year it's up 162% wow so uh last year we served 11,664 breakfasts this year 31,000 uh 31,8 186 okay so that's uh an increase of nearly 20,000 breakfast served in probably what 20 calend school days in the month of September uh lunch is also up uh lunch is up from 47,2 22 to 6197 so that's a 29% increase and great you know that's not free we didn't change anything about the lunch program as a matter of fact we actually increased the prices as the board uh recalls uh it was time at that point it had been about 10 years so um change we didn't change anything except the company right yes so um as far as the breakfast goes I think it's fantastic free breakfast for all and our goal was merely just to break even and we'll monitor that over the course of the year but um you know I think the lunch figure does show uh that a change in company does seem to be well received by the students uh so far and I can tell you that anecdotally I was in a meeting with four of our principles on a completely unrelated topic and with no prompting in any way they shared feedback with me how happy uh they were and the students the feedback they were getting from students and that was in addition to it was noted in the committee report about the student Yak meting meeting up at the high school that we attended and we got some positive feedback there so um you know a good month for the Food Service program and uh uh We've the board has backed a lot of investments in equipment serving lines and in addition the board was a part of the committee that chose the the new company and so far we're off to a good start so I just want to give you an update what I can say is that you know that what I'm hearing from the school Community is that this is fantastic that the scataway found a way uh to give free breakfast and the fact that people realize that um you know we have like a 36% free and reduced lunch population which did include breakfast but now the way in which it's designed that everybody gets breakfast those kids weren't going because they possibly could be shamed but now everybody gets it for free so you don't know who those kids are and it's an issue that people feel uh strongly about they even try to get their kids to school early so they can get that free free meal and and it's a very very positive positive um thing that we've done for uh our our community and I hope that we can find ways to to do these kinds of things the only things that I've heard are that it's before the Bell so what happens is when they get to the to get there it's before they get to their classroom say at the high school they their bus may arrive they may only have 10 or 15 minutes so it's very hard they get it but you know we have these restrictions on taking it out of the cafeteria and walking it to the classroom so that so that was something they said you know the feedback that I got but in general it's a great a great it's a great program and um you know to FOC we need to focus on on um as board members and and the administration on the issues and the needs and the concerns of our community and and that's one of them and thank you and that's any new business Courtney Courtney saying like they fired they fired the Jets coach who who they going to fire motion to adjourn second all in favor I thought you was going to go see your family tonight didn't you don't want to go home Tom and start e