##VIDEO ID:s8AIc0lEKUM## thank you welcome to this public meeting of the Princeton Board of Education the board is an elected unpaid group of 10 citizens who set policy and make decisions on educational financial and Personnel matters for the Princeton public schools on behalf of all residents we're always pleased when members of the community attend our meetings the board and the school district operate under applicable New Jersey laws and under regulations of the new Jersey State Board of Education each meeting includes an opportunity for those attending to comment on items on the published agenda or other matters of interest to them the board reserves a right to limit the time allotted to public participation law limits discussion of individual personnel and confidential matters we hope our meetings provide useful opportunities for communication between the board and the community thank you for attending as required under the open public meeting act at JSA 1046 at sequena adequate notice was given for call calling this meeting was authorized by the Board of Education and forwarded to the municipal clerk Princeton packet and the Trenton Times on January 6 2024 it was also distributed to the schools and others on the standard distribution list the board deserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education board policy 168 recording devices requires that we inform those attending this meeting that the proceedings are being recorded this meeting is being live streamed the representative of the Senate sing district is authorized to vote on such matters that affect sending District students or affect the governance of the prin of public schools as more specifically designated in njsa 18a 38 A.1 sening District votes pertaining to Personnel actions refer to high school Central administrative and districtwide staff only votes otherwise are considered abstentions in the event this statute is amended the law shall take presidence over this byall thank you Mr Balden would you please call the rooll sure da mckendall here Betsy Bagel here Beth Baron here Adam Beerman uh presid debie bronfeld here Mara franceski here Elanor hubard here Susan caner here Brian McDonald present Bob Christopher here we have a quorum thank you Mr Balden can I get a motion for the adoption of the minutes for August 27th Mara second Debbie D Kendall yes Betsy bag wheel yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Debbie bronfeld yes Mara franceski yes Elanor hubard yes Susan caner yes Brian McDonald stain Rob Christopher yes motion passes thank you Mr Balden Brian you missed the shortest meeting we ever had can I get I watched did you I mean didn't take out much time oh really hope you didn't pay extra for that um can I get a motion for the adoption of the minutes for September 11th uh Rob second um Debbie dff n Kendall yes Betsy bag wheel yes Beth Baron abstain Adam Beerman yes Debbie bronfeld yes Mar franceski yes Elanor hover yes Susan caner yes Brian McDonald Rob Christoper yes motion passes all right thank you Mr Balden um so welcome everyone to this meeting um we have a very packed meeting tonight so we'll just get to um the agenda the first thing up tonight is our J Pal's mentoring program we have Johnson Park principal Chris Sheridan and Johnson Park counselor Kristen Whitmore to present on that thank you for joining us thank for invitation we love to hear about kids so oh good that's why we're here we'll hear about some kids this evening great um so just have a few words before introducing our school counselor and our representative from the University for a great program that we have in JP called the tiger Pals so we have J Pals as one thing and the tiger Pals is an additional uh support that we have in our school so good evening and thank you Dr Foster Dr to president uh Kendall members of the board community members present here today for allowing us a few words to say about Johnson Park my name is Christopher Sheridan I'm the new principal over at Johnson Park and I'm really excited about my new role uh when I was first hired and began to meet teachers and families at JP it was almost like I was told a little secret that how great JP was how there's so it's such a special place and filled with special people um and it's I don't know if it's something that's in the air something that's in the water or the lack of sell service up there but it is it's it really is absolutely true that it's a special place filled with special people um and there's countless responsibilities uh working in the school running a building being a teacher an administrator the staff and families that are connected with our schools but we have to pause to recognize these special moments when they come to us that when our efforts of collaboration have borne incredible opportunities for student growth and wellness um the person I'm about to introduce this evening is Miss Kristen Whitmore and she's our school counselor for those of you that are unaware the role of the school counselor has evolved into a mosaic of responsibilities in this first quarter of a century into the 21st century the school counselor is a primary contact in the development of a student's social emotional Wellness and an active support person for teachers and families Miss Whitmore spends her days with lunch bunches in whole group with small group lessons conflict resolutions relationship mediation and guidance on how to make a friend and be a friend and sometimes that's just with the adults but in all seriousness uh Miss Whitmore is an invaluable resource for our our families the JP Community our our students and our our families last year at JP with the former principal Dr ciso Sten Miss Whitmore and a handful of teachers numerous social and emotional initiatives were initiated and furthered our school-based mentorship between staff and students which is JP Pal's was reinstated and in addition to this JP Pal's Miss Whitmore saw an opportunity to work with the university so beginning last year which was Miss whitmore's first year at JP she worked with the University to partner with their student athletes so they could partner with some of our students at JP to Foster deeper connection where they could have a mentor in the university and that's how the tiger Pals was born we're proud of the social emotional supports that we're developing in JP and today Miss Woodmore will tell you a little bit about the work that she's been doing with the university to foster a greater sense and these opportunities for growth so I introduce to you Miss Whitmore thanks Chris for that really beautiful introduction thanks everybody for giving me time this evening I'll be very brief but I'm really excited to share with you this program called tiger Palace I'm actually gonna welcome up my colleague at the University who's been a tremendous asset in bringing this program to life so this program was brought about by a need that we started to realize in our school Community our kiddos need mentorship okay we know the power of mentorship we know how much those adult Role Models matter to our kids so we have currently the reading with the Tigers program program which is not a new program it's been in Princeton for many years many of your children have probably went through this program it's where University athletes come into our elementary schools and spend some time reading with our kiddos I'm not sure who has more of a enjoyable experience the athletes or the kids because the kids just look up to these Heroes and the athletes kind of become kids again so it branched from this reading with the Tigers program so that kind of was the first piece of inspiration here seeing how much our kiddos looked up to these athletes and then again noticing this need for Mentor ship right as teachers as the adults in the building we believe that we can be positive mentors for our students but getting somebody else right getting somebody that's not at home with them getting somebody that's larger than life being that's where this project came to be so with the blessing of um Dr s last year I kind of fired off a bunch of emails to the university to anybody that would answer me and try to make something happen and I after a lot of emails back and forth got in contact UM with Melissa and she was saying that the University students have been asking for mentorship opportunities so it just seemed perfect is all kind of fell into our inbox we know that research shows us a list of benefits that come from students who have an adult Mentor better attendance better grades higher test scores a sense of belonging all the good stuff the stuff that why we're here and the purpose again is to provide that positive role model for students that could benefit from this we launched last year in the spring we had 12 JP students that we identified as you know potential um recipients of this this partnership and the university had 25 student athletes at expressed interest and they're grouped by team so they're in pods so we have one of our kiddos is paired with like two or three athletes it also helps with scheduling uh next slide please so you'll see photos along the way awesome so what really and another reason why we realized we needed a program like this is to support our tiered systems of support right we talk about that a lot on the academic side right our tier one is our good teaching practice right the resources that we have as a tier one then we have our tier two we have our AIS our basic skills program and we have high impact tutoring it always gets a little gray when we come to theal component because feelings and emotions you don't get a score for that right so in looking at what we can do to support our kiddos here are some of those tiered resources of support starting with the tier three it's our counseling lessons it's our reading with the Tigers it's our lunch bunches these are available to every student then as we move up we have our small counseling groups in our J Pals program that was resurrected last year with in-house staff mentors and now we have something at our tier three which is this tiger Pal's resource for us so this year we've identified 23 students in grades two through six so we have a partnership now with the middle school because some of our fifth graders are now moving on we have 45 University athletes that express interest in this program from 13 athletic programs it's amazing we had a meeting on Sunday night to pull all the athletes together and they are Beyond excited like can we come in tomorrow they're really excited again having that positive role model practicing social skills academics these kids are in this program because there's a great need there and we can match it with this program you'll see these photos these are from our kickoff event um so what do we hope to go with this program growing our supports in all tiers that's something we're always looking to do how can we keep supporting our kiddos we would love to expand this to the other elementary schools I've already gotten in the ear of my counseling colleagues and they fully on board with this so we're hopefully we have the whole university all all to us and then identifying more students as these needs persist because we have this beautiful partnership the University's in our backyard and this was from our kickoff event um we had big celebration we did a spirit tunnel for the kids they ate pizza cupcakes they had so much fun and we had kiddos crying be you know when their pal left because they didn't want them to go we had one little girl who said I think I actually like can go to college like I I can do this and it was incredible you got gooseb in all my years of education it that's probably one of the if not the highlight it was an amazing day and another little kiddo who was like do you know that they study very specific things in college and I can talk only about this it was amazing it was absolutely amazing and these pictures I mean this was such a great day slide please and that was all of us together out at the JP Pavilion so thank you all for your time today we really appreciate it and um thank you thank you so much for joining us tonight we really appreciate it and we appreciate all the things you're doing for kids and that sounds like a lot of fun you know the board could use some mhip just saying we could use any kind of pal but power would be good mentors mentors um so um so next up um Betsy is going to be here in a minute to talk about the super uh super search update um and so as we said at every meeting uh from now until uh the next superintendent is chosen we're going to provide updates and even if there aren't any we're going to let you know that um but no one has been working harder on organizing uh the community uh to make sure that we get everyone's input than Betsy oh thank you well you have a thing well thanks to Mr Balden we're going to take you through in real time our new web page for the search to show the community um how they might access information so I I think let's just jump in and see what's What's Happening Here on the website there's a button on the front page for the superintendent search if we click on that which is live thanks to Christa gallion which we really we really appreciate Christ um this will be updated along the way to share with our community and we're hoping that potential candidates are also looking at this website as well um School leadership was hired at our last special meeting to be our search Consultants they've been amazing we're of and running I just want to show the community if you scroll down there are two ways and it launches now to participate you can take a survey by clicking on that link or I think the the graphic below Oh either one that's amazing um so there's a survey we want you all to fill it out students parents community members staff uh former parents in the district anyone who's who's interested in giving us some feedback and then if you take us back and there's if you scroll down Mr Balden it's also in Spanish so for our Spanish speaking families we'd like your input as well um if you click to the oh we're going to there we go okay um so that's up and then if we can go back oops don't go to the board meetings um so right to the right that graphic to the right this will allow you to sign up for uh forums so we're looking for everyone in the community who's interested in participating in forums and if you scoll scroll down um keep scrolling that tells you rather than me reading every single Forum we have multiple forums for parents community members staff and next Wednesday at break for students are we hope that you'll tell the high school students um we'll give you the time for that but next Wednesday at break um we would be talk we'll be talking to high school students as well buy pizza some kind of food we don't know yet what the food is buts maybe our board reps can help us figure out what what food is appropriate so um if if you're not able to attend these meetings are next week Monday through Wednesday if you can't attend the Forum that has been designated for you you can attend any of them um we have one forum for Elementary staff one at the middle school for Middle School staff one at the high school for High School staff one here for Valley Road staff but again if if it's better for you to attend another one we welcome you we have a virtual parent and Community Forum we have a parent forum in person and a community uh for in person as well so we have our Consultants will be busy next week and that's the point we want to hear from our community and we really do hope um everyone takes part in this effort okay um let me just look through my notes thank you very much Mr Balden for that sort of last minute uh sharing of our website so I think the only other thing I want to share is that Dr Brooks and Miss Bader who are probably watching this evening so hello to them um they'll attend our October 16th special meeting that we have just um scheduled and they'll be presenting to our community uh they'll be on Zoom we'll be in person and uh they'll be presenting the specifications that Princeton our Collective Community has developed uh for what we're looking for in a superintendent and we'll also be approving the job description at that time uh so the search will officially launch for interested candidates on October 17th although we know they've already been hard at work um so that's the update for this evening I'll continue to update the public at every meeting and please tell everyone you know to fill out the survey and attend one of our focus our our forums and actually there's one other thing we are having a number of forums with um other smaller groups with other people within the community and that's happening next week as well such as like the special education parents correct um and they're having their own meeting because they might bring up confidential things that they don't want shared with the water Community all right well thank you Betsy it's very exciting thank you to Christa uh thank you to Matt for navigating the web page we appreciate it it was very challenging Matt's setting up meetings Dr Foster's helping us schedule Y and you know for paying the bills and for making sure that we have food so children for the so the students come and share with us yes but they have to wait for the food right because otherwise they take the food and leave something only on the way out is that bagel pizza for yeah so um Matt on to how kids work so please work with us so we want to get student feedback oh and why don't I take this moment to introduce our new uh board members uh we have Maya and uh Nikolai and if you want to introduce you welcome they were elected by their um peers at the high school they're both seniors um and why don't you take a minute to tell us about yourselves hello yeah okay um my name is Maya um like I said um like you said I'm a senior at PHS um a little about me is that um I play Ice Hockey so um I'm captain there and um I'm really into sports so I do cheer I do softball I also do a lot of he service um and I have a dog um I actually live really close by so if you ever see um my dad and my dog Runing around um you could say hi if you want uh he likes jumping so be a little careful but he's very friendly I promise um I also have two siblings um and yeah that's much it well welcome Hey I'm Nikolai uh you might I had a brother who was on this who's serving the position last year so I'll be cleaning up his mess but yeah my my whole family like I have a little brother in Riverside and I went to PMs and uh now I'm at pron high school so thank you for making all this such a wonderful experience I know we all really love it uh me wise I play the banjo um I do that around the country I'll be in North Carolina tomorrow for some shows is that an excuse absence oh God I hope so maybe we can um uh oh yeah oh gosh I will be here at school tomorrow great um I love watchmaking I inter a Hamilton Jewelers on the weekend their repair departments uh and the school clubs wise I I'm leaders of the ethics bll team model and mod trial um and all the field trips I know are kind of a hassle for yall so thank you because um but really looking forward to it it's gonna be great well thank you welcome again and we look forward to getting um your input and feedback as to what what's going on at princeon high school and what we can do better because there's always things we can do better and it's never hassle to do things the kids than so we students so we appreciate um you're being here thank you um if ever this meeting I don't think we'll go too long but if it ever gets too much um you'll have a report at the beginning of the meeting you know feel free we know how busy you are um hopefully you're better than my daughter and you've opened up the cin app um maybe not um but we know that you have a lot of other things going on so thank you for joining us all right um and yeah uh and now moving on to the superintendent Dr Foster okay good evening everyone um so we're going to continue uh to celebrate uh and the first thing is I'm just going to highlight the district um uh and school goals for uh the 24 25 school year um and they align beautifully uh with the data that you will see following um we know that what we focus on matters and um that uh breed success and so uh we're really proud of um these District goals um wait so you can move to the next you have to guess guess what they are yeah exactly oh I can I can actually do them off the top of my head but I want to see if we um the visual there we go okay all right so um as we continue to focus on kindness this year we are committed to creating safe and inclusive spaces for Learning and as I said um I've been saying before kindness is sometimes underestimated and kindness really is a path um to um hold each other accountable to be our best selves and that is um both our social emotional selves as well as our academic selves and um the obviously all of the priorities um really um focus on our mission for our students to live lives of joy and purpose okay and if you I don't know if you recognize this um photo but this is the new track at Riverside um very popular as you can see um we are currently in our second year of the fiveyear Strategic plan as a reminder um the uh Committee of stakeholders developed four overarching District priorities that we will continue continue to address each year in a specific way uh so we base them on academic records reports attendance discipline records the wellness survey uh and that's where we design specific yearly goals um to to increase student engagement and success so those are the first two priorities and then on the next page are priorities three and four so I'm going to highlight just a few things for each of them and then um you will uh take a look at our data okay so we'll focus on Collective Priority One measure of student progress um so we are proud that we are a prek to 12 district and we start with our earliest uh Learners um this year um we have uh expanded our preschool and they're really focused on um Family engagement um and planning meetings with early childhood and special education to support a yearlong roll out of alignment of both programs so uh teachers will participate in professional development across the school year align with teacher professional development goals and then create and revise uh individual education plan goals to match the prek uh language for uh the gold assessment which is the preschool assessment Elementary uh will be focused on math and they'll be using the linkit data other additions to support and Elevate that will be math workshops uh reviewing goals with building staff members check-ins throughout the year during grade level meetings and faculty meetings math cohorts with instructional coaches math popup PD uh with our instructional coaches and the use of exemplars um the versatiles which are the manipulatives and ready ma as extension resources so measure of student Pro uh progress for um Wellness um sense of belonging so one of the things at prek is they really want to focus of bringing the families into the district uh so there'll be a lot of facilitation and marketing of family events throughout the year and working with Princeton Early Childhood advisory Council and then for the elementary schools Wellness uh they're going to meet with school counselors have those wonderful programs like jals uh create mentorships both in and out of District uh do welcome classroom visits with counselors and I happened to be in Riverside the other day and um witnessed uh one of those visits with the counselors it was fantastic they'll uh provide social emotional learning lessons student inventory relationships and again developing and establishing and strengthening their mentorship programs and then Prin in Middle School um one of the things that they want that they noticed is just to improve the perception um that there is a trusted adult in the building and that was really um the data that stood out for the middle school so they're working uh with Trinidad Rodriguez to help with a liazon to connect with students uh we heard about wingman last year they're instituting that ye this year repurposing School programming um uh and the theme is schools can't do it alone uh there making sure that they have celebrations throughout the year um making sure students see themselves in school uh and the quote is if you can't see it you can't be it um so they really want to make sure that they emphasize that um specific connectivity sessions of for family community night a respect Summit in November and December and then they're really strengthening those house meetings uh with the students to develop solid relationships with adults certainly U multi um tiered systems of support and they've also instituted data teams to help um track and uh support students and then at the high school um they're going to uh really focus on dialogue and collaboration so organized training workshops centered on difficult dialogues facilitate interactions between Master Teachers and novice teachers to observe specific pedagogical strategies fostering me mentorship and shared learning and also construct instruct C rounds and if you've heard about that um that's usually what um doctors do maybe in a hospital where they have a group of professionals going around together and identifying um different uh common patterns and themes and then discussing it afterwards encourage cross-disciplinary classroom visit visits and using critical friend protocol to encourage collaborative feedback okay then we'll focus on the next which are the um uh Princeton Middle School academics um they're going to work closely Lauren Samara has been busy in her Ru uh new role as MTS as supervisor um they're going to identify strategies to use Title One funding to augment the work uh Infuse uh data teams at um uh Princeton middle school and then uh create that core team uh with um the uh principal assistant principal and supervisors they're also going to um become more prolific in their use of the linkit data to identify entrance and exit criteria for the beginning of the year and you'll see some data um that uses um that we talk talk about that in the next uh coming up slides uh linkit assessments were pilot piloted are going to be piloted uh piloted in the sixth grade um they're working on the new math sequence and um Dr two has some good news to share about um that success uh and again using link it for midyear Mark uh tomorrow Monitor and predict and become proactive um to help support students and then the last is um uh the high school I'm really running through these quickly um attendance uh is uh they noticed um that they uh really want to uh improve attendance and we had Miss Burge come to the equity committee to specifically talk about some of the that data that she's using uh the goal is 10% Improvement measured by meeting attendance uh they're doing this proactively by figuring out ways to um help kids want to be in school so again it's creating relationships uh creating engaging uh classrooms more communication with parents um email attendance notification um she's hoping the new Belle schedule will support that as well and then also um she did uh talk about that tier 2 Services which um connects students with counselor nurse and assistant principal um so that they have some mentorship and followup uh and I think did I get and oh and then the programming the goal also is to expand Saturday Academy this year to include English language arts as well as other enrichment opportunities for students outside regular school hours and this All Leads again to the focus and if you remember um Dr two talked about which is what happens after it's it's the um followup after graduation postgraduation and who we want our children to be and uh we'll be focusing on portra of graduate uh skill sets uh throughout the prek to 12 level and that's just a really quick snapshot we will give you an update once we have some data to share uh mid uh probably midwinter um to to show how we are um uh working towards uh these particular goals this year um but it leads Y into our next presentation which is uh with John McMichael and Peres Shaw who are going to um share the U matriculation report graduation report thank you so I want to start by saying I have the absolute greatest job in the world because I get to spend my days talking to students that are absolutely amazing and talented on so many arenas from music to academics to Performance to theater to so many different things and I learn from these students each and every day a few of them are here Maya and Nikolai I see ra and the audience so um it's really just a privilege to be in this role and be able to work with these students every day and that directly translates into um what our College matriculation looks like um the mission of our College counseling program is really we're committed to providing uh comprehensive preparation informed decision-making and really ongoing support for every student um that is at Princeton High School and uh our aim is to guide students through the complex College search process and really help them find their postsecondary Pathways that align with their talents and Ambitions so um from a summary level I think that's the next slide um last year in the class of 2024 we had 354 graduates um at Princeton High School and we had an overall graduation rate of 96% where 92% of our students went to a four-year college and 4% went to a two-year College we have graduates that were accepted to 33 different colleges across the country and across the world um we have 144 institutions where our students are attending um college or a post uh graduate institution and those students are enrolled across Ross 31 States and seven countries um in terms of our most frequently attended colleges um rers university along with Cornell University both were our most attended colleges this year we had 16 students attending both of those college and not far behind we're Princeton University and Mercer County Community College so a pretty widespread range of different types of colleges our students are um getting accepted to and attending and in terms of the most frequently applied to college again rers is right up there um as one of our most frequently applied to college um followed by some colleges in the Northeast Cornell University Princeton University Mercer County Community College Northeastern um so I question sorry CH but I've heard this before that's why we want you here to present it to the community but um on the screen with um Ruckers as the Ruckers and Cornell as the top matriculated more were accepted that right so I think for next year we're going to show where children are also accepted but this is really where they're going exactly we did have more students um actually accepted but this is just showing that the matriculation of those students because you're doing a fabulous job so we we want to make sure the community knows about it the kids are doing a fabulous job I'm a per well but they need guidance they need guidance they don't want to listen to their parents um I think I mentioned that to you and you really provide a great but I I don't mean to interrupt but I just wanted to point that out thank you so much this is our application data across the seven different types of application plans regular decision early decision one early decision two early action early action two restrictive early action enrolling um overall if you look at that data we had 880 applications with a 75% acceptance rate um our most successful applications were in the early action round where we had a 97% acceptance rate and early action and through oing admission we had an 82% acceptance rate so where in the world are our PHS graduates well they are in countries like Canada France Italy and Ireland and domestically in so many states like I mentioned 31 out of the 50 states across the United States and on that page if you click on the matriculation there's a link um below that says for a detailed report um it actually shows by State uh where our students what colleges they actually attended and last but not least um just in terms of the breakdown of the private institutions versus the not for-profit institutions um the private not for-profit institutions received the highest number of applications and enrollments followed by public institutions so we have amazing amazing kids that go on to do amazing things thank you so much well thank you um we appreciate your coming and we do appreciate you know all you do for kids right that's why we're all here so um you and Mr McMichael in particular I'm sorry you didn't bring Dr Dy in of it was quite an amusing sack uh yeah meeting um but we thank her as well um that presentation um was part of is it on the counselling website by any chance uh it's also attached to our board meeting it is in the board meeting yeah but maybe we could I have to put the tech ticket in following the rules I love it that reminds me the uh the profile that ner and I worked very closely on um is attached to the board agenda that is definitely on our website um we spent quite a bit of time if you have ever seen the one from prior years um it just needed some refreshening um and we spent a lot of time we uh used resources from the making caring common project which is affiliated with Harvard University um they actually did a webinar that we both registered and attended u in our respective offices on Zoom there it is um and nerna having built up so many Connections in the College of missions World actually put some feelers out to college admissions reps and said hey can you take a look at this tell me what you think do you have suggestions for us and when you get no feedback I think that's a good sign that you're you know you're on on the right track um so I don't know if the old one exists anywhere it doesn't look anything like this um and it really helps the college admissions folks put Princeton High School students in the context of Princeton High School you know they can't compare a kid from Princeton from a kid from West Windsor from a kid from Germany yeah right so they look at you and what you took advantage of during your time in your four years here this gives them way more context than they had in Prior years that's awesome so something we're kind of proud of and I will have to say because it's not in any report we can give you uh she tried to brush it off and I'm not going to let her she is fabulous uh you know I think on the sack meeting somebody mentioned that she seems to know every single kid by name well um I'll repeat it what I said was I was at the 101 fund um and um they're they're not as experienced as presenters and so they were introducing the kids in the scholarships and they didn't say where they were going to school and I don't have a my attention spends very so I was like where are they going to school and uh nerna and Andrea they knew every kid where they were going and it was very impressive and and these are some of the kids that you know don't have a lot of people uh looking out for them so I think it's and and where the schools they were going like and I also said I've been going to that 101 um meeting for years now and this was the most impressive uh list of schools um that the kids were going to I mean I think there were a few I League schools in there um and some very even more competitive schools so really it's a testament to that's why we're all here we're here for the kids and you're working with all the kids but as pay but you pay special attention to the kids that you know need you more and we're we're grateful for that yeah so was that good John did I okay she deserves every ounce of credit I have the best job in the world because I get to watch her work CH Whitmore from JP in the middle team I was over there today so the school counselor in this yeah and I'm going to see if I can make you cry here but I won't like I did in the sack meeting but you said that you have two children but you have 1600 at school and I really deeply love each and every one of them they are my children all right thank you that's [Applause] awesome going to go to your T testing report uh now we're going to go to the uh testing report so I'll introduce Dr K uh Kim to and then I guess you'll introduce your team I'll I'll call them up as your that way you guys can stay comfortable hiding in the back of the room I see oh no hiding no hiding no hiding this is great news to share uh Mr McMichael's up first but I want to just kind of preface this presentation it is a long presentation so thank you for your time and your patience but it's really good news and it's an effort of the collaborative work that's being done by the Board of Education the administrators the staff the students and the family um I really feel as we're finally emerging out of covid fog um and really putting some helpful systems into place and it's a lot to celebrate here we still have a lot of work to do but it's a lot to celebrate so are just kudos to the entire team and system um for putting kids first and making sure they're getting what they need you know academically and social emotionally um so if you can change the slide Mr Balden um so tonight uh our SAT and ACT scores were just sort of being populated this week it's more good news but they weren't ready yet for prime time there were still a couple more reports that we need it so that will come in due time time um but we wanted to talk about the AP scores our dlm which is our Dynamic learning map um scores what our alternative um assessment for students in special education and then finally our njsla Ela math and science scor so you should have parents received an email today with a link to your child's testing report if they took the assessment um not all grades take the assessment we'll get into that um and kind of how they did and you know next steps so Mr McMichael is up first um for AP scores I forget always the tally but what did we have almost 1,700 AP assessments last year 1699 so kudos to him and Mr Rothchild who was our testing coordinator last year because it really is a a boohemoth task uh to undertake and to see our students results out of it is amazing so I will let him take the floor yeah thank you Dr to yeah May was between all the students May 1 as the college deadline right so may was a great month in the counseling office at the high school although was chaotic um it's actually probably easier to tell you there are only six AP exams that we didn't offer last year so 34 up there um obviously we don't run all of those classes but we do allow any currently enrolled Princeton High School student to say hey I want to take AP Psych the AP Psychology exam and we will be happy to allow them to do so and we will accommodate that so um that is quite a list um up there I would put it up against any other High School in the country um so the next slide does tell you 1699 over there all the way on the right um and to go back to Dr 2's Point um we are we are Beyond pre-pandemic levels um in almost every metric and we'll we'll go over that quickly I me can we just point something out 92% of our kids scored a three or above I mean that's amazing if you add up the 12 36 and 44 um and for anyone not as familiar with the AP program that's pretty much going to guarantee you college credit at most institutions um so moving on the College Board offers a recognition program called the AP scholar program um and there's different categories with all different breakdowns but you know just to have a few students in any of these is is pretty impressive and to see literally hundreds uh be recognized by the college program for their look at those averages at the bottom um you know just super impressive like Mrs sha was saying we work and we get to see the some of the best students every single day um on the next slide so I don't I I don't have it up there but I took a look um so pre pandemic uh so 2019 the 2020 AP exams for anybody that even wants to bother thinking they were 45 minutes and kind of just thrown together at the last minute by I listen we all were kind of thrown off by the pmic right just a little bit so the College Board threw these 45 minute exams out there kids took from their bedrooms and their houses um but so let's go back to 2019 the numbers if you just go down the column 612 12 1478 569 and a percentage a 92.9 S at the bottom so if you go all the way over to the right now to 2024 you will see we have exceeded all of those metrics um and I have to apologize I apparently can't copy and paste um this came right from a college board report it just wasn't easy to put into a PowerPoint so I just copied and pasted the numbers the bottom right number so the number of total AP students with scores of three or higher it's actually 9 9 5.03 not 92.3 so that's that's on me I apologize for that error but if you look at that number that is the highest since at least 2019 since before 2019 um if you really want to get into the nuts and bolts we could provide you know the scores that were broken down by um exam that's more useful information for the teachers and supervisors just to see where we might need to make improvements but some overall goals up on the screen at the moment enhancing accessibility um promoting more students I mean if you look at the data we're doing that right because everything's going up the number of kids taking AP classes and exams is going up the scores are going up so everything is trending in the right direction I I I think we're all anxious to put the pandemic as far behind us as possible and that's certainly happening um with our AP program so um before I step away to um Mrs Christa Foley I actually have to say thank you and congratulations to her as tonight is a special night for her and she has been a mentor to me in the year I've been here um and also thank you to all of you for the Kudos from Miss Whitmore to Mrs Shaw and I H Dr Foster and the goals and the counseling the support for the counseling program and the work that the counselors do here um you know it's very much appreciated from the board on and from the administration so thank you very much and I will now turn it over to Mr Chris thank you Mr [Applause] McMichael hi so um we got to hear about the great scores our students are achieving and you're going to hear a lot about our um njsla scores so just so we're clear our special education students for the most part take njsla um but we do have a subsection of our students who do have more learning challenges who learn the standards but they learn the Essential Elements of the standard so we really drill down into them so taking the njsla would not be an appropriate way to assess them so um the estate uses a dynamic learning maps to do the assessment for those students and it is computer-based and it's based on their ability to U make progress through the assessment so if you can go to the so this is just a little summary of kind of what I said um about the Essential Elements um if you could go to the next one um so it's taken in a lot of the same grade levels but if you notice for high school it's only in grade 11 11 so which makes it challenging because we do like to use the scores and drill into the scores and look at how our students learned how our students achieve but then also looking at our um instruction we use multiple sources of data to determine how our students are progressing through their program so it's achievement on IEP goals datas teachers collect and also um performance on the dlm all right and this kind of the same m merging approaching the target at Target in advanced so that's how um the scores are presented so this is um a compilation of our scores this year we did not break it into grade levels because some grade levels only have one student or two students um but what we did with um the supervisors and I sat down and we looked at last year's scor compared to this year's scores and we really saw some really positive Trends um in English language arts last year we had 45 5% of our students in emerging now they're progressing up through approaching Target at Target in advance so we're really happy to see those scores um math is about the same as last year but last year in science we had a 100% of our students at emerging and now you can see the trend has really moved forward so drilling into um the test results looking at um the Essential Elements not that they're the same every year during the test ing but we kind of can look at Trends it's easier to see those trends at the elementary level where we have more students taking an assessment and in the Middle School level if you can go to the next one so this is kind of small um print up there but you can um kind of get a sense that we looked at the scores we looked at our areas of strength for this year and we looked at areas of growth and what I wanted to point out when I compare last year with this year some of the areas that we had as areas of growth last year that we sat down with the teachers we looked at their instruction and we added components to their instruction um such as um use of writing to communicate is now an area of strength another area that's at the elementary level in the Middle School determined critical elements from text is now a strength where last year was an area of growth and also representing and interpreting text is an area of strength where last year was an area of growth so we were really happy to see that all of that hard work that our teachers put in and analyzing the test results is paying out and how students are doing in followup assessments okay and so we are going to continue that work we're going to continue to analyze the areas of um strength but also growth um they are used for instruction they're used to develop IEP goals and the supervisors are working to incorporate a new program into um our programs that will address some of the dlm essential elements thank you Mr chrisell and congratulations I appreciate you next I'm gonna bring up Dr uh Joy Barn Johnson our uh Canal K12 um science supervisor and then Mr Bon if you just don't mind moving to the next slide um so there's a lot of um uh information out there about this assessment so this is only for grades five eight and 11 and um if you follow anything at the doe level they're actually talking about taking it off the qack process um because a lot of people question the the validity I don't know to say the validity but the depth of the assessment versus what actually can happen you know in general education classrooms um in the curriculum so for those of us not going along what does that so they might they are talking about taking the she's so excited about the science um they're they're thinking about taking it off the qac progress monitoring piece the science scores so they're not going to it won't have an impact yeah on the score for the C the cni portion of qac well I hope if they're not going to evaluate the district the kids don't have well and once again you know Dr BJ and I we we really value some of the assessment pieces on it but um how do we say we have a really low participation rate at the high school and so a lot of people don't value it and don't take it seriously and so when we start looking at the high school data and we have such a small subsection of students taking it it really doesn't help a district either for programming decisions and how we support kids um but I'm gonna let you know her kind of share some of the data here today so thank you Dr BJ for being here no thank you I think um it is it is actually quite interesting that this is a Statewide debate about the science test uh Ela and math are priorities everywhere all the time and so science however is in service to ELA and math and that's the bright spot for us to consider a future for how we might use Science assessment in general um but you can go to the next slide so the njsla science test is administered at three grade benchmarks fifth grade 8ighth grade and 11th grade our data are consistent um across our elementary schools and we are consistant doing better than other school districts in our state similar to the other um great reporting categories you have a percentage below proficient Nearing proficient at proficient and advanced proficient however because we have such a low participation rate this doesn't say very much for us um because again what's really wonderful is when we look at our AP scores for example the the end of the line is the what happens in 11th grade or what happens as students are pursuing College we're very high performing um and so it gets to be a little tricky however I'd like to advance to the next slide you can see over time that um we we don't change very much the percentage differences are relatively small um from one year to the next um across all grade bands this is our comparison at fifth grade you can from one school to the next there really is not significant change you can move to the next slide What's um here these are racial categories uh and this is a little disconcerting red as you might expect represents the danger zone and when we look across um our most vulnerable populations or populations that we know um are actually genius in other ways it's not being measured in that way and so that's what we have here the dark green on the far right represent the uh level of students uh or who participated in the program who are seen as advanced proficient and so you will see just comparative that those categories are relatively small in comparison however the yellow and the medium green if you will very little difference between those and those represent the students who are uh teetering between approaching proficient and proficient so there's not significant difference in those categories either you can advance the next slide so over time across all grades here are a different picture for racial categories not significant difference in the categories um you see in each of them how there really is only a few percentage points difference um uh between them you can advance to the next slide um and similarly this is the true uh picture for gender as well you can advance to the next slide this is the oh I can't see that sorry ESL special ed Jed there we go thank you I could see roast it I was like wait a minute um so those represent our special ed and um General Ed populations are special populations so you have special ed 504 accommodations which um is actually when you look at it I I'm it says they're getting the appropriate accommodation is what that says um because you see nearing proficient and proficient is is actually quite great most concerning is our multilingual student population um which underperforming the question is where do we go with that what do we do and how do we meet the challenge of making sure that all children regardless of their home language is ready to be evaluated in uh appropriate way we can go to the next slide um okay y you can go ahead another this is the same kind of picture and so where are our strengths I think we have an overwhelming success rate at the elementary level uh because students participate in fifth grade they're still willing to sit or parents are still willing to allow their children to sit which is an important thing to recognize because this is tied to numeracy and literacy so science is in service to that so most of the questions are actually questions that allow us to understand how students are reading um reading the world and writing the world and analyzing numbers in the world so it's lovely um but that's also tied to our growth area making sure that that warm and fuzzy feeling that we capture in fifth grade is one that we can continue in Middle School and high school is is the goal for Science and so um outside of the infrastructural supports that we have for strong science learning in our school Community whether it be pause at the at the middle school or whether it be our garden Educators at our elementary school that we Embrace science across the content areas um and sort of make sure that math and Ela are actually centered in our science classrooms prominent so that students feel prepared to answer questions um however they may come and so what are we doing um we are working to mine data put it in link it so that it's accessible use appropriate tools that will allow teachers and and parents to understand um how their children are processing scientific and Technical information we are working to reinstitute stem learning opportunities across the day and the scope of the week for families and for children um and we are working very very hard to increase PHS educator stakeholder buyin into science assessments and tools that will allow us to have common assessments um the goal for the Department is to actually embed math and English um standards in their lesson plan so that making science learning visible is making sure that math and or language um is visible across the curriculum and so finally I will say that one of our big goals is to audit our curriculum to make sure that there is uniform practice and practice across all of our buildings and a clear alignment between Elementary science learning and what we know students can accomplish um in the AP curricula that they pursue at the high school level thank you thank you Dr question for science Dr just one second yeah I have a quick question about science um my my impression is there's always a little bit of tension in Science Education between breadth and depth yeah and that it especially in recent years with the Next Generation science standards the emphasis have been has been more on depth and kind of processes yeah and less on kind of broad content knowledge um but the tests as I from what I've really briefly seen of them um do seem to assess content knowledge um you know it seems like maybe our our our students lack of of that uh is holding them back in some way so how do you how do you approach um bridging that kind of tension when I think we both want students to engage in you know really Hands-On learning in the classroom but we also want them to be able to read scientific texts and to build up um that knowledge over time absolutely so the current shift which is now almost 10 years old to embrace the 3D three-dimensional um science standards is based in phenomena and practices across um all of the disciplines of Science and so that three-dimensional approach to Science teaching is one that gets to deeper knowledge however the structure of our um emphasis on APS is more of a breath first and then depth that happens at the high school so for me making sure that every Elementary and Middle School child has an experience that allows them to go deeper has been what I want to focus on and so starting with phenomena for example that's a 3D ngss related idea the hard part about that is getting people to deemphasize the test so it's a little bit of a gap um and the tension has is real so all I can say is giving students more authentic learning experiences where they're doing the science learning and the science communication outside side of the classroom has been the way that I've tried to approach that um and ultimately that's it has effect a huge effect we see it at the high school where the struggle really exists at the middle school because it's that um strange place where we're combating folks setting themselves up for high school so that they can get to accelerated biology or making sure that they take the math class that they think is going to give them an advantage to get into SIM classes and it's trying to decouple that I don't I'm thinking about it a lot so that is quite frankly the struggle so I think I'll be happy and I think we'll all be happier when um the science test is njsla science test is not the the focus point but instead we can create portfolios for exam that will allow students to demonstrate a much more holistic understanding of science we have a meeting scheduled in October with the state um science supervisor and that's one of the things that we are continuously talking about throughout the county and the state as science Educators thank you drj all right so now I'm gonna welcome up Miss K Kesha Smith Carrington and Miss Sarah Moore thank you guys so much we're going to be talking about Ela scores uh Miss Smith Carrington is our supervisor of humanities in grades 6 to 12 and Sarah Moore is our supervisor of Elementary education um so Mr B if you mind swapping to the next slide um so the njsla is H for ELA is given in grades three through nine I'm gonna and I also want to reiterate that this is going to be posted on our district website tomorrow because we will be going kind of quickly through the there's a lot of data there's a lot of information but this will be posted on our website tomorrow as well so Mr B if you mind swapping it again um so what I really want to highlight uh the way link it helps us kind of do the craft the data this year they've changed how they reported out and what you want to look at is like the bottom row far right corner basically what we really want for njsla ELA there's five levels in ela and math and we want a level four or level five that means students are meeting or exceeding expectations and that you can see across all grades that we went up almost 6% this year in ela which is phenomenal news our Ela scores try Trend higher um in the district um but you know we always want to impr and you can see in some grades like third and six we really went higher um so uh if you go to the next slide we're going to compare you know we always talk about apples and oranges right one cohort of students is different than another cohort of students but I always like looking at the previous year compared to our current year and you can see that our third our current fourth graders right who took it last spring are 70% compared to that 61% from the year previous and those third graders in 2023 who were at 6 1% went up to 74% last spring so they they gained 133% which is a that that's beyond standard deviation I have my AP Stat teacher in the back of the room with Tiffany Brennan right that's that's really significant um so we have either remain the same like in grade six or made significant Improvement um across the grade level so just a lot to celebrate here and when I went back to historical data and the test has changed a little bit since the 2018 2019 school year we're either meeting or exceeding what we were in 2018 2019 so that's why when I started the presentation I feel like we're finally kind of shaking off um some of the covid we're still going to be dealing with learning loss and and having to do learning acceleration for years to come but really some really great news in a testament to two of the leaders here at the podium tonight and they're going to dive a little bit more deeply um in the data um as well so Sarah's going to do we have to compare all of our four elementary schools and she'll take us from there hi thank you so much for having me this evening it's always so nice to see everyone as Dr to mentioned there's a lot to celebrate um at the elementary level you know this is kind of my my third goar around with you guys my family always knows when this night is coming in the fall um and you know it's sort of been our discussion over the past three years that we really really want to help see students move from that not meeting into partially meeting and partially meeting into that approaching and really moving students over from The partially and the approaching into the meeting and exceeding and that's really happening with really good efficacy at all building levels and especially as a districtwide trend um so that's something that we've seen across third fourth and fifth grade um which is just really something to be celebrating um that's a testament to all of the hard work our teachers are doing in professional development and everyday learning and coaching cohorts and they are just going above and beyond to give a top tier education to our students um so this is our third grade I know the data is a little small but it gets posted to the website um but I promise all of the trends have moved in a really really positive direction up and getting students that meeting an exceeding category um same types of Trends here in fourth grade um third grade was sort of a a bigger jump overall um but as Dr to mentioned when you look at where they were as third graders to Fourth Graders this year um there has been significant improvements overall and I think something to really look at and celebrate is that exceeding expectation at the district level went from 30 to 40% which is a huge huge jump up and again a testament to building really strong systems for students um you know something that I'm really thankful for Dr Foster asked us to reflect earlier this morning on you know what does kindness sound like and feel like to us as administrators um and for me it's really celebrating successes of colleagues so thank you all for letting us have lawrencea as our supervisor of mtss um that work has already had such a giant imprint um I can tell you speaking to strong systems we've sat every day this week um by the end of the week on Friday we will sat with every single teacher K through five throughout the district and every single academic intervention team um with myself Lauren Jenna paluso who oversees Quest all of our academic interventionists to make sure that no child is missed because we don't see gains like this if we don't have eyes on every child so thank you for helping us build a system that supports everyone thank you um again similar Trends in fifth grade we're really starting to see that shift of students getting into that meeting and exceeding category something that's been really Monumental and helping those students in the partially not meeting bands has been high impact tutoring um we did receive a grant for that last year um which was really transformational in the educational opportunities that all children were allowed to have um that high impact tutoring allowed us to meet our most vulnerable Learners who really did fall into the not meeting and partially meeting categories and provide them with one to one or two to one um small group really heavy impactful tutoring session throughout the school year and that continues again this year in October so we just started looking at all the lists to start rostering um for children that might be eligible um and for many of those students those high impact tutoring opportunities would not happen abson this program at school so I really want to highlight that as a huge win for us here in Princeton okay kha did you want to highlight um the achievement for uh different subpopulations so I mean basically similar to um comments that Dr Barnes Johnson made some of our patterns are still holding true when it comes to certain populations that we need to continue to go back to the drawing board to find better ways to support um their growth but you can see that there is um an increase across uh the lower um populations when it comes to for example if you were to look at um the numbers that are at meeting which is the lighter green or exceeding you can see almost like a stair step in our populations that are typically the lowest which shows that we do have some growth there when it comes to where the numbers um traditionally could be and so again um there's always work to be done for us when it comes to these areas because we have to make sure you know as we celebrate the 70 80% or more of students who are meeting and exceeding that means that our Focus needs to go to designing at the margins and our margin at the lower end is populations of students who need us to continue to refine our skills so some of the things that have already been talked about when it comes to ntss and some strategies that will be um spoken about more uh specifically moving forward will be things that we continue to do in order to increase um the gains for these populations but we do have some good data when you look over the cohorts which we're able to do with data that actually came in about three days before we had to have this presentation tonight's meeting so we will be continuing to delve into those data to see how we have grown children and what successes um we can replicate for others can go to the next slide so then this is the year-to year so what I love to see except that it's one percentage Point lower for our black students but you can see across the subgroups you the staircase going up like Kesha was saying so there's still obviously Room to Grow but compared to last year we're hitting these different subgroup populations and then for ELA and for math if I I could be wrong here but I'm trying to remember this spe all the data I think we moved up every subgroup gender uh free and reduced lunch ESL you know almost every single subgroup was moved up as well which is that mtss work that we're talking about that it's not just the overall population that we want to grow it's every kid that we want to grow and so again you can look here and see you know the similar Trend we do have a pattern of typically having for ELA in particular our female students outperforming our male students by small percentages so whether or not that shifts from year to year um they're still both performing at at high levels and again similar to what um Dr T was just talking about um when you look at the cohort data is not what you have before you but the cohort data is actually following the same group of kids looking at their fourth year data when they're in fifth grade and seeing what the growth looks like and when you look at those in the last three years um at I can speak specifically to the Middle grades just because that'll be one way to look at these data but what you see are patterns so over three years for some of these subgroups we've seen continuous movement upward and for some for others it's been over two years so again we do have some patterns to celebrate but there's work to do you know so to build off of that you can look our gen ed students 87% met are exceeded expectations in ela but 40% of our students with IEPs right so we grew but it's still like they it that those dark bars should be closer together right so there a lot to celebrate so the one group that did go down was the 504 um students with 504s down to 73% but I really like seeing our free and reduced lunge our MLS and special ed growing um so that's really good news to share yeah and one thing that I can say about that you know there's always data data don't answer questions as much as they give you better questions to ask and so one of the questions that we are asking um at the secondary level in particular for many of our students with 504s is how can we better support executive function because we know that for many of those students there are um different um diagnoses like add or ADHD and a lot of things that are specific to us doing a better job as educators of supporting executive function especially when we're talking about the two transition years which we have at secondary so we have our sixth graders who are transitioning from four different schools to one and then we have our ninth graders who are transitioning from at least three schools when you consider we have two feeders and then of course as a very um uh very um I'm trying to find the right word because transient doesn't sound right in this moment but as a district that has a population of students that is coming and going consistently we do have a lot of different populations of children who are coming together in ninth grade in particular so when you think of the natural need for support when kids are making a transition just in general for executive function and then when you think about what's developmentally appropriate for kids at the older grade level you really need to continue to do the work that we're trying to do which is figuring out how do we do a more intentional job of supporting executive function okay so some areas of strength again I know it's tiny but they'll get posted so if you want to read them over in detail um some big ideas to look at we do have consistent performance above that state average again we always want to continue to grow and broaden our Horizons but we are consistently performing above um again building that strong infrastructure piece I can't highlight that enough we really do want to be a high performing system that supports High performing kids um that has been a very very large goal over the past few years um we do have really strong curricular infrastructure happening um this year in particular in relation to ELA we have waringham rolled out as a structured literacy block each day with students in kindergarten through third grade fourth and fifth we'll join that roll out next year which is very exciting um our Ela data metrics that we've kept in District have really exploded um which has been really really exciting um and even the anecdotal data I was sitting with third grade teachers today um and they were telling you how excited kids were to learn morphology and how much fun they were having with it and playing with words and unlocking vocabulary and higher level thinking skills and application to it so just really exciting things going on um we now added in an I ready Ela diagnostic um just to help us keep closer metrics that was an Adaptive Benchmark for students um that helped teachers plan more instructional groupings and really just had us keep a closer eye on students and we also added in the link at Ela um previous we really only had a Dr as a reading metric and it wasn't really giving us a full picture of who students were um it was just a quick snapshot that could have been kind of subjective um so now we have multiple metrics to really look at that Ela growth um specifically the link it that really does show us how students are progressing towards end of year standard Mastery so that's a really helpful snapshot in those higher level grades um we did shorten the drra this year um we went to a progress monitoring tool after forming a committee last spring um and based on teacher feedback and that has worked really well instead of taking five weeks of instructional time to Minister um it took two weeks which is really just a huge saving of getting back instructional time and not having our teachers feel extremely overburdened um which was good and great things to celebrate So reading levels are still being reported but we have a little bit of a fuller picture for students um some areas that we'd like to continue to grow in are really to continue to support those students with minimal and limited proficiencies again we met with every academic intervention team um over the course of this week and we pulled every student data piece that we had um and really delved into how we're supp supporting them who can get high impact tutoring who can benefit from tier two and tier three services um so really making sure that those students are captured and supported um is a huge goal to continue to progress towards again that work with u multi-tiered systems of support and making sure that all students are captured and that all services that we can provide we are providing for students um that high impact tutoring continuing into year two is really exciting for us to continue to support students with um and then just really redefining that njss process with our new supervisor we do have a new intervention coach with us which is very exciting um she comes with a wealth of knowledge um she's consulted at the college level she did work with the state department she pretty much did the whole early literacy website work with the state um and wrote the manual so she really is an expert and we're very lucky to have her um as an intervention coach this year um so lots of great things happening um as we move forward sort of some next steps on the horizon for us um as mentioned we do have Orton Gillingham happening at the elementary level we certified 10 teachers last year which means they are certified practitioners which is excellent for our students we have them across all of our buildings We are continuing with our second cohort um to make sure that more teachers are highly trained um so this really came from staff interest in getting that next level of certification and really making sure that they're bringing Fidelity to this program and the experts in their building so that second cohort is really exciting to have underway um our interventionist role again we're very very lucky to have her this year she's a wealth of knowledge and our teachers are already using her as a great go-to resource so thank you for letting us restructure coaching that way last year it really has been quite a benefit to supporting all students at the elementary level um we do have phenomenal instructional coaches um allowing them to departmentalize into Ela math has really provided more targeted cohorts to support students and teachers um so teachers um one per grade level come offline one day in a month and they go for a cohort it's about an hour and a half and they look at best practice how we can best support them the latest research on how to really reach students so we're very lucky to have our coaches leading that work and we're continuing that into this year um we are observing during that structured literacy block um for teachers in that K through three range just to make sure they have another touch point of support as we're getting used to this new curricular initiative um we did train all of our third grade and second grade teachers this past summer um we will go to fourth and fifth next summer as well and continue that roll out K through five um we have our full roll out happening in grades two and three this year for the first time so teachers are excited to get underway with that and uh the last two were really big ones um we thought we had a little more time for this one um but we didn't because of the dissolution for Teachers College reading and writing program um so we are going into an Ela program review starting in October we are taking teachers who are volunteering to kind of come offline about half a day over the next three months um and come to form a committee with us we're going to go through best practice appr program reviews and then look at what's on the market um as a core Ela component for reading and for writing um we thought we had a little more time but we are moving it up um a lot of those resources are just getting taken down quicker and quicker every day so we really want to make sure that we're providing staff with resources that fit their need there are also new Ela standards from the doe that we had to adopt they uh release them in late spring uh for a fall adoption so kudos to all of our teachers who did uh report card work with me over the summer it was a huge undertaking um and we're very very thankful for that work there yes so um I think you answered the question staff Buy in seems pretty strong no one they don't see this as punitive they they're really rolling with the program yeah our staff are phenomenal um I really do love to brag that we have the best students and teachers in the whole wide world and that's very true um staff buayan because we've offered such rigorous professional development I feel as if Staff feel fully supported um our coaches were able to touch base with them our once a month curricular check-ins with myself and coaches and principles I do feel like there's a lot of Staff support here we've had um some really great year seven eight teachers who started in our district this year and they've made multiple comments to me of wow I've never had this level of support anywhere I've worked before which is just really nice to hear so yeah staff buying is Big um I don't love to have to throw another curriculum review at staff we just did the math one it's a lot um but most of our teachers came to me asking for this um because they do know those resources are getting taken down more and more um something has to be done to sort of adjust and make sure they have a full curriculum use moving forward just because I know culture is like a cliche word but there's a culture now there there is a culture I mean there's always been a culture of Excellence um I think we're building more into a culture of support and reflection um to add into that Excellence yeah you explain what high imp I sure can so high impact tutoring runs on Cycles um teachers who are interested in being tutors apply um and they are matched with students that are shown to demonstrate the most need of a tutoring situation so they might be our students that need the most help and support um they're matched with a one-on-one tutor or there might be two to one um two students to one teacher and they work together for an hour after school about three days a week yeah yeah I want to congratulate you on this great progress and I also just wanted to mention that on maybe the second or third day of school my third grader came home and is like Mom what's a Greek Light root what what's a what's what's a Greek based light and I'm like I have no idea what a Greek based light is you mean like a corporation basically like you're speaking gibberish but then she started talking about pref prefixes and suffixes so we figured it out eventually it's photo that makes me she was like I got it right she was very happy I love that that makes me really really happy yes they're really impressive they're very about it I was in third grade classrooms today and they were very interested in their morphology work which was was great to see um so very eager Minds um which I think makes our teachers have that buy in piece even more when the students are excited for the learning I think that just helps elicit the Buy in and I've had to say I think this was a lot but looking at it a year from now or seeing students engage with it it's been worth it um so that's been really good to hear um and then again a Shameless shout out Kristen Whitmore is wonderful um you should all take the opportunity to watch the Princeton University mentorship program in action if they have any day um I don't usually cry I'm not a crier I did cry watching it last year when I was there for their launch meeting so please please please check that out it's a wonderful work of heart thank you okay in 612 again you know we know the patterns here in Princeton you know performing above the state level is not not where our concerns come in our concerns are making sure we're moving up our subgroups so one of the big strengths toward that end is the fact that you know cross three of our four grade levels at the secondary level secondary as you saw in the data we have six seven eight and nine who participate in the njsla um three of those we had continual um reduction of numbers of students in every single level and an increase in exceeding expectations so the pattern if you think about the traditional assessment idea of a bell curve the curve is Shifting all the way over to the right for three of the four grades and even in the grade where it hasn't gone all the way over to the right in that same fashion there's still movement over so when you consider strength the fact that we've been working toward alignment throughout the Middle grades is proving to be successful when you look at our cohort data as well as our year-to year data um when you look at um our benchmark assessments that we started implementing from six through high school grades last year for all of our general track classes meaning at the high school a classes for English did not have to take the assessment because of course our standards are from K through 12 and if you're in an AP course you're in a college level class so it's actually nonsensical to take an assessment when you're past that bank of Standards so uh the only grade levels that participate in our Benchmark assessment are those grades that are um align or those courses rather that are aligned to our standards at the state level and so the fact that we will now have two years of data in most of those grades to be able to make instructional decisions along the year where there were no common assessments at all previously is a strength for our program that we are continuing to develop this year as was stated earlier with link it um beginning to be implemented in the sixth grade so when you look at growth areas again you'll you'll hear the same statements from me until we figure out a way to do better better by these populations you know continuing to develop the numbers who are not meeting and exceeding expectations um continue to do the work for horizontal and vertical alignment one of the things we started doing when it says across the humanities um two years ago was starting to have conversations at the high school level so that it wasn't just English conversations and social studies conversations but because literacy is that connector as Dr Bron Johnson said earlier across all of our content areas we're all develop in disciplinary literacy so really starting to do that work with more intention and having teachers come together talking about strategies that are working successfully with the same students because if I'm in English n or English one rather and I'm in us one these are the same kids and so really thinking intentionally about how we support the learning in that way so our kids can generalize and these data points that we are seeing are providing some evidence that what we're doing is having outc um when you look at that idea of really working toward intentional transfer that's been key for us at the secondary level you can move to the next slide thank you so when it comes through to our you know con support um we're going to continue to have that professional learning that we've been having over the past three years in particular at the high school level and seven and eight um but including six um for seven years to uh do some work for culturally sustaining literacy practices so that way we are actually being responsive to who are the Learners in our classrooms making sure that we are um continuing to do work to increase student engagement and one of the exciting things um last year and even the beginning of this year is having conversations with different staff across the year really targeted on whether or not students are driving the learning and so really working toward making sure we are empowering our students I'm looking at um increasing data informed lesson design and so along that same line of Engagement really trying to make sure that we are using these data that we now have to really home in on what students need us to do in order to meet the needs that the data identify and in order to help them continue to grow in the areas that the data show they're doing well in um continuing to grow use of inclusive texts throughout that range last year was very exciting at the middle school in particular because um of the large um funding allocation that we were able to have and um hopefully continuing to do that work so that the students have books in their hand that they want to read and that they can also both see themselves in as mirrors but also they can see and understand others as Windows um looking at the Ela lab for tier 2 support at the middle school and so now there's a restructuring there where there used to be a um weekly time twice a week for everyone to experience some form of um support depending on what their needs were now a more targeted program and um continuing to use uh Reading Plus which was a tool that we brought in several years ago for those specific students as well as students who are in some of our um support settings for um classifications that they have related to their IEPs and then looking at ways that we can continue to have professional collaboration across those continent areas as I said earlier so that we are actually partnering together and and really doing the work of supporting our Learners and growing in a more effective and efficient way thank you ke and Sarah you're gonna stay up here and Tiffany is going to join us for math we are going to skim through some of the elementary comparison slides but once again to save time because we have people here for public comment and we want to honor their time and it is a long presentation there's a lot to celebrate but we want to honor the time um so basically uh mathematics for njsla um is in grades three through eight as well as algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry so we can go to the next slide and just like Ela I'm going to draw your eye to the last row far right uh column and so overall you can see that we want up 10% um in mathematics which is fantastic um a lot of this is attributed to two things a clear transparent math placement process which we'll get into When Tiffany hops on um and as well as clarification from the state about who takes math Assessments in high school so only our freshman took math Assessments in high school they're not taking geometry and Algebra 2 or Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 and geometry so that's why you see we did have a question of you know how do we go from 50-some percent of an Algebra 2 meaning interceding to 100% because only our seventh 8th and nth grade students took Algebra 2 so that's why we you know have such a boost but I think those are two levers that needed to be pulled and I'm happy that we pulled them but we'll go and dive into the data a little bit more um through here so you can see the comparison um for the most part except for um grade six which was an insignificant decrease um we increased or stayed um the same um the other part and I'll let Tiffany jump in here you know Tiff can you talk about why grade seven went up so much um so in the last year two years we've really changed the middle school math placement process um for instance last in this past school year there were two classes in eth grade of Algebra 2 students and the year before that there were eight um coincidentally maybe not coincidentally that same year those Algebra 2 scores were quite low and last year when we have kids that were that maybe belong there a little bit more now we can see 100% past um so we're not trying to gatekeep kids but we want to make sure that kids are appropriately challenged not in over their heads because we are finding that kids that take algebra one before they're ready often struggle in Algebra 2 and often struggle in geometry and pre-cal and Cal and all the way forward and through their science classes as well so we're really trying to look at multiple measures to put kids in the right places and so the number of kids that are tested changed a lot from 2 2 23 to 23 24 um for instance um Algebra 1 you can see we had 100% of sixth graders that's only less than 10 kids that was similar the year before um but in seventh grade there were 78 students that took Algebra 1 this year whereas last year there were upwards of somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 um and so you can see our we went from 47% as an average should our average is 57% because we are spending more time on those pre-algebraic skills we're actually giving kids time to learn the seventh and eighth grade skills and so therefore their Algebra 1 is better and also their Algebra 2 is better yes I'm a little confused aren't there some kids who take Algebra 2 in 10th Grade yes but the state requirement is only testing once at the high school level and then new or sorry I get the federal and the New Jersey want requirements different um we have to test in nth grade so there are many students that take it only tested up to nth grade no no we apparently inadvertently tested extra kids so that was one of the things that we cleaned up with processes and procedures is making sure that we're not every year you're being pulled you know for assessments now that does negate you know well how are our sophomores doing an algebra too on njsa or how maybe our juniors are seniors but then we do have link it and that can help us you know be a so yes the students who are taking Algebra 2 in seventh grade are extremely accelerated eth grade that's their second High School course that they're taking or in ninth grade they're a higher level so yeah we would want a 100% of those students to meet just like in sixth and seventh grade for algebra one that should if they're taking algebra one in sixth or seventh grade 100% should be meeting or exceeding expectations where we really want to look is keeping that up there but our eighth and ninth grade students so students who take algebra on in nth grade I believe we went through every kid they were all not PPS students in eth grade correct so they came they were transfers in movement who had didn't have an opportunity to take algebra on in middle school or they weren't ready to quite take it yet um so you know what kind of supports which we'll get to are put in place to help them um because 9% you know if it's 36 kids that's not I don't care 9% is 9% we want a much higher number there for those students um but yes Algebra 2 we only would test in ninth grade at the high school for njsla and the same thing think for with geometry um you know our eighth grade uh this is the first year geometry uh was assessed at the middle school level um 45 kids yes um so I would like to see this year you know in comparison with math placement tweaks because if a student is taking geometry in eth grade it should be 100% meeting or exceeding expectations so it's strengthening our sixth and seventh grade program our Algebra 1 program so that they have those Stepping Stones to be successful in geometry so in algebra one is the 57% average a straight average or a weighted average oh that's a great average that's that's every single kid straight average it's not weighted yep yeah because we we have far fewer kids taking it as ninth graders and well the fewest take it as sixth graders the next fewest is ninth grade um our bulk of our kids take Algebra 1 as eighth graders and remember that Algebra 1 is a ninth grader level course so and the state just gives us the 57 they don't say wow look how great you're doing before you know they just average anyone who's taking an out end course yes y okay you want to go to the next slide Mr Bolton thank you okay so these are the slides we're going to just go quickly through and then Sarah will really highlight the the good things are happening yeah good things are I love it happen you can read in more detail when it is not 9:15 you can keep going we'll go to like our our plan and moving oh so just real quick can you just go back one slide I do want to highlight this once again look every um subgroup in race and ethnicity moved up um so still you know not opportunity disparity here but once again we are trending in the right direction which is great you just want to skip ahead a little bit more um for female and male we moved up both genders as well compared to last year and then the next one um so this is our distri distribution of for 504 for lunch L's but if you go to the next slide I think once again um so free and reduce lunch stayed static but every other group went up um so this is once again like this is the step when we talk about uh mtss those multi-tiered systems of support like this is what we want to keep emphasizing with teachers and our students okay then I'll let Sarah now talk I promise I'm not trying to trick you it really does look good I just know it's late at night um some areas of strength again that consistent performance um above State averages in the meeting and exceeding specifically we are certainly continuing to move children over into those categories and again really providing targeted support through tiered intervention and high impact tutoring for the students on the other end that do need that support to kind of move over um really strong curricular components happening we did a whole math program review last year we had Pilots going on we had a math coach put into place thank you for your support and all of those things um they've really led to robust math maatic programming um so some things that we have ready math as a diagnostic we also have I ready um why do we have those two pieces I ready is adaptive so it can show students above grade level so one little friend we discussed this week is a three solid years above grade level so we had to really strategically planned for what we were going to do with him uh in nap um and then looking at the linkit data that is really end of the year standard Mastery and a good predictor of how we'll do on standardized testing we have items like EXL ready diagn itic um leads to Pathways where students can practice at their very specific more granular level of where they really need reinforcement in mathematics We are continuing our second year of professional development with Jennifer LMP around math Workshop so that our teachers feel ready to differentiate for our students um and then our math instructional coach again huge shout out um his name is Dan harder He is wonderful he is actually a Princeton grad um so he is homegrown here well kind of he's from cranberry um but homegrown and went to Princeton High School so shout out yes shout out for both um and he is just wonderful he loves this District so much um and our teachers are really so thankful to have him um I have teachers reach out to me every day telling me how thankful they are for Mary Ellen wallow who is our Ela coach and for Dan harder who is our math coach they really are in the trenches every day making sure that teachers feel supported um if you were to pull elementary teachers not all of them feel the most confident about math instruction especially those higher levels they do need support structures um and Dan is super approachable just in those classrooms continually he knows all the children by name we are very very lucky some continued areas of growth um we really want to continue that differentiated option we were very lucky to get um some really great Grant funds last year to help build up um a math resource library center in our book rooms for teachers um they have math games so something like Lobby's Pizza Kitchen for fraction awareness with students to help with that differentiated structure when students are in rotations um so that teachers are able to do those deeper lessons with students that may need to be extended beyond the curriculum or go deeper into the curriculum and be further supportive um we have things like versatiles exemplars which are great for our students that are high achieving because they're really abstract reasoning and bring in language problems for students so again really nice things being added to our repertoire of math resources for teachers I'm continuing to refine that mtss process on both sides of the house we really do want to make sure that our math awareness um is happening that we are really catching those students that would benefit our um academic intervention teachers are trained um in uh several things um this past summer a lot of them were sent to training on um multisensory maap uh people came as far as Australia to go to that training it is a world renowned training um our staff found it extremely extremely beneficial um so those working with our most atrisk students for math um are highly highly trained to do so okay and then where are we going um continued professional development just so our teachers feel really comfortable and confident we do have content ental Math League for fourth and fifth grade um it is a highlight for students they get a certificate if they are a consistent like high scorer they get a little medal um we do awards for them in the spring um it's a really great thing to celebrate um and again that's really self-paced that is for students that are truly truly interested in doing math outside of school and then they come in and take these really intricate tests that have to do with high aptitude math application um so those kids are are really really extended Learners who are you know self-driven in that Pursuit uh math Workshop implementation again to continue that differentiated support to help Learners across the Continuum additional resources added to that lending library um and something that we really want to celebrate and highlight um for our DLI program we want to provide more support for those teachers when it comes to math um that's constantly a question because math is taught in Spanish um so there is an extra block of time built into their schedule this year um for Math and English reinforcement um our math coach Jan hardaker did work all summer putting together a math resource library for those teachers to help with that language brid bridging um and to make sure that those skills were solid in both English and in Spanish um which is going to help us scratch the surface that when we have students that encounter a little difficulty is it a language acquisition piece or is it really a mathematical practice piece um so we're really excited to sort of see that through this year so it's a new exciting opportunity and then uh the last thing having that double Focus block really is so helpful um for teachers to be able to pull for additional math groups um and to really dig deeper with students um that just benefit from that small group time with teachers so that's working out really well as well um at the six to 12 level we are consist still consistently performing above State levels meeting and exceeding expectations um we have increased our curricular infrastructure big time especially at the middle school but at the high school as well um last year we started math lab in six grade 6 to8 and that was for all students who were not yet meeting expectations on the njsla and we saw huge improvements and that was with a program we kind of threw together in August of last year um we saw huge improvements especially at the sixth and seventh grade levels in how well kids did in their math classes but also on the njsla itself this year we really are intentional with the help of Lauren Samra um our supervisor of mtss we are being much more intentional with how we're structuring the class um last year it was a suggestion and nobody really took that suggestion very well this year it's more of a this is how it's going to go um and so we also are using I ready 612 I you know we we needed to get some Buy in from teachers and from students and we did get that and with a just some extra help time kids did really well so now that we're providing more structure um for teachers and more resources for teachers um and students we expect even better results um we are in uh in continuing our District benchmarks in grades 6 to 12 of we worked on some common assessments throughout the courses so that if you are taking geometry regardless of who your teacher is your test your big activities should look similar we know that kids and teacher and parents sorry are always GNA say you know teacher a is harder than teacher B we just don't want them to be right right we know they're always going to say it we don't want them to be right um and so we've worked a lot on common assessments and once we have that assessment it kind of forms the activities that lead up to those assessments um and we've worked a lot on standards progression alignment um in the past it was just kind of like well here's our textbook we're going to start on page one and go to the last page in order but those textbooks are written for you to sell as many books as they can to the biggest audience as possible not necessarily for our students or students generally um in New Jersey we you know we have a lot of work to do though because not all of our students are meeting or exceeding expectations so we're working um at the middle school and the high school level really um to increase that comprehension um we have added um this year a math lab class at the high school level for students who haven't yet passed NJ GPA know it's not njla related but it's a similar structure to what we're doing at the middle school so we can provide time for students at school um to meet one of those graduation requirements um we're really working to T you know if kids are struggling with um some of the skills in algebra is it the algebra or is it the adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers or the fractions that are really holding them up and it tends to be the fractions that gets everybody not necessarily the algebra it's the fractions they struggled before that so it's making it hard to access that algebra um and we're working on providing more and more time for teachers vertically and horizontally so with their people teaching the same courses and the course before and after them um to do some better and more thorough planning and in creating a progression and actually using our data better we're trying to work on the buyin from students and teachers um you know these benchmarks are some sometime kids just see them as like another let me just click the button and get through it and that doesn't unfortunately um give us all the data and we can't use it it's not as useful as we would hope it to be but some of that starts with buying from the teachers as well and so at our next steps on the next slide um we're implementing suggestions from our math program review that happened well kind of ended wound up or finished up last year um with instructional resources standards alignment there were well sort of new math standards that were supposed to be implemented in September so we rewrote a lot of curriculum this morning this summer and then in August they said oh you can wait a year um so the good news is we're kind of ahead of the game in most classes and the ones that we didn't quite get to yet intentionally we're not we're we're okay um we're in with our new schedules at both the middle school and the high school both everybody has more math instructional time which should be great um we are using Department time to map prior grade level standards and skills at current curriculum and we talked about that vertical um articulation as well and looking at data revised curriculum I mentioned already we're focusing on Research based best practices and pedagogy um increas use of math workshop model which Sarah mentioned as well um and using those mtss strategies throughout all math classrooms I have to say I've done eight observations already this year and I've seen like a marked difference in some of the instructional strategies that teachers used just from a year ago so I'm happy with that yeah and I will take a moment to brag uh Miss Brennan is a wonderful partner in that fifth to sixth grade transition yeah we lock step yes we're in lock step I feel like the bell of the ball come mid June when all the math placement EML start coming in um and I just want to thank Bron for being a wonderful partner that process is very very tight um I feel really good about our processes F to six and I just want to give kudos I what I kept when we were poring on this presentation which is you know 60 slides so thank you once again for sitting through this with us the word that is momentum I think we have very positive momentum and a quote that I came across earlier today and I actually share with Dr Foster is like if you put the paraphrasing with the right people in the right positions just get out of their way and I think we have some some really good key people in the right positions doing amazing work from the admin team down to the teachers you know and the support positions and I just have to do a plug to the board because we added a quest teacher we added an mtss supervisor we have a math coach now we have better curriculum resources we paid for a program review like the money and the resources is being allocated and now you're seeing the fruition of that so I really appreciate the support because I know Princeton is a costly place to live and taxes are high but I think the investment is paying off um so thank you for investing in our curriculum and instructional programming because this is the good news that we want to celebrate for our kids so thank you thank you thank you awesome thank you thanks for joining us thank you Dr to appreciate it Dr Foster is there anything else oh there is actually just one more slide presentation it'll be short um no I just want to highlight the calendar it's a very Small Change very very small uh we're just shifting um the additional CP um uh conference date uh to another you know and I we've highlighted it in Blue on the calendar so ple oh there it is okay um it's now on Friday the 22nd that means all other schools uh will uh have a a regular schedule but CP has an additional day of conferences because because of the Dual language programs and you know the English and the Spanish partners and the amount of conferences so that's the only change I promise and and we did that because the teachers requested it yeah the staff suggested and I thought that was a better idea yeah thank you so much thank you all right and now you're you're complete for tonight your report that's it two hours later um no but thank you there's a lot going on the district we appreciate you know your leadership Dr two and Dr Foster and great things are happening for kids uh so thank you appreciate it all right now we're going to move on to public comment um I apologize we usually try to get public comment in uh an hour not later than an hour um I wasn't expecting a 60 page slide but I know we do this every year and I I I don't remember um so I apologize for those people who have been waiting to speak um so first up is Hazel uh Fitzgerald you could just come up say the street you live on the town and if you could please keep your comments to three minutes we'd appreciate it hi I'm Hazel Fitzgerald I live on South Harrison Street um I'm here to share my experience as a tutor in our recent tutoring program at the middle school um I'd like to highlight the importance of such initiatives in our education system um over the summer I joined the tutoring program by way of an email my sixth grade math teacher Mr Lee the program provided me with an opportunity to use my math skills and allowed me to practice my Spanish as the twoes were primarily Spanish speaking when I arrived on the first day I was able to meet the kids I was working with and began teaching them immediately among the students there was a huge variety of skill experience and personality I got to know my tutes and I really enjoyed working with them they're both extremely kind hardworking students and I'm so glad I was able to teach them tutoring programs play a crucial role in supporting students academic growth as a tutor I had the opportunity to work closely with students providing personalized attention and guidance particularly for those students for whom English is a new language this one-on-one interaction allows for a deeper understanding of each students's unique learning needs and challenges in my role I witness firsthand how dedicated support can make a significant difference in a students academic Journey tutoring not only helps reinforce classroom learning but also builds confidence and fosters a love for learning in students in the end I think that the program helped them a lot and they were both in the top five most improved when the final testing day came an unintended consequence of the program was that I gained valuable experience learned a lot about the different methods of conveying the concepts and different learning and teaching styles through the program we established an Intercultural and communal Bond it was an amazing opportunity that I hope to do each year and I love to greet the kids I worked with in the hallway and ask them I hope that I'll see them again in the program next year thank you for your consideration thank you next up is RA hi there my name is RA Elish lipets I live on Shady Brook Lane um so I've been also a part of the tutoring program it's been running for about four years I've been part of it for three and I know this is a weird request could you guys like hide the timer so I don't see it is that a weird request no Matt you can turn it off okay okay yeah I just don't want to see it like if it's there it's all good turn it off so I'm here to speak on behalf of the tutoring program because this tutor improving has been lovely I've learned my like it's improved my Spanish skills it has like improved my teaching skills and I want to be a teacher so this has been very growth for me it's also it really helps the kids like I've been looking at these kids that progress like so much in the time that we're with them and like we have like we've done exams too that actually prove that like mathematically but it's last year this program had 12 sessions and this year it had nine due to budget cuts and it is a really important program because especially this focus is on Spanish speaking students and we have seen a bunch of Statistics that support that these are some of the groups that need the most assistance and this summer program where kids go like you know two hours a day to like learn math consistently with volunteer tutors is really helpful and the program doesn't cost that much money to run I don't know the specific numbers I'm not allowed to but we have of course you are you just have to ask Mr Balden I'll ask afterwards so um besides teacher security guard and then we also have um free Lun free dinner provided which is a great promoter of equity because it means that um parents it's not a blockage for them to send their kids this program in fact it encourages them which is exactly what we want like especially when we're talking about like reduced lunch this is exactly what we need to support these kids and besides that all the worksheets made by Mr Lee or by the us tutes or tutors rather and everything else is like we're volunteer tutors we're using School space it's a really well-run program and it doesn't cost that much to run and I think especially in the light of the data that I was seeing it would do us so much good to run it more not less especially because like as someone who you know benefits from our AP programs and from all the help that kids that are already on the excel track are receiving I think it makes a lot of sense to invest not just in us but in all the kids that are struggling and below the average of what they should be at and it's like it's not because these kids are dumb they're so smart it's just some of them didn't ever go to school in time to learn how to use a calculator some of them don't know how to put fractions into calculators and we're teaching them this and there's extreme growth the average growth for students on the exams that we took that we gave them was 300% right so average like 36% on average pre-test 65 average 65% post test and like there's some kids that went from 3% to 51% you know 10% to 52% there's this kid that like I was like by the end I was teaching how to use like square roots and cube roots like there's huge growth that's going on here and I think we definitely should keep promoting that and expanding this program to help more people thank you thank you [Applause] Dr two could you just briefly um briefly explain the the funding for that program and what happened sure so um that I think tiger Camp right it is what it's called um so that's funded out of title one so every year Federal money it's Federal money and it changes you know accordingly and I think the philosophy for the past few years across the district has been tried to put more resources during the school year so that we can capture more kids so I think it wasn't intentional you know to it was sort of how do we spread it out and we also um she hasn't started yet but we also add an add ESL teacher um to the Middle School this year to support during the school year so that's something you know I can bring back to our um supervisor of ESL Miss Russell Mr Burr and Lawrence Mar who helps navigate those special projects to kind of see um but we're sort I don't want to say at the mercy of federal funding but that's why you know things are allocated the way they're allocated and we capture more kids when the school Year's back in session but it's fantastic to hear that data so maybe they just need to kind of review that data again um with Mr Lee thank you Dr to thank you and thank you ra and uh Hazel for enduring uh we appreciate it to make your comments not that we were and for sharing your experiences we really love hearing from students and we appreciate you being here um so next up is uh Abigail hi my name is Abby kbach and I live on Orchard Circle um I have two young children at Community Park this evening um I come before you on behalf of um multiple mothers um in the district as well um and we want to express our concerns over the board's decision to end the formal contract with high Toops to provide the state mandated diversity equity and inclusion curriculum while we applaud the work and effort already exerted to develop this curriculum in house we believe that the end result of bringing this curriculum in house will make the teachings less effective and more susceptible to uneven implementation of the lessons for three reasons first the results of the students climate survey presented at the June 11th meeting um did not support the idea that Pathways to racial literacy can effectively be taught in-house by teachers who have clearly not earned our students trust to discuss these sensitive topics currently in our score schools according to the survey our lgbtq students are subject to slurs and microaggressions our transgender students are often being misgendered often do not feel welcome in school and often do not have adults they trust to go to no wonder these kids are less likely to want to go to school than their peers and have higher suicide rates this all points to a very troubling environment um in our schools and needs to be addressed through extension professional development for all adults in the school these data these data do not suggest that Pathways to racial literacy can effectively be taught inous by teachers who have not yet created an inclusive environment for our students students second High Toops is an established organization that has developed effective curricula that are taught by Educators that our students trust their educators are members or strong allies of the lgbtq community they are professionals with deep and extensive knowledge of the subject matter of diversity equity and inclusion just like you would ask a middle school science teacher to sh teach um Shakespeare we shouldn't be asking um teachers to be um teaching outside theirs subject area third not renewing the high Toops contract sends a message while perhaps not intended that a vocal minority of adults in our community many of whom did not send their children to Princeton medal School were able to remove a vital resource from our most vulnerable students and their peers I appreciate the administrators and Board of Ed members who' have tried to reassure me that not renewing the high tops contract was in no way related to the project verest video last year or the strong push back against high tops that a vocal minority of our I don't even want to say community members because they're speaking out against our community made over many months including protests seeing high tops in racial literacy in front of our middle and high schools however it is hard to rectify the district stating that they want to strengthen racial literacy and lgbtq inclusion with their severing a contract with the community organization providing such education we can and should be doing better to support our diverse student body so we applaud you to for striving to create a more inclusive culture in our schools starting with professional development of all teachers and staff and urge you to utilize expert educational resources that are already trusted by our students and reject any proposals to move this curriculum online thank you for your service this is signed in support of can I just say the names yeah yeah because that's really annoying no offense Laura okay wait hold on we're gonna give you okay all right okay it's signed in support of Laura Coy Ashley bishof Casey wigam Hannah Newman Marian alberty Melissa Greenberg um Holly myself and several others thank you very much for your time tonight thank you thanks um meal Mr timer ready hi I'm Nina Peele I live on Dempsey Avenue in Princeton um I also want to express my dismay that the district has canceled the Hops curriculum um this decision doesn't seem to be a decision that was made focused on Equity or inclusion the topics covered by this curriculum are important and the teaching of them especially at this moment is urgent um teaching of this material seems to have been pushed on to teachers and while I'm sure they will do their best the topics are pretty sensitive and teachers knowledge and of the subject matter and best practices in its delivery likely vary certainly I doubt that individual teachers can match the Decades of experience of high toop in developing curricular in these subject areas I um would ask the district to provide Clarity on why the hightops contract was cancelled and to um give um transparency in their plans moving forward Beyond this school year um and to cender equity and inclusion in making those decisions um I also ask that the district Implement appropriate assessments to ensure that the um moving of the of the teaching of this information inhouse is meaning the appropriate standards that are mandated by the state now and to have a plan in place for if if it's not meeting these standards in the way that it should thank you thank you um so I'll just say that um the decision uh had nothing to do with um you know people who didn't support the teaching of this curriculum in our schools the teaching of the curriculum will continue um it's under Dr 2's uh stewardship and uh we trust Dr two um to ensure that the standards are being met we have I have no doubt the standards are being met will continue to be met and we believe that our teachers are are the best qualified to um teach the subject matter to our students the decision was made um with the best interest of students at the Forefront and um we're committed to ensuring that the content is taught in the schools not online uh not at home you know in school by people who are qualified uh to teach it and also know how to work with middle school children so we appreciate um you're bringing your concerns to us but we're we're committed to um we're we're committed to diversity Equity inclusion for everyone so thank you is there anyone else for public comment there's only three people left now well four four who haven't spoken no we'll get you next time all right so um it's very late we're going to move uh quickly uh stop me if you need something um so we have I harassment imation bullying i1 harassment imation bullying and I2 our self School our school self assessment anti-bullying um Bill of Rights then we're going to move on to our uh board committee reports and we are going to start with um Debbie uh for the equity report yes so the equity committee met on September 9th and Miss Burge the principal at the high school shared PHS attendance data um feeling well um at PHS has increased but we still have a lot of work to do uh there's communication barriers there's emotional barriers cultural barriers um some of this Dr Foster talked about but I'll just add to to things they're doing they're adding different supports including um kind of team-based support which would be an assistant principal nurses tier one and tier two and a social worker and working with students to see you know what it is they need and why they aren't coming um food insecurity is a big problem that we have and so we're working on that to focus on these students our tiger Cafe is open at 7:45 to 8:30 in the morning um there's snacks with the nurses there's snacks with some staff that students couldn't go to um we will be doing an the high school will be doing another survey in December 2024 and have some more open-ended questions so that students can kind of share more about what's going on but we know this is a big issue because we talked about twice tonight and we know these are students that need you know more support from us our next meeting is November 11th and at 6m in this room thank you thank you Debbie uh next up is long-term planning with Beth Barrett y y hi Beth welcome back oh thank you good to be back um the committee met on September 19th and discussed the status of the preliminary project plans currently under review by the department of Ed um the department of Ed has exchanged minor clarifying comments with the Architects the PEC letters which will specify how much State support will be available for each of the projects uh are expected in the next few weeks a ballot question or questions would need to be approved at latest at the November 19th board meeting for a January 28th 2025 referendum portions of the projects such as the CP parking have been submitted separately to the doe giving the board flexibility to choose to place less than all of the projects on a referendum ballot without having to go back for additional State approvals legal council will advise the committee on the options for splitting a question at the next meeting so that a recommendation can be made to the full board the administration is actively seeking a PSG subsidy for the 16.4 million HVAC uh projects proposed to replace the end of life systems at PHS it's very we were very excited to hear that the psng could possibly pay for up to 75% of this cost uh the district should know whether this funding is available early next year possibly before the referendum vote should approval come after a successful vote These funds would be returned to taxpayers through an early Bond repayment so the commit so that's 16.4 of the total wow of the of the 17 of the 80 no no no but how much is the hbac it's 16.4 wow so 75% of that potentially yeah okay 12 75% we we thought that was an exciting thing to share um we also discussed communication and how best to provide the public with information in the weeks ahead and we're working hard on that with the administration uh the next meeting is October 17th and will be closed as a postcript um the Princeton planning board conducted a courtesy review of the preliminary project plans at a meeting on September 19th and will be submitting comments to the doe um the doe then takes those into consideration and and then when it it comes back to us we that's all Incorporated um as a the district Architects explained to the planning board that certain elements of the plans particularly those that do not relate to classro spaces which are the focus of the doe review um such as parking and Landscaping have been included as placeholders and remain subject to further refinement with public input as efforts have been made to minimize expense prior to a successful referendum we don't want to spend any money we don't have to um to before we're sure that they will pass um District leadership ship and Architects attended the meeting and will take planning board comments into consideration as plans continue to evolve thanks Beth and um we we do have we also have a page on the website for the referendum as well right yes it's uh on the website uh on the top District on the front page of the website um you can find information on the projects and we continue to populate with more information as we have time to develop that we were focused on the summer projects first and then back to school and now we'll focus on that information okay and so um your meeting with um the attorney to discuss possibly so there's a a big pot $85 million 85 88 million of work that has to be done and so there's options of putting that out to the community we could put it all out as one question right right or we could um split it up and you're going to talk with the attorney to discuss how that's going to be split you can do one question you can do two questions you can do three questions they can relate to each other in different ways um so we're going to find out what the options are and then we'll make some recommendations to the board yeah the the trick with the psng is that the question will be written and printed on the ballot before we have the answer um to that so we can't go with a lower number we have to be at whatever that 85 Plus number is and talking about that will be interesting in the months to come yeah that'll be very interesting especially since we won't know right but people will know though interesting so people might know when it's time to vote they might might be they might be voting before right and even if we got the grant we couldn't tell them how to vote anyway no so we never can tell them how to vote no yeah right but we can inform them yes about the Grant and the impact it's yes because effectively if you got additional monies from psng subsequent to your uh issuing of the bond you would pay a portion of the bond down and so the per household cost would come down oh right interesting you'd have less to pay back it'd be gone and can I just ask a hypothetical question so if we put that on the referendum and it doesn't pass it doesn't matter if pscg gives us the money right we have no I no right but I'm saying if let's say we put the that on the referendum it doesn't pass in the meantime so the voters aren't voting necessarily on whether to do the project they're voting on the funding is that right correct yeah correct so yes yes and so you could choose to do that project separately if you had funding in the operating budget or P gave us the money well but you'd still need $4 million of school funds if it's a $16 million project and if it didn't pass you could um go back a second time um modify but you may not have the psng funding at that point oh wow this is very complicated very EXC but we were happy to hear that that was an option um even a possibility that's great so you'll have a recommendation for us at the October meeting which was October 29th is that right uh possibly October 9th or November I think it's going be November yeah okay all right we have to get time the PE letters back from the state right okay thank you and the PE letters are I know they're the financing letters but can you what do they stand for for preliminary eligible cost letters so they're the letters they literally look at the spaces we're proposing and they look at the enrollments and they say is there adequate appropriate space for the children which is why they don't look so much at the parking lots and the landscaping and those letters um will say What proportion the state will be funding yeah they give us back the uh state that e p uh percentage okay so we have exciting things coming up um all right thank you okay um my spot operations oh operations was Susan caner hi Susan hi um the favorite committee report every time uh we met on September 11th at 8 A.M it's open to the public we had a very long and detailed meeting because uh we got an update on all the summer projects that really uh We've outlined some of them I'll mention some of the bigger ones but you know more projects than have ever been done uh based upon our last referendum that'll totally you know help the district for decades to come so some of those include finishing uh roofs at JP and Riverside HVAC replacement at three elementary schools um the the high school cafeteria which is uh one of our favorites um hopefully the kid you know students are really enjoying the cafeteria with our new Food Services um we're doing safety measures like door Replacements in the high school and the middle school a PHS security vestibule project uh 10 gig upgrades at all the schools uh pool lighting uh security cameras uh so those were just some of the projects that we received detail report on um either that they were complete or near completion and we also discuss future uh projects which will be the playgrounds at 5 um five of our schools the Four elementary schools and the Middle School some of that work will be started in the fall and will continue through next summer uh we have some uh detention Basin work at the high school and that we're scoping out the PHS track and field which will be um next uh refurbished next uh summer uh we also as we always do discuss sustainability and we received updates from sustainable Princeton Jenny lmer um on the on um Energy Efficiency awareness campaign so the schools and the students and teachers can help us save energy um and how she's how she's working with the district to do an energy analysis uh we always discuss if we're able to finally get a grant for electric buses that's always like a dream of ours um and then uh Christa who has been working on a web page so that we can do outre Outreach and share this work um with the community our next meeting will be October 16th at 8:00 a.m. and we welcome everyone to zoom in and join us they're always a lot of fun guys said one note it wasn't just the number of projects but the number of contractors who are here over the summer uh about uh 10 of them and a lot of credit goes to Matt to Dave Harding and to our construction managers at New Roads who managed to coordinate all of it and um we had a normal opening of school some projects are still being done but the the staff and the team really deserves High Praise thank you [Applause] Matt it's not it's not me it's a lot of people involved so yeah but you're over seeing it we appreciate it and we're still going still ongoing so we're trying to wrap things up we appreciate it and it does it looks great yeah um next up is Personnel Mara uh the Personnel committee met on September 19th we discussed a new job description for the director of student services which we're going to be voting on tonight we discussed the timeline that'll be used for interviewing candidates for the director of uh student services we reviewed a draft policy for the extended leave of absence we reviewed special education AIDS in all our schools and we dis we discuss a Pianist to support the pns coral classes and we're going to be voting on that tonight as well we discussed the um a position stifen of a nurse coordinator we're going to vote on that also tonight and other Personnel issues and we're closed thank you thank you um next up is py with Beth it's me again hi hi um we met policy met on September 19th and we discussed the policies that are on for first read tonight um basically conforming some of our existing policies to practice also there was a service animal one proposed but we're going to look at that later because it dealt with miniature horses and we wanted to have a bit more time with that language had to say that we can bring we can bring miniature not yet it's not we don't have a policy what about llamas it was we get policies from a policy service and we read them and sometimes sometimes they're really appropriate and sometimes they have things that are interesting you know what made me think of the llamas last time we did the referendum we surveyed kids about what they wanted to see and they wanted llamas they did want llamas so anyway we don't have everyone know that the line about horses in the policy said if I remember correctly ponies and fullsize horses are not considered true our policy meetings are are generally very dry but we did appreciate the miniature horse uh [Music] language we'll we'll be bringing that back that's not that's not on yet okay therapy do therapy but I did want to BR bring the board's I'd like to bring the board's attention to the the AI plan that is a that AI plan that corresponds to the AI policy we put it back for first read because we want everyone to have the opportunity to have a look at it it has some of the substance of what we're going to be doing and again we appreciate um Kim's and her team's uh efforts to kind of keep up with this as it continues to evolve so quickly um we keep and we will keep U updating the policies and plans as as we go and can I just add one thing I'm sorry to interrupt um one of the things we have a p executive Council on Thursday so I shared it with the presidents because I also want to make sure that they're looking at it to just and then once we go to um adoption of that next month you know rolling that out with staff and then we'll be rolling out the policy with staff starting tomorrow after approval you it impacts every one of our classrooms so we take it quite seriously and how's it going to be provided to um the kids through the teachers yes so we're doing professional development with the teachers who will then explain it to the kids but I don't know you know I don't want to put them on the spot but I think probably in some classrooms are talking about acceptable use and what's allowed and what's not allowed with AI yeah it's a lot to educ everyone on but it's super important that and this is hot off the presses um it looks like a tentative date for December 3rd we're going to partner with Common Sense Media we have one of our parents in the district Carla uh who's is helping with us and talking with parents about Ai and then we'll talk about PPS and AI so we wanted to we originally were going to do it in October but working with Todd McDonald our CTO he was like maybe it's good to have a little bit of time with the platform and time of students and teachers using it so then we can speak more expertly expert on AI about this in December so uh it will be a webinar so that people can join remotely and we'll record it that's great oh that's great thank you we'll keep reporting I think as this evolves because there's a lot a lot to do there um we have a number of policies on second read we don't have anything that's really changed with those and we did add to our parking lot where we kind of put issues that are coming up that we know need to be discussed um the issues of cell phone usage um so we're keeping an eye on that and that will evolve and eventually you know we'll decide whether we bring something forward or not um and our next meeting is October 16th thank you Beth um Maya Nikolai I put you on the spot what do you think about a cell phone ban in schools not that we're doing it I just want to know what you think about [Music] it yes you so you know no three states good yeah yeah every period or one period they already um they already make sure that all our phones are in the red I for what it's called the like sleev yeah so I'm just wondering if you're wondering if you wanted to do it for every single class and like to do you wanted to keep that same thing with the red sleeves well so three states um California Indiana and Florida have banned cell phones from schools right so that's like I think the most uh you know rigorous policy that we've seen and then it go down and keeping it a pouch when you're in class or just not being allowed to use it right in school so just how you know how much do you depend on do you depend on your during the day and how do you think the student body would take it if we took their phones away yeah I think in a lot of the classes that I've been in this year I think six out of eight they're taking our phones away at the start of class okay we put them in sleeves I know in gym we put them in our backpacks and if you have them you shouldn't have them so uh yeah I think that's that's a great thing because I know especially last year I saw it just every second kids would be on their phones and me too I ended up switching to a flip phone halfway through the year and I still use that most of the time um but I don't I think a complete ban would get a lot of student backlashed I think many of my friends would not yeah I agree I think um at least for me like most of my classes are senior only or like Juniors and seniors only and for a lot of them like they trust the students not to use them much not that they don't use them I think but I think um at least when you're talking about like the upper classman I think there needs to be like a certain level of trust where like the teachers and like the super like I think when you talk about taking phones away entirely I think you're taking away um like I think at the students see it like as they take away like part of like them and I think for me at least like I I have my phone block personally like I have like a little app and I blocks like all my social media for the entire day until 800m so um that's what I do personally that's very both of you are very impressive but I think I agree with n though I think there's be a lot of backlash if you did just ban them entirely but I do think for certain classes it's help like for English and math especially I think it would be helpful to um just put them away even when they're in your bags like you can still see them I think when you're like when you can like when it's like right next to you you can like just un constant reach for it so I think in like certain core classes it would definitely be very beneficial if I could just add one thought I think the sleeves work really well I know in choir like our teacher will use them to take a attendant and so you have to put your phone there to be marked present which I know we're also cracking down on attendant so that kind of works together and functionally I think it works just like a phone band because you don't have it to distract you but of course the argument people always go to is in case of emergency then how do you contact people and still having them within reach might good thank you thanks we appreciate it all right and last but not least uh Betsy with the student achievement update right thank you very much uh we met on September 13th which was Kim's birthday so I just want to thank Kim for all of her work this evening it it really we we got to see the team you've put together and the amazing um impact it's having on student learning but we really appreciate you and that you met with us on your birthday so for three hours right for a long time we yes we teased her that we would do an inperson meeting we did stay on Zoom but um we were happy to be there Bethany sadik uh came to our meeting to talk about the msand trip that is on our agenda for approval this evening and we were really excited to hear about that we look forward to hearing from the students after the trip um it's in Michigan this year uh we also saw the presentation you all got to see tonight the matriculation Report with nerna Shaw and John McMichael um and we we just thank them again for all of their work with our students Dr Andrea Dinan came to our meeting to talk about Service Learning and the community service program at PHS um gave us some updates on the program and and how that's happen how that's running um Mickey Chrisi arrived um at the meeting to talk about the new interventionist who's taking over for Lauren Samra this year we got to meet her we welcomed her to the district and then finally also we talked about AI I think a lot of us will speak about AI in a lot of different committees um Todd McDonald and Kim to um shared information about school AI which is a new program that will be in use uh by teachers and also some guidelines for that use and then we adjourned into close session we are are meeting again on October 11th on Zoom at 11 o' great thank you Betsy um and happy birthday again Kim know and it was also Dr Foster's birthday last week as well so happy birthday to you yes happy birthday thank you for spending it with us all right uh so moving on now uh K1 first policies for a first reading K2 policies for second reading um L1 resignations L2 uh retirement and as has been said today um our director of student services Mickey Chrisi um is retiring from uh the district uh she's been here 13 and a half years um but she spent 43 years in education serving as a special education teacher a learning consultant and a supervisor for special education before uh coming to Princeton um so Mickey has um been the leader for special education across the district um she has developed full CH child study teams at every building expanding Staffing and programs to support student services uh and has Bridge connections with resources around the state to support our community um and I think we also Micky action as our chief medical officer during the pandemic um Mickey really relished that role um I think we all saw her uh rise to that occasion um providing how off the press guidance to our schools that was in alignment with federal state and local regulations she brought vaccination clinics uh to our community uh in our schools here secured PPE for our staff and students and provided support at every level to ensure a safe learning environment um we are going to miss Mickey and uh we wish her all the best and a and healthy retirement and thank you for your service uh to our [Applause] schools um I I'm not gonna repat because um um you know you talked a lot about her career but I just want to highlight a couple things um uh all of us who work at Valley Road I just want to let you know that she is always at least the first in the parking lot when we're probably our alarm is just going off at home um and she is here all hours so that's um one thing and then also you know she will definitely be missed but um another fun fact of hers is she loves to um bake and um for every child study team meeting um she would make her famous um Morning Glory muffins um and um so I know those will be missed as well but uh we really uh wish her well um to spend more time with her two grandchildren Hunter and ryer work in her garden travel and um she uh loves to go to the gym so she can go to the gym after 8:00 am in the morning so um we're grateful for her service and wish your continued joy in her retirement thank you Dr Foster all right moving on L3 appointments just stop me if you need to want to talk about anything L4 transfer reassignment L5 Personnel items L6 leave of absence L7 student placement substitute student placement um L8 Pria extra period compensation L9 non-athletic EPS L10 curriculum instruction l11 student services l12 uh Pressa Schedule C sement appointments and l13 that job description that Mara mentioned uh moving on uh curricul instruction M1 the M msand student conference that just real quick I wasn't sure if anyone wanted that to be action it is action um but if no one wanted it to be action sometimes people just don't and I didn't notice it y got it everyone's good within the consent great all sounds good um M2 educational consultant Services M3 academic placement appeal that's an action item is that an action item can I get a motion Debbie second [Music] Beth D Kendall yes Betsy Bago yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Debbie bronfeld yes Mar franceski yes Elanor hubard abstain Susan caner yes Brian McDonald yes Rob Christopher yes motion passes thank you Mr Balton uh M4 is Language and Cultural exchange programs uh then we're moving on to student services and n one is professional Consulting Services 2425 N2 is educational placement of pupils 2425 and then N3 is educational placement of pupils 2425 Mera County Technical School we move on to business 01 Financial reports 02 fire and evacuation drills and 03 registration travel agenda um and that concludes the board's business so moving on now I think no no no we're going to public comment but I'm just trying to set an example for brevity um can I add something very quick to my report y I just realized I didn't say the name of the new interventionist is Allison p panowski and we just want to welcome her to the district thank thank you all right anyone else want oh do you okay so I'm gonna do public comment um again anyone who would like to okay wait come up say your name the street live on and you can speak for three minutes and we're working on our timer we want to be a friendly we want to be friendly people to speak to Jessica via Stockton Street um I just wanted to say this is a board meeting that I could watch over and over on replay because it was amazing and it shows the commitment of the district to investing in number one stability and number two investing in programs that really are proven to work I think it's it's amazing um kudos to everybody in this room and everyone you know within uh that's had a hand in all of it um I wanted to ask specifically I think that pomton Ian has come online I was part of the process to get them engaged um with the um with the district and I think that um the feedback at least that my kids have from the high school is that it's going really well I can only imagine if we could feed every single child what our test scores would be so I can't stress enough just getting getting those kids to eat and eat well um and how we can figure out how to make that happen and again thanks again for everything it's you know was really an amazing meeting and uh we appreciate I know I speak for all the parents um that we appreciate all the hard work and dedication so thanks thanks thanks Jess um all right Mr Beerman are you speaking as a as a as a board member or as a board member as a board member okay I just want to say um um concerning the superintendent search um I just want to quote George santiana those who know him those who cannot remember the past are condemn to repeat it it's essential it is essential to reflect on the past and Lessons Learned but there is change life isn't static uh it's especially critical that we also focus on the present and channel our energies constructively so far in my opinion I'm speaking the bo search committee has greatly impressed me with their clear objectives established metrics and Clarity of purpose and a lot of hard work very impressive I mean putting a lot of time in and I just promise that I'll you know if anyone asks me about I'm going to make sure in my own personal capacity as a board member to make sure things are as transparent as possible thank you thank you um Sue and Sue can I just congratulate you your daughter got married this weekend congratulations and here you are and here I am yeah where else would I be on a Tuesday night exactly but congratulations thank you uh Sue Evans worth L um really quick as you start to look at um the cell phone ban I just want to request or or cell phone c phone usage cell phone usage um I just want to um request that when you start using things like the words cell phone ban um that triggers in kids um well I just asked what they thought right and but that triggers in kids that you don't allow them at all in the building um and that that really just gets their backs up and I know certain teachers say that they don't allow them um and that really just triggers so the word usage is just super important and I know that they say that they ban them in these states but they actually it gets really tricky um well so the so we have actually heard from some from some parents right I think we were at the PTO meeting y right exactly exactly um so there that is one side of the coin right that's one part of the spectrum right so I I guess my I was hoping they would say what they said right exactly yeah and that's exactly what we want them to say but you know for safety and for a variety of reasons they do need them right but they don't so we don't ban them into the school we ban their usage right in school so it's just I again it's semantics but yes I appreciate that yeah that is all all right thanks and again echoing what Jess said wow just wow what is going on thank you so much it's all them no it's all of you it's all of you okay thank you sue uh I'm sorry if I sent like chills down your spine not my intent yeah um I do Sports um every season can't phones at all like I cheer right now for two hours two three hours every day and we can't we're not allow our phones at all and like it's been fine like if you really need contact coach I think personally like it will be fine especially just for one period of time I ask question Ian going on and on but um what year were you born no so you've lived with technology your whole life from day one so but you're very disciplined I don't know you well but uh you're very impressive maybe could both of you the flip phone maybe you can come teach me something I know really a flip flow I haven't heard that term in a long time oh my God where did you even get that uh it was it was an Arkansas at an AT&T store oh they're actually all the RS are coming back I know I heard that you didn't get the really big digits though did youever to it I think Matt might have one I'm getting one yeah all right is there anyone else for public comment no there isn't um I just want to thank everyone for I mean it was a long meeting but there's a lot of work going on in the district and uh under your leadership Dr Foster we're very grateful and Dr to um and uh yeah it's been great so thank you can I get a motion to adjourn consent vote we'd have to do it all over again sorry like groundhog D can I uh can I get a can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda be second Mara it's past my bedtime I missed the Met D yeah there's nothing to missed no I know I dff kandall yes Betsy bag wheel yeah Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes debie ronfeld yes Mar franceski yes Elanor hubard yes Susan K yes Brian mcdonal yes B Christoper yes consent agenda passes thank you Mr Balden and can I get a motion to adjourn Beth second Betsy all in favor good night good night thank you